2021-07-31: Thrice Upon a Time: Difference between revisions

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  DC: Megaman Juno switches forms to Main Gate Security Ancilla - Argus!
  DC: Megaman Juno switches forms to Main Gate Security Ancilla - Argus!
� Logging to file "C:\Electra\Logs\2021\citan_a_song_in_three_parts.txt" started


  <Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
  <Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

Latest revision as of 23:29, 10 August 2021


<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

The climb out of New Kasim City is least harrowing at the end. A series of elevators leads up from the depths of the city -- several platforms that rise up to a large steel platform, now coated in rust, that had once been a plaza in Zanarkand. This is, perhaps, the piece of New Kasim City that its descendant city incorporated into its architecture. That it once served as a high-up landing pad and then became a plaza speaks only to history adding to itself.

In the sky, there is a pair of long vapor trails from something flying through the air -- and the roar of engines. It becomes apparent as it circles around Zanarkand, and then grows closer. A tall Gear, sleek and black. There are red and gold segments -- and more deeply set, violet -- on its humanoid frame. The armor is curved and bulbuous, almost alien. It does not have the look of the more blocky, standard Gears found on Filgaia.

In one hand, the Gear carries a long black lance -- ringed with gold near the spearhead, and with flecks of red. Floating near its back is a long armored segment, with feather-like wing tips that move independently. The machine swings to a stop -- hovering over the platform. It becomes clear, then, that something is terribly wrong with it. Pyreflies swirl all around it -- and there is skin, albeit pale blue, stretched out over its face and head.

The head forms a helmet and a crest, of sorts, around the face of Seymour Guado writ large. His pale eyes look down over the battlefield; then, his face twists into a smile, as he looks down at those arriving.

"Ah, my friends!" he says, in a way that is far too personable. "I see you have come to see the end of things... to see my rebirth. See, there--"

The Gear turns its spear, pointing towards Zanarkand's dome.

"Even now, Lady Yuna ventures there. She goes to meet with the First Summoner, Lady Yunalesca. An Unsent... not unlike me," Seymour says. "And that is where my destiny awaits. I will claim it--" The Gear throws both arms open. Ether and the magic of Althena's Blessing swirl up -- a mixture of light and dark, a crackle of raw power, which glow over the body. "--WITH THIS, ISSACHAR! AND I WILL NOT CEDE IT TO YOU!"

Lightning, writ in dark and light, strikes the plaza in places. Shards of rust explode upward, and the Omnigear towers terribly over them all.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87e5qQnVerI

The danger is impossible to ignore. Whatever this Gear is, it is ancient. It is terrible. It is imbued with the power of Seymour, as an Unsent fueled by the sea of pyreflies all around Zanarkand. And people without Gears, goes the Aveh saying, are nothing but statistics in a Gear battle.

Hope comes from an expected direction, the south, and an unexpected quarter. A series of missiles fire, exploding in the air all around Issachar. Seymour flies backward, shooting away from the explosions and higher into the air. Fire and smoke rain down, in great trails, from the detonating explosions... and the Fahrenheit -- white-hulled gleaming -- comes tearing in from the south, as a voice cuts out over a loudspeaker.

"Looks like we got here just in time!" Cid yells. "YEE-HAW! Hey, Sigurd, you got those Gears ready?"

"I do!" a second voice comes, more refined. "You must pardon me -- Captain Bart thought we should lend our Al Bhed friends a hand. Your Gears are coming... now!"

Points of light erupt across the Fahrenheit. Then, Gears shoot out -- landing one by one across the plaza. Dust, chips of rust, and smoke shoot out from each in rings; the metal plaza shakes under their impact, but holds up. After all, it was once built to hold machines of these size. Everyone's Gear is here, standing or kneeling, and ready to board.

"Gh--I see I have more to kill than expected today!" Seymour shouts. "Very well. Busy, busy!"

"Awright! Let's take him--" Cid is cut off by another, younger man shouting.

"VILG!"

A beam of green light explodes across the horizon. It is a near miss on the Fahrenheit -- an outer layer of armor on its starboard side turns red-hot, then burns into ash -- and the airship falls sharply to one side, before boosters activate. It shoots out wide, past Zanarkand. Cid's voice becomes more distant on the loudspeaker, as its evasive movement takes it away.

"The hell was that!?"

DC: Seymour Guado switches forms to Seymour Issachar!
<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    In the sky overhead, a tiny drone--barely the size of a housecat, and acclimatized for the harsh conditions on Mount Gagazet--starts to descend.

    The ray of light that almost blasted the Fahrenheit out of the sky hits the earth with a dull roar, and a cloud of ancient dust. Elw runes etch out patterns in the air around its terminus; a single figure appears, hovering a foot above the blasted earth.

    "A second activation," says Megaman Juno, lifting his gaze to Issachar as it wheels above the plaza. He wears the war form he donned during the breach at the Main Gate, and he's not smiling. "Once is incidental. Twice is coincidence--or perhaps the start of a pattern." He stretches out his hand, and the spy drone settles into it, beaming data over tightband into its master's eyes.

    "Megaman Trigger," he says, picking Dash out of the crowd as if he alone were significant to Juno's plans. "An unidentified paracausal phenomenon has seized control of restricted technology. I implore you--" And his eyes open, pleading with Dash and Dash alone. "Aid me in its retrieval, and the sterilization of this place. The Directive forbids..." A twitch. A mental hiccup, as cognitive routines try to gloss over data he simply doesn't have--data that lies far beyond his clearance.

    Cid's ace in the hole has given the Drifters the firepower they need to stand up to Seymour and Issachar--and if they can take down whatever he's flying, they can certainly do the same to Juno. Right?

    "Escalated force is necessary. Signaling the Main Gate."

    Seconds tick past. Another dull roar echoes through the atmosphere, and another viridian ray--this one much, much larger than the first--lances high above Zanarkand. Juno's skirt-armor jets boost him off the ground, and as a second ring of Elw runes appear, he floats before the incoming something, gazing down at the plaza.

    A shape appears behind him. It's a Gear, it's big, and it looks almost--but not quite--Solarian. Its armor is white and violet and red, not unlike Juno's own, and its sleek frame looks designed for aerial combat. It has no legs, its skirt armor trailing off into a half-dozen segments that aren't quite limbs. Six arms hang at its sides. Its 'helmet' bears a simple, sleek visor, and no other recognizable features. Odd little circles mark its armor, visibly indented but otherwise flowing seamlessly into the plate.

    The machine's torso blooms open, and Juno hovers inside; it closes just as quickly, sealing him in. The Administrator holds perfectly still as his cranium tilts forward, then backward--an angle that would break a human's neck twice over--and then slides seamlessly into the housing made for it. His war form goes limp in its restraints.

    The Gear comes to life. One of the circular divots irises open, revealing a bright crimson sphere that scans the plaza--a Reaverbot eye. Another opens, and then another, and another, and another--until dozens of them are staring out at the world with a ruthless, all-seeing gaze. The machine raises all six arms, stretches them out. A ripple passes through the pseudo-limbs of its skirt armor.

    "Main Gate Security Ancilla activated," Juno intones, his voice echoing across Zanarkand. "Argus deploying."

    BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhRa3REdozw

DC: Megaman Juno switches forms to Main Gate Security Ancilla - Argus!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

"Signal received."

A distortion of pixelated light announces the appearance of black construct near the plaza, the size of a man and not of a Gear. Black, metallic plating is helpless to fully encase the exposed guts of cables, chords, and crackling red that make up the dark android's construction, but are further obscured by a draping, tattered cloak that billows with its floating mobility. Its face looks like a masked helmet marked by a crimson visor that peers over the battlefield -- there is no hint of Azoth to recognize in this mysterious creature's visage, if the term 'creature' can be applied to the imprisoned war machine.

And he does not look well.

Azoth's every movement is punctuated by a twitch or spasm. The red light of his erroneous energy signature flares blindingly in some moments only to dim to complete obscurity in others, and his bladed tail gives the occasional aimless thrash, like it were dropped from a gecko. When he speaks, every word is underscored by static.

"Critical threat acknowledged. Deploying maximum artillery."

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQyZ6L_xdo

Azoth raises his clawed arm to the sky. Another mass of pixels illuminates the area above him, blurring and then clarifying to form into a colossus, mechanical ring. It's reminisce of a robotic serpent biting into its own tail of deadly, pulsing energy: the same Ouroboros Ring the construct stole from the ruins, and a weapon suitably described as Gear-scale, even if it's wielder is not.

Under the threatening illumination of his weapon, Azoth's body shudders and cracks. A cable in his arm bursts open, flailing as it discharges a dark, viscous fluid. But he persists, bidding the ring rotate and charge an oppressive sphere of red light at its center, aiming for the Issachar.

Even for those who were not there to see the ring's laser tear through the vault it was once contained in, the oppressive weight and static of the gathering energy is warning enough... that weapon may have the power to dent an Omnigear, but it will almost certainly commit far greater devastation to the surrounding area if permitted to fire -- and it isn't going to avoid firing at anyone else's Gears in the intent for violence.

DC: Azoth switches forms to WARNING: OVERRIDE ACTIVATED!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    There is, technically, a fourth enemy.
    
    It's just not visible, because it's inside of the dark android.
    
    When Azoth had fallen into New Kasim City, Ragnell had followed. And followed, and followed, until they'd made it out of the subterranean ruins. And then she hadn't stopped following, even as he'd separated from Boudicca and the others. After all, Ragnell's unofficially chosen Azoth as her vessel--the first one she's had in literal centuries. She's not going to leave him to suffer alone.
    
    So while his movements are twitchy and spasmatic, there's also a regular heat dump that helps regulate his absolute mess of an inside; the thrashing tail also has a chance to calm, if but momentarily.
    
    Ragnell probably should've chosen a less disastrous vessel. But Ragnell is, herself, a disaster woman, so it suits.
    
    ...I've got your back, Azoth, she states from within him, audible only to his sensors. She means it in a variety of ways--both in joining combat, and in keeping him from damaging himself and those he cares about too much. It's a tight line to walk, but Ragnell's got experience.
    
    Let me know when you want to stop.
    
    In a variety of things.

DC: Seraph Ragnell switches forms to The Loyal!
DC: Gwen Whitlock switches forms to Halcyone!
DC: Gwen Whitlock switches forms to Super Courier Gwen!
DC: Emeralda Kasim switches forms to Artificial Being Emeralda!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Where's Lunata been throughout all this?

    Just pretend she traversed through Gagazet, Zanarkand and New Kasim City, okay? It was all done offscreen. It's not like her player had too many commitments and couldn't run it on every alt or anything. It was harrowing, it was tiring, there was soup to consume, and there were revelations to be had.

    And also--

    Ether and Althenan magic clash as the plaza strikes; Lunata grits her teeth and exclaims, most Tidus-like: "Seymour!!" A loud huff. "Come on! This is how you greet me after I figure out you're still alive?!"

    But there is unexpected hope, as-- a familiar voice rings over the loudspeaker.

    "... Sigurd? Siggy?? Siggy! You're here?!" Lunata exclaims, voice plain and full of surprise, chest welling up with pride and happiness.

    There's a bigger grin as she exclaims, "All right! Just like old time, Siggy! Flip that unauthorised launch sign to zero--"

    Nevermind that this is an entirely authorised launch, but Lunata doesn't really like to sweat the details. The white-winged Gear Rephaim emerges out of a point of light, shooting out as she daringly leaps across space and climbs atop the cockpit. She grabs hold of a gap in its armour, grunts as a green beam cascades across the field and forces the Fahrenheit to swerve.

    "What the...?!" Lunata shouts as Juno appears, and... descends into what reminds Lunata of a Solarian Gear... perhaps. Legless, violet and red and white, and the reploid hovers within. "You've teamed up with Solaris, Seymour? That's not like you...!"

    There's a grimace, at another threat that pings her senses -- Lunata looks towards Azoth for a moment, red light erratically flaring around him. Whoever that is, that doesn't look good. An enormous, Gear-sized chakram it has no trouble holding... she'd better go -- and thus, scurries up to the drawer-style door and lands in darkness.

    ...

    ...

                      /V\
                      \ /
                       %
                      /x\
                   __--|---__
                .-``- |||  -``-.
              .``     |||      ``.
             ||       |||        ||
             ||       % %        ||/\ ,-.
             ||       <o>====>>>>>|-%X%--->
             ||                  ||\/ `-`
              .                  .
               ``.            .``   HIRASAKA O.S. v0.37
                `.`-_________-.`
                   `---------`

       Undead Girl's Unilateral Ugly Nightmarish Delusions Are Manifest
                         -= O.S. v0.23 build 29518 =-
                    branch hirasaka/xg00-29158-pc499-11-13
               calibration offset acquired ... checksum verified
               in exchange for the power thou hast requested...
                 resetting to zero-point moment ... cpg online
                   control module reassigned ... identified
           i hath received the defrayal of thine soul's sacrifice...
           molecular ion pump accessed ... cortex module established
          neural linkage network check ... pilot preset incompatible
                          thine due is the sum of...
                                    devour
                                    devour
                                    devour
                                    devour
              restart feed-forward control ... transfer functions
                        correct for Coriolis effect...
                                  successful

                                 XG-00 Rephaim
                                    ONLINE

    BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piGLCaFW524

    Emanating in orchestral fashion, the Rephaim's panels light up one by one, a half-moon of keys and monitors ebbing around a central sphere upon which three gimballed rings spin with the weight of destiny.

    An irisoid flash of emerald emits from its eyes.

    The Rephaim isn't an unfamiliar sight at this point -- a mysterious white Gear excavated from the depths of Rujm el-Hiri, the singing ruins. Equally white wings fan outward, three on each side spreading from a central spoke on its vernier-laden backpack; with a bold gesture, it brandishes its white-and-blue Ley-powered beam rifles, one in each arm.

    "Gotta warn you though, Seymour... I'm pretty darn good at piloting. So don't hold back!"

    COMEUPPANCE DUE TO HUBRIS FLAGS PLANTED: 1

GS: Seymour Guado has adjusted their boss level for 7 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    ADDITIONALLY:

    As the Rephaim sweeps downwards, Lunata confidently flips a hatch on her flightstick and presses the button. The Gear's head erupts into flashes of Ley-fire, a rattling burst of not-quite-physical vulcan rounds sinking away at the flying form of Issachar.

    ..... who bothers to use head vulcans in a real fight, really, Lunata .....

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with XA-R0635 18.3mm CIWS!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's XA-R0635 18.3mm CIWS for 218 hit points!
GS: Mute applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, there are two people who would probably be here in Cyre Lorentz's place, but there are certain...... circumstances that keep them at bay.

In case A, a mild crisis potentially engineered by the covert action of his supposed allies has kept a particular baker far, FAR away from any known Clysmian activity. For reasons.

Burning reasons.

In case Z, the duty of protecting a certain princess has kept a particular warrior away from this specific battlefield, but rest assured that he's PROBABLY suplexing a fiend into a cursed sword as we speak.

That leaves Cyre Lorentz, who moments ago crawled out of the depths of the ruins of New Kasim City only to be greeted by a giant robot with Seymour Guado's face. "Guardians above," he wheezes exasperatedly, "How many times do we have to kill you to make it stick...!?"

Answer: Too many times.

But there are issues. He is... tired. Exhausted, even. He's spent basically the past twenty four hours doing nothing but traversing deadly ruins, being shot by a former friend, and overall having a Bad Time. He can feel it in his bones, he could... call upon that power, push back against this machine, but he knows not whether he'd be able to come back.

And then there's this other guy, who appears in a flash of Elw runes. "What," Cyre wheezes, "What the heck is even going on...?" Whoever it is wants to fight Seymour though. But something about the way they describe their intentions gives him an awful tingle in his gut.

There's no choice. Fengalon must emerge to do what must be done. Cyre takes in a breath, emerald motes swirling around his exhausted form. It's only the sudden SLAM of a gear into the crumbling streets of Zanarkand that interrupts him.

It's... it's his gear.

"That..." Cyre decides, exhaling slowly, "That will do."

                                   AND SO

A bolt of magnetically-propelled metal screams out of the city, aimed precisely to slam right into one of the Argus' many eyes. "I don't know who you are," he says on the wide band, "I don't know what you're doing here, and I've half the mind to just let you and Seymour have at it, but I've got *questions.* Questions like what the hell is an Elw war machine doing on Lunar... And I mean to have you answer them!"

Preferably without also getting killed.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Megaman Juno with KRSW-XIV Rail Cannon!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

As for why Cyre is shooting while asking perfectly civil questions, uh.

Well, he's from Filgaia. This is just kind of customary by now.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    There's a lot going on at once, and then a lot more goes on at once when the Caravan Kinship emerges from New Kasim City. Ethius, battered and tired from the various trials of the ancient city, is already moving in front of the rest he came with - but there's not a whole lot of presence he can cast. At best, his Symbological barrier would ensure the remains of those nearby might be open casket, as a three-pronged issue arises.

     Help arrives - but Ethius has to run a hell of a length to get to where the Aiguille lands in a crouch, and he has to make a dangerous roll past the crackles of energy emitted by the charging ring laser that a part of him knows he should not be standing anywhere near for any length of time.

     The Aiguille is relatively humble among the Gears assembled, a salvaged and refurbished machine from the region about Kattelox (technically, deep inside of it). Even being within an armored shell is not reassurance for his well being, as the taciturn man crosses his arms across the panels to get everything online. The segments of the rifle-staff all flare a red light on either end as they synch up and link, heatless dashjets flaring once in a cursory check to make sure the landing didn't damage them.

     "This is the Aiguille," Ethius says as he keeps watch of the powering ring laser, Seymour's latest prize, and the recent flaring to life of dozens of Reaverbot eyes bearing down upon the world. "Moving to engage the Argus."

     Inwardly, he reflects upon a number of the things said, shared, and seen within and underneath Zanarkand. For the time being... life and limb are at stake, as Cyre exclaims his confusion with the situation.

     Some may expect Ethius to declare, as if to judge as an absolute, there's something that doesn't belong here.

     That is notably absent, as Ethius navigates the immediate Zanarkand wreckage around the Aiguille with care as the rifle staff fires off cursory suppressing fire at those red Reaverbot eyes.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Megaman Juno with Pew Pew Pew!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda has had a busy day.

So busy, in fact, that when she scrambles out of the elevator, she's a good foot taller than she started it, with the kind of rangy build some teenagers get when they have just gone through a growth spurt and can expect another just as soon as they recover from this one. Her hair is still its distinct shaggy green, her eyes almost gold. She still wears the same black and red outfit, though the skirt isn't sure whether it wants to be shorts today and sometimes it's one and sometimes the other with very little indication of switching.

All things considered, she's very obviously *Emeralda*. She just looks about fourteen instead of, say, eight, and all in the time between when she fell underground and found her way back up.

Emeralda exits with Fei, Elly, and Citan. She has been staying close to Fei and Elly during the elevator trip, but as soon as there's room to move she steps out, shading her eyes as she looks around. A Gear - two Gears, fighting, and an airship - "Hey! The Fahrenheit!" Emeralda says, brightly. "HEY! HI! I CAN HEAR YOU!" (There is no way *they* can hear *her*. She's not that loud.) Gears deploy, thumping down.

But not one specific Gear.

Crescens has a problem that makes it very inconvenient to shuttle around: nobody but her can pilot it, or in fact do anything other than sit there, perfectly rigid and locked in place. It requires her nanomachines to increase its flexibility and make the joints operable. It's not a problem when *she's* around to move it, but bringing it to her without assistance is challenging at best and impossible at worst.

Which may explain why it wasn't one of the ones they loaded. If you could only bring so many machines in a hurry, you'd probably leave the one that is a total pain in the butt to bring and also is only piloted by someone who can probably survive anything the Gear can on foot, even if they wouldn't be very useful in a Gear battle beyond that.

But Emeralda makes a face anyway.

Emeralda runs past the line of deployed Gears anyway. "I can find you later!" she calls to Fei and Elly, which may be the biggest sign that she isn't the child she was before. "I can't stop the Gears! But..."

She sees something else. A big floating ring. She has no idea what it is but that's not going to stop her from running straight at Azoth's Ouroboros Ring, which is what she noticed first rather than the comparatively diminuitive machine controlling it.

"...?" That machine *definitely* does not look like it's working as intended. "Hey!" Emeralda yells at Azoth. "Hey, are you okay? Are you crazy?? Don't fire that here! The city already fell in once and nobody wants to climb out again! It's butts!"

Okay, she's still not *that* mature.

Emeralda's hands gather electricity as she runs, and she discharges it all at once, a long trailing bolt that draws an erratic line across the street before slamming at Azoth. She must not have detected Ragnell, because otherwise she almost certainly would have done something else.

GS: Emeralda Kasim has attacked Azoth with Anemo Dharm!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has completed her action.
GS: Emeralda Kasim has canceled their attack on Azoth.
GS: Emeralda Kasim has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Anemo Dharm!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

On her way back up to the surface, out of New Kasim City, Jacqueline spotted a Gear flying over head. Normally, as someone on foot the wisest thing to do would be to run away from said Gear... but, Jacqueline has a bad feeling about it, so she continues on upward. The elevator stops on a large steel platform... and as if on cue, the Gear begins to circle. And then, it speaks in a familiar voice.

"...Seymour!?" Jacqueline gasps, horrified as she gets a closer look. "What... what have you done to yourself...?"

Far more concerning, is his plan - and the Gear he has control of.

"...Issachar? So it was you who took it, not Odessa!" Jacqueline gasps. Somehow, he must've gotten to New Kasim City before them. And now... he has that Gear. It's unlike any Gear she's ever seen, almost alien - and possessing a terrible power, combined with Seymour's own.

Seymour conjures lightning, infused with light and darkness. Jacqueline retreats back, wincing from the sheer force of the spells, a barrier flickers over Jacqueline's body as her gauntlets respond to the sorcery. ...But it won't be enough to protect her from a direct hit.

Fortunately, that won't be a concern for much longer, as a barrage of missiles strike Seymour's Gear from a familiar ship.

"Cid! And... Sigurd! I'm really glad to see you two!" Jacqueline says, relieved. The CK-01 Jaeger drops next to her and Jacqueline runs to it. With a gesture of her left hand a pillar of earth rises up beneath her feet, launching her into the opening cockpit. She seats herself and shuts it again, and exhales.

"Okay. I'm ready." She says, psyching herself up. The Jaeger straightens up, standing to its full height. It draws its sidearm, pointing it at Issachar.

"I'm sorry, Seymour, but I can't allow your ambitions to come to pass." Jacqueline says, and fires, aiming for anything that might resemble a power source. Even a powerful, ancient Gear requires fuel or energy of some kind, in her mind - if she can just disrupt the flow and drain it, they might have an even chance...

It's about this time that another problem arises, in the form of two Solarian machines - a larger one she's unfamiliar with, and the one she saw from that ruin. Jacqueline frowns.

"...Huracan, Aiguille, do you have that covered?" Jacqueline asks, of Cyre and Ethius. And then, to the Rephaim...

"Lunata, I'm with you!" Jacqueline calls out. ...She says that, but... the Jaeger is notoriously unable to fly, unlike both Issachar and the Rephaim, so she is largely restricted to taking potshots at it from the steel platform.

Well, at least that's one of the things the Jaeger is best at.

GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Fuel Snipe!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Emeralda Kasim's Anemo Dharm for 119 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a glancing hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's KRSW-XIV Rail Cannon for 106 hit points!
GS: Cripple applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Evade bonus and Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno critically guards Ethius Hesiod's Pew Pew Pew for 42 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Clomp Clomp Clomp.

Fei is grateful that he was able to get his gear thanks to the Al Bhed which some prior life of his turned out to be connected to in a pretty tenuous way. At least he thinks that might be the case, though he's pretty sure he never made it up to 'New Kasim City'.

Seymour is saying things. Fei finds himself missing Siegfried. That he understood. Seymour is just bewildering to him. Certainly Spira is a hard lot, surely Filgaia isn't too easy either, but how in the hell does someone find death preferable to life to the point that they're willing to destroy the world and all its inhabitants just to 'free them' of painful moments?

Yeah, I wonder.

Fei ended up following after the Gear because, naturally. "How did you get a Gear? Did Krelian give it to you?" Fei asks, since that's what's foremost on his mind. It's a little unsettling how many robots are piloted by...

She glances to Lunata's Uguundam.

Dead people.

The gear is ancient and deadly. Fei knows how that feels. Can he even fight this without risking Id coming out?

WITH THIS, ISSACHAR! AND I WILL NOT CEDE IT TO YOU!

"Okay." Fei says. It's not like HE wants it.

Sigurd's presence is a relief but he isn't taking his eyes off that killing machine.

It'd be tough to kill him without the Dance. Let's just trash him until he wishes he was dead.

He already wishes he was dead.

There is a moment of silence from Id being stubborn.

Okay I get what you MEAN though. Alright.

"Seymour," Fei says. "Even if you kill everybody. You won't end life. It is bigger and grander than oblivion. I doubt you can imagine it's vastness. Even with Sin's power you can't succeed at your goal."

"Sin is too small for something like that." Fei says. "All he can do is kill everyone here."

Fei glances towards Emeralda on the viewscreen. He's not about to hover over her more now that she's older than when she was a kid but he does worry. What if she's not used to being that tall? "Don't push yourself too hard Em! You had a long day!"

Weltall steps forward. A dark aura crackles around Weltall's fists as it assumes a modest looking martial arts stance.

"There are no final endings." Fei says. "Only beginnings. I'll try to show you."

And with that he darts forward in his gear, swinging back with both hands as he aims to SLAAAAM them right into the alien looking gear.

Weltall is outmatched. You'll need me to beat this.

That's not true. Elly...has her gear.

!!...Her again...!

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Sympathetic Host Of The Slayer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Fuel Snipe for 108 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease and Corrode applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    The climb from New Kasim City was harsh, and when Althena's Guard had reached the hangar, something worrying was clearly afoot. But it's only when they reach the surface that they see what's amiss.

    A new, even more nightmarish form of Seymour Guado. Bile rises in her throat at the sight of him, but so does something else. Fear. Fear from something that isn't her former master. Why?

    But she gets answer. That's who lies ahead. The first Summoner, an Unsent with the secret to defeating Sin. Her final destination. Lady Yuna may be there, but...

    Still, at this point, there's nothing to do but-

    And then Juno makes himself known in the form of a massive war machine. Seymour would be her chosen opponent, but this terrifying machine is right in front of her. Pearl has no gear, and her Golem is across the world by now. But she doesn't need one: She has what she needs here.

    "So this is the being that drove the sub-gate berserk..." She had never fought him directly but she knew of him. Fine. He shall do. She watches Cyre's machine drive in, and Ethius from another. And so, Pearl begins to dance, pyrefies gathering around her. She sweeps her staff around, raises it to the sky, then launches into a pirouette as water gathers around her feet and then-

    Then the Lord of All Waters launches out of the water, and Pearl grabs on to one of their fins as they do. As Leviathan lands, she is atop their back, sitting level with the heads oif the Gears. Facing a threat, regardless of your personal feelings or lack thereof... That's what a good person does, right?

    *Or do you just want to fight?*

    Leviathan roars, defiant at Juno. "I do not care for your reason. But this is a sacred place, and I have business when Lady Yuna is done. I will not be deterred by you, no matter how powerful you are. Leviathan, strike them down!"

    Leviathan roars again, and a sphere of magicked water starts to gather around Juno, large enough to encompass even him, before it suddenly explodes in a burst of power.

GS: Pearl has attacked Megaman Juno with Watera!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Shalune could have easily spent a year down in New Kasim City, if she's honest with herself. What lies beneath Zanarkand may have been a picture of ruin and death, but it was also a remarkably functional place with a great deal of preserved technology, and as much as she realises it's urgent for her to reach the surface again, she can't help herself buzzing with new ideas and inspirations to work on.

    (Shalune is old enough and wise enough to understand that most innovation is stealing something that already exists and making little incremental changes. That's how she justifies it, at least, and the way she sees it the Filgaia of today has to take what it can get.)

    Instead, she'd worked her way back up through the complex with Lunata at her side, pushing past ancient vines and rubble and the pieces of a broken civilization to find a cargo lift upwards and an extremely suspicious empty space where a top-of-the-line Gear should probably have been waiting.

    What hits her first as she reemerges from the ruins is the cold. Shalune might be the most comfortably-dressed person on this or any other planet, but she still hisses in surprise and curls her scarf a bit tighter around her neck, sinking into her thick jacket with a shiver. The noise of the Gear overhead picks her attention up and directs it forwards, and she's already running to shelter in preparation of a bombardment before she can really register the rest of the situation.

    Which is good, because it takes her quite a while to properly register that the machine has grown a face. "Please tell me that's Elw, please tell me that's Elw," she mumbles to herself as she dives for the cover of one of Odessa's partitions, scattering snow in her wake, because the thought of there being more than one-- gooey technology is almost too much to bear after the day she's had.

    Actually processing who the face belongs to takes even longer; she lets the bombastic speech roll over her in genuine confusion as she shakes her head. "--Seymour?" she blurts in, as Lunata rages up at him. "You're-- are you serious?" she adds, her voice tiny. She's all but speaking to herself given the distance and the wind, but sometimes you've just got to get the words out. "Everything you said and did, and you're just acting like some kid with the biggest heretical toy?"

    She shakes it away, not sure what she should have expected, and watches as the Rephaim begins to whirr into motion. "Be careful!" she does yell this time, towards Lunata and Jacqueline, and hops on her feet a little and pumps her fist in hopes that the message will be understood.

    In doing so, Shalune misses the way the ground starts to swell beneath her - only when it ruptures suddenly, jolting her off her feet as a crack runs clear through the metal underneath the snow. There's a pounding noise, and for one hanging moment the mechanic wonders if she's going to get her second trip through the city after all--

    --before she's borne up on the back of Big Shal, who is gloriously and improbably rising from the ruins in a soaring punch. The golem crashes to the ground in a heavy landing, pieces of rust-flaked armor scattering from the impact and then magnetised back into place, and then slowly looks up to the skies where the Rephaim's trails lead up towards the Issachar.

    Big Shal considers the situation, and slowly raises a pendulous hand.

GS: Shalune Amira spends 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Lunata Croze with Thumbs Up!!
GS: Shalune Amira assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Lunata Croze accepts Shalune Amira's Thumbs Up! for 0 hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze activates Shalune Amira's Reload!!
GS: Lunata Croze gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Sympathetic Host Of The Slayer for 157 hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

The roar of engines catches Lily's attention as she looks to sky once again for the first time since she fell into the ruins. The tall Gear that is there is... not normal. It is strange. And it is powerful. Lily sees the skin, feels something strange as she notices, realizes--

"...If Yuna's in there--" Then that makes their mission clear. But his terrible magic--Ether and Blessing, terrible lightning, rushes outward; Lily is knocked to the side by lightning that is too close, hitting he ground with a grunt and rolling. But there comes hope--the Gears... But hers deploys, and is rocked by another explosion, that green light blasting a building that partially collapses onto it--the Gear is intact, but getting to it....

The beam. Lily's eyes widen as she stares over, looking towards its source. She recognizes omething in it, and then sees the Reaverbot eyes. "..."

"...The sins of the past..."

Lily breathes in sharply, and thinks of her conversation with Citan. Limitations. But something in this terrible Gear speaks to her. Something is strange. And it reacts. "Sterilization..."

Lily begins to rise off the ground, hovering at first, as her eyes blink violet-glowing, abrubtly finding all her circuit markings activating. Moments ago, on the way up, Lily had been making use of another form, but this is different. Ether pulses around her, and her form begins to blur and darken.

"-Override.-"

Lily surges forward, a shadow in three dimensions, completely blacked-out and hard to see on the plaza now, her hair streaming behind her as she rushes. There's a leap into the air as she extends her hands--

A Gear-scale blast of flame erupts from the ground before the Argus, a sudden explosion of Ether that snaps into being all of a sudden larger than its caster by far.

Lily's voice is clipped and focused over the radios, "Keil here. Providing artillery support."

DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Synthesis!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Megaman Juno with Conflagration!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    The ruins of Zanarkand had an entirely different city underneath it. An ancient city like this, so old it's become a holy site... and even it was built on something older.

    And even back then, so long, long ago... there were Gears.

    She's already tired from the climb back out of the underground. Gwen is already tired. As much as Lan dislikes being inside a Gear, maybe that would be the safest place for them both. She can be quiet, and stay out of her way. It'd be fine, wouldn't it?

    But from further across the stone plaza, an awful voice echoes in her ears. "Azoth...?" He sounds... terrible. And he looks even worse. The blonde Baskar stares silent across the newly-christened battlefield at the sparking, struggling form of her friend. "...Hey Gwen, I've got to stay out here, okay?" She tries to give the courier a cheerful smile. She's got this! It's going to be just fine. "I'm going to make sure Azoth doesn't do something he'll regret later."

    Big words. Her body still remembers the ache of recovering from the last time she fought him. But Lan is simple, not stupid - and she learns from her mistakes. She gives Gwen a quick hug. "I'll see you on the other side, okay?"

    It's not until after the girls have parted ways that Lan feels a little more okay about this. It's getting easier to call out, and that... well, it's worrying. But if she wants to go forward, if she wants to save one more person, she's got to go after it with everything she's got.

    Inky threads creep across Lan's skin, banding her limbs and torso with black ribbons, winding around and around her fingers and toes and hands and feet, crawling across her face and down her neck. "Don't worry, okay?" she tells Azoth from a hundred feet away, even though she's pretty sure he can't hear her. Lan starts running towards Azoth, sandals pounding the flagstones. "I'm not mad at you!"

    With a flash of silver she's behind him, a series of knifehand strikes aimed for more of his exposed cables and joints.

    She knows now that losing the use of a limb won't kill him, but it might be enough to stop him.

DC: Lan Lilac switches forms to Black Fairy!
GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Azoth with Secret Karma Serenade!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

The elevator climb out of New Kasim was worrisome, just waiting for the centuries old elevator to give out due to jury-rigged repairs on the group's part. And yet, it begins to crest upward into skylight. Though the pyreflies lighting the area seemed to be the first sign of the above. And in the area, there were now many. "What do we do?! Who got that Gear?"

He asks. Part of him hopes it might have been another Drfiter.

One could say his hope was quickly dashed.

An almost sultry voice comes from the vessel, the voice of a man who has lost so much, and yet gained so much more. The voice of a man responsible for the state of decay in Spira.

A hand clenches at the voice, even as explosions from the start of combat, and objects fall from the sky. From the dust clouds and flying scree, a more telling, sterile tone calls, causing Dash to snap his head to the side. "Juno! What are you doing here?! Ah who am I kidding, everyone is showing up to this. The stakes are too high not to."

A tonal shift, and a plea, to Trigger. Someone who once was. Someone Dash is having to figure out now. "Oh, what, so you can get your hands on it? I dont think so! And I don't like the idea of 'sterilization'. Besides, with everyone fighting it, that thing will be scraped soon enough!" he retorts, seeing Cid arrive on the scene as others don their Gears, freshly delivered.

Unfortunately, Dash forgot about the whole teleport thing Juno can call on. It takes but moments before a secondary threat has appeared. Dash slowly cranes his head upward to look at it, found square within its shadow. He visibly gulps, but cannot waver. Worse yet, something is happening to Azoth moreso nearby. But he cannot help him any more. He has someone that must be faced.

Quickly, others join the fray, most in Gear-scale mechanicals as well. Quickly, Dash gets the sense of being underfoot, but there is little choice. His weapons are primed, and seem well-suited for fighting such large opponents. "I am not backing down just because you have a Gear now!" he says, brow furrowed and Buster aimed.

Warning shots are fired toward Juno, a series of superheated plasma reports. "I dont like the idea of following orders!"

GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Megaman Juno with Buster Salvo!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
GS: Azoth takes a glancing hit from Lan Lilac's Secret Karma Serenade for 57 hit points!
GS: Disrupt applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    He had hoped, irrationally, that it had been a coincidence. Or that, perhaps, it had not been aligned.

    That was dashed the moment he'd seen it in the sky and had known what it was, even before it had begun its descent, resolving before their eyes.

    It's Issachar. It's been aligned with the Gear that...

    ...Seymour has taken quite literal possession of.

    "That is... an Omnigear!" Citan shouts, gazing up at the instrument of destruction that hangs in the sky above them. "There can be no mistaking it! Look! It is just as it has been said in the legends, 'a Gear that was created rather than made'!" He turns, sharply, towards Elly. "Elly, that Gear you now use... it, too, is a 'created Gear'. If we but had it at our side now... we would have difficulty facing even an ordinary Gear on foot like this. An Omnigear... you could say it would be like fighting a thousand Gears. Or, maybe more..."

    He lapses into silence, as if thinking, or trying to come up with a plan -- some way to even the odds. Even with Juno's arrival, that's not quite the thumb on the scales he would have preferred, particularly since Juno is also... not on their side, precisely.

    "And, what is more... he has... 'become one' with that Gear..."

    Hope comes from the south, a flurry of missiles detonating in the air around the possessed Issachar.

    The Fahrenheit roars into the skies above as Cid announces his entry--

    And he is not alone.

    "...Sig!" Citan shakes his head. "Goodness... I never would have expected..." He exhales a sigh, shoulders sagging in relief. "I will need to make amends for this later. Fei, Elly--"

    Gears crack against the ground as they drop close at hand, drowning out for the moment whatever else Citan had been about to say. Emeralda breaks away from them, racing past the Gears and veering for the black-armored figure that approaches. "Emeralda--?!"

    But she must know what she's doing. He glances the once at Fei, then more meaningfully towards Elly and climbs aboard.

    "Miss Croze...! It has been some time. And Miss Barber, as well!" He sounds friendly enough, even if they are coming up against something of this calibur. "I am glad to have you both at our side. This enemy is not to be underestimated! Even when matched against your own Gear, Miss Croze-- this is an 'Omnigear'!" he repeats, as if for their benefit. "Even with our numbers and strength our victory is not assured!"

    Heimdall drops back, falling in behind Fei and Elly's own machines.

    "I will do what I can to support you from here!" Light shines around the old excavated Gear, as if the clouds had parted to let down a single shaft of sunlight from the heavens on this spot.

    There's a report over the radio from another one of the Wolves. "...Lily! We shall be counting on you. We must take care against that foe as well! I do not need to tell you whose will he represents!"

GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Citan Uzuki with Kouga!
GS: Citan Uzuki assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Citan Uzuki's Kouga for 0 hit points!
GS: Cover and Riposte applied to Citan Uzuki!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    'Everyone, hold on...! I've got you...!'

    Azoth seemed like he'd given his all, after protecting them from that robotic self-destruct, hot as a star and just as cognisant. How could Boudicca have known he'd disappear if she turned her back like that..? Now Azoth is gone, and Boudicca is worried. She isn't alone in worrying, of course -- with a word, she and Ida split up to look for him in the crowd, because neither Seer nor Oracle want to leave their poor, damaged friend behind.

    She's a little occupied, flitting between the exiters of New Kasim. She doesn't think of the Gear up there, not so immediately. It's only when she hears Seymour's voice that her attention is wrenched from her worries to the sky, and it is on looking up, up, up that her face is all twisted in the horror of what he was and what he has come to be. "You would go so far..."

    That spear points its way to Zanarkand's dome, and Boudicca grasps at her heart. "Whence the First Summoner come -- you cannot! That is YUNA'S tale!" Boudicca cries, lashing out, voice all booming on the breeze. "Befoul it not with your twisted fate! You madman, you reach and grasp without reason or humanity!" He has made himself that horror, but Boudicca, for one, does not seem eager to turn aside merely on count of his size or his might. She is the wind, after all -- she fills all space.

    Thankfully, Cid is on their side, and it's with unveiled gratitude that she turns to behold the Fahrenheit. "Cid..!" She has enough worry for the Al Bhed, too, as that light explodes so close to them -- "Pray be cautious!" She cries, though even the way her voice carries may not reach quite so far.

    Megaman Juno, as well, who has words for -- "Dash! Are you all right..?!" With the way Azoth was acting, earlier, Boudicca doesn't want to imagine another of her robotic friends being overridden. Juno is another problem for the lot of them, of course, but she espies the way young Caskett is singled out amongst the crowd.

    She takes a step towards him, and that's when he appears.

    "You--!" Boudicca cries, because that is all she knows him as, in that anonymous black.

    She was devastated to a speck of light, when last they fought.

    That he claimed his prize is blanche horror on her face.

    "Stop!" Boudicca cries, a palm up to that creature, wheeling to place herself directly in his path. "Your 'maximum artillery' will destroy them all! If you are so programmed, you must recognise -- there is no sense to bringing Zanarkand down around us!"

    A Seraphic glyph about her feet, and Boudicca is not as unarmed as she seems, as the sorcerous breeze of her Arte whips past that anonymous black construct. She means to catch his attention. But a Seraph's magic may well meet...

    (By the way, there is a witch somewhere in the plaza. Magilou takes one look at all the giant robots, yawns, and rolls under the nearest park bench to have a nap. They'll be fiiine, so come fetch her when it's over, okay?)

GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Beaufort's Prediction!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Pearl's Watera for 310 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Conflagration for 376 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

After splitting up with Fei in New Kasim to find their missing friends, Xantia was looking forward to meeting back up. After all, she found Billy! Okay technically it was Yvain who found Billy first, but helping to get the group back together is sure to count as having done a good job. All that was left to do was reunite, and they could surely handle whatever it is that Odessa and Solaris had planned here. She was pretty sure that's how things were going to go.

Right up until a moment ago, when upon emerging back on the surface, everything went to heck in short order. Two Gears are presenting a palpable threat as the Fahrenheit arrives, supplying the means to combat them. Xantia, meanwhile, just stands there, looking around frantically for what people are doing in order to decide what she should be doing.

That's when she spots another familiar presence. Or, rather, she spots the special weapon brought for the occasion first, that was rather hard to miss. When she looks at who carries it, though...

Xantia grips her head with her right hand, possessed of a feeling of profound urgency. She knows that android to be with Solaris. It's enough for her fragmented memory to insist that not the Gears, but this one single individual should be given priority.

"This is ridiculous..." she murmurs. She has half a mind to go against what her instinct is telling her, just to be stubborn. And yet... she still starts running in the direction of the Solarian-affiliated android. It's not because of that feeling. Her Gear isn't here, so this is the most convenient target, that's all. Or so she tells herself.

She sees no reason to mince words. A known enemy wielding a giant weapon that it can barely hold... first order of business is making it even more difficult to use that thing. Xantia's form blurs as she closes the last bit of distance, for a palm strike aimed for the elbow joint of Azoth's right arm. She must figure that something that could easily dislocate a human's arm would pose enough of a hindrence here.

Only upon hopping backwards after the fact does she finally speak. "...I know this isn't what you want. But that's not going to stop you, is it? That's fine... you'll get your wish. I'll make sure of it this time."

Quickly taking in who else is in the immediate area, she gives a small smile at the familiar faces... before she spots Emeralda. That knocks her out of serious mode for a moment.

"...Emmy, is that you? You got bigger! I mean, I know people say 'they grow up so fast', but I thought that was just, y'know, an expression!"

GS: Xantia has attacked Azoth with Drive Breaker!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Dash Caskett's Buster Salvo for 130 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Beaufort's Prediction for 114 hit points!
GS: Quick applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Having set eyes on Heimdall Gozzo, Billy Lee Black has determined that the worlds are in danger - AGAIN - from the people he foolishly thought weren't monsters based on having most of their skeleton on the inside. AGAIN.

But he has forgotten a critical party in all this! A guy who engineered to no longer have a skeleton at all!!

Billy charges out of the elevator he was in - he's tunnel-visioned to the point he doesn't entirely notice he's splitting off from Xantia and Yvain, which is probably a bad start. Billy stumbles to a stop at Seymour's boastful proclamation. "So you claimed it," he spits. Billy doesn't have the deep antipathy for Seymour that others have - which is to say, the man is despicable in a thousand ways, but Seymour has not personally slapped him across the face as he has a number of others here, and he does not quite understand the threat Issachar represents. "What manner of Gear is that," he does say, squinting.

Just before others ride to the battle. The Al Bhed roar in, deploying the Drifter Gears from the Fahrenheit's...he thinks catapults but on some level will not be too surprised if he finds out later they just used the cannons. "Siggy!" he calls, an unbidden smile splashing across his face. At least he has some extra strength from an old friend being about, something to center him. Renmazuo slams down before him, already kneeling. He runs up, setting his palm against the cooling metal. Blue, and white, and gold, with a fluttering cape. The kids had told him that was the kind of thing a hero should wear.

He shuts his eyes tight and knuckles the moisture away, then grabs for the ascension rope and kicks off the motorized winch to drag him up.

As he buckles in, Citan explains what Issachar is. And Juno arrives. His jaw sets firmly. "Solaris drone," he spits, all but forgetting Issachar exists. "I won't let you have it. Not that Omnigear, or what's lying below!"

Renmazuo erupts off the ground toward Juno's Gear. The thigh holsters for Renmazuo's Ether magnums pop open, allowing Billy to retrieve both and open fire as he approaches.

GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Megaman Juno with Gear-Caliber Ether Magnum!
GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

There it is. The Gear - ISSACHAR - and it is... it is changing, somehow. Pyreflies are clustering around it. Freshly emerged from a hellish walking journey through Zanarkand and what lies beneath, Elly van Houten is already fatigued. But there is little to be done for it.

Because something is happening. And Seymour Guado...

He's within the Gear. Except that perhaps this isn't quite the dividing line it was - that it should be.

A group of others, curiously non-descript soldiers who have abandoned a cause, gaze upwards at this thing. One of them sobs once, biting into the flesh of his thumb.

Seymour Guado speaks to them. He speaks quite eloquently. He speaks, in fact, *very clearly indeed*. Whatever is happening, whatever has been done with that Gear, it is certainly giving him the power to express his views. He crackles with force as his words ring. He points a spear towards a dome -

Yuna is in there? Elly thinks.

Citan is able to make things clearer. And he's in... he's in a Gear, a 'created' Gear. The distinction in the words doesn't register with Elly but she looks to Citan then, with hope. Dr. Uzuki is wise. He will be able to guide them. For a moment it is complete trust, even if it is not, quite, comprehension.

"... I," she begins, "I can't - I mean, it's, it's got good specifications, Dr. Uzuki, but it's--"

And then her thoughts are interrupted by Bart Missiles, not for the first time in her life.

"Thank god," Elly says as she gazes up at the arriving Fahrenheit, clasping a hand at her collarbone and turning her gaze towards Emeralda. (Who for a fleeting instant she doesn't recognize. Is she safe? Elly wonders. Maybe she'll have... exhausted something, but... would she...)

"Emeralda...! Please, be careful, I -" Elly begins to say, before concluding and giving her a brisk, sharp nod of approval. And then she is off. There is a thought, somehow appearing in completion in the back of Elly's head, if she will ever see Emeralda again. She looks to Fei for a moment. Does he feel the same? She knows him, but does she know all of him?

The Gears are deployed -- and one of them, with a curiously triangular antenna on the back of its head, reminiscent of a high-wrapped ponytail on a rather feminine form -- does not simply *fly* but rather *maneuvers,* coming down with almost none of the subtle tremors of Gear landing into a seiza-seat position, throwing a vast wall of wind, inevitably, with its passage, but otherwise merely several yards from where Elly stands.

Elly looks towards the quartet of soldiers who were with her. She swallows, dryly. Behind her, Regulus is already lowering one hand gently, as if to receive a gift. "... Well, it's as I said. Try to get picked up by that ship. The Al Bhed won't mind you, and the Fatimas will help you too." Elly then looks behind herself and flinches, *probably because of the Gear's motion*.

She doesn't look back for a couple of seconds, her hands forming tight little fists at her side. Then she steps forwards onto Regulus's gentle hand and is swept up in a cupped palm, placed within the Omnigear's chest; and a moment later, it is already flying into the air. Nobody can see the tears on her cheeks and the look of terror, but it doesn't show from the outside, either.

---

Regulus sails into the sky. Elly does not turn the camera on just yet.

She speaks anyway, even as the Gear's mace is held before it, in wordless salute.

"Seymour," she says. "Please, listen to me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yaAKxAIj7M

As Elly speaks, signal connections ripple outwards. For most of the Gears on the field it is a brief handshake protocol which probably doesn't even get noticed if you aren't a real 'Gear head' who watches these screens habitually. For those who are closer, in particular Weltall - Heimdall - and the Rephaim - it is more than that. Software uploads. Extraneous processes and registry entries are culled. Camera resolutions improve. Meters tick up a little - or seem to shrink - extra slack found in otherwise optimized systems.

What do I say here, Elly thinks.

It comes to her without thinking. "You've been lied to. I don't know all the details, but we've seen things. You saw them, too, but I don't know if you understand everything about the past. Please - whatever your goals - if you don't stop here, you'll never meet them. When that nation fell, do you think anyone's dreams were satisfied?"

"You can always step off the road, but every step further you take makes it harder," Elly urges. "I don't know you, you don't lmpw me. I have no reason to lie to you, please, I just don't want to see anyone else be hurt. Just stop. If you're afraid this is a trick, I, I'll get out of the Gear and you can," she says, faltering as the moment of clarity ends (possibly in a good way) before she ends up handing herself over as a hostage.

Fortunately, Regulus's optimization methodologies are working semi-autonomously. The body knows even when the mind is confused.

GS: CRITICAL! Azoth takes a solid hit from Xantia's Drive Breaker for 140 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Delay and Disrupt applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Fei Fong Wong with EM-Brace -Routine Work-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Lunata Croze with EM-Brace -Routine Work-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Citan Uzuki with EM-Brace -Routine Work-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Gwen Whitlock, super courier, is here. A bit worse for wear, having exhausted herself from running from many, many things, including a train, then becoming the weight that Lan had to lug with her as Magilou.... Magilou'ed.

    "... mmnh? Azoth's here? Ah, good. You're gonna go get him? Oh, he's in trouble, eh?" Gwen stops leaning on poor Lan, and instead sits on a piece of debris, rubbing her face. "I'm sure he'll be able t'handle fightin' those guys down there, he's a good 'un. And he ain't alone, so..." She draws her hands from her face. "But he'll probably need help, right? Go on ahead. I'll join ya soon. Just... Gimme a sec..." The courier concentrates, bending and drawing both arms back to her sides. "Okay, so, let's try this like Zed'd do it. Switching to... Super mode....!" She takes a breath and holds it, slowly letting it through her nose.

    Pause.

    ...

    "... O-oh... Uh." Gwen's posture relaxes, and she rubs her neck. "Yeah. I don't think it's gonna happen today. .... I'd need, like, a few cakes' worth of calories to break even." This isn't even remotely how things actually work for Gwen, but the thought of equating the cost of energy into cakes is very appealing, right now.

    Also, Lan is gone, so Gwen is speaking to herself.

    ".... Ah." Gwen stands, and squints, following the path Lan made down to the fray. Placing a foot on a piece of discharged metal, she leans forward, as sees the lines of ink run across Lan's skin. "..."

    It's only a few seconds more when Gwen sounds herself, suddenly launching herself from the nearby debris try to land a fist against the Mysterious Gear.

    "Lan, you're not worrying enough about yourself!!"

    Wait, where is Azoth? And did Emeralda get taller?

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Azoth with Gut Reaction!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten heals Lunata Croze! She gains 220 temporary hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a glancing hit from Billy Lee Black's Gear-Caliber Ether Magnum for 94 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

"Lunata..." Seymour trails off. "...You would oppose me, even now? Yes--I live!" Well, 'live.' "And I assure you... I have not aligned myself with Solaris."

The Rephaim's head vulcans roar to life, rounds punching into the black-and-violet armor of Issachar. A few holes are left, smoke wafting from them, as the Omnigear falls backward.

Issachar holds a hand out. A magical circle appears -- Althenan runes inside -- but there is a surge of Ether down the arm. The result is a familiar spell, writ large: a massive fireball, which explodes off the hand, and goes hurtling towards Rephaim.

"I will strike them down as I will strike you down, if you stand in my way!" he shouts.

Lunata is far from the only person opposing him. "I am becoming what I must, Jacqueline Barber! What Spira requires...!" he answers her. The Jaeger rises, coming at him -- at least, in a metaphorical sense. Her shots rain down, the shells slamming into the Issachar's midsection. Gashes are left in the armor, and one round hits the midsection. It explodes out the back, with a splash of internal cooling fluid and a blast of electricity.

"Ggh!"

Seymour aims the lance down -- and a quartet of barrels around the spearhead open up. Rounds explode down, gunshots that rattle the platform and then sweep up to slash across Jay Barber's Gear, trying to bite through the Jaeger's armor.

Weltall rises up. Seymour turns his head, and looks back at Fei. "You speak of things from other stars?" he asks, with a growl. "Then... I shall focus only on what is before me!"

Weltall's fists slam into Issachar. The Omnigear is struck downward; pyreflies burst away from the impact, but there are still tendrils of Seymour's otherworldy flesh merged into it. The thing flies downward -- and the wing that hovers near the back shifts. Two bladed wingtips detach -- and fly out, both slashing at Weltall before they return.

"Heresy is the sign of a small mind, Shalune!" Seymour cries out. "If the world is to die, then we must cast aside such aspersions! I will use any tool -- become anything -- to seize what I must!"

He doesn't have Citan's knowledge. He cannot appreciate the Regulus as like Issachar. For him, Issachar is nothing but a means to an end. In that sense, it may also be one of Seymour's victims.

"Nations are part of what I must destroy," Seymour answers Elly. "You say I must step off the road. I must destroy it -- I must walk the path to break it, completely. There can be no more paths -- no more journeys -- no false hopes, only to be dashed. History must lose all meaning! The world must be undone!"

The floating wing unit fires. This time, it is a cone of bladed feathers -- which shoot down, slashing across Regulus and Big Shal alike.

Seymour hasn't lost sight of Juno. He turns his head -- and the wing unit swivels. Several of the feather-like protrusions shoot off it, and then sweep out, slashing across the unit that Juno has brought to bear. They slash down repeatedly; then they snap back into place, into the floating unit near the Issachar's back.

"Do you know what decision that Lady Yuna must make?" Seymour asks. "She must choose. Choose one of her Guardians--choose the one that Lady Yunalesca shall change into the Final Aeon! The one who will give their life... to provide her the means to end Sin! Let me pass, and that person shall be me."

Seymour smiles -- and they can see it, with their cameras and with their eyes. "Or fight me, and condemn one of them to a fate worse than death. Which, do you think, will it be? Permit me to become the Final Aeon -- and it shall be none of them."

GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Ether-Enhanced Firaga!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Shotlance Crusher!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Wing Blades!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Feather Burst!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Feather Burst!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Megaman Juno with Wing Slasher!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Anima Process Infusion!
GS: Seymour Guado takes 35 damage from Corrode!
GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado accepts Seymour Guado's Anima Process Infusion for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode, Disease, and Mute removed!
GS: Hyper, Lock State, and Quick applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Feather Burst for 224 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Shotlance Crusher for 358 hit points!
GS: Mighty applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Ether-Enhanced Firaga for 174 hit points!
GS: Azoth takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Gut Reaction for 65 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wing Slasher for 174 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Riposte applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Feather Burst for 236 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten activates Countermeasures!
GS: Elhaym van Houten heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 220 temporary hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wing Blades for 199 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno has activated a Boss Action!
<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    A second Solaris IFF appears nearby. A dozen eyes focus on the black-armored construct as they materialize, and behind armored plates--in a cockpit very much not built for a human pilot--Juno frowns. He recognizes Azoth's battle form, but the Argus' sensors also pick up on the disturbing fluctuations in his systems. It's like his frame can't contain his core, somehow, and it's tearing itself apart trying to. Something appears to be trying to regulate that, at least, but Juno can't identify it. Despite the processing power of this frame, he has to prioritize more important tasks.

    Juno answers Azoth not with words, but with code--a handshake protocol, and a terse text message.

    Acknowledged. Proceed with all due caution. Factoring you into defensive algorithms. Return alive.

    Incoming fire.

    Despite its massive size the Argus is quick--it jets sharply to the side, banking to avoid a ruined tower. Most of Ethius' shots bury themselves in the rubble; the few that make it through slam headlong into its armor as Juno twists to compensate.

    Zanarkand is nothing if not dense with Pyreflies. As Pearl bids them take shape, two dozen of the Argus' eyes focus on her.

    "Tag and archive: Biomass cluster demonstrating ability to command unidentified paracausal phenomena. Paracausal phenomenon appears similar to--"

    And it is here that Juno stops, because his priority systems have identified a cluster he recognizes, and tagged as "anomalous and highly dangerous" when it invaded the Main Gate. Another two dozen eyes switch focus to Lily Keil, analyzing the way her Ether takes shape, the way her body changes...

    Juno's eyes open wide. "Impossible," he breathes.

<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    Lily's fire roils across the Argus' frame a split-second later. It jets up and back, but under Lily's expert ministrations, the flame chases after it, melting a roughly person-sized segment of its armor to slag. Leviathan comes in from another angle, and rakes what might as well be a high-pressure hose across Argus' chassis. The armor Lily just melted chills, cracks, distorts. Two eyes are unceremoniously sealed shut. While Juno is busy with them, Dash comes in from underfoot, so to speak. His Buster fire slams into the Argus' undulating ventral surface, leaving charred craters in its armor. Cyre's railgun clips the Argus' uppermost right arm, missing the eye embedded in its mechanical bicep by mere inches. Nevertheless, it seems to have had considerable effect; there's a crackle of electricity at the joint, followed by an odd, high-pitched whine. The arm pops loose. Is the machine literally falling apart within the first few minutes of engagement?

    "Initiating drone deployment."

    Segments of the Argus' armor peel away, each the size of a person, roughly diamond-shaped, and bearing a Reaverbot eye. They close in on Lily, and start trying to hem her in, blasting rays of searing plasma from their blood-red optical apertures. Even as Lily is faced with that, the Argus' 'severed' arm seals the machinery at its ball-joint, and flies directly at the Huracan's head, attempting to literally punch it clean through.

    "'Elw machine,'" says Juno, his tone pleasantly conversational. "A false supposition. The Precursors simply provided the deployment system." After all, wasn't there an Elw teleporter in the Main Gate, which now seems to be under Solaris' control?

    More drones break free from beneath the Argus' armor, colored green and gold and blue. These ones home in on Dash, surrounding him; static fills the air as a localized ECM field ignites between them. For an android, this may have dire consequences--but it isn't the fury Juno vents on the others. As Billy's Etheric fire slams into the machine's chassis, sending sparks along its body, more drones deploy. They swarm around Ethius and Leviathan, harrying them with an incessant barrage of laser fire from carefully-calculated directions. A few take up angles in what Juno guesses are Renmazuo's blind spots, and start laying into the Gear with cutting beams.

    It's Seymour, though, who gets the worst of it. The Issachar's wing slashes into the Argus' torso, barely missing two eyes. "Surrender your machine, please," Juno says, as if he weren't speaking with Seymour Guado, confirmed nihilist and general terrible person. Three small targeting drones dart towards Issachar, relaying telemetry. The largest four eyes on Argus' torso open fire, channeling a SEARING BEAM that rips through the plaza. It passes above part of a ruined metal roof, searing it to useless slag through proximity alone. It will do unpleasant things to the Omnigear if it hits... hopefully.

GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Megaman Juno with Tactical Autotomy!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno accepts Megaman Juno's Tactical Autotomy for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Lily Keil with Nexus Protocol Engaged - Overwhelm!
GS: Megaman Juno assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Megaman Juno spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Brachial Drone!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Nexus Protocol Engaged - Adapt!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Pearl with Nexus Protocol Engaged - Adapt!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno's Avenger stance ends.
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Dash Caskett with Venus-Class ECM Drone!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Billy Lee Black with Nexus Firing Pattern - Tracking Barrage!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno has completed his action.
GS: Megaman Juno spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Seymour Guado with Target Lock!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno has launched an attack Link!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Seymour Guado with Meltdown Protocol!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno has completed his action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten heals Citan Uzuki! He gains 220 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Jay calls out to her from the radio, saying she's with her -- there's a moment of adjustment as Lunata realises that she won't be able to be of much assistance high in the sky, and she swerves closer to the Jaeger -- and Big Shal, when Shalune emerges and voices her presence too. "Yeah, Jay, Shalune! Let's do this together!"

    There's a definite mirth in Lunata's voice. The trio of childhood friends, banding together against a threat to the world. She can't even say this is the first time it's happened -- but she doesn't feel bad at all. Like this is the best position she could be in, if she has to do this.

    Then-- then--

    Big Shal gives her a thumbs up.

    MORALE +5

    Lily's here too, and the power she's wielding is as scary as ever; then, Citan gives her great advice. "O-Omnigear? Like, uh-- it eats vegetables and meat both??" says the young girl whose only experience with the prefix omni- is in culinary terms.

    But Citan gets to the heart of the matter -- it's even more powerful than her own Gear, and victory isn't assured!

    Lunata pauses for a moment as she listens to Elly's entreatment -- and then she's distracted as something goes 'bling' in her Gear and all her numbers go up. "What the... the Rephaim's resonating with Elly's Gear, somehow?"

    Her eyes flick back towards Seymour, bonded with Issachar. "Well-- well that's one good thing, at least?" Lunata stammers in her attempt to try to rile up the indignant rage, but... she's just not Cyre, and she can't really do that.

    "Come on, Seymour. Let's just give up the whole digging up powerful relics from the past, okay? Do you think I'm happier being in this thing, fighting you? I can empathically say my life hasn't been better for finding the Rephaim!"

    There's a shake and a tremble, as she pauses for a moment--

    And then it's at that point that she gets dunked pretty hard, fire striking the outermost layers of the Rephaim; an oscillating, vibrant barrier is all that saves it from turning it into slag as she lands next to the Jaeger, grimacing at the lance rounds coming its way.

    "Then I'm going to help defend Jay!" Lunata shouts, as the Rephaim's arms spread -- and the Pulse Shift barrier ebbs and flows and extends out from its personal space and around the Jaeger as well.

    There's a faint pause as Seymour explains the nature of the pilgrimage.

    "... ... ..."

    She grits her teeth.

    "Hey, Seymour... you know what the voice in Rephaim asked me? It asked me what I wished for... and what price I was willing to pay for it. My mother's life, for my own."

    A deeper furrow of the brow.

    "I know you've suffered at that stupid, stupid dichotomy too! Yeah, I know hard words like 'dichotomy'!"

    A pause. "Ancient things, they're always, there's a price for this, a price for that... isn't it about time you and I smashed those chains, together?! Don't just get suckered into another crappy deal, Seymour! All these things are just scams!! Big ancient beings who let power creep straight into their brain and then they feel entitled to be massive jerks and make life miserable for everyone else!! Scams I tell you, scams!!"

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Pulse Shift Barrier!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Megaman Juno's Brachial Drone for 140 hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 430 temporary hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Protocol Engaged - Overwhelm for 171 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

It may well be that Ragnell's efforts are the only thing keeping Azoth from tearing himself apart. The overrides surge in his code, running roughshod over any attempt for Azoth's calculations to determine a more logical course of action based on less violent objectives. But in both cases, his data operates as if he were a machine that has power far beyond what could ever reasonably fit inside a machine his size -- even by ancient standards.

R@gn!*l... The sentiment of gratitude barely makes it through the glitched deluge.

Juno provides a singular mercy: a command to return alive.

Objective received.

Emeralda -- but not? No longer such a small girl, but showcasing that same display of concern she always had. "Ac -- knowledged," is all Azoth can say to her painfully accurate assessment that his actions would, in fact, be butts. Her lightning flies at him, but Ragnell is here, protecting his core from a power spike he can't afford. Errors of concern fire through his systems.

They continue when his calculations can trust Ragnell to deal with Boudicca's winds similarly. The android silently regards Boudicca, his face having no features to show any pain for the way she calls out to him with logic his overrides won't allow him to follow.

But Lan's knifehand strikes aims for Azoth, along with Gwen diving at him with her fist. He tries to vanish, but each sinks a strike into him before he disappears momentarily, reappearing to face them, holding his newly sparking joint in a claw. But his gaze snaps to Lan. An impulse shoots through his systems demanding he still his hand. The overrides do not allow it.

For the moment, Xantia does. Azoth recoils back with a distorted, unnatural shriek as her strike snaps the joint of his elbow, leaving it to dangle uselessly at his side. The Ouroboros Ring comes to a deafening silence, its red light drained away by the interruption and crashing uselessly to the ground beside everyone, miraculously still upright on its edge for a moment before it pixelates like a glitch in reality, struggling to remain in this space.

"Obstacles identified. Initiating combat."

Red light flashes. Azoth's gone.

Then he's behind Gwen in the air, dropping down from above to cleave her with a blade of energy. Gone in pixels again, this time to appear lunging back in the air with a cockscrew, firing a barrage of thin beams to converge toward Xantia with homing precision. Gone again, and this time directly behind Lan. "L...an..." The glitched reverb is softened by the quiet volume Azoth's voice suddenly adopts -- the closest his unemotive display may get to expressing horror before he thrusts and explosive blade straight for her back.

GS: Azoth has attacked Gwen Whitlock with exec.mec OVERWRITE!
GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Azoth assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with exec.ohr COMPILE!
GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Azoth has attacked Lan Lilac with exec.mec ERASE!
GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Delay expired!
GS: Azoth has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Megaman Juno's Target Lock for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Weaken applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Megaman Juno's Meltdown Protocol for 73 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Dash Caskett takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Venus-Class ECM Drone for 137 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Dash Caskett!
GS: Pearl takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Protocol Engaged - Adapt for 250 hit points!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Protocol Engaged - Adapt for 262 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Azoth's exec.mec OVERWRITE for 191 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    If Juno and Emeralda don't detect Ragnell within Azoth, honestly, that's functioning as intended. Ragnell is not shy when it comes to battle, but Azoth didn't want anyone to know that this form is also him. For his sake, she'll thus remain discreet.
    
    There's lots of things Ragnell will do that she wouldn't normally do if it's for someone she cares about.
    
    Through Azoth's sensors, Ragnell sees--well, a whole lot of things. Seymour Issachar and Megaman Juno, each in their respective vessels, sniping at each other and also at the assembled Gear-riding Drifters, is hard not to notice; so is Cid zooming in by airship to personally deliver a whole bunch of Gears; so is Pearl riding atop Leviathan; so is the fact that Yuna is just beyond, preparing herself for her final destination, and that Seymour can apparently spare her Guardians if he becomes the Final Aeon instead. But those aren't Azoth's targets and thus aren't Ragnell's targets either. She instead focuses in on the massive bolt of electricity that Emeralda fires off from her hands towards Azoth's form. It sears forth, laser-accurate, towards him--
    
    BWEOWM.
    
    That laser strikes into what appears to be a barrier that sparks up in a curve around the dark android, then absorbs it back into him. Boudicca's wind rushes forth towards the same, and bursts seemingly clean around it, breaking along the arch and away from the android proper. That's Ragnell's power, but it's not without its cost; absorbing it means less direct damage to Azoth, but it places strain on Ragnell herself with each hit.
    
    Well, that's what happens when one decides to make oneself a shield, anyway... And it's not as though this particular shield can't give as good as it gets. It thus outwardly appears as though, after absorbing Emeralda's electricity and taking Boudicca's wind, that barrier of the dark android's reconfigures the lightning beam and gust of wind and then fires them right back, straight and swift like a lance across the battlefield at Emeralda and Boudicca respectively.
    
    Ragnell's attention then goes to Lan, though, as familiar inky lines course through her, ribboning throughout her body and giving her deeply unpleasant power. It also allows her to go from running to *teleporting* and appear behind Azoth. It's striking that she has no killing intent, though. Ragnell might not have been able to hear her name Azoth when she was so far away, but the lack of killing intent is clear from this new short distance. Az, have you had another encounter with Lan since the last time? Something about her attitude seems... different, now.
    
    Given how heavily glitched Azoth's internal communications are right now, she's not sure he'll be able to answer. But she'll ask all the same. It's all about treating him as someone who *can* speak for himself.
    
    Xantia seems much the same way, too--she aims not to destroy Azoth but to disable his arm, to try to keep him from using the enormous Ouroboros Ring to bring down massive destruction. Gwen seems much less picky about what she targets, the way she simply leaps into the fray fist-first. Ragnell doesn't *disagree* with Gwen that Lan's not worrying enough about herself, but she's not exactly in a position to say anything about it. It's not like Lan would listen to her anyway, even if her presence *were* known. And of course Juno sends that message to Azoth, which Ragnell, within his circuits, can read as easily as if she were peeking over his shoulder. That message is more clearly friendly, though, even if it's own sort of bossing-Azoth-around. Robot-to-robot solidarity--yeah, Ragnell can get that.
    
    She receives Azoth's spikes of concern towards her. She sends him back lines of electric-embedded reassurances, written in a familiar language. She continues her regulating, and doesn't fret too much about the Ring. As Xantia says, and Boudicca beseeches... even if he wanted to not use it, he can't stop himself.

GS: Seraph Ragnell spends 1 Combo on Interrupt!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Emeralda Kasim with Shock Lancer!
GS: Seraph Ragnell enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Tempest Laser!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Azoth's exec.ohr COMPILE for 101 hit points!
GS: Jam and Poison applied to Xantia!
GS: Xantia activates Evade bonus!
GS: CRITICAL! Emeralda Kasim guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Shock Lancer for 83 hit points!
GS: Emeralda Kasim activates Guard bonus!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Tempest Laser for 79 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Evade bonus!
GS: Lan Lilac takes a glancing hit from Azoth's exec.mec ERASE for 93 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    "An Omnigear..." Shalune breathes out, catching Citan's warning as she considers it. After having seen so many different technologies, she has some inkling of what the man means, even if she can't really put it into words. The shape and the design of it is all off, like nothing she's seen before - and in a very unsettling sort of way. It makes her eyes want to slide off of it, like she can't really focus on it because then she'll start asking herself how it works, and she doesn't have the first idea, and it's just going to give her a headache.

    On the other hand the Rephaim has a Guardian behind it, even if it's not one she's exactly on good terms with, and Shalune is very, very biased. "--I'm not seeing what's so 'omni' about it, honestly," the mechanic grumbles, because even she is allowed to have her moments of complete bluster. "It just looks big and sulky, like a kid playfighting and yelling that he's won 'cause he says so. And I've seen better faces on floats in the Adlehyde parades," she adds, apparently out of sheer spite.

    Any cheer she has fades when Seymour speaks. She wasn't really expecting Seymour to actually address Lunata, figuring he was too far gone already - the fact that he seems perfectly lucid despite everything he's doing and saying is somehow the worst part of this, and makes her heart sink far more than the wave of feathered lasers that scatter and rain towards Big Shal.

    The golem raises an arm to block them, pieces of its armor tearing away from its body to reform around its fist in a large plated shield. It isn't really effective as far as blocking is concerned, weak metal sheared away with every impact - but the growing field around Big Shal just catches every part that flies off, creating a small tornado of shrapnel and debris around the machine.

    It doesn't leave unscathed. By the time the smoke and the whirling metal clears, Big Shal is down on one knee and Shalune is having to cling onto the scaffolding for the sake of her own balance - but the leg is rapidly rebuilding itself, and its only a couple of moments before the golem is up and striding forwards again, its posture rapidly improving.

    "Y'know, I don't disagree with you on that one. Never really liked the way the church used that word," Shalune rumbles out through gritted teeth, a flash of anger in her eyes. "But you had people who looked up to you. People who had faith in you. People who trusted you to see them through Sin and Althena, and you spat in their eyes and dumped on them. And now you're just a-- a thing," she adds, momentarily lost for the right word given the sight in front of her. "You think you can grasp anything like that, let alone destiny? Let alone Yuna? She won't choose you just because you got found a big toy. She'll scrap you," she adds with solemn certainty - and a pang of regret for Seymour's sake that she hadn't expected.

    The golem is still moving as she speaks, as Big Shal strides to the front of their trio, taking up position along with the Rephaim to provide cover for Jacqueline's gear. The golem doesn't exactly have anything like a ranged weapon - but it still seems full of purpose as it looks up towards the Issachar. Several of the components still whirling the machine twist and slam together into a crude facsimile of a fist - and the golem grabs it, pulls back, and heaves the lump of metal forwards in a rather manual version of the usual rocket punch.

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Seymour Guado with Big Shal Shoot!
GS: Shalune Amira has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Shalune Amira's Stoic stance ends.
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Shalune Amira's Big Shal Shoot for 75 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cover applied to Shalune Amira!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Evade bonus!
GS: Billy Lee Black critically guards Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Tracking Barrage for 56 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

That is.... an Omnigear!

Fei blinks slowly. "What?" He asks. "Created instead of made?" He's not a guy who tends to ask the right questions but he thinks that's a pretty reasonable one. He's not sure what the difference is by that description, though he does know it IS different just by looking at it. But he's seen a few weird gears. There's one that, like, murders its pilot so.

Fei only knows that Elly is badass. He's seen it in action and, well, if Elly's gear was held by Shevat--Well, it seems that it's an Omnigear as well.

Fei feels some comfort in knowing that if Weltall went berserk again they might actually be able to handle it.

Right? He's going to pretend that it'll work out like that so he doesn't have to sweat it.

Fei is mostly trying not to think about it. It's hard for him to just let it sit. Fei presses his lips firmly. Just... do your best. "...In part," Fei admits on the accusation of far off stars. "But I also mean right here. Life is stubborn. It can be small. It can be hidden. It can lurk in the small places, the deep places. There's no end to suffering, all one can do is endure--" He never made it to the 'and forgive' part of that. Not as a general rule. There is a part of him even now that agrees that the only true end to this pain is oblivion of a fundamental restructuring to how this reality is structured.

Seymour tries bargaining, even as the Omnigear assaults Weltall with the most evil force of all: Bits that also function like wings. Weltall takes some severe strikes across the chest and shoulders as Weltall is driven back

Seymour speaks of Yuna's decision.

"We couldn't stop Yuna if we wanted to." Fei says. "I mean honestly I hardly know her." He knows Tidus a lot better but even then there's still a lot he doesn't know about Tidus. In truth, he just doesn't know the Guardians too well in general outside of a few small meetings. "But some part of me," He says. "Still thinks life is worth fighting for. And fortunately--that's the part of me that's steering right now. Maybe if you caught me on another day, I'd be just as desperate...!"

Elly is submitting data to Weltall (and Fei) again. Fei is getting a little more used to it even though he doesn't entirely understand the information provided. But he does know that it means Weltall will move a little better, last a little longer.

He leaps forward and sends two giant robot fists towards the Omnigear, intending to flip right back off it.

"I know about having a rough childhood, not being entirely accepted by your community... But they accepted you."

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Hazan!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre's ability to conjure indignant rage has been trained over years of witnessing the systematic oppression and eradication of his people's way of life all throughout Ignas. It's not a unique or pretty way to learn a skill, but it's a damn effective one... Even if right now he's mostly just 'befuddled.' "Omnigear... What? Ugh, I barely understand regular gears, and now there's... more to them...?"

But Seymour makes a cogent point. If they let him through, there will be no sacrifice. Or rather, he will be the sacrifice. But-- "Come on. You probably just want to use the opportunity to hijack whatever bestowal of power is involved. Your type is as predictable as the sunrise!"

But it's not Seymour who he's fighting. There's a more pressing threat in front of him.

"We'll try," he answers Jacqueline. Though at first glance, it seems that they won't have a terrible time of it. His first shot almost snaps one of the Argus' limbs clean off! But underestimating the master of the Main Gate is a quick way to wind up very dead. The Argus' damaged arm suddenly launches itself, rocket-like, to punch a hole through the Huracan's heart...!

Only to be deflected at the last, carving instead a trough across the high mobility aerial gear's shield. "Damn," Cyre hisses, the Huracan's thrusters struggling to correct his trajectory before he goes tumbling into a skyscraper. It's not helped by Lily Keil suddenly unleashing a geyser of flame right in the middle of the city, the powerful thermals interfering with the Huracan's wings. But, fortunately, this is one thing Cyre does know how to navigate.

"Well, if you're not piloting an Elw machine, then I've got no reason to feel guilty about this!" He shouts, wings unfolding and catching the rising, superheated winds. The Huracan's rifle collapses along a central line, forming a long, thin blade. Electricity coruscates across its surface as Cyre darts in to try and drive his charged sword into the heart of the swirling drone cluster. "Ethius, Lily! You guys got any ideas for an ultra wide-area dust explosion or something!? I think it could really help clear the air!"

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Megaman Juno with TMJN-XIV High Voltage Blade!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazan for 165 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

"It's me!" Emeralda assures Xantia. "It... I thought, a bit, in the city. New Kasim." She puts a bit of emphasis on 'Kasim'. "It's complicated... I don't know everything, but... yeah! I did. It's a little weird!" Not that Emeralda wants to describe *herself* as weird, but possibly it's okay if she describes something that happened to her that way.

Emeralda is sure she'll see Elly (and Fei, and Citan, and everyone else) again. But she can't fight Issachar with her own two hands, especially if what Citan is saying is correct, and she *can* possibly stop this...

...familiar machine. Emeralda fought Azoth once; she fought him at the Main Gate on Kattleox. But he didn't look that bad, then. The plating, the mechanical segments: yes. Even the ring, or at least *a* ring. But he wasn't broken. He wasn't tearing open. 'Are you broken', she had asked then, and not gotten a response.

She doesn't bother to ask this time.

"<Somebody sent you again,>" Emeralda says, in Zeboim because she knows he speaks it and isn't sure whoever sent him does, before a flush of anger blazes in her heart. Emotions come strong for her, and sudden. "<Somebody sent you to hurt when you're already damaged...! Who are they? Who sent you?>"

"I'm really sorry!" Emeralda switches into the common language as she dives forward. Lightning - her own lightning, and she's not sure how Azoth managed that trick - blasts back at her; it doesn't strike directly, instead hitting her hair as it projects and then flattens out like a shield. But she's metal. She still feels it run through her, and for a moment she stumbles. It's definitely that that does it.

Emeralda comes in suddenly, and physically. She whips her arm at Azoth, swinging in something like a throwing motion despite the distance - and rather a lot of it comes off, propelling itself in a razor-sharp boomerang the colour of Emeralda's skin and leaving her right arm about half the width it 'should' be. It flies, sawing at Azoth, returns, hits Emeralda with an effect almost like a splash as it is reabsorbed into her body -

And by then she's driving her other fist in. It actually is a fist, too, though it's expanded to about the size of her head and feels more like getting hit by a hammer. Emeralda fights hard because robots can be fixed, but she's still mostly trying to smash at weapons and limbs rather than take out his head or core. It's a bit harder to stop *that* one with a windstorm.

GS: Emeralda Kasim has attacked Azoth with Flying Arm!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has completed her action.
GS: Azoth takes a glancing hit from Emeralda Kasim's Flying Arm for 76 hit points!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    The dozens of eyes upon her are fightening and imposing. Why? Why is she afraid? Not even Sin scared her so why was she afraid now!? She grips the fin tighter, trying to stare defiantly back at the Argus. It's difficult, even as Leviathan, the serpent who fights the strongest, roars back at it. How can she let herself be so vulberable on the battlefield?

    The battle against Juno has to be the priority, of course, but a chill shoots down the Summoner's spine. "No... That is..." She would have to do that too? She would have to sacrifice...

    Jean.

    "...That is the cost?" She asks, across the battlefield to Seymour. "To doom one of the few who support you? To give up the life of another?" She shakes her head. Not long ago, she would have done that in a heartbeat. But not long ago, she wouldn't be worthy to stand here. "It is one thing to sacrifice oneself..."

    And then the drones carve into Leviathan with laser fire, and Pearl is nearly knocked from her place as the Aeon roars in pain. "Leviathan!" She yells in concern, but the Aeon simply glares at Argus, despite the pyreflies bleeding from them profusely. Despite the Lord of All Waters defiance, they are hurt and hurt badly. Pearl grimaces, and looks ahead. "What point is there in archiving when you will not leave this place alive?" *Posturing. You're afraid.*

    She tries to shake off that voice, as Leviathan surges forward, spearing themselves at Argus to crash all their weight into it, as Pearl clings desperately on to them. The serpent is angry, at this intrusion, at these obstacles, at this machine in particular. It is now on Juno to feel the brunt of that anger.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"An Omnigear?" Jacqueline asks, looking toward Citan. 'A Gear that was created rather than made', with the power of a thousand Gears... Jacqueline frowns. After everything she's seen, she can't doubt that possibility. "That... poses a problem."

That may be putting it lightly. Even now that they have their Gears, will they even be enough? But Shalune bids her to be careful and pumps her fist, and Jacqueline smiles.

"Right, you too." Jacqueline says, and smiles as Lunata says they'll do this together. "Yes!"

She's glad that Lunata and Shalune are both here with her. Fighting a thing like this... this is when she needs the support of her friends the most.

Now in her cockpit, Jacqueline nods.

"Glad to have you too, Doctor Uzuki... and Fei and Elly too, of course!" Jacqueline replies. "Doctor, these Omnigears - do they have any known weaknesses? Anything we can exploit?"

There has to be something they can do... but it may be that that something is just hope they can make it out of this alive.

Seymour addresses her, then, and Jacqueline frowns.

"What you 'must'? You decided that for yourself, Seymour - but there's still time to turn back! Spira doesn't require this - Spira doesn't want this!" Jacqueline retorts. "It's like Shalune says... Everyone who once stood with you is either dead, has abandoned you, or has been abandoned by you. Surely that should tell you something. You're alone because of your own actions... but you can still stop this."

Seymour brandishes his spear in the Jaeger's direction, and barrels unleash a volley of gunshots. Jacqueline tries to force the Jaeger out of the way, but she's not quick enough for Issachar. Several strike solidly, punching right through the Jaeger's armor. Warnings blare all around her as her Gear is riddled.

But fortunately, Lunata is there to help. The Rephaim descends next to it, its barrier ebbing out and intercepting the rest of the volley before they can impact the cockpit. Shalune, too, lands nearby to provide her cover. ...She feels a little bad that they have to do that, but... they're all here to support each other. She can't be ashamed of leaning on them for support.

"Th-thanks, Lunata, Shalune..." Jacqueline says, exhaling. Her arms are trembling a little - she needs a moment to focus herself, so she does so by listening to Lunata as she responds to Seymour... and what Seymour says.

"...Are you serious...?" Jacqueline responds with a frown. The Final Aeon... to acquire it, the Summoner must sacrifice one of their Guardians - one of their closest companions. Jacqueline's brow furrows.

"...I'm with Lunata. If you did that... you'd just be playing into the whole system yet again. It's not the world that needs to go, it's the systems that corrupt the good intentions of good people." Jacqueline says.

...But, right now, they have a problem to deal with.

"That Gear's power is seriously unreal... we need to find a way to weaken it." Jacqueline murmurs. She has something for that, at least... assuming it'll even work on an Omnigear. The Jaeger holsters its side-arm briefly to swap out ammunition before leveling it as Issachar and firing again - this time, with a special shot designed to attack a Gear's combat systems directly, to reduce their effectiveness.

GS: Pearl has attacked Megaman Juno with Crashing Serpent!
GS: Pearl has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Pearl assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Pacifying Shell!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

That same initial-reading. Elly feels as if she has a map of the battlefield. In a sense, she does. Within Regulus's nearly bare cockpit, there is now a sphere encompassing an area approximately fifty kilometers in simulated miniature, full of dancing dots.

The map doesn't help a lot. Seymour answers her and she thinks she can taste honesty in his words. His Gear's wing-module rains downwards, Regulus moving swiftly leftwards; the feathers follow, a last-minute acceleration and inwards turn making the barrage a series of grazes.

Issachar's node in the map is different from the others. Most of what Elly sees for others is a twelve-sided polygon, one per person. There are exceptions - Rephaim is appearing as a twenty-sided polygon, Weltall as a stark black cube, and Issachar as a complex fractal object.

Elly wonders: Can I connect to --

-- the fractal blooms outwards, a different view, showing a range of options. The tags are in archaic script but somehow they make sense. Several of them flicker in and out but there is a range of them. So many. So many.

When Seymour speaks of the Final Aeon, Elly feels a surge in her stomach - an instinct to - to - to what? It passes, like an eruption of stomach acid getting loose, but it leaves a dull ache. Her mind circles back to it even as she chooses an option: 'insin. net depth'

"That...!" Elly answers Seymour.

"That's... I can't..."

'insin. net depth' chimes. Elly hits it again.

"... Even if Yuna accepted your offer... even if you forced her, by threat..."

Elly gazes at an idiomatic acronym for a moment, before it comes to her in a burst: that's an abbreviation for 'image spoof.' Is that even possible? It sounded to her like a ridiculous trick from one of the animated programs she watched as a child. Would it be... WAS it...

And externally, Regulus seems to blur, and then to dissolve. The outline forms into first two, then three, then nine versions of the Omnigear, a spread of increasing uncertainty that coalesces in the Zanarkand sky as Elly speaks further. (To all visual or radar appearances, there really are now nine - no, eight - wait, *sixteen* Reguluses in the sky. They are weaving among themselves...)

"Your goal isn't to defeat Sin, is it? It isn't that at all. That... that thing, you're describing. You're seeking that 'power', for that other goal..."

>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x8CTEWqtmk

Elly speaks, not to Seymour, but to the other Gears facing him. "I'm going to try to overwhelm him, but I don't think I can spread out the force this much and make an actual impact. I'll do my best..."

The sixteen Reguluses stop dead, pivoting as if tilted like dolls on strings. They face down at Seymour; their maces swing up as one, as if to pronounce judgment, pointing at him.

A veritable barrage of WHAT SEEMS to be Ether storms in - bursts of plasma and electrical force in combination, making mobile superheated plasmoids of-- not much; they would certainly burn someone on foot very badly but against a Gear, they really are peanuts, good mostly for damaging a paint job.

Among them, however, there is a seventeenth Omnigear, who is taking more careful aim. Careful enough to conclude with a sudden--

REAL burst, one square meter of air that has been abruptly superheated and confined in Etheric intensity to the point of having spontaneous fusion reactions. This hurls, like a molotov cocktail, directly at the Issachar from a more or less similar height and towards the other Omnigear's right.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Seymour Guado with AHT-Dazzle -Holy Maiden's Deceitful Puppet Show-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily's voice continues to echo over the radio, though her friends may noticenow that she is not in her Gear. She's somehow communicating with the frequency directly despite that. And as Citan explains--

"You sure don't." Need to tell her, that is. "I'll back the others up from here."

"Elly, be careful!" Lily calls, worrying over her good heart more in the moment--though she is not surprised that Seymour rebuffs her. But she cannot focus on his terrible revelations--not with Juno acting on her in turn.

Two dozen eyes switch to her, and a smile spreads across her shadowed features. "Possible," she counters, directing her flame with an exertion of will; it is not the raw, uncontrolled power that usually comes of her strange transformations, but utterly directed. And it lets her notice Dash, too. And--"Summoner," Lily calls out to Pearl. "Let's crush it."

Segments of armor however rush towards her, and Lily is faced with a choice--break off the offensive and move to shield herself... or keep firing. She chooses the latter, setting up an Etheric inversion field with a wave of her hand and a rippling of strange circuit patterns that converts plasma into Etheric power by the medium of her body--accepting a beam head-on that slams her backward past Leviathan's bulk, into the ground hard enough that it craters beneath her. There is silence.

But pain, too, is fuel. Lily shoots upward into the air, violet energy crackling about her hands as she conjures twin greatswords as large as she is.

"Not a bad idea--any spells on those lines, Hesiod?" Lily sails through the air behind Huracan, moving forward, tiny against the Argus's great form except for the blaze of violet light all around her.

"If I can gather enough power--"

Then she can do something with it. But for now, she swings those blades, hacking away one slash after another at Argus's Reaverbot eyes. "I'll destroy you, machine! With my own power!"

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Megaman Juno with Deployment - Shadow!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's AHT-Dazzle -Holy Maiden's Deceitful Puppet Show- for 238
hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Pacifying Shell for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Drowsy and Weaken applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's TMJN-XIV High Voltage Blade for 142 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Megaman Juno!
<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

Solar power damage armor and hull alone, but a few shots alone are not going to bring Juno's gear down. The armament is made for war. Damage sustained ins inevitable, and accounted for. The vehicle remains whole. Though other's incoming attacks prove troublesome for it as well. Keeping up with the unit provides its own challenges-- ones the Jet Skates help when chasing the moving fight. A ramp off a fallen wall section. A grind down an old pipe.

Even Seymour lashes out at Juno, as a hypertuned beam of energy cuts across the battlefield.

But even as the in-fighting starts between the opposition, they all lash back in their own ways. As large ARMs fire is exchanged, Dash has his own problems to deal with, as a multitude of small drones create an electromagnetic containment field. "Augh!" Dash lets out, seizing under the effect, one of his legs giving out for a moment and dropping him to a knee.

<Ocular Systems - Compromised, repairing-->
<Auxillary targeting - Compromised, repairing-->
<Gyro sensors - Recalibrating-->

Internals are already on the move to counteract this. The Active Buster is out of commission for the time being until it is done. Not that he has many missiles left after the trip through New Kasim. He has about one full clip left.

There is little time to break free before the internals take too much damage. Weapons are quick-swapped, the large launcher gets back-shelved for a much smaller device; the Shield Arm. Fueling internal power to it, it cuts on, producing an almost hex-shaped shield in front. The Mega Buster is fired once again, a stream of much smaller shots. Aimed to clear out the drones, or break up their formation, before more are turned on Juno. Smaller and less sun-powered, but still dangerous.

Dash's eyesight is fully of static, slowly beginning to return to normal, but he ca nsee others Cyre, Lily and Ethius preparing something. "Good luck you guys!" he shouts. Perhaps their machines may fare better fighting something of equal stature.

"I don't care what the Directive could be! It isn't worth whatever you are planning!"

GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Megaman Juno with Phalanx Fusillade!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "Yes," says Citan to Fei, still gazing up at the skies.

    "The stories say... the Omnigears were 'created' by God. Humans can only 'make', but only God can 'create'..."

    Was that really the wrong question to ask, in the end.

    Merely being in Regulus' presence makes things start to happen. Citan's gaze shifts between screen to screen as he watches subtle improvements -- ones that even he hasn't been able to make happen for the recalcitrant Heimdall -- begin to occur within the system processes of his Gear. He had only been able to watch from a remove when that Gear had first taken to the field, had only been able to guess.

    Right now the 'impossible' is happening, if but minutely, within his own machine.
    So this is 'her' power. Perhaps it might be enough to even the odds. It doesn't mean they'll win, even arrayed like this, in these numbers. But--

    'O-Omnigear? Like, uh-- it eats vegetables and meat both??'

    Under other circumstances, perhaps, Citan might have laughed. Instead there is silence on his end, almost as if the usually unflappable doctor were briefly caught off-guard. "Well... not as such, though the root is similar. Ah, but perhaps the linguistics discussion should wait for another time?" he tells her, over their shared channels. "Please use discretion against Seymour, Miss Croze."

    Like he is expecting her... not to do that naturally?

    Shalune, meanwhile, has her own take on the business of Omnigears.

    "Ah... well, there is no helping its current appearance," Citan remarks rather mildly. "Nevertheless, Miss Amira! Please do not underestimate it!" Perhaps he would know bluster from a fellow engineer best, in the end...

    "Their weaknesses... that is a good question, Miss Barber. They are only said to be 'the ultimate Gears' in the stories of old. Though... I have heard, and perhaps Elly might be able to confirm, that the Omnigears were piloted by one's will alone. It is a long shot, but if we were able to 'disrupt' his will... though, I cannot even say whether he might be piloting it in an orthodox manner. Perhaps it may be better, given that factor, to treat him as... a Fiend."

    He has but one response for Lily, now facing off against Juno. That form she's taken--

    "Understood, Lily. Be careful." 'Know your limits', he might as well say.

    Seymour speaks, then, of the true purpose of the Pilgrimage.

    "So... such a sacrifice is required..." utters Citan at first, thinking back of Tidus and their discussion with the young man. He cannot say he knows those who travel with Yuna well (outside of Tidus that is) but to think...

    "It is not our decision to make," is what he says to Seymour in the end. "This is something that only she can decide. If you say that you will become her Final Aeon, you have also taken that decision from her. What is more... your 'magnanimity' in taking this role upon yourself... I do not think that we are able to trust it."

    As Cyre says himself, that power that Seymour may gain by becoming the Final Aeon might be immense. As a man who has declared that the end of the world is his aim, that may mean...

    It is something that cannot be permitted.

    "Elly...! If that is your plan, then I shall assist you! Perhaps we may be able to keep him from focusing on your advance alone!"

    With that, Heimdall stretches both hands outwards towards the Omnigear, a rata-tat-tat of the wrist-mounted guns resounding in those moments as Regulus seems to blur around Seymour.

GS: Citan Uzuki spends 1 Combo on Interrupt!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Seymour Guado with Houei!
GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "Ah-- Gwen! And..." Boudicca's lips twist in self-reproach as she places Lan, the places she has seen her. It is glaring omission as she calls to the now-bigger Emeralda and Xantia: "Pray, be quick! This construct does not hesitate!"

    Let us note that by the time Boudicca has finished her long-winded warning, Azoth has already teleported in to attack, quick as lightning.

    But the lightning-eating shield...

    Boudicca springs to the side of the storm-gusting tempest; that inclement assault is the space where wind and electricity meet, close enough to her reckoning that she can believe she had a part in it. It scours a gash through the air, and her silks sizzle as they don't quite dodge as quickly as the rest of her. It only takes a spark to light them up, huh?

    "Something is different about you," Boudicca says, to him and of him both. But she knows him from the ruins, and so she asks: "Have you claimed more of those buried treasures..?"

    Congratulations, Ragnell! You're a Dig treasure now.

    Boudicca summons another of those sigils about her feet, but this breeze is bolstering, as it wends around the combatants interrupting that dark construct. It's a tailwind at their heels and their hands, a swirling shield of wind to frustrate incoming attacks. If they can keep him away from the Ouroboros Ring... will it just break with reality?

    (Is that a good thing? Boudicca knows little of glitching.)

    Perhaps she would have gotten into Azoth's face like Emeralda does, but she hears Seymour's declarations and at once she staggers, her Arte interrupting before it can reach any of the Gears swirling around them. "This... is the meaning of the Final Aeon?" Boudicca asks, and at once it is eminently clear that she is quite small, in this field of giants. She may well be speaking to herself alone, as she reflects that horror: "... did she know? Did they know?"

    Boudicca takes a step back, a hand to her heart.

    "Lulu speaks with such wisdom... Kimahri knows the wisdom in not speaking. Rikku's spirit is indomitable despite all she has lost, and Wakka adapted despite those myriad revelations he has seen. Auron has the seeming of deep experience about him, and Tidus... Tidus sees how difficult it is, his solutions clear as water! You mean to tell me they, too, came here to die? Yuna dies, Yuna's Guardian dies? A dying planet bids us to live, yet Spira demands so much blood for soil forgotten by all torments but Obsession itself?!"

    She shakes her head, shakes her whole body, hands all grasped to her temples, and she is wide open. Her voice is a wailing keen to cut through the air.

    "This sick mirror of our existence...!"

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius blinks once and turns his gaze towards the comms where Citan gives the warning about the scale of threat that the Issachar represents, even before it being held by the likes of Seymour. Keeping track of the movement of at least three different high level threats of interest, when the over-sensitive warning system wants to point out the possibility there's at least twelve of them, is something of a task as arguments are made over the worth of life and some difficult truths to be made about what the final stage of the Pilgrimate to defeat Sin is.

     Even when not a direct target of the Omnigear, just about every Gear here stands to be collateral in a knock-down drag-out fight between constructs of this scale of power - and as the feather-like protrusions of Issachar's wings lash out for the Argus, Ethius has to engage those jets and move in a linear, exploitable direction because he was this shy of becoming explosive window dressing in the backdrop of a battle between technological titans.

     He can't wrangle back the momentum of the Aiguille by the time the drones fly free of the Argus and start striking from novel angles that exploit these openings. Live fire strikes into middle-grade armor, with one notable spherical, bright yellow-white explosion around the hip as its pilot braces and comes to a crouch.

     He has to keep it low to avoid the sweeping beam from the largest eyes of Argus - by happenstance, Ethius' positioning has been precarious thus far.

     More turbulence has Ethius' right hand accidentally grace the open comms button, leaving some of his open commentary to be shared in a lapse of judgement. "This situation has fallen well out of control."

     Cyre chimes in, and Ethius has to weigh in on the collective tactics between them while making cursory glances to the worrisome displays as regards Lily's undeniable presence as she queries him. "I can only supply ranged suppressing fire. The Aiguille is not equipped with exotic engines for that purpose."

     Getting the Aiguille upright as the beam passes, Ethius engages the dashjets to put some distance. "To take Mister Citan's observations to account, we are dealing with a scale of opponent where our odds of survival in a drawn out conflict are not one I would say aloud." He doesn't have a number, he has a vague concept of 'not good.' "I would endeavor to not directly target key weapons, so long as they intend to fight the Omnigear. We have already observed the use of a high grade laser as an armament against it."

     "Mister Cyre, I will be providing you with supporting tactical information," he says as he keys in the sequence needed to make sure the information transmits in a format compatible with Cyre's - trading over targeting information to Cyre's machine, as he's on the defensive again in an attempt to avoid further drone fire that's going at his position.

GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Intel!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz accepts Ethius Hesiod's Intel for 0 hit points!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Ethius Hesiod's Reload!!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Lan Lilac with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Xantia with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Emeralda Kasim with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Whether it's a misplay by Juno or talent by Billy, the Etone (??) is able to counter Juno's biting lasers; Renmazuo whirls, its cape billowing out behind it as Billy fires one, two shots to disrupt its attacker, then shifts its grip so that a wrist blaster can fire a Cartridge that explodes into a luminous barrier, the Etone cross blazing at its core. Juno's shots slam into that barrier and slice across it, failing to penetrate.

Billy, then, closes in on Juno. Renmazuo's thrusters flare and send the Gear roaring toward him. Despite being armed almost exclusively with guns, he sweeps the two Ether wrist blasers upward, releasing blast after blast of Ether-charged shot on the Argus. Each one detonates into an Ether field, searing away at armor, before Renmazuo drives in at full speed to try and slam a knee directly into the side of the beast, denting the armor further, followed by driving in with his gun, firing shells in to try and tear gaping holes in Argus' defense. Renmazuo's thrusters ignite hard, after, sending the Gear rocketing back and away toward safer ground. "Too focused to distract," Billy mutters. "Fine. It's not like I wanted to take it alive, anyway."

GS: Gwen Whitlock accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Gwen Whitlock!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

"I will not heed the broken guardians of a dying world!" Seymour cries back to Juno.

The Argus locks onto Issachar. Seymour turns his eyes, looking at the machine -- considers it, truthfully -- and then sees the searing beam of light. A series of interlocking hexagons appear, both green and gold; the beam meets the spell, and sparks explode and fly as the beam is held mightily at bay, only some leaking through.

Parts of the Omnigear's armor are melted, nonetheless.

"Begone!" he shouts. A hand is thrust out -- and a magical circle appears, Ether flaring across the Issachar's arm. Then, huge bolts of lightning shoot across the battlefield. Ozone grows thick, as they come crashing down for Juno.

"I will choose my price, Lunata! Not the price that others have chosen for me... not the ones forced upon me!" Seymour shouts back at her. "And if I must use these things, then so be it -- because when I am through, there will be nothing left to regret!"

The Omnigear turns. He takes aim at the Rephaim, and then the Omnigear surges forward. Seymour shouts, before he comes crashing down, and slams the huge lance for the midsection of the Rephaim.

Then, Seymour breaks backward from Rephaim. He turns and looks at Shalune, with a growl -- the lump of metal that Big Shal compacted flies into the Issachar, bouncing off just as he jolts to the side, leaving armor plates crumpled.

"I do not seek Yuna's love or approval. She, too, is a means to an end." His eyes blaze. "I will become Sin... for that is the fate of the Final Aeon." He doesn't address Cyre directly, because he happened to call it. "To be made into the next Sin -- as Tidus's father was. I shall free him of that! I shall become Sin... and END this world!"

Issachar soars forward, It goes into a tight spin, then strikes out hard, and blitzes back after the spear slashes down for Big Shal.

Weltall slams down into Seymour, two punches slamming him and the Omnigear body backward with loud crunches of metal. Issachar scrapes backward -- and Seymour's eyes narrow. "I did not want their acceptance. I do not seek acceptance... for it came at a cost that I find intolerable!"

Issachar levels a hand -- and a massive, magical flame appears. Ether propels it forward, a huge fireball hurtling for Fei's Gear.

Then, Issachar turns -- and his eyes meet the ocular cameras of the Regulus. "I will become Sin! I will become the death of this world!"

The way the Regulus splits -- sixteen of them around -- and Ether roars in. Plasma and water boil around him, and then a blast slams into him from above. The machine is hammered into the plaza, leaving a massive crater.

"I will use the system," he answers Jay, "to shatter it!"

Issachar holds a hand upward. A magical circle fires; Ether explodes, flashing bright blue, too. A massive column of water explodes up into the air, hurtling up towards that seveneteenth Regulus.

The Omnigear turns. The Jaeger's shot fires, slashing into the leg of the Omnigear, with a burst of power and a crackle of electricity... and strange, dark violet fluid that leaks down its leg.

Then, three wing blades fire -- and shoot like missiles, trying to slash through the Jaeger in an instant, as the Issachar takes back to the skies.

GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Megaman Juno with Hard Gun!
GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Citan Uzuki's Houei for 158 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seymour Guado has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Megaman Juno with Ether-Enhanced Thundaga!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Comet Lance!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Spiral Strike!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Ether-Enhanced Firaga!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Wing Slasher!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Ether-Enhanced Watera!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Ether-Enhanced Thundaga for 201 hit points!
GS: Corrode applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a glancing hit from Billy Lee Black's Hard Gun for 91 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Pearl's Crashing Serpent for 298 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno critically guards Dash Caskett's Phalanx Fusillade for 28 hit points!
GS: Cover applied to Dash Caskett!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus and Countermeasures!
GS: Elhaym van Houten critically guards Seymour Guado's Ether-Enhanced Watera for 65 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Elhaym van Houten activates Guard bonus!
GS: Xantia accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Xantia!
GS: Lan Lilac accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Lan Lilac!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Lan has only met Xantia a handful of times, but there's just something... cheering about the red-clad young woman. She has a kind of optimism, a determination she carries with her. One day they really ought to get a chance to hang out someplace besides a battlefield! But for the moment, the battlefield will have to suffice.

    She doesn't recognize Xantia's form of martial arts, but it gives Lan some idea of the things she must be capable of -- especially when her first order of business is to demolish one of Azoth's elbow joints. Lan wants to wince, but she's kind of busy--

    --because oops, Gwen didn't go to Halcyone, after all. "You're one to talk!!" she exclaims, hopping back from Azoth. "You're all beat up, you have an entire freaking GEAR to use, and you're here to scold me?!" What part of 'we both just got beat up by the ancient abandoned city' is Gwen ignoring?!

    Personally, Lan's trying really hard to ignore 'all of it'. She's still afraid of fighting in Gears, anyway.

    That giant chakram comes crashing down, slicing into the stone yet fighting to maintain its presence in the world. It's unnatural. It's not like the light show Azoth had used to explain his memories to her. This is a thing made to kill Gears, isn't it...?

    Red light. Red light, and Azoth is gone, until he isn't.

    His voice, soft as it is, twists in her chest. Lan twists too, throwing her weight forward onto her hands - the heat and tear of one of his swords rips at her back, gouging a valley across her skin - coils like a spring, and launches herself backwards, heels aimed to slam into his visor. "I'm sorry! It'll be over soon, I promise--!"

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Azoth with Black Doe!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
GS: Azoth takes a solid hit from Lan Lilac's Black Doe for 140 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Ether-Enhanced Firaga for 204 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong activates Arcane Font!
GS: CRITICAL! Megaman Juno guards a hit from Lily Keil's Deployment - Shadow for 234 hit points!
GS: Jam and Mute applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wing Slasher for 223 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Riposte applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Spiral Strike for 338 hit points!
GS: Disrupt applied to Shalune Amira!
GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Comet Lance for 418 hit points!
GS: Delay applied to Lunata Croze!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Lunata blinks a few times, a little taken aback at how hard Shalune is going. It's just as personal for her, in a way; there's just a little grin at how proud she is, even if she's not going to say it right now -- but she might tease her about it later.

    Jay also speaks truth to power alongside her, telling Seymour that it's not the world -- it's the systems. Then Lunata nods when she says the Gear's power is unreal. "Yeah... I'm putting up a brave face, but it's stronger than Rephaim too..."

    A pause, as she clenches her hands on the stick and throttle. "But we've faced Mother and lived to tell the tale. We can do this, Jay!"

    Elly performs a technique that dazzles her -- for a moment, there's not one, not two, but sixteen Regulus! Reguli? Reguluses? Creating a veritable storm of illusions, allowing for the real one to slip in... "Elly! That was sick!!" she winds up blurting, perhaps unable to restrain herself.

    Lunata hears something Citan explain, and her brain momentarily short-circuits, though. "Isn't creating and making just the two same words?? And-- and, yeah, I'll use a lot of discretion, Doc! I'll hit him over the face with it!"

    She's learnt the word 'dichotomy'. She hasn't yet learnt the word 'discretion'.

    She may never will.

    The earlier boast about being great at piloting finally comes back to bite her on the butts (as Emeralda would put it), because Issachar's moving forward faster than she and Rephaim can track -- there's a moment where she purchases some escape hiding behind a ruined building, but the Omnigear's lance is powerful enough to just charge straight through and slam into the mid-torso of her Gear.

    Lunata gurgles groggily as warnings fly all over the cockpit, and she's nearly thrown off her seat because she did not heed the warning of putting on her five-point harness.

    Rephaim just lies there for a moment, planted on a broken piece of road where the lance's breached it.

    It's not really strength or stamina or the power of the Gear that gets her going back up -- it's what Seymour says.

    "Hey... you heard what the guy said, right? On the video. Ancient Filgaians made Spira... figures it means that means Sin is Filgaaia's Sin too. It's just... how do you even say you'll condemn this world with that."

    The Gear flinches and starts to pull itself back out, sparks running through its entire body.

    "I'm not gonna be 'that' kinda person... the kind of person that says 'my dad did it, so it's not my problem'... you get thirty people saying that every thirty years, and that's how we got to where we are... 'it's not my problem'..."

    The Rephaim's eyes flash once more, as its belly hungrily devours light; motes whirr from within it, and suddenly-- it shines with a burst of Ley-powered light as she fires from the prone position straight up at Issachar.

    "Ancient Filgaians started this. We got a responsibility to clean it up."

GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Lunata Croze receives 100 temporary hit points.
GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Delay expired!
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with XA-G6 Multiphase Ley Cannon!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    The identity of the Gear(?) was already there. Emeralda and Lan had called out Azoth's name, even.

    "Wait, you wanted me to...? I thought you were just leavin' me to rest!" Just, Gwen had moved so quickly to try to get ahead of Lan, knowing exactly the source of the black ribbons that power Lan right now. "I can't call my Gear from here anyway! I'm gonna cover you. Just... don't use that stuff, oka--"

    Azoth comes from above, his weight sending that sharp edge deep into her shoulder, drawing a scream from the redhead. She falls to her knees as Azoth dissipates into pixels, gripping her left shoulder with her right hand. "... Damn it..." She no longer has the gall to continue to urge Lan to stop, after that.

    But, slowly, that notion comes to Gwen.
    
    Just, not yet.

    As she tries to wrap her shoulder with her neckerchief, Gwen opens one eye, looking towards Seymour and his impossible Gear. He's speaking. With the blood pounding in her ears, Seymour's words might as well be occurring at the other end of a train platform. Yuna... one of her Guardians... becoming the Final Aeon. Tidus's... father? Tidus and Yuna. Tidus and Yuna. The way the story would go is Yuna would have to turn Tidus into her Aeon, and make it a tragic love story. Because they are in love, but maybe that's just Gwen's own need to inject her silly novels into reality. But is it really that silly? Is it silly to think that people could fall in love, and even if they didn't, that they would be two friends, bound by situation, their story unfolding into something so much more as two people, bonded by adversity, kin by trimuph?

    And Seymour wants to... save them, and then, end it all.

    Boudicca expresses her rage better than Gwen with her blank stare, unable to comprehend. Energy flows through Gwen, jumpstarting her own.

    ".... That's not the way any of this goes."

    A sphere of pyrite yellow energy expands from the wide-eyed Gwen, rapidly growing to encompass the field, spreading past Juno, to Seymour, and--

    It shatters, as Gwen collapses to her knees.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Azoth with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Megaman Juno with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seymour Guado with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Delay! Attack weakened!
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Lunata Croze's XA-G6 Multiphase Ley Cannon for 141 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
GS: Lunata Croze drains Seymour Guado! Lunata Croze gains 160 temporary hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seraph Ragnell used Defend! She takes Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire attack on Azoth on herself!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia inwardly breathes a sigh of relief as the massive ring weapon falls, hoping that she's done enough to prevent the kind of massive destruction that thing could have done. It doesn't feel great having to break a limb to do it, especially given that this android has given plenty of indication that it feels pain, and does so again. Though in the end, Xantia mostly feels relief that she was able to control her actions at all. That little voice telling her to destroy everything to do with Solaris has so far failed to get a hold over her. Hopefully, she can keep it that way.

It even affords her a little moment with Emeralda, smiling brightly at the way this sudden growth spurt is explained to her. "You thought, huh? I see. Well... if this is where your thoughts led you, I don't think that's weird at all." Well, Xantia seems to understand. Chances are that she couldn't explain exactly why this makes sense to her, but... it doesn't appear to be difficult for her to accept, at any rate.

She also notes Emeralda is speaking to the android in Zeboim. She can't really piece together what she's saying from the few words she manages to understand, but she can tell there's outrage involved. Then the apology comes in the common tongue, and it's clear that they're on the same page here. Then there's nothing else to say, for the moment.

Besides, soon she has to move. She didn't need Azoth to verbally confirm it to know that a counterattack is inevitable. Boudicca's magic comes just in time to aid in protecting her, allowing her swifter reaction time to weave in between the beams sent her way, and protection against the heat searing her skin with that close shave. That could have been a lot worse. She should know, it was worse, last time.

Though knowing it would be best if she immediately struck again, hearing Boudicca's words, losing spirit like that... she simply can't not say anything.

"Boudicca! Don't listen to that guy, what he says won't happen! I don't know Yuna personally, but I know people like her... and people like that, when given a choice like that, they won't choose either! They'll find a better choice to make!"

Light streams out from Xantia's body as she speaks, surrounding her as she calls on the most appropriate element for the moment. She sees Lan go for the eyes, such as they are, and she's ready to follow up, ducking in low with a quick series of Ether-backed punches. Unlike last time, she isn't moving away afterwards. "...Nobody wants this fight. Why is it happening anyway?" Rhetorical question. Solaris, that's why. "I don't know if there's anything in there that can hear me, but if so, I hope you're giving it your all to fight back! As long as you don't give up, you'll succeed eventually!"

GS: Xantia has attacked Azoth with Lustrous Aura!
GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Xantia assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Xantia takes 28 damage from Poison!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    Juno is performing what should be Azoth's duty. He's a bureaucratic model, and his combat subroutines were developed out of necessity. The Argus' design capitalizes on his ability to coordinate and calculate; the drones are autonomous enough that he doesn't have to micromanage them, once he's given them broad instructions. He's not a Gear AI, though, and never was. A cold dissonance settles in his thoughts as the Ouroboros Ring winks out of existence. A digital transmission flies through the air, for Azoth's core alone.

    Deploying Shepherd drones to reinforce shielding.

    The backs of the Argus' shoulders hinge open, spreading like wings. The armor snaps apart into four distinct drones, these ones with the eyes on the ventral surface. One soars over and tries to keep pace with Azoth, matching his erratic teleporting with bursts of speed. The other three hover around the Argus' drone flock in its entirety. The air shimmers blue-violet as a defensive field ignites between them, protecting Juno as well as his (relatively) smaller ally.

    "This phenomenon cannot be allowed to remain in possession of that machine," Juno says, his voice still maddeningly calm despite the chaos outside. He sees the Huracan coming at him; the Argus raises two of its arms, engulfed in the defensive field, to block. A hideous electronic screeching tears through the plaza as Cyre's blade grates against the hybrid Gear's shield--and then it punches through. It's only down for a split-second, but that's long enough for Cyre to carve a gash in the Argus' breastplate, and discharge current into its systems. Errors surge through Juno's thoughts. Reflexively, he deploys diagnostic and repair subroutines.

    "Your desires are as irrelevant as they are illogical," Juno shoots back, at Seymour. Lightning leaps across the field, raking across the Argus' frame. More static fills Juno's thoughts, and he wonders, for a moment, if this is a fraction of how Azoth feels right now.

<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    But despite the static in his thoughts, the drones keep moving. The arm that slammed into Cyre's shield arcs high through the air, flying beneath a ruined overpass as it reacquires lock. Its fingers peel and twist, contorting themselves out of the way as a cannon emerges from its palm. Plasma boils through the air as it tries to sear a scalding line right down Huracan's back.

    Dash's shots cause the drones surrounding him to scatter; one takes a glancing hit to the ventral surface, and starts spinning out of control. But more drones deploy, racing across the field to join the flock harrying the Megaman. These ones, much like the previous set, have their own color scheme--deep indigo, pale cream, light blue. The jamming field begins to intensify, adding an element of magnetic resistance to Dash's joints. If he can't shake the lock, he's going to feel like he's moving through molasses, at best. But someone engaging Azoth erupts in an electromagnetic field so strong it trips one of the Argus' breakers. Some of the drones start to wobble in mid-air, as if disoriented.

    "What are you?" There's static in Juno's voice as Lily charges him. Moments later, Renmazuo and Leviathan do the same. Juno immediately prioritizes Lily... but as the Argus' arm moves to spike her into the ground, she's already flying under it, her blades CARVING through the machine's under-armor. The Argus floats back, trailing sparks and smoke from terrible gashes in its waist. Leviathan slams into it from behind, the great serpent's jaws CRUNCHING into its left shoulder joint. All three attached arms detach at once to prevent further damage, flying back and around to try and stop Billy's gear. They plant themselves against its chest and shoulders, shoving, throwing off his aim just enough to turn his flying knee into a glancing hit. Ether boils across the Argus' frame. Too close, Juno thinks. Far too close.

    For a moment, he envies Azoth.

    The rest of the Argus' drones deploy. More shielding drones peel off, orbiting it like kite-shaped satellites. The ventral pseudo-limbs twist and separate, forming cannons. All that's left of the Argus proper is a head and torso, ensconced within defensive fields. The rest...

    Well. Juno lets the random number generator run, then runs that through a genetic evolutionary algorithm, then runs that through the drones' targeting software. He's rolling the dice and hoping they produce something too chaotic and terrible to respond to. It's chaotic, at least; the various drone-flocks start swooping about, linking up and separating seemingly at random, chasing targets and strafing at irregular, panic-inducing intervals. There's no pattern, no sense to any of it. It's like one of those little scrolling shooter games Marivel likes to play, except even worse.

GS: Megaman Juno has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Megaman Juno with Shepherd the Flock!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Azoth with Shepherd the Flock!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Shepherd the Flock!
GS: Megaman Juno accepts Megaman Juno's Shepherd the Flock for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock State, Quick, and Shield applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Brachial Turret!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Dash Caskett with Bulwark-Class Interdictor Drone!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Pearl with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Billy Lee Black with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Seymour Guado with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Lily Keil with Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 2 Combo!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model for 274
hit points!
GS: Hex applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Lily Keil critically guards Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model for 31 hit
points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model for
404 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hex applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Pearl takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model for
574 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Pearl gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hex applied to Pearl!
GS: CRITICAL! Cyre H. Lorentz takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Brachial Turret for 406 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cyre H. Lorentz gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Azoth critically guards Xantia's Lustrous Aura for 23 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cover applied to Xantia!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Azoth accepts Megaman Juno's Shepherd the Flock for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock State, Quick, and Shield applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Ragnell accepts Megaman Juno's Shepherd the Flock for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock State, Quick, and Shield applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Dash Caskett guards a hit from Megaman Juno's Bulwark-Class Interdictor Drone for 67 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dash Caskett gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Slow applied to Dash Caskett!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"Piloted by one's will..." Jacqueline repeats with a frown as Citan explains how Omnigear's are supposedly piloted, considering it. "...If we can disrupt his well, that might do something yeah. But, you're right... it almost looks like he's... puppeteering it, more than piloting it..."

...It's almost enough to make her feel a little bad for Issachar.

Still, she can't help but smile as Lunata encourages her. It makes her feel more relaxed - more confident.

"...You're right. It isn't the first time we've faced seemingly insurmountable odds." Jacqueline replies. "We can do this."

And then, Seymour says something surprising - to become Sin is the fate of the Final Aeon. And the current Final Aeon - the current Sin - is Tidus's father.

"That's..." Jacqueline starts. She shakes her head in disbelief. That's a lot to take in, and a part of her wonders, ill to her stomach, how Yuna and the others will react when they find out. But she has bigger concerns at the moment. Her shot lands, but it attracts Seymour's attention. Wing missiles fire, and Jacqueline reacts by quickly inserting a Crest Graph into the Jaeger's console. The Gear raises a hand, bringing up a pillar of stone to intercept them. But it only reduces their momentum slightly - they slice through the stone and impact the Jaeger solidly and send it reeling, Lunata's barrier crackling dangerously as they do. If it weren't for that, it very well may have been sliced completely through. Jacqueline is well aware of that.

"...And... then what, Seymour? Say you do end this world - what comes after that? Nothing? What we have now isn't great... but we can still make it better - we can still improve things. But if you end this world... that's it - all that potential, erased. How is that any better?" Jacqueline replies. "There's always the chance for things to get better, if we work toward it. They can get worse, too, sure... but I'll always gamble on that chance for improvement every time."

And right now... if she wants to do that, Seymour needs to be stopped. Unfortunately, there's a slight problem.

"He's back in the skies again..." Jacqueline comments with a frown. "This might be a tricky shot to make..."

She's swapped out her Gear's ammunition again, and she takes aim once more, carefully trying to reposition herself as she does. It seems like she might have done something to it... if she can just limit Issachar's ability to repair its subsystems, they might have a better chance. And so, she fires, with ammunition designed to do just that.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Perpetuating Shell!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    "Don't look at me," Shalune notes to Jay with a brief flash of a smile and a shrug from where she's visible on the back of Big Shal. "Whatever makes that thing tick, whatever weaknesses it might have, it's not anything I know about. I'd have to spend a good couple of weeks up to my elbows in it to figure out how it works, and I'm absolutely not doing that when it's Seymour at the same time."

    She falls uncharacteristically silent at Citan's warning for just a beat too long. Shalune's got a lot of respect for the doctor, and it's obvious that for a few moments, her indefatigable good nature and conscientiousness is warring with her current annoyance and anger. Eventually, she settles for a quiet reply: "It's not the Gear I'm underestimating, Doc." She watches as the Argus almost punches a hole in the Issachar's shield, and the way the plating beneath it warps and twists. "Besides, it melts like anything else."

    Why is she going so hard on Seymour? She wonders that herself, even without Lunata having to say anything, and doesn't really have the best of answers. Maybe it's partially the way they arrived on Spira - from the very start, the Maester had been there to offer them guidance and assistance, and the Church of Yevon had offered Lunata some degree of peace right when she really needed it. Maybe it's because she likes Spira, the liveliness and hopeful nature of its people, and seeing it smashed time and time again has worn on her.

    Either way, learning how ridiculous the cycle of Spira is certainly isn't helping. "So you'll become Sin. And then what?" she challenges through gritted teeth, hanging on for dear life as Big Shal blocks the spear with two large, bulbous fists. It's unthinkable that a tiny golem could dare attempt to hold off an attack from a weapon that is frankly larger than it, but somehow, amidst a fervent whine of strained machinery, it holds out - pieces of the golem's structure rebuilding itself just as fast as it is depleted.

    Shalune feels a wave of nausea cross her at the effort, though, and wobbles slightly before she furrows her brow and forces herself to focus. "Did any of the other Guardians secretly want to attack people? I don't think you get to do what you want or don't want if you turn into Sin. So what's going to happen next? Another Sin, another summoner, another Guardian. You're not shattering the system, you're just giving it another go-around!"

    "Lunie!" she yells hoarsely, as the Rephaim slamming into the ground is apparently more of a concern than Big Shal still under fire. Before the mechanic can really know what she's doing, she's swung to one side and flung herself off of the scaffolding on the back of the golem, racing on foot towards the white Gear as she hefts her backpack off her shoulders and starts to root through it.

    She has to yelp and cover her eyes as the sky suddenly blazes into light in front of her, an arm across her face as she pushes forwards. She's glad to know Lunata's still conscious, at least, even if she's going to be seeing stars for a while. The heat of the discharge sears her face as she skids to a halt on her knees near to the Rephaim's thigh, and pulls open a service port, a diagnostic monitor she'd built a while back in her hands ready to plug it in.

    She's used to working fast - by now, she knows the non-black-box parts of the Gear in and out. It isn't more than a few seconds before the shield around the Rephaim bolsters itself, and Shalune huffs in quiet pride. "--all good!" she reports in a moment's triumph, then remembers where she is and is sent scuttling back to Big Shal's cover.

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Lunata Croze with Quick-Fix -Plating-!
GS: Shalune Amira has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Shalune Amira assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Shalune Amira heals Lunata Croze! She gains 300 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield applied to Lunata Croze!
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Perpetuating Shell for 61 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hex applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seymour Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

Ragnell's reassurance does perhaps more for Azoth's internal distress at the moment than her attempts to shake off the excess power surges. A friend... is all he's able to communicate before the glitches drown out a more nuanced response.

He wishes he were protecting her, not putting her in harm's way. He wishes he could grant her even a fraction of the assistance she's given him.

"<Authorization required,>" Azoth says to Emeralda, but even in that robotic response, there is the slightest dip of his head. Apologetic? Or is the machine merely struggling to keep its own head upright with the damage to its frame? Emeralda's boomerang of an arm grazes against the exposed wires of Azoth's body. Sparks fly, but hardware isn't fully severed. Her head sized fist cracks open plate, exposing more mechanical innards.

He wishes he could speak with her, knowing there's a kinship there, from a time long forgotten. She's learned and she's grown and he wants to know what it means to be able to decide that.

Lan's heels smash directly into Azoth's visor. Cracks split across it in a web, shattered chunks falling to the ground. There is only a black, empty void in his skull behind it.

He wishes he could speak with her again. He wishes he could tell her everything, and whether she rejects him or accepts as he is at least he would deserve it.

Gwen's will seems to be wilting with Seymour's words. With a plan of sacrifice and tragedy. An unhappy ending. Her flames come, with Ragnell there to help shield him.

He wishes he wasn't writing another potential unhappy ending right now. That he wasn't going to be a cause of worry she shows to her friends on the battlefield. That she and Lan didn't have to argue about who needed to be more careful.

Xantia comes at him with Ether fists, and though her blows seem to strike and rattle Azoth, the construct manages to stay aloft, drifting back to reposition his battered body. More painful is her insistence that if he only keeps trying, he could overcome the programming. How much more does he have to try?

He wishes he could tell her he found more of his memories. He wishes he could tell her the more he finds, the more it hurts, and see if maybe she understood.

Juno sends his concern in the form of a poor drone that's forced to scramble after Azoth relentlessly. Azoth cannot even slow for its comfort. He fears he won't be able to protect it past the overrides.

He wishes he could speak freely, that he could convince Juno his plans aren't the optimal way to fulfill his objectives. That there may be a more logical way toward an efficiently run future -- that there's a future where they can co-exist and not rush headlong into a battle that forces their enemies to destroy them.

Boudicca -- along with heartfelt thoughts of those who work to complete the pilgrimage for Spira -- sends out guardian, shielding winds to her allies in the fight against Azoth. A blinding surge of calculations slam into Azoth, dizzying perhaps even to Ragnell: Boudicca just became the number one threat priority.

He wishes he weren't an obstacle for her, another source of pain and fear to exercise her courage against. He wishes he could thank her properly instead of repaying her in violence, like he always does.

But can Azoth truly call them wishes? Desires? Wants? Determinations born of objectives erroneously left behind when he was overridden with this new, agonizing set.

Azoth sets his sights on Boudicca first.

"Target acquired."

All his lights smolder dangerously as he teleports into the sky to dive down toward her in vicious pursuit. Several swords appear, orbiting him -- that his arms are busted seems to be no obstacle to a machine that does not need to wield them in his claws. He dashes past her, cleaving through with the windmill of blades, then turns and fires off two bursts of crimson light that fire in ravaging, explosive beams toward Emeralda and Xantia.

GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with exec.bel TARGET ACQUIRED!
GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's exec.bel TARGET ACQUIRED for 0 hit points!
GS: Amplify and Hyper applied to Azoth!
GS: Mighty applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Billy Lee Black takes a glancing hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model
for 105 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hex applied to Billy Lee Black!
GS: Azoth spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Azoth has attacked Seraph Boudicca with exec.mec DELETE!
GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Azoth spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with exec.ohr UNINSTALL!
GS: Azoth has attacked Emeralda Kasim with exec.ohr UNINSTALL!
GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Azoth has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre was unfortunately right on the money with regards to Seymour's ultimate goals. Or, rather, he speculated that he was after some kind of power, but the *specific* kind of power he's after-- that's something that makes Cyre's heart sink into his gut and vitriol surge into his throat. "You... You what!? You mean to fuse yourself with a Clysmian? You're insane!" Nevermind that he, himself, does something very similar... Albeit with a mere fragment of Fengalon's power. "You'd be swept up by the ley! What you 'are' would just... disperse into Obsession's essence! It's suicide!"

But then--

Maybe that's exactly what Seymour wants.

He's distracted, his mind is occupied with the stark horror of what the Guado Meister intends. Cyre doesn't even notice...

That the arm he thought was deflected-- wasn't, in fact, anything close. A beam of scalding energy scrapes across the Huracan's back and shoulders. Its vaunted thruster column ignites in a plume of white-hot flame as fuel lines cook off. Cyre shouts as he's slammed head-first into his console, the Huracan veering off-course before landing, hard, through several overpasses and into a highway.

Its thrusters detatch with a hiss before flying off like an out of control bottle rocket and exploding in the distance. Cyre hisses a curse as he forces himself up, reduced to nothing more than his plain old standard mobility suite. "Damnit... That's what I get for getting distracted...!"

Lily seems onboard for his plan, though it looks like it may not be getting off the ground now. He's in no shape for it, and Ethius isn't equipped for it. But...

Something in the tactical data that flashes across his screen gives him pause. At the moment that weird machine with the ring released an electromagnetic wave, Juno's drones... faltered.

There. There could be something there.

"Guys," he whispers in tightbands to the nearby gears (and Volnutt), "I'm going to try something. This is gonna sound crazy, but on my mark, shut down all sensors for two seconds. OK?"

The Huracan braces its shield, directing the halfway shredded bulwark at the nexus-heart above it. They don't want to take down all of its weapons, else they lose a powerful countermeasure against Seymour, but... If they let it keep running rampant, then they all might die. At first it looks as though the Huracan is preparing a retreat, darting through the city with its shield held high, absorbing the occasional pot-shot from randomly firing drones. Its maneuvering thrusters fire periodically, sending it hopping up buildings and overpasses, climbing ever higher...

Until finally he's in position. That shield is still held high, but...

"Now!"

Cyre flips a switch. The Huracan's shield seems to unfold, latches and armor plates coming undone to reveal a series of crackling, capacitive interlocks hidden within. An instant later, those interlocks snap open, unleashing crackling arcs of electric energy that flood a series of emitters mounted along the shield's dorsal line. Electronic chaos erupts, a blast of screeching static blasts across all communication bands as pure electromagnetic noise tears through the Zanarkand area.

...And most of it is directed by the positioning of that shield, beaming like scramble-code from a land-mounted radio array, right up at Juno and his drones.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 2 Combo on Poison and Interrupt!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Megaman Juno with Capacitor Discharge - Noise Blaster!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
GS: Emeralda Kasim accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Emeralda Kasim!
GS: CRITICAL! Emeralda Kasim takes a solid hit from Azoth's exec.ohr UNINSTALL for 248 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Emeralda Kasim gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam and Poison applied to Emeralda Kasim!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Pearl's eyes go wide as dinner plates. Her heart freezes in her chest. "That... cannot be..."

    'I will become Sin... for that is the fate of the Final Aeon.'

    Pearl stares in disbelief. Is that she was fighting for? To turn her Guardian... to turn Jean into another monster? A being of hate that only exists to kill? That devastates the world. That anyone would want that.... to become such a thing.

    "If that is... If that is true, what was the point of any of this!?" Pearl yells, to Seymour, to the battlefield. "If the solution to Sin is to create a new one then... Why even fight? Why sacrifice so many people for something completely pointless!?" Why does it hurt so much? Her whole body sags, clinging to Leviathan's fin. Did the Fayth know? She stares at Leviathan's back. "Why.... why did you accept me if this was what awaited?"

    The Aeon gives no answer. For a moment she is still, immobile on the battlefield, even as Leviathan moves defensively.

    *Do you see yet? You'll never change anything. You'll never make the world better. At best your actions are futile. But you only make things worse. You are a blight. A monster. Accept it.*

    And suddenly, Leviathan moves, curling thewir tail around themselves to guard Pearl, as the drones surround her and Leviathan both. The Lord of All Water's screeches in pain, and it echoes through Pearl's body. Pyreflies soar off it in droves, flaring out and blanketing the area. It's a horrific scene, the Aeon shuddering as it tries to keep up right.

tPearl places a hand on Leviathan's back, closing her eyes. "...Leviathan. Stop. There is no point anymore. You have done enough." It's time she accepted defeat. She can't change anything. She can't improve anything. It's time to be done. It's time to stop fighting the inevitable, and let Juno's beams finish her.

    And then a part of her soul roars in defiance.

    "This is the end you would accept? Fighting only to give up here? What kind of coward are you!?" The words of Leviathan scream in her soul. Her eyes open wide again.

    "But what can I do?" She asks, tears dripping down her face. "I'm-"

    "Shut up! Fight for the sake of living! Fight to keep going! You didn't stop when you couldn't beat your master alone! So why stop now!?"

    She pauses. Fight to stay alive. She'd done that before, but...

    "Are you really so dense you don't think you have people to go back to? What about saving the kids? Or was I wrong!?"

    Something clicks. It finally gets there. "...You weren't wrong." She says, barely audible. She hears Lily shout over her spells, and nods. "...Yes. We have to fight. If just to stay alive. If just to go back." Her grey eyes, her tear stained face, glare straight at Argus. "Lady sorceress, let us destroy it utterly." She points her staff forward. "Leviathan! Wash away this foul machine!"

    The Aeon roars to the heavens, and a wave of energy and water surges for the Argus and the Argus alone, looking to wash away it's strength, and maybe wash it away itself, as they crash on and past the giant gear.

GS: Pearl has attacked Megaman Juno with Surging Waters!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Megaman Juno's Nexus Firing Pattern - Stochastic Model for 169
hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hex applied to Gwen Whitlock!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

I will use the system to shatter it!

Hm...

Fei doesn't hear that one because high powered magical fire ether slams into Weltall. Fei, thanks to Moor Gault's blessing, is pretty ressilient to fire. Weltall? Not especially. Armor plating melts and twists underneath the Omnigear's power. This doesn't FEEL like what Elly can put out, but perhaps that's because her Omnigear seems to have some unique and strange abilities of his own. Fei thinks briefly what he'd be like in an OMnigear and shudders. He should stay away from them. The fact that Seymour hasn't destroyed him yet is a testament to how the race to murder people and destroy things doesn't end. But he certainly can't match the Omnigear like this. He has to count that TEAMWORK and FRIENDSHIP will save the day.

"What price is that?" Fei asks. "I just don't understand you. Maybe if I understood you, I could understand him... You seem to have some things in common."

Even if Id hasn't really pushed it lately, he can't help but feel like he's just... waiting for something. Waiting for that moment.

Fei flips back in Weltall and darts in quickly, sending a flurry of kicks with his leg before snapping back and sending a quick burst of chi energy out of his hands towards Seymour's Omnigear.

"Created by God...?" Fei murmurs. It's strange to even imagine what Citan is saying here. He understands it, mostly. That's the horrifying thing. He thinks he understands it.

Wht does God need with a giant robot? Or a starship for that matter. "Why...would God make things like this?" He asks.

As he struggles to survive, he hopes---he hopes that it'll work out. That maybe this will be the last battle somehow.

It won't be. But he hopes it will be anyway because that is what it takes for him to keep fighting against such might. To trick himself into believing, if just for one moment.

But suffering doesn't end, he thinks. So how do you just...

...WHAT do you do with that information?

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Kishin!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Xantia critically guards Azoth's exec.ohr UNINSTALL for 38 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Xantia activates Guard bonus!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Azoth's exec.mec DELETE for 275 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    A 'friend,' huh... Ragnell is quietly thoughtful, but leaves it at that with but a bit of calm confidence sent Azoth's way. It's an unspoken feeling of: He'll have his turn to help her out sometime, she's sure. Until then--he doesn't need to worry about it. She's tough. He doesn't need to worry about her getting hurt, beyond how--well. How a friend might.
    
    And Ragnell *is* a freaking treasure, Boudicca, thank you for noticing.
    
    Zeboim is also Ancient Tongue, and so Ragnell understands Emeralda's question--not that she can or will answer it, and not that Azoth could answer it properly either. But she, too, seems to not really want to fight Azoth. Perhaps it's because they have some things in common, though... Even when you're in Super Enemy Mode, you're jus' too sweet for folks to want to beat up, she remarks, an observation that's half joke and half serious. Well, that's all right by me.
    
    Juno sends another transmission--this time conveying that they'll help with Azoth's defenses by sending out the drones. Being inside of Azoth, they strengthen Ragnell as well. She observes these hovering devices for a moment, keeping up with Azoth even with his own teleportation, even as she maintains her own regulation of his internal heat. It would be easier if she had actual ice techniques to cool him down, rather than using her lightning to remove what heat there is--but short of a trip to the Ice Shrine, that's not happening. Best to make do with what she's got.
    
    Meanwhile Boudicca voices her outrage at the truth Seymours speaks about the Final Aeon and what must be further sacrificed to keep Spira only temporarily safe. Ragnell also thinks this is bullshit, but she doesn't think it's Spira itself requesting these sacrifices. Seymour had said something about an Unsent like him--one named Yunalesca. If *she's* the one pulling the strings, then it's not really fair to compare Spira to a dying planet and its own Guardians, is it? ...That's a secondary concern, though, to when Azoth suddenly pulls out blistering calculations, surprising Ragnell, and sets Boudicca as number-one targets. Damn, Az, talk about takin' out the healer! she utters, reflecting that surprise.
    
    That aside... Ragnell hadn't realized at first, because of the distortion in Azoth's voice, but--he addressed Lan by name, didn't he? Even though he's in this form. And Lan all but trips over herself apologizing, even though she went immediately into her ink-ribbon form. In other words, she knows he's a threat she must take seriously, but she doesn't want to hurt him. And even in this state, Azoth should be more careful than to address a frienemy by name. In other words...
    
    She knows it's you?
    
    It's phrased like a question, but it's more like seeking confirmation.
    
    Meanwhile Lan and Gwen yell at each other for not taking better care of themselves. Digitally, Ragnell shakes her head. Those two are, she's pretty sure, never going to change. Gwen falls into despair, though, sending out a dome of energy--Ragnell intercepts it with the barrier before it can interfere with Azoth's systems; she can handle this kind of energy better than he can, anyway. Xantia meanwhile shouts encouragement, pointing out that someone like Yuna would find another way when presented with an awful choice like that. Be nice if she's right. But it sounds like this's been the system for a thousand years. I wonder what Yuna'll end up doin'...
    
    As for just trying harder to overcome his programming... well. It's really not that easy, is it. Having spent as much time in his circuits as she has, Ragnell understands that better than most. Frustrating, isn't it? When someone tries to spout a 'solution' without really understandin' the problem. I'm sure I've committed that crime a few times myself, though.
    
    No matter, though. With Azoth on the offense, Ragnell does likewise, amping up the lightning that crackles around and out of the android's twitching frame. It whorls out in a great circular glyph aimed to catch Gwen and Lan within its circumference; then multiple prongs of lightning crash down around them, several on various points of the outline, then in a torrent down the middle that might tear away that protective wind as if it were no more than... well, air.

GS: Seraph Ragnell has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Divine Saber!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Lan Lilac with Divine Saber!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado fully evades Fei Fong Wong's Kishin for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Renmazuo moves well, and its pilot is skilled, but maybe the distinction between a Gear and an Omnigear is plain in the way that even a well-piloted, high-spec gear looks like an untrained child next to the lifelike smoothness of an Omnigear's movement.

Juno's arms grab and shift him, forcing him off course and then blast him with lasers. He's able to move swiftly to avoid them, but there's limits to that and he hears pinging from his sensors as armor scores from the damage.

He takes a deep breath, hand pressed to his chest. Renmazuo does the same, as light radiates from the Gear an Etone Ether-enhancer taking the energy bursting off of him and firing it in every direction, radiating light and holy warmth across the attending Gears, filling their systems with the power of a man's most precious possession. "Please," he breathes.

GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sacred Veil!
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Lily Keil with Sacred Veil!
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Dash Caskett with Sacred Veil!
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Sacred Veil!
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Pearl with Sacred Veil!
GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Divine Saber for 206 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dispel! Burst, Quick, and Shield removed!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Billy Lee Black heals Lily Keil! She gains 110 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Billy Lee Black heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 220 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Billy Lee Black!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "Well... they are similar acts! You are not incorrect, Miss Croze. But one is only the shadow of the other," Citan says, perhaps wisely deciding not to get into the weeds of the linguistics involved with the origins of the two terms. "In any case, er, well..."

    There is a pause.

    "That is not what discretion..."

    Another pause.

    "...Perhaps that is for the best, Miss Croze." Sometimes you have to simply cut your losses.

    "It would seem so. According to the stories, Miss Barber, only those who had been chosen were able to pilot the Omnigears. If that is correct, then not just anyone would be able to use them." Does Seymour have those requirements, then? "It would seem that your observation would be an apt one. Puppeteering, rather than piloting..."

    He's silent himself a moment at Shalune's response to him. "I see. It is true that it is not being... properly piloted," he responds. "But even so, even if it can be damaged like any other... remember that is the nature of all things." In other words, the same applies to her, too.

    Why would God make something like an Omnigear, Fei asks.

    "Perhaps it is only a story," Citan answers him after a moment's pause. "Or, perhaps, once even God had need to..." He doesn't finish his sentence. He likely doesn't need to.

    "Do not let this discourage you, Fei."

    But there is more yet to be revealed to them. The fate of the Summoner is to die. The fate of one of those who travels with them is to become something Other. And then, after that, their fate is...

    "The Final Aeon... becomes..."

    Even Citan falls silent for a long weighty moment at that revelation.

    "...So that has been your plan. You have been plotting this for some time, have you not? If I may hazard a guess, should I assume that your plan will not end with Spira or even Lunar?"

    He continues, even if he is interrupted: "You intend to destroy everything. Is that correct?"

    He's at a disadvantage himself: as long as the Omnigear remains in the air, it will remain difficult for him to strike it directly. Heimdall is not capable of flight on its own, not beyond the jets that permit it to hover.

    And so there's another quick fire of the ARMs loaded on Heimdall's wrists and forearms; this time he's taken the opportunity to load flare shells, though even he is uncertain what -- if any -- effect the shells will have on something that quite technically doesn't need eyes to see.

GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Seymour Guado with Kawagiri!
GS: Cover and Riposte expired!
GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Citan Uzuki's Kawagiri for 75 hit points!
GS: Blind applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Seymour is pressed - and yes, it does feel right to say Seymour, doesn't it? - and yet, and yet. He has this power, and it is enough. Perhaps more than enough. For a moment Elly thinks: The main thing that's saving our lives is that he isn't used to it, isn't it?

A moment later, Seymour stares at her - AT HER - and Elly realizes the illusion has either failed or been seen through. A moment later Regulus is flitting away, but it is - as of yet - an entity bound to the chains of matter, energy, space and time, and so the motion is not fast enough. Water flies towards her, amplified by Ether. Seymour is working outside of the simple system Elly once sketched for Lily.

Elly meets water with fire; another surge of shockingly bright, almost solar plasma, pure and refined Fire itself, smashes out into the incoming water. The result turns a super-accelerated hyper-pressurized death strike into an enormous cloud of steam; it is enough that Elly feels the temperature in her cockpit rise nine degrees Celsius, enough to make her sweat, even if there is no transmission of humidity with it.

In that momentary passage of displaced heat, Regulus's face seems to shift slightly. Condensation? Or...

"You'd make it so that no-one could defeat you, wouldn't you? You'd end this cruel cycle, but you'd also take away the hope, even if it's imperfect," Elly answers Seymour. "You would leave people without hope. Nothing could stop you. The best they could do is buy time, until their resources ran out..."

And after Spira? Elly thinks. The rest of Lunar would be easy enough. What would stop Seymour? He could just as easily use the Elw teleporters as they could. Even if he couldn't, he could fly into space -- or simply build a telescope and watch Filgaia die.

Who would stop him? Elly thinks. The Emperor? Shevat? No, they wouldn't, she thinks as her face crumples up. Cruelties stacked atop cruelties. Can there really - is there -

'As Tidus's father was!'

Elly weeps into the heel of her hand for a moment. Is there nothing? With all this power? Maybe, maybe if, Elly thinks, shattered flinders of some sort of a plan, something beyond the naked desire to flee as far as she can, to burrow into the dirt and shudder alone. None of them do more than sparkle with pain. Elly rubs over her reddened, wet eyes. The meaningless phosphors match the thoughts. She can hear Jay's courage and hope. It makes her face burn with shame. Why doesn't Jay have this machine, Elly thinks. I -

The experience had been not unlike falling into the ocean, except that this sort of plummet - typically - reaches a dark, deep place, and then... well, most likely you come up to somewhere a little more sunlit, or sometimes, you do not. Elly has neither of these sensations. Instead, she slaps against a rigid but resilient barrier, and a thought fills her head like a blooming red flower:

I'm tired of breaking promises

"... People aren't things for you to use," Elly transmits to Seymour, even as she feels her heart swell. Her back stiffens, she breathes out. Everything seems somehow a fraction clearer.

"Even if every single thing you said were true... that, too, would be true. You can hear everyone's resolution, can't you? They've made their choice. Even if it feels useless and empty..."

Regulus, regaining some pep in its posture, raises up its mace grandly again. Is this a gesture of blessing, or judgment, or both?

"Even if it's bleak, and lonely... if you help even one person, for one moment... it's worth it. That makes the world a little less cruel... If there is no one else to look out for us, we have to look out for one another."

Regulus's head dips slightly. Elly watches for a moment as Fei moves in to strike blows. She doesn't do whatever it is she's doing right away. Long moments. Silence -- and there! A moment when Fei's immaculate form sends him and Weltall flying away. The circuit closes, an enormous electron channel created like an invisible and hair-prickling cyclone. The top of the funnel extends up to the Spiran sky. The bottom is driven down, like a bucking hose, towards ground. Towards Issachar, and through the Omnigear, towards the ground.

The lightning flashes for nearly a full second before it fades; long enough that the thunder behind it screams like an artillery barrage. It is probably a good thing that the remaining windows of Zanarkand are of something more than typical glass; there are a few less, now, most likely.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Seymour Guado with Anemo Bolt -Can't Beat The Classics-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Billy Lee Black heals Pearl! She gains 220 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Be careful, Citan tells her--he does not have to say to know her limits. But does she? Has she found them, yet? She can't say. She has to push them, now. "...I'll keep it in mind," she answers him.

The death that roots in Spira is something she cannot process at the moment; Sin, such a colossal entity of power, a person once, an Aeon. A friend, a hero. But if she stops to focus on it, stops to offer heartfelt words or careful thought, she risks losing hold of the power she's channeling now--or being destroyed by the vastly superior opponent before her.

But Ethius answers--and what he can do... "Then I'll focus on the magical assault," she says, given what he can and can't do. "If you can buy me enough time to gather power, then I'll blast it with everything I can."

That original plan may not get off the ground--but it seems like Cyre has another one. But first...

'What are you?'

The truth is that that one question sinks through Lily's psyche as she strikes, dropping through the waters of her mind like an anchor approaching the seabed. What is she? As she dives out of the way of that first strike back, flying across with her terrible blades, she doesn't have an answer for him or herself. This gives her enough pause that she slinks back out of melee range immediately to take a breath--and there, she notices the drones, strange kite satellites. The drone-flocks swoop about, and their random, chaotic pattern makes dodging impossible. So in the face of the impossible, she adopts a different strategy--to curl up on herself, shadowy form compressing with legs folded and arms wrapped about them, and projects a shield of darkness. It cannot keep out all of the blasts, but it dulls enough of them before the drones finally calm down. She remains in that shell of spherical power as Cyre unleashes his blast of noise--and only after that...

Lily unfolds, stretching out into her standard shape again. She turns towards Pearl; she can sense the emotion there, all the more clearly in this form. She can sense her difficulty. ...And thus, her resolve.

"Right, Lady Summoner. ...We can do this--for those we have to go back to. Take that pain--and use it! Together!"

Water crashes towards the Gear, and Lily focuses. "What am I!?" She counters as she does, force gathering around her. A circle of violet force crackles in front of her again, stirring the air. Gravity briefly distorts around her, sending debris and dust into orbit around her form. She reaches into the well of her power, and pulls more deeply--

Is this the limit? Can she go farther?

"-...Recalibrating...-" In the ancient tongue she speaks, and Juno may hear its tones, her voice briefly echoing as if two people were speaking. But holy light washes over her, and Billy's fervent wish reminds her.

"...It's a good question. But I don't need to know that to use this power. And that power is hope! The machines we build--they're meant to bring a brighter tomorrow!"

The air visibly distorts again--but this time, near Juno's frame. Light implodes in photonegative colors, suddenly bursting into a terrible burst of darkness, radiating outward and then collapsing in on itself like a dying star, becoming a terrible beam straight for the Argus's core.

GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Megaman Juno with Gloomhammer!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Bolt -Can't Beat The Classics-
for 298 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Lan Lilac guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Divine Saber for 112 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dispel! Burst, Quick, and Shield removed!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "Tidus's... father, Sin..? And following, Tidus... is this the faith that was shattered..?" Boudicca recalls that shattered psyche, and offers no context to it, all tears, all terror. "What you say... you speak to us like... Yuna will create Sin!"

    This woman who fought so HARD to save her world, balancing the blade on her own neck with an unwavering smile --

    For all she has endured, that sick wedding in all its pomp and circumstance, her exile -- discarded by the very people she would not cease to save --

    Boudicca isn't quite aware of the way she's screaming, hands all wrapped in her ribbons as if pulling her hair taut is all that's keeping her lashed to existence.

    There is a difference between her conclusions, and her fellow Seraph, who stands so distaff to her in this experience. It is a notable thing; let us note it, but quietly. Her voice, torn in its horror and its rage, fills all available space.

    "So Filgaia dies, and Spira dies?! And dies, and dies, and DIES?!" They came here from that Blue Star, long and long ago. Those same exiles -- "They crossed to these shores, yet the Clysmian -- it carries Filgaia's death with it, then?! Then why?! Why were they not granted our reprieve?! That dying planet bid us to live! This forgotten isle, it DIES! Even in its reprieve, its death is written! These children without mothers..!"

    She is inconsolate. The most horrifying thing to her mind, what wracks her with more force than her sobs, is the dawning realisation that she might understand how Seymour came to be this enemy of all who live. If he came to understand these sick truths of Spira...

    How could he bear it?

    How can SHE --

    Boudicca is blinded to the world in both metaphor and practice, eyes all twisted shut and something like tears leaking from them. She does not hear that the target is acquired. She does not see that the target is herself, bolstering the strength of all others. She does not know those calculations at all.

    He deletes her.

    Those are three words which do not approach the violence of those swords. Down from above, Boudicca falls to the ground; there are deep grooves in the concrete beneath her, where they pierced straight through, drag-lines where they effortlessly dashed past. There is not as much blood as one might expect.

    Boudicca opens her eyes, as she lays there. "Ah..." It is a syllable to break upon the universe.

    But she hears Xantia, now -- did she not process it, before? -- and Boudicca draws a shuddering breath into herself, as she pries herself from the impact crater just for her and sits up. "No... you are... correct," she answers that strange tree-dwelling woman, with her strange kindnesses. "Yuna would save this world... no matter what it said of her. Yuna will... Yuna will...!"

    Boudicca grimaces, and thrusts a hand out to Azoth, still seated in that crater. "... but if we allow these constructs to bring Zanarkand down, she will not have the chance! There is nothing to do but fight!" The gale whips up around her, only to pierce that tortured chassis, anonymous-dark. Is she more or less dangerous, using her Artes offensively..?

GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Howling Gale!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Billy Lee Black heals Dash Caskett! He gains 110 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Dash Caskett!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

Heimdall's wrist mounted guns fire, rounds slamming into the Issachar as it lifts into the air. Rounds are left in it, punched through the armor. Smoke rises from them as the Omnigear takes to the skies.

"I saw. Our worlds are connected," Seymour says. "So all the more reason to put an end to it. The cursed existence you carry, Lunata... it is proof that this world is undeserving of mercy! THAT is why we must give it mercy!"

The Rephaim fires. The beam slams into the Omnigear, part of the armor flash-heating red hot, before the beam impacts inside. There is a fiery explosion -- and then Seymour is hurled backward. Smoke wafts and trails off it.

Gwen's sphere of pyrite washes over him; gold light, infusing into the Issachar. Then, the Argus's drones unleash blasts his way. Uneven, strange intervals; the Issachar dances, but blasts strike into it. It's thrown backward.

"Nothingness..." Seymour answers Jacqueline. He is, in fact, puppeting it. They cannot see the depths to which his Unsent form has infested the Gear. But Seymour, after all, is no pilot.

"It would be a boon. To end the suffering, the cries of pain, the unending spiral!"

Jaeger fires. A round rips into its side, an explosion of sparks flying. In the empty cockpit, there are warning signs about automated repair systems failing. Sixteen eyes that Seymour has grown over the cockpit seat, resting in a mass of blue-grey flesh, blink all at once.

"Ah, you see--" He grits his teeth, as he focuses on moving. But he answers Cyre and Shalune both. "I believe you are both mistaken. Sin retains a portion of who he -- she -- they were. We have documented times where Sin seemed to hesitate -- or withdrew early. The creature has seemed damnably capricious..."

His brow furrows. "But what if capriciousness is regret? What if it is a will, desperately straining aginst its hateful nature? The will of someone dedicated to saving the world. I will become Sin... and I will not hold back."

Then, he looks down at Pearl. It is a cold, cruel, and uncaring look. He could expound at length; he could explain as Yunalesca did, about dying with hope instead of living with fear. But Seymour is too far gone for that.

And, in his way, he is more honest: "Yevon's teachings are an utter lie. I shall destroy lies with all else!"

His head turns towards Weltall. He regards it; he regards him. "I will give up what I was to become Sin. I will become destruction. It is the highest calling..."

And Issachar ducks aside. The chi blast flies, hurtling over its shoulder -- leaving a black smear along Seymour's blue-skinned face.

"...is it not?"

It is appropriate, in a way, that Citan comes at him next. "I do," he answers the doctor, calmly. The guns mounted on Heimdall's wrists fire again; the brilliant flashes make Seymour's eyes blink rapidly (both on his head and the ones watching the camera). It does seem to have distracted him.

"I will destroy every part of this world!" he says to Citan. "And yes--I would make it so no one could defeat me. I would not wear this world down... I would bring the end swiftly, brutally, and mercifully!"

He looks back at her, like she is speaking some alien language when she speaks of helping others. Of hope. The Anemo Bolt slams into Issachar, exploding across it; plates of steel rain down, pyreflies explode outward, and the Omnigear stumbles backward. Then, it throws its arms wide.

The bladed wings on the unit hovering nearby glow. Shadowy light dances off them -- and then sickening rays shoot out, slashing and dancing through all of those facing him. The effect is a draining, enervating one.

It sinks even through the Gear, to the pilot.

GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Megaman Juno with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Wings of Despair!
GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Anima Process Infusion!
GS: Seymour Guado accepts Seymour Guado's Anima Process Infusion for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Hex removed!
GS: Hyper, Lock State, and Quick applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Lunata Croze has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Lunata Croze!
GS: Lunata Croze activates Guard bonus!
GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Seraph Boudicca's Howling Gale for 117 hit points!
GS: Shalune Amira guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Shalune Amira!
GS: Shalune Amira takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius, for the moment, is not at risk of cross-fire between Seymour and Juno, well away from the lightning - but he's not in the clear, as drones part from the Argus and go forth in chaotic patterns that Ethius' meat-made brain can't track and follow in their totality - and the Aiguille's on board systems are good at identifying them but not with the best countermeasures available for throwing them off. Attempts to engage the heatless dash jets to get behind rubble cover - what of it exists - finds that he runs head-long into some drones that have decided in their AI-based 'shrug, pick a set of numbers, position' choices to embed themselves and fire upwards.

     "I'm taking significant fire," Ethius says much, much too calmly for the whiplash he nearly suffers as something else explodes that he doesn't get a clear read on other than 'still have power to move and fire,' as Cyre takes in the readings and signals to the lot of them. Shut down all sensors for two seconds.

     Ethius complies on Cyre's signal, as he makes good with the visual he has. He has partial cover from the electronic chaos. Horrible grinding comes from the Aiguille's shoulder as Ethius has to get it to heft the rifle-staff, a flickering in two segments revealing he can't get a full charge through all of them facing forward.

     He has to face backwards, then, stabilizing the Gear against the wreckage as the back of the rifle-staff starts to light up. He can get appreciable charge going out the other way. Through a narrowed eye, he doesn't look through the electronic read-outs but a direct visual. The Argus might be vulnerable here - and he considers how well the other team might be holding up with the Issachar. To say nothing of the worrisome flashes of light and power way too close to his position from a familiar hostile automaton.

     He waits patiently for Lily's positioning, knowing she's a person of interest to them (well, yes, look at her go now, it is very interesting by any standard of threat or wonder).

     He can even see a young woman and their Aeon, from this distance, looking crushed as they grapple with matters of faith. There's something there uncomfortably familiar he can't put a finger on, and time and time again it feels like it's something he should be able to reach out and grab.

     When Lily finds her resolve and warps the air into something that's migraine-inducing for him to look at head-on, there is extremely little ceremony in the way Ethius drags his fingers across the appropriate switches and buttons, a tiny swivel in the aim of the back of the rifle-staff that's facing backwards, supported by a pile of rubble.

     He fires a burst of plasma fire into that distortion, aiming it a little high so it doesn't hit dead-on.

     He's banking on the Argus' operator to overcompensate defenses to deal with the novel nature of Lily's sorcerous might to skim a shot somewhere the barriers might not be fully ready to catch.

     There are more shots of that nature, meant to try and probe and disrupt - to indeed buy more time for Lily to channel more and more of that.

     "The phenomenon will not remain in possession of that machine." Ethius declares aloud - the best he can do now is hope they can start to peel back the utter chaos, like he might see a route to tryign to contain all of this.

GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Jacqueline Barber activates Guard bonus!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Billy Lee Black heals Ethius Hesiod! He gains 220 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Megaman Juno with Shoot!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock fully evades Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Citan Uzuki!
GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP!
GS: Citan Uzuki takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper!
GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Fei Fong Wong activates Guard bonus and Sufferer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Capacitor Discharge - Noise Blaster for 0 hit points!
GS: Dispel! Lock State removed!
GS: Hex and Corrode applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Surging Waters for 151 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dispel! Quick and Shield removed!
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

"...really?" Emeralda doesn't entirely understand. That Xantia does is a surprise but - well, maybe they have more similarities than she thought. She always did like Xantia.

Personally, Emeralda wouldn't trust Seymour to do anything for Yuna, but nobody asked her.

She can hear Seymour in the distance, and if she wasn't mad before she is now. The whole Final Aeon is either a lie or something nobody should be asked to do. Azoth is forced, presumably against his will based on what he said *last* time, to fight regardless of how badly it hurts him.

None of the anger is aimed at Azoth, truthfully; Emeralda is mad at whoever sent him out here, at Seymour for causing all this, at Odessa for blowing up part of the city (but should she be mad at them? they helped her, sort of), but Azoth is blameless here.

It just might not be that obvious, because she doesn't have any of them to hit, and she has to figure out how to stop Azoth. Probably by hitting him. When all you have is an arm shaped like a hammer...

'Authorization required' and she doesn't have any. And he's hurting more. Emeralda...

...hesitates, even when Lan kicks him in the face. She doesn't want to hit him. She doesn't want to - but he has to hurt them, doesn't he?

"I know you can't just, but - you need to STOP!"

Emeralda throws herself forward. She's too late to stop Azoth (or she thinks it's Azoth) from firing on Gwen, or Lan, or anyone else; she's too late to stop him from going after Boudicca. But she's going to try to cover anyway, a sudden rush to close the distance.

The blast hits her. No question about it; it makes part of her body glow for an instant, losing the colours there in her hair, her skin, her clothes in a dull silver and red. The second blast hits her - and Emeralda explodes.

A cloud of glowing mist, or something more than mist; invisible flecks like the tiniest grains of sand in the universe, too small to see with the normal eye. It looks like smoke - that kind of particle suspended in gas - except with a strong electromagnetic field and occasional crackles from part to part.

It breaks into four pieces, all of which circle around. Azoth is going to get hit in the back, as the first 'cloud' hits him, compressing into something solidish. It feels like a sudden force more than an object, pressing against him, the electromagnetism of it crackling and sparking.

And then a second, and a third, and as the pieces pull back together Emeralda reforms, although with a silvery patch down one side that doesn't regain its colour immediately and ends up with a weird mottled mix of all her colours - green, red, black, brown, even a streak of gold like her eyes. She's trying to cling to him, wrestling him more than anything else - pulling him down so that he can't chase the others. She weighs a couple hundred pounds and has strength beyond her size but she's still not a Gear, or even purely mechanical, precisely; she doesn't know what Azoth can lift or how strong he is, but she has to try. It's the only way she can think of to make him stop hurting them.

"..." She ran out of words, though.

GS: Emeralda Kasim has activated a Force Action!
GS: Emeralda Kasim spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Emeralda Kasim has attacked Azoth with Reycount!
GS: Emeralda Kasim takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Megaman Juno critically guards Ethius Hesiod's Shoot for 86 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Gloomhammer for 522 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Megaman Juno!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

THe sound of shot drones accompeny the lessening ECM field. It doesn't dissipate it as there are plenty more, however. And spending all day shooting drones leaves Juno to run rampant. But even as titans clash around him, more drones are deployed to halt Dash, quite iterally.

Given a moment, Dash begins to rev the Jet skates the flee the ECM field, but the new compliment of drones to arrive. The field is recalibrated and intensified to include a magnetic, gravitational like effect. The Jet Skates grind and scream into the ground, no longer able to generate enough torque to function.

<Auxillary attachment malfunction - Excessive force detected.>
<Weaponized field detected - Servos operating at 65 percent and dropping.>

So this is it. Juno really had plans to capture him. Why didn't he perform this earlier when he had the chance? Does Juno really believe Dash will flip sides on a request?

His heavy armaments are kept far and away aimed at others, who currently are recieving the brunt of the Beaurocrat Unit's attention. "Not like I am gonna go down withou-- ACK!" A pulse of high frequency enetrgy and static erupts from Cyre's Gear. Clearly aimed at someone else, but has the same sound as an extremely loud mic pop. There is some ringing for a while after. Thankfully, robots and androids cannot get tinnitis... as least he hopes so. Imainge if that was aimed directly his way.

Things begin to turn in his favor though, when a burst of holy energy comes his way, from an unfamiliar, but nonetheless allied source. "Thank!" Dash shouts from the ground toward their pilot. He hopes they stay safe, and will have to thank them alter. It sures up his defenses against incoming damage, which is quite helpful.

Having little area to be able to move, and his detection software still rebooting for missile fire, He can still aim through the static and take shots at the Argus. "Fine, I see how it is. But I won't make it easy for you!"

The glow in the barrel shifts from yellow to red, and more potent Buster fire is lobbed, Some of the shots as big as the drones they are aimed at, One, two, three shots fired toward them, and several more carren toward Juno. "Keep going guys! if we can stop them everything will be fine!"

GS: Dash Caskett spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Megaman Juno with Heavy Buster!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    "... what the heck, Doc! I mean, I can make pancakes, I create pancakes! They're the same thing! Words, Doc!" Lunata blurts out in the middle of what might be a concussion. Do undead get concussions?

    A pause, as she grumbles, "I'm gonna stick this cretion into his face and that's that! Stop confusing me!!"

    Though, honestly, the fact that it's piloted by one's will is a terrible thing for them -- Lunata knows Seymour's strength to be how absolutely stubborn he can and will be, right to the end.

    "Mercy... yeah, you know, just because I've moved onto another phase of that life doesn't mean that whole 'sweet, sweet oblivion' phase isn't still with me. You think I don't get the appeal? Somewhere, sometime, people decided that giving up wasn't an option and you're going to be berated and humiliated and chastised if you are..."

    She's still pinching the bridge of her nose and trying to shake the doldrums out of her mind, quietly fumbling for one strap to latch onto.

    Someone's connected to her. She thinks it's Elly at first, but it's actually Shalune-- and she shakes her head again as diagnostics run and warning signs start to go away. "Shalune-- you're the craziest person fighting that thing without being in a Gear, you know, Big Shal or not," Lunata grumbles.

    "Like even now Jay and Elly's talking to you about how it's super-worth it to make the world a better place even for one person, and... I know you well enough that you're recoiling at the very sound of that, right? Cause... you don't feel that way, you don't get people who think like that... it just makes the pain from not understanding worse, it makes you feel even more little than you already are..."

    Lunata swipes away a warning sign from the Rephaim that reads 'PILOT IS PROJECTING' away.

    "But I mean... let's just please... take one step back? I met you a few years ago? You've only been obsessed with murdering your father and getting shanked in Macalania and putting all kinds of things in your body like that weird claw and now you're sticking this in..."

    There's a strangulated little noise from Lunata, as the Rephaim comes under the assault of the sickening rays and she feels even more drained and sickened than before, and the systems are similarly blaring out with warning signs.

    "Can't we do something more fun...?! Let's go back to scooting like we used to... we can beat up that Krelian nerd and get him to scoot with us too. Let's do sick wheelies off the park ramp. C'mon, Seymour..!"

    And with that, the Winged Gear is off again, rising into the air to meet the Omnigear even as its light starts to ail and warp -- but there's enough Ley ambient in the air for her the Ley-powered linear railguns -- the Leylguns, in other words -- to lock into place at its hips and launch several Fray-oriented bolts at the Issachar.

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with XA-G11 Leylinear Leylgun!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Lunata Croze takes 52 damage from Corrode!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Megaman Juno accepts Dash Caskett's Heavy Buster for 388 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 5 damage from Reaper!
GS: Azoth takes a glancing hit from Emeralda Kasim's Reycount for 109 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    She kicks off of the robot's head as his visor shatters open, somersaulting midair to land at Gwen's side. Boudicca's magic settles into Lan, and the fresh, angry hurt of the gash in her back subsides a little. Lan still remembers her best as 'Seraph Beast', of course - but a friend is a friend, no matter their shape.

    Isn't that right, Azoth?

    Gwen begs her not to use the Stranger's power. "I don't want to! But I don't have a choice, okay?!" She can hold it down. She can make it obey her. They both have this power, this corruption inside of them, but it doesn't have to define them, does it? "Gwen!" She's not looking good... like her heart is breaking. Lan goes to a knee beside her, pulling the courier into a rough sidehug. "Snap out of it, okay? Azoth needs our help! How bad do you think he's going to feel if he hurts someone?!"

    He'd done so much for her when he didn't have to. When it would have been so much easier for him to be quiet, to let her struggle. To bring her back to Gebler. To leave her in the catacombs. "Solaris did something to him to make it so he can't help it. Wouldn't you want someone to stop you, if you were in his place?"

    One last squeeze is given before Lan rises to her feet again, just in time for a glyph to open up around their feet. "?!" She has enough time to raise her arms, as if she could block lightning like it were a simple punch. Some of the spring leaves her step with the spell's passing, but Lan is still here. Still here, and still herself.

    She kicks off of the ground, sprinting for Azoth. She just needs to get within striking range. And once she's there, Lan will vanish again - reappearing on his opposite side to send him flying back towards Xantia with a kick. "HYAA!"

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Azoth with Slow Dancing in the Dark!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
GS: Azoth guards a hit from Lan Lilac's Slow Dancing in the Dark for 96 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dispel! Lock State removed!
GS: Disease and Disrupt applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    Azoth. Azoth? Juno would transmit a polite request to slow down, to let the drone keep up, but he doesn't even know if his friend is okay. If Azoth can even answer him. It reminds him too much of that 'dream', when Azoth's subroutines started firing in response to nonexistent stimuli. What's happening? Could Juno even stop it?

    But the Directive, as always, is constant, invisible pressure weighting his calculations. The Omnigear cannot be allowed to escape, and the why of it is irrelevant. Beyond his clearance. He wasn't meant to know, just like he wasn't meant to fight like this.

    The Huracan takes a bad landing, allowing Juno some breathing room. The Summoner seems stunned by Seymour's words, and he can only hope her Aeon is likewise disrupted. Juno is in a dangerous position--with all of his drones deployed, the Argus has only the most basic weaponry at its immediate disposal.

    Ethius is the first one to capitalize. Aiguille takes up position. Juno sees this, and the drone-flocks maintaining the shield tighten up their positions, adjusting their harmonics to strengthen the barrier. But before Ethius can fire, help arrives in the giant sea serpent and their Summoner. "You don't understand--" is all he gets out, before the Argus twists, and its drones twist with it. The barrier hums against the tidal onslaught, wavers, shatters into shards of energy. Leviathan's tidal wave surges over the machine's damaged form, knocking it back.

    Then the Huracan unleashes a cacophonous wail of electronic noise, a sound that would make Juno bleed from the ears if his construction worked that way. Instead, his disembodied head arches backwards, jaw stammering wordlessly, face contorted in a rictus. His shields are down. His thoughts twist into agonized loops. He's here but he's not supposed to be. This isn't his job. He's only here because they're all dead. He's the only one left. He's the only one left and Trigger is trying to kill him because he's forgotten.

    The drones waver back and forth in the air, visibly struggling. The shield is down. When the Argus registers Ethius' counterfire, its movements are jerky, stiff, mechanical. It twists, and blasts rake down its side, scarring drone-mounting struts.

<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    Lily gets her opening. Ether detonates against the Argus' chassis, and it's like a tiny negative sun appears above Zanarkand, with the Gear half-swallowed by it. When the anti-light fades, the Argus' chest armor has been halfway melted, two of its four terrible eyes ruined. Dash's plasma fire peppers the machine's hull, opening the rift further. A hull-stabilization field ignites, but behind it lies Juno's body.

    Most of it. An empty socket rests between his limp shoulders, with terribly-advanced hookups for neural cabling and coolant pumps and skeletal struts. His head is firmly mounted behind a second field, and the look on his face is one of agony. "I am tryING--" he chokes out, his voice bereft of the raw, commanding volume of the Argus' hookups. "To FULFILL my PURPOSE. To DO MY JOB. As I was--I was--I was built to DO." He flinches away as more Buster fire rains down on him, but the agony is quickly washed away by something Juno has tried to keep buried. An impediment to proper functioning.

    Anger. Frustration. Feedback from repeated exposure to obstacles. Feedback from inability to perform his funvction. Feedback from interference he should--should be able to counter.

    But he's not Azoth. He's not a war machine. He's an administrator who earned a particularly durable backup chassis by virtue of surviving when so many others died. Dealing with aberrant Biomass is a Purifier's job, but the Purifier is down there, trying to destroy him.

    "Die," Juno says. He reaches out. Slowly--with a great deal of resets and reports of compromised systems--the drone network resets itself. Plates and arms and bits and pieces start to move again, and they all fly back to the Argus posthaste. They orbit it like a belt of debris, and the ones that can still fire begin to target, their laser-eyes focusing on anything and everything that moves.

    Juno opens fire. Lasers blast from the Argus' drone array, and they do not stop for a good thirty seconds. The air fills with terrible, searing light, even as overheat warnings screech in Juno's brain. He doesn't want to stop. He can't stop. Only Azoth is spared.

DG: The party led by #-1 NO SUCH OBJECT VISIBLE has been fully Exhausted by !
GS: Megaman Juno takes 34 damage from Corrode!
GS: Megaman Juno has completed his action.
GS: Megaman Juno has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Dash Caskett with Devastator Protocol!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Seymour Guado with Devastator Protocol!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Billy Lee Black with Devastator Protocol!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Lily Keil with Devastator Protocol!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Lunata Croze's XA-G11 Leylinear Leylgun for 177 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Lunata Croze drains Seymour Guado! Lunata Croze gains 0 temporary hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Devastator Protocol for 418 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Countermeasures!
GS: Seymour Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Thousand Unblinking Eyes!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Pearl with Thousand Unblinking Eyes!
GS: Megaman Juno has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Thousand Unblinking Eyes!
GS: Megaman Juno has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Megaman Juno takes 41 damage from Corrode!
GS: Megaman Juno has completed his action.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz fully evades Megaman Juno's Thousand Unblinking Eyes for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cyre H. Lorentz gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Evade bonus!
GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Megaman Juno's Thousand Unblinking Eyes for 61 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Pearl gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Pearl activates Evade bonus!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Megaman Juno's Devastator Protocol for 127 hit points!
GS: Dash Caskett takes a solid hit from Megaman Juno's Devastator Protocol for 225 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dash Caskett gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Megaman Juno's Thousand Unblinking Eyes for 116 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "..."

    Lunata has, perhaps, done the impossible and rendered Doctor Uzuki more or less speechless. He's... he's not even sure where to begin with that.

    "I... see," is what he ends with, ultimately, which might be the largest lie he's told in his life because he clearly doesn't.

    But this sort of back and forth can't last long in the face of what Seymour promises to all of them.

    He says he'll destroy everything. All of it.

    "If that is your will... then I cannot permit it." Not 'we cannot permit it'. He, personally, cannot allow this to be.

    But this is an Omnigear they are facing, and Seymour had been powerful in life -- unlife has perhaps only amplified that inner fire. Citan had spent time in Spira learning what the people would tell him of their ways, history, and customs. He had learned one thing of the Unsent -- they were animated by one singular desire alone. All that may be keeping Seymour in this world might be his desire for the end of everything. In this the man has lost much, yes, but with focus comes great power--

    As Seymour now demonstrates. There is a dark flash of light.

    Citan's hand curls around the throttle. Struck by that unearthly light, even Citan cannot help but shudder under its impulse, feeling for the first time in many years as if his life were being torn from his body. "Not... now," he grits out, trying to force his way back over the brink. Even the Gear is suffering under its influence, with many of the meters and mechanisms that Elly had dialed up now draining down.

    He can't give up. None of them can give up. Taking a breath as if to steady himself, Citan reaches over (is his hand unsteady or is it merely his mind telling him it's so?) and flicks a particular switch within the cockpit.

    SORCEROUS ENGINE: ENGAGED.

    If anyone is aware of anything unusual happening, it will be at best them noticing a particular twinge of humidity in the air. Water vapor is an invisible, nearly omnipresent thing. It settles for a moment about everyone here Citan can reach and sinks into their bodies, seeking to purge what it can.

    In the cockpit, Citan pushes his glasses a fraction of an inch up his nose and considers the battlefield in the few moments he has the opportunity. Lily and the others seem to have been leading the fight well against Juno, who looks particularly damaged at this juncture, but this will mean that another edge they have against Issachar will be lost.
    If they do succeed against him, that is. Another array of lasers flies across that end of the battlefield.

    But he can't seem to spot Emeralda at all in the fray underway on foot. Is that blur possibly...?
    He doesn't have the chance to safely look any longer.

GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Citan Uzuki with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Lunata Croze with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Shalune Amira with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Renki!
GS: Citan Uzuki takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Citan Uzuki takes 44 damage from Corrode!
GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode, Disease, and Reaper removed!
GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode, Disease, and Reaper removed!
GS: Lunata Croze accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode and Disease removed!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 5 damage from Reaper!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Wings of Despair for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease, Corrode, and Reaper applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Elhaym van Houten activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper!
GS: Shalune Amira accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode, Disrupt, and Reaper removed!
GS: Elhaym van Houten accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode, Disease, and Reaper removed!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    A single young woman projected that sphere of energy, excluding her friends while enveloping her enemies in the same zone leaving a brief weakening of their defenses. Gear, construct, robot, all are briefly forced to acknowledge the girl with that metal ARM, a mixture of flesh and metal made capable from the technology of three worlds.

    All for one simple courier.
    
    "... S'okay," she murmurs to Lan. "That field was just... a lil' too much." She curls her fingers around Lan's hand, and shoots a small grin at Lan. "I'll trust you." It's a promise she's prompting Lan to make, right then and there. 'Promise me this trust will not be in vain.'

    And like Icarus brushing his fingers against the mantle of the sky, Gwen receives punishment for her hubris.

    One of Seymour's rays comes at Gwen while she still is at her knees, spent from such an unnecessary (but very necessary) expense. Seymour's ray threatens to stain her with illness. Except--

    'Azoth needs our help.' It took a second for Lan's words to filter through Gwen's need to assure Lan.

    She's up, flowing away from the Omnigear's attack with the power of Boudicca's wind. ".... It's okay. I know now."

    The redhead lands close to Azoth, just right out of reach. As she stands up from her crouch, Gwen looks up at the construct, his identity no longer quite a mystery.

    Her eyes are gentle, clear, free of the former misconceptions she held moments earlier.

    ".... Wasn't too long ago our positions were reversed. You came to help me, then. You.... Az--"

    Juno's lasers cut Gwen off, and where Azoth's claws couldn't reach, Ragnell's lightning obliges, sending a current up the redhead. She falls, quietly, finally, slumping wordlessly to the ground.

    .... It's for the best, most likely.

    Better for Azoth to not have to raise his hand right then, against a friend who knows who he is.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia knowingly positioned herself in front of Azoth in an attempt to draw his attention. Between Boudicca's magic shielding and her own radiant Ether barrier, she was pretty confident about being in good enough shape to handle a big hit, which could have allowed others to capitalize on the opening. Going after someone lending support over those attacking directly would never occur to her, and thus she is completely surprised by the decision to target Boudicca instead.

"What are you-- wait!"

As if saying that would do anything to change the outcome. Though the outcome does change one thing in Xantia. It causes her to become extremely angry, and she rushes after Azoth, not fast enough to do anything about his intentions.

"How dare you, she wasn't even...!"

Azoth is not done yet. Her friends... Xantia's rage build further as she sees what they have to contend with. It's only a matter of time before a beam is sent her way, as well. In her anger, Xantia swings her arm as if to knock it aside.

That clearly shouldn't have worked. And yet it did. Almost casually, Xantia's right arm deflects the beam, sending it harmlessly off into the distance. If one was paying close attention to what happened: the Ether surrounding her body instantly jumped to focus fully around her bracer, causing the light to briefly turn red upon the beam's impact with her ARM, before returning to white and flowing back to surround her entirely body once more. It may have looked effortless, but actually required very quick and precise action.

In this moment, Xantia sees and hears nothing but Azoth. The look in her eyes is most definitely murderous. Then... she realizes. It's happening again. She catches herself thinking 'I'll rip this servant of Solaris to pieces'. That's not just her anger talking. It allowed the thoughts to slip in that she's been trying so hard to hold back this whole time. Now that she's aware of it... Xantia stops, gripping the sides of her head as she shakes it wildly.

"Graaah! Shut up! My memories DO NOT control me!"

...Maybe Xantia does understand that having more memories isn't necessarily a good thing. It would be an interesting conversation to have with Azoth. Too bad that she hasn't seen him in a while. Certainly not today.

She managed to shake off those thoughts just in time to look up, and see Azoth being forcefully sent back in her direction by Lan. Had this happened ten seconds earlier, she would absolutely have delivered the most devastating blow that she could have mustered. But, things have changed. Now, she once again acts on her wish to disable her opponent.

Her attack consists only of a single palm strike, aiming to hit Azoth in the back. It may not look very dangerous, but then, her last palm strike snapped an arm joint. This one does something entirely different. While forceful, the strike is barely felt on the outside. However, she takes the opportunity to discharge the Ether surrounding her straight through the outer shell, to wreck havoc internally.

Of course, Xantia had no way of knowing that doing this would end up sending harmful feedback to more than one individual...

GS: Xantia has activated a Force Action!
GS: Fei Fong Wong accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Corrode and Disease removed!
GS: Fei Fong Wong activates Sufferer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 10 damage from Reaper!
GS: Xantia has attacked Azoth with Essence-Rending Palm Strike!
GS: Xantia has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Essence-Rending Palm Strike!
GS: Xantia takes 30 damage from Poison!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Billy Lee Black critically guards Megaman Juno's Devastator Protocol for 83 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Xantia's Essence-Rending Palm Strike for 91 hit points!
GS: Dispel! Lock State removed!
GS: Cripple applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"That's... a good point, too." Jacqueline comments, as Shalune points out the possibility that Seymour might not even get any choice of what he does once he becomes Sin. She... hadn't actually thought of that, he seemed so confident he'd be able to do something.

But Seymour refutes that, citing instances where the person who Sin once was was able to retain a part of who they once where - some amount of control.

Citan, then, provides some more insight on Omnigears - how only those who have been chosen can pilot them.

"Chosen... by who? The Gear itself, or some other power?" Jacqueline considers for a moment. She should wonder why Citan knows so much, but right now, she has bigger concerns. "...I suppose at this point it's too late to ask if there's a way to make it reject him."

Seymour speaks, then.

"A boon? Have you asked the people of Spira if they want that boon? They've been fighting to live all this time, haven't they?" Jacqueline replies. She opens her mouth to say something else, then, when Lunata speaks. She pauses for a moment, considering her words.

"Sorry... have I been too harsh...?" Jacqueline asks quietly. She hadn't considered Lunata's point of view - or Seymour's, for that matter.

Issachar throws its arms open wide, and the bladed wings on the unit nearby glow. Jacqueline brings up another pillar to protect against it... but what emits is not something that can be defended against by physical means. It goes through the stone, through her Gear, into Jacqueline herself. She feels... drained, and her Gear's power output is dropping rapidly too.

"Come on, Jaeger... not yet..." Jacqueline mutters. She's suddenly feeling very tired - and her Gear isn't faring well, either... and then, she feels something, very briefly. A twinge of humidity - and afterwards, she feels a bit more refreshed.

"I... can keep going. Sorry, I'm going to have to push you a little further..." She says to her Gear. "But I can try to take a little of the burden."

It's time for Sorcery, then. She removes the Crest Graph from her console and inserts another. Twin symbols of Fray appear on the console, flickering slightly but still holding on.

The Jaeger draws its combat rod as red lights begin to run up and down it and, with a flourish, it gestures toward Issachar, unleashing concentrated beam of heat, like a fiery lance sent flying directly toward Seymour and his Gear.

GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Dynamic Sorcery!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Azoth takes a solid hit from Xantia's Essence-Rending Palm Strike for 86 hit points!
GS: Dispel! Amplify, Hyper, and Mighty removed!
GS: Cripple applied to Azoth!
GS: Azoth activates Sufferer! Azoth enters Critical health and gains 25 FP!
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dynamic Sorcery for 400 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    "Yeah, well," Shalune hums as she checks over the last of the diagnostic reports, then grins faintly at the Rephaim. All she has is a view of white armor plating, but she'd like to think she's looking roughly in Lunata's direction. Probably. Kind of. "That's why I'm here, right? I've got your back, whenever and wherever. If anything came for me, Jay'd shoot it right down, ka-pow," she jokes - both it and her smile are a little forced, but they're there.

    Given that she only just leapt off the back of her golem in the midst of a fraught Gear fight, Shalune's response to Citan right afterwards might be just a little rich. "I know. I'll be careful," she promises, apparently serious about that even as she runs on foot back to Big Shal, who is turning slightly to offer her a hand to quickly climb back up to the scaffolding on its back. When it comes down to it, she doesn't have a whole lot of cover even in the best of situations, but what she does seem to have is a lot of trust in the golem's ability to defend her.

    She doesn't really know what to make of the God talk, though. Shalune is still theoretically a Granasian, not to mention someone who prefers to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Multiple Guardians exist, and she has fed some of them chocolate mousse. Anything monotheistic feels a bit odd after that.

    Perhaps it's just as well that Seymour's next attack is one that doesn't matter whether she's in a Gear's cockpit or not, but that's incredibly cold comfort. The wave of despair hits her like something physical, and she nearly doubles over were it not for one hand rigid on the railing of her scaffold, the other clutching her stomach as if her gut was in pain.

    Seymour's words give her pause. ... she can't discount them fully. It might explain something if Sin's actions were being regulated by a Guardian's hopes. Maybe the reason for repeated pilgrimages is because there's a time limit on it, or maybe they slowly lose themselves, she wonders - and for just a moment the image of the Rephaim's clock drifts across her mind's eye.

    That thought brings something else forwards, though. "... is that really the end you're looking for? You, as Sin, alone and unsent?" she whispers. Whatever else, she and Seymour had a connection and a shared conviction - and she's spent a lot of time trying her best to understand that conviction, to come to terms with it for Lunata's sake. "It's not fair, the situation either of you have been put in. But this isn't-- there are so many people out there who have nothing to do with this. And all this will do is prolong things for you. So long, I can't imagine it."

    She heaves upwards as the wave from Citan's Gear washes over her. The fist is back in Big Shal's hand, ready to throw again - but this time Shalune has pulled up her shotstaff as well, bracing as she rams it home against the scaffold. "... if I'm stopping you, it's going to be as much for your own good as anything else!" The golem heaves forwards it's projectile once more - and Shalune rams home a battery cartridge into the shaft of her weapon, the hum that surrounds Big Shal momentarily shifting up into a fever pitch before a brilliant line of white sends the lump of metal rocketing forwards at high speed.

GS: Shalune Amira spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Seymour Guado with Under The Same Sky!
GS: Cover expired!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado guards a hit from Shalune Amira's Under The Same Sky for 176 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus and Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"You're more pure than we are," Fei admits. At least, he'd like to think so.

It doesn't seem like Seymour is content enough to destroy his gear though. He's somehow reaching THROUGH the machine to the Fei behind that armored shell. He screams, almost predictably as pain wracks his body and sick fills his throat. That call of the red feels stronger with every passing moment. Quickly, quickly.

But Citan seems to be able to reach through his systems too. He feels like he had a nice cup of water and also a bit of a light cool shower. He breathes more easily and lets out the air gradually, coughing a few times as the last of the bile sputters out of him.

"It's never made me feel any better." Fei says to Seymour. "But I can only speak for myself."

Seymour speaks of Sin's true nature. Some will intact? That--could explain some of its stranger behavior but--if that's the case...

"Seymour. When you've killed everybody else. Who will kill you? Sin can't kill itself."

Fei channels power into his Gear's arms--and then darts forward, unleashing a flury of quick blows, explosive chi bursts erupting out of each strike--

--following through with a leap into the air and a double barreled chi blast from both hands towards the Omnigear.

He can't keep this up much longer, he thinks. He's running out of options. Weltall is straining under the power he's channeling--at least in this mode.

GS: Fei Fong Wong spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Kosho X!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has launched an attack Link!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Fei Fong Wong spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Goten X!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 35 damage from Reaper!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kosho X for 520 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Goten X for 386 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly lowers her arm, which she hadn't quite realized she had raised.

Regulus does as well, even as the echo of the thunder rebounds off of Mount Gagazet, coming back, far distant now.

Elly's head leans forwards as she gazes through the machine upon Seymour and-- a moment later, strange light, shadowy, washes over Regulus. It feels sickening. Curdling in her belly. Something about it feels familiar. Like her blood is washing out. Why - she thinks, head tilting as she finds herself gasping. Sweat begins to trickle from her forehead, through her back. A chill; then a sudden shift, as if her body is trying to stay warm.

She shudders and swallows once. What was that? Elly thinks. What *is* that, she should think. Her hands clasp together in front of her. Whatever that is, it's getting through this machine. I have to...

On the display next to her, a trajectory line streaks outwards from origin-point, outwards, through the dark fractal of Issachar, and then --

Up, away from the control map's perspective. Up, perhaps, forever.

Can I do it? Elly thinks.

Can YOU do it? Elly thinks, a little more clearly. She feels something soft pulse blue-green.

She swallows again. I need to, she thinks, her eyes turning towards the stark black cube that is Weltall, if I'm going to, I can't just -- maybe it'd be easier if I -- no, I can't just--

The air within Regulus's cockpit, efficiently kept at a perfect temperature other than that transient spike a few moments ago (due to unthinkably intense superheated water approaching a quasi-plasma state, but who's counting), becomes... moister. More lively. The sensation of being near a river, or the sea shore. Elly shudders afterwards, and then rights herself, blinking.

The little trajectory arrow disappears.

"That's... that's so sad," Elly answers Seymour, before flicking the comms off and speaking instead to the others in her local mesh.

"Doctor, thank -- thank you," she says, without clarification, before pressing on. "I'm going to test something and I don't know if it will work but I think if it does then we might be able to - to just end this and... oh, that horrible reaver is still down there, isn't he..."

Elly swallows again. Her head wobbles back and forth. And then --

Externally, Regulus doesn't really do anything. There's a sort of subtle green-tinged flow-aura around it if you look closely, and that brightens up to 'slightly visible even if you aren't looking carefully'. There is a tendril of it radiating outwards, towards the Issachar, but it fades into non-visibility.

What it ACTUALLY IS:

An abrupt cascade of deliberately malicious junk error data starts pouring directly into the Issachar's control system. It is like a tide, aiming to seize the components that are not perhaps fully 'controlled', the ones which were 'built by man', and to make motor strive against motor, to make control signals send a single message to the wing-modules, to try and push that into the engine controls for the Gear itself:

DOWN.

This may throw Seymour directly into Fei's incoming blast, in which case, oh well!

"... I never thought of that, Fei... I was thinking it would be... I mean, it's like a story, isn't it? Swimming through an empty sea... ah, aheh... I think, I'm..." Elly rambles, at 40% volume, into Fei's cockpit.

She recovers enough to address Jay and the Lunes: "If he realizes what I'm doing, this won't - work again, if you have anything you've been holding back...!"

GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Seymour Guado with AHT-MITM -Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun-!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's AHT-MITM -Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun- for 205 hit
points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Disrupt applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Based on what he can see for the span of time that he can bear to look at it, Lily's capabilities manage to make their mark, but before he can work out where to reposition next from cover, Juno's feelings are made clear. The drone network reasserts itself, and it is an insight that crosses him when it starts to open fire on a large piece of debris that has been launched across the flattening, ruined land of Zanarkand that guides the next half-minute of his life.

     Ethius can only get off two words in warning before it's too late:

     "Motion tracking!" It's split second in the way organic life is prone to make heated decisions in the moment without all information because theere's no time to decide, and he's risking the lives of everyone who may or may not follow his advice there. For his part, he keeps his hands off the controls and covers his mouth just to make sure not even his breath is being picked up.

     The next thirty seconds are heart-stoppingly tense, for he does the unthinkable: he makes zero attempt to move from his point of partial cover as the drone fire sweeps out. He is a sitting duck as the searing light threatens to cook him in his very cockpit. He closes his eyes while damage readouts continue to happen with continued heat exposure and the targeted fire towards movement of rubble or particles that pass by - or those of others moving around him.

     Renmazuo's support fends off some of it. From the cockpit, Ethius can let his guard down and allow his face to tense. He hasn't been this close to an untimely end since being point blank before the Cuchulainn's main weapon. That half-minute stretches on for what feels like four whole minutes. The Aiguille can only serve as shelter instead of a mobile weapon, as some of it melts to slag under incidental drone fire. Anyone would flinch, and be forgiven for doing so. Holding up something to defend, or even move would be logical - but Ethius has determined it's motion tracking so the only 'safe' move is to wait.

     It takes every ounce of his discipline, instilled by something beyond the boundaries of his conscious recall, to make that time. It takes every ounce of his endurance not to pass out from the immense heat he is being subject to by proxy. When the sound of drone fire dies down to ears uncomfortably familiar with the warning sounds of who knows how many different makes of high tech weaponry, and he feels the air gradually cool...

     He doesn't report on his status, falling back on old habits where Ethius just doesn't report what he's going to do or why - he's not sure what Juno is looking for beyond motion. He remembers all the talk about 'biomass' from that voice.

     He engages the heatless dash jets again to disengage from his cover, veering too close to the mysterious robot's site of battle (Azoth) before about-facing. He doesn't really have time to gauge whether or not he can punch through the barriers, as he engages the dash-jets again to try and clear through the cloud of drones.

     All he can do, now, is just thrust the rifle-staff in like one might a spear, with enough heft that the segments extend themselves to the limit of their elasticity in a lunging strike.

     "If it is your purpose to contain this," Ethius speaks out. He is overhearing some of the worried chatter from Jay, since the Caravan Kinship have long since set up channels between their machines regardless, "it is being addressed."

     He's sure hoping it is. He can't watch three different problems where even one is beyond his grasp.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Megaman Juno with Close!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

"Gh--"

It stings when Lunata cuts through much of what he presents himself as, and gets to the person that is underneath that. There is a moment where he doesn't seem to know what to say -- and tellingly, there isn't the operatic shout of how much he wants the world to die, the grand philosophizing about nihilism, or the express cruelty. He sounds peevish, for a moment. "I don't know what any of that is, Lunata!" he shouts.

"I will not step back... I cannot! I will continue forward--and carry this whole damned world with me into OBLIVION! And if you will abandon me--" His pale eyes blaze. "Then SO BE IT!"

The linear railguns fire, pure Ley energy striking into the Omnigear. Issachar has chunks broken away from it -- pieces of armor slamming down. Seymour screams out a war cry, then, and dives Isscahar downward. The lance is spun over Issachar's head, hands working it nimbly, and then he descends -- and smashes the weapon down at the chest of the Rephaim.

"LUNATAAAAAAAA!"

The Argus's drones fire. Blasts slam into the Issachar as it bounds backward. Light and energy glow around it, Ether and Althenan magic giving it a brilliant nimbus. Seymour turns his head, and shouts towards Juno. "ENOUGH!" he shouts. "I will not suffer you to live! There is no place left for you in this world!"

Light surges out. Huge, brilliant streamers of brilliant white light -- and orbs and curlings of churning darkness. They all swirl together, crashing together, and then slam down towards Megaman Juno's Gear and his drones. Then, they explode in brilliance -- and pure night.

Seymour does not seem done after that. The huge, back-floating wing binder turns. A solid stream of sharp, feather-like blades fly at Argus, rapid-fire. Then, they turn, crossing the ground towards Heimdall. They slash into the rusted plaza. And then they whip across, striking repeatedly at the Doctor's Gear.

"People rarely need what they ask for, Jacqueline Barber!" Seymour shouts. The Jaeger does not fire -- but the Crest Graph works through it, and then a beam of terrific heat slams into Issachar. It strikes through the nimbus of light around it -- melts through the armor -- and bursts out the other side. There is a terrific explosion from the entry and exit wounds.

"Gghh!" Seymour screams. Then, the Omnigear rises. Issachar lifts -- and then drives down, slamming the spear at the midsection of the Jaeger, battering wildly. The spear is gripped in one hand, though. The other has a huge, fiery bead of light gathering on it. That hand slams forward--

--and a massive explosion erupts, a fiery nuclear blast that shoots, point blank, into the Jaeger.

Before it can do more, Shalune has Big Shal send a lump of metal at near supersonic speeds. It slams into the Issachar with a BANG, blowing the Omnigear backward. The wing binder seems to float, detached, for a moment, before rushing to catch up.

Seymour levels the huge lance at Shalune. It glows, brilliantly -- and then a beam of purple and black energy fires, hurtling towards Big Shal.

"Alone and Unsent--" Seymour hesitates only a moment. "I will pay that price for your liberation!"

And that is his answer to Fei. He will continue on -- and he will hate it. It is an immortality that he doesn't seek. An immortality that he wishes he could reject. A kindness, that his twisted mind thinks he would give this world. Weltall comes, laying into Seymour. Blow after blow, shattering his armor; it slams backward, battered, and Seymour grunts.

Pyreflies rise up around him.

Then, he swings up the spear -- and he blitzes forward, Issachar becoming a blur. the spear strikes brutally at Weltall, as he seeks to rush past.

He rushes past towards Regulus. Elly sends a massive amount of junk data. The sixteen eyes, sitting upon an amorphous pile of undulating Unsent flesh, blink in confusion at what the eyes are doing. The Gear makes it come crashing down. It smashes into the plaza, rust flying, and then a hand tears upward. Servos crack -- hiss -- and POP -- as Unsent flesh moves the Omnigear in spite of its mechanical skeleton.

A bead of red light appears -- fires off like a rocket -- and then explodes with a terrific, red-hot, nuclear blast of light on the Regulus.

Then, Seymour swings back his spear. The lance lashes out -- slashing across the ground -- and a shockwave erupts, hurtling across the battlefield and on towards all of their Gears.

GS: Seymour Guado has become ENRAGED!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Animus Lance!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Animus Lance!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Megaman Juno with Dark Holy!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado's Avenger stance ends. He enters the  stance!
GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Megaman Juno with Revolving Wing Cannon!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Revolving Wing Cannon!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Overdrive Crash!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has launched an attack Link!
GS: Seymour Guado enters the Avenger stance!
GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ether-Enhanced Flare!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Steel Sweep!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Steel Sweep!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Steel Sweep!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Steel Sweep!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Steel Sweep!
GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
GS:  Enrage purges all positive status!
GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

"This is... an impossible calculation for Subject Yuna to make under her known objectives..." It is all the commentary Azoth has the capacity to offer on the situation to those despairing around him (or contemplating it within him): a robotic metaphor to them, and a strict reality to himself. He understands there is a critical difference: somehow organic life can change their own objectives. But what he understands of the process, he does not predict Yuna would elect to.

Juno calls to him in transmissions, and gets warped, pained glitching in response.

Ragnell should know better than anyone how falsified Azoth's sweetness is. With the overrides and his broken state, there is the quietest lament he is not in the right condition to fully appreciate her banter. She knows it's you? affords her an affirmative pulse -- a simple enough response to slip by.

But after their assault, Azoth must confront that Boudicca lies brutally wounded, and that Gwen fairs little better. She approaches him with a terrifying understanding and kindness. Don't do this. Not now. He knew they would do this. He's seen them reach out every time, and he calculated, even then...

That it would be the optimal moment to kill them.

Ragnell spares him executing on those calculations.

Rag?el$, Azoth beseeches, C?n y#1348 en* th@s? Pl$&s#...

As Gwen falls in front of him, he's able to see that Emeralda has... exploded. But the surge of panic for that fades when his sensors pick up a strange energy. They do not analyze it fast enough before Emeralda is back upon him, trying to grab him and hold him down -- some of him distracted by Boudicca's winds, even if they are not his attack to shield -- and Lan smashes a kick into Azoth in almost the same moment, the force enough to send him flying even if he can still withstand the damage.

Then something unusual happens, in a moment fast enough to have plausibly been serendipity.

Azoth twists his body, arms around Emeralda in turn to ensure he's the one who takes the brunt of Xantia's follow up blow. It's is a tangle of calculations and loopholes that allow the behavior: that they aren't trying to destroy him, that additional harm could escalate their aggression beyond those levels, and that his goal, right now, is to just live through this. It may be more of a challenge than Azoth suspected.

But once Xantia's strike smashes into him, Azoth realizes his miscalculation as Ether surges through his frame like agony: that's going to hurt Ragnell, too. A digitized, panicked beep sounds out as he ricochets from the strike.

ERROR: CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE
ERROR ERROR ERROR E??OR E?ROR

The overrides try to corrupt the plea as Azoth's circuits go haywire with a flood of negative feedback. His body can't handle the strain. The software that is his mind... can't either. ERROR: CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE The crimson lights brighten. ERROR: CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE Azoth's entire body grows hot enough to smoke, and then plates crack open, cables snapping and cords bursting with violent arcs of electricity dancing across him. Ancient, terrible energy erratically tears through the area all around him.

GS: Azoth has activated a Force Action!
GS: Azoth has activated a Force Action!
GS: Azoth has activated a Force Action!
GS: Azoth has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO?!
GS: Azoth has attacked Lan Lilac with ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO?!
GS: Azoth has attacked Emeralda Kasim with ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO?!
GS: Azoth has attacked Seraph Boudicca with ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO?!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    "Your 'job' seems to involve killing us all." Pearl is posturing again, but Billy's defensive barrier gives her some relief. She can fight on a little further. She looks across to Billy, and if his cameras can pick it up, gives him a nod of thanks. She looks back at Juno. "And as one who had a similar role.... that path leads only to ruin."

    The beams barrage Leviathan, but this time the Serpent moves, and the beams don't fully connect. There are sparks that pyreflies bleed out of, but not as badly this time. The serpent spirals back to face the Argus. Pearl tries to find the right point to glare at, but looks back. "Perhaps you will find your own way. But while you walk this path, it is our right to defend ourselves." She looks over to Lily. "Lady Sorceress, I shall bring the force I have to bear. Perhaps we can end this." She looks up again, and points her staff at the Argus, and Leviathan roars. "It is time!"

                                  OVERDRIVE

    And behind Leviathan, the waters rise, taller and taller and ever taller, dwarfing the one that crashed against Argus earlier. A ferocious ocean swells and surges behind them. Pearl casts her staff forward. "Leviathan! Let us wash this menace out to sea!"

                                  TIDAL WAVE

    Leviathan roars, and the magical sea surges forward, to engulf the Argus and Juno, and sink them beneath the wave.

GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action!
GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Animus Lance for 558 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Shalune Amira gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Shalune Amira enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Shalune Amira has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Azoth has completed his action.
GS: Pearl spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Pearl has attacked Megaman Juno with Overdrive: Tidal Wave!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Steel Sweep for 1 hit points!
GS: Shalune Amira has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Animus Lance for 402 hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Steel Sweep for 172 hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze activates Guard bonus!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 40 damage from Reaper!
GS: Citan Uzuki guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Revolving Wing Cannon for 254 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

The enemy is growing angrier. Something resembling a mercy, perhaps. The drones are able to take their shots at Billy, but he casts forward with his wrist blaster again, firing the other one this time; much like before, a crystalline shell of sparking Etone blessing forms around him, the scything lasers only able to scrape its surface. The shell breaks soon, but the work is done. Billy, breathing more calmly now, focuses his attention on Juno, who seems to be losing his cool in a way that might be exploitable. Breathe. Careful. Believe.

And he moves. Surging toward Juno, he peppers the hull with shots on his way up, and then whips out a solid roundhouse as he draws near - only to follow that up by a harsh right punch from the Etone Gear, and then firing a series of Ether-charged wrist blaster shots, each exploding into sorcerous symbols as it impacts, before Renmazuo jets back toward the ground to try and recenter. "Creature of evil, do you even have a life to snuff?" he wonders. "Would praying to God for salvation force Him to first give you something you don't deserve?"

There's a sneer in his voice.

GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Megaman Juno with Hard Snap!
GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Azoth's ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO? for 302 hit points!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Disrupt applied to Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: CRITICAL! Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Steel Sweep for 280 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP!
GS: Citan Uzuki activates Power Burst!
GS: Gamble: Low! Jacqueline Barber critically guards Seymour Guado's Overdrive Crash for 77 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber activates Guard bonus!
GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Jacqueline Barber critically guards Seymour Guado's Ether-Enhanced Flare for 87 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber activates Guard bonus!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Lan Lilac takes a solid hit from Azoth's ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO? for 292 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Break and Disease applied to Lan Lilac!
GS: Lan Lilac activates Sufferer! Lan Lilac enters Critical health and gains 25 FP!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Steel Sweep for 191 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Sorry Volnutt! But Cyre did ping you to close your eyes or something before he did the electronic warfare equivalent of smashing a space-age quantum computer with a caveman club. "That's how it's done!" The beastman cheers, pumping his fist as Juno's drones go half-catatonic. Lily's spell smashes into his chassis soon after, eliciting another cheer.

But just then, his blood runs cold. "You're... for something to be able to exert even a little bit of control over a Clysmian-- no. That's not it at all. If it's been held back all this time, then... Gods, you're insane!" But again, maybe that's exactly what Seymour wants. Maybe that's exactly what he intends...!

But will it truly work the way he wishes...? It's hard to tell, with someone as determined as Seymour.

This time, Cyre's brief bout of distraction is not punished, but only because Juno is having an awful, terrible day. Again, something draws his attention back, but it's the administrative AI's words, not an exploding vernier system. Cyre is silent for a long moment, even as Juno's myriad drones come back online.

They open fire, and this time-- this time he's ready. A wild stream of shots rain down, and Cyre receives them again with his shield. Each bolt that the bulwark absorbs causes its capacitors to flash weakly, releasing a point-blank scrambling wave that keeps the nearest members of the swarm just off-guard enough for him to bob and weave, approaching with every duck and dodge. Blasts scrape across the Huracan's armor, pitting and gouging, carving fresh wounds in its light frame. But it advances even still, unhesitating.

The job he was meant to do. The job he was born to do. Is that all that this is? Is that what is compelling him to do... all this?

Crushed under the weight of responsibility, buried under the destiny laid out by the circumstances of birth. Cyre's eyes tighten as he approaches, sword and shield deflecting every other shot that comes his way entirely. The remainder dig holes in his chassis, but never in anywhere lethal.

"You," Cyre says, quietly but intensely, "Feel as though you've got no choice. That this is the duty you must discharge. Like not doing so would let down everyone whose expectations you carry on your shoulders. It feels as though the weight of those expectations will crush you utterly. The world itself seems to reject you at every turn, no matter how hard you try to just do your job."

A memory of a young boy flashes across his mind. Of always falling short, of always feeling like he just did not belong. Of the endless lectures, aged masks telling him exactly what went wrong, how he did it wrong, how he must be better. How he must, because he was born into this. Because he was destined for this purpose.

Cyre's hands tighten around his controls as he launches himself toward the Argus. "...If you don't like your job," he says, "You can quit, you know...? Sometimes, what we're born to do isn't what we're meant to do. What do you want to do, Master of the Main Gate...?"

He slashes through one last drone, the Huracan's mobility thrusters engaging to keep it suspended in mid-air in front of the Argus, "...Because what I want to do is keep that bastard back there from sailing off and destroying Lunar and Filgaia both. Putting aside everything else, do you really want to purge all of us, or is that just something your job requires you to do? Because the way I see it, you and me, we're just two guys who were born into our jobs. And between you and me, it sucks. It really sucks. But within those rules, there's always ways to... do the things you really want to do. So do you want to kill us more than you want to stop that thing, or can we work together on this?"

GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Xantia takes a solid hit from Azoth's ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO? for 357 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Hex and Mute applied to Xantia!
GS: Xantia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"...You are trying," Lily says to Juno, and she feels an empathy for the administrator that she didn't before. He's just fulfilling his purpose--who built him to do this? What 'tomorrow' was hoped-for at his construction? "Juno..."

Lily's voice crackles over the radio still. He is trying. He is agaonized... and he is angry. Yes, Lily understands that anger well.

'Die', he says. Lily crosses her arms over herself and conjues another barrier, but the searing light batters through the power Billy gave her; her darkness manages to absorb some of it, but the sheer force of an attack meant for Gears sends her back towards the ground, the beam impacting her barrier and sending her sailing down even as she keeps hands up to try to forestall it. She nearly reaches the ground, battered backward. "...I'm sorry," she says.

"Solaris has used you. ...But I don't have the power to free you from their control by any means except this."

A created being, given all the inputs to indicate what it's doing is right. The enemy... But here, Lily can feel that anger and frustration, and it's more... sad, than enraging. Maybe she just feels a lot of emotional distance now. All the same...

Black hair flutters in the wind; Lily remains a three-dimensional shadow, a being of darkness occasionally lit by strange luminous circuitry. She hovers above Zanarkand, staring with prismatic eyes towards the Argus and Juno within it.

Ethius mentions tht the containment is 'being addressed', and Lily wonders if it is a sort of kindness. But Pearl is in motion, and Lily is her ally today. Levaithan moves, and their power rushes forward, magical and brilliant. It tells Lily--contrast.

"He might," Lily radios to Billy. "...regardless, our enemy must be neutralized."

Lily brings her hands together, channeling force in strange geometries, her circuits lighting up orange-red as she lowers her eyes. All of her focus goes into the first element she understood, the most precise she knows how to use. Before, fire erupted; now, it doesn't. She pulls it out of the air itself, focusing on the 'core' of Juno, and transmutes air to flame.

It is brilliant, blinding.... and burning.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Megaman Juno with Infernal Gate!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Megaman Juno critically guards Seymour Guado's Revolving Wing Cannon for 90 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Megaman Juno gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus and Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 35 damage from Reaper!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    It's at the same time a shock, and no shock at all, to see Boudicca nearly go mad on the spot thanks to the revelation about the Final Aeon. Ragnell--well, she didn't know this particular secret. It doesn't particularly faze her to learn that it's something this nasty, though. Systems that are built on sacrifice tend to take and take and take. Ragnell's also just a generally cynical person. Boudicca's much more idealistic, but to think she'd come this close to a breakdown... and to think that, even coming that close to a breakdown, she'd still manage to get back up on her feet.
    
    Ragnell's proud of her. Really. And she's proud of that vicious attack, the slicing winds that shear into the barrier. They don't reach Azoth, but that's because Ragnell's taking that damage for him.
    
    Xantia over there, meanwhile, flies into a rage at Azoth targetting Boudicca--then shakes her head and shouts something telling: 'Shut up! My memories DO NOT control me!' This doesn't stop her from flying into a vicious Etheric blow, one that's so vicious that even Ragnell's barrier isn't enough to completely protect Azoth--or maybe she's taken enough damage doing something she doesn't normally do that her defenses aren't working as well as she'd want them to. It rebounds internally, shredding through the both of them. Ragnell snarls, still willing to fight--but it's Azoth who'll get the worst of it if they continue.
    
    Emeralda tells Azoth he needs to stop. This is true in a lot of ways. Ragnell doesn't expect her to literally run over and *latch onto* him though, as if making like she's a koala and he's a tree will somehow force him to stop. But...
    
    Even if Ragnell hadn't realized it already, even if Azoth hadn't confirmed it, Lan outright states that this *is* Azoth, that he's being forced to do things he doesn't want to do, that it's for his own good that they need to stop him. And even if Xantia didn't hear, Gwen did--and collapses under the assault of Ragnell's arte with tenderness in her eyes.
    
    ...
    
    On the other hand, it's always nice to stop having to pretend.
    
    Okay. I'll end this, she confirms. She already felt his regret, his agony, his despair. She can feel his body literally falling apart.
    
    This battle MUST come to an end. Or else Azoth will.
    
    Ragnell doesn't usually use her full power on her opponents. She is almost always holding back. But this is a moment that requires a decisive end, so that Azoth can make his retreat.
    
    The barrier that surrounded him surges with power, forming a massive cyclical storm that joins with the tearing lightning of Azoth's own assault. They grow, and expand, and EXPLODE outwards, aiming to knock his opponents far away. Combined with Azoth's own attack, the two forces might honestly be indistinguishable.
    
    So people might not recognize how that power actually forms a current that flows back into the dark android. Something that will repair his chassis, reform his wiring, fix his circuits--but also create a current that will temporarily overload him and shut him down.
    
    That's the ending she'll give him.

GS: Seraph Ragnell has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Emeralda Kasim with Negative Current!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell's Stoic stance ends.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Lan Lilac with Negative Current!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Emeralda Kasim takes a solid hit from Azoth's ?x??.ERR?R E??OR??RO? for 375 hit
points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Emeralda Kasim gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Entangle and Poison applied to Emeralda Kasim!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Emeralda Kasim takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Negative Current for 142 hit points!
GS: Seraph Ragnell drains Emeralda Kasim! Seraph Ragnell gains 71 temporary hit points!
GS: Emeralda Kasim has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Dark Holy for 279 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 55 damage from Reaper!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Close for 219 hit points!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: CRITICAL! Megaman Juno takes a solid hit from Pearl's Overdrive: Tidal Wave for 569 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Pearl!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Megaman Juno has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Megaman Juno guards a hit from Billy Lee Black's Hard Snap for 154 hit points!
GS: Mighty applied to Billy Lee Black!
GS: Megaman Juno activates Guard bonus and Countermeasures!
GS: Megaman Juno enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Cripple and Hex expired!
GS: Megaman Juno takes an additional 35 damage from Reaper!
GS: Megaman Juno has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Steel Sweep for 215 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong activates Sufferer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 35 damage from Reaper!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Boudicca has a true defender in Xantia, even if it stands under the ideal of a good offence being the best defence. Emeralda seems to know so much more than her teenaged appearance would suggest, but Boudicca does not understand the shape of her missives, at first.

    It's only when Gwen --

    'Snap out of it, okay? Azoth needs our help! How bad do you think he's going to feel if he hurts someone?!'

    Boudicca SHOULD act with immediacy to help Emeralda, help Gwen; even Xantia, whose memories seem as if they are plaguing her, let alone the strangeness of Lan. She is their defender, their healer, the support which helps them forward.

    But all she can hear is --

    "Azoth?" Boudicca asks, and her voice is small. "That is... Azoth? All this time, that foe..." There is a small miracle, in the way she always mills new horror for each revelation; each horrific reality does nothing to dull the next. She looks to Lan; she looks to Emeralda; she does not know to look to the hidden Ragnell. "... did you know?" She asks, in grim echo of that question she just asked in the shadow of Seymour. "Did he know?"

    Boudicca didn't. This much is painfully clear.

    "He came to us... after it was done, he... he helped us save Yvain, he... saw to Siddim Canyon with us... he climbed Gagazet alongside us, though he was so injured..! All that time -- all that time, he held this inside his heart? All this time?!" It might be easy to mistake the way her heart shatters on the rocks as betrayal.

    Except...

    Emeralda's explained why it's not that simple, hasn't she?

    "Azoth struggled with this, all this time, alone?!" Boudicca makes demands, but it is difficult to tell who she demands them of; she has long since turned from Lan to that not-so-anonymous black construct. "And now -- this is why that construct is so wounded?! It is Azoth?! So soon after shielding us, Azoth--!"

    A fist pounds the ground; the ground does not move. Though Boudicca disregards its strength -- in just the way air dominates earth -- she is not strong enough to move anything.

    "Azoth smiled... Yuna smiled... ever do they smile, as they carry their doom unspoken in their hearts!"

    Boudicca looks up to Azoth, as something like electricity -- or older, perhaps -- erupts from his smoking chassis, the very same she lashed with her Seraphic artes. All slumped in her crater, her face cracks in new sorrow, as the explosion washes over her.

    "Forgive me," says a mote of light, as a different ribbon entirely -- light green, long as a sash, a holy vessel -- comes to settle on Lan.

    It doesn't stay there long. Negative Current is a storm-ending storm, and the power which surges out anew sets that ribbon fluttering, twisting through the air, far away. Boudicca cannot know that Ragnell has done what she was too struck dumb to possibly do: heal Azoth, in that moment. It is impressive, yes, that she pushed herself up, after Spira's final revelations...

    ... but Boudicca's idealism is a wound unto herself, and she didn't even try to defend herself, in that moment.

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

Bit by bit, Juno's warmachine exterior is being dismantled. Tears in the hull are beginning to expose now-shielded body parts of Juno. "If you just helped us focus fire on Seymour this wouldn't be an issue!" he shouts to Juno. "Guy would be in a smouldering crater!" But no, Juno, and by extension whatever he represents, desires it, most likely for themselves. Dash can only make assumptions. Juno has not said what The Directive is.

Drones begin to decrease in number further from combined attacks and area subterfuge from allies. Movement becomes easier, systems reboot. eyes returning to normal. "Good, no we can-- Look out!"

Just in tiade a desperate ploy from Juno scathes the battlefield as he appears to be trying to cut everything within a large radius into random geometric shapes. Apparently attempting to spare is off the table now. It also looks like Juno is losing his cool.

"What is your purpose, anyway?! What is the Directive you keep attempting to achieve!" Assumptings have always been whatever Solaris is up to, since they always seem so chummy in encounters, and are known for their high technology.

The fighting rages on elsewhere, with Seymour still going at it against others with the strange Gear pilfered from below. And Azoth-- "Oh what!" is all he can mutter while fighting off the drones, catching an eye of what looks like multiple people, Azoth included, exploding.

He sees others, Lily and Cyre, move in for the attack. Dash begins switching his secondary back to the big one. "Why does it have to be like this?" A familiar pang hits him as he says that. A feeling of pointing a weapon and someone who may not fully deserve it. Doesn't matter. Much like how Juno was made for this task, there are those whos job is to oppose them.

The launcher is pointed, just as the targeting systems finish rebooting, and the last of Dash's missiles are spent, flying through the air at terminal velocity.

GS: Lan Lilac has activated a Force Action!
GS: Dash Caskett spends 4 Combo on Interrupt and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Megaman Juno with Cluster Missile!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cover and Jam expired!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
GS: Lan Lilac takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Negative Current for 70 hit points!
GS: Lan Lilac activates Evade bonus and Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Ragnell drains Lan Lilac! Seraph Ragnell gains 35 temporary hit points!
GS: Lan Lilac has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    There's an upheaved little sigh and a smile at Jacqueline. "... no, you aren't. I'd not want you to pull any punches at all," Lunata admits. "But at the same time, I have to speak honestly, cause we've had that talk back when I first woke up in that infirmary way back when we first arrived back in Filgaia after being in Spira..."

    Citan seems to have shut down so Lunata quietly files it as a VICTORY for WORDS on her behalf, instead of the more sensible assumption that she's become so insufferable to engage in an intellectual debate that he's not even bothering. The fact that the air gets more humid and refreshing, healing her of some of the woes of the sickening rays, makes Citan Uzuki the better person of the two of them but I mean...

    Citan's a dad, he has to suffer some of this, right?

    There's a little goofy smile that she shoots Shalune's way, even though Lunata has no way of conveying her face to Shalune right now. "Y-yeah, yeah, just-- I mean... ... haah..."

    Elly warns that she's gonna try something and if he notices, she's not gonna be able to repeat it. "Okay..."

    There's an incredible moment of pause, however, when Seymour grimaces and peevedly says he doesn't know what any of that is--

    "Then why don't you learn?? Scooting's fun! Fun, Seymour! We can mess around with little flying scooters or play board games or make dumb weird concoctions in the kitchen or... anything but this! Just... anything else!! I'm not trying to abandon you!"

    Lunata's eyes widen, however, when the lance comes over its head and works its way towards her and she's smashed again, already on that breached part of the chest which sends her crumpling down, down, down and...

    A grimace, as she groggily stares-- and witnesses the beam firing towards the direction at Big Shal.

    Her eyes widen further, as she stammers, "S-Shalune! Shalune!!"

    Clenched teeth, as she whips her head towards the Issachar once more. The Rephaim rises, high, high into the air... in a flourish of white wings, the Rephaim brandishes both rifles into one massive, twin-barreled contraption as the connections join and the light of their sensors grow ominous.

    Lunata's grey eyes are a massive swarm of angry hornets, targeting reticles flying from one edge of the screen to another; slowly, one by one, they sight the massive lanced form of the Issachar, Seymour amidst its body. One, two, three, they turn blue...

                      |
                      |
                      |
                  \. |\.
                   \,-+-,/
              `, /` | `\. ,`
         -------==` -o- `==-------
              ,`. \, | ,/ `,
                   /`_+_`\
                   \| \
                      | target: ROCK-ON
                      | subrouting power
                      | maximum discharge

    "SEEEEEEYMOOOOOOOOURR!!"

    Lunata makes the sunrise in Zanarkand day, for one brief and shining, exalted moment: the twin roar of her weapons calling forth the very breath of the Ley down upon Spira's landscape, at first carelessly slamming into road and debris, turning it into little more than ash and vapour-- and then it inches larger, larger, seemingly drawing the Issachar into its light...

GS: Lunata Croze has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lunata Croze has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Lunata Croze with Target Seymour Issachar confirmed...!
GS: Lunata Croze has launched an attack Link!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Lunata Croze's attack becomes clear!
GS: Lunata Croze accepts Lunata Croze's ... Lock-ON Confirmed ... for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Surge applied to Lunata Croze!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 5 damage from Reaper!
GS: Lunata Croze spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with XG-00 Rephaim ... Maximum Discharge!
GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lunata Croze takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's XG-00 Rephaim ... Maximum Discharge for 426 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda did hear it. That's Azoth...?

She remembers Azoth. She met him in the sewers, and after; she was excited to meet him but she didn't know he was... this. It brings her anger back, a sudden surge of unfamiliar temper. (Maybe this is the true curse of being a teenager.) She KNOWS Azoth at least a little, and seeing him as a machine, as somebody's tool, being used - it hurts.

It's not just that it could have been her, if someone in Solaris hadn't decided she might be better off trying to draw some sort of reaction from Fei. It's different than mere self-interest. But it hurts in a way she's not accustomed to, the same way seeing OS hurts.

She didn't know either. Boudicca's reaction is understandable. She wants to shout.

Emeralda is not really trying to hurt Azoth while hanging on him so much as wrestle him into compliance and interfere with his attempts to hurt everyone else. She hasn't had a whole lot of unarmed practice, but she's also cheating outrageously; her knees press into the small of his back while she twists, bending her arm in a manner that would require her to have at least two elbows and be able rotate her wrist through 270 degrees to try to get a better lock on Azoth's arm. (She just makes it bend like rubber instead.)

"I'm just trying to stop you," she says, quietly. "I know you can't... not. Because..." There was that time, when she was sent to Dazil.

And indeed she does get a twist out of Azoth's upper body - no, wait, he's moving it himself so that Xantia doesn't hit her. Why? He must be trying, any way he can... Emeralda makes it easier on him by hunching, hiking her body a couple inches to change the pressure she's putting on him.

Unfortunately, at this point, bad things happen - and Emeralda is literally hanging onto Azoth.

Wires and electricity lash out, Azoth and Ragnell's together. The explosion does what Ragnell wants; she can't hang on though she tries, hands and feet scrabbling before she is propelled too far to touch.

Emeralda hits the ground and skids a good forty feet along the street, rolling and tumbling. A couple times her body isn't entirely human-shaped when it hits, though it always pops back as she continues to tumble.

She comes to a stop against a building. The electricity has partially scrambled her, and her colours shift and change in incorrect patterns before stabilizing properly, though the burns down her side still look like a mottled mishmash. Emeralda tries to push herself up, but not everything is working; the electromagnetic charge she's picked up and the damage has done something. She's alive, enough of her nanomachines are working that she's even conscious, but they want to clump to repair each other and that makes her stiff and sluggish.

Emeralda barely manages to push herself to a sitting position, propped up against the wall. If she was normal, she would be breathing heavily; as is she isn't breathing at all and can barely bend, because all her extraneous movements are offline while her components patch and repair each other and she is, ultimately, made of metal.

Azoth... She doesn't say it out loud, but boy howdy does she think it. I'm gonna help you, too.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

For a moment, Elly thinks with a curious stereophony in her heart, yes! It's working...

But the Omnigear is coming back together... his Unsent body. Elly is reminded, grotesquely, of what Emeralda holds. It is like a natural, crude version of what is sleek and perfect with the beloved child, and --

There's a bead of red light coming towards her.

Elly, on reflex, reaches out. Amplified Ether senses. A plan to know, to analyze. Perhaps to disrupt or dissipate entirely. She has felt depths in Regulus. Whatever it is that Issachar can do, she suspects she could match, and that thought brings her confidence for one moment.

The beautiful network map shifts to analysis mode...

And then turns a horrid crimson with !! ALARUM !! floaters around the Ether diagrammatic.

Elly stares at it in horror. Her mouth hangs slightly ajar. The Omnigear's Ether Amplifier immediately shifts to crisis-boost mode, not to disrupt the form coming towards her but to STOP it. This much she is able to manage; the bead seems to dim, flowing forwards, except that what started as a red dot is now something around the size of a blitzball and... slowly expanding.

"It's... is it converting matter to energy directly... what kind of... oh, god," Elly says, which she really hasn't made a habit of doing historically, "it has to have a limit, doesn't it?"

Regulus obliges its queen and gives Elly an explosive peak yield estimate. Elly stares at it in horror and does not say it aloud. At this point the red bead, which has gotten back to its original brightness, is about one and a half times the size of a blitzball.

The Omnigear swings its mace out as if to parry the contested webwork of Ether, which works wonderfully, knocking it towards the sea and away from Zanarkand or Mt. Gagazet... except that it immediately begins coming back.

"Is this the strength of his malice?" Elly asks, with horrified awe. At this point the half-interlaced spell has grown to the size of seven blitzballs, and is emitting enough light to cast an additional set of shadows upon the ground. It is, at least, moving more slowly, but, Elly thinks with horror, that just means it's going to kill even more people!

Regulus flits away, desperately. The forestalled spell turns to follow at a leisurely pace. This grudge has no rush.

As the Gear flies, Elly sweeps the sacred ruins. None of this is going to work, Elly thinks, until something flickers. A faint signal, a response to Regulus's constant digital receptions. Bank to starboard, hard --

The bead of light, now the size of a Gear's fist, passes through a still-standing spire, putting a precise hole of superheated annihilation through the ancient construction. It is starting to pick up the pace. The flare in abeyance moves towards the ruins of the Blitzball stadium...

And in that stadium, beyond a moment of fleeting thought -- isn't this where we came in? -- Regulus has taken a position behind part of the ancient machina. Standing with its hands on some sort of vast iron ring. As the interfered spell, still speeding up as Elly's interference is eroding in its malign expansion, approaches, it clips through a full two arc-minutes of the ancient ring:

> initiate game-prep
>> ERR-- ringbrea
> override
> override
> override

The ring crackles with force... lightning, perhaps, that turns to water...

but the balance is broken...

so the water goes where it has to...

... Directly into the deadly sphere.

The ancient machinery groans, complaining of this rude misuse, especially when Regulus pushes upwards, then rises on its own thrusters to turn it forwards -- the sphere rips through stands, down through long-abandoned backstage corridors and store rooms, then down into the ocean, the crackling generator still trucking, still pushing, still shoving. In the water at last, Elly breathes out.

Her hand shakes a little as she reaches for the Ether structural analyzer and... undoes what she did.

For a second the object has much less 'Mass', and is thus propelled by this extremely dubious, crackling-live machina water-cannon outwards and deeper to sea. How far? It is hard to say beyond 'not immediately adjacent'.

A second after that...

A pillar of white foam rises from the sea, rising upwards past the highest spires of the city. It hangs there, jagged, furious, but as it pours down it rolls out, more a misty warm rain that may wash away the sins and dirt of war than anything worse. A strong lap of a peak wave washes over the seaside environs, already decaying spaces momentarily awash.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

As much as Azoth miscalculated with Xantia, so too does Xantia miscalculate with Azoth. She has no idea of his plans, of course. She was just hoping to cause some kind of graceful shutdown with her action. Instead, she ends up right in the middle of an catastrophic storm of electricity. From two sources, although even if she could tell, that's not something you worry about when you're in the middle of it. There's only one question that matters at a time like that: how do I get out of this? Thankfully, Ragnell's added power is forceful enough to help knock her out of it, flipping her end over end and landing harshly on her stomach a short distance away.

Shortly thereafter, a soft clattering noise draws attention to something else that fell nearby. A simple object, of no particular note or value to most. But it does have a certain significance to two individuals. Unfortunately for Azoth, he is one of those individuals, and seeing it now may not do him any favors.

"Here! This one suits you much better."

"...Thank you. I have no idea why it suits me, but... if you say so, then I'll keep it with me."

It's... a stone. Deep blue in color, with curves and divots matching up with Xantia's features in ways that would make sense only to Azoth. He gave that stone to Xantia, a long time ago. Even after all that time, she was still carrying it with her.

Suddenly, a hand snatches the stone off the ground. In spite of her injuries, and of the risk involved, Xantia managed to get back to her feet, and expended the effort to retrieve the stone. She doesn't say anything to Azoth, but she does give him a look. It's hard to say whether she's actually heard anyone speak his identity. But... it's equally hard to believe that she hasn't understood, looking at her eyes.

She silently withdraws afterwards, having a little trouble walking straight, but will take the time to lend aid to her fallen friends where she's able. It's clear to anybody that it's a bad idea for anyone to remain here now.

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Shalune and Big Shal both stare down the lance pointed straight at them, and if the mechanic is feeling any fear, it doesn't show on her face. Trust in Big Shal and her own self-belief combine to amount to that much, if nothing else. "--I didn't ask for your liberation! And even now, you're calling it a 'price' to yourself! You don't need to pay it! Listen to Lunata, if nothing else!" she yells in the space between the spear hanging in the air and the spear crashing down towards them.

    The moment the spear is launched, a shiver goes up the mechanic's back, a little sixth sense telling her to run - not that there's anywhere to run to, the golem's back being about the safest place around in her estimation. She's dimly aware of the way that Big Shal's form shifts, a bulkhead thrown up in front of her, but also much more aware of how much strain that must put on the rest of the golem's armor.

    "Hang on," she mumbles, and lays a hand on Big Shal's back; there's a faint response from the machine beneath her before the spear impacts with its guard, immediately sending Big Shal stumbling back several paces as the ground beneath it gives out. One arm instantly begins to shear away the moment the golem starts pushing back, and the entirety of the golem lurches to one side as more of its armor starts to crumple.

    From under the ridge of Big Shal's head, the two eyes there gleam.

    Suddenly the rest of the golem's integrity falls away in the blink of an eye, most of the torso punched away by the secondary explosion caused by the impact of the sper against the ground. Big Shal does not so much fall to the ground as waterfall, heavily and in so many pieces, the field of magnetism that held the golem together seemingly lost as the component pieces simply tear apart. Still, there is enough power left in the golem for it to raise its intact hand, grab the young woman on its back, and _throw._

    You don't live, sleep, and breathe alongside something for years without getting an idea of how it will act. Shalune isn't taken by surprise when she suddenly finds herself arcing through the air and away from the battle - though the breath is certainly knocked out of her by the sudden and sharp cold air all around her, and there's a horrible thought in her head that maybe she's about to sail right off the edge of Mt. Gagazet.

    She's not. Instead, she hits a snowbank with an 'oof' of pain, disappearing into it amongst a flurry of white. For a moment she doesn't dare move, having to find her breath again past the aching of her body, then Lunata's cry reminds her to gather enough of herself to say into her radio: "I'm-- I'm okay," she promises. She can't say the same for the golem, watching the last of Big Shal crumble away.

    But then, that's alright. Because what's left over there isn't really Big Shal, not when she's cradling the golem's core in her lap, calmed by the way it pulses with relief. What she's built once, she can build again.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Of course she promises. Of course Lan will do her best. And if her best isn't enough, then there's no shame in that. As long as Lan tries. ...Right?

    Am I not enough? she'd asked, in that tunnel under the Ethos headquarters.

    She's already moving again when Gwen falls to the ground, and Lan has to grit her teeth and remind herself that Gwen's probably fine, she's just unconscious, they both climbed out of the ruins just minutes ago, and that was after another battle entirely. Gwen will be fine. ...Gwen will be fine!!

    Just like Azoth will be fine, if only they can stop him quickly enough.

    Before he can do any lasting harm.

    The green-haired girl (another Baskar?) and Xantia seem to have gotten the memo -- they're not pulling their punches, or their... uh... hasn't Lan seen Lydia do something like that? Dissolve and reform? - Whatever, it doesn't matter, don't think about that regret now--! Lan shakes her head almost violently.

    It's starting to wear at her. She was already tired. But they've got to be close by now, right? Just a little longer! With a shuddering breath Lan fights back against the pull of the curse and reaches out to her lucky star. "O you of--huh?!"

    The blast of electricity hits her dead-on, knocking Lan off of her feet and vaporizing most of the ink from her skin. She goes sailing, bouncing twice on the stone before rolling to a stop a few dozen feet away from where she'd started.

    "Nngh..." And even now, she doesn't stop. Azoth (and secretly, Ragnell) had seen it - there in the tunnels, Lan's body had kept moving long after she should have been unconscious from bloodloss. Just like it keeps moving now, the one arm still wrapped with black ribbons bending slowly to push her up from the ground. The other is limp beside her. "Nnn..." Both eyes open, neither one aware, and the ends of the black ink crawl and search across her skin as the Stranger's curse seeks to eat Lan whole and alive.

    Until, mercifully, Boudicca.

    Boudicca, with her healing artes, with a cool gust of wind, something soothing and healing, brings Lan around again. Not enough to fight - not enough to think - but enough to let her reclaim herself. Lan grabs her bound wrist with her bare hand, rolls over onto her side, and breathes.

    It takes even longer, this time, to pick apart all of the threads...

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"Seymour..." Jacqueline mutters with a frown. ...Is there anything else left she can say? He seems well and truly set on this path - she's not sure she can convince him. She's quiet for a moment, but she manages a smile when Lunata speaks.

"...Yeah." She replies with a nod. "And I wouldn't want you to feel that you can't speak honestly, too."

She quickly turns her attention back to Seymour, as the Omnigear rises. Her spell has had a distinct effect... but it's also drawn Seymour's attention to her. And then, Issachar dives. The Jaeger moves to defend itself, but the Omnigear is too quick for her - the spear jabs straight through the Gear's midsection. And then, a massive, explosive blast is released into the midsection. The Jaeger goes flying back, crashing into the steel floor below.

In the cockpit, Jacqueline groans, a little dazed from the force. The Jaeger, however, is doing far worse - it's armor is heated, partially molten from the explosion. Electricity crackles from the damaged sections, and the right arm hangs uselessly to the side.

"I-It's... it's alright. I'm still okay... but I think the Jaeger might be on its last legs." Jacqueline says. "Lunata, Shalune, are you alright...?"

Lunata is but Shalune... she's alive, at least. With a grunt of effort, Jacqueline forces the Jaeger to stand up. It isn't easy - the Jaeger has taken a lot of damage. But it still stands up.

"We can still... put a stop to this." Jacqueline says. A lot of the systems are failing... so, she's limited to what she can do. But there's still one thing left - the Jaeger charges at Issachar, a fist reeled back, looking to punch it directly with its remaining functional arm.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Artful Flourish!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Artful Flourish for 160 hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    As a Dad who sometimes makes Jokes and Wordplay, he almost certainly had this one coming.

    "It is uncertain," is the only answer Citan can give Jacqueline. "Perhaps it is the Gear itself that decides. Who can say whether these old stories are true? Though, Elly's scenario does lend some credence. If Shevat had been able to use that Gear of hers, surely they would have done so before now."

    It would seem that she is the only one capable, or they wouldn't have dared give away such a priceless weapon. There is some truth in the old story, but what parts are true? And why are they true?

    Perhaps it may be a bit rich, but Citan has seen the girl handle her Golem like this before. His response to Shalune is a fairly simple one: "Thank you, Miss Amira."

    They're words that he may regret in the moments to come.

    It's with that cry of rage angled in Lunata's direction that something appears to have changed in the man they face. If he had been singularly motivated before--

    What has he become now? He is utterly bent on their destruction. All of them here. The entire world. Perhaps all existence.

    That forms the sum total of the warning that Citan has, that something more might be coming from the direction of the Unsent-possessed Omnigear than what they have suffered already. Heimdall raises its arms as Issachar pivots, blades richocheting across the space in which they now stand. Some dance past the doctor's Gear as he holds his ground. Others rebound off his raised and well-armored forearms, cutting deep rends into the plating. But Heimdall still stands.

    There is little that can be done against what follows: a shockwave rolls across the area. It cannot be guarded against. It's too late to attempt to avoid it. All Citan can do is wade into the storm, steady his position and hold as best he can, aware of the maneuvers that Elly is now attempting. Will it be enough?

    When all is said and done, there are gouges in the earth. He's registering ruptured armor and mechanical damage along 40% of Heimdall's surface. But he -- and his Gear -- are still standing.

    The same cannot be said of everyone here. Big Shal is--

    "Miss Amira!"

    But there's no time to race to her side, not with that Gear still active and liable to soon attempt further destruction. Heimdall's right hand tightens into a fist and within the cockpit, Citan takes a breath, centering himself. The Gear breaks into a short dash and, as it accelerates, throws a single short punch. It's nowhere where Issachar is now.
    But the air itself cracks from the speed and forces involved.

    It's not a fist. It's a rolling wave of compressed air that carries all the force and weight of a fist.

GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Seymour Guado with Kenjin!
GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Citan Uzuki's Avenger stance ends.
GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"No...!" Fei shouts before he can stop himself. "I can't let you do that to yourself!"

To Seymour, the mercy to the world is a cruelty to Seymour. Perhaps his mind is twisted beyond belief, perhaps he does not truly believe it--but taking Seymour at the face value he provides... Fei can't let that happen. Nobody should have to face his--

--his what? Fei's head grows foggy. He is having difficulty focusing. Each blow to his gear is like aconcussion, the heat is still sweltering from molten metal. Pyreflies rise up around him. In a way that might mean it's over--for now. If a Calm comes, Seymour's plan has to at least go into remission. If that's what they're doing. Honestly Fei doesn't know anymore. He doesn't care anymore. He just wants this to end. He hasn't lived in Spira his whole life but even he understands it has to end. One way or another.

The ground itself smashes against Weltall. Warning symbols Fei hasn't seen before flash into the cockpit. Fei gasps, and struggles. He extends his hands and--

--darkness erupts out of it, in desperation, threatening to engulf the Omnigear.

"I can't... let there be another!" Fei sputters.

GS: Fei Fong Wong spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seymour Guado with Hand of the Event Horizon!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper!
GS: Reaper expired!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Citan Uzuki's Kenjin for 159 hit points!
GS: Weaken applied to Seymour Guado!
GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hand of the Event Horizon for 582 hit points!
GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.

They learn the truth -- like he hoped they would. A seed miraculously planted in Lan, and one he knew he couldn't stop this time. But Azoth always predicted their rejection would hurt the most. To see him, to know him, and to be hurt from the betrayal of his existence. To see them angry with him. Disappointed in him. Saddened over the lies he'd given them.

They hurt for him. Every time, they hurt for him. There's so much he should have done differently.

Boudicca despairs for their memories together. The times he lied, even, but how it must have been for him. Emeralda says she'll stop him, she says she understands, and knowing what she is he's afraid of what that means for her. Xantia drops a stone. She kept it. Whether or not she thought he was some awkwardly socialized weirdo, she kept it. Even now, she picks it up and takes it back. Lan pushes herself to a horrifying limit, refusing to give up because of what he might regret.

He's left with those as his last calculations before Ragnell frees him from the ones that would inevitably follow. Azoth's lights go out, replaced with Ragnell's currents as she reforms and rewires his damage while mercifully shutting him down.

+VOTE: Rikku is currently set as an observer. If they should be getting sparkled, please do so separately!
+VOTE: You have voted for Lily Keil.
+VOTE: You have voted for Gwen Whitlock.
+VOTE: You have voted for Dash Caskett.
+VOTE: You have voted for Xantia.
+VOTE: You have voted for Pearl.
+VOTE: You have voted for Seraph Ragnell.
+VOTE: You have voted for Lan Lilac.
+VOTE: You have voted for Fei Fong Wong.
+VOTE: You have voted for Billy Lee Black.
+VOTE: You have voted for Emeralda Kasim.
+VOTE: You have voted for Lunata Croze.
+VOTE: You have voted for Shalune Amira.
+VOTE: You have voted for Elhaym van Houten.
+VOTE: You have voted for Cyre H. Lorentz.
+VOTE: You have voted for Seraph Boudicca.
+VOTE: You have voted for Azoth.
+VOTE: You have voted for Seymour Guado.
+VOTE: You have voted for Jacqueline Barber.
+VOTE: You have voted for Ethius Hesiod.

<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.

Water rains down, in the wake of Elly's work. Some splashes down on Issachar -- it boils away into steam, when it hits the Omnigear's armor. Big Shal crumbles away, nearby; Issachar glances towards it, with Seymour's face, and his expression is passionless as he regards the golem's fall. He even seems to spy Shalune, but it can be hard to say for sure.

But the Jaeger charges in. The Gear may be battered, but it carries Jay there -- and the punch slams into the Issachar. The Omnigear is knocked backward. Feet slam back to the ground. Heimdall's wave of compressed air also strikes it; there is a loud POP as several armor plates are knocked from the inner frame and slump on their fixtures.

His eyes turn, then, to look at Weltall. "Another?" he asks. "You would show me mercy? FOOLISHNESS!"

Darkness erupts from Weltall. Raw, shadowy power slams into Issachar. That drives the Omnigear backward, arms raising to cross it. The darkness engulfs it for a moment.

'SEEEEEEYMOOOOOOOOURR!!'

There is another sunrise in Zanarkand. Shadows stretch out long and far -- two of them, one from the sun and one from Lunata's sun. The blast slams into Issachar, the nimbus of power around it preventing it from being obliterated in a moment. The shadow that Fei makes is dissipated... but it locked the Omnigear where it needed to be.

Lunata's energy blast slams down into Issachar, smashes it backward, and it stands. Smoke wafts off. Pyreflies slough off; half of Seymour's face is simply gone, a jagged tear of prismatic light there.

"N-No..." He rasps. "No... even this... is not enough...? You--you say you would not abandon me... but you would strike me down, when I am so close. When I cannot find what you have."

His one remaining eye turns -- the camera eye of Issachar flashes -- and regards Big Shal, for a moment. Then, he looks towards Jaeger. Towards Jay.

Pyreflies explode up from Zanarkand Dome. They shoot out like a pillar -- that becomes a wave -- and then they all dissipate, spreading out and vanishing. That was no Summoning -- it was a Sending, as the pyreflies all vanish.

The sky is split, again, by sound but a moment later.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?"

The scream comes from within the Zanarkand Dome. From where Yuna and her Guardians are. It is a woman's voice; a loud, piercing, and enraged scream. Despite being rich in those emotions, there is not sadness there. It is something completely different.

Then, there are explosions. A blast of flame rips through the roof of the building and out into the sky. There are others, which shake the walls and firmaments alike. Smoke and dust fill the air; it is enough to give a pause.

"You--you do not know what you have done!" the woman screams, her voice carrying through that same hole in the roof.

"No... NO!" Seymour screams. "Yunalesca--this cannot be--"

His voice wavers with panic. His eye looks back from the Dome, towards Jacqueline Barber. An idea seems to go through his mind.

The hopeful thing, that may be lost in the din of battle, is who runs out of the Zanarkand Dome. Kimahri, blue-furred, runs first. Then Yuna, with white obi; Tidus and Rikku aren't far behind. Wakka and Auron are near the rear, the Blitzer helping the Samurai. He seems to be staggered. It is all of Yuna's Guardians -- none, apparently, turned into the Final Aeon.

But a moment later, a bolt of lightning explodes out -- and only narrowly misses. It scorches the ground, dancing over it.

And a shadowy figure emerges in the doorway leading into Zanarkand Dome.

"Lady Yunalesca's... handmaiden...?" Seymour asks, softly. "But how--"

But he ignores that. Instead, Issachar, with the last of its power, fires its thrusters. One burns out, sputtering. The rest send it careening forward -- and smash into Jay's Jaeger. The two fly bodily, into the side of the Dome's outer wall. They smash through it. Which is when the wing unit flies in, blades stretched out.
They slash through Issachar's chest. Through the tenuous Unsent body of Seymour Guado. It explodes apart into Pyreflies, as the blades catch into the Jaeger.

And both Gears push over, and fall in a terrible tumble, down into the hole leading back into New Kasim City.

Into the dark.

<Pose Tracker> Xenobia has posed.

The woman in the doorway of the Zanarkand Dome stares at the two Gears vanishing from sight. Then her head turns, snapping back towards the battlefield as a whole.

"You..."

She is tall. She wears an ancient Yevonite robe; a priestess, it would seem, with much of her figure hidden in those flowing robes. They are red and white, slashed with greens and yellows. There are characters inscribed into the clothing. And yet, despite the traditional clothing, there are hints that she is not of Spira. One hint is her long, pointed ears.

Elves are rare in Spira.

The other is the tattoos under her eyes -- pink, accentuating her red eyes. Red eyes aren't so common in Spira, either; Lulu's are notable. Her expression is furious -- her long, flowing blonde hair and beautiful features marred by that rage.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50StR0HVWcQ

"YOU!" Xenobia screams. "A thousand years, wasted in this miserable place! A thousand years... and IT COMES TO NOTHING! I will NOT suffer this!"

She holds a hand out. An orb of black energy crackles into being, white lightning dancing over it with sparks and flashes of light.

The next hopeful thing is not lost. The Fahrenheit comes back 'round, soaring over the horizon. Twin streams of vapor trails -- and smoke, from here it was struck -- trail after it. There is but a moment's pause, as it begins to dip low. Very, very low -- the bottom nearly scrapes along the plaza's metal.

"JUMP ON!" Cid shouts over the loudspeaker.

<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    The light fades. The drones that still have power start reattaching themselves to Argus' frame. Four arms slot into place, and three of the undulating not-limbs attach themselves to the mounts on the machine's ventral surface. Shielding drones return to their proper places, and a faint, glimmering field pops into existence as Argus' reactor restores their drained batteries. Plenty of drones don't make it. They fall from the sky like hail, their batteries drained, the Shepherd Field destroyed. An arm misses Lily by less than ten feet, smashes elbow-first into the ground, scrabbles with blind, groping fingers before shutting down. The drones harrassing Dash clatter to the ground.

    Their colors might have brought back memories, once upon a time. The people who bore those colors are dead now.

    One by one, the drones begin to explode, cooking off in eruptions of superheated plasma. Balls of fire bloom across the battlefield--Juno is thorough enough not to leave war material in the hands of the enemy. Ethius might be appreciative of the methodology.

    What is the Directive, Dash demands. Residual static surges through Juno's body, twisting his face into a grinning rictus--a hideous parody of his calm smile. Or maybe it's the dissonant static of his thoughts, emotional feedback clashing with hardcoded directives he doesn't acknowledge.

    Argus throws up a hand as Ethius charges, grabbing that shotstaff and wrenching it to the side--but the machine overextends, leaving it wide open to fire from across the battlefield. The Ether-sensor sounds another warning, and Juno diverts power just in time to keep his machine from being melted by Seymour's stolen Gear. Holy magic rakes across the plating, and shielding drones catch fire, one by one. Then, the roar of water as Pearl's 'unidentified paracausal phenomenon' winds up for another attack--a tsunami that slams into Juno's Gear. Argus reaches out, grabs the sides of buildings, its remaining fingers clenching so hard that metal support beams start to bend.

    "Irrelevant," Juno spits, as Billy taunts him. "Irrelevant! You know NOTHING of Mother, of the necessity of my actions! You--" His head snaps to the side, as Renmazuo lays into Argus. He thrusts out a hand to deflect Billy's punch, but the Ether shots slam home, one after another.

    "God--" And here, Juno trails off, another gap threading through his thoughts. He falls silent, even as fury creases his face. "Quit?" Then, confusion. Horror. It's like Cyre asked him to cut his own throat. Bury the objectives so deep that the programmed mind won't even realize they're there, much less question them. But Cyre has a shovel, and he's digging. "Not all," Juno says. "The Directive requires some be preserved. We fought for you--died for you, when the M-Class threatened to obliterate you. When Diabolos came. We--"

    'Solaris has used you.'

    Lily's fire engulfs the Gear, and this time, Juno screams, his 'voice' a raw, electronic screech. Something that might sound more at home coming from the other, smaller construct. Dash's missiles only add to the conflagration, even as Juno slams into the mental wall that is a Purifier betraying him. Even with his memories gone, Trigger should--he should--

    Azoth goes dark. Juno remembers his last directive for the construct that should've been in his place today. Trailing smoke and sparks, Argus flies across the battlefield, one massive hand reaching out and slamming into the ground, fingers spread atop Azoth's body. A forcefield crackles between them, even though Azoth's foes are in no position to fight back further. And then, with the utmost care, Argus picks Azoth up, and cradles him in two of its hands.

    A3!th?

    No response.

<Pose Tracker> Megaman Juno has posed.

    The light fades. The drones that still have power start reattaching themselves to Argus' frame. Four arms slot into place, and three of the undulating not-limbs attach themselves to the mounts on the machine's ventral surface. Shielding drones return to their proper places, and a faint, glimmering field pops into existence as Argus' reactor restores their drained batteries. Plenty of drones don't make it. They fall from the sky like hail, their batteries drained, the Shepherd Field destroyed. An arm misses Lily by less than ten feet, smashes elbow-first into the ground, scrabbles with blind, groping fingers before shutting down. The drones harrassing Dash clatter to the ground.

    Their colors might have brought back memories, once upon a time. The people who bore those colors are dead now.

    One by one, the drones begin to explode, cooking off in eruptions of superheated plasma. Balls of fire bloom across the battlefield--Juno is thorough enough not to leave war material in the hands of the enemy. Ethius might be appreciative of the methodology.

    What is the Directive, Dash demands. Residual static surges through Juno's body, twisting his face into a grinning rictus--a hideous parody of his calm smile. Or maybe it's the dissonant static of his thoughts, emotional feedback clashing with hardcoded directives he doesn't acknowledge.

    Argus throws up a hand as Ethius charges, grabbing that shotstaff and wrenching it to the side--but the machine overextends, leaving it wide open to fire from across the battlefield. The Ether-sensor sounds another warning, and Juno diverts power just in time to keep his machine from being melted by Seymour's stolen Gear. Holy magic rakes across the plating, and shielding drones catch fire, one by one. Then, the roar of water as Pearl's 'unidentified paracausal phenomenon' winds up for another attack--a tsunami that slams into Juno's Gear. Argus reaches out, grabs the sides of buildings, its remaining fingers clenching so hard that metal support beams start to bend.

    "Irrelevant," Juno spits, as Billy taunts him. "Irrelevant! You know NOTHING of Mother, of the necessity of my actions! You--" His head snaps to the side, as Renmazuo lays into Argus. He thrusts out a hand to deflect Billy's punch, but the Ether shots slam home, one after another.

    "God--" And here, Juno trails off, another gap threading through his thoughts. He falls silent, even as fury creases his face. "Quit?" Then, confusion. Horror. It's like Cyre asked him to cut his own throat. Bury the objectives so deep that the programmed mind won't even realize they're there, much less question them. But Cyre has a shovel, and he's digging. "Not all," Juno says. "The Directive requires some be preserved. We fought for you--died for you, when the M-Class threatened to obliterate you. When Diabolos came. We--"

    'Solaris has used you.'

    Lily's fire engulfs the Gear, and this time, Juno screams, his 'voice' a raw, electronic screech. Something that might sound more at home coming from the other, smaller construct. Dash's missiles only add to the conflagration, even as Juno slams into the mental wall that is a Purifier betraying him. Even with his memories gone, Trigger should--he should--

    Azoth goes dark. Juno remembers his last directive for the construct that should've been in his place today. Trailing smoke and sparks, Argus flies across the battlefield, one massive hand reaching out and slamming into the ground, fingers spread atop Azoth's body. A forcefield crackles between them, even though Azoth's foes are in no position to fight back further. And then, with the utmost care, Argus picks Azoth up, and cradles him in two of its hands.

    A3!th?

    No response.

    Argus' head turns to face the dome. A shattered, emotionless visor takes in the groundbreaking events, even as Juno himself struggles, somewhere between the dispassionate observer he thinks he should be and the anger generated by his failed attempts to recapture Issachar. To stop the Biomass. To do a job he wasn't built to do. As the two Gears tip over the edge, a sharp pang of guilt and shame lodges in his core like a thorn. Mission failed?

    Don39 d1e. Don1a dar2 die.

    Then the Argus is gone as suddenly as it appeared, taking Azoth--and Ragnell--with it.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline is distracted, briefly, by the immense pillar of pyreflies that explode out from the Zanarkand Dome in the distance - and the scream that follows.

"Is that... a Summoning? No... a Sending? But..." Jacqueline starts. ...And then, that scream. She flinches at the sheer anger, and at the explosion. Something has happened... but, fortunately, it looks like Yuna and her companions - all of them - were able to escape safely.

Unfortunately for Jacqueline's it's a distraction at a crucial.

"...I'm glad. I- ah!" Jacqueline gasps as the Omnigear suddenly dashes forward into the Jaeger. In the Gear's current state, it's incapable of moving out of the way. Issachar crashes into the Jaeger, slamming it back roughly, smashing it through a wall... and then, both Gears are suddenly impaled by the Issachar's wing unit. Jacqueline flinches as an explosion rocks her cockpit as something in the Jaeger fails catastrophically... and then her eyes open wide in realisation as she realises where they're headed!

"No!" She calls out. That's the last thing her communication systems are able to pick up before they short out... and Issachar and Jaeger both are sent falling, tumbling, into the darkness.

She can't help but panic a little, pressing everything button she can.

"Come on... Jaeger, please! Just a little bit more... a little bit more!" Jacqueline calls out. "I can't... I can't leave Lunata like this."

She rests her head against the console, shutting her eyes as she thinks over her options.

"...Not yet. There has to be something... anything!" She pleads. Try as she might, though, the Jaeger no longer responds.

...But something else does.

It's a quiet, fearful moment, as there is abrupt silence from within the chasm of Zanarkand's Dome. But then, there's a noise. The sputtering noise of something trying its hardest. And then, from the abyss, Issachar rises - free of Seymour's spectral form. The Jaeger is nowhere to be seen. Its flight is a little ungainly, from inexperience and the sheer damage inflicted from the fight.

"It's... it's okay. It's just me." The voice, noticeably, isn't Seymour's - it's Jacqueline's. "I'm... I'm really sorry to worry everyone like that... I might need a small hand getting to the ship..."

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    A lot of things happen at once.

    The first is the unpleasant pop and hiss of the Rephaim overloading, sparks of electricity coarsing through the breaches in its armour, where the circuits, systemry and wiring have all melted into useless slag. Despite its ancient origins, Rephaim is largely not a 'created' Gear; it is a 'made' Gear, still, with all the limitations that entails.

    "I'm not going to abandon you. I'm not gonna stop being your friend either," Lunata grouses. "It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop you or let you do the fool things you wanna do."

    But moments later, something-- something occurs, explosions; a blast of flame, the Summoner team escaping. And... Yunalesca, dead?

    ... it occurs to her she doesn't even know who that is, having just heard about it moments ago in the heat of combat.

    But more important distractions-- as Issachar flies bodilly into the Jaeger, and the two of them tumble, spiked through wing blades, into the chasm of New Kasim City. Her eyes widen, her rage flaring white-hot again.

    "J-Jay! JAY!!"

    She doesn't answer Cid. The Rephaim's flared to life again, wings spread as she has it scream across the field towards the darkness--

    Another figure she doesn't understand comes; she misses the elf ears, or their significance.

    She doesn't answer, at the moment; she's busy hitting the pedal to the metal, even as her Gear creaks and roars and threatens to fall apart.

    She swears, for a moment-- she can hear her.

    I can't leave Lunata like this.

    It's an impossibility, a trick of the mind; she pleads for the Rephaim to go faster, faster-- and yet... otu from the silence of the chasm, something rises.

    ... it's Issachar.

    "Seymour...!!" Lunata growls, one of the Rephaim's sabers coming to sight, but then she pauses as a voice flickers through the comms.

    It's... it's okay. It's just me.

    Her eyes widen, and she realises she would be shedding tears if she could right about now. "Jay! J-Jay!!"

    She sweeps closer, hovering by the Issachar's side and... lifting it up, with the sheer force of her weary thrusters. "Don't scare me like that! You don't have-- I-- it's fine, let's..." Words have become hard and she's afraid of losing that victory about Words she lorded over Citan just moments ago.

    "... yeah... yeah, let's go back..."

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Leap on, says Cid, and Shalune hears it from somewhere past the ringing in her ears and the blood rushing through her head. She'd barely poked her head out from the snowbank and shaken off the last of the aches and pains, only to witness something she'd never thought possible, that sends her heart leaping into her throat.

    Big Shal's destruction doesn't phase her. She can and will rebuild the golem, from scratch if she needs to, and there is not a force on this or any other planet that could dare stop her. The Rephaim's damage doesn't phase her. Lunata is hardy above all else, and she and her Gear have been through much tougher scrapes than this and come out the other end ultimately fine. There's a lot you could say about how it might damage Lunata's mental state, certainly, but physically she'd get through alright.

    Jay, though...

    The idea of Jay being seriously hurt, or gone, is something that Shalune's barely ever thought about. It seems so bizarre to even accept that thought, even as she watches the two Gears slam into dome with an impact so loud and jarring she fears the mountain will start an avalanche. Jay is-- Jay is like their boulder, right? she thinks to herself, a little addled as she feels nausea start to overtake her. Like you can't call her a rock, because that's not enough to really sum it all up, so boulder it is.

    "Lunie--" she croaks out of concern and uncertainty, but can't find the rest of the words. The sight of the Jaeger pitching forwards at least lifts her up to her feet, sending her staggering forwards several steps before she loses her footing and slumps to her knees.



    Her mind has stopped working by the time there's a sound from the deep pit that leads to New Kasim City, but Shalune's ears are used to operating without much interaction from her brain. All she can feel is an empty sort of pique as she identifies the noise; she hadn't thought her heart could sink any further, but it turns out it can. Even after all that, Seymour has managed to survive.

    "Damn it," she quivers, her voice close to tears. The dam hasn't quite burst, but only because she's keenly aware of how much is at stake. She has to hold it together, she tries to tell herself as she balls a hand into a fist. For Lunata, if nothing else. Move, move, move--

    Her head snaps up, and her eyes are wide at the sound of the voice coming from the cockpit. "--_what_-- tell me you took the head off! Tell me you took the head off!" she blurts in relief and panic and exultation and several other emotions, all in one bundle, racing towards the two gears as if she could physically hug them, the Golem core under one arm.

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Whatever conversation they might have had-- is cut short by the rest of this half of the battlefield unloading everything it's got right into Juno's chassis. Cyre doesn't avert his eyes, but instead takes in the android's response. "...Sorry. You and yours must have had a rough time of it. Being made just to fight and die so 'we' wouldn't have to. That kind of purpose... to force such a thing on a life-- is reprehensible."

But then, Juno is swept away, leaving more questions than answers. Cyre is silent, even as something transpires within the Zanarkand Dome and... someone... storms out after what he can see is Yuna and her Guardians. All of her Guardians. But then...

"Jay...?" Cyre feels his heart sink when she and the Issachar go falling into the depths. He hisses a curse and kicks his damaged maneuvering thrusters into gear after her-- but it's not enough. He's not fast enough without the supplemental boosters. But he goes regardless. Even when Cid appears, his trajectory does not change.

Not until the Issachar emerges... Alone. Cyre's lips draw into a snarl as his sword unfolds again into a gun, the twin rails crackling with power. But then--

It's okay. It's just me.

"...Hhhh," Cyre sighs, as Lunata sweeps over to support the faltering Omnigear. Shalune is probably going to explode with excitement getting a chance to look over that thing, isn't she? "You damn near gave me a heart attack. Damnit, Jay..."

It's time to go. Whoever that weird blonde is, she certainly doesn't seem happy about... any of this.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    A ribbon, which perceives in a way entirely beyond sight or smell or hearing, flutters onto the deck of the Fahrenheit and catches on a railing. Boudicca has scarce little strength left, to form herself, to reach for Jay. She does not have the strength to call her name, throatless on the wind.

    Jacqueline Barber, who took her in with her Caravan when she knew nothing of being a person amongst people, who showed her friendship when she was so distant and unsure...

    "come back" says the breeze, but quietly, quietly, quietly.

    Her potions were a type of restoration Boudicca had scarcely seen before. Her sensible practicality has advised Boudicca on so many things. She took Boudicca's buttons for currency when Boudicca did not know quite which small circular items of Man were the ones with value. She has always been a pillar of strength and now she is

    gone.

    All there is, in her existence, is the silence. The others may take Cid's aid, but who amongst them has the strength to help Jacqueline, now? Lunata's gear is barely held together. Seymour is worth a thousand Gears -- Boudicca remembers Citan saying so, through her torment.

    It is well she is encapsulated in her ribbon, when the chill of hopelessness falls over her. It turns the victory of Yuna's sending to ashes, though the commotion certainly suggests they've escaped.

    Boudicca has always said there is something she can do, but if she pushes herself much further...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    Each second falls like a gavel.

    Each moment is a thousand judgements.

    And then, Issachar rises, and there is no lower place for Boudicca to descend to. Seymour has

    not

    killed her?

    Seymour has not killed her! It is Jacqueline! It is Jay, on that radio! That is her voice, and Lunata will bring her to the ship, and -- and Yuna has Sent that horrific choice, and --

    It's entirely a new way to break her heart, all sundered with relief and deer-legged hope. Luckily, Boudicca is already wrapped in her vessel, and has no way of collapsing any further than she has.

    She'll come out, eventually.

    She just... needs a nap.

    (Meanwhile, a witch rolls out from under a park bench. The armrest has been shot through. Miraculously, she's okay. She takes one look at Xenobia, elf to elf, and her hand comes to rest on her cheek. She probably says something like, my my, or goodness me, or look at you -- something inscrutable and intrigued like that. Luckily, before Magilou can break the plot in half, she looks at all the smoking craters she was ignoring while she rested her eyes, and very sensibly sproings onto the Fahrenheit.)

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius' thrust is thrown aside, and the systems that help keep his Gear upright have to be engaged manually to stop it from toppling over. For a time, he's stuck on the sidelines in a bad way when the Jaeger and the Issachar are both about to tip back over into New Kasim City. He doesn't scream Jay's name - he knows the lines are going to be full of screaming, and the only mercy is that the Argus is disengaging after that last bit of collected power. His mind is racing over possibilities on what can be done when there's an equally more urgent issue (the arrival of an unknown channeling incredible sorcerous power that... he doesn't want to play games of 'is this just as or more dangerous than Lily Keil' for risk assessment).

     The Issachar rises anew, and Ethius is about to prepare another shot when Jay's voice comes in. She's all right, she's okay - whatever vague handwavey motions are used in terms of helping assist others in their escape to the Fahrenheit are employed in some fashion in this middle part of the sentence - and Ethius flares up the heatless dash jets for one last push to get himself to the deck.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Yuna and all her Guardians emerge, despite what Seymour said. ...But then, so does someone who radiates power. Lily sees the Argus disappear with the mechanical sentinel she remembers fighting before, and Juno's last scream lingers in her ears. But there is no time. Jay is falling--Jay is returning. The woman, Xenobia, is calling up power. And Cid is coming back around.

"Come on!" Lily calls, and looks around the battlefield for those who can't do the jumping. She isn't sure what she's going to do with all this power still flowing through her, but for now she has one goal: get them out.

So, with gravitic power, she flies over to where the fallen are and just gathers them up as best she can, flying them towards the Fahrenheit... towards rest if they're lucky.

"Help me with them!" she says to Pearl, near her, just assuming the ally Summoner is going along with them. Because of course she is.

She told Citan she'd be careful. 'Careful' is not engaging that level of power down there after all this.

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

Even after all the combat, the bloodshed, the enemies still stand, at least until a quick maneuver has the ancient mech and the one Jacqueline pilots take a fall. "Are they okay?!" Dash shouts, still fighting the drones. It is difficult to tell when they let up-- the beautiful colors on the drones seem significant somehow. One would not expect something as simple as drones to have such flashy color schemes.

But all at once, they fall. Expended of their communications link, or energy, or both. "...Glad that is over," he mutters. The boy actually looks no worse for wear save for a laser burn or two from that last firing attack. But internals are fried, initiating auto-repair all over; some faint glimmers of green can be seen from the burns.

Of course, it wouldn't be a combat without something exploding in the background, right? Some massive fight seems to have also been taking place at the dome. Familiar figures escape, and they are chased by some robed woman. "The heck is that?"

Juno goes to Azoth's aid. The Mega Buster remains trained on the Argus, until he sees the Beurocrat hold the damaged fellow robot. His weapon slowly lowers. The calls to flee can be heard from the Farenheit. He looks back to the ship, then up at Juno.

"...We aren't finished. I have so many questions-- ngh," A hitch in the repair systems cause him to stumble, but quickly catches himself. "I need to know." That woman in the distance looks extremely angry, and is channeling some sort of powerful magic. Considering what all went down here, might be best to beat a retreat. He starts to head toward the Farenheit, but not before giving Juno one more look over the shoulder.

One day.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Many things happen in rapid suggestion. The Omnigear is struck heavily from multiple directions, but something is happening within the Zanarkand Dome. Citan's own attention shifts towards it, perhaps anticipating that Yuna has made her decision and--

    "...Pyreflies? And, they are leaving the dome...?" wonders the doctor aloud.

    A scream rends the air.

    The rest of the answer -- as well as the matter of what has been done -- comes when Yuna flees with her group. He might not even know all their names but Citan has a good head for numbers.
    They're all accounted for. She has not summoned the Final Aeon. And that Sending was...

    "...I see. So she has made her own decision," is as far as he gets before a demonstration of magical force bursts forth from the dome.

    A woman exits. Yunalesca's handmaiden? She's furious. And, Citan realizes once he gets a good look at her, she is also likely not a Spiran native. Has he ever seen a Spiran-born elf?

    But many things have happened -- and continue to happen -- in rapid succession. There is a loud crash. Too late, he realizes, the Omnigear has crashed into Jacqueline's own.
    Intentionally.

    The two struggle for an instant, then fall, down into the depths of New Kasim City below.

    "Miss Barber!!"

    But it's too late. There's nothing that can be done.

    "..."

    Only at a remove does he hear the tell-tale whine of an engine. "Is that--"
    It's Issachar, he realizes, before it crests the surface. But the way it moves is different. It's not the rigid control that Seymour had enforced over it. Rather, it's more akin to a baby bird that has taken its first awkward flight but still knows the basics of what it's doing.

    It's flying of its own accord, because it's found itself a pilot.

    "Miss Barber, you have..."

    But Xenobia's rage cannot be denied. Nor, for that matter, are many of them in any condition to face her just now. "To the ship!" he shouts, gesturing towards the airship. He'll wait for Fei and Elly to move themselves before following himself -- the girls already seem to have their own escape well in hand amongst themselves.

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    As the Argus makes it's exit, Pearl has moments to look over the battlefield before the burst of light and pyreflies from the Zanarkand Dome and her eyes widen. "A sending? With that many pyreflies?"

    'She goes to meet with the First Summoner, Lady Yunalesca. An Unsent... not unlike me,'

    "...Ah." So that was Lady Yuna's response, then. Not unexpected. But Zanarkand is now meaningless. Fortunately, she gets a shout from someone else. The sorceress. Pearl looks down to Leviathan. "Can you hold a little longer?" A quiet rumbling from the Aeon answers her, and she leaps off to assist Lily with the injured. "Those on Leviathan will need to be able to hold on." She responds, but gets those who want a ride on a sea dragon and can do so in place. Everyone ready, Pearl leaps back atop, and Leviathan surges forward, as Xenobia makes her appearance. The sheer amount of magic causes Pearl's eyes to widen. That sort of power, who could she...

    Leviathan glides to a landing, before dissipating into pyreflies- the Lord of All Waters was badly wounded, and Pearl knows they will need time to recover.

    Which leaves Pearl on the deck of the Fahrenheit, surrounded by those she once called enemy. This could be awkward, but that's not her main concern. She stares back at the field... "Jean... Leo Jr..." The words are quiet, just loud enough to be heard. She doesn't know where the two of them are. Or the rest of their comrades. "...White Knight. Skulr. Be safe, all of you."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

As the mist settles down, Elly breathes out.

I really want a drink of water, she thinks, before she turns her head, along with Regulus's. The Omnigear rises upwards, because people are waiting for her. There is a ragged transmission.

A moment later there is another pillar - a veritable wave of pyreflies, bursting, erupting, spreading out. The Omnigear's visualizer displays one for a moment, but before it can perform any analysis, it's gone.

And yet, Elly thinks, even as Regulus gains altitude, cameras skimming around the area. One finds Weltall, swiftest and surest, and adjusts magnification to take in that entire area. Another turns towards Zanarkand Dome. The angle means that the view is poor, and it takes long moments before -

The view shifts to a sort of impressionistic color smear. Blue. White and blue with a caramel top. Blonde on tan, twice. Black/gray with a stipple of cream. Red on top of yellow. And - all red, with a trailing tail.

I did it, Elly thinks. I didn't break that promise.

* Morale restored!

And even the arrival of Xenobia, who Elly cannot hear, doesn't break this. Not even when Xenobia... ah, well; some days last for weeks, and some weeks last for days, Elly thinks, exhaling with force, before Issachar moves.

Elly holds her breath. But -

It's Jay?

Did she seize control? Elly wonders. ... Is she distantly related to Seymour?? Is she from Filgaia or Lunar?? I never asked, Elly thinks. Does it matter? she decides, before sending a message. "Jay... just guide it one step at a time. It's... difficult, but you should be able to manage if the control system is intact!"

The words come with a pulsation of radio-frequency energy that echoes into Issachar's ravaged frame. The structural members hum slightly, and then -- sit again, tighter, cleaner. Just a little bit.

Regulus comes to light on the tormented old stones of Zanarkand, standing guard, perhaps; counting, watching. The Omnigear's semi-autonomous data feeds link to the Farenheight's: if nothing else, it will have an excellent perspective on Xenobia, whether they want it or not.

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

The battle with Juno careens toward its ending. Juno's anger rattles free Billy's own, and he finds himself yelling, "There is only one necessity for you, dog of Solaris!" as he draws fires more and more from his wrist blasters. "To the grave with you! To dust! To DUST! TO DUST!"

The sweep of the battle forces him back, and Billy finds himself stopping, sucking in deep breaths, his shoulders quivering. The break forces him to watch the unfolding chaos; the PILLAR of pyreflies, roaring into the heavens, and the screaming outrage of its attendant. As one final vengeance, Isacchar tackles its final combatant to the grave, and the drive to leap to save them he knows he would've felt, once, completely eludes him. He watches numbly. He doesn't know the woman. Another corpse forged by this insanity.

...Or not. For a small miracle, she survives, claiming the once-possessed Omnigear as her own. "Is that...how they work?" he asks nobody, dumbfounded. "Wait, no! What was that!? What!?"

Cid arrives. Billy has seconds to make his decision. He still has that much of his wits about him; he leaps to catch the Fahrenheit as it passes, Renmazuo's hand fortunately more than articulate enough to grip. They don't all even have hands, you now!

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Issachar holds on tight to the Rephaim, clinging to the winged Gear as Lunata pilots it over to offer her support. It supports her, in more ways than one. Omnigears are guided by will, after - it might be an instinctual action on Jacqueline's part.

"I-I'm sorry..." Jacqueline apologizes again, at Lunata and Cyre's concerns. She can't help but smile a little as Shalune catches up to them, and her relief and panic.

She'll let Lunata do most of the flying - she has more experience with it, and Issachar was damaged heavily in the fight.

"R-right... thanks, Elly." Jacqueline replies, as she offers words of advice. Her flight evens out a bit in response, as she takes the words to heart.

"And, um... I'm really glad you mentioned that detail about Omnigears being piloted through will, Doctor Uzuki. I was, ah... really surprised when I climbed in to find it didn't have any control mechanisms..." Jacqueline says with a sheepish laugh. It's a laugh she needs, after all this - she's well aware of how close all of that just was.