2023-04-22: Avid Horizon
- Log: Avid Horizon
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Talia, Rixia, Zed, Magilou, Marivel Armitage, Kaguya, Dean Stark, Mariel, Seraph Lanval, Shige Kiwako, Margaret, Layna Manydays, Gwen Whitlock, K.K.
- Where: Pentagulia - White Tower
- Date: April 22, 2023
- Summary: Questions were asked. Answers were received. They should not have been asked. They were received.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He doesn't notice it as it happens. It has sunk below even his conscious awareness, that command: seek. Seek. SEEK.
He loses the Goddess' trail after a time and follows only the voice that calls out to him, that has called out to him since that turning point in the plaza. After a fashion, perhaps it doesn't much matter: isn't his aim in the end to discover the truth the Goddess has so painstakingly hidden behind the veil She has cast over the world?
Her death is a reckoning that may be delayed for a time. First, the truth.
It is a long road down to the heart of that pulsing beacon in the primordial depths of his mind. But Harmaus finds it, the thing that has remained long-hidden in the bowels of the world. Here it is, what he has long-sought.
Within this cavern deep under the earth there is a massive sphere, titanic in size -- far larger than a Gear. It glows with a pale blue light.
Energy crackles across it; so do arcane Elw runes, which flicker and fade out of existence here and there. It is a barrier and it is constantly being tested.
Because, behind it, is a thing of purest darkness. An inky black void, highlighted only by billowing purple and flickering golden light, like a cloud. That rolls against the barrier, the occasional fork of arcane lightning striking the barrier. He may think it nothing...
...but then Harmaus feels attention upon him. The darkness shifts; it blinks as cloudstuff becomes fleshy dark eyelids, which open. Terrible, human-like eyes with red irises appear across it. With a jerk, they all turn, and look down at him.
A voice speaks to him -- directly into his mind. It is masculine, with a tone that is sardonic and almost playful. It is not friendly, but it is the voice that told him to seek.
Well, well, well... look what the cat dragged in.
Here it is, the end of his long journey.
Harmaus at first has no words. He takes one breath, one shaky breath. The force that has rooted itself into his very essence feels to almost dance under the attention of this being's presence.
Althena was no Goddess. This is a God.
"It is... you are..." he utters, gazing up at the being's glory. "...I, Fembuel Caulaog, Harmaus the Pilgrim...! I, seeker of truth the false Goddess hides from us! Speaks me Your name! Speaks me what I must do! Speak me-- speak me my answer...!"
You already do my will. You carry my mark. A mark that you have sought to imprint upon your soul.
The voice grew quiet, but not silent, for just a moment.
I am Zophar. Do you know what you have done? And why you have done it?
There is something about that voice, pressing further through his mind. There is something about the presence about and within that gives Harmaus pause even now, as far as he's gone. Run, some small part of him calls out. Run--
But he has not come so far merely to turn away from the door against which he must knock.
"Zophar..." Harmaus echoes. "Knows I what I accomplishes. Seeks I truth, and here You are before me!"
And there is a pause.
"...Why? It asks me, why? Because I must. Seeks I truth because... I must."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The red, red irises shine ever more brightly.
Truth. You wish to have truth. Then know this: what you have accomplished is to become a part of me. The Malevolence that you sought? You have become my creature. You have forsaken your Goddess to become mine!
This gives Harmaus pause. A Seraph with a more humanoid form might have frowned or furrowed a brow, but neither of these are options to the limitations of the corpus Harmaus possesses. "My Goddess? I has no Goddess!" he insists at the last. "Only false one, pretender! ...But it claims me? In her stead?"
There is, again, a long pause.
"...What is 'Zophar'? What are you?"
And at last:
"What is... Malevolence?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
What is Malevolence? What is Zophar?
He laughs. The laughter fills the chamber. It fills the underbelly of Pentagulia. It fills the darkest places of the world. The laughter fills Harmaus.
Malevolence is no base corruption, a simple ploy of a simple mind to undo the Goddess's creation.
It is the contradiction within us. It is when a parent turns from their child because they can take no more hurt.
It is when we strike down the one we covet, even though we know it we strike ourselves down too.
Zophar's voice becomes something deeper. It stops being a voice and becomes an impression; the sound of power itself. The sound of the world, choosing to briefly give it words.
I AM MALEVOLENCE.
I AM THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IMPULSE OF ALL THAT LIVES. I AM THE BLADE THAT ROBS WITH TEARS AND BLOOD.
I AM THE TWISTING OF REALITY CREATED BY OUR NATURE. I AM THE LAW THAT CORRUPTS THE WORLD.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
And finally, God thunders in Harmaus's mind:
I AM.
This is the tale that is often said of Malevolence: that it is corruption of the most base sort.
But those who know it more intimately know it differently: that it is rather the contradiction of the self -- no, not merely misalignment. But the contradiction that causes one to lash out, to sow hurt among others and the seeds of further discord.
It is self-destruction.
This is the law that corrupts the world.
This is the law that Harmaus has long argued is false -- a misrepresentation of what truly is.
But this is false.
And this is the truth.
Harmaus remains but stock still in the wake of such thunderous revelation. A Seraph of course needs not to breathe but he moves not even in the slightest: there is not even the twitch of a whisker, the flick of an ear.
To another, in another place, he might have argued. He would have continued to insist otherwise, that this is not so -- could not be so. There is however no arguing with God. Not when what poisons him sings in harmony with what Zophar speaks.
"Ah..." murmurs Harmaus, "Ah... so this is 'truth' of the world..."
He begins to laugh. It is at first but a low chuckle, rising in intensity as he twitches and spasms and collapses, resounding all throughout this low and forgotten chamber.
He laughs until he is capable of it no longer.
-------
It starts with a tremblor somewhere low, deep beneath the White Tower. The one saving grace in what is to come is that this alone may prompt any still within the tower to flee. Before long, the shuddering becomes far too intense to ignore and whole sections of stonework to work themselves free.
This does not carry on very long.
The tower, for lack of a better word, explodes; what was the White Tower falls as a deadly rain onto the plaza below. For any watching from a distance, a large dark shape erupts at last through the cloud and, stretching its wings, takes flight.
The light catches its scales as it ascends: they glitter, a brilliant white. None would mistake its form.
This is a dragon. White, like the tower from which it had come. But there can be no mistaking this for the White Dragon: the miasma that follows after it is nearly palpable.
This is a Fell Dragon, and like all Fell Dragons, it hungers for but one thing and one thing alone...
...and what was it that Liath had granted to the Veruni airship, 'ere its departure? What has begun to breed and spread, further infesting the very structure of the vessel?
The Fell Dragon scents it even as it climbs to the apex of its ascent, of this, its first flight. There is no resisting the lure. Where the ship moves further away it can but only chase after.
That which had been Harmaus -- a fact that may only be apparent to the Seraphim aboard the ship and, perhaps, Magilou -- howls to the heavens as its hunt begins in earnest. Its prey cannot escape it.
It gains quickly; it must be eager in the hunt to catch up to the ship in such a short time. Snarling, it swipes at the ship as if to attempt to knock it from the sky. But Captain Bartholomew, former Johnny Appleseed of the Veruni, did not get to that position by being anything less than an ace. Though the turn will be a sharp one and the acceleration sudden, it will see the Mayflower clear.
Yet this is no escape from the threat. Without hesitating even a moment, the dragon resumes its chase. In but a few moments more, it will catch up.
Make your preparations accordingly.
BGM: Yuzo Koshiro - Unrest: Ordeal of Stars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWIb__zYrzg
DC: You switch forms to Fell Dragon -The Pilgrim-! DC: Seraph Harmaus switches forms to Fell Dragon -The Pilgrim-! DC: Magilou switches forms to Lil Miss Witch Who Smiles Around You But Stabs You In The Back When You Are Not Looking!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
They made their way onboard the Mayflower. Talia is inside it -- at a door near the hangar -- and stares in confusion as Leo's tower explodes behind them. Her mouth hangs open for a second, before she sees it. A Fell Dragon -- exploding out of the tower, hurtling for them.
The pilot of the ship manages to dodge the first pass, though it still makes her hair shoot back. Then, she turns. She glances at them. "We should get the wounded inside, no?" she says. Then, she draws her newfound sword again.
There's no time to ask what Liath could have meant. There's no time to regret it. No time to question it.
She sets her jaw, then she starts onto the deck of the Mayflower. She said she wanted to do something; to make a legacy better than he one she had. Her sword in hand, she swings the weapon up, and light dances along the blade, as she steps onto the open deck. Then, she looks at the Fell Dragon.
"Where...did it come from?" she asks, quietly, even if a part of her wonders. And worries.
DC: Kaguya switches forms to Kaguya of the True Shot! DC: Mariel switches forms to Herbalist Mariel!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.
Rixia was ushered by Magilou and others towards safety, in her barely-alert, nerve-strained state. This doesn't seem to have subsided in the slightest bit, as she boards the Mayflower and largely just hangs by in the hallways without really going anywhere; she's breathing laboriously, seemingly straining to stay alert and awake. Her eyes are shot, and those purplish veins haven't gone anywhere.
The sudden juke of the ship to avoid the swipe sends her thrown to one side, but she grapples against the railing and snarls, growling more tightly. She stalks after Talia, heading towards the open deck, gunblade barely avoiding being dragged across the ground.
The objective hasn't changed one bit.
>> survive: eliminate all enemies.
"... eliminate... survive..." Rixia barely rolls the words out underneath the hoarseness of her throat. She thrusts her hand out, and the ambient magics high in the air Junction into her. Her eyes lock onto the Fell Dragon.
The Malevolence quietly burns inside of her.
"I won't be played with any longer!!"
GS: Rixia has attacked Rixia with Junction Magic! GS: Rixia has gained 3 Combo! GS: Rixia's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rixia takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Rixia takes 49 damage from Reaper! GS: Rixia has completed her action. GS: Rixia heals Rixia! She gains 47 temporary hit points! GS: Quick and Riposte applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Rixia has attacked Rixia with Junction Magic! GS: Rixia has gained 3 Combo! GS: Rixia's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rixia has completed her action. GS: Rixia heals Rixia! She gains 184 temporary hit points! GS: Quick and Riposte applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia glances at Rixia. She looks a little nervous, when she regards her. "Rixia... be careful, no?"
Then, she looks at the Fell Dragon. She takes stock of their position -- sizes up their movement -- and then swings her sword with two fast slashes. Light ignites off the edge of her blade and hurtles through the air, shooting towards the distant dragon.
"Double Demon Fang!"
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Double Demon Fang! GS: Talia has gained 3 Combo! GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Dragon.
DRAGON!!
Zed, being a Metal Demon, is quite familiar with dragons. He actually really quite likes them, also as a result of being a Metal Demon. They are, as the kids say, the BEES KNEES. But this one, this specific one, is not. Even Zed can tell that. The way that awful purple miasma falls away from it, so thick that if it spent even a few more moments in Pentagulia it would begin turning the city's population into Hellions by mere proximity...
It's a palpable spiritual poison that even Zed, EVEN ZED, can detect.
It is so terrible, so tangibly awful, that the prospect of fighting it only quickens his heart in the way that staring down a hungry bear with nothing but a pointy stick does. The rush of emotion--
Does not bring a smile to his face.
"Get anyone who can't fight inside," Zed grunts, his sword erupting not in starlight-- but in something else. The cold void of space wraps itself around his blade, sucking in all light-- an empty, vantablack scar in the world. "I'll go in first."
Because even when he's being serious-- he's still Zed.
And Zed is the kind of person who runs headlong into danger to stab at its face. Or in this case, to try and jostle himself onto its back to savage its wings with that awful world-rupture sword of his.
GS: Zed has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Saint Arts - Voidwalker's Resolve! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"It came from the Seraph Harmaus," Magilou says, a touch dour, as she steps up beside Talia a moment later. It didn't look as though she was on the Mayflower's deck, making herself a pain as she's wont to do; she wasn't here, and then she was, as if by magic.
She's been waiting.
Her hand lifts, to curl at her chin. "Or, more pertinently... that was Harmaus." Her eyelids veil over her eyes, obscuring the purple above the blue. "Looks like he's hit his limit, though... there'll be no talking through this with him, now. If I had to pose a guess? Liath was just making sure we'd leave a trail for him."
She laughs. There's no humour to it. "It's a reasonable precaution. It's generally difficult to keep Fell Dragons on task. You need some pre-etty simple instructions." This is what he's been reduced to... but even if she'd warned him, it wouldn't have mattered.
Magilou turns, sweeping an arm out across the deck, to all coming. Bienfu knows Harmaus's inner titling better than she does, but she's the one who relates it, all the same: "A real Pilgrim of a Fell Dragon is coming to feast on your bones, now! Fight or leave -- but there's no hiding on this boat we're in! It'll take it down without blinking, and it's a long way down, doves!"
And if there's any pain in her own eyes, as she declares it... surely it's a trick of the sick light. She can't even tell Rixia to relax, in a siutation like this...
"That's the spirit," she encourages Talia and Zed, instead, as she steps up to the side of the deck. A green Seraphic glyph alights at her feet, as she invokes:
Magilou says, "Is it hot, or is it just me? Crown Fire!" The fiery tornado which lashes at the Fell Dragon...
Well, maybe it's some kind of justice, anyway.
"
GS: Magilou has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Crown Fire! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Mm." Marivel says. "Probably about time to look at that Sphere from Tidus." She reaches into her bag for a moment before her eyes settle on something in the distance. She smells a familiar scent. She takes a couple whiffs before turning to look up and over towards...
"...Is that the....?" Marivel begins.
Then she realizes. No. It isn't who she thinks it is.
Her shoulders press down a bit. She closes her eyes. She thinks of Caina, who she warned. All those she tried to warn and threw themselves upon the pyre anyway, burning their everything for their dreams, cruel or otherwise.
She couldn't deal with Caina's death before. He was so young. And Harmaus is not young, but in a way she feels a kinship with the Seraphim all the same but... She is able to deal with it, she realizes. This is where the road she sought ended, she supposes.
And what Harmaus found at the end of that road, Marivel can only guess at. She hopes it was worth it for him.
"Allowing yourself to stand on fire..." She murmurs, leathery wings erupting out of her back as her own eyes open once more, pupils narrowed into slits.
"Mariel, I'm going in. Will try to slow it down. APORT!"
She vanishes in a flash of light--
--reappearing before the dragon. "I thought about throwing myself on the pyre." Marivel admits. "If I destroyed my everything, at least I'd be with where my family was. At least I'd know.... I was fortunate Liath and Mariel stopped me from going any farther with that foolishness. But you were the better Seeker than I, I suppose."
Marivel takes a deep breath in, cheeks bulging.
And then she blows it out, a sickly green and black breath right into the face of the Fell Dragon.
"It is frustrating, really but thanks to them..."
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpv0mKxWIHw&ab_channel=YukiKajiura-Topic
"I suppose I shall walk into the future after all." Marivel says. "Tis too bad you will not see it with me."
And she even means it. Her father always told her that if you're enemies with someone long enough they start to become not unlike an old friend.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Bad Breath! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya was preparing to talk to Captain Bartholomew, with Magilou at her side, helping her. She was preparing to negotiate the ends of the battle... until that bolt of Malevolence. Until--
"Shit," Kaguya says, as the tower cracks and breaks, and stares over at it. She recognizes immediately the essence that she's seen.
"...The bastard did it," Kaguya says, without explaining to any except perhaps Magilou, who assuredly already knows. "I hope you found your 'truth'," she says to the dragon, assuredly too quietly for it to hear, and reaches out to put a hand on Magilou's arm. "But like I promised..."
Kaguya looks around. "LOOK ALIVE!" she calls, holding onto the ship as the attack comes and Bart manages to dodge out of the way of the first one. "Captain!" Kaguya says. "We'll talk later--I'll defend your ship now."
She knows of him, of course. The former Johnny Appleseed... the man who led, before she went under to sleep. A man who she hasn't seen in over a hundred years.
She's still wobbly from what happened in the battle with--with Liath. But she pulls something out of her pocket and downs it immediately, the last of the Elixirs her adopted sister gave her.
Then, she advances on a guard--
"Gonna borrow this!" Kaguya says of the sheathed katana that she grabs from a guard, which she tosses over to Margaret. By the standards of sheer functionality, it's a fine weapon; the blade is a highly advanced blend of carbon, steel, and synthetic material, single-edged, with a tightly fabric-wound grip and a sleek design. It sails easily through the air under the sheer power of Kaguya's throw--
And once in her hand, is not quite so light as it might appear, designed for a mighty arm. It is a very fine weapon.
"Try not to break this one too fast!" Kaguya calls at her. "We need all the help we can get against this!"
Kaguya whirls out onto the deck then, and pulls the Zeikfried, channeling her power into it as she lifts it up. "Time to try darkness," she says, and power surges in particulate towards the barrel of the legendary firearm. A magical circle closes down around it, until, tightened, it becomes a lengthening of the barrel--and then a SHOT of dark power, which explodes on hit to become a net of binding force.
"HARMAUS!" Kaguya calls. "I told you I'd end you if you became this! Prepare to face the will of the Veruni!"
She turns, looking at Rixia, and her mouth tightens. But there's nothing she can do about that right now. Instead--
"All right," she says. "ZED!" she calls. "I'll be right there with you!"
Kaguya starts to move to the center of the ship, getting ready to sprint for the edge. But not just yet.
GS: Kaguya has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Void-Binding Shot! GS: Kaguya has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
When Nall had said that help was coming, Dean had believed him. The Trial Knight showing up at just that moment was just an unhappy coincidence. He'd boarded the Mayflower with Avril, Rebecca, and the others, acknowledging that staying on the White Tower would be a very bad and needlessly reckless idea. This acknowledgement pans out when the Mayflower sails and the White Tower EXPLODES behind them.
Granted, Dean didn't think it would be THAT bad.
"Woah!!" Dean utters, seeing the Fell Dragon emerge from the wreckage. The Trial Knight, or rather, Seraph Liath, hadn't let them leave without her own form of goodbye, and it looks like this is part of it. If Liath was the trial... this would be the real deal, wouldn't it? He became a Seer to help quell Malevolence. But Dean knows this might well be beyond him.
But it might not be beyond *all* of them, together. And that's what he believes in.
He doesn't hesitate to head out onto the deck, trusting Rebecca to take care of Avril after her intense moment as the Ice Queen, Twin Fenrir flashing back into his hands as he joins Talia. He looks down at the Fell Dragon with her. "It had to've been underground, right?" he says. "It just busted out everywhere!"
Which is true enough, but not really helpful. Either way, for now, Dean pulls out his Artificial Mountain Medium and prepares a spell to help increase his and his friends' defenses. He pauses to give Rixia a look of concern. He doesn't know her, but that has never stopped him before. "Hey, are you okay?"
But then Magilou steps up and reveals that Fell Dragon used to be the Seraph Harmaus. Dean certainly didn't know the troublemaking cat *well*, but he's fought him before--and he knows what this revelation means. His jaw drops. "Are you serious?!"
But even though Magilou is always a jokester, he has no reason to disbelieve her now. His face sets with determination. "It doesn't change a thing. We still have to give this all we've got!" He looks over at Kaguya and gives her a nod--and a smile. "Looks like we're fighting together again, huh?"
To Kaguya's ears, he might sound WAY too happy about that. But then, who wouldn't be happy about fighting alongside a friend?
GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Talia's Double Demon Fang for 44 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel, too, made it onto the Mayflower. She wasn't very helpful in the last battle, having nearly exhausted herself *before* that point, but she's doing a little better now.
Emphasis on the 'little', because she felt that Malevolence bolt in her bones. Malevolence always makes her feel ill, even though it wasn't aimed at her, and she was worn ragged before that. She's mostly up on willpower and resting at least some of her weight on that living-wood staff she carries these days.
Mariel is surrounded by a floral scent because she has deployed some potpourri in a jar with a complex lid, parts of which are delicate-looking metal and parts of which are fine mesh to keep the contents inside. She has set it down at her feet and has been staying pretty close to it...
...though that plan kind of goes out the window when a giant dragon explodes out of one of the Towers.
They have dragons in Althena's religion, Mariel knows, but that can't be one of them. It *feels* all wrong, a Fell Dragon - she hasn't seen one before but she can make some assumptions.
"What - " She gets that much out before she gags on the aura. The aura of Malevolence the Fell Dragon brings with it is stifling, almost smothering; like a taste in the back of her throat. Not the same 'smell' as Malice - if she describes Malice as sewage (and she does), the filth on the Ley, Malevolence 'smells' like infection and rot and the corruption of a bad wound. Just as unpleasant.
Possibly worse. She can clean Malice. The only way she knows to treat Malevolence is slow and ritualistic, that of a Shaman.
She draws a circle around her with the butt end of the staff. It doesn't look like it draws anything, but it parts the aura around her, at least a fraction. She stands straighter afterwards. "That's ...Harmaus?" she asks of Magilou, her voice small.
...
"I'll do what I can to keep people safe," Mariel says, reaching into her bag. Out comes a bottle full of a liquid the colour of faded grass; she shakes it vigorously, pops it open, and starts spraying. She can't get everybody with it, but the tincture reinforces magical defenses, and may give people a modicum of protection against Harmaus' assault.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval has his feelings about the Veruni but they're not that important to go into detail about right now. (Professional decorum in Guardian service, and all, but that's another time.)
Things get wild, bad, and dangerous in short order, and Lanval's nostrils flare as he sits up from sprawling out where he is on the Mayflower. He scarcely has time to take Layna aside and talk about how they're going to want to try and check anyone for heightened Malevolence after all they've gone through. 'Scarce has time' as in 'never gets around to it,' because something big immediately demands and calls attention to itself as per its nature.
A Fell Dragon.
"That'sh a lotta Malevolence... that much can only come from a Fell Dragon." He should be shouting it aloud, but his voice trails off because mortal eyes are more than adequate to call the appearance of it.
Magilou gives the Fell Dragon their due (re)introduction. That was Harmaus. Their little spat in the inner sanctum of the Goddess under the tower was their last chance, and now...
Lanval rolls back and forth and gets on his feet, striding forward and stumbling with purpose across the turbulence. However unseemly his appearance, one thing is true of Seraph Lanval.
He is dutiful to his causes, no matter how unconventional the way he carries himself (or, sometimes, doesn't).
"We're up, Layna," Lanval asides to the Seer of Water, and over to Dean, the Seer of Fire. For the moment, he drinks from his gourd for one more burst of strength after going through revelation after revelation after revelation.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Lanval with Liquid Courage! GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval accepts Seraph Lanval's Liquid Courage for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Seraph Lanval! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel has attacked Magilou with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has attacked Layna Manydays with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has attacked Talia with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has attacked Margaret with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has attacked Marivel Armitage with Sylkis Tincture! GS: Mariel has gained 3 Combo! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: Dean Stark has attacked Dean Stark with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Kaguya with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Zed with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Layna Manydays accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Layna Manydays! GS: Kaguya accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Kaguya! GS: Margaret accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Margaret! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Shield applied to Mariel! GS: Zed accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Zed! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Zed's Saint Arts - Voidwalker's Resolve for 129 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Gamble: Very High! Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Crown Fire for 158 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Marivel Armitage's Bad Breath for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Cripple, Disrupt, Drowsy, and Shieldbreak applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Void-Binding Shot for 105 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Drowsy applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Who's the most in need of protection, meanwhile? Well, Dean's of course hitting himself and Kaguya with this spell, but if Zed's outright leaping off the ship and onto the Dragon--that seems like a pretty good start!! Light shimmers up from beneath the three of them, the power of Dinoginos strengthening their defenses.
GS: Talia accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
The feline was in the midst of liberating some libation after being hurried along to relative safety. Don't ask where she got it from or if it's a great time to be doing so. She might not look thrilled, to undersell it. As the bottle goes up, the tower explodes behind her. Suddenly, ears are perked up, as are those twin tails. She didn't spit anything out at least.
Slowly turning on her heel, she quickly corks the drink, stuffing it away in her pack as she pulls at the lantern chained to her hip. Already drawing on its power. Guiding it, drawing on those darker memories and darker still shades. The figure is just the torso of a free floating phantasm. Shrouded by a tattered hood. It fades away and flickers ever closer.
There's a good chance there's Malevolence tainting the spell, if not just her mood. She'd already asked for help though. A realization she might need it. That gets a guilty look to the satchel she'd stashed her drink. Maybe more than needed it.
The light is held up though, the shadows around her shifting and creeping along. Still there to protect the others as long as she can. Even as her free hand's claws dig into the ship's railing. Remembering the first fell dragon and that one had been... well. Surrounded. Maybe even weakened. Split between bolting. Everything having been too much lately and dragging away at that conviction that she'd protect the others in her own odd way and rigid in trying to maintain that at all costs. It's a calling, it's what she knows she has to do. It's not like she can run anywhere anyway, right? It's hard to hide how on edge she is no matter what htough.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Mute Horror! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Can it get any worse? Margaret has not run out of energy, nor of hope, even in the face of the horrid revelation that the Trial Knight - the plaguing tormentor of so many things, overcome barely each time - was the Seraph Prime, the Seraph Liath.
It's enough to make you lose your faith, really.
She was able to sit for a couple of minutes, as did Dollie, and that was a blessing. The tower behind them explodes, bursts -- Margaret remembers her effort at a gambit, hoping against hope that the Trial Knight could be fooled into blasting a way for them to reach nearer the ground and flee on foot.
She laughs, a little. Dollie looks at her strangely. Margaret heaves herself upwards and says - "Dollie, dear." ("Yes, mam.")
At this point Zed speaks wisdom, itself an anomaly. Margaret tilts her head. She's distinctly out of swords.
A moment passes as the ship swerves. Even unarmed... Margaret says to Dollie, presently, "Whether it's you or Veren," a pause, "do the best you can. Tell him the rock milling idea's a good one, I think it's a good use for the sandworms. Keep doing on with the ball boards. Beyond that... live on, alright?"
Dollie swallows once, and says the most difficult "Aye" of her life, before turning to run. Margaret squares her shoulders, and--
Kaguya throws her something. Margaret catches it with her left hand on reflex. She hefts it for a moment, surprised. A tilt back and forth, and she looks to Kaguya. And now she smiles a little bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dku07J7dDkE
"So," Margaret says as she slides the scabbard in the curled cup of her numb and cloth-wrapped right hand. Once it's at a likely place, she raises up to grip at the knot spot with her teeth and tug it tighter. Tighter yet. The wrap won't squeeze anything too lethally, and it's not like she can feel it, anyway. After this, her left hand grasps the hilt.
"A dragon, then," Margaret says, drawing the curiously vivid blade of carbon-fiber out. "Here we go." Her eyes turn towards Magilou, answering her rhetorical comment with "Why not both?"
Margaret steps forwards, pausing near Rixia. To whom she says, gently, "That's the spirit. But keep your eyes clear. Remember... we're running, not conquering. I may need you to give me a hand, but for now -" The blade comes out all the way and the nebular light of Starlight Express blooms around her.
"Let's give the heroes a moment to rest." And with that Margaret streaks forwards and *runs off the deck of the Mayflower* before suddenly streaking forwards in several green-lit lashes towards the dragon, each one boosting her forwards and letting her have the velocity she needs to give the Veruni blade a twisting reproof and swing it out in a mighty one-handed STRIKE towards the face, rising upwards and saying, "Afternoon," to Marivel on her way upwards from the shock of the blow. Tumbling it takes her two more of those streaks, then a somewhat iffy third to skid out and land on deck, ending momentarily near Mariel.
The scent of dry grass makes her smile. Pushing herself upwards, Margaret remarks to Mariel, "Alright then... proof of the concept. Let's do it from the top..."
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
Layna has been, naturally, keenly interested in the ship that came to bail them out. An airship - they've always caught her interest. Unfortunately, the current situation doesn't allow for the sort of question-asking she'd like, especially as things go from bad to worse. The White Tower explodes, and something - no, not just something, a Fell Dragon, emerges... and, races straight for them.
Layna unleashes a string of curses that would shrivel the heart of even the most veteran of sailors as she follows the others as they race onto the deck.
"What the hell's up with this...?" Layna mutters. Magilou lays it out on the table - this is, was, Harmaus, and Liath lead him right to them.
"...Damn it. I knew this was probably going to happen, but..." Layna mutters, shaking her head. She didn't hate him. This is a fate she wouldn't wish on anyone.
She approaches the edge of the deck, and draws from her coat an ARM - and a fairly large one at that, resembling a ship's cannon encased in a replica of a ship, designed to be held.
"Aye, lad." Layna replies to Lanval with a nod. Mariel, too, will get a grateful nod as she applies a spray of a defense-strengthening concoctions. She'll need to be at her toughest here to endure this.
She hefts the cannon up, bracing the ARM against the railing of the deck. She takes aim, and a gatling barrel emerges from the depths of the cannon. And then - she opens fire on the Fell Dragon, trying to get as much as she can in before it closes in.
GS: Margaret has attacked Seraph Harmaus with This Is How I Fight! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Mira - Full Volley! GS: Layna Manydays has gained 2 Combo! GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Magilou accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen is... still out. Carried down into the ship by two members of the crew as danger is sighted, it seemed at first that Gwen would be out for this fight.
.......
The doors burst open, and Gwen staggers out, panting, her bloodshot eyes scanning the horizon. "_Lemme shoot that damn cat_."
It doesn't take very long to sight the approaching danger. However, it's not 'Harmaus', as Gwen had envisioned in her mind on the basis of a few off-chance mentions. This form is clearly draconic, but it is no dragon that Althena would have once allied with. It's the antithesis of it, being-- ".... A Fell Dragon..."
The courier's lips clench grimly. ".... Seriously.... I thought... we were done... with this nonsense...." Wiping the sweat from her brow, she wedges herself between two fixtures on the ship, using them for leverage in case the recoil from the shots she needs to make will be too much. "..... I'm gonna support y'all from afar. Ain't friggin' gonna get no rest with this asshole chasin' us anyhow..."
She fires a shot, barely keeping on target as her ARM spasms from the forced charge. "... This'll get tricky..."
In her haste to rush within range of danger, Gwen almost failed to realize that the fine mist that collects on her face isn't some stray cloud condensation, but a gift from Mariel, who is diligently spraying something that smells of grass and green. Gwen smiles. "... Thank you, Mariel." She feels a little more like they just might be able to pull this off, now.
GS: Gwen Whitlock accepts Mariel's Sylkis Tincture for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Coil Cannon EX! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Shige Kiwako's Mute Horror for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Interrupt and Mute applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Evade bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's This Is How I Fight for 99 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Mira - Full Volley for 134 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: COUNTER! Seraph Harmaus counterattacks Gwen Whitlock with Counter Attack! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Bevelle
Port District
Two Years Ago
They stand under a grand archway of bright red, its shadow cast over them as they speak to the feline Seraph at their side.
"I've one last question for you, Seraph," intones the knight. Harmaus tilts his face upwards at K.K..
"It asks."
"The mortal who was with you at the ceremony. What was the nature of your connection to him? I felt no pact between you, yet you inhabited him as one bound might."
"Ah?" muses the catlike Seraph, tilting his head as he regards the knight. "Wonders it how I manages?"
Those orange eyes of his light up again, as if somehow pleased by the asking. "Is simple yet difficult! But I crushes the human inside."
The knight pauses. They look down upon the feline Seraph, looking so pleased, eyes a-gleam. Their head cants to the right.
"Conquers will until no resistance. Then, the body mine."
Harmaus' tail swishes once, twice.
K.K.'s fingers twitch in a sudden, short spasm.
"Takes much time. Takes right vessel. Another way I has now. I needs not conduct such again."
"... I see."
And it is here they turn upon one heel with a sure motion, as if an unseen decision has been made.
"So be it. You shall have my aid, cat."
Now
The Red Tower
Pentagulia
She stands above the Tower of the Red Priestess, the ill violet light reflecting off her polished white armor as she watches the grand and hideous form of a newly-born Fell Dragon soar into the sky.
She could feel the tremors throughout Pentagulia, even from this distance.
She feels the swell of its fetid, self-perpetuating blight of Malevolence even more keenly.
Fingers twitch in a short, sudden spasm as she watches what was once the Seraph called Harmaus fly after the irresistable lure she prepared for it. Watches as it flies, away from the unsuspecting civilians of Pentagulia who may yet become its prey before the day is out.
She does not look away, even as the Mayflower and its pursuing Pilgrim become more distant sights. In her gold gaze is a mixture of contempt...
... and melancholy.
"... Now the truth inescapable is upon you, cat," she murmurs. "'Tis no freedom within man's blight. 'Tis a cage. It takes much time. It takes the right vessel. But it confines and starves, and conquers will until there is no resistance."
Her jaw sets.
"... and then it crushes the will inside."
She does not look away from the distant sight of battle.
Part of her knows it is the least she owes -- to all of them.
"... May Fiends find the strength within them to grant you merciful release sooner than those you bound, Harmaus.
"'Tis far more than either of us deserve."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The thing that chases after them now is the Seraph Harmaus -- or was, as Magilou rightly corrects. This was the Seraph: the Seraph no longer exists, his existence consumed by the Fell Dragon he has become. This is the fate that awaits all Seraphim that have succumbed to Malevolence, it is said: without intervention, their transfiguration into a being that but hungers for Malevolence is certain.
But neither it is possible to purify someone against their will. And it had not been possible to persuade Harmaus of the folly of his quest. Thus, he had discovered it for himself, it would seem...
What awaits on the other side.
And now there is nothing left to reason with at all: this is a monster that harries them now, keen on their trail thanks to Liath's providence. But it is not for their sake alone that Harmaus -- what he has become -- must be destroyed: a being like this cannot be left to wander Lunar and sow destruction in its wake. It must be put down, and ideally now, before it has the chance to grow in power and strength. Harmaus was already an old and powerful Seraph: how much more powerful might he yet become as a dragon?
Some might call out the name which the dragon once knew as its own, but it doesn't so much as hesitate. It can no longer understand them. It can no longer process or comprehend them as more than prey, more than further sources of Malevolence and strength. To become a Fell Dragon is to become worse than even a rabid beast: no trace of Harmaus -- any of his cunning or cruelty -- yet remains. This is but hunger, personified.
The dragon is gaining. There, as it soars through the air towards the Mayflower--
Light cuts through the air and slices a line across its snout. It bellows in response, the air trembling under the blast. With one burst of its wings, it means closes the distance, coming in hard for the one who had hurt it so.
But first, it must contend with the flames that erupt about it. Fire might be the remit of dragons, but that does not mean that they cannot burn and burn well, particularly when the fumes Marivel had exhaled -- having appeared before it just moments prior -- also so easily call to flame.
Or, for that matter, the cannon that sings its melody sweetly as it discharges its ammunition upon the burning dragon at its approach.
It is a shame, perhaps, that what was Harmaus is too far gone to hear the answer from any of those here, let alone Marivel. It claws at Marivel herself in passing before descending hard for the deck. In this moment, Zed and Margaret both leap atop the dragon's back, with Margaret's borrowed blade carving along the line Talia had left but moments prior; a sticky black oozes from the wound afresh and the dragon lurches hard. Margaret takes the instant to leap back for the deck, but Zed, who is perhaps accustomed to his sort of thing... maintains his balance and delivers unto it the edge of his blade even as it slams for the deck of the airship.
It but slows the dragon for a moment. A massive claw slams towards Talia where she stands.
But this is also the instant in which Kaguya makes good on her promise, and shoots the dragon Harmaus has become with a binding bolt. The net binds it to the deck, and in this moment--
Gwen shoots it. A shade, born of Shige's lantern, rises up to bestow its curse upon the cursed dragon. Still firmly bound, it bellows in response to both. It bellows and-- the air tears about it. Black light streaks on a violet trail towards Gwen, and the dragon in that moment tears one claw free from the netting that binds it. Rising, it strains first at the net, then that claw sweeps out at all those it can easily reach, followed by -- with a popping and tearing of the net -- the other claw at a short remove but a moment later.
The dragon, again, causes all about to resound with its roar.
A glowing violet halo winks into existence fleetingly behind the dragon before erupting into a spray of Malevolence-tinged light. It rains down onto the deck as a storm for all those -- Mariel, Dean, Rixia, Lanval -- who bolster themselves or ready their allies.
Still caught by the net, it makes to take flight once more -- no doubt to harry the airship further in its attempt to bring it down.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with False for True! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Talia with True for False! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Zed with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Magilou with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Kaguya with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Layna Manydays with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Margaret with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Shige Kiwako with Beyond All Knowing! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Mariel with Fierce Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Rixia with Fierce Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with Fierce Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Lanval with Fierce Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Mariel suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's Fierce Light for 112 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Mariel! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: COUNTER! Talia counterattacks Seraph Harmaus with Blizzard Blade! GS: Talia solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's True for False for 104 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Kaguya critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 57 hit points! GS: Mute and Poison blocked! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 96 hit points! GS: Magilou's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Magilou! GS: Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 89 hit points! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Layna Manydays! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Counter Attack for 124 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Dean Stark accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Dean Stark! GS: COUNTER! Rixia counterattacks Seraph Harmaus with Draw - Counter Magic! GS: CRITICAL! Rixia suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's Fierce Light for 199 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Marivel Armitage partially guards Seraph Harmaus's False for True for 80 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval partially evades Seraph Harmaus's Fierce Light for 115 hit points! GS: Seraph Lanval's Poison Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Seraph Lanval! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Dean Stark solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Fierce Light for 108 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Dean Stark! GS: Margaret solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 121 hit points! GS: Margaret's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Margaret! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Seraph Harmaus partially guards Talia's Blizzard Blade for 125 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Rixia's Draw - Counter Magic for 47 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"From--"
Talia's eyes widen, as Magilou delivers news that she realizes she already knew. Who else could it be? She even told Harmaus it would come to this.
Her eyes are down on the deck, for a moment, before she nods. "He... he never would stop, and now--" She shakes her head. "Then we'll put him down, no?"
She looks at Dean, then, and she nods. "It must have," she says. She looks to Mariel, then nods. "Thank you, no? We could use it!"
She looks to the dragon, hurtling towards the Mayflower's deck. His claw comes down -- and it slams into Talia's two-toned, gold and silver blade. She is thrown backward, but not before the spell she stored in the blade explodes out -- and huge, sharp spikes of ice stab up at Harmaus.
Then, she turns, and she leaps. Talia jumps at the fell dragon, and her blade spins in her hand. Light ignites up it.
In the last few months, she has had to contend with a truth about herself. Ice suited her, because she had a way of locking away things she disliked about herself; of finding an equilibrium and sticking to it. But she has found she has to change, and the truth of that need is just as much a part of her.
It's something that comes in a flash, much like her passions and impulses. So her blade flashes with white-gold light--
--and when she slams it down at Harmaus's side, the lightning spell she stored into the sword explodes off it with a powerful arc of electricity, a mighty crack of thunder, and a burst of sparks.
Ragnell would be proud, she thinks.
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Thundara Blade! GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.
Rixia looks to Margaret and her vivid blade of carbon-fiber, still coarsely breathing. "I've never felt more clear in my life. I'm done being toyed with... I want to be my own person! I'll never be manipulated again!" she looks to Talia in turn. "Being cautious and worried was what got me into this in the first place...!"
The thickness of the Malevolence is so oppressive as to be palpable -- yet Rixia doesn't seem to buckle, like the first time she faced her first Fell Dragon. It's strange to be able to say that she's fought two, now; but the presence of Malevolence almost seems more like...
A halo winks into existence, and rains down upon them, in Malevolence-tinged light; Rixia just seems to readily face it, her gunblade held aloft as she draws that magic within -- and further Malevolence into it.
More... more magic! More--
"Despair awaits, dragon..."
The statement is all Rixia gives in a rumbly murmur as she disappears onto the other side of the deck, harnessing some of that Light that Harmaus has deployed against her back as she gathers power into a singular little dot of a point. There's a tremendous rumble, as that light gathers further, and further, and further--
Forbidden magics that the Federation would likely be looking for in her hand, synthesised through the Sleeping Lion, brings forth a miniature collapsed core of a star within the palm of her hand.
"Where are you looking?!"
As she announces this, she disappears again, feinting once more as she reappears at Harmaus' flank to just lob the spell in an arc, threatening to shatter the space around where it goes in one violent flash.
GS: Rixia has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Rixia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Rixia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Shockwave Pulsar! GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rixia takes 19 damage from Poison! GS: Rixia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Ah," Marivel says to Margaret. "Surrounded by heroes wearing the costumes of villains again. Can't you all just accept it already?"
Gwen says she thought they were done with all this nonsense, "Not now or ever I suspect," She quips at Gwen.
Mariel catches her with that tincture shortly before she departs.
But after breathing out those fumes. Marivel lashes out with her own claw to try and parry Harmaus' own, but Harmaus's claw is bigger. Marivel gets ripped open and swiped aside. She supposes she couldn't slow it down all that much after all. Seems there's only one ending to go for here.
"Well at least it simplifies matters."
Those wounds are festering, she thinks.
She twists her body and throws herself towards the Fell Dragon, swinging that clawed arm behind her, eyes slanting towards Rixia, eyes seemingly aimed like daggers towards those purplish veins.
She pulls back quickly, not expecting Talia to unleash thunder--Marivel is still wholly vulnerable to light and light-adjacent assaults. She says, "Careful, kiddo," because even if it wasn't aimed at her, they still make her plenty nervous.
And then she rears back with her claw and aims to swipe it against the Fell Dragon, drawing power into her--allowing a bit of her own endless hunger take hold for a moment.
But just for a moment. A tool in the toolbox.
At least Elise has the sense to not follow Harmaus here, she thinks.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Skill Drain! GS: Recover! Poison removed from Marivel Armitage! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 132 hit points! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Zed! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Shige Kiwako takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 146 hit points! GS: Shige Kiwako's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Shige Kiwako!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Certainly, in a fashion, Magilou feels the fingertips on her arm. She looks to Kaguya, from across a wide gulf of sensation. Her head dips, in a wordless nod -- of acknowledgement, of agreement, of abrasion -- to the way she supposes he must have found his truth. They both know what they're talking about. Kaguya knows why her lashes fall over her eyes in a long, slow blink, too.
It's a breath of connection; neither of them have time to linger on it, on the fact that Harmaus was never just a horror to oppose for some of them. Perhaps they'll talk about it, later.
Assuming they're still alive -- which, at present, is a pretty big ask.
"Mm," she supposes, meeting the other flagrant elf's eyes, as Margaret wonders whether it could have once been Harmaus and came from Harmaus. That much, she'll agree, is true. That much...
"It is," she answers Mariel as she asks whether that's Harmaus, sotto voce, understated, with none of the usual theatrical bombasticness of her tone. "Or... it was, once."
Is she sad, or is she empty?
"He's gone."
The horrific press of Malevolence against her bones doesn't sway her; doesn't take root in her marrow and her wounds, though she's so many entry points for infection to spread. But all her emotions tend to fall away, in situations like these, though she wishes she could keep the pantomime going.
Even though she's strong in the face of these horrors... she still appreciates that Mariel went to the effort to help her. "Haha... in situations like these... I guess even someone like me's not a sure bet, huh?" She supposes, dabbing the the sides of her neck as if that spray were so much perfume. "Oh, I got through it last time, but..." Her voice, 'til that trail, was at least LIGHTLY humourous, all filtered through the distance of fog --
Until the bottom drops out.
"There's always a next time."
It's the kind of hollow, droning tone which has sent so many university children to sleep, labouring under the weight of theoretical magic classes.
She has no time to elaborate any further, though -- because now the Pilgrim's claw cleaves in towards her. A well-placed shikigami manages to displace the glancing force, directing its simple hunger away from her core; the paper doll is torn almost in half by the force of the strike, despite the magic and spirit within, and she shrinks it and tucks it back into her sleeve. Drawing another, she takes a quick-step back, and then one more for luck.
Not that there's much lucky about this, now.
"Even if I'd argued... it wouldn't have changed anything." Magilou supposes, all hollowed out; perhaps she's remembering what Talia said, about how he wouldn't stop. Theory floats, just like her psyche, above the horror lancing through her body and her mind. "In the end, we had nothing to say to each other... no, I found nothing to say." And it's that sort of toneless regret which ought to be a fertile bed for Malevolence, particularly given the aura around them --
Which is why it's so strange that Magilou, that empty grieving vessel, isn't filled. She is as she is, a null pointer, untouched by the horror which pours over her.
Would there be more justice in this world -- if she were wracked by the pain of Malevolence?
Perhaps she simply has not stood here long enough.
"It doesn't know where it's looking," she warns Rixia, flat. "And it doesn't make a great meal." But even if she warned her... well, you know.
This time, it's a red Seraphic glyph, at her feet, as another shikigami spins beside her hand. "Paint the town red... Blood Moon," she invokes, as a blood-red sphere of fire erupts above the Fell Dragon, mockery or memory of that day. Should she have told him everything, back then, in the Light Shine?
Would it have mattered?
GS: Magilou has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Blood Moon! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou takes 35 damage from Poison! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Very High! Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Talia's Thundara Blade for 179 hit points! GS: Hyper and Mighty applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Rixia's Shockwave Pulsar for 314 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 50 FP! (That's 35 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Charge bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Marivel Armitage's Skill Drain for 82 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Magilou's Blood Moon for 56 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
It is a brief, brief moment. There's no time for anything else. But it existed. Ad maybe they will talk about it later. But Harmaus was something else to her, too...
Did she cause this, in her last act of mercy towards him? Or was it inevitable? Either way, it is her responsibility now.
Dean, sweet Dean, is glad to be fighting with her. Kaguya is entirely too cool to admit it in exactly the same way, of course Still... "Looks like. Think you can keep up with me?" He does sound happy. And that's not so bad. The truth is, though, that fighting with Dean is as much a boon as the shielding magic he uses.
Lanval is the expert on purifying Malevolence--if the ship has any lingering after this, they'll need to count on him and Layna. That's Kaguya's excuse for looking after the old man, anyway. As for Margaret, Kaguya grins at her when she smiles. Then she lifts an eyebrow. "Pink," she comments. Well, that's a thing.
But Margaret is up there ahead of her. And the dragon--
It's here. The air tears, and the claw sweeps out. Kaguya's binding can only last so long. But as she throws up her arms to defend herself and her weapon, Kaguya has to step back by the sheer force of it, despite her sturdy defense. The dragon is powerful--how much more powerful could it become?
They must not find out.
So she starts off at a sprint, jumping when she's close to Talia with a nod to the other woman, which is admittedly still a little awkward--and then leaps onto the Dragon's back and springs upward from there, somersaulting into the air. Her fist rises over her head, and she shimmers mid-air with pale energy, light glinting off of her hand as it gathers all around her. "Haaaaah--!"
Kaguya slams back downward, striking for the thing that was Harmaus's back in a powerful bare-handed strike, her weapon already stowed again, to infuse him with her power to limit him again a moment. "Zed!" she calls. "Now!"
GS: Formation! Kaguya has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Meteor Stance! GS: Kaguya has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval watches as various parties take the fight to the Fell Dragon proper, as he stands among those still upon the deck. Having had a drink, he holds fast to purpose and conviction as the immense volume of Malevolence radiates from the very presence of the beast that was once Seraph Harmaus.
Caught in that net (for the moment), the Water Searph thus makes their approach, though the powerful roar is enough to get Schturdark's servant to throw an arm up in bracing. He sees the violet halo of Malevolence-tinged light expanding, and he just dive rolls across cover to blunt the exposure, coming out the other side less touched but no less in peril for the effort of daring to stand against a victim of the fate of all Seraphim conquered by Malevolence.
"Yep... there ain't nothin' more we can do for 'em other than shend 'em off," Lanval echoes sentiments murmured across others, in case anyone had the thought, the inkling, there might be a Seraph Harmaus left to reach.
"Now it ain't the shame fer everyone," Lanval calls out, "but if I remember it right... Lightning ish yer besht bet!" He says this not having noticed Talia finding that power within herself to send it through the blade for the beast.
A Seraphic Arte glyph forms under Lanval, murmurings lost over the sounds of battle as he tries to help give cover from his side of the deck.
"Pour One Out!" Oh come on, there can't be an actual Seraphic Arte named that, but that's the only brief moment of levity as a wave of water, indeed, pours out of nowhere to sweep along towards the Fell Dragon.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Pour One Out! GS: Seraph Lanval takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The instant before the Fell Dragon that was once Harmaus lands on deck, Dean nods firmly to Lanval and Layna. His own Oracle and fellow Seer of Fire aren't here, but he's never had a problem with fighting alongside others. "Let's do this together, guys!" he calls them.
He nods back to Talia--she agrees with his assessment, which is nice. Someone cleverer than him can do something with that information later. He shoots a glance over at Gwen as she bursts out, and calls, "He's a lot bigger than a cat now!"
Kaguya meanwhile just can't be honest, but that's part of who she is. Dean grins at her. "You bet!" he shoots back, ready and eager to accept the challenge.
Then the dragon, amid fire from all corners, lands--only to be snared in Kaguya's net. The power of a Fell Dragon is such that this only slows it, and only for an instant. It roars, deafeningly loud, and calls up a sort of anti-halo that rains down that sickening purple light. Dean stands his ground defiantly, crossing the rods of his ARMs before him in his defense--and it *does* help; it *does* block some of that hellish rain from landing upon him. Some, but not all, and the sickening poison begins to eat at him. That's even without the suffocating, oppressive presence that is the Fell Dragon. Simply being in its presence is agonizing; to fight means pushing himself to the edge of his will.
But what a will he has. Dean is nothing if not pure-hearted and blessedly free of internal contradiction. Even as the pain racks at him, he looks up at the wretched creature with clear eyes and unwavering determination.
He snaps his weapons to the side, then charges in, roaring a loud "YAAAA!!" as he hurls himself at one of the Fell Dragon's feet, rod-first, to strike with all the force he and his custom ARMs can muster. To build up his strength before igniting the purifying flames of Moor Gault--and to help limit the Fell Dragon's movements for everyone else's strikes, too.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Power Booster! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
"Aye, lad! Let's!" Layna calls back to Dean.
The dragon's claws sweep across the deck. Layna curses once more as she retreats backward, returning her ARM to her coat as she does. Still, at that size the most she can accomplish is mitigating the damage - even the movement of the air from the passing of that claw is capable of inflicting severe damage. To say nothing of the Malevolence currently infused within its very being. She hisses and grits her teeth as she recoils back, but quickly regains her footing.
"Gonna have to get in close..." Layna mutters, cracking her knuckles. And to do that, she needs to work her magic. She recites an incantation and the winds begin to surge around her, surrounding her as her body glows faintly green. Her body is lightened, and with that she kicks off the ground to a gust of wind, accelerating toward Harmaus with a soaring punch before kicking off of him to land back on the deck.
"Aye." Layna replies, nodding in agreement with Lanval. "So don't any of you hold back, 'cause he sure as hell ain't!"
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Dread Momentum! GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo! GS: Layna Manydays's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Layna Manydays takes 34 damage from Poison! GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel gives a hasty nod to those thanking her. She'd respond, but, well... Mariel was busy. It doesn't look like it would be hard, to scatter potion wildly, but she's trying not to waste it - and she's doing something subtle with sorcery on top of that.
No, magic; there's no sorcery involved. It's Elw magic; not the crude surge of power Mariel has done in battle before, nor the slow, careful growth of a flower or the creation of a poultice or the treatment of a patient. But she's doing *something* with her herbal essence, drawing out the virtue of the sylkis green and spreading it further than it would ordinarily go, turning a simple ward against malicious power into a more powerful shield against sorcery. Something new - or at least something that has not been done on Lunar or Filgaia for hundreds of years.
It does take a lot of focus, though, and Harmaus himself disrupts that focus with a shower of Malevolent light. Her new shield takes some of it, dampening some of the worst energy, but the impact is still enough to take her off her feet and raise her gorge, to send her rolling across the deck until she catches herself with staff and bag.
"..."
"There's no contacting him, is there?" she asks of Magilou, since this is the first time she has seen a Fell Dragon. "And perhaps you can take care of yourself - and you aren't alone in that. But I would prefer that everybody make it home from Pentagulia, if I had my choice."
Even Harmaus? Even Liath? She doesn't answer that part.
Instead, Mariel returns to her bag. Past a lot of the potions and poultices and pre-treated bandages; she goes right for the bottom, where she keeps items she hopes she will never need and yet seems to more often than not. What comes out this time is a sachet, all bundled up; it looks like a perfume sachet. She holds it in one mittened hand, considering.
She is never going to throw it all the way to Harmaus, come on. With her pitching arm? Maybe she should work out more.
"Margaret!" she calls, seeing as she's just been all the way to Harmaus and back. Mariel rushes toward her, pressing the little sachet into her hand. "Just drop it on him the next time you are there, please," she says. "It's harmless unless you crush it." She considers that briefly. "Maybe wash your hands after the battle before you eat anything."
The sachet is full of black ashes. It may be aligned with death, and not life - and Mariel hates making them, hates handling them - but it's natural death, the end of a cycle and not an interruption.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Metal Demons are a curious thing. Hyadeans-- they are no longer anathema to the world, but simultaneously they are separate from it. But even so, the touch of Filgaia's Guardians no longer burns as it once did. The fortitude of Dinoginos washes over Zed, wrapping him in a protective aegis that layers itself over his body like armor of sedimentary rock. The magic hangs from him loosely, but it's enough. It's... Enough.
"Ghh-" Zed grunts as the Dragon pushes against him, tears at him with massive claw. He brings Doom Bringer to resist the strike, but only succeeds in absorbing the blow to be knocked high into the air--
But not far enough.
His scarf reaches out like twin tendrils, snaking suddenly around the Fell Dragon's horns. Zed yells as he's swung back in. "Kaguya, I hear you!" The Veruni comes crashing down, smashing into the dragon's back. Zed...
Heads for its neck.
He goes to dig his sword into its flesh. Then, he grabs hold of a nearby protrustion with one hand, his sword's hilt with the other. His scarf wraps around yet more handles, and together, as one, they pull upward and back. This is... He's trying to--
He's trying to pin Harmaus' neck back to exploit the momentum Kaguya had imparted. To arch it back, further and further--
Almost as if he intends... to snap it.
This technique was developed long ago-- long, long, long ago-- by an order of Spiran monks who sought the power to do battle with Machina... on-foot.
Yes, this technique can only be...
GS: Formation! Zed has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Gusong Anti-Machina Arte - Steel-Bending Thews! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
While momentarily toe-touched to Harmaus's dorsal side, allowing her the benefit of logical refresh of her air-dashes, Margaret makes a sort of pinched-up face at Marivel. Lacking a cogent counter-remark to what she says, she just squints, before skipping back to the safer environs of the Mayflower's deck.
The dragon erupts in flame as is a dragon's due; Margaret is not close for long, and there are a few drops of the malevolent, tar-like ichor that must serve what once was the Seraph Harmaus for blood. Others shoot and fire and call upon their magics. Margaret feels her head swim.
She pushes out a breath. "Alright," she says to herself, and she leaps forwards and after Green Streak Air Dash Number One one of the Fell Dragon's claws comes out and clips over her, hurling her backwards, throwing her to land back on the deck with an "ughhkh!" as she clasps a hand to her shoulder. She looks at her left side with a moment of fear, but the answer seems to have been mostly a rip of the skin; she pries off a piece of shoulder boning which seems to have caught the claw and channelled its force ever so slightly.
Sometimes it's such a small change that matters. A matters of inches, or foot-pounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRp3p7Cjp5A
Margaret brings her hand away from her wound and pushes herself upright. Her lips press thin. Magilou does not have light or air in her tone. Margaret lowers her eyelashes, as if in a moment of respect for the Harmaus-that-was; he was, after all, not always thus. She brings up the glossy blade and she wipes it along her bloodied hand, before muttering, "This is a long shot... but... Rune Blade!"
Will blood serve in place of the inscriptions? Margaret raises the blade above her head and proclaims her command - "IGNITE!"
And there is a loud burst of flame... one burst, that leaves an evil smelling fume from the elven blood on it. There is no surge of power, no miracle.
Margaret's eyes close for a moment then. "Ah," she says. "Well, every streak -"
The blade makes a sort of crackling noise. Margaret assumes she has just destroyed it, and finishes breathing out. For a moment she feels ridiculous; small. A mummer on stage, wasn't it? That was what the Trial Knight had said. And perhaps it was all (pop) just...
Before the spiral can truly begin, Margaret hears something. Her ear flicks out towards Mariel for a moment, and then her head turns. A courier job, Margaret thinks as the sachet is pressed into the crook of her right hand, which she adroitly twists upwards and transfers to the thumb of her left hand by its string.
"Certain" Margaret begins, but as she says "ly" she shifts and a strong breeze rises and the Veruni sword, still smouldering, catches it! The wind blows firmly over the spots of sorcerously-induced combustion, and the embers kindle, and rekindle, and while they do not have much steel to bite into...
They are sitting on material made of carbon fiber.
crackcrackpoppopopopopopOPOPTHOOM! sings the sword as it ignites, and as it trails a cloud of gray smoke into the breeze, forming a thin but meaningful smokescreen, Margaret finally finishes her sentence. "ly."
A heartbeat or two, and she says, "Anyway," and opts to run away from the awkward surge in the conversation, drawing back the burning blade--! Another starry run towards the end of the deck and this time the vault is further, the wind in her favor--
A skip! Another! Closing, shrouded by that trail of gray that streaks not behind her but BEFORE her, rising as she comes near and twists her hand around to deliver a twisting series of blows about the Fell Dragon's neck and upper chest from the back, leaping and skipping round atop the great beast's back as the ashes spill out, the black dust glittering strangely in the afterlights of Starlight Express!
But fall they do - and right near to sword strikes, too. How awkward!
DC: Margaret switches forms to Rune Blade IGNITION!
GS: Margaret has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Twisting Flurry! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Margaret takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Mariel has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Black Ashes! GS: Mariel takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Mariel has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
It takes a moment, but Shige's ears twitch and she turns her head to Marivel, focused for a brief moment. "Isn't that always the way with spirit guides?" Grim or otherwise.
She's slow dodging that claw, a painful furrow dragging through her long since ruined clothing. Hand going to the slash automatically. She shakes her hand after a moment. Focusing. Angry. Ears back, leaning forward. Her light is thrust forward and she tries to channel that sense of dread and hopelessness welling up. Those same feelings from before. The spirits called forth equally dark and bleak. Not some idealization that she'd normally lean into. The call of the grave even. Dragging it all out.
Her free hand almost instinctually reaches for her bag again. Then she tries to pull herself back. Looking to the others. Focusing on better thoughts. Better times. Dragging herself free of the morass.
There's some concerns there, particularly hearing Rixia. Seeing some of the reactions that aren't just an instinctual fear.
She's not having a great time bouncing back and forth between her own depths and trying to keep things going for the others.
She moves closer though. Trying not to stand so distant. In more ways than one even.
"Come on. Light's on the other side. We'll be fine." Usually a bad thing, kind of. Different analogy though. There's a pause. She should work on that. Which, at least is almost darkly funny and she cracks a faint smile. Finding something different to latch onto. She doesn't even try to death glare the resident Hyadean. Doing everything she can to avoid that negativity right now.
You know, despite channeling said negativity to help bring this thing to an end.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Haunted Ground! GS: Shige Kiwako takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen raises her ARM to guard against the black bolt of light. Even as exhausted as she feels, she clenches her mouth tight, reigning back the Mockingbird's instinct to absorb that energy and convert it to something it and her body can use.
It was born from a naive idea that energy was energy. Malevolence was not something people knew about.
Lanval mentions that lightning is their best bet, a point punctuated by Talia's attack. Gwen nods, whistling at Talia's sword. "Lightning definitely suits you, Talia! As for me... 'fraid I go no flashy cards up my sleeve anymore... but it ain't my first time tryin' t'win a game of cards without a full deck."
".... He's still an asshole!" Gwen bluntly responds to Dean. "N' we can deal with assholes just fine!" It's certainly in the right can-do spirit, at least.
Layna states for them not to hold back. A good strategy as ever, but one Gwen laments she can't quite follow. That is, until she spots Zed, falling--
And the yellow scarf, like the one she wears, snaking around to provide him the means to pivot back towards the Fell Dragon in mid-air. As as show of comraderie, her own yellow scarf burns at the end-- a weak call upon the fire enchantment woven within. "Do it Zed!" Margaret too, with her Rune Blade, and Shige.... being Shige.
All Gwen can really do is fire again with an aimed shot of lightning, firing towards the connection of one of the Fell Dragon's wings to its body.
GS: Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Beyond All Knowing for 65 hit points! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Comet Clip! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Meteor Stance for 149 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Kaguya! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Seraph Lanval's Pour One Out for 64 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Dean Stark's Power Booster for 148 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Dean Stark! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Layna Manydays's Dread Momentum for 89 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Zed's attack becomes clear! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Zed's Ultimate Attack of the Week for 93 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's Twisting Flurry for 162 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Mariel's Black Ashes for 0 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Delay and Jam applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Shield applied to Mariel! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Shige Kiwako's Haunted Ground for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Gwen Whitlock's Comet Clip for 113 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Jam applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
There is no contacting him. The Seraph has traveled along a path to a destination none can follow, and can no longer return.
Ice rises to meet the thing that was the Seraph Harmaus, even as it tries its level best to cut Talia to ribbons. Perhaps this is one saving grace among many for her. So too does a spell answer a clawed swipe: chained by the net that Kaguya has cast upon it, the dragon is still tethered to the deck at least in part.
At least in part, as its strikes will show: if it can reach a person, it will certainly try to slice them apart. And if it can't, it has a nearly endless wellspring of dark magics from which to draw. It might be funny, nearly -- Harmaus had been gifted with the element of light, but there is no trace of the golden light or the shimmering starry colors which he had so favored in the ugly violation that impresses itself upon reality now.
Blade in hand, Talia answers the dragon's attack with her blade. It, now enchanted with the magic she has cultivated within herself, strikes at the dragon with a resounding crash of thunder; the dragon recoils. In any story, this might well have been the end of it -- particularly, as Lanval calls out, that this choice of element may be particularly potent to use against a Fell Dragon (of Harmaus' especial descent). But this is no story: the dragon remains unfelled.
It will take more. Far more. A fortunate thing that Dean and Layna -- Fire and Water united -- are present to do what they might against the corrupted monstrosity that struggles in the netting before them. One to the left, one to the right -- they give all that they have to batter at it while it's still bound. It howls; but for the roiling roll of the dead that Shige summons forth, it well might have managed its rudimentary rage against its assailants. But even like this, it still has some base-level reactions left intact for it: it still staggers under the weight of the grave's call.
Yet it will take yet much and more than this to fell this Fell Dragon.
Where is the dragon looking, as Rixia asks? Likely at nothing in particular at all -- at least not with purpose, as Magilou points out. A Fell Dragon is nearly a sort of automaton -- it has relatively simple goals and goes about achieving them in very particular ways. But it's because of this that it still reacts in a way that Rixia can exploit. She is prey, after all, and when she feints, it moves to strike where she had been. That she is no longer there and instead has appeared to gouge into its side is a turn it appears to be unprepared for in the moment.
Where is the dragon now looking? Turning its head, it focuses on Rixia. There--! From behind comes the unwinding: a tear in reality from which spews the blackest of magics. All the hatred in the world cannot contend with the pure malice expressed in the gout of dark water and flame. It is both, this unmending force: it scours away and it burns and it does so without ceasing.
Perhaps it is all the more reason for Magilou to respond in kind, to grant fire unto the Seraph's corrupted form in a torrent--
Just like back then. If she had told him, would it have mattered? Or was this all set in motion centuries before? If, if, if--
What Harmaus has become repays her kindness in turn: it surges forward to swipe at her, but as she will discover, this is but a feint: violet light erupts from nowhere to fall in waves from the opposite side. It can't be learning. There's nothing left of it to do the learning. Is the power that it is now a conduit for mocking them?
But perhaps this is no such time for wondering after such things. Perhaps this is the time for the direct approach, as Gwen demonstrates, firing a shot at one of the dragon's wings. It roars in response, reeling from the blow: the very air vibrates with its rage. Yet, it will not have much time at all to focus on Gwen and the suffering she might yet continue to inflict upon it.
It's just a little bit, what Marivel takes from the Fell Dragon, staggering there in that moment from Gwen's strike. Just a little bit, her own claws scouring a wound another rent and tearing away but some of its essence. But even drops may fill a bucket, and what she has taken cannot be used against them.
And it may just help, when Margaret, her sword ignited, closes on the Fell Dragon. She swings her sword, moving faster perhaps than the eye can track.
Where her blade cuts, the scent is worse than foul. It is evil: of the hideous fluid that pumps in the dragon's veins cauterized with each wounding strike.
The ashes Mariel had given her glitter strangely. The corpus of the dragon's back roils. Perhaps, this may just hasten its journey to its end, to that place where even a slain dragon must someday journey...
Kaguya strikes at it, clearing the way for Zed, and it is Kaguya towards which the dragon first attends itself: raising its head, with pinpoint accuracy it spits a gout of flame at Kaguya and Kaguya alone. It burns hot, far hotter than even many magical flames. But perhaps, it may yet be worth it. Water follows where fire had been, washing in a wave across the deck; this staggers the beast, widening the opening that Kaguya has created and distracting the dragon from following up on the scarf-wrapping bind that Zed delivers -- and indeed, it would have few options available, given its current predicament. It cannot easily retaliate against him--
Not immediately, at least.
It wheels back in its struggle against its assailant, making to intend to throw Zed clear; the rest of the netting outright snaps. The Fell Dragon raises one clawed forearm high before driving them deep into the ship's deck. A bruisy light follows, erupting outwards in a fan-like ray for any too close to where the claws have plunged -- which, quite unfortunately, counts in its numbers Zed, Talia, Dean, Margaret and Layna. There is no pain for any caught in that light -- in fact, rather the opposite. They will find themselves succumbing quickly to a strange numbing sensation, one which overtakes nearly their entire body.
The dragon vanishes from sight. A departure? Have they wounded it enough to force its retreat?
No, as the howl that follows will tell them. No. It's below them. And even as Captain Bartholomew does his level best to steer the Mayflower out of harm's way, the dragon will still sweep the deck with claws and even teeth as it rises level with the airship, striking whoever it can catch.
But, wounded wing or no, it is still very much airborne and free once again.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Rixia with Through the Dismal Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Magilou with False Hunter! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Kaguya with Doom of Fire! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Zed with From the Great Deep To The Great Deep! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Layna Manydays with From the Great Deep To The Great Deep! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Talia with From the Great Deep To The Great Deep! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Margaret with From the Great Deep To The Great Deep! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with From the Great Deep To The Great Deep! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with The Feeble Twilight of This World! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Shige Kiwako with The Feeble Twilight of This World! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Mariel with The Feeble Twilight of This World! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Lanval with The Feeble Twilight of This World! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with The Feeble Twilight of This World! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's From the Great Deep To The Great Deep for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Layna Manydays gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Pressure point applied to Layna Manydays! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's The Feeble Twilight of This World for 82 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Mariel takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's The Feeble Twilight of This World for 127 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's From the Great Deep To The Great Deep for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Pressure point applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Marivel Armitage partially guards Seraph Harmaus's The Feeble Twilight of This World for 97 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Talia solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's From the Great Deep To The Great Deep for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Pressure point applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Sufferer and Gleam activated! GS: Talia enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Doom of Fire for 173 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kaguya gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rixia partially evades Seraph Harmaus's Through the Dismal Night for 159 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rixia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Quick and Riposte removed! GS: Dean Stark solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's From the Great Deep To The Great Deep for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Pressure point applied to Dean Stark! GS: Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's The Feeble Twilight of This World for 157 hit points! GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Seraph Lanval takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's The Feeble Twilight of This World for 151 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst, Evade bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seraph Lanval receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"If you're sure... then let's stop this one!" Talia calls back to Rixia. When Layna calls to not hold back, Talia nods. Much like Gwen, she agrees. "I don't think he'll let us do anything less!"
Lanval tells her that lightning is her best bet. Talia nods -- though she only has so much lightning to draw upon. She is still mastering that element. Light explodes over her -- oily and sickening, and her body sags.
Her fingers feel numb about her sword's hilt; her muscles seem to slacken. She forces herself forward despite it -- and it's difficult, but the other choice is doing nothing.
So as the thing that used to be Harmaus sweeps again, she focuses a spell into her blade -- and when it comes close, she slashes her blade up. When she does, ice explodes off it again -- a massive spike of it, which shoots off the sword and forms a jagged spike that the dragon can sweep into.
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Blizzaga Blade! GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Pressure point expired! GS: Talia has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Zed takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's From the Great Deep To The Great Deep for 0 hit points! GS: Pressure point applied to Zed! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Magilou takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's False Hunter for 149 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gamble: Low! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Talia's Blizzaga Blade for 219 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Talia! GS: Charge!! You gain 50 FP! (That's 35 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Charge bonus, and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.
Magilou advises that the Dragon doesn't know where it's looking. "So it's just acting on instinct now...? Fine," Rixia doesn't seem deterred. The comment of how it doesn't make a great meal seems to go unnoticed, at least on the surface, but... Rixia knows what Magilou is talking about.
"Lightning," Rixia hisses as she hears Lanval's callout. "Lightning... Light..."
Those aren't the same elements, Rixia.
Once, there might've been a part of Rixia that's disappointed that a Fel Dragon largely amounts to an animal -- an automaton, having simple goals and achieving them in obvious ways, but... Rixia's come to realise that sometimes, a simple approach to power isn't necessarily a bad thing...
Power. Increasing the level of power at play is what's necessary...
Rixia finds herself at the end of a gout of dark water and flame, interlaced upon one another in strangely perfect harmony, which scathes her side even as she tries to teleport out of it; her entire arm is bloody and the sleeve on it shredded by the time she reappears, but she doesn't seem to react to her wound with any kind of care.
"I won't be played anymore... I'll achieve it... I'll find my 'eternity' within my Light!"
She's speaking very vaguely, but it's not a concept that she hasn't mulled over before; focusing within herself, synthesised through her Junctions, an enormous wellspring of power erupts into sight as the entire sky becomes a web of lightning, upon which an ephemeral hourglass erupts into sight, tossing, turning. Caught within the flowing sands of time, she draws that storm further within...
She will see it shine.
"Light is the medium in which I shall master my own Time!!"
Foul and dangerous magics freely flow and erupt from her battered body, very clearly taxing her beyond her bounds as that hourglass she's summoned rattles violently--
and SHATTERS.
The wellspring of Light that comes forth is -- overwhelming, raw, enormous, but it is undoubtedly a huge power boost that sees time altered to be advantageous to its recipients.
GS: Rixia spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Rixia has attacked Talia with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Margaret with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Zed with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Layna Manydays with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Dean Stark with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Seraph Lanval with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Kaguya with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Magilou with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has attacked Marivel Armitage with Shatter the Hourglass! GS: Rixia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rixia takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Rixia has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Seraph Lanval! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Seraph Lanval gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Layna Manydays! GS: Layna Manydays gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Margaret accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Margaret gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Kaguya accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Kaguya! GS: Kaguya gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Dean Stark accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Magilou accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou gains 2 Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"No," Magilou confirms, for Mariel. "It can't hear a word, any more." She sighs; it's a MEMORY of what emotion might have sounded like, anyway. "... we'll need the help," she says, a moment later. "In a fair fight, a Fell Dragon will win. These things are as difficult to kill as Seraphim are... given they are Seraphim."
Maybe they're the final form of Seraphim; maybe there's no fighting it.
She thinks of Liath -- but only for a moment.
"And a fine ignition," she says, following Mariel's request to Margaret's blade. "Perhaps we won't even all die here... though that's a real long shot." Her attention goes to Zed and Kaguya's teamwork, Layna and Lanval's...
Put a pin in that last one. We'll be coming back to that water out of nowhere.
Put a pin in it, because Magilou has to orient to the battle -- to that claw, swiping wide. She hops back from it, only to have to pivot and jump to the side, when that violet light blooms behind her. It burns, as it passes over her skin. It burns, and still fails to take root, in her countless wounds.
Carve one more, perhaps, as she remarks on its cleverness: "This thing has more than enough power to overwhelm us..." With a glance to Rixia, "... even though it's acting on instinct, yes." 'Us,' she says, and includes herself in the equation.
"There's no purifying a Fell Dragon," she tells Dean, recognising the shape of his purification if not its exact meaning. "But that power might put it on the back foot enough for us to push it back... since it just changed, we might even be able to kill it. Not that that's terribly likely." She looks to the Fell Dragon, with those lightless eyes of hers. "If we don't all die here, it's most likely we'll barely escape with our lives, only for this thing to go on to kill hundreds in its first hunt alone. That's the way it goes... with something this hungry."
Magilou wonders, in sentinel silence, whether Harmaus imagined he would have Eizen's will. Whether, perhaps, he thought he would possess more still than that. Is this blind hunger really what he wanted...?
"It doesn't matter now," she says, to no one in particular.
It's to Rixia that she says, still entirely too vague and shallow and hollowed-out: "Eternity... is a long, long time." The hourglass shatters, and she blinks, overlong. "Though... you are powerful. Perhaps I'll see you in another battle like this, five hundred years from now..."
Now -- remember when Lanval summoned that water from nowhere at all, water and water and water water, all underlined and emphasised? It's coming back in a big way, now, as Magilou takes the echoes of that improbable wetness with her own blue Seraphic glyph. "Better watch your step... Flood Wall!" She invokes, as the water falls upwards in just the way waterfalls don't, to blast the Fell Dragon from below.
GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Flood Wall! GS: Magilou has gained 3 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Magilou takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Marivel Armitage gains 2 Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval's half-lidded eyes stay upon the thrashing Fell Dragon as Rixia and Magilou find themselves at mercy of any of whatever 'gifts' it wields in fulfilling its single-minded, destructive desires. Even fortified with purpose, approaching is always a difficult prospect (metaphysically -and- physically, the Mayflower is really being put through its paces here).
That net can't hold it, and that claw slams into the deck where a quintet of those who would fight onward with their own truths.
"Hold shtrong!" Lanval calls. "Shteady...!"
The dragon disappears briefly, and in that span of time Seraph Lanval starts moving... and that's when Formerly Harmaus sweeps the deck, and Seraph Lanval...
Leaps. Leaps with a graceful twirl to avoid being taken in the maw of the beast, only to be caught against a barb of the wing, rolled across the length of the body in their passage, and just catching along a cable.
The rope to his gourd goes between his teeth as he scales up it with alacrity, climbing and shimmying along (perhaps faster thanks to Rixia's expression of the Blessing of Althena) as Malevolence roils around him in search of its opening to take him... and Lanval's eyes open.
"Frnndsh!" Lanval calls. He gets the rope to his drinking gourd out of his mouth, and so that slurring stops. "We take the truths we hath won together! Not just for thine own selves, but for all! However much it doth brought pain and fear, and further inquiry...!"
Water pours out of the gourd. Cleansing, refreshing waters. It's a bit of a haphazard spillage at this juncture, but it's enough for it to reach Layna, Zed, and Margaret. (He'll apologize later if this ruins any cherished textiles above and beyond what it's been exposed to.)
To fight against the numbing sensation upon them all, for they are already strong enough to bear what they've seen and stood against.
GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Layna Manydays with Wake Up Splash! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Margaret with Wake Up Splash! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Zed with Wake Up Splash! GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Lanval takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Zed accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Mute, Poison, and Pressure point removed! GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Zed accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Zed! GS: Zed gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Layna Manydays accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Mute, Poison, and Pressure point removed! GS: Margaret accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Pressure point removed! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Talia accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Talia gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock accepts Rixia's Shatter the Hourglass for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock gains 2 Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel Armitage glances at Shige and says, "Well, I am hardly the expert in this matter, personally. If I ever die--and I won't--then I'll be all too happy to fill you in on my attitude about it. Marivel doesn't pull enough to learn a skill, to gain an ability--maybe that's because there isn't enough of anything left in there to pull anyting from.
But she does get winged in the left shoulder by that swiping claw, getting sent flying once more as she struggles to steady her body by summoning a miniature surge of wind around her body to keep her stable. She sheezes out some spittle once before Rixia unleashes a Light of her own.
Somehow it doesn't incinerate Marivel but it still hurts. She hisses through her teeth even as time twists around her. It isn't quite as huge as the timeloop she is nearly free from, but it's still impressive--especially considering that Rixia scarcely understood that Time Magic WAS A THING so recently.
Perhaps it's those purple veins.
"Mm... Allowing yourself to step on fire as well, are we Rixia?" It is mildly chiding, but not cruelly so. She smiles like she sees something else, past the moment--or maybe simply BELIEVES that there's something past this journey Rixia is on.
She has been taught to believe.
Her other hand bursts into an oversized claw as she goes to town on the Dragon in multiple rapid strikes.
GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Bloody Mari! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Light the color of bruising flesh strikes several of Gwen's comrades; while a quick read from Gwen supports the notion that it's not a direct attack, there's something off to how Talia's fingers are responding nearby that gives a certain clue.
Before Gwen realizes what may have happened to her friends, the deck is assaulted by the Fell Dragon's rage, forcing her to take a claw against her poor abused ARM. Better that than her much more soft body, though, which wouldn't offer much resistance to anything sharp and pointy. Whatever armor her layers of clothing would have possibly given is gone, the earlier battle decimating the outer layers down to a white tank top-like undershirt and a compressive corset around her midsection that may have more to do with the peek or two of old scars on her right side than the pursuit of a specific figure.
The point is: her ARM may be spasming, but even in this state, it's tons more durable than her actual body.
And it's been charging this entire time, leaving Gwen flush on an ephemeral loan of energy that will likely leave her unconscious for a full day or two after this is over. But that's a future Gwen'll be okay with, because it's a future. This balance of time is pushed further in her favor by Rixia cracking the mantle of time in everyone's favor.
".... Hold on guys. I'm gonna go for a big ol' middle finger for this guy, so don't look direct-like at me, and use this to your advantage to get back on track, got it?!" she yells. Those who are assaulting Harmaus head on may not, but hopefully, the first part of this attack won't affect them.
The first part being a bright flash of light from Gwen's right hand that explodes in a bright flash in the Fell Dragon's face.
This primes the field for the second attack: the 'big ol' middle finger' of golden electric energy that shoots straight for the former light Seraph's head.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Quasar Palm! GS: Gwen Whitlock has launched an attack Link! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Coronal Discharge! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Mute and Poison expired! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Magilou's Flood Wall for 107 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Marivel Armitage's Bloody Mari for 230 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus partially guards Gwen Whitlock's Quasar Palm for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Gwen Whitlock's Coronal Discharge for 235 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya had hoped Margaret wouldn't break the sword too soon, but now it's on fire. ...Well, it's probably fine. It wasn't her sword. That guard can get another one! She'll make one, even!
But there's nothing left to contact; just brutal, deadly combat. Rightly, none of them ought to have a chance against such a foe; traditionally, to even think to oppose a Fell Dragon is madness. ...But face it they must. And Kaguya, for one, will not shy from it.
Besides, "We can always manage stupid things with you, Dean. So we can manage this, too."
But Rixia, back on the deck, is worrying her. Talk of not being played, what she'll achieve... "It's good to be your own person," Kaguya calls out to her, "But--"
Light. Light suffuses Kaguya, and she feels the power, all right. Power that must come at a cost to the young Rixia. But all she can do for now is use it. Just like Magilou is...
"Magilou..." Kaguya wants to talk to her. She wants to say something. Because she wonders much of the same. But there's no time, "Damn it!"
Kaguya growls, but--before she can move--
Thence comes the flame. Kaguya blinks sharply and moves, faster than sight, but it's not fast enough. It's so hot that some of her remaining armor crumples and deforms in the flames, burning her terribly despite the fact that she managed to get out of the way of the worst of it. "Aaagh!"
Kaguya starts to fall, fall, fall, but--
She snaps open her eyes, and looks up. The small Veruni leaps off of nothing at all, double-jumping in the air, and starts upward. She sails up to the underside of the dragon and reaches out with both hands, gripping scale and flesh both though even touching the dragon burns with Malevolence into her hands. Red light sparks from her at each place where it touches--until she pushes up, up, up, and puts all her strength into one colossal throw.
"Better hope you've been doing your maintenance, Cap'n!"
Kaguya tries to slam the Fell Dragon that was once Harmaus into the side of the ship outright, her whole body aching with the effort.
"Dean!! Go!"
GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Blitz! Kaguya has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Falling Star! GS: Kaguya has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Falling Star for 319 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 50 FP! (That's 35 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Kaguya takes 62 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
"Thank you!" Mariel calls after Margaret. She's already preparing something else - something to take care of that wound.
And not just hers. Harmaus is not exactly making this easy - not that she would expect him to, with everything she knows of him. But with what Magilou is saying...
It's not even him anymore. Malevolence beyond Malevolence. Mariel doesn't want to believe it can do something like that, but to something that is *all* spirit, like a Seraphim... she can believe it. (And what would it do to her, if she let it in, a nagging part of her mind adds. She ignores it. That won't be happening, now or ever.)
The ship rocks. Mariel doesn't take a claw, but she takes a tail - almost as bad, small as she is, she can feel herself thrown through the air and momentarily panics, unsure if she's even going to land *on* the ship. It turns out that she does - she has gone backwards, towards the entrance further inside, and slammed into a door hard enough for her to see stars. It's a moment before she can do much more than be half-dazed.
"...I don't enjoy fighting," Mariel says, so low that it's barely audible to anyone. It's more than that: she does not kill. She tries to not even strike a blow in anger. She understands that other Drifters use violence, and she even supports them in it, but... she can't. Even when it would be easy, or effective, she can't bring herself to do it; she has only intentionally, physically hurt two people in her entire life.
One was Marivel, who she hit only for shock, only to make her listen.
And one was Seymour, who so voluntarily gave himself to the darkness of a Clysmian that she saw no other way to get through to him; certainly no other way to stop him.
Harmaus is in the second category, but she's *still* slow about it. She still doesn't want to do it. Her fingers dance between two packets, and she picks the lighter of the two, coming out with a bundle of curled, dried leaves. Her hand grips them tightly.
They un-dry, returning to green... not life, but something like it, before they break apart in her fingers. A healing wind springs up around her, whirling past her, whipping wildly - it's not entirely under Mariel's control, all she can do is roughly guide it now that the power is released, but it's enough to help. Some for Rixia, to try to help whatever she's going through; some for Margaret, already wounded; some for Lanval, so supportive already. It helps, even if it doesn't cure all ills.
GS: Mariel has attacked Mariel with Healing Herb! GS: Mariel has attacked Seraph Lanval with Healing Herb! GS: Mariel has attacked Rixia with Healing Herb! GS: Mariel has attacked Margaret with Healing Herb! GS: Mariel has gained 3 Combo! GS: Mariel's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Mariel takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: Mariel heals Margaret! She gains 101 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean's smile is bright and confident as Layna calls back to him. Fire and Water united, indeed, though it's far from just the two or even three of them. This is a battle they all need to unite on, and that's exactly what they're doing.
"Definitely true!" he calls back to Gwen. What he thinks next, he doesn't say, out of consideration for Gwen's feelings, which is: they managed with Janus, didn't they?
He frowns when Magilou tells him there's no purifying a Fell Dragon. "I know that! But we've got to use every weapon we've got! Burning up some of that Malevolence will only make it easier, right?!" ...It's probably no use arguing with him on the matter. And as Dean likes to say: you can do anything as long as you don't give up. (Words Magilou will never live by.)
The last of the netting snaps, and the Fell Dragon drives a clawed paw into the deck. As the shaking staggers Dean, a discolored light fans out, swallowing him up. Instinctively, he raises his ARMs to protect himself, but nothing happens, and it doesn't hurt. For a second, he assumes the blast was caught on his magic and his ARMs--it's when he attempts to follow up on his attack, and he finds himself numb and staggering, unable to bring proper strength into his limbs, that he realizes what's happened.
"D-damn it...!" he utters between clenched teeth. The dragon vanishes, and it takes a moment for him to manage to turn himself around and find it again, winging through the skies next to the Mayflower. He can't possibly reach it--but Twin Fenrir are only used as melee weapons because Dean's just like that. They are, first and foremost, guns.
As he lifts them up and struggles to aim, that burst of radiant light and time that erupts from Rixia overtakes him--but unlike the Fell Dragon's light, this one strengthens him. It doesn't take away the numbness, but it does let him hold up his arms steady.
"Thank you!" he shouts over his shoulder. His smile recovers at Lanval's speech, and though he only kind of understands it, he gets the gist: they're in this together. "You said it, Lanval!" he calls his way. "We can win this!" He nods assertively at Kaguya. "That's right! We can do anything as long as we don't give up!" (No matter how stupid it is, apparently?) "Haaaaahhh!!"
Energized both physically and emotionally, he focuses in on the Fell Dragon, and sends that focus into Twin Fenrir. The flames of Moor Gault whorl in and lick at the six-shooters, and when he pulls the triggers at Kaguya's call--over and over and over, left and right and left and right, to hail a barrage down on the massive creature--they soar out with purifying flame to attempt to tear down at least some of that overwhelming mass of Malevolence.
GS: Dean Stark spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Blitz! Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Bullet Shower! GS: Dean Stark takes 26 damage from Poison! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
Fist meets scale - but the Fell Dragon isn't the sort to be felled so easily. It lands on the deck and then emits a strange, bruisy light. With a grimace Layna leaps back and braces herself against it...
...But, she feels no pain. No - her body feels... numb? It overtakes her body and she stumbles back.
"...Ugh. My body ain't moving right." Layna mutters. Her body may be light, but that does nothing for her when movement comes with such difficulty. She doesn't have the articulation to pull off another strike like before.
But there are others here who've found their own strength - their own Light. Rixia conjures an hourglass, and despite the risk to herself, she shatters it. Light pours forth over Layna once more - but this light gradually fills her with power. Lanval, then, calls out. They have to take the truths they've won... not for themselves, but for everyone. Water spills over her this time. Cleansing and refreshing... It makes her feel awake, alive. The numbing sensation gradually begins to fade.
"My thanks, Rixia, Lanval! That was just what I needed, aye?" Layna calls out. ...It says a lot that she's actually using their names.
She's not confident enough to risk another leaping attack, but she has enough coordination back now for her sorcery. Layna hauls her right fist back. With an incantation, wind whips into existence around it, building into a localized tornado. The bracer on her right wrist ignites, building the tornado into an inferno - and then, taking a step forward to give herself the momentum she needs, Layna thrusts her right fist forward, unleashing a shockwave of wind and flame spiraling toward the Fell Dragon.
GS: Mariel heals Seraph Lanval! He gains 99 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Layna Manydays spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Layna Manydays has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Searing Tempest! GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shield expired! GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mariel heals Mariel! She gains 105 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel heals Rixia! She gains 104 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
There's a wry laugh as she says, "Probably not the right place for that again." as she tries to get under the gouging claws. There's more damage. On a few levels. That laughter turning briefly dark as she slumps down. She forces herself back up though, by her free hand and by the lantern.
Shielding her eyes against the light from Rixia's shattering hourglass, "Don't get sucked under." Advice she herself is currently trying to maintain. With only a little more luck at this point. She knows who she is and what she does. That inevitability is oddly a ground for her to stay stable on. There's a fatalistic streak growing, albeit slowly. Or re-opening maybe instead.
She grips the light source with both hands, lifting it. Ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of her injuries being, well, open. She's working on that. She looks to the others, trying to guage who needs it most. Who's wavering the most sort of, through that light. She laughs briefly as she catches her own shadow on that.
There's a brief moment, watching Magilou. Frowning. Maybe later. "I want to hear his story." She calls out, not entirely focused on that little bit of.. closure? For now. Instead trying to keep the living where they are.
The spirits summoned this time are still almost hollow. Darker, but grim faced rather than horrors. Old medics and sorcerers with their all, but forgotten healing.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Kaguya with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Rixia with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Shige Kiwako with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 2 Combo! GS: Shige Kiwako takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako heals Shige Kiwako! She gains 178 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
There is a minor problem with Zed's plan, improved though his chances may have been by Kaguya's intercession.
He is, trying to apply an anti-machina arte... to a dragon. And if he had infinite time, perhaps he could have succeeded. But the dragon hurls him off, rips free of its restraints, and hurls him into the air, whereupon the Hyadean is subjected to a power that he... does not quite understand. A beam washes over him, and in its wake--
Nothing.
He feels... nothing.
It's an awful, terrible thing for someone like Zed. Someone whose body is so much a part of him. It's like his limbs are filled with needles. Flung from the ship, numbed, unable to move, unable to speak, he begins to fall--
Until the water comes to his rescue. A wave of restorative energy washes over him. Zed takes in a breath with a gasp. He is...
Still... falling.
This could be bad. This could be the end. This could be...
But... it isn't.
Zed loves dragons. He really, truly does. Once upon a time, he connected his heart-- his very essence-- with the most ancient of Hyadean dragons still living. When their connection broke... something still remained within him. A spark of Lombardia's power fused with the heretical alterations made to Zed's body by Alhazred of the Quarter Knights. Ever since, he has become... A dragon in his own right.
...Sometimes.
...Sort of.
There's a flash of emerald light below the Fell Dragon. A wave of altered time washes over him, making a transformation that ordinarily takes moments occur in a mere instant. And in that the very next instant, something/ punches up and into its gut with two mighty metal fists. A distinctly metallic voice roars, rising over a rhythm of rapid, heavy punches as--
A mess of mossy hair and a pair of antennae pokes up over Harmaus' flank.
...As Zed, his form now entirely mechanical-- a truly demonic-- truly heroic-- visage hurls himself back onto the deck, a cloak-like wing fluttering at his back. "Seraph... Thanks. You too, Gunblader." Zed, or rather... ZEDDER ROBO DRAGON takes a ready stance, emerald energy roiling off of him in turbulent eddies of pure, alien power. "This dragon can't be allowed to leave here alive. Whatever it used to be... It's nothing but a threat to the world, now! Let me be your shield, your very own Flying Fortress of Iron!"
DC: Zed switches forms to Zedder Robo Dragon!
GS: Blitz! Zed has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Zedder Power Strike! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed's stances have changed from Stoic to Avenger! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret would argue that this dragon is, perhaps, the same amount of Fell as always. It would be thin gruel, as humor goes, and she's not really thinking of cracking wise. Even once the ashes are spilled Margaret keeps attacking, the blade whirling and trailing streamers of smoke behind it into the Fell Dragon's slipstream.
A strange light shines - and it washes over Margaret, not with pain, but with numbing. It's like it shoots up her entire hand and into her body. For a moment Margaret is seized with a sort of terrified wonder. Is it that? Is it that simple? Will she simply fall to her doom next?
No, she thinks, glancing to her ring, I could -- I could throw myself onto the deck of the ship --
She can't quite look at Lanval but she can hear him. He speaks his incantation in his slurring and somehow still-jolly way. He can find joy even here, somehow. And there is a breath of moist air, a feeling of being cleansed -- and Margaret can feel her body again. Most of her body. The right hand's still numb. Still, the status quo ante draconem is pretty good, right now.
Rixia screams. Like Kaguya out there, Margaret worries -- but she feels, more to the point, something new as that light refracts with the crackling Darkness around her. Something improbable around her. The air feels like it's thickening, like she's in the water - not quite, not even near, but perhaps a quarter of the way there. And the world...
Slows down.
Time enough at last. Margaret can see Mariel moving out there gradually, leisurely. For a moment she simply wonders at what it is before her. Perhaps she's never done this before, in what she hastily called the 'three gods' realm,' while trying to buck Rixia up.
What Marivel said: Heroes denying it. Is that what I am being? Margaret thinks. Her thoughts fly back, thirty years or more, to a pure young knight and his too-soon death. She looks at her sword, refulgent and burning, the silky clouds of the burning carbon fire caught in the steady wind, like a current here, going this fast.
"I suppose at this velocity," Margaret says, and her own voice is perfectly normal (to her): "I could do it. Just for one day. Alright, talk it through..."
"Chopping like this isn't getting anywhere. It's tough as leather and stacked sixteen arseholes thick. Oh, for heavens' sake, you miserable beast, are you going under the...? Yes, you are. Damn, damn," Margaret curses. Then she looks left and then right, to where other people have moved perhaps a second or two in the course of her monologuing.
"I suppose this isn't going to be very heroic, old worm, or young worm, I suppose I should say," Margaret says after her short stack of thick thought has completed its time in the cognitive griddle. "But it is my first day on the job." She slides the sword into the scabbard, and the prospect of it just being regular flames instead of that runic enchantment will be proven in a moment.
Margaret steps forwards even as Harmaus strikes towards the Mayflower. She crouches a little bit to get the right angle. She raises her left hand to her mouth and winks one eye shut as she presses a kiss to her own fingertips, lower them - and blows them forwards. The purple burst of magic streaks forwards about a yard before it begins to move with the same thick slowness as everyone else.
That's interesting, Margaret thinks, before she heaves herself up and starts to run in great circles on the back of the dragon. Leaning to the side, it's awkward, but she can build up speed carefully if she tries. Soon enough she feels that enigmatic tug to the side that you usually can only feel on a ship swaying on high seas, or on a train... the sense of *relative velocity*.
After five or six of these orbits, Margaret straightens up the last time and throws herself forwards. OFF of Harmaus. This is working without a net, but she has her own tricks. Harmaus is rising relative to the Mayflower and Margaret leaps upwards and then
STRIKES
with the still-burning sword at the side of Harmaus's throat as her momentum intersects with that hyperspeed single iai slash from a tumbling target, aiming to carve a wicked slash at the same time that that hallucinogenic magic should (she hopes) find its home; what will a Fell Dragon's mind make of all of that? It might do nothing at all.
Or maybe Harmaus is about to have problems with prey tracking. With this, Margaret calls on her ring, which tugs her up - up - and she finds herself slightly short of the necessary distance, although after a moment of panic she is able to grasp onto some dangling and damaged rigging.
A few relative seconds of terrified crawling upwards ends with Margaret back on deck, just as the relative hypervelocity of Rixia's gift fades into something nearer to her normal. Hopefully the ship isn't about to collapse.
"Oh for goddess's sake," Margaret says, as she catches sight at the manifestation of ZEDDER ROBO DRAGON. "Wait - wait you're not. Alright fair enough then."
GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Illusion Kiss! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Margaret has launched an attack Link! GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako heals Rixia! She gains 183 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Margaret spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Seraph Harmaus with THE GREAT DIVIDE! GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Shige Kiwako heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 180 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Dean Stark's Bullet Shower for 174 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Cripple, Disrupt, Mute, and Shieldbreak expired! GS: Seraph Harmaus partially evades Layna Manydays's Searing Tempest for 171 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus's Poison Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Zed's Zedder Power Strike for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Illusion Kiss for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Jam and Slow applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Margaret's THE GREAT DIVIDE for 106 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
If there is any time in which they might kill it, it would have to be now -- right? If it continues to live, it will only grow in power from whatever Malevolence it manages to gather into itself. But, by the same token, its 'birth' will have quickened it as well: fresh into this form, it is also powerful now.
As they have witnessed for themselves.
It swoops over the deck, perhaps in anticipation of picking off one or another of them, but instead, it but meets a towering pillar of ice -- Talia may be benumbed from the dragon's magics, but she has still her own wellspring of magic to draw from, power which it has not taken from her. Thus struck, it is forced to land for the now, the whole of the Mayflower shuddering and creaking under the impact. Veruni construction is literally out of this world, however, and though this be but a ship for traversing the skies, it was built by a species that successfully navigated between the stars: it will hold.
And all the better for it, as the dragon does not stay downed long. From below, Magilou calls to the water Lanval had summoned forth but moments prior forth in a geyser beneath it.
Thrown thus into the air (with Margaret still astride its back), it is for but an instant a open target for Gwen and her ARM. There is a bright flash of light even as the dragon rights itself, and it is staring right at Gwen the moment her ARM's beam takes it right between the eyes.
...If only that were but enough to end this. It pulls away, falls back, falls level with the airship. One claw lashes out, as if it were to attempt to slice at the Mayflower's side. It just so happens that this is also the moment Margaret tries an unorthodox tactic--
As does Rixia. Were Harmaus still in his right mind -- if he had a mind of which to speak -- he might have remembered this one.
The dragon does not.
Time, for but a moment shatters. And here, for an instant, everyone will find they have time enough.
Dean has time enough to aim with the Twin Fenrir and strike true, touching the dragon's form with purifying flame and peeling away that much more of the power it possesses.
Layna has the time to cast her spell, setting forth the whirlwind upon the time-locked dragon.
Kaguya has time to reach the dragon where it remains frozen in mid-flight.
Marivel has time to strike the dragon as it remains stalled there in the air again and again.
Shige and Mariel have time to work their magic and staunch the wounds that others have suffered, buying everyone much-needed time.
There is time to take a blade to a dragon's throat, to cut, to leap away.
And Lanval has the time to call upon the water's blessings: to wash away the curse that the dragon has afflicted upon a few of those which have so vexed it.
It's nothing less than a miracle.
Perhaps it's aware of this fact on some level. Or, more likely, the power which flows freely within it is aware of what Lanval has managed.
Perhaps, too, it's aware of what Lanval is -- not just a former Lord, but an Oracle.
Time resumes: the dragon, bleeding heavily from the wound at its throat, is hurled bodily into the side of the airship and, fortunately, the Moderates have not at all deferred maintenance: landing along that side of the hull and coming from that direction -- of course the Mayflower holds.
Captain Bartholomew might just raise an eyebrow over that maneuver later but it isn't as if he will have room to talk, given his misspent youth.
The dragon, stunned from the sheer force of impact, falls away from the airship only to spread its wings, taking flight once more in its rise above the deck. But it won't be alone very long. Not when a series of punches connects with its gut from below, staggering it in mid-air. For a brief moment, it has another aboard with it: Zed -- or Zedder Robo Dragon -- weights heavy even on its frame. But Zed makes his return to the deck below even as the dragon, circling, begins to swell with a dark, fell power. For an instant, a blasphemy of a Seraphic glyph can be seen etched against the sky.
And it will appear again below the feet of one unlucky soul below. Darkness falls upon Lanval like a shroud, veiling him in shadow's grasp. He will become the nucleus for what is to come: all those near to him -- all those who cannot escape!
And the shroud that veils its target becomes undone. Here, darkness falls in waves of violet light in a tide that cannot be easily staunched. There, bolts of shadow erupt in a swarm from the point that Lanval occupies. His body is but the terrible conduit for the power of Malevolence.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Seraph Harmaus has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: You have activated the Force Action Lock On! GS: Seraph Harmaus has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Lanval with O Ye Stars That Shudder Over Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has launched an attack Link! GS: Delay expired! GS: You cannot attack more than one target at a time with this attack. GS: Seraph Harmaus has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Lanval with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Talia with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Shige Kiwako with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Margaret with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Zed with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Mariel with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Layna Manydays with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Kaguya with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Magilou with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Rixia with O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hex expired! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 122 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Rixia has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Rixia suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 428 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 297 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison removed! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Shige Kiwako heals Kaguya! She gains 181 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Kaguya! GS: CRITICAL! Kaguya takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 453 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kaguya gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Kaguya enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 178 hit points! GS: Talia solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 86 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Talia enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 221 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison and Pressure point removed! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Margaret solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 196 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's O Ye Stars That Shudder Over Me! for 88 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Lanval gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Lanval's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Seraph Lanval's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Seraph Lanval! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 182 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Zed receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 380 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Lanval gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Layna Manydays has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Layna Manydays gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: CRITICAL! Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 237 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Brilliant, overwhelming light rushes over Talia -- washing over her and giving her a further boost to her strength. She glances to Rixa, then she nods quickly in her direction. "Thanks, Rixia!"
Her eyes narrow as Magilou explains -- if they escape, the Fell Dragon will leave thousands dead. The temptation to run from it is real, but there is nowhere to run; they also can't leave it to devastate Pentagulia.
Which leaves only one choice, in her mind.
The Fell Dragon keeps her on the defensive. Her body is no longer so numbed, which is good -- as she manages to bolt backward after it lands. She looks up at that raging beast, under assault. She never liked Harmaus. He tormented Amaranth; he treated her as if she was Amaranth's pet human.
But this isn't the Seraph that tormented her.
She watches as it yanks back, bleeding and badly wounded, and slamming into the airship, then up above. She sucks a breath in, as shadow explodes downward. The wave of violet energy slams into Talia -- slams her backward -- and she almost loses her footing.
She snaps her sword out to the side, though, and then she bolts forward. Her sword crackles with those same magical energy; ice grows across it, and lightning begins to crackle over it. Two spells, stored within the sword.
The most she can do for Harmaus, she decides, is try to free him from being this thing.
She thrusts her blade out -- slamming it for the dragon's chest. Then, two spells fire off at once. A huge blast of ice explodes into a thousand razor-sharp shards of the stuff, before a massive column of lightning explodes up into the sky, centered on the dragon.
GS: Talia has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Talia has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Talia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Blitz! Talia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Antipode Blade! GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Kaguya," Magilou recognises her, in turn. "You're not done, yet."
And to Mariel, quiet to match her, she suggests: "Then -- don't think of this as a fight." What is it, then? A struggle for survival?
That much is left implicit.
It's no use, it's no use; say it and say it again, but Magilou can't bring herself to just give up, even under all this pressure. She's SO pessimistic, but... she keeps finding things to say, about their efforts. She keeps urging them on.
Maybe, maybe. If, if, if. Possibility is a demon, and it's coming for them all.
"Do what you can," is what she suggests, to Dean. It's a far cry from never giving up, but maybe it's good enough. "The Malevolence here is thick enough that even you could run into trouble," is her advice for Layna, meanwhile. "But someone like you can still move. Can't you?" It's a challenge, which might be its own kind of assist, for someone like a pirate captain.
But... Shige has asked to hear his story, now he's nothing left at all.
"The Light Seraph Harmaus used to be a Lord of the Land himself," she says, in that same, toneless drone. "He protected the village of Pohjola... it was a dying little hamlet, so the plague which spread across these lands centuries ago was just the last nail in its coffin. In the end he disappeared, seeking answers to why such horrors would befall him... and, I suppose, the search drove him mad. Once he reappeared... well," she breathes out, and looks to Kaguya, silently prompting her to continue the tale.
Magilou's not the only one who knew Harmaus's story, after all.
They have time, to hear a story like that; time which Rixia has given them, in the moments between the Fell Dragon's absolute corruption.
But the Pilgrim rises again. It rises, despite the considerable force of Zedder Dragon Robo -- and if Magilou were of a state to be amused, she'd surely crack a grin at Margaret's concern. (She isn't; her face has been placidly neutral this whole time.) "Look out!" Magilou cries, finds the volume to raise her voice, as that sacrilegious glyph violates the sky. She can only watch as the Seraph Lanval becomes a seed --
Which blooms. Magilou raises a beehive barrier of light in the heartbeat of a moment before the darkness crashes over them, that strongest manifestation of her capacity to hold fast. This much Malevolence crashing against it hurts as much as it did a thousand years ago. It keeps her whole, anyway, even as her hair whips out behind her from the force of the horrific Arte.
"Lanval," she calls out, voice even, again. "You still whole?" She closes her eyes, and takes a breath. "... just hold still a minute." She doesn't like to do this, but... it's a desperate situation.
Another blue Seraphic glyph alights at her feet, as her shikigami spins, beside her hand. "When it comes to pain, it's better to give than receive!" It's a strange invocation she invokes, for a Black Mage, as she seals the Arte: "Fairy Circle!" And Lanval, once again, is the seat of a spell -- with greens and blues spiralling outwards, spilling out across the deck of the ship and further still across the sky, white-light lotus flowers blooming at every cardinal direction and directly beneath his feet. The strangest thing is --
It doesn't hurt the people fighting the Fell Dragon. It heals all the worst wounds, it restores...
... until the combination of Light and Water reaches the Pilgrim.
There, the same pure water which healed her allies turns sharp, and the Fell Draon will find only pain, caught in that massive warding circle.
How fortunate -- for it -- that it fades, after a few refreshing moments.
GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Magilou spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Margaret with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Zed with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Shige Kiwako with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Dean Stark with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Mariel with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Kaguya with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Seraph Lanval with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Magilou with Fairy... ! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Rixia with Fairy... ! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou has launched an attack Link! GS: Magilou heals Rixia! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou heals Magilou! She gains 117 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou heals Mariel! She gains 113 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou heals Zed! He gains 116 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Seraph Harmaus with ... circle! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Magilou heals Seraph Lanval! He gains 120 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, and Jam removed! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou heals Margaret! She gains 118 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou heals Kaguya! She gains 114 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: Magilou heals Dean Stark! He gains 109 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Talia's Antipode Blade for 120 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Magilou heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 114 temporary hit points! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Magilou's ... circle for 114 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! (That's 20 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Charge bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Shige Kiwako takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's O Earth That Soundest Hollow Under Me! for 202 hit points! GS: Mute removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Evade bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou heals Shige Kiwako! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The healing wind from Mariel, carrying fragments of that Healing Herb on a spiritually nebulized breeze, is a moment of refreshment while under assault from being in the sickly light contrails of a Malevolence-driven beast. A reprieve, against the clawing obsession that has devoured Harmaus in their entirety.
With help from the strange flows of time by Rixia's magics, Lanval is able to shimmy along back to the deck and not be at (immediate) threat of flying the hey off of it. With the cheers and enthusiasm given of those who know and expect the simple joy of getting to live to see through what will be done, Lanval dares to laugh a bit.
His gaze meets the former Harmaus', for a time, as time resumes (which is to say he's looking over the side, he shouldn't be standing that close). He tracks it as Harmaus reappears over the deck along with other fantastical sights (Zed), and a blasphemy of a Seraphic glyph falls about Seraph Lanval.
Darkness falls upon him from every angle, trapping him. Light, even warped, goes fast, and the sudden light of his own Seraphic Arte glyph is smothered by it. Water surrounds him in a wall, but water is notoriously easy to corrupt by Malevolence. Water is one of the more fragile elements against it, after all, as by its nature everything gets inside of it.
Obsessive, contradictory thoughts roil as Lanval's body seems to be the nucleus yet of something foul, threatening to burst out of him (which it will, inevitably) as much as it stands to course through him, threaten and invite to turn him.
Of all the mysteries that beg for greater truths, there is one event that left a mark on him - that of a Fell Dragon who maintained enough of themselves to speak, to reason, to scream, to thrash, to regret. To trust.
To renew.
'The vows will be renewed.'
Seraph Lanval had an inkling of an idea what was going on when Heldalf seemed to draw upon the powers of Prime Lord Lailah and her Sub Lords in one glorious burst of fire, water, earth, and wind all at once. He never had it in him to say it aloud, knowing it was someone else's to share and he had but an educated guess.
Just as it seems like it might take him - might - the shine of his aquamarine eyes holds through the sickly gloom of Malevolence that would snuff it.
"Thy vows... of Seers and allies and those who find warmth in mirth..." Lanval's voice is strained, a hand resting atop the drinking gourd knowing the risk of what will happen if he lets that piece of the Water of Filgaia flow forth in this environ.
Just as one who succumbed to becoming a Fell Dragon was able to muster it...
One who has not holds that faith.
"Shalt be seen through!" Lanval calls, and he lets that borrowed power loose with himself as a channel.
This answers Magilou's question. She will see that dopey smile.
It is, once more, a fragment of Schturdark being shared in a moment of crisis and need, once more at great risk nearly akin to what had to transpire down in Love's Cradle in order to fight back the influence of the Anomalous Orb.
As Zed says, the Fell Dragon is only but a threat to the world, now - and the worlds of Lunar and Filgaia have had their struggles linked nearly as one for some time.
The water in all its forms, great and not (but nothing too far into the 'not' scale), crashes outward, reaching for the arms and weapons of those who would rear up and help cleanse a threat to the Blue Star beyond, even here.
To Talia, the assassin who grapples even now with her crime.
To Margaret, she who has freely pursued life wherever fancy strikes like lightning.
To Dean, the Seer of Fire who is as friend as any even beyond the pact, or really to almost everyone.
To Mariel, she who dutifully stayed behind to help see to an ailing world's woes.
To Gwen, she who has taken a heart and arm made by those who exploited Filgaia for its own gain but made her own to deliver kindness.
To Marivel, who continues to see through a long string of events to - if not an end, the path towards something a little brighter.
To Rixia, she who struggles with reconciling her feelings but holds onto herself long enough to keep herself where she is even when time won't wait for her.
To Shige, the one who may not seek mirth but instead peace for those who have not found it in death which may be closer to home for what's going on here.
To Zed, who is Zed and basically always will be.
To Layna, his closest friend who naturally bears the power of Purification by pact and who he knows and trusts to help take care of him should he be at risk in falling thrall (like right now!).
And, of course, as healing light is offered through one who has lived to see how it would end, however it will across a thousand years and more... to Magilou and her erstwhile companion/carry-on luggage.
...Kaguya is not directly entitled to this boon, but with persistence and ingenuity, she can just merely take what's there for herself. It's not hard. The Guardians' power is that to Sustain The World, and what everyone on that World does with it... what's one more transgression on her part, when both worlds are at stake?
For a very brief time, those with this blessing can strike against Malevolence!
GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Magilou with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Talia with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Margaret with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Zed with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Shige Kiwako with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Layna Manydays with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Dean Stark with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Mariel with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Marivel Armitage with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Rixia with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Blitz! Seraph Lanval has attacked Kaguya with Lord Of The Lake! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Rixia accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Kaguya accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Kaguya! GS: Mariel accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Mariel! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Mariel receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Mariel enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Dean Stark accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Dean Stark! GS: CRITICAL! Zed accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Zed! GS: Margaret accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel lowers her now-empty hand once the leaves in it have crumbled and blown away, all their virtue and essence used up to fuel whatever magic she is performing.
The fractured time is... worrying. It gives her mental senses a moment of disorientation - not filth and decay and rot like Harmaus is still putting out, just a faint dizziness as she's not expecting the world itself to shift like that; time and space are tied together no matter what magic you use, and with something as blatant as Rixia's spell she can't miss it even though it is hardly her specialty and she isn't really that attentive to it. It reminds her of the time she was around a Ley-portal while it was under repair, that kind of faint twist to her sense of the world.
But it does give her a moment she would never have had before and that's something Mariel can't complain about.
The more she sees of Harmaus the more she realizes Magilou is right - was always right on this topic, at least, though she has her doubts about some other things Magilou has told her in the past. There's nothing there *but* the corruption. And everyone is fighting so hard to -
"Look out!" Mariel shouts to Lanval. Too late; the Malevolent energy is already coming down in a horrible wave, and she *can't* stop it; the little wardings she uses to protect herself won't stand up to that.
And they don't. The wave explodes outward from Lanval, washing over Mariel too as she tries to protect herself, and she screams. She can feel it wearing away at her - physically as much as anything else, tearing at her built-up power and her very flesh with the shadowy power.
Eventually, it passes. Mariel is still there, hunched over into a little ball to try to protect as much of herself as she can. She hurts; everything hurts, but she has something in her hand. A delicate crystal vial - three of them, actually, filled with a pale pale blue liquid, almost opalescent in the way it catches the light.
Mariel gives out a lot of her medicine, often for free. She never gives this one out. It is for emergencies, when nothing else will do; it takes so much time to make that she treats them dearly and so rarely uses them at all.
But against a Fell Dragon, nothing else will do. If they don't stop him - it - Harmaus, it will kill all of them. She's not sure the *ship* will hold up to another one like that, let alone the rest of them.
Mariel's other hand has lost its mitten. She uncaps all of the vials by pinching between two fingers, all in one motion; her staff is tucked under her arm, and it begins to glow, radiating a soft blue-white light from its crystal that matches the liquid. It's the bottles she raises, not the staff, the liquid inside also glimmering as she uses not one, not two, but three of her special ambrosias, the very distilled, condensed essence of life on Filgaia.
It combines with the resonant energy from Lanval, sending waves of energy radiating outward to treat the wounds caused by the Malevolent blast
GS: Kaguya used Force Action: Mystic on Mariel! FP up! GS: Mariel spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Magilou with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Talia with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Margaret with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Zed with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Shige Kiwako with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Layna Manydays with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Dean Stark with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Kaguya with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Seraph Lanval with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Rixia with Ambrosia! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Mariel has attacked Marivel Armitage with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has gained 2 Combo! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mariel heals Kaguya! She gains 364 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Kaguya! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated! GS: CRITICAL! Mariel heals Seraph Lanval! He gains 372 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Seraph Lanval! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Talia accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 372 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Mariel heals Rixia! She gains 365 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Rixia! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated! GS: Mariel heals Talia! She gains 368 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Talia! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Layna Manydays! GS: CRITICAL! Mariel heals Layna Manydays! She gains 360 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Layna Manydays! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated! GS: Mariel heals Margaret! She gains 363 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel heals Magilou! She gains 372 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"You're right," Kaguya answers Magilou. "I'm not."
Dean is more optimistic than Kaguya... But when it comes down to it, she's come to believe the same. "And I'm not giving up here!" she shouts to him. Even knowing the great power of even a nascent Fell Dragon, even knowing the sheer strength Harmaus's power becme--Kaguya is not ready to give up yet. She has overcome her very 'self', and will do so again.
Layna's leaping attack gets a grin from Kaguya as she goes. "Nice moves! We'll shield your buddy, whether he likes it or not."
The spirits come from Shige's power, and Kaguya feels it flood through her. Then she moves. The dragon, she is able to move, and Kaguya lets herself be carried with his momentum to slam back to the ship, rolling along the deck. Maybe the Captain will take issue with that later, but... All's well that ends well, right? And it hasn't ended yet.
Until that Arte...
Kaguya rises from the ground, but that fell power comes. Kaguya throws her hands in front of herself, an invisible shield erected before her, and stands before the Fell Dragon's terrible power. The very Earth far below seems to slam into her; she stands stock-still, absorbing the force of the attack, but still it burns so terribly. It hits as hard as it can, it completely burns away the spirits that came to her; the rest of her armor shivers, shatters, and fades to ash, leaving her in ordinary clothes, without the Veruni power armor that she would once have worn. She grits her teeth, and ends up in a crouch, unmoving for sheer power at first.
"I..."
His story. Magilou looks to her, and Kaguya, as she manages to move again, picks it up. "He was a seeker of his 'truth', and he looked in all the places he could. He looks over mountains, under oceans... and into the dephs of Malevolence. It didn't matter who he hurt in the process, so long as he could find that 'truth'. He worked with many, from Seymour to the Trial Knight... herself," 'her', "And eventually, he came to Pentagulia... to find the Truth of the Goddess."
"He told me, before the end, that a 'voice' spoke to him when he learned that. Something deep within the earth, telling him to 'seek'. Something 'deeper still'..."
"I believe that he found it, says Kaguya, as she starts to pull her weapon. "But that truth died with the Seraph he was. We'll never know now unless we find it for ourselves. But to him, that was 'enough'. He no longer wanted to share the truth with everyone--just to know for his own sake. We were 'unworthy' of it."
"But here his remnants are."
"SO LET'S LAY HIM TO REST!"
Kaguya feels the light and the water help her; she feels the greens and the blues, and the way it heals her, buoys her--just as much as she needs. Just as much as she can. So she runs to the edge of the deck, and leaps--
This time, for Zed.
"Zed!" Kaguya calls as she leaps onto the Zedder Dragon's back. "Take me up to his face! This is the last of what I can do!"
She readies Zeikfried, and it gathers up magic in truth, magic of Lunar, the Blessing, Althena's power... and the magic of Filgaia, channeled through an immigrant to that land, to one who once sought its ruin but came to forge a relationship all her own with it.
She combines each, just as she did against the Lord of Calamity. And--
Soon. Very soon--as soon as Zed gets her in position.
"Goodbye, Harmaus. I'll remember your story."
"...And I'll seek the real 'truth', for myself."
Kaguya grasps the light that Sustains the World with her own hands, stealing a little of that transgression, as part of this world. And Kaguya believes herself part of Filgaia, now; how can it be otherwise? The power of an Elw, of all things, rushes over her too. Kaguya feels the strength in it. She feels the gentleness in it. She feels so much of it... Is this what it is, to be a part of a 'world'?
"Come on!"
With that, riding on Zed's back, Kaguya takes her weapon up in both hands, the legendary gun passed to her from the ancient Seraphim, and fires. A gigantic circle of magic appears before the barrel, whirling in place, filled with intricate runes--and a glorious shining bullet slams forth for the Dragon's maw, radiant and shimmering and explosive.
GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Blitz! Kaguya has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Moment of Truth! GS: Kaguya has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kaguya gains 31 THP from Regen! GS: Kaguya has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mariel heals Dean Stark! He gains 361 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Dean Stark! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Mariel heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 360 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.
Magilou's honesty isn't overlooked, when she admits that Harmaus has more power to overwhelm them. "... power is at its purest when it isn't restrained by reason or anything else," she murmurs. Purest. Not 'most dangerous'. Perhaps she finds something appealing to it...
But the Witch acknowledges that she is powerful. And when she cryptically says she'll see her in another battle, perhaps five hundred years from now...?
"... it's because of your guidance. No matter how long it takes..."
Lanval repairs Harmaus' influence on the others; Marivel asks if she allows herself to step on the fire. "I won't allow myself to be cowed into submission. I won't be afraid..."
Does she see something past this journey?
...
Gwen settles for a powerful attack, and Kaguya... advises that there's more than just being her own person. "I know you know what it's like to be powerless! I want to grasp it with my own two hands!"
But at that moment, Mariel's healing washes over her -- and ultimately, that vein-like tension is a physical problem, one that Mariel readily alleviates, which prompts her to slack slightly as some colour returns amidst her pallor. "You..." she's not familiar with Mariel, but the gentleness of her healing isn't lost on her.
Shige advises her to not get sucked under. "I'm not. I'm not going to be manipulated by anyone else!" Is she seeing clearly, though? Margaret advised her to look with clear eyes. But does she have the veil pulled over her without even knowing?
Zed thanks her, without knowing her name. It's fine. "It's the power of The Six Gods' Realm!" she shouts randomly to Margaret. ... what? Maybe she's just really worked up right now. Wait, did she just add three more just like that??
(Being high on power and edge doesn't preclude her being a dumbass. This is a harsh lesson she will soon learn.)
Harmaus' punishment is great, indeed; the darkness falls in waves, violet light threatening to consume her under its unrelenting and pressuring tide. She struggles against it, throwing a magic shield up with her hand that takes all of her power-- but trying to apply force against force is the wrong way forward this time, the Fell Dragon's power, indeed as Magilou says, much greater than hers.
Rixia's on the ground when the blast subsides, but quickly rising back with even more of that power washing off off her; frankly unhealthy amounts of magic have gone in -and- out of her body in rapid succession, and it's not stopping anytime soon -- but Magilou's Fairy Circle sustains her, helps string her back up. Lanval's very own power seeks to cleanse... will that contradiction in her be cleansed? Right now, she feels aligned with what it is she must do.
"I'm not going to stop... I'm... not going to disappear..."
Rixia raises her gunblade as she feels the last of the blessings come to the fore, Mariel's own Ambrosia springing up around her blade as she torques its power into the rest of what she channels into the blade. The Blade of Light that she creates rises, rises, rises further, cutting heavensward in a sweath past the sea of clouds, and further!
OUT IN SPACE SOMEWHERE
"This is observation log number 337 for Kepler-386, I report no abnormalities..." speaks an extremely bored space scientist, possibly on the remote lookout for would-be rogues who would try to flee the Federation's net into forbidden space. "No abnormalities whatsoever-- eh?"
The space scientist gawks for a moment as a giant Blade of Light rises past the atmosphere and well into space!?!?!
BACK IN FILGAIA
Rixia is holding a Space-sized Blade of Light, which is apparently enormously heavy; she then threateningly descends, lowering it in an overwhelming CRASHHHHHHH down upon the Fell Dragon, marking a line as a zone of ruin to blast into smithereens.
GS: Rixia has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Blasting Zone! GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rixia gains 27 THP from Regen! GS: Rixia has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Moment of Truth for 280 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Kaguya takes 22 damage! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Rixia's Blasting Zone for 114 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"He saw too much-- and what he'd learned destroyed him." He sought answers. Answers to questions which should never have been asked. The Metal Demons were never... really ones to ask questions. The idea is foreign, somewhat, to them. Or at least, it was.
But knowledge brought them pain, too, didn't it?
There was so much certainty, once. But the truth... That their Mother was no kindly goddess-- that they were in fact serving nothing less than a planet-devouring parasite that had once upon a time killed their homeworld--
It broke many of them. Drove them to desperation. It was only because he was so... mercifully spared so much indoctrination that Zed made it through relatively unscathed.
...But not Harmaus. Knowledge broke him. Turned him into a monster. A Fell Dragon.
As much as Zed would love to dogfight a dragon, the fact remains that there are people aboard this ship. People he can't just leave stranded. His good nature is his undoing, as it ever will be. Lanval is made into the epicenter of a potent wave of corruptive magics. Zedder Robo Dragon is about as resistant to magic as its originator-- that is, barely at all. The pulses of dark power scythe into him, tearing intangibly at his animating energies. Zed flinches, struggling back against the tide, but--
He does not struggle alone.
A circle of light lenses open underneath him as Magilou fights magic with magic. "Lanval--" Zed... presses forward, the energy washing over him holding the dreadful corruption at bay. He trudges into its heart, trusting in the odd immunity much of his kind has to the worst of its effects, to try and reach the Seraph trapped in the epicenter of this corruption. He can endure it, but Lanval... Lanval...
Lanval manages a miracle.
The Lord of the Lake breaks free of the Fell Dragon's hold. His power suffuses the Demi-Dragon with foreign energies. Sustaining energies. The Power That Sustains The World pushes back fully against The Power That Corrupts The World. Zed is silent as purest water washes over his spirit, just as Mariel's Ambrosia reaches his body. For a moment, Zedder Robo's form flashes blue and green. This is... what it means to belong. To have a 'homeworld...' But.
He has to keep himself from it. Not yet. Not yet, he tells himself. Not when his oath yet remains unfulfilled. Zed clenches his fists, focusing that energy into his heart...
Moments before Zed is... mounted!?
Upon his shoulders, Kaguya stands! Zed nods, "I'll be your wings. Let's go, Kaguya!" Zed's cape flutters-- then hardens. Underneath, a rack of thrusters extrudes from within his body, sending him roaring into the sky. All the while, that energy is drawn in, honed to a singular point, wrapped up in layer upon layer of alien emerald energy. It only builds as he rises, lifting Kaguya high-- to the vantage she needs to reach.
She charges.
She fires.
"Kaguya, jump!" Zed shouts, hurling himself forward, into the arcane energy she unleashed. With a roar, he merges the power with his own, white and blue and gold and green shining around him in a chaotic halo--
That he releases at the very last, body and essence smoldering from the exertion before-- circling around to snatch Kaguya back out of the air.
Before she, you know, plummets to her death. Even Veruni (at least, most Veruni. Bartholomew notwithstanding) can't survive a fall from this height...
GS: Zed has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Zed has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Mariel heals Zed! He gains 367 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Zed! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! activated! GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Zed has attacked Seraph Harmaus with SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK!! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
The Fell Dragon is flailing. Thrashing. It's rising up - perhaps, Margaret thinks, it's going to just screw off. A wounded Fell Dragon is a problem that decidedly does not seem to be that of Margaret of As Yet Undefined New Sobriquet, and in fact seems like something which somebody working for the Goddess* can deal with. Maybe Borgan can deal with it. That would be funny.
These are not the thoughts of a hero, of course, but Margaret less than two subjective minutes (and many fewer seconds in actual time) decided, hypothetically, on a provisional basis, that she could be a hero, on a trial basis, for one day.
Then the Fell Dragon makes his move. And much like her own attempt was a canny thing, however courageous, the Fell Dragon does something canny himself. Darkness pours, not upon Margaret or Zed (who could surely take it) or upon all of them (which would be justifiable and even wise tactics) but instead like a dark torrent upon
"LANVAL!" Margaret shouts.
She feels something new. Something which is, perhaps, a feeling unique to heroes. It comes easily, and perhaps she had been *pressing it back* all this time, but be that as it may it is coming right now. The feeling is glistening, clear, pure RIGHTEOUS RAGE pouring down the back of her spine with a feeling like taking a shot of distilled grain alcohol, but with less 'down'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2qGK--NI
In Margaret the sensation rages. Magilou raises light around them which casts her own luminscence in stark relief. Margaret's face shows horror for a moment as she breathes several times. The wounds and pains on her body ease and draw backwards, washed in the dual streams of this righteous indignation and the blessing of the Fairy Circle.
Lanval endures -- he calls -- he draws on his power. But the fact that he yet lived-- this does not apply right now as the washing sea cleanses Margaret. It is almost like a baptism, a purification. Doubts and regrets wash away. She had said she would do whatever she wished, and perhaps this is what she wishes to do right now more than anything. She can feel her back muscles tensing up. Her look of horror turns into something like a grimace as her ears draw backwards, angle lowering and moving far enough back enough to rest the long lobes against the sides of her neck as her head turns towards the Fell Dragon.
A blessed medicine comes to her. Another gift, this of Filgaia pure. The planet to which she fled. The planet where she had found joy unbidden, over and over, never known since she reached her adulthood. The taste of ambrosia, indescribable, lingers in her mouth. A few tears come for her eyes as she hears what Kaguya says, and then she raises the burning brand of her sword above her head and strides towards the edge of the deck. *Storms* towards the edge.
"You speak true," Margaret says with thunder in her voice, answering Kaguya. "Let us slay this dross so it cannot further shame the Seraph-that-was! CREATURE!" Margaret shouts into the air in challenge.
"Craven! Envious kit! This star ill needs a creature like you! If you want to pour out your fury -- THEN TAKE MINE FIRST!"
Margaret smashes against the deck with one foot, hard enough to leave a centimeter-deep imprint in the decking material and hurling herself up with a small shower of sparks. At the apex of her leap the ring on her hand gleams again and she streaks forwards, a wordless bellow turning from a simple roar of challenge into a rising-and-falling chorus as magic grasps and throws and releases; she does not try to twist herself to the side, leading instead with the smouldering brand of the Veruni blade.
Unless, of course, it quenches itself at last, BURIED DREAM-DEEP IN DRAGON FLESH.
GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Coiling Impale! GS: Margaret has gained 3 Combo! GS: Margaret gains 30 THP from Regen! GS: Shield expired! GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel is greedy and isn't inclined to let others be the monster in the dark if she won't be allowed that dignity herself. Everyone who does wonderful things can't be a villain in her eyes. If they won't believe it, she'll believe it for them.
That violet light--isn't exactly of the same quality that would burn MArivel to bits. It's the UV that makes her bleed smoke. But perhaps it is good, then, that Harmaus's light always burns irrespective of one's nature. Marivel doesn't get her chest blown open again but she does get heavily scorched across her midsection and is thrown back from the Fell Dragon.
The Lord of the Lake, despite everything, still seeks her merriment. Marivel brings her hands up to the blinding light to cover her eyes and groans with the irritation of a monday morning.
"Fine."
She sits herself up. Mariel fills her with Filgaia's life before she gets up to her feet.
Marivel is not alive by the reckoning of this dimension but nor is she dead. She does not follow its rules, but because of a promise kept to the Guardians, she is allowed her life on Filgaia as part of Filgaia. And so, Filgaia will not hurt her as it might have once long ago.
Her people no longer exist to give this her gift and Marivel grasps that gift with her hand.
Mariel did hit Marivel. It didn't really hurt her. It did ten thousand damage.
Marivel stands up as her wounds heal--even if it's just a vessel, it can still heal.
"I am not so crass to bar someone else from doing what they need to do after I went through it all and got what I wanted out of it." Marivel assure Rixia. Her eyes slant back to the Fel Dragon as too much power fills her small body.
"Shall we force our way?" She asks rhetorically before she follows after Rixia, feet practically spinning as she dashes across the deck.
"APORT."
She vanishes, appearing BEHIND the entity once known as Harmaus.
"Sadly, I'll have to spare you my name."She holds her fingers in the shape of a triangle and a portal to Nowhere opens up within them.
She pulls her fingers apart as a gravitational tug pulls on the Dragon and the Blade of Light, making that blade heavier, and longer, and sharper as it the visual effect of it pulls into that which devours light, turning natural forces into an augmented strike that wants to eat this creature up.
"Perhaps I ought to be grateful that my father taught me at a young age to control my hunger." Marivel murmurs.
GS: Marivel Armitage has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Marivel Armitage has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with DemonAngle! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 2 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage gains 33 THP from Regen! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus partially guards Zed's SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK! for 215 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Zed takes 49 damage! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Coiling Impale for 103 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus's Poison Ward may block the effect! GS: Cripple applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Mighty and Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Gamble: Moderate! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Marivel Armitage's DemonAngle for 81 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Drowsy and Hex applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The Fell Dragon sends the Mayflower crashing downwards, and though it's too sturdy a ship to not hold up against the attack, it's still a hell of a jolt for those still on it. However, Zedder Robo pounces on the Fell Dragon as it takes wing but before it can follow up on its assault. And while Zedder Robo may not be a Golem... Dean has enough love in his heart for giant mecha-dragons too. (Even ones that only /kind of/ look like a dragon, if you squint.) The last time he saw it, he wasn't really in a position to appreciate it. Right now, he's too numb after his fiery rain of bullets to see anything else.
"THAT'S SO COOL!! YOU'RE SO COOL, ZED!!" Dean crows, blue eyes flooded with a million stars of delight. Even now, only a couple months from his 22nd birthday, he's still a teenage boy at heart.
However... it's still a Fell Dragon. Darkness blankets the heavens, something akin to a Seraphic glyph carving into the sky as if by Satan's knife. That darkness falls, down, down, all the way down to Lanval, blanketing him.
"Lanval!!" Dean shouts, and falls over, unable to properly move his body. Even so, he grits his teeth and wills his limbs, inch by inch. After all, like Kaguya said--they're not giving up here. As Magilou said: he'll do what he can.
And maybe alone, it would be hopeless. But none of them are alone here. They'll put Harmaus to rest--together.
What envelopes Dean first is the glimmering greens and blues spiraling outwards, rising up into his body and giving him a literal breath of fresh air. Next is the deluge of Lanval's waters as he emerges from the Fell Dragon's assault, and with it, Mariel combines the ambrosia of her vials. Both mix together and wash up and around him, cleansing the foul Malevolence that had been clinging like burrs and barnacles to him, washing away the numbness that had been wracking his body, lifting him up to his feet.
"...That's really sad," he says soberly, of Harmaus's story. "I'm sorry that that's what drove him down the path he was on." He spreads his arms, and Twin Fenrir flash back into his grip, bullets reloaded from their time off in... wherever they go when he hasn't called them. "Let's put an end to this. Whatever he found, we can figure that out later. Right now... let's put a stop to his suffering!"
As Kaguya takes to the skies with Zed, Dean breaks into a sprint to the edge of the Mayflower's deck. He jumps up and leaps onto the railing, whipping his paired ARMs around to face the massive creature from the best vantage point he can manage. Once again, he unloads streams of bullets, one gun, then the other, whirling around to switch, then switch again, before the rods of his ARMs glow a brilliant red-white with the searing flames of Moor Gault. He whirls again to unleash their heat, which take flight in the form of a pair of firebirds towards the Fell Dragon--and Dean is right behind them, all but dissolving into a beam of light as he and his beam-hot ARM rods slice forward through the air to impact against the creature at full force.
GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Blitz! Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has launched an attack Link! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact for 220 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
The death shaman finds herself in a situation at odds again. On the one hand, she'd prefer to be the helping hand. On the other hand? There's needs be for someone to help give someone that push they need to move on. The lantern snuffs out as she lifts it. The shadows growing around her. Taking form. Hooded wraiths, hollow specters. Things of darkness and the beyond. And they all converge on the dragon. Armed with a myriad of weapons old and new. Claw and fang.
She spares a moment to look at Rixia. There's something darkly funny in the back of her head about tainted light and soothing darkness. Or something. That gets chased away with actual concern though. "No one here's trying to. Just-.." She glances back to the dragon, trying to avoid being mangled once more, maybe a bit shy as the pain seeps in. "I'll spring for drinks tonight." She did offer to make a drink last time after all. Even if it's been a while.
This is yanked away though as darkness pours from Lanval, "You too Poltergeist, not your turn yet." She's trying to keep that same teasing tone, but it really is wearing on her by now. The last long while. She's just got to keep trying. The light of her lantern flickers and begins to reignite.
Flaring up as she checks on each person. There's a brief level of bafflement at a source of nightmares giving a piggyback ride into combat. And say what you will, it was a genuine snort of laughter. Gallows humor'll do that though.
"Marivel, still have to get your friend home. Even if I have to haunt you long enough to do so, I'm going to." That's almost back to her own tone. A joke even! She did say there was a light at the end right?
GS: Shige Kiwako accepts Seraph Lanval's Lord Of The Lake for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Mariel heals Shige Kiwako! She gains 367 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: FP up! Mariel's Reload! and Gleam activated! GS: Shige Kiwako enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Eclipse! GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shige Kiwako gains 24 THP from Regen! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"YES I KNOW," Marivel says, completely misunderstanding who Shige means. "It's not my fault she can't!" She does not mean Belle.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
Layna braces herself as the Mayflower is slammed against the dragon. She stumbles - but makes it out alright, and sends Magilou a grin as she issues a challenge.
"...Aye. I guess I can." She replies. It's enough to force her to push through the rest of the numbness, to stand up straight again. Kaguya receives a grin, too.
"You've my thanks, lass." She replies with a nod.
...But Magilou tells a story. Harmaus's story, now that, perhaps, only she and Kaguya are left to tell it. Layna frowns.
"...So that's it, huh? ...Guess I can see how he came to this. Not a lot can say they'd manage otherwise." She murmurs. She shakes her head.
...Well, it's like the others have said. They should lay him to rest.
But he is a Fell Dragon, and they are not so easily felled. Layna survived the impact - and so, too, does the Fell Dragon survive the attack. It swells with dark power, a Seraphic glyph is etched in the sky... and then, darkness falls upon Lanval, before erupting out to meet her. Layna braces herself as she's assailed by darkness - by Malevolence. It's horrible. It threatens to tear everything away from her. She forces her way through it. It's not herself she's concerned about, after all, but...
"Lanval! LANVAL!!" Layna calls out, tries to shout over the din. "Hold on, lad! I'm comin' to get you! Hold strong!"
She can feel what he's going through. He is her Oracle. She is his Seer. They are the two of them intrinsically linked - what happens to one, happens to the other. She forces her way through the Malevolence, even as she can feel him struggling.
It is the greatest struggle for a Seraphim, but she trusts that he'll make it through - and her trust is rewarded.
Their vows shall be seen through. That's his promise, that's his answer - and the water crashes outward. It surrounds her, empowers her. And with the waters of Filgaia strengthening her, and the outpouring of Mariel's Ambrosia renewing her stamina, she grabs Lanval by the shoulders.
"I'm here, lad. Hold still for a sec." She asks. She, too, draws upon the waters of Filgaia. For a moment, the two of them are surrounded in a sphere of pure, clear water, with the intent of washing away whatever Malevolence might be left.
"You alright?" She asks - and then, with a pat on the shoulder, steps back. "...Be right back. We've still got some unfinished business."
She cracks her neck... and then, in an instant, vanishes with a splash of water and a gust of wind. She reappears above Harmaus, like a watery, bright blue comet she falls, spinning in mid-air to deliver an axe kick with added momentum. The Reaverbot technology installed in her boots reacts, magnifying the effect with a powerful second burst.
GS: Layna Manydays has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Layna Manydays spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Layna Manydays has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Dead Men Tell No Tales! GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo! GS: Layna Manydays gains 33 THP from Regen! GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"...." Magilou tells the sad tale of Harmaus's fall from his former status of lord, and Gwen, ever the soft-hearted courier there ever was, can't help herself. "... All these Seraphs... seems there's never really been a swell time for you all any time you've dealt with us mortals. Not because of us hurtin' you, but because we're just so damn fragile, in the scheme of things. We force you to experience loss at the same rate we can give you the joy of companionship. It's no wonder so many of y'all have to fall to coping measures just to keep up with it. We reap the benefits 'cause we don't have to deal with the same amount of loss."
In the future, she will relate to a Hyadean friend about this scaling of life spans: how a young girl with a bad heart had willingly accepted she'd never have to deal with the pressures of being an adult because she'd be dead by then, to that same girl being faced with the dizzying possibilities of a life span several times that, as long as her body held out. And yet, even if she was one of those legendary few who made it to a ripe age of something like 80 or 90, she would be like a blink of an eye to a Hyadean.
And that is if her ARM doesn't just find new ways to rebuild her, guided by her will to live. How long can a human's will to live survive, compared to a human's body?
"What the--" It brings to mind the time when Gwen, as a curious child, managed to use a bottle of water to reflect the light from a sun beam to reflect around a dark room.
... It burns. Which, in retrospect, is an ironic phrase to use, considering Lanval is a Water Seraph by trade. Gwen barely manages to somehow guard against the worst of the blast, and it's likely from Shige's earlier healing that Gwen is even still standing from that blow. Right now, there's one concern on her mind. "Lanval, you okay?!"
Lanval, thankfully, is stronger than he likes to let on, and more than that, he can reflect more than the disjointed light of Malevolence. "Lanval..." The water is a balm to the soul as well as her ARM, which stops jerking at random intervals.
Mariel brings in her type of magic: the knowledge of the Elws, bringing the essence of Filgaia to the fore to allow everyone to make another stand for the wounded souls hidden down below.
Gwen breathes, her ARM greedily supping on the combined magic and energy of Lanval and Mariel. ".... Guardians..." she marvels softly, turning her brightening ARM over as the visible wounds on her body heal. She feels... strange. Like something is natural about this, but it's just.... not quite there. Like a song that sounds similar to a tune she's supposed to know, but can't quite piece together yet. Oh well, it's nothing that'll matter later, right?
"Okay, Harmaus, lemme help you send off all proper-like!" She's already charged, and ready to go. Energized as she sees her chance (and perhaps a little inspired by Dean), Gwen leaps up into the air to do a trick shot, pointing her right hand out and firing a shot. Two previous attacks of her companions will find their own connected by Gwen's shot, burning bright as the sun and moon connected in the same sky in an impossible line.
A lucky shot.
GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Ringshine! GS: Gwen Whitlock gains 28 THP from Regen! GS: Shield expired! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Shige Kiwako's Eclipse for 130 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Delay and Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Harmaus solidly guards Layna Manydays's Dead Men Tell No Tales for 125 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus suffers a terrible blow from Gwen Whitlock's Ringshine for 271 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Is that why?
Does it know on some level -- some deep instinctual level? What elements take to corruption more readily than others? More than a former Lord, more than an Oracle -- Lanval is these things, yes -- Lanval is a Seraph of the flowing and easily-tainted element of water. It would make him its nucleus for corrupting still others. And it would unmake him.
But this is not the first time for Lanval, is it? And he has become More, since. Malevolence is shorn from him -- shorn from others...!
And the dragon bellows, as if in fury. As if it had even that basic emotion left.
But even if this is undone, it still stands. It still lives, and in its living, it will continue to destroy and unmake -- they will be but the first.
They had never gotten off even from the first -- Talia and Harmaus. He had never shown anything towards her but disdain. He had never been anything but cruel towards Amaranth. But is this the sort of fate he deserved? Actively worked towards, perhaps -- but much of what he had experienced and seen during the long course of his life he had not spoken much regarding, even to his erstwhile allies. What out there could break a Seraph, and have driven them to such terrible means?
And still, some fates are worse than death. The dragon bears down on Talia, and in this moment, it meets her blade. Ice, lightning: both erupt towards the heavens in a series.
And still, even so -- even bloodied and beaten, the damnable thing just won't die. Even the herb Mariel has scattered has done little but prevent its flesh from healing: it will not simply rebound easily.
Not in this moment. Not if they can defeat it -- kill it -- here. They have that chance, as slim and vanishing as it is. If it should escape, though...
It attempts to crush Talia again even so. It would tear her apart and any other it could reach, were it not for a simple ring of light.
The fairy circle burns. The dragon hurts.
With a shudder, it launches itself towards the skies above, trailing black blood as it rises.
They had been as thick as thieves for but a short period of time. He had lent her his assistance and she is. He had convinced her -- in part, with a version of his tale -- into going along for a time with his quest, his cause. But eventually, his madness had made itself clear: he could not tolerate her allegiances, even if it meant the failure of his own ends. And so they had parted, bitterly.
The last kindness Kaguya had shown him was plucking him -- still and listening to the voice only he could hear -- from the streets of Pentagulia. This is what had become of that.
But even so, she had promised him something, even as he dared her to attempt it.
She'll move to make good on that now as the dragon rises, as it opens its maw wide. Would it have been flames that had followed?
The light cuts straight through to the other side; that which had been Harmaus staggers forward. Light is joined by light: a multitude of colors, flung forth by Zed's robotic form and swirling about the singular beam Kaguya shoots forth. Anything else would be dead.
But a Fell Dragon is a different sort of beast. Black blood runs from its mouth and still it moves. Beating its wings, it surges again into the air.
And there, again, there is piercing light rising to meet it. Straight through, to the other side-- to the atmosphere and beyond, tugged further, farther by Marivel's control of time and space. Rixia's blade, as she and the dragon both will find, has cut quite deeply indeed.
Black blood rains down upon the deck. But a Seraph is not like a mortal being. A Fell Dragon, too...
What was Harmaus soars upwards, rising towards the heavens; light glitters off its scales, catching it in silhouette against the sun's disc. Once, the Seraph had drawn power from his obsession: surely, nothing now is left of what he had been. Perhaps now it is the raw desire for its prey that gives it strength and power.
And then it descends. Snarling, the dragon comes in sharply from above: sharp piloting prevents it from outright crashing through the deck of the Mayflower. But that hardly means that those who fight against it are spared: it tears into the starboard part of the deck, tearing out a section of the railings. This is not a situation Margaret is like to tolerate and indeed, with her cry of challenge, she does not: leaping from the deck she lands astride the dragon, her borrowed blade cutting deep into its flesh before she again departs. But this is not an action that will go unanswered -- her strike, nor Kaguya's shot earlier. It surges for the deck with a sharp right-hand turn and slashes at the both of them with its claws before it turns, nearly rolling off the deck into the sky. A pair of firebirds follow in its wake, before it can even chance to take flight: there, right behind them is Dean, and his ARM burns as only a holy flame might. With a scream, the dragon lurches into the sky.
It's not flying in a way that is balanced, anymore. If it were to escape, would it die? Or would even the herb that Mariel saw spread upon it fade in time?
Darkness follows after it. It's a different sort of dark -- the sort of shadow that falls in holy places where the dead sleep. It cannot rise as it otherwise might, thus pulled back by Shige's shades. Perhaps that is why it soon follows such a spell with darkness of its own -- the darkness of the heart, a far more shadowy space than any grave. It rings the dragon's body like an anti-halo.
darkness radiating about it like an anti-halo.
Light, dark and merciless, flares into being at several distinct intervals about the Mayflower's deck. At some silent beckoning from the dragon as it maintains altitude a distance away, the black light erupts at odd angles as spears, raining down at particular sections of the deck. This will be chaos enough, certainly: Gwen, Lanval, Mariel, Dean and Zed are all caught within the ranges of that spell.
Nor does it stop here with them. It exhales its flames across the deck as it makes its low pass and here its fire might well catch Shige, Layna, Rixia and Marivel in its swansong flight. Such fire burns bright: brighter and hotter than any blaze of mortal make.
But like all flame, it is but brief.
It lands then, rearing towards two in particular: Magilou, for her magics. And Talia, for her blade.
It comes at them with its claws and blood-blackeded teeth. But its aim is not to devour -- no, such is not its sustenance. It seeks instead to rend -- to destroy.
But Gwen is a candle. See how she burns!
And Layna refuses to be denied. Here, while the dragon makes its final attempt to destroy them all, they cleave to a certain young man's maxim--
The shot cleaves.
Once, twice, the boots connect.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Kaguya with Upheaven From the Abyss! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Margaret with Upheaven From the Abyss! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with On the Seventh Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Lanval with On the Seventh Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Mariel with On the Seventh Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with On the Seventh Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Zed with On the Seventh Night! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Shige Kiwako with Fire of Heaven! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Layna Manydays with Fire of Heaven! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Rixia with Fire of Heaven! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Fire of Heaven! GS: Seraph Harmaus has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Talia with Behold, Thy Doom is Mine!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Magilou with Behold, Thy Doom is Mine!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: CRITICAL! Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Upheaven From the Abyss for 150 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kaguya gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Layna Manydays solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Fire of Heaven for 125 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Layna Manydays gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Zed solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's On the Seventh Night for 121 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Margaret suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's Upheaven From the Abyss for 287 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock critically guards Seraph Harmaus's On the Seventh Night for 74 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's On the Seventh Night for 127 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Lanval gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Behold, Thy Doom is Mine! for 139 hit points! GS: Magilou's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Magilou! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Mighty applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Strain! Seraph Harmaus takes 3 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Talia takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Behold, Thy Doom is Mine! for 136 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Talia's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Poison applied to Talia! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Mighty applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: FP up! Sufferer and Gleam activated! GS: Talia enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Strain! Seraph Harmaus takes 2 damage! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Mariel solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's On the Seventh Night for 102 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! SOS Overdrive and Gleam activated! GS: Marivel Armitage solidly guards Seraph Harmaus's Fire of Heaven for 67 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Something like a sigh escapes from the dragon in the moment just following -- from what was once Harmaus. It convulses but once as parts of its very being begin to dissolve away into so very many motes of light.
What remains after a Seraph has passed on? Is there anything that remains? Is there anything that carries on, towards the future?
No one can for certain. No one can know this answer. There are things that stand beyond the limits of understanding.
What was Harmaus rises heavensward above the airship, continuing to fade away -- into particles, and soon into nothing at all -- as if reaching in its very last for something it can no longer attain. With one final pulse of light, then--
There is nothing.
Nothing but the small object that has fallen onto the battered deck of the airship with a soft jingling clatter. It is a single golden bell that hangs from a woven red cord. It would fit neatly around the neck of a cat.
GS: Dean Stark critically guards Seraph Harmaus's On the Seventh Night for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
A gentle caress on Marivel's cheek and a reassurance that she will never be alone is all that stands between Marivel and burning in Harmaus's last strike. She burns, but she does not burn away.
Lying on the deck, smelling like charred rodent, she turns her gaze over to the bell.
But she leaves it. She doesn't want to be chained by memories anymore and that's all Harmaus is now.
Does she have any sympathy for the candle that burned away? No, she just wants to get home. Allowing herself sympathy for another who wanted to learn the impossible answer will only encourage her to return to that road of self destruction.
She can't do that to Mariel and Liath again so she won't.
"Maybe if there was an Answer," She says philosophically. "We wouldn't turn ourselves inside out in search of it for it is only that way can we reach the heart to pluck it out. I'm already glad I was pulled back so I suppose I owe you for showing me what would have happened if it hadn't been for dear Mariel and the rest?"
"So thank you, Harmaus, for allowing me a peek. I really can't return to this road again, hm?"
And with that she turns to make her way below deck for some privacy.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Many call for Seraph Lanval's well-being. He knows that it is as a friend, and not just because of the power he himself serves as a conduit for, and he holds that smile and his conviction even as Malevolence dares to share Harmaus' fate with him.
Layna comes to his aid, drawing the two of them within a sphere of pure, clear water. In Layna's grasp, Lanval looks and feels... fragile, thin. Like so much of himself was expended in the moment - again. The entire trial through Pentagulia had taken so much, and when she asks if he's okay...
He just smiles, nods, and quietly reaches for a bottle (a grab he misses because Layna has to see to some business before he can filch it).
He laughs anyway.
"...'m all right," he murmurs in his regular, slurred voice, throwing up an arm and waving to those who have shown such concern. Especially to Dean, over there, and once to Magilou while he bathes in the residual healing energies of the Fairy Circle... and the taste of Filgaia's finest Ambrosia.
The Fell Dragon's still here. Weakened, dried out, a Water Seraph who might be more puddle than lake at this juncture turns to that ailing, flying, weakening Fell Dragon.
That strange anti-halo is the one tell Lanval has before the deadly wave of black light at odd angles threatens to spear him anew, and with a clumsy pirouette does he miss ground zero, even as the explosion of its impact against the deck still tests his spiritual strength.
He holds...
And staggers, as it lands, but then flails into its final throes, rising above as the creature disintegrates, and leaves behind naught but a bell that bounces on the deck with that soft jingling.
Lanval kneels down, and...
"...sheeeeeec," Lanval draws out the word in exhaustion, tilting the drinking gourd with his hands, and arms, shaking. It is metaphysically too heavy for him to hold like this for long, right now, but he manages to tilt it just enough so it doesn't spill over.
Just a single droplet of water, to wash upon the golden bell. Just that single droplet of water, to see off the rest of that ambient Malevolence now that there's no further living, ongoing will attached to it.
That final send-off, that single droplet of a bath.
He stumbles down onto his seat, and allows whomever else to do with it as they will.
GS: Rixia takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Fire of Heaven for 154 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rixia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Kaguya finishes the story; Magilou doesn't have to carry the whole thing, on her shoulders. She nods, firm, as her voice rises. "His last rites," she agrees, not so loud but with her own kind of wan effort.
Not that it's going to make it easy on them, this thing Harmaus has become.
It's Bienfu, hiding firmly within the safe haven of Magilou's pure heart, who pipes up after hearing Gwen's reaction to the tale. His voice is pipsqueakish, high, whiny -- and much more animated than Magilou's, at least right now. "We hang around humans because we want to!" He insists, with his disembodied voice. (The floor is LAVA, out there, and he is NOT COMING OUT. He's way more of a coward than Lanval is!!) "And if it's too much -- we just go somewhere else! Oooohhh!! Humans haven't forced Seraphim to do anything for ages, so don't go beating yourself up!"
Less a coward than Bienfu, Lanval remains master of himself; master of his connections, power he offers to them all. "Another Guardian, huh..." Magilou wonders, despite this being a joke entirely lost in translation with the transliteration she's been going with!!
Surely this means Lanval can see a Guardian's heart, anyway.
Mariel, too, has her strongest concoction: and Magilou pauses in the battle to look to her, to behold it, as she doles it out alongside Lanval's purifying waters. "That's quite the alchemy," she says. "I'm sure the cauldron bubbled for quite some time to make something so striking... good thinking." Using it here, that is. Magilou doesn't expect Mariel to believe half the things she says, but even blunted as her affect is, she can appreciate that she believes just how dangerous this situation this now.
Maybe... they won't even die here. Maybe they'll be able to put this Fell Dragon down, with Filgaia's own Purification on loan. These are clinical thoughts which she evaluates and lets pass; grasping hope too closely hurts too much, in this environment of impossibilities.
"... nonsense is a very powerful thing," Magilou says, looking to Rixia, apropos of nothing. (It's not quite as disjointed as it sounds. She's just remembering what she said, about power without reason, before that last round of attacks.) "No... you won't stop here, Rixia." She thinks of the way Blasting Zone pierced the heavens -- and it's nostalgic, really.
(Ascending Angel pierces the clouds, too.)
She watches, as those teeth come for her; as the Fell Dragon's shadow falls over her, she is dwarfed by it, framed by it, looking up with no light left in her own soul. For long moments it may seem as if she will do nothing -- as if, finally, she's given in to inevitability.
She blinks, just the once.
"... sorry."
And Magilou lifts each hand, to either side of her -- shikigami extending out and broadening, two kite shields flanking her which blockade its teeth before it can chomp down. She shields herself from the mighty gnash, and redirects his jaws, so she can hop away.
She puts those damaged shikigami away, too. They've done enough, for now; the spirits held within will be cross that their paper dolls were torn up by something this powerful. She'll have to appease them, assuming she lives.
Even right at the end -- she's assuming she might not.
But this is the end. The powerful assault of the Fell Dragon is nothing less than its dying throes; it begins to fade, into nothing. Magilou thinks -- always, she thinks -- of the way Seraphim disappear into motes of light, to inhabit their sacred objects. But there is nothing left which could serve as his vessel, now.
He's dead.
"He's dead," Magilou repeats her thoughts, out loud, though they feel so numb on her lips. She doesn't quite manage to look at any of them, as she watches those final lights fade. "You really stopped it... you've done something incredible, today."
Clink, goes something, falling to the deck. It's not a loud noise, but Magilou's ears are still large enough to catch it. A little jingle...
She kneels, to scoop up the collar, and looks down at it for a long moment. "Harmaus..." She says, quiet. She lets Lanval wash the bell; it's necessary, given who it belonged to.
Magilou blinks, and it's Kaguya she turns to. She is solemn, as she offers the collar to her. "... you should have this," she says, to her, and no other. "You were his ally, in his final hours. You couldn't have stopped the sun from setting... but it matters you were there." She pauses, gaze tracking to the side. "... since I was a poor chaperone, at the beginning of his story, I'm thankful to you for that."
She couldn't really ask anyone to support Harmaus, given who he turned into.
That's why it matters so much to her that Kaguya did.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
It is a near, near thing.
Zed is Kaguya's wings, and for a time, she flies. She flies, and takes that point--and when Zed says to jump, Kaguya jumps. ...But no one has to find out if she can survive a fall from that height, because Zed catches her, snatching her out of the air and giving her the chance to respond to the feelings on this story.
She jumps from there back to the deck. "Thanks, Zed!"
Then come the claw strikes, and Kaguya has the wind knocked out of her by sheer force. The claw is as much bludgeon as slash, and that almost takes Kaguya out, scything through the salubrious energy suffusing her. Barely, she still stands. Barely, she holsters her weapon and starts to pick herself back up.
"I..."
Dean says the story is sad. Margaret may even ahve shed a tear. So they release Harmaus's suffering, if he still suffers. If he feels anything. Who can say?
They 'send him off'. And finally, barely, they defeat him. The Fell Dragon 'sighs', and it starts to convulse, beginning to fade away... Kaguya watches, unblinking. She will see these final moments through. She will finish this moment. And she does. 'He's dead', Magilou repeats.
"...None of us could have done it alone," Kaguya answers Magilou, and looks at the assembled on the ship. She then looks to where Harmaus--the Fell Dragon--was, and lowers her gaze.
"Did you find your 'truth' after all...?" she wonders. "Will it be a 'truth' we'll wish we'd known?"
Lanval cleanses the bell, and then Magilou turns to her. Kaguya blinks, too--and then opens her mouth, and closes it, before putting out her hands to accept it, closing both over the precious artifact.
For that is what it is, now.
"...I told him," Kaguya says, "That if he turned--if he endangered people--I would stop him. But that I wouldn't stop him seeking his 'truth' anymore. That I hoped he would find it."
"And I believe he did," she says. "I... I believe that."
She turns, to look out over the deck, not at anyone here anymore. "Goodbye, Harmaus. I never loved you. ...But I'll remember you, and the 'truth' as I can find it. That I promise."
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.
Rixia's body, on its own, should have caved in long, long ago, if it weren't for the Sleeping Lion's synthesis of magic in myriad forbidden ways holding her up. It has its limits too, however, and it's coming to a very clear and definitive end here as her limbs begin to falter, as she holds gunblade true, yet her physical means come to their capacity. The dragon soars, soars--
She's in no real position to defend herself, washed in the flame so bright and incandescent; hotter than a mortal can create, and yet... a mortal flame, nonetheless, effulgent in its ever so brief wake.
"I won't... ... disappear... I won't... be denied..."
As the remnants of what was once Harmaus fades into light, rising heavensward above the Mayflower, it seems Rixia may be as Mayflies; there's little evidence of her left but a smote, burnt mark upon the deck.
Nonsense is a very powerful thing, as Magilou states. She won't stop here. She can't.
Rixia went... somewhere, possibly blasted clear off the airship. Perhaps she teleported, like she did when she fought Gwen and Josephine, in an emergency measure.
Her journey won't end here. She can't fall off the plank between one and perdition; not until...
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret swings her feet up to plant herself on the Fell Dragon's form. It has worked before and in her fury she is willing to take the chance.
Oh! It is a pure and cleansing feeling, like fire that rolls down a hill, like a frozen glacier of flame that has sat in some realm of impossible temperature and with that temperature regime now changing, just enough for something to flow. It could roar forever. The groundwork was laid. Rage sublimated into righteous action...
... probably righteous action, anyway.
The claws slash forwards. The beloved and well-worn leather boots stop being a pair in a moment as the Fell Dragon's claws gash across the front of one. Belt and buckle and lace absorb some of the force, sending Margaret jerking to the side, but blood starts to pour into the remnant, but her anger pushes past it. She brings up her scabbard-holding hand to brace crosswise as the dark rises.
"COWARD! FACE ME, DAMN YOU! I'LL RIP THE SKY'S GUTS OUT IF I MUST!" Margaret shouts as she brings the smouldering blade up and makes momentary landfall on top of Harmaus but...
It feels like sand?
Like a drunk with cold water thrown in the face, Margaret's fury suddenly dissipates into something nearer to the regular order of things in the life of Margaret. She turns quickly, and leaps off, and then the Fell Dragon dives.
Margaret's enchanted ring was a gift from a dear friend who perished without issue (though you should have seen the other guys) -- and for a moment Margaret stares down, and for her it's several moments, wondering, perhaps, how many friends she will lose today. Despite it all. Here, at the last ditch. She grasps the burning, smoking blade with futility. All she can do is hope.
For her, at least, hope is rewarded. Others are speaking; moving. Something fell down and Magilou is moving around (Magilou is easily distinguished). Margaret's ring slows her fall; she lets her head tilt back and blinks back the last few terrified tears. It takes her a half-minute or so to land on the deck, and a few moments later, the fire in the carbon fiber blade dims considerably, its willing enchantment evaporating.
It is of course still burning, and Margaret sets it against something metal before moving to join the others. Mute, staggering a little, but alive. Can the ship fly?
Did they win?
It's hard to say, for certain. But at the least, they didn't lose.
Harmaus may be another story.
GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Harmaus's Fire of Heaven for 167 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Shige Kiwako enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
The feline beastkin's having one of those days. You know, taking every blow more or less on the chin. This is an important lesson to work on your footwork. Something she'll take to heart sooner or later. Between the ship being rammed, just general injury, fatigue (Both mental and physical) and stress, she's just not as quick as she'd like to be and finds herself scorched and at least a little on fire. Which you know, isn't great.
A few of those creepy shadows help her beat the flames out. Trying to avoid the other option in a situation where her footwork's already suspect. She slows down. Glancing up word as the dragon sighs. Defeated. The shadows fade away as the flames do. Lingering wisps for a moment longer as the former Seraph moves on.
"I don't know what to do here." She says, almost surprised. This is the second time it's happened and the second time she's finding herself at a loss. Maybe this is something she should ask when she makes it back. Somethign to get help on. Nothing for it, she twists something on the side, feeding the spectral flame so that it's bright and clear as she holds it up. Maybe if there's anything left, it can find a place of peace, rest and the answers it couldn't find before.
The bell landing gets an ear to twitch and she turns her head to look at the fallen thing.
With the lights fading away she lowers her arm and makes her way to the living. Setting the lantern down before her as she crouches and checks on them. Silent for now.
There's a brief pause as she tries to look for where Rixia went. Lurching towards the railing to see if she got swept overboard. "She's gone." is the first thing that comes to mind. Wisps forming around her like she's going to send them out to look. Not that it would do any good now, right?
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
It *is* sad. Just because Harmaus was a terrible person doesn't change that.
Dean impacts into the Fell Dragon, and impacts off of it. As it screams, he leaps back and hits the Mayflower's deck in a three-point landing. He's ready to get right back in the fray--brings his ARMs up to defend himself when the thing that was once Harmaus shoots out those dark spears--but before he can actually ready a proper counterattack, he realizes... these are its death throes. It's... dying.
Lanval calls that he's okay, and Dean flashes him a relieved grin. He smiles, too, at Bienfu's declaration that Seraphim hang around humans because they want to. He doesn't run over to his Seraph friend just yet, though. First... first he watches as the Fell Dragon dies. As the vast and fearsome creature just... comes apart into little specks and floats away like dandelion seeds on the wind.
It really is very sad, he thinks, as Magilou says in that eerily dead voice that he's dead. His gaze rises higher and higher until there's nothing left to see. Then--a soft *jingle-jangle*. He blinks and looks down at a bell on a cord. He didn't know Harmaus well, but he knew him well enough to recognize it. "That's..."
He shakes his head. It's not his to take. Instead, he turns, about to jog over to Lanval--but Lanval's already stumbled over to the bell collar, on which he pours just a drop of purifying water. Dean walks over as he stumbles into a sit. "Glad you're okay, Lanval," he says quietly, but with sincere warmth.
Then he looks over to Magilou and Kaguya. There are a lot of people here today, who all helped, who all have their own feelings about this, but it's these two that he focuses on right now.
"You helped too, you know, Magilou," he points out. "It's just like Kaguya said. We did this because we all worked together. You too." He smiles. "Thanks, Magilou. You're a" don't say it don't say it "great friend." HE SAID IT