Scene #5767: Dead Man's Panopticon-7

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Bloody Revelations	There is no warpgate to where they're going, and so Elites who have signed up for the front lines ride into battle in the belly of one of Lookshy's Manta-class aerial transports --massive, sleekly metallic airships preserved and maintained all the way from the previous age, which course through the sky at a casual hundred miles an hour on thrumming engines of Essence, like precious little else seen in the skies of the current Age of Sorrows. They're loaded into the cramped but heavily armoured insides of the gigantic carrier craft alongside over a hundred of Lookshy's most elite troops, organized into their own units and clad head to toe in advanced magitech power armour of blue and red jade, leagues more powerful than almost anyone can afford to field. Dozens of other similar craft, with similar payloads, launch as they do, and hundreds of smaller fighters and more mundane airships go with them, coalescing into an airborne army of thousands of troops and scores of heavy weapons that feels almost intimidating just to be a part of. Vast, rolling planes, interspersed with small rivers, scroll rapidly far below as the fleet makes alarming time towards where it's been said that the /real/ bulk of Lookshy's army is waiting, giving them a short time in the interim to organize. Rather than being forced into the troop hold with rows of power-armoured commandos, barely speaking or moving if not to check their weapons or mutter a quick prayer, they're herded into the cramped bridge of the ship instead, where a pilot and copilot ignore their presence, and instead they are met with a more important third figure. The door is shut behind them, leaving just a tactical map spread out over a plinth in the center raised section, where a command chair would normally go. A woman distinctly unlike the others is leaned over it, hands spread at the corners of the sheet, watching holography of magical light rise up from the parchment and construct an elaborate, slowly moving spread of troop icons. She looks somewhat similar to the other legionaries in the hold, but only for the style of incredibly ornate, black jade and silver armour that covers everything but her head, so heavily affixed in places that it almost takes on the 'mecha musume' aesthetic, as if she were part war machine. Her skin glimmers with the same shades, and her hair is close cropped silver, with only pale green eyes having real colour, clearly marking her as inhuman, even if the aura of intense, electric power low-key radiating off of her weren't palpable. "We don't have a lot of time, so I'll keep things brief." she says, her voice oddly barely above a whisper. "You have my own, and the Seventh Legion's, undying gratitude for aiding us as much as you have, before choosing to fight alongside us this day. I am Tien Yu, the city goddess of Lookshy itself. If that helps you understand how important this battle is to the future of Lookshy's survival, and how highly I respect you and your people, then I am glad."
Bloody Revelations	"Our target is here." she says, drawing a circle around a multi-storied block wedged in the meander of a river to the south, such that the water surrounds it on the north, east and west sides. "The New Haven Redoubt. The Mask of Winters' main fortress on the southern border of the Marukan territory which separates Lookshy and Thorns. It is his bulwark against an invasion from the north, and one that we must crush if our supply lines are to extend all the way to a siege on Thorns itself." "The Second, Third, and Fourth Field Forces have been sortied to this location, as well as over half of the Sky Guard. Lookshy's First Field Force, as well as the Legion Reserve, Foreign Legions, and our Marukan Allies, are engaging in simultaneous attack operations on other rebouts to the east and west of the border. The mainstay of Lookshy's martial might is aimed here to crack the keystone that holds the Mask's perimeter, and drive his forces back and in disarray." "Our plan of attack is simple enough. Our archer and heavy infantry wings are set to move to all sides of the river, encircling the fort, where field engineers and sorcerers will construct field fortifications to hold the riverbank. They will provide cover for our artillerist and warstrider fangs to bombard the fortress with our heaviest weaponry until its walls collapse. The skyguard will be providing air support to target and eliminate heavy necromachinery and enemy warstriders, while our Gunzosha commando teams will be inserting into their defensive perimeter via air and underground to take out as much of their artillery as possible." "Due to your previous actions, their primary military general, the Conscientious Grimacing Executioner, is KIA. The Deathknight replacing him is younger and less experienced. Our top team of Dragon-Blooded elite are tasked with a seek and destroy mission to cut him down. Since you captured Strangling Sable Web, their top necromancer, our own forces have intercepted and assassinated her replacement, meaning they will have no war magic on their side, and their undead will be slow, stupid, and uncoordinated. We plan to wipe them out in the opening attack so as to keep our ground troops fresh for the assault, instead of using up valuable ammunition and Essence." "I'm not your commander, so make your plans now. Organize yourselves as you see fit, and lend your hands towards whichever prongs of this operation you believe could best use your skills. In a moment, I will address the men, and we will be inserting via aerial drop. If you don't have the means to reach the ground safely, our engineers will equip you."
Miari	Miari's here, once again dressed in her emerald-and-gold battle regalia, a dress of Essence Silk that's affixed with plates of polished Green Jade-steel and Orichalcum in key locations such as vitals, Dragon Tear Tiara encircling her forehead. An outfit that nearly matches Tian Yu's, and showing uncanny familiarity with some of the fashions of ages that predate even the Shogunate... "All in the name of Creation once again being a place worth living in, Tien Yu." Is her response to the Goddess' praise, after which Miari fixes her attention raptly on the map before them all. The young Exalt allows her mind to hyper-focus, drawing on ancient and forsaken powers beyond the world to analyze with great speed. "Anyone can lop the heads off zombies. My efforts are best put towards erecting fortificiations and saving lives. I have no demon army to unleash on their forces and the thick of battle's not my calling. So unless someone else has a good idea that needs my attentions, I'll focus on helping the field engineers."
Ryu	Ryu stands in the bridge, a face that others who have been helping to fight against the Mask of Winters may not recognize immediately. He's in his human guise, currently, a modernly-dressed young man with blue hair and gold eyes. To those with the senses for it, he is a font of magical power and his eyes alone would give off a sense of supernatural strength that his otherwise mundane appearance does not. He doesn't seem to be looking toward the City God of Lookshi, Tien Yu, but he frowns thoughtfully and nods his head as she explains. He digs through a satchel, checking his supplies, pulling out small tools he uses for anti-curse purposes should the problem arise, and modern-looking bottles of pharmaceuticals. "I'll focus on destroying the undead and maintaining your numbers," Ryu tells Tien Yu. "I'll need a heads up when a spot needs some extra support. Your people in Lookshy already know what I can do, and I imagine you're aware of who I am because of that." He lifts his head only after this to look at her directly. He reaches up to tap his ear to indicate, "You should have my frequency already. Direct me as you see fit." He looks back down into his bag, confirming he has all of his supplies, then he straightens up and waits to be given the green light to depart for war against the forces of death.
Rebecca Chambers	There's an old saying that goes, 'Desperate times call for desperate measures.' And when there's no warp gate available to the destination that you're heading, you have to take what you can get for transportation, even if it means being crammed inside a gigantic carrier craft. Fortunately, it seems that the elites aren't being cramped up inside the troop hold, but on the bridge instead, which is no better than the other option it seems since it's just as cramped up there. If there's anyone annoyed with this situation, it's definitely not Rebecca Chambers, who stands at attention as the woman begins to explain what's going on with this situation. Tien Yu explains how she's the goddess of Lookshy and things related to that, then begins to give the actual briefing itself. The field medic listens intently to what is being said, not budging in the least bit except for breathing and blinking, the latter of which is very rare, surprisingly enough, although it possibly comes from years of standing at attention. Once Tien Yu finishes speaking, Rebecca salutes and says, "Understood. I'll get myself equipped from one of your engineers right away." She knows Tien Yu is not the commander, but Rebecca likes to show respect to those who are in charge regardless. She's already brought her own weapons with her and has plenty of ammo, along with healing supplies, she just needs to get equipped for the descent to the ground. "I can deal with the undead too, as I have a lot of experience with those types of enemies."
Tomoe	So the time had come for a major clash and she wasn't about to walk away, she had been thankful that Lookshy was willing to give her a lift along with everyone else. It would let her be fresh as she could be when they hit the battle zone. She knows it' going to get bad likely the only worse memories she'd have would be of the fight against the Black King which seemed like a lifetime ago. Tomoe checked her menus several times over, the menus gives a faint glow as she looks to Miari for a moment. "Ya that's my job tie up as much of the enemy as possible or to keep heavy hitters of them." She mutters something for a moment maybe it's a prayer to a god that has no sway over Creation and she only hopes they are at least listening. "Good luck Miari and stay alive huh?" Tomoe should her her own advice there, but she hushes up as the briefing is given to them. The combined arms tactics is at least grasped by Tomoe, even if she's mentally having to remind herself Warstriders fill the roles tanks and IFVs do on her home world. "I should be all right for my own landing and I'll do what I can to shield your troops. Where I can." How did her life comes to this? With out the unification she'd be dead or just another office lady as she said, the other night on the global band. "I'll be doing crowd control and if something big shows up I'll try to keep it's focus on me. Call me as well if I'm needed somewhere and finally? Teien yu? Good hunting." Her wings flare out now as she makes ready to get out of the transport and into the combat, she also takes a moment to start buffing any allies in range be they from the multiverse or locals would get an stamina and a endurance buff which would for a fair bit of time reduce the damage they would take in combat. The goldne glows ogf the runes Tomoe used fade there's nothing else she can say or do.
Gawain	It was time. The first battle against the Mask of Winters would finally begin, as Gawain stood in his armor, sword at his side, looking over the tactical map at the bridge. There's a nod to Tien Yu as she introduces herself, a bow from the knight. "It's a pleasure, Tien Yu, even if our introduction is at a poor time. I am Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun and Warden of the Paladins. Please do not worry about needing to get me to the ground. I have my own methods!" Which involves freefalling, swordboosting, and then using his endurance to soak anything from the collision. Gawain traces over the battle plan, considering what they're doing. "The keystone is likely to be the most defended position, and therefore, the best one for me. The sun's blessing will allow me to soak up more damage than I could otherwise, allowing me to protect your troops, and I can assist in cutting through their soldiers with my blade. I will defer to your commanders, but in the end, I will help make sure Lookshy wins this battle." A nod to the others. "We should coordinate over our communications in case we need to group up. We can consider ourselves a squad tonight, a group of those with the capabilities needed to win this battle. We are allies tonight!" Gawain's grin is bright, as he prepares to drop. Tonight, they decide the fate of many lives. They can't afford to lose, and the knight can't believe they will.
Staren	The Star Hawk flies alongside the airship, resembling an oversized chrome F-14 in its fighter form. Presumably someone radios him Tien Yu's speech. "Nice." he comments with a grin, at the word that there will be no enemy mages. "I'm going to open up with an initial bombardment on their fortifications and massed troops. After that... The same as any other warstrider pilot, I guess." MEANWHILE An expense report with attached invoice crosses Priscilla's desk. The bottom line reads '182,400'. How much is self-restraint, how much is holding back, and how much is 'Well we're not cruise missiling them from miles away this time', who knows/
All-Seeing Eye	All-Seeing Eye is uncharacteristically quiet and sullen on the way to the battle. He avoids eye contact where he can, especially with Gawain, Batou and Miari, and remains at the back of the crowd in the cramped bridge. The soft glow of the tactical readout just barely reaches his form, revealing both his nondescript, standard-issue longcoat, and the sleek, artificial lines of his soulsteel cybernetics. He hasn't bothered to hide them, nor has he altered his pigmentation to look more human than its current shock white. He listens to the briefing with a dispassionate frown, nodding once the lowdown has been given. "I have battled the defective Abyssal Exalted several times, with favorable results," he says. Without pausing to allow interjections from Batou or anyone else who saw the results of the last fight, he continues. "I will assist the Dragon Blooded hunting the enemy commander. Once he is dead, I will join your archer wings and provide covering fire for the warstriders." A few moments pass, and his features alight with sudden recollection. Despite this, he doesn't seem to have anything more to say. He allows his vision to penetrate the hull of the craft around him, searching it for wherever the exit is, or for whatever means they'll use to depart the ship and join the assault. Provided he can find it (for there's surely a lot of magical materials around that would interfere with his Mass-Penetrating Scan) he'll make his way towards such an exit and wait, quietly and patiently. If not, he'll join the other non-flight capable Elites in whatever means they use to exit.
Starbound Flotilla	Albert is not planning on spending much time waiting for this. The Flotilla's own military man, he's terse, businesslike, and to the point. "Starbound Squad will be on fortifications and artillery support." He declares. "I'll burn the fort." There's not a lot for him to be saying or doing here when it comes to that, besides examining the intended fortifications and making various declarations about where he'll be setting down the Starbound Flotilla's own flash-bunkers and other such defenses. From there, he intends to march right out of that bridge, head for a deployment hangar, and head out to battle on his own craft. His own is a heavy eight-engine VTOL-style thing with a massive clamp on its underside, which is currently toting an absolutely massive tank-like treaded apparatus, bristling with what looks like half of an entire radio tower mounted twice like a railgun. Presumably, it's his own intended artillery and combat emplacement for deployment soon. He intends to set down as close as he reasonably can to the front lines and use its smaller mounted weapons to support a charge to the riverbank, where he'll order the Flotilla to get to work digging in and getting fortifications for tonight's encounter. "Never liked open warfare, you know." "Nobody likes open warfare." "That is quite true. It is never the proper place for anyone." "Oh yes, but it's where I can get the most done. No atheists in foxholes." "Anxious. I really hope Lookshy's forces come out of this okay..." "Only if we fight! Do lotsss of kill for thisss!" "...Mmh. Focus on destroying Mask forces, not protecting Lookshy." "Objecting. But--!" "Don't. We're here for one reason." "You know they're the ones /paying/ us, right?" "Destroy as much of Mask's martial power as you can."
Batou	Batou and Tachikoma have repaired, and are in full cosmetic and mechanical working condition. Baotu peers over to the moody Eye, and quietly sighs, but says nothing else. "Huh... so this is the start of it, eh?" Batou muses internally, watching the goddess herself address everyone present, going over the plans. When the stealth op behind enemy lines comes up as an idea, he gravitates to it immediately. "I'll join whoever is going underground, Tachikoma will go with you, Eye, and fight on the front lines, if you don't mind the company," Batou says, with an audible smile in his voice. With that tachikoma rolls over to Eye, waving emphatically, despite his sullen expression. "Mr. Batou says that I am to go in with the other big robots! I appreciate the assistance you can render, Mr. Eye!"
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-Three-Nine is here, as ever, as a mercenary and salvager. Those jade weapons she'd gotten in an earlier op had sold well enough, the material itself not quite as valuable to her as the additions and maintenance to her own equipment for which she could ultimately trade them. That said, she's not averse to being thanked, if quietly disturbed by the person thanking her. It's not often she's in the presence of any kind of god, and even with how much time she spends around aliens, thinking on that level of difference from her own humanity is unnerving in the body of one who isn't being seen through a scope. "Yeah. Not going into the melee," she says. Not if she can help it. She's not being ordered to, either, and that's well and good. She doesn't know what Ryu can do, and can only go with the base assumption that it would be the ultimate act of a fool to risk dying when there are so many other ways to contribute while others take on those risks in her stead. She traces a finger down the barrel of her anti-materiel rifle, itching to go through a full disassembly and maintenance for which she clearly doesn't have time. After a glance over the map, she says, "I'll stay in the air and provide long range cover. Maximum height and farthest range that gives a vantage point at the target'll do." She taps her ear, speaking to the group but turning to Gawain in particular as he speaks of heading straight in and this "being a team" thing. "Keep in touch. Call in targets. I'll pick them off." If he's in to draw aggro, he should function just fine as a spotter, assuming he doesn't die in the process. She doesn't find that too likely, considering how much past, honorable recklessness the knight has survived.
Bloody Revelations	Tien Yu lets on a slow, almost wryly serene smile. "Though you owe nothing to Lookshy, your sense of duty to Creation is commendable. If Lookshy survives the days ahead, you will have a place amongst our greatest heroes. I believe that if any power of Heaven, Creation, or otherwise, can alter Fate, it is people like you." Technicians quickly follow into the bridge, bearing lightweight harnesses of leather straps for the waist and upper legs, studded with blue crystals, which they instruct the users to push on when they're close to the ground, claiming the 'dragons of air' will slow their fall to a safe velocity. A-39, planning to stay behind, is given the same just in case, but also a complicated eyepiece with multiple telescoping lenses. It's something that seems to already fulfill the purpose of her scope, except looking through it, she sees that it doesn't give her thermal vision, but glowing lines of magical energy that highlight the most individually powerful Essence-wielders on the battlefield. The doors open for Tien Yu as she turns and leaves, and the short hallway echoes with the metallic clank of her heavy footfalls. A powerful hiss can be heard from both sides of the graft as the internal atmosphere begins to depressurize, letting in the rumbling sounds of war from below, and filling the cabin with the dull throb of war drums and the pounding explosions of firing siege weapons. The Dragon-Blooded commandos in the hold turn to her in unison, saluting in perfect synchronization and watching with rapt attention. Tien Yu pauses at the fore, as the roar of battle from below becomes slowly more distinct, and then throws one arm up with a sudden spike of her voice from a bare whisper into sheer resounding, commanding confidence. "Brave descendants of the Seventh Legion! Today we finally crush the enemy at our door that our people have tolerated for too long --an enemy you have drilled and trained to defeat for many long years, on the honour of your forefathers. Our foe outnumbers us no less than fifteen to one! They command a superior position, foul technology to rival our own, legions of the tireless and fearless undead, powerful necrotic weapons, and hardened fortifications. One of the Mask of Winters' most veteran and trusted remaining Deathknights commands their forces, and there will surely be a second near his equal, both far more puissant than any of you individually. These forces are committed to holding the impregnable lynchpin of the Mask of Winters' hold over the East. He is confident that he can hold this position indefinitely, until his behemoth, Juggernaut, arrives to settle the score. He believes his fortress cannot fall. /We/ are about to prove /otherwise/!" "Three entire field forces of the Seventh Legion and a full two thirds are our fleet are converging on the fields of the New Haven border redoubt. Lead by the finest warriors and tacticians that have been seen since the era of old! We rise from the ashes of the Shogunate with the unbreakable spirit of our forebears, and arsenals of such ancient might that we will fill the air with fire and noise as has not been seen on this earth since the dawn of /Creation/! We will descend upon our enemy with all the fury of the elemental dragons, we will strike as if we were the Sword of Creation itself, and we will /burn/ these abominations from off our world with One! Fatal! STRIKE!"
Bloody Revelations	Not only does the cabin explode into an ear-busting chorus of fierce, roaring battle cries, but it fills with a literally physical sense of fiery, energizing confidence and serenity that can only be the work of a goddess of battles. The magitech equipment of the commando talon lights up in all hues of crackling Essence power, charging weapons, thrusters, and forcefields with glowing lines of magical energy, just as the rear ramp cranks open and exposes the smoking, fire-stricken sprawl of the battlefield below, racing past them as the ship flies over. "Go forth, noble princes of the earth, and let it be known that I am with you! Let even the Realm tremble as we lay low the enemy that the Scarlet Empress would quake in fear of, and let all of Creation know the invincible fury of the Seventh Legion!" A hundred and fifty heavily armoured men and women vanish from the hold in mere moments, streaming down the ramp as a solid tide of alloy and Essence light, scattering into the air miles above the ground. In the distance, the same can be seen from many other ships, simultaneously deploying thousands of powerful heavy troops from the air. Individual fighter craft swoop low into buzzing attack dives, dropping rippling sheets of glowing Essence ordnance that covers the ground in sheets of radiant explosions, and hails of heavy ballista and onager fire land behind them, dropped from the airships made of conventional metal and wood, yet hardly any less lethal. Out the ramp and plumetting towards the earth, the full sight of the battlefield is no less than breathtaking chaos. On all sides of the riverbank, thousands of troops in gleaming green, white, and black armour surge in columns and tides behind rapidly rising formations of earth and stone, raised from the banks via battlefield magic. Archers and gunners form up under crackling domes of energy shielding and behind rippling walls of force, using sophisticated wheelbows and rifle-shaped energy weapons en-mass. Heavy cavalry rotates around the embankments, firing flaming arrows into the sprawling, black basalt fortress across the waters, the size of an entire city block, with steep walls and battlements bristling with iron spikes and siege engines. At the rear lines of Lookshy's forces, gargantuan red jade cannons and ballistae fire arcing volleys of explosive, torrents of fire, and pillars of coruscating lightning into the walls, supported by 20 foot tall battlesuits that can only be described as mecha. The Mask of Winters' line is no less impressive, if only for the most horrific reasons. Despite the unignorable might of Lookshy on one side of the river, the undead alone on the other, now wading en masse through the water, along the bottom of the river as cover with no need to breathe, outnumber them so badly that if every arrow and bolt of every archer and gunner struck true every time, the front line would still be overwhelmed. Teeming grey hordes of what must be thirty thousand zombies shamble in a tightly pressed ocean towards the barricades, clambering over earthen spikes and traps even as they are cut down, until the fifth lines are walking over pits filled with the corpses of the first four. They form an impassable tide before anyone can even get to thousands of black-armoured mortal soldiers behind them, and thrice as many war ghosts in possession of heavily armed corpse-bodies.
Bloody Revelations	The fortress itself is armed with hundreds of ballistae, mangonels, catapults, and more than a few twisted cannons of soulsteel that spit furiously burning globs of disintegrating green fire and sweeping green-black beams of energy. Gigantic mecha of their own stride forth onto the battlefield, constructed of bone and iron rather than jade, smashing aside the infantry too slow to get out of their way. Horrific behemoths of welded flesh and metal carry artillery on their back, living war drums shroud arbalestiers in miasmas of shadows and disease, sacs of poisonous spores are spat across the battlefield, and scuttling chains of human torsos stitched together like giant centipedes charge into the lines as shock troops. Anti-air fire swats a number of commandos straight out of the air before they even reach the fight, some dead, others knocked spiraling out of position of the landing. Though bolts and rocks shatter on the hulls of the First Age airships, they pierce and set ablaze the conventional vessels, and necrotic Essence beams leave their scorching punctures in even the Mantas. At a casual glance, it actually looks as if Tien Yu was all talk and that Lookshy has no way of winning this, until the Elites all hear her voice in their heads, clear as day, as every other commander on the field hears it. "Fire the Terras Mortar at coordinates one-six-seven by eight-nine-two by four-two-nine! Hold for five, then fire Storm Hammers one through eight! Discharge all implosion bows, Danger Close! Begin Terras Mortar cooling and recharge!" Commandos in freefall begin peeling off, firing tiny thrusters from their armour that controls their dive and scatters them into fast-moving squads, near impossible to hit. Before their very eyes, before they reach the ground, the Elites are witness to a single, titanic red jade cannon from the rear lines fire a flaming meteor into the air, which then splits into literally millions of tiny, flaming projectiles at the top of its arc, raining down in an inescapable cascade of fire upon the entire zombie horde ahead of them, drenching every square inch of the earth. Like living things, the firesparks seek the undead, homing in on each shambling corpse and burning it from the inside out, mowing down tens of thousands of zombies in the space of a second, and leaving a scorched no-man's-land in their place for troops to valiantly charge across. Columns of midday lightning rattle out of the clear sky, striking in unison across the Mask's rear lines, blowing almost a dozen siege engines to smithereens, and the airships follow suit with rays of energy that slice enemy warstriders and war-creatures in half. It's a huge opening that momentarily rocks the entire enemy army on the back foot, allowing the Elites an ample window to make their plays. This, apparently, is what handing Lookshy the keys to Denandsor's great arsenal has wrought, and with so much production capacity cut and so many VIPs dead, the enemy is severely pressed to fight back.
Bloody Revelations	From above, it's easy to see where each of the forces are laid out, and easy enough to guide a descent to land amongst them. The majority of the aerial commandos steer themselves towards the fort itself, though a number, perhaps twenty five, dive down to where heavy, power-armoured mortal infantry are charging across the river under overlapped shields, where sorcerers raise earthen bridges from the bottom, apparently intending to lead the charge. The Deathknight champion that is supposedly present is nowhere to be seen at the moment, though a number of holes begin opening up in the ground around the fort itself, where bulkier, white-armoured elite troops crawl out as part of the above-and-beneath pincer attack. It's the war ghosts and mortal soldiers that arrange before the gates to meet the ground charge, while the warstriders form up to try and break through the center and smash the fortifications protecting the archers and gunners behind. The artillery on the Mask's side doesn't seem to have the range to exchange fire with Lookshy's rear.
Ryu	Ryu follows Tien Yu out of the bridge, moving with a purpose. As he does, his eyes briefly close, and his body changes from human to distinctly animalistic, a strange mix of features that resembles that of a fae dragon. He opens his bright golden eyes only as the soldiers flow from the vehicle in a wave and he begins to hear the chaos grow ever louder below. His ears flick as his skull rings with the sounds of terrible violence the likes he has never witnessed. He breathes in and then out as he struggles to motivate himself out of the vehicle. He leaps out, and his wings hum with a musical chime as he takes flight with blistering speed. Like a reptilian dragonfly, he dips close to the burning hell that is the battlefield, and his claws extend from his hands as he gazes upon the numbers, blowing past the numbers at such an incredible speed that it knocks huge holes in the smoke and leaves a trail behind him. A sonic boom rattles the ground, and then again as he doubles back ... but this time on foot. Like a devastating crosswind with undead-slaying teeth and claws, a whirlwind of violence slices through whatever undead still stand after the initial assault, moving with a speed unmatched even by most Exalts, striking with a force that is thunderous just on its own. He aims for the war ghosts, especially, moving like a blur and kicking up an incredible amount of dust in a flash of silvery scales. Ryu can revive the dead later. Now's the time for a dragon's fury.
Staren	Tien Yu is inspiring, but when Staren sees the armies below... Damn, he thinks. The Star Hawk cannot hold enough missiles. He's never seen such a huge force. How do you even fight something like this? ... He's here now, with the weapons he has. Four missile racks under the Star Hawk's wings open their doors... and then Tien Yu calls in the artillery. Staren stares again. That's how you fight something like this, apparently! Staren flies further ahead, towards the fortress. And then groups of enemy troops crawl out of the ground. This is an opportunity. 5tSixty tiny missiles, the same as he fires from his armor, streak down over the battlefield. High explosive warheads target fortifications, while plasma missiles attempt to burn the emerging warghosts to ash. It's not nearly as impressive as he was hoping, but... That doesn't matter, now. The missile racks drop off, and the Star Hawk dives towards the enemy warstriders.
All-Seeing Eye	The pale Exalt gives a slight nod to Tachikoma. "You'll have it--when the enemy commander lies dead at my feet." The goddess' speech doesn't fall upon deaf ears, although to look at Eye's face, one could easily make that mistake in his case. He listens with that same nonplussed air, nodding once she finishes and accepting a harness with a polite, if curt, nod towards the engineer offering it. Slipping it on, he turns towards the ramp and gets a running start, leaping out of it and assuming a spread-out posture to slow his descent (and thus make the harness' job easier once he nears the ground). As the earth races upwards to meet him, he puts his enhanced vision to use. The enemy commander is nowhere to be seen--at the moment, anyway. His vision focuses on the fortress, zooming in and attempting to penetrate it's thick, black walls. They're probably protected from scrying, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. He also scours the battlefield, using his zooming capability to try and pick out any commander-ish forms among the mass of undead forces in the sea of battle. Whether he's able to find the commander or not, though, he's quick to angle himself towards the hit squad which is also searching for him. Holding his arms close to his body, his slender form cuts through the air until he's near enough to the hit squad to land in the same place, spreading them out again to slow down once more. Once the ground is dangerously close, he activates the harness and slows his descent, watching the artifact work with evident curiosity. "Interesting," he muses, saving a recording of the descent to his eye drone's internal memory. Once he hits the ground, he breaks into a nimble, even sprint, joining the twenty-five some odd Dragon Blooded in hunting for the commander.
Rebecca Chambers	"So we just push on these when we're close to the ground," Rebecca says as she's given a harness, "And we'll descend safely to the ground." She nods to the technician. "Understood. We're going to take care of the situation at hand and come back safely! I promise it!" After that, she follows Tien Yu off the bridge as well, looking very ready for action. She smiles a little at the sight of Ryu transforming and thinks to herself, "Elites like that have got it made, being able to transform like that!" When it's time to leap, Rebecca makes sure all of her weapons and items are securely fastened to her, then she leaps. Unlike Ryu, though, Rebecca's heading for the ground, and she has to know when to activate the crystal on her harness. Fortunately, she knows how to skydive and is skilled at slowing her descent by spreading out her body, and when the time is right, she properly activates the crystal, slowing her to a safe descent. Once she hits the ground, Rebecca draws her MP5K and looks around a few times before spotting All-Seeing Eye and the hit squad, and she moves in to join them. She, too, wants to take out the commander as well.
Tomoe	Tomoe is rapidly leaving the transport her wings flare out bright translucence red as she goes out she comes under fire but she is lucky she's able to avoid being hit on the way down. Only her experience with flight over the years having been what save her then comes the tac net far as she can tell or in her mind? This forces has a raid caller calling out what needs to be handled. She's not sure who it is but damn it's seeming to be very useful to the effort to bring this place down. With other allies hitting other locations that should keep this one from getting help and vice versa too. So with her birds eye view even as she's on her way down. Tomoe is a tank she knows where she needs to be going she sees the power armor troops going in, that's where she will lend her hand, she dives in flying at high speed weaving in and out to not be an easy target as she goes. She's already moving to cast light ray spells as she moves in, runes dance about her body, blasts of light will strike out ion the Mask's forces as she attempts to make a landing zone for herself to aid in the charge. Once she hits the ground Caliburn and the mourning wall are out and in play as she moves to join the front rank of the charge. The Lookshy troopers would also find that she's giving them a measure of protection from her damage reduction buffs. They might just be the edge to keep a few of them in the fight longer or even tip the odds of surviving today in their favour.
Miari	"Just fall back to me if you are overwhelmed or gravely injured." Miari reassures Tomoe, confident that the armored warrior can take care of herself... And then she departs the carrier, tumbling in free fall through the air. If this were a less grave occasion she might squeal from sheer exhilaration, but it's a grim and focused look on Miari's face. As she falls, she angles her body to catch the wind and fall like a semi-guided missile towards the river banks where Lookshy shall be making landfall. "To me, winds!" The Exalt commands, swiftly performing a series of hand gestures as golden-white-orange-purple light bursts around her, all the colors of the sunset. The winds respond as she nears the ground, buffeting her descent and slowing her. She's specifically aiming for the eastern river front... and the moment she makes landfall... Sorcerous power flows from her hands. A surge of colorful Earthen Essence washes up like a wave crashing into a breakwall. All around her, the earth erupts, disgorging pillar after pillar of stone from deep down. The pillars crumble and collapse into crude, blocky humanoid shapes. Instead of eyes, noses, and mouths, their blank and expressionless bear the Old Realm Glyph for 'Servant', glowing an incandescent white. Just as much fearless automatons and needing no air, these creatures of hard stone move as Miari points to the rivers to try and stall the zombie advancements and shake them up! After all there's no building until you have some CONTROL of the river bank. Hopefully the Earthen Servants will buy her valuable time to do just that!
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 would have asked for paratrooper equipment anyway, considering the possibility of being a prime target even at long range, easily spotted, large and vulnerable to heavy weapons, with no way to dodge but straight into the air. The hope that it won't come to that is nothing compared to a pessimism so ingrained that it borders on a paranoia that fate might have it in her, contrary to the evidence of any past success, as well as to her own world not having anything so like a personification of the concept of fate as this world does. Better to have and not need, either way. She takes the scouting piece as well, muttering a "Neat," while holding it up and examining the room and people in it at various levels of magnification, before applying and-slash-or stowing everything, committing the relevant parts of the map to memory, including escape routes entirely away from the battle, and turns to make her way out. She pauses, then, to hear the speech. She voices nothing of her reaction to it. Gods. Definitely a class of individual deserving of wariness. She almost turns back, mentally sorting through her exit plans, but in the end, she decides to press on. Her precautions should be enough, if just for now. There's no rational cause to think otherwise. The unnatural energy of war magic is tempered by her inherent distrust, with or without cause. The aerial insertion begins, and just as expected, it's a crapshoot whether any given soldier, no more than a target until they reach their destination, will make it through. Ryu flies out, And A-39 watches, recalling the over-radio discussion. Huh. She mutters, "Another weird one." No matter. "Time to earn my way." While Staren's missiles explode, the sniper is climbing, getting onto the exterior of the ship to find a place to lay down with unrestricted visuals. Everything she needs is secured, and her climbing lines function doubly well for hooking herself into uneven, dangerous footing like this. She draws out her rifle, removing and stowing its scope for now, and placing the borrowed essence scope in place. Without shifting the barrel, she first surveys the battlefield, skipping over the undead, and then the mortals, and the heavily armored warstriders. Soft, valuable targets, the kind that are hidden behind the front lines, that's what she's looking for. Anything that explodes when struck is a good second priority, perhaps like those poisonous spore sacs. People with fancy hats are always a good bet, at least when dealing with an army that likes its officers to be heard and visible, but she'll leave the ghosts be, unsure how her ammunition will deal with them. At least half an eye is kept on the elites making the charge, looking to cover them in both the ambush warning and supporting fire senses. A-39 settles in, prioritizing down through her target-rich environment. She has "plenty" of ammo, but her firing rate is severely limited compared to the chaos below. Choosing one, she sights down toward the most vulnerable-looking bits on the firing mechanism of a mobile artillery piece. "Okay. First... you." The roar of the gun is lost long before reaching the gun, loud as it is even against the wind.
Gawain	Gawain finds himself cheering his fist into the air as the speech is given, even if he wasn't part of Lookshy. The confidence from Tien Yu was enough to help his own resolve, and he prepares to drop. Onto the ramp, Gawain doesn't take a harness, and instead makes a running leap, preparing to freefall in the direction of the fortress. The sun glistens off his armor, as Excalibur Galatine is drawn mid-flight. He just needs to time this right... And partway towards the ground, suddenly, thrusters boost out of Excalibur Galatine. They don't grant him flight, but they grant him the mobility he needs, as he spots one of those giant machines, crushing through artillery. The thrusters launch Gawain in the direction of one, as he moves to try and slam his blade into its torso, hoping that the sheer impact from boosting from such high up will allow him to crack it. He's sure to take damage, but he's hoping his endurance will give him what he needs to handle it. "Thorns!" Gawain booms his voice out as soon as he's landed, whether it's on one of the necromachines or elsewhere. "I, Sir Gawain, will oppose you! Lookshy will strike against you and crumble this fortress! Surrender now, please, and we can avoid as much senseless fighting as possible!" Maybe that'll convince some of the soldiers to drop their weapons. Ir not, maybe it'll encourage Lookshy's forces. Either way, Gawain's here to fight.
Batou	Tachikoma giggles nonetheless at Eye's response, and follows quickly behind, not at all worried about the height of the drop. Tachikoma can fall from just about anywhere safely.. as long as it isn't past terminal velocity. But, Batou insists that Tachikoma be strapped with no less than two of the harnesses, both able to be pushed by Tachikoma's pincers. Tachikoma falls with somewhat less grace than All-Seeing Eye, considering that it's at tank, and not an aircraft. Tachikoma activates the harnesses and is slowed somewhat, but lands with a much bigger dustcloud than anyone else due to its weight. But once it reaches the ground, it breaks off from Eye, and leaps through the air to join the rest of the artillary, moving swiftly to pick off any zombies that even /think/ to creep up on the line! ---------- Batou leaps out of the aircraft, thinking watching the world open up from this height. He is, in this rare moment, stunned in amazement as the giant cannon destroys countless undead in one launch. Not to be distracted forever, Batou activates his thermoptics and disappears from the visible and infrared spectrum as he angles towards the back lines. He activates the harness, and begins a slower descent towards the fortress, being careful to keep away from any visible enemies as he lands, immediately sprinting for the nearest cover.
Starbound Flotilla	"Star Three, start firing solutions on those mecha!" "Focused. Calculating!" "Star Five, deploy Strider to clear the path!" "Yeahyeah! Gonna HUUUUUNT!" "Star Four! I need proximity to the river!" "Oh you'll smite them from on top of them, I guarantee that." "Star Two, get the reactor ready!" "It shall strike with the force of mother nature itself." "Star Six, bring me in /now/." "Oh, right now? Jeeze, I was planning on doing it tomorrow." The Flotilla dives hard through the anti-air fire. Pavo is good at piloting, but she's not /that/ good at piloting. Layers of shield emitters overload and explode trying to halt the twisted cannonfire and abyssal energy beams. Pavo strains and caws desperately amid her descent, but despite taking a few heavy beams, she manages to bring the tremendous artillery gear down to the ground mostly in one piece. Biteblade leaps from the platform itself, piloting her Starstrider, a mix of metal and densewood, heavy organic constructions mixed with scavenged machines. Its eyes and mouth glow bright green, the same green as its shining knife at its hip. The Starstrider immediately slams both hands to the ground, opens up a massive jaw at its head, and... Launches forward on all fours, intent on gobbling up fresh corpses and marginally fresher corpses alike on the surge ahead to the river. She's covering the advance with a fancy new methane-processing side-reactor, one meant to almost emulate Floran cannibalism tactics, granting her machine a boost from the consumed bodies, and trying to use that extra energy to blast apart and slice up the warghosts!. "First advantage: We have decapitated their zombies." As they approach the lines where the mortals and warghosts have gathered, Albert takes command of the tank's many turrets... And begins blasting arcs of gas canisters, full of dangerous chemical warfare substances designed to inflict severe pain to those who aren't Lookshy's own undoubtedly air-filtering power-armor forced. Almost riot control, if it weren't done in concert with waves of traditional kinetic gunfire and lasers. With the foes that might normally be immune to pain gone, he can use pain-inducing tactics to disorient wave upon wave of foes. Biteblade goes to defend against the white-armored elites, but the main gun on this thing takes its time in setting up firing. "Second advantage: We have destroyed their bone mines." The mecha forces must be weaker. Without the bone that makes up half their construction, it must be the case. Albert's main gun is charging something, light is building up at the base of those two massive radio-tower-like constructions, but tiny fractions of it disgorge into thin, precise bolts every so often while it builds up. A rhythmic blast as waves align properly causes the heavy artillery to fire blasts meant to brutally smash the midsection of those mecha, to put an absolutely unreasonable amount of pressure on something that Albert is hoping is one of various weak points they've seeded. A few more weakness to poke at. A few more wounds he must jam his thumbs into. All the while, the Flotilla dig in and try to get a spot to set up those fortifications to cover the tank-like artillery construct against return fire; they'll craft flash-bunkers out of plasteel, densewood, durasteel, or even just plain concrete and dirt if they need to, turning the riverside into an instant trench network if they can get it established.
Bloody Revelations	Peering around the cabin, A-39 gets a nice view of the glowing conduits of energy running through the craft, and the points of charge threaded throughout the complex armour of the Gunzosha commandos. The human shapes inside of them glow with steady light, whereas the undead down below are 'room-temperature blobs', and the mortals are barely any better. The ghosts have their own pale glow universally, though not as strong as the leaders and commandos on Lookshy's side. Tien Yu is, of course, in a class of her own, almost blinding to look at --a being of pure Essence condensed from the fate of Lookshy itself. Climbing out onto the hull, the battlefield is oddly organized when going by those criteria. The Essence weaponry exploding on the south side of the river obscures things somewhat, much like fire does on an infrared scope, but she can pick out a number of Essence wielders at the rear line, powering the soulsteel special artillery, directing the larger war-undead, and occupying /all/ of the bonestriders. A non-magical bullet is instantly lost in the clamour and carnage, which takes a full four seconds to fall fully out of the air, and pierce straight through a tank of green liquid plugged into one of the soulsteel machines, instantly spraying the equivalent of Underworld napalm all over a section of the wall, which begins to melt like candle wax. The Star Hawk is more of an obvious target, and so it isn't long before giant, barbed iron ballista lances come flying at it head on, along with one of those powerful black-green Essence lasers. A handful of bolts and arrows strike a couple of his missiles out of the air, but only through sheer density of massed fire rather than accuracy. The surviving warheads blast the outer gates straight off their chains, crumbling inwards and splintering on the inner portcullis. The plasma missiles detonate in the ranks of war ghosts and instantly incinerate their worn corpses. The ghosts disgorged from their shells of dead flesh seem to evapourate in the sunlight, unable to materialize outside of the Thorns Shadowland. Ryu plunges into their line on the tail of the missile strike. With their ranks blown wide open, they can't close in fast enough to block his charge, and soon he is tearing straight through them. Multiple branches have to move in to encircle him and restrict his movement, seeing as each flash of his claws rips their corpse-garments apart instantly. A number of them retaliate with some form of magic that sends sprays of lashing ectoplasmic chains at him like the threads of a spitting spider, firing at him from multiple angles, where even the ones that miss leave the ground a tangled jungle of taut lines. The nearest war ghosts begin shifting out to allow tower shield-bearing replacements to take up their spot, followed by soldiers with heavy iron crossbows behind them, firing indiscriminately into the convoluted arena they've made for him.
Bloody Revelations	Tomoe takes the lead of the heavy infantry charge, right behind the cavalry, charging the lines with bows and then lances, only to break off at the last minute. Bolts and stones and pots of firedust bounce off her shield, and Gunzosha in heavy gear form up around her, projecting scintillating shields of Essence to overlap with her own and form a wall, so that the infantry can condense behind them as a solid sledgehammer into the enemy ranks. She meets with a wall of pikes and spears, softened up by the initial cavalry charge, but still formidable, which the Gunzoshas heroically, if even suicidally, plough right into, frequently snapping the weapons with their bulk. Orbital Gawain Drop catches one of the heavy bonestriders completely by surprise. The artillery fang is attempting to pull back, about to abandon their machines, but then Excalibur Galatine pierces straight through the unholy shell and obliterates whatever horrible pilot is inside, snapping its spine and splattering the scorched earth with black, necromantic viscera. It's tough, but clearly a knockoff job compared to Lookshy's warstriders --a rushed production after the Elites had sabotaged the real factories. There are four adjacent bonestriders that catch up however, closing in on him with gigantic blades of fused bone and soulsteel each larger than he is. One fires a canister of that green napalm substance, but then is taken out by the emboldened artillerists behind him, who leap back onto one of their cannons and boldly fire at point blank. Similar groups of five 'striders roll out to meet Staren and Miari. The former are at the Star Hawk's scale, and aren't slow, quickly surrounding him when he swoops down, where two leap on his mecha and attempt to drag it down with their tremendous weight, while another two fire spiked soulsteel chains on grapnel lines into the fuselage, wielding giant hooked blades in their other hands. On Miari's side, the mechanized necro-machines charge into her golems, slowing down to hammer and swat them aside with massive blunt weapons, before becoming severely hampered by the river. Squads of infantry form up behind them to aid them in the effort, but then a storm of fluttering butterflies of razor sharp obsidian flies over her head from Lookshy's side of the river, and slashes them to bloody ribbons in an instant. The bonestriders are soon locked in a mass grapple with her automatons, and the field engineers finish their bridge, where power-armoured infantry cluster atop it and begin firing Essence weapons into the heads of the bonestriders above the water. The projectiles that focus on Tachikoma are too primitive and too long-ranged to really damage what equates to a light armoured vehicle. It basically ploughs through the straggling lines of undead that had made it out of the blast zone, mulching them under wheels or with machinegun fire, since they have no Necromancer to actively direct them.
Bloody Revelations	Batou, meanwhile, winds up at the fort itself. Nobody spots him coming in, and that's partly because of the blue commandos descending from above and the white commandos scaling from below, crashing into the battlements and climbing over the walls and completely slaughtering the engineers and soldiers manning the siege engines, taking out twenty men for every one they lose. He can see the levers that operate the inner portcullis, still standing, and has access to the siege machines vacated by slain operators. He can also spot a thrice-familiar figure in jaunty black attire with jet black hair and a youthful face, watching the fight from atop an empty tower, who then jumps down to the field below and moves up to the fore, swiftly melting into the chaos. There is absolutely no shortage of corpses for the Starstrider to gobble up. It doesn't even need to stop, effectively being able to charge with its 'mouth' open to scoop tonnes of charred corpses into the furnace. The assumption is indeed correct: all of Lookshy's armoured forces have filtration baffles standard, and none of the Mask's human warriors have similar, and so firing gas indiscriminately into close-pressed ranks of soldiers immediately results in debilitating the Thornguard and leading to complete routs as the Ashigaru close in and butcher them. A number of bonestriders attempt to converge, but true to his second assumption, their rush job construction melts under his fire. Soon enough, the northern bridge is completely cleared, and main blocks of archers and infantry charge the gates. All-Seeing Eye and Chambers join the seek and destroy squad. Small as they are, they pierce the ranks without issue, aiming for the heart of the formation, and then breaking into a clearing between the war ghosts and the walls. A figure in black drops off the battlement ahead of them, and then stops right before them, smiling roguishly with his empty hands held up. "If you're looking for Splintered Bones, he's not here right now. Just me! And a couple of friends. Actually, since we have the opportunity, do you have a minute to talk? I know you're really committed to this whole massive attack thing, but I think you might find it isn't the best idea." Even cursory scanning on the part of All-Seeing Eye determines he's blatantly an Abyssal Exalted. Both to him and A-39 above, there are three other Essence-Wielders in his vague proximity, hidden in the ranks, but not of the same type or calibre as him.
Ryu	Ryu is super fast but he is still open to being struck in-between each burst of speed, as he cannot turn on a dime and savvy combatants can anticipate where he'll end up next. He is not, however, easy to pin down by any stretch, even when chains slam into his body and send him sliding and struggling for a few beats. He is brought to a stop into an arena just long enough to have an array of crossbows aimed at him. His pupils shrink and he reacts quickly, his wings snapping outward. He breathes in, and his wings begin to glow bright white, as if condensing his energy. He blows fire directly below him, at his feet, as the rain of crossbow shots falls upon him. The fire is explosive, radiating outward in waves of strange, dancing tongues. Green, purple and white light radiates out from the conflagaration as it blows over the shields and crossbowmen, and purifies the very land it touches. The ghostly chains that come in contact with it instantly evaporate under its power, and the sheer luminosity of his attack obscures his body. The fire obliterates most of the bolts before they can even get close to him, but quite a few slam into his body in spots that aren't immediately lethal to him, prompting his body to rapidly regenerate amidst the chaos. It's so loud.
Staren	"Yeah!" Staren pumps a fist as gates are blown open and war-ghosts disintigrate. "Oh shit!" But then he has to deal with massed ballista and laser fire. The lances, at least, he has time to see and swerve to avoid, but the essence lasers... do whatever it is they do to the armor plating, probably melting it or something. The Star Hawk transforms, in humanoid mode curling up almost into a ball and holding its beam shield below it to catch the attacks. They eat away at it, some lances even impaling the shield emitter but not doing critical damage, it seems. A half-dozen more plasma missiles launch from the gunpod now held in its right hand, arcing towards the artillery sites... he didn't shoot it all, it turns out, but it doesn't look like he can manage another volley of dozens. The Star Hawk uncurls as it approaches the ground, using thrusters to slow its landing... Staren still grunts, bones jarred by the impact of landing from not being able to uncurl until the last moment. In a split second, though, he's looking for the nearest warstrider and firing the arm-mounted railgun its way. There are enemies. They need to be destroyed.
All-Seeing Eye	"Comrade Chambers," the Exalt cordially greets his fellow Paladin. This greeting comes before he addresses the figure in black, perhaps deliberately. With audible disdain in his voice, he announces the heading and relative position of the figure in black to A-39. "Considering the aims of those who pull your master's string, I'm disinclined to agree with you on what is and isn't a good idea," he says somewhat dryly. "I'm also very tired of this whole ordeal, and I'd like to put it behind me." The Exalt snaps two gloved fingers twice, as if to say 'chop chop.' "So, you can submit to arrest for crimes against Creation, or you can find out what it's like to die for good. Shards of Basalt sends her regards, by the way." His corneas slide away to reveal miniaturized Essence cannons beneath. "I will give you and your 'friends' five seconds to comply."
Kyoko Takada	If it weren't for having the high ground, this is farther away than Alpha-39 would want to be firing from, when dealing with moving targets. It's a matter of some guesswork, but she's pretty good at pattern prediction, as someone who needs to lead targets by more than a second should endeavor to be. This is still going to make supporting Gawain a bit sticky, but she's confident that he'll survive. As she can see elsewhere, the striders aren't exactly in peak condition. Whether technological or logistical, she can see that there's some disadvantage in equipment and construction on the part of the defenders. Whyfor doesn't matter; she'll take advantage without regard to the reason. Fuel tanks, ammunition, joints, cockpits, and view ports are all valid targets, the joints and exposed moving parts a riskier bet from this distance. She doesn't have time to correct fire and make sure each target is brought down. Instead, she locks in a magazine of magnums, takes aim, and lets supersonic, screaming metal drop down in one round after another, her sighting already corrected from earlier firing, with one round for each machine targeting Gawain, the last fired close to the time the first will reach the target. Hopefully, that'll be as much support as he needs. She's got plenty of targets to go through, and only so many rounds for each reload. She tracks, spotting the essence wielders among the crowd, and once again takes aim, while the armor of the craft below her continues to protect her position.
Miari	How to deal with this situation with the most efficiency? Miari's having a troublesome time doing it while hunkering behind one of her golems. The rest are engaged with zombies and now... NECROSTRIDERS! The rock golems are strong. Far stronger than most of the zombies could hope to be. But it takes four of them to grapple a Necrostrider and keep it busy, even with the water aiding the effort. And they won't last, not against a dedicated warmachine. These golems were meant primarily for helping with Earthworks, after all... "Bother--!" She bites her lip in frustration, wondering if she'll have to change tactics... Then Obsidian Butterflies rush past. She glances briefly over her shoulder and Lookshy, as it's following in her footsteps. "Let me show you then, forces of Death, what I am TRULY CAPABLE OF!" Miari takes a deep breath... then begins to rise off the ground, buoyed by a rush of power. At first, it's all the golden colors of the radiant sunset... but the light of Ligier the Green Sun and the white flames of She Who Lives In Her Name intermingle through it, and consume it. She raises to be at eye level with the Necrostriders... And a sensation of cold, fate-wrenching SOMETHING lances through the battlefield. Miari's body unravels as she whispers a single syllable of her true patron's name. Her limbs come apart at the seams, expanding outwards as they shift from flesh and bone to gleaming silvery-blue crystal. A Green-white flame's left where her body once was... and in short order the Essence of her existence reassembles in a swirling maelstrom-explosion that strips the soil from the ground around and kicks up a massive wave! As the flash of light dies down, a being of hard light geometries with the right features and colors to be a simulacra of Miari stands tall on the battlefield, levitating just off the ground. Swirling around her are twenty-five enormous crystal spheres of various colors, each orbited by their own clouds of smaller crystal spheres. The Giant of Hard-Light that Miari's become turns her gaze at the advancing zombies and her eyes flash. As though a great hand scooped through them, a shining substance like liquid golden light manifests in the ranks and sweeps through, leaving a field of... what were zombies an skeletons, now turned into golden statues frozen in their last motions, inlaid with veins of bronze and brass and tarnished copper. They raise from the ground, and the waters, swept up into the swirling system of complex geometrical motion that surrounds Miari. More and more transmuted statues join the mixture as Miari turns her gaze towards yet another collection of the undead and her eyes flash yet again. In short order HUNDREDS of golden statues fill the air, swirling about giant-light-Miari like a tornado. And when Miari's gaze falls across the Necrostriders, they turn into a bludgeoning weapon of immense weight and power. SHould she knock anything loose from the Necrostriders, their bones and armor metal plating joins the storm of rushing motion! Her project is building, and materials are abundant here.
Rebecca Chambers	"Just Rebecca is fine," Rebecca replies to All-Seeing Eye, before looking to the figure in black who has shown up and is offering information to them. While the Exalt seems content to be dealing directly with him, Rebecca nonetheless is still staring with a look of uncertainty and suspicion at this figure who seems intent on giving up all this information. In fact, the way he's insisting they give up now while claiming that their target isn't here makes her suspect it's a bad attempt at a bluff. "No way, we're not leaving here that easily!" Rebecca says when she has her chance to speak. She narrows her eyes a little, now becoming more suspicious of this figure in black. Of course, the Exalt seems more intent on making this person surrender or die, but when his eyes reveal miniaturized cannons, Rebecca steps back a little, gasping, before looking to the figure again. "I suggest you just surrender peacefully. I don't like the look of those!"
Batou	Tachikoma is really enjoying being so effective at assisting with dealing with the undead. Like, so much so that it starts to hop and leap over the corpses, living or not, launching volley after volley farther out into the hordes with one arm, the other setting out to dispatch those close enough for machine gun fire. "Hehe! Easy peasy!" Tachikoma whirs, managing a spin in the air as it launches further still into the fray. ---------- Batou is much quieter, considering the mission, but does radio Tachikoma to keep its guard up, this is a war zone after all. Upon seeing the portcullis and seige machines, he quickly slides over towards the machines first, taking a moment to set some charges in the laps of those dead corpses, and rigging them to explode. Afterwards, he sprints back towards the portcullis, watching his clock. "Now... let's time these two disruptions... portcullis first..." and the portcullis is triggered by Batou. "And then..." Boom. He runs in as soon as the blast occurs, sidearm out. Time for some sabotage.
Gawain	As the blade cracks into the bonestrider, Gawain can feel the pressure on himself. The feeling of the cracking, reduced only by the endurance of the sun, as he makes an impact that would have otherwise been much messier. Moving to pull his blade out, he's threatened by the canister of napalm...when the artillerists defend him, a cannon shot narrowing the enemy bonestriders from four to three. That's still a lot...but Gawain sends coordinates of two of them to A-39, as he focuses on a third, and shouts to the men on the cannons. "Good job! Together, we can win the day!" With a leap, Gawain's in mid-air, and with a flick of his wrist, Excalibur Galatine is on fire. Moving for another bonestrider, he's planning on planting his blade into its chest, as he tries to shout out to the artillerists, shouting as loud as he can. "Take out the others!" The flaming sword is moving to try and slice through the cockpit, even if he's fired upon, because that napalm needs to be dealt with. There's a confidient battle-cry from the knight. He feels part of the Lookshy forces, right now. And he's going to make sure as many survive the day as possible.
Starbound Flotilla	"Advantage Three: Death in the command ranks." Executioner's death will have had a holistic impact on coordination and command. So Albert's tactics shift rapidly, intending to take advantage of it. Swing one direction and blast away at the striders going after Miari to overwhelm them from two directions at once, before swapping targets straight towards the ones going after Staren, storming them with gradual, rhythmically accelerating blasts. "Star Six, fortify." "Yeah yeah, I'm fortifying!" "Star Four, rejoin and reinforce." "I'll bring the wrath of heavens...!" "Star Three, I need continuous shifting on flanks!" "Panicked. This is already hard enough to calculate, but... I'll try!" "Petrov!" "Star Two, report!" "We're soon approaching our firing threshold." "Start the sequence." "Advantage Four: Science decentralized, adaptation prevented." Layers of concentric holographic targeting apparatuses begin to form in front of the pair of heavy radio-tower-like constructs. Albert has been using this type of weapon long enough here that he's had time to refine it, but he's destroyed, he hopes, enough of the scientific body of Thorns and its darker half, to be able to expect no such refinements in protecting against it. Sparks and arcs of light begin bursting out of capacitors that bristle all along the length of the gun, churning and pumping like a steam engine might. Rows and rows of heat sinks pop out, cool desperately, and pop back in. Shockwaves that come from the building energies whip the barren soil around, and soon evoke cracks from its surface. A shining white aura of energy forms as Albert combines a dozen different mad science processes in a single massive weapon; the gleam is as much from the energy as it is from the convoluted ways space warps under the strain of what he's constructed, and bares the light of things that lie beneath it. He's firing energy from hypothetical universes composed only of light and heat, from strange and dangerous perpetual energy engines, from rifts in space that lead to who-knows-where, and all sorts of other sources that man in his hubris should never have touched. Radiation. Fire. The beam that emerges from the charging sequence is sustained, not a bolt. It fires at the fortress and it's meant to fire straight through it; he intends to start the beam, and then leave it going, trying to slice through it as if it were simply the absolutely largest lightsaber carving open the absolutely largest airlock. It'll take some time to deal its real damage, though, during which he'll be vulnerable. But if he can drag it along the length of the fortress a few times, the impact will be unthinkably destructive, boiling stone as easily as it boils flesh. The hope is that the poor command response speed will give him the time to overwhelm the enemy force with DPS before it can think to respond.
Tomoe	It's like being back in the floating castle she's here at the front getting attention trying to keep people around her from being mauled to death so they can do the important job of bringing the attackers down. The lookshy troops are making her think almost of the information she knew of the Roman Legion. With how they are using their barriers. Tomoe keeps up her movements with them her blade lashing out she takes half a second to cast a spell causing it to catch fire with a burning white holy flame. the Salamander pushes the attack even as she's taken a few hits but she's clearly intend to work with these soldiers. She also trusts in their mission objective as she moves to aid them. They have some serious courage there and she intends to try and get them to survive this madness today. She pushes on thought though she has taken hits here and there one can see little red wireframe here and there and her hp bar is dropping too. Even with the defense she's put up.
Bloody Revelations	The war ghosts are not prepared for the full blast from Ryu's holy dragon form. Those unlucky enough to still be close are blown away from the force, and the ghosts ripped free of their cadaver-garments are immediately vapourized by direct exposure to the blinding light, as well as their ectoplasmic chains. They begin falling back, though whether it's a rout or part of a maneuver isn't clear. Staren manages to blast a bonestrider inside out with the railgun, but another approaches from the opposite side, and grabs hold of the beam shield, attempting to tear it from the Star Hawk's arm. One rushes him from behind, but is cut down from a twin beam blast from a Manta overhead. The fourth charges him dead on, reeling in its chain at the same time, and aiming a soulsteel lance straight down the center of his cockpit. His missiles are away without any opportunity for his assailants to stop them, but he's trading hits for demolishing the ballistae still remaining on the forward wall. Excalibur Galatine in Gawain's hands is more than adequate for the striders he faces. The holy sword cuts through their construction like butter, burning away their calcified exteriors with the light and fire of the sun, and turning their four black insides to steam on contact. Constructed through rushed mass Necromancy rituals instead of in a proper workshop, he easily dispatches the ones he engages. A couple of magnum rounds from high above wind up punching ineffectually into arms and shoulders from A-39's vantage, simply due to how much they can move in four seconds, but two strike true into weapon tanks, spraying that acidic green fire all over the walking weapons and quickly dissolving them into slag. Oddly, the ridiculously dangerous substance seems to turn to acrid smoke and greenish stains in minutes when exposed to Gawain's light. The artillerists quickly rally to Gawain's position under A-39's covering fire, and the ship she's using as a platform advances to the fore, spitting hot death on the mortal lines at the fortress gates, bringing her closer to the brighter Essence signatures that the seek and destroy squad is facing down. The western bridge is secured too, and the second block of ground troops charges forward. Miari alone becomes enough to secure the eastern flank. When she assumes her tremendous demonic form, even the troops of Lookshy step back, though the ripple of fear and dismay that passes through their ranks is quieted by a single, whispered "Hold fast." directed their way. The bonestriders turn and fire portable arm and shoulder mounted weaponry at Miari, but it only collides with masses of fossilized undead, and soon they are swept up and crushed. Those that hold at greater range, out of her reach, are immediately picked off by the StarStrider's commanding field of fire. The sorcerers begin erecting new bridges /around/ her, rather than sending troops directly through and under the maelstrom, aided by the Flotilla's rapid terrain construction and fortification to speed up the process twice over. When Batou blows the gate, all three divisions converge in on it. Grapnel hooks and siege ladders go up the walls, half melted and swiss-cheesed by rocks and missiles, as commandos hold the cleared perimeter and dive into the fort proper, moving in fangs of five to breach and clear room to room in brutal interior combat. The front of the fort can't hold, and as the aerial support moves close and closer, with so much anti-air disabled, it looks like the battle is basically lost on the Mask of Winters side. The artillery Tachikoma is with begins to move up, as well as Lookshy's jade warstriders, crossing the northern bridge behind the troops, letting him get shots at the 'scant' remaining few thousand mortals and war ghosts.
Bloody Revelations	Spine chains charge into the ranks as a counter offensive, which only step aside to let the horrible flesh-centipedes through, then close back again to chop them to pieces. War ghosts without bodies swoop in like an ethereal tide, but the catapults fire huge sacks of salt to the front line, which drive them back as lines of the substance naturally fall to earth, and the phantoms are set upon and butchered by troops wielding thaumaturgically enchanted weapons, by the book. Tomoe winds up at the forefront, where a squad of white-armoured elite have naturally formed up on her, spearheading into the breach and set to reach the broken gates first. "The enemy is falling back to the interior keep. Heavy air support, move up by five hundred and begin bombardment on my mark. Gunzosha teams and appended fighters, clear the exterior fortress and cut off retreat to the inside, but don't go past the threshold into the kill zone. Storm Hammer bombardment renewing in thirty seconds. Implosion bows primed to follow in ten." The voice of Tien Yu is calm and reassuring to hear, and has the clear advantages of highly advanced battlefield communication and organization in an era predominated by signaling flags and horns, on top of her perfect, almost RTS commander-esque view of the field. Oddly, the Abyssal Exalted, outnumbered and surrounded by highly trained Dragon-Blooded with Essence cannons and firelances trained on him, seems barely any more concerned. He sighs, folding his hands behind his head, and then staring up at the clouds with a blase expression. "Suit yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you though." he says, taking no offensive action whatsoever. The kill team doesn't wait for Tien Yu's order. Two dozen blasts of high-energy fire streak in at him from all directions-- And are suddenly deflected by a pair of figures bursting from the ranks, wielding weapons of gleaming gold --an even younger man in ragged Nexus dress with twin short daiklaves, and a dark-skinned woman draped in beads and forest cloths, wielding an orichalcum bow. They close in on the Abyssal defensively, where the former bodyguards him and the latter begins loosing arrows of shining sunlit Essence into their group, rapidly shooting through four of the unprepared Gunzoshas and stringing five or six shots at Rebecca and All-Seeing Eye each. "If you come to your senses later, you should know where to find me." the Abyssal says. The boy close to him intercepts a Gunzosha running at him with a lance, hurling the power-armoured figure over his shoulder. It's this same nasty surprise that awaits the Flotilla. Albert is absolutely correct that the enemy has no countermeasure to his mad plans. They've been given no opportunity to. Instead, it seems they've recruited outside help who do. The colossal laser fires into the side wall of the fort, instantly turns the outer perimeter into white-hot goo, and then just before it reaches the central keep, it is stopped dead, split across a shining orichalcum shield belonging to a burly, swarthy man in thick leathers who leans into the beam with all his strength. A glorious golden Anima erupts around him, taking the form of a towering keep, surrounded by flashes of white lightning, as he puts is all into holding the superweapon at bay.
Bloody Revelations	"Anathema on the field, I repeat, Anathema on the field! Adjust tactics accordingly. Forget the Deathknight and focus all your efforts on neutralizing the second threat. Don't allow them anywhere near the artillery teams. Commit all Immaculate Dragons on the field to-" Tien Yu's reaffirming mental voice is drowned out for a moment as the second wave of lightning columns crashes down into the fort . . . and onto the brave commandos who'd just secured the walls. The tactical weapons incinerate entire squads of elite men in an instant. "Storm Hammer units, cease fire, cease fire! Recalibrate your aim, you're hitting friendlies!" Tien Yu's commands fall on deaf ears. In fact, three of the Manta-class ships do exactly the opposite. Their energy weapons open up straight into the ranks, blasting into the formation Tomoe is trying to protect from above, and firing on their own troops. Four more ships suddenly shudder and shake, rocking as internal explosions cause them to list, and then slowly tilt out of the air. The artillery line falls into chaos as one in ten cannon shots lands inside Lookshy's heavily clustered infantry formations instead of the enemy. After a few moments of complete confusion and rampant terror at the carnage abruptly unfolding within Lookshy's lines, the blood-chilling words come from Tien Yu: "The Terras Mortar. Secure the Terras Mortar. You are authorized to execute anyone who tries to approach the firing assembly! Destroy it if you have to!"
All-Seeing Eye	Arrows pierce a few gunzosha, and All-Seeing Eye's displeased frown becomes a determined scowl. There's a lot to keep track of--the war ghosts might decide to take advantage of the chaos to eliminate the squad, especially now that it's been trimmed by a few members. His wrist is already coming up to attack when the arrows fly for him and Rebecca. The crack of a steel cable whip pierces the air, and with it, the smell of ozone wafts into the clearing. A blast of purple lightning deflects the arrows, Eye's whip whirling in a graceful circle to protect himself and Rebecca. "This fortress is coming down, and Thorns with it." The whip retracts, only for Eye to lash out with two, which form a double helix and move, seemingly of their own volition, to strike at the wrists of the bodyguards flanking the Abyssal. Evidently, he's trying to disarm them. "Your assisting an enemy of life itself is not only despicable, it is futile."
Staren	Fighting four mecha at once? That's one thing when he's cutting them down with a couple strokes from his beam sabers. But this... Staren's attention rapidly flits from one threat to the next. He has only an instant to give silent thanks to that manta pilot. The beam shield isn't easily dislodged, but while the bonestrider has his arm, he can't effectively use it. The incoming lancer forces him to drop his gunpod to try and grab the lance. That way it can't hit the cockpit with full force, scraping over the armor with a noise that echoes horribly around Staren. And then everything falls into chaos. The left arm pack falls off, with the shield. It doesn't even have time to hit the ground before the Star Hawk is leaping into the air and transforming, Staren grunting under the acceleration as it speeds towards the Terras Mortar. He'll have to think of a way to identify and stop the spies... Anyone trying to get into position to fire it, apparently. The dropped parts of the Star Hawk fire into the melee around them. Plasma and HEAT missiles, big and small from the gunpod, and a trio of vehicle-scale HE missiles from the arm pack. Unfortunately, they aren't very precisely aimed. Followup salvoes of HEAT missiles launch wildly as soon as the gunpod's internal mechanisms have time to reload.
Gawain	The bonestriders are down, and the battle looks like it's won. The soldiers are heading into the keep, they're going to take it...and everything descends into chaos. Solars assisting the Mask of Winters' men, traitors inside, Gawain is still near the artillerists when the lightning cracks down on the fort and the mantas betray their own. His eyes widen, not even slightly suspecting this to be a possible action tonight. Trying to get a handle on things, he looks around the battlefield...and hears Tien Yu's call about the Terras Mortar. Being the closest one to it, Gawain inhales, and exhales, shouting to the artillerists. "Watch your back! Retreat from the field, there are traitors in your midsts!" He may not be their commander, but he wants them to survive, as he kneels and then leaps, clearing the field. Gawain's target is to get as close to the Terras Mortar as possible, and when he lands again, dashing towards its cockpit. Once in shouting range, he calls it. "This is Sir Gawain! Do not fire the Terras Mortar, I repeat, do not fire it! I will strike anyone who even moves to do so much!" He doesn't think he'll have to, but he's dashing to force himself into the control seat. If someone's not in it, he gets in and moves to secure it. If someone is in it...he moves to force himself over to them, blade still drawn. Despite hoping he doesn't have to, he's willing to use his blade...to clobber into the back of the head of anyone who even seems like they're going to fire, hoping to knock them out and take control. "I may not be one of your own, but please trust me with the seat. On my honor as a knight, it will not be fired." This is what he'd say to anyone inside the cockpit if he thinks they'll move to let him take control.
Rebecca Chambers	Rebecca finds herself being fired upon by arrows, then suddenly she's being shielded by All-Seeing Eye's magic power. She's rather surprised by this display of power, but it's a pleasant bit of surprise, meaning she's glad that the Exalt's with her, keeping her safe from being pierced suddenly. Realizing that the Exalt wants to try disarming instead of attacking, Rebecca switches to her stun baton and attempts to use the low-powered electrical shocks to try to get the bodyguards to drop their weapons too.
Batou	Batou's satisfaction with a straightford sneaking op goes awry as he sees the ships firing on the team that came in to clean up the fort. Given the orders heard from Tien Yu, there's been some infiltration at the helms. He ducks out as quickly as he can, sprinting along the wall towards the melted section, attempting a visual on whoever the hell took a direct hit from a fucking laser. "Tachikoma, the mission's been compromised, come assist, asap!" Batou shouts over the comms. Tachikoma immediately stops its volleys as it leaps forward several meters at a time directly towards Batou, attempting to avoid all combat if possible.
Miari	"I so despise that word." Miari announces when Tien Yu decides to use the A-word. But she feels a few flickers of despair when heroes of the Sun emerge all over the battlefield. "Even when I am more the very demon-powered abomination that the stories tell of... oh this. This is INFURIATING! Of all the forces you could be defending, Chosen of the Most High! His Blessing is wasted on you. We already bear such terrible guilt... you would besmirch our heritage further!" Holo-Miari turns her gaze upwards, seeing the Manta ships turning... And instantly she makes her decision. SCooping up one more pile of transmute-zombies, the entire constellation of debris and crystalline telekinetic fury that Miari's become lifts straight off the ground and soars up and towards the Manta ships. She went into this not WANTING to be the one causing calamity and destruction to Creation, but it seems that fate has turned her into the very agent of devastation that she hoped to avert being. And so she swarms up into the skies, a mass of demonic crystal spheres and the heavy accrued debris of battle as sword and shield. Her swirling spheres sing alien notes and pulse with inner white fires. Lasers comprised of colors that no longer exist (don't look at them too closely, you'll get headaches) and metal-rusting music lashes out like blades through the air for the turncoat ships!
Kyoko Takada	"Firing. Reloading. Tracking. Coordinates received, targets spotted." Alpha-39 gets the information from All-Seeing Eye, looking his way and zeroing in on first the Abyssal talking to him, and then the fellow essence-wielders apparently attempting to blend in. It's a good thing she's far too busy to look anywhere in Miari's direction, or she'd be far more disturbed than being thanked by a god had left her. An obvious consequence of looking down a scope is narrowed vision. "Five seconds to comply" is more than enough time to reload once, though not to do so twice. She has to hold before unloading, trying to guess what the Exalted's next move is going to be. Unless that move is to say evince hostility and then stay still, she's not going to be able to do much about it from here. That's a pretty unlikely scenario, and she's already too late for timing her shots at the end of ASE's "five seconds," as satisfying as that would have been. And then the fratricide begins. After a moment of quiet cursing, she just lets the shot fly, straight toward the Abyssal being guarded by the Solar(?). That one doesn't think he needs to move, so it's worth a shot, but it's not what's occupying most of her attention. High up though she may be, she's also effectively in the middle of the battle, and even with an easy way down, that doesn't mean she has an easy way out. She can't very well commandeer this craft, and doubts there's a convenient craft for her to take to get out of here. "Get ouf of here" is the greatest point in mind, as the combined acronym leaves her lips and enters the radio. Situation Normal: All Fucked Up Beyond Recognition. It's time for an exfiltration. For others, with less selfish priorities, it's time for damage control. The moment the traitors struck, this ceased to be an effective battle for the fortress, no matter how many walls it's lost. Gawain, she knows, is heading for the big gun. The Flotilla have mobility. Miari is... doing whatever the hell that is (the fuck?) over there, Staren also has mobility and is moving toward Gawain, and she can't see Batou but has seen his stealth capabilities in action before. For those, and everyone else, while some of them what she might term good sorts, they're on their own from this point forward. She's not planning on dying for anyone here, and not taking on a fight for a commander whose forces are full of traitors. A-39 disengages her lines, picks a direction parallel to the lines of battle, slings her rifle, unslings her SMG, and takes a leap. She keeps to high-velocity freefall as long as possible before hitting the float-harness, trusting it to work as advertised only after seeing so many others use it, and hits the ground running. Most likely, no one will get in her way that isn't an obvious opponent, but she's going to shoot anyone who does, just the same.
Tomoe	They are making progress, very good progress. The power armor troopers are proving how well trained and focused htey are. The host of undead come after them and she ends up on the for. They fight hard they fight well and they are making progress they are almost at the gate here. Tien-Yu's updates and orders come in, things are working well they are almost at the objective then? Then everything goes to hell even more as this is creation, the idea of having nice things for long likely died in the usurpation a very long time ago. Sleeper agents are activities on some of the allies warships and support fire becomes the death of many on the field of battle here. Tomoe acts trying to do what she can for the troops here with her. "Righteous Cross!" She renews the defense buff on the troopers with her. "Soldiers of Lookshy you heard the order the Anathema are aiding the Mask! We need to take them down, I will take point give myself and anyone cover fire if you can." She's acting on reflexes homed in the death game here, she is nor Angil, she is not Klein she is not Kirito or even the traitors Heathcliff. She is still aware of the reality she will need to give commands in an instant. This is insane though, this is god damn insane and all the while she moves not waning to leave the troopers behind but she is going to make for the Solars and the Abyssal and she calls out. "You are between us and our objective. I am Tomoe the Iron Lily, one of those who struck down the Bull of the North and his circle." She's running on reflex anger, fear and shock here trying to keep things together, how did Kirito do it? Hell how did even Klien do it. He kept his entire guild alive on the front-line. No other group could boast that which made is through the death game. How did her life come to this? The Iron Lily moves trying to lead the remnants of the power armor troopers with her to aid in the fight with two surprise Solars, this was going to get /nuts/ and she knew it. She'll have to trust in Gawain, Miari and everyone else to handle things elsewhere. Maybe her words can pull some fire on to her from the Solars.
Starbound Flotilla	"Confused. Outer defenses cleared! Inner defenses..." "Barrier on the beam! What is--?!" "SUNBORN!! KILL THEM!" "Star Four, work emitter!" "With /pleasure/! I'll smite these blasphemous sons of bitches!" "Frightened. But we need to regain control of the Terras Mortar!" "Our armor can survive its impact if it's spread over the army." "Terrified. Albert! The Lookshy forces will die if someone doesn't--!" "I don't CARE, SEFT! Calculate a refocus of the emitter on the Solar, NOW!" "...Yes sir." "Star Six, work the generator." "You're a heartless piece of shit, Albert." "Work the FUCKING GENERATOR." "Fine." "I need more power, I need more POWER! Star Two, cycles up! Star Four, cover!" "Mr. Petrov! Albert..." "...I told you, Haruto. This is what he's like." Albert's weapon has been stopped in its tracks. He slams open the top hatch of the tank, and the stray shots from the Mantas, the barrages of damage from double agents, and the waves of danger from enemy essence shenanigans slam into him, but he holds fast and doesn't care. He's got belts full of tools and parts. "I won't let you. I don't care how far I have to dig into the VEP, I don't care how many of ours you put at risk, I don't care about any of it. The only thing that matters is you, and him, and the whole of that cancerous growth of a sociological construct dying." He mutters, to the Solar that can't hear at this distance. The emitter it still firing. Waves of albert's own armor melt as he opens up access panels on the paired emitters while it's going and start making modifications, replacing parts, cranking and overcharging things, and otherwise diving headfirst into mad science, all on his own. Before, it was an unwilling mental state he was forced into by the exposure to the Labyrinth. Then, he was one he sort of experimentally used as the Shackle Maw facility evoked bits of it, and left just enough effect for when he had to take on Executioner. Now, it's something he forces himself into. This is a disaster severe enough that he needs to dig deep. To reach beyond his own trained mental guards against it and go further into the VEP's effects, the Labyrinth madness he's accumulated from his operations in Thorns.
Starbound Flotilla	This time he doesn't just let it leak into his mind, or even open the throttle on it. This time he reaches deeper into it. This time he reaches for more. He develops theories and scientific concepts transiently in his mind, ideas for accessing false realities, ideas for the emitter harvesting its own matter for nuclear reactions, ideas for emission systems that forego runaway reaction guards entirely. He moves well into a mad place of mind. He looks for a place even more mad. His gauntlets melt in the heat, boiling away from flesh that scars under the damage of standing near his own creation as he works control panels and construct new mods. He jams regenerative concoctions into his body to keep his hands working long enough to perform more of the science he needs. The tank is rumbling and shaking. Reactor stability is compromised; barring something quite unusual, it will detonate badly before the night is over. Albert thinks he still has time, though he updates his mental math on the nuclear physics involved every time he sees a nearby capacitor explode. The shockwaves of energy create wider cracks and a worrying crater in the terrain around the tank. The beam widens, then thins, then widens again as unspeakable levels of power are pumped into it, at the cost of Albert's own health, stability, and distance from that awful mental abyss that the Labyrinth gently nudges everyone towards. He begins to laugh because he isn't doing anything else with his voice, and that is simply the white noise of that mental space.
Bloody Revelations	Miari, or at least what is claiming to Miari, takes to the skies amidst the new battlefield of airships starting to shoot at each other, slinging beams of energy and waves of fire back and forth at each other as their commanders identify and hunt down hijacked vessels and try to organize lines. A miniature SWLIHN flying into the mix isn't ideal for either side, but is disastrous to the traitors in the extreme. Under these desperate circumstances, even the forces of Lookshy are willing to avoid shooting at the demonic construct obvious helping them, as the flashing lights strip away layers of advanced alloys and rot guns and engines from the inside out, rapidly crippling the traitor carriers in their midst, cutting off further damage. A-39 is lucky in that she'd chosen to ride Tien Yu's personal transport, and not even the Mask of Winters was able to sneak a double agent aboard that. She has just enough time to fire her shot, and then get out of dodge. A couple of stray war ghosts come for her, flying in fast even while wearing physical bodies, but are torn down quickly by automatic fire. To the Gunzosha's credit, while several are shot full of Essence arrows, their thick armour and the sturdy Terrestrial soldiers inside of them aren't killed on the spot. Their sworn brothers drag them out of the line of fire quickly, and close up ranks. Animas ignite around them, spilling waves of magical fire and cutting wind into the circle they form around the two Solars, hemming them in with lethal ambient energy. They close ranks and attack relentlessly and methodically, pressing the two until they have to fight back to back, just holding the Dragon-Blooded off after their ill-advised attempt to come to the Abyssal's aid. "Look at you. Assissting a servant of the Yozis." the woman shoots back at All-Seeing Eye, the Shintai not exactly being missed as she tries to dodge his whips, struggling to fire back while using a powerbow. "And the despot boot heels of the Dragon-Blooded traitors at that. Don't be a fool and look at the reality. What happens /after/ the Mask of Winters is defeated? Lookshy owns the entire east? The strongest nation in the whole Direction, possibly to rival the Realm? Powerful and war hungry, eager to topple the Blessed Isle, and sea to Pole, obsessed with stomping out 'Anathema' like us? If Lookshy wins, Creation is thrown back into war and the rightful princes of the earth won't get it back. If you'd just let them tire each other out, the Mask of Winters would be weak enough for us to turn on him and topple his rule as well. We can always take him out after the bigger threat is taken care of, can't you see that?" The Abyssal pretty much just grins behind her. That lasts until A-39's shot finds its way down to them. The daiklave-wielding Solar boy shoves the Deathknight out of the way, but he sorely overestimates himself for being able to parry a supersonic anti-material round. He's not fast and strong enough. It slips between his matched blades and punches through his chest, caving his bones in and extinguishing his Anima instantly, where he collapses in a bloody heap. His partner screams and turns to him, only for Rebecca to get that prod in while she's distracted and electrocute her into unconsciousness. His disposable tools having been used, the Deathknight takes the opportunity to shrug in disappointment, and then abruptly disappear into a pool of shadows, vanishing from sight.
Bloody Revelations	Tomoe is just in time as a hail of lightning and explosive fire comes down on her unit's heads. Even through her buffed shield, the chip damage is insane, but her Gunzosha buddies mimic her, and help her in weathering the storm, where troops take refuge under their combined shelter, muttering frenzied prayers to the Dragons. The fusillade lets up when the Lookshy sky captains begin reasserting control over their ships, and scuttling those that have been fully hijacked. In the back lines, senior officers grimly cut down saboteurs and turncoats on the spot, efficiently dispatching double agents with Tien Yu's omniscient guiding hand. She charges in to find two of the Solars already overwhelmed, but the third still holding back the Starbound Flotilla. He turns to see her, and from his back, draws an elaborate rifle-looking weapon, aiming at her with one hand while he braces with his shield against the colossal laser. This turns out to be his undoing, as Albert's mad scramble into his war machine's volatile insides causes the beam to pulse and contract, unsettling his balance, and then finally fire again at hugely multiplied power, draining the Solar of his mystical energy, and then melting the un-augmented orichalcum strapped to his arm, blowing him away in a column of golden smoke, and skewering the main keep. The only possible thing that could still clinch a decisive loss for Lookshy is if the mortar is fired, easily capable of annihilating two thirds of their forces on the field if someone can get to the controls. Gawain and Staren swoop in to see no less than an entire team of officers in power armour converted to the task, battling their way through the under-equipped and squishy gunnery staff and their infantry bodyguards. A couple of quick missiles dispatch all but one, who takes one look at Gawain, then leaps to the console anyways, reaching out for the hard-light display, and then at the last second, has his skull cracked through his helmet with the powerful blow to the noggin, KOing him on the spot. "The situation is under control. Storm Hammers and Terras Mortar secured. Don't fall back! You are sons of the Seventh Legion! The enemy wants to break faith with your brothers, but their weak ploys and subterfuge spring from desperation, not cunning! Their forces are all but toppled, and the rebout is ours! Press the attack and avenge your fallen comrades tenfold on the enemy and their abominations! Send them to hell along with their slaughtered Solar puppets!" Tien Yu's rallying cry seems to be effectual. Despite the massive disruption and heavy casualties, both personnel and materiel, the offensive continues storming over the river and floods into the overwhelmed fortress, cutting down the remaining defenders, likely over the course of the next several hours.This leaves the Elites, finally, in a position of rest, were it not for one thing. The traitor Gawain had knocked out, limp as a doll on the ground, felled with a hideous concussion. He rises from the ground --not consciously-- as if pulled by invisible strings, balancing impossibly on strangle angles of his feet, his head lolling to the side as if with a broken neck. His helmet splits and half and falls from his face, exposing pallid skin, blood-matted hair, and a pitch black miasma creeping into his eyes, blotting out sclera and iris. His mouth all but unhinges, and a voice that is absolutely not his own booms from a throat that no more belongs to him, rattling the armour of troops all around and causing the lights of the cannon equipment to sputter and flicker dark.
Bloody Revelations	The sound is great and terrible in the most classical sense of the words, blotting out all other clamour of the battlefield as someone from hundreds of miles away laughs a laugh that could split glass and freeze water, causing discarded swords to vibrate and bounce underfoot. The man's flesh seems to wither with the effort of sustaining even the barest fragment of that remote presence, slowly dying just as the vessel for enough of it to speak, in a deep, cold, bone-shattering tenor that echoes with the acoustics of a grand theatre. "Excellent! /Excellent/! Rally your men! Cut down Creation's 'chosen'! Lay waste with the weapons you scarcely comprehend! Stain the earth with noble slaughter! Yes, this is exactly how it should be! Exactly what the people of Thorns, of Lookshy, of Maruka and Nexus and every river province should bear witness to; to allow their hopes to soar and their soldiers to join the cause! Come then! Send out your mightiest champions, and give hope to all Creation with your righteous crusade! The dizziest heights of hope are the most dramatic stage from which to /smite them/!" The bottomless, icy laughter resumes, like being subjected to an earthquake while sitting at the bottom of a pitch black, freezing cold well. "Did you think I didn't notice? That I sat aloof and uninterested, passively sitting on my remote throne, awaiting a direct challenge? Did you perhaps envision me raging and storming around my halls in fury, cursing your names for every setback? Of course you did! You have no /idea/ what awaits you! Terrors that you have no answer to, no salvation from, and no way of overcoming!" "I hope they /embolden/ you! Hurry on then, righteous champions! You're already far too deep to turn back now! I wish to personally see what the despair of such strange creatures as yourselves will look like when I break you! I wonder what works of art you will become when I wring your souls into steel! Do not delay. I do not enjoy waiting." Finally, the turncoat warrior can take no more. The strain of even giving voice to the Mask of Winters kills him from the inside out. His skin cracks, his eyes bleed, his bones brittle, his flesh consumes itself, and finally his heart stops, causing him to collapse, dead on the spot, after the necromantic energy has completely eaten away his soul. The soldiers within earshot all appear deeply disturbed, rattled in a way they've never been before. It's the quiet reply that the Mask of Winters doesn't hear that keeps them steady. "Your ancestors slew tyrant madmen like him once before. They rose up and cast down insane would-be god-kings by the hundreds. It is their blood that flows directly in your veins, chosen of the Dragons. You are Fated to win this battle."
Miari	Even high up in the sky amidst the cruel skirmish with shots flying everywhere... Miari freezes when she hears that voice. Anything living probably would. The voice freezes the moisture in her throat, threatening to choke her - even as she has no throat and no body proper, only a swirling maelstrom of concepts and light. She can deliver no spiteful and spirited response to that, not that the ancient necromancer maintains his presence enough to listen. "... and I thought -I- liked oration..." She sarcastically murmurs, shivering deep. Her next words are spoken mostly to herself, but anyone near in the skies might just hear. "Laugh while you can, you dried up old wreck of a warlord. Come we shall, and the light we bring shall scorch you to cinders. I care little if it is the flames of Hesiesh, Ignis Divine, or Ligier. We will BURN you from this world before the wound you are festers any further."
Gawain	The blade goes down, and one of the soldiers is down. Gawain sighs, and once they're all down, is about to move back over to him to check him...when he rises up hideously like a necromantic puppet, being used as a mouthpiece. Gawain just watches in horror as the man speaks his booming voice, as the Mask of Winters talks through him, before the soldier just collapses to his death in such a gross fashion. Gawain stays still for several moments, considering. In the end, he smiles. It's not a friendly, cheerful smile. It's one of conviction, as he points his sword out into the direction of Thorns. "I know not if you can hear me, and it doesn't matter if you can, for I would say this even so. Mask of Winters, I will slay you and all others like you, who threaten these people and seek to bring nothing but death and destruction! Mark my words, for when you meet your end, one of the last things you will see is my blade!" With the soldiers around them being chilled to the bone, Gawain turns to any loyal soldiers still in his vicinity. "While costly, we have won this battle. He threatens our hope, but hope is the only thing that can lead us forward. Let yours bolster itself as high as it can, and wield it as a sword. You must believe that you can win this war!" Part of it is reciting his own mantra, his own personal beliefs to himself to strenghthen himself. But in general, he's finding he likes these people of Creation, who try so hard to protect their world that so many say is rife with problems. They inspire him, and so, he wants to inspire them too. Afterwards, Gawain moves to retreat. He wasn't wounded, so if Lookshy needs any assistance, he'll offer it, such as with medical if necessary. He's pretty skilled with herbology!
All-Seeing Eye	"/She/ is assisting /me./" The whip cracks again, as if to punctuate that statement, the Exalt making things as difficult as possible for the archer to harass himself and Rebecca. When the proverbial dust settles, Eye places a hand on his fellow Paladin's shoulder. "Excellent work, comrade," he says with a small smile. That smile fades as he turns to address the archer--more to get the last word in than anything. "You had your chance at rule. History looks unfavorably upon it." Without turning to face Rebecca, he once more addresses the other Paladin. "Would you mind providing cover while I interrogate her?" A sleek, black metal spike slides free of his palm. Kneeling beside the Solar, he rears his arm back to drive it into her. "It won't take but a few moments." Provided no one stops him, he stabs the spike into her and begins searching her memories for the most likely location of the Abyssal.
Starbound Flotilla	The overcharge was successful. Albert's new and improved beam lances through the fortress. The emitter sweeps, intent on absolutely annihilating as much of the structure as possible. But soon it becomes clear that the heavy tank is far beyond saving, even as Albert devises a brand new form of coolant to inject from reagents extracted in his own blood. Moonfin is the one who grabs his shoulder, and SHAKES him. "I'll make sure none of them live to help this /cancer/ survive and grow in this world, to make sure anyone who thinks of picking up the same--" "Petrov. Petr-- ALBERT!!" "Ghh!!" "It's done! We need to /leave/." "I... I..." "We need to leave, Albert. Please." "...Alright." The Flotilla are fleeing. They've issued a broadcast to anyone left near that segment of the river that the thing's about to detonate, though Albert didn't say what the maximum radius was. When it goes off, the fortifications are shown to have a dual purpose. The heat and pressure blasts over the trenches, and though it sears the Flotilla's armor -- and likely some of Lookshy's own -- it leaves the Flotilla intact, albeit wounded, both by the Deathlord's forces, and by their own work. If Miari is going to recover them, that's where they'll be, huddled, badly burned, bruised, dented, and wounded. Albert moreso than most, burned badly over a much larger amount of his body, and much of his armor turned to slag. The tank... Is irrecoverable. It'll be a while before the Flotilla can bring out something like that again.
Tomoe	Tomoe arrives to see one of the solars get taken down by an anti material rifle, there is no symapthy in her eyes as she hears the scream of the other solar as their companion goes down hard. She keeps moving in with her back up blade in hand. The Death Knight has escaped. She keeps going in she sees there's still one left. She makes ready to charge him there is nothing to say but the look on her face speaks volumes, there is hate there and that likely the last thing he sees as he's atomized by Albert fury and she's legitly terrifed that something is wrong with him. She sees eye get to his grim work and Rebecca likely moving to cover them. "Cover Eye, make sure he can get the information we need." Shehe will fall in with any of the troops to give Eye cover, she's on edge she's still not used to seeing death like that even how those other two solars died? She can't help shudder inside, creation is not a good place a fact that it constnatly loves to remind her of.
Miari	Miari... has distressingly exhausted herself from that display! The swirl of hologlyphic light and orbiting crystal arrangements that would seem to be her is a gargantuan entity that can no longer safely encroach. She takes careful aim into the distance... and FLINGS her storm of golden statues towards the boonies. They'll trench the ground when they strike, but it'll make for an easy removal by her demon labor forces shortly! No more worry about those. Shaking her glowing head with some disappointment at the wreckage of the Manta cruisers, she drifts away from the battlefield and-- BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! If she had proper flesh, that heat might've just singed her even at this distance! As it is, the blast forces her to shield herself with a thin film of crystal-light! "... Albert...!!" Hoping the Flotilla survived that, Miari swoops down through the air! The great assortment of her body starts to shrink, packing together and folding up, all the spheres converging as they shrink and her Holo-Light-Body glowing. It all turns into a molten, heated radiance that crunches down into a properly human shape again--- And Miari, gasping for breath and doubled over, touches down near the huddled Flotilla, blearily raising her gaze at them to see how bad off they are. She sees Albert... and bites her lip.
Staren	Staren strafes the forces trying to reach the Terra Mortar with railgun fire, and Gawain takes guard of the firing controls. It SEEMS like the greatest danger is over... And then Mask of Winters /taunts/ them. Staren's SURE the reanimated soldier-thing is going to reach for the button, but... no? The lack of using exalted power deathlord bullshit to make good on his words of crushed hope kind of undermines the whole point. Staren's not going to point it out, though. He's just going to make sure that next time, they hit harder. Staren's next concern is for Albert, but he spies the Flotilla abandoning the tank, with the ape-man living to fight another day. Back into the fray, then. Staren may have lost his shield and his missiles, but he's still got a freaking mecha with a railgun and beam saber, and two additional weapons he brought instead of more missiles -- the Mad Morg McGee Annihilator's mad science and the Anti-Wireless Railgun's magic-explosive rounds are ready to blast through particularly troublesome bonestriders. It may be a long fight, but sitting behind the controls to a 45-ton war machine, Staren's in his element, as far as combat goes. The battlefield presents problems, and he solves them with technology.
Tomoe	Tomoe is worn is tired is not feeling very good as the Mask of Winters now taunts them. She slumps a bit the strain of beig Jeci the kidnapping her mind being violated so much. Along with the slog in creation? She is tired she is worn but she tries to nto let it show she has to look away from the man as they die she can't just watch. She does havde a reply it's not booming it's not shouting. "I came from the sort of people any of the incarte or things like you would just step on or use as material. I seen what you done to the people of this, I'm a nothing from a world with no wonder, no magic, I no what a world free of the likes of you can be like. It is not perfect but it's damn better than what you have made. So I won't boast but you will meet my blade who will live? I can not say but we will meet and one of us will not be walking away from it."