Scene #6839: OFF - The Cellar

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	--Biteblade goes completely pale. Suddenly, nothing else matters. --"Checking all the places you've been before heading to the last one is common sense." She whispers, in a surprisingly clear voice, in the exact same cadence as the Batter said it to Zero. --"I don't . . . make the sugar anymore. No more sugar. This is the last . . . the last sugar in this world. I don't want to . . . not anymore. Just for us . . . where we can forget all the frightening things outside." --"I'm going to find Pablo, and Zacharie too." Frankly, she's kind of mad at the masked merchant considering how worried this girl is for him, but she's not going to say that (to her). "But you know them better than I do. You would know where to look. If I had your help, I would be more likely to succeed. But, if you're worried about getting lost, use this." --She takes up the ball of string and offers it. "The end of the thread is bound to this room. That means if you bring this string with you, the trail you leave behind will lead you back here. And when we find Pablo and Zacherie, they can come back with you. And if we run into the duck, I'll stand between you and him. If you don't think I can win, I can at least slow him down so you can get away." --"It's always been about respect, Stephen. It's little things. I was half-asleep for most of this, just going along, but this place got very good at waking me up." --"There's a difference between knowing and being confident, yes. If I want to be kind, and understanding, I don't know if either of us was communicating well that night. Our expectations." --"Did you really lie to her...?" August seems frustrated - not on Yuuki's behalf, but on the fact everything's starting to fall apart. "Jesus christ." --And then August moves to talk to Biteblade. The threat is lifted, slightly. "Come on. Help us help Elsen, help Sucre, help everyone. We can work together." Though if she refuses...there's no more time for negotiation. -- "Well, I explained why we needed the Grand, we still don't have it, and the Queen probably knows the plan now. So, we've got that going for us." He presses a scarred hand to his face and rubs it roughly. "And now here we are. Everything is a thousand times more complicated because you had to have your answers at the worst possible time." He heaves another sigh, muttering under his breath. "We could have just grabbed the Grand and been on our way to Pavo by now..." --"I didn't lie," he says sharply and vehemently to August and Yuuki. "I /know/ it can be done because I /know/ I can do it. I outsmart nature every. Single day. I bend it, I even break it over my knee when I have to, all to serve the greater good. The... /butchery/ that passes for living in Zone 3, this world deserves better than that. Much better." --The vines rustle in the surroundings, Zero's voice continuing to emerge from them, "The Batter said that he and the Queen serve the same function, running in opposite directions. If this is true, it is likely that the Queen reflects and brings corruption in the same way that the Batter reflects purity. What that actually means, I can't say. But it brings the 'popped' Elsen to mind." --"But," --"Wouldn't that also make her creation to his destruction?"
Priscilla	--"Floran won't let him keep going. Inningsss are done. Bassstard bat thing, Floran will clean off hisss bonesss." She cracks her arm. A noise of paper and water -- or something a little thicker -- can be heard much more loudly. She intends to leave; August Kohler has at least managed to assure her they're not going to kill Sucre, but this means Biteblade intends to "defend her" from something else entirely; she intends to rush to Zone 2 and ambush him. But that means no more Grand in reach. As Biteblade moves to rush and phase around the brambles with the odd phasing effects of her Grand, it's likely Doctor Strange will need to act fast if he intends to pursue his plan. -- She spreads her fingers slightly, and glares out at Janine, and the others, from between them. Her eye is surrounded in black, but flickers with a sort of dull white light. "No you can't. If you go out there . . . you won't come back. You'll disappear with the big duck, or he'll get you either way." --Then, she lets slip a dry, now slightly unhinged cackle. She isn't even looking at Strange, but knows what he's talking about. "Forget about it. Don't touch them. Don't go near them. If you do, it'll all be over. I'll be here, and it'll all be gone. You too." --"I said at the beginning. can see everything, but she can't speak. Not from where she is." says the Batter. "Faith is believing in what you feel. Going where it takes you. Doing what has to be done. Without revelations, and without faith in them, I wouldn't exist long in this world." --"Those words were mine."
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade, on her way out, is already calling Pavo away from her secret lair. Through emergency channels and a long history of a friendship of sorts, the duo have joined together as a pair once more. She's leaving the cellar, presumably for Zone 2. With her own phasing Grand, and Pavo's abilities of obfuscation in her own Grand, they intend to perform an ambush on the holy man. Pavo is on the move, homing in on Biteblade's signal. Biteblade is on the move, making a beeline for Zone 2, through the walls. There's options, but not many. Efforts could be made to tear up the walls and terrain, to get at Biteblade before she gets out of Zone 0. Others could teleport to the purified Zone 2 ahead of the two. And who knows what other options there are that could be devised? But by now, it's going to involve Biteblade and Pavo both.
Doctor Strange	Strange sighs as Biteblade escapes. "Look at that," says the Sorcerer Supreme, already folding one arm behind his back. "Almost like I had a reason for keeping quiet." The other arm is extended. The hand bearing the Sling Ring traces a circle through the air, cutting through reality. "She can phase through matter. No point in trying to trap her before she gets there." The circle which forms reveals the purified expanse of Zone 2. "Through the portal," says Strange, like an exasperated bus driver. There is already a Strange on the other side. The sorcerer on the other side flies into the air and scans the horizon for anything which looks Batter-like. Failing that, he makes an effort to draw the Batter's attention. Walls rise up in terraced patterns, all encircling a central area. It first looks like an ampitheater, until a few squares appear in the cnlosed area. Bases. From the purified, sterile ground, Strange has created a baseball field. It lacks the green of the grass, or any color save that which already exists in the Zone's materials. He hopes it will still do the trick. The Strange which built it (hoping they would come) vanishes. Shortly after he does, his present counterpart steps through the portal, traveling back in time to do the building.
Zero Kiryu	There is a rustle of vines and greenery as Biteblade passes through them. Whether it takes any action to hinder her seems unclear. A scant few vines pass through the portal provides by Dr. Strange, beginning to spread like an especially alarming sample of mutant kudzu. But Zero Kiryu himself doesn't male a clear appearance. It seems as if he does, in fact, have to do the stupid THORN ARENA every single time. Even when this isn't his race, or horses therein.
August Kohler	Well, there's no time for negotiation. Strange opens a portal. August and Dietrich push through it, sword at the ready. It's not Biteblade August really wants to fight, though. It's Pavo. She's been a thorn in his side for long enough, and if she has a Grand, he might as well finally kick her ass. She's terrorized him before, and she's the worst of the Flotilla, in his mind. So, once he gets to the battlefield, he looks for the first sign of her, unaware of her concealment device, and moves to get to work.
Yuuki Kuran	"We all can have reasons for keeping secrets, Stephen Strange." Yuuki comments to Strange's exasperation. To his offered portal, and his bus driver attitude, Yuuki makes a show of a polite bow before stepping through to the other end. The arranged battlefield - a baseball pitch - gets a light laugh, as Yuuki jams her hands into her coat pockets, leaning back and waiting. "Still, this is faster, isn't it? Better, too. Leaving that girl out of it. Having it far away from her." She closes her eyes, stunningly bemused for the abysmally emotional and tense situation. "Then again, you'd probably just twist space and time so it wouldn't be a problem. You are the Sorcerer Supreme, after all. It's within your power."
Priscilla	Zone 2, of all places in this world, is the one in which a baseball stadium somehow doesn't look out of place. The City of Bismark had been dedicated entirely to leisure, after all. The sport of baseball is of course far too dangerous for the Elsens that once lived there, but even with its pepto pink bleached to sterile, clinical, synthetic whiteness, a stadium raised amidst a barren suburb of white cubes and grey paths, filled with white stands, white bases, and grey lanes, somehow looks as if it were almost meant to be there. The library tower stands monolithic in the distance, not far, its highest heights still shrouded in a haze of smoke that is now a checkerboard fast-moving, cold and wet clouds. Since the baseball diamond was Already Built, and the Batter had only left for Zone 2 maybe twenty minutes ago, it's not remotely serendipitous when the doors to the field swing open with a quiet squeak and the black and white figure trudges out of the dark behind it. Of course it'd draw his eye. Or, more likely, it drew 's eye, thinking it had some connection to him. Even when he steps to the field, the Batter, alone, save his three halos, examines a blank poster and says aloud to nobody in particular, "No teams are playing." Oddly enough, when Strange looks at him, the shade from the brim of his cap is so intensely dark in this zone that his eyes become completely invisible.
Starbound Flotilla	"Game isss sssupposed to be over." Biteblade's voice sounds. "Inningsss done, field closssed. Everyone shake handsss, go home." "But you, you're still going. Still driven, still at bat, swinging for the stands, running the bases. Your crazy, Batter?" Pavo's voice can be heard as well. "Or are jussst playing different game?" "Following someone else's commandments?" Smoke begins to leak into the baseball diamond from every direction. It's flooding the place, it harder and harder to see. "Now, understand, I'm not the kind of god that acts on every prayer. It takes a lot more than clasping those hands and a couple whispers to be worthy of my smiting and my blessing. But you know what? Putting my little operation here at threat, my little heaven-building foundation? I'd have put your blasphemous ass in the dirt even if it wasn't Biteblade asking for it." "Game isss done. Purification isss done. Your job isss go now, not chassse further. If keep going, Floran will clean off your bonesss! Lassst inning! Turn in your bat!!" The smoke surges until it's knee deep in every direction, with banks of thicker smoke throughout. Biteblade and Pavo appear as one, like thunder and lightning. Biteblade, in mutant bone and densewood armor, rises out of the ground aggressively, knives drawn. Pavo steps out of a cloudbank of sorts, adorned in gold and robes, looking like a divinity descending from heaven. Her cutlass is drawn and gleams bright gold. Biteblade and Pavo worked together long before the Flotilla formed officially. Among the rest, few could claim their level of coordination, though the strongest and second-weakest of the Flotilla would be an unexpected duo to menace so strongly. It's why it might be a little unexpected to see them rush with such synchronization in bringing their blades deep into the Batter -- though not before he takes his stance. They pounce -- Biteblade with low strikes, Pavo with a leaping strike, both intending to stab. The others aren't subject to their first strikes, but they can hardly be stopped from allying with the resolute purifier and his more thorough efforts.
Doctor Strange	"Yep," says Strange to Yuuki with complete sincerity. He absolutely would. She can interpret that to mean that he'd have at least tried it, had the fight taken place in the cellar. "You're in danger," says Strange to the Batter, slowly descending from the air. "At least one captain is on her way here to kill you." The sorcerer has nothing more to say to him, having found it best to keep things short and simple with the Batter. When his feet touch the ground, he adopts a slightly crouched combat stance. As his hands are readied, brightly burning orange mandalas appear. Evidently, Strange wants to be as prepared as possible. At the top of the field's spectator seating, more of those mandalas appear, faintly burning. From each there falls a slender orange pole. Anyone with vision clear enough can see that these 'poles' are actually weapons of various types--swords, spears, staves. His concentration upon his arsenal doesn't blind him to the impending fight, although the captains arrived a little earlier than he'd have liked. He's forced to fly up and away from the leaping strike to avoid becoming collateral. His hand traces the pattern for a portal as he does. Beneath Pavo and Biteblade, a hole in the world opens. From that hole, the sharp ends of several spears come flying, intending to skewer them in the middle of their assault.
August Kohler	Pavo reveals herself, speaking of godhood and attacking the Batter. August is on Dietrich's back, and after a breath and an exhale, speeds forward, dashing straight at her. "Still believing you're a god, Pavo? Give me a break! There's nothing divine about you! I'd suggest you just hand over the Grand, but that's not in your nature, is it?" Dietrich's mechanical sword suddenly sets ablaze, a small bonfire of a blade, and then is swung into Pavo from above, a two-prong attack with Strange's spears from beneath. He's completely ignoring Biteblade, instead allowing the truck-strengthed strike to come down and stagger the bird-woman.
Starbound Flotilla	George has wandered through as well. Didn't he? That's gotta be why he's sitting in the stands. As a fresh mandala appears near him, he scoots a few seats over. He intends not to interfere here, it seems, but he does watch with wide, focused eyes. Pavo and Biteblade, amid their assault, are forced to batter back the spears with dynamic, slashing some out of the air, and letting the others crash brutally against armor, crunching hard and jarring their bodies to bruise them. Btieblade is getting vicious. "You want extra inningsss too? Floran will munch magician'sss uselesss fingersss! You're breaking thisss worssse than it wasss!" "Oh, and you're still /not/ believing?" Pavo squawks a laugh as August's blade comes down -- and around her, smoke builds up. The moment it's inches from her, she's flickered, wings rushing hard and blasting her away from the impact with a fast air-dodge, leaving August bringing his blade through a mess of smoke. The massive golden wing-pack ejects two heavy cartridges of depleted hyperglass, which sizzle the diamond where they land. "The only thing that needs to be divine about me is that I've got the power. Answering prayers, smiting the defiant, and giving wisdom to stupid children -- what more godly could I be?" Pavo will continue her aerial assault. Biteblade intends to remain on the ground. Pavo's counter-attack comes in the form of a swirling swarm of three spheres, intent on bashing August brutally on his landing. The heavy magnorbs go to strike with weight like he's being barraged with bowling balls. Biteblade, amid her dagger-rush, throws one up in the air quickly, turns to draw a heavy bow, and fires off three hefty tungsten arrows in sequence at Doctor Strange. Then the bow's back on her back -- and she catches the dagger she threw upwards, intent on rushing back in to battle the Batter.
Yuuki Kuran	"It'd be too easy to rationalize this away. Too easy to believe we're right because nothing has stopped us yet. But here we are, Stephen. The Sorcerer Supreme, and myself, and everyone else." Yuuki closes and opens her hands in her coat pockets, pushing the wings of her jacket forward as she works her arms and stretches. "Still in this dream. Isn't that true too, Pavo?" The approach of the golden divinity, and their own proclamations to the unsafety of the Batter, are disheartening, but even for someone talking game about rationalization, it's a moment's hesitation. A pain of the heart, and not the body. Drawing her closed right fist out of her coat pocket, there's a fuzzy ball stress-ball smushed in her hand, trailing two shiny black wings: a bat of some comical make, a put-upon familiar. "We're still here, and the dream isn't over, so there's got to be something we've missed. The Batter is still here too. So why is that? George isn't around to tell me, and Stephen doesn't know. Why this is the last cycle. Are you going to trust me this time? Or does this prior commitment take precedent?" Flicking her bat-smushing grip out like she was wielding Artemis, the bat's wings snap out into a cylinder, fattening at the tip. Other bats snap into being and are immediately vortexed into the creation of her shiny black weapon - a vague baseball-BAT shape. "Or do I have to free you from that? We've been over this so many times, with each captain. Maybe that's what George wants my help doing. He's an old liar, though, so maybe I'm rationalizing too." With a windup half-dozen steps, Yuuki swings her baseball-BAT with a sweeping swing far short of 'actually threatening Pavo'. Thankfully, as a totally nonsense morphic familiar-weapon, it just grows and grows, until she's swinging around something more accurately described as a pillar or giga-tetsu-BAT. Biteblade remains utterly unmolested. Weird, that.
Priscilla	"Whoever told you the Mission ends with the Guardians was wrong." the Batter replies, simply and curtly, to Biteblade and Pavo. He is as completely detached as always, deigning to comment on events around him, and occasionally elucidate, but never react or change course. Still, there's an unidentifiable little something wrong about it, like the way his perpetually emotionless and vaguely holier-than-thou expression disappears under the shadow of his cap. It's the first time the Flotilla have assaulted him two against one. Albert had gotten the drop the first time, and Seft had actually chased the Puppeteer off by inches when completely burning herself out, but it seems as if the Batter has only grown stronger since then. Revealed more powerful techniques. Accrued more of the mysterious Add-Ons which seem to have no reason to exist in this world except aid him, waiting who knows how long. Donned the tunics and signed bats of progressively more famous players. "Who ever heard of an inning with only three bases. The Spectres won't stop so easily. The most impure of them all is still left." He taps his bat twice on the home plate, lifts it over his shoulder, squares his stance, and then seemingly without moving his feet, swooshes from one side of the plate to the batting side too quickly to see, causing the dual attack to slash through his side rather than stab him in the front, making that odd grainy cutting sound and spilling blood without staining his uniform. "I guess this is happening." PURIFICATION IN PROGRESS . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V81DlvZkxGE Epsilon used Cubist Tragedy! Omega used Gaussian Blur! Alpha used Open Bracket! The Batter uses Magic Homerun! A cacophony of light and sound, explosions and flashes, sparks and warping reality, and the crisp, clean crack of a bat striking ball spiral outwards into the two of them.
Doctor Strange	Strange narrows his eyes at Biteblade. /He's/ breaking things? "Yeah? You gonna put me in a /furnace/ when you're done?" He's not letting that Zone 3 thing go. The arrows come near, and he attempts a diversion. Their speed is quicker than he'd expected, however--before he can replace himself with an illusion, they strike his side. He takes off as his tunic begins to darken with blood. The air around him glows bright green as he traces an erratic, roughly ovoid flight path through the field. The arrows fly out of his body, and the patch of blood upon his robes diminishes in size--but not completely. "That was," says Strange on one flyover to Yuuki. "The beauty of," he says on another, trying to make himself as difficult for Biteblade to hit as possible. "My plan!" He stops, and a wall of shattered reality cracks into existence following a sharp one-inch punch. "It allowed everyone to have a say in what was right." He uses the portal to the Mirror Dimension as a makeshift barrier, buying time to weave a new spell. The rings on his mandalas lock into place after the hand gestures are made, and the air smells of ozone. The barrier dissipates, and an arrow grazes his hand--but the spell is done. With both palms thrust forward, Strange blasts at Pavo with bands of crackling lightning, one for each finger. They dig smoldering furrows into the ground as they race across it to meet her. "Not that it matters now."
Starbound Flotilla	Yuuki takes a swing at Pavo that's large enough to take her torso off her legs, albeit probably not quite that forceful. Pavo's three hefty Magnorbs suddenly do something they've only rarely done: swirl together into a tight formation, flatten out, and form some kind of weird floating shield! The swing crashes into it, and the shockwave travels through the weird magnetic connections and overloads some power conduits in Pavo's armor, but she remains upright. She can't keep flying like that, though, she has to ground herself to defend properly.. "Haaaa! You want that answer? Because this world went in for the cough, but the sickness ran deep. The impurity is there at the core. Like radiation sickness. There's nothing he can do for a walking ghost but cleanse. Just a matter of what survives it now! But if Biteblade wants to save some of that impurity, I'll answer that prayer! Don't ask why, though -- his job's to purify, and there's still /so much/ diseased meat left on the fisher Queen!" Biteblade rushes forward, taking on the hit from the Batter dead-on. Blades crossed in front of her, she dulls the impact, legs shuddering from the pain and teeth gritting from the exertion. "Can't go back home." She practically spits. "That'sss never how thisss was meant to work." A chunk of the armor on her arm sparks and tears away, and that seems to be her signal for this. Scraping the knives against each other evokes a brutal, ear-bending ringing -- nothing supernatural, just horrid to hear. That's her sign to break out of the defense and rush forward. She's headed right for him, and... passes through! With a sound like paper and water, she just phases right on past, to initiate her attack. Not against Batter this time, though; she practically surges around him too fast to track, trying to rip through his Add-Ons with a whirling, viciously screaming blade rush. Pavo's smoke builds again, filling and obfuscating Yuuki's enhanced senses with nothing but that stale smoke smell and that blocked-out look, as the bat-strikes continue. They still thud, and crash, and smash... Until one manages to smash away the smoke enough that it reveals Pavo's left behind a heavy gold-brushed divine-looking Pavo statue, which has been smashed to pieces. Pavo is above, descending with a cutlass of the sort that would be a lethal weapon against anyone but an ultra-durable vampire, swiping away with an aggressive series of swings.
August Kohler	August is dodged with the power of wingpack and hyperglass, and then a swarm of three spheres comes to smash into August as Dietrich lands. They slam into Dietrich's armor, battering it and knocking the Persona backwards, as August grunts in pain. The flaming sword's bonfire lessens, but August keeps up the strikes. "You're just a megalomaniacal bird who thinks she has more power than she does..." August mutters, resorting to insults rather than rational arguments. He really doesn't like Pavo. Leaping upwards, thrusters improve August's boost - it's not flight, but it's a high jump, as the sword is swung into Pavo to try and bring her down as she strikes at Yuuki. It's a more accurate hit, hopefully able to actually damage the avian.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki swings an entire inning worth of strikes into the smoke, the stale 'air' a rich - near intoxicating - level of purely breathable stuff. She's breathed a lot of things before, air rich with blood and sweat and fear. The strange elemental-Smoke of the Batter's World fills her with 'it's breathable!' and with the Smoke Grand's obfuscation, Yuuki goes to absolute town-- --on a statue of gold. A false idol, struck down, but it's not Pavo. Pavo's shell game rotation is only barely caught, and by the time Yuuki draws her shrinking bat back to block the strike, she's caught in a hail of harrowing cuts. Pavo doesn't have to hold back, and she knows it. A swipe across her arm leaves her familiar-weapon limp and tumbling to the ground, squeaking like a cloud of bats being... Well, being dropped. The next set of chops fall across her neck, leaving a spray of thick blood, then a meaty chop, and a crunch of bone nd sinew behind it, and just like that, with eyes wide with surprise, Yuuki's head is carved uncleanly off her head. The blood is both mist and fountain, squirting with each heartbeat from the stump of her head. And, much like anyone else who had been beheaded, the lack of a brain causes the corpus of The Rest Of Yuuki to fall forward, dropping to a slumped, sitting-m pose with legs askew. Like fresh paint dripping, the blood runs 'up' Yuuki's neck, pale pink skin reknitting itself. Bone, likewise, builds upon itself before being sheathed in meat and veins and vessels, up and up, crawling towards the crown of her head. All at once, her hair flows down her shoulders anew like a waterfall, and she re-opens her bloody crimson eyes with a wince. "Uncle Kaien said, once, that someday that'd happen. That it'd be awfully painful, a truly atrocious experience." Yuuki looks at her own severed head, which slowly peels apart into a cloud of white butterflies smeared in dark red blood. "But I never thought it'd feel quite like that. Really, Brother Kaname was right..." "We're always hurt most by the ones we love, no matter what." All the blood that had spilled, fountained out, or pooled around Yuuki rise up, droplets unbound by gravity as Yuuki's literal essentia obeys her mindstate and vaguely directed will: Turning into a billion sharp points not unlike fangs, to perforate Pavo very tenderly and lovingly - a vampire's affection.
Priscilla	"Not in that way." the Batter says to Biteblade, ostensibly even agreeably, even with his eyes appropriately veiled in deep shadow. He winds back and swings again, his bat a jagged white line cut through the air, but just over her, as her target veers from him and into the Holy Trininty behind him, missing her with a gigantic shockwave by inches. Her daggers cut into the strange, 2d halos, though they weightlessly zip away from her in instants. Bizarrely enough, even cutting the glowing white circles, she draws overly vivid red blood, splattering it gruesomely across the first base. The Batter turns instantly to face her, or rather, he already was --it's like playing an ancient partially 3d game, where the sprites always face the player. The only stance he has for her is the Batting Stance. Is the fact this place is a baseball diamond somehow playing into him? "There's no 'back' though. The Mission is the end of the home run. It began and it ends here." While the Add-Ons dance out of Biteblade's way, the Batter swings from behind her. Rather, he swings at the air, and just as he does, a ball of pale white light strikes the bat, exploding into a searing flash. Three illusory batters appear around her in the remaining cardinal directions, then flicker rapidly between their stations, closing in from all sides, and delivering an impossible fourfold attack from multiple regions in space.
Starbound Flotilla	"Voting on sssuicide method doesssn't make it right!" Biteblade barks out her own aggression at Strange. "Will /break/ everything! You, yyrrrrrrhhh!!" She seems to have gotten a little more enraged by that matter of the furnaces. "Shut up! Robot friend wasss doing her bessst! SHUT UP!!" She's so legitimately angry at him about that, of all things, that she intercepts the strike against Pavo, plants her feet on the ground, and shouts as her armor's insulating elements fry. That's when she unloads something unnerving: A series of heavy, rather unusual bolts are loosed from her bow, arcing up, slamming into the ground near Strange, and suddenly beginning to grow. Like cuttings from some great plant, these things burst into tremendous tree-like growths that sway hard, trying to fill the air with branches that will smash him down. There's no fine control since Biteblade isn't a Greenfinger, these are simply pre-programmed. Pavo still has things to deal with though, even though Yuuki's just gotten... stalled, in a way. Namely, August. The blades clash, cutlass against August's own churning sword. She holds it back. "'Just?' What do you think gods are? Beings with power. I bless the ones who pray to me, I smite the ones who disbelieve, I make the world what I know it should be. What's more powerful than that? My godhood is the /truth/, because truth never existed in the first place! I--" Her cutlass snaps under the blade's pressure. "Ghhk--!! AAAAAARGH!" She screams out, as it cuts DEEP, surging into her armor. "BASTARD!" She kicks off, surging back towards the pool of blood Yuuki's left behind. This turns out to be a bad idea. Blood lances around and into her. Practically screaming out in pain, she's pinned between a thousand teeth. Clenching her beak, she wrenches one arm free enough to put pressure on the wound August gave her. "Hhhhh... Damn it, damn it!" Pavo gushes smoke from out of her body, but it's clear that she can't actually move. Biteblade's crushed from four directions, a multitude attack that sends her flying back. She rolls, tumbles, and slides hard. But she's only suffered one wound, not four; three of those Batters, she managed to phase through. Still, even taking a shot from only the fourth, a chunk of her armor is crunched up badly. She skids to a stop near Pavo. "Really. Really. Really, really, really." She mutters, in a stressed, pained tone. "Sssick. Sssick of you. Do you know what you did? You ruined all the ssstability. Floran heard what it wasss like before you got involved! Cycle, cycle, cycle. Ssstable. Declining, fine. But lasssting long asss it can. But you, hhhh, you jussst butt in." Who's she talking to? It doesn't seem to be the Batter, but it also doesn't seem to be someone like Strange. It's ambiguous, but personal. "Glowy shaman man wantsss to break world, but he'sss not even /clossse/ to bad asss you. He keepsss sssecret. You won't even /talk/. No wordsss, no jussstification." "I know what it's like to not care about meat people. But what you're doing with the Batter... I'm surprised more people don't hate /you/." In a vicious rush, she lashes out at the blood, using a power-armor-enhanced bite to crush through some of the pinning blood-teeth and trying to wrench Pavo away. She's only got one dagger in her hand now. Pavo has the shattered lower half of her cutlass. They dance, suddenly. Biteblade leads, Pavo follows. Smoke billows out, and the pair surge through it, nearly impossible to see. They surge under the ground and then back up from it, swiping and stabbing in a ruthless dancing rush against those on the ground, fast enough and darting around the field quickly enough that it's hard to track them, all while hoping the terrain messes with Strange enough.
Doctor Strange	"Who exactly are you fighting for?" Strange yells back at Biteblade. As the tree sprouts up from the ground, he once more opens the Eye of Agamotto. "I've seen /one/ being here who wasn't miserable, and even he wears a mask." Rather than try to blast it away or outfly it, Strange instead rapidly accelerates the growth of Biteblade's orchard. Each one goes from sapling to tree even faster than usual. That rapidly shrinks his available airspace, and a branch does end up slapping the wizard hard enough to send him tumbling through the air. Shortly after the impact, he rights himself, however--and the trees begin to wither. Leaves turn brown, fall, regrow, and repeat. Limbs snap under their own weight and fall to the ground around Biteblade as age overtakes them. In moments, the orchard has become one of dead trees. "Couldn't use the Grands to fix it? Fine." Strange begins weaving another spell. Sparks begin to fly from his mandalas as the glyphs lock into place. "Why didn't you come to me? To Eryl? There's a handful of Guardians here. You think one mental health expert for each would the Paladins' bank?" Both arms whirl behind him, building momentum for a strike. One fist snaps to his waist, the other strikes at the temple of an unseen opponent. A fiery shockwave erupts from the mandala before his fist, splintering the tree before him and sending a stream of burning shrapnel Biteblade's way. "Or would that rain on your little sadness parade?"
Priscilla	"Tell that to the Spectres." the Batter says to Biteblade, resolving as one of his 'afterimages' turns out to be him, the original sputtering away with the rest. "There's nothing to justify. Get out of the way." Biteblade comes back in. He winds up. Takes his stance. He becomes the baseball-symbolic icon of wound-spring tension and power, ready to unleash another brutal assault at the flick of a switch. ". . ." " ?" " ." He only drops his stance the instant before Biteblade and Pavo come to him as part of the double Grand-powered twinned assault, bracing his bat with both hands and angling it back and forth to block the avalanche of oncoming blows. The bizarrely sturdy wood rattles and clacks in his grasp at each deflected slash, harder than anything describable as iron, but cuts flash red all across his body and the shapes of his Add-Ons, tracing flurries of scarlet lines back and forth across them, fading and reappearing, piling up a tapestry of ghostly blood all around. Uncharacteristically stuck on the backfoot, the Batter drops his guard just long enough to take a normal, if supernaturally hefty and damaging swing at the two of them on the way past, before falling into a sort of 'back row' alongside the Add-Ons, putting them in front of them instead of behind him as support. They start automatically launching a variety of whit energy bolts, while he stands there. " ." he calls out.
August Kohler	"You smite the ones who disbelieve - it's all control! Control and manipulation doesn't make you a god, damn it, it just makes you a politician!" August's emotions are getting heated and clouding his judgment, as Pavo's sword breaks, and she's wounded, knocked back. As her and Biteblade speak, Pavo and Biteblade use their Grounds in a ruthless dance, which slashes horribly into Dietrich, rending armor and causing August to bleed from his nose. "Whatever! It doesn't matter if you're a god or not! We've fought too many times. Now it's the time to show you that I mean business. Let's call this...Black and Red." The bonfire on Dietrich's blade rises. But mixing into it is pure black darkness, swirling around, making a massive strike. Dietrich rushes forward, despite being damaged, and moves to hit into Pavo as she dances across the ground. She's hard to track, but Dietrich is fast. The blade comes down.
Zero Kiryu	For the first time since the battle began, the surrounding foliage stirrs. It reacts to the Batter's sudden empty calls. Rustles resound through the baseball stadium as blooming roses turn like a multitude of heads towards the Batter. Resting within the mass of plant life, Zero Kiryu frowns. His attention turns towards his mind's eye, flitting through the active combatants but settling around the Batter. Where is the Puppeteer? Why does the Batter act as if he has been robbed of its advice and influence?
Yuuki Kuran	The Blade Dance Meat Smokenado is a powerful, harrowing attack, and would probably kill Yuuki... Again. She's got a lot of deaths to die before she stops coming back. A tremendous cross-slash with Pavo's broken sword and Biteblade's swiping strikes carves Yuuki into quarters, another bloody arc cut through her that follows through like long, arcing wings. Much like Biteblade's phasing defense, her essentia becomes unreal and misty, and pours down to the ground like wax melting in accellerated time, dark mist pooling about the baseball-pitch'ed earth and mingling with the smoke from Pavo's Grand-granted powers. Gone like so much mist in a fog-bank, her voice continues to carry. "There's really no way you win, but it's not your fault. It's not about power, or ability. It's because we're not fighting the same fight. My goal has changed a lot since I woke up here. Purification went from a whim to a need, but not for Elsen, or any of the others here." "I want--" Yuuki's words are a breath against the ear, just over the shoulder, sourced upon the periphery, as butterflies flutter about like small speakers, and the twisted woods that Biteblade had summoned shelter the shadowy shapes of fuzzy black wolves. "--you." The dark mist curls among Biteblade and Pavo's smoking whirlwind, and even pours forth from some of Pavo's wounds ominously. "The cycle to end precisely for the reason that Biteblade seems so preoccupied in preserving it. Why Seft was so passionate that they considered ending my forever. Why Moonfin would decieve my eyes and ears and nose and touch, to protect me. Why Albert, ever the professional, would refuse to budge from before me." "Why George would tell me that purification is absolutely what needs to be done. He'll never tell me until this is over, so perhaps I'm wrong. He thinks I'll hate him. But he is with me, and I'll forgive him for an eternity of evenings because of that." The wounds inflicted by Yuuki's fanglike lances of blood begin to fester and sear, aggravating on Pavo like burrowing beetles, requiring a swift cleansing work to not progress like fire into Pavo's body proper like a poison. "You've tried to push me away, but I hate it. I want you to be exactly the powerful, godlike being you are, but I also want you to let me into your heart. To be free of this place!" Like all shitty teleporters, Yuuki appears behind Pavo, laying her hands lightly on the avian's shoulders and whispering. "Once everything is purified and this cycle is shattered, I'll make sure to make it up to all of you. Especially you. I can't pay Biteblade back, but if it's godhood and power you want, we've got forever to make you the golden being you've come so close to. With me, and nobody else. You'll swear your alliegance to no power higher than our Concord. To Priscilla. To me."
Starbound Flotilla	"Hugo!" Biteblade cries out amid her warpath of stabbing. "All thisss for Hugo, all agreed -- you break world, then..." She seems like she doesn't know, but she knows it's dire. "Ha! Hugo's hardly worth fighting for, but you'll regret it if you decide to take him down in this. And why haven't /you/ asked for help here, Sorcerer Supreme? You /are/ the help. Just like me. You've always got almost everything you need for the best outcome, just need a little more. Hahahahaha!" "Shaman want trussst but never wantsss to give it!" "Didn't believe Seft when she was convinced this was the best path!" "Why should believe /you/?!" "Your magic?" "Deep insssight?" "Promises to fix everything?" "Shaman would make sssuch a /great/ Guardian." Biteblade spits. She phases around some of the shrapnel, but as one might expect, the phasing is hideously imperfect when it comes to attacks against her. "Ghhhhrhhh!" She cries out in pain as the wood tears through her body, half-phased. Pavo rushes keeps at her side, moving to intercept further projectiles, blocking them hard with her shielding magnorbs and suffering the jarring impact. Biteblade coughs a little sap-blood from the interior shrapnel, then sucks it back up. She recovers just enough to rush to meet August with Pavo. Two blades come up, and cross in sync to catch the strike. It powers through both anyway, and shatters the diamond under them. One of Biteblade's legs is forced down as she kneels, and it makes a horrible, awful CRACK. "How, ghhh, /how/ do you keep getting all this new power? Ghhhhh, /damn/ it." She's getting sick of constantly learning he's gone off to do something insane and gotten fresh new energies out of it! They're launched back hard by the strike, barely evading the worse end of a deep gash as they do. Yuuki's hand comes to rest on her shoulder right as she's amid holding back the blade. That the vampire could be so tranquil in conversation among all this is unnerving, to say the least, and what she says during it certainly throws Pavo off. It's... strange to feel that burrowing as it happens. Pavo's breath clenches up. She's reminded, distantly, of a memory... of what happened a long time ago in a City under a Mountain. It gently pokes at the back of her brain, like a swelling after a concussion. "This..." She starts. Her throat closes up. She feels nauseaous. Her body heaves strangely. The smoke begins to sputter out, revealing her eyes shut tight. When she opens them, she's back there in the temple she built under the mountain. Why is she back there in the temple, with Samea? Why is Yuuki standing over Samea's broken, shattered body? Something clicks into place, like a gear sliding nicely into its spot in a clock. It won't turn until later, but it will turn soon.
Starbound Flotilla	But then Biteblade shouts, "Focusss!!" And Pavo snaps out of it. "No, I... Bitey, this isn't gonna go through. You can hold your own on it but I've gotta... Ghhhhh..." She reaches under her hood with her free hand. "One last bit of cover! Take them down or get out of here, but I'm not goin' on like this!" She's too banged up, especially from that last overhead. She reaches for something smokey above her head and throws it down hard. Whatever it is, it emits far too much smoke to see it clearly. And then, everyone around finds it even harder to see anything but what's maybe one foot in front of them. It reaches even as high as Strange's flight. Except Biteblade. "Fine! FINE!! Floran will finish it on own! Floran won't let purification get out of control!" And amid the hideously obfuscating smoke, she moves aggressively, as a hunter; from every angle, she tries to pick out each opponent individually, intending to pounce, claw, stab, and most importantly, sink those many teeth into their flesh. She's running out of steam and options, and she has to dump as much damage into this moment of bursting smoke as she can.
August Kohler	As Pavo is injured, August bitterly responds. "Because I've grown as a person. Have you?" Eventually, though, she retreats with a cloud of smoke, and August can't see a thing. But he knows the fight isn't over. Biteblade's still there. So August focuses, concentrates, breathes in. Watches one foot. And then... Biteblade's rapid strikes are blocked. One claw is blocked rapidly with the blade, followed by a stab, followed by the sword moving up to catch a bite and push Biteblade back. The blade suddenly unfurls into a chainsaw whip, still lit aflame and encased in darkness, and lashes out. It lashes out to strike Biteblade, over and over again, and to grind her bark-like flesh, to rip into her. "Give up the Grands already! There's no going back here!"
Priscilla	Zero, looking for insight again in the strange uncanny valley of personhood that is the Batter, experiences only a couple of instants of a result. Through the thick layers of saintlike patience, built tall and thick around the only ingress that any of the outside world has, he feels the briefest of hints, of surprise, and discomfort, a split second of uncertainty, then intentional disengagement. He catches just a bit of it, before there is nothing, and then after that, it 'fills in' with a sort of static --a harsh, convoluted, nonsensical sort of 'mechanical' churning and breathing. The gap in his time sensing anything corresponds roughly to where the batter is getting his shit beat, looking vaguely stranded on first base, keeping rooted completely to his spot, not budging an inch from the point he's chosen to defend --his isle of where he's supposed to be-- and fending off Biteblade from all directions. Almost completely passive, he and his Add-Ons are cut and torn and hacked away at from a million angles, the random blasts and swings going wide through the blinding smoke. It's a subtle thing, yet instantly recognizable, the change in his fighting. He's relying on his eyes, hidden though they are. Attacking where Biteblade where he last sees her and where he thinks she might be, defending where he notices her in time. It's a rather strange realization, that he's spent all this time not doing that. Fighting without taking any input from the battlefield itself at all. Not needing to know why he's attacking and defending, only when. When that switch-off happens, where the strings through which Zero sometimes feels the presence of the Puppeteer instead being hooked on something unknown and unknowable, the Batter reasserts his former presence. The Add-Ons snap into formation behind him, regaining their perfect organization. Carved up, flagging, low on juice, and stood in an island of blood drenched all around --but not on-- home base, the Batter ceases looking around for Biteblade, lowers his head, and then releases a homerun swing that causes a firecracker chain of white, flashing, starburst 'smacks' to crackle all around him, drowning out his surroundings with a hundred sparking impacts. The Add-Ons emite bright, thin, cutting beams from their centers, revolving around him through the smoke.
Doctor Strange	An angry Captain emerges from the smoke as Strange is flying past. It's already difficult to avoid their speed without obstacles. With a field of smoke and dead trees to weave through, it's no less so. The strike catches him directly in the center of mass. Strange is knocked from the air. He rolls across the ground, like a stone skipped across a lake. A thick fallen tree limb stops his trajectory. He is silent, for a moment, save his breathing. Pavo and Biteblade both have comments about his trustworthiness. The sorcerer rises--slowly, unsteadily. "News flash... assholes." He takes a steady, measured breath, and has a seat... in the air. His eyes close. His hands fold into the lotus position. Mandalas which had winked out appear once more. They are joined by new ones, appearing behind him. They are spaced out vertically; one for each chakra on his body, including the one which rests above all others. The Crown Chakra burns brightly. When Strange opens his eyes, they aren't those of a mortal, but instead blinding pools of brilliant orange. "I /am/ a guardian." Rays of dimensional energy saw through the forest, chasing Pavo and Biteblade like the fire of an arc welder. "Why didn't I ask for help? I never had the chance." Another blast from his eyes vaporizes another tree. "I had a plan, I was told it wouldn't work. No sooner did I bring up a second idea than Biteblade grabbed her Grand and ran off to kill the Batter." "There is a difference between me and that dead fatass, and that difference is accountability. If you want to hold me accountable, you know my name, you know my face, and you know where I break my bread." Strange lifts both palms and bows his head. "And if you /ever/ have a problem with the way I do things, you can come and see me--anyt time." All of the remaining swords, staves and spears which line the stadium lift up from the edges and fly into the air. Like the conductor of an orchestra, Strange flicks his hands, each motion hurling them at the captains in cone-shaped swarms of orange.
Yuuki Kuran	It's easy to be tranquil when you can feel the heart all that matters in your hands, simple to be patient when you can expect with full faith a 'forever' to come, day after day. Yuuki bears down Pavo, sitting with the fallen and distant Avian as they see a vision. She is 'aware' that Pavo is having a reaction, but doesn't pry. "Thank you, Pavo. It makes all the words and the pain worth it for someone to listen. Biteblade did that, for me, and now I'll do it for you and we'll both move past this hurt." The cloud of smoke - of thick air like an extra-breathable pea soup fog - fills the air around, her, and Biteblade's hungry maw tears into her ragged clothes that are more ephemera than real cloth at this point... But of all the people who'd take a chunk of flesh and blood out of Yuuki Kuran, Biteblade is the one whose permittance is a blank check. But, like Pavo, it's pretty dangerous to consume big ol' chunks of a terribly normal girl, blood and all. "There's no route where this doesn't end in a death. No route where things get better. Worse, every time. A slow decay. Just enough food that if you ration it, you can live until you tire of living. But that's not really life. And my precious friends are tied up in it, so wound up in an iron lung for a patient that will never breathe on their own." "I never understood why anyone would ever decide to cease living, becuase I couldn't understand a circumstance that I'd decide to die, but if I was trapped in this terrible way, perhaps I would wish to live well for a short while, to make the most out of things, than stagger on, for a forever that I know would become 'someday'." "Stephen wants to fix things. He believes, wholly and fully, that he's right. He has the power to do it, probably. Either way... Live or die, succeed or fail, I want my friends back. Not trapped here too. Elsen, or Hugo, they'd want you to be happy. Pavo, and Biteblade, and Seft, and Moonfin, and Albert, and George. The lying old man through the pure, glorious divinity." "I'll be there, for your grief. It's not about surviving, it's about living." "The worst that happens is a long someday becomes a short 'soon'."
Starbound Flotilla	There's no shortage of coincidental serendipity in the fact that Biteblade takes rather a lot more damage from a chainsaw than from many other things. She has to face it down at some point, now that August's main aggro target is gone, and she takes it dead on. It cuts through densewood armor, finally, at last, getting an opportunity to do what it was designed to do. Densewood's tough, rough, and powerful, but it's not countering its exact nemesis. The armor is blasted, quickly even shredded, all in spite of the smoke. "If there'sss no going back, Floran will make sssure there'sss no going /forward/!" She calls out, lashing the whip away and pulling back. A spray of arrows is all she can muster for August. Pavo is gone -- retreated in the smoke -- but Biteblade is still there. And when the sawing dimensional energies reach her, they bite through where armor has failed. She's bloodied, sap dripping in pools from her body, by the impact of spears and swords. It's barraging her hard. "Hold accountable? You know what will happen when you grasssp sun here? Ghhhh, no! Can't cure walking ghossst, the more you try the more they hurt, and die anyway!" She spits, something sizzling in her mouth. Painful inside, not healing like she's used to meat being. It hurts. "Nnnhhhh... Director friend, isss at leassst worth peaceful decline, not horrible decay. If world will die, at leassst with dignity, not choking and disssappointed by neon sssky when opening bunker door. Desserve that, if can't die in battle like it tried." "It tried before." She moves rather suddenly. There's only the tinging sound of dropped hyperglass, and the sizzling of a baseball pitch burning under the hot glass. She flicks, zips, and maneuvers all around the shining lightshow. "Yearsss, yearsss, yearsss, cyclesss ago, world tried. Ssskiesss of fire, horrible cloudsss, rain that burned. Only a few left! Hidden in the bunker! Floran heard. Wasss great! Like great Hunter World!" And with a momentary pause in the gaps between sparking white blasts, she seems to consider. She has little power left in her armor. Strange presents a terrible threat to what she thinks of the world. But... well, the Batter is the worst, most pressing threat. If she can slow him down, if she can force him to at least walk ahead with a wound, she needs to. Her arm crackles, a noise of paper and water. The noise accelerates. The Grand Brachial reveals itself under shattered armor, reams of paper unfolding, displaying a horrifying series of diagrams of human and cow anatomy and musculature. "Floran ressspect great world-hunt. Floran think, maybe better if world died in the hunt. But it didn't. World dessserve a hunt to honor it." She sinks into the ground. She rushes below it like a horrifying land-shark, swirling around the Batter, trying to find a good angle. She's probably not gonna win this one. But she intends one thing, and one thing only: To phase through everything in the Batter's array of offensive defense, and carve just one mark on his perfect, pristine, holy white body. One scar from the hunt. "If world isss going to be purified again, dessserve... to purify in the hunt!!" The massive slash releases so much energy that the shockwave may well actually knock the others back hard. But it leaves Biteblade open to the conclusion and finale.
August Kohler	"...sorry, but my momentum can't stop." August says to Biteblade, as he tears through her armor, her hands stopping the chainsaw whip, and is blasted back by the shockwave, taking enough damage to himself and Dietrich that he needs to rest before it'll regenerate. The whip pulls back into Dietrich's hand. And then, August takes a breath, and looks up. The Grand Brachial is exposed. Dietrich lunges. The whip goes snarling out, moving to grasp around the Grand Brachial. With a painful, powerful tug, Dietrich pulls back, probably injuring Biteblade heavily as well, to just rip it out and send it flying in his direction to attempt to catch it.
Yuuki Kuran	It's tiring, fighting all her friends. It's easier, with Pavo gone. Two at the same time was almost unbearable. Almost. Standing up to immediately be knocked flat on her butt by a shockwave, Yuuki has to really struggle to find the will to get back up. "George told me that, even if I feel so very strongly that I never want to hurt you, that all I want to do is support you and fill your life with wonderful things, that going easy on you and not fighting you would be a poor gift." "George is a liar, of course, and it'd be so serving for all the Guardians to fall and the Grands to fall into our hands." Yuuki shrugs, dusting herself off, breathing in the last traces of Pavo's smoke and rooting around to see if the thing she threw against the ground was the Smoke-based Grand. "But really, what do you get to the strongest fighter in the Flotilla? What do I get you, Biteblade, what gifts can I shower you with? The best fights I can find. The sweetest conquests and the bitterest defeats, and all the hunting you could ever stomach." Yuuki's voice is light, playful. "You... have a stomach, right? I was never clear on that." "So, Biteblade, you've done it. Fought to strike-out the Batter, and even beat down Stephen Strange and August Kohler." "But you won't beat me. It's not allowed. So the gift I'll give you... is a hunt, and it's end!" Yuuki's blood pools at her feet, like a spill in reverse. Meawhile, from the periphery, more wolves appear, fuzzy and black and without eyes, merely the impression of intelligent perception. They fall upon Biteblade as Dietrich goes for the Grand Brachial, snarling midnight black teeth and claws. Nipping and biting and clawing like predators at play. They'll draw sap, of course, but Yuuki could never really harm Biteblade. Smother her in love, though... That she can do.
Priscilla	At this point, the Batter has stopped replying. Whatever strange, automatic marionetting machinery guides his bat now has his focus occupied. He turns and swings exactly as Biteblade lunges for him, ignoring everything in her way to come straight at him, just to make a point. The Add-Ons line up, thrumming with energy, building purifying light within themselves for the exact moment she comes within swinging range. His gloves creak around the handle of his bat, containing an immeasurable amount of tension. She sinks through the ground, and becomes effectively unhittable. The collective firepower angles down, blowing a gigantic trench through the solid metal that lies below the false dirt of the field, carving meters deep all the way from home to second base and the outfield, but it's not deep enough to actually reach her. She leaps right into him, fires her own, commensurately overcharged slash, having abandoned all defense for one fully offensive hit, overcoming an opponent who has automatically split it efforts between both. The Batter flashes red. Blood splashes wide over the ground. The jersey tears open, a narrow gash shredding through the cloth, exposing the temporary scarlet of the dagger line fading into pale skin. The Batter flies backwards with the pressure wave, crashing into the interior stadium wall, but as he does, he reaches out and snatches Biteblade by the collar. His grip is beyond iron. Even though the patch of his body exposed through his torn jersey is alarmingly shredded, the clench of his fingers is abnormal beyond that.
Starbound Flotilla	The GRAND BRACHIAL is yanked hard. Paper tears, but doesn't quite tear. There's a sound like meat, like sinew snapping. The GRAND is snapped up. It looks like a strange square of paper, a massive design describing cow and human musculature in great detail. Alongside that, the GRAND SPECTRAL has been left behind by Pavo. A final gambit -- or perhaps a sort of surrender to Yuuki's efforts -- it has been giving off massive amounts of smoke. What it is, exactly, is nearly impossible to describe, considering the smoke it's giving off nearly constantly obfuscates it. Such a bizarre object. The Batter has been taken out. What took Seft an unspeakable reach into the most dangerous zones of willpower and determination took Biteblade considerably less, but the cost was still rather great. She's snatched hard, and held in place tightly as the wolves fall upon her, bloodying her and then, soon, pinning her. She's left trapped in place, pinned and, now, truly exhausted. The Grand Brachial can't phase her out of this one. "Hhhhhh... When he walks into the Room..." She mutters back to Yuuki. "When Floran's /prey/ walks into that room, floran hope they see it. A ssscar. A ssstain. One tiny, tiny little flaw." She hisses, sucking in her breath. "World ssstill have a little hunt left in it. Floran knowsss. Maybe enough to ssstop thisss."