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Marigold	BEIJING DAXING WARPGATE HUB (FORMERLY DAXING AIRPORT)      Interworld Stopovers, 2F; with chunks of rubble from 3F, 4F, and 5F.      The warpgate hub is on fire, and it's hard to tell how much is from Nobunaga and how much is the dragon. Its internal structure is bludgeoned and caving, open-air floors slouching onto each other like a disintegrating layer cake. The great beast lies dead, slowly decaying into arcane black goop.      Galle is hurt bad. Sigrun, the spooky High Wingleader in Bern's service, glances towards the gate where Murdoch fled and chooses which Wyvern General she wants to protect; between her former student and a man she barely knows, it's not a hard choice. Gripping him by the arm, she warily turns to leave with Lugh. "Come on, Raigh. But you've got a lot of explaining to do. Galle, chin up; you've had worse. Losing Maltet twice..." "Ghhk..."      From near the upturned supply trolley, Lucius stares after the orphan boy who calls him Father, with welling-up eyes and hands clutched to his chest. His skin is pale. His mouth works to form words, but sound doesn't come out. Lugh almost looks back, but can't meet Lucius's eyes.      It might be the last time they ever see each other. But to keep the Raigh disguise intact, Lugh can't afford to give away that he sees Lucius as anything more than a captor. I'm sorry, comes across so clearly in the boy's body language. I have to do this. No, you don't. You're still a child. Stay with me, please! . . .      And their wordless conversation ends there, as Sigrun casts her sharp gaze back, and Lucius averts his face to hide the love in his eyes.      The distant screaming has mostly stopped. There are sirens now instead. Overhead sprinklers try to smother the flames, but they can't reach here, where the ceiling is smashed open to the sky. In the coming weeks there will probably be uncomfortable questions and uncomfortable-er paperwork about how and why this all happened.      Right now, though, the dripping of Murdoch's blood on the white floor remains fresh. Its trail leads to that artificial Warpgate.      "Roy, come on!" Cecilia barks, gripping his wrist and rushing down the last of the stairs. The poor boy looks half as stricken as Lucius does; Cecilia is immunized to the pathos, simply because she doesn't know him. "Rutger--! No, everyone, after him! If Murdoch gets away, there wasn't a point!"      . . .      It isn't a tough pursuit. He's a wounded man, and he only has a minute's lead. The warpgate hub leads to another world's smaller subsidiary, where Murdoch's blood still makes a trail; through another warpgate to a gray-metal civilian transport depot on an icy planet, where Bernish bootprints diverge in the snow. He must've started bandaging his wounds here; none of the snow is tinged pink.      Still, the boot-prints only go to three different warpgates on the depot's outskirts (natural ones, this time; just purple-green-aberrating tears in space).
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine, confliction evident in her frown as she watches Sigrun lead Raigh away. Cecilia's shouted orders rouse her from the haze, and she hurriedly unwraps Maltet's head from the base of her own spear, stowing it in her bag as she begins to hustle along Murdoch's trail.     It doesn't take an expert huntress to follow the blood trail to its end. Once the bootprints split up in the snow, she pauses, examining the spacing, regularity, and size of each trail's prints before they're trampled by onrushing Elites. Finding *a* Bernish soldier would be trivial for her. But only one of these trails has a General Murdoch at the end, and with enough time she could be sure; here, now, she can only make her best first-glance guess. With his height, the weight of his armor, the length of his stride, the specific injuries' limits on his range of motion...     She spares only two or three seconds to do the math, counting on her years of experience with just this sort of thing to guide her true. Once she has a gate picked out she hurries off in pursuit, calling out behind her to the others, "We have to check all three!"
Audrey Basque	When we last left off, Audrey had put on the PETRA EGO PAGE SUIT after getting her back clawed open by a dragon, to avoid getting her head lopped off by Sigrun's javelin. She then narrowly stopped herself from making a floating crystal psychic replica of Night Mist.     Don't worry about it. "Rutger--! No, everyone, after him!"     Audrey had no horse in this race, either! Whatever Cecilia or Roy say goes-- barring possibly Lilian stepping in, and that depends.     The stained glass-like suit, despite being made entirely of a similar crystal the Beauty of Ash is made of, flows as normally as fabric when Audrey makes for the Warpgate the general escaped from, along with everyone else. Her back is bloody, obviously through the frosty but still a bit transparent crystal outfit, but she'll deal with that and the pain later.     Or ask for a heal from any of the healers present.     That'd be nicer, actually.     Arrival at the snowy depot causes her to shiver, spotting the boot prints that diverge without much of a hint as to which are his'.     "Ugh... they split up. I might... maybe I can figure out which one they used? Give me a... give me a moment, unless someone has a faster idea."     She dismisses the Petra EGO suit, returning to her torn fancy incognito rich girl outfit. Back aside, it's still intact enough to do a quick reading without a hassle. Of the surrounding energy-- of the Warpgates. Of the sky.     Can she just divine which one Murdoch went through?     That'd be nice and convenient.
Odette Raskins	Limping along slightly after so many close calls and bad falls, Odette still has a lot to process even though the constructed dragon is already dead. There's plenty of wounded, but only a certain number she cares about immediately. There's still hostiles about, too, even though many of them are already leaving. Some of them are also leaving with Lugh in tow, and she desperately wants to go chase after those pulling him away despite her inability to do much about his captors. Seeing that look on Lucius' face makes it hurt all the more, too, even as she forces herself to grab the priest by his arm and gives it a light, yet firm tug to keep him moving in the direction of Murdoch's pursuit. "W... We'll get him back. We always do." She utters to Lucius with a sharp inhale following that, fighting to keep her cool despite the anxiety that he can easily feel through the sweat and trembling of her hand. It's a good thing she's facing away from where Sigrun and Lugh are, too, since her jaw is clenched unnaturally tightly to try and keep that brave voice on. "The sooner we find out what Murdoch knows, th... The sooner we can get back on their trail." As the group pursues Murdoch, Odette sticks with Lucius. She still has her main job to do, and he did take some nasty blows from Galle that she hadn't had a chance to treat until now. Her touch is noticeably gentler than usual, between plain favoritism and also knowing that this situation is one where she really wouldn't want to give him more reasons to be upset. That's not to say she isn't careful treating Audrey's and Madeleine's wounds, of course, but she does move noticeably faster to make sure they're ready for another possible battle. "If they split up... Do we need to get all of them, or just Murdoch? If we need to hit them all, then splitting our heavy hitters and healers might be..." She grimaces slightly, not really wanting to finish that thought even though she knows separating from Lucius would be the optimal call if they do need to split up.
Nobunaga	It quickly becomes clear just how much of the fire is Nobunaga's fault when she collapses her reality marble back into herself. The blazing hellscape (largely) disappears, leaving rubble and heat in its wake. The specter of the Demon King, but a fleeting dream. Crimson eyes flit towards Sigrun, retreating with Lugh and Galle in tow; then the other way where Murdoch and his soldiers fled.     > "Every soldier is a dead man when he puts on his colors."     "Reprehensible," Nobunaga mutters under her breath. If a soldier is dead, then what honor or glory is there to gain in such service? Antithetical to samurai, and thus to the Demon King. As she straightens her posture, adjusting her gloves, she reaches a conclusion: If Murdoch is one of Bern's greatest generals, than they do not know what a great general is in the first place.     That isn't to say he isn't still invaluable to the Lycian effort, though.     The warlord lowers, hopping off her weapons and following the bloody trail left by the fleeing officer. When the trail passes through two different gates and results in diverging paths in snow to three different destinations, she comes to a stop. Crouching, Nobunaga hums thoughtfully, "So they split up to better their chances." She takes note of the number of bootprints leading to each gate.     > "We have to check all three!"     After a moment, she rises. Resting a hand on the hilt of her sword, Nobunaga approaches the gate that only one Bernish soldier had chosen. It's what she would do; and perhaps some small part of her expects Murdoch to still be a decent leader who doesn't want to needlessly sacrifice his men.
Desire Stars	Kamen Rider Geats leaps from the end of his constructed rail line. The half-construction-equipment half-weapon Gigant Blaster, looking like a cross between a cement mixer and a heavy laser cannon, is lifted and fired, creating a brace for a pillar to hold up a section of ceiling spiderweb-cracking from the lip of the open-air hole.     "Na-Go. Don't make it harder than it has to be."     "But..." She's frozen, watching Lugh go; debating on following.     "They'll kill you. One prisoner isn't worth it. Let's take the advantage we have and worry about the one we lost later."     "A prisoner... right," she answers shakily. Lugh... please be careful. Lucius loves you. If we lose you...     The two give chase instead to Murdoch, Na-Go lifting off with the Armed Propeller, Geats using the Boost Armor's annealed leg-thrusters to propel himself towards the gate. On the other side, both Riders pause.     "Oh, no... which one did he take?"     "Hard for me to say, without knowing much about him," admits Geats. He removes the Powered Builder Buckle and swaps the Magnum Buckle back onto his armor. "Clever of him to patch himself up right after coming through. Na-Go, let's split up, if Nobunaga's taking that one. I'll take that one and you take that one. If Audrey or Flamel pipe up on the radio, we can always double back to whichever gate is the right one, but I'd rather not take any chances waiting."     "Okay."     Geats takes a step forward, but Na-Go doesn't. He pauses, fox mask slowly looking over his shoulder. "He's a smart kid," he says.     "...he is. You're right. I'll try to believe in him more than I worry about him, even if I'll still worry." Na-Go nods, steels herself, and heads through one of the gates where a few people headed through; Geats turns his attention forward again and does the same.
Petra Soroka	Someday in the coming weeks, there will be paperwork. Hopefully, when that day comes, Petra will have escaped it, and legitimized the scuffle as something more like a 'terrorist disaster' than a 'local skirmish brought into interplanetary transit territory'. Her general inclination when it comes to mass Elite combat, especially with the Lycian League, is to ensure that her primary missions are as secured as possible, and then shift focus to a secondary objective that will make Lilian's job easier. In this case, that meant civilian control and trying to manage the collapse of several crowded floors of warpgate hub, rather than almost certainly adding to the environmental damage with any of her attacks that are large-scale enough to hurt a dragon.     This taught her very quickly that hubs contain way more people than she would've imagined, and in stranger locations. Vignettes of a transformed Sting Silver shielding an eddy of firebreath from rolling down a corridor, or holding up a crumbling concrete pillar with her back: a slower scene for pacing, while Sting Silver points at the typhoon shelter sign labeling the bathroom and tries to patiently explain that fire is the opposite kind of threat that a typhoon is to several civilians hiding there while the heat slowly built up.     Internally, she's hoping that the flame and motion will make it difficult for anyone on the internet to identify *which* mysterious suited heroine(?) was present for this. Alternatively, she wonders if she can just make that Concord assistant she was assigned deal with the legal explanations if they're demanded of her eventually.     She's back in time for Lugh to throw himself to the enemy forces. Her Kamen Rider suit puffs off of her in a burst of smoke and fire, leaving her soot-smeared and sweaty underneath, instinctively raising up her transteam rifle again. Trying to reassess what the hell's going on now that someone new is here (she hasn't seen Sigrun in person!), Petra's eyes catch Lucius's, and the situation suddenly snaps into clarity.     She swears and keeps her sights on the retreating Bernish soldiers for a moment before giving up and falling back in with Cecilia's orders. "Fuck. He must've figured if he stuck with us they'd end up punishing Raigh even if they figured out the truth."     While in pursuit, Petra lingers a little back-- partially because she got a later start than most-- to aside to Roy and Lucius, talking out loud for her own benefit too. "Better proof than anything that they're related, huh? Raigh marches across the entire continent on his own, and then Lugh does this on his own. They're both kind of insanely brave. We'll just have to, like, trust that he can take care of himself."     Petra is not really capable of tracking anything. She's a blunt instrument aimed in a certain direction, and her job starts at 'stopping' Murdoch rather than 'finding' him. She is, however, *extremely* attentive to other people's capabilities, so despite her negative feelings about Madeleine, she sure does know one thing about her. She follows after Madeleine through the warpgate in the frigid transport depot, uncomfortably shivering in her shorts.
Angela	Roland is silent. He blows the smoke from his guns to dissipitate the little trail of it. He isn't feeling to be in a chatting mood. He isn't a tracker, particularly, and the concern here is no longer about hiding his own movements so much as figuring out which route is the right one. This isn't going too well, he thinks, if they don't stop this man then--well Cecilia is right. What's the point of all this, then? But his heart is heavy. He's feeling weighed down. He's booked plenty of people just 'doing their job' or 'trying to catch a break' in service to Angela. But they were City people. They all knew the rules and what the work was, more or less. So did this guy, didn't he? For sure. He even said so himself. He's a dead man until this job is done. It's really just locking the way back home, that's all they're doing. He's unaware about the perils of paperwork, at least. ''He must've figured if he stuck with us they'd end up punishing Raigh even if they figured out the truth.'' Gebura throws a quick swing to try and catch Sigrun before she escapes with Galle and Lugh, but she can't fly and even Mimicry's range has its limits. She clucks her tongue in annoyance. Petra's right. She's going to have to give up on Galle. "Least we made some progress on that relic we needed." She says, frustrated, but not about to throw a fit over it. This future problem is a future problem. THE EGO Armor dispels. Gebnura is scratched up, bruised in a few places, but she takes up the rear. "Sorry, man." She tells Lucius, Mimicry transmogrifying into its original shape which promptly gets sheathed into a scabbard. She doesn't seem to worry about what that must feel to a sword with eyes. She makes it a mind to not listen to the things her EGO says. "I'll go after the 'one' set. You go after one of the others, Roland." GEbura says, making her way in that direction. Roland decides to stick with his boss.
Lilian Rook	Resisting her instincts to keep fighting is harder by far than leaving Murdoch to the others and only just easier than letting Lugh go. The continuous flow of consciousness in adapting to the new situation leaves Lilian feeling an indescribable kind of sickening ache at suddenly slamming the brakes on engaging Sigrun as the next enemy in a seemingly countless string, and compressing everything she wishes she could say into a suspiciously villainous text box with Roy's name on it instead. Letting them go makes her feel ill. Even if Cecilia is right, a boy left unsaved and a fight left unfought claws at her from the inside along the entire pursuit through the Warpgate.     The short break is horrendous for her body, too. It gives her arms long enough to start shivering from muscles and nerves exhausted by those repeated high-strain impact; to say nothing of her attitude, previously troubled, now having time to churn with the luxury of contemplation as to what lies ahead. Galle had done her a favour by throwing the first blow and forcing her hand; hunting a bleeding man through the snow is an experience that compounds Lilian's real fatigue with the imagined kind, born of guilty unease.     §Seriously? Am I that desperate to get away from Lugh? What am I even going to do when I find him? Behead him? That sad old man who failed to say no to Zephiel out of remorse? Just throw him under the wheels of that man's misguided ambitions because he enabled them with his pity? This is ridiculous. Even if all I do is find him, calling everyone else is as good as executing him myself. Is there any possibility he'll be the slightest bit reasonable and surrender like . . . any of the others but Galle?§     No matter how long she might dally at that three-way gate, contemplating the flow of neither probability nor destiny really helps. Murdoch is not someone that Lilian, in her heart of hearts, can really want to find, nor is he someone she can wish to never catch.     'We have to check all three!'     "If there are soldiers on either side then it'll be a simple matter to learn from them which one Murdoch went through." Lilian replies, dull and matter-of-fact. "I'll take a different path just in case.
Flamel Parsons	Having to let Lugh make this choice and leave... Flamel is feeling agony. *Real* agony. After having pushes so hard to reach Murdoch, having found that whole thing faulty, now having to refocus to Murdoch anyway, what is all of this for?     The internal conflict is so intense and so all-encompassing that he's having trouble with his clairvoyance. What would normally allow him to trace a mind as shining and unique as Murdoch in clear footprints is already struggling when he comes through the warpgate. The pulses he emits are distorted, leaving no useful data on display and instead filling the space with translucent images of a mix of Murdoch's and Flamel's knowledge of Raigh, Lugh, Murdoch, and traces of campers in Whispering Rock.     "Focus. Focus, god damn you..." He mutters to himself. Na-Go's fears, Lucius' fears, are his. He speaks up when he passes by, trying to clear his head: "I didn't train him as a psycadet because he was stupid, or bad at it, or ineffective." He says, fists balled up and teeth gritting. "I've taught him how I'd deal with the situation if I were him." His breathing wavers a little though. "But I don't know, I, I don't know, if I find him dead after all this, I don't know what I'm gonna do." The clairvoyance flickers, light flaring up and down in his pulsed waves again.     "Fuck it." He mutters, and lets his internal conflict spill out. Dozens of phantasmal Parsons Institute workers, fighting and arguing with each other, spill out of him. Normally a phantom image of the man himself would show the trail of his more intensive psychic work, but this time, his inner conflict means it's more visible when he gets a foot in every nearby mind. If anyone here in this subsidiary crossroads is hiding under a table, anyone in this structure watching or observing, he leaps into their memory to find a record of where they *think* Murdoch went, or where he would go, well, they're more familiar with the gates than he is.     Hopefully Audrey gets what she's after with her own work, but if Murdoch's cleverness is beneath divine notice, maybe it shares a little wisdom with any minds in walking distance. Otherwise, Flamel will... stay here, between the three, readying to rush to whichever one people report Murdoch at.
Marigold	"They'll kill you. One prisoner isn't worth it."      Lucius nods, weakly. 'A prisoner'. That's right.      "Sorry, man."      "W... We'll get him back. We always do."      "I couldn't get Raigh back," he says as he trails behind. Even with Lugh decisively gone, the direction he went still pulls at Lucius like a taut string. "... I'm sorry, Odette. Gebura. You're being kind."      "... they'd end up punishing Raigh even if they figured out the truth."      "Lugh's a smart boy," Cecilia says while walking briskly. She nods while the Father winces. "Bern already knows Niime, Raigh's mentor, went mysteriously missing after a clash with us. To find out his twin brother is working for Lycia too... I'd be shocked if they didn't execute him. At least this lie gives them both a chance."      "We'll just have to, like, trust that he can take care of himself."      Deep breath. "That's right," Lucius says. "I trusted in that when I let him and Chad join this army. Something like this... was always going to happen."      Lilian says nothing to him, but her queasiness and Flamel's frustration resonate with his own mood best. He gravitates between them, long blonde hair spilling over his face.      We have to check all three!      It's sensible. Rutger nods, after glancing to Roy and Lilian for assent, and for some reason she elects to accompany Na-Go over Ace- that gate takes them to a sweltering alien jungle. Lucius goes with Lilian and Ace to the backstreets of a modern metropolis instead (neither with immediate sign of the soldiers), though he looks practically hollowed-out. There's a cold sheen of sweat on his skin, and he keeps fidgeting at his collarbone.      A moment after coming through with the two of them, Lucius leans against the brick wall of an alleyway, opens his mouth, and makes a quiet noise halfway between a cough and a sob that draws his shoulders in.      "... Stupid. Why... why, in the world, did I let him come...?"      . . .      Audrey's scrying and Flamel's desperate mental rummaging confirm a moment later that Nobunaga chose correctly, though. Cecilia and Roy follow them through...
Marigold	THE KERRY CLIFFS, IRELAND      An emerald meadow a thousand feet above the sea.      It's funny how these things work out.      Murdoch stands not a hundred feet from the warpgate, with a torn-off piece of that old jacket held to the neck wound Roland gave him. His modern accoutrements have been cast away, baring purple armor. There's still an axe in his other hand, but the fact that he's standing right in front of the cliff is maybe the greater threat.      It's sunny and quiet. The weather is slightly cool. This isn't the kind of moment it should be sunny for. If you look a few thousand feet that way, can you see the specks of tourists?      Cecilia has two-thirds of a spell drawn with her fingertips already, but doesn't cut it loose. "General Murdoch, please!" Roy calls out to his back. "At least let us talk with you!" "What is there left to say?" Murdoch answers, barely looking back. "It was admirably done, Roy. But nothing you'd like to hear is something I want to tell you." "Surely... you saw how that dragon was! You don't want all of Elibe to become that kind of ruin, do you?" "... Zephiel's had one father betray him. I won't have it happen again."
Audrey Basque	Odette healing.     Audrey takes a deep, relieved breath when her back is no longer bleeding on account of a dragon-inflicted gash. Gashes? Well, it's fine now.     And it helps her focus better too.     "T-Thank you," she manages for Odette.     Even though there's no unruining her shirt. Nobunaga chose correctly,     "T-That one!" Audrey says... to whoever has not rushed on into their own gate. "Murdoch went this way."     Audrey follows after Cecilia and Roy.     Stepping through into the sun, Audrey adjusts her eyes-- what a pretty place, if these weren't the circumstances for it.     She withers and shrinks; she has nothing for this. Cecilia, if she bends the terrain to stop a fall, he might just take his own axe to his head, and she can't stop that. Though--     Lilian could, right?     She might not understand how she does it, but she's Fast. If they worked together--     She'd never. She'd simply never, right? "... Zephiel's had one father betray him. I won't have it happen again."     For all she's tried to be around to help, for a while-- she still doesn't fully understand the war, its stakes, its sides. Not enough she'd be comfortable stepping up and arguing alongside the likes of Cecilia and Murdoch.     The best she can do is...     Take in the surroundings. Be ready to act and twist the terrain at a moment's notice, if anyone calls for it.
Nobunaga	Oda Nobunaga is the first to arrive at the Kerry Cliffs. The rustle of the grass under her combat-scuffed dress boots only stops when she is perhaps thirty feet from the wounded general. Here, she pulls her sword-- Saya and all-- from her belt and plants it in front of herself, resting both hands on the hilt one over the other.     "So you do know what good leadership looks like. You're acting as bait so that your men can escape," she states matter-of-factly, "I would have done the same, you know." She turns her head slightly towards Roy when he entreats Murdoch, her eyes shifting back when he replies.     "So you consider yourself his father. I understand. Shall you leave this world, then?" The warlord's head turns to face Murdoch directly. In one smooth motion, she pulls her sword up, gripping the saya and holding it out, "I will take up your duty in your absence. More immediately-- everyone else here is shockingly squeamish. Allow me to take your head while you cut out your own heart. That preserves your honor, no?"     If it's a bluff, it's a really weird one. Is she banking on him being too shocked by someone not trying to stop his suicide? Except to the mind readers: She *isn't* bluffing. She's legitimately just offering to help him with seppuku. And she has no idea that this might actually play into Odette's and Flamel's talents.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel follows what he learns. He reaches the man. He finds him standing at a precipice.     He approaches, not enough to threaten. But enough to converse. "I'd like to hear." He mutters, just kind of squatting in the grass near Roy. He's still bleeding from his wounds, and he can't present much of a threat. "I'd like to talk. I'd like to do something. *Something* about this." He looks past Murdoch, to the sea.     "...This world isn't good to kids." He says, setting his sunglasses aside. "You're right. Now of all times there's nothing I want to hear and nothing I want to say. I'm starting to realize I don't even want your data, your, I don't... I don't want to do this." He puts his face into his palms a bit. "But it's the duty of adults to sit down, listen to things that are horrible, say things that are horrible, and try to make something better for the kids. I have to do this so that Lugh was right, so that it was okay for him to do what he did. You have to do this so Zephiel was right. Right?"     He stares at his palms, and the trickle of blood on them. "Tell me about what you did. No secondhand dossiers, none of Guinivere's version, no *telepathy*, none of that. Tell me what you've done, in your own words. With Zephiel. With Desmond. Make me understand what kind of exhaustion and pain you've got. Make mine worse, 'cuz maybe if you do it right I'll go and take a swim after you after what just happened, and wouldn't *that* be great for Zephiel?" He lets out a pained laugh. "Odette, can you..." He shakes his head. "After this."     Focusing on Murdoch, he mutters, "Something went wrong. I think." He mutters. "Doesn't this seem wrong? Doesn't it feel like, like it was supposed to all go..." He thinks on his theory, lets it thrum under the surface of his words. But he waits, in hopes that Murdoch will engage with his sentiment.     The worst of the worst of the underfunded Psychonauts factions hold a unique and particularly damaging theory: That mental wellness is best achieved by exposing someone at a particular state of pain with someone whose pain matches "wavelength", but who share certain goals. The theory goes that many of the psychohazards involved mean that a stable, healthy healer with the backing of all of society is likely to severely damage a possible subject of healing. Their theories state that whomever truly heals someone must, themselves, allow such vulnerability as to become similarly miserable and distorted -- and all the better if they already are.     It's not a well-liked faction among those Psychonauts and their leadership who pride themselves on stellar mental health. But it's a theory. And Flamel, briefly, is willing to engage with it.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine stumbles to a halt when she sees Murdoch at the edge of the cliff.     "... Zephiel's had one father betray him. I won't have it happen again."     The huntress pauses. Slowly lowers her spear, placing it on the ground beside her. Unarmed, she takes a small step forward. Then her expression hardens, her hands ball into fists.     "So, what? You'll let him kill himself? You're not stupid, you're close enough to him to know what he's after. Right? If he gets his way, when it's all done, he'll toss himself to Iðunn like a bone to a starved dog. Do you not know that's where this is going? Are you such a coward that you're content as long as you're fed to the dragons second-last, so you don't have to see him die?"     Her voice raises, straining with outrage and frustration. "If you don't make it out of this, you know there's only one way the war ends. He *needs* you, now more than ever, and he needs more than just permission to end his own life, his own *nation*. Come with us and... and it doesn't have to end that way! Even if it's too late to change his mind, his legacy can be something other than the end of the world!"     "Who knows? I can show you the letters Zephiel wrote me. You can tell us what you know about him, you can try to *talk* to him. Maybe there can still be some dignity left, for your son."
Desire Stars	.. Stupid. Why... why, in the world, did I let him come...?     "Because you wanted him somewhere you could see him," says Geats, with what sounds like experience. "And you wanted that because you know he's getting to the age where there's only so many things you can 'let' or 'not let' him do. You figured if he was going to do something stupid, better that he does it in front of you, where you can soften the consequences. And you did, as much as you could."     "Maybe you could have forced him to stay behind. But that would have cost you something, too, even if you could have managed it."     Geats sighs, his helmet bobbing. "...Like I told Na-Go, he's a smart kid. As long as we're serious about getting him back, we will. Now, excuse me a second."     The Kamen Rider leaps up towards the fire escape in the alley, hooking the massive Gigant Blaster's cement-mixer portion around it and heaving himself over the railing. A flash from on high signals his switch from the Powered Builder-Boost combo armor into his usual Magnum-Boost combo, taking a vantage point on the roof with the rifle. His voice is piped through the local radio frequency as he takes a knee and sweeps the city streets through the rifle's scope. "I don't see him. Lilian?" ---     "Okay, I'll see if I can get a good spot in the trees, just under the canopy," Na-Go advises Rutger. She doesn't even have the benefit of a rifle scope, but being with Rutger makes her feel confident that between the two of them, they'll find something. Rather than use the Armed Propeller in its usual way, she uses it as a pole-vault, getting a running start before planting it in the ground for a high-flying vault. A frontflip and a grunt of effort later, she's perched on a sturdy branch, peering through the thick vegetation for signs of movement.     "Do you see anything, Rutger?" ---     Tense radio chatter ensues-- "Sounds like they found him. It also sounds like if we go running in there like the cavalry we might make things worse."
Odette Raskins	"if I find him dead after all this, I don't know what I'm gonna do." "You're being kind." "You won't. He'll be okay, Mister Flamel. Father Lucius... You couldn't get him back /yet/." Odette calls out lightly to Flamel while trying to hide the anxiety on her face, then puts a little extra emphasis on the end for Lucius' sake. She's forcing a smile to try and mirror the confidence that Petra and Cecilia had already shown in Lugh to reassure them. "Him and Raigh... Miss Cecilia's right. They're way craftier than any of us could give them credit for, a-and they have great teachers. We just need to make sure we don't waste time following the trail once we're done here." As much as she doesn't want to leave Lucius alone, though, Odette forces herself to do just that so the crew following Nobunaga's lead doesn't go without a dedicated healer, too. When she sees Murdoch at the cliffs, meanwhile, several possibilities start racing through the EMT's head all at once. 1. Murdoch goes for a last stand, dies. Good enough outcome, considering her training. 2. Murdoch jumps off the cliff, dies, but his brain intact. Not ideal, but still workable if a lot more time-consuming. 3. Murdoch's head explodes, whether from jumping or a self-inflicted wound or sheer accident. Probably the worst case scenario, since Flamel needs his mind to end the war in whatever way he's considering. With scenario 3 being the worst possibility that comes to Odette's mind, her mind continues to race even as Roy and Murdoch speak. "A.. Are you going to betray all of Elibe to be loyal to Zephiel?" She asks, choking briefly at the start as her survival instincts are already telling her NOT to address the general with the axe. "Are you going to turn on everyone that isn't Zephiel, and betray everyone else that's already trusted you coming this far?" Biting her lip briefly, Odette approaches Murdoch with only her gear carrying case at her side and her concierge hat still on. "What about those soldiers you sent away while you went this way to lure everyone here? You could've sent one of them alone to be bait, but... You didn't. Are you going to betray them all just to let him die under Iounn, too, too?" "Odette, can you..." "Mhm. Patented Company revival tech, worked even on ancient curses that I don't understand and ashes that I couldn't identify." She answers Flamel with a quick nod, embellishing a smidge to try and plant a seed of doubt in Murdoch's head about even death being an escape. She's pretty sure she couldn't actually restore a splattered or incinerated brain if he really tried, but Murdoch doesn't know that yet. She's just hoping the lie can stop him enough to not test the limits of her tech and abilities.
Angela	''Zephiel's had one father betray him. I won't have it happen again.'' "Is surrendering when the odds are against you a betrayal? Would he prefer a dead parent to a living one? Maybe he's the type. Better for an old man to die before he sees the world end anyway." He points his rifle at Murdoch and pulls the trigger with the ease of someone who clocks in to do just that. CLICK But no bullet fires. "Sorry this uses specialized ammo so I can only snag the expensive kind. Gonna have to stick to swords." The gun vanishes from his hands, replaced with Durandal (his Durandal). "...I'm a father too. I understand you'd rather die before you did anything to hurt him. Or allowed him to come to harm. But..." He exhales. "The way things're going, he's gonna die with a hero's blade buried in his throat. And I can't imagine he'll be less determined to that end if you die cause we got lucky. Maybe you don't betray him. We have a fight, no weapons. A duel. You go down first, you're a prisoner. We go down, you choose. No betrayal needed." He reaches into his coat, drawing a page out from it, though he doesn't activate it yet. Instead he reaches into his pocket again and draws out the radio Murdoch has been using. He tosses it Flamel's way. "Catch." He says, figuring the agent migh     know what to do with it. Or perhaps utilize psychometry. "He was using it to deliver orders." Meanwhile Gebura is taking up the rear, having fallen behind due to taking a wrong route first. She is perplexed by the sight before her but she pushes the shock from her gaze soon enough.
Lilian Rook	'Bern already knows Niime, Raigh's mentor, went mysteriously missing after a clash with us. To find out his twin brother is working for Lycia too... I'd be shocked if they didn't execute him. At least this lie gives them both a chance.'     The intricacies of the situation register on a logical level for Lilian, hearing them laid out in one-two-three easy snap-together sequence like that, but they don't make a dent in her shellshocked confusion. That this even could happen under her watch, much less that it was something she saw no better way than to play right into it, makes the memory of those pleasant hours spent with familiar company in an unexpected place turn to ash in her mouth. No matter how much evidence she has to reassure her that it was the right thing to do in the moment, it feels just as dazed, paralyzed, and utterly, passively useless all the same.     '... Stupid. Why... why, in the world, did I let him come...?'     "None of us stopped him." says Lilian, for her first words in many minutes. Whether or not Lucius' self-blaming is actually helpful, his voice puts a hole in whatever vessel is sealed tight enough to maintain her silence. Her feelings pour slowly and steadily from the breach. "We all entertained the same hubris, after all. As long as it was war, we could protect him from anything we had to. We've dealt with danger, we've saved lives, we've fought enemies; a child this well-loved by so many capable people, kept so close to them should just be another drop in the ocean."     Though she keeps an eye on her surroundings, it's only just enough to navigate after the trail of a stray soldier. "We didn't even think about what would happen if he were just a normal boy. One who keeps secrets, misses his family, wants to help, and tries to grow up too quickly. If we failed in any way, we'd all assumed that it would have been our fault for not trying hard enough." Lilian casts a nauseous look at Lucius' fidgeting, seeing more in it than she perhaps should. "I'm not looking forward to unfucking this, Lucius." she sighs, rolling her wrists uncomfortably, and trying not to think about anything else in retrospect now. It's important that she not even consider it a question if they will. "And I don't envy you when it comes time to set him straight. It's all rather . . . a lot, for a war that's meant to be reaching its conclusion soon."
Flamel Parsons	"You won't. He'll be okay, Mister Flamel."     You can practically see something working overtime in his skull. "He will. I'm internalizing that." He mutters under his breath. "He's capable. He's competent. I've trained him as much as anyone can be trained at his age and in this war. So he'll be okay." Teeth grit. "That's what the logic of the situation says." But not his heart, one assumes. If he has much of one.     "Catch."     Flamel snatches the radio out of mid-air. He'll know what to do -- trace serial numbers, find who distributed the relevant electronics in which way, break in and steal their records in a fully non-warrant raid, the whole works. But it's nothing compared to all that information in Murdoch's mind. And here he is, asking for how Murdoch feels.     What is the distribution of troops and supplies in the Taliver Mountains, and what is their doctrine? What are the lines that best supply operations in and near Pharae? Where are the seals and stamps necessary for unquestioned and uninspected large-scale passage on the river running from the eastern shore of Bern straight to its capital? If Flamel could pull these secrets out of Murdoch's mind, the war would be decisively over by the end of the month. He knows it. Murdoch knows it. And yet here they are, scraping together materials to trace serial numbers and trying to talk about how helping young people is tiring and stressful and the most important thing in the world.     Machinery still turns behind his skull. His mind is searching for anything to internalize, any idea or any viewpoint, that will ease the pain of holding this obsession with data or get rid of it finally. He'll take anything at this point.
Petra Soroka	"At least this lie gives them both a chance."     With that line, it feels like Petra's consciousness briefly flickers out of her own body. She's transported away, lighthours by distance but only a ten minute run at most, to where the young teenage boy is being led away by people whose response to seeing him with the enemy was 'I knew you were with them', fresh off of the adrenaline of making a choice that could only have been made without full consideration. What comes next, after his emotions settle?     Lugh's as aware as anyone that his performance is what determines whether he and his brother both die, or else he wouldn't have committed to it. They doubt him already-- and, unavoidably, they're *right* to. Among the obstacles he has to face in the coming days, one is that he was lying about being a captive because in reality Raigh is still in Edessa and this boy shouldn't have known about that at all without Niime's help, and the other is that he was lying about being a captive because he *was* their ally. Any suspicion that they hold about him, and Sigrun at least holds enough to feel *vindicated* when he was with the Lycians, even if they're wrong in spirit, can't help but erode away the act.     They'll question him, definitely. Can Lugh even get as far as making it through *that* with satisfactory answers? He knows much more about the operation of the army than any recent captive would, and he'll have to only selectively tell the truth in a way that's believably based on a capture narrative he'll spin up in the moment, and there's no answer that would make them feel comfortable leaving him be. In the best case, Lugh's gambit might have bought him and Raigh a couple months for the Lycians to figure out a solution. In the worst case, he might only have *hours*.     Petra twitches, expression twisting vaguely nauseous. She twists around to look back over her shoulder, as if to see through the warpgates and walls behind them and get a better last look at Lugh than the four-fifths-occluded glimpse she saw through the soldiers and smoke right before he was led away.     She swallows. Undermining her own anxious rambling about the family resemblence between the two suicidally-determined boys, Petra makes a low unhappy noise. "I hope he feels more in control than we do. I hate having to say that. It's wrong."
Petra Soroka	Murdoch's also here, or whatever. The number of dads or father figures that Petra has ever had sympathy for is staggeringly few, and Lucius right now is taking up more bandwidth than she's assigned to that particular task ever before. This one, for all of her positive feelings about the genocidal King Zephiel, just makes her feel resentful and disgusted. "... Zephiel's had one father betray him. I won't have it happen again."     Petra's lips tighten, and she folds her arms across her chest. *Maybe* if this guy lives they could get useful information about him-- Petra loves information, after all, and there's probably some boring spreadsheets and war room boards in his head that could be useful for the math of war. At best, some juicy weakness of Zephiel, Iðunn, or another general, that they could capitalize in. But their first goal *was* to kill him, so Petra's more occupied with talking to him than hearing from him.     "I keep thinking about something Zephiel said before. That he doesn't know anyone who would be loyal to him if he wasn't a king, so that loyalty counts for nothing." Her settled stress from the fight and Lugh's absence rises up as a sneer, venting unhappiness towards Murdoch in the form of a pointless but heartfelt stream of bile.     "And it had to be *you* that he was thinking of when he said it. Not the fucking, wheedling royal bureaucrats, or the dozens of people who threw themselves at his feet in order to betray everyone else, because those people don't even act like they're loyal to anything at all. It has to be *you* that he knows wouldn't give a shit if he wasn't king."     "Because this big final fucking last stand and melodramatic performance you've got going on, isn't because you believe in his cause or literally anything about him, but because he's your *king* and he *ordered* you. If he was just a kid, and you were just his dad, then you *wouldn't* be leading a war to annihilate all of humanity on his behalf. You don't give a shit about loyalty. Just the *aesthetics* of *shame*."     Petra runs her hand through her hair and spits on the ground. "So jump. Pussy."
Marigold	Rutger, of course, has little issue ascending the purplish alien tree with Na-Go. She's a surprisingly relaxing companion to have, for her intensity; quiet but steady.      "Do you see anything, Rutger?"      It's a long moment before she points: "There." The jungle hillside curves down towards a river, and then back up to another hill; there two Bernish spearmen and their wounded healer are on a dirt trail some few hundred feet away, arguing over a map.      . . . Just three men. And they're not returning with any news that Sigrun won't already bring. Rutger chews that over, too, while she thumbs her (new, stolen) sword's crossguard. A moment's hesitation. Then she draws it, with just a glance at Na-Go.      The glance means are you going to object to me killing them, or what?      - - - -      Cars honk in the background of Lilian, Geats, and Lucius's conversation. Slowly, the color's coming back to his cheeks, but his delicate fingers still pick at his sweater's collar like he's trying to undo the yarn. Something hurts in the close-enough neighborhood of his heart.      "Because you wanted him somewhere you could see him..."      "As long as it was war, we could protect him from anything we had to..."      Lucius tenses up his whole body until it shivers, then forces it to relax, and tries to take his breaths at a meditative rhythm. One of Elimine's teachings, no doubt.      "You're right, Ace. He is clever. And he was always, I suppose, going to... stretch his wings. I've just got... to have faith, that... he's been invested with enough love and care, to make it on his own." Dewy eyes meet Lilian's, and it's at least remarkable how close to angelically normal he can look, even now.      "I held Raigh too tightly, and he left. Surely God was telling me to hold Lugh looser...? But it's just what children do. Strike out on their own, one day. " In. Hold. Out. He places a hand gently on Lilian's shoulder.      "Thank you. I'm sorry. Go, if you want. I just needed a little reminding of the light, that's all." It at least doesn't look like he might collapse now.
Marigold	"So, what? You'll let him kill himself?"      "Are you going to betray them all just to let him die under Iounn, too, too?"      Murdoch's eyes tense, guiltily. So he does know- Zephiel's plan to die at Iðunn's hands comes as no surprise.      "Things... keep moving," he says slowly, "for a while after they die. I've tried reaching him, since he found that foul beast. Brunnya has too, bless her. Pushed it until he nearly called me a traitor. Your eyes were on his letters, and he was in a temper when the last one came-- you know, don't you? It's too late. It's been too late for years."      A long, heavy breath out. He plants the head of his axe, adjusts his grip uneasily. "If I didn't want him to do this, I should've shown him another way. All I can do now is spare him a bit more pain." "Don't you want to do more than that?" Roy says, helplessly. "More than anything else in the world. Young man, I hope you never understand."      "maybe if you do it right I'll go and take a swim after you"      Murdoch smiles, just slightly, in spite of himself. His face is a stranger to the expression. "I know what you're doing. But I suppose it's no secret."      "... When I was young, I saved the old king Desmond from bandits by the roadside. It was near the capital, and raining, in-- no, but that's not important." A heavy breath. The boiling-down of a lifespan; the pain of one last rummage sale, everything must go. "... I risked my life for him. The right thing to do. And he became a tyrant."      "So I was Desmond's hatchetman. He knew he could trust me, so I got the dirty work. He was despicable. And I was despicable too. And then he made me 'bodyguard', to the heir he wanted dead, and I..." A faraway look.      "'I'll save Prince Zephiel's life. I'll help him overthrow King Desmond, and redeem all my mistakes.' But it just repeats, do you get it?! Good things don't happen because of me. Every time I think, 'Oh, this is it'--!!"      His voice croaks, which makes him catch himself almost ranting. The general has the dignity to look hangdog, and let out a little 'haaah' to clear himself.      "... that loyalty counts for nothing."      "So jump. Pussy."      It's in that low that Petra hits him. The intent is to cause harm; it does. His face tightens, and it's a long pause before he speaks again:      "Young lady. Sometimes... you can give your heart to someone, and they won't even take it. No matter how loud you shout, no matter how strongly you feel, someone can always hear you wrong. Start to resent your devotion. I still don't know how... the light in his eyes slipped through my fingers, but..."      He trails off, losing his focus in the emotional lurch. Bleeding out in more than one way. Then his eyes focus on Petra again, nostalgically.      "... You know, you look a lot like he did."
Marigold	Murdoch can't help but tense when Roland's rifle clicks, but then a smile tugs at his face for the second time. Deep breath, again. He tilts his head towards Nobunaga and Roland, not in the least put off either: "It's a kind offer. But we of Bern honor different things than you. I won't be a prisoner, and I won't be a lamb. Lift your swords and fight me. What chance do you think I have at killing one of you? That will have had some meaning."      Didn't he hear Odette...? What exactly does he think he'll accomplish? But he pulls his axe from the earth, hefts it, and strides forward confidently to face either or both of them.      . . .      Everything goes smoothly- he is a capable combatant, but not on the level of Galle or Nobunaga- until, at a pivotal moment, just when he ought to be protecting himself, he twists and hurls his axe at Odette's head instead.
Desire Stars	"Rutger... please don't," says Na-Go, quietly, gently putting a hand on Rutger's arm. "I know this is war... I know we probably lose something if they make it back, and I know we can't save everyone. I know what Cecilia said, back there, too. That this might be our only chance to... to kill Murdoch."     "But they're running away. We won. Even if, with Lugh, it doesn't feel that way..."     "Something about hunting them down like that... feels wrong to me. I... don't think that Murdoch split them up to save himself. I can't really stop you, if that's what you want to do. But I really don't want to, and I don't want you to either. I also... just don't think Roy wants to win the war that way. Can we go back? Please?" --- I just needed a little reminding of the light, that's all.     "Take a breather, Lucius," says Geats, landing with a thud beside Lucius after vaulting the roof and sliding down the sheer surface of the wall with his back and one hand pressed against it to slow his descent. "We're going to get less and less of them from here on out. In the unlikely situation the men that came back through here double back, don't stick around and fight. Shout if you need me. I'm pretty fast with this baby," he says, patting the turbo-red greaves of the Boost half of his armor. "Lilian," he then says by way of invitation, nodding back towards the warpgate.     Between the two Kamen Riders, it's Geats that comes through first, just in time to see the axe flying. There's not a good angle to shoot it away from her, and not enough time to get one. So, Geats shoulders the rifle and pulls the trigger, coring out the ground from under her with the intent to send her tumbling to the ground. It might be painful, but it won't be lethal.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"Your eyes were on his letters, and he was in a temper when the last one came-- you know, don't you? It's too late. It's been too late for years."     Madeleine curses under her breath, for two reasons. One, because she'd be hoping the letters were more secret, that the promise of any new insight into the king might stay Murdoch's hand from drastic action.     Two, because she knows he's probably right. "Okay, yeah," she admits. "If you don't think there's any turning him around, I can't really argue the opposite."     Murdoch begins his duel with Nobunaga and Roland, and Madeleine knows not to interfere. She's barely on her guard at all when Murdoch hurls his axe at Odette. Even so, there's a good dozen yards of ground between Murdoch and his target, just room enough for Madeleine to at least attempt interference. Not enough time to wind up and throw a bolas, so she'll have to improvise.     Lunging sideways, Madeleine hurls herself bodily in Odette's direction. She grunts in pain - some of her wounds from Maltet probably just reopened, with that maneuver - but if her reflexes didn't fail her, she'll tackle the medic out of the blade's path just in time.     As for herself... here's hoping that she can move Odette out of the way with just that split second window she'll need to get her own body to safety with a decoy-substitution. If it works, she and Odette will be tangled up in a heap on the ground and the axe will be stuck in a crude wooden faux-Madeleine. Otherwise she'll be bodyblocking a powerful bladed weapon for the second time today-- not an enviable position!
Angela	Roland struggles. He wants to just say 'this is this, that is that'. It's easier to do that with the children, but the story hits too many familiar beats. Not always in direct ways. He shudders and struggles to push it out of his head anyway. He is an executioner. A killer. An assassin. It didn't make him cool or dramatic, it just made it harder to sleep at night. Not for him, it was easy to be ready for the end for himself, but for the others. That they might end up the target. And in the end, it wasn't even that. It was etiher just some stupid tantrum or an attempt to help the world that just exploded in their faces. He wishes he hadn't fought to find out the truth. He wishes he had just tried to kill them and got killed in turn. Then he wouldn't be so frustrated right now. He doesn't even care about this war but his senses are saying that the kindest thing he can do to this man is be a comforting headsman. He feels himself getting angry. He wants this man to prove all the evidence of his eyes and heart wrong. He wants him to find a way to reach that moronic child of his who was unfortunately born too strong to see what he had right next to him. Will he see it when Murdoch doesn't return home. He hates war. He hates war. He hates that he can't even beg off of the war. Would Angela allow that? He doubts it. She's too loyal to Lilian and to Lucius to give two shits about his heart rate right now. ''Sometimes...you can give your heart to someone and they won't even take it.'' "According to the books I read, you gotta model appropriate behavior, you know? They'll know if you're inconsistent--especially if they're already looking for a reason that it's unfair. But if he doesn't see you that way, if he does see you as a vassal well--you can model all you want but they're not looking at you, right?" He shakes his head and starts approaching. "...If I was fighting you as someone from The City, this conversation wouldn't have happened. I'd just be killing you. Maybe I just wanted to think we could escape 'the way things are done'." That dead kids, metaphorical or otherwise, could be killed. That one could look at the world and not feel a deep intense nihilistic emptiness. But he's not going to get that. There's too many kind people here, he thinks, so it should be him. It has to be him. This is his job. ''just when he ought to be protecting himself--'' His cue. Roland slides forward with Durandal. He's still armored, so he aims for the wound, aiming to punch Durandal into there and twist it violently to try and kill this man as quickly as possible. He doesn't even look at Odette to see if he's going to be okay. And as he goes for the blow, he feels envious of the man.
Nobunaga	> "It's a kind offer. But we of Bern honor different things than you... Lift your swords and fight me."     Nobunaga's head tilts down just slightly, a smile tugging at her lip.     "So the old wolf still has his fangs after all. This is the way it is done between warriors."     She slides the saya from her katana, tucking it into her belt as she steps forth to meet him. She doesn't pull out any magic nonsense this time. The blazing hellscape of Tenka Fubu is left tucked away. She isn't even calling out her rifles. It's an exercise of martial prowess, sword to axe.     A comparatively light weapon like a katana isn't going to block an axe; not for long. Nobunaga's defense is instead to guide the blade away from herself. Only letting metal strike metal at harsh angles, turning a solid chop into a glancing blow, followed up immediately with sweeping swings aimed low to foul footwork, high to force a defense or create distance; a swift counterattack in an upward-arcing crescent that threatens to remove an arm at the shoulder right where the armor is weakest to allow for movement.     Steel clashes yet again. She can tell right away something is off in his stance. He spins; she's too slow. The axe is already hurled by the time her blade strikes his wrist.     Unrestrained fury floods through Nobunaga's expression and posture. Immediately, she abandons her self-imposed rules. A rifle flickers into existence, driving its heavy wooden stock into the hollow of Murdoch's left knee. Roland goes for the open wound. Snatching the rifle up in her free hand, Nobunaga spins herself, using it as a bludgeon to slam that heavy wood into the side of his right, forced to bear all of his weight.     Then comes the heat. In lieu of a violent blazing hellscape from before, a great charred skeleton uncurls to loom up behind the woman. Rearing back, it slams one hand down on Murdoch, open-palmed, to pin him in place.     "That was a mistake," Nobunaga growls, "If all of Bern must burn to end the King's madness, so be it." The fury twists into disgust as she straightens her posture, sheathing her sword with an annoyed huff, "Parsons! Take what you want so we can send his head back to his precious King!"     Nobunaga was enjoying herself until he pulled that.
Odette Raskins	"It's been too late for years." "All I can do now is spare him a bit more pain." "You should know better than anyone, then, if... If you know how bad it's gotten. And..." There's a slight flinch from Odette at Petra's approach, but she can't find herself disagreeing with what Petra's telling him, either. Even the EMT looks a little confused at first, too, realizing something as she mulls that thought over a little more. "That kind of loyalty's... I used to think it was really cool, before I came out here. Then I saw more things like this happening, and now it's not anywhere as impressive as it used to be." "Good things don't happen because of me. Every time I think, 'Oh, this is it'--!!" That, meanwhile, gets a slight frown out of Odette. She's heard enough times that the results are what matter. If the results of his attempts have all been so disastrous, could she really tell him to keep trying anyway? "What chance do you think I have at killing one of you?" "Y.. You've seen what everyone here can do, though. It won't-" Oh. That's what he means. Odette sees the axe flying at her, and her body only moves quickly enough to get her hands up between her head and the incoming blade while being caught flat-footed. It's an instinctual reflex rather than a logical one, since her hand is made of flesh and bone, and the axe is made of well-crafted metal. There's a birthday cake, and everyone in town's there. They're all covered in soot, and it smells a little weird, but it's a great time for everyone. There's a shiny new ID card coming out of the printer. Her hair looks terrible in it, but it's hers. A news ticker mentions a distant station exploding underneath a video of a corgi jumping and tripping over a log. Its legs aren't strong enough to get it over that thing! A dark red filter obscures a man in purple armor standing at a weird diagonal angle, and there's a hand floating in the air. ... Wait, that's not a memory. Odette isn't entirely sure what just happened, but it's starting to come back to her. Geats and Madeleine conspired to keep her from having an axe replacing most of her brain, and the proof of that comes from how she's able to realize that. Luckily, the EMT escapes getting caught flat-footed as the ground beneath her gives way from Geats' shot, falling just enough that the axe won't be slicing right through her skull! Better yet, Madeleine's body slam shifts her out of the way enough that her hand isn't directly in its path, either! Something still feels off even as she hits the ground, though. Her face hurts a lot, and her arm hurts a lot. She can't quite seem to reach her face with her left hand, either, and it's kind of sticky around where her hand should be. Looking at her hand, she finally notices that it's on the grass a few feet over there, and that the left side of her face is getting a lot warmer, and... Odette's face hurts. It hurts a lot, actually, and she starts screaming when the sensation of the missing eye and hand finally catches up with her.
Flamel Parsons	"Good things don't happen because of me."     Words bounce around Flamel's head. His posture shifts and connections are made inside his mind. He thinks on Murdoch, on what he's saying, on the effect his life has had, on the way Flamel himself has approached the world. Cycles and cycles of trying to do the right thing, and always winding up being cruel to the most vulnerable. *Is* that something that can be broken? Even when he took Angela's side, when he reached his limit of following his path, the cruelty just kept coming. Where Murdoch chose to blaze his own path and choose individuals he cared for, Flamel chose a cause, individuals be damned.     Can a person fundamentally lack the ability to have a good effect on history, no matter the path they choose? Is it really possible, plausible, that someone might exist whose very influence on the world conflicts with their earnest positive wish? Murdoch is a man whose will is strong, whose mind is sharp, whose power is substantial, and whose wish is clear. And he wants something good in the world, yearns for it incredibly. But he's missing something. Like a gear between mechanisms. Can you want to help people so clearly, have every rational means to achieve it, and just somehow be missing the machinery? Can you be 'cursed'?     If that's possible, is Flamel cursed?     "No." He whispers. "Helping people, the people who history had condemned, even helping them too much. It's innate. But every curse is psychological." He exhales a long his between gritting teeth. "You can always set aside your compulsion. Even if it does good. Even if it should do good. Even if it should be the most important thing in the world. You can always... You can always change those things. You can always break your curse. It's never too late to grow. You're never too little of a person to become more. There's no root too deep to change, if the cost is being able to do good. Especially for a kid like that." Like young Zephiel. Like young Desmond. Like Lugh.     He doesn't get involved in the fight. He stays ready, at a distance, but he's already badly injured, already badly hurt and discouraged and processing things in his heart and head. Things... things get bad. Certainly dire for Odette. Eyes wide, he yelps in panic when an axe hurls for her skull. But then there's a scream, a cry for him to get involved from Nobunaga. God, please, *please* no cyanide molar, please... Because he approaches, he rushes to extract everything he can from Murdoch. And if he's falling to his death, if he's pinned, whatever the case may be, he has one thing he needs to do above all else.     He uses the precious seconds, not to extract war-ending intelligence or secret, supreme insights about Zephiel, but instead to prioritize extracting everything necessary to access Raigh (and Lugh) for rescue from the Ilian capital. And everything else, any war-ending data, the secret temple's location, Zephiel's achilles heel, any vast troves of powerful tactical advantage that Flamel could use to satiate his infohunger, comes after those priorities. When he joins in and tries to get a hand on Murdoch's head, for once he's focusing on the kid -- how to make sure he'll get to grow up, and, admittedly, how to make sure he'll grow up right, now.     If he has any ways to interrupt it after, the shock of psychic agony coming out of Odette will be enough to stun him briefly.
Petra Soroka	"I've tried reaching him, since he found that foul beast."     Petra huffs. She's generally upset enough to throw a punch whenever it feels like the verbal prompt pops up in her head, but even talking about their ostensible greatest enemy, this one's heartfelt.     "Don't talk about a woman like that." "All I can do now is spare him a bit more pain."     Fucking blah, blah, blah, blah. Who cares! The melancholic trudging of old regret-filled men has always been one of Petra's pet peeves to be forced to endure, because it's always so fucking self-important and meaningless. She's vaguely formulating a thought about whether she could get away with just shoving him off the cliff while he's rambling on about his stupid annoying pointless life story to Flamel, when she suddenly has the wind knocked out of her by something he says in frustration, right at the end. "Good things don't happen because of me."     How many times has Petra said that same thing? She has a trail of bodies, literal and metaphorical, left behind her to give proof to her self-derision, but even as she's oscillated between furious and despondent about the misery that she's inflicted on the world and the people she cares about, one thing she's never been in the position to do is *reminisce*.     In an abrupt moment, Petra has it thrown into sharp relief how *young* she actually is. Whether she's swearing that she'll end it all and spare the world, or fierily announcing that the world *deserves* it actually, or that she'll change and be better, even in the former case, the expectation of the future is still more relevant than the past. If she imagined being sixty years old, then she couldn't really imagine *still* feeling that way and being there. But what is it like, to get older and have the choices of your life last longer and become more spaced out, and knowing that you've made the last one that matters, to still look back on it all and feel that way?     Petra winces, emotional guard broken in the same minute as telling Murdoch to kill himself. She wraps her arms around herself, feeling cold from dread and stress from everything that's happened despite the sun.     She struggles to think of anything she could say to someone who's made such consistently terrible choices, whose worst and best trait is sticking with them even after knowing how much they suck, that wouldn't feel hypocritical. She feels like she has to say *something*, or the moment Murdoch's body hits the ground one way or another, she'll start throwing up. Eventually she lands on, bitterly sympathetic,     "... Sorry. I guess he did learn something from you."
Petra Soroka	"... You know, you look a lot like he did."     Maybe a little less so, now. Worse, maybe more.     Despondent even before being addressed, when Petra's chin droops, it makes her soot-heavy hair fall down around her face in a way that makes her look like a beaten dog. Eyes lidded, her hands are tense enough around her biceps that the tendons stand out, and even though she avoids looking at Murdoch anymore, the waves of directionless anger and misery radiate palpably off of her. She grinds her teeth, stomach twisting when her gaze refocuses enough that she can make out the dots of tourists moving on the beaches.     "... I don't hate him, you know. I don't even dislike him. I should, with everything he's done, but..." She trails off, not knowing how to finish that sentence in the short time left, and then shakes her head. "Yeah. I just don't. I really don't want this war to end with him dying."     "So I guess, I look at you and I think... 'I wish this guy had been better, and then things wouldn't have turned out this way'. But I believe that you tried as hard as you could, too. So maybe you just weren't up to the task at all, because of some intrinsic lack you had or some intrinsic need he had, or maybe you couldn't ever have helped him because you were just the same as all the rest of the court and all his dad's sycophants anyways. Because I think about those people and I'm like, well, the guy's got a point about ending the age of man with dragonfire and all."     Cecelia drifts into Petra's mind distantly. "So I wish you had been better. And I'm sorry you weren't. And there's tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who are going to die because of that, and the person you care about isn't even going to be any better off for it. You're just a hatchetman again. Same as with Desmond. And I don't really know if you could've done anything else at this point."     Petra didn't spend much time fighting the dragon or the soldiers earlier. While everyone else was exhausted by combat, Petra was off dealing with evacuation, even physically boosted from Sting Silver. Of all the people here, she's the only one who could be called 'fresh', and so she really ought to join Roland in trying to kill Murdoch when he attacks.     She doesn't. Her hand tenses around the mirror pendant hanging over her hoodie, but the idea of pulling out any weapon from it kind of just makes her feel sick. Maybe an axe will split Odette's head open. Maybe there's already a weapon being drawn on Lugh, worlds away. Maybe when the war ends in a miraculous victory, everyone in Elibe will want to see an axe dropped down onto Zephiel's neck, so that humanity can lurch its way blissfully forwards with its critics dead.
Lilian Rook	'You're right'     It occupies Lilian entirely too much for entirely too long to think about what Lucius must be-- no, could possibly be feeling at all. Including Lugh, of course, but that's a kind of quiet terror with a very clear model, even if only by trying to invent emotional equivalents. The layers of stress and misery and grief that bookend it, which surely came to be before ever meeting Lugh, and only after accepting the risks, elude her ability to grasp them with anything that feels like confidence.     It feels somehow important to know, if she wants to talk to him right now. Even though she believes it isn't. And, remembering what he had told her the last time she had seen this, Lilian can't help but feel restlessly negligent for somehow having come no closer to knowing. She reaches out for the hand clutching his chest, hovering above the same level, then seeing nothing she can do with it, upturns her palm and leaves it offered.     'I've just got... to have faith, that... he's been invested with enough love and care, to make it on his own.'     "He's been invested with enough to feel like he has some to spare for his brother." Lilian says, sounding hesitant in her volume, but in the pace of her words. "Not for someone he could give anything back to, or he might owe, but for someone he hasn't seen in a long time, and just wants to be safe." Lilian sighs. She keeps adjusting her footing in little starts and stops, as if unable to just quite confirm her center of balance. "So, I think that has to mean something. At least that he's chosen to do this with a clear head and pure motives; which account for two of three things I worry about."     'I held Raigh too tightly, and he left. Surely God was telling me to hold Lugh looser...?'     "Sometimes, people are just different." Lilian says, exhaling with the full awareness of how asinine it sounds, but not intending to alter it. "Even God won't tell you that children are so predictable, or so similar, that there's one thing you can do to keep them safe 'if only you thought to'. Perhaps Lugh isn't going to be safe, but I'd sooner think it means that it was always going to be about preparing him, and not just keeping him near."     'Thank you. I'm sorry. Go, if you want. I just needed a little reminding of the light, that's all.'     "You're brave." Lilian says, smiling guiltily. "My process is like taking a hit; tensing up to blunt it and then going limp to let it bleed off all its impact. I don't even like to think about it until it's drained out. So you'restill sort of incredible, wanting to try and think about light right now."     If Lilian thinks about it at all, her thoughts inevitably curve from away from the heavy core of the matter, in dealing with Sigrun and Galle, and slingshot back around in orbit to Murdoch. If she stops to think about Lugh more than superficially, she'll think of the man who is probably dead right now, and how she had no business being here from the beginning. If she could, she'd stay here with Lucius all day.     'Lilian,'     But she has to turn back at some point. Seconds from now at the latest; and she lingers as long as she can before finally turning back.     "I want to discuss something I brought up with Roy a long time ago. I'd rather not leave Lugh separate of the army for any longer than unavoidably necessary. So come back when you're ready, and . . . I'll have a suggestion. Even it's a stupid one." Even if she can't force herself to find an enemy general, Lilian doesn't believe for an instant she won't find her way to those boys.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine winces as she lands in a bloody heap with Odette. At first she assumes the mess is coming from herself, having failed to properly decoy-block the axe; it's only after a second or three that she realizes *she's* hardly in pain, and simply arrived too late to begin with.     "Shit, shit, shit!" Madeleine, dorky zookeeper outfit now splattered with blood both her own and Odette's, whips her bag off her back and rummages through for some supplies. Hastily withdrawing a survival first-aid kid, she snaps the case open and pulls out an elastic tourniquet.     Keeping her hands as steady as she can, she winds the band around Odette's arm a few inches above the wound and begins to tighten it with the windlass. As she works she calls out, to nobody in particular, "I can't do much for a head wound! Somebody get Lucius here! Where's Lucius!?" Her voice is tinged with the beginnings of panic. She was *sure* that tackle was gonna work!
Marigold	Rutger flinches from Na-Go's touch on her arm, but only a little. The woman in this army most drenched in blood, the one who'd turned on and slain her prior employer just for allying with Bern, the one who blames them for the loss of her hometown and the deaths of her family...      Ought to be a little more reticent to give up the chase than this. So, why does it instead feel like she was looking to Na-Go for an excuse?      "As you say," comes as curt and toneless as ever. She never draws a sword without meaning to kill, but this time, its tip hadn't quite cleared the scabbard yet. Shnk. "Next time." And she drops from the branch, whisper-quiet, and glances back for Na-Go to follow to the gate.      - - -      "Take a breather, Lucius..."      He does. He shuts his eyes, and musters a smile, and breathes with a little tremble just as his lungs fully inflate. It's hard to tell if that angelic glow he seems to have about him is maybe a little bit real, rather than just an impression; but either way, it's returned now.      "... you're still sort of incredible, wanting to try and think about light right now."      He follows it with a smile that remains a little trembly, but only at the center. The edges hold. "There's a balance, in being an... uplifting figure. I'm still not sure I've mastered it. You have to take for yourself, to be able to give to others. Haha, maybe Lugh's gotten ahead of me in giving..."      "Lilian," he says with a nod, "That 'bleeding off' is a strong way to survive, if you don't have anyone else to take from. But I do. The two of you, at the very least. That's a luxury that helps me heal faster. Maybe you'll get used to that, too."      Ace, who's leaving briskly, Lucius gives a hand-squeeze and pat on the shoulder. And Lilian, lingering slower, he gives a short hug from behind- awkward, more arms than body, but sincere. "Let's go. I'll take more later. But for now, I'm alright."
Marigold	- - -      "... Sorry. I guess he did learn something from you."      "... Please, don't say that. Say anything but that," Murdoch says, and for the first time he sounds like he just might break down.      The fight doesn't last long. It was a charade from the start, of course, meant to put Murdoch within throwing distance of Odette and with a reasonable certainty he'd be dealt a mortal wound. He was always a tactician before a fighter.      "So I wish you had been better. And I'm sorry you weren't."      Blood sprays from the wound Roland deals to his neck, a second after the axe leaves his hand. A rich breath of relief comes with it. Nobunaga, unfortunately, strikes Murdoch off-balance in a way that prevents the blow from biting into his spine.      It can only be instinct that makes him raise his forearm against the crushing skeletal palm. It drives him to his knees instead of pinning him flat, like that; his other hand digs into the dirt.      "And I don't really know if you could've done anything else at this point."      "I tried-- my best. There's no, other way, this could've..."      "That's not true!" Roy shouts, distraught, from the sidelines. "Even if you can't save Zephiel, you could still be good for the world! You know that! If you just...!"      "Don't... don't say that, just to hurt me."      The cliffside stone creaks under the skeleton-palm's force; Murdoch raises his fist and drives it into the ground with a shout, trying to crack the ground and send himself plummeting down. But the earth only gives a little; not enough. He takes a breath that could be a laugh, but isn't.      Flamel approaches. Murdoch's face is pale from blood loss, now. Only a few moments left. Bern has Raigh working on dark magic rituals to help the army, but he shows a suspicious lack of progress. Lugh will be taken to Edessa, where his story will almost certainly be proven false. Castle Edessa has a dungeon where Bern keeps its prisoners. If Lugh and Raigh are detained but not executed, they'll be kept there. The dungeon is under heavy guard, as Lady Juno is kept there, but the local resistance is rumored to be in contact with her somehow... There's a warpgate route Murdoch knows of that goes from the middle of Ilia to Edessa's unguarded outskirts. Tell Galle... please, tell Galle not to be like me. More than anything, don't raise Lugh like I raised Zephiel. I'm sorry. Don't wait for him to ask for love, just give it. Don't wait--      Before Flamel can excavate more, Murdoch, with the last of his strength, grabs the psychonaut's wrist.      "Please," he says, softly, desperately. "I'm tired. Please... just don't make me hurt him, again."      Then he gives out.
Marigold	- - - -      "Odette!!! I- oh, saint, I don't have a staff- here, Madeleine, her hand! Hold it against the stump, cover her eye! When someone gets here..." Cecilia has things to be more urgently worried about than the pathos of a dying man. She crouches by the fallen medic, hands roaming frantically- pressure here; count the pulse there... "Roy! Run back to the caravan, right now! I saw a vulnerary on the floor...!"      Lucius is a minute behind. For just a second, on arrival, he's frozen. If he went to heal Murdoch, does he know for a fact that the general's beyond repair? Could they get more from him, or--      . . . But he's not about to choose the general over a child* again.      "Oh, thank god..." "Thank you, Cecilia. Madeleine, keep the hand bones lined up, please. Odette. Shhh. This only happened a moment ago, didn't it? It'll be alright. Your eye's... to be..."      As the healing light suffuses her body and dulls the pain, it gets pleasantly harder to think about much of anything but the gentle hand on her forehead and that indistinct sweet-murmuring voice.
Nobunaga	> "I'm tired. Please... just don't make me hurt him, again."     When Murdoch's resistance finally gives out and the flaming skeleton of Tenka Fubu pins him to the ground for Flamel's psychic work, Nobunaga slowly circles him until she is back in his field of view. Her sword, slid back into the saya, plants down just out of his reach and she leans on it like a cane.     Her expression is cold and unreadable, the precise opposite of the burning fury radiating from the skeleton she commands as a part of her role as a Demon King.     "You forfeited your right to a warrior's death as soon as your weapon left your hands. You tried to kill a spectator to the duel you requested. You transformed a request for an honorable warrior's end into a coward's desperate escape attempt. Pathetic." Bending at the knees, she squats in a particularly Slav way, hand still on the hilt of her sword, the other resting its elbow on her knee.     "You will give us what we want. When you have nothing left to give, you will die. Your head will be sent to Zephiel as a warning that even his greatest generals are no match for us. An ultimatum that his rule is coming to its inevitable, bloody, and violent end. The rest of your worthless carcass will bake in the sun and feed the birds. Cowards deserve no rites and certainly no burials."     She rises to her feet, her face tilted slightly back. In the shadow of her bangs, those red eyes glow with her own inner fire.     "Thus decrees the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel holds Murdoch's hand. He squeezes. His breath catches in his throat. He trembles. He looks up to Nobunaga. His face is strained, his voice is near-wordless, stammering a soft, "He's... I'm sorry." He swallows, and he shakes his head and closes Murdoch's eyes, and leaves a palm over his face. He reaches into the dead mind for one last thing he can do once the pulse has stopped. While the last electrochemical signals flicker and die between neurons, while the man dies, Flamel's telepathy makes one last effort.     If you could go back and change it all, would you? Would you be someone else? Would you leave Desmond to the bandits? Help Zephiel just a little less? Would you become someone else? Grow old as another man, unrecognizeable and different? Would you pull up the roots? Would you break your curse?     The brain's losing too much activity to know if it works. Performing the Sigmund Procedure now means giving up on even postmortem data extraction. Because that may well be a different man. He stands and walks, holding his arms to himself and limping from his wounds. Whatever happens after is something he doesn't have the mental endurance for.
Marigold	. . . Yes. I want to be a different man. I'd try my hardest by him. If only to know if I'd fail the same way again.
Angela	Roland looks to Nobunaga for a moment. "Hey. If you couldn't read what he was doing there, you must be a pretty shitty king." He stares at her for a long moment. "Fucking amateur. Wings..." He shakes his head. "No wonder you died to treachery." He can't hide the disgust from his face but his tone is tired and sad. He sounds, somehow, defeated. He looks at Murdoch. He smells the blood on his sword. When he kills people jn the Library, it's too clean. It doesn't feel as real as it does here. He closes his eyes. He rubs at them for a bit with his wrist, turning away from others as he does so. "Obviously." He says. "We're gonna give him a real burial and shit right? Seems appropriate. I stabbed and shot the guy so I'd appreciate like a normal burial. Bern customs if it's doable. Seems only fair." He trails off. "Yeah. Fuck." He looks towards the cliff. Tempting. Gebura approaches. "It was our job to do. Probably saved more lives..." A quiet suspicion lingers in her eyes. "Let's just hope Zephiel doesn't come to any revelation now, eh?" Roland walks away. He looks dizzy. His reaction feels off for a City man.