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Marigold	SACAE'S WESTERN PLAINS      Where the mountain ranges begin to narrow in.      Even setting aside the stabilizing influence of a few hundred Kutolah mounted archers, the westward journey has been calmer than 'intruding into Djute territory' would suggest.      The "territory" of nomads, after all, is more about seasonal use of resources than dense use of space. So long as you stay away from the best early-spring food-sources, the clearest rivers and most natural pastures, you can nearly avoid ever crossing paths with the Djute.      Sue's guidance, over the days, becomes less about personal familiarity and more about educated guesses from the state of the land. "When were we this far west?" she says, one night around the fire. "We?" Dayan asks. "Any Kutolah. This far into the Djute's lands." ". . . I can't say. Maybe the last time was decades ago. Maybe more." "Hmh."      The party has been able to see the mountain ranges to its left- that is, the south- for a while now; the end of Mother Earth's grassy perfection. They even have trees at the base of them, an alien sight. Eventually mountains loom to the right, too; just the peaks of them for now, but soon they'll narrow to the strait where forested Etruria meets grassy Sacae.      That is, the point where Etruria's General Douglas holds Bern's Wyvern-General Brunnya at a standstill, dangerously close to Etruria's capital.      Break their supply lines, harass their rear, force Bern into an eastward retreat across the plains, and help the Kutolah make it costly. It seems so simple.      Good news even comes in from Ilia, one night; with Sigrun's acceptance of the Commonwealth's offer, the Bernish troops under Galle up north are being cut off and tied down.      Bad news follows. <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Roy says, urgently shaken, "General Cecilia's just given me a call. It's-- she wasn't clear, but--" <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura says, "Lord Roy?" <J-IC-Scene> Nobunaga says, "I am already on the move." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Roy says, "They're pushing for Etruria's capital. Right now. Bern is." In the background, one can hear the camp already in motion. "Brunnya's forces, that we were coming up behind..." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Roy steadies himself, effortfully. "... Bad. She said there were dragons; she 'couldn't say' how many. She's going there with Forblaze, now. <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "...Roland has a stomach ache from eating too much cake. What terrible timing. Well, Love's still there but I'll send Gebura." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Christ." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Fuck me I--" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'll be there." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "If it doesn't look sustainable to us, it might just be they won't need to sustain it at all." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Roy says, "We might be near enough. I'll-- we'll have to chance a warpgate, but--" <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Roy says, "Thank you."
Marigold	Arrivals to the warpgate near the camp now find it in a whirlwind of sharp motion. The yurts are emptied and each of the tribesmen has mustered a horse already; two bows on their back and a sword at their hips. Roy speaks tensely into his radio; Marcus the old knight barks commands in the young lord's stead.      "Thea, if we fly ahead--!" "Don't! They've got the Gale Bow, what are you thinking?!" "Yesun, Tala, take my other horse! Archer groups as they were before! If you don't have a leader--" "Everyone with a Divine Weapon, by the wagons! You'll be the first through, so...!" "Where are you all going? Fae wants to come!" "Abso*lute*ly not, young lady." "Igrene, it's not fair...!"      Roy takes a second, a few moments after you've arrived, to straighten up from his call and shake his head, pale. "Cecilia's gotten us coordinates within a tolerable ride. They can't muster ballistae because of Brunnya's siege magic, and someone's using the Gale Bow to keep pegasus knights from challenging the dragons in the air..."      A traded glance with Marcus to the side. Marcus offers the young lord a hand up onto the back of his warhorse. "Douglas is trying to hold them at the river past the border, but... whatever we can manage from behind the Bernish lines..."      Roy just shakes his head. There's a moment after you've been hit where you aren't sure how bad you're hurt, yet. This feels like that.      It'll be a gallop through a few successive gates before a possibly-dangerous arrival. Lucius with Elimine's tome Aureola, Rutger with the blade Durandal, and Echidna with the axe Armads have all found tribesmen to ride behind.      Elites without fast overland travel get to pick between riding with... [ ] Dayan [ ] Sue [ ] Melady, with her wyvern [ ] Thea, although her pegasus can only gallop with a passenger... [ ] And Shanna, same.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel is scrambling to get ready too. Surely at this point Lugh has had enough frontlines for a while, so he expects to go solo. He expects, in a reasonable way, to get behind enemy lines and to work there before anyone else arrives. That's why the only logical choice for him is to insist on joining Melady, and affirm his priority on that. "I can't fly, but I can fall safely." He explains. "Get there fast and safely high up, then get me high above the nerve center of their push and I'll do the rest." He's finishing strapping up tactical gear over his psychonaut field-operations turtleneck-suit-thing.     "We have so much momentum... we can't let them break this. We have to stop them before they're even on the doorstep. I'll find their plan, or I'll find who knows their plan, or I'll do *something*." Those war dragons have caused him so much difficulty, but after nearly a year of time spent on them, he's got some ideas on how to detect and influence them, having studied so many of these divine weapons; they'll still present a stiff resistance, but it's now or never to try to really, intensely bring all possible psychic force to bear.     He's still a bit drained. From that mess, in the Motherlobe. But by now, he's recovered enough. He's studied enough. He's focused enough. And what's in front of him is a challenge of espionage, an enemy taking unexplained tactics with unclear motivation that needs puzzling out by getting into enemy brains. He *will* confront this. After he limbers up and mounts onto Tryffin at a passenger's position.
Nobunaga	Nagayoshi Mori, the towering retainer for the warlord Oda Nobunaga, stands at the westernmost edge of the camp, his eyes fixed on the horizon. His expression is stern, the corners of his mouth turned downwards just enough to part his lips and slightly bare his shark-like teeth. Clad now in bone-white armor with red-stained hakama tucked into iron calf-high boots, his grip is iron-tight on that spear of his, planted firmly in the grass beside himself.     He only turns when Nobunaga herself arrives. The interaction between them is seamless and unhesitant; his free hand reaches down, she takes it, and he swings the smaller warlord up onto his shoulder. She doesn't sit there but rather stands, balanced in a practiced fashion. Seems like she already has her ride of choice in mind.     "Fire on the horizon is obvious enough," the warrior mutters.     Nobunaga, trailing a faint cloud of embers, considers the options available to her, "We'll need to sever the head as quickly as possible. It won't be easy with war dragons about, but she'll probably be overconfident because of them." In a upwelling of flame, the warlord's hair flares from black to bright crimson. Her clothes burn away, replaced by a bodysuit; gold and crimson details, and a lack of her distinctive cap. Instead, the golden sunburst rays occupy a shoulder decoration, fanning out from her shoulders and neck.     Easily a head taller than before, it is now that the Demon King sits upon Nagayoshi's shoulder, crossing one leg over the other. The cutesy squeaky quality her voice takes on sometimes is completely gone, in its place a more resonant confidence.     "Proceed."
Angela	Why did this have to happen the day after Angela's birthday? People get tummyaches after birthdays due to all the CAKE! But odds are, this means the only big difference between the Library's deployment is that Roland isn't going to make it today. Binah's combat capabilities are significantly weakened from way back when and in an emergency like this, Gebura is immensely called for. Love has been sticking around herself, though, because she was sort of hoping for a situation like this. She traveled and got to know the people in the army and tried her very best to not make it too clear that she really really wanted to punish evil but now that it's here, she's excited! But as a cartoon character come to life, Love is first required to pay heed to the children. In this case, Fae who is of the appropriate age group. "Mm!! I understand! You want to help!" Love tells Fae. "How about you back me up?" She summons her staff into one of her hands and dips down to offer it to Fae. "If you hold onto this and cheer me on, I'll be able to overcome anything!" Love isn't being condescending, this is actually how she thinks her life works. "I'll be back soon! Maybe I'll even get to show you my human form after!" ''Someone's using the Gale Bow to keep pegasus knights from challenging the dragons in the air.'' Gebura, stepping through the Warpgate says, "Then that should be our first priority. We gotta find whomever's holding the Gale Bow so we can get our backup. Brunnya too." She pauses to look at Roy, "Angela said I should go out so I'm gonna ask your people to not get too close to me once I'm in the thick of it. When I'm using three EGO, my fine control isn't really the best." Love is essentially a mount herself. If someone wants to ride her, she will lower her body so they can get up on her 'back' and once she straightens up, she will rush ahead. Her body is too heavy for her to fly but she's rather quick! Gebura also forgos taking on a mount for a sillier reason. She starts walking and then black and crimson red armoring forms across her body, the red glow brightening as it appears. A similarly red aura erupts across her coat. A full-covering helmet with a singular red eye takes form around Gebura's head as her hair bursts into red plasmic energy billowing behind her. She takes a breath and just starts running, leaving thick grooves in the dirt with every step. "Ah." Love is left in the dust. "Oh no she's going to try and leave me out of it..."
Odette Raskins	With Roy's call for aid coming through all of a sudden, preparations have not gone nearly as smoothly as Odette would have liked. She's still sorting through her stash of supplies and medicines to get them in just the right order for rapid deployment on the field, undoubtedly hurried along by the news that Bern's suddenly started making a push towards Etruria rather than holding their lines. "P-please, Fae. It's not safe if you come with us right up front. We'd be worried about watching out for you and ourselves, and... W-we've made it through tougher fights before, so don't worry!" She tries to placate the dragon with a brave, if obviously nervous smile. "B-besides. We'll be counting on you to protect everyone back here since we can't be in two places at once." A beat. "M-most of us can't. Once we're back home, we'll make sure to tell you about everything that happened, okay?" It's easy to say that now, at least, even though Odette's palms are already sweating inside her gloves in anxious anticipation of what's to come. Going into battle is always nerve-wracking, but hearing about dragons plural being present on the opposing field doesn't help matters at all. Joining the group around Roy, she fidgets slightly before sliding a face mask on and pulling her fancy tech glasses with the HUD down over her eyes. "Moving fast, then.. Okay. I'll try not to get in the way of anyone, but I'll be close by to get any major wounds covered up and plenty of painkillers and blood back in." She asserts her usual position for these kinds of battles, glancing around briefly to try and figure out who she should be riding with. "Don't want to be too far in the back, but not right up front and in the way, I guess...? Um. Oh! Maybe I can ride with Sue or Melady? A view from the middle, or a view from the sky could both work."
Riku Asakura	Riku's through the portal as fast as he can, upon hearing that the Brune forces are marching on the capital.  He's barely got his jean jacket on, having been lying down at Nebula House resting.  He runs around trying to figure out where to go.  Eventually, he says to himself... "Standing around doing nothing won't get us anywhere... I'll go after the dragons!" he says this loud and proudly.   He brings out the Ultracapsules.  "You go!" he states and activates one capsule.  The image of Ultraman appears next to him.  "I go!" he says again, and the image of Ultraman Belial appears.  Each capsule is slotted into the capsule holder before he brings the Fusion Riser down.  "Here we go!" He scans each capsule before bringing the Fusion Riser up.   "It's time to get ready!" He says and clicks the trigger on the Fusion Riser while bringing it over his chest.  "GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"  With that, a blue flame burns brightly around him as he grows several stories tall.   Ultraman Ultraman Belial Ultraman Geed Primitive! And as he grows to his full height, he soars into the sky in the direction of the marching army.  His first order of business is to intercept the dragons as best as he can and take them down.  Not as Riku Asakura, but as the giant of light, Ultraman Geed!
Petra Soroka	Petra's been given lots of reasons to think about the end of the world lately. In the City, the end of the world still hangs in the air of District 12 where Petra works; in Lilian's office in the LSCC, a robot whose memories she's shared has the end of their world fresh on their mind, and is fixated on the end of Lilian's.     This plan of Zephiel's, with uncountable numbers of dragons stampeding blindly towards the heart of a capital city with another one's cold ruins behind them, feels like the beginning of the end of this one. This is the moment where the idea of 'war' stops aligning with the concept used in polite company, as bad as it's been so far, and starts to be the sheer animal urge to tear down the buildings that mankind has created and letting the scatter like roaches afterwards. She can only imagine that Bern's soldiers, in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance of cheering this on, are feeling *vengeance* for being frustrated and humiliated. "Where are you all going? Fae wants to come!"     Petra stops Fae by putting her hand on her shoulder, firmly squeezing to turn Fae's attention away from the mobilizing army. "Hey, hey, Fae. Everyone in the army's got to know when they've got to follow the rules they're given, remember? That's what it means to be out here with the army, for all of us. So you stay back here and watch over all the people who can't fight."     Petra bends down and gives her a little kiss on the top of the head. "Stay safe. We'll be back before you know it." "We gotta find whomever's holding the Gale Bow so we can get our backup. Brunnya too."     "Yeah. Which means trying to punch through an army to get to the people they're protecting the most while there's however many dragons on the air." Petra sighs, feeling her chest compress like there's weight pressing down on it. "Which means you, me, and Lilian, right?" "Oh no she's going to try and leave me out of it..."     It's still a moderate run to get to the battlefield, and there's no actual sounds of battle here. Already prepared with her Silver in the sheathe on her hip, and every other weapon carries in the mirror around her neck, the sounds of the army scrambling into position feel distant too. It puts Petra into an oddly calm state, like she's a ghost observing the world around her, disconnected except for the thought 'What if Iðunn's there?'     She pats the side of Love's neck. "Mind carrying me over? I'm saving the Beauty of Ash 'til we're there."
Desire Stars	Kamen Riders Geats and Na-Go step through the Warpgate into the camp already transformed. Geats is clad in the stark white Magnum and fiery red Boost armors; Na-Go in the neon dance-party blue-gold Beat armor and wielding the ungainly but useful Armed Propeller. They can't muster ballistae because of Brunnya's siege magic, and someone's using the Gale Bow to keep pegasus knights from challenging the dragons in the air...      "I imagine Riku'll draw fire the minute he transforms. He's a pretty big target. Do we know who 'someone' is or where they're posted? Sounds like the Gale Bow's pretty obvious."      "So, they can't fight the dragons with the Gale Bow on the field... What are the pegasus knights doing in the meantime? I can fly with them and strengthen them with the Beat Axe."      Neither Kamen Rider needs to impose someone else for fast overland travel--                                   BOOSTRIKER!                                        Geats has the supercharged Boostriker motorcycle, and Na-Go can stick close to the ground with the Armed Propeller.      On the scene, Na-Go joins ranks with the pegasus knights, one hand holding the Beat Axe and the other keeping her aloft with the Armed Propeller. She grips the frets tightly and kicks across the strings with her boot, strumming a power chord that starts up the Beat armor's special ability. The equalizers on her breastplate bob brightly, subwoofers in her pauldrons thumping a bolstering anthem to speed up the other fliers and improve their reaction times.      Geats, on the Boostriker, tag-teams the dragons with Riku, keeping on the ground but rising and quickscoping at-speed as the bike tears across the landscape for snap shots at eyes, throats and undersides exposed by Ultraman's grapples.
Lilian Rook	Of course this would happen right after Lilian had finally expressed cautious optimism about the future of the war. Of course it would all suddenly go to hell at the very moment she allowed herself to think about 'after', and told everyone else to appreciate their own accumulated efforts. This is the worst plausible disaster scenario to suddenly happen right at this instant, and it sprung from doing as well as could be expected until now. And she was just having such a good day, too.     Lilian drops her research in the middle of review, barely locking her PC before scrambling to the impromptu 'sortie station' she'd only just installed in the other room. Without time to return anywhere she can keep heavier equipment, she has to flash her emergency credentials at the Warpgate with little more than her armour, sword, daily carry bag, and trauma kit. She only finishes re-arming her sidearm's trigger after the second-to-last travel link.     Arriving at camp already frazzled, Lilian's nerves are actually soothed more than they're exacerbated by the storm of activity already underway, even if only just barely. She smooths herself out as she walks, taking a fast and forceful clip through the center of the convoy, looking this way and that all the way up until Roy. "Then there's no use committing to a massed assault until we've dealt with one or both. We'll just be hurling our soldiers in front of the dragons if we do." Even though Lilian has to raise her voice and bark out the words amidst all the noise, she sounds firmly convinced that Roy is already thinking the same thing as her.     "If Mulagir is in working condition, we may be able to make use of it in the middle of combat; but there's no telling who if anyone is qualified to handle it. After having already seen Brunnya in battle with Hector, I'm reluctant in the extreme to suggest that we go after her with less than our best, but the Divine Weapons are still not optional. Unless I hear a very good reason, I'm going to keep her too busy to continue bombardment at the very least."
Marigold	"Hey, hey, Fae..."      "P-please, Fae. It's not safe..."      "Mm!! I understand! You want to help!"      Igrene, herself staying back for a lack of Divine Weapon or mount, gives Odette, Love, and Petra a shakily grateful smile. "Protect the people who can't..." Fae mumbles, discontentedly. She rubs at her eyes with the backs of both little hands. "Fae will... do her best. Fae's gonna miss you..."      It'll only be a few hours. She knows that, right? But the kiss to her forehead, and being gifted a wand, does grumbly-settle her.      "Then there's no use committing to a massed assault until we've dealt with one or both."      "I agree, but dragons shouldn't be able to catch mounted archers on an open plain if they scatter, so there's little risk in letting Dayan's warriors skirmish. Who knows if they have any as a rearguard, too." When did Roy get so firm? Maybe that's just desperation.      "What are the pegasus knights doing in the meantime? I can fly with them and strengthen them with the Beat Axe."      "Theirs, it doesn't sound like much. Ours... if you think you can safely get Shanna and Thea in on Brunnya or their Mulagir wielder, try it. But please don't push your luck too much." He isn't that desperate, yet.      Sue gives a hand up to Odette obligingly, just as Melady gives one to Flamel.      "I'll do my best. We'll see how close I can get. Careful where you touch her; Tryffin's still healing."      "Don't worry. Just hold tight."      It's only a matter of moments before Roy, radioing from horseback, double-confirms the warpgate route that Cecilia reported from her scouts. He gives the word to Dayan, who musters his horsemen with a wave and a yell into a narrow line.      "We'll be through first. If there's any immediate surprises, we can handle it better than the Kutolah archers. Marcus?"      "As you say, Lord Roy."      Marcus urges his horse forward through the warpgate. The galloping route of Roy's small mounted party and the four hundred horsemen behind connects from one gate to another, through a brisk series of worlds; here along a beach that might or might not be in a South America, here a hard-packed red desert; here a built-up but deserted hub, and...
Marigold	"Hey-- more?!" "Shit, I told the captain--" "Spears! Brace!!" "Don't let them through!!"      Re-emerging into Sacae, one can immediately smell smoke. But more immediate than the horizon is a small band of some thirtyish Bernish spearmen, idling with their tents half-set-up and their wagon parked nearby; the still-warm bodies of a couple dead Etrurian scouts lie just beside the warpgate. Half of the soldiers were disciplined enough to still be holding their weapons; the others scrabble for theirs.      This, apparently, is why using Warpgates is 'risky'. It's easy to imagine even a small band of spearmen holding a chokepoint like this interminably. But they're off-guard, and you're a hardened spearpoint.      "Marcus! Just scatter them and keep moving!" The old knight does his best; his armored warhorse bowls one spearman aside, and he drives another to the ground with his lance on his way through the small encampment. Sue is worse-suited to surprise close combat; she drops the first spearman to brace against her with an arrow, then the one behind him gouges her pony's side as she rides past, and it tumbles to spill Sue and Odette both onto the ground.      Melady and Flamel ascend, on wyvern-back, over the spears as soon as they come through the gate. Shanna and Thea do too, willing to risk the skies if Neon supports them.      They're the first to be able to appreciate what lies beyond that one Bernish ambush.      Ahead, the grassy plains narrow to a strait between the northern and southern mountain ranges, only a couple of miles wide. A walled border fort, Etruria's previous line of defense, lies completely smashed into scorched masonry rubble.      Past that ruin, where Bern's army has marched, the horizon is black smoke with flickers of red flame where dragons spread their wings.      From this distance, especially from the sky, Bern's soldiers are a carpet of glinting silver-and-red, and even the dragons look small. Maybe a half-dozen are in the air at once, vomiting awful flame at where the Etrurian army must be, but they don't have the stamina or liking to stay there; they land, howl and rampage, and take to the sky again in bursts when they find themselves pressed.      More than that, from up above, the shadows of the mountains and the trees on the battleground ahead are unnaturally long, and they stretch west towards Etruria, even though the near-setting sun should cast them east. In their darkest areas, they seem to squirm.      Every few seconds, the distant roaring of fire and dragons and soldiers is punctuated by an eerie ansi41, whistle) too, and a curving green line scars the sky. It takes a moment to realize that those must be arrows, seeking ground targets opportunistically.      Their starting point is consistent: the far face of the small northern mountain that defines the natural pass. It's good luck that the Gale Bow archer's back is turned to your fliers, for now. From nearly the same point, there's a subtle gleam of sparking magic before a finger of lightning stabs down from the sky over the distant Etrurian forces.
Riku Asakura	Ultraman Geed flies in on the tail of the Bern army itself, trying to catch up to it before it can turn more land as black as the land it's leaving behind now.  He's lucky that the Gale bow has not been turned their way, but he's also higher up than most, trying to watch things from above so that he can see where to put his blows the best.   "Geed Claw!" he shouts, as he summons forth the weapon from nowhere and grips it in his right hand as he soars.  He pales internally at the blackened horizon and red flames that are left in their wake.  They're going for scorched-earth tactics.  This makes him harden his heart internally.   He can't hold back when so many lives are on the line, so he pulls the lever on the Geed Claw three times before flying down toward the ground.  He hits the ground like a thunderbolt, aiming to scare the land forces as best as he can, but also brings the Geed Claw up and fires a beam into the sky.   This causes the sky to light up with many different points of light.  "DIFUSION SHOWER!" he bellows out.  Soon, the points of light surround the dragons, and fire down like tons of spears, aiming to shower the dragons themselves.  The spears aim for their wings, trying to ground these dragons before they can keep up their scorched earth campaign against all comers.
Flamel Parsons	<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Melady says, "I think that's Mulagir on that mountainside. ... Might be Brunnya, too. Flamel, should I bring you in?" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Please, yes." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Guh. Those shadows... I remember the last time I saw them, long like that."     Flamel directs Melady, watching for the glimmer of green that foretells the line and its searing violence. he braces against Tryffin, peering at it telepathically through the beast's eyes, the vision of a creature that evolved to fly and hunt from above. "That bow is going to make my invisibility *useless*... I can erase myself from a visual cortex, but if they realize I'm close, I can't do anything about a seeking arrow." He says. "Drop me from high up. Don't risk yourself, I'll do fine on the way down. And, thanks."     He drops, flicking into invisibility. No reason not to take precautions. Arms wide in the experienced posture of a man who has sky-dived into a wide variety of superspy operations, he thinks some light thoughts that slowly build up a thought bubble... and some time before he hits the ground, he pulls the bubbly chain firmly, releasing a barely-visible, translucent parachute of uplifting emotion, and glides gently to the space where those arrows originate.     He moves quickly, once he's landed, taking advantage of trees, rock formations, the shape of the mountain itself, to break up visual sight-lines and prevent clear observation of the sparse sounds he makes. A stealthy clamber, climb, and levitating drift should get him to the origin point. Who's there? Brunnya? Someone else? He has to seek out the mind that has the plan, and hopefully Geed's crashing impact in the dragon forces produces at least one firm, solid Geed-shaped Doubt, at least one. Even when a Doubt is burned out, it tends to burn brightly, so Flamel can hopefully trace it psychically.     He can't take a seeking bow in direct combat like this. But whatever mind he finds, once he's close enough to the origin, he plans to telepathically plunder for secrets in a rapid astral projection into immediate executive and memory centers. That means hunching down prone in some spot nearby, and projecting fast, to scan. What's the plan here? Is Iðunn here, or just a large amount of her magic? Where is she, if so? He needs to find what would break the back of this offensive as fast and as firmly as possible -- and hopefully nobody spots him, prone in the landscape, while he flicks out of invisibility to focus on that.
Angela	Love is immediately cheered up by the prospects of being Petra's ride. "Yeah!! I mean, no I don't mind! I'm just excited!!" She slithers rapidly across the ground all the way, speeding up once she sees the beginnings of the destruction being unleashed by Bern. She lives by certain rules and she naturally is going to be more enthused once the possibility of fighting for love (Fae! Petra! The delicious and plentiful rodents and other small animals!) and justice (the people who keep making Fae cry and are unleashing an apocalyptic war which is ALMOST AS BAD). The Red Mist, well, largely stormed through, the Bernish spearmen, swinging Nothing There in a wide and engulfing arc and then just kept running. She is taking the situation seriously, but she is also a ridiculous person who is less accustomed to war and more fighting twenty dudes or monsters at once. She looks around and seems unable to immediately spot Iðunn which is a small relief as she gets closer. Lilian had already stated she intended to focus on occupying Brunnya so it's Gebura's position she should focus on the Gale Bow user and then figure out things from there. She ignores the dragons for the moment and squints as she works on determining the origin point of those arrows. She bursts off in that direction. If the arrows start being launched in her direction, she intends to let the EGO Armor take the brunt of it rather than try to avoid them and hope they don't hit anybody else as she intends to charge that position, bounding towards the Gale Bow user in a rather direct manner. It's how she is and the sooner the archer's attention is turned off from the skies, the better as far as she's concerned. Love on the other hand is more focused in heading towards where there's the BIGGEST concentration of enemy forces because that is where there's the most evil to punish! "There's so many... This really is a Dark Kingdom!" Love marvels at Petra. "Is this paradise? Is this the most wonderful place in the multiverse?" Her jaw opens up as she summons up an Arcana Slave and fires a bright purple beam right from her mouth towards the center of one of Bern's larger columns menacing Erturia. Win or lose, this might be one of the best days in the Magical Girl of Love's life so far. She's been such a good girl, and now she gets to be rewarded!
Nobunaga	Near the head of the column that erupts through the warpgate and onto the battlefield is Nagayoshi Mori, sporting the Demon King Nobunaga on his shoulder. Bernish spearmen jolt towards readiness. Mori's frown splits into a ferocious smile a split second before his helmet snaps forward, completely enclosing his head in bone-white steel with long curved horns. > "Just scatter them and keep moving!"     "GET OUTTA MY WAY!" the samurai roars. Bracing his own spear with both hands, the long spearhead nearly grazing the ground, Mori sweeps it in a wide arc ahead of himself, mid-step. Anyone caught by the blade is likely a goner, but more importantly anyone too close is still sent sprawling from the force of his weapon clashing with their bodies or their own attempts to guard. Without missing a step, Mori charges through the opening he creates like a runaway train.     Sue's horse goes down; Mori's helmet turns towards her as she tumbles.     Nobunaga reacts immediately, unfolding her legs and kicking them up. Mori provides an empty hand for her to step into; and then he throws in the same motion that the warlord jumps. Her foot comes down on the back of Dayan's saddle, her hand resting on his shoulder for balance; "Ride!"     With Nobunaga's advance unhindered, Nagayoshi Mori slams his foot into the earth and pivots, leaping backward in the same motion. Perhaps two seconds later, he brings his spear down into the grass between Sue and Odette and the Bernish troops. As he rises, he brings the weapon out in a wide arc, then slams his foot into position in the same instant the weapon is brought fully to bear, its point angled low and threateningly towards the scattered formation of hostile troops.     "If you want them, you'll have to kill me first!" Oni Musashi roars, his voice distorted behind his helmet, "Do you think ten of you is enough? Twenty?! Come on, if you think you've got enough to make that trade!"
Nobunaga	Astride Dayan's horse, Nobunaga carefully watches the distant battle. The thin arcs of green light are no doubt the magical shots of the Gale Bow, betraying its wielder's location. Brunnya is not guaranteed to be at the same place, but the lightning makes it clear she is definitely here *somewhere.* Crimson eyes narrow slightly in thought. After a moment, she pats down on Dayan's shoulder, "Bring me as close as you dare, and I will show them what opposing a Demon King is really like."     She doesn't ask the Kutolah leader to stop though, not at any point. Rather, once she determines she's close enough the warlord simply bails from the back of his horse and bleeds off momentum using her cape. When she strikes the ground, scorched grass erupts back into flames; the very ground sears beneath her feet in a radius that rapidly expands around her. She overlays her inner reality across the battlefield, transforming a blackened landscape into a blazing hell.     Okay so it's not much of a difference at this point.     But the intrusion is definitely obvious, the insertion of foreign magic, the burning touch of the Demon King. She holds out her hands to either side, Nobbu soldiers surging out of newformed cracks and crevasses; troops with swords and guns, or piloting little tanks, and even some robot versions with stretchy arms. The army advances into the rear of Bern's assault, with a flame-wreathed Nobunaga leading them.     "Ahahaha...Hahahaha!! Tremble, worms! For now your foe is the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven!"
Odette Raskins	Unable to resist the gutpunch from seeing and hearing Fae's distress, Odette hunches over to give Fae a quick hug as well. "It won't be long. Promise." Joining Sue atop the pony, she can't quite check her gear again, but she's confident enough not to bother. Instead, she holds on as directed, nodding once before keeping her head down. "Will do! I-I'll keep an eye on the right side once we're through, then. Got a few throwable things ready, too!" Unfortunately, Odette doesn't quite get a chance to throw anything once the army makes it through those series of worlds and arrives in Sacae. The stench of smoke is her first warning that they're in a bad place, but she sees the spearmen around the same time Sue's already launching an arrow at the first one. "O-one more!" She calls out in warning, but it's too late, and she shrieks as the pony drops both it's rider and passenger unceremoniously. Tucking her down past her arms in half-terror and half-trained reflex, Odette's vision swims briefly before she forces herself back up and glances around rapidly to get her bearings. Sue's over there, the pony's over there, and there's a soldier with a wet-looking spear. Making sure Sue's okay is her first priority then and there, but the existence of spearman could be a problem for all three of them! And so, Odette's adrenaline-fueled mind prompts her to shout at the spearman at the top of her lungs. It comes out in a half-scream and half-threatening shout, and it doesn't even resembles words. It's just noise to try and draw that spearman's attention away from her ally, and she's already reaching into her bag to grab something to hurl when- "If you want them, you'll have to kill me first!" Not recognizing Mori right away from that angle, Odette lets out another full-shriek before scrambling around behind him towards Sue in a full-blown retreat. "Come on come on come on we need to go! B-b-bandages!" She stammers out rapidly while adjusting her glasses and looking Sue over rapidly for obvious wounds that need coverage right then and there. It's only then that she realizes that Mori's distorted voice actually does sound familiar, and then she goes back to treatment. "A-all that fire up there... Those are the dragons, aren't they? W-we gotta move. Miss Sue, I'll get your pony after you, a-and then we can back up Mister Mori!" She suggests, all while jabbing an injector into Sue's shoulder to dull the pain. She prepares another one for the pony once she's made sure Sue's back on her feet, and she'll even bring a third out for Mori if/when Sue's ready to take shelter behind the (relative?) giant.
Petra Soroka	"We'll be through first. If there's any immediate surprises, we can handle it better than the Kutolah archers."     Crossing through a warpgate into an active fight is something Petra's never actually done once before. Sitting on top of Love-- the ride was *horribly* uncomfortable, there wasn't any way to sit where her legs had a good place to go-- Petra contemplates this for a moment while Marcus and Roy deliberate. Does she enter the Beauty of Ash before passing through the warpgate, and therefore take up much more space and slow down the process of people funneling through it, or does she summon it right after passing through, and therefore risk being instantly killed by walking into a firefight where any number of arrows could be flying through the air?     Christ. How did she survive without her mech? Thinking about that for just a moment makes Petra remember the point of them being mechs at all, as the last line of rejection against the injustice of a sharp piece of metal's power over a person's body. That's so scary.     She slides off of Love's back, scratching her flank. "Thanks, Love. And you're right, but if you keep that to your inside thoughts, people will appreciate you afterwards more. Remember, it's not wonderful because there's bad guys, it's wonderful because *you're* stopping them."     The mirror in her palm shatters and erupts, the pieces click together into the iridescent glass form of the Beauty of Ash. It waits behind the warpgate like a sprinting horse, or a lion in the colosseum. When Roy makes the call to step back into Sacae, the response is like a gunshot-- the mech twitchily hits max speed in an instant, slivers of glass shearing off from air resistance to follow behind it like a comet trail.     In the midst of the spearmen, it stops just as suddenly, as if it slammed into a brick wall. It shatters just the same, glass spraying out to either side and then slowing to a stop like a pulse of tiny blades that detonates around the Bernish soldiers. When it twists around, the glass shards in the air twist with it, anchored to their relative point like an exploded diagram of a skeleton around the chiseled-down frame of the Beauty of Ash.     <Gebura, let me take you to Mulagir, so you're not running up the side of the mountain.>     It feels a little odd to fight alongside Gebura, especially in the mech that Petra used so heavily during the war in Lobotomy Corporation, but it was never about uncompromising ideological grounds anyways. Gebura's not a mercenary for hire that Angela just happens to deploy; the Red Mist was always fighting like this, for people like this. So there's nothing to worry about.     Petra would like it if she picked Gebura up with the pointy arms of the Beauty of Ash. Unfortunately for her, she's much more likely to suffer the indignity of Gebura sitting on top of her like a horse.     Once she's hopped up, the mech takes off again. Unlike the pegasus and wyvern riders, or Flamel's approach, Petra makes no effort at all to avoid drawing the attention of Mulagir, even though she feels like it'd be better if they shot Geed instead. The Beauty of Ash rockets through the air like a dart, taking the shortest and straightest path, and if the green arrow is turned against it, then it'll blink and shift instantly to the side to continue moving forwards at full speed. If the bow's tracking is subject to momentum, then the sudden readjustment should send the arrow flying far past Petra, and if not... then hold on, Gebura.
Desire Stars	<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Shanna says, "Ohhh, no... Neon, I'm trusting you..."     "...I'll make sure you don't regret it, Shanna."     She rises, taking the rear of the formation with Melady, Shanna and Thea.     On the ground, Geats covers Sue and Odette with the Boostriker, gunning the throttle and braking into a powerslide that kicks up a spray of loose earth into any Bernish spears attempting to capitalize on the dismount. The wrist-mounted articulated lasers on his armor pivot and track through the cloud of debris, blasting rapid staccato bursts to further scatter the spearmen.     The last burst has scarcely cleared his emitters before Geats rights the bike, straightens out the front wheel and tears forward. The curved green line in the distance is reflected in the red lenses of his fox-themed mask. His head turns, and Ultraman comes into focus on the reflection in its place. *We need to stop that before they realize how many fliers we have. Hope you're ready, kid.*     Na-Go weighs her options. She's definitely gotten better, but 'our best' isn't something she feels includes her just yet. Joining directly in the assault with Brunnya would be dangerous for her even alone, and she's got several lives in her hands at the moment. Several people are going after Mulagir...     "Okay!" she calls, raising her voice above both the din of battle and the buzz of the Armed Propeller. "Lilian's going after Brunnya... let's hang back a bit and keep her from getting overwhelmed! Melady, if things get too hairy, call out and we'll peel off! Stay in earshot of my music, everyone!"     From the vantage point in the air, it's easier, if not strictly easy, to track the motions of the sea of Bernish soldiers. She prioritizes any especially mobile units that look like they're circling to kettle or wall off Lilian, striking from the air with hurled bolts of lightning conjured by the Beat Axe.
Angela	Gebura looks about half ready to punch her way up the mountain when Petra drops by in the Beauty of Ash. Gebura is used to a world where yesterday's enemy is tomorrow's friend but she's still caught off guard. She wasn't expecting backup. Not just because she's certain Petra had a negative opinion of her, but also because she's just really not the sort of person who typically gets backup of any kind. Oh, she grew somewhat accustomed to having a team before but how many people on that team stuck around once the war of LobCorp was over? But she is no longer the sort of person to disregard an offer of aid. And as Petra thought, these are exactly the sort of people Gebura lived and died fighting for--so there's no reason to be prideful. Unfortunately, she does pull herself up on the Beuaty of Ash's back. She doesn't even think to mount the mech any other way. Her hands are tense, though her face remains calm. The last time someone unleashed a horde of monsters at her it didn't go so well for anyone.
Lilian Rook	'Who knows if they have any as a rearguard, too.'     "If they do, then pull Dayan's men out immediately." Lilian nods, without the time to converse any more than that. "Otherwise, I'll take any cover you can give."     . . . . . . . .     "This is--!" Lilian pauses her exclamation to use the rest of that breath on a pair of spearmen instead; her leap out of the warpgate is redoubled by her first foot on the ground and used to throw her armoured elbow through the haft of Sue's aggressor's spear, pommel following in the breach to turn his armour concave. Right as she rolls herself over his shoulder to kick the second in the back and strike him with the blade down his entire back, she drags th words back out "--worse than what I was expecting. God help Cecilia if she's out there." No sooner has she said them do the words stab and twist in her gut. Rhetorically, Lilian shouts "Clean them up!" at a done deal, curling her fingers around her neck-guard and squeezing the tension out until the metal rattles. There isn't long enough to decide.     ". . . They weren't launching this offensive before they had the dragons. The Etrurian side has taken a ton of damage, but--" Lilian hastily sheathes her sword, drops her bag, retrieves only what she can slot into her waist harness, and talks as quickly as she can. "Don't worry about reducing their numbers. Don't go hunting for Iðunn. If it took all of this concentrated force to commit to this offensive, trust that it'll waver once several chips are taken out of play." It hardly matters if anyone else hears. It's practically a pep talk for herself. "Once everyone is in position, protect our dragonslayers at all costs. Forblaze can take out dragons; we cannot afford to drop a heap of Divine Weapons in Bern's lap."     Lilian's starting gun is nothing. She crouches, braces, breathes deep, and disappears.     Without the benefit of invisibility, Lilian has to land again before she comes up for 'air'. On the soot-blackened ground, she doesn't have anywhere near the same vantage. It's no trivial effort just to reach the fort ruins all in one burst, much less scout from them. First she tries to narrow her search by tactical common sense, then by watching for that spectacular magic and feeling out the concentration of energy at the right moment, and then by leaving her radio on and hoping Flamel finds something.     While catching her breath again, she considers trying to stop one of Mulagir's arrows, then seeing their trajectory, thinks better of it. Then she wonders whether the archer would necessarily know Brunnya's location, and reminds herself that Flamel will find out of they do. Cutting it out of the memory of a rank and file soldier doesn't seem likely. Just the seconds spent wracking her brain makes her heart race.     After a minute and a half in the rubble, Lilian gives in; it's fifty fifty whether her heart will tell her to go after Cecilia instead, but with no better options, she kneels in the flames-- a perfect place for the partial ritual, gathers her attention inwards, opens up her mind's eye, and focuses everything she can can on intuiting the direction she has to fly at top speed, all at once, right now, to make the difference.
Marigold	Side-by-side with Odette, Sue scrabbles to her feet, draws the shortsword from her waist-sash, and locks weapons to shove a spearman away from her. With Petra, Geats, and Mori joining Marcus and the other horsemen in scattering the initial warpgate-guard- the ones who can still stand quickly think better than to stick around- she can find time to kneel by her wounded horse, and stroke its side while Odette heals its cut-open ribs and flank.      "I'm fine. Please treat her," she says, nodding to the pony. "Little red... you'll live. Please, relax." She re-mounts, once it seems well enough to ride again, and helps Odette back up as well...      "Ride!"      Dayan had hesitated long enough to make sure his granddaughter's okay, but pretends he wasn't. "You don't have to tell me twice!" he says to Nobunaga, urging his steed forward with his legs. "Hah, as close as I dare? As close as you dare, warlord!"      Love's and Geed's beams streak towards the bulk of the Bernish forces... and towards, and towards, and towards... and shrink into the distance, and finally impact a closed formation and some dragons respectively. One of the dragons lands to glare at Geed, sizing him up; the formation of soldiers is briefly bewildered, then warily closes the hole.      In the same way, they can't stay long in Nobunaga's blazing hell, and her minion's weapons are quite capable of felling Bernish soldiers... but that peels off the back two lines of the central Bernish block to encircle and engage them, and one squad of the Djute skirmishers to harry them from behind.      Hm.      It's possible for most of the Elites present to put pressure on the rank-and-file Bernish soldiers, with little fear of their spears; but this is a battlefield with thousands upon thousands of them. It's hard to imagine being done with the gory work of a rout in less than some hours. More pressingly, the flashy displays of power catch the attention of those higher-value targets.      Love gets the next whistling green dragon-slaying arrow curving through the air straight at her head. A dragon descends towards Geed with claws outstretched and mouth flaming; Lucius blasts it with Elimine's light-from-the-sky, but it still falls on Geed with its side wounded, and the next bolt of magical lightning- Brunnya's work?- strikes Geed at the same moment. A second dragon swoops down towards Nobunaga like a hawk to a rabbit, and Rutger and Echidna with their own dragonslaying weapons are still some ways behind her on horseback.      "You never have," Shanna tells Neon in the air, with a firm little fist-pump.      "... If we're behind the northern mountain, Mulagir can't get us. Let's stick there while we watch Lilian," Thea advises, a little more warily. When rear-guard soldiers threaten to interrupt her ritual, they add to Neon's lightning with a couple of dive-hurled javelins from a safe distance.
Marigold	"If you're sure," Melady says to Flamel. "And I'll be fine, Neon. They won't shoot a wyvern rider without identification."      "Flamel, don't... don't get yourself killed down there. It'd tear Lugh up," she half-jokes, and doesn't joke quite enough, and then winces at herself.      . . .      Flamel finds a little plateau-meadow on the mountain's side, and can hide himself in the trees and bushes at its edge. In the clearing are a couple dozen Bernish soldiers, several of them in middle-ranking uniforms; a dozen Djute horsemen too; a noble-dressed woman with a tome who must be Brunnya; and beside her, a taller black-haired girl about Sue's age, holding a golden bow with an ethereally vivid blue-green string.      The Mulagir-wielder draws again, aiming at the Beauty of Ash. "Tch. Now what in the world would that be?" "Not one of yours, my lady?" the girl with the bow asks. "No. Bring it down."      Another eerie whistling arrow curves towards Petra; gets sidestepped; and is chased by a magical lightning strike from the clear blue sky that Brunnya hurls alongside a muttered curse.      Flamel finds the doubt he's searching for; Brunnya's mind, un-braced, yields thoughts about 'that creepy dragon-woman' and how 'he shouldn't be here' and 'don't they trust me to carry out the will of Bern?'. Her thoughts tend to the other mountain, towards the south...      Lilian's divination ritual, too, yields briefly split results between the northern mountain and the southern one; before settling on the northern.      As Lilian kneels by the flames, one of those unnatural squirming shadows- at its deepest, cast from a wall of the ruined keep less than a hundred feet away- starts to bulge upwards. A rising semi-circle reveals itself as the curve of a drippily unfinished pitch-black neck when a great head rears up too, smoldering from its eyes even though its jaws drip shadow-black.      It heaves itself out of the ground on soft unfinished limbs and slouches forward towards the Etrurian battle lines, gradually looking more solid. A minute or two later, it's followed by another gruesomely unfinished abomination, this one from the shadows of a southern treeline.
Riku Asakura	'Hope you're ready, kid.' "More than ready, Mr. Ace," Geed replies to Geats, who is already laying down weapons fire for him.  Of course, things are already getting out of control.  A battle... is quite a different experience for Geed than dealing with a monster locally.  One might think the Lab Corp war would have hardened him to this, but it really hasn't.   The dragon sizes him up, and Geed gets into a battle stance, ready to luchodore fight this monster and get on to the next dragon, and the next one... There really are a lot of them here, and a lot of people fighting.   He pushes these thoughts out of his mind, focusing on what he's here to do, one dragon at a time.  It comes up to him, even though it is injured by the relics, which probably makes it more dangerous, as it has nothing more to lose.  The claws tear into the giant of light, causing bad sparks along his body and even drawing out some of that precious light-like blood that gives the giants their names. Geed retaliates, slamming his shoulder into the giant and attempting to throw it back.  He's just got to hold it here and wait for the relics and their users to do what they came here to do.  However, once he breaks out of the grab, Geed summons a bunch of energy around himself.  Dark and ominous, he channels the dark and red energy through his body before firing it like a beam at the dragon, aiming to help put it down the best that he can.
Nobunaga	It seems like Being Huge and Loud does the job this time. Mori slams the butt of his spear down and throws himself forward at the waist to unleash a ferocious, feral war cry after the fleeing Bernish portal guards. It's a heinous, nightmarish sound when warped by the qualities of his helmet, the hungry roar of a demon that suits a man known on the battlefield as Oni Musashi. > "I'll get your pony after you, a-and then we can back up Mister Mori!"     "Oi, oi," Nagayoshi turns enough to stare down at the Kutolah and EMT, his face unreadable behind his helmet, "Nothin' broken?" Sue seems fine, and Odette is already taking care of the obviously wounded horse. He offers his free hand to help Odette back onto the animal once Sue assesses 'Little Red' is able to run again, "Didn't want those dogs closing in. Let's move up."     Nagayoshi is too big for a horse anyway. Being a magical ghost familiar, it's probably fine if he just legs it.     --     The Demon King's hell continues to expand, consuming countryside in all directions. Encircling the emerging Oda troops works at first, until the encirclement itself is enveloped within the confines of Tenka Fubu. The very flames licking at the heels of soldiers now leap up their bodies, into their garments and open mouths. In the center of it, the warlord laughs, "Come and face me! Send all you would dare against the Demon King! If you flee back to Bern, I may yet show you mercy!"     Her entire job here is to break morale in the greater Bernish force and also be a huge distraction; which seems to be working when one is just manifesting soldiers out of cracks in the ground and laughing like a maniac. If she can give Etruria's force a reprieve, the Lycians and her own army can eradicate the assault in a pincer attack.     The warlord's thoughts are interrupted when a dragon slams down on top of her in a great cloud of ash, dust, and embers. For a few tense moments, there's no sound at all. A mechanical sound winds up; the noise of blunt steel impacting flesh. The dragon is shoved out of the ashen dust cloud seconds later, held in the clutches of silver and black Great Mecha Nobbu some five meters in height. As the mechanical soldier wrestles with the beast, Nobunaga herself emerges from the dust-- bloodied but alive.     "Ahaha, I respect your audacity!" the warlord shouts to no one in particular, "But such tricks will not rid you of me so easily!"     Behind her, Great Mecha Nobbu's mouthplate slides down, unleashing a bright pink point-blank laser into the dragon it's fighting with. Around her, Nobbu soldiers, Nobbusengumi swordsnobbu, and Nobbu tanks engage with the Bernish troops still trying to properly quarantine her expanding disruption. A jet of flames erupts from the ground as a crevasse forms; and from it, a formation of Nobbu UFOs float up. Further distractions, further harassment, and more problems for Mulagir's wielder to worry about if they want to maintain air superiority.
Odette Raskins	With more coverage coming from Geats, Odette almost feels like she can breathe again.  "Thanks, Mister A... Geats!" She calls out to him gratefully, still keeping her head down reflexively as she sees and hears the Boostriker volley blasting out not too far from her position. She capitalizes on the opportunity provided by said volley, along with Lilian ramming through the spear that had toppled her and Sue from their mount, to really focus her effortrs on getting Sue's pony put back together. "Sh sh sh... I gotcha. You'll be okay." She joins in with Sue's reassurances to the pony, still sounding a little frantic, but keeping her hands steady while she works. Between the specialized bandages, the sprays, and an injection of helpful chemicals? The pony probably won't feel good as new, but Odette's definitely given it enough to feel fine enough. "Thanks again, Sue. A-alright, we... We need to keep moving. If Mulagir's the key to this fight, then..." Climbing back onto the pony with Sue's and Nagayoshi's aid, Odette shakes her head quickly at the latter after a quick once over with her medical HUD helping her assessment. "I think... Yes, you're all good, too." She replies with a relieved exhale, shifting from the big wounds and the pony's injuries to focusing more on Sue's less pressing wounds.  She blinks slowly in surprise when Sue asks for her guidance on where to go, then inhales deeply to try and steady her voice. It actually kind of works. "Let's head for the northern mountains with the others. It's like they said about the bow... Mulagir's the key to turning-oh, that's going to need some touchups later... Turning this around and taking the pressure off Etruria. We just need to be careful and-" A heavy exhale later, and then Odette holds on tightly once again. "-No, not too careful. Careful enough to not go down, but we'll be going right into some really risky stuff just to get that bow." She explains, exhaling sharply as she continues trying to suppress the fear response while looking between Sue and Mori. "We'll be coming in after Geats at this rate, so we can split their attention another way. That'll reduce that pressure against everyone else, and... Buy enough time for Miss rook and Mister Flamel to pull it off."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel, still undetected, prone in the grass, tenses up. Shadows everywhere are misbehaving, but not here, right? This is the worst. The soldiers, horsemen, mage, all of them are such a huge risk. But... Flamel quickly exits Brunnya's mind, extricating as stealthily as he can.     This next part is going to be really bad. Deep within the Parsons Institute, the Imagery Estimation department is working overtime producing a large volume of data about how absolutely horrible it'll turn out if he messes this up. How awful and violent and brutal, how it'll simply cleanly punch a hole straight through him, so wide and so significant that it might leave a comically-smoking pair of legs and nothing else by the time Brunnya's done with him.     But he's an expert. He's powerful, and skilled, and efficient, and he's in, to some degree, his element. Behind enemy lines, undetected, and with functioning mental access to his enemy. So the Interim Director of the Parsons Institute simply shuts down the Imagery Estimation department, and makes an emergency reallocation of all its employees to the freshly-rebuilt Executive Department for the worst thing you could ever wish on your worst enemy: A targeted cross-cell all-agency data analysis and projection project.     Flamel dives. Not into Brunnya, but into her chosen archer. Deep into Trajectory Calculations, a substrate of human psychology so deep and so dense that it's practically like diving into the crawlspaces and ductwork of the mind. Where motorics meets vision meets kinetics meets reflexes meets imagery meets a dozen other mental faculties.     Here's what will happen: - The archer will go, briefly, blank-eyed and dazed. - The archer's head will turn to focus on the southern mountain. - The archer will clearly focus on the spot Zephiel and Iðunn are at (despite the fact that Brunnya likely didn't share this information). - She will draw the bow back, pointed in entirely the wrong direction. - She will adjust aim as necessary, per existing skills and faculties. - She will perform the entire firing sequence of Mulagir towards Iðunn.     And if Brunnya or the soldiers here notice any of those unusual moments in time before the arrow leaves the bow, then they'll snap her out of it. Surely by now Bern's commanders know that a psychic is hard at work against them, and they'd shake the archer out of it, and that would let her realize someone's in her mind, and she would alert everyone around her to Flamel's presence. And then, he will be two smoking boots in a clearing.     If. *If*.     <Now!> Flamel signals.
Desire Stars	Na-Go's cat-themed helmet bobs in the affirmative to Thea's suggestion. "Got it!" When Lilian finishes her ritual, Na-Go makes a suggestion of her own: "She's going for Ithunn... don't let anything distract her!" She adjusts the instrumentation of the anthem her armor plays, adding an energizing effect--mostly for the benefit of the mounts, who will now be able to fly for longer without tiring. Reaching for the Desire Driver at her waist, Na-Go lifts her index, the Beat Axe precariously held in her grip as she runs her finger across the keys of the Beat Buckle and flicks the tiny turntable.      "Let's see if we can't break them up a little!"                                BEAT TACTICAL BLAST!                                    With a swing of the Axe, a colorful neon set of leger lines is swiped into the air. Musical notes pop onto the lines as they descend over the soldiers below, before each explodes in shockwaves of fire, ice and lightning, all to the beat of her armor's battle anthem. In all, the size of the explosion is akin to light artillery--definitely enough to draw attention or cause a panic. <J-IC-Scene > Lilian Rook forces out through her teeth, "Two to three minutes between casts, unknown between summoning and battle-readiness, but not long." <J-IC-Scene > Lilian Rook says, "I'm going to do something about it." <J-IC-Scene > Lilian Rook says, "I think I'm the only one who can." <J-IC-Scene > Lilian Rook says, "I'm going to have to gamble on a gut feeling." <J-IC-Scene > Ace Ukiyo says, "In that case..."      Geats elects to cause some panic of his own, revving the throttle on the Boost Buckle at his waist rather than on the motorcycle.                                    BOOST TIME!                                          Standing on the seat of the motorcycle as it heads straight for the nearest formation of soldiers to the crushed fort, he shoulders the heavy laser rifle. Beneath him, the bike transforms into a mechanized fox with a resounding cry, its metal footfalls leaving trails of fire as it runs, climbing higher into the sky. His crosshairs scan the teeming throngs of soldiers for leaders among them--officers' insignias, standard-bearers, and trusted men risen from the ranks. Each one that passes under the crosshairs does so only so long as it takes him to pull the trigger.
Lilian Rook	The fact that the compass winds back and forth makes Lilian wish she'd prepared something that could be burnt in sacrifice; there's plenty of fire to throw it on already. The fact that the version of her heart that exists in the future, and knows what she would choose now, wavers at all, is a bitter form of relief in the moment too. It means that amongst all the possible ultra-near futures that she had time to divine, she'd found a way, and then found a better one.     And so by seeing the mountainside, she doesn't see the dragons; not until the moment that they dredge themselves from the uncanny shadows in the flesh. First the sight of them, and the horrifying implication second, delay Lilian's hand until 'right now' slips through the middle of the hourglass and is replaced with only dread recognition. <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook whisper-shouts, tensely strained as she's ever been, "She's summoning them. *Creating* them. Right now, right in front of me. I have *visual*." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "The longer you take the more dragons are going to show up. I . . ." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "That-- how *quickly*?" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook forces out through her teeth, "Two to three minutes between casts, unknown between summoning and battle-readiness, but not long." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'm going to do something about it." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I think I'm the only one who can."     Lilian presses her back to the barren wall behind her. For once, her black armour blends in with her blasted surroundings just fine. Slowly rising to her feet, turning her head towards the jagged-edged corner as smoothly as she can, Lilian watches the first dragon start to amble towards the frontlines, and thus fully puts its back to her. Then her hand clutches the hilt of her sword, and the blade leaves the sheath just as she herself leaves the shadows.     She has struck Bern's war dragons many times before with Night Mist. Each and every time, their substance had proved the reality before her eyes. Hard scales, thick musculature, tremendous body mass, and burning blood that made even the successful strokes absolutely harrowing for the wielder. At this moment in time, though, 'the reality before her eyes' is different. The dragon that she sees doesn't call to mind white-hot flames and undying rage; not the terror thick in the air on that night at the manor, like she's used to. What she sees conjures up bleary memories of half-forgotten nightmares instead.     That dripping, squirming, emptily smoldering 'thing' is what Lilian could only call 'a monster in the shape of a dragon'. Something abstractly unreal, halfway between a shadow and a dragon, and in that liminal space between, nothing that belongs in this world.     Night Mist clears leather, then air, then eighty five feet of intervening distance, in the space of the single bracing breath Lilian allows herself. Then it has to clear the other side of its neck, still softly rendered in muddy impressionistic shadow, in the single stroke and full-bodied followthrough that Lilian gives it; a strike she aims with nothing but faith in the specific nature of her ancestors' sword and the revolting certainty that this is somehow just like the nightmares she used to have before taking it up.     If she's very lucky, Lilian will bleed off her excess speed, redirect, and move on to the next dragon. Then she'll take a vantage up on the ruins, look for another, and try to pace herself as best as she is able, without letting any one of them through.
Petra Soroka	<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook whisper-shouts, tensely strained as she's ever been, "She's summoning them. *Creating* them. Right now, right in front of me. I have *visual*."     Looking at the dragons in the sky, it was easy to assume that this is the concentrated forces of Iðunn's magic being spent for one massive charge, possibly months of summons accumulated into this horde. It probably is, at least somewhat, but to hear Lilian say that she can *watch* as Iðunn summons more, it feels like they could've all just appeared in the time it took to travel here.     Petra's reminded of something she and Roy talked about a year ago-- optimistically, a dragon can be taken down by one hundred soldiers. The number of soldiers in the world is strictly finite; they did the simple math on how long the world could fight based on its sheer population at Iðunn's estimated summoning rate. Seeing this, it feels like waging war on the rising tide. It's practically art, in the way that it echoes images of cities completely overran by inexorable plant growth. If Zephiel's just here to watch, she couldn't blame him.     Petra's not prone to hopelessness in the face of overwhelming power, at least not when Lilian sounds that stressed in her ear. The Beauty of Ash is weightless in the air for a moment like an arrow loosed from a bow, where she can get a perfect view of the battle in the mountainpass beneath her, and then the moment is over, and the two prime targets rapidly come closer on the mountainside. <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, <Gebura, Petra, when I signal, I'll need you two to occupy as much mental bandwidth of Brunnya's as you can. Keep her from stopping this next bit, otherwise she'll point something out and I'll be dead before I can move.> <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, <Whatever it takes to make sure Brunnya *cannot* string a sustained observation-based four-thought sequence together and speak for... ten, fifteen seconds. That'll give me what I need.> <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Got it. I'm so good at doing exactly that."     Brunnya's lightning clips the Beauty of Ash as it streaks through the air, and the sonic boom is doubled with the impact of the mech into the side of the mountain right beside her. The hardlight crystal splashes, residual electricity sparking between the discrete fragments, and catapulting Gebura off of its back and into the fray. It pulls itself up out of the crater in the same motion as the fragments tug back towards it, bristling shards becoming smooth as they click back into place like a cat arching its back.     She was told to occupy all of Brunnya's mental bandwidth, and if there's one thing Petra knows how to do, it's worming herself into a woman's head rent free. Rather than immediately attacking her, the Beauty of Ash hunches low to the ground in a pouncing posture, golden eye gleaming in the crack of its intently-tilted head.     <You must really be a diehard loyalist to get a view watching all of this play out. How do you think that loyalty's gonna be rewarded?>     Then, once Brunnya's attention is on her, the sharp-pointed feet of the Beauty of Ash dig into the ground and send it lunging forwards, a sharp-edged bundle of needles the size of a truck. Gebura, certainly, can handle whatever's around Gebura.
Angela	Gebura isn't too thrilled that the very difficult to kill monsters are also capable of endlessly respawning until the summoner of them is dealt with. The similarities to the circumstances that murdered her are piling up but at least she's not fighting them all on her own. But that feels like a small comfort because back then the infinitely respawning monsters didn't also have an army backing them up and a long range caster. The good news she has backup herself and, indeed, she's sort of backup in of herself. Also good news: Nobody's trapped in a single building. More bad news? If they lose, it's not exactly going to matter if they run away now will it? <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, <Gebura, Petra, when I signal, I'll need you two to occupy as much mental bandwidth of Brunnya's as you can. Keep her from stopping this next bit, otherwise she'll point something out and I'll be dead before I can move.> "Alright." Gebura says out loud before, like, transmitting similar sentiments over the band. She doesn't really understand the rest of what he's getting at but it doesn't feel like she needs to. She just needs to keep someone from being able to interfere with a third party? WHILE Petra's ALSO on the job? It's nice to have a job that feels like a piece of cake when everything else feels so hopeless. Fortunately the arrow misses, not that a 'dragon slaying' arrow would hurt her any more than a non 'dragon slaying' arrow, but she's in the air--even if she was just knocked back that could be real bad. She holds on tight as she sees that lightning coming in hot and braces and--fortunately isn't flung off. Magic isn't exactly what her EGO is best at fending off--but it's still real good armor. If they can get all up in Brunnya's face, she doesn't THINK that it'll exactly be an endurance match at least. The job is to occupy Brunnya now so she decides to do just that. Flamel is, if nothing else, real good at figuring out a stupid plan that will solve the current situation. Sure, maybe it'll cause an immediate second catastrophe but that's a problem for Future Gebura. The Red Mist is flung off the back of the Beauty of Ash as it slams into the mountain. Fortunately, Gebura is a legendary hero who was forged in the multiverse's worst City. She flips in midair and lands into a crouch, single eye gleaming. She doesn't have quite the same knack for worming into the mind's of people as Petra, but she is a little bit memetic and, more to the point, she's never someone you want to be in melee range with. She weaves between the death needles, swinging Mimicry around and sending a swath of sharp flesh, gnashing teeth and goopy eyeballs towards Brunnya and the archer's horse, which Mimicry attempts to just flat out CHOMP into. Trying to disrupt the archer's aim to buy some time while focusing her efforts on Brunnya. "I appreciate loyalty, but take it from me. Sometimes loyalty means clocking your boss upside the head. If you're not willing to do that, they're right not to trust you. And no amount of city you burn'll change that."
Angela	MEANWHILE LOVE Love is having a grand old time. She's the happiest girl in the world right now! She's sure she'll be human again in just a minute though she's in no rush, really, because why would she be? She's a winged serpent, a dragon, that can shoot lasers out of her mouth in a situation where that's actually really helpful! Sure, there's more soldiers than she knows what to do with, but those aren't soldiers. They are Minor Arcana, and this is her job. No, it's her purpose. Are her strikes going to rout the soldiers when there are so many of them? She doesn't seem to have much to worry about them, though, so she can just keep at it forever. Which is THE BEST. "Thank you!! Thank you for being so evil!" Love says. "Thank you for being a Dark Kingdom and giving me purpose once more!" She sprays another magenta ray of light from her mouth when suddenly... An arrow finds its mark. It slams right into Love's side and it HURTS. It hurts so much that her latest laser cuts itself off and she stumbles to the ground as that single arrow opens up a grievous wound in her side, the worst wound Love has really endured without being killed shortly after. She flops to the ground, her jaw hitting it roughly. "Owwwwwww...! No fair...! That's just one arrow, it shouldn't huuuuurt this bad!" Black mascara drips down her eyes. Numerous spears stab into her, near uselessly and Love bats them around with her tail as she pulls away from them. THis isn't how magical girling should go! "Oooh you're really bad guys huh??" Her laser breath is temporarily stymied, but her tail is still a giant bludgeoning weapon as she tries to recover while AGONY is coursing through her, the wound worsening with every moment.
Marigold	There is a small mercy in the awful pseudo-dragons oozing up from the long shadows Iðunn casts in defiance of the sun: they're wetly malformed, unwholesomely premature- or, perhaps, given how the more perfect war-dragons rot back into gooey darkness once slain, one could think of these new ones as 'born half-decomposed'.      From where Lilian hides, she can see the awful creature shambling away from her catch a dozen arrows from Kutolah riders at five hundred feet. They stick in its tarry flesh, rather than bouncing off of hard scales; it lazily turns attention to them, smolders some kind of eerie imitation-fire in its mouth, and--      --gets its neck sheared through. The light in the eye sockets of its fallen head gutters out silently; the body, with its blazing neck-stump leaking magic into the air, lurches and takes stupidly longer to realize it's dead.      The next one, even if it can't follow her movements, seems to know she's coming. It turns to meet her with body tensed; this time the blade cuts deep but doesn't come out clean, and it vents eerie fire to complicate her approach and disengagement.      Experimental dials are turned, now that Lilian has someone's distant attention. The next three are formed in only a few moments each, but are drippier and less solid; then there's a longer pause until one more, this one hardier and almost scaled. All inherit a pre-awareness of what has and hasn't availed them before.      Calmly, an endless throughput is being tuned to optimally exhaust her.      Geed and Nobunaga only have a finite number of dragons to deal with, but these are the more-familiar and stronger solid versions, with real red scales instead of naked drippy darkness. Even wounded by Lucius's magic from afar, the one Geed is grappling with doesn't go down easily; as he holds it still, it tries to wrench its head down to lock its massive jaws around his neck, shrieking in his ear and beating at him with flaming wings as it does.      Echidna leaps off of horseback and takes advantage of its immobility by burying Armads in its lower spine, five seconds later. "KREEEEE!" "Great job, big guy!" That still doesn't quite put it down, but if he can wrestle it to the ground for her to put the divine axe through its neck too, that will.      Nobunaga's mecha-beam washes out the head of the dragon grappling with it in brilliant light... and when the light fades, leaving it scorched but intact, it retaliates by breathing out an inferno hot enough to start melting the mecha's metal. Foreclaws dig into the mecha's chest and shove it back; then, rather than press the mecha further, the dragon pivots away from it to lunge and crush the tanks underfoot, like a cat pouncing on mice. The back ranks of the Bernish formation are frightened, clearly, but they can more or less hold their own against the lighter armor.      If the mecha tries to go for it again, a second dragon swoops down from circling above to slam into its head hindclaws-first. Including Geed's kill, that's three occupied, out of... maybe twenty.      It is going to be a very long and very bloody day.
Marigold	Geats and Neon, battering the cohesion of the central Bernish formation that Nobunaga's declaring war on and picking off the squad leaders who could rally it back together, exacerbate the damage. They'd be dangerously exposed to Mulagir, but Flamel has that tied up; and to Brunnya's artillery-like magic, but Petra and Gebura are menacing her at the moment.      That only leaves the occasional squad mage hurling fire up at them from below, and- more pressingly- a band of Djute skirmishers, matching their speed from the ground and forcing them to fly through a constant hail of arrows. Shanna and Thea stick close to Neon and mirror Ace's tactics; the former looks pleasantly shocked to still be flying after her durability-enhanced pegasus takes an arrow to the side.      "Neon, you're the best! We're doing it, we're--!" "SHANNA, DROP!" "Huh?!" A fourth dragon, breaking off from the Etrurian assault across the river, flaps into the sky and lunges for Shanna jaws-first; she narrowly dives under it, and the sisters split to dodge the following jet of flame that cuts the airspace in half while angling for Ace.      "I can't hurt that thing! Neon??" It's slower than them, and doesn't like to stay in the air for long, but that fire breath means it can control space and bully them away from the front.      Love, writhing on the ground, has to deal with Bernish soldiers bravely trying to take stabs at her while trying not to get tail-battered. "Marcus, over there!" "Lord Roy, are you sure...?" "Just help her!" Roy calls out; the old knight interposes his horse and lance threateningly against the small detachment while Roy slips off the horse's back and lays a hand on Love's side. "Lucius!" the young lord shouts. "Here, please!"      The priest tells his Kutolah horseman to drive him close, and tries to patch the poor magical girl's glowing-golden wound. "It's awful. I know. Just a moment, it'll stop hurting..." Roy murmurs as Lucius hurriedly works. He really does know, from that one time Durandal struck him.      "Right. We'll be okay," Sue says to Odette, galloping towards the mountain's foothills and loosing a couple of arrows mid-conversation to deter Djute pursuers. "... If we get Mulagir, I'll try using it." But no promises.      On the topic of danger, she says only: "I trust you. So it's alright." Someone putting their life in Odette's hands... oh no...
Marigold	"Sometimes loyalty means clocking your boss upside the head."      <How do you think that loyalty's gonna be rewarded?>      "Tch!" Brunnya's thumb shhhhff-riffles down through the pages of her tome, holding it near-shut in one hand; her other hand grips a staff, sparing enough fingers from it for gestures. Woman successfully enraged.      "You're those Otherworlders, aren't you? If I must explain the 'rewards' of loyalty to you," she says with one part intrigue to five parts contempt, "you're too far-gone to be worth the bother. I can imagine nothing worse than to die without having found something to die for."      A one-two-three conducting gesture with her right hand, on the staff, is followed by a delicate flourish; as Gebura swings the biting sword at her, a sudden hurricane-wind condenses sharp shards of ice out of the air. The largest shard spears down to block Mimicry's teeth and blunt the blade's swing; the others follow through to pepper Gebura like a blast of knives.      Brunnya sees the mech's charge telegraphed just enough to dip her right-hand staff, and blink behind the Beauty in motion, leaving it to bowl through her panicked officer corps. One-two-three, a slightly different flourish-gesture, and this time the hurricane-gale condenses a single greatsword-sized ice-spike to try to pierce the Beauty's back. The spearmen and horse-archers accompanying her are just now finding their courage; Gebura seems like a less intimidating target for their aggression than the mech.      It's easy to see why Brunnya has a prodigy's reputation. Her ice magic is bizarrely flexible by Elibe's usually-rigid standards, her staff teleportation is refined into nearly a flinch reflex-- but, of course, she's laser-focused on the interlopers, and that means Flamel's already succeeded.      TWANG-twiiii. "Sochi, what are you doing?!" "I...! I didn't mean to!"      The dragon-slaying arrow, guided by Flamel tugging at the tall archer's keenest instincts, shrieks across the plains between the two mountains.      It must have hit Iðunn, because on impact the arrow shatters into green shrapnel-streaks cast off in a cone.      The unnaturally-cast shadows that loom west towards Etruria stutter, then begin reaching their long fingers towards the northern mountain with Brunnya, Flamel, Gebura, and Petra instead, like the swiveling of a gaze.      It's a snap decision, mid-fight, for Brunnya to pierce "Sochi's" chest with a shard of ice. She falls from her horse with a cry. "One of you, pick it up! Now!" she demands of the Djute horsemen cowed by the conflict, but none of them hurry to.