Difference between revisions of "940/Opposition Surge"

Latest revision as of 06:03, 9 November 2014

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    It is now SATURDAY 8TH.

    Those called to help have been asked to find Aoko and some Church operatives at the house they cleared. Upon arrival, they will notice the house has already been set up as a Church operation base, with all manners of holy symbols, auras and sacraments in the air. In fact, it might straight up be uncomfortable to be here if you have anything similar to a traditional vampire's weakness, but as you are all invited guests, the effect is diminished greatly.

    The last floor has been set up, in preparations for trackers. The Church couldn't do it, but they will provide anything you need whatsoever, including a few of their spells that allow amplifying senses and far-sight. In other words: the last floor is now a workshop with all the equipment you could dream of to track a target. Even by smell. It's acting like a funnel, essentially drawing in every presence within a few hundred miles.

    This will, fairly easily, allow people like Yuuki and Serenity to pick out a location. Unsurprisingly, the Dead Apostle is still somewhere in the city of ROME. The Church operatives will keep guard on the house, though, so you're on your own.

    This, eventually, leads people to none other than Rome's Non-Catholic Cemetery, one of the most important in the world. It's extremely large, though; finding a Dead Apostle and a Servant that specializes in hiding here could be a pain, if you didn't have trackers.

    AND THUS, THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE GATHERS.
    The gate of the cemetary is just ahead, awaiting entry. It's eerily quiet, the Sun already disappearing behind the horizon. The stench of the vampire, and the magical trail of her Servant, lead deeper into it, near the center. If you want to make a plan, now's the time for it.

    Additionally, there is a third magical presence, this one underneath the cemetary, which could easily be powerful enough to lure someone without having been invited. It pulses, rapidly shifting between holy and dark every five seconds. Those with vulnerabilities to either will feel the annoyance the pulsing causes pretty fast.

Teresa (601) has posed:
    Teresa, being distrusting of the church, in general, did some hunting of her own. In fact, she hadn't left the city since the previous engagement. Her path leads her to the same result, however, especially as the search narrows down to the cemetary. "How.. convenient and somewhat cliche." She remarks, as she looks around at the entrance to the cemetary, her senses picking out a few of those details. The vampire, the Servant.

    That third one, deeper and below her? That's a little concerning. It also seems to be.. shifting. She can't really pick up the nature of it, just the fact that it's happening. And goodness, yes, it's a bit annoying.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Aoko Aozaki is not alone. Oh, to all appearances - to all senses, even the enhanced mystic senses provided by the Church - the Blue Lady has no companions. Feelers detect no additional presences, magical senses sense no gathering of prana, and higher scans find nothing.

     But Aoko Aozaki is not alone any longer. This is dangerous work - fighting an Assassin and a Dead Apostle both - and there is no Servant in the world that would let their Master take up dangerous work without being nearby, or easily on hand. So the question is not 'is Aoko Aozaki alone' - because the answer is a simple 'no' - but rather 'where in the graveyard is her Servant?'

     Perhaps it is one of the silent statues of the Grim Reaper. Maybe it masquerades as a stoney angel. Or maybe it's just out of sight.

     Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber is here. He was helping last time, he had already promised Aoko his share of the bounty, and he was more than a bit concerned about the Dead Apostle/Assassin pairing that he had witnessed the last time he was here. That's why Psyber is wearing a slightly heavier armament than he was last time.

    At his hip hangs a machete, bladed on one end and serrated on the other, it's in a sheath that sits against his leg. He also has several knives in his belt of various makes and metals, not wanting to leave anything to chance. A leftover from last time is also there: A single Black Key, bladless and just a hilt, hangs at the back of his belt.

    Despite the murderous loadout, he seems pretty casual and is mostly hanging out near Aoko and chitchatting with her, "Alright, so since I'm giving you my share of the money, I'm making you do me a favor instead." He holds up a folded piece of paper and waggles it in front of her face, "Be at this address in Boston. 7 PM. Monday. Dress nice-ish. Business casual at least. Just you and me."

    "Where's your Servant, anyway?" He asks to her once she takes the paper from his hand and he looks around the graveyard.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Kimiko arrives, ready for a hard fight. With a group like this, they're bringing enough talent in to crush any normal opponent flat, but the enemy includes an Assassin, and he sure didn't feel like a push over last time. The chance of at least one person getting killed, if they screw up even for a moment, is a bit too high to ignore.

    That in mind, the Puella Magi is transformed and armed, though her armor is not in evidence. She's going a bit unconventional, this time--while the short sword at her left hip is usual enough, the blade at her right is a kukri with a deep, inward curve low on the blade, almost like a knife crossed with a sickle. What that's for will become apparent later, should things come to that.

    Koishin's presence on her wrist is of some comfort. Less chance of being taken from behind with another eye.

    The tracking is performed. This is done principally in what may be one of the safest locations in the country, so Kimiko takes this one opportunity to quietly work out the tension in her body--just so she's able to react quickly enough, later. She's not /social/, but that's Kimiko being 'relaxed at work.' Those she recognizes get nods of acknowledgement, and silent appreciation for those who were here before and have come back to finish the job.

AT THE GRAVEYARD:

    Back to high tension. Her blades are swiftly in her hands, thoug held low.

    Holy/unholy doesn't quite work on Puella Magi, but stuff that's close enough to Evil gives a certain vibe that she's trained to notice. Here, it's an especially odd feeling. "This isn't normal for this place, is it?"

Serenity (607) has posed:
    Serenity's appearance was the same as before, but she showed up with... a wolf? It wasn't quite a wolf, that was obvious, since anyone with a lick of sensitivity could tell it was a mana construct like the sort that Servants were. It also had a vaguely disquieting presence, rather at home in the graveyard and uncomfortable on church ground. Most importantly, it could track... even mystical things, especially since it seemed to share some link with Serenity, and her memory of what she saw.

    "Cliche doesn't really matter. There are so many graveyards, even if we knew they were in a graveyard it would take a long while to search all of them, in a city as old as this one," Serenity says quietly. The wolf returns to her side and sits, but she doesn't make any comforting headpats or the like to the beast.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva thinks Saturday night is all right for fighting.

Actually, she'd prefer maybe a drink and a cute guy, but she'll only be in the company of half of that for the moment. Riva herself has to engage in fair amounts of shenanigans in order to track people, so she lets the others handle it.

She frowns at the gate. "Graveyard." She comments. "Of course it's a graveyard. They'll probably be hanging out in some ancient mausoleum or something." She sighs at that, and then steps inside. "You know, this place would be pretty beautiful if it wasn't about to become night. In the middle of a vampire hunt." She purses her lips and a look of nausea flickers across her face. "Something isn't right here. It feels... polluted sometimes."

She looks over her shoulder. "So, let's get this done." She sees Psyber chatting up Aoko and leans over a bit, eyes squinting. Hmmm.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Koishin, the little bracer on Kimiko's wrist, has its little eye-gem keenly peering out. It's very focused on making sure to keep aware, for its User. At the moment, the artifact can't especially claim a lot of knowledge of this situation, but the little weapon is just barely set on edge enough to be on guard even more than it otherwise would be to prevent letting down its User. "I'd think the Church would deal with whatever makes that feeling if it were something that was already happening before..." The bracer says, its eye taking on a sort of pensive look.

    Adjudicator, the greatsword sheathed at Psyber's back, is perhaps a little more calm. It's in good company. Lot of blades on its User today. The eye at its hilt keeps a restrained, mature, calm sort of look, and the blade's general posture is one of someone who's "on duty", waiting to be called on and otherwise making sure to be unintrusive.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Stay away from the Church, Shirou'd been warned. Well, there's little he can offer for the search, so he's been waiting on the others to find the answer for the longest time. When they do figure it out and he joins up with the others at the graveyard however...

    "... what's wrong with this place?!" He can't properly sense magic. But this place is putting him on edge...

    Nope, don't count on the newbie magus to accomplish anything.

    He's really only good at one thing, anyways.

    "Trace... ON."

    After stating his usual chant, Shirou focuses hard. For the first time in a while he has something formidable and maybe, just MAYBE, manageable to work with.

    His thoughts focus on the holy sword, and for a lengthy time he's simply standing there focusing. Or not just standing there, it seems. Magical energy courses through his Circuits, noticeable to anyone with a sense for such. And soon enough...

    The air distorts and shimmers golden in his grasp, a many-layered illusion is called forth and bound tightly into a proper shape. Golden light scorches out into the shape of his chosen weapon, then fades away...

    It took him close to a half-minutes, but EXCALIBUR GALATINE, the Reborn Sword of Victory is in his grasp. A longsword with a finely polished blade, a blue grip, and an ornate diamond-shaped protuberance forming into a lazy sort of 'guard.' It is a blade of pure offense, not much defense besides parrying.

    And it took far, FAR longer than most of his other attempts. This one's a doozy.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    It's great that Yuuki is invited in. Otherwise she'd have been be hurt, wracked, ruined, completely put out by not being invited!

    Hurt because she wanted to help, wracked with guilt over not being invited and showing up, and being completely put out with indecision on whether to come or not. She doesn't have any actual metaphysical issues with coming. She's not that kind of va-TOTALLY NORMAL GIRL.

    And that is why the TOTALLY NORMAL GIRL sniff-sniffs her way through ROME, gesturing people down what is an approximation of an as-the-crow-flies way through the city, along with Serenity. She would tend to just... Lead people down dark alleys and shit, because that's the most DIRECT route. Look, she's not really tracking so much as she has a very direct compass pointing at a direction.

    She blithely leads people to the graveyard. Where she beams. "Well, she's around here! Pretty sure." She offers. She has no magic senses to speak of, so the holy/unholy toggle totally breezes past her. She doesn't feel that in the slightest. She just kind of bristles. "I don't like this place..." She grumbles, before tugging her coat closer around her shoulders. "Well, here we are! I, uh, am not that good in a fight, so... lead on!"

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
Fighting in a group is not standard operating procedure for Kiritsugu Emiya. Also, fighting in the open, without time to prepare adequately - especially in a way that tilts the odds in his favor - against a reasonably powerful vampire and a Servant are also up there in 'things he does not do'. It is not just the matter that he can not engage opponents like that in direct combat and reasonably expect to survive in almost all circumstances, it is also that the allies he is going to need to work with are not all onces he has familiarity with the abilities of, making coordination and planning extremely difficult. Honestly, this is one of those operations Kiritsugu probably should have just not shown up for.

But there are reasons why he is involved. Reasons related to the numerous Grail Wars, the creation of unconventional Servants in this instance, and the fact that if this Master is a self-imbued vampire like Kiritsugu's father was trying to become, Kiritsugu feels it's in everyone's best interests to eliminate her. It's not a matter of revenge for what happened in the past.

It's not a matter of a contract hit or anything like that.

He is retired as an assassin-for-hire. But Kiritsugu still neutralizes a threat when he learns of one, and even if taking out the Master himself might not be an option, facilitating her destruction certainly is.

Standing somewhat off to the side, but not completely apart from, the rest of those gathered in front of the cemtery gates, Kiritsugu wears his usual outfit. Long coat, shirt, pants, boots, lit cigarette. He has a Calico M950, and some grenades inside his coat, along with one particular handgun, currently holstered. A Thompson Contender, presently loaded with a single rifle round. On some level, Kiritsugu has a mild degree of interest in the concept of artificial Servants. The possibility of fighting a Grail War with a non-standard number of Servants on one's side has possibilities.

But he is both not an adequate magus for something like that, and it sounds as though a large amount of energy is needed to make up for the missing power provided by the Grail. It is a curiosity. A dangerous one. But nothing he feels he could make practical use of.

Kiritsugu can feel prana in the environment, including the notable presence of that wolf... And his empty eyes take the time to inspect it before turning his attention away. A girl also charged with magic and armed well. An unusual looking woman with pale skin and deep blue eyes, who, in some strange way, causes Kiritsugu to remember Irisviel. Aoko Aozaki, the Magic Gunner, is viewed with some trepidation based on her reputation, but he at least expects that he does not have to worry about covering her if something happens. Psyber is here, armed with a variety of weapons again, and ready for action. Kiritsugu still needs to talk to him. Shirou's summoning of a Noble Phantasm draws his attention as he is preparing to inspect Riva. That is going to get attention from the one they are after for sure. Sigh.

In summary, there are a diverse group of capable individuals here, and Kiritsugu is probably the weakest among them, aside from the completely normal girl who led the group here. He, much like Shirou, stayed away from the Church, so had to follow after them. Hanging back and remaining hidden was certainly an option, just like the ambush of Rider of Gold, but in this situation he did not have the time to prepare properly, and getting caught alone by the enemy was more likely due to being on what might be their 'home ground'.

He puffs on his cigarette one more time before dropping it to the ground and grinding it out under his boot. The nuances of holiness and unholiness are lost on him except in relation to the fact there is magical energy. But others remarking on it has him considering possibilities. "Has anyone detected a bounded field in the area?" he asks.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Kimiko looks over toward Yuuki, and determines her claim to have normal-person levels of combat vulnerability to be Probably Legit. At least, in the context of the battle they plan on stepping into, that's going to cover a lot of people. Aside the radio conversation, she gives a nod, adding, "Mind, keeping within sight will be more important in this, than in staying behind someone. Stay visible, and we can react quickly to defend."

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    Of course, Aoko is more than happy to give Assassin his trial by fire. You'll get to meet the Union, she said. Save lives! Do good. And chances are, you'll get to reap people who are supposed to be dead but avoiding it. You're Death, right? These guys are totally cheating you. Chop chop.

    To Psyber, she grins. "Sure, sure. There better be food! Also... well, at a guess, I'd say he's everywhere right now. This is a graveyard, he's good at that. I think. I didn't, huh... how do I put this. I don't know how to look at his stats? I should probably find a master who can teach me, hahaha... how awkward!"

    It's true, too, she has no idea how that works.

    "Yeah, Serenity's right. Lots of graveyards in Rome. Lots of places of death. Too bad she didn't have a bigger dramatic flair, she cuold have done this in the arena. Zombie gladiators! ZOMBIE LIONS! Oh man, that'd suck."

    Right, then.

    "I, um. I have this thing. Hang on." She shuffles into her pocket. She pulls out a scroll, wax-stamped and all with the Church's logo. It summarily reads: 'Do not fucking blow up one of our graveyards.'

    "Normally I might ignore it for the sake of lives, but..."

    She pulls out another scroll. This one has the Clock Tower stamp.
    It summarily reads: 'No seriously, we mean it.'

    "So! My hands are tied, haha. Have fun! It doesn't say anything about YOU guys and what YOU do, so~."

    Aoko swings open the cemetary gates, and then stands to the side. Travel into the cemetary is, thankfully, easy. Serenity and Yuuki have a lock on the vampire and her Servant. They can shortcut straight through some of the grave lineups if they want. There's no active magic right now, to answer Kiritsugu. Well, nothing except the pulsing.

    The graves stir though. As the group gets closer to the center, two things happen. The pulsing stops. Shining golden light bursts out of a mausoleum, and the graveyard is suddenly a holy ground of high quality. And then, it gets worse. The vampire, a thirteen or fourteen year old girl in a beige dress, with long brown hair, walks out of it. She looks horribly burnt, probably from the holy effect, and is still smiling. "Welcome! I did tell you if we met again I'd show you what I was working on. Now! Do you know what an opposition surge is? It's when something looks brighter than it really is when it's in total darkness. Did you know the reverse is true too? If darkness can amplify light, light can amplify darkness by casting more shadows. ASSASSIN! Let's go!"

    The Servant appears by the girl, a man in a white mask and a grey-blue jumpsuit, with a butcher's knife in one hand. The striking image of Michael Myers, really.

    And to make matters worse, the holy ground suddenly just flips out. It goes from holy, to dark, as the shard of the Vatican, in the crypt behind the girl, turns from gold to pitch black.

    BATTLEFIELD EFFECT: ALL DARKNESS IS AMPLIFIED.
    Interpret as loosely as you want.

    Out of every grave bursts bodies, old, new. Skeletons, actual zombies. There's hundreds of them, and you are surrounded.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "There will be. I promise," Psyber says, reaching up to pat Aoko on the back a couple times before he says, "And hm. I hope to see him in action. Or inaction. He's been very interesting to talk to." Psyber notes, arm dropping again to fall at his side after the motion to Aoko. STOP SPYING, RIVA. No one likes nosey nellies.

    "Hey buddy, if you're around, it's your new friend Psyber. I totally am here to hang out and help out around here," He says aloud, to nothing and no one in particular. But spoilers, it's totally to Assassin.

    Lots of familiar faces here today. Even Kiritsugu, whom he only met earlier this week. He doesn't have time to do meet and greets for more than Death and Aoko before the battlefield effects begin. Psyber grins, "Jude. You ready to play the righteous action hero?" He asks to the sword on his back.

    Psyber wants to play a role, and so instead of using the sword itself, he says, "Gauntlet, please." And then uses his right hand, clad in Adjudicator's gauntlet form, to pulls out his stainless steel machete.

    Wading out into the graveyard at a deliberate and professional pace, Psyber twirls the blade in his hand and aims for cleaving neckline strikes at anything with a head, "Best to counter Horror with Action. Genre disjointment. Cognitive dissonance and the whatnot."

Teresa (601) has posed:
    Teresa just shrugs at Serenity and Aoko, "Just saying.. vampire and her pet.. ghost? Whatever that was.. fleeing to a cemetary." She huffs, and runs a hand through her hair, though the appearance of their tracked foe manages to draw a smirk on her face, again. "Ah, good. Saving us the trouble of knocking over all these pretty tombstones."

She draws her sword and moves forward, the blonde woman a blur of silver, as her sword is swung and cleaves through the skeletons and zombies alike, smashing through the bones and slicing the more substantial zombies equally well.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    "I would rather we not defile a graveyard, in any case," Kimiko says, partly in response to Aoko's obligations. "There are many places to hide, but... we'd take too long removing them, anyway." With direct tracking to the target, they shouldn't take long to get there, either.

    And then they arrive, and the dead rise. Oh, well, looks the graveyard has been thoroughly defiled anyway. There's not much more disrespect the dead can be given after being used as a Dead Apostle's fodder puppets.

    On the local tactical frequency, she sounds like she's shouting, though she's again doing that thing where from her end, it functions like telepathy. Better for avoiding explaining to the enemy everything you think you know, that way.

    "It's--a distraction tactic!" Her blades come up, cleaving right and left, just trying to keep her immediate area clear while she talks, watches, and thinks. She doesn't know how these types of undead work, but separating the part of the body with the eyes from the part with the claws seems like a good first step to neutralizing them. "The Servant and Master are the real threats. The crowd's here to confuse us." Not that zombies are likely to be incapable of killing some of the people here. "Watch for the killer in the midst."

    She's pretty sure that Psyber has the right idea, but she's still going to play it safe. Rather than try to work her way through to get to the Master, she's trying to keep as much of the group as possible in visible range of her and Koishin. Off-frequency, just so her Abstractum can hear, she adds, "Defensive focus. Save full power for when that killer makes his move. It'll be quick." Besides, this place is giving her a really bad feeling. Part of it's familiar, but--so decidedly unpleasant. Her expression twists into a grimace, contrary to her usual calm.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki's claim is to be 'not good in a fight'. This is true! She kind of has an issue being garbage in a fight because she is unskilled. She has Distressed Damsel Syndrome quite hard. Though, she has no insight why she's being protected, so she just defaults to her Totally Normal Assumptions. "I'll leave myself in your hands then." Yuuki replies, beaming at Kimiko.

    She has no problems surviving literally anything! Well, Almost Literally Anything. But she's pretty sure there's no bane weapons around here that can actually knock her into 'can be killed' territory. So she's just honky dory wandering in...

    TO THE UNDEAD???!?!

    "Huh. That seems pretty spooky. Is this normal?" She wonders, pointing at the HORROR MENAGERIE.

    She tells nobody that she feels PRETTY DARN GOOD with the powered up darkness. The fact that it's somehow light that does it doesn't really matter to her. But she's not going to tell anyone because she's Totally Normal, right?

    Totally.

Serenity (607) has posed:
    The wolf at Serenity's side shimmers and vanishes, replaced by a very tall woman in flowing robes. The woman steps between Serenity and the growing horde of undead, but does not move to attack at all. She is also unarmed.

    Serenity frowns, then sighs at what she's feeling in here. "Mn..." Holding very still, she concentrates and extends her hand. 'Pact Imbuement, Lich of the Burning Frost.' The echoing words come with a formation of a staff appearing in her hand, and her own clothing is covered by loose, simple robes fluttering about her. Immediately the chill of something unholy emanates from the woman, spreading out across the graveyard. She can't quite act yet, as she needs a few moments to adjust to the shift in her own powers, but the Lich automatically attempts to seize hold of any undead nearby, entering into a struggle for control with their master.

    The Maedra herself is scanning the graveyard, looking for the Servant. She isn't sure if the Dead Apostle has managed to find a way around her eyes, yet, so she's going to try to look for that strange hole in reality again, along with anyone who doesn't seem to be struggling against the Lich's control. "I dislike holding this form for long, we should find them quickly."

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Darkness falls as the white-masked butcher appears. The graveyard becomes disturbing and unholy, from a place of rest to a place of terrible, quaking fury. The dead begin to rise, skeletons pulling themselves out of the ground, surrounding the group to cut them off. The Dead Apostle makes her appearance known. All Hell breaks loose.

     Somewhere hidden behind a veil of God-only-knows-how, Assassin - the Grim Reaper - trembles with the first moment of rage it has ever truly known.

     It does not understand this fury. It does not understand this trembling, quaking displeasure that lurks inside it. It has never been, after all - it is a half-formed idea in the shape of a Servant, given life by a Master with the foolish idea to bind Death as the ultimate Assassin. It has never had the capacity to feel, and thus, it has never had the opportunity to feel. Even now, it remains uncertain, unaware, of the emotions of life. Emotions are, normally, for the living. Emotions are for those who truly have them, not for those whose only understanding of the term comes from half-remembered phantasms across the mists of time.

     This is different. Assassin looks out across the field from its perfectly-hidden form, and it looks upon the skeletons, the zombies, the tragic dead jerked to life from their miseries. It knows how each of them died in turn with naught but a glance - it remembers them, or it remembers phantasms of them, memories that for Assassin are as real as real can be. That one passed of old age and greeted Assassin like an old friend, peaceful in its sleep. That one in the Great War, fighting even in death, until Assassin's gentle fingers laid upon his shoulder and told him to rest. That one died of poison meant for the Pope, a valiant swiss guardsman who faced the Reaper with calm and poise. Each of these bodies does Assassin know - each of them has it met, personally, in the one and only moment that Assassin ever could meet them. It has seen their loved ones cry. It has seen their loved ones mourn. And it, too, has mourned for them.

     And Assassin knows now a new emotion. The Grim Reaper, given physical form, learns of anger. Fury. Righteous indignation. Assassin learns this, and the gentility, the kindness of the Grim Reaper, vanishes. It is for but an instant - but a single, fleeting moment of time - but it is enough to mark a change in the ineffable, a shift in the impermeable. It is enough that it was felt, even as the eternal calm of the impossible thing returns.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     There is no noise, no fanfare, to mark the event. There is no loud cry. There is no call. No horn. No rumbling, no rippling in the air,. There is not even one change.

     Except that, soaring over the heads of the group and the skeleton, there is a beautiful black hearse. It is sleek and modern, black with white curtains. The license plate is a scrawl of zeroes and sigils. The headlights cut across the graveyard like eyes.

     The hearse soars over the heads of the assembled skeletons without regard for 'physics' or 'possibilities'. It skids to a halt behind the white-masked Assassin and its master in classic ambush tactics. The back door swings open.

     The scythe emerges first. It is tall and slender, and it does not shine. Wrapped about it are fingers so white and slender as to look like bone, emerging from a robe blacker than even the night around it, a darkness so deep it superimposes itself upon the supernatural darkness to make its presence known. The robe roils about the ground like mist as it draws itself to its full height - a massive eight feet, towering like one of the statues itself. The hooded figure tilts its head down as the hearse revs to life and plants itself firmly across the walkway.

     "You," Assassin's voice cuts through the gloom, resonant, asexual, and full of power, "Who fear my gift so deeply that you would discard life itself to escape me."

     Assassin raises its scythe. "Cast off your lifeless flesh. Walk with me, and find yourself at peace. The hour draws late for you now. Your end is at hand. Let it be a gentle one."

Sieg (566) has posed:
    The Homunculus hadn't been far away when the group started gathering to hunt the Dead Apostle, but he'd known something was happening before signs of battle or activity began to show up. The amount of magecraft being employed in this area was obvious, though the fact that he was here to begin with was simply an unlucky coincidence. Ordinarily he wouldn't go poking his nose into things too strongly, but what got his attention while passing through was that the leylines themselves were being tapped fairly directly, on a pretty significant scale. The truth is he doesn't have the skill to figure it out from a distance, but by simply waiting for a while he could ascertain what was going to be triggered by that 'tap'.

    Sieg hadn't expected the end result that occurred. Off in the distance, the overall alignment of the surroundings had changed dramatically. First they'd shone brightly, and then they had gone disgustingly dark. The feel of the place, even at a distance, was oppressive and repulsive to him. To begin with graveyards are the places of necromancers and less savory people, so they aren't the kind of place that many magi would be willing to spend a lot of their time if magical activity is ongoing. To go out of one's way to tap power from one can only be immensely bad news.

    Even from a distance, Sieg can feel the various Powers moving in. There's more than one magus, or something close enough to pass. That a battle is about to begin is unquestionable. The question is, what will the consequence of the battle be? With an uncomfortable exhalation, the homunculus makes his decision. It's time to become Saber again and make certain that the conflict unfolding in the distance doesn't cause any further problems.

    To those who sense such things, there is a brief blip on the radar as a Servant appears, as if at the edge of one's peripheral vision. It's faint and weak, like a servant that is fading out of the world. But it grows in strength rapidly until its presence is both undeniable and best described as LOUD. The problem is that it doesn't stop getting bigger. What SHOULD be the equivalent of a single jet fighter entering the area rapidly transforms into something much more monstrous.

    For Sieg, the experience is far more terrifying.

    The Command Spell had been used up some small time ago for a purpose not dis-similar to this one. But, it had not been LEFT in an expended state. The young woman he had faced down had re-filled it with a strange kind of power. One that he isn't familiar with. One that, inarguably, somebody should not be making voluntary usage of if they don't know what they're signing on for. Power crackles through him and his mind goes blank and staticky as external impulses assert themselves.

    Black Saber does not appear.

    The hulking armored form of what should be a servant is draconic in silhouette. The diminuitive form of the homunculus is overridden by the much more powerful spiritual body of a Servant, but that in itself is being overridden by the great mass of power offered up by Samael.

SHIFT . . . ?

    Black Saber has the physical consistency of polished black stone with sleek red lines running throughout. Its lower body is less a body and more like a strange, ghostly sort of "skirt" -- it doesn't move by walking but rather simply by gliding through space. Its upper body is more humanoid, with a distinctly ridged dragon-like head, rows of spikes descending down its head and back like some great mane. Its hands are four-fingered and taloned, and it appears not to have eyes at all, though its body has a scale pattern to it.

    Sieg is not in control of this creature. THEIR impulses drive it to act.

Sieg (566) has posed:
    It gazes sightlessly at the source of conflict and draws in the mana from the surrounding leyline. The power pulses through the red lines throughout its body and exits abruptly through its mouth. A great beam of energy issues silently from its mouth. It is visible, but in no way audible. For those who didn't turn to look for the source of the new blip of power, the terrible explosion that scatters gravestones and leaves a crater where it struck comes as if from the heavens.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Of course." Adjudicator speaks up for the first time, the blade flickering briefly as it mechanically folds out of the sheath and over Psyber's hand. It begins to burn, softly. "I hardly consider it playing." The burning fire around the gauntlet flares up, immediately, blasting down the length of the blade and bringing an intense, powerful wave effect to the swings, turning each strike into a wide AoE strike.

    And then there's a sudden, intense buzz emitted by the blade. "Psyber. It's her." Samael? "No... No, it's... Someone else. Watch out." A calm, but incredibly serious sort of response.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is SUPER NOSY. It is in fact HER JOB and she also does it when she's not on the clock because she can be a terrible gossip sometimes.

But right now she has bigger problems, in the form of SHOWDOWN MODE.

Riva blinks as the Dead Apostle makes herself known. "Um... What?" This is kind of complicated for Riva, who has like one dot in Occult and Google. This becomes more important in a moment as everything goes black, and basically every corpse ever starts rocking out. "Oh right. THIS is why graveyards!" She says, an edge of worry in her voice as she pulls her MAC-10s. Blue-green Anima bullets surge outwards, spraying into the zombie horde as she lays down fire. "HEY GUYS, I THINK WE'RE A LITTLE OUTNUMBERED!" Riva calls, looking with panic at the zombies around basically everywhere.

But even Incoming Zombie Horde can't detract from the Goddamn Grim Reaper showing up. Riva looks at the arrival, her guns faltering for a moment as instinctive unreasoning terror rips through her mind. It's like everything she was ever envisioned, and for someone like her, she envisions a lot. "Holy fffffffffudgesicles." She whispers, only refraining from switching targets because she knows that thing is on their side.

This causes a hand to grapple at her from behind, leaving her open for a critical moment. She turns, screaming as the fight or flight mechanism is thrown from 'flight' to 'fight' with screaming, rending mental gears. She whirls, smashing the gun to the side and whippint at the zombie in desperation to get enough room, just distracting enough from the appearance of the unknown Servant to keep her from freaking out at THAT too.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "M-mass necromancy?!"

    There's no way. Whole skeletons, animated with some foul Magecraft? How the heck does that even work?! Shirou has heard about The Dead, if only slightly. a completely decayed corpse reduced to just a skeleton shouldn't be able to shamble around...

    "The Servant's Noble Phantasm...? Or this amplified Magecraft?!"

    Well, whichever. He needs to defend himself! With a hot-blooded scream, he jumps into action the moment a few skeletons are upon him. This is one competition which Shirou can actually win in - overpowering animated bones, oh big whup.

    Still... with one or two strikes, he manages to utterly DEMOLISH a skeleton. The Reborn Sword of Victory cuts through the dessicated remains like a hot knife through butter. And what's more...

    "TEEEEEYAAAAH!!"

    Even though he's on the defensive, Shirou's channeling the Knight of the Sun's combat skills admirably enough for some of those manuevers. He gallantly parries, sidesteps, and brings the weapon down without staggering!

    Now, if he only were as STRONG or FAST as that Servant. He's got a ways to go there.

    Oh, yeah, there's one other issue.

    He's just not good enough to manage the sister sword of a Last Phantasm.

    *KCH-KYAAAAAAAASH!*

    As he buries it into one of The Dead, the sword simply... breaks. It's a fine sword, it should not break so easily.

    Which means Shirou's image just wasn't up to par.

    "It's not!" He reflexively yells over at Yuuki, just in time to get clumsily clobbered in the side by a shambler. Shirou rolls and tumbles, comes up empty hand... Galatine's remains are fading away.

    And since she seems so utterly normal, Shirou glances worriedly at her. Hopefully these girls will come out alright.

    There's another crackle of prana, and with FAR LESS EFFORT than before a much slimmer weapon's brought to bear. It is KINUGIRI (or, 'Silk Cutter'), the blessed katana Kirika uses. As before, Shirou's stance and grip changes dramatically...

    But then...

    In comes the Grim Reaper.

    Shirou gapes for just a moment, stunned by this development. Still, he has something to say here.

    "Dorothy Matveyeva, wasn't it? I don't get it. What do you hope to get from all this chaos?"

    Unspoken, but easily noticed in his tone, is a pleading. 'Why? Why are you doing this? Will you stop, for the sake of all that's good?'

    You can't save everyone you possibly can if you don't even try to save the villains, now can you?

    Then...

    KABLAAAAAAAAAAM!

    DIRT AND ROCK CHUNKS fly everywhere, and Shirou brings up his hands to guard his face. he's knocked right off his feet and goes flying back into a headstone with a THUMP! "Gyah!"

    The boy crumples, apparently stunned.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Barrier Driver!" Koishin calls out, immediately summoning up the stacks of barriers for its User. "I'll keep the drain low until we can engage directly, don't worry! I know how this goes. It's like familiars, for Witches!" The spellcircle-like constructs are charged with Kimiko's magic, an amplified, low-stress expression of her power. There's not a lot, but there's enough to deal with a lower-powered crowd. The brilliant red constructs interpose themselves between Kimiko's back and any potential assailants, but a few always keep themselves between Kimiko and the main targets... And a few are left to her, to manipulate as she sees fit.

    One shatters as Koishin calls out, "A-another! I think it's... It's like that Samael thing, Psyber's sword says! Watch out!" There's already more barriers being put between Kimiko and the spray of gravestones from the new target.

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
It seems the only magic present right now is the one emanating from below the ground. Worrisome to say the least. Stalking through a creepy cemetery at sundown with that unusual energy beneath their feet, in the hopes of running into a vampire and a Servant. Better usage of his time, there may be, but at least thanks to the tracking abilities of some of those present, they get to their targets faster. Kiritsugu is not sure whether to be relieved, disappointed, or suspicious of the fact that Lady Blue is staying behind. He puts his attention squarely on the task before him, however, when the vampiric Master appears. Kiritsugu had been scanning his surroundings cautiously, noting areas he could take cover and areas that could be used for cover by others - terrain that could conceal traps, and so on. He uses non-magical traps himself, so he actually checks for such mundane things regularly as a matter of course. But now the enemy is before them, burned from the holiness terrain, and... A child. Kiritsugu's eyebrows comes down and makes a noise of surprise or dislike in the back of his throat when he sees the apparent age of their enemy.

He also already has his Calico up and aimed at the girl's half-burned little face from the moment he becomes aware of her, and maintains that when the Servant appears, though his gaze occasionaly twitches a fraction of an inch towards the masked Assassin. Explaining what she's about to do to them, the method behind her plan, her 'genius'... The arrogance of a magus is seemingly uniform across even the lines of a Dead Apostle. The Magus-Slayer has only faced Ghouls before, though he is at least familiar with the weaknesses of Vampires and how to THEORETICALLY kill one.

When the zombies erupt from the earth, Kiritsugu keeps pointing his gun at the little girl. He can feel a shudder of awfulness ripple through the area. He may not be able to detect unholiness, but he can at least tell something is wrong all around him - and not just because of the dead rising. The fact that the Masked Assassin remains right next to its Master keeps Kiritsugu from shooting, even as others all around him spring into action. It is the threat of firing, perhaps a pointless one, as the Servant could eliminate him in short order if it were ordered to or desired. But it may be enough to at least marginally distract the Dead Apostle even if only the barest amount, given that the ammunition in Kiritsugu's submachine gun is blessed silver.

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
He knew they were hunting a vampire. He might not have had a lot of preparation time, but basic precautions like that are just plain common sense. Fortunately, he doesn't have to test himself against either a Servant or a vampiric Master, as the dramatic appearance of a flying hearse, and the Grim Reaper itself (which sends a chill sensation through Kiritsugu that settles deep in his bones, as another powerful Servant enters the fold), are likely to draw the attention of both.

At which point Kiritsugu, filled with a growing sense of unease, and flashes of memories flickering through his mind, turns on the zombies, and opens fire. 50 silver Parabellum rounds at a rate of of seven-hundred rounds per minute. A hail of hot metal like searing moonlight sprays from the barrel in short bursts as the Magus Slayer tries to take down some of the undead, while moving around to a large stone statue he can hopefully use as a barrier at his back to keep from being completely surrounded. His magic circuits are active, so he senses the *PULSE* of yet another Servant, which in-turn continues to grow in power until Kiritsugu is aiming the smoking barrel of his gun in its direction instead of at the enemies surrounding him. When an armored figure floats in before unleashing a massive laser from its dragon-like head, Kiritsugu lets out a noise and quickly moves around to the other side of the statue, trying to put it between him and the explosion soon to come.

Chunks of stone and earth may fly, pelting off the statue of an angel, but it seems that whatever damage was done, it wasn't aimed at him or the group. Still, this is becoming an extremely hectic situation. As he peeks around the statue at the vampiric Master again, and the crypt behind her, he narrows his blank eyes. He turns his submachine gun on the zombie hordes once more while he considers a plan, emptying the clip into the undead and then having to stop to reload it.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    "Hmf. You all think you're good, don't you?" Dorothy, the vampire girl, asks. She extends her arms, and the shift and dance around her. They spiral around her arms, and shoot out into the hordes of undead. Armor and weapons made of shdows, pitch black without the ability to reflect light, form on the bodies of the undead horde, and within their hands. Swords, axes, maces, shields, armor of all different makes, some modern some not. It's all as effective, really. Assassin growls, a maddened roar that conveys no meaning.

    Psyber and Teresa are the first to dive into the horde. If they expected an easy fight they're in for a rough surprise. The shadowy armor is unusually sturdy-- managing to hit where there isn't any, though, kind of ruins the undeads' day. A few of them fall, cut down or smashed, but they reply in kind, swinging their shadow weapons, which are as sharp as the armor is sturdy. They also burn and sting, like acid.

    Kimiko and Yuuki stay back. A few skeletons try for them regardless, one swinging a poleaxe, two other swords. The one with the polearm is going out of its way to try to reach for Yuuki specifically, past Kimiko's cover, but might not succeed.

    Serenity's transformation draws the attention of Dorothy, who stares and visibly seems annoyed. She didn't plan on there being someone using dark powers there to stop her. That could be problematic. Serenity wrestles a few of the zombies under her control, armed with shadows too. If the vampire's presence isn't obvious, it will become so when, arms still extended, she sends tendrils of corruptive, burning shadows to try and grab the Maedra by all four limbs, and then squeeze, hard, as punishment for subjucating her ghouls.

    Suddenly, Assassin is behind Dorothy and her own Servant. Her attention is torn off Serenity-- allowing her escape if she was caught and didn't tear through the restraints herself. "W-What! Shut up! There's a void in the Ancestors' roster, I intend to fill it and live forever! Assassin, kill!"

    The white-masked Servant pauses.
    Whatever its true identity, it is not without recognition for the Servant before it. But its Mad Enhancement prevents it from speaking of it, or letting it affect his decision, for longer than that brief pause. He surges forward with the knife, trying to plunge it into the Reaper's chest.

    Sieg's entrance distracts Dorothy further. NOW WHAT?
    "What is... WHAT DID YOU BRING HERE?" she seems to demand of the heroes, as explosions rock the graveyard and scatter zombies and skeletons to every corner of it. They don't even TRY to engage that thing.

    Riva unloads magical bullets into the undead! They work as well as anything else, which is to say the armor kind of almost tanks that stuff, but direct hits, especially head shots, are crippling. A few bodies hit the floor, but one zombie, armed with shadowy claws, surges in from behind to try to run Riva through.

    And Shirou isn't wrong either. Holy sword, meet skeletons, even as an inferior copy. The holy weapon makes him a target though; half a dozen of the zombies gather, three in front with shields and spears, three in the rear with knives and bows.

    Kiritsugu's instinct is correct too, blessed ammo is good enough. Regular ammo would tear the zombies up, really, blessed is just better. Three of the undead are shredded by the machinegun fire; the horde loses track of the magus killer when he disappears behind a statue to hide from an explosion.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    There are so many things all happening at once and Psyber has so much to react to amdist all of it.

    The first and most obvious fact is that his bravado and action hero mentality are shattered at the appearance of the Literal Spectre of Death. This gives Psyber pause in his footsteps, looking towards the massive figure as it looms over that which has wronged it. Psyber's hand, the one with Jude on it, grips tightly on its blade.

    While the half-angel does not fear Death, he does respect it. While he does not hate Death, it has granted him lenience several times in his life when he would otherwise have died. This means that when it looms over the battle, the half-angel is halted abruptly and brought to a stand still. His unease and uncertainty show on his face in a brief flicker. He had known who Assassin is, but in this moment it dawns on him Who Assassin Is.

    Fortunately, he only gets a moment of hesitation before the Mysterious Servant drops into the battlefield with an explosion and a crater. Psyber's attention is immediately turned that way with enough time to bring his arms up and take a shattering gravestone to the forearms, the debris flying all around him as he skids back from the force of it. With Adjudicator showing concern, Psyber is truly uncertain how to act at this moment. There's the objective, but this new challenger.

    He bites his lip for a moment and then hurls the machete into the chest of the nearest undead before saying, "Jude, Sword."

    Carrying the huge sword in his hands, Psyber cautiously moves towards the OBSIDIAN SABER with a careful look and the coiled, tense motions of a hunter uncertain if it's going to be preyed upon. He steps over debris and towards the edge of the crater, shouting, "Newcomer! Friend or foe? This is your only warning."

Teresa (601) has posed:
    Fear of dying is something Teresa has.. become somewhat numb to. The only concern she has with dying is the companion she'd leave behind. For now, she focuses on the undead. They prove a bit more capable than they look, which only serves to keep that smile on her face. Tough, maybe. Faster? Unlikely. She's able to parry just about anything they throw at her, taking only a scrape here and there, as numbers do count for something. "Nn. Well, that stings.. Magic, is it?"

She gives the vampire a glance, "Little girl, you're definitely not the only big, bad beast in this graveyard. Might do well to keep that in mind. And for me to take this a bit more seriously." With that, Teresa's silver eyes turn bright gold, the round pupils now slitted. A wave of pressure shoots out from around her, staggering the lesser undead in her immediate vicinity. They might lose some limbs, or a head, in the process. Her sword had moved, too, it seems. Though, much faster than most eyes would be able to track, much less manage to parry.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin does not dodge. It has never needed to dodge before. It has never had the understanding of mortal fear, the understanding of pain, the understanding of suffering. It has never had a body. Compound this with its momentary distraction at the presence of the Enemy(?) Saber, and Assassin simply doesn't understand why it would *need* to do something like dodge.

     So it is quite a surprise to Assassin when the enemy blade sinks into its robes and finds purchase.

     The knife tears into whatever passes for flesh beneath Assassin's robes. It draws no blood - Assassin has no blood to draw, after all - but it clearly *strikes*, and it clearly *wounds*. The tall, black-robed thing, as though given a new clarity, glides backwards, an arm going to its chest.

     It can be dispersed. It is in a form that can be destroyed now - if not a form that lives, then a form that can be unmade. It is not the invulnerable story it has been before. It is a creature, like any other. It is a Servant, and it has the traits of a Servant, even if in its normal form it is beyond the capacity to feel pain.

     The Grim Reaper's slender fingers reach up and prick themselves on Thanatos. The blade does its work immediately - Assassin's pain flees its physical form, replaced by soothing feelings. The feeling of its Master's presence. The feeling of its waking moments, when all the infinite stories of Death across all of human history suddenly congealed into a physical /thing/. Phantom joys from a trillion phantom memories flood the Reaper, bringing peace.

     Peace brings focus. Peace returns serenity. Peace cancels out pain. Assassin raises the scythe again above it, its hood hanging low over its face.

     "None born of flesh and blood are forever," Assassin intones, "The moment the clock of your heart begins to tick, a date is set for it to cease. The beating of your heart must cease. We will guide you on your journey, Fearful One."

     "Cry not."

     Assassin says no more. It lunges forward. It is the first time Assassin has had a body, but the Class Container into which it has been poured is no stranger to speed. Assassin lets its class do the work, the instincts it has been granted by the magic of the Holy Grail mingling with the Servant's own masterful understanding of the body that houses its due. Its scythe flashes out, slash, slash, slash - each slash faster than the last, each slash like the furious ticking of a clock, each slash aimed with clockwork precision for the white-masked enemy's most vulnerable parts. With each swing, indeed, sounds beyond the swishing of the wind surge forth.

     TICK
     TOCK
TICK
TOCK

     The faraway sound of the clock is joined by ringing bells. The bells toll. None should need to ask whom they toll for. Assassin makes it very, very plain.

     They toll for the white-masked one. They toll for the Dead Apostle.

     The bells toll. The clocks tick. The scythe swings.

     TICK
     TOCK

Serenity (607) has posed:
    Unfortunately for Serenity's defense, the Lich Imbuement is one of the weakest in defense, even if it's technically the most versatile and powerful. The tendrils latch on, or at least three of them do, with the fourth knocked aside by the pulse of power from the maedra's staff. This still leaves her yanked upright with a grunt of pain and a tension in her body, the squeeze tightening on her relatively defenseless frame. That's not good.

    Except that she already has a Summon out, and it's been largely ignored for now. She was going to do something about the Black Saber with it, but the Summons have a major priority for protecting their master. The Witch doesn't move toward the vampire or the Assassin, nor the Saber in their midst. She simply grasps at the remaining tendril, silent and composed, and invokes her own life-draining powers using the connection that magic provides to the vampire attacking her Mistress.

    Being bound also doesn't stop Serenity's control from working over the gouls, it just keeps her from fighting back with any magical spells of her own. So the ghouls and zombies she's seized turn about and begin hacking at their allies single-mindedly, trying to cut their way toward Dorothy.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou's only just getting himself hoisted back up with the dead closing in when -- "Uoooah!"

    ARROWS. A multitude of them come flitting his way. He BARELY gets out of the way. One impales his leg and nearly hamstrings him, another grazes past his side and head. He tumbles around... much more painful a manuever with an arrow in his leg! Avalon's not up to its full power here, with only a store of prana to keep it going. If Saber were here, then maybe he could ignore that wound somewhat. As it is...

    With The Dead now ARMED, he's in trouble. The boy brings Kinugiri up and around, deflecting a club and then an axe and chopping into dead flesh with great ease. Kinugiri's perhaps named such because it glides through flesh as smoothly as silk, and even the Shadow Armor won't be stopping its blessing.

    But after felling five of the risen...

    CRACk-KRAAAAASH!

    It breaks too.

    He needs something a little more appropriate for this. A weapon with reach, that's exceptional at finalizing death if nothing else...

    Yeah, a weapon like the scythe Grimmy over there's using.

    "My body is made of swords." The boy chants solidly, all but seeming to ignore The Dead closing in on him. For his perceptions, time slows if not freezes... and a solid image forms in his mind and soul.

    The onrushing zombie horde swings--

    CLANG CLANG CLANG!

    And they're all repelled. Shirou's standing tall despite the arrow in his leg, wielding the same Scythe as Assassin. Spinning it up into a flourishing twirl with apparent ease, he then LASHES OUT with a great swing to try and reap through the nearest Dead!

    The weapon might not be up to this use though...

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
'Other problems', Serenity said. Indeed, that seems like the case. These are not typical undead, even if his weapons are effective. There's still far too many, even with blessed ammunition. The explosives he brought are, sadly, not blessed. No holy hand grenades. But he does have incendiary grenades, and last Kiritsugu knew, fire was effective against the undead. Trying to fight them all is inefficient, and a losing proposition. Kimiko had the right idea - taking out the threat at its source. Unfortunately, both Master and Servant are well beyond Kiritsugu's abilities, as has been noted several times. As long as Black Saber is not attacking those gathered, keeping an eye on it and focusing on the real objective is a better plan. It may be a destructive, head-acheingly powerful Servant, whoever it is, but even if it becomes an enemy, taking it out is not going to stop the vampire from infusing power into the zombies and making them an exponentially greater threat. Besides, Psyber is already dealing with it. Kiritsugu feels that battlefield diplomacy is best left to those up to the task.

Kiritsugu takes a moment after reloading his weapon, remaining where he is in the darkness behind the statue, gazing up into the shadowed sky, made all the more dark by the emanations from beneath the ground. Then he takes in a breath, and his mana circuits surge as, in his mind, he chants, *Time Alter:* The vampire's back is turned on him, though she has plenty of other things to focus on, including Teresa being threatening, and Serenity usurping Dorothy's zombies. The Masked Assassin is also focused on the Reaper Assassin, and the zombies don't seem to realize where Kiritsugu is at the moment.

Kiritsugu will likely not have a better chance.

*Double Accel!*

Kiritsugu is up and moving quickly - more quickly than is humanly possible - as the influence of exterior time on his body is altered in favor of 'internal time' via a bounded field inside his body. He trails afterimages as he charges across the cemetery, making the attempt to stay out of the detection of either Master or Servant's peripheral vision. He only has a few seconds to make it to the crypt, and even during that short time, numerous blood vessels are being ruptured, and fractures are appearing in the bones of his limbs. To say it hurts is an understatement. But pain comes with magic, and as much as he is suffering, Kiritsugu is familiar with agony and can work through it. His tolerance is exceptional.

But his body's ability to survive this strain is still very limited, and thus the time he has to get to his objective is likewise limited. He has his Thompson Contender drawn - a sport-shooting handgun, with only a single round capacity, able to fire a .30-06 Springfield bullet with such force that it can EASILY puncture bulletproof vests and kill large animals in a single shot. He is trying to make it to the crypt without being noticed, and, if successful, to then drop out of Double Accel by chanting 'Release Alter', as well as hopefully dropping out of sight, in the crypt itself. Either way, he'll really need a moment to rest and catch his breath. The main difference is if he's trying to catch his breath outside still, or inside.

And if he has to try to catch his breath outside, in the open, surrounded by powered-up zombies, and far worse, it means he failed and is probably in deep trouble.

Sieg (566) has posed:
    'What' is a good question. Although it can be called Obsidian Saber for simplicity's sake, it certainly doesn't physically resemble a servant anymore. Those with the senses to feel such a thing can definitely determine that it is one at the core, but something has distorted it wildly. Like a great deal of corrupted mana was fed into it and altered its form and the function of its abilities, but not so much that its legend is not being expressed in some of these abilities. The draconic appearance is probably some kind of clue, or would be under ordinary circumstances. Many heroes are associated with dragons, and many have abilities that are wildly destructive.

    Unfortunately, it also has no coherence whatsoever. Being approached by Psyber only provokes it to strike at him full force from a standstill. An enormous talon strikes without skill towards the space that he currently occupies, while mana begins to be drawn in from the surroundings to fire another shot of that explosive magic burst. There is, however, one particularly telling quality to Obsidian Saber that can readily allow it to be identified as not-a-Pure.

    The energy that it is expending isn't a natural "pool". It is something temporary that can be expended. It has no core, and its energy signature is distinctly Samael's despite clearly not being Samael.

    Speaking of which, it seems like he can re-charge for another round of explosive murder in fairly short order thanks to that energy supply, and there's plenty enough other movement going on in the cemetary that a warning approach by Psyber isn't enough to keep it distracted. Worse yet, this thing has an exceptionally nasty trick up its sleeve when it comes to that. It leans its head back as if to inhale deeply, and then jerks its neck forward painfully quickly to aim its mouth at the ground.

    The next explosion ripples out from Obsidian Saber's feet, a black-and-red dome of explosive power expanding outward before imploding in on itself. A great shockwave chases along the ground, travelling out from the explosion and generally being an incredible hazard not just to the fighters but any of the Dead who remain upright within the graveyard's borders.

    This explosion seems to have caused Obsidian Saber's skin to heat and crack in a way that looks painful but may not represent actual damage to itself. It's hard to tell. On the other hand, it seems perfectly capable of suicide bombing itself without actually committing suicide in the process, so THAT'S a hell of a nuisance to deal with.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    "Behind me!" Despite her earlier words, the zombies change things. The Puella Magi reaches a quick conclusion that, in fact, she'll have an easier time defending someone who stays on the opposite side of her relative to the undead horde. Bother.

    Kimiko has certainly been busy lately, with jobs requiring travel coming down a few times a week. As far as she can tell, it hasn't really affected her. She's not overly exhausted--or if she is, it isn't slowing her down. She's not one to make the mistake of preparing for a battle to the death only to go in too tired to win. Something of that nature might be the cause for this irritation, though.

    An explosion rocks the field. Things are rapidly becoming complicated, and she can't keep track of it all while staying effective at her job. For her part, most of the rubble flies over her head--dangerous enough, but the stone fragments that would otherwise embed in her catch in her reactively summoned armor, instead staggering her a moment and leaving a series of deep dents.

    "What? Samael?" She'd only encountered that User once, and the softest words Kimiko'd use to describe her are 'Bad News.'

    The Grim Reaper, taking on an appearance at once both expected and startling, is confronting the Dead Apostle. Kiritsugu is taking cover away from the group--too far for her to support, but his ammunition seems effective, as does Riva's. On the other hand--if the enemy Assassin /isn't/ tied up fighting Death, that magus is going to get himself killed, moving like that. (Moments later, the more fortunate outcome occurs.) Kimiko hisses through her teeth, even as she directs a few of Koishin's barriers to try to keep Yuuki out of harm's way. Against enemies of this level, they should stop those attacks cold, or even herd the skeletons around--up until the shadow arms appear, turning even a few of these things into a more substantial threat than she'd expected. Now she can scarcely afford to keep an eye out for Assassin, and has to use a full stack of barriers to try to deflect the polearm going for Yuuki.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Her short sword and kukri were intended for fighting a fiendishly fast monster with a knife. Against swords, she's at a disadvantage, but only for the brief moment before she merges the blades together into a longer sword with a two-handed grip, in the typical German design. Her arms come about in a low-speed swing that belies its crushing force, aimed against unarmored joints but with enough power to simply catch her opponents and knock them into each other and aside, even as armor holds, and at a distance just before any can strike her in turn. If the bearers of the arms remain weak, there should be few problems in her tactics, and her quicker reverse swing is lethal to the stunned.

    Her armor has, in this supernatural area of darkness, lost its silver gleam, as has her blade, but both remain effective. Swords strike empowered blows, but glance against her guard. Where she cannot break the enemy, hilt or foot will see them fall, and then gravity empowers her strike in return. Swords and armor? The strengths and weaknesses are well familiar to her. Her own armor is easily sacrificed, for the sake of a decisive blow.

    She's used to fighting horrific monsters of some stripe, but what she sees now in her opponents, unlike the memories of their deaths that Aoko's Servant possesses, fills her with nothing but disgust. Her voice snaps.

    "Disappear."

    She hefts her sword, in direct contradiction of all rational swordplay. When her spinning blade leaves her hands, it should just turn end over end a few times and hit the ground, or else bump into something with the hilt--but that's if it were powered by physics, and not a pure expression of magic. Once it enters the air, it isn't even really a sword, anymore, nor is it a cutting force. Amplified by the current focus of the crystallized leylines in that mausoleum, it's just a spinning, abstract projectile of heatless annihilation, aimed through half a dozen of the Dead and for the figure of Dorothy.

    Kimiko is, momentarily, without a weapon. She's breathing hard.

Riva Banari has posed:
Chaos and Too Much High Power Man gets flung everywhere. Riva glares at the zombies as they get augmented by the Dead Apostle's ability, and her gunfire starts spanging off of shadow armor, and forcing her to defend against shadow weapons.

Like the zombie that is coming right back after her. The obsidian claw lashes out, and Riva feels a surge of Anima turning the lethal strike aside just enough, the lucky charm heating as the claw gashes her side. There is a yelp of pain as blood is drawn.

Riva backpedals, immediately flipping through the air in an absurdly acrobatic maneuver for a human, unleashing a hail of anima bullets at the zombie. It looks like she just might be able to get an upper hand over the chaos as she takes a perch on one of the gravesites, getting some air on them, before...

The wave of chaotic power from Sieg rolls across the battlefield and slams into Riva from behind, scorching her and throwing her into the ground. Her head smashes into one of the tombstones, breaking a piece off of it with a painful-sounding crack. Pain and red flashes through Riva's eyes, blood staining her vision as her senses reel, making it difficult to move. Which way is even up?

The zombies are more than happy to remind her as they lunge upon her, dark blades and talons descending to strike. It is red, and painful, and horrible.

Then everything goes black, and she can't feel pain anymore.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Shi-" Psyber says before the massive talon comes in towards him. He rolls to the side, but it's only half-effective against a surprise blast fired from a standstill like that. And he's coming out of a tumble-roll just in time for that huge dome of energy to catch him clean on, blasting into him and sending him rolling back through the graveyard once more.

    Psyber slams a hand into the ground and braces. From the force of the blast, he's scorched and injured, having several abrasions and cuts from flying debris and skidding along the ground, not to mention scorch marks from the blast. His jacket is basically in tatters, but his shirt is in one piece for now. He wipes some blood from the corner of his mouth, "Ow." He says, before adding, "Damnit Aoko, what did you get me to sign up for." This is the second-most work he's ever had to do for a first date.

    Pushing himself to his feet, Psyber wobbles a bit, "Fine. You wanna play rough, big guy. Let's play." Psyber says, "JUDE. Lex Talionis." He shakes his head, clearing out the stars and cobwebs from that duo of attacks that sent him sprawling.

    Psyber speeds forward, charging in on Obsidian Saber with his Abstractum. After all, it tends to run one trick that it has optimized very well: Hit shit massively hard. So that's the strategy Psyber is going to open with. He has no idea of exactly what his opponent's defensive capacity is, so even with Jude's boosts this may be a pretty risky move. He has no idea just how much Sama-ethamphetamines this guy is running on.

    The half-angel swings Adjudicator in an upward swing aimed at the Not-a-Pure that just caught him off guard with two blasts and tore up one of his favorite coats.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Kimiko neatly dispatches the zambambinos and skellybros that are attacking them, the one that reached past her guard getting shoved away by what appears to be a silver cylinder or stylized handle of something that she pulls from a coat pocket, flailing it at the skellybro that comes at her.

    There is an electric crackle as the cylinder becomes a HUGE ASS SCYTHE that is LONGER THAN YUUKI IS TALL.

    Which she uses to be AGGRESSIVELY NORMAL at the remaining undead, reaping them with a kind of flailing grace. She's good! It's just... Her weapon is a scythe. Scythes are really not that good weapons. Thankfully, undead are not that good minions, so Yuuki is able to pick up the slack as Kimiko rests, clearing their flanks of any MARUADING UNDEAD.

    This is all as shit gets INSANELY REAL and Black Super Mega Sabor, the Raging Knockoff maruads around, and PERSONIFIED-DEATH fights... MOVIE-DEATH.

    "What is going ON?!" Yuuki complains, looking around frantically. Her blood-red eyes look out at everything confused and afraid.

    She had red eyes before, right?

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Koishin flares with a flickering light that seems unsteady, uneven. "I don't know... It smells like her, but it isn't... Kimiko, hold on! Let's keep that under control, anything you do with /that/, it's gonna be amplified, a lot, by the darkness here! I can feel it, it's Resonance energy, like mine!"

    Several barriers stack up right in front of Yuuki, a few of which shatter but which will hopefully halt the polearm entirely. Unless they don't, you know. But it can't assist in adding more control or more offensive power to that sudden, witch-powered projectile!

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    PSYBER goes to rumble with Sieg.

    Teresa releases her power; the shockwave does blow some of the skeletons back, rip their arms off even. The zombies seem a tiny bit sturdier, only barely enough to stay standing without losing too much ground. They don't seem able to be intimidated though, so they continue on. One produces a massive axe, and charges straight for Teresa-- faster, stronger than the others. Two more trail in, with scimitars, trying to flank the woman. "You'll see! I'll make my proof here and now, and fill the void the dead Ancestors left!"

    Assassin's scythe swings, several times. The white-masked Servant is sturdy, inhumanly so. The blade sinks into flesh but can't cut bone. The muscles are torn but the limbs yet hold. A leg is broken but the Servant still stands.

    Relentless in its pursuit, it roars again.

    The white mask shifts, and is replaced by a much larger one. Red spirals on the cheeks, red lips drawn on the wooden doll mouth, and a partial wig atop, with grey-black hair. The knife in the Servant's hand changes into a clockwork contraption, which he, despite his grievous injuries, swings straight for the other Assassin's left arm. On impact, if any there is, the clockwork scrambles and replicates on the other arm, linking together in the back. Blades and mechanisms form-- and if either arm is moved out of sync, the other might get cut off.
    Dorothy herself is trying to avert eye contact with the Reaper, suddenly fully aware of what is going on. She'll just have to deny Death harder, then.

    Serenity's summon, the Witch, grabs the tendril. It leeches, and Dorothy suddenly writhes in pain. Dead Apostles use human life force as fuel; it's what allows them to regenerate, to live. If you drain that, they're a car without gas, and they won't have much time life. Fortunately she has a LOT of life force in her, but the drain leaves a significant dent in it, and she dismisses the tendrils, freeing Serenity. The skeletons engage battle with more skeletons, cutting through effortlessly now. Dorothy panics and backs away, towards her Servant. "You're-- I'll not be outdone on my own playing field! RISE!"

    The fallen skeletons and zombies so far see their remains gather into a single shape. A titan of bones and rotten flesh, forming into a scorpion that Dorothy hops atop. Its tail attempts to slam down where Serenity is standing.

    Shirou using Thanatos finds it exactly as useful as it sounds. It doesn't need a direct impact, and the dead's defenses mean nothing to it. The scythe does in fact bring finality, and the undead fall to the ground with the slightest graze of it.

    They start dispersing, avoiding Shirou in melee.
    Instead they start hurling gravestones at the boy.

    Kiritsugu speeds across the field-- past the undead, past the giant scorpion, past the two Servants fighting it out. It's easy enough. He enters the crypt. There's an intense feeling of dread inside, and laid on an alter is a large, pitch black crystal, the source of the effect covering the graveyard. But how do you dispose of something like that safely? There's magical equipment all over the room, but it's all alchemy vials, powders and weird reagents, nothing that seems to affect the crystal directly.

    Kimiko hurls her destructive force straight at Dorothy and her giant scorpion. It blasts one of its claws right off. She screeches angrily and points at Kimiko. The scorpion beast extends its last claw and tries to snap Kimiko and her defenses in half with it, while still trying to tail smash Serenity.

    Riva, even in her retreat, is at least able to disable a few more of the undead. The horse is rather thin by now, with only a few dozen left at most. That's kind of a big change from the initial hundred or two, but people have been going all out about it, so it's not a surprise. Sadly it looks like she gets ganked soon after. Without even verifying its kill, the clawed one releases Riva and then jumps back into the fray.

    It flings itself towards Yuuki, past the other ones that Kimik

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    *It flings itself towards Yuuki, past the other ones that Kimiko blew away and guarded her from. Its shadow claws still bloody with Riva's blood. And then, it slams into a scythe, and it cut in half, clean through the armor.

    If Kimiko and Serenity keep distracting the scorpion, Dorothy is kind of open.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Right away." Adjudicator speaks up urgently, the blade unfolding straight out of Psyber's hefty gauntlet, the eye blazing a brilliant red. As its User approaches OBSIDIAN SABER, the blade's fire begins to rush down its length in seven ominous sections, each flaring up distinctly. It remains wordless, but the posture is a clear intent: Respect, but a show of power. There's an urgent, almost destructive intent boiling under the surface though, that feeling of an urge to fight the thing that it's made to fight.

    Then, a talon, and explosions! "Not for this, I believe." Psyber's sword speaks up. "Morality Paradigm: Lex Talionis." The blade is now suddenly CHARGED with ADDITIONAL STRIKE POWER, corresponding to damage dealt to Psyber by Obsidian Saber! The attack-force multiplier is amplified further. The massive, TITANIC strike is going to be hard enough, if it hits something, to release a shockwave that'll blast the topsoil off of the graveyard for a dozen feet around.

Teresa (601) has posed:
    These zombies are certainly stronger. But so is Teresa. Whatever she did, she's moving faster and seems to be reacting a little quicker. It isn't so much strength in her case, as it is precision and speed. Not to say she's still not just as strong, though. The scimitars and axe manage to sneak in, here and there, but it's just scrapes. Nothing that's going to keep Teresa from continuing to fight.

"So, want a higher rank, huh? I guess I can understand. A rank never really meant much to me." She smiles a bit, and a swipe of her sword dispatches the axe-wielding zombie. A couple more, and the others are taken care of. "It's honestly nothing personal. But when you're hired for a job, you do the job.. Or your credibility suffers. Can't have that. So, it's really just business."

Teresa charges straight at the Apostle, who might soon find herself face-to-face with the swordswoman, unless she has something else up her sleeve.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     It is easy to avert eye contact with Assassin in this form, since the famous hood hangs down over its face. Assassin is not looking at the Dead Apostle as it talks, either - it simply speaks with the dispassionate serenity it seems to carry with it.

     "There is a void because one of them was slain, Fearful One. There is a void because all things have an end."

     The Reaper does not argue with people. It simply...is. It does not have - does not *comprehend* - the passion necessary for an argument. Besides, it's in the middle of a fight with another, horribly inhuman Servant.

     The enemy changes masks. Assassin suddenly understands - suddenly has a hint of this creature's method of fighting. It will adapt to anything Assassin does. Anything Assassin can do, the enemy can do better. Can do faster. Can do stronger. The enemy is not an Assassin, not exactly - it is a creature that wields the title of Assassin, but it is far, far more suited for combat than the Reaper. Therefore, the Reaper must use every advantage it has.

     The most chief among them is its lack of fear.

     The Grim Reaper feels no fear. Why should it? What does it fear? What *can* it fear? Fear is the process by which the mind avoids death. It is the primal survival instinct of the whole human race. It is an understanding, even an irrational one, that something is capable of ending life. The Grim Reaper has no life. It has no fear.

     Nothing it does will end its life, as it has no life to end. It merely has an existence.

     Assassin lunges into the strike. The blade finds purchase, not in Assassin's arm, but in its chest. Across the Grim Reaper's thin frame spreads a machine, a machine designed for one purpose - to make any attack the Grim Reaper makes one that hurts it. A swing of its arms will stab it in the chest. A swing of its legs(?) will stab it in the hips. No matter what the Reaper does, it will be hurt.

     This suits the Grim Reaper very well. Its hand lashes out for the other Servant's face.

     The machine digs into its chest. Pain erupts through its prana-forged body. Again, that which has never been understands suffering.

     Again, that which has never been does something about it.

     Assassin (Reaper) is far taller than its opponent. It is lanky, limber, long-limbed and lean. All these things it uses to its advantage, for its hand was merely a distraction, a sleight-of-hand, for the true strike.

     Assassin brings the blade of Thanatos around. It uses the scythe as a scythe ought be used, sweeping it backwards in a jerking motion that costs it three more wounds from the machine. The machine digs deep.

     Thanatos will dig into the Reaper, too. But if Thanatos finds purchase in the other Servant's neck, it will still only be to Assassin's midsection.

     And, in that moment, the pain will cease.

     Assassin lacks durability. Assassin lacks strength. Assassin lacks even the killing blows of an Assassin.

     But there are *none* more effective at bringing peace.

     And this is its greatest power.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Kimiko!!" Koishin calls out, urgently! It is desperately intent on intercepting any MAJOR strikes! And there is a MAJOR strike here coming in. Suddenly, the excess remaining barriers that her Abstractum has to offer are used to blunt the attack against her, stacks of magical constructs intercepting the claw as it tries to snap in from either side...

    Layers and layers shatter, slowing it down, easing the burden of the sudden strike, hopefully leaving it more as something she can avoid being crushed by instead of being snapped in half by... But it seems Koishin has an idea! Two barriers are left, and it projects them... On the other side of the claw, closer to the 'wrist' of the thing! Drawing more off of Kimiko's willpower than anything else, it offers the chance to attempt to IMMOBILIZE the front half of the creature through sheer defensive power, hopefully enhancing any attacks on it or preventing it from intercepting an assault on Dorothy, perfectly understanding Kimiko's focus on tanking for the sake of others, instead of defensive invulnerability.

Sieg (566) has posed:
    Adjudicator strikes Obsidian Saber with full force. It doesn't have the agility or the skill to evade, but it doesn't seem to need to. The blow is powerful enough that it should shatter the head of the distorted Servant, but that's not what happens. When at first the blow strikes it doesn't appear to do much of anything, but the effect is delayed. There is a palpable sense of power being consumed, and the nature of the creature changing. Cracks run through its head and shell, glowing red fissures opening in place of what would ordinarily be flesh and blood. This is what it desires, of course. Their power is predisposed towards inviting destruction, but in the case of this specific being...

    Immortality is a primary component of its concept. Siegfried could only be killed if his weak point was struck, and the rest of him is that much more durable than he normally is. On the other hand, the degree to which it appears to be "Samael-like" was rapidly diminished by that strike. It consumed a lot of energy to maintain its current state of existence, meaning that a few more of those could bring it out of whatever state caused it to be like this. That is, assuming that they have the opportunity to occur.

    Cracked and injured, the creature makes its first proper vocalization. It is utterly incoherent. A jumble of nonsense staticky white noise. The agonized cry of some hopelessly distorted beast attempting to express itself and failing. Were this servant in its natural state rather than transformed by this fel power, it could only be a Berserker. As it is, Siegfried is merely... amplified, after a fashion.

    Power begins to gather again, the damaged red cracks that run throughout Obsidian Saber's body beginning to glow ominously along with the red lines. Evidently its ability to attack erodes it in some way, or else it wouldn't gather energy in such a fashion. It isn't using that yet, though. There is a slow build up of... ether? Yes, definitely ether.

    Obsidian Saber is preparing to use its Noble Phantasm.

    Ordinarily this would be visible as a sword, but as things are, well... it is simply a facet of its being.

    In the short term however, the wounded beast reaches out and attempts to grab hold of Adjudicator and SQUEEZE its talons around the weapon. It isn't attacking Psyber this time, but rather, attempting to damage or shatter the Abstractum that he wields.

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
As Kiritsugu is trying to rest - whih will have no impact on the injuries he has accrued, but he was not expecting it to - the sound of another explosion rips through the air and then huge tremors shake the ground all around. And here he is, trying to go even deeper underground. As Psyber clashes with the unknown Servant - or whatever it is in addition to being a Servant - Kiritsugu grits his teeth, letting out a small noise of discomfort that does not accurately represent the extent of the damage to his body or his suffering as a result of such, before gathering himself up after only a few moments of lying down and getting a move on. He may not have much time before the battlefield is destroyed. There are too many unknown factors here, too many sources of danger. He is completely out of his element, but he knows one thing for sure - whatever is down here is important to their enemy (the child-looking one, at least. There seem to be an awful lot of enemies suddenly), and either taking it or destroying it is his objective.

As he descends into the crypt, however, he feels that darkness far more potently. He has the sixth sense of a magus, able to detect prana in the environment, but this prana and just the air itself down her feels incredibly BAD. He squints as he stays standing on the bottom step, observing the crystal of utter darkness. If he could turn it full-blast back on holy emanations, it might grant the advantage to their side. On the other hand, destroying it might be a better bet. The only threat there is if it explodes as a result or otherwise releases an extroardinarily bad effect. Assuming he can even damage it.

Kiritsugu is willing to take that chance. He was told that another Kiritsugu, in another timeline, caused a city-wide fire that killed thousands by attempting to just blow up the source of corruption and imminent destruction. And here he is, about to make a similar choice.

He informs the others on the radio where he is, and what he's about to do, while he sets out all of his grenades and incendiary explosives around and on the altar itself. He is seeing visions of all the death he has caused while he does this, phantasms floating around the peripheral of his awareness. He is already injured. But he has to push himself to one more effort. *Time Alter:* the Magus-Slayer chants in his mind. *Triple Accel!*

The pain of Double Accel pales in comparison to Triple Accel. His muscles are tearing themselves apart as he moves quickly to pull the pins on every single grenade and then get the hell out of the crypt before they explode. Cracks form in his bones, splintering them in places as he streaks up out of the underground chamber, blurring across the battlefield, and then - not able to maintain the alteration any longer - chanting 'Release Alter!' as he hits the ground hard, aggravating his injuries - including internal bleeding - further and going rolling across the graveyard's wrecked terrain until he winds up slamming into one of the gravestones that ISN'T broken hard enough to break it.

He is not going anywhere any time soon.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Psyber's blade is strong. It is a very, very high level Abstractum.

    But Samael's influence is almost specifically geared towards its destruction, just as Adjudicator is built specifically for killing things like Samael. And so Obsidian Saber's talons wrapping around the blade prompt a grunt from Psyber's weapon, a grunt of intense pain, before the blade shatters, some two thirds of the way down, shards of red light flying through the air and a shattered steel tip slamming point-down into the dirt some distance away.

    "Grrhhhhhh... We've drained some of the influence, but it knows what's happening. Psyber!" Adjuducator, though heavily damaged in the Manifestation, offers Shift to its User! The situation is intense enough that it can be activated easily, and if he assents, the red lines of scripture and power will run up his hands and over his cheek, flooding his body with energy, strength, and vitality.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Kimiko is not actually sure what she just did, or how she did it, but Koishin's warning gives her some degree of clarity. After this, she's going to need her Gem checked out. It could just be the intensely unholy magical field effect, or... or, she could be dying and not even realize it. That would be... bad. That should definitely be avoided, if possible.

    Another, closer explosion rocks the field, and though she keeps her feet and gets no more than minor strikes of debris, it's enough to keep her in place while Dorothy's pet moves in and strikes.

    She isn't sure she has the time to dodge, nor that she can summon the energy for it safely. While the claw snaps through Koishin's barrier, Kimiko rouses herself enough to summon a shield to her arm. The scorpion abomination crushes her to it in its claw, but her shield holds, merely impressing inward. The armor on her back breaks apart, drawing blood, and her ribs might not be doing too great, either.

    Even amid all that, she chooses to look over to see if she can make out how Psyber and Yuuki are doing. Psyber is, at least, still alive. He is, she's noticed, very good at Not Dying, even when grievously injured. Yuuki is dispatching undead with a scythe. That makes three on the battlefield. Neither of these last two points were really expected, but at least it means she isn't defenseless while Kimiko is busy getting lifted off her feet in the monster's attempt to crunch all the way through her.

    The damage to her armor is instantly repaired and reinforced, but not in such a way as to expel the claw. The most she can do is halt it--and given that it got through her armor in the first place, all she's really doing is slowing it down.

    Her saving grace is that her right armor wasn't pinned. That's why it's her back that's being bitten into, but it also means that she summon a short, cutting dagger with a serrated blade. She chooses a point, and the flesh-saw is struck downward, trying to tear into enough of the creature's muscle that it'll lack the strength to finish her off.

    For entirely different reasons then mere defense, the armor over Kimiko doubles up. Layers of chain beneath plate are then obscured by yet further articulated plates, covering guards and more. Over the next few moments, she seeks to put even jousting armor to shame for sheer weight factor, even should she become nearly immobile in the process, so long as she's in position to apply that full weight into holding down the scorpion's arm.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Hah! Triumph's showing in Shirou's eyes. With Death's Scythe proving INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE at this job, he finally feels some of the taste of victory. It's not a taste he really cares for. He doesn't want to win fights, and defeating zombies is no seriously heroic fight. Saving people is.

    But this is much better than his prior flailing. If nothing else, it's a sign that he's improving in SOME fashion, and CAN make a difference.

    And so, briefly, he shows a smugly confident hint of a smile while striking down The Dead.

    Very, VERY BRIEF.

    "... Oh, come on, WHAT THE HECK?!"

    A HEADSTONE GOES SAILING PAST. It's easy enough for him to sidestep some of it, but several more come in... and he brings about Death's Scythe. CLAAAAAANG!

    The weapon's torn from his grasp and broken by the heavy stone, leaving him momentarily disarmed.

    He goes skidding back unsteadily over the ground and nearly trips over rubble strewn by Obsidian Saber. But then...

    He'll need something HEAVIER, huh?

    "How do things like this keep happening?!" WHUMPF! Another headstone lands near him.

    A MUCH GREATEr flare of light extends from his fingers, and as the next headstone comes flying at him...

    *KRRRKVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!*

    That's the sound of a small engine REVVING UP to the maximum. A CHAINSAW, in fact. The flare of prana dies down as Shirou's new weapon grind-cleaves through the headstone and cuts it in twain. No normal chainsaw could possibly do this, but when that happens to be a Noble Phantasm...

Serenity (607) has posed:
    The undead around Serenity surge forward to protect her, while the Witch darts to the side and vanishes, the summon dismissed for now. An odd choice, given her effectiveness, but maybe Serenity needs the mystical power for things like... the barrier that she throws up to guard herself, shimmering and purple.

    It doesn't last long, shattering like glass under the explosion from the other Servant. Inconvenient. That, and her undead, mean the tail slams down into the earth, but not without opening a ragged gash along Serenity's thigh, starting to soak into the robes. She seemingly ignores the wound, but it's not a shallow one... she's favoring that leg when she next moves, though not much.

    The dragonlike Saber is a concern, but not immediate for her. So long as those explosive shockwaves are hurting /everyone/ she can treat it as an act of god, an obstacle of the battlefield. It does keep the others busy, leaving her once again teamed with Kimiko... this time against the vampire and scorpion.

    So when Kimiko tanks the assault of the scorpion, preventing further damage, Serenity takes the opportunity! "Frost Lighting," she whispers, voice sounding hollow. Staying in this form for long has risks, especially in an area empowered like this one is, but she's holding back the urges well enough so far. The staff in her hands glows, and a blast of lightning, crackling and blazing toward the nearest undead that isn't under her control, blasting it with the heat of a lightning bolt hot enough to split bone before it leaps to the next, and the next, in a long chain that ends leaping toward the scorpion/vampire duo. And the moment the lightning leaps, the crisping heat left behind inverts, freezing rapidly to frost over bones and joints, possibly even forming ice over limbs if they're particularly weak.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    He absorbed the hit. He just stood and took it on the chin. That fact alone gives Psyber pause and enough time to go wide-eyed and ask, "Who the hell are you?" In an amazed tone to the Obsidian Saber. After all, simply standing and taking Adjudicator on the chin is something he's never seen done before and the person came out of it standing. This, by itself, is an amazing feat. Even if he diminished some of its Samael-ness, the fact that it was unmoved was amazing to him.

    Adjudicator getting grabbed is terrifying in concept to Psyber. Psyber knows he can take immense and immeasurable amounts of punishment, but the Abstractum he wields is much less durable. And Psyber tugs against the grasp frantically, only to have the blade shatter in his hands, the half-angel coming away with the bottom third of his sword in his hands.

    "Yes. SHIFT NOW." Psyber says in a hurried tone, not wanting to hold himself back against what's up against him right now. And so he consents to Shift, the runes and scruption running up and down his arms. Shift One, a comfortable form for him, so to speak. At least one he can access with some regularity.

    "Don't scare me like that, Jude. I don't like it when the blade breaks." Of course, the blade breaking also hinders Psyber's range down by about two-thirds. This is incredibly inconvenient, "Whatever, we're just gonna have to wing it from here."

    Psyber lunges in towards the Saber, trying to impale him through the chest with his third-sword. The heavy hit did DAMAGE, but Psyber has no idea if this thing is this tanky all over or what, so instead of getting experimental he's going to stick with what works and hope he can really mete out a win or stalemate.

    If he can get an impale, he tries to use it to swing the Obsidian Saber around like a hammer and hurl him off the blade and farther away from the others. This is probably not all that effective an idea, though.

Riva Banari has posed:
Where Riva lay, those who can see the spirit realm might notice a honey-colored flash of light on the spiritual plane as a swirl of buzzing motes surround her, and her spirit vanishes from the area in a pulse of light. The leylines in the area pulse.

Riva opens her eyes to warmth and bells. Even here in the Shadow Realm, the environment of the Vatican is pleasant, the air tinged with incense. It's an unusually peaceful place.

But as much as she wishes otherwise, she can't slack. Besides, the place is probably warded like whoa against ghosts. Riva turns away from the Vatican and looks towards where her body lies bleeding out on the ground, and squints.

Even from here, the difference is spectacular, the blackness of the area shifing and flickering as the leyline manipulation creates an area of terrifying, stormy darkness. Riva clenches her ephemeral teeth and begins running.

Sieg (566) has posed:
Obsidian Saber draws its talon back as Adjudicator breaks beneath its grip. It wasn't a fatal attack like was intended, but it's acceptable to the corrupted Servant. Brilliant red light begins to chase through its form as the Ether it is gathering reaches its maximum capacity. That specific trait appears to be inherent to the creature underneath the shell and not the corruption that empowers it, so it's unaffected by the loss of strength. It seems to suffer some surprise, however, when Psyber undergoes a transformation alongside Adjudicator.

    But it doesn't attempt to change its strategy. It continues to invite its incredibly difficult-to-achieve destruction, not so much as lifting a talon in defense of itself when Psyber re-enters its range and attempts to stab it with the broken sword. At first it appears as if the attack penetrates. Between the damage done to Adjudicator and to Psyber himself, there is more than enough "mounting damage" derived from Adjudicator's attack paradigm that he should be able to impale the creature. Should, however, is not DID. The weapon pierces through the obsidian flesh of the being and at first feels as if it will go on -- but it doesn't. A section of the obsidian around the size of a baseball or grapefruit explodes outwards, exposing the appearance of human flesh buried underneath.

    But the sword stops at the skin. It's not the Shift that provides that power, although it did provide augmented 'armor' with which to take the blow. Regardless, the tip meets the skin and is halted as if it made contact with another layer of armor. Which, after a fashion, it DID.

The Noble Phantasm of Obsidian Saber is a distortion of time. It reaches back through the ages and seizes hold of Ether from the Age of Gods. If it had manifested normally, without the influence of a strange transformation induced by Them, it would be called GRAM, or perhaps BALMUNG, or NOTHUNG. Regardless of the name it is among the greatest among Holy and Demonic blades. A noise like an electronic distortion sounds as Obsidian Saber opens its draconic maw and releases the power that it has amassed in the last few moments.

    Light floods out. To those who have witnessed Excalibur or Clarent Blood Arthur, the scope of it is quite similar. At present it takes the form not of a crescent swung from a sword, but the breath of some great and terrible dragon. It floods the battlefield with a destructive black-and-red light in a cone that radiates out from the dragon's mouth, spreading out in a vast triangle before Obsidian Saber rather than its signature crescent.

    This is Bad News for anything caught in its path.

The obsidian shell falls away.

    Sieg cannot sustain the output of Balmung while remaining Saber, especially when he has been so badly injured as Saber. When the light clears there is nothing but an unconscious young homunculus in place of the distorted Servant. The energy characteristic of Samael is completely gone from him. There is no Pure, or any sign of a Pure's destroyed core.

    If there were, it might be a comfort. If there were, it might mean that Samael had simply acquired an unsuspecting new recruit. But there isn't. This was entirely fire-and-forget, with all the potential horrors that entails.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    "It's not just a matter of rank! Once I'm the bigger fish I won't have to deal with the smaller ones!" Whether or not Dorothy is confident, sadly, does nothing for the fact Teresa just tore those things apart. Dorothy extends one hand up, forming a black spear of shadows, that she then hurls towards the woman. It's actually pretty good magecraft, not top tier, but not scrub tier either. Enough to kill a normal person with a graze. Not so much Teresa, but still. And they don't stop coming either; looks like she's really determined to impale the woman.

    Assassin pushes despite the contraption. The masked one is caught by the scythe. Perhaps it's a lucky swing, perhaps it's just a weak point, but the scythe lops off other Assassin's head off entirely-- without pain, if that is his intent. But even that, that does not stop the Assassin's advance.

    With its head off, its form shifts again. Black leathers and armor, an axe in its hand, no head. The fake Headless Horseman, not even a fraction as good as the true legend would be as a Servant, raises the axe and attempts to bring it down, blindly, onto the Reaper.

    Its severed head, still on the ground, has a pumpkin mask on, and has not disappeared. This SHOULD have been a fatal hit, no doubt about it. The eyes still watch the Reaper though. Dismemberment can't stop this one.

    Aoko suddenly appears, at least, and raises one arm up high. Her Magic Circuits flare up, like the turbines of a jet engine, noise and all. Prana flows from her, into her own Assassin. Let's close those wounds up, THAT, she knows how to do.

    Emiya Kiritsugu detonates the crypt. There is a thunderous explosion that quakes the cemetary.

    Dorothy looks with panic towards the exploding crypt.

    BATTLEFIELD EFFECT: GONE.

    The undead lose their shadow weaponry.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    Kimiko applies her weight and armor to the job, effectively preventing the scorpion from using that claw anymore, so long as she holds it there. It does try to free itself, oh boy does it, but it doesn't have the strength necessary anymore, with the amplification effect gone.

    Shirou produces a CHAINSAW using the masked Assassin's Noble Phantasm, and it is effective against cutting gravestones and zombies both. Especially without the buffs, Shirou is now a slasher film villain himself, and the undead are his teenagers. Bones, blood and limbs fly everywhere if he decides to jump into the undead.

    Serenity's chain lightning spell straight up mows through half a dozen of the ghouls, and then jumps to the scorpion, causing it extreme and obvious pain. Dorothy herself throws up a shadowy barrier, which the lightning bolt slams into, not without effect, but it doesn't end up frying her outright either. She cries in pain and frustration.

    Spirit!Riva runs towards her body! It's true, this place feels pretty nice. ESPECIALLY now that the corrupting effect is gone. Being this close to the Vatican, being dead might even feel pretty okay. Definitely feels better than how she'll feel when she hops back into her body, anyway.

    BATTLEFIELD EFFECT: FUCKING BALMUNG

    The terrible breath of the dragon washes over any leftover undead, and incinerates the badly damaged scorpion. Caught in his scuffle with the Reaper, in the shadow of the broken crypt, the two Assassins are probably the least affected, but it'll still burn.

    Dorothy is flung off her mount and slams into the ground.

    It seems at least she is beaten, alone, and her Assassin looks badly damaged. She tries to back away from everyone but slams her back onto a blank gravestone.

    "S-Stop! I get it! You win! Assassin, stop fighting! P... Please don't kill me! I just wanted to finish my father's work!"

Riva Banari has posed:
The dead can travel reasonably fast if they want to, and she reaches the graveyard, pulling to a halt as she notices that like /half/ of the people here are not only capable of being present on the spiritual realm, but she is fairly sure they're capable of noticing and even interacting with her free spirit.

She can't defend herself in this form. Riva quickly skirts the edge of the area, looking for her body. She finds it, the minor undead paying no more attention to it.

Good.

She reaches down to touch her own body...

And then Balmung fires, the dragon's flame roaring across the graveyard in an insane destructive wash of Power. Riva screams wordlessly, throwing herself away from the blast instinctively.

She pops her head out from behind the wall of the graveyard several seconds later. She looks around, and peers for her body.

It's not there, just an ashen lump with a couple oddly intact MAC-10s lying next to it.

The Servants can probably hear Riva as she starts yelling and swearing. Her language is not pleasant as she stalks away, trying to find the nearest ley line convergence that she can reach so she can resurrect the hard way.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin cannot help but notice the manifestation. The power of the Age Of The Gods is almost as old as the Grim Reaper. The Reaper's head turns, heedless of its injuries, to stare at the place where the triangle of destruction has fallen. Even in the midst of a battle, Assassin must give witness to the awesome power of legend.

     It also makes damn sure to move out of the way of the blast. It understands that it /hurts/. It understands that the power of the gods can harm it. There were gods with power over Death in the long-distant age, and Assassin remembers this.

     It still burns. But the burning it can endure, with Thanatos rammed into its chest. The burning it can endure, with the relief pouring forth.

     The enemy survives. The enemy survives a lethal strike. Assassin rises - and the girl orders her Servant to stop. The girl begs for her life.

     Assassin turns.

     Assassin turns to face her. It slowly, purposefully, removes the scythe from its chest as it glides across the destroyed battlefield. The blade rises over its shoulder as Assassin reaches up and pulls back its hood.

     None can see beneath it. To all and sundry except Dorothy, Assassin has done nothing but reveal a second hood.

     To Dorothy, and Dorothy alone, Death's true face appears. It is darkness - blackness, oblivion, nothingess - but from that nothingness is a smile so gentle, so peaceful, so kind, that it could be nothing but a friend, even in these circumstances.

     BE AT PEACE.

     Assassin no longer speaks. Its voice simply rings out through the graveyard, a physical force that shakes from stone to stone. It raises the scythe as it nears the girl.

     YOU DIED LONG AGO. YOU GAVE UP YOUR FLESH TO BECOME A CREATURE OF THE NIGHT. YOU HAVE BEEN RUNNING SO LONG, DOROTHY. YOU HAVE BEEN AFRAID FOR SO LONG.

     Assassin sets the scythe down and crouches close to Dorothy. It holds out its hand, the peaceful smile on its face visible only to her. Its hand is warm to the touch, soft and gentle and thin and delicate.

     BE AT PEACE, DEAR CHILD. RELEASE YOUR FEAR. RELEASE YOUR SORROW. RELEASE YOUR ANGER, YOUR HATRED, YOUR MISERY AND DESPAIR. GIVE UP YOUR WORLDLY TERROR. I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY.

     And then it slides the blade towards her neck with all the emotion of a machine.

     YOU WILL BE MOURNED.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    EXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE! Kiritsugu's bombs are enough to distract anyone... but now Shirou feels yet something else drawing his attention. A DREADFUL amount of prana gathering nearby. He has only a few brief moments, certainly no time to think. The fringes of that cursed flame are rushing straight at him, and just the fringe would be lethal for a frail human like him!

    Dammit, what the hell's he supposed to do?!

    There's only one thing he CAN DO. Projecting a shield will do no good.

    Instead, the sword of japanese legend appears in his hand as he drops the chainsaw. He'll have to fight fire with wind.

    Granted, a dragon breath sort of magical energy fire's not quite the same as FIRE FIRE, but how often do distinctions like that matter ENTIRELY when legends are involved?!

    The wind howls and gales around Kusanagi as Shirou pumps prana into the weapon. So much prana flows into the black longsword that it shines, and the raging winds warp everything around it into a great distortion.

    "Howl, KUSANAGI NO TSURUGI!"

    The simple slash unleashes a gale of the fiercest heavenly winds, a ferocious storm that alone might fell a good chunk of an army. But when that wind strikes the onrushing 'dragon flame' - at least, the part of it that's heading for Shirou - the incoming attack is swallowed up, fanned, and redirected up into the sky.

    In the legend, the Grass Cutter Sword manipulated the wind and turned the fire unleashed by its wielder's enemies back on them. That's not quite happening here, but...

    Shirou's hardly good enough to manage that. Still, the raging storm Kusanagi's unleashing strips away the dirt and headstones, blowing away remains and debris.

    And trouble further arises when he can't maintain the prana output needed for it. He falters, and gets swallowed up by the blast's fringe. "Agh--"

    Not even able to properly scream, he's simply hurled away by the sheer force and slams hard enough into one of the few remaining headstones that it actually knocks him unconscious. Probably won't be out long though.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber goes for a stab that he thinks is gonna really do some damage to his opponent and finds that... the concept of his enemy bounces his sword back out after blowing off some armor, and Psyber finds more armor. Psyber tches aloud and says, "Damn guy, what're you made out of? I thought I was a damage-soaking monster, but you're ridiculous."

    Statements of admiration aside, Psyber has basically no time to react as the Servant before him lets out a static-filled roar that floods out a massive cone of light. Psyber is, having been in melee, POINT BLANK FOR THIS ATTACK. And more than Psyber's own concern for his well-being, Psyber is concerned about the already damaged Adjudicator.

    So Psyber does something he has never done in a fight before. The half-angel clutches Adjudicator to his chest and drops to one knee. He stabs the sword into the ground and braces himself. And then Psyber plays an ace he has kept up his sleeve for six years.

    Isaiah 6:2 - "The Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew."

    Psyber doesn't have six wings. He has two. And they spread from his back wide, unfurling to their full length of almost 12 feet across, jet black and shimmering with raven feathers as they come into existence. Those who expect white wings are going to be disappointed, because Psyber is a genetic defect. A bad omen. That's why he rarely summons his wings as a point of shame: The black-winged angel is the harbinger of death. But it's also not a secret, since it's his screenname on a messenger service. People have seen Psyber's wings before, rarely, since he prefers modern vehicles. They exist and they're fancy. Their appearance isn't the ace in his sleeve, though.

    The wings that have emerged then fold inward and surround Psyber, folding directly between himself and the Obsidian Saber. And Balmung washes over him. It presses around him. The conal breath of the dragon is immense, powerful and destructive. His wings are mighty, a testament to the Lord's design in crafting the angelic race: a wall stronger than any castle, able to turn aside armies with a single swipe. Despite this, however, they begin to peel away feathers and buckle under the assault.

    Layer after layer of feathers fly back and away as cracks and bleedthrough floods in, Psyber shielding the sword over himself in this instance. By the time the blast has bled away, Psyber shakily stands up. His wings are almost skeletal, bone and blood with a few tattered and twisted clumps of feathers hanging off of them. Psyber himself is also damaged, bleeding in several places, burned in others, ON FIRE in a couple spots. Those are the ones he pats out as he shakily adjusts his footing and painfully flexes the bones that were his supposedly unbreachable wings a moment ago.

    "Damn kid..." Psyber says, taking a step forward in a wobbling fashion. He seems unsure in his footing. Most of his shirt is burned away, along with huge patches of his upper body that are blackened and charred. Across his back, just below his wings, a blue scar shines.

    Psyber slowly wobbles over to Sieg, kneeling down next to him. Even as damaged as he is, Psyber's first concern is seeing if Sieg is okay.

Serenity (607) has posed:
    Kimiko is there to tank for Serenity. This is great! If she'd known everyone would be HURLING stuff at her she'd have chosen a different, less vulnerable imbuement for this battle, but fortunately Kimiko has decided to help out. The blast still forces Serenity to her knees as the wash around Kimiko still hits her relatively unshielded body, before she can properly reply to Dorothy. In fact all she gets out is, "Your fa-"

    Then it's time to act. The blast wave is fast, but Serenity already dismissed her earlier summon. She has another to work with. 'Pact Summon, Arhkak the Demon Bear,' she calls out, a wave of sparkling yellow light erupting from her side. An elephant-sized, armored 'bear' that doesn't look very bearlike manifests just in time to cover some of the more fragile of the group, roaring in surprise at the first thing it encounters being an attack. It's armored and the toughest Summon she has, though.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Today is not a good day for Yuuki Kuran, Totally Normal Girl Without Any Supernatural Powers At All.

    First a knight (and an eyeball) defend her from zambambinos and skellybros that want to eat her. Then, yet more come, and she has to pick up the slack (what little there is, due to Kimiko's skills and exertion), with her scythe Artemis, slay some of the UNDEAD herself.

    She had barely paid attention to the Obsidian Saber and Psyber fight before... But she's forced to pay attention now. She's forced to burn, because she has no other good option. She could hide behind Kimiko again, and let herself be protected by someone else. Again.

    She always could hide behind Zero, or Kaname, and just be this perfect little princess and nothing bad would ever happen to her.

    She can't do that this time. She'd hate herself if she did.

    So she ducks out from cover, and she runs, and she burns.

    Skin crisps and her coat smoulders and she chokes back a scream, as she extends her hand.

    That hooded guy with a scythe is going in for the kill! She's begging for her life! If only she can...

    She extends her hand, and her fingers twitch, and a curious thing happens.

    The headstone that Dorothy is resting on... breaks, quite cleanly, behind her, potentially buying her...

    All of a second.

    Yuuki is flat on her stomach on the graveyard soil, with a hand extended, looking no worse for wear!!!

    Except for her coat, which was totally ruined by dragon's fire. But she's fine! Somehow. Totally.

    She shakily slides on a pair of sunglasses. For no reason. She's entirely normal.

    Her eyes glowed bright, bloody crimson for a second, though. But that's totally not a thing.

    "D-don't kill her! She deserves to live, just like everyone else! You can't just... kill someone like that, after they surrendered!"

Sieg (566) has posed:
    The homunculus on the ground is unconscious, but the damage done to Obsidian Saber doesn't seem reflected on his body. There's a crackle of mana around him, as his magic circuits desperately attempt to remain Saber, but this is clearly not a conscious effort. Sieg hasn't been conscious since he used his command spells, and likely won't regain consciousness for a while yet.

    As it is though, he doesn't appear hurt. This isn't a matter of the damage not sticking, but rather, that Saber's body is not the same as Sieg's. Even a regular person would be able to kill Sieg if they wanted to, so if the damage sustained by Saber carried over, he would die instantly.

    This shouldn't be taken to mean that he is in perfect health, or that he heals the damage away precisely. As it is, it appears as if using his trump card puts him in check to begin with. Regardless, he is in no danger.

    This much, however, is clear to those with the knowledge to understand what has just transpired: Sieg the Homunculus, despite being as human as a homunuclus can be, possesses the spiritual core of a Servant. This should not be possible.

Emiya Kiritsugu (603) has posed:
Kiritsugu is not really able to get out of the way. Using Time Alter now could very well kill him, in a not-a-risk-so-much-as-a-likelihood manner. As the crypt explodes, Kiritsugu's vision is red - mostly from capillaries bursting in his eyes and flooding them with blood. The detonation and the crimson hue combine together with his momentarily disoriented mind to project an image of a passenger jet exploding in mid-air. A sight he witnessed many years ago. No, that's not right. It was a sight he CAUSED. Hopefully nobody died this time. But he knows that even if it would have killed people, he would have done it anyway - and he had no idea whether that would be the case while he was doing it and was willing to risk it.

He grits his teeth, his breaths pained, as he turns his attention on the sudden intense light coming from the black, armored figure with the dragon-head. The prana build up is insanely strong, and there is not much Kiritsugu can do about it. He considers for a moment seeing if he can drag his broken body behind something before the blast is released, but there's no cover here adequate to stop an attack like that.

Instead, he does all that he can do right now, and just breathes raggedly, in and out, feeling the white-hot pain that fills his body, cracks through his bones, burns through his blood, and leaves nerve endings firing pain signals endlessly, overwhelmingly, as they suffer and die. He needs medical attention soon, because he is pretty sure he broke something important inside of him based on the amount of blood leaking out of his mouth every time he coughs.

Coughing hurts too. Basically everything hurts right now. At least Assassin seems to be ensuring the Dead Apostle isn't going to be a danger anymore, so that is one less concern. Until Yuuki intervenes, anyway.

Shirou trying to tank the laser or deflect it into space does draw some of Kiritsugu's attention, but his bloody-eyed gaze is focused soon enough on the hyper-silhouetted form of Psyber as he grows wings and uses them to shield himself, soaking a lot of the unknown Noble Phantasm even as it tears into the half-angel (which Kiritsugu is just finding out is even a thing). Shirou also deflects a portion of the laser-breath that breaks through, as noted before, and Kimiko tries to block it as well. On top of that, a huge elephant-bear is summoned for the specific purpose of getting hit with an annihalation wave.

And that land-rending, soul-searing brightness, through the combined efforts of everyone involved, is kept from doing any further damage to Kiritsugu, some superficial damage to his skin, and making his eyes hurt (more).

Which is not a lot in the long run compared to what he did to himself.

Mission accomplished, he guesses. Though it seems the vampire 'lives' for now.

This went better than expected.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    "N-No! Please!"

    Well, what's a Dead Apostle going to do against a Servant?

    Death looms closer, and it brings peace, and a smile. For some reason, even in her current condition, it's reassuring. Dorothy stops panicking and slumps against the blank gravestone.

    She sees memories, the good ones. About a dozen years ago, when he father died, and she inherited the Magic Crest, she said she'd do whatever it takes. Turning into a vampire seemed a small price to pay to have eternity to do her work, even that young. Raised like a magus, can't be helped.

    She just threw her morals away in the process, too.

    Guess that was a mistake.

    She doesn't struggle anymore, just closes her eyes.

    But if Yuuki can have her spared, she won't complain.

    MEANWHILE, the masked Assassin picks his head back up and slaps it back on. His injuries seem to have closed and healed in the few moments he was out of sight with all eyes on Dorothy instead. He says and does nothing else.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Kimiko can see very little beneath her dark iron helmet. The slits are too narrow for so much as a bodkin point to find much purchase. She is aware, at least, of the lightning that strikes the scorpion, and its master, and she is aware of Dorothy's cry for leniency. She sees the Reaper approaching, but can pay that incarnation of Death no mind, for she also sees the threat of Balmung.

    The scorpion will soon be no more, but her armor remains. It is heavy to the point of impracticality, but in terms of coverage and protection versus an opponent at range, it is the strongest she has to offer. Still, she expects that it will not be enough. She will do more.

    Thanks to the elder Emiya, the Unholy boost is gone. This will momentarily be unfortunate, as she draws a second time into those feelings just below the surface. She summons forth a massive shield, its edges covered in spikes, imbuing it with her every emotion currently in her mind--her pain, her frustration, her disgust, her conviction--her rejection of the impure as well as the unexplainable. Her shield will not merely block flame, letting that fire wash over it. It will, as her sword did earlier, seek to reject the existence of the attack made against it, removing it from reality.

    Without the field effect, and against an attack of this strength, this will only be effective in her immediate area. But there, it works. An unfocused attack, even at that level, is not enough to penetrate her strongest defense.

    Her armor flickers as if shadows passed over it, but it's brief enough to think an illusion.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin's blow misses. The hooded figure stands to its full height. It looks at the girl who begs on behalf of another, the hooded face slowly turning.

     Dorothy instead sees the disembodied smile turning. It is very kind. It is very gentle.

     YES. SHE DOES DESERVE TO LIVE.

     The echoing voice, the physical *force* of it, continues, as Assassin speaks to Yuuki.

     LIVING MUST COME TO AN END FOR IT TO BE PRECIOUS. SHE HAS SUFFERED FOR SO LONG. SHE HAS RUN, AFRAID OF THAT END, AFRAID OF THAT PRECIOUS GIFT SLIPPING FROM HER FINGERS. SHE HAS RUN, AND RUN, AND RUN, THROUGH FIELDS UNIMAGINABLE, TO ESCAPE THE FATE THAT ALL OF MANFLESH ARE BORN TO.

     Assassin kneels and puts his hand on Dorothy's fingers. It is still as gentle and warm as it was a moment ago. That kind, sweet smile is still here.

     LET HER GO IN PEACE. LET THIS DEAR CHILD FIND THE PEACE SHE HAS DENIED HERSELF FOR SO LONG, AND LET HER LIFE BE AS PRECIOUS AS IT SHOULD BE.

     Assassin looks over at Yuuki again, that flowing robe, that flowing hood, turning its attention to her.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Psyber's shattered sword is planted in the dirt, the eye screwed tightly shut against the intense destruction surrounding him. The hilt rattless, the crossguard chipping, but the Core Matrix, the critical, key, and most important element of the Abstractum, remains intact and, for the most part, undamaged.

    "I detect no further Pure influence." The Abstractum speaks quietly as Psyber approaches the unconscious form of Sieg. "But nothing to suggest the destruction of one. They were... Charged with Their power, but only a limited quantity of the influence." There's also, below the surface, a wordless gratitude to the shattered blade's posture. The sort exchanged between people whose lives are saved and the people who save them. Just a quiet sort of serious respect.

    Elsewhere, Koishin flares to life in one more desperate push, trying to amplify Kimiko's power so that the drain on her soul gem isn't TOO severe... Dipping into the Witch power is something Koishin knows is bad mojo. Homura's ring has told Kimiko's bracer at length about the issue. "Kimiko! Just one more little burst, then... Then no more!" It's trying to bite back more intense concern and distress, the sort of urgent, panicked worry that a sibling might feel for an injured sister, or a situation such as that.

    The enhancements come with a soft red glow over the shield, as barriers attempt to layer over it and then shatter in sequence. It's a good boost to defense, a heavy force amplifier, but having expended the limited quantity of barriers so much, it's only based on the Abstractum's regenerative capacity.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki Kuran is dirty and her clothes are burned and she is carrying a giant scythe like an especially big flailing stick. She glares out at Death (the Personificiation) as Dorothy just sort of lays there serenely. She looks... Peaceful. Even in the face of death - literally, the FACE of DEATH, she... Finally found a moment of peace. As a vampire. The terrible thirst, the need to feed off of humans... The aversion to the harsh, unkind rays of sunlight each day.

    She draws her self up to her knees, dusting off her coat, and lets Artemis become a tiny baton-rod again, stowing it away. And she looks up at Death, speaking less as a person and more as a FORCE...

    She hangs her head. "Forever is such a long time." She admits, and nothing more, as she pushes her sunglasses up her nose, and tries to clap the dust off her hands. She doesn't look at Death, or Dorothy any more. She just kind of stares at her lap.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Oblivious to the exchange going on nearby, Psyber looks down at the boy on the ground in front of him. He nods his head to Adjudicator, "No Pure influence. That means he's not a user. Interesting. I never knew Samael could do that. I'm going to need to note that later."

    The third of a sword is hung across his back where it usually goes, Psyber not feeling he needs to say anything to Adjudicator about saving the sword. The two save eachother regularly, so it's mutually beneficial. Instead, he flexes tiredly and the bony, bloody remnants of his wings start to phase back out of existence. No one wants to stare at such a sight, after all.

    Psyber tries to lean over and hoist up Sieg, moving the homunculus over one shoulder. He'll, unless Sieg wakes up at some point, resolve to take him to his office and have him sleep off his Bath Sa(mae)lts trip on an office couch.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "E-e...eeeghhh...." Shirou grunts and groans as conscious returns. His surroundings are a wreck. He is also a wreck, covered in burns and with sections of flesh simply seared off. He's lucky he didn't lose any body parts! ... unless that massive gouge through his side where a lot of stuff is missing counts. Is that a rib? It's a bit too scorched to say.

    in agony, the boy coughs into the dust and dirt, spitting out blood. Kusanagi has long since vanished. How he survived that is anyone's guess, really.

    But maybe someone should stop him from trying to stand before he hurts himself. Because he grabs onto the headstone and starts doing that. "Ghhhgh.... hwa-ogh...!"

    If nothing else, the boy doesn't know how to stay down.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin lowers its head.

     It runs its fingers gently down Dorothy's cheek. It is so strange, to see it like this. For so long, to so many, the Grim Reaper is a figure of fear and terror. Here, here and now, the people in the blasted graveyard are given witness to the truth of its grim task.

     The Reaper is so kind.

     The scythe comes down. It is a gentle, peaceful moment. There is no pain, for Dorothy. There is no suffering. Assassin simply does its work, Thanatos's peaceful slash bringing relief, as it must.

     Assassin stands. It looks at the hearse. The hearse meanders over and vanishes into the mist. The Reaper draws its hood back over its head and lowers its brow, contemplating the body silently.

     "Dorothy Matveyeva. Dead Apostle. Be at peace."

     Assassin stands a silent vigil over her body. It remains there for a full sixty seconds. Finally, it moves away, to rejoin its Master, its duty done. It will aid in the medical work with Shirou and Kiritsugu, unless ordered otherwise. Then it will depart, to do whatever it is the Grim Reaper does in its downtime.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    Without a scream or cry, Dorothy stops moving and, slowly, crumbles into dust, as Dead Apostles tend to when they die. There isn't anything left of her but a pile of ashes and her clothes.

    Her Assassin simply states: "On to the next job, then."
    "On to the next nightmare, and the next house, and the next massacre."

    He shimmers and fades away.

    Aoko creeps up to the group from behind, looking around.

    "Well. I guess a LITTLE BIT of damage couldn't be helped. The Church is already on its way, they'll handle clean up and, um, witnesses, if any. I'll handle the report to them, you guys can handle the Union one, yeah?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber is slowly shuffling his way to the car. Luckily he brought the Chrysanthemum Regenerating Car, so it should at least be making itself functional again if Sieg's blast winged it. When Aoko creeps up on the other group, Psyber waves at her vaguely, "I will handle the report tomorrow after I'm done quietly bleeding somewhere." He notes in a tone that suggests only minimal annoyance at the current catastrophic damage he has suffered for the night.

========================<* Kimiko Shinobu has posed *>=========================

For the second time in nearly as many minutes, Kimiko pulls herself back. She clamps down on herself. Were she better prepared for this sort of thing, she'd have some meditative technique, some hypnotic trigger, some kind of habit to think happy thoughts. She has none of that. Pulling herself back consists solely of forcing her to mind to slow down to the point that it's barely operating. She stops thinking, disconnecting her train of thought from its downward spiral.

She slowly starts thinking again, assessing what has just happened, and her own state. Abrasions. Bruises. Bleeding wounds. Broken ribs. Muscle strain in both arms.

She looks at Yuuki, Dorothy, and Death. She says nothing. Her armor disappears, one layer at a time, finally revealing the faux-Victorian outfit she wears unarmored. The blood is visible, now, though primarily from the back. Her top is torn, and the cloth sticks around the wound. She looks at Koishin.

"Thank you, for worrying about me."

She sits down, closes her eyes, and waits.

======================<* End of Kimiko Shinobu's pose *>=======================