294/White Storm

White Storm
Date of Scene:	26 July 2014
Location:	The Tundra
Synopsis:	Responding to reports of berserk elementals attacking a human village they had formerly coexisted peacefully with, the Union sends a detachment to investigate the matter.
Thanks to:	TO ERRYBODY FOR COMING.
Cast of Characters:	12, 85, 134, 206, 253, 346, 482, Riva Banari, 518

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Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Welcome to the winter wastes.

It seems every tundra from every world must have wound up here, cluttered together like so many different quilt patches of white. Though mid-July, snow still lies heaped on the ground, and the sun never quite seems to provide any real warmth. People still live here, ekeing out a living through magic, technology, or sheer determination, with villages dotting the landscape at odd and seemingly random intervals.

It's one village in particular the Union has been called to help. Though the villagers once lived in harmony with the area's native ice elementals, with the elementals offering protection against the winter weather in exchange for food and friendship, the creatures have lost all sense of reason. They've turned on their human charges, murdering villagers and destroying buildings.

All that's left now are the buildings that surround the village square. The people have barricaded themselves in, with armed guards posted at the points of entry, rubble and timbers stacked high in poor-man's palisade walls, poles pointed out as though to stop a cavalry charge. No cavalry here, though; just nightmares made of ice and twisted by hatred.

It's here that Sir Bedivere of the Round Table is bound, as well as what Union allies have chosen to accompany him. He's wearing his heavy armour, though the right side looks pretty badly dented still; he carries his nameless longsword unscabbarded, as though expecting trouble at any moment. His mouth is set into a hard line, eyes constantly scanning the area for trouble as he makes for the village square.

The outskirts of the town are a ruin of ice and smashed timbers, tumbledown stones, and the occasional dead, frozen villager. It's an eerie place. Most of the infrastructure is unrecognisable, but there is a common element. Every smashed structure is so overgrown in ice crystals that it looks as though some kind of magic was at work; and out of control, at that.

There are no signs of life on the hinterlands. It isn't until the group approaches the village square that things stop being frozen and dead. Snow falls, muffling all sound; wind tosses flakes in glittering swirls that obscure vision and seem to keep finding ways down the backs of unguarded collars.

The square's been barricaded with rubble, timber, and other debris to form crude palisade walls. Inside, there are torches and frightened villagers armed with rusty swords, pitchforks, more torches, and all manner of improvisational weaponry. They're scared, they look hungry, and they look like they haven't slept.

"Oh, thank God," one of them breathes, as soon as the Union forces make their way in. "Thank God you've come. We didn't know what we were going to do. We don't have any livestock left, and we're running out of oil for the torches..."

It looks like the defenders have a few moments to gather and situate themselves; for the moment, the square is peaceful...

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry Dresden grumbles a bit. He's worn his good thermals under his usual gear, and is still colder than he expected. Thank goodness Chicago is a hateful bitch in the Winter or else he would be more inconvinenced than he already is.
    That said, the Wizard waves genially as he can at a scared bunch of pesantry, and hikes his mantle a little further up his neck. "Well, we'll see what we can do to dig you out, I guess. Though the critters seem to have tried to uproot you pretty good already. So, what are we looking at? Ice demons? Sasquatches? Wendigos?"

Saber (346) has posed:
     The King of Knights travelled silently beside the much taller knight, sea-green eyes silently assessing the landscape from beneath the hood of the fur-lined cloak of deep blue over her traditional battle armour. This day, she and the knight at her side had once again become a combat unit, Bedivere once more resuming his role as her marshal.

     Saber frowned slightly; the ice elementals had been peaceful, even helpful. Why were they attacking /now/? She suspected this question was on nearly everyone's mind, and she had already committed to ferreting out the cause once this battle had concluded. But for the moment, the now-hostile elementals would have to be dealt with.

     Without a word, the petite knight glanced at her lieutenant, communicating her 'order' in their almost telepathic method. /We need to establish a perimeter./ Not that he needed the order; he already knew what needed to be done. He was, after all, the marshal of Camelot.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva huffs in the chilly environment. Her Templar uniform is padded, but that doesn't do much to keep the chill out. She carries a backpack with her, a blade and a pair of pistols at her hips. She moves quickly at a trot, keeping up with the group as she keeps moving in order to stay warm. That's what she's always been told, anyway.

Hearing about people in trouble brought her to offer her assistance to Sir Bedivere, and the appearance of the area lends itself to her frowning at the sight of the ice-encrusted environment. "Well..." She mutters, "This is more what I'm used to..." She comments, and then waves to the peasantry as they arrive.

"Hello everyone! We're here to help!" She pulls off her backpack and opens it up to reveal food and drink, much of which is designed to self-heat. "I'm sorry if it's not too much, I brought what I could."

After offloading it to whatever quartermaster is present or the nearest substitute (she leaves the backpack with them, she can pick up another one), she moves to the others, trying to keep up a reassuring pose as she looks to Bedivere, who she's defaulted to as the leader of the operation. "This is usually where I run out and fight whatever's causing the problem, but if you have an idea for a place to defend, just give the word."

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Maybe it was luck again.

    But more likely, Mordred has a few people looking out for Bedivere; it's harmless stalking! But whenever Union forces seem to move en-masse, it's hard to expect some Confederate somewhere not to notice; and then, one face check later, you've got a grinning asshole giving a pat on the shoulder of whoever noticed, and heading out to play.

    There's no fancy arrival for the traitor though.

    Servants don't have to burden themselves with such trivialities as "how do I get somewhere". Granted, Mordred loves a good horse as much as the other knights, and had a mind to grab a motorcycle for the ride... but there was something about the simplicity of the following act that appealed much more.

    Shimmering into existence from wisps of red prana, Mordred appears behind Bedivere, with a hell of a grin on her face. Heavy plates of red and silver armor make up her protection, save for the missing helmet, pointless here. No sword, though.

    She puts a hand on Bedivere's shoulder, to ring him.

    "They sure station you out in the middle of nowhere. You sure you're not hiding?" Somehow her grin just gets wider. She gives Saber an idle, almost hostile glance. "Sup, father."

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    The snow-white wastes are not exactly a good place for hiding, unless one is wearing white clothing or remains under the snow. Or, in one person's case, if they're invisible.

    Normally, Kagenashi would stand out very, very blatantly in this kind of environment with her dark red outfit (which she hasn't even bothered to change, even though it must be freezing out here). However, she's made use of one of her abilities, shifting to a spiritual form to remain unseen to most eyes except as a very faint, ghostly outline, and it would be even more difficult to make that out against the frosty landscape. Only someone with some sort of spiritual sight would be able to make her out, and she's not betting that anyone in this area could have that.

    The nogitsune decides to trail behind the group of Union members as they approach the town, her careful footsteps silent against the snow. She's not going to be nearly as blatant as Mordred; no, she's aware she's not welcome among more than a few members of this group, so it's probably best for her to stay quiet for now.

    It'll just be all the more surprising later.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber arrives in semi-miltary luxury. Which is to say that instead of trekking through snow and ice and miserable landscape between whatever warp gate and the village, he instead openly leveraged rank to get himself a small transport chopper from point A to point B. Hardly fitting of a castle and medieval world, or the requester, but Psyber didn't feel like dragging himself through Coldasfuckistan to arrive at a mission.

    His general physician had advised him to avoid immense injuries, and HIS solution to that was to drag his general physician along with him into the small recon vehicle. She will be posing in at her leisure.

    The black helicopter circles in over the center of the village, eventually coming into a hover that kicks up errant snow and sends winds whipping through the square. As it hovers in the air, the side door slides open and a rope falls out. Easily, the paranormal investigator slides down that rope, boots hitting the ground with a crunch as he adjusts the duster he normally wears and then takes out a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth and lighting it.

    He does not currently have any weapons on him, but this will likely change once combat gets underway. For now he simply places his hands into his pockets and takes out some gloves, idly putting them on to keep the hands warm. He does idly do one other thing that is a bit odd.

    He walks over to Mordred and takes out a piece of twine, extending it from one of her wrists, around the shoulder, to the other one. He doesn't actually touch the twine to her, so much as just check something before he places the twine into his pockets, "Sup, Mordred."

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    In the mountainous wintery areas, where the was always snowy peaks and coldness and blizzards, year round, there are many litte retreats, private places tucked away in the mountains. Bits of this world and that all amalgamated into each other led to... Interesting melanges.

    A young-looking girl with long red-brown hair and matching eyes in a fluffy long coat and fluffy-lined snowboots appears out of the swirling snow and approaches the Union group, looking a bit confused. "Ah... I thought there was something wrong here, but... where are we? And who are you? Knights? Hunters? Are there... Vampires here?" The girl wonders, before stepping towards the group and smiling. "I'm Yuuki. I live... near here?" She looks back, squinting into the snowstorm. "At least, I think so. I may be a little turned around. But I'm willing to help. It's... My responsibility." She offers, with a cheery smile and a slightly grave tone.

    She does not, at present, seem to be armed, but she DOES seem to be squinting and shading her eyes from the sun. That doesn't mean anything, though. Nothing at all.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Dragged is more or less correct; Sakura is at least not in her pajamas this time, but that's mostly because it wasn't that time of day. She's not really in proper armor either, a Union medical issue lab coat over rather casual looking clothing, knives tucked into her pockets and shoes barely suitable for a massive battlefield. That's a bit deceptive, because she can get by with just bare feet if she had to.

    She'll follow her putative boss out of the transport, sighing as she does. "You know I was going to try and finish up the office physicals today, right? Including yours?" She nags at Psyber, though she does't actually object as strongly as that implies to helping out here. She mostly just wants to irritate Psyber in turn.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Oh hey... that's a lot of people that Harry's barely interacted with or never actually met in person. A glance around at everyone, and the Wizard puts on a resting grump face as he tries to evaluate everyone here. Saber and Psyber get greeting nods, as does Sakura.
    The lady in the red leather jacket gets a Look. The Templar lady. Well, the other sort of Templar. Geez, they really needed to not be so popular as a long term Thing in so many worlds. Very confusing. She gets a wave.

    Yuuki gets a chuckle, at least, a sensible chuckle.

    Mordred gets a glare.

    Harry Dresden, totally not a socially awkward nerdlord.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva waves back to Harry. She doesn't seem concerned about the Look she's getting from Harry, but looks slightly amused at Harry's choice of wardrobe. "You know, I have something a lot like that in my closet at home." She comments to the wizard. "More black, though." She holds out a hand in greeting. "Name's Riva Banari. Nice to meet you, Mr...?"

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Half a glance is flicked toward the King of Knights, but it seems the marshal has no need of speaking with her; he'll deal with the villagers, certainly, but first he has to situate his allies. He himself is dressed for the cold, wearing a heavy mantled cloak, a bit heavier than his usual; it's fur-trimmed much like Saber's, but grey instead of the royal blue, and the keen eye might spot fur trim poking out of his armour, gauntlets, and boots.

He glances to Riva, studying her for a long moment -- evaluating, most likely, just how combat-capable she may be in a scrap. (Fortunately, there are villagers nearby happy to take that stuff off her hands.)

The pale-haired knight looks thoughtful as he glances back to the square, frowning slightly.

"While this place is likely the most defensible, I have my reservations about making our stand here. It is the only part of their village they appear to have left, and I am loathe to destroy it wantonly. At the same time, we would be at the mercy of such creatures beyond this square." He folds his arms, one raising to rub his chin in thoughtful gesture. "I--"

Oh. Hey. There's Mordred. Immediately those violet eyes harden; and they harden even more at the Servant's total shit-eating grin.

There's no mistaking the shudder that rattles him; a clear and obvious effort not to react by closing a plate-gauntleted fist and decking the offending traitor. But he's good. He doesn't. He instead spins on his heel, dislodging that hand from his shoulder, and stalks away. Very quickly.

The grinding of his teeth is audible in his immediate vicinity even over the wind.

Fortunately, his attention is seized by the helicopter floating overhead. Bedivere looks up for a moment and gapes, having never seen such a thing before. What? They don't have helicopters in Camelot.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Shaking his head and coming back to himself, he... proceeds to look very puzzled as Psyber immediately strolls over to Mordred and starts... measuring her with a piece of twine? What?

One hand rises to press to his forehead in a gesture of clear exasperation.

"In any case..." Suddenly Yuuki. "Ah. You. Girl." He frowns, sizing her up. "Mm. The best way I believe you could help is to ensure that these villagers remain in the square, and see that they do not wander. These people have no defenses against these creatures; they are already sapped from some days of siege."

His eyes flick over to Sakura, idly noting her arrival -- civilian, perhaps? he's never seen a ninja before -- before glancing at Saber -- /Agreed, a perimeter would be best/ -- and turning on his heel to address the gathering. "In the meantime, best we establish a perimeter. These creatures will be attacking again any time--"

Bedivere does not get the opportunity to finish his sentence.

There comes a sound like shattering glass, and one corner of the nearest barricade simply... disappears, in a puff of what looks like powdered snow. Thick lengths of ice like javelins pepper the ground near the pale-haired knight; he's forced to leap back as several more impale themselves, quivering, in the spot he was just standing.

His blade sweeps up toward the creature, and his voice rises in perhaps surprising volume.

"Defend the square! Bring the creatures down! You, girl--!" That would be Yuuki, as he points with his free hand in her direction, "Gather the village-folk! Everyone else, choose a defensive position--"

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Bedivere, again, is interrupted.

Because suddenly there are half a dozen hideous-looking monstrosities made of twisted ice lumbering clear /over/ the shattered remains of the barricade. They look like someone tried to make an ice sculpture of a dog, or something that used to be a dog, and now it looks more like a twisted, spiked, giant demon-thing. Made of ice. Well, except for the glowing red eyes. One of the things throws its head back and howls in a sharp, brittle voice; at that sound several of the villagers attempt to run the other way.

Bedivere doesn't curse but he looks like he sure wants to. Still, he stays calm, mostly, even as he kicks off towards one of the last creatures through the barricade.

"Keep the villagefolk in the square! Bring the creatures down!"

It seems the creatures are intrigued, on some dim animal level, at the presence of the Elites, though. All but one of them seem to have forgotten the villagers, drifting toward various people present -- Riva Banari, Psyber, Sakura, Saber, Mordred, Harry Dresden. The last one continues stumping along towards the villagers, its grotesque and misshapen jaws opening wide. Frost spills from its maw, licking at the heels of the fleeing villagers.

...Bedivere will deal with properly gutpunching Mordred /later/. BUSY NOW.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Well that at least answers Harry's first question, as he spots the Cold Dogs stumping their way over the top of things. "Okay. Someone ordered the Slush Puppies, that answers a lot of that." A little bit of a sniff and he looks over at Riva. "Dresden, Harry Dresden, Introductions will have to wait."
    And with that the Wizard SPRINGS INTO ACTION... By jamming the shoden end of his staff into the dirt and starting to carve out a heavy, coarse circle in the Permafrost. At least the steel tip is moving through the surface as he goes. "I'll try and get something defensive put up her first, no sense in me... ah, burning the place down while we're trying to save it."

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber nodded to Harry in turn as he went to work; she might have been a being of magic, but she was no magus. She did, however, listen in even as she went about her part of the operation, if for no other reason than to know what was going on.

     Turning back, she silently assessed the Templar -- someone whom she was not personally familiar with as of yet -- as she addressed her marshal. It almost felt like old times, in a way.

     But not all 'old times' were necessarily good ones. As a Servant herself, Saber had been able to sense the rapid approach of another Servant, though she didn't have enough time to warn Bedivere before her 'son' popped out of the aether. Damn. At least she was assured that he could maintain his calm exceptionally well, especially given the circumstances. Hopefully the red-clad Saber was planning on alleviating her probably boredom on ice elementals rather than the two of them.

     "Good day, Sir Mordred," she said simply by way of greeting. Even if Mordred didn't necessarily like being called by her (still technical) title, Arturia was going to call her that anyway. Because, proper.

     The Servant was mildly surprised by the approach of the young girl with red-brown hair and eyes, the magic coursing through her a strange sort of power. Yet in some ways, that feeling was not /entirely/ alien. "Greetings, my lady. We are a somewhat diverse group...however, we are hardly averse to assistance. I am called Saber," she greeted with a courteous half-nod, half-bow.

     At the sound of a helicopter, the petite blonde looked upward to note its approach briefly before returning to keeping a watch for -- as well as reaching out with her more preternatural senses -- aggressive elementals, until Psyber and Sakura approached. Giving her co-workers from Heaven or Hell a courteous nod, she hailed them. "Greetings, Sir Psyber, Lady Sakura. I thank you for your assistance in this matter."

     But it seemed that they wouldn't have the time to fortify their position before the creatures they had been summoned to defend the village against appeared. Somewhat conveniently, Saber's cloak evaporated into golden motes of magical energy as it was dismissed and replaced by the invisible sword she now held in her hands, leaping forward to place herself between the elementals and the otherwise defenceless village and taking a swipe at the legs of the nearest elemental.

     Even still, the fact that they were so focused on the Elites was curious, as if they knew that many of them were magical or otherworldly.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The best description for the ice critters is if Hell froze over, and there were hellhounds in it at the time. They're big, they're ugly, and they look kind of hungry. Wait, does ice even need to eat?

One of them pauses and looks at Dresden in dim puzzlement, as though it can't figure out why the thing it was intending to eat is doing something weird instead of running away. Chasing tasty tidbits is half the fun. They taste better when they run, but, you know, this one's not running.

Bedivere busies himself with a brief glance back at Saber, noting her position as she takes a stance between the creature. He himself stands at her side, raising his decidedly non-magical sword and placing his decidedly non-magical self between the ice elementals and the villagers, much like Saber.

A brief glance is cast to the Servant; no words are really needed. /We hold the creatures here/.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva gets interrupted in meeting one of the most infamous wizards around in favor of getting attacked by horrible ice monstrosities.

She'd probably have preferred the wizard. At least for now. "It's a pleasure to meet you..." She yells as she spins, pulling her guns with a whirl. There is a flash as tiny circuits begin glimmering along the weapon, crude circuits made for channelling what comes next charging as she begins to instinctively pump Anima into the weapons.

"Or it would be if you things knew anything about hospitality!" She yells, levelling the guns like some John Woo action flick, and she unleashes a barrage of gleaming emerald-tinged bolts from the guns, running in a wide circle around the enemy advancing on her. "One's loose!" She calls, pointing out that one of them is still set on Shepherd Pie tonight.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The ice creature harassing Riva Banari seems to look down at the glowing, circuit-patterned guns suddenly pointing in its direction. Its glowing red eyes -- which really do seem to be literal glowing points of red, with nothing really resembling ocular anatomy in the least -- presumably focused on the barrels.

Emerald bolts slam through the side of its planar snout, shearing off chunks of ice as Riva circles around. More bolts do more damage; a piece is knocked out of its shoulder, and when it tries to slam a giant icy clawed paw down on her, part of a toe is knocked clean off with a sound like breaking glass.

It howls in pain and rage. It's not a pretty sound.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Lotsa people here. Most of them, Mordred does not know the face of-- admittedly, through no fault of their own, she doesn't really care, either. It's not like she's here to rumble with them. No, it's more... to relieve boredom. Be a pain in Bedivere's ass. It's perhaps lucky that, due to focusing on him and Saber, the other Servant does not notice Psyber's measurements, and takes a moment to turn around to face him.

    Mostly, it's when Bedivere sulks away silently.

    "Man, you take all the fun outta this. Fine, go sulk! I didn't wanna talk with ya anyway." Huff. Mordred just addresses Psyber instead. "Yeah, yeah. Yo. What a mood killer," she whines, crossing her arms with a sore loser's grump.

    If she minds Saber calling her Sir, she says nothing.
    Beats lady, for sure.

    "Hey, foxy lady, you gonna be coming out to play someday?" she shoots towards Kagenashi-- as one spiritual being to another, really-- before a hail of angry ice elementals interrupts their chatter and 'planning', insofar as Mordred was going to plan anything other than 'punch shit in the mouth'.

    "Oh man. You didn't say they were the BEASTLY kind!"
    Mordred regains her shit-eating grin.
    "I wonder if I can mount one."

    The Servant surges forward, closing the gap with one almost immediatly. She aims an uppercut for the ice beast's snout to shut its maw, but avoids putting her Servant-level strength into it. She just wants to stun it, not shatter it. And then? And then she jumps, to try landing on it.

    Come on you fun thing, let's see if Riding works on you.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The ice elemental that Mordred decides to let her boredom out on comes bounding towards her like a big puppy trying to play with something, except instead of a big puppy it's some kind of horrible ice demon, and instead of play it really just wants to devour her like a delicious mana-filled treat. Delicious!

Except it gets more than it bargained for. Its jaws snap shut with a click and a cracking sound, and the sound it makes is more puzzled than anything else as it stops, bracing all four of its legs and lowering its head to try and snap at her--

--but Mordred is faster, much faster, and lands on the creature's back.

It seems extremely puzzled by this unexpected turn of events. While it looks back at her, trying to twist its head this way and that to fix her with those glowing red orbs, it doesn't seem to be trying to shake her off or anything. Looks like demon dogs made of ice CAN be ridden!

Or they're just very stupid ice demon dog things.

That's also a thing.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    You know what would be fantastic? If Yuuki had learned any of the fantastical Vampire 'magical' techniques that would allow her to reach out her hand and wave meaningfully at the ice elementals and blow holes into them. But, really, she only blows things up...
    A) When she doesn't mean to.
    B) When she is deep in the throes of Teenage Vampire Wangst.

    Right now, all she sees are horrible monsters assaulting the townsfolk! And what's an ex-prefect's first instinct, when there's a crowd to manage? Well... Manage the crowd. With a smile and a nod at anyone looking at her (or, in Harry's case, lauging at her), she heads over to the villagers. "Umm... Excuse me! If you could all go back inside, or into your cellars, and just wait it out, I am sure all the Hunters here will easily dispatch these monsters, and then you can go back to your peaceful lives!" she calls, trying to urge people back inside or to safety.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "From what I've observed with Servants, most Saber classes have seemed quite skilled at mounting things when they wanted or needed to," Psyber says in a vague tone towards Mordred, shrugging his shoulders a bit as the violence-knight darts off.

    "I can sum up my physical for you. 'You are supernaturally healthy, no change in scar, please stop smoking'. I didn't even have to take my pants off for you," He points out to the medical ninja, wagging a finger faintly, "I just saved you a half-hour appointment."

    He'd give out more greetings to the people that met him, but there's a battle going on. So instead he has to cut it down to a rushed 'hey'. And then the Order Modus is in his hand and he's flipping through it. No Adjudicator today, so we have to go for an older special toy.

    Tearing off a page, Psyber tosses it up into the air. It shimmers and then a moment later a massive hammer emerges from his sylladex. The half-angel spins it a few times as though the massive weapon weighed nothing at all.

    "Best way to defeat ice is just to smash the shit out of it," Psyber points out, swinging the massive hammer in towards one of the beasts as a crushing blow.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The creature bearing down on Psyber seems to be one of the bolder ones of the bunch. They're all pretty similar in size, that is to say 'about the size of a goddamn house,' but they seem to differ slightly in their tactics and level of mindless aggression. For example, the one bearing down on Psyber seems to have no regard for its personal safety.

It snarls a glassy sort of snarl, going straight for the hammer and earning a pretty smart smack to the side of its head. Surprisingly, it doesn't shatter the thing, but the sound of cracking ice is a loud noise even in the midst of the chaos. Also, its lower jaw seems to be hanging a little funny after that, as though it no longer closes right.

Getting smacked with a big hammer only seems to piss it off. It leaps for Psyber, trying to smash it with its own weight.

Riva Banari has posed:
There is a grunt as Riva tries to dodge the incoming paw, spinning through the air in a somersault...

Ice elemental hounds give no craps about superior choreography. The paw, damaged as it is, catches Riva in midair and sends her smashing into the ground, sliding on the frosty surface several feet. A normal person might have been mangled by such an attack. With a groan, Riva rolls back to her knees, one pistol-gripping hand held over a deep gash in her shoulder. "These guys mean business." She says. "No wonder why this place has had it so rough!"

With a sudden motion, Riva charges forward and... throws her guns into the air? They arc over the ice dog, moments before the Templar twists, pulling a straight, simple longsword. There is another surge as Anima rushes through the blade, empowering it as Rivs dives into a powerslide, trying to slip under the beast and lash out with the blade to cleave into it as she passes. If she judges everything right, she should come out the other side and be able to do a cool kip up to catch her guns.

If she screws up the dog might just sit on her and have frozen tenderized Templar for dinner. But you never know about these things.

Saber (346) has posed:
     As was their custom, Saber caught the glance from her marshal with a nod, her expression one of concentration before Blender Mode was switched on, slashing with a series of deceptively graceful blurred strikes at the magic-hungry elementals.

     While she didn't need to communicate verbally with Bedivere at all, the others needed some warning. "It would seem they are attracted to magic! Be on your guard!" she shouted to the others behind the knights.

     Out of her peripheral vision, she caught Mordred speed forward and...use her Riding skill on one of the beasts. A half-second blink of surprise there; well done son guy. If she had been on her own, that would have been a good idea. But with her marshal at her side, such a thing compromised the insane amount of teamwork the two were capable of. As it was, they were already co-ordinating their attacks without even so much as speaking.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The demon dog savaging Riva Banari wastes no time in trying to rear up and slam both paws down on her once she goes down. It snarls when it misses, though Riva suddenly flinging both guns up into the air earns a puzzled look. It then proceeds to snap at the airborne weapons, because hey, it just got /shot/ with them.

Except suddenly there is a longsword hacking at it. It's not as effective as a blunt weapon, but it still carves out a fair chunk of ice from one stumpy leg, prompting the beast to howl and snarl and gnash its frozen teeth.

And then it rears up and tries to, uninterrupted this time, bring /both/ massive front paws down on the Templar. Frozen templar sounds pretty tasty!

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    Kagenashi was content to listen in silence and observe the situation, even when panic strikes and the wall is shattered into a fine, frosty dust. Her arms cross slightly as she observes the approaching ice elementals, but before she can consider whether or not to get involved, Mordred seems to make that decision for her.

    The nogitsune sighs faintly. Of course, she should have expected as much after coming with someone who is the exact opposite of subtlety. Oh, well.

    The instant Kagenashi reverts to her physical form is the same instant that four orbs of fox fire streak through the air. Each sphere of greenish-blue flame rushes out one after the other at the ice beasts closest to Mordred, Saber, Bedivere, and one that seems conveniently near herself, prepared to explode with flaming force on impact.

    "You forced my hand, Mordred," Kagenashi remarks, standing with remarkable serenity in the midst of all the chaos. "I suppose I must tarnish my reputation and actually be helpful for once. What a disappointment." She turns to Saber and Bedivere, even if they find themselves in the middle of combat, and offers a greeting that sounds as if she must be smiling behind that mask. "Bedivere, Arturia. Good to see you both again."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Shooting and hammering and shooting and all that, and Harry is quietly trying to keep his head down for once. He's got a decent sized circle now dragged into the dirt in a clear space in the open, and is working on a six-pointed star in the middle. A shout at Riva. "Well, I've got plenty of magic and charm and hospitality but not when you've got house sized slush puppies trying to eat you. That said, keep them off me."

    A shout over at Yuuki. "SEE IF YOU CAN'T GET THE VILLAGERS OVER HERE! I can try and keep the THINGS at bay while we handle this bunch!"

    He drags out the last point on the star, and starts fishing in his pockets.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
One of those elementals has zeroed in on Arturia and her marshal; loping towards them with all the casual grace of something that expects to have no difficulty scooping up the puny little humans and eating them.

Except one of them isn't human. Also, both of them are trained warriors, capable of functioing as a single cohesive unit.

Bedivere casts a brief glance to Saber before kicking off from the frozen cobblestones, lunging forward to slash at the creature's foreleg. His real intent is to circle behind it, though, leaving the head and the toothy bits for Saber to deal with, her being able to tank being bitten in half and all. Him, not so much.

The demon dog, however, spins around and tries to slap the marshal down with a paw as Riva's dog is doing; Bedivere throws himself into a lunge, narrowly missing, rolling to his feet and slicing out at the offending paw in turn. He shears off one of its claws, but that was close.

There's a long, ragged tear in his cloak attesting to the fact that the creature /didn't/ miss.

Another businesslike glance to Saber. /Disable its jaws; I will try to disable its legs/.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
One of the frozen hellhounds peels away from its group to pursue Kagenashi; as Saber had mentioned, they appear to be attracted to magic. Or something similar to it. Fox fire is as good as the next thing! Except ow, that stuff actually seems to be melting holes into the hound it touches.

Over by his hound, busy hacking at its legs, Bedivere does spot the nogitsune shimmering into view from the aether. Saber might note the sudden, intense downturn of his mouth in an expression of clear and unrestrained displeasure. GHHH.

Meanwhile, Kagenashi would find herself occupied, because her icy demonic doggy dance partner throws itself at her with all the grace of a freight train, trying to either slap its paws down on her, or close its jaws around her. Either/or, really.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Oh look, Harry has a puppy of his own! And it's not Mouse. These frozen things wish they could be that cool.

Fortunately the demon-dogs aren't attacking him yet, as he hasn't activated that circle just yet, and also the scenerunner is insanely busy trying to keep up with everything. But they might just notice him when he tries to do something next. Oh, yes...

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "HAHAHA~! YES! HELLO DOGGY!" Mordred grins, evidently proving Psyber's assessment of Saber's fairly correct. She suddenly surges out with blood red prana; Prana Burst's effect lashes out of her like a tide of liquid, bloody magic, washing over the beast. Plates of wicked red and silver steel adorn the monster, as if a steed readied for war, because that is CLEARLY what an extremely large and violent creature needed.

    It's also going to be a bit faster, stronger and sturdier for the duration. Mostly until Mordred dismounts, really. Bless Riding and Prana Burst combined.

    To Kagenashi, she starts shouting: "Don't be a sourpuss! Try stabbing Bedivere, it'll be hilarious!" Completely nonchalant about it.

    Riva, if anything, catches her eyes with the fancy and yet powerful style. There's a face she hasn't seen before that sticks out. The growling of her mount distracts her from watching, though, and she considers what to do about it.

    "BEDIVERE SUCKS, MORDRED RULES!" she finally decides on.
    And then she directs her steed to charge and slam into the ice hound currently engaging both Bedivere and Saber. Look she has to antagonize him SOMEHOW, okay?

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    "Your last physical was nowhere near as clear as that, and you know it! And besides that, I don't think it was 'stop smoking please', I believe it was 'stop smoking or I'll break your fingers so that you can't smoke anymore.'" Sakura seems rather animated about pursuing Psyber, though she'll offer greetings to Saber and Harry - and the unrecognized knight they've actually come to assist.

    Then there's a giant elemental going off after here. Sakura does not approve of this, and Bedivere might be really and truly worried if he thinks she's a civilian. That misapprehension will be overturned in a hurry, though; the ninja's water affinity is nowhere near strong enough to strike at the beasts with those kinds of techniques, but she's going to launch herself at one, throwing a super-strength punch at the one attacking her to attempt to shatter it. That may or may not work...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Wouldn't breaking my fingers just make more work for you?" He asks casually to Haruno, not seeming bothered. In his line of work, creatures the size of a house aren't a particularly uncommon occurance. He confidently spins the hammer around himself, ducking out of the way of claw swipes and offensive maneuvers. The snow under his boots crunches heavily as he finds purchase to leap backwards.

    In the aftermath of his massive hit, Psyber takes a moment to appreciate the durability of the elementals. This moment is capitalized upon when the thing leaps in towards him deciding to go for a mindlessly aggressive move. Psyber makes what can best be described as a 'tch' noise, exhaling a plume of smoke from his cigarette, "Damn mutt. Fine, let's play serious."

    He lunges forward to meet it, leaping up. A claw cleanly slices through the shoulder of his jacket, drawing and then immediately freezing the blood. Despite the wince of pain, Psyber says, "Erinyes! Strike." He adjusts his grip.

    In a devastating upperswing, a rocket comes out of the back of the hammer and ignites like a jet. The upwards arc of his weapon tries to catch the underside of the beast solidly and then use the rocket boost to swing it up, around, and hurl it towards the one attacking Riva Banari.

    MORE jackassed, though, is his followup. If the two beasts collide and land in a heap, Psyber tries to land on top of them, holding the hammer upside down. Like a jackass, he's trying to melt and fuse together the two monsters, making some sort of comical monstrosity. This may or may not be successful, and also may or may not result in some sort of comical half-assed abomination of ice and limbs.

    Either way, whether the second part works or not, he flips off to note to Riva, "Hey. Hope you don't mind me tagging in."

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Mordred's puppy appears to have an owner. The giant frozen hellhound actually /wags its tail a little/ when Mordred grins and calls to it, its big ugly jaws falling open in a big ugly doggy grin. Looks like it's completely subservient to her will.

Also, kinda stupid in that Big Dumb Puppy sort of way.

It doesn't seem to notice the sudden acquisition of red steel barding in the least.

The thing obediently charges forward when Mordred makes her will known to it, energetically leaping forward in a ground-eating lope. It's surprisingly efficient despite how much its big paws flail around.

Then, with a resounding CRUNCH, it barrels right into the demon-hound Arturia and Bedivere had been so carefully trying to take down with tactics. The non-ridden hound staggers, but doesn't fall; instead, it snaps at Mordred's Loyal Steed.

The two proceed to snarl at each other and fight each /other/. That might get a little hairy, what with Mordrerd still sitting on top of one of them. It also might get a little hairy for the surroundings, because these things obviously have no concept of 'collateral damage.'

Down below, Bedivere waves his sword in obvious agitation, leaping back out fo the way of flailing limbs. "God preserve me, /what are you doing/?" he calls angrily. "Mind the square!"

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber met Bedivere's glance for another split-second before her tiny form became a blur, spinning sideways as it snapped at her. Excalibur whipped around, distorting the air around it as Saber slashed at what appeared to be its jaw hinges to disable them just as he hinted.

     At Kagenashi's greeting, she likewise caught Bedivere's sudden and completely expected frowny-face. "I do wish...it was under more...favourable conditions..." she quipped as she rolled in front to strike at the creature's jaw hinge from the other side.

     At least it was before her idiot 'son' crashed her ride into it.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    There is a pause. A long pause. Before Yuuki realizes OH CRAP!

    SHE WAS PUTTING THE PEOPLE BACK IN THE LINE OF DANGER. So, instead, as Harry calls to her, she starts guiding the poor civilians over to him! For safety! This is good, as she barely had gotten started with the STUPID WINDOW DRESSING CIVILIANS!

    Even though she SHOULD be good at herding cats, she only has experience trying to guide around high school girls. And she never was good at it. Her partner and his AURA OF DEATH was way more effective. Hopefully she helps guide people to Dresden's area of safety, though!

    As she approaches, she wonders to the Wizard... "Bat Guano? Why would you need that?"

    Turns out her hearing's pretty great.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Oh, look, there's suddenly a rocket-powered hammer flying at the dog trying to savage Psyber. The ice-hound lunges for Psyber, but before it can, its undersides go CRUNCH. It turns, snapping and snarling, but it's already overbalanced by this point.

Which means that the one Riva Banari had been fighting is also in a heap, suddenly, because both of the ice-hounds collide with another colossal CRUNCH of tormented ice, momentarily fouled up; both of them snapping and snarling as they try to free themselves from one another.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva doesn't QUITE make it. She looks up, bracing herself as the ice dog prepares to smash her. She's pretty sure she can't tank that hard. "Oh crap!" She yells, before...

There is a crash! Riva opens one eye and glances around, noticing she's not dead. That's different. She scrambles back to her feet, yelling back to Harry as she does so, "I'll do my best!" She yells, as she grabs for the guns that are now lying on the shredded ground. She thinks for a moment. Ice beasts. She doesn't have an ice scraper. The thing is super powerful in melee combat. Keep to range and wear it down seems to be her best bet. "COME ON, DOGGY!"

Riva yells, switching back to firing Anima bullets at the dogs near her. She tries to focus on trying to break off limbs to hamper their movement so she can stay ahead of them. "SIT! STAY! BAD DOGS!"

It's hard for her to focus on everything since it's so chaotic. She's focusing on what she can at the moment and trusting in her allies to handle what she's not dealing with... Though Mordred's yelling does cause her to glance over in their direction with the finest 'seriously?' look she can muster.

It's not all that intimidating. give her another 500 AP or so.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Fortunately for Yuuki, the villagers are frightened, but apparently they must recognise something about her that makes them not want to argue with her efforts to bring them into Harry's circle. (The poor stupid souls.)

They mill around where they are, but they'd better do something fast, because in the middle of battle there they don't look like they're going to mill around /long/.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    There. That's as good as it's going to get.

    Harry Dresden sighs, stands in the middle of the circle he's drawn, slams his staff into the permafrost, and sucks in his breath. There's a Shift in the air as Dresden yanks at the local leylines to cooperate, and shunts as much energy as he can handle into the circle. "DISSEPTIM CLAUSTRA!" And the circle's lines explode into blueish grey light, an eerie sensation prickling over the whole battlefield.

    And with that, Harry draws his blasting wand, ready to burn everything if this didn't work.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
After a few confused moments of trying to extricate each other, Riva's hound and Psyber's hound finally untangle themselves from each other. The former whips around and immediately sets to pursuing Riva, snarling as its jaws fall open. The inside seems to be nothing but frozen white, rough crystals all the way down its throat, vanishing into darkness.

One of its forepaws s shattered by her Anima bullets, but it lopes along on three legs, trying to leap and slam its remaining front paw down on her. That only seems to free it up to get shot again, though this time it shears off a piece of its snout and part of a lumpy ear.

They're kind of dumb and determined, though. Riva's shouting only seems to work it into a frenzy; it continues to advance, though it's also starting to look pretty ragged by this point. If she keeps up an assault like that, there won't be much of it left.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
With a snap and a hum of energy, Harry Dresden's spell circle hums to life and twists the local energies. In fact, it almost seems to have more of an effect than he may have planned for, as though there were a lot of local energy to burn. Something about it might feel subtly... /wrong/ to him, too, once it's been harnessed like this.

It doesn't seem to have much effect on the demon-dogs, though. Cross-world shenanigans? Or perhaps they're not summoned creatures, either.

Several of them do pause in what they're doing, looking disoriented and bothered by something -- for example, the hound that Psyber lost stands there and shakes itself, sending ice crystals flying in all directions.

Doesn't seem to be enough to chase them off, though... fortunately, there's an abundance of VIOLENCE around here to convince them, right?

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Fortunately, Harry's ward seems to be enough to deter them from Eating Villagefolk Like Delicious Candy.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
OH LOOK THERE ARE THINGS HAPPENING IN SAKURA HARUNO'S DIRECTION, oops.

There is also a demon dog chasing Sakura Haruno, because a pink-haired squishy-looking ninja surely must taste delicious and offer up no resistance at all to being eaten, right? Right??

WRONG~

The dog rears back to try and snap its jaws shut over Sakura's head. Except she's already launching herself at one of the things fist-first, and... impacts the creature with about the effect intended. Half its /head/ shatters at that, ice crystals falling away. Jagged ice sticks out but apparently that's not enough to kill it.

No, because now it's flailing around in what presumably must be death throes, presenting itself as much a danger to Sakura as to /everybody around her/, stomping and flailing its huge clawed paws and howling piteously.

Oh dear.

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    Well, Kagenashi doesn't get to stay unharrassed for long, does she? That icy fiend comes barreling down on her, and she has to immediately focus her attention on evading. Good thing she's agile; a quick crouch is all she needs to push up into a swift upward leap, sending her high into the air just in time for those frigid teeth to barely graze past her legs. A close shave, but certainly better than getting bitten.

    The nogitsune takes the opportunity to land on the creature's back, then, crouching low and ready to move again. To Mordred, she calls, "Well, now I simply cannot, because you have made it too obvious. Really, Mordred, do you have no knowledge of subtlety whatsoever?"

    More fox fire slips from the mouth of her mask as she speaks, and four burning orbs form around her as she remains crouched on the ice elemental's back. They don't linger for long, however, and each one turns its blazing focus to the creature directly under Kagenashi, rushing to melt through the beast's neck. This should prove two things: first of all, how easy it is for these creatures to be decapitated by fire, and second of all, whether that will even matter if it works.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Okay good. Harry carefully traverses the circle, pointing at the villagers as he does so. "Don't scuff the lines, got it?" A decisive point... So much pointing... before he steps back out into the battlefield, and smiles at Yuuki. "Nice job, kid. Oh, and I'm gonna use the bat guano to blow stuff up. I mean, it'll help blow stuff up. Got any?" Harry's frisking himself, drawing his blasting rod again.
    "Guano turns into some pretty good magical mines, given the right time. That was gonna be my first plan, I mean, before I jumped at the ward."

    He grins, holds up the blasting wand... picks the Icedog that Riva's still working on. A moment to try and aim, and he pulls on that... slightly wrong energy again. "FUEGO!"

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The demon-dog that suddenly has a Kagenashi riding on it whips around in an abrupt about-face, digging up powdered snow underfoot as it wrenches its head around. It can't reach her in spite of all its snapping and snarling, though, jagged icy teeth clashing shut over empty frozen air.

It tries again from the other side, except suddenly it's /melting/, and it doesn't seem to like this development at all. The creature does what any reasonable person on fire would attempt to do -- it stops what it's doing, tips over onto its side, and attempst to roll onto its back, wriggling in the snow in an effort to put out the melting.

And maybe smush Kagenashi into the bargain, too, if she doesn't shake a leg. Its head looks a little funny, though, like it's hanging by a thread. Or, you know. Ice crystal. Whatever.

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber could feel the sudden flare of magic off to her left where Harry had managed to set up his barrier, though it seemed not to have achieved what it was supposed to. For a moment, she considered something before throwing a glance at her second. /I'm going to release Wind King, stand back./

     Darting back a few paces, Arturia held Excalibur behind her -- fortunately not in the direction of the Town Square -- and suddenly the very air seemed to warp behind her in a large circular motion. Sweeping the holy sword forward, she released the Bounded Field into a cone of air aimed squarely at the elemental in front of her. Luckily, it's concentrated enough to keep her from doing collateral damage.

     "Air Strike!"

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Riva's doggy dance partner is busy gamely attempting to smash Riva into a flattish thing of a pasty consistency to try and devour her, but the Templar is making life difficult for it. So focused is it on trying to turn Riva into a delicious treat that it doesn't notice the GIANT FIREBALL suddenly hucked at it.

Harry gets a home run. The fireball smolders its way into one of the creature's front shoulders, to a howl of pain and a whole lot of stomping around. Whoops. That might present a problem for Riva...

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Without any need of a verbal command, Bedivere suddenly dances back and away from the tangling demon-dogs, sword whipping around in a final parting strike as he does, shearing a chunk of ice from one of the creature's hind legs.

He stares as the Barrier of the Wind King releases, and then punches into the demon hound with all the force of a speeding runaway freight train. The air rips at him even from this distance, sending his cloak and hair whipping behind him.

The creature /not/ being ridden by Mordred staggers, since the blast seems to have removed, uh, most of its foreleg. It shatters a moment later with the terrific sound of breaking glass, and it falls, only to have its head stomped on by the creature Mordred's riding. It's still struggling, though, lashing out in a way that's likely to be dangerous to itself and others.

Bedivere, wisely, keeps his distance. Somebody else can finish that thing off, but he knows well enough he's not strong enough to do that and not get punted across the village.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Who cares about the square?! Where's your sense of CHALLENGE, Bedivere?" Obviously, not in any chivalry code. At least, there's probably no mention of 'acquire challenge, disregard collateral' in there. Then again, the code was not quite written for people with blades that fire lasers or which ride terrible beasts into battle, so collateral was not a real concept applied to knights back then.

    Well, maybe if you swung a zweihander in a crowd trying to hit the one guy. But that's 'acceptable losses' if you ask Mordred now.

    Without actual reins to direct her mount, Mordred just gives it vague instructions by slamming her leg against one of its sides, instructions hopefully conveyed by her Riding skill. She is, vaguely, imparted with the knowledge to control this thing, it's just not completely reliable either.

    "I HAVE BEEN TOLD I HAVE DADDY ISSUES," she shouts at Kagenashi.

    Saber proceeds to blast her current hound's target.
    Ah, well, that'll do it too.

    "Ooh, nice one. I forgot your sword can do that. My turn!"

    With a tug, Mordred attempts to have her own beast use its breath weapon-- with blood red prana infusion, too. Doesn't have a breath weapon? IT DOES NOW, LET'S DO THIS.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Coming off of the massive attack against the beasts, Psyber spins the hammer in his hands and then grouses, "I hate the stubborn ones. They should just learn to die and be done with it. Saves everyone the time."

    Hoisting up the hammer across his shoulders, Psyber leaps straight upwards as the one that he was fighting before manages to get distracted by Dresden's actions. Since a shot to the dome didn't work, and since melting didn't work, Psyber tries a new kind of hammering. He WILL make this problem a nail, by God. And then hammer it.

    Henceforth, the new strategy is to bring the hammer straight down on the 'spine' of the distracted creature with a falling hammerstrike from above.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki gasps, somewhat shocked as Harry Dresden does Real Magic. For reals. Now, honestly, she shouldn't be all confused or surprised, due to the sorts of rituals that she had seen the Hunter Association do. Heck, her bracelet was pretty magical! In its own way. But since Harry had the group all protected and was slinging fireballs, she smiles. "I think I may have something like that. In my... bag. Just a moment!" She replies, before slipping off to crouch down and fiddle with things.

    After sketchily fiddling with her 'bag' (of which she was not wearing one), she returns with a small crystal vial filled with a viscous red liquid.

    "I didn't find any bat guano, but, umm, here's some blood. I'm sure it will be good for some of your spells. ... Sorry." She looks a little crestfallen, even as she hands him that vial.

    Yyyep.

    She toddles off to help everyone else after that! She even pulls a small metal cylinder out from her coat, holding it ready like a tiny little baton will help. Hero Yuuki is trying to be a Good Person Hero Thing!

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Sakura is moderately surprised to have her strike hit quite so true, and she's knocked off her feet by the flailing from the ice dog's death, bouncing from the ground to her feet, sliding backwards. She doesn't want to have the thing flail off to the villagers, though, and so she will leap back towards it, knives in hand.

    She's trying to drive those down and into the 'neck' of the ice dog, pushing as hard as she can; this might result in her getting rather more hurt courtesy of getting stabbed with ice, but will hopefully cause the ice demon to die now rather than later.

    "This is the worst vacation trip ever, Psyber!" She screams over. She's going to be blaming him later.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
"Still your tongue, knave!" Bedivere calls from the ground, sweeping his sword at the Saber of Red. "Battle is meaningless without chivalry, and you have no right to speak of that! You have no honour!"

He doesn't get a chance to argue further. He's busy trying to avoid flailing crippled demon-dog. It lashes out unpredictably, apparently in its death throes or simply beyond even the dim sort of animal reasoning they'd been using.

Meanwhile, Mordred's beast is all too happy to obey, turning its breath weapon (which now it apparently has) on its erstwhile crippled companion. Those limbs are gradually frozen, slowing in their flailing.

And then, without any instruction from Mordred, it brings one giant foot up and then smashes it down on the central torso of the downed doggy. Saber's dance partner finally stops its flailing about, expiring with a surprisingly anticlimactic whimper.

One down, lots more to go.

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    Kagenashi certainly has an incredible sense of balance, as shown by her ability to stay on this frigid canine's back even while it's snarling and whirling directly under her. Flipping over, however, is another matter altogether.

    It takes a moment for Kagenashi to realize where this creature is going. Thankfully, her reflexes fill in for the rest: she jumps enough for the two of them to lose contact, and with the aid of her flight, she remains hovering long enough for the ice elemental to fall onto its back.

    "That sounds accurate," she quips back at Mordred as she pulls two weapons from beneath her kimono. A pair of sickles with long chains attached to their hilts, and with heavy metal weights in turn placed at the end of each chain. "Have you considered talking about your problems?"

    Kagenashi makes use of the twin weapons by grabbing the kusarigama by the weights and swinging both sickles down to dig them into the sides of the creature's head as if they were ice picks. With that leverage provided, she does two things: first, she yanks the weapons up to give her some downward momentum, and second, she uses that momentum to strike that lone crystal that marks the remains of the creature's neck with a solid heel kick, hoping to shatter the last bit free.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Psyber's demon hound is meanwhile busy trying to figure out where Psyber went. In case it wasn't evidently obvious before, these things are really kind of dumb, and the only reason these villagers are under any threat is because the things are big, hungry, subtle as a brick, and the villagefolk are probably non-Elites to a man.

The hammer comes down on the demon-dog with a CRUNCH of ice, and the beast follows the trajectory pretty quick, smashed into the ground with a surprised yelp that sounds like the grating of glass shards. It struggles, but that must have ruined it; it seems more like the struggling of a crippled, dying creature with a broken back than a creature alive and struggling to fight. He'll probably be able to finish it off... as long as he stays away from its jaws.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva takes a moment to look over her shoulder at Psyber's clever comment. "Glad you're working with us! What are you swinging there, a freight train!?" She backpedals across the chaotic battlefield, trying her best to kite the living hell out of the dog. The dog lunges at her, and she leaps into the air this time twisting over the incoming ice hound and peppering it with bullets as she spins, letting it pass under her. The more she can hinder the target, the bigger the advantage she maintains. While her big hits are from her sword, the weapon is ineffective against something made of ice... At least, with what she's figured out so far. She has to settle for a death of a thousand cuts.

Thankfully, pistols are good for that. And you know what else is good at that? Harry Dresden blowing it up with fire. "Whoa!" she yells, the ice houd becoming unstable. It almost stomps on her suddenly, knocking her to one side and sending her crashing into a wall. She rebounds off of it with a yell of pain... But she pulls back up, shaking her head to clear it. "What is it going to take to kill one of these things?!" Riva yells, getting back to her work on chipping the thing down.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Kagenashi's demon-puppy writhes in the snow as it tries to dislodge a rider that is no longer there. At least it seems to offer some relief to the burning and melting; it takes a moment to indulge in that, apparently forgetting it was even trying to kill the nogitsune a moment ago.

As said, they're kind of dumb.

Then, suddenly, its head is impaled from two sides. Snarling, the beast's jaws clash shut inches away from Kagenashi, and... then its head sort of rolls off its shoulders.

The rest of its icy body twitches a few times and the lies still. Aside from the occasional delayed twitch. Which is kind of creepy, really. But it is pretty d-e-d dead, by the look of things.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Riva's patient Death of a Thousand Cuts Approach seems to be working, for the flailing hound that's trying to either put out the fire on its side or stomp on Riva seems to be having trouble accomplishing either of these objectives.

In fact, a few lucky shots manage to catch it in the side of the head, chipping a hole where the glowing light that is presumably an eye is; the light abruptly winks out, with a howl of pain from the creature. It sounds more like the skirling of winter wind than a proper howl or doggy-sound.

However, she must be a lucky shot, because the Templar manages to slam more bullets into the creature -- its other eye winks out, and then several pepper into its icy throat. The demon hound just sort of shudders all over, takes a faltering step forward, and... crashes to the ground.

The resultant shockwave of snow may or may not drench Riva. Or at least cover her in powdery white. HOPE YOU WORE SOMETHING WATERPROOF.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry takes that bottle from Yuuki, and grins. "Well, that'll help sometime maybe. Thanks. Looks like we're cleaning up out here, but just keep an eye out for any more people, if you can. DOn't want them eating villagers we missed."

    Harry's hand.. shivers? Prickles? He pockets the bottle and that sensation goes away. Hnnn, maybe just the cold, as he turns his back on Yuuki and heads for the fight again. "PLENTY, it looks like!" Harry's trotting over towards Riva's dog, and his dog too now he guess, trying to... ignore the queasy feeling he's suddenly got.

    The blasting rod comes up again, and... and then that one falls over, exploding a bit. Harry's rod is stil out though, as he starts poking at he remains for anything else that's twitching.

Saber (346) has posed:
     Dodging the flailing of death throes, Saber sidestepped the suddenly very expired ice demon doggy, facing the many more on their way. This was going to be a problem.

     Resuming her stance, she cast a glace at Bedivere nearby. /There are too many....we need a better way to deal with them./

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Mordred-- stops her beast.
    Is she taking a break?

    To Kagenashi, she huffs a bit. "I'unno, a couple times? And then we killed each other, it was great. And now we're super ghosts, and I guess we'll kill each other again eventually, 'cuz father still won't damn tell me the truth."

    On the other hand Saber's angst is very important.
    It is understandable.

    Idly, she gestures towards Excalibur, in Saber's hands.
    "Yeah it's too bad we don't have a tool of GREAT DESTRUCTION with us that sure would be CONVENIENT. OH, WAIT." Big grin.
    Sadly she is pretty sure the king won't use her blade.
    'Too destructive' whine whine whine 'but think of the people' whine whine.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva finally puts down Snow Yeller, and gets a shower of slush and white snow for her trouble.

She looks like a snowman for a moment, shuddering. Thankfully, the Templar uniform is indeed waterpoof.

She shakes it off (though there's still snow all over her hair, melting most uncomfortably down her neck), shuddering. "Thank you, Mr. Dresden." She says, even trying to be polite in the middle of a pitched battle, and she huffs, rubbing at her several wounds. "This is an ugly fight." She comments, shaking her head. "But we have the numerical advantage now. Let's go finish them off!" She says, before turning to take a wide tack around the battlefield to find out who's still having trouble.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Blunt force works really well on things made of ice, as Sakura Haruno finds out! Especially when there had already been a buildup of momentum when it tried to bite her. The creature might be snorting if it still had most of a head left, but instead it just flails limbs and head and makes a general mess of things as it tries to do something to alleviate the ... wait, do these things even feel pain?

Suddenly there are /knives/ on top of having half its head punched off. The creature doesn't howl, because it doesn't seem to have the faculties left to it to be able to do that. No, it just thrashes around that much worse, slamming its feet down and leaving very large, distinct footprints in the snow, and shattering cobblestone path when it strikes it.

There are certainly plenty of shards of ice -- she'll probably get scratched up and lacerated in the process, but at least it doesn't seem to be anything life-threatening. Serious, perhaps, but that all depends on how quick the ninja's reflexes are, and how good a contortionist she is...

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Mordred's beast meanwhile comes to a halt, looking sort of puzzled, in a dim, dumb-puppy sort of way. But it wags its icy tail, jaws falling open in that doggy grin again, completely happy and obedient as long as she sits astride it.

They're really dumb. But this one seems to be especially dumb. It's almost cute, in a Big Dumb Puppy sort of way.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber gives Riva an affable chuckle, flicking a cigarette butt to the ground and saying, "Something like that. Big game hunting needs big game weapons. I'm Psyber, by the way, nice to meet you," He notes to the Templar.

    Of course, he's glad to have broken the spine of the creature. The hammer is slung up across his shoulders as he trudges UP the body of the squirming animal, saying as he goes, "Jeremiah Fifty-One. Verse Twenty. 'You are my war club, my weapon for battle- with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms, with you I shatter horse and rider, with you I shatter chariot and driver, with you I shatter man and woman, with you I shatter old man and youth, with you I shatter young man and young woman, with you I shatter shepherd and flock, with you I shatter farmer and oxen, with you I shatter governors and officials. Before your eyes I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia for all the wrong they have done in Zion,' declares the Lord. 'I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth, He Proclaims, 'I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain. No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone, nor any stone for a foundation, for you will be desolate forever.'"

    Psyber hoists up the hammer over his head, finishing his particular quotation of the bible for suitably dramatic moments. And then he brings it down CRUSHINGLY on the back of the writhing elemental's skull, meaning to finish him off in a single strike.

    From atop the beast, he looks over at Sakura, "You know, fine. Next time you pick the vacation spot."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry chuckles, dutifully trotting after the gunslinger templar. A shake of his head though, and he grumbles. "Something's not right here, I mean... more than just the Big Ugly Things trying to eat people. There's... hnng." He smecks his lips faintly, as he spots Sakura and Mordred still with Dog Things... only Mordred's is tame now for some god-awful reason.

    Harry's footsteps fall quiet, and he sighs as Psyber seems to finish the last one off. "Why does this seem so familiar?" Those dark eyes scan the village, as he taps the base of his staff against the dirt. Somethng's just not right here.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Psyber's demon dog's head is crushed.

It dies a pretty anticlimactic death, spasming once or twice more before the fact that IT DOESN'T HAVE A HEAD ANY MORE seems to register with the rest of its body. Or does it? The things don't really bleed or anything, so that begs the question of how attached to natural laws these things are.

Whatever. Bottom line is, it's pretty D-E-D DEAD now.

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    With the creature dead, Kagenashi takes a moment to breathe, looking around at the combat nearby. Most of the ice beasts are dead, thankfully, so it seems their efforts here are almost finished. Good. She wasn't looking for a fight here.

    The sickles are yanked free from the dead ice canine, and the chains in turn are wrapped around their handles before the weapons are tucked back into her kimono. The nogitsune takes a moment to dust off any lingering shards of ice before one hand comes to rest on her hip and she strides over to meet Mordred.

    "Well, that does sound like a problem," she remarks calmly. "I do hope that gets sorted out soon enough. Brooding resentment is never conducive to peace." A glance at Bedivere with that. Is she prodding at him /now/?

    Her arms cross over her chest as Munashi pads up to her feet. The shadow must have been keeping out of sight; now she takes a seat beside Kagenashi, black tail curling around the nogitsune's legs. "Well, that was simple enough to handle, was it not? Are there any more out there?"

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Sakura is eventually thrown from the thing's back, after getting stabbed and scratched by quite a lot of ice, laying there and groaning as the beast falls and she bleeds. She'll be able to heal herself up in a moment, but she really doesn't want to deal with it for the moment.

    And she's not wearing nearly thick enough clothing for this particular winter wonderland.

    "I'm picking somewhere warmer. Spring, maybe." She'll reply to Psyber, though as he of course knows she has a portal to spring in her room in any case.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The marshal spins on his heel, cloak whirling behind him as he watches the demon-hounds topple one by one. They're huge, but the combined efforts of everyone working together seemse to have brought them down in the end.

His sword lowers, gradually, and it's clear by now that Bedivere is panting, probably from exertion; though he does grunt, folding his right arm tight against his side. Psalm got him good. Frigging thing /still/ hurts, and he probably overdid it today.

He glances to both Kagenashi and Mordred, and there's no mistaking the suspicion and even the faint hint of anger in that regard.

"I do not believe there are any left, but I do not think it wise to--gh." He breaks off, staggering a bit. Apparently he'd been grazed by one of those claws and not noticed it; his armour seems to have a new dent in it, and by the look of it it must have staved in several plates most painfully.

Prodding at the thing, he winces, before releasing it and apparently resolving to ignore it. His sword he returns to its scabbard, tugging his cloak more securely over his shoulders, because damn it, it's /cold/ here.

"For the time being, these villagers should be evacuated to a safer locale until we can locate and exterminate the remainder of these creatures." His voice remains gentle-toned and steady, almost feminine in its cadences. Almost. He coughs, flinching. "I was not expecting anything quite so... large."

Riva Banari has posed:
"Nice to meet you too! I'm Riva. Um... Riva Banari." She pauses, watching Psyber do his epic speech as he puts the dog out of everyone's misery. She takes notes. "Man, am I going to need to come up with a cool quote too? I could have sworn I saw something totally like that in a movie."

Riva looks to Harry, and tilts her head slightly. "Do you have any ideas what's going on?" She asks, and then looks around. "Are there any left? I see a lot of crushed and mangled ice horrors..." She shudders for a moment. "Maybe there's something on them that might help answer what's going on?"

Saber (346) has posed:
     In addition to not wanting to blow a giant hole in everything, cause an avalanche, vapourise a village, and so on, there was also the practical matter of her Master not being on hand to fuel a blast from Excalibur. As of to say all that, she gave Mordred a flat stare. Unfortunately, the only one who would probably be able to read /Are you really that foolish?/ in the look would be Bedivere.

     Instead, she merely commented, "It would be most impractical to use it at this time," she commented before glancing back at Bedivere...

     And it didn't take long for her to bridge that distance, frowning and looking him over for the telltale injuries. Because she was going to order him back if he took anything nasty.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki is ready to BE THE HERO when... All the ice doges are destroyed! And Sakura is all splayed out. "Do you need..." She pauses, blinking rapidly and looking away, taking a deep breath for SOME REASON.

    Maybe it's because Sakura is bleeding and wounded and such? Pff, but she's Totally Not a Vampire.

    Hey, are her eyes more red? And glowy? No, don't worry about that.

    She tries to help the ninja up. "Here, come on, we need to get you up! Laying around in the cold will be bad for you. Here, drink this. It's... Um... medicine." She offers, holding out a cough syrup bottle. The lable seems to have been peeled off. "Just a capful or so, and you should feel way better."

    "I'm Yuuki, it's nice to meet you. Well, not really nice situation-wise, but..." she shakes her head violently, her hair going every which way. "Sorry. I'm getting this all wrong."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry grumbles, as he slides his fingers into that pocket with the vial of blood in it, looking over at Yuuki again with a sidelong glance.

    Then he's nodding at Riva and the rest. "I'll go undo the circle, and take a look at something. Back in a bit."
    He tromps his way over towards the circle with all the people in it, and smiles genially. "Thanks for trusting me. I'mma take the circle down for now, and make sure everyone's alright to move for now." And with a careful motion, and both feet grounded firmly in the permafrost, he shoves the tip of his staff into one of the lines of the circle, and drags it straight across, breaking it, and shunting the energy back into whatever ickly place it just came from.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Nah, dramatic dialogue optional," Psyber notes to Riva, hopping down off the back, "I just like bible verses during appropriate periods." He shrugs, "Gives it a bit more flair," And then he tosses the hammer up, taking out a pad and paper and jotting something down as the hammer vanishes. Riva seems nice, he mentally notes.

    He would say more, but he has to bicker with Haruno, "You can literally go to Spring at any time. There are four Seasons and you utilize MAYBE One and a Quarter, if we count you living in Boston and going outside maybe two days a week." He takes his own turn to chide Haruno about bad behavior while she is on the ground and unable to retaliate as the Totally Average Girl is healing her.

    Then he's taking out a pack of Lucky Strikes and sticking one in his mouth again, lighting it, "Well glad we at least handled that first force."

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The marshal reaches up and tugs at the red stone stud in his right ear, frowning slightly as he looks over the remains of the demon hounds. The gesture seems to be one of unease. There's got to be more to this situation that meets the eye. By all accounts, these creatures had lived peacefully with the villagers for time out of mind -- what would cause them to suddenly lose their wits like this?

What /could/ cause them to suddenly lose their wits like this? He has all the magical sensitivity of a fencepost, though, so he can't comment on the strange sensation Harry Dreden had picked up on.

Eventually he shakes his head, still frowning faintly. "I do not know. I fear I have no expertise in such matters. Such would have fallen to Merlin, but alas, he is not here." Who knows what that geezer's up to? Probably amusing himself by chasing skirts somewhere, no doubt. "Perhaps Sir Dresden might sense something?"

He grunts quietly, shifting his weight and pressing his arm tighter to his side. He doesn't offer a word of complaint, though, and the glance he flicks at Saber is one of warning. /I will submit to treatment, but make no issue of it right now./ He'll be damned if he gives Mordred the satisfaction of showing vulnerability. Or letting Saber fuss over him.

Arturia's rule had been one of nearly inhuman impartiality. She would not have shown any such concern over him in Camelot, and he would expect no such treatment now.

Violet eyes flick over to Dredsen as the wizard ambles back towards his circle, and Bedivere lets him go for the moment, though he's still of half a mind to have these people evacuated. At least until the creatures can be destroyed.

Still, he affords a nod to each of the defenders still present (and a hard look at Mordred and Kagenashi, anyway, because He Doesn't Trust Them) and shifts his weight again, a little unsteadily. "My thanks in your defense. Your actions here have saved what remains of this village and its people." A faint hint of a smile flickers across his face, fleeting and then gone. "While I do not know that we have heard of the end of these beasts, 'tis a start."

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    "Medicine?" Sakura asks, as she takes the hand up from the completely obvious vampire. She'll take a sniff of the liquid, and given that she's one of the top medics in the union, she's certainly not going to just drink it unless she's at least vaguely sure it won't hurt her.

    Which of course it won't; she's one of the best medics in the union. And it would be rude to refuse the aid! So unless it's completely obviously something poisonous or otherwise horrible, she'll down it whether or not it would have any actual medical effect.

    "Aah.. I'm Sakura. Or Flowers; you can call me that." The medic offers, trying to be friendly.

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    Kagenashi's head tilts in vulpine curiosity as she stares at Bedivere. "You are still wounded," she observes with maddening calmness. "You should have made sure you were in better condition before coming out here." A pause as she looks out through the hole the beasts entered from, considering the frozen landscape. "Perhaps someone with a keen sense of awareness could track where they came from and see if there is a source. I am not certain who could have such a skill, however. I hear foxes have rather keen senses and are excellent hunters, but..." Back she turns to Bedivere, smiling through her voice. "...you would have to ask one yourself, if you wanted that sort of favor. I hear they can be very picky with what favors they give, even if they have been wonderously helpful before."

    She turns to Yuuki, then, and takes a moment to bow respectfully to the girl. "Kagenashi. A pleasure to have you assisting us. You surely seem to have been a great asset in defending this place."

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Oh, yeah, it's awful. Whatever, it'll work itself out," Mordred tells Kagenashi, dismissing the matter for now. "This ain't the time 'n place to do it anyway. I'd wanna something more... dramatic, if we're gonna have a rematch. And for it not to be interrupted by Lord Douchebag the Golden." That was the worst. On the other hand it sure did stop the fight that was about to escalate.

    Mordred pats the beast underneath her. "Who's a good doggy? You's a good doggy! Alright, you're gonna have to go now. And you're gonna go back to your pack! What's left of it anyway. And you're going to BECOME THEIR KING, or we will never speak again."

    With a headpat, Mordred slaps a GPS beacon atop the beast's head. And then she casually tosses the GPS itself to Bedivere-- presumably how she found this place without getting lost.

    She hops off the ice hound. The effects of Prana Burst and Riding will start degrading quickly, but hopefully not before it starts running back where it came from.

Riva Banari has posed:
"Flair." Riva nods. "All right..." She thinks for a moment, and then tilts her head. "Right. There's going to be more of them, aren't there..." She shudders again, and runs her hands through her hair to try to get the remaining snow out. That's just /cold/.

She makes herself semi-presentable again just in time to give Sir Bedivere a bow. "I'm happy to be of service, Sir Bedivere." She looks at the others speculatively, rubbing her chin. She holds up her phone and begins taking pictures of people, places, and things now that the battle is over. She pays particular attention to the fallen dogs. "Where did they come from?" She asks no one in particular. "Maybe if we could follow them back to the source..."

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber's frown deepened slightly, but she remained silent. Besides, he was right; it would have been an exposed vulnerability. Still, she wasn't entirely certain it was merely a physical wound, her eyes darting to Harry to hint at her suspicions. Whatever might have affected the elementals might also have repercussions for them, as well.

     For now, they needed to solve this mystery.

     Her glance shifted to Psyber, another of her allies and friends who would be best suited to start looking into it. Time to go start making inquiries, but not before glancing back once more to the marshal. /Just be careful, all right?/

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The spell energy Harry releases seems to harmlessly dissipate, though it still has that feeling of subtle wrongness about it. Not only does it leap to command more easily than it should, there is an almost sickly feeling about it. At least it behaves itself as it dissipates; merely fading once it no longer need bend to the will of a mortal sorceror.

Bedivere does not miss that look from Kagenashi. He does, however, choose to ignore it. And her indirect offer of help. No, thanks. He'd rather work with /Merlin/ than ask her, and Merlin is a big fat pile of NOPE NOPE NOPE to the marshal. He simply shoulders his reinforced (and slightly torn) cloak more securely and pretends not to have heard her in the least.

It beats trying to stab her.

When the demon hound is released by Mordred, it seems to take a moment to look at the assembled company of Elites, as though waking up from a bizarre dream. It then looks at the bodies of its fallen fellows, and looks at the Elites again.

And then it sits down and its jaws fall open in that big dumb doggy grin, panting great gouts of frost and wagging its icy tail hard enough to dig divots into the snow, staring at Mordred in adoration.

Bedivere, meanwhile, fumbles his catch, but manages to catch the device enough to keep it from dropping into the snow.

Riva earns a bow of his head, though he doesn't quite summon up the effort to bow properly, because then he'd definitely be showing pain, and he is loathe to show any weakness to Mordred. Or Kagenashi. Six to one, half-dozen the other, really.

Saber, however, earns a glance. /Later; you have my word/. He'll get looked at later. Just... not now. He's loathe even to cringe, as much as he might want to. Stupid dog got him good, apparently, and he never even noticed it until now. Must've gotten him where Psalm had shoved a sword into his side. Lovely.

He looks down at the GPS unit, frowning.

...What in the hell is this thing.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber has a frown on his face, red eyes looking out over the corpses, "Mn... More of them, probably. There's a corruption here. Faint, but it's pushing. Probably something old. Maybe sealed in the mountains or beneath the ice. Maybe starting to wake up." He's talking to Riva particularly, but also to anyone in earshot.

    "I dunno what, though, so it's mostly conjecture. It's like... imagine if a color was just a half-shade away from what you wanted. It's that kind of nagging," He scowls, taking a much more serious face as he exhales a plume of smoke, "The surrounding area should be scouted and checked for ruins. Local seismology and geographical shifts would be nice too, maybe a recent event woke it up. Did the villagers dig any new mines or open any caves recently?" He;s mostly musing to himself, rubbing a hand under his chin.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Bedivere's violet eyes flick over to Psyber, thoughtful. "I do not know, but they can be questioned. Some mentioned that many of the creatures came from the old stronghill on the hill. It had once belonged to the villagers, but it was among the first to fall." The knight raises a hand, rubbing at his jaw thoughtfully. "Perahps it did not truly fall."

"For now the best we can do is gather the villagefolk. Perhaps they may be moved to a temporary location, somewhere safe?" He sighs, though the move causes him to flinch, very slightly. Ow. "I do not trust that these creatures will abate their attacks simply because a few of their number were dispatched."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    And Harry... is pleasantly suprised when nothing blows up, tries to eat him, or otherwise turns the landscape into something non-Euclidian as he dissapates the Ward. The wince he's put on vanishes, and he blinks. "Oh, hey, that was easy enough. Okay, folks, you're free to go, though I think Bedivere is gonna try and find you somewhere safer?" He looks over his shoulder at the knights and the rest.

    Oh, and Psyber's got that taste too. "I was thinking something... Outside? I mena, not a long ways outside, but this feels just funky somehow." He taps the ground with his staff. "It's even in the local ley lines. That energy I pulled up shouldn't have been... It tasted ashy or something, I don't know." More smecking of lips.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber flicks his eyes over towards Harry, rubbing under his chin, "I dunno if I feel like it is Outside, but we may have different definitions. If I had to throw a guess into the dark, I'd say a lich. The real old school kind. Ice and death and magic. Could be polluting the local magic and using the stronghold as a draw point," He wonders.

    "Even normal people that can't sense the supernatural are inclined to build their castles and forts on conversion spots. It's the instinct or feeling," He shrugs a bit.

Riva Banari has posed:
"That's odd." Riva says. But she's not nearly as versed in these shenanigans as they are.

But what she does know is a GPS unit. "If you don't mind, Sir Bedivere?" She holds a hand out, offering to take it from him so she can look it over. "Provided the ploy works, we can narrow down the location of the main forces using it." She'll let the people versed in magery talk shop. She's much more intuitive about her magical asskicking.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
As though glad to be rid of the thing, Bedivere gingerly hands the device over to Riva, who is hopefully much more experienced in the use of things like 'modern technology.'

Too bad the thing it's twigged into is sitting there like a big doofus, wearing an idiot grin on its icy face. Apparently it's taken a shine to Mordred. Or maybe hijacking it like she did broke whatever control that Otherness had over it.

Whatever the case, it's sitting there like a tailwagging idiot, watching the traitor knight adoringly.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is just hooking the GPS into her phone to track the beacon and cross-reference it with what she has on the surrounding area when she hears the dog. She looks up and over at the adorably horrible thing.

And then she looks at Mordred. She arches an eyebrow.

Saber (346) has posed:
     Unfortunately for Arturia, her marshal is just as stubborn as she was. While being so close to personality type allowed for the kind of nonverbal communication they seemed to engage in on the battlefield and other tense situations, it also meant that occasionally they would lock horns on certain issues. Or rather, one issue in particular: trying to protect the other. And that had only gotten worse over the past week.

     But Bedivere was right; their first order of business was evacuation of the villagers. Or, in her case, making sure their backs were guarded...and perhaps try to get a feel for what kind of bizarre magic was interfering with this place as she kept watch. All the while, the threw a couple of glances back at arry and Psyber, listening. R

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Tch. Harry scruffles at his hair, knocking snow out of it. "If I get the time, I'll follw some ley around here and see what i can come up with. The corruption may have been drawn here magically from elsewhere, that's a possibility too."
    He stops, and pulls out his trusty Quartz On A String, stumping over towards one of the dead dogs and mashing up a big snowball of their remains. He also finds a water bottle in a pocket, dumps that out, and starts stuffing Demon Snow into it for later.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    The capful of cherry-and-wow-is-that-blood-? is pretty vile-ish. Unless you like the taste of cough syrup and/or blood, at which point, it's alright, I guess? In any case, it's quite potent, if weird, and Sakura should be feeling right as rain soon! Well, soon-as-in-within-the-day, not immediate. She's no white mage, mednin, what have you.

    "It's nice to meet you, miss Haruno!" She offers, with a little sitting bow, before standing up and offering a hand down. "Feel better?" She hopes, though she seems a little concerned.

    Aido had told her about the healing power of vampire blood, and she had seen it in action, but she had never actually /used/ it before like that.

    Idly, she pulls a small black carton out from her pocket and knock back a few white pills, making a little face at the taste as she chews them up before swallowing.

    Totally not a vampire.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Fuck, it's too loyal."

    Mordred mutters something under her breath. Well, that was not planned. And Elliana probably doesn't want yet another god damn pet in the house, soooo... "Tch. Useless."

    Clarent shimmers into Mordred's hand; the dazzling red and silver sword, obviously a two-hander, easily held in one, is thrust with incredible speed and precision into the hound's neck. It has outlived its use if it won't shoo and she really doesn't feel like dragging that thing back home with her.

    Without skipping a bit, she grins to Riva. "GPS. I was gonna have it go back to its buddies and then you can do whatever you want with that, but it's just a big stupid dog now."

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    There's a bit of background necessary here related to why Sakura is immediately going to recognize the taste of blood even through cherry.

    It involves a lot of drinking and mednin students making stupid dares.

    She swallows it, nearly choking before she manages to get it down, and then she's going to ask a question after the hand even if she's still bleeding a bit. Though Yuuki will notice those cuts seem to be healing quite quickly... More than the blood might explain, but she may not realize that that's Sakura's own abilities in combination with or even over the blood.

    "Why are you giving people blood mixed with cough syrup to drink, Miss Kuran?" She'll ask, not bothering to answer if she's feeling better or not. Though she is.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber shrugs his shoulders. He'll leave magical backtracing to Harry, truthfully, since while Psyber can do it, Harry is definitely better at it. Instead, Psyber is wandering his way over to Mordred, curiously crossing his arms as he moves towards the armored knight, "So Mordred, you wanna grab a pizza after this?"

    "Or we could go to a nice summer clam bake. The piers are simply great this time of year. Street festivals and shit. I'll buy you a funnel cake."

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
The demon dog looks at Mordred adoringly, grinning that doggy grin. Isn't it just the most adorable thing ever? It's still looking at her adoringly, up to the point where she draws Clarent and proceeds to shove it through its icy neck.

It looks vaguely confused as it pitches over, and the ground shakes a bit when its frozen corpse finally topples.

Bedivere reaches up, with great effort and deliberation, and places a hand over his face.

"Sir Mordred," he rasps, sounding at once in pain and struggling to keep his temper in check. "We could have used that creature, by all accounts. Why did you do that? No. Never mind. I do not want to know."

Bedivere only sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in mild exasperation.

To the matter of magic and origins, he can only shake my head. "I fear I cannot even offer conjecture. I know little of such matters. The best one to answer such questions has been lost to me for some time." That bastard Merlin wouldn't have given a straight answer anyway. He led everybody in circles, even Arturia, and seemed to enjoy it. Bedivere sighs. "Perhaps we might return later for a more thorough investigation. For the time being, I believe it best if we move these people to a safer place."

In turn, he'll turn and make for the huddle of frightened villagers on the other end of the square. He doesn't quite smile at them, but he does incline his head politely. "Good people! I am Sir Bedivere of the Round Table. If you will please follow me, the Union has facilities that will house you while we investigate the forces that threaten your village..."

He shifts his weight uncomfortably; Saber might note his soft grunt of pain. He's going to get a lecture later, isn't he? Oh, goody. His favourite thing ever. Sigh. Stupid demon-dogs.

He does watch Psyber out the corner of his eye, though, suddenly suspicious at that amnesty offered to Mordred. Violet eyes flick then to Saber. /What in the high holy hell is he doing? I thought this was your superior, milord./

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    "Because..." Yuuki begins awkwardly, taking a step away from Sakura, before taking a deep breath. And then she steps back forward, re-offering that hand to help her up and holy heck did she recover fast. Wooooooow! Wait. Is she a VAMPIRE TOO!??!?!?!? I mean, she's shojo tritagonist good-looking enough, and...

    "Because where I come from, it's a special remedy. It's blood from a very specific sort of person. The cough syrup is just to help it go down, it doesn't do much. Well, but be cough syrup!" She grins, giving a big smile.

    "If you're feeling better, that's great. I'll help you up, just take my hand."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva frowns as Mordred as she murders the crap out of a dog. Riva just tosses it back to her. "Good enough plan, but..." Then Bedivere beats her to the question. She sighs and turns away. Too late now and getting in an argument with Mord-

"Wait. Mordred?" She turns around and looks at Mordred. "Are you /the/ Mordred?" She then thinks for a moment, then looks over at Saber. "Wait, you called her your father, which means..."

Her expression goes slack for a moment. It can be best expressed as 'gonk'. "... Huuuuuuuuh."
5rThis is going to take a moment to process.

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber's expression didn't so much as change...even when Mordred was going through her Stupid Evil phase -- again --- even when Psyber was doing...well, whatever the hell he was doing. No, the impassive expression stayed firmly in place.

     Mainly because she was sure there was some good explanation. Maybe. Or she would have to go plot with Addie over something.

     Or maybe she wasn't happy with a lot of people right now. Her glance back at Bedivere was almost a shrug. /I've learned simply not to question too deeply./

     And then, there might be a fleeting flicker of a sweet smile. Oh, she wasn't going to be giving A Lecture, oh no. But that aura might be a little on the dangerous side...

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    The good news is that Sakura doesn't specifically know that Yukari's a vampire! The bad news is that that's because there are other sorts of things she could be with fangs and glowy eyes and offering blood.

    The dreaded reverse vampire, maybe.

    She'll take Yuuki's hand and just straight up ask, after mumbling to herself. "So, um, are you a demon or a vampire or what? Because I don't really want to be a vampire, and I'll have to do all the research on how to prevent it if things go wrong, or if you're a demon and I have to go get exorcised, and just generally you could save me some time and do me a favor and let me know now?"

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "On a scale of one to don't give a fuck I'm at about the latter, ~Sir~ Bedivere," Mordred says, her blade disappearing from her hand into thin air again. She stretches her arms up, and the layers of armor over her body disappear, partially. It would appear that, underneath it, she wears a dress not too unlike the one Saber over there does-- the poofy shoulders, the regal red, gold and silver look. The only big difference is that she's got pants on, rather than a nice ~kingly~ dress.

    It's actually kind of hard to tell if Mordred is male or female like this! She's, well, kind of flat. If she did her hair a bit differently she could definitely go full androgynous, if she wanted.

    "Yeah, I'm Mordred. Sir Mordred of the Round Table, TECHNICALLY," she says, quite crudely, glancing at Bedivere. "But I think you MIGHT lose the right to call yourself that after you cause the myth to end, huh?" Shrug. "Yeah, that's right. That's King Arthur," she gestures towards Saber. "And I'm his son. I know what yer thinking, that's not how genders work. WELL I HAVE A RETORT FOR YOU. FUCK YOU."

    She is distracted by Psyber! "Oh man free cake, I am so in, let's go fucking win at all the games."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry has been doing a number of things.

    He's got his tracking crystal all dosed up with Demon Snow. Check.

    An extra bottle of demon snow just in case. Check.

    He's busy drawing another circle on the ground around the dead beast he's been poking and prodding at. Check.

    He looks over his shoulder at the ruckus, and in his worst Brooklyn accent, "Pipe down, I'm workin here!" A hrumph and he turns back to the corpse. "Alright, Buster Brown, tell me where you come from." He jams the staff into the ground, lights the circle, and... "Vestigio."

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Violet eyes flick over to Riva the instant the Templar starts asking about Mordred with a tone of incredulous... something. Bedivere's lips thin in an expression of clear displeasure. Yes, that's right, little miss willful evil over there is indeed the Traitor Knight of legend.

And that short blonde over there, wearing the blue and silver armour, is indeed King Arthur of Camelot. Although... history seems to have got the details a bit wrong, at least from his world. Arturia, not Arthur, though it was a fact she hid throughout her reign.

Bedivere's return look to Saber is so incredibly bland that it has to be hiding something. Horror, maybe.

"That is indeed Sir Mordred," he confirms to Riva instead, words thrown over his shoulder from where he's otherwise busy addressing a gaggle of terrified villagers. But before he can say anything else about that, Mordred is talking again. Ugh.

Violet eyes flick again over to Mordred, and was that a vein twitching in his neck? He reaches up to pull his cloak closer about himself, and he's about to say something, but...

He just sighs, shoulders slumping, wincing a bit at the jarring sensation.

"Excuse the traitor's rudeness, my lady," he says to Riva, somewhat beseechingly, over his shoulder. "It appears to be an ingrained trait. Yes, that is King Arthur, whom I am sworn to serve. But I beg you, this is not the time or the place."

And then he turns his attention back to his frightened gaggle of villagers, speaking to them in as soothing a tone as he can muster.

Riva Banari has posed:
Mordred's response causes her to blink and recover. "Actually, it's not that..." She trails off slightly. "I mean... I've looked at the Internet. I've gone through college. Whtever gender you want to be is none of my damn business."

And then she claps her hands together and walks over to Saber. "I'm just /so pumped/. It's /King Arthur!/ This is so amazing!" She bows to Saber. "I'm so glad to meet you! Today is the best day ever!"

This might annoy Mordred more than anything else Riva might possibly have said in response, but WHATEVER, KING ARTHUR IS TOTALLY RIGHT HERE.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
As Riva makes a beeline for Saber, Saber might notice that Bedivere is taking a step or two backwards to edge closer, while still addressing the villagers and watching Saber and Riva from the corner of his eye. Suspicious bodyguard is suspicious.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
As for Dresden's freaky forensic wuju, it may yield up some answers. The dead beast is wonderfully preserved, being made of ice and everything, plus the fact that the region simply doesn't seem to let up in its horrible winter weather. Magically, it looks like the sort of creature that might have come padding out of the Nevernever.

Except...

The traces that remain seem somehow different. The energy seems more suited to a familiar, or something much more benign; it doesn't seem to jive with a creature that had spent its last waking hours thrashing about and trying to eat everything in its immediate vicinity. It seems the natural purpose of these beasts really were like guardians, loyal and dog-like, but something had twisted them from that purpose.

Certainly it smells like corruption. The tracking aspect seems to indicate a direction vaguely towards the castle on the hill, which is from this point more or less invisible through the swirling snow. By all accounts, it had been a normal stronghold once, and it was the first human territory lost in this little one-sided war.

Whatever's working a corruptive influence must have claimed that castle as their seat, and they're probably not going to get rid of any of this until they've stormed that castle... but now, they're all better off regrouping -- and very much moving these villagers somewhere safe, which Bedivere seems intent on doing at the moment.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Sure, just try not to beat up carnies if you don't win right away," Psyber cautions Mordred, giving her a slap on the shoulder, "Otherwise, could be fun. I'll call the helicopter in, drop Haruno at the office so she can get treatment, and we can hit the pier. It'll be good fun. We'll play video games till 4 AM and you can crash on the couch or something if you promise not to attack the office. But just the once and only if Elliana lets you have a sleepover party."

    He has to get permission and all.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry grunts as he stands up and snuffs out the circle again, staring up at the Castle on the Hill. What the hell did these people wake up...

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva almost got killed like three times by the ice dogs, Saber can probably break her in half without much effort. But attentiveness is always warranted! Diligence is a virtue, after all, and you never know when she'll suddenly jump at someone with a hidden blade from the wri-

Oh wait, that would be the most hilariously wrong script EVER wouldn't it?

She remains a respectful distance from Saber. At the moment, she is mostly interested in getting to see new and interesting people until she's pitched into fighting horrific things once more.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    To Sakura, Yuuki keeps smiling as she pulls the other woman to her feet. "Oh! Haha, I'm not a demon. I'm just... me. For a long time I didn't really know what that meant, but now I do. Anyway, that won't turn you into a vampire. For that to happen, you would have to be bitten by a Pureblood, and there's only a few dozen of those left around. Plus, if you got turned against your will, the Hunter's Association would probably kill the Pureblood that did that. It's not a crime to kill a vampire." She explains, before looking at her little lacquered case of white tablets and sliding them back into her pocket.

    She's back to being normal. "Say..." She wonders, turning to Psyber, and looking between him and Sakura. And, to a lesser extent, the Nasuverse Crew.

    "Umm... I was actually looking for some 'Union'? My older brother told me to stay home, but today just proves it. I have to help people! Well, if I can. I'm kind of bad at this whole thing, honestly..."

    She hangs her head. Sad Yuuki in snow.

Saber (346) has posed:
     Saber had been standing far enough away to completely miss the conversation, what with acting as a lookout. Because, demon dogs are still out there, even if they aren't making any moves at the moment. Her expression might as well have been made out of the exact same ice, impassive and possibly infuriating to anyone who would have wanted /something/ other than a completely neutral expression.

     She can only think that Psyber is trying to help in his own completely misguided way. Saber herself deccided that the best thing to do was just keep her distance.

     What /did/ solicit a reaction from her perch up on one of the battered walls was Riva. Saber blinked in surprise, not quite registering. "A-ah..." unable to really manage an actual word before an uncertain. "...Thank you..."

     And then an almost annoyed glance at Bedivere. Honestly...if she wasn't permitted to fuss over him, he shouldn't be such a hypocrite when it was her turn.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Fortunately for Riva (well, not really fortunately, Riva's a big girl, she could probably take Mordred head on if it came down to it) the Knight of Treachery has been bribed with CAKE, PRIZES and FESTIVITIES, three things she enjoys separately, and even more together.

    "Yeah yeah go fawn over father, whatever," is thus, he reply, as she heads for Psyber and eases down-- most likely her departure will ease Saber and Bedivere too.

    "God, I don't need master's OK to sleep outta the damn house, you know. 'sides she has a fucking key to your tower doesn't she?" Huff. As Yuuki approaches (or, well, turns), she glares. "Yeah, buncha them are Union, so good job, you found 'em." And by buncha we mean that pretty much everyone here except Kagenashi and Mordred happens to be Union! Wow, convenient.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    "Oh. Well, you found us,... Right." Flowers will shoot a glance at Mordred, rather irately. "I'm actually Captain Sakura Haruno of the Union." She says, looking back to the Vampire with a cheerful enough expression.

    She'll totally be checking the status of her own blood later, assurances or not.

    "Well. I'll try to avoid getting bitten anytime soon, but you should probably not just hand out blood to people. Were you looking to help the Union, then?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Sure, I'll have Captain Haruno orient you and enlist you while she decides if she needs to pummel you senseless for infecting her with a magic disease. That way everyone gets what they want," Psyber says, giving Yuuki a cheerful and happy thumbs up.

    Psyber turns back to Mordred, "Fine! Fine! If you don't need her permission, don't check. I just don't wanna get yelled at for keeping you out past curfew and messing with her plans or whatever." He reaches up and throws an arm around Mordred's shoulder in a friendly gesture, "Let's get goin."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Harry sighs as he tromps back over towards the rest, and points his staff up at the Foggy Castle. "Yep, whatever it is starts up there, at least. Breadcrumbs and trails, whatever. Anyways, it's stupid cold out, I'm damp, my clothes are damp, my thermals are sweaty."
    He points a finger at Bedivere and Saber. "Let's call it pizzas for this, at least. Maybe a six-pack or something. Like I said. Rates are very reasonable." A grin slips out at Riva being a fangirl, before he goes back to looking Appropriately Grumpy. "Oy, templar girl, you need a ride back to civilization?"

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva smiles in response to Saber. "There are legends in my world about you and the other Knights of the Round Table. They've always been very inspirational to people. I'm just very happy to know that there are people like you and Sir Bedivere out here too."

And then Harry offers a ride. "Are we... done here? We still have to stop the source of the problem, right? Or are we going to pull in some more backup for this?"

Riva would totally not be against being in a raid group for this. Silly OP dogs.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
For Arturia, it doesn't take all too much to tell that Bedivere is bristling a little. There are entirely too many people here who set his hackles up just by virtue of existing, and they are standing entirely too close to Arturia for his liking. He neither acts or speaks on that suspicion, though; to the others, he is merely... watchful, keeping his eyes on pretty much everything.

Might be more demon-dogs. You never know. Right? Right??

It is probably not coincidental that he is staring mighty hard at Mordred up until the point where the other Servant allows herself to be mollified by CAKE, PRIZES, and FESTIVITIES. Perhaps not necessarily in that order. On one hand, it's a bit disgusting that an otherwise dignified knight, however traitorous, is immediately mollified by such things. On the other hand, that works out to be extremely convenient for him.

Hmmm. Maybe that was Psyber's plan all along? Surely even he senses the fireworks that seem to happen whenever Bedivere, Saber, and Mordred are shoved into a room together. Or, you know. Impending violence.

Once the villagers are spoken to, Bedivere turns to walk with them, leading them to the nearest warpgate. A nod is given to Saber in passing; that's all he really needs to do to convey his intent to escort them -- /can we all talk while we're walking?/ -- perhaps to ask her to get people moving. Or those who are interested to help guard them as they go, anyway.

"My thanks to you all. These peoples' lives were saved because of your actions," he adds, to the assembled defenders. "We will speak later, I have no doubt, but I must escort these people to the waprgates and to a Union shelter. Come if you wish."

The marshal pauses to listen to Harry, head tilting slightly at pizza. No, the poor soul is not yet acquainted with that wonder of civilisation, Chicago deep-dish pizza. Bedivere inclines his head politely. "Thank you, Master Dresden." With that, and a glance at Saber, he turns to go, boots crunching in the snow.

Ignore the slightly irregular way he walks, arm folded tight against his side. Mumblegrumble, hate demon dogs.

He pauses again, perhaps hearing his name; glancing over his shoulder to Riva. He simply stares at her for a long moment, regard so blandly neutral that she might find it uncomfortable after a few seconds.

Finally, he inclines his head, the gesture oddly formal and archaic. It seems both a gesture of acknowledgement -- and perhaps even a little gratitude.

"I do not act so to seek praise. I act so because it is the right thing to be done." He allows himself the faintest flicker of a smile. "Still. I am glad my king is remembered." Not himself, not his other knights -- but Arturia. Such a loyal minion. "However, my duty lies with these people. If you will excuse me -- unless you prefer to accompany me, my king; honourable Templar."

Kagenashi (85) has posed:
    As everyone speaks and parts ways, Kagenashi has, strangely, vanished. Perhaps not too surprising, considering the way she simply appeared out of nowhere earlier. It seems she wasn't too interested in causing any havoc here, either way. Whether it's another attempt to get Bedivere to "owe her" or simply to throw the knight and his king off isn't too clear.

    Whatever the case, Munashi does appear briefly to slip between the legs of Saber and Bedivere before pausing to stare up at them as they walk away. The little shadow doesn't do more than watch, though, gazing uncomfortably at their backs and swaying her tail until they move out of sight. Then it's her turn to vanish, slipping off into the frigid shadows.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Oh. Hey. Imagine that. Bedivere may or may not 'accidentally' stagger against a snowdrift and 'accidentally' aim a kick in Munashi's vague direction as he goes.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
    Riva gets the Stink Eye. "I am not assaulting an Enemy Castle at dusk with no backup and without a plan of attack. Anyways, I'm cold and grumpy so no." Harry grumps, and looks at Saber. "You're buying this time though."

    He swipes his staff at the air. "Aparturum." And a glistening slick of energy opens up in the air. "Next stop, Chicago and points Earthward. Mind your arms and legs, and follow me."
    And he steps on through.

Saber (346) has posed:
     As much as she /wanted/ to hunt down her boss at Heaven or Hell and demand to know what the hell he was doing, Arturia decided to ignore it. Not really any of her business.

     Saber continued to blink owlishly. "I see..." Not that she hadn't known there were the legends -- being a Heroic Spirit and all -- but she still had never thought of herself as particularly worthy of it. Cue angst. But there was the matter of chivalry. "We merely do our duty as knights, to bring succor to the afflicted and defenceless. Chivalry demands no less."

     What did brighten her mood was Harry's mention of pizza. "I look forward to it, Sir Harry."

     It was with more than just a little relief that things were finally starting to move; standing there was making her uneasy as she kept watch. She stifled a sigh of relief, merely moving with her usual preternatural silence as she helped lead the villagers onward to safety.

Sir Bedivere (482) has posed:
Slogging through the snowdrifts in armoured boots is not really fun times, but Bedivere isn't complaining about it. He might spend some time flopped in front of a fire or something afterward though. He gamely leads the villagers up to Harry's portal before... stopping and squinting at it with obvious suspicion.

Violet eyes slide over to Harry before sliding back to the gate, studying it suspiciously.

/Witchcraft/.

No doubt he's already going to get a lecture out of Arturia, though, and so with a sigh (and a faint wince at the movement) he leads the people on with soothing talk of shelter, a hot meal, and no snow in their immediate future.

He'll probably tag along and find out what the fuss is about this 'Chicago deep-dish pizza,' too. The dutiful marshal won't be drinking any beer, though. To the surprise of... well, not Arturia, anyway.

Riva Banari has posed:
"And that's why you get praised for it. Funny how that works, isn't it?" Riva replies, winking. "People know when you do the right thing."

Riva thinks for a moment at Harry's response. "You're right. I didn't really think about that." Oh God.

She happily follows them through the portal, wherein she will probably get to see Harry's reaction to a large line of villagers an 2 Knights, and a Templar dripping in his apartment.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki nods eagerly. "Well, my brother is..." She begins, and then realizes... Oh wait, right. 'Kaname Kuran' wouldn't carry any weight around here. "My brother is very protective, but I think I can do some real good here. Elsewhere. For people. That aren't... You know, in the mountains. So!" Yuuki begins, a bit overeager, before snapping a crisp salute to Sakura. "Lead the way, Captain!" She offers, before looking at Psyber and Sakura. And frowning.

    "Is it that obvious...?"