1146/The Shadows of The Sectors

The Shadows of The Sectors
Date of Scene:	14 December 2014
Location:	Galianda
Synopsis:	All is far from peaceful in the world of Galianda. The desperate, the dispossessed, and the angry sometimes strike violently and without warning at those they believe are responsible for their state. These people claim none as their master but Chaos.
Cast of Characters:	287, Reina Kinney, 623, 626, 627, 633, 634, 642, 643, 644, 646, 652, 655

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Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The rain is gentle this evening in Ramuh. While Phoenix rarely shines through the clouds that cover the land near-eternally, those of the Thundering Plains can keep track of the passage of time regardless. Glowing signs display advertisements for a plethora of goods and services along the Highway Level. People are constantly on the move, walking, gleaming Chocobo Matrices running alongside powered magitechnological vehicles and the Lightning Rail system. The air is rich with the smell of ozone and well-sheltered stalls where street vendors hawk cheap and filling Ramuhan dishes. The air buzzes and thumps with snatches of music as speakers blare snatches of music. The world is vital, flowing, always moving with a crackling and electric life, powered by the seemingly eternal lightning that crackles down into the great Runic Spires.

Until one of the Spires sizzles, a strange purple energy flickering over it. Lightning crashes into the Spire, taking a chunk out of it as it seems to distort and overload, unable to intercept the power.

All at once, things begin to go dark, waves of purple radiating from below the Spire as the air grows thick with the smell of burned metal. Power dies, lights going out. The Lightning Rail screeches, going off of the rail and crashing to one side, skidding across the highway. Screams echo out as panic sets in. Robed figures rush into the area, hurling improvised explosives and Fire spells to light up the darkness. As they do so, they scream together, "HAIL CHAOS!"

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
    "PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND MOVE TOWARDS THE DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES," comes a male voice over loud speakers, as a large, armored flying drone flies from its previous cover, not far from the Spire. Three spotlights flare up on the drone, highlighting three areas in a triangular disposition around the Spire.

    In each area, one large robotic drone, painted black and grey, a four-legged walker with a minigun arm and a large sword arm. A single bright red mono-eye looks left and right, identifying the unfortunate workers and civilians in need of cover. There is a large KIRIN logo on each drone. With the walkers, three armored soldiers in heavy armor, each with a different heavy assault rifle, obviously magitek, and riot shields.

    KIRIN soldiers work to head to those in danger, while the drones rain gunfire towards the Chaos worshippers, though their positions are not ideal for this, and they mostly have the Fire spells to guide their aim.

    Atop the flying drone highlighting the safe zones, Audrey stands, one hand over the other arm's wrist, behind her back. That cool dark blue military overcoat billows in the wind caused by the flying drone, but she is only watching for now.

    She is here to supervise and direct the troops, not fight.

    Though she'll protect the drone she's on if it comes down to it.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena actually LIVES here. Sure she lives someplace NICE here, in the Murasame estate. Right now, however, she is forced to take a magiteck ride to sector three...someONE was causing Chaos...and NOT in the APPROVED chaos ways. IE: not in the way that Souji has dictated...and for that, some people must get cut so bad that they wish they weren't cut so bad. She jumps from her ride, the elite forces on it will land in their own time...Helena, however, needed to get her eyes on the ground to see what was going on.

    Helena takes to the shadows, a pair of knives drawn as she slinks around the fight, first trying to get a good measure of the forces here...and who will respond.

    Hail Chaos? Really? These guys really WERE low on the totem pole.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     He's been on the trail of this particular cult for a while. Hearing rumours, little things that do not add up. People dissapearing is not an unusual thing in a megacity like Ramuh. It's not /common/, as everyone, even the less fortunate, has their hand on some tracking device in their phones. But no, sometimes, people vanish, that's not the only problem. Sometimes, they come back to drag other down into the unknown. That's when the Cults makes mistakes, despite their best efforts to 'spread' their foul religion on others. Then it gets big. Then they cause damage. Then they cause misery, which then make more desperate people... and the cycle of Chaos continues.

     Soan didn't have a precise lead, beyond a general area. It was a hurried whisper, annonymous, or at least a source that wanted to be, but Soan know who it was. The desperate call of a mother that found notes of her son's. It adds up to his already existing notes.

     For now, it was time to act.

     Standing at the very top of a neon sign, now dead and dark from the purple radiations. He can't help that lightning rail, but they are rather safe. No, what he can do, is attack. Purge the Chaos filth.

     Dragoon Man leaps from the neon sign, his body erupting in a bright streak of Light, falling down like a beautiful comet downward to the amassing robed figures. It's unafraid, his voice bellowing through the panicked air a catch phrase that some might know, some that might know less into the mass of cultists.

     "BY THE SKIES ABOVE THE SKY!" Dragoon Man bellows out, crashing like a cannonball against the rioting cultists, greatspear slamming into the ground and sending forth a shockwave of Light around him.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    From high above, in an area which you'd need a very powerful telescope to see, there's a shuttle craft orbiting. If one looked closely, they'd see the insignia of GUARDIANS on it. Inside, Reina Kinney is lying back in the front chair by the control panel, sighing inwardly to herself. "I can't believe I'm on patrol duty again," She grumbles. "I should be out stopping Gurhalian threats, and not sitting here twiddling my thumbs or something to that effect. I wonder if--"

    Reina's thoughts are interrupted as an alarm goes off on her control panel, causing her to nearly fall over backwards and out of her chair. She somehow recovers and sits up again, this time putting her boot-clad feet on the floor instead of on the panel again. She taps a few buttons and brings up her viewscreen. Almost immediately, her eyes go wide as she witnesses what's going on down on the surface. "What in Gurhal's name is THAT?" She asks, half-scowling while her other eyebrow is raised slightly. Without waiting for an answer (like she'd get one,) Reina jumps out of her chair and rushes into the teleport chamber, quickly beaming down to the surface.

    Once she arrives, she's shocked at just how bad it truly is, her viewscreen not showing the full details of what's going on. "Oh you've got to be Falzing me," Reina says as she quickly ducks behind some large random object to take cover. She snaps her fingers and a pair of pistols form in her hands, albeit ones that fire energy shots instead of bullets. She then pops out and opens fire upon the cultists, yelling out, "You picked the wrong hunter to mess with!"

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
     There's very little that goes on in Ramuh that isn't known to the al Cid family. They keep themselves abreast of every situation that goes on in their massive continent as best they can, aided by the Guards, the Judges, and the power of social media. Moogle is a wonderful tool.

     But in this case, there's a much more hands-on reason for the al Cid family to be aware of the situation.

     Specifically, Landon al Cid, Prince of Ramuh, Heir Apparent of the Thunder Plains, Scion of the al Cid dynasty, happened to be *on* that train.

     A moment ago, he'd been perfectly content, reading a novel off his mPhone as he travelled from his somewhat discreet hospital trip back towards the Royal Palace. He was somewhat incognito, as best as a young man with bright white hair *can* be incognito, which basically translated to not wearing his armor and instead wearing sunglasses and his AA uniform. Yesterday, interceding on behalf of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, he'd cracked two ribs and gotten his leg slightly sprained, and he'd wanted to hide that from the King and Queen quite desperately, so he'd snuck off to get a quick patch job from a white mage he knew was friendly to the family.

     Then the lights went out. Landon barely had time to react as the train derailed, hurling him across the train car and into the wall. Though it hurts like hell, his first reaction is to look around to find other injured - and then, immediately upon hearing the blood-curdling cry, duck his head down and keep low.

     Hail Chaos. A cry most Galiandans fear more than anything else. The existence of the Enemy may be up for debate, but the existence of those lunatic enough to worship it is not, nor is the dark and terrible power that they wield. And here he was trapped on a train with them, with no armor, two cracked ribs, and a hurt ankle.

     Just fantastic.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     It was only fairly recently that Kaiba came to the world of Galiana for the first time, and yet, he has already returned. The reason for his visit is quite simple. With the Multiverse so large, he's looking for places to build Theme Parks. And this is a world where he could more likely create a themepark with obviously dangerous parts to it, and call those sections 'training exercises'.

     But his plan to scope out the Megacity of Ramuh is interrupted, sadly, due to the arrival of some chaos worshipping beings. He sighs a bit. He may as well take care of this threat. It'd help his reputation with the land. He had heard that Galianda in general saw most of the actions of the off worlders in the dungeon, the other night, so perhaps he'll have an easier time going against the crowds, as they part because /obviously/ he is a very powerful hero of some kind.

     At the very least, though, he's probably going to clear the way fairly easily regardless. He lifts his duel disk on his left arm, inserts his deck, and then draws his five cards, placing them in his left hand so he can freely select the next card to play in his right.

     Not the /best/ starting hand, but. It will work.

     He places a card down, and a hologram of a face-down monster card appears in front of him. He walks forward, towards the group of chaos worshippers, placing two more cards face down in his Spell/Trap zone as he goes.

     "Go ahead, just /try/ and hurt me."

     Kaiba acts really cocky, even though the only thing he has going for him, at the moment, are three cards floating in front of him face down. And only one is a monster.

     Of course he does look around and make note of everyone /else/ around. Yeah, some of these people he recognizes from the dungeon crawl. Opposing teams.

     At the least, the people who were in the other teams should already know he is /so/ much better than them already, and so they should stay out of his way.

Oberyn Levy (634) has posed:
    Cities. They're loud, and crowded, and just too cluttered. Awful places, and Ramuh's are just the worst. But sometimes, there's something you just can't do anywhere else... today, for Oberyn Levy, that thing is a visit to a shop with no sign - that it is open at all is clearly a testament to its owner's prowess.

    "... okay kid, I did what I could. It'll run again, anyway. Now, if you don't know what you're doing, you really need to stop trying to--"

    A stern lecture from the shopkeeper is interrupted by the sound of a Runic Spite /not/ working as intended. As the power starts to go out, things start to crash, and explosions ring out, Oberyn knows what he needs to do. He may not be a hero, but... sometimes, you have to try, right?

    In one smooth motion, he's snatched a small crystal from the shopkeep's hand, held it aloft, done /something/ to trigger its latent magic, and hopped onto the (hideously rainbow-colored in the worst possible way) chocobo matrix it projects. As he rides off in the direction of the trouble, he calls back with "I'll be more careful next time!"

Yumi Musumi (287) has posed:
Even *rumors* of a place like Galianda would draw the attention of various deckmasters; Theo because Theo plays blue and thus falls in love with magitechnology, Yumi because Yumi adores exploring new places and also there's some kind of awesome ultra high school or something like that. She's a teenager after all. Maybe someone does magic with cards in their world!

Of course, Yumi's luck being Yumi's luck (that is, non-existant...) she takes her trip into Galianda at the worst possible time.

"... hail chaos?" She asks, flipping through her messenger bag before pulling out a deck of cards, settling seven cards into her grip. "Riiiight." She says, muttering faintly, "Wabbit time." She plays a Mountain.

Hywnd Eblan (646) has posed:
Dragoon Man is not the only Dragoon here to purge Chaos. Hywnd Eblan was in the area, and Chaos decided to rear it's ugly mug. She was going to slaughter it.

Bloodrake dashed from the streets, making ground rather fast, before she lept into the air. Clad in a leather armored blue jacket with a hood, an indigo mask covering her face with the exception of her mouth, she roared from above the Cultists. And from that roar, came a cone of water. She was going to flood them out.

After firing her water breath, she decided to fall. Kimahri, her double-headed spear, was equipped, as she went to slam it straight into a Chaos Cultist below. Unlike Dragoon Man, she did not have a catchphrase.

Neva Fernandez (644) has posed:
    One does not walk the Planes without this urge to explore everything! One has the ability to go everywhere, so why not explore the place! So it is that Neva Fernandez, making her way along the streets of the city of Ramuh, accompanied by her loyal Blistercoil Weird, Bob, is in awe of the lights and the sounds of the super-city! How are there so many in the Multiverse?! Who knows! Still, there was one thing on her mind right now, and it was itching at her. "Does it EVER Stop raining?!"

    Then lightning crashes on one of the spires above. She'd seen plenty of lightning in this Plane for a while now, but that didn't look like a pleasant lightning crash. "Woah..." Then the lights go out. "That's never good." Purple light, and the increasing sound of people screaming and people beginning to run, as fire begins to light up on the streets. Neva goes wide eyed as her cloak bullows in the wind, watching as robed Chaos agents begin to make themselves known.

    "Ooookay, time to skidaddel.." Neva mumbles, as she turns about, ready to focus her Mana up so she can 'Walk out to someplaces NOT being overloaded with craziness, when Bob suddenly reacts to something out of sight, and runs out right behind Neva in order to block the path of a Fireball spell, which crashes right into the Weird and blows it up into chunky energy bloblet. Neva goes wide eyed as she witnesses Bob's sacrifice for her! "BOB!" She cries out, trembling for a moment as she watches his bloblets just melt into a pool...

    There's a moment's pause as Neva is quiet for the passing of Bob, the Blistercoil weird, before she grits her teeth and yells, "You killed BOB!! He was just two weeks Old!! You bastards!"

    With that, she pulls up the hood to her cloak and reaches into her backpack to pull out a collapsable table and a deck of cards, setting the table up under some shelter from the rain, and begins to shuffle.
    After drawing seven, "Decent Mana... This'll do..." With that, she draws one card from the deck and blinks for a moment, "You, I'll be saving for." With that, she sets down an island... "TURN ONE END!"

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
There are any number of reasons for Dominic Masoch to be here. There's the obvious 'Dominic is a Ramuhan Noble and feels it is his duty to protect the royal family', which is pretty on the nose for Ramuhan politics. But let's go with the actual reason DOMINIC is here, which is much simpler than any of those reasons:

Landon al Cid is an old friend of Dominic, and so when Landon had announced he was injured and coming back from treatment, there was no way he wouldn't take time out of his day to hang out.

Dominic was sitting across from Landon on the train. He had his own mPad out and was playing Fruit Monk (tm) on it, watching as fists flew in from off screen to smash various snackfoods to pieces as he tried for a high score via swiping and tapping across the screen. Dominic had his normal attire on, pressed and cleaned and looking as nobility should.

The screeching derailment of the train causes his pad to fly from his hands, slam into a wall, and shatter. He grips a post in the tram and ducks down as it derails, sliding through the cart before coming to a stop.

Sidling next to Landon, he whispers, "We need to get you out of here."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Landon is not alone on that train.

    To Kyra's credit, she's pretty smart. She even refers to Landon by a cover name when out in public during those times when he wasn't officially representing the Cid Dynasty. That cover name happens to be 'Big G' for reasons that are apprarently only funny to Kyra. Earlier she had tracked down Landon so she can get a first hand account of the TSAB encounter. In return, Kyra gave Landon exclusive footage of Kyra's journey into Ivalice's temple to Phoenix and meeting with Phoenix herself. At least, before she uploaded it to her MogTube channel.

    When the train veers off the rails, Kyra too is thrown sideways though with a shout she manages flatten herself out to spread out the impact. It hurts her too and something crunches beneath her hoodie as the bandoliers hidden underneath are smashed.

    Groggily, she shakes her head and starts to pick herself up. "Nobody panic-" she says in a voice that suggests she has a minor concussion. "I'm a registered White Mage. Remain calm and don't move...!"

    She unzips her coat to reach for the potions she usually carries-only to discover that the majority of them were crushed in the crash and leaking all over her. On the bright side at least SHE feels better. It doesn't help all these other people-the Prince included. She'd have to resort to white magic at this rate.

    And that was risky. Carefully crawling over to Landon and Dominic, she pushes a potion into Dominic's hand. "Make him drink this, don't let him refuse it."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The robed people spread out. There are undoubtedly men and women amongst them, but their clothing makes it impossible to tell the difference immediately. There look to be several dozen of them, many of them holding various objects or carrying bandoliers and packs. KIRIN hits the scene hard and fast, just like they get paid to do. The initial attack strikes the Chaos Cultists, a few of them falling to the fire response. The descent of Dragoon Man as he hits in the middle of the crowd, too, is impressive, as the shockwave of Light scatters several of them in all directions. Reina arrives amidst darkness and flame. Several Chocobo Summon Matrices spark and sizzle as their magic fades through damaged patterns, looking almost pitiable in their state were they truly creatures and not magical constructs. Worse are the Humes. Many of them are capable of dealing with the minor threats of day to day life, not the terrifying spectre of crazed Chaos-worshippers. Reina fires into them, and she sees some of her shots take purchase.

Landon finds himself in the middle of a dark and crashed Lightning Rail car. The wounded and panicking are all around him, many of them who had the capacity fleeting immediately. The rest are wounded, or unconscious, leaving Landon, Dominic, and Kyra in a sticky situation as they hear several of them board the train in another car. The wash of Fire spells are apparent, as are the screams. And they are coming closer. Bloodrake comes in with a wash of water, the Cultists screaming as a couple of them are sent flying clean off of the Highway to fall towards the ground below. Another one gets skewered, screaming in pain as the spear runs through them in a clearly lethal strike.

Then the cultists rally. One might wonder, in a world where even regular people might be able to throw a fireball and where random encounters are a common problem during the morning commute why they might fear robed madmen with explosives.

The answer comes when many of them remove black cylinders from pockets and bandoliers and begin throwing them at their assailants. The grenades scatter towards their targets and detonate, washes of that same strange purple energy washing outwards, a wave of power that rasps against the very fabric of the world, fraying it and dissipating the magic that binds everything together.

The KIRIN soldiers immediately backpedal from it, but one of them is caught anyway, his weapon sparking as it goes does. The drones follow, the lights going off as they crackle and crash to the ground. Summon Matrices caught in the area begin to die out, the MP sucked out of them rapidly. People are affected too, a terrifying weakness striking at them as the MP is shorn from them. Kaiba and the Planeswalkers are targeted too, as part of the beginning group.

As if that was not enough, the world begins to... unravel slightly. Everything is magic in Galianda. Everything. As the magic begins to die out in the area, gravity begins going with it. People and objects begin to float in the air, the laws of physics beginning to break and warp as things fray in the area.

While others might be put off by the effect, the cultists shriek, gleefully throwing themselves forwards with blades and other melee weapons as they seek to carve into those present. There are no tactics present. The goal seems to simply be destruction.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena manages to keep her balance, softly hitting the ground when Physics started to restablish themselves...this is a pain. However, those bombs are finite...but at the same time...

    Any more of those would be bad. Helena touches the ground, her magical circuits were not too badly effected...There are bodies...

    Helena casts a fairly powerful spell, the magic craws along the ground, aiming to reach out towards the bodies...those that are there now, and those that will fall. She focuses the magic on the Cultists dead, but a few unlucky civilians could get caught in this. They will raise...and immedaitely start attacking the Cultists. She only gives one order, to attack the cultists until all are dead.

    Helena, however, draws a blade, and waits. She looks a bit tired, if anyone can actually spot her, between the bomb and that spell...she needs a moment.

    And a Ether.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
Dominic has to pre-empt the Prince, because he knows Landon al Cid MUST be plotting something stupid. He gives Landon a hard look and says, "Stay here. Drink this." He gets to do this because Landon isn't his Prince right now, so he doesn't have to take commands.

He goes to crawl towards one of the doors of the train, looking to Kyra as he passes it, "Kyra. Stay here and take care of him. And the other injured. I'm going to buy you space. And time."

Dominic endeavors to find a way out: A twisted window, a shattered door, a hole in the siding. He presses with a boot, clearing glass and metal before stepping out onto the highway and carefully looking around. The slowly unraveling physics of the world around him is strange and frightening.

Even more frightening is what he's about to do.

"Cultists!" He draws his blade, taking a steadying breath, "I am Dominic Masoch and you have damaged my city and hurt my people. If you wish a target, I shall be yours, not the people on this train. Come now and face me."

His stance shifts, one hand curling behind his back as his sword arm presents forward. His boots take as steady a stance as they can while the world unravels around him. He has taken a traditional Fencer's stance.

He takes a shaky breath and thinks to himself: You can do this. This is real, but you can do this. It's no different from monsters. They are monsters.

But they're not. They're people he's just challenged to life or death combat. And that scares him deep down.

Hywnd Eblan (646) has posed:
As physics are destroyed, Bloodrake begins to float, much like she's in water. However, she's not exactly put-off by this. She even grins.

And then she splits Kimahri into two, moving forward gracefully in powerful strokes, aiming for cultists flying towards her. She strokes around them, stabbing them with her spears as she passes. Bloodrake's acutally rather comfortable with this!

When the magic reasserts itself, she'll land on her feet...and begin spinning, firing off geysers of water in a spiral around her.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     As the rasp grenades start going off, Kaiba takes a more defensive pose, using his right arm to block, just in case. His face down monster activates, switching to face up defense position. Appearing on the battlefield is Saggi, the Dark Clown. A monsterous white clown clad in purple and blue.

     And, since Kaiba's Duel Disk is tech based, the clown /isn't/ swallowed up like all of the other magic in the area. Sure, the physics are getting wonky in the area, but Kaiba /thinks/ he can deal with it.

     Still, though. The enemies are in the process of attacking. So Kaiba flips up his face down card.

     "ACTIVATE TRAP CARD! MIRROR FORCE!"

     The Mirror Force is trying to reflect back the Rasp Grenades, and the force of attacks of any Cultist. Sending their own power against them.

     Kaiba reaches into his deck. Though he is now /floating/, like everyone else probably kind of is, his deck is still in place. The Duel Disk is made so cards won't fly everywhere. Theoritically, it can be used on vehicles that go at motorcycle speeds.

     He looks at his card. Smiles.

     "Pot of Greed!"

     Immediately, he draws two more cards. And, another smile.

     "Activate Spell Card! SOUL EXCHANGE! I tribute summon... JUDGEMAN!"

     He places Soul Exchange. Its effect, more or less, lets him tribute other monsters to summon his own card. How this translates to the Multiverse? Well, an aura of light appears in the sky, and flies towards one of the Cultist, trying to damage them, like an attack.

     And then Kaiba places down Judgeman. A hologram of a /large/ human appears. As in, it's more like a giant. He is incredibly built, but he looks old. He wears red armor, and a golden tiara. He has a white beard. In both hands, he weilds giant maces.

     He moves to start pounding his maces into cultists nearby, trying to clear the field.

     Luckily, Duel Monsters kind of float/hover anyways, so they /manage/ with the weird gravity situation.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     This causes something of a problem for Dragoon Man. Physics goes off nuts, the local magic fields are destroyed, messing with the physics of the place. DRAGOON MAN do not admire his handy work with the crowd of cultists he scattered, burned by his Light. Instead, his look lift up more worried at the various crowd of people that are in direct danger to swords. Some Extraversals are here. Maybe this will help turn things around. He's also somewhat surprised that there is another Dragoon here: Blookrake is not one that he knows off. Then again, there is quite a few Dragoons in the Order. He don't know everybody. Still, it's comforting.

     Dragoon Man slams his spear into the ground and propels himself around, launching himself into the way of another group of Cultists. He plows through them with his feet, spinning his great spear with high accuracy to avoid innocents in the way to get himself in the way of another group.

     Dragoon man spends several moments just spinning his spear before him like a windmill, blocking, taking hits for civilians that hides behind him. He floats in mid air, rotating on himself as his blade gives him some momentum to keep going...

     Then roars, a wide stream of lightning coming out of his mouth to give cover -- and great harm -- on some cultists.

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
     Landon has been texting on his mPhone rather than talking, because he doesn't want the cultists to notice him, Dominic, and Kyra. He looks between the two of them and shakes his head, typing something out on his screen.

     OTHRS NEED IT MOR
     STYING HR
     PPL IN DANGER

     He looks between the two of them firmly as he draws on some of his magic. It's just a simple Cure-1, nothing fancy, nothing exquisite, but-

     -but then the whole train gets hit with the Rasp Bomb. Physics shuts off on a wide-scale area. Landon's magic dies instantly as the magic particles in the area are dragged in and away. He starts floating, and he can hear the screams of other people in the area as chaos - lowercase - takes hold.

     Dammit.

     "We can't just abandon them," Landon hisses, "I refuse to leave while there are others in danger."

     Of course he does. Dominic moves off, and Landon looks over at Kyra, like he's making it really clear that he's not going to let his friend get screwed just to protect him. He clearly isn't going to argue about it. "Kyra," he hisses, "He can't handle them alone, not without MP. I can't leave him alone. I can't just run away from this. People are depending on us."

     He may not have his Judge Blade or Judge Cards, but he does have the willpower and determination for which the al Cid family is famous. Landon kicks off the Lightning Rail's seat, bounding forward. He stops next to Dominic with some careful manipulation of the wires and takes up a bare-handed stance, shifting his feet backwards. Judge training, maybe? They rely on magic swords, so...

     But...how best to convince them that he isn't the Prince? -oh, wait, that was easy.

     "Yo," Landon declares, shifting his feet in the air, "Yo dudes wanna mess on Big G's turf like this? You gonna regret it *real* fast!"

     Talk like an uneducated country yokel brawler.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    With physics suddenly going crazy, Reina finds herself having a bit of difficulty moving, and her aim seems to be suffering a bit. Doing the best she can to adapt to this, Reina tries to keep herself steady while she aims. But this lack of physics is nothing like she's used to in general. Namely because the Gurhalian system hasn't had problems like this ever.

    "Falzing time for something like this," Reina swears, attempting to aim her guns carefully at the cultists. "I hope these babies still work!" She says as she fires off a pair of shots, almost like to test to make sure physics aren't going to adversely affect her shots, while aiming at the cultists to make sure that if they do fire correctly, they hit the right target!

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    They're attacking the train, Kyra can hear it-and feel it, no less. At least this deals with her dilemma of having to risk casting magic. Then again, these people needed it.

    Perhaps predictably, her potion is refused-therefore she takes it and distributes it to the nearest, most critically-injured person she can find. "I'm not leaving either of you." Kyra hisses, even though she...probably should.

    Kyra didn't have the physical prowess Dominic or Landon had. All she had was a gun, which might not shoot correctly with physics suddenly being disrupted. Unable to fight herself, she resorts to forcing people to calm down and organize. One of the broken windows is selected as an exit point and Kyra quickly starts directing people to escape through there.

    To the more injured, she quickly uses up the rest of the unbroken potions she has, then resorting to regular first aid that all white mages are trained in on Galianda.

    She tries not to let Landon's country accent distract her too much. If it weren't for the situation, Kyra would be busting a gut laughing at him right now.

Neva Fernandez (644) has posed:
    Neva goes wide eyed as grenades start flying through the air, causing her to go wide eyed and dive beneath cover, grabbing her table and deck in order to keep them intact. Fortunately, she's not actually exploded. Unfortunately, she can feel her recently placed Blue Mana getting tapped out. "What---Dammit! You jerks! That's my only mana right now!"

    Fortunately, some Black Mana just got filtered into the area by Helena, and Neva can feel that shift in mana, as she sighs, "I can tap into that, I suppose... Got no blues to play anyway!" She gets her table back up into place and once she's got her deck organized, she draws and plays a Mountain, before saying, "Okay! I tap the mountain, and some of that mana out there for colorless..." She reaches a hand out and channels some of the mana that was filtered into the area, and then puts down a Young Pyromancer from her hand, followed by a Runechanter's pike. "This should come in handy..."

    In the world before her, young man in red pops into reality, followd by nearby pike impaled in the ground. "Alrighty then, buddy... Give me a moment, and we'll get ramping up..."

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
    "MA'AM, DRONES OUT."
    "WEAPONS MALFUNCTIONING."
    "MAGIC IS BREAKING DOWN."
    "I'm not blind," Audrey grunts over KIRIN comms. "Cover the drones and restore power to them, the grenades won't last long. Sync timers. Get the civilians on solid ground."
    "YES'M."

    With the drones currently offline, the three soldiers per drone deploy heavy metallic cables from their armored suits, which slam into either the ground or anything sufficiently pinned down that it hasn't gone flying yet. They toss gloves to civilians, which they can slap on to grip onto the cables and not wander off in zero gravity.

    Those lucky enough to have avoided a direct hit by the grenades turn their rifles onto the cultists, but one per group actually turns towards the closest downed drone and start attempting to repair them. This might even involve the use of lightning spells, even if that means one soldier per group is now dedicating his personal MP pool to powering the drones.

    The flying drone sputters, although it's fortunately high up into the sky. Audrey frowns and unsheathes her gunblade, attaching herself to the drone via cable and-- leaping down. That drone won't last, so she's jumping ship, to come crashing down towards one of the robed men with the point end of her sword. Then she'll just cut the table or something.

Oberyn Levy (634) has posed:
    Sometimes, being slow pays off... Oberyn manages to avoid being essentially de-maged simply by merit of not being in the way of the Rasp Grenades when they're first set off. This doesn't, of course, mean he's avoided the effects altogether - nearing the edge of the battlefield, his chocobo abruptly flickers and simply vanishes beneath him. /Thump!/

    "So much for a cool entran-- WHAT THE HELL." Things floating, magic failing, physics unravelling... this is a bit /much/ for someone who's never personally witnessed a Chaos attack before to take in. Sure, he's heard the stories, but comparing that to the reality of it...

    "This... this is... ... holy /crap/. How can they even... ..." No! Snap out of it! Oberyn's not been spotted yet, at least... though there's not a whole lot he can /do/ with magic being stripped away as soon as it gets close. Even a simple Thunder spell would probably tap him out and /still/ melt away... for now, it looks like watching and waiting is the only option.

Yumi Musumi (287) has posed:
Black Mana? No, no, Yumi's still in trouble, for the most part.

She does manage to get, of all things, a forest down, which is probably why she's in trouble - she's not very good with this deck in large cities. Then again, with WABBIT, she's not good with that deck anywhere unless she's trying to conquer a magic volcano. Her dragons would... probably... like that.

She does manage to get a Bird of Paradise out though. The rainbow-colored monstrosity promptly caws and sits on her head. Yumi lifts a finger, pauses... then shakes her head and passes turn.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Chaos continues. Helena animates some of the corpses. They rise again and strike against the assaulting cultists. Some of them look quite surprised to be attacked by the dead, and zombies struggle against the Cultists. Several of them shout in panic, and a couple more perish to fuel her army.

Dominic busts out of the fallen Lightning Rail and challenges the Cultists like a boss. He's answered immediately by a shrieking, hooded woman who throws herself at him with a cruelly hooked knife. "HAIL CHAOS!" She screams, cutting at him with her knife. But it is clumsy in the strange physics, which leaves her wide open for a practiced counterattack. Landon 'Big G' al Cid comes to back Landon up as a couple more arrive, but they hold back, as the car door opens, and more pour in, laughing and shrieking. Bloodrake attacks, apparently prepared for such things. It makes sense, as Dragoons are meant to oppose the forces of Chaos in all its forms. She strikes, stabbing out at another couple Cultists and skewering them. She is ruthless in her disposal of the Enemy.

Kaiba, meanwhile, reflects the Rasp Grenades back at the Cultists, which would be much more deadly if they were not already using tactics to compensate for operating in a non-MP area. It does, however, make several of the ones in the back trying to light molotovs angry, however. In the meantime, he has to deal with several cultists rushing him with spears and swords. They're trying to get past the summoned monsters to attack Kaiba's Life Points directly! Mainly because they're not stupid and they know a Beastmaster when they see one. Judgeman smashes a couple but it doesn't seem to keep them from continuing to attack.

DRAGOON MAN compensates for the lack of Gravity by using his spear to propel himself. His training has taught him well, it appears, as he windmills right into the middle of a group of cultists. He uses it to knock the first couple attacks out of the way... And then lightning surges, the Dragon's Breath smashing through the group before him and causing many of them to scream in pain as they are electrocuted.

Meanwhile, Reina attacks, firing her guns. The Photon shots warp in the air slightly, but it looks like they're getting to their targets for the moment. One cultist gets winged, but another staggers, shot through the heart, and she's to blame.

Audrey keeps the KIRIN troops in line and they fall back as ordered to keep civilians from flying off of the Highway much like the cultists did earlier. They get to work reestablishing their hardware as ordered, while Audrey comes down and performs a descending cleave strike which cuts down another Cultist and cuts the cable, allowing the drone to fall and crash impressively in the middle of the battlefield.

Yumi and Neva begin compensating for their problems. Planeswalkers are powerful, but they need time to set up. Unfortunately, they're up against a rush opponent, and the problems are about to get worse.

As physics start to gradually repair themselves ever so slowly, one of the critically wounded cultists shriek. "CHAOS! GRANT ME POWER!" She screams, throwing her head back and laughing as her life's blood runs out... And a translucent spirit comes out of her corpses, manifesting as a hungry Ghost. It immediately lunges at Bloodrake, attempting to grapple her with her MP and life-draining touch.

All over the battlefield, the critically wounded Chaos cultists begin to invoke their own pacts. Another's robes shred, becoming tight bandages and wrapping around them to stanch a suddenly bloodless body as it rises as a Mummy, and mostly formless Wraiths arise as well, phasing through walls to seek out the warmth of life. They seem to be completely unaffected by the damaged environment as they begin to reinforce the cultist forces.

This just got a lot more dangerous.

Hywnd Eblan (646) has posed:
As the Ghost lunges at Bloodrake, she's reacting as fast as she can. This requires a Flash Step, her narrowly sliding several feet to the side of it. Two can play at the life/mana stealing game.

"LANCET!"

As she shouts, an incorporeal blade appears in front of her, floating and pointing at the Ghost. And then, it spirals forward, spiritual lines of sorts attaching to Bloodrake as the Lancet attempts to spear the Ghost, taking its health and magic for Hywnd.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
"Well, it will be an honor to fight alongside Big G," Dominic says, carefully adjusting his grip on his blade. Truth told, there's a reassuring effect that having his Prince and friend next to him has on Dominic, even if he'd be normally annoyed at Landon for putting himself in danger immediately after he did.

As the Cultist comes in at him with her knife, Dominic takes a deep breath and swallows the bitter nervousness he feels. Her movement is clumsy and and poorly practiced and he is a trained Fencer nearing his graduation. Were he a Sword Saint, he'd be insulted that this was his opponent. But he's not. So instead he's just nervous.

Boots slide back in a slight motion across the pavement of the highway as his blade flicks and flits through the air, trying to knock her blade aside. This is the easy part and Dominic easily falls into his normal motion. It's no different from fencing in that moment, and so his riposte is quick and his riposte is trained, a simple thrust square to the center of the chest of his opponent.

Match Point.

But this isn't fencing and he's not holding a foil. This is a real fight and he's holding a real rapier. Instinct is one thing, and instinct led Dominic to do something he never imagined he was capable of.

What would normally be a bent foil tip is a rapier piercing through flesh and rib, straight through the heart of another person, and out the back. And as the reflexiveness of the action wears off, Dominic realizes what just happened and gets a slightly horrified look on his face.

He steps back, pulling the sword out with a gush of blood as he lets his opponent fall to the ground. For a flicker of a few seconds, he has a shocked and horrified look on his face and the sword shakes due to his hand trembling, crimson droplets running off of it in the light Ramuhan rain.

"I just..." He starts, before seeing that the corpse is then GETTING UP again and becoming undead. He's having some trouble coping in that moment, and he looks to Landon as if asking what to do.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena frowns...

    It would be trivially easy right now to deal with this...but she can not. To do so would ruin too much hard work, so she thinks...what CAN she do..?

    The ghosts are a issue, the physical fighters would have a disadvantage, buuuuut...

    Several of the new Zombies explode, draining their mana back into her own pool, while the rest continue to eat and make more.

    Helena's hands move, making arcane signs, before firing two spells. Helena DUAL casts Etherial strike, allowing their weapons to effectivly strike etherial targets...with full effect. Helena frowns, helping them makes her sick, but...

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
    The KIRIN forces will continue doing what they are doing! That mostly comes down to securing civilians and scrambling to get those drones up. They know when they're up against something they can't just shoot a lot, and those monsters aren't looking like the kind they're in a position to fight right now.

    Tactical note: bring less drones and more troops next time.

    Audrey sheathes the gunblade, cracking her knuckles at the sight. Is that the faintest hint of a smile on her face? Her fists crackle with electricity, but also with a pure white light.

    She breaks off the main melee, surging up being the Ghost that Hywnd is distracting with her spear. "Exorcise!" One fist pulls back, and then attempts to slam into the Ghost. But not physically.

    It's an attack that targets the undead, and it's destructive and simple. A holy punch to fill the Ghost up to the brim with delicious, delicious light-elemental magic. A lesser undead would be destroyed out right, but this is a Chaos cultist, and not your household variety skeleton.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Stall stall stall. The boys are doing a really good job of stalling. It makes Kyra nervous that they've put themselves out there in the line of danger...but if not them, then who? RAIJIN had only /just/ arrived and she still needed more time to get these people out of this train. The task becomes even more urgent as the Chaos Cultists start surrendering their souls to become undead in the name of Chaos. Kyra's stomach turns as she witnesses a man becoming a shambling mummy just outside the train.

    Gradually she can feel the magic reasserting itself and, despite the risks, Kyra immediately takes the chance. Tossing her now empty vials aside, she reaches onto the man with a broken leg she had set and puts her hands to it. White magic swells and the cure spell seeps from her hands into the man's leg, righting the damage.

    "Go." she whispers harshly, picking herself up and moving on to the next immobile person that had been left behind by the panicked, fleeing masses. Steadily, she works her way through the wounded, focused on her task on a level she hadn't reached in a long time, her unnaturally deep MP reserve put to use.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     As the cultists try get closer to Kaiba, that is when Saggi the Dark Clown goes into action. Being a Defense mode monster, it's best on the defensive. Which is why Kaiba placed it /firmly/ near him. The clown attacks any Cultists that try to get near Kaiba. Granted, some of them are able to get past, to attack him directly. The spear users have the best chance, due to the whole 'spears are longer and easier to get past the insane clown' thing.

     Despite the fact he is now bleeding, Kaiba remains calm. He's trying to back up from the Cultists, and keep distance. Though he is mostly a normal human, he's still fairly agile, and doing what he can to keep his distance, while still drawing a card.

     And, as he looks at his next card, a smirk. It's one of the cards he's used the longest. He plays it, and the hologram of the monster appears, in attack position.

     "I SUMMON YOU! HITOTSU-ME GIANT!"

     And, a giant green cyclops appears. He's not /as/ large as Judge Man, but is fairly similarly sized. He just starts going at the cultists who are still nearby, though. He's punching and trying to tear at them.

     Judge Man, meanwhile, is trying to attack the various Cultists still. Notably, Kaiba is ordering him around a bit. Even telling him to aim specifically for Cultists who might be attacking civilians. Gotta stay on the good side of the people a bit.

     Kaiba, meanwhile, just looks at all of the Cultists.

     He is gonna try and draw some aggro.

     "You nutso cultists don't stand absolutely zero chance in a duel against me! I'm Seto Kaiba. So while you guys keep wanting to praise Chaos, just get in line for the ass kicking I'm about to hand all of you!"

     Yeah, hopefully he can just keep drawing the aggro, acuse he feels pretty confident that even the ones who are becoming monsters of some kind are things he can still take on.

Hywnd Eblan (646) has posed:
As the Ghost lunges at Bloodrake, she's reacting as fast as she can. This requires a Flash Step, her narrowly sliding several feet to the side of it. Time for a counterattack.

"KATON!"

A pillar of flame flies straight towards the Ghost, spiraling around as firey appendages grow from it. Hopefully anyone in that path moves out of the way before they get burned!

Reina Kinney has posed:
    "You have GOT to be Falzing me!" Reina says, scowling as things truly get worse. The more she's in this fight, the worse things seem to get. But she's a member of GUARDIANS, and she's trained to take on the things that most people would run away from. She would use her technics, but doesn't want to risk any collateral damage at the moment since she's unsure of how they might work in this current physics situation.

    Instead, Reina snaps her fingers a few times, switching from her handguns to her sword, one which has a greenish light for a blade. She looks towards that mummy and says, "Hey you! Stop!" She attempts to move towards it as best as she can, attempting to slash into it horizontally. "Go back to the afterlife, where you belong!"

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
     "Heh. Let's mess these fools up!" Dominic would probably kill him later. He was supposed to run. He's got an injured leg and injured ribs and no armor and he's the damn Prince. If Dominic didn't, Soan, or Kyra, or Kamon, or /Cirra/, would. And if THEY by some miracle didn't, his Father would. This was stupid and dangerous, made very evident by the Chaos Cultists lunging at him and Dominic with knives.

     'Big G' moves like a professional. He isn't a Monk or anything, and he lacks the unarmed badassery of that Job, but he's still quite adept at fighting unarmed - both as a Freelancer and a Judge. Judges had to be prepared for things like this. Had to be ready to fight in zones of anti-magic. Without their armor. A lot of things.

     So as one of the cultists comes at him with a knife, he grabs the ceiling, using the weightlessness of the area, and swings his feet upwards into the cultist's face. Dominic, meanwhile, puts the blade into the woman's chest.

     'Big G' lands as the gravity starts to reassert itself. He looks over at Dominic with a momentary look of shock, because, well...you don't just casually kill someone. It's not something Landon's ever done. It's not something *most* people have ever done. Sure, there's monsters, but the trick about an armed society is that it's a polite society, at least on Galianda - fights that are lethal are less likely to occur.

     His face hardens up a moment later as the corpse starts standing. "Kyra!" He snaps, "Got some mojo yo can toss? These guys just ain't stayin' down!"

     Sanity reasserts itself. Landon finds his feet back on his hand. He sticks his hand out to pull Dominic back to his feet. "Yo, no time, boss-man; we gotta keep pushin', or they gonna get through!"

     "Ain't givin' up even ONE SQUARE OF BIG G'S TURF!"

     Landon lunges forward. He sticks his foot to the side, moving to knock the undead back down on the floor before it can fully stand up. A quick strike to the head (actually a very light strike of Cure; can't Attack and Cast at the same time!) hopefully will keep it down. A second (the same) should make sure. They can't be THAT powerful.

     "Bustin' zombies all up ins! Who's next, huh?!"

Yumi Musumi (287) has posed:
Yumi plays another forest as she backs away and towards the side. This time, however, when she plays a card, it comes up as a series of reaching, grabbing vines and branches, as they build themselves into a linke of prickly roots and thorns to help catch the Chaos cultists to allow those more combat capable of getting to them to take them down and out. Yumi is not one of the combat capable.

"Treefolk, treefolk, that's the emissary, there's no way Tarmogoyf is hitting the field anytime soon--" She can be heard mumbling to herself as she draws another card.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     DRAGOON MAN rolls with the return of physics. He's taken a few hits, swords digging against his spectral armor, sending sparks of light and created matter all around him as he spins on his spear to slide on the ground. Gravity returns. Wonderful! With a flip, the dragoon returns to his feet, urging the civilians to start moving away from the fight, brandishing his spear in a defensive manner.

     Then things go worse. Of course they'd do something like this. Despair brings them to this low. Dragoon man's glowing eyes narrows at the sight of the Wraiths. He takes a deep breath.

     Helena casts a spell on his weapon. He gives the Necromancer a quick look, an nod of thanks and acknowledgement, before he charges foward. He didn't /strictly/ need it, but it will help a lot.

     Dragoon Man charges at the Wraiths, bellowing an imcomprhensible roar of wrath, bright light pouring out of his mouth as he thrusts his spear at the Wrath the blast builds up. The Dragoon ducks under weapons, shoving his Great Spear up to an spectral enemy, sweeping a leg to a Cultist, his low roar exploding out into a full blown, single-point inhuman roar.

     Dragoon Man breaths out a large cone of purificating Light. This is going to hurt, he's a little vulnerable like this -- but it's worth it.

Neva Fernandez (644) has posed:
    Neva growls as the carnage keeps happening around her, and she glances at her hand real quick, "No need to Pyroclasm yet..." She mumbles, before she calls out, "My turn! Untap! Drawing.." She tugs a card from her deck, before glaring at the undeads coming out and points at one guy trying to pull off their own invocation, "YOU!" She reaches out then taps her Island and Mountain, before throwing a card down, "RUNE SNAG!" With that, unless the Cultist knows to tap 2 mana to continue its invocation, the guy will find itself NOT bringing any undeads back.

    The Young Pyromancer grins as it watches, "About time..." Before it summons an Elemental from the spell being cast. "This should keep them busy!"

    Neva then throws down an Izzet Boilerworks, and pulls the Island back into her hand, "This should ramp me up nicely." As pipes and boilers manifest around her.

Oberyn Levy (634) has posed:
    Oh, good. Monsters now... but at least that's something Oberyn can cope with. Kind of. It makes more sense, anyway, than people /breaking reality/.

    But, you know... everything seems to be under control here, right? Everyone knows what they're doing, cultists are taking a bit of a beating, things should be fine. There's no reason to get to close to an antimagic void, risk de-magification just 'cause people might get hurt or worse. What difference would one more caster make in there?

    No! That's not how legendary heroes act, you're /not/ gonna puss out of this one, Levy!

    But those cultists are turning into what are probably /horrible soul-stealing abominations/ or something why can't the Judges and Dragoons and whoever deal with it? And look, the offworlders got this, with that crazy not-quite magic! It's /fine/! Everything will be /okay/!

    As the young mage continues his internal debate, not entirely sure whether he's trying to talk himself into fighting or fleeing at the point, he does at least do /something/ productive - a quick chant calls to hand a white-bound, vaguely shimmery floating book. It's probably costing a fortune in MP to keep around right now, but if anything tries to get outside the sphere of depleted magic nearby, at least he'll be ready to tag it with a good solid Banishra.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The cultist's blade falls short as Dominic skewers the woman. She seizes up and falls over, dead in a single stroke. In such a state she has not even a chance to barter her life to Chaos in a final sacrifice for power. It is, perhaps, the most merciful thing he could have done in some ways. The other cultists observe Dominic dispatch them, and they fall back, drinking from vials, likely ETHER concentrate, as they promptly deal with the problem by throwing Fire and Fira at it. Dominic gets little time to grieve and comprehend what he has done, as survival continues to be a problem. Thankfully, Kyra manages to heal the remaining civilians in the car before the fire hits, and they're able to scramble to safety. A number of people can probably count a Hyral as their savior today.

The mummy begins to lurch towards Dominic and Landon with a smooth, unnaturally fast gait, but Reina blindsides it with a photon blade slash! There is a flash of green Photon energy as the weapon carves into its side, leaving it open for Landon and Dominic to deal with it. Landon takes advantage of the opportunity to roundhouse kick it, but it takes more to keep a Mummy down. It leaps towards Landon, attempting to grapple him and drain his energy to repair the Mummy's own undead body.

Helena invests the Dragoons with a measure of her power, allowing them to strike at the ethereal enemies more easily. Chaos was not defeated by one man in ancient times, as the story goes, and Jobs are meant to work together to gain their most powerful effects. Helena seems to not have any problems with this. On his side, DRAGOON MAN also works to protect the people from the forces of Chaos, blocking to let anyone caught behind the lines of battle escape. He breathes Light at the Undead, the holy power washing over the minor Chaos Undead and searing them, driving them back and leaving his area clear for the moment, buying him some breathing room.

Neva assists with this, as she uses her Blue Control power to begin interdicting some of the Chaotic invocations. They call out to Chaos, but the power cannot reach them, runes glowing in the air around them. They do not have the magic themselves to compensate for the draining power, several of them perishing with their calls unanswered.

By now the KIRIN forces have secured their side of the Highway, safely getting the civilians who are capable of being moves to safety and providing a wall of death for any Cultist who doesn't have another Rasp Grenade to throw. Thank goodness, they seem to be short on those now. The soldiers professionally focus fire on anything they can get a clean shot on. Audrey, meanwhile, blindsides the Ghost with an anti-Undead attack. The Chaos Undead shrieks as the Light-Elemental strike punches into it, scattering a good amount of its essence across the highway to vaporize in foul smoke. Bloodrake follows up in a one-two strike with Ninjutsu Arts to consume the creature in a pillar of flame. With a shriek, it vanishes in pain and despair.

Seto Kaiba pulls aggro, taking down a couple more cultists. But while the cultists are all too human, the undead are less so. The Ghosts and Wraiths prove to be resistant to physical damage, many attacks going right through them, and their draining attacks are sapping at the Giant and Judge Man. Kaiba seems to be keeping the monsters bogged down with his, however, as the monsters have no care for tactics, simply seeking to drain away the energies of their foes and incorporate it into themselves. This could go on for a while if he doesn't come up with some kind of stalemate breaker.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Yumi finds herself on the wrong side of a bunch of cultists as a ghost attempts to eat her treefolk, and several incendiaries are thrown at her, exploding with a bright flash and powerful shrapnel wave. Pretty class red stuff, but what can she do about it?

Oberyn Levy finds himself standing guard on the edge on the distortion zone, and he begins dropping Banishra on any Chaos Undead. One takes it square on the existence, exploding in Light as it pours through him. Hell yeah, he's helping!

At this point, however, the united forces begin to push back, even the horrible resurrected forces not proving to be enough to significantly stop the gathered group. The remaining human cultists break, turning to try to flee the area and preserve their lives, leaving Smoke Bombs in an attempt to escape the area.

The Undead, however, care not for such things. They hunger. They will feed and flourish or they will die hungry.

Yumi Musumi (287) has posed:
Yumia continues getting pulled as ghosts and stuff aggress her. "Nooo!" She yelps. There's a blinding flash, then a descending yelp as Yumi falls down a sewer hole. There is about five seconds before she realizes she's trapped and there's no way out, inhaling harshly as she lets out a squeak. "No, no, no, no--" Comes from the claustrophobic deckmaster, before she increases her grip on the Bird of Paradise. It gives a comforting chirp.

"I'm out." She says, whispering softly, taking a long, deep breath before she starts drawing the mental image of her room from the view inside of her closet, then takes a step forward, before disappearing.

That'll at least confuse the cultists for awhile.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     With the cultists becoming undead and ghosts and wraiths and things like that, Kaiba is getting a bit annoyed. After all, they're fairly resistant to blunt attacks, apparently. He sighs. He does have a number of monsters with energy attacks, but /none/ of them are in his hand at the moment. So. He does the only thing he can do, at the moment.

     He draws his card for his next turn.

     His eyes narrow slightly.

     He lifts his card towards the sky, dramatically. Time to break the stalemate. He speaks aloud to the ghosts, whether they can hear him or not.

     "Before, you had zero chance. But now... I say you don't even have a /ghost/ of a chance in this duel! And so... I TRIBUTE JUDGEMAN AND HITOTSU-ME GIANT, in order to summon..."

     "THE BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGON!"

     The two monsters break apart, as they are tributed for the summoning of the monster powerful Dragon in all of Duel Monsters. The massive white dragon appears in the middle of the battlefield, letting out a roar. Kaiba still plans to avoid collateral damage as /much/ as possible, but still. This dragon will help a lot.

     As will a card he has had since his first turn.

     "And now... Blue-Eyes White Dragon. BURST STREAM OF DESTRUCTION!"

     He plays a special Spell Card. Only usable with a Blue-Eyes on the field. The Burst Stream of Destruction. The Blue-Eyes opens its mouth, and lets loose a /massively/ powerful energybeam, angled at all nearby monsters. It's at least aiming /down/, though, so the property damage would just be things like the 'street' rather than 'whole buildings'. And, while the effect of the 'Burst Stream of Destruction' spell is 'destroy all of your opponent's monsters', it'll still be limited to those directly fighting him, most likely.

     Still, this should be a good turning point for Kaiba's battle.

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
@emit
     Landon looks over at Reina. He wants to say something, but he doesn't want to sound like a complete clown on a first meeting. Instead, he gives her a broad smile and a nod.

     It's short-lived. His kick, and his spells, didn't do anything to keep the Chaos Mummy down. It lunges at him, claws raking.

     And it grabs him. It gets the Prince in a hold and starts drinking him dry of MP - what little he had after the Rasp Bomb, anyway. Landon struggles as he feels his power draining away, slipping into the Mummy to heal and restore the foul thing's broken form.

     Worse, the thing has him bound, tight. It's stronger than he is by a fair amount, and it clenches down on his ribs like an iron vice. It's all he can do not to scream.

     Landon attempts to throw it off, but the Mummy is much stronger than he is. Much stronger. Panic starts to set in. What if he dies here? What if he was killed? What a stupid decision! He made a stupid decision, and-

     And nothing. He's an al Cid. He's not *permitted* to die here.

     As he feels his cracked ribs starting to crack further, Landon makes a decision. He forces his hand upwards and shoves it into the Mummy's face.

     "You want my MP?" Landon hisses, "Take it, then, you monster."

     Cure-1 isn't exactly SHAKUNETSU SANSHAIN FINGER or anything, but it probably will give the thing enough pause for Landon to get away. Which is really all he wants.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    When Reina sees the mummy is injured, but now trying to attack another fighter, she shakes her head. "You're not gonna win today!" She calls out as she attempts to slash again with her sword, this time going vertically.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    The undead Helena has out are indistrcimiantely destroyed with the CHAOS undead. It was for the best, she muses, they served their roles...and Helena TAKES back her investment from the ones remaining...her MP bar gains enough...just enough to cover the original expense. She grins, and starts moving forward, slowly at first, however, she eventually breaks into a full out run, leaping over debries and damaged and broken lives...the fighting still happening, as Helena moves after some of the retreating Chaos Cultists.

    She lands, and starts the chase, making a good deal of 'cat and mouse, as her blades charged with the negitive energy she has mastered...

    She comes down, towards a pair, aiming to sink her blades into them, aiming to drain their life force into her own...trying to draw more than that...memories, knowledge.

    There might not be anything of use, but she can also try asking their corpses after wards. "Shhhh...only dreams now."

Neva Fernandez (644) has posed:
    Neva in the mean time continues to take her time, untapping and then drawing. "Mmmhm, this should be fun in a couple of turns." With that, she drops another Island into play and begins tapping her lands, "Equipping the Elemental with the Runechanter's Pike! Pike has +1/+0 boost on account of the Rune Snag in the Graveyard.." The Artifact manifests in the Elemental's possession, hovering over, as Neva grins, "ATTACK PHASE! Tapping the Elemental for 2 damage! GO BOY!"

    With that, the Red Elemental Token roars and charges into battle, aiming to maul any oncoming cultists! Being that it's a 2/1, it would be fairly easy to be taken out.

    After that, Neva taps another R1, and puts another Young Pyromancer into play, who appears and nods to the first one. "Two Young Pyromancers! Huzzah!"

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
    "Status report," Audrey demands on her comm.
    "Cultists are retreating."
    "Civilians safe. Footage recovered."
    "Good. Get those drones back up and hold potential scavengers at bay. One of you go secure the flying one's wreckage and... clean up if it did any damage," Audrey responds, intoning the word 'clean up' in a very precise manner.

    There's still undead left, though!

    She slams her fists together, another burst of pure white light and electrical energy condensing in them. "Godhand."

    She starts punching the air, vaguely in the direction of shambling undead remnants (and possibly one or two of the cultists, if they aren't too far already). This causes fists of light (and some of lightning) to appear and smash into her foes, essentially a flurry of ranged punches. In theory what's left of the enemies isn't too threatening, but it isn't professional to underestimate your foes and possibly underperform as a result.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra hurls herself out the window at last, escaping the downed train just as the fire spreads throughout it. She rolls along the ground a few feet before managing to push herself back up, looking frantically for her friends. As she does, she spies the Mummy attacking Landon, head-on, and her heart nearly stops. Dominic does not seem to be in that much better shape either but he doesn't have an undead actively draining his MP.

    Spreading out her fingers, white light dances between them as she dashes into the tight knot. The curaga flares brightly, Kyra taking full advantage of the righted physics and her stable Focus upon the attack.

    Curaga seems to be less focused on the undead and more upon her injured friends but there's more than enough power there to cause some collateral undead damage. If this happens, Kyra will be more than pleased. "/Fuck undead/." she hisses with iron conviction.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     The cultists are fleeing with the remains of their pathethic little lives. The undeads are being taken care of by the local forces, as well as Extraversal individuals helping. Inside the train, he knows Landon, Dominic and Kyra, in particular, are there. Soan can't help but to be worried, but they can handle themselves. They worked together, afte rall.

     This leaves him another duty. Dragoon Man's burning eyes glares at the fleeing hides of the Chaos Cultists. Stabbing one last wraith with his enhanced Great Spear, the Dragoon takes in a deep breath. The wretched stench of chaos fills his nostrils, all and each sadly quite familiar to him. It's a wrong smell, one that shouldn't be, yet is. He can smell where they are going, where they have went.

     Their entire path as they run. They will not run for long.

     The situation contained here, DRAGOON MAN crouches down on the ground, gathering energy, then springs upward in his mighty leap to chase after the fleeing cultists, flying in the raining air wordlessly.

     He can smell them. They will not go far. Maybe he can interrogate one.

     Unlikely, however.

Oberyn Levy (634) has posed:
    Helping! Whoo! Picking off strays and the over-ambitious may not exactly be the sort of thing that gets stories written about you, but at least it's doing /something/. Besides, the back row is where Oberyn's /supposed/ to be - let the meat shields get up close and into the middle of things.

    "... at least they're weak to magic... guess that explains breaking rea-- WHAT."

    Chaos cult: Bad but understandable. Antimagic field: Okay, that is crazy but whatever. Soul-eating undead: Sure, why not, monsters is monsters. A FREAKIN' DRAGON. On RAMUH. What. The HELL. No, Oberyn will not try to /attack/ it, he knows what the bad guys are here. But Kaiba's new pet /is/ going to leave him with a few questions between spells.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
Landon and the Light Warrior channel does some work reassuring Dominic that what he did was necessary. And on some deeper level, he understands that taking a life is a consequence of being one who trains his entire life for personal sword combat. He just hadn't expected it to be here and now, and the entire situation was a bit overwhelming for him all at once.

He takes off his beret as holds it to his chest, murmuring to the dead cultist, "I'm sorry," for a brief moment before it goes back on his head. All in all it takes him 5-10 seconds considering.

Kyra and Landon help for differing reasons. Kyra's White Magic can't heal the severe shellshock and morale hit that Dominic took just killing a woman, even in self defense. But the wounds from the crash are closing and it does cause him to break his self-introspection. And seeing that Landon is in trouble spurs him into action, "Right! You're right, Big G."

He can't say it out loud due to being nobility, but he does echo Kyra's sentiment.

Instead of that, though, he takes a certain amount of his self-directed rage and directs it at not-self. As Landon attacks the Mummy, Dominic converges upon it as well, taking swift sword strikes and stabs to try to hit at vital points and bring it down in conjunction with Landon.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Landon grapples with the Mummy. The problem with escaping a Mummy is it has a /lot/ of ways to lock someone down. However, anyone who knows the basics of Undead functionality in Galianda know that Cure spells are effective. Which is why the CURE-1 Spell applied to the Mummy causes it to reel, and Landon breaks free for a critical moment. Dominic and Reina strike, the GUARDIAN cleaving it vertically to cut into the undead, while Dominic spears it from the other side. Kyra, meanwhile makes sure no one dies, which is /super important/ right now considering it's kind of a war zone. The Mummy, meanwhile, dissolves in stinking vapor as it crumbles away, overwhelmed.

Neva sends forth one of the burning Elementals. With its augmented Pike, it quickly strikes a Mummy through the burning, enchanted weapon searing at the creature. The Mummy does damage in return however, likely sending the Elemental to the graveyard. At least it took the Mummy with it!

The fleeing Chaos Cultists get little respite. Helena strikes from the Darkness, draining away their life force and trying to take part of their knowledge into herself. She might see familiar things, as deep pangs of hunger resonate though her body, visions of cold and starving life deep below the Highway, where even the eternal rains do not reach.

For Helena, this is likely a depressingly common result.

DRAGOON MAN, however, quickly cleans up himself. There is a lunge as the Dragoon Jumps through the air, following his nose in ways that birds with oversized birds do not. The Chaos Cultists scream as they see the DRAGOON MAN, a member of the group that is a sworn enemy to them chasing them. A couple of them fight to the death. One hurls themself off of the Highway in an attempt to escape through death.

The KIRIN fire team moves smoothtly, like a well-oiled machine. They might have known what Audrey was going to say before she said it, but the orders are still necessary. There is no sassback. They move to quickly do as ordered. One of them moves to ensure that the 'cleanup' is handled. Everything seems solid on their end. Audrey, meanwhile, is more concerned with direct action against the Chaotic remnants. The Godhand technique crashes down, scattering the fleeing cultists and sending several to fall to the ground, stunned, while the weakened Ghost vaporizes. Helena probably vultures the fallen quickly thereafter, she's an opportunitst like that.

Seto Kaiba slams down The Business. The Blue Eyes White Dragon crushes into the area, and the Undead go reeling. Kaiba gets to look really cool and dramatic. There are speedlines as he orders the Burst Stream of Destruction. The overwhelming firepower explodes outwards, the Dragon opening its maw and exhaling a blast that blows a hole in the street. Some might consider it a fair trade for what it does to the undead and fleeing cultists. When the light dies, the area is smoking and steaming. But it is finally clear.

The aftermath is... oddly quiet after the battle. The wind blows, but there remaind a gaping hole in the sounds and life of Ramuh. But the cultists are gone, at least.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     The aftermath is, indeed, oddly quiet.

     Until Kaiba's jet flies into the area. Mokuba is currently in the front seat, piloting it over to the area. He lands it on the nearby street, though he doesn't get out, at least not yet.

     Kaiba, in the meantime, just remains still, looking over the battlefield. He is considering who best to ask about what exactly the cultists worship.

     Because he /hates/ people who worship what are probably ancient magical beings.

     Blame this on a certain pharaoh he hates.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena drains the life, sucking it into her body and refueling her MP, and HP. This is a horrible act, but Helena is a survivalist by nature...her world needs to be maintained for the survival of her...and who is most imporant to her. She doesn't bother raising the two back...she has all she needs. She turns, the knives being cleaned before being resheathed and turns to walk away towards the approaching Murasame lines.

Neva Fernandez (644) has posed:
    And then the world around Neva Fernandez is quiet, she blinks a bit as everything settles. She stands up and packs her deck, sliding it back into her backpack along with her collapsable table, and then stretches her arms out a bit... "Well... I guess that's that... Now... What's missing..."

    After a few moments pause, she grins and clicks her fingers, and taps into the local Blue Mana, and pours it into the form of a Blistercoil Weird, which wobbles back into Existence! "BOB, YOU'RE ALIVE!!" She grins and tackle hugs the Weird, which just Wobbles, and sighs a little. Yes, somehow it does that.

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
     It's over. Landon runs his fingers through his hair and looks over at Kyra and Dominic. "Well," he says, carefully enunciating every word, "Thank goodness for that. And for a fine White Mage to back us up. Thank you, Lady Hyral. I'm fairly certain a large number of people are still alive thanks to you. Good work."

     "And you, Sir Masoch...although that was a foolhardy risk."

     "And yes, I'm aware that it takes a fool to know a fool...nonetheless, I appreciate it. On my own, that would've been much worse...and a lot of people would've suffered."

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     Dragoon Man chases after the cultists. As expected, they would rather die than letting themselves be capture, or even worse. He don't give the one jumping off the highway even the doubt of survival -- he fearlessly jump off after the Cultist, spear-first to finish off what he started.

     But evantually, there is no more cultists to chase. Still, he chases after for a few more time, then when he is certain the stench is gone, he leaps back toward the train-accident location, to make sure if things are allright.

     They are. Good.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
As it all starts to come down to a controlled situation, Dominic stares upwards at the stormy skies of Ramuh. Tonight he felt changed, looking up and letting the rain hit his face. It occurs to him on some level that the rains of Ramuh had already cleared the blood from his sword. He tilts his head down and flicks it, cleaning water off it before sheathing it.

Perhaps, that most, embodied the Ramuhan. The storm is dangerous and fierce, but for those who live in it, every day the streets are washed clean by the rains. Change is constant and the people of Ramuh live that. If he was to lead this city like his father, he thinks, it is good he learned this lesson harshly and in his youth.

But the storm is hope as well. It means that while he can never change what happened, he can understand that the storm strikes down and then washes away obstacles to make way for strength. Dominic will think on this later, probably while secretly being sick to his stomach about tonight.

For now, he lifts his head again and smiles to the Prince, "Thank you, Your Highness. I am glad that I was not alone today. This would have been much worse without good friends near me."

Kyra, as well, gets a soft and somber smile.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "...we got lucky today." Kyra says to Landon quietly, "If they had more Rasp Grenades I wouldn't have been able to help so many people." That somber smile from Dominic is returned, not without noticing his sort of subdued attitude. She nears the pair, getting close enough to...

    Whack them both upside the head, one hand to each head, at the same time. "What the hell you guys! Running out there like that! What if...what if you were..." she doesn't finish that thought but they can tell that she means to say 'recognized'. Both were highly placed government officials-Landon being the highest. "You're both lucky every damn cultist here didn't come to stab you in your faces! Rrrgh!" she stomps a booted foot to the ground, which jingles musically.

    She turns away and throws her hands in the air. "I will have dead friends at this rate!"

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena slides next to Kyra suddenly, "Iiii won't die." She sing sons to Kyra.

Oberyn Levy (634) has posed:
    With the forces of Chaos defeated for now, there isn't a whole lot left to keep Oberyn here. There'll probably be teams of professional white mages coming soon or something to help whatever wounded have not already been evacuated. All that's left for him to do is summon his trusty chocobo matrix, and--

    Summon up his handy summon matrix chocobo, and--

    Call up a blasted chocobo you useless piece of--

    With a heavy sigh, Oberyn pockets the clearly faulty-once-again summon matrix and trudges off, away from the site of today's devastation. Apparently, he needs to go visit a little unmarked repair shop... again.

Landon al Cid (642) has posed:
     Landon gets hit in the head. This could go a lot worse if he wasn't A) an understanding and decent man and B) a teenager being interacted with by a teenage girl. He rubs the back of his head gently. "Well, I..."

     "We would've been in trouble either way. This way, more people are saved. I know it was stressful, but...we managed to help a lot of people tonight, Lady Hyral. I'm in your debt."

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     DRAGOON MAN lands roughly where the incidents happened. He stands back up looking around with a brief look as the Guard is coming in to secure the situation, standing tall at one point, staring down at the assembled people.

     He observes for a moment, looking at where the Light Warriors, scanning around the area to see how it is. No. He can't smell Chaos anymore. That's good. After remaining with a few more moments, the Dragoon leaps off, without saying much of anything.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Curses, princely charm. Kyra's one weakness. Her anger falters in the face of this, "It's true, we did help a lot of people." she agrees. "That was a fine accent you put on there, by the way." She giggles at the thought of Big G.

    Kyra's chiding of the two nobles is interrupted by SUDDEN HELENA. Kyra shrieks and slips behind Landon.

Seto Kaiba (623) has posed:
     Kaiba does a /bit/ of looking around the battlefield, out of curiousity. Mostly checking if the enemy dropped any Rasp Grenades that didn't detonate, or if there are any shells left. He uses his Dragon as sort of a wall to /try/ and keep people from seeing him doing so, and would only pick up remains if he was /certain/ no one was looking.

     Otherwise, since his search is likely to come up futile, instead he's going to just get on his jet and fly home now.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The area, after the cultists are repelled, gain the presence of a great deal of local police as well as Judge Harlaus. Kaiba might be able to try to pull shenanigans, but disturbing a crime scene is proooobably against the law, and he and his flashy Dragon tends to draw a lot of attention.