1307/A Spark In The Cold

A Spark In The Cold
Date of Scene:	11 January 2015
Location:	Galianda
Synopsis:	An attack on a town in Shiva involving extraversal forces creates great unrest, and might provide the spark some might desire to fan the flames of war...
Cast of Characters:	Staren, 134, 342, 546, 626, 627, 643, 650, 655, 667, Lyria Mason, 675

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Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The town of Turan is a classic Shivan settlement. The walled settlement is an efficient, self-contained apparatus. Galiandan magitech has been rigged to allow passersby to clear the streets as they navigate, and the walls themselves hold defensive emplacements in case of attack by animals... Or other Shivan tribes.

The town is in a celebratory mood, as a large group of warriors show off some of the spoils of a recent battle: Golden and jewled objects, ornaments, carved beast tusks and trophies, as well as weapons, armor, and Gil. The more utilitarian items are being offloaded from the vehicle to be distributed through the town, while the rest is to go to the chieftan of this area, a man named Tarl.

The celebratory mood is quickly interrupted as a scorching red line sizzles through the air, striking a lookout. He falls, screaming, and hits the ground. Everyone turns to look at the smouldering body.

A moment later, flame erupts from the braziers, as Fire and Stone elementals arise, attacking within the walls of the city. Panic begins to immediately spread as the whirring in the distance grows.

Breaching a hill, an armored snowmobile appears, a mounted laser on the hood visible as a cigar-chomping, hulking man with gnarleg, knotty green skin hoves into view. He is wearing a leather jacket with a thunderbolt shattering a skull on the back. The same insignia is on the snowmobile. "CHARGE!" He bellows.

A moment later, others crest the area. Orks and Trolls, all of them. Several of them wear heavy armor. A couple of them sport gleaming chrome limbs and faceplates. Another one is festooned with shamanistic fetishes, while another looks heavily distracted. The distracted one in the back speaks, "The elementals still have them tied up, hit them fast!"

As one, they race towards the closing gate, but the shaman gestures. A titanic rush of snow and ice explodes into the air as a spirit of the snow reaches forwards to wrench the gates open, the snowmobiles wushing between its legs to roar into the city itself.

Upon sight of the unusual beings, there are even more screams. "MONSTERS!" Some yell. "EXTRAVERSALS!" are the cry of others. Either way, they struggle to mount a defense from the unexpected attack, hands firming on axes and swords as they move to begin meeting the charge.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena was actually in the area to investigate a lead she had from a certain leader...but this attack...

    Helena dives down for cover, wearing a black fur coat and actual modest clothing for once. It was still very form fitting, but for Helena this is almost nun-like. It was more out of not wanting to freeze her ascets off than any change of heart. She watches for the moment, noticing the leader in the distance...how very interesting, she thinks. She isn't sure this is random, however, given that this place isn't exactly easy to get to, and...why? She noticed the crome on these guys, that kinda thing here would cause more long term discomfort.

    Helena, however, does have a place to start, she see's the ork with the skull on his body, or whatever they call this creature. Ugly, is what she thinks...even she wouldn't ever feel any mild curiosity towards this thing in the bedroom.

    She guages her direction to him, and stays low, aiming to use the terrain to cover her. Let the heros and shivan's care for their own...she was more curious to the cause.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Having absolutely zero role in Galianda politics had its benefits. With no responsibility in representing the ruling powers of Galianda, Kyra Hyral more or less had free reign to hold any opinion she wanted. Furthermore, she could /operate/ where she wanted. It helped that white mages were generally welcome pretty much anywhere so even while tensions were high between Shiva and Ramuh at the moment, the likes of Kyra would not just be turned away. Though it may seem like she's just here to enjoy the local color, she's really far more interested in the general Shivan sentiment and mood. Were they really being whipped into an anti-Ramuh frenzy?

    It didn't really seem like it. Satisfied after spending a few hours there, Kyra was ready to move on to the next city.

    Until the orks showed up. Naturally, the first thing she does is try to shoulder through the panicking crowds to the fallen Tarl to see if she can actually /do/ anything for him. The second thing is, of course, to scream about it to the Union and film the invaders with her phone. /Priorities/.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
There is no way that the heir apparent of one of Ramuha's largest and most influencial companies could make an appearance here today. Even the act of defending Shivan citizens would be inflammatory and easily spun, not to mention any ties to people shouting things like 'Extraversals' and 'Monsters'. It's similar to Landon having a presence at that Chaos Attack recently, it's just bad to do.

So Dominic Masoch is not here today, despite the fact that Kyra put out a call for help and that a call for heroism tugged at his very heartstrings. His noble obligations and a requirement to play politics means that he is stuck at home, in his suite, staring out over Ramuha with his door locked throwing a suitable teenage tantrum and not answering anyone. His dad didn't let him go play hero, so he's stormed off.

But you know who is here? A Knight. That's right, riding in on a Madpony is a Knight! He certainly looks outdated, clad head to toe in thick plates of tarnished armor that look like the whole suit would be more at home in a museum or a private collection than it would be on a battlefield, he rides in on the back of a domesticated Madpony. Across his back is a great blade that looks equally antiquated and stolen from a private display.

He brings the horse to a halt, the beast bucking and braying as he says, in a distorted and digitized voice, "Stop, foul deviants! By the Honor of Knighthood I will see you brought to justice!"

    With a leap, he jumps off the horse, which promptly gallops away. There's a flourish when he lands as he swings the slightly-dull blade and some heavy rattling from his too-big armor.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Galianda... /Shiva/ under attack? And a Dome city too. The instant the news reaches her, a rare type of anger works it's way under Cirra's skin.

    A Ramuh airship flies overhead and it's boarding ramp drops open, a single armored figure dropping out of the low flying aircraft. The Armored figure hits the ground with a *WHUMP* in a three point stance directly ahead of the snowmobile riding Orcs.

    The woman stands up straight, aparently ready to be run over by the marauders.

    Red visor of the armored helmet looks on, unswayed by the approaching vehicles. She lifts her arm and swings it out to the side, the crystaline Judge Blade appearing in her hand as it it cut through the front of a snow mobile.

    "You've attacked the wrong place, Creature." Cirra's cold harsh voice comes from the helmet.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    It's been a while since Nozomi's sortied. Her focus has been on her own world and the JSDF's regular deployments of Taiga, which themselves have been infrequent and low-key. In short, she's pretty well out of practice for being in a combat zone. Which might explain why, the moment she's through the gate and riding towards the city on the back of a sleek back mechatiger, her face is already growing tense. She at least thought to grab a heavy coat, but a coat's not going to protect her from a chaotic, concerted assault.

    "Taiga...!" The magitech predator doesn't respond with words. Instead, his pair of shoulder-mounted cannons smoothly track towards the hordes flooding into the city, and begin opening fire in a rapid left-right-left-right cadence. Softball-sized balls of yellow energy hammer into the ranks of the extraversal marauders, the best Taiga can manage before closing ranks. It should get their attention, at least.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    From Skyrim to Shiva, Eiko's recent wandering hasn't seen too much change in terms of weather. That massive fur coat she recently picked up is seeing a lot of use, but even with that, she's wishing she had something yet more effective at dealing with the cold. She's past grumbling about it, at least, having been out here awhile, and the inside of the city has less of a wind-chill issue than the wilderness.

    In fact, her presence has nothing to do with this invasion at all. She's out here on a hunting trip--a training camp, of sorts. As far as the people here are aware, she's just some weird samurai, here to gain experience.

    A mechanized army is a little more than she planned on taking on, so the sudden arrival of the elementals, and then the snowmobiles, has her stopped and staring for a moment, while she tries to work out what the hell is going on. Invasion? Ohh, shit. And her without any support.

    "Bleh, no help for it. Best place to be is..." ...mooching off someone else's kills. She's going to find where the defense is gathering, and head that way quick as she can.

    And look, a knight on a horse! Seems like a good guy to be near.

    "HEYYY. I'm with you, man!"

    And yet, all she seems to have to work with is a sheathed katana. She's swinging it around without any apparent attention of actually drawing it.

Lyria Mason has posed:
@emit Being a Geomancer has it's perks like right now, Lyria had been moving across the ice and more correctly /surfing/ more or less upon it using her power to manipulate things to allow her to pas she's kicking up a lot of snow and ice as she moves for the city she has no idea just what the things are attacking the city are. She has no idea just why, but she knows what it could mean.

It could mean things could be deep sixed for relations with the extraverse and her world whatever happens things were going to be rough at best but there was no time to wait she was not alone Remora was moving along at high speed hovering above the snow and leaving a good bit in it's wake as it moved. She continued with her hand and arm gestured and kept moving towards the city, she forms a plume of ice a head which she uses to get some serious air to get over the walls with a flip and lands in a crouch as she arrives and she goes to pull one of her pistols to leave the other hand free.

She's now making for the attackers and she tilts her head as she beholds the orks riding on snowmobiles and notes.

"Your not welcome on this Plate or any other."

She then opens fire sending several magically charged rounds in rapid succession at one of the attackers, and Remora is just catching up, it will be a moment longer, before it's here and can get into the action.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
    There was ateam of KIRIN security forces that had been dispatched to this town several days prior. These troops are rapidly moving into position when the attack wave of extraversals begins to rush towards the town. Each of them is equipped with rather standard KIRIN kit.

    These guys are decently trained and move into positions to begin to open fire on the invaders. For some unfortunate reason, it seems the shipment that would have contained their heavy weapons never made it. Must have been the Shivan snows that took it. They'll have to make due with just their standard rifles and sidearms and body armor.

Staren has posed:
    Staren comes out of the warpgate, runs along the great span, then dives off at the closest point, orange, insectoid energy wings appearing on his back. He's covered head to toe in heavy armor of rounded red plates, though his helmet has a transparent faceplate to show who he is. If the tail-armor and the 'ears' in his helmet don't give it away, anyway...

    As he flies towards the town, he curses at the raiders riding in the gate ahead of him. "Damn it!" He holds his arms out and his armor deploys a half-dozen tiny missiles, which try to home in on the snowmobiles, penetrate them, and explode. He's not risking using the /big/ explosives inside the dome!

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    It's not terribly much later than Nozomi that Sakura will show up. She's not dressed appropriately for the weather, but the ninja with a slight side of Dancer is able to burn a tiny bit of chakra to keep herself warm; she'll be forced to withdraw that in battle proper, but at that point she'll probably have other concerns. Beyond that, she doesn't know enough about the local arrangements to do much more than play medic.

    Which is what she's really good at, anyways. She'll look out over the area of the clash, holding herself back for the moment to try and take a better accounting of the situation before she'll act. Also to try to figure out who, if anyone, is actually what might be called in charge here.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Far away from the emerging battlefront, in another part of the domed city, a handful of tiny drones; little more than spherical mechanical beetles; watch the chaos unfold with their monocular, shuttered eyes. Attached to the backside walls of buildings where they won't be noticed, they abandon the task of silent observation that they had held to for the last twenty four hours, taking to the air where they converge on a predetermined location high above the city streets. The portal they open is barely noticeable; a glowing blue speck against the sky, but what comes through it certainly is. As the dome fills with the roar of gunfire and the clash of blades, the dull thrum of hundreds of metallic wings joins the din; accompanying a veritable torrent of glittering steel insects flooding in through the breach in space. Spreading out in every direction, the swarm homes in on active magitech in the area, alighting atop everything from defensive guns to street lights, before sharply and violently beginning to siphon their power with crackles of arcane energy.

    As the saying goes, 'where there's smoke, there's fire'. The appearance of a swarm of noxines is the usual prelude to the appearance of the infamous Xelor himself. Shortly after the two forces joined battle lines, he teleports in with a brief flash of static, directly in between the city's defenders, and the ork and troll raiders, making no effort to be inconspicuous. As the bullets and missiles fly towards the aggressors, a barely visible pulse of blue light emanates from him, washing over the breadth of the street. Where it travels, projectiles halt in mid air, turning the deadly volley into a diorama piece on the spot. "My sincere apologies for these low-class thugs. Were it up to me, your city would be destroyed in a much more efficient manner. However, if you leave all your valuables here, I'm sure they'll get bored and leave right away. I'm not being paid to be here, so I'd rather not waste my energy killing anyone."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The Orks and Trolls start meeting resistance. The cybernetically enhanced street samurai collide directly with axe-wielding Vikings and Hunters with bows and guns. A Black Mage begins throwing attack spells at the elementals, while a Chemist hurls potions at people who look like they need healing.

KIRIN forces find themselves under attack by a couple snipers on the ridge. Whizzing gun reports, unusual noises for this world, echo through the air. Meanwhile, the mysterious knight gets the attention of one of the chromed-out Orks. He withdraws a katana that gleams with a diamond-edge coating and laughs. "What kind of sorry drek is this? I'm gonna cut you in half!" With a thrum, the Ork roars forward, leaning over to slash past the Mysterious Knight Who Is Definately Not Dominic.

A Troll goes flying as Cirra cleaves into the front of the snowmonile, and hits thr ground roughly. It doesn't even seem phased as it rolls, pushing itself upwards as the snowmobile explodes in the background. "You have no idea how bad an idea that was, chummer." He unlimbers a combat shotgun, pump it, and begins advancing, firing slugs with every step.

Lyria attacks the the heavily armed gang, only to find herself faced with a goggled Ork with some odd-looking guns. "HEY HEY HEY!" He yells getting struck by a couple bullets and staggering from elemental blasts. "Cute trick there, kid! Try mine!" He responds by leveling the guns and firing... Liquid? A gel-like substance fires at Lyria, attempting to douse her in some kind of goo. Should she get hit, she'll find that the goo happens to contain a powerful tranquilization agent.

Staren continues to blast the snowmobiles, trying to deprive them of their transportation. This buys the defenders some critical moments, but the shaman-looking Orc looks up, pointing at Staren. The massive ice-beast that was holding thegate open turns, stomping towards Staren and raising a large fist to smash down towards him!

Meanwhile, Sakura finds herself beset upon by fire and stone elementals with the rest of the defenders. They seem to be pretty average versions of the type, but there's a number of them. They seem to be more interested in causing collateral damage than killing people though, oddly enough.

And then Nox appears. Active magitech begins to get drained, the street warming systems that had been maintained up until now quickly growing cold. Street lights begin to go out, and veicles and defensive emplacements find their systems being rapdily drained no matter how much their users try to outpace the drones. It just adds to Nox's harvest.

As soon as people realize this, panic begins to spread. The drones become the targets of desperate attacks from the defenders as they get prioritized over the gangers. "THE ENEMY!" One of the vikings shouts, hurling an axe at one of the insect-like mechanisms. "FALL BACK AND REGROUP! STAY TOGETHER!" Another yells. The hardened people of Shiva, however, seem to be fairly agreeable to Nox's terms, starting to hastily pull back from the area.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
"Tally ho, then, brave and wayward swordswoman! Let us strike these foul beings down in the name of great justice! At my side, fair maiden!" Comes the warbled and digitized voice of the Knight. He twirls the sword around himself very easily, despite its massive size in comparison to himself. He takes a couple of wobbling and rattling steps forward in his too-big armor and catches a diamond-edged katana clean to the shoulder, shearing right through the steel plates he's wearing and taking off a massive chunk of metal, though the flesh underneath is unharmed for now. The armor is pretty clearly just for show.

"Blasted fiend!" Shouts the Shitty Knight, turning to follow the ork as he slashes past him. Dominic twirls the blade into an uppercutting strike and tries to catch him with a bisecting swing. Unfortunately, the blade is pretty dulled from unuse, so it's more like taking a really hard stick to the groin. Pretty painful, still.

"Fair maiden! Could you get me his sword, that I might have a blade which doth not dulleth," The accent is very thick and cheesey. It also sounds really terrible with the voice masker.

>[Sword Studies]
    >[Breaker Thrust]

To illustrate how useless his sword is, the Knight overcharged the entire massive blade with magic and throws it into a horde of orks, wanting to blow them all sky high with his move. It's tactical and pretty great.

Except, well, for Nox. See, Nox is here and now magic from all around him is being drained. That means that the cracking, almost-explosive greatsword that the Knight had just thrown sort of... clatters uselessly into a group of orks with the rattling of metal on ground.

"The Enemy is here as well?! Of all the foul omens and portents!"

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Nozomi's blaster cannons force the gang members to scatter. Between the missiles and the cannons, the Orks and Trolls not yet engaged take cover. In the distance, the distracted-looking mage focuses, and picks up some binoculars. He looks through them at Nozomi and gestures, and a sizzling bolt of magical force explodes through the air around them.

Meanwhile, the leader continues to sit on the ridge, listening to the ongoing work of his people. There is a glint in one of his eyes, not the glint of light off an eye but something more steely. He doesn't seem intent on jumping down into that massive battle.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Hovering over Tarl, Kyra mutters something to herself. The strange magical saturation effect around her surges, the "humidity" growing worse as she places her hands upon the chief and unloads sweet, delicious healing into the man. The burns rapidly vanish, leaving behind only faint white traces on what was sundered skin. She backs away quickly since, as per the usual with leaders in Shiva, he's seconds from leaping up and running of screaming at the enemy in a berserker rage. It would be a bad day for a white mage to get caught between that.

    Knee deep in the chaos, Kyra weaves and ducks around roaring vikings and trigger-happy Orks, pulling her needlegun as she looks for a much safer position to do her work from. As she runs, something crunches loudly beneath her boot.

    When she looks down, she finds the remains of a very familiar-looking drone, "Wait, what is-" Seconds later, the very familiar owner comes showing up.

    Kyra whirls and points an accusatory finger at him, "YOUUUUUUUU!!!" Without looking, the other hand fires a dart into a Shivan warrior that runs past her. A few steps later, the man has doubled in size from the mixture contained in Kyra's dart. "Then what the hell are you even doing here!?" she screams at Nox. "Did you get bored of Hydaelyn or something!? -you know what, I don't care. GET OUT!!!"

    What might have come off as spastic flailing of a teenage girl turns out to instead be hand gestures to summon a particularly potent form of white magic: holy. An elaborate array of glowing white is etched in the ground beneath Nox, serving as a sort of celestial targeting bead, before a blast of holy energy lances down from the sky at him.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena continues to move, quietly...she opts to move slowly and avoid conflicts than engage orcs and trolls. She can see her target behind the battlefield...at least he has sense, leading from the back instead of exposing himself. She quietly focuses, aiming to try and detect anything out of the ordinary...were they're any guards? We're there anything she could detect to hinder this? She would only get one shot, and that probably wouldn't even do it...once she makes this strike, she needs to make sure it gets her the advantage, or she was going to be in trouble.

    A knife comes into her hand, focusing negitive energy into the blade. The blade, glowing in a sort of strange anti-light, absorbing any and all light near by and ready to drain the life and strength of anything it touches. This one, focusing on striking at the speed and power of the orc..if she can't take it down in one shot, then she'll tip the balance in her favor.

    The knife flies, aiming to sink it into the orc leader's center of mass, and already drawing another weapon, aiming to follow her first strike up, closing in on him.

Staren has posed:
    A shadow falls over Staren. He looks up at the fist... "Huh?" And then bolts, trying to fly away, only to get clipped and flung down into the snow! "Rrgh..." That didn't really damage him, but it's slowing him down. Nox's words come to him as he frees himself from the snow. "Monster..." What words could he possibly say to make this guy change sides? He doubts there are any, to someone who arrogantly brags about helping destroy a town. Recognizing Nox as the greatest threat in the room, Staren raises his right arm, fires the twin beam cannons on the armor, then draws his beam sword and air-charges over the snow towards him! "If lives are worth so little to you, you won't mind if we end YOURS!"

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyrais has an ork in he face and he's fairly witty too he avoids her shots that's fine for now she's trying to keep them off the locak and she knows how many others are coming at them. She sees something being launched at her and it's some sort of fluid she has no idea what it she might actually assume that it's some sort of bomb gel, or what people might call Napalm on other worlds. She's got no desire and she's forced to start moving away and she fires a number of ice shots freezing the liquid in the air, this protects her from that but it's means she's not got fire on the Ork for the moment.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    In the process of storming towards the attackers' lines and unleashing a torrent of magic-slash-energy cannon fire, Taiga suddenly veers to one side in a last-second turn that sends he and Nozomi both skidding hard. A swarm of strange mechanical insects is descending on the city, and several of them have turned right towards the robo-tiger - a particularly potent source of energy in and of himself. The split-second dodge does the trick, but it also leaves them wide-open for a blast of explosive force to hurl the both of them to the ground, hard. Nozomi lets out a hiss of pain as she tries to push herself to her feet.

    Shaking himself off quickly, Taiga's cannons track and begin firing on Nox's drones, but the beast himself is more concerned about his user. "Nozomi?" She looks up at him with a mix of embarrassment and visible hesitation. "A-ah... maybe we should... s-so you don't get so hurt protecting me, I mean..." He pauses for a moment, and then almost seems to sag. "Very well." His tone becomes almost mechanical, the life draining out of it to become a simple 'system announcement' voice. "Disengaging Independent Mode. Rerouting Gensou Engine power to motive and combat systems. Rampart Mode engaged."

    Nox's instrumentation should be able to spot the ramp-up in magical power easily. It's a single, high-power source, flaring up as the TIGER unit begins to transform, unfolding and shifting, enveloping Nozomi in a bodysuit and then in sleek black armor. Hair and eyes change, yellow sections flare brightly, and in the next moment she's launched into the air, firing off pot-shots at drones with a cold gaze...

    ...until her holographic HUD appears just long enough to direct her attention to Nox himself.

    Whatever he is, he's a magical threat to this town, with high output. There's only one way to deal with him. And that's with a full-speed charge, straight at the Xelor.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    "Mistake?" Cirra asks as she turns to look at where the Orc fell only for them to get back up. Eyes glow a golden hue behind the red visor. "When I choose a target-" Black vapours whisp out of the joints in her armor, and Cirra side steps as the first slug is fired. "It's never a mistake."

    The Dark Knight Judge turns and runs almost directly up a nearby wall and pushes off, arcing through the air as she comes down behind the Orc with the shotgun. A card appear between her fingers and she slaps it down on the ground, "The. Chains."

    Spectracle manacles appear from a blue magical circle on the gronud, reaching upt to try and bind the Orc and inflict it with Paralysis.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    "Dang, anti-magic bugs? Harsh." Eiko's muttering to herself while looking at what Nox's tiny 'bots are doing. More loudly, "...sure thing!" She's not really sure how, but hey, maybe she can figure a way. It's not like that ork is paying much attention to her. Also, she just got called a fair maiden, and feels like that deserves some return effort.

    With the street getting colder, she throws off her coat and stashes her sword. Immediately, she feels like she's going to freeze to death, barely holding back the shivers and not at all avoiding the teeth chattering. Hands free, she smacks one fist into her palm, as wisps of black smoke flow off her like an aura--briefly, soon disappearing, but leaving the effect of her magic.

    "Burn," is what she calls this one. Last time she had the chance to mess with an army in a frozen waste, she enhanced the cold. Here she's doing the opposite, flipping around a slowing debuff into a temporary boost to her mobility via conceptual magic shenanigans. She looks warm, too--maybe a little flushed, despite basically being out here in a tee and jeans.

    The magic won't last long, so she gets moving immediately. She's off like a top-class sprinter, chasing after the very same guy that took a slash at Dominic. She leaps with obviously inhuman strength, going for the ork's back in a long, low arc, pulling out her sword again in the process. Still sheathed, but all she needs it for at this moment is to twist about in the air and bring it down hard, right on the ganger's wrist. The demihuman might be tough enough not to get it broken right there, but Eiko's just after the blade, all set to leap back off and toss it Dominic's way.

    Totally Not Dominic But Some Shitty Knight, that is.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Sakura's hesitation leads to her being assaulted along with a number of others. She's probably not the best for dealing with earth elementals, given that it renders a lot of her ninjutsu probably slightly less effective.. but she certainly won't pause in at least making the effort, resorting to brawling instead. She'll go sans weapons entirely, launching herself forward and to - and hopefully through - the nearest earth elemental.

    "Anyone happen to be really good at water or lightning techniques?" She calls out, hopefully, to the defenders near her. She'd rather someone else deal with the fire elementals if possible, but she'll fight them if she must. "I miss having a sword sometimes." She grumbles. Even if she could probably heal it, she doesn't really want to punch the things made entirely of fire.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
    The arrival of Nox gets the attention of the KIRIN forces who have been gathered. Their ability to take magitek energy isn't helping their case any, as their weapons are almost all based on those.

    Several of the weapons refuse to fire outright. One of the troops pulls the trigger and his weapon overloads and explodes in his hands. That guy is out for the count now, it seems, as he lays on the ground bleeding. Two of the other KIRIN troops grab him and try to pull him to cover.

    One of the KIRIN troops won't be beaten so easily it seems. His rifle might not be working but he still has working feet. Grabbing the weapon and turning it around to use it as a club, he rushes right at the Xelor with the weapon, aparently attempting to club the Confederate with the butt of it.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "'The Enemy'? I think I hear a capital E. /Interesting/. Most interesting. Something in this world is known for stealing energy already, and is famous enough to be known even out in the middle of a nowhere tundra. Surely they must possess an extroardinary quantity of it by now. I'll have to 'ask around' later. Surely somebody will be willing to point me in the right direction, no?" It would seem like Nox is just muttering to himself, were it not for the fact that he speaks in the kind of clear, deliberate voice that one only uses when conversing with someone. Whoever it might be is anyone's guess though. The Xelor looks over his shoulder as an oversized sword clatters to the ground beside him, ignoring it in favour of fixing the blank eyes of his mask on the person who had thrown it.

    "Pardon me monsieur, but I believe you might have dropped something." Without verbal or physical commands, the sword lifts itself back up off the ground, reverses through its final bounce, and then goes spinning backwards towards the point it was thrown from. As it flies through the air, its magical charge returns seemingly of its own accord, once again making it an extremely dangerous projectile. He then turns his attention to Kyra, moving his head with an unnatural mechanical jerk. "My apologies, but do I know you? If you're referring to that business with the Garleans, it wasn't that I got bored, but that I simply ran out of aether crystals to harvest. Unfortunately, I think those are non-renewable. Now if you wouldn't mind." Bringing up one of his arms from behind his back, he levels his hand at the white mage with a precise motion that 'clicks' like the shift of a set of gears. Before he can act further, Staren's beam cannon blindsides him from out of view, slamming against his helmet with a metallic spang. The hit catches him off guard just long enough for the Holy to trigger, and then the Xelor is engulfed in a blinding pillar of white light, letting out an angry snarl tinged with the tinny reverb of his helmet as he is smashed bodily into the ground.

    For ostensibly being a mage however, he seems to be a lot tougher than he looks. The upper surfaces of his armour are blackened with ugly scorch marks from the blast, but he pushes himself up out of the shallow crater, getting up on one knee before he locates Staren in the middle of his headlong charge. Nox vanishes from the spot; disappearing with a sharp, electrical chirp, and reappearing behind Staren in the exact same instant, making a precision, short-ranged jump in the blink of an eye. Grabbing hold of him by the back of the head, he attempts to swing the combat scientist over his head in an arc and smash him into the ground with stone-shattering strength, apparently having no problems with physically man-handling his targets.

    "I'd like to correct you. Lives are generally worthless except mine, so I'll be holding onto it if you don't mind. Now, where were we?" He speaks that last sentence to Kyra, shortly before disappearing again; jumping the intervening space in the blink of an eye, and reappearing already halfway through the motion of a punch. Condensing the fabric of space around his fist, the already powerful blow hits simultaneously with a violent release of negative gravitational energy, likely to hurl her through a building or two if she's unlucky or slow. He looks towards Nozomi. "Another hero are we? You people certainly enjoy this act." As Taiga barrels down on him with his partner at the helm, Nox intercepts the charge with a well-timed barrier. An intricate series of glowing clockworks spring into existence in Nozomi's path; a form of temporal barrier that freezes an isolated area in time so that nothing from the outside can influence it. It functions as an essentially unbreakable wall, should she run into it.

    And then Nox is being assaulted by an exceptionally plucky mook. He brings his forearm up to intercept the blow while still maintaining the barrier, which hits with a resounding metallic clang. "There's no end to you people today.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "There's no end to you people today. I enjoy that bravery though! Your reward is that I won't kill you." Smacking the weapon out of the KIRIN soldier's hand, he thrusts his palm out towards him, not making contact, but firing another faint pulse of energy. The spell should freeze him in place for roughly thirty minutes or so. "There. That should calm you down." Unfortunately, the rest of the non-Elite personnel are in for a nasty surprise. Anyone shooting at the noxines finds that they store their stolen energy in an extremely unstable state. Direct hits shatter the mechanical bugs easily, but doing so causes them to violently explode into conflagrations of cerulean fire, liable to level buildings if several of them daisy chain at once.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The orc leader gets blindsided by Helena, a crackling blade of negative energy hitting him in the back. There is a shriek as the blade bites into not flesh, but steel. Nevertheless, the weapon hits his life force as well, causing him to pitch forward in a yell of pain. "RAAAAAAAAGH! STUPID DREK!" He yells, lashing out with an arm. There is a SNIK as razor talons come out of the arm, threatening to rend Helena with a sudden claw attack as they throw themselves off of the snowmobile. Helena also finds that she's outnumbered, as the mage next to the leader is paying attention to her, focusing another powerful blasts of mana upon her!

Staren changes targets, and the massive ice spirit beast comes in to strike again.... But it gets swarmed with drones, the insects striking it where it hurts: In the mana. The form of the spirit shudders, and with a terrible shriek it falls apart, dissolving as the spirits' hold over the ice vanishes.

Lyria freezes the goop in the air. Not too hard, but that puts her on the defensive when he suddenly hucks some grenades at here. "HAHAHA! HERE, HAVE THIS!" The grenades explode into fountains of more goop! This stuff doesn't tranquilize, however, instead creating painful welts and sizzling on contact. Acid!?

Nozomi is ignored by the gangers at this point. They have other problems, as dangerous as Nozomi is, she's a problem over /there/.

Cirra, meanwhile, unleashes THE LAW upon the Shotgun Troll. The chains lash out around it, clamping down on his limbs and pulling him down. HE struggles with it, yelling. "WHAT? WHAT IS THIS?" He yells, unable to move at the moment.

Not Dominic and Eiko continue to duel against the street sam. The impact of the dulled blade hits hardned armor plating on the Orc's body, and he leers as it skids off. The Orc looks like it's going to get blown the hell up but for Nox. Thankfully for him, he's not magical at all, so the bugs ignore him and he ignores them. With a laugh, he prepares to strike again, The impact causes him to drop his katana, even if the limb doesn't break. "What the?!" He yells, reeling as he pulls out a high-caliber pistol and begins firing at Eiko, trying to ward her off so she can get his sword back. This probably will be easier said than done considering Eiko's current speed.

Sakura smashes into the earth elementals, valiantly fighting with her expert ninja skills. The impacts start breaking down the tough and frigid rock, shattering pieces off of it even as the fire elementals continue to try to burn both her and everything else around her.

But she is not alone. A series of spells, arrows, and gunfire bombard the elementals, backing Sakura up as the Shivans engage in ranged and hit and run tactics. Tarl gasps as Kyra heals him, and he grunts. "The Enemy... Has returned, just like they warned. Word must be taken to the others!" He shakes Kyra. "It is up to you, noble White Mage. Take word to Harald. I must stay with my people." He stands, picking up a great axe, and screaming defiance as he charges the Orcs and Trolls to try to cleave them with his axe.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    There is one mistake Nox has made. If he bothers to take the time and look into her eyes, even for an instant, he won't see anything like a hero's facial expression on Nozomi. The same yellow color as the 'gems' on various parts of her armor, they have nothing. No outrage. No fear. No enjoyment of battle. Nothing but a cold, merciless stare, the gaze an executioner wears when they wholly believe the condemned deserves their axe. She slams into Nox's barriers like a small freight train, and they stall her for all of a moment, during which her only response to his goading is that ruthless look.

    Then she backs up a step, and the TIGER's output rises. That tremendous blade of hers is hauled back, the blade shimmers briefly as power infuses it, and the jets kick on just as she starts to swing. A blade designed specifically to cut through enchanted armor and the scales of supernatural creatures slams into Nox's barriers with the force of a small car; her aim is plain and simply to cut right through Nox's temporal defenses, and then cut right through Nox.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena's eyes widen...well, that was certainly less effective than she wanted...but not outside the realm of planning. The mage, however, also decides to get involved with this...

    Helena, however, is not as flatfooted as people might think, the razor claws come, but she was already moving, draing the life force into herself, and gaining the boost to evasion and strength. The claws strike air, or snow, as she dances back, only to get clipped by the mana blast. She growls, rolling with the blow and lands on her feet, into a nice skidding. The blast shook her up a bit more than she wanted...but he's within steps of her, and she moves, pointing a finger at him.

    She speaks a single word, a word that has put the fear of death into casters for a long time.

    "Disintergrate." followed by a very fine beam, aiming to litterally strike at his very life, aiming to try and litterally turn the mage into dust.

Staren has posed:
    Staren starts to look around when Nox disappears, but not quick enough. GRAPPLING! His one weakness! "Aaaah!" He's grabbed /by the head/ and smashed into the stone!

    Fortunately, the stone seems to be worse off. His helmet's a little battered, but the stone is cracked and cratered. "I /do/ mind!" He raises his hand to aim the beam cannons, but they're still cooling down. And then Nox teleports. Staren uses his energy wings to quickly right himself... but he catches sight of what's going on elsewhere, and sees an easier opportunity to free up an ally. Throwing himself at Nox probably won't work...

    Muttering 'damn it' under his breath, he turns towards the elementals, drawing his magic staff from his bag as he flies over them. Then he aims it down, the head of the staff reforms into a nozzle, and the spirit battery begins to drain... to produce a Hydro Pump effect, blasting down at the elementals with water like a firehoze! Let's see how they like that!

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Oh dear, 'take word to Harald'? Is Kyra going to end up regretting healing this guy who is now absolutely convinced that Extraversals are The Enemy?!? "People are being hurt here, I have my duty!" Kyra's quick to fill in to the chief before he rushes off to fight Orcs and Trolls.

    "You should /at least/ recognize my face!" Kyra calls back at Nox huffily, "I was -there- at that 'business with the Garleans'." Though that does answer something she'd been wonderng about. All those crystals were apparently gone now. "And -for your information- the name is Kyra Hyral!" Nox lifts a hand and Kyra veers sideways, although spared in that moment due to Staren's interference. It gives her just enough time to finish the Holy, at the very least.

    When he disappears, Kyra instinctively looks behind her, fearing another incident akin to earlier. Recalling the earlier encounter with Nox, Kyra is quick to call a Reflect spell upon herself. She isn't entirely sure if it'll ward off extraversal magic but right now is a fantastic time to find out! Just a little in-battle experimenting, right?

    No, wait, he's going to /gravity punch/ her instead?! "HEALER AGGRO!" she calls out before the fist an accompanying negative gravity well strike. The effect is mixed-she can't very well stop a punch with Reflect. She doesn't have Protect or Stoneskin up. The Reflect will, however, redirect the negative gravitational enery right back at Nox and the surrounding area. The punch connects and sends Kyra flying into the wall of the nearest building, which she bounces against and leaves a smear of blood upon in her wake.

    Groaning, she takes a moment to pull one of the hi-potion filled darts off of her bandoliers and stick herself with it, enabling her concussion to clear.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
The Shitty Knight attempts to roll out of the way when his sword is returned to him fully active and charged with Magical Particles. Though he may be without a weapon, his old and inefficient plate armor still puts him well over 70% equipment load and into Fat Roll territory. That explosion is also massive and charged with energy. The result of the two is that the impact and detonation sends him sprawling across the ground, skidding and sliding across the cold ground with a spray of sparks, snow, and the grinding noise of metal.

"I thanketh thee, milady. You are a woman most generous!" He notes when she agrees to help him get a not-crappy weapon. Then she goes off and starts getting after that ork, hitting it hard and sending that sword clattering across the ground. The Subpar Knight will use the opening that Eiko has given him to clamor across the ground with the scraping and clanking that a only a man in platemail crawling on the ground can let out.

But then Not-Dominic spots Kyra getting totally hurled backwards and he changes gears, "Milady, I am afraid I must divert! A damsel in distress requires my knightly services! I shall leave this knave to you, merely insert the pointy side of your sword into the soft portions of his foul body! You will find this most successful."

And then Shitty Knight is sprint-running, moving to where Kyra fell and standing in front of her. He's holding that katana from the ork in front of him, his stance shifted to that of someone that has wielded such a blade for years. He has placed himself directly between Kyra and Nox.

"Cease, foul villain! I shant allow you to further aggress his angel of the battlefield with your dastardly assault! You shall not harm but one more hair on her head!"

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is keeping the horrible goop, but there might be more of it coming and it's likely got worse goop in it. She'd love to use fire but this enviorment doens't allow her Geomancy to do so, it does have ice nd wind and this time she's got a very men idea she mutter something moves her arm to direct hte wind attemping to blow the very grenades back at the Ork who threw them at her.

The harsh and cold wind turns against the Ork hopefully sending his grendes back at him or Lyria is in for a world of suffering.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
The Shitty Knight attempts to roll out of the way when his sword is returned to him fully active and charged with Magical Particles. Though he may be without a weapon, his old and inefficient plate armor still puts him well over 70% equipment load and into Fat Roll territory. That explosion is also massive and charged with energy. The result of the two is that the impact and detonation sends him sprawling across the ground, skidding and sliding across the cold ground with a spray of sparks, snow, and the grinding noise of metal.

"I thanketh thee, milady. You are a woman most generous!" He notes when she agrees to help him get a not-crappy weapon. Then she goes off and starts getting after that ork, hitting it hard and sending that sword clattering across the ground. The Subpar Knight will use the opening that Eiko has given him to clamor across the ground with the scraping and clanking that a only a man in platemail crawling on the ground can let out.

But then Not-Dominic spots Kyra getting totally hurled backwards and he changes gears, "Milady, I am afraid I must divert! A damsel in distress requires my knightly services! I shall leave this knave to you, merely insert the pointy side of your sword into the soft portions of his foul body! You will find this most successful."

And then Shitty Knight is sprint-running, moving to where Kyra fell and standing in front of her. He's holding that katana from the ork in front of him, his stance shifted to that of someone that has wielded such a blade for years. He has placed himself directly between Kyra and Nox.

"Cease, foul villain! I shant allow you to further aggress this angel of the battlefield with your dastardly assault! You shall not harm but one more hair on her head!"

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    "This." Cirra says as she stands up properly, "Is the power of the law of Ramuh." She walks around the orc and grasps the shotgun. "I'll be taking this." she pulls it out of the orc's hands, disrupting the paralysis effect.

    Black whisps of magic seep out of her armor as she turns the weapon around and smashes the butt of the shotgun across the orc's jaw with strength enhanced by Dark Knight magic. She turns, slinging the shotgun over ehr shoulder as she examines how it works, "Crude, but seems effective..."

Eiko (650) has posed:
    Eiko's already getting away again, knowing that that wouldn't be enough to actually take the street sam out. She was hoping she'd be able to get out of range, but--no such luck. "Ahh! Bullets!" The first shot must have been hurried, as it whizzes past without effect. This is still dangerous, though--she's not wearing even a little bit of armor. That pistol's going to put holes in her.

    If she lets it, that is. Her magic's still buffing her mobility, and she watches the gun long enough to juke to either side, fouling several more shots while backing off. She's not looking where she's going, so it's only blind luck that lets her take more than half a dozen steps toward Dominic's position. With her own sword raised, she deflects what /would/ have been a solid hit through her neck to instead hit a lamp post, though the impact is still enough to send her reeling.

    Aww, man, her backup's gone. This is gonna go badly. Her magic won't keep her heated much longer, either, and when that clock strikes she's liable to turn into popsicle. Certain four-letter words just keep coming, in slowly growing volume. What can she do?

    Eiko flips the ork off and shouts, "FUCK YOU, CHUMMER. You ain't worth shit, your gear's junk, and yer mother sucks troll eggs. I'm out!"

    Then she dodges behind the nearest building, making for the narrowest path between two structures and the cover afforded by turning around the far corner.

    There she waits, ready to smash her sword into the face of anyone who comes straight around.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    The burns could be much worse than they are, Sakura reflects to herself as she gets caught offguard by one of the fire elementals. She'll start to heal it absently, even as she starts to draw a bit back in with the Shivans that have come to assist with it. She may also simply be getting out of melee, given all the ranged attacks coming in; she's not completely confident in her allies of the moment.

    One of the local healers seems to be in trouble, in any case, and she may know what local protocal for healing may be.

    Also, she's getting attacked, even if Dominic is moving to aid as well. Another hand cannot hurt, she decides, as she heads that way.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
    For as hard as they've been trying to fight both Nox and the attacking extraversals, the KIRIN team has been thrashed pretty badly. Their luck is not with them tonight, as weapons malfunction, gear falls apart when it shouldn't be. Perhaps this team needed better discipline on equipment maintinance.

    The man who had tried to attack Nox outright is tunned into submission, quickly covered by several others, as the KIRIN troops try to regroup, but it seems like they have been beaten, despite the fight that they tried to put up. "KIRIN, fall back and regroup!" The team leader calls out, trying to get all of the wounded to one place so they can evacuate. They know when a fight is lost.

Nox (546) has posed:
    The reflected energy of Nox's augmented strike courses through his gauntleted fist, shooting hairline cracks all the way up the armour planting over his arm, and sending shards of metal flying from the shoulder pauldron at the end, shattering the otherwise sturdy metal and rendering the wrist computer inoperable. The residual blast pushes him back, but is relatively harmless as long as he hovers in the air, though the crushing wave shatters the frigid rock beneath him with a meaty thump. Shaking his arm to make sure of its continued function, he watches her airborne trajectory with mild interest, following her descent until she collides with the scenery. "Apologies again, but you see, I was rather distracted by dealing with an army at the time. You'll have to forgive me for not remembering every plucky adventurer that comes at me with their weapon raised."

    As it stands, Nox isn't paying much attention to the individual facial expressions of everyone directing their righteous fury at him at the moment. He takes Nozomi's apparent recklessness as heroic bravado, and leaves it at that. Similarly, he gauges her charge by the size and momentum of her suit, using just over the absolute minimum amount of energy required to create a barrier that would withstand such an impact long enough to transfer all of its force back into her. As a result, it doesn't have nearly the power required to stop an anti-magic blade of that calibre, and the clockwork holography shatters on contact. The first instant of a sound of surprise escapes Nox before the gargantuan sword smashes into him, kicking up a blazing spray of sparks and a spatter of luminescent blue fluid rather than blood. The Xelor goes reeling back, bouncing once off the ground before catching himself in mid air and abruptly stopping in black, returning to his hovering posture. A nasty rent has been carved through the front of his chestplate and into the body beneath, but only light filters through the obvious wound.

    "A magic cancelling weapon? Impressive! Certainly more interesting than what passes for magic technology in this frozen wasteland. I'll have to make a careful study of it once I forcibly pry it off you." Nox extends one arm to his side, grasping at thin air, only for a flash of light to resolve into what appears to be the steely grey hilt of a sword. The light races away from his hand, drawing a crossguard, blade and point into existence that all look as if they would belong on the face of a clock as easily as in someone's hand. Flourishing the sword once, he flicks it above his head, and then slashes it down in a driving arc, abruptly letting loose a explosive release of magic. Space folds in upon itself over and over again into a nearly two dimensional plane of shear force, splitting light that passes through it until it looks like a vertical, flying blade of energy. The bottom half of the distortion slices through solid ground as if it weren't even there, and will continue through buildings, fortifications, and anything else in the way for hundreds of meters should Nozomi not try to stop it, potentially including people.

    Tossing the sword from hand to the other, Nox aims the point of his blade straight at Dominic; the motion of his arm ticking by degrees until it settles into place. "How very chivalrous. You're a brave one to be getting in my way with such substandard equipment. Do you really think that armour will survive what I'll do to you? Or are you staging a heroic sacrifice for the object of your love? If that's the case, don't let me stop you from being the protagonist of your own little tragedy!" The point of Zenith suddenly blazes like the birth of a tiny star, conjuring a roiling supernova of blue-white fury that is just barely contained enough to erupt in a forwards direction, bearing down on the knight of Ramuh with an bass, electronic scream, in the form of a towering column of incinerating magical power. Nothing about it involves time magic. It is purely a release of raw, destructive energy.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I was on the back of a frickin' dragon!" Kyra calls back groggily, "That had to count for something!" Or, well, teenagers are just going to continue assuming their the center of the multiverse which seems to sort of be the case for Kyra (meanwhile, for Nox it was Thursday). "Ugh.." She picks herself up, bracing herself against the wall with one hand, noticing that her needlegun seems to have gone missing somewhere during the punch. Especially grateful for the others attacking Nox at the moment, she chugs another potion.

    In comes Shitty Knight. She gawks at the guy since between his armor and his speech he looks like a Knight who stepped out of a really, really old movie. Kyra looks appropriately flustered and a little embarassed at the 'angel of the battlefield' line. Yes. DEFINITELY out of one of those old movies. She begins to wonder if she's hallucinating from hitting her head too hard.

    But Nox is talking to him so he must be real.

    Clutching the wall for balance. Kyra aims a shakey hand at YE OLDE KNIGHT, murmuring, racing Nox and his destructive magic/dramatic monologuing as she weaves a Shell of magic resistance around the knight.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
"HURRY! THERE IS NO TIME!" Tarl yells back to Kyra. He screams, taken over by a terrible fury as he cleaves into one of the orcs with a powerful blow, sending him screaming backwards. He turns, sweeping his axe through the air as he attacks the swarming drones.

The power of Disintegration cannot be underestimaged. The mage is struck by the enervating beam, and there's a short shriek as he withers and turns into dust. The leader, wounded, seems taken aback by this. "I'm not getting paid nearly enough for this." He grunts. "EVERYONE BAIL! Abort mission!" He yells, and staggers to his snowmobile, one of the few remaining, and wrestles it around to try to run Helena over on her way out.

Lyria thinks fast winds faster. The wind blasts the grenades back at the Orc, who gets the grenades exploding over him. "WAAAAAAAAAGH!" He screams, and not in the ecstatic way, more the 'oh god everything is burning' way. He screams, turning and blasting a chemical foam over himself to neutralize the acid while he falls back.

Cirra straight up grabs the shotgun from the troll and smashes the butt of the weapon across his face. There is a satisfiying crunch of bone for the Judge as he grunts, falling back with a groan. He reaches up, preparing to take another shot at Cirra, but he tilts his head. "Hnnnnnnngh." He says. He'd probably be more intelligible if Cirra didn't just break his jaw. He does, however, turn and run.

Eiko makes solid use of her remaining buff time to set up a SWEET LOS-BREAK TAUNT PULL maneuver. The Orc yells back, "YOU STUPID FRAGGER! YOU THINK YOU'RE SO DREK-HOT? I'M GONNA SPLIT YOU IN HALF!" He yells, apparently too pissed to hear the pull out call as he chases Eiko around the corner... And takes a sword to the face. The impact leaves a dent in the bone structure, and his eyes roll up into his head as he gets dropped like a ton of bricks.

Sakura gets freed up regardless. With the death of the Mage, the elementals vanish, dissipating back wherever they came. This lets her handle facind off against Nox just fine.

It's at this point that the surving members of the gang escape, rushing through the open gate to charge out into the wilderness amidst a hail of fire from the Shivans, whom are keeping their distance from Nox and his abominations even as they try to pick drones out of the air. It's not very effective. Tarl himself continues swinging at the drones, raving about the evils of the Enemy and literally frothing at the mouth.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Before Nox's sword even comes down, holographics have appeared in front of Nozomi's eyes, flickering an analysis and a warning that gives her a split second to react. Her head quirks just barely to one side, confirming everything behind her - people, buildings. Whatever principles guide her when she's combined with the TIGER unit, they seem to lead to one inevitable conclusion.

"EM Siege Breaker."

    The TIGER's mechanical voice announces a simple name, and something interesting happens. If Nox is watching the flow of magical power at all, Nozomi's output rises again, lifting right up until it hits a sudden plateau of energy - as if an engine with a limiter on were being fired up as high as its constraints would allow. And all that extra output flows into the blade, setting the yellow spheres on her suit and the cutting surface of the EM Zanbatou both alight. She doesn't have time to charge it up completely. She won't be able to obliterate with sheer superior power. But she can at least negate. She can at least haul her weapon up, hold it for a heartbeat, and then SWING, bringing down that sword and all the power charged into it right in the path of Nox's slash-

    Boom.

    The explosion is enough to throw Nozomi clear, skidding and sliding across the ground until she hits a building. When she stands, she's bleeding from her left temple. The right shoulder pad is sparking and damaged, and her sword is visibly scorched, one of the thrusters damaged. She pauses just long enough to look around, to confirm herself as the only casualty, and then she's off right into the air again, heedless of her own wounds or damage.

    It looks as if she's charging right at Nox again in the wake of his attack on Totally Not Dominic, but despite her mechanical, single-minded pursuit of her target, she seems to be no fool. The headlong attack is a fake-out, a lure to trick Nox into raising those barriers against her again - even more powerful this time, perhaps. But at the last second, she drops, lets her boots touch ground, and then rockets straight upward, hurtling overhead and turning to come /down/ at the time mage from above, with a brutal overhead slash. And an expression of silent, unflinching killing intent.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena grins as the mage turns to dust.

    She immedaitely casts a small gust of wind to scatter the ashes. Smiling wickedly at the result...which ALMOST gets her ran over, she manages a short jump, and times it to land right on the front of the snowmobile.

    "...Paid, huh? So how about I pay you to tell me who hired you to do this. My employer...is very rich, and very curious. As a bonus, I can even undo the effects of my withering...cured, and paid, how about it?" She says, with a playful wink, still stradling the front of the Snowmobile.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    Eiko's manic laughter is cut short when she feels her magic waning, there followed by yet more cursing, though quieter now as she needs to avoid breathing in too much subzero air.

    "My coat--where the hell did I--where's my damn coat? Agh!"

    Jumping between one foot and the other, a couple of impulses war in her mind. Warmth, and loot--she reaches a compromise, and raises her sword. Letting it fall, she quite mercilessly beats the back of the samurai's knees in. Through his armor it's only going to be of limited effect, but she just wants him to be sure to stay put until she gets her fur coat back on, comes back, and then strips him of everything he possesses.

Staren has posed:
    The elementals disintigrate before Staren can water them. "Hrmph." He watches the Shadowrunners flee. He's tempted to missile them to make a point, but... eh. They can live. His allies might complain if he fries fleeing enemies.

    Nox, on the other hand...

    Staren collapses the staff and returns it to the bag, and draws his trusty laser pistol. While Nox is hopefully focused on other combatants, Staren takes a full-powered, double barreled shot that aims to superheat two pinpricks of matter wherever they hit to explosion! And then he follows it up with the twin beam cannon, because it's cooled down by now!

    And then he tries to, more cautiously this time, approach again.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
The Shitty Knight is in way over his head with this one. Scratch that, Dominic is in way over his head. He grips the sword tightly in both hands and stares straight ahead. He cycles through literally every move he has in his roster, trying to find one that can save him. He digs his feet into the ground.

"I am sorry, milady. It looks like I will not be enough to save you this day. But I shall die in your defense." The Shitty Knight says in his warbled and digitized voice that echoes against the metal of his helmet.

He stares the attack straight on, at least steeled enough to look death in the face unflinchingl-

Fencing
>Sword Saint
    >Observe

Dominic is inside his own mind again. This time he didn't choose to introspect manually, it is a survival mechanism. This shows as he staggers back in shock, almost stepping outside of the circle of light drawn on the ground around him. Armor clangs in his mind as he looks around, "Wh-where..."

"You played hero and fought someone far above you. Again." Comes a voice in the darkness. A beam of light expands into another circle, revealing a man in capes and robes, sitting cross-legged in a chair. He's in his sixties, but still as fit as any man half his age. Streaks of silver run through his hair and his beard, the former of which is cut to shoulder length.

"And you stepped in."

"No, you stepped in. You knew this time you would die. Like with Kojirou, only this opponent has no honorable respect for you." The man uncrosses his legs and waves off. Near the many Fencers imposed in Dominic's mind, near Shirou, and near several Holy Knights... there stands Nox. Holding his blade straight out the moment before his attack.

"That attack is going to kill me," Dominic says seriously, looking at Nox as the man uncrosses his legs and stands.

"It will, as you are now. You are not a knight. Armor ill suits you. Your Sword Sainthood lay in your cunning, your reflexes, and your speed," He says as he shuffles across the floor, robes and cloaks flowing around him. Dominic follows, moving over towards Nox as they talk.

"I see." Dominic says quietly.

"Do you?" He asks as they stand on opposite sides of the projection of Nox, staring at eachother, "You cannot afford to make mistakes on this path. You are weak, now. Incomplete. Some day you may be the hero you think to be, but today you are a boy in man's armor. And you cannot continue your foolishness or it will be your death."

"Yes bu-" Dominic is cut off as his own mental projection is next to him in a moment, grabbing him by the back of his hair, "Observe. Learn. You have .3 seconds to survive."

Name: Nova Lasher
Class: Extraversal Derivative
Compatible Weapons: Single-handed blades.
Fundamental Mechanic: A focused and massive discharge of magical energy from the edge of the blade allows for destructive force to be fired from the blade. The amount of magical energy will be directly proportional to the energy released
Mana Cost: Low to Extreme
Range: Short to Middle
Original User: Nox

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
[New Technique Acquired: Nova Lasher]

"Kyra! I will protect you for the times you have protected me!" Comes the digitized voice of the Shitty Knight. He grips the Katana in both hands and steps in. The Shell of Magic Resistance bolstering his confidence he might come out of this alive.

The entire length of the katana blows with a blue-white energy, channeling all of the Knight's remaining magical particles into his blade. He has two options: Try for mutually assured destruction, or try to deflect power with power. He opts for the latter, meaning Nox receives no retribution from him.

The knight takes another step forward and he lets out a cry, swiping in an upwards arc as he releases all the magic he had stored up to this moment. He'd already used Breaker thrust, so it's likely not power enough to divert all of it, but he wants to divert as much as he can.

What winds up happening is that, in a mirror of Nox's own move, but far more sloppy at first execution. The blade creates a line in the air that hangs for a moment before blasting forward with a torrential outpour of sheer magical destruction, trying to slam into Nox's attack and divert it up and away from Dominic himself to airburst it far above the battlefield.

In the aftermath of his attack, the shitty knight keels forward and slams an armored knee against the ground, digging the tip of his blade into it as he keels over and tries to keep himself from passing out from exhaustion. Ideally, he'll want to wobble himself standing and retreat in short order.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra lets the orc with the broken jaw go. There are other things to do in the short term, and they can track the snowmobiles through the snow later.

    "These are not The Enemy!" She shouts towards the Sivan populace, "These are nothing but greedy mercinaries! Cowardly and spineless as they flee when face against equal opposition."

    "And you." The Dark Knight Judge turns and cocks the stolen shotgun. Blam! The weapon reports as the slug is fired through the air for Nox, the perfectly ordinary weapon firing it's shell for the rent already made in Nox's armor.

    Cirra works the pump action of the shotgun, and fires again. "If you want to call Shivan's low, I'm going to take offense."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
"If you have a problem with what we're doing, take it up with Mr. Johnson." The Orc Leader grunts to Helena. "Ask for them in Denver."

The Orc Chromed Sam spent most of their money on their cyberware. He's resistant, but Eiko beats the living tar out of him. He's not getting up (or walking) anytime soon. IT's clear that his body is /extensively/ augmented. Dominic took the sword, so Eiko is left with the guy's wallet, which has a n array of cards in it, a plastic stick with a 2,354 on a display with a small yen symbol, as well as ammo and the pistol.

And his clothes, if you want them. There's also a hovercraft-like vehicle in the plaza that appears to have been loaded with crates of Loot if one is willing to grab it as well.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Unfortunately, the term 'dragon' doesn't mean much these days. The multiverse is simply full to bursting with them. I remember a pair of children on an especially gaudy dragon's back, but I don't think I even had a chance to exchange words with them before we were . . . interrupted." In the middle of pouring the pain on Dominic, Nox hears an explosion in place of what should have been the sound of metal being ripped to pieces, catching his attention and switching his focus. If his mask actually had that ability, one could probably imagine his eyes going wide at the sight of Nozomi cleaving apart the spatial distortion with what seems to be raw power alone. "That's . . . how?" With one hand still on Zenith, still projecting a seemingly endless surge of cyan flame, Nox raises his other arm at three o'clock towards the TIGER unit, projecting a much wider and much stronger barrier than before.

    Only for her to jump right over it. Seeing the sword coming down, he realizes he has no choice. He'd taken one hit from Nozomi already, and a second would be pushing it into risky territory. Abandoning both the barrier and his attack on Dominic, he is forced to warp up from under the blade as it comes crashing down, rapidly teleporting out of the way to a safe distance behind her. His free hand lets off a brief, staticy whine before discharging a streaking bolt of energy that collides with the ground at Nozomi's feet, suddenly loosing a suppressed temporal anomaly into the space around her. The air within the radius of effect is influenced in such a way that the timeline of its molecular vibration is selectively slowed to a crawl, generating an instant, near-absolute zero flash freeze that should explode into a blossom of ice around the TIGER unit, hopefully encasing it completely.

    And to top off the list of surprises, Dominic has somehow survived. "What? That's impossible! Twice in one day?! Clearly I need to update my assessment programs, because this is becoming absurd." Before he can fire something off at Dominic to try and finish the job, Staren's laser blasts collid with his chest, causing the damaged chestplate to white hot at the two points of impact, and then explode into a shower of smouldering, cherry-red metal fragments. Without the armour in the way, the ordinary shotgun slug slams into the glowing wound in his torso, punching back out the other side with a spray of that strange blue fluid.

    Nox must be getting angry, because finally, he starts casting a spell complex enough to require a series of gestures to cast. Aiming between Staren and Cirra, a glowing glyph lights up the ground, in the shape of the roman numeral 'VI'. The next instant, the sky splits with a deafening roar of thunder as the inverse of the event used to attack Nozomi occurs on a much wider scale. The air instantly breaks down into hyper-accelerated plasma, raining down a thunderous volley of coruscating partible beams that slam into the ground in twelve evenly spaced increments, catching both Unionites within the radius. The impacts are individually powerful enough to blast flaming craters into the ground, glowing molten orange where the dirt and stone has fused into glass.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason sees her gable has paid off anf she got very damn lucky whoever and what ever he was? He was no slouch at all he had no magic at all and he was a threat. She watches in a bit of horror though that goop was acid?! By the depths that's just horrific as a weapon. She's bounding back at this point more conerned with damage control than a fleeing foe.

"Remora, operation search and rescue."

The machine hisses and is sprinting off to seek out locals in needed or any ally really.

She her self starts looking for anything that the attackers have dropped it may be of one intrest to her and also it might have something of use left behind or even something to help ID who these guys were.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    There are a few choices at this point for Sakura, but she decides in a hurry that she doesn't really want to get into melee with Nox at the moment - mostly because some of those abilities look unpleasant, but also because too many cooks spoil the broth and such. Better to provide support, especially since she at least knows one of the people in direct confrontation with the rather villainous seeming person.

    Staying well away from the glyphs on the ground, Sakura will sweep her hands widely, gathering chakra to the ends of her fingertips to trace out her smooth motions as she concentrates on forming the correct sequence to trigger a protective spell on TIGER, hopefully mitigating the ice damage.

    This sequence just happens to take the shape of a dance. Leave her alone about it.

Staren has posed:
    Magic plasma beams(?!) rain down on Staren -- there are explosions on his armor and he tries to fly out of the effect, still taking a few hits before he can escape.

    Where the spell hit are large, half-melted spots, and his armor is blackened almost all over now. "Grr..." But he's in a combat robot body with heavy armor designed for combat cyborgs. It can take a /lot/ of punishment.

    Also, TWO can play the 'turn anywhere close to where your enemy is standing into plasma' game! Especially since Nox has kept all the melee fighters away! Staren fires the lasers and beams again, but after them, this time... four missiles launch into the sky from the racks behind his shoulders, then arc back down to fall around Nox! Their warheads are designed to superheat the surrounding air so much that the atmosphere in a 15' radius ionizes into scorching plasma!

    Staren watches to see how Nox reacts to this. There may yet be more defenses...

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    The shotgun slug fails to put Nox down, and the instant it fails, Cirra holds up her hand, another card appearing between her fingers. "The. Fortress!" And tosses it to the ground. Even as the giant glyph appears under her feet, another magic circle opens in the air and something like a magitech castle seems to descend from the circle, though smaller then a real one. The illusionary castle with its metal ramparts slams down over Cirra as the plasma bolt drops down from the sky.

    he plasma blasts strike the castle, blasting chunks out of its form untill it crumbles inwards, collapsing.
    And Cirra bursts out of the portculis, armor singed and cracked, but still holding together. "You've worn out your welcome, monster." Blackness seeps out of the joints in the Judge's armor again as her eye glow golden. Dark Knight power surges through her body again as she enhances her own strength and speed.

    Cirra runs across the ground high speed and runs straight up a collapsed wall like a ramp, and flips through the air like an acrobat. She swings the Judge Blade around and points the crystaline blade of Law into Nox's chest.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Teleportation magic is something Nozomi doesn't have time to account for. She's prone to adapting quickly when she's transformed, but teleportation drops reaction times down to fractions of a second, and that's just not enough on the first surprise. Her sword slams right down into the snow, kicking up a plume of powder, and she's just turning around to look upward towards the clockwork mage when his spell hits and snap-freezes the armored girl. She's encased in a flare of ice, completely immobilized, her cold expression now locked in place in a moment of sheer irony.

    But her entire body is enveloped in a faint yellow glow; the protective energy the TIGER generates and charges itself with, bolstered by Sakura's defensive spell, is beginning to melt the ice around her. More and more power dumps into it by the second, in order to quickly break her free, and while it takes her a matter of several seconds, she does finally manage it with a hard twist that absolutely shatters what remains of the ice around her.

    And then she immediately drops to one knee, breathing hard. The combination of cold, her injuries, and holding her breath ensures that she's going to take a moment or two at least to recover.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    A dark look overcomes Kyra's face as she remembers the moment when that woman pulled her off Bahamut's back. "We /were/ interrupted." Kyra mutters grudgingly.

    Now the overwhelming force that Nox decided to pile upon not!Dominic was far beyond what Kyra was expecting as far as retaliation goes. It was, dare she say, /overkill/. But in that moment, there wasn't much else she could do except avert her eyes. She cast Shell and didn't have the time to cast any other protective magics on the Knight. She feared that, as Nox had stated, this person would be annihilated in front of her. But he lives, thanks to Nozomi's interference and Dominic's secret swordsmaster grit. Though speaking of..

    "...he knows my name..." she says quietly. Supicious.

    Now having finally recovered from the strike, she can once again focus, and does just that while Nox is preoccupied with Staren and Cirra. She forgoes any banter this time, specifically not calling attention to herself as her murmured words set the ground beneath Nox alight in spellcircles again. She can easily tell that whatever magic Nox is working is quite complicated and therefore must be /very/ dangerous. Even if she cannot interrupt it, the opportunity to strike with another Holy while he was preoccupied was gladly taken.

    Stepping forward as the magic executes, she reaches out with a hand to grasp the Mysterious and Clunky Knight's shoulder. "We need to be getting out of dodge. Fast." she says quietly to the unknown(?) hero.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena grins, slipping a card into the Orc's hand.

    "You're a smart man, my employer enjoys...smart people. You call that number, if you want a job that is less hazardous...or at least more rewarding." The card totally has a bug on it, so does her other hand, the one he hopefully doesn't see reverse pickpocket the tracer on him.

    Next time, Helena looks to have this conversation on more uneven terms...

    Uneven for him.

    She flips off the snowmobile and starts trecking back towards the town...

    It seems fighting is still going on...hmm...

    She pulls a phone out, calling for her ride to come get her.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
The Shitty Knight's armor lets off wafting lines of steam as they're exposed to the cold air of Shiva, and the sword in his hand is likewise going from a bright red to a shining metallic color in the aftermath of his attack. He slowly pushes himself to his feet and, by the time Kyra's hand touches him, the armor is only vaguely warm to the touch.

"I doth agree with the, milady," He says in a tired tone, voice still warbled a bit by whatever is in the helmet to distort his voice, "I shall maketh a hasty retreat from the field of battle with thee, and then we shall parteth ways." He really lays that accent on thick, perhaps suspecting that Kyra may be suspecting things.

The sword is kept tightly gripped in his hand as he'll start to retreat from the field at Kyra's suggestion.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox is wise to Staren's tricks by now. As soon as he sees him raise his gun, the time mage has cast his spell, surrounding himself in an invisible pulse of stasis. He can't react faster than the speed of light, but even light moves at a finite rate, and the counterpulse hits at just the right time to freeze the laser beams in mid-air, creating a bizarre effect where they entire beam collapses into a single point at the edge of the field. The missiles are caught in it as well, hovering above him as if on invisible strings, the thruster exhaust looking surreal and fake while frozen in a single moment. He raises his hand towards Staren, only for the holy to descent from above, and in the process, detonate the missiles as well.

    The combined explosion disrupts the relatively low-powered field, catching him at point blank in the earth-shattering boom that results. A trail of smoke goes arcing from the cloud as Nox sails through the air, slamming into the ground with a hard, mechanical clank, and then going rolling end over end before coming to a stop. Most of his armour has been essentially blown off, leaving the remarkably sturdy bandages beneath blackened and charred, and one of the lenses in his helmet cracked. The motions he uses to pick himself up are juddering and halting, as if the clockworks were sticking and shaking off a layer of rust. He gets up just in time for Cirra to tackle him, and in that moment, the blade of her sword goes right through his chest; bursting out of his back in a shot to what should be the heart.

    If someone hadn't picked up on it before, it's an inescapable conclusion at this point. There's nothing inside of him. "A monster am I? What a novel sentiment. I certainly haven't heard anything to that effect before." He seems to have dropped his sword, but that only lets him grab hold of Cirra's wrist, using his augmented strength to forcibly pull her sword out, or else break her wrist otherwise. "No matter how many times I hear it, I still can't take it seriously. Do you know why?" He physically hurls the girl away from him. "Because in the end, none of this will matter. Nothing I've done will mean a thing, and nobody will even remember it happened. Or that it never happened. The way I see it, everyone in my way is the real monster. If I were to somehow fail, the blame for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people shifts to /you/."

    Nox begins gesturing with both hands. The air around him crackles with a palpable hum of latent energy; fizzling and distorting the images inside of it with lines of static. The dull hum rises to a vibrating crescendo, before abruptly stopping, after which Nox disappears in flicker of movement too fast to be seen. The spell is called Tempus Fugit, and what it does is immediately obvious. The battlefield lights up with a constellation of flashing after images, comprising a rapid-fire series of teleportations that happen one after the other at an utterly insane pace. Zapping back and forth from combatant to combatant seemingly at random, Nox nails each one with a succession of close combat attacks that happen almost too quickly to be percieved, occurring simultaneously with each teleportation rather than in between, as if he were skipping the wind up and follow through completely. He finishes off the blitz with an explosive disruption of spacetime, likely to send each person flying in different directions as he reappears at the middle of the battlefield.

Staren has posed:
    Teleporting away, Staren expected. Shooting them down, Staren expected. But FREEZING LASERS? That... he did not see coming! "He's a time mage?!"

    Nox claims the world is ending or something so it doesn't matter. "Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!" And then... KA-TIME! Soon Staren is thrown across the dome, armor cracked and broken, shards of metal flying off him. Even where the armor is broken though, is only revealed... more metal!

    Staren uses his flight to stop before he hits the ground. But how do you fight someone who can stop time?

    ...You hope he's out of MP. Staren fires his beams again, and sends two more missiles after Nox, homing this time instead of just bombarding the area he's in. If he can still freeze them... well, Staren will have to think of something else.

    "Even if it were /true/, then you'd be a monster /and/ a failure. You could encourage people to /help/ you. Instead, you provoke them into standing in the way of your mission, apparently for laughs. And /noone/ could be that /foolish/. So take your half-assed moralizing and go to hell!"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra most definitely is suspecting things. Though there are quite a few guys she does know, she can eliminate at least one: this definitely isn't Soan. He doesn't need a disguise like this. With the speech and formality, though, maybe it's....Landon? He's very formal, right? And Cirra was here. Landon would have every reason to be in disguise while here or else his presence would cause a severe political incident!

    Her Holy magic concludes, seemingly to little effect, and she draws herself up, offering the Olde Knight a Cura spell of her own. "I can't retreat yet myself." she says quietly, "There are people still fighting and that means people that still need heals."

    Tempus Fugit transpires. Though she sees Nox flash step around the battlefield, appearing before people and sending them flying, she doesn't even realize it happens to her as well. It's just one moment she's standing and then the second she's lying on the ground in a small crater. Unlike before, this time she does not seem to be getting back up at all.

Helena Celba (643) has posed:
    Helena, finally taking her time, steps back into the bounds of the city only to hear...and see Nox continiously pummel one person that she cares about...and /moralize/. She sighs...she was getting /so sick/ of people not from her world...even if Shiva was not where she hailed from...this world was /hers/. Well, Souji's, but /hers/ to help him guard...to help him rule. All these lands would be ruled by Murasame...

    And the absolute utter imperialness of /some people/ has driven her to need to make a point.

    She stomps a foot...Kyra has seen this only once...others in the school have only /heard/ of the terrible power of Helena Celba when /properly/ motivated and only ONE unfortinate story has spread to the one time someone truly riled Helena.

    From her body itself, chains slowly start sliding out, forming from the calcium deposits that give her skin there albine look, her eyes...glowing red as she channels something...something dark. Life litterally starts training from the area she stands in, sucking itself into her body as she starts walking towards Nox.

    "You will leave. These lands are not yours to defile, and I have grown tired of guests coming into /our/ home and taking what they want. You will leave, or you will /suffer/. There is no negotiation." She says, as the chains start to spike, revealing deadly looking chains at the end.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason halts on her salvage attempts as she has noticed some bit away from hert Nox is still here well then it's time to turn about and head to fight the strange magic devouring man, yes he's a man more so than a monster in her mind. Monsters do not speak after all and she will still give him the fact he has a mind of his own.

She draws her blade tat this point but does not power it no Nox would feed off it she guess but the edge is still keen it can still cut and that's what is going to have to do as she now attemos to be rather wreckless as she moves to close however as Staren mkes his move she has her opening he says nothing at his word but she oes have something to say to nox.

"So you say Mage, but tell me what proof do we have and I will not exuse this attack upon my world regardless of your intentions!"

She lunches her self at him using her geomancy to boost her movment as she closes in attempting to get to melee if she does she'll launch into several rapid attacks, and Kyra goes down mnot she she's noticed yet.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    When at last Nozomi climbs to her feet, it is perhaps a bit slow, but she is still in fighting shape, more or less. Most likely a good thing; it happens just as Nox begins his temporally-charged flurry of omnidirectional attacks. Holographics pop up immediately as the TIGER's sensor suite begins analyzing, tracking his movements, the flow of time magic, absolutely everything it can. It has only seconds to follow his movements, to apply predictive modelling; but it was prepared for this. Timestopping, super speed and teleporting are among the types of supernatural power it's been made to combat.

    The onboard AI linked perfectly with Nozomi's mind manages to come up with a 'best guess' in just a fraction of a second. It's not a certain thing, but logical calculation and human intuitiveness are sufficient to give her the precise moment to strike. And the damaged state of her EM Zanbatou leaves her only one option.

    In the instant Nox appears before her, he's faced with a black-gauntleted fist hurtling right towards him with all the superhuman strength Rampart Mode can impart on Nozomi. And at the exact moment of predicted impact, the gauntlet's built-in energy cannon fires with a burst of yellow magical light.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    While speeches are made and ultimatums delivered, attacks struck and prevented, Eiko is busy finding her coat. She does find it, puts it on, and is /marginally/ less cold, because her coat is now half-full of snow. Oh, this is going to feel so bad once she starts to warm up. She might have frostbite by the end of it.

    In the meantime, though, these Shadowrunners aren't going to loot /themselves/. She takes the street sam's wallet, and his gun, and his ammo, and anything else that looks at all useful. His armor is coming off and she can get it with minimal effort, but otherwise staying on. She doesn't know what the locals will do to him when he finally does get up, but she's not quite interested enough to stick around and watch. No, because she has something else to do that the locals might not like much.

    There's a hover-vehicle of some kind over there stacked with loot, but there may also be other vehicles, damaged and discarded, and there certainly could be other casualties. She's going to take everything in range, working quickly, stash it in the vehicle, and then work out how to get it out of here. If she can. In fact, this might be pretty dangerous, but if she /is/ stopped by the locals she should still have a chance to talk her way out of it--and everyone seems pretty busy.

    Once loaded, she takes the vehicle out of the city, heading out over where the raiders had been hit (by Nozomi and Staren) on entering. More loot opportunities. Once she's done, she'll take this all the way to the warp gate.

    There are markets offworld that should be able to get her fair deals for what's here. The gun, though, she's keeping.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra's arm is grabed by Nox. "Empty..." Cirra's a lot stronger then Nox might be expecting and theres a moment of resistance. "You're formless, /patternless/." Cirra releases the sword as Nox throws her away and she flips through the air sailing towards a wall.

    She grabs hold before she smashes through it. "You really are just like The Enemy."

    The Judge slides down to the ground just as Nox engages in time mage shennanigans, slamming into the armored womans midsection, face and chest several times. "Hnng! I won't let you use vague explinations to justify your actions."

    Another card apepars in Cirra's hand. "The. Fugitive!" She slams it down on the ground, and the battlefield lights up with a magic circle and what can only be described as counter-force presses against Nox, attempting to inflict him with a Slow spell to counter-act his speed.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
Okay, so the Dorkiest Knight Ever isn't gone quite yet. But he's spared the attack due to no longer participating in combat and having partially retreated at Kyra's behest. And yet, he's not one to leave her behind. So, when she gets hit by Tempus Fugit, he rushes back onto the field for the briefest of moments.

He'd aim to scoop her up into a princess carry while she was unconscious and move her off the field. Otherwise, knowing her, she'd regain consciousness and go right back to trying to heal people over herself. So it's important to make sure that doesn't happen.

She'll probably wake up in the School Infirmary or something.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox is hurled away from Nozomi as her punch directly connects with her chest, tumbling through the air from the force of the impact, before throwing his arms out to either side to arrest his momentum. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a badly warped tone, as if going through too much digital feedback. Despite the fact that he is clearly in a badly damaged state however, he somehow finds it within him to laugh. "Moralize? Ahahahaha! If only it were so simple! Morals have nothing to do with anything and it's such typical 'hero' thinking to assume they do! I'm a monster if I fail, but a messiah if I succeed. I don't need your validation when you won't even remember anything happened in the first place. Begging for your help or taking it by force, it doesn't make any difference in the end."

    Nox lets out a sigh as Helena takes the opportunity to swoop in at the last moment, looking from side to side as Staren fires off another barrage of missiles, Cirra summons her spell circle, and Lyria leaps in to join the fray as well. His arms fly out to either side of them with a juddering mechanical snap, then to his chest where his fingers meet, and then interlock into the sign for infinity with one final motion. "Stop." Is all he says, and that's exactly what happens. The air around him pulses with an omndirectional wave of barely visible distortion, and then everything grinds to a halt. The missiles, the lasers, the lunge, the Slow spell, the combatants themselves. The entire city goes eerily silent, and freakishly still; its occupants frozen like exhibits at a museum, still in the motions of running and fighting. Even the snow outside the dome has come to a complete stop, each individual flake visibly suspended in space. For some strange reason however, the Elites, and /only/ the Elites, are aware of this. They can't move, but they can see and hear.

    "Excluding the one who didn't do anything until now, I'm impressed. I freely admit that remaining here would only result in my eventual defeat. Fortunately, I didn't come here just to get into a fight for the sake of it." The air once again fills with the steady hum of thousands of beating wings, growing in volume by the moment. Seemingly made exempt from the time spell, the swarm that had spread over the entire city begins to gather again; converging into a massive stream that winds over the streets and spirals into a whirling of metal bodies, and more importantly, newly glowing abdoments. Each and every one of the drones seems to have achieved a full load of magical energy during the fighting, and now they return to their master. A handful at the vanguard conjoin into a circle in order to open up a new portal, and the rest go pouring through like a buzzing river, making off with a huge load of stolen energy. "Next time I think I won't take all of you on at once. As entertaining as it was, it'll take some time to repair all of this damage. Now that my business is concluded however, I bid you all . . . adieu."

    The last noxine crosses the portal threshold, and the glowing rent in space winds closed, returning the domed city to its dead silence. Nox folds both of his hands behind his back, and promptly disappears; winking out of existence with a final, echoing snap. A second after he disappears, the flow of time resumes; ambient sounds all returning at once in a deafening rush.

Staren has posed:
    STOP!

    Aww, dammit! Staren's not that lucky, apparently. ALmost more frustrating is that, frozen, he can't respond to Nox for more MORAL KOMBAT.

    When Time starts again, he looks around. "Everyone alright?" He'll offer to help take anyone back to Union medical who needs it, and if he can use this robot body to more easily move rubble or help civilians, he can do that too... but other than that, he won't stick around overlong, especially if the locals still seem rather distrustful of outsiders. He's no diplomat. Better to get away before he says the wrong thing.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
What with the chaos (ha ha) in the city, WEiko is able to get the hovercraft running with only a minor investment of magic. The systems seem to work similar to how she might expect, except for the whole 'everything runs on magic' thing. But it's nothing she wouldn't be expecting. With a thrum, the hovercraft engages Float engines and begins moving out of the city, allowing Eiko to start getting away with the very tribute convoy that was protected by the Union and Shivans.

"THIEF!" cries Tarl, howling as he chases after the vehicle. "STOP THAT THIEF!" Tarl cries, lunging with impressive force... But as fast as he is, the hovercraft is faster, and he falls short. Similarly, the Shivans are out of position, having prioritized survival over loot. Unless someone else stops Eiko, she's probably going to get away scot free.

By now, the city is heavily damaged. The massive battle has left everyone exhausted except for Tarl 'The Axe', who is screaming curses to the heavens. The magitechnological systems begin functioning again once Shivan can reach them and charge them again, but there is a great deal of damage to the city, and haunted looks in the eyes of the townspeople. They look upon the Union members who came to defend them with a mixture of respect and fear, but they do not raise a hand against them today.

But it will not be forgotten. The tale of what happened here will be spread.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    When time unfreezes, Nozomi is in mid-stride, having begun a follow-after movement to capitalize on her hit when the timestop went off. Her cold golden stare lingers on the place Nox disappeared long after his portal closes. Only then does she turn around, looking at the people of the town in the wake of the attack. All they receive is that same emotionless expression for a moment, although there is less severity in it; but then she hefts her EM Zanbatou, and the machine voice of the TIGER declares, "Disengaging Rampart Mode. Rerouting Gensou Engine power to cognitive functions. Independent Mode engaged."

    The armor more or less unfolds around her, opening and parting and leaving room for the girl within to step out. As she does, the brown returns to her hair, the black bodysuit disappears to leave her in her street clothes, and the yellow color fades from her eyes. And, if those around are watching carefully, her expression changes. Like a connection's been cut, her look goes from 'cold, emotionless warrior' to that of a frightened girl in the space of seconds. And almost immediately, she drops to her knees on the ground, hit by the combination of the stress of her transformation and the pain of her injuries. This scared, shaking little thing just fought and bled for them.

    And she even takes the time to look up to the townspeople nearest, and attempt a hoarse, "A-are... are you alright...?"

    Taiga, meanwhile, is having some minor difficulty retaking his mechatiger form.