571/Into Purgatorio

Into Purgatorio
Date of Scene:	10 September 2014
Location:	Earth-1111
Synopsis:	D leads the Confederacy in an attack upon Beli Klum's realm, Purgatorio. He aims to recapture three girls under Beli Klum's care -- vampires turned by Dracula's power. Beli musters her allies into a desperate defense, but is it enough?
Cast of Characters:	22, 56, 151, 152, 232, 238, 255, 301, 347, 546

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Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Earth-1111 is a world blanketed by the markings of Paradiso's and Inferno's patches of conquered civilization, but one broad forest far from any city is strangely lacking in the blue clouds of Paradiso or the red clouds of Inferno. The sun shines down on the trees unhindered, and the wind that blows through leaves is neither unnaturally pleasant nor disgustingly sickly. Save for the unusual absence of wildlife, the forest appears entirely natural, untouched by humans, demons, and angels alike. The only abnormal energies come from a large lake deep inside the forest, where the water feels suffused in a power at once blessed and cursed. Perhaps this is why all wildlife seems to have left the forest.

    Few have been to this lake, and fewer would probably guess that they must wade into the lake's depths until they have been fully submerged in the water's surface. But those whom Beli has invited to the refuge of Purgatorio will know that, as strange as it is, doing so is exactly what's needed to get to that particular afterlife. At least there isn't a need to hold one's breath, for the moment a traveler is fully immersed in the lake's dark water, the transportation begins.

    The feeling of displacement may be disorienting, but it only lasts for a minute before those who enter the lake are deposited on the beach of Purgatorio's lone island, illuminated by the black sun hanging in the daytime sky to the west and the white moon brightening the night to the east. The endless ocean laps at white sands that ring the base of Purgatorio's single massive mountain, a towering spire divided into eight layers accessed by stairs carved into the mountain's steep cliffsides. Thousands of ghostly souls linger on the beach, though several also seem to be on the upper levels of the mountain and ascending the staircases as well. Bizarre as it may be, it is nonetheless a quiet place, perfect for the peaceful rest so many would seek after death.

    Beli herself is among those spirits, making rounds down the stairs and around the many levels to offer encouragement and comfort where she can. Recent times have been difficult on her with Namamura's loss and D's defection, but this land and those within it are her responsibility. She can put aside her own troubles for a time to make sure everyone under her protection is properly cared for, and after that, she can tend to a few particular residents of Purgatorio that require her care. The vampire girls taken from Lord Dracula's control still reside in tunnels under Purgatorio, after all, and everything seems in order to attempt to cure them of their affliction.

    No doubt that small success will help things seem a little brighter for the rephaite making her way down the mountain's side.

D (232) has posed:
    D lays his eyes on the placid mountain lake for only the second time in his life. On the first occasion, he'd beheld the beautiful vista as a friend paying a visit; now, he's come here as an intruder. He does not appear to care. He does not appear malicious, either. Much like the lake's mirror-smooth surface, his expression lacks any disturbance, as if he is utterly untouched by both the world surrounding him and the dark purpose which brought him into it.

    The lake and the man both conceal secrets inside their murky depths. What D thinks and feels is only for him to know; however, the truth of the lake is soon revealed. Without any explanation to his Confederate allies, he descends into the cool waters until every inch of him vanishes from sight. A few ripples shatter the lake's serenity, marking the place he'd gone, but nothing else remains of him. Looking into the water reveals no clues. The footprints he's left in the silt end abruptly, and the water is already working to smudge away what marks are visible.

    On the portal's other side, his boots have struck pristine sands. Purgatorio is a magnificent and astonishing secret for something as bland as a lake to safeguard. If D had it in him to do so, he might stop to admire the place, but today he can only look at it as a hawk would regard a fieldmouse.

    He stalks toward the mountain's base the moment the others have joined him. Perhaps unexpectedly, he veers away from the steps leading up, instead following the beach into the realm's moonlit half. "The girls are kept below ground, in a place protected by holy wards. We will need to work quickly. I have no doubt Miss Klum and her allies will try to stop us. She certainly won't miss our arrival."

    A great length of shadowy steel sprouts from his grasp in an elegant arc. Purgatorio's calm breeze kisses the sword's keen edge, and from there carries with it a feeling of imminent danger.

Ariah (56) has posed:
     Ariah stands at the lakeside, staring into the waters. She seems... uneasy. There's something about the divinity of the waters that puts her off. She holds onto her staff, standing in her uniform, looking very much the soldier she is. And then the leader of the party is submerging himself in the depths without a trace. The witch blinks, a moment's hesitation, and then she follows. The sight that greets her on the other side is worth pause, but not enough to keep her from following D's purposeful steps.

     "A clean and quick extraction is the best we can hope for. A prolonged skirmish is hardly optimal, especially in a place such as this. I will be useless before long, if the holy powers of this place are brought to bear on me, to say nothing of the ward. But you have my magic and my steel, D," she states. Clearly she feels that rescuing her fellow 'kindred' from this place is some sort of noble purpose, as opposed to a brutish smash and grab. Even if she feels somewhat at rest here, her own 'dual nature' drawing of sorts and existence bordering life and death finding a deeper well of calm than usual.

     "...were were not on opposing sides, I would be at ease here..."

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    It had been curious to watch D enter the lake without a single explanation, though a certain Confederate witch doesn't seem praticularly bothered. Rather, she raises an eyebrow in amusement, her enigmatic smile widening just slightly as she leans against her broom.. And she turns to the others when D doesn't emerge from the waters again. "I guess we should follow him," she suggests, all before she grabs her broom tighter and follows into the lake, ignoring the water as best as she can, taking a deep breath before she submerges...

    When the teleportation is over and done with, she can't help but study the surroundings curiously, not the least disturbed by it. After all these centuries she has seen a thing or two. Mostly caused by her own actions. But D's instructions catches her attention easily enough, and she nods. "Of course." She glances at Ariah. "Do what you can at first, then focus on medical assistance when necessary." Will the holy powers affect herself, though? Not that she is unholy, more like chaotic... but it's foolish to assume anything. It's best to be prepared. "I can focus on aerial support if needed," she offers to D as she follows, carrying her broom over her shoulder as she follows him down the beach.

    This place isn't so bad, the spirits even make this kind of feel like home.

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    D's arrival certainly does not go unnoticed by Beli. The rephaite is only two levels above by the time the Confederates enter, and she abruptly freezes in her tracks when she becomes suddenly aware of more than one person entering her domain. Confusion enters her expression as she rushes over to the cliff's edge and looks down at the beach.

    At first, she is surprised, but not necessarily in a bad way. For a moment, D is alone, and after having not seen him for quite some time, the angel-demon is relieved to finally see him well. Or perhaps 'well' may be pushing the definition slightly, but at least he's in one piece. But why is he here, now, without having even told her of the fact?

    The answer arrives very soon after D, and it makes Beli's heart drop in her chest. One, two...three Confederates follow him in. Whatever their reason for being here, the rephaite knows that the presence of at least two of those Confederates means that they have only the worst intentions.

    A hard frown forms over Beli's expression. She lifts a hand to her radio to contact the Union. Black wings spread, then deliver a powerful flap that sends her high into the air.

    When she next descends, it's in a rushing streak of blue light and flaring angelic power. Her dive is aimed a few yards in front of D and company, where she lands with an impact that kicks up a swirl of sand around her. She's quick to rise from her landing crouch and face D, and as the sand settles again, the rephaite stands defiant in front of the assembled Confederates: black wings spread, their feathers gleaming with a cyan sheen; blue flames burning in the black halos behind her head; eyes of blue and green narrowed in a glare approaching anger; angelic cyan flames burning around her hands and licking up her arms. The souls on the beach are already quickly making their way away from the impending confrontation.

    Beli's voice, echoing with soft bells and a dull, volcanic rumble, comes out firmly across the open space, directed primarily at D. "What are you doing here?"

Nox (546) has posed:
    Mystical lakes in the middle of enchanted forests seem more fitting for faeries and nature spirits than gateways to realms of the dead, but Nox isn't criticizing. As much as he's grown bored of forests over the years, it's not every day that you get to walk straight into the afterlife, even if it is another world's. Following in behind Medusa, he appears last on the sands of the beach; water dripping from the contours of his armour and staining the sand beneath him, hovering a foot in the air above it.

    Hands clasped behind his back in a businesslike manner, he gives the mountain an appraising stare, and then closes his "eyes" for a brief moment to properly visualize the flow of energy surrounding it, aiming to figure out the location of these holy wards the two vampiric confederates speak of. "I don't believe they should pose any such problem for me. No matter what I do, I haven't experienced divine retribution once in my life! Aheh." He looks to Beli with the same kind of detached, yet somehow interested air, turning to D at her obvious display of hostility. "A friend of yours? Or, former friend should I say?"

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
Tony Stark has never been to Purgatorio before, but Jarvis gives him a crash course from the Union files as he routes to the nearest warp gate. Tony even half-listens to most of it, the other half of his brain whirring over with irritation at D. Why would he turn his cloak like that. Dracula must have some kind of hold over him... I mean it's not like I knew the guy THAT well, he reasons to himself, but none of this feels logical.

Focus on the task at hand. He's /probably/ after the girls they rescued together and put up in Purgatorio for safekeeping. For what reason, who knows. Not good, at any rate. Iron Man touches down at the edge of the lake.

"...beneath the water and you will be transported there, sir."

"--What?" Stark asks his AI distractedly. Patiently, Jarvis repeats the instructions. "Oh. Right. Yeah, I heard you. Switch me to internal oxygen." He wades in.

And out again, on the other side. There's a faint hiss as the suit's environmental controls switch back to standard and begin filtering the outside air again. And, of course, the sound of heavy metal boots on sand as the armored man steps up onto the beach. His HUD highlights as Jarvis swiftly identifies the presumed hostiles and begins tracking them on the tactical display.

A louder discharge of repulsor energy announces his arrival just in case his previous noise didn't, and he boosts himself up into the air to gain that advantage, at least, until his allies arrive, his flight thrusters generating shivering craters in the lapping water below. "Let's just hold off on the trampling until we've all had a chance to talk, shall we?" he suggests, with blatant hostility in his voice.

Faruja (152) has posed:
To be honest, Faruja's never really known D aside from a voice on the radio. His outburst and pure /fury/ that consumes him as he hears of D's attack is less out of personal enmity, and more out of the principle of the thing. One doesn't betray those you fight and live alongside. Rebel, challenge, change, certainly. But to outright attack, and in a place of lost souls?

Claws crunch sand as Faruja emerges, fire in his eye and a spell already on his lips.

"CONFEDERATE D! TRAITOR, BRIGAND, DEFILER OF THIS PLACE OF SUFFERING! As the Lord hath vested in me Authority, and by mine oaths and rights as Inquisitor of the Holy Church of Saint Ajora Glabados, I cast thee from this place! FLEE HERETIC! LEST YE BE CONSUMED BY FLAMES OF THE LORD'S WRATH!" Proclaims the rat, voice radiating authority.

Faruja teleports to Beli's side, spitting out an incantation. Sand and earth alike cracks, as a red-scaled, massive head and two beady black eyes emerge. Opening its mouth, the maw of the Esper Salamander lets loose with a gout of burning fire.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley heard that D was invading Purgatorio, and immediately began preparing for a battle. She quickly put her armor on, got the longsword, the daggers, and the case Nom de Plume normally sleeps within. And then she began to fly, moving as fast as the powers of lightning and wind would carry her. Once she had reached the point where people are supposed to enter Purgatorio, she paused to look down at the lake with a smidgen of hesitance. She pats at her own cheeks to sober herself up in the face of some welling fears, then steps into the disguised portal, ready for battle... no matter what.

    When she finds herself stepping out the other side and seeing the Confederates gathered in a group somewhere ahead of them, a blade is drawn immediately. The longsword given to her by Amalthea glimmers faintly in the light of the realm of Purgatorio. But instead of moving to confront them, she takes to the sky at a fairly low altitude, and seeks out the reason she is really here. Her face sets into steadfast stoicism, relying on mental tools given to her by the Grey Scholars and her friends alike to keep herself calm in this very tense situation.

    All of the others are ignored. She instead makes an effort to get a specific person in her sights. She seeks out the mysterious man named D, and even tries to get within speaking distance. When she speaks, at a loud volume, it's at a bellow over the beach, slicing into the peaceful yet tense air. "Why are you doing this!?" It isn't angry, instead coming out as a bit distraught-- because she's not sure what to do or how to help here without using her sword and likely losing.

    She becomes severely distracted by Faruja's very real anger, and very real big fire beast spewing flames at the enemy party. Her eyes widen a bit at the sight, and then her gaze turns back to D, hardening her focus at him. She points at Faruja, as if the point of her question is largely portrayed by the rat priest's fury.

    "Wouldn't you have wanted to avoid this?"

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    D is in Purgatorio.

    Hearing that turns Setsuko's heart to ice in a split second.

    By the time her hoverbike reaches Beli's Earth, it's smoking and sputtering, the demigod having pushed it past all its safety tolerances and quite literally driven it to destruction. She doesn't bother landing. She doesn't take the time to send it into a holding pattern. She simply leaps off, right into the lake, and lets it crash a distance away.

    Rather than come at the group of Confederates from behind, the swordswoman leaps. She hurls herself into the air in a high, soaring jump, giving up any chance at a surprise attack for the simple act of planting herself between D and his goal, standing beside Faruja and Beli. By the time she lands, her aura is billowing like a furious storm, and her blade is drawn. "D," she says simply. "I won't bother telling you to turn aside. But have you stopped to ask yourself why? What is driving you to assault everyone you once called comrade? You were never one for spite."

D (232) has posed:
    Beli Klum is no pushover these days; after her trials against Inferno and Paradiso, she's stepped into confidence and power in equal measure. There is iron in her voice and her spine as she defies the likes of D and his comrades. With remarkable courage, she declares her willingness to lay down her life for her kingdom, but while others might be moved by her sentiments and her bravery, D doesn't so much as bat an eye. He continues looking at her using the same cold gaze he used for her lake and her mountain.

    It's Nox's question which sends a shadow skittering across D's inscrutable facade. Is Beli Klum a friend? Was she ever? The question is difficult for D to consider, and harder than that to answer. He puzzles over his response for a moment before he answers without conviction. "I know her."

    Iron Man's arrival distracts D from his brief struggle, who seems better off not having to consider anything more personal than the objective of his mission. D raises his head slightly, and the moonlight falls like silver-white curtains onto his face, making him appear radiant as he offers a simple refusal to Stark's request for diplomacy -- and to Faruja's sudden condemnations. "No."

    The single word might as well be meant for Setsuko Kaminagi, too, but a sharper response takes the form of D's sword. As scorching fire billows up from the Salamander's throat to lick at the beast's lips, D takes to the air in a high leap. The heat passing beneath him is close enough to blister the soles of his boots and to melt his spurs into silvery slag, but his focus lies down and ahead, on the path his sword takes as it cuts a wide swathe toward Setsuko. His rapid descent causes his cloak to flare into a familiar shape; the wing-like shadow falls on the ground like an ill omen.

    The tension in Ainsley's voice hums like a struck harpstring. A clarion call, her plea for answers cuts through the scene's violence, and causes D's focus to shift momentarily from the target of his aggression. He is almost surprised by Ainsley's passion -- but not enough to yield any answers. D closes his mind and ears to her prodding, and focuses on the task before him.

    Retrieve the girls.

    It is a simple objective, and he cradles it as one would cradle a flame against the coming night.

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    It seems that they do not have much time before they are spotted and the Union responds, huh? This does bring forth some internal tension, despite how relaxed Medusa looks. But then again, a witch who thrives on chaos and destruction can't help but get excited for the prospect of a battle.

    When Beli arrives the witch smiles brightly, surely an expression that is cleverly acted out as she tilts her head just slightly. "Why, Miss Klum... how nice of you to greet us~" Is she the one she should fight? The girl can fly after all...

    But she's not the only one, it seems.

    At the sound of repulsor discharging, Medusa turns just slightly and peers over her shoulder, craning her neck. "Hmm...?" Oh. Him. And the radio message she catches from D does draw forth a sigh and a muttered reply to the tall dhampir, all while amber snakelike eyes peer at the man in the armor. Her free hand does move to D's shoulder though, patting him before she takes a few steps towards Tony, narrowing her eyes at him. Though she can't help but throw an amused look in Faruja's direction, giving him a sinister leer. "I do wonder if your throat will last if you do that, little rodent..."

    Though it doesn't seem like she's about to wait for a reply nor to hear him finish his incantation, as she kicks off from the beach, keeping her broom low and turning it so she's sitting on it... and she ascends well before the Salamander spews fire at the ones down on the beach. Instead she's heading straight towards the Iron Man as she throws her right hand forward. "Vector Arrow!"

    Several black vector snakes shoot out from her back, all of them aimed at his chest area. Let's see how well the metal holds up against magic!

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    An ominous, descending shadow of crimson meets a bright, rippling storm cloud of azure light, and a flare of brilliant purple lights up the beach for the space of a heartbeat. Only the dhampir's last-second distraction by Ainsley enables Setsuko to mount any sort of defense, her blade flaring with blue divinity wrapped around it to strengthen its cutting power and offer her more defense. But by fluke or not, she stands fast, meeting D's strike with a direct block and forcing him to stand on the ground, even if her own boots dig into the sand beneath her in the process.

    And then she shifts her weight at once, letting the weight of her enemy's sword and strength push hers aside - only for a sudden flare to erupt from the back of her blade, a jet of blue that allows her to suddenly and swiftly change her sword's direction. It comes back up as a slash at chest level, a swipe aimed to injure bicep, shoulder, pectorals, anything she can reach to reduce his strength even briefly. It's a split-second application of a trick she ordinarily uses for her finishing technique, but desperation sometimes gives way to genius.

Ariah (56) has posed:
     Everyone gathered, save for D and Medusa, are strangers to Ariah. Even Nox is one she had only spoken to on the radio. But they are all so full of fire and passion, even if it's primarily directed at the singular tall swordsman. Surrounded and in hostile territory but put at ease by the environment. The witch almost feels like she's at home. She presses the end of her staff into the sand as exchanges are thrown back and forth, remaining in silence. At least until the rat brings out his volatile minion.

     Her eyes go wide and her arms glow brightly. She doesn't leap or fly, the flames engulfing her in that wide sweep. The edges of her uniform look singed, her arms shining as a hastily-formed shield of energy bleeds away with the fire. She already looks a little toasted, black lines streaking her flesh as she narrows her eyes at Faruja. Trailing smoke and kicked-up sand, she charges the rat and his pet Salamander. The white-blue energy of her mana wraps around her staff, forming the head of a warhammer at one end. "The Church of Saint Ajora Glabados has no authority or claim in this realm... we will accomplish our objective with or without your blessing. Would have preferred it to not come to bloodshed, but we will not yield!"

     The witch's icy voice takes on more volume than she usually shows, punctuated with her swinging the very solid block of energy that clings to her staff down towards the Esper, putting the weight of her supernatural strength behind it.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "My my, all this hostility. I can't tell whether all of you were that close to monsieur "D" before he decided to take the winning side, or you are simply offended at the idea anyone would have second thoughts about throwing in with you! I believe it would be wise if you were to listen to your fashionably armoured friend." Nox seems to like Tony, and not just for the fact that he's the only other flying tin-man in a mask. Detecting no significant trace of magic from him means that that his suit is entirely technological in nature, which immediately sparks his desire to see it carefully taken to pieces. Whether or not he'll witness that today depends both on Medusa winning, and on her not completely trashing the Iron Man suit in the process, which unfortunately, seems like a difficult prospect. Instead, he focuses on Beli as D had suggested. Whether or not the dhampir's momentary expression of doubt slips by him is impossible to tell without being able to see his face.

    Then the Esper interrupts Iron Man's basic attempts at diplomacy and all pretense of civility goes out the flaming window. In the face of the onrushing wall of flames, Nox disappears with a fizzling, electronic chirp and a flicker of blue static, reappearing several meters higher than his original position as Salamander turns the place where he had just been into a scorched, glassy pockmark on the otherwise beautiful white sand. "That was a bad move, Rat." He states matter-of-factly. Extending his arms out to his sides, he locks his hands at 3 and 9 o'clock, and then moves them to 8 and 2, and then 7 and 1, each movement accompanied by a ticking sound loud enough for anyone to hear, and done in a distinctly mechanical fashion. The roman numerals actually appear in mid-air in each place his hands pass before he finally claps them together, and Medusa, Ariah, and D are all enveloped for a split second in flickering spectres of their own silhouettes. A six point temporal wave that intermittently nudges their respective timelines back and forth from their straight course, routinely granting them bursts of accelerated movement, without being so predictable as a simple haste spell.

    "Now then. Madamoiselle "Beli" was it? I believe my orders are to deal with you. If you would be so kind." Nox gives the half-blood a shallow bow that almost doesn't seem sarcastic, as if asking a lady to dance.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    There. That look he gave her. Ainsley fixates on it. The surprise he has... that he would be startled at all might be enough indication that there is something besides this apparent defection. Everything she has heard and seen so far tells her she has to try. So she reaches into a pocket in her armor, and draws out a small and rounded rectangular case. Out of it comes a pair of blue-tinted glasses, that she sets on the bridge of her nose.

    Feeling the intense importance of this situation bearing down on her, and the consequences should D be struck down here, or if the fight doesn't work the way it should.

    She bellows even louder at him, as if angry that he ignored her, or made more determined by it: "YOU FOUGHT FOR THE UNION!! There had to be a reason for which side you chose! A reason why you wouldn't be doing this! This fight, it doesn't make sense, it flies in the face of everything you have done, everything you have experienced! You cannot possibly believe what you are doing here is right!" If Ariah though /Faruja/ talked too much...

    And once she's done that, she reaches up to touch at the bridge of Nom de Plume with the tip of one of her fingers. She speaks a soft phrase, her face showing an intensity to it that once fueled her gaze upon a certain General in Ivali<span style="color:e.

    "ccyan">Conceptual Sight.</span>"

    She tries to use their Sight to pierce D's concept, because she has to try. Everything that has happened to D so far has to mean something, the contrary being a tragedy she could never accept. She searches for five ideas: Loyalty, Morality, Motivation, Betrayal, and Hunger. She tries to gauge them in a way that is more specific. Loyalty to whom? Perception of morality? Perception of motivation? Perception of betrayal? And whether Hunger fuels what he is doing, like would make more sense than anything else but simultaneously destroy some hope she has for bringing him back from this.

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Beli's allies certainly make a show of their arrivals. Tony, Faruja, Ainsley, Setsuko; the rephaite feels a sense of reassurance by having them at her side, obviously eager to defend her home alongside her. Even Faruja, the rat normally so mellow and reserved, has already set off a gout of flames against the attacking force.

    It would cast away all her concerns, if the attacking force weren't led by a dear friend of hers, one who barely seems to recognize her now.

    Medusa earns little more than a hateful glare from Beli. The rephaite has long since known the witch's nature and her true demeanor, and she has already learned of the trials Medusa has created for her own companions. Seeing her here only brings a low sense of disgust to Beli. Could she have something to do with this situation...?

    There isn't enough time to worry about that, though. D is rushing in to assault Setsuko, and the sudden clash of steel forces Beli to take a few steps back from their connection. She's well aware that she would have difficulty fighting D on her own, but he is still of an unholy nature, and she is at least partly angelic. Whatever support she can offer Setsuko will no doubt be of use.

    Her right hand, still coated in seraphic flames, lashes out toward D from afar. A bolt of that cleansing, holy fire rushes out at him at the same time as Setsuko's swift slash, and while it's not aimed for anywhere in particular, the burning angelic power should take effect no matter where it hits.

    When she hears Nox, she whirls around with her arm lifted again...then blinks and stares at him, clearly more than a little surprised by his method of introduction. Surprise quickly shifts to determination, however, as she lowers her hand to her side and manifests a double-edged broadsword in her grasp, the elegant hilt formed of silver and the blade forged from cyan light.

    "...I would rather not," she mutters tensely, "but I suspect I do not really have any choice."

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
How does metal handle magic? About as well as it handles bullets, it seems, as Iron Man emits a noise of annoyed displeasure as he takes the snakey strikes dead-on to the tune of a loud metallic impact, and falls back in the air from the force of it.

He's encountered this witch before. Tony doesn't specifically remember this beyond a vague recollection of the attack during the coach escort, but Jarvis assists with some well-placed notes floating above her head on his tactical display. Right, the snake lady. He remembers her trying to choke him with a big python made of dots, or something. So, try to dodge from now on, Stark.

"Jarvis, can you get a lock-on?" he asks tersely, boosting himself up and around to try and get a flanking angle on the witch on her broom.

"I believe so, sir. Running predictive algorithms on her flight pattern now," Jarvis replies crisply.

"Good." Iron Man lifts one armored forearm and releases a nearly recoil-less rocket with a hiss of white smoke. Let her deal with that. He turns to see where D's gotten to.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    D's conceptual obfuscation is inherently of a rather high tier, as both an Elite and an Elite inclined to secrecy. And so, in order to pierce it, Ainsley will need to Shift. Brilliant blue lines of literature rush out of her eyes and over her face, down her body, as she brings the sight to bear with her own concept heavily amplified. The concepts she searches for may have unreliable results. Loyalty is easy to obfuscate. Morality is based on D's OWN perception of his morality. Betrayal integrates the motivation concept. Hunger, though, is much easier to find. These search terms could turn up all kinds of unusual hints, though... Or very unproductive bits of information.

    In either case, Nom de Plume is awake and straining, grunting with the effort it's putting towards this sudden burst of Conceptual Sight.

Faruja (152) has posed:
Faruja mentally takes notes, and can't help but look a little impressed by Nox. That's no mere haste spell! Noting down the general idea for later, he turns his gaze upon Nox.

"I AM A NEZUMI YE BLOODY IGNORANT KNAVE!"No, FAruja does not like being called a rat.

Ainsley's presence is likely the only thing keeping him from going on an utter rampage at this point. Unfortunately, even having his fury lampshaded quite well doesn't seem to calm him. No, D has simply hit a nerve this night, and his refuse has teeth grinding.

"Then ye art damned, and lost!"

Ainsley even gets in on her own enraged speech. There's a brief look of /respect/. He couldn't have said it better himself. And with a lot less theology.

Hello snakeypants. "MEDUSA BLOODY GORGON, MINE THROAT SHALL LAST QUITE WELL THANK THEE!" Pause. Huff! Somehow, she's managed to throw him off guard. "I take a special burmecian tea blend every morning for it. I hath been a priest since age fifteen, ye know? I bloody well know how to speak loudly, and passionately for extended periods by now! AND DOTH NOT THINK I HATH FORGOTTEN THE BOOKS. Ye art paying the bloody library fines if naught else!"

Ariah manages to /not/ get immolated by Salamander. Faruja looks down at the big scaley creature. Frown.

Salamander looks back, and flicks his head in a lizardy shrug.

But the awkward moment passes as the woman speaks.

"Fah! I am an agent of the Lord's Inquisition! Mine authority goes where God dwells, and so close to Heaven itself, mine authority is nay more radiant than ever! YE SHALL BE PURGED, WITCH!"

Then, there's a hammer. Salamander's life gets interesting as it's skull is all but crushed, the esper fading into a mass of wispy magic as it's mana-body is shattered, the creature's essence returning through the gate of his soul. That doesn't seem to bother Faruja but so much, as he produces a wood-and-gold plated gun. It's pointed in right at Ariah. A trigger is squeezed.

Holy incense and white fire bursts from the weapon, aimed right for the poor vampiress. Seems these Inquisitor types like their flames! Ariah better move fast to avoid a dousing!

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Unfortunate. If the two of us could have reached an agreement of non-interferenced based on the mutual damage we would deal to each other, I could have avoided using any additional energy for today. Oh well. I have plenty of extra from dealing with that mechanical unicorn creature, even if she did escape in the end." Holding his hand out to grasp empty air, Nox wraps his fingers around a steely grey hilt that suddenly appears in his fingers with a subtle flash of light, which sprouts a crossguard reminescent of half a gear wheel, and then rapidly generating a series of interlocking teeth that form a straight, narrow blade, tipped with a diamond like the hand of a clock.

    Resting the unusual sword at his side in clear anticipation of Beli assaulting him with hers, he levels his other hand at her; a circular aperture suddenly snapping open in his palm, glowing the same colour as the hole in his chest. A reverberating whine echoes across the water as motes of cyan collect around the opening, and then suddenly discharge in a streaking bolt of energy that explodes into the sand like a airplane bomb, kicking up a hefty plume of flying sand and pieces of rock that shower the beach for several seconds straight. "Then if anything let's make this quick. I would like to minimize the number of interferences you're certainly already planning out."

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    It's amusing with how people react to D's change of heart, though she has little to comment on it for now as she has her hands full with fighting a freaking super hero. Too much prattling can be amusing now and then, but now? Talk can come later, now it's time to show mister Stark just what he is up against.

    The last time she saw him it was at his birthday party in Malibu, and while she didn't mind being pleasant there, this time it's not so quite sadly business. As her snakes strike into the armor and barely dent it she can't help but frown, though she's hardly out of ideas just yet! Even as Jarvis locks on onto the witch as she does a round around the Avenger, Medusa leans down onto her broom, clutching with her left hand. Predictive flight patterns might be pretty tough on a unpredictable witch, and she turns her broom over into a sideways roll... and that's when the speed boost from Nox sets in, sending the witch forward even as the smart missile explodes behind her.

    If the man had any sense, he would know better than to turn his back on an enemy. For shame.

    The thing with brooms are that they make so little noise. So it might be hard to hear Medusa as she hangs tightly onto the broom with both hands as she descends and swings down like a gymnast, the broom above her as she swings and /kicks/ out at Iron Man's back, using the momentum to swing backwards and get onto the broom again. Most likely she's done this before. As this happens she chuckles scornfully. "Here I thought you preferred looking at the ladies, mister Stark~?" she taunts him, all while she hopes this gave her an opening as she throws her right arm out... and the snake tattoo on her arm comes to life, growing in size and form until a ten foot long snake with a stylized body leaps at Tony, seeking to wrap itself around his neck and arms with a ferocious hiss!

D (232) has posed:
    It's clear from his movements that D intends to get past Setsuko's barricade. The momentum gained in his powerful leap carries him forward. Sparks ignite the air in scattered clouds as the edge of his sword runs down the length of Setsuko's for each step he gains toward the mountain, until at last his feet are planted and his blade is neatly locked against Setsuko's crossguard. The hard set of his jaw and the rigid strength in his arm is almost a match for his weapon's dark steel. He breaks the engagement by swatting Setsuko's sword out to the left.

    Retrieve the girls.

    Abruptly, his figure is illuminated from behind by holy fire. It rushes toward him in a wave at the same instant his silhouette doubles in a distorted effect made more confusing by the fire's brilliant glare, and at the same instant Setsuko triggers her sword's blue flame.

    If not for Nox's boon, D would face quite the predicament. His speed enhanced beyond its typical supernatural capacity -- and his sword seeming to sometimes blink from strike to strike rather than flow with coherent grace -- he manages to spin between Setsuko's blows and cut a sharp path of wind through the fire rushing toward him. Holy embers flare out from the shattered wave to scorch stinging, blackened burns into his pristine skin, but aside from a wrinkle in his brow, he displays no acknowledgement of any discomfort. What makes him flinch and actually drives him back a step is Setsuko's next rushing strike, fast and strong enough to bypass the disrupted pattern of his defense. She manages to open a gash from the center of D's chest all the way to his left shoulder.

    It's quite the lucky hit, considering the situation -- for both D, and for Setsuko. If he had spun back the other way, she would have struck his sword arm, and ruined his counterattack.

    His sword cuts down from above in a black rush, all his fearsome strength put to the task of staggering Setsuko. If he should succeed, he will lunge beyond her reach, and try to race toward the dark opening seen in the mountain's base.

    Ainsley's words, however, cut through his intentions almost as effectively as Setsuko's sword had cut through his armored shirt. As his blood soaks his shirt, so Ainsley's words soak into his mind. Again, he is surprised by the accusations laid before him -- that he is a traitor, that he has abandoned the Union and his friends -- and he cannot quite stop his immediate reaction. "What I do or do not is no business of yours."

Ariah (56) has posed:
     Ariah finds herself surprised at how effectve the blow from her magic-fueled warhammer happens to be on the Esper's skull. The energy encircling her staff wraps back around and into it, soaking into the runes and into the woman's arms. Remnants of the Salamander's body too flow into her staff, siphoning fragments of its form to refuel her reserves. Reserves she's going to need. For the time being, she she stays silent, the Burmecian having more than enough words for the whole group. She finds herself staring down the barrel of an impressive-looking pistol. And then her world is pain.

     It seems the witch has chosen her dance partner quite poorly, and if not for Nox's boon, she'd be missing a large portion of her head. Instead, the gout of holy fire rips through her shoulder and her upper arm. The woman grits her teeth, trying her best not to bite off her own tongue. ".../INQUISITOR/..." she speaks the word as if it's a curse. It may as well be, the sleeve of her uniform soaked in black, scorched beyond recognition as the lower half falls away in ashes--along with a lot of that arm. The scent of charred meat is unpleasant enough, but the look on Ariah's face is bordering on feral and berserk.

     One arm hanging useless at her side, she clutches her staff in the other. With an inhuman -shriek- she bares her fangs and lunges at Faruja, the runes etched on her blackened bones burning bright as she sweeps the staff low to impact his legs and see him brought to the ground.

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Perplexion flits across Beli's face as Nox talks. He speaks in such a strange way...and a faintly irritating one, considering the strain already weighing on the rephaite at the moment. Beli may be good at repressing it, but part of her nature is that of a demon of wrath, and recent events have put that restraint to the test. Her frown returns, growing slightly in intensity as she lifts the sword of Fairness in front of her and points the blade of holy light at Nox. "I am not really concerned with /your/ energy use today, when you are attacking my home. Please forgive me." Of course sarcasm drips from her words; she may be polite, but she's not /that/ polite, especially under these circumstances.

    The sword that forms gets her attention first, but as Nox raises his hand, it's clear that's not what he's opening up with. Quick on her feet, Beli crouches and gives a powerful beat of her wings just as that energy bolt rushes toward her. She's not hit dead-on, at least, but the explosion that results after she streaks into the air still catches her enough to make her flight erratic and disjointed from the flying debris and rush of energy. Black wings flap in sequence as the rephaite grits her teeth, ensuring that she's level before she counterattacks.

    A glance is given toward D. Setsuko is dealing with him, but for how long? He's rushing, too, toward the place Tony suspected he would be going. What is he going to do when he gets there?

    Beli's response is quick. She wastes no time in bantering with Nox and instead simply hurls Fairness right at him, the point aimed straight for his chest. The sword of justice is unusual, however: the blade, forged entirely from light and magic, merely passes through anything physical to send magical power striking through its target. The hilt, however, is physical, and the blade treats magic as an obstacle.

    Whatever the outcome of her assault, Beli quickly wheels around to fly along toward the cave further along the beach. It's not very large, just big enough for two people to pass through side-by-side with some comfort. As nondescript as it may be, however, it still holds something of importance.

    She has to protect the girls, even if she must break herself to do so...

D (232) has posed:
    What D beholds in Ainsley is a strange sight. Words appear to wreathe her body, and there is a great sense of power emanating from her every pore. The light filling her gaze shines on his soul and lays bare the truths of his being, cursed and otherwise, but it's not as if he knows and understands what's happening. To his passing glare, she is an especially luminous pest, like the zapper bugs he knows from the Frontier -- a stinging nuisance, nothing more. He could strike her from the sky and move along, if Setsuko and his objective did not keep him firmly engaged.

    What concepts embody D? The greatest is an overwhelming sense of hunger. He is here because his violence distracts him from the starvation making his every waking moment a torturous agony. He hungers for blood, and to ease his own torment, but there is a darkness to it that is not natural even for a vampire. His hunger is magnified to oppressive levels; it's a miracle he can do anything at all except hunt and feed.

    The weakest flame ignited by Ainsley's Conceptual Sight is the concept of his motivation. D is not driven by his own needs except the desire to find relief. A great, roiling darkness conceals his concept of motivation, leaving very little else to be discovered.

    Similar clouds disguise his loyalty. He is loyal to himself, but also is guided by a sense of duty which has been imposed on him. He is loyal to his blade. The sword is not only his partner and the symbol of his purpose as a Hunter; it is what binds him.

    Of morality and betrayal more can be gleaned, but it isn't pretty. D is man seemingly without much moral conviction, these days. He doesn't care for anything like 'good' or 'evil', instead walking a narrow road shaped by the forces surrounding him and controlling him. His morality, like his loyalty, is defined by his blade and where it is needed. If he feels he must use his sword, he will. Betrayal -- his concept of betrayal is complicated. His past pledge to defend humanity and to rid his world of evil is lost beneath a haze of fragmented memory. He doesn't seem to have laid roots anywhere, neither in the Union nor the Confederacy, and so there is nothing for him to have betrayed.

    All of what he is can be summed up by the elegant curve of his dark sword. The rest is shadowed, shackled, and so buried it would require a feat of strength to break through.

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
There's another metallic CLANG as Iron Man takes another hit, this time in the center of his back to... balance out the hit he took to the chest? "*Whuff!* Lady... you're no lady," he snarks back, turning to pay her proper attention now as it seems she won't be written off with a single missile after all. He lifts both hands to fire a wide-spread repulsor blast, but yelps in alarm instead as the giant snake comes flying at him!

The offensive blast turns into a defensive maneuver, throwing himself back with the thrust from his gauntlet emitters. And finally, as he seems to slip into a fighting rhythm now that it's clear this opponent is one that will take special attention -- Stark actually takes a moment to look like a freakin' superhero. With a quick additional burst from his left hand he spins himself sideways, letting the snake charge past, and there's a sweet slow-motion camera shot as its thick, dotted body nearly scrapes the front of his chestplate. Then the action speeds up again as his right gauntlet comes slamming down to grab the thing by the back of its... well, it's kind of all neck, isn't it? --And the momentum of the spin whips him around again with cinematically perfect timing to hurl the magical creature back at the witch!

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    That dazzling, dancing swordwork boosted by Nox's gift leaves Setsuko unable to defend, and D's downward slash as a result only meets the barest hint of deflection from her sword. His weapon cuts deep, from right shoulder to left hip, a wound that staggers her with a surprised cry of pain; but even with a grievous wound like that, she needs only a second to push past her surprise and injury, and Ainsley's distraction gives her just that. In D's moment of split attention, Setsuko surges forward, not moving to slash but rather to /tackle/ - to throw all her weight and superhuman strength into pushing D back, preventing him from moving forward. And at the same time, she yells.

    "But it /is/ our business! You who called us ally made it so, and you continue to make it so even now by attacking a place whose existence you helped forge!"

    With her sword still in her right hand, a tackle will also give her good positioning for another disabling attack. This one goes for the inside of his knee, a severing slice that is far more cruel than she normally cares to use against opponents - but given who she faces, she has no choice. Even this will only slow him briefly, if at all.

    "Even without your self-control, D, I would not expect this of you! Ruthlessness, perhaps, but spite? That isn't you! Something is clouding your mind!"

    She already has an idea what it is after their last clash, but just saying it will cloud his judgement. She'll have to lead up to it, give the idea roots. Something she can hammer at now, and later if need be.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Throwing her sword away? Now that was surprising. Nox had expected Beli to charge headlong into battle like some sort of angel/demon of vengeance and attempt to drive him off her home soul in one-on-one combat. An attack that predictable doesn't warrant him using up magic to stop it with time magic, so he instead responds with a lazy flick of his sword, aiming to bat it away with a simple motion. Beli will just have to imagine his eyes widening in surprise as his blade simply passes right through hers, leaving him straight in its path as it flies into him and the hilt slams against his chestplate; the point now punching back out the other side. With a metallic snarl of annoyance, he rips the sword out of him with casual disdain, hurling it to the ground with a shower of droplets of some luminescent blue liquid, matching the featureless, glowing rent in his plate. "Always with the tricks, isn't it? Perhaps I should try and become a psychic so I can predict these things rather than running into these irritating obstacles over and over again."

    Of course he's not just going to let her run off. As Beli turns in the opposite direction, Nox materializes directly in front of her with another electric snap. "And where do you think you're going? If you start something, the polite thing to do is to finish it!" Lifting the sword over his head, he brings it down in a lightning swift diagonal slash; the blade itself less of a worry than the blinding arc of light that issues from it. A section of space collapsed upon itself into a near two dimensional plane of gravitational shear force, swiftly ripping through the air, the sand, and then carving a crevice into the bedrock beneath so deep that the bottom is invisible.

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    "Does it look like I care for your opinion?" Medusa quips with an insincere smile as she sees her snake closing in on the Iron Man, even as he raises his arms. As he's getting ready for the snake attack and performs a defensive maneuver that she didn't expect, she has to admit that the suit is a fair bit more advanced than she expected from a piece of metal. It lacks the subtle style and grace of a broom, but still... she has to admit it, this might be a fight she can't win. But either way, she needs to keep the damn super hero distracted so D can focus on his task.

    Medusa works on conjuring up her magic, muttering some words under her breath even as she moves her arms in some peculiar and erratic patterns, the black snakes coiling and twitching around her torso and looming behind her as a threatening wave of magic that is begging to be unleashed...!

    But that has to wait as she snake is hurled back towards her, and the witch's eyes widen. Luckily this has a fail safe, and Medusa throws her right arm out, and in response the snake familiar shimmers as it seems to bleed into her arm again, slithering up to her shoulder. And as this happens, she does a sweeping motion with her left arm, two fingers extended towards the man in the iron suit. "Vector Arrow!"

    This time, far more snakes are thrown out towards Tony, a black storm of zig zag lines that seek to wrap themselves around him.

    "Now be so kind to /die/!" she exclaims with a wicked grin on her lips and a wild look in her eyes, making her look far more like the creatures she takes her theme from.

Faruja (152) has posed:
It seems Faruja might have met his equal in the 'rage' department. The sight of Ariah's stealing magic that once kept an esper tied to the world doesn't help his own temper! The rodent manages to glare all the harder as his title is spat like a curse. There's even a slow smirk as he spies the damage he caused.

Unpleasant smell or not, it's the scent of advantage and victory.

"Hmph! Godless witch! Ye know well the might of the Inquisition I see! REPENT THINE WAYS! LEST YE BE CAST INTO THE ABYSS ALONGSIDE TRAITORS, KNAVES, AND FELL SORCERESSES!"

Half of Purgatorio probably hears Faruja's pious yelling.

Then, she pounces, and his injury slows him down. Trying to leap back, he catches his bad leg, squeaking in pain. Then, that staff of Ariah's smashes him right in the knee. There's a horrible cracking sound, and the bone shatters, sending the rat to the ground. His Blaze Gun slips from his hand.

This leaves Ariah plenty of time to inflict some good old fashioned physical violence if she so chooses. But there's only so much opportunity; with a few words, and force of arcane will, time itself seems to slow. But rather than merely all around Ariah, it's a focused burst. Specifically, it seeks out the woman's heart, attempting to slow its beating to a painful, torturous rate...if it sticks.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    As the words stretch across Ainsley's skin, she shines with that blue light. She soaks in the concepts, which put a look of tension on her face. She sees an image that, to her, feels distorted. Something about it tells her that it is not right, in some way. The report that Setsuko put up before comes to her mind. The blade. Her eyes turn to focus on it, wholeheartedly, as if everything she just saw pointed her in its direction.

    She lifts the longsword in her grasp, and she moves to try to take advantage of D's distraction with Beli and Setsuko... and with a brutal chopping motion, she tries to remove the blade from his hand, whether or not that means dismembering the man on the spot. She is bound and determined by this impulsive drive to excise what she feels is the source of the problem right on the spot, if it's in her power to do so.

    She disregards the risk this attempt has toward her physical well-being. This would simply be seen as aggression, if she didn't shout along with it.

    "This is not the blade you are loyal to!!"

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Every time Beli has faced a teleporter, it hasn't gone well.

    Today probably isn't going to be an exception to that.

    Nox suddenly appears in front of her, and her eyes grow wide with shock. All at once, she turns her efforts to trying /not/ to slam into him, flapping her wings to shove her momentum back in the other direction. The efforts pushed to make sure she /stops/ prevent her from dodging, however, and the bizarre sword cleaves down toward her in a single, powerful slash. Light flares out against her, and she shoves her hands forward...

    That last act saves her from something that would likely cut her in half, considering what that attack did to the surrounding landscape. In her desperation, a shield of Compassion is cast around her, defending her in an orb of pure golden light. Not enough care was put into it for it to be particularly strong, and the arc of light shatters the shield into motes of sparkling dust with a sound like breaking glass, and it continues ahead to Beli, cleaving from shoulder to hip in a single line that immediately begins to seep blood that more resembles tar.

    Better than taking it head-on, at least.

    The rephaite cries out in pained surprise, tumbling to crash on her back in the sand below. Pain shoots through her again from the impact, but at the same time, she knows she can't let it slow her. Even as it pokes at the smoldering anger in her heart, she knows she can't /stop/. She has to get up, /now/.

    Even then, it's an effort to do so. To buy her time as she pushes herself to her feet, she manifests another archangel's power: Industry, a pair of angelic wings formed from heavy gears and sharp blades that bursts into being with a flash of light on her back. No sooner do they come into existence than the wings separate into their many components, gears and blades whipping into a storm around Beli before rushing at Nox one after the other. They seek him out one after another, hopefully long enough for Beli to get to her feet again, hunched slightly and gritting her teeth against the lingering pain of her injury.

    D and the others get her attention again as confusion flits through her discomfort. Her mind is too muddled and focused for her to properly make out what's going on, but...something about the sword...?

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    Even if Medusa's attention is on her opponent, she can't help but overhear certain things. As Ainsley's words sounds throughout the area she can't help but jerk her head to the side even as she has her left arm pointed towards Tony. Her pupils constrict to even thinner slits as she /glares/ down at the lizard as she wrestles with D, malice emanating from her entire being and certainly something that won't go unnoticed by those sensitive to chaoic and destructive magic...!

    Fortunately for the Iron Man however, it seems that the witch is looking away from him for the first time since she took to the air.

Ariah (56) has posed:
     Words. More words. The sounds of her old superiors and trainers echoing in her ears from so long ago. Worthless. Expendable. Freak. The shouts only serve to fuel her rage further, to say nothing of the burning sensation of her half-gone arm. An arm that still functions just enough. She brings her staff down on the fallen rat, Ariah angered to a clear breaking point as she goes for his shoulder. The hand is somewhat stayed, the Slowing magic enveloping her, removing Nox's Haste enchantment and stopping her heart. The faintest moment of clarity comes across her features as she feels her blood slowing and halting. And nothing happens.

     That moment is gone in such a heartbeat, and she throws herself upon Faruja, her rage still present but now filled with -focus-, making her all the more a dangerous creature. "I am already dead," she hisses, forcing herself upon him, one hand gripping his raiments, the other reaching for a hold on his head to expose neck and shoulder. And she digs in. Her mouth opens and her fangs shine briefly before she takes a bite out of Faruja and holds it there. She drinks of his blood what she can, her breath coming in loud growls, muffled by her opponent's body. Her charred arm starts to re-knit slowly from the fresh blood she's imbibing.

     But the act of blasphemous feeding and terrible hunger leaves her wide open to retaliation.

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
How fast can those arrow snakes fly? Tony kicks up his feet and blasts them full in their stylized faces with his boot thrusters as he rockets away with a shocking burst of speed. Rolling over to re-orient himself face-down in the air, he chances a glance backward and then shifts the angle of his hands slightly, sending him zigging off sharply at another angle.

He zags back, hopefully having shaken the writhing black snakepile off his track, just in time to see the witch distracted by her own indulgence in glaring at Ainsley. Shouldn't she know better than to turn her back on an opponent?

Iron Man LOOMS suddenly behind the witch, flinging both hands forward and this time both gauntlets discharge a double-barrelled blast of kinetic force, not at Medusa herself, but at her broom.

D (232) has posed:
    Already, the cut opened across D's chest is beginning to close. The wound doesn't slurp up its own blood as it might if it were more serious, but by the time the last echo of Ainsley's chastisement fades away, there's only a pink line left where the cut had been.

    Setsuko's body, strength, and audacious determination work together to slam D to the ground. His cloak becomes a black tangle, and his sword cleaves uselessly at the air as if it too is startled. Pure instinct compels him to immediately seek the dominant position in their grapple, and he swings his leg into a hook designed to deny Setsuko anything like a balanced posture above him. He leverages his strength through his hips and hooked leg in an attempt to throw her from him, or to twist her up under him, but a sudden, searing heat flaring in his opposite knee upsets his intentions.

    Blood fountains hotly down his leg from a cut deep enough to sever his ligaments and nerves. The blood pools inside his boot, and its stench taints the air surrounding him. D bares his teeth in a bestial snarl. Only Setsuko's words could carve a more dangerous wound, and he is near enough to be exposed to every last pleading syllable.

    Setsuko's voice rakes him through fiery coals flaming up inside his own heart. Had he forged this place? Through the murk clouding his essence, he feels the pang of a horrible realization. Of course he had helped create Purgatorio. It was among his first missions as a mercenary hired by the Union. He had accepted the job because of the pay it promised, but in the line of duty found himself drawn to the people he had helped -- to Beli's purpose. To the souls she meant to save.

    D takes a deep breath rife with the taste of battle and bloodshed, of ash and chaos, and utters something only Setsuko can hear.

    Ainsley's weight and her intentions crash into his upraised sword arm. She has come for his sword.

    It will prove to be a terrible mistake.

    D's left hand knots inside the longer half of Setsuko's hair. His eyes blaze scarlet. The air around him goes cold and howling, like a wintry gale has erupted from the spot where he lays. Like a living icon sculpted from flawless alabaster, he rises up, Setsuko clutched in his grasp, the full towering height of him seeming to stretch toward the heavens. He is as imposing as he is beautiful -- and Ainsley would rightly quake in fear.

    His sword moves in a way it has no business of moving, deflecting Ainsley's attempt with brutal force. The same sword chases after her in a single vertical slash aimed to open her body from belly to collarbone.

    Then, his fangs slip into Setsuko's skin, piercing deep enough to siphon her life's essence into his hungry mouth. His lips touch her neck, leaving there a bloody smear which grows into a ribbon running down her chest.

    Beli will feel her wards shudder.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Ohoho! Impressive! You actually survived that! Now that's not something you see every day." Mox's voice is muffled by the mask and slightly garbled by the rent in his chest, but the laughter is unmistakable anyway; not particularly villainous or malicious, but genuinely impressed, perhaps even enjoying it. "These 'elites' never fail to surprise me. I don't think I'll ever grow bored with the stunts you pull, even with that disappointingly /meddlesome/ nature. Then again, what's life without a little challenge?" The first blade that comes flying at him is deflected by a casual swing of his sword, and the second is evaded by teleporting on the spot, allowing it pass through him in the intevening split second between dematerialization and rematerialization. The storm that follows behind them however, annoyingly staggered instead of coming all at once, causes the retractable lids on the lenses of Nox's mask to narrow in a artificial reproduction of an annoyed squint. Quickly running the calculations through his head, he raises his hand just in time to prevent the next blade going right through his arm, issuing forth a barely visible pulse of magic that swiftly fades like a ripple on a pond, announced with a percussive, subsonic thump.

    The blade stops dead in midair, followed by the chain of flying swords behind it. Rather than all coming to rest right in front of him as if hitting some sort of barrier, the entire string seems to have been paused at once; much more efficient than maintaining a barrier of slowed time and waiting for them all to arrive. The damage to some of his magic capacitors however, renders the spell's efficiency just short of the carefully measured amount of energy he had put into it, leaving the last blade free to streak through the air and slam into his head with a shower of sparks and a loud, metallic clang. Reeling from the blow for a moment, Nox 'stands' back upright with a juddering little clockwork snap, his helmet sporting a big, ugly dent that would be deep enough to have cracked someone's skull were it on a normal human's head. "Well that was just embarrassing. Now that I know the error margin however, your chances of victory are back at zero. Normally I'd love to see where you run off to, if only to learn more about this fascinating place, but today is work before pleasure."

    With a wave of his hand, all of the metal blades suspended in midair, swivel 180 degrees, pointing back towards Beli, and then with a snap of his fingers, Nox sends them all flying in reverse; tracing backwards through causality so that they don't simply fly straight along the path they had already taken, but actively seek out the person who had launched them. Not willing to take chances, he points the tip of his sword to where he anticipates Beli will dodge, which then sparks with a flash of white light, and then blossoms into a barely controlled conflagration of roiling cerulean energy that streaks on target in a blazing beam wider than he is tall. One or the other /has/ to hit, right?

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    Those damn snakes are rather fast, though not avoidable, especially not for somebody as agile in the air as the Iron Man, unfortunately. The blasts from the boot thrusters make quick business of many of the snakes, causing them to wither away like ash. The snakes have trouble keeping up with him, especially when it seems like Medusa's attention is momentarily diverted by that loud outburst made by Ainsley.

    It only takes a few seconds, and then Medusa gasps as she hears Tony come up behind her, her eyes flashing with danger as she stares into his faceplate, a look of defiance. Who do you think you are, whelp?

    That matters little as the double blast is sent towards her, striking the broom and tearing it apart, wooden bits raining down. Though of course this throws Medusa off too, the blast leaving its mark on her was well and scorching skin. Perhaps it's some small comfort to some present to hear the loathsome witch cry out... and perhaps see her falling towards the beach below. The vector arrows, now not guided by the witch, seem to completely fall apart, disintegrating.

    However, even in her pain, it doesn't seem like the witch is without magic and ideas to call upon, and she throws both her arms up as she falls. Both snake tattoos leap forth and materializes into their snake forms, swooping down underneath the witch as she turns mid air, landing somewhat roughly on one of them in a tree point landing.

    Despite her pain, she's still chuckling sinisterly as she peers up at Iron Man from underneath her hood. She gestures with her left hand, and the snake she isn't on charges at Iron Man, seeking to wrap itself around his legs and hiss threateningly into his face, though the snake Medusa is catching a ride with isn't slow to follow, quickly flying around Tony...

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    There is an outright yelp from Setsuko as her hair is hauled up on. "Aah-!" And before she can even respond, D's terrible supernatural presence batters down around her while his teeth sink into her neck. And what he receives is a positive torrent. There is still human life in there, indeed it forms perhaps the majority of her lifeforce still; but there is also divinity, raw and flowing and absolutely singing with the loud and bloody clash of War. It is not quite holy, but it is in its element, and the dhampir will be receiving a veritable flood of both halves of the demigod.

    Rigid as she is, however, pinned by feeding from her life energy and a flood of power around her, the demigod marshals herself. Her teeth grit. Her eyes close. The flow of life actually slows, because Setsuko is drawing some of it away, marshalling it for her own ends. She doesn't have it all to work with, at the moment, but she doesn't need it all. She has enough, just barely. Enough that she can push it all into her left fist, gather it, compress it, her hand beginning to glow a bright and shining blue... as it curls into a fist.

    It is her own turn to murmur something whisper-quiet.

    And then her hand drives forward, delivering impossible strength for the short distance she has to work with, even accounting for her supernatural might. And on the moment of contact, all that divine power erupts, like a shaped-charge explosive going off, turning an already-brutal point blank punch into an incredibly destructive attack.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    The consequences of Ainsley's impulsiveness smack her quite thoroughly. Not only does it not result in victory, she soon realizes that it has backed D into a corner when he snatches up Setsuko and /bites/ her. The lizard girl is almost completely stunned in her attempts by this, if only for the sheer audacity of what he's doing. Consuming the blood of someone so blatantly, doing something that Ains had heard in his own words that he would want to avoid!

    Her body almost froze. She sees the blade coming at her and it's almost like an instinct of her own. She makes an attempt to dodge and parry at the same time, but the awkwardness of her defense results in her longsword being flung from her grasp and a gouge being opened up across her torso. Nothing as deep and fatal as it could have been, but the gurgling cry she makes thanks to the pain is quite telling of how painful it is. She is thrown backward and slams into the sand, clutching at the wound and trembling and gasping.

    Despite this, she pushes herself up to a stand, and seeks out her weapon, turning her gaze upon D.

    "You have betrayed yourself," she tells him, "By drinking the blood of those who once fought beside you!" She's still got the spunk to shout at him, but once she got slashed like that, she's not as eager to try to get near him again. She's momentarily distracted by the battle around her. "SNAP OUT OF IT!! You are a hunter! You are becoming that which you fought so hard against, in mind, in body, in your heart!"

    Leave it to the weakest in the battle to talk at the scariest person there until her voice becomes hoarse. She's not sounding too great.

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
Iron Man hovers for a moment, pleased with himself as he sees the witch plummet. The thought of diving to catch her barely has time to formulate though, before he sees that she has that handled herself.

He lets the first snake catch him this time, his lips twisting in a sneer of disgust as the creature hisses into his face, though all anyone outside the helmet can see is the impassive frowning mask.

"Yeah you just hang out right there," Tony mutters under his breath, glancing at his power gauges as he begins channeling arc energy into the central RT mounted in the armor's chest, directly above his own implant. The disintegration of the smaller snakes in the face of his boot thrusters has confirmed that they're vulnerable to repulsor energy; these big guys should just take a slightly bigger love tap.

He waits, as Medusa circles, for her to come around in front of him, writhing just enough in the snake's grip to make it look like a convincing struggle. When the particular coil of snake that she's riding touches the edge of his calculated blast radius, a torrent of white-orange energy suddenly erupts from the suit's torso!

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Taunting or not, Nox's words only seem to poke that fire smoldering in Beli more and more. How can he be so /cheerful/ during this? How can /anyone/ remain bright in this situation?

    Beli gives a wet cough as she staggers to her feet. Black blood drips between gritted teeth; no doubt something internal was damaged from that last strike, but beyond the lingering ache, Beli barely seems to care. She can't falter. She can't stop. She can't let anything this strange.../thing/ does to her slow her down-

    All at once, she feels something trembling and rupturing nearby. Screams and crackles of energy emanate from the cave in the mountain, timed to flashes of light. D has called to the girls, inspiring them to act, inspiring them to come to their far more powerful kin no matter what pain it brings them. They smash themselves against the holy wards set up to keep them inside, and considering that those wards weren't made to be especially strong, it's questionable how long they'll even hold.

    All else is silenced in her mind as she starts to push herself forward, but that moment proves to be to her disadvantage. The wings of Industry turn on her, zipping through the air in an erratic pattern. The first she doesn't notice before it suddenly drives through her abdomen, knocking the wind from her as she staggers aside. Then comes another, and another, and another, piercing through her wings and torso repeatedly until she is at last forced to fall to her knees with an agonized gasp.

    For a very brief moment, everything seems to slow. Beli kneels in the sand, gasping for breath as the white beach is steadily stained by her black blood. She sees D tearing into Setsuko and casting fear into Ainsley. She sees Tony being assaulted by Medusa's black serpents. She sees Ariah devouring Faruja to recover her own life. She feels the three young vampires crashing against their holy wards. And she feels the trembling terror that strikes every soul in Purgatorio at the sight of the chaotic battle on the shore. The very people she devoted her life to protect. The very people she is nearly about to fail.

    All at once, it fills her with an inconsolable fury of absolute defiance.

    Beli does not normally scream. Her voice is too soft and gentle for any to consider that she could. But now, as the blades of Industry fade away and the flames in her halos and the sheen of her wings burst from blue to a dark, bloody red, she screams at the top of her lungs. An infernal power flares from her, darkness swirling into a crushing, piercing storm and dancing with snakes of dark red hellfire. Her voice is a clamor of bells and a volcanic explosion that she directs fully toward Nox, and so too does she direct all the agony of Hell. A swirling maelstrom of physical darkness and tormenting hellfire blasts for him even as he fires his own great beam of cerulean energy, and the infernal storm of black and crimson relentlessly pushes forward to the strange clockwork man. It doesn't matter if she's also struck; the darkness and flames hold a will of their own that they will relentlessly see through. A will to cut, to burn, to tear, to cause the greatest suffering they possibly can.

    And all through it, Beli roars. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    With her snake busily wrestling with the Avenger, Medusa turns her attention briefly downward to get a quick look downwards on the battlefield below. Observant as she is, the witch takes in the situation quickly, a layout quickly forming in her mind. While she could probably help her allies more and throw the fighters against each other, that would require more concentration than she can afford right now...!

    "VECTOR PLATE!"

    Several black arrows appear in the sand, all pointing in different directions, some underneath the Unionites to unsettle them, others under her allies to aid them away in dangerous situations.

    Even as she whirls around on her mount, Medusa listens intently to Tony, and as she comes up in front of him, she is watching him again, seeing him struggling with the snake... though she narrows her eyes. Doesn't this seem too easy...?

    How she hates being right.

    The moment she realizes it, she's already leaping up and forward from the snake with the help of her tailsnake, injuring her own snake and leaving it open in order to save her own skin, the blast burning and nearly striking a lethal strike to the burns she's already suffering from, but she seems pretty agile and quick for an old lady! Bleeding and with the skin and flesh on her legs partially burnt she might be a grotesque sight as she just barely escapes the blast that obliterates the two snake familiars, their black shapes twitching in the air as they explode in a mess of black ink and flesh.%R    Medusa reaches out with her right arm, fingers gripping on tightly onto Iron Man's left shoulder as she swings herself up and over him, twisting her torso as she descends behind him... and wraps both of her arms around his neck! Her legs latch on around his waist as she clings to his back... and she pulls, doing her best to /yank/ his head off. All with her sinister chuckle right next to his ear as her head is right behind his.

    "... I haven't had this fun dancing in /years/!"

D (232) has posed:
    Feeding from Setsuko is like tasting fabled ambrosia. D becomes all at once intoxicated by the sensational power flowing into him through her blood. There is also a sense of satisfaction where he has rarely felt it before tonight. For once in his life, he has forsaken his principles, and wholly embraced what it is to live as the monster he once hunted. It is a strange sensation for him, but it is appealing. To relieve his hunger, to coat his dry fangs in the lush vitality of a human's living blood -- he can hardly believe he has ever lived any other way.

    The lurid scarlet shining in his eyes remains present for so long as his fangs continue to pierce Setsuko's neck. That light is all but washed out in the azure flash hammering into D's chest.

    The incredible blow opens his chest into a ragged red ruin. Blood both his own and Setsuko's gushes into the air along with meaty chunks and sharp fragments of bone ripped from his torso. D opens his mouth, letting out a howl he shouldn't have the breath to create, and his body rocks backwards, collapsing stiffly toward the earth. Visible inside the wound is the quivering ruin of his heart, the twitching pink of his lungs, and the pale white flash of exposed bone. What should be an instantly fatal blow is stretched out by his vampiric resilience into a horror show onto which Ainsley only heaps salt in the form of her scathing words.

    Pain more terrible than his hunger throws D back to the ground. His eyes continue to glare, before the light in them goes dark. His jaw clenches, and bloody spittle runs down his chin from one corner of his mouth. Another tremor goes through him. At any second, he might be dead.

    If he does not die, his body will at least require time to recover -- time which he isn't likely to be granted by Setsuko, Ainsley, or any of the others who would see him stopped.

    The attacks causing Beli's wards to shudder go quiet; D no longer calls to them.

    Despite this, his hand remains wrapped firmly around his sword. Enough consciousness remains to him to empower his grip, and to introduce a confusion of emotion to his once inscrutable facade.

Faruja (152) has posed:
Faruja, as his spell manages to both succeed, and yet is utterly worthless in the end, is completely caught off guard.

She should, by all rights, be dead or nearly so. But she quickly educates FAruja on the matter, the helpless rat swiftly overpowered by rage and focus as she leaps upon him. Already dead. Undead.

An unhallowd spirit. And then teeth sink into his neck. Fur and flesh alike are pierced, the woman getting right into a vein, and delicious blood flows. So surprised, he hardly offers any defense as horrific pain fills his entire senses. His body goes stiff.

Faruja lets out a loud cry. Ainsley's words about the sword are utterly lost, as is the battle around him. There's only pain in Faruja's existance as the sound of his own blood being drained from his body, and the sight of D similarly feasting on a former ally. Then, he very nearly cleaves poor Ainsley in twain.

The rat has grown simply too weak to fight the monster feeding from him. His gaze starts to darken, and his single good eye closes. Darkness threatens to take him.

His ear twitches. Ainsley's voice, indistinct, draws him from the edge of death. Death. He's always known he'd likely die to some horror as an Inquisitor. But like this? While his friends and love are hurt, while so much corruption yet lurks in his world? With a traitor upon the very gates of heaven itself?

A desire to continue, to work, to /LIVE/ for those here, and for all the things he must still do fills Faruja just as the life in his eye starts to wink out. The will to survive fills him. Too much to be done. And how could he leave Ainsley alone, like this?

Faruja (152) has posed:
Death grasps Faruja by the hand, and the rat shoves it away. The boiling wellspring of his soul ignites, the inborn gate to the esper realm within his soul flares. Something inside his very being, something long dorment within awakes.

Realization that he's about to die, and utter rejection of the monster before him fills every fibre of Faruja's being. There's far too little blood in him left. By now, he should be dead. Once limp in ARiah's grasp, there's a gasp from the rat, and strength fills him.

The power in his soul swells, far beyond his spirit's ability to contain it. The blood seeping into Ariah's mouth pulses. Where once there was sweet, delicious blood, the very stuff of his veins glows, a bright light spilling forth from his body. To any with such senses, there's a feel of pure arcane might, tinted with an otherworldly aura.

The light is white-hot, and utterly blinding as it consumes Faruja's form, quite possibly catching Ariah if she doesn't move. The power of Trance overtakes the rat's body.

Holy fury rushes through Faruja, head light, a sudden sense of power and authority beyond mere titles filling him. Within the light, he finds himself floating as it slowly fades away.

Faruja (152) has posed:
What it reveals is not the Faruja that one might be used to. The soft flap of wings, and falling golden feathers surround the rat. Clad in flowing robes, seemingly made from liquid gold, his hair elongated and ruffled, his reignments are those of a Judge, set in yellow radiance. A pure, burning light surrounds the rat, four white and gold wings keeping him aloft from his back. The scent of incense, burning, surrounds the rat as he floats, some mystical wind causes his flowing robes to gently flap and sway. In his hand is a staff, shaped into an Ajoran cross at the head.

Should she spare him a glance, though his form may be far different, there's a chance Beli might realize the aura falling from FAruja. That of an angel, the strange light making Faruja something more than mortal.

His voice reverberates, filling the area.

"SINNERS! FOUL BEASTS THAT DRINK THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT AND HOLY! IN GOD'S NAME I SHALL CAST THEE DOWN!" Comes the rat's voice, radiant and unnatural. Faruja teleports into the sky, wings keeping him aloft, and he raises a hand. A shining light fills the sky ten feet above Ariah. Gravity twists, and a massive meteor crashes towards her! Yet unlike the usual spell, it shines brilliantly, filled with the darkness-consuming power of Faruja's sudden angelic form, hungrily trying to consume and purge the corruption before him.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    When D's teeth pull away from her neck at last, Setsuko drops like a sack of potatoes. She drops right to the ground, unmoving for several seconds. There is a ragged, shuddering gasp of breath, and then she rolls over, coughing and sputtering, and weakly plants her left hand. Her arm trembles, her whole body shudders with the effort. It takes everything she has left, everything, just to barely push herself up enough that she can use her right arm to plant her sword and pull herself to her feet. And when she gets there, she has to lean her weight on that sword just to stay vertical.

    Her aura has completely died out. Her neck is bleeding. In fact, so is her chest - and THAT wound, by now, should have at least ceased to flow, with her regeneration. But it has not. And when Medusa's Vector Plate hurls itself at her from below, she is only barely able to lift her feet away; doing so causes her to lose her balance completely, dropping the demigod to the sand again on her side. "Gh..."

Nox (546) has posed:
    The feigned glares from Nox's mask opens wide again at the sight of Beli's transformation. The infernal gale of black and crimson reflects in the eyes of his helmet, twisting snakes of dark energy dancing over the steady glow of cyan lenses. He had been pretty sure that level of damage would be fatal. If he himself had been run through by that many blades, he definitely wouldn't be laughing it off, that's for certain. At the sigh of Beli's rise however, and at the sound of her raw, furious scream, the only noise that he makes in response is a quiet, yet intensely amused chuckle. "Ahehehe! Oh now /this/ is something! You didn't appear all that impressive before, but perhaps I'll reevaluate my opinion of you!"

    He takes the challenge head on; the redoubled strength of his blast sending his tabard fluttering backwards on the screaming backbreeze; the beam growing half again in width. The tip of it is like a burning arrow, channeled like an explosion funneled down a gun barrel, and letting off a noise like a slow motion scream played through an unholy degree of electronic reverb. Zenith's primary attack clashes with the vortex of demonic fury, and for a moment, it stalls, even floating ever so slightly backwards as the raging, bubbling, cerulean fire struggles to make headway. As objects are prone to do when they hit anything less than directly head on however, the sheer power of both attacks causes them to gradually slip from one another's path, and then the roaring column of blue-white light and the rumbling whirling of black and red hellfire skim right past each other, each slightly deflected from their original course. The former impacts the beach at Beli's feet, and goes off with a detonation rivalling a MOAB; instantly blasting a fifteen foot deep, hemispherical crater into the sand and throwing the chunks of ground that weren't vapourized on impact into the air, forming a towering mushroom cloud of boiling hoy silicon gas. The epicenter of the latter screams just over Nox's shoulder, catching him fully in the inner radius and abruptly engulfing him in the viciously whirling flow.

    After Beli's fire rockets off into the sky and out of sight, a second passes before a shape can be seen plummeting out from the inferno; streaking in a smoking line towards the sand like a falling comet, and coming to rest in an unceremonious puff of sand. A few more seconds slip by before the silhouette finally rises from the indentation, charred black and wreathed in swirling gouts of foul looking smoke. Nox's shape flickers blue and hazy for a split second as a teleportation spell momentarily fails to go off, leaving him to get to his feel manually; stuttering and jerking with each movement like a badly damaged piece of clockwork. Finally standing, he floats back up off the ground, leaving behind a shower of metal fragments as the heavy plating covering his left arm completely falls to pieces. Only the eerie light issuing from his chest and eyepieces stands out in the soot-covered mess of his armour. "I-zZzZt-see. Yes, I belie-e-e-ve I was mistaken for judging you as insignificant before. This place must be especially dear to you if you're willing to expend that much effort defending a single, irrelevant aspect of it from me." His shape flickering again, he rises a few more degrees off the ground, arms whirring and ticking as he holds his hands out in front of the circular gap in his chestplate; palms crackling with tendrils of lightning as something takes shape between them. A rotating polyhedron made of cerulean holography, split apart at the seams so that its faces pulse out from each other in the rhythm of a heartbeat. "Then come at me madam, and I will treat you with the seriousness you deserve."

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
Tony is not... unaccustomed to women wrapping themselves around him, though he's usually neither wearing armor nor flying at the time. "Sorry lady, you're not my type," he quips, even as her hands close around his metal-clad neck and yank. Armored as he is, all he experiences is an uncomfortable jerking sensation before the metal segments catch and lock against each other. Medusa is, however, rewarded by a swift shower of sparks as wiring within one of the connecting joints frays under the force and shorts out. God dammit, now he'll need manual help getting the helmet off later.

Irritated, Stark reaches up and back with one hand to clamp a grip on Medusa's hair, or hood, or whatever he can reach. He twists his hips against her in a way that is, again, entirely unlike the usual way this would work with a woman snuggled so close, and tries to execute a standard kung fu hip toss in the decidedly un-standard position hovering high in the air. At least there's ocean below?

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley doesn't say anything more to D. His body slumps to the sand, and her face tightens in a grimace at the brutality of the sight. Whatever Setsuko did to him utterly crippled him, to the point where it looks like it could've killed him. The lizard girl turns her attention away from that to the sand below her right as the Vector Plate forms, because she is not limited merely by what direction her eyes are pointed. Instead of being thrown into a heap of robes and scales in the sand, she catches herself in the air before she tumbles properly, grabbing the longsword out of the sand by the hilt.

    She is about to turn to charge at Ariah when--

    A blinding light catches her sight and something far beyond her understanding happens to Faruja. It isn't a Shift, and it is so powerful and bright that she almost thought he had succumbed to something dark and terrible. But no. It's quite bright. Holy. Pure. An absolute burning fury made manifest not from any outside assistance.

    She stares in utter awe at Trance Faruja, her arms going slack all but for the sword held in one of her hands.

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
    "What a conincidence... you aren't my type either~!" Medusa hisses, tightening her grip as best as she can on the Iron Man's neck. As the sparks fly she can't help but wince slightly, turning her head just slightly... though when her hood is grabbed, she can't help but yelp just slightly, defiance on her features as she does her best to let go. But physical strength isn't her forte, sadly. All that close combat fighting is aided with magic, and that's pretty hard to do up here in the air without anything to allow her to fly. So the far stronger Iron Man is successful in tearing off of him, swinging her over his hip... and once again the witch goes falling, shooting her opponent one last look... and throws her arms up for one last attack before she continues falling. "Vector Arrow!" With both of her arms pointed up and at Tony, she speaks into her radio. No, this won't be pleasant.

D (232) has posed:
    D doesn't budge from his spot.

    There isn't much else to say about his current predicament. Dust and smoke kicked up from Faruja's astonishing transformation and assault -- and the clashing powers raging between Beli and Nox -- coat D's body in a thin film which sticks most thickly where his blood is still wet and fresh. He doesn't get up to wipe himself clean. He doesn't even frown.

    It looks like Setsuko has succeeded in doing what she thought was impossible. By striking at his weakest point in a moment of intense vulnerability, she's killed Vampire Hunter D. D's continued existence may very well be in the hands of the parasite still sharing his skin, if it's feeling generous enough to save him after the way he's behaved. If the carbuncle means to bring him back from the dead, it's not making any move to do so while the heat of battle is still raging.

Ariah (56) has posed:
     For the first time in her life, Ariah truly wants to end something else's. Despite her clarity, she thirsts. Despite her presence of mind, all she can hear are the voices that had belittled her for so long. The burning pain in her arm subsides, slowly, drawing more blood from Faruja than she'd ever dared from another living thing. The voice in her head that urges her to stop is a small one, one that grows louder and louder before she practically rips herself away from the rat, panting, gasping, blood trailing down her stained lips and chin. She can feel the arcane aura filling her opponent, and she pulls back into the sand before the sudden light of Trance can immolate her as well.

     "The multiverse is brilliant to behold..." she says with a surprising amount of reverence for the rat's altered form. Full of life and blood anew, she, too, starts to 'burn'. For the golden glow of the empowered Burmecian, the witch's is cold and ice-blue, suffusing her skin and glowing under her uniform. Every ounce of mana is poured through her body, filling her staff to the point where the metal cannot be seen for the lance of pure light it appears to be. She thrusts it into the sand as a focal point, burning through the imbibed blood at an alarming rate to keep her from burning herself to cinders on the spot. "This could have been avoided. We were here to simply retrieve." And the dam bursts.

     Staff used as a focus, aimed towards the sky, the energy pours out. Half a beam, half an umbrella, she empties her power into the meteor as it hurtles towards her. The tide of mana isn't enough to do much more than slow the descending sphere of holy flame, an explosion rattling the sand when it meets the shell she'd formed. Sand bursts out in all directions as a sound akin to glass shattering is heard, and soon fragments of jagged, solid mana join the sand in bursting forth. Amidst the resulting mix of mana and flame and the roar of the impact, a pained shriek is heard before it gets cut off completely.

Ariah (56) has posed:
     The witch's last act is to desperately fling herself from the conflagration, Medusa's words 'Vector Plate!' recalled in the brief moment as she makes contact with the one near her feet. What actually emerges from the settling dust and crater of crackling mana and holy fire is what could pass more for a charred corpse. Or half of one. Clutching staff to chest, trailing flame and ash, Ariah's torso clings to life, blackened and battered.

     Holy flames lick at her as she tumbles into the sand, rolling several feet as the subtstance sticks to what's left of her in a messy heap. The unholy creature makes what's likely little more than a raspy attempt at a death rattle, flickers of blue light almost sparking on the runes etched in her bones.

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Even that massive plume of wrath has to fade eventually, and after the column of hellish agony shoots into the night sky, Beli's discharge of power finally abates, fading into little more than shades and embers that dance in the air. The rephaite's voice falters, and her wings slump uselessly at her sides, seeping black blood from many wounds that have rendered her incapable of flight. That same blood seeps from the corner of mouth, the gash across her chest, and the holes pierced into her stomach. No normal person should really survive that much damage, but thankfully Beli is something more.

    However, surviving seems to be the limit of what she can do right now. Even staying upright is a struggle, as she wavers where she kneels as if she were about to fall over at any moment. She watches where Nox falls...then lets an exhausted sigh fall from her lips as she sees him finally rise.

    She has to force herself to remain alert. Dimly, she feels some particular things: the holy power Faruja has released, burning like a distant flame against the infernal nature she currently channels; the agonized howl from D, sounding strangely far away; the odd absence of the pounding against those holy wards in the cave. She is distantly aware of them, but what exactly they mean is beyond her.

    She hears Nox speaking, and slowly, painfully, she forces herself up. Her rise to her feet is stumbling and uncertain, but she makes it. Despite the clouding of her vision and the pain numbing her body, she stands upright in front of Nox, raising her head as much as she can. Exhaustion lingers on her face, but so too does a remarkable stubbornness. Even when she's barely able to stand, she's gained enough confidence to remain defiant.

    Slowly, her head turns to survey the battle around her. D appears dead; the sight takes a while to register for her, gradually creating an ache that is not at all physical in her chest. Ariah is smoldering and burned by Faruja's power. By the time her blue and green gaze has returned to Nox, the light in them has grown dull, as has the radiance of her skin. She only seems incredibly pale now.

    "...irrelevant." Beli repeats the word weakly, slowly. "...it is not irrelevant. It is...my responsibility. It is my promise to a dear friend to show that the world is not as dark as it seems. To show that things can be healed, no matter how dire they may seem. Maybe...to make him smile, and give some relief to his life."

    Her fingers curl, too weak to become tight fists, but close enough. "...but it seems like that does not matter much now, does it?"

    The rephaite's eyes narrow as she wavers in place. "...go. Two of your companions are defeated. I would ask if you could leave D here, but...something tells me you will not. Either way, you are in my home, and you are not welcome here. Strike me more if you want, but I will not let you proceed either way."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "Carbuncle..." Setsuko's voice comes out slightly raspy, and she can barely lift herself up from the ground enough to speak. It will probably not carry far - but she's just close enough to D that it shouldn't matter.

    "/Carbuncle/...!" she repeats, with a hint more energy. She's almost certain the parasite in D's hand is listening... or at the very least, that it can hear her even in dormancy.

    "...keep him alive."

    With that, the demigod slumps back to the ground, this time closing her eyes, focusing on stillness, on trying to nurture her own divinity back into a serviceable state.

Faruja (152) has posed:
Faruja's golden candle burns brightly, but shortly. The shambling corpse that once was the witch, now in utter tatters, has the rat teetering on the edge of collapse. Power, far too much for his weakened and horridly wounded physical shell, finally escapes him. The golden light winks out, and his body returns to normal.

Which means he has no more wings. And he's too exhausted to cast a spell. Falling to the earth, Faruja lands in a heap. The good news? That holy light seems to have cauterized his wounds. No bleeding out.

The bad news? He's still lost a lot of blood. He'll definitely need a trip to medical. The rat doesn't move, out cold.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    "Faruja!!"

    Ainsley rushes to his side, and slides to stop nearby. There's an audible POP as her magical affinity swaps, and she rests her hands on the rat, beginning to provide some healing for him in the form of a soft red light of life magic.

    Her head turns to look at the rest of the battle which, thankfully, seems to be coming to a close.

    She looks at D for a minute or two, frowning tiredly.

Tony Stark (301) has posed:
Tony takes a moment to hang in midair and just pant; the suit may have its own power unit now but he'd swear he still feels a certain drain from his own battery to power that massive blast. Jarvis would probably call it a psychosomatic bullshit thing. At least he's got the woman off his back.

Wearily, he watches her fall, and doesn't even bother to consider diving to catch her this time. He reaches up to work his metal-clad fingers against the sparking joint in his neck-covering, as if he could somehow massage it out.

And then his view of the falling witch is suddenly obscured by a roiling mass of black, and he has just enough time for his eyes to go wide before the vector snakes slam into him with explosive force enough to knock him well back and out over the water. He flails, falls; one kicking leg splashes the surface of the waves before he's able to re-orient and recover in a counter thrust that sends him skimming over the whitecaps.

Hey, he could have come out of that fight a lot worse. At least he's not barbecue.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Unfortunately, Beli appears to be correct. About the situation at least. He couldn't care less about any of that sentimental nonsense earlier. Precise little clockwork swivels of his head confirm that both vampiric Elites are in critical condition, though it seems the Unionites are badly beaten at this point. Mentally, he calculates his chances of victory with Medusa still in the game are marginally on the side of favourable, but the damning fact is that the Confederacy would be altogether very displeased with him. With a heavy, metallicly tinged sigh, Nox returns his featureless gaze to the rephaite. "Yes, yes, that's very well and all. As much as I would love to continue our little exercise however, I am under obligations that prevent me from allowing those two to bleed out while I kill you. My deepest apologies, but, so long!"

    As the polyhedral holography between his hands spins to a deafening whine, converging into a densely compressed core of magical energy, Nox snaps his hands into a new position, linking fingers together in the sign of infinity, and shattering the rotating icon between them. The resulting discharge of energy is nothing like the violent explosion it seemed to be building up to. A quiet, understated, omnidirectional pulse washes over the beach, expanding exponentially until the sphere vanishes beyond sight. Purgatorio is immediately plunged into silence. The sand and debris blowing about on the winds of battle are left hanging in the air. The gentle waves of the beach have gone still, suspended like a sculpture at a museum. Predictably, the Unionites are caught in the spell as well, left frozen on the spot with no way to move; leaving Medusa and Nox as the only active figures left in the field.

    "Now if you'll give me just a moment to clean up." Nox intones, floating from the spot and slowly drifting over to where D lays in the sand. His movements leave behind strange, ghostly afterimages, trailing after him like a glitch in a monitor screen. Holding his hand out over the gaping wound in the dhampir's ruined chest, his palm surges with that cerulean glow once more, pulsing with a dull, electronic hum. Bits of blood splattered into the sand suddenly seperate from the ground, flying one by one in perfect arcs, through the air and back into D's body. Shards of bone follow, falling into seamless place with his ribs, and then the flesh itself begins to knit over; playing out the whole, grotesque injury in bizarre reverse. Satisfied D will survive, he hovers over to Ariah and performs the same task, albeit only just barely enough to leave her stable.

    Finally, he gestures into thin air, and a rippling, silvery membrane sprouts into existence in the shape of an oval just large enough for a human to step through. "Now if you wouldn't mind, madam Medusa, one body per person!" Reaching out towards D's prone form, Nox telekinetically lefts him from the sand, letting the grains of silt falling from his body stay hovering above the ground, and slowly floats him in through the portal. Waiting for Medusa to drag Ariah out, or else doing it himself, he casts one last glance to the group of frozen Elites, before finally vanishing through it himself. Sound returns all at once in an indecipherable roar as time resumes.

Faruja (152) has posed:
Ainsley's healing proves critical. It smoothes out and stops infectio in the worst of Faruja's self-inflicted cauterizations, the male's breathing finally settling into something close to regular, if a bit shallow. He'll need serious attention, but at least it seems he's not going to die on the spot.

Beli Klum (238) has posed:
    Beli can't even muster the effort for a disgusted expression at the way Nox dismisses her. Not that it matters; soon everything is abruptly frozen, and yet she finds herself completely aware of everything that goes on in that moment. The strange form of healing, the creation of a portal, the lifting of wounded allies...and then the abrupt return of the normal course of time, crashing around her like waves against the beach.

    Finally, Beli's last shred of strength falls away. Her wings and halos lose their crimson lights, and the tall halfbreed collapses into the sands colored a pitch black by her cursed blood.

    The last of her consciousness slips away before she even hits the ground.

Medusa Gorgon (22) has posed:
The ocean splashes as the witch falls in, only to still once more. Did the fall kill her?

    Seconds later Nox's interference prevents the Unionites from seeing a rather soaked Medusa as she emerges, coughing violently and with her jumpsuit clinging to her, and she looks rather the mess. Though she can't help but look a bit shocked when she realizes that she and Nox are the only ones moving. "Hmm... impressive," she comments, and when he moves on to using his magic on D... she looks perhaps a bit more fascinated than one ought to be. Then again, she's a nurse.

    "Seems like he had his hands full." The comment lacks any real emotion, and her eyes coldly studies the dhampir. At least it seems like the magic interferes well enough. "Just enough to keep him alive until we can get him to Castlevania." That should be okay. As long as he can get into some earth, then things will be okay. Likewise she doesn't seem too worried about Ariah. "Ariah I can treat at the Citadel," she urges. And she will indeed help Nox in getting their allies out, not even bothering looking back on the chaos in their wake.

    There will be other chances.