6798/Hearts of Glass: The Flashing

Hearts of Glass: The Flashing
Date of Scene:	27 August 2019
Location:	Mitakihara Town
Synopsis:	More Witches show up to seemingly laser-target Mikoto's past. Things get complicated.
Cast of Characters:	Lezard Valeth, 7002, Haguro, 6986, Staren, 7039, 6895, 6964, Rean Schwarzer
Tinyplot:	Hearts of Glass

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Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Mitakihara Town is a lovely place at night. The lights shine up from the city, calling out into the darkness above that it is there, that this is a place one can find companionship, joy, and release from the rigors of the world. Whether sleep or engaging in the the nightlife that it possesses, the people of the town can rest easy when the sun goes down.

    But there are always exceptions. In this case, a familiar sight, a familiar sound, a familiar feeling seems to come from a house in the subdivision. The sensation of a Witch is quite present. This time... stronger than the first. More of itself, compounded, as the house seems to have sharp, angular splotches rapidly growing over it like a skin disease. Except this disease is one of gleaming glass, shards of multicolored translucence radiating out over the building and having quickly covered the entrances and exits. This behavior might be familiar to those who were at the private school. Others might be mystified at the sound of giggling that comes with the screams...

HEARTS OF GLASS
CHAPTER 2: THE FLASHING
Theme: https://youtu.be/0etenwnI1wo

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The transformed Mikoto was hunting this time, having decided to try and hunt down the witch on her own.  However, just in case this turned out to be more dangerous, she at least let people know.  Standing in front of the door, she was considering entry methods.  However, the King of Evil's direct method seemed to be the best.

So she walks right for the door and attempts to kick it in with the borrowed Superior Strength she got from a bote, attempting to break through the barrier and the door at the same time and make her entrance.  Why here though?  Of all places...

It was...a bit too familiar.  

Haguro has posed:
After her last run-in with a Witch in the middle of a day off, Haguro's not taking chances on this second outing in Mitakihara. Although the shipgirl still looks more like an office worker than a combatant, she's actually armed with her standard turrets and a backup revolver this time around when she arrives to answer the call for assistance.

Once again, strange glass is surrounding the area in question, and that confounding giggling comes from the place. Knowing what had and hadn't worked last time, the Cruisere pushes forward, headed straight for the glassy barrier. She raises her arm, the turrets take aim at one of the entrances away from Mikoto's kicking target, and she lets loose with a single explosive shell at the glass.

Hopefully, nobody else is standing too close to it when it goes off.

Link (6986) has posed:
A horse and her rider trot through Mitakihara Town. They travel across the roads late at night from the warpgate, getting honked at occasionally, heading to the coordinates given out.

Link's in his green tunic and cap, sword sheathed at his back, large bag removed from Epona and slung around him, as he nods to the others as he dismounts. "Let's go."

And then, the swordsman readies his shield from inside his bag, draws his sword, and approaches after Mikoto, protecting her from behind, as Epona waits outside. They have a Witch to slay.

If the interior of the house is too dark, Link does end up fumbling inside his bag for a lantern. He strikes it lit, and then attaches it to his waist to keep the group able to see.

Staren has posed:
     A witch. Staren arrives in the usual armor, briefly wondering if this would be the glass witch again, but the 'disease' on the house answers THAT.

    And Mikoto's already charging through the barrier. Before following her, Staren looks up the address and tries to determine who lives here and see what social media has to say about them, in case they're connected to the witch somehow. It's weird for a witch to attack a single house instead of a place with a high concentration of people, right?

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Pride may be a more painful burden to bear than hate.

     Hate, hate is easy. It's tempting. Once you start hating, you don't want to stop. A drug that you indulge in, an addiction that you twist yourself into. You justify. You drink it in. You revel in the misery of the thing you hate and you delight in its pain. You tear down its victories and curse its joys. And yet it's an empty delight, a delight that leaves you wanting more with each indulgence, until finally you are either burnt-out and emptied like a hollow shell or spend something too precious and realize how worthless your hate has been.

     But Pride. Ah, Pride. Pride is a burden you shoulder not because you want to but because you believe you must. It is the martyr's lie, the politician's misdirect, vainglory's herald. It is the convincing of the self that the self is the only one who can carry the world on your shoulders, the inability to see the world for what it is but in relation to yourself. It is isolating; it drives you upon a pillar of your own making away from the people you could share your pain with. It is frustrating; it reveals perceived incompetence in every shadow as you learn more and more that only you can be relied upon, only you can do the job. In the end, the pillar grows too high, and topples.

     It isn't Hate that has brought Ganondorf Dragmire back to Mitakihara. Hate, no, Hate sits in his breast for Hyrule. For his peoples' circumstances. For his own failure to help them. But the beast injured his pride - escaped, fleeing into the night from his strongest attack, though granted delivered while he was deep in regret's cup. He was shown that he could kill it, and it ran, and it left him unsatisfied.

     So he is here to revenge himself upon it and finish the job.

     He is not dressed in a suit this time. The Great King of Evil wears his Gerudo clothing proudly as he walks towards the door. Mikoto's motion gets a hand settled on her shoulder. Haguro's loaded shell. Link's presence is registered and then aggressively ignored.

     Dark power flows through the floor. It fills Mikoto with strength. It fills Haguro with the familiar taste of rage. With it, shadows join their assault, shadows roiling with Mikoto's kick and shadows swirling with Haguro's cannon shot.

     Ganondorf intends to use *every* tool to dispose of this thing that injured his pride. And if it is not the thing that injured his pride, he will beat it until he finds out where that beast is.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Hmm. Not a bad looking town. Better than the smoggy slums that seem to pass for one elsewhere, at least." Truthfully, Lilian had expected a real backwater to be the type of place she'd arrive at after responding to Mikoto's call. The clean, ultramodern, slightly surreal look of Mitakihara's lights and glass and daring architecture are a big surprise. It's only a visit to the suburbs for now though, as much as her eyes linger on an opera house on the way in. Those banally boring, absurdly wasteful tracts of land, invented in the Baby Boom and known to drive people insane ever since. Less than ideal. Walking past manicured lawns and middle class facades, Lilian shivers, once, the sort of shudder reserved for walking past an autopsy room.

    When she arrives at the house, and the gathering Mikoto has drawn, the girl briefly ignores the glass, shrugs her shoulders, shakes her head, and says "You really are just hopeless aren't you? Like a baby bird that has to be fed by its zoo handlers." She leaves it at that for now though, instead fixing her eyes back on the house with a red glint, tracing the lines and patterns of magical distortion with extrasensory perception to try and locate the geometric source of it through the walls.

    That given, while others batter down the front door, Lilian slips through the back. She hasn't come dressed tactically, but rather still in her evening clothes, so she doesn't have anywhere between a red walking jacket, white blouse, black tie and skirt, and mary janes to holster a gun or flashbangs or breaching tools or anything like that. Just the sword, which she always seems to have, regardless of the dress occasion.

    Specifically, she phases in through the back. Like a ghost. Ideally through a window while those last.

Homura Akemi (6964) has posed:
    Vwoop.
    "U-Um... sorry, I... I took a wrong turn and..."
    Homura suddenly emerges from behind Mikoto, completely ignoring the fact she's kicking a door down and surrounded by a lot of very strange people, including a very tall King of Evil.

    Of course she's already transformed.
    And wielding a terrible, intimidating golf club, in an uncertain and sloppy two-handed grip.

    "The Witch, it feels... weird, right? I-It's not just me?" at Mikoto, obviously, but certainly not a closed conversation.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean comes running in, sword drawn and ready to go.

Looks like it's a house this time, just one house. Was this how it normally went? And both Ganondorf and Link are here this time, which totally won't make things awkward, no sir. Though maybe with greater numbers they'll actually cath the witch this time?

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Mikoto leads the way. The location mystifies her. Perhaps she recognizes it? Or perhaps she is just looking for some kind of pattern in the targeting of the odd Witch. She wastes no time in identifying and targeting her opposition, however. Nor does Haguro, who blasts a glass-covered side door out while Mikoto kicks in the front without any desire for subtlety. Rean joins her, running along from behind with speed to add to those hunting the Witch.

    Link arrives, the Hero of Courage working to stave off the dangers posed by this supernatural assault. Link will not have to worry about lighting the way, for reasons that will quickly become apparent. Perhaps ironically, the Warlock King approaches at the same time, lending his dark power. This only augments the breaching impacts as the glass blasts inwards, the shards slowing and hanging in the air...

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Staren, ever one to recognize patterns (that's how science works after all), quickly draws the correlations needed to come to a hypothesis on what they're dealing with. Familiar. Too familiar. Staren does some checking on the Internet, however, and he quickly finds the owner of the house is one Taro Kaya, recently promoted manager at a local manufacturing plant. A quick glance over his social media shows that he seemed to like to party a lot, but that took a dramatic turn as the feed moves from a litany of bar pictures and drinking games to inspirational pictures, images of gardening, a self-portrait of himself in a clean, nicely-pressed suit... And then the wedding announcement to one Hime Kaya, both of them resplendent in matrimonial dress. A casual look around the grounds will see that the garden pictures come from a little garden area on the side of the house. A garden thats rapidly being glasses over as the shards spread across the lawn, growing and consuming it in stretching tendrils as they move towards neighboring houses.

    Lillian arrives and begins using her extrasensory powers to trace the source. The source is sliding and moving rapidly through the area, the lines distorting and fracturing almost fractally, like it's breaking and reassembling constantly throughout the area, spreading like a cancerous growth while retaining elements of an exceptionally geometric spiderweb. It's almost like it can't decide what it wants to /be/. She slides along to the back, heading for the window. Those, like the doors, are covered by the glassy distortion. A wall would be a better option if she wants to avoid immediate contact with the distortion. Phasing through said wall is no problem, however, and she appears inside.

    The house itself looks to be an almost typecast example of an upper middle class Japanese suburban home. She seems to be a living room, which has the usual assortment of furniture and electronics one might expect. The walls are covered with wedding pictures and gardening pictures. The dimensions are tighter than one might be in the United States, but still roomy compared to apartments in the city. There are unpleasant gurgling and thumping sounds coming from elsewhere in the house, but the problem is that as she traced out, the glassy dimensional barrier seems to have rapidly spread through the place, choking the halls and actively growing before her eyes with the sound of crackling crystal. As if detecting her, the glass begins to grow towards her, attempting to surround her and cut off her movements.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    The glassy surface of the Barrier blasts back outwards, forming into the vague shape of a massive, angular claw made of glittering glass to grab those at the front and side doors. Perhaps Link and Ganondorf might draw parallels to a particularly annoying native creature of Hyrule, as it grabs at the group at the front door while the side door simply blooms back outwards in a reverse blast, engulfing Haguro and drawing her inside with the others... A return to a world of glass and light.

EVERYONE BUT LILLIAN:

    Everything is bright. The light shines around you, this flat world unfolding before and after like a pop-up book rendered in incandescent, glittering edges, sharp and beautiful. This looks quite familiar indeed. However, this the glassy two-dimensional environment that you reside in once more seems to be set atop a large mountain, the ground around you arrayed in terrace-like platforms that seem permeable enough while stretching some distance. Far below to one side is that familiar glasy forest, while the other side seems to be a stained-glass rendition of a bustling quaint village, rays of warm light cast in colored silica radiating out from it like a golden beacon.

    This time, the Witch does not make an appearance immediately. Great rocks and dark birds arrayed throughout the area roll towards the group, attempting to run them down to cast them onto jagged glittering spike-glass below, or to rake them with dark claws or sharp obsidian wings.

Haguro has posed:
That dark energy swirling around Haguro's shot doesn't go unnoticed. It's not the sort of thing she's ever seen her shots do before, and even her craziest of close-range maneuvers are strictly based on physical capabilities rather than... Whatever that is. When it appears to be doing quite the number on the magical glass, though, she doesn't bother questioning the why. She can certainly guess at the how, glancing over at the self-or-otherwise-titled Great King of Evil and his imposing stature.

She won't be too worried about it for now, though. There's a city to save, people to protect, and children to wait why the hell are there more children here? Staring at Homura blankly, the Cruiser breathes in slowly to calm herself before approaching her and Mikoto as Homura makes it clear that she already knows what's going on with this Withc business.

"Why...? Ehm. Just be careful, alright? If anything scary comes, stay behind me." She offers with a helpful smile, the turns her attention back to the sudden burst pulling her into the house's blinding and gaping maw.

They're back in that surreal pop-up-book land. "Watch out for spikes. Or stabbing things. Or... Everything." After offering that oh-so-helpful advice, Haguro starts to glance around rapidly to try and identify what's going to try and kill them first. Spotting the birds, Haguro raises only one armored forearm to take the brunt of the cuts against her, pushing forward against the oncoming beaks and giant stones coming towards her. Unlike last time, Haguro's actually prepared to deal with this sort of threat, and she starts blasting away at the birds rapidly with clouds of anti-air shrapnel!

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"Yeah, it is weird," Mikoto says to Homura.  The King of evil, however, does more than just try and comfort her.  A power builds through her, and it was not what one would call /good/.  However, it DOES empower her in a way she did not expect...and for that her fears just ease slightly.  "Thanks."

Lilian gets a sideways eye, "You didn't have to come, nor did I want to team up with anyone, but I was gang pressed into it.  Staren hasn't said anything about anything, but he does get a nod, as does Haguro, who gets a warmer greeting.  

Mikoto's sword is out already, as the birds with the obsidian claws start attacking them.  "Familiars huh?  Get out of my way, small fry!" She booms, full of new confidence.  As the blades and birds come at her, she moves gingerly aiming to try and stay ahead of them, though a few get some close calls, drawing blood from her back and arms.  

Mikoto retaliates immediately, aiming to swing her sword in a wide arch, trying to create a shockwave from the force of the swing, using both the SONIC speed and the STRENGTH of a bote.  That combined with her sword tricks would be hopefully enough to make the air too turbulent for them to fly.  Or just shatter them.

Link (6986) has posed:
Oh, no. Ganondorf's here. Link avoids looking to him when he can, because that's highly awkward. And then-

Giant hand monsters. Link...hasn't actually encountered these yet, but he's heard of them. As it scrapes out and drags him into the Labyrinth, the teenager shields his eyes from the brightness as they adjust, and then looks around. It's like a glassy picture book. It's...sort of beautiful.

And horribly deadly. As the rocks and birds come forward to toss them into spikes below, Link notices the platforming and immediately gets to work. He starts by getting a running start and leaping to whatever platform he can, climbing up rapidly, before leaping to the next, and avoiding the boulders. Birds come at him and rake sharp wings and evil claws into him, causing a yelp of pain as he almost falls off a platform, before the boy strikes. His sword is drawn in a quick movement, and then...

"HIYAH!"

It goes splitting towards one of the birds, trying to cleave it down the middle. The technique is exceptional - perhaps not Sasaki Kojirou when it comes to slicing birds, but it's the work of a master swordsman, knowing his footwork and able to stay on the platform while fighting an airborne creature.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ah.

     The minute the shards start to slow down in a pop-up-book world, Ganondorf knows this is his quarry.

     Reason is abandoned in favor of vainglorious pride. The beast comes swinging in with dark birds and grasping hands, and Ganondorf's reaction is not to dodge or to evade but to punch. His fists are suffused with malice, rippling with dark energy, and from that punch a wave of darkness rolls outwards to compete with the blinding light. And also from that punch spills blood, his blood, onto the ground, because he is not a superman; he is only a man, a man with great darkness and nothing more, a fragile warlock in a world of superhumanity.

     But at the moment that is not where his thoughts lie.

     At the moment his thoughts lie with overwhelming force. His thoughts lie with completely crushing the monster in its own terrain, with forcing it into the ground on his terms and showing it that he will not allow it to escape again, that he will not *let* it escape again.

     The quaint village, the warm rays of light, the rocks and spikes in two dimensions - they're met with twisted three-dee shapes that look *wrong* superimposed upon the stained glass, with darkness forcing up platforms over the spikes to hold Ganondorf (and, by association, others) out of death. But that's not the real purpose - that's a side-effect.

     Ganondorf is shaping the region to his will. He refuses to accept that he lost that contest - that he failed. He has already failed his people. He will not fail himself. The malice seeps like poison into the stained glass, twisting it black and wicked.

Staren has posed:
    Hmm. More pieces of a puzzle. What's this couple have to do with anyone? They're too recently-married to be the girl's parents...

    The Witch brings them into the mirror world again. Strange, considering last time it decided to run from them... Staren lets it happen though. Time to finish the job.

    Only... the witch isn't here? Staren deploys some drones to look for it, but then... sharp-looking birds attack! Staren flies to avoid the rocks and deploys his forcefield, which the birds cut into. Staren tries to fly out of the swarm and fire rockets into the swarm to shatter it!

Homura Akemi (6964) has posed:
    Homura shifts uncomfortably at accusations of being a sassy lost child. But she doesn't have the spine to argue it, either. Instead she sticks by Mikoto, as she knows how to do. That is, being a worthless tag-along. She's good at that.

    Of course it's not long before the Witch establishes her domain, and Homura has to dodge falling rocks.

    Or well, less dodge, and more elegantly trip into face first. She swings at one with her golf club, which bends from the blow. Another bounces on her shield, which protects her with purple-ish light. She takes one to the face. It sucks.

    "W-Why does it feel weird, though?" she asks of Mikoto. She visibly makes no attempt to fight back--

    Which doesn't stop the sudden thundering of several heavy gunshots from rolling out, and bullets from appearing out of nowhere to pepper the birds.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
and then Rean's grabbed with everyone else by the giant glass hand, dragging him into the Labyrinth. Well, at least they were here now, right where they needed to be. Except for the part where it threw glass birds and rocks at them first. THey needed to figure out the mystery of this place sooner rather than later. Which meant that the birds and rocks needed to get out of the way. Rean sheaths his sword and fater a moment, unsheaths it a gain, creating an arc shaped shockwave ahead of him into the oncoming birds and rocks to help clear the way.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    In reality, Lilian has no real experience with city apartments nor the heating bills incarnate that are US suburban houses. Since the Multiverse happened, she's been to warehouses, stores, train stations, train graveyards, waterways, sewers, and highway levels, but not really inside anyone's house. She looks around with a look of suppressed trepidation better fit for a museum's too-lifelike internal anatomy exhibits.

    It doesn't take long to figure out that nobody else made it inside. "So, it's less a region of warped or closed space, and more of an 'infectious portal'. The Architect/Encroachment type, I suppose. An indecisive one at that. Or someone's resisting it." she says out loud, mostly for the benefit of her own thoughts, largely occupied as they are trying to keep to central lines and not wander off into the fractals, known as fractals are for multiplying infinitely. She spares a glance once the glass comes rushing towards her. "So, did it spot me, or . . .?"

    A snap decision. Thumping can be anything. Gurgling is usually people. Between the second floor and the basement, at this hour, people are much more likely to be in their bedrooms, and so Lilian picks the ceiling rather than the floor. She doesn't fancy the eclosed space, but looks for a patch of still-normal house ceiling to aim for this time, and then makes sure to overshoot herself well above the floor, partially suspecting that whichever room she ends in upstairs, the crystal might follow her --which would confirm the house as a whole is aware of her. Given no uncorrupted space though, the stairs are the only option, cranking the ghostly bit up another step from just wall walking to floating off the ground and taking the tight turn slowly.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    This is the story of two sisters. They lived happily in the Dark Forest, picking the fruit and growing the crops. They were able to depend on each other, and did everything together. But sometimes times were hard. The sisters needed more food. "Sister", said the one. "We need food. I will go to the Town and trade for it."

    "You must not." Said the Other Sister. "You cannot cross the Mountain. It is very dangerous." The Other Sister cared for her very much, and did not want her to come to harm.

    "But we must." insisted the Sister. "We must go or we will starve, for we do not have enough food."

    The Other Sister relented, seeing that those words were true. "Then we will go to the Town together." She said, and they did.

BGM SHIFT: https://youtu.be/FMuQ11tVJnk

    Haguro is the first to act. She stands tall and powerful upon the mountain, rendered in the curves and lines of glass like everything else here. Her experience serves her well as she quickly raises her arm and unleashes her potent anti-air weaponry upon the enemy birds. The shells blast, making colorful splotches against the sharded air as the birds are shattered, blasting into tinkling pieces when the flak tears through them in dramatic waves.

    Rean lunges forward into the battleground, trying to get his bearings only for the world threatening to run him down. Whtn he unsheathes his weapon, the arc-shockwaves cleave through the birds, driving many of them back and catching others, pushing them into Haguro's flak strikes where he does not cleave them outright.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Mikoto takes some minor wounds. A normal being here would be at the mercy of the Familiars, but she quickly strikes out at them, able to fight back with her own power and that which she has borrowed from others. The sonic shockwave blast tears through the air, creating a visible wash of shadow-tinted destruction that crashes into the birds, adding to the aerial destruction and even cracking a glassine boulder in two, sending it tinkling through the thin ground.

    This might be Link's first time in this world, but he seems well prepared to deal with the problems therein. His heroic dashing about helps get him out of the path of the boulder that threatens to run him down, giving him the time and footing ot fight back against the glittering birds that harry at him. with a cry, he cleaves another of them in twain, cleanly severing it in half as the glass creation falls apart and shatters on the platform.

    Ganondorf does not fear the familiars. He is full of the powers of Darkness, and he simply stands tall like a colossus on the mountain, reaching out to strike down and crush his opposition with every moment. And as he does so, the innumerable ravens decrease, the murder losing many of their number as the malicious umbral force crashes through them and consumes them moments before the fist behind that energy shatters them. But what's more is that he begins to alter the land, creating land where there is none, blotting out what displeases him with space-shuddering warping. The envrionment crackles and screams in response to his action, attempting to force it back, a constant pressure against his malicious design... But he is supreme... for now.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Staren works to piece together the puzzle, but isn't quite able to see the shape of it for the moment. The information is there, but there is something missing to link things to what he knows. Is it an isolated incident? What is the common thread? Such things might have to wait however, as his drones are savaged by the Familiars. Rockets answer their impertinence, the ammunition exploding in the air in glorious display to join Haguro's detonations, the sky filling with blossoms of crimson and gold that leak away far more slowly than in the real world, leaving a gleaming impression for several seconds.

    Homura works to escape being crushed, the boulders as heavy and painful as they might be in real life at the size and speed they are proceeding at. However, Homura is still far from a 'normal person', and strikes out, knocking one back with her golf club, deflecting another. Even the one that runs her over doesn't manage to kill her, simply crushes her a bit and pushes her perilously close to one of those sharp spike-filled gaps. But she fights back, bullets appearing from seemingly nowhere and piercing through the dark birds, further shattering them into pieces.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    The Familiars are rapidly dispatched thanks to the overwhelming force of the invaders, the sky clearing rapidly, though nothing seems to diminish the boulder rolling. Just as the group seems to get a moment to catch their breath, there is a giggle. Rising up on one side is a familiar shape, with its bone china-white mask of a laughing face, a seething light passing back and forth between the eyeholes to give the impression of a moving eye. The impression of a body beneath, a shadowy, indistinct form that a hooded cloak drapes over, giving no hint of an actual body, just the way it fills out the clothing. What is more important, however, is this cloak is not blue. It is a deep indigo.

    And then there is a second, identical giggle as a /second/ form appears, exactly like the first but for the color of the cloak, this time, an even deeper violet. Two!? There is no time that is spared as Indigo begins creating planes and barriers in its namesakes' color, beginning to close off pathways and creating solid glassy walls. Violet darts back and forth, diving between them in perfect sync with its partner, light gathering before it... And blasting out along the platforms in scathing waves of its own color. The glass, meanwhile, shatters around the King of Evil, the Witches working to expel him from the Labyrinth in order to reassert its control over the environment, draining away the Malice to freeze over it with glistening glass once more.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
OUTSIDE THE LABYRINTH:

    Lilian bolts herself out of the way of the encroaching Barrier, evading whatever it might have had in mind for her. Probably something unpleasant, judging from the noises. The gurgling has increased to screaming in the meantime. She phases through the ceiling, able to find a 'clean' spot to do so. She ends up in the bedroom, as expected. The room is well kept, but it is empty of people, the bed in disarray as if people are still there. The noises now seem to be coming from downstairs, and she seems to be able to triangulate something as the dimensional distortion over the windows in the bedroom begin reaching into the room for her. Following the noise puts her in the kitchen with Ganondorf.

    Ganondorf finds himself standing in the kitchen. It's incredibly hot there, a sweltering heat radiating through the room. Blood is running along the floor copiously. Someone is screaming. The causes of all of this is fairly obvious: There is a woman in a nightgown with her arms impaled into the wood-veneer counter with butcher knives, her throat slashed messily and the bloddy thing stabbed into her chest. It looks like whoever did it tried several times. She is quite dead. The other person in the room appears to be the one screaming and the source of the heat, as he seems to have turned the oven up to 500 degrees and forced his upper torso inside.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     The hiccup.

     It's immediately noticable. Of course it is. He, also, is one who can touch the threads of fate and flow, who can grasp the pulse of time's tempestuous tempo and make it freeze on his command. So the presence of someone else reaching into that river and diverting it, and damming it, even for an instant...how could he *not* notice it? His eyes turn towards Homura, surprise on his sharp face.

     That is all the opportunity the thing needs to spit him out. The willpower it took to hold his malice in place, the attention it took to bring his very physical spells to bear, it snaps under the moment of surprise, and the monster has its chance to expel him.

     The Great King of Evil falls through shattered glass. He hits the floor in the Superhero Pose, one fist down against the tile, glass falling around him. As he rises to his full, massive height, he has to duck, because he is much too tall for a Japanese house. Lilian gets a glance.

     "It decided it feared me," he says, cracking his knuckles to get rid of the pain of the fall, "A wise choice on its part."

     The sweltering heat is nothing to a man who lives in the Gerudo Desert, a place where heat is the enemy and also ghosts, monsters, more heat, dehydration, some more heat, some more ghosts, ancient curses, Hylians, and also more heat are the enemy, too. He takes notice of the room.

     Ah.

     While the prey lived, she would not kill it.

     While the prey lived, his pride would not be salvaged. They would delay, and it would escape.

     They would delay, or they would push through to rescue him and prioritize his life over the death of the witch.

     They would delay.

     He would be denied.

     His fist closes into darkness.

     He would *NOT* be denied.

     The boat had asked him if he is Evil. If he chose the name himself or if it was thrust upon him. The answer, he said, was meaningless. He did not elaborate.

     It is because when a man is given a name he has only two choices: to reject it, or embrace it. Rejection would be pointless. The world said that he was Evil. Destiny said that he was doomed. He was Evil.

     They would expect this from him.

     The Great King of Evil walks over to the man in the oven, stooped, looming like a great owl.

     He grabs threads of woven starlight in his right hand. The world around him speeds up. The better to prevent interference.

     His hand rises.

     A dark blade forms, pointed down at the man's head.

     "Die," Ganondorf says, his voice cold and disinterested.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto reacts quickly, slamming her blade into the ground, attempting to block the shards that came for her.  The two collide, but she was slow on the defense, and the first bit washes over the barrier and digs into her flesh.  More blood drips down her arms, but her head snaps up.  This is going to a dark place for her.

She can not, however, NOT defend herself.  Though she is not going to swing for killing blows right now but instead attempting to hold them at bay.  She swings the blade upwards and flings a storm of shards at both of the glass girls.  

"You're in my way.  Get out of it," She says, growling.

Link (6986) has posed:
Link slices through a bird, and manages to get a break to catch his breath. In the process, Ganondorf warps the world, and is ejected. He's not sure whether or not that's reassuring. When the two masked Witches appear though, he grimaces, and gets ready to fight. He can't let them win - and he wasn't here the first time, so he's not sure why it's weird there's two or anything about the colors.

Violet waves fire forward, as the shield is brought up. They still bathe over Link, burning into his skin and causing him to cry out, but the shield prevents it from being worse than it could be. Link dashes forward on the platform, moving to climb up one of the glassy walls and jump off it into the Violet Witch, trying to plunge his sword down into it.

Hopefully he doesn't miss and fall into the spikes below.

Homura Akemi (6964) has posed:
    Two of them?
    Homura raises her shield, the buckler projecting a half-dome of purple, flame-like energy around her. It seems to do well enough to absorb the worst of the incoming punishment - but it's never enough. If she'd also tried to move or something, it might have helped.

    She's transparently inexperienced.
    Somewhere, 17 remembers she keeps ducking him for physical training, and Homura instinctively knows she's probably in trouble.

    Blasted back by the hit, landing on her ass, she whines, and a handful of grenades just clatter out of her shield unprompted.

    That was accidental, but it'll do.

    The grenades suddenly disappear from around her, and Homura is upright the next moment. Then explosions happen, seemingly out of nowhere, surrounding the laser-firing Witch with flames and shrapnel.

Haguro has posed:
Even Haguro focuses her blasts on no bird in particular in favor of just blanketing the sky with metallic garbage, she takes a moment to watch her allies in action. Seeing the difference between Link's and Ganondorf's approaches to fighting the birds (at least while the latter is still there) makes it more obvious why their titles are what they are. Rean's own approach certainly strikes her more like the former rather than the latter, as does Mikoto's. Staren's is a little more neutral-looking in comparison, and Homura...

Haguro looks legitimately concerned for Homura. She doesn't see anyone behind the girl, but those bullets must be coming from somewhere. An invisible protector, perhaps? Is Lilian behind it? She can't see that strange woman, so that's a distinct possibility matching with the last time things just happened around Lilian. Unless... "Homura? Is Lilian around, too?"

Whatever the answer to that question is, Haguro soon has to turn her attention back to the Witches that make their appearance following the destruction of the familiars. The pair of Witches begin the attack, and Haguro once more charges forward. Bearing the brunt of the oncoming lasers onto her armored plates and just eating the others head on, the shipghost doesn't look particularly bothered despite chunks of her armor cracking off and part of her uniform and flesh burning in the process.

Inwardly, it still hurts, but she's doing a pretty good job at acting like it doesn't. She may just be putting a show on for the pair of magical girls. Either way, the Cruiser returns to the tried and true method from last time: Launching herself at the laser-shooting witch/witch copy to try grabbing her and slamming her into the oddly textured ground below!

Staren has posed:
    Staren is encased in a maze of glassy walls by the second witch, while the first fires beams. Yeah. He's having none of that. He experiments with trying to cut the glass with beams in both cannon and sword form. However, the witches don't give him a choice. He's caught where he has nowhere to go, and has to settle for putting up his forcefield and watching the beam overload it, breaking it apart and making devices on his armor overload and smoke. But it holds... for now.

    The thing about beams though: If they can shoot him, he can shoot back. And he does, giving hopefully as good as he gets before diving around a corner and trying to cut his way out of the maze again.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
The wItch finally makes her appearance. Or, more accurately the witches make their appearance. They're also different from the last one, a defensive and offensive pair. One of the witches fires waves of energy outward and Rean sidesteps, one of them cutting into his shoulder as he attempts to dodge. Mikoto and Ganondorf briefly discuss the fate of the man whose house this was. Mikoto wouldn't kill the Witch until he died first.

Who were these people, and why did she want them dead? Mikoto eventually gives an answer. The man was her uncle, and he'd abandoned her long ago.

"Ah..." Rean murmurs, understanding at least a little. After all, he'd been abandoned too, though potentially under different circumstances than 'they didn't want me.' Not like he actually knew who left him in a snowstorm 12 years ago. Could he honestly say he wouldn't be a /little/ upset if he saw whoever they were living happily without him?

...Maybe not enough to want them to die, though.

Anyway, Rean charges at Indigo, mostly trying to serve as a distraction for her barrier making. If he manages to get there, he swings his sword at her as he rund past her in a flurry of strikes.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Shit. It is." says Lilian, once again to herself, when she emerges into a bedroom that both concerns people are still here, and that the house is after her. She's rapidly running out of 'places to actually be that aren't covered in crystal', and less and less willing to be here the more claustrophobic it gets. For how focused on the crystal she's getting, keeping her eye on all of if she can, one would think she expects some kind of painful death effect rather than being dumped into a Witch Barrier. Granted, she hasn't been to one, but it's a great deal of preemptive caution to be treating the dimensional growths with compared to any typical Elite.

    Chasing the sounds, she ends up in the kitchen. The slit open woman causes her to flinch a second just for its abruptness, hovering back slightly from the display of banally urban murder in a kitchen. Or suicide? The man roasting himself alive in the oven gives that impression. Once the source of the screaming clicks, Lilian halfway clutches at her mouth as if to hold down an expression she'd rather not make.

    Hearing that it's Mikoto's uncle, whom she hates, it's not hard to figure out what's making him do this.

    Ganondorf shows up too. Tall Dark and Dark, as she'd pegged him. While she'd professed to liking the look and the title, and had positive things to say about the quality and 'tone' of his magic, grappling the man currently messily committing suicide and lining up to stab him raises a lot of questions in the heat of the moment.

    Though she doesn't know the guy, and has no particular feelings about him safe the inherent grotesqueness of roasting head first inside a kitchen oven, Lilian's instincts roll the die, and comes up a rare face. Ganondorf looks like he's moving fast. Really really fast. There's not enough time to get over there, so Lilian takes some for her own.

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian leaps across the room, rises to the level of the oven controls, and breaks an expensive mary jane kicking in the panel, tearing loose the electrical wires that feed the red hot contacts inside. Knowing that ovens don't actually cool down just like that, she plants her hand on the stovetop and spikes of chilling, pitch black ice stab through it, aimed roughly around Mikoto's presumed uncle to stop the guy inside from thrashing or being pulled out easily. It's murder ice, belonging to an old court of Winter, and not the soothing kind. All it does is brute force 500 degree heat with its opposite to thoroughly wreck the suicide setup.

    Crouched atop the device, she unslings the scabbard from her back, draws an inch of gossamer steel, and presents it to Ganondorf's blade with her hands braced against the grip at the flat of the scabbard.
                -----[start]-----

    There is the ticking of an old clock that nobody ever hears. One that might have existed a very long time, but is never kept wound. Seconds pass behind a closed door. The sequence of events bends and spits out a loop, the film playing new things outside the reel before the tension of the wheel snaps it back in. A dark shade appears in his mind's eye; a vision of a night black ghost with piercing whit eyes surrounded in the bloodred hours of the clock.

    "What the *fuck*?!" It's the best Lilian can handle in a split second of shock, bewilderment, and a little bit of revulsion; anger comes more easily when the instinct to act isn't understood. "Why are you- wair are you under that thing's control too?! Get a grip! How is killing this miserable sod supposed to help? Isn't that what it wants?!"

    She's jumping to the best conclusions available, based off of what Mikoto said, but it seems better than the opposite. The guy can be alive now and die later, but if he dies now he can't be brought back to life.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    The Sisters travelled from the Dark Forest on the paths they knew. The Sisters travelled over the River, across the Stones. The Sisters walked up the cold road into the Mountains, where snow gleamed and breath bit. The path was hard, and the Sisters grew tired. As the night came, one pointed. "Look, there are the lights of the Town. If we hurry, we can reach it."

    The Other Sister pointed to a cave. "Look, there is a cave. We can take shelter in the night and keep going in the morning."

    But the Sister did not listen, and she continued on the path. The Other Sister followed, worried that something would happen."

    Mikoto is holding back. She's waiting for something. That much is obvious to anyone who is watching, even though she defends herself. Shards slash back at the pair of Witches, many of them punching through the barriers and shattering them as if they were simply the fragile glass they appear to be. The shards rip into both, tearing holes in the cloaks and emitting a pair of pained cries.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Homura works to protect herself, but it never seems to be enough. That always seem to be the case when dealing with Witches, doesn't it? But Homura survives the assault, flickering in order to take advantage of her position and possibly make it look more artful than accidental that grenades fly out to blast the laser-striking Witch moments after Mikoto's shrapnel rips through them, adding to the storm of shards that crackles through the glassy world.

    Staren works to return fire. The theory is sound, at least for the moment. Every time Violet pops out from behind a barrier, Staren is there, blasting back at it. The scorching beams sear at the Witch, punching into it and splashing over its form. It continues to give an impression of some kind of body in there but it never seems to quite take shape, instead howling in pain as the laser blasts through the entity and sets it aflame.

    Link strikes, courageously charging into the deadly beams as Violet scorches across the platforms. His shield grows hot, but it does not stop him from striking out with power and speed, the blade plunging down into the Violet Witch. It howls, the blade feeling like it has stabbed into /something/... Perhaps reassuring, it lacks the sick softness of flesh, the creature tearing itself free with a deep rent for its trouble.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Haguro charges in as well, an unstoppable juggernaut of nautical wrestling prowess. Her intense armor shears under the onslaught but she is not deterred, taking the blast in order to get her hands on Violet as well. The Witch is manhandled and grabbed, Haguro's hands sinking into the ephemeral being before she hammers what physical existence it has into the glistening ground. There is a crash as she breaks right through the platform and drops below, crushing it into the ground with the sound of breaking existence. Or glass. Same thing. At least Violet isn't on fire anymore even as it squirms.

    Rean, meanwhile, tries to pin down Indigo. This proves to be perhaps less effective than hoped. He cleaves into the Witch, smashing through barrier after barrier, but it seems to just keep making more as he punches through them, each stroke being blunted. He is cleaving into the entity, but not as well as he might hope. Still, it seems like it's keeping Indigo from supporting its ally...

    It's at this point that the Witches pull back, one next to the other as they gather together. Dozens of convex circular glass barriers begin manifesting around them as Violet charges, energy gathering around it... And then in rapid sequence, bolts are fired through the barriers. It quickly becomes apparent that they're not just barriers....

    They're lenses. The refocusing warps and splits each beam, bouncing them about the battlefield in arcane patterns, attacking from unusual directions... And this time, Indigo seems to stand ready for the counterattack.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
OUTSIDE THE LABYRINTH:

    Ganondorf accepts the mantle of Evil onto himself once more, justifying the means with the ends in his own way. He desires the creature dead, and he needs everyone's full efforts to do so. Even as he clenches his fist, he can feel that goal beginning to slip through his fingers however. The time he's spending here is not time he is spending trying to kill the Witches. How long will they remain? Even so, he has committed to his goal. The question is mostly: What about the /other/ time-manipulating person in the room?

    Lilian makes her choice, disabling the oven between moments and breaking thermodynamics over her knee, pinning the man inside at the same time as she creates an intense, unrelenting void of cold to absorb that inefficiently transferred heat. The heating element is rendered icy chill in moments, fracturing from thermal shock while the screaming man squirms and snivels when time resumes, suddenly pinned and unable to see the struggle that goes on over his life. The glassy sheen over the kitchen windows, curiously, seems to not get involved in this particular conflict...

    Or is it? The environment is oppressive, seething. Sensations of sourceless anger and misplaced vengeance, wrongs dealt and hatreds borne for another seem to trickle, bubbling as they attempt to insinuate into the subconscious of the pair.

Why merely hope that they kill each other when the Witches can try to manufacture even more homicide?

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ah.

     Another miscalculation.

     Lilian's glitch is not unnoticed. The pulse of time again stops for a brief instant, and Lilian reappears, scabbard under his blade of shadow. Ganondorf relaxes his grip on the fabric of reality and slows down, and Lilian can feel a looming, overwhelming darkness behind him, a thing that looms over him and beyond him and stretches outwards between the ticking of seconds. The ticking of the old clock is met with the breathing of the vast darkness itself, the expansion, the contraction, the moments between the rising and the setting of the sun where shadows grow long and then shrink back into night only to grow long again next morning. His time is not fast, but vast; a thing that must be wrestled into submission. The film reel, bending over, is met with the rising of the sun and its setting, with the darkness behind trees cowering from the sun only to surge forth when the light dies. Seconds passing behind a closed door are met with the inevitability of seconds passing.

     Ganondorf's eyes flick to look at Lilian.

     "Of course that is what it wants," Ganondorf says calmly, "And it is what she wants, too."

     "She wants them to die. She will not kill it until he is dead. She will delay, waiting for it to finish the job rather than take her decisive action. The Witch will flee, again. And I will be robbed of my kill once more." Not /will claim more lives/. No. But there's a certain un-truth to that statement; a certain falsehood, like he's lying to himself about it.

     "The Witch, meanwhile, has come for him. Without him, it will be confused. It will have no prey, and make us its prey. It will focus on us."

     "Then we will hold it in place and kill it."

     Ganondorf's eyes remain locked on Lilian's. They are not mad. They are not angry. They are not under anyone's control. The hateful, oppressive environment cannot enhance the hate that is already within him. It cannot match the malice he can bring forth at a moment's notice. Nothing that needs to kill with tools this mundane can have enough malice to contest a man who can kill with malice itself.

     On the other hand, it doesn't need to, because that man is willing to shoulder Evil for Evil's sake, as it is the inevitability he has been given.

     "Are you going to stop me?"

Homura Akemi (6964) has posed:
    The Witches are complementing one another! Homura's just sharp enough to notice, but not enough to devise a cohesive action plan against it while being blasted by lasers from every direction. Her energy shield breaks; her buckler refuses to produce another on such short notice, and the magical girl, with just a graze, ends up grounded again. Continued stories of fighting being awful grace her life.

    But let it not be said she's without ideas.

    One second becomes ten minutes. The dullest of worlds, gray and soundless, blurry and without life. She collects her bearings. She takes a few deep breaths. She rubs her nose, still bleeding from the rock collision.

    Eventually she stops wasting (her) time. Bombs are produced by the dozen, enhanced with magic, glowing a dull purple until she lets go of them and they fade into the colorless background.

    One for every barrier she can see.

    To disrupt the flow of lasers and the Witches' synergy in one hard simultaneous strike.

    Then color returns to the world, the explosions are loud and many. Unfortunately, louder than Homura had expected, having not deployed so many at once before.

    She's blown back by her own bombs! She tumbles to the ground, and doesn't get back up immediatly. Pro strats.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The beam fires at the entire group, the reflection and refraction was an...interesting combination.  Mikoto's blade comes up, trying to brace against the beam and hold it back from her with a swing from the weapon.  Like a rock in a stream, she tries to part the energy.  

However, whisps of it sear her shoulders and upper body, causing more of her to fray under the assault.  However, it's fairly easy to guess that she is refusing to fight at her full strength.  Not until it's done...not until she has caused the death of the person who had singlehandedly caused this.  

Eyes narrow, as she swings the blade up again, aiming to cut one of the barriers erected in front of her, and send that flying towards the group of witches.  Though it might hurt, it is far from lethal.

Link (6986) has posed:
As Violet pulls away, Link leaps back to a solid landing, taking a breath and sheathing his sword. It's not over, but he can't fight in melee easily.

He removes his bow from his bag, nocking an arrow - one with a small bomb attached. He looks for gaps in the barriers, places they haven't come up yet, and then lights the bomb quickly and fires. He's trying to hit Violet again and explosively injure the Witch, but Indigo's likely to counterattack, so hopefully the others can focus her down.

If there's no gaps in the barrier, though, Link's willing to just blow through it, if at all possible, and then fire more arrows to get past. And either way, once he's hit once...

He takes out one more arrow, this time with one big bomb attached to it, lights it, and fires it once more at the witch. A big boom to hopefully do significant damage!

Haguro has posed:
     That worked far better than expected! A little too well, though, as Haguro's caught off guard when she follows Violet through the breaking platform, screeching in terror as she goes down with it. Thankfully, the fall isn't so far that she injures herself too badly, but it still leaves her visibly and audibly shaken.

Note to self: Practice breaking through the ground more.

For now, though, Haguro keeps her gaze focused on the dual Witch's bodies or whatever it is. She's not quite sure how it works, but she knows enough that it's the enemy and needs to be destroyed. The volley of lasers coming from all directions puts her on the defensive, hunkering down and once again relying on her armor to bear the brunt of the attacks instead of trying to actively dodge everything.

The good news is that hunkering down actually works. Making herself a smaller target means having to defend less overall surface area, and she gets away from the blasts with only moderate scorching to her unifrom, body, and losing a fair chunk of her armor without it hampering her movement. The bad news is that she still can't draw a bead on them yet, and doing so is even more difficult when Homura gets caught up in explosions out of nowhere.

New plan. Haguro starts firing shot after shot at the mirrors, not aiming at the Witches specifically so much as she's just trying to throw off their aim (and unknowingly targetting their amplifiers). Once she reaches Homura, however, Haguro shifts gears once more to something a little more familiar!

The turrets swap their explosive ammunition for something a little more knifey and chainy. Haguro launches a knife attached to her turret by a chain at Violet, trying to embed the stabbing implement into the Witch to hold her in place or even reel her in!

Staren has posed:
    The exchange in the maze is satisfying. But what's more intriguing is the way Violet RIPS itself free from Link's sword. Hmm... Staren pulls an oversized revolver from his bag and -- the battlefield changes. Glass barriers everywhere. Suddenly, a laser -- a magic laser, ignoring the rules of light -- zaps him from an unexpected angle, burning a section of armor plating orange-hot and blackening most of his arm and shoulder. A worrying number of other lasers come /close/. He's going to have to do something about this, fast...

    But Homura is even faster than fast! Suddenly, explosions!

    Staren doesn't miss this opportunity! He swings his arm up to point at one of the ghosts and fires six shots in quick succession; This is the same weapon he tried against his assassin; each bullet becoming a tight cone of shrapnel as if he'd just fired a high-powered shotgun.

    Staren's tried burning and explosions, so how about tearing their fabric-like bodies into shreds? It's worth a shot!

    It's worth six shots.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    The instant Ganondorf is done speaking, Lilian knows exactly what she's gotten into. She'd acted on impulse more than anything. Id and gut feeling. Granted, practically everything she does is based on id and personal desire, but it's usually premeditated. Felt out. Thought on. She's not really sure why she wanted to save this guy.

    It's writ plain on her face. The strained sort of half-stare of someone who wants to be focused and motivated but is having to force it. The glance out of the corner of her eye to the man with the name she's already forgotten. She knows nothing about him at all. A long, silent contemplation, her weight shifting subtly back and forth with the weighing of the scales in her mind. Another glance back at the victim in the oven.

    There's a flicker of temptation. That all too clear look of 'it'd be much easier.' Like Taro Kaya is a game obstacle rather than a person.

    "So, you want to kill him because that girl is incompetent."

    "That, or you are. Take your pick."

    There's a faint whine of magic. A pulse of displaced air that rolls off her. She pushes against the near nine foot tall giant of a man with the wall as her leverage, and forces him back with magically reinforced strength. Not violently, like across the kitchen, nor as far as it's practical, into one of the crystal distortions. Out of arm's reach.

    "That's all there is to it. It got away from you once and you're embarrassed. You're a big, strong, powerful man; you can't look weak in front of a gaggle of idiotic teenagers. I get that much. The fact you couldn't kill that Witch the first time isn't my problem though. It's not this couple's fault either. You're relying on that incompetent, green as grass highschooler to finish the job? You really think she has either the guts or the arms to pull it off?"

    "To me right now it looks like you're sneaking off to clean up. The dead woman and disfigured husband are that girl's, and by extension, your fault, right? You're not even spiting the monster; you're hiding the evidence that it won by doing it yourself. 'You can't fire me, I quit.'"

    "You don't really need to kill him to kill the Witch. The fact that the girl can't kill it while she's secretly hoping it gets rid of everyone who 'made her feel sad' only means that she can't be relied on. That she's pathetic, and so is anyone relying on her. Giving that thing what it likes, because it's easier to let the teenager do it, is just being a coward. Sack up and do it properly."

    That's a lot of shit to talk off the cuff to anyone called the King of Evil. For as much as he's probably heard it though, Ganondorf won't detect any trace of moral indignation, or even nervousness for the man's life in it. It drips newfound contempt for the magical girl that brought them all here --a heightened level of disbelief that anyone would rely on Puella Magi to do this job if they're all like this. 'Like a baby bird. Absolutely helpless.' she sighs under her breath. It congeals into an ooze of scrutinizing disappointment in him, like her first impressions have been betrayed by the fact he intends to rely on her for anything at all.

    She's also, like, five foot five and dressed for a night out, so it's not physically intimidating, but it --somehow-- has that cutting edge of 'the queen saw you picking your nose' bladed disdain to it.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ganondorf's lips twist into a sneer. He's not a fool. He can read her face as easily as he can read his own. The disinterest. The recognition that this is, in fact, the easiest path. That this is, in fact, the simplest course of action. That this is, in fact, the way this would be resolved fastest. Kill him. Win the girl's favor by keeping her hands clean. Confuse the beast. Focus it on themselves. Kill it to death. This would be the swiftest way to its messy, brutal end.

     "And what of you?" He says calmly, "If you think that I am sneaking away to clean up, that I might look strong before ignorant weaklings, what are *you* doing? Going to solve the problem on your own? An archer hunting a deer for herself instead of the pack?"

     His sneer widens. "I was thrown out of the battle. Distracted for an instant. It saw its chance and thrust me out. It fears me. Fears my power. So I decided to take the most efficient course to make use of that. But you...you were here before me. You chose to avoid the battle entirely. Does that make you a coward? An incompetent? No, I don't think it does. You dress like a woman enjoying herself. Like a woman out for pleasure and excitement. You wear it well, though I think it is not your color. You might try something a bit lighter, with your complexion."

     Ganondorf releases the dark magic and turns to face her in full. He can't stand all the way up. "Tell me. You aren't here to protect them. You aren't here to save anyone. You are here for either your own pleasure or because you believe only you can get the job done. Based on the way you speak, it is the latter."

     "I have told you what I want to gain from this. I want it to die. It angered me, it fled from me, and I do not like when such things occur. A different yoke is in order to tie this beast down. I'll use any tool at my disposal to do so - warped, half-forged, rusted, or otherwise. It's simply good sense. That is how you find the tools that break the fastest. You may as well get some use out of the bent rake before the sands claim it."

     "What is it *you* hope to gain from this? What do *you* want here, that *you* would leave this battle to them while you skulk about far from the prey?"

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Don't get ahead of yourself-

                -----[stop]-----
    "Edgy musclehead twat. The hell is that head thing supposed to be anyways? I'll fucking murder you."
                -----[start]-----

    "-big guy. Unlike you, I wasn't here the first time this thing appeared and ran away. You'd assume most people don't jump head first into the infectious crawling glass. I went looking for it inside, heard some noise, and wound up finding these helpless sods instead."

    "Not falling in line and squaring shoulders with you people comes down to it being an obvious waste of time. I'm shocked someone like you would. Have you *looked* at them? *This* is wasting my time. It's wasting yours. Skewering a man with his head lodged in an oven isn't hardcore. It's comedic and lame."

    Considering this doesn't look like it's going to come to blows right away, Lilian snaps the inch of her sword back into its scabbard. For a second, it releases a trickle of black ash. "He dies and then what? It slips Mikoto again, because she's an idiot and an amateur, and so are the rest. It picks another person who's a part of her 'tragic backstory'. It kills them too, then it flees again. Where do the feelgood little spite victories stop, hm?"

    Finally, that reflexive gesture. That vaguely bored examination of her nails curled into her hands. "Whatever I want is none of anyone's business as far as I'm concerned. At this point, it's just hard to watch. The kind of thing where you want to pry a bunch of children with fingerpaints away from a canvas. Chopping up civilians left and right doesn't look ruthless, it's just sloppy-"

    There's a pause. Lilian looks back up. "No, actually, I just don't like the idea that this gets to go on until that girl's pathetic little backhanded power fantasy is over. You think she won't finish it so long as it hasn't finished purging all the sad little people out of her 'tragic' backstory? That just means she's enjoying it. I don't like it. I don't like her. The monster and the girl supposed to be hunting it want the same thing, deep down, so neither of them get what they want. I'm not giving them the satisfaction."

    "I don't give monsters, or their friends, what they want, ever. I get what I want instead. I'm just like that. The magical girls can give it up, go home, and live with their shitty uncles and high school bullies like the rest of the world."

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
So turns out the barriers were /lenses./ Made sense, since stained glass world. The lasers burst across the field and scorch Rean a bit as he tries to sidestep. He's watching Mikoto closely- She's defintiely trying to delay the fight. He waits out the explosions, and then raises his sword, it becoming wrapped in fire. "...Is waiting for him to die going to undo the past, Mikoto?" He quietly says, before charging both Indigo and Violet, srtiking at both of them at the same time.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
        As the night grew, the Sisters found it harder and harder to cross the Mountain. The Other Sister scolded the Sister, "You should have listened. Now we are lost, and cold, and are in danger."

    The Sister pointed, however, and cried that she could see the light of the Town ahead. The Sister ran ahead to meet that light. But the Sister did not find the light of the Town. In the darkness, she found the Shimmering Man. The Shimmering Man took her away, and the Other Sister cried out, not wanting to be alone.

    And so the Shimmering Man took her too. Together, they were brought to another land, and their hearts became glass. No longer were the cold. No longer were they lost. No longer were they hungry. They would never be alone, because now they had many new friends.

    Mikoto works to strike back at the Witches using their own barriers. With a quick slash, she cleaves one of them in half, the gleaming lens separating and falling in half. She hurls it at them, the barrier passing right through the others and striking into them, impacting them and threatening to knock them out of alignment. The barriers shake and shift in reaction to the impacts, trying to coordinate, but the sync beginning to come apart...

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Homura is beset upon by many beams that blast through her defenses. Before they can strike true, however, Homura uses her own temporal powers, thankfully perhaps not interfering with the other two time controllers in the next dimension over. Homura works to place her bombs, enhancing them, working carefully to disrupt the enemy. It turns out to be a potent maneuver, barriers shuddering and shattering. The shapes of the blasts catch Homura off guard, however, though, sending her flying. A boulder rolls past, threatening to crush her in an anticlimactic end to her valiant yet inexperienced efforts...

    But Link is right there, sending bomb arrows flying. One of those subsequent blasts knocks the boulder off balance, sparing Homura further indignity in dying to environmental hazards while Link takes the disrupted and shattered barriers and blasts a hole through one of them, Indigo working desperately to reform the barrier as the huge bomb comes in. The strike punches right through, hitting the pair as the blast surges from within, immolating the pair as the entire array blows out from inside.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    This gives Staren the perfect opening. He unloads his unusual weapon into the group, blasting over and over again as a wave of deadly shrapnel tears through the pair. Masks crack and chip, cloaks tatter and shred, the pair of forms rapidly disintegrating through six shots of the infamous Rattle... And yet, they don't die. Can they die? Are they even alive?

    Rean follows up, striking with a potent flaming slash, cleaving through the pair and leaving them alight with flames.

    Haguro takes advantage of this momentary weakness to fire a 'grapple' into the mix, the stabbing implement impaling Violet and tearing it away from Indigo as it shrieks, bouncing it off of the ground and sending it skidding to pin it right to the platform. Indigo warbles and emits incoherent, incomprehensible noises as Violet emits pained, high-pitched ululations.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Just as it seems like it might be time for Violet to perish, there is a blur as the pair swap places, Indigo suddenly pinned to the ground and stabbed there. The bright light blazes through one eye of the mask as it shrieks upwards in pain and rage, indigo tinted barriers suddenly slamming outwards to crash Haguro away. Others form around the battleground, blocks of energy that drop downwards and crush onto some platforms, while others begin sweeping from the side, trying to knock people into pits. In the end, however, they all work to herd the opposition into a single line. A line that the tattered and worn Violet is sighting down as a low whine builds... and there is a deadly flash of light across the line, trying to blast through the lot of them.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ganondorf chuckles. "If you do that again, I will grab the hand of the clock with you, and we will see what happens when neither of us have that power to protect us."

     He's surprisingly placid about the whole thing. The sneer sort of gives way to a smile - not really a fond one but an entertained one, like he's thinking of someone else. Her accusations of squaring shoulders are met with another laugh. "They squared shoulders with me. They followed me in, last time, because I *am* the type to do such things when it is the best route available to me. I can survive. I do not care if they do." It's the only correction he makes.

     He gestures. "Then you kill it. I do not care who kills it. I do not care which tools are used to break the rock, only that the rock breaks. I believe I said as much. I do not care if the monster gets what it wants. I do not care how many of her family or her tragedies die in the process. Fundamentally, all that I care about is that it is dead."

     The stance she takes gets a full-bore laugh. It's a belly laugh. A deep, roiling laugh, the kind of laugh you only hear out of someone who can legitimately call himself the Great King of Evil with a straight face.

     "You're very petty."

     "I appreciate it. You remind me of several of my sisters. They fought over things like that, too."

     He shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me if the man lives or dies. At the time it was expedient to ensuring it died. Now it is not. Reentering the battle will do no good. It will get away, and the day will be saved, and we will see if she kills him by her own hand or not."

     He taps his hand on the oven. It rings out. "I do not know these people. I do not care about these people. That goes for the ones inside, too. They are strangers to me and I do not care if they live or die. To you, their continued existence is important. To you their suffering is meaningful. You clearly have a grudge."

     Ganondorf presses a hand on his chest and tilts his head down. "I was taught well not to pass through a woman's grudge without cause, no matter how petty. I have no cause but my pride as a king, and that is a cause I can pursue through other means."

     "Take them. Enjoy the victory over her. Sleep better knowing that because they live she is pained. You've earned it."

Haguro has posed:
With the pair of Witches fighting to push the group into an easier firing line and a boulder threatening to paste Homura, Haguro has her work cut out for her as she grabs the downed magical girl. She moves quickly to focus on getting her out of harm's way, shoulder-checking boulders and shields while firing explosves at the giant death laser to intercept the blast with her own blast in some strange attempt to cancel it out before it can turn the ship into a smoldering pile.

Somehow, she actually manages to do that without burning to death. Her armor's shot in several areas and her uniform is falling apart, her turrets creak loudly in varying states of functionality, but Haguro herself seems okay! It might be more posturing.

It's definitely posturing. Either way, her still working turrets take aim at the Witches, and she unloads blast after blast as she hunkers down once more, acting like a turret and human shield all at once for anyone that needs to take cover behind her.

Link (6986) has posed:
As Violet may be about to perish, Link's explosive barrage doing excellent work in his eyes, Indigo swaps places with it, and then Violet builds a deadly flash of light. Link's eyes widen, panicking. It might swallow them whole. He needs to move, he needs to grab his shield, he needs...

To be brave and look danger in the face. Or at least, tell himself he can. Trying to swallow his anxiety, and not quite succeeding but not hindering himself, he drops his bow to his feet, grabs his shield, and lifts it up. The blast impacts.

Link is sent flying backwards, shield shattering, but only the lighest of wounds on his body, thanks to his now demolished defensive tool. Staying low and rolling towards his bow, he grabs it, and draws one more arrow.

It's not a fancy attack, or a strong attack, or a bomb arrow. It's a single shot at Violet, trying to keep the damage going while regaining his breath.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto has finally gotten used to their attack, she moves around, avoiding the pillars...no they're spikes.  She can see it now, that is what she was missing.  She jumps over another, as a beam tries to blast the entire group.

Spikes of Jade spring up around her, thrusting the blade once more into the ground.  Her head comes up, staring at the things.  

"It's not even done yet?  You two are slow and I'm tired of waiting.  Get. Out. Of. My. /Way/!" She booms, as the blade comes back. She moves like a green blur, aiming to appear right before one, aiming to smack it into the other, before she jams the sword into the ground, as spikes run across the ground aiming to impale the two of them.  

"I don't even care about your stupid crap anymore.  You're just witches, nothing but /fucking/ witches!  DIE!"

Staren has posed:
    Seeing the mounting damage to the witches gives Staren... satisfaction. It isn't taking pleasure in destruction or pain, it's the satisfaction of making visible progress towards a goal.

    The narration continues to seem unrelated. Who is The Shimmering Man? Kidnapping children, replacing their hearts with glass and adding them to a menagerie of 'friends' sounds like something Blakely would do -- come to think of it, she had even replaced her OWN heart this way, hadn't she? -- but it's not The Shimmering /Woman/, so maybe her teacher? Staren has low confidence that this is the right answer, though the more he thinks about it, if she got one soul gem who knows what else might have been going on on this world...

    Right now, though, he has a fight to win. One of the sisters taking the others' place seems like an alien imitation of love, but he can't let that stay his hand. If there's anything good left in them, he's putting them out of their misery.

    Suddenly, there are blocks and pits, but somehow, Staren finds a clear path through, flying between obstacles and staying out of the line of fire.

    He flicks his hand to the side and tilts the revolver up, six spent brass sliding out. He pulls a moon clip from his bag, slides it into place, and closes the cylinder with another flick.

    This weapon was made to give the humans of the Weird West a fighting chance against the supernatural monsters preying on them. A number of /those/ were formerly human, too.

    While Indigo tries to herd the others where Violet wants them, Staren already HAS Indigo where he wants her: Impaled in place. It's like shooting fish speared into the ground. Six more shots.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Then a word of advice: curate your help. At that point, it's better going it alone than being followed by a string of baby ducks." Lilian huffs. "Trust me; I know."

    Though she rolls her eyes just a little at the petty comment, the most she comes back with is "Some things men just don't understand." then stuffs down the rest of a laugh after the first syllable slips out. "If your sisters taught you that, they sound like intelligent women."

    Lilian then flips out the little holo menu, looks up the emergency services number for Japan, and enters that in. If they get here before the whole glass dimension thing is resolved, she can always stall them."'Grudge' might be too dignifying a word, but you're not wrong."

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     "My mothers, actually," Ganondorf says, "Though certainly my sisters demonstrated it time and again. I am the King of the Gerudo because I am the only male Gerudo. I am considered a woman, by all the rules of our culture, because there are things that men do not understand and cannot be allowed to do." The smile on his face is a wry one.

     "I was not, by the by, insulting your sense of dress. A lighter color would do well for you."

     He shrugs. "Cultural differences. I am willing to spend those I do not care about to chip away at the stone. You are not, or if you are, you are much more interested in hiding it than I am."

Lezard Valeth has posed:
        And as the light through their hearts, they desired to share their happiness with people forever and ever, to make more and more friends.

    Haguro grabs Homura to keep her from being further attacked, getting her out of the way of the deadly hazards. This is for the best, else she might have become a pancake when the barriers began slamming in all directions. She fires back, the tracking turrets blasting the Witches over and over. They cannot escape, Indigo's barriers unable to recoalesce in time for the next blast to cut right through.

    Mikoto strikes next, following up Haguro with a deadly combination attack to knock one into the other. They crash together, mingling. For a moment, the world warps slightly as the pair mingle, almost phasing through each other as a pulse of terrible power radiates outwards, the sensation of 'this is a Witch' magifying dramatically for a moment instead of the weak pulse that they possess... But then Mikoto cleaves them apart with jade spikes, impaling them, shearing into their bodies. Violet attempts to retaliate, aiming a deadly beam at Mikoto...

    But Link fires his bow at that fateful moment, a distinctive PWING sound echoing as the arrow ricochets just right off of the mask, sending the massive beam blasting upwards into the air harmlessly, saving Mikoto from a violent response.

    Staren then approaches, having reloaded, the attacks having done nothing to dissuade the man with the deadly revolver. Six more bullets smash out, this time into Indigo. The defense-focused Witch nevertheless can't stop the shots, not entirely, as they rip into the fields. One of the shattering blasts cracks right into the mask, putting a thick hairline crack across it while it is torn apart in the full-clip unloading.

    The two Witches, on the verge of destruction, seem to come to a communal decision. With a keening, crackling noise, the world begins to shatter around them, the Labyrinth disintegrating around them as those within are suddenly inverted, expelled back into realspace. At this moment, the Barrier seems to warp and vanish, the Witch-signs disappearing completely from the building. Perhaps notably, there are still no Grief Seeds to be had... Only a dead woman and a sobbing, heavily burned man held locked inside a broken oven. The sound of emergency services is heard in the distance, closing in rapidly.

Staren has posed:
**WITCH ran away!**                      **WITCH ran away!**                    

    "Are you KIDDING ME?!" Staren shouts indignantly as the world returns.

    And then he's in a kitchen with a scene out of a horror movie.

    It might not be a tragedy YET, though; he has to act quickly. He checks the man; the woman's state is obvious. Seeing him alive, he applies nanobandages to the woman's wounds to slow the further deterioration of her body, then picks her up. "I'll bring her back if I can." And then he runs off out the back door to avoid explaining anything to police.

    The next thing the woman knows, she's in a plain conference room while Staren goes over her options -- immediate transfer to another body or waiting awhile for hers to heal, in the latter case does she want to spend the time in VR, maybe call her family or something, or does she want to just skip time until her body is ready? He will, of course, supply the most matter-of-fact explanation that she's dead so he's fixing her with advanced technology, so really, that means she's not dead, because dead is just what medical science can currently <long, wandering rant cut for time>

    Eventually Staren even thinks to ask what she remembers, or perhaps she brings it up; If she DOES remember what happened, he makes sure to emphasize that it was the doing of a supernatural being and she and her husband haven't gone crazy. Yet. Maybe they'll want to talk to a psychologist or something? The Concord will put them in touch with one experienced in such matters, if Mitakihara's have trouble dealing with the supernatural.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The labyrinth fades, and the witch gets away.  For once, she doesn't care, this will be a problem that solves itself later.  She takes a moment for her eyes to readjust to the new surroundings before she sees the sight in front of her.  

Slowly, she walks towards the man, who is a mess, as she grabs him by the shoulder, turns him standing up, and grabbing him by the shirt slams him up into the cabinets.  "You don't remember me, do you?  No there is no reason for you to...but I am the child you abandoned." She says, cold.

"I was just going to forget...but well, as it seems something is here trying to dredge up my past.  I'll just unfetter myself now." She says, that cold tone still on her lips.  Her sword comes up in a flash, aiming to slam itself into the head of her uncle.

She drops him and turns swinging the blade once to clean the blood from it as she leaves.  

Staren has posed:
    Or, at least, all of that WOULD have happened if Mikoto didn't interrupt it while he was tending to the woman's wounds. As soon as he hears her say that last sentence though, he just lifts his arm and blasts her with the beam cannons point blank. If she's still conscious after that he'll get out the riot foam and a lecture.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
There is a blast.

Mikoto's back sears black as she staggers...the man and her sword drops as she hits the ground, first on her knees and then face first.  She hadn't been expecting Staren to do that.  She hits the ground face first and then speaks.  It's soft, pained...

"Then I'll come back tomorrow.  I'll find them.  It doesn't matter how much time it takes, I'll hurt them.  So 'hero' you going to sit here and protect them for the rest of your life?"

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    That just happened. For once, Lilian doesn't have anything to say about Staren. She leans against the counter at the brief armed exchange. Her smart device switches over from the finished call to what Ganondorf will see is a camera view.

    "Oh, one question; just a litle one. Do you happen to live in this city?" Lilian asks. "Because if so, that's pretty bold of you to be claiming you're going to come back later and murder this man in cold blood."

    She doesn't seem to be jumping in the way like with Ganondorf. There are a few reasons that could be. One might be that she already dialed a minute back, but the rest . . .

Staren has posed:
    Staren takes the woman in one arm and walks over to pick up the man in the other. His armor gives more than enough strength for that much. ""You could have killed them at any time. Why the change now? This is probably a temporary state of affairs. Get checked out by Lezard and a psychologist or something. If it's what you really want... I admit I'm not going to make it my life's work to stop you or something, but you'll have to try a /little/ harder." When Rean brings up 'doing something you might regret later', Staren nods. NOW he heads for the back door and all that other stuff can happen, with a distraught uncle in tow.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ganondorf very calmly moves to block Staren's way. A moment ago he certainly wasn't *in* the way, but now he was. He's not really doing anything especially violent - he's just looming, because he's huge, and filling the back door entirely.

     If you're gonna leave, you're gonna leave through her.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The sneak attack will only work once, Staren.

Slowly she stands up, magic healing her...with everything else she'll be running low on Mana.  However, she does grab her sword as she stands to her full height.  Her head turns back towards the stopped Staren.  Her gaze turns towards Lilian for a moment, but then focusing on Staren.  

She moves to block the door, sword out as she settles into a stance.  "You won't get another shot like that again."

Staren has posed:
    Staren sighs, and turns back to Mikoto. "Look. I'm no Kantian, but OKing this man's execution solely on the grounds that he didn't want a kid seems tantamount to condemning everyone else who's ever been in a similar situation, and I'm not cool with that. Maybe you think it's not ever gonna be a problem for you because you're a magical girl but magic is a tricky thing. You never know if one day you'll be doing an experiment with Lezard on soul gem forces and then suddenly something animates and calls you mama. Is this man REALLY responsible for your life, for everything that was done to you, or is he a convenient scapegoat? For all you know, you might've been miserable with him in your life, too. I'm a little bit concerned for your mental health, but I'm ALSO rather concerned at the thought that you might take to executing scapegoats all the time. Maybe Lezard doesn't care as long as he can keep studying you, but I do. Speaking of people who care, has Team Hero got anything to say here? A little help, Chosen One? Err, Hero of Courage?"

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"You said you had the power to save him, I say you don't.  I remain unconvinced that you have the power to insert your will on it over mine," She says, in a bitter tone.  "Come on, Staren, where was that IRON will you showed just a moment ago."

She says, swinging a wide strike towards the boy genius, aiming to take his legs from him and try and drop him on the ground.  

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Iiinteresting." Lilian says when Mikoto confirms that she does, in fact, live in Mitakihara town. She taps the button on her display. "Aaand . . . saved." She gets up from her leaning position on the counter, slowly walking towards the door. Since one of her shoes is broken, she slips them off on the way.

    "So, in your moment of emotionally fueled teenaged angst, you've now attempted second degree murder on a civilian in critical condition, and stated intent to commit first degree murder at a later time after being stopped by a lawful third party intervention. I'm sure the emergency response will find this very interesting after the . . . five? minutes it takes them to get here. The ones in the city where you live, of course, which I assume results in you being 'on the run'. Very good. Your tragic backstory is very moving."

    She is transparently enjoying it.

    "You're meant to be protecting this town as part of your contract from which you gained any wish you liked, and have systematically failed in every respect. You've caused multiple to people to become the targets of a murderous abberation you've failed, no doubt intentionally, to put down twice now. Now that you're cooperating with a literal evil wizard to wiggle your way out of your contract, you're evidently fine with anything that happens to harm the people you don't like, going as far as trying to finish the job yourself. Isn't this kind of a school shooter vibe? I'm feeling a creepy loser who shoots up a school vibe."

    "You're pathetic. This is pathetic. Suck it up and move on with your sad little banal suburban woes like all the other children who got bullied at school --the ones who don't go completely unhinged and come back ten years later to try to murder them all, or else get magical suicide monsters to do it for them. This isn't medieval Arabia. Drop the sword, get out of the way, and reconsider your entire life. Go back to actually dealing with Witches like you're supposed to, and maybe I'll consider it worthwhile not to release this whole debacle and make you regret it *immensely*."

    She stops roughly aside of Staren, out of arm's reach, gesturing down at her casual wear. "As you can see, I don't have my gun or my armour with me, so . . ."

    "I won't be able to go easy on you if you test me."

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
After attempting to help talk Mikoto down fails to work, Rean finally makes a decision. He steps towards the path of Mikoto's attack, sword raised to block it for Staren. "...I'd like to say I wouldn't want to get back at my birth parents, but we both know why I can't say that for certain."

Staren has posed:
    Staren's considering other options, but if Ganondorf could cover the door that fast, Staren's pretty sure he could also cover the hole Staren could blow in the ceiling or walls. And now this is becoming a big public thing. He didn't super care -- if Mikoto becomes a monster he'll just have to join the heroes putting her down. -- But now, the HAND OF THE CONCORD is at risk of looking like he can be intimidated into letting people die because an unstable teenager said so.

    Staren is just starting to drop them and fight, but doesn't even get to finish before he sees Mikoto move. She CAN'T stop time, so he CAN see her move, and he holds the man and woman tightly to his sides as the forcefield -- weakened and flickering from the Witch's assault -- comes on, but Rean steps in. Also, Lillian. He nearly forgot she was a Paladin.

    "Well." Staren tries to return from a look of frantically trying to plan to one of... calm imperiousness. "Personal power is but one form. Another is being able to work with others. Without THAT power, we become the monster in the tower that heroes call 'a bad guy' and kill and then go and sleep soundly in their beds the next night knowing they have Done A Good Thing. I have had difficulty with this latter power in the past, but..." he shrugs. "It seems it's working better now. I've learned the Power of Friendship. Or at least the power of cooperation and mutual support. Together, we're stronger than you. Or maybe we're not? You still want to test it, three against one?"

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Rean blocks her strike, Lilian makes an attempt at social manipulation through attacking her social standing and freedom in her home.  For a moment, she doesn't care.  She feels she has nothing left to lose.  Her blade comes up, ready to try and push through Rean without a care in the world.

Then those words.  'I don't want to become a witch and hurt others like I have been hurt.'  They stop her mid-swing, looking at Rean dead in the eyes.  Her gaze lowers a moment later, not able to hold it, and she turns.  

There isn't anything to say, she couldn't go through with it.  Not because she didn't want to, but because she was also still honest about those words.  She had let the witch go, because of her, feelings.  Besides the fact, she did not have the strength to take all three of them on.  Even if she did, even if she managed to succeed...

No, it wouldn't matter, in the end, she would only have the word of a goddamn sociopath.  She just leaves, there was nothing else for her here.  Nothing else in this city but pain, and the fact she would have to return once in a while to live.  Assuming she needed something in case she was too far from Lezard.

Tonight taught her an important lesson.  She needed power, at any cost.

Staren has posed:
    It IS an important lesson. You need power to achieve your goals.

    Staren waits until Mikoto is out of sight, then walks out the front door. He's matter-of-fact with police about what he's doing but won't let them stop him, though he expects the Paladins to kinda handle that? He won't shoot police but what are they gonna do if he freaking flies away?

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    Rean's 'actually supportive and heartfelt words' are what reach Mikoto instead of common sense. She vanishes into the night.

    "How boring." Lilian sighs in vexation. Her hand ceases hovering over her sword and falls away. She rolls her head back on her neck with the tired attitude of a student being given their fourth final project with the same due date. "Boring as well as pathetic. That's just intolerable. Ugh, even if she did what I told her to, I was still sort of hoping she wouldn't." She looks at Staren with a kind of 'man why couldn't you have just fired the missiles the second she got in the way' look, then sighs again and gathers up her shoes. "Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time."

    "She doesn't elaborate."

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean sighs. Luckily, that worked. He doesn't say anything to Ganondorf or Lillian, and just waits for Staren to leave with the two injured people. Once he's gone, Rean just heads home and doesn't stick around to talk to the police. There's still so much fro him to learn, it seems.