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Duet Fortuna     Today's sojourn is to a land known as the CRYSTAL FOREST. As could be guessed, the forest is... crystalline. Numerous 'trees' of shimmering mineral jut out from the ground, which makes landing airships(or giant trees) difficult. Elliana, at least, has set out from the edge of the forest on foot, to rendezvous in a clearing near where the supposed coordinates are.

    Elliana is not without uncertainties though. "This hardly seems like the sort of place a Shajem would be," she mutters warily. No strange mental effects, not even any bizarre monsters pop up. The crystal forest sports a few insects, and some plants that are natural shrubs that the mineral growths haven't crowded out... but no real signs of corruption or danger. It's very rough terrain, though, which explains the lack of settlement. The 'trunks' of these trees are much harder to cut than normal timber, which makes clearing the rough terrain very difficult.
Eleanor Lamb     Eleanor is here, Utopia firmly on her hand, loded up with her Dad-Tech gear. The place is very pretty, that's for sure, and the Sister is quietly dragging her fingers over tree trunks, quietly taking the beauty of the place as she can.
    "While... this place is gorgeous, Elliana, I can imagine that there's some sort of energy or magic pushing this energy out of the earth in this sort of manner. It's not as if... Well." She plants her hands on her hips and spins in place. "I don't suppose 'natural' is a word I'd ever use for Terra Majora."
Guest Psyber     Psyber is here, of course. He looks pretty tired, or at least slightly worn out. He's got two wrapped bundles across his back, both of them being swords. One is Sovereign, wrapped and stored in case it becomes necessary in this unknown mission. The other is Adjudicator, wrapped because unwrapping a greatsword for combat is pretty stylish.

    The half-angel sighs and looks to Elliana, "This doesn't look like the kind of place anything would be, beyond fancy crystal trees. Any idea what kind of wildlife is in here?" He inquires to the former-priestess as he follows.
Mizuki     Mizuki has always made it her business to appear moments before worlds, wars, and lives have ended. No, she has not always been fully aware of the context, and she most certainly is not now -- but all that's irrelevant. While she may be interested in seeing how this whole affair concludes, her interest in it stemmed from elsewhere to begin with: a friend. Or perhaps it would be more right to say 'friends', but at the least, Psyber in particular will be impacted by what happens here tonight. She knows this, and is here more to be a presence. A comforting element which is conveniently disassociated from the tumult plaguing Elliana's existence, and the existences of all those entwined and betwixt.

    As it was with the dreams before, Mizuki does not feel she has a right to be here, quite. She's donned that robe which she so often does when she feels this way, draping its shaded hood over her face so that it obscures her features, dimming her reflection to each crystal she passes by. She keeps her arms and hands folded behind her back and maintains absolute silence, tuning her senses instead to the sounds of the world, and the voices of any more relevant sorts within her range of hearing. Her gaze wanders frequently to the one she's most concerned with when she is not preoccupied with the beauty of the world surrounding them.

    Idly, she attempts to pluck a frozen leaf from one of the myriad shrubs littering the forest floor. She'll want something to remember this by, or at least to serve as a bookmark should she ever have to save the page upon which a record of this event is penned.
Amalthea     Amalthea is here. And she regards the Crystal Forest with about the same level of suspicion one would approach a hissing viper. Her every step is silent despite the heavy plates of silvered armor adorning her, sword hung at her hip, and lance, Wishblade, slung over her shoulder.
    With said ancient and noble lance, she reaches out and taps one of the mineral 'trees' curiously. But her attention is drawn upwards, lone eye quietly regarding Psyber with a silent worry at how haggard he looks.
Mordred     Mordred is not here, so much as Mordred's presence is. The dematerialized Servant follows after Elliana protectively but hasn't revealed herself yet, out of a lack of necessity to be out and about. She does address Elliana privately though, over their bond.

    "Dunno, smells like a trap more than anything."
Reiji Arisu     Agents of the kind-of-shadowy Shinra organization are present today, as is quickly becoming routine for these kinds of expeditions. This time, though, they may not have come alone. Reiji arrives shortly after Psyber does, his weapon rack at the ready in his off-hand.

Though whether Reiji actually has an off-hand is a subject for debate.

    He casts a glance around the crystal formations, watching as light plays through their many facets. Reiji makes a quiet, curious sound, but there's an ounce of appreciation in his voice, too. This place is really quite beautiful, after all. But, they have a job to do.

    "It is suspiciously quiet," Reiji observes, peering out into the gaps between the gemstone trees. "And I imagine that sound would carry pretty well through this place. Crystals don't really muffle noise that well, I don't think."
Nathan Hall     "One assumes the nature of what we seek was different at the time of passing through this place than it is now. It would be diifficult to make such associations with entirely unknown brands of potential entity." Nathan says, in the usual monotone. "There is also the possibility that Wightseer is a liar, exploiting misunderstandings we have of the other data, as your Saber says. Given his history, it would rather make sense. Haruno is our expert on mineral matters." Hopefully she's here in some state Nathan can hyassle her in. "Please attempt to seek and identify relevant sources of mineral disturbance."

    For his own part, Nathan activates his [SCAN] ability, his glasses filling with glare for a moment, though the right lens is still fractured heavily. Scan lets him identify magical natures, but ideally it can let him identify magical entities in general, in terms of the general location here. He's going to try to get the group moving on in, based on any data he gets from this, from Haruno, and any data he might have wrung out of Drake Wightseer. As he does, he speaks a bit, responding to Psyber. "One assumes it is un-Twisted wildlife, as this area is not indicated as suffering such corruption. Please remain alert regardless, we do not know what the advent of the hatching of this creature brings to the local ecosystem."

    His right lens remains fractured. His complexion looks terribly ill. But he doesn't look like he's been refusing to eat and sleep, oddly.
Charity Whiteheart     Charity was moving ahead, just scouting a few dozen yards forward via treebranch leaping. Satisfied that things are safe for now, she lands near Elliana when the others gather, grunting softly. "Nothing really of interest out there. It's... really quiet. Are we sure this is the right place?"

    The information was from a suspect source, in her mind, but then again Elliana seemed to think it was all right... and there was another matter. "I didn't expect the Lord of Famine underneath a fruitful farm, either."
Simon Petrikov     Despite being, by all accounts, a huge nerd, Simon Petrikov is actually in remarkably good physical condition - especially for a mostly-normal human his age. While he hasn't gone hiking cross-country in a couple months, it's not as rough going as one might expect. It may still difficult, but he's not exhausted. Not like poor Psyber. The antiquarian sidles up to Psyber when it seems like there's a good opportunity, while keeping his vividly blue-white eyes scanning their surroundings. He can't FEEL magic, but oh boy can he ever SEE it.

    Once there's a lull in the conversation as people try to figure out what they might have to deal with out here, in this dazzling, crystalline wilderness, Simon asks under his breath of Psyber, "Are you okay, man? Those things on your back too heavy?" Simon himself has a sword at his side, but it's kind of dinky. And looks a bit too ornate to really be a weapon. It might work better as a bookmark. It also has the typical 'eye'-like core of an Abstractum.

    Simon figured he might need Evergreen out here. He has seen a lot of weird stuff, but that doesn't mean he can deal with it on his own. And he thinks Evergreen and he can be contributing members, not burdens, if they work together.

    The fact they are hunting down a Shajem is kind of worrying, but they are also attempting some other kind of plan here - not to fight it, he doesn't think. Making peace with it?

    Psyber is one of the strongest people he has run into so far. There's other powerful people here. Amalthea, the mysterious invisible presence, Elliana herself, and others still. But power isn't so useful when its wielder looks that ragged.
Xiaomu "Depends on whether the ambient magic embedded in them would tend to deaden sound passing through them," Xiaomu points out to her long-time (by human standards) partner. She's got her monk staff as usual, her carrypack as is becoming relatively usual, and may safely be presumed to be packing handguns, ammo, and grenades under her vest.

The fractured state of Nathan's glasses is not entirely lost on her, and the sage fox girl opens her mouth like she's about to ask ... but she turns her attention away from the librarian without inquiring. Maybe it's a power-up or something, it certainly stands out in a way that a prominent eyepatch might not. Meanwhile, her ears perk up a little more as she surveys the area. "Don't rule out a Shajem being here just on looks," she suggests to Elliana. "It's probably as much a matter of where they had to chase it to before they could seal it as anything else, right?"

She *is* kind of guessing, but really, boss fights can pop up anywhere - she knows that as much from real-world experience as from the games she plays.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura is here, of course, and willing to do what she can to help out with the local geology. She's really not an expert on the lore of it, though she's willing to pass along what data she can.

    Naturally, she's also going to be near Nathan and Psyber, particularly taking advantage of the opportunity to observe Nathan. She doesn't seem at all pleased by what she sees, but does she ever?

    "It's some impressive territory, isn't it? But I'll see if I can find if there's something underground again. It seems to be the most common way around here of dealing with this sort of thing, I suppose." Tradition, maybe.
Lezard Valeth Lezard has had a specific interest in the Shajem ever since Mordred had tapped him and the others to assist. These beings had powers verging on the divine, and the nature of the divine has long been a subject of note to the Necromancer of Mdigard. Therefore, there's no suprise that Lezard is present.

He walks through the crystal forest with an idly gaze, considering both the number of people present and the specific issues raised by the others. "Are we truly sure that what we are seeking is a Shajem?" Lezard states simply, before his eyes fall upon Nathan.

Something there seems to hold his attention, as he begins watching the Librarian intently as he does his scans.
Nox     Nox wouldn't miss something like this. His interest in the matters of all things Shajem has steadily mounted over the last several weeks, in no small part due to the benefits he reaps of attending these jaunts, but for other, more scientific reasons as well. After coming extremely close to causing an interfactional incident last time however, he has made even more thorough preparations, and so has not entered the forest without thoroughly scanning the area with noxines beforehand. He warps into the mid-forefront of the group without ceremony, gliding along a foot above the uneven terrain. "If what we're seeking is of any importance whatsoever, then it's an inevitability we will find it with this group. Try to enjoy the journey as well as the destination."
Duet Fortuna     It's an interesting forest, that is certain. Shimmering and pristine, it is not without dangers... but they are no different than a normal forest, if less inhabited. A few prowling scavengers, some of whom do appear mutated, but considering the wide area that has been investigated it's a minute amount. The biggest problem is probably the bear sheltering off in the hillside some three hundred meters away.

    Elliana is frowning as she reaches out with her own senses. Those who have such mystical senses can detect the same thing she is: that there's some ambient mystical seepage here, but it's cyclical. Like a pulse, almost. It may take several moments to detect this, the gentle feeding of energies which are then withdrawn from the trunks of trees.

    "It is worrying," Elliana admits. "I know much of the nature of these beings, but evidently less than I thought." She glances at the others. "Unusual features like this are not common, but not entirely rare either. This is a... hmm. An anomaly but not one that is overly fascinating. Like an out of place biome in many other worlds. It happens, and is curious, but not so unusual that a Shajem is immediately suspected."

    She glances at Nathan, frowning. "You look unwell, Sir Hall. Are you sure you are up for this? I believe I can attempt a binding myself, if need be." Psyber gets a small shake of her head. "And I know little of the fauna in this area. It is supposedly unremarkable."

    Of course none of the Blooded who came here before had anything like Sakura's Earth Sense. With a little guidance from those who sense magic, she'll be able to pinpoint the egg-shaped chamber deep within the ground. She might also pick up that it feels off, again.
Eleanor Lamb     Eleanor's eyes flick over to Sakura and Nathan and the rest and wilts a little internally. They're all going to burn themselves out if this doesn't get fixed soon. She does hold her tongue though, and mentally scribbles things into a notebook, remembering to bring around thoughts at people's... well, when she can get them alone.
    She does venture father into the glade, bouncing idly on the balls of her feet, testing the ground. "Well if there is something here, would there be some sort of access to the not-quite-a-Shajem, or would it be entirely cut off?"
Guest Psyber     "Hm? Oh, I'm fine," Psyber says to Simon in a deflecting tone, "My swords don't weigh nearly as much as they look like they do," He doesn't comment on his current status beyond that, simply giving a slight smile and adjusting the two weapons across his back, "Besides. Jude would never let it go if I implied it was too heavy for me as a weapon."

    Psyber pointedly avoids meeting Amalthea's gaze or Mizuki's gaze, as both of them express their own kinds of concern via looks, or in Mizuki's case her presence. Haruno is thankfully more distracted by Nathan's state. It makes a pretty effective smokescreen for him most days. He looks over to Elliana with a tilt of his head, "Mm. I don't like it being that vague," He says, casting an eye over towards the bear and the other scavengers.

    His red eyes flick away from her and half-lid as starts to pick up the pulses of magic with his own senses. He then sighs a bit and places his hands into his pockets, ambiently starting to get lost in his own thoughts on the situation. Most Confederates get a polite nod, Charity getting an actual wave of his hand owing to Psyber actually having some fondness for her.

    He takes a flask out of his jacket and slowly takes a sip and then answers Eleanor, "It is likely that whatever it is will have been buried or at least partially concealed by singificant landmass shifting that occurred since its moment of conception."
Xiaomu "Hmmmmm ..." Xiaomu comes to a halt, closing her eyes for a moment, her ears pricking a bit. "Well, this forest is alive enough to feel it breathing," she observes after a moment. "I wonder if that has to do with whatever's sealed here, if anything is ... ?"

She walks over to one of the crystaline trees, tapping her staff gently against a 'trunk,' then laying her hand on the crystal itself, gauging how the energies are flowing. "... yeah, it's flowing into the trees and down, I think. But down to where? You'd expect energy to come up *from* the ground, *into* the 'trees' ..."

She looks over at Reiji. "Does this feel like the energy of Wood to you?"
Simon Petrikov     Simon doesn't have the senses for such things. He might very well notice the flow of energy if he's looking right at it when the pulse happens, but he is more focused on his allies. Psyber looks completely worn out. But so does Nathan - paler even. The cracked lens is not as much of a concern, since Simon went years with a cracked lens in his now-absent glasses. But after checking on Psyber, Simon next sidles up to the librarian, and asks him in a similarly quiet manner, "Are YOU doing okay? I know this may not seem like an ideal time, but-" It seems Simon is not the only one demonstrating an interest in Nathan's condition, however, so he stifles his inquiries for the moment.

    He's genuinely concerned. About both of them. Despite Psyber's deflection, Simon is not dumb. Something is not okay. But he'll just hope that this is something like not sleeping enough, and not a more dire issue. Not that a lack of sleep is good, but it's not as bad as some kind of magical illness or a Shajem thing slowly invading your mind and warping your body or something.

    Look, he is definitely paying attention to the mission here! But he'd rather not tangle with something like this if they aren't all at a hundred percent. Unfortunately, that isn't really up to him. He turns at Eleanor's question, and says, "Hey, yeah. That's a good point. Are we going to need to make our own path or entrance, or should we be keeping an eye out for a door in the side of a tree with a Jack-o-Shajem on it or something? It sounds like the others have been underground so far. Maybe this one is too?"
Mordred     "Is an animal expert less of an expert because a new species got discovered?" Mordred idly asks Elliana, giving an ethereal shrug at the matter. These things are fucked, how anyone could become an expert such that they can't be surprised anymore seems beyond reach.

    The bored Servant, however, soon grows tired of watching the wildlife, and her presence shifts down into the ground. Why suffer the path people have to walk when you can phase through walls and the ground like they aren't even there?

    Mordred heads down, disregarding obstacles in favor of amusing herself with whatever is giving off the strongest magical signature everytime the area pulses. Likely the egg chamber, obviously.
Nox     Oh Nox feels it alright. It'd be impossible to miss with senses so finely tuned for this specific purpose. He pauses momentarily at the moment he first perceives the deep throb of energy throughout the earth, looking up to the tops of the glassy foliage as if to follow its progress. The air is filled with a faint, metallic buzzing as dozens of insectoid drones alight on nearby trees, poising themselves for extraction the instant the all clear is given, and to keep a close feel of the land's pulse during and after the encounter with the Shajem, or whatever it is they're about to run straight into.

    "Then if I may ask, what else could it be if not a Shajem or one of its diametric opposition? I'll give you that the pattern is radically different from what we've encountered thusfar, but I can think of precious few other candidates given my admittedly limited knowledge of this world. Isn't it also possible that this could be something else, and yet so similar in behaviour to a Shajem that we should be rid of it regardless?"
Mizuki     Mizuki has a sort of 'mystical sense', but on account of the unconventional nature of her own energy she isn't able to make much of it. The pulse, to her, is diluted -- she isn't able to pick up on it frequently enough to derive any sort of pattern from it, but certainly enough for it to irritate her senses. Her attentions are torn somewhat from the environment as a result, and her countenance contorts slightly in annoyance. -Just- after Nathan had encouraged them to pay especial attention to the environment -- something she is usually doing in ways that put her at mortal risk -- she's now losing her ability to do so with requisite acuity. And the one time her clumsiness might have served some practical purpose...

    So for the time being, she's relegated to the position of a simple tagalong. Not that she'd expected anything more or anything less from accompanying the group on this venture, but that still doesn't sit well with her. As far as Psyber is concerned, she'd assumed that he would be dismissive of anything or anyone that might indicate his unease, so she's not surprised in that regard either. Likewise, she does not expect him to be open to any sort of emotional aid for a long time yet if things do not pan out how he hopes they will, so right now she's more... here to help him in the present. Future Psyber is one better tended by people who know him better, and have known him longer; perhaps also those who are more willing and in better positions to apply a more forceful friendship tactic.

    For now, her silence persists, though now she might spare Psyber her looks a bit more often. She doesn't want her worry to perturb him further.
Charity Whiteheart     So many people seem worn out. Charity is eying the group, but she doesn't particularly care right now. Not enough to ask about it. Okay, she's moderately friendly with many of them, but she's very focused on the mission. The only thing that really concerns her is the mention of energy flows. "In the trees, huh? I wonder..."

    Rolling up her sleeve, the thief plunges an arm through a tree, using her phasing power. That's mostly to see if it feels weird. "This one has never been sealed. I have no idea how it will work. It's like the ancient war, I guess." Unlike Mordred, she does not use her phasing to dive down and confront the Shajem directly.
Amalthea     If anything, evading her gaze only seems to make the unicorn stare harder; more intently. A long, piercing, look from that lone and endless eye that could make a normal man feel drilled down to his very soul. But she says nothing. But then she pauses; one boot scuffing lightly at the ground. Her own senses are more primal and wild, but that eye flits to and fro on feeling the ambient seeping.
    A vague grumble and she keeps one ear lifted out like a radar.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura will sink down into the ground, starting to seek out the chamber underground again, leaving a path behind her this time rather than moving quite as quietly through it as she normally does. She'll talk over radio to communicate with those with slightly more precisely magical senses, but Nathan will probably be relieved at her totally not being right there to annoy him.

    Because of needing to find the chamber, and needing a little assistance with it, there are some rather sharp turns and tight corners and such in the tunnel this time by the time Sakura calls out that she's found it over the radio. Hopefully noone who's coming down is too claustrophobic.
Nathan Hall     "My troubles are within the reasonable bounds of acceptable medical tolerances." Nathan says, to those concerned. "There is no risk of long-term harm and no excess undue suffering. I shall suffer no field performance losses." That seems to be all he has to say on the matter. He focuses on continuing on.

    There's not much for him to do here but head down. He's pretty intent on getting down that tunnel, so he follows along less at the back of the group this time, in one of his usual tunnel-vision modes. Now currently in an actual tunnel, too. He's very intent on getting to this egg pretty much as soon as possible.
Nathan Hall     "The Shajem were once something else, something unlike what we know of them now." Nathan says, drly, to Nox, speaking as he descends. "Something happened to alter them, to change them very severely. This newborn, we believe, may have been created before that change. It may be an un-mutated Shajem, the nature of which may be utterly unlike the Shajem we know now."
Eleanor Lamb     Eleanor sighs at Nathan's description, and gingerly makes her way into the hole below. "I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not, Mr. Hall."
Duet Fortuna     Since she dove down ahead of the others, Mordred is the first to encounter the Shajem. Or rather, the crystalline 'egg' that has formed, purplish in color and containing a powerful, barely-slumbering presence. The eggshell forms a reasonable barrier against even immaterial beings, by its nature. What it feels like within, though...

    Sakura will be less-affected at first, finding the purplish shell that houses the Shajem. The chamber is pretty large, but fighting here within it could be... complicated. The quarters are pretty cramped, there.

    Not that this stops Elliana from going down there, frowning in thought. Psyber's condition worries her as well, and she'll give a knowing glance to Amalthea, a small shake of her head. Not something she can do anything about right now. Nox asks a good question though. "A year ago, I would have said nothing else. I am not so sure now. It is /something/ important and powerful, yes." She's taking things seriously though... with the lack of health Nathan and Psyber are showing, that leaves mostly unknowns or those she knows are weaker than her by a significant margin, though she has a few suspicions on true strength. Regardless, a faint shimmering gentle pinkish aura rises around her, and a marked increase in the ambient power around Elliana can be noted.

    She frowns, "I suppose we must crack the shell..."
Mordred     Crack the shell, she says.

    Mordred's form finally appears, gathering out of blue and red wisps of magic, first in the shape of the small blonde girl from head to toe, and then her armor appearing on top of her, from toe to head, the silver and red plate omitting the helmet.

    Clarent forms in her hand, the long silver sword engraved in runes looking far better suited for two hands rather than the one she holds it in. And then without ceremony for flashiness, the Servant drives the blade into the egg.

    Fuck that egg, anyway, what did it ever do for them.
Mizuki     As promised, Mizuki keeps her distance. She does, however, pull the hood away from her face, and summon Aelinos into her left hand. She won't have any use for her wings, given the surroundings.

    ... her heart beat quickens without any visible cause. If she could, she would likely be perspiring. She has not felt such a profoundly unnerving yelp from her Authorial Sense for quite some time, but she knows all too well that saying she 'Has a bad feeling' will not do any of them any good at all. So she keeps it to herself, doing her best to maintain composure by squeezing the grip of her blade.

    When Mordred's blade contacts the shell, her entire body quakes.

    Instinctively, she looks back to Psyber.
Amalthea     Then that eye crosses gaze with Elliana. The most Amalthea can do is shrug. Thusly faced with the egg, Amalthea stands back, boots scuffling as if agitated.
    "Mn..." This will probably not end well as Mordred goes for it. Amalthea abstains from attempting to help the Shajem free.
Lezard Valeth Nathan's response to the inquiry into his health causes Lezard's mouth to quirk up a bit in amusement. The energy of this area is very... natural, compared to the flows found elsewhere. Absently, Lezard catalogues this in the back of his mind as he proceeds down into the tunnel with the others, he desires to see this unusual being himself. There is nothing he needs to do other than observe at this time. That, and remain on guard.

The presence of the slumbering being within the crystalline egg is impressive even in infancy to Lezard as he enters the room. The glowing object reflects off of Lezard's glasses, and he smiles thinly, considering what is to come.

When the egg is cracked, Lezard whips his sceptre to one side, a magical barrier shimmering around him as he reinforces his defenses.
Guest Psyber     Psyber draws Sovereign off his back as he follows down into the tunnel. When the Shajem egg is revealed, Psyber leans over to inspect it when the aura rises up, "Cracking the shell. Yeah. I can't wait to see how this wi-" Psyber cuts himself off from finishing the statement of: 'I can't wait to see how this will fuck my life up further'.

    He can feel Amalthea's glare drilling into him. It's somewhat embarassing for people to be spending energy worrying over him. He awkwardly looks towards the egg, focusing in on it as the mission provides him a nice distraction. When Mordred goes in to swing at the egg, Psyber does too. Aiming to swing the sword and sheer off a piece of the shell with a smooth swing.
Reiji Arisu     "Not... particularly," Reiji's brows furrow as he answers Xiaomu. There's definitely something wrong with the situation, he knows that for certain. That's not what's bugging him. It's that nobody, not even their guide, is quite sure /what/ is wrong. "It's wrong. Like you say, the energy of Wood wouldn't be doing something like this. It'd be... Pushing up, out into the air. This is something else. Earth, maybe, but not quite that, either."

    The thought becomes a nagging, tingling voice at the back of his head. Reiji's lips curl into a tight frown as they proceed deeper into the crystal forest... And, eventually, into the domain of the-- egg? "We should probably be careful about this," Reiji cautions, giving the thing at the center of the room a wide berth. "Set up precautions before--"

Mordred. And also Psyber. Oh God.

    "Well, fuck that then," Reiji grunts, dropping into a guarded stance. He focuses his will and loosens his muscles. "Xiaomu. Get ready. This is probably going to be messy."
Eleanor Lamb     Oh god they're already starting. Eleanor's eyes wrinkle a little bit at the efforts being made to crack the shell, and she just bites her lip anxiously, planting the head of her hefty wrench into the tunnel's floor. A little grumble of nerves at the proceedings, as her eyes glance between her bosses, and back to Mordred and the egg.

    A thought trickles into her head. She never did manage to get Nathan to sit down for another session...
Nox     Cracking the shell sounds like something Nox would rather someone else do. Not in the least because it's a waste of energy to do it himself, but moreso because of his hesitance to expose himself to the release of conceptual energy that will inevitably happen by standing around at ground zero. Though he considers himself much better armed against mental influence this time, there's really no sense risking it.

    As such, he hangs back, a respectable distance from the hole with his hands behind his back, watching the intrepid adventurers plunge down into the dark unknown, reading their energy converging with that of the egg through the amplification lenses of his mask. "Why ever would you say that? Things are going exactly according to plan." he remarks offhandedly to Reiji. It's unclear whether he's being sarcastic or not.
Simon Petrikov     Well, Nathan and Psyber are both insisting they're okay, when they're clearly not. But Simon is not a doctor, and despite his concerns, it's not his place to tell them they're wrong. He'll just have to hope they know what they're doing. Sakura helpfully creates a tunnel downwards. He's a bit surprised that he was actually RIGHT about the Shajem being underground. Following along after everyone else, the antiquarian eventually arrives in the cavernous space where the egg lies. It looks spooky and really magical.

    "Could we hold off on cracking the shell, and let someone scan the thing-" Simon starts to suggest as he reaches for Evergreen, but it's a bit late. Mordred and Psyber both lash out at the egg with their swords. He doesn't really understand, or know what to expect. But it kind of feels like maybe this wasn't a great idea.

    He hangs back with Mizuki for now, knowing he isn't really suited to punching. But something feels weird. And as he isn't really the type to detect weird things normally, that's very unsettling for him.
Nathan Hall     Nathan will likely have directed Ethan and the Binders to arrive more on the surface than anywhere else around now . Like the last incident, this should be fairly easy to deal with, by way of discerning what exactly the Shajem's Aspect is, and then performing a Negotiation, if necessary. Entirely depending upon whether or not the Shajem needs Binding in the first place, given its potential nature as an un-mutated one.

    He does not, for now, touch it. He instead stands near the egg, somewhere around where Psyber and Mordred are striking it, arms crossed and ready. Quiet, patient, stoic. Whatever effects the Shajem has, he is confident that he will be able to handle them, and get the Negotiation started.

    Nothing to worry about.
Xiaomu "'Probably,' huh?" Xiaomu answers wryly as she takes up a position next to Reiji, planting her staff in the ground with enough force to make the rings on its headpiece jingle. That frees her hands up to draw both pistols, but she's keeping them aimed at the chamber's ceiling rather than at any of her allies, at least for the moment.

It would've been nice if the chamber could be bigger, probably ...
Sakura Haruno     Flowers, having made the tunnel, will at least move off to the side a little bit while people work. She doesn't want any part of being the first one the Shajem sees; she's already aware from the previous encounters that they more or less shred through what mental defenses she has. Given that they've no idea what this one is...

    Well, a little bit of space is probably for the best so she can curl up when it turns out to be the Shajem of Naptime or something along those lines.
Charity Whiteheart     Charity drops into the tunnel from the roof, phasing through the ground now. She sighs, dropping her hood down and eying the egg. "So that's what an unsealed, unborn one looks like. Hard to believe..." She purses her lips. "I've been fighting my world's gods. I'm going to be spoiled a little. Makes me wonder what this result is going to be."

    Her blades are drawn, twirled, and then she leans back against the tunnel wall, immediately scouting out possible avenues of attack. At least with her ability, the cramped quarters are more an advantage than a downside.
Duet Fortuna     Between Mordred's powerful Noble Phantasm, and Psyber's sword meant to cleave through Shajem and Amethyne alike... well, the shell offers little protection from direct attack. It's a formidable wall, but a concentrated attack shatters it in the points of impact... which sends lengthy cracks all along the shell.

    Elliana frowns, rubbing her chin. She silently urges Brilliant Dawn to set up a Tandem with whomever it can, figuring they might need it. She too has a bad feeling, much like some of the others lingering back. And with good reason.

    The effect is powerful, but not quite as direct and heated as the Lord of Famine. The wave of power that passes over at first does nothing... but for those it can effect, it finds niggling insecurities, the tiniest annoyances with anything in this situation it can find, and begins amplifying them rapidly toward an irrational hate. It's like road rage, or XBox Live. And it keeps building even as the loud screeching noise is heard echoing through the tunnel.

    Bursting from the egg this time is a lenthy, sinuous creature. Not a serpent or dragon or worm though, this one has numerous wriggling feelers and large pincers, taking the hissing form of a centipede of some kind. The eruption of the creature reveals it is a glowering pink... and clearly much like the Shajems of earlier, only basically newborn and full strength. It also snaps pinchers directly at Mordred's arm.
Guest Psyber     "Fucking GOD DAMNIT," Psyber shouts in fit of rage, "Why is this thing RIDICULOUSLY overpowerful?" Psyber exclaims, letting his annoyance just flash out in that moment, "This fucking Damien Thorn ass piece of shit Shajem baby." Psyber notes, letting movie references slip out as it goes in to attack Mordred.

    The half-angel grabs the second sword on his back, "Fucking gauntlet form. Let's just get this done before it all goes slapdick." He snaps at Adjudicator, shifting Sovereign back into its scabbard. And then he tries to swing Adjudicator in a heavy jab, punching the thing as it lunges towards Mordred.
Mordred     Many possibilities exist for what could have happened when the egg was struck. Many different ways for this to happen. Among those was the immediate hostility and attack potential, and Mordred received a flash of it beforehand, just as the first crack spread and the egg started rumbling.

    The Servant's magic resistance flares up visibly, a blue bubble around her that halts the mental interference. The flames of the Shajem of Rage are visible in the blue hexagons that make up the shell. She's using her own Shajem to resist.

    And it's as soon as the pincers come out and snap at her arm that her other hand produces Bloody Amhar, the red blade swung for the Shajem of Hatred's limbs before they can reach her. Clarent, still extended out, produces arcs of red, angry lightning as well, essentially a cone attack Prana Burst to go along with the slash.

    Kinda helps she's not alone, too.
Eleanor Lamb     Bother. Eleanor... She huffs and puffs and adjusts Utopia into Tandem. She can't make it through all these people to get up to the front and she just...

    The sigh this time is something more animated, agitated. "Bother, why didn't we make this /bigger/ before we got in here?" She slams her fist into the dirt and starts to concentrate. Or tries to. It's stuffy and stifling in here, and her mental concentration is unsteady.
Nathan Hall     Nathan Hall is hit by a sudden wave of hatred amplification.

    A burst of nausea hits him for reasons yet to be explained, followed by something not unlike vomiting, though in this case it's an odd combination of brilliant yellow energies and diabolical purple flames that evaporate before they hit the ground. As he doubles over, his body is immediately subsumed in a storm of arcing lightning, while the ground rumbles harshly under him, cracking and splitting. The wind around him picks up heavily, blasting a constant shockwave around him. He holds his head and brilliant cyan, purple, gold, and white energies all seem in conflict.

    This happened once before. Psyber was very distant at the time, by necessity, and not equipped to examine or analyze. Those nearby who are attuned to such things, sensing magic and other suchlike, will be able to tell that this extremely intense reaction is the result of various portions of Nathan's own magical power fighting other elements. For what reason, it may not be clear. However, it'll be much more clear that it's a lot more one-sided than the last time Psyber experienced it.

    Nathan's mind is a buffet of pettiness and potential hatred for the Shajem to induce. If the Shajem has any senses to detect such things, and any particular desire to apply them, Nathan, out of everyone here, will undoubtedly suffer its effects the worst. He is also currently completely disabled, and not a threat to the Shajem in any way. It is also going to be incredibly difficult to move him, due to the horrible outbursts of magical effects.
Lezard Valeth Lezard is a man who very much knows the touch of hatred, pride, and obsession. The wave of energy that passes over him causes a flicker on his barrier, but that isn't the important part. His eyes narrow on the beast. "Did you think your mental manipulations would work to your benefit, little godchild? Far to the contrary! You will /suffer/ before the end! Quickly, subdue this beast! Perhaps draining its energy will not be enough. A newborn Shajem would be very interesting to examine surgically, will it not?" His smile widens, becoming more terrible in its anticipation.

"Provided these naive fools would allow us to actually perform useful research instead of praying that locking everything in boxes and burying their heads in the ground will solve them."
Sakura Haruno     "Oh, sure, you're unsatisfied with the tunnel carved solely through the same limited mystical energy Psyber'll be depending on to heal him after he gets his head bitten off by that thing." Sakura says to Eleanor. This one is both good and bad, really - Sakura is simultaneously full of petty grudges and slights and easy to manipulate, but she's also used to choking back on that and working through it and not stabbing people. That actually, for the moment, renders her possibly less debilitated by this than by the Shajem of Famine.

    She may not have the best judgement now, though, because she's going to step over towards the Shajem, waiting on the lightning that Mordred produces before trying to punch the back half of the centipede. "Some of us have things we need to get done, so will whoever is talking to this thing please start now?"
Abstractum.Net     Brilliant Dawn is currently the most hatred-worthy of the Abstractum here. "Ghhhh... Alright, Elliana." It's doing its best to be dependable, but it's clear that the Abstractum is grappling with its own spiteful and hateful nature. Thus, the Abstractum's TANDEM PARADIGM comes online, with some odd instabilities. The generalized power boost blasts through the Users of this group with a gently flickering green light is unsteady, but should hold.
Mizuki     The subtle irritation Mizuki had felt before as that throbbing mystical sensation rose to prevalence suddenly... grips at her. It gradually rises to prevalence as those irrational feelings of fear transform into equally irrational feelings of anger, though she has a saving grace here that most others may not: she's easily able to see /why/ this hatred is silly. A petty annoyance over a physical sensation that she can't help? Really? That... that isn't going to steal her thoughts. She won't allow it to. She does her utmost to thrust it away through sheer force of will before, with a honed glance at the Shajem, she recalls that they 'manipulate emotion', or at least negativity. She feels incredibly embarrassed for the moment she allowed that to captivate her. She had just been -told- to expect this, for goodness sake!

    The grip on her blade loosens. That feeling of overwhelming trepidation fades somewhat as she finally, finally manages a few deep breaths. As a further precaution, she exerts some of her own influence: a small, dense half-sphere appears around Mizuki's person. For any more than several feet away from her, the space nearby simply seems to waver as though tempted by a mirage of intense sunlight or the presence of chemicals. For any who come closer, however, they would see that a 'physical' wall has interspersed itself between Mizuki and the Shajem to 'literally' block the negativity being filtered in her direction. Hopefully this will work, and she will be in more complete control of her faculties by the time Psyber has his outburst.

    And when he does? Mizuki quirks her brow. He sounds... well. He sounds like Palora. She can't recall a time when he's ever been so overtly... oh. -Oh-. Again! It had slipped her mind -again-! The cogs in her mind click into place, and immediately she understands: Psyber has been impacted by that wave of anger as well. Her eyes widen, and her whole body stiffens. For the time being, the knowledge hurts far more than it helps; as she glances about the room and begins to realize -just how many people- this is going to have an impact on, she panics. And that anxiety locks her in place.

    She stares at the Shajem, but she does not move. She can't -- not quite yet. She just hopes that they can kill it before they kill themselves.
Abstractum.Net     "Control yourself, Psyber!" Adjudicator says, in a harshly disapproving toine. "What you feel should not affect you like this!" The sword unwraps dramatically all at once, in a flare of seven sequential bursts of red fire, and then he punches like a truck. It might be enough to slam the Shajem into other underground areas or up to the surface, depending on how it's angled.
Reiji Arisu     Reiji's gaze flickers over towards Nox and Xiaomu. Does he roll his eyes a little? Maybe just a bit. "You both know what I mean. Get read--"

Crack. The eggshell bursts. A Shajem emerges.

    Welp, that sure is a giant pink centipede god thing. Or some kind of weird combination of centipede and scorpion. It's at least about as bizarre as the huge weasel-snake that they had to deal with the last time.

    Somewhat more worrisome than its snapping claws is the wave of supernatural /annoyance/ that washes over Reiji's psyche. He begins wishing even more that they'd actually taken the time to set up proper countermeasures /before/ cracking the egg open. Goddamnit Psyber. Goddamnit Mordred.

    The fact that the former is cursing with more fervor than most sailors, and the latter has turned into a magical disco ball is not lost on the exorcist, even in the haze of petty rage. Perhaps it's because he's far enough away, or perhaps it's because the one person he has /that/ many grudges against is far, far away right now. Or maybe it's because his bloodline affords him some protection against the passive magics of supernatural creatures. For whatever reason, it seems that- for now- Reiji still largely has his head on straight.

Nathan, however, does not.

    "Ah. Shit," Reiji grunts, Gold coming away from its holster. He takes aim, firing a burst of heavy, penetrating slugs at the Shajem to try and hedge it away from the arcane nova-thing that is Nathan Hall. "Someone needs to pull Hall out of there."

"Xiaomu," he asks over his shoulder, "We might need to move in to cover Nate. You good to move?"
Abstractum.Net     Bloody Amhar is actually mostly unaffected by hatred. The Lord of Famine can mess with it bad, but the Lord of Hatred, oddly, does little. It must not feel actual hatred. Which is why it splits wide, eagerly, trying to bite into the huge bug and start tearing away at flesh with brutal hunger and efficiency with the BLOOD MAW effect.
Nox     There are many things that Nox could take exception to in this situation. He is far from completely satisfied with the arrangements of Elliana's ongoing 'quest', with no shortage of small annoyances that could foster explosive growth into overpowering hatred of most of the people present. The entire sealing business, the intervention of the Union, the insistence on interfactional 'fairness', the tiresome nature of dealing with these conceptual surges over and over again, and the fact that so much potential is going to waste by attempting to bind the creatures rather than capture, study, or harvest them fully. Any one of these could be fertile ground for the creature's mental hooks, but after falling for it twice before, Nox is simply not about to let it happen a third time.

    "Draw it out of the tunnel." he snaps over the radio. "We'll destroy it on open ground. I'm not having you bumble around in a tiny little underground cave until the situation goes out of control." Of course, he'd be pretty receptive to the idea of the Shajem killing most of the people there, but there are more important things to think about. Specifically, the sudden eruption of raw, chaotic power from the Librarian. The noxines have left the trees now, hovering in a thrumming circle around the entrance dug into the earth. Aiguille is in his hand.
Eleanor Lamb     Eleanor's hands grip at her wrench again as she halfturns to look at Sakura. "Sorry, your Grace, I forgot that you had mothering to do. By all means peck at-..."
    At Nathan who is now having a magical fit on the ground. "Peck at Nathan you twit."
Abstractum.Net     Utopia similarly feels a distinct lack of hatred, but mostly because of its nature as a pseudo-fatherish figure. Elle gets a hard shock of stabilization, as much as Utopia can muster at the moment, but there may not be enough to prevent a potential cascade. It's doing its best, and trying to offer some extra genetic power boosts to help Eleanor open the space up a bit, perhaps, with one of her plasmids?
Charity Whiteheart     'Someone needs to pull Hall out of there.' Charity hears that, and she immediately responds. "I can do that." Her blades are tucked aside, and she quickly moves toward Nathan. This might seem odd, since she's very, very willing to fight the Shajem... but it's just a result of her feeling the subtle effects of the Shajem's power.

    This is because she phases over next to him, and grabs the librarian by the collar of his shirt. With a heave of her unnatural strength she lifts, some of the licking magical power burning her arm... but she bears with it, just so she can leap forward, down the tunnel and around the corner...

    And /HURL/ Nathan up and out with a wind-assisted buffeting.

    Someone had better catch him, because he's going down hard otherwise.

    He was kind of a dick to Elliana, you know?
Xiaomu Xiaomu's grip tightens on both of her handguns as the shell is cracked open and the Shajem emerges - but she's still holding her fire for the moment.

Particularly when that wave of hate-boosting whips through the room. She's usually pretty level-headed when her leisure interests aren't on the line, and while she can get snippy and snarky, she doesn't usually succumb to intense hatred. There are exceptions, of course, but none of them are HERE.

Reiji is being as cool-headed as ever, though, and Xiaomu nods to her partner, keeping her aim focused on the Shajem ... at least until Charity reaches Nathan and hoists him across the chamber. That's when Xiaomu holsters her handguns and grabs her staff, scurrying over to catch Nathan.

The impact fails to knock her over, although she jams her staff into the ground hard enough to make its rings jingle quite audibly. She adjusts her hold on the librarian, slinging him over her shoulder like he was half her size, and hurries the rest of the way up the tunnel to open ground. She can figure out what she's doing up there once she GETS there.

Nathan may or may not get his head bumped against the tunnel wall en route, depending on how straight or curvy it is. At least the Shinra sage fox is giving him a relatively comfortable ride despite the undignified position he's in ... and despite the small storm of conflicting magics all around him.
Duet Fortuna     Well this is lovely. Fortunately, while psychically powerful, a newborn Shajem is not so strong physically. Mordred's blast of prana impacts it hard, shattering the rest of the egg and smashing the centipede against the wall. It writhes viciously before Psyber and Sakura slam it hard against the wall, resulting in a spewing of violet energies crackling outward from the injury. Slugs blast into its carapace to cause squeals of pain and chittering anger and hate. At this rate it won't be /able/ to pursue Nathan...

    "NO YOU WILL NOT!" That'd be Elliana shouting at Lezard, who wants to dissect it or something. At least she isn't attacking him, though. It's an angry shriek though, and the vague shape of wings are blossoming along her back. At the moment they're purplish and hazy, but they're definitely wings. "We are here to CAPTURE it, and that is FINAL!" It's rare that she's that direct and without flowery words, but it's not really important here. Her full power flares up-

    And above ground, the earth erupts in a blast of power that sends several 'trees' shooting up into the air. She's blast a tunnel out of the earth to send the Shajem flying, but she does so far less elegantly than Sakura does, using brute force and little else. On the plus side, Nox will find that the Shajem is out in the open.

    On the minus side, most of the people are underground, and Elliana had no regard for supports or the like when she did this, bringing the roof down atop everyone.
Nathan Hall     Nathan's horrible internal magical conflicts are currently such that Charity is more likely than not to suffer a fair bit of electrocution on her way up. He does get to hear something though. Something that drives him further into hatred. Lezard, unfortunately, as he speaks to the Shajem, says things that specifically drive Nathan towards his worries of the Confederates using the Shajem as weapons, exploiting them for evil. By the time he's caught by Xiaomu, he'll likely be accidentally magically electrocuting her lightly as well. There's a sound like grinding glass coming from somewhere. Nathan is very clearly inadequately resistant to the Hatred effect, essentially giving in to the effects to do what they will at the moment.

    If Negotiation was an option at any point, it won't be now. The internal conflict is clearing up a bit, but Nathan's still completely disabled and vulnerable as earth rains down from Elliana's blast. He's mostly clear of this, though! He isn't clear of the Shajem, though, once it's in the open, unfortunately, still a shining psychic beacon of emotional deliciousness.
Mordred     Elliana provides an opening and forces the Shajem outside. Mordred makes use of it, since her job here couldn't be any clearer. You know, smash Shajem. Until it's not time to smash Shajem anymore.

    It is with both blades that the Servant leaps up and starts spinning, turning into a whirlwind of crimson lightning and swords, pursing the Shajem and attempting to put a few dozen cuts into its abdomen to keep it from even being able to think about doing anything else right now. Her strength and speed so enhanced by the Prana Bursts, it leaves very little for the swords themselves, though, so there's only the occasional arcs of red magic. On the other hand it's not really needed right now.
Mizuki     Okay, so now the roof is caving in.

    Now would be a very good time for Mizuki to regain motor coordination, and mercifully, she does... even if she only gets her act together moments before the ceiling collapses on her. She doesn't have very much time to think of an escape plan, which might explain why, among other things, she locks her eyes on Amalthea, or to be more precise, her shield. As quick as she's able, she looses a shockwave from the tip of her blade. The line of energy ripples its way over as she tears open another spatial rift beneath herself, falling inside of it at the last possible moment. She envelops herself in a slowing field to delay the time when she'll emerge, and if everything goes according to plan...

    ... that shockwave will collide with Amalthea's shield. Amalthea will ideally find her own way of dealing with the miniature cataclysm and, when she's safe, Mizuki will come flying out of the portal she had made.

    She will likely be extremely disoriented in the best of cases.
Guest Psyber     Psyber would stay in on the Shajem, but something else takes his attention. And in a second, he whips around and curls his fist again. He looks towards Lezard and just barks, "Listen you slapdick. I've jeopardized my CAREER, MY BUSINESS, and almost lost EVERYTHING I EVER CARED ABOUT. Not because I like you. Not because I like the Confederacy, who by this point have decided to undermine EVERY NOTION OF CROSS-FACTIONAL COLLABERATION I BELIEVED IN." He marches towards Lezard angrily. Normally he'd have more of a reaction to Elliana going full power and a cave starting to collapse. But he's in a full-on rant.

    "My house is divided. My friends are turned inward in the most destructive way possible. I have betrayed people I care about in the worst ways imaginable. Nothing... nothing will ever be good for me again. I have collaberated with megalomaniacal beings bent on power above all else. And why? WHY?" This appears to be Psyber officially 'losing his shit'. That hand curls tighter as he screams at Lezard, "Because of ONE GIRL I believe in. ONE PERSON I wanted to give a chance to, despite every fucking scar the people around her would inflict on me. I have, again and again, been punished for my unwavering trust and faith. And yet I STILL PERSIST TO DO SO."

    "SO THERE WILL BE NO ULTERIOR PLAN. NO SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL. NO GREAT ALTERATION TO THE PLAN THAT IS LAUGHED ABOUT AS WE FUCK PSYBER'S LIFE OVER YET AGAIN. we ARE GOING TO PUT THAT THING INTO A SEAL AND BACK TO BED."

    "Load Morality Paradigm. Law's Grasp," Psyber harshly commands his Abstractum before, with no regards for his own life and well-being, he goes to load a judgment into his Abstractum. And then he swings a massive uppercut towards Lezard, trying to hit him with Seven Strike Drivers and the Weight of His Crimes And Sins.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura was not exactly in danger when the building comes down; she was the one who was able to swim around down here, after all. But she'd disoriented for a moment, and delayed in her response, hopefully not to the point where anyone else is buried for too long. Her attention is also going to be rather focused in a way that probably would not help with the mission.

    This is to say, she's pretty much ready to murder Elliana for her carelessness, and the ninja will aim her own blast of energy upwards through the earth; this one will more or less be an attempt to send the earth over the group skywards and outwards, somewhat like a volcanic eruption only missing all the lava. Or magma. Whichever it is, it isn't there.

    Hopefully noone gets hit by the splash debris.
Abstractum.Net     Psyber uppercuts Lezard with the force of a top-level Abstractum with an offensive spec, alongside a heavy, high-level Tandem Paradigm's boosts, plus an offensive boost corresponding to how much Lezard ostensibly violates the laws of the political body they're currently occupying.

    There's a lot I could say about the shockwaves, gushes of wind, blasting craters in the ground, and similar. But honestly, one assumes the effects speak for themselves. We don't need a lot of setting dressing for this one. It's a hit of such tremendous power output that it could viably be used to send Lezard into the heavens to go work out his grudge directly.
Eleanor Lamb     OH DEAR SOMEONE IS YELLING. "CHARITY WHITEHEART YOU BOTHERSOME TWIT DO NOT LAY A HAND ON NATH-" And then she does and then Eleanor is being buried under rocks and trees and shit and she's screaming some more and there's just a sudden murderous howl of Mad as Eleanor Lamb makes three long Strides up the side of the crater that the egg had been in, and stalks towards the group of Confederates and mostly Elliana. "YOU TWO HOLD IT RIGHT THERE AND JUST LET US DO OUR DAMN JOB." She lifts up her wrench, the end crisping over in frost. "You rile up BOTH OF THEM and then I GET PLAYED LIKE SOME DAMNED FOOL PAWN OVER /YOUR HORRIBLE BITCHY SELF FAIRCHILD/ and now you are /playing with the bloody thing/."

    There's a sudden horrible squelching noise as Eleanor's hand globs over with a Hypnosis plasmid the size of a basketball and she hurls it at the Shajem to 'calm it down'.
Abstractum.Net     Meanwhile, Mordred blasts out of the underground like a whirlwind, and one half of her human blender arrangement continues the reliably sustained gnashing teeth, trying to give Mordred a good latch-on to the creature's body around the end of the attack. Bloody Amhar, oddly, still has a /lot/ of presence of mind, and psychological stability to deal with this sort of thing. So it's performing at a very high level, strangely. In fact, it seems to be...

    Laughing?
Lezard Valeth When Psyber descends upon Lezard with all of the terrible, righteous fury that is his heritage, Lezard stares up into the face of annihilation. He stands as Psyber unleashes the truth of his burden, the sacrifices he made, and the terrible things he had suffered in order to try to bring closure and redemption to a wayward soul.

There is no force in heaven or earth that could stop what comes next. The Abstracrum-powered Sword of Damocles strikes, blasting through Lezard's defensive field like it was tissue paper, and impacts into Lezard's flesh. Time seems to slow as his eyes widen and bulge, the sound of bones shattering and the conceptual weight of the horrors and sins against all that is good in this world resonate through him.

There is only one possible judgement for one such as him.

Lezard screams hoarsely for only a moment before his body is obliterated under the force of the impact, both physical and conceptual, creating a fine red patina across the wall before the area collapses.

Time passes. Ten seconds. Sixty. One hundred twenty.

Over the psychic vortex of Nathan Hall, the roiling magical power released from him, sparkles begin to gather.

Hatred is a terrible, magnificent force. It drives horrible acts of spite and vindictiveness, of misplaced judgement and distorted viewpoints. Lezard knows well the power of hatred. He practically soaks in it.

And above NAthan Hall, a tattered spirit gathers, hatred pouring off of it in waves as Lezard Valeth manifests in spirit form, his hody clearly crippled as he hangs there in the air, his face twisted in pain.

But those eyes burn. Burn with an incomprehensible power and fury. Every fiber of his being cries out for vengeance.

And below him, writhing and insensate through the conflicts of his power and emotion, lies the vessel of it. But a vessel needs to be filled...

"You will live.. to regret this day, Psyber." He hisses with deadly venom in his voice. He gives orders, and spreads his hands out over Nathan Hall, drawing Power. Power, tapping directly into the Shajem to fuel his ritual, the circle that forms seething with the energy. HE vibrates, he /resonates/ with that all-consuming emotion as he looks down, and begins to incant.

"Body, mind, soul; all are sheared away! If to serve this purpose I shall be despised, my body scorched and blackened, so be it! If to serve this purpose I must command forbidden magicks, so be it!"

The Shajem nearby, too, begins to feel a terrible force as Lezard points towards it.

Oh, hell.
Charity Whiteheart     Cave in. Well, whatever. Charity doesn't care, and with how she's feeling, she just fucks right out of there now. Phasing through the ceiling, she zips up the tunnel Elliana made and rises to the surface, taking in what's happening now. At least she somewhat has her mind on the goal now.

    "Right... right," she says, shaking her head. It's tempting to just stab the Lord of Hatred then and there, but instead she starts slicing down the crystalline forest with her blades, wind-charging them to slash through the super-dense trunks and try to bring them down in a way to trap the Shajem.
Reiji Arisu Well.

Shit.

    The world goes upside down in the words possible way. Or maybe inside out? Elliana is causing a catastrophic tunnel collapse. Mizuki is radiating dimensional shockwaves. Sakura has /uppercutted the collapsing ceiling./ Everything is going all kinds of wrong.

And Psyber is over there punching a nerd instead of getting himself the fuck out of dodge.

Things have gone all kinds of pear-shaped, but there's still something that needs to be done.

    Reiji draws in a breath. His head is pounding, though more from the absurdity of the situation than anything else. If the Shajem is amplifying anything right now, it's his frustration for everyone involved in this particular operation. Except Xiaomu. Because Xiaomu is doing exactly what she needs to be doing right now.

He, however, needs to get out.

And so he does.

    Sakura uppercuts the ceiling, and Reiji is a blur of motion. He leaps onto one of the larger chunks of stone and broken earth, then up and up and up, riding the ninja's shockwave out of the collapsing tunnel. Rocks smash into his shoulders and arms as he raises them to protect his head, bruising bone and tearing flesh. He can still move.

There's a Shajem up here.

Reiji goes to stab it.

    "Got you," Reiji hisses, leaping from the final lump of stone as he crests his ascent. Karin and Chirai emerge from their sheathes. Reiji's weapon rack is flung in a broad arc forward and overhead. Flame and lightning surge around the exorcist's arms as he goes to land /on/ the falling Shajem. He strikes, the angry, painful beat of his brain against the inside of his skull becoming the rhythm for the rapid swings of his blades.

And then there's a sudden thrum of power.

Reiji looks straight up, abandoning Chirai in the hide of the beast. He draws Gold...

When he fires, Lezard Valeth's midsection is in his sights.
Amalthea     And then it's free. The cracking of the shell and release of the Shajem within and Amalthea readies herself. The creature's power, even from short distance away washes over her like a wave, a flowing torrential outpour crashing on a rock, Amalthea hardens her heart with a steadying and slow breath.
    Grip tightening on her lance, her breath filters through teeth in a hiss of misting steam. Psyber's outburst; Nathan's practically visible turmoil, the ensuing chaos is a complete fucking disaster. The levels to which this fiasco reaches are not lost on the unicorn. It is while the Shajem is blasted out of the earth that the problem arises. With Elliana bringing down everything around everyone to do it.
    With Mizuki taking refuge in her shield, once Psyber hauls off on Lezard the Unicorn GRABS him. There is no gentleness to her touch, simply ripping Psyber from where he stands with a surge of strength from her that might come as surprising as debris and crystal and stone start to cave in and rain down, hunching her own body over his to absorb the immense shock and weight for Psyber and her shield-toting Mizuki.
    It's a long moment of silence, buried and entombed within the caved in cavern. Before the sound of a single heartbeat resounds.
    One pristine silver gauntlet bursts from the earth, and with a shifting of the rubble and some digging, Amalthea begins to pull herself free, holding her shield aside to let Mizuki bail.
    There are no words. Simply a long hissing gust of steam and coolant as her body bleeds off stress from the immense burying impact, and then... That heartbeat once again.
    Even through her armor the Scar of the Worldslayer glows visibly, a blue sun-shaped mark emblazoned on her heart. But with it is another glow. A small, flickering mote of silver-white, pulsing gently in time with her heart, weak and pathetic looking, as though a simple breeze might gust it out. And in an instant, the ancient, immortal, mechanical walking mythi simply appears so... Old... Almost haggard and weary, but still standing.
    Slowly she shifts her grip, readying her lance, but her main focus comes with another breath.
    Hope is such a fragile thing. Little more than a candle desperately guttering in a gale, but it is a candle that never truly goes out. And it is this sensation that seems to permeate off the unicorn in a slow, gentle, caress upon the very fabric of life itself, attempting to assuage the unrelenting grip of hate clinging to the hearts of her friends, loved ones, and allies of necessity.
Xiaomu Hope is a really handy asset sometimes, particularly when you just busted your ass to get a very important librarian out of a combat hole and somebody is trying to work awful eldritch magics on your just-rescued cargo.

Once she's in the open, Xiaomu lays Nathan down not unlike a sack of potatoes - and then the astral projection (or maybe just ghost) of Lezard Valeth is hovering over her and at least half of the fight has followed him out, including Reiji doing his job. "Oh you have GOT to be kidding me -" the sage fox begins, rising quickly to her feet ...

And her staff whips through the air, the rings on its headpiece jingling with the initial abrupt motion, and then *JANGLING* as the headpiece smacks across the alchemist's face. "Reiji," Xiaomu calls out, "why does ANYONE think that going astral actually helps them? That's just below turning into a giant snake!" The staff is flipped around so Xiaomu can grab the headpiece itself, drawing Suiren from within her staff, and the ice-element blade gleams with its own light as Xiaomu twirls her sword and tries to stick it through Lezard; if her stab connects, she's going to freeze a big block of ice around it, imbuing it with enough magic to trap even an ethereal spirit, at least for the short term.

It also means she won't be shooting him yet, but Reiji (among others) seems to have handled some of that. Her only finisher, after trying to freeze Lezard solid, is to fling the hopefully-icy alchemist at a nearby tree, getting him/the ice off her sword at the same time. Then she twirls the sword, shaking off ice flakes and water (and ectoplasm, maybe) before sheathing it again. "Nathan, you still alive?"
Nox     Ironic, that the time Nox keeps himself under control, everything erupts into complete chaos. There is no doubt he'd be joining in on the absolute bedlam unfolding around him if he hadn't been so thoroughly immunized from previous exposures and ample training and preparation. Rather than an incredible propensity for maintaining professional cool over all other feelings however, his focus, anchor and motivation is far simpler: what he'll get from the Shajem is far, far more important than any kind of petty involvement with the theatrics exploding all around.

    "Enough of this! I am trying to WORK!" The last word causes his voice to sizzle with electric static, his silhouette momentarily beset by flickering, blue-white lines. He throws his arms out to his sides, snapping one hand towards Nathan and Lezard and one hand towards Psyber, both palms pulsing so intensely that the air shivers with a deafening, percussive thud of collapsing spacetime. The world to either side of him draws to a jarringly abrupt, localized halt, hit with a drastically higher degree of time magic than he typically uses. The situation is delicate enough and the potential rewards are great enough that he feels the use is warranted to keep those three in particular from killing one another. They'll probably be able to bitch and scream at one another, but he can always tune that out. What's important is not being caught in the center of a crossfire between three, powerful, completely out of control Elites.

    "There! Now does anyone /else/ need calming down?" he snarls, looking back and forth at the others, daring them to try and second guess him. For the brief spell of time his magic will hold against targets that powerful, he hurries along the usual preparations, firing a beam of energy that bounces and refracts between the circle of noxines, locking a cage of temporal stasis around the wounded Shajem, and opening up the portal beneath it for the siphoning hand to exit. He seems to have no concern as to what will happen when all of those attacks frozen in time resume their course for Lezard, and yet also no concern as to whether or not Lezard actually succeeds in using Nathan as a sacrificial pawn. At this point, he couldn't care less.
Duet Fortuna     The now-flying centipede is twisting in midair, then shrieks again as several of its dozens of legs are sliced off by Mordred's attacks, the knight battering it back and forcing it to retreat. It might try to run away, except for the fact that Charity is doing her job, and the trees collapse atop it to pin it with the strange mineral that seems to have better luck with holding it. They're splintering quickly, though, as it tries to get out. This is keeping it in place for Reiji to slam it, which is good because everyone else seems preoccupied. Eleanor smacks it with a Hypnosis Plasmid, and it... might have worked?

    It did, as becomes obvious when Elliana reappears. She was buried by the cave-in too, so she reappears in a flash of pinkish-purple light, now fully onfolded. It's not like she was before, though... her 'tail' is immaterial, energy-only, and the snakelike ghostly head above her is swaying as it takes in the sight. Her wings are large and feathery though, tinted purple but not nearly so sinister as before. "WITH THIS, I BIND THEE!!"

    That was the tail end of her incantation, and the mystical, invisible cage of her own Binding slams down at the same time as Nox sends a temporal stasis field in. This is good, because the Hypnosis is making the Shajem suddenly whip toward Elliana, since she was the person Eleanor was screaming about hating.

    Elliana might have lost a limb or something if Nox hadn't suddenly done that time slow. Of course now numerous attacks are heading for Lezard, and Elliana at least is feeling that fan of Hope reminding her that she has a goal here. A goal and... a plan.

    "PSYBER! STOP THE TRANSFERENCE!" Oh yes, she can see that Lezard has started to rip the Shajem away and into Nathan. The time slow might not stop it long enough, she's afraid. Especially with it weakened. "MORDRED! Drain the Shajem with Amhar!" Yeah, she used Saber's name, that's how serious it is. "I don't care about equal division, this needs stopped!"
Mordred     What a mess. An unhappy one, too.
    Guess you really can't trust Confeds to play nice sometimes.

    Mordred frowns, but regains her grin when given a direct order by Elliana. "Fine. Amhar, highest Shift you can manage. Wheel's yours. But we're not keeping it inside, I don't want two fucking angry headmates."

    Mordred leaps towards the Shajem.

    "Now, FEAST!"
Lezard Valeth Lezard requested backup from Nox.

His thoughts as timespace gels around them all is that this is /not/ what he meant. His ritual is paused, his inability to complete the spell meaning that he has no way of finishing the process of trying to bind the Shajem to Nathan Hall. He sees Nox working to contain and drain the Shajem, and he trembles in inchoate rage. "What... what are you even /doing/, Nox? Are you really going to simply drain the energy of this tiny being for... gggh!" He struggles against the power, seeing Xiaomu's blade and Reiji's bullet on the verge of striking him. "Damn you... Damn you all!" He hisses, trying to find a way to break himself free before his spiritual form is forn in half by the spirit-battling specialists.
Nathan Hall     Nathan is frozen in time. It is mid-writhe, as the odd magical phenomena affecting him seem to be quite painful. He's not in any state to speak, unfortunately, so he can't respond to Xiaomu or anyone else asking if he's still alive, but he SEEMS to still be alive in some capacity, and not actually physically harmed now that you can see it with all the magical lights and such frozen.

    The inexplicable sound of grinding glass can still be heard, despite the timestop. Where /is/ that coming from? What /is/ that sound?
Eleanor Lamb     Eleanor whips around to scream some more as time magic slaps everyone around, leaving her is some sort of meta-pause as to whom to vent her anger at. OH, well the Shajem tried to eat Elliana. That was a good start. OH! She actually landed it. EXCELLENT.

    But there's a real lack of targets here, and she's ONLY got a piece of the thing's attention. Bother. She wheels around and starts venting some more, her voice... uh, altering a bit. There's other anger in there now, and is that a phony ass Irish Accent? "KINDLY PISS OFF AND DIE, YOU GREAT BLUBBERING BUG! THERE'S NOTHING HERE FOR YOU ANY MORE! CURL UP FOREVER and find some GREAT BIG UGLY REFRIDEGERATOR TO CRAWL UNDER."

    She mentally /yanks/ at the Shajem, thrusting it towards the binding.
Sakura Haruno     Flowers had missed a lot of what had happened in throwing off the earthy issues from earlier; she'd actually been quite slow to get above ground herself. As such, once she's made it there, she's completely lost track of what exactly is happening, and it's not exactly easy to figure out. Psyber and Lezard fighting was at least a little clear, and that something funky was going on with Hall.

    Getting involved directly in Psyber and Lezard's fight looks unwise at the moment. She's going to edge towards Nathan, planning to prod him with actual healing chakra. "Come on, you don't get to skip out on this by just passing out after making everyone's life harder, you coward." She mutters, irately, at the fallen General. It's hard to tell if that's just her actual feelings and normal bedside manner or it's Shajem-enhanced, though.
Xiaomu Lezard's frozen in temporal stasis. Except his ehereal tongue, but more importantly, he's not hurting anyone now, that's good enough for a certain sage fox. And Reiji just asked for direct support; it's time to make with the full-force sealing. That suits the sage fox even better, and Xiaomu steps away from Lezard (and Nathan) before planting her staff next to her, right hand raised.

"XIAOMU WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!"

Space seems almost to warp as Xiaomu exerts her power and training, and a bubble of mystical power is woven into existence around the Shajem, 'echoed' by a slowly revolving magic square on the ground beneath it. Or maybe the projected ward is what's creating the sphere?

Either way, Xiaomu is doing her thing, working to trap and contain and immobilize the fiendworm while others start draining the power out of it in earnest. Even if the Shajem manages to lash out at her, she just digs her heels in and keeps the ward going as well as she can ...
Abstractum.Net     Bloody Amhar laughs! He's now laughing with Mordred's own mouth, and her eyes are going a wild red. Amhar's unique conditions of Shift mean it can go as high as it wants whenever it wants, as long as Mordred's giving it complete control. This means that, all of a sudden, it's rocketing from no Shift at all, all the way up to Shift 3. Brilliant red bloodstain-like lines sear themselves over the side of Mordred's body up to her cheek, a tremendous harsh armored halo forms in the air behind her, and that one particular blade in her hands seems to crack, baring a brilliant red fire below its surface.

    "HA HA HA HA HA! WITH PLEASURE!" Bloody Amhar has a strong tendency to simply attack whatever's in front of it, so since Mordred put it on a trajectory... It leaps into action. The maw goes wide. Wider, wider, far too wide, trying to devour as much of the Shajem as it can. Without Elliana's command seal to back up its power, it probably can't devour it all, but frankly, Mordred's Shift mode is a bit of an attackbot, and doesn't hold back. Amhar, piloting Mordred's body, lands with both feet planted on the creature, and begins trying to bodily devour it with intense SHIFT-LEVEL ENERGIES.

    However, as soon as it can't eat more, Amhar's going to swap targets. This may be... Disruptive for other efforts to contain the Shajem, or similar. It's a bit of a gamble.
Charity Whiteheart     Charity lands lightly atop a crystal branch. Her eyes swiftly scan the battlefield, determining the situation here. She COULD stop the attacks from landing on Lezard by directing her own ranged attack toward the timestop to intercept them...

    But Lezard is kind of an asshole.

    She doesn't have any sealing abilities of her own, either, which means her best bet is to... sit down on the tree branch and watch.
Reiji Arisu Nox saves the fucking day. Goddamn, Reiji owes that guy a beer.

But that'll come later. They still have work.

    The exorcist holsters Gold and grabs hold of Chirai before he leaps off the writhing centipede-thing. He snatches his portable arsenal as it completes its arc. It's almost like he knew where he was throwing it to retroactively.

Weird.

    Psyber is thankfully not buried under a pile of rubble- and he has instructions for Reiji! Wonderful! Thankfully, Amalthea be giving off rays of emotional support that have the rest of the group on the mend, and also ensure that Reiji's mind stays clear enough to go and do what he needs to do.

That is, leap out of the way of Xiaomu's WAAAAVE and over towards where Mordred is about to do unspeakable things to a creature of pure hatred.

    It's then that Reiji produces a rather impressive bronze mirror from underneath his jacket. It seems to have been secured to his back until this point. The Onmyoji directs its reflective surface toward Mordred and the Shajem and begins chanting.

    His words drone on and on, playing from memory and from a place deeper than that. Reiji chants from a place in his spirit still untouched by the Shajem's power, slowly expanding the metaphorical eye in the middle of the storm of hate and hope and frustration.

From that seat of calm, Reiji bids the energies being unleashed by the Servant and her Abstractum into the endless depths of the mirror.

Hopefully she doesn't turn around and try to eat him, or anything!!
Guest Psyber     "I probably will, Lezard. If you're the one that eventually puts me in the ground, I'll accept that in exchange for what happened today. This is the price I pay," Psyber says flatly, a look of sheer hatred in his eyes. Lezard, as opposed to many people, was someone Psyber had a very serious belief could make good on the threats of making him pay later. He hated when he made an enemy of people that deal in soul-flaying, and Lezard was one such being of the highest order.

    He can't relish that minor victory, though, as he is soon yanked off his feet and dragged in by Amalthea. When he comes back up out of the rubble a few moments after her, he looks different. Calmer, at least.

    "Thank you," He says to Amalthea, "I understand now."

    For the first time in a very long time... Psyber can feel Hope. A belief that things might actually momentarily be different. He heaves a sigh, "I am sorry. I have something I must do," He says to the Unicorn. This is is different in tone. This is him having a collected purpose.

    He takes off his gauntlet and puts it across his back, flexing his hand as he does so. He begins to calmly talk to himself as he walks, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." The Hand of the Redeemer burns brightly, because with Hope so too walks Redemption.

    "In the name of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Of blessed Michael the Archangel. Of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and all the saints and powerful in the holy authority of the ministry," Psyber says in a calm tone, the white hand glowing brighter and brighter, "We confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil. God arises, his enemies are scattered and those who hate will flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so too are they. As wax melts before fire, so the wicked perish in his presence."

    And then he's frozen. And he has a lot of time to think about the path that led him to this exact moment. Losing his cool entirely, dozens of feet underground, and blowing a man to pieces. Accruing a lifelong vendetta from a necromancer that he considered one of the few who could make good on it. God... that was going to be a pain in the ass later. Especially in Lordran. And in any future operations. He mentally sighs due to being trapped in a moment and he shuts his eyes.

    The last time one of these went to hell, Psyber was forced to choose between the Union-Confederate collaboration and one of his best friends. He'd chosen and it had led him to where Nathan is now. That choice was wrong? Or was it right? He dwelled on it in those moments while Nox had kept him trapped in time. This time, his choice was different.

    This time, he'd choose to save Nathan. Too little, too late, perhaps? Closing the barn door after it had already burned to ashes?

    When, eventually, Nox's spell collapses, Psyber has no offensive move to make. Instead, the spell that he was charging for Lezard was instead aimed at Nathan. Haruno was working on physical wounds, but Psyber wanted to make sure that any residual energy from the Shajem of Hatred was purged. And so that, as he regains movement, Psyber makes no effort to stop any of the operation going on elsewhere.

    Instead he aims to plant his hand on Nathan's chest and say, as the light of his hand explodes brilliantly into brightness, "We drive you from here, whatever you may be. The satanic powers, the infernal invaders, and the wicked legions, assembles and sects. In the spirit and likness of God, redeemed by the Blood of the Lamp. You are commanded to LEAVE."
Amalthea     Amalthea's response to Psyber is very simple. It's a one-handed shove at his back. "Go."
Nathan Hall     Nathan isn't passed out, it seems, judging by what's going on with his body here. He seems wide awake, in fact! As for damage, Haruno will be able to detect that, apparently, large portions of his magic are attempting to take some kind of action, and other portions of his magic are attempting to stop them. It would seem like action is currently winning out, but it's all been completely frozen in time by Nox. Haruno will be able to recognize that this internal magical conflict has been making him extremely ill for some time. Luckily, the damage is easy to fix, and actually rather sparse. And also luckily, it looks like after the timefreeze is lifted, whatever weird emotional conflict Nathan had inside him has been completely resolved, thanks to the helpful emotional impulse provided by a face full of Shajem psychic waves!
Nox     "Didn't I tell you to keep quiet?" Nox shoots at Lezard, not so much as diverting his gaze from the delicate work in front of him. "You have plenty of time now to think your way out of being obliterated. Perhaps a word of thanks would be more appropriate than whining. Of course I can think of a thousand better uses for this thing than something so unambitious as this, but my expectations are far more realistic. I couldn't possibly care less about what you do with the Shajem or the general after this is over, but I will not be denied my prize because of some petty retaliation against the Union. What today will bring me closer to is so much more important than the fate of this creature that you can't even begin to imagine."

    Only once his work is thoroughly concluded, the exact one-third promised taken, not an iota less, does he let the time magic drop and events take their course. He is clearly far from impressed with the fact that Psyber had started the whole thing however, because he frees Lezard first while leaving the projectiles flying at his incorporeal form paused just long enough for the sorceror to get away. Though overtly, he simply doesn't care what happens to Nathan either way, there is an ulterior interest at play. The Librarian has the potential to be much more useful than a way to get back at Psyber, after all.
Duet Fortuna     All the chaos around her is... not her concern right now. With Ethan still on the sidelines - wisely avoiding the whole situation - Elliana doesn't have time to care about the chaos going on here. She has to concentrate... and her help comes in the form of the others attacking the Shajem.

    Xiamu's wave slams down on it, and the tapping of the energies sucking away the centipede's power causes the writhing Shajem to shriek incoherently again. Nox drinks his fill, and... well, Mordred does too, though the snapping attacks from Amhar also catch Elliana briefly. She also doesn't block this more than lifting her arm, letting it tear into her with a spray of steaming blood. Fortunately, with Reiji also sucking out some of the power, Mordred's help allows the whole process to be finished swiftly.

    "Hatred..." She whispers, the sealing magics flaring up and sweat breaking over her brow. Her wings spread wide, and a ripple of power is sent out, bending the crushed crystalline trees below. An instant later they crumble to dust.

    The chaos may be closing down around her, but for Elliana all that matters is she collapses, bleeding, to a slump on the ground. The centipede stills its movements, then curls up and acquiesces for now. It was already caught well by the stasis field and the binding closing around it, and physically forcing it further into the field made the struggles difficult to begin with. Now, it isn't even struggling.

    One more complication: At the edge of the forest, some of the trees begin to ripple and bloom, sprouting leaves and blossoms of gentle, scintillating crystal. A moment later, floating in from the nearby mountains, Neuvina the Amethyne sweeps in and curls up atop the apparently-living tree, watching the aftermath in silence.
Lezard Valeth Nox gives Lezard a moment. It's all he needs. There is an eruption of bone from a gaping hole that opens in the air. The Soul Transfusion ritual, abandoned, collapses in a messy burst of Hate-tainted energy as the bullet and icy wave slams into the bone wall.

Lezard's chest heaves, staring at Nox, Elliana, Psyber, and all the others with a look that can only be desribed as 'unhinged'. His spectral jaw clenches, pupils dialating for a moment... And then with a howl, he turns and flees the area.

There is nothing left for him here.
Guest Psyber     With the Hatred subdued, Psyber has no desire to pursue Lezard or any further aggression. Right now he has to focus on Nathan, and the majority of his channeled power goes right into trying to push whatever amounts of Shajem Energy had pressed down into the Librarian.

    He does, however, watch as the sealing happens. Red eyes look out over the field as he releases his grasp on Nathan. He exhales slowly and shakes his hand once, the white light gone from it as he takes a slow breath. A look is given back over his shoulder at Amalthea as Psyber seems at least a bit calmer than he was even at the start of the mission.

    Relations were damaged with Confederates, though. Lezard mentioned alternate plans for the Shajem... the surgical analysis. He remembered that being what set him off. That damage was done, though, and he would have to let things calm before he could even remotely address it. Or he'd have to let Nathan serve his diplomatic purposes, as situation allowed.

    The Amethyne's arrival is a secondary concern to Psyber. Primary is that Elliana collapsed and he needs to check on her status. And so he leaves Nathan in the care of Haruno, dashing off towards the fallen Priestess. He'll come to a kneeling stop next to her, trying to roll her onto her back and put an arm across her back to hold her up.

    "Elliana! Talk to me here. What happened?" He asks, shaking her a bit.
Xiaomu With the Shajem drained thoroughly, Xiaomu starts to step down her sealing ward, glancing at Psyber (distracted) and Elliana (unconscious?) and Reiji to confirm whether the draining is done and she can release the Shajem.

"That was a little more exciting than I thought things would be ..." the sage fox says quietly, leaning more heavily on her staff now.
Nathan Hall     When Psyber comes in to exorcise Nathan, in a brief moment of sensing the energies below the surface, he'll get some insight. There's not as much energy to exorcise as there should be. In the time that Nathan was host to the Shajem of Hatred energies, it seems they did what they were meant to. Nathan himself gave in to the power while it was being forced into his mind, and as such what Psyber extracts is, at best, used up. No FURHTER damage can be done by them, but whatever damage has been done, is done.

    He is still entirely conscious. We'll describe what happens next in a moment, of course.
Eleanor Lamb     The... thing... is gone and Eleanor's shoulders slump a bit. She's still angry though, and stalks over towards Nathan and Psyber, huffing and puffing. She's still Irish. That's going to take fixing. "You two great idiots. You've really done it this time, haven't you. Piss on this whole thing, what the hell is going on? This wasn't some sort of binding this was an ambush! And you two just... she..." She's pointing vaguely in either Elliana or Sakura's direction, she's not really sure at this point. "And she lead you right here! I know this was a shot at a Shajem but you... you... YOU TWITS."

    She petulantly kicks dirt at the both of them like some baseball manager.
Reiji Arisu     As the Shajem falls into... dormancy? Quiescence? Whatever. As it calms down and the stream of negative energy dwindles away, Reiji speaks one last, solemn 'On' before wrapping the mirror up in a length of sacred rope. But it looks like they've got more than a couple of casualties. Elliana has collapsed, Nathan looks to be, more or less, in one piece as far as Reiji can tell from where he stands.

Lezard is, of course, disincorporated, but Reiji's not too concerned about that guy.

    He breathes a long sigh and slings the mirror back into its pouch under his jacket. "This was a hell of a day," he groans, rubbing his fingertips against his temples. "Xiaomu, you alright?"
Charity Whiteheart     Charity is finally on the move again... but it's only to land next to Elliana, so she can check on her health and possibly /try/ to fend off Mordred again. "SABER! CALM DOWN!" She's not able to take on Saber head on, she knows this, but she has no idea how to stop a rampaging Abstractum.

    Well, Psyber is there, he can take the carnage, right?
Mizuki     Perhaps it wasn't the most moral thing to do, but since Amalthea's shield save Mizuki has been... fairly idle, really. She had taken a position on the sidelines, sinking out of existence so that she might have a chance to observe as many of those present at once as possible. Of particular interest to her was Lezard, of whom she will be far more wary. Particularly in the context of Lordran. That man always has some ulterior motive, it seems -- something personal to gain that oft runs contrary to what the others present might hope to achieve. He was allowed to interfere here, but considering how many personnel overlaps there are between this debacle and that she doubts that he'll be allowed to come nearly as close to ruining things as he had this time around. Still, she will be wary. Never can be too careful with people like that.

    ... really, she should know. She was like that herself, once.

    She may be one of the first to notice Neuvina as she alights on one of the jeweled arbors, so for as long a time as she's allowed she would share their gaze. She'll flit back into the realm of visibility sometime, too, once she's sure that the myriad feuds have ended. Or at least, once she's sure their proceeds won't impact her somehow.

    Toward the end, her eyes meander back to Elliana. Just what did she do, exactly? That's the real question, she feels.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura is still kneeling over Nathan and trying to run treatment, mostly because she thinks things have settled a little bit elsewhere on the battlefield, and she also still isn't certain just what was going on.

    "I think he's going to be okay. As much as he ever is, anyway." Sakura suggests to Psyber, something that will almost certainly lead directly into something horrible happening to her or to Nathan.
Nox     Nox dismisses the entire ensemble through the portal, back to where it belongs and well out of reach of the destructive, incohate fingers both of both the Union and a couple of his allies. The whole operation has been a complete mess from start to finish, but he came out smartly at the end, and that's what matters. He watches Lezard leave with the ever impassive face of his mask, swivelling his head to regard Psyber and Nathan as if only vaguely interested, before blinking over to where Elliana lies on the ground.

    Completely dismissive of Psyber's attempts to rouse her, he'll lift her prone form with a telekinetic gesture if need be, rather than trying to edge in or stoop down. As soon as she's within arms reach, he lays one hand on her forehead, and Psyber gets to witness the proper, and yet extremely rarely employed use of his life transfer magic. It's not very complicated; simply flooding her body with the stolen vital essence that suffuses his batteries. Without being processed into any form of spell, the stuff has utterly miraculous healing properties, which should be more than enough to see to her wounds before she can get checked out at Confederate medical.

    "I'm not impressed." he says to Psyber, formal and aloof in tone. "Lezard may be less than stable, but you have nobody but yourself to blame here."
Amalthea     For all the almost complete load of nothing Amalthea has physically done, when the Shajem no longer puts up a fight, Amalthea nearly falls to her knees, whole body venting a hissing steam freom every joint as the deep beating of the heart within her breast slows and ebbs to less palpable and audible levels.
    Psyber's glance is met with a vague motion, somewhere between 'don't worry about it' and 'save it for later' as she shakes her head out. There are still issues to resolve and she indicates Psyber should focus on Elliana for the moment as she shuffles in the direction of Nathan to check on him.
Abstractum.Net     "Mordred's not behind the wheel, Charity! Gwuhuhuhuhuh!" Amhar, still driving Mordred's body and speaking with her voice, comes barreling in to run down Elliana. This is the price she pays for the power of Shift, it seems, and with Elliana disabled, her Abstractum can't use its tricky techniques to prevent damage! Psyber is another of its favored targets! Psyber, Elliana, and even Charity Whiteheart are going to need to deal with a great deal of crashing, intense violence. Shift is on a bit of a time limit, though, and as such, it'll be entirely possible that it may run out soon. Everyone ought to get out of the area immediately, though, because if they can get Elliana to retreat, Amhar is just gonna keep swapping targets! Having suffered some damage, that's not too much of an issue, but with everyone else emotionally and combat-exhausted, this is an issue!

    They should probably make sure the Shajem doesn't stay here, or is otherwise inaccessible by way of binding, and then beat a retreat until Mordred winds down! Of course, this chaos is compounded a bit more directly, by...
Nathan Hall     The glass-grinding noise Nathan was emitting ceases all at once; there's an intense cracking noise. The entire right side lens has fractured in a burst of uncontrolled magic, much like the time Psyber recalls at the White Cliffs. Where the right lens was once fractured, it is now almost completely shattered. One last final shockwave of power might toss Haruno away after she just got finished with her healing.

    Nathan, having been conscious and cognizant of the entire process, gets to his feet slowly after the Nox timestop is released. With a tilted head, he looks at the vulnerable Elliana, and then at the Confederates, with a scrutinizing tacticians eye. One filled with vitriol. While Psyber and Charity are dealing with the Shifted-out Mordred who comes in to hack at them, Nathan, having resolved whatever emotional issue he was experiencing, immediately cuts loose with his power. The ensuing rush makes it very clear that he'll be attacking Elliana shortly, and with tremendous levels of power. Still bearing a completely stoic expression and still absolutely silently quiet, seems quite content to prepare some massive blow against Elliana, with rushing lights of varying colors, arcs of lightning, and rumbles in the earth indicating that he very much intends to let loose very soon. Despite the Shajem being captured, it seems like something has remained very firmly damaged there.
Guest Psyber     When Amhar comes in to attack Elliana, Psyber moves his entire body to shield the priestess, trying to shield her from the incoming waves of damage that are crashing in on Elliana and himself. Charity is someone he can't overtly protect, and he feels bad for that. But Elliana is disabled, and so he folds himself over her to act as a shield against the attacks.

    Which is why when Nox comes in, Psyber doesn't try too hard to prevent Elliana from being lifted to a height and healed. Primary concern: Elliana, Secondary Concern: Personal Well-Being. He'll eventually pull himself to his feet, covered in blood and injuries. He looks to Nox for a long few moments and mulls over the statement. He considers for a good while what to say.

    "The reaction I chose to his perceived desire to deviate from the plan was an overreaction that led to a near-collapse of this collaboration, this is correct. I should have chosen a more moderate response. This is my failure, I will not dispute it," Psyber then looks to the side and sees Nathan, "Take care of her," He says to Nox, turning away.

    Blood as he is, Psyber slowly takes off his coat. He looks at it for a very, very long moment and then tosses it up to the hovering Elliana near Nox. While damaged, it's still reinforced and should protect her. It also has a sentimental meaning.

    But that meaning will go unspoken as Psyber turns away. He wipes some blood from his face and then starts taking off weapons. Sovereign, Adjudicator, pistols, combat knives. One by one they're dropped around him as he moves to interpose himself directly between Nathan and Elliana. He's bloody, he's damaged, he's emotionally exhausted.

    But he slowly shifts his stance and brings his hands up. Flat palms in a defensive martial arts stance that is meant to put himself directly between Elliana, "Nathan, I forced you to compromise who you are once already, and now I'm going to stop you from doing it a second time."

    "You are a pacifist. If nothing else, you inspired me to pursue non-violence in so many things I do now. I have always respected and admired you for this," He calmly notes, "So if I have to resist you to keep you from compromising the man I respect, I will."

    He takes a slow breath and then says, "I don't want to, but I can't let you become a murderer."
Duet Fortuna     Collapsed on the ground, maybe... but not unconscious. Elliana is just badly hurt, between exhaustion of doing the sealing normally performed with an entire cadre of trained Binders, and the injury that she sustained. Fortunately it was a newborn, weakened Shajem, and she had the help of Reiji and Nox.

    Unfortunately, Mordred is still coming. Nox healing her helps shake her out of her fugue, so she has enough time to gather her wits and see Psyber take the blow for her. "Injustice. Targeting." She blurts that out, then grabs hold of Charity. "I do not want to waste a Command Seal on this. Psyber, take Nathan and get out of here. Charity, get us out of here." Again with using their first names, huh?

    In the meantime she uses what power she has left in the most efficient way possible, slabs of stone erupting around Mordred to try holding her. Hopefully Amhar can't use the Servant's dematerialize function.

    Nuevina watches silently, but does not interfere. She seems focused upon the quescient Lord of Hatred.
Charity Whiteheart     Yay, Psyber is eating the attacks for her! Charity still gets a bloody slash on her shoulder, because as Mordred's body comes at them, her blades are trying to deflect but... well, in straight up combat she can't stand up to Saber.

    What she can do is listen to the order. "Right." Clipped and precise, she grabs Elliana and invokes her wind control, leaping upward. She's seen Nox teleport and such, she figures he can make his own way out.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura's blasted back, away from Nathan - she might have been able to resist if she'd known that that was coming, but the medic had been focused on other things and not what the cracking glass symbolizes. At least she's not seriously hurt, though she'll tumble a few times.

    She'd move to interfere, but really if Nathan had just explained what he was going to do instead of shockwaving her away Sakura would probably have approved. Hopefully, it won't turn into stabbing through Psyber or anything, though. Sakura will climb unsteadily to her feet; she's burnt through quite a lot of chakra today, and probably needs to retreat as well, but will wait to see what Psyber plans to do.
Nathan Hall     "Do not pretend you are doing anything other than protecting her. You are not doing something for my benefit." Nathan says, still retaining that utterly monotone look despite the right-side eye, exposed by the shattered lens, clearly showing an expression of pure hate. "Protect her if you must. Do not lie to me." And yet, he doesn't try to strike through Psyber. When Psyber delays him enough to give Elliana and Charity a window to escape, the entire buildup seems to calm down, though the pure stoic hatred does now.

    It seems whatever he's feeling right now isn't directed towards Psyber, or at least it's not directed towards Psyber enough to make him want to get in a fight. However, he's also not planning to stick around. If Elliana's leaving, he can't pursue with Psyber interfering. He has to go to another option. Something somewhat more delayed. For now, his mechanical WING-PACK spreads from under his cloak, glowing a brilliant blue, and with grace he almost never demonstrates, Nathan lifts off and immediately blasts intently away, clearly intending to go somewhere in particular.
Mizuki     'So stands the Angel, his body interspersed between Traitor and her maddened servant. Another tempest approaches, this time conjured by none other than his own Brother-in-Arms. He holds his shield yet brandishes his sword, swearing that his defense will bear its fangs if he is tested further. Doubtlessly his future and past flash by in his mind at once, for surely if he loses but a single one of them, he'll have lost one too many anchors for his heart to quell the tides any longer.'

    Mizuki takes a deep breath as she watches the spectacle between Psyber, Nathan, and Elliana. Elliana retreats, but what does this portend for the future? ... she'll likely hear of it one day, in some way or another.

    She'll open a portal and return to her world eventually, after reaffirming for herself what a wonderful protagonist Psyber may one day make. After she's had more time to research, and learn.
Guest Psyber     "I don't need to pretend and I'm not lying," Psyber says, his stance still firm and his hands raised. The jacket robs him of weapons and some armor, but at the same time it will impede his movements less. He's banking on the tradeoff benefitting him if Nathan tries to go around him, "But I haven't figured out how to convince you yet," He adds a moment later, watching that eye full of hate that Nathan is giving. Psyber's own gaze is much more desperate, like someone searching for a solution he cannot find.

    He is spared a fight he does not want when Nathan flies off. Psyber doesn't move for a long few moments after his friend leaves. Not out of caution, but due to the distant stare in his eyes as he mills over his options. He's not sure what to feel right now. He had Hope, briefly and sweetly, but that has been taken from him now. Or at least dimmed to a flicker deep down, perhaps dormant until the embers find new fuel.

    He instinctively reaches towards... a jacket that isn't there. He frowns. He left his flask with Elliana in his jacket along with his cigarettes. He just sighs and goes to gather up his weapons.
Reiji Arisu     Two minutes ago, things are still going right to Hell. Reiji stands exactly where the situation last left him, next to where Mordred began her Abstractum-mediated rampage. He stares off into the distance like a cop who has gotten way too old for this shit. "Okay," he says, slinging the last of his weapons back into his arsenal, "Job's done. Nothing more we can do here."

"Xiaomu," he calls as he turns to leave. He then immediately tarnishes his image as The Responsible One, "I need something to drink. Let's go."
Xiaomu "Okay," Xiaomu chirps (albeit a little dubiously) as she turns to follow Reiji. She could use a drink too. And a nap. And an all-nighter on Dynasty Warriors or something.

.... or maybe just an infinite Tetris marathon. That'd be more relaxing.