Scene #6140: TPT: In Arm's Reach

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	Today we're at Grand Dorado. Flamel's public Concord laboratory -- apparently Flamel Parsons has a laboratory! -- is a twisty building that looks like it's about to fall over at any moment. From the outside, it starts at a house, emerges like a tree from a chunk of roof, branches into a series of odd clustered sub-chambers, and then tops itself with a big receiver. From the inside, one can find no shortage of more seventies spy fiction aesthetic in its design; chairs hover magnetically, large windows are dedicated to persisting displays, automatic doors open and close around round or oblong thresholds, elevators float, and hard corners are rare and artistic where they're used. The Psychonauts logo is common. Parsons guides Tamamo to his setup, a private test chamber. And lord what a setup. He's got a massive gauntlet-shaped case ready for the arm, one linked up directly to a huge series of concentric cylinders mounted on an arm emerging from the ceiling, which looks like a cross between surgical equipment, a mad scientist's raygun they might threaten City Hall with, and a vacuum cleaner. In front of it is a chair, the kind one might find in a dentist's office, oriented to let the big Brain Tumbler point directly at the skull of anyone sitting in it. "Alright, so! We want to absolutely minimize the risk to your mind, and that means making sure any psychohazardous agents get attracted to only /one/ part of your brain. So to make sure that happens, I need you to come up with a Resolution. Something you really want to do, or something you want to change, or something you want to figure out, you know? Something you want to do to make yourself better! The first thing any Psychohazard attacks is motivation, so if you stock some up, we'll get to have a beacon to focus our defenses on." Parsons explains as he gets some chairs and a nice table set up in front of the main chair. "And if this works, you'll hopefully get something out of it too." He focuses now on setting up big sensors, some pointed at the arm, the rest pointed at the head of the subject chair. "You'll be joining us, if you want. I can set the Brain Tumbler to send you into your own mind right alongside us! Just let me know if you don't want it. Here, put this on your forehead and tell us when you're ready to start." He hands Tamamo the silliest thing anyone has likely ever seen: A tiny little door. It looks like the door of a dollhouse, and it has silly spy iconography and a fancy big eye on the door's glass.
Seifer Almasy	This shit is weird. Seifer Almasy is playing with the fox-emblem chain around his neck. His dogtags hang on either side of Tamamo's sign, flicking between his fingers. His gunblade, Hyperion, leans against the chair. His other hand is in Tamamo's. "This shit," Seifer concludes, "Is really weird." "But I won't let anything happen to you."
Staren	Staren is here, too. He's seen it before, he's done mind-dives, so... he's just sort of quietly waiting for the main event, standing by.
Tamamo no Mae	Grand Dorado. This is a place Tamamo hasn't visited before, so while she explores it, she's looking around and around, taking in all she can while Flamel does his thing of leading. She knows Seifer's there with her, so she's not too worried (yet) about Flamel, but Tamamo's leery a bit, he wants to jump into her mind... and that arm. She's led to a chair and she promptly moves her clothes and tails to make sure nothing's crushed before giving a look at the cylinders on the ceiling. "Is... this safe?" When the instructions come to her, she gives a nod, "I have... an idea in mind." she nods, "I've sealed some of my own abilities because of the past... I want... to fix this. To not regret." she turns towards Seifer, clutching his hand, giving a brief smile, "I know, it's strange even to a seasoned fox such as myself, but this... would be safer than attaching that arm to you or me." a pause. "I think..." She takes the tiny little door, gives Flamel this strange look crossed between bewilderment, confusion and 'seriously?'... before giving a light nod. A look is given to Staren and... "I think I want to go in my own mind too, Flamel."
Flamel Parsons	"It's as safe as your own mind can be! You'll have us here to fight the risks, and I think it'll make sense to you how to keep yourself safe, but, well, there /is/ the chance of danger. Think of it like sharpening a blade! The tools are a little dangerous tool, but danger's hardly the core of it." Parsons explains, as he taps a few final buttons and revs up the brain tumbler. Its tremendous cylinders begin to spin up, and they seem to lock into a particular speed of rapid rotation when Parsons taps his head twice on one temple. When Tamamo sets the door onto her head, it feels like it "slots in" onto an opening that didn't exist before. "Alright! We're synchronized and ready. It's weird, and it'll get weirder!" Parsons says, nodding to Seifer. His smile is sheepish when he explains, "After all, it'd be kind of awful if just anyone without even a license could do this, and it was normal, you know?" He settles into his own chair and takes a deep breath. "Alright, everyone!" He says, seeming to psych himself up. "Prepare your minds." He removes his sunglasses, revealing closed eyes, and then opens them, revealing shining white light. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r0FdnDZSRBZPLVffa5Grye3bPqDMf94_/view Each person present will feel a soft tug on an axis they've rarely felt, /away/ from their bodies. The door on Tamamo's head opens, revealing a shining, shimmery white light inside itself. Even Tamamo can now be drawn out of her body with that same tug, and with the group of three allies, she can find herself diving towards that door. All those who dive now find themselves drawn into the psycho-portal, the door closing ominously behind them with a click. The big fancy containment gauntlet hums, activating the link between its own magic and Tamamo's body.
Flamel Parsons	Deep inside the mind, the group of four find themselves at the gates of what one imagines when they try to think of Heian-period Tim Burton drawing feudal japan. A vast, rolling green plains and farmland near the ocean is host to a tremendous Heian-era castle, with tall substructures reaching dozens of stories tall and a central structure reaching up to the sky; it is all draped in a banner depicting Tamamo's classic blue colors, with two blades -- Touta and Seifer, crossed behind a fox-fur orange circle. In the midsection of the tower, a vulnerably-flickering glow of light can be found shining through the many windows. It's Tamamo's Resolution, of this there can be little doubt. At the moment, one can see the massed armies of feudal-era footsoldiers holding a rather impenetrable-looking defensive line near the shores, and heavy black warships at the shore, where whispy, deep-purple figures are already being disgorged, falling upon the blades of the sturdy defenses. Somehow that doesn't seem like where the highest risk can be found. What is notable is a strange figure approaching, draped in Tamamo's colors, looking like royalty, or at least like a concubine. A rather thin, dangerous-looking woman, whose fox features are rather more extensive than Tamamo's. She carries a dismembered arm clad in deep purple Shogun armor, still gripping a heavy blade, rather triumphantly, heading towards the central castle. She is not being stopped by the guards; instead, they bow to her.
Seifer Almasy	So this is really weird. Seifer has never seen a Japan before in his life. He barely knew what this stuff was, though he recognizes the mode of dress because Tamamo convinced him to incorporate bits of it into his official Hand outfit. As they walk through the rolling plains, Seifer can't help but glance at Tamamo's banner, and Touta's place equal to his. His fingers flex slightly in mild annoyance, because it's much harder to hide that sort of thing inside the mind, but he doesn't say anything. The flickering glow in the midsection of the tower draws his attention before he can. Then, the massed army, the heavy black warships, the deep purple figures. He's trying to make sense of it all, and he can't. But he can make sense of the woman holding the arm. She's dressed like a concubine. Tamamo's mentioned that to him before, briefly. She doesn't look like Tamamo, but she's definitely a fox-woman, and she's definitely wearing Tamamo's /clothes/, so... "Izzat you?" Seifer asks. He's dressed not in his usual outfit, but in something more like a Japanese noble of the era with flair from his usual outfit - the red crosses on the shoulders, no hat, et cetera. He doesn't appear to have noticed that his coat became a haori in the transition into Tamamo's mind.
Staren	Feudal Japan castles! Huh. Staren takes a moment to admire them... then turns around to see the soldiers, his ears splaying. "Maybe we should've brought Nobunaga..." And there's... another kitsune approaching? Bearing the arm? Does she represent the arm? At Seifer's comment, he double-takes. "Is it?" He stares at the fox-woman, trying to look for signs of similarity.
Flamel Parsons	The woman has similarities to Tamamo, and yet differences. Her human features seem younger, yet her fox features seem more pronounced; there's a fox shape, but it seems more finely textured than that. Her regal looks are more exaggerated, yet her posture is less kind. Her limbs are thin and wirey, almost like a caricature. "Huh?" Parsons looks to Seifer, adjusting his sunglasses. "She looks like a mental image. You'll usually see mental images of people and their close friends inside their own mind. They can mean and express a lot of stuff. Everything in here is Tamamo though!" He looks about. "How do you guys want to handle this? Where do you think we should go?"
Seifer Almasy	Seifer's about to speak when a red-clad, grey-skinned swordsman walks up behind them. Gilgamesh's dialogue is, thankfully, not nearly as obnoxiously pink-and-purple as it usually is. Instead it is a bright blue and orange with stripes. A set of katanas hangs at his side, and his white eyes are bright and shining. Seifer looks at him, and he looks at Seifer, and Seifer sighs. "Guess I shoulda figured." "Yes! You should have!" Gilgamesh says, then puts his hands on his hips and peers at the exaggerated Tamamo. "Say, she's rather cute." "Pretty sure she's just part of my wife." "I can appreciate a noble woman from afar!" Greg says imperiously. "So. What are we doing?" "Research." "Aha! I love research. On what?" "That arm." Seifer grits his teeth. "Aha! And where are we?" "Caster's mind." "Aha!" "And?" "No, that's it, I'm out of questions." Greg draws one of the katanas - it's clearly Zantetsuken, long, black, and wicked - and shoulders it. "I say we go towards that flickering, vulnerable-looking light and ensure it is protected! And if that means going through an army, then so be it!" Seifer's fingers drum in front of his face. "I can't believe I agree with him."
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo blinks a bit, behind the group. "Mmm." There's a frown upon the fox's face as she moves towards the head of the group. The tower's midsection gives off that light and she gives a brief nod, yes, that's where she has to go. "Hmmm." the arm is there, it's armored and holding a big sword. The woman, however, looks /very/ familiar to Tamamo. "Da..ji?" she questions a bit loudly. "We're heading towards that castle. If the soldiers bowed to that woman, they should bow to me." She looks behind, there's Seifer, there's Flamel, there's Staren, there's Greg... Wait, when did Greg get there?! "Gilgamesh." she gives a bit of a bow, eyeing the katana being drawn. "It's the only choice we have, the shores aren't where we have to go.."
Staren	Oh wait no, there's Tamamo. Staren looks between the kitsunes. "Who's Daji?" He'll let Tamamo take the lead in leading them through the army. Also, there's Greg. "...Good to see you." Staren says, somewhat awkwardly, offering a hand to shake. This guy is in Seifer's head all the time. It explains so much.
Flamel Parsons	On the way up to the castle, there'll be a fair bit of combat. Tamamo's own native forces are hardly hostile to the visitors; while at other times they may want to attack, right now they're far more focused on these other invaders from the Arm! But the combatants from the Arm certainly are far more aggressive. Coming up from behind them gives the four an advantage in flanking, but the footsoldiers, with spears, swords, and bows, are as vicious as they are dark, which is to say a great deal of both. Their battle-cries are irregular, in broken japanese and mixed latin, sometimes tinted with arabic and infrequently Chinese. All the cries roughly translate to, "WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!" Or to "BY ETHER THEY SHALL BE SAVED!" It's baffling. But they can thankfully be driven back. They seem somewhat disorganized, likely something to do with the much larger, beefier shogun-looking miniboss foe seeming to be dead in the distance. His body is impaled on the edges of massive fragments of a shattered mirror, and it sizzles with magic. When they get to the castle, there's only a small amount of fighting within; for the most part, things are quite under control, surprisingly! This matches Tamamo's general feeling that the arm's link with her isn't damaging her that badly at the moment, and she still has some time. Following the mystery woman into the interior is fairly easy, and she's approaching someone nearer the main gates of the central building. Standing on a balcony, one can see... Seifer? No, it's sort of like a caricature of Seifer. He looks taller, older, more mature, and he's wearing a huge stack of shogun-looking armor that /gleams/ with Tamamo's blues and oranges. He's surrounded by loyal-looking guards from the balcony to the courtyard, who bow only cautiously when they see the mystery woman's arms. She calls out triumphantly to the apparent general of the army, or king, or something like that, as his bodyguards grant her passage up to the balcony, where she kneels to present her proof of slaying the Arm's force leader to the mental image of Seifer. By the time the group gets there, they'll likely notice far before the guards do that she's wrenching the hand of the arm open, grabbing the sword, and seems to intend to use it for a betrayal and a public assassination.
Seifer Almasy	Fighting the soldiers is really something Seifer can understand. He and Greg wade into the fray just ahead of Tamamo, staying back enough to protect her but staying forward enough that they're cutting a swath through. Greg may be slightly insane and a very bizarre ghost, but his claims of being an expert swordsman definitely hold up - Zantetsuken flashes left and right with grace that surpasses even Seifer's own with Hyperion. The two of them bring up the front, pushing through. Seifer takes a couple cuts from the sheer mass of them; Greg doesn't, because when Greg gets close, he whips out a broadsword that's clearly Excalibur and a huge blade that's clearly the Buster Sword and just goes batshit crazy on them. Fighting with three weapons at a time doesn't slow him down in the slightest. Soon even Seifer is falling back to let Greg take the lead, focusing on defending Caster over everything else. When they start heading up the castle, Seifer takes some pleasure in seeing himself, even as a charicature, in that armor. It looks good. He looks good as a warlord. It's not a Knight, but...it'll do. He's less happy to see himself about to get assassinated. Greg, meanwhile, has gotten distracted and wandered back into the fighting, because Greg isn't actually all that interested in what's going on, but is perfectly willing to spend the whole period fighting enemies. His riotous shouts and good-natured banter can be heard all the way up the Castle steps, until they enter the Tower properly.
Staren	Staren's not really well equipped for fighting an army. Sure, he has missiles, but only so many... He tries to use them strategically (and on the bright side, the cheaper missiles are smaller so he has more of them) while lasting as long as he can with flight and the beam cannons. His armor and forcefield are soon pockmarked from arrow impacts. At least things inside are calmer, until... why is not-Tamamo grabbing a sword? There's a vague sense that something is wrong, that it's going to kill Tamamo's image of Seifer... but isn't 'it' Tamamo's image of herself? He probably shouldn't just blast her... Staren hesitates a moment, then pulls a vial from his bag and hurls it -- it shatters into a tangle of magic fast-growing vines that try to bind not-Tamamo in place. "What are you doing?!" Staren asks, after the advantage of surprise has been expended.
Flamel Parsons	A quick reaction from Staren is what throws the blade off. What was just about to be a lethal strike from the mystery woman instead becomes a slicing blow that leaves Mental Image Seifer stumbling and, of course, swearing angrily, ordering his bodyguards to stop her and drawing his own blade. The wound looks magically poisoned enough to disable Seifer's no-doubt potent combat power in Tamamo's mind. The Mystery Woman, for her own part, is only restrained briefly. As the blades of bodyguards fall on her, she roars a fox-like growl and dozens of shattered mirror shards emerge from her body as her tails flare out; all the bodyguards are splattered against the walls of the balcony, or fired over its edge. "You delayed it. But what I do is inevitable." She mutters tensely. With inhuman strength, she crushes the arm in her hand, and its dark purple energy surges up her body; the fox-like features over her body roil and twist like a disturbed liquid. "So much inevitability. Why fight it?" She leaps down from the balcony, still holding the large shield. Huge shards of broken mirror churn along her skin. "You of all people should be the one who'd keep your distance. Has she told you who we are? Has she told you what we do to kings? Inevitably, without even trying...?" Her face splits with an inhuman grin that bares a full set of canine teeth. "Resolving to shove me out and leave me behind is useless because I'm as much a part of her as anything else can be. Inevitabilities crawl through the world with more power than you can imagine and you don't even notice them. The one who made that Arm knew it best. The poison in some things is inevitable. You can't fight it. Have you ever heard the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog?" The jagged mirrors flare with purple light abruptly, as she takes a harshly aggressive stance. "Tamamo will teach it to you" The first one she goes after is Flamel, slamming one suddenly quite beastial arm into the ground and calling up a surge of mirror shards lashing out, brutal and sharp enough to slice open vulnerable flesh, and fast enough to knock Flamel Parsons back off his feet, slamming him through an elegantly carved gateway. "Ghhh--! Watch out! This isn't even a foreign Psychohazard -- it's a native Psychohazard working with the enemy! This has to be a toxic regret -- some kind of guilt!!" He calls out, trying to pull himself back up onto his feet.
Seifer Almasy	The other Tamamo transforms. She taunts, she mocks, she laughs. The Other Seifer, the mental image, is ordering his bodyguards to strike. Seifer moves forward past the other Tamamo and forces his gunblade against his own neck. He's staring into his own eyes. He's locked on his own gaze, the poisoned shogun staring down the Fox Knight. Seifer's hand goes up to the chain around his neck, fiddling with the three triangles that make up the fox symbol on his neck. He's just listening to Tamamo as a little bit of blood drips along Hyperion's edge. When she goes after Flamel, when she stops talking, Seifer speaks. His voice is harsh and sharp. "You moron. If you want me to die, you don't even have to ask. I'll die defending you any day. You ask me to push the sword through my neck right now and I'll do it." Seifer flicks the gunblade off his double's neck. He looks over his shoulder. His eyes are bright. He's looking at his own Tamamo, not the guilt spectre, staring at hers. "But fuck, if you ever give me that inevitability shit I'm gonna have to break my own rule and use one of these damned things." He holds up his left hand so Caster can see the Command Spells around his ring finger and the back of his hand. Their wedding ring. His eyes are sharp. "Inevitability? Fate? I don't give a shit about any of that!" Seifer brings his hand around and snaps his fingers. The air above Guilt-Tamamo explodes. "Anybody who tells me I can't fight something clearly doesn't know shit about me!" He advances forward, swinging Hyperion. "So let's get to know each other better, huh?!" "My name is Seifer Almasy! I'm twenty years old! Twenty-one in a month!" His blade flashes outwards for Other Tamamo's shoulder while the explosion still burns. "I like hot dogs! I like being in control! My favorite things are being the Sorceress's Knight, the book the Sorceress's Knight, and Tamamo no Mae, in no particular order! I believe in chaste, romantic love over sex! My type is the princess kind of girl, the kind who wants a knight around to protect her! My first kiss was my buddy Raijin, because that asshole tripped over a chair when I was twelve!" He spares a moment in mid-swing to jab a finger at Flamel. "And if you tell a fuckin' soul about that I'll gut you so fast you'll think you was a fish!"" He slashes again. "I don't remember where I was born! I don't remember my parents! I don't remember where I grew up! Because none of that shit mattered to me half as much-" Hyperion swings into his hand, and he stabs forward for the Guilt Tamamo's cheek. "-as my dream!" "And anybody who tells me that I can't have my dream because it's impossible..." "I ALWAYS PROVE 'EM WRONG!" Seifer thrusts his hand forward to literally grab Other Tamamo's ears. There's a sudden burst of energy in his hand. There's blood flowing down his palm. He detonated an explosion in his own hand. "SO FUCK YOUR INEVITABILITY! THERE'S NOTHING TOO POWERFUL FOR ME TO FIGHT! YOU GOT THAT?! 'CAUSE IF YOU DON'T, WE'RE GONNA HAVE SOME TROUBLE! SO IT'S BEST IF YOU JUST ACCEPT IT!" "THE ONLY INEVITABILITY HERE IS ME!"
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo stops mid stride. Staren's tangleweed bag halts the death of her Mental Image of Seifer, only to replace it with a really serious blow. Tamamo knows this. Tamamo's watching exactly what happened to past kings she was consort for... the past lives she had. Something... changes within Tamamo as she watches the Mental Tamamo do her thing. The arm gets crushed and Tamamo reels back a bit, frowning, biting her lip at this. The mental image of Seifer's going to die soon... And so will she do to Seifer later. History repeats itself, as they say. It happened with her last Master, Nozomi. With /him/ back when she wasn't a Heroic Spirit... and even before him. "I... pushed you away. I wanted a chance at happiness. An extra life with the one I love." she watches the Mental Tamamo's body twist and roil, the arm doing its work on that. And when Flamel gets slammed back, she makes a surprised gasp, "Flamel!" she moves to dart towards him until Her Seifer makes a move. Flamel will be fine. She thinks. She looks at Real Seifer... then the 'wedding ring' command seal, listens to his boasting, his deep passionate speech... watching the explosion in the air, then in his hand... Tamamo wants to move, to make something known... but this Mental Tamamo... "Mmm... I'll.. just poison you if we keep going." it's a defeated sound, she knows this all to well, thank you history...
Flamel Parsons	The Mental Seifer is, for various reasons, confused -- not the least of these reasons likely reflecting Tamamo's probable incomprehension of the gesture, until it becomes more clear. His bodyguards are a bit confused about what to do with the situation of their liege attacking... their liege, but it's not too relevant right now. The key, relevant actors are the ones engaged in the battle directly. The explosion from above is almost enough to set the Lady of Regret stumbling. /Almost/. Her long hair and tails flutter in the high-speed movement. The blade lashes fast, inhumanly so, parrying hard; the impact alone, which makes the flesh along her arm roil and twist with the strain of it, creates a heavy shockwave. Another slash is blocked more firmly with the flat of the tremendous blade. Its swirling flames that dance along the length seem to lash out in hungry licks of fire. When a stab goes for her cheek, the flames rush up her body, seeming to consume her arm entirely to reach her neck and yank it to one side. A gash is cut in that perfect, fox-like cheek, but not an impaling through the face. When the blast around her ears goes off, it kicks up a plume of dust, obfuscating the state of things. Flamel is one of the few visible; he makes a sort of plaintive gesture at Seifer, a mix between a shrug and an appeasement, then a "my lips are sealed" zip motion along his mouth. Tamamo no Mae, meanwhile, has a chance to look over the body of the mental Seifer. Barring strange effects, since it's a mental image of Seifer, it's possible her Regalia's effects might be of use in helping him! He seems pretty badly poisoned either way. The blade that lashes out towards Seifer is one that's held by nothing but a mass of ash, but if Seifer's plan was to deafen her rather than damage and stun, it won't pan out quite that way. Though she looks a little unfocused, her articulate nature remains. "This is the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog." She says. "There once were two travelers: The Scorpion and the Frog. Each knew to keep the other at arm's length, because a scorpion will strike at anything to poison it, no matter what." Her blade comes out in an overhead strike hard enough to slam into the ground with that titan blade, blasting a shockwave of force out. "It was no inevitability that it would kill its victim, but it was an inevitability that it would strike." Where that shockwave reaches, a field of shattered mirror shards slams up out of the ground, trying to impale Seifer -- and simultaneously making it terribly hard to find the Lady of Regret. Mirrored reflections of the Lady and of Tamamo can be seen all around, both by Tamamo and by Seifer. "And one day their path came to cross a river. The Scorpion knew it would drown, as it could not swim. The Frog knew it would cross, as it could. And so the Scorpion asked the Frog to carry it." The Lady moves quickly among the mirrors, darting back and forth, hard to find or target. "'But how do I know you won't poison me?' Asked the Frog. 'Because if I poison you, I will surely drown in the river.' Replied the Scorpion." She tries to maneuver as fast as she can behind Seifer, ready to deliver a stunning, rapid thrust from behind. "And so the Frog agreed to take them across the river." "And as they reached the center, the Scorpion struck." She moves in for a brutal stab from behind -- one that perhaps Tamamo might see from her position, just those valuable few seconds early.
Staren	Seifer makes a beautiful speech. It's not quite how Staren would put it... But it's an expression of the beliefs closest to his heart. If he were some sort of shonen protagonist, this is no doubt when his battle aura would surge, enhanced by his determination and his belief in friendship and love, and he'd roar and charge in... But he's Staren. Emotions and beliefs don't give him power. Instead, he searches the multiverse for the power to back up his hopes and dreams. I'll just poison you, Tamamo says. "NO!" Staren shouts. Or rather, the speakers on his armor are set to loud. "The only poison here is your lack of faith in yourself! Your lack of hope!" He runs for... mental Seifer? "This isn't you, Tamamo! It's your self-doubt! Whatever happened before, things are different now! We'll fix it!" Staren slaps a nanobandage over the poisoned cut. It doesn't treat poison so much as put someone's system into stasis if they can't overcome the poison, but does Tamamo know that? This is her mindscape. "Fate? Inevitability? We're the CONCORD. We reshape the world to OUR will, no matter how impossible it sounds! We conquer death and disease! We make the world we want! And if you want to live happily with your love... then you shall!" Staren turns towards Tamamo. "You believed in us and we believed in you when you joined the Concord. Now believe in yourself!" "You think you're a scorpion who can't control its tail? This isn't a story where the scorpion and the frog are all alone! You want to know how this story goes? The scorpion's friends help it change! If the problem is in its head, they bring it the finest psychologists and psychic experts! If the problem is that its tail won't obey it, we'll cut it off and give it a new tail that does! All the obstacles in the way of your happiness, we're ready to strike them down! We'll do it whether you help or not! But you CAN help! You can help by helping us help you!"
Seifer Almasy	"So I'll just live through that!" Seifer shouts at Tamamo - both of them - as the ash blades comes around, as he meets it with Hyperion, as he blocks the overhand strike with both hands behind his own thin blade and gets forced down into the wooden floor, "You poison me, I'll just live through it! You stab me, I'll just stop my own bleeding!" The shattered mirror shards come up. Seifer is not fast enough to avoid a field of death, not after blocking that strike, not stuck halfway down into the floor. He's bleeding. A lot. His coat is cut and his legs are cut and his chest is scratched. Seifer takes a deep breath. Now or never. The Fox Knight grabs onto his Soul Force and forces it through his body. Through his arms. Through his legs. Through his chest. And little by little, he lets it out, bit by bit. Explosions rock across his body. Searing-hot fire rakes along the places he was wounded. Seifer stumbles backwards, falling to one knee as the Lady of Regret talks. Then he stands up. He's burned his own wounds shut. It's not perfect. He's clearly done some damage to himself in the process. One of his arms is hanging at his side, limp, because he couldn't /quite/ manage all of the work he had to do. His breathing is rough, and gunpowder smoke pours out of his mouth at odd intervals, as if it's infected his breath. His finger twitches. "The frog had it fucking coming!" Seifer's gunpowder breath pours out as his eyes flare. His gunblade moves at an impossible angle, quite literally flipping around behind him to parry her backstab. Nobody could pull that off. Nobody. And Seifer doesn't pull it off cleanly - the blade goes into his damaged arm, sinking in deep. But with all of his strength, he forces his arm to tighten up the muscles, and brings the gunblade up across her cheek. "Moron!" His eyes are locked on Caster's own. "You think I'm the type of person who'd ask /are you sure you won't stab me/?" "Hell no! I love you! And that means I love this side of you, too! You wanna keep me on my toes, you wanna try and kill me? You go ahead and fuckin' try!" "You're not gonna succeed! And if you do, somehow, it'll be at the tail end of our romance, and it'll be the kinda thing that pushes me into the Grail so we can be together forever!" "Fuck the frog and the scorpion! I'm not a goddamn frog and you're not a goddamn scorpion! Metaphors..." Seifer's foot swings up under the Lady of Regret. He brings his shoulder around, her blade still in it, and shoves the hilt of Hyperion up into her jaw. He's trying to flip her over him and onto the ground in front of him so he can put his boot on her neck. "...are just bullshit! You love me, don't you?! Ain't that enough for you?!"
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo takes a look around. The shattered mirror shards obsfuscate the Lady of Regret... Mental Seifer's having issues because of the poison... Flamel's still on the ground and Staren... is putting a bandage on the wound of Mental Seifer. The words everyone says... Tamamo's still down right there, a pitiful looking fox torn between her Husband and the inevetable betrayal that may happen. The Lady of Regret's words echo through her head... Seifer's the frog, she was the scorpion. Tamamo was... is using Seifer... Just like she used Nozomi... Just like she used the Emperor... And those before him. Staren says his words, causing one of Tamamo's ears to perk up, the fox is listening. Seifer says his words, Tamamo's other ear perks up. The fox is at attention. "If... I can ... live my extra life, summoned from that Grail, to be with one I would love forever. To... be rid of my past doubts. To be rid of my regrets." she looks down at the Regalia... "I'm... not sure but..." she lifts her head up, aims her Regalia towards the Mental Seifer and pulls him into it. The Nano Bandage and the Regalia should keep it slowed down to a crawl. 'The scorpion strikes'. Is what Tamamo hears.. and it's only a heart beat, she sees the Lady of Regret come in, she's not sure if Seifer can dodge it in time. The Mirror of Uka comes out and she dashes. "Curses follow me everywhere. They strike down the ones I love, they cause pain... suffering... heartbreak." she launches herself towards the gap that's between the lady and Seifer. "I'm never going to be a good Fox. It's written in my soul. But I will not... let you strike.. down my Husband!" "CURSE: FIREY HEAVEN!" the strike from the Lady would smash right into the Mirror, creating a small crater where Tamamo is. "I am thou, thou art I. And it's time for thy soul... to not torment me." a tornado of fire erupts from Tamamo's location, engulfing the Lady in it, trying to send her back and away from her, the MIrror Shards, Seifer, Staren and Flamel. "I came... to see what that arm was. It's a curse to everyone." "A curse... that I will use to defend those I love!"
Flamel Parsons	The wounded man is given some treatment. And it's hardly /ineffectual/. As far as Staren can tell, it's actually working quite fine. Aside from the hungry purple fire licking at the bandage from within the wound, it's working perfectly, considering nanobandages are made with Definitely Safe This Time fireproof materials and chemicals. A little more boosting and the dying shogun-looking man might make it through. He calls for archers, screaming for soldiers to fire on his assassin and ensure her death. There's a few retainers offering grateful rewards to Staren on his behalf, but of course it's all mental. But as a few arrows come down from above, fired by archers throughout the castle, Tamamo may come to recall something notable in her own history in the moment. It's a familiar rain of arrows that is soon to come down. The backstab-strike is halted by Tamamo no Mae's mirror, granting Seifer crucial seconds he needs to strain and redirect the strike; waves of the purple fire crash through rows of mirror, smashing shards off their base and ripping up the stone of the castle courtyard. The Lady of Regret's combo assault is halted. A full field of rolling gold grass is revealed below the stones. "The Scorpion struck the Frog. And as poison coursed through its body, as its muscles stiffened in pain, it could hardly hold up its friend. The Scorpion fell into the water-- Ghhhhk!" She's flipped through the air by the motion, struck at the jaw, and slams hard into the ground, pinned by Seifer's boot. The impact of the landing tears up more of the stone, and more of that familiar golden grass is revealed, right at the same moment as the light in the tower errupts in shining blue that washes over the world. The Lady of Regret's core power has been broken by Tamamo's resolution, allowed to come to fruition through unlocking her powers from older days. Arrows are beginning to rain down more densely, like hail. Those who have maneuvered carefully find little extensive damage from them, and they shatter like hail on the impact of a hardened warrior's skin, as if they're nothing at all. The Lady of Regret mutters softly. "And did the Frog survive? Did the Frog make it to the other shore? Was it wounded? Crippled? Did it live on? Did it travel ever further? Did it survive the Scorpion's curse -- thrive, even?" Her voice almost sounds whistful, in pain, strained... She's lifted off the ground by the sheer force of the Fiery Heaven, which burns away the cobblestones of the castle's courtyard and tears up the last of the shattered mirror shards. She's launched back, and pinned harshly at a distance, further out, forced with her back to a large stone out in the field. For some reason, the cursed fire doesn't burn the rolling plain of golden grass. "The Scorpion never knew." She says, softly. The hail of arrows is growing more dense. "The inevitability was not that the Frog would succumb. It was that the Scorpion would strike. The inevitability was that the Scorpion would die. And it did." There's a shining light. Burning with enchanted purple fire. Like a meteor ready to strike, it's arcing with the raining hail of useless arrows, heading towards the battle. Headed not towards any of the heroes... But towards the Lady of Regret. There's a certainty that the enchanted arrow will impale her against the stone if it lands, killing her instantly. Yes, this is a field Tamamo might remember keenly. She's broken the Lady of Regret's power -- now comes the risk of the Killing Stone. Now, with the idea that her friends will live and thrive despite her curses planted firmly in her mind, the last dangers of the psychohazard are the self-destructive worries that come with the risk: The idea that Tamamo herself might not. Seifer has well convinced her that he's a proper inevitability. Now can Tamamo's subconscious be convinced that /she/ isn't more at risk of the poison herself?
Staren	"You can be a good fox if you want! People can change!" Staren points out, perhaps not at the best time. He doesn't expect saving mental-Seifer to be an issue, it's just that making an antidote takes too long to do in the middle of a fight. Anyway, now Mental Seifer is safe in Tamamo's inventory, or something? So, they can work that out after. Staren didn't expect rewards. He waves off the people crowding around him, "Huh, what? Not now. Just... keep him safe, and stop her." Now that Mental-Seifer is safe, Staren can approach the battle... although, there's a lot going on. He's shouting at the Lady and at Tamamo now, trying not to get caught up in the semantics of which is which. "Oh, put a sock in it! You have agency! You're not some faerie acting out a story! You just have some bad habits, a checkered past, and a bunch of mental issues! Who doesn't? But those don't have to define you unless you want them to!" "Don't you see what's happening here? We brought you help, let you confront these issues! Let you fight them! And you ARE fighting them!" "Besides..." Staren adds, a little less loudly, "Even if you don't think you can win... you think your husband is going to let you /lose/?"
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo knows these arrows quite well, having made a good point with them in her last life. For now, she's dealing with the Regret. "The Scorpion never knew, for the Scorpion's own poison halted its reasoning.. allowed it to carry the curse into the Frog... and thus... succumb to its own poison." Scenery changes... and so does Tamamo's outfit, becoming fancier... more regal looking. She only has one tail right now but that's fine, she faces the Lady of Regret. "Our name... is Tamamo no Mae. We are the Scorpion to our Husband's Frog." she gives a look towards the enchanted arrow that is coming. "We held back... for so long. To try and stave off... what would happen... and we failed with Nozomi." "We... have Seifer. Our King. Our Husband. We have Staren, our Scientist... our Astrologer. He will not commit what Abe no Yasuchika did. Kazusa-no-suke and Mirua-no-suke will not be summoned." she gives a bit of a smile, "We... have frogs that still.. even with being a scorpion, still will let us ride the current that is this river." a pause, "We sinned. We did things.. that would make normal men suffer. We can be one and we can live. Our inevitability is with the Concord, with Staren, with Flamel, with Seifer." She turns to Staren, "I've accepted the fact and relish in it, Staren." there's a small smile, "Nozomi understood it. Seifer encourages it." then back to the Lady, "Come. We have a lot more to experience, no?"
Seifer Almasy	Seifer doesn't say anything. He's just getting his breathing steady. He did sort of blow himself up pretty thoroughly. But more than that, he's taking in everything. He's committing this to memory, such that it is. He's making sure this is important. This is something critical. This is something he'll want to remember for a long time. This is real intimacy. Seifer steps forward. He brings his gunblade around into the path of the Killing Arrow like it's not even there. Like it's instinct. He's not even looking at the thing, because, really, he doesn't need to. He just grins at Tamamo. He doesn't really feel like he needs to say anything right now.
Flamel Parsons	The arrow halts. Its fire has flickered on its surging path down as Staren puts forth a few compelling notes and Tamamo decides a compelling resolution of her own, but when Seifer strides forward and halts it, the enchantment is halted as well, letting the powerful message of Tamamo's ability to survive her own poison through her allies surge into and around her mind, stabilizing the unlocked power that has been brought up -- or at least starting its stabilization process. What's left behind is the Lady of Regret, whose power has been broken. Tiny hints of shattered mirror surge just below the skin, but they're unable to emerge from her and attack Seifer now, so she comes to an exhausted rest. The arrow rain dries, leaving nothing but an open starry night sky rendered in the same Heian-era artistic style as all else. "This isn't the end of it." She whispers, softly. "Even if the poison doesn't kill me, I'm not the only scorpion. There's always another, and there's only one antidote for venom like that. I saw it in the Arm. I misunderstood humans, but... They understood magic. In their own way. They understood magic is willing to be their Scorpion. If you don't use my power you won't stave it off. All that power of the gods and heroes and legends drained away by humanity's desperation to cross the river. Humanity will drown without what I have." Her eyes flare deep purple fire with each of the terribly emphasized words. "I think we've isolated the foreign psychohazard." Parsons mutters, back on his feet and approaching the woman. "We've de-coupled it mostly from your own psychohazardous guilt, this is what was in the Arm. I think this means we can do what we came here for! Good work everyone!" Always cheerful. He's already at work on concentrating high-intensity clairvoyance on the purified Arm-energy, and outside, his scanners plug away. Of course, this is one of the few chances they'll have to interrogate a... mental version of whatever it is this arm is about.
Seifer Almasy	Seifer exhales as everything calms down, another little puff of gunpowder. He wipes his mouth, coughs, and double-checks himself. As the Lady of Regret talks, he's listening, but he's sort of half-listening, like he's got something more important to do. Once Flamel says they've done what they've come to do, Seifer turns around. He stabs Hyperion into the ground, walks forward, and puts his good arm up. His fingers touch Tamamo's cheek. They disappear into her hair. He leans down, since he's much taller than she is. Seifer kisses her. Deeply. Passionately. The kind of kiss that in movies would have fireworks in the background, the kind of kiss that comes at the climax of a romantic comedy where two people who are obviously right for each other FINALLY realize it and the audience is clapping because it took them so long to just kiss, the kind of kiss that comes at the end of seven seasons of will-they-won't-they. It's the kind of kiss that sears itself into the mind, the kind of kiss where even with one free hand Seifer's leaning forward to push her slightly down and back. When he lets her up to take a breath, his face is slightly red. He picks up Hyperion and shoulders it, and turns back to the Lady of Regret. "OK." "So." "What've you got?"
Staren	Staren is the audience smiling at the kiss. He may not have been following every episode of all seven seasons, but the idea that people can love eachother is close to his heart. And then it's questions time. He approaches the arm, standing at the same distance as Seifer. "You say /you/ misunderstood humans. What are you?" And then he remembers mental-Seifer might still need a cure, and starts getting out a mortar and pestle, heating plate, a cup, water, and so on to begin preparing an anti-poison potion.
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo's face is brushed, then fingers dissapear into her hair... Seifer's leaning in. The season finale of 'Will-they-won't-they' ends here with such a deep, passionate, goddamnitnotinpublic kiss from her husband. Tamamo recriporcates in kind for a few moments... then breaks it and has only really one thing to say about it. "Seifer. It tasted like gunpowder. Never kiss me after that ... move... again. But... I loved it." Back towards the main thing... as Tamamo wraps her tail around Seifer's waist... and Tamamo gets an idea. It's a stupid idea but... She approaches the 'arm' and nods, "If Humanity will drown without what you have, if you want your power to be used to stave it off... allow me to wield your power." she nods, "I understand why you destroyed the four that I experimented with, but here... I think, you... and I... will be able to work together."
Flamel Parsons	With most of the practical information that can be extracted from the Lady of Regret exhausted, Parsons plants all his fingers on his head and looks like he's sort of wrenching it out of a vise. After a few seconds of sustained effort... It takes, yanking the whole group out of the mindscape! They swirl through the air and back into their bodies, the psychoportal closes back up, and the door launches off of Tamamo's forehead, clattering across the table. Flamel shakes his head, clearing it a little, and smiles. "Alright! Good work everyone, I'm gonna get this data archived and logged! We better get this..." He moves quickly to disengage the arm, disconnecting its link with a big, hefty lever, and getting it packed back up for the investigators to take back with them; there's massive piles of printouts to go through that have scrunched up out of the big spy-fiction machinery around the lab, and Parsons needs to dig into it!