Scene #6486: OFF - Zone 2 -Japhet

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	Thankfully, after that battle, there is a yellow cube. Why and how such objects seem to work as they do, and why and who by they have been placed around the worlds where they are, is a mystery, but perhaps it's best not to look that gift horse in the mouth. Zacharie also seems to be taking advantage of this most auspicious spot; the last stop before the very peak of the Great Library, as the books --not the Elsens-- call it. His finest wares have already been accounted for, but he has a fistful of LUCK TICKETS, FORTUNE TICKETS, SILVER FLESH, and GOLDEN FLESH to offer for the middling-high amount of credits you've apparently scraped from your mostly successful, albeit not exhaustive, journey through Zone 2. They may be needed. From there, it's just a long climb up a long ladder to the impossibly high up roof, where the towering clouds of smoke grow thicker, the rumbling of a storm grows louder, the odd checkerboard pervading the air grows more and more defined, and the howling of the wind drowns out any noise that could possibly arise from far, far below, making it seem like its own little world in the dark and stormy heavens. The ascent takes you parallel to the long, dripping streaks of paint, and up past a strange symbol slathered on the wall, like a spear that is a Fleur-de-lis The Judge is already there. Because he is the Judge. The other cat is also there. The two sit directly across from each other, in the limited, blank, squared space the roof provides. "Valerie!" exclaims the Judge. "Valerie?" replies Valerie. "That . . . That is the name of the cat. You are mistaking me for someone else." he says. "Stop with these paranoid delusions, dear brother!" says the Judge. "Come with me to Zone 0. I have built a cellar where we can forget our sorrows . . ." "I am not your brother!" Valerie yells. "I do not even belong to any race of predators! Take a look at my real face, you poor, smelly cat!" "Va . . . Valerie?" the Judge replies, taken aback. This is because Valerie's eyes roll back, his mouth opens, and the head of a songbird peers out of his maw, as if poking out of its nest to see if the coast is clear. Valerie remains rigid and transfixed. "You do not understand, do you? I am not Valerie, I am Japhet! I have taken control of your miserable little brother." the songbird says, still sticking out of Valerie's mouth. "Unable to even chew through a little bird, until the end." The Judge remains silent. "Whatever." says the Batter. "Japhet, I am here to destroy you, you who claim to control the spectres." "I was waiting, Batter." chirps the songbird Japhet. "I will not go down without a fight." ". . . Valerie . . ." PURIFICATION IN PROGRESS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V81DlvZkxGE "You must understand . . . those fools . . . they only care about their own pathetic hassles!" exclaims Japhet. "I did everything for them! They are like my own, countless children . . . And like all disrespectful children, they need to be punished." The songbird sings, and cascading ripples of pure, platonic ALTO blast over the party, the same as the time 'Valerie' had used 'his true power' on the fourth floor back then. It makes sense now, in retrospect, that it'd be the power of a bird.
Starbound Flotilla	George never caught back up with the gang. That's because he was sitting at the top of the ladder, legs over the side, starting to light up a cigarette when the gang gets here. No explanation given for how he got ahead of them on a linear path. "Eyes up." He warns. "There's cats up here, so it's about to get hairy. Little J and Big J..." "Hey, listen. I know you're all stressed out about what you saw down there. Here's my promise for ya. You stop Japhet from doing his spectral shit? I'll tell you three words that'll clear the path forward. You've made a syntax mistake, a grammar fuck-up, and all this is gonna sound a lot better when you know the truth." He turns to watch the drama unfold. He only gets up around the time Japhet reveals his true form as the cat-mecha pilot. He tries to get an arm-mounted shield up, some kind of fast-engineered industrial thing meant to neutralize horribly high-intensity noise, when the SOUND arrives. It's too much and too fast, and his haphazard engineering fails hard, sputtering and exploding, leaving him battered by waves of platonic noise. Sound off. George has to get into it. Bat out, he discards the shattered failure of a neutralizing shield, and surges forward, trying to swing for the songbird's throat in some way that'll keep the damn thing from hitting them with that sustained Alto effect too long!
Tina Natsumi	Tina's shuffling along as she seeks out the rest of the group on the way to finishing their current leg of the incredibly confusing journey. She doesn't look too banged up, at least, but there is a rather noticeable red headband on underneath her cowboy hat. Just a prop, she's assured everyone at home. Those who were around for her fight last time would know better. The drama between the cat brothers has Tina staying somewhat further back, though, as she's seen a fair bit of family squabbling before. Not her own, thankfully, but enough to make her think twice about just stepping in there. That is, until it comes to blows when the cat-turned-bird-monster-Japhet unveils his sonic blasts of suck upon everyone. Time to bring out her own sonic thing. A phone gets pulled out, a selfie gets taken, and once again the ALL AMERICAN PERSONA appears bearing its own sonic cannon/giant loudspeaker to help neutralize that ALTO. "Tch... Come on, everyone, you gonna let this overgrown catbird take us down? I still don't get half of what's going on with this place, but it's us or him!" As she's shouting words of encouragement to her allies, Tina slips a handy dandy revolver out of Uncle Sam's ankle. "And I like us a hell of a lot more, so.. Swing, Batta Batta Batta, swi-ing!" She takes aim around the side of her Persona, using it as cover as she fires off all six shots at the bird at once.
August Kohler	August is here. Of course he'd be here. As they climb up, spotting George - he's a little frustrated at him for keeping disappearing, but George promises a clue. And they were going to kill Japhet anyways. So once they reach the cat brothers, and Valerie turns out to have been a sockpuppet, August grimaces. "I knew there couldn't be a cat I didn't like." He mutters to himself, as he draws a revolver and glances into it. "DIETRICH! COME OUT AND PLAY!" The lumbering black knight manifests in a cloud of black and red, as August climbs on his back, giant sword drawn. The soundwaves smash into Dietrich's armor, tearing nto it and forcing the Persona back, but that's not enough. He blurs forward with superhuman speed, sword held like a bat, and then moves to swing it straight into Japhet. The air cracks. It's a home-run swing, with enough force behind it to pulp someone. It moves to smash into and slash Japhet, possibly sending him flying backwards in the process - hopefully towards someone else's attack. "You've gone too far, you stupid bird. And now you die, and we're going to purify the zone. The spectres will be no more. You know this is inevitable. We've read your book. So why don't you just lie down and let us get it over with?" This is followed up by a ball of fire coming off the sword in Japhet's direction. August is not letting up the pressure tonight.
Doctor Strange	Strange pokes his head out of a portal near Zacharie. "Hey. How's it going?" He steps all the way through. It closes behind him, sealing off the view of the desert temple he'd previously jaunted off to. For the first time since visiting, he does actually try to buy something. BELIAL'S MEAT--as many as he can afford with his own personal supply of credits, or none if he's not got enough. Assuming he's able to make his purchases, they're spirited away to the space-folding confines of the Sanctum Sanctorum, to be called upon if and when they're needed. The climb up the ladder is done without climbing. For once, he doesn't just teleport up there ahead of everyone else, instead opting to fly up and make his arrival that much more dramatic. His wrapped cloth boots touch down gently as he rises over the edge of the platform. The Sorcerer Supreme listens dispassionately to the exchange between Valerie and the Judge--or rather, Japhet and the Judge. The sudden strike catches him off-guard. He's knocked on his back, and is nearly blown off the edge until the Cloak of Levitation billows out behind him like a pair of wings, halting his slide. An intricate, rapid series of hand gestures ending in a motion resembling the stirring of a cauldron. Two bright orange glyphic rings appear before his hands, and as he fights against the sound waves to return to solid ground, the sorcerer fires a counterspell. Strange turns in place as if rolling around an opponent in close combat. His 'counter' to this unseen opponent is a one-armed punch. The motion sets the slowly rotating glyph-ring of the corresponding hand locking into place with a warble. A crackling bolt of lightning arcs from his hand to Japhet's position, leaving the air smelling momentarily of ozone.
Aoko Aozaki	"Ahaha, that's amazing!" Aoko laughs at Japhet just sticking his head out of Valerie. "You know, if you want a body, I could just make you one. I don't have awesome EX-ranked dragon fluff to make you an adorable dragon-girl body but I'm sure we can work -something- out!" Aoko says, actually genuinely honest in her offer, but certain it won't be taken. "Maybe your new body'd be pure, even! Free from this place's weird sickness and rules. Wouldn't that be interesting to find out? Instead of loaning a dumb, not-even-a-cute-girl cat body?" She has specific tastes, when it comes to familiars. Familiars should be adorable and be valid headpat targets, while also looking like people to facilitate interactions. Oh right they're being attacked. Aoko's arms and legs shine a brilliant cyan and white, circuitry crawling along her skin. She shields herself, to very little avail, the musical smash sending her reeling back for a moment, before she stomps her feet down to anchor herself to the balcony. "Rude, rude! I guess we'll have to punch you out of the cat forcefully." She collects her strength, and suddenly hits the ground hard with a foot, causing a burst of blue light to shoot along the floor and explode into verticle flames and lasers under Valeriephet!
Zero Kiryu	Zero missed some of what transpired here, or assumes that he must have. He doesn't understand how these individuals related to one another, but how it ended up is grotesque, and... obvious enough. Especially to him. His attention settles on George, who /really/ shouldn't have been able to make it up here ahead of them like this. He assumes that there is some trick to it that he doesn't know. This place operates on that sort of bizarre logic, after all. Vines spill out from underneath his jacket, wrapping themselves around him and helping blunt the incoming weaponized sound. The sensation of it still rattles his teeth -- perhaps even his very bones -- and makes him feel all different kinds of discomfort and pain that he was previously more-or-less unfamiliar with. All of that pales, considerably, before the agitation that the exchange between the Judge and his hollowed-out brother stirs up in him. The vines continue to flow out from beneath his jacket, wreathing his limbs in twisting spirals. He waits patiently-- for other attacks to resolve, for the air to be relatively clear. Then his right arm twitches upwards slightly, not grasping a gun but simply directing the vines there to grow. A quartet of vines extend forth, twisting into a circle that tries to close around the length of Japhet's neck and dig in with what is apparent future intent to anchor in and try to extricate it. It probably doesn't matter. That body is probably long dead. Even so, the circumstances... Really make Zero want to pull this formidable cuckoo from its "home" and snuff it with extreme prejudice.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki doesn't ever look gift horses in the mouth, because Horses are more Zero's speed. Also, looking too closely into mouths in general is something that, broadly, is something Yuuki is averse to: It is other people's burden to be aware of her mouth. That's not... .... a lewd thing. Probably. Meeting George at the top of the ladder is taken in exactly the stride that meeting Moonfin on the stairs was: 'oh, that makes sense'. "I'm glad you had a chance to take a break, George. But, you know: smoking can be bad for your stamina and lung capacity." She chides lightly, elbowing him with a good natured 'your excuses are a little thin, old man' ribbing. As for Japhelt... "An infection, then. Like the Elsen. An inner monster that could not be reconciled, and a host who could not bite down. Is it weakness to be gentle?" "Is it strength to take advantage of gentility?" The Alto blast budges Yuuki back as she raises a hand to guard her face and eyes, as if looking into the bright morning sun for a moment and needing to shield herself. "Unlike the Elsen, you're a poison that I can tear out with my hands. Unlike Dedan, there's something to save on the line." Yuuki looks to Stephen Strange, a faint smile working at the corners of her mouth. "Doctor Strange. I'm glad you've joined us. Tell me: does the Sorcerer Supreme have a spell for splitting a being into 'component parts', or drawing out a possessing being? It would be tremendously helpful right now..." "And I know my best guess is to just yank it out-" Yuuki offers, bringing up her right fist to ball it (like gripping a stress ball between vice-like fingers) and 'yank' it towards her chest, a telekinetic shunt following her motion to drag the bird farther out of Valerie's mouth -- and into Aoko's laser tracer. "-and I would think a delicate surgeon such as yourself would have a more nuanced approach."
Priscilla	Despite being a songbird wearing a dead cat, neither animal known to be particularly sturdy, but the former especially not, Japhet doesn't go crunch on the first strike, or the second, or the third, or much at all. It makes sense that 'Valerie' had been so tough if he were just a skin over the bird moving around inside, but this is, essentially, the power of a Royal Guardian. One who must be on par with Dedan. Also, despite being a dead cat with a bird controlling it from the inside, it's surprisingly decently nimble. The bird pops right back in as George aims for the neck, whacking the blank-eyed cat face on the nose instead. Six shots from Tina punch into its hide, leaving bloody red marks, but not seeming to hit the bird within as it moves around. It even manages to hop out of the way of the exploding floor from Aoko, though Yuuki's TK shove manages to push it partially back in, singeing the cat's side, before it does a twisty cat land (despite being run by a bird) and scrabbles out from under both Add-Ons flying at it, and hopping over the Batter's bat. Given the number of attacks though, as usual, it can only go so far, even as a small target. Dancing around as he can, Japhet is immediately hit with Dietrich's blade, sawing through the cat and depriving Japhet of a great deal of his armoured cat-suit. Strange blasts it with lightning head on, causing the bird within to spasm and jolt, and then Zero's vines grip and squeeze like a tube of toothpaste, with added bone crunching noises. It starts working. The songbird emerges further from the cat's mouth, its wings spreading wide and starting to flap, lifting the semi-dangling cat off the ground. It seems bigger as it is pushed partially free, growing in a way that couldn't really have fit inside, more like a large eagle now, with a hummingbird's sort of physique. "I am not a god! I cannot be perfect!" Japhet cries. "Yes, I have sinned, I admit it, but my responsibilities are far beyond those of a mere mortal! No one, not even those children, are without sin!" With more of the bird exposed, it feels like more of the Royal Guardian's power is as well. The bird sings out again, and its chirping song rises to a clear, piercing SOPRANO, diamond waves of sound cutting and shredding through flesh like rippling panes of appearing and disappearing glass. There's no need to target anyone specifically. Japhet has total command over this space, and anywhere in earshot.
August Kohler	There's a satisfying cut into Japhet's cat-suit, mostly destroying it, as the songbird is freed. But then, it cries out...with remarkable self-awareness. That's nice. Still gotta die. After the horrible diamond waves cut through August and Dietrich. Cuts appear both in the armor and in August's flesh, as scarlet blood splatters, but the wounds themselves start to knit back together, draining August of energy but allowing him to not quickly become a bloody cadaver in this fight. Already sore and injured, but not exhausted yet, August decides to keep at his current level of pressure. Lighting aflame, the sword transforms into a chainsaw whip, and is then swung forward, long lash straight at the songbird's neck. Using both hands, Dietrich moves to wrap it around Japhet's neck, and then start tugging, hard. Hard enough to try and pull him out of the cat-suit, and also maybe tear at his neck, setting feathers ablaze and inflicting deep gashes, but almost certainly not ripping his head off this early into the fight. That'd be too easy.
Tina Natsumi	"Exactly! You ain't a god any more than any of us or they are!" Tina lets Uncle Sam bear the brunt of Japhet's awful singing as she hunkers down behind the robotic Persona, the slicing waves tearing massive lines out of the Persona and leaving bloody red marks across her limbs. Gritting her teeth through the pain, she keeps one hand pressed against her ear to stop her ear drums from popping. "Keh... So why the hell do you need to keep actin' like you are? Just chill and let things work themselves out for once! You don't gotta do everything all the time, or you'll get old and start doin' dumb shit like smokin' or drinkin'!" She pauses to reload her revolver, flashing a brief grin at George. "Er. No offense there, pard." Alas, she doesn't do the same for Strange, but at least she hasn't seen him doing any of that to make any sort of connections there. And yes, she's still trying to talk the bird down despite shooting at it. She even has Uncle Sam swap out the sonic cannon for a pair of Thompson submachine guns to buffet the bird-piloting-a-cat with yet more bullets. "If you're really fed up with this world, then just let someone else take care of this shit! Like us!"
Aoko Aozaki	He's building up power! This time Aoko is a nudge more ready to deal with it, having now remembered (and experienced) the fact this particular jerk uses WEAPONIZED SOUND, which is hard to deal with when you aren't expecting it. But a tad easier when you are. Not that much. Aoko's response to the incoming, shredding waves of sound is to... reach out with her hands, and answer in kind. Just, straight up. She defends by countering. Blue flames like solar flares erupt from her arms, so bright and cyan they're more akin to crescent blades of light than tongues of blue fire. They attenuate the incoming sound, but only so much, Aoko's exposed skin bruised and cut quite badly in the storm. But, hopefully, Japhet's in for a worse experience. "Is that all you're going to tell us? About how disappointed you are in your children, instead of taking us up on our dozens of much better solutions?" It's frustrating! But not unexpected.
Doctor Strange	"You don't start the operation right away," Strange says to Yuuki. "You have to wash up. You need an anaesthetic." He flies forward, landing on the platform, turning his head to meet her gaze directly. "And the patient kinda needs to be alive, or else it's an autopsy." With a grim frown, he nods towards Valerie's glassy-eyed stare. Evidently, the Sorcerer Supreme doesn't think the cat is still alive. That does raise the question of why he didn't just start with that last point, though. Is he up to something? SOMEWHERE Strange appears in a flash of green light, far from the fighting. He can see everyone's attacks, just as he remembered them. The Sorcerer Supreme winces--even from here, that piercing Soprano rubs him the wrong way, like nails on a chalkboard. He touches a trembling finger to the dried blood on his temple, sucking in a breath through his teeth as his ribs scream another complaint. Was that spell really worth eating Japhet's screech? Well, he can handle it--for once, he's not here to pull his own ass out of the fire, and he doesn't have time to, either. Future!Strange begins flying through the surrounding area, searching for ELSEN taking shelter from the storm. THE BATTLE Strange begins readying another spell. The hairs on the back of his neck raise as Japhet begins its screech, but he doesn't have to worry about that he's the Sorcerer Supreme. Whatever this thing does, he can just undo! As it happens, Japhet can do a lot. The sound wave ruptures something in his ear, as if someone had stabbed it with a knife and twisted it. He doubles over in pain, but refuses to give any ground, even as the attack slams into his ribs like a fist made of broken glass. Warm patches of red begin to seep into his blue robes. All the while, orange rings of glyphs open up on either side of him, each one spitting forth a similarly hued orb which waits for his command. Being forced to one knee, Strange makes a single-palmed thrust, upwards, as if striking an opponent's abdomen from below. The rings tilt upwards, and each one spits out a weapon resembling the Chinese 'meteor hammer,' a weighted bludgeon attached to a string--or in this case, a chain. The conjured ball-and-chain attack strikes out in evenly spaced rows, each one aimed for Japhet's impressive wing span.
Zero Kiryu	It doesn't seem to need to do much to inflict serious damage, Zero observes clinically as segments of his body unprotected by Bloody Rose erupt in great bloody gashes before they begin the steady-but-visible process of knitting. The active flow of blood stops right away, but the actual injuries themselves are large enough to linger. Bits of Bloody Rose that were blown away acting as armor creep back into existence out from under his increasingly shredded coat. "I don't think the cat has been alive for quite some time." He asides to Yuuki. Zero isn't a big fan of cats, especially talking cats. The last one he ran into needed killing, and that was, he feels, a long time ago. The one here-- and his brother... well, they never met. But even so, this feels like it was a needlessly cruel turn of events. A torture chamber, George said. Or something like it. The vines draw back, following the emergence of Japhet's body and attempting to flow around him and force further emergence. The escalation of power being expressed here is what, ultimately, tells him that this is the correct course of action. It's usually like that when a powerful thing is expelled from a weaker one it was using as a puppet. You need to do that to kill the real one properly.
Starbound Flotilla	George makes a helpless sort of shrug amid the chaos, to Tina and to Yuuki as well. The criticism of his smoking habit is fair! After all, it's not as though George actually likes these cigarettes. They feel pretty awful. George pursues, but at least he's not deafened now. He speaks almost on behalf of Japhet when he fights. "Think you guys aren't understanding!" He calls out. "This is like Dedan. It's that time in your life where you can't let go of an abusive dead-inside friend. It's that situations you get in where you can't pull away from something you hate. I told ya! This world, this place is just one big torture--" Sound. Again. He knuckles down, unable to maneuver around the omnidirectional blast of pure pain. Chunks rip out of the armor as he's sliced up, but thankfully there's no gushing blast of wind. Instead, he can rush forward. He tries to yank out and plunge a hefty GRENADE into the mouth of the creature while it's still so open, suffering its impacts dead-on for a moment before diving back. He's trying to plug up that songbird singing with a heavy METALFOAM HULL REPAIR GRENADE, and strike hard with a crackling, electrified baton that can conduct right through the mess he hopes to make.
Yuuki Kuran	It's rewarding to pull the bird out, as Zero joins her in the vibe of 'yank out the awfulness from the roots', treating the Royal Guardian like a weed to be addressed from the garden, not a terrifying Mid-Boss before the Dark Queen. Strange's commentary - his Doctoral Wisdom, is nodded along to even as Yuuki is blasted around by the mere sound, this time staggering as her ears begin bleeding profusely, having to shake off a fierce tinnitus and the overall disorientation of being literally bludgeoned with omnidirectional sound. Thankfully, Strange answers her BEFORE she's aurally disabled, wobbling at her feet while her inner ear (and outer ear) bleed rights itself. "Wash up, wash up... Wait, Doctor - do you think Valerie isn't dead? Can you..." Yuuki resumes her pulling, yanking apart the bird and cat-suit with a persistent series of grip-and-pulls visible as shimmering cracks in the air. "... Un-dead Valerie? I thought there was a magic rule about that! Even I can't bring back the dead... And I don't think the Judge would like a Staren-brand Robot Cat-boy solution either."
Priscilla	"Your 'solutions' are born solely of ignorance. If you were to see this world, to try over and over again, for as long as I, do you not think you would make your own mistakes? That even you might grow tired enough to resort to the lash? I can't be like Dedan. I can't create a world of order from constant labour and strict rules to keep them too busy to step out of line. I've said they are my children to me. I wished them to be happy. If they so wilfully refuse, then they should be shown the alternative." The storm thickens. The checkerboard swims. A hundred bullets come from dual thompson drum magazines and riddle the increasingly tattered cat with holes, leaving it less and less useful to move about. Blasts of blue magical flame cause the bird to reel and flutter away, setting alight the tips of its feathers. A volley of magical weights pummels its feather-fluffed exterior, drawing blood from its beak and causing it to flap wildly, unable to use the cat properly as a defense. When George approaches with the grenade, its head dips back down with that spastic speed only birds and insects manage, and snatches the grenade, crushing it in its beak, but suffering a whap of the baton for the effort. The coiling crush of Zero's vines intensifies. Yuuki operates in tandem, stretching the bird within painfully with the fight of telekinesis. Japhet resists, clinging intensely with its talons no doubt still in the dead cat's chest, but the addition of the ultra nasty flaming chainsaw from Dietrich makes it impossible to hold on, crushing the cat to the point of being meaningless to hold onto. The Batter slams the head of his purifying instrument into the cat's chest, sending out cascading hexagonal ripples of flashing white and black in every direction, with an even mightier home run yet. Japhet can stay inside no longer. "Alright, purifiers. You are going to seal my fate? No matter. I am ready to die." Japhet says with astonishing, solemn confidence for the situation. "But first, prepare yourself to see my true form." With no further purpose to using the cat, Japhet finally emerges. He grows and grows as he does, assuming more and more his posture and stance as the Royal Guardian of Zone 2. The songbird has become an eagle, and the eagle becomes something far greater. As the cat becomes a useless accessory, barely anything more than a dangling, vestigial appendage to the bird that is all of its presence now, Japhet finally emerges to the last, and spreads his full wingspan, shadowing the entire group at once. Standing up on the legs more like a raptor than a bird, he is easily three times anyone's size. His neck is that of a crane, his wings that of a falcon, his beak that of a fishing bird, and his tail that of a bird of paradise, altogether resembling a sort of mythical phoenix creature, reared up in full majesty, but with a pallid, washed out look, with white, glowing eyes. "I am Japhet, lord of the second Zone. I am the millennial firebird. Let the battle begin." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFyt_pi7U68 Japhet thrusts his wings out to his sides, beating down with an enormous gust of wind, and levitates into the air. His spearpoint beak opens, and his voice erupts into a deafening, thundercrack shriek, causing the smoke to stir into a ripping tornado. His call booms as a shattering TENOR, shaking the Library tower itself, as lightning cracks down all around, the storm itself as much of a threat as the glassy sledgehammer of his mighty birdsong. The Batter used Wide Angle! Japhet Royal Guardian of Zone 2 Second Boss.
Priscilla	Strange's double flits out into the city. Bismark is now dark under the heavy pall of Japhet's last, dramatic stand. As though reflective of his thoughts, 'For he knew what he had done was Evil. -The End.' as the book he had written, Bismark itself is seemingly empty of life, as the Elsens have run indoors to cower from the black clouds spanning out to swallow the whole city. The rumble of thunder is no doubt too much for them already, never mind the explosive crashes of lightning. It seems as if the carefully constructed little paradise, so safe and inoffensive, is about to crumble. Just as Japhet had painstakingly, even lovingly, created it for his 'children', so will it end in biblical wrath, as its Guardian expects the end. Almost all of the Elsens are no doubt in those sealed bunkers, which are difficult to get into even for a spacetime manipulating sorcerer supreme. A few hide inside their homes, or underground in the Amusement Park, cowering in closets or behind boxes. None of them dare venture outside, crying to themselves that this is the end, or that they only wish to be left alone, and how terribly frightening and unsafe storms are.
August Kohler	Japhet continues talking. He's...kind of sympathetic. But as August said, he's gone too far. The whip pulls back as the songbird releases from the cat, shadowing them. August swallows a breath. "Tina! Coordinate with me! I'll try and pull him down, fire into his head with everything you got!" Lightning strikes Dietrich, surging through it and burning it and August's skin. August screams horrifically as he's burned, burnt flesh repairing itself but the pain and damage still there. The whip lashes out again, for Japhet's head, and moves to try and pull him downwards, allowing easier shots on his head. The chainwhip continues to fire up, this time wreathed in pure darkness, trying to burn away feathers into nothing and flowing that painful energy into Japhet's body like lightning. Hopefully this will be extremely painful for the Guardian.
Aoko Aozaki	"Dunno. Maybe. I haven't tried being timelessly immortal yet. I'd probably get bored, you're right! Might even get mad. So, you know, I don't bother! That's how that works. I do other things. I run around. I try to mooch cool artifacts from Mister Strange because I figure sooner or later he'll cave in and give me something to shut me up," she says, before laughing. "Was that last part out loud? Oops." Well, no matter. Here comes Japhet. The real Japhet. The TENOR smashes into Aoko, overpowering any hope she has to produce a credible defense in only an instant and with no warning. She hits the wall of the library, which is infinitely better than being flung off the bacony. It still sucks. Bloodied and not appreciating the things her nerves are telling her, she opts to consume THREE WHOLE LUCK TICKETS. Well, not consume. Use. However that works. To feel less awful. She follows this by shaping up a ball of light, which she immediatly reaches for and crushes in her palm. The tiny sun explodes in her hand, producing a beautiful array of dozens of bright blue sunbeams that both illuminate the balcony and also home in on Japhet, nailing him from every possible direction. "Starting to feel the pressure here though! He might not be a god but he sure has the firepower of one!"
Tina Natsumi	Well, yeah. Mistakes are how we learn to do things better the next time. Even if it takes forever, we keep learning, and that's how we get better at everything!" Tina conveniently leaves out a response to the lash part of Japhet's questioning, although the question does have her furrowing her brow despite not saying anything in return. That's probably why she's not a god of anything. She'd be awful at it. And then he turned into a bird. Well, a bigger bird. A very phoenixy, ostrichy, eagley, fucked up superbird. "/That/'s your true form? It's... Kinda..." It's so cool holy crap that is amazing. Tina doesn't say it, but it's obvious from the look in her eyes that she's thinking it very VERY hard. The distraction only works for so long, however, as her attention returns to the fight! Japhet's shrieking TENOR forces the streamer to cower under Uncle Sam once more, although the mostly metallic robot thing is rather good at conducting electricity and very bad at protecting Tina from it. She howls with pain and drops onto a knee, propping herself up with her hand before turning to August when she hears his plan. "Got it! Ach... Alright, time for the shotties, you stinkin' birdbrain!" Slapping the side of Uncle Sam's leg, she hops onto the Persona's shoulder while swapping her own and its guns out for THREE SHOTGUNS. Remington, of course, even if two of them are oversized just for Uncle Sam's use. Following August's lead, Tina and Uncle Sam advance on the phoenix, aiming to ram all three of those guns into his face for BIG LOUD THE GUNSHOOTING.
Doctor Strange	THE BATTLE Gentle white light bathes the Sorcerer Supreme's head, his palms pressed together. The deafening silence imposed by Japhet's attack dissolves, returning his hearing in time to hear Yuuki's question. He /definitely/ heard her--but he offers no response, save... "Nah. This is a Stephen Strange Original." The weights from his earlier attack dissipate into clouds of rapidly fading orange motes, burning away like sparks in the wind. The chains follow suit, but the glyph rings remain. The Sorcerer Supreme levitates into the air as Japhet emerges fully, hovering at sufficient height to meet the Zone Guardian's gaze directly. At his command, the mandalas which spat out the weighted chains flip and invert, each one becoming a burning ring of sparks--an interconnected web of portals. He knows what's coming--but it doesn't do any good. Before he can manage a pre-emptivc strike, Japhet's screech buffets him, waves of sound lashing at his face, lacerating his arms as he raises them up to block. The force of the blow pushes him into the path of a lightning strike, which burns away the quite flammable cloth of his robe and leaves a blackened, bloody burn on his waist. He loses altitude... then stops, upside down. Lightning crackles around his arm, a small measure of energy absorbed from the strike. He points authoritatively, directing the energy through his body and out through his index and middle fingers, the mandala-ring before his hand spinning to shape the energy into a ray of white heat. It moves not towards Japhet, but towards the portal array Strange set up, creating an erratically moving hazard to harry the Zone Guardian's flight. SOMEWHERE It takes valuable time to locate any Elsen at all--Japhet has already transformed by the time Future!Strange manages to locate any. Even then, they want nothing to do with him. He kind of gets that. The man is a bloodied mess, and the storm is vicious. Luckily, he doesn't have to speak with them. The Sorcerer Supreme touches down, takes a seat in the middle of an empty, abandoned road, and assumes the lotus position, closing his eyes. A brightly burning glyph in the shape of an eye opens just near his crown chakra. Around Bismarck, identical glyphs wink into existence, spying on as many Elsen as possible. All he has to do now is wait until the end.
Starbound Flotilla	George is getting into the swing of things. He can feel the vibrations of the blasts. He can weave back and forth. "You ought'a be starting to get it, around now." He says, shifting through the pain like the battlefield version of a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man. "See this? This is despair. Right now, bet ya he could wander down the library to Elsen, and they'd give him a couple ounces more respect than he was as a cat. That'd improve his situation, wouldn't it? He could do a whole lot of stuff. But he's sunk cost." He flips backwards, an agile motion too swift for a man as old as he is. "He's got too much sin on his shoulders, and now he can't move to repent. And that's his torture chamber, see, is the thing. Dedan's too -- around here, it's not just the world around ya, but the world in ya, that tortures you." He takes one of the lightning blasts dead on with his electro-baton, and it explodes in his hands, wounding them both. "Fuck's sakes. I'm feeling pretty tortured too." He grunts, bringing the bat back out. "We're not guaranteed the win on this one, kids. I don't want you holding anything back. Goes for you too, ." He breaks through the storm, rushing into a mad dash. Going for another hefty, beefy swing, he goes for the neck again to stay out of the line of fire, and to hopefully nail this damn thing before it can dodge an effort to kill some of its singing a little.
Zero Kiryu	Zero is blasted back by the force of the winds summoned by the fully unveiled Japhet. The story that the bird tells is... it sounds familiar, to what they've heard of this place previously. Is it delusion, or does this one actually remember it all? The previous versions of this place? Does it even matter? Vines race and whip out, anchoring themselves on the building to stop him from being blown off of it altogether. The thundering boom of Japhet's call crashes into him like a hammer, his perceptions momentarily blanking out as his whole experience of input is a flash of dreadful damage across the entirety of his form. Vines vaporize and wither, flakes of rotted plant drift off into the winds even as further vines sprout from within his jacket. As he re-centers himself and secures his anchors, Zero looks up towards the massive bird and thinks of what he has said. The truth is... "Of course." Zero sways in place, the vines moving him more than he himself is standing or walking about. He says, "Most of my life has been an error of some kind. An error in judgement, an error in execution, an error in expectation. It's fine to make mistakes, and it's fine not to be able to fix them yourself. I don't know how long you've been here, and I don't know how long you've been making mistakes in this place." "But it sounds as if..." "It's been an awfully long time." "If you were ready to die, I don't think you would bother fighting back. Still..." "Aren't you tired?" Zero wonders, as Bloody Rose's tendrils creep about in every direction, individual thorns abruptly elongating from this angle or that in a poking and prodding sequence that appears to be at least lightly timed with the flow of his words.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki had never experienced anyone Truly Engage in 'Behold! My Final Form!'. For her, then, the emergence of Japhelt's double final form, for real, the most biggerest. Wearing the corpse of Valerie on its neck-head like a rather stubborn and corpsetacular choker, the great bird spreading wide its wings is stared at with big dinnerplate eyes in quiet wonderment. George, however, fills her in on the details. The weight of sin, sunk costs, and torture. "I suppose this is exactly what George was talking about. How three words can totally change our perspectives. But I don't think I need that, for this world. This torture chamber." Yuuki unclips Artemis from her hip, the electric crackle of the baton extending into a full-sized anime weeb scythe. She holds it loosely, idly twirling her weapon in her hand as more attacks buffet her, the awful tangible sound smashing through her rapid recovery like waves against a rock-face. She endures through them. It's her special skill. "But I don't need George to say three words to me to make me want to Purify this place. To know that it begs for an end, a break in the cycle. It's because I already said three words to him. 'I believe you'. That's good enough for me." Zero's words, and his thorny vines, already render meaningless using Artemis as more than 'a show', but it's her show, and the decision is always personal. "Doctor Strange! If you need the bird alive, I'd work more quickly!" Yuuki announces, her foot hooking in before smashing apart the ground in a single full-strength leap, raising up her scythe to swing Artemis right through Japhelt's chest. There's a surity to the whole act, an unrestrained notion that this, of all things, would work. The direct approach.
Priscilla	Japhet is much more serious now, no longer relying on a cat, and revealing himself in his full majesty. August's continued attempts to strangle the life out of him with horrid chainsaw whip roasting results in the millenial firebird slamming his wings and soaring up and back out of his reach. Taking to the air, the vines of Bloody Rose snare him and puncture his body with elongating thorns, restricting his mobility, and the combined assaults of Aoko's lasers, Strange's heat rays, and Tina's shotgun blasts, all spread across his chest and wings, only somewhat less accurate for the distance, causing vivid red to stain his plumage. George leaps to the fore and uses the old Harold Bat, some lingering, purifying spark rising to his determination to see the holy mission through, and sparking white from the impact, causing Japhet to reel and screech, blowing him back with sonic force. So is Yuuki, shortly after closing to melee range and biting deep into his flight muscles, the red oozing from a straight line causing his wings to falter, and the great firebird to crash back to the ground on his tall and powerful legs. The twin halos blast him both, and the Batter zips across the roof with Grace, pummeling the Guardian with repeated, measured strikes, silently following his divine guidance. "A torture chamber? On some level, maybe this existence is a kind of torture. As long as he ails, perhaps this place will never be right. Though long have I been a companion, I have had my fill. If it is my destiny to die, I would experience once last flight of glory, rather than quietly accept it, like the pitiful children below, merely waiting for death while living in mortal fear of it!" Japhet calls out, and the element of Smoke responds. The wind batters and slashes. The lightning spreads its forking fingers and crawls across the peak of the Great Library, frying those it catches within its grasp. Japhet's tone rises and rises, starting to reach beyond the range of human hearing, and the checkerboard, rather than the air or ground, quakes with its vibrations.
Tina Natsumi	"You stupid.. Freakin'.. Birdbrain!" Tina shouts angrily as she and Uncle Sam fire off blast after blast at the ascending birdo. "If you weren't so goddang stubborn, maybe we could work with you and find somethin' else for you to do. Relax! Go on vacation in some weird country! Find a job at a store with shitty customers to piss off all day!" Tina sounds weirdly angry about all this. "But if you really wanna die that bad, then don't think we're gonna give you any kinda glory on the way down!" The robotic Persona trembles as the constant barrage of noise shakes it to its core, and Tina can even feel her ears bleeding while that lightning continutes to steadily fry her nerves from the inside out. At least she doesn't need to be particularly nimble to aim her guns properly. Uncle Sam jerks and shakes as it smashes those shotguns together into some kind of double-barreled monstrosity that most certainly isn't just two Remingtons wedged into each other. Tina slams her own shotgun into the bottom of it to turn it into a triple barreled thing, and the Persona starts firing off slug after slug around Japhet. Around, not at. Yet, despite firing seemingly at random, its firing angles are all precise and just so that the slugs ricochet around corners, past people's heads, and all towards Japhet from increasingly bizarre angles to ensure he can't escape! Maybe.
Aoko Aozaki	Wind, lightning and smoke rise at Japhet's command. Blue sparks explode around Aoko, trying to dampen the incoming strikes with countless miniature explosions to repel them. It barely works. At least this time, as lightning tenses her muscles and wind almost makes her fall, she doesn't slam into the wall, so much as manage a dodgeroll that almost looks like it was intentional. "Can't blame you for wanting to go out with a bang, at least," Aoko muses, reaching out to the floors below to sense something, her fingers feeling the floor but reaching far beyond it. Hm. It's not as full as last time, but... That blasted room several stories down lights up like a blue sun again. It barely had time to collect any energy since last time, but it had enough to do something with it. And being creative can solve any problem. "Hey Japhet, wanna see something cool?" A single, massive blue circle spreads out until Aoko, runed and complex, spinning absurdly fast. Her body lets off a hum like a jet engine as she uses entirely Too Much Mana to power it. Then another appears, up above. And another, and another, until there's dozens of gradually smaller spell circles just floating around like an awful grid of mirrors. "Barrel, set! Chamber, loaded!" Several very, very long incantations, crammed into six words like an impossibility of language. "Bullet, spread!" The room below unleashes its built up VECTOR CANNON again. It fires straight ahead, hitting a spell circle. It redirects it towards Japhet, and past Japhet, into another spell circle. Which redirects it towards Japhet, and past Japhet, into another spell circle. This goes on for two dozen beams, until the offensively blue streak of light is thin and out of juice from all the redirects.
Doctor Strange	THE BATTLE "Noted." This is the Sorcerer Supreme's clipped response to Yuuki. Strange can't say one way or the other whether he wants Japhet alive. To do so would be to risk changing the events before they've unfolded, pushing everyone into a different timeline. It might jeopardize his chances. He pauses to catch his breath, wiping blood and sweat from his brow before it can sting the corners of his eyes. Japhet calls upon the element of Smoke. The lightning kicks up. This might be an opportunity to end it quickly--but he doesn't know. The Strange who does know is far from here, locked into a trance to obtain knowledge which would otherwise be hidden. /This/ Strange can only act with the knowledge he has at the present. When the lightning begins to strike again, Present!Strange deliberately flies towards it, arms outstretched with pointed fingers to draw the power into himself. He twists, rolls, and loops to do so without getting hit, but lightning does happen to be among the faster of natural phenomena, and the Sorcerer Supreme gets an ugly, black-red gash across his back for his hubris, visible as the Cloak of Levitation flutters and flaps in the gale winds. Strange gathers so much stolen power from the elements that the air around him seems to glow the same shade as the raking lighting strikes. Illusory fireworks obnoxiously explode and crackle within Japhet's field of vision. This is not the spell Strange gathered power for. No, that would be searing pillar of flame with the roaring head of a dragon. It explodes in a spectacular cone once it gets near enough to the Zone Guardian, showering the air around it with burning gobs of melted Library tower.
August Kohler	Lightning continues to strike, as Japhet moves out of the reach of August's whip. Instead, it attracts lightning, surging through the whip, into Dietrich, and into August, who is completely blasted backwards /off/ the Persona. He looks like a burn victim when he rises, even as the skin starts to repair itself, and he's still screaming in pain until he rises. "Fuck you, bird!" August is angry about that. This fight is going on too long. He leaps onto Dietrich's shoulders, and then, the Persona fires off its thrusters. It can't fly...but it can boost into the air, launching upwards, and towards Japhet. The whip sword turns back into a regular greatsword, and then - It goes slamming into Japhet's chest, trying to skewer him with fire and darkness bleeding out of it. But that's not all. It has one more effect. It gives August reach. The redhead runs across the thick blade with his arms stretched out for balance, before leaping off it and moving to actually /land/ on Japhet, drawing his knife in the process. Looking for weak points, August moves to start just stabbing that knife into Japhet with abnormal strength, as Dietrich tries to keep the flurry up. He's careful enough to try and avoid getting hit by his opponents, but if something big is about to come at him that'd obliterate Japhet, August leaps off, rolling to the ground. "Rest in pieces, already!"
Zero Kiryu	Lightning strikes one of Bloody Rose's many thorny vines, racing through its myriad branching paths and producing a distinct smell of cooking flesh as the electricity reaches Zero Kiryu within and fries him pretty good. Patches of charred, burned flesh pepper his body, smoke rising off of him for several moments afterwards. Everyone else has a lot of things to say to this Japhet, still. Or maybe they just have a lot of things to say in general. He doesn't know. His hand plunges into his jacket to draw out the gun component of Bloody Rose, raising it up to point towards the great bird. Years before, he remembers this gun pressed to his forehead. It was not held in his own hand, but it was ultimately Zero Kiryu's will that guided the course of events. Although a great part of him bore the desire to be done, and ended, and "safe", there was too much of him that couldn't do that. The gun was angled away by the time it fired. In this situation, he's quite certain that Japhet would make the same choice. But were there ever really glorious flights to be had here at all, or was that in itself a lie or delusion? Zero squeezes the trigger, a pink burst of light issuing forth from the muzzle of the gun.
Yuuki Kuran	Striking surely with Artemis, in concert with the vines from Zero's Bloody Rose, and George's 'simply' determined and high-speed assault born out of long years of experience in completely robusting giant freaky changeling parasite creatures around for daring to get into his way, Yuuki still has to contend with Japhelt's natural advantages: Namely, that it's a gigantic birdboss that she didn't slot Earplugs or Wind Resist 5 for, and thus, she has her time aggressively and painfully wasted by Mechanics. Buffeted back, this time Yuuki takes a moment to recover as the entire world rumbles around her, the checkerboard world thumping under her feet. She wipes at her ears, licking off the trickles she swipes from her neck. She breathes, and lets the exhaustion fade. She re-centers, and even the shrieking power of a Zone Royal Guard, for a moment, can't outpace her Just Being. "Alright. I understand. If you don't mind dying, then, we'll give you that wish. This, too, is a choice. One I can respect, even a little." "I'm sorry you're hurt, Japhelt. I'm sorry the world is cruel and hard. And I hope you can find peace. Thank you for not being as far gone as Dedan, who would not even hear our words." Resting Artemis against her shoulder, as Strange works tremendous spellery to consume Japhelt in volcanic eruptions and fiery dragons, Yuuki joins his assault with clasped hands, together in near-prayer. Unlike prayer, though, she does not hang her head: her eyes lock on to the bird. Spiderweb cracks in reality, shear tears of kinetic instability seize around Japhelt like bindings, grabbing hold and squeezing, crushing, constricting, nailing the great bird in one space to taste the entire fury of the Sorcerer Supreme.
Starbound Flotilla	George gets his shot in. His determination is tinted red, but it's pure. For all his flaws, George has one merit, and it's that he is a man who is, whatever he is, purely that. There is no complexity, no depth per se, just what the man is. But a while after he manages that, he gets blasted heavily by the rush of wind and a fresh sound. "No luck on that windpipe, huh...? Ahhh well." He mutters, weaving hard, still moving to the anti-resonant frequencies as best he can manage. Ol' Harold is probably tuckered out after doing that. With many of the others blazing away with higher-power firearms, George decides to swap as well. If he can dive between those big blasts and the barrages, he can leap up with August and quickly jam a brick of adhesive plastic explosives on the bird, then ditch as fast as he can. That'll mean dodging friendly fire too, not just the waves of sound. "Running on fumes here, kiddos." He says, trying to get a new cigarette in as he goes, to smoke through the smoke. "Ol' George ain't gonna be on his feet too much longer if this guy keeps up. I'm really, really not a fan of birds." Bad history, maybe. His voice is tense, and his teeth are gritted, but he tries to land and jam that off-white chunk of death between the feathers, then get the fuck outta there!
Priscilla	The giant turbo laser comes up again from Aoko. While it had devastated the spectre hordes before, Japhet seems to know it is coming before it even does, and easily leaps to the side as the floor formerly beneath him glows, melts, and then explodes upwards into a column of overpowered laser light. "Fool! Do you think I do not know my own Library? My greatest creation. The one that will stand long after I am fallen." He can't predict it all though. Not with the Choir pulling out all the stops. The mystical dragon engulfs him in a torrent of flames, mixing turning him into a black silhouette wicking away in the stream. Dietrich's sword stabs into him while the firebird is still staggering and blinking, August himself leaping all over and plunging his combat knife into the bird's surprisingly tough, pale, burnt flesh, until he is thrown free by a swinging bash of its beak on its long neck. Shotgun slugs bounce into him from multiple directions while preoccupied with august, punching raw and bloody holes into his increasingly red-soaked torso and putting great big holes through his formerly magnificent, now bloodstained and tattered wings. The Batter winds up, the halos join, and then slide down his purifying bat, and his form flickers and blurds, skittering around the roof in schizophrenic fast forward, smoke trailing in his wake until a single, devastating strike almost stops Japhet's heart completely, coughing up blood. Japhet begins to power forward. With that determination that his end is at hand, he hunkers down, leans ahead, and begins stomping towards the ground, tail dragging and smearing the roof with crimson, but wings pounding ominously. The checker patterns throb with that alternating pink and black, becoming painful to look at. He flinches and staggers when Zero shoots him in the chest, but keeps moving forward. Yuuki's vampire power twists and shears at his very form, crushing flight bones, breaking ribs, twisting and wrenching innards, but somehow he still staggers forth, blood drooling from his beak. Even when George plants his plastic explosive, Japhet plucks it off with his beak and hurls it into the air, where what might have been a finishing explosion only batters him stumbling to the side, and then back up, and yet relentlessly forward. "Yes, this is how it is meant to be, isn't it. Perhaps death will be more forgiving than this world. Hear then, the swan song of the millennial firebird, he who created and cared for Zone after Zone after Zone, and who wanted only the best for his children! May you never forget it!" Japhet's birdsong rises even higher through the inaudible pitches, into octaves yet undefined and secreted from human comprehension. It isn't the waves of sound themselves that deal harm now, but the sudden crashing, roaring, dizzying chorus of voices inside one's head, shouting over one another to be heard, louder and louder and louder, hurling insults and encouragements, epithets and epitaphs, condolences and condemnations, blessings and curses, damnation and forgiveness. The voices themselves rupture the body, their words escaping from the flesh like piercing spines, as the fragile vessel of flesh and bone cannot contain their sheer immensity.
August Kohler	August is thrown off, and rolls to the ground. He moves to draw his revolver to respond to Japhet's swan song, when the voices crash through his head, and rupture through his body, tearing bloody wounds through the young man, causing him to scream. Everything he has is thrown into healing the wounds, as he drops to his knees, constantly breaking open and healing closed. August Kohler is out of the fight. His energy's all spent on keeping him alive long enough to escape Japhet.
Starbound Flotilla	George sees where this is going. He knows what kind of place this ends. "Yeah, I thought so." He mutters. "Alright, pal. You got it." He finishes getting the fresh cigarette into his mouth. This time, he doesn't even bother to dodge in the traditional sense of the word 'dodge'. Instead, he just... Finds the Judge. He settles down, takes a seat near him, and finishes lighting up his cigarette, then begins to smoke. When fkuid voices pour out of his his ears, nose, and mouth, like streams of blood from a man whose brain is boiling, he takes it, and he sits right there smoking with the cat, because if he's gonna be out of the fight, the least he can do is watch, keep with the Judge, and hope the Batter has the last of this handled. He's well incapable of managing much combat right now, but he can handle that with some old-man dignity.
Doctor Strange	Strange narrows his eyes at Japhet, having been hit by every single sonic attack the Zone Guardian has made. "Nuh uh," he says. "Not this time." The Sorcerer Supreme beckons Japhet's own library to his will, in defiance of the bird's earlier proclamation that it was his domain. The terrain rises up into a mouth, curves back into itself, and becomes a funnel--the idea is to amplify Japhet's screech and blast it back, giving him a taste of his own medicine. That isn't what happens, because this one isn't a physical attack. It's a mental attack, and one for which Strange was nearly unprepared for. He marshals his willpower, as he did against Yuki, but ir proves a stopgap measure at best, fighting against the king of this particular hill. For every mental barrier, every deflection he makes, another compliment or condemnation bursts from his skin like some grotesque burrowing insect. He staggers, extending his Sling Ring and shakily walking forwards. The Sorcerer Supreme goes over the edge of the tower. Anyone who bothers looking won't find a trace of his passage, save for a faint, fading cloud of orange sparks. His body crashes into the antique chaise with enough force to snap one of the legs, and he rolls off of it, hitting the floor in a battered heap. Wong comes running in, yelling words at him--he can't really make them out over the buzzing. "I'll do it when I wake up," he says absently. He then passes out.
Tina Natsumi	The inaudible barrage of sond is too much for Tina to be able withstand, even with Uncle Sam's natural toughness. Feeling the bleeding in her ears leaking even past her hands, Tina's forced to fall back lest her head explode in a gorey mess! She'd stick around to watch that happening for anyone else in any other situation, but she's not on air right now. She doesn't even have healing abilities to offset that, so it's time to find somewhere to hide for the time being!
Zero Kiryu	It is, perhaps, merely his own ability to cope with tremendous mental strain that saves Zero Kiryu from the full impact of the bizarre voices that begin to damage his body. Bloody Rose's many vines go momentarily limp, the man himself dangling from where they had borne him aloft in a stupor that lasts longer than it really should have. Who were they? Why are they speaking like that? Is Japhet dealing with /that/ at all times? Does it matter? The first sign of life is a single twitching vine. Immediately afterwards the vines anchoring and supporting Zero begin to do so again, the uncomfortable 'hang' of his posture ceasing as a red light begins to shine within his eyes. The vines push him towards the ground, getting him to his feet and only serving as a barrier to stop him being hurled off the building altogether. His vision swims. "Yeah..." More vines regain their vitality. Zero has to with-hold a substantial amount of mental strength to stop them from spiderwebbing out into the surroundings and taking blood from his many incapacitated-or-close allies. "But..." The vines re-orient towards Japhet once again, creeping along the ground -- diminished from all the damage, as Zero is, but still like a murderous kudzu monster. "You said it yourself, didn't you? You make mistakes, as a ruler and as a parent. /My/ worst mistakes were made meaning the very best. Japhet... whether it's as a god, or ruler, or just a friend..." "If it were all about what we meant, we would have all the answers." He concludes. The vines surge forward and strike, like innumerable serpents gathered around a single great threat.
Aoko Aozaki	Aoko had not really predicted he had LIBRARY AWARENESS. That's kind of a super OP skill!! And much like others, she hadn't expected a mental attack. The escalating sonic attacks would've led one to guess they'd keep escalating until they couldn't, but the chorus of awful, screaming voices is a million times worse than than physical hit Japhet could've landed on Aoko, enough that she takes several steps back towards the edge of the balcony in that dizzied confusion. And with just enough awareness left to see Strange leap off, too, and sling open a ring of orange light, which clearly leads somewhere else. No, more importantly, it's closing. "Open!" Aoko manages, and shoves enough magic into Strange's spell to force the portal right back open, bent to her momentary and limited will through absurd quantities of raw magical power. She tumbles in after Strange, and then onto Strange, looking no better off than he does. When Wong approaches, the clearly-out-of-it Aoko grins. "Heeeeey, you should put us in the same bed, it'll be hilarious when he wakes up. I uh, I'm gonna nap too now though, stop my bleeding before you get rid of me, thanks." Aoko passes out! On Strange.
Yuuki Kuran	Dedan was a brutal fight that Yuuki had given her all, a fight she had taken dreadfully personally. It had been an attack against her principles. She had been Hurt by it. For the first time in forever, she had been sore after. But that soreness had given more weight to her actions. She felt better about it, even if it hurt. Especially since it hurt. With Japhelt, though, Yuuki didn't feel much of anything but pity. Empathy, as well, but lesser. A pang of knowing exactly how low it felt to be in a torture chamber of your own design, but not willing to forgive the sunk cost the bird-god had engaged in. A mental attack, however, shatters Yuuki's pretty little thoughts and moon-lit brightness, a sort of attack even she couldn't just Be through, one that no amount of 'getting better' could address. It's a screaming in her mind, wods bursting from her skin like mosquito bites on reverse, little plips of blood turning all of her clothes a sticky red. But the sound that comes out of her isn't the weird, visible 'phrases' of Spectres, but her own low howl, an angry sort of gutteral 'how dare you' dull roar. It's not loud enough to be heard, for herself. It's probably not loud enough for anyone else to hear, minds blasted with sound. But the anger rests solely on the violation of her own mind. One that had been just recently aligned in a more positive way. "I don't accept your pain, Japhelt!" She leaps up, Artemis rewielded in both hands, and makes one swing right at the neck - just below Japhelt's Valerie-corpse choker - to finish things before Japhelt did something like 'force everyone to experience torturous purgatory in lieu of a shitty bird doing it'.
Priscilla	Even as Japhet's swan song wipes most of the party out, devastated by the Final Form of a Royal Guardian, quite possibly ranked by power, but one that is obviously taken them completely seriously and putting his all into his final hour, the last three, perhaps even the fated three, remain standing against him. Dozens of Bloody Rose's metallic vines surge forth and piece into Japhet, burrowing inwards and extruding their cruel thorns. Artemis slashes deep through Japhet's throat, welling up a tremendous outpouring of blood down his slender crane neck. The Batter takes aim, forms his targeting reticle, and the triple blast of classic, wooden crack, and the singing of both Halos, finally knocks Japhet to the ground, crumpling in a broken pile, neck and legs at odd angles, in a carpet of white feathers stuck to the spreading pool of his own blood. "So, I have been slain . . ." Japhet gurgles, somber and remorseful, but hardly perturbed by the events. "You can be proud to have accomplished your mission . . . the Batter's." The Judge remains seated by George, visibly struggling to come to grips with what happens before him, his wide-eyed, dazed-looking, fixed and rigid, hollow grin readable even as a cat. All he can do is utter "Valerie . . ." again, but this time he calls his brother's name in a much different, sadder sense. "You've been defeated, Japhet, Guardian of the Second Zone." says the Batter. This land is now pure. Everything fades to brilliant, stark white light. Once again, as the blinding brilliance clears from your eyes, you find yourselves dumped into the Nothingness, your wounds healed and your energies restored by bathing in Purity, sat on the plane of nothing that seems to stretch over the strange text, floral designs, and the endless pit of secret whispers, that define this place between places. PISCES CARD obtained.