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Strawberry Princess      TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA, 7:03 PM

     Tallahassee has seen better days, and that's saying something. It looks bombed-out; craters and bizarre gulches of destruction pockmark downtown, from conventional weapons and magical blasts both. As Onyx Witch's warpath curves towards the city's center, one can see the escalation of tactics in the wreckage: first crashed helicopters that carried anti-materiel snipers; then the impacts of surface-to-air missiles that either exploded harmlessly against magical fields or fell, intact, after being disabled by mysterious forces; and finally the smoldering esoteric scars of magical girl dogfighting, still crackling with arcane energies in jarringly pretty colors.

     Almost half a million people are here, and despite the orders to shelter-in-place, the highways are clogged with people trying to make it out. Magical girls' blasts may be nonlethal, but collapsing buildings, gas main fires, and wayward SAMs are not. Stranger patterns of destruction spiral outwards from the warpath itself, smoldering blackness and electrical fires radiating in fractal trees from a birds'-eye-view perspective. Transformer substations are burning, pouring chemical smoke into the sky, while a natural-gas power station on the outskirts is reduced to an open pit inferno.

     On the horizon, a half-dozen shimmering lights are barely visible- presumably mahous designated as interceptors, in case Onyx Witch decides to break and run. Directly overhead, she's dogfighting with three others: a display of multicolored contrails like an unraveling ball of yarn, like glowsticks being juggled in the dark, like hummingbirds trying to joust. They trade energy blasts while trying to frenetically outmaneuver each other in three dimensions, the three adversaries taking care not to fire in the direction of the ground, while Onyx Witch takes no such precaution with her buckshot-like black clusters.

     The local radio chatter is incessant, but organized- a mixture of voices reasonably old and very young. Once onsite, Elites are haphazardly patched in: "-firmed ineffective against X-2 projections. No joy." "Possible Vizier solution on Cy4/Ca3 synergy, take it?" "Confirmed, linking Viziers to squads." A few seconds, the mahous above shift their tactics. One retreats, firing a few hasty laser-blasts to deter pursuit, while the other two nosedive towards the ground; Onyx Witch chases the pair, firing straight down after them and barraging the area with stray pitch-black bullets.

     The two mahous land just feet apart in near-identical three-point stances near the gathered Elites; one dressed in red with a floral motif and nautical cap, the other decorated in a feathery white aesthetic. The swan-like one looks up at the plunging Onyx Witch, while the girl in red gives the Elites a solemn nod of acknowledgement. "Rose Captain, Cygnet North," she says curtly. "We're counting on you."

     At the last second before a spray of bullets washes over them, they join hands: the swan-like mahou creates a hemispherical barrier a hundred feet across over them, sealing Onyx Witch, themselves, and the Elites inside a crystalline arena. Rose Captain turns the pair of them, and the hemispherical barrier, abruptly monochrome. The onyx blast hits them, tearing up the ground they're standing on- but they remain unchanged, frozen in time, suspended in the air above a crater.
Strawberry Princess      To her credit, Onyx almost immediately whips her wand around and fires a shotgun blast of energy up at the containment dome- but it splashes harmlessly on the stasis-frozen diamond, ricocheting fist-sized clumps of corrosive darkness around the intersection to chew into abandoned cars and building facades. It's only then that she notices the gathered Elites, wheeling around on them with wild and frantic eyes and floating down to thirty feet above the ground on her sparkling wings to get a better look.

     She's dressed in dark-gray robes, her stereotypical hat lost long ago, and her short blonde hair is matted down with sweat. Despite the vampirism of last week, her gnarled staff's crystal is already flickering and guttering on the verge of visible burnout again. Her hands shake; her pupils are pinpoints; to every physical symptom, Onyx Witch looks like she's on the verge of adrenaline-fueled breakdown. "Government sent you, didn't they. Go back to hell. I want the goddamn Langley kids."

     That's all the preamble they get before she levels her wand like she's shouldering a rifle, fires a wide-scatter blast that rips a cone-shaped hole in the intersection's pavement deep enough to see leaking pipes and sparking wires, and 'grabs' the chunks of rubble with her oversized wings to spin them into a protective orbit around herself. She laughs, even, before the smoke has cleared- the kind of deep, relieved chuckle of someone sloughing off unbearable tons of stress.

     Any kind of peaceful resolution, it seems, is going to be a very tough sell.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur Lowell arrives. He isn't wasting time. A big, spirographic opens -- a big, nice, wide one, one he may be bringing several people through. He's locked onto the coordinates as best he can, and gotten the gates as near as he can with all this magical interference. His broom is blazing with fire that marks an intercept course for any others to follow -- and those whose speed might be lacking can get a ride directly on the rocket broomstick, should they so choose. He slams hard into the ground near where the containment dome is summoned, well enough in time to see how it all goes down.

    As for what happens next...
N'Raha     None of this is okay with N'raha. Not a single bit of it. He'd originally been worried about fighting a Magical Girl but this was no mere little mahou. This was a Force of Nature, a Primal. An Eikon. A wave of destruction, hell bent of preserving itself through death and destruction and carnage.

    The funny little thoughts he'd had about fighting monsters the other night here are long gone. The 'color' matching nonsense is gone. In it's place is N'Raha's full kit, his gleaming red armor slaking that black torrent of energy away like a water off a duck, and the catman is already charging through the mess and the carnage to try and get in front of the girl. There's a blast of roiling red energy, and the Cat-Tank shoulder tackles Onyx, looking to drive her into the dirt.

    How do you tank a flyer? Get in her face, make yourself hard to avoid, and hope the others can keep clipping her wings.
Sumiko The magical girl of envy was standing right where the ambush point was to be, which turns into a battle arena.  Her jade sword in her hands as she watches the dog fight end in Witch being dropped in front of them.  She makes the accusation, but she's not exactly wrong.  The sword moves, aiming to deflect much of the buckshot as she could.

The rest digs into her magical girl outfit, blood dripping in small amounts.  Her wounds already start to close, and the outfit repairing.  Her eyes stare towards the other woman.  She was going to have to defend herself without even a chance to try and talk.  That's fine, talking and fighting seems to be a skill these days.  

"I'm Mikoto Shimizu, the Magical Girl of Envy...and I am not one from your world," She says, calmly, but moving in with a dash, magical green energy arches across her back as the flight unit stolen from Tanya forms.  She takes flight, aiming to close the distance with her, aiming to smash the side of the blade across the chest and try and knock the wind out of her.  

"I am here with the Concord to offer you a way to continue without...doing this.  However, I don't think you're in a mood to talk yet if you want to get it out of your system, that's fine.  However..." she looks towards Raha specifically, "Well I can't control the rest of them.  Some of them are really nuts."
William Pauwel Well, this is already going right to hell, isn't it?

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," William Pauwel, ACE GUNSLINGER, has on his lips the mantra of every single person who thought they had a great idea but then it turned out to be an absolutely terrible idea. The lingering void-stuff of the witch's magic sizzles and burns through his armored jacket, and he whips the thing off the first free second he has to duck behind cover.

He wasn't supposed to be in the melee! Will had intended to make an appearance to support Raha from what was ideally going to be half a malm away atop a piece of ruined building with a sniper rifle. But now look at him! Trapped in a bubble of magical energy with a crazy lady and a whole bunch of people whose idea of collateral damage is probably 'well it didn't blow up EVERY house.'

In other words, for a man whose soul and body are still recovering from flash-regenerating a pair of functioning limbs, Will is very much in over his head.

"Raha!" Will calls as he opens fire, launching a trio of plasma bolts into the air after the wicked witch of the southeast. "I'm going to need you to do that whole 'tanking' thing you like to do!"
Lezard Valeth A magical circle draws itself in a column of light at the target location. There is a sudden crack of thunder, Lezard Valeth appearing within. Those familiar with him might notice that this is a bit more overrought than his teleportation usually is.

Lezard appears within the circle, kneeling. One hand holds that nameless tome that accompanies him. The other an ornate staff of twisted black wood surmounted by a glowing polyhedral crystal. He stands, his cape flourishing behind him as he looks upon the tableau before him. Chaos. Destruction. Panic. The sight that happens whenever superpowered titans clash. And this world's titans happen to have cute wands and costumes. That does not change the essence, no matter how much attempted social control and expectations are heaped upon them. In fact, sometimes all it does is cause... This.

Lezard says nothing while the stasis dome is set up. He nods in affirmation to them, and then he awaits the establishment of the containment field.

Onyx Witch strikes immediately. The blast rips across Lezard, searing lines across his body and flesh as pages whip out of the tome to ablate parts of the magical front around him. He grimaces in pain, but through an act of will, he does not stagger, only grimacing against the sharp pangs of pain across his body... And he steps forward. "Do not speak of Hel so casually, Onyx Witch." Lezard speaks, his voice carrying over the chaos to reach her... And those around her. "I am Lezard Valeth, Sorceror of Midgard. I have come to this world to work with you and others like you. I have worked with magical girls from other worlds in order to research solutions for their travails. I wish to give you an opportunity to choose another path." He pauses, gesturing. "You do not have to die here. You do not need to fade away. Sparkle Blue has not requested your death. Much the opposite. She asked me to find a way to heal you. I am willing to work with you and bend all of my skills to this task, if you but stand down and come with me peacefully. We can negotiate with the powers that be of this world at a later time."

    He adjusts his glasses, and frowns for a moment. "It is not too late. Committing suicide in this manner is not something that befits someone who rages against their fate."
James Bond      There is one helicopter which hasn't crashed. That's because it wasn't here before. It comes over the horizon, passing by the mahous standing watch for Onyx Witch. Its pilot wears a standard-issue flight suit and helmet, his face mostly obscured by said helmet. He transmits his callsign, one more voice among the radio chatter. It's an American attack chopper, like the rest, but the pilot is on loan from somewhere else. Even through the distortion of the tactical radio, his British accent is clearly heard.

     "007 to Cygnet Captain, requesting approach angle," says the pilot over the radio. It buys him just enough time to make it inside the dome before it's sealed. The tail rotor is clipped by Onyx Witch's shotgun energy blast, sending the chopper into a spin. The pilot is skilled, however, and keeps it from crashing. Mikoto is trying to appeal to her better nature. Lezard, too, surprisingly.

     Normally he would, too... but this is work. This girl is a professional. Whatever innocence she has has been sucked out by the nature of her work, and all that remains is a killer. He can respect that. He can give her what she wants. Bond's thumb flips open the firing controls just as he brings the chopper to a screeching landing.

     Missiles, carried on screeching cones of fire, hiss as they take off towards Onyx Witch. She wants the girls from Langley, but she'll have to make do with a man from London.
Arcadia Arcadia's arrival over Tallahassee is heralded by the sonic boomb of her hyper velocity as usual, though with the chaos already underway it's more of a sound backdropping the roar of conflict than anything else. She circles around once to bleed off some of that speed, admiring the light show already going on as she does so, then swoops down to join the rest of the gathering offworlders. The sphinx pulls up to stop at a hover, though wings remain spread at the ready. The flashs of magical dogfighting glimmer across her visor.

"I don't think peaceful is going to be an option. This guardian has strayed too far from the path of sanity..."

A point proven when Onyx Witch is brought down to be trapped within the field, only to open up with her dark blasts across the newly formed arena.

Haha, this is Arcadia's sort of fight. Lezard can take the time to try and talk if he wants, she's a woman of action. High speed action.

Even before the staff is completely up and firing the sphinx is back on the move, leaping from her hover to spiral to the side and roll away from the arcane fire being buckshotted out. "Oh yeah, we're gonna play that game, and yer gonna be the one losing it!" With the twirling motion Arcadia comes back upright, bringing up her own arms as the magitek in her armor whirrs and glimmers to full power.

"Hit her hard and hot!"

Arcadia releases multiple orbs of flame towards Onyx Witch. But they're not your standard magic fireballs. These zigzag in motion, weaving side to side, up and down, making their approach difficult to judge and evade, before each one detonates in a blazing explosion.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur takes a shotgun spray dead-on. His spatial warps redirect chunks into close calls, but he comes out with a slice off his HEALTH VIAL. He speaks through the barrage. "I'm not a fed, Witch!" He calls out through gritted teeth. "I'm Arthur Lowell! Listen! I know what you did -- I /saw/ it." He did, in a way. "Are you doing it again? Is that what this is about, drawing in more Mahou until you can get a shot at their gems?"

    He rises as well, drifting into the air. "I know what it's like, fightin' an Expiration Date. But this has to stop, Witch! I don't wanna be fighting you, but I gotta if you're doin' this! You've /hurt/ people and you're hurting more!" With something this focused on a single person and this inherently dangerous, it's surprising how intensely he's shifted his emotional gears.

    Between what's happened between him and Strawberry Princess so far, and the deep understanding he has with the deep psychological pain of an Expiration Date, he can't afford to engage with this with anything less than his whole earnest heart.

    "You can't put people at risk like this when you Expire."

    He shatters the cover on a glass-protected keypad on his battle-broom. He has yet to enter anything in, but it's ready when it's time. Then he moves, dodging, weaving, maneuvering aggressively to brutalize the swirling, grabbed concrete defenses from mutliple angles with sprays of gravity bolts and starlight, intent on stripping them and forcing them down through heavy use of gravity, and following up with high-intensity gravity and kinetic blasts through any gaps he can make. He blasts like a machine-gun and moves like a dogfighter. Perhaps it's familiar.
Lilian Rook     "Jesus Christ, I'd have liked two minutes *before* they decided to tell us about this. Look at that. Helicopter snipers? Missiles? This is what they were trying before they gave up?"

    Thus is Lilian's take, hurrying in as much as it can be said she does anywhere, once Strawberry Princess' voice hits the radio.

    "Disgusting."

    Though she'd heard only the basic premise, she's arrived properly clad for battle, and it seems to be a good thing she is. Homing in on the source of the signal, Lilian takes the remainder of the trip from the warpgate at technically visible high speed, streaking over the edge of the cityscape and plunging into the heart of the mess, angled like an interceptor missile changing course to track Onyx, cutting a faint haze of short-lived dark mist in her wake. Where she lands, she stares the girl dead in the eye, finally getting her first glimpse of the crazed teen.

    Her finger twitches at her hip. Oh but that's right; she doesn't have a gun. She left that behind on purpose.

    Before much else can happen though, her first words aren't to try and 'reach' the girl high on combat adrenaline. The much more salient danger to address is:

    "Valeth?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Are you *collecting* them now?! Little magical girl dolls?!"

    The buckshot blast comes at her by virtue of being in the front zone. She turns sidelong and steps through overturned traffic, briefly occluded by flaming car wreck, and then steps out barely twenty feet from the Magical Girl. Blink and you'll miss it. Don't blink and you'll still miss it. Deciding she doesn't have time right now, she wordlessly lines herself up with N'raha's vector, then leaps in to tackle the girl from the perpendicular side, the 'circuits' along the suit flashing once when she aims to take the staff arm to ground before the rest of her.
Tamamo     'A person in need, or a monster in waiting?'
    'A wayward comrade, or a betrayer?'
    'A resolution, or a miracle?'

    Magic rains down within the confined space, unfocused, yet universally dangerous. Tamamo no Mae stands well within the range of destruction, only swinging upward her mirror, the oversized artifact responding to the vague motion of her hand, to defend herself. She is harmed regardless, but all that breaks through is minor in comparison to what could have been. Her preparations made, she bleeds, torn ragged, yet the wounds already begin to heal themselves. The pained expression passes as paper talismans burn away, their magic spent, and renewed strength fills her. With all that, even with all that, the healing is not so quick as to keep her out of danger.

    "That," she says, making no move to attack, "was Arthur Lowell. He speaks truly, as do I, that this is a personal interest." She hasn't actually asked Arthur how exactly he feels about this, but there's not really the time to hash it out. "I serve no governments. I come to see whether you shall end your path in hope or tragedy. I am the living spirit of the White-Gold Sun, goddess of growth, healing, and eternal fire. Will you not seek another path, before your journey ends? Time runs short and, soon, it will be still."

    Most here have probably met at least one or two gods of some kind, but the way Tamamo slowly glows like a beacon of light and power as she talks is still not likely to be 'obviously divine' to many (likely excepting Lezard) just for lack of reference points. It's clearly /something/ that catches the eye, and more so for the target of her magic, the one her own eyes lock onto, that Onyx Witch. Tamamo's magic tugs attention, attracts curiosity, engenders trust, assures sincerity. If at all effective, Arthur's words will be more inexplicably persuasive merely for her having called attention to them.
Strawberry Princess      N'Raha rushes in with an impressive leap coming through the rising smoke, and slams into Onyx's chest- but the impact is diffused across her body by her glowing gray Shimmer Aura, turning what might be broken bones into a light scrape. She responds almost dismissively by slamming two pieces of rubble into him on either side, then trying to toss him back to the ground with the telekinetic force of her wings.

     Lilian slams her from the other side, diffused in the same manner, but drawing a yelp from someone not quite used to that kind of pain. Onyx doesn't have the strength to pry her adversary off, but manages to just barely pass her staff to her other hand behind her back before it can be twisted away, then uses the threat of a point-blank blast combined with her telekinetic wings to squirm her way out of the grapple.

     After a moment's hesitation, she tears off Rose Captain's headset with her wingtip- evidently not affected by the same temporal stasis affecting Rose herself- and dons it, before backflipping further back into the air in a manner similar to how Strawberry did. She uses that to banter back at Mikoto, even as she's clashing the sword attack with her own durable wand- she's not as strong as the other magical girl, but bears the shock to her arm and retaliates by shoving Mikoto away with a particularly large chunk of concrete. "Envy," she says with a little titter. "No. Fuck you. I'm done working 'for' people. Done that for long enough."

     Lezard's pleas for a treaty catch her eye- for just a moment. She doesn't want this, it isn't hard to tell- wants to revel in destruction for a while, but even now she's naggingly aware of the sudden stop that's sure to come at the end. "You'd put strings on it," she says hesitantly, like she can't quite believe it herself. "I'd rather die than go back. To that." She points her wand at him menacingly, but doesn't quite bring herself to pull the trigger... even if Lilian's words make her grimace, her eyes turning a little harder as she stares into his.

     William's trio of bolts, Arcadia's homing fire, James Bond's rockets, and Arthur's dogfighting pursuit converge on her near-simultaneously, interrupting that train of thought.. She responds by abruptly breaking left, smashing through the window of an office building, and spiraling around each floor in turn, lighting the windows up in rows as she weaves around desks and cubicles before erupting from the top floor, smoking slightly but still largely in good shape. The orbital field of defensive shrapnel she drags along behind her in her wings takes on a new character of plundered materials, full of burned paper and splintered furniture and computer parts.

     "The world burns 'authority' into you early," she says- making brief eye contact with Arthur as she darts through the building, but said to nobody (or everybody) in particular. "Mother's scolding, daddy's belt. Don't they? And they hope you don't unlearn it in time; stay scared. But I finally got more scared of something else. You wanna call that 'expiration'? I've never been more alive." Even here, even now, her voice is heavy and plodding rather than frenetic.
Strawberry Princess      Swooping back into the open, she dives to the ground- more specifically, to a toppled power line, its wires severed and sparking in a pool of water. She puts her hand on bare electrified copper, her fingers wreathed in an unearthly black flame. She stands there for just a moment as the debris shields her, uncertain, swaying- looking, hesitantly, up at Tamamo. She lets out a shuddering breath. "You don't need to tell me I'm out of time. I don't need it on a god's authority. There was never going to be a happy ending. Not for this."

     The black fire on her hand intensifies. It spreads out near-instantaneously across the power lines like a virulent contagion, erupting as spiked fingerlike tendrils from the streetlamps, from the stoplights, from the office buildings with their hundreds of electronic devices. The tendrils instinctively try to gouge and impale whatever they can in a torrent of horrible scrabbling, but she's vulnerable as long as she's on the ground like this.
N'Raha     One, then the other massive piece of concrete SLAMS into N'raha's armor, splintering and battering it, sending him to the ground, in a cloud of dust and rebar and-
    Oh, he's standing. The armor is getting scratched, but the catman is planting his feet again, his ax hefting in his hands as he watches Onyx go zipping around the arena, doing her magical girl stuff, burning the last bits of her life away like the last fumes on a tank of ceruleum.

    A series of mental calculations, all about the best time to make another leap for her, now that they don't have surprise on their side... and then she grounds herself, and the real 'magic' begins. N'raha growls, and starts to charge in again. A glance to Lilian's position, and Mikoto's, before that ax starts to glow bright. Everyone still seems frankly like they want to take in the Crazy Murder Magical Girl, so okay. He's just gonna keep up with that plan. He swings hard and to the left, trying to angle the strike towards the other ladies.
Arcadia Arcadia scores a few hits, in part due to the motion of her projectiles finding the gaps in the orbital debris shield, and a healthy bit of hitting at the same time several others moved in on the target. Then Onyx Witch crashes through a building trying to take cover and rebuild her shield.

That's not going to help her for very long.

With a wicked grin Arcadia dives right after her, wings folding in tight to blast through the smashed window opening unscathed. Followed by immeadiately juking up to pass over a desk, while grabbing the chair behind it with her tail... But rather than whip it at Onyx, she spins around to throw the chair to the side, hitting a set of filing cabinets to knock them over in an effort to keep from being pulled into the regrowing shield. One gets the feeling this isn't the first time she's dealt with someone that utilizes build-a-barrier techniques.

Several weaves and winds later she also barrels out of the building, pulling up into the air while Onyx goes towards the ground. She's hurt, she's down, is she--

An alarm flashes on her HUD and Arcadia switchs it to the UV enchantment. In this view the power lines light up in bright bizarre colors, noting the more than electrical energy cascading through them.

--Instead of diving in directly for another attack Arcadia abruptly changes tactics, hitting the boosters to speed away from the power lines just as the corrupt claws are erupting from them, only snatching at the empty air in her wake as the wily sphinx zip zing zooms away from their reach.

The evasive movements bring her back in line with Onyx Witch's position, and Arcadia decides to do something about the shield she's been gathering around in a maelstrom of debris around her. Harrier boosters engage, resuming her usual midair hover away from the thrashing claws. She draws a magitek device from her inventory and holds the long instrument out in front of her, in both hands. Arcane energy flows through her arms into the device, rings of energy spinning into existance around it the end arpetures open to reveal the megadiamond lens starting to glow in the center.

And then the powerful beam of energy erupts from the weapon towards Onyx, the air around it sizzling.

The arcane cannon blast isn't just to blow holes in the defense barrier though. This is Arcadia's special weapon, the Inertia Disruptor. Whatever it hits will lose the force holding it in motion, which Arcadia is counting on to drop chunks out of that barrier, or at least weaken the debris' movement enough for others to find openings through it.
Lezard Valeth The response is as he expected. She wants an out, but she doesn't want to pay for it. The fact that Lilian sabotaged it, perhaps unintentionally, as well doesn't go unnoticed.

    He'll address that later. "You get nothing for nothing." Lezard says simply. The black tendrils slash out at Lezard, ripping into him and drawing blood down the side even as he turns and lashes out, the staff cracking the ground as a burst of arcane Force washes out and forces the attacking tendrils back. "I cannot ignore your actions. The matter of your continued life or death has been decided."

    There is an explosion of magical force around Lezard, the mage blatantly allowing the energy to flare into the visible spectrum as it roils about his wounded body. He swings the staff above his head and points it at Onyx Witch. "DARK SAVIOR!"

    Abruptly, the shadows move, a potent force ripping them through the air, a hundred black blades shredding around the magical girl in a torrent of murderous umbral sharpness. "I will show you just how far you have fallen before the end."
Sumiko Mikoto brings her sword to bare, trying to cut through the black flames that were those claws.  However, try as she might, using her blade to brace through the attack, the black fire tears through her body, causing her to fly away from the force of the attack, and hit the ground.  Her body was very thrashed by that, even her healing was taking a moment to catch up.

Using the blade, she forces herself up to her feet.  Her blade comes down again, retaking the battle stance as she eyes the other magical girl.  There is a time to talk though.  "I didn't really pick the title, just what it is," she laughs back a little, only to have the yelling start all over again.  

"There are no strings because the way you get power in the Concord is by working on it yourself.  Nobody holds your hand, nobody gives you handouts.  It's tit for tat, and what you get is based on what you put out," she says, as she leaps back at the girl.  This time, she charges with a plan.  

Right as she gets to the magical girl, she uses Touta's magical drain ability to try and form a barrier as she tries to shoulder check her, trying to break through that barrier, before she swings her blade up to try and catch the rod and smack it away.  

"I stood where you were once.  The difference is...when you burn out, you stop having powers.  When I burn out...I turn into a witch.  We die and become horrible monsters.  Look.." she says, trying to keep her own mind together through this, "One orphan to another, there is better out there than this end."
James Bond      'I'm done working for other people.' 007 sets his jaw with determination. That's exactly the problem. She sees the strings, but it's far too late to cut them. How many times has this happened? Too many... but there's no point in trying to stop it. Eventually, they'll get him too. They'll send someone younger, faster. Or they'll swarm him--just as he's part of a swarm now.

     The ejector won't engage with the rotor still spinning. The cockpit won't open. But it has to--because he sees what's coming. 007 kicks it. He doesn't think about the implications of his strength. He doesn't question it--he's just that good. Isn't he? After three solid kicks the cockpit is wrenched from its metal housing, flying upwards. The slowing rotor slaps it violently, showering him with broken glass. Unflinching, he reaches behind the pilot's seat.

     The Walther WA2000--it's heavy, but not for him. A sleek, high-powered sniper rifle in a bullpup configuration. He'd meant to get to a vantage point, but Onyx Witch and her opponents forced a hasty landing. No matter--he'll make it work for him. Tendrils explode from the console of the attack chopper before he can escape the cockpit.

     In a hail of sparks, one pierces 007's leg, straight through. It looks grizzly. He's had worse. He tumbles out of the cockpit, breaking into a roll and tucking the rifle in. A trail of blood runs down his leg, splattering onto the ground, and yet...

     He rises. Easily. Bond breaks into a sprint. There is nothing in his eyes, his face a stony mask as he races towards the nearest non-electrical cover--a chunk of rubble shorn from a building during the fight. He shoulders the rifle, turns off the safety, and finds a shot. The head, that's too obvious. And too difficult to hit, with this windage. He aims for the vitals, instead.

     Crack-crack-crack. Bond takes the shots without remorse. He's aiming to kill, even though he knows he won't--not yet. The tough ones, you always have to wear down. The old ones, they never want to die. He wonders if he'll be the same way. If M is working through plans to retire him someday soon.
William Pauwel This is not what Will meant when he asked for tanking.

"This was a bad plan," Will concludes as claws of black flame scramble out of every electronic object in his vicinity. How's she even doing that? Some kind of weird electricity-corrupting magic? Will is suddenly glad that his arms are now made of meat again instead of something that could potentially turn into horrible black-flame claws at the drop of a hat.

He might be a dork, but he's not /enough/ of a dork to have to struggle against evil powers sealed in his arms, damnit!

"Listen to them!" Will yells over the sound of what little remains of his protective gear being torn to shreds by shadowy claws. The explorer's build is distinctly muscular in that scrawny, travels-the-world-on-a-few-cans-of-beans kind of way. "Just because you ain't going to have magical girl powers anymore doesn't mean you have to be an 'ordinary' person either! That's just in yer own head! Look at me, all I've got is a CRAZY GUN and I'm--"

Beat.

"Uh. Standin' half-naked in the middle of an on-fire warzone." Will pauses and frowns. "...Maybe that wasn't th' best example. But there doesn't have to be anything 'ordinary' about you just 'cause your powers go away!"

Will aims, Will fires. Terminal Judgment, his ever-trusty sci-fi superweapon unleashes a crackling blast of superheated plasma that arcs cleanly into the air. It pops and coruscates, more a bolt of lightning than a blast of energy, leaving in its wake the distinctive scent of ozone and rapidly degrading free radicals. "Or d' you mean to say that power's the only thing worth anything about you!? I can't believe that could be true!"
Lilian Rook     Colliding with the 'shimmer barrier' or whatever Strawberry Princess called it isn't a surprise to Lilian. Getting ahold of the girl is the point. Not having the grasp she'd like, the older girl improvises by turning her momentum around Onyx Witch's arm, twisting up to a full handstand over her, wrenching it painfully out of position. The girl tosses the staff to the other hand, aims it, and Lilian is tactically savvy enough to be out of the way, dismounting like a gymnast and then rolling under the blast like a soldier when she hits the ground.

    "This is going to be . . . not easy." she says, breathing out with the distinct impression she'd just swallowed the words 'pain in the ass'. She taps her communicator only long enough to say to Strawberry Princess herself, in firm, earnest seriousness, "We're not going to kill her." A pause, then another tap. ". . . That's as far as I can guarantee."

    Planning her next move, she watches carefully through the maneuvers that follow. The way she ars and zips and dodges, the turning and acceleration of her flight, the distance of the telekinetic rubble and its ability to follow along. The last touches of a tactical outline forming in her mind, Lilian remains still, crouched low, gathering energy and conserving movement, until Onyx Witch comes back around. Her eyes are locked to her hands, one to the staff, one to the fire. She tracks it to the power lines --and then almost too little too late when the fire spears out of the engine charger behind her, seemingly completely unrelated to the power lines at all.

    Lilian only gets to move enough that the gouging thorn of magic skewers through one of the affixed back shoulder inserts on her suit, off center from her chest. The dull gunmetal ripples like a crushed soda can, corroding instantly with the texture of tarnished silver. It fractures and breaks the instant Lilian falls forward, the inside wet with red blood, corresponding to the shallow stab against her shoulderblade, part of the suit peeled open and smoking. The air shivers like gravel against her skin. The residual magical flame and smoke slowly bleeds away, several seconds longer than the attack.

    Sucking in air through her teeth, Lilian rolls over and kicks up off the ground, incidentally crushing the hood of a car when she vaults off of it, gaining height to the apex of the controlled area directly on top of Onyx Witch, in line with N'raha's axe swing. Instantly, she reorients herself in the air, aimed downwards, and then drops unnaturally at high velocity on top of the magical girl, throwing much greater force into her second attempt at a takedown while her barrier is still up --a fast and powerful forearm blow to the back of the neck and knee drop to her back, judiciously applying what it'd take to pin her to the pavement this time.

    She doesn't see much sense in trying to talk to the girl right now. She's hysteric. Even if she can hold a conversation; there are all different kinds.
Tamamo     Black flames. Tamamo practically leaves herself open, taking the strikes just for the chance to stare at Onyx Witch, to keep her eyes locked, to show that she really is here for this, to talk, no matter how hopeless it appears. Flames like tendrils fly out, less densely where she stands, but again, she is scored. Standing without attempt to dodge, only taking some of the attack against her apparently indestructible mirror, others passing through her flesh. There's a great deal of natural resistance there, but again she bleeds, her healing charms only slowing it down, stemming the tide and washing away the pain only after she's finished grimacing with the effort. As much as her healing is a powerful asset, and as much as pain is a thing that can be remedied, Tamamo no Mae has little actual resistance to the sensation.

    "I have asked this once today, but I shall ask once more. Would you seek a resolution, or would you seek a miracle? To fight the warrior's thorny path, to die sword in hand, or to seek 'that which is impossible'?" She speaks that loudly enough, using the radio to be sure, but there's more to say.

    "It is because it is impossible that it is a miracle." She doesn't make any promises about what will happen. "You would not entrust yourself to another, I see. Even at the cost of everything. The miracle 'in which the whole world is defeated,' is that what you would seek, in a prayer to the gods of war? Or is to your own death, after all? Would you not consider asking another, to do that which cannot be done?"

    Perhaps she should be straightforward, but that's almost physically impossible. It would be so much easier if humans in this era prayed for their desires like normal people, rather than keeping the gods guessing. It is likewise not so much straightforward as surreptitious when a talisman flies from Tamamo's hands, a thin line of paper seen edge-on, in the direction of Lilian, to sacrifice a bit of Tamamo's own wellspring of healing for her knight's sake.

    "I will wait for you here. I will ask nothing in return, and why would I, a foreign deity, need to? I would only see you choose that glimmer of hope."
Arthur Lowell     Tap tap tap. Arthur configures the broom as he pursues on a rocket-ride, slamming buttons on that exposed keypad.

+-------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
|                KING BROOM SYSTEM                |                          |
|              SETTINGS AND FUNCTION              |  [X] POSITRON THRUST     |
|                                                 |                          |
|                                                 +--------------------------+
|                      ,gM00@M~'                  |                          |
|                   _g000~                        |  [ ] PURGE TO NEXT       |
|                  p000'                          |      ROCKET STAGE        |
|                 p00P                            |                          |
|         _f     j00F        _pg00000&g_          +--------------------------+
|        _#      000       p000000000000&,        |                          |
|        0f      008      0000@~`     ~M00&       |  [ ] BLACK PROTOCOL      |
|       j0      j00f     000~            ~M&      |                          |
|       00      J00f    j0F                "&     +--------------------------+
|       00c      00f    40       __         ^Y    |                          |
|       00&      #00    4f   _p00000&g       ^    |  THRUSTER MODES          |
|       #00       #0&   4I  g0M~~~M0000g          |                          |
|        000       "00g  # #^       "0000g        |  [ ] DASH                |
|        "000,       `~@*-|ag,        "000g       |  [ ] CRUISE              |
|         "000&,        p'l  ~0&g      ^000       |  [ ] CHARGE              |
|           M000&g,_,gg0' J6   M0&       00&      |  [ ] SPRINT              |
|            ^M000000M~   4#    #0&      400      |  [ ] ESCAPE VELOCITY     |
|     `          `~`      #0     00f      00      |  [X] UNSTOPPABLE FORCE   |
|      #,                j08     00&      00      |  [ ] PLAID               |
|       0g             _g00'     00&      08      |  [ ] UP A GODDAMN NOTCH  |
|        M0p,_      _gM000'     j00f      0       |  [ ] LET'S DO THIS SHIT  |
|         "00000MM000000@       #00      j'       |                          |
|           "M0000000@~        j00F      !        +--------------------------+
|                ``           p000      '         |                          |
|                           _g00@                 |  BLENDER MODES           |
|                         ,g000'                  |                          |
|                    .qgM00MP^                    |  [ ] STIR                |
|                                                 |  [ ] CHOP                |
|                                                 |  [ ] MIX                 |
|                     WARP                        |  [ ] PUREE               |
|                 RELEASE CODES                   |  [ ] LIQUIFY             |
|                                                 |  [X] CRUSH ICE           |
+------------+--------------+---------------------+  [ ] CRUSH BONES         |
|   ACTIVE   |    DANGER    |      CRITICAL       |  [ ] RIP/TEAR            |
+------------+--------------+---------------------+  [ ] ATOMIC DISASSEMBLY  |
|            |              |                     |  [ ] ANNIHILATION        |
| ********** | ************ | ___________________ |  [ ] LET'S END THIS SHIT |
|            |              |                     |                          |
+------------+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------+
Arthur Lowell     Inside the building, as he blasts through it behind her, he winds up taking tight corners by running on walls, blasting down long hallways on his rocket, and redirecting his velocity through quickly-fired short-range Gates to keep behind her. He throws in another gear. He won't let her get away from what he has to dish out, and what he has to say. He moves with such flight skill and agility that his movements seem almost impossible.

    "I know it hurts! I know it /fucking sucks/. But you're heading for something /awful/! This second chance-- you know how this ends! You /have/ to! Please, even no chance at all is better than this!" He bursts out of the roof just when Onyx Witch does, crashing out in a broad spiral. "I know expiring hurts like death, but it isn't. I've been there, on the other side. I'm still there, still /expiring/ like this. You don't have to end it like this. There's still heroism. There's still making choices that hurt, they hurt a lot, but they're the right ones, the ones that /do good/!"

    "Come /here/!!" He rushes her down, weaving and dodging as hard as he can to get in close. Blood sprays. The Health Vial slices off. He skids over the ground, darting in as fast as he can to get in close. He's uniquely positioned to even portal through some of the defenses. Not closing with the blender broom, though. With an open palm. He lashes out to snatch an arm, with a white-knuckled grip if he can get it. He twists, as if he's going to perform some complex judo maneuver, and then... he pours energy into her. He blasts huge volumes of entirely unexpected, easily-tapped energies. Energies roiling with so much potential that, when untapped, they boil inside. The likely feeling will be like being twelve and brilliantly magical again -- but intensified beyond bearability, past the threshold of pain, since she has no vastly draining technique on-call to exploit it. An adrenaline rush, uncontrollable. Shockwaves of light and searing solar fire threaten flesh and sight alike, gravity cracks the ground beneath their feet.

    Arthur speaks, with Tamamo's backing. Somehow, it even manages to convince Arthur of what he's saying in its own way, making him less uncertain. "When you were younger, did you see people like this!? People who were burning out!? Retiring!? Hitting their expiration date!?" He shouts, with a heavy pain sitting somewhere in his chest like a stone. "What did you think, then? Did you admire them? Being willing to do all this on a time limit!? Didn't it seem heroic!? Did you ever aspire to that!? Please, Onyx Witch! What did you think you'd do, when you became a magical girl!? I'm not asking what the /authorities/ or the /propagandists/ or the /parents/ told you, what did /you/ want to be?! Was it /this/?! Was it /any of this/?!"
Strawberry Princess      Onyx breaks hard around N'raha's axe-swing, using her wings to maneuver in the limited space that touching the electrical lines allows. She's agile even when so constrained, able to pull off rapid physics-defying acrobatics while still holding onto the power lines- but there's only so much she can do, and it bruises her back as it scrapes off of her Shimmer Aura.

     Arcadia's attack meets with rather more success- not just a brief cry of pain, but her defenses momentarily crumbling as the orbital debris freezes and falls to the ground. Her cover useless against the attack, she twists in the air despite her hampered agility, lining herself up with the beam face-first and then barely rolling out of its way in an expert three-dimensional maneuver to avoid just the tail-end.

     Lezard's attack meets with more success, along with a reminder of the second timer this fight is under: her eyes are tracking the umbral blades almost as soon as they materialize, her wings tensed to evade it- but a second after she kicks off the ground again, the wings flicker and go out. She lets go of the power cable, stopping the shadowy assault, and hits the ground hard. She bounces and rolls, shimmer aura failing to protect her, as the blades sink into her body. Onyx howls involuntarily in pain- but it changes back to a scream of rage as her powers flicker back on, like the last drops of gasoline sloshing around in a tank. The shimmer aura kicks back in, pushing them out of her skin but leaving her covered in cuts.
Strawberry Princess Through some miracle of professional composure, she still manages to fend off Mikoto's attack. Her wings swoop in, barring the attack; even when they flicker again under the antimagic assault, it's still allowed her enough time to roll out of the way. She shifts the wand to one hand as Mikoto strikes it with her sword, letting it easily twist to diffuse the momentum: no coherent fighting style, but the deep carved-in-bone intuition of a survivor. "I don't want to hear it. You're not like me. You don't know me. You've never felt this way. Stop talking!"

     Lilian's falling attack is neatly foreseen, too. Onyx glances up at the movement in her peripheral vision, meeting the Immune's eyes at the peak of her jump. Hysterical though she may be, for just a moment it's a look that's too familiar: that distant-and-clear disciplined look that Strawberry has, even more dissonant on a seventeen-year-old than a twentysomething. Then she launches half of a fax machine up to disrupt Lilian's trajectory, diving out of the way with a burst of magical thrust- by the time Lilian lands, she's twenty feet away.

     Bond's ruthless marksmanship is impeccable as ever despite the intervening combatants and debris, and even Onyx can't dodge bullets. It soon becomes apparent, though, why the military gave up on trying to subdue her that way. A close-fitting gray forcefield flares in the area around each impact, turning penetrating shots into staggering bruises: he can see the dark mottled color spreading up her neck off of one on her collarbone. Maybe that end comes for everyone in his line of work, but this world has evidently bitten off a bit more than it can chew.

     Will's shot, too, finds her center-of-mass neatly, and despite its energy-based nature finds much the same amount of purchase as Bond's bullets. It crackles and coruscates as it washes over her shimmer aura, leaving her hissing from the burns as she brings up her wand in a failed defense, but still standing. "This is the only way I've ever had to be special," she says, in an eerie mimicry of Strawberry's own words. "I can't give it up. Could you?"
Strawberry Princess      But the irritating impacts put her off-guard for Arthur's (heart)rending attack. He seizes her arm, and she brings up her wand in her other hand to ward him off- but the unexpected energies stun her. For just a moment, the gem at the end of her wand glows brightly again. The energy infusing her reinforces her shimmer aura against the solar fire and crushing gravity, but it can't save her from being 'burned' from inside-out by the overwhelming flow. Her eyes are wide and watering with pain and shock, her whole body frozen bolt-upright.

     "No," she manages quietly, as her voice shakes from the ongoing infusion; the rubble aura intensifies, momentarily insulating her from the rest of the fight. "It's not. I... I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people. This isn't right. But it's what I'm stuck with. I have to die. Please let me die as myself." Feeling this way- it's got tears running down her face. But he's gotten her to admit she wants the impossible, instead of feeling condemned to this fate.

     Her eyes turn to Tamamo, still unable to bring herself to shove Arthur away. "I want that. To have that spark again. To be a hero. But you can't give it to me. If you could, why would you?" It's in her voice- she wants to believe it, but it hurts to. Hope takes bravery, and she is terribly, debilitatingly afraid. Scared to die, but more scared to live. "I want to be fixed. But you're not here to do that."

     Finally, she manages to wrench her arm out of Arthur's grasp. At that moment of magical discontinuity, her wings falter again, surging uncontrollably. Her gathered objects explode outwards in a scouring, bludgeoning, sandpapering blast of splinters and rubble and pieces of office appliances, embedding inches deep in every exposed surface. That's the cute for her fighting instincts to rev up again- she staggers backwards, still teary-eyed and in shock, and fires another simple shotgun-blast into the crowd, tactical acumen momentarily abandoning her. Despite the energy overcharge, it's not quite as potent as her opening salvo.
Sumiko Mikoto stands her ground, she tries to avoid as much of the shell with a strange barrier that appears in front of her, silently thanking Tanya for the barrier, but enough of the buckshot gets through again.  Bleeding from her arm this time that used the barrier.  She can't keep this up forever, but thankfully neither could Onyx.  

"A teenager who doesn't have a family, given power and no choice but to use it, but a strong desire to keep it to retain some sort of individuality?  To be someone in a world of faceless and small people overshadowed by larger ones?" Mikoto says towards her.  

"Look, you're not the only one in this position.  It wasn't in a fight but Arthur reached out to me too.  Others did with him, and I found a family again.  I found something I could call my own.  I also found rivals too, but hey."

"I'm still afraid of burning out, becoming a witch and hurting the people I care about.  Or innocent people that had nothing to do with it like what happened to me.  It's not your fear but," she looks around, "Your fear is leading you to a similar place."

There is a pause, "I'm not good at this, I got my own problems and issues. Well sometimes I feel like subscriptions, but I'm trying.  I'm an envious woman, and greedy to boot.  I guess I want to be special too, but right now most of all I want to try and gain back some of my life."

"Isn't that what you are trying to do, in some little way?  Put your fate in your hands?  Well, trusting others...believing in others won't take fate out of your hands.  It just means your holding someone else's hands while you take it.  There is no weakness in that, no lost resolve."

"Oh man, listen to me, becoming a real after school special.  Look, stop...just take Arthur's hand and we'll find a solution to this, ok?  No tricks, no strings, nothing like that.  Arthur is just dumb like that."
Arcadia It soon becomes clearly apparent why Arcadia only used this special weapon when it was most tactically sound do so. Instead of having a long charge-up like many WAVE MOTION CANNON type weapons, it has a long cooldown. At least to her perception of time, the additional seconds it takes the disruptor to power down and disengage from her magitek systems feeling like a lifetime in it's own to a speed demon.

She barely gets it cooled and stowed back away in time for Onyx Witch to recover and throw her arcane tantrum, sending the debris that had been her barrier hurtling about the battlefield. Still her reaction is drop dead quick.

"BRAKE WIND!"

The magitek turbines built into the apex of her wings thrum loudly as they spin up to super speed and unleash a pressurized wave of air that lives up to the terrible pun of the name for a most part. The pressure wave collides with the debris shower and breaks it by braking it's momentum and sending the larger pieces tumbling away from her.

It's the smaller, closer to actual shrapnel, objects that are fast enough to get through the wind burst, causing visible sparks of mana were they collide with the protective ward her armor provides and minimalizing the damage. There's a few cuts visible amongst the stripes on her upper arms, but nothing that's going to severely hinder her.

Gaze hardens behind the visor, feline eyes shimmering. She holds her arms up in front of her, this time the arcane rings zinging around her own forearms as swirls of energy start gathering between her paws.

"As another walker of the fate of a Guardian, I will not allow you to sink the point of becoming a great hazard to the world you once protected..." A pause, and then a slight fang-glinting smirk. "And as a daredevil, I respect the wish to go out in a blaze of glory instead of wilting and wasting away!" The glowing spheroid is released into the air. "BLAZING CASCADE!"

The orb hurtles towards Onyx, but as it does so it bursts into several smaller spheres. Which then burst into more, that start discharge their energy in clustered bursts of fiery sparks from several directions so the edges of the cones of effect overlap just enough to make it difficult to slip between them.

It's one of those attacks that's not about damage per say, it's about putting a serious restriction on the amount of area her opponent has to move freely and counterstrike.
William Pauwel This is a bad plan.

Admittedly, it's already far too late for Will to care about how bad of a plan he may or may not be concocting. He's already in a situation that is, frankly, utterly and completely untenable. Flashes of jet black flame tear through what little cover remains on the blasted, dome-covered battlefield. But the pain in this girl's voice-- the sheer, animal terror that comes with losing a pillar of one's own identity, these things resonate in a way that they aught not to. That they /haven't/ done in the past. And yet, here and now, they stir something deep within the Gunslinger's heart.

Maybe it's just something about her. Maybe it's the rage burning in her jet-black flames. Maybe it's the familiar hatred and loathing and fear that accompanies loss. Maybe... Maybe it's just the result of being submerged physically and spiritually into the absolute essence of mankind's despair, only to be rescued by the only force in the world that /can/ rescue a person from that sort of thing.

"Damnit, damnit," Will curses, spits, hisses. "This isn't a good plan. This isn't a good plan-- but I--!" The shotgun blast shatters the last of Will's cover. Shrapnel digs bloody, jagged wounds into his shoulders. Will bites back the pain, darts out from behind the wall, aims his weapon and fires...

Into the ground behind him.

There's a sound like a sonic boom as Will hurtles bodily through the air. He grits his teeth, righting himself with another quick burst of gunfire, his weapon acting like a makeshift vectoring thruster. He'll only get one chance at this.

"You..." Will hisses as he nears the end of his arc's trajectory. "You...!"

Will throws open his arms--

And launches himself into a hug with every ounce of strength he's got left in his battered, bleeding body.

"Damnit, girl. There's nothing about you that needs to be fixed...! This power yer clingin' to, it's not YOU. It might be a part of you, but it's /you/ who's wielded it all this time. You, that special person that there's only one of in this entire world. I understand, it's hard. It's hard t' be in this place, not knowin' what'll come tomorrow, tryin' desperately t' make things /certain/ 'cause that certainty, even iff'n it's certain death, seems like it's better n' safer than bein' afraid of what MIGHT be."

"I can't imagine what it was like, livin' each day knowin' that every single day brings you closer t' the day you finally go out. But-- the sun might be settin' on this part of yer life, but there ain't nobody who knows what it might shine on when it rises again! We need to cling to that hope, to that uncertainty, 'cause it means that while life ain't the best in the moment, it CAN get better tomorrow. And if it doesn't, there's the day after, and the day after that. An' right now, there're people here that're willin' to help you take those steps. So you don't have to be alone in the dark, so you can borrow our light 'till the sun rises again. But you need to be there for that to mean anything-- /you/ need to be there."

"Y'all say there ain't anyone who cares for you for anythin' but yer power... But then, why are there all these people, right here, puttin' their life and limb on the line t' prove otherwise?"
N'Raha     There's something to be said for gods. When they're on their game, they're on their game, and Tamomo and Arthur are on their damn game tonight. N'raha's respecting that. Both the SPACE KID and the uh... Tamomo, he hasn't met this one but she's making a hell of a first impression.

    His mental precision on maintaining his Tanky-Tank wavers as he watches the Miracles nearly happen, but Onyx seems to need her end... her way.

    Once again, N'raha does the Tank Thing, standing right there against the point blank blast, turns himself into it even prepping his next shot. He's the dumb one with no resolve, remember. Standing right here, point blank with a literal vampire death god mahou. There's noise, so much noise as more attacks come in and people keep yelling and killing and it's just.... So... Tiring.

    And then Hugging. Will. What are you doing your blood is all the way out of your body.

    And then Even Mikoto steps in and shares. Fuck it.

    He plants his ax in the asphalt between himself and Onyx, yanks off his helmet, and tosses it into the rubble so he can look her in the eyes. "Listen to these two, kiddo. I'm here because I put a stop to things like you, but-" Those green eyes flash in the incoming fire from Arcadia, and winces, trying to maintain that eye contact. "But you've got people here, instructed to kill the fuck out of you, trying to walk you back from the end. Because the little girl you stole the life from wants you to be okay."

    "And now, you are going to stand there, and you're going to give them an answers, and we are going to abide by it." He slams his fists together, and then... a chain whips around his hand, to his ax, and he turns in place, planting himself between.... uh... Arthur, Will, and Mikoto and Onyx, and

    Everyone else.
Lezard Valeth 'I am not a hero. I do not continue to dally about and provide chance after chance until they have worn me down. She has made her choice.'

    Lezard, as one might expect, does not continue trying to reach the girl after she has rejected the attempts to reach her. "You foolish girl. You are too afraid to grasp the multitude of gestures offered you. You are afraid to be hurt again. To fight again. But to live is to fight. To live is to feel pain."

    Almost in response, the blast comes, the detritus battering at him. Much of it is turned aside by his papery shield, but the energy blast breaks the guard once again, punching through and scorching Lezard. He stares into the light as it collides with him, the burning remains of hope and light ripping into him.

    The light fades, and Lezard remains standing, his body sizzling and burned, as if he was standing in a microwave for several seconds. His exposed flesh is covered in painful-looking burns, his face and body cut by flying shards and debris.

    Somehow, he continues to stand, energy building and coruscating around him. "And you are afraid to die. To accept the dignity of the final end of a warrior, to die with a song on your lips and with the grace of a lord of battle. You cannot choose, and so the choice is made for you. The end comes." The energy surges wildly.

    "If ye trust that thy eternal bonds may be broken,
        then let my words be as a vengeful blade upon thee!"

    Behind Lezard, a giant spear rises, summoned up and enruned with sigils of power, apocalypse, and destruction. It spins around, seething, and blasts forward on a roaring wave of deadly force as the dark spear lances with seemingly unstoppable force straight for Onyx Witch!

                              "COSMIC SPEAR!"                              
Lilian Rook     "God dammit, this isn't working." Lilian groans, hitting the ground exactly where Onyx Princess had expected her to be. "I don't . . . I'm not--" She breaks off abruptly to turn past a chunk of flying fax machine, leaning back is it goes sailing past her face. "--trained for this soft hands take-them-in approach with these types. Not more than they're trained to get away at any cost."

    Lilian bites her lip in frustration. Her eyes are fixed on the impacts against Onyx Witch' Shimmer Aura, now much more so than her attacks. She sees bullet bruises. Cuts. Her fists clench.

    "Tamamo. Please keep trying." She looks across. "Otherwise they're going to kill her. Don't let that happen." A pause. "You're the one who answered my prayers, right? I trust you."

    She waits for her opening. A break in the chaos of the dogfight. Not a moment where Onyx Witch herself is vulnerable, but one where there's a moment where she isn't being attacked.

    The Magical Girl's powers reignite. The shrapnel blast comes down on her. Lilian braces at a sprinter's start.

    Lilian is right beside Onyx Witch. Onyx Witch feels a severe blow to the side. The tremendous impact through her failing aura; the sudden inexplicable snap of rib and contusion of muscle, wind driven out. A horrible little frozen instant of pain dug up somewhere in her subconscious brain and thrust past the fore. Happened. Happening. About to happen.

    Lilian's arm, however, is dead set on being clutched around the magical girl, such that she can't turn her head away, and Lilian herself is body blocking the rest of the group from following fire, however cosmetically. This time she doesn't try to disarm the girl, but solely secure several seconds where she can't get away, tied together so closely that the girl can hear Lilian's voice over everything else.

    "They're not here to do it, no." she says, practically into Onyx's ear, while she could be getting in a few more body blows. "They're here to show their authority. Mother's scolding on one side; turn yourself in and give up. Father's belt on the other; join me, get back in line, do as you're told. They're here to solve the problem that is you." There still appears to be no further attack actually incoming. "You don't have to stop. You don't have to give up. But if you want for any of this to be better, I'm your only chance, do you understand? The fox woman is here to help me. The loud kid . . . just focus on me. Not the rest. You don't have to listen to them. Shut it out. What they think they know about you is wrong. What they want from you doesn't matter. What I'm going to tell you is all that does."

    Everything about her voice . . . nothing about it is quite normal, but everything about it is 'right'. She sounds like she already knew what the magical girl was thinking before she came here --exactly what she wanted. That she already knows exactly what to do. That she is ten steps ahead and the girl only has to follow the markers laid out for her. Even though Lilian is barely any older than her --or maybe because of her-- there is a near-magical, absolute surety to it. "I can help you. Anna. I can help you be Onyx Witch. But not here. These people won't let me.".

    Only at the end does she finally make an effort of throwing Onyx Witch, though the effort isn't likely to do more than frazzle her aura on impact, and Lilian mostly ends up in a position bogarting anyone else from following up.

    That includes Will. She, will, in fact, get in the way to intercept the ridiculous flying hug and drop Will like a rowdy protestor taking a run at the president. Incidentally, of course.
Tamamo     'I will ask nothing in return.'

    'I want that. To have that spark again.'
    'But you're not here to do that.'
    'If you could, why would you?'

    'A question was asked. I will grant an answer.'

    Again, the dark magic rains. Again, pain passes over Tamamo's face, coming and going. Her magic, her divinity, her very being is suited to resist this. She is the Sun, as she has said, and Day banishes Night until the appointed hour returns. Still, it hurts. Even as she heals, it hurts, where clothing is torn, blood flows, her feet struck while her mirror protects her face, her tails twitching as the fur is seared. It's not too much for her, and she does not fall, nor even stagger, but in those moments before she renews herself with blessings, seeking to at least stand straight and firm until the ordeal is over, even those hardly-aimed attacks wound and wear away at her. Her stock of prepared talismans only grows smaller.

    "'Why would I?' Not for jewels. Not for power. Not for burnt offerings. Not for the blood of the sacrificed. Not for convenience, gold, boasts, nor even allies. Not for your fellow magical girls, and not for your world." Nothing really changes about Tamamo as she speaks, except that it is /more so/. The intensity of a presence that not just attracts attention, but commands it. A growing, warming light. An attack upon the mind that asserts that here, here is something beyond the ordinary, to which 'magic' is a poor, rushed, simplistic answer. Here is one with true claim over the Divine, says that sensation, to the primitive part of the human mind. "Why would I grant unto you such a miracle as you seek? Because you sought it from me. Because I Am."

    The promised answer, in all its simplicity, "Because you asked."
James Bond      The 'genius,' the man on the broom, the god, the witch... even Valeth. All of them are trying to talk, except him. What's the point? Why even try? She won't listen. She knnows she'll be a nobody, and she'd rather go out with a bang than accept that life. A life of mediocrity. A life of being powerless--not in the literal sense, but in the grand sense. She's smart enough to know the best she can be is a has-been. Smart enough to know that she'll be cast down with the rest of the pawns. The 'genius' is wrong--power is all there is.

     007 observes the effect of his attack. It's as he thought. The old ones, they never want to die. They always make it difficult. The trapping may be different, the scope of destruction all the more so--but the underlying theme here is all too familiar.

     The tide is shifting. They actually think they can talk her down, save her. Why should they get to do that, when he's failed so many times? He tries to bury and surpress the dark satisfaction he feels when she rebukes their efforts.

     'I want to be fixed. But you're not here to do that.' 007's back is pressed to the rubble he's using for cover. Onyx Witch's shrapenel field explodes outwards. The thick, shorn cross-section of building has protected him from the worst of it, but it begins to crumble. The shotgun blast pierces through it, slicing his arm. He nearly drops the rifle.

     He pops out of his cover, lining up a shot... Will's in his way. "/Bloody/ idiot," Bond spits, as the young man's frame obscures the sight through his scope. He tries to find a shot, but he's unable to--not with Will and Raha both in the way. He lowers the rifle...

     Valeth makes his decision.

     'Commit to your path, and stop trying to convince yourself.'

     "Smart girl."

     Bond shoulders the rifle, waits for a shot, and unloads. The others can keep trying to convince. He came here to do a job.
William Pauwel Lilian gets in the way of Will's tackle hug.

This poses a slight problem, as Will is both A) In possession of quite a bit of momentum, having turned himself into a human projectile and B) Still capable of correcting his velocity by use of his handy SCI-FI PLASMA WEAPON. "Aaaaa---" Will yells as he careens right into Lilian. "---AAAAAAAA---" He continues to yell as he's bodychecked right into the ground. "---AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA---" He yells /further/ as he keeps right on accelerating toward his target, except now he's covered in gross combat detritus and probably some melted asphalt.

And yet, the future refused to change...!
Arthur Lowell     Shrapnel barrages Arthur's body. Sprays of blood. The Health Vial slices off yet again, as he barely musters a barrier. So much of his energy was converted to external Aspect that he hardly had any for his own defense. He pants exhaustedly, coughing hard. He keeps his arms crossed in front of his face so he can speak a bit through the blasts. "I can't give it to you! Wish I could. Wish this could be fair. Fuck the feds! Fuck all them! I'd give you your own fresh, hot gem, straight out of the oven, full'a infinite Aspect, tell you to fly off wherever and earn it with some heroism--!" He kneels from the pain.

    "I want being a hero to be easy! I want it to be /easy/ to not hit your Expiration Date! But it isn't! Fuck! It never is! Instead, it fucking /hurts/." He's blown off his feet by a shotgun blast, despite its lesser power, simply because he's takling it head-on. He struggles to his feet through a haze of pain, eyes gleaming and shining bright white. "But this is what being a hero means! That's what /not Expiring/ means! It means when you're at the shitty edge of Expiration, when you can't imagine making the right choice, you make it anyway. It feels /impossible/, but you pull it off. Right at the edge of that horrible fucking pain, you /get it/."

    "You're falling. I don't give a shit about setting you right, or throwing you in the slammer, or fuckin' rewarding some thing you're worthy with! You're /falling/ and I can /reach you/, so I'm gonna /reach/ until you're /saved/ or /dead/!!" He shouts, leaning on his broom and clenching his fist with a heavy white-knuckle grip. "This! Isn't! What you /want/! You want to be a /goddamn hero/! Expiring is what kills that. Expiring is what /kills you/. Heroism ain't goddamn magic, it isn't how hard you can beat the shit out of monsters!"

    "Being a hero, not Expiring, is when every goddamn ounce of power screams to give up solving the hero way, and start solving the special proble-solver way! When all the fucking brutalities and inanities and unfair bullshit parts of the world scream, 'just do it once', and you say 'No.'"

    "Fuck the feds, fuck the power systems, fuck the pundits and the handlers and the propagandists and whoever else. You wanted to be a goddamn hero! And you /can/! Just reach out and don't fall!" Arthur's voice is raspy from the shouts, less emphatic and more panicked, earnest, and focused. But it doesn't stop his eyes from taking on a blazing white light. There's bodies between him and the girl, but despite them and despite the staggering, he still reaches his hand out.

    It's an offer of that same massive excess of power. It will still burn horribly. It will still overcharge her abilities. But right now, it's the best option he has to show he means what he says: Be the hero, do what you want.

    However, it won't hurt her if she doesn't take it.
Strawberry Princess      Onyx Witch, evidently, doesn't care much about 'difficult to dodge'. She watches Arcadia's impressive elemental attacks carefully, and- though she's still shaken and weakened- steps into a tiny gap through the firestorm. Her wings scoop up one last piece of debris, using it to punch selective holes through the incoming curtains of projectiles; when she weathers the storm and comes out the other side, she's more or less unharmed. But she can't bring herself to fire back- not just now.

     Lezard's spear poses considerably more of an obstacle. The way her eyes widen shows that she knows what's coming- she flits behind an office building, but the spear tears through it. She assembles a shield of more debris, arranging them in sequential layers against the piercing attack, but the spear shishkebabs them all. She marshals her Shimmer Aura against it, but that flickers at the worst moment too, Arthur's infusion now beginning to flag- the two inches of metal that protrude from the last chunk of concrete embed in her abdomen, nailing her out of the air. At the last instant, she twists to the side on some instinctual reflex as she hits the ground, putting it just off-center enough not to perforate her aorta. Even as she wrenches herself back up to standing and her aura covers the wound, it's not hard to tell that she's in clammy shock.

     Bond's shots find her side, her neck, her temple. It's more or less pure chance that the one shot that isn't dead-on is the one time her aura fails her, tracing a shallow line across her shoulderblades. The rest knock the breath out of her, concuss her, send her reeling back against a half-destroyed wall. In a moment of lucidity through what's sure to blossom into some ugly head injury, she locks eyes with him- recognizes the kind of symmetrical kinship they have in the way he treats her like a monster to be destroyed. Then she staggers while trying to level her wand against him, and loses track of his position.
Strawberry Princess      The others' approaches are... more complex. Lilian gets to her first, because that's sort of Lilian's deal. Up close like that, she can almost hear the tachycardic heartbeat; feel, for sure, the ragged and frantic breaths. Onyx's eyes practically bug out of her skull at the mention of the name Anna. She almost asks the dumb question- "how did you know?"- but there's no time for that, and the subtle mindfuckery eases it out of her head anyway in favor of just listening. The rigid tension in her body, the way the fingers of her empty hand clench and unclench, the quiet sob, more or less confirm that Lilian has the hard read.

     She rolls backwards from Lilian's throw, letting out a ragged gasp from her injuries before pulling herself back up to standing, and barely keeps a hold on her wand. Will's heroic flying tackle-hug gets a similar choked sob from her- more from raw nerves and open wounds than from emotion, but still. She pushes against him, weakly- he may only be an ordinary injured human, but right now she's about as bad-off. "No," she says, her tone almost pleading. "I can work for it. I can try my best. But- I can't... I can't go back. I can't live, knowing that- that nothing will ever matter again." Her telekinetic wings push him off her, gently, but still subtly positioned by some tactical intuition to serve as a human shield.

     "You found a family again," she repeats to Mikoto, sounding... dubious, but warily, reluctantly hopeful. "I... it's not about trusting other people. Or about fate. It's about being useful. I don't think I can. Anymore. Not after today. Maybe you know that fear, but you don't know that... coldness. The feeling of it going out. Knowing that there's not much left of you to live. I don't... it's scary, now. To think that could be fixed."

     Tamamo, and then Arthur, make a compelling argument in tandem. Not to accept that things are going to be bad, but to have hope for something better. She's really, really crying as Tamamo's magic acts to soothe her mind, and as Arthur's magic- as she takes his hand voluntarily, in earnest- takes her back, if only briefly, to being twelve again. To being useful, and special, and a hero. "It hurts," she says quietly, in a voice that's almost familiarly hoarse. "It hurts, to... hope. And then- be disappointed. But you're right. I have to. If I'm ever going to be a hero again. So... thank you. All of you. I-"

     Behind her, the dome starts to regain its color, thawing from temporal stasis. A hole blows open through it, where she shot it two minutes ago. Her gem is shining brightly again, thanks to Arthur- she could sprout her wings again, fly out, try to find someone to drain with the minute or two she has left. But she doesn't. The wand loosens in her fingers, and then falls to the ground. "I'm sorry," she tries to say, but it doesn't quite come out.
Lezard Valeth     Most of the way through the battle and he sees all the efforts to cajole, convince, and drag her this way and that. With affection, with impassioned pleas, with conniving promises, they bombard her, many of them forgetting that they are supposed to be in the middle of putting down a rogue agent. But she is critically wounded. She is about to die. Lezard steps back, and gives some of his associates instructions.

    "And now we come to the end." The book flips pages, and Lezard holds out the staff, incanting while they continue to apply wiles or inevitably try to 'save' the magical girl.

    "Body, mind, soul. All are sheared away."
    "If to serve this purpose I shall be despised, my body scorched and blackened, so be it."
    "If to serve this purpose I must command forbidden magicks, so be it!"
Arcadia None of this makes sense to Arcadia. Not just the trying to 'hug' the enemy into submission. The entire concept behind why they are attempt to do so. This is an entirely unseen situation and unknown concept to her. She has never been in a position where trying to smother a foe in compassion was a strategy, much less a winning one.

Onyx Witch wanted a fighting death. Why are they trying to deny her that? Why force her to an end of mendacity, a shadow to be forgotten?

THAT makes the sphinx's nonexistant hackles raise with the shudder. No. Despite all the terrible things in the Multiverse that's the thing that would possibly count as scaring her. Being unnoticed. Forgotten. And incapable of correcting it. While the sentimentallity is lost on her, the depth of the plight isn't so much.

Lezard's remark over the comm snaps her back to reality. They have a job to do. That the thing that needs to be done isn't always the happiest ending, that's all too familiar. She starts to charge up one of her magitek blasts again...

And Onyx drops her wand. It clatters to the ground. The wand that, dying or not, is/was the source of her power.

The deeply ingrained SHOOT THE WEAK POINT moment flares up. Without even really thinking about it Arcadia lowers her aim, firing the the laser-like blast at the wand instead of the girl that had been holding it before getting mass hugged.
N'Raha     Oh hell no. One blast already made it past him and he can't stop goddamn bullets like that, but N'raha, Warrior of Light, is not about to let this happen again.

    Lezard starts encanting, chanting, calling up his hellsdamned forbidden magicks and this has been resolved and handled and he's not about to let a whole frigging array of Elites' works be flushed because of Lezard Godsdamned Valeth.

    Bravura leaps into the catman's grasp, his entire body flashes over with terrible ire. Once. Twice the energy builds up inside of him, boiling over with an awful red haze... but it is not the Beast that burns in his eyes. It is Defiance.

    He's already moving, the ax scraping up gouts of asphalt and concrete as he lumbers forward into a stiff jog in the Warlock's direction. "I surely hope you are not about to cast another spell," Raha's words start to echo oddly in the wrecked ruins of the COMBAT ZONE. "Seeing how you and yours just saved the world by talking an Eikon down from the brink, Lezard."
    Running now. Lezard's going to have to make a choice here. Or else he's getting a face full of Catte.
Sumiko Mikoto breathes a sigh of relief, everything seemed to be alright.  The girl needs some care, but she at least stopped before things got too much worse.  Maybe Lezard's final plan, whatever it was, didn't need to happen?  

Of course, Raha goes for Lezard, and out of duty to a man who had given her the chance she has, and a potential future one...she dives in, Flying ahead of Raha and interposing himself between the two.  Her blade thrust into the earth, as before her a hippo came from the ground, aiming to try and ram Raha away from his charge.

"Seriously, we just handled this and now you're going off after him /literally right now/.  The hell is wrong with you Watch?"
N'Raha     Raha comes up short and refrains from beefing Mikoto in the face by inches. He's still broiling. "He's gonna hex her after all you've just done to save her. He is Lezard Valeth and he does nothing out of the compassion of his heart, he was just trying to kill her, he is STILL trying to kill her MOVE MIKOTO."
Sumiko "Neither does he do things out of malice for it's own sake, you're just too willing to cause a mess once this situation was finished," Mikoto says, firmly in her defense.
N'Raha     "He cloned my friends dozens of times, ripped out his soul, made us kill him over and over and then sent us an icy corpse of him all so he could have that stupid goddamn tower." N'raha's breathing hard, but still isn't stepping past Mikoto. "So yes. YES HE DOES MALICE PRETTY GOOD."

    Raha doesn't even look over his shoulder. "LILIAN. ARTHUR. WILLIAM. SOMEONE GET ONYX OUT OF HERE."
Arthur Lowell     Arthur holds onto the hand. He isn't planning on letting go. Despite his exhaustion, he manages to eke out words through the panting. "Already a hero. Hero is what you call... someone who makes the /painful/ choice to do good. You stopped the damage." That's all that seems to matter to him. And he seems to be emphatic: This isn't about Making Tough Choices. It's about experiencing the painful consequence. She seems even willing to own up to the consequences. It's heroic.

    He can hear something going on. Something about Lezard, and N'Raha shouting. "M... move..?" He can barely muster the endurance to stand, but he grits his teeth, readies to shove the girl away and out of the way of some kind of hex, and... He looks, of all people, to Lilian. Lilian had a plan. And whatever Arthur feels towards her, he thinks she's the one to listen to -- for a given value of listen.

    He does something he hasn't done in many, many years.

    For a moment, just a moment, Lilian is suddenly aware that she may choose to ENTER A COMMAND. In this dire moment of sudden decision-making, should Arthur HOLD ON TIGHT to Onyx Witch's hand, or PULL HER IN to try to evade?

> Arthur: _
James Bond      Yes. She understands. There is no pity in his eyes, no remorse, but there is understanding. His eyes fixate on the wand as it's leveled his way. They watch it like the eyes of a predatory cat watching a threat, carefully following its motion. His entire body is ready to spring into action...

     He doesn't need to. She's done for. Retired.

     'I can't live knowing that nothing will ever matter again.'

     'It's scary, to think that could be fixed.'

     007 ejects the spent clip from the W2000. He doesn't insert another. He believes in nothing but his own skill, and the empty satisfaction of a job performed well. The 'work ethic.' He'd done his homework, before coming here. Enough to know that it was stupid to think they could save her. Her magic might be leaving, but it's the Americans who have really drained her--drained her of her will, used her to the very last, put her magic to use against its international rivals. More than them, it's the Game.

     If they really wanted to stop all this, that's what they'd go after. But you can't stop the Game. No matter how hard you try. He could try and end it--try and get in before Raha can stop Lezard. He's got his sidearm, his knife. But... can he? Before, when she was hurling magic, absolutely. Now that she's so small, and weak, and frightened...

     Arthur makes a stand, offers her his assistance. 007's fist clenches, his knuckles white with self-directed anger. Loathing.

     He rolls back the sleeve of his pilot fatigues, taps a button hidden on an egregiously expensive wristwatch. It flashes. Distant--the sound of a V8. A few seconds after, an '87 Aston Martin Vantage in metallic black crashes into the barrier. Tires squeal. It pushes through. A red light, tiny and unobtrusive, steadly blinks in time with the light on his watch. The Aston races towards 007, guidance systems navigating the rubble, wreckage and the others. It comes to a stop beside him, its door opening on the driver side to reveal... nothing and no one. He gets in... and leaves.
Lilian Rook     'Hurry.' 'Be swift.' The words don't have meaning to Lilian. The urgency exploding from the chaotic din of voices all around her; it's so much grey noise.

    She'd said to Arthur: "I know what you spoke about. You and Strawberry. And the MC. Those last few words. Trust in them for the minute. I'll need you."
    She'd said to Tamamo, for the second time: "I trust you."
    She'd said to Strawberry Princess: "We're not killing her."

    Those are the things that matter. Absolute points in a space only faintly concerned with the sequence going between them.

    "Onyx Witch had said --tried to say: "I'm sorry."

    Let them fight. It isn't their decision. It never was. Even before ever arriving, the initiative was hers.

    >HOLD

                -----[stop]-----
    Having spent so much of the battle trying to wrestle Onyx Witch down in real time had an ulterior benefit. Lilian's stores have barely been touched. Without being shot at, she has the opportunity to warm up --to spool out the future ahead before pulling it back to where it'd started. More than enough time; all hers.

    Up again, she dashes across the short stretch of open space, leaping rubble and wrecks alike without the dignity of looking. She dives right between Arthur and Anna, and catches them both around the middle with her arms. They're both teens who wish they looked older. They're light. Their weight is braced over her shoulders. Lilian crouches, bending her knees, building up power in her legs and ankles. The ground fizzles black just beneath her toes. She leaps again, this time almost straight up, then ceases to fall. Gaining altitude. Gaining distance. She curves shallowly around the sparse infrastructure that battle damaged Florida has to offer, keeping her line straight, speed maximized, angle flat, and range optimized. She doesn't let up until . . .
                -----[start]-----

    Arthur and Anna are deposited on a company building roof, blocked off all around by the denser parts of the urban landscape. Dropped, really; still holding hands. Lilian stops a minute to breathe, not even checking over her shoulder, before saying "We only have a minute. I said you'd need to listen to me. This is that time."
Lilian Rook                 -----[stop]-----
    Lilian needs that minute. A few minutes in fact. Inwardly thinking about so many times in so many days, she taps her smart device, glad to find that it still functions, after an initial sputter. She fingers quickly through the holographic pages, tapping through dates, times, and nearly sorted folders and operation logs like a pianist.

    A recording from just now. Audio pulled from just after that. A folder that says 'break in case of human trash', and then further logs scraped from the date she finds. Piecemeal work, done on the spot, but it'll do.
                -----[start]-----

    "I told you not to bring your dog with you, Valeth." she mutters under her breath. "I did say you'd regret it".

    August 27th: She taps the button on her display. "Aaand . . . saved."

    The video screen comes up again; this time it's where everyone can see it. A spectrograph belts the audio, only meaningful during the patches where there aren't --where it's pure speech. The very start of it is simply arriving, very obviously taken from a 'helmet cam' perspective, albeit off that level. There's the tail end of Mikoto gesticulating and saying something.

    ||she looks towards Raha specifically, "Well I can't control the rest of them. Some of them are really nuts."||

    The date stamp cuts to August 27th. The camera moves quite severely. It's the inside of a suburban home kitchen. The walls and floors are covered in seemingly corruptive, glassy tendrils.

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

    Extreme shakycam makes a part of it a blur. There's an angry male voice talking with Lilian's. It belongs to Ganondorf.

    ||Get a grip! How is killing this miserable sod supposed to help? Isn't that what it wants?!"||
    ||||"Of course that is what it wants," Ganondorf says calmly, "And it is what she wants, too. She wants them to die. She will not kill it until he is dead. She will delay, waiting for it to finish the job rather than take her decisive action."||

    Who they're talking about becomes abundantly clear in but a moment.
Lilian Rook     ||The labyrinth fades, and the witch gets away. For once, she doesn't care, this will be a problem that solves itself later. She takes a moment for her eyes to readjust to the new surroundings before she sees the sight in front of her.

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

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

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

    The audio clip plays:

<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Onyx Witch says, "... No family I know."
<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "Yeah, me too."

    The video cuts back in.

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

    ||There is a blast.

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

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

    More recent audio logs. Very recent.

    "There are no strings because the way you get power in the Concord is by working on it yourself. Nobody holds your hand, nobody gives you handouts. It's tit for tat, and what you get is based on what you put out,"

    Lilian's own voice.

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

    ||Mikoto's blade comes up, ready to try and push through Rean without a care in the world.||
Lilian Rook The date switches again.

    ||"I am Lezard Valeth, Sorceror of Midgard. I have come to this world to work with you and others like you. I have worked with magical girls from other worlds in order to research solutions for their travails. I wish to give you an opportunity to choose another path."||

    And again.

    ||This seems to be the site of the next Witch attack. Water seems to be leaking out around the doors, sounds of yelling and splashing within. The cause of the problem is obvious, the ghostly, glassy ephemera seeming to form a cylindrical wall around the entire building. Not only is it acting as an impediment to entry and exit, but it catches the water, keeping it contained as the level slowly and visibly rises.||

    A nightmare dreamscape of seven colours, storybook and corroding. Seven girls fitted with masks, broken and battered, falling to pieces, bleeding and crying out.

    ||IT ENDS WHERE IT BEGAN.
        YOU TOOK HER FROM ME.
            YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME.
                 IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU I WOULD BE HAPPY.||

    And even that changes.

<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "Remember how Valeth was doing those treatments?"
<J-IC-Scene> Princess Sarracenia says, "Yes, of course."
<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "It was supposed to be a trade, someone who wasn't a magical
<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "It was supposed to be a trade, someone who wasn't a magical girl to take the despair. I thought the exchange to be temporary, and he said he'd take care of them..."

<J-IC-Scene> Princess Sarracenia sighs softly. "I see. And...were these other girls willing participants?"
<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "I don't know...they weren't awake."
<J-IC-Scene> Princess Sarracenia says, "And you agreed to this?!"
<J-IC-Scene> Mikoto Shimizu says, "Yes."
<J-IC-Scene> Touta Konoe tries to say something with only a few mumbles and stumbles before finally something comes out, "Mikoto...What are you going to do about this?"

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "So seven girls died so you could skip out and live a carefree life, huh?"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Random girls picked off the street for this responsibility though; you can only expect a tragic outcome of some kind."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Just in this case it was tragic for ten other people instead."
<J-IC-Scene> Touta Konoe says, "Lilian, stop it's like you there's nothing to be done. If you're trying to give a lesson than now's not the damn time."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "There's an entire universe of people out there, who'll all take their turns offering you things like friends with one hand, and screwing you with the other."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Now is exactly the time. When is anything more obvious than when it's staring you in the face?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian flips the display off, with the unnerving feeling that she'd done so just before it was about to get really bad. She looks Onyx Witch in the eye.

    "You can be lied to and taken advantage of by them, and run away. You can be taken in, punished, and taken advantage of by this place, and stay. Or you can come with me, because we need you back in the fight. *You* need you back in the fight. Not solely this one. The Fight. All of it. I don't care whatever number of people you hurt; hurting you doesn't help them. Benching you doesn't help anyone at all.'"

    "You don't need pity. You don't need a sympathetic shoulder. You don't need to be a guinea pig. You don't need deals and contracts and new friends who say the right things to you. You don't need to be taken out. You need your life back --No, you need your life to not be over at just seventeen. With them, with this place, or continuing on like this, it ends. You know that right? No matter what, as long as you don't have your power, on your terms, every which way you can go is just the belt again in the end. I can't sign you a magical promise that it'll all be better, but --"

    She breathes out, then recites by heart, "Code four: Thou shalt not deny thy brothers and sisters that which they hath earned. Man was not meant to stay eternally similar. Code six: Power bled for is power earned. Power bargained for is not. Code one: Thou art responsible to thy blood first above all else, both the blood of thy line, and the blood shed for thee."

    "The people that live here don't respect what you did for them. The people telling you to stop don't respect who you are. Neither of them understand what it is to grow up with nothing but that power and then lose it. Nobody else appreciates that power like I do. Nobody else appreciates how much you need it --how much it's a part of you-- except maybe one other person I know."

    "Don't fight me. Just say you want to go, and it'll happen."
Tamamo     Words are exchanged. Lines are drawn. Certainty is made that, here, Tamamo and Lezard Valeth stand opposed. So be it.

    Tamamo looks tired. Not too badly injured, despite the blood. Nothing's been torn off. All the points pierced are on her extremities, and they've ceased bleeding. Still, she moves with a certain weariness, with little apparent cause. She'd hardly moved during the entire battle. She moves now, only to stand between the Onyx Witch and Lezard. Not 'only' to stand between them, as she also reaches out to analyze his magic. Foreign, yes, but she's seen much, and knows much, and he's at least claimed a certain purpose for it. She doesn't seek confirmation of this so much as she is readying to directly counter his every move.

    Being physically in the way is as much for show as anything else. The talismans are clutches in her fingers, wards and curses, protective blessings and punishing chains for the soul. She has no intention of underestimating him.

    And then... someone disappears.
William Pauwel "You don't have to go back, never go back. Goin' back is how the dark catches up to you," Will says, bloody and beaten and bruised and extremely (very important) shirtless. He's being peeled away. Pushed back by those gentle, beautiful wings. He doesn't even notice that he's positioned exactly so that his meatbag body would absorb a bullet or three from any super spies who might have been hidden throughout the area. "But I think... I think you've got what it takes to go /forward./ It'll be different. It'll be scary. But you deserve tomorrow."

And for a moment, it seems as though 'Tomorrow' is exactly what she's going to get. Will looks for a moment toward the shining goddess of the golden sun, and tips his hat politely at her impossible radiance. Somehow, he managed to keep hold of his hat. Gunslingers have to keep their hats, it's a key part of the uniform. Much like their guns.

But then... Then Lezard Valeth begins to do a Thing.

And, whether or not it ultimately matters, a conversation unfolds over the radio. Will thinks he has a better understanding of what-- of who-- Lezard Valeth is. In the end, maybe he can be trusted. Maybe Raha is freaking out for no reason. Maybe.

But Will made a heroic speech, he said all kinds of pretty words, and beyond anything else, Will is going to stand by them. Even if it means standing against the Sorcerer of Midgard with nothing but a hat, a pair of pants, and a really fancy gun.

And with that really fancy gun, he fires...

At Lezard's fancy, flapping spellbook.

Because if there's anything Will knows about wizards, it's that they really like their spellbooks.

And then someone disappears, and Will only notices after he perhaps makes a TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

But that's just... kind of the story of his life?
Strawberry Princess      Arcadia's beam reduces the wand to ash. Last to go is the gem- it lingers in the beam, refracting its light for just a moment before cracking, turning gray, and blowing away as dust. Onyx Witch doesn't attempt to resummon it, though she does flinch away from the blast, shuddering silently. That's a symbolic end to an era- a significantly starker and more violent end than she'd have liked. Still, that means the threat is 'neutralized', after a fashion.

     Onyx Witch doesn't seem to entirely understand what's happening with Lezard and the clash between N'Raha and Mikoto, but for some reason, her teary eyes are transfixed on him. She tries to move her lips, but words don't quite manage to come out. The ex-magical-girl- somehow still on her feet- manages to take a single step back, but even that movement makes her grimace, slightly swells the red spots blossoming through her dark clothes.

     Then the radio headset in her ear buzzes. "Please," she manages after a few seconds, her voice a quiet croak. "I don't... I'll- I'll be okay." She pretty clearly won't, at least without some sophisticated modern medical care, but her unreasoning terror gives it a kind of keen sincerity. Her eyes find Will again- a beacon of reassurance, in that moment. "Thank you. I--"

     It's not something she has to concern herself with for much longer, after Arthur takes her hand. In less than the blink of an eye, she's gone- and then sitting on top of a building, someplace she doesn't recognize. In the distance, now that the din of the battle is gone, one can hear sirens; taste all kinds of unpleasant chemical fire. But that doesn't have her attention. The tape does.

     She squeezes Arthur's hand tighter and tighter as she watches, until her knuckles are white. Her eyes are wide in a gruesomely marvelling way- watching a trainwreck that just won't stop. A cold shiver creeps up her spine. "I want to go," she finally says, fingernails digging into Arthur's palm almost hard enough to break skin. "I want to get out of here. Right now. Please."
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: HOLD

    Arthur's grip squeezes. And suddenly, he's elsewhere. That wasn't a teleportation, Arthur knows teleportation and that wasn't teleportation. What /was/ that?

    It was some shit he shouldn't focus on. But it was familiar.

    Is he away from Lezard Valeth now? Whatever, focus on his part in Lilian's plan. He keeps his grip. He looks to Lilian, then back to Onyx Witch. He breathes in heavily. "I'll tell her to fuck off if you want. Your call." He says. He means it, clearly; telling Lilian Rook to fuck off is something he's made a bit of a habit of. But it's only on Onyx Witch's account, if he does it this time.

    But she has made her choice. "Your choice, 'Nyx. I'm your ride. Let's go." He turns to Lilian. "Coordinates, Princess?" He's got a Gate ready and going. He expects she'll do that fun little mystery thing she did as soon as the Gate is passable.
N'Raha     And as quickly as things boiled up...

    Lilian Does A Thing.

    And N'raha takes several measured steps back from Mikoto, the Defiance broiling off of him in waves, until all that's left is a tired, scruffy catman in heavy armor, and ax, and a need to go take a bath.

    And unless someone stops him, he retrieves his helmet, and Returns out.
Sumiko Mikoto pulls her sword back, waiting for Raha to actually leave.  The woman was gone, thanks to Rook.  Who knows how that is going to end, but Arthur is with her.  Maybe that would turn out better.  Who knows.  

All she feels is a bit cooler and slightly frustrated inside.  She turns to simply go somewhere, anywhere but here right now.
Arcadia Arcadia had been confused by the whole 'hug and compassion into submission', and because of it reflex kicked in when the moment opened up. Arguably, to a degree, she didn't even realize entirely what she had done until afterwards and the rod crumbles away at about the same time Lezard speaks up.

"..." The sphinx whines a little, wings drooping and ears flecking back as the realization comes. Oh dear, she blew it didn't she. All because a deeply rooted gun-ho reflex flared at the wrong moment. Doesn't matter how many reports she had read, something deep within the very way she was had overridden it for a few seconds too long.

The best she can do is accept the mistake, make an apology that won't accomplish anything, and leave.
Lilian Rook     "Your funeral." Lilian says to Arthur, offering the option to Anna of telling her to fuck off. It's with, at least, a slightly facetious look. She rolls her shoulder as the ache starts to set into it, but is bright and ready at attention when Arthur has the gate ready.

    Anna says: "I want to go."

    "Don't forget that. Sometimes just asking the right people will help more than trying to struggle through it yourself." She gives him the coordinates to-- basically the middle of nowhere. There are a few more that follow. "I'm not having the mage follow you somehow." she says. "I'm sure you can manage the trick, right? We don't have long." The final one is recognizable as near the new Aegis Astray, well off the beaten road. "Come on. Let's go."
Arthur Lowell     A Gate. Arthur relays them, bouncing geometrically like a hacker's signal across the superplanet's surface. Untraceable. He can manage a half-dozen of these, but more will strain him. The quick wandering they do will get them where they need to.

    He is, somehow, silent throughout.

    Except for when he asks to get his own medical help afterwards, of course.
Lezard Valeth And all of a sudden, Onyx is gone. So is Tamamo, Arthur, and Lilian Rook, someone who is becoming an increasing irritant to the Sorceror of Midgard. That wasn't teleportation magic, however...

    Lezard pauses the ritual as he sees them vanish. With gritted teeth, he asks for the rod... But the rod was destroyed.

    Lezard is left effectively holding the bag. He has no way to track the missing girl at this point. The gunshot hits the book. The bullet flattens against the cover and falls off with a ping. The Sorceror... Perhaps does the most insulting thing he can to the gunslinger.

    He ignores him. He exhales intensely slowly, refusing to allow his expression to show the frustration he is feeling at the moment.

    It will not matter in the end. He has targets for vengeance, and a government organization that now owes him favors since he helped them with their 'problem'. With a gesture, the teleportation circle appears around him... And he vanishes.