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Kale Hearthward Things were settled. The Watch had won. The Gale Empire retreated, and had shown every sign of regarding Camembert Way as being simply too much of a hassle to deal with right now.

That much was true. The nearest Gale Empire ship or soldier is miles away from here. Unfortunately, it turns out they have other ways of exerting their influence.

The distress signal comes in via the equipment the Watch left behind previously - Camembert Way is under attack. Via whatever means the Watch uses to get here, the truth of that becomes obvious: There's an airship in the sky above the town, and gunshots ringing out at regular intervals.

The resistance hideout is full of the wounded and those taking care of them. The streets are empty aside from squadrons of soldiers enforcing a lockdown.

And those responsible aren't wearing the Gale Empire's uniforms - no. The colors on display are that of Quicknest, the occupied country.

Another gunshot rings out. There's a familiar-looking (to some) mouse baron, leaning off the side railing of the airship, aiming down the sights of a distressingly modern looking sniper rifle, while chanting the words to a spell.

Another shot rings out - slamming into the street just inches away from someone who'd chanced leaning out of their house to try taking a potshot back at him.

                WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING                
                                BARON EMBERLILY                                
                "Civility, Justice, and Overwhelming Firepower."                
                WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING                
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      The gunshots aren't the only thing that's distressingly loud. When the means of your conveyance works on constant controlled detonations, noise is inescapable. At this speed, the Phasefront Wraith X2-45 sounds like the hissing roar of some forgotten beast of legend. It oppresses the ears and pounds at the chest and throat. The golden motifs of hounds chasing alien pray gleam in the sunlight as Bercilak heads straight for that airship.

     Motivators on the front tilt as it banks upwards, the armored rider's cloak of rye grass and hyacinths billowing dramatically behind him. No doubt, there will be attempts to keep him from landing on the deck. For such a large, heavily armored vehicle, its movement is incredibly fluid in Bercilak's hands. Its noticeable bulk is easily pulled into lateral rolls, thickly plated motivators used as shields to keep him seated, engine strategically cut. He is bound and determined to set foot on the deck of that ship.

     This being Bercilak, that eventually entails just ramming it into the hull and launching himself abovedecks with the momentum, using the heel of his axe to slow himself down. It cuts a score into the deck, but more conceringly, causes rows of miniature willow trees to sprout from the railing, shaking their limbs wildly and swatting away attempts to draw beads on anyone below.
Maricel Thorne      Ignoring the wounded at the Resistance Hideout is simply not an option for Maricel. She's got her professional pride to think of! And ethics! And morals! And all those other important things! And definitely, definitely not the fact that she is salivatingly eager to test all manner of experimental procedures on conveniently broken bodies.

     For the wounded in the Resistance hideout, salvation comes in the form of dizzyingly rapid trauma surgeries, ominously glowing injections, and crackpot boneopracty or homeoballistics. "Honnnnestly," she gently scolds one mouse, "couldn't you have gotten hurt in a more inventive way? I've seen five just like this."

     Her earpiece buzzes at the tail end of an operation. She grumpily yanks all of her patient's sutures shut, and smears blood on her cheek in the process of pressing her finger to it. "Oh! You're the analytics boy. ... Mm-hm. Mm-hmmmm. No, I'm just finishing here, I swear. I- you don't- rot, shut uuuup. Of course I'll help."

     She gives her erstwhile patient a grimacingly apologetic smile on her way out the door. "Ahhh, that'll heal up in no time. Rub some dirt in it if you want a real cool scar!"


     The streets are full of soldiers. Soldiers carry sharpened pieces of metal designed to forcibly disrupt the arrangement of flesh. I don't feel like re-arranging my flesh. I like this arrangement. So Maricel isn't in the streets. Instead, she's making her way along the rooftops of the town at an easy walking pace. Whenever she reaches the edge of a roof, she steps off it confidently, dematerializes in a burst of neon-staticky energy, and rematerializes on the near edge of the next roof over. This continues until, sighting up the balcony of the airship above with her forefinger and thumb, she judges herself to be "close enough".

     Pop. Doc Thorne materializes on the balcony mere feet away from the Baron himself. Enormous, python-like tendrils of skinless red meat extrude from sizzling portals behind her. One of them tries to grab his sniper rifle and wrench it out of his grasp; the other coils around his ribcage, trying to simultaneously crush the breath out of him and- if it can establish a secure hold- slam him repeatedly into the deck.

     "I don't aaaactually know who you are," she says, fastidiously wiping her still-bloody hands off on her labcoat with an air of appalling indifference. "So it isn't personal. You've just, ah... caught me at a bad time. You know?
Maricel Thorne      Ignoring the wounded at the Resistance Hideout is simply not an option for Maricel. She's got her professional pride to think of! And ethics! And morals! And all those other important things! And definitely, definitely not the fact that she is salivatingly eager to test all manner of experimental procedures on conveniently broken bodies.

     For the wounded in the Resistance hideout, salvation comes in the form of dizzyingly rapid trauma surgeries, ominously glowing injections, and crackpot boneopracty or homeoballistics. "Honnnnestly," she gently scolds one mouse, "couldn't you have gotten hurt in a more inventive way? I've seen five just like this."

     Her earpiece buzzes at the tail end of an operation. She grumpily yanks all of her patient's sutures shut, and smears blood on her cheek in the process of pressing her finger to it. "Oh! You're the analytics boy. ... Mm-hm. Mm-hmmmm. No, I'm just finishing here, I swear. I- you don't- rot, shut uuuup. Of course I'll help."

     She gives her erstwhile patient a grimacingly apologetic smile on her way out the door. "Ahhh, that'll heal up in no time. Rub some dirt in it if you want a real cool scar!"


     The streets are full of soldiers. Soldiers carry sharpened pieces of metal designed to forcibly disrupt the arrangement of flesh. I don't feel like re-arranging my flesh. I like this arrangement. So Maricel isn't in the streets. Instead, she's making her way along the rooftops of the town at an easy walking pace. Whenever she reaches the edge of a roof, she steps off it confidently, dematerializes in a burst of neon-staticky energy, and rematerializes on the near edge of the next roof over. This continues until, sighting up the balcony of the airship above with her forefinger and thumb, she judges herself to be "close enough".

     Pop. Doc Thorne materializes on the balcony mere feet away from the Baron himself. Enormous, python-like tendrils of skinless red meat extrude from sizzling portals behind her. One of them tries to grab his sniper rifle and wrench it out of his grasp; the other coils around his ribcage, trying to simultaneously crush the breath out of him and- if it can establish a secure hold- slam him repeatedly into the deck.

     "I don't aaaactually know who you are," she says, fastidiously wiping her still-bloody hands off on her labcoat with an air of appalling indifference. "So it isn't personal. You've just, ah... caught me at a bad time. You know?"
Hibiki Tachibana     She should have known something like this would happen. Hibiki wanted to believe their brief encounter with Baron Emberlily would have discouraged anything from happening to Camembert Way for a while, but that was a little too hopeful. It'd have been silly to think the Gale Empire would have backed off just from the little scrap they had there, and Emberlily himself didn't seem like the type to get the idea easily. Whether it was through talking or...what happened.

    And it doesn't seem like he's going to be very receptive to a chat this time either, no matter how 'civil' he might claim to be. For the first time, she's visiting Camembert Way already transformed, which made the lengthy trip to it a lot easier than any of her previous. Scarf waving behind her with every high leap as she presses forward into the city, she gets a good view of what's going on down in the streets...and who's responsible for all of this. Her boots touch down on the roof of a building below.

    And she propels herself full-force straight upwards towards the airship like a human missile, cracking the material beneath her feet. She gets an additional lift first from her armor's skirt boosters, and then from her right gauntlet bulking up with rocket thrusters firing out the back. "HaaaaAAAAAAH!" Much less gracefully than Bercilak, she's going to simply rush through anything trying to keep her away - and thrusting a knuckleguard-protected fist forward, she puts all her momentum into charging the ship from below.

    Where she's going to try and smash a Hibiki-sized hole into the vessel's hull, blowing away any crewmembers who happen to be nearby, and then force her way up to the top from there. The violent ship-rocking and sounds of things exploding below decks might be mildly worrying.

    But she's not going to get anything done dealing with soldiers. This has to be resolved through Emberlily.
Chase There's a loud rumble as Mashin Chaser pulls up into Cambert Way on his personal motorcycle, his head tilting up to catch a glimpse of the airship. Is it retaliation for what Hibiki and them tried to do previously? Or were they planning this from the beginning?

It really doesn't matter. They've got to stop it either way.

TUNE - CHASER BAT

Loading a silver toy car into the top of their handgun, Mashin Chaser sprouts a pair of mechanical batwings before simply flying himself up. As simply as one can when they're probably also being shot at, anyway.

They ascend way over the airship at top speeds before descending just as quickly, a leg extended as they crash into the deck, and nearby crewmates. The force of impact creates a small shockwave, along with a sudden surge of heavy gravity that slows everything around them down.
Kale Hearthward Bercilak comes in, riding onto the hull and landing, and Maricel just simply teleports her way up there.

Their attacks wreak havoc - one causing the wooden parts of the ship to sprout trees, and the other to cause herself to sprout tentacles - both generally causing massive amounts of chaos on the ship, and in specifically the tentacles managing to wrench the sniper rifle out of the baron's grasp, while the other two Watch members make their own impacts - above and below.

"You don't know who I am, that is fine. At this juncture, all you need to know is that I am smarter than you all, and every tactic you are likely to bring forth is one that I already have a contingency in place for," says the baron, entirely un-nonplussed by the boarders who are assaulting his airship, crew, and personage. "Attempting to board my airship is an eventuality that isn't even in my top ten of least likely tactics that I've prepared for. It's practically boring in its predictability."

"For example, please take note that everyone here except you are wearing safety harnesses physically connecting them to the ship, and there is a large spellglyph that-"

Emberlily doesn't get to finish that statement - because a hurricane force wind erupts from point-blank on the center of the deck, spiraling outwards inside and outside of the ship, sending everyone not nailed down flying!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants [Vicinity] Emberlily: At this juncture, all you need to know is that I am smarter than you all, and every tactic you are likely to bring forth is one that I already have a contingency in place for.
[Vicinity] Emberlily: Attempting to board my airship is an eventuality that isn't even in my top ten of least likely tactics that I've prepared for. It's practically boring in its predictability.
[Vicinity] Emberlily: For example, please take note that everyone here except you are wearing safety harnesses physically connecting them to the ship, and there is a large spellglyph that-


     Bercilak is bowled over by the sudden gale force winds, an impressive feat for a man so heavily armored. The massive breastplate which rests over his plated bodysuit splinters and cracks the deck as he is skipped across it like a stone. There is a grisly-sounding crack, one of his arms bending the wrong way as his heavy form splits the guard railing and cracks one of his willow trees in two.

     Just as he clears the side, the haft of his axe is driven like a spear into the hull, keeping him from falling all the way to the ground. Microthrusters fire at the back of his armor, vaulting him back onto the deck as his broken arm mends itself with another gruesome snap.

     They're predictable, are they? Fine.

[Vicinity] Bercilak: Understond this.
[Vicinity] Bercilak: Todai shalt be the most predictabil asse-betinge e'er thou hath received.


     ...he says, wrenching the axe free just before his heavy boots hit the deck. Bringing the weapon to bear, he smashes it into the deck, hewing a great fissure into it--but more concerningly, causing burdensome wooden wavebreakers to sprout up from below, weighing the ship down and offering hand and footholds for anyone blown overboard.

     One is wrenched loose by a kick, sent hurtling towards Emberlily by the Green Knight's strength.
Maricel Thorne      Maricel is, in fact, not nailed down, and gets blasted clean off the deck amid Angry Doctor Noises. Not even the fact that her labcoat flaps dramatically in the hurricane winds can soothe her wounded pride. Her tentacles, however, are- extending from portals, they are perfectly anchored in space. One of them plunges down after her, wraps around her ankle, stretches out like a bungee cord as it breaks her fall, and then catapults her upwards with its elasticity, sending her soaring far above the deck.

     More out of sheer petty vexation than tactical soundness, Maricel grabs the stolen sniper rifle from another tendril in midair, draws a bead on Emberlily with literally surgical precision, and gazes down sights she has literally no idea how to use with ominously-glinting glasses. Cross-referenced with her recently-gleaned anatomical knowledge of the native mice, his heart should be right there. It's perfectly lined up. This is the coolest thing Maricel's ever done.

     Wait, that's not the trigger. Is this bit the trigger? Fuck. How about that one?

     By the time she finally fires, the shot's completely wild. Having no idea how to load the next bullet, she petulantly throws it overboard the second her feet land back on the deck. "Rot, what a piece of garbage. Learn to make real weapons sometimes," she says, not in the slightest influenced by sour grapes.
Hibiki Tachibana     As anyone who knows her (which is everybody here) might be able to predict, Hibiki doesn't take the Baron's way of handling himself once they're all facing him down very well. The flippant attitude and the fact he's talking down to them even now, after last time, gets her tensing up and already preparing to move while he's going on. But she doesn't get the chance to do so or even throw some choice words back before she's caught by surprise, the sudden surge of wind carrying her off her feet. "This again--!?" It's like the disaster-tier storm back at the court before, but unlike back then, she didn't get the chance to buckle herself down first.

    She's thus sent flying out back into the open air, tumbling around and near-out of control. Not the first time and definitely won't be the last time, especially where the Gale Empire is concerned - the Symphogear user adjusts relatively quickly, bracing her body and pulling an extended booster burn from her skirt plus rocket gauntlet combo to slow and stabilize herself against the turbulence. "Then let's see...if you have a contingency for THIS!"

    Her other arm also shifts into rocket gauntlet mode. It's simple, but it works.

    Well enough that it lets her twist and force herself to blast back towards the ship through sheer force, with her goal being Emberlily himself--to deliver a double-fisted ramming blow powerful enough to send /him/ flying. And if his harness decides to send him bouncing back instead of snapping, she's just going to punch him again.
Chase "What?"

These are the only words Mashin Chaser manages to get out as Emberlily explains their dastardly plan. Or rather hints on it. He hasn't gone full evil monologue quite yet.

The sudden gust of wind catches them off guard, sending them tumbling back through the air as well as breaking his concentration on his gravity field.

He's got an answer to prevent himself from tumbling to his death though. And it's not a pair of wings. Mashin Chaser slams their fist into the wooden deck below him, clawed fingers slowly ripping it apart plank by plank as the mechanical grim reaper's grip just doesn't give.

While he's holding on to dear life (it's not that dear), he takes the opportunity to raise his free arm, currently equipped with a GUN that he uses to shoot at Baron Emberlily.
Kale Hearthward Maricel's bullet, fired by Emberlily's own gun, grazes his cheek, drawing blood, and then he gets knocked in the head by a kicked floorplank. Both give him momentary pause, but only momentary.

"Rather disappointing," says the mouse. "That you are not knocked overboard and lying broken upon the ground, that is. You see-"

He gets cut off by Hibiki making his challenge. "A contingency for what-"

Baron Emberlily, with inadvertently perfect comedic timing, turns just in time to see Hibiki's rocket-powered fist before it slams into him, sending him flying - then the safety tether bouncing him back, directly into the path of the *second* fist!

Chase shooting him is just adding injury to insult, at that point.

"Hmmf... recalcitrant as you are to properly die, I still have some good news for you regardless..." he says as he gets up. The safety tether is still holding, but it's looking increasingly frayed. "For I'm here to correct your misconceptions and enlighten you."

"You see - you have been laboring under the incorrect assumption that, for your actions here, you will be thanked, perhaps you will be enshrined as some sort of heroes or otherwise celebrated."

He reaches into his vest with both hands, and draws forth a long-barreled pistol and a short-barreled shotgun, which he dual-wields. "I speak as a native of Quicknest, one who has birthed his share of its sons and daughters, who can trace his bloodline back to the royal family itself, and I can tell you with no small amount of certainty..."

He aims. "Your presence here is making things *empirically* worse."

"Leave. Or perish. Both are acceptable solutions."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants [Vicinity] Emberlily: Your presence here is making things *empirically* worse.
[Vicinity] Emberlily: Leave. Or perish. Both are acceptable solutions.
[Vicinity] Bercilak: Take thy best shot, sib.


     The Green Knight removes his helmet, tossing it over the side. Shouldering the axe as his cloak billows in the wind, he beckons to the Baron with his free hand. His bushy beard is stained red as buckshot from the shotgun collides with his unarmored face.

     He is briefly, effectively headless, a red stump existing between his shoulders. The headless body takes a step forward. Then another. It is walking. Walking towards the Baron, as a neck, a skull, muscles, eyes, skin and hair regrow within seconds.

     "O for two," he says, holding up his free hand and forming a 'zero' with his thumb and forefinger, as bullets no doubt collide with his armor and his revealed face. The plates warp and bend oddly, as if reacting in real time, hardening and becoming non-newtonian as needed to deflect the projectiles away from his vitals.

     A tap of the haft of his axe causes a wooden ramp to sprout beneath Chase, granting him access to the deck. "My turn." The Keeper charges forward, vaulting over Maricel and Hibiki to strike with the blunt eye of the weapon. Chase had advised Hibiki to aim higher than the stomach. He'll give her a clear target.

     The stomach is his--the Green Knight aims to bowl the Baron over, then hook his ankle with the beard of the axe and wrench it hard enough to snap bone.
Maricel Thorne      Maricel is thoroughly ventilated. She doesn't bother un-ventilating herself, with the sole exception of one hole in her neck, which she promptly patches up because not being able to talk irritates her even more than the battle banter does. Debride. Cauterize. Rejuvenate. Sew. Elsewhere, red slowly blossoms through the white fabric of her labcoat.

     "You know, I felt sorry for Corbina? I really did," she half-gurgles around the neck wound as it's closed up. More clearly: "Most people don't get the, ahhhh... haha, bird's eye view of the systems they participate in. They can trick themselves into thinking it's good. It's normal. They're defending something just."

     She fishes a bonesaw out of her too-spacious pockets and turns it over in her palm. It's eerie how much clumsier she becomes when she's no longer doing surgery; how the perfectly-trained muscle memory abruptly deserts her. It's also eerie how graceful she still is even with that reduction. As Bercilak leaps over her, she darts in and swings the bonesaw to neatly sever the fraying safety cable- and then on the backswing, twirls around to throw it at the Baron's neck like a flying guillotine, more symbolically appropriate than tactically effective.

     "But you got that insight for free, Mr. Baron. And you still decided to be a bastard with it."
Hibiki Tachibana     Left regaining her stance and getting her breath back after giving the Baron the one-two, Hibiki's gauntlets return to their normal and much more wieldy forms as she narrows her eyes at their opponent. Having fought him before, she's plenty aware that there's some seriously powerful firearms he's going for--but it's actually what he says that's getting the derisive look out of her. "You're the one who's looking at things completely wrong!"

    Bullets immediately fill the deck before she can continue. She has to put all her focus on defending herself, with blocked or deflected shots forcing her backwards a short distance each time, arms rapidly shifting to keep up. By the time there's a break in them, her armor is suffering from a series of pockmarks where bullets either embedded themselves or richocheted off, there's a full volley of buckshot that's been narrowly gripped between her fingers...and she's bleeding from just a couple fresh wounds.

    Nowhere fatal, because she was careful to manage where she got hit by what she couldn't stop or avoid, but enough that she looks a little unsteady on her feet for a second. Still, her expression remains unchanged. "...Nobody here is doing this just because they expect to get rewarded or be called heroes. We're here to help people!" There's a wince, as she remembers prior events, but reinforces her voice after. "Even if we've had a few hurdles, are we making things worse for the people, or are we making them worse for /you/!?"

    Bercilak rushes in and Hibiki charges right behind him. He strikes low, and she vaults back over him in turn to go high--the bit about hitting him in the heart is something Chase took rather literally, but Hibiki takes it equally so. If it didn't work before...

    "If anyone could have made things work out between Camembert and the Empire, it could have been you!" From above, she rears her fist back and dives down at full force, intending to smash her fist directly into the Baron's chest. In combination with the Green Knight, she's intending to smash him down into the deck--and with a slide back and then subsequent hammering in of her gauntlet's piston, plow him straight below deck. "If you talked it over from the start instead of just occupying it and shoving people out of their homes...!"
Chase "No. It is you who are assuming. I am not a hero. I do not need thanks."

He doesn't need thanks, mostly because he's never even considered being thanked. Though, truly, if one needs thanks to do good deeds, is one doing them for the right reason. According to Mashin Chaser's Absolutely Perfect Coded Justice ... no.

Buckshot shells slam into their shoulder, creating an array of pyrotechnic sparks and rocking their body a bit. Despite this, they're still loading in a new toy car into their gun, the weapon letting out another announcement in a warbled voice.

TUNE - CHASER SPIDER

The wings on his back shift into a giant melee shield on his arm, as they begin charging forward, using the new implement to help block any incoming attacks.

"I am a Grim Reaper. I protect the people."

Once in range, they let Emberlily have it. They wind their entire shield arm back, before throwing all of their weight into a forward punch, the tip of the spider-themed buckler glowing a bright purple as he aims for the Baron's chest.

Because that's where the heart is.
Kale Hearthward Bercilak comes in with a bone-shattering chop, and Maricel comes in with a guillotine-ish chop with her bonesaw, and Chase launches a smashing shield-punch right at his center.

The baron manages to weasel free of everything with only cuts and bruises and bruised ribs, instead of broken legs and decapitations and heart attacks, antipun intended.

"I'm sorry," says the baron. "Who is this Corbina? Someone I should know?"

Further talking is cut off as he gets literally smashed belowdecks by Hibiki, capitalizing on the distraction caused by the rest.

The airship shudders, and starts losing altitude... and integrity, too. It's not going to fall or fall apart right away, but enough damage has been done that most of the (surviving) crew are eyeing the lifeboats and planning their exit.

... all except for the baron, who makes his reappearance, crawling out of the rubble. "You talk about the view from above - I am very certain of my view, and I can't say I've come to nearly the same conclusions."

He withdraws a new pistol from his vest, and aims it up through the hole in the deck with both hands. "That those whom justice decides against complain the loudest, and without merit, and your ilk are exceedingly loud."

Even with his ship going down, and being increasingly beat up by the incoming attacks, the baron speaks calmly and steadily, self-assured of himself.

The gun he fires is anything except not loud, though - and the bullets of some magnum caliper tear right through any cover the top deck floor might have otherwise provided.
Hibiki Tachibana     If anything, that comment about Corbina only made her hit him harder.

    Looking down at the rubble through the hole, Hibiki isn't surprised to see that Emberlily is still standing tall, and without a singular change in his stance. Her lips purse, and her hands tighten back up again. What will it take to get through to this man...? Is he even the type of person they'll be able to reason with? She won't have any time to really delibaterate on that question, with the extremely heavy shots that ring out immediately after.

    She backpedals away from the first shot, and is forced to continue doing so as more obliterate the flooring to try and catch them. "Ngh--!" She darts from side to side, accounting for the listing and bobbing of the ship, but the baron's accuracy is true...and another pained shout that can be heard below confirms he's gotten a hit on at least one of his targets.

    Which is immediately followed up on by a downwards explosion of debris and smoke as Hibiki stomps down on the deck, to fall down to the same level as him. There's a much larger bullet wound than the last marring her left shoulder--which doesn't seem to stop her from rushing forward at full speed to get into close range in the shortest amount of time possible, right fist is reared back mid-sprint. "Just seeing one trial here, let alone /talking/ to you, is enough to tell me what you call 'justice' is a bunch of crap!"

    She's not actually going for a punch though. It's a feint, where she instead abruptly drops low when she's close enough and kicks out to sweep him off his feet - where she won't even let him hit the ground before completing the spin, rising back up knee-first to strike his back, and follow up with a second knee strike to send him flying and leave him open to the others.
Maricel Thorne      Maricel gets a sucking chest wound big enough to see daylight through. She looks down at the Baron like he just spilled wine on her expensive dress as she sews it shut in about as much time as it took for him to pull the trigger. The amount of blood already sieving out of the other holes in her body surpassed physiologically plausible levels a long time ago, and it shows no sign of slowing down; enough of it has drained into her shoes that they squelch when she hops down through the hole. "Putting a hole in us didn't work the last dozen times," she mutters, wiping a small spatter off her glasses with the only pristine patch of labcoat she can find.

     "No. Corbina isn't anyone you should know," she says evenly. "It's surpriiiising to me, really, that you came here yourself. Because I don't think you're a brave man." She fades back during Hibiki's offensive, waiting for the combo to end. Maybe she's conserving her energy, maybe she's playing with her food, maybe those bullets took more out of her than she's letting on, but Maricel still reaches for her surgical tools rather than anything more dramatic when Hibiki gives her that golden opening.

     One hand: scalpel. Other hand: pliers. Maricel tries to grasp his wing with one tool, forcing it up and out of the way long enough for her to sink the other one into his ribcage. "I think it's just inconceiiiivable to you, that you wouldn't get what you want."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants [Vicinity] Emberlily: You talk about the view from above - I am very certain of my view, and I can't say I've come to nearly the same conclusions.
[Vicinity] Emberlily: That those whom justice decides against complain the loudest, and without merit, and your ilk are exceedingly loud.
[Vicinity] Bercilak: Bi Christ al-mighti, thire art flith-worms *al aboute* thy fucking brane. Hibiki spekes treu. 'Justice,' thou bisaie, as thy soudiours shot and quell thy own.

Bercilak executes nanoprogram Barrier of the Righteous...
Bercilak executes nanoprogram Punisher of the Wicked...


     Bercilak doesn't attack Emberlily directly at first. Instead, he throws his arms wide, juking and darting into the path of his shots. Those high-caliber rounds punch holes in his armor, evidently exceeding its capacity to reactively adjust. Scarlet ribbons fly from his body as he runs interference, using the cheek of his axe as a target shield to deflect the rounds away from his allies.

     Hibiki, Chase, and Maricel are all enveloped in a shimmering golden aura that blunts the force of those rounds where he can't intercede, and their attacks seem to find purchase more naturally besides.
Chase Another shot from another of the Baron's Many Guns creates yet more spark showers from Mashin Chaser's suit. But despite the obvious display of taking damage, it doesn't seem to bother him.

Still, the cumulative damage is taking a toll on his actual stamina. It takes a lot to maintain this level of poise, after all. He also, out of an obligation, does not want to interrupt Hibiki. He may be dense, but even a Dark General like him understands when someone is having a moment.

So, with that in mind, he resorts to a classic.

GUN

He points his gun at the Baron again, and fires off a few shots.
Kale Hearthward Hibiki descends to Emberlily's level, and starts roughing him up - he turns out to have basically no sense of what's a feint and what's an incoming actual punch. He's bodied - and then Maricel comes in with the one-two scalpel jab, right into his ribcage. He coughs up a spray of blood.

"You... think..."

He worms his way free, antipun once again intended, and pulls another gun out to open fire with - only for the shots to be entirely blocked by Bercilak's timely shield intervention, and the gun to be shot out of his hand by Chase's return fire.

"... You're right."

"It is inconceivable, really, that I wouldn't get what I want..."

He reaches into his innumerable pockets, one more time... withdrawing a small laser pointer keychain, tapping it on a few times to make sure it works.

"Stagnant winds - EVACUATE!" calls one of the crew, seeing him pull it out - they'd already been eyeing the emergency parachutes and hang gliders, and to a man they all leave if they can.

"Because even in my defeat - I still get what I aimed to acquire. I apologize that the lesson I hope to impart didn't sink in for you - but perhaps that's for the best."

And then he runs, leaps, and dives - not bothering to grab a parachute, just simply diving out of the side of the failing airship.

As soon as he's clear of it, he twists around in the air, pointing the little keychain laser pointer, and tapping out a sequence-

- and then the entire ship starts exploding.
Maricel Thorne      The ship is exploding. The ship is exploding. There's no time to think. No, stop and think. What are our priorities here? Camembert Way. The Baron. The other Watch members. There is no solution where we secure all three, Maricel.

     For a crucial second, Maricel stands in a daze, staring out through the hole where the Baron leapt. Fire burns her legs. Pieces of shrapnel embed in her body like sprinkles on a cupcake. Her brain is jammed on something, maybe staggered by the surprise, maybe processing irreconcilable goals.

<J-IC-Scene> Chase says, "The Doctor and Bercilak can deal with the Baron. We can deal with the ship."
<J-IC-Scene> Maricel Thorne says, "... Alright."

     And she leaps out after him.

     By the time Maricel starts falling, the Baron is already halfway down. Long tendrils of skinless red meat extend from her portals and race towards the ground, grasping anything they can and pulling her towards it to accelerate her fall.

     As her white labcoat and dark hair flutter wildly around her, Maricel reaches out with a clawed, grasping hand, wreathed in neon-staticky energy. Her telekinesis reaches for the Baron, but he's just out of reach. Still, with the elastic tendrils hurtling her earthward, she's catching up with him as surely as he's catching up with the merciless ground below.

     Just a little closer...
     Just a little closer...
     We've got you.

     Ethereal claws finally close around the Baron, slowing his descent and yanking him up towards Maricel. She grabs his jacket as if to make extra-sure, staring directly into his eyes from behind shiningly opaque glasses. "No. I won't let you have this."

     It occurs to her genius brain, a fraction of a second later, that she is still moving towards the ground at a velocity that could be clinically described as "super-terminal". Her eyes go wide behind the glass lenses. Can we survive that? Unknown. Can the Baron? Definitely not. What's our solution, Maricel?

     "BERCILAK! HELP!!"
Chase "You have not won yet."

Mashin Chaser aims to chase for Emberlily before the ship starts violently exploding around them, causing them to stop in their tracks as they shield their face.

The fact that they seem to be trying to crash the ship changes priorities, and after enlisting Hibiki to help him, they begin to enact their plan.

If one can even call it a plan. It's more suicidal than anything.

TUNE - CHASER BAT

Switching back to their mechanical bat wings, the Grim Reaper flies out of the explosion, residual flames and smoke trailing off their body as they position themselves in front of the falling airship.

They push their hand hard against the barrel of their gun, producing one final pair of sounds. EXECUTION

He's gonna crash himself into the ship to break the airship up as best he can. With his feet now glowing a bright purple, Chase practically zooms across the sky as he attempts to kick through it at full power.

FULL BREAK - BAT
Hibiki Tachibana     It looks for a long moment there like they finally have the baron. Maricel has him by the ribcage, after all--but even that, he slips away from successfully. Once he's disarmed again, Hibiki is prepared to move forward again...but what he pulls out this time isn't a gun. It's enough to catch her by surprise. "Is that a...?" It only lasts a few seconds before she's snapped out of it by the evacuation order, which only leads to one conclusion: This is bad.

    When Emberlily leaps out, she's almost ready to go after him instantly, but Maricel and Chase are both right. The ship going up around them means it'll crash into the town below at worst, and rain a hail of heavy debris down at 'best'. She actually has to wrestle with the choice for a single moment, but then shakes her head to herself and settles on it not being a decision at all. Especially with others on the job. She trusts them. "...Right. We need to make sure no debris gets down there!" The fact they're the ones caught in the middle of said exploding ship and are the ones /actually/ in the most danger never seems to actually register in her mind as mattering.

    Leaving Emberlily to Bercilak and Maricel, Hibiki gives a brief nod to Chase before taking a deep breath and bracing herself. Her plan is more or less what she did in Egypt once upon a time, canceling out the force of an explosion with the force of another one. Just on a bigger scale. Golden light begins gathering within the armor of one of her arms, like she's preparing for one of her techniques...and then the other. Then her legs as well. It gathers and shines, builds up, growing in intensity--

    Until Chase makes his move, and she releases it all with no real focus, simply expanding outwards in all directions as an unfocused, flame-like light that vaporizes all the material it comes into contact with. With Chase breaking it up beforehand, she can overpower anything left by releasing all of her Symphogear's internal energy outwards to make sure there's hardly anything left of the ship /to/ be debris. It's something she can only do because all the crew is gone and nobody is left on-board.

    And after which, when the light has died out, she's promptly going to fall all the way back down to earth, bounce off the floor once, and come down on her face with everything sore right before her Symphogear deactivates automatically. "...Ugh..."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants [Team] Chase: The Doctor and Bercilak can deal with the Baron. We can deal with the ship.
[Team] Maricel: ... Alright.

Maricel shouts: BERCILAK! HELP!!

     The explosion is not something that can be blocked with masterful axe technique. When Bercilak leaps from the exploding ship, splinters and jagged debris rain down all around him. Microthrusters fire at the back of his armor, his cloak torn to shreds by a piece of hull still bearing a bit of iron.

     His arms and legs are held fast to his body to speed his descent after Maricel and the Baron. One of the willow trees he'd made slams into him from above, shattering and prying the massive harness from the plated mail beneath. Cracked in two, the harness flies off of his body and takes the tattered mantle with it. His green mohawk whips wildly in the wind, his brow furrowing with determination.

     He can survive it.

     After a fashion.

     Maricel and the Baron are scooped up, one to a thick, armored arm. His barrier aura extends to the both of them, renewing just in time to shield them from the sudeen impact with the ground. A crater is struck into the earth, and a gruesome, wet breaking noise resounds from within his plated bodysuit. The arm which holds Maricel is also the axe arm.

     The haft is brought up to form a vertical plane over the both of them, his other arm supporting its weight just as one of those massive wooden wavebreakers he'd made comes tumbling down.

     Thick wooden prongs crush the Green Knight into so much red and green jelly--but the doctor and the baron are spared this fate, the other prongs of the wavebreaker having split against the haft. Though much of him is an indeterminate mess, two parts still remain distinguishable.

     His arms, which still silently hold the wavebreak at bay, granting Maricel just enough room to wiggle free with the baron.
Kale Hearthward The Baron...

... looks mostly unconcerned, at least until Maricel grabs him. And then it's a different story.

"Won't let me have- do- did you-" His calm composure finally breaks, for the first time the Watch has seen him.

"Did you... DID YOU THINK I WAS JUMPING TO MY DEATH?"

He tries futilely to get free of her. "I had a plan, a contingency - I can survive it, you idiot! Or at least I could until you grabbed me! Of all the things I couldn't plan for it was YOU DOOMING US BOTH! WHAT WERE-"

Bercilak grabs them both.

And then the ground hits Bercilak.

"... What..." is all the mouse baron can think of to say.

The ship, meanwhile, is crashing towards the ground. The explosion took out the engine and the thrusters, and with both of those gone gravity is reasserting itself bit by bit.

Out on the streets, people have been watching, the lockdown having evaporated as the resistance reasserted its control without the baron's aerial assault. The whole town, it seems, has played witness to today's events...

... including, potentially, its destruction. The citizens scream when the ship explodes, and panic as it starts falling...

... Chase steps up. He tears through the ship, destroying much of it - already weakened by the battle, the purple-coated aura of Machin Chaser is like a boat cutting through the water, leaving destruction in his wake.

The resulting debris continues descending - momentarily. The massive energy field emitted by Hibiki's symphogear obliterates whats left, leaving nothing but small bits and pieces, that do at most cosmetic damage as they fall onto the buildings.

The town watches this, too.
Hibiki Tachibana     Pushing herself up onto her hands and knees, and then up to a more proper sitting position, the now de-powered Hibiki shakes her head clear and looks up and then around the rooftop she landed on. She picks herself up further just to scan the nearby streets, and once she confirms that they definitely did stop the ship from crashing down, she promptly loses all strength in her legs and collapses back down into a cross-legged sitting position.

    "Phew...we actually did manage..." Her relief is nearly enough to make her fall over and possibly pass out on the spot from exhaustion, but doing that with some fresh bullet wounds (which hurt a hell of a lot more now) really isn't a good idea. She already expended as much energy as she could've short of actually hurting herself doing all of that. Maybe she'll ask Maricel to work some magic...as much as part of her is kind of worried what form that'll take. Which reminds her. While getting up to her feet with a brief hiss of pain, she looks up to try and locate Mashin Chaser to wave him down and give him a thumbs up, while also tapping into her radio.
Chase The airship, luckily shatters, unfortunately for Chase, so does his armor. The moment they're all the way through the ship, the armor's invisible HP threshold gives out, flying off into pieces as they begin falling through the air like a ton of bricks.

They for all intent and purpose, might as well be a ton of bricks too, plummeting straight through an abandoned market stand as if it wasn't even there and landing with a deafening thud.

There's an awkward moment of silence, before they start pulling themselves off the ground, completely oblivious to the fact their clothing is covered in burn holes, or that they're currently 'bleeding'.

"We did it."
Maricel Thorne      "Ah," Maricel says after regaining her bearings, quietly regarding the green-knight-turned-puddle. "I... I'm going to assume you can still hear me. And that you're going to be fine. So: thank you so kindly for saving this delicate maiden, Sir Bercilak."

     She wiggles free of the wavebreaker, holding the Baron firmly in a telekinetic visegrip as she does, and then takes a moment to fastidiously recompose herself. She shakes a little bit of Bercilak off of her coat, smooths her wind-blown hair back down with her fingers, and adjusts her cracked glasses on her face. Got to look good for the audience, after all.

     "Now. Baron... I didn't actually get your name. What is it again?" Her forgetfulness is either performatively gloating or the result of a mild concussion. "I was quiiiite sure you were attempting to die. But only because a man of your 'dignity' might regard death as preferable to this."

     Both her hands are wreathed in that crackling, unearthly, TV-static energy again. As she neatly folds her glasses and puts them away, her pitiless eyes are overtaken by that same energy too. Although the Baron is thoroughly constricted by invisible psychic forces, she adds with a note of dry satisfaction: "Do hold still. And believe me..."

     "Ahahaha. This hurts me more than it hurts you."

     What happens after she lays her glowing hands on the Baron's head is hard to describe in anything but a clinical sense. To an external audience, there are few signs worth detailing. Internally, things happen to his brain that would take five-syllable words to describe.

     The permanency, strength, and clarity of the directives she attempts to psychochirurgically instill are uncertain, but they can be summarized thus:

     1: Do not interfere with Camembert Way's independence.
     2: Comply with the Watch's future efforts in the region.
     3: Grow a conscience, you fuzzy feudal bastard.
    
Rubi-Kan Vagrants [Team] Hibiki: ...Maricel? Bercilak? Are you guys okay?

    A partially regrown skull is threaded over with tendons. A gurgle escapes it, and something resembling 'yea.'

[Team] Maricel: I'm fine. Bercilak is... he *will* be fine. I assume.
[Team] Bercilak: Yea.

[Vicinity] Emberlily: What...

    "Shut the fuck up and harken to the doctour," says Bercilak testily, in a rasping gurgle, before the skin on his face has had a chance to regrow. Plates and synthetic fiber shorn from his bodysuit reveal a gaping hole in his abdomen where his wavebreaker crushed him. Once his spine functions again, he grunts, spits, and heaves the massive thing off his body.

     The baron is yanked up one-handed by the collar as eyes form in sockets. The startling red of his irises is usually sanguine in the pleasant, party boy kind of way. Now it's sanguine in the 'axe murderer' kind of way. And they're locked right on the baron's. 'I dare you to mouth off to her,' they silently glare at him. In a way that suggests he almost hopes the baron *does.* Bercilak shoves him her way. Her mental tampering is observed with crossed arms and a quietly beatific smile.
Kale Hearthward Today, the Camembert Resistance dies.

The town had still been of differing opinions. Not everyone had been unwelcoming to the Gale Empire moving in, and after the Gale Empire had left there'd still been a need for the resistance to not exactly operate entirely openly. There were still those who had their loyalties elsewhere, or were set on maintaining some status quo, even at the cost of the town's liberties.

And then the status quo got handily shattered when the local baron started opening fire on the town itself, heedless of anyone's affiliation... and then the Watch came in and spearheaded the counter-assault, and prevented the baron from (admittedly not intentionally) crashing an airship directly into the town.

---

"It's Baron Emberlily, and I'll have you know-" the Baron starts to say.

And then the directives are (painfully) drilled into him.

"...I... um."

The baron shifts in Maricel's grip.

"I think I need to... go re-evaluate some of my priors," he says, quietly.

Then his eyes slowly turn to Bercilak's. "And... write out some apologies?"

---

"Heck yes we did it!"

There's Harper, the resistance leader, making his way to Chase and Hibiki. "We've driven out all the baron's men, nobody's dead, I think the worst thing that's happened is a couple broken bones and a couple broken windows."

"You're heroes - hell, I think someone was talking about wanting to put up some sort of statue or shrine, hah. This feels like a turning point. We'll work that out later, though - let's go celebrate!"

---

Today, the Camembert Resistance dies, for it is no longer needed.

With all of the town (and more besides) aligned behind the effort, can it really be called a 'resistance' anymore? No.

Today marks the start of something new.