Scene #7538: Mineral Fights

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Vergil	War has descended upon the forest edge. Lights flicker between the trees as elven warrior-priests burn lillies-of-the-valley and hemlock, filling the air with toxic scented smoke. Their legions advance, the frontline bearing cruel spears that bristle with rose thorns, their bodies thick with glamour that warps the air about them, frustrating any attempts to get a bead on them from a distance. Fearful chanting emanates from the backlines as fey sorcerers empower the glamours and strengthen the frontline. The scent of sulfur gives away their real purpose however; magical artillery. Their destination is a small village, very apparently human. Curtains are drawn, and some cars are speeding away down the earthen road, getting away from the brewing war. The only thing standing between the elves and devestation of these human dwellings is five demons that stand vaguely shoulder-to-shoulder in a level field just outside the forest edge. Four are familiar. There is the strong, ominous Amii with his broken horn, great wings and chitin facemask. There is the massive, bulky, armored Sabnock, with his massive, spherical lion-embossed head. There is the tall, gangly, and sinister Lerage, enwrapped in green cloth and bearing a massive longbow, and the great owl Stolas who raises a wing to adjust the crown on its head. But joining them is a fifth. A large serpentine figure covered in scales that evoke wood upon a pyre, black with red gaps running between them. Their head is a bull, and their eyes are embers. "O demons from the blackest pits!" an elf priest calls, walking up to stand beside the frontline soldiers. "You have been accused and found guilty of living without premission beneath the canopy of Elfame, which we and our fathers coaxed out of the merest buds before lesser races trod this world. Further, you have been accused and found guilty of resisting our right and true attempts to eject you from under said canopy! The punishment for thus is the deaths of you and the humans whom you have conspired with! Embrace the earth, and let our blades strike true, or wither and die before our cruellest mercies." Amii's face mask lowers to make sure he is audible before issuing his response. "Uh, no." The elves bristle with anger, those spears lowering. "And frankly, I don't like your odds. Not enough of you to deal with five demons. Just go home and be thankful I didn't ask for any more than Haborym here to join us." He gestures to the flaming bullsnake. "If it were six, this would be a massacre. As it stands, you only have to face overwhelming odds. I understand that humans prefer those. So just go home. Or better yet, go someplace else and leave these guys alone." He points to the houses behind him with a clawed thumb. The elves respond only with a hail of arrows from the backline, aimed at the five demons. The war begins!
Hesinca	A glowing floor tile pops into existence not far away from the . "Hey, sorry, meeting ran late," says the sixth demon, as she emerges from it. "I didn't catch all of what's going on - Did someone say something about a massacre?" An arrow embeds itself into her shoulder. She swats at it with about the same amount of concern as someone would an errant mosquito. "I'm just - you know, I'm not really in a stopping mood," she calls, over the erupting battle. "You know, stopping from killing all of- right, none of you are listening. Okay. I can just roll with it." Hesinca pounds a fist into her other palm, and then wades into the elves' front line, swinging randomly at anyone in front of her!
Cantio	Arrows aren't the only things flying through the skies at the edge of the forest. As they come bearing down on the demons, a volley of lasers hurtle through the air as well, a harsh bassy noise following in their wake as they blast right through... Not all of the arrows, but a decent number of them. Enough to make the intent of the shooter in defending the demons obvious, at least. "You've made your stance clear enough, Amii. It's still disappointing that they won't listen to reason, though." Cantio speaks up as she comes up from behind the demons' ranks, bearing the full might of her nation's military* behind her. *It's just Cantio. They don't really have a military. "An alliance between humans, demons, and elves would have been great. Everyone working together, emphasizing their strengths as part of a greater whole... It's not too late to stand down and work with us, soldiers of Elfame!" She calls out with one more heartfelt plea, clashing somewhat with the oversized blade being drawn from a shimmering space in front of her while a trio of boxy drones float behind her head. Also, the fact that Hesinca's just getting right in their with her mega meatfists. And what Amii told her the last time she tried pitching that idea. There's actually quite a few things in the way of that plan, and recalling that has Cantio furrowing her brow slightly. "Ehm... Or at least... Not doing any of this?" She still sounds hopeful, although some of that pleading tone has already been replaced with a more resigned tone. "Where we won't have to... Um. Kill most of you?"
Lilian Rook	Lilian has not let the matter of Amii rest yet. Especially triply not after Bercilak had corrupted good little Xion into making it an issue, and the whole thing had conveniently become a wedge between Dante and Vergil. Now is a less than ideal time to progress her particular agenda under that topic, but it's also the sort of incident that she can't let slide; not that she would even if she had the choice. As the sole, direct representative of humanity here, she has a point to make, and a standard to set, arriving in only as much battle fit as she can comfortably get under a long red dress, carrying a sword by the base of the scabbard with a glamer already unraveling in the face of so much competition. "Oh shut up." she leaves with Cantio, purposefully strutting past. "Whatever asinine attempt at diplomacy you made didn't work. Have a spine." She says something about stopped clocks to Hesinca, shortly before the centauroid demon accelerates into the frontlines and begins brawling. "Your mistake was trying to involve humans in this at all. How classically arrogant and out of touch, to assume that we'd need to depend solely on demons to protect us." she hisses at the elves. The sword comes out with the sound of scraping glass, bloodred floral etchings already burning bright on black magnetite and translucent edges. Its noxious, gut-droppingly malicious aura oozes out like black smoke. Black smoke oozes out of the scabbard like dry ice fog. Ice fog forms on the ground where it trickles down to earth. "We're not done talking, Amii. I'm here for 'team human'. But it hasn't been lost on me so far that you've continued to choose the winning side." Before closing in fully on the elven ranks, Lilian snaps up a flat palm and blasts a wave of red and black fire horizontally along the front row. The general caste of the unseelie --the diametric opposite of the elves-- is unmistakable about it, though not a form of actual elemental opposition. It's also a considerably bigger boom than she'd normally resort to right at the start, having no particular compunctions about charring trees to stumps, or inconveniencing Hesinca in the crossfire.
Cantio	And then Cantio holds her empty hand up, pausing for emphasis before swinging it down. The drones fire those same bass-y lasers into the elven ranks afterwards as her opening volley/warning shots!
Vergil	"Thank you for coming," Stolas hoots softly to Hesinca. "We will need all the strength we can get today. Despite Amii's bravado, I do believe they're... what's the expression? 'Smoking them if they've got them' today." Amii does look genuinely regretful as he nods along with Cantio. "Thank you for standing with me. It is a shame... perhaps that alliance can still come to pass. Just not with these elves. They don't take anyone other than themselves seriously. Perhaps others will be more willing once they hear about what we do here today." His wings flap once in anticipation of the coming battle. He is a demon, after all. He quite literally lives for this. He looks to Lilian, and just nods once. "That's the first step, at least. I hope I may yet impress upon you my sincerity." The other demons give Lilian a bit of a berth. Amii must have spoken of her after that day in the restaurant. They're particularly leery of that sword. Sabnock mutters something, his lion jaw flapping. The word 'repulsive' is in there. Hesinca crashes into the front lines as Cantio fires through them. Lasers ripple through the glamours and cut down what is actually there. The elven soldiers practice some deft spearwork, blurring among the bushes to try and stab Hesinca with those thorny, no-doubt venomous weapons. But then Lilian makes the area explode, setting them aflame and breaking morale. The demons leap into action. Amii and Stolas take to the skies, the former sending spears of purple flame down into the elven ranks as the latter descends, crushing elves under their long legs and sharp talons. Samnock removes his great round head, a chain extending from the stump. He grabs it and swings his own skull as a meteor hammer, whipping it around so it and the chain sever the top halves of the trees to bring them crashing down. Lerage nocks that great bow with conjured arrows the size of javelins and fires, each one skewering at least two elves before embedding into the tree. The fae's skin immediately becomes gangrenous as the trees behind them wither and die. Haborym rushes to sit in the pyre Lilian has made, writhing in the flame as his bulk just sends elves flying, flames spurting from his nostrils. "CAVALRY, FORWARD!" comes the call from the forest. A company of elven knights mounted on Ceffyl Dwr charge, bearing lances of spiralling water, crashing against Hescina and her fellow demons with all the force and weight of a flooded, rushing river. Meanwhile, the ground under Lilian and Cantio's feet becomes swampy for a moment, before massive thorned vines leap to live, attempting to coil about and crush the both of them. The works of those magicians no-doubt. On top of attacking them, it renders the open field more hazardous. Trying to draw the fight into their forest, their territory.
Cantio	Cantio flinches at that sharp rebuke from Lilian, her already faltering attempts at resolving things without bloodshed crashing and burning by that point already. Instead of trying to answering on reflex or coming up with something 'witty', though, she actually stays quiet for a few moments. "A spine, huh? That's..." That's the second time someone's said that. That was the point of the past few months, wasn't it? All that fighting, all those shouting matches, all those unpopular decisions? Tightening her grip on the sword, Cantio takes a deep breath as she returns her focus to the elven forces again and settles into an actual fighting stance. "That's right. I'll show you how much spinier I've gotten!" With her spirits overcoming her questionable choice of words, Cantio nods confidently at Amii at his reassuring words before charging into the fray as well. She only makes it about three steps forward, however, as the ground beneath her starts to shift and reach out with those thorny vines. They rake against her legs with some harsh gashes appearing from the few that make their mark, but she hurls herself into the air before they can pull her in completely. Then again, getting pulled into the forest more figuratively might not be a necessarily bad thing, either. "So that's their plan... Fine, then. If you want the home field advantage, then we'll just show you just how little that matters!" Getting herself fired up as she lands on solid-enough ground, she breaks into a sprint towards the forest. She raises her sword despite being far too far to hit anyone with it, then hurls it right into the forest while making sure it's spinning as much as possible in the process. Naturally, the spinning's purpose becomes evident when the edges of the weapon start to glow an ominously neon pink. Instead of just falling to the ground, the sword starts to hover and spin wildly in place, firing off bits of itself as the solid matter becomes pinpoint-like lasers. It quickly becomes apparent that Cantio isn't targeting any specific magician just yet in favor of flushing them out with the sheer quantity of projectiles flying around.
Hesinca	"Hah, yeah, smoking them if they've got 'em," says Hesinca. "Because it's a forest, and the best thing to do in a forest is to light up a cigarette." She stands her ground as the calvary charges in, the centaur-type demon planting her hooves in the ground and not giving up so much as an inch. "Are we getting herded?" She calls over her shoulder at the vine-assaulted others while trying to fend off a water lance. "Because..." "... It seems like they don't know who really controls the battlefield here! GEO CHANGE! RED: Poison RED: ATK Down The ground in places around the forest starts glowing with a gently pulsating red aura, and anyone looking at it instinctively knows that standing on it brings poison and a decrease in attack power - whatever abstract nature attack power is, standing on the red makes you hit not as hard. Unfortunately, the red colored areas just happen to correspond with the best spots to assault the demons (and allies) from, so pick your poison, elves. Literally!
Lilian Rook	"Well. We'll see." Lilian spared for Amii, in the moments between the front end of the ancient forest turning to bitter charcoal, and the elves mounting a counterattack. Its her 'professionally aloof' combat planning voice, which is a significant improvement over overt suspicion or sarcasm. "It's one thing to share a thesis in a bar. It's another to stand in front of a village." The ground turning to swamp is not what Lilian wanted to happen while wearing shined boots, but the fit is part of the statement she's making; responding to the elven aggression* in clothes of old rather than trapped in the technology of fearful military humans today. She makes no effort to hide her grimace, casually tossing aside her scabbard, such that it whirls end over end and lands point down in the dirt at a safe distance, remarkably heavy and capped in steel. She's just in the process of stickily extricating her boots from the sludge when the wet mud erupts under the explosive growth of the vines, surging up around her and-- -----[stop]----- "No. Absolutely not." Lilian snaps at the vines, as if they, or anyone, could hear her. She swats away a few drops of water and streamers of muck that are uncomfortably close to landing on her dress, clearing the space around her knees with the back of her hand, and then steps neatly out of the crater in the mud caused by the attack. She climbs up on the curved tides of its sodden edges, the liquid yet to refill the earthen cavity working as solid ground, as if it were so much cleverly painted museum resin and plaster for a diorama. The illusion of the exhibit is completed already in countless ways. A museum walkthrough of 'the battle of Amii and the faeries'. Fey steeds poised in snarling countenance, lances of water coiled in artful spirals, noble mages with robes sculpted into dramatic repose. Beads of water hang in the air like glass cleverly suspended by wires. So is crimson blood, where demonic furor is captured in mid-swing as if by the hand of a dementedly inspired prop artist. Lilian's focus is, of course, not walking about in marvel at this silent, crisply detailed universe, but on mantling the vines with a hop and a skip off of numerous conveniently placed tendrils and thorns, and to exceed the height of its collapsing grasp, thus completely nullifying the advantage a veteran fighter would expect to gain from that one-two timing trap. -----[start]----- --breezing past the hem of her dress, knees together, as she vaults over the top so lightly that it's as if, for a brief moment, she's suspended herself on just the fingertips that brush the tips of the magical growth. Before the concerning incongruity can fully register, never mind be processed, she--
Lilian Rook	-----[stop]----- Lilian skims free of actually touching the ground, coasting on a wake of eerie black static like an ice skater, and slides effortlessly between the ranks of the charging cavalry. A blow here, a sweep there, a cruel kick of a steed's knees, a rough shove to a mounted rider, sufficient to topple noble knights into the swamp and onto the red panels, collapsing part of the wedge without clear cause. -----[start]----- --reappears already in the midst of the elven back line instead. A deep breath. An extended hand. The black sword twirls end over end with a cold, whooshing roar. Then a lunging flash of red light, and a blur of black hair and crimson dress. The crazed path of luminous scarlet streamers marks a path of savage violence from elf to elf to elf. A dance-like whirl behind one's back and a burst of blade through chest. A slash of spilled blood into another's eyes and an upward-surging decapitating strike. A leap from a falling body onto a pair of shoulders and a vertical plunge top down through a skull, followed by a snapping twist. A straight knee-breaker kick and a visceral chop to the throat, with a head-caving pommel bash to the adjacent companion, a skewering thrust back into the gasping former's heart, ripped free for a thrice whirling chop through both the latter's arms and straight down the chest. A dismembered body kicked aside, colliding with an unsuspecting mage, with a piercing lunge skewering both at once. A snap blast of red and black fire engulfing the face of an approaching spearman at point blank. Violence fit to make a fresh soldier cringe. A kind that is worlds apart from the begrudging, clinical precision she uses on human beings, left to writhe on the ground and regret it later. Stabbing upward from under jaws, passing twisted blades through soft guts, taking three targets at once in triangular, rapid lashing succession. Peace was never an option.
Vergil	Cantio's blade whirls at the backline, scattering lasers to cut through the mage division. Several are killed instantly, the cannier ones weaving barriers of dimpled light to deflect the beams away from their person. This mercifully distracts them enough that they stop creating the briar in the field long enough for Sabnock to free himself. He tosses his head so that the jaw can bite down on a sturdy tree and the chain retract to pull his bulky form from the muck. Lerage was also caught, but the vines just withered upon getting close to him, and he's tall enough to simply wade out. Hesinca lays down her own terrain manipulation. The knights pull on the reins of their steeds and canter around the red panels, leering at them. They try to wash them away with water from their spears. One shoves a foot soldier onto them and watches as they start coughing cerulean blood. This moment of hesitation is their downfall, as Lilian appears among their ranks. Water horses go down in cries of pain, a knight shrieks as they land on the panels and their eyes become a sickly yellow. The violence she enacts can only be called demonic. Heads roll and guts of glitter and gold spill. The forest air becomes thick with pained last breaths. Even elves as cruel as these balk at it, terror rippling through their ranks. But they now stand within the forest. "Rise, o grass of hunger. Rise, o ancient trees. Choke these interlopers," a regal voice says plainly from the depths of the woods. The trees, even those that are burning or cut in half begin to rise. The branches intertwine, the leaves blotting the sun. Grass sprouts underfoot, and begins sapping strength. Hunger surges within the guts of those that stand upon it, the blades snagging and encircling legs to pin them down. Once trapped, great roots spring up and attempt to crush necks and limbs both. Amii dives through the canopy, the branches managing to cut through his scaled and draw thick blood. "Haborym, together!" he shouts. The bullsnake nods, and together the two issue flames of red and purple to drive back the forest's wrath. The air turns sour as Lerage's eye gleams and the grass starts turning yellow and sickly, elves near him suddenly choking on their swollen tongues. Stolas and Sabnock tear into the remaining knights, the latter struggling to expand their wings in the now-confined space.
Hesinca	"Oh great! Now the whole forest is doing this whole thing," says Hesinca, being enveloped by vines and grass. The fact that she's focused on not moving and not being driven back makes her an easier target for it. She brings a hand up to her lips and whistles. "Prinny squad! Front and center!" From the glowing floor tile that she made her entrance, dozens of penguin golems pour forth. "Mistress Hesinca, Dood! Do you need us to do some aggressive gardening?" The prinnies hold up a variety of practical and not so practical horticultural implements - scythes, trimmers, weedeaters, jugs of chemicals, lawnmowers, and Almanacs of the Farmer variety. "Nah, I just needed you out here," says Hesinca, struggling to free herself from the vines, getting cut in several places. "Sorry, dood, what do you mean-DOOD!" The angry forest has seized upon the prinnies, and has started wrapping them up, crushing them, throwing them around-
Cantio	Now that she's in the forest proper, Cantio is actually a fair bit out of her element. Having always had the city as her home, being surrounded by trees, trees, and more trees is actually somewhat unnerving with all its natural angles and uneven everything. As she maneuvers past one tree, she's ready to lash at another shape only to realize it's more tree. The fact that she's already mentally prepared to be attacked by trees is only a small comfort compared to the foliage actually attacking her. Cantio lurches forward as she feels her energy being leached into the ground below, holding one hand downwards to cast some healing spells to keep her legs attached in a race with those blades of grass. She resists her reflex to brace herself against another tree that would surely eat her hand first, although the grass entangling her from below gives her little room to maneuver towards those magicians in the backline still proving to be elusive targets compared to their fallen brethren. "All this talent, and you waste it fighting us!" Fighting back that desire to try and make one more appeal, Cantio instead raises her hand as she's enveloped in a pillar of light. A moment later, and she's transformed into that white and pink plasticy 'armor'. With the grass still holding her down, though, she still needs to free herself! Simple enough. "But that's okay, too, because I'm here to fix it all!" Closing her eyes, Cantio puts on a well-practiced and overly chipper anime-girl smile (with surprisingly little embarrassment or hesitation) as she brings her hands together in the shape of a heart, and everything stops. Although that drained energy doesn't return, she can take a moment to breathe and to weigh her options. First, the grass. A twist, a tug, and she pries her foot out of its hold before snatching her sword out of the air. Second, the magicians. She can see the survivors in their defensive positions, and she jogs over towards them to thrust her sword right in, fire off lasers at close range, and generally just aiming for quick kills. There's a moment of hesitation as she does so, but it's a moment she can take to remind herself why she's doing all of this. Their deaths will make this world better. It has to, if she's going to aid in committing genocide like this. Third, getting her face back into that easygoing state. That actually takes her a little longer than it did to just stab a bunch of elves, but she's forcing that bright smile perfectly once everything continues in a whirlwind of movement, stabs, and laser shots from close range.
Lilian Rook	In the midst of horrendous violence, at the center of the blur of blood and blade, surrounded by scarlet and gold, Lilian would have best appeared checked out. Calm and serene, focused and deadly, in the terrible mayhem that she creates. Then it might have been simply impressive. Inspiring. A feat of martial prowess, despite its grisly aesthetic. But where a certain demon in blue might be arrogantly detached, cool and collected, and where a certain demon in red might be whooping and hollering, living up the excitement, the human in black is given to an almost fanged grin of sadistic catharsis, heaving malice with each swing and breathing in sweet validation with each scream-accompanied florish. Black tracery, almost tattoo-like, has fully grown from her sword hand and blossomed all the way up to her chin, eyes turned from green to red in resonance with the sword-soul that throbs and soars at such bloody carnage, but surely even a demon can't mistake all of such a countenance for the wickedness of a single weapon. It is, perversely, most likely to be a denizen of Hell who recognizes a similar look to 'a sinner suddenly able to indulge, rather than repent'. Of course she chases them into the forest. Lilian is far from a stranger to such things. Despite soaking in the trappings of the urban rich girl, ancient woods like these surround her ancestral home, and she has spent countless days in them. To her, it's her killzone as much as the elves'. The branches don't obstruct her. The roots don't slow her. The thorns and stones don't bother her. A bloody, slaughterous pursuit chases them all the way back, hellbent towards that deeper, voice. It is of course here that she can't 'dodge' a field effect. Not without leaving the entire area at least. The curse of consumption claws at the pit of her stomach, as since she isn't, at allegedly, a flesh-eating beast of any kind, hunger is a sapping, distracting presence from battle, rather than a motivator. She ducks crushing roots, weaves between strangling grasses, leaps over clinging patches, rapidly blinking forward whenever there isn't a clear route ahead, closing in on the retreating ranks like a ghost from a horror movie. The pursuit, the hunt, the slaying, is the object of her absolute monofocus. Letters in the almost prehistoric Ogham floral script run down the fuller of her sword. The curse, rather than dissuade her, urges her to hurry up and rush onwards. To kill as many as she can before her strength begins to flag. To be drenched in blood and sweat and tears before her time here must be up. Relief from that assault, ironically, comes because of Cantio. The DCC's super attack freezes Lilian's own. Literally, she pauses completely, head to toe, perfectly tensed. Her eyes slide sideways in the digital goddess' direction, wild and unblinking, face splattered with cerulean and golden gore. She turns away from the faeries. Looks away from the enemy. And begins walking towards Cantio. "What did you just do?" are the words Cantio is demanded --words she must-- answer. The fact that Lilian stopped speaking English at some point feels less than secondary to that.
Vergil	Prinnies burst against the trees and cause their trunks to splinter, preventing their rapid growth as they struggle to stem the weeping sap and fresh buds that erupt from the damaged areas. Sabnock follows up by shoulder tackling a damaged tree, causing it to fall and create a domino effect against other trees. "Such convenient minions!" he compliments the centaur. The fae, for all their command over the natural world, have very little control over something as base as time itself. At best, they may isolate themselves from it to a degree. As it stands however, they have no defence or comprehension of even one time-stopping foe, let alone two. Cantio and Lilian rip through the rear guard. The last foot soldiers and mages, a few royal guards who were absolutely not expecting to have to be in combat so soon. By the time Lilian has stopped to be indignant at Cantio, they stand before the queen of this particular court. Cheekbones literally sharp as glass are twisted in a rictus of fury. Starshowers rain down upon her dress woven from the night sky. The fact that Lilian isn't even paying her any mind is the ultimate insult. If it weren't for Amii and his crew arriving, she would no doubt attempt some manner of high magic or generational curse. "Have them then," she hisses, the woods rattling with her words. "But you'll never get what you want. Humans know only how to fear things. If they do not fear you, they will not respect you. Your alliance is doomed." She fades into the mist, and those who can still walk join her. Bodies left behind turn into logs, into rings of mushrooms, into clouds of dandelion on the breeze. Stolas makes a vague fist with his talons and pumps it. "We won!" The demons all cheer, Haborym lets out a victorious braying moo to the sky as Sabnock and Lerage clasp each other's shoulders (the former has to stand upon his own head to reach).
Cantio	With the immediate threat of having her legs and other limbs removed solved by way of ultraviolence, Cantio makes sure to keep her smile on for the camera as she turns to give her drones some good footage for later. Editing work will be needed later, though, as she's jolted out of that by an unexpected approach from Lilian seemingly out of nowhere. "The... Stabbing? Or the lasers?" That can't be it. She knows Lilian's seen her do that before, and she's never heard Lilian speak in that language before. Fighting back a grimace, Cantio's jaw is notably stiff as she swallows once before answering. "The pose, you mean. That's a new ability I... Learned." The pause makes it a little too obvious Cantio's hiding something, but there's an uncharacteristically firm look in her eyes as she tries desperately not to let her natural fear instincts kick in like they always do. "Why do you ask?" It takes even more concentration and self-control to look towards the queen of the court once she speaks up, although there's still that lingering anxiety keeping Cantio from turning completely away from Lilian. "Humans have more power than you give them credit for. Maybe you'll realize that one day, if..." She trails off for a while, content to just watch as the queen fades along with the remaining soldiers. Breathing a sigh of (partial) relief, she finally allows herself to smile politely (but not completely genuinely) at the victory cheers from the demons. "Good job, everyone! Let's hope this'll keep them off our backs, at least for a little while. The villagers should be notified, too, in case they're not worried about coming back so soon. And if any of you need healing, I'll... I can take care of it." A pause, and then she looks towards the Prinnies in particular. "... Does that work for you, too? Or do we need a sewing kit for that?"
Hesinca	"They're already dead," says Hesinca as she oversees the surviving prinnies looting the dead elves (and others). "Or never alive, depending on how deep you look into it." "You don't gotta be that blunt about it, dood," says one of the prinnies. "And it's cheaper to buy new ones than fix the old ones," she adds. "And you REALLY don't need to be THAT, blunt, dood!"
Lilian Rook	The queen of the fae, or at least a faerie queen, should indeed be something that should immediately monopolize Lilian's attention; whether that be for the reasons of fey grace and majestic awe, or for representing a focal point of Lilian's current obsessions, considered irrelevant in this case. Certainly, insulting her is a side effect that the young lady would hardly mind at this moment, if she could be bothered to register it. But yet, somehow, Cantio's reluctance, if not currently her existence, has somehow become a far graver offense. "No you didn't." she replies to Cantio. The distance keeps closing between them. "Don't lie to be you piece of shit. Do you think you're smarter than me? Do you honestly believe that I can't tell what you're thinking?" When she tries to turn her attention to the Prinnies, Lilian arrives right in her face, grabs her by the hair, and turns her to face right back at her. "Don't look away from me while I'm talking. The fact that I'm even speaking to refuse like you is more than you deserve already." Having one's hair pulled, of course, hurts quite a bit. "You did something that you're not supposed to. Something that you can't, and you won't ever do again. Does that fucking compile for you? Now tell me where you got it from, before I get really, really angry." The joyous celebration of the demonic cohort is lost in the moment. There is something genuinely, menacingly unhinged about it.
Cantio	Cantio yelps as her attention is brought right back to Lilian by force, wincing at the yank and reaching up instinctively to the hand in question. What's the optimal solution here? Is there even an optimal solution here? There's plenty of options in general, sure, but which is the one that gets her in the last amount of trouble? "G... Get off of me!" It's probably not the one that involves yelling and grabbing at Lilian's face to try and shove her right off. Alas, that's the one that Cantio opts for, partially in her haste to just extract herself from the situation and also because she'd much rather be anywhere but right next to Lilian in such a state. "What's gotten into you? I... S-so what if I can do something you can't? It's not always about you, Lilian!" She shouts back with her composure and voice cracking, letting her frustrations spill out without making any more than a token attempt to moderate her tone and her words. "Yeah, I couldn't do this before, but... But I can now! And using it more isn't your choice!" Under other circumstances, Cantio would have enough sense not to get into this here. Alas, this is not other circumstances. She's trembling, her knuckles are turning white, and she barely looks like she's managing to stop herself from devolving into unintelligible screeching.
Lilian Rook	Touching Lilian's face is the exact moment Cantio makes her first mistake. A hair-pulling, face slapping, up close flustering exchange is not where she wants to be right now. Her reflexive push swishes through empty air instead, leaving a moment for her to stumble without Lilian's grasp anywhere in her hair, the other girl having simply leaned easily to the side to avoid the least coordinated 'attack' all night. Just a split second later, she reaches back up to grab a whole fistful of Cantio's purple locks, sharply pull her head down, lift up her own heel and savagely knee strike her in the diaphragm, then release and drop her. "And don't talk back to me you stupid little bitch." The words themselves, even besides their immense payload of irrational, stabbing vitriol, carry an unnaturally commanding, intimidating, even terrifying edge to them, demanding cowering compliance. Not nearly done with the wild emotional edge she's apparently been pushed to, Lilian takes one, two, slow steps back, and then swings her foot to toe kick Cantio under the chin. "You got given a taste of someone else's power and now you think it's your right to mouth off? To me?! Where do you get off thinking you can do that? Hmm? Who gave you permission?!" The situation has devolved well beyond mere Heather-esque intimidation and bullying. It's gone all the way to Lilian now getting into kicking the poor girl while she's down every time she needs a punctuation mark. "Know! Your! Place! You! Fucking! Program! I'm asking you a question and I'm giving you an order! You aren't human! You aren't a demon! You're aren't fit to lick my fucking boots! So shut up and do as I tell you, or I will fucking! Kill! You!" Given that the only people around for a long ways are those who view the world almost exclusively through power and domination, lead by someone hype on humans, there is suddenly the real feeling that things could only get worse. There's no Tamamo no Mae to dote on, no Strawberry Princess or Xion to avoid disappointing, not even an Arthur or Edward or Roxas to keep up appearances around. It's just Cantio and her opportunity to think deeply on if she wants to see just how deep this crazy actually goes. Lilian crouches down, careful not to let the hem of her skirt actually touch the ground, hovering over Cantio whilst just calm enough to withhold further violence. The fact that she hasn't put the sword away yet doesn't help with the bright red eyes or blood-splattered countenance, not the jarringly mismatched, sickly sweet tone she suddenly takes. "I know who you are. You're not the ruler. You're not the goddess. You're not even the eldest. You're a utility. A tool. A backup at best. So be a good girl, and do what you're fucking told, okay~?" Lilian sighs, still maintaining that maddeningly, almost convincingly patient and sweet voice. "I'm not being unreasonable here. In fact, I'm being very nice to you. Here, in clear and certain terms, I'm telling you that you have a choice. You can tell me, and swear you'll be good. Or, I can make your life a living hell~! I know what you're thinking; you can't hide anything from me. No need to make things even harder on yourself, right? So take your free card, do what I tell you to, and go home to hide in your big sister's shadow like you're supposed to." The ultimate unfairness is that it really is just an ultimatum for the sake of it. Lilian has already decided on invading Cantio's thoughts a while ago, with her mind-bending words and the scent of her fears and secrets, like the much worse kind of faerie queen than the one there'd just been.
Cantio	This night certainly went from decent to terrible in the span of about.... How long has it even been? Getting hit in the face so many times definitely makes it feel longer than it probably is, but that's not much of a relief for the person getting kicked in the face. Perhaps to Lilian's satisfaction, though, that commanding aura of hers does indeed have the purple-haired girl cowering, trying to just wait out the terrible ordeal with her arms covering her head after the first few blows. "Where...? Who's... I..." Actually getting out a verbal response is another ordeal entirely, dazed as she is and as frightened as she's become from the (relatively) sudden shift in Lilian from just being generally intimidating to outright terrifying. Those pointed remarks about her nature just hammer in all those insecurities at once, too. Really, what was she thinking? Trying to play the part of the good leader, the one that the people back home could rely on, the substitute for her sister. Even though she can't manage any real words, it's a simple enough matter to go probing around in Cantio's mind. The surface thoughts are about as expected and already touched on: A lifetime of overachieving, trying to escape from the shadow of exactly the person that Lilian had said, even to the point of genuine accomplishments whether through dumb luck or cracking her own moral compass. What Lilian finds further beneath the surface, however, might just be of some use to her. Indeed, despite Cantio's best efforts to not say anything (which is kind of easy right now), it's impossible for her not to think of the second older sister figure lingering in her mind. The source of her newfound powers, the confidence to start starting shit over the past few months, yet another awakening of the baser sort, all in a coincidentally (or potentially disconcerting) purple-haired package... BB.