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Persephone Kore      You've been out for a handful of minutes. Persephone has been wishing to fix Lilian. Lilian has been wishing to kill Persephone. For once in their entire lives, neither of them has gotten what they want yet. This is the crossfire:

     Fort Tormach is utterly gone. This is not a battlefield but Hell in the most literal sense; the Earth's crust has been carved away with immense telekinetic strikes, revealing burning Tartarus beneath. This is now a jagged terrain of sharp peaks capped by the original grass and flowers, and deep valleys terminating in a lake of fire that mars the sky with columns of thick black smoke.

     Persephone had wished for nobody else to get hurt, and the world made that real: thousand-foot-tall walls of solid sparkling diamond, sculpted and compacted from the surrounding earth by unimaginable pressures, separate this alien battlefield from the rest of the world. On the other side, the displaced bystanders can be distantly seen watching helplessly. The diamond walls refract, in sparkling rainbow hues, the light of a half-dozen lesser astrokinetic suns hurled as attacks and then forgotten.

     Abandoned on a grassy peak is the Queen in Veils, or what remains of it: immaculate white plastic lies cut into smoking pieces. A plastic toy brought to a real fight between adults could meet no other fate.

     Persephone herself levitates above the infernal terrain. Her body forgets, but her clothes remember. Red-that-is-not-blood slicks her in rivulets, covering her more effectively than the bullet-shredded remains of a sweater.

     "-DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" Persephone's face is contorted with a deep, agonized frustration that is almost like anger. Her teeth are bared and gritted in a grimace as she lets out a harsh, hissing breath. Her eyes are scrunched shut; her nails dig into her palms. "I don't want this!! I never did!!! Why do you want something this awful?! It's-"

     Whatever else she was going to say, it catches in her throat when she senses your presence. She glances back over her shoulder, and objectively only a second of eye contact passes, but her heart brushes up against yours and it seems to stretch on for as long as needed.

     Oh. You're back.

     I'm sorry you had to see this. I really really am. I wish I could've taken care of it myself. It's easier that way, isn't it, for me to hold and carry everyone? Only this time I can't.

     When me and Lilian fight, it's too serious. It's not dolls and plastic toys anymore; it's a struggle for power in absolute terms. Nothing can get through. That's why it's no use. I'm the one she feels threatened by; she could never open up enough to let me fix her.

     I need you to make it un-serious. I need you to make it okay. I need you to be dolls, to make it about feelings and truths instead of life or death. It's awful of me to put that weight on you. But you said you'd carry it, right?

     You said you'd support me. And I'm trying to believe that. This is your chance.

     There is just enough time for you to answer in kind before all hell breaks loose again.
Lilian Rook     "I don't care what you want, Persephone! What you want is all you ever talk about! All anyone cares about! You always always ALWAYS get what YOU want! So shut the fuck UP! This is about what I want! For once, for once, FOR ONCE, IT'S MY TURN FOR SOMETHING TO GO MY WAY! STARTING WITH YOU!"

    Lilian recognizes your return simultaneously. Though the place in which you're dumped back into the world you'd left is undoubtedly where she had been, right before you were pulled in where Persephone was, it is no longer recognizable in any way as the listening post it once was. All signs of the attempted Psychonaut project have been thoroughly erased by incomprehensible force, leaving it no more special than any other battlescarred black crag. The only thing out of place is a spent magazine, partially scorched, dropped in the dirt and wrapped with red tape, surrounded by a thin carpet of burnt bullet casings. Each and every single one of them has been obsessively inscribed with the name Persephone by knifepoint.

    Even this hellish battleground first feels like heaven, for the few seconds it takes for the mind and body to reacclimate to something other than the smothering, ego-melting fog you'd just emerged from. The fact that it had uniquely emerged while you were gone for barely a couple of minutes, without you 'in the way', could be seen as a mercy or a condemnation either way, however.

    Lilian looks fairly similar to the way she'd appeared before you left. That confirms it must certainly be the real article. The double layered black and grey-green jackets have been tattered into resembling something more like a ragged, heavy cloak, but their ostensible purpose is now abundantly clear, having melted from heat, and cracked and torn from ballistic shrapnel, that clearly wouldn't arise from Persephone's powers, as much as they've been damaged by her actual opponent. The gashes on her face are clearly at least a week old, but the hideous Decompression Chamber bruise is a mere faded memory, replaced with sooty marks and a bloody lip. If it weren't for the hair pin, you'd never identify her from this distance.

    All around you, broken armour-inserts lie scattered with red-taped magazines, spent casings, deep black craters, and eroded sprawls of burnt-out runes, but of course it's the sword that is drenched in blood that is not blood more than anything by far. Lilian's impact on Fort Tormach is miniscule in comparison to Persephone's, but one of them had come prepared for war, and one hadn't.

    "Hearthward. Inspector Unit Four. You have sixty seconds to deal with them however you please. If you're not done by then, I'll get rid of them myself. Do you understand? This mess has gotten too big already; I'm cleaning up after the Paladins one way or another."

    "Don't get in my way. You won't like what I do to you in self-defense."
Featherman Neo As he reappears in the waking world, Featherman Neo's armor is still frayed, his helmet singed, and his body hurt. Despite that, he's reinvigorated by the help of the spectre Cecilia as well as Cantio's recuratives, and so, taking one cautious step after another, he only spares a glance towards Kale and I4 to make sure they're all on the same page.

"Lilian Rook. We barely know each other, but I feel like I understand you a lot better. This isn't going to make you happy - it's just going to alienate everyone you love. Please, don't do this."

His hands don't move to his weapons, but they don't need to. He's a quick draw.

"Feelings and truths...Rook. This type of darkness eats away the soul, stains it black. Once you've taken a life, you can't go back. Why don't we just go back to insulting each other on the radio and you making fun of me for being a masked freak?"

"It'll be fun. I promise!"
Cantio Breaking through to that strange figure that had its hold on Lilian's psyche was hard enough. Facing the diamond hellscape before her, however, just shows Cantio that breaking through to Lilian's heart is going to be another matter entirely. The first task was difficult enough, but this one where the earth itself doesn't even register visibly as the earth anymore, where trying to cool Lilian's rage and pent up fury is the main task, and where she's seemingly in control of her facilities in all of her mania might as well be impossible.

We'll do it. There's no hesitation in Cantio's mind as she advances steadily, inhaling that horrid stench while she surveys the battlefield... No. It can't be a battlefield anymore. It has to be something... Reassuring? Something that'll remind Lilian that things will be okay. Something to turn her away from this path filled with suffering and regrets. How did Hibiki and Shotaro and Rita and even Forte get through to her last time?

... Maybe a little bit of battlefield.

"I4. Hearthward. I'll understand if you don't want to cross swords with an ally. If you need it to look convincing, though... I'll make it look good." She stage-whispers back towards the Paladins present, reaching over her shoulder to flash them the briefest of thumbs-ups (but upside-down) before drawing her sword from her sleeve and making it look like it's from her shoulder. Thankfully, she's switched to clothes that are a little more suited for a brawl, and certainly more familiar to Lilian: The usual white and purple sailor outfit with the white and pink stockings, the big Cadenza-branded boots, and even the little dance pad hair clips on each side.

Cantio leaps forward, past those shining peaks and landing within that field of grass and flowers, skidding slightly before fixing her gaze on Lilian. It's probably the first time in ages she's managed to actually maintain eye contact with her.

"Lilian... Is this really what you're resorting to? I thought you were better than this." There's still a hint of anxiety in her voice, certainly, but it's already starting to give way to a more forceful feeling welling up in her gut. It's that same thing she had felt when she had seen Lilian behind that closed door. "I thought you were supposed to be better than me, but this..."

"This isn't you."
Kale Hearthward "No."

Truths. Feelings. Not life, and not death. Kale's a dealer in the latter, certainly - but this isn't time for that. Now is the time to bring things back down. No brinksmanship, no urgency.

And fortunately, he has something at the ready. He's had it for weeks, and would have used it earlier if Lilian hadn't ran off to go be unavailable in her homeworld. Now, though, feels like the perfect moment, given the task.

Kale reaches into a pocket. He has a large number of things on him, in shrunken 'tokenized' form - but this particular thing is too important to not have carried in normal form, just so he can always have it at the ready, just in case.

It's a single white glove - a fancy one, made from high quality cloth, with the Paladins crest custom-embroidered on the back, and below it the letters KH.

"Dame Lilian Rook..."

Time to play dollhouse.

"I challenge you!"

He throws the glove to the ground in front of her, heedless as to where it actually lands.

"You act tough! You act like you have it all together!"

He points at her, while reaching back and putting his other hand on the hilt of one of his swords. "Well! Now everyone will see - by taking you down, that I am the one who's tough, that I'm the one who has it all together! And I'll do it effortlessly and stylishly!"

Kale Hearthward puts every bit of his theatrical training into his words - infusing them with a false belligerance, a stubbornness and a hubris, a tone of smug superiority and certainty that is practically begging to be taken down a peg - as befits a doll set up to take a fall.

But at the same time - it's not all acting. It's truth. Ever since they came back from Kamar-Taj, he's been itching for this - a chance to test himself, to prove himself, against this woman who's attracted allies and advocates as easily as a table attracts crumbs. If he's letting his training and skills modulate his tone, then it's his feelings and his truths amplify his volume.

"Whatever trivial business you have with Kore and the Concord can wait! I, Kale Hearthward of the East Wind, demand satisfaction!"
Candy      "I sure did say I'd carry it."

    If it weren't for Cecilia, Candy would be exhausted. In a sense, he sort of is. His clothes bear scorch marks and holes from the places where shrapnel pierced them, party attire not hardened like his body is.

    "Lilian. There's nobody here you gotta defend yourself from. But I gotta get in your way, because you're hurting my friend. If that pisses you off, you oughta know I came ready for an ass beating, and I'll take whatever you can give me and more if it means this don't end with people screaming and crying."

    "I don't like what I said to you. I don't like the way I made you feel. I didn't know how much I sounded like... like somebody trying to put rules on how you can act."

    "Do you really, really want Persephone to be dead? Or is it something else? Is it something you think you'll get if she's dead?"

    "You're one of the strongest, smartest, kindest people I know. You work so hard to be that way. You said I'd never catch up to you, but I don't wanna. I don't wanna get into no race with you. I thought I did, because you did something that hurt me. I thought I wanted to hurt you back. But I don't."

    "What do you want? Really?"
Ishirou Reappearing in the real world didn't do much for his injuries, though the borrowed power is doing what it can.  He's lost some blood and still is weakened by the expenditure of power to try and restrain the psychohazard.  In fact, it takes a moment for him to realize he was even back.  

POD, however, grabs his hand and forces him to his feet.  "Yeah...yeah, I know," he says, wanting a bit more rest but knowing he wasn't going to get it.  Normally, he might complain about it being a bother, but...he's also sure that it isn't.  His body hurts, and he's tired...exhausted, and honestly kind of tired being referred to as a doll?  Like, really, it's hurtful especially with everything that's happened to him in Indus.  

Cantio makes an offer, but I4 shakes his head.  "No."

"That..." he says firmly, and then yells at Lilian, "Isn't my name!" he gets out.  "My name is I4, and Foureyes to my friends...so in other words, you're supposed to call me /Foureyes/.  That's how nicknames work, and because I'm a human now it makes sense!" he continues for a moment.  "I don't apologize for getting what I wanted.  I am not sorry about making myself feel right.  I am sorry for hurting you, and making you feel isolated."  

"Maybe I should have waited, and...that's on me.  I am not, have not, and will /never/ be against you.  You're my friend, someone who's pushed me to get better, right?  I did it to get there, to be better...and maybe it was risky, but it was for me to risk!"

"So I am not some brain jacked mind slave or Persephone, but I'm not about to let you kill yourself to kill or hurt her, or anyone else.  These people are trying to do the same, even people that feel wronged by you.  People hurt by you..."

"People who turned their heads while you shouldered the burden.  Well, not anymore, okay?  So just...stop, let yourself rest..." he looks at Kale, "Though if you want to beat up Kale, I still owe him for the washing machine comment, and uh...the psychospace thing."

"Look...if you keep going like this, what's going to happen?  You don't want to be a villain, right?  You want people to love you, well...I'm here, and I won't abandon you, okay!  Neither will Rita, she wants to help you too.  So...please, just stop, okay?"
Staren     The day is saved. The heroes won. The right call was to shoot it as hard as possible. Which is what Flamel SAID to do, so, actually, point in the 'trusting friends works' column?

    Staren detransforms and drops to her hands and knees, normal clothes and wounds reappearing; the static stops and Dark Staren snaps back into focus, hair shrinking back under the helmet.

    The Starens look at Cecilia as they feel that soothing presence. Staren nods at her words. And then they're sucked back towards the breach, Dark Staren similarly reverting to his initial appearance before merging with Staren again on the way out.
Staren     ...The day was supposed to be saved! Staren finds herself on a grassy peak; as she stands, her white cloak billows in the winds generated by extreme opposing temperatures, the hood blowing down from her head and freeing her hair to do the same.

    Staren takes a deep breath. I thought I did that already... Did Lilian not hear us...?

    It... sure doesn't look or *sound* like this Lilian is aware of anything that happened inside that place. She's scary. Terrifying. Staren's already been thrown into an EV-event, whatever that is, crossed the suffocating atmosphere of Lilian's mind for an interminable time, faced seemingly-unbeatable psychohazards, and spent willpower fighting the urge to just shoot. I'm so tired... Lilian is shouting. Her voice makes it worse. Someone confident who brooks no dissent, more signals an already-taxed mind doesn't want to deal with. Damn that charisma!

    Although, the bright Lilian who was so scared that adults wouldn't believe or respect her is brought back into Staren's mind. Right. Somewhere inside that is a scarred girl... Staren winces recalling the beating. SAY SOMETHING! But what can I possibly say?!

    "L... l... L...lilian." Lips move but the word probably can't be heard over the background noise. Next to these two clashing stronger personalities, she feels like a mouse that's wandered into the battle between dragon and tiger. I'm not powerless! I can make her notice me, even if only as an annoyance.

    Staren pulls the laser pistol out from under her black military overcoat, gripping it with white knuckles. Featherman's argument won't work. By coming this far she's already shown she won't be deterred by being stained black. Cantio's, too. Kale might be on to something, though...

    "LILIAAAAN!"

    She shouts at the top of her lungs. You better make this good...

    "..." Don't choke don't choke don't choke "I... you're..." she takes a deep breath and shouts again, "Even if we're just dolls to you! That you worked so hard not to lose us shows we matter to you! Throwing all that away to be alone...! That can't be what you want! Maybe it's what you think you HAVE to...! But what good is that?! If only you matter, what's 'good' or 'evil' anymore?! There's no one else to help!"

    Staren presses on with the argument: "You're betraying yourself! Straining to the breaking point trying to become some idea you think is more 'right' or 'important'!" Staren holds the pistol flat against her chest. "I know you think of me as a joke, but remember how much MORE of a loser I was when I was trying to do that?! You'll lessen yourself! You'll... you'll turn the 'you' that cares into another doll!"

    "But she'll still be there! Watching, and listening, and hurting, and the longer you act this way, the more that part of you will hurt, and you'll tell yourself you can't go back because you already sacrificed so much! But right now, you still CAN go back!"

    "I don't know what the right path forward is. *I'M* just some loser. But you have friends, and they'll help you figure it out! You can have your happy ending... and the only one strong enough to take it away from you now is YOURSELF!"

    Words stop coming, she's said her piece. Staren feels herself breathing rapidly, heart pounding in her chest. She's on the edge of disaster... and now it's up to the others how this will go. And up to Lilian.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel is finally deposited out of the space warp -- or, more accurately, into a layer of reality that was concurrent with it. "Aaaaaa!" He slams into the ground and bounces, his head still regenerating from that psionic influence from Cecilia. "We're alive!!" And then he sees the pair that were working here, both in a state he's never seen before. "OoooOOOOOooooh maybe not for long!" He panics, scrambling to his feet and trying to assume a defensive stance.

    Persephone's imploring reaches him. But how can he act on it? This, as it is, is, is practically *stuck* on the acceleration. Can he make this less serious? Not without being the kind of disrespectful that would make Lilian gut him in a state like this. His connection here is with Persephone. But what can he do with that? Persephone is totally objectively in the right, and Lilian is totally in the wrong, so how can he appeal using an emotional connection?

    ...

    ...Wait. His head is still sparking. He takes a fighting stance. "Okay! Guess you don't have the Queen in Veils on-hand! If I've gotta be your proxy fighting robot, I trust you completely, Persephone! Considering the results of my own scheme to get into Lilian's brain." Opening up his mind's machinery, his regenerating skull seems to suck in the soft red of Persephone's heart's influence, manifesting it in motions of readying to fight in a way that almost seems deliberately posed for effect. The telekinetic hands he manifests are in her shining red.

    Alright. Flamel doesn't know Rook well, but he's built an excellent reputation as a crony of Persephone. So if this is going to be about feelings, Flamel should act out that role: The role of a stooge to her field of influence, of someone completely turned to her blindly, an essential part of what Lilian might see as a psychic zombie army. Embodying this, maybe he can provoke Lilian Rook into processing her feelings about Persephone and her influence in a healthy way.

    Because, let's be honest. Let's be true. Let's keep it real, in a reversed-chair-sitting sense. Flamel Parsons, in the middle of this blasted hellscape, is not going to get through to Lilian with an epic speech, a friendly sentiment, and a big laser. He's the manipulator here, and she's likely to have already disregarded him as a lost cause interloper from the get-go.
Hibiki Tachibana     The return to the real world and not the combined mental mindscape is not a pleasant one. That desire for their work here to not have disrupted life for the Winter Slayer is a distant memory reflected in the diamond walls sealing off the battlefield. For only having really been a few minutes, the sight they're waking up to, after the honeymood period of being out of the dark recesses of Lilian's mind, might as well be more like a long and bloody war.

    Which, it is in a sense. Hibiki has seen far better days as she forces herself back to her feet, but her expression despite that is unflinching. Persephone touches their hearts and she reacts with only a nod, making a brief glance to Kale and I4 - she knows it'll be fine - before settling onto the very nearly unrecognizable, wild-looking Rook.

    "Lilian..." She doesn't have any problems marching forward over ruined earth and around craters and past slag, her focus laser-locked on the other girl. "You're screaming about what you want, but this isn't really it, is it? This isn't it at all!"

    "You try so, so hard to protect the few people you can hold in your hands as it is! And you have to do it all by yourself! It's hard...too hard for any one person to have to bear! Being so tired, afraid, all the time and always scared you'll mess up..."

    After a moment of looking away, she forces her head back up. "I'm sorry. For making it harder on you, for everything that happened, and for hurting you! I wanted us to be friends, you know!? Or at least...I wanted to be the kind of person you could rely on, and not have to babysit all the time!"

    "And I /still/ want it! Only a little bit more than I want to deck you in the face for all you crap! And you're not going to get me to cut /my/ crap out so easily, either."

    "...I'm not gonna let you hurt Persephone. Or yourself. If it's so hard to hold on to what you got, I'm not gonna let you take it all away yourself, when I know what you really want. And after all of this is over--"

    "I also need to say sorry to your face for digging through your stuff! I still feel really guilty about it! But you're sure as hell not getting that out of me until then!"
Lilian Rook     "What the fuck do you mean by 'no'?"

    "I didn't give you permission to say no to me."


    The gaze that Lilian favours the returned Elites with goes beyond chilling. I reaches well past the realm of intimidation and anger, beyond the realm of glassy-eyed murderers and psychopaths, and into a special place all its own. Whatever frigid, desolate emotion is in there, trying to lock eyes with it is like tumbling through space. Real space. An absolute zero where one paradoxically boils to death. If there are stars, they are the crushing realism opposite the romantic ideal; the grim knowledge that they are receding away faster than is physically possible to chase them, and one day, in a very very long time from now, you will look up at the sky and it will be pure blackness. It is a look that humans do not have.

    Lilian steps down from the peak. A long, weightless plunge moves her from facing Persephone to turning her back on her. She lands on the plateau, amidst a puff of trampled flowers, and begins striding across the black rock of Tartarus.

    "It's not hard. Doing what I tell you is the easiest choice you have. I'll even show you how to do it." Lilian's roving stare swivels over to Cantio. "I'll start with that purple thin"

    For a bare instant, her slow, relentless approach halts. Lilian squeezes her eyes shut and touches her fingers to the still-healing gash over the bridge of her nose. "Why does . . ."

    "No. No, you don't get to talk to me. This is me. The actual me. Not the face I put on to tolerate your existence. You pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and now this is what you get. You wanted your sister, right? An older, better girl to try and show up? This is what you get. What I'm about to do to you; this is your fault. Blame yourself for aiming that sad obsession at me."

    And then she yells over Candy. "I said SHUT UP! Nobody I have to defend myself from?! BULLSHIT! You know full fucking well what you've done! I told you --I told you all-- again and again and again and AGAIN not to do it! I begged you not to make it my problem! And you all took that as a sign of weakness and you went at me like a swarm of fucking pirahnas!" She points furiously to drag Hibiki into it too. "After after all that dishing, all that talking shit, all that walking over me, only now, when you know you can't win, only now it's suddenly 'not a race'-- NOW it's not a fight you want to have?! Fuck you! You get to feel how I do this time!"

    "If you wanted to be friends, all you had to do was to say something! But you didn't! You wanted to put me in my place, right? RIGHT?!"

"Don't you pieces of shit try to fucking sympathize with me now only when you're losing! Do you think I don't see right through you?! You're the reason that Rita hates me! You're the reason I had to hurt her!"


    "And that's proof enough for me that I can't let Sapient Heuristics have their 'dream'."
Lilian Rook     For reasons unknown, Lilian flinches a second time. Then she begins to laugh. Cold, horrible, macabre laughter, grimly self-denigrating and drowning in retrospect. "Stain my soul black? Really? Something was wrong with my soul since the day I was born. You think killing someone who deserves it will make me any worse? What could be worse than this?" Lilian releases her face, wiping her eye with the back of her hand, as if it were really that funny. She glances sidelong at Staren. "Had friends. If everything has to hurt this much whether I'm right or wrong, then I've decided I might as well do the thing that makes me feel good. Be happy, you little shit. That means it's allowed for you to kill me now, right? I'm the 'villain' and you're the 'hero'. That should make this very simple."

    Lilian's fingers rise to the buttons holding the heavy jacket collar together, working through the heavy snaps and zippers while she talks to I4. It's almost worse than the day she had first seen him as a warm-blooded human, solely for the fact that it's exactly the same, sans the sense of betrayal.

    "Did you forget? I already used your nickname. I knew it was fake. I knew you had no friends. I used it because I thought it'd make you happy. And then after trying to be your ally, your friend, you couldn't even wait one day before you went and stabbed me in the back at the first opportunity. But you think you get to keep dictating that I'm still your friend? Eat shit. Die. I don't care if you are her slave anymore. I hate you. So if you won't do your job, then . . ."

    Kale's outright challenge causes her eyes to widen incrementally, and a bout of laughter to return as a fitful cackle. "Hearthward finally grew a pair! Enough to say out loud what everyone was already thinking about me, at least! Is that bravery, or just a lack of awareness?" And yet, the glimmer that leaks from the corners of this time doesn't seem even slightly related to her subsiding manic laughter.

    "It's funny, that you'd finally say it like this. I hate fighting. I really do. Would someone like you have any idea what it's like for someone like me to suddenly change life paths like that? Do you have any clue how it was to move from a classroom to letting people hit me? Fighting is awful. People act like they enjoy it, but I can't figure out why. All I can think about while I'm fighting, with every single attack, every single pause, is why don't I just end it now? If I don't, then I'm just giving them a chance to hurt me." She stops walking completely, working through the final button at the last step.

    "Fine. You can have it. You can all have it. If you wanted to know what I wanted, you should have asked before you threw away your lives. What I wanted was to be good enough. I thought that maybe, even if it wasn't perfect, it'd still be worth something. Maybe I'd eventually get there. But you all took one look, and when you decided it wasn't enough, you threw me away, and now all you care about is replacing me with a better version."
Lilian Rook     "So, if I can't be good enough, no matter how hard I try, if none of that counts for anything, then why the fuck should I try at all?! And now that I've decided to at least have what I want, you're trying to run it back because you're afraid! That just proves all along that I was right you bastards!"

    "So fuck you! You let me get to this point, so you play this game to the end! You wanted me to give up, so I give up! If I can't be your friend then you can stay under my boot instead!"


    Lilian tears the ablative layers from her shoulders, hurling thirty pounds of insulative armoured jackets aside from the mountaintop. Underneath, she has only a close cut tank top, revealing a full-on tapestry of cuts, punctures, bruises, and burns, all recent enough to still be healing, plastered up and down her arms, chest, and waist, and back, gouged into the extra muscle she'd put on. A written contract of everything she'd accumulated over the past three weeks. The reason she was gone, just as clear as the sword in her hand.

    "This was always only ever going to go one way, wasn't it? This just won't end until you accept you can't push me. Come the fuck at me, and I'll bury you."

                  IMMUNE: DAME COMMANDER, LILIAN ISABELLE ROOK                  
                                TYPE: VANTABLACK                                
                         REVISED FRAMEWORK: EIGENSLAYER                        
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Kale Hearthward Kale flinches.

| "Hearthward finally grew a pair!"
| "Enough to say out loud what everyone was already thinking about me at least!"
| "Is that bravery, or just a lack of awareness?"


He looks down.

"... Yeah, well."

He looks up.

"You have a way of seeing right through me, huh. I'm more transparent to you than I am to myself. Which is why I'm going to give this challenge all I've got. Whether it's for you..."

He pulls his left hand sword.
Then he pulls his right hand sword.
Then he exhales...
... and his boots fire up, lifting him up off the ground.

And then, his eyes narrow. "OR FOR ME!"

All three of Kale's armaments are firing off - the left hand sword expanding and spinning like a drill, the right hand sword splitting and reforming into a mirrored blade, the boots moving him effortlessly through the air towards Lilian in defiance of such paltry things as physics and wind resistance. And as he closes in, he opens his beak as if to yell at her - but no further words, just a blast of wind, as strong as any strafing dragon's.

Typically - through the entire year he's been here, it's been one sword, or one spell, or one trick. This time, he's bringing his full arsensal to bear - sword, sorcery, and dangerous above all else, his sheer recklessness.
Featherman Neo Lilian rejects Featherman's assertion, but he finds something to grip onto, especially when Flamel tells them to hit her immutable parts. As she rips off her jacket, and her boss healthbar metaphorically goes up, he's quickly drawing his special gun and knife. No lockets - he limit broke earlier, and they need some rest.

"What could make you any worse? What could be worse than this?" His voice is straight, a little cold, but has a genuineness behind it, as he dashes forward, firing colored bursts with rapid movements as he moves to try and slash into her. A locket is summoned stealthily anyways...

"What about when you end up gutting Tamamo-no-Mae, believing she's betrayed you? Or you execute your friend Xion? Or anyone else you care about? When you become a nameless gunman, slaughtering indiscriminately to bring about your ideals, except you've lost those, too."

The locket is slid in.

SNAPSHOT

It activates, as Featherman Engarde begins to appear.

SUMMON - FEATHERMAN ENGARDE

A knife and gun aren't going to do anything alone. That's why Featherman Engarde appears to the side, and charges his lance up with flames, rushing in to try and ignite them against Lilian and burn into her skinma, spraying a gout of flames center-mass.

"Don't tell me you won't! Your filters are already disintegrating!"
Persephone Kore      Lilian turns her back. Phony takes a deep breath, holds it for five seconds, then lets it out slowly. Her eyes shut in meditative calm, even though un-blood and tears still drip from her body onto the ground far below. Rather than watching the fight with her eyes, she'll watch it through everyone else's hearts. It's to everyone's hearts that she speaks, too.

     You saw it in there, didn't you? As long as she's like this, she can't see my power as anything other than her father's cane: a tool to punish her, to hurt her, to bring her in line. That won't fix her; it could only ever make her worse. That's why I have to stand back.

     She needs to know that she can be good enough; that there's a happy future within her grasp, if only she stopped doing this. If you do your best and still get punished for it, that's awful, isn't it? Then you might as well do your worst. That's not how it really is, but that's how she sees it.

     Even if you could, trying to 'stop' her won't achieve anything; no more than running away. Flamel is right: you need to reach her heart. It's asking a lot, for you to be strong enough to weather her worst and then show her your best in return. But I believe in you.

     In other words, any intervention by Persephone would likely drive Lilian deeper into her crazed state. She's holding off unless things appear particularly dire.
Cantio Everything in Cantio's mind is screaming at her to back down.  She's never beaten Lilian before. She's never really even fought Lilian before. She knows what Lilian's capable of mentally, if not necessarily physically. If she simply appeases her...

She can't do that. Not anymore. There's a long inhale as she sees Lilian stepping forward, teeth gritting and the hand holding her sword trembling while she resists the simultaneous urges to bring it up in front of herself defensively and to take the first swing.

"You're wrong, Lilian. Before, maybe you were right. You had everything I thought I wanted. You had power, you had intelligence, you had resources to make anything you wanted happen. I thought maybe we could have been friends. But this..." She takes another dep breath to steady herself, then shifts her stance with her sword angled downwards at her side. "Now... I wouldn't put money on it. Not like you are right now."

Lilian tears off her jackets, and Cantio responds in kind. She transforms, taking on that white and pink armored form with her multi-parted claymore, but that stance with the weapon held in one hand at her side remains. "But... Fine. We'll fight it out. I've been waiting for this chance, too. If you really want to hurt everyone that cares about you, then you might as well start with someone who shouldn't!"

Cantio advances. She dashes ahead with a startling amount of speed, kicking off the ground behind her to clear that distance between herself in one huge, yet straightforward movement. With only one hand swinging that sword, it shouldn't be too difficult to parry it, to avoid it, or to even block it with only maybe two thirds of the strength she could reasonably muster.

In this case, though, it's not about hitting Lilian hard. It's about hitting her at all. Before Cantio strikes, she stops abruptly by digging her rear foot into the ground, feinting at Lilian's midsection first with a quick jerk of her sword hand. She follows that feint by tearing her dug-in foot forward, flinging dirt and debris at Lilian's face, and only then does she go for actual slashes at center mass.

Cantio's not fighting with her usual clean, composed stance anymore. She's fighting to hurt, to maim, to make Lilian feel anything but that contempt and disgust she's shown Cantio ever since that fateful day outside of what would become Pandemonium.
Ishirou I4's eyes stare at Lilian, he listens to everything she says.  Even when it hurts...no especially because it does.  How many times did he recoil when she had been sharp with him.  How many times did he refuse to see what she was trying to say?  Honestly, he knew she was trying, but...she was right, he did not wait.  

He selfishly went for it, because he wanted it so bad.  He couldn't think of any other way, he didn't want to think of any other way.  He was hurt, in a way that would likely take a long time to recover from.  He's seen horrors, he's.

"I'm not running now, Lilian.  I'm not turning away, so...if this is what it takes, then I'm going to do it," he says, firmly.  "I'm going to try and be that brave person you keep trying to help me become.  No matter how scary it is...because let's be honest, you're frightening like this.  So..." he says, words failing him.  

His eyes glow, trying to scan, trying to evaluate.  They needed to survive her attacks, or at least take them on directly.  However, change..?  What did they need to do to change from them...?  Was it based on them?  Her view on their weaknesses?  Her views of their failings...?  Some clarity from Persephone shines some light.  There it is, the path.  

He breathes, deeply, and fires a barrage of small balls, trying to better map out what to do next.  While they won't hurt a lot on their own, it will let him map out what to do next, help him see how to best engage Lilian, and how to prevent himself from dying.  Well...prevent himself until the moment he needs to.  

He knows what he has coming.
Candy      Candy winces. Despite the wavering in his voice, despite the way he shrinks, he forces himself to look her in the eye.

    "The last time we met, you put *me* in *my* place. You want me to play the game just to talk to you, fine. I'll eat shit if it means you listen. Put up your dukes, Irish."

    Candy slips his suspenders off, rolls up his sleeves and reveals the scrawniest 'guns' on the scorched earth. He clenches and unclenches his fists.

    In an instant, three Candies are upon Lilian, fists raised. A jab, a straight, a hook. They're all fake, none of the faces are quite right. The center disperses in an instant, and Candy's chin--the real one--is held out for her to swipe.

    "Take it."

*Knock me into next week. Tell me I'm shit. Tell me I'm dirt. But don't hold onto this no more, please. I was wrong. You was right. Why would I have come all this way after what we said to each other, if I didn't think you was good enough?*
Staren
    Staren got her attention, for a moment. Looking into those eyes, that face, sucks the warm feelings and bravado away, the feelings that *this could work* as distant a memory as happiness when she was lost in Lilian's torture.

    That means it's allowed for you to kill me now, right?

    Staren looks away. "I can't do that. You know that."

    Lilian's probably not listening, but she mutters anyway, "...I never wanted to kill you. You helped people. You had friends. I just wanted to be safe. But I needed understanding even more. I saw the cane. Saw the memory. It's terrible what was done to you..." She trails off.

    "All I can think about while I'm fighting, with every single attack, every single pause, is why don't I just end it now? If I don't, then I'm just giving them a chance to hurt me."

    That makes Staren's ears perk up, she speaks plainly, "I never got it either. Overcoming challenge is fun, but fighting for real is just trying desperately not to let others get hurt, or scrambling to survive."

    Staren lifts her head to look at Lilian. "If this is really what you want, why don't you sound happy?"

    More fighting? Really? Staren's heart sinks. Was hoping for a different outcome really... just a foolish dream? Was the old way ultimately right?

    I REJECT that reality!

    ...But reality refused to change. Staren doesn't develop some fight-swinging power from learning a lesson to try and act to become a better person. Maybe no one really does, maybe that's just stories. Even the magical girls here faced the same struggles Staren did.

    And yet... people like Persephone and Lilian... They get to matter more.

    Her heart isn't in this. It can't be. Is she broken, or is the world broken?

    Push it down. Push it down.

    Staren's expression fades to a vaguely-annoyed looking default, coldly regarding Lilian. Focus on winning. You can't die anyway. She thinks everyone else is dolls playing games? Then treat it like one. Wormhole link powering up for combat stabilization... Wormhole link ready.

    In Staren's place is the same body Dark Staren just used, minus the gauntlet and painted all red. This one has a visor, with the old Staren's face behind it, still expressionless. Swarms of little spherical camera drones warp in and spread out over the arena, Staren pre-emptively saturating the area in expectation of drones constantly being destroyed.

    Staren looks up at Persephone, frowning slightly as she speaks. Reach her heart? I can't do that. But hopefully someone else will.

    He looks back at Lilian. Waves of missiles warp in, appearing behind Staren's head and shoulders in an arc sweeping from one side to the other, ripple-firing.

    Many launch right for Lilian... but as Staren calls wave after wave, several of them arc out in long, sweeping paths, circling, gathering... and when dozens of these have built up, Staren brings them all in at once, coming in at Lilian from every direction -- and they airburst *slightly* before the others did, so that if she stops time right before they're expected to go off, it'll be too late.
Hibiki Tachibana     Threw me away.
        Replacing me with a better version.

    "...As if."

    "I'm going to accept you for who you are! And the person who's been hurting in there all this time! I'm not turning away from anything, I'm right here in front of you with everyone else! And I'm going to take every last thing you have to dish out and then some! Things aren't the same as back then...!"

    Hibiki kicks off the ground, throwing herself at Lilian head-on. Same as she always have, same as she's always done. Disgustingly straightforward. One arm is reared back, fist clenched, joining in on the melee surrounding the other girl with a full force gutpunch aimed straight at her scarred midriff.

    Right behind it is a second punch into a vertically spinning axe kick meant to come down on her shoulder, neither expecting or not expecting them to hit. Whatever happens there happens.

    She's just not going to be anywhere except right in Lilian's face, eye to eye and fist to fist. Not now. This is the only way it'll happen. She'll play this game to the very end.

    "Give me your best shot, and I'll give you mine, Lilian--! If that's what it takes, the one thing I can do!"
Flamel Parsons     Holy shit. Flamel's eyes go wide at Lilian escalates the nature of this showdown. The reason they call it "unhinged" is because the lid's come off; this is what's coming out of pandora's box. He adjusts his sunglasses. Fever's blazing hot here. Time to get burned, that's the only way to do what matters. In his position as the Schemer, as the one who set things in motion, and as an associate of Persephone, he can't say much to sway Lilian out of this mood.

    So, he says, in a plantive tone: "You're right about a lot of things you said! And that means I can't speechify you to prove you wrong. I can't even psychic at your brain to prove you wrong." Deepening his stance, he laughs nervously. "I hope you won't kill me. Explain it to me more-- explain more, why I shouldn't follow Persephone's interests here. I think Persephone thinks you're good enough. I think Persephone even loves this, maybe. But I'll listen, still! So, you can try to turn me against Persephone if you want. I'll hear it out."

    A heavy exhalation. "But only if you tell it to me." Then: Gunshots. Not real guns, psionic constructs of intense emotion blasting shots at Lilian as Flamel pops into invisibility, flickering into visibility along his levitating path through the wreckage of the fort as he sort of grinds along the shattered chunks of Tormach, blasting at Lilian with those shots.
Lilian Rook     "I'm sorry, but you're not ready for what I really am. You've tried hard, in your own ways, to grasp at the strength you have now. I thought that was precious. I wanted to respect it with my own, hard-won strength, fair and square. Not like this/ But just this time, I can't allow that. Above all else, I have to get rid of her. And all of you trying to replace me are in the way!"

    There is a short, frenetic moment where Lilian's eyes saccade back and forth across all eight Elites at an insane speed, zigzagging inhumanly between every little detail, leaving a slight green light-trail for a fraction of a second. And then, as they burst into motion towards her, Lilian moves first.

    §Hearthward. Imperial General; has combat experience. Wind magic would control an aerial engagement. Close range fighter; he'll have to come to me to do anything serious. Stay on the ground. He's overconfident. Trying to prove something. Fighting style has obvious physical telegraphs, even if the wind attacks are hard to see. Lower § expenditure by allowing him to range himself, then punish while he isn't braced for melee combat.§

    Kale's wind blast surges right through where Lilian was just a split second ago, crashing into the crag she'd stepped from and blowing the several tons of Tartarus stone into so many sky high fragments. At his enormous charging speed, and while his beak is still open and swords lowered, Lilian is taking full advantage by suddenly being right in front of him, already mid-swing, the sharp edge of Night Mist aimed for his throat in a split second decapitation strike; one that could end the entire 'duel' right then and there.

    §The purple-- Cantio and Canderio are closing in. Candy normally fights with firearms and explosives. He shouldn't know the exact range I can deflect those. Trying to fist fight me? Is that a joke? Diversion to cover for Cantio. She's coming at me with that attempt at a sword instead of ranged attacks too. She's fighting like shit too. All aggression. Well, she might as well. Does she know she can't actually defend against me? There's no way. She doesn't know I can read her feints if she's still throwing them in, right? No, I'll have to test and see. Move them back. Three point nine meters; there's one there.§

    Lilian responds instead to Cantio's head on attack, coupled with Candy's illusionary diversions, by moving backwards again instead. Ceding ground and momentum. At first it looks like she's barely keeping them off her with last second weaving and backstepping, but on closer inspection she is reacting to each movement before the preparatory motion starts. Two, three, four zigzagging backwards lunges take her to exactly where she wants to be, and she disappears again, simultaneous with the earth-shattering detonation of another buried explosive, waiting for Persephone.
Lilian Rook     "Haven't I told you imbeciles a million times what my family has always been good at? Did you really think I didn't anticipate you being here too? That I would jump in half-cocked, focused only on her and be conveniently blindsided by you?" Lilian sighs, tossing away a remote detonator suddenly in her hand.

    §Staren wants to fight? Persephone's trained bitch as usual. I know how she works. All of her strong points are in her equipment. She talks big game, but it's all improv. The strategy she's thinking of; I know how this one goes. What she's planning to do is almost clever. That nasty little piece of shit. Wait for it. The exact moment the missiles come out . . .§

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian sprints over towards Staren. She leaves the magic off, so that there's no residue, instead leaping physically to the first missile, and suspending its causal contact so that she can jump off of it like an infinitely inertially fixed stepping stone, straight to the next, and the next, and the next, and reach the wormholes that summoned them. Even if they pop open and closed only just fast enough to fire their payload, she only needs any amount of time at all. From this perspective, they're wide open weaknesses. So Lilian unhooks some of the grenade canisters from her belt, the ones with white tape and Staren's name engraved on them, and shoves them through the wormholes to where they'd come from.
                -----[start]-----

    Lilian 'teleports' right on top of Staren. Detonating them at this distance means instantaneous suicide, and Lilian will probably still get away. She tackles the catgirl head on, one boot snapping out to stomp sideways down through her knee, the sword flicking up over her head, and then coming down in an advancing arc as Staren is meant to tumble, aimed with full intent to cut her straight from shoulder to hip, with the obvious glimmer of a Cleasa technique. The instant the grenades detonate and blast Staren's diagnostic feed with the damage, she's gone again.

    "Is that why you nasty fucks all teamed up? After invading my home, interrogating the people I care about, turning all of my friends against me-- All of that was to try and figure out how my magic works, wasn't it? You couldn't bear to leave it a secret. You really thought you could beat me with just that? If you knew little bits and pieces of my favourite magic, you'd have the edge you needed to beat me? What's your plan B, heroine? You're smart, right? All you ever think about is 'taking me out', 'putting me down', 'breaking me'. Surely you have contingencies, right? Let's see them. We'll decide which of us is smarter. Which of us wants it more."
Lilian Rook     §Tachibana again. She hasn't learned a damned thing. Is she a masochist? Did I beat her too lightly before? Was a hand not enough? Or does she think she has some momentum just because she got a couple of hits in when Rita was . . . helping her. Fuck her. I'm not fist fighting her again. I have Dubh-Ceothan Marfach with me. Lever, expel, control the center line, rake, disable.§

    Lilian swivels on Tachibana simultaneously with her charging approach. The look in her eyes hurts. "Nothing is different, Tachibana. Nothing changes. I thought things were different now, but it's just different names and different faces. Wasn't it stupid of me to expect things would change if I still refused to do things differently?" The gutpunch is intercepted as the sword comes down to her waist and turns sideways, the strong of its flat turning aside the blow and throwing off her balance. "Stopguard." It flicks back up and slashes the inside of her leg as she raises it for an axe kick, the powerful, weightless torque of her two-handed swordsmanship being the faster with the fulcrum closer to her body. "Pendulum. Hawk." Now both of their main weapons are displaced up into the air, but Lilian skips the part where she has any kind of transition to ready her weapon again, and pushes her shoulder into Hibiki instead, the sword suddenly low and aimed right through her midriff. "Void. Foin. You thought you fought me at my peak before? You don't know anything about me."

    §Gunfire?§

    Lilian disappears again, breaking off from Hibiki as Flamel revs up to fire, and puts distance between herself and the source. Black and white sparks fly from the whirling of her blade, glassy chimes and airy shrieks following the effort of keeping back the fusillade while she scans the area for him.

    §Annoying. Figures the psychic wouldn't be so easy to pin down by his mental signature. Wait for the next full barrage. Calculate based on the line it's currently following.§

                -----[stop]-----
    Taking a deep breath, Lilian simply walks out of the heavy fire she is under. Getting another angle, she follows the bullets with her eyes and finger, tracing their vector and the line of holes stitched out behind her. "There you are."
                -----[start]-----

    Another teleport. She even preempts his return to cover and visibility. A lightning fast double arc of rising strikes, made as the some continuous motion, aim to sever both his arms at the elbow. She remains silent even as she poises ready for the third and finishing strike. And then Featherman interrupts.
Lilian Rook     That's enough to cause her to hesitate. Halt completely, even. Tense, rigid, shaking.

    "HOW DARE YOU EVEN SAY HER NAME! HOW DARE YOU! SHE WOULD NEVER EVER! THE PEOPLE WHO BETRAYED ME ARE GATHERED HERE! SO DIE!"

    Something abnormal happens. Enough for I4 to detect, finally, at least, with all the knowledge he's put together. And enough for Persephone to feel coming in her gut just before it does.

    A non-moment devoid of eigencausality and relativity. One in which Lilian ploughs right through Featherman's flames, rams the sword into his chest, and tears it out through his throat, decapitating him instantaneously. One that doesn't involve action and reaction, cause and effect, but simply one that she wishes into being. The universe doesn't figure out how to make it happen. As far as causal mechanics care, it has already been decided, with only the slightest of seams where she has cut away one moment and stick together the next.

    Lilian reappears slightly behind Featherman. Her bare, pale skin is obviously slightly burnt, and blood that isn't hers splatters her front. She hadn't attacked him on any sensor metric, or actually been attacked, but had taken and dealt damage anyways. I4's scans paint a grim picture.

    Lilian's preemptive reactions, seeing through feints and clever strategies, and still getting hit like this, as well as her excessive preparation and the way she's memorized where to lead people and how to hurt them, even writing their names on munitions earlier: Lilian already saw this fight happening in the past, and is reading people's internal combat chatter from their minds in the present. Her physical strength and speed have gone up since last he saw her, and she's shed all of her usual armour with the assumption she won't need it, to maximize her offensive power. The entire area is lit up with still-usable weapons and primed magical rune traps, just waiting to be used, which wouldn't be effective against Persephone; the group is already in her killzone.

    What they'd seen in the 'four rooms' was entirely literal. Her 'effect without cause' is a suspension and selective revision of the concept of causal contact itself. From her perspective, everyone and everything else is frozen, while she can interact with any of them by several different models of physics; two of the four models allow her to simply kill someone while causality is suspended.

    I4 also senses no magical presence whatsoever. Everything else Lilian does uses magic. Even her sword techniques at least use 'personal energy' to a degree. It's activated at the speed of thought, but also doesn't protect her from active dangers, and doesn't automatically activate when she's in danger; being distracted and emotionally off-balance proved that. Most likely, what she's been training is her mental state. Because this entire time, she has always had the ability to instantly, invisibly, and one-sidedly kill someone without leaving any evidence.
Cantio "I joined them because I heard you went after Persephone's family. You crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. Yeah, I joined them because I was hoping to find something to use against you. I..." Cantio hesitates briefly. She knows she won't get anywhere if she just tried to be civil about anything, or if she tries to hide anything anymore.

She needs to be honest, if not for Lilian, then for herself. "I wanted to find proof that you really were as bad as I thought. Then everyone else could see it, too, and they wouldn't keep clinging to that... That image of you being such a great person they wanted to help even after what you did to all of us!"

The trap is sprung, and Cantio's reactions aren't good enough to stop it from bursting underneath her. Lilian knows that, and she knows that. She doesn't even attempt to avoid it. She just keeps flying right on over it, tucking her legs in at the last moment to make herself a smaller target for the explosion that burns her front entirely, shearing off chunks of her armor and sending her into the air, tumbling to the ground moments later.

"Gh...  But it didn't end up like that. I... We found out a lot more about you than that. Your family. It... It all went wrong. It all... You're not supposed to be like this. You're supposed to be an unrepentant jerk!"

Scrambling to her feet, Cantio charges right back at Lilian without stopping to think of a real plan, an approach, a strategy to compensate for her abilities. She's just moving on instinct now, and it's not a pretty attempt in the slightest. Against a regular opponent, it might be overwhelming, but against Lilian... She just needs to make her feel something. Anything.

As she moves in, her clones spring up from Lilian's sides to dive and grab at her legs through raw strength, speed, and trying to catch her off guard while fully ready to give their existences (however brief) to simply eating any collateral damage in the process. Cantio herself, meanwhile, hurls her sword at Lilian as she closes the gap, the weapon firing lasers off in its wake. She tries grabbing whatever she can of Lilian's: Her tank top, her hair, anything that she can grasp with one hand so she can start punching Lilian with the other. Elbow strikes. Bites. The technique is gone, all in favor of anything that might make Lilian actually feel her fighting back for once.
Kale Hearthward | "You've tried hard, in your own ways, to grasp at the strength you have now."
| "I thought that was precious."
| "I wanted to respect it with my own, hard-won strength, fair and square."


Kale's eyes go wide. He's distracted by her words and by the shrapnel- not that Lilian needs the extra opening. Once again, she's seen right through him.

The sword strike doesn't decapitate him, but when Lilian draws back her blade, it comes back red.

The hawk draws a raspy breath. He looks panicked, for a moment, more than one who simply took a hard but not fatal hit would be. When he realizes he can still breathe, that his airflow is unrestricted, he calms down - a bit. That was a close thing. Too close. Lilian's not holding back...

And Kale grins, through the pain.

Lilian's not holding back. If he can withstand everything she's throwing out... it might well be the last thing he does, with the force she's putting forth, but he's going to be able to test himself against her, here and now.

He turns, he dives, both swords at the ready as he descends and charges - Lilian can make him come to her all he wants, he'll keep charging at her all the same - one sword striking with the piercing force of a drill, the other leaving a trail of blades to box her in, trying to pin her down for the drill!

He can't hold back any. Even if it ends with his throat cut. Not if it means giving up on Lilian's respect.
Persephone Kore      All of that was to try and figure out how my magic works, wasn't it? "But it's not magic," Persephone says in an even voice. She floats down, gracefully, from her prior place to land just outside the perimeter of active combat.

     It's so hard for me to not intervene. I get what I want, and I don't want anyone to get hurt. Even if I couldn't stop all of it, I could at least block a little, right? I could slow her down, nudge people out of the way, block anything telegraphed enough. But that'd only harden her heart further. I have to keep reminding myself of that, to not let my wishes move a hair out of place: this is all I can do.

     Persephone reaches her hand out towards the horizon: somewhere in the far far distance, where she'd slept the night and left her luggage. A small object shrieks through the air at relativistic speeds, leaving behind a glowing lightning-blue trail. Her power punches a thin hole through the diamond wall just to allow it to pass. It lands in her palm a split second later, and she holds it out to Lilian cupped in both hands.

     It's the tidal-holographic plate that recorded their clash in the Decompression Chamber, with the recursive rainbow spirograph clashing against the black ink-spill.

     "Don't you remember, when you were little? When Cecilia put out those anti-magic wards against you, and they didn't work, but she got in so much trouble. You've known, deep down, that it isn't magic at all. You found an idea outside of human thought."

     Her eyes are glimmering, just a little, with fresh tears; not of frustration but of something else. "A power born of wishes, just like mine. A child's wish to have all the time in the world. What we did on purpose, you did on accident; you never tripped the wards, but you showed up on our plates just fine. If you'd used your powers while the other Paladins had those glasses, what would they have seen?"

     "I had all the love in the world to help me through being 'special'. You deserved that, too. Sapient Heuristics should've been your home. But it's not too late! We can give you the family you deserve. There are so many people who still want to love you."
Candy      "Fuck your magic. I dunno if I was ever gonna beat that anyway."

    Lilian is treating this seriously. *But I don't want to. I don't want to 'win.' I just want you to be happy without it costing somebody else's. I can make all this other stupid shit. So why can't I make THAT?*

    Candy avoids the attack. He knows, Knows, that Lilian will punish him for it, for the way in which he chooses to avoid it. He doesn't care--even when he returns into normal space with a split lip and a black eye.

    "I went there to figure out how YOU work!" A full sprint towards her, fists up. -Now- he's fighting serious. It isn't a 'joke.' Somehow, some way, he learned how to fight like a championship boxer.

    "How I could get you to see me as real-" His guard is masterful, his hips, legs, upper body all involved in a complex dance. No illusions. No tricks. Just honest bareknuckle boxing, focused on meeting strength with strength. "-so that the next time I had to beg and scream at you not to fucking do something, maybe, MAYBE you'd listen."

    Lilian's blows, when they aren't blocked by super-hardened forearms, are instead with measured, artful counterstrikes of his fists, attempting to use offense as defense. Not unlike Hibiki's style, if she were some early twentieth-century pugilist.

    "Or at least, maybe you'd want to."

    His mind, his desires, his feelings, are entirely open to her, unlike any other time they've met.

    *But the only way I ever got you to look at me like that was when I used That. And you hate That. You hate being put into boxes, but you put me into one motherfucker of a box, Lilian. 'Be dirt or be hated.'*

     His eyes plead, even as he's led around. Even when it means being baited into one of the numerous traps she's laid for the rest of them. *I'm not better than you. I never shoulda said them things to you. Please come back.*
Persephone Kore      Persephone's eyebrows jump up. Her eyes go wide in horror. A hand covers her mouth; her face goes just a shade paler. Some of Featherman's blood flecks land on her, contrasting the not-blood that coats the rest of her. "Lilian...!!"

Lilian wishes for Featherman to die. And so he does.
But I don't want him to. I won't let you be a murderer.

     It is already too late to protect him. Lilian is infinitely pre-emptive. I don't know if this will work. I don't even know how I survived being shot in the head. But I have to, *have* to, try it.

     There is a brief moment of psychic contact between Persephone and Featherman Neo. Her heart reaches out to him. A tiny fragment of an alien idea is offered to him, and bridges the gap; a simple, narrow way for his ego to be more real than the universe, for *who* he is to override *what*.

     Featherman. Please. Come back. This isn't how the story goes. This isn't how it ends. Even if the world disagrees with me, even if bullets and swords have already written the ending, *I don't want this*.

     And I know she doesn't either.
Staren     As Lilian unpauses time, armor attachments warp onto Staren; glittering hyperglass nozzles mounted on a jetpack, on plates around the body, and on swiveling spurs that allow for fine control; megadiamond armor plates supplement the Triax armor design he's already wearing. Some sort of long rifle in his hand.

    The knee creaks and strains for an instant but doesn't break before thrusters begin to twist Staren into a new position -- the followup slash doesn't cut CLEAN through, jolted out of optimum position by megadiamond's bullshit momentum manipulation before shattering the plate and cutting deep into the robotic body nonetheless.

    Melee. Shock her. Of course, she's gone before he can. Wormhole link lost. What?! Unable to communicate with wormhole emitter. Establishing communications with auxiliary transmitter... Connection established. Powering up.

    In Elysium Apex, the transmission station and part of the armory get exploded. There are alarms and automated fire suppression protocols, but this possibility wasn't really *planned* for. AIs will guide repair drones, and some Concord personnel will probably show up to check on things, but without Staren to guide things, who can say how quickly it'll be ready to help again?

    Meanwhile, in Flamel's spyplane, a container the size of a fridge or two hums ominously. Staren doesn't have as much stuff in it, though...

    What did she DO?! ...Attack through the wormhole?! Of course, if she can stop time, maybe she can do that... I'll have to be careful about how I use the backup... Hitting me like that... she'd have disabled this body in one strike if I hadn't queued that gear to teleport on the moment she got close. It isn't over until she finishes me. Someone will find a solution, right? They have to! I'll believe in my friends!

    "This doll is well-made. Quality craftsmanship. Give me a little credit." Staren takes to the air, flying at high speed... which probably doesn't mean much to a timestopper. I don't know if the Line's materials will mess her up, but I can't count on it. I need a plan. In motion is better than nothing, right? He takes potshots with forearm beam cannons, just to add to what Lilian has to defend from.

    His voice is cold, detached; Words said to say *something*, calculated probing of reactions rather than earnest emotional connection. "I felt it, you know. What he did to you. It was horrible. I hoped you killed him. Does feeling that make me any more real? ...I hope to read your favorite book someday. It sounded nice."
Featherman Neo Featherman Neo says the 'wrong' thing. In a flash, he's there, and in the next, he's dead.

Or he should be. There's an instant, where he looks at Persephone, and nods, accepting something, and then he dies.

And then, he's briefly no longer human.

The scent of engine and steam fills the area where he was. Clicking gears, all in place. Yet, it's not orderly at all. It's wild and free, a sensation of hope instead of the dread of factory conditions. The inhuman has a beating grey heart, chains only recently unlocked. The sense of seeing a winged honorable silver knight makes sense.

And then Featherman flickers back in, like he never died. Well, he clearly took damage - his suit is off, and he's on one knee. A cloak is wrapped around him, hood concealing his features beyond piercing green eyes. The belt is on the ground, and he slowly picks it up, muttering something as he does.

He locks it in, and raises a hand. "Featherman, fly!"

Sliding in a locket that appears in his hand, he clacks the belt, and stands up straight, as his wounds repair themselves. A familiar sensation.

FEATHERMAN, FLY!

Vermilion wings lock in over his back, before wrapping around him, forming his armor. A feather flies onto those eyes, as he pulls down the hood, hair color obscured by the helmet locking on.

A flash of light envelops Featherman. It is during this flash that Featherman Engarde returns - peculiar, as he wasn't summoned with a locket.

"You just killed me. You're sure you could never kill her? Because right now, all I see is hate. Snap out of it! Feel the blood you shed! Your paranoia will spread to everyone around you, and then you're too far gone!"

Featherman Engarde's lance charges with holy light, as Featherman Neo kinesthetically controls it. The light is blasted out, an attack meant to pierce straight through Lilian and hopefully, at least, slow her down long enough for the others to get their words in.

"Even despite that, I still want to be your friend...!"
Hibiki Tachibana     To say the look in Lilian's eyes hurts in an understatement. Even as her initial punch is cast aside, her expression twists up. "It's not like that at all, Lilian...!" Any further words are immediately cut off as she struggles to regain her balance--and she falls victim to both the rend through her leg and the other girl cheating her way through time.

    Ending with Hibiki getting run through by the blade, her voice dying in her throat. By the time Lilian vanishes to respond to Flamel, she's falling down to her knees from the lack of support and holding herself up with one hand, the other on the awful gash through her stomach. She's wincing from more than just raw pain, but the resolve she's holding on tight to.

    "I didn't," she murmurs quietly. "And I didn't know crap before. I didn't know a single thing even though I wanted to pretend I did. But now I know a whole lot more...! And I'm not letting you call yourself stupid when I have plenty of that to throw at you myself!"

    She pushes her weight around onto one knee, taking a few heaving breaths as the injury slowly heals itself over to the point it'll staunch most of the bleeding. Her hand comes off of it, clenches tight into a fist, and machinery in the associated gauntlet pumps backwards with a hiss of steam and hydraulics. "I know a /ton/ about you! I know how bad it hurts, what you never got to get, and what you deserve!"

    She punches straight down into the scorched earth beneath her, a surge of raw golden power sourced from Gungnir building up in the gap left behind in the gauntlet - before it's punched into place in an explosive burst and deafening crack, funneling the surge of force and energy both straight down into the ground.

    Moments later, the ground under Lilian cracks and explodes upwards in a sudden geyser of light and heat that threatens to engulf her completely. As much as she wants to chase after her again, she'll just have to settle for a full-force blindside, only raising her voice after the fact. "I'm not going to let you think it's the same, or that you can't have it!"
Flamel Parsons     Flicker. Flamel's clairvoyance only gives him more time to suffer. "Teleport?! Shit--!" He whispers, as twin strikes slam into his arms from out of time. They clash hard into bright white barriers, spreading deep, horrid orange bruises up and down his arms and provoking a soft, awful crack of minerals within enduring intense damage. He's tossed up and back, sparking as he flickers into visibility, but he vanishes when he slams hard into the ground with no strong mixup pursuit in this combo.

    "I have to say this is really bad. For me." Flamel's voice is telepathic, he refuses to give up his position. "Haha... I wish I could understand what was going on when you did that. I think it might kill me, but still, I wish I knew! You don't make a compelling case for turning on Phony. But you make a *great* case for running away. I'm willing to do that too, but I'm not willing to antagonize you like you're used to! I'm going to keep asking until you give me something to listen to. I know why I'm loyal to Persephone, but why shouldn't I be doing this? Won't you explain why you deserve loyalty too?"

    "This wasn't about figuring out your magic, though. It's like your own world, isn't it? Somewhere in your heart. I think the thing I wanted to figure out was... hahahah, maybe I shouldn't say it. But it wasn't that. And it wasn't to beat you, it was so I could show Persephone. I want her to see that someone else could help her. I, hah, I sort of wish it wouldn't be a bad idea to just get on my knees and beg, you know? I know you'd cut my head clean off if I did, and you know that would kill me dead. But, for someone like Persephone, I'd do a lot! You can take me down if you want, but the only thing I ever wanted was to show Persephone someone who could stand next to her. I tried to do that, and I want you to try too. That's all! That's the goal."

    "But you're not telling me why you won't do that. So I won't stop trying this, until you do." Flamel doesn't understand what that teleport is, but he knows teleporting gets more difficult the more complex an environment is. Massive telekinetic hands rush out of him as he flickers into existence near Lilian, and with a big, sweepy downward motion, and tries to rip chunks out of several of the jagged peaks around the battlefield and slam them around Lilian, to crush her from above. It's thrown off only by wincing several times, as the brutal injuries to his arms apply.

    He refuses to issue confrontational demands. He refuses to state what's right and what's wrong. He refuses to even insinuate that Lilian ought to respect him. Instead, it's all about Persephone. This feud is about her, and Flamel insists on becoming purely a mechanism to express it.
Ishirou I4 remains silent, watching and understanding what they're up against.  There has to be a path here, and he was dead set on finding it.  However, thanks to Feather man's provocation that he gets something to work with.  Others had worried about it, tried to figure it out, but it was clear in his mind right then and there.  He swallows sweat beading across his forehead.  

The revelation was absolute/terrifying/, threatening to unbalance him but he closed his eyes.  He couldn't afford to turn his eyes from this, and when they open again those Blue eyes are glowing.  They are finding a path, and he cuts all filters.  He's going to cycle all information directly, which will overclock his processing by a great deal.  

The POD beeps, speaking -Processing offloaded, uploading connection...-

Instead, he doesn't directly attack her, but instead lays traps for her, all around leaving nasty surprises on weapons and trying to build towards the next stage, but at this point, he could at least buy a few precious moments for others, while he calculates what he needs to do next.  

"I see what you mean now, Lilian," he finally speaks again.  "What you mean before, how easy it is.  You could do it, and you held back...but it isn't because you're a bad person, not just because it's easy, but because you don't want to be that person.  Maybe it's harder to be 'good' for you...it's hard to be brave for me too.  I can calculate every failure state, I can see every particular potential death."

"It makes it easier to play it safe, right?  Taking chances just gets you killed, but you've been taking chances every day for as long as you could do it, right?  Which...means, it hurts harder when it doesn't go your way right?" he takes a breath, "Alright... let's play by your rules today..." a pause, "But I won't reveal it, I won't be the one to betray your trust again."
Lilian Rook     Kale comes charging right back. Lilian has him dialed. Contrary to all common sense when sword fighting, she moves almost exclusively with his forward moment, holding nothing of the field and giving up ground with every exchange, but angling the direction she does. Subtly, she's weaving his approach around through the meadow, so that he's in the way of the other Elites' fire whenever she needs cover, timing his charges with their attacks in real time.

    When the box of phantom blades grows claustrophobic, she changes up her pattern completely, rushing into him, slamming her blade down on the side of his drill, and using her superior physical strength to turn it down and aside with the twist of both her hands levered against the longer hilt of Night Mist. She only has to shift it by a few inches. Then the sword flicks back up, so quickly and effortlessly that it's like it bounced off, straight into Kale's head again-- And then she pulls it right back to her body and snaps it down with a motion no further than her elbows, aiming for the inside of his dominant wrist. Only then, she rolls with the remaining momentum of his charge, and allows him to swoop past her.

    What a waste that she usually just shoots things with a gun.

    "Don't bother, Tachibana. You keep talking and talking and talking but you still don't get it. All I hear is 'I feel sorry for you'. Do you even know why I had to hurt you in the first place?" Blip. Gone again. Lilian hadn't figured out where the attack was going to come from when Hibiki herself didn't know, and so simply opted out of the 50/50. "It has to do with why you're clinging to the power of that Wolf who tried to humiliate me. Who abused him in the first place! Twice! And both times, you two looked right over my head and found a replacement!"

    The additional beam cannon fire doesn't seem to do a lot on Staren's part. It occupies Lilian's sword, at least. It's kind of maddening. Particle beams can't be casually deflected even by someone who can parry bullets, but she can already tell where she's aiming. The part where she flinches is entirely verbal. "Killed-- What the fuck is wrong with you?! What kind of fucked up little child kills their father because they got in trouble?! Did you?! How am I the crazy one?!"

    I4 can tell right away that Lilian knows exactly where he's putting all of his traps. She's suddenly adjusting her combat strategy as she goes to go between them, or in other cases, simply doing what he knows she can to avoid triggering them. It's incredibly frustrating, but it also means he's eating up her focus and positioning at least. "Too little too late. You can piss out all that false affection, all those crocodile tears, all that empathic bullshit all you want. Why not, right? You already got what you want. If I stop here, you get to keep it! Unlike me, the only thing anyone, everyone, here needs to be happy, is for me to stop existing right?! It must be really easy to only start respecting people after you get everything you want! After it can only help you, right?!"
Lilian Rook     When Candy charges Lilian down, she barely swings back at him. It doesn't seem as if she's lost her will to fight back in any way, which makes it much more concerning. She sticks almost completely to using her weapon, her stats, and her experience, to boxing him out and fending him off, skewering and slashing only when needed to push past his durability and control neutral. She hasn't used that power in a little while now.

    "Yeah? Be dirt or be hated-- I wonder what that's like?!" she seethes back at him, apparently having accidentally read something deeper than combat monologue without realizing. "I won't let people like you look down on me! You can't barge in to the place that's supposed to be mine! It's mine! You can't take away the thing I need after I had to trade everything else!"

    The close combat fight can no longer continue when Flamel is throwing his gigantic pile of psychic mixups into the fray. Between that and I4's traps, the level of complex danger space is escalating near to the limit of how much she can mentally track all at once; again, she opts out of the tight spot and finally teleports just a short distance. She seems to be about to say something to him, but it's delayed when Cantio gets to her first; specifically, delayed by the burst of expression-blanking, physically trembling fury that comes over her.

    "A line that shouldn't be crossed? But apparently you had no problem crossing it yourself, right?!" Lilian howls incredulously at Cantio. "What did I even do?! A fucking search! That's all it was supposed to be! I banned weapons even! You know what I told those traitors to find?! What the Concord was doing to the children! I want our faction to non-violently search an enemy faction, and the result is you break into my house and terrorize my family to get me?! And guess who gets blamed for it! I invite myself in, she gives me a bruise I've had to hide for months, then all of my allies side with her and turn on me, and then when everyone comes after me in revenge, the people they hurt hate me too! How are they, with their crayon drawings pinned up on the wall--!!"

That's where she suddenly loses track. A moment where she clutches her head as if struck by a migraine. Eyes down, thoughts blocked out. Exactly the opening Cantio needs to approach. Even though her clones are cut down in an instant, even if the lasers are deflected, she's bought precious fractions of a second, and once she's already grabbed Lilian, she doesn't 'teleport' out of her grip. A few wild punches are able to land at close range, while Lilian doesn't have her hands free to grapple, and utterly refuses to relinquish the slightest control of her sword. It goes on up until Lilian spits blood from her lip straight into Cantio's eyes, then heel stomps to break her toes, and headbutts her right back.
Lilian Rook     It's a needlessly vindictive reprisal that leaves her open to Featherman. Having briefly been dead, it's not as if Lilian was focusing on trying to read his mind, or his future, any more. With her back turned, she has the warning of his last few words to turn around and-- She intercepts the beam with a last second magic barrier, again, instead of teleporting away. It even overloads and explodes, finally hurling her back against the ground. She claws her way back up again, hair in her eyes, and hisses back "Apparently I didn't kill you thoroughly enough. Even now . . . Even now, you're still doing it. You still won't just quit! You're incapable of anything else! Everyone is! This is all there is to life! Everyone forces me to keep hurting them and keep hurting them more and more and more because they think if they keep escalating, they'll eventually beat me and break me! And I can't let them, so this happens!"

    The purpose of 'saving' all that power is now clear. Lilian has charged up enough to have 'time' to go between everyone on the ground and do exactly the same thing. They live through the vivid, consciously post-experienced retroactive sense of being butchered. Stabbed. Gutted. Dismembered. Decapitated. Carved into bloody ribbons. A hundred partial footsteps explode into being as faint glowing points of light all over the field. Slash marks blaze with radioactive light. The air glows white hot for a moment, tracing winding ribbons almost spirographically around the meadow between each target. Glittering steam filled with twinkling stars washes off Lilian as if she were a million degrees and just stepped into the rain.
Featherman Neo Featherman's words don't work, or at least not fast enough. Before he can get a rebuttal, he's slaughtered along with several others, sent to the ground as a corpse. He wills himself back to life, but he doesn't get back up. He's not a threat to Lilian. He's too willpower exhausted, too damaged mentally, to keep fighting right now.

"I'm...sorry." He mutters into his radio, before closing his eyes inside his helmet, listening to the others fight. Listening to their words. If anyone can do this, it's them.
Persephone Kore      Persephone's response is as immediate as her reaction time allows. No, it's as if she reads the shift in atmosphere, even without being able to read Lilian's mind. She reaches out towards her just as the horrific wish begins to come true, as if her hand could do anything. It's Featherman seven times over again.

     "LILIAN, NO!"

     Her eyes are frantic and wide. Tears are left behind, glittering in the air as her head lurches forward. It's too late, again. Wishing can't undo it, again.

     But I refuse to let you be the horrible person you're trying to be. I refuse to let you hurt people who were only trying to do you good!

     Six people, six connections. Persephone's heart opens to the wounded, the dying, and the almost-retrocausally-dead. Through that link, she offers a glittering green concept, the one that I4 and Featherman Neo have already internalized. It feels as if a ratchet is clicking into place inside one's mind. It feels as if the world becomes slightly more like a cute plastic toy. This is a story swallowing its own tail, becoming detached from reality, dictating reality; who you are overrides what, even if 'what' is 'a corpse'.

     I can't save you from this. But you can save yourselves. Please, for your sake and for Lilian's, be strong enough to come back from this. Pull yourself back from the void. Don't let her be a murderer!

     Please. I don't want this to be the way it goes.
Lilian Rook     For a few, unbelievable moments, Lilian believes she has killed everyone here. Everyone but Persephone.

    No, she doesn't believe it. She experienced it, just like they did, from the other end.

    She reappears before Persephone, now plastered with just as much blood as she is. Where a moment ago she had been burning with resentment, now her shoulders shake, her white-knuckled hands tremble, her legs stumble, with adrenaline and nausea and barely suppressed visceral horror. She falters for an instant, and leans as if she's going to throw up, then catches herself and continues trudging forwards, wiping cold sweat from her face

    "No. Shut up. Stop talking. Stop lying! I know you don't have any concept of what family is, but that's not how it works! There's . . . a thousand years of blood and sweat and tears and everyone's expectations behind this power! Centuries of labour and persecution and war! I got to live in a mansion! They spent more money on me than cities get! This magic is proof that they succeeded! It's the ultimate time magic and it's mine and I have to use it because everyone else died and it's only me now and I'm the only one who can make up for all that. I was given all of this by my family and I'm not going to steal it from them! There's . . . you have no idea what an obligation is, do you?! Fucking crayon drawings and storybook reading!"

    When Persephone physically withdraws the actual plate itself, Lilian flinches and looks away before she'd lay eyes on it. "Nobody wants to! I have to make them! And you wouldn't know, because you're used to your fucking powers making everyone love and forgive and never ever blame you for anything by default! Well if they won't, I still will! I'll blame you for this! This is your fault, not mine!"

    Even though they'd been fighting an all out war minutes ago, Lilian wobbles on her feet just trying to keep approaching Persephone. Her voice cracks, and then chokes, coming out strained and hoarse. "I'm ruined now. It's already gone too far. I was trying . . . I spent so long trying to numb myself for this, but in the end, I was too scared that I wouldn't be able to go back to feeling again. But she said she'd still love me even if I was ugly and scarred like this. So even killing you is going to hurt me too."

    And the answer to Flamel comes out while Lilian thinks he isn't alive to hear it.
Lilian Rook     "But what else am I supposed to do? I know I can't expect you all . . . It's not your responsibility to just 'never push me'. I know it has to be mine, to be better than that; not yours, to be perfect. It's not good enough for me to just be 'strong'. I'm already too strong. With all this power, it's easier to hurt people, really badly, than not. I can't be like you, Persephone. I wasn't born good. I can't just hope I'm always responsible; I can't trust that I'll always get it right. I have to prepare for getting it wrong. Screwing up. And the only way I can do that is by being too strong to flinch. Too strong to get angry. Too strong to do something impulsive, like this. You can't even want to hurt people. I have to be above wanting to. You get that right Phony? You can be so kind to everyone because you know they can't hurt you.
"

    "But you all won't even let me be that! You --they-- want me to be scared of their anger too! You want me to hesitate to push you back! You're always trying to tell me what to do! You're always trying to make me feel how imperfect I am, and make me afraid of failing! You can't accept the world where you all can't beat me. And even worse! You, Persephone! You want to go ahead and give that to them! You want to make everyone really, really strong. You want to give everyone the power to deny me and hurt me. People who are born good! They'll get to have everything! And then what the hell am I?! Why do I even exist in your world?! How can I?!"

    "I can't stay human if I have to scrape the walls of this power, Persephone! You people can't just force me to do it and still expect me to keep up with people who were born right! So this doesn't end --I won't stop-- until you all accept it!"

    "You don't have to think I'm perfect, or blameless, or forgive everything I do. I get it if that's just how it is. If it's my fault for being born bad and there's no room for bad people in your perfect world, I get why you want to fight me! But I'm not going to lie down and just let you erase me! You're gonna have to step over my corpse for that!"
Ishirou It's a withering hell of Lilian's making.  Impaled, slashed, cut, disemboweled, decapitated, and everything in between in what seems like seconds.  I4 would be dead a million times over, if not for the power from Persephone keeping him together.  Every time he is injured, fatally, the damage is reversed a moment later, as I4's image of himself reinforces itself.

Again and again, this happens, even when he's driven to his knees.  It's agony...he cries out in pain, in anger...he wants to give up.  He so badly wants to give up right now.  It hurts, so badly...but there is a moment where it finally and mercifully comes to a stop.  He sees the ground beneath him stained in red.  

I4 draws on that self-image, he draws every ounce of strength he has in himself.  Every single ounce of bravery, he fights every instinct he has to just go down and make himself as small as possible because that'd be the only way she'd stop.  He looks exhausted, but he stands to his feet again.  

"Lil...you are my friend, and I love you a lot...but right now on this one thing about what I did..." He says, looking up and trying to look her in the eye.  "Fuck you, I will not apologize for feeling like myself for the first time in my entire life.  I am not sorry for that, I will NEVER be sorry for that.  Maybe I could have waited, maybe someone else could have helped me.."

"Maybe I SHOULD have waited.  For that...for causing you pain, I am sorry.  But...to think I'd abandon you like that?!  /Never/.  So fuck you for thinking I'd ever do something like that to you...I will not go back to being that though..."

He says, and once more his body is reinforced.  Again, it's reinforced.  Again and again.  He draws on everything, trying to put pieces of himself back together, trying to draw in other bits around him.  Then he looks, she's being hard-pressed, but she can still hurt and kill them.  His mind works so many calculations, but instead, he just pushes himself even harder.  

His hand goes up, this time more and more traps are laid, but these are not the point.  These are, at best, here to corral her, to limit her choices, and make sure that the choices she had were the best out of bad situations.  

Then he pointed a hand at her, several shots rain out, aiming to try and track her.  This time, however, they attempt to chain her to the ground itself.  Energy shoots up, trying to limit her mobility completely.  I4 runs, drawing out a blade from his subspace compartments, trying to close distance, but he knows that she'd get out eventually.  So he slides, trying to preempt any attack by being as low to the ground as he could, and slides his hand along the ground.  

More chains.  Again and again, with the chains, aiming to try and trick her into thinking he went for a hail mary...and instead, aiming to try and trap her.  Of course, this probably will trap him in melee with her, which is a terrible idea.  Probably!

"Please stop doing this to yourself..!"
Cantio It's not working as well as expected. Physically, anyway. Mentally, Cantio's still not so sure. She could've sworn she saw Featherman get his head cut off, but he's... Alive still? So that means he didn't die. But... He says he did.

There's not enough time to process what actually happened there. The important thing is that Featherman doesn't stay dead, Hibiki's alive, Persephone and Flamel are still alive, Candy's alive, and Staren's alive. Even I4 and Kale being alive is something of a small relief, but her focus is squarely on Lilian right in front of her. Her gambit with the clones works, and it almost gives her an idea right up until Lilian hocks that blood into her face.

"That's right. I crossed that line because I thought it was what I needed to do, and it wasn't! It didn't get me any closer to what I was even aiming for!" Cantio snaps back, taking a blind swing at Lilian and crying out sharply as that stomp breaks through that armored boot, pulverizing her foot and giving Lilian ample opportunity to smash head face right into Cantio's then unguarded face with another terrible crunching sound from her face.

"Hhgha....  And you didn't think maybe you could've been wrong for once? Aren't you supposed to be smarter than all of us?!" Still grasping blindly in front of her, Cantio finds her hand holding onto something, but it's only what's left of one of her clones still being popped into the air after getting cut down. Even without that blood in her eyes, Lilian's time is enough to turn her armor into neatly sliced parts of  right into her countless times, tearing her and her armor to ribbons.

Except it doesn't. Not her, anyway. The armor is obliterated, and Cantio's body is in several distinct pieces, but those pieces come back together not unlike an action figure being briefly disassembled and reassembled with bloody marks added for realistic battle damage. The damage is very much real even if it doesn't look as real as it should, though, but it's enough for Cantio to stay on her feet instead of falling apart in a heap.

"Of course we're not going to think you're perfect. That's because nobody is! Nobody can be. That doesn't mean you can't strive for it where you can! That's all anyone can expect from you... Someone that's easy to hate because you act better than everyone else. Someone that's supposed to be better than everyone else because of your mind, your abilities, everything you've accomplished despite your father and what you've had to go through!" Cantio practically screams all of that out, visibly upset at... Herself? Lilian? Everyone else?

All of it.

"Now look at you! You're chasing after this power, and... Yeah. Maybe you're stronger than before, but you're a mess. You're destroying the reputation you've been building, all that trust everyone else has in you here and back home, and for what? So you can make sure you can say 'I win at everything'?! So you can beat up the one person that doesn't even want to hurt you?! You're supposed to be better than this!"

Even with that blood still forcing her to squint past the pain, Cantio still sees a blurry Lilian-ish shape. She sees I4 working his chains around to try and bind her, and she sees her chance. She dives forward to grapple with Lilian as well, once again searching for anywhere she can get a good grip to try and immobilize her with her own wrangling maneuver.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel is continuing his crashing smashing. And then, in a single moment, Lilian strikes beyond striking.


    Flamel Parsons is completely decapitated.


    His body falls to its knees. His sunglasses slam to the ground and smash to bits. The corpse pitches sideways. There is silence. And he does what a good psychic, psychonaut, even therapist does. He waits, and he listens, and he keeps his mouth shut while he does.

    And when he's done listening, he thinks. Decapitated, that's all that a brain can do after all. And then, telepathy crackles to life. "I really wish I was a better psychonaut, Lilian. A top-class agent like Cruller or Forsythe would know what to say to you, I think, to explain innate goodness, or to assure you of what you don't feel capable of being, or to assuage the fear of what Sapient Heuristics wants to do. Honestly, I'm just a projection expert and clairvoyant."

    The decapitated head remains slack and limp. Resting a short distance from the body of Flamel Parsons, it slowly dies. Still, with the remaining power, he speaks at her mind. "There is a magical insight that makes this feel better. And makes you feel less like you have to be this way. And I don't know it! But, I think you deserve to know it. It's my professional opinion that you seem to be a good person. And my personal opinion that Persephone loves you, and she'd probably move mountains if it meant making sure you could see innate goodness, and she wouldn't love you without that goodness."

    "I hope you can trust me now of all times, you know, haha, considering the circumstances. Maybe even trust me enough when I say that I think you might even be good enough to be kind to a stranger who hurt you." His brain's power is faltering. "I mean... You did really... seem like you..." His voice fades to something small. "Loved... ghosts... more..." His skull minerals spark, flicker, and begin to fade. He might be able to grab onto Persephone's offer before he fades. Maybe. Right now, this is cutting it horribly, terribly close. But it's out of faith. Faith in what Persephone saw, and what Persephone loves.

    He'd rather Lilian prove her goodness, for Persephone's sake.
Cantio As much as Cantio's not particularly fond of the Paladins, she'll have to thank I4 later for the opportunity.

"You're not supposed to be like me! I'm supposed to be the one chasing after you, you dense fucking idiot!"

Instead of punching her, biting her, trying to wrench her around, Cantio instead tries something she hasn't used on another person before. Her own control of time, derived from both BB's gifts and what she's learned, internalized, taken in as part of her own power, is turned on that small space surrounding herself and Lilian instead.

Instead of slowing down time for herself to make reacting easier, instead of stopping time like so long ago or erasing causality, she's instead trying to make everything else feel faster. She's trying to make her and Lilian's own perception of time slow down, to make it seem as the world outside is going in fast forward while they're still moving at normal speed.

"What's it going to be, Lilian? Am I right, and... Are you really that far gone? Or are they right, and you really are better than this? You can't have it both ways."

Cantio's sword finally comes back around from when she had hurled it earlier. It's coming straight at them with enough force and speed, especially if her grip and that accelerated time perception holds, to pierce right through them if something isn't done to move them both out of the path of the flying blade.
Staren     Staren is actually stunned by that response. "Wha--?! But... he was a bad person! He tortured you and I don't know how many others! What?! I could never! She'd-- She'd never torture anyone like that! She'd never BEAT a CHILD!" Staren flinches a bit, free hand moving to protect his head. "What the fuck is wrong with YOU?! You think that's 'GETTING IN TROUBLE'?! It's your family that's crazy! No one... no one could do that to someone they care about!" He clenches his fist at his side. "He didn't see you as a daughter, he saw you as some kinda TOOL to shape for his purposes!"

    Staren turns and points towards Lilian. "And that's the WORST! That's what you did to ME when you USED me as a messenger to hurt Persephone! But at least you did it once, and not my whole LIFE!"

    "No, dammit! We won't be happy if you stop existing! No one's looking DOWN on you, DAMMIT, you KNOW how fucking terrifying you are!" And then he hangs his head as she points out they invaded her home, the thing Staren was so scared of happening to herself. "...You're right. I'm sorry. We were scared. That doesn't... justify it..."

    And then, he was already dead...

    Not /dead/ dead, of course. The Immortal Labcat can't be killed like this. But as the robot body falls into sliced-up pieces, he hears Persephone's wish. She doesn't need to use her power for Staren. A command is sent...

                              ~~THE ASTRAL PLANE~~                              
    Staren, or at least, the ghostly-white projection of herself, stands on white nothingness, surrounded by endless flowing white clouds. Persephone... Everyone... I have to believe you'll find a way if I fight on a little longer... She takes a deep breath, and tries to relax for a few seconds. Time is strange here. Minutes could pass, maybe more, and only seconds will have passed on the material plane. There are probably all sorts of ways to use this place... for trained psychic practitioners. For Staren, who only visits here between bodies... it's at best creepy and disorienting, and at worst, creepy and disorienting right after experiencing a painful death.

    This time, though... It's kind of relaxing. A break from Lilian's awful and fearsome presense. Staren takes another breath. Lets it out. She can afford a short break, right?

    A third breath. Okay... I'd better try to return. Any longer and I may lose my nerve... Staren focuses on the nearest body. One should be right here...
                                       ~~                                      
Staren                       Command recieved. Sending payload...                      

    Near the wreckage of Staren's previous body, a new one warps in. Smaller and feminine, but still clearly machine, and again painted red. This one is less made-of-cylinders and a bit more human-shaped, the torso and upper arms/legs being shaped in imitation of an organic body, while the lower arms/legs are bulkier, like a reploid's, the arms incorporating vambraces like her battle labcoat's. Half of the upper head is made of some tough clear material, showing the mechanical brain within. The eyes look more like some kind of lights than conventional cameras, but the nose and mouth are sculpted to resemble normal humanoid, although they do not move. Mechanical ears swivel in the appropriate spots, and some other kind of armatures on the back of the head evoke the feeling of a twin-tailed hairstyle. The neck projects an orange holo-scarf, the only item of 'clothing' on the body, billowing dramatically in the 'wind'.

    "I don't want to beat you up. You can't be weakened anyway, unlike me. I..." She looks away, "I've accepted I can't beat you, can't you see that?! They're not trying to BEAT you, or ERASE you, they're trying to get you to LISTEN."

    Staren looks directly at her, light reflecting off those large lenses. "But I'm getting kinda pissed hearing your WHINING about how everyone else has it better than YOU. Like we have it all easy! Like we never feel weak, or don't know what to do!" Staren points. "Neither you NOR Persephone should let obligation define you! A world where the only way everyone else can prosper is for one sacrifice to suffer so terribly..." She clenches a fist. "Even if I have no more power than a doll, this 'doll' will give everything she has until she breaks to fight against such a world coming to pass!"

    Staren pulls back one arm as her body glows, electricity arcing over her. "So if you want to make a world where you have to suffer like this forever so that everything else can be 'perfect'..."

    She launches towards Lilian after I4 enchains her. "You'll have to BREAK ME TO SPLINTERS FIRST!"

    Only, don't actually do that! Persephone would be sad! Don't worry, Persephone, I won't die this easily!

    Supercharged as she is, Lilian even getting close is going to get one HELL of a lightning zap -- on top of her entire body being surrounded by a field of high-frequency shredding energy right now!
Candy      Candy's chest tightens. *...of course I know you know what it's like. I'm the one that put you there first. I was just too angry and too stupid to see--*

    He is skewered. The shirt is ruined, and the skin, bones, muscle beneath, equally so. Toughness and resilience only go so far. "...That." A hollow, wet rasp escapes him, but the last of his mind screams for someone.

    The star that is Candy is blinding, gone supernova, threatening to burn the last of itself out, all but impossible for Persephone to ignore. A last-ditch, furious, blink-and-you'll miss it insistence that I wasn't finished.

    It is undone--the idea of Candy made, with her intervention, more powerful than the reality of That. Not by much. He is so, so tired. But just enough to keep him standing, cracks spiderwebbed in his skin like worn pavement.

    Air fills his lungs again. First, in small parts. Then, in labored breaths. His chest swells. And all of it escapes in a teary-eyed, raw-throated howl. "WHY DOES ME HAVING THAT MEAN YOU DON'T?! WHY DOES HER BEING SPECIAL MEAN YOU'RE NOT?!"

    Smoke rises from his pocket as his playing cards are violently pulled out. He doesn't throw them. Or even use them. They're simply ablaze, as Candy's star grows all the brighter for Persephone. He had to throw them out--else he would have set himself on fire, too. The ground at his feet cracks and darkens, the air waves.

    "IT FUCKING DOESN'T!" A heavy machine gun. Not pointed anywhere near Lilian. Water cooled. Fan triggers on the grips. Both held down, fired completely away not only from her, but anyone. "IT DOESN'T!" A gleaming armored car, mounted turret--unusual shape, more like an insect than a military weapon but somehow more threatening for the simplistic, antiquated design. The bullets of the LMG clang against it.

    "IT DOESN'T!" The final shout sets the air around him momentarily on fire, a cavitation bubble having formed in a flash, his own body protected only by the subconscious working of his will. The flames expand and consume the armored car. Tires are melted into slag, metal warped beyond usability, slitted windows cracked and burst.

    "IF I WANTED TO REPLACE YOU, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I BE HERE, GETTING MY FUCKING CLOCK CLEANED?" His arm violently swipes, and the superheated air immediately condenses into a hulking wave of water that crashes into the car hard enough to tear its melted tires from the ground and send it hurtling into one of Phony's protective diamond walls.

    He lets out an agonized shriek, his hair wildly flowing from the backblast of a kings' ransom of dynamite--enough to crater the ground beneath the car. "IF YOU WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME, WHY..." He's fallen to the ground, tears splattering. "YOu fucking win. Okay? You win. I can't be another person that thinks they can break you. Of course you're fucking good enough for me," he says, between shuddering weeping, face bowed down.

    "'My place' is fixing things. But there's nothing wrong with you. If I wanted to replace you... Lilian, why did I tell the only other person in that house that cares about you how great you are? How worth it you are? You did it before. Look inside and tell me I'm lying. See who I 'interrogated' and tell me I want to replace you."

    "TELL ME THAT SHIT TO MY FACE!" When he looks up, his eyes are bloodshot, his face is wet with his own blood and streaked with his tears, his fingers grasping the charred earth beneath him as if clawing furrows in it might anchor him more firmly to some vast, invisible source of comfort.
Kale Hearthward There's no words. Just aggression, technique, and movement.

Kale doesn't realize at first that he's being used to disrupt everyone else's line of fire - and when he does, it's too late for him to break off the attack, so all he can do is focus through it until an opportunity presents itself to change course.

And that opportunity doesn't come. Lilian having a read on him isn't just a joke. She parries hard against his drill, and then in the opening that creates she takes the opportunity to carve in on him. By his own lightning-quick reactions he's able to mitigate it - her blade finds purchase in skin and feathers, not bone and muscle - but find purchase it does. It comes away red once again, and then when Kale is able to switch tactics he's already well past Lilian.

He lands, setting down smoothly despite his condition, Tabtrack flaring the last of its stored energy to frictionlessly arrest his forward momentum. And then he turns and looks, ready to launch another assault-

- in time to see Lilian just... take everyone out. All at once. Nearly, or fatally, he can't quite tell from this distance.

For a moment, he hesitates. If he keeps going at Lilian - that might be him next. He could still just... go. Abandon the meat grinder he'd be flying into.

But - battles, real battles with real people, are won not by bloody attrition as portrayed in video games, but by which army breaks first, which side's individual soldiers decide survival is more important than defeat.

And breaking now would mean losing Lilian.

Kale lets both swords drop to the ground. Even if he wasn't unsure if he could maintain the focus needed for Compass Style, Lilian just demonstrated that she's got the read on his technique. He'll have to try something else.

He breathes out - lifting off again, reorienting himself towards where Lilian has come to a stop, and accelerating towards her. She can read his technique - it's a question now of if she can read his raw speed, as he comes rocketing across the battlefield towards her, trying simply to slam into her and knock her off her feet!

Words fail, at this point. He understands what she's saying. What she means, what she went through. He understands it, he just doesn't... have answers to her questions about power, about responsibility about what she owes and what they can accept of her - at least, what answers he does have ready at hand, he doesn't think she'd accept. Answers that he sort of wonders, as they form in his mind, how well they'd stand up if he voiced them.

And so, in the place of a complicated answer, he offers up simply the most simple, true thing he can say right now.

"ROOK!" he yells, as he comes charging in once again.

"I LIKE YOU!"
Flamel Parsons     If Lilian can foist Flamel on Persephone or otherwise intentionally kick-start that regeneration, he'll revive near instantly. If he has to do it himself... well, it takes a longer time, to take that revival into him. A longer time to reform himself, in the shape of-- what, exactly? Several replicants, a few strange cryptids, but no, eventually the defocused mass resolves right back into what he was before. His body was designed to perfectly reflect his mind, after all! It's already ideal.

    The burst of psychic energy that comes with his reincorporation into a whole form is the only attack he has. When he's back, he simply can't attack after hearing those heartfelt truths. Only the blastwave of his revival could shove Lilian, but Flamel himself? Nothing. "Call me convinced." He says, in a bright and friendly tone. "You've made me change my mind. It *is* worth being afraid of that possibility! Really scary stuff. The idea of what could happen with your future, and the work of Sapient Heuristics, and that disparity of goodness. You can keep fighting me, and that's your choice." He finally drifts back down to the ground, and settles, getting a new pair of sunglasses on. "But..."

    "I hope you don't have to, after changing my mind! Now, I don't just believe Persephone deserves my help, I believe you deserve Persephone's, and I've also gotten convinced that this kind of strength can help her! So," He re-assumes his fighting stance, two translucent TK hands at the ready. "We can get back into it -- but I think this might already be *your* win. I get the feeling you're not a fan of working out the details of an inevitable conclusion..."
Persephone Kore      Lilian approaches. Persephone touches down on the charred rock of Tartarus and tosses the stained tidal-holographic plate aside. Her eyes are swimming with tears, glimmering like an ocean of stars. They scan over the carnage behind Lilian. It'll be okay. I can feel it in their hearts. I have to believe they're strong enough to come back from this. They told me to trust them, after all.

     Lilian is wobbling. Persephone shivers from the intensity of emotion coursing through her- frustration, anxiety, desperate hope. "You're not ruined," she says. "Shut up. I wouldn't let you ruin yourself. Don't talk like that!!"

"You can't accept the world where you all can't beat me."
"I knew I couldn't," Persephone half-shouts, even though it wasn't addressed to her. "We both get what we wish for. If what I really wanted was a world without you, maybe I could! But your wish is to kill me. And I could never wish to kill you."

"You get that right Phony? You can be so kind to everyone because you know they can't hurt you."
"But you can hurt me. I said so in that very first talk we had on the radio. And I'm trying my best to be kind to you anyway!! You're right that it's really scary. You're right that it's a way I've never had to be brave before. But I'm holding out my hand for you, Lilian, because I believe in you to take it!"

     She does, in a literal sense. Her arm-warmers burned off a long time ago; her bracelets shattered and fell away; her sweater sleeves are shredded and torn. Her arm is only adorned by rivulets of red-that-is-not-blood, and the marks where her short nails have dug into her own palm.

     "Come back to us. You said it'll change you, and that's true. But that changed person isn't who you want to be. Everyone who loves you says so! You want to be good, so I'm letting you be good. There is no 'or else'."

     "Please. Just come back."
Hibiki Tachibana     "It's not just feeling sorry for you...! And none of that was about trying to find a /replacement/!" Despite Lilian blinking clear of the attack, Hibiki is far less focused on that compared to taking the chance to get back to her feet after a moment of unsteadiness. And on Lilian's words. "But I know why you saw it like that! I know where all of that was coming from now!"

    "And I haven't forgotten /that/ either! But if I--if anyone can't do things despite what's happened in the past, then...!"

    She should've known what'd be coming next. The air explodes in white-hot heat, and her body is rent apart, ripped into, and shredded into more bits that can be counted. Bits of Symphogear are destroyed and hacked off, reduced to metal shrapnel and slag in equal measure. Like in slow-motion, what's left of the magical girl falls back through the air before collapsing onto the ground, eyes devoid of light.

    No, that's not right. Dying right now would mean she's fine letting Lilian be alone. She'd be a hypocrite about each and every thing she's said - more than she already might be. What Lilian doesn't know is that, for better or worse, nobody could ever replace or fill in the spot she has in Hibiki Tachibana's heart after everything that's happened.

    So she can't die yet. A hand that isn't really a hand grips onto that concept, the refusal to stay down remains strong, and she's in one piece against the wishes of the world. On the ground, a heaving mess unable to properly stand back up even with the willpower to, but barely alive to hear all of that.

    "Two incompatible worlds...huh? Why the hell do they have to be incompatible...? Who the hell says..."

    She won't let Lilian be a murderer. That's for damn sure. She strains to roll over onto her side and only barely manages it, but all her strength is going to words. "You and Persephone...can't make that happen!? Aren't you the ones who can make the world do what you want it to!? You're two of the strongest people I know, in more ways than one! You both deserve better! You should be friends!"

    She lets out another harsh breath, and collapses down onto her shoulder, face scrunched up against the tears building up. "I just want the both of you...to get what you want, without any compromises or any more pain...I know you can! You're not too far gone to come back! I just want you to get what you really want...and in that world...I--..."

    She limply falls back forward onto her front, trailing off as unconsciousness takes her. Not dead, but just barely unable to keep going - and too emotionally exhausted to even imagine throwing another punch.
Lilian Rook     Somehow, Lilian realizing that she has failed to kill anyone is . . . almost worse. A low, strained noise builds up in Lilian's throat, gradually rising higher and higher in volume, until it tears free as a frustrated, teary-eyed scream.

    "I'm going through all this, and even now, you'll come back from the fucking dead just to make sure to spite me?! Were you planning this from the start?! I knew you were all compromised, but this is-- THIS IS-- YOU THREW YOUR HUMANITY AWAY BEFORE ME JUST IN CASE I MIGHT WIN?!"

    Lilian already hasn't had a great track record with massed grappling attacks trying to tie her up like I4 is straight back up to weaving, and even less so when unbalanced to this degree, swinging sickeningly from traumatic, shellshocked nausea to self-doubting schizophrenic fury. For every five chains she slashes out of the air, as sixth slips through, the massive arcs she swings in her rage are too inefficient to react to them all, especially when her perception of time slows dramatically thanks to Cantio, dulling her reflexes. 'Teleporting' doesn't get rid of them, and they continue to chase her whenever she slips out of the way anyways.

    "AND HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL ABOUT HOW EASY IT IS FOR HER TO FIX YOU?! HOW HARD DID I HAVE TO WORK?! AND IN THE END, THE ONLY THING I FOUND MADE US MISERABLE!" She's getting bogged down in the chains now. They're beginning to snag her limbs, her clothes, her weapon. Taking time to snap one gives many more an opportunity to close.

    "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID PURPLE B-- GHH!" Lilian screams, then falters again at Cantio. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened since emerging from her mindscape. "REPUTATION!? WHAT GOOD IS THAT IF EVERYONE CAN JUST HOLD THEIR HANDS OUT FOR THE BETTER VERSION?!" she cries out, swinging at Cantio's head to intercept her, and finally being blindsided by Kale, knocked off her feet and tumbling under Cantio's tackle instead, unable to react to his faux-speed, his actual speed, his confusing blurt-out, and keep up with her combat intuition while under this much stress. The sword flying at the side of her head is only deflected, sent spinning away, at the last second in a panic. For a split second, it's not entirely clear why, until one sees Lilian clutching the hair pin in her free hand, visibly hyperventilating by the movement of her scarred chest.

    And in that state, her vitriol sputters and begins to choke out when Staren just outright says what she'd yelled at Persephone over. 'We were just scared'. 'We can't beat you'. 'We don't want to'. 'Yours and Persephone's obligation'. "Wh-which is it then?! You can't act like you pity me and still say everyone has to deal with what I do! Just stop talking about family! God dammit! You just . . . You don't understand them! How could you?! You didn't have to live there! You're a fucking tourist! You don't know them! You don't know why they're like that! You don't know what they think about me!"

    "So break!"


    Just as Staren is lunging towards her, shrouded in layers of exotic and incredibly dangerous energy, Lilian finally teleports-- No, let's not pretend. She 'stopped time' to burst free of Cantio and all her chains at once. Like the hand tapping on the door. She's burnt and shrouded in hissing, star-glittering smoke again. She actually flickers back from Staren's charge, getting just enough distance to take a brand new stance.
Lilian Rook     "If you think you can crutch on her power to overcome mine, you're wrong! While you were invading my home, I was designing this! I was intending to use it on her first, but you can all have the honours if you're so determined!"

    A sharp breath in through her teeth. It steams as it comes back out, gleaming with alien stars. "Cleasanna Lilí Dubha ~ Claíomh Seilge sa Todhchaí!"

    Light and colour turn inside out for the space of a half-heartbeat, an immaterial, yet strangely, just now palpable pulse slapping the senses with deep blackness, scorching whiteness, distance and vertigo, and a short clap of thunder. Lilian's sword twitches, and then she is already back across the meadow. In her wake, rather than scorching radioactive smoke and relativistic light-lag, countless phantoms of the individual fighters are superimposed on space; ghostly infra-coloured spectres populate their immediate local scattering, surrounding them with clouds of phantasmal duplicates, each dying before their eyes from multiple, grievously fatal wounds. Like striking at shadows, at blood, Lilian's blade finds the original back through the probable futures in which they are struck and killed, multiplicatively amplifying the power of her causal-time stopping attacks several times over.

    This, notably, doesn't include Flamel, who is a mere, slowly dying head at the time, nor Candy, untouched by Persephone's gift at that moment. Lilian staggers at the end, stumbling in that slight way she had when investigating Arthur Lowell's friend, when the technique wasn't fully mastered. Stumbling slightly on the dismount costs her, briefly causing her hands to skip smoke and hit ignition, leaving behind strange, static-shaped 'burns'. Crying out with the unexpected pain, she drops to her knees nearby, staring dully at Flamel in the time it takes to put his head back on.

    "Why? Why aren't . . . Why aren't you fighting? Why'd you stop? You're here to stop me, so stop me. You're Persephone's favourite, so get to work already. You're supposed to . . . You're not even human. What would you know? Nothing about how hard it is to be human like this"

    She can barely raise her head to Candy's outburst at this point. She can't even blame that one on Persephone. It's nothing short of a miracle. She stares at him on her knees, in numb, miserable denial, creeping recognition struggling to fight its way onto her blood splattered face, tear streaks already running through the red. There's no question about it now. Her lip just trembled. She did exactly what he said, and just searched through his mind to see Katrina and Cecilia.

    "I told you to shut up!" She coughs at Hibiki, trying not to sob. "I don't even hate her! I never did! I don't even remember how we got here! I just-- If it's her or me, then . . . then . . . !"

    Lilian looks up at Persephone. "I thought you were lying back then! There's no way anyone would just . . . !" But that's pointless too. She's turned it on. She can't turn it back off so easily. She can't control Persephone's mind, but she read it, and she knows fully well what she's thinking and feeling now, genuinely and sincerely. Lilian takes a deep, deep breath, holds it, and slowly turns her head sideways to look at the black-stained Tidal Holography Plate.

    Then, she bursts into loud, wailing tears.
Kale Hearthward For what it's worth, none of Kale's probable future selves break and turn, either.

They do go down all the same, though.

"I got... my answer, at least..." says the original, down on his hands and knees on the ground, panting hard. It's the end...

... And then... Lilian stops.

She stops - and she's crying. Kale should... do something. Comfort her? Help her? Something. He starts to get up - and then immediately, his injuries force him back down, not just back to his hands and knees, but all the way to the ground.

Moving is not a good idea right now. He'll have to work something out later.
Ishirou 'It only brought us pain.'

I4 remembers that, he remembered that well of the abyss he spent spiraling down for the longest time.  He spent time away, thinking he could just overcome it, but...

He spent time focusing only on himself and hadn't seen how much it also hurt Lilian.  How much it hurt her to watch him, and that she couldn't help fix him.  She felt responsible for that pain, and that the truth was more brutal and painful than they could have ever conceived.  

Worse, she had her own crisis, but he was...

The strike comes.  I4 can't even begin to dodge such a well-placed attack, such a murderously crafted strike.  He fires out something, perhaps a bit of a hack.  Something to try and find the one SINGLE version of I4 that doesn't get brutally murdered.  

It's a long shot...but he falls.  So many versions of I4 fall, so many are dead.  Enough for a creepy room of them that will be discovered in another playthrough of Sad Robot Simulator by S6.  However, there is one exception.  

One I4, despite all odds.  Every single chance, every impossible angle somehow PULLS himself together.  The very walls of his psyche are strained.  When he stands, he can barely walk. Instead, he staggers as his regeneration barely fails to keep him together, and instead, he collapses so close to Lilian.  

It's weak, but it's all he can do now.  He places a hand on her shoulder and slumps.  It's the weakest hug he has ever managed, but it's the strongest thing he can do right now.  "I...I never thanked you...pr-properly.  It's not your fault...you helped me learn the truth."

"I just wasn't strong enough then, and you...carried that pain.  Just..." he gasps in a breath.  Right now he has no mental defenses.  He didn't run to the paladins when he heard about Staren, he wanted to help her because he thought the others were trying to hurt her.  "I want my friend..." he says, with tears.  There is nothing left in the tank.  

All he can do is beg her to come back.  
Flamel Parsons     Flamel closes his eyess, takes a deep breath, and exhales. "You're right. I *don't* know." He says. And then he smiles, that bright and cheery smile he's always giving. He speaks in that friendly and positive tone he always has. "A good psychonaut doesn't know! A good psychonaut learns and supports. I'm here to support Persephone -- and that means I support you too. Because you've convinced me! You, and maybe you alone, are strong enough to help her with what she needs. But I'd always like the confirmation. So, give me a taste of humanity." He closes his eyes and flares his barriers with all his might, trying to weather the storm.

    And you know what? To his credit, he's standing when she's done, just barely. "'Stop you.' Hahah... I think we both know that would be dumb. We both know you're too good, and I don't have the skill to match. And Persephone and I know you're too good, and I can't try to stop someone who wants to be a good person like that. I'm not here to stop you. I'm just here to listen, and ask you for help. To take a break from forcing yourself through this, and help someone who needs it." Time catches up with him, all at once, blasting orange and red psychic energy out of his body like blood. Everything clenches. Everything falters. Slamming to one knee, her says, "Oh, ahah, that was more than I thought, hah..." He shudders, only holding himself up with one hand. Maybe Cleasanna Lilí Dubha ~ Claíomh Seilge sa Todhchaí didn't get him, but something sure as hell did.

    Trying to prop himself up, he can only contribute one thing: "Let it out, alright?" He struggles to mutter through the pain. "Promise I'll memory-wipe any memories of seeing you crying." No, that's a joke. He looks to Persephone. "Hey, I can't, uh-- I can't move." He gestures with his head to Lilian.

    "Can you hug her? Basic Psicadet training says someone's gotta, and," He smiles, and cracks an awful joke. "If you can't do this, nobody can."
Staren     WHIFF.

    Okay, yeah, the plan to use a melee attack on Lilian had an obvious failure mode. "I 'threw it away' for the same reason you did. I thought I had to." There's a loud CRACK of lightning as Staren grounds the energy, and vents around her robot body spew steam. She holds a finger to her chin and mutters. "Although, turned out there were reasons hopping bodies seemed no big deal for me..." Staren speaks up again: "But neither of us were really ever fully human anyway, huh? It's overrated."

    Staren blinks. "Wait is this a self-hate thing?! When I thought I had to be human it drove me up a mountain, remember?!"

    Staren tilts her head. "Is your power, your uniqueness, the only thing you imagine the world can value about you? GODS that fucked me up too." She can't help but laugh at how insane it is that someone she hated, and fears, so much, could have so much in common. Then, seriously: "You're right. I don't know about your family."

    So break.

    Staren takes a stance too. It's an incredibly basic combat stance, weight distributed for quick movement with one hand ready to block while the other is further back for swinging with more momentum. It's a reflexive habit, and no help here.

    All the technology in the world is no help when someone else is just Realer than her, huh? The possible futures resolve into Lilian brutally and efficiently destroying with perfect precision the robot body's vital components; what's left of it collapses.

                              ~~THE ASTRAL PLANE~~                              
    Even knowing she'd escape, there are still 'lizard brain' survival instincts that find it scary as heck to be BRUTALLY AND EFFICIENTLY MURDERED. Staren is shaken, she's been through a lot today and there hasn't really been any time to process.

    Guess she kinda has time now, though.

    Staren looks around at the endless mists. "Persephone? Flamel? I don't know if you can hear me, but... I'll be okay." Well, y'know, unless you all lose, and Lilian hunts me down.

    Staren hangs her head and rubs her spirit-body's arm awkwardly. "I tried. I didn't know what else to do. I dunno if I failed you, or if that was enough. But, I can't..." Staren shivers, remembering 'dying' twice and the horrible atmosphere in Lilian's mind. "I c-can't do this again today. It's really gonna hurt if I do, and all for nothing."

    Staren sighs and sits down in the endless void. "I'm trying to trust that you and the others will work it out, but I can't help worrying 'what if'. I'm sorry." Is that doubt why I'm weaker than her? ...Probably not. But I bet it doesn't help.

    Staren stands up and clasps her hands together. "Please... make everything alright, Persephone. It's not fair to ask more of you, but I don't know what else to do. And if you can't... Well, you're not alone. I-if Lilian wins..."

    Gods. She detached herself during the fight to focus on buying time, but. This could really be it, huh?

    Is she really ready to go back, if it's to a world where Lilian won?

    That's... an immensely sad thought...
                                       ~~                                      
Persephone Kore      Persephone stumbles a little when she tries to walk and close the distance, but eventually finds her footing on the remains of her heels. Her approach is slow and cautious; not as if she's scared she'll be hurt, but as if she's scared Lilian will be spooked and run away.

     "Thank you," she says, in a whisper that'd be hard to hear if it weren't also psychically conveyed. "I know it's so, so hard to open yourself up, when that's always gotten you hurt before. But it's the only way you can receive that love. The love that you deserve to have, and that I want to give you."

     Flamel, on the ground, gets an involuntary exhalation-half-laugh from her in the too-serious moment. "God, shut up. I was going to do it anyway."

     She holds her hands out low, tentatively offering a hug. Is that okay? Are you alright with that kind of touch, Lilian? I understand if it's too much right now. But I have to do something for you. I can't stand not to.

     Her body is still dripping red-that-is-not-blood, soaked in it from injuries that long since un-happened. It's smeared across Lilian's body, too, if she accepts the embrace.

     "I want a future where you're happy, Lilian. And as long as you want that too... I know we can create it together. Even if we don't know what it looks like, it'll be okay. Nothing is broken. Nothing is ruined. Especially not you."

     There's a brief pause as Persephone pats Lilian on the upper back, then migrates her hand upwards to cradle the back of her head instead. Then she pauses and looks at her hand, finally registering the un-blood dripping off it.

     "Ahaha, oh no, I'm sorry! I won't give you any lip about cleaning you off this time. Promise."
Candy Candy's star goes dim. He is hiding--but not for a selfish reason. Not to hurt.

It is unlike the paper you know, but not overly so. Your other request is even easier.

*Do I -gotta- play for 'em?*

Even now, you would win.

*If this thing of Phony's wears off... do I die?*

Don't know.

*Then I guess I play for 'em. I need something to write on, too.*

I have just the thing.

    It takes Candy some time before he can come over to Lilian and Phony. He's huddled over something, a reflection occasionally glinting from a flat, glossy surface. A tin of some kind. He's... writing something.

    It takes him a few minutes. It has to be done right. By hand. Perfect doesn't send the right message. As he approaches the two of them, he is beat to hell and back, dried blood streaked with tears, skin cracked in that same way that Phony's is, slowly, slowly mending itself.

    There's a piece of printer paper in his hand. It's unfolded, uncreased, carefully handed over to Lilian. Four barely-better-than-stick figures. A girl with a familiar hair pin joins hands with a girl in orange arm warmers, on one side, and this childish medium's best attempt at a dignified seer on the other. They are all smiling, in their ways, standing in a field of simplistic flowers, joined by a joyful maid and a quietly happy doctor.

    Beneath a grinning sun,

Eres especial. Eres amado.

     "For you," he says softly.
Lilian Rook     It's over. Definitively. Lilian could theoretically jump right back up, physically; she has plenty of energy and blood to spare, and certainly ammunition and magic in reserve. That thought is meaningless conjecture. It wasn't the point. It never was the point. She said it herself: that this would never, ever end with 'and then we all beat Lilian'. A few people had realized it before, but it couldn't be more obvious now that it's just as Cecilia said, in her proximal way:

    Lilian never wanted to be here in the first place. There's no determination behind her at all; her 'fighting spirit' is nothing more than an illusion to fit the part she'd cornered herself into playing. The moment it became safe, or rather, registered as safe, to stop, she'd opted out. And she's not going back. Regardless of power, it is, indeed, morale that decides a fight. A famous general even wrote a book that said something about soldiers fighting to the end only if you block their escape.

    Looking at the bloodied and bedraggled girl slumped over on her knees, heels of her palms squeezed against her face in a futile attempt at hiding wailing and fat ugly tears, the idea that there is any kind of threat here could only feel like a joke.

    "I'm . . . I-I'm s-so s-sorry! This is . . . this is my fault! F-for . . . ! I . . . ! F-for keeping everything secret like th-this! I th-thought I . . . Th-that if n-nobody knew th-then . . . If nobody knew th-then n-nobody would h-h-hate me or b-blame me o-or . . . ! But I . . . ! I just m-made e-everything so much wooooorse! I almost ki-hi-hi-illed you-uuuu!"

    Is there really any other possibility, after what's just been said? Lilian covers her eyes with one arm and blindly extends her trembling hand in the direction of Persephone's voice, groping around in the air until she finds her fingers, and then pulling herself over. It's the saddest, grossest, most pathetic-looking hug she's ever given, no doubt, barely dressed and covered in blood mingled with sweat and tears, but she can't bring herself to let go the moment 'nothing is broken' is uttered.

    Pointlessly, she wipes her eyes so that she can look up at Candy, and hiccup and incoherent noise at the picture, only to break down into a fresh wave of tears, carefully clutching the page just far enough away to not ruin it with all the moisture.

    "Wh-what am I s-s-supposed to d-do now . . . ?"
Flamel Parsons     "As the professional here," Flamel speaks up, propping himself up a bit. "I say go find somewhere private. Call Cecilia and just chat. And sleep! That's what will solve this feeling. I'll run memory-wipes on anyone who saw the bad stuff as soon as my mental health is getting better. Hahhh... this really did get intense. I gotta go look at those readouts... Later, later." He sort of shifted to muttering at the end there, for some reason!

    He manages to clamber to his feet and dust off his nice suit. "Phony, uh, that kinda goes for you too. You're on-break after this too if you don't mind my advice! You *both* need mental processing time. And *I* need *data processing* time! I need to get ready for a debrief, and..."
Ishirou I4, having had hugged cucked by Persephone, instead lays on the ground because he's about not able to do anything meaningful, and technology has had to get up twice.  The POD has taken a hovering position near one hand, just in case, it needs to drag him to a hospital.  

"If you try and mess with my memories I'm going to have the POD delete the data."

Though right now he's just going to accept his spot.  "Though he's right, I think we all need time." a beat, "Can we talk when you're feeling better, Lilian?"
Persephone Kore      Persephone, of course, sinks to her knees too to get on Lilian's altitude properly. Far from her usual graceful movements, she just lets her legs collapse out from under her like they've wanted to for the last- ten minutes? It feels like hours.

     "It's okay," she murmurs softly, meant only for Lilian's ears. "It's okay." It's more a soothing mantra than real conversation. "Nobody hates you, I promise." There's a gentle squeeze, a soothing pressure- just enough to ground Lilian, to remind her that she's here, in Persephone's arms, and not living in any of those terrible hypotheticals or bitter memories that might be flitting through her head.

     Wordlessly, she sends an invisible force to stroke I4's head: reassuring him that she's here, that everything's okay, that even if he can't move a muscle there's nothing in the world to worry about.

     She only looks up from Lilian's shoulder to look at Candy's drawing, which makes her eyes well over with a fresh galaxy of tears and her face waver with uncertain emotion. "I like it," she manages, her voice a little hoarse. "I like it a lot. Thanks, Candy."

"Wh-what am I s-s-supposed to d-do now . . . ?"

I want to say: let's get the crayons and the paper, and design our new world together. A universe where everything could be okay, where both of us are happy. Our golden ending. Even if we can't make it real right this second... I never want you to feel like that universe doesn't exist. Haha, but that's a big ask, isn't it? So instead:

     Persephone loosens the hug, for just a moment, to kiss Lilian's forehead. Then she embraces her fully again. "Go see Tamamo. Go see Xion. Go see Cecilia! All the people you love most, let them love you back. You're tired, aren't you? So exhausted. Right now, it's okay to let them care for you."

     "I want you to be happy. So please do that for me."