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Hiromi     With one side withdrawing to lines close to the monorail station, and the other, under Lilian's persistent persuasion to accept Ishirou's terms, consolidating near the (damaged) radio building as what's still their strongest point, even with most of their drone fleet taken from them, things are finally dying down. No one is fighting even close to the holdout areas in the center, nor near the 'shelter here' office building. Whatever's happening at sea is still out there, and of no immediate concern.

    It's the perfect time to figure out what happened to the commanders and, by extension, their subordinates, on down through both chains of command. If Lilian is right, all of them have been compromised by some mental effect. Undoing whatever happened to their leaders is the natural solution, should it be true that they're anywhere near as professional as Bond's research indicated. As long as no one's shooting, there's plenty of time to work out what happened and undo it. Everything will be fine.

    Somewhere, an ordinary office lady hangs up a phone, and leans against the glass walls, overlooking the city.

    It's not a mystery when the culprit gives a self-introduction just before the final clue.

    High up the slope of the long-dormant volcano around which the island forms, the ground explodes, impacted from a meteor no observatory had been prepared to predict. The ground rumbles, air rushes, the dust clouds roll and hang until the wind slowly drags them away, seeming glacial only for its size.

    The one who arrived leaps over the monorail station, turns before reaching the radio building, strikes two feet onto a nearby roof, then the other two feet to another.

    No seat being high enough to satisfy her, the ground beneath the street comes to meet her, pavement and pipes breaking apart as earth and stone winds into a spire, and buildings groan and shift and crack away from it. The positions of every force, elites included, is visible from there -- neglecting those who might, as one may wisely do, hide.
Hiromi     Her voice carries cleanly, when she stands on two legs, and stretches her arms wide. It should be difficult to make her out from there, at such a distance, at least a hundred feet above. It isn't. It's easy. It would be more difficult not to notice her. She commands attention, and the instinct, whether human or not, is to obey, whether because one commanded it, or because any threat of this scale requires careful attention to judge how it may be fought or escaped.

    She doesn't look like she's far off. She doesn't sound like she's far off. She doesn't feel like she's far off. Her presence is close by, and her words are understandable, even the ones that aren't words at all, though comprehending an idea is sometimes more difficult.

    "Fights without winners. A return to ignorant peace. A land of many packs, arguing over which rules. Dependence upon the foreign. Allegiance to written words, believing they won't change. Easily! Do you not see this folly? Illusions are simply broken. Their promises were made with ink, not in their hearts, but I gave them this chance."

    Hiromi looks down. The spire rumbles with her voice. "To reject wisdom, you must show strength. If none of this land will be a victor, you, you foreigner, you will show me. Show me you have the strength to overturn wisdom. Only then will you deserve forgiveness. A challenge cannot be left without a victor. A throne, empty, helps no one."

    Those suspecting that this is an invitation to argue any of her points will find that they are wrong, and further, that drawing attention to oneself without preparing for a close, physical encounter would be very unwise. She's already given as much warning as anyone will get.
Hiromi     There are no words in the howl that follows, but there is knowledge. It is the audible equivalent to a shape in the dark, the fear of deep forests where none dare tread, from a time when 'sacred' meant 'for the unworthy to open their eyes is to die.'

    It is intimidation in the form of a direct assault upon the part of the mind that understands what fear is. To remain standing, and retain the will to fight, takes an effort of will. It is, as well, a command.

    Lilian knows by now just how little resistance the soldiers here, whether Blue or Green team, have to elites messing with their minds. They lack the defenses that would halt that howl from shaking their core, but worse, they lack the resistance to the wordless orders that follow.

    Hunt.

    Their other grudges are set aside. Everywhere, even where they lack the drones that had formed the basis of their belief that they could win this battle 'in safety,' the troopers in powered armor closer their helmets, activate their multi-spectrum sensors, heft their weaponry, and search for those who 'don't belong.'

    Elsewhere, commanders and lesser officers shout into radios, trying to separate those who've been affected by the howl from those who haven't, but they cannot wrest their authority back from Hiromi while she's still present.
Hellwarming Trio The wise thing to do would be to stay far away from this conflict. There's little reason to get involved unnecessarily beyond the pursuit of what little clout and recognition may come with it, especially with their grasp on the whole thing being tenuous at best. Still, that's just what the three youkai are here for as they approach the street where the unquestionably powerful one has decided to begin the battle for the fate of this land.

Rin, to rehabilitate her own and Utsuho's (mostly her own) questionable reputations.
Satori, to prove herself before her new comrades.
And Utsuho, because it sounded interesting, and because she heard her friends were here.

"She's got a point, y'know. Humans really like fighting each other over dumb stuff way too much."
"Is that true? I would've expected the ones here to be wiser than the ones back home with their level of technology."
"Yeah, but our pals came this far to do... Stuff here. They've probably got it figured out better than we do, and... She looks strong. No way we're backing down now."

Not looking all too convinced by Utsuho's eagerness to aid her friends' efforts/get into a fight, Rin and Satori relent regardless as the trio touches down on the ground to face Hiromi directly and realize the size difference up close. Utsuho's looking excited as ever, Rin's already glancing around rapidly for viable escape routes, and Satori's just staring at Hiromi while trying to come up with a workable plan of attack for herself and her pets.

What they really need, though, is a better plan of defense. The soldiers in blue and green turn their weapons on the Elites, and the youkai find themselves attacked by some of the people they're (presumably) here to aid in some manner. They're forced to scurry as the initial shots catch them off guard, drawing blood and all manner of startled (and angry) noises from the animal youkai scrambling to protect Satori from (serious) harm.

Once they've gotten their bearings straight, though, it's time to begin the counterattack. Satori focuses her efforts on neutralizing the soldiers first, shouting boldly to effectively force the answer to the surface: "What do you fear?" She asks of the soldiers and Hiromi alike, not waiting nor needing to hear the answer as she starts reaching (figuratively) into their minds to grasp at the first answer that comes. It might be a certain type of weapon, a traumatic experience with nature, or even an encounter with a specific person, but she strikes at the soldiers with those very things conjured from their memories to.

Rin and Utsuho, too, join in on trying to get the soldiers pinned down first, albeit with something far less targeted at their psyches: They just start blasting fire all over the place, weaving flaming wisps and burning flowers through the air to singe them through their armor and warp their weaponry into unrecognizably gooey piles of scrap.
Ishirou Ishirou was satisfied with the resolution, though he wondered what the cause of the mental influence was. Though he supposes with enough time they'd figure that out. It was just a matter of combing through the heads of people...

Suddenly Hiromi.

"Son of a b..." Ishirou's cursing is cut off by a shot from one of the hunting soldiers, forcing him into cover as he considers his options. Her arrival and words seem to solve the mystery of how at least. Even when the words slam into the fear centers of his brain, he realized that he almost immediately dove for cover.

Rubbing his face, he transforms. Combing with POD, the black-suited armored look from Ishirou is achieved. Normally he'd be a little more casual with the transformation, but this wasn't a great situation...and it felt like their work was just turned back. "Armor and flight units, come out," he calls, as the two flies out and with a flash of energy attach themselves to his body.

The R.E.S.C.U.E. unit takes flight, and he sends orders out to the drones he took. If they go around fighting everything, then civilians are at risk...so he sends them to engage the soldiers wherever they are, keeping anything but the soldiers as friendlies. They have a limited amount of time to stop a very daunting enemy.

Rising up, he soars above the city as the R.E.S.C.U.E. unit transforms into flight mode. He soars toward her before missiles fly from the back of the unit as he dives by her. Followed by another set as he turns around and flies by again.

"Just because these are things you do not value, or do not see the value in doesn't mean you should just interrupt it without at least discussing it with anyone! I don't even know why I'm bothering to say anything, because it's not like you're going to listen without violence.." he says, perhaps complaining, but perhaps more frustrated.
James Bond      That second cup of coffee will have to wait. From the relative quiet of an alleyway, Hiromi is heard, seen, felt, even if Bond isn't. It's hard not to find one's attention drawn to the Archwolf.

Now it all makes sense. The mind control, the warzone that's suddenly sprung up. It wasn't a plot--blunt instruments like her don't plot.

     The howl reaches his ears as he's clambering up a partially-collapsed fire escape. He hadn't drawn attention to himself, unwilling to give up the element of surprise. He still doesn't, through training and force of will, his mind focused on nonsense ciphers, sprawling sequences not unlike number station broadcasts and obtuse codewords. 6-25-50. Archangel. Severnaya. 6-25-50.

     The sound of approaching soldiers has him instinctively reaching for his pistol--but it won't be enough for their armor. So instead, he levels his watch, hand on the stop. Three clicks.

     Out from beneath the bezel fly several sharp metal discs, curving in the air and wedging themselves into the armored hunters just as they round the corner into his alley. A split second after they embed themselves, each disc releases a powerful electromagnetic pulse, intended to shut down the armor from sensors to servos.

     Bond races the rest of the way up the building and assumes a prone position, twisting the stop on his watch. Elsewhere in the city, his unassuming civilian-model car quietly hums to life, quite visible to the naked eye but hardened against electronic means of detection. It skulks through side streets and parks just a block away, while Bond hurriedly sets up a bipod for a high-powered rifle.
Remee Halcyon "... Oh..."

Hiromi... is a lot different when she's not showing up as a comrade, huh.

Remee adjusts the grip on her rifle, subconsciously. She'd been meaning to go track Hiromi down, partially out of curiosity... partially out of seeking out the challenge. The 'archwolf' is a title that just begs an attempt, right?

But - looking at her, making her entrance, making her own perch, that's... not just some monster hidden away in the forest, or some errant dragon making forays across townships. This is something else. This is someone who's carrying their territory with them wherever they go, by making everywhere their home territory. This isn't a quarry, this is another hunter.

> Hunt

Remee almost gets caught just by the 'splash damage' of that mental command since hunting was on her mind anyway - she's raising her rifle, seeking out the outsiders, before catching herself and snapping out of it. Right. *She's* an outsider.

She's an outsider, and if the soldiers are thinking at all straight, they know where she is, she realizes. She's been perched in one spot this whole time, on top of the office building she bought to use as a makeshift evacuation shelter and Watch HQ. Keeping them at bay with sniper fire is not an option anymore.

Remee runs - heading for the roof access first, and from there to the elevator, slamming her fist on the call button before wrenching open the doors with superhuman strength and leaping into the empty shaft. She falls, naturally - she tries to grab onto what she can to slow her fall, cabling or pipes or whatever she can. She shifts after a moment - bigger 'monstrous' werewolf hands with more surface area help for this, and the friction burns are something she can just live with till she heals.

The falling werewolf slams down onto the roof of the ascending elevator, using it to cushion what would likely be an otherwise fatal fall - and affords herself a few precious seconds to set dislocated bones before getting moving again. If the soldiers had been coming up the stairs towards her, they should have been passing by this floor by now, and then coming to investigate the loud crash...

Remee wrenches open the door, leaps, shifts, and fires - tranquilizer darts lancing out one after the other, trying to tag everyone nearby in an ambush before they can get to her. And then she runs for the nearest window - and then *through* the window, shoulder-tackling through it to get the most direct (and unexpected) route to the street below.

And then - she hunts, staying moving as she seeks out the next bit of cover, the next opportunity to set up an ambush. She's fast, she's stealthy, her senses are fine tuned and she's an excellent shot - and most crucically she has little to no regard for her own safety.

If Hiromi wants a show of strength, she can give a show of strength.
Hibiki Tachibana     With the battle lines finally pulling away from one another, and it seeming as if those working to get to the root of things (while Hibiki is out here applying her face to things head-on) have finally made their headway, things are looking up. In one way, at least. The entire situation has only gotten stranger rather than cleared up, as far as she's been able to tell, but now there's at least a chance of...

    ...Of...

    She catches her before the figure hits the 'ground' that has ascended up into a fearsome pillar. Even at a distance, even without the sensation of being loomed over no matter where you are, Hibiki would never mistake that for anyone else. The words, her point, definitely hit deep. As does the voice. And all at once, what Lilian was mentioning about mental interference makes total sense.

    "Hiromi...!"

    It's been a while, since she was on the receiving end of this. But she knows better than to just shout back simple words. And she knows what it means when the Archwolf issues a challenge. She's also braced up for the instinct-stirring roar that shakes across the area, but she's not the one to worry about there. It's the soldiers who don't have any way to fight that call. The city is going to be covered in crossfire again, and Hibiki--after only a moment of consideration, charges straight through it. She blitzes down the street on the most direct path to the spire she's perched on, and they're not going to stop her.

    Not that the magical girl isn't going to do something about them as she passes by them, though. She's not going to go full force against people, under manipulation or not, but she's absolutely going to batter them aside and send them flying off their feet, or slow down to pull some fancy moves to physically disarm them. She won't get all of them, and there'll be some scrapes, but she's sure gonna leave a brute-forced path through formations and troops.

    With her ultimate goal being Hiromi's spire - which if slash when she reaches it, she's plain and simple just going to /sprint up the side/ to start making her way to the top. "Then if you need a victor so badly, this time...!" This time what, Hibiki Tachibana?
Petra Soroka     "It seems I was right." Come the coldly imperious tones from just outside, still filtering through the speakers. "This really is your first time on a battlefield, isn't it? Even with a walking tank like this, I can read the 'body language' of someone in an angry panic. What in god's name was the Watch thinking in allowing you to come here? Why did you agree? Did it just sound like a terribly fun time to you?"

    "Well, no matter. Your machine isn't fantastic, but even I can tell that it's clearly wasted on you. I told you exactly what you did wrong right from the very start. Now the professionals have the situation under control, so any further damage will no longer be considered collateral. Do you understand me? "


    Petra's flailing mech screeches to a halt with Lilian's arrival, and she chokes in her seat from both her seatbelt and frustration. "Who the hell do you think--" The sword stops just barely short of her throat, but her shouts wheeze out into silence as if she was cut. "What,"

    Suddenly animated with a burst of frantic movement, Petra scrambles out of her seat in the Ekanamsha's cockpit. The hatch on top slams open, and a wild-eyed and disheveled Petra leaps out to confront Lilian. "What gives you the *right* to talk to me like that?! You don't know me! You don't know anything about me!" She stomps on the mech, and a creaking sound echoes out from the many scorch marks and gouges marring the hull. "I'm a fucking *good* pilot!"

    Hiromi arrives, and the impact of her presence buckles both Petra and the Ekanamsha's legs, the mech crashing down into a kneeled position. "Augh! Hunt?" The mind altering that the others were talking about. Petra feels its commanding force wash over her, but only registers it as something that affects others, never her.

    Gritting her teeth and forcing herself back up standing, Petra shoots a glare at Lilian. "But fine! I'm not familiar with the mech. But I'm still not fucking deadweight!" She pulls a hefty handgun out of a pocket in her overalls, underneath her bomber jacket, and points it below her, directly at the mech. When she pulls the trigger, she launches backwards, upwards, disproportionately affected by the recoil. Flipping through the air, she fires up, forwards, up, propelling herself downwards into a kick that spikes onto a soldier's back just as he was raising his gun. She begins fighting her way over to Hiromi this way, using the recoil of her handgun to accelerate punches, kicks, maneuvering out of the way of fire.
Lilian Rook     "After hearing that word, I'd expected a pilot of Dylan's or Persephone's calibre. Not this amateur."

    'The ground rumbles, air rushes, the dust clouds roll and hang until the wind slowly drags them away, seeming glacial only for its size.'

    "Christ, what I'd do to at least have Dylan here right now. This crew . . ."

    'What gives you the *right* to talk to me like that?!'

    Lilian spins back around in an instant. Fast enough to grab Petra's collar and push her face an inch away at the same time she pops the hatch. "The fact that I'm Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook you child! The fact that I know what I'm doing and you don't! I don't give a single solitary shit how good of a pilot you think you are, of some other machine somewhere else! This is real life, and it doesn't bend to whatever complex you have badly enough to try something this stupid! Now if you're desperate for me to break your distressingly plain face, save it for later, when we aren't in the middle of a battlefield! You insufferable imbecile!" Shove-release.

    Lilian removes herself from the mantle of the Ekanamsha with the air of someone responding to hearing their name screamed from five rooms away. Armoured footsteps click briskly down the street, on the straightaway directly towards the Archwolf's spire, rather than disappearing out of sight into the amply available urban cover. Along the way, Lilian's head turns as she passes a scatter of discarded missile launchers --one of the several readied to fire on Petra. Her gaze lingers, thoughtfully, wistfully, as she walks, and then is torn away. They recede into the background behind her.

    Stopping just at the tip of the spire's shadow, Lilian takes to the top of an adjacent building, cutting a swift arc of dissipating black mist behind her. Then to the next highest, and then to the closest to the spire itself, only her sword in hand.

    "Try as I might, I still just can't understand you." Lilian says to Hiromi. Her voice doesn't carry anywhere near as far, but she's closed the distance so it doesn't have to. "Why do this? Why these people? It sounds as if you're speaking of some sort of reform, but you only involved mercenaries, didn't you? People are fighting and dying because you made them, so how does that prove anything?" She gasps in exasperation. "What was so wrong about this unremarkable city that they had to do it here? Precisely where it'd cause the most terror and destruction."

    Lilian sets her jaw, gesturing up towards Hiromi with the tip of her sword. "This is the third time, isn't it? Why can't you understand that whatever happens to the people in the crossfire is your fault? Why are you so fixated on demanding that everyone else hurt to provide that they matter to you?!"
Lilian Rook     The howl rings out. Lilian squeezes her eyes shut rather than her ears, even as the noise blowns her hair back. Her teeth grit. A snarl tears itself from her chest anyways. Her arm swings out, aiming Night Mist at Hiromi in outstretched challenge. She yells. "Do you think I'm stupid?! Of course I know this society is a mess! This one and every other like it! Democracy is a joke, modernity is a farce, the system never worked, and consensus only exists to pick someone to fuck over every day! Obviously! Do you think you're the only one who realized?! You're not smarter than me, Hiromi! You just don't give a shit about who dies because of you!"

    "And I don't beg forgiveness from anyone who wants me to be more like them!"

    Lilian kicks off the edge of the building and ascends at lightning pace. "Ishirou! Handle her connection to the soldiers! Tachibana! Get your friend to join in; you can't waste your time on them! Form up with me! Bond! Containment on your end and wait for the right opportunity! I'm not allowing the same thing to happen again!"

    Lilian heads straight for Hiromi. As direly inadvisable as that is, it's clearly what she's doing. She closes distance all the way up to a stone's throw away, then disappears from view. From Hiromi's experience, this means she is about to attack from behind her, or shoot from one of her blind spots.

    Lilian appears right in front of her instead, coming down from above, already in the final revolution of a dramatic, falling cleave, going by her sword's scarlet trail. It's a little telegraphed, but it's surprisingly powerful, even as a head on attack, and where it stops, an overlapping 'ghost' of the blade, continues forward on its own momentum and doubles the same strike.
Hiromi     'Just because these are things you do not value, or do not see the value in doesn't mean you should just interrupt it without at least discussing it with anyone! I don't even know why I'm bothering to say anything, because it's not like you're going to listen without violence.'

    "Worthless things should be swept aside. How else will your people discover wisdom? 'Discussion.' Generations of words made this. Your old masters, too." Hiromi is likely listening to the broadband more often than she's talking on it.

    'What do you fear?'

    Satori finds that the soldiers have very ordinary fears. Death and maiming, spiders and snakes, the loss of friends and loved ones, natural catastrophes and disease -- the list goes on and on. One man is even deathly afraid of elevators, separate from the several who are more generally claustrophobic.

    The clarity in Hiromi's mind is something else entirely. Satori can read it without issue, but not to any useful effect, apart from confirming which elites she's presently aware of and which she isn't. The Archwolf is, to put things in reductively simplistic terms, completely insane. There is no ground in her mind for 'fears' to take root. Not even the ones that should be expected to affect a wolf.

    'People are fighting and dying because you made them, so how does that prove anything?'

    Despite the distance, Hiromi hears. "I gave them papers. Their foolishness is their own."

    'Why can't you understand that whatever happens to the people in the crossfire is your fault?'

    "Faults are wrongs." Said without a trace of shame. Not a hint of knowledge of wrongdoing. Utter confidence in a path.

    'And I don't beg forgiveness from...'

    "Then don't beg. Demand!" Rows of teeth, too sharp to be in a face that close to human.

    Something closer to human than it should be, yet not. A natural form that mimics as if by accident. A sense of the wild that comes most strongly when its bearer lacks the presence of mind to hide it. That much may be familiar to Lilian.

    All throughout the town --

    First, it's a good thing that people were already either sheltering in place, or had made it to the town center, or to the office building Remee took over, because it makes the streets relatively clear for Bond's car (which the soldiers fail to recognize as 'an outsider' and aren't attacking), and relatively clear of crossfire endangering civilians. If that hadn't all been quite nearly fully handled earlier, the present situation would be a lot worse.

    Likewise, having removed most of the drones, whether by hacking or destruction, forces the soldiers to put themselves in harm's way to be a major problem. And they hadn't been willing to do that right up until Hiromi appeared. Especially with orders to stop fighting each other. In fact, they still aren't fighting each other, showing that truce to still be in effect. They're only shooting the gathered Paladins and Watch elites. Except for the youkai trio, the soldiers are a largely-known quantity, too.
Hiromi     Bond does his best to evade and shut down their armor. He's gotten a close look at it while carrying the commander, earlier, and his aim is good, besides. Those in his immediate vicinity go down. Rin and Utsuho blast enough fire into the soldiers after them to prove that they aren't entirely suicidal, as those with badly damaged armor go back into cover with emergency medkits, and only shoot back while retreating. Those Satori gets to are mostly well-disciplined, but laser-targeting their fears causes a lot of panicked firing and confused running.

    Petra remains mobile on her way toward Hiromi, and Remee is a regenerating not-really-suicide attack dog, avoiding the first troops coming after her and blazing through all those that had gathered up outside her new territory to break in and get her. Hibiki is slowed only by removing soldiers from their weapons, breaking equipment to force them to leave combat.

    Overall, things are rapidly cleared in the direction of the Archwolf, who is directly assaulted by Ishirou's missiles, threatened by Hibiki's approach, and confronted by Lilian's blink-in downswing.

    Hiromi doesn't move at all. There's motion on the spire below her, the earth beneath Hibiki's feet helping her, an escalator welcoming her to the battle. The massive wolf-woman, only larger of presence with proximity, through the heat of the missile blasts, hasn't begun to turn toward her back. The only hint that she expected that of Lilian is a tilt of her ears, readying for 'a surprise.'

    Night Mist catches Hiromi's arm, and proceeds through it with the force of the blow.

    The flesh reattaches itself in the following moment, reaching to meet itself in the space between moments. The feedback is clear. She can be cut, of course, but Hiromi is not an Outsider.
Hiromi     The chance for Hibiki to actually punch Hiromi does not (yet) arrive, as the moment in which Hiromi rises from her partially-crouched position is the same moment in which her foot lashes out to catch the mahou shoujo and launch her into Lilian. Trusting that the latter will somehow deal with this on its own, even with a girl thrown into her very deadly sword, Hiromi forcefully reverses and reaches the same impact point from the opposite direction, with her opposite foot, aimed just below Lilian's shoulder.

    The spire itself then explodes into debris, but there's no time given for it to fall. Missile smoke mixes with dust and earth and hides the immediate approach of the spikes of stone, like railway spikes, Hiromi's fist impressed into the back of each as they travel through Ishirou's flight path with such speed that they 'arc' only in the 'over the horizon' sense.

    Both magical girl and dark magical girl together must contend with Hiromi's armbars in passing, the threat of grappling real and extremely deadly, just shy of a loss condition in itself, but the grab is just slightly slower than the impact, to provide that necessary escape route. Then she's gone, and on the ground, moving to make up for what the AUS and SEA troopers have failed to do.

    Petra is already there and on her way, out in the open. Serious and ready to fight. Goaded forward, even. Hiromi lifts a car in passing, without even slowing down from a mad sprint, and brings it down over Petra in a shattering explosion of mechanical parts and igniting fuel. Seeming to believe this not nearly enough, it's followed up by a broken streetlight swung through where she would most likely be standing.

    Rin is a cat. That's all the justification necessary for chasing her down, claws and teeth reaching, but just as willing to grab her by shoes and dress as hair and crash her to the street. Confirming that hit combos into the ground stomp. Can Rin form a Rin-shaped hole and survive? Can she find another method of escape?

    Bond and Remee are both attempting stealth. This is effective, but only up to a point. It's the newly and surprisingly aggressive hunters making trouble for Bond, scant moments before he can fully disable them, that allows Hiromi's ears to catch his location. But she still can't go and meet him yet. He'll only have to deal with the remaining drones, four-legged zoom-machines with guns and the one lucky sniper that spotted him first, while Hiromi first meets with Remee.

    There's a flash of recognition. Known forms, faces, scents. Then the Archwolf is falling on the werewolf, the former's skin too tough for tranquilizer darts to penetrate, her claws reaching -- and then she's not even slightly human, but a wolf of approximately the same shoulder-height, still wearing bronze rings and bells. Her teeth reach for Remee's neck, to grab and snap back and forth with neckbreaking force and to toss her to the side, if that firmly grasps her.
James Bond <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Bond, this one is an unbelievably obnoxious regenerator. You'll have to do something other than waiting for an opportune moment to shoot her in a vital spot. Get creative."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond says, "On it."

     Before he can pull up his watch to scroll through options for the Archwolf, Bond's made by a sniper and a few drones of varying types. Keeping his head down, he lies on his back, pressed up against the lip of the building to keep clear of the sniper's vision.

     Pistol out, suppressor hastily screwed on. The flying drones are met with tightly clustered shot groupings, the clack-clack-clack of his pistol added to the din of battle. Rolling to avoid their return fire, he twists the bezel on his watch.

     Parked a block away in the shade of a crumbling building, the sunroof of Bond's unassuming sedan pops diagonally open, revealing a spread of stinger missiles. The red-tipped munitions whistle furiously from their housings, curving through the air to bombard the rapidly-moving wheeled drones.

     The sniper gets particularly rude treatment, with Bond tapping the stop on his watch twice to change the face to a perfectly reflective mirror, crawling back over to the lip of the building. Angling it ever so slightly up, he adjusts the knob until the face begins swiviling on a gyroscopic mount, allowing him first to peer past cover--then to reflect sunlight directly into his opponent's eyes.

     He only has a moment to capitalize on it, rapidly crawling on his stomach over to his WA2000, taking up a position and peering down the scope before squeezing the trigger. A thunderous crack echoes across the embattled city. Once more, for good measure.

     "I saw your ears twitch when those men tried to flush me out. I know you hear me. So hear this," Bond says, under his breath, sweeping the rifle back to Hiromi's spire. "It's us who 'transgressed,' but it's these men who are paying the price. is that fair?"
Remee Halcyon Another target down. Remee starts moving, looking for her next target -

- and that's when Hiromi falls upon her.

The archwolf has the upper hand. Remee gets off a single shot - a badly angled dart that bounces off of Hiromi's hide without so much as scratching - and then the archwolf's jaws are upon her. One bite, then she's slung back and forth, and thrown against a wall.

Remee is limp throughout. She doesn't get up, or show signs of life. She's dead...

... or in reality, carefully, very carefully, playing dead. Breath held, no sounds, no movement. Eyes shut tightly, so that stray retina movements don't betray her. This isn't the first time a hunt has gone badly. If Hiromi can afford time to examine her further, the deception might fall apart, but Remee is counting on her having other people to hunt.

... She waits as long as she dares, then Remee takes in a long shuddering breath. Her lungs burn. Her everything hurts. But she's still alive, and there's not enough things broken on her yet to stop her.

And... as she reaches up to touch the bite mark on her neck, and from there sniff at her fingers, she has Hiromi's scent.

She pursues.

It's not until Hiromi attacks someone else does Remee make her move, taking careful aim.

"... If it takes strength to rule..." she says under her breath.

She fires. Just one bullet, but something considerably stronger than a tranquilizer dart.
Hellwarming Trio True to their lessons from various sources, Rin and Utsuho actually break off instead of finishing off the retreating soldiers. All that hammering into their minds of 'don't kill people' continues to stick, and it lets them break off relatively early enough that they don't get shot up too badly as they begin their pursuit of the Archwolf. Satori, too, doesn't linger for long, although it does take her a little longer to stop tormenting the soldiers compared to her pets.

"Not bad..."
"What's not bad?"
"Nothing."
"Uh huh. Whatever you say, Master!"

Despite the suspicious looks and shit-eating grins, the three find that they don't have to move far to get to Hiromi, mostly thanks to the spire exploding after her exchange with Hibiki. Utsuho and Rin are cheering rather than shooting at first, and Satori even finds herself joining in after witnessing the spectacle, but it soons turns into yet more chaos when Hiromi turns her attention towards them.

Or rather, Rin. Rin's fast on her feet and in the air, but a melee expert she is not. She screeches and howls as she tries to juke and weave out of the Archwolf's range, but her efforts don't really amount to much in the face of that sheer brutality. It's not for a lack of trying, of course, as she claws and thrashes about with even some flames churning out of her hands, but they don't last long before she's stamped right into the dirt and left in an unconscious daze.

"Rin...? You!" Satori's temper flares up in the meantime as she raises her hands towards Hiromi, starting to call upon all manner of magical youkai bullshit she's gathered over her past experiences. "You don't fear anything, do you, hunter? Then let me be the first!" The floating red eye at Satori's chest blinks once before turning nearly bloodshot as she starts conjuring various attacks that she's experienced personally and pulled from those she's met. An obscene number of magical orbs and lasers start flying towards Hiromi in overlapping waves while wild animals and bloody pink giants start clawing at her relentlessly from between those waves, and a bullet train eventually comes screaming towards Hiromi.

Utsuho's not one to let Satori be the only one getting her licks in, either, as she begins drawing and generating power into both her corium-covered leg and her nuclear control rod-covered arm. "Going all out right from the start, huh? Alright, let's do it!" The attachments and Utsuho flare up in the literal sense as the energy from those nuclear tools flows around the raven, blanketing her entire body in blinding yellow flames while she rises upwards. With little actual technique involved, she promptly divebombs towards Hiromi to challenge the Archwolf's overwhelming strength with pure nuclear fire.
Hibiki Tachibana     Somewhere during her dead heat sprint to the finish line - AKA Hiromi - Hibiki actually did go to take Lilian's advice; even if it slowed her up a bit, helping Petra and Remee push on and get through all the soldiers was a good idea, she can't even argue with that. Between the three of them, they should be able to make it to the spire easily. That's the easy part. The vastly easier part.

    Ascending up step by step, she can feel the ground working to help her upwards. She's not surprised. If anything, she'd be more surprised otherwise. That's just fine. While plenty of the others are shouting at her, she's focused entirely on cresting the top of the makeshift pillar--

    Where she launches up just in time to get the smallest moment of eye contact before she's caught with the Archwolf's explosive movement, air leaving her lungs as she goes tumbling back and away in the opposite direction towards Lilian. She's not really going to be able to prevent herself from impacting into her with just how hard she got trucked on such short notice - but that's probably not going to matter as much as the incoming armbars.

    Which she takes to the chin extremely literally, letting out the briefest of yelps before the impact resonates through her entire body from the neck down, hard enough to make her vision go blurry. It's only fighting instinct and instinct alone that she's not caught in the ensuing grapple, a combination of a thruster burst and a twist of her body that sends her less 'moving' and more 'falling' out of melee range and back down towards the earth.

    Earth she lands on very hard and unceremoniously, but at least on her hands and knees rather than her face. Head swimming, the only thing hitting her senses are a moment are a few thoughts racing around - 'Do you wish to fight without help because you hope you won't need it, or because you don't believe you've earned it, or...' '--saved that kobold city from Hiromi while you and Muramasa were both in craters.' 'Don't worry that we'll fight. Don't worry that you must prove yourself with a handicap. Don't worry that my own choice might lead to my defeat. These are not betrayals.' 'Clearly, you think you can do without me. That you didn't need me, all of those times.'

    "Things are different...this time..." Part of her wants to stay down. But only part of her. Wiping the blood leaking from her lip, Hibiki stands back up. The first thing she does is try to find Lilian with her eyes, and she keeps it short after a steadying breath. "...I'm not gonna let you have to fight her alone again. I'm definitely not." That goes well beyond the mess on the radio. And then, clenching a fist, she's off in pursuit.

    A full-speed one, going to catch up somewhere around the time that Hiromi is assaulting Remee with no breaks on her acceleration. "HAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH--!!"

    And equally without breaks, she goes to /slam/ a gauntlet straight into the Archwolf's face from the side, all of her built-up momentum behind it. The pilebunker within her Symphogear's machinery pumps backwards only after contact is made, just to slot back inward with a deafening crack of metal on metal - and add a brutal second impact of visible, raw force emanating as a focused-forward shockwave straight into the skull. Is it going to put Hiromi down? Of course not.

    But it just might be enough of a distraction to help Remee slip free, and for a certain someone to get another good hit in.
Petra Soroka     Petra has not built up a resistance to the Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook. Imbecile. In fact, a precision emotional takedown from someone inarguably more experienced than her, followed by dismissal, is perhaps the one thing she has the *least* resistance to. Child. Petra advances towards the Archwolf, sliding along the street with staccato bursts of fire, landing a solidly placed hit on scattered soldiers in her path. Her whole body is rigid with a kind of determination that shreds the muscles even as they perform their duties flawlessly. Separated from the party, not included in--or bothering to follow--their plan, Petra charges through the battlefield as an errant pixel, out of place but ultimately overlookable. GOD, that woman got under her skin, and she's going to perform whatever competent battlefield bullshit she needs to in order to shake off those thoughts. I know what I'm doing and you don't!

    In the middle of the open street, Petra skids to a halt to reload her gun. The car crashes down on her, and she's completely engulfed in the subsequent explosion. "As if," Petra's already standing on the windowsill of a nearby building, gun outstretched. "I'd be caught by something so amateur!" The streetlight swings into the building, demolishing it, and Petra's already launched herself upwards, showered by debris. Flipping midair, she fires once, away, launching herself closer to the Archwolf, and with another shot she propels herself down right at her feet. "I fucking *belong here*!"

    In an incredible show of bravery that no one asked for, wanted, or would recommend, Petra blasts downwards at Hiromi's feet, rocketing upwards to flip a kick into her chest, and hopefully, propel herself back out of her reach.
Ishirou The R.E.S.C.U.E. Unit turns, and very well for being a high-speed unit. However, those spikes were being thrown at ridiculous strength. The ability of his sensors to calculate the trajectory in time was beyond impossible. Unlike Lilian, he can't see the future, he can just calculate a lot of variables far enough out so that it can be confused for it. If something is sped up to such speeds, he can't calculate it.

Seconds later, he's crashing into the city. Through a building and coming to a stop somewhere in a high-rise apartment. The R.E.S.C.U.E. unit was in shambles, decimated really. Ishirou starts to move but notices the sharp pain in his side. He looks down, to see chunks of debris embedded in his side, and the blood from the wounds starting to coat the remains of the flight unit's remains.

He collapses back into the remains of his unit. He might survive this, he thinks. The combat drugs should keep him from bleeding out and the beacon should make it easy to find him. But...

He stares up as the battle in the city continues to wage. Lilian said she needed him to do something...what was it again..? It hurts to think, he ironically thinks to himself. He could just fall asleep right here. Nobody would blame him, right?

"Worthless things should be swept aside. How else will your people discover wisdom? 'Discussion.' Generations of words made this. Your old masters, too."

His hands clenched. She was wrong...Ishirou starts trying to activate the systems of the R.E.S.C.U.E. again. However, POD speaks up, "Injuries are past sustainable levels, you risk greater injury and death to yourself."

"I know," Ishirou's weak response comes through.

"Why?" The POD asks, which was strange for it.

"Them..." he says, looking down towards the streets. "She considers them worthless. When you...when you consider people worthless...you can't...people aren't worthless."

The systems come online, the flight unit was gone, and the armor structure was thrashed. He can salvage it though.

Moments later, the highly damaged armor, with hover systems, activate jump/floats out of the building, and to the roof of another. He's got one shot at this...he's somehow got to overwhelm her hold on the people. Can he though..? He's injured, and it was a monumental task to challenge her authority before...

Ishirou sucks in a breath, wincing at the pain from the intake of air. Once he gets close, he lands and braces himself against the ground. He's going to be a sitting target here but...

His hands come up, channeling every ounce of magic he has, aiming to throw that into the Biohack and to make a stand against Hiromi in, perhaps, her strongest place. If only to break her authority over them for a little bit. No, not a little bit...

He had to do it completely. "They're not worthless..." he says, with a rasp. The beam fires, aiming to connect him and her so he can establish the biohack connection, and try to force himself to stay on his feet to complete this. He aims for the source of her Authority...he's got to find a way to fry it, to hinder it, to debilitate it...

"Or take it..." he says...can he? Maybe he can hijack it for just a little bit. Regardless, it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience for either of them. "It isn't...it isn't wisdom to discard people. You claim that...this is what my home did...but they discarded people too. I refuse..."
Lilian Rook     'Their foolishness is their own.'

    "Don't bullshit me, Hiromi! I looked inside their minds myself! That's not normal! You did more than just pay them! I wouldn't normally think of you as a liar, so what the hell are you talking about?!"

    'Faults are wrongs.'

    "Even for you, killing off another 'pack's' innocent 'pups' should be wrong enough, shouldn't it?!"

    Hiromi's hot blood streaks along the broad sides of Night Mist and splatters up across Lilian's cheek. It's already the deepest she's ever cut the Wolf Queen on her own, but it's also already a reminder of how little that matters. No matter that, however. Along with that scar, that armour, that face first approach, and that black antler crown, there is a new kind of look in Lilian's eyes-- even in just that moment she and Hiromi are face to face for the wolf to see it. Something different from the hard and cold, the analytical and cunning of their past clashes. A flash of something hot and bright. Angry and ecstatic in equal measure. A crackle like lightning between them.

    Hibiki goes flying at Lilian, but apparently it's nothing she hadn't expected; a quick blink aside makes it the magical girl's problem, and not Lilian's to try and stop such a heavy impact. She doesn't even leave Hiromi's field of vision, however. That too, is new. Turned sidelong, the sword flashes right back down from over Lilian's head, biting into Hiromi's shoulder and then twisted free with torque from her wrists. It rebounds away and loops back with a deceptive sense of weightlessness and shocking speed for its size, brought through the side of her neck with a tucked shoulder and an advancing step that cracks the stone.

    Pressing into it, leaning her weight against the handle as leverage, Lilian aggressively pushes the attack. Her leg snaps out with a subtle sonic crack, oddly warm black sabaton heel cracking against the weak point just above the knee, then kicking away, so that Lilian spins away, briefly canceling her gravity, to draw her sword all the way back through her target's throat and collarbone, and weightlessly spiral away from the reprise. A razor fine adjustment carries her under Hiromi's flash kick from behind, passing dangerously close over Lilian's face, and skidding over the flat of her sword braced across her forearm over her head.

    She blurs past Hiromi again. Her lead foot anchors, the other scrapes the ground all the way out to seven o'clock. Lilian lunges forward again. The channels of her sword blaze again with the culmination of infused martial energy, a fresh Cleasa turning a single piercing thrust through the abdomen into a shotgun volley of stabs scattered across Hiromi's torso, packed close enough together into the same instant that all it takes is blood to make them look simultaneous.
Lilian Rook     It isn't just the frontal violence with which Lilian assaults her that is different, though. More than just the bite of her sword, backed by sharper skills and greater strength, the blows come with something else to them. Something not quite psychic, but an imposition of will all the same. It's small, not all that powerful, but it's enough to notice, in that way that each of Lilian's strikes feel as if they chip away a little bit of Hiromi's energy, a little bit of her fighting spirit, along with the expendable substrate of her flesh.

    It's as if a small part of Lilian's soul is colliding with her own. A clash of spirits and wills in a more direct sense. A faint and faraway voice that challenges her, demands she admit defeat, like an argument; immediately ignorable, but just a tiny bit more convincing each time.

    The arm bar comes flying at Lilian straight from the front. Lilian knows better than to treat Hiromi's grasp with anything but the most absolute severity. And yet still, her sword is what flashes into view, and not Lilian out of it. Close to her core, edge out, Lilian grits her teeth, hisses in a sharp breath, and leaps backward to rob the attack of leverage. A ring of black-gold distortion bursts out from behind her, like the flare of an afterburning kicking in, signifying the thrust of her flight magic going into overdrive.

    Arm and sword collide with tremendous force, letting off a metallic bang loud enough to crack the nearest windows. Lilian is blasted away from it, rather than caught and grabbed, a momentary vapour cone blowing away the mist enshrouding her. For an instant, it looks as if she's about to go straight through a building at the end of the street, but--

    "Don't you look away from me, HIROMI!"

    Night Mist stabs into the ground first. Boot heels crash against it next. Sparks fly. Molten furrows are carved through the asphalt. Lilian strains against her residual momentum with all her might, shunting her energy backwards and pulling her weight forwards. And then, with a final gasp of exertion, she stands upright again. Pulling free her sword, she--

    Blinks right back in Hiromi's way.

    'Then don't beg. Demand!'

    "I don't want your forgiveness! Everything about me is my responsibility, and not anyone else's! I don't care a bit whether you approve of me or hate my guts! What I want-- No, I'm going to make you stop thinking of me as just another human! Get off your pedestal and take a good look this time!"

    Lilian charges headlong all over again. Just as Hibiki comes from left field to deliver her punch, Lilian appears to scatter into a cluster of flickering mirages. Part technique, part casual manipulation, she presses an overwhelming assault of impossibly rapid strikes on the Archwolf, sword wounds all but materializing out of thin air, opening up as if under machine gun fire. The air around her rapidly begins to heat up. The street starts to smoke. A brief, eerily glowing footprint appears in the cement. Then another.
Hiromi     'It's us who 'transgressed,' but it's these men who are paying the price. is that fair?'

    "You, they, fight for thrones." Hiromi doesn't mean the Queen's, as easy as it would be to think that. "They pay the price of reaching. Of following behind tails of weak ones. I smell their still-living. 'Mercy' is your choice. A gift, given, undeserved. Generous." And not, by her words, something that's merely natural to grant.

    'Don't bullshit me, Hiromi!'
    'That's not normal!'


    "Taught wrong," Hiromi says, in a tone of agreement. That she's referring to the soldiers is obvious. What further she means by that is not.

    'Even for you, killing off another 'pack's' innocent 'pups' should be wrong enough, shouldn't it?!'

    "'Innocent!'" Hiromi laughs. "They killed each other." Her words are a hammering ram, though Lilian is well-trained to stand up against that sort of assault. "I didn't make them willing. Their wrong-teachings did. Wrong-trust."

    There's no deception in her mind. It's inhuman, and it knows 'hiding' and 'feints,' but the application of those concepts to 'words' is tenuous. Nor is there anything stopping either Lilian or Satori from taking a peek to check. That, or Hiromi is simply so good at avoiding being read that the entire forested mountain valley of her mindspace is all fake. Ultimately, by definition, it's impossible to be sure.

    "You know the wrongs. Why not fix them? Why not take thrones? 'Reform.' Remake. Lead. Can't you?"
Hiromi     Remee judges rightly. Hiromi doesn't have time to confirm the kill -- not after being quite certain that the smaller wolf's neck is broken and that no breath moves her. The giant wolf stands up again on two feet, turning to face another combatant, and Hibiki provides a direct distraction. The punch is solid, connecting, something to break any skull -- and yet, against Hiromi, it only pushes her to the side, grinding up the street in the process, driving her a full ten yards back, asphalt buckling in absorbing even the smallest portion of the blow.

    How much it 'takes' to break through Hiromi's defences is, it's not one's imagination to think, variable. She 'decided' to withstand that punch, rather than to be splattered by it. Whether such a thing can be exploited may be a mystery for another time.

    Hibiki, having put her full force into that attack, gets the return immediately, slowed only by Remee's one bullet busting through her spine. Hiromi's momentum keeps her going while her flesh regrows, an instant's vulnerability in addition to whatever of her reserves must be sapped to near-instantly unparalyze her, but it's only enough to throw off her aim, not to abort the extreme danger of her approach.

    "Good. I feel you. Your will. Your determination. Feel me."

    And the streets shatter beneath her, all the glass windows erupt in shards, in the single stomp that precedes a launching uppercut.

    Whatever follow-up aerial would have occurred after hit-confirming can't, because Hiromi is returning to the now-revealed Remee. "Clever. Wise, to hide. Brave, to return. But are you strong? Will you return, again? Again and again and again?"

    Having demonstrated her toughness once, Hiromi is confident enough that Remee deserves the air-annihilating strike from her fist that shatters the building behind her, the fortunately-empty rooms of a convenience store crumbling down. Whether Remee is even in the path of that debris cloud, there's no time to check.

    Bond has the easiest time of it without Hiromi's direct intervention, taking out the sniper with style, and clearing away the drones. There are fewer and fewer soldiers willing to fight -- and that's good for Ishirou, as he can focus his efforts. He finds that, after that first howl, Hiromi isn't constantly maintaining whatever effect that was. It's something that might even run out on its own, though not quickly enough that waiting is tactically feasible. Pulling himself back up through stupid amounts of sheer will, he manages to clear out all the squads in detection range that haven't already chosen discretion over valor. That includes several snipers who were lining up shots, two of whom decide that it makes sense to shoot Hiromi, instead.

    Doing absolutely nothing to her, that probably wasn't very smart of them, but she doesn't act like she's noticed. The bullets simply ricocheted off her tensed muscles and into already broken windows. No second shot is taken, as those perches are abandoned.

    Though Lilian wishes otherwise, she still has to blink to keep up with Hiromi, because she simply isn't letting everyone else get away with things like 'remaining conscious' and 'having the will to fight' if she can help it. Tragically, this must include Ishirou, to whose position Hiromi arrives in a single leap, shaking the rooftop with the strain of holding up her presence.

    "Why these? Why go so far for them? For their sake? For yours? If you wish to prove, to me, your bravery..." Her breath is hot. Menacing. A predator on two legs or four. In every moment, she seems closer than she is.

    "...I accept your proof. But, it won't prove their worth. Only yours."

    And she strikes the roof with her foot, breaking it down to the ground floor, and then commanding that ground to break itself. The shockwave rises up, and she takes a second leap to reach for Ishirou's ankle, to swing him down into the collapsing pit.
Hiromi     Satori throwing everything she can think of is something it's hard to tell is working or not, but Utusho's divebomb is more direct and dramatic. It's something Hiromi takes head on with wide, staring eyes, meeting the approaching bird and hellfire with her fist.

    The skin blasted off her, its regrowth is a grotesque thing, far slower than when she'd reattached her limbs. The ultimate fate of Utsuho is momentarily hidden by the blast, having combined the velocity of her own approach together with that timed counterstrike by her target.

    And then there's James.

    "Here, you -- little known. New scents. Clever. Resourceful. I'd see you, more, but, a challenge must be met."

    She expects him to hide again, to run, to come out with some other gadget, like what she'd seen, in passing, take down the bodies in his vicinity. Her own approach is as indirect, not in a single leap, but bursting through the side of a building by where she believes him to be, taking a swipe with deadly claws, and then moving away again. Another running pass follows, closer, but escapable. The third pass is corrected to be all but certain death.

    Naturally, it matters nothing to her whether those buildings fall, after knocking all those holes in their walls.
Hiromi     Dealing with Petra -- is a rude way to put it, but Hiromi isn't what many would call polite.

    In an incredible show of bravery that no one asked for, wanted, or would recommend...

    But that's not true. It's what Hiromi wanted, even if she'd yet to say it.

    'I fucking *belong here*!'

    "Do you?" Hiromi asks, as if only to confirm she'd correctly heard her. The kick strikes her, but a kick as good as a cannonshell still wouldn't do more than, at best, make her rock back on her feet. This one does give her pause, though striking her is like striking a mountain. Even finding the softest part of a mountain isn't enough to topple it.

    "I see. You belong here, on this field, this battle, this challenge. You approach me. Good! Nimble young ones should find tall things. How else will you climb?"

    And with those words given, Hiromi pulls back a fist to obliterate everything within the general proximity of the young woman whose name she still doesn't know.

    'Don't you look away from me, HIROMI!'

    The strike that should have landed, the impression of instant death, is deflected by Night Mist, though the impact, even glancing, is enough to create its own thunderclap. Little survives even the edges of Hiromi's ardent attention, but Lilian is insistent. She demands attention. Only by throwing herself through the path of that blade can she reach her latest target, which is exactly what she does, accepting the carving blade here and there, bizarrely letting it glance off her abs another moment despite the same force used, just so she can plow through into Petra's personal space and deliver, rather than either the claws or shining teeth it seemed she would, a sudden headbutt, straight through (but entirely undeterred by) the firing path of her handcannon.

    'Stoppable,' Hiromi is scarcely is, though the remnants of every strike against her remains. The burns, slashes, gunshots, blasts, each only 'mostly' heals, to the point that she can continue without worrying about it. What it takes from her spirit, her will, is invisible, even to the particularly perceptive.

    And now she can give Lilian her full attention.

    'I don't care a bit whether you approve of me or hate my guts!'
    '...stop thinking of me as just another human!'


    "I have your scent," Hiromi says, then cocks her head, while deflecting Night Mist with her black-boned claws. "No, I see you. You--"

    She presses forward, trading crashing blows, knowing that she can't match Lilian's reactions, but also that she needs only the slightest force to meet each, and that her wounds will continue to heal. "You wish to be seen. Be proven. Your existence. Your strength. Your will. 'Don't care' is your lie. You must be told."

    The menacing aggression is nothing new. It's only worse for how untiring she is, how perfectly willing to fight long past when it should be possible, with death always just a moment away. Stretching out those moments and walking between them is what's kept Lilian as far ahead as she's been.

    "I'll tell you truths. Strength, you have. Will. Bravery. You stand against the Archwolf. Not 'for them.' 'For you.' I see you, disappearing-sword. Lilian Rook."

    Sapping Hiromi's will to fight is the one thing that Lilian can't even slightly do, though every push is still felt as something that exists, not in space, but in spirit.

    "You have that right. To fight me. To declare your will. To demand I move. I allow it. Recognize it."

    No attack is truly unavoidable, but to continue trading blows with Hiromi is to beg fate. Lilian wanted to be seen, and now she is.
Remee Halcyon Remee gets off her one shot. And then Hiromi is turning to her.

> "Clever. Wise, to hide. Brave, to return. But are you strong? Will you return, again? Again and again and again?"

Remee's rifle doesn't track Hiromi. She knows she wont have enough time to get off a second shot. And - her everything still hurts. She's standing on broken legs and holding her rifle steady with broken arms.

"I'll-"

Deep breath. "I'll return to-

Hiromi's fist connects.

It's not quite clear at first what happens to Remee, but nobody sees her again for at least a full day.
Ishirou Once more she was there faster than he could predict...though this time more due to battle damage than simply being unable to calculate it. The breath was hot, her presence made her closer than she appeared. Was it just impossible to reason with her? Were their world views so drastically different that it was like simply a barrier uncrossable?

"You are saying..." he says with a strained breath, "That the children and innocents here...those who are unable to fight...have no /worth/ to you?" Of course, once more her foot is grabbed. To her, he has proved his bravery, but to him...

It's meaningless when you're unable to back it up. Or protect anyone. He goes down, losing his footing in the crumbing building...then dragged and thrown into the collapsing building. When all is gone, it's just the destroyed building.
Hibiki Tachibana     There's Lilian. And Petra, too. Remee...and Hiromi is coming right on back. She knew that much would happen, at least. It'll take a whole lot more than just this much to slow her down for long. But it was about sending a message more than inflicting lasting damage, quite literally. At least for her. And if she has it her way, there'll be plenty more.

    She's not going to get them, though. Not in this fight, at least. The willpower is there, but after that initial hit, the body can't quite keep up. Her other fist is already clenched and winding back for another punch, and one of her armored boots stamps down into the asphault beneath her feet for more stability. She rears back to punch, looking as if she's intending to throw it at the same time Hiromi does hers--

    But the Archwolf's uppercut connects before she throws hers, and amid every pane of glass on the street shattering at once, Hibiki is also socked clean in the chin and goes flying sky-high. Without the following blow, she sails up story after story, passing structures in a blur of speed. Up and away at just enough of an angle that one street and then another passes by below...

    ...Until she hits the apex of how high her momentum is going to take her, and promptly comes back down on top of an evacuated building, rooftop collapsing inwards with a Hibiki-shaped hole left in it, and leaving the magical girl spread-eagled and entirely laid out. Even still, she tries to force herself back to her feet, gritting her teeth and wincing as she goes.

    Only for her strength to give out partway, and for her to end up on her face instead. "...Damnit...I need to get back...to..." Give her five minutes and she'll probably be forcing it again - but that's five minutes the rest of the battle probably won't last.
James Bond      "Undeserved?" Bond scoffs. Through the WA2000's scope, he watches bullets bounce off of her skin. Right. Creative.

     Bond detaches the box mag, enjects the round in the chamber, and reaches into his vest. He procures a separate mag, marked in red, loaded with 7.62mm gyrojet rockets. The tip of each resembles a drill bit. "If that's how you feel, then you should bloody well kill them yourself next time and save me and the rest of these people the trouble."

     Loading the new magazine in, pulling back the bolt, Bond waits until just before she makes contact with Ishirou's cover to fire. The rocket is slow, at first, but accelerates alarmingly quickly, carried on spirals of flame that spin it ever faster. The tip's resemblance to a drill bit is intentional--at the speeds it spins by the time it reaches Hiromi, it should fare much better than the mercenary snipers' attempts. But this isn't a killing tool.

     It certainly aims to penetrate the skin, but only because that makes it a more effective tool for debilitating tough, armored targets like the Archwolf. Moments after it strikes, a small, powerful battery housed in the metal tip looses an electrical current.

     It won't be enough to stop her--after everything he's seen from his vantage point, he knows that. This would be where 'creative' comes into play.

     She's coming his way, claws bared. Bond hefts the rifle and sprints to the opposite end of the building, making a running leap seemingly to his death. The grey sedan he'd been assigned for this mission peels out, sunroof opening to catch him in the backseat in the nick of time.

Welcome. Please fasten seatbelt.

     Head ducked and lying on the floorboard, impact resistant glass buckles beneath Hiromi's swipes like butter, raining down on him as the car takes off. Watching an integrated camera feed on his watch, Bond steers by adjusting the bezel, accelerates by holding the stop, weaving in and out of burnt-out husks, taking the car leaping over a pile of rubble.

Warning. Pedestrian proximity alert. Avoid unsafe driving.

     Another pressing and holding the stop. A gout of flame belches from the exhaust, engulfing Hiromi after a tap of Bond's finger on the watch's face. An 'obnoxious regenerator,' Rook said. Right. Adjusting the hands, another tap, a burst of pointed metal spikes, from behind the license plate.

     The sedan touches down after ramping off the accumulated pile of rubble, suspension holding strong as he coaxes it into a drift around a hard right. Kicking the door open, Bond rolls out, hand dipping beneath the passenger seat just before he departs, pulling out a bullpup-configuration assault rifle, chambered for those same gyrojet rockets.

     "You know what they say." Twisting the bezel once more, the car makes a tire-squealing u-turn and charges head on at the archwolf. Bond, standing, aiming down the sights. "The chase is better than the kill." He squeezes the trigger and holds it down, sending a swarm of electric-shock rocket projectiles towards her.
Petra Soroka     Petra's kick, propelled by the power of her cannon-force handgun, connects with Hiromi, and--does nothing. It's like trying to move the Earth itself. Of course, there's people who can do that, but Petra isn't one of them. She just bounces off, spent, landing on what remains of a building with numb, stumbling legs.

    You approach me.

    Petra glares up at the Archwolf and spits. "I don't even know who you are." She draws a second gun, this one Banana yellow, holding one in each hand. "But I didn't come here to lose, no matter who I'm against." She prepares to again, launch towards Hiromi, despite the growing number of wounds on her body. Completely disregarding the fist crashing towards her with undeniably lethal force.

    That Lilian intercepts, seemingly posing herself as a titan on the battlefield equal to Hiromi and far, far above Petra, fills her chest with so much bitter, acidic feeling that it burns at the back of her throat. She steels herself through the shockwave, and blasts over, over Lilian, getting around back to plant a finishing shot in the back of Hiromi's head.

    Flying through the air, seeing the massive forehead rush upwards to crush her, Petra's gritted expression disintegrates into sheer, innocent panic. She instinctually twists away, holding up her arms to protect her head, and lets out a pathetic squeal at the impact. Petra crashes into the ground, limp, and all the fight leaves her in quiet, choked whimpers.
Hellwarming Trio The experience of finally witnessing a mind without any kind of fear, however slight, is rather intriguing to Satori. It doesn't quite overcome her current anger at seeing one of her pets treated so roughly, but it'll pass soon enough once the dust has settled. It just so happens that the settling dust is considerably more literal today thanks to buildings being wrecked the longer the fight goes on. The friction between Lilian and Petra certainly catches her attention, too, but it's as Ishirou said earlier: This is not the time to go over that.

She'll definitely have to look into it later, though.

Utsuho, meanwhile, crashes head on with Hiromi, and there's a mad grin on her face as she, too, seems to be relishing in the battle that she joined on a whim rather than out of any sense of investment. The intense focus of Hibiki forces the raven to keep her spirits up and her flames burning as brightly as they can for as long as they can, especially in light of Ishirou managing to get back up despite taking such a decisive blow earlier. She's eager to make a good showing for Bond, too, even though she can't immediately recall why anymore. She's just excited to finally get to go all out against someone that can withstand her fires building up to their apex.

"You can really take a lot of punishment, huh? I haven't met someone like you since... Ever. We need to do this again." Utsuho proclaims, sounding inflappable right up until she gets slammed right in the face. Spirited though she is and as sturdy as she is compared to her companions, she still isn't someone built to take huge hits like that head on. She goes flying backwards, catching Satori off guard when the latter herself gets caught up in the tumble of bodies and disappears into the rubble in that tangle of bodies.

Finally, Rin... Is still lying face down in a crater. She might have a little more in common with Remee right about now, unable to really pick herself up after that earlier beatdown. The kasha still lives, though, and is content to stay out of sight while the fight rages on above her. She's considerably more frustrated than Utsuho is with getting brought down so quickly, though, but she bides her time while the structure falls apart around her. Eventually, she'll be around eventually to rouse the other two youkai, then ferry them (and anyone else that needs a pickup) away on her corpse wagon before the buildings can fully fall upon them.
Lilian Rook     'Taught wrong. They killed each other.'

    The venomous 'Tsch!' that Lilian spits out as her whole response is more than enough to understand how pissed off she is by that statement, and just how much more it pisses her off to know that there isn't a worthwhile response to it. "Trying to explain accountability to any member of the Concord is pointless enough by itself." she says, more to herself than Hiromi. "You'll do as you do and everyone else getting in the way made their own bed, is that it? It's their fault for now accepting your--"

    Lilian bites her lip. Her eyes wander aside for a second.

    'You know the wrongs. Why not fix them? Why not take thrones? 'Reform.' Remake. Lead. Can't you?'

    "I-- . . . Can't fix other people." comes Lilian's halting reply. Her words are heavy and slow. Slogging through the waist-deep mud of sticky feelings and half-formed and discarded thoughts, struggling to pick out anything that she can communicate back. "I can't rule over them. Or . . . at least, I shouldn't. I can't be the one to do it. Nobody should let me." Lilian draws in a deep breath, then turns her stare back to Hiromi properly. "I can't fix the world in that way. Not 'the world of humans', at least. I think my way would . . . change everything so much, that not everyone could live in it. Only the humans that 'live as humans' can fix what's wrong with their world, and still stay true to their humanity."

    There is fresh steel in her eyes. The armour, drawn from her heart, click-clacks quietly around her fingers where she grips her swords. "I can't be the one to make decisions about how they should be, because I'm . . . not human in the same way that they are human. But I want to give them the chance to change things. To prove that they can be better. Is it really so wrong that I'd protect them, even if I hate them? That's what a knight would do."

    As wildly ridiculous as it is, trading blows with Hiromi is exactly what she intends to do. Not so stubborn as to plant her feet and actually try to match her blow for blow, but demented enough to insist on taking her strength for strength.
Lilian Rook     A flurry of slashes sever the lower tendons, upper bicep, wrist flexors and shoulder cuff all at once, and the second fist crashes against angled othersteel; a flash of sparks and rippling air, bared teeth and lighted eyes. A crushing stomp lands in empty space right where Lilian just was, hot pain radiating across the Archwolf's side and spiraling up across her back. A pulverizing backfist skims right through trailing hair. A knee strike is caught on the crossguard, launching Lilian upwards and driving the air out of her, only to reappear back on the ground. A straight fist swivels and trades with a wildly unguarded, overhead power strike, and yet what Lilian does is to twist just barely sideways, such that it crashes and skips across the gold pattern across her ostensibly nearly unprotected chest, flaring a momentary halo of light, just so that she can stand her ground and swing down into the back of Hiromi's neck without breaking her own ribs.

    Each blow is brutal and bloody, but clearly far more refined than when they'd fought before. There are feints and misdirections, forced guesses and three steps of anticipation, but nothing about it feels deceptive anymore. Tactical, intelligent, but not cunning. Even though Lilian is battered and shaken here and there with the residual force of the godlike strength she is playing with, she won't back off to a safe distance and pepper Hiromi with shots and traps and ambush attacks anymore.

    It's different in smaller ways too. During the windows where Hiromi's claws catch that mysterious armour, despite its perfect, smooth hardness and ungraspable angles, it somehow gives off an abstract sense that she is touching someone's bare skin. And through the whole thing, Lilian's sword carries that fledgeling embodiment of her will. The nascent power battering against Hiromi's deeper reserves is still small, but it somehow feels more 'sincere' than just a blade alone. Convincing in a way that wounds are not.

    Perhaps not far from fighting 'an embodied being', a little like herself. Younger. Smaller. But not 'a soldier' anymore.

    "I know perfectly well I can't kill you like this, but I know by now that you wouldn't be here if that's what it took! So what is it going to be, Hiromi?! Can you accept that I'm going to protect these humans for no good reason, or not?!"
Hiromi     The aftermath is ultimately what could be recorded in the mission reports as 'a success.' After having Hiromi's influence over them removed, both defense contractors realize that the contracts they'd been following were not, in fact, legitimate, at all. It's difficult to entirely work that out of them, but Lilian and Ishirou have the particular skills necessary, as well as other Paladin staff (if relatively slow working).

    Everyone is more than a little embarrassed at what's happened, and there will be criminal proceedings. The island state of Mostat will be unlikely to accept that the breach of contract and various acts that followed were entirely outside the control of either company -- and they can't drag any repair money out of Hiromi, anyway, after she just ups and leaves by jumping over the horizon. 'Well, someone has to pay for it,' moves the slow arms of justice.

    Exactly what the mental influence constituted and to what extent it can be blamed will be hotly contested for days, if not months, to come. No expert opinion is able to give conclusive testimony, and the courts are unlikely to believe Hiromi, even if they were brave enough to try summoning her.

    Most of those who died did so in the first, confused hour, before help could be summoned. With the prompt actions of the elites, the locals are grateful -- for the most part. Some instead take to blaming everyone for not having somehow arrived sooner, so that they could have stopped the fighting before blood was spilled. There's little that can console the truly grief-stricken. There's less concern over the property damage, mostly from the assumption that the mercs will end up paying for it, even if they have to sell off piles of military hardware to do so.

    At least Hiromi was satisfied. She'd asked for strength to be proven to her, for others to prove that she should listen. It's unclear whether being left in a hole in the ground invalidates someone's opinion, or not, with her. Probably not.