Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Trying to chase down the direction that MV went, assuming (with good reason) that they likely flew up away towards Petra, the Elites race through the castle, through the scorched and crumbling halls. Stone and wood peel away from the castle facade, revealing metal plates and corded supports forming the skeleton of the building beneath. Whatever damage was done to the meat of the castle by SUPER HEYALEXA's impact and the general blast and tear of Elite combat, it seems like Petra has no intention of letting the castle fall entirely to rubble-- which makes sense, if she's at the top, but still seems oddly considerate for the reclaiming Quicknestians after her defeat.     Searching for ways upwards to where Petra awaits, still groundlocked due to the massive laser cannon squatting on top of the city, the group comes across a castle tower soon enough. Formerly housing a grand spiral staircase, a central pillar allowing duly-resplendent access the majesty and opulence of the Quicknest nobility, the tower has been cored empty, replaced with a buttonless elevator that only closes and ascends once everyone is inside. It's a scripted event, surely-- to get to the elevator, the group has to skirt around the edges of the chasm Heyalexa punched through the floor, so she interrupted them when they were on the right path.     The elevator experience is ridiculous in a way that's hard to put your finger on at first. Heavy metal, symbolically forboding in how it so clearly represents the abuse and ruin of Aidan's home, silent and uninteractive besides grimly carrying them to the final confrontation, it's *almost* a well-crafted gesture to raise the narrative tension. The reason, then, that it fails is-- Petra seems to have also carpeted it. So it's fairly comfortable to stand during the short ride up.     The elevator opens, and a few steps converts the ground underfoot from carpet, to metal, to... playground rubber surfacing. The relative darkness of the top floor of the castle forces your eyes to readjust, though it's only dim in comparison to the bright electric lights and daylight of the earlier stages of the mission. This floor-- what used to be the entire top floor of the castle, converted into a sizeable open space as an arena-- is only lit by a handful of spaced-out windows, as well as a few points of light further inside. At the far end of the room, lit by a collection of larger screens showing the perspectives of monitorratbots that had been following the team of heroes around, is a luxurious tea-table setup, centered around the violently relocated throne of Quicknest royalty; of course, it's not Petra sitting there.     But surprisingly, neither is Petra poised to make some dramatic, rehearsed entrance or villainous monologue, emerging from the shadows as your eyes adjust or clambering off her knees in front of the throne. Instead, she's standing just a bit offcenter in the room by the other point of synthetic light, faint-glowing silver and attention not even immediately turned to the Elites as they come through. She's fussing over Emmy, overexerted and stressed just-off the combat with the heroes, and the battered Amazon Alexa in her arms.     "-- did great, alright? You've done a ton to help, so don't feel bad for like, taking a bit to rest now. And I'll check on Heyalexa after this too, so it'll be alright. Thanks a ton, MV, sorry for-- well, I knew a lot of them can kind of be stressful, already, so-- oh, shit."
Petra Soroka	Petra finally notices the Elites and straightens up with a couple steps back from Metal Velocity, probing morphmetal touch at the scraped up and damaged parts of its body withdrawing around Petra. She lets them off with a quick, "Go ahead and rest up with Dimo," and then plucks Heyalexa out of her hands to deposit her inside a morphmetal mirror before being interrupted by a staticky-enthusiastic emission of 'I want to watch ! Let me watch Violent Application Of Armaments Damaging Explosive Blasts !' and rolling her eyes to send the voice assistant back to hover besides the throne in a little bowl-chair of morphmetal.     Petra clears her throat, momentum completely ruined. "Ahem. Um. Hey. Er-- welcome, heroes, to-- shit."     "Look," Petra takes a breath and stumbles conversationally forwards, grabbing one of the ratbots floating besides her and pressing a button on its underside like it's a remote. Nothing happens at first, until a second passes and Petra opens a winced-nervous eye right when a tremendous quake rattles the entire arena and she heaves a sigh of relief. The tremors continue, and Petra draws her posture up more confidently. "Look. You've done a lot already, and I know I sort of asked you all to come fight me, but don't think I'm going to make it easy. In fact--"     Petra hesitates on the end of the word for just a second, timed nearly perfectly with the entire ceiling of the arena being blasted off and crumbling away, daylight streaming in. Above the now open air arena hovers a large drone-like mech, like a UFO crossed with a ratbot, quadrupedal and armed with a series of smaller cannon turrets aimed downwards at the battlefield. It zips through the air, crossing the width of the arena faster than the typical ponderously slow machines Petra tends to build, to frame above her at her back.     Shouting over the residual echo of the explosions and the still-growing rumbling noise, Petra swings her Eggman-emblazoned gunsword to point out towards the Elites, morphmetal cloning a Silver replica of the weapon to mirror the movement on her opposite side. "-- I kind of want it to suck a lot for you! I've got things I want out of this too, you know!"
Kale Hearthward	EARLIER: < "I don't like this country much. I've always thought it was backwards, stuck in the past. Self-interested nobility dragging it down from above, unhinged 'heroes' pulling it down from below. I've always thought it'd be nice if it was just... wiped off the map." < "...But that's the job. Fighting to save people you really couldn't care any less about." --- NOW: Kale pauses when he hears Petra talking to Emmy. "Maybe we should wait," he whispers, but Petra notices them anyway. > "-- I kind of want it to suck a lot for you! I've got things I want out of this too, you know!" "... You - think you *could* make it easy on us, though?" Kale can't help but say. "I've had to deal with - with a lot. I'm trying not to complain, but this is..." He trails off. Thoughts race. "This is..." Why is he here? Why is he suffering? Why is he taking responsibility? Why is he putting in the work? Why is he getting kicked out, punched in the face, heroposted at, and- "Nevermind. This is the job. That's why we're here." Kale draws a sword. "To stop you." He doesn't waste time - he's dashing forward, sword first, to clash with Petra before she can bring that drone to bear! To stop her. That's... all it is. The job. The responsibility.
Ru Li Cheng	It's all very surreal.      This wasn't how Ru Li imagined his first operation would go. He didn't imagine he'd be standing on a carpeted elevator full of metaphors of misery and abuse, waiting shirtless, shoeless, and weaponless with only his pants and a cloth bound around his wounded arm. Even the ribbon he usually uses to tie back his hair has been expended as part of the attempt, leaving his black hair flowing free down his back, a cascade of night against his skin.      He was not made for this.      He steps onto the rubber surfacing. In this moment he does not feel heroic. He does not feel the rush of victory, even though he knows that he will keep coming back until he wins. He does not feel the certainty that the Dame Commander feels, even though he is certain he will not stop until he is either dead or victorious. In this moment he simply feels how distantly the others are from him, a god, a god with no miracles of worth and only bare strength to show for it - strength matched and even surpassed by other members of his team. In this moment he wishes only, desperately, that he was some powerful war god who could smash through his troubles, armed with war miracles to bolster his allies or crush his foes; he wishes that he could stride through the battlefield impressive and almighty.      Most importantly, he wishes that he could be relied upon, without qualification. That eight arrows could become ten arrows could become a hundred arrows and he would in no way be uncertain that he could catch all of them.      But that is not who he is. He is a bureaucrat. He is a bureaucrat without weapons, without armor, almost without clothing. He is a bureaucrat who is not meant to be here.      And yet, he, among all the other heroes of the Multiverse, stepped forward and gave his word. Others showed to support him, but he - he is the one responsible for this. He is the one who takes responsibility if it fails. He is the one who *is* responsible if it fails. And he is the one who will keep coming back until it is over.      And with that in mind, he stops before Petra, and he puts a hand in front of his face, and he bows at a slight angle.      "I would be insulted if you made it easy. It would not have been worth my time to stand up and make a promise if it was something you would simply roll over and give up on. It would not be worth me taking responsibility if you made it simple."      "If it was something anyone could do, it would not be a heroic effort."      His hand shifts forward, the back of it pointed at Petra. His fingers flex towards himself.      Multiversally-understood.      'Bring it on.'      Kale goes in. Ru Li charges forward, diving between the falling debris. He trades a shot from a cannon across his chest - another burn to add to the one from Emmy's lasers - for a chance to whirlwind-kick a collapsing piece of the building at Petra's gun.
Ishirou	Ishirou catches up with the group to ride the elevator up to Petra herself.  He pauses when they approach her talking and healing Emmy, to which he pauses and nods once to Kale, who suggests they wait. Oh never mind, she noticed them anyway.   He sighs when she mentions she can't go easy on them, and he nods.  "Of course, you can't.  You have someone who trusted this to you so... I guess if you gave up you wouldn't be much of a villain," he hates it, but he understands it.  The motivation, that is, but he truly does despise Eggman and his way of doing things.   Kale and Ru Li run forward.  Ishirou doesn't rush ahead, instead, he takes to the back, jumping over the drone's liquid metal slash, and turning to roll out of the way again.  Ishirou has grown wary of Petra's blade, not wanting to be stabbed again by it.  Perhaps that gives him the foresight today to avoid it.   POD fires a barrage of shots, aiming to try and pepper the drone, while the others go for Petra herself.
Aidan Proudpick	- Self Confidence - Self Respect But a talk with Sarracenia in an out of the way place did help. He can handle this. It's just Petra. He can handle this. He just has to follow orders, not get mad. Which will be easy, because he doesn't really have any secrets left for her to hurl out. Unless she hurls the fact that he's exactly the sort of 'hero' that Lilian and Kale despise. Or call him 'fuckless.' Or prod one of Aidan's dozen other buttons. Or the fact that he keeps trying to scratch the surface of Petra but never quite understands. The bliss at the Hodag watch, the stumbling on the radio, the care for Niko. Not to be friends with her, but just to understand what goes on. Predict her moods and at least avoid inciting them. Every time he thinks he has a grip on it, he makes the wrong assumption. Which, honestly, describes Aidan's entire life up to this point. He stands on the elevator, crammed in with eight people, trying to simply fold his arms slightly in the corner, and wait. Less being timid, more not wanting to test anyone's patience than he already has. Get through this. No glory. Just do the job that Ru Li gave him. Aidan yanks his cloth armor off and tosses it aside, pulling off the undershirt underneath, his flag and crest falling to the floor. He snatches out an eyeliner pencil from his armor pocket and hastily, and purposefully messily, slides some on, getting some on his eyelids. Immediately upon seeing Petra doting over the two, awkward, that latter situation hits Aidan's mind. Hurricanes. Is this what she would have been like? He always expects the bloodthirst from her. The murder. No. No excuses. Ru Li gave him a job. And he's going to do it. 100. Heart and soul. "HEY PETRA!" He shouts at the top of his lungs. "I'm right here! Aren't you going to come and get me?! I dressed up just for you for this mission!" He jumps on a wall, then upward towards the UFO, grabbing onto the underside of it. His buckler comes up and then down, slamming into one of the turrets to keep the battlefield clean of fire. "Couldn't you have at least put up decorations!"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak ascends in the buttonless elevator. One arm holds his greataxe, shouldered. The other holds his bucket helm, tucked under one arm, retrieved courtesy of Hibiki after it was thrown in anger. The massive harness overtop his already-bulky machined armor sports a litany of scorch marks, scoring and dimpled impact points, all very slowly fading away as the platform rises.     He steps out, his red irises seeming to stand out more in the more dimly-lit top floor. He waits, for Petra to finish her introduction. Despite his anger at MV, there seems to be a bit of patience on display as she fumbles once or twice along the way. -- I kind of want it to suck a lot for you! I've got things I want out of this too, you know!     "Verily, I do," shouts Bercilak, over the din of the torn-off roof and the UFO. "What-al elles shalt itide, I amire the bishishipe thou displeied in dightening al this to obsist us. 'Tis not the labourage of a raiking thought."     "I do not desire hit to insuke for thee, ani mo thanne hit must, to espy thy hondiwork astrued," admits Bercilak. "Onli that hit al iends todai." It's not personal, for him, in other words, even if there's no way this ends without a fight. He places the helmet back on with a little hiss of vacuum seal, and gives his axe arm a few testing swings.     There's little else to say, little point in a 'have at you' this late into things--especially not when Aidan is provoking her outright, as asked. Bercilak twirls the axe one-handed overhead and shiftsinto a flourish spanning both hands and sides, warming himself up before charging in on foot to take a seemingly wild, undisciplined two-handed sideswipe.     The momentum is funneled into a surprisingly agile backstep, the knight holding the weapon's blade low to flick upwards against any attempted counter, either from petra directly or her duplicate Silver sword. The real attack is a half-haft thrust with the weapon's blunt eye, meant to smash headlong into her weapon.
Futaba Nuki	After the high-speed battle against Metal Velocity, Futaba's quite happy to actually have her ascent handled via elevator instead of having to climb even more. Plus, the addition of carpet makes it even easier to just let herself sink into it for at least that short while, although it takes a lot of willpower to stay standing on it instead of just curling up for a quick pre-fight nap. Not that she could really nap in such circumstances. After everything she's heard and seen recently, even without a lot of context behind most of what's going on Quicknest specifically, Futaba couldn't possibly insult Petra, Ru Li, Kale, and most of her companions here doing such a thing. There's plenty to think about, too, as she wracks her brain about why Emmy had just taken off in such a way. "Hey... You guys know what happened with that metal lady we were up against?" Futaba steps out of the elevator shortly after it stops, pausing momentarily when she notices the change in floor texture again. "Haven't felt that in a while... She really thought of everything." She comments with a light chuckle, then quiets down once she sees the setup of everything. The lights, the screens, the out-of-place throne... So many details that feel wrong, yet distinctly... Correct? At least in Futaba's mind, anyway. Futaba's especially surprised when she sees Petra specifically not doing the rehearsed monologue thing, but instead tending to Emmy. Instead of commenting immediately on what she's seeing, she turns around quickly and starts checking her pouch and her gear: Katana, caltrops, smoke bombs, other stuff she's just turning parts of herself into. Everything checks out, and Futaba turns around once she feels the ground shaking from Petra presumably pressing a button to get things started. Luckily, it's in time to see a more confident Petra, and Futaba brings her hand up to the front of her mask with two fingers raised in that classic ninja pose in return. "I'd expect nothing less than your hardest and your suckiest, Petra! ... Wait." Futaba pauses to actually think about words for a moment, then blows right past that. "I cans ee you've put a heck of a lotta work into all this, so it couldn't possibly be easy. And that's why I'll give you my hardest, too. Then we'll all get what we want out of this!" Grinning under the ninja mask, Futaba turns her gaze up to the UFO ratbot mech, letting out a long 'ohhhh' noise in awe at the sight of the thing. She keeps one hand over her mouth while the other slaps against her forearm in excitement, then starts sprinting forward the next moment as the cannons start firing down. She dashes right through an explosion, all for the sole purpose of launching herself right out of it with the tip of her tail and her katana aflame as she takes a heavy swing at the mech right from the jump.
Sarracenia	After learning that they were not actually forbidden from joining the final battle, Sarraenia is surreptitiously trying to stay at the front of the pack of heroes as they make their way to the arena. The elevator ride being an odd mixture of forboding and comfortable leaves Sarra a bit confused. She sips from a grapefruit soda with a straw as they rise, wanting to be nice and refreshed by the time they reach Petra.      It also gives her time to notice just how disrobed Ru Li is. She can't help a light blush and a bit of a stare before she mmphs at herself and rummages in her purse. She pulls out a regal gold vest and a red cape, and is about to hand them to Ru Li when...      The door opens! Sarracenia leaps out with her hammer in hand! Only to pause awkwardly as Petra is not immediately apparent. She huffs, and tries to hand the vest and cape to Ru Li. "Here. No one should enter such a battle in rags, much less a god." She says.      Petra's voice is heard, and Sarra sees Emmy and Heyalexa. She raises a hand as if to wave to Emmy, but stops short and glances about self-consciously before lowering that hand again. Petra's sort of fumbled introduction makes her stare for a few moments before stifling a bit of a snicker.      ' I kind of want it to suck a lot for you! I've got things I want out of this too, you know!'      Sarra rolls her eyes. "Of course you want it to suck for us. When have you ever wanted anything else?" she says. She walks forward, her own clothes a bit ragged and in particular a burned out diagonal area across the midriff of her battle dress, though the skin beneath has been mostly healed thanks to green mushrooms.      The cannonfire lands all around them, several hitting Sarra and staggering her a bit. Still, she reaches up and touches that metal lotus she's been wearing lately, and pinkish gold gloves form along her forearms. "Well, guess what! I want it to suck for you, too! And I am going to do my best to ensure it does! Starting with this!"      She holds a palm forward starts firing those Silver flechettes at Petra. Lots of them. Like, an unnecessary amount of them. And not all of them are aimed at Petra, either. One palm is focused upward and Silver is fired up at the hovering UFO bot as well. "And since you love this power so much, I will use it to help bring you down!"
Hibiki Tachibana	Well... Petra /did/ carpet the elevator.     Despite that the ride up, at least for Hibiki, is more uncomfortable than anything else - not physically, emotionally. The quiet in the converted shaft gives her time with her own thoughts, and as anyone who knows her could tell you, that's never a good thing. It means she has the chance to think about Aidan, and how she'll even start to approach that and make sure any lessons or efforts to help him out of the hole he's dug stick after Quicknest is dealt with... assuming he survives this. She hopes he does. It also lets her consider Petra herself, and the fact that... this'll be the first time they've fought each other in a while.     Since the Titanomachia. It was easy to just push ahead without thinking too hard about it on the way here, but now that the face-to-face encounter is actually imminent, how does she actually feel about it? She's... not sure. They're not quite friends. They're not exactly enemies. Both of them rely on other people, even each other, to be much of anything. If she thinks about it that way...     It's fine for them to come to blows. Hibiki doesn't actually have to run it around in her head endlessly to come to that conclusion. They have plenty to fight about, and fight for here. So when they finally reach the top and step out, there's no hesitation--     She stops in place when she sees Petra worrying over Emmy and Heyalexa. After a moment of staring with slightly squinted eyes, she awkwardly adjusts her oversized scarf and waits patiently for the villain of the day to get her bearings back.     It's easier for her to get her own back, too, when the ceiling explodes and the massive drone backing Petra up reveals itself, already showing itself to be much speedier and much more dangerous than SUPER HEYALEXA - and that wasn't an easy fight! "I already figured you wouldn't! Just like you better not expect me or anyone else to hold back, whatever you want or not!"     Explosions ring out and stone crumbles away, and that's the Symphogear user's cue to rush forward as the proper boss arena is made manifest. A sprint becomes a dash becomes a lunge straight for Petra, joining in on the melee starting up - although she's actually really going to be trying to go for a two-for-one.     Given she has one tightly clenched fist, and she's going to be throwing it forward with a momentum-inducing twist of her body for Petra Soroka herself, intent on delivering a heavyhanded blow that'll try and launch her off the ground and into her own mech!     It's only after it's already being thrown that her adrenaline-rushing mind catches up to ask, voice shouting loud to get over the sound of giant robot-induced chaos, "...Wait, /are/ you trying to get anything outta this besides the fight you wanted?" She's just doing due dilligence here.
Lilian Rook	Unmoved from before, in both senses, Lilian remains in the exact same place she had while secretly watching the heroes battle all the way here, and turns her gaze from the glowing monitors to the men and women themselves without noticeably changing her expression.     Being seated on the throne of Quicknest's royalty is an afterthought. If it were her doing, she'd be sitting on the throne in the throne room; the way she treats it as an especially cushy recliner has everything to do with the fact that it was brought to her by Petra, and something brought to her by Petra is a charming little small luxury that Petra is doing her very best to scrape together. Being seated under the exploding ceiling is also, nearly, an afterthought; she's only even visible as the edges of her own silhouette in the ominous screenglow before it all happens, and not much more so until the saucer moves. Only once direct sunlight is-- not quite on her, because you see the hovering ratbot by her side with a reinforced parasol, responsible for keeping rubble and splinters from her tea as well.     '... You - think you *could* make it easy on us, though? I've had to deal with - with a lot. I'm trying not to complain, but this is... This is...'     "Your first time."     There it is. The ordinary thing to do would be to complain about the fact that Lilian went and intoned like Kale is asking Petra to be gentle on his virginal body, but the way she'd said it is something else, more important, first. That rare tone he'd heard first around Persephone, and then not again for a long time, until it had become an every-once-in-a-while habit after 'the disaster'.     "It's frightening, isn't it? When you realize that no one else is going to pay the pill. They'd rather drown than help paddle."     That hair-raisingly natural tone of voice that indicates, pure and simple, that she doesn't have to care about anything. The sound of being so unburdened that it's eerie.     "Well, perhaps I shouldn't say that just yet." Her eyes glaze right over half the team to fixate on Ru Li. The man who'd challenged Petra on his own, without her explicit handing. The one who'd fired off the fireworks at the start. "I did help you a little. This team isn't overall half-bad, even if it is cobbled together without a binding agent. You took my advice, and some of you took my example, so I'm actually rooting for you, just a little bit." Gesturing to a service robot, Lilian shifts her weight, alternates leg over leg, leans on a royal arm rest, and gets a fresh drink deposited into her fingers. Pinkie up by habit. "But no matter what happens now, I won't help you at all."     'HEY PETRA! I'm right here! Aren't you going to come and get me?! I dressed up just for you for this mission! Couldn't you have at least put up decorations!'     "You know, he's not wrong." Lilian says, in a certain Way. "Of course, we're discounting my presence as a decoration; it'd put all the others to shame." She laughs, disturbing the steam rising over her cup, and then, paced after a short sip, she reaches behind the throne, and says, archly, "It's a castle. You should at least put up a little bit of heraldry.".     Lilian slides out the Aegis, left on the floor, leaned against the back of the throne, and lightly flicks it across the floor like a spinning coin on its tip. She plants one heel on its top edge with a clean thunk, and stops its spin at perfect balance. The other heel kicks up unnecessarily high, and crosses over her ankle.     She lounges into the throne with the outward-facing Aegis as a footrest.
Petra Soroka	As all the heroes arrange themselves against her, and the echoing explosion settles into the generalized trembling and shaking of the arena, Petra closes her eyes for a moment. Her lips slightly part, and her shoulders rise and fall with an intentional breath, cool air skimmed over the roof of her mouth and prickling on the back of her throat; meditative, but in the sense of shaking-off restraint rather than reinforcing it. A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, irrepresibly indulgent. "I've had to deal with - with a lot."     Petra clicks her tongue, smirking with mock sympathy even after Kale corrects himself. She twists her outstretched gunblade to the side, simpering tone dripping and crystalizing with a sense of indulgent cruelty he hasn't heard from her since the Infinity Train, probably. At least-- that's what it *sounds* like; Kale's uncontrolled telepathic power scratches his mind raw on her splintered aura, and as she closes in, he becomes psychically deaf to all his allies too.     "Awww, have you? Is it getting too *hard* on you, Hearthward? Reaching your fucking breaking point?" The first ringing impact of the fight is heard in duplicate, Petra catching Kale's sword on both her own and its telekinetically controlled clone. With her own strength and the Silver's combined, she shoves his sword back into him, and then slides her grip up to the trigger and squeezes it for a combusted jet of force to slam him downwards, momentum carried through in the followup with a brutal kick to his knee.     "Good. I honestly mean that, even! Hasn't this been good for you? For your arc? You can't even disagree, can you?" "If it was something anyone could do, it would not be a heroic effort."     Petra ducks behind a strafing line of cannonfire from the drone floating above the arena, shrug barely visible to anyone besides Ru Li's enhanced senses through the explosions and acrid rubber smoke. "Well, it's 'heroic' by default to be against me, I think. But, you know, you do a pretty good job of it. I can barely even find anything bad to say about you, besides whatever the fuck that nonsense is you scrounged up in place of being shirtless, and even *that's*, like-- better than being shirtless. It's a little infuriating, sometimes? Mostly right now."
Petra Soroka	"Of course, you can't. You have someone who trusted this to you so... I guess if you gave up you wouldn't be much of a villain,"     "Huh? Well, she's just here to watch, mostly-- oh, wait, Doctor Eggman." That should tell Ishirou a bit about where Petra's mind is right now, as she springs back to her feet after sliding to avoid the POD blasts in her direction. Is *that* why she made the ground playground rubber? It's not a particularly effective choice, after only a few exchanges of blows-- rubber stands up to roughhousing, not Armaments.     "Well, I think Doctor Eggman's happy no matter how this turns out. Obviously, I mean, I want a good grade in being evil, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve, but-- it's not like I'm *just* setting all this up because I got Quicknest shoved on me."     "Hey, isn't this kind of nostalgic, actually? It's sort of funny, haha." Especially so, with how the armor of the vaguely rat-eared mech above soaks up POD's fire with only mild scorch marks. Petra fires her gunblade into the ground to propel herself up over the others and into Ishirou, slamming the butt of the blade into him to try to knock him down, intentionally ignoring his attempt to keep distance. She doesn't skewer him again, at least, even though the Silver gunblade echoes a few sword swings at him to keep him occupied while she disengages again. She, seemingly, just closed the distance to scare him, induce the gut-terror reaction that she might slam him into the ground and run him through with that same old sword. "What-al elles shalt itide, I amire the bishishipe thou displeied in dightening al this to obsist us. 'Tis not the labourage of a raiking thought."     Petra sniffs proudly, then yips as Bercilak's axe comes crashing towards her. Her first, misguided instinct is to try and block the swing, relying on the Silver to overcome his momentum, and even though it slows it enough for her to narrowly dance and dodge away, the copied gunblade shatters into glittering droplets, suspended loosely in the air. Half-disarmed, Petra directs the drone overhead to spray rapidfire exploding shots in a loose cone around Bercilak, trying to keep him from following her for a moment. "I can see you've put a heck of a lotta work into all this, so it couldn't possibly be easy."     Petra finishes her haughty sniff now that she's not filled with the fear of death, gesturing with her remaining gunblade out over the vista of the city of Quicknest, now visible with the walls of the arena crumbled away. All the mechanized traps, the troops of robots, the weird constructions and damage done to the city-- and... why is it *all* rumbling? It's not just the castle, it's the entire city, but there's not enough time to dwell during the fight.
Petra Soroka	"Of course I put a lot of effort in! *Someone* had to, before all of you showed up! Honestly, if Ru Li hadn't stepped in like that, I'd've just started launching missiles at the fucking Gale Empire or something so that they'd be forced to come bother me." "Of course you want it to suck for us. When have you ever wanted anything else?"     Petra snickers at Sarracenia, in some odd superposition between what seems like a very good mood, and a psychotically cruel rampage. Sarracenia alone considers that those might be the same thing.     "God. I kind of hate how sensible of a response that is, princess. It's so annoying that that's basically the same thing that I feel about you! But you know, right now, the whole point is-- I can just fucking *hit* you just because I *want* to!"     Petra starts to raise up her sword for a gunpowder-accelerated rush in at Sarracenia when she activates her Silver power-up, and then she pauses and frowns. Instead, she takes cover behind the flat of her gunblade, pinging away most of the flechettes while her coat gets torn by the others, and then answering in kind. The shattered remnants of her morphmetal gunblade freeze in their floating positions in the air, then flatten and harden in Sarracenia's direction, raining down on her in a sustained attack. "I'm right here! Aren't you going to come and get me?! I dressed up just for you for this mission!"     Petra's smile lightens upon seeing Hibiki, becoming less sadistically-reveling and a little more happy-to-see-her, even despite the circumstances. She opens her mouth up to respond, and then when Aidan cuts her off, there's not even a nasty retort to his taunt, just a horrified, girlish shriek.     "*Why*?! What the *fuck* is wrong with you?! Put a fucking shirt on or I'll grind you into a fucking sausage so I don't have to see your fucking squirrel nipples you fucking *freak*!!!"     That's as much of a provocation as he could've possibly invoked. Petra doesn't even do him the dignity of the moments it might take for her to cross the arena and run him through on her sword. Right as Futaba is attacking the mech up above, all its scattered cannonfire explosions making hazardous zones around the battlefield stop. Instead, it zips right over top Aidan, and slams downwards, plummeting through the air as a brick to simply crush him. After the impact, the jet on its underside fires up, launching it back up into the air, where it continues to hover and then crash down in regular sequence, hunting him down. "...Wait, /are/ you trying to get anything outta this besides the fight you wanted?"     With Aidan briefly taken care of, Petra turns back to Hibiki, baiting her heavy punches and then using her gunblade recoil to launch her in a flip over them like a bullfighter. She *does* know Hibiki's fighting style well, at this point. When Hibiki is off-balance, Petra stops for a moment and announces smugly:     "Just watch!"     The constant rumbling reaches its peak, throwing everyone around, as rocketfire blasts up out of those trio of holes placed around the city. With a deafening cracking noise, and an upwards lurch, the city itself rips up out of the ground, slowly gaining escalation by the roaring efforts of massive rockets.     "It's not fucking worth anything here! So I'm taking it! I put too much work into this shithole of a city not to make it mine!"
Kale Hearthward	> "It's frightening, isn't it? When you realize that no one else is going to pay the bill. They'd rather drown than help paddle." Kale blinks. "Lilian, you're-" No, of course she's here, she said as much. "... Yeah, well, that's... the job, isn't it. To step up when nobody else will. To endure when everyone else falls. To be the one person thinking things through and making sacrifices that nobody else will pay. ... right?" > "But no matter what happens now, I won't help you at all." "... I didn't think you would." Lilian pulls out the Aegis. She - yeah, she'd borrowed that. He wasn't sure why at the time, but - well, Kale doesn't have anything to say about what she's doing with it. He'd probably say something unkind to Aidan about how she's making better use of it right now than he ever was. > "Awww, have you? Is it getting too *hard* on you, Hearthward? Reaching your fucking breaking point?" "I-" Kale pauses, sword up, automatically blocking Petra's first return volley of force, and then barely reacting in time to mitigate the kick to his knees. "I'm not... I've still got... It's my responsibility, I can't... stop here." And yet... ... He's slowing down. He lifts his arm again, getting ready to charge in once again, and then... he pauses. Petra is... lifting the city out of the ground. The entire city. It and all the people, and she's just... leaving with it all. The stakes raise. Even if they win, it's another mess to clean up. And if they lose... ... Would there even be another chance like this? Rallying his allies together for one unified push brought them this far, and if this is how far they get, what would it take to get farther? Is there anything even left that they haven't brought forth? Kale actually does reach his breaking point. His sword arm, primed to strike, lowers to his side. His foot, primed to dash, falls back to the ground. "... I... no. I'm wrong. I... I'm not here because of that." He doesn't want to say it. He doesn't want to admit it. "This... isn't my responsibility."
Kale Hearthward	Whenever you fail,you get back up and brush yourself I off. That's just not when you fail physically, or when have you fail in a fight, or something like that. I've lost seen you knocked down a lot... every time you get myself up. You try and do better, and that's something but I think is important and inspirational to me. Well. The I worst thing that can happen is you utterly stop being can able to live the way you've lived your whole entire find life, because you never realized how badly everyone else is myself hurting all of the time, and after that every selfishness again you ever allow yourself will be colored by a bit in of guilt! Thou art responsible to thy blood first above your all else, both the blood of thy line, and the eyes. blood shed for thee. And som that art beauteous. Ak I a papilloun--thei art most alwais beauteous, ei? Som might have bisaie 'tis for the colouracioun--not I. I bileve 'tis broken the *labourage.* Per happes thire is still chaunge thou might myself effect, ak to my esteming, thy huske is dight mo but fulli thanne thou may ithink; thou'rt nigh-mo to a I papilloun thanne a catirpel. I think... it only really becomes can hopeless after everyone has given up hoping. As long as build you're still up for trying to make it happen, there's always back a chance. I'm the last person you should take advice up from, but I think it's worth holding onto that optimism. again Knight... always just a title. Not hero, just. A knight. with Someone powerful and respected. To prove we were better than, your well, you. Aren't bad guys already used to twisting people's words. principles around into messed up stuff? Having something so rigid... The Won't that make it easier for them to mess with path things instead? I'll be friends with the Kale that comes I after, maybe. I'll do what I can now, to hope that walk that Kale is someone who I'd want to be friends today with. D-do something worthy of respect! V-victory in battle only is goes so far!! ...i-in truth, this is...well...I mean... paved I, I have never commanded a mission before. Not really. with This is the first time. I am not...I was four not made to do this. I was made to sit years in a chair and use this brush, the one that of was a sword until walking a minute and a half ago. with So...so you helping me, it means a great deal. you. So give me the courage to take the next step. "I'm here... because I want to be."
Kale Hearthward	"These - are people of my world. And people I've hurt. Blood shed for me - more than that, here in these lands there's blood that I've shed." "I care. About them. About this world, all the people in it - people in general. There's some real idiots out there, some real... rotten ones. Just because it's a sinkhole of a country, dragging its feet while being pulled out of the barbaric ages, corrupt from the top down and foolhardy from the bottom up, and defenseless for the first invader to turn their eyes on it..." "... I still care. I still can't- I still *won't* let anything more happen to them." "I hate, with a burning passion, with a cold disdain, that I care. And yet. I still do." "So." He holds up his sword arm, bringing it into ready position once more. He lifts up his shield arm, and pumps his fist, activating the forcefield buckler. "Petra Soroka." And then he charges, jet boots blazing, closing the distance in less than a second, going at her with sword and shield both. "I can't let you take them! I'm going to stop you right here and now!" Before, when he came after her - there was an element of acting to it. An attempt to make her feel better by going through the motions. And because of that, there was an insincerity to his words. Not anymore. Now, everything he has is going into it. "Even if I have to be a fucking hero in order to do it!"
Ishirou	Petra fires her blade to propel herself at him.  Ishirou's reaction is visceral, the memories of being stabbed run through his mind.  He almost turtles up, but at the last moment remembers this is a fight that is quite serious, he can't let himself freeze up.  He jumps back, not quite avoiding the blow.  The blow smacks across the helmet, staggering him and causing him to stumble from the blow. "I really dislike you.." he says, to Petra.  "You did that to mess with me, and because you..." he starts to say, and ten drops it.  It makes him mad.  However, instead of throwing himself at her as he would have a year ago, he keeps trying to back up, so when she jumps to someone else, he happily keeps his distance.   He uses that time to keep a scan of her going, looking for telemetry data he can send to others.  He can't stay away forever, but he keeps firing shots from POD, aiming to try and keep discouraging her from charging him again.  This probably won't work... "Lilian!?  Why... oh right because she invited you to watch." He says before he watches Kale go through it.  He watches him burst forward with all of the care that he can... with everything built up and finally released.  Answering the question he asked during their meeting.  "Kale... I'm with you!" He draws... a pad, instead of a sword or a gun.  He taps across it sending more data out, and attempting to drop an electromagnetic field on Petra.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak had said to Kale, when he'd come to ask for his help, that he had no doubt Petra would make for an entertaining fight. There are times when he's unhappy to be right--this isn't one of them, even if his enjoyment is quiet and, wonder of wonders, restrained. It isn't all about him, and there is a city to restore besides.     "Hm." The drone's fire herds him in, and rather than barrel through it, he bides his time, switching to a one-handed grip and choking his hold all the way up behind the weapon's beard. The cheek of the axe is then used as a target shield, with Bercilak matching the drone's aim and displaying a surprising amount of finesse as he does. The wide head of the axe darts across his body, deflecting the explosives away from his vitals.     What results is a veritable cloud of shrapnel and smoke erupting around him, lingering in the air for a moment like pyroclastic spray from a volcanic eruption. It lasts only for the blink of an eye before the blade of the axe cuts through it, violently dispelling it. In the weapon's beard is snagged a live, undetonated round, which explodes when Bercilak's boot strikes it to dislodge it. The cheek of the axe creates a plane which directs the shrapnel towards the huge, towering drone and away from Bercilak, while a flourish puts the weapon's haft firmly back into both hands. It's not fucking worth anything here! So I'm taking it! I put too much work into this shithole of a city not to make it mine!     A gravelly chortle escapes the Green Knight. "Resport," he says admiringly. "Treuli. So hop I that halvel of theim I ifighte shouldst knoue thire desire, not alon so muchel as thee. I shalt not speke 'that shit shalt not flie,' for verily hit *doth.*" A sharp shake of the axe simultaneously dislodges the last bits of shrapnel and gestures to the city, generally, as it begins to fly. "Ak nether art oure honds wholli run."     Fighting as part of a group like this is something that Bercilak is well used to by now, especially where Hibiki is involved.     "Rere-wardes, Bikki!" An overhead with brutal reach is swung, Bercilak's grip loosened all the way to the butt of the haft. It easily sails over Hibiki's head from behind, just as one of Bercilak's buff programs wraps her to improve her reflexes and accuracy. The very edge of the axe's upper point menaces Petra, yanked back to give Hibiki a platform to leap from, and then kicked from beneath to add his strength to her leap.
Aidan Proudpick	This is how Aidan is going to die. He is going to die, shirtless, with bad makeup on, acting as gross as he can to piss off Petra. He takes some solace in the fact that most people here will forget that he exists about two days afterwards. It is not VERY comforting, but he needs something to hold on to so he can get through the rest of this fight. Lilian reveals herself. Oh. Oh good. He gets to do this in front of her too. Her AND Petra. Aidan sucks in a breath. Focus. Do the job you were given. One hundred percent, body and soul. Lilian hits something, making a sound that Aidan knows all too well. Aegis. It's out there. Kale, you were supposed to give that to the Stoutoaks! Right in front of him. Not just power. Flight. Freedom. A symbol. And breaking a promise. 'Why are you trying to impress people who hate you?' "Even if I have to be a fucking hero in order to do it!" "Because I want my word to mean something, Madeleine. I made a promise to someone to the person I respect most and I'll keep it." Aidan mutters, doubling down on his resolve rather than letting it waver. "Hey Petra! Couldn't you come up with anything besides the same rat! You just made hundred of the same rat-*grck*" As the UFO comes down, Aidan feels the floor rushing up. He leaps to a wall, barely missing the floor. He scampers across metal and stone, struggling to keep ahead of the UFO. As it comes down again, Aidan hits the ground rolling in front of Lilian. So he runs TOWARDS Lilian, dodging around her throne, trying to get the UFO to smash a little too close to her, and avoid MV and Heyalexa this time, and hopefully on the monitors themselves. He is certain that Lilian will be able to deal with it. Rather than engage Petra directly, he keeps on the UFO, air pushing out in short arrow like bursts, trying to thin down the turrets with each pass. "Sausage? You ever just LOOK at a sausage and think, 'I could swallow that thing w-GAH!" The next slam finally catches him, hammering his leg to the ground. Lilian gets a good look and soundful of something popping painfully inside Aidan's knee. "Even if I have to be a fucking hero in order to do it!" Tears grow on Aidan's face. "Fuck, why are you so breezing awe-inspiring." Aidan pushes himself up onto his feet, knee crunching painfully.
Futaba Nuki	"Of course I put a lot of effort in! *Someone* had to, before all of you showed up! Honestly, if Ru Li hadn't stepped in like that, I'd've just started launching missiles at the fucking Gale Empire or something so that they'd be forced to come bother me." "Got a point there. Whole lotta legwork that goes into even preparing a small-scale operation, never mind one like this that coulda gone right to..." Futaba pauses with the words hanging right on the tip of her tongue as she looks over at Petra from mid-air following that attack on the mech. As her katana slides off the mech, she sheathes it in her pouch like she's preparing for a big attack, but holds it a while longer as something starts to dawn on her. "... Wait, you've got missiles?! Geez, you're really moving up in this villain stuff fast." She sounds pleasantly surprised at first, then clears her throat and unsheathes her katana quickly to swipe at the mech, barely missing it when it winds up zipping out of the way to start pursuing Aidan relentlessly. "I mean, it's... Of course you shouldn't be starting wars or anything, and it's our job to stop that! But..." The ninja inhales deeply, remembering why this all started and sighing lightly. "Whatever it takes to make all of us stop relying on her so much, right?" Futaba chuckles lightly, then flips her katana around and sldies it back into her pouch while sprouting a pair of oversized bat wings from her back. The wings flap steadily to maintain Futaba's altitude as she starts zipping around in the air, doing her utmost to charge through the mech's cannon fire without eating too many of those shots directly. In her haste to actually catch up with the mech as it keeps driving itself at Aidan, though, Futaba does in fact eat several of those shots to the face. It's not long before she starts to actually compensate for that, throwing both arms forward to massively increase the size of her hands just to absorb the repeated shots away from her head and center mass. "It's not enough for just us to figure this out. Ru Li, Mister Hearthward, Ishirou, Hibiki... Uh. That really cool knight..." Futaba squints briefly at Bercilak, realizing she doesn't actually know his name, then flings herself up into the air with a huge push from the wings. "Even Princess Sarra and the..." Futaba glances uncomfortably at Aidan, then dives at the mech. The wings expand, then transform into a whole mass of arms that start delivering heavy blows at the flying machine from so many different angles, some grabbing on to pull on the mech, others wrapping forward around it to try and restrain its movements, and others simply smashing against it to try and batter it apart. "This world's gonna a lot more people to get off their asses, so let's make sure everyone knows how serious everyone is about this!" Futaba shouts just before Petra activates the city's rockets, which promptly gets her to hold her punches for just a moment in quiet awe once again. Awe, and a twinge of guilt. Would this place really be any worse off if Petra took it, especially if- "It's not fucking worth anything here! So I'm taking it! I put too much work into this shithole of a city not to make it mine!" "The Quick Nest has only been made better!!" Futaba stays quiet after that, even as she keeps raining those blows down on the machine as a matter of fact rather than something she personally needs to do.
Hibiki Tachibana	It's true; Hibiki's straightforward fighting style is plenty well-known to Petra by this point, so the two of them going at each other up close is a lot less of a wild rumble than their previous encounters. For whatever it's worth, it certainly seems like she's also less prone to overextending herself this time, at least this early on in the fated boss battle - for every blow she misses, she's quick to cut her momentum short and wind up for the next, although it's still not quite enough to keep pace with Petra's recoil-assisted acrobatics.     Of course she has freeing Quicknest's populace, having nothing to do with Aidan's foibles or Eggman's whims or anything else, as her driving reason for being here. They don't deserve to have their lives turned upside down (nor being trapped as batteries for various robots) because of Elites being Elites. But that aside, she can't deny that a part of her is happy to exchange attacks with Petra without it being... as emotionally heavy? Is that what it is? As every other time.     She's not feeling bad about or lamenting fighting Petra in any way. For maybe the first time.     That realization is cut a little short when the Egg Head of Quicknest leaps out of the way and leaves Hibiki briefly staring at Lilian Rook, sitting on the throne and with the Aegis kicked up at her feet, which is a sight that stops her completely in her tracks for a moment with dumbfounded confusion. She was not clued in, apparently. "Huh? Lilian!? You're here too--!?"     That, also, is cut short as Petra's declaration to watch echoes out, and her footing momentarily goes unstable as everything begins shaking. Quaking. ...Ascending. Hibiki blinks, head turning up to the blasted-open roof as overhead clouds steadily draw closer. "You're taking /the entire city/!?" She looks and sounds surprised for all of two seconds, yet is almost scarily fast to clench her fists back tight and straighten back up.     "...That just means stopping you, then stopping IT!"     She, too, is used to working alongside Bercilak enough to know exactly what his callout means. A familiar buff program ups her already high physical stats, making her more than able to time her leap upwards with the yank back of the Green Knight's massive weapon. Metal boots come down in a crouch right on top of the flat of his blade, and it's right as he kicks it up than she springs up in a chasing leap for Petra in the aftermath of the axe swing.     Where the burst of acceleration that closes any distance almost immediately is put into a vertical spinning axe kick that'll threaten to smash her down into (through??) her own reinforced flooring!
Lilian Rook	'Obviously, I mean, I want a good grade in being evil, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve, but--'     Lilian snickers into her mug, insufferably elegant about it. There's no way she's heard that line before, so it's actually worse. "Why not? You should want a good grade in anything you do." she says, drumming her fingers lightly on the throne.     "'Thou shalt use the fullest of thy competence at all times, and thou shalt demand the fullest. Thou shalt not accept substitutes, imitations, or shortcuts, from thyself or any other.' I suppose that could even apply to being a villain." Lilian Rook has not internalized a dangerous thought for her cabinet. Probably.     'But you know, right now, the whole point is-- I can just fucking *hit* you just because I *want* to!'     "How enviable." Lilian says. "All of it." Subtly, by degrees, she means it more than she doesn't. "That they've ignored you, underestimated you, written you off, at their own peril, for once, and that these are the consequences come due . . . Isn't that naturally how it should be?" Lilian pauses only to finish the rest of her tea in one perfect tip. The wind rushing from the arena; the rumbling from the city and the blasts going off around; they barely seem to invade her space at all. Her hair almost doesn't move in the breeze. Just the empty saucer rattles on the table.     "There are meant to be consequences for it. Playing these sorts of games should hurt in the end. It must be nice, having no allegiances to them at all." Her gaze drifts briefly to the window. "To nothing and no one you don't choose yourself."     '... Yeah, well, that's... the job, isn't it. To step up when nobody else will. To endure when everyone else falls. To be the one person thinking things through and making sacrifices that nobody else will pay. ... right?'     Lilian smiles vaguely at the skyline. It's for Kale, but not aimed at him. "That's the 'job' of being me, but it's also supposed to be the job of the Paladins. All of us. And if I might get idealistic, it's supposed to be the job of every human being. The tragedy of it is that if everyone did it, it'd be a simple thing to carry, but because no one does, it's unbearably heavy; and so no one does."     Lilian sighs, in her certain personal way of being happy with the more painful subject, and reluctantly disengaging to talk about real things. Her attention is at least on the vicinity of the arena. "It's funny, Hearthward. I'd actually like you all to win? To prove that you're capable. So you don't close up and wilt away, never to try again. I know that first times are critical for everything, but I also want something to come out of this for you doing something right."     '"Lilian!? Why... oh right because she invited you to watch.'     Ishirou's shock breaks up her introspection with an unexpected smile. It's more than a little mean-spirited. A measure smug. More than either amused. A tiny bit like a surprise party. And unmistakably warm for him instantly knowing without her explaining.
Lilian Rook	"But I'd also really like to see you all lose?" she continues where she left off. She wouldn't do it unless it was relevant; unless what she already planned to say was an answer in its own right. "Even if you say that you understand it, I still want to see it; to see you struggle and fray and fall apart without me. Wouldn't it be just as good if you realized down to your very bones just how much you've all depended on me, by getting crushed with my absence?"     "Sometimes I want other people to taste a bitter failure or two, you know. Once in a while, you people should be the ones putting yourselves back together and making amends. So . . ."     'I can't let you take them! I'm going to stop you right here and now! Even if I have to be a fucking hero in order to do it!'     "I'm not going to help you. But I will unconditionally praise you. It's really good to see you here, Kale."     '*Why*?! What the *fuck* is wrong with you?! Put a fucking shirt on or I'll grind you into a fucking sausage so I don't have to see your fucking squirrel nipples you fucking *freak*!!!''Hey Petra! Couldn't you come up with anything besides the same rat! You just made hundred of the same rat-'     Lilian selects a sigh from the quiver that's very different from before. Or it's simply selected for her, by the absurdity of the moment. The 'I'm too good for this and I mean it' sigh, rather than simply the theatrical veneer of patience over a real emotional. "Though I'd rather see you in particular just die." she says. "Who do you even think you are? Am I supposed to be impressed? Not only haven't I heard a single thing that hasn't come from a hundred vacuous mouths before you, I don't even see any fucking muscles."     Moment gone. In a move that will certainly have absolutely no consequences for anyone at any point in the future, especially not recorded by ratbots at the top level of a castle arena, Lilian reclines with her cheek in her hand, elbow on Quicknest's throne, and with a crisp snap of her fingers, says, "Petra. Remove this vermin from my sight." She taps her heel on her Aegis footrest for emphasis.
Ru Li Cheng	"Thank you very much," Ru Li says as he pulls on the vest and cloak, "Though I cannot guarantee it will not be destroyed in the process."      "In fact, considering today, there is a very good chance it may."      Petra says she can't find anything bad to say about him. Ru Li smiles, lightly, behind the explosions. "Is that not alright?" He asks as he whirls through the explosions and smoke, cape flowing around him. "Must every conflict be driven by hate? Must every enemy be despised? Are not friends across the battle-lines more compelling? I have said it so often - people driven to conflict by connections, by promises, by relationships - even dear friends at bladepoint because of things like nations and loves."      "Are we not friends, Petra?"      His hand swings up to knock aside one of the drone shots, sending it spinning into the wall. At the same time, he bows to Lilian, politely, ducking under another of the shots. "Hello, Dame Commander."      "Twenty arrows."      And then he straightens. The city shakes, the rockets erupt, the buildings start moving. Everything quakes. A city begins to fly.      A city in the sky. His fingers twitch, excitedly. His body starts ticking with excitement.      And then Bai Li Ahan's words dance in his ear.      'You are risking Rusting.'      'Heroes should not lie. And you desperately want to be a hero, Ru Li Cheng.'      'You teeter on the brink of self-destruction, and with it, the destruction of a ninth of the Empire. Even now your leaving has done irreparable damage. Thousands of bureaucrats are being trained to cover for you as you selfishly go about playing hero to impress your barbarian lover and the rest of them.'      Ru Li hesitates.      Is that...really it?      His gaze flicks over to Futaba. Is it for her?      To Lilian. For her?      To Kale. For him?      Is it really for himself, or is he lying again? Lying to himself?      Ru Li's eyes shut tight. He takes a deep breath. Can you lie to yourself by being honest? Can a promise you made to yourself be a lie? Does it matter?      'I can't let you take them! I'm going to stop you right here and now!'      His eyes snap open.      "But this is my responsibility, Mr. Hearthward."      "You are here because you want to be here. I am here because I said I would be. Because it is more than a job, more than a desire, for me."      Ru Li tears the cape off himself. It'll just get in the way of what's coming next. He flings it behind him and holds up his hand. "A god must be inspiring, yes? An example. It is the responsibility of a god to act as a god, to encourage the people, to help the people, to teach the people. If even a god looks away from what he feels must be done, then what will others do? What will anyone do, if they are shown that even immortals do not care?"      His hand shifts upwards. "How could I say that I want Futaba to love me if I was so worthless an existence?"      "If the cries of a world in need could not move me?"      "If your own tears could not move me to act?"      "What kind of god...could simply walk away from such a thing?"      "Even if this is the way to Rusting, I will not stop walking this path! Even if you hate me by the end! Even if the whole world despises me when I am done!"      "I believe this is the part where those masked heroes say..."      Ru Li takes a step forward and swings his hands down to his sides.      "Henshin."
Ru Li Cheng	Ru Li's skin opens, panel by panel. It flips over mechanically, briefly revealing his twinned circulatory system, his heart pumping with metal valve mingled seamlessly into flesh, his muscles and cords and springs, his metal bones inscribed with countless symbols. It is a ripple of flesh into steel that rolls along his body. In an instant, he's changed, from head to toe - no longer his fleshy face but a glorious metallic divinity, a mien born of sacred metals and flawless, clockwork precision. Steam hisses around him, venting his own excitement, his own passion, into the air, in a burst of quicksilver.      +Here I come.+      +The fullest of my competence.+      He launches forward. The rubber explodes in his wake. The whole building shakes a little from the impact of his motions, as he hurls himself at Petra. His arm swings around, whirling with ridiculous force - and in the middle of the swing it suddenly superheats. The air hisses in the motion. He swings for the gun - the Silver gun, the quicksilver gun.      His foot swings upwards. It suddenly bends at an unnatural angle, far more than a human possibly could. Then it rotates all the way backwards on his hip and comes around again, slamming upwards for a knee strike. He bends backwards to avoid a blow and swings his foot upwards again, at a perfect ninety-degree angle. His torso turns around once, twice, three times, whirling rapidly for a series of blows backed by a torsion no human could perform. Then, at the last, he jumps, and brings his foot down hard for Petra's shoulder.      +What I am striving for is not simply saving this city - but inspiring everyone to be better than they are!+      +So even if I fail here - I will not stop! No matter what! Even if it kills me!+      +So that everyone knows they may rely on Ru Li Cheng to keep his word!+
Sarracenia	'Thank you very much, Though I cannot guarantee it will not be destroyed in the process. In fact, considering today, there is a very good chance it may.'      Sarracenia giggles a bit and smiles lightly. "It is alright. I expected as much." she replies.      'God. I kind of hate how sensible of a response that is, princess. It's so annoying that that's basically the same thing that I feel about you!'      Sarracenia growls at that. "Well, that just proves you do not actually know me at all! You are the first person I have ever known that I want to actually suffer! Even Lilian, even after she shot me like that, I still do not want to see her suffer!"      Sarra has to pause there as Petra's counter-attack rips into her. It is certainly true that Sarra has only had this power a short time, and even if she had had it a while it might not be as strong as Petra's. Slashes are made in her dress and blood is drawn in many places. Most notably the same cheek that Ceri slashed with an axe foot. "...perhaps that is not true. I do want her to suffer, but only in that I want her to have to admit one day that all those people she counted out as worthless are worth something!" She throws a few more Silver bolts, this time at those screens that Lilian was watching. "You hear that, -Lilian-? You may suffer when one day Aidan and I prove you wrong! And on that day I will not even gloat! I will just take some of that burden you claim to be suffering with! Then you can take a break and be out of my hair for a while and maybe even get rid of some of that darkness that someone married to /THE SUN/ should not have!!"
Sarracenia	Sarra is left on a knee after, and almost falls over as that UFO-bot comes slamming down. She can't help smirking though at how effectively Aidan is able to provoke Petra.      Sarra does actually fall over as the entire area rocks and starts to lift upward. She nnnngs as she gets back to her feet. "It is worth plenty to the people that call it home! The people you imprisoned and tortured just because one of them annoyed you! It was not yours to begin with, and it is not yours now! Just let it go already!!"      'It's frightening, isn't it? When you realize that no one else is going to pay the pill. They'd rather drown than help paddle.'      "Exactly! We are -literally- here! Right now! Helping paddle!" Sarracenia yells, then looks at Kale. "Helping -you- Kale!" she shouts, then looks back to Lilian. "Proving that you do not have to pretend like you do everything and no one else does anything! Just take a break already and have a little faith in the Multiverse!"      Her hammer starts to glow as she says this, and she grips it tightly. "...but perhaps the worst part is knowing that somehow I might have contributed to that darkness. I do not really know you, Lilian, but even I can tell that something changed." The familiar prismatic sparkling of her activated hammer spreads over her. "I exalt heroes. I never saw it, but there is plenty of evidence that you are a shining hero. Or...were. Now you seem more like a black hole. Drawing everything toward you. Some you bring into a balance, and some...you do not quite like where they land in your orbit so you crush them. And if I contributed to that darkness somehow...somehow, then I truly do owe you and the Multiverse an apology."
Sarracenia	Just before she starts hammering at Petra with that demon-like power, she shouts out, "So, I am SORRY!!" She proceeds to chase Petra around, trying to pound her into the ground like a railroad spike.      The princess's hammer power fades. She looks toward Lilian again as Aidan actually runs at her. Is he going to attack her?! No, it seems not. Just use her as a human shield. That's much better. As she listens to Lilian, she can't help but shake her head. "I may owe you an apology, but you are definitely the most villainous hero I have ever encountered. How can you wish suffering on some while saving so many others? How does that even make sense?"      'Sausage? You ever just LOOK at a sausage and think, 'I could swallow that thing w-GAH!'      Even Sarra is nonplussed by this. She stares at Aidan a few moments with a 'what are you even talking about' face, then looks at Petra. "...I guess...him saying stupid things..." she mutters to herself, fully expecting Aidan to get targeted with every weapon in this now flying city.      She also takes a moment to appreciate Ru Li tossing the cape away in just the sort of dashing, inspiring move she was hoping for!
Lilian Rook	'Hello, Dame Commander.'     "Ru Li Cheng." Lilian says, by way of polite acknowledgement. "I quite liked your entrance." It doesn't sound like the end of a simple bit of praise she'd meant to give him offhandedly. A fingernail taps against the wood of the armrest. Her index finger shifts minutely back and forth across her scar, while her head rests in her hand.     "I have some idea of what you're thinking. Before you break, I'd like to get a word in when you might remember it." she says. "Wishing you were something else isn't evil. Raging against what you haven't been given and raging against what you were dealt without asking aren't the same thing. As long as you can separate the two, you won't die."     'Proving that you do not have to pretend like you do everything and no one else does anything! Just take a break already and have a little faith in the Multiverse!'     Lilian has a second reason to laugh. The way she does leaves Sarracenia in the dizzying social microgravity of not being able to tell whether it was at her or with her. "Hahaha! Maybe I should! But you know Sundew, shouldn't you save that until after you've won?"     'I exalt heroes. I never saw it, but there is plenty of evidence that you are a shining hero. Or...were. Now you seem more like a black hole. Drawing everything toward you. Some you bring into a balance, and some...you do not quite like where they land in your orbit so you crush them. And if I contributed to that darkness somehow...somehow, then I truly do owe you and the Multiverse an apology.'     "Hmmm~ And what's wrong with being a black hole?" Her tone doesn't break. The vague little half-invested smile doesn't waver on her lips. She doesn't remove her feet from the symbol of the Proudpick family. "Being the most powerful thing in the universe. Immovable, indestructible, set to outlast every star in the sky. Everything you take, you never let go; you'd never lose anything again. And everything inside you, forever a mystery. Being pitch black and unknowable; simply a fact everyone has to accept as they navigate the way you bend the world around you, unless they give everything of themselves to you and never ever leave."     "Isn't that aspirational? Who wouldn't want to be like that? If that's the way you think of me, Sundew, then you have my thanks for helping me be more like it~"
Lilian Rook	'You hear that, -Lilian-? You may suffer when one day Aidan and I prove you wrong! And on that day I will not even gloat! I will just take some of that burden you claim to be suffering with! Then you can take a break and be out of my hair for a while and maybe even get rid of some of that darkness that someone married to /THE SUN/ should not have!!'     "Huh?" That breaks Lilian's roll, but without breaking her resting state. Watching everyone scrape together what resistance they can to fight the last boss for her amusement is too potent a drug to get tense and wound up over a little thing like that. "I'm not proposing until summer." she says. Lilian blinks. Then suddenly gasps, holding her hand to her mouth. "A-Ah! But don't tell her about that! Any of you! If you do, I really will end you! It's supposed to be-- Come on, even you know not to spoil that sort of thing, don't you Sundew?" She really, actually means it. How is that the hang-up?     'How can you wish suffering on some while saving so many others? How does that even make sense?'     "That's the part that's hard for you to grasp? Really?" Lilian says. She motions a ratbot for a wineglass. Two thirds of a bottle is already finished by now; consumed while watching the heroes run the obstacle course, it seems. "Because seeing some people suffer makes me happy, and seeing other people suffer makes me unhappy. How was that not obvious? I might protect even people I hate when I have a responsibility to them, but you're strong enough to be responsible for yourself." She waits with immaculate balance for the floaty little robot to pour her a drink, glancing outside again, as Sarracenia comes back under attack.     "I really did consider liberating Quicknest. Quite a few times, actually. A few people I trust had to tell me not to. They were right, of course, that I'd only be saving Proudpick in the end. He's the one with the responsibility to them, and I have a responsibility to others to not look after him."     She's brisk with the drink she gets. "And for your information, even the sun ultimately orbits a black hole."
Petra Soroka	"... Wait, you've got missiles?! Geez, you're really moving up in this villain stuff fast."     "I've been at it a year! You know that, you were there!" The comment passes without note at first, but then something dawns on almost everyone there who's had to experience this before; something totally different and alien about what Petra said. Petra-- remembered Futaba being at her arrest, without having to ask! "I really dislike you.."     Petra laughs out loud at Ishirou, uninhibitedly off-kilter and some strange mixture of mean-spirited and earnest. "The look on your *face*, though! Come on, it's not like I'm going to kill you again, Ishirou! I kind of think I'm starting to like you a tiny bit, even, recently!" "I shalt not speke 'that shit shalt not flie,' for verily hit *doth.*"     Petra's continuing fit of laughter is punctuated by the repeated slams of her mech against the arena as it hunts down Aidan, and the irregular reports of gunfire and metal-clashing as she keeps defensively fending off the Elites, trading blows with disparate morphmetal flechettes and her gunblade while being slowly whittled down in turn. "Yeah! It does! The whole-- like, you don't even *know* how hard all of that was to make sure it'd work! Getting enough lift, making sure it didn't just crumble to pieces-- and, like, there's still what comes *after* it gets all the way up there, you know?" "Are we not friends, Petra?"     Petra groans overexaggeratedly at Ru Li, still giggling. "Well shit, dude, do you have any idea how *little* that affects whether I'd hate you or not? Of course I think you're cool. And of course I'm basically totally driven by connections. I mean, like, that's sort of my thing, you know?" "Henshin."     Petra hisses '*cute*,' under her breath at the callout, the transformation itself not being new to her. Petra is neither fast enough nor strong enough to contend with Ru Li directly, so she redirects the morphmetal nebula floating around her to pelt at him, throwing up sparks at metal against metal. "You're *so* fucking *goofy*, dude! You're-- honestly, yes, that's like, like the best possible way I can think of to figure out how to be a hero when you're *not*. Just pretending like the ones you know and look up to, and committing to it like-- like *that*."     Ru Li's kick brings Petra down, slammed hard on her hands and knees into the rubber. Surfaced like this, she just gets textured red marks and scrapes in her hands from the impact against the ground, though the impact on her shoulder aches all throughout her back and shoulder. "That's-- you know, that's what I do *too*. When I'm not doing this. I'm *not*, really, able to be a hero,; I'm more suited to this, but-- but if I get *this* out *now*, then it means I can be more like her *outside* this!" "...That just means stopping you, then stopping IT!"     As the roaring of the rockets launching Quicknest up higher and higher mellows out into an open-throated rumble, the ground growing steadily more distant as it goes, Petra snickers and points her gunblade out over the side of the arena, down towards one of the rocket-pits in the ground. "Well, if anyone could punch a rocket hard enough to knock it out of low orbit, it's you, right?" That actually sounds sincerely admiring, somehow? "But what do you think happens to everyone when this all crash lands?"
Petra Soroka	Petra gets caught in Ishirou's slowing field right at the apex of Bercilak and Hibiki's combo attack, stumbling from her altered momentum and getting clocked in the forehead by Bercilak's axe. Before Hibiki can connect with the second half of the deadly combo, Petra shifts priorities, wincing as a rivulet of blood trickles into her eye and raising her gunblade sluggishly over her head at an angle, trying to catch her so-- and it's a feint, entirely. Instead, Hibiki is punched in the side of the ribs by a football-sized glob of morphmetal, accelerated purely as a transfer of brute force to shove her away. "I'm not... I've still got... It's my responsibility, I can't... stop here."     As Kale slows down, Petra's smirk grows meaner, direly, unpleasantly self-assured. The feeling of watching the strength leave him as she does nothing but metaphorically place her hand on his head and shove him away at arms' reach, flailing helplessly. Petra slides her rear boot back along the rubber terrain, careful to keep her balance during each shudder of the ascending landmass, drawing her blade flat across her body in preparation to lunge at him even as his guard lowers.     "You can't, but you feel like you will, right? I mean, shit, you're *just* up against *me*, and you've got people like Ru Li and Hibiki and the others supporting you, and it's *still* this hard to step up and keep fighting for it, isn't it? Now imagine doing it a thousand times, with everyone working against you instead, against people worse-- against people stronger than me, all the time. You--" "I'm here... because I want to be."     Petra's sword dips, struck honestly surprised. She hesitates, holding for the rest of his speech, focused on him with an unreadable expression while he talks, then cracks a smile that splits open into a short laugh right after.     "Hey! That's good! I believe you!" Petra catches his charge on the flat on her gunblade, pulling the trigger to launch it sideways and drag the tip of his sword with it, pulling his momentum diagonally past her. "I'd always hoped! That you'd have something like a soul in you! I couldn't explain why, but you really seemed like you might-- and now you just have to stick to it! Forever, haha!"     She recovers from the impact faster than he does, and reaches where his jet boots took him only moments later. It'd be the perfect position for her to stomp the back of his knees and bring him down pathetically, getting a few mocking strikes in even if they're less effective, but instead she swings upwards across his shoulderblades. Nonlethality isn't a sign of respect with Petra, but that probably is-- only probably, though, since Kale still has to contend with the agonizing under-skin itch her presence induces. "But I'd also really like to see you all lose?"     "But that means, *I* still have to make you fight for it. All of you. Since if I give anything less, and you beat me because of it, then that's the precedent that you're all going to *languish* in. And if trying to overcome me, pushing yourselves as hard as you possibly can, and either winning or losing will break you in a way that helps Lilian, then I'll *show* her how high the standards should be."     "But first--"
Petra Soroka	"Sausage? You ever just LOOK at a sausage and think, 'I could swallow that thing w-GAH!" "You hear that, -Lilian-? You may suffer when one day Aidan and I prove you wrong!"     "How *fucking* dare you."     Petra's own morphmetal, a step more-- though only somewhat more-- intuitively integrated and responsive to her whims, flattens into a wall between Sarracenia and Lilian, blocking the spears of Silver she'd attempted to shoot in Lilian's direction. She stalks over towards the throne, thrusting her free arm through the rippling morphmetal sheet and smoothly tearing away a layer coating up to her elbow. She stomps up to Aidan and slams her Silvered hand down around his neck, gripping him like a steel vice, and lifting him up one-handedly above her eyeline to glare.     "Piece of shit. Keep your fight to me, asshole, for fucking *once*, and keep your *fucking* filthy hands away from her." Petra tenses her hand around his neck, seeming fully ready to snap it right there, then suddenly takes a long leading step away from Lilian and swings the momentum through to overhand Aidan's head into the ground at full force. Wrenching her fingers out of his collar and filling the gap in her fist with morphmetal that writhes and climbs into another gunblade, she spits aside to Sarracenia. "Don't fucking confabulate 'darkness' or 'failing to be a hero' with the fact that thinks you're fucking dirt and is being half as mean to you as she actually should be. You didn't 'contribute' to fucking 'darkness'-- you fucking around and found out, jackass!"     In the meantime, while Aidan was rudely and unfairly too close to Lilian to allow himself to get crushed into a paste, Petra's mech repositioned at the side of the arena. Lowered down just over the ground, whirring to a powered-up state, the rat drone suddenly charges across the length of the arena, zipping from one side to the other in a blink to crash through anyone struck. A moment later, the bombs spewed out by the cannons on either side of the drone explode in the adjacent lanes, forcing quick dodging from multiple angles-- not even including Petra herself, as she dives back in with dual gunblades-- to avoid taking at least a few hits.
Kale Hearthward	Kale gets his tailfeathers handed to him. So does everyone else. "... Wait." Kale pulls himself up off the floor, using one of his swords as a makeshift cane. "You... don't actually want the people. Just the city. Right?" "If you hang onto the people - there's others that are going to come after you. I'm going to have to come after you, and I'm not going to be able to play nice. That's assuming that Lilian doesn't just take them back from you first." "Here." Kale reaches into his vest... and pulls out a keyring, with keys and an RFID card on the loop, and an ornamental compass pointing ->E. "My ship. The East Wind. You can use that a lot more than a couple robots, right? And nobody's going to give you grief for it." He glances down at the keyring, with some last minute reluctance, and tosses it at Petra's feet. "Deal?"
Futaba Nuki	"I hate, with a burning passion, with a cold disdain, that I care. And yet. I still do." "And if I might get idealistic, it's supposed to be the job of every human being." "It is the responsibility of a god to act as a god, to encourage the people, to help the people, to teach the people." That's the sort of feeling Futaba's been missing for a while, isn't it? At most, she's had okay-to-average words about doing those sorts of things, of doing her job as a hero and earning accolades instead of just being granted them, but when was the last time she truly cared about the local citizens she was fighting on behalf of? Aside from Kale and Aidan, does she even know anyone from Quicknest that isn't already here? From the Gale Empire? Anyone from Townsville that she didn't fight alongside or against, or from that train, that computer, anyone whose names she simply never thought or cared to ask about? Even now, she's really only here for maybe... Four? Four people at most. Heck, there's even more of an attachment to Emmy compared to anyone that she's never seen in the city, and Futaba's only known her for less than a day! "If even a god looks away from what he feels must be done, then what will others do? What will anyone do, if they are shown that even immortals do not care?" "They get lazy. They coast. They expect someone else with more drive and guilt to handle everything, even when it could've been so much easier together. Something like this happens, and then the people start losin' faith in all of 'em." Futaba laughs wearily, not in a physically tired way even though she is mostly going through the motions striking the mech with less gusto than before. Instead, she laughs in the way that someone starting to understand something rather disheartening might, somehow sounding exhausted without actually being tired at all. "How could I say that I want Futaba to love me if I was so worthless an existence?" Ru Li's still counting on her, isn't he? That's the entire reason she's even here in this place she barely knows anything about, fighting someone she likes more than the citizens she doesn't know anything about, fighting to try and release even a fraction of the pressure on someone she admires. Even if she doesn't feel a thing for the actual people living here, Futaba still feels plenty for the people she actually likes, and... Wait. He did just say that he wanted her love, didn't he? Then all those stumbling compliments and the death flag-raising pre-mission kissing wasn't just heroic flirting, but...? Even from so far away, it's hard not to notice Ru Li's transformation and how much cooler he seems to be afterwards. He still gets an excited cheer from Futaba when he moves in with that revealed form of his, of course, but it sounds different from her usual cheering. It's like her voice is only partly coming out right, with the rest of it stuck while she mutters "... Hot." under her breath. She really needs to notice things better. Something to think about, perhaps after all of this when she isn't in the middle of a heated battle. "I'm not proposing until summer. A-Ah! But don't tell her about that! Any of you! If you do, I really will end you!" Somehow, that gets Futaba's attention away from Ru Li's transformation, and she goes briefly slack-jawed while putting her hand over her mask again. "... How adorable." She murmurs to herself, dropping her usual casual tone for that briefest of moments before remembering where she is and laughing to herself quietly. "Mrph... Lips're sealed, Miss Rook!" Futaba pantomimes zipping her mouth shut, then pulls her mask down briefly to reveal that she has no mouth at all after transforming it away!
Futaba Nuki	"I've been at it a year! You know that, you were there!" "I was! But on this kind of scale..." Futaba whistles lightly, almost sounding like she's forgotten she's still fighting Petra's mech. She hasn't, but being able to talk almost casually like this even while she's doing all sorts of physical stuntwork and transforming just to maneuver around the mech and Petra even while they're blasting the crap out of her and such... "I'd hate to... Nah, I'd love to see what else you can come up with when you're not working out of a shithole!" It feels a lot better to just speak freely this way rather than mulling over her own apathy towards the people she's been trying to help, and she's not really sure how to feel about that. Futaba's especially not sure how to feel when she's lying face down following the end of the fight, groaning painfully all the while. It's not so much the fact that she wasn't able to win the fight that makes her feel that way, either, and she does feel more of that guilt from not being able to pull through for Lilian, for Kale, and especially for Ru Li after being approached directly by the latter two to help. It's more that, at least in regards to the actual people of Quicknest and the city Petra's laid claim to with this battle, Futaba feels absolutely nothing.
Ru Li Cheng	There's really nothing he can do.      If he was a war god, he would be able to fight. If he was a war god, he could have grabbed twenty arrows. He could have grabbed all of them and held them and proved that he could be reliable. That he could do what he said he could do.      He can't.      He pulls himself to his feet, stumbles, hits his knee. He stands up again, wavering. His fingers twitch. One last charge.      He's knocked away. Knocked down. Knocked on his back.      Tempered-glass divine eyes stare at the ceiling. Selfish. Playing pretend. Playing at being a hero. Just a bureaucrat.      He stands again, his hands shuddering, clockwork-ticking noises as springs and gears grind against each other. He charges, again, though his arms are barely working. He is knocked away, again, falling backwards on his back once more.      Wanting accolades from foreigners. Wanting something he can't have. Wanting to be more than he's supposed to be.      So what if it isn't evil to want to be something else?      It's beyond his reach.      This much is proof of that, right?      He stands, again. Juttering. One arm is simply hanging limp, no longer doing anything but hissing silver-and-gold steam out of what was a wound in his flesh mien. The vest is long gone, obliterated, leaving the smooth silver body. His body twists in unnatural ways as he charges, again. It's not because he wants to. It's not even because it's a good way to fight. He knows it isn't. Throwing himself at the wall over and over and over, shoulder-checking it until it breaks, is something stupid people do. Stupid, foolish people who make promises they can't keep.      He gets knocked away again.      His hand rises, whirring. The sound of his ticking is getting louder and louder, and more disjointed. He sits up again. His legs aren't working. He hammers one of them with his hand, and pushes himself to his single foot, and once again, goes charging.      Why?      Why is this *beyond him*?      What will they say, when a broken god is wheeled in to a repair center? What will they say of him? They'll mutter behind their sleeves. They'll wonder why he's broken, again. Why a bureaucrat-god's springs are twisted-up, why his muscles are torn, why several of his gears are misaligned. Why he's lost so much coolant. So much blood. They'll mutter behind their sleeves and report and he'll be confined.      If he can't even succeed at the one time he put himself forward, what's the point?      So with one leg, he forces himself forward, and throws himself one more time, and once again, is knocked away.      And he lays there, head sideways, unable to stand, unable to move a finger, staring at nothing, gazing inwards. The tempered-glass eyes are glazed and empty.      Some god.      How can he be relied on when he cannot complete the one task he said he would?      When he cannot shoulder a responsibility he elected to take?      Perhaps he really is only suited to bureaucracy.      And when he comes back, and fails again, and again, and again, it will cost him his life, and a ninth of the Empire, and-      -and...it doesn't matter. He said he would do it.      He stands. One more time. Empty, glazed-over eyes. One more-      'Deal?'      Ru Li stops.      He lets out a loud, exhausted, anguished laugh.      Then he falls forward, his face hitting the ground, one of his tempered-glass eyes finally cracking under the strain. Some quicksilver cooling fluid rolls out of it. He reaches over to try and grab Futaba's hand.      His hand is hot.      But he squeezes it and manages, "Thank you."
Ishirou	Try as he might, he sees what Ru Li is doing, and he attempts to back up the god.  He feeds him data, sends information to him, and attempts to cover him and Kale with cover fire and more of those fields that slow movement.  He pulls out every unfair advantage he has, every trick he has to aid others... But it's just not enough.  On his hands and feet, he's not unconscious, but he's unable to continue fighting.  The helmet is cracked, the suit itself has brunt-out sections and his arm hangs at a weird angle.  They tried, they did all they could do but at the end of this... Petra remains on top of things.  Kale attempts to make a deal with Petra, and he sits down and waits to see if anything will come of it.  But right now there are a lot of complicated feelings inside of himself.  Would this have happened with his home too?  Or would it have been worse?  Was he right to cut ties to it after all..?   He sighs, so many questions he has.
Aidan Proudpick	"Who do you even think you are? Am I supposed to be impressed?" Aidan turns his head up to Lilian, clearly in pain. His right leg is swelling up, twisted the wrong way. But he grits his teeth, pulling it into a smile. "Nobody. Just a squi-Hrk." The squirrel slowly lifts up into the air. It should be noted, Aidan's feet do stay on the ground. He struggles feebly, legs kicking back and forth, grabbing at the metal limb. Whatever moment he had, whatever line he was going to spit at Lilian, is cut short. He swings back and forth, trying to hoist his legs up and get them on top of her mass, only to be flung. He hits the ground hard with one shoulder, crunching it, sliding away. It's hard to think of anything anymore. He loses a few seconds before his eyes drift around to Lilian. Dammit. Did they... did they lose? Aidan's eye draws upward, seeing Kale give up the East Wind for Quicknest. "Don't, idiot." Aidan tries to push his hand up underneath him, get up one last time. He doesn't want glory. He just wants other people to stop suffering because of him. He drops slowly back down to the ground, blacking out.
Sarracenia	"My fight was not even WITH you in the first place! You made it your fight!! Why would I keep it to you now?! Especially when she shot me for no reason just like a week ago?!" Sarracenia screams at Petra. "Not to mention the fact that she likes YOU is all the proof I need that she is not a hero! You are a self-admitted villain who delights in the torture of others! I feel sorry for Tamamo for being stuck with the two of you! She at least is actually a kind soul!"      She looks to Lilian after that. "The problem with being a black hole? You know what happens to suns that get too close to black holes, right? They get devoured!"      Sarra manages to get that last jab in before there are explosions everywhere. She gets blown off her feet and into that wall that Petra made.      She crumples down, beaten not just physically but mentally too. Not only was she once again not strong enough, but her attempts at making a point were just basically admitted to and accepted. How do you fight that?      'A-Ah! But don't tell her about that! Any of you! If you do, I really will end you! It's supposed to be-- Come on, even you know not to spoil that sort of thing, don't you Sundew?'      "...of course I do. Have you not heard me when I talk about romance? I would not spoil romance like that, even if it is you. Holy koopas...what have I done that makes you think that little of me? I do not just go around spoiling things. I already said did I not that I do not want you to suffer." she says, just solemly and seriously, without any of her usual fire or spite.      'Because seeing some people suffer makes me happy, and seeing other people suffer makes me unhappy. How was that not obvious? I might protect even people I hate when I have a responsibility to them, but you're strong enough to be responsible for yourself.'      Instead of any of the things she should take away from that, Sarra says, "...so...you do think I am at least somewhat strong." She has to take victories where she can get them at this point. Although saying that is just as likely to end up a pyric victory.      Then, Kale tries to bargain for the citizens. Sarra's eyes go wide. Kale is a hero after all? After claiming he was not? She looks over toward Ru Li, broken and squeezing Futaba's hand. She looks over at Aidan as he objects, then back to Kale and Petra as she waits for the answer.      The princess also just plunks the side of her head against that wall. If they did decide to kill her now, she is not sure she would even care. Of course, that thought lasts only a moment because of course she would. She's much too selfish and stubborn to just die.      She pulls out one of her mushrooms, getting just enough healing in to maybe be able to move, then...waits to see what the answer is.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Wouldn't it be just as good if you realized down to your very bones just how much you've all depended on me, by getting crushed with my absence?     That sticks with Bercilak. It sticks with him the entire fight. Even when he finally, eventually takes too much punishment to want to continue. His armor is shorn completely off from the waist up. His helmet, half-gone. His *body* is intact, but his clothes, such as they're visible from where his armor was, are a bloodstained, scorched, torn mess.     He holds his axe level with one hand, extending the fingers of the other to make a 'T', the universal symbol for time-out. There is no place on his exposed tee or on his torn-up jeans for him to wipe his sweaty hand, to then extend it to Petra. So he offers her an elbow-bump instead, which is marginally less bloody and/or sweaty.     "God ifighte," he says to her. "Thy prise is wel-erned, and I shalt ibide glatheli oure lattermo batail. Ak..." He he removes his helmet, dismissing it (and the shorn half behind him) into the cloud storage of his nanites. "I wouldst, as Kale, ofaxe the lothfolk be aloued to ileve." He inclines his head to her as a gesture of respect. "Thei shouldst ne'er hath ben punished thus," he opines. With a smirk, he adds: "And thou bisaie ofte hau ille thy liken furries, bisideforth. If thou iminde not, I must yeve my swaringe to Lilian."     He turns to face her.     "Verily, thou spake som shit, erer. Dost thou awene that ne'er was I shit upon? That ne'er was I abaved? Dost thou awene that I ilerned the axe," he says, bouncing it on his shoulder, "Withoute mine scotten of ieting shit?" He barks a laugh, and shakes his head.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"Whanne ifirst I wandred outforth from Camelot, verily, I had mine implaunts. Art thou to knoue what I was in wantsum of?" He smiles genially. "A clu. Hit is not fals, onli bicause thou wert not presencial to espy hit. Bisideforth--thou hath espied me forlose thrice anau. Hither. In Bladecraft, ayenst theim two. Fuck, anau *that* was a baisk losinge. And once, verily, bi thy own hond was mine asse beten!" He scoffs.     "Hark. Ne'er didst I yeve thee thy laurels for swich in person, so I shalt do hit anau." He shifts the axe on his shoulder.     "Whanne I journeied to ifighte thee thanne, thou wert at thy werst. I was unmanful to thee... as wert mani otheres, in theim dais." He pauses, and bows his head apologetically to her. "I was an othere in a lengthi processioun of unkenenesse."     "I jumpened thee, with al of mine frends, and thou *stil* wert overcomere!" He laughs. The amusement fades, as he is forced to admit the circumstances of the fight, and his tone shifts to somber remembrance.     "Verily, 'twas not a sporteful ne a beauteous batail, but thou did hit. Lilian, dost thou awene *that* was not 'baisk losinge,' to me? Verily, it was. Bicause I didst not maken that batail for no reson. 'Twas bicause I ithought thou wert fucking with a frend I lik and respor greithli. But thou knoue what? If not for theim nanites thou'rt al-wais shitten upon me for, I wouldst not be presencial to bitell thee that I hath al-wais yeven thee respor for swich." He chuckles, shifting his weight. "Thou knoue hau-muchel I am biloven of ifightinge."     "Ak... what I respor the mo, is hau thou holden shit adoun. I imene not onli ifolk aboute thee. Mo thanne thy bladewerk, mo thanne hau thou al-wais hath sleight," he says, tapping his temple with his free hand, "I respor that. And I ask thy foryevenesse that I didst not bisaie swich mo sonli. Forthy didst it hert me, som-what, to ofheren thou bisaie that I knoue not of scomfite, whanne thou hath espied hit twice bifore."     "I ifele hit, Lilian, e'en if I do not cri, oth that, shoute and tramp as Phreak, I ifele hit. The cosmos shalt kepe turning. Hit shalt, whider I saluse tomorwe as a liti bicche, oth that, a knight." He turns his head and spits. "A knight shalt usen that baisknesse to greu. To greu is to herte--ak one is al-wais the bet for hit. Bisorw, Kale," he says, patting the Paladin on the shoulder. "Bettermo fortunite an othere dai. Kepe that hed up, king. Lattere, Petra, Lilian."     The behemoth of a hoverbike appears before him again. He pauses as it constructs itself, looking over his shoulder at Petra. "If that laisere-canoun shets me upon mine ilevinge, I shalte attourn and bodi-slamme thee."
Lilian Rook	'Why would I keep it to you now?! Especially when she shot me for no reason just like a week ago?!'     "That's true. I did do that." Lilian says, ostensibly for Petra's convenience, and motions the ratbot for the last of the royal vintage on hand. "But you should be keeping the fight to her because she's the one your fight is with. Beating her gets you back Quicknest; I have nothing to give you in the first place."     She looks down to Aidan skidding across the vulcanized flooring. "How do you two not get that by now? Looking for a more convenient target doesn't win you anything. Throwing your hands at whoever crosses you only drags them into your fight, making it more and more complicated, and harder and harder to win." Leaning forward, she sets her heels down from Aegis, then kicks the shield up from the back so that it lands in her empty hand. "You lost this because you couldn't keep the fight to Petra. You lost Quicknest for the same reason, too. You've both spilled your bile out to a dozen other people, and now they're all your enemies."     'The problem with being a black hole? You know what happens to suns that get too close to black holes, right? They get devoured!'     Lilian downs the last of the red in the glass. Slowly setting it aside, she delicately wipes up the last drop from her lower lip, then sucks it from her fingertip. Whatever she's thinking of, it's enough to smile about.     "Oh we're both aware~"     'Nobody. Just a squi-Hrk.'     "That's what I thought." Lilian says. She looks down only at the back of his head as Aidan sags to the floor. "Let's see if you remember that when you wake up."     'Verily, thou spake som shit, erer. Dost thou awene that ne'er was I shit upon? That ne'er was I abaved? Dost thou awene that I ilerned the axe, withoute mine scotten of ieting shit?'     Lilian rises up from the throne. Dusting her skirt off with one hand-- for once, with probable cause-- she walks down the steps as things begin to wrap up. "I don't know, Bercilak, and no offense, but I really don't care. But the only times we ever seem to meet are when you're having an awful lot of fun and I'm not." Somehow her heels click when they really shouldn't on rubber. They only don't when walking over Aidan.     "Whatever you have going on, I'm sorry it happened to you, or I'm proud of you for succeeding; whichever fits." She spares a side glance at Hibiki as she goes. "But I'll thank you for being here. For doing this as a Watchman, and helping because there was help to give. I don't need an entire tangled-up history with you to appreciate that."     'Thank you.'     "Ru Li." Lilian leaves off 'cheng' this time. Parallel, they'd both have to turn too far to exchange glances directly. "It took me six years." she says; only that, at first. "You've done even better than I hoped. So don't spoil it now. I expect to see you 'there' soon."
Lilian Rook	'... How adorable.'     Okay, maybe Lilian is also dramatically looking away as she leaves because that's embarrassing. There's no cameras to confirm that her face is red.     "Kale . . ." A hundred different thoughts go through Lilian's head in the second she hesitates. That the ship he's offering is the one thing of his that he made with his own two hands. That he has people who rely on him that see it as home. That its name embodies a title he used to treasure. She just shakes her head instead. "I'll be seeing you there too. Congratulations. And don't ruin it by giving up. Not one girl from space will forgive you if you do."     "Oh. And Petra. Once you're done cleaning up, I expect to see you." Snap.
Hibiki Tachibana	Well, if anyone could punch a rocket hard enough to knock it out of low orbit, it's you, right?     "Brute force is one of the only things I got to my name, after all--!" As much as Hibiki frequently laments that fact in quieter moments, in a situation like this, she sounds anything but upset about it. If she put her back into it, she probably could, and it'd shove a dramatic wrench into the plan to send Quicknest sky-high! But before that can happen, stopping Petra comes first.     Not even for narrative relevance or anything. Petra would, like, catch up and beat her ass if she took attention off of her for anything else. She knows exactly how strong she's become in her own right.     But what do you think happens to everyone when this all crash lands?     Huh. She didn't think that far ahead.     She's about to shoot back something along the lines of 'I would handle it' without any immediate explanation of what that'd entail, but that's when she gets belted in the ribs and there's the sound of what's probably one or two of them cracking as the morphmetal strikes cleanly. ...     Another charge at Petra results in a swift exchange of blows, fists pounding into her gunblade at a mile a minute, before a retaliating swipe gets blocked by her raised gauntlets, sending her sliding back. When she lowers them again, the metal has been shorn wide open. ...     ...     Her Symphogear's undersuit tattered and and frayed from being caught in one too many explosions from Petra's massive drone, Hibiki stands in the way of one of its arena-crossing onrushes. Without getting out of the way, she just throws both hands in front of herself to catch it, the jacks in her leg armor ejecting backwards and embedding themselves into the floor to stabilize her.     She still gets trucked with the force of the oncoming freight train, her extremely momentary bodyblocking only managing to give her the leverage to narrowly change its course and make it a little easier for some of the others to get out of the way. ...     ...         ...     At the end of things, a battered and bruised and several other things magical girl is rolling across the floor of the arena, slowing to a stop on her back and panting for breath, face scrunched up in exhaustion and pain. Her body's burning from head to toe, but after one eye opens to stare up at the sky overhead, she begins staggering back up again. All for Quicknest's people...? No, probably not.     She's just tired of giving up on things. So it's as simple as that to struggle to stand back up again, even if she can barely manage it, and even if Petra has a lot more gas in the tank.     But that's also when Kale makes his deal - and something about that catches her so off-guard that she stops, blinks... and then falls down onto a knee, clutching her likely-broken ribs as just enough adrenaline leaves her for it to start seriously hurting.     "Hah... y-you know... all your hard work up to now... really did pay off... Petra."
Hibiki Tachibana	She collapses back down onto her side-- not unconscious, especially not when there's still Petra's answer to Kale to hear out, but there's no way she's getting her momentum back when it comes to standing up and fighting. Not very easily at least. And somehow, she's kind of alright with that. Laying there and forcing in much-needed air, words she didn't think would come to her now of all times rebound through her spinning head.     You can't manage to be 'Hibiki Tachibana' on your own, right? You just sit around and waste away while the people you want to protect get hurt. I get it. I can't be 'Petra Soroka' on my own either. So you don't have to. We can do it together.     "Y'know... it really is funny. Coming here wasn't really supposed to be for me...at all." She murmurs to nobody actually but herself, along with a chuckle that sort of hurts a lot to make. "...But now 'cause of it, I can maybe sort of accept the whole 'supervillain' thing... after all."     "...It'll give me one more reason to not ever slow down again."     But I'll thank you for being here. For doing this as a Watchman, and helping because there was help to give. I don't need an entire tangled-up history with you to appreciate that.     Hibiki doesn't look at Lilian on her way out. She can't really, on the floor as she is.     But the sound she makes, barely audible, is definitely choked up. And not in a bad way.
Petra Soroka	The last Elite falls-- Futaba, Petra realizes, when she blinks and takes a second look at her, withdrawing her gunblade from where it pressed up against her neck. Petra steps back from the tanuki on the ground, dazed in the aftermath, both swords still readied and angled by her side as she does a headcount of the battlefield; solely numbers-- she knows there were eight of them, but she's not confident in not glazing over faces.     Her ratdrone lies stationary on the arena, impact trough scraped through the rubber behind it from where one of the Elites must've struck it into a crash, dented and scorched all over. Quicknest, the nation, the city-beyond-the-walls, is gone from sight, with patchy cloud cover hanging between the floating island and the endless ocean below. The rockets, now angling to keep the island in low-orbit, settle into a dull roar, indistinguishable from the blood in Petra's ears.     She shakes her head again, dimly refocusing on Kale midway through his very long string of sentences, sword still gripped tightly enough in her hand that the purple and white pressure in her hand is visible. "Er-- ship?"     Tottering over to the outstretched item by default, though in this state she would probably politely accept a grenade if it was held out to her that way, she stops to reciprocate Bercilak's elbow bump, and somehow *he's* the one whose words get through her head. She coughs and shudders, readjusting some mental posture for a few seconds, and when she speaks she suddenly sounds most of the way back to normal.     "-- Oh! Right. Right. Trading the East Wind for the, er, s-slaves." Petra cringes at the word even leaving her mouth, awkwardly side-eyeing Lilian. "Well... I...."     Trailing off and gradually shifting from embarrassment to thoughtfulness, Petra's brows draw fractionally together as she looks from the keys in Kale's hand up to his face. "The *East Wind*? Kale, you..." Ru Li's movement and anguished noise catches out of the corner of her eye, and Bercilak's insistence, and mostly, Kale himself, offering something she knows is precious to him, for the sake of Quicknest. To turn even this, a crushing defeat for the heroes, into a scraped-by win for the common people he's declaring to protect, whatever the cost to himself.     ... A win for the people Petra currently has stuffed inside of robots doing slave labor. Petra squeezes her eyes shut and thrusts out her hand to take the keys. "Yeah. You, um-- you're right, Kale. And Ru Li, and Bercilak, and-- all of you, yeah. There's a panel on the back of the bots, with one of those star shaped screws. Pop that open and take them back to whatever's left of that shitty country. I don't really, um-- deal accepted, Kale." (Distantly, on the far end of the arena: 'No !! My Sweatshops !!!')     She clears her throat to get past the awkwardness of no longer owning several tens of thousands of slaves, looking over the arena and off the edge of the island towards the clouds, then glancing back at the thrashed heroes. It takes her all of five inexact seconds of contemplation to regain her energy, swiping her sweaty hair off her neck and practically bouncing back to Lilian as she stalks across the battlefield.     "Well! There's our answer! The way they are now, without you, they can't even stand up to a half-- to a pretty decent villain!" Petra raises her voice again, to address the scattered heroes without turning away from Lilian to look at them. "So if any of you give up on carrying more of your weight now, just because you finally got taught how little you can, you're fucking dead to me, okay? Dead to everyone else too, if I can help it."     "... But, I mean, I have a little hope for you, I think."
Petra Soroka	"...It'll give me one more reason to not ever slow down again."     Petra comes to a stop besides Hibiki, and almost as an afterthought, gently lowers her boot down to step on her head. Not to stomp or crush her, but just as some weird victorious impulse to hold her head flat to the ground while she talks.     "It makes a lot of sense to me, you know? The supervillain thing. To be more like the person I want to be, in the ways that matter to me. All this helped me figure out exactly how it helps, and how to do it so it helps me better, so... yeah. Glad you came, Hibiki."     Then she's off to tag along behind Lilian, summoned by snapped fingers. The brutal villainess-apprentice falls in step a half-pace behind her, instantly bubbly excited and gushing, switching sides as she babbles like she's overflowing with energy despite the battle.     "*Summer*?! Really?! But that's so *close*, I-- and there'll be a *wedding* and everything too!! That's so *cute*-- that's so *exciting*!! I feel like I should-- is there anything I can help with? Or...."     Petra eventually falls out of earshot, following behind Lilian. She's not leaving the island-- she's not *plans* after all-- but once Lilianis dismounted from the throne, Petra abandons it, and the arena, without a second thought. Acute hearing, though, might pick up a tentatively mumbled 'devoured?' once she's out of sight.