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Marigold	ETRURIA'S WESTERN COAST      Airspace over Aquleia.      Voyaging through a confusing snarl of obscure Warpgate connections eventually numbs Roy's army to novelty. Over the next few days they navigate through purple alien jungles, bleached-orange deserts that you couldn't guess are on Earth or somewhere else, even a short zip through a modern metropolis once.      Finally their roundabout journey leads them to a totally unused warpgate in a shady conifer forest, not far from the sea, and not far from the capital Aquleia. "We mapped this one just before we went to the Western Isles," Roy says. "It feels like a lifetime ago..."      He's walking and talking and taking care of Khosa's weird wagon-pulling lizards (which Fae tries to play with more than once), but he's in no state to swing a sword, as Marcus is eager to remind him. Neither is a good third of the army, still taxed from healing off grievous wounds dealt by Galle.      'Not far' is relative, of course. Flamel's stealth jet, which perhaps looks like an extremely groovy arts-and-crafts project more than a 'stealth jet', will be needed to make the last hop swiftly and sneakily. Beyond the Elites, there's only room for a small team.      "Something like that really going to be safe? What if the magic holding it up fails?"      "I'm fairly sure jets aren't magic, Dieck," Cecilia says.      "Yeah, I know, I talked to a guy in that metal city about 'em. This one's glowing though.      "Oh. Hm. It is... glowing. Sophia, is this safe?"      "I, um... don't see... anyone dying...?"      "Good enough. Let's go."      The distinctly groovy, jade-and-white interior isn't uncomfortable at least. Rutger and Lucius seem vaguely carsick, and occupy themselves in meditation. Sophia keeps twiddling her thumbs and shifting in her chair, vaguely uneasy. Echidna tries to keep Larum's mind off the upcoming conflict with her adoptive father by keeping her focused on the windows and the land scrolling by below.      Aquleia, one can see from above, isn't quite a port town but is fed by the rich trade of the inlet. It's sprawling, the biggest city you've seen in this world, gorgeous white stone walls and green roof-shingles. Its countryside is swarming with enough defensive patrols of Etrurian troops to make anyone glad you aren't doing this on foot.      On the outskirts looms the 'Tower of the Saint', taller than even the palace; white stone vaulted masonry with a lambently golden under-sheen. It's almost more like a particularly vertical ziggurat, or a reaching cathedral; 'tower' implies something that tapers less, but this shrinks as it grasps ten stories high for heaven. Soon it disappears as the jet climbs through the cloud layer for extra stealth.
Marigold	"Galle is retreating through Douglas's territory, but even the fastest wyvern would still be hours out from here," Cecilia muses while rifling through a strategic journal. "As long as we're brisk, we should have the king freed, Aureola and the Saint's Staff secured, and the full Etrurian army on our side before he even hears of it."      "Flamel, touch us down in the palace courtyard. I'm sure Douglas will feel compelled to meet us, but we have him outnumbered, so while--"      - - - -      A very loud sound rocks the jet, but it doesn't reach your ears, because it's swept out along with the air from the large column-like hole that's just appeared clipping the jet's side. For a moment everyone's in danger of being sucked out.      The plane lurches, tilts, and dips. Someone's screaming but it's hard to tell who. As the jet plummets down below the cloud layer on Aquleia's outskirts, the Tower of the Saint looms alongside, now limned in a subtle golden glow.      "--et us down! Get us down!!" Cecilia can be heard shouting at Flamel as the pressure equalizes, clambered out of her seat to white-knuckled grip the back of the pilot's chair. A second bolt- a telephone-pole-sized arrow of light from heaven- only narrowly misses.      Lucius, pale, shuts his eyes to charge his warp staff, but from the way its gem flickers it's clear he's asking too much of it. Rutger stands by the hole with her hand on her sword, like she might use it to try and parry the third; Dieck pulls her back inside by her shoulder.      There is a third, of course, and a fourth, and a fifth, unrelentingly. Somehow, some way, the tower's judged you.
Flamel Parsons	The jet interior is so enriching and nice (https://i.imgur.com/nYAKnQ8.png) that it just sort of conducts philosophical conversation like heat or electricity. Flamel, up at the cockpit, raises a hand! "Technically, you'd call what's moving this 'magic', yeah! It's mentalist power, psitanium-amplified telekinesis specifically. But don't worry! As long at least a few of you, or even just me, are conscious and alive, it'll have enough to keep moving! We've got nothing to worry about. Almost no moving parts!" He beams so optimistically.     He's punching in the flight path when the new one's decided for him. A wall tears out and he grips the controls with hands and telekinesis simultaneously. Alarms scream out as the plane lurches, spins, and forcibly stabilizes. Oxygen masks drop and swing around. "Crap! Crap, crap, crap, lost a main stabilizer!" Whirling back to the others, "Everyone hold on!! I'm putting her down wherever will keep us alive!"     The "fasten seatbelts" light pings on between screeches of the alarm.     "I've got it! I've got it! Brace, brace, brace!" He screams as the light screams by. Automated pitch and altitude warning voices call out as he dips the plane below safety, and two dozen telekinetic hands brace against the front to slow it as hard as possible. "EVERYONE *BRACE* AND *THINK LIGHT THOUGHTS NOW!!*"     A dozen gleaming translucent thought-bubbles pop out the back and below the plane, like the parachutes and cushions of a rover deploying to Mars. Layers of them rip apart as the plane screams towards the base of the tower, barely weaving between buildings to avoid civilian casualties and jolting everyone aboard with the impact on the ground. Lithobrake, they call it.     "Everyone up, everyone up! No time, we can't get boxed in here!!" Flamel is shouting, as things fade back into focus. He's staggering out the side-hatch, ready for combat, trying to clear his head...
Riku Asakura	"I've never ridden inside a jet before..." Riku says amazed at the jet's interior which looks like an art project rather than a stealth jet.  Still, it was a new experience for him.  Riku himself is a normal-looking-ish young man in jeans with an orange shirt with some sort of Kamen Rider on it and a jean jacket on top of that.   Sitting inside during the flight, Riku is a bit more quiet.  Though he's almost bouncing with a silent energy.  He's listening to everyone and trying to catch up on where things are heading in this campaign.  Things are going well until the jet rocks.   Almost without warning, he jumps up, bracing himself on the side of the plane as things start going wrong.  He calls out to anyone.  "I need a way out of the plane," Dysnomia answers him and he runs for the hatch.  Leaping out he falls... And draws out a strange device.  "Standing around doing nothing won't get us anywhere!" he shouts out, and draws out a capsule.  On it has the upper body of an Ultraman.  "You go!" he draws out a second as the first is placed into a holster.  "I go!" this one has Ultraman Belial on it.  "Here we go!" he draws the strange device on each capsule in its holster.  "Time to get ready... GEEEEEEED!" he shouts What happens next probably shocks some people, as a giant being grabs the underside of the plane and attempts to bring it down softly to the ground.  To those who have seen Belial before... his eyes are the same, except blue instead of red.  The giant of light, silver, red, and black coloring as the light from the transformation fades and he helps bring the jet down safely.  Or at least try, there is oncoming fire during all of this.
Odette Raskins	Even for someone used to all manner of nonhuman co-workers, the trek through so many strange locales has Odette gawking at everything in sight and snapping pictures wherever she goes. There's only so many weird trees she can look at before they lose their luster, though, and she's still got her duty of tending to the wounded warriors along the way to focus on the entire time. There's little time for rest, too, as traveling by Flamel's jet means even more time is spent making sure those still recovering from their wounds don't suffer further complications from the decreased air pressure and higher infection risk. That means she's really doing the rounds, circling around to check on everyone every couple of minutes and offering antibiotics (with water, thankfully) to anyone that so much as looks a little nauseous. Even her usual crushing-on-Lucius is curbed just to make sure he and everyone is comfortable enough on the way towards the castle. Of course, all that ends up going out the window when something punches a hole right through the jet. Recognizing the kind of risk that sort of rapid decompression could cause, Odette curses her lack of foresight in giving any kind of pre-flight safety demonstrations beforehand. Slipping a breathing mask on and connecting it to a fist-sized oxygen tank, she yanks several more out of a rarely-used pocket of her duffel bag. "Gotta... Get these on!" She shouts while connecting the masks to the tank, starting to hand them off rapidly to everyone so they can actually breathe throughout the rapidly decaying situation. Lucius gets one of the first, naturally, but Odette quickly makes her way towards the pilot's cabin as she passes more of the safety devices out in the hopes that someone can straighten this all out. Thinking light thoughts as Flamel directs, sadly, is something she's having a lot of trouble doing at the moment. It's not for a lack of trying, but every cute animal and happy feeling she pictures ends up getting sucked right out of those holes.
Khosa	The wagon-pulling lizards - inix, which Khosa uses as both the singular and the plural, like sheep - are about sixteen feet long counting an extended tail, or eight to ten if you don't; they look imposing and took some special rigging to hook up to a wagon, which Khosa also brought (the swords went over well). Their backs have a layered ridge of overlapping brownish plates, while their flanks are more yellow and red-scaled, with zig-zaggy patterns, and their underside almost cream. They are clawed, but the claws are blunted and apparently for digging, and they have a rigid 'beak' like a turtle. While perhaps not as fast at a gallop-equivalent as a horse, they're ploddingly tireless, and they eat anything. Really anything; they chew on all sorts of plants from scrub to grass to wood, and will dig out mice or rabbits or voles if allowed as a bonus to their diet, though the bulk of it is barely-edible plant matter. If they *do* have to defend themselves, they bite or smack with the tail, but are generally peaceable and slow to anger. They are a little skittish around Fae at first but calm down once they realize she isn't hunting them, and they like being scratched hard enough to feel it through their scales. What they really don't like is the cold. But, well. It's not that cold here. So no problem. As for Khosa... Khosa has never been on a jet before so she is not aware of what they generally look like from the outside, really; she sees no reason you can't have a jet like this. Or the inside. Khosa spends a lot of it trying to look out the window, though; she's most comfortable when she's on the ground, or failing that, can see the ground. The fact that this one works by a method she understands (telekinesis) as opposed to one she doesn't (the laws of aerodynamics) makes it easier to handle. "It's like a map," Khosa says, shaking her head in vague disbelief. "Look, you can see everything from up here." Her gaze passes through from the town to the tower, which gets a bit of a pursed-lips thoughtful look. She's not sure what she expected from a religious building - She's on her feet without realizing it as the jet rocks. It's not stable but she is, her feet planted and unmoving. It's hard to breathe so she holds her breath, something she can do for a while at least, though the sudden change hurts her ears and something up past her nose. There's a momentary thought - should she jump out and glide down? - but it's replaced by a better plan, one that doesn't abandon everyone else in the plane. "Give you a hand," she calls to Flamel, when he orders light thoughts. He doesn't quite get them from her. Khosa is telekinetic but in a very specific way; she learned how to project a punch, a pulse, or a shove, even if her fine manipulation at any range beyond her fingertips isn't very good. She raises one hand, reaching out mentally more than physically, trying to find that 'psitanium' Flamel mentioned before to pass her own telekinesis through it. Then she slams her hand downward, palm-slapping the floor. And if she's done it right, the shockwave kicks back and pushes up the plane, shoving it roughly upwards and slowing it at least a little.
Dysnomia	"You know, it never occured to me to look into Psychonauts engineering," Dysnomia marveled. "You do the fusion of psychic actualization and tech well. Is this a modern design? Who made this? Can you get me in touch with them? Does the jet operate manually or with direct mental interface? Is there a drain on its passengers...?"     A hybrid of psychic and tech is, unfortunately, exactly Dysnomia's wheelhousem, and she spends almost the entire jet ride by Flamel's side, barraging him with question after question about the psitanium wonderjet.     It's the alarm that gets her first, the racing panic of the other passengers at the speed of thought, before hearing even comes back to them. She turns, a half-uttered interrogation about psitanium dying in her throat as she sees a hole in the jet.     Fog fills the empty space, rapidly solifying as darting smoky claws press the Elibe soldiers--and any elites who'll allow it--back into their seats, strapping them in. "We need to prepare for a violent landing." They probably didn't even know what seatbelts were, nevermind what they were for. "This is to protect you until touchdown. Until then, hold on."     She recognized Ultraman's voice, head snapping as he demands to be let out. With a scowl, she allows him, the fog wall dissolving and reforming behind him as he leaps through, only allowing a brief hiss of escaping air.     "No time, we can't get boxed in here!"     Only when the plane comes to a complete stop and Flamel begins his exodus. does Dysnomia's grip on them slacken. "You heard the man. Move." She's moved cleanly into crisis mode, lending a hand to pull soldiers to their feet and toward the door. "They won't have prepared for where we landed, but they know where we are now."     She doesn't leave until she's the last person left in the jet.
Trudy Grimm	Trudy Grimm has ridden in aircraft before, but none with an interior quite like this. She swivels slightly to and fro in her chair, head bobbing to a tune only she can hear while listening to the various conversations being shared back and forth. She has little to contribute herself, seemingly lost in her own thoughts with a sort of-- listless expression.     The plane lurches and gets a hole put in it. There is no way that wouldn't jolt her back to reality. Fingers sink into armrests as her seat swings around to face the gap, green eyes wide with surprise. Riku jumps out of the plane, shouting something about a plan. Flamel shouts about light thoughts-- and to her credit Trudy pictures... well, it's Tamamo in her shining grace during the duel with Scathach. Not the light Flamel probably had in mind.     Through combined efforts they're on the ground in short order and in mostly one piece. For the first time since the fuselage was pierced, Trudy exhales. Her fingers loosen, having dug grooves into the seat's armrests. Quickly she composes herself, hops up, and disembarks through the hole in the hull. The Grimoire is already in her hand by the time her feet touch the ground.     One step later, the book has flipped open. The rune of Death, Eiwaz, sears itself into the air above its seemingly blank pages. The shadow cast by the downed aircraft deepens to a void-black pitch and from this void emerges several figures. Firstly and most close to Trudy herself, the Black Knight rises, greatsword in hand. A few paces away, a pair of samurai, both concealed behind Japanese armor and ornate red and blue oni masks; the blue wielding a great yumi bow, the red with an o-dachi resting over his shoulder.     In the other direction, half a dozen men in long ragged military peacoats, deep green and stained with mud, their faces hidden behind gas masks and metal helmets, emerge. Three of them carry battle rifles; one a machine gun and another the ammunition for it; and the last, sporting a large fuel tank on his back. This last one raises his weapon, the tip ominously clicking until a pilot flame flickers to life at the end.     "An awfully rude way to welcome guests," the witch finally says out loud. Turning, she gestures with her free hand, "I will keep our conveyance secure. If you would, please?"
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan NEVER gets tired of the marvel of being somewhere new. He doesn't take that many airplanes, but he USED TO fly. He has his nose pressed up against the glass for half of it. The other half, Aidan is making use of the amenities, sprawling out. Eating peanuts. "I don't THINK it's magic. It's supposed to be science." It's mentalist power, "Oh, it's brain magic!" Saint's Staff secured, "They'll hand it over, right?" He nods over towards Father Lucius, assuming the entirety of the church is like him. "They'll know it's the right thing to do!" A grin spreads over his face, sure of it. ZORT. "That thing is a WEAPON?!" He stares in awe at the enormous pole of light that zots past him. Just as Riku runs towards the hole, Aidan is already on the way, leaning forward to dive through it. Flying is just falling with style. In that sense, Aidan can still fly! He folds his arms back, legs up, tail tucked in between his legs so it doesn't get ripped off by the wind. He gives a thumbs up over at Riku... Only to see Riku turn into a giant. He opens his mouth in 'woooow' that just sounds like 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH'. Well now he HAS to do something. White wind bubbles up around Aidan's mouth. Fingers knot the winds around him, twisting them up, then pulling them out of the sky themselves. A twitch of the tail to flip him over. A spread of his arms and legs. A rush of wind. White walls of wind spread out, a safety net of a sorts underneath the plane.
Desire Stars	Ace and Neon take to the jet travel well enough, barring a bit of gawking (bewildered on Neon's part, seemingly amused on Ace's) at its shape and coloration. Yeah, I know, I talked to a guy in that metal city about 'em. This one's glowing though.     "The one you saw was large and long because it was for moving people; but just like Elibe, not everyone gets along all the time, and precautions have to be taken when the military side of technology is in the picture."     "After planes, there were ways to detect them. And after that, ways to avoid detection. If I had to guess, I'd say the glow is part of whatever gizmo inside keeps it hidden."     ---     The ride itself is uneventful; Ace chats up Dieck about the history of aviation on his Earth, Neon works with Echidna to try and keep Larum's mind off of things by prompting both of them for information about what they're passing over.     When it becomes decidedly eventful, they both transform.     "Ace! Can I borrow the Boost Buckle?" asks Na-Go as another arrow strikes the jet. "We need people in the air or we're all done for."     "Sure," says Kamen Rider Geats. "But it's gonna cost you." An underhand toss sees the metallic red buckle safely in Na-Go's hands.     "What?!"     "Give me your Spider Phone." Geats calls over the roar of the cabin. There's a pause wherein it is demonstrated by the expectant gaze of his red lenses and his outstretched hand (plus a gimme-motion) that he's serious about this.     "...fine!"     Na-Go tosses the bulky, battle-proofed DGP-issued phone to Geats, who catches it single-handed as she makes a running leap out of the side of the jet.                                   BOOSTRIKER!                                       Through the windows of the jet, Na-Go is visible falling, then rising much more quickly, on the back of a mechanical racing-red cat robot, its footsteps leaving trails of fire as it circles the jet protectively. Astride her robotic steed, Na-Go wields the bladed Beat Axe (as a guitar rather than as a melee weapon), conjuring blasts of lightning to serve as a distraction and hopefully a more menacing target than the jet.     Meanwhile, Geats pats Lucius on the shoulder. "Don't worry," he says. "It happens. Sometimes it just needs a little help. Let's see... with these new models, it should be right about..." Holding Na-Go's Spider Phone in one hand and the Magnum Shooter in the other, he charges up a point blank blast, shearing the back of the case off and taking a chunk out of the jet's aisle. Holstering the bulky laser pistol at his hip, Geats rips off a warning-stickered panel below.     His own Spider Phone rings, and answers itself even as he lifts it to do so. The hooded, white visage of a mask peers emotionlessly at the fox-themed helmet of Kamen Rider Geats from the phone's screen.     "Ace Ukiyo. I must request that you do not tamper with DGP property--much less in the presence of civilians."     "Look at it this way, Game Master. If we crash, then there's no loose ends. If not, then you still have your best Kamen Rider."     The figure doesn't respond, silently watching for a moment later before disconnecting.     Beneath the second panel is a crystal with an ominous red glow, held in some sort of field and slowly rotating. Geats rips the wires behind it from their housing. "Point that thing this way, Father," he says, indicating the warp staff--before gingerly forming a connection between the crystal in Na-Go's phone and the one in Lucius' staff.
Petra Soroka	There's a kind of weird charm to Psychonauts tech that Petra isn't sure is despite her troubled history with it, or because of it. The improbably-shaped jet is given a pass and a sigh on contact, purely because of who's presenting it, and she doesn't bother considering the aerodynamics of it until Cecilia questions it. Somehow, she cedes her authority on both psychic *and* modern tech to someone from a world using swords and horses, and when looking to Flamel for confirmation, it turns out she was right to.     "Oh. So it *is* telekinesis..." Petra rubs her forehead and settles into a chair. "Would it be safer to just, like, concuss me or something? I don't think I'd fuck it up too much on this scale, but... no, hold on. I'll take care of it myself."     As the plane takes off, Petra focuses on meditating herself into the atmosphere of the environment, concentrating on the cushion below her, the circulation of air, the noise and vibration of the craft itself. To get a feeling for the shape of the plane as a vehicular body moving through the air is to attune her own neural map to being inside it, so with a shudder and snap, her aura vanishes, and she becomes blissfully more of a benefit than a detriment already.     A secondary effect of letting the atmosphere of the plane soak into herself is that she suddenly feels the irresistable urge to pick up random objects around the cabin and light them on fire. She does her best to vent this urge by pulling out Fourth Match Flame, the smoldering EGO sword, and laying it across her lap, and *maybe* if the plane were to take a sudden sharp turn, a cushion might accidentally fly on top of it and ignite, or something. "I've never ridden inside a jet before..."     "That's crazy." Petra kicks her feet idly while making conversation with Riku. "Well-- actually, I didn't either, until pretty recently. What's the local year where you're from, newbie?"     Her wish gets granted in a roundabout way, when rather than a sharp turn, the plane gets pierced through by a beam of light. The cushion that sparks off of Fourth Match Flame is immediately sucked out of the hole and thrown into the sky, and Petra grabs on to the back of the spinning chair to stabilize herself on the shaking surface.     "H-hey--! I thought the point was *stealth*, Flamel!" Petra is so bad at thinking light thoughts that she considers hurling herself out of the hole purely for politeness's sake, and finding her own way nonlethally to the ground once her deadweight mind is out of the picture. Instead, she squeezes the hilt of Fourth Match Flame, shuts her eyes, and does her very very best to think about nice things.     This results in her tone being jarringly casual despite how tense her body is. "Hey, so, what kind of weapon is the tower? Is it firing at us automatically because we're flying over the city, or is someone aiming it? That's a secret third magic relic besides the tome and staff?"     Petra, who has never seen an Ultraman before, is shocked when Geed leaps outside and turns big enough to grab the plane by hand as it falls. Her shock helps more than it hurts, though, because several more sturdy thought parachutes balloon out of the back of the aircraft, buoying it specifically with the pleasant association of the plane being toy-sized and shaped. Once the impact is gentled enough that Petra isn't thrown around like a ragdoll, she leaps out of the hole and transforms into Sting Silver a cloud of glittering black steam before she hits the ground.     Looking up at Geed and turning her mask around to figure out where in the city they crashed, Petra shouts, "Yo! Do you think you could just lift the ship into the right place? Stealth's a bust already!"
Flamel Parsons	Khosa finds the Psitanium near the back. The engine, thank god, wasn't sheared off by that blast. It's far too exposed, but it has to be. When Khosa reaches for it, she finds something back there (https://i.imgur.com/8h7XcSp.png) that feels like a large, mineral brain that feels whatever she does and amplifies it by a hundred -- be it telekinesis or stress, it's amped up.     Dysnomia was in the process of receiving the technical handbook from Flamel when things got damaged. Hopefully, it gives her an opportunity to know exactly what to do with the vehicle.     Catching it, forcing it up, giving it a safety net -- that'll keep the plane from giving everyone whiplash on landing. It still won't be flying a while, but it's enough to keep people in a much better fighting shape when they get through, though undoubtedly it'll *strain* anything it was forced against due to its sheer speed...
Lilian Rook	Lilian feels slightly ridiculous wearing even a variant on her usual Elibe gear (dusty green cloak, leathers boots, warm gloves, partial armour in grey green and and amber hiking cloth, hand-stitched floral designs) up here. It's still, certainly, Elibe, and she always wears something either fit for the road or fit for tea with Guinivere, and it's not like anyone else from here is dressed differently; but when they stick out like this on the weird psychonauts superplane, they look cute! It's different when Lilian looks like a knight-noblewoman uncomfortably trying not to cross her legs in a plush retrofuturist egg-chair on a private jet! She has a private jet look!     'Something like that really going to be safe? What if the magic holding it up fails?'     "What if your heart fails?" says Lilian, cross-armed shrugging. "What if the pegasus suddenly sprains a wing, or your sword cracks in half down an invisible stress line." For the ride, she doesn't quite sound like her 'usual self'. "Things can suddenly fail whether they're magic or not. That isn't to say the result isn't still potentially terrifying, but it's a sort of thing we already live with every day, because the chance is so minuscule." says Lilian, before deciding to try and be more normal.     'I, um... don't see... anyone dying...?'     "Besides. If it did suddenly fail, I'd just save you all anyways."     'The one you saw was large and long because it was for moving people; but just like Elibe, not everyone gets along all the time, and precautions have to be taken when the military side of technology is in the picture.'     'I've never ridden inside a jet before...'     'It's like a map'     Idly, Lilian rotates that she never really has the opportunity to take} a private jet anywhere. It's just seldom ever faster than whatever else she's doing or, else one is never available when she would like it. "Isn't a map like this?" she says offhandedly. "It's something we draw to try and represent exactly this view, after all. Just without seeing it." She turns to stare out the window as if to verify the concept of height hasn't changed while she wasn't looking. "You never get this high a VTOL though. Sort of a shame."     . . . . . . . .     "--ucius, limit the staff to eight! I'm taking two with me!" Lilian shouts over the howl of bleeding cabin pressure. She already has Petra by the scruff of the neck for the intermediate period where it isn't clear how big the fireball is going to be. "Parsons! If this thing isn't going to fly back out of here then use whatever's left as a crumple zone and we'll figure the rest out later!" The inherent absurdity of the psychonauts plane decelerating the way it does fails to interrupt her train of thought at all. Bracing against the whirlwind in the compartment, Lilian is resentfully hunting for Odette saying "Raskins! Put the bloody masks away and do everything I say!", thus revealing her plan for whoever gets injured, and who she plans to carry with her free arm.
Lilian Rook	(An) Ultraman jumping out to slow the plane in conjunction with the others is enough of a situational change that Lilian simply grabs Odette by the shirt and bails to reduce the load, lingering just long to catch Petra's jump and and lob her to ground. Most of the slowing down that finally puts her behind the falling plane comes from wind resistance, and her magic only kicks in near the ground.     "I don't see a hostile! How are they targeting us?!" Lilian calls out, too late to actually see from down low anyways.     "Sophia--!" is merely a suggestion; she doesn't even need to communicate what she wants to know. Lilian herself is banking into the shadow of the tower and trying to predetermine which route; outside or inside; is more of a deathtrap for herself, and by doing so divine the nature of the attacker by why.
Marigold	"That thing is a WEAPON?!"      "IT ISN'T MEANT TO BE," Lucius yells around his Odette-supplied mask over the roaring wind. His Warp staff continues flickering. "IT's--" Krrnch.      Khosa and Aidan cushion the contact with a giant hand. Riku- that is, some kind of transformed ultra-man- could easily catch and set down the plane under better circumstances. Unfortunately, this isn't those. He's made himself a perfect target for magic reminiscent of Elimine's own, built for things sized just like him.      Neon can draw a couple bolts from him, but at that eyecatching size, not everything. With his toughness, the first light-arrow to crash into him might be bearable, but the tower seems almost angered by his persistence- the once-steady drumbeat of its bolts speeds up as it starts to pummel him down. He can't stand here forever!      Through the thoughtbubble-gossamer parachutes of Flamel's jet, Riku might imagine for just a second that he sees eyes of his own scale staring at him. No-- surely just a trick of the light.      With Mia resealing the plane and the whole thing no longer plummeting, the interior quiets down. Lucius tears off his seatbelt and rises.      "Geomancy. Lost magic. It's a place of power," he says breathlessly. "Supposed to be a place of peace. What did they do-- the world's shifting magic--?"      He braces himself on Ace's shoulder, nods hurriedly even though he only half-understands, and shuts his eyes in an expression of peace despite the absolutely harrowing circumstances. Breath in. (Another hit audibly pummels Riku.) Breath out. Haaah. Under any normal circumstance, Lucius could teleport a single person; mass extraction under Galle's attack damaged the staff. But supercharged by Ace- maybe, just maybe- what he's attempting wavers on the edge of possibility, and then tips over when Lilian jumps and a few more panels fall off.      - - - -      Everything goes white, and for a brief second, weightless.      Ultraman is relieved of his burden. The entire jet vanishes from his hand.      It reappears inside the Tower of the Saint, touching down on a stone floor with a quarter-inch grinding jolt. Lucius gasps a breath of relief and staggers out through the hole, should Mia deign to open it. Rutger and Dieck hasten to flank him. Sophia, the fourth out, nearly catches a bolt from the sky instantly, but manages to prophetically scramble-dive out of the way with a whimper.      "Sophia...!"      "Ah, here- up you go."      "Nnn... I'm alright..."      Lucius twists around to look up at the skylight, seeming almost angry. "She isn't the enemy anymore! If anyone's the 'thief', it's me! What's come over you??"      The sky that once swallowed Elimine doesn't answer him.
Marigold	When you have a moment to look around between periodic heavenly arrows, it's beautiful. The Fae-fluff-colored stone is subtly but densely carved like billowing clouds, like vines, like rolling waves. An exuberant celebration of nature in stasis climbs by tiers towards an empty throne, where the roof opens up to let a ring of sunlight spill down.      Lilian, those she took with her, and Riku remain outside the tower- they could scale its exterior to that opening at the pinnacle, or they could zip inside through the front entrance to join the others. But the exterior courtyard is largely smooth and barren, meant for congregation standing room; there's no shelter from the heavenly arrows here.      A large handful of clerics are emerging from the tower's recesses in shock, most carrying staves or tomes. How willing to fight apparent intruders they are varies, from 'immediately putting their hands up' to 'charging light beams on sight'.      But the man by the throne- strong, broad-shouldered, in teal robes and with close-cropped orange hair- immediately shatters a glass case with his fist and pulls out a dreadful book and gilded staff. He looks like he'd almost expected this, or fantasized about it enough to.      "The rebels at last. Come to despoil this place too, have you?" he calls down from afar, the structure making his voice echo. "'Despoil'? What have you done to it? Put down that book!" "As the tower's new custodian, I have every right to it. Or haven't you heard of the new Bishop Windham? Leave this holy ground, or I'll use the Saint's own magic!" He's so clearly just been waiting for the chance.      Lilian can't find a mind responsible for the arrows' hostile intent. Her magical senses can discover a dense enchantment over the whole area, though- or perhaps more like an artificial leyline; a controlled outpouring of the world's energy, like a tap for a tree's sap. 'Protect the relics' and 'Maintain peace' are its principles.      At the center of its magical structure is a hazy shadow of Elimine, like the silhouette-scorchmark left behind from the bomb flash of her ascension. The Saint's soul is well and truly gone from this world, but sometimes an impression can be a mold.
Riku Asakura	Before the crash, Petra asks him a question.  "Oh!  Hi.  You must be Petra and to answer your question it's twenty seventeen where I am from.  However, I guess this isn't the same everywhere.  I just haven't had the money to go on a trip before, and since I became an Ultraman I could just fly myself." Now... 'He can't stand there forever.' Riku would be the first to admit that.  The sparks that come from the first arrow are painful, he grunts at the strike, but as more come he can't get the plane down in time.  Some blasts are taken for him instead, or distracted from him.  He won't last forever, but at this rate, he should last long enough to get the plane down.   Thankfully, the plane disappears from his hands, which frees him up.  "GEED BARRIER!" he shouts out as a barrier of energy erupts from his hands to defect the next arrow away from him.  To Petra, he speaks, "Well it went somewhere now, so I have no idea where that is but I think it's safe." "Oh, there it is," he says finally seeing it.  He offers his hands to those who need a ride and starts scaling the building.  He hopes that being THIS close means it won't risk damaging itself with those arrows.  He scoops up anyone who wants a ride and takes them to where the jet is and lets them out before a light envelops him... And a much smaller but still tall Ultraman stands with the others he just carted up.
Trudy Grimm	Just as her minions are securing the area against the possibility of enemy soldiers, the downed jet disappears. She pauses, glancing over her shoulder towards where it had been. Beside her, the Black Knight turns at the waist to do the same, letting out a wordless grunt. <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed, "You people on the ground want a ride up to where the jet is? Or do you want to go through the tower?" <J-IC-Scene> Trudy Grimm says, "I will accept an assist. I've never ridden in the palm of a Jotunn before."     The assorted undead sink into their shadows and the witch closes her book, hopping into Ultraman Geed's outstretched hand. She balances herself by holding on to his thumb, clearly more pleased about this novel experience than she was about the Philosophy Jet. --     Trudy hops down, the Grimoire back in her hands. Her own shadow expands and from within it emerges The Soldiers; those six tall men in ragged uniforms and long mud-stained jackets. The flame trooper's pilot light clicks a few times before igniting. The machine gun team dips back behind and under the jet, one setting his heavy weapon up on a tripod while the other noisily locks in a belt of ammunition.     "'Despoil' is a strong term for a place that has already been desecrated, don't you think?" the witch hums as Eiwaz sears itself into the air above her grimoire, "I would think our task here is more to clean things up, no?" > "Leave this holy ground, or I'll use the Saint's own magic!"     "What do you think, Captain?" Trudy tilts her head down though her side-glancing eyes have to angle up towards the soldier standing beside her.     He has no words. He only lifts his rifle to his shoulder to take aim. The two remaining guys near him do the same, crouching to rest on one knee as they do so.     "Yeah," She returns her eyes to the man who has now armed himself, "That's what I expected."
Odette Raskins	"I've never ridden inside a jet before..." "It's kind of like... Riding a space shuttle, but gravity's affecting everything instead of just you?" Odette tries to 'helpfully' clarify for Riku, feeling a slight sense of relief at seeing someone else that looks as normal as she does. That won't last by the time he transforms into an Ultraman, though, but she'll be long distracted by something else by the time she even realizes that he's jumped out of the jet and transformed later. "Raskins! Put the bloody masks away and do everything I say!" For starters, getting orders short-circuits Odette's brain into changing her area of focus, shoving the remaining masks and tanks she hasn't distributed bag into her bag. "U-understood! Ready to... What's next, Dame Commander?" She asks as she zips up the bag and keeps one hand on it, ready to reopen it at a moment's notice while her other hand less-steadily lingers near her Trideag sidearm as though it might help with shooting an entire tower somehow. Luckily, she doesn't have to wait long to see what happens next. Unluckily, getting yanked right out of the plane by Lilian is a surefire way to set off her panicked screaming instinct. Thankfully, the mask's straps hold it firmly to her face and keep her breathing instead of immediately passing out from the sudden rush of air hitting her face all at once as they go down, and she curls up into a shivering ball out of both survival instinct and to make it a little easier for Lilian to hoist her about. Odette's inwardly hoping Lilian is headed somewhere safe, of course, but seeing the tower's shadow so close by certainly doesn't help the growing lump in her throat. Countless voices in her head scream at her to just shut her eyes and wait for it to all be over, but one more terrified and louder than the rest forces her to keep her eyes open. It forces her to keep watching the tower and the many figures coming out of the jet, buoying it, keeping everyone alive that little bit longer. She sees more flashes of light striking at the giant Riku, some more coming for the plane, another bolt, and then... Nothing. Nothing? "Where's the... The jet's gone!" Odette blurts out as she sees Geed sans jet in his hands, looking terrified for several moments as the worst case scenario starts htiting her mind all at once. Did the tower just vaporize everyone? Wait, they're talking. The hyperventilating stops as quickly as it started, and Lilian can feel her going slack for a moment. "Oh, thank goodness... Th-they're okay! They're-" Wait, the tower is still firing. Making her best guess at the kind of damage the tower could inflict on non-jet-sized targets, her teeth start chattering lightly even as she shoves a hand into her duffel bag to retrieve several injectors full of burn medication and combat stimulants. "J... Just say the word, Dame Commander. I've got stuff that'll give you an extra boost, if you don't mind a little pinch." She almost avoids stammering completely for that moment, ready to either start sprinting or curl herself up into an easily hurlable projectile at Lilian's convenience.
Desire Stars	Leave this holy ground, or I'll use the Saint's own magic!     "Go ahead," says Geats, "You hear about Galle? He left the battlefield short one divine weapon, and it's not because he misplaced it."     He does attack--but only those priests who lift their staves, and even those are exclusively low-power shots aimed at wrists and fingers. "You'll save me the trouble of having to convince you that the divine weapons are starting to break, when that book loses a page before your eyes."     He twirls the Magnum Shooter, his helmet bucking upwards towards Windham in a smug upnod. "Don't suppose Zephiel told you he'd be coming by for that staff, did he?"     Outside, Na-Go guides the Boostriker in a tight circle once the jet disappears, the robot transforming back into the fiery-red superbike. Its turbocharged growl carries up and up into the heavens as tires touch down on the tower's exterior, carrying the Kamen Rider up and up.     Its engine reverberates inside, the tires squealing as she drifts and coaxes the sideways vehicle to a stop. Short of breath from the effort of the ascent (namely, dodging or once, weathering, the giant bolts of light), she still has the energy to shout.     "Whatever you got out of collaborating, they can take it away twice as easily as they gave it to you!"
Aidan Proudpick	Perfect three point stance. Aidan springs up from his perfect Blade pose, looking around quickly. Someone had to have seen that, it wa-where'd everyone go. He spins around in place twice, seeing only a handful of people outside. Giant, Lilian. He spins back around towards the tower, eyes slowly tracking up towards the top. Fingers flex. He's not doing too well. But, if he could slow things down. Or maybe he'll get flash fried. But, you gotta try! There's an intake of breath as Ultraman lowers a hand to give a ride. He scrambles into it eagerly, about the size of an actual squirrel. He bounces on his toes, watching eagerly as Geed scales the tower. He grins over at Trudy, nods at Geed, then leaps off away from Geed as they enter. As Aidan climbs the tower, he talks to it. Not shouting out heroically, not bellowing at the top of his lungs like he's done before. Because it usually never works. "Father Lucius is the most peaceful guy I know." He's scampers up the tower from the outside, digging claws and open toed shoes into the side to nimbly scale to the top. "I wish I could be like him. Really understand everyone, willing to look from everyone's point of view, able to turn all of our hate and anger so we see it for what it is, yanno." A pause on an overlook to think. "He's someone who can spread peace across this entire group of people who sometimes kinda hate each other." Climbing resumes, scampering up to the pinnacle, face peering over towards the skylight. "And he's already had it before, right? You know he's gonna try and protect it. I think outta all of us, at least trust Father Lucius. He's probably the greatest priest you got."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel stumbles out, his ears ringing, head spinning... <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "'Protect the relics' and 'maimtain peace', interpreted through . . . there's no way--" <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "Just gotta convince it we ARE protecting the relics and maintaining peace!" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "We're doing neither. We're creating a conflict just by being here, and those relics aren't going to survive what we put them through." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, ". . . I think Elimine really *did* ascend . . ." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons makes an agonized sort of sound. "We find the war-Elimine and she's too warlike, we find the ascended-Elimine and she's too invested in peace -- I'm starting to feel just a little alienated by the heavens!" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Ghhh, they're *schisming* again... Use what you know about Elimine! If this is the impact-zone of her soul, then we're the closest we'll ever get to Elimine's mindscape! That means you fight her demons, you live her nightmares, you chase *her dreams*, and that's the only way to work with it all!"     Focus. Focus!! Shake your head clear, knuckle down, and be *more empathetic* to Elimine than this guy! And what would be her worldview? What would be what she thinks of them? Well... "Oh go away you!" Flamel shouts. "Peace and artifacts are the same thing as everything else in the world, an opportunity! A chance to learn! And if the only thing you do is preserve a snapshot of Elimine to show off and draw power from, and refuse to *learn from it* to preserve the peace and treasured artifacts to learn from in the world, then you might as well scorn her name just as much as you're spurning her teachings!"     He plants two fingers on each temple, a ready stance to fight with a barrier and charging marksman-blasts spooling up in his head. "Learning means taking a little kindness of a lesson and turning it into the bigger kindness of a wise action -- and with Elimine's old will, you'd put all of Elibe at risk to keep a prestige position? That's learning nothing at all from her, and depriving millions of the chance to learn from the world she would protect!" If Windham or his clergy open fire, Flamel's reciprocates instantly, flicking to invisibility and advancing hard to try to prevent that man from taking advantage of the book's highly likely ranged advantages. And... enduring whatever the tower might throw at him, engaging it sincerely.     He has to engage with Elimine's soul-shadow in good faith. This, almost as much as any tactical concern with Windham. Elimine's development, her growth, her firm belief in all things as a mechanism of learning truths and becoming greater, he has to hold that in his heart and engage with the astral fragments left behind as such. In any other case there's room for debate, but this is a woman who transcended the world. He must treat her insights as truth, and when he dashes in the hallowed hall of her mind, he must chase her dreams the way she did.
Dysnomia	Bolts of light falling all around them, Dysnomia found herself once more at the mercy of light born from the soul of a dragon slayer, at the wrong end of a divine weapon. What use was beams of plasma, here? What use was fang or claw? What use was even strength, or size? What could she even DO?...She looked out the hole in the side of the plane, grimacing, when she looked down...     ...At the technical manual in her hand. She flipped it open to the stealth features. There was attempts to mute any threat reactions, to short-circuit short term memory retention...Nothing...Noth--     --Invisibility. Perfect. "You'll have to forgive me for what I'll do to your jet, Flamel." With a single motion, she RIPPED a console off jet's interior, kneeling down to reach right into the guts.     The ship wasn't strong enough to take those bolts--they're burned clean through it. But no matter how strong they were--they were still light. And light could always be redirected...     She forced the invisibility circuits to run. Wired it back into the psitanium. Altered its purpose just so. Repurposed the subtle art of bending light around it to shunt it to the side. When a bolt streaked near the ship, the air distorted, trying to turn beams of searing light away from the ship, away from Sophia, away from anyone who'd use the ship as shelter.     This wasn't how it was supposed to be used. It probably made the task of making it airworthy again expoentially worse. But maybe, if she could create a sanctuary for just a while longer--
Lilian Rook	<J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed, "Can he aim those at people? Or just large objects?" <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "All magic or just theirs?" <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Lucius says, "He's not casting it. It's the flow of magic through this place." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Lucius says, "You haven't seen Aureola yet." <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Can it be redirected? Negotiated with? You said this was against its nature--?" <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Lucius says, "I don't know!!" <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Lucius says, "... I don't know." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "It's a closed circuit of automatic magic!" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "It's working on extremely simple rules, too, which makes it troublesome!" <J-IC-Scene> Khosa says, "I'd say 'we could just break it' but we don't want to *and* it's probably buried real deep. Metaphorically speaking. Hard to dig out..." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "'Protect the relics' and 'maimtain peace', interpreted through . . . there's no way--" <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed, "Ideas? I can distract it for a while but without a target it's a game of fish in a barrel." <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "Just gotta convince it we ARE protecting the relics and maintaining peace!" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "We're doing neither. We're creating a conflict just by being here, and those relics aren't going to survive what we put them through." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, ". . . I think Elimine really *did* ascend . . ." <J-IC-Scene> Odette Raskins says, "The fastest way to peace is letting Zephiel get what he wants. N... No people to take the relics, peace through conquest. Or.. S-something like that, right?" <J-IC-Scene> Khosa says, "That's what ziggurats are for, apparently." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "The template for this spell is taken straight out of a human being." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons makes an agonized sort of sound. "We find the war-Elimine and she's too warlike, we find the ascended-Elimine and she's too invested in peace -- I'm starting to feel just a little alienated by the heavens!"     Lilian doesn't say 'first time?', because she's too busy trying to keep current with the rapidly unfolding, lethally chaotic situation, and because it'd also be very lame and quippy and not like her; but she does think it very hard.     'Where's the... The jet's gone!'     "Lucius you're a genius." Lilian says, not to Odette, and then after the scenery gut-lurchingly changes around her several times, she hoists her underarm in the tower interior. "I'm not taking your drugs." she says, looking up towards the skylight rather than at Odette. "First we have to verify the Tower's rate of fire, number of simultaneous targets, and--" Lilian begins, then remembers who she's speaking to.     Somehow snapping her fingers, she dumps Odette off onto Petra, saying "Your job is to treat whoever has been hit, isn't currently under fire, and whose first name has a U or E in it. And if necessary, hurl yourself into the way of anything meant for Lucius, Sophia, or Cecilia."
Petra Soroka	Aided in being tossed out of the ship by Lilian, Petra crashes to the ground on her feet, with shallow twin craters blasted into the street by the thrusters on Sting Silver's calves. She looks up just in time to see the plane vanish, and can only hope that means that Ace and Lucius's plan worked, and not that some other much more horrible thing happened. That worry is assuaged by the voices coming through the radio, and Geed's confirmation from his higher perspective, but it still leaves Petra split between objectives.     She looks up at the glowing tower and the heavenly beams scouring away the city around it, and the sense of dread she gets is deeper than just from being under attack. Despite not being from this world, the thousand-year-old monument radiates a thousand years of human existence and culture, and even before Lilian explains what she sees in the radio, the sense of a bleeding puncture wound in the world is overwhelming to Petra. The Divine Weapons reaching the end of their lifespans, the collapse of Arcadia's secrecy and the last gasps of the dragons, and now the Tower of the Saint turned into crude artillery-- it all feels like a world that's seconds from midnight.     Rattled by another blast impacting nearby her, Petra stumbles to her knees and gasps. "It really is the end of an era, huh.... With 'magic' changing so much now, I wonder if Elimine's presence in the world is fading, and this is more like, leftover muscle memory instead of her intention? Wait-- is that blasphemy? Fuck."     Aside to Lilian, with a little contemptful glance to Odette like she's a doggy bag in Lilian's hand, Petra hurriedly says, "God, of course Zephiel doesn't care about keeping the city at all. It's all so close to the end for him that none of it matters, right? So he turned us splitting off to sneak in into a fucking ambush. I wonder if the king's already being held at knifepoint or something." "I've got stuff that'll give you an extra boost, if you don't mind a little pinch."     Petra clicks her tongue in irritation. "God. You're just going to lay down in the plaza and wait for one of those bolts to hit you the moment Lilian isn't carrying you around, aren't you?"     She holds out a gauntleted hand to Odette, impatiently. "Do whatever you can do to help and then hold on tight." Once Lilian dumps her, Petra unceremoniously scoops Odette up with her arm under her knees and neck, then takes a run at the tower.     With a propulsive boost from Sting Silver, Petra leaps up onto Geed's hand, and without missing a beat, starts scrambling up his arm like he's a terrain-sized boss enemy. She stops halfway up his bicep, then awkwardly angles her boots to the side to slide down into his palm instead. "Sorry. Forgot."     Petra's booster-slowed impact on top of the tower barely jostles Odette, and she drops her on the edge of the opening that overlooks the inner chamber. "If we don't die, someone will be back up here to get you. If we do, hope that the milennia-old Elibean building code includes fire ladders, or whatever."     Petra's own entrance is a running leap down right into the thick of it, crashing down with the bayoneted transteam rifle firing in hand without so much as a post for introduction. Something about the deeply perverse feeling of the 'dying' Tower makes her intensely aggressive to a Bishop she's never met of a religion she barely knows the tenents of.     "Fucking *die*, you fucking paint-by-numbers traitorous freak. How long has this been your fucking world, huh? Your city? Your fucking church? What is *with* how many of you *fucking* people on this *fucking* continent who are such *vapid losers* that you'll throw it away the moment you have a chance to *hurt someone* for free?!"
Lilian Rook	§Sophia can avoid those attacks on her own, but her precognition is much more focused than mine. How long is the Tower going to target her instead of anyone else? Not long-- if it hasn't attacked everyone at once yet then it can't. That Riku boy can survive a couple of hits it seems, but Dysnomia will just turn to dust and blow away on the wind, most likely. Proudpick can't do anything about energy attacks, Grimm has a handful of minions it likely won't immediately overpenetrate, it's already seen through something like Parsons' invisibility, Petra's morphmetal makes her good for a couple if she's quick about it . . . is that really it? Think . . .§     §Dieck might survive one; he's practically all scars; but I don't know about Marcus or Cecilia; he's too old and she's too recently injured to handle shock. Echidna shouldn't be fated to die, but she's not much tougher than Dieck. Raskins is another dead in one, but she's too cowardly to approach. Larum too, but she's not a combatant. I've no idea what that bastard fox will get up to, but I can't imagine him not having an escape plan. It likely won't even attack Lucius, but that doesn't help the rest of us. I have no idea how Rutger will handle this.§     §Is that all we have? Use the bright-eyed new boy as a meat shield, or take it on myself again.§     Lilian exhales the breath she's held for the last thirty seconds. "Why do I even think these things through?" she says to herself, pulling off her cloak to find later, so that she can stride into the holy temple visibly clad in pitch black armour and holding an evil sword.     'God, of course Zephiel doesn't care about keeping the city at all. It's all so close to the end for him that none of it matters, right?'     "I wish I knew what he cares about." Lilian says to Petra. "Every time I think I might have some idea, it only ends up closer and closer to 'nothing at all'."     'Leave this holy ground, or I'll use the Saint's own magic!'     Lilian doesn't have much of a choice about chipping in like a noxious, door-kicking, tall dark and heroic meddler, but when she says "You'll do your best imitation by clinging to her skirts, you mean.", it comes from the heart. "I'm afraid, Bishop, that you're muddling together 'having a right' and 'within your means'."     The fact that she leaps from the fourth platform along her way from a standstill is to antagonize on purpose; not Windham himself, for whom Lilian is being a difficult target on the sixth platform to the right on purpose, but the animating principles of the Tower's magic itself; or so she hopes. Armed, aggressive, resolved, visibly black knight coded and oozing bloodlust, at approaching both relics the most rapidly, she's hoping to bait the mechanism into firing at her, and then dodging it herself. It Sophia can dive out of the way, it isn't tracking targets after the moment it's fired; or so she reasons.
Odette Raskins	"I wonder if the king's already being held at knifepoint or something." "D.. Doubt it. He must know we've got ways to treat people thashould be dead by now. If he really wanted to threaten the king..." Odette holds her hands apart. "He'd probably... He'd use something much bigger than a knife." Lilian movement! First, she's looking at the tower. Next, she's looking at a wall. Another moment later, and she's inside. The mental whiplash from things just changing abruptly without any sense of the physical whiplash that should normally follow rapid movements gets yet more confused noises out of the EMT, and she grunts lightly in response to the refusal to take her stuff. It takes her amoment to finally remember to breathe properly again even with the mask, but her gaze gets a little glazed over as she tries to remember how many times she saw Neon and Ultraman get shot out. "P-per minute? There had to be two... Three... A-at least three. Maybe five times in less than a...?" Wait, did it shoot at Neon and Ultraman at the same time, or was it a consecutive thing? "I-I don't think it could shoot at too many at once!" Odette continues, still wrapped up in thought and trying to puzzle out the tower's firing limits from memory. "God. You're just going to lay down in the plaza and wait for one of those bolts to hit you the moment Lilian isn't carrying you around, aren't you?" "Wh...? I-I am not! It's not like I want to get shot!" Odette protests with an indignant huff, grunting lightly when she's passed from Lilian to Petra like a giant squeaky football. She swallows lightly as Lilian's orders come forth, and she nods quickly once while going through a quick mental headcount to recall who she should be watching out for. Lucius. Sophia. Cecilia. All identified, easy. Rutger. U. Good. Echidna. E. Good. Larum. U. Good. Dieck. E. Good. Petra. E. Good. Flamel. E. Good. Ace. E. Good. Neon. E. Good. Trudy. U. Good. Giant guy. U. Good. ^Khosa. Neither. Okay. Aidan. Neither. Okay. Dysnomia. Neither. Okay. "I'll make sure everyone gets out of this alive. Y.. You can count on me!" She states/promises/tells herself, Petra, and Lilian alike while latching onto the former as directed.  She even clenches her teeth with that moment to prepare before Petra starts running along Geed's arm, holding in her expected fear noises until realizing that she's actually being handled rather delicately. Nevertheless, she also holds in some also some throat-rumbling resembling a snicker at the apology. Once she's placed down at the opening, Odette holds onto the edge cautiously as she gets a better view of everyone there along with all the clergy and the apparent leader of the defenders with his ominous-looking tome. "Wait for someone to get me...? I'm not... I-I can't just sit up here. I have orders, too!" Odette stammers out, clearly still nervous about following what Lilian said to the letter. Despite that audible hesitation and against all odds, she's still willing herself into climbing down from that overlooking spot. She just needs to remember the list, keep a close eye on everyone as she moves in closer, and be ready.
Marigold	Number of targets: just one at a time, tending to alternate.      Rate: steady about one every two seconds, but capable of accelerating if 'frustrated'.      The Tower is unconcerned with hitting 'itself'. If a heavenly arrow is about to strike the floor or a wall, it simply fizzles a millimeter away from the stone; something it'd be easier to take advantage of, if not for the fact that the tower is designed to be illuminated by its open roof, and so nothing has cover from above.      Mia provides that. Her stealth-tech trick won't hold forever- this is just such a moment when the Tower gets 'frustrated', focusing its disembodied efforts on the jet, and even if light bends the metal starts to heat and creak- but Lucius ushers Sophia back into it for the moment, arm around her shoulders while her eyes bug out.      Having a prophetic gift can't be fun in a place so omnipresently danger-filled. "Tha... ank you, Mia... I'm sorry... I don't, know what to do..." "There. That's alright. ... I don't, either."      "I wonder if Elimine's presence in the world is fading, and this is more like, leftover muscle memory instead of her intention..."      "Or a confused reawakening." Wait, when did Lucius get up near Petra? The Warp staff creaks as it 'cools off', terribly near breaking outright. He stands at the skylight's edge, peering down tensely. Still he spares an encouraging smile for Odette.      "It'll be alright. Didn't Sophia say so?"      Facing down a mass stave position is a unique challenge, with or without the Tower's beams. The dozen-or-so Bern-aligned clerics who are willing to fight 'take aim', and then a mishmash of utility magic erupts.      Spherical magic barriers bolsterBishop Windham and a few well-positioned clerics against projectile attacks, effective as a riot shield. Sleep spells turn a moment of mental unguardedness into a blackout, vulnerable to searing follow-up; Dieck catches that while dashing up the stairs, staggers, and barely hangs on without tumbling back down. When Rutger zips in, she gets off one slash before she's warped a hundred feet away; rinse and repeat, desperately fishing for killshots so they can't undo what she does. Petra gets the same blink-away treatment after stabbing one, though at least she has ranged attacks.      Their weakness is that all of these defenses are active or reactive. Flamel, for once, gets to be juicily effective in his stealth approach; the mindless mind of the Tower may still target him, but it's got other fish to fry too.      Cecilia dips out of the jet's cover to try to cast her wind-blades. That gets another swift response: some of the clerics' staffs can create spherical zones of subtle 'stilling' maybe ten feet across, dampening sound, guttering magic, and producing a foggy chill that's their only visual indication. (One's dropped on Lilian too, to no effect on her 'teleportation'.) "----! ---ence!" she says, only becoming un-muffled as Echidna shoulder-checks her out of the zone and snap-throws an axe at the staff responsible. Then the wind-blades go off, spattering white robes red.
Marigold	"I think outta all of us, at least trust Father Lucius."      It's hard to tell for anyone who doesn't have a keen sense of timing, but the heavenly arrows' impact-thumps slow to every two-point-one seconds, now.      "That's learning nothing at all from her, and depriving millions of the chance to learn from the world she would protect!"      Two-point-two. Somehow, from somewhere, Flamel feels attentive eyes on him.      "Don't suppose Zephiel told you he'd be coming by for that staff, did he?"      "The Saint's Staff? Ahaha, so you've heard of its true power?" Windham says, eyebrows lifting in disbelief. "And in whose hands do you think it'll find use, little man? I'll be richly rewarded for wielding it on his behalf."      "How long has this been your fucking world, huh? Your city? Your fucking church?"      "I'm afraid, Bishop, that you're muddling together 'having a right' and 'within your means'."      Bishop Windham tries to play it cool, but he's galled enough to answer mean women calling him pathetic. "The Saint tells us that the world is our guide. Through skill at the Saint's own craft, I show myself a good student of the world. Surely if Elimine disagreed that strength is virtue, she'd take this tome from me herself!"      That'd be the perfect moment for God to strike him down. No such thing happens.      "Now behold--"      <B-anter> (NPC) Father Lucius says, "That's so. Aureola, her tome, the... its title has been variously translated, but I prefer 'Light at the Pinnacle'."      "Aureola, the Light of Supremacy!"      Lilian baits out and dodges the Tower's next heavenly arrow, giving everyone else a reprieve; it focuses (and fails to hit) her with the next few, seemingly trying to get a read. But Aureola needn't be so precise.      Bishop Windham starts his gestures. The sun seems to shine brighter overhead. Its god-rays tighten, and tighten, and tighten, until they form something like a glimmering golden laser-beam that tracks Lilian only loosely. So far it's harmless. But--      Lucius teleports down from the skylight with a ping of breaking staff-crystal. He knows the casting gestures by heart. He intercepts the next motion with his hand, grappling the larger man.      "Ah-haah?! A lowly priest, challenging me?!"      "You've had so many chances to be kind, Bishop, but-- ghh--!?"      The sky strikes Lucius down. It's glancing, but his shoulder sizzles, and he collapses with a cry. Windham laughs in disbelief, makes the final gesture dismissively while shoving Lucius aside, and calls down the great light.      A glimmer gracefully descends in Lilian's vague direction, almost lazily. A falling star. How sweet.      When it splashes open against the wall, you can see the blizzard of light through closed eyelids- no, through the back of your own skull. The jet and everything in eighty feet of it are practically disintegrated by heat and force. Echidna sprints away from it with Sophia and Larum under her arms.
Trudy Grimm	The fight breaks out between Windham and his clerics and the gathered heroes of Lycia and the Otherworld. As shields are brought up, the Soldier Captain opens fire with the sharp crack of his rifle, his two subordinates following suit. The trio break for cover, not just from clerics but also from the skylight. If they can avoid line-of-sight to the sky outside--     To cover the scattering riflemen and flame trooper, the machine gun team opens up with the distinctive chatter of an automatic weapon, hunkered down as they are beneath the disabled jet. The gunner sweeps his weapon in arcs across cleric shields, hammering against all of them repeatedly while his cohort ensures the belt feeds smoothly. As others mobilize, he lays off the trigger, unleashing bursts of fire through safe angles. If he can overwhelm the magic shields and create openings, others can capitalize on the weakness.     The rifle troops, now spread out and using columns as cover, snap off single shots where they can. The Captain is caught in a silence aura-- only for it to be made perfectly clear that guns aren't magic. Another soldier grasps one of the plunger-style grenades hanging from his chest and yanks down. Something snaps. When he wheels the explosive back, it starts hissing and smoking, tracing an arc of smoke and sparks as he hurls it into the defensive formation.     The flame trooper follows up, arrows of light jolting his body with each step closer. Once in optimal range, he lifts his weapon into position near his hip. The pilot light clicks a few times, then spews out a torrent of pressurized, flammable gas in a shockingly long gout of flames-- and then he disappears. Reappearing some thirty yards away, he cuts off his flamethrower, visibly confused at being teleported.     Bishop Windham calls upon the searing light of supremacy. Echidna bails from the jet. The two Machine Gun troopers are slower to react, hefting up their gear and giving chase. The gunner barely gets out of the blast radius, staggering forward from the burst of light and heat cooking his back. The support trooper isn't so lucky, caught in the blast. His silhouette rears back as he's incinerated-- a second later, the ammunition he's carrying detonates, disintegrating the machine gunner himself in a followup explosion.     "Tch..." Trudy, braced from the sudden explosion, lifts her gaze to the Bishop, "Lucius--!" Eyes shift instantly from wide surprise to narrow determination as her focus shifts, "/Windham/."     Beside her, the Soldier Commander pauses from reloading his rifle and draws out his knife. Without looking, Trudy reaches out and wraps her hand around the blade, then slides it off with a stream of crimson blood. She barely flinches, slapping her bloodied hand into the blank pages of Malice.     Windham's shadow darkens, then extends out behind him. Immense bones colored black, as if carved from black marble, extend outward-- a hand easily as large as a person's whole body. The skeletal hand and forearm of a long-forgotten Jotunn strikes out with its palm to knock the Bishop down, then pin him in place using its stone-hard fingerbones like the bars of a cage. The more he struggles, the more it presses down, threatening to crush him against the temple floor.     "I don't particularly care if your god smites me," the witch mutters, "The man you struck down is worth ten of /my/ wretched life and far more of /yours/." Lifting her gaze, Trudy produces a green crystal in her bloodied hand. Malice's rune lights up, flickering with sickly green hues, "And any god who doesn't recognize that isn't worth my time."
Aidan Proudpick	"Peace through action." Aidan asks the tower as he sits through the skylight. "It'll be alright. Didn't Sophia say so?" "Of course!" Aidan smiles, not entirely sure. Nothing up here to block. If he had Aegis... Could he block the sun? Nothing big enough. The pistol comes out from his side holster, Aidan cramming several glue shells into it. Steady. The pistol comes down towards Windham, tracking his arms. "Aureola, the Light of Supremacy!" "Wh-" Lucius disappears. Aidan turns his head down to find Lucius. "Suffocate me." He had assumed that there might be some political worries here. Oh, maybe they'll whinge and whine about the politics and Zephiel could be good for the economy. Instead, Windham goes on. Aidan turns his head to the nearest bit of stone. "This? This is it? This is the guy who is gonna protect your artifacts and maintain peace?" He waves a hand down at Bishop Windham. "He's a piece of shit! He JUST said he's only in this to be rewarded! There's no... there's no humility, there's no kindness, just a big guy who wants to be important." He points an accusing finger at the nearest stone edifice. "If you can't pick a side, then just don't. Get outta here and let the action decide who is gonna bring peace." Lucius soon finds a clawed hand touching his shoulder as Aidan leaps down after him, crouching over him to protect him from another tower strike.
Dysnomia	"Tha... ank you, Mia... I'm sorry... I don't, know what to do..."     "There. That's alright. ... I don't, either."     "Nor me. I wish I could see it." Dysnomia bemoaned, desolately. "The future we're aiming for. The future we need. I wish--" She gritted her teeth as the bolts flew down in a rain, a torrent, trying to overwhelm her little trick. "I can't imagine--" Something inside the circuirty of the plane hissed and sparked.     Every time, she had to push past capacity. Rewire something else into it. Warning lights began to blink as even glancing, blows set the plane ablaze. "...This won't last." She hissed. "I'll give you what rest you can manage. Just..."     "Aureola, the Light of Supremacy!"     And just like that, Dysnomia should be dead. It's only the intervention of Lucius that buys her the time to do more than stare, wildly, at the Bishop with a Divine Weapon in his hands.     But Lucius DID interrupt him.     And so Dysnomia dashed with Echidna, a ethereal barrier...wing...? Raising above them as bolts continued to rain down. She grimaced in anticipation of another soul-burning fire...But what hit her was 'just' intense, searing light. And Dysnomia was made of smoke and light.     Dysnomia remembered the woman's face, staring down at her like an insect. Like vermin. To be stamped out from history, from the world.     She changed tactics, on a dime. Using that fog--her 'body,' once removed--as a shield. "Is this the 'peace' you wanted to protect?!" She thought-spoke to the world. "Is this what your artifacts were meant to be protected for!?" She wasn't expecting a response.     "If you'd pick that man over Lucius...? I was right about you." But she could find no joy in it. Not here. Not now. Not like this.
Odette Raskins	"It'll be alright. Didn't Sophia say so?" Odette's teeth are still chattering as Lucius says that, but the smile takes that from a 9 to a 6. "Mmh... Mmn. Y-yeah, she did!" She chimes in with raised spirits, pausing when she notices something a little strange. She realizes she's looking up at Lucius, then back down at where she thought he was. "Wait, how'd you...?" ... No, it's easier not to think too hard about that. He's got the Warp staff. He already got the jet to safety, so of course he could get himself up here. What she really needs to focus on is the eruption of magic and gunfire, or swords and sleep spells going on further below. There's so many people to watch out for and so much happening at once that the EMT doesn't even know which way to head first. She has her orders. Breathe, stay low, identify. Who's readings are going down the fastest? Who's in danger of bottoming out? Many of those little generic readouts are moving, so probably none of those. Dieck's is staying still way too long for comfort, however, and he becomes Odette's first target. She sprints in, tripping over one of the clerics Rutger cuts down and tumbling head over ass a few times before miraculously catching herself on her feet again. Close enough. The EMT practically tackles Dieck from below as she puts her back into trying to get him off his feet, doing a quick U-turn so she can hurry back towards the relative safety of all-her-allies to give him a chance to recover and wake up. "W.. Wake up, Mister Dieck! No time for hangovers!" She gives him a smack to the face, a shake on the shoulders, and then she slaps a medicated bandage with an intensely cold-feeling substance on it over one of his probably-recent burns to try and get him back to his senses. Cecilia's partial warning, combined with using her own eyes, gives Odette a bit of a clue into how the clerics' defensive magic is working, too. She can tell that distractions might be effective, at least, and so she draws her Trideag sidearm, takes aim at the densest concentration of them, and... Odette's shaking. What if she hits one of her allies in melee range? Rutger keeps getting teleported and moving in, but what if her aim is REALLY off, or something ricochets wrong? What if Echidna gets hit at that range? no, it's best to focus on her orders instead. Sophia seems fine, Cecilia's still active with Echidna reactivating her magic somehow, but Lucius... Lucius is most certainly not fine after he contends with Bishop Windham at close range and gets struck own for his trouble to the ground. "F.. Father Lucius! You gotta..!" Her voice dies in her throat as she sees Bishop Windham's magic takings hape, bringing that terrible light closer. There's not enough time to shout at Lucius to get away, not while he's down. There's not even enoguh time to really think things though in that moment. Instead, Odette just sprints for the priest, rushing straight towards him and that blinding light. Seeing little in her actual vision, she vaguely recalls where the two were, practically skidding on her feet to slap another one of those cooling bandages across Lucius' shoulder by feel alone. The other hand, still holding that sidearm, fires off two shots in the direction of where she last saw Windham. It's a desperate attack rather than a calculated maneuver, more to try and buy even an extra second for someone else to land a proper killshot on him, to stop his spell from taking effect, to do anything more than what she could accomplish herself. She swings around at the last moment to push Lucius down and just flatten him against the ground with herself, perhaps knowing that there's not enough time to actually pick him up and run. That, or she just flat out didn't think it through at all, as it looks like she might only realize what position she's in by the time she feels that burning sensation on her back and everything else.
Flamel Parsons	The pulsing strikes disregard Flamel's invisibility. The first one slams him, when it's his turn, bruising and burning him badly in the light. The next time, he knows to keep a shield up, but it pierces. The third time, it's firmed up. He's got it, but that means throwing aside his invisibility when it's his turn... Dammit! That means he can't go help Lucius when he's punching up the religious hierarchy, and... it means he's helpless to do much else but watch the kindest holy-man he knows get blasted.     He barely has seconds to layer his shield.     The first three layers rip off of it in shattered waves, he's far enough from it to not suffer the direct strike but just the shockwave messes him up. Flamel plants his fingers firmly on his temples to shore up what few shield layers remain. He screams as he does. "Elimine's *already* helped people! You can't have every answer hand-fed to you! You have to *figure it out!* And not in that wrong-headed cruel way, either!" Eyes on him... If his clairvoyance were in a certain way, that would be so useful, but for now, it's just knowledge that the soul-shadow isn't static.     His sunglasses are the only reason he's not going blind. "You have to *learn how to learn!* You have to know in your heart that it's okay to see the world with an amateur's eyes, and try to recognize how you can't get the answer right first without getting it wrong a lot! You can't just be taught answers, you have to know where that *comes from*, and you have to know that it's okay to screw up and get it wrong, and you have to learn that really knowing it comes from engaging with the guidance sincerely, every day, in little ways! You have to recognize that the Fool is just as important as the World -- more, even!"     His fingers tremble as the light overwhelms layer after layer, and starts to leak through cracks in his shield... "That's why Elimine left so much of herself here. That's why someone so wise left so many old lessons, she didn't wipe them out with the new truths. That's why we could see her as Elimine of the Eight, Elimine of the Book, Elimine of the Staff, Elimine of the Tower, Elimine of the Heavens..." Teeth grit. The final barrier is giving way. "To teach us one last secret lesson. To teach us that the mistakes last forever, and they're still okay to make!"     The last shield cracks. Flamel is barraged by the last waves of the light. But he blasts forward through it, sunglasses cracked and body shining with psychic injury. "The lesson that more people than just YOU deserve to learn from it all!!" He rushes the man, then flicks into invisibility.     That warp. The warp is the problem. But if a grapple can be achieved... Flamel's rush was a feint. He tries to grab Windham from behind, linking arms around his midsection and enduring whatever's about to happen. And his hands firmly clasp in... prayer. "Hey Elimine." He whispers. "Never done this before. Probably won't again. But if I got the right answer on the test, give me something to take that lesson forward."     He timed it for his next designated bolt-strike.
Riku Asakura	During the climb, Petra apologizes for using him like a Kaiju battle fight.  Riku hardly noticed, and Ultraman Geed gave her a nod and an Ultraman 'ya'.  Up at the top, with the reduced-sized Geed, things break down as fighting starts but Riku is looking for where best to put his might.  Clerics flank and help the new Bishop, while the light continues to rain down, but not at them.   The light comes down, and the light burns in the back of his eyes as he braces with his arms and slides back from the explosion. Thankfully, it wasn't aimed at him directly, but it was still nasty and caused sparks to strike his arms and chest. This was interrupted by Lucius, who bought them some time.  He doesn't know what is going on other than that it was a dangerous attack, and he doesn't want it to fire again.   Black and red energy starts to gather on either of Geed's arms, it surges through him until he brings both arms to his side.  There is a burst of energy out of him, as it courses through his body.  He brings both hands into a sort of plus shape, before screaming.  "WRECKING BURST!" Then the black and red energy fires through the arms, aiming to fire straight through the arena and right towards the Bishop, aiming to try and hit him the best that he can, but primarily aimed at his hands so he would drop the staff.  Still, energy like this is hardly controlled and might as well just punch him in the chest and off of his feet.   Regardless of how it ends, there is an explosion from the finished attack, aiming to deal some damage to the Bishop.
Petra Soroka	"Or a confused reawakening."     Petra startles at Lucius appearing behind her like she would for a teacher right after sneakily saying something especially deviant. Guilty feeling by expectation alone, Petra is immediately willing to agree with the actual priest's interpretation of events.     "Oh, yeah. That sure sounds a lot less blasphemous too." "I have orders, too!"     "Good. Then follow them." Petra intends the words as much more encouraging than they come across, but she's too focused on Windham to expend mental energy on expressing her feelings correctly.     Getting teleported away disorients her, and in the time it takes to realign from slashing at a cleric with the bayonet to lining up her transteam pistol's sights on another, two more divine arrows strike the ground. The second starts the series of blasts that track after Lilian, and Petra's pull of the trigger to launch concussive light at a priest coincides with a new low for her respect for Saint Elimine. It'd better not be a reawakening, or I'll start thinking the dragons had a point.     Taking after Lilian in the sense of being an advancing pressure of a distracting target, Petra pauses firing to steel herself for a slight mindset shift. Morphmetal drips down the arms of Sting Silver and then runs in reverse rivulets right back up it, spreading out to coat her arms and shoulders in a shell of Silver. Ferrofluid spikes bristle out, and without stopping firing her gun-- though by necessity, her shots aren't as well-placed-- she charges forwards repeatedly like Rutger. Unlike Rutger, though, Petra is a threat via inertia rather than skillful killblows-- while she charges and thruster-boosts towards the clerics, fist reared back, the sheer impact of her impending collision is potentially lethal, so she *has* to be teleported away, but then she'll come right back again after. Inevitably, this results in her barreling into a wall that she gets teleported in front of at least once, but after picking herself up off the floor she just gets right back into it again. "Surely if Elimine disagreed that strength is virtue, she'd take this tome from me herself!"     "Then fucking *die* so we can prove that we win at that fucking again!" Petra shouts, panting through the mask while morphmetal drips off her armor in a flood. She furiously points a finger at Windham, and a propagating line of jagged morphmetal spikes spear out of the floor along the same direction, shivering in anger. "Over and over and fucking *over* again, you *rot-filled*, self-important, fucking wannabe philosopher generals say the same headassed shit!"     "I'll fucking *bury* you, and you know what the reward for being strong enough to do that is?! Another *fucking* traitorous *clone*, spouting the same old garbage! You're not a *student*, you're just another fucking *trial*!"
Petra Soroka	It's either ironic or deeply fitting for a beam of light to lance through the roof and explode over Petra right then. Barely able to shift aside in the last moment with her own precognition helpless here, the built-up morphmetal splatters like gore and glows with superheated energy, and Petra herself is thrown to the ground with her armor scorched and smoldering. Sting Silver is sturdy enough to take *a* hit, but it still takes her more than two point two seconds to regain her footing, so she's losing ground. "Aureola, the Light of Supremacy!"     Especially when that starfire mote drifts down from the sun, and Lucius is injured and collapsed out of reach, and there's no way to move either him or Odette to safety. In an instant, Petra has to choose between regathering her morphmetal to shore up her own injured armor, or gathering it all around Lucius, and hearing Lilian's voice makes it easy to decide which. Droplets of quicksilver sprayed around the building in pristine puddles and rivulets all telekinetically float up and dart towards the throne, accumulating together into a crude dome shell around Lucius and Odette to put them in its shadow for Aureola's impact.     When the blind spots fade, Petra is thrown to the ground with her armor gone, face bloodied and clothes torn. She scrabbles for her transteam gun, squeezes the Silver FullBottle in the magazine, and glares at the Bishop still standing with the tome. The morphmetal shielding Lucius shivers, ripples expanding out on its surface, and then the shell collapses inwards to abruptly form a spike violently thrust at Windham, before collapsing into a puddle whether it hits or not.
Desire Stars	*Those shields are going to be a big problem. Maybe if I get inside their heads, Na-Go could reach them.* I'll be richly rewarded for wielding it on his behalf.     Geats chuckles. *Just what I needed you to say, Windham.*     "What you'll be is a liability," Geats says, juking a sleeping spell and sidestepping an arrow of light. Knowing the interval helps even if the direction is hard to predict.     "The reward was just to get you to come to his side. Now that you have, he knows what your asking price is, and once you give him what he wants, he doesn't have much reason to keep you around. The rest of you--" he leaps backwards and springs off of the wall to avoid another light arrow.     "Well, you guys don't even have the skill to use the staff going for you, huh? Tough break."     The build-up of light gives Geats momentary pause.     *Crap. Well, nothing to do but get him while he's on the power trip and get to cover. Boost should protect Na-Go, so...*     "Na-Go. The mages." Geats lifts the Magnum shooter as the light begins to fill the room, but he doesn't aim for Windham--rather, he aims for the skylight above him. Multiple triggerpulls made on the run for the stairwell send a halo of jagged broken glass raining down on Windham's position.     "Got it," Na-Go calls, revving up the Boostriker with one hand and slinging the Beat Axe over her shoulder with the other. The superbike peels out, its annealed metal exhausts belching flame as it starts like a bullet through the tower. Her path is erratic, driving along the walls; even then she's hard to track with the Boost armor's breastplate adding to her speed by way of the similarly-annealed thrusters on her wrists. Clothesline strikes from the Beat Axe, sideswipes with the bike's chassis and wheels, even snap kicks from her are all increasingly occluded by the blinding light. The downside is that the Boost armor doesn't confer her any special immunity to having her vision impaired, but the added fortitute it provides at least means she doesn't have to dive down the stairs for cover like Geats does.
Lilian Rook	§The pace and targeting aren't fast enough to repel a serious invading force. The shock and awe of someone being smote by the 'Saint' every two seconds forever, though . . . Is the fear of retribution meant to keep people's heads down and voices low around this place? But Lucius said that it wasn't meant to be weaponized at all. Is he just slightly wrong? Once, a long time ago, was it much more frightening than even this, and the alterations currently ongoing to the base substrate of 'magic' are returning it to the way it was?§     The slowing of the blasts actually nearly costs Lilian, having to double tap a stutter-skip back to back in a tenth of a second, hitting the next platform with a lightly glowing bootprint and a wisp of eerily luminous smoke. The wave of defensive magic put over Windham and the clerics doesn't catch Lilian by surprise in its application, but only in how many of them are willing to fight.     §That's fine. He can't teleport. Protective magic like that doesn't make my job much harder. Now that I'm getting a feel for how regular the blasts are, this is actually going to be easier than I thought. Keeping time in combat is something I do better than anyone else.§     Lilian skips back between a higher and lower balcony and then draws a triangle up two galleries where the colours of her own magic twist together in thin air and empty out the energy stored in the circle over three seconds, spraying the battle-ready clerics with a densely packed hail of light firepower and raising a ground-up smokescreen of finely pulverized dust and debris.     A short series of more sharply aimed blasts are fired with respectable accuracy at the clerics warping Rutger away and following up on Dieck; short-lived beams that intersect staves and tomes at some point along their arcs, but don't know the difference between those and flesh. One gutters out into only a thin lance of residually accelerated heat as it touches a silencing bubble, and then a wave of 'flechette'-style bolts vanish entirely into another cluster. A curse jumps to Lilian's lips when her next leap loses its gravity-twisting assist mid-way through, and then she corrects out of what should have been a stumble to 'teleport' somewhere else, only to realize, with a chill down her spine, that someone had just attempted to counter that as well.     §Shit! It's too late to pretend it worked, so-- ghh; they'll keep trying to figure it out for a short while, but I don't know who else was watching. To think that the Church has this sort of magic too; it's a wonder that Etruria hasn't found a way to mobilize them in wartime already. Could Lucius use this too, if we . . . ? No; that's not the point. Windham won't try to time an attack with them anymore; that's the problem.§
Lilian Rook	'The Saint tells us that the world is our guide. Through skill at the Saint's own craft, I show myself a good student of the world. Surely if Elimine disagreed that strength is virtue, she'd take this tome from me herself!'     "Saint Elimine left the world ages ago. She's not watching and grading you, personally." Lilian shouts back, her voice dopplering from right to left. "She was a student of God, not the Almighty herself. That level of blasphemy isn't something a Bishop can get away with saying."     She first arches aside and twists out of the way of the light beam, then runs headlong through it anyways once she realizes it doesn't constitute an attack itself. Rapid footfalls of steel clapping stone advance on Windham as Lilian grips and raises her sword. "Not just for challenging her as an adversary, but for all but saying it out loud, from deep down, that you see Zephiel as 'the world'!"     Lilian's squeezes Night Mist, and it snaps to its final angle of approach. Winding up three balconies down from Windham, she leaps beside a stilling bubble, picks up speed from the second railing, and braces against Lucius back as he collapses, poised to catch him should he fall the whole way.     Even then, she recognizes the delay. Lilian is already moving around him; revolving to block Windham from him with her back, and to smoothly transfer him to Odette's arms. She's already transitioning her sword from her left hand back to her right, then taking the hilt in both; the blade clicks into precise alignment with Windham's neck rather than his wrist, and the harsh light catches in the centimeter of near-translucency at its edge. An airburst cracks off the razor tip before he sees it move.     Then the matter of timing can be measured in centimeters of flesh. What should be a short upper slash that crosses straight through the Bishop's windpipe and lodges in his staff-holding wrist is forced to end partway through with a sense of lurching 'void. Her own instincts seize the moment as an ordinary person's body is 'seized' by paralytic panic. Three balconies down and completely across the tower, Lilian strikes the ground with her side and clatters aways from the ashen imprint of where she had hit the wall. All the air driven from her lungs, unable to gather anymore in the superheated air, she forces herself upright against her cramping muscles, braced with her shoulder against a blackened pillar, and staggers forward thirty feet before collapsing again with her back to a railing.                 -----[stop]-----     Doesn't dare look where Windham can see her. She raises her eyes over the stone lip only when nothing can move, peering through the smoke to see what's become of him-- and everyone else. It's so hot that she even gasping for air like this hurts her lungs. Her armour feels burnt to her skin in a score of places. Her ragged breathing and thudding heartbeat drown out her own thoughts. Lilian tests the flex of her fingers, the roll of her ankles and knees, and doesn't dare look for any other injuries.                 -----[start]-----     "What's the matter, Bishop? I thought you were going to use the Saint's own magic?!" calls out Lilian, with the benefit of three minutes forcing down pain and hyperventilation to fake up a facade of unflappability. "The Saint wouldn't have left me standing!"     §Can he still speak? Is anyone healing him? Is he treating himself? The instant he tries . . .§
Marigold	Odette, clinging to Lucius's back, can feel him take a shuddering breath. The blast sears her, saving him; then it sears Petra, saving them both. His hand reaches back to squeeze hers in the momentary silver-shielded reprieve.      "I'm so sorry..." he says, trembly. "It shouldn't be you saving me. I wasn't... ... I was stupid. But somehow, I'll make it right." His arm clings to Lilian as she helps him up, too; as if he were seeking security from her, and then falls away when he feels guilty for it.      The barrier-shields are effective, but only about half of the belligerent clerics can have them at a given time; the others resort to taking cover against the gunfire, which effectively suppresses them. Trudy's dead men find that the ones who are shielded can be focused down; a grenade or a few seconds of group fire will crack it.      Once they start dropping they're forced to be far more conservative. Of course, that only lets Rutger get in more easily- and Dieck, once Odette supports him.      "The reward was just to get you to come to his side."      "Tch. Look at the young vizier! So world-wise. But Zephiel rewards service. I wonder what my price can be when I have your heads?"      "Then fucking *die* so we can prove that we win at that fucking again!"      "Not mere worldly strength, but strength of the soul," Windham declares with arms spread grandiosely wide. The slightest flicker of light sparks in the cracked recesses of the Saint's Staff, and a wave of healing energy passes over the whole area- but only for Windham's men, of course. "The power to heal... the power to destroy... even extended life. Cultivating one's inner light does all this. Of course it means the favor of God, who architected the world! How do you think such favor is shown?"      But even if he can mend the flesh of his clerics, he isn't bringing back the dead, and he can't mend their spirits. Many of those who get back up reassess their odds against Petra's battering and Na-Go's assault and flee anyway. If the Bishop has noticed that his forces have halved, it doesn't dampen his confidence.      Even so. Windham is a capable man wielding great tools; he is not a great man. Petra's morphmetal stab pierces through his magical shell to catch him off-center in the gut; Lilian's blade digs in past the magic too; Riku's blast slams him back against the wall behind the throne.      He's still staggered when Trudy's great claw emerges from his shadow and slams him against the ground too. The Saint's Staff can't help him here; he can't gesture for Aureola. He grits his teeth while the magical shell cracks, until a flunky staff-warps him just out of reach right before it can shatter.      "Ghhhah... hah. Even a man of my stature shouldn't be playing games. Thank you for the reminder," he says, rising. Another feeble flicker from the Staff in his off-hand begins mending his own body.
Marigold	"... saying it out loud, from deep down, that you see Zephiel as 'the world'!"      "Isn't he?! Who has the world exalted more! Are you its pupil as keenly as the King?"      "The Saint wouldn't have left me standing!"      "It'll come with practice," Windham says, though he can't manage a smile. His few remaining servants triple-layer him in barriers before they flee. With the jet gone, there's little cover left. "Once more! The Light--" It's a desperation move, perhaps, but a good one.      Cecilia, thinking fast, snatches a 'silence' staff from the floor and points it at Windham. But a dire working like Aureola can only be slightly dimmed. The sapping field oversaturates.      "Is this the 'peace' you wanted to protect?! Is this what your artifacts were meant to be protected for!?"      "To teach us that the mistakes last forever, and they're still okay to make! The lesson that more people than just YOU deserve to learn from it all!!"      "There's no... there's no humility, there's no kindness, just a big guy who wants to be important."      Lucius, staggering, still with blood seeping through Odette's shoulder-patch and down his robes, snags Windham's sleeve mid-gesture. Windham turns to snarl. A heavenly arrow materializes over Lucius again... and then, beseeched by you, fizzles out.      The priest looks up at the sky.      "Please," he says.      "I know you don't watch and listen, Elimine. You're gone. We don't beseech you."      "But if this place still feels your echo... if your heart was ever like mine..."      The shock of having his arm grabbed again wears off. Windham jerks away and kicks Lucius down. "Silence. Begone, thief, in the name of Elimine's peace!"      A last heavenly arrow drops.      For a second, before it evaporates, you can sort of see Windham's skeleton. The book and staff hit the floor with a thunk.      Lucius is in no mood to celebrate. He pants on his knees. He forces himself up. Light-stung, aching eyes look around for- "... Oh! Mia! Odette... Petra... I'm so sorry. Come here, please. I'll... you shouldn't have had to do that. I'll fix things, I promise..."      He hurries down the stairs with healing staff in hand. Dewy-eyed, kicked, he's still a better image of Elimine. For whatever it's worth, the Tower seems to agree.
Dysnomia	"Silence. Begone, thief, in the name of Elimine's peace!"     "NO!" Dysnomia lunges, but she has no warp staff, or time stop. She can't close the distance. When the arrow comes down, she's sure it's coming for Lucius. She's sure she'll be too late...     But that's not who Elimine's echo strikes. And as the shock of it brings the combat in the room to a stop, Dysnomia stops short, a lump of something in her throat, skidding slightly. Staring. It feels wrong, almost. Like some gears in the clockwork of the world were turning the wrong way around.     But if they were, she hoped they still did. "Well." She huffed. "It's...About time."     "I'll fix things, I promise..."     "I'll hold out." Dysnomia tried to insist, even as smoke limped from her fingertips, as blood drifted around her as if in water. "Worry about them. And yourself..."     Sophia was right after all. Everything turned out...Just fine... Her eyes drifted up to the towertop, her expression a cipher. Glad. To be wrong.