Scene #5735: Dead Man's Panopticon-6

Owner	Pose
Bloody Revelations	The Shackle Maw Penitentiary is still smoking in the northwest of the city. Ghosts from all over have been flocking in to check the site for the past twenty minutes, using intangibility to quickly explore the utter wreck that the underground necro-lab has become, to the point of being unnavigable. No doubt they're looking for Strangling Sable Web, only just captured and extracted from the premises, as well as the intruders who had done it. Troops soon join the swarm, and begin rapidly spreading through the city. Fortunately, it seems that the resistance has picked exactly this time to make their move, as per Silken Laughter had suggested; warehouses and barracks across the city abruptly catch fire in all three other quadrants, further choking the night air with smoke and burning embers, and throwing search and destroy patterns into chaos as they're forced to investigate every single act of arson and sabotage. Some parties even disappear in the streets as they are ambushed from blind alleys or rebels hidden in plain sight amongst the crowd. No doubt many of those fooldhardy or desperate mortals will perish tonight, but it gives the Elites who had joined them enough time and cover to exit the city unnoticed, and head out through the borders of the Shadowland to the exercise field adjoining the war camp at a distance, exactly where the intel said that the Conscientious Grimacing Executioner would be. Of course, the training exercise has been halted. In fact, large troop dispatches are moving away from the barrel field as Elites come within visual distance, most moving on horseback (or skeletal things approximating horses) or else other swift wheeled machines. Perhaps eighty or so troops remain on the flat stretch of smooth black gravel surrounded by bone fences, all of them mortal, as their faster, dead, joint partners have all sortied to the city. The far end of the field looks as if it's been heavily shelled by something in the past few hours, but at the moment, it's just the Thornguard in formation exercises, armed with heavy plate and polearms, not Essence weaponry. There are three obvious field officers with blood red plumes, one of whom should probably be the prince that Gawain is after. Executioner's Grimace is extremely obvious amongst all of them, being a foot taller than any other individual on the field and shirtless, with a long axe with a blade the size of his own torso. He stands at the head of three blocks of infantry, listening to a younger man with black hair who seems to disappear shortly after delivering a message.
Gawain	Gawain was not part of the Shackle Maw mission, to his regret. He wanted to assist the civilians in their escape to make up for his failure in the mines, but he was tasked with a more important mission, one suited for his skillset. He had accepted his task, and was prepared to save the rightful prince of Thorns, a very knightly task. Gawain was already in his battle armor, riding atop a motorcycle he had requisitioned from the Paladins. He was not part of the rebellion, and was instead approaching from an angle that'd keep him away from the troop dispatch, riding the bike towards the field where they're training. The motorcycle would probably be loud enough to hear as Gawain gets close, bringing it to a sudden skid and leaping off, drawing his blade and pointing it forward. He's super outnumbered, but that's irrelevant. He came for one thing, and he's going to do that thing, as the knight approaches in the direction of the field officers, keeping his guard up for a sudden attack. "I am Sir Gawain, Warden of the Paladins, Knight of the Sun! I seek the rightful prince of Thorns. Release him to me unharmed, and we can all go our separate ways!" Gawain shouted so that he could be heard, trying to figure out which one appears to be the prince. There'll probably be a fight, but you always have to try and be diplomatic first, even if that gives the enemy the first strike.
Staren	A humanoid robotic figure runs from the city to catch up to the motorcycle. Its armor plating isn't particularly recognizeable, but it does have cat ears and a tail... In this body, Staren is neither winded nor concerned about breathing exhaust fumes -- as soon as the motorcycle stops, he stops alongside Gawain, turning towards him and flipping up his helmet faceplate so Gawain can identify him. "You really think they'd keep the rightful ruler of Thorns /alive/ and risk the chance of this happening? If I were Mask of Winters, I'd kill him and then torture his ghost to insanity or force him to reincarnate. Ooh, or trap him in soulsteel. Yeah, actually, that sounds like the best choice. Make him into a sword or a royal scepter or something. Major villain points there." As he talks, he reaches into his bag and pulls out what appears to be an overly large-bore rifle that some would recognize as one of his missile launchers. He doesn't fire yet, though, waiting to see if diplomacy will actually work. You never know!
Starbound Flotilla	Albert's salvaged his small mecha from the wreck of the gunship. The hefty, gleaming-white thing is a bit dented, but it's still a larger-than-life warsuit armed with a dozen different heavy weapons and a huge hammer, so it has surged down the streets with rocket-powered blasts. Its wounded pilot will have to make due with an injection of painkillers and stimulants with an application of some nanowrap bandages, no time to actually get these wounds managed so thank goodness they've left him in a combat-able state... For the most part. They've probably got artillery that can point here. Albert figures that from the look of the fresh craters. He knows he needs to focus on closing on Executioner fast, otherwise he'll be open to fire from very long range. So while Gawain stops, he surges forward, the eyes of his mecha blazing pure white. His machine's hoverthrusters let him skate over the battlefield as the shoulder thrusters force him forward, and he looks to close the gap with Executioner early. Gawain has stopped for diplomacy, and Albert's not exactly going to open fire, but he sure isn't stopping or putting the hammer away either. He's expecting no diplomacy. As usual for Albert, really.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 was not in the prior operation. She has been busy, committing her time and resources to see this current action a success, and for more than Gawain's primary objective. She hasn't spared much thought for what she'll do if Gawain's demand is met, as she doubts it matters--if they were dealing with people who could be reasoned with or intimidated, the whole game would be changed. No, she knows how this is going to go down. She's not right there, of course, but she's within line of sight, buried under a pile of dusty camouflage, laid out with her sniper's rifle in front of her, moving the scope between Gawain and Executioner's Grimace. By her are a collection of radio-transmitting triggers, currently idle, each labeled with tape and marker. Most of those correspond to the devices she's buried all along the approach between where she'd expected Gawain to arrive and Grimace. Spikes, shrapnel, pellets, incendiaries--the shapes or fuel may vary, but none will be pleasant to be near when the trigger's pulled. The mines she's placed approaching her own position, the unnoticed nature of which she doesn't expect to hold, don't need such a trigger. They'll go off at a footstep. She has a few other toys saved away, as well, but the more situational stuff's for round two. She doesn't think this one will go down easy, but she'll only be slightly disappointed to be wrong about that. She waits. She's not waiting for the rejection to diplomacy so much as for her target to get close enough to the first trap. It'll be a lot harder for someone to hear her rifle go off if their ears are still ringing from the thunder under their feet.
Tomoe	No war is won without losses but it's still on her head, Tomeo doesn't think much more about that she focus on the mission. They got to make this count though they have a chance to get a major VIP. She was angry creation tended to make her angry just every time she had to deal with this world. They also had a target to take out here. She's beat up a bit and it shows there's various red sploches on her digital body. She would wait on Gawain even as the visual signs of her injurie sealw btut her HP bar was showing a different storty she has been torn up and would feel it the next time she transforms back. For now though the Iron Lily waits with a mute expression on her face she waits to see what happens with Caliburn in hand.
Batou	Batou and Tachikoma roll up quickly, both worse for wear. Batou still has damage to his face, as well as damage to the rotors that control his facial expressions. Any time Batou speaks to his teammates, he will use his internal speaker or his comms, but cannot emote with his face. Tachikoma got through mostly unscathed, save for a few acid burns in the metal. They come into sight of the troops, not even bothering with sneaking. Batou has pulled a much bigger weapon from the back of the Tachikoma, a large rifle meant for high velocity, long distance. Batou takes aim at Executioner, crouching on the top of Tachikoma as he takes aim at the giant brute. He lets a shot go, aiming for his shoulder. Tachikoma is rolling forward at near top speed, guns blazing as it clears a path for itself towards Executioner. "Mr. Batou, what's our plan?" Tachikoma asks. "Neutralize the big guy. I need your speed to get around these clowns on the ground. He's gonna be a problem, so stay sharp, got it?" Batou keeps Eye informed of his tactics over Paladin comms, his first large round spent as he loads another one into the chamber, readying another shot. This is looking to be the big one.
All-Seeing Eye	A few seconds after Gawain's ultimatum is given, a hoverbike pulls forward, kicking up a spray of gravel as it banks hard to stop. The rider is covered in lacerations, his clothing torn as if he were suddenly caught amidst a swarm of ravenous tropical fish. Only the long black hair creeping out from the figure's raised hood serves to identify him beyond all doubt. Anyone familiar with Eye's normal appearance would otherwise swear it wasn't him--his body language is sullen, his lips pulled into a frown, his face hidden behind the aforementioned hood. Flashes of purple sparks occasionally illuminate and hint at his features, which seem somehow more metallic, perhaps even skeletal. "I do," Eye replies to Staren in a cold, nonchalant way. The bike disappears in a flurry of rapid space-folding, vanishing into his palm. "If not the genuine article, then a convincing simulacrum at least. What better poison for dissidence than converting the idol of the dissidents themselves?" The sound of Albert's thrusters catches his ears quite plainly. Those around him will see his soft lips purse in distaste--but he makes no motion to stop the scientist. Another sound reaches his ears--that of Batou taking the shot. At that, he allows a weary sigh to escape his lips. "Woe is me, to be a scalpel surrounded by sledgehammers." His targeting systems lock onto the young man the Abyssal was speaking to. Should this young man attempt to leave and bring word to other regiments in the city, Eye will fire upon him.
Bloody Revelations	The Elites are noticed long before they quite hit the field, but that's fine. There's absolutely no way they'd be able to conceal their approach anyways, and they're not here to be subtle. oddly, despite the number of fast moving vehicles of exotic and ostensibly military design, the triple formation doesn't panic or break. They don't even move at all. Though mortals to the last, the Thornguard regiments stand there in the face of the motorbikes, tachikoma, mecha, and otherwise barrelling down on them, still as statues, watching with empty, flinty eyes in eerie silence. One of them finally moves when Gawain issues his declaration. One of the red plumed figures, as expected, steps forward, looking to the titanic shirtless man with the shaven head, who nods affirmatively. The princeling continues to walk forward, and stops about a stone's throw short of Gawain, opening his arms without dropping his spear and shield. "Release me? What need would there be for that? I'd have to be kept here against my will first." he says loudly enough for anyone to hear. "Whatever you've been told, it seems you've made a mistake. As the son of the former patriarch of Thorns, it should be my duty to lead its people through its transition into this new age, and through what better means than leading by example? It is because the Mask of Winters recognized the legitimacy of Thorns that I am now able to serve at the forefront of our glorious army --the first /real/ army Thorns has ever had, and what greater example should a prince begin with? Of course people are afraid. Change is never without a little pain. That's why I hope to show the people of Thorns that this is a time of opportunity --for Thorns to regain its former standing and glory before the disastrous campaigns of my father. Why should I feel imprisoned by our new leader when my city finally has a chance to be something again?" Said without reservation, coercion, or doubt. It seems like he absolutely believes it, through and through. There aren't any signs of magical control or compulsion, at least not overtly, but the dull, dead-eyed gaze of his, the same as the rest of the soldiers, speaks to something significantly more mundane, and more terrifyingly grounded from the realms of Creation's fancy. It's the kind of placid, sociopathic stare of a cultist --the kind that one finds down the road or just out of town, carefully gaslighted into line and isolated from their friends, rather than at some blood ritual to a dark god. It seems not everything needs to be Essence this and Chosen that. Some uncomfortable realities are universal.
Bloody Revelations	That doesn't last for long though. Gawain's brief diplomatic exchange is interrupted by the arrival of the cavalry. At first only standing aside, grim and silent, the Deathknight at the head of the formation turns to look at the incoming tachikoma, and then Batou mounted atop it, aiming his rifle. Unlike some, he is not caught by surprise by the unfamiliar weapon. Even from firing distance, Batou can see the man staring through the sights back at him. Right as he pulls the trigger, the Executioner's Grimace lets out a supernaturally loud and resounding "/HA/!" that is part martial arts kiai and part subsonic earthquake, drowning out the gunshot itself. The high calibre bullet slams directly into his shoulder, since he doesn't move from his spot at all, but instead of his flesh, the slug breaks instead, shattering into twisted pieces that leave only shallow scrapes over his muscular frame, as if the shot had hit a rock instead of a person. With Albert rocketing inbound, he puts both hands on the long haft of his soulsteel axe, an humble tool of pitch black with a single blade and leather wrappings, instead of the usual ostentatious artifact weapon decorated in skulls and engravings. When the mecha reaches him, he takes a huge, earth-rocking stomp forward, slams the braced haft into its midsection, and then turns on his heel with another kiai that throws the whole machine flying up and over him, head over heels. The prince scurries back into line immediately, and the Thornguard cluster together, overlapping their shields and readying their spears in clockwork unison. The Executioner only starts walking forward, waves of shadows rippling over his body, and his expression completely neutral and focused, leagues more intense than Shards of Basalt or Strangling Sable Web had managed to be. The chill of necrotic Essence surrounding him is palpable, as a certain, more human tenseness. A topless dude with a shaved head and an axe isn't all that impressive compared to any of the other Abyssals, but there is an unmistakable no-nonsense air about him. The impossible to feign aura of experience. "You don't want to fight me." he says, in slow and measured words, almost like a monk. "You aren't of the Scavenger Lands. This doesn't concern you. Go back to where you came from. That is my ultimatum."
Kyoko Takada	"Nah," mouths Alpha-39, a silent response from an unreasonable distance, as Executioner's Grimace steps over a cluster of off-world steel spikes packed over and around an explosive propellant charge. She relaxes, then tenses, pulling the rifle snugly against her, and tugging a wire with her teeth. The wire pulls one of the triggers to her side, the radio sending out a brief code. The EM wave itself powers up the receiver under the Abyssal's feet, and the explosive ignites, sending fire, steel, and shockwave straight up. A-39 squeezes, hands steady, her own ears able to make out nothing past the thunder of her own weapon. The round fired won't be audible to any ahead of her, not because it's in any way silenced, but because the oversized, pointed bullet is moving faster than the measly mach 1 that could warn of its arrival. The muzzle flash she did take pains to hide, but there's only so much that can be done about that. At this distance, once she's spotted, and if her shots are watched, a superhuman just might be able to do something to avoid her fire. She's planned for that, as well, which contingencies become relevant depends on what happens now.
Starbound Flotilla	The huge mecha about matches the Abyssal's size, but its weight certainly doesn't match its strength. The huge machine is launched over, dented by the impact. Albert grunts in pain as he suffers the intensity of its impact against the ground, but even as he does, the machine rights itself as quickly as it can, rolling onto its feet and bringing its hammer into a defensive position. Its radio flickers on, and audio broadcasts back to Executioner: "Starbound One on station. War is where I come from. Let's go home." He says, tensely. He's recovered a bit from the VEP madness, but he's back into his angry pilot mode. Then, "Engaging. Fox four." His bristling guns launch waves of radioactive fire as he moves in to strike with a heavy overhand rocket-smash, intent on stunning Executioner and forcing him into a low defensive position before he can avooid A-39's planted explosives.
Batou	Batou grimaces, though only inwardly as the shot fails to make any real dent in his target. That pisses him off. Batou radios Eye, both angry and curious. "Any ideas how to get through the big guy's defenses besides hitting harder, Eye?" A moment later, Eye responds. "Don't go all out. Wear him down. He only has so much energy to call upon before he's forced to rely on his martial skill alone." A quick acknowlegement and Batou shuts his comms down again."That was dead on. He's got some lungs, I'll give him that much. But let's just-" Batou gets cut short as he watches explosives go off directly underneath Executioner's Grimace, and a muzzle fire in the distance, very small, but still noticible to his augmented eyes. Batou doesn't waste any time getting his next round off at Executioner, Tachikoma skirting the troops instead of directly attacking them. Tachikoma jumps into the air, Batou hanging on tight as they land atop a group of soldiers.
All-Seeing Eye	"No," says the hooded Exalt to his axe-wielding counterpart. Refusing to be cowed by this display of Essence, Eye flares his own magical calling-card. In a moment, he's surrounded by swirling clouds of smoke, brief flashes of purple lightning illuminating the vortex. With a sizzling crack of an energy whip, a gash is torn in the ground before Executioner's Grimace, as if to draw a line in the sand. When Albert charges in, he leaps backwards, nimbly turning in the air to land on his feet. There is a pained grunt after this landing, but he grits his teeth. "My wants are irrelevant." Two whips of pure, purple lightning streak forward in a hypnotic double-helix pattern. "I have my orders, and you have yours," he says, as the whips move seemingly of their own accord. The intent seems to be holding the Abyssal in place for George, and consequently, A-39. "I am the superior template from which you and the other heretics were clumsily copied. You will not talk down to me."
Miari	Miari's established that the people she's working with are of the cold-hearted variety. A voice inside her says they're right to ignore the weak. It's too inefficient and pointless to care. Caring at all is stupid - not allowed. And she's ignored that voice, leaving her more reliant on her wits instead of the usual super-precise application of her powers that comes from the PRinciple of Hierarchy. She swoops out of cover of the chaos, regrouping with the others while frowning furiously! As it turned out there was no way she could handle the swarm of ghosts and other things that swooped in on Shackle Maw. IF there were any survivors, they wouldn't be survivors for long. "Do not hold a grudge against me. There's nothing more I can do but keep more from joining you." She whispers to the wind while running. Because she's a bit slower, she's among the last to arrive, still clad in her (slightly disheveled) battle attire. But she kicks off the ground as she nears Albert's mecha, rising on a platform of crystalline light that forms beneath her! Several times she tries to gather her voice, but the dread aura surrounding the the bald Abyssal keeps souring her words as they form. Which leaves her choking on them before they even reach her throat. Miari shivers on her low-flying platform, using Albert's mecha for cover. "Ergh.." She has no witty or graceful retorts to that declaration, since it's... quite right on several levels. But still... something rises deep within her. Something that isn't witty or playful banter. Not her cold and calculated analysis of the situation either. Her eyes flash viridian with RAGE. The young woman raises a hand skyward... "We are not here to fight you. We are here to DESTROY you, and everything you have accomplished!" Finally finding her words, she focuses her spirit and wrath... and a bolt of green lightning strikes her outstretched hand, spreading out into the shape of a vicious naginata formed of green flames. Her hand's blackened and singed by the weapon's caustic energies, but she brandishes it from her flying platform anyways... With one swing, she sends down a wave of the Green Sun's wrath. A wide crescent of viridian flames!
Gawain	Well, that's a surprise - they don't immediately attack, and they actually respond. The prince's response makes Gawain frown, however. Gawain watches his face and body language, and gets the sign that the young man isn't alright. He's not being coerced and there's no obvious sign of magic, but people don't need that to need rescuing. Even if you believe what you're saying, sometimes you still need help. Gawain takes several seconds to think over his worlds, and makes his judgment - the prince still needs rescue, at the very least for his own safety in this impending battle. The knight's head darts towards Executioner's Grimace as he's attacked, frown slightly deepening as he then starts watching the Thornguard get into formation. Gawain can fight multiple well-trained soldiers head-on, but it'd be risky, and he can't fight that entire number. Especially not at night time, when his famous endurance isn't active. While the others deal with the Abyssal, he'll deal with the Thornguard, as he points his sword forward and up... And thrusters appear out near the handle. "I apologize, prince, but you must come with us anyways! The people of Thorns are worried about you, and you don't seem well. Please understand that we do this for you." It's sincere, as the sword suddenly rockets forward, pulling Gawain briefly into the air over the shields. Twisting around, he moves to slam down into part of the formation, setting the blade on fire as a ward. He aims for a cluster that does not hold the prince, trying to blow their shields back and break their formation, perfectly willing to kill some of the soldiers to achieve his goals. This is the battlefield, after all. "Those who can, assist me! I need help breaking the Thornguard's formations!"
Tomoe	Here comes the Prince his words? Ya there is somethign not right here she sees the look on his face she's seen it before she's about to say something and Gawain over the comm. She can't help but agree. She offers to help him and she is going to do it, she has Caliburn in hand and the Mourning Wall in the other. "It does concern us. Creation has a nasty habit of bleeing to other worlds and I can't look away from this." People have died to give them this shot, she is damn well going to take it. She looks to the Round Table Knight, then looks back to the target she's ready she grips her blade her eyes are focused she's clearly intent to fight here. She sees ALbert is going after the boss man and A-39 is opening up shes tenses every part of her body, she readies her abiltiies and will buff the entire assault group with an spell that will boos their endurance and slightly reduce how much damage they take from attacks, it's not much but in a long fight it sure can add up. With that she moves to follow Gawain towards the thorn guard formation.
Staren	Oh, huh, that's unexpected. So the 'rightful' leader of Thorns has been made into an important leader for the people to rally behind. Damn, that's even cleverer than the stuff he just thought of. Mask of Winters isn't a /complete/ idiot. The army must be relatively well-treated, to be this loyal. Obviously, it would be ideal to subdue them and then put them in an environment where, over months or even years, they could learn the ways of the Multiverse instead of their cult. But subduing is harder than killing. And they don't have the time. The decision isn't THAT hard to make: These lives now, to save those Mask of Winters would take with his conquest. Only AFTER Staren's started firing missiles at the troops (he'll need a better plan for the exalts, they've clearly got Shenanigans) does he realize that killing the soldiers of a necromancer might not be the best idea. Oops. Barring defenses, missiles start arcing down on the troops and exploding into fireballs. But will those fireballs leave ash, or angry ghosts?
Bloody Revelations	"War is no home to anyone. It is a place men become lost, and forget their way out." says . . . the Abyssal general, to Albert. It's too solemn and subdued for a one-liner. Whoever this man is, he isn't buying into the hype like Sable Web did. It's almost uncomfortable. Maybe it's simply due to age and experience, because he starts taking the assault on like a champion. When Batou's next shot comes as he careens closer on the tachikoma, the Executioner's axe flits out in gross violation of the concept of inertia, swatting the heavy bullet away on its flat, and then comes swinging back around again in two hands to crash down on A-39's anti-materiel bullet, using the blunt size as a hammer to slap the round into the gravel before it can reach him. How he sensed it was coming could only be chalked up to some kind of sixth sense. He spins that same axe around himself as the radiative fire comes swirling at him, cleaving through it as a semi-solid mass and diverting it in a wide circle at double arm's length, then taking the mecha-sized punch on the haft over his head, muscles flexing and bulging as he absorbs it through sheer strength, staring straight into the cockpit. "Is it overconfidence, or simply hate that drives you." he intones, his axe starting to seethe with roiling green energy. The explosives go off under his feet at that moment. He isn't in any position to avoid it, holding Albert at bay. Volatile charges and an upside down hail of steel spikes erupt into him at point blank, and the earth shaking thump makes him disappear instantly into a cloud of dust and gravel that springs up all around him. The pressure on the opposite side of Albert's mecha's fist drops for a moment, giving rise to the hope that the Executioner may be severely wounded or put off guard, but when the butt of the axe pivots out of the cloud and slams against the inside of the mecha's arm, it seems it's because the weapon has taken on a shroud of intensely corrosive energy, and one hard smack is enough to rot through most of the machinery around the impact point.
Bloody Revelations	The Abyssal takes a short leap backwards out of the dust cloud, covered in shallow lacerations and burns, but none of them look close to fatal, as if his body itself were made of solid metal, too hard to need armour like the others. He turns to meet All-Seeing Eye head on, and in doing so, tosses his axe up into the air to free both his hands, so he can physically /grab/ both lightning whips in his bare fingers, and yank the Alchemical all the way over to him, straight on, to deliver a headbutt about as gentle as a mortar blast, angled down into the dirt. "You are wounded and ignorant in the ways of war." he grunts, the coruscating waves of inverse light intensifying around his body, growing into a violet-tinged black pyre. He then reaches out to grab hold of the Alchemical, and with any kind of handhold, turns to physically hurl him into Batou like a man-sized brick, attempting to snipe the pair out of the air before they land into the Thornguard formation. After that, he looks in the direction A-39's shot had come from, then down at his feet, clearly deliberating which angle of approach makes him less likely to get blown up or shot, before deciding there is no good angle on the group, and takes off into a ridiculous, wuxia-esque leap that covers a third of the distance in one go, making sure he only has to put his feet on the ground twice to reach her. He's done this before. An efficient mix of Essence and his own personal skill and strength, as well as tactical awareness and planning --an incredibly far cry from the edgier Abyssals faced so far. Staren, Gawain and Miari take on the Thornguard in the meantime. Though ostensibly mortals in a more grimdark set of high quality gear typical for Creation, they don't move like them. When Gawain comes crashing into the formation, hurling plated bodies left and right, there is no great uproar of wounded and panicked men, but instead the rest of the formation closes in around him, smoothly enveloping him into thick jaws of spears and shields that press in like a vice. They move almost as a hivemind, thrusting into his back whichever way he turns, and attempting to overwhelm him and his sword through sheer numbers, concentrating their shields into more dense bulks where he swings to try and disperse some of the impact. Under the missile barrage, they quickly form up to do much the same. Handfuls of soldiers are effectively obliterated here and there, reduced to so much ash by direct missile impacts, but the rest cluster together to layer their tower shields in a thick ceiling above them, which at least don't immediately give out. The same strategy pays off against Miari, leaving the wave of flames blasting over a (now half-melted) roof of heavy steel barricades. One of the red yells out and then fires a sickly green flare into the air, and the next second, Staren and Miari are subject to a hail of long-distance fire, probably from the war camp itself. Colossal ballista bolts of black metal streak at them in two waves, with remarkably tight accuracy for being siege weaponry. Just before they strike, they splinter into hundreds of smaller slivers, constituting effective anti-air.
Staren	Hmm. This isn't massacreing the Thornguard as quickly as he hoped. Staren considers Batou's request for help. The missiles he's using would be a bad idea with everyone fighting the Executioner in melee, but maybe another weapon... Before he can decide though, the Thornguard calls in freaking artillery. Since when do his enemies get artillery?! Staren's supposed to be the one blasting people with a mecha from miles away! He tries to evade, dancing through the air on wings and thrusters, only for the rounds to split and shower him with bolts! The rain of physical projectiles cracks and shatters layers of his forcefield, the discs on his harness exploding in showers of sparks until only one remains. This threat needs to be neutralized, or he's going to have to retreat. The situation is bad, but he's not out yet -- He makes a beeline for the camp, flying over the ground and looking for the source of those projectiles. A full-power RAISER shot or the like might be able to take them out of comission, if he can find them before they reload.
Miari	Oh this is bad. Very bad. Miari sees the flares rise up after the storm of shields absorbs the impact of her emerald fire and fury! Though such won't hold up too long against her bombardment, she muses... But the flare. Her battle instincts put tingles down her spine... and it's all she can do to curl up and mimize her profile as the rain of tiny arrows begins. Her Mind-Hands are turned to a fine point-defense effort, turning away anything that approaches her vitals. Which means both arms and her legs and parts of her sides and belly get simply peppered, but her head and torso is largely untouched. Apart from a few that grazed her cheeks, and one that took half an ear off. The armor she wears was adequate protection in many palces, but slivers have found ways through chinks. All of this leaves her bloody and hissing in pain. She lowers down to the ground, dizzied with pain. A few deep breaths later, she regains her focus. A corrosive emerald-white aura blazes forth from her body, and all of the slivers are TORN from her flesh, hovering before her. Her ravaged body begins to mend at lightning speed, wounds closing and blood steaming off. She's still winded by the expenditure, but now she turns her attention towards the distant ballista... And hyper-accelerates the captured slivers right back towards their sourc!
Kyoko Takada	Under the circumstances, charging straight at her while avoiding the ground as much as possible was probably the smartest move he could make. If all Alpha-39 had were ground-triggered explosives, there wouldn't be much way she could stop him but to keep firing her rifle, likely hitting with ease on those long bounds, but without any certainty of getting past his parrying ability. She does keep firing, but that's not all she had in store. It doesn't matter if he touches the ground so long he passes directly over one of the remote-triggerable devices she placed in the way, and with a nudge of a toe, another explosive sets off, littering Executioner's Grimace's approach vector with half-molten shrapnel and another cloud of dust. The cloud would spoil the sniper's aim, if Grimace hadn't done her the service of taking long, predictable leaps with easily predicted vectors. It might put off his sight of what comes next, with a brush of her hand over another transmitter. From the start, she expected this to be like fighting an armored warmachine, not a human. Various points away from any combatant explode, but with more smoke than fire, the camouflaging dirt flying away from the exhaust behind each weapon emplacement. Half a dozen man-portable anti-tank rockets, most of them lined up with the expectation of facing an enemy that would be confident to charge straight at her, fire off all at once, streaking through the air with roars and screams of their own, four right into the Abyssal's path and two bracketing close enough to be a hazard.
Gawain	This isn't how Gawain was expecting it to go, but he respects how solidly the Thornguard are trained, right as the spears pierce into his armor and cut into his skin, keeping him mostly pinned and at a sheer disadvantage. The longer he sticks in the pit of spears, the longer he has an issue, as he instead focuses his blade at several of the spears, trying to cut through them and disarm soldiers, before kicking a shield up from one of the fallen into one hand, moving the sword into a one-handed stance. The shield is used to batter the spears forward until it's of no more use, trying to force his way out of the pin with sheer strength and find the prince. Once Gawain has visual contact with the prince, he'd proceed to throw the shield to the side, taking Galatine into a two-handed stance and moving to try and straight carve his way forward, though being especially careful to not accidentally stab the guy. The prince needs to come with him, even if Gawain is battered and bloodied in the process.
All-Seeing Eye	Of course, All-Seeing Eye attempts to fight back. His boots dig into the gravel, leaving a trail as he resists. Of the two of them, Executioner's Grimace is physically stronger--and Eye's resistance buys only a few seconds before he's headbutted. Clang. Grimace's forehead smashes into Eye's soulsteel-reinforced skull with enough impact to blur the perceptive Exalt's vision. For a split second, the Abyssal can see the surprise in his opponent's remaining good eye, hidden beneath the shade of his hood. He can also see where Sable Web's handywork has essentially cremated what was once a beautiful, young face. Eye's sensory suites attempt to dull the ringing, to clarify and stabilize the double vision. He raises up an arm, and takes aim... only for that same arm to be used as the means to toss him through the air. As he hurtles towards Batou, the Exalt's targeting systems compete with one another for dwindling resources, all beneath the seemingly placid exterior. The best course correction his systems can offer is a non-lethal collision course with the other Paladin. At least... that's the excuse he'll give, anyway. With a firing angle confirmed, Eye spends his rapidly dwindling reserves of Essence to rain immaterial lightning blasts upon Grimace, the shots rematerializing at randomly-generated points near his person.
Tomoe	There's some more chatter on the comms she keeps focus she join the charge with Gawain, Staren and Miari. Tomoe has work to do, thus? She's moving to pile in her shield will be used to force some of them out of the way and she'll hack and slash she doesn't want to do this but she has little choice as the almost seeming hive minded attack come for them and they also are very good at linking their shield she'll mix it up with a quick fire ball or two on the enemy ranks to try and keep them off balance. She's got a good defence but there are too many they are cutting into her. She will follow Gawain into hell as best she can intenint to keep other attackers from bumb rushing him while he makes a go for the prince. "I have your back! Get the Prince!" Tomoe calls out to him even as she'll clash with more of the forces of the Mask of Winters.
Batou	Batou is able to see Eye being flung in his direction, and with only an instant, can catch the Exalted with his one free arm, hitting the antennae on top of the mobile tank, denting it, but thankfully not falling off entirely. The shot he had lined up ends up missing its target by a long shot, firing amongst the crowd of soldiers. Tachikoma lands hard on the ground as Batou falls into a sitting position. "Shit, Eye, hey! Are you ok? Ah, dammit, you better not be dead or I'm gonna kick your ass!" he shouts, though all of this, of course, is said out of worry. Tachikoma is able to compensate for the extra weight and takes Batou's pre-occupation with Eye as a signal to redirect shots at Executioner, its wheels spinning on whatever it landed on underneath as it attempts to plow throught the soldiers. "I got you, Mr. Batou! Continuing engagement with the target!" Tachikoma chimes in. Batou tries to sit Eye up as he sighs, then redirects his attention at the big bad again, this time aiming directly for ther head. "Hey, you shithead! I'm not done with you yet!"
Starbound Flotilla	Albert's machine takes a shot to the arm and what's left soon isn't an arm. Twisting corrosion eats away at its armor and then its internal structure. The heat of the overloads reaches Ablert himself, searing him with damage. As a whole segment of the arm wrenches off, he drops the hammer only long enough to use one tremendous mechanical fist to grab and tear a segment of his own mecha off, purging it of the rot and revealing part of the man himself as the cockpit near-compromises. "We don't get to choose our home. Especially if it's this. I know how to live like this more than I know how to die somewhere else." He declares, his own torn-up armor bared by the exposed cockpit. He grabs his heavy rad-gun with both of his armored arms jutting out of the mecha, while leaving the mecha's remaining arm -- operated by neural control -- holding his massive hammer. Now, time to figure out how to catch up with the man before he reaches A-39, because he can't afford to lose her backup. He can't afford to lose any backup, really. "Bandit making a break. accelerating." The others have long established their ranged combat against him. He skates forward on his thrusters, pressing on, and working to figure out a plan. Corrosion on contact, but mostly at the axe... Right? So it won't be reflexive. His plan, in this case, is to fire off a grappling hook right onto the man himseldf! The heavy claw that blasts out of one of the launch ports angles right for him, trying to latch onto a leg or something like that, ideally giving Albert enough time to reel in or buy A-39 some extra space before the carbon supercable gets sliced apart by decay magics. He's trying to approach for another big swing. Another heavy, brutal smash. He's trying to force Executioner to block with that axe... Then Albert himself leans entirely out of his compromised cockpit and tries to fire a charged shot from his rad-gun straight into the man's body, to douse it in exotic particles that have yet to be named by Apex science, and try to slam against his body with enough force to try to pin aggressively, even if it's more than likely to wind up as a brutal head-on deadlock ram given this man's intense strength. The hope is to hold him, at least for a moment, for Batou and All-Seeing Eye's respective attacks! "Nobody wages war without hate." He answers Executioner. "You wage a campaign to hold off death at most."
Bloody Revelations	It takes some searching to find the origin point of the ballista shots, because they fired from some serious distance. With both Staren and Miari having been in the air, they wouldn't have been hard to see, but it seems like the operators might have fired more from the flare than anything else, judging it for elevation. The time it takes Staren to reach them gives them plenty of time to reload and fire off a second salvo, and this time all four machines aim directly for him with one wave, and then directly at Miari for the other, instead of going half and half for two. The nemissaries operating them don't break off until the two are actually shooting right back at them, which is brave, but too late when thousands of black barbs shred their corpse garments to pieces, and pinpoint shots from the Raiser rifle punch tiny glowing holes through the machinery, down to center mass, which then detonate in clouds of white-hot metal vapour, flash atomized on the spot and leaving nothing usable left. It seems only the ammo was special. Gawain and Tomoe are left taking on the Thornguard without further air support. This makes it considerably more difficult, since they no longer have to divert men and shields to the sky and can instead continue to swarm around the two. Soldiers drop steadily as fireballs and Galatine find their mark in turn, sending burnt and bloodied men hurling out of formation, many dead, but others wounded and alive due to their surprisingly sturdy plate, but the gaps close up again with fresh troops eager to get a taste of blood, without pain and without fear. Soon, Tomoe is hemmed in just as badly as Gawain was, eating spear damage to her health bar so consistently that it may as well be an environmental hazard, and Gawain is hard pressed to fend them off even with a stolen tower shield, too heavy for a mortal to normally be using, oddly enough. He spies the prince in all of it, rallying the third unit and bringing it into the vice of the two he and Tomoe are already in. It's convenient for him that the prince actually charges at the front, 'leading by example' as he had said. The young man actually comes to him, ducking and bracing behind his shield when Galatine swipes his nearest soldiers out of the way, and then leaping from behind it to plunge his spear into Gawain's neck, but he instead winds up getting tackled out of the air and grabbed, and is absolutely not physically strong enough to grapple with a Servant.
Bloody Revelations	The Executioner is the one outnumbered on the other side. When more Elites pour on him and concentrate even more fire on him, the shadowy purple-tinged bonfire around him starts to swell and expand, billowing outwards and upwards as he draws on more and more Essence from the Shadowland around him. Of course he knows the traps fire shrapnel upward --he'd just been hit by one-- and so gaining height over them seems to have been the idea, because when the steel rain launches upwards at his feet, he brings his axe down into the spreads and hits them with a solid wall of a shockwave that scatters them in every direction, just needing the little bit of distance to wind up. Coming down from each leap is where his trajectory is absolutely set, and where he can effectively guard himself frontally with the sheer size of the blade, able to cover all his vitals without even moving it. Every anti-tank bullet soaked causes the black metal to wail and moan out loud, instead of any kind of metallic peal. His ability to keep up a solid defense on A-39 doesn't last indefinitely. He has to divide his attention between her gunfire and that of All-Seeing Eye and Batou joining her. His insane rate of progress slows as he is forced to take root to defend against the sheer amount of incoming fire, needing the bracing against the ground to turn and deflect so many shots, still aggravatingly difficult to hit despite the random materialization and three angles of fire. A pair of lightning blasts hit him in the arm on one swing, leaving spiderweb scorches across his scarred skin, but he keeps going. An anti-cyborg bullet slams into his skull, snapping his head back like a boxer, and another rams straight into his chest, shallowly embedding before the bloodied brass pops out when his pectoral flexes. Turned to the others, one of A-39's massive rounds strikes between his shoulders and sends him staggering forward, but he arrests himself with a stomp that sends the slug skyward and leaves a huge, spreading bruise on his back. Even the shots that get through are like wearing away at a rock. Despite being covered in burns and punctures, he bulldozes in on A-39 with a vengeance anyways, smashing into her sniping roost and plunging his axe blade into the ground, which explodes all around her in a column of seething, corrosive magic, set to hurl her into the air where he winds up a strike that will cut her in half before she can land and dodge.
Bloody Revelations	Albert's grappling hook finally catches his leg, and then yanks him back and out of range. He turns and plants his other foot to slow his backwards progress to a short skid, and is promptly hit with an entire salvo of rockets, concealing him in a massive cloud of simultaneous explosions that, even as tough as he is, prevent him from doing anything but hunkering down with his guard up to constrain the massive blast bruises and copper injuries to his muscled arms and shoulders instead of his face. Without room to move, he meets the melee rush head on, biting the soulsteel blade deep into the mecha and driving it in like a wedge, caving into the cockpit and working to Albert underneath. Albert, in exchange, leans straight out and blasts him at point blank, which actually elicits pained thrashing and a heavy punt at the mecha as the Executioner staggers back, wreathed in mad science flames that he struggles to douse, bleeding freely on the gravel and panting in exertion. Keeping up his quasi-invincibility is clearly taxing him hard. The expenditure of Essence fighting off this many foes manifests as an imprint on the weave of Creation around him; the towering form of a rippling, immaterial guillotine blade, certainly symbolic to his name, but rather than being threateningly poised over someone else, the mirage is held aloft over himself, with ropes of shadow shackled to his wrists. He reaches into the cockpit to grab Albert and then spike him into A-39, trying to hold his mecha as cover against Batou and All-Seeing Eye, where the second they have to stop firing, he retaliates by coalescing his shadowy aura into his hands, and releasing it as an exploding bolt of dark energy with a thrusting fist and another powerful kiai, more than adequate to blow up the tachikoma if it isn't quick to get out of the way.
Staren	Well, that's the artillery taken care of, though Staren really doesn't like that it took getting hit again to reach them. The forcefield is blown through, and his temporary armor plating is cracked and broken all down the front, with some of the flechettes stuck in him like a pincushion. There are visible holes now, although they only show the metal 'skin' underneath. Even under the armor, he's still a robot made of mega-damage materials. It's a good thing he's not bothering to simulate pain right now. So, back to the problem of the Thornguard and the Executioner. Staren's not even going to bother trying the missiles on his armband after seeing him tank Batou's bullets. Conventional kinetic penetrators don't seem to be the way to go here. Instead, he swaps the RAISER rifle back out for his missile launcher, loading a different magazine into it and radioing Batou and Tachikoma for tacnet access. If they're willing to let him use their eyes to spot with, he'll start firing anti-tank missiles, adding lances of heavy plasma from the sky to the things the Abyssal has to defend against.
Starbound Flotilla	Albert is ripped bodily out of the mecha, held in that massive hand as he continues to unload his radiation, and tossed straight towards A-39. His mecha's wrecked, and makes for a shield of sorts, albeit one that's difficult to handle. His armor's microthrusters surge to life, trying to brace and lessen the heavy impact against the ground, and potentially against A-39; it may give her an extra fraction of a second to dive a little bit out of the way, but more than that, it's necessary for Albert to not splatter into a bone-shattered mess, tumbling as he tries to struggle onto his feet.
Gawain	The spears continue to strike against Gawain, and there's too many of them to entirely rely on his regeneration, even if it's keeping him standing. A spear narrowly misses his face when he ducks out of the way, only to get stabbed again and need to spin around to strike. While doing so, he spots the prince, and starts to make his way forward...when the prince leaps forward, moving to strike him with the spear. Swiftly releasing one hand from Galatine, Gawain moves to slam forward into the prince and knock him off-balance, grappling him by the shoulder and flicking his wrist to turn the flames off of Galatine. "I apologize for this, but it's what I must do." And then Gawain turns Galatine sideways and smacks the man flat upside the head, conserving as much strength as he can so he doesn't straight up kill him. He might get a nasty concussion, but it won't be lethal, at the least. Whether it succeeds or not, Gawain moves to carry the prince over one shoulder, even if he's still moving and struggling, and try and find the clearest way out of the battlefield. With a sword in one hand, Gawain's goal is to start carving his way to dash forward enough that he can get the room to leap and try and clear them, hoping to attempt to retreat to his motorcycle. "Making a retreat! Cover me, Tomoe! Primary objective is his safety!"
Tomoe	The Mask has not cheeped out on these troops gear, not at all and it's showing on top of the training they seem to have got. They show no fear they seem to feel no pain. Even for all her endurance she feels pain still she knows fear. She fights on even as the fighting heats up, she's heemed in and she's taking hits too her body sometimes shows glaring red gashes and she keeps pushing on trying to keep Gawain covered as best she can while Gawain makes for the tackle on their target. She's pressed so hard she can not cast spells, all she has is her sword and board at the moment. Still that leaves her quite dangerous, but she is going to be taken down if the horde keeps this up, and she has no desire to have her soul ensnared by /anything/ from creation, be it the Death Lords or the local cycle of reincarnation. Then Gawain does it he has the prince, and she calls back. "I hear you!" Short quick and to the point as she's moving to cover Gawain's escape with the Prince hopefully she has her own escape plane but that's going to need her to make sure Gawain gets out first That's going to leave her to leaving herself open to cast, golden runes dance about her body as she'll fire a barrage of rays of light into the attacking troops hopefully this can delay and distract them for Gawain but she's seriously left open here.
Batou	Batou doesn't see the blast coming, but Tachikoma does-just barely. With a sudden jolt the tachikoma leaps several meters into the air over the explosion, moving in on Gawain's position, Batou very nearly thrown with the sudden jump, losing his grip on his rifle as it falls out of his hand. "Shit!" he shouts, the rifle landing away from the immediate area, as they land again on a plethora of soldiers. Tachikoma immediately starts lobbing grenades in Executioners direction with one hand, firing at the soldiers with the other as it backs up slowly towards Gawain. "Gawain, get the prince outta here ASAP! I'm down to just my shotgun. This is getting to be extreme for us here." Batou looks back at Eye, checking if he's recovered at all, or if he even made it.
All-Seeing Eye	Eye is most definitely alive. He's still moving, still able to talk. This is evidenced by the way his hand rather tersely slaps away the other cyborg's attempts to provide aid. "Don't." His tone brooks no argument, openly hostile despite his ally's intent to help. His barrage continues, but the telltale signs of exertion begin to show: the vortex of smoke swirls ever higher and faster, with himself at the eye of the storm. Tachikoma's sudden leap is met not with gratitude, but with a leap of his own, away from the robot. "I said /don't--/" True to Grimace's word, Eye knows not the rules of war, even if Tachikoma does. When he stops firing, it's only to chastise an ally needlessly--but to Grimace, that's likely just as good a reason as any. The impact hits low and hard, sending him rolling into the ground like a boulder on its way to start an avalanche. Several unsettlingly deep thuds are heard, as well as the unmistakable tear of synthetic fabric. His hood is torn completely and irreparably free of his face, revealing what lies beneath. A complex magitech patchwork of iridescent circuit pathway-slash-nerve endings, synthetic weave musculature, and pitch black soulsteel plating, all waging a war against the more human side of his face, which slowly crumbles like brittle clay. He can see Batou staring at him without having to look. "Don't look at me," he spits. "Focus on our enemy." And then... something clicks, as if he's suddenly had some deep inspiration. As the last bit of his artificial skin crumbles away, the Alchemical begins to laugh--a dainty, merry thing entirely out of place on the battlefield. "Is this who you are, Deathknight?" He stands shakily on his feet, limping towards Grimace and making no secret of himself. "This..." He shouts, gesturing towards the image of the guillotine. "Is pathetic. You say I know nothing of war. You, who turns his nose up at authority while simultaneously turning his belly up to a despot! At least I know who I am. At least I'm alive! You were dead from the moment your pitiful soul wheedled its way into Exaltation. You! Are UNWORTHY! Mongrel! COWARD!"
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 doesn't have microthrusters, which would be great for her 3D-maneuvering and might be on the list of things she wants to get. She's still prone until much too late to get away from Executioner's Grimace's attack, but as he approaches, her body lifts up off the ground and away without regard for things like "pushing against the ground to get up," as the climbing line she'd strung out to the weapon emplacement behind her, jammed into the ground, begins automatically spooling. She'd staked a bit on this working, but underestimated just how fast her attacker would come onto her, as well as that whole black magic blast hurling her into the air. She goes up, swings on the line, pulls the guns she'd tied herself to most of the way out of the ground, and swings in a contracting-circular arc perpendicular to the ground, coming back down with transferred rotational force she takes in a collapsing crouch and roll as she ends this wire-fu moment by cutting the line shortly before her landing. Throwing Albert at her is certainly still possible like this, but he's not getting that much air time, either, if so. She mostly avoids the situation by not having waited until she landed to dodge, after all. It still hurts like hell and wasn't how she hoped to manage that, having aimed for total avoidance, but pain is something to ignore when needed. She ignores it as best she can while jamming a combat cocktail into her arm via concerningly large syringe, and ignores it better by the moment as she pulls the pair of submachine guns the rest of the way out of the dirt, thumbs off the trigger locks, and unloads both magazines into the Abyssal Exalt while running back and to her left, tossing the guns aside when they're emptied. She's still got more traps laid, and pockets full of triggers.
Miari	The battle-dressed sorceress isn't idle while the Ballista are reloading, and nor does she assume that one volley is all it's going to take. So rather than over-extending herself in a fury again, she glances about for anything useful at all. More things to hurl, perhaps, to save Essence... And her mind immediately turns towards those soldiers who so handily tanked her Green Flames. A few of those soldiers will find themselves RIPPED straight out of formation and off the ground, and swung about wildly to twenty feet between Miari and the ballista trajectory... and JUST in time! Her rough grip's oriented to keep the shields aimed in the right direction at least, whether or not the soldiers are able to keep holding onto them! "A handy solution!" On the other hand, this approach is keeping her pinned until she can think of a better strategy--- Oh, wait, the ballista just got obliterated by the others. A smile crosses her lips as the shots rain in, and-- Only a few are likely to hit her this time!
Starbound Flotilla	A rocket-powered roll, spin, and flip brings Albert back onto his feet, one dented hand plunged firmly into the barren ground to slow his momentum. He's more than a little wounded by that impact, and layering it on top of the damage he sustained in the laboratory raid has left him with sprains, limps, and an accumulation of wincing damaging feelings of pain that he has to surge through with painkillers and stimulants. He growls and roars with anger at the loss of another layer of protection. Gunship down. Exosuit down. Armor decaying. All he's got is the gun. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! All he's got is the gun. Fine. He lifts the goggles of his lab protective gear out of his eyes. He's been trying to pull out of the VEP madness. Instead, he digs deeper back into it. He closes his eyes and pulls up the fresh imagery, still seared into his mind, from that lab. Tables full of dissected corpses. Medical equipment. Vials of blood. Dig deeper. He opens the panel on his heavy raygun and crams his hand into it, hoping the others have his back for now. Wires are rearranged, parts are twisted and inverted. Valves are cranked, switches are flipped, limiters are removed and tossed aside. Focus. Need more. Squeeze more out of the VEP. He has to grip that awful viral influence on his species. For once he digs in and demands /more/. He focuses on seeing not just the technologies, but all the ways they can destroy and remake social order, so that his own genemod-twisted neurology will bend towards optimizing his design. He focuses on seeing not just the engineering, but all the corpses it can produce, so that his altered neurochemistry will surge inside, flooding his mind with dangerous neuroplasticity. He needs more. He needs more. He begins to laugh. He shoves the goggles back down over his eyes, and they flood with the shining white of HUD alerts about his overloading weaponry. He'll get about one shot, and then he'll be spent; one more layer of his own work, lost. He rushes into close range, hoping but not expecting that the Abyssal will take All-Seeing Eye's bait. If he doesn't, he'll hope that A-39's traps will be distracting him. He'll hope that Staren's artillery gives a moment of delay and stunning, through precision targeting and heavy firepower. If none of those, well... He'll hope he can survive the approach. The gun unfolds and blossoms with a multitude of emitters needing more physical distance as the radiation they gather threatens to warp space in unpredictable ways with the intensity of the shot he's charging. This one will fully drain both his armor's own reactor and his gun's own fuses, dumping all the energy he's got in one go. Now that Albert's much smaller than Executioner, closing in is much more dangerous. But the laughing ape-man, driven by his recent mental warping at the hands of the Underworld, seems intent on doing it anyway. He dives in, slides low, prays to a few gods that Apex science calculated to be the most likely to exist, gets as close as he can, and pulls the trigger. The shockwave that results, just around the overloading weapon, is enough to create a small, cracked crater. The results for the Exalt himself will be another matter entirely. Albert's armor fades and the thin, finely-tuned beam, about the width of a human torso, lasts only about a second, but it leaves behind a massive trench in the earth. By the end, Albert's armor is sparking and falling apart, and the gun itself falls to pieces entirely.
Bloody Revelations	Gawain has the prince, and within the space of a second, he has the prince unconscious and limp in his arms. Rather than some kind of uproar arising from the unit as the son of the former patriarch is lifted out of the crowd, the soldiers seem to react only with indifference, as if he'd done nothing more important than abducting any random member of the Thornguard. Do the others share any notion of his importance with him at all? Certainly, to the resistance he may be important, but the faces of the other soldiers betray nothing but thinking of him as another cog in the machine; another warm body slicking the gears of the Mask of Winters' war machine. They can't stop Gawain. Not if he's going to plough right out of their formation. They're threatening in tight quarters and en masse, and aren't able to chase a Servant at full tilt, never mind a motorbike. When Miari lifts a handful flailing and screaming from the formation, so that their shielded and plated bodies can soak up three dozen darts aimed for her instead (the result is messy), there are about half of the three units' numbers remaining, the rest either dead or incapacitated. Not enough to cut Gawain off. They pursue just far enough to line up and begin hurling their spears, apparently good enough to be javelins in a pinch, but Tomoe interposing herself as the party tank is able to stop them with her shield and general soak, blasting another rank of men down with her light beams, keeping them from rejoining their Abyssal leader, though he is more effective than all of them combined at this point. On the front lines, the Executioner continues his one man war against half a dozen different Elites. At close range against A-39, he digs in and puts his hulking arms up in a boxer's guard, protecting his chest and head as she dumps a good sixty rounds into him, hitting his flesh in a succession of meaty thwacks that leave his arms purple and bloody all along the outside. Being at a disadvantage against so many ranged fighters, he still takes the chance to tear a jagged chunk off the mecha and send it spinning at her like a frisbee, aimed too high to jump over and too low to comfortably duck. He uses a second piece as an impromptu shield against the hail of missile fire from Staren, but his own corrosive attack works against him, and the material is too structurally compromised to provide a barrier indefinitely, resulting in it eventually being melted to slag in his hands, where blasts of plasma then catch him in the midsection and legs, causing him to almost drop to a knee, though another blast of rapidly exhausting Essence runs up his body and stabilizes him, seemingly ignorant to the severity of his compound wounds. Striding forward, he closes in and catches one of the missiles in his thick hand, snapping out and grabbing it like the classic Shaolin monk and arrow maneuver, to then literally throw it back at Staren like a dart.
Bloody Revelations	Heaving raggedly, covered in blood, and possibly with broken bones, albeit having suffered more damage than a small warship could, he turns to look at 'Eye lucidly enough all the same, fixing him with a dour, pitiless expression. He says "We do not choose when and where we are born, or when and where we die. Gladly accepting a fortunate birth and blindly rejecting the reality of what it is to die is childish hubris." and then seamlessly punctuates himself with a vicious backhand blow across 'Eye's face with the full weight of his arm. "One day you will stare into death and realize that any other choice is still the right one. There is no nobility in a privileged life." He then moves to finish the Alchemical, axe held high in stark mimicry of his namesake, poised to cleave straight through his enemy regardless of how much soulsteel he might be constructed off. Essence reserves and physical stamina guttering and failing, with his caste mark not only blatant on his brow, but streaming blood down his face, he fails to anticipate the volley of grenades mid-swing, and is blindsided by Batou and the tachikoma with another hail of explosions. Stumbling sideways with a dull grunt of pain, he fumbles and drops his gargantuan axe, turning and staggering on his feet just in time to come face to face with Albert, but not in time to do anything about it. The blast takes him straight through the chest. The black Essence that visibly shrouds his body flares and condenses violently against the beam, but there is more energy juiced into the weapon than there is left in the Executioner's field, and a second later, it spears right through him, burning a basketball-sized hole through and through his chest cavity and blasting out the other side. Wavering on his feet for a few more seconds, the Abyssal reaches out and manages to grab Albert by the head, almost encasing his skull in his fingers, before finally succumbing to having his vital organs completely disintegrated, and wordlessly collapsing on top of him. Something pitch black flickers under his skin, and then flits out of the hole in his body on a column of carbon smoke, fizzling out of existence like a blip of TV static.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 had tossed the pair of SMGs (closer to assault rifles) away and was just taking the one slung on her shoulder when the shard of mecha comes at her, an improvised throwing weapon positioned dead on target. She could possibly dive under it the same way she'd hug the ground to ride out a blast wave, but her instinct is to lessen the risk of a headshot by blocking it with her own firearm. It deflects, causing a terrific screech of metal, jamming the weapon, and tearing nonlethally through her left arm, leaving her blood over the sand as she hisses despite the pain-deadening medications still running strong. The gun will need repairs, which she obviously cannot perform now, lacking the kind of mad science bent of certain others.
Gawain	As he flees, Gawain's watching to make sure none of the spears impact him. Not for his own safety, but for the prince's, who could be hit in the process. Once he's clear, the knight leaps onto the motorcycle, fastens the prince to it behind him, and moves to drive away. The fact that none of the soldiers actually seem to care about their fellow is a bit disheartening...what sort of system is the Mask of Winters making? Where's the camaraderie? There's a brief communication over his radio. "This is Sir Gawain, I have the prince! Retreating to safety to secure him and get medical attention." In the process, Gawain sees the death of the Abyssal, watches briefly, and then moves to continue. They'd all done their part. He'd have to thank them later.
Batou	Batou breathes a sigh of relief, even though he doesn't need to breathe. But that is only momentary as Batou's anger at being spurned reemerges, and he wheels through the crowd towards Eye. "Hey, ya arrogant prick. You all done with your power play? Or are you gonna stomp his ashes into the dirt to exert authority?" Without waiting for a response, Batou and Tachikoma leap towards the dropped rifle, quickly grabbing it and heading out of the hordes. Batou is moody, and is gonna be for a while. He needs a tune-up, a beer, and some time alone. Mission is over for now, so he'll make his leave. The Major is gonna wonder what the hell happened to his face.
Staren	Executor pls. Grabbing the missiles just makes them go off in his hand, or, if shenanigans completely disable them... Staren pretty quickly realizes what happened and dodges the throw. Good try though! Not the abyssal's fault he's not up on technology. Except it kinda is, since warpgates are a thing. Seeing the executor is down and Gawain is fleeing, Staren flies back towards the group. His shit is at least 50% wrecked. Nonsense like the lifehunt aside, he hasn't looked this bad -- visibly broken armor and whatnot -- from weapon damage since he last lost a WMAT fight. He COULD rain fireballs down on the Thorn troops, but he's not sure there's a point anymore. New information may yet come to light allowing them to be saved.
All-Seeing Eye	Perhaps it's exhaustion, or injury, or something darker, but All-Seeing Eye doesn't even raise the feeblest effort to stop the Abyssal's meaty hand. He's sent into a lateral spin from the sheer force of it, landing on his back with a thud and a smile on his face. "Do it," he sweetly encourages. His bellow of those very same two words is drowned out by the rapid explosions of the grenades. When the axe hits the floor, so does Eye's clenched fist, fingers still malfunctioning in some inhuman, clockwork way. His wounds continue to bleed, and gradually paint his clothing and his face a sickly shade of black, on top of the exposed, dark metal skull. His one good eye is the sole speck of white and gold amidst a weeping field of deathly, light-drinking black. The comparsion to Executioner's own Black Essence is visually apparent even to those with no knowledge of Exalted and their ways. He watches the Abyssal's death with near-gleeful relish, and as he smiles, even his perfect teeth are stained with the light-drinking stuff that serves as his blood. "Batou... dear..." He takes a deep breath, shakily getting to his legs and making a show of dusting himself off. It really just smears everything around. "Be silent." With that, and no more, he limps past the cyborg, the clockwork minutia of his legs whining their displeasure at being abused in such a fashion. "And get me something to put over my face, before I lose my temper." He titters softly, as if at a social dinner. "The nerve of that man..."
Tomoe	Tomoe sees that GAwain is getting away with the Pruince even ass she fitghts she keeps getting hamered she can soak it but her HUD shows she's deep, very deep into the yellow. She's going to be in rough shape when she changes back, she however sees Gawain is clear. When she sees he is gone, when she hear the target is down? Her wings flare out and she takes flight as fast as she can after her allies, she does not want to stay here now the mission is done...
Starbound Flotilla	Albert's body sags. His helmet is crushed easily by the hands of the larger foe. Medical systems have shut down, his armor's neuro-synced strength enhancement gives out, and the man himself is exhausted on all levels. When Executioner collapses onto him, Albert himself collapses, even amid his manic, mad-scientist laughter. For a few seconds, before the pitch-black blip, between breathless efforts to force a laugh where his lungs can produce none, he mutters the only words he has ever said to anyone without some particular purpose and, for the most part, clear of weird mental influences: "You deserved a better cause." He didn't really know this guy particularly well, but a fellow no-nonsense soldier with some similar philosophies and a great deal of strength deserved at least that. Then he collapses, just as the man does. He's going to need some time or some help to extricate himself from the gory site of this work, especially in his state of mind, but he'll get out of there eventually, before Thorns stops being any sort of access point.
Kyoko Takada	If she'd gone into this alone... she wouldn't have, but if she had, she'd have died. Yep. Alpha-39's pretty sure of that. But that's not outside what she expected. Alone, she wouldn't have taken the job. You can't survive that kind of curiosity. That said, was it easy? No, not really. A hell of a lot of effort went into her setup, to make sure that no matter what happened, she had an escape path, and that so long as things went approximately as expected, she had a way to kill the target. Not enough ways, as it turns out, compared to how quickly the guy could move. Maybe. Can't guess what things would have been like if she'd really been there without back-up, but that doesn't matter. At the end of the day... "Soldiers fight, and soldiers die, and never do we get to pick our cause." That might seem contradictory toward her long-term pattern of behavior, but it's what she says. Picking her way over, she gives Albert a rough field medic's glance-over, her own pack already open as she bandages up her arm with efficient speed. Bleeding, she'll stop. Anything that would cause further damage, she can make safe for extraction. She can't really heal it, but the immediate effects of injury, and the tendencies of conditions to worsen, all of that's within her field of expertise in immediately halting. "He was a soldier. I'll give him that. And that's why he's dead. Now come on, captain, extraction time."
Miari	Miari's not normally so callous, but her blood's boiling with the Essence of the Yozis right now. Boiling with rage and a deep desire to correct the abomination of the living dead on the world. The mess made of the soldiers used as human shields is regarded with just a quirk of her eyebrows and a stormy look in her eyes. For now. She may feel a tinge of regret, later. But for now she turns about just in time to see the Executioner about to deal a deathblow to Eye-- "NO!!" Her power gathers, what little of it's left, in preparation to send the Abyssal flying with a mighty Mind-Hand slap-- But it's never needed. Instead she brings a hand up to shield herself from the dust and debris flying around from all the explosions... Things go sour for the Executioner, and Miari's heartbeat finally continues after she sees Eye intact... and the Executioner falling. Onto Albert. that gets a frown. So she uses the gathered focus to reach out and... hoiiiiiiist the Executioner's corpse from Albert. Which might be a bit eerie for the Apex, as the whole thing jsut slowly floats off him like a ragdoll without any real sign of how or why. "Mission accomplished."
Starbound Flotilla	Albert gives an affirming sort of noise between the half-laughs. He approves of A-39, for whatever reasons Albert approves of anyone, reasons which no doubt only make sense to his trauma-riddled twisted-up mad-science mess of a brain. Well, whatever the cause, he takes the medical assistance from A-39, and then from Miari later, but mostly needs her help to get onto his feet. And so when he does, he nods firmly and starts stumbling, as best he can, towards extraction. Better get out before the long arm of Mask's law strikes back at this act of rebellion.