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Kalia	SWAMP CARNIVORE is aptly named, or at least certainly seems like it is. A dark, damp hole of a place, covered in a canopy of thorny, lush vines that go from dead tree to dead tree like thick summer leaves, there's not nearly enough sunlight that penetrates through the cover to make you enjoy the vibrant greens of the treetop vines. The water is sticky, thick, grey and lifeless, stagnant with the smell of various gases that no doubt release in the water from deep underground. As night approachs, will-o-wisps even flare above the waters, harmlessly - they're not spirits, just balls of light, something Staren might deeply enjoy, that just once the wisps of a world are scientifically accurate and not some kind of magical monster that lives in swamps. The emperor, of course, had promised to show you where Gared had been sleen. A tall promise, given his inability to make such a trip, but you have the next best thing: a cadre of guards with a map. Unlike the guards of the city, who were armored in bright, showy colors, the emperor's personal guard wear black and gold, their armor reinforced with obvious Tron lines that betray how much technology is crammed in them compared to the standard guards. They're also significantly less chatty (read: not at all). These aren't city guards - these are experienced soldiers, probably the ones in charge of the various battles and invasions the empire conducts. The trek through the swamp could be called uneventful - there are a few encounters with smaller monsters, but they never last long (feel free to show off protecting the group). Swamp critters, large mawed flowers surging from the waters, one giant spider. The guards assist, with unusual coordination, pulling off combination moves between them that even with training wouldn't be easy to do reliably. The party eventually reaches a clearing where they could rest, that isn't far from where they're meant to go. A campfire is set up almost immediatly. A few guards put the map down on the ground and squint at it. They try turning it around a few times. It doesn't help.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh actually quite likes this place.      One might expect that the glorious golden god-king, patron of excess and hedonism, lover of all things pleasurable, would despise a dark, damp hole covered in thorny vines, filled with stagnant water and scientifically-accurate will-o-wisps. It doesn't really fit his image as a man who enjoys the finest things in life. And yet, as he moves through the swamp, he's clearly enjoying himself. He pushes trees aside with superhuman strength, chops through thorny vines with magical weapons worth more than most people will ever understand, and violently dispenses with monsters in the same fashion. Rains of ludicrously powerful weaponry assault the beasts as Gilgamesh shows off. Gilgamesh *loves* showing off. He loves it almost as much as he loves his treasures, and he *really* loves his treasures.      The guards set up a camp. The King makes the camp better. In an instant, rather than the piddly fire, there's a blazing bonfire pouring forth from underneath a golden cauldron. The smell of succulent meats and vegetables fills the air from the massive pot, meats and vegetables unidentifiable to modern folk, from a mythic era and a mythic king. Sweet milk serves as the heart of the broth, and wine is passed around the campsite, wine so sweet and so flavorful it can only be the stuff of the gods, wiping away the taste of other alcohols in an instant. The King even sets up a luxurious cabin and hot spring out of absolutely nowhere, lit with what is clearly some form of magical electricity. He goes to take a soak, because he can. The cabin is full of amenities that resemble the modern day, but made of stone, gold, silver, and pure magic; beds, tables, even some kind of music device.      Travelling with the King of Uruk has its perks, after all.
Gawain	Gawain knows they're going to be roughing it, so he doesn't bring a suit. Instead, the knight is dressed in a hiking jacket, jeans, and thick boots, wearing a smile on his face. At first, he'd try chatting with the escort, but when he learned it was futile, he decided to chat with the others. "Isn't this a lovely swamp? Haven't been in a swamp in a long time!" When it comes to monsters, Gawain summons Galatine and assists the soldiers in taking them out, though he doesn't butt into their combination moves, he does use any openings they leave. At the camp, which becomes /amazing/ thanks to Gilgamesh, the sunshine knight moves to check out the food, grab a bite to eat, and then move to the soldiers to offer to help them with the map, if a third eye might be useful. He's probably going to get rejected. "Have you all roughed it like this before? The wilderness is quite fun! Beautiful nature, and a short moment to unwind until we can maneuver further. Though this is...certainly more luxurious than I'm used to." Not that Gawain minds. It's quite nice!
Avenger	Avenger is here, for some reason you could not shake him, nor does he seem to be bothering to interfere with the investigation in anyway. Nor is he obvious with why he is here, and when you ask him he just simply lets you know: Curiosity. He is curious to know the truth of things, and if the desire to claim vengence is one of true desire, or because of sinful regret. Was it betrayal, or was the hero forging along with no desire for the wishes of others.     Avenger, during the encounter does not seem to do anything, though those that stop time or actually can percieve really fast things notice him move and attack, but return in a blink of an eye. He is /stupidly/ fast, those without such senses would think he could speed up his personal time, or slow down that of others...which is simply not the case at all. Though some of the monsters are seen to be burning with black flames after their deaths, ensuring they would not be returning.     At the camp, Avenger despite being mostly dour is enjoying to comforts brought by Gilgamesh.
Septette Arcubielle	An uninvited ally joins the procession moving through the swamp- surely they won't mind the help, right? Septette's density ought to make moving through a swamp an absolutely miserable proposition, but she freezes the boggy ground under her talons with each step, forcing it to bear her weight with a frosty crackling. She insists on taking point, right alongside the people who actually know where they're going.      Her contribution to the minor skirmishes with swamp critters is calculated, measured, and restrained. Where possible, she simply bodily interposes herself between 'squishies' (i.e. anyone who could theoretically bleed) and the monsters, and experimentally applies enough force to dispatch with them with a few punches without bloodying her white evening gloves. She's measuring them- trying to figure out precisely where their tolerances and vulnerabilities lie, in the unlikely event that a mob of such creatures poses a real threat later.      Gilgamesh's mythically extravagant campsite earns an affectation of awe from the little construct: she grabs a bowl of that irresistible soup and a glass of sweet wine, leans back against a tree, and takes it all in... while dispatching a handful of hovering drones to pore over the surrounding area and project a holographic birds'-eye-view to the puzzled soldiers.      "I have some experience 'roughing it', Gawain," she replies dryly, "but none quite like this. Do you happen know that terribly unhappy man over there, incidentally? I'm not familiar." She makes a gesture with a gloved hand in Avenger's direction before returning the skeletal arm to her shawl.
Spider-Man	"Hey, I always told them it was just swamp gas." Spider-Man says, leaping between trees above wispy lights. "You'd think people would like that more. I mean, weird natural gasses that make cool light? Isn't that /better/ than aliens?" He stops near the guards. "I mean, aliens /are/ real, most of Manhattan got trashed by them once a while back, but-- Still. Hey, did they put so much stuff in there that your throats don't work anymore? That wouldn't make sense, you're /guards/, you're supposed to be able to yell out if there's an intruder or something. Do you have swamp-resistant boots with those? I've really wanted to get better environmental sealing on this stuff, actually."     He keeps rambling at the guards. Talk talk talk. He just doesn't /stop/. He's so fucking /talkative/! Today, he's wearing something that looks like a red-and-blue re-dyed and slightly re-tailored version of the test suits from the House of the Seven Worthies. It's starting to look pretty professional! This now brings his number of suits up to five: The Homemade Suit, the Cold Grave Suit, the Formal Suit, the First Stand Suit, and now the Immunes Auxiliary Suit. His goggles have gotten wider and sleeker with some extensive re-designs now too, flatter against his face, with some tapering on the outside.     "Hey, should I be helping out with the map? If you can tell me what sort of plant life is around here, maybe I can try figuring it out chemically." Spider-Man rambles, trying to get the guards to say /anything/, really. It lasts a fairly long while, but not so long that Gilgamesh can't interrupt it with his show. "Wooooaaaaaah, this is like Mister Stark levels of wealthy even for out in the middle of a swamp! How did you get this stuff out here? Do you make it, or are you storing it in some kind of spatial warp? /Wow!/"     Gawain gets a bit of a "blech" noise from the boy-hero. His goggles squint in vague disgust. "Swamps! Guh. There's no buildings! I can't get any good swings. Also, any good Wi-Fi. Satellite's fine, but I don't think I should be streaming memes off of million dollar Stark networks." He turns around immediately when a drone goes whizzing by. "Oh, /cool/! Drones! Oh, are you a drone too, or are you a robot with a full mind going right here?" He's terribly curious about Septette too; he's not much of a robotics expert right at the moment, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like to see that, and have a lot of curiosity about it.
Maya	Swamps, caves, ruins, jungles, deserts Maya operated a lot better in places like this, she'd taken some preparation. She had some extra supplies with her and had made use of a form of bug spray hopefully to keep the local insects at bay. At least that's what Maya hoped she didn't seem bothered though about it. The Emperor seemed to be keeping his word even if he could not make the trek, the soldier and the map should be enough. Camp is made soon enough and Maya will take a moment to look in at the map even as The King of Heroes does his thing and the camp gets very upgraded, she like Gawain might get chased off but maybe she can catch a glimpse of something useful failing that she and Runner can go off scouting if it comes to it she muses. She dods take note of what Gilgamesh has done. If it helps why not right? Better than the coin fueling this just rotting away somewhere.
Lezard Valeth	Lezard really hates swamps. They're obligate damp and nasty, full of rotting things and generally a pain in the butt to move through. This is why Lezard insists on flying above the canopy on a Harpy, keeping pace and track of the group through short range communications and a simply scrying spell. When monsters arrive, Lezard simply provides ranged bombardment when needed. It's not really needed. He lands in the clearing with the others and takes a look around.... And notes the guards doing what he frankly expected to happen. "You're lost, aren't you." He states in a clipped tone to the guards. While Gilgamesh shows off, Lezard adjusts his glasses and partakes of the luxury without a moment's though. "My thanks for your generosity, King of Heroes." Lezard says, providing his own measure of appreciation for the amenities and preventing Lezard from needing to deploy his own. Gawain's unending cheer gets a glare from Lezard for several seconds. "Are you so bereft of adventure that you find mucking about in the rotten mire enjoyable?" He asks.
Roxas	Do you know what Roxas's clothes aren't especially suited for? A swamp. They're not suited for a swamp. He peeled off his jacket and disappeared it in a swirl of darkness about ten minutes in. Right now he's wearing a set of black pants (jeans? slacks? not really either) with a white tank top. Midway through the entire thing he actually LEFT WHOLESALE and came back with a can of bug spray. He doesn't really do much when monsters arrive. Everybody else seems to have it more than in hand, so he hangs back and watches. At one point he casts CURA on somebody who got banged up in the middle of such a bout, establishing himself falsely as a PARTY WHITE MAGE. Everything that Gilgamesh produces is pretty much amazing to him, half because it's so... /overwrought/ by nature, and half because he simply hasn't seen a lot of it before. He is, at this exact moment, staring at a cup (which is probably more of a 'goblet') of the wine, halfway uncomprehending and halfway really really wanting to try some. "Huh?" Roxas is distracted from the Stuff He Really Shouldn't Drink when Lezard asks whether or not they're lost, "/Are/ we? Don't we have map, though...? Then again, I have all sorts of maps and /I/ get lost all the time..."
Septette Arcubielle	Septette leans back a bit when Spider-Man interrogates her, as if palpably pushed by the weight of his curiosity. Her purple eyes flicker with light as they sweep up his clothes, finally fixing on his face with a simmering glow as she offers him a clawed hand to shake. "I'm a murder-drone with a chatbot running on my voicebox," she says in a nearly serious tone. "It's all very Chinese Roomy. Pleased to make your acquaintance, mister...?"
Staren	Swamps. Staren doesn't have to visit them often. To avoid sinking and getting stuck, he's wearing lighter armor -- it's not powered, but it's still a full-body environmental suit.     He's not actually walking through the muck though. He rides his magic broom above it. The first time a monster shows up, he reflexively aims beam cannons that aren't there -- in later encounters, he uses a laser rifle but is content to let others do most of the heavy lifting, so to speak.     Staren is /surprised/ that will-o-wisps are just balls of light, but not following them is still a good idea. There's probably one kind or another of will-o-wisp monster on his world, anyway.     The real pleasant treat, though, is that Gilgamesh knows how to camp IN STYLE. Staren is ALL OVER THIS, although he doesn't go as far as using the spring. But he's happy to enjoy the food and drink and take a rest in comfort for a few minutes, at least.     Eventually he comes out to check on the guards with the map. "Hey guys, what's up?" He'll show them his inertial navigation system's records if it helps.
Ereshkigal	Dark, damp, and dangerous.      It's almost like being in Kur all over again.      Ereshkigal has somehow found her way into a group of people she has never met before, even though she's related to one of them. (Funny how that works out.) She's withdrawn, mostly - her wine red cloak pulled up over her head to cover it from rain drops, a double-sided spear quivering with lightning working as a trekking pole as she moves around the swamp.      "It seems to me getting lost isn't necessarily a bad thing... we might find more things that way." She says, thoughtfully. She helps herself to the wine.
Spider-Man	"Spider-Man!" The young superhero says, trying to find a good angle on Septette Arcubielle's claw. "Partially spider, mostly man. I actually almost got killed by a murder-drone once! Twice, actually, same kind of drone, different people. You're /way/ prettier than they were." He finds a way to sort of stick all his fingers to the sides of blades, adhering briefly for a handshake. "Are you more like an ancient alien sort of killdrone, like a Von Neumann Berserker, or more like a secret government oppression sort of killdrone?"
Septette Arcubielle	"Mister Spider-Man, then," Septette replies. Her fingers find ways to brush against his besuited hand in ways that feel like a razor gliding over skin, but her grip is pleasantly firm, which almost makes up for it. "'Septette' is fine. So are nicknames. You seem like you'd get creative with those." She tosses her hair over her shoulder mock-haughtily at the mention of being pretty before leaning back against her tree again- it creaks softly. "It's about sixty percent ancient aliens and about forty percent I-am-the-shadowy-government. What part of you's a spider, anyway? Is it the eyes?"
Avenger	"I bet it's the face. That is why he wares the mask," Avenger says, from behind the Spider-Man himself. A glass of wine in one hand, as he looks for a place to sit to take a bowl of soup. The stare of the man is...intense, but right now he is smiling. Yet it is not a smile that inspires happyness, it is just slightly off putting somehow.
Spider-Man	"Oh, I do whatever a spider can. That's the brand, I mean. I don't do /everything/ that spiders can, I kinda wish I had camouflage powers or something like a lot of spiders do." Spider-Man answers Septette cheerfully. He gives a short wave back to Avenger. "Oh, this! Well I wanted to be a super-hero like Mister Stark, but I can't keep all the people I care about safe with lots of money, so I just keep from having bad guys kill everyone I love using masks. It's great how you can stop a murder with a bit of fabric!"
Xion	Adventures! Danger! Swamp! It's basically the cousin of the sewer level. A level that Xion didn't get to go on last time! She had to go to the STORE LEVEL instead, except it wasn't a level and also mostly involved shopping lists for hair products. Like, a dozen different kind of hair gel and product. Xion had a lot of people who needed an intense amount of hair stuff to keep their Look. Thankfully, she kept her hair short because that gave more time for doing other things, like... sssswamp levels. Unfortunately for Xion, under her coat is just 'black pants, black boots, low-neck black top, black gloves', and none of that helps actually attenuating heat. So, tromping around blessedly miserable alongside the party's middle-back is a girl in TOO MUCH CLOTHING tromping around with a large stick (a little muddy) over her shoulder like a longsword. Largely, she uses the stick to poke at interesting bits of muck or other r/mildlyinteresting targets, since neither of them have much to do with the power of Multiple Heroes, A King of Heroes, Competent Mooks, and a Delightful Murder-Bot sweeping and clearing. "So, say, I've got a question. Why 'Tyron'? Tyrant? Why wouldn't you name your kingdom 'Great Place To Be' or 'Wonderful Group Of People'? King of Heroes, don't you find it strange?"
Gilgamesh	"Not really," Gilgamesh says to Xion from his soak in the hot springs, "Humans often name their kingdoms things to impress and strike fear into others."      He moves forward, placing his arms down on the stone edge so he can lay on it and look at the group. "Ideally, their opponents will surrender immediately. They will hear the name and feel that they cannot win. They will know that this kingdom is superior to them simply by virtue of its title, especially if it can live up to it."
Lilian Rook	Since Lilian knows full well this place is a swamp (clue's in the name) she arrives wearing what amounts to the exact opposite of the spectrum from the fancy palace-matched business-formal look from last time. She shows up in a bodysuit of grey and black broken up by glassy, semitranslucent lines --apparently waterproof, reasonably warm, hard for mud and muck and rotting plant matter to meaningfully stick to-- fixed with a hard-carry belt and matte black plates mounted over the chest, wrists, shoulders, knees, ankles and hips. They're probably armour, but it's sort of hard to tell, on account of it never being tested.     Despite being kitted for wading through the swamp if necessary, Lilian deigns not even to do that, constistently floating along at least a foot over the brackish water at all times, taking it easy and waiting somewhere in the middle for the slowest to keep up. The hanging vines and thorns that get in her way end up mysteriously shifting aside or being snipped down the middle and falling into the water. The predators that make the mistake of getting in her way tend to dramatically explode into an artful shower of bloody ribbons instead (specifically as if someone were trying to make it look visually exciting instead of just blowing a giant alligator up).     She has her eye on the soldiers more than the swamp, for most of it. She isn't nearly as chatty as Spider-Man, but keeps up her own stream of 'thinking out loud'. Stuff along the lines of how 'retro' the guards' gear is, what bits they might have in them, what bits they might have in their *heads* for those maneuvers, how all the trees are dead but the vines are alive, what exactly the carnivores are preying on with water this garbage, and occasional attempts to psyche the odd person out about whatever's slithering around their legs, occasionally joined by probing the newcomers to the somewhat ungainly processions.     Never lets her eye off the filthy spirit though. Not once.     Also, harassing Roxas about when are they going to go shopping god dammit.     Gilgamesh setting up camp is thus irresponsible road stop time. The trip hasn't exactly been tough on her, especially considering to the people actually slogging it on foot, but she sure seems to be able to relax with the theatrics of having just returned from a coal mine shift, immediately starting into Gilgamesh's wine, turning up music to the point where a grizzled veteran would complain about it covering the sounds of an ambush, and engaging in the pointless exercise of washing the exterior of her suit of the mild grunge that has slowly accumulated on it, before setting to making absolutely sure there aren't any twigs or dirt or anything in her hair.     "Thank goodness we have company along to make this not such a *complete and total* waste of time." she says, halfway in the process of putting her hair back up and redoing the celtic knot that keeps it off her shoulders. "You know what they say about relying on the government to get something done right. I wonder if they even marked the battlefield on a map in the first place? Surely if they were tipped off, they'd have had a designated AO back then, even just for killing a child --and competent military would know to pick a field of engagement during briefing after all, and there's no reason someone should have lost those documents." She says it all with the slightly too loud, vaguely bratty kind of emphasis of a spoiled teen suggesting that their chaperone is an idiot.
Kalia	The guards, wordlessly, let Gawain take a look. They seem to have little interest in Gilgamesh's offerings, which might be odd in and of itself. Gawain manages to right the map based on the area, at which point Septette can trivially project a neat 3D image of the swamp to help them figure out exactly where they are. The guards, still wordlessly, examine the map, make a few motions to each other, and then, seemingly satisfied.     If they WERE lost, they aren't anymore.     But it might then be odd that the guards make no effort to spur the group onward again. Lost as the party becomes in Gilgamesh's pleasures, the guards stand there like machines, waiting for something.     Not even Spider-Man's overwhelming enthusiasm for all things can spur a word out of them. An occasional glance, but not a reply.     Nothing happens for a fairly long time. Enough that people mingle, drink, relax in Gilgamesh's hot tub, and might get entirely more comfortable than they should. If they were meant to keep going, the guards had made, and make, no effort to have the party continue.     Movement in the canopy of vines might be startling, if it wasn't happening every fifteen seconds on the clock as something shuffles up there, or the vines catch a bird and drag it into the mess to, presumably, eat it. However that works. You may not want to find out.     But then there's red dots. Eight red dots, to be precise, that trail towards people's heads from an unseen direction. The guards draw their weapons slowly and silently.     To say the red dots explode moments later is understating the firepower that suddenly rains down. Trees, rocks, and even chunks of Gilgamesh's treasured installations are vaporized nearly instantly by incoming bolts of sizzling blue energy - which, for the most part, inevitably miss their marks (but may graze painfully), because we just can't have someone getting Predatored.     The owner of the energy bolts doesn't reveal themselves, but the guards surround the party, a variety of weapons trailed on them. Mostly fancy vibroswords and obvious plasma rifles.
Gilgamesh	The treasures disappear into the Gate of Babylon as they're destroyed. Don't worry, he's got a repair system in there. They'll be fine.      The same can't be said for the people who dared attack the King during his pleasure time. His perfect body, naked as the day he was born, rises up out of the vanishing hotspring. The King's look of irritation is cast towards some of the bolts of blue energy heading for him; they're met by magic swords and axes that simply cleave through the bolts like they're nothing.      Gilgamesh turns around at the guards. He snaps his fingers, and clothes just sort of fold out of space. As he's pulling them on, he waves at some of them. "Just kill each other for your King," the King of Heroes says as he leisurely gets dressed, swords and spears raining down behind him to protect him from any further attacks, "It will amuse me more than having to dirty my blades with your worthlessness."
Avenger	Avenger just laughs for no reason, seeing the red dots, but reacting in real time with everyone else. However, unlike everyone else, his supernatural speed is blurring, as the lasers that aim to assassinate him miss their mark. As guards move to surround them, he flips from their shoulders and leaps into the trees themselves. he runs across the branches, avoiding vines, as from the direction of the laser shots, beams of black flame fly out, aiming to sear into the tree and stick to anything they strike like napalm. However, there is no heat to the flame, it just burns.     He does not stop, however, moving to try and force a response from the tree based assassin, but moving around the tree tops non-stop, trying to get a fix on said assassin, and immediately close ranks with them.
Lilian Rook	The obscene amount of firepower that converges on the group all at once should be fit to annihilate at least half of them in one go. Even under the most sub-optimal conditions, a paranoid commander could expect a third of their enemy here to be wiped out before the surprise attack really begins. It'd been overkill on top of overkill. So how ridiculously improbable is it that it somehow didn't kill *anyone*? At *all*?     That's a question for anyone and everyone to ask, since everyone (except Avenger) feels a mild blunt force to some part of them and a weird lurch of acceleration they didn't actually experience, before the place they were just stood in abruptly explodes under weapons fire.     Lilian releases her fingers from the bridge of her nose as if she'd just experienced an intense micro-migraine, and wipes a tiny trickle of blood from her upper lip. "Finally, getting to the point." she says, after a moment's catching her breath.
Spider-Man	"Yeah, I mean, would you really keep that stuff on-file? Or at least not mark it over with weird ominous black boxes or something? Maybe they didn't find any ancient super-technology sharpies, or--" Spider-Man rambles to Lilian. Then he suddenly stops.     Spider-Man has, only just a few days ago, actually realized what was going on when he felt that weird tingle. And, suddenly, he has to act on it. There's a sudden shimmering over his vision, and his goggles instantly widden to max size. "DOWN!!" He screams suddenly, just a half second before the dots are visible and a second before they explode. He's already leaping up and blasting webs at any weapon he can see ready to fire in close quarters, and directing his high-power spider-sense to try to fing those sources of danger on his danger-radar!
Gawain	Gawain's just enjoying himself with the others, after helping them right the map and not suspecting a thing because these seem like good professional soldiers, when he spots a red dot. He wouldn't be fast enough to avoid it, and he's not fast enough to shout, but that sudden force pushing against him and a burst of weird acceleration throws him to the side, narrowly avoiding the energy weapon fire. After taking a second to right himself, Gawain leaps to his feet, and his armor manifests around his body. An ambush. Galatine reappears in his hand for the day, as the knight checks for non-combatants. His first reaction is to shout to Roxas and Xion, aka 'the kids who weren't doing any fighting', and ask them an important question. "Can you handle yourselves?" Whether they confirm or not, Gawain moves to defend himself. As the soldiers with vibroswords come out, Galatine moves to clash with one of them, expert swordsmanship moving to deftly swing into their blade, push them back, and then sweep to slash through their arm and stop them from swinging a weapon. If Roxas, Xion, or anyone else needs back-up, Gawain immediately moves towards their position after his defense, to help reinforce them.
Septette Arcubielle	Septette is moving from the moment the red dots appear, matching her apparent aggression in perfect synchrony with the escalating situation as if she were clued in ahead of time. The little kinetic nudge doesn't shift her much, but she twists away from the incoming bolt, instantly adjusting to its help. She ought to be able to clear it- but it skims a piece of her leg's ceramic plating anyway, as if through deliberate negligence.      As she turns around, her eyes scan across the party and lock onto Lilian for a split second; just long enough to make her attention apparent. Rook is in a slightly different position than she was before, and her nose is bleeding. It's not the full picture, but it is a dim outline.      The space around the construct's hand glows with frosty blue hologram-like symbols even before she finishes her evasive maneuvers. A few elaborate finger-gestures later, the diagrams rearrange themselves with an audible pop- and the nearby pools of water, including Gilgamesh's wonderful spring, erupt upwards into icy spires and fortifications. "Cover! Use it!"
Maya	Maya gets a good look at the map as well and she's got a decent idea of where they are doubly so with any help that Septette might provide but that isn't going to last long as she's getting ready with Runner to do some scouting. Then Runner lets out a low mechanical growl. Something pushes Maya out of harm's way. After that, Maya without though moves to get some cover and she's already got a card in hand and starts to cast forming a barrier about herself and those nearby her who will allow it. She then goes for her rifle it's time to get the fight going. "So another noble trying to end my life." Memories of the last of the ruling house of her worlds most advanced and powerful nation, flashback to her for a moment. The guards now after them and move to keep them from escaping and Maya's turning her attention on them now. Her rifle will roar to life firing a burst of rounds at several of them and she keeps on the move. She has the thought she may have Lilian to thank for getting out of harms way, she'll have to talk to her about that later.
Lezard Valeth	Lezard was more or less prepared for this eventuality from the beginning. He even just called out the likelihood that this was a trap moments before it sprang. Being familiar with people trying to straight blow his head off multiple times (Snipers are a common hazard of Multiversal infamy), Lezard swirls a cup of wine as he watches the behavior of the guards. Watching. Waiting. This isn't the behavior of normal people who are setting up camp for the night. When the red dots appear, Lezard takes a deep drink from the cup, then tosses it aside. "So, it is to be treachery, then." He sounds almost resigned to the fact as her pulls out... a book, from a warp in space. The reason for the book becomes obvious as the beams lash out, the papers flicking out at incredible speed to form an interlocking paper half-dome around him. A beam blasts into- or rather to one side of his defensive shield (thanks to Lilian), causing him to blink with a moment's surprise as the light scorches past him. "Well. That is singularly unpleasant." He says as he lowers his hand. He looks over the guards, and flicks a hand as a purple flame ignites there, the papers shuffling back into his book as it floats next to him. "So be it. Open the gates of Niflheim, more souls await." A moment later, Lezard reaches with his powers not towards the guards... But into the ground below them. Especially in a place like this, you only need dig a little bit and you'll find death. A moment later, Lezard clenches his hand and simply pulls it upwards. The ground erupts under the guards, skeletal hands clutching, pallid, worm-eaten flesh grappling, a wave of undead immediately washing up to grab onto the guards and simply... hold them still for the others to punch them. Rotten teeth aren't getting through that armor anyway.
Xion	What a feast for young, innocent eyes, and greedy, not-so-innocent grabby fingers. Gilgamesh's palace of wonders and the King of Uruk's Not-So-Tiny Cottage (And Attached Hotspring) is less 'utilized' and more 'danced around like a gremlin completely lacking in strong direction and so just oooh-ing and aaah-ing at all the stuff'. Roxas' gigantic chalice of the WICKED ELIXIR CHILDREN SHOULD NOT DRINK is swiped for a moment as Xion takes two big gulps, coughs, and hands it back. "Huh! It's like burning honey. That's cool!" Hydra stew! It also burns on the way down, but in the way that all good food that should be consumed at a mouth-scalding temperature should. Really, Xion has quite the time flitting around until RED DOOMPOINTERS aim at her, and-- --She's knocked out of the way, falling backwards and sploosing where the mud and the cottage grounds mingle, confused and alert. Until Gilgamesh steps out of his pool, with his Tower of Babylon dangling out. Instead of actually fighting - or reacting - immediately, Xion claps both hands over her eyes, a massive blush spreading across her cheeks. "Pants! Paaaants!" She calls, scrabbling up to her feet with both gloved hands clapped firmly over her face. "Sure! Definitely, I'll just... Which way are the bad guys?"
Staren	Staren hands over his INS data to compare against the map, helping Septette and Gawain to get the guards' bearings back. "Soooo... are we going? Hello? Anybody in there? Wait, are you guys robots?" Staren's ready to go and scanning the guards after they've become so nonresponsive.     Later, reviewing this mission, the clockwork regularity of vine movement may bear notice, but Staren doesn't notice anything amiss -- besides the guards' silence -- besides the sudden appearance of laser sights. "Look out!" He activates his own forcefield in the same moment, the plasma bolt--blowing past as he's suddenly shoved out of the way. Sangvis, here? No, can't be...     Staren takes to the air, then thinks better of it and flies back below the canopy. Which is when... the guards are pointing at them? Staren sighs. "Puh-LEESE. Even if your plan worked, everyone would know we went into this swamp and didn't come back. You don't think that'd be suspicious? Then again, if you could actually kill us that way, I suppose maybe you'd think you had a chance against the Concord and the Paladins..."     He's waiting for them to not be pointing at him. He's in the air, out of melee at least...     The moment the guards aren't pointing at him, he drops the field (a possible opportunity for the unseen attackers, if they studied his tactics that well), drops a couple smoke grenades to create cover, and fires at one of the guards with his laser rifle while flying towards the nearest ally.
Roxas	"Xion, you should take off your coat. It's wayyyy too hot out here." Roxas cautions his partner, before his attention is drawn away towards Gilgamesh. He blinks towards the man in his ANCIENT BABYLONIAN HOT TUB. After a moment he nods slowly, "I guess... that makes sense. Naming something 'Castle Oblivion' is pretty over-dramatic, but if that's what people are like..." He responds to Lilian's prodding by actually pulling a schedule out of his pocket and passing it to her. It is packed with absolute nonsense gofer work. Roxas has hand-written in 'w/ Xion', 'w/Axel' and a variety of other things on the schedule. He's a pretty busy guy! Also nearly nothing he's busy with is important. "W...hat do they say about the government?" He wonders, sipping on the wine and adopting the abrupt, surprised expression of somebody who has Never Had Alcohol Before. Roxas opens his mouth to warn Xion about the strangeness of the drink when she summarizes it better than he /ever/ could. He shuts his mouth with a pronounced click of teeth. An awful hail of energy immolates everything around them not too long after. Roxas blinks and finds himself on the ground, completely undamaged and unaware of exactly how he'd gotten there. He pats himself up and down looking for injuries, and can't find any. The natural response would be to counter-attack. But Roxas catches sight of Lilian's nosebleed, is familiar enough with Supernatural Fuckery to realize she just did /some/thing, and calls, "Cura!" Green particles flicker in and out of being atop Lilian, easing whatever physical trauma might have occurred from the timestop. "We're fine, thanks! Mostly." Roxas replies to Gawain, ducking over to seize Xion by the shoulders and just straight physically align her with one of the betrayer guards, "Right in front of you!"
Lilian Rook	Having taken care of--                 -----[stop]-----     Pushing everyone out of the way                 -----[start]-----     --business, Lilian takes a few moments to steady herself from the stress of the extremely short-notice-long-duration stop, more or less allowing the guards to fan out and take formation as they like. She lets slip a sigh as Roxas casts his healing magic on her, rolling her neck, straightening up, and opening her eyes again with less tension.     "Robots. Five grand on them actually being robots." she says out loud, her hand briefly hovering at her sidearm, but then moving back up to the black iron hilt of her sword once she decides to dispense with all pretenses at doing 'Paladins work'.     "I'd hope I'm wrong though~ Robots aren't capable of understanding just *how badly* they *fucked up*. Robots don't experience panic and fear and regret and start saying anything they can to get out of what I do to them --really *believing* they mean it too-- for thinking they're smarter than me and that they could get their way behind my back. Please, show of hands, which of you idiots is an unthinking machine~? I'll just feel very silly if I go through all that effort and just get a couple of beeps and boops! After what you just tried to pull, oh there's *nothing* that's going to get you out of what I'm about to do."     That's . . . not the tone she had in the throne room. Or in the palace in general. Or even on the way here. It's not formal or suave or sophisticated or impatient or mocking or even bratty; Lilian starts talking and it just oozes stomach-turning quantities of 'glad for the excuse' --of someone who really wanted to kill these men from the start, and is elated they just handed her a reason to.     The sword is drawn in real time. Pitch black iron, translucent gossamer edge, luminous bloodred scarlet etching. An icy black fog visibly rolls off Night Mist as it comes free of the scabbard with a sound like scraping glass. Lilian's hair falls loose again, the green of her eyes going out, black markings appearing on her skin around the corners of her face.     "God I'm going to enjoy this."
Lilian Rook	Lilian twitches as if to move sideways, and then a pitch black streak of ink has slashed sideways across the encampment, starting where she was and disappearing into the swamp. Frigid wind tears through is wake, and--                 -----[stop]-----     Lilian signs with her off hand, fingers bursting into bloody red and black fire. She comes from behind the ring of Guards, flinging blasts of dark flames left and right from her fingertips, frozen in the air a few feet away. Approaching hard, a snap of her fingers causes--                 -----[start]-----     --a wall of earth-shuddering fire thunders up from under the swamp water, beneath around and between the soldiers, instantly turning so many dead trees to white ash in a blink. Lilian is already above and behind them, falling too fast to be actually falling. The blade flashes down on the first guard, not going for his head or neck or heart, but through his arms. The trail of sword-light--                 -----[stop]-----     Liliam aims to take the arm out at the elbow, then guide the blade through to take the leg out at the knee. Stomping into the muck to arrest her fall, she twists sideways and brings the sword through the other leg, then lunges forward to the next soldier in the sequence, ripping through where a hamstring should be, carving up the back and shallowly through the spine, then as she passes him too, flicking the blade back down behind him to take his hand. She leaps to a tree and launches off that one, cleaving down between another guard's shoulderblades just deep enough to paralyze someone, but not enough to be instantly fatal. She bounces up from her landing crouch to skewer the next one through the stomach, and then unloads a blast of occult flame straight into his soft insides. She just keeps going like that, until--                 -----[start]-----     --traces elaborate, maddening spiral arcs through the ranks of enemies, drawing the eye along what is liable to be a flashy trail of dismembered body parts, permanently crippling injuries, agonizing internal ruptures and deep surface burns, massive quantities of blood loss fit to stain the murky water crimson, and more. It's like a butchering wind --a dark mist that has suddenly rolled through and ruined or taken so many lives in an instant.     Lilian herself is already back where she started, flicking the blade clean in one hand and snapping the fingers of the other, launching black and white monochrome lightning from her index into the ranks that are still visible, not just blasting them with eldritch lightning, but actively electrocuting them --sustaining a torturously prolonged beam that chains from target to target until the water boils and smokes.     She doesn't stop to let people capture the enemy. She doesn't stop to listen to what any of them might have to say. She doesn't stop to heed battle plans or assess team coordination or save anyone else from further hits. It's pure, overwhelming bloodlust --not just the urge to get the enemy out of the way, but to make them suffer for it, to either die in agony or live on in terror, as half a man physically and psychologically.
Ereshkigal	A good shove of force and Ereshkigal goes skipping back on her heels, cape billowing around her as she plants her lance in the ground, shifting her weight to circle around it with the force. Her spin done, she turns away from the room as a whole, gaze skipping to Gil for a moment with a raised eyebrow, before she looks at Lilian.      "You are twisted." Ereshkigal murmurs to her... almost approvingly.      That being said, lance is lifted into the air, before bolts of lightning streak from it to the trees, her red eyes burning. "Ahhh! The joy of the unknown! How have I missed it."      Stuff gets boring after awhile, you know.
Kalia	Gilgamesh speaks. The guards twitch for a moment.     Avenger heads into the trees. There's no assassin there. He finds plenty of dead, skeletonized birds clutched in the vines, and zooming through the canopy, he sets off countless hair triggers on the plants. The vines, like a big, great whole, all converge in on his location, as if he'd found himself in a trash compactor of hungry, thorny vines.     Spider-Man and Gawain handle some of the weapons out - webbed or disarmed, the guards back away. They draw backup weapons - knives, smaller pistols.     Barriers go up - from Septette, from Maya, from Lezard. It's really handy to stop the guards from just opening fire wildly. They back away a bit, the circle widening. Staren even blasts at one in the mess, shredding through one of the guard's armor to break a shoulderpad off and disable his shielding.     Skeletal hands keep the guards from going far, though - and forced to make a stand, they... stop. Completely. That having been said - they're not robots. They have lifesigns. They're people, definitely - but.     Something goes awry when Lilian tries attacking. She might be used to having uncontested rule of time, but someone's moving fast enough to prevent her from straight up murdering the army with no challenge.     Energy shields, for one. Another volley of energy bolts, for two. And then a blow aimed for her stomach from an unseen predator, as if delivered by a clawed, mechanical limb. Not enough to stop Lilian's first attack - enough to stop the follow-up.     The explosion wounds some of the guards. They bleed, but still stand. They're not nobodies. Surprisingly, they're not mooks!
Kalia	Then, Vala appears. The blonde young woman who stood by the emperor's side, evidently his daughter, is visibly pissed at the failed ambush. The eight servo-arms sticking out of her back are all outfitted with cannons, still-smoking and glowing faintly blue. Those black and gold armored robes seem a bit bulkier than in the throne room. She raises her hand, and a green light turns red over her gauntlet. The guards' eyes turn red, and they stop needing to resist the impulse given to them by Gilgamesh.     "Father wanted us to cooperate and get you out of our way. But I'm going to make you eat those words and disrespect, curs!" She almost sounds like Gilgamesh. Almost.     The guards open fire in unison. They crash into the barriers - their fire is intentionally spread out as much as possible. To make the barriers brighter. To create explosions. To create light. To blind people with their own shielding.     In the chaos of it, Vala has disappeared again. Afterimages occasionally blink in and out of existence, blue and wispy, blurry, like she's phasing in and out of reality.     A mechanical claw appears only long enough to try carving Gilgamesh's pretty face open. Several energy shots materialize to obliterate Gawain and Septette, too armored for physical blows. Ripples of lightning try to pin Maya and Spider-Man to the ground, and an unseen flurry of blows seeks to hack apart Lezard's undead army with sharp, cutting precision.     Another volley of shots is aimed directly at Xion and Roxas, while Ereshkigal has to deal with several blunt, mechanical blows to her elbows and knees, from seemingly nowhere.     Vala only deems reappear in full for Staren, whom she attempts to snag with all eight of her mechanical limbs. Two for each arm and leg. And they pull. Hard.     She's a woman of her word, apparently.     All the while the guards relentlessly open fire, creating an unholy maze of plasma projectiles that seems to impede them not at all.
Avenger	Avenger moves /fast/, upon noticing the vines doing little more than grabbing at him, and no signs of the assassin, he vanishes.     Vines hitting only air as Avenger simply moves beyond human speed. He would reappear in the air, right below the treeline as the Princess makes herself know, but she was gone before he could move again. He too, moves with speed, as he flashes around the battlefield, trying to keep up with her movements. When she moves on Staren, he strikes, appearing behind her, and striking at her back with one of his hands, aiming to send the black flames directly into her armor, before dancing away again. There is a laugh, his voice appearing to come from every angle around the Princess.     "Ah, I see you get something from your father, but without his years of experience to temper his greed. You seek to keep the kingdom for yourself. Seek to sit atop this slowly crumbling sack of lies...unable to see the fall that is fast approaching. So blinded by the lust for money and power?" He laughs. "How pathetic. You kill for such things, but no actual goal...and how ephermial it will be. However, you made a mistake..." he says, appearing right behind Staren to try and break him free. "You commited a act against me, Avenger. And now, I come for revenge...these people here only make me stronger, and I in turn make them more potient." he laughs, joylessly as his entire BODY burns with the black flames.
Staren	Ah. Not Sangvis T-Dolls, but the emperor's daughter. No time now to wonder how she's moving so fast.     The bane of Staren: Grappling. And with eight arms, no less! With her speed, she can easily attack the moment he lowers the field to shoot -- but he's got a couple of tricks left:     First, the armor electrifies, trying to incapacitate Vala via shock. Staren's probably not THAT lucky, but maybe it'll startle her into letting go, and then he can retreat with an ally and try to work out how to attack without dropping his field again. And also how to attack someone so fast.     Second: If she actually rips the arms and legs off his hardsuit, he'll turn into a cat, hide in the chestpiece, and then... okay he's not sure what safe place he could go then but every extra second alive is a second things might turn his way!     When Avenger of all people intervenes on his behalf, Staren turns and gives him a brief, approving glance and a nod.
Gilgamesh	The fact that the guards don't kill each other is pretty surprising, though Gilgamesh doesn't show it. He's still leisurely getting dressed. He pulls on his pants, his sweater, his coat, giving Xion a wry smile of acknowledgement. He knows what he is. He's much too much for a young woman like that. Perfection's much too much for most people.      Lilian pushes him aside. Gilgamesh flirts on the radio. He can't help himself. He can't take this seriously. It's too absurd. A bunch of lowly mongrels who think themselves his equal, his *superior*, based on their flash-in-the-pan existence, their salvaged bits and bobs. It's just, it's *funny*.      And then Vala appears to taunt and mock.      The mechanical claw is met with a sword shooting down directly in front of it, deflecting it just narrowly enough that Gilgamesh is forced to take a step back to avoid getting his face ripped open. She still manages to score a cut on his cheek; irritatingly, it just makes him look rugged and sexy instead of plain sexy. Septette's made ice cover, but it's somewhat useless, now, considering her speed. The shots seem to blow through the ice, anyhow, sending chunks raining or just vaporizing whole bits. Not the best cover, considering.      Avenger takes off, and Gilgamesh's mind sparks a bit, some long-buried memory at the back of his thoughts. Ah, yes. Speed. Speed. He had something for this. He had something faster than Vala, probably. Didn't he? Yes, yes. As the King of Heroes ducks around plasma shots, swords coming down to cleave them in twain, the King is thinking.      "Aha."      He snaps his fingers.      The Gate of Babylon opens. What comes thundering out is nothing short of ridiculous.      It's a car.      It's probably a chariot, but it's unmistakably a car. It's long and golden, wheels at the back end, some kind of bizarre mechanical horse-fronts on the front end. Rather than a steering wheel it has reins. Gilgamesh sits himself down in the unquestionably-plush seating, produces a pair of golden sunglasses, and snaps the reins.      The horses start slow.      Then there's a blaze of fire.      The car is moving as fast as Avenger. The thunder of the horses can be heard from every direction, and a trail of flame follows in its wake. Now that he's moving this fast, and with his special sunglasses to avoid things getting in his eye, Gilgamesh can attack Vala properly, firing the Gate of Babylon's projectiles at ridiculously-accelerated speeds. Blades and axes go shooting through the swamp clear past visibility, carving through trees and sending them falling into stagnant water. Spears shoot through with the force of railguns, parting the waters and sending the things in them scurrying for cover.      And, occasionally, over the sound of the battle, Gilgamesh can be heard laughing his trademark mocking laugh, as if he's telling Vala that there's nothing she can do that the King cannot do finer.
Gawain	Good, the young ones can handle themselves. Meanwhile...the soldiers are trained, and they have a commander, who reveals that the emperor tasked his own children to get rid of them. Gawain's unhappy, and also unhappy at his allies' bloodthirst, but at the same time, he can't disagree with them. This is not something the Paladins can permit. An ambush of their elite personnel when trying to solve a crime and bring justice? Death is acceptable, but... Gawain's going to move to try and keep them alive, if he can, and bring them in for questioning and examination of their mental state and willingness to do this. So, as the energy shots come out, Gawain dashes forward, blocking them with both sword and armor. They hurt - burning through his armor and damaging him, knocking him off course, and weakening what he can handle, the knight quickly straightens himself, twisting to slash into their arms and into non-bleeding out parts of their legs to trip them up, disarm them, wound them, and such. If he gets a chance, he moves to bash the blade into their faces to knock them out. It might give them a concussion... But it's better than being dead. "Please, surrender, all of you! This is the only warning I'll give. If you come with me, I can secure your safety."
Spider-Man	Spider-Man is slammed hard into the ground, bruising as he crashes out of the air. Dammit, his primary advantage! "Lady, I'm really sorry, but I promise, you stop the killing and start doing legitimate kingdom things and I'll have to eat my words! The killing will just kill me before I can even get the fork out." He pushes hard, struggling to his feet desperately with much of his super-strength. "You have got to /stop/ this stuff! Why are you even doing this?! We were trying to /help/ you!"     He latches a web into the distant treeline, yanking himself hard over the barriers and into the circle of guards with Gawain! That particular officer has ordered they be incapacitated and brought in, and Spider-Man intends to do exactly that. By keeping close to the barrier arrangement, and by trying to yank foes closer to it, he hopes he can keep more in cover than he would be otherwise, and pull the foes in close using splitting arrays of auto-targeting web.     "You guys ever see that really really old movie? About the guys who put ghosts in traps?" He calls out. "I get why they were so tired of people they were trying to help not believing them!" He tugs foes in close, and uses short, joint-focused sweeping strikes to try to incapacitate them and then restrain them with bursts of webbing. He can't afford to go very vertical with that lady and her ability to force him to the earth, so he has to take them directly on the ground!
Xion	Xion is turned around by Roxas simply grabbing her, adjusting her angle, and sending her off towards bad guys. The bad guys - WHO MAY BE ROBOTS - also wear pants, so when Xion cracks her fingers to see the utter chaos going on around her. A lightshow. A terrible, tremendous lightshow of massive, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring proportions. It'd be distracting, if there wasn't more pressing matters to attend to. Like dudes! Bad dudes. Really, it just sucks to be them. With all the walls set up, she still takes a pile of shots from the coordinated volley, leaping through barrage to minimize her time in the cross-fire, her coat dramatically getting chewd through with holes in the process. Then she steps into a vein of darkness and disappears. A half-heartbeat later, she leaps down from one of the swamp trees, swinging a stick like a two handed blade in a downplanting drop slash. Planting the stick in either chunky dude or squishy ground, she then aims an open palm at another of the coordinated (and controlled) soldiers. Shouting 'Demi!', her outstretched fingers sling a single mote of throbbing blackness across the field, 'exploding' on contact into a large gravitiy singularity that visually distorts and twists the cyber-soldier's image... Which is probably very painful! But they're cyber-goon bad guys, so THEIR FEELINGS DON'T MATTER.
Septette Arcubielle	Guards' eyes glowing red- mental control, potentially permanent loss of identity? Septette's assessment of their life-value shifts a couple notches downwards; error bars expand for uncertainty. But they, threatening as they might be, don't seem to be the primary concern here. Vala is.      Gears shift inside Septette's mind. Her temporal perception of the situation ratchets down- until sound turns into a dull roar, until color bleeds away from her surroundings, until the flow of photons into her eyes slows to a raindrop-like trickle. In a dim and silent world Septette waits, piecing together the patterns of Vala's movement with incomprehensible patience.      To the outside, her eyes flare to a bright violet. Her right arm flexes and cocks into a twisted position with a click as the energy blasts wash over her, incinerating her shawl and gloves and leaving a thin pall of ash on her bones.      She waits.      She waits.      A subjective eternity later, Vala's flickering motion brings her within the killbot's deceptive reach. The first signature blue-shifted photon strikes Sept's optical receptors. Etheric circuits bear the signal to her arm instantaneously, releasing its enormous mechanical tension. A noise like a gunshot echoes through the trees as a five-foot-long curved blade unfolds from Septette's forearm, breaks the sound barrier as it hinges open like a switchblade, and swings through the air where Vala ought to be.
Maya	Maya is able to make use of her magic to keep some level of protection, it helps somewhat and the fight is raging on the guards are doing some serious attacks. She also gets s deeper understanding of several of her allies. Now as the fight picks up Vala has turned up and she doesn't seem very happy. She also has her own orders from Gawain, Spider-Man needs Vala off Spider-Man so he can catch some of the guards. She has a rather large problem. Maya does get caught by the lighting it hurts but she is able to fight her way through it with some injury to herself and Lilian's behaviour. Maya is unsettled by it, very unsettled. AS she finally gets lose she's now aiming to keep Vala off Spider-man. "Runner! SICK HER!" With that her hulking massive mecha dog will barrel at Valla aiming to slam into her with all the force it can muster while Maya tries to not get caught in the crossfire of the Guards. She can only hope this is enough to help Spider-Man out.
Roxas	"D-disrespect?! Were we disrespectful?" Roxas wonders in answer to Vala's appearance. He looks towards Xion for help with this, but when the weapons fire starts up again he decides enough is enough. A metallic ringing sound heralds the arrival of a jagged-looking black-and-white keyblade to his hand, with which he parries the incoming volley of weapons fire -- in part. Once a couple of blasts finally make it through and strike him in the stomach, he doubles over briefly and then vanishes. Or rather, seems to skip from point to point. The young man seems to have zeroed in on Vala because of the way she drew attention to herself, and he uses his /own/ ability to jump around with annoying amounts of line-of-sight mobility to close in on her as she commits all of her limbs to tearing apart Staren. The bizarre weapon flashes through the air as Roxas leaps into a spin that is more like a light-elemental buzzsaw angled at one whole side's worth of mechanical limbs than anything else.
Lezard Valeth	She was here /personally/. The suspect arrived /personally/. Lezard can't decide whether to groan or smile at the apparent belief that she could match the entire assembled group. He can respect the confidence, but the lack of /research/... Lezard turns away from Vala, knowing that the King of Heroes amongst others would be focusing on her. "A pity." He mutters, "And I had such hopes for you." In the meantime, the undead-gripped soldiers, however, are another matter. "I trust you lot enjoy your work?" He asks. "You will likely be doing it for quite some time." He holds out his hands, twisting them in the air as he shapes his power. The book opens, pages flipping, and he casts another spell... "LIGHTNING BOLT!" A sorceror's classic. The air crackles and shivers as he hurls a potent blast of lightning through the soldiers, chaining it right through them. Time to test their defenses /properly/. They, after all, are more useful dead than alive...
Lilian Rook	Energy shields are obnoxious garbage. If the first run around didn't hack them all into pieces because their shields flared up once causality Actually Happened, then Lilian will do it again. And again. And again. Until it works. The black marks have crawled out of the frame of her hair and past her jaw. Her eyes are a dull, wine red. Night Mist flickers faintly in place, as if vibrating too fast to see, but broken up by split-second overshots.     Even without stopping time, she ducks the following curtain of surprise energy shots as if she knew they were coming. As if she'd already seen them happen. The future where they hit her. It's almost lazy, if still freakishly fast. Something she somehow hadn't seen strikes her in the gut, breaking a hard case and launching her up out of the sucking water, deprived of breath, but catching a tree branch and a quick ----stop---- allows her to recover from it in what externally seems like an instant.     "Here I was, stressing out over how I was going to deal with you, and then you just went and made it *this* easy!" Lilian replies. "Ahahaha~ Oh I'm so glad! I'm so glad they were dumb enough to break the peace so badly that I can do anything I want!" Irrespective of the situation --of the emperor's daughter taking her elite guard out here and trying to wipe her out, showing up in person to berate and insult and attack them-- Lilian just seems ecstatic. Like actually *ecstatic*. More than unreasonably so.     "That's the thing with dumb, unenlightened livestock like you, spoiled on technology and pampered by the ones with power doing everything for you. You get these ri~di~cu~lous ideas! Are you really related to your father? He sounds like the only one of you smart enough to stay out of my way~! Or does it really take being on your deathbed for your kind to realize that maybe you *just don't win this one*, hm? Because let me tell you: you don't get to win. You don't get to just walk home. Not now. Not after you fucked up this badly. Oh now what will daddy think of you in the condition I'm about to put you in?"     She has nothing productive to say, apparently. Just hate. Hate and vitriol and spite, and worst of all, seemingly enjoying it too. Last time she'd put on such a strong diplomatic face too, with all that stuff about investigations and sovereign authority. It seems like she's just been stewing over the result ever since, and now just got handed an opportunity to take her revenge for it on a silver platter. Grossly disproportionate revenge.
Lilian Rook	The sword may have something to do with it.                 -----[stop]-----     Lilian hooks her fingers into as many pins of stowed grenade canisters, wrenching them free and throwing the scatter in the same motion so that they're most of the way to the guards before they freeze. She pauses to look for Vala, only finding that she's blinked out, and is still out, in the non-second she currently has to herself, so she allows--                 -----[start]-----     --A fistful of compact high explosives are suddenly feet away from the enemy lines, tumbling through the air for only a split second before detonating right on top of them. Lilian slashes her hand back and forth like a conductor's baton on their tail, launching searing blasts of magic into the smoke, cratering the swamp floor and blowing geysers of steaming water out of the earth in multiple places as she just dumps obscene raw magical firepower onto them.     She stands right out in front of their firing line, strafing slowly sideways, ducking, weaving, float-spinning between the energy bolts, but not properly trying to get out of the way or seek cover. She *refuses* to seek cover. She doesn't *comprehend* the thought of cover. Of fighting slowly and wisely. A blast takes the chestplate right off her suit, smoking and crumbling into the swamp. Another hits her directly in the midsection and burns through to the inner layers, molten crystal slag sticking to her skin. She just keeps going through it. In fact, after a few more judicious blasts, she *charges*, head on, kick boosting off several trees in a zigzag pattern, and--                 -----[stop]-----     --diving directly under the aiming line of the guards right as she reaches the close range where a veteran soldier would hold their fire, expecting to blast her when she's too close to react and unable to maneuver mid-rush. She skids into the water instead, and--                 -----[start]-----     --abruptly appears behind, this time putting such a massive amount of force into a single thrust of the uncanny blade that the air *bangs* from the ostensibly instantaneous lunge, aiming to punch right through an energy shield with brute force and skewer the man inside. That way, she can use him as a human shield, turning him against the rest of the fire, reciprocating with streaking bolts of magical light that fly through the air with a life of their own, hitting shields and armour and 'latching on', burning inward like lances of molten metal, burrowing towards center mass.     She just keeps going like this --forwards, never backwards, never repositioning without attacking-- until she sees those shields pop. The moment she sees the barriers go down under the reckless magical onslaught of magical firepower, she draws the sword again and--                 -----[stop]-----     See the previous.                 -----[start]-----     --goes hunting for heads. Since she only needs their leader to talk, this time she's just as liable to go for decapitations, throat slashes, stabs to the heart and lungs, and tearing open arteries, as anything else, if not just straight up chopping people in half with renewed fury redoubling her supernaturally enhanced strength. The only real difference is that, since she wants to get to Vala next, if someone captures a soldier alive, she skips over him and keeps going as a matter of efficiency.
Ereshkigal	Hits come in left and right, throwing Ereshkigal around, but she handles them fairly well, using her stabilized lance in order to keep herself upright before she suddenly darts away in a quick move, seperating herself from the others. Then, lance in hand, she starts walking.      The swamps twist - earth rising from the water, as Ereshkigal makes things even more dour then they were before. After all, it's somewhat familiar, the swamps were - just more wet than normal. Well, she can take care of that...      Even as the land slowly transmutes, and she throws barriers out to shield her allies and even in some ways, the enemies, as she looks upon them.      "I suggest..." She says, with the charisma she shares with her sister, "That you start running... before I am forced to make you run."
Kalia	AVENGER/STAREN/ROXAS(+SEPTETTE): Vala's attempt to dismember Staren is cut short when Avenger steps in with his flames, scorching away Vala's... shielding? There's a blue light around her, like a field of electricity and energy, that most dampens the flames. But surely such a shield would consume a lot of energy, right? Staren and Septette are especially equipped to get readings about that. It's a clunky, energyvore shield. There's no telling what kind of battery she has in her armor (or inside her, maybe!), but it'd be possible to overload it no matter the capacity with such a shield.     Things get worse for her when Roxas penetrates the shield just only enough to cut one of her mechanical arms off. She lets go of Staren immediatly and fizzles out of existence again, but not before leaving the trio with half a dozen high-yield plasma grenades where she used to be, all primed to detonate.     GILGAMESH: The absurdity of Gilgamesh producing a car and suddenly being able to keep up with Vala has her predictably out of her element. "Help? HELP? By convincing our father to SELL you our future? You fake-ass brass knight, keep your help to yourself!" Swords are flung straight for her - she attempts to catch one with a servo-arm. The servo-arm is cut off. She attempts to catch another - she gets the timing right. Trial and error. It cost her a limb. She disappears again, leaving a blue-ish afterimage behind.     GAWAIN/SPIDER-MAN: The guards are strong - but they're not Servants, and they're not Gawain. The ones with melee weapons try their best to keep up, but frankenstein vibroswords can't damage Galatine. On the other hand, Galatine can WRECK them. A number of disarmed guards hit the ground, but their eyes are still blazing red. Like a perfect team, one surges up behind Gawain, trying to hold him down. Two more produce vibroknives, and aim for gashes in his armor!     ... or so they would, if not for Spider-Man's intervention. The guards are webbed down! They're not a threat anymore, but their eyes remain red.     XION: Xion is very mean to a guard, crushing him with gravity. No shielding is protecting him from that. He's probably lucky that Xion is NOT trying to be lethal, thankfully! But he's disabled very promptly, piling onto the other disabled guards!
Kalia	SEPTETTE: Septette waits, and waits, until the right moment to strike. When she finds it, Vala unpredictably shifts and blurs like she went into overdrive. She passes over the switchblade - only barely, losing a servo-arm in the process. The one clutching Gilgamesh's thrown blade attempts to shove the weapon into Septette's chest, before Vala disappears again. Unfortunately for her, Gilgamesh will probably recall his weapon then, but she should be fast enough to be a threat with it just before that happens.     MAYA: Suddenly, mecha dog. The dog slams into Vala, causing her to fully materialize and hit the ground hard. She rumbles angrily, her remaining limbs trying to tear the robotic pet apart with unrestrained fury. "Get off me, tincan!"     LEZARD: All the while Lezard casually fries guards with extreme prejudice. This is significantly deadlier to them than prior disables, because Lezard doesn't -care- to be nice. A few guards hit the ground, fried and dead. Their eyes revert to normal, and smoke leaves their ears, like electronics in their heads got fried too. Vala makes angry noises at him in general, but is too busy with a ROBODOG to make coherent replies.     LILIAN: Lilian is even meaner than Xion! Just as Vala gets rid of Maya's dog (presumably she throws it away, she doesn't like, hack it apart, probably!), she's back up, to make angry noises at the girl. "You shut your trap, bitch! You think I can't take you?!"     Just as grenades explode, and blast away the remaining guards.     Vala attempts to intercept Lilian. But with half of her limbs missing, the blows are slower, less numerous. The bolts of energy that try to shred Lilian less threatening than before. Guards still up are sliced, blown away, ragdolled around the swamp without a chance to respond. There are none left standing.     Vala grits her teeth.     "This isn't over! Next time, it won't be just me! Ral and I don't need father's approval to twist your heads off!"     Vala disappears.     EVERYONE: The map is left behind. And credit to to the emperor, it was accurate. After some recovery time, it's possible to find Gared's remains. A skeleton in battered, rusted armor, with no soul attached, obviously. It's not whole - seems a leg and an arm are missing, probably eaten, or lost to the swamp.     Do you have the means to banish a spirit through its remains with you?
Avenger	"Annoying bauble...it won't protect you forever," Avenger says towards the annoying shield. However...     With a flicker, grenades are dropped. Avenger, with the same breakneck speed has but a second to make a choice. Each grenade is thrown straight up, before it could directly explode on the group. Dedicating every ounce of speed and multiple actions he can muster to toss them straight up into the air, so that they explode away from themselves...and indirect damage would mildly singe those who could not escape on their own power...allowing everyone else to gang up on Vala.     However, she escaped, or rather is fleeing with Gilgacar on her heels. To that, Avenger has little else to do, exhuasted himself on making sure they did not die in plasma grenade hell. Allowing others to clean up.     When they find the remains, Avenger crouches down near them, looking into the remains as if searching for something. How many times has he become a shoulder to burden the desires of people? To carry on their revenge? But he sighs, "Spirit, if you can hear me, rest. I will take upon your hate, your pain. Be free from your prison of torment, and pass into gods domain whole again."
Staren	Allies drive Vala off. But in her place are grenades! Staren hunkers down in his forcefield -- and Avenger spares him even that damage. "Thanks." Staren goes to collect the heads, unless Lilian inists on keeping them. They can still be interrogated, hopefully -- and who knows, maybe, just maybe, experiencing Vala throwing their lives away will change their allegiance?     Probably not, but one can hope.
Maya	Runner is heavily armoured thankfully so he does not get cut apart and when he's called a tin can the hulking machine takes offence seemingly snarling in reply however Vala is able to throw Runner away in a rather epic feat of strength and using his own momentum against him he will end up crashing through a tree. Maya Meanwhile is relatively unharmed and getting on her feet she'll help Spider-Man with any of the remaining guards who might be alive that need restraining and or medical aid to keep from bleeding out or the like. "The last Princess who tried to muder me at least had a lick of sense about doing it, she tried to catch me alone at least."
Roxas	Roxas raises his keyblade defensively when Vala leaves behind plasma grenades. He's not quick enough to get categorically clear, but he can be seen doing /some/thing before they go off. In the aftermath green particles are trailing off of him, and thanks to Avenger going out of his way to get rid of the grenades, he comes out more-or-less neutral on actually taking damage from them. He's scorched and battered from plasma fire and the fringes of the grenade, but on the whole he's in pretty okay shape. With a ring his keyblade vanishes back to wherever it came from, and Roxas shakes his head, "Do you think that the Emperor actually ordered this, or do you suppose that his kids just decided to do this on their own?" He doesn't seem to /want/ somebody to have deliberately set this up, rather than for some Prince and Princess to have taken matters into their own hands. There is absolutely nothing that Roxas can do about spirits. He mills around, vaguely creeped out about the whole 'messing with this guy's bones', but not really having a particular reason to object. It's also possible he's trying to ignore the outstanding violence going on with the guards that /weren't/ lucky enough to get apprehended.
Lilian Rook	"Not in a million years, you delusional little Geppetto doll~ A wind-up tin ballerina whore like you isn't fit to get her blood on my shoes, so appreciate my generosity!" Lilian replies, loud and eager, stepping out of the charnel house of bodies that were Vala's royal guard just a moment ago. "Your brother too! All your little toy soldiers! I'll ram a spike through your ass and stake you outside your old man's palace so he can be properly ashamed of the brainless tart he raised! Come and have a go!" She snaps her sword into position, not caring the slightest bit about the irresponsible amount of stopped time she's already used, raring to take the rest of Vala's arms off.     Then she gives a 'curse you Gadget!' speech and disappears. Absolutely typical.     Lilian loses all interest in the reason they came out here. The bones, the spirit, the Lakeblade, all that stuff about the village and Gared are straight out of her head. When Gilgamesh goes after her, Lilian is with him in a moment, popping into the car still full of pulse-pounding anger and bloodlust, even the ridiculous breakneck speed of the King's ride barely enough to satisfy her impatience.
Gawain	Gawain almost gets pinned, from behind, trying to resist, when Spider-Man's intervention saves him from getting ganked. As the soldiers are webbed up and go down, Gawain pulls out restraints for those who aren't webbed, nodding to Spider-Man. "Thank you!" As Vala escapes, there's a pile of dead around them, and Gawain moves to close eyes of those Staren can't recover. When they get to the bones, he doesn't have much to do in regards to that, so he stays with the incapacitated, responding to Roxas. "After some thought on her words...I'm unsure. If he's truly on his death bed, then it's possible they made this decision of their own free will. We'll have to investigate while we deal with them to know further."
Septette Arcubielle	Septette can't get out of the way of the stolen sword, and she's badly overextended- but that doesn't imply she can't defend. Prehensile "ribs" squirm like the limbs of a dying bug as the blade glances off of her heart-like core, artifact meeting artifact. They twist the blade's trajectory, steering it away from anything vital (insofar as she has 'vitals') and forcing it to lodge between her bare spine and empty ribcage instead, its crossguard braced against where her sternum would be. She lashes out with her claws instead of trying to pull it out, aiming to score another blow on Vala before she can flee... but to no avail.      She doesn't hasten to remove it, which looks a bit goofy: the thing's sticking out through her back. Instead, she makes the rounds to examine the wounded and the dead, cauterizing any bleeding-but-living guards' wounds with fire magic with a disconcertingly sweet bedside manner, and ensuring all her allies are accounted for.
Lezard Valeth	The aftermath is even swifter than he expected. While the guards have been routed and killed, Lezard assesses the situation and comes to a conclusion. He is going to need to act quickly. "I have some things I must attend to. I will be parting from you lot now." He says, flicking his cape and flaring it behind him as he raises his hands. The status of Gared is effectively irrelevant at this point. Something more important has overridden his interest in the undead. A circle of light draws itself around Lezard, and he vanishes.
Avenger	Finally, as Avenger says the words, his hand erupts in the black flames, slowly reaching out to touch the skull of the corpse. The black flames would spread along the body, slowly starting to devour it without seemingly needing any fuel other than the body. They burn brightly, even in the water as slowly they start to turn the bones to ash, freeing the soul to return to god. Hopefully, freeing the man from his torment, and taking it upon himself.     Then, once the deed was done, he turned, walking through the swamp towards his next destination.
Xion	Being out in the outskirts causes Xion to not really experience much of the fight, having felt but not engaged the Bad Zippy Lady. If one watched (And nobody did), it'd actually be clear that Xion was sort of trying to 'aggressively not look at Gilgamesh', and his pursuit of Vera after her 'I'll get you next time doctor gadget', Xion is finally capable of LOOKING THAT WAY once more. So, she hops back, carrying her (second) stick like a sword. "All done?" The butchery of the soldiers goes by with dull blinking, and the fevered pursuit moreso - okay! That's cool. "Come on, Roxas, let's go find that thing! And dig it up!" Which results in... Them coming up short to Avenger burning the corpse and wandering off with his BACK TO THE BURNING BODY!!! "Wowwww, he's really cool. Also, uh... Was... that what we were supposed to do?" Xion uses the heavy branch-stick she had been using as a sword to lean against, canting forward and frowning. "I can't remember."
Roxas	"We came out to investigate the situation with that hero," Roxas replies to Xion with a wave of his hand, "but then all of this happened. I don't know if what they just dealt with really accomplished what we came for, but I guess it's 'the end' of this specific mission either way." He takes a moment to lay another sparkly CURA on Xion, and looks about to see if anybody else might need it. Unfortunately there are TOO MANY PEOPLE HERE, and so many of them register as GUEST PARTY MEMBERS even though they're definitely members of the main cast here. Without some sort of immediate signal, he'll probably overlook all but the most glaring injuries.