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Owner	Pose
Priscilla	From the flickering near-silence of the dim, ominous, dangerous hallways, it is at least not a long route of creeping past shuffling, zombie-like sugar deprived Elsen, passing rows of mysteriously locked, identical doors, and listening to the constant echo of clopping and dragging feet. Down the stairs, circling back around to the center. More stairs, to go beneath the nexus you'd arrived at. One last tunnel stretching forward into the darkness. One last copypasted tram on a copypasted rail, and yet somehow dimmer and darker than the others, as if faded with disuse toward the opposite end of the spectrum.     Somehow Zacharie is aboard. There's no use questioning it. If you do, he points only to his poorly drawn Judge mask and insists it's because he's the Judge, and he can do that. With the rails rattling and banging away, in an oppressive tunnel of darkness and echoes, without hint of the outside world, much further attempts at conversation elicit only a "Stop fidgeting. We're almost there."     The, following a startling *bing-bong* from a PA system that isn't there, "Attention. Attention. Obstacle detected. Vehicle is unable to move forward." ". . . It seems that there's a slight problem." says 'the Judge', in a distinctly un-Judge-like manner. "So . . . weren't you about to take a look outside while I keep watch?"
Tina Natsumi	Everything about this screams trap. The crappy Judge mask, the crappy Judge act (if it even qualifies as one), the insistence on not answering them. Tina doesn't look like she's all too worried about any of this, though, as she lounges around the tram with her usual gear: A revolver, cowboy hat, phone set to record everything for uploading later. Also, a lasso. She's never really practiced with the thing, but it does help complete the look. It probably won't help much with whatever it is that's blocking the tram, but that doesn't mean she doesn't plan to try anyway. If nothing else, it'll give her a better idea of just have heavy the thing might be. "Yer lucky it's boring in this here ride. Otherwise, I reckon some of us would be pretty content to sit around an' scratch our asses until someone else does it." She laughs lightly and tips her hat towards Zacharie before departing, moving towards the front of the tram to get a better look at what's blocking it. And then she's gonna throw her lasso at it. She may very well miss entirely.
August Kohler	As they ride, August only attempts to talk to Zacharie-J once, and realizes now isn't the time. As they sit through the tunnel, he's quiet, fidgeting with his phone. And then, the invisible PA system speaks up, and they need to go investigate. August summons Dietrich, first, in case it's spectres. He's clearly wounded and exhausted, as he does so - a side effect of fighting Brynhildr. He's more sluggish, and his eyes show fatique. Moving out the door on Dietrich's back, August takes a second to see what's blocking the tram. If it's just a boulder os something that seems like it could be broken, he moves to smash it with Dietrich's sword. If it's weirder... Well, that'll depend on what it is.
Doctor Strange	Strange is quiet. Seemingly. No fidgeting from him, just staring at the wall--or the window, if there is one, for the tram. The observant may spot that his eyes occasionally move between the occupants. There isn't altogether much movement from him until the jarring PA announcement. His eyes narrow with suspicion.      While Tina tries her luck with the lasso, Strange begins weaving a spell. A burning eye appears in the center of the tram. No matter where one looks at it, it appears to be facing the observer. After a moment, the eye is filled in with an image of the obstruction outside, and Tina's lasso flying towards it.      That should allow everyone to form their own means of attacking without leaving the safety of the tram.
Thomas Alva Edison	EDI-SON was not used to creeping past things, of course, he wasn't actually used to the concept of ZOMBIES.  Sure he had the appropriate knowledge of what they are, but these are not your homegrown variety.  These were more like coke heads who ate the zombie coke.  The thought of the addiction brought back a painful memory of one of his sons, but pushing it aside, and ironically reminded that he did that in life as well.   Once on the tram, he moved to a window to look out at the copied and pasted terrain, instead of the copypasta tram.  They escaped the creepypasta that was the last area, but Edison was sure that this nightmare wasn't over yet.  A brief sigh, glad for the relief of the moment.  Though it might seem as if tension was growing instead of retreating.   When the tram stops, Edison raises his head to look first at Zac-judge, and then back towards Doctor Strange as he weaves his spell, giving them the advantage of knowledge before attacking.   Edison spends his time observing the obstruction.
Starbound Flotilla	George is here still. He isn't smoking on thet tram again? But he also seems tired, on-edge -- and most importantly, he seems like he doesn't really know what's coming up. "Hell, what now?" He mutters. "Someone shoo the birds away or something?" He shakes his head exasperatedly. "Man, J, we got more than a slight problem. But hey! Why not add a couple straws to the camel's back, you know? Haha!" He stays in the tram and relaxes while the kids check on the issue.
Zero Kiryu	Zero Kiryu is present at Yuuki's shoulder, as always. Presently he's staring flatly towards Zacharie / 'The Judge', more than a little disbelieving of the act he's engaged in. His attention flicks momentarily to Dr. Strange's blip on his mental radar, without quite turning his attention towards the man himself. Rather than disembarking immediately, he decides to turn his mind's eye upon Zacharie. Just the prior night he had been discussing the shallowness of the people here-- how thinned-down they seemed to be compared to anything and everything he'd come to expect from 'a person'. What, he wonders, about this one?
Priscilla	For all Zero can tell, Zacharie's thoughts are largely his own. Compared to anyone else, he is considerably more mentally guarded. The Elsens don't have much to them. The Batter is a thinking being but clearly not quite human. What he can make of the Puppeteer is incredibly vague. He might have missed his chance of the Judge, and certainly on the previous Guardians, but Zacharie does stand apart from what he's used to so far. He can pick up on a certain amount of grim reservation wrangling with a certain, oddly lighthearted resignation, and then the thought "I certainly hope Pablo is alright. He hasn't been in the best shape since then." Anything past that is too many levels deep on introspection to read from the surface.     Peeking out into the dark, via the Eye, you can spot a very small shape on the rails. The tram hasn't stopped due to a large blockage, but as part of some kind of automatic safety feature. Tina throws her lasso, and it loosely flops around a skinny looking Elsen standing aimlessly in the dark, shivering and chattering his teeth. Even the Batter has to ask "What are you doing in the middle of the track?" as he disembarks and walks up.     The Elsen has little to respond to, only violently shuddering over a long pause, and a quiet, strangled ". . . hhhn"     Without any sort of prompting at all, the Elsen explodes, bursting under the weight of his own terrifying addiction. The explosion of black goo that gushes from his collar is tenfold what the previous, new and horrifying forms of Burnt had been, though little trickles from his sleeves and trousers, only resulting in pitch black stubs. The writhing mass congeals into a gigantic bubble, inflating the silhouette of his removed head to thirty times its size, so big that he couldn't possibly be balancing it like he is.     It's so huge it almost fills the tunnel, fixing you with giant, lamp-like blank white saucers for eyes, and splits open a mouth large enough to swallow several of you whole at a time. He, or rather, it, staggers forwards towards you, gargantuan head leaning and wobbling back and forth with its unsteady stride, approaching the pool of illumination cast by the tram's headlights, mouth yawning open.     Tesselating baroque diamonds ripple over the approaching Burnt. The Batter used Wide Angle! Critic Burntx1 Employee of Vesper on severe sugar deprivation. Light weakness to plastic.
August Kohler	Summoning Dietrich was the correct move. As the head of the Elsen explodes outwards and grows to horrible size, Dietrich's sword is suddenly wreathed in flame, as the knight bursts forward, thrusters flaring out. There's two flaming strikes at the Burnt, one to the head (because it's hard not to hit it), and one towards the lower body and legs, trying to knock it off balance. The off-balance hit has more impact to it, a powerful blow with superhuman strength behind it. As this is happening, August shouts out. "Plastic, plastic...it's only a light weakness, though, so it might not matter...!"
Tina Natsumi	That's not nearly as large as what Tina was expecting. It's actually somewhat of a relief, both in knowing that the blockage is just an Elsen and that the tram does have apparent safety features to NOT just run everyone over. "Is that all...? Hey, pard. Get on over here, it ain't sa-" And then he explodes. Somehow. Tina's still staring ahead somewhat slackjawed at the sight of what used to be an Elsen, the horror... Not quite setting in any more. It's surprising, sure, but has she really already gotten that used to how weird these people are? No... No, it's still pretty horrifying, but it's more absurd than anything else. "Well. Looks like we ain't gettin' through cleanly at this rate. Battle stations, folks!" Tina flciks her lasso back over her shoulder in a motion that almost looks like she has control over the thing and definitely is not a fluke, then pulls her phone out to call out that familiar American-themed robot Persona. Uncle Sam is already carrying a pair of Thompsons as it appears, laying down suprresing fire onto the Burnt to help pin it down alongside Dietrich. Tina herself, meanwhile, turns to the floating eye Strange summoned to flash a quick peace sign and broad grin. Even now, it's time to ham it up for the viewers safely inside the tram!
Doctor Strange	Strange is out of the tram from the moment the explosion happens.      The Eye of Agamotto opens with a hand gesture resembling the opening of an eye. The tunnel is bathed in emerald light now, complementing the headlights of the tram. Another Strange appears from the future, weaving another scrying spell. Future!Strange looks for a nearby source of liquid plastic, scouring the outside world. If he's able to find any, he'll pipe it in with a portal...      Into the depression that Present!Strange has made in the center of the tunnel. Well... it's not really a tunnel anymore. With the grinding of construction materials against themselves, the tunnel has shifted sideways, hollowing itself out and making a circular arena to do battle with the Burnt. Instead of one tram, there are now eight, each one glaring at the Burnt with its bright headlights.      Strange gives Tina a thumbs-up.
Zero Kiryu	Zero observes Zacharie a little more directly after skimming his mind. This one is clearly an individual. How, though? What lets him maintain coherence in a way that most of the others aren't able to? He glances out to the exterior of the tram, as people engage an Elsen -- a new blip on his radar, growing into something horrible and monstrous. But the Batter is there, and so are several of the others. He decides that it's more useful to try to bait out further answers from Zacharie than it is to enter the fight. He nods towards the merchant, "You look worried about something. There are plenty of things to be worried about around here, and I suppose that thing..." He gestures towards the ongoing fight, "Is high on the list." "Why are you wearing that mask? What are you worried about?" He wonders, skimming Zacharie's mind all the while. It's not necessary to actually get him to talk, as long as it brings thoughts closer to the surface.
Yuuki Kuran	The tram is 'normal'. George smokes, and -- well... Actually, it's nothing like normal. It's strange, jarring, quiet where it shouldn't be, and anxiousness in thick stormclouds. But even so, it's calming after a stressful few moments fighting the mega-burnt (and also the intervening period of living outside the strange Batter's World dream). It's a breath for air, after feeling the addiction that the Elsen feel. An empty, unfulfilling acid of a desire that isn't just bottomless, but scouringly unsatisfying. Yuuki just finds a seat and waits, placing her chin on her hands and elbows on her knees as she waits, her red-brown eyes shuttering slowly. "I hope it's not you either, Judge. It would be so very strange to fight you after the last few zones." She murmurs, as the train grinds to a halt, and the batter steps out. Yuuki doesn't elaborate on the specifics of her comment. Instead, as the massive burnt explodes into the air. "It's deprived of sugar... Well, I guess We're to blame for that. But still - watching a self-consumptive poison like that continue because you're already addicted to it is just taking responsbility for it!" After her needlessly shoujo declarations to 'the universe', Yuuki hurries out to the Batter's side, 'shoving' with a hand as a wave of force follws her gesture, a massive kinetic wave to topple over the burnt in the new ringed-by-trams arena Strange had created.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison sighs resigned that another poor victim has come across their path.  Stepping off the train, he walks forward as the Bunt completely transforms, and reveals the mouth that could easily swallow many of them whole.  Edison walks to the front of the train, eyeing the creature as the Batter gets information on it... Edison then throws a hand forward, as the area around him starts to shape into his own lab, several overworked assistants run two and frow, grabbing various liquid plastic containers and bringing them to Strange, as well as Edison. With a FLASH OF DC POWER, the Plastic surges out, aiming to coat his allies weapons with the liquid plastic, aiming to augment their strength with the element of plastic (and buffing their strength.) Edison, now with giant gloves made out of plastic mittens made from the remainder of the liquid plastic stands ready to fight.
Priscilla	Zacharie doesn't seem perturbed that Zero has decided to stay on the tram with him. He's more than used to the amount of muscle levied by the rest. Then again, one can never quite tell with the assortment of masks always tied over his face.     ". . . I see not even my most elaborate disguise is a match for your mercilessly discerning eye." he says to Zero, in the quiet after Yuuki has left. That shitty mask is a disguise? "I'm filling in for Pablo. He hasn't been in top shape after Valerie. He's probably still wandering the Zones right now. He'll need some time to reconcile." he says, in an uncharacteristically deflated voice. "Still, there has to be a Judge, or else you'd all have gotten lost and run out of time a while ago! Being this cryptic and simultaneously backhandedly helpful is hard work though! I'll be glad to hand the duty back over immediately. Then again, there isn't much left to go." he says.     His thoughts wander. They wander from 'Pablo' to deepening shades of concern over someone else. 'He'll move on eventually. Sugar . . . I don't know about Sugar though. What happened to her runs a little too deep for me to puzzle out. She's safe in that cellar. Probably. There's no interest in that Zone, after all. It's only a shame Valerie couldn't come with us. No, it's a shame those three turned out like that as well. Either way, trusting in that strange one and her sporting jumping jack is the only thing to do at this point. If that particular figment is here, things must be coming to a close soon.'     The Burnt blocking the tram's path is swiftly devastated with the combined forces of half a dozen impatient Elites, now used to fighting their kind and equipped to the teeth with strange tools. Plastic flows in from a maze of conduits not far ahead, sloshing into the depression and miring the Critic Burnt up to its shoulders once Yuuki blasts it back into the pit, remnants of bones audibly crunching. The creature is riddled with bullets from top to bottom, impossible to miss even with suppressing fire, and Dietrich carves gushing, flaming chunks out of its gigantic head, each sizzling in a uniquely awful-smelling melted plastic in a microwave tinge, leading to more of the black corruption sloughing off. Edison's sequence of plastic element punches lead to a deep, bass, tunnel-shuddering, building wheeze of immeasurable silent volume.
Priscilla	The Critic Burnt Used     !     The noise comes out as the pathetic, wheezing sighs of a hundred different Elsens all played over each other, echoing endlessly down the tunnel. From out of the Burnt's giant mouth, comes something so equally gigantic that there is no way such an enormous head exists for any other reason but to give voice to their enormity, not something so petty as eating you.     The giant, bold, scratchy letters: H E L P     The battered monster finally collapses under the assault of a blazing trio of halos warping and tearing and blasting it to ribbons with logarithmic chains, wrenching switches of spatial perspective, and abstract feelings sharpened into blades, followed by a Magic Homerun that blows the remains of the faltering Burnt to wet black pieces with colossal, sparkling, dramatically bloody violence. The Batter lowers his stained bat, and turns back to the tram, business concluded.     There's just a split second of disorienting flash-vertigo. The tunnel is exactly as it was. The wasted Elsen is still standing there, head attached. You're oddly pale and indistinct. The Elsen wheezes one more time, and collapses in a puddle of red blood.     The moment passes quickly again, but those odd flashes have become alarmingly more frequent. The PA chimes: "Obstacle disappeared. The monorail is going to re-depart. Please be careful during departure."     There is little to say past that point. The tram rolls and rattles, callously indifferent to the wet bump that barely disturbs it, continuing along its one and only track until it slowly squeals to a halt. There is no Elsen at the kiosk hosted by the last terminal. Only a square metal door, and beyond it, a bizarrely long rectangular corridor that stretches far away into the distance, at the end of which can be glanced a far, far larger doorway, and in the intervening space, a uselessly rambling maze of a walkway that pads out the time it takes to get there fivefold, suspended over a singular vat of heavily churning plastic, almost glowing, as if lit from beneath.
Tina Natsumi	Good man. Tina smirks at Strange in particular when he gives her the thumbs up, then turns around to notice that the trams have multiplied, and she's not quite sure which one is the correct one anymore. Thankfully, the Burnt gets pasted rxceedingly quickly, and there's not a whole lot she can do for its call for help but shrug and assume it was calling for one of its own or something rather than calling for one of them. She really needs to try thinking less sometimes. Try as she might, though, Tina can't fake looking entirely okay as she steps back onto the tram, deliberately avoiding looking back at the pile of Elsen that the tram ends up running over once it begins moving again. "H... Heh. That sure was a neat little diversion, huh? Kinda weird that there was only the one of 'em, but..." She's not sure where she was going with that thought. Shrugging lightly, Tina returns to her seat, getting up only once the tram stops once again at their actual destination. With the walkway maze before them, Tina peers over the giant plastic vat and fishes out a coin from her pocket. She tosses it into the vat for good luck, then starts the slow and deliberate process of following the left side of the walkway to (eventually) find her way around. Then again, she could also cheat. "Hmn... Wonder why they'd even do it like this. I don't reckon one o' y'all'd be able to just zip us right over to the other side, wouldja?"
Zero Kiryu	"Run out of time. You're not the first person to mention an increasing urgency. The Batter has complained of it, too." Zero replies to Zacharie. Ordinarily he would focus on Yuuki's blip on his radar as she moved away, but since he can see what's going outside and is quite confident in her ability to BLAM something if she really needs to, he foregoes it for the first time in a while. The pieces of the explanation slide into place. Zero nods, and says, "I understand. Some things you have to work out yourself. Losing a sibling is certainly one of them. It's good of you to stand in for him, but I don't think you need to disguise yourself that way." He seats himself, gesturing loosely towards Zacharie, "You and a handful of others aren't like the rest. You have depth that the Elsen don't. When I bother to, I can smell the difference. The crazy ones... like the thing that possessed Valerie... have depth, but they're too far gone to work with." "Are they really just going crazy on their own, or is there some sort of... curse, or malady at work?" He asks.
Doctor Strange	Help.      That's exactly what they're going to do. It'll take some doing, but... that's what'll be done. Strange is back on the tram without much ado. At the end of the line, he departs, much the same. The momentary flash draws his suspicion, but he doesn't voice it. Getting everyone else up in arms won't accomplish anything.      "Yep," says Strange in response to Tina. The sorcerer places one hand behind his back. The other hand bears the Sling Ring. He traces a circle through the air. A portal opens, leading to the other end of the hallway. It's lazy, but he doubts anyone will complain given the size of the hallway, provided this place doesn't have some means of countering his portals. It wouldn't be the first.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison watches in mute horror as...this scene unfolds in front of them again, and in fact, the only thing it does is call for help.  Worse, the flash of the Elsen unburnt and just exploding in blood.  What is even happening..?  Why is it even happening?   With a breath, he pushes forward, Strange has a plan.  He's on board with his plan and will see this through. Turning back, he moves towards the tram as Steven attempts to circumvent the tram ride.  If this does not succeed, he just steps back on.   Back on the tram, he cocks his head towards Zacharie and Zero, more or less asking what was being discussed, but not pushing the issue right then and there.  There is a lot more on his mind right now, and the fact that George hasn't gone on a break yet...no more that he seems to be on edge is telling.  Something is out of their control. That and the impatient Batter as of late.
August Kohler	The sword's fire dies down as the Burnt is taken out, but the cry for help causes August to flinch. As does the weird flash. The Persona User returns to the tram, not desummoning Dietrich. They might need him. As they take the maze of walkways over plastic, August and Dietrich take point. As they do so, moving forward, he mutters. "This is the perfect place for a fight. Odds of an ambush seem high." He keeps his guard up. There's still two Flotilla members to go, after all.
Yuuki Kuran	It is not, in fact, the cry for 'help' that unsettles Yuuki. She knew of them. She had heard them many times before. From Level E's, those too far gone to maintain their humanity and help themselves from their feral predations. As she gets back on the tram, it's the strange flash that makes her turn. Zero had been talking over and over about the Batter's world, the effect it had on people. "I hope it's not... but does it matter?" Thankfully, the SORCERER SUPREME is here to get them across the nonsense bullshit timewasting maze-over-molten-plastic. "You know... Stephen, Thomas, I think that Burnt was from here. They couldn't leave. They were weak to plastic."
Starbound Flotilla	George takes the portal. "Ooof. Thanks, Doc. Place is hell on my joints, I don't like those fumes." He's on the way through and heading to the threshold at the end of the hallway. Whether the group is right around him or behind him, or even in front of him, it matters very little; he's the epicenter of what comes next. "Alright, so, coming up is the Guardian, I think? Honestly, at this stage, I'm kind of over this stealth shit. Even the Queen wouldn't mind if I got this back on track. So, when we get inside, you--"     There's some kind of walkway above, something that went unnoticed in the unusually top-down sort of thinking that people tend to view the world in. That's the only way to explain the sudden rain of heavy axes. Fire axes. Wood axes. Survival axes. Battle axes. George is the one they're centered around, but right during his panicking dodge-roll, something else swoops in to crash him backwards, and skid him almost back to the plastic unless someone helps him fast.     "Determined. I WON'T LET YOU!"     "SHIT!!"     Seft is here. Durasteel and shining knightly armor gleams with soft blue light at its seams, and her burning axe is in her hand matched by a heavy powered tower shield in the other. Her eye-visor displays a heroically just expression of aggression. "Certain. Even if the Queen won't see it, I know what your plan is, and I'm not letting it happen!" As she blasts off, she continues shouting. "And I won't let you touch the Director! At least he's /trying/ to ease Elsen's pain!"     "Ahhhh, life alert, someone help me up! Wait-- Seft! You know I have to! You know what's wrong with all this shit, it's falling apart! It's worse than the Hiveminds!" George is shouting, trying to keep distance rather than challenge her, and probably managing it if someone can help him up from that edge. She intends to pursue him. Will the holy folks defend George, or not? At least George has his own opinions. "Help! Hey, help!!" Why is it that Seft seems to think he's the sole root of this? When, you know, they could just wander through past this scuffle? Well, there's no clear answer.
Yuuki Kuran	As long as George is with them, Yuuki feels safe from the rest of the Flotilla. It had worked this way every time. First, George would disappear! She even expected it, with his joints... Except Strange portals them across. Second, George IS around to fight the Guardians. And they were so close to the next one. Yuuki's guard, such as it were, was searching for the empty pesences of Elsen, or the Spoop Factor of Spectres... Not a robot. Not even a very angry robot. "Seft!" Yuuki calls, following the hail of flaming axes, and the chase across the platform past the plastic bubbling lake. Moving to grab George by the arm and tug him back onto the platform with a quick yank to send him right back to his feet. Turning with a whip of her neck and her hair following, Yuuki levels a finger at Seft (that follows with a thrusting lance of force like a piston on the wind), her brows furrowed in an displeased-to-full-on-angry scowl. "Trying to ease Elsen's pain? With sugar? I've felt it! It's worse than anything I've experienced! And they burn the bodies for more of it! You can't call a poison like that 'trying' to help or any sort of good thing without lying to me!" "How dare you lie to me like that, Seft?!"
Doctor Strange	None of the captains die. That was the deal. Strange looks towards Yuuki and Zero, nodding solemnly. It'd be nice to just open up and say what the plan is--but that might just mean fighting George instead of Seft. The best option then is business as usual. Just pretend like everyone's still going... that route.      Gravity tugs at George as if he'd pressed his LifeAlert button. He falls upwards, just long enough to get his feet parallel to the ground. It returns to normal thereafter, dropping him (theoretically) on his feet away from the edge. It might still be an iffy landing.      With fists clenched, Strange calls forth his mandalas and takes to the air. She says the Director is trying to help ease Elsen's pain. "Maybe he believes that," counters the sorcerer, as the glyphs before his hands lock into place. Arcs of white lightning fly from the center of each mandala. The air briefly smells of ozone as his attack crackles audibly, racing towards Seft. "But that doesn't make it right." Little arcs of electricity leap off of each band, touching briefly upon the odd axe imbedded in the scenery before fizzling away.      Strange follows up with a barrage of his own to rival the axes--blazing daggers of fire zip through the air like artillery, raining down around her.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison jumps back as Seft crashes through and starts going after George.  Thomas takes a few moments to consider this situation, and the words being spoken.  There is a brief moment where Thomas considers just pushing forward.  George was not known for being the most stalwart of allies, and probably playing his own game. Edison is actually torn, on the one hand leaving someone like this would not be good for the soul, but on the other, it would free them to pursue their own goal?  Simply put, Edison was not sure.  However, when Strange takes the floor as well as Yuuki, he can hardly say no at that point.   Edison attempts to interpose himself between Seft and George, aiming to try and bullrush the knight with his own massive form and give George some breathing room.  Edison, crackling with electricity stands to try and protect his ally.   "Is it really easing their pain?  This isn't easing, this is desperately trying to ignore it.  It is trying to ignore life because it is difficult, and hard...they are already afraid of living, and he has provided them an out.  It isn't easing, it is removing their ability to live." "It is not wrong to want to ease the suffering of others, but one must know the difference.  Now stop attacking, and instead have a conversation with us about this situation so that we can come to a solution that might actually HEAL Elsen."
Starbound Flotilla	George is back on his feet. Yuuki pulls him up after a near slip, and Strange gives him a much-needed boost to whirl his way away from the plastic and bounce away from Seft's next oncoming charge. He swears as he goes, clearly a bit of of control of the situation. "Thanks!!" He shouts, between it; he's likely to try to get some distance now. He may benefit from some help with it, considering the fact that Seft may have ranged options, and there's no cover in this hall!
Tina Natsumi	Skipping that shitty maze is certainly going to put Tina in a better mode than she was on the tram earlier, but her mood starts to deflate again when George is set upon by Seft and that heavy gear of hers. It's pretty clear from the look on her face that she's not quite in the best state of mind to join in the attack on Seft, although Uncle Sam does hover menacingly behind her the Persona user. Just in case she needs to block some stray shots, that's all. "Ain't you heard of cauterizing wounds to stop 'em? Yeah, what we're doing is gonna hurt 'em in the short term, but we'll fix 'em in the long run! But if y'all's gonna fight it out, I don't want no part in that. I got somethin' different in mind." Tina calls out as she moves off to another side of the walkway to try and avoid the center of the growing fight and flying projectiles. Instead, she takes out her phone. The red light goes on. It's time to record again, but this time she actually has her hands focusing it on the action rather than just holding it in a pocket and hoping for the best. "Now if you're really determined to make your stand in a place like this, then ya better put on a good show for the folks back home!"
August Kohler	August shouldn't fight. He's already injured, already heavily sore, having expended too much energy to regenerate. But he can't let George die. He believes Seft would do it. Honestly, a lot of people would kill George if they had a chance. George should probably get better friends. Dietrich leaps onto a railing on the walkway, crumpling the top under his feet, before it leaps high into the air, thrusting forward over the others (since August took point) and moving to swing the massive blade overhead onto Seft's head. He expects something weird to happen. She has to have a gadget, right? "Aren't you some sort of heroic knight? Why are you siding with the Queen? Hell, why are you making drugs out of the Elsen?" He's hoping Seft will be more forthcoming with the answers than the rest of the Flotilla. She seems the type.
Starbound Flotilla	Seft plants her tower shield in the ground, and firms it up. She doesn't stop moving forward either! It's like a bulldozer. It also gives her the firmness she needs to totally withstand the devastating force of Yuuki's kinetic strike. "Dutiful. Director Kuran! I'm sorry, but I can't let him do this! This is Flotilla business!" With a rocket-powered kick, she slams the base of her own shield, knocking metal debris at swift speeds straight for Yuuki. "Heroic. I won't let him reach the room, no matter what! Everyone's depending on me! They /need/ the Sugar! You don't understand-- Medication doesn't feel good for /healthy/ people!"
Priscilla	"I suspect he would." Zacharie replies to Zero at the end of the ride over, his voice partially obscured by the slow, building squeal of the friction on the tracks. "You don't get brought into the world on holy missions because there's lots of time to spare after all." The Batter remains silent.     "Oh you know. There's a few of us still hanging about, here and there. There's little place to go anyways, since the rules are all set up. There used to be more of us, but . . . well, you've seen their names around, haven't you? It's been a long time. Even Elsen has been a bit under the weather as of late."     There's a bit of a pause after the notion of disguises, but it stretches longer on the subject of the guardians.     "You'd do well to remember what I told you before. Everything here is a matter of perspective. Even if you disagree, you're all agreed on the shape and size of what you've seen so far."     Once the tram arrives, Zacharie steps off. "This time I'll precede. We'll meet up again later." After opening the doors though, there doesn't seem to be any way that him going 'ahead' of the group could be possible. Yet, he's not on the platform any longer, should someone turn to look.     The Batter disembarks, and walks straight into a barrage of axes. One slams into his upper shoulder with an oddly grainy impact noise, and then disappears, leaving behind a red splat of blood on the walkway without a stain on his uniform. The Batter uses Save Second Base, and sparkles of light bloom from the invisible wound. Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon form up behind him, sensing the danger immediately.     "You again." he says to Seft, astonishingly neutral. "Your misguided attempts won't stay my hand on the instrument of justice. Your misguided empathy for a foul creature of wickedness and evil won't change anything. This mission is reaching its conclusion soon, and so is this Zone's Guardian."     The Batter assumes his batting stance, then becomes a series of smokey afterimages, quickly warping around the room in the exact same posture, then reaching Seft in the blink of an eye to crack her with his bat. All three Add-On's swarm around her, spinning and cutting with their halo edges.
Zero Kiryu	Zero Kiryu doesn't explain his conversation with Zacharie to Edison, though he does acknowledge the curiosity that the Presiking expresses with a glance. The smell of blood fills his nostrils, empty and unappetizing. It strikes him that it would be no better than eating the pills, or dissolving them in glasses of water. He traces a hand along his jacket pocket, verifying that in fact his own medication is still present. Then, as the tram rolls to a halt again, he rises. "I should join the others," He says to Zacharie, "we'll talk more later." He disembarks and takes Strange's PORTAL to the site of the escalating battle. Where he... doesn't get involved, for the most part. Stepping out into the hallway to the rear of the others, Zero begins to exude vines that creep along the surroundings and begin to shape themselves into barriers and minor conveniences, if uncomfortable ones covered in thorns. It makes it difficult if not impossible to take a truly decisive fall, though it also makes the terrain increasingly rough and uncomfortable. Fishing his packet out -- the gesture might be mistaken at first for reaching for a gun -- Zero opens it up and gestures loosely, "Associates at hand. Don't get too rough. No fatalities." Having apparently decided to /set some rules/, Zero otherwise chooses not to engage. But he /does/ try to peek at Seft's mind in the moments after Yuuki's outburst, wondering if in fact she /is/ being dishonest.
Starbound Flotilla	"Focused. No! It doesn't make him right!" Seft says, moving her shield rapidly -- far too rapidly for a human -- to intercept as many of the daggers as she can, leaving only a few blazing wounds on her body. But she responds much in kind. Her own battle-axe suddenly blazes with a scorching fire; on her charge, she swings big, heavy swings that release waves of psionic space-fire at him! "Tense. What makes him /right/ is the best triage we can work with! This is the only chance Elsen has -- and it's the only way this zone can keep the Batter out!"
Starbound Flotilla	"Focused. That's what painkilling is!" Seft says, her voice tensing with a bit of static, almost overdriven from the synthesizer. She slams shield-first into Edison; he's managed to grapple her and wrestle her to a stop, but her shield is dispersing the electricity too fast for it to reach her! The energy waves coming off of it fill her side of the room, while Edison's electricity fills his own. She can't get a strike around her own shield to get at him, but she CAN slam her axe headfirst into the ground, and release a sudden shockwave that tries to take Edison off his feet, and assault him with the metal fragments from below! "Plaintive. They need to survive! And they don't deserve to be miserable while they do, while we figure all this out somehow!"
Starbound Flotilla	Amid the wrestling, Seft's head turns on an almost robotic swivel right to Tina. "Stressed. Elsen isn't the only one who needs to be saved! I /know/ you're going to try to do something! But before you even have a chance..." She pushes forward more firmly, focusing on it hard. "The Queen, the world-- even the Batter himself, they'll all lose what's most important! I'm going to make sure he stays /safe/. They've already lost too many now!"
Tina Natsumi	With the fight underway, Tina hops about rapidly to get good shots and angles on everything going on. She can't stick to watching and recording forever while Seft mixes it up with everyone else, though. That's why Tina starts to back up slowly as she keeps the video rolling, nonchalantly trying to just continue onwards from the walkway while walking backwards and getting as much footage as she can. She has enough sense to stop when Seft turns her way, at least. No sense riling her up further. "Everyone's gonna...? Huh. This 'he'... You mean the Batter, George, someone else? 'cause there's a whole lotta people involved in this mess here, and..." Tina pauses to glance backwards, then keeps her camera rolling for a while longer. She might not know what's actually right here, but she's still curious enough to see just what it is that's down this path and what it is Seft is trying to stop them from reaching. "Is keepin' us here gonna make this guy safer?"
Doctor Strange	"Triage?" The umbrage at such a word being used has him completely off-guard for Seft's attack. The waves hit him directly in the stomach, setting the fabric ablaze in places. He's struck with such force that he turns over in the air a few times. The Cloak of Levitation fans out and halts his motion.      He briefly vanishes, traveling to the past to pipe in plastic for the earlier fight against the Critic Burnt. When he returns, he does so in the same spot, already preparing a counterattack--and a rebuttal. "You look at corpses being fed into a furnace to make narcotics, and you call that triage?!" It may be the first time anyone's seen genuine anger from Strange. His eyes narrow, nostrils flaring.      "It's not medicine." He finishes his spell--a mandala hovering before him. He strikes it with a flurry of punches. Bidden by his gestures, the sigil spawns a stream of orange hatchets, whirling through the air in a straight line towards Seft. "It's butchery!"
Starbound Flotilla	"Forceful. It's the only way to protect the only thing that can't be sacrificed to save Elsen!" Seft engages a heavy barrier, one that immediately crumples under some of the more dangerous effects of August's strikes. It's her armor that halts it, with fancier emergency emitters that are overloading. "*BZZT*! Focused. I'm not a hero. But I'm the one everyone's depending on! Elsen, the Queen, Enoch, and Hugo-- they've put their faith in me! My friends that you and /George/ have gotten hurt, they've put their faith in me!" She moves to hook the sword with her axe-head, and sort of use it to judo-throw the entire massive enemy robot. "Determined. I /won't let them down/!"
Thomas Alva Edison	The two collide as electricity is shot all over the room, but not towards his target.  There is a shattering of the ground, forcing Edison back and thrown from the attack.  However, catching his feet on the ground quickly, he does not go as far as Seft may have liked, as he brings his hands down from shielding himself.   "Then who are you trying to protect?  Stop being coy, stop trying to keep cards close to your chest.  Do you want to stop us?  Then GIVE us the information we need to not simply follow blind faith, as some here would have us do!" Edison shouts back. This time, Edison comes in, attempting to repeatedly strike at the shield. He aims to send bolt after bolt of BIG DC POWER into it, attempting to fry the holder.  Using his bulk to try and distract her from her goal.
Starbound Flotilla	"Hateful. YOU!" Seft turns dead on towards the Batter. "Vicious. Do you have /any/ idea how disgusting what you're going to do is?!" She takes the strike head-on, the impact jarring her arm badly and leaving her vulnerable to the Add-Ons. She lights up her axe with something strange, filling it with a smokey, almost poisonous mist in its after-effects; the Batter seems to draw her ire enough to make her use /chemical weapons/ of all things. "Angry. No wonder you don't show your face to anyone, because you should be ASHAMED!!" She delivers a harsh spin, trying to attack the man and all his Add-Ons all at once, and fill them with a horrid poison!
August Kohler	August is not expecting how strong Seft is. The sword is hooked, and Dietrich goes flying hard across the walkways, nearly through a rail and into the plastic below. August groans in pain, barely standing back up, as he speaks. What he says is firm. "I can respect you. But I still need to fight you to get ahead. It's the only way we'll save Elsen." August's sword lashes out again, a chainsaw whip moving to try and wrap around Seft and carve into her. The blades whirr, as hopefully, the yank will set her off balance. August can't keep going without an advantage, after all.
Starbound Flotilla	Is Seft being dishonest?     That'd be hard to tell. Zero can feel entire portions of her brain have been deactivated by Seft herself in order to feel ethically OK with what's going on here, which is a strategy that Seft often uses in morally complex situations that have a certain answer she doesn't like. But in terms of actual lies or honesty? No lies here; she does truly, honestly believe that the Sugar is almost a kind of medication, and she does truly, honestly think it's going to protect something necessary to protect. Something more important than the Zones, even!
Yuuki Kuran	Getting blocked like that - having her vexedness made manifest absorbed into an unfeeling shield--         --Is exactly how it feels her words were recieved, too. Crashing against a shield of the mind and determination. No penetration. It fills Yuuki with a singularly vicious fury. She hates being ignored more than nearly anything - she hates being lied to most of all. It's not 'about her not getting it' - and she certainly gets Seft's swiftly-sent metal debris that carve and rend off scraps of flesh and clothing and stagger her incrementally, a step back and a flex of the legs and leaning-into with the toes. Her wounds start closing already, but she brings her hands down to smear her own blood all over her palms. Her voice is severe, and her scowl deepening. "Seft. I won't hear it. I'll accept that a member of the Concord is on another end of a fight. We work like that. I respect that - because I started that. We'll get things done correctly by making sure the best idea survives. But don't you dare--" Her fingers twitch with muscle tension, curling into claws. "--try those weak lies with me. 'Flotilla business'? It's our business now. You've lost the privelege of having me stand aside!" She repeats herself, her bloody hands heaving up and down as her shoulders work. "How dare you take that tone with me? You think I'm 'healthy'? You think I don't know what 'medication' feels like? That Zero?" Then Seft says something to August, as Yuuki is fuming and textboxing, and Yuuki snaps. Her voice has the dignity not to shriek, but the metal around her does it for her, a squeal of combination friction and shearing as the platform around her is lashed at by dozens of planes of force. Her voice raises, like she's deadpanning a joke. "Your friends put their faith in you? You won't let them down? That's... that's so..." She mouths a word. "You didn't put your faith in me, Seft. You lied to me. Even now, you're not telling me what I need to know. You fight me for the sake of your other friends. I hate it!" Bloody hands - and the heavy-breathing eurojapanese girl they're attached to - blur out of focus for a moment, as she engages in Anime Speed to go from neutral to a jumping command throw to powerbomb Seft into the deck and lash at her with her enraged aura of agitated force.
Starbound Flotilla	"Focused. A furnace full of corpses is better than another Alma, or another Damien, or another Pentel, or another Shachihata!" Each name is used as a kind of emphasis for how she forcefully moves the shield between herself and Strange. The hatchets jar her arm, straining her motor systems, but she keeps them from suffering more damage this way. "Stressed. They /need/ it! If it has to come from un-buried Elsen, then that's what /needs/ to happen! It's a, it's a, it's like a transplant!" Her vocal module glitches briefly. She slams the axe-head into the ground, trying to catch Strange in a wave of frost and crackling earth that tries to rush to his feet and lash at him with a winter tempest.
Tina Natsumi	That answers most of what Tina had in mind. Although she's stilln ot sure on the specifics with so many blanks left to fill about how any of these plans are supposed to work, she has only one thing left to do! Tina starts backing away again. She keeps the phone raised and recording, of course, but her focus is turned away from the fight. She needs to make sure she doesn't walk off the walkway into something else that's going to try killing her, after all, as she tries to nonchalantly slip away again in the middle of that heated yelling and fighting. Someone's bound to be right and wrong here, but she doesn't know who or what. If nothing else, she can at least try and figure out what it is that's down the path.
Priscilla	The Batter reels back from the full party attack, all four beings coming down with the Poisoned status. The Add-Ons intermittently flash a red-violet hue as the effects sink in, with similarly coloured bubbles coming off the Batter, in evident nonsense physics.     "Disgusting like what's happening here." the Batter replies as a half question. "A place built on Burned Bodies. Endless Hallways. Where Yesterday was Better and Today is Worst. A place where the Walls are Listening, and people go about Windows Licking while so Desperately Safe, hoping for even a Stab of Happiness. A place like an Empty Warehouse. A perpetual, miserable Rainy Day. Life like Clockwork, crowned by a Flesh Maze. You've seen that Unreasonable Behaviour. Some Rudiments of Propriety. You've heard that Fake Orchestra. You've gazed upon the Face of a Killer. This entire world is disgusting. It is tainted to the core. The Tender Sugar is long gone, and the people here are Not Safe."     It's the longest he's ever spoken at once, carelessly confident and dispassionate as always, but littered with strangely resonant proper nouns that bring flashes of dim memories of the Zones to mind. Epsilon used Classic Drama! Omega used Gaussian Blur! Alpha uses Open Bracket! The Batter used Special Homerun!     The Batter steps out of the widening pool of surrealist blood left all over the spot he was standing, and advances on Seft again. The collective of spiritual entities flashes with waves of enhanced power. A smudging blur of reality tears at Seft and steals her weapon energy. A malfunction of logic rocks the world around her with shattering force. The holy instrument of the baseball bat comes up, and strikes with devastating, shockwave blasting force.
Doctor Strange	Strange furrows his brow as the attack comes. He beckons with his arm, and Zero's vines copy-paste themselves into a barrier before him. The rushing earth smashes through it, and he takes to the sky to avoid it. He manages, but only just--the wave of cold freezes his legs, cracking and blistering the flesh beneath his leggings.      He bears it with a determined frown. "Making existence a game of lesser evils? You know better than that." What could that mean? He won't likely elaborate here, of all places. A portal opens below him. A torrent of liquid plastic from below comes pouring out, only to be frozen solid by Seft's winter gale.      This is exactly his plan. Strange makes a one-inch punch in the air. A blast of bright orange concussive force slams into the frozen plastic. It shatters into blunt, icy bricks. The force of the explosion propels them straight up... and the sorcerer flips gravity in reverse with an upward flick of his palm. The aim seems to be throwing the knight into a rain of pummeling blows.
Starbound Flotilla	Edison manages to strike again and again at the shield, which Seft plants hard. It jams into the earth, and small robotic limbs even latch it directly to the ground, digging it in place like a wall, before suddenly unlatching every time she needs to move to a new angle! "Listing. The Queen! The Director! Elsen! Hugo! Sugar!" Who? "Focused. Everyone at risk here! If you let the Batter in there, he's going to purify this by /killing Hugo/! The same way he killed Dedan and Japhet!" Why is this abhorrent? No clarity. Even Zero might not see it through the maze-like mess in Seft's mind. She raises her axe and unleashes a crackling blast of ice from her next overhead swing at Edison!
Starbound Flotilla	The chainsaw whip lashes around her, wrapping around inside her shield reach and getting a good grip on her torso as it carves through her. Sparks fly, as does blood and coolant. "Pained. This will wipe out Elsen here again! This one time, the only time we've ever gotten the balance of sugar production almost right, it'll wipe him out again!" Her eye-display narrows the eye-sprites. "Aggressive. I can't let that happen!" She grabs the thing, shredding her hands a little to pull the Persona closer (and give herself some slack on its grip) and shield-bash the two of them hard to ease off the persisting damage!
Zero Kiryu	It's strange, exploring somebody's thoughts in this way, and Seft is a uniquely foreign being to Zero. He can tell that 'something' isn't there that should be, but he's not certain he grasps exactly what it is. He does, however, grasp that any deception ongoing is not intentional. Or, at the least, isn't strictly believed. Whatever Seft intends, it isn't the act of no confidence that Yuuki appears to take it as. Not exactly, anyway. But what's more important than the Zones in this place? The Queen, perhaps? His mind's eye swivels onto Yuuki. Of course, she isn't having it. The predatory part of her is a little more prominent now, after all the mind dives. That's visible enough in her eyes, but sometimes it reflects on her behavior in ways that Zero isn't certain how to feel about. He would've found it revolting, once. Now... Zero supposes that even hunters are standoffish at best. When the Batter says more than a handful of words at a time, Zero turns his attention towards the... what might you call him? Not a man. Perhaps something like 'angel' is more correct. Regardless, he takes the time to scan the Batter's mind as he speaks. As Seft speaks a familiar name, links in a chain come together. Zacharie. Sugar. Tucked away safely somewhere that nobody is really interested in at the moment. "Seft." Zero raises his voice a little. "Why aren't you all there at the moment?"
Thomas Alva Edison	"Who is Hugo?" Edison says, but that question is aimed at both the Batter AND Seft.  However, he does not expect to get an answer.  The ice crashes into Edison, chilling him to the bone and causing bits of frost burn to appear.   However, he charges through the attack, this time he swings his hand in a wide arch, aiming to try and smack the shield away.  This is followed up by a punch to the underside of Seft's chin, before bringing both hands down to hammer blow her into the ground.   Electricity surges around him as he gains his second wind, as he unleashes a blast to follow up the attack, trying to break through those defenses.
August Kohler	"Don't worry. We'll save him. But you need to be defeated first." August has a certainty in his voice, until the shield bash slams into the pair, staggering them back. August is now bleeding from his nose from sheer exhaustion, while the whip is pulled back. It transforms back into a sword, and is wreathed with sheer fire. While August doesn't want to kill Seft, he's willing to do serious damage. The Concord can fix it. The flaming sword sweeps out, and moves with the strength of a truck, to knock Seft back across the walkway. He's hoping to further damage systems in the process.
Starbound Flotilla	It's Yuuki who really tears something badly.     Her state of rage is only barely getting beaten back here. The lift and powerbomb are resisted hard by armor, but the rage-aura lashout is something the armor can't resist. The tower shield comes up, and Seft pushes it hard between her and Yuuki. "Strained. I can't put that faith in you because he needs to be stopped, and he won't unless I put him in a healing vat! I'm friends with him too, but I've seen what he does! How he gets into your head -- how he got into /August's/ head, how he once got into /my/ head -- how he's even twisted up what the Batter is doing! I have to stop him before it's too late, even if that means hurting you like this!"     Something cracks. "Distressed. W-w-wait! No!!" The angry lashes suddenly shatter the shield, but somehow they don't impact Seft. What? "Panicking. No!! Don't!!" There's a moment, just a moment, where one can see something odd between Yuuki and Seft, some sort of swirling protective light that might even be more familiar to Doctor Strange of all people. But it's quickly gone with an abrupt, almost stunning wave of force that will hit Yuuki, as Seft dodge-rolls, boost-dashes, and gets out of that particular impact, summoning up a fresh shield as fast as she can from her Matter Manipulator. What protected her in the interim? A bit of a mystery.
Starbound Flotilla	Seft takes thje strike dead-on, as technology and power fail around her and in her. "*Bzzrt*-- *BEEEEEEEEP!*" She's screaming as the esoteric impact takes her and craters some of the metal around her. She barely got the tower shield between her and the man's bat, and its impact still washed over her armor and body, causing sprays of sparks and crackling of electricity. "*Zzzzzzzzzzzrt* Righteous. You are NOT A HOLY MAN! And I won't hear a righteous sermon of hellfire from someone who'd hurt the most vulnerable person in their lives, you SUBHUMAN MURDERER!!"     Like before, she's dedicating her focus to hurting the Batter, if she can't get at George. Namely, in this case, by charging him with a shield bash and pinning him down. The Flotilla generally doesn't act in lethal ways towards the Concord, and sticks to things they can survive with a healing vat. Even the Paladins and the Watch get a bit of that treatment. The Batter? She tries to knock him down and behead him on the spot like an executioner.
Starbound Flotilla	The frozen brick-shards lodge in Seft's body, piercing hard through armor as she struggles to move her shield between her body and their sharpness. Everyone onto the ceiling! She can't even stop half of them, with this kind of geometric abuse. It knocks away her axe! And with Strange maneuvering at such a distance, it's not like she can strike him with the shield.     Which is why it isn't exactly clear what happens next. Somewhere in all that movement, a very classic Fireball is headed right for Doctor Strange. HOW exactly? It isn't clear, but it is explosive once it reaches him, maybe giving Seft a moment to get her footing on the reverse gravity. "Pained. I know it's awful! Believe me! But the Batter was going to find something to justify this no matter what. I need Elsen to survive, and I need that to not be misery!"
Starbound Flotilla	Seft's eyes dim briefly in the chaos of battle. She speaks, very briefly, a reply to Zero that lets her self-righeous heroposting rhetoric show a few cracks. Not many, but just enough to know what's really going on in there, or what's really not going on in some ways.     "Pained. Any chance to reduce pain needs to be taken."     She's not talking about Sugar.
Priscilla	"Your pity is misplaced." the Batter responds to Seft, implacable even with the noxious bubbling washing off him, flicking the blood and oil from his bat and taking back his sportive stance, relentlessly determined despite the smears of red mixing pink with the plastic. Seft charges him, crashes into what feels like a statue, slides him back on one foot, swings her axe as he finally teeters and topples, and is then abruptly cut off by Alpha and Omega slamming into her from opposite sides, interpositioning between the Batter and the axe, making another grainy impact noise, and then blasting it aside.     The Batter jumps up again, thwacking the inner edge of the tower shield with the heavy end of his baseball bat. Swinging it back, there is a loud, rising, almost electric whine, as the implement glows brighter and brighter, until it reaches a flat, blinding white.     "The both of us, she and I, were brought here by him. Whatever happens, it plays."     The Batter unleashes a Magic Homerun, and swings with a tremendous flash of Purifying light and thunder, parting the plastic all the way down the room into biblical halves of surging liquid, baring the hard metal floor down the center as it smashes and curls up off of the walls.
Starbound Flotilla	Edison's blast slams onto the shield. Like last time, she can disperse the electricity. Unlike last time, she can't disperse it all; it's bleeding through and around the hefty thing, crackling over her armor. She has to stumble a little to get to her fallen axe. That's when the sword strike comes in, and while there's no longer a walkway to knock her across, she DOES get slammed about before she gets a good grip on the weapon. "Forceful. Hugo might as well be the only one that matters! The Queen's goal and the Batter's!" She starts moving in on him, trying to land a heavy overhead swing while she bashes August aside with a shield crash!     She might get a bit of an impact before the Batter's strike takes her entirely off her feet. "*Bzzzzzzzzt-kssssshhhhhhhhh!!*" Her voice module emits a scream of pain as the Magic Homerun nearly ends her. In fact, she actually looks totally unconscious at the end of it. For several seconds, perhaps, it might seem like the battle is over.
Yuuki Kuran	Something Else is defending Seft. An invisible, but highly tangible force that explodes back at Yuuki as she slams Seft into the ground. A claim? A challenge? Something to tear apart. Something in her way. The shattering force sends Yuuki tumbling back, bouncing and rolling along the ground until she bumps up against the terrain created by Bloody Rose, somehow impossibly -- or quite possibly, as it's 'Zero' she's crashing into -- not landing on any thorns. Getting back to her feet, her eyes a bright glowing crimson, Yuuki runs her hand lightly along the uppermost thorn comprising the chest-high lip she had crashed into. "If George needed to be stopped, you could have told me." "If he needed help, if he needed an intervention, you could have asked." "If he needed to get in my head -- into Zero's head -- he's had the same access you've had. That Moonfin had." "The reason I know you're lying, Seft, and why it hurts me so much, is that George didn't do any of those things. He didn't need to." "George asked." "But I understand, I think. You're the hero. You'll stand in front of all the people you used to be able to trust, and lie to yourself - lie to them - and fight them with all your power. That's what Heroes do. They don't ask for help." "And so let me be the opposite of that." The pressure around her resumes its lashing force, carving patterns around Zero's Bloody Rose vines. "I will be the Villain. I will be the great enemy of Heroism, that kind of 'Hero' that boldly stands alone. That shoulders all the burden - that stands before the storm. And I will move heaven and earth and all the things before me, and I will even kill, because I have to. Because I am an obsessive, possessive, terrible monster." "The Concord doesn't move for one life, or one death. It doesn't move for petty concerns or personal issues. But what it will move for is each other. And what it will bring to bear because someone asked for help? What will I do, because George asked me for it? He will get my full suppport - of a villain, against a hero - because he asked. And you lied." It's not a blur of speed, or bloody claw-fingers. Yuuki just walks at Seft, following the heroic shield-bearing robot Captain with her tearing pressure-field as vectors of ground-following force erupt and seek and detonate like invisible grenades all around Seft.
Starbound Flotilla	It is not over.     "Despairing. You won't ever stop, will you?" Her voice warbles and stutters as she struggles onto her feet. "Desperate. No matter how wrong you are, no matter how... how horrid your actions are, all you can see is the ugliness in the other people. I... I hate you, I hate you so much. But..."     She's trying to prop herself up on her battle-axe. "Strained. But that's not why I need to do this. If I don't stop you, you're going to keep purifying. You're going to keep going, and you'll never stop until the end. Everything. All of it. All of it, if I lose here." Her visor flickers through a dozen expressions of stress and pain. "Determined. But... but only... only if I lose here. Only if I can't stop you. Only if their trust and their faith was wrong. But..." Her voice module whines and hisses. "Determined. But I know they're there. They're all depending on me, and I won't let them down. They aren't wrong. They trusted me for a good reason. They believed in me. And I know... if I reach deep enough inside, I'll find what they believed in!"     Struggling up to her feet, her armor clearly quite shattered and her body ready to give out, she leans on the axe just barely upright. Her internal reactor is speeding up, whinning badly. "I'll save them! Every single one! I'll save them and protect the happiness they have here, whatever it takes! No matter the cost! No matter the pain!" Her armor is sparkling in unnerving ways. Where her shattered shield was, there's now just flickering lights...     But the lights are building. The shattered armor comes off. The shield comes apart. The axe is discarded, and the light obscures how Seft is upright all on her own. "Focused. If you want to see the ugliness inside people, then fine! Come here, Batter!" She calls out, over the building noise of energy. It all comes to a head.     And then fades. Seft is no longer in the outfit of a knight. She's wearing some kind of armored witch outfit, an aged and tattered medieval combat robe. The cap is pointed, worn down, almost ragged, and covered with rows and rows of exotic witchcraft materials. Exotic "magics", psionics in truth, course through instriptions and patterns on the robe. Seft, herself, is floating in the air. She's using her "magic" openly now. A spellcircle rides on one arm as her shield. A massive wand is found in the other, a gnarled piece of ancient psionic craft that hums with terrible energies.     "I'LL TEAR IT OUT OF YOU AND SHOW IT TO YOU!"                             THE ONCE-BURNED WITCH                                                           CAPTAIN SEFT - EX
August Kohler	August is bashed aside by a shield, but Seft appears to be defeated. Until she loses her shit and transforms. August is still reeling from the shield strike, as he realizes they need to try and finish Seft now. There's not much more he can do. The sword burns in a towering conflagration, as August doesn't refute Seft. He just moves to bring the fire down overhead and do as much as possible as quickly as possible, before he's knocked out.
Starbound Flotilla	Seft is humming with magic. Her reactor is goes into overdrive. She raises the wand and her psionic energies pour through it. A gush of esoteric gravity blasts out, enough to shield against and neutralize Yuuki's tearing, brutal strikes all at once somehow. "Pained. I will say whatever needs to be said to protect Hugo!" She calls out. The gravity coalesces into a singular bolt, one designed to throw Yuuki so hard and with such great force that it might send her clean /through/ Zero's vines and down the hall. "Determined. You should be glad that this will save you from needing to know the evil he's asked you to do! I'll protect even your happiness, with everything I've got, no matter what it takes!"
Zero Kiryu	Peeking into the Batter's mind at that exact moment is an exhausting loop of sounds that Zero would describe as either distasteful, or expertly arranged to be grating when repeated for long. He's not certain which it actually is. He stops paying attention to the Batter's mind, swinging back around towards Seft when his attack is successfully executed. His expression is one of mild alarm. The rules that he put on the table were fairly simple, but it didn't look as if the Batter intended to follow them. He strides forward through the battle, moving towards the fallen Seft. The truth is, of course, that Zero understands perfectly what Seft is talking about. If he had the option to simply turn off the parts that were hurting for a while, back then, well... he certainly would have turned off the ones that sent him into a murderous rage, for a certainty. Even so... could this be the exact phenomena that he speculated surrounds the Guardians? Zero stops, as Seft gets up. it isn't necessary to stop somebody from finishing her off. Simultaneously, some of his thorns recede on Yuuki's behalf. He exudes more vines as he moves to the sides of the room, getting out of the way of both Seft and her assailants. "Seft." He calls her name, but he isn't shouting. Not like Seft, and certainly not like Yuuki. By comparison, Zero speaks quite softly. "Are you absolutely certain that their life and happiness isn't predicated on the degradation and suffering of everything else here?"
Starbound Flotilla	Fire. It blasts over Seft. Her spellcircle shield spins rapidly, internal parts recalculating a psionic "magic" solution for a towering wall of ice between her and August's attack, leaving her dealing mostly with the pain of crackling waves of steam all over her body. Better than a horrible overheat. "Determined. I'll protect George from the pain he's going to cause himself! And I'll protect the one inheriting his legacy, too! Whatever it takes!" She shouts, pointing the shield's spellcircles at August and blasting a wave of ice at the Persona and the boy to try to knock them down and back, to get them /away/ from the door to the Director!
Thomas Alva Edison	Seft stands up to fight them once again, he takes a step forward to face the woman.  Edison's fist clench as he stares at her, bringing both hands up to once more face her, even as his own wounds bleed.  There is a resignation in his eyes, and in his face.  He does not doubt her desire to see this through, but he trusts too much in Strange's plan to stop now.   Fists spark with DC power again, as he takes a stand forward.  He does not trade words, instead, he exchanges a blow, trying to pound his fist into her form, releasing another burst of electricity.  Again and again, before attempting to grab her form by the waist, hoisting her over his head, and attempt to SUPLEX her into the ground.   Standing back up, Edison speaks again.  "You can not protect people by holding them back.  Do not claim to be doing so, when what you are is protecting a singular person.  There is no shame in it, but you have it on my word that no harm will come to Hugo," Edison says, a bit older in his appearance suddenly, "For I know what it is like to lose a child."
August Kohler	As Seft counters, August's energy levels reach beyond tolerance. Dietrich's armor is flayed, and August is resting against the Persona, mouth bleeding, conscious but unable to fight. He ends up desummoning and leaning against a rail, trying to maintain consciousness. Seft will probably let him, he hopes.
Starbound Flotilla	Zero isn't attacking. So Seft isn't striking him. But she does answer. Amid her "magical" efforts, there's well enough focus to respond. "Focused. All I can do is protect the happiness and lives I see, and defend the justice I know." She says. "Focused. The Batter is abhorrent, and I know he'll destroy happiness and lives if George's plan follows through. All I can do is make as little pain as I can when I stop it! If it has to depend on that pain, I'll bear that responsibility!"
Starbound Flotilla	Edison slams Seft reasonably hard, but not hard enough. A burst of sparkling magic blasts out from around his arms on the impact, a psionic short-range teleportation designed to keep her from getting wrestled to death after the suplex. She's back up in the air, summoning new magics. "Determined. I /CAN/ protect them, and I'll do whatever it takes to do it! Fight whatever fights need fighting, suffer whatever pain needs suffering, bear whatever responsibility needs bearing! If I have to hold back people to do it, I'll do it! I'll never give up! I /will/ save them!" The promise seems un-thought-of, in some crucial way. What is more thought of is the summoning of dozens of chunks of heavy metal, like the terrain, and blasting them directly at Edison from a series of magic spell-circles she's summoned with her wand!
Starbound Flotilla	Seft's biggest attack is reserved for the Batter. She's done all her speeches. She's done all her transformation. All the fanciness is out of the way. What's past is prologue. What's now is the Fires of the Once-Burnt Witch. Is he a holy enough man to live through the fires of witchcraft? She sends an attack his way that was built up throughout the entirety of the exchange. The raw column of flame that comes next reaches temperatures reserved for regions and depths of a sun.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison, battered as he is taking more shots from the very terrain around them.  The metal bits shred through his tough body, blood splattering out behind him.  However, despite this, he prevails and pushes forward against the magic and metal flung at him.  Edison sighs, it appears all sense of self is gone if what Zero said is right. "Bare it all?  Very well..." he says, as his own magical pressure explodes around him.  His eyes blazing and his body gathering his own magical power.  "Then let us cut through the lies, the half-truths, and the self-deception!  Come forth, instruments of truth..." he says And the lights go out.  When they come back on, a single spotlight hangs over the battlefield, aiming to dispel the lies of magic, and reveal what they are.  Gods are made mortal under the light, and everything is made bore for scientific study. However, Edison was not done, as he brings both hands to his side...and on his chest, the metal bit shines with power.  A massive beam of light shines out, aiming to blast Seft with everything he had left!
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki, for all her 'looming awful exploding Villianposting monster', still has the frame of a young woman and as such, is anime thrown around dramatically at Seft's psychic powerup blast. Her direct aim - to send Yuuki right through Zero's vines and down the hall - is met with a resounding success, even as Zero de-thorns his vines reactively. Yuuki's face shows suprise a heartbeat before there's a smear of Yuuki painting the thick metal strands of Bloody Rose, and a path forward. "Say anything?" Echoes Yuuki's voice from dozens of sources and directions, each a breathy sigh. "Protect everything? No matter what it takes?" "I should be glad. You know, my uncle said something similar. Well, then I'll give you his advantage." A fluttering of white butterflies fills the area near the 'way forward' and Yuuki's smear, and two black wolves appear flanking George, who is moved in a flicker of the light from where he was observing and dodging from towards the 'way forward' as well. The butterflies flutter around the smear, and the swarm of wingbeats reveals Yuuki whole and not at all a smear on Bloody Rose, holding Artemis's baton-form in one bloody hand. With a dismissive horizontal throw, Yuuki tosses the hunter weapon right at Seft's face, the magical anti-immortal artifact propelled by the Kuran Princess' absurd strength. If not intercepted, it clatters to the ground near Seft after connecting. "If you'll bear any weight, then prove it. Attack me like you mean it. With something that could leave a mark. Not these half-hearted attempts. Otherwise, I'll be leaving with George, to go to wherever it is you don't want George to go." "It's foolish to escalate this far between us, but I'm feeling very foolish tonight. And I'm very mad with you."
Doctor Strange	The moment of silence is tense, for the sorcerer. Robots reboot, but robots aren't monolithic. It could be victory, but... he holds a spell in reserve, just in case. Perhaps, another use of the Eye... no. He's used it too much. People already associate it with him.      A few moments is all it takes for her to get back up. The fireball is evaded, but not totally--it singes his hand badly as he makes an inverse loop in the air. As he comes back up, Strange furrows his brow. He had his suspicions. The fire, the ice, the furrows in the ground. The hail of various axes. But the glowing light secures it, in his mind. It doesn't matter what it is, exactly, or what she calls it. The rules, as he understands them, seem strikingly similar.      He's proven correct beyond doubt when the robes appear. He considers an attack, but then... Zero makes an effort to talk. This fight is proving to be more challenging than he'd anticipated, especially with the agreement he'd made with Zero and Yuuki. If there's to be talking, he'll join in. Maybe it'll help. Cryptically, "This doesn't end the way you think it does," says Strange. It's all he can say without giving it away. But he has to say it. Has to say something, anything, to quell the anguish she so clearly feels. There's no guarantee she'll interpret it in the right way, but she doesn't have to. All she has to do is question it, just a bit, just enough to make her resolve falter. Hopefully.      That's said... before she tries to vaporize the Batter. He doesn't know if it can be done, but he does know the Batter is their only way of getting what they want. "You'll see," he says.      She's left him no choice. He has to use it.      The thing about the fireball is... where did it go? There was no explosion. It didn't hit anything besides Strange's hand. It just sort of passed without any other ado besides his injury. Strange vanishes in a flash of green light.      He reappears. He reappears. He reappears. He reappears. A veritable squadron of Stranges appear in similarly emerald-hued light. Each one opens a hole in reality with a burning... green ring of sparks. The rings and their corresponding sorcerers nearly blot out the room's ceiling with their numbers. Each of those portals spits out a fireball. Seft's fireball. The hero is met with a fusillade of copies of her own spell, pulled from multiple instants in time across numerous branching timelines.      The Stranges all disappear, save one. The portals all close. The Eye closes. Strange touches down. He's forced to grab one of Zero's vines to keep from toppling over, his chest heaving, his free, burned hand pressed to his temple to quell the throbbing pain from the mental exertion of stretching a second to the point of breaking.
Priscilla	The Batter remains resolute, or perhaps dispassionate, or perhaps simply blank and emotionless throughout the whole exchange. No matter what Seft might say about him, no matter what she thinks of his mission, no matter what she believes about all these mysterious figures that ostensibly relate to those two things somehow, the serene, slightly condescending, untroubled and unconcerned look never leaves his face, half shaded by his cap as it is.     He's blasted by fire. He is *buried* in fire. In a perplexing change of fates, the holy man is immolated on a pyre by a heretic witch. The Batter and his Add-On team disappear in the multi-hit spread attack that gives off a constant, repetitive, audio-grain sound of ripping paper, blatting over and over again such that one could almost imagine the damage numbers popping up, perplexingly coating the metal walkway with bright red blood decals. Even that metal turns amber hot and melts away into slag, sizzling as it sloughs off and hits the bubbling plastic, immediately filling the room with the smell of charred ziploc and filthy iron.     'You shouldn't make so little sound when you walk. It's unnerving.'     Whatever the Batter is made of, it is definitely no longer in question that any of it is really flesh and blood. A swoosh of his bat blows aside the stellar hot blaze, and he advances from the scorched hole, visually pristine in a sense that seems almost less miraculous and more than whatever entity is responsible for existence hadn't thought to even create bloodied, stymied, or backfoot visuals for him. He drips a trail of red where he advances, scraped and stirred up by the bat. He winds it back up, and multiple layers of targeting reticles fall on Seft, exploding into blasts of kinetic force, batting her back and forth from each angle as he takes relentless swing after swing at the air, as if practising for a home run.     >FIGHT     AUTO     FLEE     FIGHT     >AUTO     FLEE     FIGHT     AUTO     >FLEE     FIGHT     AUTO     >>FLEE     Then, abruptly, he lowers his bat, stopping completely and seeming to fade back several feet without quite moving.     "A pure martyr for a deceitful cause. The conviction you follow is corrupt through, built on delusion and neglect, pretending things will go away. There is only one Word worth following, and I place my faith in         to see it through to the end."     "Give up the Grand."
Starbound Flotilla	CRACK! The baton strikes Seft square on the head, leaving a trail of unknown coolants and oils streaming down her face from the rim of her witchy cap. "Determined. This isn't a debate. It's not about proving things. It's not about posturing and gestures. I've seen what he does. I've seen what he's willing to do. If George gets the Batter to where he wants the Batter to be, he's going to cross a line he's never crossed. He's going to make /you/ cross it with him, the way he did for me. I won't let it happen!"     She reaches for the baton, as if to still prove herself despite her claim, but it's absent. We'll get to that later. Instead, she opens fire with a fresh barrage of fireballs. Partly to blast away Yuuki, and partly to fire on George with her newly-revealed ranged capabilities, and force him not to take the door. Because, well, he WAS thinking about rushing the door while nobody was looking. Whatever's past it, he reasons, might be better than this. "Let me just leave you to this and go ahead and WOAHWOAHWOAH! I'm backing off! No door! No door!!" Hopefully those wolves are resilient and give cover too, because these fireballs are incredibly harsh heat!
Zero Kiryu	Zero inclines his head a little, his expression contemplative. He seems to accept what Seft has to say, but replies, "You say that the Batter and the Queen are working towards the same goal. Towards... this Hugo. Presumably they're approaching things from opposite directions. But if that's the case, then I don't see much difference between them. Few of the Zones haven't been horrible, and this one in particular is worse than all of the others we've visited previously." "The purified Zones," he says, "are terrible." He remains still until Yuuki elects to act again. Most of what she has to say -- and most of what she does -- doesn't have any bearing on him. When she casts Artemis forward as equal parts attack and offer of a weapon however, Zero begins to move again. There's not all that much for him to do, because the plan he discussed with Yuuki involved keeping him fresh. But he's unwilling to let that specific action stand. As multiple iterations of Doctor Strange blink into existence, he knows that Some Shit's About To Get Intense, or at the very least profoundly weird. He dives and rolls-- and there is a visible CRACKLE in the air as he slips in under the fireballs and seizes Artemis. He tumbles through the blast radius, fire roaring around him, vines pouring out of his back to shield him from the flames, and emerges to a kneel on the other side charred and still in the process of Actively Being Injured by the baton that he has in his hand. The hunter points Artemis in Yuuki's direction. "You don't get to drag me into eternity and offer somebody, least of all one of our own associates, a way to kill you in the middle of a colossal hissy fit." Zero barks at Yuuki. He does not give the weapon back for the time being, simply allowing it to continue breaking down the skin of his hand as he regains his footing.
Starbound Flotilla	No. No. No.     The Batter, Seft's source of single-target fury, can't land a /single hit/ on her. The Once-Burnt Witch is impossible to land a solid impact on, no matter how hard he tries, her righteous light and heroic resolve just make it /not work/. Somehow, in this one, crystalized moment, Seft's true nature as a storybook hero gets to shine. If you turn your head and look just right, you can see the Batter, her monster, her villain, attacking hard. The music swells and Seft, a shining, shimmery heroic figure of witchcraft somehow enduring and thriving through it to chase him down.     "Determined. Three strikes. You're out, Batter."     But his fade-out means she has to focus on the others long before she can get to him. They've got to take her out -- or rather, she has to clear them out -- before she can get to him! And with August and the Batter already down, /can/ they?!
Starbound Flotilla	Doctor Strange blasts her. Her own magic is fed directly into her, crushing her under a hail of fiery impacts. She does her best to block them with that spellcircle-shield, but, well, Doctor Strange practically invented it. He gets around it. It's what he does. He and all of him besides. Seft is twice-burnt at best, covered in fire and light in equal quantities now.     "Heroic. I'll fight as long as it takes to make it end the way it should! If it doesn't end the way I think, then it's because I refuse to give up until it ends the way I can /make/ it end! I won't let that dark future come about! I'm going to stop /all/ of you!" She unloads, once more, on Strange; this time it's something more suited to the Flotilla's nature, a sudden charge of hazardous spikes, electrified zones, hard-light traps, and other things the Flotilla has often crafted, summoned from a combination of magic and the Matter Manipulator to menace him with their own high-power environmental hazard construction techniques, in the stranger paradigm of magic-environment combat he's an expert in!
Yuuki Kuran	Sometimes Yuuki does some incredibly intelligent, highly social, premeditated and thought out masterstroke plans that make everything work out great and crash into situations with all-but-assured victory. That's the rare sometimes. Most of the time she's an impulsive girl who has a bad tendency to hurt those people she cares about due to her reckless thrusting of herself into dangerous situations, or escalating, or making everything worse. Usually, the universe conspires for it to not come back on her at all. Previously, it was because there were multiple schemers arranging things in her orbit to create a perfectly safe environment where she could do no wrong. In this case, she Did A Wrong. The two wolves near George are acceptable cover, but Yuuki makes sure to impose herself, warding away the worst of the fireball detonation with a scorching sweep of her hand through the exploding mass, awful burns appearing and healing in the squinting handful of blinks-of-an-eye the smoke and light takes to clear. Yuuki's fury is cowed, and she looks sheepish even as her eyes still burn with crimson light. "It's... not a hissy fit..." She mutters, though she can't bring herself to look at Zero. She knows what he sees. In fact, she can smell the sizzle of his hand and winces with each pop and frazzle. "I can't stand being lied to! And this is totally stupid! And..." Her eyes look hurt-ly at Seft. "You were going to." Her big, glowing evil dinnerplate eyes stare soulfully at Seft, betrayed and hurt more than 'imperious awful bloodlord in full anger' as they were before. "Why didn't you ask us before it got this bad? Why're there so many secrets?!" Unfortunately, Yuuki just doesn't have the gas in the tank to do more than direct two more of her familiars - more black wolves - to bite and nip at Seft's ankles and drag her down from her crusade towards George, and the Door, and Fireballing Everyone To Death, Heroically.
Starbound Flotilla	Seft eats absolutely massive amounts of shit from the beam. Because, in the end, while the psionics may be rooted in technology, they are essentially magic at the end of the day: They look like magic, they cast like magic, they taste and feel and smell and sound like magic. They are well enough within the purview of the instruments of truth. Seft is knocked out of her magic; her spells are going haywire, and her wand is flickering in a way that suggests in some sense that it needs a reboot. She's down and limp again.     There's a sound of groaning metal. She's struggling to her feet on her wand. It's sparking and sputtering, but so is her voice module. So are her eyes. So are, it seems, the movements of her arms and the light in her robe. "*Bzzzzt!* Determined. No! No!! They put their faith in me! Albert, Biteblade, Moonfin-- Even Pavo! The Queen! Sugar! Elsen! The Director! Hugo! They all... They all..." She struggles, "rasping" through glitchy voice. "Determined. In their name, I'm going to stop... to stop you! I'm going to protect their happiness! I'm going... Going... going... TO DEFEAT YOU!!"     She's rattling, stumbling badly, but with both hands on her wand, she lets out desperate spells, huge waves of raw kinetic blasts that are trying as hard as the once-burnt witch can to bring Edison down. She can barely stay on her feet after that strike from Edison. She seems... happy. Her expression almost looks like she's smiling! "Ssssshhhh.... see! How strong we can be against this 'purification' when we try? Look! L-look...!"
Starbound Flotilla	"Determined. Whatever it takes! However deep I have to dig, whatever pain I have to bear, I need to...!" Seft doesn't look like she'd manage it. The smile seems forced, intense in ways that are hard to articulate but have nothing to do with either happiness or confidence. She's deep into this situation in ways that Yuuki is. She's barely holding it together.     "Determined. George, he... he never told us you were here. We suspected when we lost contact with Albert, then Moonfin, but I didn't know who'd arrived... I only learned when Pavo told me you'd started purifying zones! I knew I had to stop you!" In some way, it seems, Pavo is a little at fault here. "Determined. I knew I had to protect them! I may be the only one who knows, but even if I have to do it alone, I know they trusted me! They believed in me! And I'll... I'll believe in myself t-to! S-see?!"     Her voice is glitching out badly. The wolves have her down on one knee, but her fist is still balled up around her wand. "Determined. See-ee-ee?! Even all this-is-is /awful/ magic-c-c! Anything!! Whatever I have to! I can do it for their sake-ake-ake!"     She continues at her max output, despite running desperately low on the gas. Even without the wolves, it's unlikely she could stand up while she lets loose with an almost flamethrower-like gush of raw electromagnetic pain towards Yuuki.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison takes attack after attack, but the light that shines over the battlefield weakens the attacks.  Some go wide, some simply fizzle, though a few make their mark with sicking crunching sounds as Edison is torn up.  However, bleeding happens, but Edison himself does not fall.  Edison keeps his gaze right on Seft. Every single cell in his body /screams/ for him to not do this. Seft fights with such purity in her actions, so sure of her righteousness.  What right did he, a dead man, have to deny her.  He recognizes the heroic qualities in her, that he himself had to become a Heroic Spirit, even if he was naturally not a very good one.   He almost can't bring himself to continue.  However, the knowledge that parts of her were sealed.  While her actions may be pure...her actions... No, he had to trust in Stephen Strange, he had a plan, he knew it would work.  They had to try...and they walked a path that only walked with the Batter temporarily.  He closed his eyes and took another step.  A hand comes to her shoulder. "It's okay.  Whatever happens today...remember you did everything you could.  I'm sorry," He says, as empathetically as he can.  This is followed by a swift punch as hard as he could muster right now to the stomach.  Another burst of DC power trying to knock Seft unconscious.
Starbound Flotilla	BZZZZZT-ZAP!     Seft is hit hard, and she slumps over. Her visor is flickering. She's not, well, /lethally/ wounded in any way. She's just so, so, so dry on energy. She completely passes out. There is not a single spark of electrical power running in her body besides the basic life support that keeps her organic brain going.     Which is why it's... frankly confusing when the limbs rattle, shake, and start to push up. Her vocal module /has no electricity running through it/. But somehow, it still makes noise. "*Bzzzt* won't let.... *ksssssht* let them down... *zzzzzzrt* can't... give up..." For a moment, her visor clears up.     "I'll save Hugo."     It's not that she's struggling to be on her feet. It's that it's literally not possible for her to be doing what she's doing. Someway, somehow, she's tapping into an impossibility. Perhaps a product of the world's unusual nature, but it's... somehow happening. It's impossible to deny the reality of what's in front of your eyes. The wand in her hand goes off. Her absolute willpower gives her one last good shot to get off, a hefty little ice-blast at Edison that comes from power that should not exist.
Doctor Strange	Letting her in on it is less an option now than ever. George has scarcely thrown a punch the whole fight, and he's much smarter than he lets on. Much more able, too, he'd guess. There's no way he could put it that George wouldn't catch wise, too--or the Batter. The secret stays secret.      He pays for it. Strange tries to finesse his way through the gauntlet Seft intends to put him through. He tries to cheat. But Seft really, really wants this. Every shift of gravity he pulls off, every sudden change in direction, every alteration of her attack, earns him another blow, as if reality itself were demanding payment for some bill long overdue.      Eventually, he ends up where he began before all those efforts to cheat his way out of her attacks. Breathing ragged, leaning against a thorny vine for support. But now, he's much worse for wear. His face is wet with sweat. In some places, with blood. Either, or both, have his tunic clinging to his chest in dark, obvious spots. The trembling in his hands is noticeable--even in the one gripping the vine for support.      "I wish... I could explain to you... exactly what's happening," says Strange between breaths. "But I can't. I explain what's happening... it doesn't happen." He dips forward. Coughs. A calculated move--he's exhausted, but not to that point. Not to the point of passing out. But he has to sell it.      The dip is meant to conceal the hand gestures which form the illusory facade below him. Far below. It has to be someplace where people's eyes won't naturally go. It forms cover for his future self, appearing via portal. His future self, in turn, weaves an illusion around the Strange of the present. Present!Strange appears to shakily stand up. He doesn't attack. Instead, he appears to make an effort to breathe more steadily, to speak without pausing for breath. "We /know/ what happens when a world is purified. We know, because /I/ looked. And we're still doing it. Not only are we doing it, we're running ourselves ragged to get through that door." Still evidently holding onto the vine, the now-illusory Strange points towards the door with his free hand. "Would villains do that?"      Future!Strange opens another portal. The real Present!Strange meanwhile musters his strength for the attack his future self is about to make. The exit opens above Seft as she readies her wand. Liquid plastic pours out from above. Future!Strange waits until it's splashing down over her, then blasts from below with a surprise cone of freezing cold.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison notices that there is just that bare spark of life in them.  That last bit of energy...that DETERMINATION to not go quietly.  He had held back at the worst time, and it might cost him.  However, he wouldn't undo his action even if given a chance.  Not to Seft, not now...not in this moment.   The wand comes up, and Edison quickly puts his hand up.  The magics that infuse him with life, spark as the field surrounds him and the supernatural hardness envelops him.  The spell washes over him but starts to break down in the spotlight.   It washes over him, and he holds the wand in one hand.  Long enough for Strange's ploy to work...their last desperate action. "You didn't, and you won't...let him down."
Yuuki Kuran	A lot of wind has been taken out of Yuuki's sails, emotionally. Zero had chastised her for impulsively hurting him in her haste to prove a point. Seft had--         --quite literally went 'ok, I'll kill you' without having a chance to put it to practice. "Seft, I wish you came with Biteblade or Moonfin. So you could have seen. In fact, I think you have. George said he watched it. A life with something different inside of you can be difficult, but I can understand it." Yuuki has a vvvvvery narrow bit of ground to occupy, since she cannot leverage 'so don't do the Big Stupid!!!' since she LITERALLY JUST DID THE BIG STUPID AND WAS CALLED OUT FOR IT. Instead... She's crashed into by a cone of electromagnetic pain, and these burns don't clear quite so fast. She's engulfed, and it's not blood that flies and flecks and frays off her body and clothes, but snow-white butterflies that peel off of her extremities and burn away in her wake. When it ends, as Seft stutters about her magic, Yuuki stands there, arms at her side, as at least a good fifth of her body is still being filled in with butterfly wings that leave notable gaps. It's really Thomas and Steven that finish the fight, after that point. Yuuki's wolves disappear in the commotion, and her butterflies fade out as her wounds finish closing. She's just a normal girl (with Normal Girl glowing red eyes ruining the effect) having a wardrobe malfunction once more. Tired. Everyone's tired, now. Even Zero, though he's merely tired 'of Yuuki's shit' (and she knows it). "Pavo didn't know George was here. George thought Pavo got hurt, and was worried... But it turned out they were both mistaken. Maybe we all made mistakes, not talking to each other." Strange gets a flicker of a glance, but it was his secret to share or keep. "Next time, Seft, you should ask before everything starts going awfully. Ask, and explain, and I'm sure I'll be ready to help you. Maybe you won't need it - you have such amazing powers, and such beautiful magic." "But you're going to give us that Grand. Even if you beat the Batter... You've lost." Yuuki extends her hand. "Give it to me, Seft. Then I'll bear the responsibility."
Zero Kiryu	Zero Kiryu drops Artemis to the ground and presses it into the copious mass of plant life that has sprouted at his command, digging it in good enough that it isn't going anywhere without his say-so or Yuuki making a deliberate effort to come get it. He shakes his head at her and replies, "She's telling the truth, as she knows it. She might not know the whole truth, and then again she might just be deluded. So might we. It doesn't matter. Seft isn't deliberately lying to you. If you want to be upset with her, be upset with the decision she just tried to make." "Don't try to level the playing field like that again."
Starbound Flotilla	Seft can't dodge the plastic over her body. It splashes hard, slamming her off her feet and onto her knees, where it pours over her and, eventually, it gets all cooled down with a flash-freeze. One of her arms is trapped. She may somehow be able to move entirely in absence of motor energy, but she's not able to escape this. She's on the farther side of unconscious now, and she's been for a while. "won't give... can't... but..." Her gabled voice module is barely audible now. The wand falls out of her free hand.     Life support is still working in there. One can see some basic respiration systems still going on her headcase. But, for now, she's motionless. If you listen closely, though, you can hear soft sounds. Almost, ALMOST impossible to hear. She's, sadly, not in enough of a state to answer Yuuki's request for the Grand. And, oddly, if she's searched, there isn't a Grand on her body, at least nothing recognizeable as one. There's five Captains and four Elements that there can be Grands for, after all, it stands to reason that one Captain would have no Grand to their name.     Almost the moment Yuuki might realize this, Seft's whole body suddenly jerks up, hand in the air. "I WON'T GIVE UP!!" She screams all of a sudden, her voice suddenly emotive and without emotional preface. And despite there being nothing in her hand before she did it, it's there when she nearly slumps over on Yuuki.     The GRAND CHOCOLATIER is a bizarre object associated with sugar. It looks like a puzzle game, a flattish square shape formed out of incredibly resilient and enduring sugar cubes that one can twist and rotate into other square shapes. Like the plastic book and the weird metal cross, this must be a Grand -- albeit one that was so secret, Seft's impossible defense is what formed it from nothing at all.     Seft, for her part, is unconscious, in a way. An intuitive person can probably categorize her with people like Zacharie and the Judge, who somehow live through the Zone Purifications, so you can leave her here probably.
Yuuki Kuran	There's a terrible moment where Seft threatens to make another-another Last Stand, and blast Yuuki for her simple request (to surrender her item). Instead, everything works out. The Grand - the 'secret' Grand - drops into Yuuki's hand, for the Kuran Princess to look at, and roll over in her palm for a moment before finding an unshredded pocket in her coat. "I'm sorry, Zero. I didn't..."     "... think. I'll try to make sure I do, in the future." Yuuki lifts Seft over her shoulder, as easily as someone would drape a towel after a shower or dip in the lake, and turns to the exit. "I don't feel too energetic any more, so I'll just carry Seft for now. Until we can find somewhere safe to leave them."