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Priscilla     Having braved two different routes through the ancient, pieced together labyrinth-fortress of the monastery of dragon worship, converging together at what seems to be just a hair short of its summit is both fortuitous and difficult. With all those present assembled, they can bear a unified front against the last obstacles that stand in their way, but at the same time, it makes all of them targets at once.

    The serpents give no quarter, nor have they expected any. The minute the gathered snake-sorcerers have finished their ringing ritual, they repurpose their staves and chimes to the tak of calling up and firing thick volleys of black and yellow fog-flame, streaking out and across the plateau nearly entirely devoid of cover to find victims on their own, making for a potent barrage from the back line.

More strangely are the black and sulfurous yellow phantoms. Unlike the warrior from before, these figures remain eerily silent; even the strange doppelganger of the man making his way up several flights of stairs at this very moment. They even move with unnatural quietness, and slightly ringing footsteps, as if eerily weightless, and clearly incapable of conversation. They are, without even the slightest wonder or confusion for where and when they are, instantaneously hostile.

    The phantom with the feathered hat strings her bow in the blink of an eye, a bundle of arrows in her off hand, which she fires in obscenely rapid succession, her movements like strumming a harp, though each and every arrow is precisely aimed, fired at targets to the left and right like a marine firing from the hip on his way through a kill house.

    The phantom wielding a rapier adopts a fencing stance, and then charges into the frontline with a single, surging thrust that carries him over twenty meters of empty space. He begins cutting and thrusting with supernatural quickness and skill, laying down flurries of strikes that make his rapier appear to be in multiple places at once, as if three simultaneous stabs are coming out for each thrust.

    The phantom wearing multiple tons of stone plants both feet and claps his tooth-hammer to his shield, making a sound like a bell cracking in half, rather than ringing, which both shrouds himself in a shimmering white aura, and causes further growths of stone to accumulate on the surface of his armour, because what he really needed was several more inches of hardened, supernatural rock on his frame. It at least slows him down a great deal, as he is forced to plod forward like a terminator.

    The phantom in fine plate turns to the flanking group, putting his shield before him to intercept fire and leaping all the way to the top of the battlement, somersaulting once at the end of his jump to slam his greatsword into the ground, which erupts with a wave of magical fire. He picks it back up and spins several times like a top, laying about himself with continuous decapitating strikes.
Priscilla     You can hear the wouldbe dragon slayer in the flesh crunching his way up the stairs, soon to hem you in completely, before Ornstein rockets up over the far side of the battlement, giant crystal reptile blood on his spear from finishing off the miniboss, and arcs back down through the hole. There's a crash of metal, a crack of thunder, and then the sounds of a raging battle as his speed, force, and holy lightning are pitted against strength, endurance, and poise. He'll be keeping that one busy, sparing you from a pincer attack.

    The short gambit for the bell finds it guarded rather well by the heavy portcullis, and this time, there isn't an open courtyard to scale into; it's sheltered under a very solid roof. There are passages to either side, but likely not enough time to explore branch routes passed by to figure out how to access it. It'll be a *lot* of brute force, elaborate cranking, or somehow squeezing through the bars; shooting this one doesn't seem possible, as an enormous brass lever is by it, ostensibly for the purpose of ringing it, as it is fixed solidly to an axle, rather than allowed to rotate over a bar. It almost definitely has some considerable importance, though.
Seifer Almasy      Immediately, Seifer moves to intercept the charging rapier. There's really not a better option; the gunblade can cut through armor well enough, but he's too injured to make a contest of strength vs. skill wise - all it would take is one misstep for him to try and parry something he really, really shouldn't. He can parry aside arrows, but with no means of counterattacking that's just a losing argument. She can step back faster than he can charge almost assuredly.

     So Seifer just dives in to meet the rapier head-on.

     Three stabs greet him with every thrust. It's an interesting challenge. If Seifer had both arms he'd have a number of tools on hand to deal with that. He could snap an explosion in the guy's face. He could punch or swing with his arm to intercept the rapier and then get a stab in. He could just catch the blade, probably, although he is much less sure about his ability to do that - but it'd be an *option*.

     As it stands, he's got his off-hand.

     And he's got one eye.

     It limits his options, but it doesn't remove them.

     The rapier guy gets up to him, and Seifer responds. The tip of Hyperion dances against the tip of the rapier. Three strikes are countered with the tip, leading them up and away. A plunge in with one hand and a twist of the wrist becomes defense and attack, catching the rapier on the edge of the hilt. The gunblade's, well, gun, discharges as it blocks another set of swings, a disruptive shake coupled with a kick to the stomach. If he doesn't have one arm, he's still got both legs.

     The biggest threat isn't the cuts Seifer's taking - cuts he's *having* to take, cuts to the face and the shoulders, to direct the rapier away from more lethal areas. He's confident he can win this. The biggest threat is one of the others deciding to get involved. In a contest of straight skill, there's very little in the Multiverse that can challenge him, but in this case it might not be a contest of straight skill.
Guzma As the group rejoins, Rapp told Yuuki she was okay now, even if she was still shaken, and nodded to Yuuki profusely, with a hint of awe in her voice when she spoke. She rejected the call of blood, too unsettled by it, though Zipp would aside to Zero that, if it was alright, he'd like to take some, to make sure she's okay. Tupp had already gone on ahead, so no blood for him!

When they rejoin with Guzma, he pats Rapp on the head and tells her that she needs to stop worrying him, in that big brother sort of sense who's trying to sound like a jerk but actually cares. Then, it's time to approach the distortion.

"Alright. That's a lot of guys." Guzma says, as he sends out Vikavolt, the flying electric bug with insanely long mandibles. The group splits up again, this time into two pairs: Guzma and Tupp, and Zipp and Rapp, whether or not Zipp got Zero's gift. Luckily, they're all wearing purple flowers except for Guzma, so they'll be fine.

Zipp and Rapp are immediately assailed by arrows, Zipp sending out Garbodor to tank the hits (letting out that foul odor) and spray down the arrows with toxic acid, while Rapp nervously summons Zubat, who begins batting wind from its wings at the archer, trying to knock their bow aim off-course at the same time as it injures her! "Come on, Zubat...!"

Guzma and Tupp, meanwhile, go for tango two with the heavily armored knight. Vikavolt is focused on the armor, as Guzma shouts out. "Thunderbolt!"

Hopefully, the armor is like the Armored Wyvern of before, and it blows open the stone horribly, as Salandit spews fireballs to assist, even as he charges forward. If he can hit them...that'll be bad. They're both frailer Pokemon, and the humans absolutely cannot take a hit.
Captain Flint      Ornstein will handle the flesh-and-presumably-blood dragonslayer, but Flint isn't taking any chances. "I want those stairs gone, Mr. Turk, handsomely!" The pirate named Turk nods. Working with the other pirates, he rushes down the stairs of the tower to try and blow the very top of the stairs, cutting off anyone without Ornstein's impressive vertical capabilities. One fat-rolling greatclub guy is enough for now.

     Meanwhile, Flint and Silver focus on the phantom with the rapier, such as they are able. It quickly becomes evident that, even two on one, they have their hands full. Both of them are forced to resort to dirty tricks where Flint's classical training (and Silver's tutelage by Flint) can't make up.

     They keep the fencer busy with underhanded tactics like using their swords to fling up debris, dirt and sparks into the phantom's face, attempting to stomp on his feet, and similar tactics. At one point Flint even wields his pistol, attempting to shoot the figure in the thigh, but one of those tri- strikes knocks the weapon from his hand, and bloodies it visibly besides.
Zero Kiryu It occurs to Zero, distantly, that at this point he isn't all that different from that rotten old cat. Lingering around in sites of conflict and gathering power through the years, until he's a force of nature unto himself. With a sweep of his hand he disperses a jungle across the empty plateau, foliage spreading out from his feet and sprouting up in seconds to present a veritable wall of plant life.

The cover isn't perfect. It does resemble a natural jungle, with trees and vines of various shapes and sizes. But 'nothing' becomes 'something' instantaneously, and it's /most certainly/ obnoxious to the larger enemies that they're facing, to say nothing of the ranged combatants.

In answer to Zipp's request, Zero produces a fruit that strongly resembles a pomegranate, handing it to him.

"I know what it's like to fight against an impossibility," Zero says to the Flotilla, "I wish it had been kinder."

"And I hope that girl is okay." He says.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl had been hanging back from the deeper forays into this temple. Taking his time examining the petrified figures, examining their belongings, trying his best to build a mental profile of each. Not for any tactical reasons, but because it was important. Important to him anyway.

    The sounds of pitched battle further in draws him away from his ceremony. If it's just more of the snakemen, the others have proven themselves more than capable. But the deep shake of the stone knight's great hammer rumbling through the temple makes him pick up his pace, arriving just in time to see the summoned phantoms.

    The archer forces him to duck behind a crumbling pillar as he considered the odds. Ornstein is dealing with the "real" knight. The others are starting to engage the phantoms. But that may not be enough. What if there's more in the wings? He and Original Face come to a mutual conclusion.

    The snakemen have to go.

    There's a sharp scrape of metal against stone as he cuts the pillar he's hiding behind. And then, with enormous strength, he picks up and begins running as fast as he can towards the backlines. Towards the snakemen blasting smokey flames. With the great pillar as a shield, he intends to draw all their attention as he gets closer and closer.

    And then, once he's in range, he throws the pillar at them. And in that brief instant where their eyes are pointed up at the great mass of stone coming at them, he points both his fingers at their legs and begins shooting, blowing out knees and shins to hinder their ability to avoid the crushing mass.
Raziel 'Before us stood the bell, the way forward.  However, three specters of long-dead warriors, and a small group of serpents who were as homicidal as always stood.  Behind us, the attempt at a pincer attack was cut off by the Dragonslayer.  However, there was only one way forward.'

However, at the exchange between Sift and George, Raziel laughs.  "I am not a Zombie, but a ghost.  Though to look at me, I could not fault your observation.  Yes, Knight Sift, that is what it means to serve..." he says, grimly at their current situation.  "So I will go for the bell," Raziel says, slightly guilty.

Though it is not likely it would be easy.  Abandoning his mortal body, the Now ghost phases out of physical shape and runs towards the portcullis.  Assuming he can phase through the door, and assuming his allies cover for him while he attempts to get to the bell and figure out what they needed to do to claim victory.  

Assuming everything goes to plan, of course.
Tomoe The group has been able to press this far, but it's not over yet by a long shot there's the new group that has turned up and there is a bit staredown. It rapidly becomes clear to Tomoe that they are here to fight. Seifer moves in for the one with the rapier. Guzma and his team of Pokemon engage the archer, that removes another target for her.

She eyes the phantom in the fine plate, she makes up her mind to intercept them. Her wings flare out for a moment glowing bright red as they do so. She will leap up and fly to intercept the phantom in the fine plate, her sword bursts into flames as she comes down ending up on the defence from the moment she lands due to the flurry of strikes coming from this Phantom.

There isn't much to say what is there to say? Whomever they are? They don't look like they want to talk, the moment she finds a breather she will strike back with a sword art calling out the words.

"SNAKEBITE"

As she launches several rapid-fire slashing attacks upon the fine armoured phantom. She knows one thing they are dangerous and to assume they can do far more than she's seen so far.
Starbound Flotilla     The Flotilla nearly instantly fall into cover, readying their weapons. Albert calls out as they do.
"Pressure breaking! Twelve, eight, two! Incoming! Call targets!"
"I shall have the blood of the fencer!"
"Focused. I'm after the knight! I know what this is like!"
"Floran gonna crack ssstone, get to chewy center!"
"I'm after tall, rock, and dead-some too!"
"I'm smiting the archer! Can't do anything with them fucking up heaven!"
"Star One opening fire on target at twelve, three hundred units, heavy ordinance!"

    George takes a quick drag of one of those damned hospital-smelling cigarettes, then asides to Zero. "'No witnesses' was never about keeping people from chasing us when we do crime. It's 'cause most folks don't deserve to know how the sausage gets made. I hope she's still doing what she does." He yanks the bolt on a mining laser, and moves out.

    The whole Flotilla bursts over cover at once. The fencer has Moonfin join in with Seifer, Flint, and Silver. He knows how to move in a multi-man brawl. "Sixth Sea Hylotl Style: Unreadable Winds!" Blinking from multiple sides, he's never in the way but perpetually slashing from angles the other three aren't. That doesn't mean he doesn't take a heavy, brutal stab straight to the gut, shearing through armor. He'd say that's because the sixth sea styles sacrifice defensive power. It's mostly because this guy probably exceeds his skill.

    Pavo and Albert suffer brutal rushes of arrows; Pavo's holo-wings are ripped up and Albert's armor blasted through, but Albert matches arrows with heavy rocket-propelled explosives, and Pavo keeps dive-bombing the archer with shrieking swoops and slices whenever Zipp and Rapp get those arrows dealt with!

    Guzma and Tupp, they hope, will at least stun the guy. George and Biteblade are working to try to take advantage of it! George rushes to swiftly carve a massive trench around the man, something that his terminator slog can't maneuver through, and Biteblade tries to mount his back and rip through the stone with her own mining laser.

    Seft hoists her shield and blasts with her grappling hook. Rushing towards the knight's perch shield-first, she tries to accelerate as fast as she can, and set the shield aflame herself! Armor is slagged and internal systems overheat from the magical fire, but she soldiers on through it, trying to crash into him shield-first and at least stun him for a heavy followup from Tomoe!
Yuuki Kuran Four summoned champions stand against them.

Ah, Ornstein. Make that three. Isn't friendship grand?

Rapp seems recovered and has a cute bat friend, so she's probably fine, Yuuki reasons with an outward nod. She had already tasked Raziel and Zero to make sure this outing went by without a hiccup. Such things were simply not allowed.

As to the matter of 'the fight, broadly', once again everything begins and ends handled as Yuuki is lost in her consideration. Affecting the mild pout of someone who woke up in the middle of the afternoon with the whole day wasted, the Kuran princess simply 'remains unmolested at the back', neither interacting or being interacted with by the summoned phantoms.

The lizards, on the other hand, bombard her with a carpet of sulfurous flame before Zero throws up his spontaneous forest. She disappears into the burning fog, not advancing with the group.

No, she reappears in Eryl's awareness suddenly, tapping a serpent sorcerer on the shoulder while smouldering lightly from their attack heartbeats before.

She doesn't have a question or anything. Mostly she's just open-hand slapping snakes for being flame throwing assholes. Violence is the only language they understand, barely being people.
Priscilla     Though Seifer still has more than enough skill with Hyperion to handle the lack of his dominant hand and eye, it certainly feels like he should be glad to have backup. The man he's chosen to fight doesn't just have more-than-human strength and, especially, dexterity, on hand, but genuinely legendary skill with his weapon of choice. The instant they cross blades, he can tell that this isn't some random nobody who died on the peak; this man has to be some sort of hero from ages past, for whom some tale or order or weapon is named after.

    Flicks and twists of his arm and wrist deftly remove the weapon from every parry, catching some of Hyperron's slashes against the basket hilt and leveraging the man's dominant hand against Seifer's weaker one to angle the point of the gunblade into the air for just a moment to angle the rapier in return into his shoulder or across his face. It feels like he has already assessed Seifer's skill, like he can tell he won't be able to get a thrust through the heart just yet, and so he's aiming to sever the tendons and muscles in his arm and wrist, and gouge out his other eye, and slash across his forehead to drench his face in blood to blind him.

    The disruptive resonance of Hyperion, followed by the brutal kick to the midsection, sends the man stumbling back, and his rapier flying out of hand, giving him some reprieve. With Flint and Silver taking over, it looks like the perfect opening, until the man suddenly backflips through the air to catch the weapon and deflect the bullet aimed at him with a swirling blade slap. Though pressed back in ground now between the two fighters, and Seifer soon to rejoin the fray, he's doing an incredible job defending himself, pivoting and backstepping at once with defensive cuts and expulsions to prevent approaching him without being cut to ribbons in return. Though he's wearing a royal surcoat, this man could not have possibly learned this swordsmanship in a court. They're taking on a swordsman who pursued the ultimate form of his craft for no other reason than the love of it.

    Unbeknownst to them, a man who had taken on the Land of the Gods in life, and died many times. It takes Moonfin adding to the press, and more importantly, accepting the stab through him as a necessary sacrifice, to finally trade a blow -- which happens to be what katanas are arbitrarily good at in this dynamic. The man cannot abandon his sword, only bring up the hilt with as much space as he has to move it while lodged in Moonfin's armour to deflect the katana as far as he can. It carves right through the bracer he uses to defends himself, and sheds a kind of glittering pale yellow dust from his deep wound. The sound isn't that of hitting flesh and bone, but a dull, shimmering ring.

    The archer notices her arrows are being absorbed by the gooey trash Pokemon and blown against by the pulses of wind from the bat. She begins strafing as she fires, moving quickly to get a good angle, vaulting over chunks of terrain without actually seeing them, trying to kite around, until Zero's vines are deflecting the majority of her shots.

    . Where she touches down once, she spins fully around and crouches to one knee, firing a burst of six arrows, somehow with a single pull, that fans out through the group, looking to overwhelm their defenses with a volume of fire that they can't block all at once. From that position, she then aims up into the air, and looses no more than eleven arrows, which disappear out of sight.
Priscilla     The Archer is swiftly driven out of her shooting position by Pavo and Albert. She has to dive and roll to avoid being blown to pieces by rockets, mostly tumbling with the blasts as acrobatically as she can, and firing off arrows from her back at Pavo to drive her away. At one point, she's forced to block with the bow when Pavo gets close, shifting her grip on her arrow up to the base of the head and trying to thrust it into her neck in a melee grapple. Despite being made of black wood, the bow of this legendary figure won't break from just that much
    The lightning attack ploughs right into the heavy-clad dragonslayer. Huge blasts of pulverized stone fly off of him, but Guzma can see straight away that the lightning is only super effective against the layer of additional armour he'd created on himself. It can't be a function of 'earth' or 'stone', but something to do with the wyvern's tooth, then. Unfortunately, the armour beneath it *is* pure divine mountain stone, and absorbs the blasts easily while he plods forward.

    When Biteblade leaps onto his back, she finds that even her absurdly overpowered daggers are being used as improvised mining implements, carving off more ablative layers of solid stony covering, before the man slams the diamond-shaped base of his shield down on the ground. There's just barely a sound like the incoming plummet of an artillery shell, and then his white aura *explodes* into multiple waves of bone-shattering force, coincidentally deflecting all projectiles in his radius.

    He blasts such a crater through the ground that it carves through George's trench, only slowing him down a little as he climbs down one side and up the other, now that it isn't as steep. He's losing armour, but regaining agility as his 'plating' is broken away.

    He keeps advancing, and keeps advancing, and doesn't stop. Can't be stopped. Can't be staggered. Can't be flinched. It'd be like trying to make a mountain flinch away. When he reaches Zero's wall of thorns, he begins *ploughing through them*, straining the metal vines and snapping them as he pushes through to the Elites it's guarding, slowly grinding through the defenses with the inevitability of a glacier, looking to find Zero at its heart, and then flatten him completely.

    Where one hammer strike lands, instead of picking it back up, the man turns 180 degrees, leverages the fallen club back to his shoulder, and then as he turns the remaining 180, he swings it up, over, and back down, with double the force, and then again, covering his side with his greatshield, making for a relentless, if slow, march of crushing blows.
Priscilla     Tomoe, for the moment, is unfortunately stranded with the remaining knight. Though his own shield is less absurdly huge and steady than the dragonslayer's, it's lighter and more agile, making loud, shimmering clashing sounds as he maneuvers it all around with minimal movement, deflecting Tomoe's sword arts every which way. Shifting his footing, he shifts his greatsword back like a spear, and then pushes a lightning quick thrust through her offensive, not even trying to hit her vulnerable spots, but deal the damage straight to her shield, expecting to throw her away, blast her with the flames, or outright splinter it.

    She's suddenly spared from a lethal followup attack when Seft smashes into him from the flank. Though his full plate protects him from the damage itself with remarkable efficacy, the fire that isn't his heats the metal to a dangerous degree, leaving his shield arm blistering hot, and the shield shimmering with scorching air, though he clings to it regardless despite the steady,vicious burning of his arm underneath. He turns and shifts his forearm through the straps, so he can grip the sword with both hands and use it more quickly, bringing it over his head and back down on Seft. Rather than brutally hacking into her, the cut is fast and controlled 'bouncing' back up with a twist of his hands and coming back for another round, then a third on the opposite shoulder, hammering her with the sharp edge.

    The snakes, however, are no legendary heroes of ages past. They are no household names learned from monomyth. They are sorcerers, and their job is nearly exhausted. Yuuki popping up behind them gathers all their collective attention. They begin to flay her alive with golden studded whips on the spot, vicious and single-minded. This leaves them wide open to Eryl yeeting the pillar through them, and they're crushed on the spot as it rolls over them, killed in one fell swoop, and eliminating the enemy's artillery support entirely.
Priscilla     When Raziel phases through the gate, he is almost spared the battle, until two arrows from the plateau beyond fly straight into his back, fast enough that they can impact before the sound even reaches him. Reaching for the bell in bloodyminded determination anyways finds the mechanical lever well stuck in place, requiring all of his focus and attention to pull, and a good bracing from his foot and heaving of his entire body to agonizingly crank through its paces.

    In the end though, the lever does, slowly, flip. The sound of hidden gears churns away, click click rattles and clanks spread throughout the ground as the teeth turn in sequence to the largest wheel, and then the ancient axle sheds its dust as it unsettles and begins to turny bit by bit. When the hidden gears, no doubt perfectly enormous, spin to their full rate of rotation, the axle swivels to its highest point, then sharply reverses. The bell comes with it, and its clapper rings against its far side, louder than a gunshot, so close.

    It swings back and forth on its mechanically driven fulcrum, clanging out over and over again, not a melodic chime, but withe the raw, cathartic brutality of a hunting horn. The group can hear the rumble of thunder within the storm clouds rising to match it, becoming a roiling chorus of crackling and booming that somehow resonates in sympathy with the bellsong; a harmony to its melody.

    Flickers of bright lightning flash within. The bank begins to break apart, parting in some strikingly Biblical fashion. It's impossible to tell what lies beyond it yet, as the channel is carved through it slowly, foot by foot, making the current affair a test of endurance.
Captain Flint      The two pirates seem to realize that they're out of their depth more or less right away, but that doesn't stop them. It just changes their strategy a little. What the two of them lack in individual skill, they might just make up in teamwork.

     When Flint's bullet is sent zipping back through his hand, Silver is almost immediately there to cover for him. The crutch and the prosthesis are not a hindrance for him. Not anymore. He has implemented them into his fighting style, as evidenced in the way he covers for Flint. Jumping forward to secure momentum, Silver swings a half-circle around the crutch, sweeping his wooden leg out to keep the distance between them.

     The moment it takes to make that attack is all Flint needs to overcome the pain of his wound. Though his hand bleeds from a bullet wound, his sword arm is strong and ready. It has to be, because even on the defense, their opponent is vicious. It calls to question who is attacking and who is defending, until Moonfin is finally able to cut them a break.

     With that rapier buried in the Hylotl, Silver drops his crutch and raises his own pistol, aiming for the phantom's leg, as before. He's fast, but Silver's hoping not fast enough to yank the blade free of Moonfin in time to deflect again.

     Things are going well, but they won't make it to that bank with all of these phantoms harassing their flight. Most of all... "Handle that archer!" cries Flint, looking over his shoulder at the stairwell.

     The other pirates come up just as the bells chime. Projectiles deflected by the stone phantom, and arrows shot by the archer, force them into a prone position. Using the remaining sandbags that weren't deployed to put out the fire, they set up a rough barricade just shy of the stairwell. From this lightly fortified position, they fire on the archer, though finding a clean shot is difficult given her movement, and the crowded field. It results in sporadic bursts of gunfire across several different eras, every time she is within their line of sight.
Guzma The wind is working, but the archer is skilled. As her arrows flare out, Rapp's eyes widen again. Before she can panic, though, Zipp's moving. He tackles her out of the way, his bulk proving helpful, as he takes several arrows to the side and back, which could lead to bleeding out - if it wasn't for him eating the pomegranate right when Zero gave it to him, taking part in his gift.

As the arrows go up and cease being fired directly at them, Zipp rips the arrows out of his body with a pained scream, causing the wounds to start knitting themselves together, skin repairing itself. With a point of a finger, Garbodor fires a blast of poison straight for the archer, aiming around the melee to not debilitate his allies.

Rapp starts breathing heavily, but calms herself enough to make an attack. "Zubat! Bite!"

Zubat, in response, flies straight for the legendary archer, teeth moving to sink into her neck and try and gore her. Normally it's not that violent - but it can sense their trainer's fear.

Vikavolt's done what it can. As the ground continues to quake, Guzma almost falls over, as Tupp pushes him out of the way of any blows. Salandit's attacks were absorbed, unfortunately, so the solution must be...

Vikavolt is returned to its ball, as Golisopod is called out. "Golisopod! Crack his shell!"

With acknowledgement, fireballs are blasted at the dragon-slayer targeting Zero, trying to get his attention, as Golisopod rams him with superhuman speed, sharp claws moving to start digging into the shell and try and expose flesh. If flesh can be exposed...
5rSalandit's gonna fire an ember straight into the armor, trying to cook him alive.
Raziel 'Through the heavy fighting, I managed to avoid confrontation, thanks to the aid of my allies.  However, I soon found out that my trespass had not gone unnoticed...'

Two perfectly placed arrows find the back of the ghost, the force of which nearly sent him face-first into the ground itself.  He could feel the bite of those arrows as keenly as he could in a physical body.  Needless to say, his ability to be an ethereal spirit would not necessarily be unchallenged.  Then again, those fighters were obviously legends in their own right.  

'Despite my setback, I was still here.  Moving for the lever I forced my body to return to the material realm.  Even though the arrows laid firmly stuck in my back.  I had little time to remove them, and instead forced at the topic at hand.'

Raziel's claw grabs the lever, and with all of his might, he just manages to pull it back.  With effort, it flips and creates a loud clang.  

'At first, I was concerned that this seemed abnormal.  However, after the bell started to ring in earnest, I realized that it was matching the rumble of the storm that barred our path.  Perhaps the way forward would be revealed, assuming that we could finish the fight.'

Raziel, once more, released his physical body, and once more attempting to step through the physical object that separated the two places.  Once more, forcing himself into the physical world, he looked for the archer that pegged him.  
Eryl Fairfax     Yuuki pops up among the snakemen just before Eryl tosses the pillar. "Oh," he says, his arms already in the motion of tossing it. But just before it leaves his reach entirely, he sinks he runs his hands over the side with as much sudden force as he can, adding some backspin to the mass on its way to crush his targets.

    With that, rather than rolling forward onto Yuuki, it bounces backwards upon impact, peeling some flesh and blood with it. "Sorry. Are you okay?" Eryl asks the girl, hunching over to catch his breath. He's strong, but carrying and then launching an enormous mass of stone took a lot from him.

    But even as he recovers, he's scanning the battlefield. The phantoms are each having to contest with multiple opponents. But even so, they're proving themselves admirably. Ornstein is... out of sight, possibly still clashing with the other, non-summoned stone knight. And someone has rung the bell. The storm is rising with it's loud chimes. Something is about to happen, and they are currently bogged down by these phantoms. They need to be eliminated.

    He breaks into a run towards the knight with the greatsword as he swings at Tomoe and Seft two-handed. He ducks low and enters a slide to avoid his swings while getting close and low, a terribly advantageous position. From here, he fires a slug from his elbow in passing upwards, driving it into the armpit of the knight's sword arm. Aiming to crush the ligaments and either thoroughly weaken his offence, or force him to swap arms and ditch the shield.
Tomoe Tomoe is not alone some of the Flotilla namely Seft jumps in, she didn't expect that given some of the past bad blood. Then again this is a rather important operation to the Concord, so she won't complain about this after all. Ending up dead here would not do anything good in the end. Tomoe's not dead but this fighter is pushing her hard thanks to Seft's intervention she's got a chance to act and breathe as it were. The attack strikes the shield with such force it does a good deal of damage to the shield, she seems loathed to get rid of it but its' been damaged oddly its physical damage and no wireframe like when Tomoe is injured but it's clear it's not in the best part. This gives her enough time to push her now damaged shield up her arm to where it won't get in the way.

As Seft is assaulted rather than her? Tomoe will move in taking her sword in both hands, ad she attempts to flank attack the fine armoured phantom before he can finish Seft off. She will strike with an overhead two-handed blow and then will try to /kick/ the other fighter hopefully she'll be able to at least peel them off Seft long enough for the Glitch to be able to act again.
Zero Kiryu "I never got the impression that you were really running from people in that way." Zero replies to George, dully. Which is to say, he didn't think they were killing people to avoid the authorities or anything like that.

Advancing into the jungle has a problem. Notwithstanding that it is simply larger than the Large Man, it is in fact indistinguishable from marching directly into Zero's hands. Despite making a show of 'dying' on a regular basis, he's not /actually/ as physically frail or as 'weak' as he used to be. Relative to Yuuki, he is the bodily "heavy" that the giant is to his group, right down to being proportionately slower.

So when the hammerblow descends, Zero simply punches up to meet it with his right fist. Simultaneously, the foliage compresses and collapses in a twist, spiraling up around the pair and closing on them like a colossal flytrap snapping shut. The subsequent shower of blows are prevented by the increased pressure of the environment escalating from merely 'being in the way' to 'proactively directing full force onto a single point', with that single point being the giant.

The hammer collides with Zero's fist with a thunderous noise, more like a pair of hammers striking one another than a hammer colliding with flesh and bone and muscle. Zero draws back, seemingly a step-- and disappears, relocating himself to the edge of the foliage that the giant had started at.

He flexes the fingers on his right hand experimentally, the movement stiff and wooden, his knuckles bloodied and the flesh of the arm overall reddened and enflamed uncomfortably from the impact. Unlike usual though, it didn't just explode into a shower of gore and bone fragments.

Yuuki, He thinks towards her, close your fist. Twist it when you strike.
Starbound Flotilla     Moonfin staggers, bleeding prodigiously but satisfied ith his work. Unfortunately, he has to make sure he doesn't take a shot like that a second time. He has to make the most of it here. He turns hard, planting his katana in the earth enough to keep himself upright, and strikes the rapier lodged in him from the side with a heavy palm, intent on jarring the fencer's hand so hard it's difficult to block what comes next from his allies. "You passion is grand, but do not question the sharp focus of a Hylotl!"

    He immediately eats shit from an arrow in the opposite side. "HRRK!"

    Pavo's ripped-up wings bring her into close range. She keeps up though. When the bow is used to block, she forces the engagement to remain closed. "This is a land for gods!" She shouts, practically spitting fire out of her beak with her tone. "Don't you fuck with me, shade!" With one hand she keeps her scimitar ready on the attack. With the other, she starts firing her grappling hook repeatedly, trying to keep ahold of the archer and keep her from moving too much while Albert keeps up the bombarding! He just has to endure more arrows in his sides...

    "Oh, cool. Cool, cool. VERY GOOD. I love having to fistfight a fucking glacier. This is my favorite." George rambles, as his trench is annihilated. He tries another. No dice. He tries /physically shoving the man back/ with a dedicated effort, like a man trying to push a boulder. There's just nothin' doing here. "Alright, we're takin' the quick route!" He leaps fast, grabbing onto Biteblade's hand as she pulls him up. Both brandish mining beams atop the man-tank's back and just start trying to dig through the nape of the neck in a dedicated, focused way.

    Seft, poor Seft, is a pretty good knight. Rather great, in fact. But she's no match for an ancient figure of legend. She can barely keep that blade from knocking the shield off her arm. She can barely keep that blade from knocking her arm clean off! SMASH, SMASH, SMASH! Armor crumples, as do many chunks of the tower shield. She doesn't have the rock's skill over there. Still, she struggles to stand. The phantom probably can't hear or understand her, so she speaks to herself. "*Bzzzzzt* Determined. Focus. Focus, focus. Please! *Bzzzt!!* Come on, come on! They've got their hands full, they're counting on you!! Don't let them down! Don't be a failure! Stay standing! Stay..." She's trembling badly, but matches each of those strikes with a heavy swing of her tower shield to force the man to face her rather than flood the arena with more fire.
Yuuki Kuran Eryl, like a member of the Yakuza in a bowling alley, adds an incredible backspin on his powerful heave, making the impossible possible and hitting the 7-10 split without striking Yuuki with the immense pillar.

"Oh, don't worry! Really, it was my fault for rushing over here!" Yuuki calls back, waving as she's covered with snakemen gore.

"And don't worry - this isn't my blood!" She squeegie's giblets from her cheek and tugs at a coil of studded whip around her left arm and waist, her outerwear carved into like a dinner-bird or paper snowflake. "So annoying. Ah, Raziel!" She tries to join him, but the gate he phased through stymies her efforts to simply jam her head and shoulders through like a cat judging a hole by its whiskers. "Good work! You've skipped all the fighting to just finish the job. That's a good instinct. But it means..."

She sighs. "I have to watch Rapp."

MEANWHILE,
There's an eyeless black wolf-shape that skulks about Zero's forest, lurking after Rapp and the Goonzmas.

Mentally, she just returns to Zero with a long 'ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' that requires no intake of breath to continue until she is satisfied Zero understands her dissatisfaction. Any second now!

Aaaany second.
Priscilla     The fight with the classically clad, superhumanly strong, magically equipped knight, is a hard stand-off. He has the advantage in terms of offensive and defensive stats, as well as exemplary skill and powerful gear. He isn't quite as heavy nor does he possess the same agility or raw strength as the others, making for a kind of all-rounder, which is perfectly versatile in facing multiple foes. He shifts his grip again and raises his arm to block the overhead blow from Tomoe, his elbow joint stiff and almost unresponsive from the heat seared into his phantom flesh, but managing to absorb the impact. His sword arm sweeps around in a masterful counterstrike, aimed at Tomoe's sword side rather than her shield.

    But he can't drive it in too far before Seft smashes him grievously off-balance with her own shield, and while he briefly staggers, Eryl slides right under him and fires a railgun slug at almost point blank into the gap in the plating that is necessary for a shoulder to be able to work. Glittering phantom 'blood' shoots up from above, the knight's sword arm trembling and sagging. He shucks his shield completely, tossing the blade to his other hand -- though that arm itself is still wounded -- so he can shift and plunge the tip into Eryl as he passes, but the knight loses his ability to defend himself from further assault in the process.

    he walking mountain, of course, keeps going. Though this phantom seems to lack some of the 'spark' of the living man, likely still locked in combat with the more ancient, full-blooded dragonslayer, being more single minded and straightforward, halting him is a herculean effort in of itself. It's only when the vines fully constrict around him from every direction that he finally slows. Because Zero shifted behind him, the plodding tank has to turn too -- and he does it, with the slow, grinding screech of metal thorns scraping against incredibly thick stone. Degree by degree. Inch by inch.

    He stomps a foot forward. He gains six inches. He stomps again, dragging the vines. Another six. His arms flex at the vines from inside, pitting his strength against the crushing entanglement. It'll take him a lot of work to break out. The thorns, as thorns are, slide until they find the tiny gaps in his armour, and lock there, as they are unable to simply slide back out, piercing through flesh beneath, so that phantom glitter seeps from between the vines as he moves, showing no sense of pain to the barbed injuries. George and Biteblade simultaneously blasting his back with mining beams finds the stone armour utterly intractable; it might as well be indestructible. When they slither up and down enough though, they hit the thick chains lashing the helmet to the rest, and sparks fly as it slowly disintegrates, loosening the helmet from its sturdy, fixed position.

    The fireballs from Guzma's Pokemon detonate against the armour, smoking away in dramatic shounen clouds that indicate 'no effect'. When Golisipod slams against him however, for a temporally convoluted sort of round two, the enemy is finally ground to a near-halt; not staggered or unstead, but only able to push up an inch at a time with each step. Semi-immobilized by the vines, Golisipod can work its claws into the little gaps now held still, and possibly tear the helmet free, slicing the phantom inside, until he starts pressing against the Pokemon so hard that he is using the thorns as a *weapon*, stabbing the Pokemon with them as much as they stab him.
Priscilla     The archer is now being thoroughly overwhelmed. She's stuck dodging the combined fire of all of Flint's men, having to dodge, roll, sprint, duck, and take cover in the ruined pillars and rubble. No doubt this one is used to fighting at range, against other archers, and mages, but this is a bit much. Garbodour melts her cover at a highly inopportune time, exposing her to a trio of bullets just before Zubat lands and bites the crook of her shoulder. An extremely nasty punch is aimed at the little bat, before she strings several arrows coated in dark resin, firing them into the poison Pokemon, where they then furiously blaze with seemingly inextinguishable fire.

    Pavo's grappling hook finally catches her. Chained up, she struggles against it with the least strength of the enemy squad. Albert's rocket launcher hits right at her feet as she does her best to jump away from it, spraying her with shrapnel and a spew of phantom blood, sending her tumbling over the ground. Successive bullets from Flint's men hit her over and over again, leaving her in a position to be finished by a coup de grace from Pavo or Raziel -- or both -- if she isn't just eventually killed by the barrage of fire.

    When it happens, her form slumps still against the stones, and then she shimmers and dissolves into motes of yellowish light, letting Pavo's grappling hook fall limp against the ground. What doesn't disappear, however, are those arrows fired a while ago. After well enough time to be forgotten, the projectiles come raining back down, at terminal velocity. All eleven of them land precisely where they need to be, without a straight shot. Two for Pavo, three for Zero, one for Yuuki, two for Raziel, two for Guzma, and two for Flint's men. An act of tremendously calculated skill and spite, having anticipated, somehow, where the battle would be twenty seconds from when she'd shot. It's a good thing those are her last.

    The man with the rapier is stuck in a bad position. Moonfin's sacrifice ensures that the next pistol shot hits him, and to a fighter using a rapier, footwork is *everything*. He stumbles from the bleeding wound, his lack of real armour making the minie ball a perfectly adequate use of wounding force. He wrenches the rapier free of Moonfin, and swirls it about to cut clean through Silver's crutch and prosthetic leg, and then Flint's abdomen, in a swirling S cut, but he can't defend himself from every side now. His offense against Seifer's guard is weak.
Seifer Almasy      Every strike the rapier-wielding ancient tries to pull on Seifer is one that just doesn't get through. Seifer's attacks seamlessly switch to defense the instant it looks like something vital's about to get hit - tendon strikes turn into scrapes at the last instant, the cut across the forehead turns into a light scrape. Blood in the eyes isn't a real problem for Seifer as long as he has Hyperion; he lets that go a little deeper than he might otherwise, parrying it only when it threatens to become more than superficial. The rapierman thinks he has a good sense of Seifer's skill, but it's pretty hard to get anything *like* a good sense of Seifer's skill - Seifer's skill is what Seifer wants to show you.

     So it's when the man goes for the cut across Silver's crutch that Seifer shows exactly how stupid good he actually is.

     Hyperion surges forward into the S-Cut. It dances on the end of Seifer's palm, ungrasped, unheld. It's a ludicrous action, a thing that should absolutely get the weapon knocked out of his lack of a grip. The weapon connects with the rapier and tips upwards.

     Seifer taps the trigger.

     The gunblade still isn't in his hand. It still hasn't come back into his grip.

     There's no resistance to the S-Cut at all, until the very instant Hyperion touches the blade and the trigger is tapped. All at once, the blade is hit with the full kickback of a weapon unheld, the full recoil of a gun unrestrained.

     Seifer lunges forward. There is no pause. The butt of Hyperion comes down as Seifer pulls the trigger again, forcing the rapier backwards and Hyperion forwards, forcing the rapier to grind against Hyperion's blade as the heavier gunblade forces it backwards. Seifer takes control of the S-Curve slash and turns it directly back into his opponent's face, turning the rapier back against its owner as Hyperion surges forward into the disruption Silver left.
Guzma Golisopod and Salandit's two-turn strike doesn't work exactly as planned, but Golisopod rips into the armor, and then moves to tear the helmet free. As it does so, the thorns stab into it, causing it to groan in pain loudly, but it keeps fighting. It's tough - allowing it to struggle against the wounds and keep fighting.

As this is happening, Zubat is punched away, causing it to skree and hit the floor before trying to fly back up, while Garbodor is ignited with horrible magical flames. The smell around it is /noxious/, as Zipp returns it to the pokeball as the archer goes down, hoping that will help diminish the flames, or at least, keep Garbodor from burning to death - the Burn condition is likely still afflicted on it, though.

The two arrows come down. Guzma is too busy focusing on Golisopod, when he finally hears them. "No-!"

He can't move fast enough. But someone else can.

Tupp tackles Guzma, taking both arrows to the leg. His scream is bloodcurdling, as they go straight through the bone due to velocity, crippling him. He hadn't taken the bloodfruit, so he's knocked to the ground, wounded. "B-boss, you okay?!" He manages to force out through the gritted teeth and pain.

Guzma's pissed. Rapp and Zipp quickly run to Tupp's side, trying to help him, while Guzma commands Golisopod. "End him." A vector for his anger, as Golisopod moves to take its giant claws and slice into the foe's face, trying to end the fight.
Raziel "Forgive me, director.  I figured the sooner we get through this, the better for everyone involved including her..." he starts to say, though his eyes were still looking out for the Archer.  Though he notices that she had her own problem, the range of his looking around caused him to catch the sight of the arrows falling towards him, but a third...

Raziel did not even have time to think.  Working on instinct he dove for Yuuki.  His body phasing to release his physical form again.  As he moves the first arrow hits him across the right arm.  He can feel it hang down uselessly across his body as he twists.  The second arrow hits the same arm as he moves to phase through the wall.

The one meant for Yuuki smacks square into his back smashing him down into the ground as he slides.  There is a struggle to force his body back into the material world.  Blue 'blood' leaking now from his various wounds as he struggles to rise, and fails.  

'I absolutely hated archers like this.'
Eryl Fairfax     The knight does the smartest thing they can. Ditch the shield, swap the sword to the other hand, and keep fighting. But the speed at which they do this is inhuman. So fast that they're already plunging it towards him mid-slide. Eryl's arms reach behind his head, hid fingers sinking into the ground deep enough to leave grooves to immediately halt his forward momentum. And on the strength of his fingertips and wrists alone, he levers his whole body upwards into a handstand.

    It's not quite enough to avoid the stab. He received a cut along his back and butt for his troubles, but it beats getting impaled to the ground. And in this position, he can try to end this whole fight. Original Face hums in his head, for in this position, he can't actually see the night. Calculating positions and angles of the head, body, and sword arm.

    CALULATIONS COMPLETE
    ENGAGE "TRIANGLE CHOKE."


    Eryl's body coils like a spring, bunching his whole form down before launching itself at the knight. One leg slips under the arm clutching the sword while the other loops around their neck. Both Ery's hands seize the knight's arm at the wrist and elbow, seizing control of them as he clamps down like a locking, putting all his augmented weight on the knight to carry, pinning his neck between his own shoulder and Eryl's leg.

    The triangle choke is one of the most dangerous grapples to employ. Holding it for too long can cause brain damage due to blood loss, and doing it too tight can damage the neck. But in this situation, against a summoned phantom, Eryl has no cause to worry about lethality. "Finish him!" he shouts at Seft and Tomoe.
Captain Flint      The pirates, prone behind their crude barricade, are unprepared for the arrows which find them. Turk catches one in the shoulder, Billy in the hand. Turk, effectively out of the fight, screams something about needing Howell, whoever that is. Billy, still fighting but forced to resort to his pistol, essentially tells him to suck it up. Apparently, Howell isn't here. The others busy themselves with getting the incapacitated man free of the line of fire, buying the phantoms a moment's peace from their fusillade.

     At the other end of the battle, Silver and Flint are both spared further injury by Seifer's last-minute intervention. Both men take just a brief moment to glance at each other, as if confirming it truly happened. It did. They capitalize on it. Flint rushes to the left. He swings his saber with all of the strength he can muster, aiming for the back of the fencer's calf.

     As soon as Seifer is clear, Silver springs forward on his crutch and recklessly drop kicks, hoping to add just enough force, following the blast from Hyperion, to knock the fencer on his back, at the cost of being on his own back whether his attack succeeds or not. It's risky, but if the fencer can survive that blast, these two don't intend to give him time for a counter-attack.
Zero Kiryu Zero isn't inclined to go get in that guy's face again. They might be similarly built, but there's no need to risk beyond necessity. Besides which, that armor seems every bit as tough as he is. He wonders whether or not that extends to all means of attack. With a faint gesture from his numb right hand, he prompts his jungle to begin exuding a cloud of powder. It's avoiding his allies, but those who are fighting in melee are likely to get a whiff or two along the way if they're not exceedingly careful.

Getting dosed with it in passing offers a bit of a give-no-shits attitude. Getting another and focus begins to slip. A full round of the stuff inhaled in the manner that it is being clouded around the Mountain -- via the very vines trying to hold him at bay -- can make a person deliriously pleased with their situation, whatever that happens to be.

Somebody could be chewing their arm off and they wouldn't be bothered in the slightest.

Other than this however, Zero just... stays put. He's perfectly comfortable with Heavy Knight being so focused on getting at him that he only passively fights against the others... and the possibility that it'll get him hammered again.

Meanwhile, Zero responds to Yuuki's mental ugggggggggggggggh with a "wordless" psychic poke.
Tomoe This fighter is no joke, Tomoe is aware at this point they are in a standoff, she does get her foe's attention as he intercepts her attack but it's clear she has done some kind of damage to follow up on Seft's last attack.

Tomoe is caught in such a way, the Phantom's strike score a hit, it's not blood even though there is the sound of blade on armour. Her foe has scored a hit. There's a jagged red wireframe wound at the impact side and Tomoe's felt that one.

Seft's action gives Tomoe time to recover a bit. Rather charge in she starts chanting in Norse. She's got an opening even as Eryl lends her and Seft a hand with their foe, she appreciates it. Thanks to this she can finish her chanting without interruption.

sending several bolts of lightning from her fingertips right for the sword using phantom.

"SEFT NOW!"

Tomoe hopes that the Glitch has something up her sleeve that can help finish the fight after she says she will move in trying to make several more strikes with her blade.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki is apologized to by Raziel. "What? Oh! No no! It's good! I'm praising you, don't apologize!" She frets. Her fretting expression deepens in the moment that she understands that she is once again under attack, and that Raziel is leaping for her. Distantly, her attention seperates.

Stupid. So stupid! How could she be so terribly stupid. This pain is of her causing. "No don-" Squelch. Crumple. Sigh.

Yuuki crouches next to Raziel, impaled by 'her' arrow, and offers her hand to the emaciated knight. "Up, up. If you move to my defense, Raziel, please don't leave yourself in such a sorry state afterwards. I'll be fine." She smiles her sad smile and helps the knight up, de-impaling him if necessary.

DISTANTLY:
The black wolf-shape that had been lurking near Rapp's flak moves to defend the Goonzmas and -- it's not at all necessary. They aren't attacked.

BACK TO SAD SMILES:
Yuuki makes a face. "I suppose I'm the useless one today."

Yuuki is psychically poked. She returns the wordless impression with windmill flailing, because Zero is being a big stupid jerkface and deserves it.
Starbound Flotilla     Shield's gone. Seft hoists her own. Tomoe and Eryl call for a finisher! So she flings it to one side, and grips her axe with two hands tightly. Here comes a big overhead battle-axe chop with some of the last of Seft's remaining stability! A proper EXECUTIONER'S STRIKE, meant to cleave through much of the neck!

    "This is getting exactly jack shit done. Why are we doing this? This is stupid." He slams a crowbar under the helmet. "C'moooon! Show me that faaaaace!" Thank god, now the helmet is going! Biteblade just keeps on stabbing at the head area over and over with her knives now, while George rolls out some grappling hook wire and tries to slip it past the helmet and garrott the mountain to death. Max that endurance when you can't breathe, buddy!

    The gang has finished off the archer. Pavo looks quite proud of herself, coming to a prideful stop and sneering at the dissolving archer. "There you go. Teach you to start getting blasphemous in the land of thAAARGH!" She squawks in pain as an arrow slams into almost the inside of one shoulder, and she barely manages to avoid another piercing her. "BASTARD!!" She practically collapses from the sudden wound! Albert rushes to pick her up and get some first aid on her.

    Blade's yanked out of the wound. Moonfin stumbles forward with a quick spurt of blood his armor desperately tries to staunch. He slams to one knee, but tries to hold onto the rapier with a gauntlet. Never be afraid to physically manhandle a sword. Any true duelist knows these things aren't lightsabers. And every fraction of a second will count for letting Seifer finish this guy off.
Priscilla     The rapier-wielding phantom is slashed through the back of his hindered leg, losing his ability to stand and listing side to side as he struggles to keep his balance in battle on just one foot. The drop kick lands on him and forces the phantom to a kneel. The gilded rapier jerks in his hand at the trigger blast, slamming its basket hilt against the upper surface of his grip, pushing his leverage out of alignment. As the S cut drops to its last curve, having to jerk free of Moonfin's grip, the blade bends and flips backwards with its lask clash with Hyperion, gracefully, pirouetting from its owner's hand, spinning three times over through the air, and stabbing clean through his throat.

    The phantom raises a hand, pulls it free, drags himself to standing with all of his weight on one leg, gushing gleaming phantom blood from his neck, takes one more swing, and then falls down dead, disintegrating like a mirage.

    The knight battling Tomoe, Seft, and Eryl all together is equally beleaguered, hindered by several severe injuries and in the middle of a triangle of foes he hasn't quite put down yet. A triangle of limbs, too, as Eryl springs up to catch his sword arm and the base of his neck on one side around his gorget, right in the instant he's stunned by blasts of lightning. Wrestling against Eryl, he strains his ventilated arm to grasp the misericorde at his belt, then plunge it into the cyborg, and a moment later Seft's axe hacks straight into, and through him. He drops with a clatter of articulated plate ungracefully hitting the ground, similarly dissolving into nothing.

    The final fighter is soldiering through a tremendous amount of punishment. Biteblade's daggers hacking into him, George literally strangling him with wire, the thorns working into his body, and then Golisipod using its heavy arms and thick claws to slam him back and forth across the face, the helmet jerked out of position and claws starting to hack into his neck. He must be heaving in those spores through the helmet's dark grille. He even relinquishes the wyvern-tooth club and greatshield, pinned to his body, to finally work his arms into a near-cross position, serenely ignoring the mounting injuries

    There's that sound of rushing air. White mist drawn out of the aether. A swell of power. Divine force explodes out from him, finally blasting him free of his entanglement, and striking all those unfortunate to be near to him. He moves his hands as his arms are freed, shaping the explosion in and forward, channeling a projectile of immense, kinetic force straight into Zero; a column of power only visible by its white corona that tears through the flagstones by its proximity.

    He catches his brutal hammer as it falls, leaving the greatshield behind so he can grip it with two hands, and just keeps advancing, swinging left and right and overhead, blowing up the ground where it lands, like the strike of artillery shells, scraping it around and over again to commit to a relentless barrage of attacks, almost as dangerous for the shrapnel and shockwaves of its two handed power. He keeps swinging and swinging, helmet askew, body covered in bleeding wounds, throat slashed, tireless, fearless, heedless, until he starts shimmering away. Dissolving. Dissipating. The phantom of the man 'dies' standing up, disintegrating in mid-swing.
Priscilla
    In the eventual quiet after the battle, it finally becomes noticeable that the crashing and booming from the tower has also finished. A few seconds after the group is done, the gold-clad form of Ornstein breaks down the door and walks out. His armour is actually battered and dented, a little bit of blood seeping through the gaps in his finger guards, but he strides forward with confidence.

    In that quiet, you can also hear the tolling of the bell again. Rather, you could hear it all throughout, but the pressing danger of the situation would have been a prime focus to tune it out. The clouds have continued to roil and shift with the cacophonous song of the thunder and the bell together, finally taking on their ultimate shape as the last clang of the bell fades into nothing.

    The thunderhead splits straight down the middle. Its dark, rumbling mass rises towers on each side, revealing a slender, straight path through the flickering monolith. A path only wide enough for one person to walk. That path is no journey of solid stone; not off the side of the mountain. All that supports an aspirant over a ten mile drop is the stuff of the storm itself. The ground is part of the thunderhead. A flat and level pathway of slowly flowing cumulonimbus, unsteady to the eye, but resolute and solid to a brave, unhesitating step; however a tentative test finds one's foot starting to sink into it like mud, shortly to be electrocuted.
Raziel Raziel accepts the hand up to his feet.  Weakened by the assault, and impaled several times over at this point.  An arrow being yanked out of him causes more of that blue 'blood' to splat on the ground.  Raziel takes time to start removing arrows.  Concern that any more damage might make him too weak to sustain a physical form.  

Raziel is thankful for the aid of removing arrows.  "It is fine, Director.  I can not die, remember?  At least, not easily.  Besides, it is a knight's job to serve, and protect their allies."

"Also, useless?  Did you not just aid in the destruction of their backline?  While also apparently keeping an eye on Rapp?  Just because nothing happened does not mean you are useless," a pause, "I am not good at inspirational speeches, I'm afraid."
Seifer Almasy      The last swing actually catches him off-guard.

     Mostly because it's just so *improbable*. It's clumsy, heaving. But it's so...*unlikely*, so *ludicrous*, that someone impaled through the throat could still muster that level of strength. He'd never encountered phantoms before, after all, and while he's very *good* at adapting to that kind of situation, you *sort of just can't expect something like that*. You'd expect at least a little time for him to regenerate or something!

     The rapier catches Seifer in the stomach. It cuts into some of the bandages. A mostly-healed stomach scar is split back open; a blue-and-white belly shirt is torn. Bloody bandages flutter to the ground.

     "Dangit."

     Hyperion disappears into Seifer's coat as his arm comes back down around his stomach. Blood spills over his coat. "Dangit," he repeats irritably, squeezing down.

     "Dangit."

     Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy! Stupid and clumsy. Should've expected something like that. Be better next time, Almasy.

     The bells keep ringing. The world splits. The path gives way to clouds and storm, to dangerous, electrocutive nimbus.

     "Well," Seifer reasons aloud, "Whole place is a temple to find...I dunno, dragon buddhism? Dragon nirvana? Dragonspace?" Dragonspace. "Figures that flying is an integral part of that, right?"

     That is the dumbest rationale ever for just walking forward onto the path, but hey, Seifer is nothing if not occasionally suicidally brave for thin-ass justifications.
Guzma Golisopod catches a whiff of the spores, at first just feeling without a care, then losing focus, and then, once his attacks are no longer useful, getting recalled to his ball by Guzma, who isn't in melee range, before he becomes too drugged up.

As the knight goes down, Guzma growls, and moves to Tupp. "Looks like our path can only support one of him. Zipp, you're on the good stuff, mind carrying him in case we get ambushed?" Zipp nods with a yo, picks up Tupp carefully, and they set off.

A path of lightning. Guzma knows not to give it a cautious test and lose his ground. He just has to swallow his nerve. But as the others start travelling - as Seifer does it, Guzma takes the first step, and then the next, and then is walking. Zipp follows after carrying the injured Tupp, with Rapp at the end, the most cautious. Before Rapp goes, though, she speaks to Yuuki.

"Yo! Thanks for believing in everybody. It...really helps."

And then off they go down the lightning path.
Captain Flint      Silver is on his back. His sword is still in one hand, but it's all he has to defend himself. Be brings it up, but even gravely wounded, his foe is a cut above his ability to manage. The saber is knocked out of his grasp. Flint can't get around to him in time, and he's forced to roll to one side to protect his vitals. Even so, the cut is deep, carved across his back like the lash of a whip.

     "Can you stand?" Flint asks.

     "I'm going to," says Silver, firmly. It doesn't matter if he can or not.

     Flint nods, retrieving Silver's sword while the quartermaster forces himself to his feet, using the crutch to gradually pull himself up. It's a slow process, and a shaky one, but he eventually manages, stuffing the crutch under his arm just in time to steady himself and accept his sabre from the captain. The two of them wait for the rest of the crew.

     There are injuries, but no more deaths. Even so, the men are hesitant to cross the solidified stuff of storm until Flint leads by example. He and Silver stride across it, each drawing from a different, but equally deep wellspring of will. Silver's crutch finds purchase on the storm. That seems to eliminate any further doubt. Billy takes up after Silver, and the rest follow quietly.

     "Thanks for the help, Seifer," says Silver, a sheen of sweat trickling down his face as he makes his way.

     "Yes," says Flint. "Bloodied as you are, you were still impressive. I'll not deny the spirit's command of his weapon was superior to my own--your assistance is greatly appreciated."
Eryl Fairfax     One downside of the triangle choke is that the user also has little room to defend themselves.

    As lightning flows into the knight, so too does it flow into Eryl. He shudders, the smell of cooking flesh rising as it flows along his metal limbs into his flesh torso. And then, to make matters worse, the knight's other arm is still functional enough to draw a knife and plunge it into Eryl. He twists his body as best he can within the grapple so it slips into the gap between his right lung and liver, rather than anything vital, but blood oozes all the same.

    Thankfully, Seft is here to land the finishing blow. Eryl uncoils his legs as the instant before her axe blade meets his neck to avoid more damage and drops to the floor as the knight dissolves. This means the knife also disappears, unplugging the fresh stab wound.

    "Oh damn it all," Eryl grouses, sitting up and ripping a length of cloth from his cloak. Balling it up, he presses it into the wound without making a sound so as to help plug it once more. Everyone else seems to have wrapped up also. He pokes his head down that stairwell to make sure Ornstein hasn't been defeated by the stone knight, and then makes his way over to the storm path.

    Eryl doesn't hesitate in the least. He maintains a steady, quick stride the whole way. Head high, perfectly balanced.
Tomoe The Knight finally goes down from the combined effort against them and Tomoe watches the fallen form until it dissolves into nothing. Only then is she willing and able to move on she nods to both Seft and Eryl for a moment before she makes ready to fall in with everyone else once the battle has finished up. Soon everyone's linking back up and Sir Ornstein links back up as well.

Tomoe pauses at the bell tolling again and will switch out weapons her damaged shield and her sword vanish into her inventory. In their place, she summons her Naginata and will keep moving for the moment. She has no idea what's going to happen next as she presses onwards she will do her best to keep from sinking and moving at a good pace, but not so much she'd interfere with anyone else she may very well end up getting zapped several times along the way as she moves after those who are braving the path.
Zero Kiryu It's a good thing that he /did/ keep the attention on himself, because there's only one other person here that Zero is /certain/ is suited to enduring it. Which isn't necessarily saying much, because he doesn't perfectly know the defensive capabilities of all assmebled. As the foliage entangling the colossal knight is blasted away, Zero begins to re-seed his terrain advantage underfoot. It's not to pull anyone back down into his grasp, but simply to give himself an out in case he needs it. Vines creep out along the edges of the plateau, slowly beginning to grow down-- out of the way.

But in reaction to the kinetic force aimed at him, Zero summons up a mass of plants in layers. A series of colossal, rather carnivorous-looking flowers with brilliant petals and vicious fangs come into being in front of him. Six of them appear, each larger and more dense than the other.

But each of them is blown away, dangerously colorful petals scattering into the surroundings as the vampire /behind/ them raises a hand to meet the blast of kinetic force. Even blunted by having to travel through several sequential masses of plant life, the kinetic force immediately degloves Zero's arm from hand to shoulder in a gruesome spray of dermal tissue.

Bare muscle begins to fray away a moment later, the bone underneath straining audibly under the strain. For a moment or two it looks as if the limb might simply be worn away-- and then the blast of force reaches the end of its potential, and Zero is left standing with a stripped-down arm.

Muscle re-knits and bones mend before the skin grows back, leaving a rather raw-looking but servicable limb behind.

Yuuki's mental roughhousing is met with a light, less-than-equal push back, centered on her mindscape self's head. It isn't forceful, but it is persistent.

You're doing fine. Zero's voice comes, a moment later.

Meanwhile, he withdraws most of his foliage from the surroundings, except a few brambles he's going to use as a quick-travel node. A single plant remains however-- a shrub, that relocates itself near Tupp and Rapp, sprouting a pair of pomegranates.
Guzma As Zero offers- no, kinda basically demands them the fruit, Rapp is still cautious, but Tupp gestures, asking for help getting it in his mouth. As he eats it, the arrow starts having trouble, and he gestures for Zipp to just pull it out. After a 'are you sure, yo?', they just rip it out, he screams again, and then the bone and skin starts to meld back together. He's able to walk the way himself, though he's dizzy for a little bit as he gets used to what the fuck jsut happened.

Finally, Rapp sighs. "I'll give it a try." And then, she takes the fruit, and eats it.

She doesn't feel much different at first. But...she can't be letting the group down, can she?
Yuuki Kuran This, and not the arrows or the bladed whips or the fire, is what hurts Yuuki. This, and not the ancient wyvern.

This, and not any wound of strength or sword or sorcery.

"No. No no no. This is not how we will walk across. This is not how we will be forced across." Yuuki insists, first to Raziel's insistence, and wincingly, to Rapp's.

"It's not a death march...." The blood. Silver's blood, Tupp's, the flvors and fluids of the Flotilla, Seifer's wellspring and hints of Eryl's. Intimately familiar with it in the way that she is not and cannot be with the serpents'.

"Captain Flint, if you need to see your men back to safety, I can lead them out. I can promise:" Her eyes are intense. "There won't be any problems returning them."

Tupp, Zipp, and Rapp get a long, sullen look, but Zero beats her to the punch of Just Carrying That Dumb Boi Off.

"It's not acceptable to value yourselves this little." She repeats, her eyes flicking up to Zero before following the fruit. She winces as the fruit is bit into, inhaling sharply. It's attention-consuming, that fruit, being so close to it.

<<<Tac-Concord> 4 Guzma | Rapp says, after cautiously eating the fruit, with genuine tone, "Thank you for sharing your power, yo.">>

Yuuki looks away, keeping pace with Flint's crew as they walk down the narrow path. "You can all love yourselves enough to ask for help. There's nothing wrong with saying yes. No good to be gained by lacking things you need."
Starbound Flotilla     "Fuuuuuuuck!!" George shouts as he's blasted back in a crumpled heap. He barely scrambles to his feet before getting slammed again, tossed against a wall with enough force to crack it. "HHHHHHRRRRGH! Spine!!" He wheezes, before thudding to the ground. Biteblade keeps rushing, trying to provoke more swings, constantly getting slammed back. She's still full of regenerative power after her meal.

    "Come on!! OOF! Floran isss here! GHHHNK! Keep going! HURK! Floran isss gonna eat you either way!!" And then the ragged, battered, bruised Floran gets to see him die on his feet. As adrenaline fades, she falls to her knees, panting and wheezing. Albert is the one who helps get her sorted out with a quick stimulant injection, and she starts going to try to help George out. Albert himself needs to help out Seft.

    "Pained. Nnnnh... He... he managed to burn me so much, and..." Albert's yanking parts out of her and replacing them as fast as he can. Gotta get her in working order fast. Biteblade manages to get things figured out fast enough to offer some medical aid to Eryl, just a quick spray of medical foam to clot the wounds. The same goes for Flint's men, in particular. Something to prevent infections and suchlike. It smells like a wild forest.

    Pavo, bloodied and beaten, is the first of the Flotilla to step over the clouds. Her ego drives her to bravery. "Are the rest of you coming or not?" She challenges the remainder odf the Flotilla, who are much more used to solid construction. "You think there's anything, any kind of /heavens/ that I can't walk on? That /you/ can't walk on? There never was, never will be. Stop being a bunch of mortal pussies and get some self-esteem."

    "Annoyed. Please, please tell me this is the last and only challenge that will validate this delusional nonsense." Seft says as she trudges. Her self-doubt leaves the whole walk a mucky-feeling one.
Captain Flint      "Please do," says Flint to Yuuki. It isn't clear why he's taken her up on that. Billy and Turk seem confused, but grateful, both for her offer and for Flint's... perhaps it isn't concern for them, but consideration might be a fitting word. Silver elects to stay with Flint.

     Flint is stone-faced as he traverses the narrow path. He's close enough to have heard Yuuki's response to Rapp. Silver, likewise, has heard it. The only thing stopping either of them from admonishing the other for refusing to accept help is the presence of the rest of the party.
Priscilla     Walking that path in single file is a surreal experience. Being inside a raging storm, sculpted into the shape of a victory road, thundering all about them, yet permitting solemn passage in its tremendous shadow where one is barely able to see ahead, save for the strobing flickers of white lightning, is like nothing else. It's a strangely long road, taking those who walk it an uncomfortable distance, far over the rearmost side of the mountain, and out into the sky itself, before they finally arrive at one last piece of solid ground.

    A short, serpentine section of cloven stone, splintered off from the mountain by some incomprehensible, focused force, to the point that its base vanishes into the mists far below. A last bit of winding pathway, dotted with the crumbling remains of pillars and flagstones, curving back and forth all the way up to a single, primitive stone slab, set horizontally across the end, like a table, or perhaps a coffin. Seated in front of it is a single petrified form in lotus meditation.

    A draconic worshiper; one who must be as tall as Ornstein, were he or she to stand. Not quite emaciated -- Wiry muscle. Fingers and toes are claws. A short tail of armoured segments. The skeleton of wings, drawn around itself. Straight and swept horns. Its eyes are closed, rather than blankly open, as if sleeping, though once again, there are no readable life signs, and it doesn't respond in the slightest to any provocation.

    There is a different sense about this one though. Petrified it may be, but one can't help but feel that there is something special about it. Something that may eventually happen. Walking past, to see the being's front, one can notice what appear to be cracks spread across its chest, as if damaged, but they twinkle gold, in the way of a distinctly Eastern ar. The practice of putting something broken back together again, in a way that emphasizes its destruction and renewal as an intrinsic, permanent part of an object's history, rather than mere undesirable damage. Something contiguous. Something transformative.

    Ornstein, upon seeing it, makes a sound that can only be a slow dawning of dim and half-forgotten understanding. Repeating a line from the distant past, he murmurs loud enough to hear "But here there will only be one."

    Then, the last of the clouds clear at the end of the journey. The sun streams in, bright, pale, and hot. You can see well out into the mountains now. Hundreds of miles all round. An endless sea of impossibly tall, snow-capped peaks. They aren't worth paying attention to; only the mountain directly across -- a straight, orthogonal line from the stone table -- is something to behold.

    It is a mountain, the same size as the one you're on. The temple was not built there, however, because it is occupied. At first glance, the mountain seems strangely misshapen, as if something had grown out of it. It takes a few moments for the brain to fully comprehend the true form of what it's seeing.
Priscilla     A dragon -- not a wyvern, not a drake, not a lizard; a dragon -- is prone against the side of the mountain, its claws dug into the mountainside so deep that it has permanently anchored itself there. The sheer enormity of it defies comprehension. Its neck curls around the peak, leaving its head resting on the near side, a horn piercing straight through the mountainside, and yet its tail pools around the mountain's base, coiling halfway around its whole circumference. Its wings -- all four of them -- are draped over both sides of the mountain, almost blanketing it completely. Deep trenches of snow have piled up between the suggestion of bare vertebrae along its back over countless centuries, though examination reveals much of it to be a form of grey-white fur between its shoulders and running down its spine. Its partially opened jaws reveal a strange and nearly grotesquely alien set of second jaws within. A row of three eyes on one side are still open, staring at this exact spot without pupils.

    Its proportions -- its barrel chest, with an underside of interlocked 'ribs', its powerfully muscled, slightly too long forelegs, its raised, rather than side-affixed, shoulder blades and pelvic alignment -- all speak to something that was never quite a terrestrial, four-legged reptile, but something very, very distantly resembling some primeval beginning or root of humanoid form; it looks as if it would push itself from the mountainside at any moment, and be equally likely to walk towards you on two legs as it would on four. It'd be able to peer right over the edge of where you stand, too, if it weren't most assuredly dead.

    The sheer sight of it is viscerally whelming. Transcendental. There can be no thought whatsoever that 'this was once a living creature'. It is an entire part of the world. A geographic feature. A titan. Something older than the mountains it lies silent and still against. Yet, there is the uncanny, even chilling sense that it somehow isn't quite dead *enough* to feel comfortable gazing upon it. There is no zen here. No peace. Only the raw, instinctual recognition of absolute, primordial power.

    This is, unquestionably, the reason this place is called Archdragon peak. Not the *pursuit* of dragonhood, in some mystical sense. It is a plain and primitive old-style name referring to its defining feature: a peak from which one can behold an Archdragon. The final enlightenment that one would need to, maybe, truly become *that*.

    There is only one tangible thing to take away from here, and that is the faded surface of the stone table, engraved with old, nearly disappeared runes; an inscription forgotten by all who live, and probably unreadable to anyone but a vanishingly rare expert on the oldest script in Lordran. Ornstein leans over it. One might get the sense he's frowning inside that regally plumed helmet. He vaguely bids someone take a rubbing or picture of it, but he pieces together just enough to slowly read:

    "--Midir, for his immortality, shall eat the Dark at the end of the world for all eternity."
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl's perfectly combed and styled hair stands on end as he strides into the storm. It is a path of thorns taken to the extreme. One foot placed wrong, and you plummet. Shift your weight a little too far, and be touched directly by the lightning. But move too slowly, and you begin to sink. The final trial for one seeking to attain perfection, ascendency.

    And yet, Eryl's feet maintain that perfect pace, even as he unplugs that wound and fills it with the medspray donated by Seft. The scrap of cloth thrown into the storm, burning to ashes from the lightning and creating the scent of cooked blood.

    They reach the slab of stone, and Eryl immediately goes to inspect the petrified ardent. The golden cracks upon its chest, and the sense of power and import flowing from it makes his face split into a light smile. Placing his hand over his heart, he bows to the figure. "Congratulations," he says. Whether or not it can hear him doesn't matter. It deserves to be said.

    The clouds part, and an uninterrupted view of the surrounding skyline is offered. Eryl looks out, and it takes even Original Face a moment to parse what he is seeing. "Archdragon Peak," he says aloud, the plain and obvious meaning slapping him across the face like a wet fish. Original Face notes the anatomy, unusual for a quadruped, and draws the conclusion that this dragon was most likely bipedal, a theory that Eryl says aloud. "Something of this size standing up on its hindlegs would blot the sky," he adds. There's only a bare tremble in his voice as he points that out.

    Now he turns away, both to examine the tablet, and to not have to look at such a transcendent form anymore. If he had some time, he could probably decipher the tablet. But thankfully, Ornstein removes the need. Eryl walks around the tablet slowly, Original Face taking high-quality screenshots straight from his vision. Eryl takes a blank USB from his pocket and plugs it into himself behind his ear before offering it to the dragonslayer. "Here, pictures. I suggest Anor Londo's scholars begin scouring for any mention of this Midir, and where they were last seen."
Tomoe Walking the path us up there on Tomoe's list of very surreal experiences the storm, its very shape and how it's all be set up to let them make their way forward. She takes hide o this place as she keeps moving. She does not halt as the draconic worshiper but she does take heed of it.

Tomoe presumes it's not going to be an issue it doesn't hump them and she keeps moving ahead.

The mountains soon come into stark view. It is quite an impressive sight to behold as she moves. Another thing she won't be able to forget so long as she lives.

They reach the peak sometime after that and her eyes tart around as she takes in the strange mountain. Just what is that? Wait, is that? It finally clicks.

"That's no mountain that's a dragon."

Not in the sense of the beasts that prowl her now partially digital world or like those of other worlds she has known. This is something more something primal something almost from outside to better put it. She beholds the things as Sir Ornstein takes a rubbing of the stone's writing.

"This ... is not like what I expected...I won't be able to forget this."

It also seems they have gained some very useful information as well it seems.
Captain Flint      The crew of the Walrus are silent. One reaches greedily towards the veins of gold in the statue. Silver raps his knuckles with the guard of his saber, shaking his head wordlessly. Their captain's eyes drift from the platform to the mountain across. That in itself is breathtaking--the word that people always seem to use when they spot some marvel of nature. He takes a moment to appreciate its majesty. They all do.

     But upon seeing the Archdragon, Flint is moved. Moved by its size and majesty, by the way it made use of the very mountains themselves as a small animal would a pile of leaves. Moved by dead eyes which once were aflame with all the passion and fury of life. By visions of this great and terrible creature standing upon two legs. He speaks, after a long silence.

     "Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

     His men look askance at him--they know he's a lover of books, but he has /never/ just up and recited poetry before.

     "In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, what art, could twist the sinews of they heart? And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand, and what dread feet? What the hammer? What, the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?" He smiles, in spite of himself.

     The men seem to hang upon his words, waiting for the next verse. Realizing this, he offers one more.

     "When the stars threw down their spears, and watered Heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did He that made the Lamb make thee?"

     In order to understand innocence and beauty, one must also understand ferocity and predation. In seeing something so old, doubtless so deadly in life, they have seen something beautiful, in its own primal, ferocious way.
Guzma As Yuuki pleads to the trio, the words hit their ears and they listen, but they don't say anything - mulling over it, trying to think of words but none coming out. Yuuki doesn't want to hear an apology, so they don't know what she wants to hear. As they reach the peak, they head over to the edge, looking at the massive archdragon with awe, and quietly watch it.

Guzma, also with awe, looks at it briefly, before watching them. His eyes go down to Tupp's formerly injured leg.

They're good kids. He has to work hard for them - they're basically the only family he has.
Starbound Flotilla     Transcendental. Pavo drinks it in. She looks straight at the sun and doesn't blink. Her grin is wide over her crooked beak. Her arms spread wide. "Feel that. Feel it all. Drink it in until you're drowning. Drown until you're dead. That," She points dramatically to it. "Is the kind of reason I came here. Nothin' about gods, nothin' about humans, just a whole lot about /power/." Despite nearly getting skewered on arrows, she's filled with a perverse excitement.

    "It carries itself as if it contained an entire instance of nature itself. Remarkable. But we are not here for this world within a dragon, are we? We are here more for business left unfinished in its shadow." While Eryl takes photos, Moonfin works in a more delicate archeological way, taking a more familiar rubbing. His tools are fine nanotech carbon devices, but the mechanics are familiar and the motions are the same as ever.

    "Curious. Do you think anyone managed to achieve any kind of success here? Maybe the one you were going to finish your business with?" Seft tilts her head, striding forward and keeping her eyes locked on the dragon. Partially because of what it is, and how that fits into the myths of her people. But mostly, truly, because the feeling reminds her more of the vast Glitch Hivemind. A truly unnerving feeling that links with the foundations of her thought.
Yuuki Kuran The view is marvellous, because it is a marvel. The pain and suffering and experience of the trip, while distressing, is weighed against the truth at the peak. Where no further challenges present themselves, all Yuuki has is a guilty 'well, I suppose'. It makes the fortitude everyone showed worth it. They were not presented with further hardship, as before, but with a reward.

With that guilty face, Yuuki asides to the whole of the group. "I suppose expecting another threat or four would be a little much. And I was the one who spoke of Lordran's beauty, to be so distracted by the danger..."

She pumps both fists close to her chest. "I'll have to be better too."

She glances to Zero, and then back out at the immortal addition to the landscape. "Do you think mountains dream?"