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Vergil     The Last Second tower is a nightmare.

    The ever-present ticking, of different timbres, tones, and timing, is enough to drive anyone mad. Add to that the hiss of many different kinds of sand passing through many different kinds of glass, and then everything chiming on the hour, and you have a percussive hell.

    And what's worse is, when those chimes begin, it all reverts. Gears turn back, cogs whir in reverse, sand rushes up the glass instead of down. This happens reliably every 10 minutes, on the dot. Whatever the Order of the Last Second did, it's causing havoc on the natural flow of time. This is pretty serious.

    Not that you'd know it from the company you're keeping.

    "Would you look at that..." Tony Redgrave murmurs as he peers into an hourglass, watching what looks like fine volcanic sand flow up. But on closer inspection, one might realise he is simply admiring his own slightly warped reflection in the curved glass. Thankfully, the gloved hand of his brother reaches out to yank him by the collar. "Focus brother. Something as this can only be the work of an elder demon. I dare name only one..."

    Vergil's casual scornface looks somewhat frayed today. As if he's aware of what they might come face to face with, here in the inner sanctum. A great pair of doors that only open at a specific time. At least, they would, if that had not been struck open from within. And inside...

    A man is on the floor, his blood still slowly drifting through the air in response to a great weight being forcefully slammed on them. Another flies through the air, a wound slowly opening in his chest and out his back. A woman, trapped in the process of being smeared against a wall. And amongst all the death, a titanic horse.

    Its body is covered not in fur, but in thick black scales. Blue flames dance across its hooves, and stream from it's mane, casting the room in an unnatural light. A crown of twisting, curling horns raises from its head as it regards you all with pitiless blue eyes. "The inevitable intruders," it says, its words hollow, echoing and distant, like this creature is preoccupied as it speaks with you. "State what you are going to state."
Hesinca "This ever-present ticking, the bell sounds, the motion and the noise..."

"... And the reversals... it's all just so discordant, so chaotic... it could just *torment* a soul, wouldn't you think? Drive someone mad, crazy, to just utter insanity not just of the mind but to their very being."

"I like it, is what I'm trying to say," says Hesinca. "This place is gonna get a good review on Trap Advisor. Five pentagram review, good chaos, *excellent* theming. No screaming or moaning of the damned, though - maybe just four and a half pentagrams."

Along with her are a small squadron of prinnies, carrying cameras, selfie sticks, folding maps, or picnic baskets. One is, for whatever reason, wearing a hawaiian print shirt of a shade of red that simply does not match with anything (including the blood).

"Do you think the tower chimes any songs at the top of the hour, dood?" asks one of the prinnies. "Like little melodies or happy little tunes or bits of-"

"Chimes any songs - what, are you an idiot?" demands Hesinca, turning sharply to face towards the questioning prinny.

"Chimes a song at the top of the hour - listen to yourself. You get this guy? That's the most idiotic, stupid, asinine thing I've ever heard. It obviously isn't going to chime a song - look around, do you think this is the sort of place that can chime a happy little tune?"

The offending prinny, sweating as he's put on the spot, takes a careful look around. "Um... no, dood?"

"And why is it not going to chime a happy little tune?" Hesinca demands, in the tone of a teacher trying to ferret out the answer from a recalcitrant pupil.

The prinny, still dripping oversized liquid pearls of sweat, takes a look at the machinery, the architecture, the party members, the corpses being smashed or flung about, the titanic demon horse, and then Hesinca again.

"It... won't chime a happy little tune... because... um... it's stuck in time and broken, so it won't ever reach the top of the hour, dood?"

"EXACTLY!" roars Hesinca. "So - hey! You!"

She turns and heads in towards the inner sanctum, striding forward with Big Karen Energy towards the titanic horse, her cloud of minions trailing along behind her like a wake following a boat. "You, whatever your face is! Just so you're aware, this place is broken, and you should go fix it! Chop chop! Time's money, and these corpses aren't getting any fresher!"

She pauses, looking at one of them. "Or maybe they are - with the time bullshit going on, I don't know. But still! Fix it." She snaps her fingers at him.
Cantio Upon entering the tower, Cantio's attention is immediately divided. There's the situation at hand to focus on, to be sure, but there's also other things to inspect. Equipment and tools to try and discern what happened in the first place, the chiming and the strange phenomena surrounding the time loop itself, the various corpses in mid-distress... It's morbid, to be sure, but there's a lot to take in, and with Tony busy looking at his own reflection, she finds herself all too ready to agree with Vergil.

"You've seen this before, then? Who...?" Cantio starts, but trails off while desperately avoiding making eye contact with Hesinca at her impromptu review of the place. Her reaction to her Prinnies draws a curious look momentarily, but thatdies rather quickly once the centaur speaks to the horned demon demanding the group's words.

The apprehension is rather obvious on Cantio's face as she tries to find the 'right' way to respond. "I'm here to investigate this distorted time situation. If you're looking into this as well, perhaps we could work together." So far, so good. She actually sounds confident as she speaks! "If you're responsible for this, however, then I respectfully ask that you stop. And, if possible, explain how you were able to control the sun in such a way."

Strangely enough, she sounds more curious as she keeps going. "Did you develop a method to reverse the flow of time entirely, or is it localized to only this region and the sun? Being able to control a star'ds or planet's movement without any visibly catastrophic side-effects could work wonders for developing societies if it can be harnessed! Just think about what it could do for agriculture or energy generation...!"
Lilian Rook     Considering there is not only *one* demonic jackass who Lilian doesn't get along with, but *two* today, responding to the exact same thing in a matter and manner that means she has to cooperate with them, however briefly, has her in an unusual kind of peak bad mood. A very special kind. One she can't afford to wear on her sleeve, because by some bastard cosmic arrangement of problems, there is something simultaneously more important than them here, and which she can't and won't explain.

    Albeit, the second one of the two hasn't tried to kill her previously, and she doesn't have any plans to try and murder the second she can get away with it without Tony knowing. This Tony. Not the other, different Tony she knows and keeps secrets from. The mental comparison is a little unfair to both sides. Oh and also 'the purple one' as far as she's bothered memorize.

    Given the last few times she'd helped Tony Redgrave with literally, Lilian has skipped all the previous steps and arrived in heavier demon-hunting gear, the summary of this place having set off more than enough alarm bells to come strapped. "People attempting to describe it hasn't done it justice." is her take, ostensibly meant in earnest, and thus very much at odds with her casual, almost comfortable immersion into the perfectly, exactly orderly chaos. "The issue is whether that means we have exactly ten minutes to deal with it. Until we know, don't dally."

    Very much unlike the other times she'd gone demon hunting alongside Tony, however, Lilian favours the new batch of dead bodies that tend to be involved with a thinly strained grimace. A charitable soul might believe that the state of being stuck in the moment of death, grotesquely stretched out, is more upsetting to her than previous sights of charnel blood sacrifices and the like. It's definitely weirder. "And weirder means more of a problem." She mutters out the other half of the thought.

    The demon horse talks. Lilian remembers a certain past experience with a demon goat thing instead. "Okay." she replies.

    "I know how your kind works. Submit or I will force you to in a befittingly violent manner."
Vergil     Vergil looks to Cantio and shakes his head. "Not for myself. Only tales my father told me." Tony immediately scoffs and looks away. "He told me of a rare race of demons who had control over time itself, and of their progenitor, the Geryon Queen. They secret themselves away from most other demons, having been hunted to near extinction for their power. A fool cult such as this must have wanted their power for their own."

    When they arrive in the inner sanctum, Vergil hisses "I knew it," and clasps Yamato in anticipation. The elder horse looks at Hesinca dispassionately. "I'll fix nothing. These people voided their contract with me. Their eternally stretched moment of death is now mine by right." Next, it looks to Cantio and laughs. It's not a fun thing, seeing a horse laugh. "What a refreshing change. Someone attempting to steal my clan's secrets simply by asking, instead of pulling the knowledge from our meat and bones. However, the answer will elude you regardless." That means she's not telling.

    Lilian is not here to talk with the scary horse. She issues her challenge, and is backed up by Tony. "Trust us, we can do violence. Right Verge?" The blue-clad brother steps up but says nothing. The horse laughs again. "I'm sure you can, Son of Sparda." Tony tenses in response to this title. "Truthfully, I do not like to fight. My kind is too precious to risk absolute annihilation through combat. But your father spirited away one of my kin. Perhaps I will have some semblance of peace by destroying his children in kind."

    It raises itself on two legs for a moment, a great corona of blue flame washing from its horns. The realisation comes; they are not flames, but torn, ripped, shredded moments of time. As it washes over all present, a vision is granted to them. Of another Geryon Queen, standing upright. And themselves, lying prone on the floor.

    And then it is all whisked away, leaving all stranded in a realm of blue. Shadows of the room they stood in are cast and whisked away as light struggles sluggishly to move through this realm. "You stand now in what humans call Planck time, the smallest measurement. You saw a glimpse of how this fight ends. Ready yourselves, or surrender. It all ends the same."

    And then a stampede of Geryon Queen's rush the group, horns lowered and menacing.
Hesinca "Eternity - yeah, right. You don't do eternity. You torture them for just as long as they deserve it, maybe a bit more on the top just to be sure, then you move on. I mean - what, you don't get bored? Watching the same handful of humans getting snuffed the same way over and over again?"

"It's like putting reruns on loop, dood," offers one of the prinnies.

"Okay, so enough goofing around, I gotta get serious about this," she says. "Aside from being brought here by the Color Coordination Twins over there to help get this fixed," the demon centaur points at Tony and Vergil, "I gotta take issue as an agent of the afterlife-"

"Agent of *an* afterlife, dood," one of the prinnies corrects.

"An independent contractor of Transact Purgatorio, dood, to be specific," adds another prinny.

"Also you lob off most of the afterlife work onto other people to go play grenade golf, dood, so I don't know why you're getting all this worked up," adds a third prinny.

"... Ahem," says Hesinca. "As an independent contractor of an afterlife in specific but in support and solidarity of the natural process of life and death IN GENERAL..."

She glares at her minions. There aren't any interjections or corrections this time.

"... I'm gonna have to make you give those souls up, let them pass on. You can find some new humans to mess with, there's *lots*."

Regardless, a fight breaks out. Hesinca pounds her fist into her palm as her prinnies close up ranks around her, brandishing selfie sticks with intent to take more than photographs and leave more than footprints.

"You say we're in Planck Time? Well I have no idea who the heaven Planck is, but you're about to be in Hesinca Space. I command the very ground beneath your feet and the ley lines within it!"

She rears up onto her hind legs...

                                 "GEO CHANGE!"                                  

... and stomps down hard on the ground, narrowly missing crushing one of her minions. And as her hooves impact, the ground seems to ripple, spreading out around her in a blocky spiral pattern - and in the wake of the spiral ripple, parts of the ground glow different colors, marking areas of different effects.

Immediately surrounding Hesinca and the group are clusters of blue panels on the floor, where those standing simply feel more powerful - able to attack a little faster, shoot a little straighter, hit a little harder. And then a bit further out there's red panels placed strategically, emanating a strong no entry aura, cutting off points of the onrushing horde's path and funneling them into killboxes!

"Be honored that you get to see this before you perish!" calls Hesinca from the epicenter. "I had to beat up a *ton* of old people to get these powers!"
Lilian Rook     Lilian glances at Tony, Extremely Meaningfully. She does not have the situational wherewithal to get into the number of times he'd blown her off over exactly that. There is something much more pressing, and she still won't say what it is.

    "That's a shame, since you've picked one anyways." she says, about fighting. "If not by the usual disgusting line about 'contracts' so common to your type, by the sin of daring think that any of this is yours."

    She unlimbers a shotgun that is a bit too big for her, being built like a small, high-tech cannon, for men larger than she, but seems to have no reluctance about racking the charging handle with the appropriately menacing chack-chack and the sound of a flywheel. "I'm not standing for a lecture about physics from a magical hell horse. Time isn't a secret, and it doesn't belong to you." She's gotten actually, tetchily angry, somehow. "For the theft of gold, I shall have thy hand. For the theft of kin, I shall have thy head. For the theft of hours, I shall have thy gold. For the theft of the hands, I shall have thy kin." Whatever that means.

    Lilian all of a sudden shifts seamlessly to an adjacent blue panel in he same motion of shouldering and firing, racking off half a dozen thunder blasts in the short time between the Geryon Queen charging and the red panels getting in her way. The close quarters makes for an ideal range, and the irony of the term 'buckshot' is currently lost on her for lightening herself by two pounds of tungsten, suddenly tossing the weapon to the side rather than reload it. A pair of machine pistols are snapped up from her thigh hardpoints, screaming electric blue fire as she leaps back and back from one blue panel to the next, weaving around the red until they click dry, then she spins and double fastball pitches them right at the Geryon's head, in a manner that is one fifth blunt trauma and four fifths pure spite.

    Given the way she's moving, it may be to intentionally attract the demon's aggression, and force it to chase her through the geopanel maze, where it can't accelerate to a full charge. "Your kind should have been absolutely annihilated the moment you were born." she says. "Hell is too gentle a place for your degenerate bloodline."
Cantio The Geryon Queen and the... Geryon? That name will have to stick around in Cantio mind as a name to remember while dealing with this strange horse demon. The laughter forces an uncomfortable shuffling of Cantio's feet as she tries her damndest not to look too intimidated by the implications of what it says in response to herself. "Is there a kind of demon that can draw knowledge purely from flesh and bone? That's..."

She's not doing a very good job at hiding that discomfort. There's a momentary flinch as Lilian issues her challenge to the Geryon Queen (especially when she displays that previously unseen anger), and her anxious shuffling only worsens as Tony and Vergil display their own willingness to battle. "I don't like fighting unles it's necessary, either, but since that seems to be the only way to stop this..."

The air in front of her shimmers with pixelated notes as she reaches forward, pulling out a (relatively) giant translucent purple sword. Bracing it in front of herself as the demon raises itself, she narrows her eyes from behind her weapon as she sees that vision, then glances around rapidly at the new surroundings coming forth.

"We won't fall for your tricks, Geryon Queen! If the only way to stop this is to take you down, then so be it!" She vaults over the first wave of the stampede and kicks off one of the lead chargers to get some extra air, rolling into a safer position behind Hesinca's red panels. Holding the sword by the handguard sideways like some kind of rifle, she slaps two fingers to her ear.

"Take the shot now!" As if on cue, the sounds of multiple voices followed by volleys of deafening gunshots come from each side of the Geryon Queen. No actual shots come forth, however, as it turns out to be a diversion from Cantio's actual gambit: Shooting a series of lasers at the Geryon Queen's stampede to try and thin their numbers out!
Vergil     "All that violence, and where did it get you?" Geryon Queen asks Hesinca, its many bodies speaking in eerie unison as they crash through the killzones she has established. "A middle-manager, directing damned human souls, crushed between the incompetence of your underlings, and the expectations of those superior to you. The smallest girl in her family, trying desperately to seem big."

    Lilian's shotgun blasts and machine pistol rounds pepper the stampede, who now seem to be 'clipping' into one another to maintain cohesion even as they run through narrow chokepoints. Wounds that open on some appear on others instantly, betraying the truth of it; these are not 'multiple' Geryon Queens. They are all the same one, at different points in time, running together.

    "Takes one of a degenerate bloodline to speak of them," all but two Geryon say, those who remain quiet having caught the tossed guns in their mouth and are now crunching on them. "I can smell it, thick in your veins, the stench of those you so thoroughly hate."

    Lasers char through the horse's scales, but it only laughs at Cantio. "Don't like fighting? Or simply don't like making your own decisions? The terror of things going wrong looms over you at all times. Allow me to reassure you; you have absolutely made the wrong decision here."

    Its words are drowned out by the staccato of gunfire comong from Tony. Two large handguns in black and white fire in sequence, seemingly never emptying. "I think I like demons more when they just threaten to eat my bones. All this 'analysis' stuff is kinda trite." Vergil only sniffs as his hand keeps blurring over his sheathed katana, causing whirlwinds of blue cuts to appear within the horde.

    "Enough." The stampede reaches the end of the chokepoint, and promptly disappears, each one stepping into the next part of the loop. The one that remains bears all the wounds inflicted previously, but it stands proud and whips its head around, causing a blue bubble to erupt from it.

    And all those caught in it freeze. Time, even in this small instant of time, creaks to a halt. They can feel very individual air molecule press against them as they try to move. Geryon Queen canters within the slowed time, unaffected, and almost lazily begins lashing out. A back kick aimed at Cantio, a front one at Lilian. It pivots and launches a full back kick at Tony and Vergil both, before rushing Hesinca and her team of Prinnies to gore them all with its horns and launch them in the air behind them.

    And then the bubble collapses
Hesinca Time stops.

The prinnies just get gored straight through like the disposable cloth golems they are.

Hesinca, though, is tougher. Piercing horns don't find purchase easily, and when they do they don't get in as far, and even hitting anything 'vital' doesn't seem to have done much damage. There's blood, certainly, but...not as much.

Time resumes.

Hesinca staggers a bit, but stands upright, even as the prinnies either die or explode or both all over the place.

"So you can read my past or whatever - big deal," says the demon. "I'm clearly not bothered!" she adds, while being clearly very bothered.

"Call me the runt of the litter all you want, I'm still big enough to TEAR YOU APART!"

There's no artistry to it. No fancy tricks.

Hesinca is well past all of that now. All she tries to do now is simply chase after the Geryon Queen, grab it, and start punching and kicking and biting whatever part is within reach!

"I'LL SHOW YOU RUNT OF THE LITTER! CALL ME LITTLE TREMOR ONE MORE TIME!"
Cantio Cantio's expression darkens as the horse hits a little too close to home, her past choices haunting her more than the immediate situation. Even with Tony's comment dulling some of the impact, it still isn't quite enough to reassure her completely. What if this really is an unwinnable battle? What if defeating this demon only results in this loop becoming permanent, or the group being stuck here for all eternity? What would happen if-

Perhaps mercifully, the Geryon Queen stops her train of thought before it can become even more distracting. It certainly snaps her back into reality quickly enough, although there's a moment of panic as she realizes that actually moving in the stopped time is nigh impossible. The best she can do, then, is brace, and figure out what to do after the fact.

The kicks catches her square in the gut, and she goes tumbling head over heels several times as she feels something popping out of place from the impact. She lays in place for several moments just gasping for breath, the wind and voice knocked right out of her. It takes a great deal of effort just to muster up enough strength to get up, but Cantio finds her footing once again as she uses her sword to push herself right back up.

"You're... Right." She mutters at first, coughing and nearly buckling over from the pain shooting through her again. She stops herself, however, by stomping forward, then holding her hand out as magical energy starts gathering in her palm. "You're right, Mister Redgrave... An analysis like this won't change anything. If we're going to stop this loop, then... Then who cares what it says?!"

She's feeling her backbone returning, coincidentally, as she starts slams that gathered energy into her chest and surrounds herself in light. "Either we bring the Queen down here, or nobody gets saved. That should... Make the choice pretty easy, shouldn't it? " The light fades as Cantio transforms into her pinker-and-whiter form complete with wings and plastic-y attire, launching herself upwards while pixelated light continues trailing from her wounds. Her flight arcs downwards quickly afterwards, aimed right for the Geryon Queen as she starts zipping around it rapidly, slicing and slashing in time with Hesinca's strikes and bites to try cutting off its potential escape routes.
Vergil     Hesinca lunges at the Geryon Queen, using the advantage that hands with opposable thumbs bring to grab on to the horse and just viciously pummel it. It bucks and struggles to get out of her grasp as several more Geryon manifest around her, aiming kicks at her head and legs. Every wound she inflicts on the one in hands appears on them also, but they chant "Little Tremor, Little Tremor," regardless.

    Cantio rushes in, whirling about the grappled Geryon, opening up more wounds and keeping it from slipping free. It laughs at her too. "The moment someone else says something, you throw your lot in with their words. Is that any way for a leader to act? And from a fool of a half-demon no less."

    Tony immediately leaps upon Geryon's back and says, "Hey now, this 'fool' is in the saddle now, so watch your mouth!")] He then uses that massive, demonic claymore as a riding crop. Vergil on the other hand slips beneath the horse and starts slashing at its legs while dodging its stomps by inches.

    "ENOUGH!"

    Blue light spills from the horse and
inverts suddenly, the world pitching a nauseating fit. When it ends, everyone is now at the opposite end of the room, behind Hesinca's red tiles while Geryon Queen stands on the blue tiles. Blue light pools into its horns as it begins to prepare for something.

    "I will sever the continuity of your seconds, and scatter your moments to the void!"
Hesinca "So what if Thesia got the cushy prestigous government job and Haidatea has a whole shopping mall in her pocket netherworld and Basica managed to be a famous serial killer - I'm still accomplishing stuff!" yells Hesinca, who probably needs therapy.

"I'm not a little tremor!" repeats Hesinca as she continues fighting. "I'm not! I'm not I'm not I'M NOT!"

She's so caught up in her temper tantrum that she almost misses the world changing. "I'm not- what-"

"Hey! That's not fair! You can't use my own geo panels against me!"

Fairness isn't going to get much for her right now, though, and this isn't a good spot - stuck behind the red panel barriers, with the Geryon Queen preparing to cast something. Reshaping the geo panels isn't guaranteed to work - it's easier to do on a blank field than one already populated - and trying to get there on hoof is iffy since by the time she maneuvers around everything, there might not be enough time left to stop whatever is being planned.

So what can reach in time and stop the casting?

"Oh, words," says Hesinca to herself, and then starts gathering forth her power.

Hesinca, the runt of the Disastre family or no, is of noble bloodline. And the Netherworld, being strange in many ways, treats titles and nobility differently than what could be expected - titles are not descriptive, they are *perscriptive*. Powerful demons do not become Demon Lords - Demon Lords become powerful demons. (Well okay yes powerful demons do become Demon Lords, but that's beside the point.)

Noble blood pumps through Hesinca Disastre's hearts, and it is that Nobility that she brings forth to bear, planting all four hooves on the ground and letting her will and resolve build up to a fever pitch within her before drawing a deep breath and letting all of the tension, the will and resolve, and the Authority out all at once-

"STOP THAT!" she yells, at the Geryon Queen, at the top of her lungs.
Cantio Once again, the Geryon Queen stabs Cantio right where it hurts while the latter  struggles not to let those words sink in no matter how true they are. "What do you know about any of us? The moment we arrived here, you started with the psychoanalysis as though...  Acting as though you're any better!"

It's hard to hide the fact that she's touched a nerve, and Cantio's swings even become more wild despite the wounds slowing her down, swinging up until the light inverts the room, and even then she barely manages to stop herself from slashing that sword into the ground. Turning around, she hears the Geryon Queen shouting once more, and she takes note of the red tiles that had once been shields for the group.

"You're the only one who's going to run out of time here!" Cantio snaps back as she takes to the skies again, sparing only a moment to glance at her allies to see if her attempt at a quip lands at all. Either way that goes, her destination is above the Geryon Queen this time, just a little bit in front of it where can avoid ramming right into the NO ENTRY zone.

"A true leader doesn't let pride stop them from listening. They don't just push everything onto someone else, either! Or try to sound smart instead of getting any real work done!" Frustration and determination can be heard in her voice in equal amounts as she fires another volley of light blasts at the horse demon, her sword glows brighter as she draws closer to the Geryone Queen until the entire edge of the blade turns a blinding purple. Should she get above the Geryon Queen, Cantio tosses the sword downwards before diving after it, catching the weapon in mid-throw and aiming to cleave right through that glowing horn!
Lilian Rook     "Why the hell does Redgrave even bother with these things?" Lilian all but curses, pulling a submachine gun from the small of her back, squaring it against the crook of her shoulder and tearing a straight line of buzzsaw fire through the line, to little noticeable effect. She throws it skidding across the floor as well, finally reaching for the hilt of cold magnetite over her shoulder. "What's the plan, Tony? I'll--"

    Lilian is made unable to finish by the freeze that washes over her. Unable to finish talking and unable to finish drawing her sword. But that hardly feels like the problem to her, even whilst the demon queen trots nonchalantly over to her. What she has to be thankful for is that, like this, she can't be sick. The urge might have been too overwhelming otherwise.

    Lilian is well-versed in the practicalities, of course, but *this* is something the madness of the lunatic clocks couldn't inflict on her in a million years. This isn't stopped time. It's a cold, claustrophobic nightmare made manifest. Air and light made so unwholesome that it takes everything she has to bear them touching her for a few moments longer. The passage of one second to another made sick and hostile, made to feel as if even her own body has abandoned her in its loyalty. An unforgivable, twisted perversion of everything that had ever made sense, derived from some deep childhood night terror. Something that she silently reassures herself that she will never go through ever, ever again, while counting seconds in her head, rationalizing that, given everything she's seen so far about the calibre, portfolio, and attitude of this demon, she can guess its limitations by the way it moves and positions itself. Just a couple more seconds. Don't give it away. Don't show it. Just a little more. The Geryon Queen gets all the way to her, rears back, kicks, the hooves--

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian turns her upper body slightly, pulls her arm down and braces her left arm against it from inside.
                -----[start]-----

    --connect, sending her flying out of the bubble of frozen time and crashing into the wall behind her, physically bouncing from the construction, then limply from the floor, before regaining a controlled sideways roll, pivoting onto her knees and finally unsheathing the black from her back with a hissing, glassy ring. The suit on her right arm is punctured in two places and faintly smeared with blood. One can see the black tattoos that crawl across her skin through it. The bright red light from within her eyes. The 'stench' of long dead unseelie cowed in fear by something much worse.

    "Putrid scum. For that violation, I will sever your skull from your spewing neck instead."

    Lilian whirls the sword about and plants it three inches deep into the floor. The point sinks into the Geryon's shadow, thoughtfully created by its own glow, and lengthened by its own blueshifting of space. The red tile sympathetically cracks, then bleeds, then sputters and dies.

    "Now, disappear. With the rest of your wretched kind."

                -----[stop]-----
Lilian Rook     Lilian takes three deep breaths, letting the tranquility of what truly belongs to her pass in and through and out. She wrenches the sword from the split floor without effort. An analytical look runs the circuit of blue geopanels amidst the red --or rather, the red amidst the blue-- and up to the demon she loathes more than anything else in the world, at this moment. The moment which is hers.

    Where the Queen sedately and confidently cantered, Lilian runs, bloody pounding and full of fury, fingers twitching with the boiling urge for the inhuman violence that will sooth it. She travels the winding path of subverted battlefield obstructions all the way to the demonic time-steed, leaps atop its back, and balancing her heels on its forward and back shoulders, she winds back her sword almost more like a club or a machete than the refined weapon it is.

    Lilian screams, lost to the void between seconds, and swings the uncanny edge down and through the Geryon's neck, with such force as to go all the way back up to her opposite shoulder. Then swings again from the other side. And again. And again. She keeps going well beyond the point she believes should be necessary, striking over and over and over again as if trying to shred something into pieces too small for her to see. She swings it sidelong at the demon's skull as if it were an axe, several times, then flips the whole sword in her grip and strikes it with the wrought tips of the guard like a hammer, pulverizing it overhead. She flips it again, takes it up in both hands, and plunges it down, and stabs and stabs and stabs through the gaps between spine and ribs to skewer every part of the chest cavity she can reach.

    She's sweating. Her fingers are bleeding through tears in the gloves. She keeps going until her arms ache. Only when the burning complaint of her limbs makes itself too distracting, does she pause, tilting her head back and standing still to catch her breath. Feeling that scalding boil within her having receded a little, Lilian aims to make triply sure, and finally aims one surgically precise arc aimed for the atlas bone, then flicks the torrent of blood --real enough to causality for the moment to matter-- away from her blade, and turns to face the other way. Time moves forward as her first foot does.

                -----[start]-----

    Lilian is walking down the length of the Geryon's back, sword burning with twisted ribbons of red light that arc and cross what must be a hundred times through the air, like a single magical cut distorted in on itself and looped into a recursive celtic knot. Uncoincidentally, it completely encompasses and enmeshes everything above the Geryon Queen's shoulders.
Vergil     Within this single second, the seconds are counting down. Everyone begins rushing to stop this attack, whatever form it may take. Hesinca barks a command, abusing her noble blood to try and flex on this demon. But they too, are nobility, a Queen even. The power does not disperse, but the muscles in their neck strains as if something is keeping them from launching the attack.

    In this instant, Cantio crosses the barriers, and slashes at her horns. She gets deep in one, near-severing it, and causing a torrent of blue flame to issue forth, the whirling vortex overhead destabilizing. "Graaahhh! Damn you!"

    And then in that frozen moment wherein Lilian hacks at its neck, it continues to speak even as it cannot move. "I'm sure you appreciate these moments to let your true face show without anyone seeing. But I have seen it, and I know. As I said, the end of this battle is determined. You will end this day knowing someone has seen you like this." Geryon laughs as blood issues from them, their neck hanging on by sinew and thick spine as Lilian walks along it.

    "Lemme show ya what I use these for!" Tony shouts from the backline, aiming both his gund and firing. A bullet flies out, coursing with red light as it soars towards Geryon, helped along their way by Vergil striking the backs of them with his blade, causing a sudden acceleration that drives them into the other horn of the Geryon Queen.

    It screams, as the world collapses. Everyone experiences a rush of vertigo as they find themselves prone on the ground, the Geryon Queen standing there besides themselves, unharmed and whole. Also in the room is yourself, looking at you in shock before they are whisked away by the hale Geryon. The other one suddenly collapses, their horns shattering to dust.

    "Ended as it does, once again... the downside of avoiding fighting is being unable to do it when time demands it, the great horse wheezes before finding its feet. "Very well. I will release my claim on these dead humans, and this place. But before I go, understand. What I know of you is based on what I have glimpsed of your past. Now, I speak of your future."

    It looks to Hesinca. "The very basis of your livelihood will be uprooted. Death shall be as it should, the ultimate end." Next, Cantio. "You shall fight your own kin, and you will not be the upright hero in that scenario. It is unavoidable as long as you continue your chosen path." Next, Lilian, "Those niggling doubts you have will grow and grow and grow, until they consume your every waking moment. And they won't be able to prove a thing to you in a way that satisfies you."

    And finally, Tony and Vergil. "Those with Sparda's blood are destined to fight. One day, one of you shall kill the other."

    And with that, Geryon Queen vanishes. The corpses finally end their eternal death and fall to the ground. Time reasserts itself, with the daylight abruptly shifting to moonlight. The clocking finally finish their chimes.
Cantio Did they fail? That's the most likely explanation as Cantio pushes herself up slowly, grimacing at the feeling of being on the ground and seeing herself staring at... Herself?

What? There's a moment where she can't quite tell if she's looking at a mirror or an illusion, but she doesn't have enough time to process all that as the duplicate of herself disappears besides the Geryon Queen. Her mind tells her to get up and grasp her weapon, but...

The Geryon Queen's words once again hit on something particularly distressing to the ruler-in-training. "What...? How? No, that's impossible! How could I ever fight my sister?!" As disbelieving as she sounds, there's still that sense of panic and worry that Cantio doesn't even bother hiding, the doubts surfacing once more even after the Geryon Queen vanishes.

It's not until after the clocks finally chime that she looks towards her companions, still trembling slightly as the compounding existential dread starts to set in once again. "That... Had to be wrong, right? Knowing a possible future just means... We can avoid it! Miss Hesinca can work on her career options, Miss Lilian can..."

     She's actually not sure how to spin that, and she can't quite hide being interested in seeing her reaction. "... A-and it's not like anyone here would actually try to kill our family, right?" Tony and Vergil get a hopeful look in particular, but whatever their answer may be...

She's going to have some trouble sleeping tonight.