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Tamamo     An entire town, fallen. The people turned into monsters, without discrimination. And, as Cantio may be the first to discover, the poison in their barbs isn't as simple as 'being deadly.' It's a mix of parlyzing agents and bad-trip hallucinogens. It doesn't hurt too much, at least. It just makes it increasingly difficult to move, to tell where you're going, or to identify what's in front of you.

    Roxas and Xion are right about at least a couple of things. That blind turn into an alley did have another ambush, and there is definitely something under the ground. Any kind of supernatural sense can pick that up, even if the smell and rumbling hadn't been enough. Blasting away spots they can't yet see clears out more area to work in, whether because the (not particularly hardy) ambushers are beat out of them or because they start getting wise and giving the pair more space. (It's both.)

    Hibiki finds the ring box she was looking for, blowing through enemies on the way. For her, it's the tightly close quarters that present the largest challenge, making speed a must. If you're fast enough, they won't have time to hit you, though while they're not that hard to punch through, reaction time is something in which the mutated bits of the former townsfolk score very well. They don't make it easy, but she's equipped to get out again, with this small objective secured.

    Bercilak isn't far behind. Upending the place with tree and axe, and getting his opponents out of the way, brings into the edge of sight a dog-eared, string-bound book. A quick glance would reveal it to be filled with the names of clients, their requests, payments requested and received, and copious, margin-filling paragraphs of notes. More than a quick glance would reveal the writer had very strong opinions on applying modern artistic flair to traditional religious iconography, and privately questioned the vanity versus piety of some clients, though this did not seem to result in ever refusing work. In either case, his axe more than a match for the flesh of his opponents, and his grown plants are not easily susceptible to the enemy's venom. Nothing that squirms beneath comes for him.
Tamamo     It's not the villa that turns out to be the epicenter, but the market square. That's better and worse, depending, for the square is bordering the buildings half the gathered elites had run into. Repeatedly cracking stone, metallic smells, a shift in light, and now one more strangeness: warmth. Not heat, for the air is just the temperature it had been, but the warmth of thick insulation, surrounding every person, equipment included. The effect spreads like a land-encompassing curse, reaching to the circle of fire, and at least as high up in the air as Lilian is flying. The fire continues burning, though the spread of the flames slows.

    There's chatter on the radio (though the Valceans don't appear to actually use radios), with Emilian asking, "Dame Lilian, you have the vantage. What is happening?" The pyromancers are confused about something, but what happens next interrupts that conversation with, "Fire! Strike it now!"

    The rush of air as the ground breaks is at once refreshing and unpleasant. It's thick with both oxygen and complex organic smells. Possibly pollen. Immediately following that is a flowering tree that just keeps going and going, surpassing the height of the buildings. There are man-sized flowers in pinks and purples, but no leaves, and the trunk is papery white, made up like intertwining vines. It spreads as it rises it, bringing mushroom-like caps ten yards across into the air rather than a green canopy. It's not quite like the demon that Lilian saw before, but there's the same underlying sense of wrongness to it, like trying to view more than one part of it at a time is only an exercise in madness, an optical illusion that hurts the brain as well as the eyes. It moves in ways nothing real should be able, certainly nothing at that size, streteching and squishing before holding truly still, rumbling and shaking the ground.

    More things are in motion. Openings in the demonic tree-thing like eye slits begin to open, but it's other eyes that are inside. More things, waiting to come out. Fire begins falling out of the sky, not particularly well-aimed, though certainly great in power. Where it strikes, it burns, but the fire does not spread.
Lilian Rook     A tree is not exactly what Lilian had expected, grotesque and alien as it is. She could certainly imagine one of these things growing in an ominous place in some sort of convoluted hellscape, but calling it, itself, the demon, clashes somewhat against her mental imagery of what a demon is. She's seen plenty of weird monsters, of course, but 'demon' conjures to mind something comprehensibly malevolent. Tangibly and wilfully evil, or at least harmful, and allied with dark powers. This reminds her of a bioweapon. Or an alien.

    /It's safe to assume that those flying insects nest inside of it. Some kind of symbiotic relationship. That smell; is it watered with blood? How long has something of this size been growing? There must be hundreds of thousands more insects in there. There aren't any more bodies to grab, outside of our own, but that threat is completely different. It's a huge target though; our preparation for saturation tactics on a gathered enemy should still work. Still, is it suppressing the pyromancy? We can't tell if it naturally resists magic somehow./

    "The demon has broken out from underground. No doubt it was summoned under the market square. That bloody smell; I assume it's far too late for whoever it fed on to grow. Our strategy has rounded up most of its thralls, but it looks like there are many more waves of insects inside it, ready to deploy at any moment. If you can, order the pyromancers to cease aerial bombardment and instead switch to aerial saturation tactics. Exploding fireballs, incendiary clouds; whatever they have up their sleeves. Most of the bombardment isn't hitting, and we have a better chance of cutting down the main body if the area can be kept clear." She replies to Emilian. "Why has the fire slowed down? Is there something we need to know?"
Cantio With the doll safely secured in her storage portal dimension whatever thing, Cantio's free to get the hell out of there! Except for the part where she's been stabbed by those stingers. Smacking into another wall with her senses and reactions dulled, she brandishes her sword to swipe at it once before realizing that (1) it's a wall, and (2) she's poisoned by something.

It takes several more swipes just in case before she remembers that she has a solution to this. Steadying herself against that pesky wall she's still not quite sure she can trust, she murmurs a spell groggily that should help to neutralize the toxins from the monsters' barbs or at least dampen their effects in her bloodstream.

<<"How's your progress, Hibiki? Bercilak?> Were you able to get the...">> She trails off as she sees the ground cracking and bursting with life, jumping back and keeping her hold on the sword as she steadily ascends into the air to keep up with it. <<"There's another tree. A massive one, and it might be... It hurts to look at for too long.">>

The fire hurts a little less to look at, but she keeps stealing glances towards the tree to try and comprehend its shape. <<"There's something... s? Inside of it. If we're going to carpet bomb this area, then...">>

She skims through the remaining letters. Still too many to get everything, but at least she has them (somewhat) in priority order based on assumed personal value instead of economic value. <<"I'll move as quickly as can. Don't hold back on my account, though!">> And then she's off, looking for more miscellaneous and functionally useless, yet sentimentally (probably) valuable things to try and gather right up to the last moment, dangerous tree thing and raining fireballs be damned.
Roxas It wasn't a building falling that really warranted caution, as Roxas supposed. On the other hand, clearing the square was still the correct choice-- as was pre-clearing the alley on the way in. He breathes in deeply when they have a second. Since they're in a relatively confined space.

"Flowers," he warns Xion, unnecessarily. Their experience with FLOWER ENEMIES is not a pleasant one. Less unpleasant than tornadoes, however.

The odd, unreal movement of the tree and its offshoots however aren't particularly alien to Roxas. Ordinary Nobodies move like that; they're disjointed from concrete definition and can twist about in nonsensical ways. Occasionally he wonders if he could do similar, but he's fairly certain that a minimum of mental incoherency is necessary.

There are advantages to being 'less', he supposes.

Roxas's favorite trick is guard-and-counter, but when you're having fire fall out of the sky towards you, that's not AS good a trick. He rolls out of the way of the incoming flames towards the far end of the alley, only to find himself being sprung at by one of the ambushers.

This time he can guard, and does so! A semispherical field doesn't halt but seriously blunts the incoming... barb? Claw? Roxas isn't entirely certain which it is. It's enough to scratch him, which is worrisome, but not enough to land a deep wound or a heavy dose.

With a gesture of his free hand, he generates a moving wall of light columns that push out through the length of the alley, ruthlessly assailing the ambusher he's fighting and anything else that happens to drop in from this direction. Xion will need to cover the other.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants "Thire."

You received A Well-Used Journal.

    Of course, in order to be certain of what it is, one has to read it, no? The Green Knight said that he would 'bear what evil' their searching had awakened. His warped sense of time and urgency gives truth to that statement in a way he hadn't intended, when, as he pores through the journal, a stinger manages to pierce the tough fabric of the bodysuit he wears.

Unknown chemical agent detected in bloodstream.
Running nanoprogram 'Evervate Bindings...'

    The chaos outside is added to, moments later, when Bercilak crashes through the wall on the other side of the building, adding yet another hole to its structure. A few mutants not cleared out by his plants or felled by his axe cling to him like beggar weeds, joined by others still who pile on after the fact. Their stingers are able to find purchase more easily while his mind labors under hallucinagenic venom. Bellowing incoherently, he stumbles through the streets, his limbs locking up and relaxing unevenl as he slams his bulk into anything solid enough to withstand it.

    These remaining mutant insect-people are variably thrown from him by his thrashing, smashed by the flat of his axe, broken against anything strong enough to withstand his bulk being hurled at it, or violently crushed by his free hand. Being free of their stingers does not mean being free of the venom, however.

    As his nanites attempt to fight off the effects, he is nevertheless subject to them. When the demon-tree rises in the market, he stands in mute fascination, peering at its maddening shape as it's twisted and distorted even further by the venom. This results in one of those poorly-aimed blasts of fire striking him directly, sending him flying.

    When he lands beside Hibiki, hard enough to crack the surface beneath him, the venom is purged, but the plates at the back of his armor are blackened and distorted, his cloak of wild grasses and flowers burnt to a crisp.

[Local Broadband] Cantio: How's your progress, Hibiki? Bercilak?
[Local Broadband] Bercilak: Wel afin. Som babels, som tols, a cronicle.
[Local Broadband] Cantio: I'll move as quickly as can. Don't hold back on my account, though!
[Local Broadband] Bercilak: So be hit.


    "Hibiki, thou ofhered her. What shalt we do?" Always, there are tests to be made. This is one of them. Things are heating up--quite literally, with the work those pyromancers are doing. Will she stay and defend Cantio, leave with what she's found so far, or go on the offensive?
Xion Finally bidding for a bit of breathing room to pan her eyes around and extend her senses outward, Xion continues to confront the idea that there was some chance that they had left for 'too long'.

That the terrible and rancid feeling and smell entwined that rose like spiritual stink lines could have been prevented. Hadn't they been there, almost a week ago? Was their justice in that moment insufficent to stand before the incursion of monstrous evil?

She does not have to search for long, as the ground splits apart, and the rooftops oversee the growing mushroom-tops.

What rises isn't just some gore nest demon, but a massive organic structure that spores the air and canopies the sky with fire-depressing... Stuff?

There's so much wonder that Xion slips up. Thinking the encounter had broken entirely, Xion is caught considering the new terrain by one of the leaping assassins, driving sharp carapace spines across her and causing a yelp of alarm and pain from the girl before she brings Oathkeeper up in a swipe against the attack bashing the bug aside.

Bringing her freed right hand back in a beckoning sweep, she thrust forward, and through the assassin, Starlight returning towards her like a silver javelin to spear the assassin from behind.

"They really do keep coming!" She complains, squinting up at the wobblingly concrete terrain. "Do you think the demons come from a place like the World That Never Was? If there's a way inside, we should find it!" She suggests, Starlight returning to her right hand's grip as she boots away the Assassin's corpse. "I really don't like fighting these stabby-bugs. They remind me of the nobodies that remind me of you! Circle and strike. Sheesh."

Xion reverses the grip on both of her blades and plunges them into the spongy-firm ground as she drops to a kneel for a momentary cast.

The earth beneath her bubbles and breaks, before geysering down the opposite end of the alley with a magically summoned wave.
Hibiki Tachibana     The mutated townspeople were already hard enough to deal with. Both out on the narrow streets and in this space, Hibiki has constantly had to be on her toes. She never did plan to stay in here for longer than she had to...and they make it take longer than she'd like. Her reaction times aren't sloppy by any means, but she's just one person - on her way back out, moving to punch one, stingers come from behind.

    She turns on her heel, and brings her arm up. They embed themselves deep into the metal of her armor and send her stumbling backwards. The hasty defense just barely stops the stingers from reaching the flesh underneath to debiliate her, and she retaliates with a leap that puts her on the wall, a second upside onto the ceiling, which she then uses to close the distance immediately and send the one responsible flying.

    The path to the exit is fraught with even more danger (and acrobatic stunts necessary to avoid getting overwhelmed) that leaves her out of breath when she's back at the hole she made to get in...but the sight there stops her still by the time she's made it down to the ground level. Her worries and the awful /wrongness/ in the air only intensify with every second that passes, and the stifling sensation is definitely not from Bercilak's earlier mention of smothering out the creatures. And this awful smell is too much for her Symphogear or scarf to suppress. This is...wait, the fire is slowing?

    Hibiki has only a moment to process that before she has to brace herself to keepsteady as the ground rumbles and heavy wind rushes past her, her voice catching quiet in her throat and attention going up...and up, and up, and up. "What...the...?" It's not anything like she was expecting from the mention of a 'demon' - and somehow that makes it a whole lot worse. Even aside from the completely alien sight of it, whether it's simply that or something else that forces her to look away and put her free hand up to her face after a few seconds of trying to stare, she knows this isn't something that should exist here. Or anywhere.

    "This is what's responsible for what happened to everybody..." That thought helps ground her, along with the still-fresh sights of all the former villagers they had to go through to get here. Shock is replaced with more focused - by some definition - emotions, all of them aimed at the /thing/ towering above the market. <<"I found the ring. I'll...">> She radios back a hasty reply to Cantio, and holds the box tightly in one hand even while her other clenches shut. Bercilak presents a question, and she pauses for a few seconds. <<"...bring it once we're done here. Tell us right away if you need help, okay?">> Her attention goes to Bercilak, with a furrowed brow. "I trust Cantio. And the sooner we destroy this monster..." Her eyes go back up, and her expression hardens. "...the sooner this is all over. There won't be any more danger if we finish it in one shot." She says that, but it's far from just the logical aspect of it influencing her here, that's obvious.
Tamamo     Why has the fire slowed? The pyromancers respond on the same channel: "Whatever it is, it's only inside the circle." "I can only sense the outer edges, from here. Let's see..." "Feel that? As if the air is spread and far and thin, or dead and still? Even though the heat should move it! This is the corruption seeping from that side into ours."
Lilian Rook     /Well, that's better than the worst case answer, but it does present its own risk. I'd planned to use fire on it myself. It'll definitely dampen incendiaries. Unseelie fire, I'm not so sure, but it's better to not risk the magic. If the ring of fire demarcates its range, I'll pull back from it for now; I have the greatest range advantage out of the group, and the longest line of sight./

    "Understood. I don't know how fast it'll spread, so we'll prioritize hitting hard all at once. Turn your attention to whatever comes out of the tree. Saturation attacks, but aim for intensity rather than spreading them out too much; otherwise we run the risk of the fire being snuffed out before it does any real damage, and the area of effect will be totally moot."

    Lilian does exactly what she'd planned, pulling back from the affected area right away, to avoid, or at least forestall, the dread template filling the air. She leans into it, while remaining focused on her enemy, not willing to turn her back. Since she doesn't know what effect it'll have on her roughly fire-adjacent magic, and doesn't expect her ballistic armaments to be as effective as she'd like, she escalates right to the lower end of the top of her arsenal.

    White 'no colour' light, searing sungold radiance, and black 'negative light' trace hyperdetailed patterns in three different layers ahead of Lilian, forming a densely interlocked tri-circle pattern that turns slowly into itself. From it, she begins releasing a steady barrage of thin rays of energy, which spread in all directions and then sharply vector to close in on the tree-demon from many different angles. They appear only semi-solid, made up of countless, densely packed 'stars' that fizzle-pop in and out, but which shred through mass seemingly without losing any energy or momentum over penetration. Perfect to punch scores of lines all the way through.

    "Roxas! Xion! Get a cutting from the tree and bring it to me ASAP! Failing that, if one of you can throw it all the way over here, do that! The more the better!" she radios.
Tamamo     Cantio continues searching for items on the list. They're a bit harder to find the more of the place gets wrecked, buildings going down and tremors in the earth and all, but here she can find a necklace with a steel ring on it by a bedside, there she finds a white gown surrounded by bolts of fabric and half-finished dress designs, and here and there she finds a well-eaten corpse. There's little time to study and surmise the last moments of the deceased. More than that, she finds demon-scarabs buzzing in her face, bug-mutants as if waiting for her, and others waiting by windows as if waiting for a shot on someone else. The lattermost are the slowest to react, but they're all similarly interested in lethally bothering her.

    Roxas and Xion are effectively taking cover, limiting the approaches to their position, and not like to be immediately bombarded by anything but the blank-staring, stinger-wielding opponents crawling up and over the walls to reach them. The alleyways are pretty effectively covered, however, that situation won't stay stable for long. As...

    Hibiki and Bercilak face up at the tree. It's probably not really a tree, but that's the easiest way to comprehend its overall form, should one make a determined attempt despite the headache said attempt invariably causes. They're in the front row, then, as the creatures emerge from the folds of fungal-vine-stuff, each one an insectoid monstrosity with only the barest of human characteristic. Between four and ten long limbs, tending toward the size of a pony, with wicked hooks and spines, mandibles, claws and articulated stingers. Most, the ones with no more than six limbs, have gossamer wings. All of them have human eyes. These ones, notably, do turn and focus on objects of interest.

    Lilian strikes from afar. The effect continutes a ways into the circle of fire, blunting its progress, but she's able to immediately determine this by the continued presence of the insulating effect on her skin, and keep flying. Using burning energy like a cutting attack poses few issues. It's the massive size of the thing that's a larger problem, and its lack of critical reaction, like sticking pins in a marshmallow. One of the mushroom caps popped when scored a dozen times, but regrows, while shifting through rainbow colors, settling again on green.

    The swarming is immediate, the anthill disturbed. Hibiki and Bercilak are the closest, but Xion and Roxas aren't that far off. Cantio is 'protected' by walls, having other things to deal with. Lilian won't have to deal with the flying ones just yet, for her range, but the same sort of ranged attacks she'd had to avoid earlier come at her again--with some ten times the velocity, dropping back to 'maybe twice' the speed gradually upon leaving the mysterious field effect, though not in anything more than a mockery of sensical air resistance.
Roxas "I dunno! A lot of things come from places 'like' the world that never was! If I had to take a guess, they probably come from someplace a lot more rotten. A hell dimension maybe?" Roxas calls back to Xion, uncertainly. He doesn't know how demons work here. The only thing he's really sure of is that these things aren't among the Fallen, which isn't really saying much. The creatures that call themselves demons -- or that mortals call demons -- are too numerous to bother counting, too many-natured to define neatly.

Lilian asks for a cutting of the 'tree'. He glances towards Xion, shrugs, and jerks his head towards the colossus of a probably-not-precisely-a-plant.

Immediately afterwards he catches a stinger against the semispherical forward guard he favors, a tinny noise like something repeatedly striking a light metallic surface ringing around them as it finds a partial way through.

He aims a kick towards the NEW type of swarmer and tosses his Keyblade at it with a whistle, trying to gain some distance at the same time as hopefully inflicting serious damage. A grand wheel of white energy spins out from the Keyblade's tip, extending wide across the alley.

He falls back to Xion's position, summoning his Keyblade back to hand and taking up a guarding position at her side. Oh, not against what just attacked her-- Roxas seems to understand that she's about to Go And Get That Sample, and his intention is to allow her the concentration to get it done by running interference.

As soon as she goes, so does he.
Xion Committed to her water waves thrown down the other way, Xion is once more caught out by the falling assassins, their drop attacks spearing down vertically. Barely able to switch to a defensive stance at the last minute, she's driven down into the earth and stabbed to a pin.

Pushing up, Roxas takes to her side in defensive overwatch, allowing her to kip up back to her feet by a flick of her legs and a curl of the back. "Alright. Lilian wants some samples but they're way over there. I've got an idea!"

Xion claps her two keyblades together, Oathkeeper merging in with the star-capped Starlight to form a chrome-and-white twisted keyblade with a hollow shuriken-symbol X tooth. With her freed hand, she thrusts forward a steel-blue medallion bearing a smug white-haired man. "If it's something way over there that needs to be sliced, I've got just the Judgement Cut!"

A katana-like second keyblade in steen blue flares to life in her hand, the tooth an inverted crown. Crossing her blades, she slices out, and the cut hangs there.

MEANWHILE:

A crackling, swirling vortex hangs in a vertical ring, as phantom slashes first box-cut, then cross-x the surface of the mushroom-like hive tree, freeing four large chunks.

BACK IN THE ALLEY:

Xion tosses up her fused Starlight high into the air, taking Judgement Cut in her right hand and pantomiming sheathing it at her side. It issues an audible 'click' when the tops of her fists touch. Drawing the Yamato-themed keyblade across her remote portal-oculus, the distant point she cuts at has a single shining slash laid across it -- that expands in a hurricane of secondary slices, and the whole effect washes with a void-out of inventorying antilight.

OFF BY LILIAN:

A clear-black bubble of gravity magic hangs in the air like an orbiting option containing a fun-sized chunk of HIVESTUFF.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      They are waylaid by horse-sized abominations with human eyes. To fight these, he summons his own steed. In a rapid wave of blue light, the Wraith is summoned, but not quickly enough that Bercilak can hop aboard it unharried.

    A spindly, hooked limb spears through the plating on his arm, yanking him to the side and nearly dismounting him. In a display of brutish strength, he forces himself forward and uses the tusks on his helmet to gore it right back, before his heavy armored foot crashes into its midsection and buys him time to turn the ignition.

    There's a sound of rushing air as if a gale had suddenly kicked up beneath the bike. Given its mass, it'd likely take that much to lift it. The wash from its means of hovering is enough to bowl over anything standing too close--but the real noise comes from the thruster at the back. When the Green Knight guns it, a jet of white flame flickers at the back as controlled detonations rapidly occur. The sound is like an automatic weapon going off, but so loud as to vibrate one's chest and throat as it passes.

    Bercilak's axe cuts a gouge into the ground, sparks flying as its wicked green edge is brought to bear. Spread out in a fan-shape in front of himself and Hibiki, forward-facing, treacherously sharp cypress knees erupt from the ground to stab at the insectoid horrors. He weaves in and out of them, the bike cresting over the spikes, attempting to strike a clean kill on one of them by trapping its limb in the beard of the axe, dragging it across the spikes, and holding its form to the white flame at the rear of the massive, heavily armored vehicle.

Running nanoprogram 'Vengeance of the Pure'...

    Hibiki's field of vision shows another 'augmented reality' message, as her hands are encircled by white halos of light. Though already a master martial artist, her blows strike more truly than even her fordmiable skill would ordinarily allow. She isn't the only one, however--anyone close enough to Bercilak will receive the same message, overlaid atop whatever their current focus is, that halo of light encircling their weapons of choice and persisting even should they switch to another.
Cantio <<"Of course. It shouldn't be too much longer to get the rest, I thhhhope.">> Cantio's not certain, but with things devolving inside the buildings as they are, she's not expecting to get too much more. As precious as some of these things are, the time limit means she's considerably more hasty about getting them into her storage hole first than she is about gently placing them in. The gown gets a little folded up, the necklace and ring get tossed right onto the gown, and the corpse...

Thankfully, she does not touch the corpse. The sound of buzzing scarabs puts her on edge, and she suffers from a few more nasty cutsand nicks for her trouble. Thankfully, being  considerably more cautious this time around means she doesn't get stabbed directly, although the mounting wounds and resuming buildup of the hallucinogenic gunk does't help. Bringing her sword up again, Cantio flicks what's left of a table up to fling it in the path of one batch of the bugs to try and draw them out of their hiding places early, then...

Right. Nobody else is looking (probably). She tosses her sword forward as well to free her hands up, then brings her fingers together into the shape of a heart as time freezes to a standstill for her.

_____

She knows there's wasps on the other side of those windows, and likely even more along those walls. Even before she starts to make her first move, Cantio's already trying to keep one step ahead of herself. She turns to one side, and she swings. She turns the other way, and she stabs. Turn, swing. Turn, stab. That should keep most of her directions covered. Her hands come back together in that heart shape again.
_____

Time returns to normal, and Cantio's swinging and stabbing in multiple directions at the same time as she advances, almost as if she's anticipating where those scarabs will be coming out from next and covering each approach vector. Once she finishes following through on her singular multi-attack, she starts sprinting forward to try and take advantage of the confusion and/or opening, once again looking for stuff retrieve.
Hibiki Tachibana     The slits within the demon--with how abhorrent and unnatural the 'tree' is, Hibiki would not have been surprised to see actual eyes in there when they first opened. The reality is much more morbid. These particular creatures, she would never have considered ever being human once with how extensive their mutations were...if it wasn't for the unnerving eyes on their otherwise monstrous bodies. She's no stranger to fighting monsters in her own world. Monsters that are horrible in their own ways. Unthinking and non-sentient weapons.

    In a way, this is worse. Whether these things actually were once also villagers, purely the spawn of the tree, or something else...they're different from what they've fought so far. 'Stop holding back. They're well beyond saving.' She hears that in her head once more, and this time, she's not going to try and deny it. The best thing she can do now is stop this thing from being a blight on the world. From sullying the dead and turning them into these...these--

    "...Here they come. Bercilak, I have your back." As heated up as the inside of her chest feels, she hasn't forgotten that she's not the only one here fighting. The stampede comes, but she doesn't back down. She widens her stance, flicks the stingers in her armor out, and stomps a foot down into the earth hard enough for it to crack as she braces herself.

    Her fist flies up to unleash a hook into the side of one incoming claw with shockwave-producing might, diverting it off to the side before it can strike, and she follows up with a shoulder thrust to send it off to the side. She's not restraining her strength at all anymore, and is very much putting her back into potentially sending these things flying all the way across the marketplace and into debris and buildings. Another, she has to whirl out of the way of, and third--fourth, fifth the sheer number of creatures and their superior number of limbs and other instruments of assault overwhelm her. Talons rake her skin, armor is dented as it's used to hastily defend, and she loses some ground. She blinks, picking up on Bercilak's aid as it flashes into view, and around her fists.

     "HrrraaaaHHHH!"And counterattacks, delivering a carapace-crunching thrust with her fist into the nearest body and turning her body into it to try and dig her arm in as deeply into it as possible - followed by the pilebunker within Gungnir's gauntlet rearing back, momentarily shining with a light sourced from elsewhere than the halos surrounding her hands, before it slams inwards with a deafening impact. The follow-up blow will not only threaten to punch through to the other side with sheer force, but will also release a scattershot of golden-white energy to tear right through it and keep on going. A stream of half a dozen blasts tear across the field in the general direction of 'in front of her', to tear through insectoid beasts along the way. After some time, they'll converge back together to slam into the nearest of the enemy-producing holes in the tree, to punch straight into it and attempt to cause damage to the interior!
Lilian Rook     /No vital points. That's annoying. I was hoping for some kind of core holding the thing together, even if it does look like a tree. I suppose it was too much to ask that the hollows would just be filled with more of those infection carriers. It looks like the end of their life cycle. A dedicated combat form. Possibly made of recombinant victims. We can't afford to get stuck in fighting all of them./

    Emilian calls, and Lilian answers. "We're encountering the main body of the enemy forces as well. 'Elite troops', if I had to put it one way." She specifies more to Xion. "Multiple smaller pieces are preferable. Nothing you couldn't hold with one hand." She continues firing those rays at a steady rate, given that she still has energy flowing through the completed circle. Now though, she tweaks some mechanism of it with a few swift hand motions, and the beams begin vectoring straight for the enemies emerging from the demon tree hollows, focusing their firepower on a large number of enemies that are eminently more killable with targeted impalement followed by the shock of massive amounts of energy radiating out of the wound channel.

    Something clicks when she sees the darts fly at her, almost exclusively by the sudden drop from their immense velocity when they encounter the edge of the flames.

    /It's manipulating the air? That stuffy warmth; there's no air left outside of my personal radius, is there? My body heat is accumulating in that limited amount of mass and not radiating out. That's why the fire is being extinguished. How? Is it consuming the oxygen to power up? Or is this some kind of power it has a tactical purpose for? We can't count out reinforcements potentially asphyxiating./

    She doesn't have more than a moment to think about it. The massive firing corridor where the needles traverse most of her height advantage at nearly their full muzzle energy is too much of a split second reactive threat. She has a certain amount of extrasensory warning, but not much time to physically move out of the way.

    Which is a total lie, because Lilian always has time for everything.

                -----[stop]-----
    The array of projectiles ahead of Lilian is fearsome. There aren't many gaps to slip between them, it's not easy to tell how the ones in the back row will deflect as they hit atmosphere, and she doesn't want to approach. So, to maximize how long it'll take for them to reacquire her as a target, she quickly circles a full revolution to the other side of the tree.
                -----[start]-----

    Acquiring the first good chunk of tree cutting from Xion, Lilian has left the magic circle in place at her previous location, continuing to discharge the remainder of its stored energy over the coming thirty seconds. At such a range, she'd have been essentially invisible behind it from the ground, so ideally the enemy will keep shooting there until it dissipates. Elsewhere, she at last draws her sword, the glassy, wailing ring of the magnetite blade scraping its scabbard easily heard from below. Like a solo softball pitch, she lobs the hivestuff a few feet into the air, and tightly takes grip of the sword with both hands, glove material creaking as she winds it fully back. Flickering shadows run down its length, distorting the reflections in the gossamer steel edge.

    "Cleasa o'Skye - Stailc Gearradh Sgàil"

    Lilian swings straight and true through the exact middle of the falling hunk of biomass, chopping it neatly in twain. Before it falls all the way, crisscross strokes of revolving uppercuts juggle it a few more times into the air, splitting it into many fragments, which finally fall away like shed petals.

    Sympathetic connections are something familiar to Roxas and Xion. The wrathful blade of inhumans' bane transposes its cuts upon the root source of that chunk of demonflesh, magnifying and deepening each slash to roughly match the originals in relative scale.
Tamamo     Roxas finds that the new kind of swarmer is a lot tougher than the old kind, but he could probably have guessed that. As weirdly built as they are, they don't look like completely different kinds of creatures stitched together. They might have been purpose built. Whatever the origin, they're a lot more dangerous, starting with how much more penetrating power than the envenomed parts have.

    The hivestuff yields easily to Xion's Judgement Cut. She doesn't even have to deal with much interference, taking that ranged approach, and with Roxas covering her.

    A lot of little things are odd, which shouldn't be surprising at this point. Lilian is noticing some of them, and makes a good guess that just happens to be wrong. There is, if anything, more atmosphere around, though it's hard to measure for a variety of reasons. The enemies she leaves behind chasing her in one direction can't immediately find or catch up to her in a totally different area, and nothing bothers her right up until after she makes her strike.

    Hibiki might notice another oddity, in that it's easier than it should be, even with her already considerable strength, to send her opponents flying, like they're lighter than they appear. They don't hit very hard when they land (generally on their spindly feet), either. But they can't be that light, considering how hard they hit back. When she winds up that massive hit, a number of the sturdier looking ones get directly in between her and the tree, sacrificing themselves just to soften the blow against their hive. They don't, at least, move anything like humans would. It's just the eyes.
Tamamo     Bercilak makes a good showing, though if it's a fight he wants, the demon seems intent on providing it in perpetuity. They burn beneath his steed, get stabbed by trees, or sliced by his axe. One disadvantage of not having a bunch of uncanny, extraneous body parts is that it's easier to tell what to cut off to stop it from being a threat. On the other hand, many of them do have more legs than they really need to be dangerous.

    A squad of Valceans, half a dozen men and women with Emilian at the front, are hurrying up the road, making very quick time for being afoot, cutting through the outer remnants along the way without slowing. Calling out, "Purify!" turns out to be a specific command, as it's followed by "Corners!" And the group splits up, trying to surround the hive. This is immensely dangerous, under the circumstances, though anyone on the ground is in a good position to help them form that ritual triangle. They shake smoking censers on chains as they move, to no immediately apparent effect.

    Then Lilian's strike hits, just a bit after Hibiki's, rocking the tree, causing more of that strange, Nobody-reminiscent motion, like something that's not wholly committed to existing right where it is, and pieces of it start to break, only to reform, only to splinter and break again, some crystallizing and shattering, wherever the smoke from the censers reaches.

    Things are straightforward from there, to the extent that cleaning out an army and a giant, monstrous fungal-tree-flesh-hive can be.

    No one can see where Cantio is, though this will ultimately turn out to be mostly fine, and she'll be safely found outside, with father Petre administering detoxification treatment. Her memory of the last couple minutes of fighting may be adversely affected by the large amount of mind-affecting poison she accumulated in the course of her building-by-building search.