Scene #7807: The Lodge: Finale (1/2)

Owner	Pose
Go Shijima	March 3, 1989 Glastonbury Grove Twin Peaks, WA 12:00AM Days Until Planetary Alignment: 0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuzYfUz5dNM Saeko struck as soon as she had the chance. Alternating shifts of sleep and wakefulness, it was Sheriff Truman that alerted everyone. Phone calls, even door-knocks from Deputies Andy and Hawk, where necessary. The 'B-Team' is already out in town. Ronnette and James, Bobby and Takuma. One combat specialist and one tracker each. Takuma's plan has proven wise--on the car ride here, for those that rode with Cooper, the dispatch was buzzing, Lucy multitasking with an as-yet unseen degree of efficiency to keep the Sheriff's department and the B-Team apprised. They'll have their hands full with Saeko's three conscripts, and so will you, with her. The Giant had told Tamamo that 'the art which she enjoyed will come back into style.' There is something different about Cooper--even from a few hours ago. He seems, somehow, more awake, had quietly insisted on entering the Lodge. Perhaps, in the scant sleep he'd gotten, he'd had a visit from the spirit, or otherwise had a vision. In the daytime, the Grove swallows sunlight. At night, one wonders if one stands upon Earth at all. When you were very small, and the world around you was new, you learned of things like light and dark; how things could be seen by the interactions between the two. In this place, there is a sense that light and dark, sound, the earth beneath your feet--all of the ways in which you know the world for what it is--are merely the nebulous understanding of a child. That there are other forces, other movements, for which mundane perception is only hazily prepared, at best. Standing in near blackness, encircled by trees, by the hooting of Owls, there is the sense that something in these woods may perceive those forces, those motions, much more clearly than you. That you are standing at the mouth of some dark and shadowed cavern, where lies a beast--the manner of beast which stalks woods heretofore unknown to you. In the pit of your stomach, you may feel the growl of that beast. In the howling of wind between bony, accusing branches, you may feel it. You are seen. Cooper's flashlight is not the comfort it would be, in an earthly forest. It illuminates your path. It keeps your feet clear of roots and steep drops. But there is also the sense that it casts light upon something ugly. He is nevertheless confident in his stride, as if he's been here before. You arrive at the gateway. A ring of stones, surrounding a pool of something vile. It bubbles upwards. Standing in front of it is a woman in smart business attire--a blazer, button-up, slacks. She turns to face you with a smile that'd seem warm and motherly, if not for the gleam in her eye--like a shark. "My, but you're persistent," she says, resting an elbow upon the back of the opposite hand. "But I can't blame you. Who would want to miss our King's coronation?" All around you, the air begins to shift. The planetary alignment grows nearer and nearer. The outlines of trees blur, dark shapes contorting and stretching vertically.
Go Shijima	Saeko transforms, before you. The blue-white energy of Orphenoch evolution envelops her, and before you now stands the Lobster Orphenoch. Armored plates like those of her namesake cover her forearms and abdomen, while her face is covered by armor resembling the midpoint between a playe helm and a lobster's antennae. A rapier with a thin, deadly point appears in her right hand. "It's a shame my dear Takuma isn't with you. Too soft to follow through, right to the end, hm?" "Oh, well! After our King receives you, I'll gladly hunt him down, too." The rapier is flicked through the air, once, and a wind tunnel forms in the darkened forest. A testing stroke. As the crescent-shaped vortex flies through the air, it fells trees and sets owls to shrieking in their retreat.
Shinnosuke Tomari	Shinnosuke Tomari sticks close to Dale Cooper, holding a large briefcase-like containment case. He can see the man's insight. It reminds him of when he talked to the other, the one-armed man. It makes him think of seers and the like. His light may not be comforting, but the man's presence is. Tomari can trust in Cooper - and he hopes Cooper can trust in him. When they reach the bubbling pool, and Saeko there waiting, ready to transform, Tomari is holding a different Shift Car from usual, as he opens the briefcase's latch and puts it on the ground. "Saeko Kageyama, I'd say you are under arrest - but this time it's not that simple. The world is at stake, and I can't fight with my allies over you. I won't. I'm here to destroy BOB, and you need to get out of my way." "Shinnosuke..." Mr. Belt says, but doesn't seem to disagree. "Even so, know that I don't want you to die. I was a killer, and didn't even realize what my actions were until I tried to save someone just like my enemy. I'm a hypocrite. But none of that matters. You don't care. I'm just assuring myself..." "That tonight, we save Twin Peaks, no matter who lives or dies." The silver shining Shift Car is suddenly flashed over the belt, before being put into brace. "Let's shift into High Speed! Kamen Rider Drive, here to put the pedal to the metal!" The power of anti-Orphenoch weaponry. They had talked about it before, him and Kyuu. Based off the Jacques and Horne data, a weapon suited for Drive that could battle the Orphenoch more effectively. DRIVE! Type -- High Speed! From outside of the forest, a tire - this time pure red - flies forward as Drive begins to transform. It's his standard Type Speed armor - yet it's a shining metallic silver. The red tire latches on, as the briefcase is kicked upwards, two windshield wiper claw-gauntlets connecting to his hands. Saeko makes her first attack. Kamen Rider Drive moves. He kicks against a tree, narrowly dodging the vortex, and moves to rake those claws straight against the Lobster Orphenoch, much more dangerous than the car imagery lets on. They move back and forth as they strike, making each swipe extra-painful.
Lilian Rook	If there are other kinds of light to befriend, other illuminations that might guide my way, I know nothing of them. Lilian shakes her head at nothing in particular. Old, strange thoughts. This should be perfectly familiar to her-- or, well, perfectly familiar in the sense of old spiritual forests, and not something else. Along the way, she conjures up her own will-o'-wisp lights for primarily her own benefit (Tamamo's needs for light being something of a joke all considered), tuned specifically not to ruin her own night vision, on the eerie colours that'll easily reflect from leaf and stone. Wearing her sixth-year armour, she looks, actually, kind of knightly under these conditions, sword carried simply by holding the forte by her side in place of a scabbard, through some particularly baffling feat of selective grip. The bookhouse badge she'd been given is attached over a unit patch mount. "Hey, Tamamo. What was it that you missed the most? We never really decided, back then. I was right about it being right about the message, but . . ." Over the sounds of snapping twigs and fogging breath, her attention wanders back to Cooper. "Had a particularly inspired revelation, agent? You've certainly earned the right to have those taken more seriously." Then she mutters something about 'fucking owls' and 'always knew they were evil'. At actually getting to the Grove, Lilian makes a sharp hiss of disgust. "That pool; it's right back to it. Well, even if it was likely inevitable that one of these monster suit eugenicists would have figured out how to remove it before the planetary alignment, I suppose I'd still had hopes, if it's still this aggravating." At this point, the chatter is of a very specific kind: The sort of stating the obvious and working through relevant but ultimately inconsequential thoughts that one does when trying to keep a group of people's minds from wandering off to something more frightening. Though it seems it won't be difficult to keep their minds on Saeko. "He'll get his. Whatever that might end up being in the end." Lilian replies. "He has his chance to earn something. But it looks like you're pretty set on throwing yours away. I've been looking for you all this time, Miss Investor, so after that I think it would have been nice if you'd just quietly stayed in the shadows as an unresolved thread. It feels rude to inform you that you've loyally devoted yourself to the losing side under these circumstances. I'm sure the forest would have told you, if you'd listened to it." The rapier comes out. Lilian draws her sidearm at the same time. The star-shaped burst of shots she fires isn't a warning, to match with the testing vacuum slice. It's not dramatic, but it's taking the very first opening available.
Hellwarming Trio	Finally, it's time for the planet to align! Whatever that means. The youkai aren't entirely sure what the actual significance of the alignment is aside from enabling the revival of the Orphenoch King. They've certainly tried figuring it out a couple of times, but those efforts haven't quite gotten them the results they were hoping for. Then again, actually stopping that revival is far more important than figuring out the connection between those two things, so they're here right on time thanks to the efforts of the Sheriff and the Deputy to make sure they didn't forget that today's teh day. Utsuho: "Don't worry. We're not missing a thing." Rin: "Yeah! 'cause it didn't start yet!" Utsuho: "... Wait, so we couldn't have missed it yet." Rin: "Because we're... That's not the line!" That brief bickering aside, the youkai separate as Saeko sends that wind tunnel through the trees, swerving around the foliage and tumbling briefly before catching themselves on opposite sides of the Lobster Orphenoch. Utsuho points her control rod forward as she sweeps a laser forwards across the ground, sending up plumes of flames that grow larger the closer they get to Saeko. Rin, meanwhile, sprints through the trees as she sends smaller wisps careening around like mortar fire, but sideways. Utsuho: "If I couldn't take over the surface, what makes you think your king's even got a shot?" Rin: "She didn't mean that, guys! That was.. Uh. A long time ago!"
Hamada Haru	"Fool." Hamada Haru is not transformed when he speaks, but it doesn't really sound like him when he steps into the gateway clearing. He looks at Saeko contemptuously, his usually professionally neutral expression riddled instead with disgust. He shakes a bottle and sockets it into the transteam gun in his hand, holding it at the ready while he speaks. "It is only by turning all the world's existence into a zero sum game that what you're doing makes any kind of sense. There are a multitude of ways for you to spread and prosper without engaging in naked villainy," he says. He pulls the trigger, and a mist descends on him while the gun makes its announcement: L-L-LOCUST "I could expect no better from the ruling body of a species that decided to organize itself as a CORPORATION," Dynamic Era decides, raising the transteam gun and firing thrice through the thick fog before it has even begun to clear.
Xion	When I was a child. . . The world was white, with right angles and only the barest suggestions of seams where the bleached white paper of the world creased. I stood in the white, and stared. Within the universe of myself, I had so much to figure out. 'I' had to become real in flight, in freefall, until I realized things about myself. I was thirsty, because I had never drunk. I was hungry, because I had never eaten. I was lonely, because I had never loved. And so on, and so on. The desire mounted and mounted, echoes of countless loss phantom limbs in every direction. Quorum. Unity. Single purpose. They would live. 'I' would be, and some of the phantoms would find their limbs anew. ------------------------------So---------------------------------------- "This place feels like a Corridor." Xion comments, walking along in Cooper's wake. "But I don't think the glasses and powders will help make the path solid." The clearing. The circle of stones. The woman. 'Who would want to miss our king's coronation?' "Those who wish to not be lesser to your new crown." Xion announces. "And the people who would choose to be the hero of those hearts." Utsuho and Rin start up, and Xion hangs her head, smirking a little. "Didn't you practice beforehand. . ?" She wonders, as Drive High Speed and Dynamic Era transform besides her and begin SHOOT THREE TIMES and STRASH directives. "Right. The real truth is: Stopping you is my -job-." Drawing Starlight out of the air, she pivots about on her heel and swing-tosses the blue-hilted keyblade in a boomeranging arc of starry spark-causing cutting before returning to her hand as she zips forward.
Tamamo	What was it that you missed the most? "Oh, I do not know if I would say that I 'missed it,' but... no, if I do think on the matter, I suppose I do feel it a failing of the modern era. There were several arts mentioned, to similar purposes, and the spirit did confirm that I had heard correctly, do you recall? Among these, there is that of one who stands between worlds, as does the man he mentioned. Few such persons still stand, and none can drink from the muddied waters. There was a time when this was not yet so." Of course, Tamamo brings her own light. There's no need to worry about that. She's not fully hiding her nature, this time, but letting some slip, as if through the cracks in her appearance, though she still appears solidly whole. They reach... something. "A 'lodge,' I would not call this. A 'pool,' perhaps. A 'spring,' if it draws deeply, but what is within it?" And there, a person. "Kageyama Saeko, then." It's not a question. Tamamo may not have met her, previously, but it's clear enough who this has to be. "A coronation, is it? I suppose one cannot be dissuaded easily, under circumstances such as this. Very well. Let us assert our positions." Tamamo's defense looks more like an attack than her 'attack' does, as she counters the vortext by ripping a talisman to create her own, turning a forceful gale into a less powerful whorl. She moves quickly, then, around the edges of the clearing, placing talismans up against the trees, for some future purpose.
Go Shijima	When Saeko lashes out, Cooper hits the deck. Two carefully placed rounds from his revolver. Anti-Orphenoch. They slam into her chest and knock her off balance, bright streamers of fire tunneling into her armor as she shrieks. The vortex whips over his head, sending up a spray of dirt and leaves. "Such resolve--" Lilian's sidearm punches into her five times, a star-shaped spray of sparks bursting forth as she's knocked further backwards by sudden detonations from Cooper's rounds. He'll only have four left--and he's already back on his feet and moving to new cover. Saeko attempts to cut him down, but is knocked into a tree by Tamamo's counterattack. Saeko rolls to the side, getting her guard up in time for Tomari. She's on the back foot, and clearly hadn't expected to be. Horne, however, had said she was a survivor--moreso even than him, and would meet them with plenty of her own experience. The forward guard of her rapier deflects one of Tomari's clawed gauntlets, sending it scraping across her shoulder as she rises to her feet. A jab aimed at Tomari's chest, then a quick left-right flick and a step backwards to reset. She's back on her feet in time for Xion's keyblade to crash into her sword, pushing her back and digging furrows into the shaded earth. "I'm afraid I won't meet it with my own--you see, I don't need to kill you," she calls back to Lilian and Tomari. Saeko leaps gracefully into the air to avoid the geyser of flame, but is battered by fireballs on her way down. Hitting the ground running, she clearly is tired of being on the defensive, and sets up for a counterattack. Two of Haru's bullets are deflected as she charges towards him, the third striking her dead on. Her assault persists. "I only need to slow you down," she purrs, before making a jumping snap kick aimed at Haru's side and bringing the rapier down shoulder-to-hip. A backflip plants her squarely in front of Xion's charge. She locks blades, a master swordsman now able to ply her trade. Her feet are in constant motion, her upper body poised for sudden jukes as she makes several probing strikes. The rapier hangs overhead for a tense moment, before she feints an advance and instead hops backwards to lure Xion in, making a vicious thrust with the weapon. Another dart across the battlefield, lethal discs of wind hurled in overlapping patterns at Tamamo, Rin and Utsuho, aiming to suppress their ability to fire, and Tamamo's ability to setup what she intends to do--Saeko seems well aware of her limited at-range options. Landing near Lilian, her rapier flicks into the dirt, flinging a spray upwards as a prelude to a whirling offensive. She is intimiately familiar with the reach of her own weapon, and seems to assume the same of Lilian with hers, carefully repositioning with rolls and retreats. "Like that darling Mr. Horne... I'm not interested in a prosperous Orphenoch existence where I'm not at the top."
Shinnosuke Tomari	The whole team is there, and their mission is one. Yet when Horne is mentioned, Tomari remembers his words about Saeko, and his death. He can put the pieces together on what happened - but it doesn't matter. What matters is saving the world. "Slow us down? I'm faster than you'll ever be." Are lobsters even fast? The jab impacts Drive High Speed's chest, and the reset to neutral sends him staggering backwards, toku sparks... But then he's sliding on those wheel boots, and suddenly shifting around Saeko, expecting her to shift her motions with him. At the last second, he feints, moving backwards, and then leaps upwards, wiper claws forward to scratch straight into her from overhead. The idea is to stop her mobility, and make it easier for the others to get their hits in by pinning her to one place.
Hamada Haru	//I only need to slow you down.// Saeko says, as she kicks Dynamic Era in the side. Dynamic Era receives it stoicly, a light shower of sparks erupting from the point of contact. He nods in understanding and pops the bottle from his transteam gun, swapping it for another. He points it at himself and sprays down the length of his body, a crackling cloud of vapor filled with arcs of energy expanding out into the space around him. A second silhouette appears to his right. "Understood," he acknowledges Saeko. Swapping the bottle back, the original Dynamic Era flares a pair of wings made of a wavering light brown light. From out of them pours locusts, which rip up and devour the surroundings, wholesale deconstructing trees, rocks, grass, stone. It leaves the portal and its immediate surface stable. Of its overall surroundings, however, it warps them entirely. The earth is chewed up and churned until the platform of the portal and the pool stand on a deeply unnatural plateau, around which a sort of stone mausoleum is constructed. There are no openings or entrances. Off the edge of it a moat is dug, filled with reconstructed wooden spikes that were obviously once the trees. The second Dynamic Era raises a gunblade and rushes forward to engage Saeko in swordplay, wings flaring as he skims the ground to simplify his movement. The original ascends, disengaging the battle entirely and dispersing into a cloud of smoke long enough to pass through the radical construction and inspect the portal and the water.
Hellwarming Trio	Rin: "We did practice! But then Okuu had to say something else!" Utsuho: "Yeah, but I'm not wrong. We can't miss a thing that didn't happen yet." Rin: "But pointin' that out doesn't sound as cool!" The fight begins in earnest as Saeko proves to be far more maneuverable than the pair were expecting, Utsuho's flames only serving to heat up the air and start some small grass fires rather than striking their intended target. Her return fire against them has the kasha scrambling for cover, tucking and rolling behind trees to avoid getting vitals sliced open by the oppressive discs. They serve to halt Rin's flames at least for a short while, although those aimed at Utsuho don't quite hold her back as much despite slicing right into her and drawing blood. "Slowing us down, eh? What, because you need more time to call out your king?" Utsuho assumes as she wipe a hand across a bloody mark on her side, wincing at the contact and using that to focus herself. She rises slowly as her control rod begins glowing a bright orange at first, then yellow, then a nearly blinding white. Instead of turning it towards Saeko, however, she aims it at the formation of stones. "Would be a shame if somebody broke these up before he came out, then!" And so, she starts blasting away with a white hot beam of fire, aiming to carve it right through the stones and the ground beneath them to absolutely ruin what she can only assume is necessary for the revival. Rin, however, has a different plan. She keeps slinking around by those trees, darting about to try and stay out of cover just until Utsuho makes her big flashy move. Once she does, the kasha leaps out of cover to start pelting Saeko with another wave of colorful flames, flying towards her and ascending rapidly at the last moment to bombard with flames from multiple angles to try and keep her occupied as well.
Xion	Lured or no, Xion gets in at speed. Not as fast as Type High Speed, ducking under the jab-to-neutral delivered to Shinnouske and simply flickering -through- the rider to clash against the Lobster's blade. "I know. You're here to buy seconds. If you buy enough, you win automatically. It's a good deal, if you get it--" The parry slips past her guard, and despite a violent gravitational anomaly, slashes across her chest and sends -her- back like Drive had been sent reeling just a moment before. And then Dynamic Era washes the world in locusts, filling the whole terrain in a dramatic wash of surging insects. And no Xion, for long moments, until her voice from above, in a humming buzz of insects. "That's your problem. You already think you're on top!" A large metal locust-'foot' hums out of the swarm as Xion drops out of a Corridor back onto the new expression of reality that Era had created in the wood. Out of the woods. It, of course, is some messed up locust dropkick.
Lilian Rook	Needing just a moment to fully absorb the searing heat of Haru's take, Lilian casts her will-o'-wisp ghost lights out into the grove to cover a wide net of flickering, cold campfire illumination, not nearly sufficient to prevent hiding, but to at least guarantee that breaking line of sight requires the shadow of trees, and that the cleared space in the middle is a buffer zone from sneak attacks. She hand gestures for the others to move into it for that very reason. This quickly becomes much more effective by virtue of locusts eating everything that'd cast a shadow. §He was right. Compared to the others, she has actual combat experience. I don't know how a mutant would end up with a rapier, never mind a valid fencing style, but it's pretty clear that she isn't just relying on throwing around her powers alone. She hasn't assumed she's automatically superior to all potential human enemies because of her genes; she's even given away that she doesn't actually expect to defeat this many Elites head on; has she been defeated by a Kamen Rider in the past? Well, that's fine. This is actually my specialty, after all. She seems like a planner, not an improviser. That means I'll have to save the first one for just a moment.§ For this lofty purpose, Lilian remains metaphorically 'on her feet' for a couple of seconds, circling along the edge of the Grove at high speed. Amber-gold lights trace spinning circles where she swings a collapsible flick-rod of suspicious metal from her hip towards the flying wind discs, firing a spray of magic lances from an instant circle to intercept them where they'd strike Tamamo directly. A couple of short motions collapse the silver circle into a densely bronzed celestial mandala, and a powerful, laser-like beam of solar magic is aimed striaght for where Tamamo can reflect it with her mirror. It just barely leaves her 'open' for when Saeko approaches her. §Dirt. Dark. Visual obscurity. She has a piercing weapon, which is already faster and harder to deflect, and it won't disturb any of the particulate to warn me. It seems basic, but that's actually quite advanced. Sorry for the rude surprise.§ Saeko thrusts through empty air. Lilian is right behind her, mirror-black greatsword held high over her head. "Look down." she says, with an uncanny weight of force behind the words. Saeko giving into her prepared survivor instincts will see the fire runes left right at her feet in Lilian's place, smouldering like fresh embers. A simple "Cleasa!" accelerates the heavy sword from a dead stop to a supersonic bang, leaving a bright scarlet streak through the air. The speed, simplicity, and efficient linearity are the point. If Saeko can somehow react to even that, blocking it will throw her right into the explosive trap, and probably Tamamo's followup, and there's nowhere to dodge it without being blown up or shot. "If you're not interested in being on the bottom then you really picked the wrong woman to talk to, never mind swing a sword at."
Tamamo	Right. The real truth is: Stopping you is my -job-. "None here would name you, Xion, as so obligated, I think. But is it not precisely because one bears no responsibility, that one deserves praise for stepping forward? Rather than a 'job,' I would name this your 'quest,' perhaps." Saeko is attacking her, but Tamamo is not yet bothered, owing to the great amount of support available to her. Lilian's is at the forefront of her mind, but hardly the only one. A more determined assault would be needed to both reach and suppress her -- and that would open one up to the several melee-focused fighters. Less than that meets intricate, arcane circles, that slowly reform themselves, when not quite punched through, restoring her to nearly full power in the same space as the attack required. It's not fair, of course, but 'fairness' is quite rarely on her mind. "Can you truly slow us, I wonder? Is 'time' not a tool for all, and is yours greater? Somehow, I think not." It's a clear provocation, but knowing that won't help. Even a calm, rational mind would be worried about what Tamamo is setting up. "I shall not fault one for greed, on its own, but yours seems set to make enemies for no reason but to have them." It's still not finished, but that's owed to the size of the field, and the significance of the area. This isn't like that Siberian wilderness, a place of deathly stillness. Haru's reconstruction of the area makes the following steps simpler to calculate, which is momentarily convenient. Rather than continuing around the perimeter slowly, Tamamo moves in huge leaps, finishing the first layer of her talisman array with only the five minimum points. "Even changed to stone, the nature of the spirit of the land is that of a living wood. A wood grows from the Earth to the Sun, being nurtured by both. I shall enjoy that invitation, now, and bring the Sun to you." The first strike is the reflected light from her mirror, not just redirecting but charging up Lilian's magic for that extra punch. The real strike, however, comes afterward, and from straight above. Maybe the Sun hasn't actually come closer, drifting lower in the sky. Maybe it's the same sort of vague impression one would have, as a child, from seeing things never seen before, of learning to interpret the senses, or of finding sense in a dream. This is that sort of place, wherein one has already drifted away from the fully understandable, and into something else, where it should be simply taken as true that things outside of perception do exist. The flash of light is heralded by a momentary brightening, easily ascertained only by those standing outside of it as a beam that includes Saeko's entire position. After that, it's just shy of blinding, and even being near it is enough to feel the hot, dry wind, as of a desert that exists for the Lobster Orphenoc alone.
Go Shijima	Being a planner, Saeko is indeed ill-prepared for Lilian. The wide-area illumination robs her of opportunities to strike from ambush, and she takes Lilian's bait. Advancing in, she sees the opening, and, assuming it to be a feint, gets her guard up--only to be thrown into an explosion. She skips across the ground, already losing steam, but forces a stop with the point of her rapier. "You--!!" Saeko's face may be concealed by her Orphenoch form, but her body language, the way she furiously gets to her feet, and her tone convey perfectly well that she is incensed by Haru's walling off of the pool. "As if I'd allow my birthright to be entombed so easily!" She makes a leap towards it, but is stopped mid-ascent by the second Dynamic Era. Her style of fighting is decidedly less defensive now--the possibility that she might not get what she wants is setting in. More cautious of engaging Lilian directly at this point, she makes a running slide to get under the second Dynamic Era, and flings a ground-bound wind blade at her, tearing up the earth and hurling jagged clusters of roots her way. Lobsters aren't fast--not when they feel they have the advantage. On the backfoot, they are remarkably quick, as Rin, Utsuho and Tomari soon discover. She either falls for Tomari's feint or just figures she'll attack through it, howling as she puts her hips and elbow into a thrust aimed between his claws, at his throat. His blow strikes true, but she presses into it and shoulder-checks him,. "Had that brute's obsession with the Palmer girl not blown our cover..." Utsuho's guess is evidently correct. It's clear, however, that Saeko's understanding of the Black Lodge is not as great as she'd have you believe. She frantically leaps in front of Utsuho's attack, managing to take all of it to protect the ring of stones, and necessarily taking all of Rin's, from cover, as well. This wasn't necessary, it seems--even with Haru's walling-off, it appears that the Lodge is connected more to this place than to the pool--that the pool is less a gateway, a visual 'marker' of its presence intended for humans to be able to find it. You can tell this because the shadowed forms of Haru's pillars continue to distort even with his blocking-off of the pool. The darkness around you shifts. It is not the black of night which surrounds the edges of Lilian's will-o-wisps, but, gradually, red. The shadows of Haru's pillars seem less like the trunks of felled trees, and more like the creases of red curtains. Saeko attempts to make a desperate run for the mausoleum, having not grasped this. She is smashed by Xion's attack, from above, blasted by Tamamo's redirected beam. When lobsters are boiled, it is a common misconception that they scream--it is, in truth, air escaping their shells. This is not that circumstance. "BOB!" is all that she manages to get out. When Tamamo's work is done, she is gone. But there is still the issue of the planetary alignment. Still the issue that you are leaving one plane and entering another. Stone gives way to tile, a disorienting black-and-white zigzag. Treeless horizon gives way to red curtains. "There's something I have to do," says Cooper with certainty. "Stop BOB." He hands his revolver to Lilian, still chambered with four anti-Orphenoch rounds. "Just in case," he says, giving her a fervent thumbs up, before he runs down a curtained corridor. The Lodge is a maze--intentionally so, for as Hawk and MIKE had said, the Lodge is a place where souls are put to the test. The ground beneath you shakes. You can hear laughter, and so, too, the cracks of thunder. Out of the corner of your eyes, you can see him--and in this place, the sight of BOB instills the primal fear of the intruder, the stranger. Your pursuit of him is hampered by seven figures.
Go Shijima	Looking at these figures, their purpose is immediately evident. Each of them is the 'you' which you try not to be. A woman stands opposite Lilian, girded for war, her face a mess of scars and her body armored in sleek, black futuristic plate. She clutches the image of Night Mist so tightly that one gets the idea she's afraid it might escape her. "It isn't that you don't get it," she says. "You don't want to." This inverse Lilian charges her counterpart, waves of static radiating from the arc of her strike. "You go after things like him because it helps you forget you'll always be like this." Haru's counterpart is wreathed in armor that couldn't have come from a belt. It is a cruel mockery of a Rider system, a thing welded to flesh in a gruesome imitation of Dynamic Era. Another Era's skull-shaped faceplate lights up when he speaks. "Look at what you've done to yourself." His gunblade is mounted to his arm, and he fires three shots at Haru as he approaches. "Forcing yourself into a role you know you can't play. All in the name of improvement. How long until it breaks you?" Drive Type Pursuit opens fire on Tomari first, and speaks second. His armor is woefully overequipped for the task at hand, and is not the armor of a protector. It is the armor of an abuser--weapons are fixed to every hardpoint, while the faceplate has the coloration of police lights. An electrified baton is brought forth. "You're soft. Weak. Unworthy of that badge." He moves in with a rev of his suit, attempting to brutalize Tomari with a rapid fire series of electrified baton strikes. "The rest of the force knows you can't be a cop without cracking a few eggs. They reward people who do--and failures like you get put in the SCD." "Ugh!" says Utsuho's counterpart. "I don't get all of this human crap." Rin's counterpart nods in acknowledgment. "We're not meant to! Let's just burn those two losers alive, and get back to Master. She'll be mad... but she'll get over it!" They're in their animal forms--not their human-like ones. "Look at all these dummies," says Rin's doppelganger. "Trying to be something they aren't! Especially the ones that're s'posed to be us." The cat and bird open their mouths, unnaturally wide, and blue fireballs spew out towards the duo. "My," says an elegant woman in clothes splattered with blood, clods of dirt still clinging to the hems. "Is that so? I am not quite so certain, for before me, I see one determined to curry favor with those who, as memory serves, wished most fervently to be rid of her, and not for no reason. 'A goddess that years for humans shouldn't exist.' And yet..." She hurls the talismans Tamamo's way. The Xion which stands before her opposite is a Nobody in a more literal sense than most. Her face is blurred out, her form transparent, her voice filtered as if speaking through some artificial means, from far away. As if the signal were struggling to come through. She hurls a keyblade--no, the noticeable absence of one, in that way that paintings removed from walls leave signs of their previous presence--towards Xion. The un-weapon returns to her grasp. "You try so hard, don't you?" she says, voice grainy and indistinct. "It's sad. No matter how hard you struggle, you'll slip beneath the water. No one will miss you--because no one can even agree on what 'you' are."
Hellwarming Trio	The scenery changes through Haru's efforts, and both Rin and Utsuho have to stop momentarily to see where they're even aiming or moving. With the trees gone in favor of an open field, though, it should be easier to move and aim, especially with their target taking such direct hits from so many people at once. As they prepare for their own follow-ups, however, they notice that the Lobster Orphenoch is just not there anymore without realizing Tamamo's involvement in transporting her to that personal hell. Unbeknownst to them, however, the youkai and their allies are soon brought into what very well might be hells of their own. As they start to follow Cooper when he heads for the corridor, Utsuho and Rin stop in their tracks when the strange figures appear. Utsuho: "Whoa. Hey, Orin. There's another you." Rin: "The heck? And there's another Okuu! But they're... Different, right?" Utsuho: "Yeah, they're... Dumber." Rin: "They're givin' up way too easy. Are they... Future us's?" Utsuho: "Like hell they are. If we gave up that easy, Master'd never want to see us again!" Rin: "But if we're... Nah, you're right. Th-this can't be us, so screw you guys!" With the fireballs flying towards the youkai for once, they take advantage of the open space to turn their own battle into a sky faring one. Working in tandem, Utsuho wreaths herself in flames as she charges straight at the opposing pair while Rin follows up behind her, the angrier bird acting as a living shield for the calmer cat. Although the burns are mounting visibly on Utsuho's body and clothes (black as wings might already be), the injuries don't slow her down just yet. Instead, she redirects their flames into making her own grow even larger. The fires surrounding her body grow more intense as she charges ahead, arms and control rod extended sideways to give her more surface area to work with and to spread those flames even further as she aims to ram herself right into the pair of not-Utsuho and not-Rin. Rin herself, follows closely behind Utsuho's warpath while hurling flames from each side of herself that pulse rapidly as they slow down and speed up to try and catch attempts to evade her more direct friend's assault.
Hamada Haru	//Look at what you've done to yourself.// Dynamic Era pauses in his steps, facing Another Era and then scanning the other "Anothers" here. He would not have called himself a Kamen Rider in this form-- that is, to call it Another Era strikes him as erroneous even as he understands on contact that this is what it is. Why he understands this, he doesn't know. //Forcing yourself into a role you know you can't play.// He turns away. //All in the name of improvement.// His wings flare anew as he angles himself towards another enemy on the field. //How long until it breaks you?// And he leaves. The truth is that Hamada Haru is not really prepared to deal with his part of himself, and as he goes he dances among the three shots fired at him-- not unlike Saeko he dodges two of them, but the third catches him square between the shoulders and forces him into a partial crash landing. He recovers from it, not far distant from where he's going. Dynamic Era drops to a crouch and hurls himself forward. His gunblade comes about while her absence-of-a-keyblade is still in the air. There is a buzz of locusts as he swings at The-Thing-That-Isn't-Xion, his STRASH a dancing crescent of brown-and-silver that eats away at the substance of the thing. The ground crunches beneath him as he slides to a halt, whirling about at the ready to mount a defense. "There is no need to fight on your terms," Dynamic Era says, with a flourish that slings what appears to be a silvery powder into the air, possibly leftover nanomachines. "I can't say you're wrong about me. But you are wrong about her."
Shinnosuke Tomari	The Lobster Orphenoch's impact knocks Drive back long enough for Saeko to escape, even with the new environment. As he moves to pursue, approaching the Black Lodge, Kamen Rider Drive ends up in a maze, where the ground shakes. The primal fear is resisted, but the attack by the Drive Type Pursuit is effective. He rushes forth, his baton smashing straight into Drive's helmet, and the real Kamen Rider Drive's visor is smashed, revealing part of his face from the electrified baton. He screams out in pain, as he tries to deflect another strike with his claws. "This...this is what a cop is, isn't it? An abuser, a part of the system used to control..." The signal it tells him is 'give up' or 'embrace'. But...as he takes more damage, Mr. Belt sending signals of 'warning, warning' to his feed, he hears the part about the SCD. "Then maybe I shouldn't be a cop. But the SCD is depending on me - and if I can only be with them, over Division 1, then I'll accept that. I don't want to be where I'm expected to compromise my justice - and the Chief doesn't expect that..." Another swing, and more pain, even as he's blocking and deflecting. "But your argument has made me realize something. At home, I may be a cop. I may be pursuing the truth...but I work for the SCD. I don't arrest petty thieves. I don't stop jaywalkers. I'm a Kamen Rider, one who will be the justice inside the system..." That eye glimmers. "And out here, I'm not a cop at all! I'm a superhero! Kamen Rider Drive! So, if you want my gun, take it!" Drive suddenly draws his service pistol. It'd be feeding into Type Pursuit to shoot him - so he doesn't. He tosses it to the ground long enough to distract his foe, and then leaps upwards, piling a non-finisher kick straight into his baton and trying to burst through it to kick him in the chest with high impact.
Xion	From woods to curtain, from outside the surface of America to inside the stage of the Lodge, Xion finds a figure 'just for her' in the twisting terror that bars her path. She can always find this one. The hole in the world she stepped out of to live. "You voted." Xion mutters darkly, her eyes furrowing. "You don't get any more votes. You didn't want to exist. So don't. Stop trying to sell everyone else on it. Stop trying to drag everyone into your pit of nothingness, nihilistic... uselessness, because it's so grand and sad that life has texture." Xion shakes her head. "We had this discussion, I and I. And we walked our seperate ways. Not existing, and existing." Her head hangs, tears falling silently as Starlight's pale arc banishes away the spinning blade, and doesn't ring or clash or spark at all. Starlight and 'No'-light are the same blade. There's nothing to connect to. And then Haru -- Dynamic Era -- quits his own problems, and turns about to help her with hers. Her chin rises, a smile blooming on her face as Haru pivots back - even takes hits - to shovel on the problem he can. Her grip tightens around her blade-hilt. "That's right. You are wrong. And not just about me." "I'm not the only one who's not 'so obligated' to be here. My job is defeating -Heartless-. But this is so much worse. You're pitting people against themselves -- so there's no need to follow your script." Stepping forward, Xion high fives Dynamic Era on the way past the No-Body, avoiding 'her' fight completely to bear down on Another Era. "I look at what he's done, here, for people, at -cost- to himself, changed and grown and taken -responsibility- for himself, that shames every false word you say. "If you aspire to be a hero, and fall short, you can still be a good person. If you aspire to be the champion, then seek the needy, open your eyes, and reach." Her high-fiving left hand presents a brown bottle, which she shakes quickly, and unseals the top on. "It is all in the name of improvement. Himself. The world. The people around him." "Because there's -nothing- wrong with needing some help with repairs." Xion taps her copy of the L-L-LOCUST Full-Bottle to the base of her keyblade, transferring a rippling power up the hilt to the tip. "The role he's not playing is 'Kamen Rider' -- he can just be the hero of these people's hearts, and that's enough too!" From a single sweep of her blade, a swarm of slashes buzz out in a wave of carving. The 'edge' becomes a chrome-wash cloud that expands and extends as it clashes against Another Era. "So just say rude stuff and be mad somewhere else!" She hollers as the riverstream of Locust power crystallizes and detonates into a spray of tesselating grasshopper wings, and explodes in chrome-white metal dust.
Lilian Rook	Lilian receives Cooper's gift --his trust-- with the same air she had the badge back at the police station. Her sidearm is clipped to her back so the revolver can take its place at her thigh. "I'll take good care of it." she says. "'Firewalk with me', right? Godspeed, Agent Cooper. I'm sure a man as crazy as you will make it." Lilian isn't shaken by one plane exchanging for the next. The concept of the ubiquitous Otherworld is something she's intimately familiar with. And from the first day she'd heard the name of the Lodge, she had seen this day coming. At first, what the Giant, and what the chief, had told her had been intimidating even to her. One can't simply train up their soul. Being as aware, as undeluded, as she phyrrically prides herself on, has drawbacks she is intimately aware of. But after everything that'd happened recently, she had taken on a more positive outlook about it. What was all of that if not a test of the spirit? What had she come away with, if not healing, at least the strengthened cuff that protects a recovering fracture? She feels she has little to fear here. What can the Lodge throw at her if not that darkest of thoughts, of feelings, that she'd just defeated? If she'd been less confident, she'd have anticipated this. Instead her own words stab her in the back, one after the other. "I can't-- . . . I-I can't be like the others." "I'm too old now. S-so much is wrong with me. There's so much broken." "I . . . I can't be what you need people like me to be. I missed . . . e-everything." "S-someone is going to see right through me, and when they do, all that's left will just be pity." "You don't . . . You don't have to take in a . . . rescue like me." "I shouldn't . . . I shouldn't be here! I . . . I-I don't know how to be, a-and I'm just going to, just going to, ruin everything." "I really am scared though. I'm scared that it's too late to fix anything." "I'm scared of being a disappointment. A burden. A worse version." "The people who know everything about powers and goodness are going to take one look at me, shake their heads, and think 'poor girl, it's too late for her now'." If Lilian has to fight herself, she might, in a more critical state, assume that a conjured copy can only be as powerful as she believes it to be. Lending it all the credence, all the reality that she does in just one moment of gut-dropping, heart-clenching terror, however, a Lilian versus Lilian duel can only go to the one who wants it more, and the real one is barely able to summon up the focus to defend herself. Her swordsmanship is sloppy, her movements are slow, her instincts are dull, and her own static doesn't take her anywhere. It's a matter of time before the duplicate skips ahead of her exactly like she would, and lands a solid blow straight to the chest, slowed down automatically at the last possible instant, but cracking plate, guttering out spent magic, and hurling her back into one of the pillars.
Lilian Rook	The wordless panic squeezing all the air out of chest feels as if it's going to choke her out before the phantom can even finish the job. But the jolt is what she needs to remember what happened next. "Is it not too late to be something other than ruined?" "The only way it can ever be too late to fix things is if you're too far gone to want to fix them." "For a while, I was a little scared that was true; that you'd shut your heart to ever having a happier future. But you were stronger than that!" "That tells me it's not too late. That tells me you're already getting better." "All of them felt like, once, this was too good for them. That they'd never fit in. What's a few more years on top of that?" Lilian exhales lambent fog. She flickers out of place. Atom-thin sheets of matter are peeled away into glow and steam; a cauterized cut on the veil. She streaks forward to deliver her blade straight through the other Lilian's front, braced to lift her straight from her feet, planted with both feet in those feelings at her back.
Tamamo	They're not memories Tamamo could have personally experienced. She is, after all, alive. These are the memories of someone who died. And yet, they are hers. She remembers, all too clearly, how that dress was dirtied, and from where it had stained. She remembers the field of grain, and the blood that spread on the same wind as bent its stalks. She remembers frantic haste, and stumbling to the earth, only to turn, to rise, and to... "No! This is not... a mirror." Her own, summoned to her side, swipes through the air, and through the talismans coming her way. They explode around her, curses of fir and lightning, and her own defenses, kept fresh by the effort of others, before, sputter and break from what still washes over her. "This is not another thread of possibility," she says, but her voice falters. Isn't it? Wasn't this, after all, the result of her own actions? She remembers the ringing shouts of those who'd surrounded her, then. The past is easier to perceive than the present, the onrush of imaginary phantoms greater than the six names that should still be with her, and the twelve (or thirteen) figures elsewhere in this curtained place. "Yes, this is the Lodge... is it not?" Her geomantic array, even if she could still access it, wouldn't help her, here. There's no way that would work against her. Her mind can grasp that much of her situation, and she can say it aloud, though any calm is feigned. "Was I wrong, from the beginning? I did think that. That a goddess that yearns for humans shouldn't exist. That a god cannot become a human, nor be loved by one." She's no memory of fighting herself to call on. No experience with another of her own talents, and only the dimmest possible recollection of the heavenly conflicts She'd had, impressed only as vague memories, unimportant to her own journey. Instead, Tamamo strikes and reflect, countering each attack with what's little better than a random guess. If her mind had been better focused, she'd have been able to figure out by the positioning whether a curse of Fiery Heaven was used here, and Frigid Heaven there. Absolute knowledge of her own capabilities could have carried her through to at least a standstill, a full stalemate in which there could be no victor. Yes, if she'd been in such a perfect shape, she could manage that, and more. She'd have no need to remain on the defensive. And yet, those words, and the memories of tears, are with her, like an arrow approaching, a faint whistle in the air. She shakes her head. "No, is it not even worse than that? In the first place, one with hands as stained as ours, deserves no such happy ending. And yet... hear me." Though it means accepting that hostility that comes her way, even the hatred directed at her by herself, she pushes through, declaring her intent aloud. "Whether I deserve it or not, I shall not give up. You may call me a greedy and foolish woman, for insisting on seizing a happiness that should not be mine, but I have resolved myself. Whatever another may think of it..." She lunges. "I don't care!" And so did Tamamo no Mae crash her mirror, the manifestation of the blessings of Amaterasu, into the same mirror of Tamamo no Mae, before kicking her geta into her side, and punching her in the cheek with such force that she had to wince and shake her hand, afterward, though this did not stop her from striking once more.
Go Shijima	Deputy Hawk had also warned that if your courage was less than absolute, the Black Lodge would destroy you. He wasn't alone--General Briggs had echoed his statement, in his conversation with Lilian and Cooper. 'There are powerful forces of evil in this world, and we each choose how we react.' Rin, Utsuho, and Tomari refute their doppelgangers utterly. Their attacks, in this place, seem to strike more truly and more powerfully than they would in the material plane. The duo's fire and Tomari's kick alike both share in the quality of dispersing their doubles. Great cracks form in the Animals and in Type Pursuit, spreading until they are torn apart by blinding white light. This place has been defiled--but something of its original purpose remains. There is a sense, among all three of them, that they have passed a trial of mortal importance. That Tomari now understands how he'd been deceiving himself, that the duo are, by their determination, closer to being human. But Dynamic Era struggles. Doubt in himself, instilled by his other, makes him believe his own fears. An inky blackness--like the vile stuff that bubbles up from the ring of stones in the mortal realm--begins to spread over him, from the ground up. It mires his movements, and it isn't purely physical. The chilling calm of apathy begins to gnaw at his mind. Wouldn't it be easier to give in to his Other? To accept that he will never be what he wants unless he gives in to his own ego? It is driven explosively back, when he instead refutes Xion's Other. Though his attacks don't harm her in the way that Shinnosuke, Utsuho and Rin had harmed their doppelgangers, that selfless act is anathema to Another Era. With a grunt, Haru's doppelganger clutches his chest, as he, too, is blown apart from the inside. Haru, too, feels that sense of a trial being passed--and even the sense that the true custodian of this place approves of his unconventional method. In this moment, Haru is assured by that force that he is not so self-centered as he believed--that there are many kinds of good in the world and that he will grow into his own, in time. Xion, meanwhile, in striking Another Era, has earned the same token of favor from this place. As the No-Body is blown apart by Xion's assertion of her true self, she receives, also, that feeling of catharsis, of having passed a difficult, vitally important test. Those who stand for something--whatever it may be--will always be remembered by those whose hearts they touched. People like that will always be Somebody. Lilian's sword plunges through the Slayer's chest. It lifts her up. In this place, as has been shown with the other doppelgangers, a sword is not a sword, a fist is not a fist. They are, in this place, extensions of the soul, the weapons of spiritual combat. And though Lilian's fear had her rattled, though she worried that it might be too late, fond memories and acceptance allow her soul to burn brighter than the darkness of the Lodge. The Slayer is obliterated, and Lilian's relief comes with the reassurance that not only is it not too late, but that she has taken, and continues to take steps towards a better her. That perhaps she was never 'ruined' in the first place--just in need of compassion, like anyone else. Tamamo's rare use of physical force carries the same weight as anyone else's--in the moments following that unexpected punch, her doppelganger's split lip does more than bleed. It widens, and she, too, is consumed by the light of the true Tamamo's realization. It is not bad, to want happiness. It isn't selfish, to want to be understood. It isn't selfish to want to be loved. She, too, has completed a trial, and whether she may think of herself as mortal or not in this moment, she has overcome a doubt which many humans struggle to banish. Perhaps gods can become human.
Go Shijima	The Giant cannot interfere, in this matter. He is only a guide. Though he is not here in the literal sense, there is the sense that all of you have a measure of his approval. But there is more to be done. The Black Lodge shakes beneath your feet. Curtains shift, and the storm that howls just beyond those curtains whips louder, and louder, until it takes on an almost lifelike quality. Less the roaring of winds, and more the roaring of a beast. When the curtains open, you are in that same room which haunted your dreams in Twin Peaks. It is different. The lamp is broken in two, the plush red armchairs torn and clawed, stuffing strewn about the room. The potted plant lies overturned, dirt encircling its shattered housing. Screaming. The Arm, that spiritual remnant of MIKE's former sadistic tendencies, is here, still in his guise as a little man. He is screaming, his leering grin absent--for even if it were present, it would be occluded by BOB's hand. His dirty, matted hair is blown by otherworldly gales, his mouth curled into a snarl of primal satisfaction, as The Arm fades into nothingness, consumed by the other spirit. In the center of the room, a young man lies horizontal, suspended several feet in the air. His eyes opeh, burning an unnatural orange, his body abruptly jolting vertical. Whether it is will, or the will of some survival instinct having completely colonized this young man's brain, the end result is the same. Orphenoch transformation overtakes his body--the Orphenoch King awakens. His insectoid appearance is akin to the organic equivalent of a Kamen Rider, right down to the compound eyes. Chitinous armor and bony plates form his 'suit,' while twin shouldercapes hang down to his knees. But BOB never intended to be the voice behind the throne. "SHE'S MINE!!" Spittle flies from his mouth as the spirit glares at you, nothing but ill intent. With a glance towards the King, he breaks into a sprint, and the light of the Black Lodge flickers. He is gone. Or so it seemed, for a split second. One of the King's eyes bursts open, colonized by invasive blue fungus. he tries to fight the invasion, his body enveloped in blue flames with a sudden, explosive shockwave that cracks the floor beneath you, sending up jets of scalding 'steam' that sounds alarmingly like screaming. The steam doesn't so much as discomfort any of you--you are each protected from it, protected by a light that now burns inside each of you. The light of your own truth. The King's struggling is no use. Fungus grows from every seam in his insectoid armor. His mandibles open, and it is BOB's voice which roars. The Parasite King rises hish in the air, arms outstretched. Blazing blue suns stream out in labyrinthine patterns. Where they strike the floor or the furnishings, they ignite and flash-petrify--the same way that Laura had been, with even the flames frozen. His mandibles open again, and a beam of that same energy lances from his mouth, attempting to destroy all of you--to be rid of you, and free to wreak whatever torment he likes upon mortal hearts.
Lilian Rook	The Giant's approval pings on the edge of Lilian's awareness, reciprocated with dry, tired, half-solidarity mixed with deep chagrin. But the words that burst fully formed into her mind as she drops from her flying combat lunge and action rolls into the red room slip from her mouth without thinking. "God has deemed by spirit trial that I get to live another day, and I'm about to make it your fucking problem, BOB." She hasn't missed it. The outrageously perfect, and equally narrow, window of opportunity to get rid of the Orhenoc King and the evil spirit at the same time while the two are both at their weakest, locked in power struggle with one another and unable to exercise their full power. Waiting any longer means that one will fully consume the other and have both their powers to command. However the way it comes out is: "Thank that benevolent God that I get to kill both of you at the same time, for all the shit you put my precious people through." §Stance of the pendulum. Four breaths. Shut down sight and sound and let the future flood in. Choose six, twelve, eighteen, twenty four deaths. Gather maximum power in the arms, legs, and crown. Sixteenth sword-seal; dedication: 'Death to those who have wronged my people.' Go.§ Even in the red room, the amount of power being drawn on from time-places besides then and there is enough to cause black to turn white and white to turn black in rapidly accelerating pulses around Lilian. The blade-long etchings all down Night Mist burn so vividly scarlet that they 'leak' into the air like trails of hyper-vivid ink. Breaking her stance to launch the attack, Lilian seems to appear in two dozen places all around the Parasite King, scattering into the maelstrom of firepower bombarding the isolated extradimensional space. Several of them are near-struck or blasted with debris, abort and dissipate, but are all replaced within a tiny fraction of a second. The near-simultaneous barrage of twenty four alternative sword strikes from all different spaces and speeds strike not the King specifically, but scatters of his own phantoms, cleaving heads from necks, arms from shoulders, skewering hearts, spilling guts, in quasi-symbolic probabilistic effigy. Each could-be Lilian's perfect strike on a could-be Parasite King reflects a portion of its damage right back to the original, visualized as smouldering, radioactive-glow lacerations that barrage it from all sides.
Shinnosuke Tomari	Tomari is panting after defeating the Type Pursuit, but he doesn't have time to breathe. They reach the room that Tomari was in once before - The Arm is here, still in his guise, before he disappears and the young man, the Orphenoch King, becomes the Parasite King. The death orbs come out, energy lances spewing from horrible mandibles, and fly straight at Drive High Speed. But this suit was built for this battle. Kamen Rider Drive suddenly shifts up a gear, sliding out of the way and only getting grazed, armor sparking off as he flicks the Full Throttle switch. It may be the first attack, but it's time for the finisher. "This is for Laura Palmer. For Twin Peaks!" Full Throttle! High Speed! The claws suddenly spark with energy. Powerful, potent energy, as the windshield wipers begin moving so furiously they're a blur. Rushing forward, an elbow is struck into the Parasite King, before Drive puts the rest of his energy into one final attack. A heroic x-slash, as both gauntlets are swiped over and over into Parasite King, emitting that energy and the sheer power of Shinnosuke Tomari's will. Hopefully, it, along with everyone else's will, is enough.
Hamada Haru	The feeling of cold is like a fierce blizzard's wind, long after it was wise to still be out in it. There is no real 'coldness' exactly, but a spreading heat instead. The urge to detransform is there momentarily, and then gone-- though the overheated sensation remains, uncomfortable and etched into Hamada Haru's mind. It is not something that he has the time or the energy to linger on. To the contrary, he would be surprised if it wasn't sapping what energy he had left. But a mental Thanks passes, perhaps to Xion, but certainly to whatever reassured him in the after math. It's not something that he's experienced a lot of. Maybe that's a part of the problem. Everything goes to shit after that. The IDEA of the Orphenoch King is hardly foreign to Dynamic Era. He never imagined what sort of shape it might take and, certainly, didn't imagine it to be a Kamen Rider. The fact that it is grotesquely invaded immediately afterwards is, of course, rather worse. Dynamic Era whips his gunblade around, producing a stream of nanomachines that interpose themselves between the Parasite King and himself, constructing a structure of some kind just to get in the way. They hold the line for a bit before they, themselves are petrified and in flames, and the last guttering remains of the beam hit Era dead center. He is still standing in the aftermath, though blue flames roll backwards across his shoulders, and chips of armor fall off, crumbling like freshly ground stone. "Thanks," he asides to Xion. Then, he changes the bottle in his gunblade. It gleams momentarily with a black and white edge, just before Dynamic Era lunges towards the Parasite King. Just before the moment of contact he squeezes the trigger on the gunblade. An announcement rings out above the battle: TETRA BREAK There are no nanomachines that accompany the strike. It is simply deeply corrosive, in a way that is definitely mildly familiar... and perhaps not curiously at all, EXTREMELY laser-targeted at BOB and not his host.
Hellwarming Trio	Rin: "... What if they're right, though?" Utsuho: "They can't be right. We're still here, and we haven't stopped yet." Rin: "Yeah, but-" Utsuho: "No buts. Master trusted us to figure this out, and we're doing it. You see Teacher over there, right? And that Haru guy, and that Rider that keeps changing names, and Lilian, and the sun god?" As the figures fade, Rin still sounds uncertain. Utsuho's direction has Rin looking towards their companions. "They're all... Almost all of them are human, yeah? Even they're figuring this stuff out, so us doing the same thing means we've got to be doing something right!" Before Rin can respond to Utsuho, the ground shakes, curtains rise, and they're suddenly in a room. The room is broken apart, and screams pierce their ears. The source is soon revealed, and the youkai watch in utter confusion as the man is consumed, his essence replaced by that of the Orphenoch King. No. The Parasite King, as he's consumed by that fungal invasion courtesy of BOB. As they clash with each other inside, Utsuho and Rin see their chance to put a stop to this threat. Instead of joking around, they actually seem focused for once as they take to skies once more to evade most of those beams coming their way. They gather their power together as they fly, eventually just weathering the beams (via Rin being the shield for once) as they start tapering off. Rin: "We still got a lot to learn about humans, so don't even think about erasing them before we're done!" Utsuho: "Not like we're giving you the chance to try anymore. You're not getting out of this even if you call me your king!" The flames surrounding Utsuho grow more intense as both she and Rin are covered in a practical inferno, looking down at their target to determine the best angle to strike at it from. They circle around it in opposite directions, biding their time for a little longer, and then they see it. They see the Lilians charging in. They see Drive's flurry. They see Dynamic Era's gunblade nigh-point blank shot. They wind up on opposite sides of the King, and they dive like meteors at it with both legs outstretched, mimicking the Kamnen Rider classic with flames pouring out of them all the while.
Tamamo	It may not have been some grand magic, but Tamamo is left feeling no less drained than if she'd been the one to end that encounter with a split lip. No, in fact, her knuckles are scraped. It hurts, even though it should be healing. She feels a sense of approval, and though it is like another set of hands holding up the weight of her resolve, of what she's decided to do, the uncertainty remains behind it. It's not as if she could deny what had happened. Declaring that she would persevere, whether or not she deserved to achieve her aims, isn't the same as declaring that does deserve them. Being able to keep moving forward doesn't erase the feeling that, just maybe, she should stop. It only means that the voice is quiet enough for her to speak over it. She's chosen what's important. What remains is to weather this last opponent, and then -- one story will end, and another will continue. There's only so much she can do. Her defensive wards, the ones she'd prepared before entering battle, are failing. The last of them are gone, as well as her preset healing talismans, doing their job in fizzling out, and rendering what would be fatal wounds into 'mere' pain. This is all within expectations, as terrible as it is. She hardly flinches. "Let us see... for Lilian, and Tomari-san..." Some of their previous battle -- in fact, most of it -- she'd been regretfully unable to witness, but her healing still reaches, as something she can do. Blessings of health and hardiness aren't out of place, here, especially for how Shinnouske is looking. "As for the apprentice detectives... well, I believe they shall be fine." Though she has a few healing talismans left, at least. "And for Xion, and Hamada-san..." Of them, she did at least see how they fought together, and though she'd like to aid them directly, that would take more familiarity than she has. Instead, she shifts her perception, and views their futures, feeling out the threads that connect from each of them to BOB, and to the Orphenoc King. She smooths the frays of the lines, subtly nudging out of existence the misfortunate futures in which a strike fails to quite reach its target, of where, merely 'by chance,' a fate is avoided.
Xion	"You're welcome." Xion breathes, feeling... Better. Not good - but the presence makes her feel better. The war with an echo of her own heart's demons is ended by a friend, and for her, she ends the demons of another with a violent strike. This is how it had to be. This was an affirmation. Not just of 'good over evil' or life over destruction, but simply that some problems were difficult for one person to confront - crippling, stopping, grinding, frictive, destructive. Yet, together, their natural answer presented like a break in the clouds. A young man rises up, consumed by 'Other', by the evolution into something else. Perhaps it is a choice - perhaps it never was. But she had done this once before. Locked a power - the Orphenoch power to transform, to activate. 'To -wreak- whatever -torment- he likes upon -mortal- hearts'. "There's no kind way to feel any of those thoughts. Living with others requires you to begin at 'I am not more valid than another'. Beams of petrifying stone and orbs of lapis flame that freeze-frame in place cause pyros stop-erupt in blue plumes and potent detonatory clouds. Xion sweeps out again with her greywash-blade of locust wing veined-gossamer flakes, and a rushing construction strikes against the blue flames, and with a great lazuli detonation, Locust nano-wave and blue flames sit committed to each other. The majority of 'Starlight' sits suspended in the frozen wave, shimmering chrome. Xion jumps it, a brace of ten mildly-themed blades all about her like a set of wings. Dropping to the edge of the wave, she launches off of it with a toe-touch correction. Instead of going for Strashes or finishers, the keyblades fire off like seeking missiles, guided by solar forces that erupt them in golden flames of reflected light. Like hands of a clock, the blades circle and aim to spear into the orphenoch-parasite king from the 'clock hours' allowing Tomari and Lilian's slashes to be the eleventh and twelvth stroke. Xion aims to be the thirteenth stroke, Starlight's sea of chromed crytals melting into silver light that re-forms her key-toothed sword for a final driving lunge -- through the King's chest. "No more do-overs, BOB-" She shouts, and turns the key with an audible lock-click. Then, abandoning all offense, she clears the way for Haru to deliver his Deletion Protocol - BOB with Bob and the Orphenoch King locked together. Perhaps, this, would save one more heart. To save a colonized soul.
Go Shijima	Piece by piece, the Parasite King is chipped away. Dynamic Era's structures withstand the barrage for just long enough to grant him that opening. Like an insect appraising a threat, the Parasite King raises his arms, preparing to halt attack. But here, physical strength only matters so much--and in terms of will, Haru's far outstrips BOB's, especially with Xion's will serving to lock him in place. The sword is driven through, and the fungus begins dissolving. The spirit howls in rage, leaping aside for lack of any means to directly oppose Haru's strength, his animal snarls given to noises of uncertainty as he watches the fungus in the seams of his chitinous gauntlets begin to dissolve, too. He charges Tomari, next, attempting to make a clash of claws. It's not even close--Drive overtakes him, smashing him backwards onto Lilian's blackened portion of the floo. His chestplates are slashed so thoroughly that they fall off, revealing slowly dissolving fungal colonies. Assaulted by constant, phantasmal Lilians in numerous different timelines, the Parasite King, even as he shakily rises from Tomari's rider kick, suffers even more, the spirit coming to grips with something it never has before: mortality. There are no other hosts here--though he tries to take Utsuho, he is trapped in the decaying, lacerated body he invaded, thanks to Xion's keyblades. No defense he can prepare is adequate. No more do-overs, as Xion had said. Tamamo's nudging at the strands of fate sees to that. He now confronts hopelessness, concern given over to terror--the same terror he had inflicted on a young Cooper, as had been confessed to Muramasa. The same terror he'd forced upon Leland Palmer since he was a boy, on Sarah, on Ronette. On Laura. The meteor strike from the duo seals it--the Parasite King is engulfed in flames, shattered to pieces, BOB's scream cut short as the Orphenoch body and his own spiritual corpus turn to ash. The Black Lodge is quiet. With no shaking, with no sound, no great fanfare, the storm beyond those curtains dies down. Red darkens. Creased curtains give way to tall shapes, give way to trees. The forest is quiet--not even the owls dare make a sound. Police lights paint sweeping cones of red and blue as the SUV Cooper had taken to get here idles. Cooper hadn't been there, for the final battle. But he is apparently here now. "Bobby, Ronnette, James, Takuma... they're all fine," he says, smiling calmly. "I think... we could all use some rest. Anybody want a lift?" Anyone who does can get a lift back to the Great Northern. Those who sleep tonight may find it the most restful they've had in some time. In the morning, Sheriff Truman will note with some sadness that Cooper left in a hurry. There will be time, at least for a few things, soon--heartfelt sentiments of all shapes--and they may be made free of the shadow which loomed over this town.
Hamada Haru	"I haven't once needed a lift here," Dynamic Era says, coolly. He feels hollowed out, and simply doesn't have the energy in him to be bothered with anything other than what they just experienced. He turns and carries on his way, pausing only a moment to consider the darkening red color. Not disappearing. Darkening. Like blood exposed to air scabbing over. This perturbs him for only a moment, before he waves a hand. The buzz of locusts constructs a stairway leading to the plateau of the border. If anything, it looks more ominous now. Asked at the beginning if he would have stayed for even an afternoon once things were done, he would've said no. As it is, he doesn't depart quickly-- or at all. The RV that he's occupied this whole time has lights on inside it that flicker off at a relatively normal time at night, though periodic glares of various devices cast a pale blue-white light in fits and starts.
Hellwarming Trio	The King is destroyed, silence returns to the forest, and the only things Utsuho and Rin hear for a while are their own breaths and the idle noises of the forest. They're panting with exertion, but they dare not celebrate too early until they finally hear Cooper announcing their victory (kind of). Then they're cheering. They're loud, they dance with about as much elegance as one might expect of creatures that lived underground up until a year ago (so none), and they try and get everyone else into the partying spirit despite being visibly exhausted. They're going to be calling for all sorts of snacks, of course, right until they get in Shinnosuke's car and just doze off in a heap.