Voyage Through the Multiverse (Open) [IC]

[Skylus]

TGWR

Madi looked back to see the pterodactyl somehow riding the deer demon. "Oh Hell no." The Ghoul stopped in her tracks, for someone was in front of her. link seemed to know the man, and 'Doug' quickly introduced himself, and told Madi that there was a library a floor up.
"Great. Get everyone there, I'll handle this."

The Hylian pilot began to protest but grew quiet with a glare from Madi and he simply nodded, waved a hand, and everyone filed in the elevator and it went up to the floor above.

Madi then felt herself transforming, when she looked down, she saw that she was once again human, barefoot, and was wearing a red Gryffindor t-shirt and blue jeans, both of which were in tatters but at first glance, the clothing seemed wearable. The Witch raised her gaze to the creatures heading towards her and she flexed her wrists, summoning twin blue flames with a roar that shot up ten feet before dying back down to one foot in height.
"You want them, you're gonna have to fight through me first."

---

Ammy gazed at the two men before her. "No. I do not harm mortals, no matter how far they have strayed. If you wish to join me, that is fair, but I cannot allow you to roam around harming mortals. Where are you two from?"

---

Bilbo simply ran out of the cell he was in, only pausing to compliment the strange singing men on their...well...singing. Then he was off, running as fast as his Hobbit-feet could carry him down the hallway.

[Naval Monte]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

When Bilbo ran out the Beatles didn't follow, instead they stayed as Kiara brke in and grabbed on to Paul and threw him into the corner. With Lennon down on the ground both Garrison and Ringo looked at her and they began to sing a new song.

"Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ah"

As they kept singing Kiara began to feel her head getting light and her vision blurring as hallucinations began to appear before her. Yet she would begin to feel relaxed when in reality she should feel fear and panic over the situation.

John would get up and join with the other two with singing, Paul would join in a few seconds later.

---

Doug would find the hallway out of the hallway was a mess; blood drenching the once sterile white and gray hallway with bodies stern about and pieces of the wall and ceiling either hanging out or on the floor. The smell of gunpowder and blood hung heavy in the air. He would see a few hamster size mosquitoes like creatures with four long wings drinking blood from the dead, most ignoring Doug.

Doug would soon see another woman walking from one of the hall and block his way when she stopped. Doug would see that long black hair covered most of her body and it reach down to the floor. From the few patches of skin revealed he can see that her skin was unhealthy pale, with blood vessels visible on some parts. The woman standing before him was naked.

When she turn he would see thar her eyes were widely set apart and they were large, intact they appear to be almost bulging out of the sockets. She had a smile that was impossible wide. Should Doug speak to her the woman would begin to walk towards him.

Outside K.Rool and his men would see a soldier being lifted up in the air and be held upside down. He would scream for mercy until his legs was pulled at opposite directions and his left leg was ripped out while his right leg was bent painfully backward. The man screamed in agony as more of his body was being ripped in half until he finally stopped just as the tear was at his throat, stopping when it reached his head. 

His mangled body dropped to the ground as his leg was propelled down to the fleeing troops, the leg going through a sooder from the back of his chest to his frontal abdomen, spilling out blood to those in front of him. Another soldier would be flung back as he float up in the air. The man would scream as his body was being reduced to a bloody mist to everyone, each patch of skin and clothing disintegrated leaving behind bloody bones.

With the masked woman preoccupied with the latest victim the soldiers ran towards the airship. From one of the buildings the walls would break down as a giant walked out. The creature had gray skin from the upper half, the lower half was covered in black hair. The creature had a muscular human torso with a human-like arm and arms. However the face was a man contorted into vicious rage as long fangs can be seen. Multiple long curved horns can be seen from the back and on top of his head as well as long messy black hair.

However his legs were similar to that of a goat with a tail behind him, even the horns resembled those of a goat. His elbows had large spikes growing from them. The satyr would have the same stench as the deer demon. When the satyr saw the soldier he would throw back his head and scream in rage. 

"AAAAEEEEEGGGGGGIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS!" 

The satyr would conjure two black holes from which twin massive butcher knives covered in runic script would emerge. The demon would begin to charge towards them, letting out a battle cry as he did. The other helicopters began to fly off the landing pad as the soldiers within began to open fire at the satyr.

---

Both the tengu and Inugami looked displeased that Ammy refused to join them. "We come from Nippon like you. But we come from the same world where AEGIS hails from. We have seen how they and other humans in charge have created a system where beings like us are either imprisoned or killed for defying what they believe to be their world order." The inugami told the goddess sorrowfully.

"Most of us have to hide in order to live with our freedom intact, others either work with the humans in order to escape death or enslavement, or are forced to be used as tools for the humans until they are no use for them." The tengu spat out in contempt.

He looked up at her. "You say you would stay with them even if they strayed their way but if you saw what the humans have done you will agree with us that the humans must pay for their transgressions." 

---

When Madi chose to stay down with the deer demon the creature looked down at her, it's new partner roaring at her. The demon would grab her by the ankles with its tentacles and fling her up to the ceiling before slamming her back on the floor, where it will repeat doing that multiple times. 

Each time Madison hit the floor and ceiling blood would splatter out, with cracks forming by the tenth impact. The demon would throw her at the ceiling one last time before dropping her on the floor. The demon would walk over her, it's tail dragging her along by a few inches, until it reaches the elevator. 

The demon would gently press on the button to bring down the elevator. Once the doors open the pterodactyl would get off the demon and walk into the elevator where the demon would use its tentacles to feel for the button leading it to the top floor, pressing it once it found it.

The pterodactyl would let out a few screeches as though it was thanking the demon before the doors closed as it went up. The demon turned to look at Madison, seeing if she was truly defeated or if she will get up. The antlers would begin to fall off as the curved forward horns grow and its face shorten slightly.

---

Kayta would see several people in black robes suddenly emerge from the dark and surround her car. They all stood in front of her car, menacingly.

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

For a second, Miria actually thought that the bugs were all going to sting her! She was lucky that they didn't; it seemed that she'd gotten their trust, or at least that, like the Pterodactyl and Deer, they had put their differences aside until they could get through this. In this case, however, they were fleeing from monsters that wanted to eat them, rather than getting revenge on the people fighting them. Prey-ho!

Ahead of Miria, the rat beast began to lumber and twitch. She didn't know if her eyes were messing with her, or if the thing was just being really weird, until it began to shrink and deform; yep, it was just being really weird. At least she wasn't going totally blind now. Still, something about the thing seemed strangely familiar, until...

Yep. It was...Madi? Miria almost wanted to stop, simply eyeing the other girl in bewilderment, but her legs kept subconsciously carrying her along, not wanting to join the rest of her in the maws of their pursuers. She was thankful for that, although at one point she had to snap out of it to stop from slamming into a wall. She turned another corner, close behind Link and the rest of the fleeing mass. She may have been able to easily blow past some of them, but she didn't know where they were all even heading to, and it wasn't a good idea to go running around aimlessly in a bunker full of deadly abominations, especially when she was responsible for the safety of another being...for five.

Katya

Katya was juuust about to rev up her engine and head out, when a new collection of strangers made their presence known. The soldiers just moment earlier had worried her, but these people in robes? They really worried her; she wasn't going to let it show, however. She was too proud to let them know that they intimidated her, if that even was their intention, which, to be frank, it probably was. Katya simply quirked her eyebrow and watched the individuals directly ahead of her, although one hand remained quite close to the firearm near her lap.

It was a little awkward, just sitting there while her car was surrounded. Katya hated awkward silence. She knew that she was probably in danger again, but she couldn't help herself. She'd rather be in danger and be amused, than be set upon like a sheepish...sheep...to the slaughter! The woman held her free hand to her mouth and forced a chuckle. "You're not here to pledge your devotion to your Goddess, are you?", She asked jokingly.

[Naval Monte]

The exhausted face stared at the black screen of the laptop as the familiar triple triangles acted as the wallpaper of the software installed in the heavily modified device, their eyes looking back at the singular eye of the triangle. It felt as though the eye was judging them for what had occurred, almost as though it was seeing into their soul to determine if they were guilty or not for the events that had transpired.

The glow of the laptop screen, the muted old CRT TV set in their hotel room, and the streetlights outside illuminated their dark room. They heard the sound of cars passing buy and the chimes of a trolley passing by for its last shift before would be closed for the day. The ambient noise of the town soothe their mind somewhat, giving them a chance to take their mind away for what awaited them.

A traitorous part of their mind even told them to not do what thet must, to hold it off another day. To use this day to relax and either go innthe internet to torrent movies or to go to a pub and live life like a regular person. A scrawl appeared on their face as they shoved those thoughts away.

They knew they couldn't delay the inevitable anymore. Almost as if they were on autopilot they moved the mouse and click on a bland looking icon. Once it glow blue a window open to reveal a chat log. They would see that someone was already on and once they saw that someone was in began to type. From the black background the words written in red text said;

Providence: Good evening director. We were expecting you.

The director wanted to gulp in nervousness but fought the urge in fear that somehow the infamous "All Seeing Eye" of AEGIS would know their fear even behind the laptop screen. Instead they type out.

Director 49: Thank you for seeing me Overseer.  No doubt you have become aware of my recent predicament.

The director knew that this was the moment that would spell their ultimate fate in the Imperative. Would the Overseers feel that they can be trusted to keep their postion and ultimately redeem themselves to both them and to the Imperative? Would they be demoted in rank and be forced to work in a new assignment while bearing the weight of their shame and failure until the day they die? Or would they terminate them? Either by resignation or actual termination? With what has occured it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of that being their fate.

As the director stew in the possibilities of their future the Overseer behind the Department of Information Security and Database Management was unnervingly quiet. The director pondered if perhaps they were not alone on their end and was in fact, speaking with the other Overseers on a private chat or worryingly one Overseer on screen was in fact all of them pretending to be one? In truth either option was very likely for the shadowy council members of the Imperative.

The Director would see the Overseer was finally typing down something and soon they would soon see the finished results of the Overseer's typing as they post it on the chat.

Providence: Yes, the sector you were given command over was recently raided by an unidentified lone party displaying a threat and power matching some of the members from GOI-74, Order of the Crimson Mother, and GOI-39, Arwen Corp. You have suffered tremendous casualties on both site personal and anomalies contained within, both caused by the individual responsible for the raid and for anomalies released by the individual, of which a good deal of these anomalies are still at large. With the damage reports we have determined that the site is unusable in its state and as such a new facility will have to be used until it can be repaired.

The director saw that the Overseer was typing out a new post right after they finished the first one. It didn't take long for the next part to be done.

Providence: We can not afford to have the town be absent of our presence for long and with former site Director Lana's neglect has forced us to make plans on revitalizing the site to undo her damage, something that this recent incident as some unfortunately assisted us with. We have debated on whether to keep you as the current site director but a majority vote as decided that you shall keep your position. Moreover due to your current condition you grant you access to nit only hire freelancer agents but the use of Special Anomaly Consultants. Infact SAC- 425-D will arrive to assist you in restoring your site. We will also provide you  generous funds to get you on your feet, a dense of employees you can hire, and a new facility.

The director couldn't help but smirk on not only being allowed to keep their job but to be given this much support to start over.

Director-49: Thank you Overseer. I promise you all that you all can count on me to restore our presence and influence in the town and to maintain order in the town. I will not repeat the mistakes made by former director Lana, nor will a raid like the one before happen again.

The Overseer was quick with their response.

Providence: For your sake director, you better make sure you keep your word. We will send you the files on your new facility and possible new employees. The funds will be sent to your new computer mainframe. We will monitor your progress to see if you can restore your sector. Until then, we wish you luck director.

Providence logged out after those words. The director would get the chime from their laptop notifying them of new emails. As they check on the inbox of their email they saw PDF files sent to them by the All Seeing Eye.

Opening one file they saw it was on the new site, one made to look deceptively fit within the town itself. The director got up from their seat to go to the kitchen. With the raw amount of information each file would have the director knew they would need to get something to eat and plenty of coffee to go through the long reading that awaited them.

As they left the room the laptop screen show the Victorian mid rise building with the adjusted clocktower. From the colum held roof over the entrance a plague baring the symbol of AEGIS was proudly displayed.

Seeds of Anxiety

[Speyland]

Ryo Hazuki
Yokosuka, Japan
Shenmue Universe

It is eight o'clock in the morning. Ryo got out of the bed to check on Ine to the kitchen that she worries about him a lot. She can be seen cooking breakfast and she didn't notice that he is behind her. She turns around to see him standing.

"Ine-san." Ryo said to start a conversation with her. "Oh, Ryo." Ine said as she didn't notice him. "Are you still
worried about me?" Ryo asked as she didn't want her to worry too much. "Yes, I am." She replied. "Be sure to be home by ten o'clock." Ine said. "I will." Ryo replied before he left the Hazuki Residence.

[Menschenfleisch]

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

The Devil Pit mines, despite their name and reputation, were actually quite quiet and beautiful. It felt like a solace from above, a self contained enclave of simple things leading simple lives. The ghosts spent all their days doing what they’d done in life; the insects buzzed and scuttled in perpetuity; it was peaceful and silent. She didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, not even in the slightest. Dark and confined spaces felt liberating to her, as if she was made larger by simply existing in a smaller universe. Glistening mosses hung from the roof here where the stones had not been turned in decades, Anomalous roots had grown through these walls and rooted everything in place. Glistening lights hung from the roof, low over their heads. She felt as if she might just reach out and pluck a droplet of nectar from them, though she knew that they were really meant to dissolve animals alive. She harvested a segment of one of the glowing ferns, pulling upon it with her gloved hand. It stretched like rubber, refusing to break. Thus, she had to use her knife to saw through the thinning strand of flesh attaching the segment she was trying to pull down and its greater mass. It sat in her palm, drooling juices with a scent like peaches left in a bed of lemon juice. It was blue and partially transparent like the body of a jellyfish. It was an unwise decision informed by nothing but sheer curiosity but she slurped up the azure noodle nonetheless. Her eyes widened: it was such a peculiar taste! The fungus itself was chewy and bitter like tobacco leaves, but the acid that surrounded it tasted of mangoes - though a little thicker and earthier - mixed with cola and mustard. She let it sit in the corner of her cheek for a while before spitting it into the dirt like a lump of cow cud. ”Bit tart. Guess that goes without saying, though.” She was a curious little fiend, seized by adventurous vigour. She hadn’t noticed it yet, but an excitement had built up inside her these last few days. She was apprehensive and anxious about her future but that didn’t mean she sought to avoid it; it was possible to look forward to and yet feel doomed by something that lay in the future like an award ceremony or a date. She pulled down another clump of fungus and cut a whole bushel from the roof, folding them up and tucking them into a leather pouch that hung from her belt. ”If this was Andarta’s contingency, then why didn’t she deploy it sooner - before Kyle doomed her entire organisation, I mean? People are still dropping dead, here and overseas, simply for being associated with the Crimsonites. He set a lot of dominos up and knocked a whole lotta them down before he died. I can’t imagine that Andarta would’ve held onto something so powerful while her life’s work was being dismantled before her eyes.” Jack could still see the woman’s face, contorted by fear and grief. She had stood, in pain and shock, against what she perceived to be a monolith - a terrible angel of fire, the reason that the esper had come to plague her. That hoarse, rasping voice; those blackened and slick hands, saturated with gangrene and blood; those eyes, so filled with resolve. She hadn’t been able to glean even the slightest ember of hate or anger from them: had she read the mage wrong? Andarta must’ve harboured a festering coldness toward her - whether consciously or not. It was, in fact, unconscious narcissism that led Jacquelyn to this conclusion. She did not consider, even for one moment, that Andarta’s distaste might’ve fallen upon another party: Kyle, Liz, AEGIS, they were all responsible for what had happened, whereas Jack had spent the whole event asleep in her stone crib. Jack looked upon Andartas as a dangerous peer; stronger and more popular. In the firebrand’s eyes, that made her the underdog, especially after losing so much.

Jacquelyn straightened out her hair, pulling her fingers through her ponytail in order to flense any dust and bugs from her scalp. The shelled bugs on the ground were annoying, yes, but by no means creepy. It was strange: things, both big and small, came off as terrifying whereas things that were in the middle didn’t seem scary at all. In fact, they looked kind of cute. It appeared that her naturalist sentiments were shared by the other members of her group, considering how captivated the Ashwoods and Terry appeared. While Alex examined them, dissecting the creatures in her mind, Liz seemed to stare in pure, childlike wonder. ”(Holy shit. That’s adorable.)” She whispered under her breath. Terry, on the other hand, looked kind of bored - as if he were a child forced to look at something by his mother; obliged to take a good look but utterly disinterested. The ground was damp and somewhat slippery, like freshly rained-upon clay. Mosses clung to the walls, forming florid arches from which vines, flowers and clusters of fungus dangled. Tumid toadstools burst from softer patches of earth, reflecting the team’s torchlight and casting dappled patterns upon the walls. Their shadows were lean and long, like they were standing in a flat field at the setting of the sun. The jems, too, sparkled like stars, scintillating in the dark and highlighting the path that they were to follow. They came in all colours: red, blue and green, and all of them were dark and occluded by what appeared to be black smog trapped within them; murky like a deep, turbulent sea. She wondered whether they would sell for much on the black market but quickly discarded the thought. She wanted to be an alchemist, not a smuggler. Besides, she hardly knew anything about these particular gemstones and therefore she had no idea which ones were valuable and which ones weren’t. The Ashwoods were filthy rich so Alex probably wasn’t picking out the expensive ones, so examining her stock wouldn’t be any help, and there was no guarantee that these crystals were valuable at all. In fact, at a glance, they most resembled trinitite. Moths, delicate and thin as wrapping paper - though far less glossy - fluttered around them, gathering near their flashlights. Surveillance drones deployed by the Crimsonites, perhaps? Jackie doubted it, and she had no intention of murdering a whole flock of apparently benign, even affectionate insects just because she suspected that they were relaying information to their enemies. It was a naive sentiment, of course, but so what? If she wanted to wear rose-tinted lenses, who was in a position to tell her off?

”I’d suggest going after Vincent, since it sounds like he’s her confidante - and probably not as much of a bitch to take down - but knowing Andarta, she’s probably already got him holed up somewhere where we’ll never find him.” She was well aware of Andarta’s self-appeasing behaviour. However, unlike Shaw, who did terrible things by proxy and deluded herself into thinking that she was a good person by never getting her own hands bloody, Andarta seemed to take no comfort from her actions. She was sane, perhaps even supersane, capable of picking apart her own arguments and beliefs like they were haphazardly put-together jigsaw puzzles. She vilified, lambasted and railed against her own philosophy all while practicing it nonetheless. She was either a hero, so dedicated to the greater good that she was willing to become a monster in order to bring it about, or an utterly deranged hypocrite. Jackie was uncomfortable with the notion that the person who was ostensibly the villain of her story was heroic in any way, and so she chose to believe the latter hypothesis. ”They were using me as a battery? That can’t be good. One of my fingernails would pack the punch of a dozen Hiroshimas, maybe more. Hopefully, they don’t figure out how to turn my flesh into a radiation bomb. That was a thing, y’know? I’d fly over enemy fortifications in the middle of the night, blast their base with invisible ultraviolet rays and the next day they’d all be dead of-... of...” She trailed off. Then, just as the silence grew uncomfortable, she began to chuckle. ”’The Court’? For a moment, I thought you were talking about the judicial system.” It was a shitty joke, made half-heartedly in order to bring her nerves down. She used her own clumsiness and stupidity as a punchline in order to distract both herself and those around her in order to keep them from putting their minds toward more disturbing contemplations. It cost her reputation and self esteem, but what else was she supposed to do? Regale the group with stories about men falling apart like tattered teddy bears, spilling blood and guts like stuffing? She could still see them: soldiers, their skin sloughing off and their fingers falling off their hands as they clawed at their shrivelling faces. Empty towns, so toxic that the bodies didn’t rot; the radiation anihilated everything, even bacteria. Nations and champions had crumpled before her, crushed to a pulp by the sheer weight of her presence. She had been perdition incarnate, sowing desert with her right foot and desolation with her left. She couldn’t go back now. How would she explain to the world that awaited her how complete her failure had been? How would she face whoever was left - whether human or weapon - and tell them that she was the reason that their farmlands were fallow, that their ancestors were steaming mush and that they had suffered so much? She had rallied the children and sent them out to die; to throw their bodies on the pikes of the Earth’s nations, ostensibly in order to create a world that they could inhabit in harmony and guide toward a happier future. All they needed to do was sacrifice themselves, she’d cooed, for every life they lost was one fewer lives that their descendants and peers would have to. What a farce she had been, what a joke she was now.

Three shots, like hammer strikes on the back of her head. Jacquelyn’s gaze whipped up and she was brought back to reality as Elizabeth opened fire. She looked from side to side, trying to take in their situation. They weren’t surrounded, which was good, but they were definitely cornered, which wasn’t much better. ”Homunculi?! They’re not sentient, right?” The horde was packed shoulder to shoulder. Each individual homunculus was like a ripe pimple, undulating and quivering as if they were about to burst. Not one of them was emaciated: they were all far fatter than regular men, as if their creators had simply found corpses and slapped a few extra layers of meat on them for good measure. Their gangrenous, swollen faces covered their eyes and filled their mouths, reducing their shouts and cries to muffled groans and whistles. She loaded an explosive dart and guided it up into the air before commanding it to plummet into the crowd. There was an almighty kaboom and a sudden geyser of black and green goo, spewing rotten chunks of meat - festering with alchemical maggots and still filled with stitches and rusted iron pins - in all directions. She saw a homunculus inflate and erupt, coming apart in layers like an onion as its skin, then muscles, then bones were burnt away. A sloppy lump fell to the ground in front of her, and she- she couldn’t stop herself any more! She heaved and lurched, falling to the ground and gripping her throat with both hands, squeezing her jaw shut so she wouldn’t puke. The thing before her was flat like a pancake, and white fluid dribbled freely from one of the pores in its turgid surface. An eye! A liquefied eye! Her cheeks ballooned with vomit and acid shot up the back of her nose, forcing her to open her mouth and empty her mouth. Her throat and eyes burned: she was crying from the stench. She scrambled backwards, gripping the wall and pulling herself up, careful not to slip in the blood and puke. ”What the fuck, what the fuck?!” She turned away, shutting her eyes and breathing hard. ”No no no no no, no no no no no...”

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven

Elizabeth loaded a copperish golden bullet into her revolver chamber and when she took aim at one obese Homunculus she would pull the trigger, the leveler pulling back to ignite the propellant. Once the ignition was set off the barrel of the gun let out a loud bang that echo throughout the mine tunnel, plumes of smoke puffing out of the barrel, as well orange yellow sparks flying off while a streak of light in the same color flew off, unleashing more sparks that would rain to the ground.

When the bullet made impact with the homunculus chest it would create a small hole which burned at the edge of the hole, steam coming off the body along with the stench of burning flesh. The translucent flesh allowed for everyone to see a glow appear in its chest as it spread throughout its body. The homunculus body began to expand from the torso, almost as though it was being inflated like a balloon. Steam bellow from the screaming homunculus as its eyes began to sizzle along with its tongue and salvia. 

The light within it began to intensify as the homunculus burn from the inside out, its screams and horrid stench filling the tunnel. The agonizing scream would be the last words of the creature ad it body burst into a raging inferno, fire belching out from its confined space and consuming everything that was close to the homunculus, it being others of its kind. The same sparks from before sprayed out and as they land on the homunculus they would ignite the creatures on fire. Flying shrapnel of burning flesh, molten pieces of pipes and stitches. The wet ground would produce steam that not only prevent the mose and fungi from combusting into flames but creating a heated smoke screen to obscure the sight of the creatures.

Both Alex and Rolo would channel electrical energy from their hands and hammer respectively and unleash it on the ground, the parts of the cave floor still wet would conduct the electricity to the homunculus who due to having metal prosthetics on their body made them extremely vulnerable to the spells. Many of them screamed in agony as their bodies convulse on the spot, many having their bodies burn badly and some having their eyes sizzle and melt from their sockets or even explode into a gooey mess, with many more being scratched by the wildly swinging arms of the homunculus next to them while have lost all control of their body. 

They would remain in their spot going through this torturous form of death until the current stop and those caught would drop down to the ground, their bodies blacken and steam coming off the cooked corpses, the stench of burnt meat, metal, and ozone hung heavy in the air. Luckily for Jackie's sanity the steamy screen would provide cover to shield her from the gruesome scene, at least for a little while. Once the steam dissipates she will unfortunately she the gruesome aftermath of the combined magecraft.

Elizabeth would insert a bullet of colloidal silver into the chamber, the bullet gleaming with a whitish and blue metal. She would turn to Jackie and saw that she vomited, she gave her a small smile, it was one of sympathy. "It's never easy dealing with homunculus the first time around, especially if they explode like that." She turned her sight back to the cloud as she watched for any homunculus that would come out. "But while some can be as intelligent as us I doubt these possess that level. I think they have rudimentary intelligence, just enough to follow through basic orders to the best of it's ability but nothing much of an ego or personality in their noggin and artifical soul. In short, these are nothing more but biological automations." She would see a homunculus coming out with horrific second degree burns limping towards them.


"Think of the clockwork demon robots back from Club Midnight Jack. This is the same thing as them." She open firefly on the creature. White powdery smoke and glittering particles came out from the barrel as the silver bullet flew and hit the homunculus. Everyone would see ice crystal grow from the wound and grow throughout the creature's body. 

It tried to break off the crystals but each time it did a source of its own flesh would go with the crystals, the exposed wounds showing that it's own muscles were also freezing. The ice crystals that fell began to freeze the water around it, growing up from its feet and reaching its ankles to stop it as the ice froze a circular area of a few inches around it. The homunculus would scream almost in desperation as it tried to rip off more of its freezing skin to stop itself from becoming a block of ice but it only offer a short reprieve until the frost continue on its relentless process, worse each piece of frozen flesh hitting the floor not only caused the frozen circle around it to grow but to cause the ice on its ankles to grow more, now covering its thighs just as the ice from its torso was reaching its groin. 

Eventually it could move its arms as its shoulders and biceps became frozen and as its neck began to freeze it can only scream in horror and defiance at its fate until it was frozen solid. The group just watch the frozen homunculus, none saying a thing on what they just saw as each tried to process on the chilling effect of the latest bullet used.

Elizabeth turn her revolver to the side as she let out a nervous laugh. "I guess Carcosa was right. These Vim bullets are no joke." The occultist sounded concern but the firepower the bullets had. In her mind she was playing the horrific effects each one would have if she was to use it if she had allies or civilians close by to be caught in the crossfire. Her mind playing images of the fire and recent ice bullets and she shivered at the thought of making a terrible mistake like that.

Several more homunculus would limp out but they all were set on fire by Mai. Metis would summon a chain gun and begin to fire into the slowly dissipating steam cloud to clear out any remaining homunculus. Jackie would see Earth spikes heading towards her at incredible speeds. Before they can reach her she would see the spikes crumble into pieces immediately and the ground around them sink into the ground, cracks forming around it. She would see the space on the area distorting, almost like a heatwave bending and warping air on a hot summer day. Yet she felt no heat coming from the spot,  more to the point, she would see from the light cast from the fungus that light itself was being distorted along with air.

Spacetime was warped in this localized area of reality due to an increase in gravity. "To think I would use the magic Claudia taught me to save the Firebrand." She would hear Terry say, his hand outstretched as the palm of his hand had s blood cur, his other hand holding the knife he used to cut his palm. "You want me to guard you from the golems while you take them out or you want me to do it." Terry looked over to Theo's golem reaching to the other and the two stone simulacra engaging in a sluggish brawl as each deliver slow but powerful fists to each other. "Because it looks like Theo got the second one covered for now." 

Both Elizabeth and Alex saw what happened with Jackie and Terry. "I know this is a terrible time to say this but do whatever you can to snatch him before another witch steals him from you Ellie." Elizabeth looked flabbergasted by what her mother said, even Terry looked flustered. "You're right, hat's a terrible time to say something like that!" Both Elizabeth and Terry shouted at unison, Elizabeth's pale skin making the blush on her skin obvious while Terry's darker complexion hide it far better.

"You can try to help get your daughter hitched after we save the world from the child killing cult." Simon said as he stuck his hand out and some of the remaining Homunculus were being stretched impossibly thin as they were sucked into a rift conjured by Samson that was on the palm of Simon' s hand. Conveniently the noise produced by the singularity made it that he didn't hear Elizabeth shout "Go overdose on an ocean of Vodka you wanker., the slavic mage would close his hand as he held into his arm in pain, falling on to one knee.

Nix and Valeria moved close as he tried to recover from the spell that took him out from the fight fir the time being. Sickening noises of bones snapping and popping can be heard as well as flesh tearing and a wet smacking sound could be heard coming from Simon as his raincoat from the shoulder bulge out and began to move in ways that wa obviously impossible for the human anatomy. "Damn it you idiot! We told you to only use that if the situation desperately called for it!" Nix yelled out the man. While she was angry at him for his actions everyone in the team knew she was also deeply concerned for their other warlock. 

"The homunculus are just a distraction. The golems and the alchemist or alchemists who made them is far more important. I just needed to clean out the unnecessary garbage so we can focus on our true objective." He said between hisses of pain. As the golem looked at Simon and determining that keeping him alone would be too dangerous it aim it's arms as spikes grew from it hands. The group would see the moths from before and they began to bend light to create several holographic copies of Simon, Nix, and Valeria as they began to run away to throw off the aim of the golem, the superhuman esper carrying the slav over her shoulder much to his protest.

The golem would begin to fire the spikes like a machine gun as it tried to hit the real trio, yet it seem to keep hitting the fakes. However it manages to hit Nix at the chest which made her dispersed into black smoke, forcing her into the shadows to recover. Just as it found which Simon and Valeria were the real ones shadow tendrils and bloody skeletal arms came out to grab the golem, forcing its arms down to shot at the ground. Their saviors were none other but Terry and Wei who both summoned their familiars to save the two. 

"Richard, use those moths to hide Simon and Valeria until Simon is in good condition." The beast tamer nodded as he instructed the moths to create more copies to confuse the golem to allow the real duo to run out if the fight. The trapped Golem would use its power to form a large hand and bring it down on Terry who would dodge the fist as it slam down on the ground to form a small crater. From the arm a small arm grew out and punch him on the chest, sending him flying and rolling on the floor until he hit the mine wall. Elizabeth shouted his name as she ran to his side. The golem opening its smaller hand as spikes grew, aim at both Terry and Elizabeth.

Metis saw what was going to happen and was going to run towards them but she sensed danger and jump back as spikes grew from the ground she was standing on. She would then dodge more fists coming down from the ceiling. Alex and Rolo also thought to stop the hand from firing but like Metis they found new distractions stopping them.

This time Alex found herself paralyze as a spell hit her, while Rolo heard the homunculi screaming as they gain speed to go after him. Forcing the runesmith to channel his electrical powers to strike at the ones far away while using the runes on him to enhance his body to smash and crush the ones close to him. Wei was preoccupied with keeping the golem trap while Theo pour his magic to his golem as it fought against the enemy's. Mai was distracted by the swarm of homunculi like Rolo.

The only one who was not distracted and could save both Elizabeth and Terry was Jackie. If Jackie was observant she would realize she was not alone, the moving shadows in the tunnel was a clue that Terry's tenebraes were still present and might aid her in saving their shadowcaster.

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

Kiara may have been distraught, she may have been injured, she may have been desperate, but she was not an idiot Sticking around was suicide, but... their songs, they were like water across patterned class: pristine, unbroken streams of music interspersed with smooth melodious ridges and mellifluous rhythms; they drew her in. For all the potent mindstuff that flowed through her veins, her mind was no less susceptible to the music than anyone else, complexity and intelligence be damned. John beckoned her forward and she took an involuntary step toward him, then after that, a very deliberate and very deliberate one. These things didn't seem to be hostile. Maybe they were trying to communicate with her, or help her escape. They'd only killed soldiers so far, and they they'd utterly terrified Bilbo she realised that despite having laser eyes, they hadn't laid a finger on him while he'd been trapped in the room with them, nor had they tried to arrest his escape. If she hadn't been under their charm, she would've just left them alone and run away, having ensured Bilbo's safety at the very least. Her motivations were not heroic, her goals were self-centred: she was self admittedly unconcerned about the fates of people she didn't know, or at least, as unconcerned as any other person would be in her situation; her taboo was hurting people, not seeing them being hurt. Were these singers people, even? Did they even feel pain? It didn't matter: she was willingly enraptured, caught on their tune like a coat on a hook. She raised her hands and she took another step forward, her foot brushing gently past a soldier's corpse. "Hello," she murmured. "I'm sorry, I overreacted. I didn't hurt you, did I? My name is Kiara. Who are you? Where are you going?"

Polly, meanwhile, found herself mired in a nightmare. Johann had convinced her, at no small expense to his sanity, to help them save the lives of the personnel still trapped within the facility. Though she adamantly refused to do harm to those whose only crime was being anomalies - such as superhumans, mutants, homunculi and wild animals - she found herself more than willing to annihilate what she perceived to be unreasonable, unintelligent things - much to Johann's relief. No sooner than when they had taken five paces from the door to her containment chamber, a group of creatures made of crusted flesh and bone - casinebs, they were called - leapt out of the dark, bounding toward the group on all fours. They were slavering, feral abominations. Their saliva stunk of turpentine and their bodies were emaciated save for their legs, which were swollen and covered in rippling muscles. They gripped the floor and propelled themselves forward as they ran, leaving dents and scars in the concrete ground. Tatters of cloth hung from their gaping mouths, bits of gristle still wrapped around their triangular teeth. One of them opened its jaws wide to howl, revealing a second set of teeth behind the first. Its cry was guttural, wet and throaty: like a pneumonic man drowning in his own phlegm and saliva. She clenched her fist and her eyes sparked for a brief moment. Every drop of blood in the casinebs' bodies froze, instantly decelerating. It was as if iron booms had appeared in their veins and arteries. There was an incredible surge of pressure within them as all their fluids came to a screeching halt: the momentum of their bodies met the inertia of their haeme, causing their blood vessels to burst. Their skin tore like the exterior of an overfilled balloon, spewing jets of black blood over the walls, painting them thoroughly with gore. Their hearts swelled and cataclysmically ruptured, literally popping: the sound was not dissimilar to the detonation of a hand grenade, though it was muffled by the casinebs' cadavers. Their corpses did not skid: they lost all of their momentum and seemed to simply hit invisible brick walls. Their brains were mush, their organs were indistinct slurry: they were like flesh pinatas stuffed with mince meat. The smell was awful, like rotting eggs and gasoline. Casinebs reproduced by regurgitating botflies which preyed on other animals and laid Casineb eggs inside them, leeching their victims' energy. Casineb colonies were often mistaken for tumours. Already, the flies inside the dead dogs' bodies were beginning to eat them alive from the inside out. She turned her palm toward the ground and moved her hand downward; shortly thereafter the Casinebs flattened themselves as every bone in their bodies broke at once with a mighty, wet snap. She only added more pressure, squeezing them so thin and compressing them into such dense slabs that they began to weep moisture, as blood was being forced out of their flesh like water from a sponge. The flies were dead: she folded the dead dogs into rectangular prisms about thirty centimetres long and wide, and twenty centimetres tall. "... jeez. I didn't know I was so strong." She clenched her fist, feeling her nails digging into her palm. "Johann, where are we going now? I want to help people, not stomp dogs all day."

[Skylus]

TGWR

Fortunately, no one in the elevator saw the naked woman save for Midna, for she ventured out first to make sure there were no threats. The imp gazed at the woman for a second before she flew up to her, summoned a black cloak from nowhere and handed it to the woman. Once the woman covered herself, Midna turned around in the air to find the three men (really, a man, teenager, and wolf) standing there in the hallway.

The imp promptly doubled over, laughing. "You three should see the looks on your faces right now! Really, is this the first time any of you have seen a woman unclothed?"

Doug merely shook his head and smiled a knowing smile. "Not for me, I guess you could say I've gotten around." Then his face grew serious. "However now is not the time to talk about this." The pilot spoke to the cloak wearing woman. "Do you know where the library is?"

---

Madi slowly got up and fired a few spells in the deer demon's direction, before someone ran into her and pushed her forwards a few steps. When the turned around, she found herself looking down at Bilbo. "Get behind me", was all the she to the Hobbit before the Witch continued to cast spells at the demon.

---

"Perhaps you are speaking the truth, however, I must leave this cell and find my allies. WIll you join me?" Ammy side stepped away from the two and up to the door, trying to see outside her cell.

---

"Uh...Are you seeing this, boss?" A Krusha flicked switches across the Flying Krock's control panels.

K. Rool gazed at the massive creature through the viewport. "Yes. You'd have to be blind to not see it. Suggestions?"

"I thought you made the suggestions, sir."

"Not this time. The creature hasn't noticed us yet. Prepr the cloaking device and move it to the center of the base. I spotted another landing pad there."

The Kremlings ran around the control deck, doing as ordered, and soon the airship vanished, and silently vertically took off and then moved to the center of the base, then touched down on the landing pad there, still cloaked.

[Naval Monte]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

The Beatles kept playing their soothing melody as the young girl spoke to them, obviously in trace by them. John spoke, his voice as melodious as the song. "You did not. The bullets barely hurt us as well. You are going and scare so we forgive you for your reaction." Lennon told the girl. Behind Karl used this as an opportunity to run away from the automatons. He didn't look back or thought to save the girl as he knew going back would consign him to a brutal death.

Ringo was the next to speak. "We are here to save people from their troubles. People who are trap in a vicious cycle of self destruction, trapped in a cycle of abuse, or are tormented by their own mind becoming aberrant. We come in to take such unfortunate souls and liberate them from their troubles, take them somewhere safe where they will never be troubled no more." 

Kiara would noticed that as they spoke they still kept signing at the same time. She wasn't sure how that was possible. "We don't mean to harm or kill people but some individuals seek to stop us from saving people. Either they don't wish for us to take away the one they abuse to feel empowered or they think we have evil intent, we become violent simply to survive and achieve our mission." Paul explained. "We sense turmoil in your soul going one. What troubles you?" Garrison asked.

Johann saw the short lived "battle" as Polly destroyed the Casineb with barely any effort. "We are heading towards the vault. Once we stock up on enough weapons and tools to defend ourselves we will reach the control room to see what anomalies were released and if necessary unleash the last countermeasures of the base." He of course kept on tactical nuclear weapons in the facility, each saved for the day if a massive contamination breach occur and they can't contain all of the anomalies. 

"From there we can use the AIs to guide anyone trap to the escape trams and vans to escape the facility. We might have to join them if saving the facility is impossible." He told her before walking up to a box left on the side. Opening it he took back everything he removed, including a radio and pistol. "At least I won't be completely defenseless now." He said as he turned on the radio. "Now follow me." He instructed as he began to lead Polly through the nightmarish corridors that the base has become.

---

The woman would grab the cloak between her thumb and pointer finger, examining it as she felt the article of clothing with her other hand. She seems to enjoy it. She was distracted by the new clothing to not native how the boys reacted to her nudity. When she was asked where the library she turned her sight back to the group. She lifted her hand and pointed to where the library was with her long and thin fingers.

With Ammy the two Youkais looked at each other, almost wondering if the other would agree or disagree with suggestion to help the goddess. The two turn to face her and the inguami said. "We will assist you in finding a way out if you can help us and others who have joined us to escape us, in particular the one who is leading our rebellion against the humans." 

The demon let out roars as each spell hit it, yet none seem to do any serious damage. The demon eventually began to run towards a different corridor, away from Madi. It seems it was fed up with the ghoul and wanted to be left alone.

Outside the airship crew saw two helicopters blow up while the mask woman was in the air, floating in mid air. Though in this distance she was just a small black dot, one causing helicopters to explode or in the case of one suffer a malfunction that made it crash to the ground with the demonic satyr. The woman was floating to the walls and soon was outside of the facility. 

---

The robed individuals stared at Kayta as they remain motionless. They would stay like that for a few minutes until in unison they began to walk towards her.

[Speyland]

Ryo Hazuki
Shenmue Universe

"Ryo-san, wait up!" A voice can be heard from the distance. It was Masayuki Fukuhara, a live-in student. "Fuku-san." Ryo said in awe. "I heard that there's a black hole at the construction site in Sakuragaoka." Fukuhara nervously said. "Construction site?" Ryo curiously asked. "I heard that it is very dangerous." Fukuhara said. "Is that so?" Ryo asked. "I wouldn't go over there if I were you!" Fukuhara said. "Is that all?" Ryo asked. "There are police officers blocking the construction site to prevent us from getting hurt." Fukuhara said. "I'll go check it out." Ryo said as he wasn't sure if he is going crazy or not. "Let me go with you!" Fukuhara doesn't want Ryo to die. "Why?" Ryo asked. "Something bad might happen to you," Fukuhara said. "Besides, we aren't sure how they even appear in the first place." He continued. "I see." Ryo said. "Please let me go with you." Fukuhara said. "I'm sorry, I rather go on my own." Ryo said.

"I understand." Fukuhara said sadly. "I should get going, it is best for you to be safe." Ryo said before he walks away. "Be careful!" Fukuhara cried.

[Skylus]

TGWR

Midna nodded to the silent cloak wearing woman. "Thank you. You can follow us if you want." The imp did a loop in the air and flew over to the others. "What was that you said? About getting around? Hah! It's a wonder you do, with those clothes you're wearing."

Doug merely smirked. "I'm surprised you even know what that means."

The cursed Twilight Princess smiled back. "I think you'd be surprised at how much I do know. Mostly because I've been around him for so long." At this, the wolf's gaze moved from Doug to Midna and his eyes widened a bit. "Yes, I'm talking to you, Link. I don't think you want to know what I've seen from being your shadow for so long."

"Aren't we supposed to get to this so called library now?" The younger Hylian interrupted Midna, who nodded.

"Yeah. I guess so." Then she noticed something attached to the side of Doug's belt. At first glance, it looked like some sort of sword scabbard. Then, she looked closer.

"Wait, do you have the -"

"Yeah. Except it's been updated a bit...Should still work." Doug reached to his side and drew his era's version of the Master Sword and the wolf padded towards the pilot, the beast's gaze focused on the holy blade that began to glow brighter as the wolf approached it. A black fog surrounded the wolf and when it faded, another Hylian was standing there, holding a darkened crystal in one hand. Midna took the crystal and desummoned it, then flew upwards a bit. "So you're back to normal, wonderful."

"Yes. Do we really have the time to be standing around talking though?"

---

Meanwhile, Madi watched as the deer demon walked away, and made no effort to pursue the creature. Instead, she ran down the hallway until she reached the cell where the demon had been, only to find Kiria and...the Beatles????

"...What...."

Except they weren't exactly real...Were they? They were singing, and somehow talking at the same time. Madi motioned for Kiria to run over to her and when the girl did, Madi spoke to the Beatles. "Hi. I'm a big fan of yours, listen, myself and around possibly five to ten others are trying to get out of here. You can join us, if you want."

Madi then heard footfalls outside the cell and half turned to see a woman dressed in oriental robes standing there, followed by a fox headed man and another man. "What..."

"Greetings, Madison. I see you have returned to a somewhat normal state. These two are from Nippon, but from another state of it. They have agreed to join us for the time being."

Madi gazed at Amatrastu for a few moments before nodding. "Sure. I think we're gonna need all the help we can get."

Hoping everyone would follow her, Madi left the cell and headed for the elevator. Once everyone was inside, the doors closed and up they went.

---

"I think we have allllll the freaking time in the world, thank you very much." Madi was standing above ten feet away, Kiria, Ammy, and Bilbo standing next to her along, with a few others. "Good, looks like everyone is accounted for."

She noticed a few others standing nearby and walked over to them. "Hi. You're new to all of this, yeah, this might seem insane to you, I'm still trying to figure things out."

Midna spoke up. "The cloaked woman told us where the library is."

"Good. Alright, everyone follow me." Madi started to walk down the hallway, everyone else hopefully following her.

[Naval Monte]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

The woman merely nodded at the offer to escape, not reacting much to the discussion about her and Link. When Doug show everyone his master both the woman and dragonflies watch as the blade somehow made a wolf turn into a copy of Doug. But they didn't stay focus on the transformation for too long as Madi returned with new members of the growing party.

The elavator rang out and the doors slide open, revealing the pterodactyl.The creature roar out as it began to walk forward, the dragonflies screeching a storm right next to Miria as they began to bare their stringers towards the creature. The elevator closer behind the flying creature as the elevator went to another floor.

---

Back in the room where Kiara was a blond girl would enter in to say she was a fan of them, offering to get them out. "We will join you if you help us find more tormented souls for us to help save." The four said at the same time, speaking while still singing.

Suddenly they would see Ammy with the tengu and Inugami. "Great. The humans manage to capture those pied pipers as well." The tengu mumbled, displeased to see the musicians. "We will have to endure their presence for now. I suggest we save the introduction for later, I can smell the scent of a demon in the hallway." The Inugami warned.

With the new party now form they followed her to the other group. When the pterodactyl made its presence the flying hunter was going to let out another roar when it finally saw the large amount of other threats surrounding, leaving its mouth wide open with no noise coming out.

[Menschenfleisch]

Seeds of Anxiety | Avarice and Tone

A man stood at the foot of a great stone altar, a basalt hammer in one hand and a red blade in the other. Once he had held the power of a universe in his hands, the inheritance - and the burden - passed onto him with the final, terrified breath of a universe. Endless hours flowed through his veins, the collected memories of a dimension that had lived far too long. However, independent from his long deceased benefactor, he still possessed a wisdom of his own. He had tended to the soil of his mind, watered it with experience and grown that budding seed into a monolithic thing. He was not old by immortals’ standards, nor had he been born as a particularly intelligent fellow. Cunning, memory and obstinacy; those were traits that could be developed, however slowly. Appearances, voices and even genes could be changed given time, and much like his predecessor, the man had been granted far too much of it. His brain was like a prison, collecting and trapping worldly experiences. It had not always been, though. His recollection of the time was hazy but he remembered once being a being of tremendous power and wrath, a titan whose name and deeds made stars tremble - a presence which repealed cruel acts and inflictions of injury, mending wounds and banishing cosmic abscesses.
A small crowd gathered around him, staying at a respectable distance. Not one of them, not even the invisible ones, wanted to come between him and the altar. There was an unspoken agreement among all of them: this was his moment, his time to reflect. He took a step forward, for the first time in one and a half centuries.

The man had not aged, yet the passing of his years had not been kind to him nonetheless. He’d only realised it a few days ago, but he had always been lost. There was an emptiness inside him, an absence more vast to him than even the mightiest and most leviathan of physical rifts. He’d tried filling that hole in with hatred and a drive for revenge: it proved to be an unsustainable folly. After that, he had tried being a hero, a beacon of light for all to look upon and drew inspiration from. What a joke he had been, thinking that anyone could be spurred to action by him; the only thing he’d represented had been an unflinching, self-idolised killer. After that? Well, he’d dipped his toes into the world of the jovial immortal, trying to imitate the cliche of a timeless and wise vagabond whose words educated and whose deeds liberated. He had succeeded, for a time, but that image had quickly become boring and tedious to maintain. He approached the altar, walking up the half-dozen obsidian stairs that led up to the dias, upon which shattered shards of glass and metal languished, lazily reflecting the weedy, lustreless light of the spirifer’s sun. This was a place where legacies came to die, broken over an anvil of black and jagged glass. He laid the blade on the anvil’s face and casually raised the hammer over his head.

He had been strong, once. An embodiment of justice and war, whose mighty accomplishments were sung in some circles, and mournfully whispered in others. He had always taken a side: the idea of working alone hadn’t ever crossed his mind. He’d desperately desired to be a part of a group, simply because without someone or something to defend, he wouldn’t have known what to do with himself. He contemplated: if his daughter could see him now, standing atop a mound of cadavers millions high, what would she say? She would be afraid, of course, but what else? Repulsed? Confused? Angry? He’d ostensibly done this all in her name. No… that was just another comforting delusion. He’d done this just to feel good about himself. He’d done ‘good’ deeds just so he could feel like he’d made up for the colossal cowardice he had shown when she had still been alive. If she could see him now, she wouldn’t even care about the bodies: she would hate him simply for who he was and who he had been to her. An absent father, an inept caretaker, a disappointment overall. He brought his hand down and extracted a burst of crimson sparks from the blade. Cracks ran up and down its surface, the first damage it had ever taken while in his possession.

He recognised that what he was doing now was no less a result of his paternal insecurities than the crusade he had embarked on. He had failed his child, and though it was a perverse notion, he thought of Avarice as an opportunity to make up for that. It seemed as if providence had handed him a second chance to raise something, to be the progenitor to something grander and greater than himself. It was self evident to him that it was a stupid fantasy, one born from self pity and sentimentality, but when had reason and logic prevented him from doing amoral things? He and Andarta were alike in that way, and certainly not due to coincidence. They had met a very long time ago: she in her early years and when he had been on the cusp of his one hundredth birthday. They had travelled together for a time; she had changed, he had not. It reminded him that a scant few decades ago he had encountered a civilisation of mountain-sized eels who drifted through space, drinking the nectar of stars which emitted nectar rather than light. They had not measured their lifespans in years or centuries but instead they determined the age of a person in how many life changing events they had experienced: to them, age correlated with how much an individual had grown throughout their life and not merely how long they had existed. He’d dismissed the practise at first as nonsensical and unempirical. However, he’d felt a strange discomfort when doing so. Now, the source of that discontent was clear: it was because he’d been afraid of the system that they had used, for if he had adopted it, he would’ve been but a child in their eyes. He’d honed his faculties, both physical and mental, to a razor edge these last few years but he’d not grown as a person in that time at all. He had a perennial personality, a set of core ideals and motivations that refused to be changed. It was both a strength and a weakness, but mostly the latter. The hammer came down again, sending cracks up and down the length of the sword. Its blade shivered and whined, snarling as it tried to break out of the man’s grip. He stumbled and for a moment it seemed like it would leap from his hand. But, he proved to be more than just a weapon: he wrestled it back in place, jamming its tip into the anvil so that it was secured at both ends.

His heart flickered as he raised the hammer again. Could he do this? Could he follow through on this pledge, despite how insignificant it was? All he planned to do was to stop going wherever fate took him and start deciding his own fate, his own goals, his own future. Yet, such a thing felt impossible in that moment. He’d spent the last one hundred and fifty years doing nothing but wandering and fixing others’ problems. He was a legend, but what else? If tomorrow, everyone in the world forgot who he was and what he had done, who would he be? Just another mindless beast, not unlike the Minotaur or Typhon, he supposed. A monster of raw emotion and singular drive, compelled to commit acts of unimaginable violence in the name of fulfilling an arbitrary, self-imposed obligation. But in order to avoid becoming that, he had to confront the possibility of transforming into it first. He could only fix problems that he was willing to acknowledge, and this was a hard pill to swallow; the fact that he would be that monster, that unintelligent force of nature, if he stopped being a legend - and the fact that in order to be anything else, he would have to choose a new path to go down. What if he made another mistake? What if he rejected this fate only to adopt an even darker and more obscene one? The blade trembled in his grip, golden cracks running along its surface. His thoughts crystallised like cooling glass in that moment as he came to his conclusion; he would never know whether he would succeed until he tried, and he’d never known failure before this day. He brought the hammer down and the sword shattered, belching bloody smoke as it exploded in a maelstrom of enraged shrapnel. The man was obscured for a moment and the crowd leaned forward, waiting for the smog to clear. When he came back into view he was covered in deep lacerations, from which golden ichor poured, and yet he acted as if he had been afflicted with a mere papercut. His blood oozed down his body and pooled about his feet, eating into the altar’s stone foundations like lye over fruitskin. He stepped down, leaving a pile of metal shards behind him. He had destroyed one legacy. Now, it was time for him to claim another.

A husky-voiced fellow with fangs as large as butterknives’ blades and wild, untamed eyes scurried over to Valerian as he departed from the unforge. He had knotted grey skin and gnarled fingers, and no hair to speak of beyond a frizzly scruff about as dense as a mid-pubescent boy’s beard. “Splendid!” He raucously exclaimed. “I do not mean to prognosticate sir, but I imagine that your future shall be as glorious as the spirifer’s sun itself!” Valerian straightened his coat, accidentally widening an extant hole and tearing open a great weft in the fabric, though there was no shortage of preexisting ones caused by his sword’s untimely detonation. ”Oh, I was just getting rid of that old thing. I didn’t need it.” The fellow laughed, showing off a set of rather impressively manicured mandibles. “Ah! What a transparent lie! If that were the case, sir, why would you choose to go to the unforge? There are many other disposal services on offer, most of which would even pay for your patronage! You just wanted the satisfaction of destroying the blade yourself for some reason or another. You must tell me, was it symbolic? Did that sword mean something to you?” Valerian gave the enthusiastic (and somewhat inconveniently insightful) thing a respectful smile. It wasn’t every day that he met someone who could pierce his stoic facade. ”I’m tired of killing. It was time for me to move on from that lifestyle a very long time ago, it’s just that I only managed to summon up the courage to do so recently.” The thing nodded solemnly, all energy and joviality disappearing from its face all at once. “I see. Well, stranger, you may call me Bianchi Esposito.” ”My name is-” Bianchi hissed, holding up its arms. “No! Do not tell me! My name is a gift to you. I do not need to know yours: you must keep it a secret. Titles are valuable commodities.” Valerian paused, trying to gauge the reaction of the man as well as those passing by. A band of empousai passed by without even throwing a glance in their direction: apparently, they weren’t causing much of a spectacle. Already, the ragtag group that’d gathered to see him at the unforge had dispersed. Attention spans were short here. ”Well, you were a little quick to reveal yours, weren’t you?” The short man (who Valerian rather belatedly recognised to be a vampire) shook his head vigorously. “No. You’ve already paid me back for my name and more. The sight of you shattering that blade was spectacular, breathtaking and above all else dramatic. It is a story that I shall be spending for some time.” ”Stories are as good as currency down here.” Avarice appeared behind Valerian carrying a stick covered in stringy, web-like cotton candy in each hand. Bianchi shot her a surprised glance, but did not comment. ”I managed to buy some sweets by recounting that time that I observed a semifluid plurality of foam-intersecting gluon constituent strings crossing the threshold from a state of nonbinary self-juxtaposition to one of undisturbed functional alignment across a five-verticied shape of nongeometric proportions!” Valerian sighed but accepted one of the sticks nonetheless, taking a great bite out of the one that he had chosen. It was hard as steel wire and tasted of dreamless nights spent under the light of a pretentious moon: he spat it out immediately, overcame his initial surprise, then went in for another bite, having taken a liking to its flavour. ”Ava, don’t go around confusing people. I told you, keep it simple.” ”I did!” She pouted, nibbling on a bit of pink floss. ”It doesn’t get much simpler than the basic subcomponents of our reality, now does it?” He rolled his eyes, conveying an emotion somewhere between affection and frustration. ”Come on, that’s not what I meant...” Bianchi raised his hand, half-bowing to the two, “Well, it seems like you have some catching up to do. I’ll be going then: toodle-oo!” and then he burst into a swarm of bats, each of which flew in a different direction, quickly getting swallowed up by the visual din of the Second Galleria. In this place beyond places, nestled between Earth and Midnight, the creatures of dark folklore - vampires, shoggoths, werewolves, lunatics whose madness came and waned with the cycle of the moon and so on - mingled with those of terrestrial origin. Despite the nocturnal nature of many of the arcade’s visitors, there was a star above their heads: the Spirifer’s Sun. She was not really a star but instead a soul the size of a skyscraper, pulsating and shining from within her parlour of glass and brass tubes which fed her a constant stream of ectoplasm. She was more lethargic than usual today, putting out but a sliver of light which hardly chased away the dark - not that it mattered to Vale and Ava, of course.

The Second Galleria, despite its name, was chronologically the first Galleria to have ever been built in Lludw Cigfrain (though its inhabitants called it ‘Branwhrn’ as shorthand, though nobody really knew where the name came from (except Jacquelyn (who is not relevant to this arc (at least not yet)))). The reason that it had been given such a title was because a prophet had foretold that the First Galleria would be gutted by flames and all its inhabitants would perish in the blaze. Therefore Kanopi, the person who’d put all this together in the first place, had rather pragmatically decided to simply postpone the construction of the First Galleria indefinitely and to start building the Second Galleria shortly afterward, sidestepping the prophecy altogether. Fate had not been happy about that: its enforcers, the universally reviled (but not typically feared) Destinies, launched practically daily attacks, targeting weak points in the Second Galleria’s defences in furtive attempts to destroy something important in order to get Kanopi to capitulate and finish constructing the First Galleria. Unfortunately for Fate and fortunately for literally everyone else, security was airtight and management was never tardy. Most ‘attacks’ ended with clay golems gently shooing the Destinies back into whatever hidey holes they’d managed to emerge from: the Destinies saw no point in fighting once they were discovered, since any direct confrontation with Kanopi’s security forces would be a foregone conclusion. Honestly, the whole thing resembled a cheeky rivalry more than a no-holds-barred conflict. Overall, things were quiet. The staff were cordial with one another, Kanopi lounged around in her office drinking tea all day and the shoppers had nothing to fear.

”Hey, don’t you need to buy some new clothes? Those rags won’t do. You’re gonna get turned away at a lot of shops’ doors looking like that.” Avarice was, much to Valerian’s chagrin, actually correct. He was covered in blood, too, which while not particularly distressing or surprising to the Galleria’s regulars, was rather enticing to all the vampires wandering around in the open. He was unlikely to be attacked outright, but he noticed that vampires were already giving him a wide berth in order to not be distracted by the scent. It was kind of odd that his blood retained the smell of heme despite essentially being ontophysical acid. They actually had to walk to the suit store: indoor spatial crunching was strictly outlawed, as was unlicensed teleportation. They’d had some trouble with positionally indecisive delinquents a while back: Kanopi was eager not to have a repeat of the situation. Of course, Avarice could’ve just taken them there without triggering any alarms - her abilities far exceeded the understanding of the Galleria’s best mages - but she preferred to take the scenic route. The street was lined with picturesque storefronts in front of which stood canvas-topped verandas. A pack of wendigoes hounded a tired looking grocery store manager who was explaining to them for the seventh time in a row why the store didn’t stock human flesh; a band of yadokai sat in an open air cafe and swapped gossip, though they quite conspicuously told no stories; the people in this place had a peculiar way of speaking. They avoided metaphors and similes, rarely exaggerating and never embellishing recounts. A hypothetical carriage trundled down the street, pulled along by might-be-there horses and possibly carrying passengers; two incubi stood side by side out the front of an occult paraphernalia store, shouting whilst waving around important looking pamphlets advertising the dangers of dream addiction and recommending ways of protecting oneself against it, most of which could conveniently be bought at their store; an iron janissary leaned against a brick wall and watched those passing by from beneath its peaked cap; a gaggle of youthful pigeons perched on the sides of a flower stall and exchanged trinkets and small quantities of food. The roads were paved with sandy cobblestones and the town was built from plaster, painted brick and timber; it was homely, if nothing else. If one kept to themselves and just admired the Galleria from afar, they might’ve even been able to ignore the grotesquely deformed ruins on the horizon, lingering in the dark like watchful monoliths. The sky was empty save for the Spirifer’s Sun; it was home to a darkness some complete and resplendent in its wholeness that it felt almost more welcoming than the light of the Galleria itself. The ruins, too, were odd yet inviting. There was an allure to them that defied logic or explanation. They looked like nothing else in the world and when one looked upon them they did not seem to be distorted or broken but instead merely different and novel. They appealed to one’s scientific curiosity and wanderlust, and many an expedition had been mounted into the dark. Who had come before Kanopi? Was there still life out there, in the endless shadow? Nobody could say. Of the expeditions that returned, perhaps a third were lucid and an eighth of them found anything of worth besides a few gaudy trinkets and calloused gemstones.

Their arrival at the clothes store was uneventful, thank god - though it was mostly because of the obscene pace that both Avarice and Valerian were capable of maintaining. He may have decided to discard his life of mindless, meaningless wandering but he still retained much of his strength. Clerks ran to and fro, fitting undulating masses of flesh, classy vampires, visually meaningless blobs of ocular noise and twenty-seven limbed wick-weavers with the appropriate attire. A cloak for you, dear shoggoth. A pair of shoes and a three inch thick carapace for you, mutant Turkish insect horse. A woven tapestry of dreams, childrens’ tears and societal disillusionment for you, a literal embodiment of the concept of suffering. Avarice waved to that last individual; it was only polite, and it never hurt to be on good terms with something or someone who shared your background. When they walked in the front door they emerged into a grand hallway almost the size of an aircraft hangar. Massive stone pillars - covered in dozens of layers of pegs and thick, velvety fabric - rose from the floor to meet the ceiling. Gargoyles and fairies flew between pillars, somehow managing to pick out specific items of clothing amidst the millions which must’ve been contained within this building’s walls. A young attendant with green eyes and hair approached them, wringing his hands nervously. He clearly wasn’t used to inhabiting a human body, but company policy was for their attendants to transform into their clients’ species when serving them. It would be rather distressing for a human to be served by a Kahaku and vice versa. “R-right this way, sir!” He yipped, leading Valerian into a relatively open area. The carpet was thick and so downy that he felt like he could sink up to his knees in it. He was encouraged to sit down on a stool, whereupon a wick-weaver - a gargantuan arachnid with seventy two eyes across its bulbous body - emerged from the forest of jackets and tailcoats in order to work on him. It was like there were twenty seven sewing machines massaging him through his jacket at once. It wasn’t a painful experience, but an uncomfortable one; thank god it only took a few seconds for the weaver to be done. The attendant presented him with a mirror and to his surprise and mild delight (but also concern) not only had all the tears in his suit been repaired but so had all of his wounds. In fact, he’d been given a full makeover: all the bloodstains in his clothes had been removed, his shirt seemed to have been freshly ironed and his hair was crisp and as well cut as ever. This was hardly a regular clothes store. The attendant timidly brought up the issue of payment, to which Avarice responded by going on a long tangent about Streuenbauer logic and interdependent third-degree Boolean logic on a macrocalculative scale applied to a physical model accounting for the effects of electromagnetic phase and the phenomenon of quantum improbability. The attendant nodded along. He didn’t really understand anything that Avarice had said, but it sure sounded important! He decided to clear their transaction, and the duo left the store a dozen wounds poorer and a clean suit richer.

Avarice slapped her forehead. ”You know, it just occurred to me that I didn’t even ask what we came here for!” Valerian checked his watch: all visitors were gifted one upon entering the Galleria in order to ensure that chronology flowed as intended and nobody got left stranded inside the store after closing time. Space here was already warped and unstable: there was no reason to believe that time was any less vulnerable to bouts of spontaneous distortion. There was only one hand, and it was just on the cusp of the Hour of Salience, the equivalent of rush hour. All the restaurants would open then, offering their best food and their best service. ”Well, I got an assignment from AEGIS. I wasn’t given an actual rendezvous point: I suppose I’ll just have to wait for one of their liaisons to find me.” Avarice pointed at a distant humanoid silhouette carrying a PDA and a stack of notebooks under one arm, two pens in their mouth and a massive tome of administrative documents under their other. Other arm, that was; they only had one mouth, which was considered an especially remarkable trait in the Galleria. ”A liaison? Like the one over there?”

[Kaziimar]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

“Alright, that takes care of that.” Dea dusted her hands as they walked, getting far enough away from the guards in the confusion of all that fire. Damarei chuckled. “But seriously, where do we go from here? I still don’t know where my trident is and...”
“Wait!” Dea held up a hand for silence, keeping her ears open.”You hear that, right?”
“Footsteps, you think it could be more guards?”
“Nah, they wouldn’t have time to call for reinforcements with the thrashing we gave them. I think it may be...let’s just follow it but be on your guard, maybe they’ll have your trident.”
“Well I don’t see any other options besides getting hopelessly lost, we’ll try your way.” The two of them follows the source of the noise, keeping their eyes peeled for any surprise attacks as they make their way closer.

[Speyland]

Ryo Hazuki
Shenmue Universe

Ryo went to Sakuragaoka to see if the rumor that Fukuhara was talking about is true. Crowds of people are surrounding the construction site while no more than five police officers can be seen. Ryo saw a young woman who might know about the mysterious black hole. "Excuse me." Ryo said to get her attention. "Yes?" She asked. "Do you anything about the black hole and how did it appeared?" He asked. "I have no idea." She said. "I see." Ryo said. "Although, the police officers said not to get near it." She said. "Is that so?" Ryo said before he walks away to ask one of the police officers.

"Stay back!" Yelled one of the police officers. "This area is off limits, if you get too close then you will be arrested for obstruction of justice!" One of them continued. "Is that so?" Ryo asked but the police officers didn't respond. "I need to wait until midnight to find a way to the construction site." Ryo said to himself.

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

Miria wasn't as phased by the transformations as the dragonflies or other strangers. She'd seen enough weird stuff for one day; that, and her only really interest was in getting to safety for the time being. She waited for the other Link to finish his transformation, but no longer, as the moment they were ready to move again, she was jogging along. Her heart was beginning to pound a little bit, but she wasn't too tired or anything; if anything, the last few weeks had been a good workout for her, so she wasn't ready to keel over like she had been in London.

While the ran, she had remained relatively quiet. She didn't have a whole lot to say at the moment, really. She followed where they went, since they seemed to be more confident about where to go than she was. All that Miria did was run, continue to cradle the injured dragonfly, and keep a close eye out for any more danger. She wasn't just looking out for herself now, but for five smaller beings, one of which couldn't do much to fight back. It made her wonder if that was how Polly or Madi felt, dealing with her or Link(s), or Ammy with Issun. It wasn't like the bugs were defenceless, with their stingers, but they were just small, and probably wouldn't put up as much of a fight. She didn't want to underestimate them, of course - she didn't like being underestimated - but she was just thinking about it. She still wanted to protect the things.

Ahead of them, an elevator. Safety? Escape? Even if it only got them away from danger for a moment, it was good. Unfortunately, when the elevator opened, it revealed to be the exact opposite of what they'd wanted, as their old friend popped back into the picture. Miria skidded to a halt, her winged companions hissing in unison, her own hissing joining them. She didn't step closer or do anything to intimidate the thing, but she was ready to throw down if it tried anything funny. Fortunately, it seemed like the beast had realized that it had just jumped into a very bad situation. Miria felt safer with everyone else around her, knowing that if a fight broke out again, it would be a swift one, although she didn't know if it would be necessary or not. The Pterodactyl was cornered, and that could be bad, but nobody seemed to be making a move yet.

Miria's hissing stopped. The Pterodactyl seemed surprised. She eyed it, and then everyone to her right and left, and then the dragonfly in her arms.

She really hoped they wouldn't get caught up in another fight.

Katya

Despite Katya's initial, snarky comment, she wasn't feeling jovial or playful. She wasn't the most stable person, per se, but she was smart enough to know that strange people in black robes who came out of woods were bad business, especially for a lone woman. They just...stood there...menacingly. She had to admit, it was definitely scary - she'd need to take a note if she ever hit the theatre back home! Unfortunately, she wasn't there to enjoy the show this time, and indeed she was rather eager to get out of the spotlight now, not wanting to know exactly what the robed figures wanted with her. Her free hand gripped the handle of her handgun, ready to use it just in case. The moment they began to step closer, Katya revved the engine. "Step away now; I'm only saying it once.", She announced, loudly and clearly enough for them to hear.

Her finger worked the safety off. The gun was still hidden; she wasn't going to go revealing it yet. She let the engine continue to run, her foot resting on the gas, ready to pull out first, and use the handgun if anything else happened.

[Menschenfleisch]

flask shattered on an outcrop of rock above their heads, raining brown, mucus-like paste on them. The effects took hold almost instantaneously: the two mages’ features drooped like wax. Liz’s hand sunk slightly into Terry’s body and she had just enough time to whisper a “what the fuck?” before a barrage of rocks came her way, courtesy of the golem. Everything around her was utterly pulverised: the golem was firing arm-sized stones at speeds to rival racecars and low caliber bullets. However, both she and Terry had been rendered entirely amorphous by Jackie’s brew. The shrapnel passed through her harmlessly, though she was rendered a mushy paste by the attack. Now was Jack’s chance: she loaded a rotting round into her wristgun and fired it at the golem’s outstretched arm. The flask shattered on its elbow and immediately, lacerations began appearing all over the golem’s body. It was as if there was an invisible monster cutting it up with a gigantic butcher’s knife, leaving deep gashes all over its body. It was visibly thrown off balance by the force of the strikes: already, its forearm was hanging limply from the end of its elbow, held on by barely a scrap of earth. One final cut severed the limb entirely, spraying plumes of dust into the air and causing its mangled arm (whatever remained of it, anyway) to fall to the ground. It stumbled backward, only for its leg to slip out from underneath it: while it had been distracted by the loss of its arm Jack had shot each of its legs with gelid rounds, freezing them stiff and covering the ground beneath the golem with ice. She didn’t know that the Tenebraes had helped her, but they’d also contributed to the freezing effort, chilling the golem’s legs to a nice, cosy seven point five Kelvin. It stumbled, but did not fall. Its arm had been easy to break but its chest and legs were much thicker and more heavily fortified: a rotting round would only cause nominal damage, so the golem’s controller remained confident in its ability to recover. However, as if to prove them wrong (which was explicitly Jack’s intention, since she was and is a spiteful piece of shit (by her own admission)) Jackie executed upon the final step of her plan, the meticulously considered coup de gras: she threw another bottle of Twister at its hip and followed it up with an explosive round. Its jellified torso crumpled under the weight of its own upper body and was completely dispersed by the explosion. Its hip basically evaporated, falling apart in an instant. The sudden change in temperature caused its legs to shatter, and half of the golem’s chest simply dribbled away, as it had been turned into slime. It was now nothing more than a head, half an abdomen and a single arm. Hopefully, it would stay down.

Jacquelyn rushed over to Liz and Terry in order to check up on them only to find that Liz was a fleshy puddle on the ground with an arm and a leg jutting out of the mound of flesh that she presently resembled. ”Lizzy, you’re lookin’ a little under the weather. What, did you makeup wear off or something?” Terry was in a similar condition: the two puddles of flesh were entertwined. ”Don’t worry, you cheeky fucks. It’ll wear off in ‘bout ten seconds. You realise you can still move, right? Try wriggling, like this.” She pantomimed the movements of a serpent, wobbling from side to side, kind of like a wacky inflatable arm tube man. ”... actually, nevermind. It took me about three test runs to figure it out and I don’t imagine that you two will do any better.” She reached into Elizabeth and scooped her out of Terry like she was separating two intertwined lumps of play doh. Soon thereafter, Elizabeth began to emerge from the puddle, regaining both texture and shape. She gasped as her head emerged from the lump, her cheeks getting less saggy by the minute (they remained kind of saggy even after the brew’s effects wore off but Jack knew that Liz would adamantly insist that it was just a side effect of using the potion). ”Yo. I can’t imagine that was a very pleasant experience for you.” She smiled, taking the witch’s hand. Her skin was still kind of rubbery and jelly-like, kind of like an uncooked egg yolk, but it no longer warped like clay when Jack touched it, which was a good sign. ”So I guess that if we’re tallying life-debts, that’d mean that I owe you none, and you still owe me the two from the times I saved your ass from the Emissary and Andarta, yeah?”

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

Skye shrugged. She felt at ease here, as if she were among friends. Of course she recognised that it was probably an anomalous effect, but she was in no position nor the mood to resist. Besides, was this really such a bad thing? It’d been a while since she’d last had a proper conversation with anybody besides Skye and while her friend was a good listener, it still felt kind of awkward to vent to the same person all the time. She felt like she needed a fresh perspective, was all. “Well, I’m… worried. Worried about my friend, Skye. Y’see, she has this thing inside her and it’s always hungry. If we don’t feed it - and it only eats people’s lives - it’ll destroy our homeworld, along with the seven billion people living there. We’re practically babies: our species, Kalmites, live for millennia. I’m worried that she’s not up to the task; I want to help but I’m held back by fear. My blood hurts people. If someone hurts me, even if it’s as insignificant as pinching my skin, they go mad for hours, even months or decades. I have to wear contact lenses so nobody can see the blood in my irises; I have to take every precaution to avoid being injured for the sake of the people around me; and all of that’s led to me being unable to lay a finger on anyone. It sucks, y’know? Seeing someone suffering and not being able to help them because you have your own problems and hangups. I feel like I’m dead weight, and if Skye says otherwise, I think that’s just delusion.” She sighed. “I’ll stick around, though. Maybe someday I’ll be able to make myself legitimately useful. Even if I can’t overcome my aversion to violence, maybe I can do something else like fixing her equipment, scouting enemy positions or whatever. It’s not that I can’t handle violence, I just don’t want to be the cause of it.”

Madi appeared and then an extremely condensed journey occurred (during which many wacky hijinks undoubtedly went down, though we’ll never get to see them because it’s ELEVATOR TIME).

Polly, despite her apparently dispassionate dispatching of the Casinebs which had appeared just earlier, was queasy. She felt off balance and sick. Killing them had been easy. In fact, she’d almost enjoyed it. Why? She didn’t imagine herself to be a monster, and yet all that she’d felt as she’d pulped those dogs was a warmth in her heart. Hurting people didn’t make her feel good, she knew that: she’d felt nothing but shock and disgust when she’d lost control of herself at the castle. Killing animals in order to save Johann’s life, however, apparently made her feel happy. She didn’t know it then but the very physiology of her brain had been modified by her pre-memory-wipe self. She was a forged sociopath whose only pleasure was derived from acts of perceived bravery and protection. It was… disquieting. She was more comfortable lingering on the thought of the Casinebs and deliberately trying to repel herself than she was with accepting who she’d been made by her past self. She thought of the crunch of their bones, the squeal of their frozen windpipes, the squelch of their blood. She made every effort to conjure up images to repel and disturb herself, trying to condition her mind so that killing no longer felt natural. She didn’t want to be an emotionless stoic, she wanted to be a kind and just person, though her present circumstances were no doubt unconducive to that endeavour.

As for Johann’s plan, well, he appeared to be in control of himself, if not the situation. He was calm, despite the fact that his facility was crumbling around him. Polly had just enough knowledge about AEGIS to understand that if Johan made it out of this situation alive he’d likely be lambasted by his superiors for allowing such an incident to occur. This containment breach had set their efforts to secure the British Isles back by over a year and had cost them valuable allies and expertise: his end-of-year performance review was not going to be pretty. To Johann’s surprise and her trepidation, they found no other living humans along the path to the armoury. The facility was deathly silent save for the occasional distant clamour: never distinct enough to tell them what was going on but always clear enough to know that it wasn’t good. The vents and hallways groaned, metal shrieked, glass crunched underfoot. A ghoulish thing with no eyes appeared in front of them, rounding a corner on all fours, and Johann put a bullet in its head with one practised flourish, sending the projectile through its auditory canal and into its brain. She flinched: he did not. Fear. Legitimate fear was coursing through her veins despite her massive advantage in brute strength. Something howled in the distance, and the wall behind them began to bulge, growing lumps like tumours. Polly crushed whatever was within them and the iron pustules burst, spraying black goo and teeth onto the ground and the opposing wall. There was no warmth this time, only the smell of charred rubber and maggot infested meat. She gagged and spewed, lurching to one side. Disgust. Johann put a hand on her shoulder but she brushed him away: this was a good thing, she told herself. This was how regular people would react to such a situation. However, her emotions felt insincere. It was like she was watching herself from a distance, coldly observing as an actor went through the motions of demonstrating how normal people were supposed to behave.

She was lost in thought when Johann put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back, gesturing slowly to a nearby set of elevator doors. The screen above the doors, which displayed what floor the carriage was on, was steadily increasing: the elevator was about to pass by. Johann pressed himself against the wall next to the elevator, clutching his pistol to his chest, while Polly positioned herself in front of the doors, sheathing her body in iron plates torn from the walls. Her magnetic abilities would be greatly retarded by her makeshift suit of armour, but in her mind surviving was more important than maximising her offensive potential. The elevator arrived at their level, the bell chimed, and she ripped open the doors, revealing a rather odd group of gods, Kalmites, Beatles and other assorted fantasy races. “They're anomalies, take them down!” Johann yelled. Kiara scowled, “oh, what’s this contrived bullshi-” before being thrown against the opposite wall.

[Skylus]

TGWR
AEGIS base

Faced with the fact that there were more than twenty people and creatures currently looking at her, Madi simply closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened then and gazed at Johaan with a slightly glazed over look.
“Do you really think that’s going to work, Johaan? There’s twenty of us and only one of you. All these people want is to get out of here, and I intend to help them do that. However, if you intend to stop me from doing that than I will fight you.”

The Witch gazed at the pterodactyl. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll get you out of here, you simply need to tell me where you’re from.”

She then moved her gaze to the Beatles. “Can the four of you stop singing for just five seconds? You’re great, really, but it’s sort of hard to think of plans.”

Madi then moved her gaze back to Johaan and motioned to Polly to join the group. “What are you doing on his side, Polly? Lemme guess, he said he could help you, right?”

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven

Elizabeth felt her cheeks as her body began to reform back to its regular texture, shape, and consistency, frowning as she felt her cheeks and felt them being a bit more saggy than before, cursing in her mind at the potion that caused it. The witch looked up at Jackie. "Not very pleasant is a underestimate, try fucking traumatizing. I was afraid of me and Terry were going to be stuck as the bloody blob for the rest of our lives." She turns to look at Terry as he held on to his sides.

"That didn't heal you huh?" The mage shook his head. "Nah, but I'm just glad my ribs are where they should be even if their broken. But you know I always thought what would it be like if we were together, but not like that." He joked before he groan from the sharp pang of pain that shoot throughout his body. Elizabeth crawled next to Terry as she gently lifted up his shirt, revealing the ugly bruise the punch made. She saw the skin was a reddish purple blotch with grayish outlines. She noticed the skin in a few parts had small bumps and she became concerned when she saw those. 

"Damn it, that golem did a number on you." She pulled out a vial and open it. "Was saving this for me but you need it more." She would slide her hand under his head to lift it up. She would have him drink the vial and once it was empty she would gently place his head back down. "You're out of this fight mate. I don't need you dying from internal bleeding. Just save your energy on healing and let me and the others deal with the freaks and wizards." She told him in a soothing manner, to which he agreed.

Elizabeth would get up and dust herself. "So you want me to do stuff for you like making your wishes come true like a genie since we are now at three? Hopefully in our life debt game I can finally get some points down this hellhole." The two would hear a loud crash as Theodore's golem deliver a spiked fist on to the other golem's head, punching it off its shoulders. Rolo would unleash a bolt of lightning that would arc to the closest homunculi, electucating and killing a large swath of survivors. Mai incinerated the remaining humanoids with spontaneous combustion.

The dying screams of the homunculus fill the air as well as the roar of the raging inferno consuming them from the inside out, the crumbling body of the golem as each piece fell to the earth joined them. When the last piece of the golem flaked off the burnt bodies of the homunculus joined it. With the body seemingly over no one in the team celebrated this victory.

Three team members were done which it alone would ruin the festive mood, but the fact that Alex was still trap suggest that the mages were still present. "Keep your eyes and ears sharp everyone. The Crimsonites have geomancers so they can attack us from anywhere." Rolo warned as he flipped his hammer in the air and caught it.

Mai lift her arms up and conjured several floating fireballs to illuminate the tunnel to and remove any shadows the earth movers could use to hide their arrival. The ordered his Golem to reduce itself into an amorphous blob of clay as it spread out on the floor and touch the walls to reach the ceiling in order to sense for any mages moving the rock. During this brief pause Wei would try to summon more demonic familiars to assist with the search and exterminate of any approaching mage while Richard tried to convince the worms to help join the search.

Elizabeth walked up to her mother and after a few incantations and tracing a few symbols with her right pointer finger she would take out her curse knife with her left hand and slash at the air, almost dangerously close to her mom. Alex gave her daughter a look of fear after the slash but soon felt the spell she was on break. As she lifted her hands to look at them she began to close and open her fingers, lifting one leg and bringing it down before lifting the other and bringing it down. She looked back at Elizabeth. "You could have warned me that you were going to do that!" She glared at her

Elizabeth shrugged. "It worked right? I mean I could have actually slash or stab you and hope the curse went after the spell and not you. But I think neither of us want to test that." Alex still gave her a pout on the scare she received. 

The argument would be short lived as the group sense something approaching them. As the group turn to face the tunnel, preparing spells against whatever was coming towards them, a blast of wind would hit them followed by a fine powder of pulverized rock and dust. The group was forced to cover their eyes, nose, and mouth to the best of their abilities as the silicon storm blew through the passage. Alex began to chant in Sumerian as she took out a brown pentacle and point it forward towards the dust storm.

As she began to channel the Terronous and Aeronous aether around her in town and now in the air she began to guide the storm to part from the group. As path before them began to clear up Alex was the first to see daggers flying towards the group. It was with a quick incantation and a flick of the wrist to active one of her amulets to provide extra power that the daggers sent on her way were diverted to hit the floor or fly around her.

Wei and Richard were protected by the demonic hands as the blades hit the boney hands and bounced off. The two only heard the knives by the time they could see their demonic protectors appearing before them. Theodore had his golem make a wall to protect him from the blades while Metis body was strong enough to make the blades shatter or bounce once they hit her body.

Elizabeth put down her arms and open her eyes to see knives flying towards her. She couldn't move as she the weapons caught her by surprise and because she knew she didn't have enough time to dodge them. Just as as the blades was close to stabbing her dark tendirls came up and absorb the knives. The occultist looked at the tenebraes and thought they were hers but soon realize that hers were still in her shadow, she looked over to Terry and saw that he also protected Jackie with his own familiar. The mage was spared from the knives due to most missing him. 

"Looks like you owe me twice now Liz." He said to her as look up. He tried to laugh but he only groan as the attempt made him feel a sharp shock of pain erupt from his chest. "Don't laugh now you idiot. Besides I saved your life twice too with my potion being thrice now, so don't think you don't owe me anything." She fired back.

Mai let out screams of pain as the knives got her by her by both her forearms, thighs, and her waist. Rolo recive the same injuries but he merely grunted. The runecaster began to remove the knives out of himself almost as though he felt no pain in doing so. "Bastards." He growled as he hurled bolts of lightning at the shrinking cloud in an attempt to get the ones who threw the blades. Alex would join in as she channel her powers to send the strong gust and dust back at the caster that first produced it. Metis summon her gatling gun and began to open fire at the tunnel again until she ran out of ammo.

With the tunnel now cleared the group felt nothing else coming after them. Alex would look to Jackie. "You got anything that can heal?"  She asked. Rolo took out a stone with a rune etched too it and applied it to the stab wound on his right thigh. He made an Icelandic incarnation and the power of the rune began to pour from the stone to his would, slowly healing him. Mai was the one who needed the heal. While she can cauterize the wound she feared it was too deep for the method to work effectively, plus she would rather avoid doing that if possible. Likely Wei went her to be healed by his blood magic.

Elizabeth still had her revolver out as she suspect the mages will attack again. Elizabeth looked around as she tried to use her sixth sense and the tenebraes to warn her of danger as she took a few steps forward into the tunnel. Theo did the same with his golem and Richard with the worms.

---

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

Johann saw Polly throw Kiara against the wall while a bundle of hair acting like tentacles came forward to wrap themselves around Polly. The tengu and Inugami were preparing to join the fight when Madi told the director to surrender.

"You're wasting your time getting that man to  surrender." The tengu said as he gets to crack his knuckles. "This gijan would rather die than betray his international fascist conspiracy. I say we either torture valuable information or just kill him on the spot." The Inugami was silent on the matter as he prepared several more cards for his magic.

The pterodactyl looked at the group and it seem to understand that it should either work with them and get food later or try to eat now and die. The creature seem to step down as it stop roaring and stand down.

Johann saw the group convincing one anomaly to join them. "So that is your plan Madison? You're trying to get as many anomalies to join your group to get back at the people who were wronged by your government. Your alliance won't last once you leave this facility. All of them have their own goals. All you are doing is throwing more hazards to your world Goodwill. Can you live with yourself for every death they will cause?" The director told her. 

In the hallway the mermaid and tiefling would encounter soldiers wearing black tactical hear and gas masks with red glowing visors gunning down zombies. When the unded were terminated the group saw the two mythical women. "That's the demon that released the mermaid! Get them!" The soldiers took out stun guns to paralyze the two.

With Kayta the robbed figures did not say a thing to her as they began to move towards her car, the vehicles engine being on not deterring them.

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

Dawn rolled her eyes at the group. "And they call me dramatic." she said to herself. She walked forward and placed a hand on Mai and Terry's shoulders and their wounds closed themselves in less than two seconds. "If you're really keeping score," she started, "Collectively you all owe me enough that I could afford to retire if I ever called it in."

She walked ahead of the group and held up one hand as her scythe flew past the group back to her. "Come on, I'm growing bored of this." She stopped suddenly. "We're about to have company." was all she explained. A moment later, a rift opened in front of her and her twin stepped out. "This is certainly a surprise." Dawn said flatly. "Did you come to try to stop me?"

Celeste stared her sister in the eyes, unfazed by her sister's question. "No, not that I probably could if I wanted to. I can try to get you to reconsider though."

Dawn let go of her Razor and shifted her weight backwards slightly. "Well look at you, becoming sentimental all of a sudden." she said sarcastically.

Celeste stepped forward more, not appreciating her sister's levity. "I'm not. But I don't appreciate you hiding things from me and using everyone in your machinations."

Dawn shrugged as if it wasn't as big of a deal as it was made out to be. "Fine. I'll tell you, privately. Anything else?" Celeste glared at her, but turned and disappeared again through the rift.

Dawn glanced back at the group. "Sorry about that. Sisters, right?" she said before walking further into the mine.

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine

"But you will never retire because I doubt you will ever find anyone who can take over your job. Besides the Doctor who is probably out there in the multiverse. But something tells me he won't want your job." Elizabeth said to the redhead as both Terry and Mai check themselves now that their wounds were gone.

When she said that they were going to have company they expected the mages to strike but instead they found a woman identical to Dawn coming through. When Celeste began to tell her sister she came to convince her to leave something she was planning the group were puzzled by the development, some becoming suspicious of the redhead when it was clear they were being used for something she was planning.

As the goddess went forward Wei send out a spirit to let Valeria and Simon know they are moving ahead. The group knew something was up but they couldn't say anything without Dawn becoming aware. Alex would make a few prayers and suddenly the group would feel something enter their minds, well most except Elizabeth due to her wards. However outside it would appear that the prayer conjured a ball of plasma to bring light into the tunnel, the orb following Alex.

"Well shit, Elizabeth can't join. Can't tell her to drop the wards because it's too obvious for Dawn. Right now our minds are the only place she can't see but most of you are probably thinking what is going on with her." the lich heard conformation from the others. "Me and Simon never trusted those two. Gods only interact with mortals if they wish to use them for their plans or use them for their own entertainment. The fact her sister alright said she was using us for her machinations is a common pattern for gods" the blood mage said.

"Right now we don't have enough proof for that. I want to believe that maybe she is different from the others" the blood mage would reply with. "Is it because she help you with reuniting with your daughter? Ever thought that maybe that was her plan? Beings like her always bend people's emotions and belief to their benefits, you of all people should know that." Rolo and Theo stay silent as they an eye out for any sneak attacks.

Mai heard the conversation and Terry stayed on the sideline as well, still unsure what to think of the redhead other than to feel fear on the idea of her having an ulterior motive as he remembers well on how easily she could have destroyed him back when he was with the Crimsonites. Jackie was allowed to join the network so she can know what was happening. Elizabeth on the meantime walked up to Dawn.

"So what are you going to do once we reach the final lap? I'm still not gonna let you destroy the tec because we have no idea what it will do if you destroy it." She told her. "Also if you are planning on sending it to a pocket dimension I think you shouldn't either, I think it's better off if it remains where it is." The witch had her suspicions on what Dawn was planning but she knew being direct would not lead her to anywhere and the goddess would just ignore her or misdirect her.

Theo's eyes widen. "From above!" He shouted as chains and barbed wires with hooks on the end came from the ceiling coming down to the group. As the golem, demonic arms, and shadow tentacles came up to grab the chains and wires from the ceiling more would come from the walls and floor.

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

Dawn turned her head very slightly towards Elizabeth. "Just because I can't hear what they say doesn't mean I don't know that you're plotting against me." she said. "My sister and I don't hold a monopoly on silent communication, after all." She kept walking, still not looking at the witch directly.

"Nor do I need you or anyone else to lecture me about consequences. I've seen more futures than any of you could ever dream of. I think I know what I'm doing." She didn't say anything else for a little bit before she added, "And by the way, you don't let me do anything. If even my own sister knows she can't stop me, what makes you think you could?"

She stopped and turned around to the group moments before the chains appeared, watching the group struggle with them. "Well, I'll give them that much. They waited until I passed under before appearing so as to not waste their time. I guess they're smarter than any of you." she said swinging her Razor at the wall to her right, slicing through chains and wire.

[Menschenfleisch]

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

At this point, it'd gotten a little tiring for her to respond to everything that Liz said retroactively. It was like she was slipping wedges of conversation between everything Elizabeth did and said, utterly fucking the timeline - since she was, in fact, coming up with her responses after Liz had finished talking rather than doing so in the moment. It was a bit hard to explain but so was the chronology at this point. If she responded to Liz's comment about the potion's effects being traumatising then Liz would have to respond to that, generating dialogue that had - ostensibly - occurred in the past and yet was only taking effect in the present, several minutes after it had apparently been said. Oh fuck, this situation was doing her head in. She worried that if she kept thinking about these kinds of things for too long she'd reach a point of meta-singularity: the threshold at which her ability to meta-reason became so complete that she either got trapped in an infinite spiral of circular logic or she just outright transcended the story and stopped existing altogether. Neither option sounded exactly pleasant, so she nipped those thoughts in the bud. Well, she thought to herself. Time to come up with snarky bullshit and (somehow) insert it into the past! Fuckin' ell, it was a miracle that Dawn hadn't annihilated her yet.

"Hey, don't be so angry. You looked better as blobs," Jacquelyn teased. "Besides, I had to test that shit on myself. The first few batches I made didn't let you breathe while you were a blob: it felt like I was drowning in myself." She stood by politely as Liz checked up on her friend's wounds. While she wasn't exactly prudish, she still had some modicum of decency, even if that degenerate brain of hers wouldn't ever let her let go of an opportunity to make a lewd joke. She half cringed, half smirked at Terry's confession that he dreamt of staying with Liz. It was cutesy, but a little creepy all the same? It was clearly unrequited, although both of them seemed to be taking the other's behaviour in good faith. She shouldn't have been bothered by it if it didn't bother Elizabeth, she finally concluded, deciding to butt out of the witch's personal life. She was old enough to take care of herself whereas Jack was so young and unskilled - having lost the ability to recall any useful skills without accidentally bringing in a boatload of traumatic, violent memories with them - she could hardly even pay her rent. Although, sometimes, her memories became quite tempting. She'd try to chisel a bit of knowledge out of the iceberg that was her repressed past, though more often than not she'd end up reliving a children's massacre or somesuch.

"Hey, Liz, you don't need to give me anything for saving your life, although your undying love and your eternal servitude - as well as that of your next of kin - would be rather appreciated." Jacquelyn had enough grace not to laugh at her own joke though she punctuated it with a cocky smile and a little bit of a finger gesture. She didn't know why but she grinned every time she interacted with someone, as if to put them at ease. It probably didn't work, considering the fact that she resembled a fucking serial killer more than anything else, what with her slick, almost unsettlingly warm voice and tendency to come off as smug or pretentious rather than actually personable when she grinned. She didn't know whether it was her current personality, her physiology or her past persona leaking through, but the effect remained nonetheless. Damn. She'd have to practice in front of a mirror some time. In all honesty she was probably the weakest, most harmless person in the entire group. She'd never killed, though she'd considered it - but who hadn't? Honestly, she would've been more weirded out by someone who'd never fantasised about murdering anyone than someone who did it all the time, even though that made her seem like a total sociopath. Ugh. She hated being this edgy little girl. It was obvious what she was: a romanticised image of normality. She was just regular and flawed enough to come off as passably human and yet her life was easier than any person's ought to be. She was a fantasy, a dream, a fetish. She was suddenly quite dour, though she couldn't tell whether that was because of the existential revelation she was having right now or the overwhelming smell of rancid meat. Unfortunately, she was relatively acquainted with the aroma.

Jacquelyn's life was simple. All she had to do was work hard and fight well. Geomancers and cultists were far less complex to deal with than depression, insecurity, financial instability and one's mortality. She was such a fucking coward; she was here in the mines, chasing the tail of a mage she barely knew in a conflict that she had nearly no reason to care about, and no meaningful means of contributing to the solution of - all for the sake of being part of something greater than herself. Was she really that obsessed with relevance? A smart person would've turned away from the promise of adventure that the narrative offered and decided to keep living as a regular civilian. Regular: with all the unsolvable problems, inequalities, prejudices and risks that came with it. She realised, then, that she was very afraid of being normal. She was afraid of being real. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just accept that she wasn't important enough to stand here amongst gods? Elizabeth and Alex, they meant something. They filled each other's lives with meaning. Rolo, Mai, the rest of the squad - they had lives, they were people, and they were here because they were doing their jobs. But Jack? She was here because she had nothing better to do! It was such a folly, such an arrogant decision to come here. She was a liability, vomiting in a corner while people did real work: throwing potions and- and throwing darts around like it was a video game while people were sacrificing their lives. The Celestial Order, Terry, the Ashwoods, they were all ready to sacrifice themselves for this cause, whether because they believed in a greater good or because they'd come to terms with their mortality long ago: but her? She was only here because she was confident that she wouldn't have to decide between herself and someone else - confident that the authors would never let her die.

Every time Jackie felt happy, she brought herself down again with depressing, self-flagellating thoughts. She was right, of course: all of these deductions were perfectly correct. However, she never bothered to look at the light and therefore she cultivated a self loathing in her heart, a blackening infestation not dissimilar to Andarta's. She thought of herself as an outsider and an observer. She felt like she was hijacking someone else's life - Liz's to be specific. She didn't deserve the witch's kindness, and the Ashwoods didn't deserve having to deal with Jack. She was Elizabeth's pet parasite. But still, she put on a smile and laughed along with everyone else in that perfectly convincing manner that she'd been cultivated by scientists and soldiers to do. No one would ever know what was eating her up inside: she wouldn't ever let them. "Holy shit, Liz. That was a bit of a risky play, huh?" She was cut off by a great gust of wind. Dust and stones were whipped up into the air and thrown at her. She held her arm over her eyes, squinting and trying not to let the grit beneath her eyelids. Before she knew it, the group was being pelted with knives. Alex reacted fastest, perhaps because of her ethereal composition - she probably wasn't affected by the storm - deflecting a great number of them. However, she was unable to shield everyone. Terry saved her life despite her injuries, and she had just enough time to feel a little thankfulness before it was completely swallowed up by guilt and shame, though she refused to acknowledge the source.

"Holy fuck... and here I was thinking the Crimsonites were just dumb bastards. They pulled a hit-and-run on us." She hadn't had enough time to ready a dart, nor had she even seen their attackers. Jacquelyn had only opened her eyes during the tail end of the conflict, having seen but a glimpse of the dust cloud as the rest of the team poured fire and magical buckshot down the mineshaft. "Do we have a way of protecting ourselves from shit like that? Personal barriers, mobile wards, anything that'll ensure that if they launch a stealth attack we won't go down in one hit?" Here she was again, asking others to do what she couldn't: whinging because there was nobody there to protect her. "L-look, I mean... I'm not complaining, it's just that I'm a bit nerv-... no, I meant-... fuck. These surprise attacks are doing a number on my heart." Alex turned to her and asked a rather pertinent, obvious question. Jack was startled into action, quickly pulling a flask of healing mead from her jacket. "Uh, yeah, sure. I've got some balm here, it should help." Was this all she was now? A glorified puppy whose only job was to lick her teammates' wounds? She unstoppered the flask and handed it to Mai. She couldn't meet the pyromancer's eyes. Whenever she saw Mai's face she just thought about what she'd been told before the operation had begun, and couldn't help but silently agree. She wasn't cut out for this. She wasn't ready.

Jack's potions weren't even all that well made. They were functional and that was about it; they tasted like rat piss and really only fixed surface level wounds. Organ damage, skeletal fractures and dislocated joints were beyond her ability to treat, although she hoped one day to become a good enough alchemist to do that. Next time, she promised herself, she wouldn't leech off the Ashwoods' stores. She'd do the resource gathering, the recipe making, the whole shebang all on her own. It wasn't pride that motivated her to make that promise, that's all I'll say. "If the Crimsonites are already throwing armies of Homunculi at us they must be getting desperate. That, or they just happened to have a legion of flesh monsters lying around." She rather preferred the former explanation. "I'm outta explosive rounds, by the way. I've only got one bottle of jello-potion left, too. I think I mighta blown my load a little early there." Dawn then stepped forward and healed Terry and Mai right away, making Jackie rather confused as to why any of them needed to be here when they were receiving literal divine intervention. Seriously, was it even within the realm of possibility for them to lose, now that there was time goddess on their side? She didn't want to jinx it, but... "Well shit. I guess that's one healing potion down the drain. Thanks, timeturd." It probably wasn't a good idea to be insulting a goddess, but since when had Jacquelyn been known for her excellent judgement and decision making skills? Never. The answer was never. Obviously.

What followed was an entertaining, if a little confusing exchange between the deities of time and space. Honestly, Jacquelyn thought that Dawn was the far superior god, if only because she proved to be useful now and then, and her snark was, if not typically deserved or welcomed, then at least pretty funny. The fact that Jack knew that Dawn could read her mind made all of this even funnier, because it meant that she could insult the goddess while being essentially bereft of blame, since it wasn't as if she was capable of stopping these insulting thoughts from arising, now could she? After all, it would just be unreasonable to expect anyone to control their own mind twenty four seven, right? Oh dear god, she thought (rather sarcastically). Please don't kill me Dawn, I didn't mean it. She was subsequently patched into the psionic network that the Celestial Order was sharing, which made her worry that there were other dedicated groupchats entirely dedicated to insulting her that she wasn't privy to. "Oh, hey, this is neat. Am I interrupting your shitposting? I kind of suspected that stuff like this would exist in this setting. Hang on, I've got to try something." She flooded the network with awful yaoi furry hentai, accidentally distracting them when the attack occurred. It would've been funny if it weren't so awkward, as well as so unbelievably serious of an offence. Couldn't she stop being a facetious little bitch for one minute? "Shit, shit!"

Chains and hooks dropped from the ceiling, latching onto whatever they could and retracting with immense speed and force. No doubt, if one of them caught her arm, it would be torn right off. That, or she'd be pulled up to meet whatever terrible entity was controlling all of them. Jacquelyn's mind raced, and the only logical decision seemed to be to find cover. She rolled to one side, staying far from the walls but close to other large objects - such as fungi and stones - that would hopefully be hooked before she was. She fired a decaying round above the group's heads, causing a number of chains to be severed. A few fell to the ground, though she had little time to examine them before even more came down. One fell right between her legs, causing her to yelp and scramble backwards. How were they being targeted? Were the chains being slung at random or was there someone aiming them at them? Only one way to find out. A hook fell down and she fired a webbing dart at it, attaching it to the wall. It attempted to pull itself up, only to entangle itself and become trapped. Success! "Someone - tenebraes, golems, people, whatever - grab that chain! Pull whoever's controlling it down!" She roared, firing more shots and trapping other hooks. Of course, she often missed and she typically couldn't aim anywhere in the vicinity of her teammates which was where most of the hooks were, but she was slowly thinning down their numbers. With Dawn's belligerent, passive aggressive assistance and the combined strength of the tenebrae and Celestial Order, it seemed as if victory was forthcoming - though at what cost, Jacquelyn wasn't sure.

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

"Polly, listen to me. He's controlling you." "Shut up." She spoke with an unsettling coldness. Though she was a child, she did not appear to be so: her body, her voice and her enunciation were all taut as stressed piano wire, on the brink of snapping and taking someone's eye out - or so it seemed. Polly appeared to be positively dangerous. "You're terrorists. Murderers. I saw what happened in those corridors, your filthy liars." She did not deign to hurt anyone, but the way that she ground her teeth and the manner in which she spat her words indicated that there was some sort of detestation living in her heart: a hatred too strong to have been cultivated by Johann alone. "That wasn't us. There were monsters-" "There was you, too! And where were you when they died?! Where were you when casinebs were tearing the cafeteria staff apart and when fires were engulfing the security department? Why weren't you there? Why are you running away from this?!" She held Madi tight. "I believed in you. I thought that you were my friends - I thought that I would've chosen to associate myself with good people, not terrorists and cowards." "Where's this anger coming from?" "Really? You're asking me why I'm angry that you let a slaughter like this happen right before your eyes? I saw the junction outside your cell, Kiara. You're right. You do hurt people." Kiara shut up. "I- I never told you that I-" "It was obvious. Even a child could've- no, a child did see it."

It was a standoff. Silence presided until Johann asked his question and Polly scowled. "Of course she could live with those deaths. She already is." "What are you trying to achieve here? Are you just going to hand us back to AEGIS?" This time, it was Polly's time to hesitate. "I know you didn't do the right thing." "And you are right now, by making sure that nobody wins? We'll be executed. Johann might not say so but he's an adult. He's a preposterously good liar and even though you're smart and use words that you think make you sound smart, the truth is that you're still confused. You have no idea what's going on." Polly loosened her grip. "But... why? Why didn't you do anything to stop this?" Kiara sighed, though it was a great effort to do so. Her chest felt like it was being compressed into a pulp "They would've attacked us if they hadn't been busy defending themselves from all the other anomalies. If it had come down to a fight between us and them, they would've ended up dead anyway. And I'm sorry, but you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Do you think it was easy for me to watch those people die? Do you think I don't believe that they're deserving of life? I do care, I'm not cold. But if I have to decide between seven billion people and just a few hundred, I'll choose the former every time. I have people I want to protect; everyone does, not just you."

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

Miria was in a very tense situation. In front of them were Johann and Polly, of all people, and she wasn't happy at all with them. Miria wasn't happy either, but Polly? Was she working with AEGIS? No. No?

Miria listened to her rambling, her argument with Kiara and Madi. They were terrorists, she said. No, not just them - they were all bad people. Miria felt a twinge of anger writhe in her heart; she wasn't a bad person, was she? Was she a coward? All she was guilty of was trying to not cause trouble. Sure, she was just as angry at Madi and Kiara and Skye as Polly was; after all, they were the ones who had broken free, and who likely caused this breakout. Miria had just been staying up, but she knew that they weren't as patient. It wouldn't have surprised her if them causing the breach was the truth. Still, it didn't make her a terror for escaping - she was going to get eaten if she didn't run. It didn't make her bug buddies terrors either, even if they did scare her enough to attack at first.

Kiara made a point as well - they were as good as dead now. Maybe even if they weren't executed, they'd probably end up wishing they were. Miria didn't think AEGIS was that bad, but she also didn't know how they would react to this event, or if they would ultimately decide that the small group was worth sparing after they caused a major outbreak. She didn't want to find out, really. Even if they just kept everyone locked up indefinitely, that was worse than death for Miria. She didn't know if she could handle it.

Polly was angry. She was livid, and it looked like she was ready to turn on them. Miria felt her gut twisting; she trusted Polly. She felt obligated to help her, after being responsible for her mind wipe to begin with, but the way that she was acting? It was dangerous. It just gave her those vibes - the same vibes that Mnemosyne had been giving off. Miria felt her mouth running dry. She'd wanted to help Mnemosyne, but in the end, her and Marcus had died, and Polly? Well, she was different. Miria hated what Katya had told her after that - that it was her fault. She hated to think it, but maybe it was true. Maybe what everyone had told her to begin with was true - that sometimes she just needed to let one person go to save everyone else. Trying to do otherwise had put them all in this situation. Miria didn't want to let anyone die, but knowing how strong Polly was? Either AEGIS got them again and they all died or ended up in prison, or Polly would go berserk. That was what Miria thought. Either one was very bad. Miria just needed to be prepared, just in case...just in case?

For what? Was she really thinking about trying to put down Polly if she tried to go berserk on everyone else?

Miria's legs were shaking. Her heart seized; her stomach too. Anxiety gripped her like a vice, and made her freeze, but...no, she had to be ready. Still cradling the injured dragonfly, Miria lowered one of her arms slowly. She began to reach for her dagger...wait...she didn't have her dagger, right. Damn it! She didn't have it because it had been confiscated. Her dagger was crimsonite, not metal. Polly wouldn't have been able to counter it, as far as she knew. If Polly ended up freaking out, Miria wouldn't have been able to fight back. No, she needed her dagger...

Then again, she didn't have her crimsonite dagger, but she did have five smaller ones clung all around her...

She didn't think that Polly would turn on them. She wasn't that dumb, even if she was more naive now. Miria didn't want to believe that Polly would turn, even though she really sympathized with her. Miria wasn't going to let Kiara or Madi slide either, but right now? She didn't think it was a good idea to turn them over. She didn't know if she and Polly would benefit from it; they were always more cooperative than the others, but still, after this fiasco, Miria just didn't know if they would get off the hook...

"I'm not a terrorist, am I?", She finally spoke up, almost wanting to shrink behind Kiara. She needed to get a little closer though...just in case...Miria took a tiny step forward, and used both arms to cradle the little bug again. "Look, I don't like this either. I just wanted to stay put and cooperate, but now that this has happened, I don't think we'll be treated well any more. Frankly, I'm scared, and I just want to get my stuff and get out now. I think these guys do as well.", She said, nodding to her little friends.

Katya

"Oh, fuck this.", Katya thought to herself. She'd given her warning, and these assholes weren't intimidated in the least. She wasn't going to let them get to her, even if she didn't feel like hurting anyone today. She wasn't stupid enough to let them come any closer.

Her foot hit the gas, and Katya threw her car forward. At the very least, she'd smack the figures directly in front of her and knock them over, and make them think twice about pursuing her. If they got a bruise or a broken bone? None of her concern, since they knew better than to try surrounding some car in dark robes. Katya was only concerned with getting away from the scene, and maybe getting to the town that the AEGIS agents recommended. If they bumped into one another again, she would make sure to bring up the incident, just in case she had just stumbled into yet another one of their escaped pets.

Moving ahead, Katya raised up her other hand, gun gripped tightly, just in case she was forced to open fire. She quickly checked the rear-view mirror, and then the road ahead of her. She needed to be careful.