Chevaleresse

Ayaka, if she was being totally honest, still kind of wanted to lay down and cry. Not that she'd say it out loud; an idol should be a bit more collected, a bit more cool than that. The other girl - she was part of a pair of sisters - brought up what had just happened, which didn't exactly help this desire. "Ah, um, yes, it is probably a good idea to do so." She tried to fix her face into an impassive mask; the result looked more. . . angry? Like someone doing a particularly hammy rendition of an imperious queen. Except it was less intimidating and more comical coming from a girl who was only four and a half feet tall.

Ayaka boosts her Beauty

Laver lowers his tension, preparing to heal his allies as they would inevitably take wounds in the upcoming melee. Dackly informs the group of the capabilities of the Dragon Tooth Beasts, while Gozer begins to set up ephemeral explosives. Bridgett fires a barrage into a group of the archers, peppering them with bolts for a total of [15] damage. Jade fires a single bullet. It strikes one of the warriors right in the spine, blowing off one of the thing's arms and a good portion of its ribs for [31] damage! Hayle conjures a blizzard to strike another group of the warriors for [24*10] damage! Six of them break into pieces, but the rest are still alive. Or as alive as some sort of magical skeleton familiar can be. Tama Vajra takes Ghost's place on the field. Aurora strikes one of the Dragon Tooth Warriors for [18] damage! Another one crumbles to dust. Friedhold draws three of the remaining warriors into a black hole for [50] total damage! One more warrior is smashed to pieces. Morgan charges Teleport Slicer. Lexiel somehow manages to hurt a skeleton-thing with a tranquilizer gun for [11] damage. Samantha shields herself with psychic energy. Solomon somehow sends visions to himself to increase his INT and RES by 5 each. Atton saves the party from trying to figure out how you sedate something with no organs by blowing the thing to pieces for [16] damage. Venus throws a bomb at the first group of archers. Enma strikes an archer in the second group for 5 damage. Kino strikes the same one for [20] damage, taking a good chunk out of the thing. Wyvis uses Harvest on Jade and Samantha. Melina conjures a shield before Samantha. LOTUS pinpoints the weaknesses of the second group of Dragon Tooth Archers. Navin strikes the same group four times with staccato explosions, dealing 44 damage! Two of the things are shattered irreparably by the blasts. Edmond welds one of the archers for [15] damage. The next strike will do [25] more damage. Liliya slashes the remaining warrior of the first group for [20] damage. Halley suppresses a group of archers for 1 damage. Hikari casts a variety of buffing spells. Victoria fires her gun into the first group of archers for [10] damage. Hikari follows up for [11] damage, causing one of the archers to collapse. Ritsu chainsaws one of the beasts for [9] damage. Sachi enters her Tower Stance, protecting Hikari and Kagari. Empi starts giving instructions to Mitsurugi. Kagari transforms and begins to sing a protective song for her allies. Prei conjures burning spears. Mitsu fires a torrent of danmaku at a group of beasts for [10*10] damage! Three of the beasts crumble. Hiroki fires her own spray of projectiles at a group of archers for [6*10] damage! Two of the creatures fall to pieces. Magna strikes one of the knockoff skeletons for [12] damage. Soryn commits bloody murder, except not really because he didn't down anything, for [14] damage. Magnum learns that the Dragon Tooth Warriors, true to their name, are draconic in origin, as well as being magical constructs. Their movements are somewhat rigid; striking them as they prepare to attack may be effective. The surviving skeleton from the first group takes a swing at Victoria for [5] damage. The warriors in the second group attack Liliya, Morgan, Kino, Samatha, Venus twice, Enma, Hiroki, Isobel, and Magna for [4], [5], [6], [0 due to Phalanx], [14], [10], [0], [8], and [6] damage respectively. Three skeletons leap at Dackly for [27] damage. Three others surround Mitsurugi and strike for [24] damage. Two more branch off and flank Samantha and hit her for [0] damage, breaking the Phalanx. The final two attack Kagari for [6] damage, one of them missing. Sachi takes [6] damage. The other twenty skeletons charge forth, targeting the group of Aurora, Friedhold, Morgan, Lexiel, Samantha, Solomon, Venus, Kino, Enma, Wyvis, and Melina for [0], [8], [14], [6], [0], [6], [20], [18], [24], [8], and [0] damage. The archers, as a collective, fire a volley of arrows aimed at no one in particular, dealing 2 damage to everyone on the field; several of them seem to be having difficulty drawing their bows, and do not fire. The beasts circle the group. Four of them leap at Samantha, and [All 4 Fail] inflict bleeding wounds upon her. She will take 20 pure damage at the end of the next round for 3 rounds. Four more attack Hiroki in a similar manner and [3 Fail] tear chunks off her armor plating, causing her suit to vent plasma uncontrollably in places. She will take 15 pure damage at the end of next round for 3 rounds. The last two strike in the same way at Solomon, and [Both Fail] start him bleeding for 10 pure damage for three rounds. Five beasts lunge simultaneously at Aurora, dealing [0] damage to her tough exterior. Three more go for a more tactical approach, striking similarly to how the first group had, inflicting [All 3 Fail] 15 bleeding damage on her as well. The last two bite at Sachi for [0] damage each. Status

Mitsurugi landed gracefully, for all the world as if she had moved to where she was entirely intentionally. Their foes approached quickly, it seemed; a mass of cheap conjurations, imitations of the life that was a god or a youkai. She hadn't had much occasion to fight things like these, but it was one foe she could feel no regrets for destroying. "Very well." She leapt upwards, floating above the heads of most of the group, and made a sweeping, throwing motion, causing a number of bullets made of divine power to streak toward the enemy. Mitsurugi uses Furious Tempest on Dragon Tooth Beasts B Hiroki, on the other hand, both did not react to the landing in time and had no means that would make it anything resembling coordinated; she hit the ground with a squeak. She laid there briefly, trying to figure out if she was simply in pain or actually injured, before realizing that they were already under attack. She scrambled haphazardly to her feet, and called her mech up around herself without a word, the cannons flaring to life and spraying fire at their enemies. Curtain Fire on Dragon Tooth Archers B

"I still don't understand. What's going on? Why. . ." Focus, Ayaka. One question. Freak out later. "Who was that, and why did she want to kill us? I didn't think the show was THAT bad. . ." She sunk a bit into her costume at that line; she was still disappointed in herself. She hadn't been like her favorite idols at all!

Ayaka levels her Stamina

i'm obviously game for this

Ayaka, seeing Lucinda do the exact opposite of what she did, the person supposedly rescuing them getting knocked out or worse, most of her allies getting stabbed, getting stabbed herself, feeling even more sick than stage fright, the awful performance, and the current mortal terror accounted for, did the only logical thing: threw her wand at the person attacking them - the thing turned into a sort of glowing ring of light as she did so - turned about, started to run away, and fell flat on her face. Basic Attack

The castle shuddered, and the errant heroes (and people-who-were-supposed-to-be-heroes-but-were-really-just-vaguely-heroic-sociopaths) found themselves hurtling toward their next quest. Quite literally, in fact; the shuddering only continued to build and build as the castle moved, the ancient vehicle feeling as if it was on its way to shaking apart and exposing everyone to the harsh void between worlds. This fear was assuaged for a moment; unfortunately it was quickly replaced by another fear, as freefall was added to this unpleasant experience. Most of the party suddenly found themselves teleported outside the castle, just above the ground, by some sort of unknown safety mechanism - or malicious force, it was hard to tell. Particularly when that force seemed intent on you eating dirt. It was dark; they'd evidently fallen in at night, the moon hidden away. However, it wasn't as dark as one would expect; the flickering lights of bonfires scattered around the landscape both near and far lit the area up well enough to see the threat already approaching. A sinister rattling noise presaged the arrival of a number of creatures; they seemed to be human skeletons intermixed with those of beasts, but larger and make of a bluish gray material, with most of them only having a lower jaw in place of a full head. They raised their weapons at the group, and rushed forth; there would be no time to get your bearings. Objective: Survive! All of party has initiative. Actions will be processed in order of posting. Enemies will be processed in blocks of 10.

So they turned out to be one of THOSE adventuring groups. Good to know. "Remind me to avoid Visrii and Halley. Sounds like a bad time. . ." She was indeed interested in the items he had to show her, but . . . "Edmond, are you okay? If you wanted me to, I could go and check that out for you. I think I've heard enough about this place that I could get there."

"If there was an overt possession going on, I could tell - there isn't one, by the way - but corruptive influence is something that I have to get pretty intensive with. And the last person I did that with exploded. She got better though." Marisa smiles, before her expression fades. "And, yeah, I wouldn't trust that guy. He's greasy. And not in that 'street-vendor-with-the-great-meat-pies' way. Anyway. To get to your other question, I saw some stuff from Lexiel's life, and then the last thing punched me repeatedly after punching all of my demons. Which was tons of fun, let me tell you."

Hiroki dismissed her mech once she was sure the fighting had ended. It would take a little while for it to regenerate; she mentally noted that she'd have to work up the courage to speak with Tesla about it later. The prospect wasn't something she was fond of, but the woman was clearly more skilled at the engineering and mechanical aspect of mech combat than she was herself. Much like Prei, she elected to simply find a spot to sit down for a few moments before they were teleported out.

Marisa heaves herself up; she'd slumped against a wall again, still feeling rather worn out. "Anyway, I took care of what I wanted to. It's noisy in here, so I'm gonna find somewhere else to sit for a second. Chase me down if you need me." The witch readjusts her hat and walks out the small bedroom with an inexplicably large number of people in it, and heads down the hall to Edmond's room. She pokes her head in. "Ey. You had a story to tell?"

"Yeah, guns have this awful habit of jamming or exploding when you don't want them do." The woman glances over at Solomon, visibly cringing. "Marisa. Please stop abusing your books." Turning back to Edmond, her expression turns more neutral. "Anyway, yeah, if you've got something interesting I'd love to check it out. Oh, and despite the joke I do appreciate the offer of more healing, Laver, but there's some things that just don't settle down right unless you let them sit naturally for a while."

"Alright." She gives Lexiel's hand a firm shake or three, then disengages and claps her hands together. "Alright, what's next? More story time? Me hurriedly explaining that I'm not actually a soulless puppet? More explosions? I'm going to be hanging around for a little while longer, mostly because I planned on resting up from my previous excursion and ended up both almost frying myself by channeling too much mana and suffering a large amount of blunt trauma to my, well, everything. So."

"Well. Yeah, that's fair. While I'm at it I should probably apologize for any demons that may have tried to chew on your face or the faces of any of their coworkers. I did just tell them to protect me, you know." She sighs. "And while I'm still in pain and not thinking quite straight: it's a lot of effort to hold grudges and I've got spells to memorize." She unfolds her arms, and offers a hand to Lexiel. "This isn't forbidden by some Azorius law, is it?" Marisa asks the question with a slight smile. "Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's technically illegal to breathe on Ravnica."

"That's better, thanks. I think my ribcage is still gonna ache for weeks over that, though. . ." She pops up almost as if lifted, however, readjusting her hat as she does so. "Anyway. I got punched over and over by that Doomfist guy and uh, saw a few instances from your past. At this point I should probably apologize for assuming you were just another angel with a stick up her ass. So. Yeah. There's that." She looks down a bit, and kicks her heels somewhat childishly. "I'm also sorry for blowing you up a little bit ago. I really don't know that happened, really."

Marisa pops back, and immediately flops onto the floor, leaning back against one wall. "Okay, we need to have a heart to heart here in a second, but right now I'm pretty sure your emotional issues made me bleed internally." She leans her head back as well, nearly popping her hat off of her head.

"Generally when someone points that sort of magic at me I duck first and ask if he's going to blow me up or just arrest me later. And, uh, if that's how you define 'not attacking,' then sure. I actually tried to yell something along the lines of 'I'm not an insane demon worshipping orgy maniac' but I guess those perfect angels couldn't hear me. Anyway. Not the point. I believe we were trying to stop you from blowing up any more cities?" Marisa offered Lexiel a sickeningly sweet smile - which might have actually looked pleasant despite its total lack of authenticity. It faded to a more neutral expression before lighting up a bit more naturally at Laver's new possession. "That came from me? That does actually look pretty interesting."

Marisa looked at her flatly. "Do you remember shipping me off to jail for summoning demons in self-defense?" she asked rather pointedly. Partially to cover the fact that she had no real idea of what Lexiel was talking about, being a native of, and having mostly visited, relatively low-tech worlds.

"H-hey, you need to actually get up and protect yourself!" Ayaka watched Lucinda get tossed about by their mysterious foe, taking a pretty bad hit. That girl in blue, she did something to heal us all, right? I got this far by doing my best to be like other idols. . . She raised her wand up, much like the Blue Knight had previously. A pink light shines from the end of her weapon - the orb changing color to match - similar to what had come from the woman's sword, albeit much weaker. [Healing Note] on Lucinda

Marisa let out a string of expletives that didn't sound like they were actually intended for human vocal cords - or ears, for that matter - intermixed with more mundane ones as she dove for cover and threw up a barrier of raw mana for herself to hide behind. She poked her head out after the dust settled (somewhat redundantly as the barrier vanished as she did so) to observe the damage. "Um. Okay. Uh. That wasn't what I was going for. So. Two questions. One: are you still Lexiel or did I just accidentally kill an angel and substitute her with someone entirely different? And two: what the hell actually just happened? That feedback loop should have caused the enchantment to spring back into place at worst. . ."

"Alright, well, good news is that it's not actually that complicated. Hell, I could probably reverse-engineer it if you gave me some time. . ." She trailed off as she refocused herself. She was leery of the amount of energy still present in the enchantment, but it shouldn't be too hard to deal with. She mentally separated out the part of the enchantment responsible for the behavioral restrictions, and then followed that about until she found the part of it responsible for targeting. "And a plane's worth of mana, too." Assuming she found what she sought, she applied her tweezers in such a way to "bend" the enchantment so it either fed back on itself, or tried to correct the behavior of something meaningless, like the aforementioned elbow. If she didn't, she'd try to insert one herself that replicated the effect, trying to do so with mostly her own blue mana if at all possible so that it wouldn't shock or compromise the matrix at all.

"Alright. I'm gonna need you to drop any defensive wards or enchantments. If you've got any up, of course. I'd rather not get set on fire or electrocuted for this." She waits a moment, taking the time to do another set of incantations; to those in the room that could see magic, it'd look like she was building some sort of set of. . . magical chopsticks? Something needle-like but capable of grasping at the same time. "I'm not gonna lie, this is making me really nervous. Usually, if I run across something with this much power behind it, I look for a way around or just drop the issue entirely. . ." Marisa prodded at the magic suffusing Lexiel lightly, mostly testing for a response and trying to get a better idea of the structure of the thing.

Basic Attack on Kracko Jr