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[Takosher]

Monika

Saro fired her gun twice to try to stall the overhead swing, at the same time rolling to the side in case Monika was better prepared this time. Mid-roll she also added two more shots towards Monika's torso. A normal gunslinger likely wouldn't have been able to hit that shot, but with Saro's power behind them, Monika could be certain they would hit if she didn't stop them somehow.

The roll ended with Saro on her knees, one hand already reaching behind her for more bullets.

Kirari

Verna grinned again. "How about I just beat her senseless and you try to sneak in an attack where you can?"

Before Kirari had a chance to stop her, Verna charged ahead. She drew her arm back for a punch and Marionette responded by preparing her needles in a similar fashion. At the same time that Verna unleashed her fist, the needles flashed forward. Verna's weapon met them head on, spinning forward around to her arm to deflect them away. As it reached the end it snapped forward past the end of Verna's fist, smashing into Marionette's face again. It seared her already burnt skin, causing grotesque red blisters and peeling. It fell back to orbit Verna's body as the murderess came to a standing position well within Marionette's range. The needles lashed out again, repeatedly trying to rip into Verna, but Verna's weapon met them each time.

Kirari could see frustration growing on Marionette's stolen face. This may have been the very first time that Marionette had been on the back foot. After all, she was one of the most powerful meisters in the world. Rivaled only by the likes of Lily of Damnation and Saro Ven. Not even a monster like Kirari stood on the same level. Marionette was seemingly unstoppable, and yet Verna was able to stand before her without so much as a scratch.

"I should thank you." Verna said to Marionette, "Before you tried to kill me, I wanted to die. I thought that was the only way to not hurt anymore. But I learned some stuff from you. One: Dying fucking hurts. Like, Kallisto turds that was really painful. But more importantly, you taught me what Love is.

"So thank you, Marionette. It's because of you that I can keep my promise. I'm not going to die. Not ever. No matter how much it hurts, I'm going to keep living."

[Chevaleresse]

Kirari

She looked at Verna with no small amount of wonder. It was as if she'd become an entirely different person while they'd been apart. Then again, Kirari supposed, that just made two of them. Why the girl had been interested in her was still beyond her understanding; she was a monster who lived to hurt people, and Verna had been killing people to save them from pain in some twisted sense. Somehow, they both stood here on this field, preparing to kill a third monster who seemed to do her deeds simply for the sake of themselves, a person they both managed to find vile.

But there would be time to ponder that later. Kirari kept a moderate distance from Verna, close enough to rush in if she saw a chance but (hopefully) far enough away to not get within her or Marionette's immediate reach. It was likely she'd only have one chance at the living puppet, and she had no idea how the meister's ability would interact with her own. She'd just have to find out.

[Takosher]

Kirari

Even with her needles countered, Marionette was far from helpless. She raced forward, reaching out to tear Verna apart by hand if she had to. The needles' assault didn't let up, keeping Verna's weapon occupied with defense. In a contest of strength and speed, Marionette would easily trump Verna. But the murderess had no intent to let it come to that. In one swift motion, she drew and fired her sidearm into Marionette's chest, stopping her dead. The needles faltered for just a split second, but that split second was enough for Verna's weapon to slam into Marionette's side, scorching her again. Verna didn't let up, firing her gun twice more while her holy weapon smashed into Marionette over and over, battering and burning her pilfered flesh.

Marionette simply took these attacks, her needles not even moving to block the bullets. It was as though she were paralyzed, although it didn't quite seem that Verna actually had the upper hand yet. Marionette had survived far more than a few gunshots.

"Damn you..." Marionette grumbled in Verna's voice, "You're not even a piece, you don't matter."

"Whoa, you sound just like me!" Verna exclaimed in surprise, "That's so cool!" Even now, standing against Marionette as an equal, she was still Verna.

"I'm a Prince, one who is protected by Fate itself. You're nothing. By the rules of the cosmic game we're all subject to, you're nothing but a pawn. So how? How the hell can you stand up to me?" Marionette raved.

"Well that's easy!" Verna responded as though Marionette had just asked the stupidest question in the world, "You're a monster that wants to hurt my friends."

A scream of pure rage roared forth from Marionette as the needles sprung to life once more. "I'm not a monster!!!"

Suddenly it was Verna who was on the defensive, barely managing to hold off Marionette's flurry of needles with her ball. Marionette leapt forward, but Verna didn't back off. Firing her gun off several times, she dove underneath Marionette's attack, rolling back to her feet behind the monster. Marionette was spewing blood everywhere, but didn't seem fazed at all by gunshots anymore. It seemed the first had upset her more than actually harmed her. She whirled around to face Verna, who just barely managed to climb to her feet before Marionette's needles sprung at her again. But Verna was ready this time, easily deflecting them away with her ball. Both weapons clashed at blinding speed as the two combatants slowly closed in on one another. Verna took a couple more shots with her gun, but this time Marionette's needles deflected them. Marionette sprung forward, closing the last of the gap in one inhumanly quick movement. She was met by Verna's arm, outstretched with palm open towards the monster's face. The murderess's weapon completed one final orbit to send the needles flying back before coming to an extremely abrupt halt directly between Verna's hand and Marionette's face.

Grinning wildly, Verna closed her fist.

{serious verna theme}

The metal rods embedded in the ball's outer edge snapped towards the center of the weapon. Upon making contact, they emitted a brilliant flash of blue light across the smoking battlefield. Marionette recoiled, screaming and clutching at her eyes. Verna wasted no time unloading her pistol into the monster's gut, causing it to split open and spill out more than a few bits of entrail. The murderess then followed up with a series of punches and kicks, each accompanied by a matching strike from her glowing weapon. Battered, bruised, and burnt beyond any semblance of the humanity she had long since abandoned, Marionette staggered backwards under the assault. Her blood splattered across Verna's cackling face, grinning wide with the sort of glee that only someone truly insane could muster.

Marionette tripped, stumbling backwards several steps and outside Verna's reach. Desperately, her needles launched forward, but they stopped short of Verna as if held fast by an invisible string. Verna held her arm out to the side, prompting her weapon to stop abruptly once more. This time she did not close her fist and the rods moved inwards much more slowly. As they neared each other, a bright golden glow began to spread over the battlefield. The same glow that had helped Kirari find her true self.

Verna's cackling ceased and she glared menacingly at Marionette, who was only just starting to recover her sight. Her gleeful grin was now a sneer of raw contempt. "No limits." she said quietly. A deep breath followed.

Verna ran towards Marionette and leapt into the air, catching the rotation of her weapon as she went up, sending her into a high speed spin. Her weapon closed into a tight orbit around her, going from a hard-to-follow blur to a solid ring of glowing energy. Verna shot down towards Marionette, the monster's needles unable to even attempt to scratch her with her weapon moving at such high speed. Using all the momentum she'd built up, Verna slammed her fist into Marionette's face, smashing the monster's jaw. At the same time, her weapon punched through Marionette's torso, ripping it in two.

Verna landed into a roll that took her away from the two halves of Marionette's body. She panted as she came to her feet, looking towards what she hoped was a defeated opponent. The living corpse was now on fire where Verna's weapon had smashed through it, but somehow Marionette still lived.

{the last stand of someone who matters}

Marionette's needles latched onto her body, stringing it up like a puppet. They haphazardly reattached her legs, but without a replacement there was no hope of her actually making use of them. She shambled towards Verna, her shattered jaw contorting in an inhuman approximation of a snarl. A guttural growl rumbling in her throat, likely the only noise she was still capable of making. One eye peered out from beneath her swollen and charred flesh. A single purple iris, rage burning behind it as it matched glares with the partner it had been stolen from.

"You... Don't... Matter..." Marionette croaked nigh-incoherently.

[Chevaleresse]

Kirari

She was witnessing something she thought wasn't possible. Verna was not only winning the fight, but dominating it, making combat with the inhuman creature before her seem like child's play. Hopefully, this meant her focus was entirely on Verna, and not the person here with the best odds of finishing her off for good. Kirari circled the pair as the Neridan delivered her beatdown, trying to ensure she stayed out of Marionette's sight as long as possible.

As the most visibly obvious monster of the trio drug herself toward the radiance of her demise, the shadow slunk up from behind. Kirari inhaled, raised her rapier, and lunged, aiming to drive the point home within the ruins of Marionette's flesh. "And now, neither do you." She moved as quickly as she could to stop the needles from stealing away the offending arm, attempting to strangle the remains of the burning puppet's will with inky tendrils of her own.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Monika

Monika wasn't surprised when Saro managed to deflect her halberd strike, nor was she that surprised when the gunslinger managed to fire two shots at her mid roll. This time, however, she didn't try to force her swing through, instead letting the two bullets bounce her halberd back, right before letting out another blast of heat to push her in the direction of Saro's roll, along with knocking the incoming bullets off course. Then, with several other blasts of heat to spin her around and put her back on her feet, Monika once more thrusted her halberd at Saro. Even if she missed, it would've taken quite a bit for Saro to dodge this one.

[AzyWng]

Mirka

Mirka reached for her radio and began speaking to Iona. "The stranger's being attacked! Attacked by Lily - Lily of Damnation! Looks like she's holding her own for the moment, too!"

Now things were getting very interesting... Why was Lily targeting this stranger, and how was she strong enough to withstand her?

[Glass]

Jessie

Play along? Play along with wha-

Oh. Oh.

Of course Changer wasn't actually on break. And of course they don't tell her that, because then she wouldn't be genuine enough.
She didn't like it, but she was willing to respect it. She didn't trust them, they didn't need to trust her.

They were still fucking bastards for doing it, but that just meant she had company.

She ran like hell.


...she still didn't think she should be blamed for "not playing along".

[Twinwolf]

Estela
Estela felt a bolt of excitement watching the fight unfold - this was the kind of fight few would ever get to witness, let alone take part in. The strongest woman in the world and one of a handful of people who could stand against her without perishing in the opening blows. The one she was fighting was in Katrian officer uniform, although surely they'd know about someone strong enough to fight Lily in their ranks.

As much as Estela would love to join that bout right then and there, two things stopped her. One - battle-crazed though she was, suicidal she was not. You don't just jump into a fight like that without a plan or really knowing who you're planning to punch if you want to survive the experience. Two - she was in command of a unit. She had responsibilties and she would damn well carry them out.

"Get on the long range and report to command," Estela barked into the radio back to her unit, "We need every spare meister they've got - Lily of Damnation just showed up and she's pissed. She's engaged an officer in Katrian uniform, but we can't identify them. Once you relay that, the rally point for our unit is..." she described a location not too far from their current spot - positioning the unit so she could make a call on whether to intervene once they were all grouped up.

Then she switched channels. "Iona, stay hidden and keep watch on them as long as you can. We can't go walking in blind."

[Takosher]

Kirari

Kirari's hierarchy flashed open with unusual forwardness. Though her other five senses still operated, they felt dulled compared to the sharp weight of her sixth. It took only a split second to realize why. Her mind's eye must have widened in shock at the sight of another holy weapon occupying the upper layers of her own power. Marionette's Flesh Knitters, and they had already begun competing with Kirari for control of the whole thing.

Monika

Saro sidestepped Monika's dash. She was still close enough to get blown on her ass in the wake of it, but Monika had experienced a far more impactful error. Saro had appeared cornered, but in reality she was luring Monika in. Not even Faith's tank could stand up to the attack of Katria's strongest duelist, and the halberd stuck fast in its armor. Monika likely could have pulled it free with a little effort, but she simply didn't have the time. In the corner of her eye, she saw Miko recovering her shotgun and heading straight for her. And worse, Saro's earlier bullets were returning from on high, threatening to kill Monika in a single stroke if she stayed put long enough to recover her weapon.

Mirka and Estela

Lily kept up the attack, but the stranger in Katrian garb had impregnable defenses. No matter what Lily threw at her, there was already a barrier ready to block it. Even blasts of electricity were easily redirected down into the dirt. Yet despite the apparent dominance of the stranger, the fight was at a total stalemate. The stranger might have been able to block everything Lily had, but they apparently couldn't counterattack. At the rate things were going, it would be a battle of raw attrition.

"Um, sorry Major, I can't do that right now." the radio operator answered Estela's order, "There's, uh, a storm coming... so the radio won't work? Over."

"Give me that!" a muffled second voice could be heard in the background.

A few moments later, the second voice spoke clear as day, "Hi there, Major Estela, I think? I'm sorry to ask this of you, but could you please leave Miss Lily alone? I promise she's not doing anything bad."

Jessie

Thanks to Changer's gambit, Jessie was able to escape with the rest back to their home base. Although they'd made a bit of a ruckus, the mission was still a success. They'd kidnapped the girl, all that was left was to hand her off to the Neridans.

Changer retired to her room to rest, Hellia took Farore to her room to watch her, and the rest sat down in the living room. The reason why was obvious. Jessie's position with the group was tenuous at best. They didn't trust her, and the cracks were starting to show. Maybe they'd been starting to show for a while. All eyes were on her, and the silence was deafening.

Surprisingly, Lali was the one who broke the silence, "I still owe you. I told you most of it, but there's one last thing. Whenever I want, I can call down Starfollower on someone I've tagged and a few minutes later it will land right where they are. It usually kills them if it hits, but if they move or are underneath anything more solid than an umbrella, it won't work." A soft thud sounded from the room directly above Jessie. "Just like that." Lali mumbled, averting her gaze from Jessie.

[Twinwolf]

Estela

"Mirka, get ready to bolt. Might need you to run that message up the line if the storm's interfering as bad as the radio op says, and you're the fastest we've got." Estela said as an aside, before turning back to the radio. "Yeah, that's me. Now could you tell me who the hell you are and why you think for one second that a meister of an opposing nation attacking a woman in Katrian uniform isn't something I should worry about?" Of course, Estela was suspicious of who that Katrian was, for all the reasons she'd been curious earlier, but the woman on the other end of the line didn't need to know that.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Monika

In an instant, Monika realized she had been lured into a trap, just as her halberd tore into the tank in front of her. Normally, she would've simply yanked it back out; it might've taken a little bit, but she could force an opening. But her senses were on high alert, keying her in on the fact that the other Meister, the one Kirari had taken control of earlier, was heading back towards her, and even worse, the bullets Saro seemed to randomly fire earlier were now coming back down. She didn't have the time to retrieve her Holy Weapon, because if she tried to, she would be dead. Even her explosions wouldn't deter the bullets enough to make a difference.

So, she did the only option she could take at the moment, something she never thought she'd ever have to do in a fight.

She let go of her halberd, quickly stepping away from her weapon and towards Saro, already pulling back her other hand to throw out a punch. Ordinarily, Monika wouldn't have been to much of a threat at this point, she was basically just another normal soldier without her Holy Weapon. But, she was still under the effects of Sally's Holy Weapon. All she had to do was get rid of Saro's gun and she would be back to having the advantage.

[AzyWng]

Mirka

"Understood." The lieutenant had her own questions about what was going on, but kept them to herself, at least for the moment. It wouldn't do to act on hasty conclusions - not when people were throwing around blasts the way they were. The fact the operator on the other end sounded intimidated made things even murkier - and not for the first time, Mirka wondered who she could trust.

[Chevaleresse]

Kirari

Should have known it wouldn't be that simple. It was almost obvious in hindsight; if Marionette could survive being blown apart and decapitated, it stood to reason that her holy weapon controlled her body and not the other way around. She pushed to counter the monster immediately, trying to force her back with a mental thrust before she had an opportunity to seize anything under her control. Marionette was more of a threat here than she'd anticipated, but this was a battleground Kirari was all too familiar with. She'd been on both the winning and losing ends of this fight, and she wasn't about to let herself be on the latter again.

[Takosher]

Monika

Saro was still on her ass as Monika charged her, slowly trying to climb to her feet. Her clothes had been singed a bit from the heat, and Monika could safely assume her skin had suffered the same fate. Her gun was still in hand, but with only two bullets and Monika's immunity to their reality-warping powers, she wouldn't be able to land a finishing blow.

But she still had a handful of bullets.

Saro threw the cluster of bullets she'd gathered towards Monika's face like so many deadly grains of sand. They moved slowly, but still managed to float towards Monika. It was as though they were carried on a supernatural wind.

Meanwhile, Saro scrambled to get to her feet.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Monika

Thankfully for Monika, the Major didn't quite throw her punch yet. Saro had proven time and time again to be quick on her feet and able to think ahead, and she wasn't surprised that Saro was covering her retreat once again by throwing her bullets right at her face.

Problem was... They were slow, and she was also quick on her feet. So, instead of trying to brute force her way through or moving around, Monika simply ducked underneath the thrown bullets, continuing to move forward even as the deadly projectiles sailed past her head, finally throwing out an uppercut aimed at Saro's chest, fully expecting Saro to manage to get up quick enough to be hit by it... Even if she ended up hitting her head rather than her chest.