Lenier

Bone merged back together, flesh and muscle wove itself back into a single whole as the regeneration did its work. His wounds vanished and a leg sprouted from the stump that had been there previously. It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience to feel, but it was the sort of strange irritation that he could endure with a casual ease. It was the unfortunate fate of a Daybreaker that this sort of wound was not foreign to him.

"Uugh, got dust in my mouth," Lenier grumbled as he rose to his feet. For a moment he swayed, his balance not all it was cracked up to be at first. But a few seconds later he got his feet back under him as the regeneration finished. Just in time for him to step to the side to dodge a shard of bone that protruded through the exact spot where he had been sitting. That would have been bad.

Hefting the torch that was his Crown, Lenier wasted no time in springing into actin, smashing projections and spires of bone as he cast a bolt of blue flame at the Tyrant that had taken his leg from him. With the three of them working together this thing would not stand a cha-

Before he had the opportunity to finish that sentence, there was the loud sound of impact, and suddenly he was flying. Again. Well this time it was more accurate to say that he was falling along with the rest of the building towards the ground. Which unfortunately for him was a long way away. Damn it.

He reoriented as he was falling, springing off a nearby piece of rubble to launch himself towards their opponent. Aerial parkour was put to use as he drew close, yet he would not get in melee range. Instead he pointed his torch forward and let loose with a stream of blue fire upon the Tyrant, to last just as long as he was falling until he hit the ground. He was not going to spend this entire fight regenerating, that was for sure

As Cerise departed the girl took a deep breath, and as her left foot made contact with the cracked concrete, she rocketed off with a wild determination. The caution in her cold blue eyes took on a tint of purpose. A voice in the back of her head gnawed at her, but she drowned it out. With each step, her speed took on new life, accelerating at a frightening speed. The world began to blur, nothing else mattered. She needed to move faster. In her frenzy, she had let her instincts take over as her mind drifted into some distant corridor of her mind. Running full speed into the wall of dust, the world faded away in its entirety.

Standing before a rusty throne, her eyes were set upon the figure imprisoned behind the seat. Its penetrating lifeless gaze rang out from underneath the torn, dusty mantle. The chains that shrouded and bound the behemoth jangled as Yui felt herself grow dizzy. As she raised her hand to her face, she noticed the thick chains that bounded her arm to something in the shadows.

How many times had she been here?

As her mind began to race, she felt her body being yanked forward before finally falling before the throne. She felt a foot rest lightly atop her head.

"My, my, if it isn't the Demon of Progress," the voice reminded her of Cerise, but even more condescending. Looking to the side in an effort to tame her annoyance, Yui felt her face being lifted up by another foot. A pair of pale red eyes greeted her. A menacing smile was painted across Zakra's face.

"Dead. So dead. All because you held yourself back..."

Yui felt tears stream down the side of her face. Her body was motionless, her eyes unsteady with confusion. She felt something cold in her arms. Breaking from Zakra's loose hold, the horned girl brought her head down to examine the heavy object in her arms. The hole in the Excavators silently howled in her mind. The insignia sewed on his coat clawed at her eyes. She had no reason to believe it, but she knew. Deep in her heart she knew. One of them had killed him. For one reason or another. Fury swelled in her heart and as desperately as she tried to smoulder the flame, it only added fuel to the fire.

All because you held yourself back...

The tears continued to stream down her face as her gauntlet gripped the face of the corpse. No one could know, she knew that. The amount of backlash Daybreakers could receive, it would only further their alienation from society. The cries for justice rattled in the back of her mind.

"I'm sorry..."

The words had barely escaped her mouth before she felt the flesh and bone flatten underneath the slight applied force of her palm. She repeated the process several times, beating the corpse to a pulp, and then nothing more. All traces of his existence were gone, the evidence destroyed, saved for his dog tag which she tucked silently away. Her bones creaked, as she felt her blood boil. Lifting her head to the crimson sky, she let out a blood curdling howl, before disappearing in the direction of people she no longer considered her allies.

@Rune_Alchemist
Io growled in pain as the shard sliced her open. Feathers and blood sprouted from her face. This is nothing. she told herself, rubbing at her face, It doesn't hurt! No amount of pain or agony was enough to stop the shrike. Especially pain inflicted by such a weak tyrant. You want out huh...? You want to help?!

Io's thoughts were cut off as something hit the side of the building. Sending the Daybreaker flying out Debris giving way beneath her and debris falling above her. Large chunks of rock and rebar, falling on top of her, capable of crushing an average human to a paste. Through her one eye, the world was spinning, unable to keep her barrings on things.

As the dust cleared, a pile of stone was left on top of an adjacent building where Io had landed, blood pooling out from underneath it. Nothing but silence for a few seconds. Then, a rumbling came out from underneath the rubble. The stones began to shift, something coming out from underneath.

A giant wing. Two more. Then, all at once, 6 wings erupted from the pile of rubble; each of them attached to Io. Taking one of the stone feathers protruding from her cheek, she crushed it in her hand. If you want to help make yourself useful! You serve me, not the other way around, got that?!

Such anger, such pride, such superiority~ the demon within Io chuckled, That's what I like about you~

@Patches@Flamelord@CyanideSweetie
Bounding from one piece to another, Lenier’s jet of flame struck the skeletal beast head on, blue flames causing white bone to bubble up, cancerous growths emerging upon bone even as its own regeneration kept up. In the few moments they were airborne, the Daybreaker and the monster looked as if they were at a standstill, the organic-decomposing flames and the deathless regeneration refusing to give way, but that tie was broken by a golden ballista, smashing into the side of the being. The size of a tree, the flying log easily bisected the monster, a heavy crash sounding as it pierced through the adjacent building.

Another arrow whizzed by Lenier, grazing and cutting into his back, but that small annoyance was nothing compared to the rubble that fell upon the three Daybreakers after their fleshy bodies slapped against the ground.

And, for a moment, at least, it was quiet.

CRACK.

Was it just the sound of the mangled body of Io dragged itself out of the concrete slabs that pummeled her into a pulp?

@Eleos
No, it was something else.

By the time the Demon of Progress had made it to the scene of the fight, the bones in her fingers had long mended themselves, leaving only red viscera still clinging onto her knuckles. The dust at the scene of the battle still remained, the weak-willed winds that blew through the abandoned metropolis not sufficient in dispersing the clouds, but standing there, the terrible form of the anomaly they faced was clear in front of her.

It had put down its roots.

A mere shadow still, the manifold branches of the monster reached for the Scarlet Moon, a white tree growing greater and greater at an exponential rate. With no flames to hinder its regenerative capabilities, and no defined ‘shape’ to put a stopper on how much it grew, more and more branches pulsated outwards, while thick, knobbed roots pushed down and out, pushing aside rubble and fracturing cement.

There was no longer any remnant of the scavenger that the scepter once was. Nothing but a glint of metal hanging from a lower branch, iron gleaming crimson.

@Rune_Alchemist
Despite her survival and her charge, there was still no sense of urgency within the movements of the skeletal hulk. A low reaction speed? No experience with Daybreakers before? Or just a general apathy? Regardless, at Cerise’s charge, it raised one fist and swung it down.

Beneath her feet, the ground quaked as the road shifted upwards, dirt and powdered stone bursting up like a geyser as the wide slab worked like a seesaw, one end pushed deep into the dirt while the other end rose, sending Cerise airborne at the same time that the mighty blow of the Tyrant caused it to ascend.

There was little room for mobility in space, and it was clear to Cerise that she was now on a collision course with the skeletal juggernaut.

And yet, all Versomme did was drive her on further, the burn of digestive acids eating at her more rational thoughts.

Still no reaction from the big guy, eh? Apathetic and slow, in spite of having a daybreaker charging at it at full force. Probably thought of her little more than an ant to be crushed. Naive fool of a creature...didn't even realize what it was, did it? That was alright, she was going to end its unsightly existence shortly anyways. It raised its fist in a fairly apathetic manner, before slamming it into the ground hard enough for the very earth beneath her feet to heave and catapult her head first towards the Tyrant itself.

Well, make things easy for her why don't you? By now, Cerise and Versomme both only wanted one thing. To feast upon this creature and end its pitiful existence. Just another stepping stone on the path she had decided to walk.

A vine grew from the writhing mass that was wrapped around her left arm, rocketing towards the Tyrant as it got within the range of her vines. Unlike her previous ones however, this one was thicker. It was at least the size of a persons neck and seemed like it'd at least be more difficult to tear or cut and the jagged thorns growing on it meant touching it was going to cut most fleshy things with ease. At the end of this vine, something reminiscent of a venus flytrap was growing. The plant was the size of a adult human head and similarly covered in sharp spikes in case someone tried to touch it. The mouth of it was what one might expect. Teeth like protrusions gnashed in a vicious manner as a stream of digestive, acidic juices fell from its mouth.

Like some sort of flying serpent, the vine shot through the air aiming to latch onto the skeletal creatures neck and start the process of devouring. In her right hand, she readied the sword that was her Crown and held it forwards.

Lenier

The Daybreaker was pleased to see that his fire continued to work like always. the Tyrant might have regeneration, but so long as it bathed in blue flame it was taking on corruption as quickly as it could heal it off. Effectively they were in stasis, and the momentary free fall reinforced that notion of equilibrium.

Well, up until the Tyrant was smashed away by a falling tree. He didn't have time to react to that though as he had an unfortunate encounter with gravity and the tons of rubble crashing down atop him. Needless to say, he did not emerge in one piece.

Silence descended over the debris field, the fight seemingly over. Slowly Lenier began to reassemble himself, regeneration returning flesh and bone, sinew and muscle, blood and other fluids. With a grunt he gasped back to life, shifting rubble off of himself as he forced his body upwards. "Haven't died like that in a while," he grunted to no one in particular. Nerima giggled in return, and he felt the ghost of a hand brush against his shoulder.

'My poor hero,' she replied, her voice dripping with condescension. 'But that just makes the struggle so much better.'

Struggle she wanted, and he had no choice but to give it to her. Rubble went flying as he emerged from his crater, his body coated in dust and dirt. Turning around he found that the Tyrant had become a giant tree, growing higher and higher without limits. "Time for some pruning," he muttered as his torch lit with a blue flame.

If it didn't know he was still around it soon would as he tossed a ball of fire at the Tyrant with a swing, moving to close the gap so he could douse it in a constant stream of fire. It had killed him, so it was only fair that he returned the favor.