@BrokenPromise@Vertigo@The World


Himiko locked eyes with Lenore right as she vanished into the darklight. The fragments ended up flying off to the side and in between the two trains, not having to use even an ounce of mana to defend herself. The expected pain never came as some of the tension left her body as she had braced for impact. Thankful that she did not have to take the attack head on as she was left unscathed. Letting out a whistle as she peeked over the side of the train in the aftermath as it looked like if it had hit, it would have hurt like a real bitch.

“That one would have hurt alright, but alas, sometimes fate endlessly eclipses the actions of those not destined to succeed.” muttering as she shrugged her shoulders, taking that moment to reload both of her revolvers. Both problems having seemingly taken care of themselves with very little involvement on her own part.

Even with Lenore having vanished, and Marrie having dealt with the projectiles, it was better to be locked and loaded. She knew that the nun would show her face soon enough. Even with all the other action going on around her, she at least had a moment to regroup and regain her bearing. She felt a change in the air, and sensed that something was changing with Crazy Trains travel pattern.

If that dragon didn’t show back up, she would have to go along for the ride to wherever Crazy Train decided to go at this point. Her golden gaze shifted around her surroundings as even with the smoke present it was clear others had joined the fray, just based on all the racket being made. For the time being, she was at least left to her own devices, until Lenore or someone else decided to come after her.

Either way, she was going to take a wait and see approach, revolvers at the ready in case a threat presented itself. Why rush headlong into a wall of smoke and the sound of battle if she didn’t have to? Besides it looked like everything was being handled one way or another without her having to lift

Light shot out from her cross, and blood of the shadow demon splattered down upon Noah. Staining her clothing and splashing her face. The chill of it was horrible, and the wet feeling made her skin crawl. Plenty of gorey films and games had people covered in blood, and after experiencing it firsthand, Noah could safely say that she didn’t understand in the slightest how anyone could stand it. Her stomach rose to her throat for a moment, and Noah counted herself lucky that it didn’t get into her eyes.

The whale demon wailed so terribly that Noah’s ears rang, but it was clearly one of pain. It had stopped where it was, no longer approaching to bite her in half. Noah’s cross swung behind her as she frantically darted out from between the jaws of the demon. At its side, Noah found one of the demon’s eyes, and without thinking, changed course. Both hands gripped her cross tightly, and with every inch of force she could muster, thrusted her spear into the eye of the demon as deep as she could manage. She didn’t dare use more magic, even in her panicked state, Noah could feel how little she had left.

More of that disgusting blood would certainly coat her spear, but that was something she ignored. Her mind only cared about ending the threat to her life before her. With her cross embedded inside the demon, it would surely scream out once again, but with it blinded like this…

Whether or not she stabbed deep enough to reach the brain and ensure its death wasn’t the first thing on Noah’s mind. With that sniper down, she could run over to her fellow espers and get their help without as much of an issue, or help them, if it was needed. She planted her foot on the demon, and yanked her cross back out of its eye socket.

Noah held her cross behind her with one arm, and took the opportunity to run to her allies, not checking whether or not the whale demon had properly died. She had run from the whale only fast enough to see the scantily dressed swordswoman teleport away, and Noah blanched when she saw the state of the skull faced esper, her stomach rising up again.

“Oh my god- what happened to your arm?!” Noah nearly shouted, horrified. She couldn’t help but feel some measure of guilt, as well. Perhaps if she’d been more conservative, thought her melody usage through more, she might have enough to spare on some kind of healing for her ally… but with as little as she had left, she couldn’t afford to spare any. Whatever had gone on with his fight, it had clearly been much more difficult than her own. At least, he had survived.

Raphael looked… Well, she didn’t really want to say it, since it would be a very rude thing to say about a man who, as far as Noah could tell, was very devout, but… She decided it would be best to not focus on it.

Instead, at Raphael’s words, Noah’s attention was drawn upwards to the trains roaring above. She wasn’t getting a very good view from where she was, but it was pretty easy to tell which one was which, even from the bottom. One looked kind of normal, and the other was all fleshy and red. Noah was relieved, in part, but couldn’t help the dread mounting slowly in her stomach. If things had gone so sideways before they even got to play their parts in this mission, she couldn’t help but worry that things would get even worse from here. And not to mention, she was pretty close to her limit…

Suddenly, an arm wrapped around Noah while she was distracted, and she found herself held in an underarm carry. “... Uh...” Her cross was held awkwardly in one hand, and Noah tried to position it to not scrape off the ground. She turned her head to the side, more than a little bewildered, and she saw the skull-faced esper being held under the priest’s other arm. She blinked a few times when Raphael picked up the other freelancer's severed arm, fighting to keep her stomach under control, and then they were propelled into the sky. “Whoa-!”

Sudden as it may have been, Noah found the short distraction welcome. Even if the raging hurricane made it a bit difficult to appreciate the view. It kept her mind off of the last few minutes… minute? Seconds? She couldn’t tell how long that battle had gone on for. They couldn’t have been fighting for that long, but at the same time…

Her eyes drifted to her cross, and her eyes widened. Red blood had mixed with the black, and it was steadily being washed away by the rain. That was right, she realized. She’d almost killed that woman, hadn’t she? She hadn’t really been thinking about where she attacked, but if she’d just aimed upward a little more…

Noah swallowed, and brought her focus elsewhere. Raphael had made one heck of a leap, and they were on top of a futuristic looking train. There were a lot of espers all clustered about, and given that neither of the Black Sabbath nuns were attacking… things were probably fine here? Which was good.

Raphael set her down, and she got to her feet. She watched with morbid fascination as the skull faced esper’s arm was stuck back into place with a healing melody, courtesy of Lexi. Something she wished she could’ve done, but, again, didn’t have the mana to spare…

Lexi approached her, next. Noah’s face got a little red, but she was too mentally drained to have much more of a reaction than that. And, even if it was a bit strangely said, Noah did appreciate the other nun looking out for her. “A whale tried to.” Noah said, a little out of breath. “Didn’t let it. I think a bullet, um…” Noah checked her shoulder, and found that gash from the bullet grazing her as the battle started, still bleeding. “... Yeah, a bullet caught my shoulder a little, but... I think I should be fine to fix it myself after this is all done?” It wasn’t very big, and she could probably fix it right now, but Noah just didn’t want to risk finding out she needed that little bit of mana later.

Her eyes again turned towards the other unfamiliar, but not hostile, espers. “Um… Looks like things went well for you guys?”

@Ponn@Majoraa@Vertigo@The World@Nakushita@TaintedMushroom@Kero

Gemini and the freelancer’s mostly stood their ground, but there was still a bit of movement on top of the trains.

Marrie had opted for a slow and conservative approach to getting the Immortal Volcano’s attention. She called a beam from the heavens to strike Elroy’s shield and place her in front of him. He paid the mist froth on the front of his shield little mind and plumbited down towards his target. Marrie’s timing wasn’t perfect, it was impossible to be. When she appeared in front of Elroy, her “feet” were off the ground and she fell a few inches onto the train. While she managed to touch his shield with her knife, she was thrown onto her back, and Elroy flipped through the air before coming to a stop just a few feet away. He turned around, clearly intent on charging again, but his face went from teeth clenching anger to mouth open surprise.

"Mist girl!?" He hovered in place, listening to Marrie’s words. Once she had finished, he lowered his shield an inch and crossed his brow. "Usually we work together. I keep her safe." He looked past Marrie. "But you’re right, mist girl, I’ll carry her to the back and meet you there."

Regina hadn’t said anything since she collapsed. She struggled to get to her feet, but Lenore kept her eye elsewhere. ”We’re going to destroy this train, right?”

"That’s your mission, nun. I’m tasked with keeping the other train running." There were no more words as he scooped up his sister and ran through the smoke screen.

Meanwhile, Lenore’s gaze shifted to Ciri. ”Now that’s interesting…”

When Ciri’s melody went off, its shadowy magic seeped into the train, making part of it intangible. Such a massive object couldn’t possibly become totally Intangible, but it was able to work on part of it. The “train car” that she was on became intangible, but so did Ciri due to the AoE nature of her melody. She fell through crazy train and towardsTrixy, who was still on top of Boteg.

"I’ve got ya, baby!" Trixy reached out her arms only to discover that she couldn’t have been further from the truth, as Ciri fell right through her. Marrie fell down shortly afterwards, and she did manage to land in Trixy’s arms. She raised an eyebrow. "You uh, weren’t the one I was hoping for, but…" She stared at Marrie for a moment. "How old are you?"

Ciri continued to fall. She had become tangible again, and looked like she was about to splatter herself all over the roads of pax septimus. Then a sparkler harmlessly smacked into her back, and she began to bounce in the air as if a bungie had been attached to her. Vertigo was starting to set in as she violently bounced around, but she wouldn’t be eating pavement today. Then a giant hand reached out and plucked Ciri out of the sky.

”Nice shot, Tetrad!” Billy kept a firm grip on Ciri, even as the harsh rain pelted them.

”That was awesome!” She laughed from her motorcycle.

Bill kept his eyes on the road while he addressed Ciri again. ”How do we look up there? Anyone defending Crazy Train?”

Soon as he had asked, a pair of melodies had flown out from the direction of Peace Train back to back from each other. The twins hurried over to stand beside Ashley once she ordered them to keep Crazy Train from running into anything. They did their best to keep a close eye on the behemoth’s movement patterns, just to make sure they weren’t haphazardly wasting mana in the wrong places. With the scene becoming more hectic by the minute, they could only hope everyone would get the hint already to get off, killing Crazy Train or not.

Everyone that was presently on crazy train had disappeared from view, save for Himiko. On its way out of the park, Crazy Train noticed a hotel that would be perfect for scraping against. The GEMINI espers concentrated their mana on the hotel as the behemoth attempted to rid itself of the fleas on its back. The hotel only hummed as the creature brushed against the magical barrier. Himiko wouldn’t be able to wait and see much longer, as the train spun like a corkscrew while it passed. The shadow wall dissipated, and even the smoke walls didn’t hold up. It remained to be seen if Himiko had gotten out alright.

The nuns and it were missing too.

As were the Bates.

Or at least Regina was, as Elroy fell out of the sky like a comet. His flesh was cracked and oozing with lava, his clothes smoldering like dying embers.

”Woops!”

A darkened figure suddenly emerged, quickly moving under him with her arms reaching out to catch him. Despite being smaller, she seemed to have no trouble holding the wounded brother in her arms. ”Hey, I think you’ve missed one!” She called out with a chuckle. Her form slowly turned back into someone only Raphael, Asher, and Noah would recognize from prior.

Penumbra had followed them onto the trains. She spared a glance over at the group gathered onto Peace Train, and gave the aforementioned three a knowing smile.

A second shape hopped off of crazy train, though this one was big and notorious enough to be recognized by anyone. Big Tony had only made a few appearances, but it seemed like he had chosen to appear during this operation personally. Intel didn’t do his size justice. HE was twice as tall, twice as wide, and four times as muscled as the strongest esper present. Like any feline, he landed on his feet, and he had Regina slung over his shoulder. He looked up at the assassin flying overhead and scowled, or may that was just how he always looked.

”You have got to be kidding me…” The Timekeeper, though keeping quiet and to himself for the most part after the rest of the freelancers showed up, couldn’t help but react to the sheer fucking fact that both the Bates got their shit wrecked near instantly by a pair of new arrivals. He quickly stood straight back up, hands tightening around his weapon. The…weirdly familiar woman was one thing, but he was more concerned over the literally bigger issue that had accompanied her. Of course the Hand would show up eventually.

”So, any bright ideas on how to fight THAT thing!?” Finn called out to Ashley, and who he assumed was Raphael.

”They’re protecting that demon.” Raphael pointed. ”We can’t get distracted. We need to stop it to thwart their plans!”

”You can’t be serious-!”

Peace train was starting to pull away from Crazy, but that didn’t stop the priest from jumping onto it. Even as it spun through the air, he kept a firm grip on it.

”...Alright! Okay! Cool! Not as if everyone’s been going off of HUNCHES and a lack of solid evidence instead of oh I don’t know ACTUALLY USING THEIR SKULLS!? WE DON’T EVEN KNOW IF THAT THING’S ACTUALLY DEADLY YOU IDIOT!!” Wasn’t really a point in yelling at the proverbial brick wall, but Finn couldn’t exactly help himself.

Mika watched the display and groaned. She turned to Ashley. ”Orders?”

Meanwhile, Lexi had been listening to Noah's story. ”Interesting! And yes, it doesn't seem like Gemini is that interested in attacking peace train. We're fine!”

To Ashley’s considerable relief, her team’s attempts to prevent Crazy Train from damaging any of the structures it crashed into seemed to be succeeding. Even as she and the twins kept a fancy hotel from getting demolished, the Knight of Tomorrow noticed that nearly all of the behemoth’s unwanted passengers had either jumped or fallen off it. However, two, in particular, were of special note. First, a badly wounded Elroy plummeted through the air, only to be caught by an unknown esper, while Regina was soon revealed to be in the claws of none other than the aptly-named Big Tony himself. While the trains’ motivations didn’t appear to be particularly hostile, the enormous tiger’s most assuredly were. Not only was Tony the leader of the infamous Weretiger Mafia that had abducted and assaulted G.E.M.I.N.I. agents, he was also an important member of The Hand’s command hierarchy. Thus, his elimination was a top priority, one significantly outranking the destruction of either of the train behemoths, at least as far as Ashley was concerned.

“I’ll deal with him, Timekeeper!” the Knight of Tomorrow replied after Finn asked how they planned to fight a foe of Tony’s size and power. “I want you and Paradise to focus on assisting those freelancers in taking out Crazy Train! As soon as they’ve damaged it sufficiently to expose its weak point, hit it with the strongest ranged melodies you have!” she instructed. Of course the monstrous priest who appeared to be leading the freelancers was going to jump on Crazy Train the moment it had just gotten rid of everyone else riding on it, Ashley groaned mentally, but if what he said was true and The Hand really were planning on using the creature to aid them in accomplishing their dark plans, then it would need to be taken out, one way or another. That said, the safety of Pax Septimus’s populace still needed to be addressed. “Cereza, Cerise, continue protecting any structures Crazy Train might try to crash into!” the high-tech heroine continued. “Cerberus, keep watch over the nuns and make sure they don’t try anything.”

With that out of the way, the Knight of Tomorrow aimed the twin-pronged tip of her techno-wand at Big Tony’s hulking form and focused her remaining mana into a truly devastating attack. As the neon green orb nestled between her instrument’s twin prongs glowed with ever increasing transcendent power, she only hoped that the staggering energy waiting to be unleashed would be strong enough to spell certain doom for the titanic tiger…

---

And two of the fingers on the monkey's paw curled, forced closed by Ciri. Sure, now the smoke was a non-issue, and yes, being the only one who could fly on their own power meant that she'd soon be alone on Crazy Train... But seriously!? Herself, a half-dead Regina, not to mention Marrie's Maverick allies, and a seemingly no longer wanting to fight Elroy were all falling really fast. She didn't know if the nuns had gotten caught in the Melody too or not, so that was another problem to figure out as quickly as possible. Ugh...

And then a lot of stuff happened in quick succession. She watched Ciri fall through Trixy's arms and Boteg's body just before finding herself there. With terrified eyes she ignored Trixy's question and looked toward the ground below. Somehow, somehow, Ciri survived, now in perhaps the safest place she could be, in Billy's care. A quick look around showed Elroy's flame stopping before hitting the ground, and based on the light he was giving off it seemed like he had been caught. Which left Regina, and... where the hell was Sovereign?

Focus on what you can affect. As soon as she glanced back up at the trains, she saw a giant tiger person falling nearby. Shit...

Marrie turned her attention to Trixy. "Hey, I mean this in the nicest way, but there's really no time!" She jumped off of Boteg, angling herself so she launched and fell towards the hopefully friendly big cat and the Bates. At the last moment before hitting the ground next to them she cast a Melody.

{Bronze Self - Shield - Multicast}

She made sure to land on her feet, much like the tiger next to her, just in case her Leitmotif could factor in, then rolled forwards a moment before getting back to her feet. She had just enough time to trigger the second half of her Melody, putting her hand on Regina's forehead over Tony's shoulder as she did.

{Gold Touch - Stabilize - Heal}

Marrie really wanted to be able to hold her breath as she waited to see Regina recover, but she didn't feel she had time. It didn't help that as she turned to speak to the monster man, she saw a bright light from above him.

"Shit! Sorry about this!" She grabbed Regina by the arm and tried her best to pull her off of Tony and out of harm's way. While she hoped he was, she couldn't be certain the feline was an ally, and hurt feelings were easier to mend than dead people. In the second before the beam reached them, Marrie found herself pushing off of Tony's back with both feet in her desperate rush to ensure Regina didn't get hurt. And if she saved him from danger, somehow, that was a plus too.

Noah’s body visibly relaxed, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness…” She didn’t know why those GEMINI people weren’t attacking, but she didn’t really need to. All that mattered was that they weren’t. With this scenario, all Raphael’s group has to worry about is taking out Crazy Train.

Speaking of the demonic train, Noah turned to get a good look at the current situation with it. Instead of her eyes, however, it would be her ears that first got an idea. A horrible scraping noise stabbed into Noah’s ears as Crazy Train rammed itself against a hotel that was likely full of people. She winced, her free hand moved to cover one of her ears from the noise. All the while, Crazy Train spun itself around and around, for whatever reason.

Past the temporary pain, Noah felt her desire to end the threat of Crazy Train grow. If it wasn’t for the actions of those GEMINI espers…

Her thoughts on the near miss with extreme casualties were interrupted by the arrival of a flaming man falling from the sky, one of the Bates siblings, Noah realized with horror, only to be caught by a familiar voice.

Noah gasped. “Her again?!” It was that same scantily dressed swordswoman from earlier. How had she gotten so far up so quickly? And it looked like she had company with her, as well. A giant tiger man had followed swiftly behind Elroy falling out of the sky… with another flaming body over his shoulder. Likely Regina.

But… they didn’t come after them. Neither of them. In fact, both the swordswoman and the tiger man just dropped down to the streets below. Noah would’ve thought with how the swordswoman had interfered earlier, that she wanted to stop their group's goals, but it looked like she’d given up? Or maybe their goal was getting their hands on the Bates siblings from the start. Noah couldn’t say.

She looked to Raphael for what to do next, and he shouted his order. The three of them, Raphael, Skull Face, and herself, were to jump to Crazy Train and continue their mission. But not only were the trains starting to pull away from each other, Crazy Train was still spinning fiercely, so Noah wasn’t entirely confident-

Raphael then immediately jumped onto the train.

Noah, with a little bit of panic, apologized to Lexi, got herself a bit of a running start, and made the jump as well.

Her cross stabbed into the side of Crazy train, giving herself leverage to hold on to while the Train spun and spun, and with her free hand and legs gripped onto the Train as best as she could.

This was quite possibly the worst roller coaster she had ever been on, and she dearly wanted off, but she had to endure it. Despite the tears in her eyes from the spinning and her stomach once again rising to her throat, still had a job to finish.