Battle Hymn of the Republic

The man seemed to have had things backwards; it was just after she had arrived when she had been seeing visions, and to the best of her knowledge she still had as much of a grasp of reality as she’d had before. Now, of course, Flynn had more experience here, even if she suspected she had more time logged in this fantastical simulation. None of this particularly mattered, however, as Willow’s eyes widened and likely began to sparkle like a character from an anime. An offer to work together. Not even hang back and support like when she had battled beside the druid. A number of quips came to mind, but instead she tightened the grip on her saber, adjusted her hat, and nodded with a steely look in her eye.

Shifting back to face the Big Bad pro Tempore, she leveled her saber as she relayed the goal of the confrontation; the importance of using Zinc and Brass in tandem with applying Unity to open Vengeance up to being defeated properly.

“So, think of this as percussive therapy, Flynn.”

Just as Willow had finished her combat brief, Vengeance descended again upon the two of them. With the use of a Wind Step rune, Ruarc put himself right into the beast's center mass, drawing on dragonfire to strike down the rogue god once again, narrowly avoiding the bladed vines erupting from her shambling form. The tangled mess of corruption fell back onto the platform.

Vengeance screamed, her body only half-formed now, and began striking her skull into the stone. Each screech only became more deranged as she channeled the divinely inspired hate within her.

It was there that Ruarc paused. All present could hear her wailing, her hatred, her pain. Another bolt of lightning danced in the man's hand, but he reversed the current, forcing it back up his arm, sending the ions back to nature. Willow could feel the weight of his gaze on her, watching for her move.

The monster on the platform began to come to what it considered feet, and the deathly head contorting on the neck that managed some sort of womanly form turned to look at Horst.

"No."

Percival, not Horst, looked down at her; the spriggan glamour he had worn gone in an instant.

"Yes."

SHNK! The bladed base of Unity landed into the pedestal, and the world shook.

The Slumberer awoke with a start, her thin body thrusting upward.

The platform shuddered and shattered, a rift pulling the limestone tiles downward into its purple, glittering maw. Vengeance clawed for her freedom, but the tear ripped her form into whatever alternate space it led to. The Slumberer rolled off onto the grass, finding the sword she had been clutching nestled in a sheath of vines near-by.

The world shifted, as titanic landmarks moved to center themselves on this whirling nucleus of power. The fjords of Jotungard filled the north. The valleys of the Cairn split open in the south. The mountans of the Yormundyaws erupted to the west and east. Then, above, appeared the tower from Navipolis, directly over the platform. Souls, ripped from distant lands, flew into the whirling aperture that was forming above them from the splitting form of the tower. Willow could see the forms of the Forest Gods, ripped from their arboreal homes, drawn up into the mass of energy, brought to their ultimate fate.

"The Centrifuge," uttered Eryl breathlessly, clutching her chest.

"Je présume que c'est là mon signal, peuchère," Manon stepped over to the edge but looked over her shoulder at Willow, " good luck, ma mignonne, I want to see you again after this is over."

And then she jumped in.

A host of screeches filled the forests, heralding an army of wraiths.

"They are coming for me," hoarsely rattled the Slumberer, gripping her sword with thin arms, "my Summer has come."

"If she dies, this was for nothing," roared Percival, talking of the Slumberer, who seemed to be combating a growing battlelust. His words made it just over the howling of the rift below him, "Vengeance needs to be handled before that happens, before the corruption in her plays its final hand."

He looked at Willow.

"Just like we practiced."

A gust of wind stole him from the pedestal, ripping him into the sky; up, up into the Centrifuge.

With a set jaw Willow watched the world shift and change. Doing her best to hold a poker face, she glanced over at Ruarc to see how he was responding. Outwardly, the Irishman was simply glowering as though he was unhappy with how a neighbor was trimming their hedges. What in the world had the Menagerie gone through? It took everything she had to not react to like a slack-jawed freshman.

“Okay… so now this is an escort quest too…” Willow said, mostly to herself as the new status quo was introduced. Her allies had shifted, the field of play had shifted, and even the opponent had shifted. Giving a glance over to the Irishman to meet his eyes, the Brit gave a nod before starting into her motions. With light and precise steps she began to circle away from Ruarc with Vengeance’s malformed figure as the centre of rotation. Then she kicked up the fulcrum of her role in this endeavor; Zinc and Brass flaring to life in her core as she focused the allomantic influence onto the dark god. With Zinc she bolstered feelings of Serenity, and with Brass she quelled the Anger and Wrath within Vengeance.

Ruarc’s mind was similarly working through strategies. In an ideal world he would have just sent Willow away so he could fire on all cylinders without having to worry about the teenager; both about her getting attacked, and about her getting too close to him when fighting all out. All the while as he scanned the battlefield he was compiling a list of grievances he would make sure to bring to Percy’s attention once this was all over. In the meantime he looked over Eryl, and gave the triclops a quick nod. He’d be lying if he said he was glad the older woman was here as well, but Percy trusted her and so he would write it off as a strange bedfellows situation. So as long as she pulled her weight, he wouldn’t direct any of his misgivings towards her. At least this got him out of the Keep for a time, even if it involved waking him up in the middle of the night.

Admittedly Ruarc felt a little achy. In the scope of things he had already been awake again for a few hours after Laoise fetched him from Carneath, but after a bit of a long day and only a couple hours of sleep he was feeling a bit of fatigue. It shouldn’t be an issue as long as he was mindful, but the fact remained that his twenties were behind him. Grumbling as he locked in, Ruarc tightened the grip he had on his staff until the leather of his gloves creaked. The Babylon Garnet that had been set into the head of the staff for so long was practically a part of the scorched staff glowed as it resonated with the surplus energy evaporating from him. Sleep health aside, Ruarc was about as well equipped as he could hope to be; with stocked runes, full rune leather armor, and a rough idea of the situation and the measures needed. Circling opposite of Willow, the druid shifted the energies of the Elementia around him.

“Craiceann na cloiche,” was the chant Ruarc spoke as he dropped a Wind rune at his feet to time a powered leap. Launching himself upward, he used another Wind rune to propel himself forward. Then from his elevated, if temporary, position he swung his staff downward and fired a lance of lighting down at the twisted goddess; all the while, he stayed conscious of the shrieks closing in. Hopefully Vengeance would be dealt with before they arrived, but since things rarely ever went according to plan he made the call to switch focus if the matter called for it. It would be a balancing act of dealing with hordes and making sure Willow didn’t get in over her head, but he would have to trust her to fight to the best of her abilities, himself to do the same, and Eryl to help where needed.

Slabs of granite and metal erupted from the ground, splitting the earth like a loaf of fresh bread. They formed a border around them, acting as anchors for the sinking fragments from the tower above.

With the battle begun in earnest, a small noise began to echo throughout the world, heard from horizon to horizon. Music. Another song from the playlist that Willow and Manon had curated between bouts with Caxton. It rang from the hills and sang from the trees.

The lightning blast caused Vengeance to recoil harshly against the forming limestone beneath her feet, shedding the tentacle-like arms that had grown over her gruesome form in black lumps. In response, she fired out a blast of thorns that halted just short of Ruarc's body by his abjurer's glimmering shield. The force of the blast was enough to send him into a nearby pillar, but the nails fell harmlessly at the rebuff.

Eryl was focusing the best she could while only one perceived threat existed. Her wrist didn't twitch fast enough to catch the whipping vine that shot back and slapped Willow across the head, but she did catch the second, bladed whip that tried to chase her down to the ground.

The Allomancer skidded onto the limestone, dazed, bruised; but altogether fine. Whatever malice Vengeance had in the swing, the followthrough felt hollow. There wasn't much time to think on it as the dark god turned on her with that same bladed whip, tipped with an edge that appeared like what she had stolen from the Slumberer.

A swipe came down, which Willow evaded, and then another swing from the club stopped short with a shield from Eryl. The monstrous form began to shrink the more she faced the Allomancer. A couple more strikes stopped short, but Vengeance didn't seem to be paying attention.

Then, came a force in their minds that brought all to their knees, even Vengeance. Willow's mind was assaulted by a vision of her mother staring down at her, something similar to the kind that had been assaulting her all along.

"A you trying to be a dissappointment?"

Ruarc felt it like the drudic Wellspring, just as powerful, but its presence turned his blood to ice. A vision of Raiko, bloodied and battered on the other side of a freezing river, filled his mind.

"You abandoned me. Forgot me. Used me."

Vengeance began tearing at the hair on her head, wailing.

"Please forgive me. I failed you, Percy. I failed my family! I failed again! Again! Again! and again!"

Sensing another's influence Eryl queued up a ward to fire at the others before a tree behind her warped into a twisted appendage. It snatched her up and slammed her into the ground. The triclops came back up in its claw, the air beaten from her lungs, one of her arms broken.

Another voice rang from the heavens, an unintelligible cacophony of sound that didn't speak as words but formed meaning in their minds.
In the wide dark of the starry sky, a creature erupted forth so immense that some of the distant stars occluded its shape.

Amorphous and absolute, it stretched on infinitely like an oil spill across the cosmos. From the yawning void came a single resounding command that rattled their souls in their cages.
Vengeance rose sharply and tried to bolt from the platform. Her willowy form slammed against another force.

In her way was the Pebble God. Settled behind her was a piece of the tower. More forest gods appeared as more pieces of the ivory structure landed, hemming Vengeance in. Each of them wielded their own version of Unity, channeling strength or power to cut off the shade god's escape.