Princess Parasoul Renoir's Story

"Full of greed and deceit it may be," called a Gracchus member. "But we'll never let it fall to men like you!"

The Gracchus collective continues providing covering fire for the Egrets.

---

"This is Alexander von Koopa and friends," said a different voice on the other end. "Again, who are you?"

"Must we listen to that gloating in addition to fighting?" Ninjacker remarks after hearing Garrison's words, while continuing his slicing and dicing.

" "Men like me?" "

Garrison promptly lifts the bone staff he is holding in response, a glow surrounding it as a bolt of lightning suddenly strikes the Gracchus member that spoke up.

"Compare me to the bumbling imperfection you refer to as 'villains' at your own peril," Garrison spat, looking rather peeved.

Meanwhile, something roars from within the portal, as the abyssal giant from before - specifically, the one that tried wrestling Alastor, albeit looking a bit more enraged - runs out in a mad rush, trampling over some of it's own kin and any hapless soldiers before it as it charges at the bodyguard, appearing to be not quite finished with him yet as it pulls back one of it's arms, winding up for a devastating punch.

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Elsewhere, the abyssal giant fighting that certain pink-haired lady is, surprisingly, cleanly cut in half by her attack; the sight of this sending any fiends near her into a panic, scattering about.

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Over by the Templar base, the sounds of more abyssal creatures clawing at the doors or windows can be faintly heard from within.

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Quite a distance away from Sanctuary, Ignacious appears, soon followed by the Lurker; the former, meanwhile, clutching his still-severed right arm in his left.

"..Ignacious wonders; among your shape shifting powers, are you capable of turning into a roll of duct tape?" Ignacious asks his companion as they fly, staring at the broken bone, meanwhile.

"No," the Lurker replies. "Now stop asking."

<OOC> NINJAD

"!!!" Alastor was surprised at the monster's sudden power spike - it was almost sure that even it couldn't block the monster's punch soon enough!

"Alastor, duck!!" Chaperon dove down at the giant, Fafnir's tip radiating with light as it was swung through the monster at 60 mph.

-----

Having finished the job in this sector, the lady folded her gunblade and sheathed it.

"That's enough here. Now then..." She headed on toward the main sector, where the main battle is taking place.

-----

The base's security systems repel the monsters' attacks with a tough harmonic barrier, similar to the kind that Lucas's DRACOS Junction uses.

"This is Lady Camilia, of Coronach. Sir Damian is with me, too."

"Lady Camilia and Sir Damian...? {fanboyish squeal} This is so awesome~!! I rarely get to speak to any dragons! This is too cool!!"

"I-I'm sorry about Andy here, your ladyship...Anyway, we were calling for any information about any shards not yet found."

"That's all? Well..." Camilia checks the monitor - Lucas left a window open with status information on the shards. "Okay, there's supposedly a Wrath shard correlated with Prince Duncan...Supposedly."

"(!) Come to think of it..." Damian added, "there was intense seismic activity occurring in the Shafton City area recently, from what the computer observed."

"So maybe he is... {clears throat} Anyway, there's also two shards of Entropy to be found - one held by a 'blood-sucking undead' that you betrayed via inaction, and another being in the...first and last place you'd go to AND look at. With other information, I believe this one might be somewhere in space..."

The Gracchus member that spoke up is killed instantly by the blast, her mask falling off to reveal a teenage girl. Another fires a sniper round at Garrison.

"So full of yourself, so convinced of your own power..." said Gracchus. "There are too many men like you."

---

"Maybe. I never dealt with Duncan myself, though. Sounds like a vampire, so probably Renfield... Wait... first and last... The first time I went after a sword piece... And the one who told me- THURSTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

"You called?" asked another voice.

The abyssal giant does not see this coming and is cleaved in half, quickly dispersing into mist and flying back inside the portal.

The sniper round, meanwhile, hits Garrison square in the face, the force causing his head to jerk to the side, the bullet piercing his disguise's mask and leaving a small hole but making a 'ping' noise; apparently hitting something of a much harder material underneath. Despite what would ordinarily be a fatal shot, Garrison still stands, slowly turning his head back to the direction it was pointed at previously; it's clear at this point that Garrison is either wearing incredibly reinforced armor underneath his getup, or he's not as human as his disguise lets on.

"Foolish imitators, wielding transparent power! Misguided vessels, ignoring blessed strength! Essences of perfection, yet trapped within restrictive forms! THESE are the 'men' you think yourself familiar with," Garrison said, holding the bone staff he was carrying upwards. "Let it be known I am leagues above them, or anything you morsels could hope to become!"

While the abyss' horde keeps up the pressure, a strange, almost holy-looking aura suddenly surrounds Garrison, flowing to the bone staff he is carrying, a blinding white light soon emanating from the horned skull ornament on top of it. To many of the people here, the lightshow would look to be nothing more than, well, that; but to a certain nearby Templar member, the energy readings coming from it should be eerily familiar.. and quickly gathering in great strength!

-----

Despite the harmonic energy barrier repelling them, the abyssal creatures continue hurling themselves at the Templar base - to no avail, of course, but you've got to give them points for trying, nonetheless.

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Back with Ignacious and the Lurker, the duo notice the blistering light within the city's walls; while the Lurker shields his eyes, almost blinded by the sudden bright light appearing from nowhere, Ignacious, meanwhile not being affected since he is, after all, lacking eyes, happens to see a small energy storm suddenly taking shape outside the walls, close to the breach Garrison went through - and Ignacious quickly flies towards it, using the floating chains surrounding him to forcibly drag the disoriented Lurker along.

Lucas recognized this, alright - it was harmonic energy! No...something was off about it. Because the DRACOS Junction gives its wearer higher perception of harmonic energy's "melodies", he could practically hear the pattern of the energy that Garrison was conjuring...but the melody was off somewhat. Whatever this is, it's not harmonic, and it doesn't seem safe for anyone present.

"(!) Look out, everyone!"

-----

"Eeep - !!"

"(!) Wha - ? What happened?! Who's over th...?" But Damian's words didn't reach them soon enough - the call suddenly ended.

The bright aura on Garrison's staff fizzles out not too soon after Lucas shouts, as several beams of concentrated light suddenly burst from the top of the staff, flying down into the battlefield and striking in random locations, each beam pausing for at least a second or two after dispersing before another is fired almost instantaneously, in an entirely different spot - the areas struck being superheated enough to burst into roaring flames.

These beams scatter about in an unpredictable, yet almost pinpoint fashion; hitting random buildings, the ground and sometimes even people; in fact, those struck by the beams of concentrated light - whether they are Egret soldiers, random civilians, Gracchus collective members, or even the abyssal creatures; it matters not - probably fare the worst; spontaneously combusting and soon afterwards exploding, themselves!

Two of these said beams of light even come close to striking Chaperon and Ninjacker, missing them by sheer centimeters; the one nearly hitting Chaperon causing the unpleasant death of a nearby abyssal giant instead, while the one that missed Ninjacker hits the ground directly in front of Lucas; a strange, almost invisible energy erupting from the contact site that spreads outward and manages to tear through his harmonic barrier with relative ease, although doing little else to him, directly.

"You see now why I am so confident of my supremacy, little bugs?" Garrison shouted between blasts, one in particular meanwhile ripping through a few random Egret soldiers, Gracchus collective members and mammal abyssals in the background, their torn bodies bursting aflame and disintegrating. "Though it lacks finesse, this is but a taste of true, untamed, and unsoiled power; perfection in design!"

-----

Ignacious and the Lurker arrive on the surface near the site of the crackling energy storm from earlier, the latter rubbing his eyes - only it's no longer just an empty energy storm, but rather happens to be trying to form a portal within it.

"Ah, so they're trying to interfere, after all? The tin man's gonna be happy when he hears this, Ignacious thinks," Ignacious said to himself, watching the portal take shape as it tears through dimensional boundaries.

"YOUR MOTHER!" shouted a rather uncreative Gracchus collective member shortly before being disintegrated.

"I don't think we're qualified to handle this!" shouted another.

"Of course we're not!" said a third. "But we will not go gentle into that good night! No matter how many strange glowing things this asshole pulls out we will persevere! We are Gracchus! We are the voice of the people!"

With that several Gracchus members continue firing upon abyssal creatures through the dissonant storm.

Parasoul and the Egrets thankfully took the evasive, though there are still 2 fatalities and 5 casualties. Lucas braced as the blast pushed him back after tearing his barrier.

"Don't be ridiculous..." Lucas talked back. "Do you even know how dangerous dissonant energy is even for the user?!"

"He can find out later!" Chaperon shouted as she flung several Fan Flashes past the bolts and through Garrison's staff. At that time, a thunderbolt fell in and struck the staff at the same time as Chaperon's projectiles did!

Ninjacker grits his teeth and begins jumping around constantly to (narrowly) avoid the beams of light, still trying to slash as many abyssal creatures as he can while doing so.

A dog-like abyssal suddenly tackles one of the two still alive Gracchus members in that earlier conversation, and begins gnawing on said member's mask - followed by their face.

Meanwhile, a large abyssal avian carrying a few dozen suicide bomber abyssals suddenly comes rocketing out of the portal, screeching it's horrid head off as it dives towards the wounded Egrets.

Garrison's staff, in the meantime, breaks about as easy as you'd expect, what with it being made of actual bone and all; abruptly cutting off the dissonant storm, it's focal point no more - the sudden thunderbolt, on the other hand, striking him dead-on. While this attack - along with the fact he is no longer being able to shower the battlefield in a literal rain of chaotic death - does not seem to faze him that much, the thunderbolt nevertheless manages to disrupt his energy flow enough that it causes his disguise's illusion to jitter. It corrects itself, but now the disguise looks much more distorted than before, as a strange blue and yellow hue can be seen faintly surrounding Garrison, electricity crackling around his 'body'.

"..A clever ruse, but it won't work again," said Garrison, turning to both Chaperon and the likely source of the thunderbolt; palms stretched outward before firing several bolts of his own.

Chaperon blocked the incoming bolts with Fafnir's adamant silk material. As for the source of the thunderbolt, that happened to be the pink-haired lady, who jumped at Garrison, parrying the incoming bolts with rapid strikes from her gunblade. "Frankly, you're looking less like perfection yourself."

This new figure in the battle caught Lucas's attention. "Is that...Lightning?"

"NO!" cried the remaining Gracchus member from that last conversation, blasting at the dog-like Abyssal but being far too late to stop it from killing his friend.

"You unenlightened morsels wouldn't know perfection if it stood before you!" Garrison shouted in response, an electrical field bursting out of him like a kinetic pulse when Lightning gets too close, in an effort to knock her back.

The dog-like abyssal, meanwhile, is knocked off the violently-mangled corpse of the other Gracchus member with relative ease, and tries to run away once it manages to stand back up.

Ninjacker spots Lightning attacking Garrison, and begins jumping up towards the rooftop that the scene is taking place on.

The surviving Gracchus member gives chase, trying his hardest to blast the abyssal dog.

"!" Lightning braced against the electric blast...though she wasn't very fazed by it. While Garrison was distracted, Chaperon got in close and delivered an 80-mph slash across Garrison's mask with Fafnir.

The attack connects and the mask Garrison was wearing is torn in half and falls apart, revealing his true, albeit rather grotesque face underneath; a cold, empty stare emanating from his eyes, the veins on the odd metal skin making up his head meanwhile periodically pulsing. By this time as well, the blue and yellow hue surrounding him earlier has dissipated, electricity no longer crackling around his body - the charge from the thunderbolt earlier having worn off.

"Ah-ah-ah," Garrison murmured, suddenly grabbing Chaperon by the throat when she reaches arms-length. "No touching."

-----

One of the abyssal dog's legs is struck by the Gracchus member giving chase and is wounded terribly, forcing it to limp into a nearby alleyway.

-----

Elsewhere, the portal that was forming near Ignacious and Lurker manages to stabilize, the white and gold vortex sparking with a mystical energy.

"I will go alert Lord Garrison - stay here and make sure it stays open," the Lurker said, floating away.

"Fine, whatever; Ignacious doesn't feel like doing anything more for the tin man right now, anyway," Ignacious responded, metaphorically kicking back while floating in the air.

Chaperon indeed got choke-held by Garrison as she got too close after the attack.

"!" Alastor reacted to this with anger - synching with Chaperon's power, it warped over to her and seized Garrison in its claws. "Release Her Highness immediately!"