Battle Hymn of the Republic

"Is it-" Riley's voice was interrupted by an echoing laugh that crawled from beneath the darkness of her hood. The stage magician snapped both fingers and the flames that had disappeared beneath her clothes funneled out in thick, twisting streamers that fed into the dragon's head behind her. "-so terrible to hide behind Doubt? It seems very... heheh... comfortable on you."

Wriggling from out beneath the hem of her robe just before it shifted to a pair of loosely fitted slacks two hounds howled out their arrival. One of which shook itself violently before bounding into motion - leaping through the air to catch the flask within its jaws.

"Do we know - can we tell? - the way that our flames react?" Riley coughed and the smell of fresh char radiated out from where she stood. The stage magician could feel Laoise's song embrace itself against her, but her Doubt did not want it. Instead, the feeling gleamed within the weight of its own nature and demanded to show what it could do with what it had been gifted.

With a silent shrug the constructed dragon's head disappeared into a spear of vapour and crackling blue flame that shot up into the air and then exploded with a loud CLAP that sent tiny shivers through everyone's bones. Tiny blue, dancing droplets as blue as a clear summer sky left behind tails of sparks as they streaked back down towards the ground.

When blue flames touched the melted stone it slowly began to crawl back up - firm footing once more. The madly blazing wisps - scattered far by the explosive burst - slashed and splashed down amidst the decaying flora of the Spriggenwald. With the death of each splotch of brilliant blue a weak stain of green was left scarred into grey corpses of trees - seeking purchase, attempting to grow.

A toothless, featureless grin of white sliced across the empty black of Riley's hooded face. "The flames aren't hidden in doubt, but they have accepted its nature quite firmly - don't you think?"

--

When Riley had wrapped herself in Doubt - everything she had let loose had hurtled its way into her Phantom. Having its spell construct dismissed alongside the sudden weight of being pressed down on the mimic froze it in its tracks. Unmoving, but not silent, a low growl built and built in the back of the copy's throat.

When Riley summoned her hounds the Phantom's growl changed and added an inhuman roar to the canines' howls. The first hound - the one leaping - unraveled as the white material it was made of shifted from one edge of the spectrum to the other. The creature was reduced to a spinning vortex of thin, shadowy cords - the center of which Riley's copy was suddenly in the middle of. The inky storm pressed down on the Phantom and solidified into shining, ebon scales layered as armour - the second hound being ripped apart and consumed to provide more mass to the transformation.

A talon-tipped gauntlet sweeped out and smashed towards the flask that the replaced hound had intended to grab.

Beneath the Phantom's helm rumbled both hiss and snarl. "Keep your words. Keep your gifts. Rage is doubtless, hatred is doubtless - and you will be pinned to eternity by both!"

When the clawed hand connected with Doubt's flask a single spark gasped into life above its armoured palm - then, with a second tremour making explosion, the Phantom was obscured from sight as the air around it was tossed into the grasp of a sudden conflagration.

Laoise's song was a beautiful chord that rang out among the discordant howls of war that shook this meeting of mages. Each word seemed to reverberate into the very world around them, instilling solidity in the chaotic realm. Seen from a distance, it was like there was a bubble in which color and life began to return the forest around them, even as fire rained from the sky. The group could shoot straighter, remember spells more clearly, even stand more stalwart against the dark. More uniquely was the melting away of horror from their enemies.

Sorrow's face was less stricken, her mouth free of stitching, black eyes became bright blue. Her face was that of Zulan's, with many eyes and horns marring her once happy face, which now weeping in pain. Doubt's corpse-like feature's melted away to reveal that of Tulan's, her excited grin stolen by the manic shade. They were so much like the Goddesses they knew, and yet not.

A fierce explosion shook one end of the platform, cracking apart the ruins and sending Riley away from the source of the blast. Her magic managed to protect her from the brunt of it, but the concussive force would send her into a disorienting haze, bones breaking in her arm. In the other direction flew Doubt, much better for wear despite an apparent injury. Her claw sunk into the ground to stop her momentum, her other arm flying away in the wind. Wearing more of Tulan's face in the harmony of Laoise's song, she showed more emotion, in the way of tired satisfaction. Still, the shade had chosen to damage herself in the blast, and now she resembled the realm's font a bit more.

"Hm... how difficult..." hissed Doubt, her voice clearer now, "So troublesome... my wretched body... Get me... my rune..."

Jakku, prodded along by the strings attached to her, fished inside Doubt's robes and withdrew a rock. Instinctively, the sprite seemed to know where to slot the stone, along one of Doubt's knuckles. With a wafting motion of the knife-like fingers, Jakku fell limp on her strings, and the Shade aimed her claw at Jane, uttering a word in a snake-like voice, "...Turraing."

The stone came to life, arcing electricity through her fingers and out of her palm upon the Gunslinger. It struck her so that her shield absorbed the blast, but it knocked her last few shots off-center. Eryl almost came off her shoulder, but turned just so, pulling out her wand and raising it. Doubt fired off another bolt, but this one stopped short, webbing over a bubbled shield that the muted Triclops struggled to maintain.

Sorrow, wearing more of Zulan's features, let out an audible cry of pain as Jane's bullets connected to her wound. Her tears were no longer perverted interpretations of emotion, they were real. The wall she was embedded within began to crack and sunder under an immense amount of pressure, especially as the group began to focus fire. Maelstrom was raised in the moment she was struck by the gentle paper flung upon her by the druid. The enchanted slips appeared to have no effect as they brushed by, but that changed as her form was consumed by the the fire and explosions, tearing her from her wall. Broken and battered, she hunched over the ground, offering little further resistance. Instead, she just cried and cried, her body bleeding, burnt, and broken.

The Shade of Sadness was prostrated in defeat. Miyuki's coup de grace formed above them, working to finish off the crushed form that wore Zulan's face. In those last moments, she clutched her wand, holding it close to her chest. "So... worthless... I could not... I could not save her... We could not save her..."

As the icy artillery fell, her eyes rose to meet Ruarc's, gasping the words, "... and neither could you."

The first strike crushed Sorrow's body enough to where there seemed nothing left, other strikes built a small tower of ice that looked like a massive gravestone. As the ball of plasma came screaming down behind it to finalize the destruction, an arm rose from top of the icy pillar, Maelstrom in its clutches. The heated attack shifted, and bled into the spinning jewel that sat at the Arctic Key's head until it glowed with an intense light. Sorrow's body emerged from the top of the ice. With all of the gem's power focused in one point, she turned it around and fired it back at Miyuki in an intense blast of heat. This one a straight line of light that connected square into the Ice Queen's chest, throwing her back with enough force to nearly whip off her head.

As if learning her lesson, Sorrow sank back into the ice, as crackling frost built over it to expand its size. The wounded shade sat in its protection, staring at Ruarc.

With the fight rapidly turning their favor, Jane moved to take the offensive. She knelt, shrugging the triclops to the ground, then lunged toward the hag like someone had fired the starter pistol. She emptied her left-hand revolver while reloading the right. This wobbled her aim on the hag's gauntlet, but it was inconsequential. She only needed to keep Doubt on the defensive so she could close the gap. Five paces away Jane flung herself at the old goddess in a flying kick with silent guns raised.

Riley could feel the sound of her forearm snapping throughout her whole body as she was buffeted by the explosion her Phantom had made. As the flames curled and curved around her whatever resistance had kept the stage magician standing disappeared and an onslaught of force punched the brown haired woman from out of her larger-than-life, misty form and into the air. The young woman closed her eyes and scrunched her body together - cradling her damaged limb close to her chest - and then she was tumbling and skidding across the ground.

Biting down on her lip, Riley could taste blood in her mouth as she strangled the need to cry as the fresh burns dotted across her skin were torn and clawed upon by the earth and shattered stone below her. Staying crunched in her little ball as she came to a stop the stage magician kept her eyes tightly closed as she made tiny shakes of her head to try and work through the pain that was settling in across her entire body.

--

At the center of the destruction that it had set off the Phantom still stood. The copy's armour had crumbled to nothing amidst the flames of the conflagration and one arm - the same that Riley herself had broken - hung limply at its side. The mimic was standing - breath coming in great heaves and her stance a stoop held inches away from collapse - and hissing as each wound Riley's tumbling fall was inflicting on the original carved itself out on the Phantom's form.

A gob of blood splashed down on the crumbling, scorched stone at the mimic's feet as it spat. The Phantom looked at its own arms - a sneer curling its features as it seemed to eye the burns marring its skin incredulously - and then gently brushed the hand it could use against the scars the fire had left behind. As its fingers trailed past the wounds fire streamed out from the damaged flesh and the deep, weeping craters of red smoothed out into fresh pink skin that looked more sunburned than any thing else.

The Phantom swept its arm out behind it - the flames it had removed being tossed aside like trash. Then, bringing its working arm up into the air, the mimic lined up her hand, fingers, and eyes on Jane's form before it smirked and snapped its thumb and forefinger together. Serpentine threads of darkness bloomed from out of the Phantom's upraised palm and shot out through the air to wrap around the American woman. From ankle to neck the gunslinger was suddenly covered in black-scaled armour.

The Phantom's smirk fell to a wince and as a gentle sway began to take control of its body it lowered itself down into a crouch - one hand against the ground to steady itself.

It had been a while since Miyuki had been hit so hard. Ice formed in an instant to protector, on top of the mantle of Icy armor she already wore, but it all shattered from the blow, and that which was on the edges of the impact had melted from sheer heat. Coupled with a nasty case of whiplash, Miyuki's vision blurred as she was flung backward, a mixture of shattered ice, water droplets, and steam coming off from her, with a hint of smoke trailing frm the burnt clothing underneath. Eventually, the woman hit the ground, a heavy "OOF!" coming out of her mouth along with most of the air in her lungs, leaving hr struggling to breathe as she tumbled, finally halting a ways away, and trying weakly to pick herself up as her senses once again began to betray her.

Despite Laoise's song, the ringing in Miyuki's ears made it so that there was no more calming, healing effect, just the dull realization that there was a world around her and things were going on. Fighting again for breath, the Ice queen shook her head, but made a small cry of pain as the pulled and twisted muscles in her neck protested the movement. She gagged, on something, or nothing, the raven-haired woman could not tell, but it made her retch, and she spat out a bit of blood, the taste of iron filling her mouth. the Ice queen found herself in a somewhat undignified position, her legs laid out upon the ground as her arms weakly held her torso up. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she found her breath once more, taking a few deep pulls of the air to clear her mind, and pulled herself up off the ground, standing up unsteadily, but holding herself ready for whatever might come next.

Ruarc's teeth were grinding as Sorrow retreated back into the ice. If he left to go help with Doubt, then Sorrow would surely flank them. They would need to either reverse the corruption, or in lieu of that make sure she wouldn't pose a threat to them. So either taking the wand or breaking it, and figuring out what to do with Zulan. Making his way almost casually to the edge of the ice wall the druid stared back at the blighted goddess as he considered his options. Amid his planning remained a tinge of guilt and an ache in his chest as he once again noticed the wound on the goddess; in the back of his mind he assured himself that no matter what happened here, the dark runes would not be necessary.

Pulling a rune out of his bandoleer, Ruarc tossed it onto the tiles at his feet and jumped as an intense stream of air launched him a short ways up and over the wall. As he past over the top he found the surface and gave another push off with his foot to get some distance. "Turraing!" he shouted as he passed over, throwing another bolt of crackling electricity at Zulan before landing. Whipping the staff back around he chanted once more, "Turraing!"

Laoise for her part was trying to maintain the magic in her song within the tumult. She almost wavered as the bolt of mimicked lightning struck at Jane, as she shrunk away from her and Eryl. When the second bolt was stopped, the familiar placed a hand on the triclops' shoulder; the touch giving a feeling of reprieve to the struggling mage. While not as efficient as it would be with Ruarc, she was able to pass along some of her own mana and bolster the other's casting.

Eryl rasped, her chest heaving with great effort. Spells were being flung everywhere, and she could only seem to direct her attention to so many places, her eye was still forced shut, black hair falling over the other. Her wand was ready to fling abjuration wherever it could, but she could only let out a wheeze of objection as she was laid to one side. The witch was not strong enough to support her own weight, but she kept her wand up.

Jane, meanwhile, tore across the battlefield. She could see Riley and her double nearly removed from the fight, having been blasted away in a magnificent explosion. The damage was still fresh with streaks of white-hot rock still cooling from the terrible chemical reaction that took place. The gunslinger had to be careful in her sprint, with the hazardous terrain, and the firing pistol in her hand. Her bullets streaked over the smoking field, whipping waves of air in their wake that threw up Doubt's hair as they flew by. The first two shots were almost a warning to the shade, drawing her attention, but the next few sent her screeching as mystic gun-strikes hit her fingers, palm, arm. A couple of bladed digits went to the ground, as did Jakku, now free of the shade's control.

Tulan's face smirked, humming another command for lightning, which sent a bolt into Jane's direction. Doubt's opponent didn't stop or falter, as an egg-shaped shield rolled over the gunslinger's fore, disturbing the path of the lightning yet again. Eryl was barely managing, but Laoise kept her going with her magic. The support continued even further, as whipping lines brought scaled armor over Jane's body, giving her a nigh impervious defense. Her regular boots were shelled in a protective layer of scale plate, which made her kick all the more destructive.

----

At the edges of the battlefield, rested two(three if you counted the Mimic) combatants in the fight. The two had been thoroughly struck and damaged in the fighting. Yet, even in their reprieve, the forest threatened to consume them should they waver too long. More often than not, they saw the trees reach out to them, roots and mushrooms plucking upward to snatch them. Riley was an easy target, and her body was slowly in-circled by the flora, before it closed in on her resting form. Branches reached over her like hands, looping under her back, grabbing her arm and legs.

The Alstad woman felt herself lifted off the ground and to her feet. Those reaching tendrils that held her arm, kept the broken limb steady as an odd mix of fungus and flower grew and then wilted, hissing away into a powder that fell onto the fractured joint. Initially, the substance burned, but the greater pain was the mending hitch of her bone coming together. A small floating numbness nursed her in its wake. When she had her feet, the roots retreated off her body.

Yet one such gnarled arm halted as a drop of her blood splashed on it, seeping into its bark; it shuddered before sprouting a wide flower. The bulb was large, and when it bursted with life, it revealed an object nested at its center. A mask, one that only would cover one side of the face. The half-mask was carved with a half-smile, the eye hole squinting with glee.

Miyuki found herself under a growing tree, the sprout struggling within the tainted forest, but it's flowers opened up near her to let loose a foul smell. As it hit her nose, it burned her sinuses, and made her pain and delirium much worse. The dignified Ice Queen was almost forced down again before she realized something off about her form. Just below her chest was a fresh wound, blood oozing over her mending, icy armor. A cold, black rod was jutting out of her, dripping more of her life on to the ground in front of her. The red rivulets stained a small, frosty jewel enclosed at one end of the rod.

She had not felt its entry, it gave more the sensation like it had forced its way out of her, fighting a bloody battle to be free. The rod felt like it went deep, further than the distance from her chest to her back would allow, but the sensation was there. As her senses returned, she could feel it hum with power, and a strange clarity rose in her mind as her muscles began to mend and her body numbed to fresh pain.

----

Sorrow stared plainly at the Druid as he analyzed her. She held Maelstrom close to her chest, the menacing wand thrummed with power, Ruarc could feel it from where he stood. He could also see a clear crack running through the center of jewel that stood at its head. Miyuki's strike may have been returned, but its overwhelming power had done even more damage than expected. So, he launched his attack.

KRAKOOM

Bolts from the sky joined Ruarc's blast as he assailed Sorrow's icy fort. He felt that the closer he was to the sky, the stronger his lightning was, moreover the harder it was to control. Nature took to him strongly here, much like how spirits took to his apprentice. Arcs of electricity rolled over his form, lighting up his robes and flaring the feathers into the air as he made his strike down upon the dreaded ice shade. Immediately, she abandoned her fort, blasting off in a skating fashion in order to escape the initial attack. Sorrow's ice pillar shuddered and sparked with a razor-wire of light as the attack ran through it.

With the boots of the druid hitting the ground, he spun around for his second attack. Sorrow was moving fast away, but the next bolt thundered over the ground, arms of energy touching the wet floor below it as he sought its target. The shade turned, and Zulan's warm face turned to discontent as she brought up Maelstrom to shield herself.

Crash! Like glass, the jewel at the head shattered into three pieces, and the force of the strike sent Sorrow tumbling onto the ground, using ice to comfort her landing.

----

CRUNCH

Tulan's face broke under Jane's strike, the boot shifting the jaw of the shade with great force. A terrible bruise rose in her cheek, but rose with great ferocity with it as the Shade whipped around with her gnarled claw. The razor fingers would have torn open Jane's chest had it not been for the armor, the blackened scale was barely marred.

Under broken spectacles, a smile that did not fit the face of the blonde alchemist spread wide. "No... not a match for you... it seems... oh... I'm so useless..."

Doubt whipped another strike onto Jane, another useless swing that only made sparks, and split a hole in Eryl's shield. When the hole mended, however, the shade had disappeared into it.

At that, Laosie thought she heard Eryl say something strange, considering the triclops' condition. "You... you are a bit... more fitting..."

A gnarled claw ran up into the dove's chest, piercing true and stopping the song short. Laoise saw Tulan's face and the upper half of Doubts's withered body leaning out of Eryl's back. Those familiar features of Tulan began to melt away at the end of song, returning Doubts rotted and slack-jawed face to form as she lifted Laoise off the ground and tossed her aside, stepping out of the wounded Abjurer's body.

When Sorrow's visage rose, it was one of tortured bleakness and sobbing eyes, her mouth was sewn shut once more. She pushed her shaking form off the ground, wheezing smoke from her nostrils and still searing from the previous strike. Great power rolled over her back, as the cracked Maelstrom waved at her ice tower, sending blocks of ice into Ruarc. The first caught him square in the chest before he could react, his leathered chest bending, and a rib breaking. Another block cracked into his shin, fracturing the bone, but resisting the full force at which it was thrown. They were like cannonballs, and would have killed him had he not been wearing his rune armor.

The Ice Shade made her second, sweeping motion as Ruarc coped with the forces of ice, forcing him to deal with the storm next. The same lightning of before was coaxed from the sky, this time, soaring down against the Druid.

Voice catching in her throat, Laoise was unsure what had happened for a moment. She was aware of the claws in her heart, and could see Tulan looming in front of her; but the pain was so much and so intense that she simply shut down. Meekly, the familiar tried to continue her song, defiantly trying to oppose the monster in front of her, but all she could do was cough and croak. Her voice wouldn't come to her. All there was was the taste of copper in her mouth. When she was tossed aside after what seemed like an eternity, she lay where she landed as the bleak world around her faded to black and cold. She thought of the kids at the manor, she thought of the home she had been born in when Ruarc took her in, and she thought of Ruarc. In the back of her mind she knew that as a familiar she could be brought back, but that possibility seemed so far off. The last thing that crossed her mind before her life faded was "What good is a dove who can't sing anymore?"

Ruarc's world shifted to blinding white. From Zulan came a terrifying barrage of savage ice, and were it not for his enchantments the assault likely would have pulverized him; instead he could count himself lucky for getting away with only a few broken bones. He was still sent stumbling under the weight, and when he tried to regain his footing a fire lanced up his leg, causing him to sink to his knee with a raspy cry; the shout in turn announcing his broken ribs. Just as he was about to push through the pain to try and face the next onslaught, the agony was gone. Replaced with a cold emptiness that leeched into his heart. His sight was blurred and he couldn't see the act, but he seemed to know what the new pain was.

"Laoise..." Ruarc gasped as he could feel tears forming in his eyes. Before he could do anything else the barrage of lightning was upon him, and the Druid was lost in light and sound.

After the din of the crash had passed, and the after image of the flare finally faded, Sorrow would find that Ruarc remained. Down on his knee, the Druid had his staff planted defiantly in front of him. In the wake of the storm was a lightning bolt left behind. The staff housing the Babylon Garnet had been charred black, contrasted by the stone set in the top which now flared a brilliant gold. Arcs of stored energy probed outward all along the staff, up Ruarc's arm, and across his body; and when the man opened his eyes there was nothing but depthless blue. In his face was a fire. It wasn't rage, it wasn't sorrow, and it wasn't pain; it was an implacable knowing of what need to be done. Ruarc had felt pity for Zulan, a desire to pull some punches in hopes that perhaps she could be cured of her ailment. Now all that remained was a singular purpose of stopping this farce once and for all; the two shades had crossed a line, and it was time for Ruarc to be a Keeper.

Rising slowly, electricity racing across his cloak, while using his staff to aide his injured leg. Locking eyes with Zulan, Ruarc took a moment to present the challenge, and without a word began. In one instant he shifted his good foot, pushing himself in a rocket trajectory at Zulan with an amplified Wind Step. As fast as the lightning she had launched, Ruarc appeared before her, bearing down with a single open hand that flared to life with a savage dragon's head of blue fire.

Miyuki choked as the smell of whatever was falling got to her nostrils, gagging and nearly vomiting, but the motion alerted her to another problem- a painful one that was sticking out of her. A black rod, with a jewel that appeared almost like an icy crystal, had sprouted from her Torso, or perhaps been forced into it, she wasn't sure. blinking through the daze as her senses were once more overwhelmed by pain, though she held herself erect, if only just. with one hand, she tugged at the rod, bracing herself against the pain as she did so, she cried out in agony as her free hand sealed up the wound with an icy plug once the rod was free of its former resting place.

She wanted to breathe in heavily, but the pain was just too much for her to do that, so she opted instead for quick, shallow breaths to try and catch her breath, though each inhalation was met with a sharp pain before the icy cold began numbing it. Vaguely, she started to become aware once again of what was going on around her, with flashes of lightning shooting back and forth as the druid battled with the shade of Sorrow, though she couldn't see far enough to see anything that was going on with the others. The rod she had removed from herself, she used to prop herself up, feeling like her mana was being used up in healing herself, the Ice Queen's typically inhuman strength and vigour being replaced with a feeling she hadn't felt since she had been in high school- utter exhaustion, and a severe drainage of energy.

"Damn... they did... a number on me..." she managed to get out between pained gasps.

The Ice Queen could feel the short rod thrum in her hands, it was charged with an immense amount of energy. She had to hold it by the jewel at the top in order for it to support her, as it was more the length of a cane than a staff. Through the blood, Miyuki could tell the ancient forging that culminated into this wand. She had seen one of similar make in the hands of Sorrow, only the disk shaped gem at the head was replaced with a spherical orb that hissed an icy fog at the head like a flame. Small webs of ice formed on the mage's fingertips as she grasped the head, frosting her hands with a chill that would have injured a normal mage.

Roots began to form at the base of the rod, sheathing it in a spiraling wood. The dark metal began to drain of its gloom, a silvered shine spilled upward, changing the color of the weapon to something more akin to Miyuki's wear. Then, a spark burst from the earth below it, and the weight of the Elementalia Magicus forced itself upon her. Mana seeped up through the weapon into her body, filling an empty void that was sundered by injury and the manipulation of great forces. She could feel a familiar presence in the energy, one she knew very well, one that urged her on to fight as loudly as silence could muster.

The noxious smell grated the senses, but she couldn't feel the burn anymore. In fact, her body had become numb to the pain of her injuries. She was still the war-torn frost mage, fresh blood staining her clothes and ice plugging wounds. Yet there was a renewed power that built in her chest, stoked further by her indomitable spirit.