The Will to Fight: Finale: All teams

[voidtreckermods]

The Far Gate

Given that people have scouted ahead, it will be no surprise when those who arrive at the Red objective find an army of demons there. Unlike the other packs they have encountered, these ones are not roaming, and don't appear to be heading towards the city. Instead, they are guarding something.

A gate. It is larger than the others they have seen so far by an order of magnitude, and if there are this many demons outside, the keystone must be guarded just as well.

For those who are actually on the red team their SCA will flash up a message: This gate has multiple keystones. It is the focal point for other gates closer to the city. Close it.

Around the City

In the Caverns

Once the rockfall was cleared, those that wished to could make their way back towards the city. They might come across demons on the way, small packs scouting the land and hunting survivors, but for the most part their way will be clear until they get to the city and to the Voidtrecker camp.

For everyone else, there are plenty of non-combatants that need protecting. The cavern itself remains warded against demons, but patrols still pass and keeping everyone safe and hidden is important.

Almost all the citizens have thrown off the mind control now. Some of the younger children have started having nightmares, and keeping everyone positive and calm is harder than it was before with a goal in sight.

In the City

The sigils hum and glow. For those feeding them power it's a very long couple of days; though once the monks are free they join in, brusquely waving off any questions or concern about their wellbeing to focus on the task at hand: protecting the city. They will of course accept any extra energy. The wards are not meant to go out completely, it will take a lot of energy to restart them.

By the eleventh day it is clear something else is wrong. Some of the focus stones on the city walls are out of place, either knocked awry in the battles before the false peace, or sabotaged by demons. Either way, for the wards to fully activate they will need those not giving energy to go out onto the walls, to find the stones and align them. It's not too technical but might be dangerous, because outside the walls, a fight is about to begin…

The Battle for the City

The attacks have gotten more frequent but on the evening of day ten they stop. Silence. No gates open, no demons attack. The whole night is spent in a tense, almost eerie silence.

It is broken at dawn the next day, two massive gates open, one to the north of the city and one to the south. Demons march out, heading towards the city.

Not just demons, they each have two large structures, siege machines. It seems they wish to knock this city down completely, securing their victory over the humans.

Comments

[controlsthedie]

Thanatos has been sensing overwhelming death since they arrived. His powers have been mostly useless save teleporting. So when he senses something different, he takes notice. He jerks his head up as if he's been shocked. What the... that was something other than the usual. A death with a strangeness, like a pull into nothingness. Someone died. Who? Not Zagreus, that would have felt different. However, Thanatos thinks he knows this person. Blood and darkness! They have to be a passenger!

Nothing on the comms. Thanatos drops off whoever he has and starts rapidly shifting around as he pinpoints where the death happened. It's not easy as the feeling disappears entirely. He arrives at Red Team's fight at the Far Gate.

"Who's died? Which area needs help?" He can't do anything for that person now, but maybe he can help prevent others from dying.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

Raven heard the call for a teleporter. The demons have been getting smarter about her, which has made taking them down harder. She's been flinging dark-energy about and using it to grab projectiles or demons both, as well as shield. Her voice is worn from intoning her mantra so much.

But when she turns, and sees Soldat go down, a tight leash strains. Raven's eyes narrow, and she lets the leash go. 4 red eyes glare at the scene.

No mantra, just her hands mimicking what she has the dark-energy doing to the group of swarming Soldat. Two giant dark-energy hands push the group of demons aside, holding them in dark-energy shields. He...can't be. His Lantern... He's not moving though.

Raven growls, and those dark-energy shields that were holding start to compress rapidly, crushing demons as they go. Alighting on the ground, her cloak is covering her, but dark energy-tendrils are leaking from it with every stay she takes, preventing any of the demons from getting near her as she walks over and picks up the lantern. Worried for her friend, sad, and angry, but still in control. She knows the lantern is what's most important.

Unlooping it from her fallen friend, she looks first for any of her team-mates, to see if it might be safer with them. If not safer with one of them, she'll loop it over her own shoulder, under her cape, and take to the sky again.

[bakegarasu]

Otoha's been smashing demons and keystones where he can, running distractions where he can't. Soldat's shout makes him look up, and there's silence as he hears the body break, sees the life leave his eyes.

'Bro... remember when we talked about New Zealand?' Last words, he doesn't remember many last words, but he remembers Reiji's and he can feel Soldat's being burnt into his mind and -

He can feel his body back at base camp, faintly. He can tell that he's crying, because no one else is in the tent but Yurine. He can hear a ringing in his ears, his armor moving without conscious thought, the soul inside verbally silent but internally shrieking anger and pain and fear. He dives into the crowd, ignoring Thanatos compleetely while he carves through demons, his armor's eyes red and his blade much wider as a shadow in the shape of a crow dives down along with Otoha, splitting many of the nearby demons.

It's only then that he walks towards the body, picking it up gingerly and holding it close. "I'm so sorry, Soldat..." His voice, though it's metallic and echoing from the armor, sounds like it's about to break, on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."

Another friend dead on his watch. He was too busy with focusing on something else. Again. And now someone he cares about is dead. Again.

pain pain pain pain pain pain...

[controlsthedie]

Apparently, help is needed right here. He sees Raven pulverize demons with her dark powers. He'll take the lantern if he's offered it, knowing how important it is to Soldat and not knowing if it'll be needed as part of however the train revives the dead.

"Otoha!" Thanatos runs to his side and draws his sword. One demon sees the easy target and rushes towards them. Thanatos waits for it to come closer, and then he strikes quickly. The demon's head goes flying off. The body crumbles to ash. (Even when killing a foe, Thanatos tries to do it quickly and mercifully as possible.) "You're not finished yet."

He looks back at Raven. How compromised is she from Soldat's death? One problem at a time. Otoha. "He'll come back. The train changes death. Let go."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

Raven sees Thanatos--he'll do, and he's approved. She disappears in a swirl of dark-energy, only to come up from the ground in a similar swirl next to the death-god. "Keep this safe." Passing him the lantern, before she's repeating her teleport.

By coming up under a crowd of demons from the swirly-dark-energy portal. Her astral-self first, great claws spread out and grasping. Raven at it's heart, shielded. The astral raven lets out a loud Caw of challenge, before she's flying straight for the keystone to try and tear it to shreds.

[bakegarasu]

Otoha's silent for a few long seconds before the world crashes back into focus. The train changes death? He'll come back?

"I'll kill you if that's not true." It's said reflexively, not processing who he's saying it to. But he can tell that he's not going to be effective in this fight. Too likely to cause damage to people he doesn't intend to.

"... I'll fall back. Give me the lantern. I'll take him back to base camp. Someone grab his things from red camp. I can set him down and come back."

Yes, Thanatos can teleport, but Otoha needs a second to metaphorically breathe.

[controlsthedie]

"You'll have my permission to," Thanatos says while picking up the lantern Raven leaves him. "Just let me say goodbye inform Zagreus first."

It's not a real worry, however. Thanatos had sensed Natsuno's strange relationship with his own deaths when he first met him on the train, and Natsuno had no hesitation telling why he was the way he was. (He didn't want to come back to life.) If Soldat does not, then Natsuno was mistaken for the reason he came back to life on the train.

He was prepared to teleport Otoha by force again, even if he feared doing so while Otoha's soul is so separated by his body. But, the man seems to have snapped out of his grief and rage.

"Here." Thanatos holds out the crushed lantern. "I'll see if he has anything with the Red Team and keep it with me. Now go, and don't die as well."

It'll turn out that Soldat's gear is at the base camp, so Thanatos won't find anything at all.