World Tree MUSH

    "Not good. March! Get out of the way!" Seele shouts, shoving March aside, and barely deflecting a stab from a long ice spear that suddenly appears in the Echo's hands. As it moves, the ice sloughs off, like a shed skin from some kind of lizard, and what looks for all the world to be the real Cocolia seems to be within. "Intruders! You go no further!" it states. The voice is off, it warbles and distorts oddly, similar to the ephemeral nature of previous Echos... but this one is actively attempting to stab people.

    The Echo duel weilds spears made from some kind of ice, they don't crack or show signs of damage from the attacks, so may be something else. She sweeps and twirls her weapons, leaving one to spin on its own and cause a hazard while she uses the other with both hands.

    "Are we sure this isn't the real Cocolia?!" asks March, picking herself up, and nocking an arrow, as Dan Heng clashes with the Echo. "It may look like her, but the Fragmentum can only create forgeries. Bring her down!"

    It would seem there's another boss fight. "At this rate, we don't have the option of holding back." Talia says, drawing her lightsaber once more. "I will do what I must." The Jedi furrows her brow and she rushes the Echo, dueling with it. From contact of saber against spear, it seems like the spear is strong enough to resist a lightsaber's energy field, preventing it from being damaged.

    Thus, this will be an interesting fight.

    "I'm not sure we need to hold back!" Jessica calls out! "It's an Echo, right? So..." It can't really think for itself, right? Jessica is already behind cover, taking a look at the whole melee and waiting for an opening.

    Fairly standard, right now. She pops out from behind and fires off three shots, in quick succession, then ducks back to let the hand to hand fighters keep her safe.

    "Be careful!" That's Clara as she rushes away from the combat. The girl has no battle ability of her own and as such she does everything she can to just... Stay out of the way of those who CAN fight.
    "Analysis: It is not the true Cocolia, but a highly powerful Fragmentum echo. Stay on your guard." Svarog announces as Talia goes toe to toe with the spear-wielding echo. He holds back for a beat, raising a hand, palm aimed for the false Cocolia. Once he has a clear shot lined up that won't hit Talia, he unleashes a ray of high heat, highly destructive, energy from the emitter on his hand.

    "I see," Bi De says wearily. Oh, his Qi flares and he's bolting forward to help Dan, but the series of fights he's been in has been wearying, and though he hasn't had a BAD wound yet, he's gotten battered and bruised enough that this is getting... bad. He's slowing down.

    But with a cry(a rooster cry) of battle, he's in! Silvery light around his wings and talons, he comes in from the side, testing himself against the leg of the image to see just how /solid/ it is.

    Cocolia straight kicks Dan Heng back, breaking him from clashing, only to get engaged by Talia next. The face of the Echo is an impassive mask... a frozen moment of Cocolia's face from the meeting so long ago now. It has a slight sneer to it, the beginnings of that humourless smile that never reached her eyes when she spoke.

    Gunshots ring out, and bullets impact the Echo's form, punching straight through, and leaving frozen tunnels through its body, before they seal up and close again.

    The heat ray sears into the Echo's body, melting part of it and knocking it backwards, straight into Bi De's charge.

    His talons find the figure is solid. Unnaturally so. Like an ambulatory block of glacier ice, impossibly dense. It doesn't even really have any proper Qi lines to exploit... though it does have strange energy lines like the crystals back on Herta Station. Perhaps those could be brute forced into something useful.

    Cocolia jumps back further, lifting one spear and stabbing it into the ground. "You are doomed to fail!" her echoy voice cries... as two massive lances stab down to bracket her. An even colder wind blows from these icy constructs, and they pulse with waves of intense freezing, causing snap freezing of ambient water into a fussilade of ice shards, less aimed, and more shotgunned at everyone present.

>> SUMMARY[Stelle] >> Cocolia's Echo takes a beating, but proves a bit tougher than expected. SUMMON: Ice Edges that perform an AOE Ice Blast attack in pulses.

    "I wonder if this is how the real one talks?!" Jessica asks aloud, as she flinches back and tucks a hand at her side, where one of the shards has shallowly buried into her thigh. Her hand comes away bloody, but it looks like it missed any major arteries. Nothing she can't fight through for a bit. She answers with a few more shots, aiming at the head now without any regrets, though she isn't sure that is any more effective. "Any ideas?"

    Talia remains focused as she and the Echo duel it out. The Jedi dodges and dives while parrying strikes. She narrowly avoids friendly fire on Mr. Svarog's part, and leaps out of the way before she strikes to strike at Echo. Her body seems to resist the lightsaber's bite, and she leaps yet again to dodge the horde of ice shards, backflipping and gracefully evading the projectiles.

    "Fire magic?" SHe suggests fruitlessly to Jessica. "I think maybe we could melt the echo's armor."

    Clara hangs back, shivering from the cold, huddling behind debris and doing her best to not be in the way. But the intense freeze radiated by the twin lances are making even Clara start to think about wearing some shoes- or at least some gloves right about now.
    Svarog braces; ice shards slamming into his armored bulk, scraping his armor plating and leaving welts on his metal body.
    "Proposal: Continue firing." Svarog says when Jessica asks for ideas as he stomps the ground to brace, his shoulders and back opening up to reveal those missile ports once again.
    Unleashing a hail of micromissiles NOT for the echo of Cocolia, but rather to try and destroy the twin giant ice lances at her sides.

    Bi De careens off, then his Aegis flares, only to crackle and fail at the large are attack. Once again he's taken some nicks and cuts, nothing too bad but an ongoing onslaught like that will wear him down quickly. "I have no Fire Qi," he notes. "And the one I know who uses Sun Qi is not here." His talons scratch the ground as he regains his footing, then narrows eyes.

    Well, he's note a Pure Qi user either, but... this isn't quite the same as a person doing it. As soon as the others hammer the Echo with missiles to keep the lances busy, and bullets toward the Echo itself, he dives in again. Once more, power flares, but this time he is doing something else with it. He dare not try to 'take in' the corrupted power, but an injection of his own, pure silvery Moonlight into the power channels might, hopefully, do something.

    March snaps her fingers, causing a flower-like rune to form on Talia's chest. A pulse of energy encompasses the Jedi, shielding them for at least a short while.

    Jessica's shots find their mark, but once again, just seem to pass through without causing appreciable damage... though the holes do seem to close up a bit slower this time.

    Micro missiles crash down around the Ice Edges, one cracking under the impacts, and dissolving away. The other cracks, and seems to be stunned, though doesn't break just yet.

    "Keep hitting her! No Fragmentum monster's invincible.. some are just really annoying." states Seele, as she darts around the shards, phasing out to dodge them, then redirecting in to slash at the Echo with her scythe.

    Combining perfectly with Seele's attack, Bi De's injection of foreign Qi into the Fragmentum energy system causes the Echo to jolt, its form distorting and freezing up so it can't parry the scythe-fighters attack. The blade cuts on of the Echo's arms off, and this doesn't grow back, simply ending in a frozen stump.

    This doesn't seem to slow the creature down much. It throws its severed arm in a motion, and a bolt of ice streaks out toward Svarog, the ultra-cold ice snapfreezing on impact, likely causing those plates of armour to become a bit more brittle. She then kicks her spear, causing it to twirl before she grabs it, lifting up off the floor as a localized whirlwind picks up, driving ice shards in all directions. "Witness. The Avalanche!" she intones, as the air, already chilled below freezing, plummets even lower... a ghostly apparition appears behind the floating Echo, a giant construct of ice forming aa star, made from spear-tips.

>> SUMMARY[Stelle] >> Cocolia's Echo is taking a beating, but not seeming to care too much. FREEZE attempt on Svarog. Begins charging her Ultimate Attack.

    Talia isn't very familiar with the Shatterpoint, but she knows what it means: It means you can find the vulnerability in anything around you, the very foundational center that if struck will collapse everything. It's not always literal of course, but that's besides the point.

    Talia focuses deep and uses the Force, breathing in as she tries to sense the Echo itself, reaching out. All she needs to do is find the core of this thing, and crush it. Size and hardness are nothing to her, Talia has the Force, and it is a mighty ally.

    "Be with me." She repeats to herself like a mantra, as she focuses deep inside of herself and propels forth a gust of the Force, like a cannonball to stop ice shards dead in their tracks and fling them back towards the source.

>> GAME >> Talia Kyras spends an Edge for: Talia uses the Force, trying to use the Shatterpoint to determine the Echo's weakness before unleashing the mother of all Force blasts.

    Okay, bullets aren't doing much to the Echo, but that apparition is new! "Oh no..." Jessica whines, ears splaying. The catgirl isn't about to give up though! Her attacks are doing something but... she really needs to figure out something else. So that summoned apparition is her next target.

    As the temperature drops, she shivers, then rolls to the side, ending up on her belly to draw a bead. It's that new arrival that gets a few snap shots from her pistol now, aiming to disrupt whatever this fake Cololia is doing.

    This is certainly a powerful echo.
    And as that sudden snap of cold that overtakes Svarog slows him considerably as his joints start to whine and lock up from the cold until...
    The ancient construct stops moving.
    That's bad.
    "Mister Svarog!" Clara bleats from her hiding place. There's a beat of panic before she takes a breath.
    "Jeeves, help!" Clara bleats.
    Almost as thouh on cue, one of Svarog's drones swoops in from seemingly out of nowhere and focuses its heat emitters on Svarog, causing the ice and haory frost on his body to start melting away.
    His optic flickers back on.
    And then he takes a trudging step forward. And another. And another. Until he's face to face with the echo of Cocolia, reels one arm back...
    And hauls off on her with the haymaker of the freaking century.

    With Svarog and the others going back to the attack, Bi De... switches tactics. A swift kick is aimed at the Echo, but it's mostly to get him moving, the chicken tumbling along and skidding to a halt near Clara. As Svarog gets moving, he flares up his Aegis, letting the robot concentrate on attack... because Bi De is guarding his charge. "Do not let up, I will protect Clara."

    Seele jumps back, clearing the way for the others.
    March draws her bow, and aims an arrow at the emerging ice construct, combining her efforts with Jessica's.
    Dan Heng and Stelle brace in front of Clara also, adding their bodies to the layers of protection provided by Bi De's Aegis.

    Cocolia's Echo takes Svarog's haymaker to the face, the head shattering like glass, before reforming.

    Cocolia's charge is almost complete, that sneer now becoming prophetic as she lifts the spear, the construct emerging fully...

    And then, Talia's Force push smashes into her.

    The Echo freezes, literally. The colours of Cocolia's clothes, hair and eyes turning stark white. The whirling winds die down, the construct shatters, turning into diamond dust on the wind... and Cocolia's Echo crumbles, as her final words waft across the wind. "The world that they promised..."

    "I... I think we got her... everyone alright?" asks Stelle, looking around before jogging over to Jessica, spotting the splash of red.

    Talia's eyes open, and then they widen as she gawks at the handiwork of the team. "...dank farrik." She mutters to herself before she goes to help Jessica, producing a medkit. "Hold still." She says, getting out bandages and disinfectant as well as neustim. For all intents and purposes it's just bacta.

    Jessica slumps onto the floor, rolling over and sitting up as she drops her pistol. "I'm... mostly okay," she says, tugging her leg up to examine it. "It didn't go too deep. If we can put pressure on it and a bandage to stop the bleeding, I should be able to go on." She'll limp a little but she seems confident she can keep walking, at least with a little help. "I'll last until we can finish this!"

    Aww, determined Jessica has her bottom lip pouting out!

    Frostbitten and feather-ruffled, Bi De sighs. "I may need to cultivate for a few moments before we move on. This series of trials is proving more difficult than I'd anticipated." He doesn't look badly injured, but definitely weary, and bruised in many places.

    Clara is a good girl. Crouching behind Bi De she does the best she can to be a good and out of the way non-combatant while the rooster, Dan Heng, and Stelle cover for her.
    With the Cocolia echo defeated however.
    Clara puts her arms around Bi De in a light squeezy hug.
    "Thank you." She says while wrapping him up in her coat 'cause frostbite.

    "Those stairs are the only way forward." says Seele, returning to the group and folding her arms over her chest. "That also means Bronya's up ahead too... and the fate of Belobog, both the Other and Underworlds... It all rests in our hands." she shakes her head, ruffling purple hair. "I thought I'd feel afraid, or nervous... but I don't. The only feeling I have, is that none of this seems real."

    Stelle places a hand on Seele's shoulder, giving a squeeze, before looking at March and Dan. "Is this how Trailblaze expeditions normally end?"

    The two more experienced Nameless shrug. "It varies... though normally we don't get on the bad side of local law enforcement on the first day." replies Dan Heng sardonically. "We try to avoid becomming entangled in the fates of the worlds we visit, though sometimes we are forced to act."

    March translates. "To put it another way, this is one heck of a Trailblazing expedition. You really hit the jackpot." she nudges Stelle on the shoulder, with a wink and smile.

    Seele chuckles softly. "I was about to bore you with gloomy reflections... but on second thought -- not today. Adventuring with you guys by my side... it's made me feel like there's no obstacle too big."

    "Helping those in need, befriending those worth counting on, and saving the world a few times along the way... That, is the spirit of the Trailblaze."

    Up the stairs, and through the paths, the trail leads upwards, through broken buildings, formations of Fragmentum crystal... this part of the city, the site of the final battle against the Antimatter Legion. It's not been touched in those centuries, and the chill here is arctic... The end is so clearly in view... or could it be just a trick of the light?