World Tree MUSH

    From the darkness of the outer office, one can barely see the shadows within shadows move as a crescent hole in the universe is raised. The deafening roar of thunder as it lands at one's feet is heard as an arrow streaks through the inner office space with the speed of a falling star. As it passes by, heat roils off of it. At first it looks like it might strike Poppy or Serrah since they're closest to the entrance, but it unerringly flies by, narrowly missing Alan's wings. It finally strikes the orichalcyon armor, knocking Aurelia off her feet, diamond sword dropped as the young woman is impaled to the metal barricade she had erected.
    As the shadowed woman steps into the ruins of the sanctum's office space, shards of metal begin flying through the air, gathered from the desks, chairs, and Aurelia's makeshift barricade. The pull towards the woman is so intense that even the metals in those present feel the pull, though it is merely uncomfortable and not harmful. A fleeting glimpse of the starkly lit woman reveals a crown with stag horns and a starfield where shadows would fall on her; the parts where light hits are as bright as the full moon. The metal is forming armor around her, armoring and shaped to resemble a statue of Artemis or Diana the Huntress. The blacker than black bow in her in one hand resembles an inverted crescent moon, while the lunargent arrows in her other glow of their own accord.
    The statue-armor regards the defenders with eyes filled with stars. "Fight or flee before me, I don't care which." The black bow is raised, nocked with one of the meteoric arrows.

"Aurelia! Dammit, who are you?!" Benedicta glares at the woman who shot her friend of full of arrows. They might be in over their heads here but if the Cabal freed the prisoners here it would get even worse. Either way things looked bad. Her head turned toward the others wondering what they were planning.

Serrah growls triumphantly as her and Luke's lightning gambit pays off. "How do you like that, you son of a -- GAH!" She recoils from the blast, and suddenly her expression is one of fear and horror. "... crap," she mutters. "I ... I almost lost it there! Shhhhphooey."

She stares at the woman for a moment. Then she looks back at Benedicta.

And then she just melts into shadow once more and vanishes. Looks like that's her answer!

But a moment later, she's suddenly, instantaneously standing off to one side, and there's a baseball flying right towards that nocked arrow. At a hundred miles per hour.

     Poppy's armor is still steaming from the lightning assault, but as the shadowy woman appears and starts summoning bits of metal to form armor, the little yordle warrior realizes it's not time to rest just yet. She can feel the possibly magnetic pull on her own armor, even her hammer vibrating in her grasp, and she can tell that this is going to be a tough one to deal with. To make matters worse, it looks like one of the defenders- Aurelia, she hears from Benedicta- has already been shot down! No, there's no time for hesitation, lest more good people come to harm.

The next thing that strange Artemis wannabe knows, there's a shield flying right at her head, and it's not because of her own magic. Nay, it is Poppy's throwing arm being put to good use, hurling the metal disc with bone-shattering force... though against magic-empowered armor, it probably won't have quite that level of effect. "Hey," the diminutive guardian says, trying to get the villain's attention if the shield didn't manage it. "How about you pick on somebody /my/ size?"

>> SUMMARY[Poppy] >> When Captain Poppy throws her mighty shield / All those who chose to oppose her shield must yield~

Anne Read has been in and out of things as of late as she had to deal with several sea monsters. Then there was Polly being Polly with his 'merchandise' suggestions. When Polly came to the that something had been going down with Aurelia. She was quick to respond, throw the prototype merchandise at Polly and head the heck out transforming before she was even out the front door. 

 Those who were seeking to stop this would find they have some backup as they hear someone shouting out. 

 "GALE OF STORMS!" 

 Which results in a burst of focused water at the horned woman. 

 "I'm afraid Captain Sea Foam is going to be having to force you to parlay one way or the other!"

    Luke's moment of triumph is halted by the sudden arrow impaling one of his friends, letting out a loud, surprised yelp as Aurelia gets shot at, it seems a mix of pain, shock, and a fair bit of anger. He barely even registers the pull on his backpack, belt and his badges, he just glares at the source of the arrow and the very clear, evident challenge. 
    Luke's pokemon quickly move to stand in front of the young boy, Bewear right in front of Luke, willing to act as a fluffy shield, while Dynamo answers the challenge of the hunter like figure with a loud roar, clouds somehow covering the ceiling of the room, followed by a light rain and ominous rumbling, seems as willing as the tiger is to join in the retribution, it might need a moment to build up a proper response, electricity arcing from it's round, fuzzy frame.

>> SUMMARY[Luke Gray] >> Dynamo uses rain dance, it starts to rain.

Nearby, a moment ago: Diana the Vampire Huntress is just about done dealing with some related issue. There are noises which draw her attention, "Broken Fang." She curses quietly, and then from the perspective of most she turns around and begins to run, chasing her is useless though as she seemingly vanishes as soon as she crosses the corner.

Here and now: With time in stasis Diana arrives, she lines up her stake railgun and charges its shot. Just a fraction of a moment before the stake can be unleashed, time resumes and the brief hum and crackle of energy before a wooden stake comes out flying at mach 0.9, aimed straight for the statue.

>> GAME >> Diana Bp62412 spends an Edge for: Blood Replication: Stop the World

    Allen is stunned by how close that came and how Aurelia was taken out so easily. He turns to look at the limp armored form, now on the ground since the barricade was removed.
    "Allen, focus! Keep her from firing again!" Kira shouts over the sound of raining metal forming the figure's armor. Allen snaps towards the front of the sanctum, in awe of the sudden rain caused by Luke's Dynamo, the swiftness of Poppy's shield, and Serrah's fastball.
    Drenched in water by Captain Seaform, the magical bow is knocked out of Metallia Luna's hand by the fastball and the arrow is sent clattering to the ground. The shield gives the fiend pause as it smashes a large dent into the shoulder. The rain soaks into the figure, who reaches out and summons the bow back to her hand with a crack of displaced air. The high speed stake shears itself into pieces against the intricately wrought armor, taking chunks of the metal with it.
    "Not bad. I doubt any of you would join the Cabal if I offered." The whole metal assembly takes to the air, expanding into a sphere surrounding the sorceress. It rolls forward ponderously, picking up a few of the wounded and unconscious Cabal mages as it does so, drawing them inside.

It sounds like Benedicta's not going to get an answer to her question. Then it starts raining all of a sudden getting her fur damp, this certainly wasn't her day. "Like hell I'll join, you don't know how many people's lives your group has ruined. Or don't care. Captain, good thing that you're here!"

 They certainly could use Anne's help right now. She dashes at Metallia Luna trying to get the drop on her. Her feet glow yellow and suddenly grow massive talons as she kicks at the woman trying claw her way through her armor.

     Poppy doesn't know any of the people here, or at least much about them (aside from Serrah, sort of), but she's seen enough to know where her loyalties are going to lie here. "Yeah, I don't think so. I'd sooner swear allegiance to Noxus." she remarks, though it's unlikely anyone here will know what she's talking about.

That being said though, she dives to catch her shield after it bounces off of Metallia's armor, rolling back into a standing position near the sorceress... who is now a ball of metal!? Oh, wait, it's just a rolling shield of sorts. Well, she knows what to do about that!

"Okay, Shieldy had his turn, now it's Hammer time again!" she announces, spinning her hammer over her head fast enough that it becomes a blur, before swinging it with the same earth-smashing force as her initial attack from before, trying to break through that metal sphere so her allies can hit the witch inside!

>> SUMMARY[Poppy] >> POPPY SMASH KATAMARI. Specifically with her hammer. Maybe it'll at least stop the sphere's advance?

Serrah internally tenses up when time stops while she's still in her own timestop's cooldown, and her head jerks around once time resumes. "D!?" she exclaims. Then she facepalms. "Oh. Right. My ... wow."

She turns back to the armored woman. "Yeah, nothin' personal," she says. "We're just, y'know ..." She stops as Benedicta shouts out to the woman. "... Yeah, what she said." She's clearly uncomfortable playing the hero, but, well, now that she's here ...

She glides forward off the ground, coming up beside Benedicta, and begins unleashing another punch-flurry on the gathered armor -- again, several punches a second, each of which hits like a truck. Not individually as strong as Poppy's hammer, of course, but she's trying to make up for quality with quantity.

    Luke has been in enough battles, pokemon at least to tell a barrier when he sees one. "Bewear, let's see if we can make our answer clear. Please help with that metal barrier!" calls the boy, reaching into his belt. Bewear nods and cracks it's 'knuckles', "Brick break!" the trainer calls. The bear launches forward with surprising speed for such a large, and cuddly shaped creature, it's left foreleg glowing a bright light as it jumps forward, pulling the arm back, and finally lands a powerful punch right onto the barrier.

Diana winks at Serrah's response to her, but focuses on the matter of hand. That armour will be hard to pierce, but she concludes, she won't need to. She gets out what at first glance might look like a futuristic fire extuingisher, but the foam that comes out is not well suited to fighting fires. In fact, it spontaneously combusts from the hypergolic mixing of the two compounds, creating a jet of sticky fire that's aimed straight for that sturdy metal armor, hopefully with all the thermal conductivity one might expect.

>> SUMMARY[Diana Bp62412] >> Metal armor? Well, time for fire.

Anne Read has managed to disarm Metallia for a moment and she narrows her eyes. 

 "No I wouldn't not even my bilge rat of a bird would deal with them." 

 She will back off a little bit summoning a staff to her hand and holds it expertly. Then she attempts to close in and break into a combo of staff attacks. She hopes she's not too late for everyone as she takes better of the stocks of the defenders.

    Kira is trying her best to stop the advance of the armor sphere, with large shadow tentacles reaching out like a great hand to push back. The shadow mage is surrounded by whispering voices as the pages in her arcane book flutter by themselves.
    The combined assault is enough to stop the sphere. Benedicta's talons make large rents in the sphere, while Poppy's smashing hammer dents it so badly that there's a hole in it now. The flurry of punches puts indents in the thing exactly the shape of Serrah's fists. Massive cracks appear where the Bewear lands its punch. It seems that heat is something that Metallia Luna is used to having to deal with; the heated areas are circulated and moved constantly, little bits of flame leaping out where combustable material was clinging to the metal. The staff lands with repeated cracks, small dents appearing. The sphere is largely intact, however.
    Then Allen finally gets it in his head what to do. He reaches out, drawing the metal towards him in a thin stream at first, balling it up utilizing gravity. "I'll try weakening the armor, keep hitting it!" He can feel the metal trying to pull out of his grip, and succeeding at that. The young man grits his teeth and focuses harder, drawing deep on energy reserves he did not realize were there. To the others, it looks like he is being enveloped in fire as the mid-20's look of his transformed state begins burning away to reveal an older version in his mid-30s, clad in a breastplate that gleams like a mirror. The ploy seems to be working as Allen's Maho Prime form is revealed; the sphere is weakening and forming larger gaps where the defenders have struck at it. The suspended forms of three defeated mages and the stark contrast of Metallia Luna's form are visible enough.
    Kira shouts "Bring her down!"

     Poppy winces as the shock of her own strike reverberates through her body, making it painfully aware just how much she's riding on adrenaline by this point. She took a lot of damage before this point, and not the sort her armor's particularly good at absorbing either. Her nerve endings are starting to protest something fierce at her continued persistence, screaming at her that /four/ mages in one day is entirely too many to have tried to fight.

She tells her nerves to shut the heck up and let her pound this one in the face, then she'll go lay down and scream into a pillow at how everything feels like it's on fire. Besides, she's got help here, everybody pitching in with their own blows, and even that Allen guy starting to draw away some of the sorceress's armor.

"Ngh... Is it still appropriate to say 'timber' when it's a ball...?" she asks through gritted teeth, the fact she's using a hammer instead of an axe going entirely unspoken. However, heeding Kira's words, she takes a page from Serrah's and Anne's collective book and just starts /wailing/ on Metallia Luna's shield- and, with any luck, the sorceress herself. One strike after another, hardly at full force but aiming to add up with an overwhelming barrage.

>> SUMMARY[Poppy] >> Shock's wearing off, abilities are all on cooldown, better autoattack spam.

Serrah smirks at Diana. "Almost wanna see what you'd get from Vincent or Wilhelmina," she says, glancing around at how everyone else is doing. "Uhhh ... hmm ... Oh, wow!" She shoots Allen a thumbs-up, but turns back to the breaking sphere. "Let's see ... how do I ..."

And then the proverbial light bulb appears above her head. From her and Diana's perspective, a ripple of light emanates from Serrah, and everything freezes and turns monochrome, tinted purple. Serrah then melts into shadow and slips through the cracks. She reforms behind Metallia Luna, time resuming as she swings her fists, unleashin another punch-flurry!

From everyone else's perspective, Serrah is just suddenly behind Metallia Luna, as abruptly as a video skipping ahead, fists already swinging.

Benedicta continues to kick trying to chip away at Metallia Luna's armor. She has more questions for her but she's not quite sure she'll get an answer for them. "Besides I'm sure the Cabal would try to expirement on me if I did join them, I have no interest in being a lab rabbit! Though if you don't want me to kick your ass further, maybe you can actually provide me with some information!" While Benedicta is normally at least what sympathetic to her opponents she has none for the Cabal.

"Perhaps I'll get an opportunity to try." Diana answers Serrah, "Something to think about later, when we're not busy." The flamethrower is not out of fuel yet, and so with an opening in the metal sphere there's only one obvious choice. The huntress keeps up creating that burning foam and spraying it at Metallia Luna. Though she is incredibly fast at adjusting her positioning and aim so as to not spray Serrah with it on accident.

The battle is well underway here. Bene is hard at work, Poppy whom she's never seen before is makign som serious good use of her hammer and Serah is already locked in close combat as wlel. Allen gets it in his head ot of something he will act. She grins a bit and will move to stril her self making use of her staff some more again and again she'll strike with it. She then channels more water blasts focused jto just keep railing on Metallia

>> GAME >> Aurelia Argent spends an Edge for: Enhance My Regeneration

    Metallia Luna is a hardy soul, striking her feels like beating against warship armor. The older maho is very skilled, fending off blows from Serrah, Benedicta, and Anne using her armored gauntlets. She is not invincible nor perfect though, and takes a hell of a beating, falling to the ground bleeding and burnt.
    The stream of metal though, suddenly has no resistence to Allen's gravitic pulling, and it is only Allen's instinct to dive for the ground that saves him from the impromptu spear. It drives itself into the floor where Allen had been standing, a low fading hum emanating from the quivering metal.
    Aurelia wakes with a start, yanking the lunargent arrow out of her chest. She had been... dead? Or close enough? She blinks and stands. She sees she has missed the big confrontation. She winces as she lurches forward towards the group.
    The defeated maho glares at the lot gathered around her. "... This isn't the end."

"Depends on how you define the end, may you find peace in your hard-earned rest." Diana answers the defeated mage, grabbing her mace and raising it, clearly intending to finish this once and for all. Of course, she's acting carefully and purposefully; telegraphing her decision to her allies, in case they find reason to object.

    Kira huffs her way over to the scene. "Do it. We can't properly contain her right now." To emphasize she's serious, the shadow mage conjures shadow bindings to hold Metallia Luna still for her execution.

Luke is more concerned on Aurelia when she seems to snap awake, managing to catch a glimpse of his friend waking up and quickly rushing to check on her, with his pokemon turningtheir attention to what Luke is doing, apparently not findin anything to object to themselves, rushing to join their trainer.

     Finally, after a prolonged beating, the sorceress goes down, and Poppy's hammer hits the floor with a THUD as her arms finally lose strength. Panting as if she's just run a marathon, sweat matting her fuzzy face, she slooooowly turns toward Diana, who seems intent on finishing things now. Unfortunately for Metallia Luna, the yordle is not the merciful sort when it comes to unrepentent villains. "I can't even lift my hammer right now. You'll have to do the honors." she says, her voice cracking in the middle of her words.

Oh gods everything hurts.

Serrah doesn't let up her punching until the metal collapses, and she jumps away as quick as she can in order to avoid the flamethrower.

When Diana makes her intentions known, Serrah hesitates, trying to decide how this fits into her own feelings, of justice fighting against the fact that she doesn't want to become a vampire who's used to people dying. And then she just turns away, not wanting to even see the kind of injury that'd happen from a point-blank mace from someone who won't disintegrate into dust.

She wordlessly walks over to Luke and Aurelia, looking the latter over to check on her as well.

Benedicta looks at Aurelia stand up than at Kira and sighs "Are you sure you can't just depower her or something? I know she's a danger but I think killing one of their members will just bring more of the Cabal down on us. Though there is the problem she knows where the Order's HQ is now." She's not quite sure what can be done about that.

Anne Read has lowered her weapon for a moment. Youma is one thing to Anne? This is something else this leaves her very unhappy at this turn of event as the Pirate themed Mahou doesn't like this turn of events at all. 

 "Slaying her will bring more down upon us, The Cabal wouldn't take that lying down and any dependants you have would end up targets as well I suspect. Can you depower here if so we can turn her over to the Order. I'm sure they would have questions they'd love to ask her." 

 She's also moved in the way here. Anne also makes note she's got some serious healing to do after this, if she doesn't end up wrecked for it.

There's a moment's hesitation as the comments about depowering come in, Diana stands ready to act but doesn't yet. "Such mercy would not be granted had the situation be in reverse." She comments as a warning, "But at the end of the day this is not my decision to make. Can she safely be detained? If not... sun's wrath..."

    By now, Allen has also joined the debate circle. He's no longer the 30ish self, but back to the college age form. He's out of breath, looking flushed. "What're we doing now?" He didn't hear the conversation before now.
    Metallia Luna staggers to her feet slowly. Her bow hasn't been called to her hand, there's no thrum of magic felt. "That's the problem with people like you." She takes a deep breath and glares at the people who objected to her execution. "You're squeamish. Fine then. Allow me take the decision out of your hands." The stray lunargent arrow that had been knocked from her grasp at the beginning of her battle flies out of the rubble it was under and weaves its way unerringly into the woman's heart. She collapses to her knees as she dies, an enigmatic smile on her face.
    Kira and Allen's faces look like a mixture of horror and shock.

     Poppy blinks. Blinks again. Stares at the corpse. "Well, at least she saved us the trouble. Guess she wasn't so bad after all."

Serrah whirls around, and stares at Metallia Luna's prone form. "What in the world --" She stops, and groans. "This right here is one of the exact reasons why I hate trying to be a hero." (... It's quite possible that she might have chosen nearly any result as justification for why she hates trying to be a hero, but here we are.)

"No such thing as a hero." Diana answers Serrah with a shrug, "And don't trust anyone claiming to be. Self-proclaimed heroes are the most likely to set the world aflame in their deluded quest for glory." With the deed done for her, Diana steps back and puts her mace away.

Benedicta looks completely stunned as Metallia Luna stabs herself in the heart and tries to stop her but it's too late. She places her hands on the woman's shoulders and tries not to burst into tears. "You idiot! How can you just throw your life away!" She certainly didn't care for her opponent especially after she stabbed Aurelia, but she didn't want her dead. Of course this could lead to further trouble but that's not what Benedicta is thinking about right now.

Luke Gray blinks a bit, he certainly didn't expect anyone to follow thorugh with... killing the person, even if at some level, he miht think it might be warranted, he just remains stunned as he manages to see the... suicide, not even crying, just... shocked in place with his Bewear trying to nudge th eboy to look away from it, looking quite startled and disturbed by it.

Anne Read is knowing this may come to be a fight, she braces herself and is about to make one last argument when Metallia Luna kills herself and she just stares for a moment. Diana offers a diversion fofm the horror for a moment and replies. 
F "That's pretty Iron Age." 

 She notes before she'll start trying to tend to the wounded who will allow it.