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Princess Ganymede, Transcended Senshi of Lust
HP: (125-15-10) 100
Damage: (Physical damage 2d8 ) 4
Action: The shoes are coming off. Attacking 1 chrysocyon.

Chrysocyons Attacked: 1.
Chrysocyons Remaining: 3/50

Powerful though she might be, Ganymede had her handicaps. Magic was finite. Her crystal likely could have damaged a majority of the smaller chrysocyon, but there wasn’t a guarantee she’d get all of them and she’d probably end up harming some of her allies in the process. They had to be methodical. She had to weigh what was easiest for her versus what would be the best for everyone.

She didn’t have a weapon. She wished she had a weapon. Even a blunted sword would be better than empty hands. The smaller chrysocyons converged and Ganymede was left with nothing but the magic she hated to rely on, and her shoes.

“I’m good,” she reassured Valhalla, watching Kyrie take out three of the chrysocyons at once.

Sometimes Ganymede wished she was a Knight.

She pulled off one of her shoes and tried to be strategic in how she broke it, but she always ended up cutting up her hands when she relied on them. Ganymede ignored any pain or blood. Comfort was not something she ever expected in battle.

Wielding the sharp edge of a broken shoe against an approaching chrysocyon, Ganymede managed to strike it along the side of its face, but couldn’t avoid the bite that followed.

“Less good now!”

The chrysocyon went in for a second bite, but this time its teeth met resistance in the form of a golden vambrace.

Eternal Sailor Varuna, Senshi of Avalanches
HP: (85 - 20) 65
Damage: (Direct Damage 10 + 2d6) 15
Chrysocyons Attacked: 2
Chrysocyons Remaining: 0/50
Action: Attacking the last two chrysocyons with aoe. Close to Adria and Daphne

Varuna was perfectly content with destroying this creature. Whatever it once was, it was now decayed with Chaos and needed to be put to rest. She wished she could have learned more about these animals. It broke her heart knowing how they must have suffered.

The woman with the tail (Daphne) was close, and she didn’t want her or Adria to have to get their hands dirty. All of their other allies were working hard to fight and take out the dozens of chrysocyons that appeared.

So she put her hand out to make sure Adria and Daphne wouldn’t get caught up in her magic, before sending a wave of snow at what seemed to be last two that lingered.

HP: 100-15=85
Direct Damage: 10+11=21

It was so much to take in and no time to do it in.

There was one big dog. Then fifty little dogs. Then those were gone.

Urania took a deep breath to focus. The battle was distracting. It was chaos and not just with a capital ‘C’.

She needed to concentrate on the biggest threat. It was the Chrysocyon. The one that had howled and created a hunger inside her she did not know she had.

She would use that now to her advantage.

Urania summoned her transcendence power to use her eternal attack once more.


❂

Lisse, Squire of Lysithea
HP: 60
Damage: 10 + (5 + 1) = 16
Action: Attacking main zombie boss.

Oh. Lisse almost recoiled from the chill in the other Squire’s voice, and he set his mouth to stop from saying something rude right back, or just. Doing anything that would hurt Dering.

Of course it was magic. He wasn’t stupid, but if the feeling of hunger had done this to his friend, then food was the only thing he could think of to help. He couldn’t just break the stupid magic coming from the giant zombie dog. People had to do what they could.

He didn’t snap though. Didn’t say anything snarky, just nodded his head and took a moment to lay a comforting hand on Dering’s shoulder before turning his back on both of them, taking a stance in order to protect them.

The little zombie dogs were all gone now, and he drew in a breath and began to channel his magic once again at the larger one, the big threat.

Hopefully, this day wouldn’t bring any more surprises.

Botein, Super Senshi of Amulets
HP: 50 / 75
Dice Results: 10 + 3 = 13 of healing
Action: Casting healing on Rose, Page of Lysithea, Kaifeng, Squire of Saturn, and Terebellum, Senshi of Resonance

Her aim was thrown off while she did her best to avoid the creature that had, validly, taken offence to her rock. Luckily a knight in a very cute, but pretty Disney princess-y, outfit came in with an assist. She got real up and close with the obviously dead critter... a zombie really. "Ye...yeah." She stammered out, quite shaken with the animals. She gripped her current stone and was going to step in to help finish the thing off when another knight, this one in purple and with a braid that rivaled her own, did something she would have considered crazy.

They practically grappled with not one, but two, of the animals! The knight shouted a warning about 'spirits' and said something else, likely causing these ghostly shades to raise from the ground. Botein scrambled away from the magic but as she did so her eyes widened as she saw blood start to bead on her 'hero'... still being careful of the magic the senshi stepped as close as she could. Her blue eyes raked the battle field and as soon as she saw another person, likely a senshi if the outfit was any indication, who could use the help she cupped her palms together and called out, "Amulet of Healing."

When the three necklaces appeared she indicated the three people, the two knights who had come to her help, and the senshi that looked like she also was covered in blood. Botein knew her amulets wouldn't do much but they would help. And besides... she was more worried about transmitted pathogens, or rabies, then much else. Bleeding could be stopped, normally, but blood born illness was much much harder to handle.

Ellicott, Super Senshi of Dance
HP: 50 / 75
Action: Thanking Kaifeng for the magical save

She was muttering every curse word she knew as she tried to throw stone after stone at the rapidly approaching zombie. She could feel a scream of pure terror trying to claw it's way out of her throat. No.

NONONONONONONOnononononononononononnononononon!

That screech of horror nearly escaped when some knight came out of no where and triggered his magic. Sadly Ellicott wasn't able to get fully out of the way but when the ghostly spirit touched her the feeling of chills and being watched was still so much better then the fear that had been trying to drive her mad... it also helped some when it came to the hunger too! Seriously.

Anything was better then the zombies!

"Thank you!" She called out once the creatures were gone and the knight was running off to wherever he came from. After taking a moment to calm herself, and to build up her courage, Ellicott prepared to fight some more only to be absurdly glad that there were no more little zombies left. Just the big one that still gave her the heebie-jeebies.

DSS Procyon of Liminality

HP: 5 + 15 (from Princess Lysithea) = 20/50
Action: Sticking close to the nice princess lady

Someone was running, coming closer as he swayed and for a moment he was just dumbstruck by the gorgeous fabric of their outfit as he felt his injuries easing up. They sounded so very nice, another nice human senshi like miss Ida and Pleione.

"Thank you." Smiling up at her, he saw that all the little things were gone now too. "We can do this, I know we all can. These things need to move on, this world needs to be allowed to heal." That spark of determination was firing back up as he stuck close by to the senshi who had healed him.

"Ah, I'm Procyon though. I'll stay close and help you if I can?"
Since the small ones were gone he could maybe stick back this time and keep an eye out if she wanted to help anyone else.

Kaifeng, Squire of Saturn
HP: 30 + 13 = 43 HP / 75.
Action: Thanking Botein for the healies! Also, being The Way They Are with Helene. No attack.
Damage: N/A.

“I know, gege,” Kaifeng agreed with a nod and a sparkly-eyed look up at Helene. While he didn’t regret going over to help the others—and he definitely didn’t regret helping anybody, nor having taken that moment to offer Helene some gentleness—Kaifeng definitely felt a little bit……ouch?

A need to help each other, he figured, was part of why Fang had put out the call to so many people. With so many out here together, they could have each other’s backs, help each other fight, and make sure that the Chaos infection on Fang-the-World got properly cleared out. Such ideas had probably inspired the howling senshi (Skoll) to send out the magic that had given Kaifeng such a boost. It had only made sense, at least in Kaifeng’s mind, to pay that same energy forward by helping others out here in the field.

……He just felt extremely ouch about his life-choices right now regardless.

“Honestly, I’d get out my first aid kit for both of us,” Kaifeng mused, more thinking aloud than anything, briefly reaching up to brush the backs of his fingers down Helene’s cheek as proof that he had come back, exactly like he’d promised, that he was okay albeit a bit banged up right now. The kit in question resided in Kaifeng’s subspace pocket just in case of emergencies. Neither he nor Helene had healing magic, and maybe you couldn’t fix everything with a first aid kit, but it was better than doing nothing. “But until we’re done with the mother, that might be more of a danger than a help……”

To say the absolute least. Trying to apply antiseptic and bandage a wound in the middle of all this Chaos and commotion? It might have left Helene and Kaifeng to get caught with their pants down, and at a time when they probably had significantly deadlier implications than usual.

Would antiseptic even *do* anything against these naughty boys, Kaifeng wondered, but didn’t say out loud. Antiseptic isn’t even enough for normal rabies if you get bitten by the wrong thing, never mind Chaos rabies, if that’s, like? Actually a thing that exists.…

(Admittedly, part of Kaifeng wanted to know if Chaos rabies actually existed in the universe somewhere. But mostly, he wanted to keep those random thoughts to himself, rather than saying them out loud with a serious risk of deeply upsetting Helene. Gege already worried so much about what could’ve happened if he were to take Kaifeng back to Helene-the-Moon and some remnants of the Chaos-plague that had devastated his people infected Liánlí. Saying things about Chaos illnesses with Huan-ge simply was not funny, something to joke about exactly never. Even thinking about it made Kaifeng’s heart ache.)

Still, even with all of the little beasts falling fast, the central problem remained. For the moment, working very hard to keep his breathing steady and deep—all the better to avoid an anxiety spiral with, thanks!—Kaifeng tucked himself slightly behind Helene. Still close enough for Helene to touch as necessary, and easily seen with a brief turn of his head, but behind him all the same. Maybe both of them had taken hits, and maybe Kaifeng wanted very much to fuss over Helene’s wounds, get them cleaned and dressed, kiss them gently even though it wouldn’t really do anything to make them heal faster.

But Kaifeng could acknowledge that he seemed to have taken more hits than his zhiyin had.

Moreover, Huan-ge had already lost one Kaifeng before, with Xingyi-ge’s untimely, tragic death. Liánlí-Kaifeng didn’t want to do that to him again. Didn’t want to make Huanxi endure the pain of that loss by neglecting his own wellbeing or refusing to let Huanxi protect him in turn if that wound up proving necessary.

In the meantime, though, what Kaifeng needed was……whatever field aid he could give himself. Not much, at the moment, but his offhand arm—the right one—had taken a hit from one of the beasties that seemed within Kaifeng’s ability to help for now. Four slash marks, clustered together on the forearm. Deep enough to bleed but not so deep that they’d need stitches (Kaifeng felt pretty sure they wouldn’t, anyway). Blessedly, on the upper side of his arm, rather than the underside where his veins and so many crucial nerves (more important to Kaifeng personally) were easier to access.

Maybe it wouldn’t be pretty, but still, Kaifeng could do something to help himself here.

“Thank you, sir, just let me call, I’ll give you my blood alcohol, I’ll rot with all the burnouts in the cell,” Kaifeng sang softly as he fussed around, falling back on music as a self-soothing mechanism, the way he so often did while stressed or nervous (……or when he was happy, or when he didn’t want to succumb to despair, or when he felt exceptionally in love with Huan-ge, or……). Unbutton the sleeve. Bunch up the fabric around the wounds as much as possible. Get ready to apply pressure, which would eventually help stop the bleeding.

As he worked, Kaifeng kept singing to soothe himself, likely only audible to himself and Helene, “I’ll change my faith, I’ll praise the flag. Just wait, I swear, he’ll call me back. ‘Son, are you a danger to yourself?’”

This musical bridge was likely familiar to them both by now. On one hand, Liánlí had liked the song for quite a while. On the other, he had recently covered the song—partly for work (releasing the cover on his Patreon first, then his Spotify and Youtube channel), but mostly for Xingyi-ge Reasons (for whom, he’d penned a couple new verses, trying to write from his point of view as much as possible—which had been significantly easier than ever trying writing anything from Zhìháo’s perspective, but who was counting). All of that work had meant a lot of chances for Huanxi to hear (and for Liánlí to reassure him as necessary that it was just a song).

Kaifeng winced ever so slightly, twisting a bit harder on the wounds. He couldn’t tell if they were closing up or not, and he really didn’t want to let them get exposed to anything worse by staying open for too long. <******** that, sir, just let me call. I’ll give you my blood alcohol. I’ll rot with all the burnouts in the cell. I’ll change my faith, I’ll kiss the badge. Let’s wait, I swear he’ll call me back. ‘Son, why do you…do…this…to……”

At the sudden feeling of something around his neck, Kaifeng dropped his gaze and blinked at his chest.…… Huh. An amulet? It seemed like one, anyway? While he was still trying to decide what the amulet thought it was, it started glowing.

As it glowed, his wounds started healing. No, they didn’t get all the way patched up or anything, but it still marked a significant improvement.

Oh!!

Kaifeng looked back toward the girls he’d gone to help. One of the senshi who’d looked like a dancer—she’d been wearing a pretty big amulet. Maybe it had been her? “Hey,” he called out to her, smiling gratefully. “Thank you for the healing amulet!”