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Antares pulled Sig to a stop once they got out of one of the broken windows, tugging him until they were away from immediate danger of the fire behind them but also out of the way of anyone else coming out the same way. Icy blue eyes took in the range of fighters milling about the parking lot. "s**t," They were surrounded by so many high levels. If they got into a real scuffle they wouldn't escape with just a bloody nose. "Sig, we need to slip out of here unnoticed. Too many officers here."

Where the hell were civilian emergency services? The building should have triggered a fire alarm or something! The arrival of the firefighters would be the perfect distraction but the silence of the city night was glaring. No accidental assistance would come from that side of things. God, how exactly did this plan go so wrong?



Sig coughed and wiped his face with his now dirty scarf. The page took in the line up of a lot of chaos out in the parking lot. He knew Antares was right but honestly wasn't sure just how they were going to pull that off. She was definitively not in any positions to fight, both of them were pretty worse for wear, but she was liberally smeared with blood, especially her nose which had finally stopped. His own uniform was ripped and shredded, his sleave had been used to help filter out smoke earlier, his collar was ripped by the crazy corrupt, and he had general damage from the various incidences in the shop.

"Stay behind me. Catch your breath and then we can head out." His voice was horse from the smoke but hers was worse, he could hear her rasping as she took each breath. He might not be able to do much but he would protect her.

What ever it took.

Squire Halle of Lysithea (and Lisse, with permission!)
action: entering the parking lot and immediately summoning a massive unicorn shield

As they crossed out of the smoked filled lobby and into the outdoors, what was presented to the agents and corrupted senshi in the parking lot was not a group of four knights, but rather a singular, massive wood shield in the shape of a very cheerful unicorn head.

Turning to the others Halle hissed, "There are so many out here. I say we turtle up while moving fast as we can as a group. If someone follows, then it'll at least only be one or two?" Better to split the enemy away from the larger group. And maybe most would hesitate to confront three squires and a page working together.

General Benitoite

Catching the hint from Chalcanthite the smaller General summoned his weapon and made to get closer to the building. A glance towards the one downed by the arrow, and the corrupt senshi tormenting him, he couldn't help but smile. He felt no sympathy for the knight, they had been trying to run, he didn't care what happened to them though he did have a prefrence for death to them.

"Some along Strengite, lets go see if we can't find a knight or senshi of our own to deal with. They did after all ruin your plans, and I know you've worked hard on this." This was, he figured, her pride and joy and meant a lot to her. For order to ruin it on her there was no doubt she was pissed, and a little revenge would help that, he was looking to help appease her anger. Also, he wouldn't mind picking off an order member or two himself.

"Perhaps after this, maybe lunch tomorrow, I can treat you. Whatever you'd like, on me." Anything to make the sting of this loss fell a bit better, as he understood very well what she must be feeling right now. "Right now though...if we don't find someone there is a lovely sheild we can take down."

Kaifeng, Squire of Saturn
Action: covering the escape.

Kaifeng had gotten exceptionally lucky, he thought, in noticing the young page in the blue dress and going to look out for her. He never could have guessed that she might have two fellow squires who would show up at her side as well—probably, they were all the same flavor of knight as each other; the whimsy and the lively colors seemed fairly consistent across all three’s uniforms, in the same way that Kaifeng, Michel, and Silistra all seemed to have rich purples and a certain period piece look to all their outfits—nor that all three of these young knights would prove such able and capable hands. Not only had it made getting all three of them out of the sleep center intact that much easier, but for Kaifeng personally, the young knights’ skills also made him feel reassured about all of the teens and assorted other young people among the ranks of knights and senshi.

(Whenever he finally got back home tonight, Liánlí would have to tell Huanxi about these three admirable youths. The thought of youths getting enmeshed in the war didn’t usually seem to upset Huanxi that much, probably thanks to cultural drift—at least, it seemed that way to Liánlí, considering Huan-ge and his gege had both Awakened as senshi while quite young, and Xīngyì had apparently been quite young when he’d gone off to the old Knight Academy, so it made sense to guess that, back a thousand years ago, everyone had been much younger when they’d first become senshi or Knights—but teens today, in the twenty-first century, were not the youths of a thousand years ago. They had all kinds of things to worry about besides their duties as senshi and as Knights. Frankly, teens today weren’t even entirely the same as Liánlí had been at their age, but all the same, he knew that he wouldn’t have handled Knighthood well if it had gotten dropped on him at age eighteen, when most of the world had still considered him Zhìháo.

In all likelihood, that would’ve been a horrible mess garbage-fire and ended in a lot of people—probably Zhìháo chief among them—getting hurt when they didn’t need to be. Liánlí could admit that, and had mentioned his own youthful indiscretions to Huanxi as part of explaining why he didn’t mind having gone unawakened for as long as he had.…… But these three teens all seemed to have good heads on their shoulders, good instincts about looking out for each other and themselves in a rough situation like tonight had proven to be, and a lot of obvious promise as Knights. Maybe Huan-ge would find it reassuring that, in the immortal words of Pete Townshend, the kids were alright.)

—At least, they would be if everyone managed to get out.

“Good plan,” Kaifeng confirmed, nodding and doing a quick scan of the parking lot (and waving his little wispy friend away for the moment; currently, it was more of a distraction than not). There were more than enough Negaverse operatives out here—though fortunately, they all seemed concerned with either escaping or engaging someone else—and the young squire would only have so much time left in his magic pool, so they had to move quickly.

Gesturing toward the music store that he’d come here for in the first place, Kaifeng told them all, “There’s a pretty clear path out. Let’s move. I’ll cover the rear.”

Almere, Page of Lysithea

This didn’t seem like the time to be all heroic and try to strike out on her own. Almere stayed nice and nestled in between her two cousins and the kind but creepy knight of Gothic horror as the room that they’d been in started to fill with thick and swirling smoke thT got into her laughs and had her coughing, even as the group of them made it through the doors and into the parking lot outside.

There wasn’t as much smoke out here, which was good, but there was a lot of those monster handlers. Although, it seemed like they were doing more than just handling monsters, now. It seemed like they were doing their own thing.

Halle slammed down his shield again, and Kaifeng was telling them to huddle together and get out, which sounded like a good idea. This situation didn’t look like the kind of thing that they could fix by throwing a few rocks, or by poking something with her spoon, like those little jellyfish monsters they’d seen out by the restaurant.

Maybe when Almere got stronger, she’d get magic, too. Maybe then, she could do something useful like this, and help get people away from dangerous situations. That was probably why everybody was telling her to train.

She found herself peeking around the shield to get a better look at what they were up against. She could feel them, even from where she was. Kaifeng might not have had powers that came from her favorite genre, but he still felt warm and nice. The other guys? They made it feel like there were cockroaches crawling in her throat.

From where she was, she thought she could see a flash or two of metal. Weapons. That seemed about right. Dark knights had swords, just like the good ones. She gripped her spoon a little bit tighter. They also looked a lot like Disney villains, she decided. They were mostly in black, with just a little bit of their signature colors thrown in, and the monsters were even there to be their villain minions, like Jafar’s Iago or Ursula’s eels.

She wondered, did they do the same kind of thing as the Disney villains, too? Were they the vengeful ones, like Maleficent, or the greedy ones? Maybe they were the greedy ones, she thought, because this place that they’d infiltrated looked like some kind of business. She wasn’t sure if that made sense, though. They could get money here, sure, but that was money. You didn’t need any magical powers to get that. It wasn’t like it was the Cave of Wonders or something. She hadn’t seen any priceless magical artifacts, just a boring looking room and some paperwork.

She was going to need to do more in order to get better equipped for this stuff than just learning swordplay. She was going to have to learn about what was going on, what the story here was. Or, at least the motivations of some of the people. She had to wonder, in her little happily-ever-after heart, even as the building burned behind them, was this the kind of evil that could be redeemed?


Then she heard the sirens in the distance, so she kept her head down and kept walking away with the group.

Action: Oh would you lookit that, sirens!!! Time to exit for real~
Attacking: TELEPORTATION!

Albite waived to the lovelier than a whole parade of hearses Senshi! Let her off on her murderously merry way, and then saw the place light up like a bad moon rising. His *Get the ******** out* senses started to tingle--and he located the one other body he worried about getting out before the cops came barreling in. He was sure there were other people to answer to, but? The safety and survival of the little bitty basics n Lt's came first!

SO---




Action: Exiting Via Albite --

Mirabilites squawk for being handled like a cheap Prada knockoff --- like luggage at the airport -- like -- the most mishandled merchandise this side of the universe!! It was loud, undignified, full of resigned hisses and cut off curses. Apparently it was way past time to go, and his desire to watch all the world burn behind him -- order -- chaos -- the whole of it -- would have to wait for another day.

[Exit Mirabilite]


Action: How does Adonis feel about being a taxi? Exit strategy one!

The sound of that voice was a buzz in his ears, a wavering quaver of staccato notes and casual insistence. Zultanite finally pieced together all the English as words and sentences, and waved the initial offer off -- whether he didn't need the help right now, or he didn't want it in the middle of all hell breaking loose? Two entirely different yet accurate possibilities.

The health kit sounded enticing, but no if it was gonna be handled in the middle of the mess on fire parking lot with the authorities bearing down on them with blaring sirens and lights all aglow--

"I'll borrow it from you later, can we get the ******** outta here asap?" he said it as though the eternal owed him, as though he'd end up owing him a favor if one were returned, it was both a question and a demand full of hesitancy and charred black anxiousness that felt a lot like a little too much smoke inhalation. "Pretty please with burnt cherries on top Skin's...." the ******** was this ones name again? Achilies, aphroditie? Ah, Adonis!! Had to be it!!

[Exit Zultanite]

Celadon, Page of Cybele
Sticking it out for some sweet, sweet EMT assistance and trying to fight a b***h off

She was safe from the archer, but that didn't mean much for long. Just as she thought she could catch her breath and wait this debacle out, one of the senshi that she recognized as being part of the Negaverse burst out from around the car. She kicked Celadon, and Celadon screamed for it as stars burst in her vision from the sudden pain. She thought she felt the other side of her leg rip, and knew that she wouldn't be walking anytime soon.

If she got to escape at all, that was. The girl was practically bearing down on her, and some sort of fog crept around her while she was yelling in Celadon's face.

Wincing and feeling lightheaded from the pain, it was all she could do to summon her broken necklace to hand and whip it at the girl's face. "Get off me," she hissed hoarsely.

If Celadon could get her to back away a little, she could call for help and maybe not get immediately killed for it. When she felt something cold as ice grab hold of her, however, she wondered if she'd even get that opportunity. She tried to jerk her hand away, but between that thing in the fog and the girl practically standing on her, Celadon was desperately trapped.

Distantly, she heard something that sounded like a fire alarm. She didn't know if that was the case or not, but if first responders were going to come to a burning building, then she only had to wait out their arrival. She just had to survive long enough for them to get to her.

Suddenly, she wished she could drop her guise as Celadon and get her bear mace for the woman over top of her.

If there was one thing worse than Order showing up, it was the police.

“I’ll just have to deal with cat senshi another day.”

The Mauvian huffed and then teleported away.


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