Delta 2: Jefferson City Shindig

"Dunno what the plan is on either side at this point. Figure if they're getting some backup, maybe things'll cool down, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Guess I have to commend those boys, sticking to the mission even after half of 'em have been gutted like fish."

Maybe that was a little morbid, but Ira found that it was usually good to bring a little bit of levity to a situation when possible. After all, they'd just watched quite a few deaths right before their eyes, and he couldn't say he'd done much to really stop it. Not that he could have, but even so. Helped a good bit to at least shake it off.

"Probably ought to go help, huh? I did sign up for it, after all."

"Fine. However, they are not my problem. I will consider them your own responsibility by doing this, you're the only one I'm taking responsibility of in this situation because they thought it'd be fine to send a little girl into a battlefield."

Yugiri stood up and dispelled her curtain that had since concealed the two of them before approaching with Ira over her shoulder unceremoniously she'd be fine like that. The hollow was a problem but she could deal with it later, for the moment she had to settle this predicament.

"I'm Yugiri. A shinigami in the area, it's my intention to end this foolishness. Also, this kid's mine now."

She made it clear that Ira was now her's, not their's. The vizard didn't feel like arguing about the matter, they were welcome to disagree but there was no point. What were any of them really going to do about it? It was unfortunate that she was morally responsible for Ira the moment she had decided to save her.

"Anyway, let's go Ira."

Turning on her heel, she headed towards the centre with him still over her shoulder. When everything started to get heated in the centre, Yugiri stood and remained keenly aware and focused on the environment. How strange, did the Vandenreich want to go first? It was their operation here after all, wasn't it?

Alastair nodded along in agreement with both Yaksha and Jackson, they made fair enough points and so into the centre of Jefferson they would head. He had already begun getting the Delta 2 survivors ready to move out when Yugiri made her grand reveal, with Ira hanging over her shoulder. He had opened his mouth, ready to ask for her to either return Ira or at least explain herself, but the woman was already marching away. At least the child was safe, probably safer than he would have been if the shinigami hadn't picked him up, and that alone was small comfort as they marched onwards.

He had no idea what to expect at their destination, but an empty area was certainly not it. It was another trap or trick, no doubt in a similar vein to their previous encounters. Whatever was doing this wanted to further divide them, keep whittling them down, just to bring them here. He felt the Gargantas appear almost before they did, his hands already beginning the motions to resummon Falke, and, with those demonic statues at their back, there was scarcely room to run and hide.

"Call back the scouts, Jackson. It is not going to take long for those hollows to turn on us, given the rate that they are coming, so I think we should attack whilst we have the advantage and try to thin the horde."

This was an altogether uninviting battlefield for the Quincy, bereft of the terrain that had proved so invaluable in keeping them alive earlier. The best chance they had was to maintain a formation and prevent the hollows from getting on top of them for as long as possible. He paused to wonder if he should give Yaksha or the shinigami orders, the latter seemed totally futile but the former might still abide.

"Yaksha, it might be time to start getting more creative. This could turn from bad to worse at any moment."

His piece said, he took aim into the heart of the throng of Hollows and focused upon his first Heilig Pfiel. Should the command come to engage then he would release a flash fire shot, hoping perhaps a Blitzfeuer would disorientate his foes as it burnt so brightly.

Yaksha was actually left speechless for the first time since arriving here, as the hollows appeared from nowhere, beginning to feed on one another in a way that brought to mind pirahnas converging on their prey. There was no obvious rhyme or reason to it, no particular explanation for why they'd be doing this. Why even dump them -here- instead of outside, or near the base of operations that had been set by the Vandenreich? They could have easily struck while the lion's share of competent agents were otherwise occupied, and instead they were taunting and harrassing the people who sought to salvage from the remnants of the city. That implied that their objective here was nowhere near as clear as it seemed at first.

Yaksha's masked head tilted to the side, the writhing nests of snakes around his shoulders, continuing to move and wriggle as he contemplated the purpose behind all of this, and the nature of their enemy. They were spawning demons that resembled hollows in horrifying ways, trying to skirt the line between races, and they were now using the mindless masses as their playthings for some horrid experiment, something ill-defined and probably terrifying as it was disgusting to the quincies. That meant only one thing to Yaksha. He clutched both hands, speaking with the first genuine sense of heat or emotion for the first time since arriving.

"Have you no fucking idea how much you've gone and complicated things? My limits are being tested, moment by moment, and you are beginning to grow more and more irksome with every passing second. Your ambitions have overlapped with mine, and I can only say one thing about this."

He stepped forward, only vaguely hearing the commentary of the quincy "commander" behind him. It was something he would've seen fit to comment on at any other time or place, but right now all he could do was watch his kind tear each other limb from limb in this elaborate bottle, surrounded by demons, and lift his hands to the sky. There was a quiet that exuded from him, a palpable and expectant sound, as the writhing snakes comprising his hair began to lash out, piercing the arms, the torsos, the collarbones of every hollow they could reach, beginning to resemble an enormous, elaborate, and -very- angry tree, its branches probing outwards to pierce intruders.

And when he spoke, it was in a resonant, white-hot voice that reached into the hindbran and yanked at it. There was no ominous echo, no sense of multiple voices overlayed upon one another. There was simply a sound that made the heart skip a beat, and caused existential shame to wash out in a wave from him. It was so potent, he couldn't even guarantee it wouldn't wash back, to affect his comrades somewhat. But even so, it was a message worth saying, at this time, in this place.

"Thou Shalt Not Worship False Idols."