To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
The fireball illuminates the street and the shot is enough tear apart concrete and upend cars. Akane raises her forearms to shield herself as she's blown backwards. You, behind your cannon, can only force yourself to stay upright under the sudden pressure of the blast. The building in front of you explodes, the top half flying upwards as the shot careens through a block, sending shards of glass and twisted metal spraying into the sky with each building it screams through.
Except, you missed. You look upwards, into a corona of spraying debris and material and shards and mess. You see Sora, wings splayed outwards, sword in her hands. Her hair is singed. Her face is scorched. Her eyes are red with hate and blood still drips from the wound you gave her not two minutes ago.
And yet with the backdrop of the fireball and the spray of carnage she raises her blade up to meet you. Your eyes widen in fear, but you quickly pull a rifle out to block her blow.
Her sword slams into your gun. The force is enough to cause the ground to shatter under your heel. Your gun glows yellow, before turning a slight shade of purple.
She narrows her eyes. "What is...you shouldn't be able to pull attacks like that so quickly."
"You're correct. I shouldn't." You twist your gun sideways. Her sword slides across the barrel of your gun before slamming into the dirt. You raise it to her head.
You fire, but she's already grabbed the barrel with her hand and forced it away. The shot rips through her palm and she plunges the sword into your breastplate. Your armor stops the worst of the blow from getting through as you twist your gun and try to fire again.
This time she pulls the gun out of your hands and forces the sword through your chest even further. It's burning, literally. You can feel your bones cracking under heat, your useless heart beginning to boil. Flame licks the back of your throat in ways that shouldn't be possible.
And yet you're not done. You're not done yet.
You grab her wrist and twist your body to the side. The surprising move rips her sword from her hand as you spin on your heel, as boiling blood sprays out of your mouth and steam rises from your lips.
Sora's eyes go wide as she realizes her weapon's been torn from her hand. She glances at the sword still in your chest, before she notices, to her horror, that she has no weapon to defend herself.
Let alone from the still-steaming freight train that barrels through the smoke with a mach two haymaker. Her wings flare up at the last second, but even then she can't block all of the force as Akane punches Sora hard enough to send her screaming through the wall and across the bay.
You grip the sword in your chest and pull it out. By god you feel it. Even without grief, you're still not invincible. You stare back in the sky, back at Rin who clearly can't ignore you as she calls for more protection, as she begins to descend.
You glance at Akane. "I...I need some...lift."
"No you fucking don't."
"Yes. I do." You glance back to the sky. "I have...a personal grudge to attend to."
[=]
[=]
Your name is Sayaka, and the mountains have turned to chaos. You found the sniper and quickly disabled her with a quick two slashes of your sword, but as you were gone, there was a deluge of attackers from the tunnel. What was initially a clash has turned into a catastrophe as a number of magi crowd on your defenders.
You can see a splash of magic here, a gunshot there, a bright glow of a magic torch and the twirling of a scythe.
You crash down into the melee. At the end of the tunnel you can hear concrete collapsing and structures groaning; the artillery must be pounding the back end of the mountain.
You raise your saber on instinct, and instinct proves reliable. A blade gets caught against yours, before you slide it off and slam your shield into a magi's face. 'Kyouko! Do you still have strikers? We could use them!'
'Most of them are good to go!' She shouts back. 'I split two of us off to deal with Yuri!'
'You-fucking hell, Kyouko!' You muse that you'd probably have done the same thing as you spin the blade over your head. It slashes another magi across the face, before Toji's umbrella knocks her flat on her back. 'Alright get the rest over here now. We're pinned down!'
'On it! ETA two minutes!'
The scythe cuts through the shadows and you raise your shield on instinct. The weapon pierces through your defense, metal parts as you struggle to keep your footing. A gaunt, elongated face and thin white hair wisps around the edges of your vision, as one of Rin's inner circle creeps over it.
"You were the one who killed Emiko, did you not?" Her fingers slowly wrap around the edge of your shield, a thin layer of shadow snapping apart like latex as her scythe's blade slowly, painfully cut through your shield.
You grunt. "It was self defense."
Her face falls. "Ah...I see." She breathes in through her nose, eerily calm despite the bloodshed surrounding the both of you. You quickly glance to the side to see one of your own getting speared through the chest, and another having his arm sliced clean off his body. You hear the telltale sound of glass shattering. You don't know who died but you know that this battle is starting to take casualties. "I shouldn't be surprised. She wanted to fall in battle."
"You need better taste in women."
You twist your body. The shield slips off of your hand as you plunge the hilt of your sword into the base of your shield. It transforms into a single massive blade, your soul gem providing bright, blue light as you spin an oversized sword over your head.
Another soul gem is shattered. You need to finish this fight off; someone needs to kill Rin as soon as possible. The magi in front of you extends the blade of her scythe to cover her hand as she deflects your blow.
The tip of your greatsword rips into asphalt, cutting an entire section of the road and upending the dirt underneath. Several of the magi to your left lose their footing immediately.
Another gem shatters.
The magi in front of you doesn't say anything as she presses the attack. She comes down with an overhead swing. The blade hooks around your greatsword, and she yanks in an attempt to pull it out of your hands. Your grip is tight; she doesn't manage to pull the sword so much as she manages to pull you.
You, with your thick, stupid skull.
You headbutt her with enough force to flip a car. She tumbles backwards, end-over-end as she twirls her scythe.
You charge forward. The ground shudders as your greatsword grinds into earth, as a magi moves to intercept and is knocked aside by a pauldron directly to their jaw. Several of the Glow's magi try to interrupt your charge, only for their attacks to glance off of your armor and scratch your face. One even cleaves out an eye.
Another soul gem shatters. You don't have much time.
Your vision is halved for all of a second, but you've fought enough magi to know exactly what Masaki is about to do. She raises her scythe to block your swing.
You pull the trigger mid-slash. The enormous greatsword segments itself, heavy blade unleashing into a massive web of chains and heavy, razor-sharp metal. Her eyes widen as the blade wraps around her scythe, as the blue glow of your soul gem shines and prevents her from escaping, as the weapon continues and twists around her left arm. Momentum wraps it around her hand several times before you yank downwards.
Her own armor prevents you from cleaving it apart, but that doesn't stop the weight and force from bending her entire arm backwards, fracturing it in three places and ripping open holes in the metal. She gasps in shock and pain, her left hand still gripping the base of her scythe as she tries to cut your face open.
Another soul gem shatters. You don't know who's losing people, but it doesn't matter. You don't want to lose anyone.
You let the scythe hit, careful to make it avoid the majority of your skull. She slices your nose and mouth off in one slick motion before her scythe catches against your armor. She pulls, tearing your right arm off. She slashes, punching deep into your thigh before pulling forward and ripping away a leg.
Except your face fixes itself. Another arm, just has heavily-armored as the old one, regenerates. Your leg slams into the earth. And your sword, great and heavy, links back into a single massive slab of magical metal as your hands grip into her face, two fingers in her eyes, thumb in the roof of her mouth.
She shrieks in agony and terror, muffled and distorted by your grip, as you sweep with one of your legs and slam her head into the asphalt. You grit your teeth before quickly jamming a knifehand into her neck.
"You stay down," you hiss before turning back.
Kyouko's team can't get here quick enough.
[=]
[=]
Your name is Minako and the info team is in chaos. Your girlfriend is knocked sideways by a piece of a chariot. Yuki is holding his own as one of Rin's private entourage slams into the dirt, two hands on his throat as he is plunged directly through the concrete at the base of the Seed.
You, however, keep your eye on the sky. You can still see Rin circling the seed, now with her hands pressed against a sucking chest wound. There's so much blood; you can see it from all the way down here. It keeps you distracted enough not to notice the chariot coming around to face you until the split second before it hits.
Bat meets chariot as your instincts and muscle memory act before you can even comprehend how badly you're going to be knocked aside. Your boots grind across the ground, your teeth chattering and your hood flapping in the wind as you twist your shoulders. Momentum carries the oversized bullet to the side as you keep your eyes locked ahead.
The rider stands in front of you, one hand still outstretched as the magi around you engage in their own little lopsided battles. She stares you down, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"So you're the kid, huh. The one Rin's been worried about. Didn't think she'd actually be a teenager."
"They. And yeah. Younger than you thought," you spit, before you charge.
She immediately presses a grief seed against her gem and throws the chariot towards you. You counter by whipping your bat around your head. Your purple light gleams before turning a searing white. A doll's head stretches out of the bat, followed by five other heads and a myriad of arms and legs and linen. She circles around, keeping track of the mass of doll chasing her before you segment your bat.
Barbed wire scratches the ground and blades grind into concrete as you let go of one weapon and pull out another. A wheel slams into your bat before you stretch your right hand out, make yet another bat, then slam it into her stomach.
And then you make another bat. And another. And another.
Her eyes widen as she realizes how many weapons you're pulling out; a comical mass of bats come spewing out as the free doll-bat crawls around the area, shrieking as the Rider immediately pastes it into oblivion with a single, well-placed chariot shot. It explodes into shards, shattering into porcelain and linen and cloth even as you bombard your opponent with bats.
She jumps over the mass of metal, teeth grit, eyes wide as she looks to your soul gem. "You're not getting...oh no wonder she's interested in you."
Rather than answer you whip another bat out, but instead of just throwing it, you decide to extend it. The head of the bat bounces across the ground, sliding around as it stretches well over a hundred meters.
And then it segments.
You whip it forwards, several kilometers' worth of metal and wire and blades grinding across the ground. The head of the bat scrapes across buildings, ripping through lamp poles and contorting into the sky.
The Rider's chariot slams into the midsection of your bat, and suddenly it wraps right back around towards the base of the Seed. The bat continues to spin wildly, momentum carrying it around as barbed wire crosses the entire area.
Overhead, your girlfriend rapid-fires shots as shells rain across the ground. She's overwhelming a veteran magi, and you can tell because Rin is actually starting to look shifty. This isn't going according to plan for anyone.
[] Take out the Rider. [DIFFICULTY 2] (You can overwhelm her, but she's not a chump.)
[] Go for Rin. [DIFFICULTY 3] (She's still not an easy target)
[] Assist your girlfriend. [DIFFICULTY 2] (You're leaving the Rider to someone else.)
All right, the Rider is a problem and I don't believe we can assist anyone while she's in our face, much less go for Rin. So I think we need to focus on the enemy in from of us and hope we can overwhelm her.
You have an opportunity, and you take it. Your boot grinds across dirt before you pull on your bat. Momentum swings you ahead, over pavement, over brick and dirt and grass and directly into the Rider. Your forehead meets hers in a thunderous crash and the shattering of concrete and glass, carrying you forward as the ground teeters and shatters, pushing you both through the school building.
She tumbles through a classroom, into the principal's office, and through the gym. Your bat latches onto the edge of the new hole in the wall as your feet hit the ground. You let go of your bat, instantly letting it dissolve before you whip out a new one that's easily the size of your torso and twice your weight.
You lift the thing with effort before you twist and spikes burst from the end.
And yet, just as you take a step forward, she preempts your strike by spamming a series of car-sized chariots directly at you. You see her throwing aside spent grief seeds like cartridges as chariot after chariot after chariot is sent your way, as the school building is blown to pieces.
You're thrown through a primary classroom, the one where you grew up and met your first crush. You regain your footing as you're tossed through the cafeteria where you had your food every day for the past seven years. Your feet slam against an oven in the kitchen, an old thing that never worked and kept breaking every other time someone used it, as she charges through the line where you and your friends placed your orders.
She sends you upwards with another chariot strike. This time you block it handily with your bat, but momentum still carries you through the classroom where just a week ago you were learning about algebra and up onto the rooftop, where just a few short days ago you and Takane shared another kiss.
Your back slams into the rooftop fencing, the entire structure bending and grinding as the Rider raises herself up. She throws away another grief seed, panting as she raises a hand. "What are you doing? Spending me out? Getting me to waste my time?"
"Yeah." You pull yourself forward. The entire fence groans as it threatens to fall over. The old hole where one man almost died is torn open, the entire structure barely holding on. Overhead, Takane erupts, and the sky is full of explosions and ash. You raise your hand towards the Rider.
What you see is a field of flowers in full bloom. What you see is an emotionscape of broken bones and bodies. What you see is pain. What you see is a woman who latched onto the first thing she could find.
And she flinches. "You're trying to read my-"
"Ain't no 'try.' I just do. Sometimes against my will." You spit. "And I know why you're following her. It's 'cause she's the first person that didn't reject you. The first one in a long line of people that left you to rot that said 'yes,' right?"
"Oh, spare me." She raises a hand, breath still coming in harsh gasps. "I know what I've done. I've made my peace with it. So please. Lay down your arms..." She narrows her eyes. "Or I will-"
"We both know you can't win through attrition." You stand up straight. "I don't get grief. I don't collect it no more." You cough into your fist. "I'm a kid. But in the past few weeks I've had a lotta time to grow up and I know what you're up to."
"Do you?" she huffs. "Do you now?" She looks into the sky.
Your eyes follow.
The chariots she threw into the air haven't stopped. They didn't stop existing after passing you by. Why would they have? They hang in the air a silent threat from above as they slowly, agonizingly slowly, begin to turn. Tomo's team is still on their way. Your eyes widen as you raise your bat over your head.
She pulls her hand down.
You rush forwards.
Chariots begin to descend.
Your oversized bat swings.
Ten of the twenty-two chariots hit the ground with a thunderous explosion of dust and ash and smoke. Buildings are toppled. You see the fighting overhead stop as the info team begins to break off in an attempt to find what happened.
And in a split second, your bat connects with the Rider's soul gem and shatters it into pieces. At least you think it did. You closed your eyes before it could hit. But you can hear the shattering of glass, and the thump of a corpse on the ground, and the lack of impact of chariots on the ground.
Your vision's blurry when you open your eyes again. It's shaking; your hands are shaking. Your bat is shaking. Everything is shaking. At the edge of your vision you see blood. Lots of blood.
Your eyes trace over the trail before you freeze, then look away.
You took a life.
Your hand wraps around your stomach as the dread hits you.
You want to go home.
You feel sick.
[=]
[=]
Your name is Kyouko Miki-Sakura, and you are so, so fucking close to finding your quarry. Yuri has to be in here somewhere; you can feel it. You peel through the alleyways, over the ground and finally through the sewers. People are still walking these streets; they don't even seem to be aware there's a war going on as you shatter the peace with glowing brass armor and ten hands.
Finally, you roll on top of a bus, jump over a dumpster, and slide across the ground to the building where you know Rin was waiting just a few days ago. You stare at the entrance, wondering if you'll find a magi inside.
The building only has a few errant security guards, who all look at you with bewilderment and a little bit of shock.
And that shock turns into horror as you begin to dash forwards.
You rocket through the glass doors at speed, your mane of hair obscuring your movement as your spears crawl across the ground, the tips like spiderlegs. You take two of your hands and force open an elevator door.
From the ground floor, you can see that the shaft extends much, much further down than most skyscrapers usually do; probably another artifact of the fact that this city originally wanted an underground maintenance network.
And again, a perfect place to try and hide your magical dealings.
You drop down, Sukuyo right behind you as people shout something about 'You shouldn't be here!' and 'You're under arrest!' and 'What the fuck?!'
All of it is completely inconsequential bullshit that you handily ignore as you plummet into the underground, right to the lowermost level. Your spears rip into the walls of the shaft before you lower your shoulder and bash through the elevator doors.
You rip through it like it's tissue paper, because to you it might as well be. Your feet drag across tile that filled you with dread just a few short days ago. You scan the room, across broken-down pipe and ruined bars.
Yuri has to be here somewhere. But there's nobody even bothering to keep watch. Even in Rin's building, there were only a few scant security guards, and all of them were human. So if that's the case...
You shake your head. That would be absurd. Rin wouldn't waste a resource like that. You charge across the ground again with Sukuyo right at your heels. "T-there's nobody here."
"Yeah. I know." You glance back. "Something's not right."
"M-maybe she was m-moved?" Sukuyo coughs into her fist as she shakes her head. "That w-would be the best explanation."
"They didn't have time to move her and an entire security force. It was a skeleton crew keeping watch, and I think we lost 'em."
Up above, Haruko confirms your suspicions. 'They were kids. One was nineteen, the other was fifteen. They weren't expecting us to be here.'
You wrap around the corner. 'Do either of them know Yuri?'
There are several cells down here, a number of them made of iron and steel, but then there are some that have missing bars. Presumably there was a magi here, a magi whose job it was to make cages. You can tell because there is an outline among the dust and dirt of the ground, an empty shape where there was once material.
Haruko responds. 'Yes. She laughed.'
'She...excuse me?'
'I don't have a good feeling.'
Honestly, you don't either. Another darkened hallway stretches in front of you, but this time the rooms are nicely kept. You glance through each one. One has a number of DnD posters stretching across the walls, a guitar case, and a crucifix by a large king-sized bed. There's a TV, an XBOX, a minifridge...it's like a small apartment. The one next to it has a ten-gallon hat and a collection of revolvers on the wall alongside a queen-sized bed. The one next to that, with a door leading directly in, is relatively bare save for a large bookcase, a recliner, and a lamp.
You found the home of the Inner Circle; they all stayed down here. You walk past more rooms, past a large meeting room full of snacks and drinks and refrigerators, past a small kitchen, past a bookshelf and past a coffee room.
And then you find a final room, this time with a locked door. You press your hands against the knob.
It's normal, far as you can tell. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tentatively, you press the flat of your blade against the door. Still nothing out of the ordinary.
"Think this is it?"
Sukuyo raises a gun and presses it behind the doorknob. "One way to f-f-find out."
The shot rips the locking mechanism open with a bang before you shove the door open with your shoulder. Dust flies off the ground, the panels overhead shaking and shuddering as the ground ripples and the air turns cold.
This room is bare. The others had some kind of memorabilia, however scant it was. But this? This is...empty. Deathly empty. There is a bed. There is a nightstand with a timer. A tiny little phone charger and a phone that is still charging. But most striking is...
Well...
You found Yuri. Her gem is in pieces in her hand.
"Fucking...fuck." You squeeze your eyes shut. "Fuckin'..."
"W-we need to tell S-saya-"
"I know. I know." You clench your teeth. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
[CHOOSE ONE]
[] Leave immediately.
[] Look around the room. This can't be the only thing in here.
Welp, Minako's psyche just got put through a meat grinder.
It's the darndest thing. The word 'nostalgia' was coined from the greek words which mean 'homecoming' (nost(os)) and 'pain' (algia). We could say that Minako had a very nostalgic moment there. Just not in the way the word works now.
And just had to end it with an extra pile of trauma.
[X] Look around the room. This can't be the only thing in here.
You look through the room. The body isn't breathing; there's absolutely no motion, and you can smell the faint aroma of rot. She's dead. She's been dead for hours at this point, probably since both this side and the other had begun preparing. You look around. The phone's still charging; she put it in before she ended her own life, presumably.
"How considerate," you mutter. You pull the phone off the charger and simply scroll it open; it's not even locked. And it's mostly just full of notes; there's a contact list and a bunch of little texts, but no apps, no games, not even a calendar.
Just contacts, texts and notes.
There is only one text, and it's straight from Rin herself.
You want to throw the phone at the wall, and it takes all of your willpower not to just do that. Your fingers wrap around the edge of the phone, the screen flexing under your fingers, but you take a deep breath. You scroll down.
There's a note on how her powers work.
NO MORE THAN TWO A DAY. KEEP SPARE SEED. DISLOCATES ENTIRE LIMBS.
That...sounds like a problem. You scroll through. There's a list of magi summoned, well over fifty different names with the tags "ACTIVE", "DECEASED", or "DEFECTED". Among them are Mami Tomoe and, to your own surprise, Sora Moto.
"That's a name I haven't seen in years." You scroll through again. And there's one text, one of the oldest ones.
Don't delete this phone. If they find you it will already be too late.
"Rin is a cocky bitch," you mutter. You close your eyes and raise your head. 'Yuri's dead. Rin ordered her to kill herself.'
'Duly...what?! What is she trying to accomplish?!'
'I think she wanted to starve us of a resource.' You flip the phone. On the underside is a clip wallet and an ID, with a birthdate in 2013. 'She turned eighteen last month.'
There's a pause on the other end. And then you can hear Sayaka. 'I am going to end her.'
'Get in fucking line.' You turn away. "Alright. We're keeping this place intact; someone's gotta find this fucking atrocity. As for us?" You brandish your weapons all over again. "We're going back up."
"Roger."
[=]
[=]
Sayaka is not a commander, but she had heard of a concept called 'bad war'.
The concept of 'push of pike' was when two lines clashed with one another in pitched combat, grinding one another into dust and bodies until one side lost more than the other. There was no real winner in 'bad war', as when two masses of soldiers clashed, it was less a matter of strategy and more a matter of attrition.
Whoever had the most warm bodies lost the least.
And in this particular clash, Sayaka had lost six magi.
The Glow had lost eleven.
And the rest are deep in pain, writhing with different injuries and broken bones and shattered bodies. There are moans of pain among the living, and on Sayaka's side, despite relatively low numbers, there are still enough experienced magi to keep the remaining Glow from getting back up.
It worked. Sayaka forces a surrender, puts an end to the brutal war of attrition with a slash of her greatsword. She raises her hand up.
"I can heal my side with ease. You can't." She clenches her jaw. "Don't try it."
On the ground are the remains of unlucky magi. Broken bodies, shattered soul gems, craters, and bloodstains. She takes a long, deep breath as she wanders through.
One of the Glow's magi drops her sword. Another kneels down. A third seems to be shaking off Rin's control; she no longer looks determined. Instead, she looks terrified and confused, made worse by the hole in her chest from someone's errant gunshot. The sniper Sayaka had pulled down is sobbing openly into her hands, and the leaders, both Saskia and Masaki, are heavily injured.
The former glances over to the corpses left around, her eyes darting around the battlefield. She's sustained injuries from her clash with Sayaka, who had deliberately avoided healing her. Even as she winces in pain and cries out in fear with every glare that came from her.
Sayaka knows that it will haunt her dreams.
Masaki, however, is much more resigned. Her eyes are closed, her hands gone, her knees folded as she takes a long, deep breath. She hadn't gotten the death she wanted, and so she sits, waiting for the other end.
Sayaka raises her head. 'Info team?'
'We're still in shambles here!' one of them shouts. 'Tomo's team was intercepted by some kind of strike!'
Sayaka nods. 'We're done. The Glow's biggest attack force was stopped.' She looks up to see a number of Kyouko's strike force walking through the area, eyes peeled, weapons brandished. 'We'll be there as soon as possi...'
Something catches Sayaka's attention. Off in the distance are several blindingly bright flashes of yellow and rainbow. Each followed up just seconds later by a dull thud, every strike parting the clouds just a tiny amount.
Your name is Mami Tomoe. And you are battered, bloodied, and bruised. You took a sword to the chest. You have blood seeping out through your teeth. Your hair smells faintly like gunpowder and your eyes sting.
And yet you launch from Akane's hands with a bestial roar and rushing air. The wind catches your halfcape as you soar to reach a now-alone Rin, who raises her arms in immediate response. Her wings wrap around her body as an explosion rips through the air, as you fire shot after shot after shot.
You throw aside Tiro Finales as though you're using normal rifles, and each time you blow apart Rin's wings she blinks in shock before she pulls up a brand-new piece of wing. Each and every time, she doesn't even seem to flinch. Her soul gem glimmers in her crown, shining without a care as she keeps making more and more weapons.
"A tenacious one!" Rin blocks another gunshot as you fire over and over and over again. "I believed you a worthy summon, and you-"
"I am not interested in your thinly-veiled..." You swing a cannon with enough power to level a building. She blocks it with a wing.
"...condescending..." You fire, and the recoil rockets it out of your hand, but you keep the momentum in your spin, just enough to send another weapon flying directly into her. She blocks the second hit with her bare hand before pulling it out of your own. She sends a wing directly into your chest.
You block it with another Tiro Finale cannon. It pierces through, deep enough to scrape against your breastplate. You twist the cannon and aim the barrel towards her.
"...pseudo-praise!" The jammed cannon explodes. The force sends both you and Rin rocketing backwards as debris rains down onto the city and you clap your hands together. This time, a triple-barreled cannon erupts from your hands with a long magazine the size of a bus clacking into the top. You fire, the three barrels rocketing you backwards.
Rin attempts to deflect each shot, catching the bullets with her wings before she is quickly overwhelmed. With nobody to defend her, she is left repelling shots by herself, and by the time your magazine is spent, she is battered, bloodied, and tired.
And yet, her gem has not yet grown dark. Her gem has not grown dark.
Your eyes narrow, your teeth clench, and you raise a gun directly to her once more.
[] Aim at her gem. [DIFFICULTY 3] (This is a very small target, even with everything going on. But you may manage to hit something...)
[] Aim at her injured torso. [DIFFICULTY 2] (She's already heavily injured. This might disable her entirely.)
[] Aim at her arm. [DIFFICULTY 2] (Still not an easy target, but this is enough to severely hamper her ability to fight back.
