[X] Find them immediately.
There were so many Grimm.
When had they all gathered? The crowd Ilia had seen fighting Kettler was big, but this was ab obscene amount of Grimm. She couldn't even call it a swarm. It was more a flood of blackness, forcing themselves through the trees and up the mountain, towards the other side.
The gunfire and explosions were deafening. This close up, Ilia could get a real look at the skyline, an it wasn't much better than the sky.
There were dozens of airships, from the big carriers that were bombarding the ground, to smaller one-man skirmishers that were manoeuvring around in mid-air combat. The sky was as thick of Grimm as the ground, to the point where Ilia couldn't get a good look at the flying beasts roaring and clawing at the airships around them. As she watched, large swathes of blackness disappeared from the sky as the Grimm dissolved from the killing blows, and as the Grimm won their own victories, twisted metal started falling from the sky.
Standing at the top of the tree, Ilia waited a moment, for the Grimm underneath to rush forward to the battle. There were so many here, tat after a few moments, she closed her eyes and plotted a course.
Pulling out her whip, Ilia lashed it out, allowing the weapon to extend and wrap around a tree branch. Then, as she retracted it, she jumped, using the mechanised pull to get her to the next tree along quickly enough. As she landed, the pull unwrapped her weapon as it returned to its passive state. Looking down, Ilia confirmed that nothing beneath her had seen her move.
There was a gunshot, and Ilia looked around. Over in the distance, hidden behind thick trees, was what looked like a cave, with a glint of white showing on the other side. Some of the white moved, and gunshots continued to ring out. The Grimm gathered paused, turning towards what Ilia was assuming where Atlas robots, and charged.
Good. An opportunity. Jumping to the next tree along, Ilia made sure to stay in the treetops as she approached the battle and the cave. Standing on top of a tree, she noticed that she was right in her assumption. Robots. Kicking off the tree and leaping behind them, Ilia hit the ground and rolled. Dust and dirt flew upwards with that, and one of the robots turned around.
The first of the Grimm punished it for its lapse, as some sort of tentacle shot out from the trees to grab it, throwing it upwards. The robot next to it turned its arm into some kind of plasma cutter and stabbed into the black tentacle, which retracted in pain, but was stuck in it as a result. The remaining robots kept their rifles out, and fired rapidly.
She'd seen enough. Leaving the robots behind, Ilia ran. Her footsteps echoed, but the robots had learnt already that turning around meant death, and had no intention of repeating that mistake if there was nothing behind them killing them.
Atlas robots had come out of the cave, which meant that, logically speaking, there had to be another exit where Ilia would be able to get closer to the person she was looking for, who was on a Schnee airship.
Sure enough, it only took her a moment to see the light at the other side. As she saw it, Ilia hesitated.
What was she going to see on the other side? Even from here, she could hear screaming and gunshots and roars. It was a battle, and one on a grander scale than anything she'd ever seen before. Was she ready for-
Damn it. She was dreading this. But she couldn't let that dread, that fear, control her. This was something that had to be done.
Looking forward, Ilia crept towards the sunlight. It only took a moment, before she found herself overlooking the battle.
She'd never seen so much movement in her life. Patches of colour and dying darkness was all there was as far as the eye could see, and as she watched, so much of it that there was too much to process. There were fires being thrown and embraced, flashes of lightning and light, pillars of ice and earth and so much more dancing around the battlefield.
The sky above the battlefield was no better, with Grimm clawing at airships and airships dogfighting Grimm. Feathers and rocks rained down from above, as the flying Grimm supported their ground brethren. But sitting in the centre of the sky was a series of airships, marked with the Schnee logo, with a space around them. Their guns fired faster, fired stronger, killing Grimm as they approached. Some form of energy field seemed to surround it, Ilia noted, as a Nevermore flew too quickly and was shocked out of the sky.
The person she was looking for was with the Schnee guests, Ilia mused, with a back corner of her mind that wasn't overwhelmed. Those were Schnee airships. She needed to get up there, somehow.
She needed to get onto the airship, somehow.
...Think, Ilia. She needed to focus. There was too much going on here, she wasn't getting anything from it. She needed to get her goals in order. Closing her eyes and making sure she was still impossible to see, Ilia calmed her breathing for a moment.
She could do this.
Airships. Everyone came on an airship, and even if they could just jump off, there had to be a plan for getting people back on. Ilia could see the works of Semblances going at it, so not everything here was an Atlas robot, and if there were Hunters on the ground, then that meant that there were people who could be losing their Aura or getting injured.
There had to be a plan for them getting to safety, right?
So, there had to be airships landing on the ground here and there. Most likely, most of them would be where things were safest, the furthest point back from the battle possible, where there was more humans and robots than Grimm. But Ilia doubted that they would just abandon any Hunter who went into the Grimm hordes. Even if they'd leave in groups, Ilia doubted that they'd leave without an exit plan in case they needed to be evacuated.
So there had to be some plan to extract people in the middle of the swarm. So Ilia just needed to find a group of people who would need to call in help, or get through the entire battle, getting to whatever defensible position had been set up past the warring Grimm, Hunters and automated soldiers...
It'd be easier to just make sure a group ended up hurt enough to need an evacuation, Ilia decided.
Behind her, deep in the cave, she heard movement. Taking a wild guess as to what that meant, Ilia started moving again, before the Grimm on the other side came through.
Dashing forward, Ilia observed the Grimm around her, and tried to figure out what the best way of traversing the area would be.
There was a Goliath nearby, lazily standing around as the Grimm around it charged at something Ilia couldn't see, which looked like it was getting ready to act. Pulling out her weapon again, Ilia let it extend, stabbing it downward as she jumped to vault off the ground. It was hard to keep the entire length invisible, but she didn't have any choice but to try. She couldn't afford to fail.
She wasn't wearing her White Fang mask, but that would only help in the short term. She couldn't afford to let people remember her, and the lack of the mask was only really good for if she got spotted while in the chaos and nobody could identify her for long.
Falling in a downward arc again, Illya whipped her weapon upwards, towards the Goliath. It wrapped around the Grimm's leg, and with a press of a button, Ilia was being pulled towards the hulking monstrosity.
Just as she was getting into reach, the Grimm shook its leg at an angle that should have been impossible for a creature of its mass, throwing off Ilia's whip. Quickly, she fired into another nearby Grimm, and her weapon clanged off the armour of some kind of crab monster that Ilia didn't recognise. She didn't have time, she realised, as she slammed into the ground. Her weapon retracted, and there was a sudden thundering sound as the earth shook.
Ilia looked up, to see the Goliath charging right at her.
Rolling to the side, Ilia ran into another Grimm, and it took her a moment to recognise the rare breed.
Xuanwu.
The black tortoise creature continued on it's path slowly, but an opening in it's shell opened up, like a closed eye opening, and Ilia barely raised her weapon in time to deflect the white snake head that came shooting out. The snake shot upwards, and Ilia quickly slammed her weapon into the ground to send herself upwards, lunging into the air over the Xuanwu as the Goliath continued it's charged. The elephant Grimm smashed down into the other Grimm it charged through, crushing the white armoured snake into past alongside several other Grimm that Ilia didn't get a good look at.
After a moment, the tortoise got back to it's feet, and continued walking. As the Goliath charged, there was a scream.
Ilia landed, her weapon reducing back to it's smallest size, and after a moment of looking around, she realised that she was surrounded by more Grimm.
Her Semblance had failed her, at some point, and they were all looking at her. Refusing to lose the initiative, Ilia pressed a button on her whip, and it cackled with electricity as she spun it around.
A hairless hound-Grimm of some sort jumped at Ilia, and she brought the weapon across and slashed through its open mouth, cutting it enough for the lightning Dust in her weapon to fry it, before throwing it back into the crowd. A sound behind Ilia gave her the cue to turn around and raise her arm to defend against a downward slash from some kind of ancient Beowulf, with several weapons stuck into its skin, and Ilia slid back from the force of the blow.
A burly hand grabbed at Ilia's arm, and the girl turned back to see a gorilla Grimm crushing her arm and draining her Aura, so she spun upwards and kicked it in the face.
It stumbled back a step, and let go of her arm. But Ilia didn't even have time to enjoy her victory, before the head of the gorilla exploded outwards, and a dozen snakes lashed out and bound her leg.
Fangs pierced into her thigh, and Ilia cried out. Even with her aura protecting her, she could feel the pain of those dozens of bites and the scaley presence wrapping around her body. Her whip lashed out to cut at the snakes, but the gorilla arms rose to grab the whip from her, cutting chunks out of the hands but failing to get to the snakes.
Hanging upside down with her leg in the Grimm's snare, Ilia lashed out with her free hand, grabbing towards the ancient Beowulf that had knocked her back and pulling at a sickle in it's leg. It refused to budge, and the Beowulf slashed down at her arm as she tried to pull free.
Bullets echoed out, and the ancient Beowulf turned around, losing interest in Ilia as something else shot at it. The snakes holding her leg slammed her into the ground, and in the moment of distraction where Ilia's breath had been knocked from her lungs, the gorilla arms let go of her weapon and reached for her neck.
There was a voice screaming from nearby, and Ilia didn't pay it much mind, as she focused enough to reach for her weapon again, slamming it into the arm coming for her neck. The hand sizzled and cackled with energy, and the Grimm recoiled, shaking it's arm as Ilia pulled her weapon free. A cloud of bullets suddenly shot outwards, colliding with the gorilla thing an ripping through it. The snakes screamed, as they suddenly let go of Ilia's leg, and turned towards the source of the bullets, even as its body began to disintegrate.
A woman appeared in a burst of movement, headbutting the snakes as she charged forward, forcing the gorilla body down.
"Fuck you!" She spat, her face covered in blood and her skin deathly pale. "You're not getting another one!"
She reached for her side, and pulled out some kind of sword, which she impaled into the last remnants of the gorilla body before pulling out her guns again and firing around her. Getting to her feet, Ilia whipped out her weapon, and slashed outwards, trying to kill a few of the weaker Grimm, or at least soften them up.
There was a growl, and the ancient Beowulf stalked forward again. Ilia stabbed at it, her weapon barely penetrating its flesh, and the bullets that shot into it bouncing off of it like it was nothing. Hounding forward, the ancient Grimm ripped the gun out of the other woman's hands, before casually bringing up a claw and removing her arm.
The bloody woman screamed, before stifling it with a snarl and kicking the Grimm in the face. The ancient Beowulf bit into flesh, and Ilia dashed forward, stabbing into a gap in it's fangs to stab it in the mouth. Electrifying her weapon again, Ilia winced as the woman cried out from the shock, and paled when the Beowulf didn't so much as wince.
Bursting forward and ignoring the pain in her leg, the old lady grabbed an arrow stabbed into the Beowulf's side, and spinning around in a way that cracked bones, ripped it out.
As the spin completed, the old lady stabbed it into the Beowulf's eye. It screeched, letting go of her leg, but then it moved in earnest, and was on her before Ilia could even react.
As it ravaged her body, Ilia curled back, reducing how much area her body covered as she used her Semblance again. All the other Grimm around her seemed like they had backed off while the ancient Beowulf was screaming in rage, and the Beowulf itself was too bust tearing a corpse to parts to pay any attention to where Ilia was.
As the Beowulf finished ravaging its victim, it looked up, and around. Ilia held her breath as it's ear twitched, and as the ancient monstrosity looked around, it casually reached for the corpses blood at its feet.
Flicking a paw upwards, the Beowulf splattered blood into the area in front of it. Then it turned, and repeated the process.
It was looking for her, Ilia realised. It was splattering blood to look for a discrepancy in how it fell. As she realised this, Ilia aimed her weapon into the ground, and got ready to jump.
Just as the ancient Beowulf turned to her, and as Ilia was moving her finger over the button to send her flying, a sound echoed that gave them both pause.
It didn't really make sense as to why, Ilia thought to herself. After all, it was only a roar. She'd heard roars before. She had dealt with it before.
So why was this one filling her with such terror?
It was just a roar just a roar just a roar just a roar just a roar just a-
The beowulf in front of her roared as well, completely forgetting Ilia even existed as it looked up, towards the source of the roar. Turning herself, Ilia looked up.
The Schnee airship had flown higher, Ilia noted. And a hole had opened in the bottom of it, from which a small black shape fell out of for a moment. Great black wings opened after a moment, and another roar echoed from the world, as it suddenly smashed into the ground, fire bursting forth from it. Dozens of charred Grimm corpses fell from the sky in that moment, and all around Ilia, Grimm were roaring and charging, completely focused on the thing in flight.
Something with too many legs slammed into Ilia in its charge, and the girl leaped onto its back, before getting ready to stab once it moved for the counter attack. But instead, the Grimm completely ignored her existence, moving for the flying thing instead.
In what seemed like no time at all, Ilia could feel the heat as the Grimm were immolated by the thing in flight, which was now in sight enough to describe it. Close enough to see the dark purple wings, the red claws and horns, and the golden circlets around the appendages of the black-scaled monster.
Ilia recognised it. Of course she recognised it. Every child would recognise it. It was something every child saw in storybooks being brought up. But, it should be impossible. It was a myth. It shouldn't be real.
Was this what Blake had been hiding, the cause of the massacre? That the Schnee had something like this?
A Dragon?
The beast flew past Ilia, burning with flames so bright that she had to look away, as it approached the mountain she had been in moments before. Then it flew upwards, wings opened. The battlefield was touched by an almost melodic presence, and suddenly, a grand voice spoke.
"Is this the best showing that you Grimm lot can give me, then?" Asked a voice, sounding as if it was originating from inside Ilia's soul. "Not impressed. Get out from under your rock and fight me!"
The scream echoed inside Ilia's head for a moment, before another roar echoed from within the earth. The ground shook, cracking and throwing Ilia from Grimmback to the ground hard enough that her Aura strained from the impact. Looking up, Ilia tried to identify the cause.
The mountain she had been on not that long ago was crumbling, a landslide buffeting down all around it. Trees planted in it were uprooted and thrown away, parts were collapsing and disappearing, and-
The mountain exploded outwards, and Ilia leaped around to duck under a nearby Grimm, a giant spider of some sort. It's body suddenly slammed down, crushing Ilia, but as it struggled to stand in the aftermath, she was able to roll out from under it, before getting to her feet and looking towards-
The earth shook again, forcing Ilia back down as she looked up towards where the mountain had been.
Eight great snake-like tendrils were shaking around from the mountain, throwing aside stone and rock as if it were paper. Ilia had mused earlier about how she'd never seen so many Grimm in an area before. Now, she thought, she was looking at the biggest Grimm she had ever seen. Just a moment ago, she'd seen a Goliath, and each of these heads dwarfed one of those, let alone all eight.
One of them suddenly whipped through the air at impossible speed, obliterating dozens of flying Grimm and airships. The target, however, had been the dragon in flight, which had already disappeared by the time it swept.
Another two tendrils swept by, forcing the black dragon to dodge between them, and the third tentacle slammed up to cover that gap, giving the dragon no time to dodge.
So instead it surged forward, slamming into the attacking Grimm with an impact which buffeted the wind. Both dragon and limb were pushed back by the force, the tendril slamming into the ground nearby Ilia and turning stone to dust, before throwing it upwards with enough force to blind her to everything else. The shaking earth pushed Ilia to the ground again.
Quickly getting to her feet, Ilia turned away from the mountain, and ran.
That thing...
Was that what the Schnee woman was here to kill? Something that big? It was a mountain, and moved fast enough that Ilia could barely follow its movements. It was the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a storybook, out of legend, not reality.
Pushing her weapon forward, Ilia leaped upwards as she stabbed downwards, vaulting herself upwards and onwards. Faster movement.
It was the sort of thing out of a legend. But...
There was a great roar from near the Schnee airships, that struck fear into Ilia even if she couldn't see the course.
...So was the dragon.
There was a great gust of wind, and with Ilia in mid air, that sudden gale force wind sent her flying. Several seconds passed, as Ilia vaguely realised she still had her weapon in hand, and retracted it. As the weapon reached its smallest size, Ilia pushed the whip-lance-gun down and extended it again, scraping it across the ground to slow her momentum.
As she looked back out of curiosity, the eight moving parts of the Grimm beast were circling around itself. Airships were firing, the explosions big enough to consume a Goliath but barely denting this monstrosity...
The eight parts suddenly shot out, stretching over Ilia's head and that of most of the battlefield, all eight of them dancing around to strike at different angles. Their path, Ilia couldn't trace, as she slammed into the ground at last. She cried out in pain as her Aura cracked, leaving her at breaking point, but the Grimm around her were still distracted, focused on the battle. Looking up, Ilia saw the Grimm's eight heads slam into the Schnee airship-
"No."
The soft word was somehow audible even at this distant, and a moment later, a great white shield formed. A barrier, massive in scope, stood between the airship and the eight attackers, which were all repelled and sent off into random directions. They coiled and tried again, circling the shield to get around it, but as they approached, a green light started to glow.
"Behold the Fourth Song!" A voice declared, somehow audible over everything. "Impenetrable Shield of Antiquity!"
And then the bottom of the airship was engulfed in green, and the sky screamed with the echo of the melodic screech. Fear plunged into Ilia's heart again, as the glow shifted, lashing out onto the eight limbs surrounding the airship.
"The rare power granted to our own..."
The Grimm around the airship, as well as other airships, were being thrown away by the shockwaves of the green light. Airships all across the sky were landing, and Grimm that insisted on staying in the air were dying en mass.
"The stout citadel that protects us... "
The light wasn't just a light, Ilia realised. It was glowing in tune with the melody. The scream was growing stronger as it grew brighter. Like a second sun in the sky, shining down on the battlefield, blinding everything else. There was only the light and the song.
"Cast your blighted sins upon these very skies!"
There was a second screech, an inhuman, pained scream, as the eight limbs had the green energy flowing through them, surrounding them like chains, like prisons. The limbs flailed around, restrained by the green energy, but still enough to smash into the ground, shaking the Earth and bowling Ilia over again. The deafening screech, the shaking earth, the blinding light, she couldn't process it all. The world was vanishing underneath the waves of all the stimulation, throwing her around and knocking her around and-
"I, Decadus, summon thee in my name..."
Ilia closed her eyes, as the shaking of the earth stopped, and stumbled to her feet. All she could hear was the song. All that there was, was the song.
"Armaros-"
The melodic screech reached a peak in its crescendo, the sounds climax echoing out as the green light began to grow harder, more real. The eight limbs were paralysed, unmoving, as the green light shot out through them, closer and closer to the mountain, until eventually, they were there.
"-Uphold!"
And then, in a blinding explosion of light, there it was. Some kind of citadel, fortress, sat where the mountain once had, crushing the beast within and damaging the eight limbs flailing around. They all tried to move, straining, but the chains that connected them to the fortress held too strong, and held it taunt.
There was another great roar, and the dragon hovering near the Schnee airships finally moved into action. It came down at the closest limb, diving into it, and in a matter of moments burst out of it again on the other side of the limb, near the mountain. The tendril which it had flown through strained, and began to vanish, as the dragon flew towards the base of the fortress perched on the mountain and vanished out of sight.
The flailing of the seven remaining limbs intensified, and even though they weren't moving, the one closest to Ilia was exerting enough force that it was producing wind by itself, flailing in it's bonds. The girl was forced back to the ground, as she groaned.
Then, all at once, all the tendrils froze, and began to evaporate. Slowly. Surely. More and more was vanishing, slowly and-
The chains around the eight limbs tightened, and the Grimm snapped into pieces, disappearing in an instant.
...What?
Had that...
Had that just happened?
It didn't feel real. It was...
Absurd, somehow.
From underneath the fortress where once sat a mountain, the dragon burst out of the ground, roaring again as it charged into the swarms of Grimm. Black chunks of monster were cast aside in it's wake, and apart from the sound of it tearing into Grimm so fast that it had already gotten close to the skies above Ilia, there was silence.
Was Ilia not the only person who couldn't believe it?
Was...
What was that? What kind of power was that? Who held it? Why? How?
She didn't understand.
...Did she have to understand? Her mission didn't need her to.
Looking over, Ilia saw, nearby, an airship on the ground. Forced to land during what had just happened. If she wanted, she could move for it. Turn invisible again, approach, hide on it. Wait for it to get to a bigger airship, hopefully the Schnee one. Or even just approach and pose as an Atlas Hunter who's squad didn't make it, who needed medical aid. The Schnee ship was the closest, so she'd be taken there if she wanted to risk being found by the person who had-
Who'd...
The one who had done that.
Looking over at all the chains in the area, Ilia observe them stab into the ground and out again repeatedly, stabbing through dozens of nearby Grimm as if they were nothing.
...Could she do it? If this is what the Schnee had on their side, could Ilia really fight that?
[X] ...No, she couldn't. She couldn't do this. She couldn't watch this and still be able to fight.
[X] ...She had to. Could had nothing to do with it. Too many people were relying on her to do it.
-[X] Be invisible on the airship.
-[X] Pose as an injured Atlesian.