Episode 4.3 - Apocalypse Part 1/2

The floating platform is crewed by robots, this time. Those demon creatures Ko beat must have stolen the prior one. It's closing in on us very fast. The orbs of light spread all around us arn't far behind, materialising rapidly into a swarm of more metal menaces.

"Gridlocked Barrier," an utterly booming voice says; it's almost like that of a system announcement, but you can hear a hint of that familiar coarse impishness in there too.

"Custom Chaff Barrier."

"Perpetual Battery Online."

The lights vanish, and the robots appear. Ahead, the platform closes and then - Kaboom - best way I can put it.
    We're suddenly surrounded by a translucent green box, up above, all around and no doubt below, a wavy green field of energy. And there's blue snow, no really. I suppose this is what 'chaff' looks like: fluttering flakes of marine blue snow. How that can stop chemical attacks and radiation - well, it is a video game - I doubt there is much real science involved.

 The platform is moving far too fast and rams right into the barrier. We hear it: the sound of metal scrunching and crunching, gears and rivets, and whatever mechanism makes it float, crumple in on itself, and then, Boom. It explodes against our new barrier brilliantly.
    Meanwhile the first one, left abandoned, is right on the border. The green shield slices it clean in half, and it rains down pieces alongside the exploding one.

Lila stretches with a yawn before turning half-heartedly towards the robot scouts, "Quiet now, K'?" One of her tiny arms, comically small compared to her mostly human-proportioned body, stretches out. It curves through the air, slithers out like a snake until it's utterly massive. It hangs about the rows of robot enemies, blocking out their view of the sky, viciously clawed and scaled. Some of them even look up trepidatiously at their looming fate.
    She lowers her arm. There is no resistance, no squelch or crunch; she simply flattens the entire platoon in a single slap.

"No more can get in now, the barrier will block teleportation as much as anything else. And now that it has been cast, my magic signature should disappear. Hopefully the generals in their bunkers will be too busy to have noticed us in that brief time, aside from scouts that were already nearby like these,” Lila says lazily while we three can but stare up at her.
    "Tom, handle cleanup, round up any wounded and bring them here to me on the double."

"Grak, grak!" the lizardman skeleton salutes. I'd mostly forgotten that scouts could be entering lower down and fighting skirmishes against Tom's troops throughout the tower.

"Now then," Lila stares at me on the floor, stretching her normal again sized arms.

"C-can you help him?" Ko whimpers. Her earlier leadership and cat girl warrior energy seems like a distant memory, replaced by the Ko I first met - reserved and quiet to a fault on the outside but insecure and quick to tears when pushed - I suppose that hasn't changed about her, maybe it never will, perhaps that meekness is part of her personality; but it doesn't define her, that's what counts most. She can be brave and powerful, a strong fighter. That meekness is just one aspect, one she dispenses with when it counts most. What about me?

"Ya ya, calm down, he's still got... ohhhh, well, a couple hit-points, ha-ha..." Lila floats down and lays her hands on me, soon I'm enveloped in a green not dissimilar to the barrier.

"You humans are such a pain to heal," she grumbles, the same complaint as ever.

"W-what happens if you die in Escape?" Ko asks shakily.
    Eshu looks pretty shook too, "I'm not sure. Did we ever meet anyone who had?"

"What? Well no I mean... In the quests you could die."

"Sort of," Eshu adds, "You'd just respawn back at the start, there wasn't exactly a death moment, was there?"

"B-but, but, surely someone has! Not that the overworld normally has anything that could kill you..."

"Until today, that is."

Ko looks terrified, "So you think death is one way?"

"Wouldn't that be to cliché even for Escape?" I mutter, the green light slowly making me feel a little less numb again.
    "Sek!" Ko shrieks grabbing me.

"Hey, hey! Don't interrupt me here." Lila chides her, and she backs off a little. Eshu comes over to sit next to her.

"Though we do feel pain these days, I can assure you of that," I add utterly earnestly. Healing, I may be, but that seems to involve all my burned-out pain receptors too, and things are seriously starting to sting again!

"Oh god, what if death is one way?" Ko moans.

"If only someone were trying to prevent it then, eh?" Lila frowns.

"Oh right, sorry, Mistress..."

"MmmmHmmm." Lila is putting on a good front for us, but I can tell, maybe because she's so close, that she's struggling. Those spells took a month to prepare, so logically, how much mana or whatever can she have left? Her hands are trembling against my exposed skin, I think she may even be breaking into a sweat - yet she's still healing me, pushing herself to help me, of all people.
    "I underestimated you. Thanks for the save," she mutters next to me.

"Huh? It wasn't for you. Ko would be sad if you got hurt, that’s all. And besides, we need these barriers or we're all dead, right?" I grouch back, trying to avert my eyes and glad burns make for great blush masking.

"Ha! Alright, good answer," the imp smiles at me, her toothy grin, the little 'moe-fang' she has, her bright eyes - I really must be in a lot of pain, because at this moment she looks really friggin cute.

"The Estolpfo are arriving," Eshu says, pointing towards the staircase. Major Tom is helping another skeleton creature up.

"There'll be a lot of injured," Lila says, but her expression has turned supremely smug. "However, not a single casualty. And you helped with that big guy."

"Who, me?"

"Ye-up. That tip about the crystals in those metal men’s chests, Tom broadcast it to every unit fighting throughout the fort, turned a few close fights back around, I'd say."

"I...I dunno what to say.”

"And that's you back to fifty per cent, most of the burns gone, less of that toast smell anyway," she reports chirpily, letting go and floating up a bit. Slowly, with Ko and Eshu's help, I get into a proper sitting position; the cold flagstones beneath me are almost soothing on all the remaining aches and bruises.

Lila flicks at the system menu screens, "Here, Ko, use it to clean yourselves up while I heal the Estolpfo. Grab a snack too if you like, the fireworks are just about to begin."
     A limited version of the menu appears in front of Ko, and Lila floats off towards the arriving skeleton soldiers, letting her ominous words hang in the air.

Despite being healed my eyelids feel so very heavy. Lila turns back a moment, “Oh, and let him sleep for a bit, it’ll help.”
    As if I were waiting for her permission, I feel my consciousness drift off to sleep and my head fall into a catgirl’s lap of all things.

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