Kensington

"Ready?"

"Ready," everyone agreed unanimously.

The stage was set. Every other player in this fight had already shown up, they knew exactly how they wanted to scatter the pieces, and confidence in their own abilities had never been higher. All that was left for them to do was make their dramatic entrance, a task which between the four of them there was plenty of experience to pull from.

It had been a rough ride getting here, but the result was that Henry felt ready for anything. Being in pretty good condition for his standards, ready to fight the good fight… what wasn't there to like? Compared to what they'd just faced, the only real worry was the arch-vampire currently observing things from a distance.

He seemed to be content where he was... for now. Quite the wildcard to be hanging over all their heads going into it, but with how many vamps were currently crawling around him any attempt at landing nearby would definitely be fated to end in disaster.

Nothing for it, unfortunately. It would have to wait until after they'd all given the Remnant a fighting chance.

"Right. Not that you all need reminding, but I'd like to say a few words anyways. Keep people alive first, make monsters dead second. Hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times until we've safely crash-landed, and most importantly, have fun. Giselle?"

"On it."

The platform quickly folded from a flat plane into something resembling a sled, before angling downwards in a sharp descent. Sudden turbulence forced them all to lean back, letting the wind blow around them rather than into them. Sparks of magic danced in the air as it accelerated towards the palace grounds, precursors to spells that were bound to have devastating effects on the besieging vampires.

Or, in the case of Dee's main artifact, literal sparks.

They were screaming down fast now. Probably looked like a blur from the outside; they were only just shy of uncontrolled freefall. Henry was pressed against the sides - floor - of the platform by the sheer force of their speed, and so was everyone else. By the time their flashy arrival was even noticeable by their opponents, it was already too late.

"GEEEET SOOOOOOOOME!!!" one of them cried out moments before impact. In the confusion that was their landing, Henry honestly had no idea which one of them said it.

The first unlucky victim of their charge was a lone vamp that was a bit too eager to climb out of the trench. It found its head and body in two different places, after the front of the sled plowed straight through it and sliced it in half. They sailed over the top of the embankment's far side, painting the ground and prow alike with its entrails.

The other vampires, naturally, saw this and decided they were just fine staying where they were for the time being. Unfortunately, they were late to realizethat they, too had made a bad call. A noxious, sickly-sweet smell began to fill the trench, causing more than a few vamps to start retching uncontrollably.

To them, it was just a bad smell at first. Then one started hacking up their liquefied internal organs, then another, and another. Those still standing had just enough time to understand that they were doomed, before they too succumbed.

That was just the beginning for the monsters. As vampires from other sections were drawn to the commotion like moths to a flame, the field rapidly saturated itself with new opponents. And - much to the dismay of those opponents - the true dangers to their existence had only just begun to spring into action.

Dee started shouting like a madman pretty much from the moment he found something he could shock, with a bit of maniacal laughter for good measure. The trench that had once provided safety and mobility quickly became a tomb, even more so as skeletons began pushing through the floor and taking their places.

Claire topped up and switched to more traditional, lashing-root strikes from the edge of the trench, while Giselle kept any swipes that got too close for comfort from connecting. A fully complimentary point of defiance, one which Henry would soon supplement himself by making sure nobody skirted around the edges of the area they were denying.

Their initial opener worked exactly as intended. Loud, confusing, and most importantly, messy.

He could only smile and shake his head once he saw Dee unsling his guitar and start going wild. For all his protests about danger earlier, he seemed to be enjoying himself the most out of anyone now.

Focus, he reminded himself. Get Cecil some safety first.

He spun to face the two very shocked individuals watching this all unfold across the field. One of him was his old friend, very plainly, but the second one... didn't look like anyone he recognized.

Looked kinda shifty, honestly. Henry wasn't normally one to make snap judgements on character, but this was now an active battlefield and he could always apologize later if he was wrong. Before either of them could even react, two short pulses from his crystal left Cecil with a copy standing defensively in front of him, and the mysterious figure with a knife centimeters away from his throat.

They could sort out the situation better themselves, once they were safely away from the beachhead the four of them were in the process of creating, but until then it was better safe than sorry. And while it limited number of spare copies for the moment, he was not completely out on that front yet.

...It had been a while since he'd made clones, hadn't it? Because damn, it felt good to be back.

Each of them knew what to do: take stock of the Remnant's situation, buy them all time to reorganize while the rest of them made a show of thinning the ranks. They'd drag all the attention onto themselves, kicking and screaming if they had to. As long as they kept kicking ass and taking names, the siege would only get more and more costly for the one watching them from above.

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He'd have to spend time and resources re-testing the defenses he'd just finished probing for weak spots. Time and resources that he likely didn't have. At least, not close at hand.

Well, here's hoping he's flying completely solo, then, he lamented. Nothing for it. Just gotta roll the dice on things, sometimes.

He pivoted again and lashed out with the pipe, catching an approaching vampire who thought it was being sneaky completely off guard.

< -|- -|- >

Walworth

"You've got some skill with a blade!"

The tempo of the swordfight with Măcel began to reach a blistering pace, one that the Constable didn't even bother with tracking visually. The sounds told the story well enough, steel reverberating against steel roughly once every half-second. A dance of death performed at blink-and-you'll-miss-it speeds, syncopated by his own pistols hammering away relentlessly.

Măcel wasn't dodging – not that he could, anyway – but he didn't need to. His guard was damn near perfect. Killshots that would have normally had someone dead several times over were met with either carefully angled metal or regenerating flesh. Both of which stubbornly refused to give in, much to his own mounting frustration.

The sword of his own 'student', on the other hand…

"Oh?! What's that! I see a chip!" another clash rang out, this time with a bit of a grating noise following it. "What, all that saving on the costume and you couldn't even afford a decent blade? That's disappointing!"

Another swing, and the break along the tenth Devil's blade spread even further now. In spite of the looming threat, however, he just pushed his stance forward even more aggressively. It was almost like he wanted it to fall apart, which made little sense…

…For people who didn't know he was a Devil to begin with.

A shattering peal rang out, signaling the Constable to prepare his next move.

"Hah! Told ya!" The length of the curved blade went spiraling over Măcel's head as he pressed the advantage. The stump of the odachi was swatted away disdainfully. It fell from his hands almost too easily, and any attempts at recovery were beaten down with prejudice.

Confusingly, he only made one. And even that was half-hearted.

The Devil focused on evading rather than reestablishing himself. Which, to his credit, he was apparently good at, but that would only get him so far without a proper weapon. You'd think he'd have options when at one point, he managed to unsheath a second, smaller sword he'd been carrying with him, but that blade shattered even quicker than the first one had.

"Oh come on, that only took two swings!" Măcel snarled. "Is that the best you got?! Cheap, Chinese made steel and-"

A glint of light from behind the vampire was the only indication he got of the incoming attack. By the time he noticed it, it was already too late to do anything but take it head-on.

The previously abandoned length of the odachi punctured him from behind, shoulder to stomach. A geyser of black ooze erupted from the arch-vampire's torso, cutting his taunt short with a strangled, gargling noise. With a groan of pain, he fell to one knee, the severed blade twisting and sawing in place as if it had a mind of its own.

In a sense, it did. The Constable had gotten the full explanation from his bosses long ago, but the short version was that it was the result of an Exotic Domain that related specifically to anything that could justifiably be called a 'blade'.

And that was for a pretty loose definition of the term, too. If it could be somehow, someway sort of be classified as a pointy bit of metal with a sharp edge – or part of one, in this case – then his powers allowed him to manipulate it freely. It'd surprised the hell out of the Constable when he'd been on the receiving end, so he took full advantage that same surprise now. He teleported in close with his Domain, deciding that the time for keeping the kid gloves on was long past.

Măcel found out the hard way that it was his turn to be on the receiving end of unrelenting assault. A split second before he could recover, he was grabbed by the neck, gasping for air through his ruptured lung and constricted windpipe. Monstrous fangs met serviceable British-made asphalt in a faceplant hard enough to leave a pothole a meter wide, and the diameter didn't stop widening until it had been slammed into something twice that.

He couldn't help but grin madly. Wasn't often that he was given a chance to throw something around one-handed like a rag doll, but the opportunity was… oddly satisfying. As he contemplated the feeling, a bit of inspiration struck as he noticed that, conveniently, there was perfectly good intact concrete wall nearby. And it looked about as reinforced as the one he'd been sent through earlier…

He lifted Măcel's face from the pavement, jerking the dazed vampire over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. A bit of windup was needed to achieve the same results the Mad Prince had accomplished, but with a few spins to gain momentum, soon the arch-vampire was flying through the air like a discus. He crashed into the wall at high speed…

Disappointment. Măcel's neck only twisted to an unnatural angle rather than punch straight through like he had. All that prep work, and the results literally fell flat.

The Constable let his outstretched arm fall back to his side with a sigh, as the vampire's body fell to the ground in a boneless heap. He didn't back off, though. This felt just a little too anticlimactic to be over just yet, and the supposed body was still twitching a bit. Now exactly how things would go wrong was yet to be determined, but-

Yep, there it was. The sound of bones snapping back into place caught his attention immediately. A quick jaunt around the distance between them and he had his boot primed and ready to stomp the lights out of the still-regenerating vampire.

All the right moves, but all the wrong timings. Just before boot could meet face, things changed drastically.

One moment he had him dead to rights. A literal eyeblink later, and he was suddenly horizontal, being thrown unceremoniously back several meters from an ear-piercing shriek that cried out from the body. Not a hand grabbing his leg, not a surprise tackle, a sound generated enough force to forcibly remove him.

Yet another example of the sorts of bullshit magic on display here. The pavement he landed on seemed to agree, as he hit the ground hard enough to buckle it.

Măcel's neck twisted back into place as the Constable hastily rolled upright, fangs bared in a scowl furious enough to imply that he was taking things seriously now.

"Now, now." he growled. "Don't go thinking a wimpy hit like that's going to do much to keep me down for the count."

He prepared to lunge, forgoing his abandoned sword entirely to charge in with nothing but fangs and talons. The very last moment before he could attack, something blurred through the foggy street at incredible speed on an intercept course for his now scarred torso.

And it wasn't the other Devil or one of his broken blades, this time.

The arch-vampire spun and blocked high with his forearm, halting the speeding figure dead in its tracks but doing little to arrest its momentum. Both of them pushed in the direction of the impact several meters before disengaging cleanly, the newcomer sliding back into a thick patch of fog that was only pierced by the incandescent red glow of her eyes.

"Funny," Grace hissed back from within the cloud. "I was about to say the same thing."

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