Longirsu
The tearing screech of death, reaching forward with its razored fingers, rattled his ears and consumed his peripherals before he was even done turning around. But Longirsu had stared down the maw of death many times. He had put up his own arms and legs, his sweat and his lifeblood, his sight and his throat, for the lethal odds that insisted on hounding their crusade for the World Gears. He would put up his very soul, or what was left for it, for the certainty of what he desired now, unrattled.
As he predicted, Ib, closest to the whirlwind of unmaking, was already in motion. Laden as she was, taking up her weapon was unavailable, but it was as natural and instant as breathing that she did the next best thing. Bending and shoving her frame to block and intercept the flood of hits that threatened to go past, breaking them upon her as waves against a rocky shore. Stone that would have been disfigured before raw numbers and strength in the time it took for a human to draw breath.
But none left more than scratches. For every clang and crash, the lesser machines behind the clash crumpled and bent horrendously, each and every one on the precipice of falling apart or exploding into sparks. But no. That didn't happen either. The entire fury of the girl's rampage fell not on the executor, not on its escort, but on the master's shield, groaning and shuddering all the way to the handle as its layers broke and reformed before Longirsu's eyes.
He took two steps towards the assault drained from breath, and the instant a ravenous chop of many fell on Ib's neck like a guilottine, vanished in a flash. A titanic clang echoed between the trees, stopping the bladed manifestation of death against the scarred face of the World Shield, as Longirsu appeared. On his face, naked focus, in his grip on the World Spear, cold scorn.
He did not lance, but swung through the opening, and the weapon fell as to split Lily from shoulder to groin and render one wing shorn entirely.
