Violence is usually the answer!

Things were looking grim, hopeful, but grim. The earthquakes were actually helping the defenders more than hindering, though Lokir was doing what he could to shelter his people from the sky shards. Part of his powers were back at this point, he was able to match even the strongest of insect units, but not overpower them, he had to out whit them. But Lokir still wasn't back to full strength nor was immortal yet either. He just prayed that the Voice, as much of a prick as he was at times, could get things sorted out soon. They had created a lot of advantages for themselves since the fighting had started, but the insects just kept coming their numbers it seemed were infinite!

A boulder went sailing over Lokir's head from one of Shiloh's catapults behind their lines. Lokir was up front as always and he was exhausted, they all were, which was why he hadn't left the front lines. His followers, his people those from his Fort were here fighting for their lives, their families and their homes. What kind of God would he be to back away from the front and let them die for him instead? A cowardly one is what he would be, made even worse by the Aspects that he held.

”Hold the line!” Lokir yelled over the sounds of battle to his people, using some of his renewed powers to add to their courage, keeping them in the line. But this would only work for so long before the affects wouldn't take as well.

Lokir yelled as he lashed out with his sword, a sword created from his grey magic given some added strength by his renewed powers. He cleaved through the shield of an ant before him and in turn cut two of the ants arms off. It reeled back in pain but that gap was almost instantly closed, damn their hive minds! Three ants attacked him at the same time and it was all he could do to throw his newly found tower shield up in time to block the attacks and push them back. He was slowly learning their fighting styles and was getting better at predicting their attacks, such was a Divine power he had; reading peoples' attacks and learning almost instantly their techniques. But the Ants and Wasps had four arms each, and he had never fought anything like them before, so already he had been at a disadvantage.


After this was all over, if and when they came out of it the victors, and if he could learn their fighting, Lokir made a promise to teach everyone he could about it. That way should the insect try and invade once more they would be ready to defend themselves again. Looking around Lokir called out once he spotted his Sister. ”Shiloh, how are you? Any breaches trying to get to the war machines?” He asked as another earthquake rocked the area forcing people to stay balanced for a few moments.

"LOAD FASTER!" True to form, the Steward of Antikythera was not known for leniency when it came to getting jobs done, especially time-sensitive ones. High-powered ballistae were being wound and fired at the heavier enemy units that arrows and swords couldn't get through. Boulders were fine and good, but this time around she ordered her myrmidons to load the thelyphonida constructs instead. "Now tuck yourself into a ball and curl your tail to reduce your air resistance. Yes, yes, good. That'll do it." She said to the arthropod construct and patted it before giving the signal to launch. The clack of mechanisms followed by a whoosh into the air had the spring-loaded catapult arm send its load flying high into the sky.

Up at the front lines the newly-launched reinforcements of war machines made impact, unfurling themselves to start tearing and ripping through the invading insects. Fire spewed from their mandibles like dragon's breath, roasting ants and wasps alive. What didn't get burnt was crushed and torn by the whip-scorpion machines' vise-like pincers or impaled through by their tails. The tails delivered a lethal injection that wreaked havoc on their victims' insides, weakening them for a prompt disassembly. The effects of courage had no effect on the machines, but they handled themselves as well as the foot soldiers. Shiloh's newest models of war machines were on par with the insects in aggression and efficiency. The concept behind them came from the saying: 'fight fire with fire'. Tremors shook the battlefield as metallic giant Centipedes mowed down waves of insects into a fine mulch before tunneling back down for another assault. Messy, but effective. Let their healers try and resurrect their troops after that! The Bakulaw spider models were targeting groups of insects individually with their corrosives to avoid potential friendly fire, assisting the whip-scorpion models. Her only complaint was not having more out on the field. 

Still struggling with her grasp over Time, Shiloh had managed to utilize her loaned domain to alter the invaders' perception on the passage of time while accelerating the attacks of Conclave allies. Those afflicted by her curse of misfortune had their movements slowed due to the impact on their mental processes, making them easier targets. And any stray attacks that came her way were politely given a 'return to sender' with twice the impact. Time for once wasn't actively working against her, allowing her to appear as if she were teleporting out of nowhere to take out random enemies before vanishing into thin air. She was specifically targeting the insect spellcasters to remove the melee fighters' ranged support. With each insect that fell, she would loot their weapons and equipment for her own forces to use. A minor attempt at psychological warfare, but still basic pragmatism. Honorable or not, resources were meant to be used. If she didn't use them, the enemy would.

Hearing her quote-on-quote partner in arms call out, she responded back with a somewhat shaky telepathic message. 'The machines are fine, chitin can barely scratch anything with a lacriamium coating. They're built to last longer than these bugs can live out their life cycle. If you see something that looks like a giant spider with wings or a scorpion, don't panic–they're mine. I made sure they had a very realistic paint job. WILL YOU PLEASE DIE–not you, them. I forget telepathy doesn't come with a built-in filter.' She braced herself when another of those earthquakes hit, throwing a quick glance at the resident volcano. She still didn't trust old Apoy to not blow its top while they were clearing house. 

When he heard, in his mind, Shiloh's reply, Lokir chuckled as he kicked an elite wasp in the stomach before driving him to the ground with the hilt of his sword and crunching his neck under his boot. He watched Shiloh's new units mowing down the insects, gruesome indeed, but sadly necessary for this fight. The sheer scale of the insect army was staggering to say the least, no matter how many were killed it seemed that they just never stopped coming.

The Bear God heard a chorus of screaming from one side and turned to see a giant beetle erupt from ground under some of his people. It didn't come up fully just created a large funnel pit that forced people to slide down towards it gnashing mandibles, it was like a blender, horrible. Lokir roared and charged for it, intent on killing it before it buried itself again and tunnelled somewhere else, already proving that it was able to get around Shiloh's own underground units.

Sheathing his sword Lokir showed no fear as he jumped into the pit with the beetle bashing it with his shield. It, getting information from a commander to tell it who Lokir was, turned to face the God right away, intent on killing him. ”Get out of here!” Lokir ordered his people, they could do little to help here anyway and it seemed they knew it, trusting Lokir as they climbed out of the pit and away from it.

Lokir's shield was caught in the beetle's grip and the steel was starting to buckle under the insect's strength. Lokir created a large sword from his grey magic and started to stab at the beetle going for the eyes. However with Lokir distracted and no one else in the pit other Wasp and Ant units jumped in to attack him behind and soon enough you couldn't see Lokir for the insects piled on him attacking.

Under that cluster Lokir was trying his best to fight them off, but they started to find gasps in his beaten up armour and he felt spears find his flesh. He felt hot pain lance through his side as an Ant Warrior got his spear to penetrate the chainmail on Lokir's side and into his chest, he tasted blood a few seconds later. He gasped as, taking a mental command another ant jabbed a spear into the other side of Lokir's chest, the God could feel his blood pooling in his chest plate and it was starting to run out of it as well down his legs.

He lost his grip on his sword and it dissipated after losing contact with him, and then his grip went limp on his shield. Ok, maybe jumping in hadn't been the best idea, Courage was only that when it was successful, otherwise it was called stupidity. Lokir growled in pain but they had him pinned between two spears there wasn't much he could do, for the moment.

It was in that moment between life and death that Lokir felt a presence around him, and he glanced back to see the Voice standing there over him. No one else seemed aware that he was there, Shiloh was likely able to see the Voice however, and hear him as he spoke. ”Now is not your time. Rise, Lokir, take Courage from your Strength and the Strength of those around you,” Visible only to Lokir and Shiloh the aspects of Courage and Strength appeared above Lokir and combined and then a new one appeared in Courage's place and sunk into Lokir. ”arise Lokir, God of Strength and War!” The Voice spoke and then disappeared.

Under the pile of insects Lokir felt the power hit him like a train and roared out, War's power coursed through his body and he was no longer on Dal's door step. He was immortal again! Back to full strength Lokir huffed as he grabbed the giant's beetle by its mandibles and pried them open so that it could close them. With a roar he pulled and hauled the massive beetle from the ground itself and swung it around like a twig batting away the other insects around him and clearing the pit of them in one swing.

Dragging the now kicking and screeching beetle behind him like it wasn't ten times his size, Lokir stood tall, still with the spears in him and looked around. Casually he dragged the beetle closer, reached down and with what looked like no effort, tore its head from his body in one smooth motion. That got the insects' attention for sure while he removed the spears from his sides and then undid the straps from his armour allowing his chest plate, arms and helm to fall to the ground. His shirt was covered in blood from before but that was ignored. His smile on his face, however, was unsettling as he flexed and looked over to Shiloh. ”We're baaack!”

He drew in power as he raised his right leg and then slammed it down. A violent shock wave erupted from that point and every insect with a forty foot radius around him was thrown up into the air almost six feet before they slammed back down again. In that moment they were in the air Lokir had created two scythes out of his grey magic, but backed up by his restore Divinity, they were that much more powerful. Just as they were hitting the ground Lokir moved and started to attack and by the time the last insect hit the ground they were all dead.

His mind was swirling as his power ran on high, Strength and War but the Voice had left him equal power of a third aspect like Shiloh had with her added Time. Looking around Lokir spotted the catapults and smiled as he released his weapons and moved towards the war machines calling to Shiloh as he did. ”I have something stupid in mind, would you happen to have something explosive I could borrow?” He chuckled darkly as stopped one of the catapult crews from firing for a moment, thought about shoving the boulder in it out of the way. But shrugged and climbed up on it instead after he shifted into his bear form.

Getting balanced the huge grey bear God huffed laughter as he eyed Shiloh wanting a bomb, his intentions clear by now.

[OOC: Time for fun! Mahahahaha]

Shiloh could feel the explosion of power, making gastric juices work their way back up her throat. It wasn't nearly as bad as the time it was directly happening to her, but her senses were overreacting. A roar rattled the battlefield as things were flying from her proxy's point of view. She breathed a sigh of relief when she determined Lokir was still alive. Yes, that was good. They didn't need another person in line for a divine resurrection. The bloody mess of a man then came up to her looking like he waded in a tub of fish guts at a fishmonger's market like a bubble bath, a grin plastered all over his face. He then asked her for a small favor. "I have something stupid in mind, would you happen to have something explosive I could borrow?" The first words she caught were 'explosive' and 'stupid'. Before she could give her answer he was already settling himself into a catapult. Oh boy. 

She stared at him with that deadpan face of hers contemplating it for a while. "…Suuure." Shiloh was pretty sure anything she gave him the way he was right now wasn't going coming back in its original condition, but she caught his drift. Disappearing in a blink, she made use of her new grasp on Time to come back with one of the prepared explosives she had intended for her Bakulaw spider constructs to drop. It was a bulky thing, most of it made with materials to keep the volatile components separate until it was put to use–and cushioning to avoid accidental detonation. Handing it off to the giggly werebear god, she gave the bear a brief verbal directive on the object's intended use. "Ok, here you go. Oh by the way, I'd suggest throwing it away from you before making impact for maximum effecti–" And then somebody set off the firing mechanism, cutting her off in mid-explanation. The bear mounted on the boulder sailed away with bomb in tow.

The deity's automaton proxy let out a long sigh. As long as there weren't bear giblets everywhere, she guessed things would be fine. With a whistle, she signaled for troops to pull back as she began churning up a storm. The sky was darkened by a thick layer of cumulonimbus full of charged electricity. "FULGUR!" Bolts of lightning peppered the field, striking enemies where they stood. Those who were hit were killed instantly, charred beyond recognition. A few bolts were directed to her lightning towers, which released their energy with a deadly discharge–severely paralyzing those on the fringe of the effect's radius while providing a lethal electrocution to those closer than that. Still on the move, she directed her machines to force the enemy into concentrated masses hoping Lokir would land somewhere in the vicinity.

He watched Shiloh disappear for a moment before she popped back into view carrying a bulky looking thing that he hoped was the bomb he wanted! When Shiloh handed it off to him the big bear huffed more laughter as she started to give her warning to him, but she was cut off when the catapult was set off.

Lokir roared as he went sailing in the air sitting on the boulder while carrying the bomb in front of him, clearly he was enjoying this far more than he should. He used his back legs to grip the boulder, his weight slowed its flight and would of course make it so that it would fly as far, but Lokir had an idea for that. As the boulder reached its peak height the bear God looked down to the swarm below him spying a group of mantis casters and chuckled. He held the bomb over his head and threw it as hard as he could, the bomb sailed through the air, crushed one mantis before it exploded taking out of the group of them in one fire ball.

He started to fall from the sky heading even further behind enemies lines now but he now spotted a large four legged beetle unit that was shooting fireballs over his allies heads towards Shiloh's defenders. Nope, can't have that! Lokir reached down and grabbed the boulder like it was a pebble, aimed and hurled it with all his might. It took all of a second for the stone to reach its target and said target was turned into bloody paste on the ground, also a few of the insects in front of it as the boulder continued on its merry way.

That left Lokir now free falling towards the ground, but yay for immortality! Not that he had any intention of landing on the actual ground itself, oh no! To that end another beetle thing that Lokir had spotted only had time to look up see a huge bear falling from the sky with a grin on his face before said bear landed on it, crushing the beetle under his heavy weight. Not the softest landing, true, that hard carapace was strong, but from the height Lokir fell from and his own bulk that carapace crunched like paper.

That caught the attention of the insects around Lokir's impact zone as he roared getting back to his feet(feeling a few bones quickly knit themselves back together again as he did). He charged forwards and trampled a few of the smaller drones and elites that were close giving him an opening. He felt a sword careen off his flank and turned to that attack, maw wide and clamped down on the wasp's chest and shook him until he came in half.

Lokir called up his magic, he hadn't tried this before but it seemed like a good time to do so, he had been wanting to anyway. His grey magic started to form a large twin bladed sword one of either side of the hilt, a hilt that Lokir was gripping in his mouth! The blades were both around ten feet long and deadly sharp thanks to Lokir's divine powers.

Now with a dirty great big fuck off sword in his mouth Lokir charged and just ran around using the blades to mow down insects as he went. His goal at the moment was to carve a path back towards the defenders on one side and then make a pass at the front line insect units to the other side, giving his people some breathing room. His sheer weight and strength meant that there wasn't much on the battlefield that could stop him now that he had momentum built up, and with the large sword being magic it wasn't about to break and lose against any armour either.

"Ah…it blew up." The deity muttered to herself as she watched the explosion at a safe distance. There was something off-kilter about her so-called partner, something she guessed had to do with the new domain the Voice gave him. Then again all of them were off-kilter with new domains being shoved at them before they could give an opinion. She herself was still trying to keep Time in line, but she and it hadn't been on good terms for a long while. The domain was dredging old buried things back up while she wanted them to stay down, and if she didn't keep herself in check they might be trapped in another endless loop. Apoy's eruption was barely halted, then rewound after she became aware of how wide of a reach Time had. Even if it wasn't good for her, she had to suppress her emotions. It was the best she could do to ensure some level of stability.

Her senses were completely open, information pouring in and out. Her head was hurting to where she wanted to take it off if it wouldn't kill her. Shiloh was busy herding her constructs in ordered attacks on the enemy, while trying to keep tabs on at least several dozen units. The symbol of Antikythera burned brightly on them all, signifying their current status under her command. Seeing an opening, she suddenly withdrew all of her constructs before unleashing a monster tornado through the beaches. The twister went wild, sucking up everything in its way. She was trying to make sure she avoided friendly units, but keeping a moving vortex of wind on course was much harder than it looked on paper. She put all the mages and clerics on call to use safe passage on any unfortunate souls who got pulled into the tornado while it began sweeping towards the ocean. Once it lost contact with the ground, everything was dumped into the bay where the currents would do their job next. Before everything was washed out by the waves, allied soldiers were teleported back in leaving the insects to meet their watery grave.

A battle cry followed by tremors signaled a stampede of massive horned beetles, all rampaging like elephants towards the walls. "NONONONONONO–" This was bad, those things were mowing down the fighters like grass with their sights set on breaching the fort. "Stasis! STASIS!" The entire area within thirty feet of the first giant beetle was frozen in time, and anything that entered was locked in place. Keeping her line of sight focused on them, she shouted orders for the firing of the ballistae. "On my mark, ready–FIRE!" The clack of the bolts flying into the air was the signal, and she closed her eyes releasing the temporal freeze. The beetles had no time to react as several pounds of honed metal projectiles pierced through their bodies. She barely had time to breathe as an elite wasp suddenly lunged from behind. When she saw the flash of their blade out of the corner of her eye, the surprise triggered a subconscious temporal freeze from her. With a sharp exhale, she slumped to the ground, then saw more elites heading her way. Undoing the distortion at the last second, the wasps stabbed each other with their weapons, eyes wide with confusion before falling over dead. 

Transmuting herself into a myrmidon again, she fumed for being so careless. She'd almost lured herself into a false sense of security thanks to obtaining Time, forgetting that she could only control things that she saw. More elites were heading her way, with casters in the mix. Taking out her best metal blades, she electrified her metallic form and threw herself into battle, wildly spinning. Phoenix blade and wind wakizashi in hand, Shiloh executed a whirling maelstrom of wind and fire through an Karithian sword dance. Fire, wind, lightning–all in one terrible elemental combination. As flashy and effective as it was, she could feel herself getting ready to hurl from the vertigo. Come to think of it, she probably wasn't performing the dance correctly, which explained so much. 

Hearing the trembling of the earth again, she telepathically sent a very choppy message to her fellow deity. 'THE BEE–TLES ARE C–MING! IN—ING STAMPEDE!'

Lokir felt the pull of power when Shiloh stopped time in her area to deal with the beetle stampede that was heading her way. But, assuming she had it under control, Lokir kept his own one bear stampede up swinging his head left and right cutting down insect in droves. But Lokir's blood was up, so even though he heard the fighting from where Shiloh was, the Bear God just wanted to kill, allowing some of his darker instincts to take over. The aspect of War that had been given to him wasn't helping, pushing him to be more violent, use his power, his Strength, to destroy the insects without mercy.

A group of mantis casters came into view and Lokir growled and charged for them. They saw him coming, he was cutting a blood swath after all through the ranks. As he came closer and as one the mantis formed a large spell and hurled it towards Lokir, a huge volume of pure kinetic force. Lokir felt that power rocketing towards him but only put his head down and kept going. It struck him hard and pushed him back a few feet, heavy paws clawing at the ground to regain traction.

His large sword dropped and gone, once Lokir got going again, his body repairing quickly any damage that may have happened, he shifted back to human. Still charging forward Lokir created the two scythes again and slashed at anything that got close to him. The mantises reeled when they realized their plan had failed but most were too slow to get away as Lokir was upon them.

Two went down swiftly, their heads hitting the ground before their bodies did, as Lokir slashed another in half at the torso. The next went down after being opened up from right shoulder to hip with no resistance coming from the scythe blade that did the work. The last one Lokir managed to get got the worst of it as he dropped his weapons and grabbed the mantis by his head with both hands and squeezed. ”You, killed, my mother, my sister!” Lokir snarled as the mantis screamed until there was a crunch and a pop and then a mess.

Lokir dropped the corpse just as he heard Shiloh's message in his head; stampede!

Heaving for breath, though more out of his blind rage, Lokir turned and jumped into the air towards Shiloh, seeing the stampede from the air as he did. From his place in the air Lokir located Shiloh and in a blink teleported to her side but when he appeared he looked confused for a second. ”Huh, I wasn't able to teleport before…” He shrugged that off and turned to look at the on coming beetle stampede as an idea crossed his mind. ”I need a catapult.” He chuckled and turn to run for one.

When he said that he needed a catapult, he didn't mean he was going to fire it, oh no, that would be too easy. He knew that Shiloh and her people constructed these things to be extremely durable, so he had other more bludgeoning plans in mind for it. Lokir shooed the crew away and grabbed the war machine and by brute force dragged it by himself towards the gate. Once in place Lokir found a spot under the machine and with a roar shouldered it. ”OPEN THE GATE!” He ordered and when that was done he threw the catapult towards the charging beetles, making sure that it landed on its side.

Kudos to Shiloh's work the catapult didn't take a lot of damage upon landing on its side, but it did cause part of the stampede to come up short. But Lokir wasn't finished as he ran out to the top arm of the war machine and took hold of it and hauled on it. The catapult lurched as Lokir got momentum on his side and swung the big machine like a fly swatter into the rest of the beetles, that did start to break apart the catapult but it also stopped the stampede for now as well, and crushed a few beetles.

Fuelled by blood lust and War, Lokir roared and in his hands two large war hammers of his grey magic appeared. He was and had been since his powers came back been watching the insects, the way they moved the way they fought, and Lokir was learning, all of it, his mind able to follow their fighting styles and create counters to them. ”You brought war to us, but I AM WAR!” Lokir yelled and charged into the fight again, hammers swinging and crushing chitin and bone alike.