Empress Naoki's Office

As Pride finishes speaking Naoki would see Alden emerge. He is behind Pride, Greed, and Lust. Coming out of the shadows of the corridor where he had, clearly, been laying in wait for the right moment to strike. But he could no longer hide because he needed direction. She would see that the armour he had commissioned was nearly identical to that which the set wore. The same mottled greys and black to provide night-time camouflage. The same layers of leather with thicker layers over vital organs hiding strike plates of enchanted steel.

The only difference was Alden wore no mask, his hood was down, and he had his scarf and badge of office wrapped around his waist. He gives Naoki a questioning look, they both knew the score at that moment. If he left her alone with Pride then she was almost certainly going to be kidnapped. But if he didn't leave to rescue his children immediately, they almost certainly would be kidnapped instead. He was facing a choice between the woman who had given him everything he had and the children that made his life worth living.

The one-time assassin, one-time enforcer, current family man and right hand of the empress was faced with this choice. As he often did when given a hard choice he now looked at the empress for guidance. Not because she was his leader but because she was his friend, his best friend. "What do I do?" He doesn't say it aloud but the question is in his eyes as his rune scared orbs lock with Naoki and the full weight of the choice is in her hands as well.

Empress Naoki squints, ears flattening. She looks between them, Pride, Alden, Greed, and Lust hanging out there casually in the back. Her mouth slides from one side of her face to the other. The tension is palpable.

The Empress shakes her head, rejecting the premise. “Alternately:” she says, raising one finger to Pride, “Fuck you.”

Beneath the desk, Naoki surreptitiously presses down a tile with her foot. It ticks quietly and is then echoed by a far louder TOCK, echoing throughout the chamber as the magic takes hold.

Through the greater part of The Empress’s office, time slows to a stop. A trap—the only one of its kind, devised for this express purpose. Her would-be kidnappers, Alden standing by them, and some of the Sentinels in front of her desk are frozen in time, such that it would seem to them the world around them would skip from the moment before the trap triggered to immediately after. Naoki, and all the Sentinels adjacent to or behind her desk, are unaffected.

Usually, the protocol would be for her to leave, have elites handle the situation, and call Grandma. But Grandma’s not here, so Naoki will take great pleasure in taking the matter into her own hands.

Without pause or hesitation, The Empress stands and produces a huge red gemstone from somewhere on her person. Holding it out toward Pride, still many paces away over by the door, she glares at him as he stands there smugly in his cloak. The gem begins to glow.

“She’s not worth considering as a threat, she’s just a soft bureaucrat,” The Empress mumbles mockingly as she lines up the shot. The gemstone grows increasingly brighter in her hand, casting a harsh red glow across her armor and desk. Heat radiates out in waves, immediately melting the nearby candle and causing her hair to billow in the wind.

He thinks he’s so damn clever. … And he is, of that, there is no doubt. Pride’s plan, the full extent of which she will never know, has done well to get him to this point. The fact that he was able to get this far and present the dilemma he has is highly concerning and will bring about changes to ensure nothing like it ever happens again—of that Naoki is sure. The fact that Alden’s children aren’t under better guard is honestly a huge, very avoidable mistake on their part. But Pride isn’t above mistakes either, and underestimating Empress Naoki isn’t one he’ll be making twice.

“Too merciful an end,” she whispers. He won’t even feel it.

The noise is dreadful. A dreadful metallic ripping sound, like claws of hellfire tearing through the air as it were a chalkboard, accompanied by searing heat and blinding light as a beam of raw fire-aspected energy lances out from the gemstone in The Empress’s hand to utterly destroy all that stands before it. It would likely sound very familiar to the handful of surviving Medanese refugees living in Isra, as it is the very same gemstone then-High-Lady Naoki condemned the Goraians for using in their coup and to repress their captive citizens. Repossessed by Grandma during the invasion, it now serves a far nobler cause. Thankfully, due to the height of The Citadel and the shot’s level angle, there will be no mile-deep crater in Isra — only significant damage to The Citadel’s walls.

However, the incredible discharge of energy disrupts the time-trap, freeing those that remain. To them, it would seem the act of Naoki flipping off Pride erased the rotten bastard right down to the lower half of his boots.

The Empress remains standing, a wicked grin on her face. The huge red gemstone is gone, replaced by an assortment of smaller ones held between her fingers. She isn’t subtle about pressing more tiles with her foot, but this time the effects aren’t as apparent.

“Haru is coming,” she tells Alden, raising one hand toward Greed. “These two, then to your house, then the plaza for the last two.”

To Torrin, “Then deploy The Legion to retake the city.”

The time trap did not work perfectly on those in the room with rune scared bodies. They were affected but not to the same degree, their magic resistance runes burned and their body's natural speed and reflexes took over. But the power of the time stop was such that even they could barely do more than react by the time that Naoki fired her laser. Alden managing to take a single step forward by the time the barrier shattered under the force of Naoki's attack.

Then he blinks in surprise to see the smouldering corpse of Pride on the ground. Was it finally over? Of course, it was not. Alden watches in fascination as Pride gets up and keeps speaking. His encyclopedic knowledge of monsters drilled into him by the one before him filling in the gap. This was not good, it meant that Pride was going to be far, far more difficult to deal with than he had ever thought.

By the end of it though, he was terrified. A man who had, to this point, never known fear was utterly and truly terrified. His children were about to be taken and if he didn't go to them now... But if he left than Naoki would certainly be lost. He freezes as the decision racks his body and once again his eyes go to the Empress. Teetering between the two choices. His duty or his family, which should he choose? What did she want him to choose?

The Empress has scarce little time to do anything but exclaim in surprise. The defenses, the tiles she pressed, why aren’t they working?

Then The Empress is flung backward as a result of whatever foul hex Greed cast. Up, over the top of the throne, all the way back into the window behind her, which has so wonderfully silhouetted her and provided light by which to work. Despite all the best intentions, heavily reinforcing that window works against Naoki in this case, as she hurtles toward it at some speed. The metal of her armor doesn’t impact the glass, but The Empress’s unarmored head produces a dull thud as it impacts the glass. She then falls to the ground, unconscious.

---

Once the power source recovers from its disruption at the hand of the gem, the defenses activate — though far too late.

There’s a low rumbling from the ceiling as the stonework begins to move. On all the pillars up and down both sides of the office, the uppermost bulges upon which the ceiling arches rest rotate, revealing square holes about as large as one’s fist. The crystal within each one begins to glow red. Though wholly unrelated to The Empress’s gem, they produce a similar effect.

Each one pivots to point at the nearest intruder and casts upon them a bright ray of hot, magical, and generally quite harmful energy. Individually they’re not lethal, but there are some 30+ in all and they’re very accurate. Armor and other protections serve to mitigate the damage but they’re growing hotter by the second. The designer’s and The Empress’s intent in activating them is to blind and suppress, and to put a time limit on how long any intruder could remain in The Office. Perhaps they will serve to level the balance to The Set’s detriment.

Pride's threat hangs in the air for Alden as he looks to the Empress seeking an answer. But none is given as before Naoki can tell him what to do she is struck down by Greed. The High Marshal watches as his friend slams into the wall and slumps down unconscious and time seems to slow for him as he considers what to do next. Leaving Naoki now did not sit right with him, she was injured but he also knew that she was not going to be killed any time soon. There was still hope that he could track her down and rescue her if she was taken. But his children?

He had no doubt in his mind that if his children were taken then there was no chance he would find them. Naoki was going to be taken to some other party besides Pride but his children would be taken to the Lich. The threat that Pride represented loomed large in his mind, a sword of Damocles that would have caused him fear if he was capable of it, perhaps he was with the way the worry wriggled into his mind like a worm.

He had no choice. He knew what he had done in his childhood, even if all of Isra fell he could not risk his children going through the same. The High Marshal turns on his heels and sprints out of the citadel. Hoping beyond hope that he would be able to find Naoki before she was beyond help.

Without the benefit of the high marshal, the palace guards were simply overwhelmed. It wasn't long before they were either unconscious or dead, the defensive lasers shattered, and the room secured by the two members of the set. Lust pants heavily, he'd not come out unscratched. A chunk of his armour was smoking and he had a sizable wound in his side that was bleeding heavily. Though it was already starting to close on its own.

"No telling what she has on her."

He says looking over at Greed.

"Strip her now? Or wait? I think its better if we eliminate the chance of her having something later."

Once they settle on that, they tie the empress up and Greed has the honour of slinging her over his shoulder as they head out.