Killville

Killville is the third round of The Grand Battle.

Description
Killville is based on Werewolf games in general and one Cyber95 played in particular. There are a bunch of abandoned buildings and some turrets and a lone werewolf.

Summary
Lutherion fights people from inside the courthouse, Eximo cleans things and collects a bunch of knives. Emily and Aeon try to protect Nathan, but Aeon's suggestions lead to Nathan makng a deal with the demon in his knife. A werewolf shows up and tries to fight people, but Lutherion turns into a huge monster which makes that kind of immaterial. He wounds Emily, who asks Aeon to finish her off and keep Nathan safe.

Significant NPCs
The Werewolf: A werewolf that has been living in the town since it was abandoned. It stays hidden for much of the round, eventually attacking Aeon after being offered some bread. The contestants try to fight it until Lutherion transforms, at which point it attacks Lutherion as well but is mostly ignored.

Pon DeFor: Emily's sponsor, he is dismissed by the Director when his contestant loses.

Events
Warning: Significant Spoilers This time, the Director introduces the contestants to the setting. Eximo immediately begins cleaning, determined not to fail its duties as it had done in the previous round. Emily is made sick by the blood, and flees to the bakery. Aeon begins learning more about the setting and grabs a few knives while Lutherion menaces Nathan. Nathan retaliates with his knife, cutting Lutherion even from a distance but breaking his arm through the demon's powers. Emily begins healing Nathan's arm with a chant, while Lutherion begins breaking the other one; she attacks him from behind, but he notices blood gushing from Nathan's arm and flees in panic. Once he calms down, he forms his arm into a drill and decides to hunt Emily down. Once he spots her, he drills into the ground and disappears in a puff of white smoke. Eximo finishes cleaning up a pool of blood and begins cleaning where Emily vomited after arriving in Killville. Amethyst notices the turrets and worries about whether her magical contamination will make them detect her as a threat. She and Eximo talk a bit, and Eximo requests that she refer to it by name; she is somewhat impressed by Eximo, as she has never before seen nondestructive magic. Amethyst enters the courthouse as Eximo leaves it, and muses aloud about her subhumanity; Lutherion appears and mocks her, and she attacks. Aeon gives Nathan a non-demonic knife and encourages him to find a way to use his powers safely. Lutherion declares that he can't die, and Amethyst realizes it's his arm that's the source of his power and therefore his weak point. Eximo continues cleaning, scrubbing up blood and gathering up all the knives. Emily reveals to Nathan that she knows it was Aeon who planted the bomb on Alcarith's vehicle in Free Falling, but tells him not to tell anyone else so as to prevent Aeon from doing something rash. Nathan tells her that Lutherion can create duplicates, so it may not have been Aeon at all. Eximo overhears, deciding Aeon may be a threat to the cleansing, but Lutherion remains a more severe threat. Emily decides to confront Aeon, telling Nathan to stay back and stay safe as he's more valuable than she. When pressed, Aeon admits he killed Alcarith, explaining that he wanted to remain neutral in the Amethyst versus Lutherion battle and that killing a weaker contestant would have made things more dangerous for him down the line; he intends to wait until a suitable escape opportunity presents itself, or win by carefully setting the strongest against each other until only the weakest survives and he can finish them off. Emily doesn't like his thought process, but admits he didn't have much other choice; she says she'll leave him be as long as he doesn't harm Nathan, whom she feels is the only innocent in the game, and that she has no intention of allying herself with Amethyst, whom she is convinced is a demon. Amethyst and Lutherion battle in the courthouse, Lutherion revealing that his arm can take on the characteristics of anything he's absorbed into it. Eventually, Lutherion's body explodes, to reform elsewhere. Aeon attempts to get Eximo back into the courthouse by telling it about the mess Lutherion is making, then gives it some of the knives he picked up in an attempt to get it to trust him more. Eximo acknowledges Aeon, then approaches the courthouse; before it can enter, the door is covered with a wall of flesh and bone, and a pair of Lutherion's minions appear, telling Eximo that the fight inside is personal between Lutherion and Amethyst. Eximo simply busts through the wall and begins vacuuming up bits of Lutherion. Emily attacks the minions, draining their magic away into her shield. Aeon watches the battle and is satisfied that everyone he wouldn't mind seeing dead is involved with it; he makes some soup, and Nathan shows up to have some too. They talk more about how Nathan can use his knife more effectively, and Aeon reveals a bit about how his tool works. Nathan grabs his knife by the blade in an attempt to contact the demon within; the demon appears to him, and he attempts to take control of it. It laughs and attacks him, then offers to give him its powers if he will become its plaything. Nathan agrees, and the demon disappears. Emily finishes destroying Lutherion's minions and notes that Eximo is probably involved in the fight by now; she reasons that no matter who wins, one that she considers a demon will lose. Another pair of minions appear, and she decides to enlist Aeon's help in fighting them if they're just going to keep reappearing. Amethyst notices Eximo's arrival, and Lutherion taunts her without revealing himself; the minions chase Emily, yelling after her with Lutherion's own voice. Aeon confronts them, using his tool to create a pointlessly-complicated object; due to the nature of its function, he drains them of all their energy, reducing them to dust. Emily notices Nathan, and heals his hand; she can tell he's been tampering with the knife, and warns him again not to trust demons. Another pair of Lutherion's minions approach. Meanwhile, Amethyst uses her magic to mask the entire courthouse in chaotic light, making it as difficult for Lutherion to find her as it is for her to find him. Nathan tries to explain Aeon's tool to Emily while the demon toys with his mind through illusions in an attempt to make him react entertainingly. Eximo decides it can't keep cleaning through Amethyst's spell, and proceeds to hunt for Lutherion; its scans reveal him, and it throws a knife at the arm, incidentally revealing him to Amethyst. Aeon explains his weapon more explicitly to Emily, and tells her Nathan is seeing things they aren't; she realizes he urged Nathan to experiment with the knife and tells him it's demonically possessed. Aeon asks her to exorcise Nathan, but she explains that she can't if the demon is split between the knife and Nathan because it might reform in the half that's not exorcised. Lutherion sprays pus everywhere to distract Eximo and begins reforming himself. Once reformed, Lutherion sends a few skeletal scouts out to find Amethyst; Eximo decides that fighting Lutherion takes priority, and begins glowing with energy. Emily and Aeon decide to separate Nathan and the knife to prevent the demon's power from growing. The demon doesn't like this plan and tricks Nathan into attacking illusory Lutherions, two of which are actually Emily and Aeon. Emily realizes Nathan must have entered into a bargain with the demon and is enraged; she ages him to subdue him, then restores his youth once he stops attacking. Aeon tells Nathan to stop using the knife at all, and decides they shouldn't separate him from it or the demon will likely cause Nathan to go berserk again; Emily suggests he use his tool to drain energy from the demon, but Aeon can't do that without establishing communications with it. Lutherion attacks Eximo and summons a group of exploding pus-filled imps; Eximo detonates most of the imps, enraging Lutherion and coating him with pus. Amethyst approaches, attacking Lutherion with lightning. Lutherion summons a web of bone splinters, which incapacitates Amethyst. Eximo begins to clean up the bone, and Amethyst summons a wind to disorient Lutherion, who is tracking their movements with the web. Between them, they force Lutherion to destroy the web and revert to his normal form, then knock him prone; Amethyst binds him again, and she and Eximo retreat. They enter the house Nathan, Emily, and Aeon have been in, and Amethyst and Emily begin shoring up its defenses as Aeon slips away. Emily notices Aeon's absence, and Eximo reveals that Aeon and another lifeform are outside the house. Emily begins preparing those present to fend off Lutherion, and orders Amethyst to send out a probe to identify the unknown lifeform. Aeon sits in the bakery, thinking; a frail-looking person approaches, and he tosses it some bread. It transforms into a werewolf and attacks, while Aeon runs and Amethyst watches through her probe. As Aeon flees, he eventually collides with Lutherion, who immediately attacks. Emily leaves the house to save Aeon, protecting him from the werewolf with her barriers; she doesn't expect to encounter Lutherion and is caught off guard, but Amethyst covers her and Aeon's retreat with a wall of fire. Aeon realizes he can fight the werewolf with silver from his tool, and goes back to kill it; Emily watches, and Lutherion catches up, summoning avian minions. She holds the birds off, and he decides to change tack, dismissing them and replacing them with a colossal undead wolflike behemoth. Nathan's demon gets angry at him for being so uninteresting and forces him to rise and attack the behemoth; Emily tries to stop him, but he threatens to attack her too if she gets in his way. Amethyst watches the werewolf attack the behemoth, and wonders why the Director has allowed newcomers to interfere with the battle, making it clear she can perceive the demon. Eximo finishes cleaning the house and decides to attack the behemoth to prevent future messes and solicits advice on how to accomplish this. Emily orders Eximo to protect Nathan, and it complies by restraining him; Lutherion is disappointed that no-one is fighting him any more, and Emily reveals herself. She attempts to spend her life-force to return Lutherion to life, but he rejects it and impales her on his behemoth's tail. Eximo concludes this was not part of Emily's plan, and decides to act as a distraction to prevent her plan from failing. Nathan fights his demon for control as Eximo distracts the beast, and succeeds in slicing the behemoth's tail off and freeing Emily. Nathan tells Aeon to keep her safe, as he doesn't trust himself, and returns to attack the behemoth. Emily tries to heal herself, but is too far gone to succeed. Aeon attacks the werewolf and sends it fleeing, then joins everyone else in attacking Lutherion. Amethyst begins to worry there is no escape but death, and tries to make her peace with Emily before launching a powerful spell at the behemoth to protect Nathan. It blocks the blast with a palm, but Nathan slices that arm off and the spell drives the arm back through the behemoth. Amethyst faints from the exertion of the casting. Emily watches the battle impassively, regretting that she couldn't save Lutherion from what he'd become. She asks Aeon to finish her off, requesting that he use his tool to take her healing energy. He complies, and she finally dies. Pon DeFor, Emily's Gentleman, leaves, having given the Director his suggestion for the next round. The Director takes a slip from all the remaining Gentlemen, and creates a round from them.