#I am still enamored with Jack getting disarmed and trying to clobber Dave with his extra health bar

[thelifetimechannel]

Happy holidays! [S] Checkmate timing test

These timings match up with Tensei's "Of Gods and Witches":

Before the battle we see WV greeting AR and being super excited. AR is kinda baffled but gratified. We see their former memories in the clouds, maybe WV points to them?

Jane, Nanna, and Kanaya target bigger undead monsters. Casey's undead consort army shows up when they are almost overwhelmed. Rose and Roxy both slap their foreheads in comic dismay.

Karkat, Terezi, and the carapaces are ground troops against regular underlings.

Remaining Alpha kids are air support against flighted underlings.

Hal is hanging out taking messages from everyone directing battle traffic.

The preloader shows the Battlefield, surrounded by those weird checkboard vine things. It should be just crowded and dark enough to imply a serious sense of foreboding. Upon the flash loading, the Battlefield spins and zooms as the music starts.

SCREEN 1: 00:00-00:05 Pan up across a wide shot of the kids in various battle positions on the battlefield. Aerial combantants (Terezi, Hal, Davesprite, and the Alpha kids sans Jane and plus Calliope. Kat note: Davesprite’s on the lilypad. Matches last convo, and also, he’s a beta too :P) are around the scene. Karkat and WV stand on top of a hill, WV holding a waving red flag. The Beta kids are standing on a lilypad in center screen.

SCREEN 2: 00:05-00:09 On the chord, pan down across the kids on the lilypad, all in battle ready poses with weapons out

SCREEN 3: 00:09-00:15 On the chord, the opposite side of the hill we just saw WV and Karkat on. Pan to the right hand side. They stand on top of the hill. Scrolling by at differing speeds to the background hill are Jane (holding her fork made from the White King’s scepter), Kanaya, and Nanna. WV’s army of carapacians is gathered around them.

Screen 4: 00:15-00:19 On the chord, worm’s eye view of The Alpha kids and Calliope in the sky.

Screen 5: 00:19-00:21 A view of the underling army approaching: think the carapacian armies in flashes such as WV: Rise Up, where the hills are all separate layers that do a lot of panning. A mix of undead Alpha session underlings mingle with the Beta session’s horde of monsters.

Screen 6: 00:21-00:23 A bird’s eye view down onto the Beta’s lilypad.

Screen 7: 00:23-00:26 Third drumbeat Jane raises the scepter to begin the Reckoning. A red filter descends over the sky and contrasting green defense portals appear on the final drumbeat before the flute. A few streaks of meteors can be seen. The Reckoning has begun.

Screen 8: 00:26-00:28 As little synthesizer pretending to be a flute plays a first solemn note, the red filter descends further, the Betas look up to Jack fly overhead. They pan up, Jack moves down.

Screen 9: 00:28-00:32 On the second synthesized flute note, Jack lands on the platform.

Screen 10: :32-:34 The Betas and the ground pan down, Jack pans up. PM lands either in front or behind them

Screen 11: :34-:37 The background turns chaotic and red as Jack’s health vial appears. It’s already huge, as befitting of a final boss. It fills with vitality gel, but when it reaches the end, it laps itself and starts filling again in a different color.

Screen 12: :37-:41 Cut to a wide shot of the lillypad hovering over the battlefield. Clouds flit by, meteors fall, a crowd of underlings is trampling their way from right to left across the screen. STRIFE ROUND _ _ _ pops up at the bottom and numbers start spinning, eventually settling on ??? so that you don't know whether John had to reset to get this outcome or how many times.

:41 Slamming back to the lilypad, where John has his first engagement w Jack. This is done in a style of sprite similar to Rose’s fight with Jack pre-Cascade. They lock sword to hammer.

:45 Planetside, the Mayor raises his hand and Karkat raises his sickle and yells something. The carapace army advances against a horde of mixed underlings.

00:48 A general group of carapaces rushing forward.

00:50 Carpacean and underling footsoldiers meet. Remember: Carapaces on the left, underlings on the right!

00:52 Kanaya and Jane face off against a bunch of undead. Kanaya with her chainsaw, Jane with lifey powers glowing around her hands.

00:56 Transition by having John’s hammer and Jack’s sword meet on screen, and with a flash, we cut back to them.

00:56-00:58: With a series of blows in time with the guitar notes, John moves Jack rightwards across the screen.

00:58 John takes off Jack’s hat, but gets knocked back.

1:00 John jumps into metaphorical shadows of the background and Rose slides in, needles at the ready.

1:03-1:09: Rose takes off a tentacle. It would be amusing to try and have some kind of callback to her previous fight with Jack here.

1:10 Dirk, Roxy, Jake airborne. vs flighted underlings. This would be a good moment for a fraymotif: Jake gets the idea to use it, and either performs his and Dirk’s Caccia Amore (a buff whereby they swap glowy power auras and cleave through a group of underlings no problem) or his and Roxy’s Shot in the Dark (trapping a group of underlings in a black voidy version of Jake’s hope bubble and ricocheting bullets inside until they’re all grist).

1:26 Show planetside combat. Cool moments for people:

Karkat drags a few airborne underlings down with Blood powers for his army to trample.

Terezi does some sort of mindy thing perhaps to direct Jane and Kanaya

-The second of Jake’s two fraymotif ideas. Because you know, he’s the only one who was actually seen buying his, and Act 5 is pretty goddamn clear Fraymotifs are purchased from consorts.

-General note: While the kids can be doing good, the underlings have to be putting up a fair fight, with the tide of battle turning to the underlings’ favor once Jack uses the Miles. Otherwise the Crisis Point looks like it comes out of nowhere for no good reason.

JACK PLATFORM

1:40 Dave + Davesprite versus Jack. Davesprite takes off a wing and Dave gets his sword. Jack tries to bludgeon Dave with his massive healthbar…

1:50: Jack getting his health bar lopped in half by Dave. (NOTE: Dave does not participate in direct offensive attacks, only defense)

1:58: Jack summons the Red Miles, which destabilizes the lilypad, throws all the betas off balance, and punches holes in the lilypad. Terezi's jetpack is hit and she crashlands.

~2:05~ Crisis point

2:12 dirk gets decapitated like a dumbass.

2:13 rxn shot: Roxy is like why tf did u do that

2:15 Kanaya and Jane chainsaw their way out of an Underling Jane revive-killed a little too late, leaving them trapped in its ribcage. They’re pinned as soon as they emerge. Don’t worry, I’ll be making the gore sooty and ashy because Gill has done enough gore-things.

2:17 Karkat's army is cornered by a bunch of tough looking underlings. Looking up at the sky, meteors are hurtling towards the surface.

2:21 General pan of the carnage, ppl looking desperate

2:27 JACK PLATFORM On the Crescendo: Dave raises a hand and a bunch of Skaian defense portals glow red. Zoom into one to picture of Earth with the time ticker showing time passing.

2:30 On the crescendo: GB!Jade pops through the portal with the meteor and nabs the planet, then leaves the way she came. THEN the meteors shoot through, passing harmlessly through empty space.

2:34 Use as transition to Jade’s attack (keep the meteor but change the background), grabbing meteors and blasting them through/around Jack

2:40 PM and Jack dueling, but PM getting knocked back

2:42-2:50: A montage of tired and pinned kids (Jane reviving Dirk goes here):

2:50: Jade and PM look @ each other and nod.

2:50 As the drums kick up, PM charges the screen, providing transition for Jade’s retreats into the sky.

2:52 Jade hovers. A fraymotif circle appears beneath her while the former-Becs are seen on the lillypad below.

2:53 Cut to below her: The Spacey thing can be seen in the sky, but something comes over the hills in dramatic fashion. Cheers love, cavalry’s here The hills and the army rise until they’re in frame, Casey at the helm.

2:57 is the reveal shot with the low strings.

3:01 As the drums swell, Casey orders them to charge. They go for the underlings’ flank, a wide shot showing skeletons mobbing underlings.

3:03 A reaction shot of the two armies meeting.

3:05 Roxy and Rose slap their foreheads in a show of comic dismay, but Rose looks down in surprise to see a fraymotif circle under her feet.

3:08 In time with the Savior chords, the boys also notice the fraymotifs circles under them.

3:11: The camera cuts back to a wide shot of the battlefield to display the name of the 4-person motif: Unite Synchronize. No, shush, I know what I’m doing.

3:12 Jade gets some big ol’ insta-runes lighting up behind her.

3:13 PM and Jack fly awhile before PM suddenly takes off into the open void. Jack is confused, looking around for her. He looks up.

3:19 Activating lock-on fraymotif thing, comprised of the Light and Time circles. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.

3:22 Rose and Dave, with their insta-runes.

3:23 John nyooms in front of Jade and activates his own insta-runes. I definitely know what I’m doing, stop looking at me like that.

3:26: Space + Breath instarunes light up and spin in a way that can only mean FRIKKIN LASER BEAMS.

3:28: Zoom out, through the various flavors of instarunes, out to Jack who’s in the dead bulls-eye of all of them.

3:30 He tries to evade, but Light + Time mean there’s a dead lock-on on him.

3:32: Well clear of the blast, all four kids do a gesture that sets off the beam.

3:34 MAXIMUM BULLSHIT ACHIEVED: THE GIANT LASERBEAM OF FRIENDSHIP

We see it go off from a few angles in time with the beat and get Jack caught in the crossfire at 3:38 , taking off another tentacle and wing.

3:40: After getting laserblasted, Jack stumbles back, weakened, only to look up and see

3:42: HEY THERE, PM. She flies at him, just above the beam, sword ready and the camera zooming in each successive chord.

3:46 On the second to last chord, Jack raises his one arm and broken sword in defense: on the last chord, there’s a shot of them in the frame together, rush at one another-

3:50 Everything goes white; SHE STRIKES and fades in on her in the aftermath of a sword stroke, having taken Jack’s hand.

3:53: Everything sloooows down and Jack slowly falls to the ground away from his detached hand.

3:57 A shot of the battlefield with all the enemies dissolving as Jack falls.

04:03 On the low piano key, pulses and the battlefield goes from a torn red hellscape to normal. As the flash ends, it fades to a final screen before the replay button appears: a battlefield scene with the lillypad in the foreground transitions to the victory platform, where a green house stands. No, I don’t care if Hussie’s was red: It’s the Beta kids’ fight, the Beta kids’ regent, the Beta kids’ Battlefield, the Beta kids’ frog, and the Beta kids’ STORY - it’s the Beta kids’ green house on that goddamn victory platform.

FLASH ENDS