Attack on the Queen Britannia

The Attack on the Queen Britannia was a battle which occurred one December morning in the current year of the story timeline, shortly after the Crowley's Hazard invasion of the United Kingdom.

Taking place in the Irish Sea, near to the, it was an assault carried about by British forces and several groups from Academy City on the hijacked Queen Britannia, in order to prevent Coronzon from using the stolen Honours of Scotland to seize control of the United Kingdom's magical system and performing the Ceremony of Mo Athair which would have resulted in the destruction of the world.

Coronzon
Around the time of the Golden Dawn's downfall, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers summoned the Great Demon Coronzon, with orders to bring Aleister Crowley, the instigator, to ruin. Coronzon later appeared before Aleister during a summoning experiment in the Sahara desert in 1909, but was prevented from carrying out the late Mathers' command and was driven off. Afterwards, the demon secretly travelled from Africa to the United Kingdom and assumed the identity of Lola Stuart, creating a physical body to act as its primary avatar. While Aleister survived his supposed end in 1947 and continued his plan as Board Chairman of Academy City, Coronzon manipulated events while acting as Archbishop of Necessarius, both to fulfill its contract with Mathers and its own desires as the embodiment of natural breakdown and dispersion. The two would continue to plot in the shadows for the remainder of the 20th century.

On December 11th, Coronzon ambushed Aleister while he was knocked out following his battle with Kamijou Touma, in order to infest him and usurp control over Academy City. The demon also taunted Aleister by claiming to be possessing the body of his second daughter Lola. This attack resulted in the diffusion of Aleister's alternative possibilities, the Crowley's Hazards, across the world and their subsequent invasion of the British Commonwealth, in response to Coronzon's actions, with the prime Aleister shifting his consciousness to the body of one of them. Failing to seize Academy City, Coronzon ended up temporarily sealed within the shut-down city while Aleister pursued her achilles heel in the United Kingdom - the corpse of her contractor Mathers.

Facing Coronzon's anti-Crowley measures in London, the Divine Mixtures and grimoire-based recreations of the Golden Dawn, Aleister was eventually forced to unlock Academy City's technology to escape from death at the hands of the reproduced Mathers, resulting in Coronzon breaking free from the seal. Coronzon flew from Academy City to Edinburgh Castle, arriving as Aleister had Mathers' real corpse ready to use the connection against her, but was able to use her previous deception to trick Aleister, stabbing her and using the opening to burn the corpse. Released from the contract, Coronzon was free to enact the destruction of the world which she desired, naming the planned ritual the Ceremony of Mo Athair, in reference to her former contractor.

Honours of Scotland
The Honours of Scotland are a set of Scottish royal treasures, consisting of three regalia; the Sword of State, the Coronation Crown and the Ruling Sceptre, together with the Stone of Scone. The three regalia and the stone, a combination of three and four, form their own magical system, similar to the system symbolically rooted in the three power, four region structure of the United Kingdom and governed by the Curtana. As the spiritual items form an alternate foundation for the control mechanism, they can be used together as an alternative control for the UK's magical system, though this is only possible if the Curtana's control is unstable. The ideal position for their usage in this manner is at a point equidistant from the centers of the UK's four regions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) - in the middle of the Irish Sea.

With the Curtana-controlled system still unstable following the damage to the Curtana Second from the clash of Curtanas during the British Halloween,  an opportunity was created for the Scottish royal treasures to be used in this capacity. With the threat posed by the Crowley's Hazard invasion of the United Kingdom, the evacuation of the British Royal Family from London to Edinburgh was partly to prevent the Honours, stored in Edinburgh Castle, from falling into the wrong hands.

Queen Britannia
The Queen Britannia was a luxury cruise ship and floating fortress which was built in order to carry the British Royal Family in comfort and safety across the seas, in order to perform large-scale rituals at 53 predetermined points throughout the territories of the British Commonwealth, aided by the amplifying effects of its central temple. The ship served and protected the royal family for many years, though as necessary diplomatic trips came to be made by plane, the ship came to mean more as a show of force and technological might than as a vehicle.

After being decommissioned, the ship was moored in a harbour in Edinburgh as one of its major tourist attractions. As forcefully dismantling the ship might have resulted in a highly destructive rebound, it was instead intended that the mental noise from the tourists' thoughts would gradually neutralize the magical symbols over time, though it was estimated that the process would take over 1200 years.

Recent Events
In the early hours of morning before the battle, although the threat of the Crowley's Hazards was past, the invasion and the surrounding events had left the country in an unstable, chaotic and confused situation. The world as a whole was also in a state of chaos and confusion, with a quiet and temporary mania starting to set in with the threat gone. Following a pursuit on the roads between London and Edinburgh by the recreated Golden Dawn, the royal convoy arrived at Edinburgh Castle, followed by the groups from Academy City, with Coronzon arriving not long afterwards.

Immediately after Coronzon stabbed Aleister and released itself from the bonds of its contract, Kamijou Touma faced the demon, but was soon grievously injured by her Magick: Flaming_Sword, only being saved through the wounded Aleister's intervention. Accelerator, having contracted with Qliphah Puzzle 545, briefly clashed with Coronzon before the demon left the graveyard to seize the Honours of Scotland beneath the castle. Easily overcoming the knights and Queen Elizard, Coronzon obtained two of the regalia and the Stone of Scone. The Sword of State ended up in hands of Hamazura Shiage, who was looking for a way to revive the recreated Dion Fortune, who had been reduced to cards following the clash between Aleister and the recreated Mathers, and when confronted by the demon, made a deal to assist her in return for a way to bring Dion Fortune back.

Coronzon's Preparations
At some point prior to the events at Edinburgh Castle, Coronzon (in her guise as Archbishop Lola Stuart) had made arrangements for the Queen Britannia to be moved from its mooring in Edinburgh. As the ship was a valuable cultural asset and the Irish Sea was comparatively safer at that point than the east side of Scotland, which bordered the sea leading to the European mainland and was therefore under threat from the Crowley's Hazards, the security crew likely didn't question the order.

Immediately after the events at Edinburgh Castle, Coronzon initiated remote attacks across the world through the ley lines, in order to influence the populace and stoke chaos for the first stage of the Ceremony of Mo Athair, as well eliminating possible threats. Locations attacked included the RV where Lilith was being sheltered and the of Egypt,  in the Czech Republic and  in Greece, with at least one of the latter's temples sustaining damage.

Coronzon himself left Edinburgh with Hamazura Shiage by rail, on a Rapid Model train heading from Edinburgh to Glasgow, avoiding magical flight in order to reduce the chances of being detected too soon. The two ended up leaving the train early due to Accelerator and Nephthys's actions, and were split up briefly after Niang-Niang approached them, looking for a fight. After a inconclusive battle with Niang-Niang, a bloodied Coronzon caught up with Hamazura at Dumfries via winged flight.

When the Queen Britannia arrived at, Coronzon hijacked the ship, swiftly removing the people onboard, who didn't know how to activate the ship's defenses, within 30 seconds. Turning on the magical defenses, which soon shot down several Anaconda cruise missiles fired at it at around 10 AM, Coronzon accessed the central temple and prepared it for use together with the stolen Honours of Scotland and Stone of Scone in the Ceremony of Mo Athair.

British and Other Preparations
After being separated from Hamazura Shiage, Takitsubo Rikou was questioned by the knights, but was approached by Madame Horos, posing as Anna Sprengel. Taking advantage of Takitsubo's desire to save Hamazura, Madame Horos helped her to escape and gave her a crystal ball, a combat module derived from a grimoire which worked together with her AIM Stalker to target shots and apparently allowed indirect use of magic for espers without the harmful side-effects from conventional use, while also telling her of what would happen if Hamazura used magic without this method of modified scrying. However, Madame Horos actually intended to use Takitsubo against Hamazura, giving her the crystal ball in order to manipulate her and exploit her ability to aim its shots. She might have also considered using Takitsubo's ability to rupture Kamijou Touma from within. The two caught up with the Queen Britannia as the ship passed close to the.

Though Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang were supposedly spectators in this whole affair, they both intervened in events a couple of times for their own fun; Nephthys by facing Accelerator, saving Hamazura Shiage in the process, and Niang-Niang facing Coronzon, stirring things up to make it all more entertaining for them.

Charge across the Ice
The battle began around 11AM, with the Queen Britannia about an hour away from the optimum point for the Ceremony of Mo Athair. In order to slow the ship's progress slightly and to provide a foothold/footing/surface in order to reach it, the British forces froze the sea, starting from their side and heading over towards the Irish side, with ice thick and hard enough for heavy snow vehicles to safely drive on. As the frozen waters were within the United Kingdom's territory, the knights were able to receive support from the Curtana.

The British forces had gathered on the coast with every form of transportation over ice which they could find, including snowmobiles, thick treaded snow vehicles, military vehicles with studless tires, horses with spiked horseshoes fitted, large skates and Nordic skiis. Among them, Elizard rode a large trike, Riméa was seated in a thick treaded snow vehicle (sipping lemon tea), and the Knight Leader and Female Knight were on horseback with the latter riding Carissa's horse Alex. Throughout the battle, Index and Karasuma Fran monitored the battlefield from above with Fran's Bunny Grey balloon, communicating with the British forces.

On Elizard's order, the army began their charge towards the ship. In response, Coronzon used the Honours of Scotland and the Stone of Scone in conjunction with the Queen Britannia's temple to fire a massive magical barrage on the advancing British forces, a single volley of which was comprised of 400,000 simultaneous shots, with one type for each of the four treasures and 100,000 shots for each.

Having anticipated these attacks, Elizard had Riméa deploy thousands of decoys, in the form of ice trees erupting from the frozen surface, in order to intercept the shots. Being made of ice, they could be remade as many times as necessary, regardless of how many were broken. With the support from the Curtana, the knights drew the attacks and redirected them towards the decoys, while slipping through the gaps between the trees. Despite getting through the probing attacks of the first stage and gradually approaching the ship, a number of them recognized that the trick wouldn't last forever, with the Knight Leader suspecting that Coronzon, being familiar with the British system as the archbishop, would soon focus her barrage on the royal family to break the equilibrium, and Index recognizing that the knights and the rest of their direct firepower would be forced back once the trick's effectiveness ran out.

At that point, Accelerator made his own move. On his command, Qliphah Puzzle 545 began to manifest, gathering the icy debris on the battlefield for her birthing ceremony, however she deliberately kept herself in a halfway state and her manifestation incomplete, transforming into a huge tornado of ice and approaching the other side of the ship from the British forces. Despite it being an obvious decoy, Coronzon was forced to turn her fire on the tornado due to it being too powerful to ignore, giving the British forces more of a chance to approach the ship. As they were nearing the ship however, Coronzon blocked their passage with a line of Aethyr Avatars, with only Touma and Aleister's groups managing to get through and board the ship. After seeing them get through the defensive line, Accelerator activated his ability to supplement the tornado as it rammed its tip into the ship several times. Recognizing that it didn't change much, Accelerator had Qliphah Puzzle 545 remove the tornado and complete her manifestation before making his own way into the ship, seeing that doing damage inside would be more effective than keeping the tornado going.

Later in the battle, as the confrontation inside the ship was nearing its climax, Princess Villian and relief workers carried the wounded (Holegres Mirates among them) from the areas of fierce fighting to relative safety on the cracking battlefield, using the openings created by Kanzaki Kaori slicing through the hairs. As they were struggling, Heaven Canceller came to their aid, quickly sewing up the wounds of the injured and also alerting Villian to their flank being open, prompting Villian to angrily order Riméa to provide more ice trees. As Kanzaki escorted Heaven Canceller, who wished to finish saving the injured quickly so he could return to the RV and resume watching over the lab equipment for Lilith's body, Kihara Noukan was also fighting on the frontlines with his Anti-Art Attachment.

Battles in the Ship
Among the forces attacking the Queen Britannia, only a few actually managed to get inside the ship. Two groups made it past the defensive line that Coronzon had deployed against the British forces; one group was comprised of Aleister Crowley, Mina Mathers and Lilith Crowley,  who was brought along to the front line as a distraction from the physical vessel being grown in the RV, while the other group consisted of Kamijou Touma, Othinus and Misaka Mikoto, riding on the Anti-Art Attachment. Accelerator and Qliphah Puzzle 545 had approached from the other side and made their own way in after several strikes against the ship from the outside. Most of the army remained outside facing the barrage and the Aethyr Avatars - as Accelerator saw it, inside would be far worse than outside, so anyone that let the external threat stop them was better off staying outside.

Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang had also boarded the ship and were intending to entertain themselves by picking fights of their own. At some point, Takitsubo Rikou also made it onboard, wishing to save Hamazura Shiage, who by then was already bleeding heavily from refining magic power in order to restart the grimoire recreation before Dion Fortune was lost, but having fallen victim to Madame Horos's manipulations herself.

Kamijou Touma and Misaka Mikoto
Riding on the A.A.A., Kamijou Touma, Misaka Mikoto and Othinus managed to get past the Aethyr Avatars and rode up the side of the ship, with Aleister's group passing by on their way in at the same time. Arriving on deck shortly before the tornado struck the ship, they entered through a different watertight door. They decided to head for the wheelhouse in order to interfere with the ship's heading and prevent it from reaching its destination, fighting the Aethyr Avatars along the way.

Accelerator VS Nephthys
After a few hits from the ice tornado against the ship, seeing that it wouldn't accomplish much, Accelerator had Qliphah Puzzle 545 complete her manifestation and broke into the ship. He decided to head for the engine room to break the propeller shaft and immobilize the ship, but before he made a move, he encountered Hamazura Shiage, bleeding heavily due to refining magic power as an esper in order to revive Dion Fortune. As Accelerator prepared to swat him aside and continue on, he was kicked by Nephthys in a surprise attack through a wall and then tackled through another wall into the ship's opera house.

In the subsequent battle, Accelerator thwarted Nephthys's initial attempt to use her tears on Qliphah Puzzle 545 again by breaking a sprinkler. Nephthys was unaffected by his next attack and subsequently made use of the water herself, dropping it down as a blade. Finding his reflection wavering from the water partially interfering with the electromagnetic waves and being struck by a piece of debris, Accelerator was forced to disperse the water but in the process created an opportunity for Nephthys to use her tears again. As Qliphah Puzzle 545 tried to contain her power as it was sent out of control, she was contacted by the Will of the Misaka Network through her connection with Accelerator and received assistance in turning things to his advantage, realizing her essence as a guide to the Abyss. Through this, Accelerator became capable of dealing lasting wounds against Nephthys.

The clash ultimately ended with Accelerator bloody from the side-effects of relying on something like magic as an esper and Nephthys tangled in the bars in the ceiling for the stage lights.

Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou
Immediately after being saved from Accelerator by Nephthys, Hamazura had another encounter as foretold by the Magic God, this time with his girlfriend Takitsubo Rikou. He soon learned that she had been tricked by 'Anna Sprengel' into accepting a grimoire-derived module, an indirect and apparently safe way for an esper to use magic, in the belief that she could relay the method of modified scrying to Hamazura and prevent him from dying from the side-effects of using magic conventionally as an esper. Instead, 'Anna' intended to exploit her in order to eliminate Hamazura, using Takitsubo and her ability in order to guide the combat module's attacks.

With Takitsubo powerless to stop the crystal ball's attacks, Hamazura evaded the attacks and tried to free his girlfriend by breaking the crystal ball. His attempt to destroy the ball was unsuccessful and he was cornered, but enough time had been bought and mana supplied for the grimoire recreation of Dion Fortune to reactivate. The manifested Archetype Processor swallowed the crystal ball, distorting it from its original form and freeing Takitsubo. As Hamazura caught Takitsubo as she collapsed, Dion Fortune took form once more.

Aleister Crowley VS Niang-Niang
Shortly after getting aboard the ship with Mina and Lilith, Aleister determined the route to the temple and the likely elements of the 'password' required to access it. Before they could carry out any attempts at divination, they were approached by Niang-Niang, who was looking for a fight.

Their clash eventually led to the ship's kitchen, with Niang-Niang losing on purpose and helping Aleister by making it so that the collateral damage from the battle indicated the necessary symbols for accessing the temple, in return for Aleister facing her head-on despite already being wounded. Aleister and Mina subsequently made their way to the elevator in the central storeroom, where Coronzon's Aethyr Avatars attacked them. However, the two easily dispatched them and made use of the hair as footholds to climb the shaft and reach the temple.

The Older Generation
Arriving at the heliport temple, Aleister confronted Coronzon, together with Mina and Lilith. Noting Aleister's wounds, the demon directed accusations towards her while expressing its intentions and desire to remove the clogs and stagnation in the world, and destroying the exceptions that don't break down (herself included), leaving the stage clear for those to come. After a brief question from Aleister on what she wished to protect, to which Coronzon answered the world but not the current age, the two began their clash.

Charging in, Aleister used the tip of her palm staff, heated by friction from dragging it, to slice through Coronzon's hair and the initial Aethyr Avatar. Through the demonic face on her hair, Coronzon then invoked the Third Call to send a blade of pure wind towards Aleister's neck, but she had the staff take the strike in order to divert its path. Responding with the Seventh Call and surrounding the wind blade in cold mist, Coronzon sent it towards Lilith. Mina was able to counter the attack with a claw-like wind of her own, but Coronzon observed that while the impure element didn't work, a pure one would likely break through. As her hair continued to spell out text, Coronzon challenged Aleister to fight while being distracted in protecting her baby.

At that moment, Hamazura spoke over the ship's internal radio, revealing that he had got what he wanted and urging Coronzon to end it while she still could end it without getting killed. Coronzon heard him, but chose to continue regardless, unleashing her Magick: Flaming_Sword. Aleister's invocation of Babalon wasn't fast enough, so Lilith used a miracle to divert the sword's path. With a brief window of opportunity as Coronzon was handling the recoil and with the failure of Lilith having had to use another miracle, Aleister moved in. Coronzon attempted to unleash the First Call at point-blank range, but Aleister threw three pigeon-blood rubies (a symbol connected to ZAX and Coronzon, previously used by the demon herself) into the floor's groves, in an equilateral triangle around Coronzon, and used them to twist the impact back. She then used them to intentionally enact a failed exorcism, in order to forcibly reduce and tear Coronzon apart. It initially appeared successful, but Coronzon endured from the stability produced by her physical vessel and after feigning, used the opening to fatally impale Aleister in the chest with her hair.

With Aleister down, Coronzon scoffed at the idea that Lilith's miracles could defeat her and rejected Lilith's questioning of whether this was what she really wanted. As she laughed however, Coronzon was shaken and doubled over. Saying it was not her, Lilith rejected Coronzon's earlier statement that this was a showdown for her generation, telling the demon that those with a century-old grudge were not the only ones fighting and those facing the world in present were just as qualified to work towards their own survival.

The Newer Generation
Having concluded his fight with Nephthys and been successful with his experiment, Accelerator, with help from Qliphah Puzzle 545 and the Will of the Misaka Network, embedded the artificial third tree and alternative facet of the Misaka Network, dubbed the Clonoth, into the world, bleeding from using the mystical power and manifesting pale platinum wings similar to Aiwass as he did so. The planting of the third tree, separate from the Sephiroth and Qliphoth, had the effect of shaking the world and was recognized by Coronzon as likely changing things even more fundamentally than with Angel Fall. As Accelerator intended, this applied a powerful external pressure to Coronzon and temporarily forced her soul out of her body, a use of the macro to affect the micro.

Despite being forced from her body and stripped of the protection it provided, Coronzon claimed that it wouldn't make a difference with Aleister having fallen and using Lilith meaning abandoning their principles, however the floor was cut apart from below by the Anti-Art Attachment's chainsaw and Touma used it as a foothold to enter the temple, having rushed along the same floor as the wheelhouse to arrive directly below the heliport. Though Coronzon claimed that he was not a match for her and would be obliterated like before, Lilith pointed out that the outcome would be different now that she had lost her physical vessel. With a clash imminent, Coronzon decided to initiate the ceremony then and there, even though it wouldn't achieve a complete destruction due to the interference, in order to eliminate her immediate enemy and commanded the temple to activate the Honours of Scotland and hijack the United Kingdom so the Ceremony of Mo Athair could begin.

However as she did so, Hamazura Shiage asked Dion Fortune for help, to not let Coronzon destroy the world she was born into. In response, Dion Fortune improvised an original spell as a representative of the magicians who tried to continue the Golden Dawn into the present, calling upon the remains of her fellow Golden Dawn recreations in Scotland and bearing the full name of the cabal itself, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Tarot cards subsequently flew up across Scotland and formed a vortex visible from space, blocking the signal through the ley lines to Scotland.

With the hijacking of the United Kingdom and subsequently the Ceremony of Mo Athair having failed, Coronzon laughed at seeing her creations turn on her at the very end. Rejecting Touma's demands, she attempted to destroy him with her Magick: Flaming_Sword as before, but this time it was negated by Imagine Breaker, to Coronzon's surprise. But as Touma stepped forward to punch her, Coronzon invoked the Secret Call through the demonic face in her hair, using her knowledge of Magick to send the attack through the Anti-Art Attachment's external link, now released from Aleister, before Lilith could warn the others to lock it down. The beam severed Touma's arm in a surprise attack from behind, but also inadvertently broke the lock sealing the entity lurking behind the Imagine Breaker in Touma's body. Something like a collection of triangular surfaces or dark red fish eggs burst from Touma's shoulder as he urged Coronzon to seek help. The objects then burst within as a swarm of something else emerged, and with a deafening roar and a blinding flash of light, the temple and the entire Queen Britannia were torn in half.

Aftermath
After being bisected, the Queen Britannia was left slanted and sank in the half hour following noon. The various groups from Academy City took advantage of the situation created by the sinking in order to slip away, though Mina Mathers recovered the Scottish royal treasures and returned them to Queen Elizard before leaving. Kamijou Touma escaped immediately after the ship was blown open and fled across the ice, in order to prevent the dangerous and now-unsealed entity from killing anyone.

As the dying Aleister lay in the ruins of the temple, Madame Horos approached her, still posing at Anna Sprengel. However, Aiwass had been waiting for this opportunity and ambushed the fraud, successfully restoring the real Anna Sprengel to her body, but getting an arm to the gut for taking so long. After a brief conversation, the two left under a shroud of invisibility, with Aiwass advising Aleister to keep her silence to avoid dragging anyone else down with her. Accelerator then arrived with Qliphah Puzzle 545 and spoke with Aleister, with his vengeance looking like it would go unfulfilled. Handing over the cell phone she'd used to remotely access Academy City's technology, Aleister left Accelerator with the full authority of the Board Chairman, telling him with her last breath that he could achieve his vengeance against the adults in another way by taking control and creating the kind of Academy City where those remaining could smile together.

At 1.05 pm, Kanzaki Kaori discovered Aleister's body floating in the water and confirmed her death. The corpse was subsequently recovered, with Elizard requesting that it be treated with care, intending to give her a state funeral for helping them stop Great Demon Coronzon and to partially make up for the mistreatment Aleister had experienced from the United Kingdom in past.

However, neither Aleister or Coronzon were fully dead. After the blow to its soul, Coronzon's consciousness clung to her physical body, but to her horror, she found that Aleister was now in control of the body, due to a combination of Aleister's curse of failure, the influence of sparks coming back to the demon and the fact that the contract from the 1909 summoning was not actually annulled. After cutting her hair short and considering the overall situation, Aleister decided that she would remain hidden in the backstage beyond magic and science for now, before turning her attention to the matter of the entity lurking within Kamijou Touma, the seal of which was now broken. Meanwhile, Touma continued to flee, even as Index called to him from above, with Anna Sprengel and Aiwass looking on.

Given that the Queen Britannia contained a large number of antiques and artwork, it was expected that professional divers would be searching the wreck in due course.