2023-05-04: Search Warrant

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<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.

        It comes this time far less dramatically. A low flying base jabber swoops by, just outside of the grounds of the PPL. And then it dismounts. Jump jets fire a moment to slow its descent before it touches down just outside the gates that mark the entrance to the main campus.

        It is there, sleek obsidian armor, yellow horn, its untransformed faceplate bearing the same visage it always does, until it activates the NT-D. There is no separate Kaiju attack, or attack at all. Its weapons are powered down currently.

        The RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 02 - Banshee lowers itself down to a kneeling position then remains there on standby for its assigned purpose: Assisting Michele Luio in executing a search warrant. The Base Jabber had been moving at extraordinarily low speed, and it's easy to see why now. Michele Luio is not just present, but standing upon the Banshee's open right palm. Fingertips curled just enough for safety, but not enough to make it look like she isn't in complete control of the situation. Her comms jacked into the Banshee's loudspeakers, the mobile suit blocking the sun and helping her cut a fierce silhouette. The Banshee kneels, but otherwise holds her up. It will put her down when commanded.

        Without her commands, it does not do anything. There is this low level static in the air to those psychically sensitive, a prying tinnitus. However, there is no sense of hostility. It is simply there. The comm link is active. All she needs to do is say the word. Until then, it simply remains so still one might wonder if it truly is inert, as if she were simply alighted upon a very realistic metallic sculpture of a mobile suit. OCU command will find that all the paperwork was filed well in advance. No attack is planned, just the execution of a lawful search warrant. Which they will comply with, won't they?

        Because the Photon Power Labs consists of law abiding citizens, doesn't it? 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

All calculations led to this. Palau was dangerous for the Phenex, according to witnesses, so it'd need repairs. The fall trajectory...

There's only one person who could do those repairs and not leak it.

As the Banshee lands, Michele Luio speaks. "Down." By this point, people have already been informed there'd be guests, almost certainly, and have time to come outside. She doesn't wait for them all to get in range. She waits for Koji Kabuto and Sayaka Yumi, as the hand allows her down and she descends.

"My name is Michele Luio. We have a search warrant, if you'd like to read it." She's holding a briefcase. It's ALWAYS a good distraction.

"In case your friends don't know why I'm here, let's make things quick. Give her to me, and I'll let you go about your day unscathed. If not, I'm going to pick this place apart, and I'm nothing if not thorough."

Michele smiles. It's not happy. "Do we have an understanding?" 

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

In the middle of a game of HaroParty, Rita suddenly goes still, her avatar looking to the Phenex and freezing. On the screen, her pink Haro promptly rolls off the stage.

"Something is--" Green eyes blow wide, and she drops the controller. "I need to see Koji, right now!"

Running to the very door of the hangar, Rita presses the button for help, waiting anxiously. There isn't enough time. She presses the button again, and then thrice more, then simply holds it down, until Koji appears.

"Koji, my sister!" Rita's dress of the day melts away in a blur of pixels, forming into that white-and-blue pilot's suit. "The Banshee. She's almost here. I can feel her."

She pants, eyes blown wide. This is bad. She isn't ready to fight. And she /shouldn't/ -- /CAN'T/, can't fight her sisters! No matter what! It will disrupt the path!

The path, her mind whispers, treacherous, the path that might already be lost?

"There's something you need to know. I'm sorry I haven't told you." Rita begins, her hands clasping together, slowly rising up to her chest. "It's about the Banshee, she--"

Rita's voice vanishes as if she were a silenced music player. She closes her mouth, then shakes her head, eyes wild and desperate.

"...she has Michele with her." Rita murmurs. "I -- I need to know if the Phenex is ready for combat. Even if she's not at 100%. Can she fly if she has to? Can she fight?"

Though her voice is always soft and breathy, now is perhaps the quietest it's been heard. As she waits for Koji's response, a glimmer of pixellated light appears at Rita's neck, forming a thin silver chain. At its center rests a diamond-shaped pendant.

Rita doesn't seem to realize it's there. 

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Sayaka doesn't like that this is becoming a pattern. The Banshee shows up again, and Sayaka is immediately prepared to go on the defense. It isn't like how it was before, though... weapons totally powered off. Still, it's a very, very bad sign to see /that/ devil.

So rather than through the eyes of Aphrodite Areia, Michele will meet Sayaka face to face, wearing her typical labcoat and dress shirt. She /was/ on the job before this nonsense.

"Michele Luio. To what does the Photon Power Labs owe the privilege?" She eyes the briefcase, as Michele makes her intentions clear. "I /would/ like to read it, in fact." It's... mostly stalling for time, really. But she'll see what they can gleam from this.

On the other hand, Koji's with Rita right now. But there's a common sentiment among every personnel of the Photon Power Labs: they don't go without a fight. "I think we do." Sayaka nods, about having an understanding. "The Titans weren't prepared for the response they got when they tried something much the same. I hope you are, Luio." 

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

'It's about the Banshee, she - '

'She has Michele with her'.

That's not the whole thing. It's blatantly obvious it's not. Koji squints his eyes, regarding Rita. "... Later," he says. "She won't get past us."

He'll think of something.

"I'm not going to be kind to her," he warns Rita. "She needs to know there are lines she can't cross."

He puts one finger to the combud in his ear. "Sayaka, Tetsuya - the Banshee's en route. Seems like Carbine's loaning her out to Michele Luio. Warm up the Photon Barrier, but don't activate it yet - I'm going to see what this is about."

He stops at the exit to the hangar, tapping in a security code in front of a vault - and retrieving a gleaming ray-gun from the safe there, and stepping into the lift.

He joins Sayaka out front, wearing his Photon Pistol openly. "If you wanted to search the place, you didn't need to bring that mobile suit," he points out. "What's the point you think you're making, Luio?" 

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi is not always at the Photon Power Lab facilities, but *sometimes* she is, ever since Koji gave her the go-ahead to do that (and it still feels a little weird that Koji Goddamn Kabuto seems to approve of her, not that she's complaining).

Today she is. She'd actually wanted to see about an Ichinana - she had wanted to try driving one to see how hard it was. As a wanzer pilot, she wasn't expecting to have a problem, but you never know.

She hadn't even gotten inside when the goddamned Banshee landed just outside the gates. Qivi breaks into a run when she sees the machine coming in for a landing.

---

Qivi actually shows up AT the gates about a half minute after the others. Despite her flat-out run, she only needs a moment to catch her breath, pushing her voluminous mane of hair out of her face.

"The hell is going on?" she asks, though she doesn't really expect a response as people are busy - what she really wants to do is signal to Koji and Sayaka that they have support. 

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

Christina MacKenzie, Definitely A Simple Mechanic, is still prepared to find in her mail some day an invoice to reimburse about 2,342 .91G in damages (her estimate) to Luio Co. She almost drops her wrench when Rita starts running, and Chris descends from the gantry to follow her to the elevator. When she hears it's Michele... Her grip on her wrench tightens, instead. She doesn't try to talk--when Rita is this agitated, she'd rather listen, but she does step into the elevator to join Koji upstairs. For now, she's staying just behind the doors, not wanting to escalate the situation further, but she's watching carefully, her phone and her spanner both firmly grasped. 

<Pose Tracker> LiSA has posed.

         Once, twice, three times, constant. Panic button. Koji's arrival at the silo also comes with LiSA hot on his heels, the Super AI Repli-Compoid quietly allowing him to take the lead. She's not of use out front. She may be PPL, but on that side of things ... definitely a situation more of the lead woman in her life, and she has quiet faith in Sayaka.

         "I'll stay." She tells Koji.

         She's combat-ready! She does turn though, to Rita, as the doors close behind him and Christina. "Are they here for you, or for her?" She asks, eyes flicking to the Phenex to confirm what she means. "Or is there no difference, since as I know, you are both the one and the same?" 

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

It used to be a rare day that anyone other than a blue, bearded bastard and his assortment of henchpeople and their giant robot beasts menaced the Photon Power Labs. Sure, there was that one time with the Titans and another time with the Dinosaurs and of course there were various sundry science horrors. But these days, the Federation more or less left the bastion of Japanese power generation alone.

Until today, it seems.

A crack of thunder rumbles across the sky. Lightning slams into the ground. Something is up above. On high. Looming like a shadow, an ill omen of impending violence.

That something is Great Mazinger. And it is...

...Just standing there.

IT'S JUST STANDING THERE, MENACINGLY. Lightning occasionally strikes its horns.

"Don't mind me," Tetsuya says, thunder crashing majestically around his declaration, "I'm just here recharging my batteries."

(Great Mazinger does not use batteries.) 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

Sayaka gets one (1) search warrant. It's legitimate, but the text, if read carefully, reveals exactly what they're after: the hangers, and therefore, the Phenex.

"Oh, I know you won't go down without a fight. But don't you *dare* compare me to the Titans." Michele grimaces venomously, a wound reopened subtly.

"And, of course, I know you probably have weapons. Fancy rayguns, they used to say in the stories. That's why...the Banshee has instructions to act in my self-defense if wounded by anyone here." It's a statement to both Puru-1 and the group. If they try to shoot Michele, the Banshee is weapons-free.

"But of course, it won't come to that. You're all law-abiding citizens, right?"

Koji's question, about what she aims to prove, is answered with another sharp smile. "That I hold all the cards. You can put up your magic barriers or lock down the doors, but I will get what I've spent the last decade searching for. I know you have her. Unless you'd like to prove otherwise?"

"I don't intend to hurt her." That, at least, is the most genuine thing she's ever said. Not that the others can be sure. 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

Sayaka gets one (1) search warrant. It's legitimate, but the text, if read carefully, reveals exactly what they're after: the hangers, and therefore, the Phenex.

"Oh, I know you won't go down without a fight. But don't you *dare* compare me to the Titans." Michele grimaces venomously, a wound reopened subtly.

"And, of course, I know you probably have weapons. That's why...the Banshee has instructions to act in my self-defense if wounded by anyone here." It's a statement to both Puru-1 and the group. If they try to shoot Michele, the Banshee is weapons-free.

"But of course, it won't come to that. You're all law-abiding citizens, right?"

Koji's question, about what she aims to prove, is answered with another sharp smile. "That I hold all the cards. You can put up your magic barriers or lock down the doors, but I will get what I've spent the last decade searching for. I know you have her. Unless you'd like to prove otherwise?"

"I don't intend to hurt her." That, at least, is the most genuine thing she's ever said. Not that the others can be sure.

The Great Mazinger gets a glance. "Intimidation won't work on me, Tetsuya Tsurugi. I've been pursuing this for far too long to care what Great Mazinger can do to me." 

<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.

        The Banshee straightens up after Michele dismounts. The crackle of electricity within Great Mazinger's horns reflects across its obsidian armor.

        There is no outward response at all. The mobile suit stands still. It's ocular sensors do not so much as move to look at Great Mazinger, nor does its neck joint turn.

        It certainly knows though. There is an almost eerie impassivity, docility to it right now. Rita knows better, the childish titter that echoes every so often across her senses. Like something out of a horror film that frightened her when she was a still living child. Something she caught a glimpse of when she wasn't supposed to, then had nightmares for weeks.

        It knows. And it finds it very funny, just like it does everything. 

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Rita looks away when Koji insists on "later". When he speaks to Sayaka and Tetsuya, the hard-light avatar closes her eyes, pressing her clasped hands to her chin.

Everything could go so wrong, right here. Or, if they're talking about impossible things, maybe...

But there's the sound of a safe opening, and Rita blinks her eyes open to look. A gun? When he's going to talk to Michele?!

A little gasp, and Koji might find it harder, somehow, to pull that gun from the vault. As if someone is trying to push it back inside. But it's useless, in the end. This Rita is only a remnant, and the psychoframe is still damaged. Koji gets his gun.

"Chris." Rita calls, before the mechanic can leave. "Is the Phenex ready? I have to know. If no one will tell me, we'll find out for ourselves."

As if in response, the psychoframe glimmers blue. Despite Rita's bravado, there's a trembling note of fear in her voice.

Soon, everyone has left besides LiSA. With a little sob, Rita spins and runs to her, wrapping her arms tight around the Repli-Compoid. She's shaking, parts of her hard-light avatar blurry and pixelated.

Within the Phenex's cockpit, the remnant of Rita Bernal stirs. Ever burning, she uncurls from the pilot seat, empty eyes staring up. As if she could see through the cockpit and the hangar, and look to her sister. Perhaps she can. As that laughter curls around her, Rita opens her mouth, revealing charred, ash-stained teeth. Her mouth moves. Nothing can be heard, except perhaps within the Banshee.

"LiSA." Rita whispers. "L--LiSA. I'm doing something so horrible. I--I can stop it right now. I cou -- could stop everything. But!" A heaving sob. The Phenex, in harmony, flinches her fingers. "I'd have to trade--"

She breaks into another sob, hiding her face in LiSA's shoulder. Slowly, her distress seems to grow, until the normal-suit wearing woman falls to her knees and covers her face with her hands, trembling with silent sobs. 

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Sayaka reads the warrant, she reads it very, very carefully. "Hmm. It doesn't look like it's a forgery. The hangars? That's all you want to see?" She's not dumb, she knows exactly why Michele might be interested in them. Still... "It doesn't change my answer, regardless."

Bringing up the Titans really struck a nerve, huh... "I'd like to assume you're better than them, too. If only you wouldn't take tactics straight out of their playbook." She glances up at the dormant Banshee.

There's a Photon Pistol in Sayaka's labcoat pocket, as well. She doesn't pull it out when Michele makes her threat.

It means they're in a very tight spot, though. If they push back or throw up the barrier, it just makes it overwhelmingly obvious that Michele's assumption is correct.

Therefore, she simply asks, "What is your game, anyway? It doesn't sound like you just want to use her as a weapon." A decade too, she would have been awfully young when she started.

With that said, she transmits quietly to LiSA. "I'll leave the barrier up to your judgement. You know how to use it, right?" Before she turns back to Michele. "No matter what warrant you present us, I'm afraid I cannot trust your integrity. Not as long as /that/ mobile suit's at your beck and call." 

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

When Koji finds it harder to take his pistol than usual, he looks over to Rita, frowning. "It's just in case. I don't want to hurt her either."

====== Up Top: ======

"Oh, don't compare you to the Titans?" Koji's eyes flash. "Would you prefer Murasame? Glemy Toto? The Mycenaeans? You knew what you were committing to when Carbine gave you the trigger phrase for Puru-1, and you expect us to roll over for you just because you have a fancy piece of paper? Let me tell you what you're really saying by bringing the Banshee, Luio:"

"You're a puppet, dancing on Carbine's strings, willing to overlook child torture - the same shit you went through - just because it might get you what you want - and it's worked so well so far, hasn't it? After all, if you had her, you wouldn't be trying this stunt here."

He's furious - that much is clear enough even without emotional sensitivity - but he's reining it in.

"If we let you in, we're letting you trample all over the ideals we've worked so hard to protect this past decade. Do you remember 'ideals'? I don't suppose they mean anything in the corporate world, do they? Well - down here in the mud, they do."

"If you want us to let you in: Send the Banshee away. The Lab will pay your express shuttle ticket back to Luio and Co. whether or not you find what you're looking for." 

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

Tetsuya looks up from the crown of the Brain Condor and shrugs bodily. "I've got no idea what you're talking about. Like I said, I'm only here to recharge some batteries. Whatever business you have with whatever it is you're looking for is none of mine. Though for what it's worth, I think you're coming on a little strong. Nobody likes a Captain Rahab."

Which, for Tetsuya Tsurugi, is /saying something./

Lightning strikes a stone sitting peacefully upon the grassy fields surrounding the old lab. It's charred the surrounding land a dusty shade of black.

...Menacingly. 

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi is only partially informed about the whole Phenex and Banshee situation. So this is generally when she'd jump to a conclusion and make things worse.

And indeed she is about two seconds from doing exactly that. She doesn't know Michele, but Qivi has an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide and Michele is acting exactly like she's in charge here, like some of the people her mother might have worked with.

She gets right up to taking a breath to start yelling before she realizes that this isn't *her* place and she might make things worse for the others. And, in fact, she doesn't even know what this woman wants. Which, you know. Would probably be a good thing to find out.

"I said," Qivi repeats, "what the hell is going on?" Her eyes flick between Michele and Koji and Sayaka, then up to the Banshee behind them. "You want this person out?" She knows how to bounce someone without hurting them, and hopefully that won't set off the robot... whoever is piloting that. She may not be a Newtype, and she may not have encountered it personally before, but something about the Banshee gives her the creeps anyway.

Qivi walks, deliberately taking the PPL's side over Michele's. "What's this about child torture?" she asks, because that must be part of the memo she missed. Qivi tenses, not precisely expecting violence but not exactly *not* expecting it. 

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

        Chris presses her hand against the elevator door to look at Rita. "She'll move, but...I'm worried. You're in no condition to be running again. If...If you have to, at least take the Oberge." The wings wouldn't fit nicely, and the old freighter isn't even as fast as the Phenex would be right now, but maybe it would keep just enough strain off her... "But please wait. Let us protect you, for once..." The doors begin their droning alarm, but she's already out of things to say; she lets them close.

        Chris is listening to what she can overhear, but she's focused on her phone, flipping through readouts, fussing over data from XAIRO and MAIRO, running the time requirements of bolting down anything loose, even of dismembering the Phenex or disguising it as another suit.

                ("Can't let her be seen leaving, Luio'd see through that... Too much time... It'll all take too much time...")

        When she hears Sayaka and Koji take their stand, though...well, there's only so much that can stop a legal challenge, but...

        ("What if we don't have to stop it? Maybe we can just slow it...") She murmurs quietly into her comm a few instructions. She ends them with "You wanted your shot MAIRO, don't blow it. Stand by for my signal." 

<Pose Tracker> LiSA has posed.

         "Rita, Rita, Rita-" LiSA repeats her name three times, before murmuring an aside to mot- er, Sayaka. "Yes, I'm aware. Thank you for your trust. I'll serve it well."

         "Rita you can't go. The Phenex, she can move, but you can't. They'll spot you immediately and you're in no condition to fight. The Amazinger is out there." Amazinger, Imazinger ... what's next, a nickname for Shiro's Ichinana? "Tetsuya, he'll protect you. Koji, Sayaka. The others. That's what we're all here to do." It's awkward to do this, but Rita finds herself getting the impression of someone gently pressing their lips to her forehead.

         "Trade what? It's just the two of us. I'm listening." As she does so, she tilts her head. She's trying to keep the doors in sight while also blocking Rita herself from the view point. (Phenex is a ... bit too big for that manuever.) 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

Qivi approaches, right as Koji's going pretty strong on Michele. The anger on her face is present. "Get out of my face."

Her hand goes up, pointing a finger up to Koji.

"Shut the fuck up. You don't know who I am. You don't know what I've been through. You talk high and mighty, but you've never been exposed to torture, to pain, under the knife of the government you believed protected you, solely for trying to be a helpful child."

It point from him, to Sayaka, all the way to Tetsuya, and back up to Koji.

"You don't, no matter what's she told you, know what Rita's been through. You don't know what it's like! You'll never know what it's like! You're heroes, not victims!"

"I'm going to save her. Now get out of my way, or I'll make your life a living hell." 

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Chris implores Rita to wait, to take another machine. Rita gives her a smile and a soft, "thank you," knowing in her heart Chris' request is impossible. But she's doing the best she can for Rita herself and the PPL, and that's what matters.

LiSA's chanting makes Rita raise her eyes to look at her. Digital tears fall down her face -- meaningless. They do nothing to blur her vision, and vanish as soon as they pass her cheeks. It's simply an expression of sadness. Something Rita isn't used to.

But lips are pressed to Rita's forehead, startling her out of her tears. A memory of her father comes to her mind, vibrant and sweet -- a child being put to bed with love and care. Was that really ever Rita Bernal?

"It's."

Rita stares for a long time, silent. Words are so hard. She's still unused to them after a year of silence in the mists of Possibility.

"Let me show you."

Rita stands again, pressing her forehead against LiSA's. Green eyes flicker closed. LiSA isn't a Newtype. But she /is/ something new. Something in-tune to Possibility. Maybe...

Images are shared, or attempted to be shared. It's a vision -- as though LiSA were standing before the events unfolding. It isn't as fluid as a connection between two Newtypes woudl be, the images jerky, like a stuttering video game. Thousand of hydrogen tanks in space simultaneously go critical.

They explode.

Even the vision of the explosion is blinding from its power, making the images fade out for a few long seconds. When the vision returns, a huge field of debris has begun to reach the Earth, raining down with terrible fire, like a hundred versions of Axis simultaneously.

It's too fast for anything to be done. LiSA knows this, somehow. All she can do is watch the Earth be reduced to ruin.

"If I don't -- don't stay to the path -- I won't be able to stop it." Rita gasps, as the vision ends. "But -- Michele, my sister..." 

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

>You're heroes, not victims.

Something about Great Mazinger... Changes. Those who know Tetsuya Tsurugi well know that he is not a man who laughs regularly. This is partly because his grin-- not his smile, his actual ear-to-ear grin-- is a terrifying thing to witness and he only reserves it for special occasions.

And, just now, for a brief, terrible moment, Tetsuya Tsurugi laughs.

It's the audio form of that awful, terrifying grin. Something that somehow feels more animal than man. Something that sends shivers down the spine.

And then, just as quickly as it began, it stops.

"Kenzo Kabuto raised me for almost eighteen years. In that time, I did not do anything other than train my body and my mind for the sole purpose of becoming a weapon to eradicate an ancient race of Greco-Roman Giants. My entire life was founded upon a singular purpose: Genocide. To dye the earth and sky red with the blood of my enemies, to murder their heroes and lay waste to their armies, because that was the only way to save the world. And I did. And I still do."

Tetsuya's voice is cold. It is steady. It is like a steel blade cutting remorselessly through a forest of flesh.

"If I am a hero," he says, icily, "It's only because I clawed my way out of that hollow existence. Because I made something of the life that my father and the world 'needed' me to have. Do not presume, Michele, to know how Koji and I have suffered. Just because someone has power does not mean they were not once victims." 

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

"Just a little diplomacy," Sayaka helpfully answers Qivi, who has come at a very unfortunate time. "Just sit tight, it might get ugly."

Or it already has, as Michele drops the pleasantries and sinks into anger. "You have an awfully narrow point of view if you think we haven't seen some things in our lifetime." The imposing figure of Great Mazinger and Tetsuya Tsurugi is proof enough, that not all people they call heroes have had an easy path in this world. And if it wasn't enough, Tetsuya himself explains that, bearing his own scars.

"I don't think anyone but Rita can really say for sure what she's been through. But here you are, turning another tortured victim, into your attack dog." The Banshee still hasn't acted. But it's presence looms.

"Do you really think that would please Rita?" Sayaka crosses her arms. "You may have all the cards. But if you think /this/ is what saving someone looks like, you're terribly mistaken." 

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

Koji knows Tetsuya's laughter is coming. He's braced himself.

It still chills his spine to hear that terrible, bitter sound. Their brotherhood does not render him immune to the primal fear that sound inspires - but it lets him share the burden.

The Hero of the Skies, the pilot of Great Mazinger, speaks truth, and Koji nods solemnly, deliberately ratcheting himself down to a quieter tone of voice. "To suggest we've lost nothing... The war with Hell and the Mycenaeans took too much from us. That's why we have these principles in the first place - to be a symbol of something better. Where what Tetsuya went through, what the Elpeo clones went through, never happens again."

His grey eyes track up the Banshee's onyx armour. "Obviously, we're not there yet." One day.

"It's rich to call us high and mighty, when you're one of the ones playing god." 

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi bristles, now that she's been directly addressed.

"How about I don't," Qivi doesn't quite growl. "This isn't my place. It's Koji's and Sayaka's and Tsurugi's." That has GOT to be him in (on) the Great Mazinger. When he speaks, it confirms it, though the content doesn't exactly feel great. This is the first time she's heard a lot of it, and it is not exactly coming at a great time.

She clears her throat to cover for a moment to recover, her face a little red. Qivi has never met Michele, but she's met people who feel like her. Mostly because of her mother. She is inclined to be unkind and not generous at all to the woman. "But if they say they don't want you in, you don't go in. I don't care what bit of the Federation government you convinced to give you a piece of paper. A third of them are idiots, a third of them are corrupt, and I guess there's probably some good people getting - "

Qivi cuts herself off and says, slightly less profanely than her original sentence was going to end: "Getting the short end of the stick."

Who the hell is Rita, she thinks. If the PPL is protecting her she must be vulnerable (she doesn't think 'important' because she is pretty sure most of the people here would protect someone who wasn't important just as much). She'll have to ask afterwards, because like hell is she showing weakness in front of Michele if she can avoid it.

"Looks like nobody here's interested in letting you go in to do whatever the hell you want. Why don't you just leave?" 

<Pose Tracker> LiSA has posed.

         LiSA is only slightly more psychically attuned than Koji and Sayaka are, although the three of them often have a understanding of each other in various combinations that is probably surprising when they are revealed to be non or barely register as a NewType. Therefore, when Rita says 'show you', she has no idea what's about to happen!

         Standing there, she silently watches the hydrogen tanks explode. She wasn't here for Axis, but she is aware of it, and she knows she's watching a hundred more of them happen simultaneously. It's too fast. Too much at once. She blinks, and blinks hard, as Rita gasps out her words, glimmers at the corners of her eyes.

         "Oh, so that's exactly what you're fighting to prevent. But Michele ... your sister - she wants to ... stop you, or ..." A pause, then asks, quietly, "You would have to hurt her to stop it?" She guesses, cautiously. 

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

        It's with a heavy heart that Chris listens, the gravity and pain of both Michele and the pilots... Chris can't help but want to reach out. Maybe if they could join their approaches--No, this woman isn't listening, not even to Rita's own wishes. Maybe they could stop her? But the Banshee is still there. Silent and motionless. This isn't the first time Luio has brought the Banshee to bear to hunt Rita down. And it won't be the last, because she won't let anyone take Rita where she doesn't want to go.

        If they could save her, save... Elpeo, even just for Leina's sake, then maybe--!
                ("Now's not the time.") She closes her eyes for a moment, and her heart with it.
                <"Koji,"> she murmurs over the comm channel, <"I can disable the hangar's main elevator at your command."> 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

"You still don't get it. You're capable of goddamn miracles. Rita's dead, and-" Michele spits, but as Qivi threatens her, something starts to snap. She stops herself.

"Banshee. Get me into that hangar. Dig, if you have to."

Michele moves backwards towards the base jabber and the Banshee before she can get decked or shot, preparing to take cover from her opposition. "Don't kill anyone. Break the barrier if it gets to that. Primary objective is recovery of the Phenex."

Something needs to happen, now. 

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

"I have to let my sister be hurt to prevent it." Rita says, voice full of despair. "I'm sorry to have shown you that. I don't know how to explain it without showing you. I've already hurt Michele so much, I can't bear hurting my sister so terribly. It's such--"

Such a burden. More than Rita was ever prepared to bear.

Rita clings to LiSA again.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. Thank you, LiSA, for everything. Please tell Koji, Sayaka, Anser -- everyone. Please thank them for me."

Rita steps back and closes her eyes, a beautiful, perfect smile on her face. The hard-light avatar of Rita Bernal winks out of existence.

Within the Phenex, the burning remnant of Rita Bernal reaches out. Even though she isn't perfect, the golden Gundam is finished in one area, at least: her psychoframe. And from the beginning, that's all she's asked for.

Safe inside the Photon Power Lab's hangar, the Phenex begins to glow brilliant blue, motes of miraculous starlight rising from her prone form. Rita's remnant sits in the pilot seat, closing her eyes, clasping her hands together before her chest.

A call, a plaintive cry, made all the more powerful by the psychoframe around her. Reaching past this world, into the resonant plane of Light and Possibility. Those psychically sensitive might hear it themselves -- no words, just a plea.

Thank you for taking care of her.

Two hands shimmer into existence, manifesting just before the pilot's seat. The burning child reaches out, taking the hand extended to her.

Rita Bernal, her spirit whole and shining, looks down at her remnant. Memories pass between them, until the remnant has nothing left to give.

You've done all you need to. Thank you.

Empty eyes close. Rita's other hand comes to rest on the burning girl's head. Miraculous flame of green-blue-pink gently extends from her fingertips, slowly consuming the remnant, until nothing of her remains.

Appearing fully, now, Rita takes her place in the pilot's seat. One fingertip touches the armrest, then her hand closes around it.

I missed you. Let's go, Phenex. Back where we belong.

And the Gundam responds. Blue light shines across the entirety of the machine, lifting her into the air until she's righted herself. Her wings rise from the ground and settle at her back, trailing golden kite-tails.

The hangar doors are just before her. With one hand, the Phenex reaches out, and the doors part silently. She soars forward, revealing herself to the group before the hangar.

I'm leaving now. Thank you for sheltering me. I promise, I'll never forget.

Hovering just above the Banshee, the Phenex extends her arms to the machine, floating just close enough to brush her fingertips against her sister's folded crest. The moment stretches out, peace between the Gundams.

But the moment the Banshee makes a move, the Phenex startles and rockets into the air, bursting through all barriers with a great crashing noise. She won't stop until she's returned to the stars.

All that remains of Rita's time at the Photon Power lab are a few fading glimmers of psychic radiance. She must find her way back to the path, before all is lost.

Whatever it takes. 

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Michele's orders are quite clear. Sayaka grits her teeth. "LiSA... now!!" She gives her own order, but... something else entirely happens.

A flash of gold in the sky, the Phenex takes flight once again, shimmering past the darkness of the Banshee... her sister, in one peaceful moment.%"

"Well, Luio." Sayaka looks up to the sky calmly. "It looks like we have our answer from Rita herself." Still holding the warrant Michele handed her, she places it back in the other woman's hands, dismissively. "Now that she's gone, we don't have what it is you're looking for. Your warrant is void."

Sayaka gets LiSA's message, and she transmits a message of her own over to Tetsuya in Great Mazinger. "I expect it'll be fine, but if the Banshee opens fire... don't hold back on the Thunder Breaks." Her reasoning is quite clear, fire from the Banshee may as well be a declaration of open war on the Photon Power Labs.

At this rate, the Phenex is gone without a trace. Silently, Sayaka wonders if Rita's going to be okay. They've done all they can for her, though, and the Labs and its family will always be an open, safe haven for her. 

<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.

        The moment Michele says that, it lurches to life. It moves towards the PPL as if Great Mazinger were not even there. But the Phenex makes its appearance before it can cross into those grounds. And hovers there. For a time, one might wonder if indeed there's going to be a conflict at all. The Banshee's neck turns to look up at there. Something silent passes between them.
        
        Then.

        BGM Change - Destroy -> Self-Sacrifice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ_9ebbrzUg

        The Banshee starts to shift, interlocking plates sliding and expanding, as gleaming orange-gold Psycoframe appear all over its form, its horn splitting into a jagged antler like V-Fin, it's faceplate rotating into that fearsome Gundam like visage.

   FEAR DESPERATION LONELINESS
        WHERE ARE YOU GOING
RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA
ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE ME HERE
RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA RITA
        ALONE AGAIN YOU PROMISED
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
ANGER DESPAIR POSSESSIVENESS YEARNING

        There is a reaction between the Psycoframes, and Rita feels it again as she flees straight up, those fingers clawing at her in desperation, that possessiveness, but ultiamtely, that loneliness. Ultimately the Banshee's jump jets fire, and it rockets straight up, as if trying to match its speed. That's an impossible feat, still the Banshee tries.

        NO NO NO

        It wails as it hovers there at its apex, clawing at the sky, cursing it as if wanting to go higher, and being incapable. It's at this time that something different than a Base Jabber comes, as if dispatched. A support vehicle that most probably haven't seen since the First Neo-Zeon War.

        A Mega Rider, as if it were in position all along for this very eventuality, it glides sideways under the Banshee, which falls on top of it, and the thing pulls up, way up, accelerating at top speed very rapidly in hot pursuit of the Phenex.

        It feels unlikely that it will catch it, even with one of the more powerful support vehicles Anaheim electronics can offer, and yet, that does not stop it from trying, as it soon disappears out of sight, high into the atmosphere. 

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

"So be it," Koji growls as Michele orders the Banshee. The black mobile suit starts to move, and he grabs Sayaka's hand, pulling her backwards. "Lisa, the ba - "

'She's coming out! Have Tetsuya cover her!'

"Shit. Tetsuya!"

The Phenex emerges. Koji watches, holding Sayaka close so they can withstand the wind of its emergence, as it reaches out to the Banshee, gently - and maybe a little sadly? Brushing fingertips against its folded horn.

The horn splits open with that horrible screech of death as the Banshee's NT-D activates, and Koji flinches from the psychic shockwave - pulling Sayaka a little closer out of reflex.

The Phenex startles, and soars to space. The Banshee follows.

Sayaka rejects Luio's warrant.

Koji sighs in fatigue. 

<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.

As the Phenex flees, the warrant is rejected (Michele doesn't care at this point), and the Banshee chases, Michele moves to leave before anyone gets funny ideas.

Once she's out of range of the group, closer to the forest, she twists her lip. "Why, Rita? Why won't you just come back to us? He misses you so much...goddamnit, stop making me chase you...you don't deserve this! GODDAMNIT!"

She'll return to Brick Teclato with a failure and a new plan. One that *has* to work.

Whatever it takes. 

<Pose Tracker> LiSA has posed.

         "It's okay. It's nice to know your reasons why, and your dedication to preservation ... as Director would say, that's kind of what we're about, here at these labs." Rita gets one last desperate hug, and when the avatar blinks, she is left with her arms still in that position, and she shakes herself and backs the hell away from the Phenex.

         LiSA opens up her communication line, dialing both Director Yumi and Doctor Kabuto. "Master! She's leaving, please have Tetsuya protect her if necessary!"

         Her hands go to the barrier controls, as Sayaka calls out to her, but she sighs, wearily, down in the bunker. There's no need, now, with the Phenex coming back to life as it soars to the sky, and instead, whenever the group comes back down, she's tucked herself down into the shared beanbag, turning off the radio that has been playing very on and off over the past bit of time.

         "Please come back." She murmurs, softly. "You don't have to fix this alone. Not once I tell my family." 

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

        Chris is halfway through the Oberge's startup sequence, prepared to send it off and point and shout to Koji, 'I couldn't stop her, she took my ship!'. She was ready to risk her ship being shot down by the Banshee-D...

        And even then, she left.

                "She...left?"

        Silence, until from just inside the doorway comes a heavy, reverberating CLANGK. The PPL stewards that turn back to the doorway will find a wrench-shaped dent smashed into the frame, a rare manifestation of the woman's anger and frustration. She's still there, holding it, finally looking up to Koji and Sayaka and Qivi.

                "She...wouldn't let us protect her." Words spoken /in tremolo/. "I'm going back to the Ichinana. See you down there."

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