2023-06-23: V. We Must Learn How To Live And Die
- Log: V. We Must Learn How to Live And Die
- Cast: Leina Ashta as Puru-1, Rita Bernal, Trevor Teach, Marida Cruz, Suberoa Zinnerman
- Where: A Chaotic Battlefield
- OOC - IC Date: 0097-6-23
- Summary: Old trauma and new grief momentarily distracts Puru-1 from her path towards the Beast of Possibility. Some arrive to delay her. Can they prove to her that things have changed?
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
How many fights had she been in? Everything was starting to blur into one long string of engagements, the high and low emotions of the battlefield leaving her drained. Thought and memory being distilled into the idea that her entire world was fighting against her. Fighting to stop her. Fighting to bring her back. She didn't get it. Stop her? She could get that. So many when faced with the cruelty and the apathy of the world don't know when to quit, don't know how they're taking on more darkness, as their whole self just starts to erode away under the constant onslaught of the selfish and the powerful, facing the plight of the hurt and the voiceless.
No what she didn't get was why they were fighting to bring her back. No matter how many people told her that, it just made less and less sense to her. It made her erect more and more walls of stubborn resolve just to keep them away. Part of her knew she had to end this soon. She had to destroy the Beast of Possibility.
Maybe then she could rest. Maybe then they'd understand and stop wasting their lives on a futile mission. Surely they can't believe that some magical box held the solution to change the world? No they were just getting swept up in a hopeful boy's idealistic quest, the whole mythology attributed to it by the powerful.
He's calling to her. He keeps calling to her. She doesn't get it even from him, why he keeps trying to 'save' her. She doesn't want his salvation. Then all of a sudden a jolt. In this state without focus the Norn keeps flying as Puru-1 tries to hone in. "Who? Who?" Who died? The reaction was so small. Someone she knew? Yes It must be. Tears spring to her eyes unbidden. Over and over she tries to concentrate, it's so different from the winking out lights on the battlefield lacking that intensity of connection.
"Permanence?" She whispers, remembering the woman screaming for her friends even as the opportunity for rescue came to her at the institute. The conversation after. The second chance stolen away. It nearly always is. Even for those who make it out, it's so frequently stolen away by war after, or criminals who place no value on human life. "You're free." She tells her quietly, even without truly knowing what that word means. Free of what? Mortal concerns? Suffering? What? She can't take time to contemplate.
Even barely knowing her, she wants to grieve, and instead feels the emotional chill of so many fingers numbing her to it even as she tries to dwell upon it.
She forced herself to refocus, finding concentration difficult. What was she here for? Grasping upon that thread of feeling from Banagher, she tugged it taut under the weight - pushing herself to focus on it. And then she flew in that direction. "You're close. I know you're close." Puru-1 murmured erratically, with a monofocus on finding him again. A tunnel vision. Some tried to exploit that idea.
A Geara Doga that was covering the Sleeves defensive line on retreat shot at her. It learned it's error a moment later when its effort crashed upon an I-Field, and it lost both its limbs in a single pass. A Gaza-C tried to back it up, only for its head to be ripped off.
What finally snapped her attention out was the old AMX-107 Bawoo, the Norn stopped in its flight to stare right at it as it fired its Beam Machine Gun at her, each shot being devoured by a cloud. The Norn was eerily quiet, until with a quick burst of thrusters, it was up in its face. Wordlessly, it gripped one arm, and tore it right off, remembering second chances lost for the glory of Axis Zeon, Neo Zeon, the Sleeves. Second chances lost for those who made it out, who fought so hard for it, deserved it more than most who get it. Deserved it more than her.
The pilot within began screaming, as the Bawoo transformed, trying to escape through its docking systems into the attacker and Nutter. The Norn reached out, and grabbed it in mid-flight, tearing off its engines.
Gripping it, its fingertips sank into its armor as if it were made of soft foil. More screaming, she didn't say anything. She just felt it in the moment. She just let herself feel it.
anger fear sorrow resentment
smile smile smile smile smile smile
I hope this will be
a happy memory for you
for years to come
The fingers sank in deeper. The Bawoo's Nutter tried to swing around to its back, firing. Her shield arm let go for long enough to fire a shot of the Mega Cannon, as the drone erupted into flame.
And then she returned to it, ripping off pieces of its hull like a child tearing off a butterfly's wings. Remembering, remembering lost second chances.
momma used to say a real man gets what he wants from a woman
Her eyes sting again, her thoughts in chaos, how could Sayla do that to herself? She still couldn't figure it out. Visions of her mother in bed, so lifeless from how the system destroyed her blurred with visions of that expressionless woman she saw from Angelo's perspective. Thoughts of a man learning all the wrong lessons and passing them on to her, and believing it was kindness.
Kindness. It would be easy to finish the job, too easy, she can feel his panic, his fear, and strangely his prayer. How quickly do men who don't believe in a higher power turn to it in their final moments.
In the end, the fingertips of the Norn relax. Despite it all, she's never wanted to kill anyone.
Not even him.
Still when the Norn turned around to regard the battlefield with a wider view as more shoots took shots at her it was difficult not to remember, being bound to a mobile suit with rope, terrified as javelins and arrows flew past her head. Wordlessly she smiled at all the obsolete weapons of war the Sleeves fielded, thinking of Moon Moon, and how very simple it will be to take them all away. Azure jets carved a trail towards her next target, a fleeing Dreissen.
OOC Note: This scene takes place just after Insurrection: Aphelion and takes place on 06/23. Puru-1 is attacking Sleeves stragglers currently retreating or covering the retreat. You will have four rounds to attempt to stop her before she refocuses on her main objective. Due to the nature of the scene, most csys damage to Puru-1 will be played out as emotional/fatigue damage. Given that you are all likely messed up from Aphelion, I offer the option for all of you to do the same.
KTS: Puru-1 has deployed in RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee Norn <Unicorn Mode>. KTS: Puru-1 has deployed as a Boss for 4 opponents. <Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Wreathed in sacred blue fire, the Phenex darts through the battlefield. Here and gone before she can be noticed, much less attacked, she pursues one target.
Now is the crucial moment. Now is when she shouldn't interfere. Her sisters -- Leina and Banagher -- they need to fight for themselves and each other. Her interference is meaningless. Only the living can end something started by the living.
But even so.
Leina!
In a flash, the Phenex is at her sister Gundam's side. She keeps pace with her, flying shoulder-to-shoulder. Rita Bernal's voice echoes from the heart of the firebird.
I've decided. I'm going to fight for the fate I believe in. The future I want, not the one I foresaw. The path is lost, but that doesn't mean we have to give up!
Far across the battlefield, the Unicorn approaches. She'll be here soon, but she isn't ready. Banagher can't win this fight alone. Even if Rita can't save Leina here, she can buy him time!
With an echoing, birdlike cry, the Phenex stretches both her hands toward the Banshee. Brilliant blue light encircles the other Gundam, soundly halting it in its tracks. But it comes at a strain. The Phenex shakes, forced to use all her concentration to hold her sister in place.
This won't be enough. Reaching out, Rita searches for the heroes of the living among the chaotic fighting. Deaths prickle against her soul like a thousand tiny needles, but she's felt worse. She can block it out. Blessedly, her search is rewarded.
Captain Zinnerman. I call on your true wishes. We must slow the Banshee down -- Banagher isn't ready to face her yet. If we buy him time, we can change Leina's fate.
Marida Zinnerman. I call on your unbending will. To preserve the future, to break free of the chains binding us, we have to take a stand, here and now.
Trevor Teach. I call on your wild courage. If there was ever a time to let your true colors fly, it's now! Leina must be saved. I won't let her story end this way. I know I can trust you.
Federation vessels buzz around the frozen Phenex and Banshee, both Gundams a beacon. Vist has given orders to take them down. Kill the lion, capture the firebird. Rita's spirit can do nothing but cling to her sister. If she loses her focus, the Black Unicorn will get away.
Please! Help me!
KTS: Rita Bernal has deployed in RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex <Unicorn Mode>. KTS: Rita Bernal targets Puru-1 with Eos! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Rita Bernal anchors Puru-1, forcing her into close range. KTS: Puru-1 blocks Rita Bernal's Eos, taking 1980 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 44520 KTS: Rita Bernal has engaged Puru-1! KTS: Marida Cruz has deployed in NZ-666 Kshatriya KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has deployed as a Sub Pilot for Marida Cruz! KTS: Trevor Teach has deployed in JR-777 Isadore. <Pose Tracker> Trevor Teach has posed.
It's a well known fact that there's no rest for the wicked. Sins, once known, will keep the hounds of hell and retribution nipping at your heels for the whole of your days. But Trevor knows well by now that there's also no rest for the righteous, or for anyone caught along with the rest of humanity in that broad liminal space in-between. There's no rest. Not really. Not until you're dead. There's always something tomorrow. The best thing to do is to learn to relish it, to cherish the moments of calm even as stormclouds loom on the horizon.
Today, that moment of calm is a little less lengthy than he'd prefer. There was hardly any time at all, really. The smoldering hulk of the Endeavor still glows with the guttering embers of its dying moments, what few intact chunks of it remain intact, hanging in a radiant cloud of superheated gas, glow with lingering blackbody radiation, slowly bleeding their warmth away to the empty void. Trevor... has barely enough time to even bandage the gash that had opened up on his brow. His head is still swimming, dizzy from impact and the barest inkling of knowledge about what it was he-- or rather, Isadore-- did only a few minutes ago. But something cuts through the haze just as he slides the first-aid kit back into its compartment. It's like someone stabbed a razor-sharp icicle into the gap of his brain and straight down his spine. A terrible chill fills him and settles in his heart as a dreadful weight. He shudders, looking up into the ceiling-- no, into the machine around him. "...I feel her, too. Her timing's... really not the best, is it? Ugh."
Part of him wants to just-- to pick up and run. To retreat and rest his wings and let destiny take its course. But too much of him sees the Banshee coming and roils in defiance at the sight of it-- the natural enemy of Newtypes. Isadore groans as it unfolds, a Taurus' arm replacing the ruined remains of its left, shattered as it was by the Endeavor's missile assault. Its new hand opens and closes as if testing the fresh connections there. "...Yeah. I know. We can't run here."
Rita appears. The Phenex blazes with its own Light of Possibility. Trevor's heart skips a beat-- with worry, more than anything else. "Rita!? You should still be resting. What--"
She calls on him, and two others, and the world suddenly comes into stark focus as the fog lifts from his mind. He recognizes the machine in the Banshee's grasp. Sleeves, enemies moments ago-- but before then, they were friends. Strained, perhaps, but friends.
And she's... killing them. Because they were just in her way.
"...Yeah. You don't need to tell me. I promised you I'd fight for you, didn't I?" Trevor answers, Isadore's thrusters igniting as it races towards the thing that is its natural predator. "Damn, and I had thought she was a ghost, look at how much of a fool I've been! Hah!" Its bolt-thrower sizzles as capacitors surge with power. "All this time, she's just been a fly caught in a hell of a spiderweb. I don't know if I can tear her free, but the least I can do is try to knock her loose! Captain, Marida, let's try our luck!"
The bolt thrower discharges, hurling blisteringly swift-- in fact, hypersonic-- solid munitions downrange. They don't make a sound in space, those solid, black rods. Not until they impact, at least.
KTS: Trevor Teach targets Puru-1 with Hypersonic Bolt! KTS: Trevor Teach has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Puru-1 partially guards Trevor Teach's Hypersonic Bolt, taking 3690 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 40830
<Pose Tracker> Marida Cruz has posed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijf6sKIK2Ds
The Kshatriya had managed to get out of the 'Ra Mari' just in time to avoid any major damage from Angelo's outburst, its pilot more rejuvenated than she's ever been. "<'Garencieres Jr,' do you read? I've got your lead, I'll get everybody out of here safely.>"
The Kshatriya spreads its wings and thrusts forward, towards the twin Gundams. The Banshee needed to come back in one piece. She couldn't let another fall down the path she almost did. The golden one calls out to her. The name does sound good. She can't help but smile.
I understand. If I could break my own chains, I won't have any problem breaking hers!
A handful of funnels deploy from her wings, shooting out in front of her to trail behind the Banshee and fire off a few shots.
KTS: Marida Cruz targets Puru-1 with Funnel Binder Blast! KTS: Marida Cruz has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 partially guards Marida Cruz's Funnel Binder Blast, taking 2842 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 37988 <Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.
The battle, with the Three Ships Alliance caught between the Sleeves rearguard and the encroaching Vist task force, is fraught - particularly for an unarmed vessel caught in the crossfire. The Garencieres Junior requires an escort to a safer location - and Marida volunteered.
Zinnerman sits on the bridge of the Ra Mari II, monitoring the battlefield around the Kshatriya. Marida is fighting even fiercer than he's ever seen her, the quad-winged mobile suit's funnels lashing out at anything that stands to threaten the freighter.
A voice across the aether - and new pings on the radar. I hear you, his soul answers the Phenex, and he opens a laser comm to the Kshatriya. "Marida. The Banshee's close, and the Phenex is slowing her down. They're both targets of the Vist Foundation."
Listen to your heart, he'd said to her - and a promise made to himself is very different to one spoken aloud, for all those assembled in the hangar to hear. No orders follow from his mouth: Only reassurance.
"I have your back. Trust your instincts and your judgment. We're all waiting for you."
"I hear you, Trevor." He swipes a link from the Phenex's IFF ping to the Kshatriya and the Isadore's, thankful for the more in-depth combat apparatus on the Zentradi Monitor. "Don't do anything too reckless, now."
KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Marida Cruz with Prospect! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Trevor Teach KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
The Dreissen is spared by the sudden appearance of the Phenex. Puru-1's head swimming as the self-denial fostered within her was strong. Dr. Murasame never required her to think and thus trying to maintain her control through the strange accursed sea she sank within was a difficult chore. The RX-0 Unit-03, Rita, however manages to bring a rise out of her quickly.
"Fight for the future?" She whispers at first, "What a cruel joke. Your fight was supposed to be over the moment I STUFFED YOU INTO YOUR CAGE!" The Norn suddenly arcs around in an intercept course on the Phenex's matching path. "Don't you DARE!" She cries out as she calls the others, this negative pressure rising about her even as Blue Flame crashes into the Banshee, the Psycoflame meeting the Armed Armor it hastily pulls from its back as a shield in an abrupt brake of momentum.
"Your forfeited all right to do this the moment you TOOK YOUR OWN LIFE! You always say that only the living can settle things! Yet here you are, inserting yourself into battle after battle! You're a LIFELESS CONTRADICTION! An Undead Conwoman, manipulating everyone with the falsehood of a BETTER FUTURE!"
The Norn shakes, and there's a sudden psychic wail of anger. Even as its Beam Magnum arm swings up, just enough. Just enough. The energy builds at the barrel, a crackling sphere of Minovsky powered hell. "And now you're setting your scam aside for a fight that was never yours to begin with!?!"
The sudden crackle of the blast at a low angle, meant not to strike the Phenex head on, but to attack the mobile suit with the indirect heat of it, that can melt a mobile suit from just even that indirect contact.
"You should have NEVER left your cage!"
The Isadore is unfamiliar to to Puru-1, it's appearance one that she assumes to be one of the Sleeves at first, before she asks, "Just who did you CALL?" She shout over the comms, livid, even as the bolt is launched in her direction.
For Trevor there is a disturbing pressure, this eerie sense of anger fear sorrow and despair bearing down upon them like a weight, the world taking on a strange tinnitus even before he targets and fires. "A fly." The bolt flies at the Banshee, and the Armed Armor DE suddenly sweeps down. The bolt striking against it's obsidian plating, and puncturing enough of a hole to embed within it.
"Caught in a web." She echoes him over the comms, before it turns into bitter, hollow laughter. Abruptly the same Armed Armor DE that took his bolt head on swings up and offers a rejoinder, as a spherical projectile charges, before streaking out like a blue-yellow comet from its built in Mega Cannon.
"How blind you must be, to be a part of the Sleeves, and think you're not."
The funnels of the Kshatriya come at that moment, and the Banshee fully shatters the binds of Rita's telekinetic blue flame at that moment, as it begins to twist and turn, thrusters moving it around into an inverted state to avoid the funnel beams. It cannot avoid them all, but they are not as accurate as Marida perhaps would prefer.
"Marida." She says quietly, as if the , and this feeling of disappointment and resentment grows, intermingled with sorrow and anger. "Of course. You can't help yourself but to fight, can you? You'll never choose anything but endless - meaningless - conflict."
It's unclear if she means because of her conditioning, or because of her relationship Zinnerman. She feels the tug of the NT-D against her brain, the whisper, the thought that she could crush her with her own funnels. It is difficult to resist that urge.
Abuptly through the weave of her Funnels beam fire, the Banshee carves an Azure wake as its thrusters take it in range of the Quad Wing in short order. The Saber taking on an eerie blue cast over its white. With a savage swing she arcs it once, "Then the only option is to TAKE AWAY THE MEANS!" Twice, thrice, four times, each time with a new savage angle, to try and carve its wings right off, "AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!"
Jealousy and possessiveness dominate, as she cries out, "ZINNERMAN! It didn't NEED to be this way! I WARNED you not to SEND HER!"
KTS: Puru-1 targets Rita Bernal with Beam Magnum Point Blank Punishment! KTS: Puru-1 targets Trevor Teach with Armed Armor DE Mega Cannon Shot! KTS: Puru-1 targets Marida Cruz with Beam Tonfas and Sabers High-Output Combination! KTS: Puru-1 has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman assesses Marida Cruz's prospects, increasing her SP! KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has disengaged. KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Rita Bernal successfully evades Puru-1's Beam Magnum Point Blank Punishment KTS: Puru-1 enervates Marida Cruz, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Marida Cruz fails to parry Puru-1's Beam Tonfas and Sabers High-Output Combination, taking 6490 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru-1's Hands Meant For Holding activates, causing Deject! KTS: Puru-1 has engaged Marida Cruz! KTS: Trevor Teach successfully evades Puru-1's Armed Armor DE Mega Cannon Shot
<Pose Tracker> Marida Cruz has posed.
"You're wrong! This is the first real choice I've ever made in my life! Can you say the same for yourself, Leina Ashta? You know you don't belong here, I know you do!" She grabs at her own beam sabers, glowing fierce red, but the Banshee is faster, slicing at the quad wings. Thankfully the wings had plenty of armor, but a few more good hits like that and they'd surely come off.
Another saber pops out into her other hand as she rushes into the Banshee to bring down several swings of her own, bearing down her frustration on not Leina Ashta, but the specter and the curse of Elpeo Puru. "Captain Zinnerman...my father didn't send me! I came here because it was the right thing to do! Banagher and Mineva are waiting for you, Leina! Waiting for you to come back to them!"
KTS: Marida Cruz targets Puru-1 with Beam Saber Multiswing! KTS: Marida Cruz has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Puru-1 parries Marida Cruz's Beam Saber Multiswing, taking 1380 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 36608 KTS: Marida Cruz has engaged Puru-1! <Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.
"Marida, I need a communication line." Zinnerman's hands dance over the console in front of him - transmitting predictions based on prior engagements with the Banshee - attack patterns, output power. "Rerouting the Kshatriya's laser comms. Tactical data incoming."
He gets the ping! of an established line.
"Leina Ashta." Zinnerman's stoic, stern voice crackles through in the cockpit of the Banshee - it's warmer than she remembers, though.
"I didn't send her. Marida and I... Things have changed. We have accepted what we are to each other." Father and daughter.
The fear of losing her... it pulses, stronger than ever... but even overpowering that is the fear of Marida losing herself, of denying her heart and being just another tool.
"You can change too, miss Ashta. You are not trapped on this course. What Murasame wants to make of you... it is cruel and unfair, to both yourself and the shade trapped in your mobile suit. I will not permit it."
KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Puru-1 with Shock! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has completed their actions for the round. ]KTS: Please use the name of your attacker to react when you have multiple attacks in your +queue.
KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman shocks Puru-1, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 36608 KTS: [Spirit Defense] Puru-1's Never Let You Go activates, and her spirit endures. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz <Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Leina's hatred is fierce, honed by her despair into a poignant weapon. Rita radiates sorrow as the two fly together. It was never supposed to be--
No. Rita allowed this to happen. So it's up to her to fix it. To at least help.
Negative pressure builds, and the Phenex shudders, feeling the weight of the enemy NT-D. She doesn't transform -- causing a Psychofield in a place like this would be deadly, especially to those Rita called on to help. Intangible hands steady on the controls, the Heart of the Phenex murmurs to her partner through their spiritual bond.
You're right, Leina. Everything you have to say about me is right. I accept your feelings. But I won't stay back! Not ever again! No cage can hold us!
The Phenex's hold wavers as Leina's emotions wash over her. Azure radiance dims. She's slipping, losing her grip on her sister. Rita's power has been dimished since burning so much of her soul up to save Palau, and now she's paying the price.
I did so many horrible things. I lied and used people. I hurt them and allowed hurt to come to them. Again and again, I manipulated Possibility in order to try and get what I wanted.
Awareness flashes across Rita's mind, seeing the crackle of the Beam Magnum seconds before it happens. Dropping her focus, the Phenex darts upward, cleanly avoiding the strike, but losing her hold on the Banshee.
But all is not lost. The heroes of the living answer her call. Trevor, despite the beating his machine has taken, despite his own injuries, throws himself into the fray.
I had a feeling you needed help. I didn't think I'd have it backwards!
One of the Phenex's wing-like shields races to the Isadore, orbiting the battered machine. It will try to aid in attacks made against Trevor's mysterious partner -- darting in and out as the situation requires.
I'll keep you safe, Trevor. We aren't the ones Leina needs. But that doesn't mean we can do nothing!
Hovering just above the Banshee, the Phenex reaches her hands out, invitingly, beseechingly. Brilliant light, gold-and-blue, shines around her, haloing the Gundam in psychic grace. Her voice returns to Leina.
When I was alive, I worked with cruel people. I allowed them to turn me into a weapon. I allowed them to experiment on me, and torture me, in order to save the people I care about the most. Even though this decision hurt them... I made that choice. I decided it was right, without talking to them.
Fey noises build around the Phenex, heard spiritually, rather than physically. It sounds like little bells, perhaps. It sounds like faith.
I fought against them. I used all my strength to defeat them. Again and again, they tried to reach out to me, and again and again, I denied them. But once I was forced to stop and talk to them...
A sweet laugh echoes across the battlefield. The Phenex spins, soaring in a wide circle around the Banshee.
They forgave me. They still loved me. And we found a way forward, together.
Coming to a halt, light builds around the firebird. Blue-pink-green. The shimmering hues of Possibility itself -- a cracked window into another realm.
Isn't it familiar?
A single hand is lifted, gesturing toward the Banshee. All at once, brilliance rushes forward, swirling around her, seeking to eat away at her armor. Never, never threatening the pilot.
You're only one step behind me on this path.
KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Trevor Teach KTS: Rita Bernal targets Puru-1 with Coronal Aurorae! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Rita Bernal rattles Puru-1, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Puru-1 fails to Evade Rita Bernal's Coronal Aurorae, taking 3225 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 33383 <Pose Tracker> Trevor Teach has posed.
"Just an ordinary amount of recklessness then," Trevor answers with a faint smirk. Even now, staring down the weight of-- all of this, he can't help but joke. Truthfully, this entire engagement is the very height of recklessness. Worn down as they are, charging into the Banshee is the very epitome of windmill-tilting.
And yet, they're doing it.
Against that anger, they rage.
Creases line the pirate's brow, waves of negativity washing against him like the sea laps against a sandbar. "Hah, 'part of the Sleeves,' you say?" she doesn't know him. That's an advantage, isn't it? Even if it means he doesn't know her, either. His words could never cut as deep as her brother's, her friends'. But then again, clad in so much armor against those she loves, maybe in this moment it's exactly the words a stranger that's needed?
Into that fear, they run.
"I don't think that really applies to any of us, anymore. Except maybe those poor bastards you were killing just a few seconds ago." The Banshee unleashes its counterattack. A veritable meteor of hypercharged beam particles-- the likes that only battleships should be able to field-- races towards him. Isadore darts abruptly aside at the last, its shield-like claw bracing against the halo of exotic particles gnawing at its very substance. But even then, that shot had been dead-on hadn't it? Even if he dodged, it carried enough energy to cook his goose twice over. Unless... "I'm a free man, missy! As a proper pirate, 'freedom' is beneath wherever it is I fly my real colors!" The 'Jolly Roger' IFF Spoofer. It had been broadcasting a signal that reported the Isadore's location just shy of its actual position. Easily screened for if you know what to look for, but if you don't... "We're all free. And even if we aren't, and it's all just in our heads..."
Sorrow is met with a smile.
Even as tears well unbidden in his eye. "...That's okay with me, too. Going through life feeling every weight and burden just isn't my idea of a good time, savvy? Sounds like you've forgotten what it's like, feeling but not-- caring." Isadore's anchor-claw hinges open, pockmarked with exotic particle burns. He feels Rita's protection surround him, shields whirling around Isadore in a tight orbit.
Despair. Despair fills the heart with so much awful, aching weight. Until it's impossible to step forward. Until the gravity is too much to bear. 'Hope' cannot really, truly fight despair. Despair is Hope's absence, after all.
But he feels it. He passes through it. Even if they've no hope of stopping her, even if they aren't the ones Leina needs--
To fight on, swallowed by despair, is foolish. But Trevor Teach is absolutely a fool.
"I'm right behind you, Rita. Marida!" Isadore rushes in, rockets on its right arm igniting in a burst of sudden acceleration. He plunges forward, driving to snag something-- anything-- in that industrial crusher claw. To clip even just a fragment from the cage coiled around Leina's heart. "I think maybe you need to stop worrying so much about us and start caring for yourself! Maybe... I should just steal some of that hate from you, eh? And that sadness, too. Everything. I'll take it all!"
He's a pirate, after all.
KTS: Trevor Teach targets Puru-1 with Rocket Anchor! KTS: Trevor Teach has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Trevor Teach anchors Puru-1, forcing her into close range. KTS: Puru-1 fails to Parry Trevor Teach's Rocket Anchor, taking 5040 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 28343 KTS: Trevor Teach has engaged Puru-1!
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
"You're DELUDING yourself! After a lifetime of battle, caught by the curse of a dead man, you think that THIS is a choice? Even if noone can force you to wear your dancing shoes any longer, the very fact you'd run back on the battlefield barefoot proves that choice is still an ILLUSION!"
Gritting her teeth, she bites down on her, each swing of the Quad Wing being met by the Banshee's Beam Saber, over and over and over as they clash. Whatever angle she comes at, there is this impression at the back of Marida's mind of laughter.
"And so you join them then? Fighting for my salvation against all logic, all sense! It only proves that it's the LAST place that I belong! You saw the worst of what Neo Zeon had to offer - of the Federation, and you're telling me that you, YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, BELIEVE THE LIE OF A BETTER WORLD?"
Suddenly she levels the Beam Magnum at this range, the shot building, as she swings it just wide enough to try and melt off a portion of the Kshatriya, a blue auroral bolt firing through.
"That just shows me how dangerous this FANTASY of Possibility truly is!"
A line is opened, and Zinnerman tries to reassure her that the two accepted who they are to each other. And for a time, her sense of aggresion dulls, as she swims in sorrow, "Change." She echoes again, bitterly, "Even you are seduced by it's siren's song." She murmurs, but then those negative feelings grow, "It's not that easy. It's not that easy and YOU KNOW IT! You think I don't know about Globe City? Can you really set it all ASIDE for the sake of her future? Do you think that EVERYONE can do the same!?"
There's a certain hatred that grows there, undirected, yet forceful. Overwhelming in the sense of lashing out against this idea of hope, salvation, a better future.
And then Rita, in the Phenex addresses her, and amidst that searing hatred, it's hard for Puru-1 to let go, to listen. The crackling brilliance swirls around her, trying to eat it's Obsidian Armor, and suddenly this sense of pressure rises, beating it back before it's energy can dig too deep, "That's all you have to say? Just an admission of guilt? Don't stop! Don't you dare make your CONFESSION a half-measure! Tell them Rita. Tell them just how narrow the possibility for a better future for humanity is. How many TRILLIONS of futures did you browse through?"
The Norn swings around, as its Beam Magnum lights up again, sighting the Phenex down as it fires another far too close burst that darts towards it's golden Psycoframe. "HOW MANY! HOW MANY RITA? DID IT EVEN REACH DOUBLE DIGITS?" A flash of something, of a mask, of orange wisps of dawn energy permeates Rita's being, "You KNOW what's coming! What's REALLY coming!"
The E-Pac is suddenly ejected, one more used. The Magnum is replaced upon her back. And then she stills again at the image of them forgiving her-
For a time she's quiet, mired in her own insecurity, her own sense of self-loathing, but she finds something to grasp within her sense of resolve, "Tell me then, should I expect Jona to show up in the Neo-Zeong any second now, to give any actual weight to your words?"
The silence from Puru-1 is deafening for a few pregnant seconds, before she simply adds, "I think not."
The Isadore's dodge perhaps surprised Puru-1, but there's a certain delight as well, even she can't avoid the sense of exhiliration within the negative feelings she swims within. There's a moment of bitter laughter, "Ah! So you are a man who can think of yourself as free so long as you can avoid looking at the strings!"
There is laughter, and more laughter, until it sounds like it breaks into a horrid sob, "How wonderful for you." It shifts into a certain dark tone, intermingled envy and despair.
The rocket anchor fires, and she tries to slice it in twain even as it comes, but instead it impacts with the Norn, sending it careening backwards, before the AMBAC thrusters right itself. "Some of us don't have that luxury." Still, all sense of amusement fades from her in that moment, "You'd truly like to steal those feelings from me?"
Trevor's world perhaps, narrows in that moment, to a dark room, numerous white gloved hands, applauding, applauding, until it becomes this pervasive white noise. This idea, that despite there being hundreds within the room, he is alone. Utterly, utterly alone. Everything around him lacks any meaning, any feelings.
"Be my guest, take them." Comes Puru-1's voice, even as she rushes the Isadore, a Mounted Saber sprouting forth, in a fly by rush where she tries to carve pieces of it off.
KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has disengaged. KTS: Puru-1 targets Marida Cruz with Beam Magnum Fleet Slayer! KTS: Puru-1 targets Rita Bernal with Beam Magnum Focused Burst! KTS: Puru-1 targets Trevor Teach with Beam Tonfas and Sabers Rush! KTS: Puru-1 has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: [Mirage] Rita Bernal's Ars Goetia activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Rita Bernal fails to Evade Puru-1's Beam Magnum Focused Burst, taking 0 damage! KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Trevor Teach fails to rush. KTS: Puru-1 enervates Trevor Teach, reducing his Morale significantly. KTS: Trevor Teach partially guards Puru-1's Beam Tonfas and Sabers Rush, taking 5160 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru-1's Hands Meant For Holding activates, causing Deject! KTS: Puru-1 has engaged Trevor Teach! KTS: Puru-1 begins a Formation attack! KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz fails to charge. KTS: Marida Cruz partially guards Puru-1's Beam Magnum Fleet Slayer, taking 5795 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.
"It's not easy," Zinnerman replies, agreeing. "It took me eighteen years to realise that the change had even happened - but it did."
"Tell me, Leina Ashta. If hoping for better is foolish, and we should all just accept our fates to be puppets of the powerful - why did you save my crew's people from Palau? There was no tactical advantage or mission relevance, but you went out of your way to arrange evacuations for them to spare them from Aznable's madness."
While he waits for her to answer, he keys back to the suits arrayed against the Banshee. "Marida, if you need to fall back, do so." I can't lose you, not with our future undecided. "Trevor, Phenex - the same to you. Stay alive."
"Miss Ashta, is this really the fate you chose? To be a weapon against all those who would rise up against the Vists' conspiracy, no matter who they are or how hard they're willing to fight? Is what they do - starving you, denying you rest, throwing you into this violence again and again - the actions of people who deserve to hold this much power?"
KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Marida Cruz, Rita Bernal, and Trevor Teach with Caution. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has completed their actions for the round. KTS: [Lucky] Rita Bernal's Miracle Child activates, and luck goes her way! KTS: Rita Bernal successfully Accepts Suberoa Zinnerman's Caution KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman suggests caution, raising Trevor Teach's Intuition! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman suggests caution, raising Marida Cruz's Intuition! KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Focus Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Marida Cruz has posed.
Marida pushes forward, taking a good portion of the shot from the Magnum. Her breath runs ragged as her cockpit begins to blare warnings at her. "I know the things I've done...I know what I deserve...I know that I've done nothing to earn a better life for myself..."
The Kshatriya's wings flare up and a full barrage of funnels shoots out and surrounds the Banshee.
"BUT I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT I 'DESERVE!' THIS IS WHAT I WANT, AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF THAT,
LEINA
ASHTAAAA!"
The funnels fly into formation and unload onto the Banshee, darting at all angles.
KTS: Marida Cruz targets Puru-1 with Funnel Binder Full Volley! KTS: Marida Cruz has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz rattles Puru-1, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Puru-1 blocks Marida Cruz's Funnel Binder Full Volley, taking 2070 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 26273
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Possibility embraces the Unicorn sisters, shrouding one in protection, and one in fire. The Banshee's anguished pressure extinguishes the sacred flames, starving them of Rita's light as one might deny a physical fire oxygen.
Nine.
Rita's voice is as soft as raindrops, weighed down with guilt. The Phenex stills, the brilliance of Possibility fading from around her. Her head tilts up, looking at the distant battle -- searching for one machine in particular.
One in nine trillion. To save both the world, and Jona and Michele.
Even as her sister fires on her, the Phenex doesn't move -- still haloed by enough miraculous light that the shot fades through her. Belonging as she does to two worlds, two existences, she can choose one or the other to belong to.
And now even that is lost. If what I saw comes to pass, the Earthsphere has only a few months to survive.
So much hatred, so much poison... Rita feels her sins, heavy on her shoulders. What a cruel fool she was to sacrifice Leina to Possibility, to allow her to be twisted into this person full of despair. Thorean's monster or Zoltan's. It doesn't matter which is successful.
Leina invokes Jona's name, and the Phenex recoils. For a moment fury, pure and blinding, overcomes the grief and sorrow radiating from the Phenex. Slowly, the blue flame cradling the golden Gundam grows paler, brighter, soaring up the color spectrum until it burns as white as distant starlight--
Wrath. Wrath at her failure. At all that was taken from her. The one thing she never thought she'd lose. The one thing she tried to save above all else. It swirls, tighter, brighter, fearful and awe-inspiring.
Jona--!
Rita's voice is ragged, barely coming through as a human sound. The Phenex shrieks with rage, echoing the heart of her partner, beautiful and violent. One hand raises in her fury, and her remaining wing--
She hasn't struck Leina with her wings once during this fight. Rita fears what would happen. She knows Leina is fragile after all she's been through.
--races forward.
Past the Banshee.
To float in front of Marida's almost-destroyed mobile suit. It orbits in a tight circle around her, as its twin does for Trevor.
Slowly... The white brilliance of the Phenex dims. Her hidden Psychoframe skeleton goes almost entirely dark. Rita's presence can barely be felt.
This life isn't all there is.
With delicate movements, the Phenex approaches her sister. Though the Banshee Norn is armed to the teeth, the firebird reaches out, entirely unarmed now with her shields sent away. Hands attempt settle atop the Black Unicorn's, carefully avoiding her active Mounted Saber.
Again and again, we're reborn.
Flickers of fire still dance around the firebird's touch, scorching the armor of the Banshee. As contact is made between the two sisters, the Phenex begins to glow once more. A flickering, quiet thing, the last embers of a campfire.
Rita Bernal projects herself out of the cockpit. She floats toward the Banshee -- knowing the wall of hatred and negative pressure she's about to encounter, and reaches out a hand. Flame wraps around her, green-pink-blue, and she presses forward, trying to reach Leina.
When I'm reborn again, I hope...
Should she be successful...
I get to be a bird.
Arms open wide, Rita soldiering through the awful power of the Banshee's remnant. Perhaps her sacred fire will be enough to hold it at bay, just for a moment. Just long enough so she can make her way to Leina and wrap her arms around the young woman, intangible but warm.
I love you, sister.
KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Rita Bernal targets Puru-1 with Magnetic Midnight! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 fails to Evade Rita Bernal's Magnetic Midnight, taking 2139 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 24134 <Pose Tracker> Trevor Teach has posed.
"No," Trevor answers, smile not quite reaching his voice, "Honestly, I don't think much myself as anything at all."
Leina's laughter is a wicked, broken thing. It's impossible to not be unsettled by it. "We all have that luxury, missy. It's one of the few things we can all have for free. Maybe it is just looking away from the inevitable, but so many things are 'inevitable,' why torture yourself over it?" Death. Separation. Isolation. Weakness. Decay. Inevitable things, all of them. All of them. But people walk forward even so. It'd seem ridiculous to the right mind-- it's all meaningless if it ends. It's all meaningless!
Trevor is in a dark room. All around him, a nauseatingly hollow applause. He said he'd steal away those feelings, and this is where it gets him. This is where her heart has been trapped for so long, and now-- it's where his heart has fallen. He feels the creeping isolation, alone with only his own thoughts drowned out by that awful, all-encompassing applause. For the first time in a long time, he's truly cut off. Really and truly alone. He's all alone, everybody sees him, but nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
A stolen beam saber rakes across the Isadore's stolen arm. Sparks and smoke erupt from the purloined limb as actuators and main power lines are incinerated into uselessness. Its guard is hurled open, cockpit so dangerously exposed--
"I see," Trevor's voice calls out from the void of Isadore's heart, "You're the kind of person... who needs 'meaning' from the world."
The junker machine's visor flares. It hurls its ruined limb shoulder-first into the Banshee's charge before it can make good on a lethal blow. "That's what they did to you. They took that away, and from that everything followed. But..."
It lunges, pivoting, driving its claw back in-- to seize, again, and this time to ignite in a blaze of discharging electrical capacitors. "We're not alone, are we?" Trevor asks, blood dripping from a wound chewed into his own lip. "After all, you shared that with me. So obviously we aren't alone! Come on, Leina Ashta! Keep proving yourself wrong-- give me more!"
KTS: Trevor Teach targets Puru-1 with Plasma Scissor! KTS: Trevor Teach has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 fails to react to Trevor Teach's Plasma Scissor, taking 4371 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 19763 KTS: Trevor Teach has engaged Puru-1!
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
While Puru-1 scoffs immediately and audibly as if in disbelief, she still listens, as if to hear him out. He asks her a question, and it's difficult for her to think through why she did it. In the end...
"Do you think I'm advocating to press everyone into their service? Because some people can live, and find some measure of happiness for a short while, so long as they keep their heads down."
There's this rising sense of disgust, "So long as they never become targets. Your people have that option now, I GAVE them that option. They're too insignificant for Bakharov to care about hunting down, or at least they would be." There's this building anger in her tone, "If you'd only taken your daughter and ran! TRIED to live the quiet life! Taken her far away! To Jupiter! Or to the Belt! Instead you fight, and fight, and fight no matter what outs are given to you! Because you can't imagine imagine living any other way than futilely lashing out at the world that TOOK YOUR WIFE AND DAUGHTER FROM YOU!"
Does she believe him when he says he's changed? Not really. She can't. Perhaps her mindset just won't allow it. Still she engages with his final point, as anger burbles out from within her, deep - and in this case, almost wholly her own, "NOONE deserves this kind of power! Did you think I believed otherwise!? That I EVER have? Does it MATTER though, if they deserve it, when the fact remains that they have it? If they'll always be replaced by worse? It doesn't matter if you score some hollow victories cutting out a single tumor! It's long metastasized!"
However, Marida brings her out of her rant with those words, there's a sense akin to shock in Puru-1's atmosphere, all those negative feelings recede. And abruptly, as she cries out her name, the Banshee swings every which way, juking with short bursts of its thrusters, the I-Field of its Armed Armor devouring so many of its beams within its cloud of charged nebulous energy.
"Oh Marida." Puru-1 tells her sorrowfully, and it's like those ghastly feelings recede just a touch. Just enough. "You don't understand at all."
Flying every which way, it's difficult to see the moment that cylinder turns, each time a cartridge appearing for a moment, then another, and another, before dispersing. "For everything she did to me, I still believe she deserves the world." There's a moment of quiet introspection, before she adds, "You do too."
Marida's Newtype senses might scream at her, because all at once the Kshatriya has found itself surrounded by numerous Micro Hide Bombs, rendering almost no direction it can fly without setting them off, like a field of mines in space.
"She lost her second chance fighting a battle that she never should have been a part of, I REFUSE to let you do the same!"
Rita tells the truth, in that guilt, the truth that Puru-1 herself saw in that time of despair. And there's no sense of triumph, there's just, sorrow. "You think I didn't want to believe in the lie that is possibility too? I wanted to so badly, for years. I didn't need a prophetess to know the chances were that slim. The nine in a trillion possibility didn't bother me."
It's too much to swim against the current forever.
Noone can.
And yet, Puru-1 doesn't know at what point this changed in her. She can't, comprehend it. What led her to doing what she did? Was it just the weight of Banagher's hopeless quest? How many were swayed by it, with her understanding all along that the box would never change a thing?
She doesn't know. She can hardly think of that time.
"Stay AWAY FROM HER!" The Norn warns as the Phenex flies towards Marida, and it's unclear if it's because of the field of mines, or the poisonous idea of hope. It's difficult, difficult for Rita to press inside. To project within the cockpit. It's like swimming through an oil spill within an ocean, it claws at her, tries to coat her with all of that awful negativity, to grasp her with its tar like morass.
The sudden fire burns, and there's a psychic screech at the harshness that echoes throughout the void, like nails across a chalkboard. The pilot within pants, gasping, before she tells her. "You shouldn't."
There's a sudden push, then a SHOVE as if so many ephemeral hands were forcing her back, even as she puts away the Magnum on her back, and draws both Mounted Sabers. Suddenly alit as if by the force of those emotions, the Norn screams towards the Phenex, before slashing in an X as she draws each across its full bodied Psycoframe.
"You'll only get hurt, loving me."
Trevor tries to tell her that ALL of them have that luxury even as he rockets towards it. The claw she manages to prevent from sinking in by grasping it with a Psycoframe hand, but the electric capacitors still strike home, lighting the Norn up in fire.
Shocked both physically and emotionally, she forces her locked up muscles to work the controls and fling the isadore away just enough, before she then lapses into this despair, "Do you even listen to yourself? 'Just look away'. Maybe once upon a time I could have." As she uses fairy tale terminology, "But a man from Neo-Zeon forced me to watch. Again, and again, and again, and AGAIN! Do you think you can just GO BACK to some carefree lifestyle once someone GRINDS it out of you?"
The Sabers vanish as the Beam Magnum is taken up, a cylinder turning, as suddenly missiles launch out of it, twisting and winding towards the Isadore. "More fool you." The Norn tries to stay close, moving around the Isadore, "Maybe I don't feel like showing you any more."
Abruptly however, there is a cold sensation like metal scraping across Trevor's throat as if to cinch it off. A hollow, empty faced child with orange hair, that he might swear looks like Marida. This emotional sensation like he's grappling with someone else stronger than him, gasping for his life, dyspneic.
"But she might." The girl within says more somberly, as something is indeed shared to him.
KTS: Puru-1 targets Marida Cruz with Revolving Launcher Micro Hide Bomb Launch! KTS: Puru-1 targets Rita Bernal with Beam Tonfas and Sabers High-Output Combination! KTS: Puru-1 targets Trevor Teach with Revolving Launcher BOP Missile Salvo! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 208. KTS: SP Regen activates. Your new SP value is 65. KTS: Puru-1 has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Daunt Spirit Command targeting Trevor Teach KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Trevor Teach fails to evade Puru-1's Revolving Launcher BOP Missile Salvo, taking 4300 damage! KTS: [Mirage] Rita Bernal's Ars Goetia activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Rita Bernal fails to Parry Puru-1's Beam Tonfas and Sabers High-Output Combination, taking 0 damage! KTS: Puru-1 has engaged Rita Bernal! KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Trevor Teach has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Trevor Teach uses Hyper Reloader KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Trevor Teach KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Marida Cruz successfully intercepts Puru-1's Revolving Launcher Micro Hide Bomb Launch
<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.
There is the sound of an old, weary man letting out a long breath. "You even have the past all mixed up in your head. I couldn't have saved Fee or Marie from prison, and yet I still blamed myself. Just like you blame yourself for Elpeo. I kept my head down all the time I was in prison. It didn't help. Running away won't help either - after all, I'd be carrying the grief with me."
"Look at Marida. Really look at her." The Kshatriya's funnels dance, shredding the mines flying towards the mobile suit. "She's fighting for you. Because we know what's being done to you. Why do you think Murasame has been denying you food and sleep?" He waits for her response.
"It makes no sense. Combatants perform better when they are rested and fed, this is the basic truth of warfare, and why so many missions focus on eliminating supply lines. For Murasame to force this regime on you tells me his goals are different. He wants to snuff your spirit out, Leina Ashta, and let the shade in the Banshee dominate your psyche. Perhaps you think you deserve that... but are you okay with your body being nothing more than a vessel for this destructive impulse? For this possessiveness and jealousy? To dangle on the strings of the powerful until they get tired of this incomplete fragment of Elpeo Puru? Because that's what you're condemning her to by continuing to fight for them - Murasame's attempt at recreating Full Frontal."
"Trevor, Marida, Phenex - NOW." Targeting and weapons telemetry are uploaded all at once, as normal-suit-gloved hands tap across his command console.
KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Marida Cruz, Trevor Teach, and Rita Bernal with Coordinate. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman coordinates maneuvers, raising Rita Bernal's Piloting! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Marida Cruz KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman coordinates maneuvers, raising Marida Cruz's Piloting! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Marida Cruz, Trevor Teach, and Rita Bernal with All-Out. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Trevor Teach's Skill! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Marida Cruz's Skill! KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Trevor Teach
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Even if this is the end, and I've destroyed this path for everyone. I want to keep fighting until the very end.
The Phenex fights against that guilt, leveraging her hope and faith in Leina against the artificial, enforced despair her sister drowns in. Which will be stronger? The eternal flame of Rita's determination, or the months of endless torture and conditioning Leina was forced through?
It only lasts for a heartbeat, but Rita's arms close around Leina. Though she tries to hold on, Leina shoves her away, far more powerful than Rita here in her own Beast of Possibility. Green eyes slip closed as she's pushed away from the Banshee, the Heart of the Phenex placing one hand on her Gundam.
Close in the distance, the Unicorn approaches. The eldest sister, come to save the one she loves most. Rita smiles, watching Banagher's approach, then raises her voice to Trevor, Zinnerman, and Marida.
We've done all we can. Banagher and Judau are almost here. It's time to end this fight.
The Banshee screams forward, sabers crossed, promising violence and destruction to the Phenex. But Rita places both her hands on the Phenex's chest, and the two of them momentarily fade from view once again, darting into the realm of Possibility.
It's going to be okay.
This time, Leina passes through Rita, her sabers as harmless as a hand brushing through a cloud of mist. In the moment their hearts collide, memory sparks to life.
Voices call out, all at once, yet somehow distinct. So many hearts united in one wish -- saving her. Saving Leina. All the fights she's endured to this point, every single person who took to the battlefield to try and bring her home... They return now, swirling around Leina like the planets orbiting the sun.
Sayaka. Koji. Chris. Rena. Nova. Roux. Ruri. Lucine. Liam. Ennil. Tessa. Sousuke. Sayla. Kaname. Marida. Zinnerman. Trevor.
It's almost over. Hang on, just a little longer. I promise it won't hurt anymore.
Rita's face, last of all, flashes in Leina's memory. She smiles softly, something sad in her eyes.
He's going to need you, before this is over. You must be there when the rainbow appears.
Zinnerman calls out, and Rita vanishes from sight, disappearing back into the cockpit of the Phenex. With a cry, the firebird ignites, suddenly consumed with sacred fire.
Possibility made manifest rises above her, taking the shape of a great bird. It arcs through the air, followed by twin long tailfeathers, racing toward the Banshee. Driven by connection, hope, and love -- the Phenex gives her all.
In response to her allies' distress, Rita sends an halo of fire, racing across the battlefield. It races toward Trevor and Marida both, seeking to banish the specter of the Banshee's touch from their spirits. Perhaps all that's needed to eradicate the darkness lurking within the Lion is a little more light.
It's time to go home.
The shields orbiting Marida and Trevor glimmer with reflected light. In harmony, they gently try to encourage the two machines toward the Ra Mari II. This battle is over.
KTS: Rita Bernal targets Puru-1 with This Life Isn't All There Is! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Puru-1 fails to Evade Rita Bernal's This Life Isn't All There Is, taking 8160 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Rita Bernal's Destined Meeting activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 11603 KTS: Rita Bernal roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.
<Pose Tracker> Marida Cruz has posed.
Marida lets out a primal scream as her funnels fire at the mines surrounding her, enveloping her in an explosion. Which clears...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLiUwIFV_cM
...to reveal the Kshatriya, no worse for the wear, wielding all six of its beam sabers. The Psycommu in its cockpit glows around Marida, glaring at the Banshee, at Leina Ashta, at Elpeo Puru, at everything and everyone that dragged them into all of this. Everything that was taking away any chance they had at a happy life.
"That second chance is exactly what I'm fighting to defend! If I just cower and retreat, the Vists will take everything from us! From you, me, Banagher, Mineva, Father, EVERYONE!"
All six sabers are held straight out as the Kshatriya rushes forward towards the Banshee, swinging itself in a circle of beams as it makes contact to shred through the suit's armor.
KTS: Marida Cruz targets Puru-1 with Beam Saber Corkscrew Drive! KTS: Marida Cruz has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Marida Cruz rattles Puru-1, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Puru-1 parries Marida Cruz's Beam Saber Corkscrew Drive, taking 1560 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 10043 KTS: Marida Cruz repulses Puru-1, forcing her to disengage.
<Pose Tracker> Trevor Teach has posed.
"I said everyone can, not that it was easy for everyone," Trevor answers as physics hurl him against his controls. His arms push against inertia as his head swims. Perhaps psychic fighting on a concussion was not the best of plans-- but Trevor's foolishness has already been established. "It can be painful, people might get hurt if you do. But if that's what's holding you back, then you still care. And that means that part of you hasn't ben completely extinguished, doesn't it...?"
She refuses to share. Trevor's lips curl into a faint, bloody smile. "And of course I listen to myself, I love the sound of my own vhhkk--" Something seizes around his throat. Again his vision twists, fading into the unfamiliar. Raw, crushing emotion squeezes his breath from his body as he sees-- someone. Someone he vaguely recognizes. Someone that looks so much like Marida, but-- not.
Is this... the one who Rita calls 'Elpeo Ple...?' Is this the ghost...? Trevor scratches at his neck, but there is no noose there. Not a physical one, at least. Explosions pound into the Isadore as he's lost in the nightmare, singular eye swimming, swimming--
And then something else enters that space. Something that does not need breath. The presence is flickering and faint, an entity that is only halfway there. A bird that is only beginning to truly fledge. But even so, ensconced in jade flame, it surrounds Trevor-of-the-mind entirely, sharing in his pain, and in that gap he can-- barely-- breathe. And at the same time...
A wave of purifying fire washes over the Trevor-of-the-body, courtesy of the Phenex.
He awakens with a gasp, CIWS-laser spooling up and tearing the remaining missiles to ribbons before they can contact and explode. Zinnerman gives his command, and Phenex-- does the same.
Trevor grits bloody teeth and glares at the Banshee, Isadore emerging broken and smoldering from the carnival of explosions. "Not yet, Rita... I can still go one more time. My promise-- won't let me do any less. I saw her. I saw her." Its thrusters ignite, hurling the mobile weapon bodily at its natural enemy. Isadore's visor blazes with blue light as it closes the distance and-- twists, using its hollowed-out limb as a pure bludgeon. It grips its failed wrist with its good hand as the arm arcs. Joints disconnect with a pop and hiss as it clubs the limb at the Banshee, releasing it at the end of the motion to follow up with a rolling kick, and finally--
One more time, with that claw, to try and seize something. To give Banagher just that little bit more of a chance. "I was right. There is a ghost. But you're still alive, Leina! We aren't the ones who can save you, but that anger, that loneliness-- means there's still a heart there to save! I'll trust in that possibility-- if only one in nine trillion paths lead us to salvation-- if the road Rita saw is closed to us--"
"Then we'll just have to try eighteen-trillion times instead!!"
KTS: Trevor Teach targets Puru-1 with Keelhaul! KTS: Trevor Teach has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru-1 fails to Parry Trevor Teach's Keelhaul, taking 8520 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 1523 KTS: Trevor Teach has engaged Puru-1!
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
Zinnerman's argument feels like it's beginning to take hold, until the moment he invokes Elpeo. And that is the moment she snaps, "Don't. DON'T YOU DARE! PRETEND! IT'S THE SAME!" Puru-1 snaps at him, as her mind is forced to engage with something it doesn't want to, "You don't have the slightest IDEA what it was like between her and me in there!"
Indeed, Zinnerman is trying to make her face the fact that her death isn't her fault, but... she's never blamed herself for not being there in Dublin. The source of her survivor's guilt, the intensity of it...
... it's different in her eyes. "I had every opportunity to do SOMETHING for her!" She yells at him, "EVERY OPPORTUNITY! And I didn't!" She chokes down something, "I didn't. I just... called her a weapon, meant only for killing! I demanded she stay away from the one person who meant anything to her."
She's spent years telling herself that she was a child. That they were both in bad situations, that their situations naturally pitted them against each other. That she was simply ignorant of certain things. That Elpeo herself did countless things which made her very, very DANGEROUS for Leina to interact with her, many of which to her itself, including trying to murder her. That in the end she accepted her as family...
... and it doesn't matter. In this state, it doesn't matter how much she's tried to disentangle herself from the guilt over the years, soaking herself in these emotions has taken its toll upon her.
Still, he tries to tell her to really look at Marida, and asks her a question, in the end... "Because I'm not STRONG enough on my own!" She tells him as if it's an excuse for the 'self denial' training, as if its an admission, "But if I let her take over... then... THEN!"
And yet, she's not letting her take over right now, is she?
What is actually going on here?
"She's- NOT- A FRAGMENT!"
She sobs out in an angry denial. Perhaps it becomes more clear then. She thinks she's letting her live again, through her, in some form. She's been made to think she is, by giving herself over to her...
... and she's failing even at that.
A cry of frustration as the Phenex outmaneuvers her, "Don't make promises - YOU CAN'T KEEP!" And that light flies at the Phenex like a Firebird unto itself, the light of possibility crashing into it. The Psycoframe unit momentarily seizes up, alit by that fire, blazing around it. "That's-"
And then abruptly, that haze of negativity rises, forcing that sacred fire away as if simply pushing it away before it is consumed by the sheer force of her resolve, "-ENOUGH!" In the end, her breath comes out in ragged gasps, this marathon of battles taking such a toll on her in ways her body refuses to admit. "You think you can... You think you can just dictate to me what is going to happen? What NEEDS to happen!?"
And indeed, for however much affection she feels for Rita ordinarily, in this moment there is just a complete, and utter rejection, "I REFUSE! Metis PROVED you hold no sway over ANY of our futures!"
The Quadwing comes at her in that moment, all six Sabers swinging at the Norn, and suddenly it sprouts a Mounted Saber, another still within the same hand. It's parries furious, savage things that seem to intercept Marida's at odd, impossible angles, pressing back. Until Marida finally slips one Saber into its Guard, only to find the Magnum brought up, it's cylinder sprouting a Beam Jutte to bat the last one away.
"And that's exactly how you'll lose it. Never knowing when enough is enough. Never knowing when to QUIT!" Suddenly the Norn's leg whips up, kicking the Kshatriya away, "You're still of the opinion you can WIN! But you'll never - CHANGE - A THING!"
There's a sense like all that hot emotion just goes out of her, leaving only despair, "You'll only die in vain. Because you feel like the only way you can care for any of them is to put your LIFE ON THE LINE!"
The vision Trevor saw is simply burned away by the sacred warmth of the Phenex, some part of her is trying to soothe something within the Banshee that can't ever truly be calmed, only appeased.
It gives Trevor the opportunity to fulfill his promise, as he suddenly hurls the mobile weapon at her, clubbing the limb as a bludgeon. At first it simply tries to parry the bludgeon with a Saber, and when it misses, its Psycoframe infused limb, but the claw seizes it, and the mobile suit squirms, and twists as he tries to pull at her, to twist.
"I don't... NEED... OR WANT... YOUR SALVATION!" She shouts at him, pained, "So what if I'm still alive!? SO WHAT!?"
It's so quiet, when she finally says it, "I don't want to live... in a world like this anymore." Then quieter, "I can't."
And yet, despite it all, still alive. Perhaps, perhaps it's simply that she can't - can't just leave it be. That she thinks it's too selfish for her to just die.
She can't just let things go, she has to do something, and it has to be her. She cares for them too much in her own twisted way right now.
The Norn's head turns, as if the pilot hears something or rather, someone calling in the distance, "Not yet. NOT. YET!"
There's a crunch as the claw digs in to the obsidian armor. Then abruptly. A hand grasps one side, then another, and simply WRENCHES it off of the Norn.
The Armed Armor DE shield is placed at its back. Azure thrusters ignite, and the Banshee Norn begins to streak away at full speed with a renewed, singular focus.
It's not long before she's out of reach, and it doesn't take much for anyone to guess where she's going.
<Pose Tracker> Marida Cruz has posed.
Marida pants, slumped against her controls. She couldn't go after the Banshee if she tried, and even if she did, in this state, she'd just hold Banagher back. She pulls off her helmet, her hair completely matted with sweat, and tosses it in her lap.
"Father...I'm going to escort the 'Garencieres Junior' to a safe distance, then dock for repairs."
The poor Kshatriya certainly had seen better days, the quad wings holding on after repeated assault by mere miracle. It flies over in front of the 'Garencieres Junior' and guides the rest of the crew in the opposite direction of the Norn's trajectory, said crew eventually having to drag Marida out of her cockpit from exhaustion when she arrived in the hangar.
<Pose Tracker> Trevor Teach has posed.
She does not need-- nor want-- salvation.
And there it is. That's the awful, weeping wound at the heart of all of this. Leina Ashta is in too much pain to live-- but cares too much to die. To just 'walk away' is unthinkable. She wrenches free of the Isadore's claw-- tearing its metal prongs apart and shattering the joint until she can fling him clear and fly free, to her destiny.
Trevor is silent, watching the blazing specter of the Banshee soar away. Until at last, he releases the breath he'd fought so hard to claw back and sinks into his seat. "...Guess it's up to Banagher, now. We've given all that we can, but--"
Will it be enough?
Everything screams at him to go forward. To give more. But Isadore's limbs are broken, its body is battered by two trying engagements and, more importantly, its pilot is... exhausted.
"...Heading back to the Ra Mari. I... need a drink." (The drink is an electrolyte cocktail and a fistful of painkillers, to be applied once the Ra Mari's crew manages to wrench the Isadore's cockpit open to extract its pilot. (The hinge got busted by a near-miss missile hit, you see.))
<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.
"Godspeed, Marida." She's alive. "I'll see you soon." As long as they survive this.
"Trevor... Thankyou. Please come back safe - we'll see to your repairs when the battle is over."
His gaze lingers on the Phenex. Somehow... He gets the sense that without the golden Gundam's intervention here, things would be very different. Thank you, He says silently to her. He doesn't know the name of the girl who burned herself up within the third RX-0, but her actions have been so, so important here.
He won't forget.
"Things have already changed, Leina," he says to a girl who is too far away to hear. "... And bit by bit, we'll change more."
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
The fight is over. The Phenex watches her sister race away, destined to clash with the eldest of the trio. She is still until the brilliant path of the Banshee's thrusters fades.
And then, Rita turns to face her companions. Both wings move to Marida's battered machine, while the Phenex herself soars over to the Isadore.
Trevor!
Gently, the Phenex wraps both her arms around the Isador's less-injured arm, bodily pulling the mysterious machine toward the Ra Mari II.
You've fought so hard. Thank you. Thank you for helping me save my sister. Please, all of you... It's time to rest.
The Phenex, miraculously, has avoided the Banshee's fury. Her golden armor is undamaged, brilliant in the dim light of space. Slowly, she brings her hero back to his home ship.
Captain Zinnerman, please tend to Marida and Trevor. I can't stay here any longer. My sisters must walk their own path. I must find my way back to my own.
Approaching the Ra Mari II, the Phenex casts her awareness toward the Lion and the Unicorn. Once more, she casts her spirit toward Leina.
Remember. You must be with him when the rainbow appears.