2023-11-04: Peace and Mediation
- Log: Peace and Mediation
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Soma Peries, Rena Lancaster, Banagher Links-Vist, Anita Rosetta, Asciel Colette, Leina Ashta, Luanova Luckwright
- Where: Chobu Squadron Base, Vilyuchik Volcano, Kamchatka Peninsula, Zaftra
- Date: 2023-11-04
- Summary: Yuliana now comes to Zaftra's north-east to plant another flower -- and take care of Celestial Being's foes in the process. She and her squadron storm the Chobu Squadron's base alone, rather than asking for help... because they're not just here for Sergei and his men. As the defenders learn, she is driven by religious fervour to forge a path -- a path to a future Leina posits is free from fear, for Yuliana. But has she really given herself, or the people she's fighting, a chance? She welcomes opposition, but she won't be swayed to back down. In the end, the Wild Boar of Zaftra sacrifices his base in an act of self-destruction to try and destroy the flower Yuliana plants... but that flower isn't entirely of this realm, and it abjures destruction. Why does God want flowers, anyway?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCO30lsBFv8 FFVII Remake - Scorpion Sentinel
Vilyuchinsk is a closed town in Zaftra's northeast, all perched on the Kamchatka Peninsula, under the shadow of the volcano Vilyuchik. It's not found on nearby maps, and no public transport services it. Zaftra's closed towns serve important military purposes -- engineers and mechanics living there throughout the year to work on their projects.
Drive thirty kilometres from Vilyuchinsk on suspiciously well-maintained roads, and one reaches Vilyuchik: an ancient stratovolcano stretching up into the sky. It is here, in a base built into the side of this hulking mountain, that the Chobu Squadron scrambles from. Their base is able to host all the materials built and manufactured in Vilyuchinsk, bringing them together to maintain the GN-Xs.
This is, of course, even MORE of a secret. Few people are aware that Vilyuchinsk is anything more than a fishing hamlet; fewer know that Vilyuchik is more than a mountain. Celestial Being is an organisation shrouded in secrecy, and it's that very secrecy which lends silence to their predators.
Except...
Major Pham Van Vinh was aware of an anti-Celestial Being unit being organised, a year ago. And while he wasn't ultimately able to lend his squadron's strength to those efforts, there were a few emails passed between high-ranking officers...
... and a Lieutenant, terminally bored, who made a game of hacking his own people.
Parminder Chaudhri's curiosity led to this. The entire reason why Yuliana knows where to plant the next batch of flowers is because of a casual little conversation she had with him, a few days prior. She expressed frustration over being terrible at helping people, and, well...
"Hey, you know your computer-obsessed buddies out there are getting targeted by these guys, right?"
And that's why the Shandor appears over the Zaftran skyline, now, an emerald green Salamis Kai with that distinctive icebreaker out in front. "Knocking right on the Wild Bear's door... is this seriously what we're doin'?" Parminder transmits, to the hangar.
"Two birds, one stone," Yuliana replies, though she has to gather her mettle to speak so firmly. "This will make everyone happy."
"I don't know... don't you think the Meisters would have given you backup? I-I know I'm new to all this, but --" Wendy Yuan starts, only to be cut off.
"They wouldn't understand what we have to accomplish here," Yuliana says, of her allies in Celestial Being, her hands and her tentacles tightening over her instruments. "Better to give them good news. Besides... I don't need help." And can they give them good news, fighting Sergei Smirnov? She had better. "Launch!"
And so their squadron drops down -- Wendy in her Arm Slave, that custom sniping Savage II, those monstrous creatures in the Ground-Type Altos, and... Da Xukong 0, repaired again, with another dark staff latched opposite its Cleave Axe. Unlike the Savage II and its sniper rifle, and the squadron of Altos which universally don't respond to radio hails, Da Xukong 0 is an eight-legged machine with a lower centre of gravity; it is longer than it is tall, owing to that long injector behind it, styled like a scorpion's tail. A crest lies flat on its head, and rising, coiled, from its shoulders, are black hornlike protrusions erupting from a strange chest-piece.
Their roles are, as ever, clear: sniper to the perimeter, while Yuliana charges right down the middle to knock down the front door. Da Xukong 0 lands heavily, and skitters to the blast doors at the front of the facility, injecting them with flame using its injector-tail to warp their bearings. She breaks away just in time for those Altos to focus their fire on the door with their ExAMACS bazookas, opening the front doors of the facility to the world.
"SUBMIT AND DIE!" Is what Yuliana has to say over open radio -- a clear indication of how this assault is planned to go. ... they're coming INSIDE.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim has deployed in Da Xukong 0. KTS: Yuliana_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 8 opponents. KTS: Asciel Colette has deployed in Plan-1056 Codarl-a 'Glaux'. KTS: Luanova Luckwright has deployed in MFW-1 Myrmecia. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has deployed in MSD-098 Destrier Gundam.
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Colonel Sergei Smirnov sits at his desk within his office. Right now he is simply reviewing and filling out paperwork, something he's well used to by now. Enough so that he can do so while letting his thoughts wander. Right now they're pondering more recent world news. Soldiers like Sergei understand the full weight of conflict and so welcome peace where possible. But even with the calls the Sanc Kingdom is making, Sergei's experience tells him that things are going to get worse before they get better.
Speaking of, the Colonel's thoughts are interrupted by a call from the base's command center, "This is Smirnov, report."
"Sir! Unauthorized units have breached the Vilyuchinsk administrative zone. They are on approach to our location and have been identified as belonging to the traitor, Yuliana Dispersal."
Sergei frowns. To think she would be so bold as to attack here. And right when most of the squad's GN-X units are out on missions. Sergei quickly gets to his feet, replying, "Very well. Sound the alarm and activate the defenses, weapons free. Scramble all units and prepare for breach, defense plan delta four." He doesn't believe the fixed defenses will be able to hold Yuliana's squad back for long. He walks over to the closet in his office, opening it and pulling his pilots suit out. He slides a radio over his ear, activating it as he starts to get changed. They're going to need reinforcements if they want to survive this.
<"This is Colonel Sergei Smirnov of the REA Forces. Terrorist forces are currently launching an unprovoked assault against our position. Requesting assistance from any forces in the area.">
A short time later, the Colonel is on his way to the hangar where his GN-X is being prepared. Along the way, he runs into Soma Peries, who calls out to him, "Colonel!" She runs to catch up to him and then walk alongside, asking, "Is it true, it's Captain Dispersal?"
Sergei nods grimly, "Indeed. And we'll be engaging in close quarters... Be careful, Lieutenant. We still don't know what happened to you the last time. We can't afford a repeat."
Soma nods firmly, "Roger!" She doesn't like the idea of being incapacitated like that again... But given the situation, is she going to be able to avoid it? The two exit the corridor into one of the base's many large hangars, this one housing their GN-Xs.
Outside, several weapon turrets rise up out of camouflaged emplacements. They begin to fire towards the approaching enemies, raining cannon fire, missiles and beams down on them. But given the skill of these attackers, it's unlikely to do more than simply slow them down.
Meanwhile, inside the fortress base built into the mountain, several Tierens which had already been on standby stomp through the large tunnels of the underground base. They reach the large cargo loading bay just inside the main entrance that is currently under assault. They spread out to take up defense positions, waiting as the blast doors start glowing with intense heat.
There's an explosion, the doors blown open. A moment later, the Tierens open fire, a barrage of cannon fire blasting through the hole as a warning for anyone outside to not come in.
They probably won't listen.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has deployed in XVF-25I Svipul <GERWALK Mode>. KTS: Soma Peries has deployed in GNX-603T GN-X. KTS: Rena Lancaster has deployed in A000-0001 Gaia Gear Alpha.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Those flowers are a source of worry to Rena Lancaster. She has absolutely no love lost for the REA; the erstwhile rebellion against the Federation, the Three Ships Alliance, has never been friendly to them. But they have had an equally tense and equally awkward relationship with the Silent Calling.
At the end of the day, she settled on interfering with Yuliana's operations because that flower unnerves her -- and because innocents seem to get caught in the crossfire.
The Gaia Gear Alpha, along with some other forces from the Three Ships Alliance, launched from Orb. A high arc, into suborbital altitudes, and back down. It flies in waverider mode, trails of cloud after its wingtips, as it comes down from above.
"Colonel Smirnov," Rena transmits, "Three Ships Alliance, incoming. We'll provide support."
She flips over to the Three Ships Alliance tactical network. "Annie, Banagher, let's see what we can do. Let's... keep an eye on those new Federation units, too. I'm a bit worried about them."
She looks at the Da Xukong 0 -- and then with a press of her thumb onto a button on her throttle, two missiles drop off the wing hardpoints. They shoot downward -- the tips superheat a brilliant, ugly red -- and hurtle for the multi-legged Wanzer.
"Yuliana!" she calls out. "You don't need to do this...!"
KTS: Rena Lancaster: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with Needle Missile Salvo! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully intercepts Rena Lancaster's Needle Missile Salvo
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links-Vist has posed.
Once again, Banagher finds himself accompanying the Three Ships Alliance as they respond to a distress call. Rena does them the courtesy of announcing their presence, letting Banagher stay anonymous for the moment.
There's been a pattern to the Destrier's deployments thus far. One Banagher hopes, to himself, will be broken today. Let the attack be run by anyone else, he wishes, fervently. Anyone but Yuliana. Don't make him fight Yuliana four days after watching her hand out candy to orphaned children.
Alas, Possibility is not on Banagher's side. A pang of genuine regret and sorrow echoes from the young Newtype as he takes in the sight of Da Xukong 0.
<"It's really her."> Banagher replies to Anita and Rena, his voice soft, resigned. <"Rena, Anita, I'll cover you!">
With that, the Destrier descends, diving toward Da Xukong 0. As it rushes forward, Banagher guides his Gundam through pulling out its Hyper Beam Javelin. Da Xukong 0's accompanying machines are shoved by, the bulk of the Destrier enough to hopefully allow Banagher to get away with rushing in.
<"Yuliana!"> Banagher calls, voice almost-raw with emotion. The Hyper Beam Javelin is pulled back and thrust forward, aiming for Da Xukong 0's iconic scorpion-tail. <"Why! Why are you doing this?! How can you do this! We were -- all having a nice time together! I don't want to fight you!">
KTS: Banagher Links-Vist targets Yuliana Kafim with Hyper Beam Javelin: Pierce! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Banagher Links-Vist's Hyper Beam Javelin: Pierce
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Where the Three Ships Alliance deploys, Anita Rosetta is a common sight - especially when Rena Lancaster is on the field. The XVF-25I Svipul, currently in Fighter Mode, soars along behind the Gaia Gear Alpha in formation, keeping pace with it and maybe throwing in a few unnecessary spins for her own entertainment.
They're responding to a call from the REA... and, while Anita's opinions are much the same as Rena's, it's true - right now, Yuliana's the one launching the attack, and Anita can't tell if there's a deeper plan behind this, or just striking at a threat.
Either way... here she is.
"Right... I dunno what their deal is, but I dunno if I like 'em." Anita replies with a nod, as Rena brings up the Federation's new units. She smiles, then, as Banagher says he'll cover them. She offers a thumbs-up. "Gotcha. Countin' on you, Banagher."
They converge on Yuliana, and while Rena launches missiles and Banagher goes for a javelin thrust, Anita opts for a spray of beam vulcan fire in Da Xukong 0's direction.
"You might as well be challenging them to a fight to the death." Anita points out to Yuliana. Banagher remarks on the time they spent together, and a small frown crosses Anita's face, though she keeps it hidden.
...It is a little sad that, so soon after seeing some of Yuliana's hidden depths, things have to come to this.
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Vulcan Barrage! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage, taking 1200 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Position 5 on the Primary Threat Index, Yuliana Kafim, alias Verdiska. At the back of her mind, Asciel Colette had been biding her time, agonizing over when, exactly, she would resolve this crisis in the form of a person, ever since that fateful day.
Neither Amalgam nor Celestial Being properly know of each others' true secrets - each of them massive dark spots in each others' intelligence networks. Playing this game to rework the world order against each other in whispers and subterfuge. The Kafims, as that vortex of the abyss sent from the light of the heavens - Asciel, as a spear of light wielded by the world's shadowy spymasters. For too long, Asciel has thought of it in these terms, but at every turn, her movements to advance her own position, to seize her own power, came before confronting the Void.
"This ends today.~"
The infamous voice of one of the Earth Sphere's most notorious terrorists sings across the airwaves - and atop a smaller mountain peak, the air flickers and fades into the sight of Asciel's favored vessel. The bright cyan Arm Slave rises as though the earth itself gave bloom to her, its fluttering ponytail glowing in the wind. Optic glowing orange, before that inhuman face splits apart to unveil one all too human, lips grinning vividly.
"Oh, Rena, Banagher, if only you understood. No...she does need to do this. There is no option but for her to do this at this phase. Those of us entrusted to change the world have no choice but to risk everything, to stand in opposition to its antibodies, at any and all costs. We have long since resolved ourselves to our fate."
Yes. That very resolve. That shining beacon of absolute faith in herself, to reshape everything around her. That, exactly, is why Asciel has always been able to make that mysterious heart of possibility Mr. Silver provided glow so brightly. One hand outstretches, and with every word, Asciel glows hotter and hotter, hair fluttering harder and faster.
"'Verdiska'...it's long past time we settled this. Our futures that can never co-exist. You, who would decide humanity's suffering is its salvation. Who would demand they do everything, and grow monstrous enough to do battle with the stars. The void that sees gentle beings forced to fight for the sake of what they love, and sees not the tragedy in their battle, but the tragedy in their innocence."
Asciel's left eye widens in an almost manic determination. This is what she made herself to do. This is her purpose. This is what she is meant to judge. The complications of the Earth are vast, the regrets she has at tearing humans from their pain run deep, but this person. This intractable thing that wants a world made of everything Asciel despises...
"Hehe!~ We both walked away from humanity's 'hopes' and 'dreams', but they BEG me for it every day! They pray for me to save them from everything you are! This isn't hard at all! The Gotterdammerung of this world has already been set in motion, and I'm afraid gods like Infinity, and devils like you, all have to die by my hand! No pity from me. No negotiation from me! I won't plead for you to stop. I'll just insist I overpower you. It's SO much better for the both of us for it to be this way, isn't it?!"
Blazing with passion - Asciel turns her hand over, and with a single snap of her fingers -
A mote of light erupts across space, zigzagging from coordinate to coordinate - an ember of pure disgust, of pure cyan-hued force, of pure rejection, hones relentlessly towards the Da Xukong 0.
KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Lambda Driver Pinpoint! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Pinpoint, taking 2610 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
She'd only been up on the Orbital Ring for a training exercise. In- out, go home. Simple.
The distress call had come through though.
Cathedra's interest in Celestial Being was narrow, for certain elements. It didn't identify a single one of them in the distress call. However...
"It'll take us too long to get a whole squad down the elevator - and make the trip over."
"Now that Anaheim's Benerit - they have a whole hangar here of their old projects, right?"
"... yeah? What's that got to do with anything?"
-=-=-
It wasn't a whole squad, just a trio, glowing crimson against the heat of reentry. Old Flying Armors that were mothballed after Gryps except for servicing.
The moment the comms lit back up and the temperature on her instruments leveled off, she spoke on a wide band, "<Colonel Smirnov. This is Ashta with Cathedra's Dominicus Corps. We're on the approach. Couldn't get a whole squad down here on short notice but - it'll have to do.>"
Flipping the comms back over, she heard one of her squadmates named Joyce ask, "Where'd you get the idea for a stunt like this?"
"... Someone's old war story."
"Hunh. Okay, sure, but how'd you know we'd have the exact military surplus we'd need on tap?"
"Didn't. Just a feeling."
"A feeling?" He asks her back skeptically.
"Well I figured - if Anaheim was sending 'support' to pretend like it was playing ball, it'd all be old projects they didn't need anymore."
"The hell kind of leap is that!?"
"... Mine, I guess?"
Once their altitude grew low enough over the base, the Beguir-Neuer leapt off its support vehicle, striking the ground, even as the other two Pentes break off into other firefights.
"<Rena? Annie? Banagher!?>" She calls out in surprise as her Beguir makes short jumps, into the fray, "<The Alliance is sure quick to answer Fed distress calls, huh?>" There's a faint tease there perhaps.
But it's only upon spotting the Xukong, that something grows more serious in her attitude.
"<I suppose this is the part where I say you're under arrest, Yuliana?>"
The funnels suddenly erupt out of the back of the Beguir-Neuer, arcing out in an almost nautiloid spiral. As they fly overhead, laying down a field of erratic beam fire around the Da Xukong.
"<It's more of a chance than you're giving them.>"
There's a momentary pause, as she listens to Atrytone on the comms, "<Really? Again with this, Atrytone? All the cutesy language and you're taking pages out of Neo-Zeon's playbook.>" Still, at least she's on their side this time...
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation, taking 2375 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
<"Colonel Smirnov, this is Ryan Trovell, representing Neo-American federal military aid. We are able to dispatch a quick-response military contractor to your location. Please allow for travel time.">
Luanova Luckwright didn't expect to actually be called out. Her mother has been pushing her luck signing the Myrmecia out for auxiliary security contracts for a few weeks now, but it's amounted to a little bit of paid time sitting within reach of the unit's cockpit. Now her heart is spiking. She straps herself into the unit, pulls switches by practiced rote, slips on the control sleeves, ties up her hair. "Deploying," she says, and the machine transmits the message to home base, spoken not in her voice but a flat machine-generated anonymous voice. A hangar opens, somewhere in the Orbital Ring, and the Myrmex Format Wanderpanzer is sent roaring down into atmospheric entry, space tearing in the wake of its rear-mounted jets.
The Myrmecia is still white-hot as it crashes down into the Vilyuchinsk wilderness, causing a fiery blowback. A large wanzer, eight meters tall, looking sleek and overdesigned instead of the usual bulky armor plating, and with no visible weapons system at all. It raises into the air and hovers at high speeds towards the battlefield, though the jets no longer seem to be firing. Lua tries to keep her voice steady, though the machine-generated voice that transmits is the same regardless. "Callsign Myrmidon, defense contractor arriving for the assist. Myrmex Format Wanderpanzer online." It's not at all necessary to name the unit, no - but mother insisted.
There's a huge dogpile on the multi-legged wanzer - presumably the enemy officer. Seems these people mostly know each other, which shouldn't come as a surprise now that Lua thinks about it. She gulps down her anxiety, takes a deep breath, and thinks back to training scenarios. "I'll clear the board for you," she says through the mechanized voice, and focuses, placing her palms on the grips of her seat.
The Myrmecia comes down to rest on the perimeter of the battlefield. It almost kneels to place the palm of its hand on the ground, and its single large 'eye' shimmers and appears to focus. The ground under the Altos shudders briefly and then erupts, first ripping apart into a yawning chasm, and then clamping down as if the earth became a great maw to swallow, the land surrounding the Altos rupturing into broken hills as the motion of the earth ripples outward. The earth even seems to chew, grinding and jutting out spears of rock to mangle any units that aren't traumatically disrupted by the initial fall.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright has activated the Rouse Spirit Command. KTS: Luanova Luckwright: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Launch Terrain! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Luanova Luckwright's Launch Terrain, taking 1875 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The Altos engage those Tierens, and there's a backbeat of blasting to everything. But the pilots of the Altos, at least, do not scream when they are hit; the Protivisny at their controls do not feel fear, the way men do. It is a tense environment, full of attacks; it's difficult to move, in here.
"Don't I?!" Yuliana yells, as Da Xukong 0 whirls -- and darkness pulses from those dark shoulder-pieces to meet those missiles in the air. Something entirely unlike a beam wars with them, for a moment, before the missiles are no more. "Do you know what the REA tried to do to me -- on your excuse for soil?! Once more, they tried to kidnap me! And I know not what their fool motives were --" their motives weren't foolish at all, really, though Leina would recognise their methods very well -- but Yuliana doesn't know they intended to catch and release her, just as the Vist Foundation did to Leina, back then. (They had a room all prepared, in Magallanica. Perhaps Mineva even found it...) "But they'll never let me REST! What sin is it, to carve the future from their bones?! If it's a fight to the death," she adds, viciously, to Anita, "then they are the ones who invited it!" She raises her tail, and fires off a salvo of fireballs towards Rena and Anita's machines.
She skitters deeper inside, leading Banagher and his Javelin into the hangars; he scores through a shipping crate, instead. (Thankfully, it was shipping parts, not people, not even by the REA's liberal definition of 'parts'. Sergei isn't that kind of commander, is he?) "I can do this because I MUST do this!" She yells, grasping tightly to her controls. "The time is now -- She has decided it! I could no less stand against this garden than the tide!" She dives forward, quickly, to crash an axe into the Destrier's side, before skittering further inside.
"ASCIEL!" Yuliana roars, hearing her voice across the radio. "Don't malign my sacred mission so! A world of battle?! You understand NOTHING of our united future! You think to place yourself beside me? You, who are naught more than an over-esteemed TOASTER --" and here she grunts, as she can't quite skitter away from that magical blast, something like a taste of her own medicine. Her machine lilts threateningly to the side, briefly, before it comes crashing back down. "You think to have a place beside us?! Your place is in PROCESSING man's REQUESTS!" And she has no attack to respond to Asciel, now she's inside the facility -- but her words are cutting enough.
And Asciel will need to pursue them inside, if she wants to offer a rejoinder.
Inviting Leina's Beguir-Neuer inside, meanwhile, Yuliana meets her funnels with more blasts of darkness -- but they can't quite overwhelm something with more control than missiles, this time. "I could have struck anywhere," she snaps, "anywhere by my homeland. But it had to be here. No use playing coy, when Asciel's unmasked me -- if I strike here, then the Chobu Squadron will never darken Celestial Being's doors again! Yes... if I do it this way, I'll help so many people!" She yells, a touch more anguished: "THEY'LL be happy with me!" Her tail fires at Leina, too -- though more to distract her Beguir, than anything.
The Altos outside are churned and chewed by the earth itself. One manages to get close enough to the Wanderpanzer to stab at Luanova's machine with its sword, but it doesn't last long before it's captured by the earthquake, too. Its cockpit is even split open -- and it would be a horrific sight, normally, this violence brought to the core of the robot. But if Luanova focuses her cameras on the sight, she won't see a human, crawling from the machine. No: the Protivisny is a tiger-sized kaiju, with tentacles at its whiskers which serve as grasping hands and a strange draconic crest on its head. It doesn't get far, before the earth swallows it, too. Its blood is red. (It has blood.)
Wendy's Savage II manages to escape the earthquake, at least, though she radios in to Yuliana: "I have to pull back! You've got some kind of -- geomancer incoming?! It's a wanzer, but it's caused an earthquake...!"
"What the hell... hahaha! All right! Let's see if it's brave enough to follow me!" Yuliana crows, as she grabs her Cleave Axe and carves in through the blast doors to the wide, Mobile-Suit rated corridor within.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rena Lancaster and Anita Rosetta with Infernal Arachnid Injector Stinger Salvo. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Banagher Links-Vist with MULS-P Cleave Axe Swing! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Asciel Colette with Goad! KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display! KTS: Yuliana Kafim goads Asciel Colette, reducing her Intuition drastically. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Luanova Luckwright with MULS-P Cleave Axe Swing! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Soma Peries with MULS-P Cleave Axe Topple Strike! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Anita Rosetta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Stinger Salvo, taking 2400 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Leina Ashta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Leina Ashta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display, taking 2860 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Leina Ashta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Rena Lancaster's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Rena Lancaster, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Rena Lancaster blocks Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Stinger Salvo, taking 3850 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist rushes into the attack! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist's Physical Wall L2 activates, negating 2000 base damage. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist partially guards Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Cleave Axe Swing, taking 3300 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Banagher Links-Vist! KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Soma Peries, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Soma Peries fails to Evade Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Cleave Axe Topple Strike, taking 4530 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Soma Peries!
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Colonel Smirnov is informed of several responses from incoming reinforcements, some directed at him, others reported by the base's command center. The intervention of the Three Ships Alliance remains a somewhat confusing one, given how the Federation has viewed them in the past. Though Sergei is not going to say no to any assistance in this situation. He'll accept help from defense contractors too, even if it means paying out afterwards. The comm from Leina Ashta is particularly welcoming, given their recent interactions.
As people respond to the request for assistance, the Colonel explains the situation in greater detail, <"Enemy forces have breached out main gate and are beginning to enter the facility. Our forces on site are reduced, there is a moderate possibility we will not be able to hold them back.">
Case in point, the Altos breaking into the base face off against the Tierens already positioned on defense. The two sides get into a terrible infight in the close quarters of the base interior. Against the Altos they manage to hold their ground, for now.
But there's no way they're going to be able to stop the Da Xukong's progress. Yuliana blasting past them as she focuses and pressing into the base further. Another set of sturdy doors stand in her way, though not quite as strong as those at the main entrance. With her axe, she's able to cut her way through them, revealing the corridor beyond.
And there within it are Soma and Sergei's GN-Xs, seemingly caught off guard by the sudden appearance. Sergei grunts, <"What!? Already?"> He glances to the side at Soma's GN-X, quickly realizing how much of a precarious situation they're in.
Yuliana then closes in, that axe swinging again. Sergei moves his GN-X in front of Soma's, pushing it away, <"Lieutenant! Fall back!"> The axe strikes against Sergei's machine, the blade partially halted by armor so it's not a lethal blow. But the force does send Sergei's GN-X crashing into the corridor wall.
<"Colonel!"> Soma tries to rush forward to assist without thinking. And as she closes in, she suddenly freezes up...
... Again...
... It's happening again...
! It's that monster !
Soma cries out with fear in her voice. An unusual tone for the normally cool-headed super soldier, <"N-No! Stay away!">
Soma's GN-X rapidly back-peddles, trying to escape from the Da Xukong as it desperately fires its beam vulcans at it.
KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Vulcans Retreating Volley! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Soma Peries's GN-X Vulcans Retreating Volley, taking 350 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links-Vist has posed.
The Destrier weaves between Anita's vulcan fire as it tries to engage with Da Xukong 0. Banagher's face is focused, grim, until -- <"Wait, is that Asciel back there?">
Glancing to one of his Gundam's rear cameras, Banagher is distracted just long enough by the sight of Asciel's arm slave for his javelin strike to go wide. The Destrier chases after Da Xukong 0, easily baited by Yuliana.
<"Asciel! Nobody asked you to do all this! The world -- it's not something you can entrust to any one person, or one group."> The Destrier's thrusters fire, filling the enclosed space with light. <"The only way to truly change the world is to work with the people you love. Nobody can do it alone!">
Banagher grits his teeth. <"And there's no such thing as fate!">
Leina joins the battle soon after -- appearing in a Beguir. Banagher takes a breath, feeling the soft warmth of her presence calm him, making the Destrier's movements less reckless. <"We keep meeting like this. I'm going to think you like me or something, Miss Ashta.">
Banagher teases back, as gently as ever. The Destrier makes room for the Beguir's approach, though Banagher keeps himself between Yuliana and Leina as much as possible. Da Xukong 0 raises an axe, and in the hopes of protecting Leina, Banagher charges in once more.
Unlike the Unicorn's defense built for beam weaponry, the Destrier is made to take serious physical blows. Though the axe blow sends it crashing into one of the tunnel walls, the Gundam rises immediately, not seriously damaged.
<"I can't take this back and forth! You either -- pretend to care just to lure us in and hurt everyone more, or you --!"> The Destrier chases its target, thundering across the ground. <"You really do care, and someone's making you do this. Either way!">
Banagher shakes his head. <"This has to end!">
"Uni--!" He begins to call, before catching himself. His expression unreadable, the young man guides his Gundam through a vicious slash with the green-glowing Hyper Beam Javelin, aiming to sever some of Da Xukong 0's many legs.
KTS: Banagher Links-Vist targets Yuliana Kafim with Hyper Beam Javelin: Slash! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Roger!" Rena answers Banagher. "I know I can count on you. I wish..." She wishes she knew why Yuliana insisted; it seemed like, maybe, things were going better.
But she's the same as she has ever been, isn't she?
Those go unsaid. Instead, she swallows, and she nods. "Yeah, Annie," she says. "I'm with you!" But she hesitates -- as she hears a familiar voice. Her eyes widen, as she hears Asciel Colette for the first time in...
The first time since she left her hospital room. "Asciel...!" she says. "You always have a choice! Both of you!"
Then, she blinks -- and cracks a smile. "Leina!" she answers. "Well, you know, we don't like to sit idle and Orb is juuuuust over there..." Besides, when it comes to Yuliana, it does get a little personal.
She doesn't say that.
"There's a way to approach it... and telling them to surrender or die isn't it!" Rena answers Yuliana, gritting her teeth for a moment. Several blasts of flame erupt from the scorpion-like tail -- and the Gaia Gear Alpha transforms in midair, legs unfolding downward, arms unfurling -- and Rena brings up the heavily armored forearm, the fireballs exploding over its armor.
The Gaia Gear's feet slam into the pavement. "Annie, I'm headed inside," she says -- and then the white Mobile Suit bursts into the hangar, as the right arm's forearm plate lifts -- and unveils a gatling gun mounted there. Rena fires, rounds hurtling towards the Da Xukong 0.
"Yuliana, you could come back with us," she says. "We can make it work. Figure something out, talk, instead of this! We can get you back safely!"
Her voice shakes as she says it. She doesn't like it, but...
She protected Eight.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with 20mm Gatling Gun! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"And I'm with you." Anita replies to Rena with a smile.
Familiar faces join the fray. Asciel... Anita still doesn't know what to think about her. First she helps them, then she goes and does what she did... Leina, at least, is a lot less complicated.
"We've got to stop meeting like this." Anita jokes with a grin, then shakes her head. "We wouldn't have to answer so many if they didn't make so many enemies, you know?"
...But there's also a new, unfamiliar face - not to mention an unfamiliar voice, masked as it is by mechanical obfuscation.
"Good to have you, Myrmidon. Let's get along nicely, yeah? Careful, this opponent's a tough one - watch out for her, alright?" Anita replies. She's not sure what to expect from them... but she certainly raises an eyebrow when the Myrmecia literally raises the earth to attack. Anita lets out a low whistle - but she doesn't get much time to focus as the Colonel in charge relays the situation, soon followed by Yuliana demanding her attention.
"...Yeah. And I'm sorry that almost happened to you." Anita replies, and she's sincere. "But we still can't exactly let you carve a bloody path wherever you please, you know?"
Da Xukong's tail raises, firing off a salvo of fireballs. The Svipul flips in mid-air into GERWALK mode, raising its shield to intercept the volley. Fireballs explode against the shield and send her recoiling back - but she's still in good shape.
"Right behind you!" Anita says. As the Gaia Gear Alpha enters the hangar the Svipul follows behind it, gunpod drawn and joining its gatling fire with some of its own.
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Gatling Sweep! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
A grimace crosses Asciel's face at the sound of Leina's voice - canting her head towards the Beguir Neuer. "...You do know |~I publicly declared it some time ago. You can call me Asciel, humanity's reliable older sister, silly! Atrytone was just a |~name I invoked from cowardice - but |~my own name is a blessing of the sky's eternaity. ...you'd really go denying my song, when it's what saves planets? Tragic." The occasional hiccup in Asciel's voice is a bit new...
Speaking of saving planets...
Luanova gets a more targeted transmission, one that's sterner and harsher than the melodic playfulness Asciel's been speaking with. "...you. An unfamiliar force. Don't put upon that kind of tone, that kind of name. Not if you're going to tear apart the world. You are human, aren't you? I detest when humans disavow their humanity. If it's dangerous to do so openly, tell me your name in this little moment of privacy. I'll start! I'm Asciel Colette, the Virtual Sage, Earth's goddess of eschatology, |~entrusted with humanity's salvation. You're in my care from this day forth!~"
A little sigh of relief, one that always comes when Asciel asserts herself on someone new. Meeting people is nice! Hearing Yuliana, much less so. There's a twitch in Asciel's foot hearing that, a leer at seeing Yuliana withdraw. "...Nothing else but conflict comes from believing in humanity. Nothing but suffering can come from trying to empower them, to treat them as equals, to walk with them, to try and create peace by giving swords to the weak! It's my complaint with not just you, but all Celestial Being. But you don't have to worry about THAT, Verdiska! You're right, after all - we'll never stand at each others' side, not when I finally purge you today.~"
-She insists on calling Yuliana that. Despite the importance she places on others' names. She knows, after all. It is her special way of demeaning Yuliana.
With a deep 'breath' inward, the flaring light at Asciel's heart seizes, quiets, despite itself, despite her blaring will to prove Yuliana's very being wrong. She has to melt into the sky that her name invokes, after all, the Arm Slave returning to translucency, its presence marked by footfalls crashing into the surrounding mountains as she sprints at full tilt towards the facility Yuliana's holed up in. If anything is the Codarl's true calling, it's this sort of infiltration and sabotage - trying to make it into this avatar of destruction is just Asciel's usual outlandishness.
When she reappears, slipping past the hordes, Asciel's atop one of the shipping crates, an arm raised high, as though to cast down judgment upon Yuliana - but no, it's to give room for a gatling cannon to unfurl from her back, spinning and whirring threateningly before a hail of bullets clatters across the room, spitting wildly in a cloud at Yuliana - all while she gives Banagher her most affable little smile.
"A world built on love is horrifying. Why, it leaves out the unloved. Isn't that the problem? Love is a corruption, a curse inflicted on humanity. Love for those like you, excluding those unlike you...that is the root of the greatest horrors this world has ever seen. Love. A fickle, difficult, unequal thing, boiling with harshness and adversity. ...I know what it is like. To build our society upon it would be like building your home in the heart of this volcano, silly~"
KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to parry Banagher Links-Vist's Hyper Beam Javelin: Slash, taking 4185 damage! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist continues a Formation attack! KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with AK-87 Gatling Cannon Barrage! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Rena Lancaster's 20mm Gatling Gun, taking 2990 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Anita Rosetta's Gatling Sweep, taking 2375 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"<My. Is that what finally tipped you off?>" Leina is quick to tease Banagher back, "<I would have thought after our fifty sixth date or so that you'd have figured it out - but no, apparently it was a fight in Northern Zaftra.>"
Whereas Rena, there's a soft chuckle, "<So what you're telling me is...>" There is a moment's pause, weighty, grave, "<...you got bored? You really need to pick up more hobbies for when you're in port!>" Whereas Annie- "<Okay yeah, that one is fair.>"
Atrytone however announces she'd shed her name for Asciel, "<'Reliable Older Sister'?>" Leina sounds somehow even LESS impressed by that title, INCREDULOUS even, "<Uh-huh.>"
'You'd really go denying my song?'
"<Nah mostly just your attitude. Honestly you're like two guys I used to know? Just every other day it's all like a coin flip which side you'll even be on to promote your own brand of 'Totally not Eco-Fascism'. Honestly? Not cute.>"
Yet... someone she doesn't know arrives, a wild card factor, "Neo-America?"
Leina repeats like the pilot's mobile suit sprouted another head, since when did the Neo-Colonies care to send military aid to Earth Affairs?
Yet when she feels that, that sudden psychic resonance as the ground rips open and chew the Altos, even she's surprised.
"What!?"
She can definitely feel that. She's not imagining it, it's just that she's only read about experiments which explored...
Her hands tighten upon the controls of the Beguir, "Those Neo-Colony bastards!" She swears, within her cockpit.
As Yuliana rages, Leina listens, expression taut as she tries to control the funnels through the connections her cockpit has made.
"<There is no sin?>" Leina asks after a moment of disbelief, "<On a road to the future paved with corpses? In the widows and orphans made from you killing people who were like you? That had nothing to do with that decision to continue the fight with you?>"
There is now a certain heat in her words, "<How many years did it take YOU to come to the realization you did?>"
The blasts of Darkness come, the funnels juking out of the way and returning beam fire, as a flare blast comes, the Beguir raises it's large shield, even as fire erupts all over it.
It moves out of the haze of napalm and smoke, "<... I offered you a deal for peace, Yuliana. Violence was YOUR choice this time.>"
But as Sergei's GN-X crashes, and Soma freezes up- Leina feels that panic, it thrums into her head, knife like - migraine inducing even as sheer empathetic resonance causes her to start to feel panic herself.
"<Lieutenant Peries. Soma.>"
And indeed, in stark contrast to her treat, the Beguir suddenly leaps in, it's clawed feet suddenly unlatching.
"<Calm down! You need to breathe!>"
The much larger Beguir tries to come down atop Da Xukong, both latching onto it's Abyssal shroud, and suddenly each one shredding in opposite directions.
At least in range of Da Xukong, it masks her panic.
"<Go to him! I'll hold her off.>"
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Soma Peries KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Beguir Neur Foot Unit Claw Shred! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim charges into the attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully avoids Asciel Colette's AK-87 Gatling Cannon Barrage
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua breathes quicker. At her own hands, she collapses a rift in the earth, and several soldiers in expensive military armor are chewed up by the maw. She stumbles and attempts to bat away an advanced saber attack (what good would trying to slap it away do?), which cleaves regardless into the shoulder of her machine. The hexagonal scales lining her sleek armoring, which might have come across as decorations, cascade with an ethereal tinkling sound, molding to make up for the lost mass. She buries her assailant in the earth and stares as its cockpit shatters, and from it comes a living creature - though what *kind* is baffling to decipher - maimed and crawling, before she learns, in real life, what it looks like when a creature is squashed to a literal bloody paste. Her heart is going to jump out of her ribcage. A cold fire burns in her breast.
That was cool as hell.
The Myrmecia resumes its dashing hover, moving to catch up with the fray. Some of the defenders call to her, or at least react to her. Leina's baffled "Neo-America?" only merits a dismissive, "Don't ask me. I don't call the shots, I just move the robot." Anita gets a friendlier "Happy to help," while Lua tries to keep her voice even and to hold down a grin that she knows she shouldn't have right now. "Sounds like everybody here has history together. And some of them are..."
Messages incoming on an independent frequency from the Codarl unit. (Crazy as hell,) Lua finishes her thought internally. She is indeed brave enough to follow after Yuliana, sweeping in weightlessly to skate on air around Soma's GN-X and underfoot beneath the Gundams. The Myrmecia comes in for a descending sweep to jump on the Da Xukong, arm outstretched, the momentum carrying the two robots skidding across the tunnel and striking the wall behind her. "I'm X underscore GoNcH SlAYeR 420 underscore X and you can catch me every week chilling and checking out the latest games," she tells Asciel. "Just remember to mash that like button, hammer on that bell, and if you like my content and want to see even more, check out my DonorHub."
Lua takes a breath. The charge into the Da Xukong doesn't really seem to have done anything. It's against the wall, yes, but not hard enough to do any damage, and it's hard to see what advantage an unarmed robot being up in Xukong's face gives. Then, once again, Leina feels that energy shimmering through the eye of the Myrmecia, flowing like invisible water over the robot's body and seeping down into the floor and walls of the structure. The roof caves; the floor spikes upward; the wall lurches forth. The whole structure twists to try to lock Da Xukong down against the wall and stop its mobility, restraint bindings made of concrete and steel reinforcement. "Holding her down," she reports to her fellow defenders, though she remains within easy reach of Xukong.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Rupture Terrain! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Luanova Luckwright's Rupture Terrain, taking 1500 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright continues a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Leina Ashta's Beguir Neur Foot Unit Claw Shred, taking 3943 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Leina Ashta completes the Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Banagher's right, you know," Yuliana taunts Asciel. "The only way to change the world is with the people you love. I have the strength of my wife behind me -- and what do YOU have?!" Is that what Banagher meant?
But Yuliana was never aiming her axe for Leina. It was for Banagher, all along. She wasn't even feinting for Leina -- the axe comes down on the Destrier, as it was always meant to.
"The Wild Bear himself has suited up... hahaha! All right!" Yuliana laughs, as she presses forward, manic energy in her voice and the way her wanzer skitters forward. "Then I'll just have to BRING THEM YOUR HEAD!" And if her voice is a little more forceful, when she screams, bringing her axe forward to meet the GN-Xs, well --
Sergei Smirnov is a formidable man. Any officer of the REA would hesitate to fight him, and Yuliana was, once, an officer of the REA. (When she was 'Captain Dispersal' -- not Yuliana Kafim.)
"What's the matter?!" She jeers, as her machine's strange green barrier flares up to absorb the fire of Soma's beam vulcans. "Your soldiers can't take what they dish out?!" Point-blank, the Abyssal Coils stretching out from her shoulders do the opposite of lighting up -- that darkness collects, and blasts out, washing over Sergei's machine. Perhaps it will even catch Soma's, if she's not quick enough to flee.
The force of the explosion, no matter what happens, is enough to give her a little breathing room to move. And she needs it -- because Banagher pursues her into the corridors. She meets his javelin lash with her stinging Injector, knocking it away from her legs; it scores a deep cut along her blocky side, instead. "Would it be more convenient for you if I was pretending to care? Will it fulfill you to hear that I was, when we met? Back then -- yes, Leina was right to be wary of me. But since then, you've aided me. You showed kindness. I thought you truly did care, and so, I..." Her voice trails; her machine pauses, for a moment, as she grasps at her controls. "OH, NEVER MIND!" She yells, a moment later. "You want an ending, Banagher?! You want an ending so badly?! I SHALL PROVIDE!" Her stinger lashes out, in an attempt to dig into the Destrier's armour and inject molten heat. It is unmistakably an assault on him, in these close quarters.
One way or another, she tears free. But she's not able to get much further before Rena and Anita's gatling fire interrupts, and she whirls, to face them, that green barrier flaring. "I can do whatever I please!" She yells, to Anita, first. Just as Elisa assured her -- "All things are mine by right! And how can you say these people DON'T DESERVE IT?!" Do these people deserve it? This is an REA military installation, certainly, but... "You would have me return with you?! To be arrested, no doubt!" She moves to addressing Rena, voice all snap-taut. Leina did say she was here to arrest her, after all. "You want to figure something out? No. No way. You'd never let me do what I must do. And you could never guarantee my safety. The only way I'll be safe is by claiming this Seat of Power -- I have to prepare the way! The conditions must be right!"
She lifts her tail, and fires off a flashing display of fire to distract the two of them. "Anyway!" She yells, as she skitters back. "I told them to submit AND die! Get it right, Renalle!!!" Is that... really important, here?
The Codarl appears, on a crate in the middle of being hauled deeper into the base. "You're a sad little creature," she spits, bristling at Asciel's declarations about the nature of humanity. "You don't understand humanity in the slightest. They cry out at the injustice of it all -- they want the power to help themselves! They wish for a world where they're not thrown to the have-nots, just for some circumstance of their birth!" She charges for that shipping crate, and through some genius of fine manuevering and that green barrier manages to evade the gatling cannon entirely, though she has to grasp onto the ceiling for one loop-de-loop to achieve such a thing in these quarters. Her axe lashes out to cleave right down at the Codarl -- and, either way, splits the parts inside to spill across the hall. "I'm not leaving ANYONE out!" She yells, though Asciel spoke her treatise on love to Banagher. "Isn't that what horrified you, when we spoke?!"
She yells, to Leina, on the topic of the REA's sin: "They CHOSE to fight! And I--!!" Is this really what she wanted to do? "... you're DAMN RIGHT! I chose this! This is MY choice!" Of course she agrees that she did.
Just like she insisted it was her choice to sign up for the Renaissance Orchid Project.
"You and that Renalle both..." Yuliana grits out, as she turns to face the Beguir. "You think I can just accept your peace? You think it's that easy? Would you have me never sleep again? Would you have me forsake my wife?!" But before she can charge her, another wanzer jumps on her, and Da Xukong 0 staggers backwards under the Myrmecia's momentum. "Tch-- get off of me!" She yells, as she slides back. "Begone with you!"
(It's not a pleasant place to be in. When Lua jumps into Yuliana's space, everything goes... strangely... silent. All empathic information stops, and there can be no one but herself in her heart. How strange. Keep a mind of it --)
But Myrmecia will not be gone, and the earth grumbles and complains as it rises up to lock Da Xukong 0 to the wall. "You!" She snaps, as she reaches out -- to grasp, tighter, to the machine. "What ARE you?!" She cries, and her assault on Lua is an assault from pilot to pilot, assaulting her with her nonexistence. It is a disorienting thing, even if she manages to get away.
Which she just well might -- because in comes the Beguir, with its claws, to claw into the Da Xukong 0's side. "Leina!" Yuliana roars, as she uses her tail to tear herself free of those earthly bindings -- but not before Leina savages her armour, leaving deep gorges there. She, too, will know this nonexistence. Perhaps... it's just a matter of Yuliana needing a moment to recollect herself.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Soma Peries with Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Banagher Links-Vist with Infernal Arachnid Injector Gouge! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Asciel Colette with MULS-P Cleave Axe Topple Strike! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Asciel Colette, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Asciel Colette fails to parry Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Cleave Axe Topple Strike, taking 5940 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Asciel Colette! KTS: Yuliana_Kafim Changes attack to Leina Ashta and Luanova Luckwright with Jam. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim jams Leina Ashta's sensors, reducing her accuracy. KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Anita Rosetta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Anita Rosetta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Flare Display, taking 2132 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Anita Rosetta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim jams Luanova Luckwright's sensors, reducing her accuracy. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Soma Peries, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Soma Peries blocks Yuliana Kafim's Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast, taking 3660 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Soma Peries, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Banagher Links-Vist, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist fails to Parry Yuliana Kafim's Infernal Arachnid Injector Gouge, taking 3300 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Banagher Links-Vist!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena glances sideways at the Svipul, then she nods. She glances at her sensors. "Seems like that new pilot has things in hand out there..." She trails off for a moment. "Annie, I have a bad feeling about this, but--with Yuliana, it... doesn't mean much."
Her Newtype senses cannot reach Yuliana, after all.
"Maybe I'll take up knitting," Rena answers Leina, with a brief laugh. It's brief -- there's precious little room for humor, here, in the corridors of the hangar. Her eyes narrow, as she listens. "Damn it... you have to give them an option besides dying! We can't just kill every last person who doesn't see the world the way we do!"
She sucks a breath in as she sees the Codarl, and there is a brilliant flash. "Annie, look out--"
Rena's mind works in overtime. She was always good at numbers. There's no small amount of debris across the floor, after two gatling guns chewed it up. The Gaia Gear Alpha's thrusters fire and it launches upward, into the air, and the blast of thruster fire coughs up debris that blocks the worst of the flare light in front of the Gaia Gear.
It slams a hand into the ceiling of the corridor, then the Mobile Suit pushes off it. Before landing, though, the other hand rips a beam saber free.
"...The way?" Rena asks, her voice cold. "What... what way are you going to show them? Is--is this something that your wife showed you?"
The beam saber ignites a deep, dark blue that lights up the surroundings -- and then slams down for one of the right legs with a vicious cleave aimed at the knee.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with Beam Saber Cleave! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to rush. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Rena Lancaster's Beam Saber Cleave, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Soma's GN-X continues to backpedal, at least in the sense that it's using its physics defying GN drive to 'float' backwards. She's not repsonding to Yuliana's jabs. Though as Leina comes in to try and buy some time for Soma to escape, she does start to reply, <"Who...">
Soma's GN-X comes to a stop again. Soma reaches up, holding her head. Damnit, it happened again. She got too close.
Trying to clear her confusion, Soma returns her focus to her panoramic display, taking in the situation. It's at that moment she's witness to the coil firing a burst of darkness towards the other GN-X, <"Colonel!">
The Wild Bear of Russia is no pushover though, recovering from his impact and quickly raises his machine's arm. A red GN barrier forms beyond the attached shield, the two absorbing a significant portion of the blast.
It could have been much worse.
As Leina suggested, Soma's GN-X floats over to Sergei's to check up on him. When it's clear that he's still reasonably intact, she turns her machine around in the direction of the Da Xukong, calling, <"You'll pay for that!">
Sergei is a lot more reserved though as he instructs, <"This is no time to lose our heads, Lieutenant. We will give chase, but maintain our distance.">
Soma appears somewhat annoyed at Yuliana. But nonetheless heeds the Colonel's words, <"Roger."> The two indeed do begin to give chase, raising their rifles and firing off bursts of crimson bolts in between their allies attacking.
KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Beam Rifle Covering Fire! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Soma Peries's GN-X Beam Rifle Covering Fire, taking 3600 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Soma Peries's Loyal Soldier activates, causing Jam L1! KTS: Soma Peries begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
"Eeeeeh...not cute, you say..." Asciel purses her lips mid-gatling fire, her free hand rising to cradle her face. "...Leina, what are your thoughts on holding someone's hand and watching a sunset together? The world |~I want is something like that. A perpetual era held in twilight, where humanity realizes the stars are too far to touch, where they can finally sit down and accept the limits of the horizon. Night will fall soon - why hasten its arrival? Why not spend the rest of existence listening to the cries of the earth? I think that's a far cuter world than what we have - a hell of sacrifice and ambition scarring the land."
Rena and Banagher's insistent pleas force a frown from Asciel. "...ugh. The lot of you are always like this. Taking |~pity on someone who's made her decision." -is Asciel suddenly standing up for Yuliana in a way??? "...That's right. That's humanity's most foul weapon. |~Pity. But it makes sense. After all, those who would say they save you have always been human. And thus, it is your only defense against suffering to realize the humanity in those who would rewrite your world - because they would act in their self-interest above all else."
"We answer to higher callings. |~Inhuman callings. |~Divine callings. Stop demeaning us like we're humans, okay?~!"
Unfortunately, Luanova does exactly that, and it turns out Asciel doesn't like it one bit! "Alright you. You're playing it that way at my earnest hopes. Hmmm~ This isn't my first time dealing with haters. With stakes this high, you do realize I'm not above posting your address. So be a good little human, and count on me to-"
Everything crumbles beneath Asciel, as the oh so familiar sight of a descending axe roars down towards Asciel's face, a gasp preceding her last ditch effort to try and avoid certain ruin - her movements only accomplishing getting it buried deep in her shoulder. Kicking defiantly at the myriad legs propping up Da Xukong 0's frame, she realizes the futility in trying to trip a multi-legged Wanzer quickly.
"Aaaaaaaah-! Poor thing. You took humanity at their word? Of course they want the power to fight against their oppressors. That's been their only way. But that's just it. Every last one has the power to eat each other. For thousands of years, every human was identical, and yet the few ate the many countless times over. Poor, poor thing. Saying I don't understand humanity because I didn't listen to their answers. Ridiculous."
"It's because I've listened so much more intently to their questions that I realize they ALREADY have this power!" Which is worse - the pain wracking Asciel from the axe carving into her, spilling oil like blood all over the floor - or the pain wracking Asciel from her firmamental realization? Either way - it's turned the Driver at her heart into a miniature sun, beating, pulsing, faster and harsher. Brimming with Asciel's own answer to Yuliana's void - the star that would sear anything that gets too close, both their means to keep away the hated intrusion of humanity's awakening.
"No more gods in this world. No more devils. No more history. No more future. It's only me. These lifeforms are mine, and I will not have you hurt my pets. I will not have you devour their innocence. I will not have you lift them up and turn them into a cataclysm! Fall into the abyss of the stars if that's where you call home!!! And tell that thing you worship that I'll kill her soon enough in turn!~"
The wall extends from Asciel's heart, in tune with her arms pushing away. Away, away away - not just Yuliana, but the debris surrounding Asciel, shoving her with a wind of will aimed upwards - outwards, towards the facility's ceiling.
She'd send Yuliana hurling towards the border of the Solar System, if she could.
KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Lambda Driver Reject! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Asciel Colette enervates Yuliana Kafim, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Asciel Colette rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Reject, taking 2760 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asciel Colette's You Don't Have To Be Brave Anymore activates, causing Deject! KTS: Asciel Colette repulses Yuliana Kafim, forcing her to disengage.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links-Vist has posed.
Banagher listens to Asciel's words, and then Yuliana's in turn. He initially wants to passionately shout something in return, but his hand traces along the Destrier's arm rest. With a sigh, he replies to them both, quietly.
<"That's not the kind of love I'm talking about. You can love in an all-encompassing way. Nobody has to be left behind. If you don't love humanity, Asciel, then you'll never be able to treat them the way they deserve.">
Banagher's expression is as serious as ever. <"It's something you can only learn by realizing a hard lesson. This world isn't about you. You're only a small part of it.">
The Destrier's beam axe connects this time, though Yuliana is too quick for it to sever her machine's many legs. Pulling back, the Destrier whirls its polearm behind its body, preparing for another strike.
<"What can I say. The way to a man's heart is through mobile suits."> Banagher smiles a bit more brightly for Leina. <"Or something like that. Though I've got to say--">
Rena's Gaia Gear lines up with Da Xukong, threatening the insectoid machine with a beam saber. The Destrier Gundam swerves to the left, trying to keep out of her way.
<"Fighting indoors is a new experience, and I don't like it! Think we can force her back out?">
These corridors seem fairly sturdy. Maybe there'll be an opening further inside? For now, all Banagher can do is chase Da Xukong 0, relentless in his pursuit.
<"No. Nothing will make me feel better about this."> Banagher answers Yuliana, bringing the Destrier back around to face her. <"I do care. I wouldn't -- try to talk to you if I didn't. I want to find a way we can all be happy! A way where you don't have to hurt anyone anymore!">
With a gleam of verdant beam energy, the Destrier brings its weapon to bear -- but too slowly. Da Xukong 0's stinger knocks it aside and pierces into the armor of the Gundam. Warning signals immediately pop up as molten metal flows into the machine, and Banagher cries out in distress.
"Damn it--!" Sweat beads on his forehead. The heat of Yuliana's attack can be felt even through to the cockpit. Frantically, Banagher pulls the Destrier back, trying to cut off the assault. Listing to one side, his Gundam crashes against a wall, now unbalanced by the injected material.
Banagher thinks quickly. In this closed space, his machine gun would risk hitting his allies. The only other option he has is--
"FUNNELS!" He calls, letting the Destrier fall to one knee.
In answer, the weapons at the Gundam's shoulder awaken and rise into the air. Banagher's psycommu headband gleams as he guides them forward, sending them in to crowd around Da Xukong 0. Leaving them to fire at random intervals, Banagher pulls his helmet off, panting.
<"I'm still okay,"> Banagher reassures his allies. <"Don't worry. Just -- need a second to cool off.">
KTS: Banagher Links-Vist targets Yuliana Kafim with Destrier Fin Funnel: Swarm! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Anita chuckles at Leina's reply, then nods at Myrmidon's.
"We've all been through a lot together, yeah. ...For better or worse." Anita comments with a shake of her head.
She nods toward Rena, then.
"Looks like it." She replies... and then frowns. "...In your gut, right?" Because she gets that her other senses probably aren't working right, this close to Yuliana. "Well... it's probably a good idea to listen to it. 'Specially where she's involved."
And the 'she' in question whirls on her now. A frown crosses her face, and some of the earlier sympathy leaks out of her.
"Yeah, I'm gonna say that's wrong off the bat. Get over yourself." Anita insists, as Yuliana declares that she can do whatever she pleases - that all things are hers by right. "Can you say that they do deserve to die? Can you say they're definitely involved with what happened to you? Or are you just thirsty for blood from someone?"
She frowns, too, as Yuliana continues. A Seat of Power...
"...So it's that kind of thing, huh? Business and pleasure." Anita comments... and then winces, shutting her eyes tight as Rena warns her. There's a bright display of - and while cybernetic eyes are better at handling that kind of thing, she and Svipul both are still left reeling. Anita mutters something under her breath. Svipul whirls toward Da Xukong 0, unleashing another spray in its general direction. It's easy to assume she's firing blindly, still reeling from the effects of Yuliana's surprise attack... but it's actually somewhat calculated - design to restrict her movement, to make it difficult to avoid all the other attacks coming her way.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Lazy Spray! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to retreat. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Banagher Links-Vist's Destrier Fin Funnel: Swarm, taking 3900 damage! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist continues a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Anita Rosetta rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Anita Rosetta's Lazy Spray, taking 630 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina does wince as Banagher goes right towards that axe, but as he notes a mobile suit is the way to a man's heart, she smirks, knowing he must be fine, "<Yes I am aware - we made out in the cockpit of yours enough times.>"
Before she ESCALATES the teasing, "<You don't have to announce your favorite kinks on the comms to everyone, you know?>"
Oh no.
Knitting. Leina has to hold in a laugh at Rena saying that, but... Asciel asks a question, "<... Honestly? As a Spacenoid born and raised - find the idea of tying our destinies even more to being controlled by this... blue dot... just, insulting. You're seeking what? An eternal stagnation? To take the status quo and make it your preferred brand of it?>"
After a moment, she asks, "<And how are you going to get us there? The same way Glemy or Haman did - fighting to be the one in charge. Thinking you know better than everyone else.>"
She concludes, by reiterating a single point, "<Not cute.>"
Leina's eyelashes flutter as she's responded to by the Neo-American pilot. And then her eyes flicker down to the console to check.
"<... I actually wasn't... asking. My mic was off.>"
Despite the words, there's nothing rude in her tone, it's meant to tell her something about the fact that she caught that. If anything it's guarded... she immediately that Cathedra needs to look into this.
But...
"<Be careful.>"
... if she acts rashly, what could that mean to the pilot? She doesn't know her situation, save that she's QUICK to leave her online handle out there.
Does someone from the Neo-Colonies not understand the danger they're in putting all of this on display?
They clash, and as Yuliana calls out her name, the Beguir leaps away, shadowy stuff dissipating from its claws. Right now - she addresses Yuliana, purely to try and distract her from Soma, to give her time to regroup and recover. She is after all, more used to fighting Yuliana up close.
Yet that dizzying sense of being up close, as used to it as she is, she's denied so much by simple proximity.
"<Yes! I'm going to arrest you, because you're scared and lashing out! You think this whole ritual is the way to keep you safe forever!>"
Something softens in the next statement, "<... But it's not. I understand being scared - and knowing the whole world is out to get you, but you're making decisions on everyone's future...>"
Drawing the Beam Saber out of the Cross Shield of her Beguir, it rushes forward to engage, the length of it is drawn down across the floor, forcing Yuliana to anticipate the low blow-
-but the feint changes direction mid-swing, like she was trying to force her to dodge in a certain way so that she can try to dismember Da Xukong.
Yuliana is a melee specialist, but... in moments like this, she tries to use size to her advantage.
"<...because you're terrified!>"
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Beguir-Neuer Beam Saber Combo! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Leina Ashta's Beguir-Neuer Beam Saber Combo, taking 4320 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Leina Ashta's Mass Effect activates, causing Control Bonus! KTS: Leina Ashta has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua is, for one moment, alone in a way she has never been before. She doubles over, weightless in her cockpit. No, she doesn't; she's still upright like she was before. She *is* still in the cockpit, not alone in the void, and she grips tight onto the arms of the piloting seat to remind herself of her physical place. She assesses where she is. No, to the left. Da Xukong shouldn't be over there, it should be right where it was already. Open your eyes. Look. The color of the soul is gone but the color of people and places is still there. Breathe. This is a real fight. This woman would kill you.
"I could ask you the same thing," she tells Yuliana, idly reaching a hand up to flip off another switch. That's the open channel with Asciel, and it's cut short before she even gets to 'first time dealing.' Myrmecia's eye begins again to shimmer, and this time, so does the air surrounding Myrmecia and Da Xukong. Myrmecia wrestles to stay on top of Da Xukong. She registers Leina's voice, much fainter and more distant than before, and has to chew on that response. "I... huh. That doesn't happen normally," she responds on mic. No response to the wish to be careful. She can worry about trying to figure out what that means when she isn't straddling a brain-warping terrorist robot.
"Anyway," she says, and reaches forth to use Myrmecia's fingers to flick the part of Da Xukong that looks most to it like it might be called a forehead. "Here's something that probably doesn't happen normally for you." The shimmering in the air grows and accelerates. The lights in the base flicker. Chunks of wall crack and fall to powder. And Da Xukong crunches inside, as if its body were made of gelatin and Myrmecia had reached inside and squeezed its heart in its hand. Shocks of kinetic force just fold inward across the internal structure of the machine, without any weapon or strike from Myrmecia to appear to cause it to happen. No funnels, no drills, no drones. Whatever that abyssal machine is doing makes it hard to aim and direct the shocks of force, or whatever it is that Lua is doing in the cockpit gripping the control sleeves. It may miss the vital components or be distributed and disperse elsewhere. If nothing else, the sensation may at least approximate for Yuliana the spatial distortion Lua is feeling underneath the effects of her anti-Awakening.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Spatial Seizure! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Luanova Luckwright's Spatial Seizure, taking 4130 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Luanova Luckwright completes the Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"No, but I can kill THEM!" Yuliana yells, to Rena.
She's able to get a hold of herself, at least, in time to rush forward to meet Rena's strike -- and her Cleave Axe doesn't so much as come up to meet her saber as to cleave past it, digging into the Gaia Gear's armour. "My wife? No. It is a thing I showed her! I am the one who receives the wisdom -- of the Empress at the End of All Things! Without me, my Elisa would be blind! This is why I am her Oracle!" And another word for Oracle is...
No wonder she and Asciel don't get along.
"Haha..." Yuliana laughs, as she breaks away. She hates that she's thinking of Asciel's words, saying that. "Inhuman, is it? Not human, is it? Maybe... I don't know. What I know is -- I can't STAND you -- LOOKING DOWN ON ME!" Wasn't she looking down on Asciel, just a few moments prior?
But though she turns to Asciel, Asciel disavows her, and Yuliana screams. "What do you know of possession?! What do you know of -- of -- what base arrogance claims you, to think you could kill God?!" She's wounded by her words, but the Lambda Driver soon follows it, blowing Da Xukong 0 up to impact heavily with the ceiling. It doesn't go through, but it does land, heavily, shaking at the ground. "Ugh," she spits, and the way she sags is audible.
"No one... will be left behind." She says it like a promise, so why does it sound like a threat? Certainly, the way she answers the Lambda Driver's magics with her own is threatening, the way the Abyssal Coil unlights and blasts darkness towards Asciel's Codarl. "I am the Key and the Gate," she says, and perhaps it's an answer to Luanova, asking just what she is. "The lock which she shall turn to open the way! There is no one like me! I am that I am!" She yells, louder, louder: "Ever have I heard these words, pounding into my skull! ETCHED into my soul! I am that I am that I am that I am!" And perhaps Asciel, at least, recognises the Biblical reference.
"I know the way!" She yells, to Banagher, turning to him again. "If you would just let me WORK, all would be well!" The funnels rise to meet her, and in these close quarters, Yuliana isn't able to evade them -- but she does see the way the Destrier takes a knee, and strangely, she doesn't launch an attack to finish the job.
It's a moment's pause which continues, when Anita's words catch up to her. "I... I don't know," she says, finally. "I don't know if Chobu was involved in hurting me. But -- but if I leave them be, we won't be able to work! We destroyed the Gryps-II laser -- can you really say that weapon existing was good for humanity?! You should be on MY side! Anyway, it's fine for me to kill two birds with one stone!!" Considering how many birds have been important to Yuliana, that sure is a turn of phrase for her to use.
She's flustered.
Her green barrier protects her from most of Anita's fire, but she's not cocky enough to ignore the Svipul's firing arc, either -- she moves to avoid it, where she can, in the little space she has. She fires off a fireball from her scorpion's tail, to try and shake Anita off that tail. But that puts her in prime position to be herded in by Leina, with her words and her saber both. "I'm not SCARED!" Yuliana yells, with stabbing inflection at the end. Is she pitying her, just like Asciel?! "I make the decisions I do because I must! Because no one else can! Only I can bear this burden for you, Leina! Don't you look down on me, either--!!" But the Beguir does, literally, look down on the smaller Da Xukong 0, and the feint of Leina's blades has her sinking her beam saber deep into the wanzer's systems.
"Shit," Yuliana hisses, to herself, as a warning light flashes in her cockpit. "Get -- get off of me," she says, and the Abyssal Coil responds, another blast of darkness building in those protrusions before the darkness forces them apart.
She's shortly interrupted, though -- by her machine compressing. Da Xukong 0 has all the finest equipment to ensure pilot survival, so even though Luanova bypasses that strange green barrier, the cage surrounding her seat still protects her from the compression... but still she sees the metal warping around her, as the outer chassis isn't so fortunate.
And she SCREAMS.
"EYAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH--!!!" It is a primal, terrified thing, in direct conflict with her declaration to Leina moments earlier. She is terrified, feeling the same conditions the Shamblo enforced on her, back in Torrington -- when it compressed her Tiandong 3 so thoroughly that she had to craft a new one from another base unit. She jerks and pounds at her controls, and the Abyssal Coil lights, and blasts, again -- this time to give her distance from Luanova's machine. "YOU -- THAT GIRL -- GET AWAY FROM ME!" She screams, and flees, further inwards.
She isn't allowed to go without challenge -- Da Xukong 0 must skitter into and through the hailing fire of the GN-Xs. The bullets score into her green barrier, into her machine, but it keeps going. She skitters as deep into the facility as these widened tunnels will let her --
-- and spins to face them again. "... rejoice," she says, a little breathless, but calmer now she has a plan. She addresses Soma and Sergei before anyone else. "For I will make your den of lies into a garden of hope. Witness!" For the first time, she grasps the staff at her left side -- and PLUNGES it into the concrete foundations. It drills deep into the earth beneath, and the staff unfurls into a flower: it is like an orchid, a lady's slipper, but its stalk is black and its flowers are shades of emerald green. If it is fired upon, it reconstitutes itself, as its black roots spread deep within that earth which Luanova commands so easily. (She will find, just the same, that it cannot be uprooted: if the earth beneath it rises and protests, it simply turns to dust and reconstitutes itself, where it is planted.)
"The Empress's garden grows," Yuliana says, and not without satisfaction.
And that's when she charges for Soma. "But YOU -- you I must still punish!" She raises her tail, and plunges it into Soma's GN-X, injecting terrible heat and pulling her closer. "Who do you think you are, you wretched scrap of a girl?! To have a commander who cares for you! Who would get in the way to protect you! Do you know what Major Pham did, when I begged him for aid?! HE SLAPPED ME! He told me this was my punishment for what my Elisa had done, and he left me -- not even to die! To a fate worse than death! And YOU -- you are protected?! By a man of the Republic?!" She screams, as she pushes her clutch forward, and digs her tail in: "HOW DARE YOU!"
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with MULS-P Cleave Axe Lunge! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Banagher Links-Vist with Pass! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Infernal Arachnid Injector Backburning! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Luanova Luckwright with Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Soma Peries with Infernal Arachnid Injector Gouge! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Asciel Colette with Abyssal Coil Herald Devastation! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Leina Ashta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Leina Ashta parries Yuliana Kafim's Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast, taking 1740 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Leina Ashta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Luanova Luckwright's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Luanova Luckwright, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Luanova Luckwright blocks Yuliana Kafim's Abyssal Coil Point-Blank Blast, taking 2200 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Luanova Luckwright, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Banagher Links-Vist fails to react to Yuliana Kafim's Pass, taking 0 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Yuliana comes to a halt... Which is concerning, given that she's not anywhere actually critical to the facility. Sergei's GN-X raises its arm up in front of Soma's, cautioning her to stop as he does.
Sergei and Soma do indeed witness as Yuliana plunges that staff into the floor. A flower unfurls and Sergei gets the impression that something significant just happened. His mind races at the possibilities.
Soma is a little more impulsive though as she calls out to Yuliana, starting to move her GN-X forward, <"You... What the hell do you think you're doing to-">
But the Colonel's machine grabs a hold of Soma's shoulder, cautioning, <"Wait!">
<"But-">
<"It's over!"> Sergei quickly switches his radio from general comms to tap into the facility's intercom. His voice echoes out of speakers throughout the base, <"This is Colonel Smirnov. I am instituting a code black evacuation. I repeat, code black. All personnel, evacuate immediately!">
Ominous alarms begin to sound throughout the base, taking on an even more urgent meaning compared to those already blaring from the attack. Support and command personnel quickly begin abandoning their posts, making for the closest evacuation sites at various hangars. Camouflaged hangar doors begin to open further up the mountain, REA passenger shuttles starting to launch and fly off as fast as possible. Meanwhile, those Tierens still operational begin to retreat from their defense positions, letting the Altos roam free inside the base.
Soma of course also responds to the alert saying, <"What!? Colonel, you can't mean it!? This is..."> Her home. For the past year plus. Her last one was destroyed and all she could do was hear about it after the fact. How could she just abandon this one? Soma doesn't vocalize this part though, partly because it's not how she was raised. It's not proper for a soldier.
Partly because Yuliana is suddenly fixated on her for some reason! Yuliana's tail plunges into Soma's machine, pulling it away from Sergei's. He calls out, <"Peries!">
Yuliana verbally assaults Soma, all the while physically assaulting her by digging her tail in deeper, its heat blooming outwards through the GN-X's frame.
'HOW DARE YOU!'
Soma's response is once again laced with panic, <"W-WHO ARE YOU!? WHAT DO YOU W-WANT!?">
There's some brief confusion in Sergei's mind, but he pushes it aside for now as he acts quickly. His GN-X rushes in, drawing its beam saber. In a single expert motion, the crimson blade ignites and he sweeps it towards the Da Xukong's tail, cutting through and severing it. With Soma's machine free, Sergei's proceeds to grab hold of it and then start carrying it back through the corridor, heading towards the main entrance. As he does so, he warns everyone else, <"All allied forces, retreat immediately!">
In her cockpit, Soma is curled up in her chair, clutching at her head. She manages to whimper out, <"Colonel... It hurts...">
KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Beam Saber Through And Through! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Soma Peries's GN-X Beam Saber Through And Through, taking 4200 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Soma Peries's Loyal Soldier activates, causing Jam L1! KTS: Soma Peries has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Yeah," Rena answers Anita, her voice more sober. "In my gut. I... yeah. You're right, Annie."
She should listen to that. She hesitates, though, as she hears Asciel call out out to her. To Yuliana, too. "It's not pity! I'm trying to help her!" she says. "Asciel, you--this isn't the way to protect us! We're not something you can own. We have a right to our own destinies!"
She grits her teeth, then her eyes flicker to the Destrier Gundam. She nods, then. "If we can, that would be good, but--she's also... she must be looking for something!"
She gives him a worried look -- but he says he's okay. She looks at the Beguir-Neuer rushes in, the Gaia Gear Alpha juking to one side to help make room for her. That is when the Cleave Axe swings down.
It slams into the rounded shoulder armor of the Gaia Gear Alpha and rips lower, sparks exploding and flying away from it as metal is shorn. Rena hisses through her teeth, as cascading red and orange warnings flash across the panoramic cockpit display. They vanish but a moment later.
"Yuliana! I don't know what this Empress at the end has shown you, but... but you have to listen to yourself! To the world, not--not whatever lies past it!" Rena calls out. "Listen to yourself! It's like Leina said! You need to give others the chance you were given--"
She shakes her head, eyes widening. "You need to give yourself that chance!"
But she flees, further inward -- after so much damage was done to the Wanzer -- and she stares as the staff unfurls into a flower, roots spreading. Rena sucks a breath in, as Soma's machine is slammed into. "Peries!" she calls out. "Get--"
Code black. Evacuate.
"Annie, Banagher! Fall back!" she calls out. "Don't engage, this is--something is very wrong!"
The Gaia Gear Alpha's wing binders fire -- blasting it backward. Rena glances at the Svipul and the Destrier, nervously. "What--what the hell is that? It's different than Sri Lanka...!"
KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links-Vist has posed.
<"Leina!"> Banagher calls out, scandalized at the revelation. <"O--oh my god, in front of everyone...">
He can't help but cover his face for a moment, a terrible idea in battle. Really, he should tease back, but he's far too embarrassed. It seems Leina will win this round!
Yuliana, on the other hand, seems to be deteriorating. She shouts more and more at her opponents, drawing Banagher's attention back to the fight. His expression turns grim once more.
<"I'm sorry."> Banagher offers her. <"I can't stand back and let people be hurt.">
The hobbled Destrier is a sitting duck, and Banagher braces himself for another blow -- but it never comes. As the metal injected into his Gundam cools, the machine grows stiff.
<"Why aren't you attacking me?"> Banagher asks, with a sort of detached surprise. <"Yuliana, what--">
She screams.
Banagher lunges his Gundam forward. He has no plan, moving purely on instinct to try and help Yuliana, somehow. Memories flash before his eyes, vivid and terrible -- Yuliana bleeds out in his arms all over again. With a yell of his own, the Destrier reaches out a hand.
But Da Xukong 0 retreats. Yuliana seems calmer, perhaps, though no more lucid. She drives something -- a staff? -- deep into the ground, and flowers bloom. Banagher's face goes pale. The last time this happened, the growth was unstoppable.
<"Yuliana!"> The Destrier moves in as Soma is pulled away. Evacuation is called, and Banagher comes to a halt. He grits his teeth.
What can he say that he hasn't said before? What can he do that he hasn't done before? Slowly, the Destrier's funnels return to their rack. The Gundam's hand falls. Banagher turns and moves to Leina's Beguir, knowing this will be difficult for her.
<"Love, I'm sorry -- we can't do anything for her right now. We have to go."> Banagher implores. <"Please.">
He won't move until Leina does. And when she does, the Destrier will move with her, thrusters firing to propel the damaged Gundam forward. Once out of range of the monstrous flower, the Destrier will fall again to one knee, with Banagher already running diagnostics on his battered machine.
KTS: Banagher Links-Vist targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Banagher Links-Vist has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"All else fails - go with your gut. You've got a good head on your shoulders. If it's telling you something don't feel right..." Anita nods and smiles as Rena agrees with her. It's something Anita knows very well - it's the only 'sense' she has to rely on, after all.
And Yuliana... She can hear that hesitation, but it doesn't last long. 'We' takes a second for her to figure out, but she figures out who she's referring to soon enough. Anita frowns, just a little, with a hint of uncertainty.
"...Well. That's one thing we agree on, but it's gonna take more than one good deed to win me over, you know?" She replies. "You and yours still have a long list that makes me pretty suspicious. So I can't exactly just stand aside."
Kill two birds with one stone, huh... Something about that wording makes her frown a little. Not that she can dwell on it, when she has to quickly brace herself for that fireball.
They keep on her... but in the end, they aren't able to stop her. Yuliana plants the staff into the concrete, and it blooms into a terrible flower. Anita grimaces and curses under her breath.
A call of retreat sounds - code black. Rena calls for evacuation, too.
"Right!" Anita calls. Svipul leaps into the air, folding back into Fighter Mode. "Hey, Myrmidon! If you don't have a way out, just follow us - I dunno what you're getting paid, but it's not worth sticking around!"
And with that, she chases after the Gaia Gear Alpha.
"...I dunno." Anita admits with a shrug. "But if these things are gettin' worse and worse... that's a pattern I don't like."
KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
"Ah right, you're born and raised in space," Asciel puffs at Leina in the midst of clearing her space. "In that case, I was planning to have the colonies shuttled out to Venusian orbit, you know." A little smile crosses Asciel, heart racing faster and brighter, always at her most comfortable pushing away. Asserting distance. When the Da Xukong impacts with such a satisfying thump, the Virtual Sage practically sparkles.
"If anything, it's a useful experiment. If we give space-dwellers the stability off a planet to orbit, without the risk of those dreaded colony drops harming my treasured planet - perhaps they can live in peace and harmony. Though given rumors I've heard of other diasporas from the Earth..." Rumors given to her by ZAFT informants come to mind - plus...that strange captain who saved her life... "Well, I'm not holding my breath that it won't be a problem."
...One problem has, however, been suddenly made so much more manageable.
"...Hoooh? ...Yuliana...all this time, I had you at the oh so lofty position in the top ten greatest threats to my world. ...Why, I was rather afraid of you." Lowering her arm from the gesture of 'pushing' Yuliana away - Asciel's burning barrier of repulsion nonetheless remains, the spears of darkness lunging at her continually deflected, like the inkiness of space trying to attack the stars that are all which defies that abyss.
Her voice grows softer. Comforting, even. The tone she takes in late night streams, soothing viewers to sleep. "I'll admit my fear. After all - fear is the font of bravery, and |~I will carry the burden of bravery for all. I'd thought you'd transcended. I thought you were something like me. But...my my my."
"You still yearn to be human."
Fingertips splay over her lower face, spread over her bright grin, as Asciel takes a single step forward into the malestrom of light and darkness projected before her. Her sheer heat is enough to make the air catch fire, cyan embers smoldering in her wake. "I'm so glad. I'm so relieved. It's not too late for you after all. Despite everything you've put yourself through, they believe in you because it's not too late for you. Their gentle spirits aren't wasted on calling to you - it's something you haven't lost yet either. It's not too late. After all, I've pushed my whole life determined to kill the gods of human make. ~Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, as they say...and you've taken it upon yourself? Aaaah...humans do such awful things to themselves becoming the divinity |~only one like me can attain~"
Those fires congeal, conform into not the shape of the eye of judgment Asciel favors - but a hand, carving its way through the void. A star of warmth and comfort, gently reaching towards the Da Xukong. She's about to reach out. Tranquility as a weapon - the ideal Asciel sought at the end of it all.
"...I'll gently smother every god it takes. ...Every desperate lie humanity told itself, hoping for something greater to guide it. Whatever you found...I'll do away with it. I'll replace it.~ And you won't need to work so hard for my sake. You can breathe, and live with your dearest love, and cry away aaaaaaalll the struggles you've had into her arms. It's not too late, Yuliana. It's not too late, all of you. ...mmn. Even though you've done your best to make it that way."
She was just about to sing. Amidst all the chaos, all Asciel wants to do is save the world with her song. The code black alert, the flower of despondence that takes root in the floor - surely it'd interrupt her song.
...One more breath, as Asciel pivots on her heel - shoulders opening wide to reveal speakers at each joint.
~You dont have to be brave anymore~
~It wont be your fault ever again~
~You dont have to be in pain anymore~
~If you just...fall...in~
It's a gentle lullaby, the kind a mother would sing to carry a child to sleep - and with every step Asciel walks away from the calamity Yuliana's let take root, the hand of willpower she projects at Yuliana tightens. Crushing not with might and intensity, but a slow, insatiable thing. A grip to stabilze - that'd rid Yuliana of the horrible coffin she uses to fight, while mercifully giving her all the time in the world to work free.
~You dont have to be brave anymore~
~Lay your head down and cry for a while~
~You dont have to be ashamed anymore~
~No more- false smile~
A song of pure faith, of pure promised eschatology. The warm, gentle smile doesn't leave Asciel's face during her entire stroll out from the base - how could it?
Finally, after all - everything she's yearned to prove has been so sublimely validated, no matter if she must vanish like the wind to regroup and reconsider how to clean up this mess.
KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Lambda Driver Slayer! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Banagher Links-Vist's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Asciel Colette enervates Yuliana Kafim, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Slayer, taking 6380 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asciel Colette's You Don't Have To Be Brave Anymore activates, causing Deject! KTS: Asciel Colette has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
As Asciel highlights her plan, Leina just... takes on an incredulous tone, "<God. The words that come out of your mouth. I don't even know where to begin. Like? Bad. All bad. Treating humanity as two different Monoliths to just separate?>"
Leina just asks, "<Are you gonna be wearing a schoolteacher outfit on your next stream? As really - that's like about the nuance to the 'get along' plan you're presenting me?>"
Yes Banagher.
In front of everyone.
"<Hyakunen hayai ze~>"
Is her final tease, as he loses this round.
'That doesn't happen normally.'
"<Yeah.>" Is the totality of her response, unable to say much right now. She can make some rather educated guesses as to why.
She's definitely had it happen before.
Yet, as Yuliana yells out that she's not scared, her immediate reply is, "<YOU ARE! You've been sold that this is the solution to your problems! But you're just acting SCARED!>"
Leina reiterates it again, "<Pitying you!? You DUMMY! How could I look down on it! You think I don't understand what acting scared is like!? Thinking the whole world is out to get you!?>"
Yet the blast comes, and Leina's response is suddenly, thrusting the point of the Shield down, and swinging upward, knocking the Abyssal Coil away as it's blast skirts by the Beguir.
Even the indirect blast however, is still a powerful impact, and the pilot reacts reflexively by forcing the Beguir back, pivoting it around wide to cause it to move with it.
"<What do you think I just went throug->" By the time she's looking at her again, she's seeing the planting of a seed, 'A garden of hope,' "<... A hope for what?>" Leina says softly, with a note of sorrow. "<A future where you're not scared all the time?>"
The orchid though, as Rena says, it's far different than before and Leina's Beguir backs off, "What have you done, Yuliana?" She murmurs, awed, horrified.
Sergei does indeed call for an evacuation, but... Yuliana charges right at, "<Soma!>" What happens, there's no time for her to intervene- even as he cuts her away, and starts to lead her away.
And the Beguir pulls out it's beam rifle.
Rena insists not to engage. The sheer wrongness...
... one can tell she's certainly thinking about it...
When Banagher pulls up alongside her in the Destrier. And for a second, two seconds, there's just no answer. Then...
"<... Alright.>"
It's quiet, a touch despirited, but at least in agreement, as her Beguir turns around, and begins the trip outside.
All to the sound of that song. That lullaby, that call - she has to admit, as much as she drags Asciel, sometimes - sometimes that idea is so very tempting.
Because she often feels just... so tired.
Once they make it...
"<Love? If you need help...? You can always just ask.>"
And indeed, she sends out a signal, and it's not long before a Flying Armor glides on by, making a landing.
"<They're on loan from Anaheim anyway, so I don't think anyone at the office is gonna complain?>"
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua got the crazy person she's here to terminate to scream in primal terror. That's satisfying. Dark luminance forces her unit away and clouds her instincts once again, and then Banagher's enormous Gundam is for a moment coming upon her. Myrmecia turns and assumes a defensive posture with its arms and for all appearances prepares to try to *judo throw* the robot ten times its size, but it was just an unthinking lunge forward, and the units are soon on the chase after Da Xukong again.
She does not know what the flower is. She has no gun to shoot it down, and uprooting it from the ground doesn't seem to occur to her. She's willing to trust that the evacuation call is warranted, for whatever reason, but hesitates to move.
She sweeps forward instead, the Myrmecia interposing itself between Yuliana and the fleeing Sergei and Soma, and tries to catch hold of Da Xukong by what could be called a shoulder. "Lady," she tells Yuliana over the broadcast in her machine-generated voice. "Whether or not you're the Key and the Gate." She concentrates, hard, trying to assemble a picture between what her eyes see and what her intuition can still access through the darkness. The shape of the machine... those are the channels riven through battle damage... conduits converge... there's a hole there. In the shape of a body? "You're also full of blood." A horrendous noise, then: one single, powerful punch inward, focused now directly on the control cage, close enough to threaten to bend it inward terribly close to where Yuliana is seated. Then, nothing. The indentation it makes on Da Xukong's internals is like that of the inside of an iron maiden, but leaving enough room to maneuver. Lua hopes it got through to where she was trying to aim it. It should be wide enough that there is no danger of actually crushing whoever is in that machine. But it sure ought to startle.
"I'm coming," Lua then returns to Anita's offer, bringing the Myrmecia back to hover and catch up on the escape route. "Federation forces call an evac, that means I've already done my part anyway." She has no idea what is going on in this base now and she has no interest in finding out.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Leina Ashta's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Luanova Luckwright's Pass, taking 0 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"This world has only ever hurt me!" Yuliana screams, to Rena. "Tearing at me, and tearing at me, and TEARING AT ME! I--" She pauses, briefly. "Elisa gave it to me," she says, and if she sounds a little hopeless answering up to the idea that she hasn't given herself a chance, it's surely just another trick. "The least I can do... is offer this sacrifice to Her." Yuliana... Zaftra is her home, too, isn't it?
"Then oppose me," she says, to Banagher, when he says he can't stand back. "I will endure it. I can offer you that much, for what you have done. Even you," she adds, to Anita, "though you have done so much to offend me! I will allow you this." How... magnanimous.
"I'm not saying you don't," she says, to Leina, under more strain. "You... would understand that. But, Leina... the whole world is out to get me," she insists, tightening up. "It really is..."
Sergei institutes a Code Black -- but at first Yuliana is too angered by Soma to pay attention. "I'm YULIANA!" She screams, as if into her face. "YULIANA KAFIM!" And what she wants is violent enough to speak for itself.
But Sergei proves that he's not the man Vinh was, when he surges forward and succeeds at lopping off the wanzer's tail. Without support, the stinger crashes to the ground, and fuel leaks both from it and from the severed end attached to Yuliana's machine. It drips so much like blood. "You..." Yuliana says, as she watches him grasp Soma's machine. "It's not fair," she says, and pain stabs the words.
She can't afford to chase them now.
Yuliana switches to a private channel, to warn her allies: "Lettu! Take the Altos you can and clear out! He's bringing the whole damn place down!" That's what Code Black means, in this situation.
"Captain?!" Wendy Yuan -- the First Lieutenant, as Yuliana calls her in Indonesian, though they've not had ranks in the REA for some time -- yelps, over the radio. "Aren't you still in there?!"
"Don't worry about that! KABUR!" And Wendy may not be fluent in Indonesian, but she's worked with Yuliana enough to know when she's telling her to run away. She'll do what she can to retrieve the Altos -- and the Salamis Kai, 'Shandor', will briefly descend over the facility to retrieve them.
"This is my hope," she answers Leina, at length, switching back to open comms. "Our symbol of equality. All humanity, united... the future will be beautiful. But you must go, now. And hurry! I will see you again."
She grits her teeth, then, and turns to Asciel. "Don't say it like that!" She yells, to her. "What I yearn for is none of your business, you wretched thing! And -- and that's not -- I'm not just some -- STOP PITYING ME, DAMN YOU!" She slams on her consoles, even as warning lights blaze in the wake of the Lambda Driver's grasp, curling in with comfort so like what she thirsts for. But not from Asciel. Not from Asciel. "You can't take Her from me! She's always been with me! Ever since this happened to me, She's watched over me! I WON'T ALLOW YOU THIS SACRILEGE!" Even though Yuliana wants, desperately, for it not to be her fault...
... but by the time she's able to blast the Codarl with darkness from her Abyssal Coil, after she realises her Injector is completely disabled, that Codarl has disappeared. Yuliana is denied even her vengeance. How terrible.
Da Xukong 0's protective mechanisms, Lua will find, are very strong -- strong enough even to abjure her strange powers. (In this case, it's lucky, given her intent isn't to kill.) But Yuliana still sees the machine warping inwards, console reaching closer to her, and her extremely eloquent response is: "FUCK YOU!"
She deeply, truly loathes this woman, whatever strange creature she may be. She's decided, now.
Once her heart stops pounding enough for her to think, she flicks the covering on a switch labelled 'lliath'll'yafoll', says a prayer to God...
... and the Da Xukong 0 is consumed in a green portal, as the retrieval spell Elisa enchanted the wanzer with is engaged, and Yuliana is whisked away to parts unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
As Sergei is in the process of rescuing Soma from Yuliana's tail, when Yuliana shouts at her, Soma's response is one of panicked confusion, <"Y-Yuliana Kafim?">
Sergei pays no heed to Yuliana's words, even those directed at him. He instead accomplishes his objective of freeing Soma's machine and starting to carry her out of the base. He's concerned about her... Perhaps more than he should be for a fellow soldier. But there are still a number of questions about her creation too and why Yuliana's ability was affecting her this way.
The last Sergei heard, those few researchers, from the Institute that created Soma, who were still alive had been imprisoned in a deep, dark place somewhere.
He may have to pay them a visit.
For now though, Sergei focuses on getting the two of them away from the base. Soon enough, he judges that they're far enough away. And that all base personnel, along with the allied forces that had fought beside them, are clear. He flips up a switch cover in his cockpit and presses it.
Bombs planted all throughout the REA's base detonate. Explosions rock the mountain side, sending some debris flying while larger chunks collapse inwards to fill the space created by the explosions and collapse of the base interiors.
Sergei wasn't sure what that flower was. But he could tell it was dangerous. If stopping it and Yuliana's plans meant the destruction of his base... So be it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The facility crumbles. Soma's home -- the home base of Celestial Being's greatest foes -- explodes, in a shower of rubble and destruction. Tonnes and tonnes of concrete, steel, and stronger materials still; they fall into the mountainside, and the earthslide roars down the side of the volcano. It is well that Vilyuchik has not rumbled for so long: one might worry, for a moment, whether the violence would rouse it.
But the dust fades, and for a moment, all is still.
... perhaps Lua will realise what's happening, first.
Because that rubble shifts -- and a flower blooms, from its very centre, black and green and respendent in the destruction surrounding it. It grew tall enough to reach towards the sun, even buried so deeply. It was neither crushed, nor uprooted, nor simply blown up.
You see, it is not -- entirely -- a thing of this world. It has one foot in another, so much like Yuliana herself. It reaches between two existences, with its roots which spread deeper, and deeper, and deeper...
... more flowers, for the garden.
But why does God want flowers...?
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
By the time the REA facility explodes, the pain in Soma's head has dimmed enough for her to watch on.
She stares at the screen as her home crumbles inwards, burying her quarters...
The cafeteria where she ate with comrades...
The hangar where she would help the mechanics work first on her Tieren Taozi, then on her new GN-X...
The Colonel's office, where she would often go to talk to him...
Where is she going to be able to do those things now?
In her thoughts, there is a quiet: 'I'm sorry...'
Meanwhile, Sergei stares on his own screen as he watches that flower of Yuliana's crawl itself out of the debris, "..."
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
-The self proclaimed goddess of eschatology flickers back into visual consistency to watch the Vilyuchik base vanish into the void, heralded by those vivid flowers, and all Asciel can ponder, amidst the mounting fear that it's definitely terrible to be there, is-
"...I wonder if I should stayed behind, and found out just what lay beyond that boundary."
Perched atop a power pylon, lights flickering with every passing REA suit scrambling to secure the area, Asciel absorbs every second of footage to study in excruciating detail down the line. "...You're less of a threat than I figured. I assume Elisa is too. ...But whatever it is you worship so fervently...saa, humanity has room for exactly one goddess, and I certainly don't demand anything near as terrible from my...'gate'.~"
...Right then and there, Asciel's immediately texting Ai, sending oh so many pictures, and rapid-firing so many date plans. Zaftra is quite beautiful this time of year, after all - and...yes. The Trans-Siberian Railway's running their trip back to Europe soon. What impeccable timing!
"It was lovely working with you today, Leina, Banagher. It's really unfortunate that people as kind as you are so stalwart in defiance, but that's why you're valuable. Generously ensuring that I don't overlook a single detail when I bring an end to this world. ...Ah, and Rena - Anita as well. I'm glad you're in high spirits, and well rested from everything that happened at Denver. ...Oh! Captain Orlodhari - she was due, wasn't she-! Pass along to her that |~I hope her children are in vivid health. What a harrowing time to be giving new life...but that element of humanity never changes..."
That just leaves the elements Asciel doesn't know. The strange false GN Drive, and the equally bizarre Myrmecia - both of which she can't transmit to at this point. The REA made it that far on replicating Celestial Being's power train...?
>tch, and they are notoriously hard to infiltrate and disrupt, so their having a technological edge bodes poorly for coming struggle. how in the world do we overencumber them...? even with Yuliana's personal grudge, they're only stabilizing further. they may be the target of simple brute force.
Before finishing post-op recon with a little stylish somersault down from her pylon perch, Asciel makes one more attempt to leave a message on Luanova's communications - she can't really force her way in as easily, but she can find cracks to stick a letter for later location. It's simply-
"I'd really like my song to reach you some day!~"
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Myrmecia stands still, bathed in the light first of the explosives which topple the Vilyuchik outpost, and then in the light of a flower that has bloomed that has never been seen before, that was terribly afraid of the wind and should never have been able to bloom and has bloomed.
For the first time, after years of preparation, Luanova Luckwright has seen real combat. She could have died in that confrontation, if something had gone wrong, if she hadn't had such experienced backup, if that person had been capable of deeper and darker things she hadn't yet seen. She should be terrified. All she feels is exhileration.
Her trembling does not come across in voice communication due to the computer masking. "This is callsign Myrmidon, piloting the Myrmex Format Wanderpanzer-1 Myrmecia, contracted on behalf of Neo-America military aid agreement." Wait... "Operation complete, I'm returning to base. Hope most of you make it home safely."
The Myrmecia raises a hand to flip Asciel's Codarl the middle finger, and then turns and boosts up towards the atmosphere, its jets tearing space behind it.
Wait...
Was that whole thing a commercial?