2024-12-27: Wrench The Lock
- Log: Wrench The Lock
- Cast: Elisa Kafim, Rena Lancaster, Yuliana Kafim, Kaworu Nagisa, Sayaka Yumi, Liam 7-020, Anita Rosetta, Leina Ashta, Sympatria Unit, Naoko Suzuki, Lucine Azul
- Where: Arctic Circle, Earth
- OOC - IC Date: December 27, 0099
- Summary: The Empress At The End Of All Things does not sit idly by and wait to be destroyed. Her rage sees a weak part of the world crack--and many must gather to ensure it isn't torn wide open.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has deployed in A000-0001V Gaia Gear Alpha Custom. KTS: Naoko Suzuki has deployed in NS-2 Sukeban Kiseki. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.) KTS: Yuliana Kafim has deployed in Threshold Queen EMPTEAR. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.) KTS: Sayaka Yumi has deployed in Aphrodite Areia. KTS: EN Barrier activated! KTS: Liam 7-020 has deployed in Type-4 Akashima 'Balor'. KTS: EN Barrier activated! KTS: Lucine Azul has deployed in Dianthus Mk. 3. KTS: Leina Ashta has deployed in CEK-068 Beguir-Neuer. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has deployed in Evangelion Unit Beta. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.)
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
The thunder started at 5:00 this morning in the Arctic Circle, amidst the pale green of the Void-ice. The sky is cloudless and dark still, and yet, the sound rumbled. Bang, bang, bang, it rumbled, as if a titanic drum were being beaten. Perhaps that is so, because it continued without lightning, without ceasing, every few minutes.
BGM: Alien Manifestation - NieR: Automata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTbyCYcHS6s
It rumbles still. It was at 8:00 that the first crack in the sky appeared, ugly and green and visible for miles. The cracks have worsened since. Now, it is 19:00 and the cracks have spiderwebbed larger and larger in the world itself. The Northern Hemisphere holds its breath, those aware of what's going on--though that is only few, as those watching have mostly opted to put their militaries on alert rather than informing the populace. Accordingly, representatives of numerous forces are here on the snow and ice.
And the sky is far, far worse than it was before. The white cracks in the air now bleed vivid, blasphemous green light. The chill of the Arctic Circle, already significant at this point of winter, is worse still now: the temperatures have dropped well below -50 degrees Celsius. Those assembled have a front row seat to the thunder. It rumbles again, louder. Then again. Again. It is not constant, but it may as well be; every few moments another booming shake, another crack in reality.
19:00, and there is no telling yet what will happen. But the Arctic Circle hums with power. And as always at this time of year, it is the dead of night here.
Radios crackle to life, and a young woman's voice echoes over all who accept the transmission. "Testing," Shari Loom's voice goes over the radio. "Testing. ...We're on? Good."
"Forgive the hijacking of your frequencies, but we all need to work together if we're going to stop this. If you don't want to listen, then turn it off. Anyway... The barrier between realities is almost broken. A small segment of space-time has been aligned completely with the Void at 99%. At any moment, the Empress will break through. ...The good news is that it's way too small for Her to come through. The bad news is that we're not ready yet to stop Her. We can close the hole, but it's going to take time--and you're going to have to hold off whatever She sends through."
Shari, for those who have video, is very serious--her expression solemn. But she's also a barely 20-year-old with black lipstick and dark eyeliner. It's easy to assume one shouldn't pay much attention to her. Even so, she speaks as an authority.
"Check your weapons now. If Her agent is left to its own devices, it'll start tearing open the hole more widely--and She really will come through. "
The cracks in the air pulse as if in time with Shari's words. She grits her teeth, suddenly, audibly wincing.
"I hear Her," she says. "...She's so angry."
"...Make her madder. For the Earth."
Shari's voice stops.
The air continues to thrum with power. Another thunderous crash comes. The cracks deepen. It will be any moment now.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena knew this was coming. Yuliana asked her for her help; she had agreed, and she didn't regret that. And she felt the Arctic Circle begin to thrum with power, the result of her connection to the Void. When she was told that it was time to go...
She didn't question.
She sits inside the panoramic cockpit of the Gaia Gear Alpha Custom, the North Pole's icy expanse visible on all sides. The cockpit is warm, in defiance of outside's weather. Still, she hears the cockpit's airflow working overtime.
Rena has her left glove off. She holds her hand up, the ring's sapphire glittering and reflecting in her eyes. Then, she sucks in a breath as she hears Shari talk.
She pulls the glove back on, then flexes her fingers. She can still feel the ring under her glove. She imagines it will take time to get used to it.
"We read you, Shari," she says. She frowns. "Sounds like the Empress isn't taking this lying down, then. Not that we expected Her to..."
She grips the controls. "Get ready, everyone."
Then, she reaches out, flipping to a channel to just Anita. Rena lets herself smile, then breathe out a sigh of held-in tension. "Ready?" she asks her. "Not quite what I expected to be doing three days later, but... time doesn't wait, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"She is here!"
An awakening before what should have been dawn -- if the Arctic were not now plunged into eternal night.
They made ready. Elisa shored up Yuliana's Liminal Lattice, prepared Emptear's defences; with another weapon not quite yet ready, it's Yuliana who deploys, today. That doesn't mean she's alone, though -- her wife has magical powers which have no need of a machine to shield or aid her.
Get set, and --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eM7J52Yp1U Deltarune - Until Next Time
"She is here." Yuliana's voice comes through the radio, as Emptear ascends through the sky, as the hour turns to ninteen-oh-hundred. (The sun has not ascended as she does, throughout the day; nor has it set. The night at the North Pole is neverending, a single sunrise and sunset to last them an entire year. How fitting they are clothed in night!) Her robot is as feminine as she sounds -- and all sharp edges, just like she is. "Laid between layers of fabric and bled through the gaps. But we are here, also. We are with you," and Emptear's hand stretches out, each of her claws moving with distressingly humanoid motions as Yuliana spreads her hand inside her Void-clutched heart.
"A Gate once open may be closed. I will aid you. It is by our hand that the Pole was weakened," and there is regret, in her voice, "and Her grasp falls now upon us. Let me right this wrong. She smashes the door-posts to obtain me... it isn't right for me to hide away."
An argument she's had to make twice, today. She can't blame her wife for being worried about her... but she can't leave this alone, either.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
NERV, and in particular Kaworu Nagisa, has been keeping an eye on the Silent Castle and its mistresses for a long time now. When Elisa and Yuliana originally cracked reality and shone the Void onto the Arctic, most of NERV's forces had been sent away to Jupiter to deal with the King of Ruin, and so couldn't provide significant support against the Empress. NERV's forces are not split like that now, but there are only so many units that can meaningfully fight against even a fragment of the Goddess, and there always need to be reserve units at Tokyo-3 in the case of an Angel attack at the most inopportune time. Thus, once again, Kaworu and Liam take the field to represent NERV.
A pair of aircraft carriers shuttle them to the North Pole--one each, for Kaworu's Evangelion Unit Beta and Liam's Akashima; they're big enough to need it, and they'll need the personalized support besides. Shari Loom's broadcast greets them and their support carriers both. It's a greeting for a situation they're already aware of, but the greeting is welcome all the same.
Kaworu listens, regarding her video feed on Unit Beta's entry plug screens; his gaze turns up towards that eerie green crack in the sky. Even with the resounding thunder, Yuliana's voice transmits her determination (and, perhaps, fear) clearly. He's unusually somber today, his normally ever-present smile nowhere to be found.
That's happened a handful of times this time around. It's never good.
"Understood. We'll do what we must, Shari Loom," he tells her. He looks to one side, and a video panel opens up to connect a line to his companion. "When the sky breaks, we will take point together, Liam. If either of our units takes critical damage, the damaged one will fall back and the other will provide cover. All right?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Ever since the despicable Dr. Devi revealed a major truth, and Yuliana and Elisa made a surprising offer of cooperation, the Photon Power League has been making their preparations. Perhaps it's impossible to be truly prepared to face a Goddess of cataclysmic power... but they have a better shot at it now than they do apart.
But after weeks of making those preparations, those cracks in reality above the Arctic tell them, something big is coming. Someone big is coming. Accordingly, the moment they received those readings, Sayaka informed her allies in Satellicon, and arrived as soon as she could. The Arctic chill brings with it thunder, though it isn't so cold in the Pilder of the photon-powered Aphrodite Areia. If it's a storm they face, they'll just have to brace for it.
Still, all the scientific instruments in the world couldn't explain what would happen next. Thankfully, they have Shari on their side. "Loud and clear, Shari." She acknowledges first. "A personal visit from the Empress, hmm? I suppose we'll just have to give her a warm welcome in this weather," Sayaka comments, then, though her calm serves more as an anchor for those gathered than anything. "All systems are green. Our strength might not be enough to defeat Her... but we can push Her back." She makes her final checks at Shari's advice.
Emptear stands, too, but this time, she's on their side. "Glad you're with us, Yuliana." Sayaka says, her tone more solemn, as Yuliana speaks of righting wrongs. "However we do it, let's send that Empress packing."
The Empress, however, is angry. The atmosphere itself cracks, the signature of the Void rapidly increasing. "I'll give Her something to really be mad about," Sayaka breathes, sweat droplets falling as the sky darkens, and brightens with lightning. "MAZIN GO!" Aphrodite Areia's eyes gleam gold, ready to face whatever the Empress is about to throw at them.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Green Void-light casts Liam's Akashima in silhouette as it watches the darkened sky. The Balor is massive--so massive that Liam has to stick to the thickest parts of the ice--but even it looks miniscule in the face of the growing rifts.
Liam sits in the Akashima's cockpit, perfectly warm despite the unseasonable chill outside. A thermos of coffee sits in its splashproof holder, nearby. Liam has barely touched it. He's been on standby, listening to the radio chatter. The sensor crews aboard the carriers are taking every reading they can. There's a line open to Central Dogma, and the handful of field scientists have been talking, off an on, with both Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi.
A familiar voice cuts into the line. Most of the chatter stops.
"...Shari," Liam whispers. He feels a little better that she's here, even if she's bearing horrible news. "Another dragon?" But didn't Elisa make those dragons? It occurs to Liam, then, that he's never seen what the Empress herself would field.
'She is here!'
Liam's jaw tightens. His gaze fixes on the image of Emptear as it descends from the sky. His heart tightens. He's so used to thinking that this would be Yuliana's doing, or Elisa's. The fact that she's here, just now, is evidence otherwise.
"I hear you," Liam says. "Both of you. Whatever she throws at us, we'll hold it back." Kaworu's direct line opens, and Liam glances at the picture-in-picture. He nods. "Understood, Kaworu," he says. And he glances at the other comm window, which he's activated discreetly. "That goes for you, too, Lu."
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Anita has been riding pretty high this past week, ever since Christmas Eve... but the news of events transpiring in the Arctic was enough to bring her back down to reality. Still, she has more reason now than ever to preserve Earth's future - and her own - and so she's among those who race North to meet whatever is to come, alongside Rena.
Ever since arriving Anita's Valkyrie has been patrolling the sky in Fighter Mode, watching it for any sign of trouble...
...Though the cracks bleeding horrible green light now almost obviates the need for that. Trouble is all around them. They can feel it in the air through that chill, that hum of power... and the feeling of something causing reality itself to tremble.
And then, at 19:00... a transmission. Anita reaches over to accept it. She watches and listens to Shari's broadcast, a small frown crossing over her face.
This is what it's come down to, huh...? Anita exhales.
"I read you." She replies. She recognizes her, of course - she's seen her before, and she's seen who and what she was, in a point of time now lost. It lends weight to her words.
And as she speaks, the cracks pulse. Shari says she's angry... and Anita winces sympathetically.
"Yeah, I can bet it's only going to get worse from here." Anita says. Rena opens a private channel to her... and Anita offers her a grin.
"Yeah, me either, huh? It really doesn't." She replies. "...But yeah, I'm ready. She chose a bad time to drop by - we've got all the more reason to fight her back now."
And Yuliana intones that she is here, and Emptear ascends. Anita's eyes open wide in surprise - but it makes sense, then, that Yuliana would be here. She hesitates for a moment.
"...Gotta say, this feels real weird," Anita says, back on public channels. Anita's never been Yuliana's biggest fan - that's always been strained, at best. ...But, now's not the time to pick a fight. "...But if you're fighting with us, I'm not gonna say nothin'. ...And if you've got any tips, that's even better."
The XVF-25I Svipul circles through the air one last time before descending, unfolding into Battroid mode as it situates itself atop a solid glacier, the Gungnir SC beam cannon emerging over its shoulder as the Valkyrie takes a sniper's stance.
"C'mon... show me that pretty face of yours." Anita mutters, weapons ready and trained on the rift.
Her makeshift sniper's nest might not last long once the Empress's agent emerges, but she'll make use of it while she can.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
And when the seven thunders had spoken...
It is not so much a premonition, after all, that implies forewarning. "Something's happening." Is all she could say, turning their eyes Northward from the ring across the blue, unto the green at the top of the world.
At first it was derisively ignored, until reports from monitoring stations confirmed that it was so. Now all day she's been sitting, suited up, with her hands together... waiting in the hangar of one of the battleships deployed to set up a command post in the field as things developed..
When Shari speaks, about the barrier between realities almost being spoken over the comms, Leina doesn't say anything as numerous contradictory voices speak over one another as she settles into her seat, waiting.
Eventually...
"You're up, Ashta."
-=-=-
The Beguir seems like a poor match for whatever's in the sky, she had desired approval for something else in particular, but like most things in life, one always doesn't get what one wants.
"Not doing anything in half-measures today, are you Shari?" She comments, as she looks at the crack in the air, "Then again, neither is she."
However, as Yuliana speaks more and more, and Emptear is sighted, Leina's eyes linger upon the titanic construct of black energy, for a long while not saying anything, then...
"Don't do anything reckless... Yuliana."
... she might as well ask for the Moon.
As the Beguir's claws latch into the Green Ice, that shakes beneath it's weight, she catches the ambient comm chatter, and thinks of herself a decade and change ago...
"It sure doesn't."
She murmurs, as if replying to Rena, and waits- and waits- someone over the comms notes that Yuliana is still a global criminal.
Mysteriously, she ignores that. Things have changed, and even if she's not certain how she feels about it all...
... well the world can give her this.
<Pose Tracker> Sympatria Unit has posed.
Within the great castle, there are three individuals of common origin.
"It appears that everything is in readiness," speaks Sympatria #7, seated in a control room. The usual keyboards and screens - several of them - rest before him. He has his hands steepled together. Several thick cables slide from the back of his neck and snake around to fasten into the consoles.
"Sure looks that way," chirps Sympatria #6, who is only connected to *her* console by smaller wires coming out of one wrist. She is using the other hand to fidget with something out of a small box of bricabrac she found somewhere. (A sensory box? Perhaps stolen from an innocent child? Likely.) "Don't lick the hull, Two!"
"Hrrrrrrgh," grumbles Sympatria #2. "I don't have time for these cheap jokes!"
"They're not jokes," says #6.
"Yes... they are more lexical components which are intended to resemble jokes," muses #7 in his deeper voice. "Commence the final connections. Don't forget the Hullbreacher."
"Hah! Launching--"
On the scene comes a heavy-built Mobile Suit. That's the best analogy. It is topheavy, with disproportionate arm actuators and additional armor over flexible joints; the legs, while in no way shrunk, are spread out somewhat more than usual, giving its stride a stomping cast. The frozen and accursed ice of the world's North Pole may not care.
The Mobile Suit carries something as tall as the machine itself. Slung over both shoulders, the main mass of it is wrapped in buff-yellow-brown protective tarping, with occasional tiny strips of what must be heroic quantities of lashing or adhesive. There is a great handle, itself the size of a double-length Zaku heat axe, extending outside.
The head, which is normal-sized for a Mobile Suit and thus proportionately rather small, tilts up - visual sensors pointed at that hole.
"Weird compared to what?" comes #2's voice, in reply or query to Anita. #2 has a mid-alto voice-register and no discernible accent. "I thought these were the holiday decorations."
("Oh, so SHE can make jokes," huffs #6 in the control room. #7 says "hm" in a way implying more profound laughter.)
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
For Naoko Suzuki, no further briefing is necessary. Having worked with Shari for the past few weeks, she was right next to one of the most reliable early warning systems indicating an impending Void incursion. She only needed to share a look with the other Whispered to understand it was time to enact the emergency protocol. In so far as there could be a protocol of any sort where it comes to Void-related incidents.
She never did directly ask Shari the question 'does She know', in regards to their efforts oriented towards dealing with the Void crisis in a more permanent manner. But she suspects that's probably the case. If there's anything that everybody who's closely dealt with the Empress can agree upon, it's that 'She Sees'.
Naoko is not quite as easy to 'see' in that way, partly due to lucky happenstance in previous efforts, partly due to having since focused her efforts on that when remodelling her Arm Slave. Now, well-positioned to stand in opposition to an event such as this, at least her part in it is crystal clear.
Sukeban Kiseki stands... not tall, but resolute all the same, on the icy surface. In its cockpit, Naoko grips the sides of her seat, just staring straight ahead at the cracked sky as Shari speaks, doing her best to stay focused. This tense anticipation is the worst. She does better in the heat of the moment, when she isn't so distracted by her own thoughts.
She half-expected that Yuliana would be here, too... still a lot of mixed feelings there, but she's been assured that if that happened, there wouldn't be any problems. She will still be keeping an eye out for any possible problems. Better safe than sorry.
Only one thing left to do, now. She takes a deep breath, before opening her private channel to Shari, doing her best to look totally in control.
"Welp, I'll be off then. I'll try to keep an ear open in case of Developments, but, you know how it is." 'How it is' is that she's going to be mentally connected to her machine and might be a bit too distracted to pay very close attention. But that's nothing to worry about. What matters is, "I'll be sure to let Her know just how much the both of us hate being interrupted while we're working. And then I'll be back for that leftover slice of cake in the fridge - no touching while I'm away!"
A little unconcerned bravado always helps to take the pressure off a little. That done... it's time.
"Nova Driver, activate!!"
Glowing green lines flow outward from the Sukeban Kiseki's chest, the visible signs of its custom Lambda Driver activating. As she flexes her palms, the Arm Slave mimics her movements exactly. It's almost time for action.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
It was a stroke of something that could be called luck, from a certain point of view, that Lucine was already in the Dianthus when the call went out.
Is it better to remain ignorant, wrapped up in the fading glow of a pleasant holiday season, or to stare into the Void, knowing that the odds may not be in your favor?
For her part, Lucine's far more prepared than she feels she has the right to be. She's not exactly the same person that fought that Void Dragon on the Macross Frontier.
Lucine nods from a video panel on Liam's screen. < "Be safe, Liam. I count the Dianthus's performance last time as luck; if things go awry, I'll retreat behind you or Kaworu. But until then... I'll give this everything I got." >
The Dianthus is giant, compared to a regular human being's height, but in the expanded scale of size presented by mechs, it's tiny compared to Balor, which it keeps a close radius to, like a helpful fairy, glowing red magenta against the green.
< ".... Temperature is dipping into -50 celsius. If anyone's this far north... I hope they had the chance to escape further south." > It feels better to comment on what is still able to be tracked with conventional numbers on the Dianthus's systems, rather than what can't.
This peace will not last long.
KTS: Elisa Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 10 opponents.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Shari acknowledges Rena with a nod on her screen. And Yuliana, well--Yuliana knows as much or more than Shari on this. "You're right," Shari answers Yuliana about hiding away. "But you're not doing it alone. I want a piece of her, too. Even if my systems are only partly ready..."
For those on the ice, the incredible hardening effect of the Void ensures that no one will fall through without more specific intent.
From what everyone says, Shari listens, and assures them, "Whether or not we can defeat Her for good today... We will, before the end. We'll see Her banished from existence!"
Shari listens on her private channel to Naoko. "I know," she says quietly. And only to her. "...Haha. Great. You'd better eat it, or I will."
It's done. It's time.
At least Lucine is right; the only living things up here now are within shelter.
BGM: Persona Non Grata - Ego Likeness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppV93KbP3zI
Then... Though Anita has said it, it is not a face that greets them next.
The world cracks. And cracks. And suddenly, a horrific rent rips through the air and tears the world's canvas. Gigantic, four-jointed fingertips grasp the edge of reality--and rip. The fingers come into view, horrific slit-green eyes on each knuckle, gnashing jaws at each fingertip. Once the cruiser-sized fist punches through the portal, it becomes clearer but no easier to stomach. The Empress At The End of All Things is a vast being, and this is Her left hand of darkness. Seven fingers and two thumbs show all four joints; horrific green eyes stare from each knuckle. Claws should be present, but instead there are gnashing jaws with too-large teeth. And as the colossal fist passes through, tentacles slither at the join if Her wrist, pushing the wound between worlds apart to grant Her ingress.
"She's here!" Shari calls in alarm. "Initiating tractor protocols!" From a structure on the surface of the ice, a terrifically large green beam blazes upward, locking onto the Hand and dragging it downwards towards the surface.
Suddenly, a single woman stands on the ice. Elisa Kafim--Macronized, some ten meters tall in her gigantic robes--waits for the cracks to open. She is here, not leading the defense, but a part of it. It would be an option to shoot her in the back, but perhaps an unwise one, given the sheer power of the Void in this place today and the greater threat at the sky.
She lifts her hand, and her voie choes along frequencies; she has no need fo transmitter or receiver. "I can only counter so much of Her power; you must strike!" She extends her hand to the sky, and thunder rolls once again. It is the first contest of wills.
The next contest is between the Hand and all others. The Hand abrubtly surges into the group, floating well enough close to the ground to be attacked--and strikes at Lucine's Dianthus. Then, Locusts pour out of the hollow at Her wrist to plague the Sukeban Kiseki and Naoko. The Sympatrias' heavy Mobile Suit gets a punch, while Leina's Beguir gets a powerful strike from the side of its hand. Anita is the next to face more Locusts, which pour out to overwhelm her. Liam's gigantic mobile suit takes another hit head-on from the fingers, which sweeps toward Sayaka's Aprhodite Areia. Kaworu, too, and his Eva unit take locusts trying to overwhelm the AT Field.
But Yuliana gets something, too. The many mouths at the tips of Her fingers SCREAM their rage at her, and Elisa grits her teeth as she tries to counter that magic--to some effect.
But the lingering Void connection Rena holds gets a bolt of dark energy thrown straight for her!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with Strangling Hand Slap! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Locust Vents- Plague! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sympatria Unit with Strangling Hand Strike! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Locust Vents - Overwhelm! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Kaworu Nagisa with Locust Vents - Swarm! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Yuliana Kafim with Jam L1! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Saturnine Bolt! KTS: Yuliana Kafim accepts Elisa Kafim's Jam L1! KTS: Best Defense! Yuliana Kafim successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Jam L1, taking 0 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta engages intercept against Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Overwhelm! KTS: Anita Rosetta's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Critical Hit! Anita Rosetta poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Overwhelm, taking 2600 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Saturnine Bolt! KTS: Rena Lancaster successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Saturnine Bolt, taking 3200 damage! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa engages guard against Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Swarm! KTS: Best Defense! Kaworu Nagisa successfully guards Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Swarm, taking 2550 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta fails to engage Parry against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Leina Ashta moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit, taking 3240 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi engages guard against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Sayaka Yumi successfully guards Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit, taking 2325 damage! KTS: Lucine Azul engages parry against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Slap! KTS: Lucine Azul poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Slap, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Sympatria Unit engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strike! KTS: [Mirage] Sympatria Unit's Autonomous Reflexes activates, and they slips into a mirage. KTS: Best Defense! Sympatria Unit successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strike, taking 0 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit! KTS: Liam 7-020's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Critical Hit! Liam 7-020 poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Hit, taking 3720 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages intercept against Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents- Plague! KTS: Best Defense! Naoko Suzuki successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents- Plague, taking 0 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena looks at Emptear; her blood runs cold for a moment, as she looks at it. But...
But Yuliana is with them today, not against.
She swallows; then she nods her head. "Got it, Yuliana," Rena says. "We're with you."
She looks over the others here -- a glance at Aphrodite Areia, and then at Liam and Kaworu's units near the front. The Gaia Gear Alpha swings in, a little behind them.
She glances back at the Svipul. Then, she smiles, reactivating her private channel. "Yeah," she agrees. "Lots of reason to fight her back now. Be careful, okay?"
Then, she looks back at the rift. She watches the Beguir come down -- and she taps at a console. She sends a text message to Leina:
>right behind you Leina!
Then, Rena tenses asthe rend in reality is torn open by a set of four-jointed fingers. She tenses, and grimaces as Elisa rises up while Macronized. A bolt of light hurtles towards her from the Hand, and the white-and-teal Mobile Suit shoots to side sharply.
The bolt of energy cuts along the white armor, blackening it.
Rena grits her teeth, then pulls its beam saber free. The blade ignites with a deep sea blue light -- and the Gaia Gear shoots forward, before slashing across the Hand.
"Back where you came from!"
KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Beam Saber Cleave! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage parry against Rena Lancaster's Beam Saber Cleave! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Rena Lancaster's Beam Saber Cleave, taking 3200 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Fear? Yes, Kaworu -- certainly Yuliana is afraid. The Empress batters down the door-posts of reality to get to her. But...
If She breaks through, and rages...
... maybe Her anger will stop with the subject of Her obsession.
Just another reason why... she has to be here.
She opens a private channel, to Kaworu, to say: "If She breaks through... I will be first to Her grasp. May it satiate Her. Ah, but don't tell Elya I said that... sickness wracks her worries and worries, as it lies."
She switches to a general channel, again, to address Rena and Anita. "I know it is unusual," she says, "and you must forgive me if I am unusual in turn. I am made to Her, I am knowing, I --" Her voice cracks, for a moment, before she gains control of herself again. "You will see what you do not see," she starts again. "And your eyes will blind you. Strike to where She must be, though the borders seem to abjure it." A light pause, and... "Reka, take care. We are together, this day."
Leina bids her to take care, too -- in her way. "My intent is not this," she says, "though I fear for the case which holds all the worst things in the world. Have I let it free? A jar which held all evils of existence, trapped only with false hope in its dregs?" A light pause -- as Emptear's arm draws across, and pinches at the metal of her other arm. (There's no hiding it.) "I won't allow it," she promises, more clearly.
Thankfully, the ice of the North Pole is sturdy enough (evil enough?) to withstand Two's mobile suit. (And Parminder's set the others up with a nice control pad. It even has electricity! Evil electricity.) And Emptear turns to it, and her voice has a smile, though Emptear's face is fixed in an eternal horrid grin. "Sympatria," she greets #2, "you have come. Welcome, #2. These were the decorations of our attempts to usurp reality... though I find them a touch gaudy, now."
Emptear does not assault the Sukeban Kiseki, now, though she does inform her over an open channel -- "I have not come as your enemy." So too does she turn to Liam and Lucine, in that suit they've threatened now and then, to transmit: "The Void is colder than Earth could ever be. No wonder the temperature slips, here, where we are closest. But as your Liam says, we will hold Her back. The wounds must heal."
She sighs, looking over to Aphrodite Areia, her own smile gentling. "Though there were too many... but if anyone could bring warmth to this cold, you are held there. Yaka..." She's glad she's here.
"We will fight for you this day," she offers, to Shari. "Another day, come to us."
She is here; She comes.
"Haa--" Yuliana gasps, through her open radio, as Emptear takes a half-step back, one hand coming up to shield herself. But, on the ice -- "Elya!" Yuliana exclaims, using her nickname in front of everyone, its own little indication of trust offered out. She watches Elisa work her magics, and she is bolstered, just the same. She starts forward, charging through the sky, grasping her dancer's cloth --
-- only to double over, in the air, as those mouths scream. "Aaaaahhhhh--!!" She screams, just the same, as Emptear's claws clasp at either side of her spiked head. "Do not demand I crumble and beg forgiveness... when You'd never forgive me! Do not! Do not!"
The snakes which arch out of her back, though, are now more part of Yuliana than the Void -- which might explain why they arch up to attack, while she's thoroughly disabled. The shadowy snakes which Emptear has, coming from her Void-heart, rise up with them -- and with panting breaths, Emptear's claws dig into the side of her head. "I know," she says, her voice rasping. "Serpentine -- Beam!"
And they open their jaws, emitting a horrible, black beam of darkness from them, aimed straight for that colossal hand.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Elisa Kafim with Serpentine Beam!
<Pose Tracker> Sympatria Unit has posed.
Sympatria #2 hears others move into position. It pleases her. This is, for her bluffness and vaguely philosophical jokes, a profound enemy. The tear in the space before her does seem troubling, even to her augmented neural system. The cracks turn into a rip - for a moment she wonders if that means space itself is a solid until you get up to a certain tension point -
Then the Hand emerges. It *IS* a hand, however distorted and unnatural, and her eyes widen slightly. Green eyes stare out, like a scallop (the best example #2 can think of - animals she's seen pictures of) at all of them.
"Oh-kay we are powering up Hullbreacher now, reactor start confirmed and we are going through the first layer," says #6, nervous from the simple *presence* of the thing. #7 steeples his fingers further and leans forwards, brow furrowing. "Second layer is good, we're gonna take three --"
The Hand moves.
- 2 realizes what's happened even as the BRC-2 throws itself towards the side against the oncoming punch. She can even wind it back. There were a total of four frames of advanced warning at the standard refresh rate, and nine additional frames for its approach, and then it was upon her -- the reptile nervous system and the wires in it threw the Mobile Suit before the mind that reaches for heaven could notice...
And it does mean the Mobile Suit falls over onto its side with a "guh" even if it is spared actual damage.
"Oh poops," #6 huffs. "Starting from second"
"FULL POWER," growls #2 while pulling the wrapped-up object down from where its tip had sunk three meters into the ice. Using it as a grip point, the Mobile Suit pulls itself upright.
"To remove the wrapping," #7 begins, before on the ice, there is a sudden grinding roar of a tormented massive machine, the sort of thing one might hear in an industrial or infrastructural realm; the sound of a vast piece of metal screaming in agony as it begins its purpose, as it serves out torment. The scream turns into a moan and then settles into a hum.
"Begin at the," #7 continues, before there's a *snap* followed by an enormous whurrrrrrrrr, a sound like a thunderstorm's rumble concentrated. In a fraction of a second the protective wrapping's lower layer disintegrates into fine powder, the Arctic wind whipping the rest clear as the Hullbreacher is swung around and shouldered.
The Hullbreacher is nineteen meters long. A huge and simple metal cowling guards much of the machinery - the integrated small reactor, simply to power the twin chain drives. The rumbling is because they are moving fast enough to break the sound barrier in Earth atmosphere. They seem to be a slickly-smooth solid object, like a line drawn of bared titanium-steel alloy.
- 2 raises the sword up in wordless salute, inverts the grip, and slams it down into the ice...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg6Vv1ZwzQ0
... where it bites into the ice and then ABRUPTLY hurls forwards, the BRC-2 gripping with both hands and magnetic clamps in the knees as the sword itself ekranoplans across the ice with atrocious acceleration, #2 bursting out into a bloodthirsty laugh as this maneuverability hurls the machine nearer to the great Hand!
"Lemme help you APOLOGIZE," #2 shouts before pulling the sword back and letting its own horrible momentum twist it forwards, then curve UPWARDS, aiming to carve through one of the finger joints outright. "HAHAHA!!"
(In the control room: "Hm... flexible," muses #7. "Such a technique would work poorly in most conditions, but on ice...")
KTS: Sympatria Unit targets Elisa Kafim with Surging Rushdown!
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The world cracks, and is rent. Kaworu watches. It's not his first time seeing such things, but even if it were, he would retain his poise as he does now. Liam acknowledges his orders, and Kaworu flashes him a brief smile. There are many others present, including Lucine; the two of them are as inseparable as ever. Love doesn't need togetherness at all times, but it's nice all the same.
Fingers come through the broken sky. Then eyes, then jaws, then tentacles, all of them accompanying a fist. Elisa Kafim stands, Macronized, to help stand against herself. She may not be leading the defense, but she will be crucial to it, he knows.
"We'll leave the defense to you. Leave the offense to us," he reassures his friend. Then he bids Unit Beta move.
Her forward dash is not unimpeded. Locusts buzz forth from the Hand at her champagne-gold armor, impacting against the iridescent light of her heart. Kaworu opts to pay them no mind, letting them smash over and over against Unit Beta's A.T. Field, each strike glittering ominously. When they're both close enough to the Hand, only then is there an effect: specifically, that A.T. Field smashes forward into what remain of the locusts, aiming to crush and disperse them. It will be another moment before he can join battle with the screaming Hand. He would have the air be clear for it.
Yuliana sends him a missive through a private channel. "I won't," he reassures her. "I'm sure she already knows." There is a matter-of-factness to his voice that will surely not be reassuring, but Kaworu never was one to lie, only step around the truth--and this is a truth that is literally screaming in their faces. "I don't think it will satiate Her, though, so let us both make sure to hold Her back--for your sake as well as everyone else's."
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages charge against Yuliana Kafim's Serpentine Beam! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Yuliana Kafim's Serpentine Beam, taking 4000 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Sympatria Unit's Surging Rushdown! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sympatria Unit's Surging Rushdown, taking 2625 damage! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Rejection! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Kaworu Nagisa's Rejection! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Rejection, taking 2775 damage! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"Uh," Anita starts, as Sympatria #2 replies to her comment. "Weird compared to who's shooting who, I mean."
She smirks, though.
"I guess it is kind of festive if you look at it the right away - but back home, this'd only score half marks, at best." She adds.
Rena bids her to be careful, and Anita nods.
"Yeah. You too, you hear?" Anita replies. She goes back to the public channel.
"All good, Nova? Glad you could make it here." Anita asides to Naoko.
Yuliana, meanwhile, admits that this is unusual - and that she may be unusual in turn.
"...Gotcha. I'll keep that in mind." Anita replies, as Yuliana offers advice. She nods, and hesitates a moment before adding... "...Hang in there, alright? We're gonna need you for this."
...Yeah, still feels weird.
Anita focuses her attention back on the task at hand... and then world cracks.
It isn't a face that emerges but a hand, with too many joints and too many fingers (not to mention too many mouths), grasping reality and ripping it open.
"Geez," Anita inhales sharply through clenched teeth, at a loss for words. What do you even say about something like this? It's a terrible thing, like a representation of a hand by one who has only a vague idea of what that is.
The Hand surges out, and while others are attacked more directly, Anita finds herself faced with a plague of locusts. They seek to overwhelm her, and obscure her line of sight. Anita grimaces and the Svipul's vulcans blaze, tearing through the cloud - but still others get through, crashing against the Pinpoint Barrier. The Svipul braces itself, but it's still forced back.
"Get off!" She hisses. The beam blade crackles to life at the end of the Gungnir SC and Anita spins in place to slash through the rest. Her position compromised Anita jumps away, letting the glacier she was standing upon collapse. She orients the Svipul as jump jets carry her through the air, vulcans blazing once more to pepper the Hand and distract it while she travels a new perch.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Elisa Kafim with Vulcan Barrage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
There is a voice in Lucine's mind that reflects on how surreal it is, that they're fighting alongside Elisa. Beyond that, there's no question in Lucine's mind: this is a field of grey, and whoever fights to keep the Void from consuming all is her ally.
Yuliana is easier to categorize. < "... You and Elisa have a right to live out your lives, free from Her." > Hopefully, it will be without another version of the cycle that lead to here. < ".... And why shouldn't I help out a fellow Martian?" > The details on that and how are unclear, but, it felt like a small nod of comraderie.
They can be enemies at a later time, hopefully never.
Flying in close to the surface to strike at that ineffible hand, the Dianthus goes from the hunter to the prey, as it directly strikes at her. Glaive at the ready, Lucine uses it to divert some of the hand's momentum, but it's a minuscule difference at best. The Dianthus is thrown back like a skipping stone against the ice, quickly reverting its course to fly upwards. < ".... Come get me!" > Lucine yells out, yellow eyes already shining, as she swipes in with a criss cross of swipes from her glaive.
She'll play the mosquito, if it wins some time to react for Yuliana.
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with CL0-V3 Glaive Dive! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage parry against Lucine Azul's CL0-V3 Glaive Dive! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Lucine Azul's CL0-V3 Glaive Dive, taking 2700 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Sayaka too, is grateful that they aren't facing such a terrible opponent alone, with familiar faces from the Gaia Gear Alpha and Svipul, Leina's Beguir, to NERV's Evangelion and Akashima, flanked by the Dianthus, the Sukeban Kiseki backing up Shari, and even Dawn of Fold's Sympatria Unit. If their forces combined aren't enough to hold back the Empress, what is?
Sayaka does smile back, when Yuliana says if anyone could warm this cold, it's her. "That's exactly what we'll do... and we'll do it together, Yuli," Sayaka agrees, about bringing warmth. "And we won't let Her take you, either." Even as the Empress threatens to do so... Yuliana shows a resolve of her own.
The micronized Elisa Kafim, too, makes her own efforts. If nothing else, to support Yuliana. No matter how Sayaka feels about her... they did agree to work with her. "...Understood, Dr. Kafim. We'll buy you some time." Sayaka grits her teeth then, as the Empress approaches. Or at least, a part of her. A hand alone, the size of entire dragons of the Void. "Here she comes!" Sayaka braces herself, as the Empress gives her the finger. How terribly rude.
At that speed, all of Sayaka's attention goes to defending against the Empress's attack - the Photon Barrier crackling as the Empress's finger clashes against it - a defense that barely withstands Her terrible might. "Tch..." It's not easy to focus, when reality is breaking down around you and your opponent is a giant moving Goddess hand.
"That was just a warm-up... wasn't it. But your biggest mistake, Empress, was coming this close. You should have stayed at home in the Void!" Sayaka pushes down on the control stick, Photon Power crackling. "RUST CYCLONE!" The vents below Aphrodite Areia's chest begin to whirl, and whirl, creating a storm of rust and metal that threatens to weather away even the finger of a God if it lands - or at the very least, give her the scale equivalent of many painful papercuts.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Rust Cyclone!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Yuliana speaks of herself, her responsibility - and Leina says with all due gravity, "And here I thought I was the drama kid - Pandora." Okay no she's definitely dragging her some, "Don't let such thoughts weigh you down, drive you to do anything stupid. If you want to take responsibility... then do it with a clear head."
The fingers come into view.
Again.
And as the edge of reality begins to rip, Leina realizes that she wants a piece of her too... just like Shari. As the Whispered activates the Tractor protocols to drag the Hand down.
I'll miss you
She tries to reach out but - the person she's reaching to can never hear her, not in that way. Not in the way she always wanted. She has words, and can use them... but in that moment, it all fades to static.
Again.
"... Go for the Gold, Doctor Kafim." Is her statement there, perhaps entreating the humanity she knows was overwritten - but is still there, still present beneath. "We'll do what we can."
As the hand comes close, Leina can feel her hate again and again and again
Knowing who she once was doesn't make it better. At first the thrusters fire to try and take her out of the way, but she underestimates the size of that hand, and eventually rises rapidly, as a leg latches on it's fingers, and inverted she runs upwards upon enormous digits, as she lays down her Beguir atop one of the fingers - skidding across the gap between two fingers.
That one joint gets caught for a moment, jerking the machine doesn't matter, she wrenches it out - damage or not, better than the alternative of getting caught in that strangling hand.
"Make it as big as you want... she's not yours to hold."
Maybe she can't understand the lesson, the sentiment now, but the Funnels which rise up from the back of the Beguir's rear armor suddenly slide up and beginning firing upon the hand point blank, as she runs, and leaps along it, trying to get higher, and higher.
And the beams keep firing, lancing as they slide up the hand of the Empress that was, but may not always be.
>maybe don't follow me here
She voices to texts back to Rena, as her unit leaps along the outside of that hand, beams still criss-crossing against Void... whatever this is!!!
>this is definitely the bad place
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation! KTS: You can only respond to Leaders with React. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage react against Sayaka Yumi's Rust Cyclone! KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Rust Cyclone, taking 3720 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi continues a Formation attack! KTS: Sayaka Yumi bypasses Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Guarding the next attack! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation, taking 3388 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"I will," Liam says, to Lucine. He meets his beloved's gaze as best as he can when they're both wearing crash helmets. "I love you." He's not sure how this will end, but he knows that much.
His lips thin, slightly, as Yuliana speaks. She doesn't sound wholly lucid at all, but: "I'm not her Liam," he says, "but you're right."
The breach widens into a tear. Reality starts to peel open like the skin of an orange. And from inside... a hand. Her hand.
Liam's throat constricts at the sight of it. It would be easier if it were simply monstrous, but he can see the remains of human physiology beneath the changes wrought by the Void. For a tiny fraction of a second, Liam stares, his thoughts shifting into a higher gear as he processes the horror before him. He knows who she is, now: Elisa-Kafim-that-was, from a future that no longer is.
As for Elisa-Kafim-that-is? She appears, macronized, in all her dread glory. Liam realizes that protecting her is now a secondary objective, and he can't help but smile.
The Akashima sets its feet. Its Pinpoint Barrier ignites, absorbing just enough of the initial impact to let it to catch the Empress' finger with its own comparatively-tiny hands. For a second, it holds. The machine's spiked feet grind through the ice as it keeps itself stable, but in the end, the Empress' strength wins out. The dismissive flick lands, denting in the Akashima's chestplate. It skids backwards, before Liam recovers, and braces it again.
"Hands off," Liam growls. He twists the yoke right. The Akashima's right hand sweeps up and pulls the Progressive Sword from its sheath. "Hands off me, and Lu, and everyone else!" As if determined to make good on this, the massive machine stomps forwards, and swings the weapon down at the offending finger.
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Elisa Kafim with Progressive Blade Slash! KTS: Liam 7-020's Tactical Intelligence activates Alert! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Liam 7-020's Progressive Blade Slash! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Liam 7-020's Progressive Blade Slash, taking 3510 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
It's easy to feel insignificant, compared to the vastness of the Void and the horrors of its denizen. Naoko isn't immune to that feeling. But everything changes, once she engages the Nova Driver. Once she feels its power, as directly as if it were flowing directly through her. Her words to Shari may have been mostly bluster, but with this, that confidence quickly becomes reality.
This helps also when contacted by Yuliana, now easily able to stay completely calm in her response. "Shari vouches for you, that's good enough for me to believe you. But, if Her influence were to force you to act outside of your control..." She leaves the sentence unfinished, hoping that she won't need to find out how she would finish it. And that she can keep her focus on where she knows it truly needs to be.
It doesn't mean she can't sound a bit more friendly when it's Anita who radios her. "Good to see you too - don't worry about me, we've been preparing for this, Shari and I." No word of a lie, even if they both know she's making their victory sound like more of a guarantee than anybody could possibly promise it will be. Whatever happens, though... she's certain that they couldn't have prepared any better than they have.
"...There you are," she speaks calmly when the horrific hand emerges, the terror that should grip her in that moment sliding off her as though warded off by an invisible barrier - which is at least partially true. Elisa, too, is here. This, too, can't quite feel reassuring, even if she knows their aims align today, and this will help keep things from escalating further.
That still leaves a giant monster hand to worry about. Sukeban Kiseki is fast enough to stay well out of direct striking range when it charges, though in its wake, voidborn creatures pour forth in a shape that very much resembles...
"Locusts? How appropriate. You are a plague on this world."
Naoko herself would be surprised if she reviewed the audio logs later and heard her voice so free of fear. Completely mentally composed, the Sukeban Kiseki forms a counter against the giant insects - its own swarm of green glowing discs, slicing through any who come near the Arm Slave.
"...and we're the cure," she completes her thought from a moment ago, she and her Arm Slave waving a hand forward, commanding the Saucers that remain following the altercation with the Locust to impact the hand itself wherever they can.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Phantom Saucers! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Naoko Suzuki's Phantom Saucers! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Phantom Saucers, taking 5040 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Naoko Suzuki continues a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa does not respond to various grimaces at her presence. This time.
But She Who Devours, the Hand of The Empress, must respond that deep, sea-blue light of the Gaia Gear, and it attempts to batter the blade away--only to take a terrible burn in the process.
There's a hiss of rage that echoes through the sky.
Elisa does respond to Kaworu. "As you say," she says, only to him in his cockpit. But it is a greater reassurance to her than the dubious gazes of many others. Even Leina, though, has more to offer her. And Elisa turns to look towards the Beguir without lowering her hands. "...I shall win," she assures her, and perhaps this is not the Goddess Manifest but the Olympian she once was.
Elisa knows full well what Yuliana knows, but it has not been said to her yet.
She Who Devours screams at Yuliana--and Yuliana shouts back.
Darkness calls to darkness--and the beam Emptear and Yuliana send is something that the Hand rushes towards, endeavoring to meet it head-on with a shriek of timeless rage. But as it moves, the Sympatria and the Hullbreacher breach the hull. The finger joint is not severed clean, but it is cut, and black ichor torrents outward suddenly in return. The hand shakes with the might of the blow.
A feeling of anger pulses from the portal.
Kaworu's rejection crushes more locusts outright, destroying an entire swath of them in a spare instant. The Hand's eyes turn immediately towards the iridescent light of Unit Beta.
AAnita's vulcans blaze through, and with a beam blade, slashes forward through the rest. The Hand and her locusts are unable to get out of the way, too large for this purpose. Too large for this world.
But the Dianthus and Lucine garner its attention, at least, for a few moments. The glaive hacks in--but physicality is less useful against the Thing from beyond, as geometry itself quails under the Empress's grip. ...Also in the Empress's grip is Leina and her Beguir, and point blank over and over she fires. Up, and up, and up--
She at least escapes the hand, but she'll be dragged with it in the next few moments. Meanwhile, Sayaka's Rust Cyclone wears and wears away teeth and carapace--not to nothing, but to less than it was. The whole hand shakes in anger and pain.
But it cannot speak any language that most here would know.
Liam, meanwhile, twists in his massive machine, stomping forward with his Progressive Blade--and hacks off a chunk of finger despite the strange warping effect that is true of all space around Her.
Many would agree with that assesment of Naoko's--of a plague on the world. And those saucers indeed 'curse' some of it, the hand's back crashed into again and again by those powerful weapons, breaking up chunks of blasphemous flesh and black ichor.
The Hand, it seems, will not forgive Yuliana, for it reches to grasp her if it can, and crush Emptear points and all, dragging Leina along if she doesn't drop off. One of the fingertip-jaws BITES at Leina's Beguir as soon as it's able.
A blast of dark magic will test Kaworu's Unit Beta, and her AT Field, thrown at her with great size and force. At that, a terrible emanation comes from the hand, a wicked spiral of Void energy in green-black that extends towards Sympatria, Sayaka, and Liam's units all, towards their hearts--towards their cockpits.
But Naoko's Light is answered by an eternal Darkness, as the tentacles stretching from void to hand wrench the portal almost imperceptibly further open. Only 'almost', though--because a terrible beam races through, the Empress's will made manifest to attempt to unmake Naoko's Sukeban Kiseki on the spot.
Elisa grits her teeth. "YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THIS WORLD!" she rages, and three tentacles wither, the hand losing some purchase... but not nearly, not nearly enough.
Lucine, too, feels the m ight of snapping jaws, horrific teeth the size of mobile suits crashing down against her.
Then, the Hand shoves at Anita, attempting to knock her back and away before she can do further--and tries to snap Rena up with Yuliana!!
Shari shouts, "Synchronicity at 100%! It's still coming!"
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Yuliana Kafim with Strangling Hand Strangle! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Bite! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Kaworu Nagisa with Saturnine Bolt! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sympatria Unit, Sayaka Yumi, and Liam 7-020 with Absolute Spiral! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Tenebrous Rift! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Strangling Hand Shove! KTS: Rena Lancaster's Newtype activates! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Strangling Hand Grip! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with Snap! KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Bite! KTS: Leina Ashta poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Bite, taking 4900 damage! KTS: Lucine Azul engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Snap! KTS: Critical Hit! Lucine Azul poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Snap, taking 4290 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to engage evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strangle! KTS: Yuliana Kafim moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strangle, taking 4680 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Yuliana Kafim, preventing her from Evading the next attack! KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta fails to engage evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Shove! KTS: Anita Rosetta moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Shove, taking 3960 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim repulses Anita Rosetta, preventing her from Charging the next attack! KTS: Rena Lancaster engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Grip! KTS: Best Defense! Rena Lancaster successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Grip, taking 0 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Tenebrous Rift! KTS: Naoko Suzuki's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Critical Hit! Naoko Suzuki poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Tenebrous Rift, taking 6534 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sympatria Unit engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral! KTS: Best Defense! Sympatria Unit successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi fails to engage react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral! KTS: Best Defense! Sayaka Yumi successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Sayaka Yumi, preventing her from Evading the next attack! KTS: Liam 7-020 fails to engage React against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral! KTS: Critical Hit! Liam 7-020 poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5394 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Liam 7-020, preventing him from Evading the next attack!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Where She will be... got it," Rena says, with a nod. Then she looks at Yuliana for a second -- and she nods. "Yeah. We are. You be careful, too."
Then, she swaps to Anita's private channel -- and she nods. "Yeah, I will. Promise."
Rena grimaces as the Empress's hiss echoes through the sky around them. She moves back from the Hand, as it strikes out -- and it reaches out for the Gaia Gear, after grasping at Emptear.
"Yuliana!" she cries out, even as she flies backward. "Get back!"
Then, she narrates a text to Leina:
>too late think i already did
Rena sucks a breath in. She exhales; dark blue motes of light pour out of the Gaia Gear, and cause the beam saber to grow wider and longer. Then, she sweeps the blade down across the Hand with a two-handed strike.
Then, the Gaia Gear rushes forward, too fast and trailing brilliant blue light.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Gaia Flash! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa engages block against Elisa Kafim's Saturnine Bolt! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa's Will Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa moderately blocks Elisa Kafim's Saturnine Bolt, taking 1750 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage parry against Rena Lancaster's Gaia Flash! KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Rena Lancaster's Gaia Flash, taking 6480 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster completes the Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I guess... everyone does," Yuliana sighs, on Kaworu's channel. "I just thought... it might stop Her. But you are right. She will no longer be assuaged merely by taking what She feels owed. Still, I..." She feels an obligation, but not so much that she finishes her sentence. Perhaps Kaworu knows.
"I -- may yet be moved. I cannot discount it. I am fighting, Nova," she assures Naoko, as well as she can. "I will fight."
But when She breaks through, She arrives with abandon. Anita told Yuliana to hang in there, and so she fights to get a grip on herself -- and manages to see, through Emptear's four eyes, #2's high-manoeuvrability gambit. (A blindfold over her own eyes is there to stop her from the madness of knowing herself in two places -- inhabiting Emptear's body, and her own.) "Fine work," she breathes.
It's only then that she remembers what Lucine said, and she straightens up, Emptear pointing at the Dianthus. "I'm not a Martian!" She exclaims, and count on bigotry to clear her head. "I mean -- that is -- I suppose the Orchid Cells are, but -- that's merely ten percent of me! S-so I'm only Martian on my father's side! And scarcely that! Anyway, those were ANCIENT Martians! So, so maybe it was entirely different back then! We don't know!!" Well, at least getting bothered about that means she's not screaming any more.
Is Sayaka still not going to let Her take her when she remains everyone's racist aunt?! ... no, even Yuliana only has to worry about that for a moment before she discounts it.
(Besides, it's Christmas. Having a racist aunt is tradition at this time of year.)
"My head's... clear," she reports, to Leina, remembering her words too. "Be careful, Leyasha. You have gotten so close!" But isn't that what Leina always does? Getting up close and personal with the horrors?
"... you'll excuse me," she adds, to Liam, something like an apology. "I wished to extend you the same courtesy of ours. How shall I speak of you in tandem?" That really shouldn't be hard, but at least she's asking him.
She feels Her anger, and it twists in her own gut, festering there like some old fermenting wine. "I will not say I am sorry," she hisses, turning to that grasping Hand again. "I am not sorry. I am not Yours!" But Rena cries out a warning, and Emptear tries to spring out of the way of Her grasp, informed by Rena's own senses rather than her own nonexistent early warning system -- but Her palm is vast, and She grasps Emptear as if she were a doll in the hands of a massive girl. "Nnnh!" She cries, because she feels the constriction and Her intent, even if Emptear doesn't transmit pain to the pilot.
"Reka!" She cries through her transmission, as Emptear writhes. "Beware! She grasps, to hold all in Her empire! It is as I feared -- Her greed and rage far extend me now! But -- I --"
She wrenches her elbows, trying to clear a little space in Her vast hand. "I am not yet beaten!" She cries, with enough boiling anger that she might even manage to make Sayaka a little proud. "EVENT HORIZON--!"
Crushing waves of gravity pour out from Emptear's hollow heart, in an effort to force Her fingers in towards her, to bind Her there for a critical moment and allow Rena's blade and the others to carve through.
She will... trust them to cut her out.
She can do that, can't she?
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Elisa Kafim with Event Horizon! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Yuliana Kafim's Event Horizon! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Yuliana Kafim's Event Horizon, taking 5040 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Naoko assures her that she and Shari have been preparing for this. No one might be able to promise victory... but they still have Anita's full trust.
"Then we'll be counting on you two. Go get 'er." Anita encourages with a grin. Her one-liner also gets a smirk.
Rena promises that she'll be careful, too - and Anita nods, offering her a smile.
The Svipul is half-way to its next perch - but the Hand moves to intervene. It shoves at the Svipul, and Anita is forced to quickly reorient. It just grazes her - but a graze here, from such a large entity, still results in the Svipul going spiraling.
Its jump jets fire to catch it, slowing its descent before it lands. It skids across the surface of the ice before it catches itself, then whirls to face She Who Devours once more. She spots the Hand grabbing for Rena.
"Rena!" Anita calls out - but exhales in relief. ...It looks like she's fine. But Anita isn't going to let that go unpunished.
"Not one-hundred percent what I planned, but... I'm gonna ask you to keep your Hand off of her." Anita mutters. The Gungnir SC charges, but only briefly, before sending a beam racing toward the Hand.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Elisa Kafim with Cannon Mode - Aimed Shot!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"You'd better." It is Leina needling her back some, and perhaps that's typically unwise with Elisa - but her pride as a person is important.
It's a part of her that can distinguish her from the guiding force behind this hand.
She has to keep a hold on who she is through all of this, and none of them know if she truly can - perhaps not even Elisa herself.
"Everything you care about is on the line."
The mouth extends out of one of the fingerjoints as Leina's Beguir passes by, and a moment of Newtype Intuition is all that saves her reactor from being bitten out.
>oh
>thats bad
Her voice to text function was still on to Rena, the text tone likely does NOT carry the same emphasis as her voice right now - as loud text is mercifully not known to such things.
That it's also accurate to how she feels about Rena getting close is beside the point.
It bites into her Beguir's hip, as she feels the cockpit partially warp on one side.
I feel your hate
Feeling that shadow of herself - that connection within the Psychoframe, it reaches out, and it's like another hand grasps that mouth, as the Beguir itself erupts in pink flames, wrenching it's jaws off of it's damaged hip with a sudden moment of kinetic force made manifest.
But never once
Never even once
Damaged as it is, it's thrusters fire to leap away from the mouth, jumping ever closer, towards... it's wrist.
"I need to get close." She explains, unapologetically to Yuliana, "I always do."
Because while it is always a double edged sword getting so close to someone, leaving one's self open to so much hurt... it's how she lives her life... by showing her how she feels.
The shield is lifted up, and as she does so, she grabs the Beam Saber, landing heavily against it, she latches ahold, and drives it right in.
Have I felt your love for her
And wrenches it out with more violence perhaps than she ever intended.
KTS: Leina Ashta's Ace of Dominicus activates! KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Standard Beam Saber Thrust! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Aimed Shot! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Aimed Shot, taking 4500 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Leina Ashta's Standard Beam Saber Thrust! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Leina Ashta's Standard Beam Saber Thrust, taking 3760 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
The Rust Cyclone does exactly as Sayaka intended, eliciting pain and anger that is universal, even if they do not speak the Empress's language. As if to say, if the Empress will continue to take that which is not Hers, they will draw blood in kind. But that anger does not push the Empress back - she turns it on them, launching an Absolute Spiral of the Void - a spiteful blast towards the cockpit.
"Watch out! That one was one of Elisa Kafim's most dangerous tricks-!" Sayaka warns. And though it was not Elisa who cast it this time, perhaps it's because of that familiarity of opposing the magic of the Void, that Sayaka knows how to respond to it, forcing Aphrodite Areia to make a sharp turn out of its radius. It's a move that doesn't leave Sayaka in a particularly favourable position, the ice that Aphrodite Areia now stands on beginning to crack and isolate from the frozen ground around her.
But you don't need a lot of ground mobility to do what Sayaka does next. "Don't think you're the only one who can use your fist as a weapon," Sayaka chides, Aphrodite Areia's arm aiming for whatever mass of the Hand she can reach. It makes that distinctive spinning motion that could only be a...
"ROCKET PUNCH!" Sayaka cries, in tandem with the fist that soars to clash with one that is so much grander in size. But it's only because of the gravity smashing EVENT HOIRZON that Yuliana fires, that Sayaka is able to get a lock on at all... and her heart does indeed swell with pride that they can fight together like this. (...Even if she is the racist aunt at the dinner table, that's a hatred that can be overcome easier than the Empress's.)
KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Aphrodite Rocket Punch! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Sayaka Yumi's Aphrodite Rocket Punch! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Aphrodite Rocket Punch, taking 3600 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
As they say. Because of that, there's no more need for words between Elisa and Kaworu. Inhuman friends with a nonetheless inescapable relationship with humanity, they've said all that needs saying at this point.
Unit Beta draws the attention of the Hand. This is by design. None of them will be able to escape Her attentions because that's simply the nature of this confrontation, but it would be good if Kaworu could ensure a little less of Her attention goes to the others. Whether or not he will ensure it remains to be seen. Contrary to Sayaka's shouts and shots to cleanly follow up on the Event Horizon, Naoko may not have the energy of a hot-blooded protagonist right now, but her scathing condemnation may cut hotter than any prog knife.
"I understand," he tells Yuliana gently. Could he really? Does he know? But then he continues, "I, too, have a bad habit of sacrificing my own happiness to protect the happiness of those I love. And She, too, is as aspect of someone you love."
There's no time for further conversation. The Hand projects Her will, black and furious, to smash against Unit Beta as it reaches for Emptear. Yuliana was of course right that She would go for her, but no one had any doubt about that. Unit Beta can't go to defend her; the force that She unleashes against her pins her where she is, forcing her to pour her light into the A.T. Field. Kaworu supports Unit Beta in that symbiotic relationship they have, and darkness coruscates against light.
The instant that it tapers off, she sweeps her hand around, silvery hair blowing in her wake. The A.T. Field cuts like a vast shining scalpel against the Hand, trying to cut off even more of it before it can successfully snatch up anyone else--to help cut Yuliana out of its grasp. Shari's warnings are more than ominous; they cannot afford to hold back.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Separation! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Enable Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Sympatria Unit has posed.
Anita's reply gets a response in turn from #2 - "Hah! Nice. Most of these people get too in the zone to appreciate a conversation!" which happens at approximately the time when she's attempting enforced yubitsume on the Hand.
As black ichor pulls out, the Hullbreacher snarls, the chain clogged - moving now slow enough to be seen, in bloody jerks. The shaking makes the BRC-2 stagger back, pulling the blade with it. The chain moves in fits and starts as it attempts to clear the obstruction by grinding it against the hullmetal of the blade cover.
"Damn it!" #2 huffs as the BRC-2 takes a leap back, then a second one. Some ports on the shoulders flick open - concealed backup weapons, perhaps - but before these can fire, there are more crises. The strange void-portal that #2 is only kind of looking at out of the corner of her eye irises open even further. #2 exhales in the time she can see a terrible beam reach out.
Elisa, the sorceress, she calls out denial. Something that flickers, not with shape as such but because the electronic sensors feeding the visual inputs for #2 cannot reliably image or register it, flies towards her.
For a moment she feels something that approaches fear. It is novel to her. Myriad simulated struggles are set aside for a moment in the face of this darkling curse, racing for her machine.
In the control room #6 shrieks, something artificial, directly into the microphone. She makes the same sound three times, and it is probably good that she is off by herself with only her sibling to hear her, because it is as though one threw scrap metal into an industrial shredder.
- 2 hears one of those shrieks -- and then the horrid ray coming towards her slows down, immensely, even as she hears #6 repeat herself. It's modulated, code that she can parse but which means nothing to her. The details elude her. She has a problem and she deals with it by drawing the BRC-2 into a deep and swift crouch, leaning forwards at the same time. It's close - the ray that aimed for the cockpit area almost brushes the BRC-2's head, and its passage is enough to corrupt the rough and ready matte black with only occasional red highlighting, leaving some metal with a greenish rime of corrosion atop it - but other than a ghostly flickering, the ray does not strike home.
"Fuh," #2 breathes.
"Hi this is an explanation which I'm putting in a big blurp so you understand because I could hear what Mz. Yumi said hold on she's a Doctor so she's Dr. Yumi but not that Dr. Yumi N E W H E Y the code was looping with the autonomous neuroaccelerator and anyway you probably need to hit people with your sword okay bye!" comes #6's third blurp-shriek, which, in the state of neuro-acceleration #2 is experiencing, actually breaks down to tinny if actual language.
(In the control room #6 groans from the sudden spike of head pain.)
- 2 shakes her head for a moment. She can tell the machine is about to topple forwards. One hand thrust out takes care of that. After that, push forwards. When the horrid spiral is revealed to be a singular thing, rather than (for right now) the harbinger of thousands more, the wordless grip in her brainstem loosens and things return to something nearer to ordinary time.
Finally the beam weapons fire, a sudden coruscating cascade of suppressing fire. "Should we be looking for an elbow to cut?" she says, her voice oddly sped-up but entirely comprehensible in the general chat.
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Kaworu Nagisa's Separation! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Separation, taking 3840 damage! KTS: Sympatria Unit targets Elisa Kafim with Energy Pulse! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Sympatria Unit's Energy Pulse! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sympatria Unit's Energy Pulse, taking 3150 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
She still bleeds, Liam thinks, as a chunk of the Empress' flesh falls to the ice. Good. Grim satisfaction ignites in Liam's heart. "Keep harrying her," he says, to Lucine. "Go for the eyes, if you can!" Which eyes? "Any of them!"
The Akashima sheathes its blade, and raises its right arm, bracing it with its left. "What--" is its pilot's eloquent response to Yuliana's sudden, oddly-lucid outburst. "Lu was trying to..." He's a little angry, but mostly baffled. "Never mind!" Liam has other things to worry about, like the sorcery Sayaka just pointed out. He grits his teeth, and braces his machine, ready to weather it like he's weathered Elisa's magics.
It's exactly like Elisa's power. It is nothing like Elisa's power. Darkness swallows the Akashima. Its Pinpoint Barrier flickers, here and there, like fireworks going off in the gloom--then there's nothing.
In the cockpit, Liam bites the inside of his cheek, and grips the yokes until his knuckles turn white. The cold bites right through his suit. The others feel like they're miles away. He could drown in this, if he let himself. But he made promises, and there's a world out there, and a place for him in it. He pushes on the yokes, and the Akashima strides forwards. There's solid ground beneath it, and that solid ground gives way to actual green ice a step or two later.
The Balor stalks out of the Void-storm. It looks like it's been sandblasted down to the understructure, in places. In others, the armor has been warped into undulating curves or strange angles. In its cockpit, Liam sucks in air like he'd been drowning mere moments earlier. His hands feel on the verge of frostbite. He looks down at the smaller MS with the MS-sized sword, then over at Aphrodite Ariea, and calculates a few angles.
"Clear my forward arc!" Liam cries, "I'm warming this thing up!" What is 'this thing'? That would be the Balor's main gun, which looks like it was removed from a cruiser, and reconfigured to fit on the Akashima's arm. Because it sort of was. Brilliant light gathers in the aperture of the beam cannon, and discharges a moment later, in a blinding burst of Minovsky fire. Liam 'walks' the beam across the back of the Hand, where the tendons would be in a normal person. Liam chances a second shot when the hand tilts upwards, aiming at where the carpal tunnel would go. Cut those, and it shouldn't work. Right?
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Elisa Kafim with EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Focus Fire! KTS: Liam 7-020's Tactical Intelligence activates Alert! KTS: Can't find an attack from lilam. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Focus Fire! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Focus Fire, taking 4200 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 bypasses Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Guarding the next attack!
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
< "I love you too, Liam..." > The visors may make it harder to see, but the way she smiles, and the way it shifts her cheeks makes it as clear as if she was sitting next to him on the couch, with no visors between them. Or miles of space, for that matter.
The visor does make that slight blush to Lucine's cheeks a little less visible, as she realizes-- < "... A-ah, right, he's Liam! Just Liam is fine--" > Wait, if she's trying to correct Yuliana on how to address Liam, doesn't that send the same message? < "T-that is, ah, what he said!!" >
It's a mundane respite. Yuliana means well. Lucine tries her best to stifle a grin at her remarks about Mars. < "... We'll have time to iron out those details. Just know that I'm with you." >
A common enemy makes allies of all.
Hatred.... Lucine feels it too, like Leina, as well as something else. Danger pricks along Lucine's scalp. Her eyes widen. < "Watch out!!" > The yell is too complusive, too late, and too undirected to be of much use to Liam, Sayaka, and Sympatria's units; the latter two she only realizes when that storm of Void energy erupts towads them.
That fear is momentairely abated by the Akashima's emergence, but she still doesn't know about the other two.
< "Shit--!" > Those jaws come down to crush on the tiny Dianthus, sending sparks flying as she manages to pilot out of that grip to the song of wailing sirens. < ".... Liam, coming over to where you are for support!" > That was too close for her comfort.
Hovering over the Akashima's shoulder as Liam readies his rifle, Lucine readies her own. She'll aim for the eyes, as Liam recommended, and help make way for his blast.
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul's Morning Star activates! KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe! KTS: Elisa Kafim engages evade against Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe, taking 4000 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko would dearly like to blame something else for what happens next. Whatever else is convenient, like... shock, at Yuliana actually calling her by name. Well, her other name, the only one she gave most people. Still, she was expecting some kind of insult, this doesn't feel right at all.
But no, what happens next is purely because of being fully focused on the assault against the obvious opponent. The not-so-obvious down side to keeping herself isolated from the Void's influence makes that a problem. Without that, she may have been able to feel the eyes on her from beyond the rift. As it is, her intuition only kicks in after a beam of darkness has already been sent her way - too late to avoid it, as the small mech is entirely engulfed by that destructive force.
...Or so it appeared. The Arm Slave did move, not far enough to escape the beam, but between that and its Void-warding barrier, enough to not be outright obliterated by it. Though its armor does appear crumpled - an odd kind of damage considering the nature of the attack, the result of a struggle of wills. Thankfully, Naoko has a little assistance in that regard.
>"Nova! Are you alright? We'll have to keep monitoring the portal activity, too!"<
Brow covered in sweat after the mental exertion it took to... effectively, refuse to die, Naoko shouts back to her AI co-pilot, "I'm not the one with eyes everywhere, how am I supposed to divide my attention between two things that far apart?"
>"You don't gotta just watch, why not give both sides something to chew on?"<
"Ugh, you make it sound so easy. I can't be in two places at once!"
As soon as the words leave her lips, she realizes the nature of the machine she's in. Of course she can't do that, as long as she doesn't believe she can. A grin finds its way to her face.
"...Or can I?"
Naoko takes a deep breath, focusing her mind, and once she releases that breath... It very much appears as if Sukeban Kiseki just split in two - both machines colored entirely green, like some kind of energy-based echo of the original, each shooting off in a different direction at high speed. One charges directly at the hand, striking with its palm against one of its fingers in the world's most mis-matched high-five attempt - causing an explosion on impact. The other streaks towards the portal, firing off a quick series of beams from its visor to forcefully disincentivise the tentacles from their activities, hoping to prevent or at least delay another attack from beyond.
...The question is, which one is the real Sukeban Kiseki? Or are they both the projections they appear to be, in which case... where did the real one go?
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Shadow Scramble! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Naoko Suzuki's Shadow Scramble! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Shadow Scramble, taking 4425 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Yuliana--Emptear--their combined Power is enough to hold the cruiser-sized Hand in place for just long enough. It means that the hand is trapped for critical moments. One: The Gaia Gear is too fast to avoid with its terrific swipe; a two-handed blade carves across what passes for the Hand's flesh. She Who Devours rages all the harder, and Anita punishes Her. A beam races to the Hand--and it can only tense against it. The same with Leina's beam Saber that drives in and wrenches out again.
A wave of raw hatred and fury blazes from the Portal for Leina. Images of her being torn apart race into the minds of those sensitive enough.
"...All this creature is... is rage," Elisa says, echoing on radios. "And yet, it is not so different from my beginning." She narrows her eyes. "But I am the stronger Will. Your wife is DEAD! Do You hear me!? DEAD! And so shall You be!"
Sayaka advises that she watch out, and Elisa adds, "She would have all of the powers that She invested in me. But we have greater power yet!"
Sayaka THROWS HAND--literally, almost, and the rocket punch that crashes towards She Who Devours crashes against her. Even the spatial warping of its body cannot fully deal with the harm it inflicts. It has even less hope of contesting with Kaworu and Unit Beta's more esoteric assault. After all, She has so rarely had to contest with alien Entities. ...But that's probably not relevant, is it? What is relevant is that Kaworu cuts Yuliana free, even as the Hand begins to escape the bounds of the Event Horizon.
Suppressing fire forces Her away further, thanks to the Sympatrias, and her question is answered by Shari. "She had to cut off Her hand to get it through--She probably has a bunch of the damned things."
And Naoko's mighty Sukeban is suddenly two, and the hand cannot defend properly against both. While its armor is still powerful, the tentacles that she targets writhe in pain and fall to the ice with a thunderous crash and a crater of Void-aspected frost.
Liam, Lucine, and Aanita and their units become the subjects of particular hatred in the next moment, of waves of terrible waves of Power that will interfere with all operations. Naoko also receives hatred--and attempt of the fingers to BITE down at her unit, the Sukeban Kiseki taking teeth for her troubles. From there, a few more gigantic tentacles break off of the portal--and instead try to grip Sympatria's unit, attempting to rip it apart outright. At the same time, the whole Hand attempts to shove Kaworu back with a hard slap.
From here, the hand and three tentacles attempt to crush the life out of Sayaka's Aphrodite Areia this time, attemping to grab hold and SQUEEZE.
Lucine shoots out an eye. It's only one of many, but it pours 'blood' all over. The blinded eye looses blach ichor towards Rena's Gaia Gear rather than towards the Dianthus, through happenstance or malice or both. The locusts attempt to bite through and eat away at the Gaia Gear to claim the life and power that lies inside.
And Emptear's mighty form is finally asssaulted by a knuckle wrenching itself free of the Hand, She Who Devours throwing the whole fingertip mouth at all straight for Emptear!
But Shari's voice comes, "Look out! It's charging something big! If it overwhelms my jamming...!"
Well. That would be bad.
KTS: [Spirit Defense] Naoko Suzuki's Mental Sentinels activates, and the spirit endures. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Daunt Spirit Command targeting Naoko Suzuki KTS: Elisa Kafim: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul, Liam 7-020, and Anita Rosetta with Jam L1! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Bite! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sympatria Unit with Calamitous Grasp! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Kaworu Nagisa with Strangling Hand Crush! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Strangling Hand Strangle! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Locust Vents- Plague! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Yuliana Kafim with Bite! KTS: Rena Lancaster fails to engage evade against Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents- Plague! KTS: [Mirage] Rena Lancaster's Voidframe activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Best Defense! Rena Lancaster successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents- Plague, taking 0 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim rattles Rena Lancaster, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Locust Vents - Swarm! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to engage evade against Elisa Kafim's Bite! KTS: Yuliana Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Bite, taking 4400 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta engages intercept against Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Swarm! KTS: Best Defense! Leina Ashta successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Locust Vents - Swarm, taking 0 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Bite! KTS: Naoko Suzuki's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Naoko Suzuki successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Bite, taking 3960 damage! KTS: Sympatria Unit has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Sympatria Unit engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Calamitous Grasp! KTS: Best Defense! Sympatria Unit moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Calamitous Grasp, taking 0 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 accepts Elisa Kafim's Jam L1! KTS: Best Defense! Liam 7-020 successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Jam L1, taking 0 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020's The Hound activates! KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta accepts Elisa Kafim's Jam L1! KTS: Best Defense! Anita Rosetta successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Jam L1, taking 0 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I'm all right!" Rena calls back ato Anita. "Not what any of us planned, exactly, is it?"
The Hand's eye blinks out vile black ichor--
--and the Gaia Gear, in a flash of green light, is suddenly in two places at once. The spray shoots between them; then, they recombine together.
The Emptear is gripped in the Empress's Hand. Rena freezes up for a moment -- and Yuliana trusts her, to cut her free. There is a moment's hesitation; Rena isn't proud of that. Even after their recent conversation...
But it's hesitation that she overcomes.
She sends a quick message to Leina; it doesn't have her concern in the tone.
>not ideal no.
Rena swings back the beam saber -- and dives in, slashing the blade down for the fingers about the Emptear in a wide arc.
KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Arc Impulse! KTS: Sayaka Yumi engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strangle! KTS: Sayaka Yumi poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Strangle, taking 5200 damage! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Trust Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana doesn't know Nova's real name, but she extends her what consideration she can.
... has the Empress ever felt love for Yuliana -- not obsession, not desire, not appropriation nor possession, but love? Perhaps Her feelings are too warped by Her grief, out there, all alone.
"I know," Yuliana says, to Leina, who needs to get close to these horrors. "But," she adds, a new addition, "... take care of yourself." She can hear her, out there, striking at the Empress's hand -- and Anita, too. It's not quite what they planned, but here they are.
Yuliana speaks the Empress's language -- but she does not, today. She forces Her to heed their words, unwarped by countless aeons and a shockingly short time simultaneously. "The Empress may share Elya's magics," she says, boastful, to Sayaka, "but She cannot compare to my wife! Nor her fist to Rocket Punch!" It's sheer bravado, of course -- She is very much comparing to the both of their might -- but Yuliana holds fast to her defiance, in an effort to ward off the feelings wrapped around her mech and her heart.
"I thought I loved Her," Yuliana says, and responds to Kaworu on an open channel, now. "But She loved only the idea of who I was, a world ago. I rejected that woman -- and now I fear I am no use to Her, save a model She might repurpose into a suiting vessel for Her suitor. Though that woman is dead," she echoes her wife's scorn, at the end. Perhaps her response to him is a response to Leina, too -- though she can't know that.
Thankfully, Kaworu carves her free -- and Emptear hurries away from the Empress's grasp. "Thank you," she says, to him and the others. "I scarce enjoy being held by Her. She is," her breath wobbles, a little, her anxiety creeping through the edges, "far too rough." It's one way to put it.
"Her -- her elbow may be miles inside the Void," Yuliana starts, once she's free, responding to Sympatria #2. "Her anatomy is only passingly similar to ours. I have seen arms which join and join again, with a dozen wrists and their own fingers. She broke Herself upon the Void, and so She spread Herself across it."
Liam insists Lucine was trying, but Lucine is still trying, even after Yuliana's denial. "Just Liam, then," she agrees, easily enough. "And -- I am glad you are with me, Lucine." Even if she is a Spacenoid, she came to help. That's not nothing, even to Yuliana's gaze. (Hey, Rena and Leina are RIGHT THERE!)
But Sayaka isn't the only one who can throw hands. The Empress's own maw wrenches itself free of Her, and Yuliana yelps, as she tries to leap away again. She's not quite fast enough -- but luckily, Rena could tell there was danger, again, and she carves in. "Reka!" She exclaims, when her beam saber slices down. "Thank goodness... I'll leave it to you. Shari is right -- She is preparing a great assault -- I must begin the dance to close this place!"
She takes her dancer's cloth, and begins to twirl, the great, steel-as-silk ribbon fluttering above her head. "Waltz For The Void!" She declares, as that ribbon batters at any part of Her which tries to come close.
But she will need time to build her performance, too.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Elisa Kafim with Waltz For The Void! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa engages guard against Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Crush! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa successfully guards Elisa Kafim's Strangling Hand Crush, taking 5015 damage! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Liam 7-020 KTS: Lucine Azul accepts Elisa Kafim's Jam L1! KTS: Best Defense! Lucine Azul successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Jam L1, taking 0 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim engages guard against Rena Lancaster's Arc Impulse! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully guards Rena Lancaster's Arc Impulse, taking 5270 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Yuliana Kafim's Waltz For The Void! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Yuliana Kafim's Waltz For The Void, taking 3300 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Sympatria Unit has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Lucine Azul
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"What can I say, I like to keep things light." Anita replies to Sympatria #2 with a casual shrug. She's always been easy-going... that that isn't to say she doesn't approach the situation with the seriousness it deserves. It helps keep her head clear and focused.
"Ain't that the truth." Anita replies to Rena with a smirk.
Yuliana speaks of the Empress, and what she wants. Anita thinks on that for a moment.
"Well... you're more than what she wants out of you. The past is the past - and it ought to stay there." Anita says. 'Past' is relative, of course, but the sentiment remains.
Anita turns back to the Hand, then - and she finds a terrible hatred pouring over her machine, Power that suppresses and interferes. Anita grits her teeth, seizing the controls tightly.
"I'm not gonna be stopped like this..." She mutters. Hatred won't hold her back - but it does mean she'll have to shift her focus.
The visor lowers over her eyes. There's a certain risk to interfacing with the Svipul while the Hand is interfering with its systems... but the Visual Link System, now, may be the key to powering through it. And if the Empress is truly preparing such a powerful attack, then now's the time to take what risks they can in order to forestall it.
"Right behind you, Rena... here I go!" Anita says. The Svipul kicks off the ground, transforming into Fighter Mode. There's a bit of lag, but she helps compensate for it with her movements. She can't lock in, so she blindfires the Svipul's missiles toward the Hand as Rena closes in on it - then, using the blasts for cover, converts back into Battroid Mode midflight and draws the Gungnir SC from its mount. The beam blade crackles to life.
With the momentum from her flight still carrying her Anita sweeps the beam spear toward the hand twice, then tucks into a roll to make the landing.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Elisa Kafim with Explosive Advance! KTS: Elisa Kafim engages guard against Anita Rosetta's Explosive Advance! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully guards Anita Rosetta's Explosive Advance, taking 4960 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta completes the Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"'Take care of myself'? Excuse me, I am the responsible member of the family." Leina answers, and perhaps this is true, compared to her own mother and Judau and the other members of her extended family.
"I can't die while I have starving cats at home that have never once been fed."
And that now includes Sokrova, who like all cats, has never once-!
>we'll be okay
>we've been through worse
>remember the time glemy made us sing the zeon anthem
She could have picked that time Rena got eaten by Newtype Crystals but no - no that isn't even on the same scale of horror.
The wave of raw hate and fury blazes across her - and Leina remembers the first time she felt the Empress - what Shari told her, about being taken apart, and put together.
Over and over again
It's so much that she nearly swoons outright - but it's not her first time, nor her second, nor her third time. You see Yuliana - getting close always had purpose.
It's like taking small doses of poison, over and over.
You know exactly how much energy it takes to hate
And beyond the hate are the locusts - to which the funnels respond by burning great swaths across them, sending their bodies scattering and dissipating into wisps of void stuff as they splatter upon the Empress' hand and fall down further.
It's so much
The Beguir leaps again, haphazardly due to it's wounded hip joint, as it pivots around, it's thrusters fluidly jerking it sideways until she lands upon the hand once again, this time upon where palm meets wrist of those two long fingers, and the claws latch down.
And it's rifle burns bright, glowing enough that despite it being small, it can be seen through the green of the hand upon the other side with a crackling Minovsky charge - backed up by just a nudge of Newtype Power.
That you have nothing else to offer her
The trigger is pulled - and while it's difficult to understand if it's flesh that will burn or not - something will burn. She's seeing to that, with everything she has.
A bright blast at point blank range, that will drive through the hand entire, like a forced stigmata.
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Sympatria Unit has posed.
All this creature is, is rage, Elisa tells them. The words reach #2 in her throne and #6 and #7 in their comms room; all that it is.
- 2 hears about wives. She recalls this datum - Elisa and Yuliana are married. The hand was severed to come here, she thinks. That's good. How many hands does she have? Well, decrement by one, she thinks further. Yuliana gets a "Long walk to get it, then," in reply, before she raises up the Hullbreacher--
Something's coming. The tentacles lashing towards her from that crack in the void ripple and once again the BRC-2 avoids them; a repeat of that ground-pull strategy, striking the thick ice that the Void's presence has put inside of the wounded Earth, dragging itself forwards faster than the tentacles can accomodate. They breach the already-damaged ice as #2 laughs with scorn, looking over her shoulder -
But she doesn't say anything.
She sees the others, nearer to the hand. Cracks. Rising fumes that are not steam from mechanisms superheating incidental rime and ice. Pain. Suffering.
She speaks in that same muffled shriek-blurt way into the radio. +Seven, what's up with them? Am I missing something?+
A reply comes from #7 quickly. +Their reaction times aren't near yours. The tall and thin one's got some shield I don't understand. They seem to be doing the best I could expect.+
Shari cries out in dismay, concern. #2 blip-shrieks again: +What happens if she loses her jamming??+
- 7 replies, serenely: +I think it is likely that we shall all die.+ (In the background: +WHAT???????+ from #6)
A full second passes.
+Copy,+ #2 blips, and then she speaks with the legacy voice system:
"GET THE HELL OFF THOSE HUMANS, SPACE MONSTER!"
The Hullbreacher is hefted upwards, held with one on the grip and the case resting in the other. The BRC-2 sheds steam behind it as the reactor cycles into a higher power state, the waste heat, at least, shedding quite nicely in the superchilled atmosphere.
This time the machine uses its own legs, and though they are not quite in graceful proportion, they are powerful and swift. Charging, the Hullbreacher screams as it's swung back, #2 letting out a wordless bellow of challenge as she closes the distance towards the distorted shape of the Hand, even as it reaches for the 'tall thin one'. Fifty yards away she leaps, and at twenty yards she swings, because it's seventeen yards by the time the blade has swung downwards.
Cross-vectors of motion combined with supersonic cutting chains snarl as #2 brings the weapon back for another strike, brutal and undignified two-handed chops at the 'meat' of the hand as she digs up one foot to let the pull of the chain pull the FORCE YOUR WAY up higher. Once she has mounted the creature, she adds to her challenge while the blade rises:
"PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE,"
Which may not be factually helpful... but she's got the spirit; and that spirit is guiding her to continue those two handed full-swing chops, now at the 'knuckles' of the Hand's 'fingers'. Angry snarling, this time from good honest machinery instead of unknowable entities of a parallel yet unclean angle in reality, fills the air. At the end, the BRC-2's head, still corroding faintly from that near miss, whips around and looks at the void.
"YOU HEARD ME!"
- 2 concludes, before leaning back and STABBING the blade down, aiming to sink the snarling powered weapon into the meat between the two centermost knuckles. To dig it down and to swing it backwards.
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Beguir Neuer Claw and Rifle Combination - Crusade! KTS: Sympatria Unit has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Sympatria Unit has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Sympatria Unit targets Elisa Kafim with Hullbreacher - CONTINUOUS ASSAULT!
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The observation Leina makes about the Empress and Her feelings is the observation, isn't it? That She is full of hatred and not love. The way things were last time around for her and Yuliana is very different from how they are now; Kaworu is not without sympathy for Her. But it is true, and the Empress only proves it that much truer with those psychic emanations of Leina torn to shreds. It's really less sympathy and more pity for a shambling creation that has lost its heart and mind.
Elisa shouts her own rage back at the being that is and is not her. "Be at peace. We will see You to Your rest," he transmits to the Empress but not hidden from any other transmissions, a gentler echo of Elisa's sentiments.
Yuliana, too, speaks of what she thought was love--of how that love has changed from the last universe to this one. Kaworu listens, gaze briefly distant, particularly as Anita remarks that the past is the past. His mind is still present for Yuliana's words of gratitude, though. "I see," he replies. "I'm glad you've freed yourself, then." He--and many others, Rena's brief hesitation notwithstanding--only provided a means to that end, both just now and for quite some time now. "Now we must all free our world from Her... roughness."
The power of the A.T. Field is not usually described as magic, but compared to the nature of other types of weapons and defenses, that's really all it can be considered. It makes it an excellent counter to the magic of the Hand. This remains true even when it whirls around to give Unit Beta a resounding SLAP that forces it back even with the A.T. Field's defenses and sends it crashing a significant ways back, hard into green ice. Within her entry plug, Kaworu is slammed back, then down; were he a normal human, he'd have gotten terrible whiplash at the very least. Compared to what those tentacles are doing to the Sympatrias and Sayaka, though, he got off positively light.
He breathes the LCL in and out in unnecessary waves, then raises his gaze up towards the others. He hears Shari's warning. Even without it, he can feel that pressure building between dimensions, the hatred that continues to emanate outwards to potentially disabled various units. He bids Unit Beta rise, and she does, long straight hair swaying as she stands. Her pylon thrusters, through which she projects her wings, arch--but rather than manifesting her A.T. wings, points of brilliant light-of-her-heart flash around her in rapid sequence. She extends a hand of her own, fingers splayed, and they fly forth like shooting stars to bombard the Hand--and further up the Wrist, where it might join with the rift--with their force, to potentially interrupt that charge.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Longing! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Claw and Rifle Combination - Crusade! KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Claw and Rifle Combination - Crusade, taking 6030 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Sympatria Unit's Hullbreacher - CONTINUOUS ASSAULT! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sympatria Unit's Hullbreacher - CONTINUOUS ASSAULT, taking 4500 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"You're definitely right about that," Sayaka agrees with a grin, to both Yuliana, and Elisa herself - that they all have power capable of surpassing the Empress, as boastful as it may be. "And that's not all we've got, either. So let's show her what else we can do!" But despite the power of Rocket Punch, and everyone else's attacks - the Empress's Hand yet fights.
And having been backed into a corner as she has, Sayaka can't quite react to those crushing tentacles - so much less adorable than the ones attached to Yuliana - smash towards Aphrodite Areia, as if to to crush Super Alloy Z into dust. They wrap around the torso of the slender machine and squeeze - a lethal attack had Aphrodite Areia been a conventional mobile suit. But Aphrodite Areia is no mobile suit, and her Pilder sits in the head. That leverage is barely enough for Sayaka to wrench herself from its grasp in time.
"I'm all right!" Sayaka confirms to her nearby allies - to Liam and Lucine, and the Sympatria Unit - who act as a shield with their massive blade. She sees Rena and Anita both charge in. Kaworu's AT field extending for defense and offense. And Leina... who sacrificed so much for Yuliana's sake. "If she's got something up her... sleeve as big as Shari says, then I say we send her off before she can even try it." The wings that hold up Aphrodite Areia convert into a massive crossbow, crackling with Photon Energy as Sayaka takes aim one last time. "I'll cover you, whatever it takes. So give it your all, everyone!"
And Yuliana, in Emptear, dances... and Sayaka understands the significance of it. She understands what happened the last time she waltzed with Emptear. But this isn't last time - and it's why they're here. "I'm trusting you, Yuliana... make this count." She breathes, focusing the actual physical targeting scope inside the Pilder on the center of She Who Devours. "ARTEMIS ARROW - GO!" She shouts - as a thin beam of golden Photon Power rockets forth, threatening to strike right through, as if to sear a perfect hole in that Hand.
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Kaworu Nagisa's Longing! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Longing, taking 4875 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Artemis Final Arrow!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Yuliana was right, of course. The Empress' physiology barely acknowledges human anatomy. Liam's strike isn't the disabling blow he prayed for, but it cuts in nevertheless. "That woman is dead," Liam echoes. Hearing Yuliana rebuke the being who tormented her makes him feel stronger, too. "Your wife is DEAD!" A split-second click of a control sends his voice pouring out of the Akashima's loudspeaker, for all the Void to hear. "And I won't EVER let you torture anyone else, ever again!"
The Empress' hate pours into this realm, an ice-cold wave more horrific than her sorcery. It crystallizes inside Liam's mind. It clouds the panoramic display with static. Liam swears in Gaeilge under his breath--still on-speaker--and then barks out something to #2 and Sayaka.
"She hates me so much my board's fucked up! Gonna need a second to reboot!" The Balor settles into a low, hunched stance, bracing itself. Steam pours off its gun-arm as Liam crosses it across its chest. He sucks in a breath, and pops open the compartment to his right. He holds down one button, presses another, and initiates a hard reset.
The panorama dies. For a few moments, Liam is blind to the outside world. The distant, muffled sounds of battle reverberate through the Akashima's hull. The machine rocks from side to side. Liam waits, heart in his throat, until the HUD lights back up again. His right hand darts onto the console, typing in commands he's memorized for such an occasion.
The display sharpens until it's almost normal. The fact that it's labeling everything as hostile--thanks, Empress, Liam thinks--is something he can work with. There's just one hostile here, and he knows who it is.
"Positron cannon ready to fire!" Liam cries. "Lu, sword lady, stay away from the wrist!" The Balor rises to its full, towering height, and braces its glowing cannon-arm as it drops into a stabler firing stance. There's the dull, crackling hum of a containment field igniting, and then comes the light.
It's blinding, obliterating. The stream of antimatter pours from the weapon's barrel, barely-contained by the expanding field; the air itself is obliterated, in a very narrow band, and the impossible energy of its annihilation amplifies the cycle.
KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Elisa Kafim with EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - The Terrible Gaze! KTS: Liam 7-020's Tactical Intelligence activates Trick!
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
The Dianthus's dashboard is alive with a myriad of warnings and whistles. Meanwhile, in the pilot's head is the calm of adrenaline, each twist of her face a complusive grimace to force her head to circulate blood, as the Dianthus whips around.
It's just in time, as something hateful and, to borrow the spirit of Kaworu's words, rough, settles on the Dianthus. Nothing seems to have changed in the Dianthus's readouts, but the pilot herself...
It's always been easy to separate her own emotions from the emotions she perceives from others, unless they run alongside what she feels already.
But could that be seen as a drawback, to feel that immense anger, and understand that you, the tiny insect, are also so very
very
angry?
A minuscule bit of blood drips from Lucine's nose as she straightens. Fingers complusively fumble numbly against the barrier of her visor to attempt to rub that tickle away.
'Pick on someone your own size,' says #2.
Lucine didn't get the memo.
The Dianthus raises high in the artic air, a magenta dot against that field glistening unnatural green.
The glaive is ready. Her talons are out. The little hawk is ready to fly.
The pilot of the Dianthus shrieks. It's not one of fear, but an enraged battlecry.
Liam did what was likely the most rational reaction, which was rebooting his systems to ensure he's not affected.
Again, Lucine didn't get the memo.
.... _she is the memo._
< "You have me at my best, so TAKE ALL OF IT!" >
The glaive may not be long enough to punch through that meat(?) and muscle(?), but the Dianthus will give it all it has, in order to stab that massive hand and pin it to the ground.
She's avoiding the wrist at least, but it'll be hard for the Dianthus to wrench that glaive free in time for whatever might be coming next.
..... Like what Shari is warning about.
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with CL0-V3 Glaive Dragoon!
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
The question of Which Sukeban Is Real doesn't linger for very long. Following its barrage of the tentacles near the portal, that Sukeban rapidly loses cohesion, coming apart and dispersing into motes of green light. While the one that struck the hand, when it's answered by teeth... Naoko yelps, as that Sukeban rapidly retreats, trailing the same motes of green as it sheds its energy shroud, revealing that it's very much the real thing.
"Lucky guess," she grumbles, damage thankfully kept under control due to the omni-directional barrier that briefly flashes into the visible spectrum when struck. Physically, as well as mentally - Naoko detects the hatred sent her way, but it fails to affect her very strongly. As fragile as the Sukeban Kiseki looks, doubly so in its current crumpled condition, it still stands as a fortress against these aspects of the Void, specifically constructed to oppose them as it was.
Thanks to the brief reprieve in the wake of her retreat, Shari's warning is received loud and clear. Naoko understands the difference made by those jamming efforts better than most, and can picture quite clearly what could happen if they were to suddenly fall away. Simply put: that can't be allowed to happen. So they have to definitively deal with the problem right here and now. Which she communicates in so many words through the private channel she maintains with the other Whispered.
"...I'm going to put everything I have into this. Give it everything you've got too, Shari!"
There's nothing else for it, and nothing else to say. Sukeban Kiseki braces itself, and extends its right arm. When the enemy is a giant severed hand, there can only be one answer.
"SPECTRAL... ROCKET... PUUUUUUNCH!!"
With that, the Arm Slave launches its tiny, tiny fist... surrounded by a huge, huge green energy projection of the same fist, to collide upon the other hand's knuckles with all the force one would expect of an equally large fist - culminating in an explosion, to boot.
Following this, the small hand at the center of it all almost lazily returns to reattach to the Sukeban Kiseki's arm, without any fanfare. Perhaps the strangest part of it all is that in the wake of what appeared to be a massive discharge, there was so little recoil that the Arm Slave didn't move back even an inch - while standing on ice.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Spectral Rocket Punch! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Sayaka Yumi's Artemis Final Arrow! KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Artemis Final Arrow, taking 4960 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - The Terrible Gaze! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - The Terrible Gaze, taking 4725 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim engages guard against Lucine Azul's CL0-V3 Glaive Dragoon! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully guards Lucine Azul's CL0-V3 Glaive Dragoon, taking 4400 damage! KTS: Lucine Azul roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable. Set Hitpoints to 1? [Enter `yes' or `no'] Your Hitpoints are now 1
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Naoko Suzuki's Spectral Rocket Punch! KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Spectral Rocket Punch, taking 5250 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim has been defeated!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Rena's dive sees a finger hacked through, almost but not quite severed by her own might. Maybe none of this is what they planned, but it's working. And more than that, it frees Yuliana once again. Yuliana, who has much to say... and more to do. The danger that she represents to the Hand's mission is clear and present: the Hand immediately turns towards the dancing Emptear, and indeed--there are parts of Her that do try to come close. They are battered, at first--
And then shot, and then stabbed, as Anita and the Svipul forcefully, expolosively advance, pouring her own energy and ehr own targeting in.
The hand is then clawed and blasted--a hole straight through the hand's back. And Leina, in another way, triumphs: what she says... is perhaps the ultimate convincing. To many, it makes it clear.
To the Empress, it is rage and rage multiplied, all the Hate she can muster starting to focus, starting to gather.
...And in the next moment, another with a unique experience of Time rides forth. She Who Devours does not reply.
But the Empress hears. That much is sure.
And also sure is the way that the Hullbreacher carves into the meat of the hand, chops and chops and chops against another knuckle, and another.
The Empress is not at peace. But for a strange, spare instant, there is something other than hatred at Kaworu: he may feel it, if no one else can. it is... confusion.
But it fades in an instant once again to rage, as Unit Beta targets the Wrist as well as the Hand with terrible explosions.
Sayaka Yumi is all right. She is not finished. The massive crosssbow crackling with Photon Energy sends out the Artemis Arrow--and sears another hole through the hand entire. Liam's words are bold, then. His moves, too, are bold, as the Balor rises up--and fires antimatter, obliterating air itself. And it seems that to manifest in this realm, the Empress must use crude matter--because it, too, begins to react to the beam. The Dianthus, meanwhile, with Lucine--they give all that they can. She pins the hand to the ground, and indeed, she cannot wrench herself free for what comes next.
"Naoko!" Shari calls. "I--" To just her, this and the rest, "...I will!"
And Naoko's gigantic fist explodes against She Who Devours, the Hand of the Empress. From all the damage it's suffered already, it cannot hope for its armor to last against this final assault... and it doesn't.
The Hand shakes, and shrieks, and shudders.
The tentacles begin to sag, and fall, each one making another great crater in the ice, each one erupting into black ichor as it hits the ground.
Then there is a sudden rush, as a lattice of green Void energy slams into place along the portal's front--and Shari says, "You did it! Jamming is at 100%! We've stopped it!"
Thunder rumbles once again--and soimething slams into the Barrier from behind. Slam, slam, slam, thunderous smites that echo in all directions from unreality.
"100% and holding!" Shari shouts. "Yuliana!"
Yuliana has already started the Dance, after all. Will she really seal off the Void, here...?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"The past is the past," Yuliana echoes Anita, as if to orient herself here. (Precisely to orient herself here.) She's oriented enough, at least, to even laugh -- if briefly -- when Leina insists she's responsible. "Yes -- the responsible Ashta!" She replies, as if that proves everything.
Well, the Ashtas do have a certain reputation.
Thanks, Judau.
Leina's approach to poison might not be that dissimilar from Yuliana's -- though Yuliana didn't realise she was being poisoned, all those years. Thanks to Anita and Leina, she's not poisoned a little more -- and not just them, either.
"I once walked for three days and three nights," Yuliana tells Sympatria #2, with no hint of joking there, "and did not reach the end, nor of Her." A light pause, "... though that was, I suppose, a dream. But the visitations were real to us."
Will they all die...?
"This is the way!" She calls, to #2, as she hears her ferocious challenge. "Don't let up--!"
She calls, to Kaworu: "My wife speaks our truth. The Empress shall not have this world!" And remembering Elisa's words is its own way of centering herself, amidst those howling emotions. She is so angry... and she, at least, feels Her confusion. "I know You were a woman, once," she says, softly, "and a woman with my face put an end to that. But," anger enters her voice, again: "Your time is past, and never-was!"
Yuliana felt so much guilt, once, over Her feelings. In a way, it's a relief to hear Liam as angry as Elisa is, declaring the old Yuliana dead. And Lucine, striking so viciously... she appreciates that, too.
"Do not lose heart," she transmits, to Naoko, when she realises that her illusions were defeated -- though she's still speaking on an open channel. "Her sight is unlike ours. She may have seen some clue which yet eludes our eyes. But I can assure you -- She is greatly displeased by your efforts! That is to say, good work--!" And how wonderful to see her with her own Rocket Punch!
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZwR6_lP3Qg FFIII - Eternal Legend of the Wind - The Dark Cloud
She can hear Sayaka trusting her -- and she holds fast to it, as she twirls clockwise. "It is not only a matter of closing the portal whence She came," she says, and the way her teeth grit is audible, though Emptear's face remains in that fixed, too-toothy grin. "Elya and Sharochka have bolstered my defences -- that I may ensure this weakness does not remain for Her a second time. She will try to stop me! I'm counting on you--!"
That SLAM, SLAM, SLAM is the most terrifying noise -- in this existence, or any other. Even so, Yuliana dances. This time, people will die if she doesn't.
"I dismissed it as too hard," she says, as she turns. "Or perhaps it was too frightening, to man Emptear again... excuses laid atop excuses. That this place was forgotten by man -- that the chill of the ice would aid us. Excuses!" She issues, again, as Emptear sways back and forth, expanding her arms out as if to embrace all creation. "All the while, this place laid close to the Void -- and here She came. It took me this long... to hear what you all had to say."
Her leg kicks high into the air, and as she moves, the green of the ice recedes, ceding reality to a normal whitish shade again. "... that this is not the way this world was meant to be!" She concludes, as she lashes out with that ribbon, and catches another stretch of green Void-ice with it. That evil energy seems to follow her dancer's cloth, as she turns in revolution -- a revolution, now, against the Empress.
She is both the Key and the Lock of the Gate. That is why, in the Empress's world, that yawning damage never closed itself again. The Yuliana of that world was dead -- but this Yuliana is very much alive.
(And she would like to stay that way.)
With another spin to collect the last of that terrible green energy, she lashes out with her dancer's ribbon, sending it all hurtling for that weakend portal -- and then brings the ribbon down, and in that same gesture, seems to tear the dark sky down over the wound.
And the North Pole is cleansed.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"All right! I'll leave the dance to you!" Rena tells Yuliana, as she looks back at the Hand. Her eyebrows knit for a moment.
Anita says she is right behind her -- and she cracks a smile, before she makes the Gaia Gear shoot out of the way as Anita sweeps in with Gungnir SC. "Got it, Annie!"
She pulls back, then. And she answers Leina:
>omfg
(She pronounces each letter aloud.)
>why would you remind me of that!!!
She looks at the Empress's Hand, Rena's own hands tensing on the Gaia Gear's controls. The Hand is forced back, into the void -- and the Barrier forms, holding it back.
That leaves only Yuliana.
She watches the Emptear dance. She remembers the previous dance -- the one that the Gaia Gear did with it -- but this is all Yuliana. She breathes in and holds it.
And sees that terrible green energy pulled into the portal, then sealed away. Rena exhales, then, and she smiles.
"That... that does it," she says. "Thank heavens."
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
She Who Devours - and by extension, the Empress is all of stubborn, persistent, and relentless, even taking this much damage at once. But because their efforts come together as one, She is eventually pushed back - and Shari's efforts, too, pay off. There's a hint of pride from Sayaka, that the attack that did the Hand in was a Rocket Punch - not from herself, but from among the next generation of heroes.
And now it's Yuliana's turn, to dance, and to banish the Void from the Arctic once and for all. Sayaka watches with anticipation... and her belief comes true. In the end, though they tried to encourage her along the right path... it was Yuliana who made the decision to do what was right. The North Pole is officially Void-free. "You... you did it, Yuliana," Sayaka smiles, to see her still very much alive.
"I suppose that's one less thing for the Earth to worry about," She adds, the portal definitively sealed away. "Now there's only one thing left for us to do." She adds, a little more worry in her voice, though the tension soon deflates. They managed to strike down the Empress's Hand, but that might not be enough to keep her down for good. But for now... they can celebrate this victory.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
As it flies, the Svipul sends the Gaia Gear a quick salute as Rena sends Anita her reply.
They all fight hard, putting everything they have to resisting the Empress. It proves to be enough - they prevent her from disrupting Shari's jamming... and Yuliana is able to complete her dance. Green recedes... and the world resume some sense of normalcy.
Anita watches, with bated breath... and then exhales, when all seems well.
"Thank heavens." Anita echoes Rena with a sigh, easing the Svipul into a sitting position. "I think we've all earned a break. Good work, everyone."
She doubts this is the end of it... but for now, at least, they can rest.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Kaworu does feel that confusion. He returns it with waves of his own preternatural calm, which he maintains even as he opens up on the Hand and more. Though he attacks Her, even though She regains Her hostility, there is no ill will--only a desire to protect what he loves.
Shari tells them all that the jamming is complete. Yuliana dances to save the world, just as she had previously danced to end it. Kaworu remains silent to keep from distracting her. She's already spoken the truth; there's no need to repeat it. Sayaka urged everyone earlier to give it their all, and now it's Yuliana's turn. As the void recedes from the arctic ice and is soon sealed and cleansed, as the crack in reality mends, Kaworu bears witness... now with a return of his faint, crooked smile.
This is not the way the world was meant to be. Yes... It seems Yuliana truly has listened at last.
Rena and Anita thank the heavens. Kaworu laughs a breath of a laugh. "Yes. We've done well," he tells Sayaka. Then he looks over towards Liam, and by extension, Lucine. "It seems we didn't need to fall back after all," he comments. "Still, are you two all right?"
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
The thing about Naoko saying she'll give something everything she has is... she's never exaggerating. Miracles don't just fall out of the sky, it causes a tremendous amount of mental exertion to make ones of this magnitude happen. It should be no surprise to see the Sukeban Kiseki lose its glow and sag through its knees, emitting smoke as its interface's failsafes kick in, forcibly shutting down all connections to the Nova Driver. It's going to need a little help on the return trip.
The fact that she's still conscious after all that may rightly be called one final miracle. One that may have been helped into being by Yuliana, of all people. To think that she'd be cheered on by her, of all people. She can't very well pass out now, and be perhaps blissfully spared the aftermath. She has to see how this ends, now that her part is played, and - as she'd have to admit - Yuliana is the best bet for repairing the damage that's already been done.
And so she watches, as Emptear successfully seals the gate, in a more permanent fashion than she had assumed would be possible at this point in time. She doesn't have the energy for too many words at present, but Yuliana has certainly earned some.
"...Glad you came around. I mean it."
And for Shari's peace of mind... "Still here, don't worry. Coming for that cake. ...After a nap."
Maybe she can hold onto consciousness long enough to have that nap in an actual bed? She can hope.
<Pose Tracker> Sympatria Unit has posed.
The imploding - disintegrating - vaporizing? - Hand gets one last swipe from #2 before she dismounts, using that self-same ekranoplan trick to pull herself some ways away from the object. Perhaps she anticipates detonation.
"Yeah? You use glucose carts?" she asks Yuliana, though there's some sort of weird... click afterwards several times.
(Secretly, the click is an acoustic signal flagging an emoji. It is not clear which one. Perhaps it is a Sympatria Secret.)
After that, the BRC-2 pulls the Hullbreacher up, racking it over both shoulders, holding upright and wary. There are terrible, terrible slamming noises. Yuliana speaks.
The Sympatria understand something, perhaps, as a group. Each in their own ways, but then -
"The green's going away," #6 says.
"Indeed," answers #7.
"... Is that good?"
"Indeed."
"It wasn't that way all along!?"
"Indeed."
"Butt says indeed."
"And so you have spoken."
But out there, in the battle.
"... Must feel strange for you, even if you've turned your back on the whole thing," #2 signals Yuliana, even as the BRC-2 turns round to briefly survey the others.
They all made it, it looks like. Maybe they aren't so far behind us, #2 thinks, and it's a rather sunny thought, at least to her.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
>l o l
>because it worked
Just imagine her saying l space o space l IRL while also dealing with auto correct that tries to make space=space rather than default to an actual space. But it is true, it helped them realize 'it can in fact, be worse - even in places like this.'
It's the human experience to know that some of the things you've done once upon a time, are worse than even the brush of horrors from the beyond.
"If you stick around... maybe one day you'll be the responsible Kafim... or Dian... you could take the title for both families..."
just
stay
Feelings that feel lost within the hate - taking responsibility might cause her to leave, but it won't earn her the title of the responsible one.
Responsibility is not for beings who dwell as gods... but for people.
As rage gathers - multiplying, the Beguir perhaps does the unexpected, as suddenly she lets it's clawed feet...
... let go.
Thrusters fire, suddenly to take her down, even as gravity spins it end over end - catching her on another burn that counterbalances the weight before she slams into the ice.
There is trust however, in that Yuliana has started something. It would be so easy for that trust to be betrayed in this moment. She could not even see it coming...
But it isn't.
And when the Beguir comes out of the water again, it's amidst ice that's pure and clean as snow.
"..." She could say thank you, but instead she whispers softly, "Taking responsibility, huh?"
It's a bitter pill to swallow. It always is. Especially when it's better for the world entire.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Even when Naoko's fist slams into that hand, the Dianthus refuses to budge, just as much because its pilot doesn't want to as much as she *couldn't*.
Rage fills Lucine like water into unset concrete, making everything go rigid at the edges, so much so that--
< ".... ah..." >
---- when it recedes, she feels like an empty, deflated balloon.
And even then, Lucine's not sure it's the end.
< ".... Is... is it done...?" > The timidness of Lucine's question harkens back to the Lucine of years ago, when she first arrived on Earth.
Kaworu's laughter seems to knock some of Lucine's wits back into her. < ".... Aside from a nose bleed, I'm fine. The Dianthus... I think it deserves a nice rest, after it gets patched up. .... Maybe I do too...." >
Limp in her cockpit, Lucine lets out a breath. < ".... does this count as a white christmas? We don't get snow in the Orb Union, so...." >
Her heart's still hammering in her ears. Are they really done?
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
The antiparticle beam cuts off as suddenly as it began. Air rushes in to fill the pinpoint vacuum with a *pop*. Liam watches as She Who Devours sags and collapses under the onslaught. He can't quite suppress a whistle at the sight of Naoko's conjured fist.
"We did...?" Liam says, as Shari cuts in. "She's sealed?"
SLAM
"...Shit," Liam says. "She's trying to break through!" How many more hands does she have?! Liam pulls two fingers down a touchpad, cueing up the accelerator for another shot. It's going to take too long. "Yuliana!" Desperation creeps into his voice. He doesn't know if he can bring himself to trust her again. She's hurt so many people. She hurt him. She hurt Lucine, and Eight, and so many people he cares about.
The ice begins to change. Liam's jaw drops. "It's working," he says. "Don't--don't let up!" He doesn't relax until the last trace of Void-taint is gone, but when he does, it's like his strings have been cut. "It... it's normal again." Not as resilient as the Void-ice, but it's at home here, in this dimension. At Lucine's joke, he starts to laugh, and for a moment, it's hard to tell if he's tilted over into tears. But...
"...Yeah. I guess it does, Lu..."