2024-11-15: Paying Devi's Due

• Log: Paying Devi's Due
• Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Rena Lancaster, Shari Loom, Koji Kabuto, Anita Rosetta, Kaworu Nagisa, Shelby Korts, Sayaka Yumi, Leina Ashta, Liam 7-020, Naoko Suzuki, Lucine Azul, Aurora Dusk
• Where: Shoal Zone, Side 5
• OOC - IC Date: Novembet 15, 0099
• Summary: Elisa Kafim expends a tortured soul to craft a new Void Dragon, in order to strike back against the Gaia Sabers' crimes. But Divya Devi's dying wish is full of hate, and the Riptime Dragon, Istantarik, is made from her desire to see Yuliana undone. What it unveils, in the pages of its vast wings, will change everything. It will assault a Gaia Sabers battleship, but this is a fight which everyone has reason to engage.

---

KTS: Elisa Kafim has deployed in Riptime Dragon Istantarik.
KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.)
KTS: Anita Rosetta has deployed in XVF-25I Svipul <GERWALK Mode>.
KTS: EN Barrier activated!
KTS: Shari Loom has deployed in EXM-E7K Spinatio (Knight Ver.).
KTS: Rena Lancaster has deployed in A000-0001V Gaia Gear Alpha Custom.
KTS: Koji Kabuto has deployed in Mazinger Z <Astro Scrander>.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has deployed in Evangelion Unit Beta.
KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.)
KTS: Liam 7-020 has deployed in Type-4 Akashima 'Balor'.
KTS: EN Barrier activated!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki has deployed in NS-2 Sukeban Kiseki.
KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.)
KTS: Leina Ashta has deployed in CEK-068 Beguir-Neuer.
KTS: Lucine Azul has deployed in Dianthus Mk. 3.
KTS: Shelby Korts has deployed in MSN-03 Jagd Doga <Korts Custom>.
KTS: Aurora Dusk has deployed in VF-171 Nightmare Plus <Fighter Mode>.
KTS: EN Barrier activated!
KTS: Aurora Dusk's VF-171 Nightmare Plus <Fighter Mode> has been disabled.
KTS: Aurora Dusk has deployed in FD-03-00 Gustav Karl.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has deployed in Aphrodite Areia.
KTS: EN Barrier activated!
KTS: Elisa_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 13 opponents.

<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.

        Reality in the shoal cracks, as if something were beating on space from the other side of the glass. It is not entirely a crack in space, not entirely a crack in time -- but it is certainly a crack in existence.

        OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6PMUvsVsVw NieR - Dark Colossus

        Crack. Crack. CRACK.

        Finally, a claw reaches through the shattered gap, and forces its way through. Something oozes out of that wound in reality, dripping in. A claw there, a tooth here, a scale, a flickering flame...

        And as reality rights itself behind the Riptime Dragon, ISTANTARIK, it asserts itself on this world.

        And asserts. And asserts. And asserts.

        As it constructs itself, it becomes clear just how massive it is. Fully half a kilometre long, five hundred metres from tip to snouts; its whiplike tail is wreathed in flame which burns with green fire, despite the total lack of oxygen in space. Travelling up its length are countless wings and claws, with locust vents fanning open along its snakelike sides; when one finally reaches its neck, it splits into thirteen parts, each terminating in its own horrific set of jaws.

        Those wings, opening and closing, fan from side to side like the pages of a book more than a bird or a bat. Strange, horrific images lie in the thin membranes, impossible to focus on for long.

        It is almost done.

        The summoning-crystal, in the centre of the bloodwork circle safe in the Castle's walls, now shatters. A scream echoes through existence, as a spirit rushes forward, rushes out --

MalicIous obedience is A forM of passive-aggressive resistance to orders one 
Finds objectionable, entailing stRictly following ordErs dEspite knowing the
result wIll not be as tHeir superior desires. MAlice enTails a dEsire to do 
material hArm or enact humiLiation on the person who deLivered the unwanted 
orders. Strict compliance in a waY which betrays the illegality Or negative 
conseqUences of the order is FREquently censured by the superior force, but
one fAcet of malicious obedience is the lacK of overt riSk in the following.

H F H F     Was that thought really spontaneous? Did you all really      F H F H
A R A R     just think of malicious compliance for no reason? Reality    R A R A
T E T E     pounds at the edges of your consciousness, and shatters.     E T E T
E E E E     With the shards come an overwhelming wave of black hatred.   E E E E

I AM YOUR BEGINNING AND YOUR END

        Some people receive the message on their consoles, as they approach the dragon. Some receive it as thoughts in their minds, as a spirit screams vengeance on her way to the beyond. These individuals will know its malice, as Istantarik glows with power, and turns, uncommanded, to SLASH at the weakened area of space-time-reality with its claws.

        Another crack forms, and this does not heal so lightly.

        But Elisa's will is more ferocious still, and Istantarik roars, as it surges forward to snap the first responder up into its jaws. The 'Triumph' is a Gaia Sabers cruiser, and it sends out a hurried distress signal on all channels as the Riptime Dragon's jaws crunch down and pierce through its armour, leaving it to struggle for sick moments before it bites... right... through.

        Istantarik turns, as its heads consume that ship, chewing and swallowing steel and all the lives inside. Each of its jaws is capable of unhinging, snakelike, in order to take bites too vast for its skull. As it does, those wings fan out, turning like the pages of the book. Elisa always said Divya Devi knew not what she wrought when she created Yuliana; now, her senseless years of pain have given her insight clearer than any other, and her soul tears those visions from the very vestiges of time itself. And why wouldn't she boast? The monster she made is so much greater than she imagined. So much greater than anyone could imagine -- and she will use it to ruin her prize subject.

        Images play across those membranes, strange at first, and then resolving into something the eyes may focus on...

        0087, JANUARY 19

        "Testing begins," says an old Sri Lankan woman with a severe expression. She is Divya Devi, a Titan who fled prosecution into the willing arms of the REA. She stands in front of two steel tanks, placed beside each other. The screens in front of her show what lies inside each individual tank, almost large enough to host them: a blonde-haired girl, Rita Bernal, and a young South East Asian woman, Yuliana Dispersal, hair cropped close to her head. The tanks are evidently pitch black inside... and though the screams in one tank are captured by microphones, no sound escapes to the scientists outside.

        "Lower oxygen to 80% and monitor changes," she goes on. Her eyes narrow, calculating. "359-3S has accepted death. Even in the Y-Negation field, it's passive... set oxygen levels to 75%." She frowns, as she watches her screens, silent for long moments as her assistants mutter around her. "70%," she says, impassive to Yuliana's obvious panic and the way Rita bears it all so stoically. "Is it learning to compensate for my extreme testing conditions...? But 258-1A is still struggling, even now. If anything, it's more desperate, in the presence of the other subject's extrasensory resources. ... prepare the wound kit," she adds, watching the video feed as Yuliana beats her fists against the side of the tank and screams. "It's going to hurt itself, beating the walls like that. Hmph, and 359-3S still isn't responding... restore oxygen to normal levels," she says, sounding vaguely irritated. "We won't find what we're looking for today, and they'll be useless if they sustain hypoxic injuries. But we may as well take advantage of the stress," she adds, waving one hand as she starts accessing records with the other. "Play the tapes in their tanks. We'll reinforce their conditioning before we take them out."

        The page turns to later that very same day, as Yuliana paces about the subjects' common room, around Rita, as they're observed by hapless research assistants through one-way glass while the real scientists gather their thoughts. Rita smiles, and assures her, voice even and supportive: "Yuli, Yuli, it's okay. It's okay. Remember? This life isn't all there is."

        And Yuliana rounds on her, storming over to her again, her voice raising to a fever pitch. "It isn't, it isn't! Look, look, right there, it isn't! Isn't anything! Nothing, and it's there, right there, strip the flesh to bones! It does not knock! Graves don't knock!" She gestures, sharply, to a point somewhere beside Rita. "Can't you see?! It's waiting for us, there!"

        "I'm sorry," Rita frowns, sympathetically, "I can't see what you see. But even when you cloud my sight, I still remember. I can't know how it will end for you, but I know I won't die here. That's why it's fine if you need them to do it to me," she assures her, recalling the way Yuliana wished she'd just thrown her under the bus, smiling again. "You're my dear friend, Yuli!"

        And Yuliana storms over to her, grasping her by the shoulders, shaking her. "Don't say that! Don't you dare say that! Friends, what nonsense is that?! Stop smiling!" But Rita doesn't stop, and Yuliana lifts her up, bodily, by those shoulders. "You, you, YOU! I hate you! Of course I hate you! Just as they said! Just as they... said..." ... but her voice cracks, and she sets Rita down, head sagging forward to rest at her shoulder instead as she shifts from screaming to sobbing. She's not quite embracing Rita, manhandling her like this, but Rita reaches around to hug her anyway.

        0087, APRIL 08

        "Where is Ritechka?!" A woman like Yuliana Dispersal -- but younger, her hair cropped close to her head -- screams at Dr. Devi, and she shows no fear at all.

        "It's thanks to your abysmal failure with the senator that Rita Bernal has gone," Dr. Devi says, unmoved by Yuliana's rage. "We had to appease the OCU. Next time, don't get caught. Do you understand?"

        0087, APRIL 23

        "... don't you understand?" She's younger, too, but that's unmistakably the voice of Sayla Mass. "They don't even view you as human beings... just assets."

        She sits in an unmarked car, and Yuliana sits beside her. It looks like any other corrupt dealing, and those flipping page-wings gave glimpses of it happening many times prior. This time, she asks for --

        0092, JANUARY 13

        "I am glad for your help," Yuliana Dian tells a younger Sayla, her teal hair down to her ears by now, "but this is taking too long. There are things I must impart. I cannot rest this long, locked away from the world. Ritechka was right! This world is aught but a stepping stone! But she did not see as deeply as I did -- and she is lost. It must be me."

        Sayla frowns, reaching out to touch Yuliana's arm. "The REA did unspeakable damage to you," she says, with concern. They rescued her five years ago, and ever since, the Shuffles kept her hidden. "Even now, we're uncovering the depths. I know Rita's ideals gave you something to focus on, when you had nothing, but I strongly recommend you stay with us. Let us figure out how to help you."

        "You must understand," Yuliana says, her voice choking up. She rarely admits fault, the way she does now: "It was... my failure that sent her away. If I'd just killed him clean, no witnesses, I -- you should have saved her!" Yuliana shifts the blame, and still doesn't find the right target. "If you don't like me leaving, it's your own fault!" ... it's not the first tantrum she's thrown, glimpsed in those quickly-turning pages, even as the images grow indistinct again.

        Two or three of these faces may be known to you -- though many of you may have only met Rita Bernal as a ghost in the machine. But everyone with the Awakening to make the connection will understand the fourth: Divya Devi is the monstrous will unleashed by Istantarik's birth and made into fuel for its rampage.

        The woman who made Yuliana.

        But this couldn't be an image of her past... because Sayla never intervened so early.

        What, then--?

        Istantarik consumes, and from beyond it, around it, surrounding it, anger screams through space. "You would DARE?!" Elisa's voice violates the Shoal Zone, her rage coiling up and unleashing in an Absolute Spiral of fury. The magic tears through and past Istantarik, assaulting any who dare to approach. The rage is not directed at the ships coming to interfere, though. It can only be directed at Divya Devi -- the source of these visions. ...But the aftermath is very real, even for those who aren't its targets. Elisa's rage cares little for such trifling details as 'collateral damage'.

        Several Gaia Sabers ships are shaken by that wicked spell as they respond to the distress call of the Triumph -- but they will not be the only ones on the approach. Not all of the debris of the Shoal Zone can say the same, a dozen makeshift tombstones and gutted machines crumbling under Elisa's rage; but these lesser obstacles are hardly what anyone would send to address a dragon twice the size of a battleship, today.

        You will need to send your best.

KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta, Shari Loom, Rena Lancaster, Koji Kabuto, Kaworu Nagisa, Liam 7-020, Naoko
Suzuki, Leina Ashta, Lucine Azul, Shelby Korts, Aurora Dusk, and Sayaka Yumi with Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Lucine Azul engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: [Mirage] Lucine Azul's Glimmer Engine activates, and she slips into a mirage.
KTS: Best Defense! Lucine Azul successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Focus Spirit Command.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Anita Rosetta fails to engage react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Anita Rosetta successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Anita Rosetta, preventing her from Evading the next attack!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa fails to engage react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Kaworu Nagisa, preventing his from Evading the next attack!
KTS: Shari Loom engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Best Defense! Shari Loom successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Rena Lancaster engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Rena Lancaster moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Leina Ashta fails to engage React against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Best Defense! Leina Ashta successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim anchors Leina Ashta, preventing her from Evading the next attack!
KTS: Koji Kabuto engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Koji Kabuto moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Liam 7-020 engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Best Defense! Liam 7-020 successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Aurora Dusk has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 5952 damage!
KTS: Aurora Dusk engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Best Defense! Aurora Dusk successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Shelby Korts engages react against Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral!
KTS: Best Defense! Shelby Korts successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral, taking 0 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.

Rena Lancaster feels something crack. It's not Newtype awareness; quite the opposite, and yet it is new and that makes it have a pervasive sense of wrongness. Reality is torn as the Riptime Dragon enters this universe.

On the Gaia Gear Alpha's monitor, it already looms large. She leans forward in her normal suit and she frowns as she feels the sharp malice from it.

"That... that doesn't look good," she says.

The Gaia Gear is in wave rider mode, as it soars towards Istantarik. Elisa's spell hurtles at her.

Her eyes narrow. "What is this? This--" It's a person. Or it was.

She sucks a breath in, then gets a lock on the dragon. A quartet of missiles drops off the Gaia Gear's wing, then goes hurtling for the dragon. Their tips superheat red, for armor piercing.

"Annie, everyone--we've got to stop this thing! I've got a bad feeling!"

KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Needle Missiles!

<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.

Crack. Crack. CRACK.

Shari screams in the transport desspite herself, feeling reality give way, feeling the proximity of the Empress's will. It is a painful thing.

"Gh--" But reality asserts itself, and her Fold technology does the same. "I'm all right!" she calls to her friends--to her allies, to her mentors, Sayaka and Koji in particular. "I'll be fine! I'm not running away anymore! ...Green Knight, deploying!"

The Spinatio rockets out from the transport, relying on maneuvering thrusters to get up into the action. But she has to travel a bit to be able to attack, and before that...

Malicious obedience. It's a concept Shari knows, of course. But why is she thinking of it now...?

"Ugh," Shari says. "It's so ugly!"

Hate. Free. Hate. Free. I am--

"What is this!?" Shari wonders. "No... No, I know what this is."

"They used a person... This must be--"

She doesn't answer. Instead, her eyes glaze, and she SEES. She hears. The Whispers come, and she knows the truth.

"Gh--"

She can't respond at first. Instead, the Knight raises its shield, and the Spiral has no hold now over Shari Loom. "BRING IT!" the young woman shouts. She is sending her best.

"...Careful, everyone!" Shari's voice--perhapss her face--comes across multiple frequencies, transmitted to the Gaia Sabers, too. "This is no ordinary Kaiju. ...Elisa trapped that woman--Dr. Devi--in a crystal, all these years. Now... she's let her out, to empower her dragon."

"I can feel her hate..."

"But I won't give up! Green Knight, advancing!"

"...But you aren't the only one who can handle the power of the Void! I won't let you ruin reality for the rest of us! Haaaah--!"

Shari's Knight--a shining ExaMAC, white with green touches, of brilliant shining armor,r esembling nothing more than the nobility of ages past, with a great sword and shield. The Dragonslayer is come.

"Now--"

The Knight raises its blade in salute, and then slashes at space itself, a ripple in reality crashing towards Istantarik the dragon, even as large as it is.

"Don't give up!"

KTS: Shari Loom targets Elisa Kafim with Voidtouched Blade Dimensional Slash!
KTS: Shari Loom's Whispers' Call activates Focus!

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

This is not the first time the Photon Power Lab has plunged into the unreadable depths of void-tainted space.

This time, though, they know what they're looking for - following the signals of the change, which they're able to detect much sooner thanks to their extensive research into the phenomena brought about by Elisa and Yuliana Kafim.

And yet it's still too slow.

The Triumph's distress call winks out almost as soon as it was broadcast, and Koji smashes a fist into the Pilder's dashboard. "Paralus, warn the Gaia Sabers reinforcements away - they don't have the data to - "

         malicious compliance is -

"hrrrgh"

He pulls off his helmet to clutch at his temple, the world spinning around him in the transport's launch bay. "Status repo - "

The visuals of his dashboard displays distort, depicting scrolling scarlet text that he doesn't recognise, and - visions assault Mazinger Z, overriding his machine's systems to show scenes from the past on the display.

"What the - Yuliana? Rita?" He thumps the side of the display twice, scrambling the image briefly but failing to banish it. Then, just as suddenly as it began - the visions disappear, and the Pilder's radar and intercom display are restored to normal. Something about the way reality has twisted, though... "No impact detected, but I'm reading internal systems damage. Rerouting reactor output to compensate. Paralus, are you okay?"

The radio crackles, but he does get a reply. "This is Mizuka, Doctor Kabuto. The pilot's unconscious, I'm taking over." The co-pilot's voice.

"Shit. Alright. Pull back from the combat zone once we've launched. All machines, GO!"

Mazinger Z is catapulted from the Paralus's hangar, Astro Scrander coming up to full burn and blasting the Castle of Iron towards the great void dragon. As Shari's new ExaMAC slashes the void and creates a ripplewave of space, he drops in just behind it, letting the wake of the ripple catch to the edge of the Scrander wings, as the fin blades mounted on its propulsion system begin to shine with photonic light. "Whirling Cutters - FIRE!"

A spray of blades of light splinter off from the wingtips of the Astro Scrander, joining and reinforcing the dimensional ripple-blade as he spins Mazinger Z away to port of the attack, turning it back to face the dragon.

This isn't their best. Not yet. That is a project in need of a miracle, of leaping over obstacles of the laws of physics themselves to reach new heights Juzo and Kenzo Kabuto could never have dreamt of.

... But Mazinger Z is the best they have, so it will have to do.

KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Elisa Kafim with Whirling Cutters!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage intercept against Rena Lancaster's Needle Missiles!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Rena Lancaster's Needle Missiles, taking 2560 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage parry against Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Dimensional Slash!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Dimensional Slash, taking 2625
damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Koji Kabuto's Whirling Cutters!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Koji Kabuto's Whirling Cutters, taking 3870 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.

Something arrives, vast and monstrous - and as it renders the Triumph into nothing, the alert goes out. And it is answered - alongside the Gaia Gear Alpha, the XVF-25I Svipul flies in.

"...What the hell...?" Anita mutters, shaking her head. Though usually cool-headed, the sight of the thing looming ahead of them gives her pause - the message that appears unbidden on her console, the images forming on its wings...

Anita draws in a sharp breath between clenched teeth.

...It's hard to watch, in more ways than one.

"Right." Anita agrees with a nod as Rena says she has a bad feeling. She knows to trust Rena's bad feelings. "Right beside you!"

The Svipul changes from Fighter Mode to GERWALK, racing alongside Istantarik with a spray of beam vulcan fire before diverting off.

...And soon enough, a communication comes through across her console.

"...Seriously...? That's..." Anita comments, at a loss for words, as Shari explains what's going on here. A dragon empowered by seething hate, left to boil over several years... "...Thanks for the info. We'll be careful!"

They can't afford to be anything less, against something like this.

KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Elisa Kafim with Vulcan Barrage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage, taking 2925 damage!
KTS: Anita Rosetta begins a Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu Nagisa knows Rita Bernal. They, too, were friends, though not in the same timeframe as Rita and Yuliana; even so, he recognizes her, both by her image and her smile. If she'd remained, they would have eventually become enemies by nature of Rita's goals. But she had flown away, and so that conflict never had a chance to come to pass.
        
        When Istantarik tears through into this reality and a distress call is sent to NERV, he is already looking that way. He boards a transport ship with Unit Beta--Liam and his Akashima are there too--calmly accepting the waves of malice and hate as projected from this dragon, using Divya Devi and that green crystal as a vector.
        
        It is painful, but Kaworu is not human. He can withstand it.
        
        He can withstand it, but it still hurts. His usual smile is not there, and his silver hair hides his eyes as he gazes into the beyond.
        
        He hears Elisa's rage. He feels the message to the freaks within the malicious compliance. He sees the Gaia Sabers ships as Istantarik bites through them. The pressure is... considerable.
        
        He breathes out in Unit Beta's entry plug; the air that he doesn't need to breathe bubbles up through the LCL. He bows his head, then gazes forward. Unit Beta launches, shoulder pylons extending gossamer wings to soar out from the transport vessel.
        
        "Elisa... So this is what you meant," he murmurs, gazing out at Istantarik. Shari's explanation, projected to him and the others come to fight, gives further context. He doesn't outwardly acknowledge it, but it colors his words as he adds, "Unfortunately, I can't let you do as you please."
        
        To Shari and the others gathered to do battle, he announces, <"Kaworu Nagisa, deploying in Evangelion Unit Beta. This will be a difficult fight.">
        
        He says it as conversationally and matter-of-fact as anything else he says. But for Kaworu to acknowledge how difficult it will be...
        
        For now, Unit Beta draws her Heat Rapier and thrusts it forward towards the draconic beast. A wave of heat and energy erupts from the tip of the thin blade and sails towards the massive beast to explode upon impact with whatever it can make contact with.

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa: Will Barrier Activates.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Rapier Wave!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Kaworu Nagisa's Rapier Wave!
KTS: Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Rapier Wave, taking 5700 damage!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa completes the Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.

        She's seen something like this in the past, and she's held it against Yuliana Kafim personally-- even yelled at her to her face about it: It left her with a feeling she had never forgotten, like the screeching tones of tinnitus, as her sixth sense is left twisted askew and turning her perception of the world sideways. She tries to play the brave face, but it hurts, no matter where she is.

        Claws puncture space-time. It tears through the cracks and sundered nothing with reckless abandon, and the void-beast has slithered through the gaping wound in the wall. Perhaps it is her awareness that helps her weather the worst of this storm? The time she had once spent in the Void, leaving a mark on her-- it's something she's considered in the past, but ... now's not the time.

        On the newtype scale of things, it's very hard to hide her feelings-- Shelby Korts, within that customized knockout pink-and-black Jagd Doga is a mix of emotions: A dull ache, recognition, anger, and pointedly, sadness, remembering-- Rita kept the peace between them, not too long ago... but this is different. She's never actually known Elisa-- not in any tangible, meaningful way, anyway.

        "Funnels!" she calls out, three of the canister-style remotes popping off the right shield binder of the Zeonic machine-- sending the first wave out to attack with a swift series of slashing shots at the Voidborne monstrosity.

KTS: Shelby Korts targets Elisa Kafim with Jagd Doga Funnels Basic Formation!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Istantarik's fury may be directed at the Gaia Sabers fleet, but the signature of the Void makes this the Photon Power Labs' problem, too, Sayaka may not have been able to help Yuliana like she could her fellow Cyber-Newtypes... but what she can do is stop her, before it's too late for her.

So when reality shifts - reasserts itself again and again, Sayaka faces it with her usual stubbornness. It's not easy - it never is, and it feels like the Pilder is hanging from 180 degrees, with all the pressure that entails. But in the end, Aphrodite Areia faces down the terrible Riptide Dragon back-to-back with Koji and Mazinger Z, just as it should be. "Koji! Are you all right? There's something unusual about this one..."

"Shari!" Sayaka calls, as the Green Knight goes on ahead and joins the fray. "...I trust you, so do what you have to." Just seeing how much she's grown under their care, Sayaka can't help but smile, despite the circumstances, and reasserts, "We won't let them hurt you."

And those visions flash across her Pilder's console too - stories of the past, the ties that connect Yuliana and Rita Bernal. "Elisa Kafim... what in the world are you trying to show us?" Sayaka wonders, and Shari has answers. While she may not be among the Awakened, she could never forget about Dr. Devi... "What I don't get is why they would do this now... but I hear you, Shari. We'll be on our guard."

But those revelations are interrupted by the terrible power of the Absolute Spiral... Elisa's magic, and her voice booms out.

Seeing it come for their machines, Sayaka she raises Aphrodite Areia's energy shield to defend against it It's not enough, it's not nearly enough - the Void clashing with the Photon Power Barrier creates awful sparks as it crashes against the Mazin's frame. But the shield glows as well - sending the absorbed Void energy back as a wave of Photon Power to keep the massive dragon at bay.

KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Photon Power Redirection!

<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.

Something arrives, vast and monstrous - and as it renders the Triumph into nothing, the alert goes out. And it is answered - alongside the Gaia Gear Alpha, the XVF-25I Svipul flies in.

"...What the hell...?" Anita mutters, shaking her head. Though usually cool-headed, the sight of the thing looming ahead of them gives her pause - the message that appears unbidden on her console, the images forming on its wings...

Anita draws in a sharp breath between clenched teeth.

...It's hard to watch, in more ways than one.

"Right." Anita agrees with a nod as Rena says she has a bad feeling. She knows to trust Rena's bad feelings. "Right beside you!"

But as she approaches - Elisa's voice, Elisa's fury, explodes into the Shoal Zone. With a grimace Anita banks the Svipul sharply, but its not enough. The magic tears into her Valkyrie, the Pinpoint Barrier unable to hold against the assault. Anita pulls on the controls sharply, getting the machine back under control.

"Still in one piece, but if we take any more of that we might be in trouble..." Anita warns.

The Svipul changes from Fighter Mode to GERWALK, racing alongside Istantarik with a spray of beam vulcan fire before diverting off.

...And soon enough, a communication comes through across her console.

"...Seriously...? That's..." Anita comments, at a loss for words, as Shari explains what's going on here. A dragon empowered by seething hate, left to boil over several years... "...Thanks for the info. We'll be careful!"

They can't afford to be anything less, against something like this.

KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage intercept against Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Basic Formation!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Basic Formation, taking 2850
damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Sayaka Yumi's Photon Power Redirection!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Photon Power Redirection, taking 2775 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi repulses Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Charging the next attack!

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Something else cracks.

I AM FREE I HATE ALL YOU FREAKS

That would be the caffeinated splatter of steaming bitter bean brew as Leina Ashta's favorite Wonderful Persimmon mug hits the ground.

Green eyes wide and staring, she floats freely in the cosmos, a space without end. Infinite and all encompassing, and she stands still.

Then she begins to run, confusing the security team that was speaking, but she still couldn't hear them. The confused words were turning into yells at her back as gravity became lower, kicking off the wall she slammed her keycard into the hangar console, and kept going.

Someone tried to tackle her, but, she was already swinging into the hatch, and closing it.

Starting up the process. Her lips form words into the comms, and it sounds like things she doesn't recognize, before-

"<-to launch.>"

"<-on thin ice->"

"<-instruments. Holy shit->"

Her lips began forming words again. "<Do you understand now?>"

"<-least wait for us to muster->"

"<... Hurry then. She won't wait for you to get your shit together.>"

-=-=-

The Beguir flew through space, launching ahead of the contingent from the coming Cathedra ship, there's still something abstracted about her, frowning as she listens to Shari from the comms.

'trapped that woman- Dr. Devi'

Her eyes make contact with Istanrik, and she sees it, she hears it. Rita, Yuliana, Divya, her Mother... all of it like some messed up home movie straight to her brain.

Except.

"When... how?"

Elisa's hate comes as that raw spiral of energy, before she's even processed how this is possible, and suddenly something rises.

From her.

A violet aura boils off the Beguir like flame, off her, and her gaze sharpens. "This is YOUR FAULT!" Who is she speaking to? Istanrik? Elisa?

Both?

The spiral like wave crashes against her, and suddenly, is repelled, like she's swept part of it aside, before instead drawing her in like the inexorable pull of some natural force towards them, thrusters straining against it.

"Funnels." She agrees, as if in echo to Shelby, and so do they launch, as she's drawn towards it, so too are they, spinning in spiral, before beamfire cris-crosses over the Void Dragon's hide.

"<Oh trust me. ... I won't be.>" She answers Shari in that idea of not giving up, tone a touch icy now as she comprehends Rena and Annie, Koji and Sayaka, Kaworu. "<We're sending her back where she belongs.>"

KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation!

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        An Akashima launches from the underbelly of the transport. Liam has deployed often enough to make them a familiar sight, but this one is different--the armor is a bit sleeker, the profile a bit more streamlined. The massive autocannon on its right arm has been replaced with housings for focusing arrays and condensers--components that look like they'd be at home on the turrets of a battleship.

        In the machine's converted cockpit, Liam braces, clenching his jaw until his teeth start to ache. He witnesses the destruction through eyes half-closed.

        "...Rita?" Liam creaks, focusing on the vision in the dragon's wings, rather than the drifting debris it's left in its wake. The Akashima shudders as space around it twists. Someone speaks over the radio. Koji, he realizes. Someone else. That's--

        "Shari?!" What is she doing here in that machine? Liam's throat tightens. Rage and terror boil inside him as Devi's past crimes merge with the horror unfolding. "This is Liam, Pilot Seven-Dash-Zero-Two-Zero." A bit of solidarity with the numbers--the 'it'--in the vision. "Akashima 'Balor', deploying in support."

        The Akashima's head locks onto the dragon's bulk. Istantarik is so vast it makes even the massive machine look tiny. It raises its cannon arm, and takes a shot. Megaparticle fire streaks into space, white-hot and cauterizing.

KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Elisa Kafim with EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Snapshot!
KTS: Liam 7-020's Tactical Intelligence activates Trick!
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages intercept against 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 0
damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Snapshot!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Snapshot,
taking 3225 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.

If one can say one positive thing regarding Void activity, it's that it's rarely subtle. Breaking the barrier between realities has a way of making all the alarm bells go off. It helps in quickening the response, at least. But, one can never be truly prepared for what awaits.

"This reading... it's enormous," Naoko mutters to herself as she rushes through launch procedures, without looking at anything except the monitor analyzing the activity. Something is breaking through, from the other side. Something like this happening spontaneously is very unlikely... and the list of possible culprits is very small indeed.

This is exactly what she vowed to take a stand against. She won't hide from it, no matter how terrifying it feels already, before she's even seen what awaits out there.

Sukeban Kiseki joins the Gaia Gear and Svipul as part of the Ra Mari II's response squad. Images assault the pilot's senses, flashes of... memories, perhaps? But those sensations of pure hate overpower it all, threatens to overpower her. Her Friends are silent, struggling to focus all their efforts on keeping Naoko's mind from being overwhelmed by it all, as she's forced to weather the storm of Elisa's fury.

"Rrrrgh... ENOUGH!"

Finally managing to gather her bearings, she asserts her will upon the Sukeban Kiseki, green light flowing from its purple frame as the Lambda Driver - no, the Nova Driver activates. A translucent barrier crackles against the forces from without, standing against the Void with a targetted opposing force. This is what the machine was made for. If she doesn't take a stand here, what would have been the point of constructing it?

"...Shari." Naoko, considerably calmer than before, listens to her friend's words. Dr. Devi... is it? As terrible as that may be... even with such a powerful threat waiting up ahead... she manages a smile. "I'm glad you're here."

Quickly returning to all business, she transmits to her direct Terminal allies, "We're all going to have much more than bad feelings if we don't do something about this real quick! This thing can't stay here, it's got to go, one way or another!"

The Sukeban hardly strikes the figure of a dragonslayer, but, even so... a green blade forms from an empty hilt in its hand, backed by pure force of will to stand against the Void. The Arm Slave charges, and the mentally projected beam katana is flung out in a single iai strike. "Feel my resolve! NOVAAAA BLAAAAAADE!"

KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki: Will Barrier Activates.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Nova Blade!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Naoko Suzuki's Nova Blade!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Nova Blade, taking 3675 damage!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki: Will Barrier Activates.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        ====THEN====

        The Dianthus felt so massive, when Lucine was learning how to fly it properly in the colony. The dome was expansive enough to allow for it, even if it felt like cage before long, compared to the limitless Martian expanse beyond it. The kneeling function -- literally, how the Dianthus kneels down on one leg when stationary -- was to allow Lucine to climb up to its cockpit, which opened outward for her for easy access. It also allowed Kris to get around the Dianthus's more fantastical design choices, namely the lack of functional 'feet', which the doting father considered "a fun challenge" when he adapted those 'design' sketches his daughter gave him.

        Kris may have been stubborn, made terrible decisions, was likely guilty of some crimes he still had to answer for in some Martian court (along with the pile of other such characters), and had questionable judgement on what was appropriate to give a young girl, but no one could deny he loved his sensitive crybaby little girl, especially when there was something he could bond with her over.

        ====NOW====

        Yellow irises reflect the flashing lights of the Dianthus's dashboard as she weaves through space, tiny and insignificant, in her woefully undersized unit-- the one Elisa and Yuliana took, though whether it was a collaborative action is still up in the air.

        Maybe it's that fact that made Lucine rally against that initial attack, as well as the flood of emotion, coupled with the images that overload her mind's eye. She knows Rita well, and she knew her and Yuliana's history, but something is off--

        Lucine takes in Shari's words. Wait, isn't Shari...? Right, Shari Loom, a person that made Lucine wonder what sort of fate she had escaped, that day she and Liam met Elisa for that job application.

        Sayaka is right, however. < "I feel there's something we're missing... Perhaps, it's the fact that Yuliana isn't here, unless we just haven't found her yet." >

        Liam's introduction reminds Lucine of protocol. She's getting ahead of herself. < ".... Ah, right. Lucine Azul of the Nadesico, coming in to assist." > To Liam, on their private channel, she adds, < ".... I can't promise I'll remain effective before long if these psychic attacks continue, but I'll fight until I have to pull back. The key to thing may not be in defeating the dragon, but find out what caused the dragon to appear in the first place." > Lucine is realistic, facing the void with a calmness of inevitablity. Flying alongside the Liam's Akashima like a fairy companion, the Dianthus echoes that attack, drawing out the Argen-21 Beam Arbalest and aiming. There was no other unit aboard the Nadesico she'd trust more than the one she helped shape.

        This hunter, and this weapon, have dealt with dragons before.

KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Snipe, taking 3750 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.

         "What the fuck?"

        The assembled bridge crew of the Clean Shot stare open mouthed at the demonic dragon ahead of them. "You're shitting me," one of them mutters. They've seen kaiju before. They were briefed on the size of the dragon. Seeing it in person, though, is something else.

        Standing in the hangar bay of the ship she hastily boarded, Aurora shakes her head. Malicious obedience? Why is-

        The rest of it comes pouring in. "Aghhh!" Somewhere nearby, technicians scramble across glitching screens, trying to figure out how the dragon did that, and then quickly giving up. WAYYY above their pay grade. A few crew members stumble - ah, seems like their awakening as Newtypes is coming along smoothly!

        The images playing across the membranes immediately grab the entire crew's attention. Some of them are cringing away from their monitors. To their credit, they all manage to keep working through the disturbance. Sitting in his chair, Cpt. Vert grips his armrest and mutters something, before giving the order to sortie to all of his teams. They're on his ship, so they're his teams, damnit, even if they were just hitching a ride!

         "-Yuli?" Aurora watches the imagery, trying to make sense of it, fit the jagged puzzle pieces together even as the void-claws start scraping across her brain. She's not TOTALLY helpless; she's been around Yuliana before.

        That doesn't mean it doesn't HURT, though, having the... dragon in her ear. While she shakes her head, trying to get ahold of herself, a firm hand squeezes her shoulder. Reassuringly? It helps draw her attention, at least.

        "Focus, Aurora. Get in your suit and launch with the rest of the teams." The voice sounds concerned, to Aurora's ears at least.

        "Understood, Colonel." She nods and makes for her machine, not acknowledging the woman's relation to her out loud.

        Soon, she's scrambling out of the hangar bay doors, the third MS to leave the bay, flying in a hastily-assembled formation of disparate machines, her Gustav Karl somewhere off to the side of the flight lead.

        The hastily-assembled team's cohesion rapidly breaks in the wake of the dragon's attack, and they all break formation to evade, Aurora included.

        Fortunately, the Gustav Karl is deceptively mobile in space. She dives off to the side, spinning in the vacuum, and zooms over to attack, firing her beam rifle repeatedly into Istantarik's bulk.

KTS: Aurora Dusk targets Elisa Kafim with Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages guard against Aurora Dusk's Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully guards Aurora Dusk's Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire, taking 3872
damage!

<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.

        In the end, what Istantarik leaves behind are only the barest shreds of a ship; clearly, there are no survivors. Rena's missiles inform it that the ship was not alone, a green barrier flickering into existence which they have to explode first. It turns, ponderously. It turns, and turns, and turns, and TURNS, so much of it to twist around -- as it roars, a horrific noise which shatters existence, despite no air to carry the noise. It finds Anita's vulcan-fire meeting its thirteen heads, drawing its attention for precious moments -- moments which Kaworu's Evangelion exploit, sending a wave of energy to crash into its vast chest, where a heart should be. Its great wings flap, and a hurricane blows out to meet the three of them... despite the lack of air pressure here to create such a thing.

        The Green Knight advances, and does not move to slay the dragon but the space AROUND it, a shockwave echoing through reality to rock at its vast frame. It raises a claw to strike against the blow, though it isn't entirely here. Koji follows through with Mazinger Z's Whirling Cutters -- and he'll find that a green barrier erupts between his physical assault and the dragon, slowing its assault before it carves in. Naoko's Nova Blade completes their trifecta, her Lambda Driver lending her power enough to carve through Istantarik's scales. What drips from it is red -- but prismatic, at the same glance, marrying the profanity of flesh with eldritch visions. Istantarik roars protest, lifting its great claws as if to demonstrate how sharp its own claws are. It has enough of them to slash its foes simultaneously, one-two-three, coming down on Shari and Koji and Naoko.

        When Aphrodite Areia's shield sends the energy it's absorbed right back towards Istantarik, it rears back -- tower over tower, two hundred metres of height even as only its front half pulls up. It's that opening which Liam takes to fire his megaparticle cannon, with all the solidarity of an 'it'. Lucine follows his aim, with all her own experience slaying dragons; both arbalest and cannon strike its scales. Aurora's Gustav Karl joins them, its beam rifle laying into the same point. Its massive green tail lashes out to meet them all, lit up with green fire -- though the impact is decisively physical.

        Istantarik tries to bite Shelby's funnels out of the sky, but thankfully, they're small enough -- and Shelby skilled enough -- that they're able to evade its pique. Leina's funnels aren't quite as lucky, though, coming up after it's primed to expect such a small attacker: snap-gobble-GULP, and one of the Beguir-Neuer's funnels becomes a tiny, tiny snack. It fills its lungs with something which can't be oxygen, and breathes out massive fireballs of green flame to meet them both.

        Five of its heads snap focus onto one of the Gaia Sabers' ships, though, examining each in turn -- staring for long moments at the Clean Shot before passing it over. One head in particular lashes out to snatch the 'West Zone' into its jaws, pulling it back away from the crowd.

        They get to see it eat, this time. The jaws coming down. The CRUNCH. There are so many defenders here, and yet Istantarik only seems to want to eat one type of IFF signal...

        It turns its body to eat again, each head warring for a bite -- as pages flip across its wings, and images resolve again.

        OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZFiX6hDXQ Taylor Swift - Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?

        0093, JANUARY 04

        Yuliana Dian wears familiar black robes, preaching at the head of a congregation. Her black pupils are intent, on the crowd. "This existence isn't," she tells them, fiercely. (Rita told her, many times -- this life isn't all there is. What she took from it...) "You are lied to by your eyes -- but I have Seen! All the suffering of this world, it is nothing but the order we imposed on oblivion! There is a world beyond -- I have Seen it! Without war, without famine, without!" She yells into the crowd... and too many need to hear her.

        0093, JULY 28

        And one who listens is an Olympian. Elisa Kafim is in a vulnerable transition, finding the scientific world less welcoming than the athleticism of her youth; when she finds the Silent Calling speaking near her, she explores it with curiosity, needing an answer. Yuliana notices her at one of their dinners, and dismisses the brown haired girl at her arm by quite literally brushing her off. "Excuse me, Alice," Yuliana says, without looking to her. She summons another congregant, and instructs him, in a low voice, to invite Elisa up.

        0093, SEPTEMBER 9

        Elisa Kafim is at Yuliana's arm, now, as she laughs at a dinner after one of her speeches. A beautiful blue-haired woman looks terribly put out by it, and finally, Yuliana takes notice. "Fatima, don't tell me you're jealous! The Void has chosen Elisa, as well." It was not the Void which chose her, and perhaps that's why Elisa smiles like she does.

        "Though," Yuliana adds, with a dangerous smile, "jealousy can be a productive emotion, too. Blessed are the women who know what they want, and take action to secure it..."

        It is not the first time she'll encourage Elisa -- and not only Elisa -- to honour her darkest traits. She knows how to spark jealousy in others; she makes them dance, just like she did. And why shouldn't she get what she wants?

        0094, FEBRUARY 16

        "Shit!" Yuliana yelps, as she pulls back from the sacrificial circle, blood still at her dagger. It clatters to the ground as she clutches her head, evidently pained. The body in the background surely went through far more pain. "Shit, I'm going to get hurt if I keep trying this. But I'm sure -- I'm sure there's potential here. There must be some way..."

        There must be someone she can use.

        0094, MARCH 04

        "You were a birthday gift to me," Yuliana tells Elisa, playing at her purple hair as they lay in bed. "But I've heard some terrible news, of late. Alice had that accident with the stairs, back in October... and then Fatima ate that bad shrimp at Christmas, do you recall? Now I hear that Mei Yu had an incident with faulty brakes..." She doesn't have to say they're all women close to Yuliana; she knows Elisa knows.

        And Elisa doesn't say it, either. Instead, she insists, shifting in bed to look to her leader: "I know what I want."

        "I could only give myself to my High Priestess," Yuliana says, smiling with a sharp edge. "You may be called on to commit uncouth acts... but you already have, haven't you?"

        0094, JULY 10

        Elisa holds the ritual-blade, now, still dripping with blood. With her other hand, she scribes her findings down into a leather-bound tome; the glimpses of those pages, through the visions, reveal a starkly scientific approach to her bloody experiments. Yuliana is there, with her, in the circle -- but her hands are not stained with blood. Now someone else channels the Power, it does not lash out at her psyche so painfully. Now, as the blood drips, she smiles.

        0094, DECEMBER 13

        Elisa plunges her ritual-blade down, and chants: "By your blood, enscribe the Way..." She paints sigils on the ground, and as her fingers falter, she calls: "My Yuliana!"

        Yuliana places her hands upon her shoulder, then, closing her eyes in a show of concentration. (There is a wedding-band there, now, joined by more than one ritual.) Power flashes over Elisa's gaze, gleaming sick green, as she presses her hand to the centre of the circle. Together, they complete the ritual.

        As the pages turn, showing time and time again, it is always together.

        Elisa needs Yuliana to act; Yuliana cannot do what Elisa does so directly.

        0095, MAY 07

        "You're changing," Yuliana notices when she's sitting beside her wife, finally, running a hand up her chest, pausing by her heart. She presses down, there, gently. "Your heart is slow, now... slower than it was, zhenushka," for Elisa Dian kept her Olympian physique, even after she stopped competing. "And yet," she adds, reaching up to cup her cheek, "you are even more beautiful." The blemishes and scars she wears -- never overwhelming to begin with, unlike the story written on Yuliana's skin -- have long since vanished, and no mark now lasts on Elisa, for long.

        "You have grown more lovely, as well," Elisa says, and what she finds lovely is plain when time passes this quickly: Yuliana's hair has grown long down her neck, held in an intricate braid, and her winged eye-liner now accompanies lipstick, eyeshadow, and blush.

        "Does it please you?" Yuliana asks, though she knows the answer.

        "It does," Elisa naturally replies.

        And Yuliana smiles, to her wife. "I'm so glad. I'm relying on you, my darling, so of course I want you to be happy. And you're very happy now, aren't you? This life... is far more exciting than anything you had before."

        "It is," replies the Olympian, who had a bright scientific future ahead of her before she fell into Yuliana's trap.

        The pages grow indistinct again...

        ... perhaps as Istantarik finishes eating.

KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Koji Kabuto with Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Kaworu Nagisa with Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Rena Lancaster's Newtype activates!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Shari Loom's Heart of the Machine activates!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Shari Loom with Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Aurora Dusk with Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Shelby Korts with Spite Wing Ebonpyre!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Spite Wing Ebonpyre!
KTS: Shari Loom engages parry against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Shari Loom moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe, taking 2800 damage!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa engages guard against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa's Will Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa successfully guards Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane, taking 1840 damage!
KTS: Aurora Dusk has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Aurora Dusk's I've Accepted the Machine that I Am activates!
KTS: Aurora Dusk engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Aurora Dusk's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Aurora Dusk poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap, taking 3000 damage!
KTS: Liam 7-020 engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Liam 7-020's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Critical Hit! Liam 7-020 poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap, taking 3850 damage!
KTS: Rena Lancaster engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Rena Lancaster successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane, taking 3420 damage!
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Leina Ashta engages block against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Ebonpyre!
KTS: Critical Hit! Leina Ashta poorly blocks Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Ebonpyre, taking 5600 damage!
KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Shelby Korts engages block against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Ebonpyre!
KTS: Critical Hit! Shelby Korts poorly blocks Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Ebonpyre, taking 5600 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi engages guard against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi moderately guards Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap, taking 2975 damage!
KTS: Koji Kabuto engages parry against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Koji Kabuto successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe, taking 2200 damage!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages parry against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Naoko Suzuki successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Claw Swipe, taking 1750 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.

"That's--that's horrible," Rena says, after Anita, to Shari's revelation. She shakes her head. "Annie, Nova. We've--we've got to stop this. Get her out... or at least, let her pass on in peace."

They're not alone, though. She glances at Mazinger Z and Aphrodite Areia, then to Unit Beta.

But then Leina speaks. She nods. "Yeah," she agrees. "We can't let this roam free."

Her skin crawls as she sees how it turns, its body shifting and moving in a way that only something living (if it could be called that) of that size could. Then, it beats its wings -- and the wind slams the Gaia Gear back away from Svipul. Armor stresses; it bends in a few places.

The arms and legs unfold; the head comes out; the wing binders and foot thrusters fire to slow its movement. It pulls the beam rifle off the back of the Gaia Gear.

Rena takes aim -- as the beam rifle's barrel pops out, lengthening. She takes aim -- then a bolt of blue light explodes from the barrel and towards the dragon.

KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Beam Rifle Hyper Mode!
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Anita Rosetta engages block against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane!
KTS: Anita Rosetta's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Anita Rosetta successfully blocks Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing Midnight Hurricane, taking 1540 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.

"...Thanks, Doc." Shari has a little relief in her voice when she answers Sayaka. "But i won't just hide behind you, anymore. I'll protect you and him, too!" Koji, that is. And their other friends here--

She senses Leina, even before she hears her.

"...When she killed her," Shari explains to 'how'. "She trapped her 'soul'. That's something she can do, if she's fast."

But Liam cries out to her, and Shari answers, "I'm okay!" she says. "I'm here to help! Just make sure your buddies don't fire at me instead!" she says to Liam.

"Naoko..." Shari smiles into the display, and it's not even forced in the moment. "I am, too. We'll do this together, OK? I'll show you my power!"

But she can't stay smiling; the Void screams in her ears, held at bay by the technology she's developed to block out the Empress's voice.

"I dunno 'why now'," she admits. "I don't exactly talk with them on the regular or anything these days..."

She looks a little nervously at the Gustav Karl on her display, as well as the other NUNE suits, but she'll have to have faith in herself and in the fact that this is a bigger problem than 'terrorists'.

The Dragon Istantarik counterattacks, and Shari Loom works her controls. "Nope!" she calls, and her great Voidtouched Blade, nearly the size of the entire mobile suit, rises to meet that claw and deflect it away from her body.

But then... Another vision.

"...Huh?" Shari says, and she started to turn on her radio but got confused. "That's... so weird."

"It was never like this," Shari says. "Elisa was the one who did the manipulating. And Yuliana definitely never saw other women with Elisa around..."

"...She had nothing to do with Elisa's rituals, either. I don't--I don't get it. Why would it show us something that didn't happen?"

Confusion aside, the battle remains. Shari and her Green Knight rise towards the Dragon's claws. Another ship killed. Everyone dies. Shari shudders, as she hears the Whispers outside her mind intensify.

"Naoko," she says over the radio to her best friend. "We--we have to stop this thing."

She surges forward then, and whirls around, her blade cutting space. But this time it is more than a ripple. The Green Knight hacks the air, and green-black ripples from its blade. It becomes larger, larger still, until it is big enough to matter against such a titanic threat, sailing through towards the dragon's heart.

She sees Nova flying near Rena; she moves towards them both, as her slash rends space-time itself in a flashy blast.

"You don't belong in this world!"

KTS: Shari Loom has activated the Trick Spirit Command.
KTS: Shari Loom has activated the Alert Spirit Command.
KTS: Shari Loom targets Elisa Kafim with Voidtouched Blade Hyperdimension Cut!
KTS: Shari Loom's Whispers' Call activates Alert!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage charge against Rena Lancaster's Beam Rifle Hyper Mode!
KTS: Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Rena Lancaster's Beam Rifle Hyper Mode, taking 4700 damage!
KTS: You can only respond to Leaders with React.
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages react against Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Hyperdimension Cut!
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Hyperdimension Cut, taking 4836 damage!
KTS: Lucine Azul engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap!
KTS: Best Defense! Lucine Azul moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Tail Slap, taking 0 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

It feels like his heart is pounding in his throat. The air feels thin, even though he knows the Space Pilder's oxygen recycling system is state-of-the-art.

It's been a long time since he's felt dread like this. (Was Titan G9 the first? Was Genocider? Or was it Garasect and Doublas, the very first battle he fought? It was all so long ago, blurred together.)

"... I'm fine, Sayaka," but there is a tiny quaver in his voice. He clears his throat, leaning forwards at the controls, and shakes his hands to release the tension before taking hold again.

The dashboard display crackles again - again, an eerie sequence of images in third person, telling a grim story of a whirlwind romance tarred with manipulation and murder - so much murder. Again, Koji is dumbstruck by the visions being shown to him this way. "Wait, this... this doesn't make - "

Shari says it too. None of this happened. It almost makes him freeze, mind whirling to draw some kind of conclusion, but -

- claw -

"IRON CUTTER!" The blades spring out from Mazinger Z's forearms and he brings them up in a cross block, letting himself be crashed into and flung safely away from the monster's lashing tail.

... Right. His body remembers how to fight things this large, even if his mind's distracted.

"Its barrier protects against impact and cutting damage!" He calls out, retracting the Iron Cutters. "Focus on energy and Minovsky-based weapons!" Mazinger Z's horns crackle with blue light, and blast a ray of hypothermic energy at the dragon. "REITO BEAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Elisa Kafim with Reito Beam!

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

One of her funnels vanishes, she feels it go, the link severed. An eye twitches as she strains, it's like losing a limb, without the same pain.

Just the knowledge of its loss.

Images fractalize and resolve.

"What- I... " The Beguir shakes, it's enormous shield interposing inexpertly, but a poor match for the wave of Voidflame that detonates and curls over it.

"NNNNNNGH!" The cockpit alarms blare at the noises as insulation fails, panting against it, "... It's never a good day when you decide to act."

Leina mutters, as she recovers, listening to Shari, "No, and the timeline doesn't match for Mom either. She didn't have that kind of relationship with her." -before stating over the comms, "Koji - Sayaka - what's happening is similar to Goragon isn't it? Any theories on how?"

Like it's touching on the concept of 'fate' or 'destiny'.

Despite Koji's warning, she's been forcibly drawn near Istanrik, and suddenly jerks on the controls to orient the legs down, as her claws slam into it's side, latching on as best as she can despite the barriers.

Then thrusters firing again, she tugs, and rips, and PULLS against the dragon's own movement, in her attempt to simply rip part of its flank right off through that barrier.

"Even if we don't know that. Stopping her just became that much more urgent."

KTS: Leina Ashta's Ace of Dominicus activates!
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Beguir Neur Foot Unit Claw Shred Armor!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Koji Kabuto's Reito Beam!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Koji Kabuto's Reito Beam, taking 3525 damage!
KTS: Koji Kabuto begins a Formation attack!
KTS: Koji Kabuto rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Leina Ashta's Beguir Neur Foot Unit Claw Shred Armor!
KTS: Elisa Kafim moderately reacts to Leina Ashta's Beguir Neur Foot Unit Claw Shred Armor, taking 5490 damage!
KTS: Leina Ashta completes the Formation attack!
KTS: Leina Ashta bypasses Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Guarding the next attack!

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        There are many familiar machines joining the battle, and some less familiar. Istantarik is so vast that even all of them collected, there's sufficient space for many of them to be well separated from the others. Lucine and her Dianthus arrive too, separately from NERV's transport, and Kaworu smiles crookedly at her as she and Liam gravitate towards each other as always. Love is so beautiful.
        
        Istantarik turns not unlike how the world turns, then flaps its mighty wings, creating hurricane winds that should not be. Unit Beta responds by flaring her own wings, made from the light of her heart as made manifest by her pilot, to defend her. They are forced back--but they aren't blown away, iridescent orange light glittering in their wake.
        
        It is curious, though. There are a great number of defenders here, and yet, self-defense aside, the truly titanic beast continues to zero in on a certain type of enemy. Teeth and claws and fire follow it as it devours more and more of those Gaia Saber ships. Its wings form pages that flip past and convey their images of what might be called a whirlwind romance. Kaworu considers the part of the story of Yuliana and Elisa that exists in between the parts he's already seen. It is fittingly bloody.
        
        Kaworu doesn't concern himself with Lilim-on-Lilim conflicts--it's not his place--so he doesn't know what to make of Istantarik's exacting hunger. He only knows that it is. The love that Yuliana goads out of Elisa... That is a rather different side to it than what he does know.
        
        But Shari explains that this isn't real. This isn't what actually happened. Leina chimes in on how Sayla didn't have that kind of relationship with Yuliana at that point either. Kaworu's eyebrows furrow. <"Then that was... I see. It was even further back,"> he muses.
        
        That was before he knew of them at all, an entire universe ago.
        
        "<Indeed,>" he tells Rena. To Koji, he messages, "<Understood. I'll follow your advice.>"
        
        Unit Beta sheathes her Heat Rapier. When she sweeps her hand around and above, iridescent orange light follows--and then something cuts through space on the molecular level.
        
        It cuts towards Istantarik, to bisect what parts of its enormous mass it can reach.

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Separation!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Kaworu Nagisa's Separation!
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Separation, taking 4320 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

"I appreciate that. You really have gotten stronger, haven't you, Shari?" Sayaka replies, her voice a tone softer, as Shari vows to protect herself Koji, and everyone as well. "But no matter what happens... we'll all make it out of this." She reasserts.

Istantarik - Dr. Devi's fury knows no bounds. Its hatred is most violently turned towards the Gaia Sabers fleet, it seems... but Aphrodite Areia isn't spared from its wrath, either. Sayaka uses the Photon Shield again to push back the dragon's sweeping tail and stay on balance - but even Aphrodite Areia is an aging machine at this point. She can only give so much. "Just a little more, Areia..." Sayaka grits her teeth.

The pages of Istantarik's wings reveals more stories from the past... but as Shari points out, it doesn't seem to add up. None of this happened. "Koji, is this-" And before Sayaka can answer Koji, Leina says it first. "...It's just like what we saw in Goragon," Sayaka realizes, for all her experience studying that phenomenon. "...Does that mean we're seeing what could have been? Or... is this what already was?" Her eyes widen, trying to contain all the possible theories.

Before they can worry about that, they have a dragon to slay. "Energy weapons? Got it! I'll cover you -PHOTON NAGINATA!" Sayaka heeds Koji's analysis, twirling out a naginata of Photon Energy, sending it sweeping forward in a whirlwind both equally elegant and violent, to tear apart Istantarik's wings.

KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Photon Naginata Whirlwind!

<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.

"I'm with you there." Anita replies to Naoko with a nod. "We gotta step this before it gets out of hand.

Rena says they have to let her pass on - and Leina says they're sending her back where she belongs.

"...Yeah." Anita replies with a nod. "Someone's gotta do it."

Easier said than done. The dragon's massive wings flap, and the sheer force of it is enough to cause a hurricane - or perhaps there's something more to it, to cause such a thing here in the depths of space. The Svipul braces itself as the winds crash against it, the Pinpoint Barrier helping to divert them around it.

She looks away as the fangs bare down on another target - but her eyes are drawn back as images play out once more. Anita frowns - and her frown only deepens as they progress.

"This is kind of..." Anita starts, trailing off. It makes her a little uneasy - she shakes it off, though, focusing once more on the fight. The question is raised of whether what they're seeing is reality, or a reality that could've been. She's not sure which is which... but it must be significant, either way.

The Svipul pulls back, putting a little distance between itself and Istantarik as the Gungnir SC emerges over its shoulder. Energy builds briefly, but she doesn't go for a full charge - once she's at optimal firing range, a beam races out for one of its many heads.

KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Elisa Kafim with Cannon Mode - Quick Shot!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Sayaka Yumi's Photon Naginata Whirlwind!
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Photon Naginata Whirlwind, taking 4050 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Quick Shot!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Quick Shot, taking 3675 damage!
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Lucine Azul's Morning Star activates!

<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.

        Lucine, Rena, Leina, especially-- all kept in mind as the Jagd Doga stays on a steady lateral arc, trying to stay out of the way of the void dragon in flight-- away from it's head, as she knows full well what happens when those start to breathe the fel unflame from it's gaping maw. Unfortunately she, and Leina, are put into a position where that's just not possible.

        Mechanical legs swing around with a flare of verniers to sharply slow the Jagd Doga down, Shelby turning the mobile suit's left shoulder forward to present it-- and the large round shield mounted on the forearm-- toward the blaze in an attempt to buffet herself from both the impact and the torching effect it has-- as well as her headache inching closer and closer toward more-than-annoying pain what with the spread of newtype influence and the odd telepathy clashing against things that have no business being here.

        When the flames clear, the shield is largely intact yet pitted deeply with pock-marks of slag running down one leg; the left shoulder's shield binder scorched to the metals beneath the paint. Shelby glances at the console, thumbing thick switches and pulling back a hand to change position in space and click at control stick buttons--

        The Jagd Doga flips on cue, the rotation borderline uncontrolled as it tries to line itself back up and then arc ahead-- closer, but to try to stay out of the path of the dragon's mouth. The gatling rifle slung across it's mid-back is brought to bear, tucked close and under the arm as the barrels spin up--

        -- as more of Yuliana--
        "Ghh--" Shelby growls between her teeth in an audible noise over her comms,

        -- as the barrels spin up and let loose with a furious spray of weapons fire aimed to spread across the length of the beast, to pummel and weaken it's hide!

KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
KTS: Shelby Korts targets Elisa Kafim with Beam Gatling Gun Sustained Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages block against Shelby Korts's Beam Gatling Gun Sustained Fire!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully blocks Shelby Korts's Beam Gatling Gun Sustained Fire, taking 3024 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.

Naoko is used to fear being a part of every battle, a constant presence that she has to push herself past. She was absolutely expecting it now - how could it not be present, fighting against a giant monster from the Void such as this? And yet... pushing herself forward right now doesn't feel as if there's any effort involved with it at all. It's so strange... no fear, no doubts... what could be causing this? Is it because she's facing the very sort of thing she'd resolved herself to stand against? Because she has absolutely faith in the machine she built to do so? Because she's bolstered by her best friend's similar resolve? Perhaps a combination of all those factors.

But, this is hardly the time for self-analysis. The dragon retaliates in the wake of their attack, and she has an absolutely huge claw bearing down on her. Yet, even now, there isn't any fear slipping through the cracks.

"You won't touch me!!"

Simple words, from a frail human being, piloting such a small machine. This should be nothing in comparison to such a giant monster. But with the will behind it empowering the Arm Slave, the claw crashes into an invisible barrier, finding no purchase on the machine itself. In fact - it burns to the touch. The barrier is actual anathema to the Void, backed by a targeted opposing force. Shari's share of the work put into the Sukeban Kiseki on full display.

Rena's concerns are heard, to which Naoko responds, "I uh, I don't feel like there's enough left of whoever this was to actually free them. If it helps... I'm pretty sure this was not a good person. But, I agree that nobody deserves something like this."

Those visions though... what could they be? She knows enough from what she's heard from Shari that this is completely wrong, there's no way that what she's seeing could be how things actually happened. At least... not in this reality. Why... are they being shown a different Possibility?

Shari brings her back to the here and now. "--Right! We can't let it keep doing - well, anything! Go in ahead, I'll be right behind you!"

True to her word, Sukeban Kiseki moves to be back-to-back with with Spinatio Knight, readying its own blade. A blade which grows, and grows, to a flat out ridiculous degree, several times the size of the machine itself. When the only limits are your own will, such things don't have to make logical sense to still happen. Following up right after the Knight, the Sukeban too swings its ethereal blade with the greatest of ease, sending out all that energy in the form of a giant wave.

"Die, monster! EMPYREAN SLASH!"

KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Alert Spirit Command.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Empyrean Slash!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Naoko Suzuki's Empyrean Slash!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Empyrean Slash, taking 4650 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        Malicious compliance, Liam reflects. Why is he thinking of that? He takes a deep, steadying breath as the Dianthus moves to join him. "Hang in there for as long as you can," he transmits to Lucine, via tightbeam. "We have to stop this!" Toggling the radio to broadbeam, he transmits to everyone, including the 'buddies' Shari mentioned.

        "Gaia Sabers forces, that kaiju is an existential threat, focus all fire on it--"

        CRUNCH, goes another one of their ships. Liam gets a better view of it. The taste of bile rises in the back of his throat at the sight of it. At the sight of the visions, too. "Wait," he says. They're right. "It's--

        Istantarik's massive tail sweeps out, slamming headlong into the Akashima. Only a split-second juke to the right saves Liam from a crushing impact. Plates of armor stave inward. The bright glow of a Pinpoint Barrier flickers, for a moment, and dies down. He recognizes more voices. Shelby is here, and--

        The Akashima glances sidelong at the Gustav Karl flanking it, but he doesn't yet recognize the woman piloting it. "Positron cannon building charge," Liam says. He watches a meter climb out of the corner of his eye, a delicate balance of antimatter synthesis and magnetic containment fields. "Agreed, Leina. The Devil must be wondering where she went." The Akashima jukes upwards, draws up its cannon-arm, and braces it with its other hand. A pinpoint targeting beam fires, and harmlessly strikes one of the great dragon's heads. A moment later, an equally-precise megaparticle beam follows, with enough power to core a Mobile Suit in a single shot.

KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Elisa Kafim with EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Steady Shot!
KTS: Liam 7-020's Tactical Intelligence activates Trick!
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages guard against Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Steady Shot!
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully guards Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - Steady Shot, taking 4165
damage!

<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.

         Aurora looks on as she adds her beam rifle fire to Liam and Lucine's. Target the same spot over and over to break through heavy armor. The same principle should apply to eldritch dragons. Probably.

        The retaliation is expected, but Aurora is already a little void-rattled and distracted, and besides all that unused to fighting things THIS large. As the onrushing tail fills her vision, she rapidly yanks her control sticks upwards, slamming down the pedal as she tries to evade - and Istantarik's tail catches her in her own 'tail'. It wasn't a clean hit, and the Gustav Karl is a bulky machine, but it was still a hit.

        She watches the history of Yuliana and her mysterious wife unfold... but something about it seems... off. The way they interact... If only Aurora had more time to ponder it- never mind, the voices of her new allies confirmed it. That's NOT how it happened. She grits her teeth and forces herself to look at the monster.

        And what a terrifying monster it is! It has to be said, living things are not meant to reach that size. The dragon is something... something something. Words fail to describe the horror of standing in front of something of that size. A battleship would be fearsome; this stygian leviathan that looks like it belongs in some evil ocean where no man has ever set foot before is awe-inspiring.

        She shakes her head. No time for that now.

        The machine may be different, but the voice is the same. "Liam!" Aurora calls out to the man next to her, finding herself gravitating towards Liam's formation. When he starts painting one head, she begins locking onto it with her own weapons, and as soon as the missile lock tone turns solid, she presses the buttons on her sticks, sending a not quite as impressive as a Variable Fighter but still respectable volley of missiles streaking through the emptiness towards it.

        Flying alongside him through the void (of space, not the other void)... It feels... right. This is where she belongs. (Perhaps it's where they both belong, something inside her whispers. The two weapons... He ought to be able to understand.)

        Back on board the Clean Shot, the crew observes Istantarik's eating habits. One of the junior officers lets out a strangled cry that they can't quite suppress. A bridge officer turns his head towards Vert, calling out in professional panic. "We've lost the West Zone!" In response, Vert grips the armrest tighter. "Guns front! Fire all cannons! Don't hit our allies!" The crew's hands fly rapidly over the controls as particle cannons realign, adding their fire to the volley of the massed ships, for all the good they can do against a monster of that size. "All ships! Back up out of range of that monster's heads!" Vert isn't actually in command of the battlegroup, but SOMEBODY had to say it. Besides, maybe if he LOOKS commanding enough, his superiors will see fit to GIVE HIM command over multiple ships? Worth a shot, he thinks.

KTS: Aurora Dusk targets Elisa Kafim with Standard Small Missiles Double Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim engages block against Aurora Dusk's Standard Small Missiles Double Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully blocks Aurora Dusk's Standard Small Missiles Double Fire, taking 1850
damage!

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        While the visions being shown to her over the Dianthus's feed allow some amount of distance for Lucine, she's not so lucky when it comes to emotions. She's spared no respite from the emotional whirlwind of the Void(is it?), all there is is to weather it, and not stare deeply.

        Breathe, like Liam taught you.
        Remember the fields of white flowers, the hallowed grave, and understand why you persist.
        Recall the clink of ice cubes in a glass of that brand of fruit soda you found, as the TV plays a food special in the background.
        Feel the ring on your finger, the one Liam gave you on that date years ago.
        Remember the people you've met, some of which you fight beside.
        Feel their conviction, as well as appreciate the ones you can't feel, but know it's there, all the same.
        Understand the deaths of those here, and feel that sting, and the way it pricks tears out of the corners of your eyes.
        Breathe.

        < "I'm going strong so far." > That comment is for Liam's ears alone, but Lucine wishes she could knock on wood, just for that. < "But... the same goes for you, too. If you pull back, I'll follow you." > There's enough martyrs on the field as it is.

        The tail lash is easier for the Dianthus to dodge due to size alone, but considering how its armor would hold up otherwise, it's not much of an advantage. Lucine's understanding of what's happening, though....

        It's Shari's information that helps Lucine understand, and here, it's no different, as Shari is bewildered.

        < "... Elisa was as devoted to Yuliana as the other way around. Two victims... can easily play each other's tormentors." > This sentence feels surreal, as she sees, through the area of the Dianthus not occupied by that feed witness the deaths of so many. < "I'm not sure what I'm seeing, but..." > Lucine remembers the way Yuliana reacted to her, when she came across Yuliana at the Photon Power Lab.

        Sympathy can become a snare.

        Koji's voice gives guidance; Lucine nods reflexively, then confirms audibly. <"Laying down a field of traps. Be aware so you don't fly into them yourselves." > Can this tactic even work here? Only one way to find out.

        The Dianthus departs from Liam's side, drawing a field of scattered 'mines' like dandelion fluff, attention to herd the kaiju to a position more advantageous for all of her allies.

KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies!
KTS: Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies, taking 4800 damage!
KTS: Lucine Azul anchors Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Evading the next attack!

<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.

        Is Devi trapped within Istantarik... or is Devi commandeering Istantarik?

        It's a valid question to ask, all outlined in the inconsistencies -- the way Istantarik both strikes at and spares Aurora. It may be said that Elisa is not, at least, in full control of this dragon.

        Why would Elisa show you all these things?

        ... did she even know?

        Her shock and rage, heard at the dragon's beginning, may suggest she did not.

        Regardless, Rena won't allow anyone to be trapped -- even Dr. Devi. Her Beam Rifle takes on a frightening length, and blasts at the side of one of Istantarik's heads, ferocious enough to knock it to one side. Koji's Reito Beam follows it, alongside a quick, well-aimed blast from Anita, and missiles firing from Aurora's Gustav Karl. Finally, Liam fires his Positron Cannon, a terrible blast of energy ferocious enough -- with the help of everyone else's fire -- to core one of those heads like an apple.

        Others choose a more melee response -- though they don't always have a choice in the matter. Shari's slice through dimensions weakens Istantarik's armour at its chest, with a visible ripple. Leina takes advantage of it to shred the beast's barrier with her Claw-Foot, engaging her thrusters to dig in, and tear...

        ... and she pulls a layer of scales away from its chest, only to reveal something incomprehensible where its heart should be. There are eyes, there, staring into her. Eyes, and a great, gaping maw -- which Kaworu dives forward to bisect with Unit Beta's elegant Heat Rapier, splitting the dragon's heart in two. They scream, and die, withering in two parts.

        But Istantarik rages on. Devi was always a heartless woman, wasn't she? No -- killing her heart will not kill her.

        Naoko doesn't aim so precisely. Her Empyrean Slash carves right down Istantarik's belly, and so many of those scales slough off in the wake of her Lambda Driver-empowered assault; she has worked for long hours to find the key to fighting back against the Void, and now, she's enforcing logic an illogical horror. She has created a weak underbelly where none existed -- and Shelby fires into it, blasting holes into the massive creature with that wild gatling-gun spray.

        Aphrodite Areia comes in from another angle, to try and strike at the cinema of its wings, instead. The Photon Power scores a cut as well, now the Sukeban Kiseki has proven it may be pierced, and colours out of space bleed from the wound. Where it twists around to face her, it 'steps' into those mines which Lucine lays, and they distract it from biting Sayaka in two.

        But in the end, Istantarik is vast. It is vaster still than some of the very settlements in space, as if men could live and die upon its scales. It absorbs these blows without stopping, as its locust vents open, and horrific things like insects pour out into space to assault its attackers. Huge locusts ram into Naoko's Sukeban Kiseki, as large as it is; they are not quite the same size as Sayaka's Aphrodite Areia, Rena's Gaia Gear, or Anita's Svipul, but they tear past them anyway, buffeting them with horrible legs and buzzing wings. And as it pours those locusts out, it roars, its rage growing from a noise to an assault which shakes everything around it. Shelby, Leina, Koji, and Kaworu bear the brunt of that echoing force.

        It slashes its claws through space-time, and Power explodes from the wound, tearing forward like a shockwave -- right towards Shari, and threatening to catch Aurora, Liam, and Lucine in the same blast.

        Meanwhile, the ships are swarmed with locusts, flooding into them like a dozen-dozen mobile suits. They obscure their sensors with their horrible little bodies, even as their horrible little jaws nibble on the metal. The Gaia Sabers ships are choked, too, even as they try to follow Vert's advice and fall back -- and the 'Beleaguered' finds itself separated from the others, as Istantarik lashes out, again. Even the crafts which are able to evade the locust-swarm have to deal with the sheer present force of Istantarik's roar and its horrible reality-warping assault, for that one crucial moment --

        CRUNCH.

        It feeds. The pages turn.

        0095, JUNE 14

        Yuliana rushes out of the congregation hall, all but hanging off the railing as she retches. By the time Elisa catches up to her, she's already shaking a bottle of pills into the palm of her hand, swallowing them dry.

        "They're not good for you," Elisa frowns, putting a hand on her wife's arm. Yuliana shrugs her off, turning away as she snaps, angrily: "Stop nagging me! I know!" But she looks back, turned with her arms folded, and her anger softens as she sees her wife's tense expression. Her shoulders sink. "Haa, I shouldn't yell at you so much... I know you're just concerned, my darling. But it's hard, for me. They all depend on me... but I was never made to lead. Now I give the orders, and..."

        "Depend on me," Elisa urges her, instead, reaching for her wife again. "I have seen the strain you labour under... let me bear it for you."

        "There's so much to consider... would you take care of it...?" Yuliana wonders, glancing away.

        "I will," Elisa promises.

        OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZDYlOdq6z0 Ghost - Witch Image

        0095, OCTOBER 31

        They call it a death cult, those who keep track of these things. The Silent Calling preaches oblivion -- that this world is a thin illusion, stretched over nothing at all. 'This existence isn't.' Their nihilism brings them strength in a world plagued by war, but... they've started fighting, too, wanton destruction affiliated with no banner.

        They say that the illusion of existence brings them pain, when the truth is, there is nothing at all. No one dwells in the Void, not any more. All there is... is nothing. GGG is watching them closely for signs of Triple Zero infection, but none of them have shown any signs, so far -- whatever the nonexistence of the Void is, it isn't associated with the deepest depths of existence.

        It's another type of nothing.

        But there's one girl, facing up to their terrorism, who isn't satisfied with them not being that kind of horror. The young Whispered, Shari Loom, completes her machine -- a contraption guided by her Whispers to save the people of Earth from the horrific dragons which Elisa births. She is only fifteen years old, and yet she manages to dispel the terrible beast with only her greatest technological marvel... her 'Green Fold Quartz'.

        0095, NOVEMBER 25

        It was supposed to be Yuliana and Elisa Dian's wedding anniversary gift to themselves -- a dragon attacking the city of Fujinomiya. But Shari Loom, in her machine with its Green Fold Wand, defeats the Twin Dragon Tolsivya with a single 'zap!' It's here that she earns the esteem of the retired Mazinger pilot, Koji Kabuto -- one of many worried by the rise of this new threat.

        It's also here that Yuliana learns who she is.

        "That girl!" She rages, as she storms through their home, tearing a bookcase down so it thunders to the ground. She is careless to her carnage, as she buries her fist in a wall. "THAT GIRL! 'Shari Loom', is it?! She's the one who's been foiling us! I'll rend her to pieces! I hate her! Death is too good for her, I'll have her wish for death!"

        Elisa was not always as angry as her wife, but now she allows herself to crush a heel into that fallen bookcase, splintering it with unnatural strength from the Void. Just like stomping on a bug. "Are there others like her?" She asks, scowling.

        "If there are, I'll damn them, too!" Yuliana screams. "We were so close! If she keeps up like this -- we have to advance the plan. We have to advance the plan," she repeats, turning to her wife, grasping her dark shoulders tightly. "We can't wait any more. The Way must open now, or she'll stop us with that blasted quartz of hers. If only I could take it from her, twist it before her very eyes -- but there's no time!"

        Elisa looks to her wife, placidly, and does not lift a hand. "It will be done," she assures her.

        0096, JANUARY 15

        "I will dance!" Yuliana cries, as she twirls in the cage of green energy which protects her from any of the mobile suit attacks coming in from outside. Her flesh ribbons as she turns, as if sliced by some unknown force; dancing is killing her. "I must dance! It is the only way!"

        And it's Elisa's voice which echoes out, over the radio, in her Queadlunn-Rhea. "No! My darling, stop this! You will perish!"

        "We'll perish either way!" Yuliana yells, her voice amplified by her dance floor. "The world won't forgive us for sacrificing those Newtypes!" The machine they built to grant them the power to sunder reality was fueled by the Newtypes in their congregration -- Newtypes who trusted her, right up 'til the end. Yuliana evidently wasn't as concerned about the ones in her care as she was when she handed them to Sayaka, in this tale they're viewing. "But now -- we can escape! We can escape, and you're the only thing worth anything in this nonexistent world! You have to --"

        A younger voice comes in -- though she's not speaking to them. "I've figured out the harmonics," Shari Loom says, as her Spinatio points its wand at the barrier. "I'm bringing the wall down!"

        "NO!", Yuliana cries, as the palisade falls -- and beam fire pours in. She does not survive...

        ... but the portal in the sky only grows larger.

        Yuliana is the Key and the Gate... and the Lock to bind it shut.

        The first thing it consumes is Elisa, though her screams never truly die.

        The pages grow indistinct again; there are no lifesigns remaining on the Beleaguered.

KTS: [Spirit Defense] Shari Loom's Out of the Void activates, and the spirit endures.
KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Daunt Spirit Command targeting Shari Loom
KTS: Elisa Kafim: Will Barrier Activates.
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: [Spirit Defense] Koji Kabuto's Mazin Pride activates, and the spirit endures.
KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Daunt Spirit Command targeting Koji Kabuto
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Shelby Korts with Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Koji Kabuto with Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Kaworu Nagisa with Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Shari Loom with Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Liam 7-020's The Hound activates!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Aurora Dusk with Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Alert Spirit Command.
KTS: Rena Lancaster engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Best Defense! Rena Lancaster moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
KTS: Anita Rosetta engages intercept against Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Anita Rosetta's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Anita Rosetta poorly reacts to Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague, taking 3060 damage!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa engages react against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Best Defense! Kaworu Nagisa successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Leina Ashta engages react against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Best Defense! Leina Ashta successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Shari Loom engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Shari Loom's Magic Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Shari Loom moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Koji Kabuto engages react against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Koji Kabuto moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar, taking 5394 damage!
KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
KTS: Shelby Korts engages react against Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar!
KTS: Best Defense! Shelby Korts successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Titanic Fury - Sky-shaking Roar, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
KTS: Liam 7-020 engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Liam 7-020's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Liam 7-020 successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction, taking 4950 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Aurora Dusk engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Best Defense! Aurora Dusk successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi engages intercept against Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague, taking 3120 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.

"...This is messed up," Rena tells Anita. She frowns. Then she looks at Leina, on her panoramic display. "You're sensing this, too, Leina? It's--it's like some history that never happened, right?"

Then she looks at Naoko -- and her brow furrows. But she nods. "Yeah... yeah, you're right, Nova. Sending them on is the best we can do for them."

Horrific, insect-like monsters fly away from Istantarik -- and towards the Gaia Gear. Rena grits her teeth. "Annie! We've got--some kinda incoming!"

She isn't sure what the void insects count as, exactly.

The Gaia Gear Alpha sweeps and weaves through them. The insects shoot through motes of deep sea blue light from the Psychoframe, which swirls about the white-and-teal Mobile Suit.

"Funnels!" Rena cries out, as the visions of a past-that-wasn't play out on its wings and in her mind. Funnels erupt from the Gaia Gear, streaking out every which way.

Then they begin firing towards the dragon.

KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Elisa Kafim with Funnel Pod!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Naoko Suzuki moderately reacts to Elisa Kafim's Colossal Locust Vents- Plague, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Lucine Azul engages evade against Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction!
KTS: Best Defense! Lucine Azul successfully reacts to Elisa Kafim's Spite Wing All Destruction, taking 0 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

Leina says it - "Goragon" - and Koji inhales sharply, puzzle pieces clicking together as Shari and Sayaka and so many others ponder the meaning of these impossible visions.

"That's it!" He calls out to those also putting together the puzzle. "None of this did happen - to us! But in another time - not a 'possibility', but an alternative past...!"

If Goragon let them navigate what 'could' be, then these images are of a prior existence. Quantum theory turned on its head and proven truth all at once...

And then the next part, the completion of the jigsaw - the images of Shari, piloting a machine of her own design, defending his city from a different Void Dragon.

"... All of this already happened, but in another version of - "

Istantarik interrupts his revelation with a reality-splitting howl and Mazinger Z's armour screeches in protest, buckling and snapping under the sheer pressure of the soundless sound.

"Rrrrgh... Come on, Mazinger. Just a little more... Mazin Power, FULL THROTTLE!"

Light spills forth from Mazinger Z, Photon Power burning like a star against the void-shrouded dragon. Brighter still, though, is the way the radiator array on the Castle of Iron's chest lights up scarlet, as Koji flies his trusted partner as close as he can get to Istantarik, arms up in that iconic flex.

"Burn to nothing! BREAST FIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!"

The blast of heat cannot possibly miss at this distance. Koji just hopes it'll do some meaningful damage.

KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Rouse Spirit Command.
KTS: Koji Kabuto's The Rush of Battle activates!
KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Rouse Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.

"My Void technology can get through its barriers!" Shari calls when Koji mentions the barrier. "Give me an opening, and I can help destroy it!"

Shari hears Leina, too. What she says about... what happened, what didn't happen. "Goragon?" she wonders. "What, so you think it' s some kind of..."

She isn't sure what. But there's soemthing strange, all the asme. She doesn't hear Kaworu's mutter, and has no way of perceiving it. But she has a feeling that something...

"Hey," Shari says over the radio to Kaworu, "With whatever you're doing there, you can get through its defenses, too! Keep it up!"

Sayaka replies to her, and Shari's voice softens, too. "...I have people to fight for now," she answers. "It's not just trying to avoid Her anymore. It's more than that."

But they'll all make it out. Shari will believe in that.

But Shari's feelings are... complex. She's confused, really. But she's resolute. Her friends--her best friend, especially--bolster her resolve. She's highly motivated, in these matters. But something stretches on the ege of reality...

"I mean," Shari says to Rena and Naoko, "She was... really bad. But..."

"But I don't think Elisa is in full control of this one..."

Lucine mentions Elisa's devotion. "That's true," she admits to her. "I'm not sure either..."

She'll avoid the traps, anyway.

Space-time rips, but the Green Knight is prepared. She moves--and suddenly she is not.

After the attack passes, she is once again, the power of the Void manifest in the hands of one who knows how to use it. "I won't fall here!" Shari shouts. But the visions, they come again. "Nn--"

Shari Hears, and Shari Sees, and through it all, an undercurrent. The remembered screams of the Void.

"That's--that's not..."

It's not how it went. She knows. But it's still just confusing, at first. That is, until a fifteen year old girl rises to oppose them, and Shari's eyes in her cockpit turn to pinpricks. "W-what...?"

Shari watches, and the Voice in her mind echoes. Her Green Fold earring cracks. And she Hears.

It's true. It's the truth. But Shari is in no position now to explain what she suddenly understands. Instead--

"Yuliana, you..."

"YOU DID THIS TO ME!" Shari screams suddenly, into her radio. "I--All this time, I--it was because--because I did the right thing, you--"

"I hate you," she says, and it's like an oath. "I HATE YOU!"

The Green Knight surges into action. Shari directs it forward. The Green Knight rushes into Istantarik's space. She goes for one of the necks. She hacks at it, and the entire ExaMAC glows with vivid, green power, seeming almost to half-exist in the moment. Her greatsword swings across space, and it is more than space and neck and flesh and scale that it cuts. It cuts everything that could be.

It cuts at the Dragon.

Tears run down her face, but something beyond mere anger brings tears down her face.

Fury. Grief. Vengeance.

"DIE! DIE! DIE!"

...Someone might have to remind her of the world that 'is'.

KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Elisa Kafim with Breast Fire!
KTS: Shari Loom targets Elisa Kafim with Voidtouched Blade Void Rending!
KTS: Shari Loom's Whispers' Call activates Focus!

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Unit Beta's shimmering A.T. Field slashes through the eyes-and-maw that serve as the dragon's heart. They scream, and die, but the dragon does not die with them. Kaworu bears witness to this with a distant lack of smile.
        
        <"Yes. They are beyond helping, now,"> Kaworu tells Naoko and Rena. He isn't unfeeling about the matter--but mostly, he's resigned. To that, and to their own grim acceptance.
        
        Istantarik unleashes hordes of locusts to swarm the Gaia Sabers ships and several of the other defenders. Kaworu is not so blessed; he and Unit Beta instead are rung with the resonance of the great dragon's roar. It is a song of annihilation, and Kaworu knows songs well. Perhaps that's why he's able to have his Evangelion's A.T. Field resonate with it so well, to the point that it neutralizes the sound before it could rattle Unit Beta into pieces.
        
        In return, though, Unit Beta is pinned place, unable to go to the aid of Kaworu's friends and allies as they struggle with Istantarik's many attacks. He will simply have to continue to trust in them. Their intuition--Leina's and Sayaka's in particular--are very good. They just lack a little knowledge.
        
<"It wasn't what could have been. It's what already was, last time around,"> Kaworu tells Sayaka, joining in with Koji's sudden revelation, matter-of-fact. As if he knows it for a fact.
        
        Because he does.
        
        Shari encourages him to keep up what he's doing. Kaworu nods to her via a video screen window that pops up on Unit Beta's visuals, sending that data her way. <"I will,"> he promises. <"For my friends.>" The window closes out then, as he leaves her to her grief and rage--and he turns his attention back to the dragon of the void. Its wings continue to shutter those pages, but he has no need for them at all.
        
        "So... This is how it was for you your first time... Elisa," he murmurs to himself.
        
        "Is this part of what you sought to remember...?"
        
        Unit Beta's wings, formed from her A.T. Field, spread further and further outwards, like the lacy wings of a dragonfly. Only fitting to face off against a dragon, after all. Where lines dance, just as Yuliana danced the last time around, they spark and sent motes of light searing down like shooting stars towards Istantarik's hide, towards that weak underbelly that Naoko opens up. They barrage those scales, seeking to dig wounds even deeper in those weak points, to open them up further for retribution from the others.

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Elisa Kafim with Distance!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Rena Lancaster's Funnel Pod!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Critical Hit! Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Rena Lancaster's Funnel Pod, taking 4620 damage!
KTS: Rena Lancaster anchors Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Evading the next attack!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Koji Kabuto's Breast Fire!
KTS: Critical Hit! Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Koji Kabuto's Breast Fire, taking 7320 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Void Rending!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Shari Loom's Voidtouched Blade Void Rending, taking 5025 damage!
KTS: Shari Loom roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Kaworu Nagisa's Distance!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Kaworu Nagisa's Distance, taking 3675 damage!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Truly a heartless woman.

You can't even put her out of her misery without her making it difficult.

"<What could have been.>" Leina answers Sayaka with certainty, and Kaworu to an extent, even though he's already made the connection, "<That was not their relationship. I'm not even sure if - the first set of visions is connected to the second.>"

She offers grimly, as if it were another possibility of what might have been, with more to come.

The visions do not abate, and as the Beguir barely jerks away from that terrible shockwave the dragon feeds-and- Kaworu speaks.

"<Wait... no... he's right... Kaworu's...>"

There's something disturbed about her, like she's trying to grasp some intrinsic truth and it keeps on slipping away.

"<... Not what could have been at all... this...>"

Leina's eyes grow subtly wider, "<Why doesn't she want us to see this? Why does she want us to see this?>"

It sounds random, contradictory, it might take them a few moments to understand it's not contradictory at all.

'She' is different in each question.

"<No - Rena, I was wrong! If we're seeing this then it's because- Dr. Devi! She's trying to get her revenge!>"

Koji perhaps articulates a great deal more easily than what Leina has been trying to.

There's a sudden lurch, as what the dragon does next, "<God... what's even going to happen?>" But what Shari has to say, "<Shari SHARI-! DON'T GET DRAWN IN! I'm not sure what's going to happen if you're near this!>"

And as such, the Beguir starts to juke to come nearer the Green Knight, blaster firing shot after shot, funnels joining in as one great firing squad of Minovsky fire, concentrating on the exposed side of the dragon.

A bad day. That's... a gross underestimate, of this day, after what she's seen.

KTS: Leina Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Beguir Neuer Beam Rifle Firing Squad!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Beam Rifle Firing Squad!
KTS: Critical Hit! Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Beam Rifle Firing Squad, taking 7560 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Leina Ashta's Mass Effect activates, causing Control Bonus!
KTS: Leina Ashta completes the Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.

"...Yeah." Anita agrees with a nod, as Rena remarks on how this is messed up. No arguments there. A history that never happened...

Naoko gives a very good reminder, and Anita nods.

"Yeah, I mean... I'm sure not gonna lose any sleep over what happened to her. But not even the worst person deserves to be put through this." She agrees.

Rena gives her a warning, then, and Anita's attention is drawn to the encroaching swarm.

"On it!" Anita calls back. The Svipul retreats back as they rush forward, vulcans blazing to tear through the cloud of locusts. But for as many as she shoots down, there always seem to be more - and Anita winces as the Svipul is harried and smashed into, the Pinpoint Barrier flickering with each impact.

The Svipul wavers, but still maintains its flight. More images appear on the dragon's wings - a past unfamiliar, different. Not what could have been - what was, as Kaworu and Koji both said.

"So in another time, all of this..." Anita says, shaking her head. "...This is so much to wrap my head around."

She has to focus on there here and now. Putting it aside, but not forgetting it - because this must be significant, but they have to survive this, too.

The Svipul manuvers through space, before finding a stable asteroid. It descends, landing upon it, and using it as a brace as Anita takes further aim with the Gungnir SC. An opening has been created - and a sharpshooter like Anita is certainly going to take advantage of that when she can.

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> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Photon Power strikes true against Istantarik, overwhelmed by attacks on all fronts. But it is vast enough that it continues its feast - and unleashes locust against them.

"Tch," Sayaka grimaces, as they rattle against her Mazin's sensors - before the chest vents begin to whirr. "Out of my way! RUST CYCLONE!" She calls, aiming to blow them away or melt them under the pressure - whichever comes first. But there's so many of them that even that stop all the locusts - and the brilliant New Super Alloy Z of Aphrodite Areia finds itself battered.

It all begins to click in - as they watch the story of Shari Loom, rising as a heroine to meet the dark villainesses of the Void, until she finally sealed it away for good. But that isn't what could have happened. "That's it... they're memories!" Sayaka exclaims, in tune with Koji and Kaworu's own revelation. They saw Yuliana's death, but... "But what happened to Elisa... after she crossed the gate?" Her eyes widen. She never did stop screaming.

"That's why she hated you so much..." Sayaka realizes, as Shari takes her own righteous anger out on Istantarik. Still, Sayaka can see the danger, in getting swept up in it. "But you have to listen to Leina! I said I wouldn't let them hurt you. That means both the them of today, and whatever remains of them from the distant past."

But just because that's how it happened last time... doesn't mean they'll get their way this time!" The chest vents that had previously unleashed a cyclone of corrosive wind begin to heat up in sync with Mazinger Z's... "This is our world, and that means it's up to us to build the future." One where the Void doesn't threaten to consume it, one where Yuliana is free from the chains of a past version of herself... one where Shari doesn't have to fight endless battles. "We'll just have to start by slaying this dragon. HEAAAAART! FIREEEE!"

Where Mazinger Z's Breast Fire does not reach, Sayaka's Heart Fire, its other half - covers it in a brilliant blaze of red, orange and white flames.

KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Heart Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage evade against Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Aimed Shot!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Aimed Shot, taking 3520 damage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Sayaka Yumi's Heart Fire!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Sayaka Yumi's Heart Fire, taking 4500 damage!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.

<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.

        Locusts. Though they aren't heading her way, Shelby shifts the Jagd Doga's mass into another controlled roll-flip and begins to dash-- hurrying, again, as her funnels fall in line on her flank. The roar -- audible in space, somehow, shaking the emptiness like ripples in water, finds her machine as well. With a heavy shift of her feet on the pedals and throwing the sticks ahead, the Jagd Doga turns into the shockwave and blasts forward on impact: A controlled 'hop' as she attempts to ride the wave that is the sudden violent rattling that quakes through the mobile suit and even causes Shelby to tighten her grip lest she lose hold of her own controls.

        "Goddamn it, Yuliana," Shelby finally says out loud -- saying *anything* out loud-- as more and more of those thoughts-- memories?-- assault her senses, like jagged pieces of another life pushing against the walls of her mind-- trying to push *into* her mind. Her hand, briefly, grips the side of her helmet as her breath shudders. A glance is spared toward Liam, as well, through the static noise present on her panoramic cockpit monitors.

        Stop the dragon-- stop the dragon, first, stop the dragon--

        A wide-angle, arcing flight leads to the pink Jagd Doga discharging the other three funnels it carries, all six coming to bear as Shelby's thoughts carry through psycommu transmitters-- the six funnels spreading out wide, attempting to attack the massive voidbeast on more than one side with sustained blasts!

KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
KTS: Shelby Korts targets Elisa Kafim with Jagd Doga Funnels Pincer Formation!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Pincer Formation!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Pincer Formation, taking 2550
damage!

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        The megaparticle beam splits through one of the dragon's weakened heads. Liam bares teeth in something that's not a smile. "Good shooting, Kakapos," he says, his jaw still tense. The reddish glow of the Akashima's cannon barrels starts to dim as supercoolant circulates through its loops. He glances at the readouts, again.

        "I know, Lu," Liam says, to her alone. "Love you. Stay safe."

        The Akashima jets up and around, trying to flank the dragon. The smaller form of the Gustav Karl takes formation nearby. "Aurora!" Hope and terror entwine Liam's heart. "Keep your distance, it's--" Oh God, no, those locusts, it has locust vents. But it's a wave of power that slams headlong into the Akashima, knocking it back, shredding armor with alien force that doesn't bother with this world's laws. Bits of metal trail in its wake. Liam grits his teeth and tries to focus. He can see the lights of the Beleaugered's IFF wink out.

        The images.

        Liam's eyes grow wide. "...What?" When he speaks, his voice is tiny, beseeching. He's trusting in Koji and Sayaka to make this make sense, somehow. "Another... time? What do you mean 'last time'?!" Existential terror floods his brain. In that same moment, the words FULL CHARGE READY ignite on his board. The Akashima pivots in space, righting itself with a few bursts from the verniers. "Clear my forward arc," Liam says, his voice revealing frayed nerves, anger, helplessness.

        "EVIL EYE, FIRING! BACK TO HELL WITH YOU, DEVI!" The positron cannon fires, lowering magnetic fields and pouring a stream of guided antimatter into vacuum. Tiny bursts of light ignite as debris in its wake comes to a swift, decisive end. The dragon might not strictly be of this world, but it is like conventional matter enough to be suddenly and swiftly annihilated when it meets its opposite counterpart. Liam isn't sure if this is reassuring, or not.

KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
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!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - The Terrible Gaze!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Liam 7-020's EL-444P Variable-Output Cannon Array - The Terrible Gaze, taking
5040 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        < "You too, Liam. I love you..." > It's a treasured reflex, to say those words back.

        Further flashes of insight seem to bleed from the screen to Lucine's mind's eye. It's getting to her, clouding her focus.

        Leina's mention of "Goragon" flies over Lucine's head, but Koji's summary does not. Neither does Leina's additional thoughts. Lucine had assumed these were visions from another point of view. While she was massively wrong in how she made sense of it, the fact that it was coming from a *different point of view* was, at least, in the spirit of the right direction. < ".... So... this isn't either of them at all..." >

        The way to defeat the dragon is to understand why it is. However, Lucine is still stuck on the 'understand' part.

        She'd surely be a little further ahead if it weren't for this massive dragon trying to eat things, or the way emotions, image, and feeds pop from one dimension to the next. It's becoming hard to handle.

        The Glimmer engine attempts to fire to assist Lucine as she evades, but backfires. It's the extensive modifications that Koji led that enable Lucine to to succeed in her gambit to roll away and, successfully, pull away from the blast before it can hurt her. Lucine's eyes scan for Liam, trying to keep her focus on the whole of the battle, and not a small aspect. The forest for the trees, or was it... the trees for the forest...

        Shari's passioned chant of 'DIE' allows Lucine to recenter her focus.

        < "Shari! Listen to Leina!! We don't even know what's going on here, your reaction might be what they want!" > Who's 'they'? Lucine's not even sure. Dr. Devi? Elisa? Yuliana? The Void? Another set of them, from another dimension, overcomplicating her decisions?

        The Dianthus draws the arbalest again; Koji's advice hasn't failed her yet here.

        < "Don't let those lives go to waste! Bite your tongue, if you have to, but 'keep your eyes on the prize'!" > If it feels a little out of character for Lucine--

        "... Damn it, Dad.... you would've just considered all of this bullshit just to not have to think about it, wouldn't you...?"

        --It's hard for Lucine not to think about her Dad, as she pulls one of his signature moves from the Ether. < "ORION SHOT!" >

KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Orion Shot!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Orion Shot!
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Lucine Azul's Argen-21 Beam Arbalest Orion Shot, taking 4275
damage!

<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.

Everything is so different now, to how it used to be. Naoko truly thrives, piloting a machine with which she can directly enforce her will upon reality. Or, better yet, upon things that defy reality. It's so empowering, knowing that you can stand against a threat as large as this, that you have the ability to tear through the impenetrable, create weak spots even where none should exist. It all feeds into a positive feedback loop, where the more her confidence pays off, the more confident she gets.

And it all feels so natural. Like she's doing exactly what she's meant to do. This machine, moving in the exact way she thinks about moving with complete fluidity. Even beyond an extension of her own body, like it is her very body itself. Even faced with a swarm of giant locusts as big as she is, there's no way they'll ever touch her. No matter how they move, she'll move faster - she's willed herself to be faster.

The circumstances are her good fortune. Her Friends can focus fully on supporting her, because on the outside, too, there are friends, helping to keep her grounded. Without that, it would be a slippery slope, to go that deep, risking not being able to come back up to where reality is. Thankfully, though...

"Hahaha! Did you see that?! Hey hey, did you see me move just now? Am I awesome, or what?!"

...There are people around that she wants to show off to. Whatever works, one supposes...

She's going to feel a little embarrassed about getting lost in the moment like that, but, in the end... this is about triumphing over evil. Her hypothesis that there's nothing to save here even if they wanted to being directly confirmed by... someone who sounds what they're talking about, that makes everything so very nice and simple.

Or it would have been... if the visions they were shown didn't suddenly take a turn. A new role for Shari, which... well, Naoko would be lying if she said she didn't like what she saw. Wouldn't that have been an interesting Possibility?

But no. This... is not Possibility, is it? It's something else. But what could be accomplished by all this? Naoko is still pondering that matter when Shari has a strong reaction of an entirely different kind. "...Shari? Hey, Shari, what are you--"

But there's no getting through. She tries again with, "Shari, calm down!" as the Sukeban Kiseki moves back to the Spinatio Knight's side. But she can tell, no matter how hard she yells right now, there won't be any getting through. ...this way.

Turning on the Dragon, the Arm Slaves' palms are extended forward, a simple command uttered by the pilot... which reverberates through the minds of all receptive to it.

"STOP!"

The force of her will only directly affects Istantarik - green energy wrapping around its giant form, weaving together like links of a chain, seeking to bind and hold fast to the greatest degree possible. But there is another goal she sought to accomplish. To get the attention of Shari, continuing to 'speak' to her in a way more directly than she can speak to any who aren't just like them.

Please, calm yourself. Focus on my voice. Deep breaths. Remember where you are. You're free from them. They can't hurt you anymore. They won't, ever again. We promised, didn't we?

KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Elisa Kafim with Cosmic Cage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage block against Naoko Suzuki's Cosmic Cage!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Elisa Kafim poorly reacts to Naoko Suzuki's Cosmic Cage, taking 3400 damage!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki anchors Elisa Kafim, preventing her from Evading the next attack!
KTS: Naoko Suzuki rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult.

<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.

         There is a brief flash of warning, before the shockwave reaches Aurora and her companions. This time, she's ready: her machine surges downwards, skimming below the thrumming wound-blast as she twirls almost acrobatically.

        As soon as she's clear, she turns her head to check on- "-Liam!" Watching the armor flakes drift in his wake, her own heart is gripped by something like worry and anger wrapped around each other. How DARE Devi?

        Aurora watches the alternate history play out, transfixed. "What's... A history that never happened? And Yuliana-" Again, she shakes her head. Focus, girl. Your target is wounded, now.

        On seeing the damage done to the dragon, Aurora's first instinct is to draw her beam sabers and pounce on it, tearing it to shreds together with her allies like a pack of wolves ripping a wounded deer apart. But Liam warns her to stay back, calls out to clear his forward arc, and she ducks out of the way, positioning next to him and Lucine. "Clearing!" There's no need to announce 'we'll fire together' or anything like that in her mind. Her instincts have unfurled fully, and the next course of action is obvious to her. She assumes it's obvious to her old teammate, too.

        She levels her beam rifle, taking careful aim at all the weak spots that have been torn open on Istantarik-

        "-DIE!"

        ...and unleashes hell, alongside Liam and Lucine.

Fighting alongside Liam feels /correct/. Working with him comes to Aurora smoothly and naturally, like it was always meant to be.

        "We're under attack! The enemies are... bugs?!" None of the crew of the Clean Shot have quite seen anything like this, before. Oh, they've engaged in anti mobile weapon tactics before, but a swarm of locusts is a totally different thing to an MS squad. AA defences desperately bring their best efforts at keeping up with the pace of Istantarik's assault, and are found wanting as the locusts swiftly strip the metal from the Gaia Sabers ships... and the dragon itself has chosen its' own next meal. "The Beleagured has been separated from the formation... It's... being eaten...!" The man next to Vert gives his report with a voice dripping with terror. Now, the horror of combat against the Void is sinking in, across every ship.

        Meanwhile, Aurora's mother, playing defence, dispatches a locust with her beam sabers, carving the... what she guesses would be the head to pieces. "Damn it, they just keep COMING. Hold together! Don't get separated! They'll pick you to pieces faster than..." Fortunately, the Clean Shot, being the first to begin falling back, is further away from the locust swarm's origin than the other ships, so they're not TOO swarmed. Or maybe the locusts are choosing different targets deliberately? One of the pilots next to Emily is swiftly overcome and torn apart. She grips her flight sticks tightly. Nowhere to run, squad crumbling. It's Maelstrom all over again.

        To Captain Vert's horror, he sees a few stray locusts spiralling straight at the bridge, straight for him, and he lets out a yell despite himself. Fortunately, the Gustav Karl unit in the rear guard intercepts them before the bugs manage to break through the screen and bite his head off. Once he regains his composure, he again bellows for the nearby ships to form up on him.

KTS: Aurora Dusk targets Elisa Kafim with Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire!
KTS: Aurora Dusk has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to engage guard against Aurora Dusk's Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire!
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Best Defense! Elisa Kafim successfully reacts to Aurora Dusk's Standard Secondary Beam Rifle Rapid Fire, taking
2853 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.

        Rena commits to the Sending; she, too, has danced. It is, indeed, some kind of incoming -- and her Funnels come out to defend herself, in turn. She may be connected with the Void, but she never stops thinking about the fate of others -- an act of compassion which raises the acrobatics of her Funnels to new heights.

        Koji's Breast Fire, fired point-blank, burns into Istantarik's side. He burns like a star, as he realises that this is the past, not merely a possibility. Sayaka realises, in turn, that it's up to them to defend their future, and her Heart Fire joins in from Istantarik's other side -- bathing all five-hundred metres of Istantarik's body in Photonic flame.

        Shari, meanwhile, sees how it all began -- and how innocent she was in it all. Few could blame her for her fury, as the Green Knight drives forward to behead the hydra, carving right through one of Istantarik's necks. It is not an easy task to set herself to: each neck is fifty metres thick, crowded onto its expansive chest. It is not easy, but Shari makes it look so simple, slicing through in a single enraged slash.

        All of this happened before. Will it happen again? Kaworu has seen so much in his long, long life, but today, he can see that his friends are not slain. Unit Beta flits across open space, darting through pieces of debris from the Shoal Zone with impossible grace, striking further weakness into Istantarik's belly.

        But Naoko realises that Dr. Devi was not a good person -- and Leina has a harrowing realisation of her own. This is vengeance -- perhaps the ultimate vengeance, against a woman who kept flirting with reform. What better way to doom Yuliana than to teach her... just what she did, the first time around?

        Her, and you all.

        Leina fires into Istantarik's side, and manages to distract it -- just briefly enough to save Shari from immediate retribution. It gives Naoko the moment she needs to turn, palms-out, and enforce her own will on Istantarik. It screams, confusion added to its fury, as the two forces warring inside it for control become three. Green energy wraps about it, holding it fast, leaving it helpless to the assaults of those around it.

        The asteroid Anita lands on once served as shelter for uncountable mechs, on another January 15th. (0079.) It weathered every beam-blow, then -- and it shelters her, now, as she sets up her sniper's gear and takes aim. Calculate the drop, keep the barrel steady...

        She fires, and another of Istantarik's heads is blown straight through. In one camera-shutter, one of its eyes is pierced -- in the next, the other side of its head explodes. It screams, whipping its neck backwards, its mouth rendered useless from the sheer violence that cannon inflicted on its jaw.

        Lucine struggles to pick the trees out of the forest, but her concern for Shari brings her into focus, allows her to grasp her arbalest. She, too, is a long-range specialist -- and Orion shines in the sky, blessing Lucine's passions with its light. She fires a great bolt into Istantarik's chest, where it explodes in that awful cavity.

        If only this were Yuliana -- Shelby would not suffering from memories as she is now. But Divya Devi only borrowed the Void; her soul has no claim to that disruption, and now it pours out, and out, and out, with endless suffering for those around her. All six of the Jagd Doga's funnels fan out, each eighty-three metres apart, to fire on Istantarik in a ring of death -- almost as panoramic as the unique view Shelby has of the past. Like her, they cover every angle, and fire.

        Liam sees Dr. Devi for who she is -- and fires the Evil Eye against her. Antimatter explodes at the dragon's flank, blasting a great hole in its side. Something like kidneys are exposed there, except, perhaps, for the fact that they're surrounded by eight grasping fingers of a hand.

        Aurora knows what to do, seeing an opening like that. She takes her beam rifle, aims into the gaping wound, and fires -- blasting that hand and whatever incomprehensible thing it was grasping straight to Hell. She might not leap on it like a savage beast, but her pack tactics are more than lupine enough -- because the spirit of the wolf is cooperation, not competition.

        Even a being as vast as Istantarik is starting to wear the signs of these assaults, now. The sum total of its damage is a great weariness about its movements, as if its half-kilometre length was growing far too heavy; even so, all full of holes and half-sundered, it is driven to complete its purpose.

        The 'Mana', bringing up the rear guard, is the next ship to go. One of its remaining heads snatches the light cruiser up into the danger zone of its front half, gobble-CRUNCH -- though thankfully, with Vert's guidance, the rest of the Gaia Sabers' forces are able to escape. Will this, then, be the last horrific death? Once again, the pages turn, and yet --

        0096, JANUARY 28

        "It's expanded for weeks," Koji Kabuto frowns, as he looks up at the portal to the Void. It has already begun consuming the Earth; darkness shrouds the planet, now, where it disappears into the event horizon. "If we can't figure out how to stop it, soon... there'll be nothing left."

        "I'm sorry," Shari Loom says, as she looks up to the darkness. "I've tried everything, but I just can't shut it down. I..."

        "Hey," Koji says, putting a hand on her shoulder. "This isn't your fault. And we're not going to give up that easy, either!"

        But she feels the burden of ending the world, even so.

        ????, ???? ??

        There is nothing here.

        Elisa Dian tears herself from her machine, but she cannot find the exit so easily, though she came here so soon. "NO!", she screams, distraught. "MY WIFE! MY WIFE!" She pounds her fist upon the blackness; she finds, on each impact, that it splits into two. She looks at her arms with blanch horror, for a moment...

        ... and then, she sets upon herself.

        "I will bring her back! This empty graveyard was the seat of our powers -- I summon you, ghosts! Spectres of Mars, rise now, and save your daughter!" She enacts her ritual to summon the dead, but from the bones of the Void, only one vision rises...

        ... the Ancient Martian, Cypripedioidea. Her hair is whiter still, faint as a ghost; her many adornments forgotten, now, for centuries. She smiles, beatific, as she beholds Elisa tearing herself to pieces, expanding through the space. As the ghost appears, Elisa, with her changing visage, sees. And, "You. I know you."

        "And through your bonds of marriage do I know you," Cypripedioidea confirms, calmly, her own voice faint. "But we cannot save her. Here, in the Prematerial Plane, we created a 'Black Box' through which we could enforce our will on existence. But my efforts were a failure... I could not save us. I escaped to Earth, and my last act of defiance was to pass these workings on... there is no one here to help you, any more. You must help yourself," she advises her, as she fades, "you, the flickering candle in the dark."

        That's what the last name she took means, after all. Cypripedioidea must have fancied it, all those years ago.

        "Myself?!" Elisa's OCU English grows warped, as she speaks with seven jaws. It grows overlaid with something stranger, unvoiced sounds gaining a voice, voiced sounds growing less so. It changes and shifts with her horrifying physique, though she hears herself just fine. "Then I will go back! I shall take those Chulip Crystals of yours, and GO BACK! No -- there!" She cries, as her great limbs grasp at the confines of her existence, pulling her across them, pulling her INTO them. The Void becomes Her, as She fills its space entire, Her pulsating tendrils latching into each dark corner. "That infernal girl's Green Fold Quartz -- that is how I will do it! Through her, I will go back...!"

        But as She grasps at the edges of the Void, and pulls -- She finds She is too massive, now. Too elsewhere. She slices off Her own rightmost hand, with no hesitation, and tears a hole in existence to toss it through.

        "Do My works, and SAVE HER!" She cries, as the portal closes. "I command it!"

        In her anguish, all she can do is wait, pounding on the boundaries of reality... as within her own time, her black rage consumes the stars.

        She is the Empress at the End of All Things, and all ends before her.

        OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADIP3Um32Gc ClariS - Connect

        ????, ???? ??

        Elisa's hand -- the Empress's hand -- was not, altogether, a physical thing. What throws itself back through time is her consciousness, and she flings it towards the beacon of Shari's Green Fold Quartz. Shari still develops it at 15, in this new timeline -- pressured only by the aftermath of Axis Shock, this time, instead of the Dians' escalations. She Whispers through the edges: "Go to her. Find Elisa Kafim. For your unfathomable sins, you shall serve." And Shari is the first to understand Her voice -- because Shari can hear beyond the eldritch warpings. The Empress asserts Herself on Elisa, then, as She infects the harmonics of the Green Fold. She consumes the life of Herself in the past, in the process, creating a clear delineation between her life before and her life going forward.

        But the Empress looks through the cracks of reality, and She screams. She screams, because Her timing was not sufficiently exact. She is too removed from that world, now -- removed both in time and in concept -- to understand its fine details.

        And Yuliana, further back in the timeline, is alone.

        "I will not allow the same mistakes," the Empress promises, in Her warped, dark tongues. "It is I who shall save you, my Yuliana. They knew not what they grasped! Heed me!" She slams Her fists into the edges of the Void, as She screams into Yuliana's consciousness, exploiting the liminal space of her isolation tank to reach her this early in the timeline. "They are unlike us! They cannot understand! They cannot know My love for you!"

        Yuliana cannot hear the Empress as clearly as Shari -- not yet -- but Her wishes still impress on her soul, connected with Her as surely as two Newtypes reach each other.

        And when Boss asks where Yuliana came from, during the Mycenae War... Yuliana just says she's from the REA. She does not mention the labs; she speaks nothing of the tortures waiting for her, when she returns to the home she ran from. She is, to ask anyone who fought beside her in her Tendus, a perfectly normal soldier -- a woman who enlisted in her youth to get out of her rural town and into the wider world.

        It's not like last time -- when she admitted she was under the care of a laboratory to Sayla Mass. This time, clutched by her feelings of unique alienation, she does not even give them the chance.

        And it will be almost a decade from her alterations before Sayla's daughter, Leina Ashta, realises the truth.

        By then, Elisa has already made contact.

        The pages flick, and flick, and flutter, showing those brief glimpses of this timeline as witnessed by the Empress outside. The way She screams in betrayal as Yuliana forsakes Her, the sheer shattering grief of her weeping, the rage She vents on Her monstrous creations and Her realm.

        "You do not mean it," the Empress says, gutted in every sense of the word. "You cannot mean it. You are mine! When I swore to commit any atrocity you desired as your High Priestess, you chose Me...! Did you not tell Me you adored a woman who claims all She desires?! ADORE ME!"

        0099, NOVEMBER 16

        When next the pages turn, there is a wrenching sense that what they show is closer to this present day -- a conclusion carried by the fact that when Yuliana appears in her black robes, now, the scenery behind her isn't a normal home. No: these are the cold, grey walls of the Silent Castle, a place which was never built in the timeline she destroyed. She stands by a sacrificial altar which holds a long-suffering green crystal, and speaks to it, though she receives no reply.

        "If they knew what kind of a monster you'd made," Yuliana says, sullenly, "they'd never forgive me... they wouldn't understand why she trapped you in there, not really. Why -- why did you make me, Doctor? Was it my fault...?"

        Yes... and no.

        "IMPUDENCE!" Elisa's voice tears through space, as that image of their recent past flicks by. "I tire of this struggle. Profane Manifestation!" And Elisa's magics tear into the battlefield, again -- but they do not strike you. A horrific portal erupts behind Istantarik, from which something deeper than black lances out, impaling it straight through those bleeding wings. It might have endured her magics -- as it did when the fight begun -- if not for the might of what it has faced against today. It cannot face both the anger of its creator and the defenders of this reality.

        Istantarik screams as it dies, less like a great beast and more like a tortured woman; as Dr. Devi's spirit flees to the other side, the dragon crumbles like dust into thousands upon thousands of locusts, each individual insect lighting into flame. Five hundred metres of the massive beast burns in the void of space, until nothing is left but the memories.

        Devi's last act on this Earth, enlightened by her tortured place between life and death, was to reveal just who caused Yuliana's suffering. Her prized subject asked her a question -- and for once, she had the decency to answer, alongside the indecency to show them all.

        Once opened, the contents of this black Pandora's box took on a life of their own. ...But it was Devi's hand that opened the box. It was Devi who tortured Yuliana to the point of nihilism.

        And the Empress at the End of All Things was the victim of the very woman she now victimises.

        Devi got her due.

KTS: Really eject? [Enter `yes' or `no']
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Riptime Dragon Istantarik has been disabled.

<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.

"Then... even more reason to take it down fast," Rena says to Shari, with a nod. Then, a glance at Kaworu's Evangelion. She nods. "...Yeah."

The last time around, though? Her eyes narrow a little at that.

She doesn't follow Leina's train of thought at first -- but she realizes. "Revenge--damn it!" she says. "Then--"

Then it's as she said: even more reason to end this.

She looks at Istantarik -- and stares as it dies, ripped apart by their attack. Devi dies with it; with a final realization.

She swallows, then. "That's... that's where the Empress came from," she says. "When. How they're..."

How Elisa can also be her, somehow.

<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.

Kaworu will do it for his friends. Shari feels a kinship with him in that moment. But soon, she is feeling something very different.

Leina warns Shari. She shouts after her, but at first, Shari doesn't seem to respond at all. She keeps attacking instead. Presumably she notices Leina coming closer.

Sayaka comes to understand. Shari could answer her questions now, if she could only speak and think clearly.

To build the future...

"But I--I--I was a child!" Shari cries, and her weapon shakes as she grips the controls. "I was--I WAS--"

Lucine chimes in, too. And a sob cracks through Shari's anger. But she raises her weapon again, to keep attacking. "I can't--I won't--"

Calm yourself, Nova's voice says. We promised, she says. And Shari wails, a heart-rent cry of grief that tears out of her throat.

It hurts. Her feelings reach out to Naoko's, in that moment, and she shares that pain, despite herself.

"We... we promised," she remembers, and lowers her weapon. Shield forward, the Green Knight starts to jet maneuver backward, never turning it back on the Dragon... but getting out of its space.

And in her cockpit, Shari cries. She manages to keep her wits about her enough, but Naoko especially--and maybe others--can feel her abject misery.

The dragon dies, and Shari sobs in agonized grief. She Hears--she Sees--more truth yet.

It's something she never imagined. It's something that she now intuitively understands.

Tomorrow, she will find her resolve. Tomorrow, she will decide what to do.

...But today, Shari cries for a world she never knew.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        'What do you mean 'last time'?!'
        
        Kaworu doesn't answer. That probably isn't going to help Liam's existential terror any.
        
        He is silent, too, as he watches the last of Istantarik's psychic emanations. He already knew some of this already. But now he knows it all--the parts he didn't see, because he had borne witness from far away.
        
        And so too he bears witness as Elisa puts a decisive end to Devi's revenge, rending the great dragon asunder and letting Devi's soul loose. Kaworu looks up at the invisible red light of that soul. He will guide it to its final destination in short order; it is his place. But for now, he stays a while longer, to bear witness to the pain of those left behind.
        
        It's Naoko's words that reach out to Shari, but Kaworu will offer her a comforting presence, at least. Even from across a now-empty battlefield.

<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.

The combined heat of the Mazins' flames wreaks terrible damage across Istantarik's reality-abhorring form, and Koji grits his teeth in triumph to see the beast writhe in pain.

But then - Shari committing everything, screaming over and over - Naoko, interposing herself to try and reach her friend -

- they're both sitting ducks, the tail is lashing towards them -

Mazinger Z blurs, pushing the bounds of its top speed to terrible strain on its reactor - Koji shuts off the warning siren with a slam of his fist on the speaker - and interposes itself between the Arm Slave, the ExaMAC, and the tail to take the full brunt of the impact.

"Shari! Listen to them!" He calls out - and as he begins to speak, the sparking, sputtering screen on his dashboard comes to life again, showing him the horrible things that befell that other past... and showing himself and the young girl, facing the end of everything they've ever known.

"... It's not your fault," he echoes himself, wiping blood from his mouth. "... We're here, Shari. We're still alive."

Battered, horribly damaged, and barely functioning, Mazinger Z nevertheless squares up to Istantarik as Naoko and Shari retreat...

... but another attack from the Void Dragon never comes. Elisa's voice echoes through, and her creation - hijacked by the malice of the woman she imprisoned - is pulled back to the gap between realities it emerged from, and rent asunder, collapsing in on itself like a dying swarm.

... Silence.

Silence, broken only by the sound of his ragged, furious breathing.

... He clicks on the comms. "Sayaka. Liam, Lucine... everyone. Are you all okay?"

He waits to hear the status reports of the other pilots, breathing a sigh of relief as everyone checks in.

"... We're going to need a debrief," he decides - Mazinger Z's head turning to regard the Sukeban and the Green Knight as they fall back. "... When we're ready for it."

<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.

Anita's shot lands true, and with everyone fighting together, the dragon begins to slow. And with it, it brings one final set of images - one final revelation.

Anita is stunned into silence, flinching only when the dragon is torn apart for good.

...And then she exhales, as Rena puts it into words.

"Looks like it..." Anita replies. She massages the back of her neck, and is quiet for a moment before deciding...

"...Let's head back for now. We've, uh - we've got a lot to think about." Anita decides. Right now, that's all they can do. To think it over... and figure out what it means for them now.

<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.

         Aurora relaxes in her seat, after the battle is over, once Istantarik finally dies. Drained from the short, but stressful fight, she slumps backwards, breathing hard. "...Target down." She pulls her helmet off and sets it on her lap. What the fuck WAS all that, anyway? And what was that talk of... last time? Previous universes?

        She opens a visual channel to Liam and Lucine, and rubs her temples, massaging away the literal headache that is the Void, before asking "Are you okay?" She hears multiple voices - including Koji's - asking for a status report. She clicks her comms onto all of them for convenience. "Clean Shot second provisional MS team, Vogel-3 reporting minor damage. Target got... sucked into the Void and collapsed?"

        Meanwhile, the Clean Shot's battlegroup - not really, but Vert was the one who stepped up, so it might as well be. Hopefully, his superiors will recognise that! - has... not regrouped, but started settling down in a pile. Eventually, Vert works up the courage to ask for status reports. They lost at least five ships in the scuffle - no, more - but the Clean Shot itself is relatively undamaged. Relatively. Cheers begin to go up across the bridge - cheering victory, cheering survival. Vert looks around as he begins to realise he did it. They lived. The battlegroup wasn't destroyed, thanks to his quick thinking. This is victory... minus all the deaths, but they lived! They lived! The defence teams rally and destroy the remaining locusts before they begin filtering back.

<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.

While she started to get a sinking feeling about the whole thing, that it was somehow more real than it originally appeared, Naoko never fully did grasp Dr. Devi's motivation for showing this to everyone. Not until it fully unravels, and the full nature of what she just saw fully hits her. That's what the Void was, all along...? A thought that doesn't happen right now, but will not long ago.

Elisa ends the matter abruptly, and Naoko mentally stumbles, as the matter she was affecting with her mind is suddenly no longer there. Not something she's going to complain about, especially now. With the threat eliminated, her full priority will have to be elsewhere, now. Her best friend is hurting, and through their connection, she can feel it more keenly than anyone else.

With Shari returned to the here and now, Naoko is quick to retreat from their mindspace, well aware of the danger it poses to remain there overlong. Already, just that much was enough to almost make it feel as if it had been her who effectively... ended the world. She manages to stay grounded enough to not get lost in that sensation, but that feeling is... not something that she would be able to accurately describe. It makes it not hard at all to imagine what Shari is going through right now.

Switching to a less direct method of communication, she opening communications instead, leaving out the visual because whatever expression she might have right now, she's certain it wouldn't be helpful. There's only one thing she can think of to say, and she clearly doesn't mean to speak just about today's events.

"...It's over, Shari. It's over."

The Sukeban remains close by the Spinatio as they make to withdraw, its pilot not about to leave her best friend's side at a time like this.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.

Everyone's attacks come together to overwhelm the terrible dragon. Dr. Devi, through the lack of kindness in her heart, reveals all in her final moments. Now it all makes sense, who the Empress at the End is, why she wanted Yuliana so badly. Sayaka closes her eyes, lost in a racing sea of thoughts for just a moment, as the dragon is felled by Elisa herself, and her Profane Manifestation.

Koji and Mazinger Z move to shield Shari, understandably shaken up by these revelations. And while Sayaka knows she has Naoko to support her, she offers some words of her own. "...Hey, Shari? What happens next is all up to you. Your life belongs to you, so no matter what you decide to do... we'll be here for you."

"I'm hanging in there. Most of the weapons systems are down... but Areia can still move." Sayaka answers Koji, with a little too much pride in her heart to admit Areia didn't really fare too well against Istantarik. To Liam and Lucine, and others in the vicinity, she adds, "To anyone who needs it, the Photon Power Labs can help arrange transport back to Earth."

They'll need to regroup, but... "Yeah. Now that the truth is out there, I don't think either of them is going to be sitting on their hands." She lingers on the Green Knight. "If something big is coming, we'll need to be ready for it. But before that..." She shakes her head. "This is a lot. I think we all need some time to let it sink in." Sayaka, for one, can't help but think about the charity Yuliana showed those Cyber-Newtypes... just days before seeing a world where she callously sacrificed them.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Puella in Somnio - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ808JR2PNY

The pages turn. This isn't something people should know. Not just the idea that you could have been so many other things.

But that you were in another world - someone else... nothing at all. There's a version of herself, she doesn't even know.

Maybe many.

How conceited to think the world is uniquely troubled. There is something greater about this than all of them know.

Still, like it or not, the knowledge comes.

And you learn.

"... Again and again we're reborn."

The words echo, hollowly, bitterly that of Rita Bernal's. The person who lived or died by a predetermined destiny.

Momma used to say, a real man gets what he wants from a woman.
Blessed are the women who know what they want, and take action to secure it...
Did you not tell Me you adored a woman who claims all She desires?! ADORE ME!
Elya thinks I'm perfect -- just the way I am! She loves how I am! She doesn't want me to change, you want me to change!
MINE

Shari is crying, she can't blame her. Wordlessly, Leina Ashta removes her helmet, closes her eyes, inhales several times, as if she's trying to steady herself.

Then lurches forward and throws up, using her helmet as a basin, with the vague acidic scent of coffee.

Turning it over to keep it from coming out, she opens a side pouch on the cockpit seat, and stuffs the helmet inside, zipping it up, and rubbing an arm against her mouth.

"What have I been even doing?"

Leaning back, she takes a few breaths, eyes closed. "...Shit."

Then, slowly she taps the comms, "<Let's... regroup, and take a little time. Shari... definitely needs it.>"

She needs it too, but she isn't going to say that.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        "Hghk," Liam chokes out, as he gets a good look at what's inside Istantarik's incomprehensible body. His anger keeps boiling, even then. He hits the touchpad with a hand, pumping more coolant into the Balor's main gun. "Fuck you, Doctor Devi," he says, the words equal part snarl and desperate incantation. The Balor jukes back and up again as Istantarik lunges for its last kill. It's open. Liam lines up his final shot. Minovsky particles condense within the cannon's chamber.

        He watches the pages turn.

        Koji, again. The world is ending. In the Void, Elisa is...

        Liam's eyes saccade. His breath comes in short, panicked gasps. His world has narrowed to just him and the horrific visions--only his bond with Lucine--and the thinner bonds to Aurora, Sayaka, Leina, Koji--pierce through the shroud of the Void. This is how it started. How it ended. How it started, and ended, and started again. How many times? How many times has this played out?

        Liam is shaking in his cockpit as the last fragments of the dragon dissipate. "Yuliana," he whimpers. The first thing Aurora sees is him, in his chair, his hands pressed aginst his helmet. He pries them away, and looks at the camera.

        Aurora is here. Target down, mission success, again. (How many times, now?) He looks at them, and sees they are both alive, where so many others died. He feels selfish. He can live with that. "I need to land," he says. He needs something solid beneath his feet, to remind him there's a world out here, and it still exists.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        The images on the screen keep flashing between what's in her mind. Lucine's ability to concentrate, and keep things straight, keep going sideways.

        Under her gloves, her knuckles are drawn taut against the dashboard.

        < ".... It was a cycle, for how long? All of this, just for.... and to compete..." >

        Eyes open or closed, there's no escaping the visions, all not her own, and the emotions, it's too much.

        .....

        .... ......

        UNPREDICTABLE - 13 Sentinels : Aegis Rim OST https://youtu.be/qn188LSTIBI?si=t-fS0f7b3dY7EzLN
        
        Koji asks if she's okay.

        < ".... Was this the technology that the Jovians tried to get to, on Mars.... The Chulip crystals?" > That is Lucine's response, to Koji, in a roundabout way. < "They could teleport through distance, but... what if it's... dimensions.... so.... I wonder who that woman from Mars is, I don't recognize anything about that..." >

        A pause. Aurora asks if she's okay; after a second's delay Lucine adds a visual feed of her for Aurora and Liam's benefit, still wearing her helmet. Sweat clings to her forehead, but she's fine. She can't hear Leina, but she can feel the tremors those questions lay down, alongside the others people ask. Too many questions, despite all that had been revealed. How little of the puzzle they knew, all this time...

        < ".... I've... felt better. However, I think... the Dianthus is in better shape than I am. I have to credit Koji; one degree of precision less, and this would have been a different kind of battle for the Dianthus. A few of those... very close..." >

        In her heart, Lucine also thanks her dad, as well.

        But how much was it just the Dianthus, a voice inside her asks.

        Her eyes focus on the now clear display, looking towards Shari and Naoko's units, as Sayaka offers transport back. < ".... I think I'll take you up on that. I'd like to take a nap somewhere. If half of what I got was anything like what others were experiencing... I wish I had enough cold compresses to pass around." > Not everyone reacts the same to this sort of stress, but the hidden message of support is there, all the same. < ".... This chapter may be over, but... I think the next may be just around the corner." >

        Now, for Liam, she transmits a message. < "With you there. I... need something concrete to focus on." > She smiles softly. < "..... See you soon, Liam. I love you." >

<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.

        The Jagd Doga rolls away one more time with a recall signal sent away to her Funnels, returning to flank Shelby as the mobile suit's singed hands cycle the action on the gatling rifle and prime it to start firing again. As she flies, it happens again -- the assault on her senses, the scenes and the memories that play out once again in a manner too vivid and too real. Another grimace; the Void aches to deal with but in a far different way than the overload of something like psychoframe.

        Whether or not the conjurations of another, the thoughts continue to plant the agonizing seed of doubt in the back of her head-- and she does not like not having information.

        The fresh portal that tears open with the power of magic causes the young woman's head to slant as it continues to feel so completely Wrong-- and then, the dragon is reduced to insect, cinder, and ash scattering through the darkness.

        Easing back in her seat, Shelby clicks open the visor of her helmet. Recycled air stings her breathing as droplets of red cling to the edge of her nose, rubbed away with the back of her suit's glove in a manner that is, unfortunately, something that comes second nature to her.

        Thoughts turn to others-- Liam, Lucine, Rena, and Leina. She can feel the pain and worry, the wrench in her gut of illness. It's all... a lot. Her thumb and forefinger click the vocoder in her helmet on, her voice distorted on comms-- even if directed toward Rena, the thumbnail an 'AUDIO ONLY' tile.

        "I need to return to the ship," she says, breathing carefully as the heel of her hand wipes the other side of her nose. "I... w-we, need to report in." Shelby Korts, still not too horribly used to the 'we' part.

<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.

<poem>

        "Yuliana..." Aurora is pensive. It sounded like everyone here KNEW Yuliana, too. Small world, huh? But what they were saying... She's not sure how to process it. Aurora is stricken by the feeling of having walked into a movie during the third act and being hopelessly behind.

       Aurora's Gustav hovers close to the Balor, watching over it. "B-breathe. Are you alright?" Aurora does her best to help Liam focus as she recovers from the Void exposure. It didn't rattle her as much as it should have, thanks to her prior experience, even if she IS sensitive. The adrenaline rush of the last battle is wearing off, and she's a little more languid than she usually is. "Later, I want to ask what... all of that was."

       On the Clean Shot's bridge, Captain Vert finally allows himself to relax, too. The mood is one of deflating tension, as officers slowly resume their normal duties. Ashcroft walks onto the bridge, cigarette in hand, having half landed and half drifted into the hangar in her wrecked MS. She takes up a position next to Vert.

       "Well, any battle you can sail away from as opposed to being salvaged is a good battle," she observes, proferring her cigarette. "Got a light, Captain?"

       "No, I don't smoke."

       "Damn." Emily fishes in her pocket for her own lighter - the nice one with the fox engraved on it - and lights her own damn cigarette. "Damn Silent Calling. They've crossed the line."

       Pulling himself up straighter in his chair, Vert opens a channel to the assembled forces. "Battlegroup, this is the Gaia Sabers ship 'Clean Shot'. Report status. Is everyone all right?" 'His own' ships begin answering. They're in bad shape, and some of them are writeoffs, but overall, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.