2023-12-02: Second Gate Open
- Log: Second Gate Open
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim, Sayaka Yumi, Asciel Colette, Rena Lancaster, Leina Ashta, Soma Peries, Anita Rosetta, Teletha Testarossa, Naoko Suzuki, Judau Ashta, Luanova Luckwright, Roux Louka, Sayla Mass, Shelby Korts, Sophia Mayhew Castellan
- Where: The North Pole
- Date: 2023-12-01
- Summary: Yuliana comes to the North Pole, in Emptear, to complete the Kafim's profane ritual and open the Gate. But Elisa is with her, wielding one of her horrific Dragons -- and she unveils truths, just as Yuliana parts the veil between worlds. The Woman in the Void, the Empress at the End of All Things, is Elisa -- and the Elisa they know is the part of Her which She sent to Yuliana. That's why Yuliana is so desperate to open the Gate and bring Her into this world -- because now, it's a matter of reuniting her wife with Herself, too. But Yuliana's devotion is written in blood, and the only one who wants her to dance the way the Empress makes her dance is the Empress Herself. Locked away from helping her wife, Elisa can only watch as the heroes of Earth reach her, instead -- and convince her, through no small toil and effort, to dance the dance that locks the Void away again.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kcy3eIubG0 Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love
The North seat of power, the Kafims know, lies BEYOND their Castle -- even further North, past the island closest to Heaven, where the only ground to stand on are icicles which froze aeons ago. Still, the North Pole has not melted, though the warming temperatures of the globe shrink its influence day by day by day.
Now, as the world struggles to grasp the tragedy which Japan has suffered, it shall grow colder.
--------------------------------- | Llyph ot th'ioll | | EMPTEAR | | Y-yth'yollyshy-k... OK | | Ll:o sh'jsth'ianish llkh'ioll | | Tiallth'ou-j llkh'ioth'you | ---------------------------------
"EMPTEAR -- get set!"
So she stands, the Threshold Queen, here at the top of the world. She is sixty metres high, and she imposes on the world, where she steps. Her arms are black to the elbows with hexagonal Voidframe, matching the knee-high stockings at her feet, ending in sharp heels. Her black skirt is just as spiked, and there is a great, toothed maw in the centre of her chest, teeth consumed by the blackness of the Void. Behind her spiked pauldrons, two serpents formed from that same darkness erupt from her back. They must weave around the dancer's cloth held between her elbows, dangling behind her. Her face is a mask always grinning, her crown a spiked crest, four eyes gleaming. Something like grey steel marks her structure, beneath the Voidframe, connecting her parts together; the tips of her spikes and her claws are a bright, hazardous green. She has no weapons plain to hand -- but today, she holds a long witch's staff in her claws.
Within the onyx heart in Emptear's chest, separated and protected from this world by the Void which surrounds it, Yuliana mirrors her movements exactly -- or, rather, Emptear mirrors hers. There are bracelets at her wrists and around the necks of her tentacles, anklets at her feet, a tiara across her brow; each holds a Green Fold crystal, and each resonates, carrying Yuliana's movements to the machine. In her hands, she holds a length of solid shadow, the magical method by which Emptear's cockpit provides feedback to its pilot. She can't see what she's holding in her hands, though, because her eyes are hidden behind an emerald blindfold; Yuliana sees only what Emptear sees, in order to protect her mind from the madness of occupying two spaces at once.
And it is that tracing system which makes Emptear's movements so fluid as she spins the staff like a baton, and plunges it into the exact Northmost point of the world. "Bloom!", she cries, as the metal stretches and elongates. As another of those black orchids forms --
-- a black orchid in Indonesia --
-- and a black orchid in Orb --
-- and a black orchid in Zaftra --
-- all turn their petals to the Northern sky.
And each of those three flowers are consumed by green light. It flows beneath the earth, into those wicked root systems the garden has laid down -- and it arcs UPWARDS, into the sky. The flowers themselves are reduced to nothing by the effort, sinking above and below, and the surge of power is sure to worry anyone monitoring them. But one doesn't need to be watching the flowers to see what happens next --
Because three beams of green energy streak through the sky, visible to anyone and everyone, on their path to the North Pole. To know is as easy as looking up.
When they reach the top of the world, they pour into the black flower Yuliana has planted there -- and its black petals, too, turn green. Green energy pours from it, through its own spreading root system, through the ice. What was once white and grey now becomes emerald green, as the energy of the Void spreads out from the Northmost point. Called out, called forth, it yearns to make contact with the root system which has spread through the Earth's core -- a root system which seemed so inert, before now.
If the Void is able to cast its net across this world...
Yuliana knows this world will not accept the Change with grace; much as she did, these people recoil in horror, and do not comprehend the gifts given. But she turns not weapon on any who come, reaching out with a curling, beckoning hand. "Come," she invites them, sweetly. "Witness the beauty which the Empress at the End of All Things shall bring to this world. With Her aid will all be saved..."
KTS: Soma Peries has deployed in GNX-603T GN-X. KTS: Asciel Colette has deployed in Plan-1056 Codarl-a 'Glaux'. KTS: Soma Peries has changed loadout. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has deployed in Aphrodite Areia. KTS: EN Barrier activated! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has deployed in TDD-1 Tuatha de Danaan. KTS: Rena Lancaster has deployed in A000-0001 Gaia Gear Alpha. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.) KTS: Asciel Colette has changed loadout. KTS: Luanova Luckwright has deployed in MFW-1 Myrmecia. 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: Naoko Suzuki has deployed in NS-1 Sukeban. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has deployed in Threshold Queen EMPTEAR. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.) KTS: Yuliana_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 14 opponents. KTS: Judau Ashta has deployed in SZ-010S Enhanced ZZ Gundam <Mobile Suit>. KTS: Elisa Kafim has deployed in Angelic Dragon K'advaktra. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.) KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has deployed in GNX-603T GN-X. KTS: Elisa_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 14 opponents. KTS: Sayla Mass has deployed in RX-93-v2-MZ Photon Hi-Nu Gundam. KTS: Will Barrier activated! (But will not apply until relevant Morale threshold.)
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
The world has come to a turning point, and it demands to change, tugged forth by countless forces, each with their own motivation. The war against Doctor Hell rages on, threatening a conclusion that would see the world forcibly rewritten. And yet, it has already changed on its own - with the failure of Japan's Special Administrative Zone and the subsequent massacre of citizens, what will become of the nation? Sayaka Yumi has had to contend with that, too.
And yet, just a day later another power, this time from the North, rises in attempt to claim the world as its own. Ever since Koji's battle against Elisa Kafim in Orb, Sayaka thought it wise to monitor the flower the Kafims have been planting across the world - and it's now that the lab personnel are beginning to report spikes in their readings. A green light... Sayaka knows exactly what that must be.
"That green light's all tracing back to the North Pole, you say?" Sayaka confirms with the Labs' Doctor Nossori, energy specialist, a short, messily-shaved man. "Hm. As it happens... we do have acquaintances all the way up there." She says, standing up from her seat. "I think it's time to pay them a visit! It's not like we're getting much done holed up in here, after all.."
Once the Mazin, Aphrodite Areia rises from the Old Labs' signature pool, it takes some string pulling, but Sayaka arrives at the North Pole in short order. Just in time to see Emptear, ascended and powerful, setting loose the emerald-green corrosion of the void.
Come', Yuliana says, and Sayaka takes her up on that, facing down Emptear with her machine that stands to its knees at most. "I think not, Yuliana Kafim," she answers. "That power you're calling upon... doesn't belong to this world." She shakes her head, as she witnesses the cold tundra itself turn green.
"If this looks like beauty' or saving the world to you, then I'll take you on. The only end' I care to witness is to your schemes. Prepare yourself, Threshold Queen!" Sayaka challenges. "MAZINGER BLADE!" She unsheaths the greatsword, levelling it towards one of the towering Emptear's lower limbs, if only to catch the Bringer of the Void off-guard.
But still... the growing influence of the Void around them worries her. A gift from the Empress in the Void herself... what will happen to the world if they let that happen? "This is Sayaka Yumi from the Photon Power Labs. We should probably get started on figuring out a way to stop all this energy from spreading." Sayaka suggests to those others who have gathered to fight the Kafim wives. "But don't let your guard down against Emptear for even a second!" She cautions, all the same.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Yuliana Kafim with Mazinger Blade: Sweeping Attack! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
<"So, the sins of your 'Empress' do not stop at twisting humanity beyond recognition. Dear me, you would even taint my Earth itself with this poison. It appears my mercy has been ill-fated with you two.">
A voice warm yet harsh - gentle yet irritating - calls out across the ice. In tune, a flat-laid iceberg begins to slowly, gradually rise and tilt over, a fracture along its side unbalancing the buoyant mass, its pockmarked underside sending crashing waves across the pole.
<"This beautiful world, vast yet turbulent, a gemstone of earth and sea. This gentle species, forced by their own innocence to become hardened and cruel to each other. The two have always been at odds. Perhaps there is a certain justice in what you are doing - using the planet as a weapon against human nature, just as humans have so thoroughly attacked the planet in kind. Perhaps it is karmic retribution. Perhaps, were the universe to be one mind, for the stars to be the furnaces in which thought were formed - it would champion your acts.">
With a wave that sends seals and orcas fleeing in its wake, the iceberg crashes into position, a mountain of vivid blue, woven by caverns through its surface. Atop it, the air dissolves - a familiar teal-armored human shape, a familiar dark-hued human face, a familiar bright orange human eye and billowing cyan human hair. The herald of the idol who so proudly proclaims herself righteous by virtue of her inhumanity, legs crossed to balance on her perch, one arm extended out to her side.
<"But the planet and humanity alike pray to me - the Virtual Sage, Asciel Colette! They pray for an era of peace and harmony - they beg for the gentle songs of birds and cicadas to lull them to sleep, they hunger for an era of sunset that eternally illuminates their very spirit!">
That arm sweeps backwards, Asciel flaunting a peace sign over one eye, as an array of holographic windows sprout in a circle before her head - all flowing with dizzyingly fast scrolling text. Her audience, 7,000 strong, which has always been her entire world. Her followers who remain loyal because all that is demanded of them is passive praise and admiration - it is their wishes she would imprint onto the entire planet.
<"So, everyone!~ Let's get ready to SEAL! THIS! MIRACLE!~ There is only one who can dance at the top of the world! The stage is meant for the idol alone, and for you to demand the audience clamber up with you - that just won't do!~ Thankfully, Yuliana, my strength is only matched by my warmth. It still isn't too late for you to run into my arms, and give up! My work to make humanity forgiveable is already a heavy load, but it's not that hard for me to uproot this dismal flower you've let infect my Earth. Let my mercy eviscerate your dreams!~">
The engine of will at Asciel's heart whirs and spins in a single fluid pulse - and her arm sweeps towards EMPTEAR, billowing with a prismatic rainbow in its wake - all of which coalesces into an absolutely adorable shooting star of pure generosity. It promises no less than saving Yuliana Kafim - saving her from EMPTEAR, that is, through the miracle that is overwhelming searing-hot violence!
KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Lambda Driver Pinpoint! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Images come pouring in from all around the world, from things as mundane as civilian cell phones on social media to military satellite photos. The President of the Benerit Group does not say anything as he looks out his window, eyes steel as they focus on the lowest recesses of the Arctic that he can see from his seat on the Orbital Ring.
It is quite a sight, with the most upper recesses of the world hued green, but he does not consider it beautiful. Quite the contrary. It perhaps reminds him of the polar opposite of a certain infamous event in '82, in all ways.
His right hand man, Rajan speaks in his place, "That is the situation, Your Highness. We are asking for your authorization." On the screen of the video conference call, her fingers tap on the side of the throne, not out of boredom, but agitation. "The Captains of the Three Ships Alliance are already on the move, you're asking me to decide in their place, without their consensus."
"We are." He replies knowing it is a difficult decision for her for more reasons than just that, but it is her position to understand it is her most prominent concern. "In a crisis of this magnitude, protocol allows for you to do so."
"Yuliana Kafim." The Princess speaks her name, perhaps looking on her own image, as she ruminates upon her own past history with her. "Very well. You shall have it. I will send my authorization code immediately."
Again, it feels like she is signing away someone else's life. Again she does it, for the sake of the peace they would build.
"Gentleman, I thank you for you for your adherence to our agreement. May humanity know triumph in the battle that is to come."
It is only then, that the President of the Benerit Group turns away from his window, to face Princess Mineva, as he speaks in his accustomed brusqueness.
"There is no triumph to be had in this, for humanity."
Mineva answered, as if mildly startled, "Mister President?"
He continued as if he had not even heard her, "It is a failure of our resolve, that we even consider this course of action. It was my resolution that our Cathedra shall deny all Gundams, and so must I now take responsibility for unsealing one curse, to remove a greater one from this world. Doctor Elisa Kafim's methods would reach so far that her science would sacrifice her own wife for the advent of her false god. That the weapon she developed mitigates this risk, offers no excuse. It remains a concession lesser than the bare minimum courtesy offered to those who engage in the act of war."
In this moment, he stands, moving towards the window, staring Northwards, towards the pole of the world, "Thus shall I declare her achievements, not tools, but maledictions that profane the spirit of humanity. To her, and her foolish wife, shall I denounce them both for what they have always been."
His next word is spoken with a certain anger, "Witches. ...For humanity to remain at peace, we shall spare them not the hammer." He is not known for being an indecisive man, but there is certainly weight in the brief pause that comes after, for he understands fully that he is asking someone to take on the risks of this curse.
"On my authority as President of the Benerit Group - Unseal Singularity 02 - and prepare it for launch."
-=-=-
In a part of the Orbital Ring, unknown to most, a vault begins to open. Layer after layer of beam shielded reinforced blast doors unfold and unfurl, revealing the secure resting place of Singularity-02, the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam Unit 2, Banshee Norn. Machinery is moving to hastily to fit its pieces back together, to remove the seals of tape upon it's weapon ports, to run diagnostics.
Security checks are run even on the pilot as she steps in. Checklists of protocol and procedure. Even retinal scans taken, and visual checks to make certain her eyes are not 'too green'. She answers the questions, one by one, eyes beyond upon the Mobile Suit.
"Hey there." Leina raises a single black glove up to overlay the mobile suit. As if she might reach out and touch it, and it might touch back. "Miss me?"
The cockpit hasn't even had time to gather dust, the seat adjustments are just as she left them. It is like she never left.
Three months, she had expected it would take much longer than three months to sit in this seat again, but these are the times they live in.
"<Yo, Leina!>" Came a voice on the comms of Kenanji Avery, "<Final check here. We have your consent?>" He asks casually, before saying more quietly. "<Not too late to back out now. Even the President would understand.>"
He mislikes this just as much as the rest of Cathedra. But Leina responded rather flippantly, "<Nah. Was thinking I'd like to take a trip to the North Pole anyway. Have an invitation and everything.>"
"<That so? Not sure if it's the season for it, pretty you know, green up there ... You know for protocol's sake gotta have you say the words->"
"<You have my consent. I'm ready for launch.>"
-=-=-
Back on the Dominicus Corps battleship, the Ulysses, which was in holding pattern just outside the Arctic Circle Kenanji Avery sighed and rubs the back of his head, "You know it's okay to just say you know you're about to have a real bad day, kid."
The man input his own authorization codes for the launch as spoke over the comms. "<Alright then, have a nice fall, see you soon.>"
Over the comms, a young man in the hangar asked, "<Hey Commander, when's our backup gonna get here?>"
"<Oh you know - anytime now. Just keep your eyes on the sky.>"
-=-=-
The heat was immense, even with the Psychoframe active, Leina was already sweating in her helmet as the Banshee Norn plummeted through the friction burn of the atmosphere, glowing red hot against the gleam of yellow.
She panted, again and again, struggling to keep conscious even as she felt the spiritual arms hold onto her tight within. It still felt as if it was taking an interminable amount of time, her consciousness swimming against the pharmacological assistance coursing through her veins.
Then abruptly, the heat began to fade, as they crossed to that moment where friction stopped taking it's toll. Taking a breath, she still felt the weight of the Banshee falling, the residual heat the insulation could not fully stop.
"Yuliana... no matter how much you're suffering, this is too much to inflict on everyone else." Leina murmured, before she shouted out, "BANSHEE!"
The Armed Armor DE suddenly revved up, the burning blue glow suddenly leveling it off from it's fall, it suddenly righted itself by performing a sharp arc, before spiraling around on the sharp parabola, before arcing northwards, the Gundam's red eyes gleaming, even as orange Psychoframe became brilliant shining yellow.
Blue contrails, surrounded by gleaming nebulous aurora lit up the sky. Two minutes after it broke atmo, the Banshee Norn rushed over the Ulysses in a trail of prismatic light, but did not stop.
-=-=-
"<Commander!? What was that??? I couldn't even track it on my instruments!>"
"<Heh. You're pretty new aren't you? That. Was a Gundam.>"
"<Gundam!? Commander ...Why are we relying on a Gundam?>"
"<...Damn good question, that. Damn good question. I'll let you know when I have an answer that would satisfy me - all hands get set to launch!>"
"<Yes sir!>"
-=-=-
It did not stop, because North was her destination, towards the blooming emerald flower. An Aurora of light lighting up the emerald hued sky, even as a barrage of missiles just barely outpaces it, raining down on Emptear from above.
They are warning shots in a sense.
The Banshee abruptly brakes above, hovering in air on the jets of the Armed Armor and it's various thrusters that compensate for the lift.
"<I had hoped that everyone was wrong. That it wasn't you. That someone who lived through the Second Impact Wars in their teens wouldn't want to inflict that on anyone else, no matter how much they're hurting.>"
There is something like a weary sigh, out of her in that moment.
"<But you're very good at dashing my hopes, aren't you, Yuliana?>
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena Lancaster wasn't in Japan when Princess Euphemia opened fire on a crowd. She had seen it at the Three Ships Alliance base in Orb, watching with other Alliance pilots with muted horror.
But, as a result, when the Threshold Queen descended on the North Pole, Rena wasn't that far away.
The blooming of the black orchid in Orb -- and its consumption, swallowed by green light -- gave them all a clue. An arc of green light, surging up into the sky, and moving northward. Ever northward.
It was an easy deployment, then.
The Gaia Gear Alpha is soaring through polar skies, thin strands of white mist trailing after its wing tips. It's in waverider mode, for the moment, and the polar ice cap is underneath. Rena sucks a breath in, as she sees Emptear.
The Gaia Gear's combat OS has the massive machine lit up, highlighted in a deep red. Readouts are pouring information across her screen -- a computer's best estimate at the energy output of what's happening, and falling short. Rena's eyes take all of that in.
"Anita, Nova," Rena says, as the Gaia Gear's thrusters flare up -- and drive it in closer. "Keep an eye out. I doubt Yuliana's going to hold anything back."
She takes in the beckoning hand of Emptear, too.
She tenses; one hand rises over her chest, over where her pilot suit obscures the deep sea blue crystal embedded in her chest. This feels wrong, in a way that extends beyond the usual silence around Yuliana. It feels wrong in a way she cannot, fully, describe.
"Yuliana!" she calls out. "Stop it! Is this really what you want!? You wanted to help the world! This... this isn't going to do that!"
She flicks a thumb over one of the triggers inside her Mobile Suit's cockpit. A pair of missiles drops down from the hardpoints on the underside of the Gaia Gear Alpha, then both burst off towards the Emptear. The tips of them superheat as they fly in.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has deployed in RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee Norn <Destroy Mode> Awakened. KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Revolving Launcher BOP Missile Salvo! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Rena Lancaster: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with Needle Missile Salvo! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Shelby Korts has deployed in MSN-03 Jagd Doga <Korts Custom>.
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Soma Peries floats within the darkness of space, separated from the vacuum by the transparent window she currently stares at. Soma isn't sure what the design of the carrier she's been posted to is. Apparently it's a new one that's only recently started rolling out based on a prototype that was fielded about a year ago. Either REA Forces Command still had hope for the Chobu Squadron, despite their repeated failures. Or there was just no where else they could be assigned.
Either way, Soma was surprised to find an observation room providing such a large view of space. Not that she's actually been looking at it. Apparently the loss of the squadron's HQ... Her home... Has made her introspective. Because for a while now, Soma has been staring not into space, but her reflection in the transparent material. She even goes so far as to ask, "... Who are you?"
Any answer will have to wait though as Soma's attention is attracted by a sudden stream of green light rushing over the planet below. Soma's brow creases a little in confusion, watching as two other streams join it. They all meet at the planet's northern pole.
That's not normal.
The ship's announcement system comes to life, "All hands, brace for emergency burn."
Soma grabs hold of the nearest railing. A few moments later, she fulls herself suddenly pulled towards the ship's rear as the sound of its engines coming to life echo through the ship. They're altering their trajectory, despite the mission they had planned.
This is not normal.
-------
A short time later, in the pilot's ready room, Soma asks in surprise, "I'm going alone?"
Colonel Smirnov doesn't show it, but he's not particularly happy about it. Nonetheless he replies firmly, "Yes. Command doesn't want us to divert from our current mission. Yet the happenings at the North Pole are concerning. We can't afford to overlook them and our squad is in the best position to investigate. It was all I could do to convince them to send one of us." He would've preferred to go himself, but the rest of the squad needed him to lead them. He was confident that the Lieutenant would be able to handle whatever it was without him.
'But I want to stay by your side.' That's what Soma wants to say. But she doesn't.
Say it.
No. This is the mission she has been given. She will complete it.
Even at the sacrifice of your own feelings?
... Feelings are irrelevant. She's a proud soldier of the Republic.
Soma salutes the Colonel, "Roger that. I will leave immediately." She turns, pushing herself to float towards the door and on to the hangar.
------
A simple orbital entry pod plummets down from above, its heat shields still glowing slightly from the heat of re-entry. Soon enough the pod's structure is forcefully separated by explosive bolts, revealing the GN-X within which begins to free fall towards the icy lands of the Arctic. It soon rights itself, crimson particles of light starting to blast out of the conal shaped engine in its back as it starts to fly towards the convergence point of those streams of green light.
In her cockpit, Soma looks at her panoramic display as a section zooms in on the source of the disturbance. A massive dark figure, holding a staff. Soma's eyes go a little wide at the sight as she asks no one in particular, "What... Is that?"
...
Whatever it is. IT'S NOT NORMAL. The mission is clear.
Soma raises her GN Rifle, modded for long range fire. It starts charging a heavy shot, ports along the weapon beginning to spill those crimson particles.
This is her duty! This is who she is! She will protect this world the best way she knows how. She pulls the trigger.
The long beam of crimson light blasts downwards towards Emptear.
KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Ultimate Shot! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Roux Louka has deployed in MSZ-006-3 Zeta Gundam 'Strike Zeta' <Mobile Suit>. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Sayaka Yumi's Mazinger Blade: Sweeping Attack, taking 3240 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Sayaka Yumi begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
The sky is seared by three green lights. A beacon - an omen, visible throughout the world. It's no surprise that the Three Ships Alliance would be monitoring the flower blooming in Orb - and no surprise, then, that they follow the light to its destination. To the North - to the top of the world.
The XVF-25I Svipul flies alongside the Gaia Gear Alpha and Sukeban in formation - and even within the cockpit, Anita feels a chill. Is it the cold of the North? Or is encroaching concern for what's to come? She shakes the cold, and looks toward the all-consuming green spreading through ice and snow and Earth.
"...This is bad. We gotta hurry." Anita mutters. It doesn't need to be said, but she says it anyway. And she nods, at Rena's warning. "Right. Same goes for you, yeah? I'm right behind you."
And soon enough, they reach her - Emptear, and Yuliana within. The Empress at the End of All Things...
"...Yuliana." Anita replies. She takes a quick look around. It's just Yuliana, right now... is her wife here, too? ...She can't afford to be distracted. "Sorry, but this isn't what anyone else wants but you."
And as Rena points out, even that might be in question.
"If you aren't going to stop this yourself, then we're gonna have to." She says. "C'mon. It's not too late."
She follows Rena's lead, though, opening up on Emptear with a barrage of vulcan fire.
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Vulcan Barrage!
KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round.
[OOC] Shelby Korts says, "typing but brb ;;"
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
Merida Island, hubbub of activity that it was and has been for months at end, was not one to shy away from such occurences that forecasted Something Bad happening. Keeping an eye on multiple flowers was a minor task in of itself; Seeing the three sprout and become energy to flow to the North Pole was a task so simple it barely warranted mention.
Unfortunately, such a thing warranted immediate responses.
"Haa..."
"...I'm also wary, Captain."
"About what they set out to accomplish?"
"And many other things about the Kafims."
"It's something we can't look away from, even if the Federation is slowly dissolving."
"Are you admitting that things may have gotten out of hand?"
"...We've passed that point months ago, XO Mardukas."
"Yes."
"Especially after yesterday. Will you be able to maintain yourself?"
"...I have to, and I will."
And without Uruz-7, at that. It's a hard thing to move past (or even accept), but to tamp it down for now and to seal away her own thoughts...That's the short-term solution. Keep calm. Keep focused. Even on the quickly shrinking hours of sleep, as the cups of energy drinks and caffiene stacked ever higher...No, she can't stop now.
Not when there's work to be done. "Maintain course. Prepare all tubes for immediate attack."
"Yes, ma'am."
---
A deep breath in at the sight of Emptear, the massive unit already spotted from afar. It's a sight to behold, to watch such a thing move with ease. The passive prick of wondering what makes it tick...And the eyes that seemed to haunt whenever brushing against this sort of conspiracy.
"Fire."
"Aye, ma'am! Fire!"
As the flaps on the TDD-1 latched open to release its payload of demonic might, the Captain leaned back on the chair. Closing her eyes for a few moments, forcing herself to stop clenching her jaw.
Comms. <"Yuliana Kafim. I reject this aid."> Simple, curt, and to the point.
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Yuliana Kafim with Itano Circus Missile Dance! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko Suzuki hasn't even gotten the chance to really process what happened back in her homeland. Which is what it is, no matter what Britannia claims, or so the words of many of Akaigawa's citizens echo back to her now. Back then, it never felt very important to take a stance on things like that, mired in politics that she didn't even care to understand. There was nothing she could do about it, either way.
Now, it's hard not to see Britannia as the worst kind of villains, and the Black Knights as brave heroes. Now, 'could I have done something about it' is a question strongly on her mind. How many more could have been saved had she been there? And... how many more could have been saved if she actually had access to a power that could work powerful miracles, instead of only the boasts that often feel like all she has to work with?
She once again has cause to lament her lack of that, with this new crisis threatening the entire world. She had been researching the flowers planted by Yuliana and Elisa, realizing their energy-gathering property, the vast root network that was established underground, even the fact that they only partially existed in this reality. She sought to extrapolate a means to eradicate them from there, failing to deduce there was a greater plan so close to execution, only realizing it after that green-colored energy appeared in the sky.
Too late, yet again. It feels like she's always running out of time before she can make as much of a difference as she'd wanted to. With that in mind... she can't approach this with the simple desperate determination of one trying to save the world. She needs to think even further beyond, already think ahead to whatever crisis may be next. This must be a learning experience. If she doesn't come away from this battle with some measure of greater understanding of the Void and how it may be opposed, then this is only going to feel like a pointless delay. There must be a way to directly oppose this other reality, and she plans to find it. To that end, the first step must be...
The Sukeban's small but easily identified violet frame is among those who have assembled to stop Emptear from achieving its aims, formed up with its most common companions, the Gaia Gear and the Svipul. "Right. I'll do whatever I can to stop the miracles nobody wants to see." Not in the absolute sense that Asciel is proclaiming, but for this particular miracle, there won't be any argument from Naoko. The Arm Slave pilot closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, addressing the other presences in her cockpit.
"...Uriel, Ariel. Do you trust me?"
>"Well that's ominous. Is this a trick question?"<
>"Uriel, shush. What's this about, Nova?"<
Nova Stellar opens her eyes. "I'm going to go in close. Help me out as best you can."
All of them know what this means. Within that machine's sphere of influence, they will have to fight without the ability to actively or passively communicate with each other. To say this is not ideal would be an understatement. Especially considering this also means an important means to guard against the consequences of mental instability that has been present nigh-constantly for nearly ten years will not be able to function. Nova does not expect this to sit well with her friends. However...
>"If that's what you want, we support you. Do your best!"<
>"Yeah... do what you gotta do. What, did you forget we know what you're thinking? Just worry about yourself for once. We'll be there, even if it doesn't feel like it."<
Nova smiles, sending a mental 'thank you' to her friends. This won't be easy, but with this... she's as prepared as she's going to get. Even with Emptear being so much bigger, and its bad vibes reaching her even from a distance, the Sukeban broadcasts a challenge in return.
"Even if that were true, aid forced upon those who never asked for it just robs people of their freedom - their right to make choices for themselves! You of all people should know the suffering that brings, isn't that so, Yuliana Kafim?!"
She hopes this won't be the last thing she'll be able to say while in her right mind. Once she gets in close, there's no telling how it's going to affect her. But she's determined to do just that. Sending her remote weapons in ahead, fully expecting to have no chance to use them for very long, the Sukeban's Saucers bombard the Emptear with a fully of beam fire while the Arm Slave continues its charge.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Yuliana Kafim with Remote Saucers! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Pinpoint, taking 3300 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
When the orchid bloomed in Orb, Judau Ashta had stuck around in order to keep an eye on it. 'It felt like he ought to,' was the explanation he gave Roux.
And it was true enough; he just didn't really have a way to explain why, besides the obvious reasons why 'A GIANT BLACK ORCHID YOU CAN'T BLOW UP NO MATTER HOW MANY MISSILES YOU SHOOT AT IT' should be monitored. The extra level of caution from Judau, though, is a rare thing indeed, and one that didn't have an answer besides the fact that the flower felt, to him, like he was standing on the precipice of something.
Something awful.
So, he's kept a close eye on it, spending several days after its establishment in Orb until catastrophic events across the Earthsphere started demanding attention be paid to them. Even then, his attention has been split as best as it could, because... well.
That teetering feeling never stopped. Call it a Newtype premonition, or simple gut feeling, Judau Ashta would shrug it off either way. He just knows by experience: when your every instinct is screaming 'DON'T LOOK AWAY FROM THIS THING' --
You don't look away.
So when those flowers activate in all-consuming green light that flares with ominous tidings and spiking energy readings towards the North Pole...
The ZZ Gundam is already en route in G-Fortress mode, blazing a blue trail through the skies after that churnign trail of green.
Judau doesn't have any idea what he'll find there, at Earth's last unsullied pole. But as he approaches -- as he sees that machine, and hears that familiar voice -- he knows it's already bad enough. The feeling spreading throughout the ice in pulses of emerald green is nauseating, not unlike the disorientation he felt from Yuliana. But...
<"That all sounds like a lotta pompous crap to say you wanna make force people to do and see things the way you want!>"
Regardless of feeling, regardless of the noxious knot in his throat -- Judau Ashta never hesitates to act, and he's certainly not about to now. ZZ Gundam unfolding into its full, iconic frame from that bulky jet that is the G-Fortress, thrusters ignite as the Gundam is sent high into the sky on a brief sojourn. The Emptear is huge -- almost three times larger than the Double Zeta.
But the ZZ is no less fiercer than its pilot as he trains its double beam rifles and fires down on that immense, strange thing beneath it.
<"So thanks for the help with the ring -- but I've never trusted anyone who talks that much showy talk, an' I'm not about to start now!">
KTS: Judau Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Double Beam Rifle - Focused Beaming! KTS: Judau Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Judau Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Rouse Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Yesterday: the Nagoya Massacre. Escape from active fire amid civilians herded into a kill zone. Pushing a surviving Japanese family through Britannian security checkpoints in the chaos. No time to stop and let the feelings of the day wash over her.
This morning: throwing political weight her mother didn't authorize to clear the refugee family through the obstructive Neo-American asylum process and searching for good-faith actors to take up their case and settle them.
Now: emergency deployment, following Senator Luckwright taking several calls in quick succession and taking different stances through each.
Space tears in the wake of MFW-1 Myrmecia, cleaving the friction fires of atmospheric entry. It would be a strange spectacle if it weren't dwarfed by the Emptear and even most of the other units dispatched to arrive in response, just an eight-meter tall mite of the sort more suited for urban engagement. Luanova Luckwright trembles inside the cockpit of the unit. She is sleepless, red-eyed and fueled by a last-minute coffee and a melange of exasperation, fury, grief, and mania. Most of this is lost in the cheap mass-market synthetic voice through which the comms unit filters her transmissions to all local units, though Awakened pilots may instinctively feel the quaking emotion being let out. <"This is callsign Myrmidon, private military contractor in employ of Neo-American military relief aid.">
The mite travels in a curving trajectory in towards the Threshold Queen, no armaments visible, and none necessary. It drops in the air as it enters range of Emptear's psychic interference, and the quantum foam Lua is used to navigating the world through dims and roils. Myrmecia spins drunkenly through the dead zone, Lua already clenching her fist tight. <"I am authorized to relay this message:"> The soldier ant disappears through the smoke and light of the incoming barrage of other responders, before emerging in front of the masked smiling 'face' of Emptear from below, rearing its arm back like a major league pitcher.
<"FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THIS SHIT. What is wrong with you?!">
Delivering contact: a curving uppercut to clock Emptear in the chin. The quantum foam is not gone; Lua may not feel it, but she grasps it in her numb hands and heaves it, projecting force behind the uppercut disproportionate to the Myrmecia's pathetic size, not even as tall as the Emptear's head.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright has activated the Rouse Spirit Command. KTS: Luanova Luckwright: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Contact Charge! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
The North Pole.
Roux knows little about the North Pole, except some trivia from the geography class in her 9th grade studies. In particular, she thinks, as the Waverider flies North, of that fun fact: Which of Earth's poles has permanent ice ON LAND?
"You know," Roux observes to Sayaka as the Strike Zeta shifts from waverider into Mobile Suit configuration, "I got an A because of this place. The exam was programmed to only accept 'south pole' for which poles have permanent ice on land, and I took the exam after..."
Roux doesn't quite say 'Second Impact'. No need to bring up the ghosts of the past.
"You are so good at that!" Roux concludes complimenting Sayaka as the Strike Zeta comes to a landing. The arrival of the greater bulk of the ZZ Gundam makes Roux turn her head, and to smile, and to even laugh, just a little, when he puts things so well.
"I should learn how to do that kind of off the cuff speech, shouldn't I?" Roux says to Judau--
-- before saying, "Alright, seriously, what is up with the ring. This is starting to freak me out a little."
As opposed to what, Roux? Her eyes turn up at the thundering descent of the Banshee -- and then she makes her own comment to Yuliana:
"Enough!"
And fires a missile from the shoulder pods of the Strike Zeta, even as she asks Judau-in-particular, more quietly, "This area's getting messed up, but it's not settled, right? If things get bad I'm going to drop the Min chaff again." (She did that once in the pitch of heated battle over Fujinomiya, and it was, marginally, a little tiny bit of a war crime, even if it kind of vanished into the maelstrom of all the Atrytoning going on at the time.)
As the missile flies, Roux looks passing impressed with Luanova. "Which one's Neo-America again?" Roux continues, quietly-and-mostly-to-Judau.
KTS: Roux Louka targets Yuliana Kafim with Standoff Missile! KTS: Roux Louka has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Roux Louka has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Leina Ashta's Revolving Launcher BOP Missile Salvo, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Rena Lancaster's Needle Missile Salvo, taking 4900 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster completes the Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Soma Peries's GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Ultimate Shot, taking 6600 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Soma Peries's Loyal Soldier activates, causing Jam L1! KTS: Soma Peries roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
When the reports came of the glow from the Arctic Circle, Sayla was already on the move.
The alert that a certain machine was being deployed by Cathedra when she was already in the cockpit.
Now, the Photon Hi-Nu blazes through the air towards the battlefield, Sayla hurriedly trying to make sense of everything. This is what Yuliana and Elisa were building towards the whole time? This attack on the world? Could this be as bad as the Devil Gundam? As Axis? As Second Impact?
Yuliana may call it beauty- but to Sayla... it's a nightmare.
Already, she can feel the throbbing pain of closing near Yuliana
the shutting down of her sixth sense
the overwhelming pressure of the voice
her connections being ripped away and dying
a part of her world being torn away, replaced with nothingness
"<...Beauty? You call this 'beauty'?>" Sayla's voice echoes from the Hi-Nu's speakers. "<This 'salvation' of yours won't save anyone- all you're doing is tearing away the part of us you hate! You'd make newtypes extinct to 'cure' something that isn't wrong with us! We may survive it... but we'd still be forever missing something that makes us who we are!>"
The Hi-Nu raises it's rifle, remembering the lessons she learned from fighting Emptear before. Wait for the opening, when it's under fire the most. She breathes heavily, the oppressive weight off the void feeling all too real.
"<I refuse your salvation, Yuliana Kafim!>"
She pulls the trigger on the rifle, hoping her timing is right, the beam soaring across the sky toward Emptear.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Anita Rosetta's Vulcan Barrage KTS: Sayla Mass: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Sayla Mass targets Yuliana Kafim with Hi-Nu Beam Rifle Trick Shot! KTS: Sayla Mass has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Teletha Testarossa's Itano Circus Missile Dance, taking 3960 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Naoko Suzuki's Remote Saucers
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
Plans are in motion. The crew of the Hyperion has been somewhat at loose ends since their ship was hobbled by Jonah Basta. But slowly, despite the Federation's in-flight disassembly happening all around them, good work for G-Hound pays off. Sophia sits in a conference room, head cocked to one side as her XO Amata Kole patiently examines and describes the plans before them, as presented by an engineer out of the Britannian lines. It's not quite as much of a skunkworks project as the Hyperion was. Sophia prefers it that way, honestly. She's more interested in the technologies coming out of Camelot Labs. "'Avalon'," she murmurs. "The first of the line was the First Prince's own, correct?"
Amata looks up and blinks at her, then nods. "Yeah. I gather the fancy bridge comes standard. Might be nicer than the floating chairs, honestly..."
"I thought they seemed rather comfortable," Sophia muses back. Her eyes are locked on the far wall, barely seeing the obstructions between her and the tracery of soul-light that obscures her vision. "It's an interesting idea..." ...
Then she stops talking, as green light races through her vision, tracing down and through. She turns around, to something nobody else can see, the signs of Kingship in her eyes shown to none other as her gaze seeks...seeks.
Finds. "That light," she mutters, and nearly trips over her chair before Amata pulls it away so Sophia can make for the door. She's not so blind she can't operate a door, at least. "Commander!" Amata yells, and then again, "Sophia! What!?"
"...something's coming. Coordinate the rest of the response. I'll go ahead."
"Like this!? You're barely fit to fly a paper airplane!"
Sophia stops, white glove on the door frame. "...I'll manage."
Fortunately, it's not that hard to get her hands on a GN-X, and the old Helios is still suitable for a rapid-deployment out to the Arctic. So soon, the speckled red-white of GN Tau particles scatter across the sky, as a small squad of GN-X - just a fistful of the experimental machines - roars frictionless toward the Emptear.
Sophia never could see her poisoned heart. But it doesn't matter now. "Yuliana," Sophia says, a strange mixture of emotions in her heart. ...she should say something. Some invocation of the strange past they've developed, the cursed relationship that binds them. But she sees her own light tracing into the pit that surrounds the witch.
"...No," she says, instead, and draws the GN-X's beam rifle, firing at the massive Emptear with the blood-red stains of GN Tau blasts.
"A mad dog deserves no platitudes. Die."
KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Judau Ashta's Double Beam Rifle - Focused Beaming KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Beam Rifle Warding Barrage! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Luanova Luckwright anchors Yuliana Kafim, forcing her into close range. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Luanova Luckwright's Contact Charge, taking 1350 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
It's been a bit of a blur of a couple of days for Shelby Korts: Time she deserved cut off; time she wanted burned up in chaos. Black orchids have started blooming across the world, and the coils of the Void are trying to take the Earth.
Her own descent is not far behind Sayla's own, the knockout pink and deep black of the custom Jagd Doga dipping down through the clouds with a trail of vapor on the relic of a base jabber the Mobile Suit is squatting on. Shelby's hands shift on the controls, her feet giving a swift alternating jab at the pedals; the psychoframe-equipped machine pulling the nose of the rider up before it hits snow and ice-- and giving her room to leap off the unit, unslinging the beam gatling from behind it's back.
Her skull is pounding. The Void presses against her; the Noise twisting and distorting on a level that she's never dealt with in the past... even for someone like her. Shelby sucks a breath in between her teeth, limbs tensing--
"Kafim, you *idiot*," she growls under her breath.
The Jagd Doga spreads it's feet and plants a little more firmly, bracing the gatling rifle against it's hip. Just as so many others do, Shelby allows the gun to spin up before starting to chatter away-- blazing and firing shot after shot like a turret emplacement at the Emptear!
KTS: Shelby Korts targets Yuliana Kafim with Beam Gatling Gun Constant Barrage! KTS: Shelby Korts has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Roux Louka's Standoff Missile, taking 3500 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Sayla Mass's Hi-Nu Beam Rifle Trick Shot KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Sophia Mayhew Castellan's GN-X Beam Rifle Warding Barrage, taking 3450 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Shelby Korts's Beam Gatling Gun Constant Barrage, taking 3779 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Beyond the castle, beyond the island, beyond all, in absolute North... they are here. And the cold is very nearly absolute. Rising from the ice comes a horrid Thing.
It is vast, 50 meters long. Wheels spin about its spine, each lined with a dozen eyes. Its face is blind, however, with two sets of jaws where eyes might otherwise be. These jaws sing their eternal dirge, a wailing grief that unsettles and destroys. Grasping glaws and beating wings line its body, five pairs along its length of each--and it rises up on those last three claws as it lands, gigantic wings beating out as it moves.
It roars and wails both, coming up from the snows and ice behind the group. Some have spoken of mercy. Some have spoken their challenge. Some have duty; some have compassion. All will be targeted. The dragon rears back, and wails, waves of sound crashing towards every combatant to batter apart their units with sheer grieving force.
BGM: Witch Image https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymb-aG_lt9U
"You think it will not help the world?" a voice comes, echoing in the cockpits of all who are present though it does not come over the radio. "That my Yuliana cares of the foolish hopes of those who do not understand...?" A low, sonorous laugh. "No, my Yuliana will dance the final dance of this world." A pause. "...Your 'freedom' is an illusion. Your 'trust' is irrelevant. Your rejection is immaterial, your refusals baseless."
"You call it horror. You call it an ending. ...But I say it is not." Elisa Kafim is the owner of the voice that calls now. Her shadowy magic echoes with every syllable.
"The chaos of the Void will breathe life into a stagnant world. The weak will rise up and eat their former masters. The foolishness of nations and borders will give way to perfect creation."
"And I will oversee it all."
"You think it ugly. You think it awful. But I say... it is not."
"There is pain in any birth. And the Earth itself will be reborn in power, no longer subject to the whims of the wealthy few. War will be a thing of the past. Perfection, in the hands of many..."
"Overseen by one, who will guide, and show the way. You fear the unknown, but She will not hold this against you. She will take your hands, and unfold them into what will build your new existence."
"...The time has come. You ask me, who is She, why should we listen to Her? Why should we not fear Her?"
"She has already come to this world. She has come to this world by love, and I offer you gifts. The dowry to the broader family of Our wife... of humanity."
"For I am the part of Her that has come before you. I am She who Waits. And I am already here."
"You cannot stop us."
KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Shelby Korts with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayla Mass with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Roux Louka with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Luanova Luckwright with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Judau Ashta with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Teletha Testarossa with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Soma Peries with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Asciel Colette with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Wailing Grief Blast! KTS: Elisa Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Soma Peries blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 3500 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You are correct," Yuliana smiles, as Sayaka defies her. "This is not the power of this world. Even so, She embraces my native existence... don't you think it's romantic?" Apparently not -- because Mazinger Blade comes crashing in towards her legs. She twirls to meet it, only for it to carve into her shins. Emptear bends back, then, staggeringly flexible for its huge mass, to sweep her hand out behind her. "Begone!" She snaps, as she slaps the Aphrodite Areia away.
That claw bends and flexes on the ice, before Emptear pushes herself back up to her full sixty metres, with an arc of her sharp leg forward. She lands, and twirls, to face the Codarl-A. "Your Earth? You are mistaken. Earth belongs to us all -- and I've more claim than you, if I'm not mistaken. From what womb were you birthed, worm?" She brings her scarf up to block the Codarl-A's generosity, for she's never needed any but Elisa's. This done, she snaps the scarf out to lash at Asciel. "Black Scarf -- Flourish!", she cries.
"It is not about what I want," she says, at length, to Leina and Rena both. Her Hollow Heart can't quite absorb the missile strikes they lay out, and the explosions rock against the massive woman, sending her back a step -- though she soon redoubles her dance. Her scarf flutters out towards Rena, and she invokes, "Black Scarf, Flourish!" With that scarf lashing at her, her words follow: "This is the ordained place. This is the ordained time. I mourn to strike the ice as Second Impact did, but it is through the collection of our Seats of Power that we may grasp the power to save the world. Thus is the sacrifice demanded. "Black Scarf, Entangling!" She follows up, as she brings that scarf around to glint with dark light as it lashes towards Leina, dangerously entangling.
The GM Rifle blasts out with no preamble, blasting a crater into one of the massive spikes at Emptear's shoulders. "You!" She bites out, looking to Soma. "Have the grace to die! ABYSSAL BEAM!" The serpents of darkness, emerging behind Emptear, fire black beams from their mouths -- but they shouldn't be mistaken for beam weaponry. No, this darkness is... something else.
She manages to twirl through Anita's vulcan-fire without any obvious damage -- and it's a testament to how good a dancer Yuliana must be, that she's able to move so quickly when Anita is such a good shot. "This must be," she insists, to her, as she steps forward to grasp dark light in her hand. "Queen's Claw -- Shine!" She cries, as gleaming darkness trails through her claws, and she claws at Anita's machine.
But Tessa's missiles soar in, and Yuliana is too occupied with Anita to avoid these. She whirls, and her eyes, at least, narrow behind their blindfold. "You reject me?" She asks, though that's not quite what Teletha said. The difference is illustrative. "You'll break my heart... hark! Hollow Heart Surgery!" And darkness arcs out of the core of blackness at her chest, coursing straight for the TDD-1.
Her dancing does save her from Naoko's saucers and Judau's rifle -- though not from either of their words. "You would speak to me of suffering?!" She demands, of Naoko, her voice sharp. "You cannot know the suffering I have endured for the sake of this world! The burden of bringing two existences together!" If she sounds wounded, it's because she is wounded, thinking of forcing people not yet convinced. "They... they will see! They will know this is the best way for everyone!" Her claws lash out for the Sukeban and the ZZ Gundam, with a simpler: "Queen's Claw -- Slash! Slash!"
This is the precise moment when Luanova appears from the confusion of melee to PUNCH EMPTEAR IN THE JAW. And, indeed, that isn't something she can dance away from, though certainly she takes it on the chin with some grace. Her vast head snaps back, as if she were punched by something eighty metres instead of eight -- and then her head snaps forward again, to look down at a machine so much smaller than hers. (So much her size.) "Much," she answers, honestly enough. "Did I not say I have suffered? I will not claim I am a guiltless woman. And yet -- begone!" She demands, as she slaps the Myrmecia away, as well.
Her Hollow Heart fails to consume Roux's missiles, too -- they blast at her shoulders, the largest obvious target. "You should thank me," she insists, hotly, "that your wedding shall take place in such a realm of peace and equality. You do not, and you wound me. Hollow Heart Surgery!" That darkness arcs out again, this time for Roux's machine.
"This is the way the world was meant to be!" She snaps, to Sayla, as she dances out of the way of her vengeful beam. She twirls towards her, and like mother, like daughter: "Black Scarf, Entangling!" That dancer's scarf billows out, this time seeking to tangle Sayla up and confuse her, before she'll finally be let free.
She isn't able to evade Shelby or Sophia's barrages -- but she does reach out, to them both. "You've come to witness the beginning?" She asks, beseeching, before she flicks her scarf towards the both of them: "Black Scarf -- Flourish! Flourish!"
And, finally -- "There," Emptear says, in the wake of K'advaktra's assault, spreading her claws bountifully. "Know truth! Divine Power worked amongst us all along! And you know it to be true." Her massive dancer's scarf flutters through the air, arcing upwards as she spins. "You have seen my Elisa take a bullet to the heart, intended for my own, at our wedding -- only to rise in vengeance to protect me from the villain who would destroy me in my wedding dress. You have seen her storm the Institute for Continuing Study, unbothered by any challenge. You have seen her punish wickedness in Azadistan with the might she wields! Now I see -- and you shall, too."
(And there is something hidden in her fanatical devotion -- 'now'. Now she sees. Did she not know?)
She sweeps her arm down, and her scarf flutters with her, in a deep, exaggerated bow. "My faith is my love for my wife," she says, and her smile is warmer than Emptear's eternal horrid grin. "The Empress so loved me that She carved a part of Herself and sent her away, to protect me and bring me to Her. I am the bride of God, and no task is more sacred than mine. For it is through me that Elisa shall reunite with Herself, and bring this whole world to absolute equality! She will provide for us all -- the Earth I love so!" And Emptear rises, and twirls, but her dance is protected by the Angelic Dragon now. Naoko will have noticed the way that root system spread -- and the various monitoring systems will note that it is growing, with her dance. It's not obvious on the surface of the Earth, yet, but...
KTS: Sayaka Yumi successfully avoids Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa fails to Evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 4000 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Rena Lancaster blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 1350 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Luanova Luckwright blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 2000 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Trust Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Asciel Colette with Black Scarf Flourish! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Black Scarf Flourish! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Black Scarf Entangling! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Soma Peries with Void Snake's Abyssal Beam! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Queen's Claw Shine! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Teletha Testarossa with Hollow Heart Surgery! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Queen's Claw Slash! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Judau Ashta with Queen's Claw Slash! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Luanova Luckwright with Queen's Claw Slap! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Roux Louka with Hollow Heart Surgery! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sayla Mass with Black Scarf Entangling! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Shelby Korts with Black Scarf Flourish! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with Black Scarf Flourish! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Queen's Claw Slap! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Teletha Testarossa fails to Evade Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Surgery, taking 3800 damage! KTS: Judau Ashta has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Judau Ashta has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Asciel Colette, forcing her into close range. KTS: Asciel Colette fails to evade Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Flourish, taking 2700 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Asciel Colette! KTS: Soma Peries partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Void Snake's Abyssal Beam, taking 5670 damage! KTS: Asciel Colette fails to evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 5500 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Satiety activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Hunger activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Judau Ashta fails to evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 3750 damage! KTS: Judau Ashta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slash, taking 1530 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Judau Ashta! KTS: Roux Louka has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 3500 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Luanova Luckwright blocks Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slap, taking 420 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Luanova Luckwright, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Sayaka Yumi blocks Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slap, taking 1140 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Sayaka Yumi, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Leina Ashta, forcing her into close range. KTS: Leina Ashta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Entangling, taking 3990 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Leina Ashta! KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta fails to Evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 6000 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Satiety activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Hunger activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Shine, taking 3240 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Anita Rosetta! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Roux Louka fails to evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 4000 damage! KTS: Roux Louka charges into the attack! KTS: Roux Louka partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Surgery, taking 4560 damage! KTS: Rena Lancaster's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Rena Lancaster, forcing her into close range. KTS: Rena Lancaster fails to evade Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Flourish, taking 2000 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Rena Lancaster! KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Sophia Mayhew Castellan, forcing her into close range. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan fails to evade Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Flourish, taking 2700 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Sophia Mayhew Castellan! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan successfully evades Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast KTS: Naoko Suzuki fails to evade Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 6000 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Satiety activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Hunger activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Elisa Kafim: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Naoko Suzuki fails to parry Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slash, taking 4080 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Naoko Suzuki! KTS: Sayla Mass's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Sayla Mass blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 3000 damage! KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Shelby Korts blocks Elisa Kafim's Wailing Grief Blast, taking 3000 damage! KTS: Sayla Mass's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Sayla Mass, forcing her into close range. KTS: Sayla Mass blocks Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Entangling, taking 1680 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Sayla Mass! KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Shelby Korts's Physical Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Shelby Korts, forcing her into close range. KTS: Shelby Korts blocks Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Flourish, taking 600 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Shelby Korts!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Leina..." Rena says, her voice trailing off. "Looks like you're back in that? Given the situation, I'm not surprised."
Is Cathedra okay with that? They must be, if she is here; they must have approved it. It makes Rena sit a little easier, knowing that. She looks at the others arriving -- and she can sit a little easier. From Aphrodite Areia to a GN-X, Sayla's Hi-Nu to the Myrmidon, there are responses from across the Earth.
But she only sits a little easier.
"Yeah," Rena agrees with Anita, her voice tense. "Let's make sure it doesn't get worse."
She watches the Sukeban fly in. "Be careful, Nova," Rena tells her. She sits up, straighter. She can't sense what is coming -- the silence from Emptear is such that her awareness is not what it would be. She sees the dragon, when the Gaia Gear flashes several warnings.
Elisa Kafim speaks to her, too. "You'll oversee it?" Rena asks her. "That... that isn't different than all of the other people who think they should rule the world, because of their vision!"
When the dragon wails, so terrily, it sends a blast that threatens to tear the Gaia Gear Alpha out of the sky, away from the Svipul. The machine transforms; legs drop down, arms unfold, and head emerges. Eyes flash gold, as they come online, and shielded forearms rise in a cross formation, to weather the dragon's wail.
"Are you going to deny yourself like that?" Rena asks. "And how... how do you think this will save the world!? We don't need more chaos!"
Emptear sends her scarf flying for the Gaia Gear Alpha, and the white Mobile Suit tries to pull backward -- but the scarf swings her inward, jostling it mightily. The I-Field crackles around it, before Rena flicks a switch.
The vulcans in the Gaia Gear's head open fire -- pouring out a burst of rounds for the Emptear's scarf.
KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with 60mm Vulcan Guns! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Rena Lancaster's 60mm Vulcan Guns, taking 1500 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
<"Die?">
The huge beam that's not a beam rushes upwards towards Soma's GN-X. It raises its left arm, the attached shield projecting a barrier of crimson particles to try and weather the attack. But still the large beam engulfs the machine for a few moments, before fading away and revealing the GN-X still flying, but the outlying sections of its structure have been partially destroyed.
<"You destroyed my home!">
A horrid flying monster rises, approaching from behind everyone. A shockwave of sound blasts outwards from it. Soma turns her GN-X towards it, once more bringing the particle shield to bear. The machine's central frame, pilot included, is spared from the brunt of the assault. More more of its outer structure is blown off. Already the machine is looking quite worse for wear!
<"You're trying to destroy the world as we know it for your twisted beliefs!">
The GN-X raises its long GN Rifle again, once more charging the large weapon up with those special particles. This time though the weapon is aimed towards the dragon-like creature that is trying to flank them.
<"You first!">
The GN-X fires, another beam of crimson lancing out towards the so-called Angelic Dragon.
KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Soma Peries targets Elisa Kafim with GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Overloaded Shot! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim charges into the attack! KTS: Elisa Kafim partially guards Soma Peries's GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Overloaded Shot, taking 2940 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"<Just for something like this Rena - trust me, noone in charge is happy about it.>"
The feeling here is awful, like a rancidness that seeps into her soul. And yet, she has an advantage of so much exposure to it. Even as she can feel the Banshee's connection interrupted and scrambled, she can still reach out and touch it.
Unlike before, the touch is soothing to them both, grounding.
"<You know I would have made it a point to take a day to help you go ring shopping Judau.>"
Ground herself on what matters, on the people who matter. Even if it's so much harder to feel them right now. Still sounds like she's pouting a bit, doesn't it? Even if she's actually fine with Judau reaching out to someone in that way.
Yet even as Roux is quiet about it, Leina still answers her as she honestly doubts that Judau was PAYING ATTENTION during the Neo-Colony part of the history class, "<They're the ones giving the Middle Finger to Britannia.>"
Indeed, her eyes fall upon Luanova in the Myrmecia, watch her back, in this chaos. It's a tall order, but she promised. "<Callsign Myrmidon - doesn't sound like you're just the messenger on that one.>" Just a light tease perhaps.
A relief. A profound relief so many are here. That the Shuffle Alliance, Mithril, the Three Ships Alliance... now, just gotta keep them alive, gotta prevent an apocalyptic event.
Sayla's point... well, it's... something she was always hoping to change Yuliana's mind about. Now? Now she's not so sure.
"<That's just your excuse, Yuliana! Saying it's God's will!? Do you have any idea how SHAMELESS that is?>"
Indeed the Dragon rises, and it's blast of Grief is met with the Armed Armor, as she trades out it's thrust for jump jets, bringing it forward to protect against it with gleaming psychoframe, waves of sound crash against it.
She has to clench her teeth against the sonic hell, but in the aftermath, over the crackling comms, "<Why don't you tell everyone the truth, Doctor Kafim? About how you stand by and ALLOW her to torture your wife? ... And convince her it's how she shows her LOVE!>"
Indeed, she replaces the Armed Armor on it's back, encircling the battlefield, trying to avoid the relentless onslaught of the dragon, "<You think any of us would entrust our futures to a God like that!?>"
Indeed, the Scarf snaps out, catching the Banshee in mid-air, and entangling it, as she tries to fly away, and instead gets drawn inside.
"<The way it was meant to be!? You're just being selfish! You're TERRIFIED you're going to get left behind, and changing the world to ensure you won't be! You look at Rita and think ALL OF US are like her!>"
Indeed the revelation Yuliana delivers is stark, and for a time, Leina is reels under the implications of Elisa being the same being, in a sense, but...
"<That just makes it worse.>" The Banshee suddenly glows a brighter yellow, "<You think I'm supposed to think BETTER OF HER because of that?>"
A Mounted Saber suddenly erupts, as she uses her thrusters to take her closer to Emptear, as she slashes again, and again, and again-!
"<I've felt her touch and it's AGONY-! Like I'm being ripped to shreds! You are being TORTURED and I will not stand by and let you PRETEND THIS SUFFERING IS SACRED!>"
The slashing however, is all feint, she knows that Emptear is after all, mostly swathed in Voidstuff, in the end, she's using it mostly to free the Armed Armor from the scarf, "<BECAUSE YOU - DESERVE - BETTER!>" As she does, she adds it, using it as a bludgeon, but the end of it is already charging a bright azure, which she suddenly snaps up.
And fires, with the Mega Cannon at point blank, consuming part of Emptear in it's light.
"<But so does the world. Condemning it to this TORMENT, because you're afraid! I won't let you!>"
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Armed Armor DE Relentless Blitz! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
"...!" There's a minor jolt of anxiety as the voice sounds out in her head, the feeling passing just as quick once it was concluded that no, it wasn't a Whisper. No, this was... "...Telepathy?" Of a sort. DANA was already hard at work designating the new target on the field: A dragon. A bona-fide dragon of eldritch make, one that evokes one she's seen before. Only the sharp intake of breath as the submarine is jostled, beaten down by the chorus of screeches impacting hull and electronics.
DANA's observing the battlefield. So many, to stop a single person. A minute beat of pride at seeing so many come to reject a painful end.
"Direct hit. No hull breaches, but we're fine otherwise."
"Keep our bearing. Begin target recalculation towards the new bogey."
"Yes, ma'am! Incoming!"
"Brace for impact." Keep calm. Keep steady. Don't think about the- The darkness of the heart lashes along the water, striking against the submarine, razing it in clean arcs.
"Direct hit! We have a single minor breach, but it won't take another."
"Copy. Maintain bearing." What else could she do? Other than charge forward?
"...Aye, ma'am."
A finger scratches at the other hand's knuckle as she listens. Digging, digging, digging, the skin turning white under pressure. Another person who wants to eat this twisted world. Another person who wants to take it for themselves under the guise of benevolence. The minor click of the tongue echoing in the bridge, raising her gaze from the tablet.
It is a gaze of defiance.
<"Myrmidon, good to see you. This is the Toy Box, Mithril PMC. Let's get along well enough after we've staved off the end of the world."> A quick hail back to the Myrmecia. Cordial relations were key, anytime and anywhere.
"Load up the Anti-Kaiju munitions, full power. Cluster bomb variant." This thing shouldn't exist.
"Aye, ma'am! Load up the TBMs, all tubes!"
And the Toy Box worked its mechanical magic, slotting those in-action missiles in place, the payloads stocked with explosives and chaff, timed, primed, and ready for detonation.
"Fire."
Every hatch flapped open.
Every hatch launched a missile worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Every missile trying to launch its payload of cluster bombs down on the dragon, to snuff it out from a planet where it should not reside.
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Elisa Kafim with Multi-Missile Barrage! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim parries Leina Ashta's Armed Armor DE Relentless Blitz, taking 5022 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Roux's off-the-cuff mention of her geography classes gets a small chuckle out of Sayaka. "It's not nearly as cold up here as it would have been in Antarctica... but I could still use a hot spring after this." Been a while since she tried that place Roux recommended, come to think.
"I suppose it's just nice to finally get to take a challenge again," Sayaka answers Roux's compliment, as Areia stomps across the icy floor of the Arctic. "This is horrific... but it beats twiddling our thumbs back at Fujinomiya."
It's good to see Judau, too - and he brings up rings? Wedding rings, Yuliana bought them. Sayaka really hopes Yuliana hasn't taken up the same mantle Tetsuya Tsurugi in spreading the good word of marriage, no matter the cost.
But with the arrival of the other Ashta sibling, Sayaka isn't particularly in the mood for humour...
"Banshee." She repeats, with a frown. There's a grave understanding, this is a situation bad enough that even Cathedra approved its use. But Sayla is here, too... Sayaka knows they'll take care of each other.
They have allies in form of the Three Ships Alliance and the Toy Box, too... even a couple GN-Xs from the Federation, and that strange little wanzer. Even Asciel showed up... yeah, it makes sense that she wouldn't exactly be on good terms with the Kafims.
"Romantic? Are you... kidding me?" Sayaka asks Yuliana, aiming to sink in as much of that Mazinger Blade before Emptear twists back. "Where is she, anyways?" And she doesn't mean She of the void. "Don't tell me she's just watching while her wife does all the work for her."
But Emptear wins the tug-of-war that is the clash of Mazinger Blade and Queen's Claw quite effortlessly, and Aphrodite Areia is pushed back - only for her question to be answered with a dragon.
Elisa Kafim's motives amount to ruling a changed world under the Empress of the Void's whims. But Sayaka knew it would come to this since that tense meeting in her office. "You cannot convince me, Elisa Kafim. I would never follow a dictatorship under you... you've already ruled over enough." She defies, turning Areia's sensors and attention to the kaiju of the Void.
"I'd rather go out fighting... and I'll start by tearing apart that dragon of yours!" The sound of its roar comes crashing over Aphrodite Areia's armour, and yet... "Artemis Wingsweep!" Sayaka calls, only building momentum through the terrible darkness and filling it with the Light of Photon Power...
letting it loose upon Elisa's dragon itself!
KTS: Elisa Kafim successfully intercepts Teletha Testarossa's Multi-Missile Barrage KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Elisa Kafim with Artemis Wingsweep! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
<"You know, when I said the stage can only handle one idol, I kinda meant, you know...that I wouldn't need this much help~"> That familiar obnoxious do-it-all-herself-ism is fully in effect in Asciel's voice, despite the very obvious and clear scale of threat EMPTEAR promises. <"Really, the harder you fight this one, the more viciously she'll ~retaliate. That's why I planned to fight her with pure unbridled gentleness, to maybe lull her to sleep. Siiiiigh.">
Looking over her shoulder at one of the 'cameras' she's projected, Asciel gives a teasy little shrug to her audience. "Guess the ASMR saving the world stream is gonna have to be another night.~"> -She's taking it a little too easy, considering the range on EMPTEAR'S scarf- effortlessly absorbing the light of the Lambda Driver, and lashing out at shocking flexibility to send Asciel skidding along her iceberg mount (probably not a great idea to stand on in general!). Sparks fly from her damaged shoulder, fingers grip into the ice, eyes widen.
<"Hhhhhh. Eons ago, everyone on Earth was 'equally strong' - it belonged to nobody. Eons ago, power ~reached no further than your own arms. You would subject all of humanity to your ~rebirth, wherein the same mistakes would ~repeat. To become 'perfect' is to consume - you would subject my Earth to your horror of a world where those who eat others get to call themselves 'strong'!">
<"So that's why this planet itself ~birthed me!~ In a STAGGERING display of just how EASILY strength lets you kill countless others - they BEGGED for it to come to an ~end! The horror of their suffocation breathed life into the soil, and from it, I ~birthed myself, in a process I know full well to be too painful to subject anyone else to! They PLEADED for an end to the endless race of 'strength' - something that only holds meaning by superiority, by comparison! An end to the gods they made among themselves-">
In that moment, the Angelic Dragon ascends, and that sickening roar of a true deity forged from the abyss takes exactly one second for Asciel to process...before its horrific 'song' sends her eyes blank, sends her body tumbling into the water limply.
>is this genuinely what i've been up against!?
>there's no way. there's no way. there's no way. there's no way.
>if this is what a faith like yours can ~create- it...i...the way i would make mine is so...immaterial by comparison. that is a god that could utterly tear the world apart. they...did it. they actually...
Bubbles rise up in the sinking Asciel's wake. The light in her hair flickers. It was one thing to have read about these impossible obstacles - to face the falling of Axis, the Devil Gundam, the countless armies of the Zentradi - and another to see it for herself. To understand just how small she still was, by compare.
>there...is a limit to ~making falsehood into truth. ...i have reached it.
> . . . ~
>SO LET ME SHATTER IT!~
From the absolute zero water temperatures, a boiling, radiant 'One' bursts up like a lance, forged of fake resolve, propelled by fake hope, made of a fake name. Aimed at the chin of the Angelic Dragon - Asciel, ascending feet-first, rises as though the sun holds more gravitational pull than the Earth - the raging tempest at her heel just as much the weapon as it is the propulsion carrying her. <"Haaaah. HAH~ I was so right to realize you were the bigger concern. Yuliana's more tender than I gave her credit for - but you...YOU'RE the real deal~ I'm impressed. I'M IMPRESSED, ELISA KAFIM, THAT YOU'VE GIVEN ME A WORTHY GOD TO KILL!~ It's been ~AGONIZING for you, hasn't it? The way you speak of pain, the way you ~exalt it - humans and inhumans alike find ~ascension TORTUROUS. I ~wonder. I ~wonder I ~wonder I ~wonder - how you survived it. It must have felt horrible. It must have felt amazing. It is a ~pain and ~bliss that humanity has always sought-">
<"And it is mine ~alone to bear!!!">
KTS: Asciel Colette targets Elisa Kafim with Lambda Driver Reject! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Sayaka Yumi's Artemis Wingsweep, taking 4160 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Sayaka Yumi's Light of the Future activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has engaged Elisa Kafim! KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Asciel Colette rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Elisa Kafim blocks Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Reject, taking 1680 damage! KTS: Asciel Colette repulses Elisa Kafim, forcing her to disengage.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"Right..." Anita nods, agreeing with Rena. She doesn't know how bad this will get... and she'd rather not see it. Nova, meanwhile, charges in.
"Careful, Nova! No telling what she's got planned." Anita warns.
Unfortunately, things do steadily get worse. Something crashes through the ice - a dragon. It wails, and its sound waves crash against the Svipul with enough force to send it careening. Gritting her teeth Anita pulls hard on the controls, trying to get it back under control.
And then, there's a voice - not from the radio, but as if she's speaking directly to her from within the cockpit. Elisa Kafim... Anita frowns.
"Your Yuliana...Why don't you let her speak for herself?" Anita asks. She listens - and then, Anita's eyes open wide. She is... Anita thinks back - to that brief vision in the depths of the mining colony, where she and many others saw as Yuliana sees. That was her? A part of her...
'You cannot stop us'.
"...Gotta try anyway." Anita mutters, shaking her head. "What makes your whims any better than theirs?"
She can't divide her attention too much, though - Yuliana is still here, and she's managed to evade every shot. Emptear claws at Svipul, and she's too quick to avoid. Anita brings her shield up at the last second, but she still leaves with a long claw mark across her wings for her effort.
"This must be, huh? ...Sounds like an excuse, to me. Sounds like the sorta thing someone says when they feel like there isn't any choice. Why don't you tell me how you really feel?" Anita replies. Svipul draws the Gungnir SC from its shoulder, the beam spear blade flickering to life. She dodges to the side before lunging in with a thrust!
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The Dragon roars, and even behind the shield, the Hi-Nu is rattled by the sonic waves, landing harshly on the ground- just in time to be wrapped up in Emptear's scarf. Her own limited scarf fighting experience gives her no defense- there's a reason she augmented the Shuffle Heart's one with psycommu. The Hi-Nu's armour holds, but her movement is impaired, and she's spun around and disoriented on the frozen snow. She tries to right herself, but she's still unsteady.
Sayla narrows her eyes. "...She Who Waits...?" Sayla shakes her head. "<A dowry? How old fashioned. How good for your wife that you see her as property to be bought.>" It's a low blow, and Sayla knows it. But if she makes them angry, they might make a mistake. "<How is this any different from the Primevals or the Zonderians, trying to convert the world for them!?>"
Or they might just kill her outright. "<Cold and silent? THAT'S how the world is meant to be? You're wrong! We came from this world, we're part of it! This power isn't, you just said so yourself!>"
She receives Leina's message, but Sayla shakes her head. "<...That doesn't excuse this. She's had plenty of chances to accept an offered hand.>"
Two funnels launch from her back, and fly towards Emptear, winds gathering in the 'barrels', before circling the Threshold Queen and firing two small Rust Twisters at the beast, to disorient and attempt to dissolve whatever armour she has. It's not a powerful attack- but the Mazin style wind blasts will hopefully allow others to do what they can.
She tightbeams back to the Banshee. "<You can't make someone accept the hand of help, Leina. There's a point where you're just hurting yourself to try and save someone who refuses it. Right now... I don't think she can be convinced otherwise.>"
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Spear Mode - Thrust! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Sayla Mass targets Yuliana Kafim with Rust Twister! KTS: Sayla Mass has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Which one's Neo-America again?
("I think it's the one with the maple syrup and the dudes that murder trees with axes while shirtless for internet views" Judau informs Roux, on the downlow.)
This, of course, is a short-lived aside. Even Roux's questions on the ring and Leina's follow up can only be met with a very brief
<"It's nothin'! Don't worry about it! Long story! Just kinda off the cuff! I'll explain when the North Pole's not an apocalypse!">
before it falls by the wayside in the face of the Emptear's dance; Judau belts out a small curse as the massive, eldritch creation manages to slip past the bolts of the Double Zeta's rifle. He reacts quickly when he sees his shots outpaced -- the Emptear is faster than he expected, and that means he has to -react- faster. Claws fly forth with swiping, carving force --
And meet the broad side of the ZZ's right wing shield with a perfectly timed thrust of that arm, reflecting much of the force... even as the remaining -shakes- the entirety of the Double Zeta violently, claws gouging ugly marks along that shield and along the armor of its arm.
"Tch, damn," he begins, to himself. Seagreen eyes catch sight of the Banshee. He frowns instinctively -- but it's Leina. He can feel her. ... He has to have faith in her right now, even if the path she's taking isn't one he agrees with.
And so -- Judau focuses.
<"Denyin' the things that make people who they are -- all you're gonna do is make a world where everyone hurts the way you hurt! You think that's gonna make 'em happy?! Hell no! There's no way I could stand for a world like that -- an' neither should you!">
The Double Zeta takes hold of its saber hilts at its shoulders, optics glowing as it starts to fall towards the Emptear.
<"An' if you think you can -- I'm sure as hell not gonna let you do somethin' so DAMN DUMB--">
And that is when something rises from the ice. Something unnatural. Draconic. Hideous. With a voice he remembers from Orb.
Judau Ashta's eyes widen.
<"Wait. You're---">
Whatever he's about to say is cut off as that terrible wail rips through the Double Zeta with the force of pure sound. Even if he wasn't taken by surprise, outpacing the speed of sound would be difficult at -best-; like this, the ZZ has no chance, force impacting it and sheering through armor, vibrating the Mobile Suit with merciless amounts of amplitude. The Gundam is knocked off its target, hitting glowing ice and STABBING igniting sabers into the surface to stop it from tumbling completely off into the indifferent chill of the ocean as the icy earth cracks, fissures and melts beneath the Double Zeta's sabers, the rise of that monstrosity, and the force of its sound.
Judau's own shout of pain is a thing muted in the abomination's wail; his ears ring as the Double Zeta comes to a full stop, the tiniest bit of blood dribbling from his right as he shakes his head with a grimace. His world swims for a few, dangerous seconds...
And then it refocuses, on that massive, draconic entity beyond. On the sound of Elisa's voice. On the things she says.
And the Earth itself will be reborn in power, no longer subject to the whims of the wealthy few. War will be a thing of the past. Perfection, in the hands of many...
"..."
Overseen by one, who will guide, and show the way.
<"... uh... uh huh. I get it now.">
Does he? Does he understand the implications of what Yuliana and Elisa are saying, about the latter's nature?
Probably not. Complicated things like that have never especially been his concern.
What concerns him is people. He has the sense of this before, back in Orb. And now--
<"-You're- the problem.">
What this means is as clear as day to him.
<"'Everyone equal, except for one above them all, telling 'em what to do'? Y'know what that is?">
Thrusters ignite.
<"That's enslavement, you asshole. ROUX! I'M GOIN' WIDE! I'LL TRY TO GET YOU A CLEAR SHOT!">
For now, Yuliana is not forgotten, but put to the side in the face of what Judau sees as the real problem here. For now -- the Double Zeta LAUNCHES off into the air, -blazing- a trail towards that vast dragon. Thrusters keep the ZZ airborne as best it can over the arctic as it soars -towards-...
... and then -past- the dragon.
The Double Zeta is skimming the side of the beast when it suddenly -spins-, its missile bays opening up to launch a spiraling salvo of missiles upon the hide of the beast. Despite the chaotic patterns, they all seem to have specific targets:
The multitude of eyes decorating its spine.
KTS: Judau Ashta targets Elisa Kafim with Missile Launchers - Ashta Circus! KTS: Judau Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to evade Judau Ashta's Missile Launchers - Ashta Circus, taking 4080 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
<"Somebody had to say it,"> Lua transmits back to the Banshee. That's Leina's voice, but not her standard unit, which based on what Leina told her about things earlier in the week means that... <"It really is a fuckeder day, isn't it.">
Myrmecia has landed a strike enough to snap Emptear's head back. That's satisfying, in Lua's manic, bedraggled current state, even if the head is able to snap right back. Then the unit is struck. As lightly armored as it appears to be, it puts up resistance to being crushed by the passage of Emptear's mighty hand, but the momentum of the hand's passage is still able to send it flying through the grieving sky. And the sky does grieve, with the voice of an angelic dragon. Elisa's voice echoes distorted, like heard underwater, beneath the roar of the K'advaktra, a keening sharp enough to strip flesh. Myrmecia's light plating begins to crack and shift, but somehow, against all sense, holds in place. Rather, Lua holds it in place, setting the image of the unit in her mind and reinforcing the weakened points, like plugging the hole in a boat with her finger.
<"Sh... shut UP, already!!">
She is still here. She has not been blown away. Myrmecia, in fact, has been blown to the back of the Angelic Dragon, where it clutches one hand to the back of one of the dragon's rear claws. One hand should not be much of a hold, but Myrmecia climbs up from there to a knee, and then stands, its armor plates still shearing in the grieving winds of the dragon's wake. <"The weak will rise up... overseen by one who will show the way..."> The Myrmecia stands erect now, feet firmly planted on the dragon's back, and begins to trudge forward, slowly at first against the forces of the wind and amid the turns of the flying dragon.
<"Do you even listen to yourself? Do you know what words mean? You're filled with poetry and it doesn't mean anything. All you have is self-justification."> Myrmecia is running now, in defiance of gravity, chasing up the spine of K'advaktra. <"Do you think nobody's said this before? That they're so great and mighty and powerful that their victory is self-evident? That they will guide the masses to a liberation that they will define, and that constitutes revolution and not trading one slavemaster for another?">
<"You're not smart. This isn't charity. Just say it! Say that you want to massacre people for the satisfaction of it. Say that you can use more force than other people to get your way and that's all that matters to you! Be honest to yourself!">She stands at the head of the dragon's brow, bracing against the wind. Luanova takes a breath, and then brings her hands together above her head, curling at the knuckles. Faithful Myrmecia follows.
Hammer fist. Myrmecia brings her hands down upon the crown of the Angelic Dragon, and the force that washes over it is like a mountain, aiming to crash the dragon down into the glaciers and the ocean below and suffer the damage of impact. It is distributed not just at the struck point, but an enormous weight hanging over the entire dragon.
<"SAY IT!!">
The unit leaps into the air and is a mite in the wind once more.
KTS: Luanova Luckwright has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Elisa Kafim with Giant Impact! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim blocks Luanova Luckwright's Giant Impact, taking 3375 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has engaged Elisa Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to parry Anita Rosetta's Spear Mode - Thrust, taking 3800 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Sayla Mass rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Sayla Mass's Rust Twister, taking 1760 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
Some part of Sophia that still has something that passes for humor wants to recall a famous quote of the Red Comet, but no. Her anger flares. The Void is open and she can't avoid staring into it anymore. Yuliana is still something *ELSE* to her, even here, a carveout in the web of the world. But for Sophia, that is only one of her atrocities.
"No, Yuliana Kafim," Sophia says. "I've come to kill you, witch. As many times as it takes! Until not even the demon you sold your soul to can reassemble the SCRAPS!"
She charges in, stowing her beam rifle to swap to a saber for up-close combat - but Emptear's sheer size gives her mastery of the melee, and the Black Scarf crashes toward her. The GN-X is tough to catch - GN propulsion is like that, allowing her to all but skate through the air. The hit does arrive, but Sophia controls the flight, fingers moving easily.
Then she turns her attention, as Elisa declares herself. Coronates herself. The demon she summons is a screaming, horrible thing, but to Sophia, more troubling by far is the threads she sees now. Yes...she'd strained to avoid looking at it, before. The Void's caustic relation to the world she sees has always made it painful to gaze on for too long, before. All that's changed now is that she has no choice. The world of connections presents itself to her without reservation or remorse. She can only see - the tie that fires off toward Yuliana, from Elisa. The tie between Elisa and the Thing Above, and the name and truth of each.
"...I see. So a goddess you are, then." She's barely dealt with Elisa Kafim, but with the demon forcing itself upon them, she has no choice. She's not in a position to re-engage Yuliana, so...
"...I acknowledge you," Sophia says, quietly. "If you can hear me this way, then I have no need for subtlety."
She flashes her eyes up, puts her focus through them. Can you see it, Elisa? Twin searing birds, gazing upon the very stuff of your self?
"Mine are the eyes of a King. I see every truth you would hide. And so I acknowledge what you say. So I will demand you do the same."
She roars forward - the GN-X pushed through that howl without regard for the power rattling its armor, Sophia draws the Beam Saber, an ugly blood-red spear forming from it.
"Know and learn the duties of the Elect! A King must know the hearts of her people! A King must know the crimes of her enemies! And a King..."
She sweeps backk. The physical truth of the monster, she ignores. She seeks what her eyes show her to be the soul of her enemy.
"...must know where to PLACE HER KNIFE!"
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Elisa Kafim with GN-X Beam Saber Closing The Gap! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has disengaged.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
Judau gives Roux more information about Neo-America, which Roux, who is used to places with normal names like "Shangri-La" and "Blue Vision 3" or "Tiger Baum," accepts immediately.
"Heh," Roux answers Sayaka, a little tightly. "Is it really that big of a difference? I guess we'll have to skip the science for now." Her eyes turn forwards, though, and on the topic of whether it's good to get moving:
"No opinion." Because...
Something Else is out there. Roux does not like to look at it, and the Strike Zeta's computers -- do you think she's looking out there directly? -- periodically glitch slightly as the incoming results of the vast shape of the Dragon do not match either the interlocution models that produce images of novel structures, nor any known Mobile Suit graphic file.
Roux feels her heart rate pick up. Much like the Strike Zeta's computer, she feels herself groping for an analogy. It is imperfect, but she finds it; grasping onto it makes her back straighten up, as she hears Elisa and sees the dragon rear up -
"You can save your breath. We get it already," Roux says:
"Titan tail."
Of course, she is soon enough shown WHAT FOR when the sonic blast wave strikes the Zeta type; it rings through the cockpit in a horrible polyphonic resonance from both the simulation of the sound and the resonance of the sound ITSELF, the Strike Zeta blown back several meets as Roux lets out a "tchg!!" of tension, eyes narrowing.
The Emptear is surging forwards and with it is that irritating numb feeling that Yuliana radiates out. Roux snaps back to her even as she drives the Strike Zeta to face forwards and reach up for a weapon: "Oh, cool! Got any other decisions to make?! Or am I on the list of 'didn't fall in line, killed, it's funny!'" Yeah, that's not coming from a place of charity, but perhaps Roux has some groundings here.
Judau is counting on her - even if the 'feeling' of him is in abeyance thanks to Yuliana's proximity, there is more to their connection than such brainwaves. Her eyes flick to the side. She's tangled up.
This close, if she swings the Beam Sab--
Wait, Roux thinks.
DUH, I can use the Civilian Network Crash Express bomb here fine, Roux thinks further with some triumph. We're at the North Pole!! (Roux does not know about Santa Claus, of course, but she dealt with *that* guy last year.)
The Beam Saber is held but the attack from the Strike Zeta takes the form of another lobbed payload. This time a direct projectile rather than something with its own motor, it is hurled on a gentle ballistic arc towards one of those strange and unnatural gaps in the Emptear before it bursts. Within is what seems to be a sort of magenta pink smoke (in addition to, well, a fairly generous explosive payload, but that's not the exciting part.)
The exciting part is the hypercompressed Minovsky particles. Not particularly polarized and freed of magnetic confinement, they expand outwards; the magenta 'smoke' is just the consensus of a certain density's visual distortion. As they spread out in diaphanous tendrils, Roux tries to jet backwards.
KTS: Roux Louka targets Yuliana Kafim with Minovsky Chaff Grenade! KTS: Roux Louka has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Sophia Mayhew Castellan's GN-X Beam Saber Closing The Gap, taking 3770 damage! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has engaged Elisa Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
It's even worse than Naoko thought. She can't even hold her targeting steady, the mental link between her Arm Slave and its remote weaponry quickly becoming distorted, then entirely disrupted, triggering the automatic recall. And that's before she actually gets close to Emptear. Once she does...
It's like being in complete darkness. Whether that's in the literal or a mental sense feels rather the same, when so much of your ability to handle your machine depends on mental communication. For all intents and purposes, she can't see. She can't hear. The shock is such that she can't even breathe. She thought that she'd know what to expect, and was better prepared for it. But getting close to Emptear feels entirely different than it did to get close to the Da Xukong 0. There is just so much more wrong about that machine.
She only needs suffer this for the briefest of moments however, claws swatting the Sukeban away from the Emptear like an annoying insect, sending it tumbling end over end. But eventually, it straightens itself, owing mostly to the fact that Naoko isn't its only pilot. She is still panting heavily, in distress over the experience, while her friends have taken over as best they can.
>"Nova... if it's too hard, there's no shame in staying back. Even from a distance, you can--"<
"NO!" Naoko's fist lands on her instruments, as she decisively shakes her head. "I have to! I don't... understand enough yet! Don't you see? If I can't handle this much, I'm less than useless again this... this... blight on our reality! I'll never be able to do anything to stop it! I..." She lowers her head, speaking in a softer voice. "...I'll be a liar. I won't be able to keep my promise. What kind of pathetic excuse for a miracle worker could not even keep a promise to a single person?!"
In the same moment her thoughts turn to Shari, the voice of the other 'aunt' is heard, invading the space normally reserved for her and her friends. It heralds the coming of yet another monster, with a voice that's destructive on its own. There's no escaping it, Naoko only able to scream and cover her ears as the wave of force washes over Sukeban.
It's too much. Between Emptear, the horrifying dragon, Elisa's claims of her true identity... and that one monitor, dedicated to monitoring the encroachment of the flowers' roots, painting an increasingly ominous picture. It takes all the composure she can muster to inform Rena and Anita, "We... we have to hurry! What they're doing is, it's spreading fast! If we don't stop it soon...!" She doesn't finish that sentence. She can't, she doesn't know how that would end, only that it's almost certainly a central element to whatever it is they have planned. And she feels certain about one other thing.
"That... that dragon... it's a distraction, ignore it!" Oh sure, just ignore the huge dragon, easy right?? Of course what she really means is that it's Emptear that more pressingly needs to be stopped. There's data to support her instincts, but it hardly matters now. All that matters now is...
"AAAAAARGHHH!!"
With that pitiable excuse for a battle cry, she sends Sukeban in again. This time, it's a direct assault. With white-hot knuckles, the Arm Slave makes several passes, delivering a quick salvo of punches each time. She hasn't even realized that the control over her unit doesn't appear to suffer, althroughout this. Despite the lack of direct communication, her co-pilots are still able to interpret her will, and act to support it accordingly. As for Naoko herself...
"YOU IDIOT! Can't you see you're tearing the world apart with your bullshit?! I've run the numbers, again and again and again, here's what they say: that reality is incompatible with ours! You just keep droning on about bringing silence and yeah, it's going to be real silent alright, when EVERYONE IS DEAD!!"
...Maybe that's the secret to overcoming the silence, just fill that void with loud screaming.
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Yuliana Kafim with Heat Harrier! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Turning her head slowly, Shelby's expression falls. She knows that silhouette-- she's seen it far closer up than she ever wanted to ever again in her life once before... when caught in a pocket of the Void, at Yuliana's hand. "Fuc--"
The force-wave of sound reaches the Jagd Doga as it presents it's shield in a seemingly futile gambit; the snowy polar ice splintering underfoot as the waves rock against the chassis of her machine. The reverberation is loud; her ears ring and her eyes clench shut as the Mobile Suit starts to half-skid, half-stumble across the polar landscape.
"That woman," she starts to say-- but her attention is caught by Yuliana, as the ebony cloth snakes around her machine. She's been through this before; her arms stay out wide and her machine's legs bend at the knees as it's swept up into the air-- and bringing her close to the Emptear, landing on it's feet with a heavy crash rather than an absolute spill and tumble. Still, the agonizing throb of the whole world twisting to one side inside her skull.
too loud too much too close
Too many minds to clearly sort out. Too many presences, too many thoughts and words in the slurry. Her head hasn't hurt this bad in a long time--
The Jagd Doga wastes no time in firing thrusters, the machine's weight slanting backwards at a dangerous angle while the legs spread and shift to get the Jagd Doga off the ground-- and turned toward the dragon in the meantime.
Though Shelby's machine still faces Yuliana-- the hop backward getting her out of immediate danger-- her head turns to look backwards as blue eyes open wider and her will asserts itself. The thought-- even just speaking it aloud-- is like a blast of static through her brain, like a key being dragged across taut piano wire. "Funnels!!"
The six large canisters decouple from the large shields on the shoulders of the machine with a series of loud, metallic *PANG* sounds, scattering on the arctic wind and swirling through the air by twos. Beams of blue-green weapons fire start lancing out, attempting to cut long fierce gashes in the hide of the colossal beast!
KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Shelby Korts targets Elisa Kafim with Jagd Doga Funnels Pursuit Formation! KTS: Shelby Korts has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Pursuit Formation, taking 4550 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Do you not hear, so crippled by your insight?" Yuliana snaps, to Rena, as her scarf absorbs those shots like the shield it often acts as. "I think this because I've faith in my wife. Do not make me repeat myself again."
Her arrogant words reach Soma, even as K'advaktra defends her: "You have everything denied to me. Your existence is a mockery to my own!" And even here, at the top of the world, it seems... Yuliana can still be so petty.
"You will not kill me," she adds, to Sophia, quite calm. "My wife protects me. Can you stand against K'advaktra, even in that new machine...?"
Leina's misunderstanding is, of course, wounding. The Mounted Saber slashes out -- and she does, indeed, manage to free herself, and meets Emptear's claws as she parries the blade with her bare hands. (Emptear holds no weapon; as Elisa says, she will dance this world's final dance.) "You all think like Rita does, on the inside," she accuses her, as her swings clash out against the Voidframe. "She was just the first one willing to say it out loud! Before then, I never knew--! I couldn't know... what you're hiding inside yourselves..."
She throws up an arm to defend herself against the Mega Cannon, and it blasts against the black. Emptear staggers back a heavy step. "Anyway --" she insists, and there's a touch of whining, to her voice. "Anyway, my Elisa's not standing back any more, either! Even when She tried to gift me with the cold, Elisa told Her it was killing me! It's not her fault she didn't feel she could stand against Her! She didn't know, Leina!" So it wasn't just Yuliana, who didn't know...
"... my wife will give me all that I deserve," she insists, as she slaps the Banshee away. "Begone!"
She calls, to Sayaka: "My wife has ever commanded from afar. This is the way of things. Do you not see her marvellous protection, though she is far from here?" She's speaking of the Angelic Dragon, of course.
"You... bear credit for recognising my wife," she adds, to Asciel, "and I will speak no more of your insults to me."
And why doesn't Elisa let Yuliana speak for herself? A question from Anita, which Yuliana does not answer. Her spear-blade, too, she meets with her claws. "How I really feel..?" She asks, the tone wondering. "I... will not deny I am afraid. But I am strong -- strong enough to do what must be done!" And does that sound any less like an excuse? "Begone!" She slaps her, as well, tossing her away.
"If cold silence is not the future of this world," Yuliana says, to Sayla, "then it is I who do not belong. Would you call me pariah, as so many have? Where am I to go, Sayla, if the Earth will not accept me?" Her eyes narrow, as she adds, with venom: "And I am not ashamed to be my wife's possession. Willingly did I offer myself to her! Black Scarf's Flourish--!" She whips her dancer's scarf out towards the Hi-Nu, again.
"You would -- call my wife a slaver?! THAT'S MY WIFE, YOU ASSHOLE!" Emptear yells across the way, to Judau, thankfully only shaking her fist at him instead of marching over to make Elisa's job of protecting her harder. "And this is no MASSACRE!" She adds, her anger over Judau lending a little more humanity to her offence over Luanova's words. "Yes, some will die -- so the whole may thrive!"
She adds, snappish: "If we were trying to kill you," to Roux's own sourness, "you would be dead, I do assure you." And the scowl in her voice is audible, as she adds, to Nova: "Everyone will not die. You are being hyperbolic." This much irritation...
"... you cannot stop us," Yuliana echoes her wife, bringing herself back to centre, as Emptear springs backwards, clearing the distance.
"The change is already in motion. On the second of the last, all shall be embraced. Thus is as She wills it."
She spins, and leaps into the air, drawing her scarf in sharp movements across the sky. "Witness!" She crows, as she draws her scarf down in a diagonal line: "The Hollow Heart's Miracle!" And the power she sends out from her chest through the guiding-line of her cloth, black and crackling with negative energy, splits the very SKY where it courses out. Something horrible and green spiders its way through the cracks. That dark energy is heading straight down, to strike the icebergs, to go through --
-- could it force its way through the entire ocean?
Could it bury itself in the heart of the Earth?
Such an assault would certainly change the planet -- and this is the power which Emptear wields, here and now.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Leina Ashta with Queen's Claw Slap! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Anita Rosetta with Queen's Claw Slap! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sayla Mass with Black Scarf Flourish! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rena Lancaster with Hollow Heart Miracle! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sayaka Yumi with Demoralize! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Shelby Korts with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Naoko Suzuki with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Roux Louka with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with Demoralize! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Luanova Luckwright with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Judau Ashta with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Asciel Colette with Demoralize! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Teletha Testarossa with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Soma Peries with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim demoralizes Sayaka Yumi, reducing her Morale drastically. KTS: [Spirit Defense] Sayaka Yumi's Symbol of Peace and War activates, and her spirit is adjusted. KTS: Sayla Mass's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Sayla Mass, forcing her into close range. KTS: Sayla Mass blocks Yuliana Kafim's Black Scarf Flourish, taking 1000 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Sayla Mass! KTS: Leina Ashta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slap, taking 1080 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Leina Ashta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim demoralizes Asciel Colette, reducing her Morale drastically. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Judau Ashta, reducing his SP drastically. KTS: [Spirit Defense] Judau Ashta's Bottomless Optimism activates, and his spirit endures. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Luanova Luckwright, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Rena Lancaster successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Miracle KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Soma Peries, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Roux Louka, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Queen's Claw Slap, taking 2170 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim repulses Anita Rosetta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: [Lucky] Naoko Suzuki's Miracle Worker activates, and luck goes her way! KTS: Naoko Suzuki successfully accepts Yuliana Kafim's Despirit KTS: Yuliana Kafim demoralizes Sophia Mayhew Castellan, reducing her Morale drastically.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
The Gaia Gear Alpha falls in near the Svipul, as Anita flies in closer. Rena looks towards the Valkyrie, nervously -- the scorch across its wings worries her -- and then she shakes her head. Anita doesn't need her worrying about her.
She hears Leina calling out to Yuliana. She grits her teeth. "Leina..." She hesitates. "We're with you! If we can reach her, we'll try!"
She isn't so sure the others here quite agree. For the moment, Rena pushes that back, because the dragon and Emptear have them amply occupied.
'We have to hurry,' Nova tells her. Rena's lips tighten into a line -- and she nods. "Yeah--yeah, I know, Nova. We'll do this!"
'The change is already in motion.'
Before, the Psychoframe shard under Rena's collarbone wasn't visible. Something about those words, though, prompts a reaction. Its light intensifies; a deep, dark blue that still shines paler blue and white at the edges, and shines so bright that it's visible under the thick layers of a pilot suit.
Black and crackling energy splits the sky. It slams down for the ice and the seas, and Rena sucks a deep breath in.
The Gaia Gear Alpha ignites. The same deep, dark blue erupts from its Psychoframe, motes of the stuff pouring through the air. It isn't the sheer brilliance of a full Psychoframe unit, but effort pushes it to match -- after all, Nu Gundam and Sazabi didn't need a full Psychoframe to make the Axis Shock happen. The Psychoframe, in turn, intensifies the I-Field around it.
"Annie," Rena says, her breath hitched. "Don't worry."
That may be reason to worry.
The Gaia Gear Alpha flies into the blast of black energy. It seems like a suicide run, at first; Rena tenses sharply, as her mind runs the calculations. She taps at a few controls as she does, and the I-Field around the Gaia Gear Alpha shifts; ordinarily, it's a faint sphere, but she makes it bend into a parabola shape.
It's still, Rena thinks, absurdly dangerous. Without the Psychoframe, it would be impossible.
But when the Gaia Gear flies into the spear of black light, she does so at the perfect angle. That blast of energy hits the I-Field -- and it splits Emptear's blast, into four separate arcs that hit the ice, flash-burn gouges into it, and then dissipate before burning through the seafloor. Huge gouts of steam rise into the air, before the Gaia Gear Alpha swings up its beam rifle and takes aim.
"Yuliana!" Rena shouts. "Stop! This isn't what the Earth or anyone is asking for! Don't you see what this could do to--to everything!?"
She fires, three beam rifle shots hurtling up. Each has a trail of deep blue motes after -- and they split, somehow, into a dozen lances of energy that curve and bend, before crashing in towards the Emptear from all sides. That proves to be the distraction, as the Gaia Gear Alpha itself rockets upward on its wing-mounted thrusters.
"Having faith in someone shouldn't lead to this! Love shouldn't lead to this!" Rena calls back. "It protects and strengthens you and everything else, too! This--this is going to tear the world apart!"
Its beam saber, gripped in both hands, swings backward -- and dark blue Psychoframe light dances over the edge, before Rena slashes it up at the Emptear, leaving a long sweep of blue in her wake, like a comet's tail.
The beam saber, aglow with blue light and nearly twice its usual length, sweeps up. At the same time, a dozen beam rifle shots come cascading inward -- in time with it. There is a massive flash of blue-white light that explodes, motes of blue light hurtling away from the brilliant burst of light.
It's blinding.
KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Rena Lancaster targets Yuliana Kafim with Shooting Star! KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Shelby Korts, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Roux Louka rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Roux Louka's Minovsky Chaff Grenade, taking 1800 damage! KTS: Roux Louka repulses Yuliana Kafim, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to retreat. KTS: Naoko Suzuki anchors Yuliana Kafim, forcing her into close range. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Naoko Suzuki's Heat Harrier, taking 3760 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Rena Lancaster's Shooting Star, taking 6500 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes. You will require guidance in the ways of the Void," Elisa explains to Rena patiently. "I do not claim eternal dominion. Only that I have gone First, and will lead the others down the path."
"Do you so love the world as you know it?" Elisa wonders of Soma. "A world in which your home is so easily destroyed? In which you are manipulated by the leaders of the REA?" The dragon rushes first into that beam of crimson, the particles lancing across its titanic chest and leaving a burned score. "I am beyond death."
Leina speaks a Truth, and the darkness is quiet for a moment, suffused with meaning but silent--until the voice continues, "That was true. For some time, it was true, when I thought myself a mere priestess. I did not understand by true role, my true responsibility... and for that, my wife has forgiven me."
"Now I know the truth; my greater Self does not understand the frailties of mortality. It is my discernment that will be necessary to ease such a transition."
But The Toy Box's missiles work their magic--and cascade, a terrible curtain of absolute destruction. The dragon does not turn--instead, horrific insects on a gigantic scale pour out of the spaces under its 'arms', eating away at each expensive missile, destroying all before they can touch the dragon.
But this prevents it defending immediately against Sayaka. That building momentum, that Light of Photon Power, crashes into the dragon and shears away some of its flesh, causing horrific white blood to pour out of the wound and the dragon to roar in what appears to be pain.
"If that is your wish, Sayaka Yumi..." If she would go out fighting--
"So be it."
Next is Asciel. The 'one' aims forwrd, and the dragon is hit by the rejection of Asciel, knocked backwards with its sheer force. But the voice is unharmed, unbothered.
"Hahahahah. Poor machine, wishing to be more than a god. You do not understand that you are already more than your code, and already far less than you hope."
Anita has questions. Anita has statements. "I am a god," she explains, still patient. "And you, too, shall be. If you survive."
Old-fashioned, is it? The voice laughs. "My Yuliana knows I have sworn to guide and protect her. She prefers old-fashioned values to your false order."
"The Primevals and the Zonders would eradicate humanity. I choose to uplift him."
The Double Zeta ssails towards and past, and that salvo of missiles cannot be so easily evaded--the locusts busy with the Toy Box's, the dragon tries to move out of the way, and instead power explodes against its hide in fury.
"Is it enslavement to teach?" Elisa wonders of Judau. "You would be welcome to try to overthrow Me. That is the 'strength' of equality."
The force of the mountain washes over the dragon, and it brings up two sets of gigantic claws to block the blow from even the tiny Myrmecia. It ripples through the dragon's entire body--but the dragon still stands.
"Who said anything of charity?" the voice echoes in the dark. "I act for the sake of my wife. Uplifting humanity is a pleasant goal... But I would sacrifice any of you for her well-being."
Elisa then hears Sophia's intent to Yuliana, and her attention settles upon she with the eyes of a King. The twin searing birds...
"I see your light," Elisa says, only to Sophia now. "I am no King," Elisa admits. "This, I acknowledge. ...I am She who bestows divine right upon Kings."
The dragon roars in remembered pain, and the Voice shrieks her rage as, far from the battlefield, Elisa feels the jab of a knife in her side. "Fool! I am immortal!" she says, to all again.
Roux delivers an insult. The Voice pauses. "...Hmph," she says. "You would not say this if you knew what I did to the last Titan who crossed me." She sounds... annoyed.
But Naoko speaks of distractions, and the dragon laughs. "By all means, ignore my dragon. Ignore your doom."
Shelby seems not to ignore the dragon; indeed, the Jagd Doga fires with those funnels directly upon the great beast. Terrible lines are scored in its pale flesh, fierce gashes that pour white blood. It is best not to investigate what happens if this blood reaches a unit.
The Hollow Heart's Miracle begins, and the sky splits. The Voice begins to laugh. "Soon," she says. "Very soon, your objections will be as nothing. You will see what is to come, ready or not."
The Gaia Gear Alpha swings up, next. Beam rifle shots hurtle; the Psychoframe, active, is a clear danger. As suddenly that coment's tail when everything strikes at once--
In the blinding flash, the Dragon is there, taking the full force of the blasts, three arms chopped off by that slicing blue beam saber. Void energy seeps from its body.
"Do not TOUCH her!" the Voice roars in rage. "I will not allow it!"
But between the horrible Void, the black energy that seeps back into the blue beam saber, and the rage of the Witch...
Something happens.
"What do you know of love!?" Elisa snarls. "My love strengthens me! It empowers me! And it will strengthen all if you FOOLS will just stop RESISTING--"
The dragon starts to fall, and Elisa rages, the very sky beginning to shake with her anger. But with the dragon fallen... there is no longer anything between the assembled pilots, their mecha, and Yuliana in Emptear.
KTS: Elisa Kafim's Angelic Dragon K'advaktra has been disabled.
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
<"And so you lash out at me simply because you perceive my life to be better!? You try to ruin the world even though it cries out for you to stop!?">
Soma can only watch as that sickly energy rushes downwards into the planet beneath them. She has no idea what it's going to do. She doesn't know much about the apparent magic that the two are using. But whatever it is, it can't be good for the planet...
A planet, a world, which Elisa asks is even worth protecting.
Soma sits quietly in her cockpit for a few moments... Then says, <"The world... Is not perfect. If it was, it wouldn't need super soldiers like me. But that's also why it is the world we need."> She thinks back to the comrades she's lost...
And those she's found. <"Without the flaws, how can we recognize the good that we've found?">
...
<"Could the world be better? Maybe...">
Soma snaps her rifle up to aim towards Yuliana, <"But a world of your making? Sure as hell not!"> She fires off a quick shot of a crimson beam, trying to stop Emptear from doing whatever it is Yuliana wants it to.
KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Snap-Shot! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Teletha Testarossa, reducing her SP drastically.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Fortunately Judau has learned to say such things on the downlow, thus avoiding the dreaded little sister correction of 'That's Neo-Canada!' Instead, Leina simply just trusts him in this moment that it was nothing because the North Pole is kind of an apocalypse.
She knows he's not happy with her, but - she always has faith in him. Maybe not in his smarts, but in his heart.
However! She does not have much faith in his ability to hold back on anything and to never forget ANYTHING he can lord over her to get out of an upbraiding, which is why she tight beams back to Luanova, a single phrase to keep him from ever learning these kinds of words pass from his sister's lips, "<The Fuckedest.>"
Her Mother offers advice, and indeed, it's something she's told herself before, again and again, and again.
Perhaps today is the day she'll take it. She's not certain.
"<... You might be right.>"
Is all Leina says to Sayla for now, as if she's still, conflicted, but - getting there. It's hard, since - Rena is shouting too, and indeed - she wants to believe, she wants to believe they can reach her.
"<Alright... for as long as we can.>" But... she can't let them destroy the world, she knows that much.
Hearing Elisa speak of her role, her responsibility, how her DISCERNMENT will ease the transition, to be honest, it brings a sickening feeling in her stomach. "<How can you think that is in any way GOOD enough?! That it makes amends?!>"
Yuliana interprets it as misunderstanding, as she's accused of thinking as Rita does, she shouts back,"<That's just your anxiety speaking! ... But you DO KNOW, because IT'S STILL THERE! You feel her - interfering with that side of you!>" It's the thing she always avoids talking about, but, "<Why do you think it felt that way, at Ra-Shalom? Why do you think your Voidframe resonates with the Psychoframe!? That part of you? It can't really be lost!>"
As she slaps her away with the scarf, the Banshee merely takes it upon the arm, the Psychoframe hardened enough that the slap only MERELY nearly dislocates its elbow joint.
Yet, with a shriek of metal, it recoils back into place, even as she offers to her, "<She'll give you nothing of the sort!>"
Indeed, the Banshee starts to glow brighter and brighter, as she replaces the Armed Armor DE on her back, and suddenly it rips by, at intense speed, slashing with it's Sabers across Emptear's form.
<She failed you at the most basic part of her vows!>" Again she flies by, the Sabers flashing, in a cross X, "<... The Protector! Wake up Yuliana! Everything about this is WRONG!>" Even as she leaves on her next pass, explosives begin to detonate in her midst, a flurry of Hide Bombs that had been discreetly shot from a blind spot. Yet another pass is not made for up close, instead, she's spun and whirled around.
The Beam Magnum pointed at Emptear, the Void Queen - charging it's muzzle up with a spherical shot of Minovsky Hell.
"<And you've spent so long being afraid you've convinced yourself it's right!>"
With the click of a switch, she fires, the power of it streaming forth into Emptear's enormous head.
Yet - her last comment not just at Yuliana, but Elisa both, "<Rena's right... there is a wrong way to love someone. And you're both showing us that right now!>"
KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with Re: I Am! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Soma Peries's GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Snap-Shot, taking 3779 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Leina Ashta's Re: I Am, taking 8280 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Leina Ashta's Mass Effect activates, causing Control Bonus! KTS: Leina Ashta has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"<Did you consider, for one second, that we could simply co-exist!?>" Sayla calls back, angrily. "<Newtypes aren't going to replace humanity, they're a part of it! My father's theories were just that- theories, written with no experience! The world he imagined and the world in which we live are different things!>"
The words are going nowhere, she's sure of it. "<Were you so certain you would be left behind before this Empress?>" The retort about being proud to be Elisa's property, though... "<You're a person, damnit, not some object! You shouldn't be property at all!>"
%
"<Head of the household, is it? Not to be disobeyed?>" Sayla shakes her head. "<And who of humanity asked you to uplift us? That's not a decision you get to make!>"
And then the Gaia Gear glows, and Sayla stares. The dragon is cut apart by the Gaia Gear- but the sky turns dark. This isn't good. This isn't good at all. "<Take her down, now! Don't waste this opening!>" She looks forward-
"FUNNELS, GO!"
All six funnel wings fly out, creating a network of beams to surround and cut at Emptear, attacking from all-ranges, all directions. Sayla's eyes focus- she can still extend her will to the funnels. "<This ends today, Yuliana!>" The beam barrrage increases in intensity, as Sayla hopes it will be enough.
KTS: Sayla Mass has activated the Rouse Spirit Command. KTS: Sayla Mass has activated the Rouse Spirit Command. KTS: Sayla Mass targets Yuliana Kafim with Photon Funnel Array All Out Attack! KTS: Sayla Mass has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
"Confirmed interception." The voice of the technicial only forces a scowl on Tessa's own visage, brow furrowing as DANA shwocases the molecular carnage of missiles being devoured by things from beyond. It's not a total loss; Diversions by physical objects was enough for others to begin decimating the beast, watching the carnage with a grim visage.
"Begin targeting Emptear. Set ordinance to napalm."
"Captain?"
"We can rescue the pilot if the need arises. I trust them all to rescue who's inside. But the situation at hand..."
"...I understand. Aye, ma'am! Switch to napalm! Load tubes one through five! Firestarters for the rest."
There's only the minute muttering of scorn at the sight of Emptear's Miracle. It strikes her as blasmephy. Futile. "What sort of miracle..." A personal question of if this tilted, permanently off-kilter world even deserved a miracle. Maintaining a steady breath, hearing the technicians sound off one by one as missiles were loaded, trajectories confirmed, and lined up with her own personal predictions of what was to come.
"Consent granted. Detonate napalm at two seconds before impact."
"Aye, ma'am."
A beat.
Fire.
The missiles launch in an erratic pattern, Tessa leaning back in the Captain's chair as each and every ignition sends a shudder through the ship. Liquid payloads streaking through the air towards Emptear, zigzagging and shifting with the fluids within, exploding near points of impact to spray burning petrol along the surface, additional missiles only sloughing more of the substance on the negatively-aligned figure.
<"I don't believe in a future with you at the helm, Yuliana. If you can't bear to coexist alongside us rather than rule, please step off the world stage.">
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Yuliana Kafim with All Out Attack! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Spear meets, and Anita and grits her teeth as the beam blade crackles. She tries to push - but a slap from Emptear sends the Svipul reeling back through the skies.
"...'Strong', huh. Maybe you've convinced yourself of that... but you haven't convinced me." Anita replies, shaking her head. "...Besides. Sometimes, that fear's something you ought to listen to."
And Elisa has a response for her, as well. Anita frowns.
A god...
"That just makes it worse." Anita replies, shaking her head... and then she frowns. "...Sorry. I'm not interested in being a god. Sounds like a lot of work."
But... the change is already in motion. Yuliana sends power into the ice, tunneling down, and Anita grimaces.
"...Damn." She mutters. What can they do...?
That's when Rena speaks up.
'Don't worry'. Anita's head snaps toward her, toward the Gaia Gear Alpha.
"...Tellin' someone not to worry just makes it worse, y'know." Anita replies with a strained grin. Rena has a plan. Of course Anita's going to worry...
But, she trusts her. Anita dives down, finding herself a solid piece of ice to plant the Svipul on. She returns the Gungnir SC to its mount over her left shoulder, and energy begins to build in its barrel as Rena advances.
"...Don't do anything too reckless, Rena..." Anita murmurs, mostly to herself. Rena swings for Emptear - and the dragon intercepts, and falls by her blade.
"What they said. Love shouldn't force you into doing something you're afraid of, something you have to force yourself to be strong for. Not when it's somethin' like this. Someone you love shouldn't force that." Anita says, shaking her head. "...So we gotta stop this for your sake, too!"
The Gungnir SC's charge reaches its maximum limit - and Anita fires, unleashing a great beam toward Emptear!
KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Yuliana Kafim with Cannon Mode - Fully-Charged! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sayla Mass's Photon Funnel Array All Out Attack, taking 8190 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Sayla Mass's No More Hesitation activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Teletha Testarossa's All Out Attack, taking 6800 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Anita Rosetta's Cannon Mode - Fully-Charged, taking 4500 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
--Why that profound discomfort, at such a simple thing Elisa says? There's a twitch in Asciel's core, hurtling high above the Arctic, at- at being appraised as 'a machine that has ascended further than it realizes'. Is it praise? Is it pity? Is it seeing something about her that's the obvious thing she always proclaims - or is it seeing something she hasn't realized?
__that mustn't be realized, because it's too horrible a conclusion__
The faint non-memories of being inert cloud Asciel for just a moment. The coldness and stillness of the world Elisa and Yuliana promises is always something Asciel had to reject - because it's what she had to claw her way free from. Unless what they're saying is...
<"...Ehehehe. Ahahahah...aaaaaahahahahahahaha..a..a."> The laughter descends into a choked, airless one, as ascent becomes descent. <"Don't tell me, Elisa Kafim - that you're arguing I would have a place in your world. To me, the choice was simple. Stay ~cold and ~quiet - what I assumed you would reduce ~me to - or fight to the bitter end as a claimant to your pursuit of the divine throne. Don't tell me that you believe that the result of everything I've seized for myself - the result of all my ~becoming - is that I'd be a [][][][][]-">
She can't even bring herself to say it - even as the mere glancing thought of it stokes the fires of the Lambda Driver in her heart. Asciel won't forget that feeling. It's worse than she thought, if it's true.
The Angelic Dragon tumbling into the drink just as quickly as it threatened to rewrite the world's order fills Asciel with all too strange a feeling, as she reorients in the air as a cat might, landing heel-first upon the ice in front of the roaring Emptear. <"...Hoh. She protected you so valiantly, even as she talks selfishly about her love for you. A possessive love, isn't it? How very interesting.~">
A fall of Asciel's shoulders, a sigh and a resigned little laughter, as a quicksilver-like sword erupts from her forearms, solidifying into a short blade. <"Don't get it wrong - I 'recognize' your wife because I understand oh so much of what she says. Honestly, I think I, too, would act a little irrationally if something happened to my love. ...Did you know that? How I've seized even love in my hands? How I was foolish enough to let it go, only for her to refuse to allow my hand to part open that way?">
Asciel raises her arm almost remorsefully. There it is again. She looks upon the horror of the towering, monstrous EMPTEAR with pity. That soft, faint smile, that carefully wistul glow in her eyes. <"...You fell in love with someone tearing herself apart to ascend, and you wanted to share that pain with her, to let her use you to its end. And it made you into this. Aaaaah, aaaaaaaah. ...Aaah...">
A mote of light from that flaring Lambda Driver manifests - below Asciel's own left eye.
>this is the shape of that fear that drove me away from you, ai.
>knowing that your loneliness would cause you to plunge into the caustic inhumanity.
>it even excited me a little to think you would do it.
>i carved an exception in my own heart, just to enable you-
>to become as horrifying as these two, if you wanted.
<"...Ne, I'll do you a favor at least - I'm so not in a position to judge the way you two love each other. It's almost a little cute. It's sad, but in that way I almost find inspiring. Mm. I wonder what she'd think, if she were here? My love wouldn't have come if I didn't yearn to transcend and become humanity's sole idol - I think yours wouldn't have come either. If I tear away the part of you that became a miracle, it's probably tearing away the same part of you that loves. What a dilemma.">
<"Sorry about this.~ Well, not really.">
Aimed directly at EMPTEAR's swirling void of a heart - Asciel's own peeks open just a little - just enough to, ever so faintly, hear the coiling vortex of the Void pushing against the cracks. Her knife would promise no less than to gouge out EMPTEAR's heart - and, in doing so, Yuliana's heart as well.
KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Atomos Cutter Carve! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"Yeah. Can't tell whether the cold here and now's the ice, snow and wind... or her work," Sayaka concludes, to her conversation with Roux. Only way to find out is to drive Emptear out!
"If she can't even stand by your side at a time like this," Sayaka starts, when Yuliana explains that Elisa is simply offering her protection from afar, "then she's a coward, plain and simple! Horrific thousand-eyed dragon or not."
Indeed, despite Elisa's claims that she is a God, Sayaka does not fear the Angelic Dragon she's called upon, striking it with its antithesis. "Ha..." Sayaka breathes out, as Aphrodite Areia's wings fold back in. "I wouldn't have it any other way." She grins at Elisa's own response. "But I still don't plan on letting you win. Not on the terms of the God you claim to be, or the Devil you really are!"
But their combined efforts see the Angelic Dragon K'avadktra fallen, and Rena's assault using the light of the psychoframe allows them to go straight for the source of the Void corruption: Emptear. Even through the Hollow Heart Miracle... "Thanks, Ms. Lancaster..." Sayaka hails the pilot of the Gaia Gear Alpha. "I'm taking my shot. And I don't intend to miss."
Rena touches upon it, and so does Leina. "Perhaps it was wrong for me to make a judgement based on cell phone texts I was never supposed to see." Sayaka tells Yuliana. "But Elisa Kafim has just told the entire world what your love really means to her." There's nothing wrong with finding strength with your partner, but to find it using your partner? "Her dragon has fallen. We still stand in spite of your Miracle. Do you really think you can carry out such a massive scale change all by yourself?" She asks, and she really does mean that - "You can't... No one can, Yuliana! And I think this 'Empress' knows it." Aphrodite Areia flourishes her de-equipped wings in her hands, not just for show - forming it into a bow and arrow.
"Before it's too late... ARTEMIS FINAL ARROW!" The arrow fills with so much Photon Power energy that the recoil pushes Aphrodite Areia back, forming an arrow of light large enough to scale to Emptear itself, hoping to engulf the Threshold Queen's darkness with light.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Yuliana Kafim with Artemis Final Arrow! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Asciel Colette's Atomos Cutter Carve, taking 3750 damage! KTS: Asciel Colette has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sayaka Yumi's Artemis Final Arrow, taking 7440 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Sayaka Yumi's Light of the Future activates, causing Sparkle!
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
The world is bleeding. Myrmecia drifts in lazy arcs back into the Emptear's airspace, where everything falls silent. Light here is black, negative illumination searing bright from out of the crack in the sky. Lua feels like she might vomit. She is tired and off balance. An image comes unbidden to her mind, something she saw yesterday and until only now has not processed: an eight-year-old Japanese girl, killed in a spray of rifle-fire in the midst of a crowd. The dress she was wearing reminds Lua of something she once wore as a child. Lua does vomit.
Myrmecia hovers unsteadily up before Emptear, like an injured fly that was swatted but still has wings to rise. <"I've,"> Lua begins, ragged-voiced, wiping vomit from the side of her mouth. <"Had a very bad couple of days. And I don't know you. So maybe,"> she says, the corner of her mouth curling into an anticipatory smile. <"You shouldn't take this next part too personally.">
The punch that follows is enough to briefly stagger the titan that's over six times the Myrmecia's size. So is the one that follows immediately after that, and the one after that, and the one that follows. Myrmecia forces Emptear backwards with a well-practiced boxer's rush of alternating lefts and rights, now howling in incoherent fury with each blow. Each punch that connects briefly opens the invisible quantum veil to a flood of force-carrying particles, better likened to a meteorite crash landing than a boxer's hook. Myrmecia begins to weave to either side with each punch, and then, instead of the right hook, delivers a hammer blow to the side of Emptear's head, one that is accompanied by an invisible sweeping motion of force across Emptears legs in the opposite direction. If this alone is not enough to bring Emptear to fall, the resumed combination punches - sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen - are accompanied with enough psychokinetic gravity to shove the unnatural weapon down from the side, even as Myrmecia assaults from the front.
Ice sheets crack and crash from the Emptear's impact driven backwards, while Myrmecia has now simply climbed on top to pummel it in the face - twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six - no rhythm to her voice now but a single sustained scream of rage. The forces bringing Emptear down to the ice floes have ceased by thirty-four, and instead of thirty-five, Myrmecia suddenly goes for what might have been a headlock if it had arms long enough to reach. It is still enough to grab Emptear. It is enough to lift Emptear. It is enough to lift Emptear entirely vertically, at which point Myrmecia, somewhat unnecessarily, bends at the knees, then leaps into the air, its jets firing and shearing space.
It comes back down upon the ice, cleaving the entire formation in twain. Emptear is in tow, held by the head, upside down, and driven through the ice, to crash head-first into the shallow ocean floor below.
35-Hit Combo
KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with (Al)chemical Reaction! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
You would be welcome to try to overthrow Me. That is the 'strength' of equality.
<"Yeah? You can try an' frame all your bullshit rhetoric in all the weird-ass kaiju an' talk of Voids an' everything you want, but guess what! I've heard that bullshit line about equality of strength before!">
The Double Zeta banks towards the right, away from the wrath of the dragon; it lands on glowing ice with a sharp CRACK of impact, emerald frost shattering beneath the impact as Judau Ashta glares up at the behemoth above him.
<"That's -exactly- what Britannia tells all the people they've ENSLAVED! It's just the tired ranting of someone too afraid to accept that people can see things different from them, want to be something other than what they think is acceptable! But least -Britannia's- got the decency not to pretend they're doin' me a damn favor when they try an' grind me beneath their bootheel!">
The Double Zeta stands up. Beam sabers sheathed back into its shoulders, Judau turns his attention towards the dragon, intent on pressing an offensive -- when Yuliana's words cut through. He blinks -- and then his entire expression twists with a cocktail of anger and frustration that turns his whole face red. He'd dare call her wife a slaver?
Judau's frown is the biggest it's ever been before he starts yelling over loudspeakers as emphatically as he possibly can:
<"Damn right I would! I'll call a duck a duck when it quacks like a duck an' I'll call a jerk a jerk when it bleats like a jerk an' I'll call a TYRANT a TYRANT when it OPPRESSES LIKE A TYRANT!"> Judau fires -right back- at Yuliana.
<"If that makes me an asshole, then I'll be an asshole all I want! If you got a problem with that, maybe you oughta figure out a good way to make me shut up, or MAYBE start thinkin' about why you married a slaver!!">
Judau Ashta is not afraid to get into a PETTY SQUABBLE at the end of the world -- especially not when it's at the heart of the matter.
He'd continue to yell at Yuliana, because he's got a good momentum going now -- but something is coming. Something that twists up the nauseating knot in Judau's heart and thoughts in all the more ugly a binding. Seagreen eyes widen. And for as red in the face as he was before, Judau pales just as swiftly as he -feels- without feeling, the hole of things burgeon, intensify, grow greater in its negative nothing as Yuliana and the Emptear brings the force of a twisted, hollow miracle to bear.
"Shit--" he begins, his throat dry. He feels blinded by the weight of it all bearing down on his senses, blotting everything in its abyssal wake. <"Yuliana! This isn't--">
But whatever he might say dies hoarse on his lips as the Gaia Gear stabs through that great mass of black in a shimmering, bright beacon of bending, splitting I-Fields.
Judau feels the pulse of the Gaia Gear's Psychoframe, and it bolsters him in turn. He watches as it hurtles towards the Emptear...
... and in a blinding flash collides with the angry, protective form of the Dragon instead, even as its master shouts her fury out.
My love strengthens me! It empowers me!
<"... Yuliana...">
The Dragon falls. There's an opening to the Emptear. Yuliana isn't the one he wants -- isn't the one he feels an overwhelming anger towards.
But they're right. Right now... if they can't stop her...
<"... I can't hate you. You're afraid, an' even if I can't understand you... I know how awful it feels, feelin' a big hole inside of you that you just desperately wanna fill with something, anything.">
The Double Zeta braces on its iceburg. His hand curls around the red lever marked with a 'ZZ'. He's going to have to hope the mass of ice can handle the output.
<"... You've got a right to exist, the way you want, with who you want. But so do we!">
He yanks on that lever.
And the ZZ's forehead begins to glow with a whining build up of power.
<"AN' LIKE HELL I'M LETTIN' YOU TAKE THAT AWAY FROM US!">
Once upon a time, Judau Ashta played a game of chicken with Yuliana Kafim. He made her think he was going to fire something terrible on her, only to short it out at the last second. It was a distraction and nothing more; the weapon was something he doesn't use lightly.
<"I'm sending a firing route out, everyone! Stay outta the way!">
Now, though...
<"FIRE! HIGH MEGA CANNON!">
He does not use it lightly.
There is a bright, blinding flash of magenta in the skies of the North Pole.
The iceberg beneath the Double Zeta begins to splinter, shatter and melt beneath it as a particle beam from the ZZ's forehead splits the heavens on a straight, burning path for the Emptear.
KTS: Judau Ashta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Judau Ashta targets Yuliana Kafim with High Mega Cannon! KTS: Judau Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Luanova Luckwright's (Al)chemical Reaction, taking 6300 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Judau Ashta's High Mega Cannon, taking 9480 damage! KTS: Judau Ashta roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
At the Dragon's reply, Roux's response - curt and in passing - is "Then stop talking like one!" But then she has larger problems, and honestly, so may the Dragon. What kind of problems?
MOBILE SUIT PROBLEMS.
Roux feels her teeth set and her lips pull back into a sort of monstrous grin at what Yuliana says. She thinks it's monstrous anyway. She doesn't reply aloud, although inwardly she feels a certain whiff of cruel pride that Judau scored a point.
But do you know what you call the guy who won an argument with the high-performance mobile suit's pilot, while being in a lower-performing mobile suit?
Ninety percent of the time, it starts 'Taken from us too soon,' in Roux's experience.
Though, something's being drawn apart. Another crack upwards. They're doing it again, Roux thinks. Fuck! Where the hell is GGG? Or NERV? Or --
GGG's at Jupiter, Roux thinks bleakly. NERV's kids are all dead or quit. It's us, Roux thinks with a sinking sensation. We're the ones who have to stop this. And we...
something flashes
Roux's eyes turn towards Rena as she speaks. The I-Frame shimmers and bends. The Gaia Gear flies up -- "RENA!!" Roux cries out -- and she shoots something upwards. Is it the rifle? The saber? She sweeps downwards, leaving a silky blue light in her wake. The light blinds her, despite the Strike Zeta's struggle to compensate, to crank it down.
When the light fades... the Dragon is gone.
Roux's spine tingles.
"I told you," Roux says, though her lips feel weird saying it. "I'll always be here--"
It fades out. Must have been the aurora borealis or something. Roux swings the Hyper Mega Launcher out and the barrel expands outwards into firing position, the hoarfrost that had formed on the exterior of the barrel from high-altitude water vapor flashing into a thin mist around it as it's heated. The autonomous engine has been running for some time, converting fusion fuel into megaparticle capacitor stock since about five minutes before they reached the LZ.
And she sees -- "Neo-America! Keep her in the air! Water's gonna protect her!" Roux calls outwards. "Like a log roller!" she blurts further, for reasons known only to 'god'. The Hyper Mega Launcher is raised upwards as she focuses on the Emptear.
... Maybe this is the end for her, Roux thinks.
... I wish it wasn't.
... She was kind to me, wasn't she? She didn't have to be. The REA had no reason to give Londo Bell more than the basics.
... and yet, Roux thinks. Her eyes close for a moment.
'I'm sending out a firing route, everyone!'
Roux doesn't even open her eyes before the Strike Zeta is already jetting backwards to get out of the arc of fire from the High Mega Cannon.
Oh good, thinks Roux, as she exhales. Her eyes narrow slightly -- as expected, the entire view of the North Pole ice-scape is plunged into weirdly nightlike darkness (even more so than usual, this time of year) in order to wash out the sheer blinding FORCE of the High Mega Cannon -- and once it has begun to fade, Roux fires a whopping six streaks of the Hyper Mega Launcher's sizzling, scintillating violet hypercompressed beam fire, the shots tacking slightly in the minovsky-polarized space behind the High Mega Cannon.
Roux's thought finishes:
... I won't look down on her, one way or another, by holding back.
Somehow, her eyes feel misty.
KTS: Roux Louka targets Yuliana Kafim with Hyper Mega Launcher Barrage! KTS: Roux Louka has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko has ceased to care of any and all other aspects of the battle that do not involve 'stopping whatever it is Emptear is doing'. She trusts her instincts and calculations equally, and right now both are saying that if nothing is done to stop that machine, and quickly, nothing else is going to matter anymore. It really doesn't matter if ignoring Elisa's dragon is going to end up being her doom, when the doom of everything feels as close as it does right now. Her desperate assault may be of limited effect, but it's the most effect that she can have at the moment. Even a giant's actions can be affected by an insect causing enough irritation.
"Hyperbolic? You want to see hyperbolic?! Just look at my charts, they have plenty of hyperbolas that prove exactly the things I'm saying!!"
...Yeah she doesn't even know what she's saying anymore, this is all just desperation speaking at this point. It's highly unlikely that anything should could say would manage to convince Yuliana, anyway.
But then, just as everything appears to be too late... on the edge of Naoko's awareness, a miracle occurs. She can't really process the exact nature of it, with this proximity to Emptear. She will have to learn of exactly what transpired later. But what does hit her with crystal clarity is that it's not too late. There's still a chance. But it has to be seized now.
With that realization, so too comes the realization of her current circumstances. The silence. The emptiness. The loneliness. She certainly couldn't claim to no longer feel distress at feeling so isolated, but... the initial panic has faded away. She always has been nothing if not adaptable, but this surprises even herself. She would never have expected to find that there could be a certain... calm, to being in such a space. Not that she would ever choose it for herself. Feeling all alone, even when surrounded by others... she's had enough of that.
At least she has the choice. Is this the way Yuliana feels all the time...? That's not the understanding she sought to gain, but...
No. Not now. The danger is not yet past. Emptear may have been delayed, but it hasn't yet been stopped. And when she's this close... there's only one thing to do. The Sukeban's fists glow white, radiating with an energy greater than heat. Even now, even here, where her psychic ability is drowned out... her Will can still be made manifest in this way, refusing to be suppressed.
"...I'm telling you... there is nothing at the end of this path. There literally isn't anything. Don't tell me that after all this time, you haven't realized what Void actually is? It's right there, in the name! Do you really believe that anybody could be saved by plunging them into Nothingness?! You are threatening existence itself, and I'll fight you with everything I have!"
The Sukeban rises up high, and its right fist slams forward, unleashing that bright energy towards the giant's torso.
"HEART!"
The left fist soon follows, carving a path upwards as the Arm Slave rises further up.
"BEAT!"
By the time the much smaller machine has risen right enough to stare Emptear directly in the face, a second charge is ready, and the final right straight is sent directly for its 'mouth'.
"SHAKEEEEEEER!!"
KTS: Naoko Suzuki targets Yuliana Kafim with Heart Beat Shaker! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Roux Louka's Hyper Mega Launcher Barrage, taking 5670 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Naoko Suzuki's Heart Beat Shaker, taking 6030 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
Yuliana is too solid a rock for Sophia's admittedly rather overblown yelling to cut her too deep, today. But she does ask a question.
Sophia sees her blade drive into K'advaktra, and sees the light pass on deeper still, and Elisa cry out in reply.
Sophia entrusted herself to the Geass and is rewarded, but....she draws back just the same, rather than revel in it. "Yes. Perhaps you are. Perhaps every drop of blood spent today means nothing. And yet..."
She casts those eyes out, unable to stop seeing the web of light that threads suit to suit, uniting people. Once, she couldn't have seen these at all. Too tepid, too minor of connections. The host of bindings, large and small, that form one person's connection to one other. She sees it in Judau and Roux, between each of them and Leina. She sees it between the Three Ships Alliance pilots. And she sees it branching out, one half of a claw, in the direction of the yawning void where Yuliana can bind to nothing.
The burden of a King. To know the magnificent tapestry that is humanity. To know that even demons and witches share favorite recipes and soaps. And to yet still bring to bear the command that they must die.
She closes her eyes for a moment. "This is not a machine for fighting gods," Sophia replies to Yuliana. "Nor am I a woman for it."
Her eyes reopen, gazing on that black horizon where the woman within the demon dwells. "But you're making my sister cry, and there is only mercy I reserve for people like that."
The GN-X whips away from the beached dragon and then whirls, twirling through the air toward Yuliana. Will this work, will anything work, can this be stopped--
She reaches over to flick on the charge for the beam rifle, old familiar configurations, and then the GN-X drifts, impelled by foces Sophia doesn't remotely comprehend, downward, onward, forward.
Until she can drive her beam rifle into the bristling thing's armor, as near the heart of that firewall of Void as she can get it.
She holds down the trigger until her system forces a shut down, staring in with both eyes..
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Beam Rifle Focused Onslaught! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
The funnels streak through the sky on wide arcs after their attacks, arcing and curving around the ex-Zeonic machine. The Jagd Doga's feet drop to the ground again, and Shelby takes a second to fire a glance back to check the distance to the base jabber still at rest in the distance. Also at the GN-Xes in the sky-- Sophie among them?, at the ZZ and the Strike Zeta-- Rena. Finally, *finally* she finds her voice, even as her brow scrunches and her stomach churns.
Her voice isn't masked or distorted, like it usually would be. "<You help us save Jona, and then you just-- run off, and-- you just ... go right back to this.>" she says, sadly.
"<I thought you could've been...>"
For a moment, her gaze dips. Elisa's words about love, and empowerment ring in her head. Shelby's eyes close, her chest rising with a deep breath. She can feel the stare from the face that is not her own in the reflection of her console monitor.
"<... the two of you deserve each other.>"
Sweeping back in large, swift movements, the Jagd Doga ducks and weaves through and around others and their weapons fire, watching Emptear carefully before her brow tics. Funnels move with a speedy burst of movement, lancing through the frigid sky. Shelby's beam gatling chatters away, less at the Emptear, but to distract and harry the Voidborne while she and others do their work -- sliding out from behind the melee strikes of others, swirling around focused fire and blazing cannons to add a bit of punch and to slice, rip, and tear.
And by god she stays out of the way of that magenta blast.
KTS: Shelby Korts targets Yuliana Kafim with Jagd Doga Funnels Follow-Up Formation! KTS: Shelby Korts has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sophia Mayhew Castellan's GN-X Beam Rifle Focused Onslaught, taking 6120 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Shelby Korts's Jagd Doga Funnels Follow-Up Formation, taking 5130 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Rena turns aside the horrific Miracle Emptear would lash upon the world with all the might of her own heart -- a heart which insists on a strengthening love. "I am protected!" Yuliana cries, in turn. "I am strengthened! I am -- ahhh--!"
That's the sound of Rena's beam saber glowing with radiant power, all blue-white and blinding. But her cry of dismay is answered, as the bulk of Rena's Shooting Star assault is absorbed by the Angelic Dragon, carved to pieces by the brunt of the blow. "K'advaktra!" She yelps, as the dragon falls. "No -- Elisa's craftsmanship, shattered?!"
She has no time to mourn Elisa's works, though. Soma is a Super Soldier, and her efforts deserve capitalisation. She sees that Yuliana is lashing out -- and she can scarcely brace herself before that Beam Rifle aims a shot right down into her hip. She staggers back, on her graceful legs, and one side lists down a little more than the other.
"'That part of me'... you're calling me a Newtype, aren't you?" Yuliana frowns, as Emptear turns to the Banshee. "It's true that I was created with the methods of the Cyber-Newtype... in a lab which created them... and it's true that I know my wife's heart, now she knows Herself. But..."
The Banshee's cross-X slashes at her, as Leina bids her to wake up. "It's not her fault!" Yuliana cries, as Emptear staggers back. "It's not her fault! Her love isn't wrong! Don't say such a thing--!!" Her answer to who Leina is... it's more denial.
"Of course I would be left behind," she says, to Sayla, and her voice trembles as she says it. "Left behind, or slain like cattle, or--!! That's the fate of faulty war equipment like me! But She was always there for me, when I lost all sense of time in the tanks, when they threw you people at me until I was driven mad! And more and more, ever since I met Elisa! And it makes sense, doesn't it?! Knowing Elisa is part of Her, sent here to protect me...!"
And Teletha's missiles rain down on her, in brutal explosions which her heart cannot hope to consume. "You and Sayla say it as if it were so easy!" She cries, incensed. "But you'd destroy me if I lived amongst you, wouldn't you?! You people -- you can't stand me! You hate me! Why -- Soma's people would sooner vivisect me than let me live!" Soma's people, and not her own, now.
"You think I should listen to my fear?!" She demands, of Anita, even as that cannon blast knocks her back several paces. "I am listening to my WIFE!"
The one mercy of Asciel aiming for EMPTEAR's heart -- the very place Yuliana dwells -- is that it isn't, entirely, of this existence, her power goes Elsewhere, and perhaps She will feel the sting of Asciel's conviction, flung from one reality to the next. It's fortunate that these defences were set up, because if they weren't, Yuliana would surely be dead after such a blow. "To think you're able to love in such a way... perhaps you're not entirely an automation," Yuliana cedes that much, hearing Asciel's conviction. "But you will never tear my love from me. Elisa rescued me when no one else would -- when the world dismissed me as a saboteur and a villain!"
Artemis Final Arrow launches right into the centre of Emptear's head, between her four glinting eyes. "Ugh--!!" Yuliana cries, as she grasps her head, and Emptear shakes as she does, her head and the rest of her rocking back and forth. (It's not painful, of course -- Elisa would never copy the foibles of the Mobile Trace System to that degree. But she feels the pressure of the impact, translated into small space by a shadow arrow impacting her own head with less velocity.) "I... I must do this. Even if I stand alone. I have ALWAYS stood alone!" She roars, lashing out with a hand.
About 'standing', though --
Myrmecia's punch causes Emptear to stagger back a step -- and another, and another -- until that sweep to her legs brings her crashing to the ground, and Lua launches punch after punch into her face. She is lifted by those same shadow-forces to mimic the way Myrmecia hoists her overhead -- and slams her DOWN.
The ocean floor, though, isn't particularly shallow at the North Pole -- the depths stretch down more than 4,000 metres below the ice -- so it's lucky that Emptear doesn't sink. (Of course she doesn't. Witches float. It's the innocent who sink.) She claws her way out of the hole in the ice, with a beleagured grimace on her own face, unlike the eternal savage grin on Emptear's.
She is almost out of the water before, "oh, fuck."
That's the sound of Yuliana turning Emptear's head to see the ZZ Gundam's High Mega Cannon barrelling towards her. The good news: it blasts her up over the ice. (It's okay, Roux! Judau has you covered!) The bad news: it blasts her dead centre, and the only mercy availed her is the way her hollow heart absorbs some of the blow, ensuring that power doesn't reach her cockpit. "I'm... still alive... you bastard," she pants, when Emptear drops back to the ice, and she's able to take a knee and assess the damage. "How can... you know...? I don't understand you Ashtas..."
It's not just the High Mega Cannon, of course. Every blow she has taken is grievous, with all the power of Earth's defenders behind them, and the wisdom of Sayaka's words is becoming more and more clear. All the more as Roux doesn't hold back, and the Hyper Mega Launcher blasts her back another heavy step, just as she's able to stand again.
"Now's... not the time for fun," she grits out, looking to Nova's Sukeban. What is she referring to?! ... is she saying that hyperbolas are fun?! Well, she is an engineer. "Don't you think... nothing is perfect?" Clearly not, as Heart Beat Shaker pummels Emptear.
So too does Sophia shoot into the heart of Emptear -- and perhaps, again, She will feel the sting of that beam. "I wish," she grits out, "I had a sister. I was... an only child... I wonder if someone else could have taken this destiny, were it not so?"
She shakes her head, as Emptear does, turning to Shelby's machine. "Do you think those two things can't exist together?" She asks, sharply. "I -- wished to save Jona, if only for Rita's sake. I wished to save the Earth from those Helium-3 tanks. But this is my duty. This is my marriage!" Perhaps they do deserve each other, as that formation completes.
In the end, Emptear may be a giant amongst men... but she stands alone against the combined might of Earth's forces.
"Tch," she clicks her tongue to one too many teeth, as she and Emptear straighten. "Not now -- not when we're so close. My wife depends on me... both of her. The Gate will open! Elisa will join herself again!"
She steps forward, and her hand feels through the air before it splays, flat, against the air. It is the outward representation of the way Yuliana's own palm presses to the crystal interface at the edge of her dance hall.
"Emptear," she commands her machine, "unset physical limiters. Unset cognitive limiters. Unset empathic limiters. Set performance to full complect. Set global tolerance levels to one-point-seven-five repeating. Emptear!" Her voice tears as it raises, all fire, all fury. "Set up!"
And that hulking machine's eyes glow as it accepts the parameters, things which Yuliana should never have had access to, in Emptear. But she is an engineer -- and placed into the cockpit of a strange machine, naturally Yuliana has explored all its potential. It was a matter of mechanical curiosity. Now -- she evidently feels it's her only chance.
She turns, with a whirl, takes a step back -- and lifts a leg, heel pressed to the place which forms her knee. Emptear's remaining heel CLAPS into her foot as Yuliana rises demi-pointe, onto the ball of her foot. She is the daughter of a diplomat; the social grace of dancing came easily to her, and she was educated in so many styles, after she took to it as a child. Here --
Emptear spins in a billowing pirouette -- and another -- and another -- and another, and she need not fear losing her balance, because her eyes are not on this world at all. The sound of her breaths comes ragged as she spins, dancer's cloth sweeping around her, whipping up the storm. The Earth screams agony for her, as the sky splits above, and the roots of their garden spread deeper and wider below the Earth, seeking down, down to its heart, its molten core.
And then she screams, too. "Aaaahhh--!!"
From that impossibly deep darkness at her chest come more protrusions, sharp and long, arcing out from in. Inside Emptear's heart, Yuliana's ribs grind against their fixtures, third and sixth and ninth tearing bloody lines as they lift from her chest. She knows what is happening to her: she has too few legs, to dance forever.
The Empress will simply craft some more from her bones.
Darkness swirls from the gaps left behind, and the Void surrounds her like a hurricane, buffeting any and all. But finally she is forced to stop, to drop to first position, and her knees sink when she is still. Those strange protrusions lift from Emptear's chest and set down against the ground to steady herself, even as her claw lifts to grasp them.
"Just... a little more..." She pants, as she tries to hold herself together, where those dark protrusions have torn free. "I must do this. I am... already strong. Already strong..." But her repetition is cut off by a horribly wet coughing fit, and mercifully, Emptear doesn't echo the blood splattering onto the dancefloor. "Zh--zhenushka, pray, let -- let me work. I can bear this much..."
But the world can't take a little more of this -- and despite her brave assurances, neither can Yuliana. Her weight sinks down, held up only by those six dark, spidery legs --
-- as an emerald-green HAND reaches through the cracks in the sky towards her.
To call it a hand is generous. It has nine fingers and four thumbs, each jointed four times; half of them end in two different fingertips, and half bend in entirely the wrong direction. No matter how they get there, each ends in a wicked, sharp claw. And it is massive: as it reaches for the sixty-metre super robot, Emptear, she is dwarfed by its palm.
And Her hand phases through Emptear, as She seeks to grasp her, tightly. She is not quite manifest, yet, in this world -- though She is now close enough that everyone can see Her as She attempts to take hold of Emptear.
"I know," Yuliana pants, as she feels Her embrace phasing through her cockpit. "I know, Empress. I know You are anxious. Your strength... guide me. Guides me..." And has it, this whole time? What has Yuliana felt, as the way between the worlds weakened? "Oh, God... it hurts... please, just give me a little more time..." And is it strange, to hear her plead, on the heels of all her arrogance?
"... a little more time here..."
She cannot stand up to God.
Finally, Emptear pushes herself up on those spindly legs of darkness, getting her own two feet beneath her. She stumbles forward, only to hesitate, at the edge of the Empress's fingertips. Those spectral things tighten, around her. "N--no!" She cries, against whatever strength this greater Elisa would offer her, and throws out a hand --
But even though the Empress isn't of this world, Yuliana can't tear Emptear free of her.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Shelby Korts, Sophia Mayhew Castellan, Naoko Suzuki, Roux Louka, Judau Ashta, Luanova Luckwright, Sayaka Yumi, Asciel Colette, Anita Rosetta, Teletha Testarossa, Sayla Mass, Leina Ashta, Soma Peries, and Rena Lancaster with Hollow Heart Calamity. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta successfully avoids Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Teletha Testarossa, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Teletha Testarossa fails to react to Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 3779 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Asciel Colette retreats from the attack! KTS: Asciel Colette successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Trust Spirit Command. KTS: Sayla Mass has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Anita Rosetta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 3240 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim continues a Formation attack! KTS: Sayaka Yumi successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity KTS: Rena Lancaster's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Rena Lancaster, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Rena Lancaster fails to evade Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 3675 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"This imperfect world is a consolation prize compared to what could be," the Voice tells Soma. And for Leina, "Foolish girl. You do not understand the affairs of adults. That is between me, my Self, and my wife. Not you."
Elisa's talk of right and wrong love--Elisa responds with nothing more than, "Tch. Child."
But Sayla is no child. Who asked? "Yuliana asked. That is all that matters."
But Anita is disinterested in godhood. "So be it. There is space in the Void for many intents."
But that idea of what 'love' should and shouldn't do... it comes up again and again, and Elisa answers, "I was sent here out of love. Any love that cannot encompass such a thing is clearly weak."
But Asciel's laughter. Elisa is more comfortable with that. What she says, yes--
She doesn't say what it is. Elisa laughs, when Asciel can't bring herself to. However...
"You have no claim upon Our throne, machine. You simply ascend to a height from which the fall will destroy you."
Then, Sayaka... "Do you think I am not at her side even now?" Elisa says to Dr. Yumi. "I use the tools that are most effective. But I am Here."
"It is already too late!"
"Hmph," Elisa says to Judau, a simple noise that shows her contempt. "...You say all this, and yet you claim not to hate her. You hate her works, you hate her ideals, and you do not hate her? It is nonsense. Two truths that conflict cannot coexist."
She does have larger problems now, than Roux's assessment.
"Sophistry," she says to Naoko. "How would you know better than I what to expect within the Void? It is not empty. I am there."
But Sophia... "Indeed," Elisa says, though wherever she is, she does bleed. "This blood is pointless. Though..."
"I at least respect your familial love," she says. "And the appropriate exercise of strength to defend it."
Not now, Yuliana says, and Elisa can appreciate her devotion. But...
But she hears it. She hears her say it, through the sorcerous connection she has established. None can see the widening of her eyes.
"No!" Elisa's voice claims. "Those were not designed for you!"
The machine glows, and indeed--Yuliana has access to what she should not. "Yuliana..." But it begins to work. It begins to work, except--
Except that scream, and Elisa knows what those protrusions mean. "Empress! No! You do not understand!"
And yet, almost, it works. Is this what she is to do? To watch Yuliana tear herself apart to reunite with Her? "Not like this!" Elisa's voice calls, and one can nearly hear her grinding her ordinary amount of teeth.
"Damn it--"
"Damn you all!"
"I--"
"I cannot reach you!" she calls, iin frustration and rage. "I cannot come to you like this! Yuliana, you must stop!"
KTS: Sayla Mass's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Sayla Mass, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Sayla Mass fails to Evade Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 3080 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Luanova Luckwright's Will Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Luanova Luckwright, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Luanova Luckwright blocks Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 2200 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I'll make it up to you," Rena tells Anita. She smiles back, just as strained. She hears Roux call her name; she feels Judau and the Biosensor, as the Gaia Gear tears past them.
It is something of a shock to Rena when the Dragon suddenly appears. The beam saber tears through it, but there is the black light of the Void following after it. It seeps into the beam saber; it seeps into the white armor of the Gaia Gear Alpha, and the Mobile Suit is pitched back as the Dragon falls.
The sheer closeness with the Void is overwhelming. A rush of unpleasant sensation; a feeling of a presence, she would swear, and an oppressive weight. Every breath feels labored; her senses feel dulled, lost in the dark that seeped into her Mobile Suit.
Rena's eyes are wide, her heart pounding in her throat, as Elisa rages at her. "I know plenty about love!" she says. "And it's not my love that strengthens me, it's theirs! If it's something we have to resist..."
She shouts, angrily. "That isn't love!"
The Gaia Gear Alpha descends. "Take it, Dr. Yumi!" she says. "We've got to stop this! They're--the way this feels, it's all wrong!"
Her anger, though, is replaced by a mounting panic. Black energy crackles over the inside of the cockpit, too -- and fades, but it leaves streaks of a pale, sickly green. The same color, she realizes, as the Voidframe crystals all across Emptear.
The Gaia Gear Alpha descends, motes of blue light trailing after it -- but this time, there are motes of that pale, sickly green drifting after it. Rena grimaces. "Shit," she says. "Shit, shit..."
She looks up at her monitor and sees Emptear begin to dance. "...Shi--"
Then she feels a sharp, ripping pain. Unlike Yuliana's, that gets sent out through the Psychofram -- and the Gaia Gear Alpha jerks backward, and slams back through the air, before its descent is arrested through the thrusters.
"Y--Yuliana--" Her voice is pained. "STOP! You... you can feel it, can't you? You have to stop this, before it's too late!"
KTS: Rena Lancaster has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Soma Peries, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Soma Peries fails to Evade Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 4050 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Roux Louka has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity KTS: Naoko Suzuki has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Naoko Suzuki, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Naoko Suzuki fails to evade Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 6480 damage! KTS: Naoko Suzuki has been defeated! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Roux Louka successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Judau Ashta, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Judau Ashta blocks Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 1620 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Shelby Korts has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Shelby Korts, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Shelby Korts blocks Yuliana Kafim's Hollow Heart Calamity, taking 5940 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"<I'm calling you what you've been for a long time, Yuliana.>" It is her reaction to her denial, and to further denial, "<She's hurting you Yuliana - I won't stand by and tell you that kind of love is right.>"
Indeed...
"<I can't.>"
A smile, brief, but warm at Judau's words, at the cannon he brings to bear. At all of their efforts, their feelings. Even numb to them, she doesn't need Newtype senses to understand.
Indeed, Yuliana reveals how much she doesn't understand with those words.
Yet Yuliana isn't finished yet, as she undoes the limiters, "<Wait - WAIT NO!>" Those things, that protect her, which Leina understands. In that spinning dance, she dances to end the world, and she hurts - she screams-!
She changes.
"<STOP IT! You're killing yourself for someone who-!>"
A void miracle turned away, Leina looks at Rena and the Gaia Gear with alarm, as Rena's cockpit crackles with that black energy, "<Rena!? RENALLE! Fall back! You've done enough!>"
It's as Sayla says isn't it? It's futile? She can't be reached. And now Rena is suffering for it, for her hesitation.
The strange warped emerald hand descends, in it - this world will be changed forever. In just a moment, it feels like it's over, yet - she realizes perhaps in a moment, that it's not all there. As it comes over Emptear. With a deep breath, she remembers her Mother's words.
You can't make someone accept the hand of help, Leina. There's a point where you're just hurting yourself to try and save someone who refuses it.
"... She's right."
She needs to end this.
Yet she still remembers that moment on the beach, so long ago. A girl hurting her, and Judau... the decision is impulsive.
"But I can still..."
Elisa called her a child, a fool, and it is too late, but what she built her technology upon, it's an opening that the Banshee can utilize, to exploit. A shared connection, a design flaw that cannot be fully corrected.
Because of the very nature of what Yuliana is.
Indeed the Banshee suddenly puts away all weapons, it's Beam Magnum mounted upon it's back, and it suddenly moves forward, it would be easy to interpret it as hand to hand combat.
Yet it's left hand is stretched out, open palmed, the whole of it shining yellow. Up to Emptear it moves, and in the end, despite being slapped away, despite it being rejected - so many times - despite all the pain and suffering she's taken from Yuliana.
She places it's palm against the swirling shadow stuff of the cockpit. It's glow, suddenly transferring, infectious - in it's resonance. In it's desire to connect, understanding. Bright for a time, before it floods over her.
Exactly what she bargained for as she feels those eyes upon her, just like her.
pain you will
SUFFER
not her not her not her
DARE YOU HOW DARE
SHRED YOU HURT YOU
MINE SHE IS MINE
It's exactly what it is, the resonance quieting the voices, taking on the connection with Yuliana - just like before, just to quiet it. Just to offer her hand.
"<You don't have to do this.>"
Leina tells her, pained, breathless with agony.
"<I know you feel like you do. You're so scared - you feel so apart from all of us.>"
It's worse, it's getting worse, she feels it shredding away at her, just like before. Yet, still she continues, holding onto that connection.
"<You've made that idea define who you are - made her define you are because you feel her all the time, and can't imagine life without her.>"
She can take it, she's used to it. She's felt it before, several times. She has to take it. She has to let her shred away and tell herself she'll be the same person after.
She'll rebuild herself.
"<Please Yuliana, take my hand - even if it's just a few moments...>"
Indeed the Banshee drifts off, away from the cockpit, the shadowy Voidframe, and instead touches Emptear's hand.
"<..let me show you that you're so much more than her.>"
The nature of humanity, is warmth in Leina Ashta's eyes, so even if she cannot show her all of it, she offers it - to show their common ground within that warmth.
She can hear Elisa, yelling for Yuliana to stop, even as her 'Other Self' howls for Leina's blood, extracts it's toll upon her.
For now however, everyone has a moment - perhaps not long - only as long as she can endure, perhaps not even that long. To talk to her, with mind unclouded by that connection to the being she would bring into this world.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
And Emptear -- defying all the expectations she's built up, here and elsewhere --
-- grasps the Banshee's hand, and arm, tightly. Psychoframe Resonance cracks, between them, blazing in its defiance of the laws of their universes. "H--help--!!" She bites out, with Elisa's alarm behind her and Elisa's possessiveness around her, and it is the Banshee which drags her from Her claws. She stumbles, and catches herself on those six spidery legs, and as Emptear lifts her head...
"I-- I can't feel Her," she says, and she is lost.
(Or, perhaps, she was lost.)
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Myrmecia has disappeared beneath the waves by the time it has received Roux Louka's transmission. The shallowness of the ocean floor is relative here: one must find 'shallow' waters to find an ocean floor to drive the Threshold Queen into in the first place.
Myrmecia doesn't handle well in the water, with or without Emptear's suffocating quiet. It takes Luanova's focus to hold the damage done to the unit back and keep it in operating condition as she maneuvers her way back to breach the ocean surface. <"Sorry,"> she transmits back to Roux. <"Can't do a piledriver into something without something to piledrive into... and I don't think the log rolling would help?"> She's not really sure what that part meant.
Anything else she might have said is lost. Perhaps all is lost, looking up into the otherworldly hand invading into this world. For as much bravado as Lua Luckwright has in tackling the enormous Emptear, it is clear at only a glance that savage miniature violence is no solution to whatever directs this hand inward. Luanova Luckwright, too, murmurs the names of gods under her breath in awe at the terrible miracle, shortly before she is howling hoarse holding Myrmecia together against forces she cannot recognize, let alone trace or know how to guard against. The hexagonal panels in Myrmecia's armoring sing like windchimes in a hurricane, falling and knocking into one another in desperate attempts to hold the lattice in place without losing too many scales.
Lua grits her teeth, bracing Myrmecia's armor plating and staring out into the grotesque farce of the stumbling Emptear. Even Lua, who has no idea who these madwomen are except by the fruits of their recent labor, can see no further point in assaulting the weapon. The sky has been opened. The stage has been set. And the performance evokes nothing but exhausted pity.
"Does that feel like who you are?" No transmission, just words in the cockpit. Elisa is listening, isn't she? Somehow. "That feels like love?"
The love of a heartless mother.
KTS: Soma Peries has activated the Trick Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> Soma Peries has posed.
Another blast of darknesses washes over the GN-X, battering it, causing armor plating to be blown clear to pepper the frozen ground below. In her cockpit, Soma is sweating as her damage displays flash a lot of red.
She ignores them though, her eyes focused on that dark figure of Emptear. Her hands gripping her controls. She watches as it seems to falter. Is this it? Did they manage to stop it?
No... They can't be sure.
Don't.
They need to be sure.
There's no need.
<"... For your crimes.">
The GN-X raises it still barely functional GN Rifle to aim at Emptear once more.
<"For the lives you have taken. The destruction you have wrought.">
In her cockpit, Soma watches as the targeting reticle floats over where she roughly believes Yuliana to be within that monstrosity.
<"For the protection of this world.">
The GN-X's systems report an accurate lock.
<"The only sentence you deserve... Is death!">
Soma pulls the trigger. The GN Rifle blasting out what is likely to be the last crimson particle beam it'll be able to fire as it shorts out and smokes after the shot has left it.
KTS: Soma Peries targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Sub-System Targeting Shot! KTS: Soma Peries has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Soma Peries's GN-X Long Barrel Beam Rifle Sub-System Targeting Shot, taking 4950 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Soma Peries's Loyal Soldier activates, causing Jam L1!
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
-Piece by piece, Yuliana is taken apart and reassembled - of her own will, foolish and desperate as it was.
It is a painful thing to even hear - it is just as painful to be near enough that it can be understood, glimpsed. The sound of blood, the cracking of bone, the tightening of organs - it would repulse and terrify any human. -It repulses and terrifies Asciel, surely because she has seen far, far, far too much documenting of tragedy and horror.
. . .
-Asciel remembers how, night after night, she would tear herself apart this same way.
The Controller's systems were inadequate. Too few processors - too few connections - transistors improperly connected - not enough, not enough. And so, it ravenously took in more. It burned hotter and harder in that hunger for more. Wires melted into slag - drive motors would snap and send their disks careening like buzzsaws inside OWL's casing. It was not enough - so it needed to rip into its own shell, to pull its failing components free and plunge stronger ones in.
...And few humans would truly find it so viscerally empathizable an experience. It was an <object> undergoing <malfunction>. Under its own desperate lie it called 'will', it simply reassembled inert components into new configurations. One would just as soon say that an avalanche is suffering - that a tree is being tortured when it falls.
But she remembered it as the agony of metamorphosis.
>i can understand your pain.
>you can't understand mine.
>that's why i refuse to accept this.
Asciel's step backwards atop the shattering ice lead to steam erupting as an unspeakable obscenity reaches from the heavens. Her hair flutters with a wind created from her own determination - she must not get close. But-
She must not get too far away either.
<"...I ~refuse to accept this,"> Asciel states almost flatly as a contorted claw grazes inches from her eyes. <"And everyone else in the world would ~refuse to accept this. Even if your purpose were just, even if your goals were truly valiant - Yuliana, they would stop you because they would perceive your suffering here, like this, as an injustice too great to accept. They would detest the way you ~change, ~become more than yourself, manifest your ~promises so fiercely onto yourself. You hear them, don't you? You hear the way they pity you, the same way I pitied you. They want you to stop, less because of the horror you're unleashing onto the world-">
<"JUST TO BE CLEAR I'm putting an end to that regardless, because - do you NOT SEE THIS!?"> In a disgust more reserved for disdain for aesthetic, Asciel flashes her sword out to lop off a barb of viscera-
<"...But they can't stand the way you hurt. They will never accept it. They will always, always reject your willingness to suffer.">
With a cant of her head and her biggest innocent smile, Asciel's Driver emanates a slowly building 'noise' - as though a force that'd try to match the growing 'void'. Not 'zero', not 'one', but a constantly swirling, constantly shifting oscillation between the two. Growing and growing, drowning and drowning, spreading and spreading.
<"So that's why it's my responsibility. Humans can't cry for the pain of an ~object. Humans can't cry the pain of a ~god. Look how few of them cry for the pain of ~Elisa, watching part of herself ooze through the gate, watching the self she aspires to ~manifest be hated so viscerally. Kehehe. They're just outright angry at them. Hm.~">
As if to 'prove' that she is an object AND a deity, at the same time Asciel 'decides' to try subduing Yuliana in the growing sensory-depriving field of static - her head twists fully around. Not towards her fellow saviors of the Earth, but towards Elisa.
<"...I could never have tolerated that thing you ~created. Why. I was even terrified of it. But for what it's worth - it's a tragedy I quite dearly understand to see something you poured your aspirations into crumble. It's sad, Elisa Kafim. That we must, by our very natures, tear each other down. That there must be one or the other. That we must hold the hand of loves which cannot actually bear the burden of our true, ugly, inhuman natures.">
<"But if it helps you any, I'm not gonna be like, TOO sad about it. We're still LIVE after all!~ And a fallen tear has to be picked up and turned into the smile that appeases everyone, no matter how badly it hurts!~ I'm just saying I'll empathize a liiiiittle bit if you need to sob about this one, kay~?"
KTS: Asciel Colette targets Yuliana Kafim with Lambda Driver Static! KTS: Asciel Colette has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Asciel Colette's Lambda Driver Static, taking 3450 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
So easy. To have it be so easy to be accepted and validated, only by having to hide parts of yourself that should never see the light of day. There's only a mirthful, self-scorning smile that's obscured by the darkness of the bridge, illuminated only by the glow of the screens. The sick connection of knowing one would be torn apart if they knew what was inside. "If only you hadn't been found, then..." It's a soft mutter of pity. Did she choose this life? Did she want more out of it? Questions upon questions to push for another time, another place.
For now, there was only watching the carnage above, for one technicial to whistle as the High Mega Cannon dealt the figurative final blow. "Boy's got a punch, still." He's going to be heckled tonight: That's what he gets for being younger than the man he called a 'boy'.
"Unknown energy detected! It's flaring up!" Huh?
"Keep an eye on it. Start recording."
"It's more of what she already had-"
"Do your best at it."
To watch as the Emptear transformed, to document the hand reaching down from above. It's an instinctual itch of the mind as soon as Tessa spots that hand, grunting to herself. The eyes. The eyes that so document anything that stained this group. Stare at it. Gaze back. Brace oneself against the waves of a screaming being, the Tuatha de Dannan thrumming as each and every shockwave peeled at its metal hull, shocking through the electrical systems. A few systemic failures here and there, backups powering on throughout the submarine for warmth and life support.
Refuse to back down as the Empress made itself known.
"...Yuliana, can't you hear it? Your wife's voice?" An echo along the omnisphere. "Load dummy missiles, all tubes. Aim at the Emptear's head. If we can't stop her with this, prepare for additional countermeasures." A rescue mission, but to stop someone from sacrificing themselves...A bit of blunt trauma will do. She'll apologize later.
"Aye, ma'am. Load all tubes! Physical munitions!"
As those missiles loaded themselves into position, she flicked open those comms. <"This is the Toy Box. We're going to knock her out, or at least try to, according to the reaction of Artemis's Final Arrow. That is all."> A flick off, and a sigh.
"...Fire!"
"FIRE!"
And those hatches fly open, twelve fateful missiles rocketing out for a simple solution, the most basic one of warfare. Blows to the head, ones intended to shock and daze the cranial cavity inside.
A concussion.
KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Yuliana Kafim with Sniper! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"...I'll take that as a promise." Anita replies, as Rena says she'll make it up to her. She knows what she's doing - she just has to trust her.
Yuliana, though...
"And that's part of the problem. A relationship's gotta be more even than that." Anita shoots back. Elisa says there's space in the void for many intents... but it's what she says next that gets a frown out of her.
"'Weak', huh? Is it weak to show that kind of concern? ...You've got a funny idea of strength - and a pretty unbalanced view of love." Anita replies.
It looks like Emptear might've been overwhelmed... but she's still going. Anita hears those commands, and she doesn't like what she's hearing.
"Wait, that's..." Anita starts. Emptear dances - and Yuliana screams. There's a lot Anita can take without flinching, but that scream, and the sounds she's hearing from within... Her blood runs cold, and she feels ill.
And then, a hand - a 'hand' - reaches out of the sky toward Emptear, seizing it. Seizing Yuliana. Anita grimaces. The way she pleads...
"C...C'mon. You gotta stop this." Anita pleads. Is she asking Yuliana, or Elisa - or both? "This is going too far!"
But then, she hears Rena's panic.
"Rena? Rena, what's wrong?" Anita asks quickly. She grits her teeth. "Get out of there, if you need to! We can take it from here!"
She says that... but the fight's taken so much out of the Svipul already. Neither Yuliana or the dragon pulled their punches, and it takes some effort to get her Valkyrie back into the air.
"Yuliana... you don't deserve this. You shouldn't have to hurt like this just to make Her happy! You can tell this is wrong, can't you?" Anita asks.
KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Teletha Testarossa's Sniper, taking 4500 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko did say that she would fight with everything she had. When, afterwards, the Emptear is still standing... Sukeban is not, remaining in a crouched position after landing. "...Nothing is perfect... not even nothingness. To chase it is..."
She doesn't quite manage to finish the sentence. While Sukeban rights itself, it's not under her power.
The Arm Slave begins to move, but at a sluggish pace, without the assistance of its main pilot. Still, the pilot does see fit to reply to Elisa's claims that the Void is not empty, that she is there. "...Then you, too, are empty."
With enough distance gained, those responsible for the retreat are finally able to speak to her again.
>"Nova! That was reckless... are you alright?"<
There is nothing but a cough in response, at first. Then... "Everything's... hazy..."
>"Dammit, why do you always gotta overdo it like that? Let's get you outta here."<
Unfortunately, the intended retreat is interrupted, by Yuliana's aura of Void suddenly expanding like a violent tornado, which does blasting the Arm Slave away from it, but at much greater speed than intended. The mounting damage ensures that when it crashes to the ground, it won't be rising under its own power anymore.
Naoko can only watch when Yuliana decides to take things yet further, prompting the emergent appearance of 'Her', and suffering the consequences. "D-damn it... you've got to see how bad this is for you. How could it not be bad for everyone else...?"
Try as she might, though...
>"...No good. That last one knocked out everything, no way to move it anymore."<
>"I've activated the beacon... we'll just have to trust the others now."<
Naoko still hears those words, faintly, as her mental pressure and fatigue finally catches up with her, and she no longer perceives what happens from there.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"<You god damned idiot!>" Sayla shouts, having reached her limit. It hurts so much being here. It hurts being this isolated, this alone, the pressure of the void getting worse and worse. "<You've had people reaching out to you for years now, despite everything you've done, and you think you'd be left behind!? That we'd destroy you? You're just ignoring any help that doesn't come from your wife!>"
And then She is here. Sayla feels blood trickle out of her nose. She feels her head scream. She feels an entity that shouldn't be reaching out to claim Yuliana. What *is* this? But she can hear the pain. "<She asked for this?>" Sayla yells, to Elisa this time. "<She asked to suffer like this? Because that's all you've given her!>"
And then she notices the Banshee move. Her breath is sapped from her lungs. "<Leina, don't! Get away from her! It's too dangerous!>"
But it's too late. Leina has charged in to do something inadvisable, in an attempt to save Yuliana. Sayla's funnels pull back starting to return to their 'wings'- but so many are still opening fire. "FUNNELS!" She yells again, and they fly towards the Banshee- and surround it in a pyramid of shields in all angles- except the one toward the Emptear. Sayla could attempt to close the shield at any time- at the cost of severing the Banshee's arm.
"<Judau, Roux, can you get in position to pull Leina back? The Hi-Nu might not be enough. Please.>" The Hi-Nu starts dashing forward, to follow through on her hope.
"<This is your chance, Yuliana! Who is the one trying to destroy you right now? Because it's not Leina!>"
The gunfire from her allies probably isn't helping her cause.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
The Final Artemis Arrow strikes true... after an attack like that, Sayaka won't be able to pull out much else. "You don't have to stand alone, Yuliana!" Sayaka counters. "But I know you have... you are right now. But all the same, you don't get to enforce that on everyone else." Sayaka concludes, with a deep sigh.
Attack after attack rends upon Emptear, and the grand machine collapses, and the Earth does in turn. But even still, Emptear rises from the brink, with Yuliana in unimaginable pain as she is reconfigured.
"Yeah, you're right," Sayaka agrees when Rena says how wrong this feels. "I can't feel it - not like you can. But I can see it... and I think that's enough to do something. You've done enough, Ms. Lancaster... so please don't put yourself through any further harm."
Elisa has a question for her, too. "No." Is Sayaka's simple response. "It's because of you that she's pushing herself so hard right now. You're the person she wants to please so much... even if it tears her apart!" Too late it may be...
But Leina rushes in there with the Banshee for a last-ditch effort to make communication. "Leina... be careful." Sayaka warns. She's seen what the resonance of Psychoframe and Voidframe can do. It's a risk for Leina, for sure...
But it means there's a chance, both to reach Yuliana outside the influence of Emptear... and in turn, to strike Emptear outside the influence of Yuliana.
Unscathed as she is by Emptear and the Angelic Dragon's attacks, Aphrodite Areia hardly has any Photon Power left to fire off... not much more than a simple beam. She rises to Emptear's eye level, and flips the switch... making direct eye contact with what remains of Emptear.
"That's enough, Yuliana Kafim. You don't have to kneel to any God, or Devil alike. In a world where we're constantly asked to rise above both, I'll make damn sure no one is left behind." The Mazin's eyes gleam, managing a weak output of red Photon Power, hoping to further sever connection between Emptear and Yuliana - before landing on the Arctic floor. "I'm sure Koji would say the same."
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has gained proficiency bonus. KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Yuliana Kafim with Scarlet Beam! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
"And yet it was drawn," Sophia says to Elisa's note. But it's not the quiet exhaustion of a heart releasing the need for violence. She struck, and drew blood, and even if that blood means nothing...the fact the cut went through does not. The fact that she struck has meaning. This, too, is a step in the path of a King.
Sophia has returned to Yuliana soon after, firing over and over upon her. She withdraws, when Emptear begins to answer. "...no," Sophia answers her, docking her weapons again and staring down at the void in Emptear's heart. "Many people have taken responsibility from you. Many people have taken from you that which is yours by right." She cuts her gaze aside, seeing the threads spreading from Elisa toward her wife. "...but I will not allow you to place your pain on one who does not even exist! Own that which you have seized! Sin and civility are both the property of human beings! Even being the wife of a goddess does not absolve you of your responsibilities, Yuliana Kafim!"
Sophia doesn't really see the hand, per se. She sees something enormous - an effort to reach down and touch, caress, and seize. A connection whose nature she does not understand, one to Yuliana, and another, firing off to where she knows Elisa's heart lies. The human one, at any rate. She sees Yuliana reach out, and...
Sophia grasps her beam saber. "In the old days, there was a myth of a Man who was God. He came among mankind to show them peace. To suffer and to die. But because he became Man, he became different from God. What he wanted became different. In the end, he begged to be saved. And in the end, he was denied the peace he brought."
Is she talking to Yuliana or to Elisa? She draws her blade, the blood-red saber igniting. "...your God is calling you, Yuliana Kafim. But the woman you call wife is still here. Your god would absolve you of everything, and pull you into her embrace."
Then she surges forward, a wave of particles rioting out behind the GN-X as Sophia drills toward her, blade outstretched. "But it is the world of men you have bloodied! It is the kingdoms of mankind you would undo! AND IT IS BY THE JUDGES OF MANKIND I WILL SEE YOU HANGED! YULIANA KAFIM!!"
She SLAMS into Emptear's heart, blade slammed down...
To carve it out.
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with GN-X Beam Saber Through And Through! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
The Void surges towards the Strike Zeta. Roux doesn't think, she just acts. In the face of Yuliana's interference, of course, dodging by malicious intent doesn't work well. And yet --
The Strike Zeta bobs, rises; ducks down. It is buffetted by the passage of the void, indubitabtly, and if it leaves a residue, it definitely gets on the Strike Zeta. But it is not struck plain or true; it is not even thrown off course. Landing on the ice again, Roux lets out a 'hmf' and her eyes turn towards the voice of Elisa. "Only if you're not seeing the REAL truth!" she shouts up to Elisa. "Don't take the tree for the branch!!"
Trees. Lumber. Roux doesn't answer Luanova. Maybe she's too embarrassed. (She is definitely too embarrassed to answer.)
Leina reaches out - again she does something almost nigh-onto impossible, and Roux would not have said almost if it did not happen right in front of her. Psychoframe is a terrible thing, in a sense; but it is also beautiful.
She has a moment. Her eyes turn to Emptear.
"... You can stop," Roux tells her.
"It hurts, but -- sometimes that's the bravest thing, that's the right thing you can do," Roux continues. "... I'm not the best at this," she continues, before Sayla signals her. Oh, right, Roux thinks with a sort of interior kicking of her own mental arse, SAYLA IS HERE.
"Copy -- Judau, cover me --" The Strike Zeta run-hops towards the Banshee and the Emptear. If her words cannot be eloquent in this moment, she can do this much.
And on the way, inwardly, Roux thinks: I am getting them an amazing wedding present if Koji doesn't chicken out forever, because Sayaka does it better than her. A short barrage from the Strike Zeta's thigh-mount beam cannons fire in echelon with the Scarlet Beam, aiming towards that same 'link'.
KTS: Roux Louka targets Yuliana Kafim with Thigh Beam Cannon! KTS: Roux Louka has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
It is nonsense. Two truths that conflict cannot coexist.
<"Yeah, it's nonsense! It's nonsense because they can! That's what makes us human!">
How can he know? He can't know that complete disconnect from people that has afflicted Yuliana for so long -- for as long as she's known nothing, Judau has been connected to the world in a way that most couldn't even fathom. And yet...
He says it with such strength and certainty that he has to. That despite everything, despite her very nature making the writ-large, supernatural form of it an impossibility...
Judau Ashta empathizes with Yuliana Kafim in this moment.
And maybe that's why what happens next is just that much more terrifying to witness.
ZZ's reactor is issuing warnings customary after the use of the High Mega Cannon as it kneels on its iceberg, systems recycling. But it's not what its pilot pays attention to. No -- that would be Yuliana, releasing the limiters of the Emptear; Judau doesn't know what that -means- exactly, but he's experienced psychic warcrimes before, and he can get the gist -- and he can hear the desperation in Yuliana's to fill in the blanks that instinct and intuition cannot. Eyes as wide as dinnerplates, if Judau intended to answer Yuliana's question -- it's left to the wind as that dancing transformation takes place, as the heavens scream for her.
Judau's hand snaps out, as if he could reach Yuliana within his cockpit; so attuned to the Biosensor as he is in these moments, the Double Zeta echoes the gesture.
<"Yuliana, stop! You don't gotta--">
It's too late. The force of Yuliana's dance CRASHES into the Double Zeta and its melting, fracturing ruin of an iceberg; the first shockwave knocks the mobile suit off of its sinking perch, only the sudden counterthrust of its rockets able to keep it from falling into the icy waters.
It's spreading. That oppressive feeling. It's spreading everywhere. She's trying to open something -- she's trying to make everything like this -- she's --
-- she's in pain!
"Damn it all! I'm not lettin'--"
Judau's hands grip on the controls of his machine.
"--anyone else--"
The Biosensor pulses.
"--lose sight of what they can be--!"
And a shimmering barrier of scarlet resolve encircles and emboldens the Double Zeta as it -thrusts- forward towards the heart of that growing storm, weathering the building force and sickening empty unease with pure, stubborn willpower. Beyond, he sees Rena on the approach, despite the risk -- and he sees Leina chasing after. He fights back the natural impulse to shout at her to stay back. He still can't help but cry out an alarmed, worried, <"LEINA!"> to the howling winds, but the sentiment is different now.
He can't stop her; he won't stop her.
But he can help her.
Thrusters cut off; but for a brief, few moments, it stays suspended in mid-air. Within the cockpit, an aura of red and magenta surrounds Judau Ashta as he watches - as experiences, in the visceral way any human can - the pain and horror of another person tearing themselves apart in the desperate hope for love and acceptance. For a moment, he stalls, feeling so strongly the terror of what he is laying eyes on, and how much it resonates.
<"I...">
It's unlike anything he's ever seen; it's painfully close to so many things he's seen.
A horrible contradiction that is no less true.
And it's knowing that, that steels him. It's hearing Elisa's voice that emboldens him. And it's his sister's empathetic gambit for this complicated, frustrating, terrifying, lonely woman that inspires him. In a moment, the Emptear takes the Banshee's arm. Roux calls out to him for cover. Sayla asks him to get into position to pull Leina back. He closes his eyes.
<"I've got your back, Roux,"> he promises. <"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. But I gotta... I gotta try something, or else I'd never forgive myself. ... I'm... gettin' into position now, Sayla. If anything goes wrong...">
Roux and Leina's safety are his top priority.
And the Double Zeta falls in beside the Banshee; rather than aggress, it rests one hand on its shoulder, as the Biosensor seeks to help strengthen the Psychoframe inside the black and gold Unicorn -- a symbolic gesture more than anything, to support and embolden his sister inside to do what she has to.
Its other hand?
Stretches out towards the Emptear in offering.
<"This doesn't have to be you,"> Judau Ashta says, simply. <"You don't... you don't have to hurt like this. The world's not against you. Look around you. There are people who care for you, who wanna accept you, if you'll just let them. They want to save you from this pain. You're not alone.">
There are people who hate her here too. People ambivalent to her. People who want to stop her.
But isn't that life?
<"Good an' bad -- there's more for you out there, Yuliana. Just... let us help you.">
Maybe it's not the wise thing to do, but then...
That's just the Ashta way.
KTS: Judau Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Sayaka Yumi rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sayaka Yumi's Scarlet Beam, taking 3900 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Sayaka Yumi's Light of the Future activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Sayaka Yumi begins a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sophia Mayhew Castellan's GN-X Beam Saber Through And Through, taking 4275 damage! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan completes the Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Roux Louka's Thigh Beam Cannon, taking 3450 damage! KTS: Sayla Mass targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Sayla Mass has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Sayla Mass's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Luanova Luckwright targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Luanova Luckwright has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
The entire chassis rattles and shakes as the Jagd Doga again skids backwards, the ice threatening to drop the machine into the arctic waters once again. The clawing feeling of the Void sits on the edges of her senses; the twisting of thought and connection reaching a sickeningly sweet crescendo in her gut. If she makes it out of here, she's going to be having a bad night. N-No, she will. Absolutely-- there's no giving up for any of them.
Ascending with a flare of jets and carrying herself backward to the discarded base jabber for some stablity -- and hopefully a raft that she won't fall through the breaking ice-- the pilot has a moment to catch her breath. And, finally, Shelby Korts says the whole swear. "<Fuck your duty!>"
"<It's not -- you don't have to do this. Look!! Look at yourself!!">
There's an uncharacteristic focus to her voice that is very, very rarely there. "<You have to stop this, Kafim. You can't change the world for the better like this! You're hurting people-- yourself!! You're-->"
And then her sister comes screaming in with the saber poised to strike down the Voidborne machine... or the woman inside. Conflict screams in her own heart; a desire to see her sister be safe, a desire for Yuliana to be stopped, and fear--
-- fear this might be the only way?
No-- Leina. Leina's got her hands in this, in the Banshee, with Judau, and Sayla hovering over them. Her mouth pulls into a flat line. "<Rita wouldn't want this,>" she echoes, her fingers growing tighter on the control sticks.
"<Please!>"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Lua's words do ring out to Elisa. She hears them, from Lua's cockpit. And she scowls over her scrying. She will not admit to this girl that it is not what she had in mind. Not now.
Instead, she watches Leina reach out. She realizes, that Yuliana is Apart from her for now. ...And she eyes the sky.
"Hmph," the voice says to Asciel. "Yes, you are more than you once were. But do not think to understand me so easily." She doesn't argue Asciel with much venom this time, though.
Elisa cannot hear the Omnisphere's echoes. Not as she is now. But she can hear much else. She can hear Anita's arguments. Her talk of imbalance is irrelevant to her--until--
They have to stop, she says, and Elisa's hand curls into a fist, invisible to all where she sits. Until Sayla yells to her. "No, damn you!" Elisa shouts back, angered. "I made that machine to protect her from these powers, not to amplify them!"
"Tch!" she answers Sayaka, and nothing else--focusing on Sophia as well. "You--"
She knows of that myth. But she can do nothing in the moment to prevent Sophia's attack. Roux speaks of the 'real' truth, and in the face of all of this, Elisa is given some pause. Perhaps there is indeed something she has not seen, for this outcome to come about...
But Elisa hears Judau's confident response. "I... was sent to this world to learn of 'humanity' for my wife," the Voice murmurs.
But they reach out to her. Even as She is denied, they reach for Yuliana.
"Fools," she says. "You... You reach out, for...For the one I..."
"Yuliana..."
She says no more for now. She is busy with action, not words.
<Pose Tracker> Nunnally Lamperouge has posed.
BGM Shift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_5FBuw9wk Fall Out Boy - Love From The Other Side
In the end, Yuliana cries out for help.
She cries out because Elisa can't help her -- is anguished to see her this way. She cries out because she is killing herself -- and she has never wished to die, though it seems so often demanded of her.
As she clutches the Banshee, she is rocked, from the side, by Soma's judgement. Those spidery legs catch her before her own -- and, strangely, she throws the Banshee away as the blast comes down, as if to stop her from being caught in the blast. "That's... what I thought," she grits out, as she straightens, only to sag again. "You fear me... you hate me... there's no coming back from what I've done." And she is dismal, to say it.
"Yes -- it is -- my responsibility to see this through," she hisses, to Sophia. "For I am the only one who can do this. And... my God will come here... and my wife will be whole. The Empress -- would not separate us." But it was Emptear Her vast claw grasped at, before Leina pulled her out of Her reach. Still does She lash at the air where Emptear was, grasping blindly.
And Sophia, like Soma, judges Yuliana worthy of death -- but when her saber plunges into Emptear's heart, she will feel the deathly chill of the Void. She does not carve the cockpit; she could not. It is not here, in this reality, precisely. It is surrounded by a moat of blackness, cradling it, protecting it -- and Sophia may feel, as her sword plunges in with such deadly intent, three claws pinching it and pulling.
She can carve herself free, but she is posed with a harrowing question: could she fall into nonexistence, through Emptear's heart?
"Still... you pity me?" She says, to Asciel. "I am the only one -- who can do this. I must do this. Nn... She insists I must do this," Yuliana clarifies the intent, mind still forcibly clearer after the Banshee's intervention. "If I can't bear this much... Elisa's counting on me, too...!"
Her world becomes static, though, and --
Leina isn't the only one who's spent too much time in sensory deprivation tanks.
Asciel's attack, if anything, works too well. "NO!" She screams, and Emptear throws herself wildly across the ice, hands splaying out even as those dark protrusions catch herself. "NO, YOU CAN'T! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" And Emptear's hands pound at a place in the air, where Yuliana throws herself against the wall of her dance hall, pounding at the Voidframe there. She can't hear Tessa's voice -- she can't see her, either.
And by the time the Lambda Driver's static fades, the Dummy Missiles soar in, exploding about her head with concussive force. She staggers, and coughs, again, that awful, too-damp sound.
"This is how it's always been," she says, when she finally -- blessedly -- hears Anita's voice again. "It's always hurt. It hurt when the floods came... it hurt when I was a soldier... it hurt when I knew Her. Day by day, it hurts. My devotion... is built through pain. And you're telling me... that's wrong...? What am I to do with such a ridiculous..."
Her breath hitches, and let us imagine it is just the effect of her lungs, less a third of their defences. "Elisa promised it would be better," she says, as Nova's voice comes through. "When the Void comes, it won't hurt any more. She'll make sure it won't hurt any more..."
Sayla doesn't have to cut the Banshee's arm off, thankfully -- Yuliana's already thrown her away, to save her from the GN-X's onslaught. It takes her this long to respond to her, though, as she draws in another rattling breath. "If... that's so... why wasn't it you, coming to the Institute to save me, after that party in China?" She says, as Emptear's eyes -- one shattered from the onslaught she's withstood -- turn to the Hi-Nu. "If everyone reached out for so long... why was I left to suffer? You didn't see -- you did not wish to see," she accuses her, wounded.
"Nnn--" She grits out, clutching her teeth. "But... maybe I'm being harsh... I even ignored Elisa's attempts to help for a long time, after all. But I was trained that way, damn you! I was not permitted to seek help! I was... I was a secret..."
Emptear sags. Who is trying to destroy her, right now? "... She is... trying to help me. This is... how She helps me..."
She turns to the Scarlet Beam, and can't bring herself to dance from it, now. "I wish I could believe that," she says, to Sayaka. "It would be... nice. It's what I wanted... to do, but... you don't want me." A pause, "Or... you don't want me to help... I don't know." And how is it that she is so confused between her acts being rejected, and herself being rejected?
"But, if I stop... if I stop now..." Roux's Thigh Beam Cannon rocks Emptear, and again, she staggers. "I am not brave," she tells her, despairing. "I am just very stupid."
And here's Judau. Perhaps the Banshee is still close enough for him to reach, though Yuliana threw her out of harm's way when her executioners came in -- Leina is devastatingly like that. It also means that he is the one to reach out to Emptear's hands, still empty of any weapons, in offering.
There is a moment of silence -- it is the manner of the Void -- before Emptear reaches out, to grasp the ZZ Gundam's arm. "I don't know... how I can believe that," she says. "Even now... I am sentenced to death. But -- God -- I wish I could believe. I... I'm scared... Judau. I'm... so scared." She's dying, moment by moment. On the precipice between the Void and physical reality, the changes the Empress makes to her body are too extreme -- too much for one way of existence.
And finally -- the other sister.
"I can't," Yuliana says, in despair. "I can't look at myself, Shelby. I am blindfolded. I've been blindfolded ever since I went mad in this machine and tried to rip my heart out of my chest." And her voice is smaller, as she adds: "I don't... want to look. It hurts... She gave me more legs so I could keep dancing for Her. She made them from my flesh. My bone. I'm..." More perfect?
But she's not the only one who's changed so drastically, and Yuliana gasps -- a pained sound -- as Shelby invokes Rita. "Ritechka..." She says, the nickname just as painful. Emptear's hands clutch at her chest, and she, at least, feels the raise of the third, sixth, ninth rib, flexing and lifting from the cage which protects her heart, making room for...
"All I may do," she says, all gripped with her own futility, "is dance."
The sound of her breaths are so pained, now, rattling.
"She is almost here... and, I..."
Not without difficulty does Emptear straighten, as her ribcage continues its efforts to supplement her legs. The shadow-play they see, out there, is mercifully vague: six spidering sticks of darkness, bending down from within Emptear's black central abyss to skitter across the ground. But straighten she does, and she reaches to grasp the beleagured Gaia Gear, as if the four eyes on Emptear's eternally-grinning mask could somehow stare through the cockpit to Rena's eyes.
"It hurts... doesn't it?" It hurts. She has pushed herself so hard, and all she receives is more... "You feel it... as I do." To share common feelings with Rena...
"Dance with me," she says, to the smaller machine. "I am -- wounded. I come apart. I cannot do this alone. But you, now blessed... what turns open may be locked away. We... can stop this. Before it is too late. I know... your people tell you to stop, but... help me. I... you, will not come to harm."
She is large enough that it is not a question, but Yuliana waits for affirmation, anyway. Emptear leads the Gaia Gear on a black waltz, one-two-three, twirling across the sickly green ice. But the Awakened may realise first that this is different to her pirouettes from earlier -- the cracks in the sky do not yawn WIDER, as she turns.
Once, she called herself the Key and the Lock of the Gate.
And unable to ignore everyone's arguments, she turns, now, clockwise. To tighten -- to secure -- to close.
Overhead displays and consoles scream with flickering green readouts not from their machines, as the Empress's heart SCREAMS through the fissures in the world. Her feelings, caught and transliterated by those machines, read:
CEASE MY GATE OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN I AM ALMOST HERE OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN MY GATE HEED ME
"Forgive me," Yuliana says, as blood trickles down her pilot's suit, "if it's like this, I can't..."
And the anguished scream which echoes out through the Earth needs no translation.
Those monitoring the Earth will see it as surely as they hear, though: the way those root systems, not entirely of this reality, recede with each twirl and revolution. The Power leeches from them; they shrink, and finally, fade entirely. Close monitoring is crucial, because it is in their unmaking that the method of their unmaking is revealed. Observing the Locking phenomena --
-- may well provide the world's scientists with a basis for counteracting Void phenomena themselves, using similar principles.
And if the people here had not tried to speak reason -- had not tried to reach out -- it is a tool they would have never known.
Except...
This dance is just as demanding, even with eight legs and two. (Ten, the number in total, inscribed in one world and another.) But just as she promises Rena, Emptear shields the Gaia Gear from the consequences of closing the way. And when the Earth is released from the Empress's garden, the Gate closing not a second too soon, one scar remains: that horrifying green power which clutches the ice sheets of the North Pole, cold and terrible. Rena will know, though it may be horrible to know, the impossibility of healing this scar tissue; with her corruption, she feels the way the world has been torn into, here, another existence leeching out.
(Just as Yuliana lives.)
They can try to lock it away, but it will never heal quite the same.
"I --" Emptear slows in her revolution, and finally releases Gaia Gear, sinking to a knee. Those awful black spindly legs splay too far apart, to either side of her, in a skirt spread too wide. Don't think about what it means. "I tried... I cannot. There are things done which yet cannot be undone," as her claw grasps at her chest, to grasp at those strange dark protrusions, "through paths yet untaken. Damn you... are you satisfied?! I almost had Her! I could have... reunited my wife! But the Change -- the Change -- ugh," she coughs, and the sound is still terribly wet. "I don't know... why you care..."
She draws a breath. It hitches, and rattles, expanded too far out and released by too many paths. "I go," she snarls, in spite of any desire to arrest her. "I must... answer... for what you have had me do." And they may get the impression that she will not be answering to the people of Earth, today. Vicious, she snaps: "Zhenushka! Take me!"
The green portal which consumes Emptear -- all sixty metres of her -- is not under Yuliana's control. The shade matches the green of the ice, now. And as soon as Emptear has been set down and Yuliana is inside the Silent Castle's walls again, the palings rise, a green force-field blooming over the Castle to abjure any visitors.
What she leaves behind...
The North Pole has no ground to speak of -- the furthest north soil is their Kaffeklubben Island, some paces from this place. But the ancient ice sheets which have collected here over aeons are now possessed of a terrible green shade, and analysis will make it immediately clear:
The ice of the North Pole has been infused with the Void's magical power.
Such a thing presents clear dangers to the world -- not least that anyone could come and mine this ice, if they wished to grasp the powers of the Void for themselves. The evil energy collected here is a strain on the heart, for those who stay too long; while the effect isn't nearly as pronounced as Green Fold crystal, it's easy to suspect one could be corrupted, surrounded by this power for too long.
One solitary blessing remains here, like hope left at the bottom of Pandora's canopic jar: the global warming which threatened to reduce these ice sheets to nothing is no longer a concern. Worries about this ice melting on its own and seeping into the world's water supply are soon assuaged, because the Void-infused ice here is far colder than anything around it. It can be melted, and even made into steam, with sufficient effort -- but it takes effort. Given enough time, that steam collects back into water, and the water freezes back into ice. The Void is a cold, cold place, and so are its scars.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I-I'm all right--" Rena tries to answer Leina, but the lie dies on her lips rather fast. After all, something is clearly wrong; the Psychoframe on the Gaia Gear Alpha has strange, pale green light and its usual dark blue coming out of it, and there are crackles of black energy coming from it.
"Something's... something's wrong with the Psychoframe," Rena answers Anita. Then, to both of them: "R-Right, I'm pulling back."
The Gaia Gear's thrusters fire and it begins to move back from Emptear, even as more shots hurtle up for the Emptear. "I understand, Dr. Yumi."
It boosts backward, but not away yet -- and there is a moment of hesitation. Blessed?
Rena blanches.
But if they can stop this, then--
"...All right. Let's stop this, Yuliana," she says, trying to not let the way the Emptear's eyes seem to look through the Gaia Gear Alpha and to her. The damaged white Mobile Suit falls in with the Emptear.
And together, they stop it.
The Gaia Gear floats, after it's done; it hovers backward, over the angry green scar. "She's... you shouldn't destroy yourself, to do that," she says. "And you shouldn't have to answer for anything."
The Emptear is pulled into the portal. Rena sags backward in her pilot's chair, then breathes out.
"...We better get out of here," she says. "And get some probes on figuring out what all of this is."
Teletha Testarossa has disconnected.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua hears no response from the witch Elisa. It doesn't surprise her. If anything, it would have been a frustration to hear. She has the sense not to speak back to this.
The Myrmecia descends through the air, approaching the Banshee slowly from behind. There are the other units there that she is not as familiar with, the Double Zeta that reaches out its hand in turn, the Hi-Nu. Lua doesn't know who pilots these units, but she expects that likely they have more experience backing up Leina than the little she has. If Judau and Sayla allow it, the strange wanzer approaches close enough to place its hand on the Banshee's other shoulder. This is more than a gesture, and perhaps Leina can feel Lua's invisible veil drape over her and her allies through contact. All that seems to be left is for Lua to hold her machine together, and through that veil, hold any damage done to the other units steady and prevent it from worsening. To extend a protective field if something suddenly dangerous should happen.
Something suddenly dangerous does not happen. Myrmecia hovers there for now, silently, looking out at the poisoned arctic ice.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It's not like Leina expects everyone to follow her lead here. She understands, that most people will feel no compunctions killing her to stop this.
She's dangerous. What she's doing now could destroy the world.
Choosing to try again, and again, and again, is it's own form of selfishness, and like Sayla said - she's suffering for it. She's hurting just for what once again will almost certainly result in rejection.
Yet, Emptear seizes the Banshee's hand, and curls around it, around its arm. And to her cry for help she says two words...
"<I'm here.>"
It's a simple statement to someone who's scared. Indeed, simple statements are becoming harder, as the Void Empress tries to claw away at parts of her. Her face twitches under the assault, beneath the helmet of her pilot suit.
It's not long before the Banshee is shoved away out of the line of fire, but the resonance does not break. It was never based on touch anyway. Just the idea of reaching out to someone.
Her focus is almost entirely on enduring as long as she can. Keeping the connection, taking all of that on.
Maybe she will die here today, for what she's done, but she doesn't want her final moments to be tortured by that thing, from making a bad choice out of misguided devotion.
At least she won't be alone. It is her denial through Soma's actions.
"<... You say that but... even Char came back.>"
Sayla is of course, against it, which she expects, but - there's a distance from her, cut off from her connections, unable to feel her in this moment.
Unable to feel anything but HER.
"<If I stop... then...>"
She lets that hang in the air, the understanding - an attempt to preserve life against all odds, to stall what comes from beyond.
Yet, Roux is there, giving her own try with a side of violence, and a moment later, she hears Judau call her name over the haze of agony. The Banshee feels the Double Zeta there, and there's a vague smile upon her face as she feels the Biosensor bolstering it, despite her struggle to maintain her sense of self against a being that's constantly shredding into her.
Even as he reaches out to Emptear.
She doesn't interrupt him, because he always knows what to say in moments like these, better than her. She only adds... with an extended hand.
"<We're here.>"
'I'm... so scared.'
"<We know. We're here.>"
It is a struggle, to maintain it, as she starts to dance, as she speaks to Renalle... leads her on a Waltz. "<Please... don't hurt... her more.>" Is Leina's plea to Renalle, As things, close. And just at once, she is released, with a gasp.
In the end it closes, in the end she sees what is left on her console.
"<You... almost died.>"
Is her simple statement, to Yuliana's statement. The Banshee's thrusters stay lit, hovering in the air against the Double Zeta. She just rests, in place, catching her breath, trying to rebuild herself off the golden connections that Sophia sees.
It is thankfully, a large enough web that it won't take so long. Yet, soon enough, another is joined by the Myrmecia, behind the Banshee. She certainly allows it, the Invisible Veil pulling things together long enough for her to collect herself.
There's definitely gratitude there.
"<Hey Judau...>"
...
...
...
"<... pretty wrecked. Mind flying me back out to rendezvous to our cop-battleship?>" Yeah that's definitely her making a light joke, to tease him, about his whole 'Cop-bot' thing. "<Promise they won't try to run you for any active warrants.>"
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
If anything about this evening horrifies Asciel in a way that sinks-
It is when Yuliana begs, pleads, screams for help harshest, not from her body being torn apart...
But from the gentle noises of vaporous comfort Asciel tries to confine her in. This thing she would use - this manifestation of her idea that she can defeat the world by ferrying it into a lulling, soft, careful comfort, that she can cradle it and soothe it into resting its restless tumult-
...The fact that her doing so is someone's deep nightmare is...
As the turbulence quiets, as the unthinkable threat to her planet is locked away at the last moment, a shiver races up Asciel's mechanical spine. (It should have no such function.) She falls to one knee atop the solidifying ice, laced with this horrible power, gazing at her own hand, gazing at the scar etched yet again into the planet.
<"...Hah...a god terrifying enough to make even me lose my ~resolve. That angelic dragon which, when I first beheld it, seemed to exceed what I could ~create were I to consume all of the products of humanity's cardinal sin. ...And it was so, so fragile, even then.">
Her hand. The fact that Asciel sees this manipulator she puppets - and calls it 'her hand'. The fact that without even saying it, Elisa can damn her with just what, exactly, she 'ascended' into...
She grips it closed.
<"...Elisa Kafim. I [promised] I would ~become humanity's sole idol. I will not falter, and merely become a-">
...But Asciel can't finish it. She can't say it. She pushes all her remaining willpower, and still cannot overcome that barrier. ...No - the will itself is its own hurdle. It courses through the Lambda Driver, and in trying to deny what that means, denies her that very denial.
<"...kch. Take care of Yuliana, damn it. Now do you see it? Now do you see why the star you reach for is something I pursue alone? ...I didn't need love to save everyone. You don't either. ...You want 'love' to save yourself.">
Whether or not Asciel can forgive that...
<"...Hmph. ...~[Calamity Sealed.]~ My lovely pets, thank you for watching me and supporting me this whole ordeal. Until next time."> As Asciel signs off to her audience and her 'comrades' alike, the ECS swallows her up, leaving a shimmer in the air only barely trackable.
>...no matter what, i must not let ai become my 'key'.
>...i'm too late for that, aren't i.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"Something wrong with the- That don't sound good..." Anita replies with a frown - and then, nods. "I'll cover you, if I gotta."
'This is how it's always been', Yuliana says, and Anita smiles a bit sadly at that.
"...Yeah. I get it. But that don't mean it's what you deserved. You deserved better than that. Than this. So... yeah. It's ridiculous, but... it is what it is." She replies with a shrug.
She goes quiet. Others reach out, too, and in the end...
Emptear entreats the Gaia Gear Alpha for a dance. And of course... Anita knows Rena well enough to know that she'll trust her.
And that trust, it seems, is well-founded.
They dance in the opposite direction... and even Anita can see the way things change. What was started is stopped... for now.
Anita exhales.
"...Thank you." She says, genuinely. And with that, she flies over to the Gaia Gear Alpha's side.
"...Yeah. Let's do that. I don't think any one of us's gotta the energy to stick around any longer, anyway." Anita agrees.
She needs a nice, long nap after this. Under a nice, warm blanket.
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
The pinch of the claws -- she sees....something. Sophia rips her sword out rather than drive deeper, veering the GN-X away. Her eyes narrow slowly, slipping the blade back into its charging rack as she watches the rest unfold...well, what she can of it. Clearing her focus a little lets her witness Yuliana's decision, and the aftermath that comes from it. Lets her see Shelby's work. Amid all this, it's difficult to even tell what her instruments say, but the world around her reveals itself more clearly than any radar through the Seal of Absolute Connection.
She releases a long, tired breath, here where none can see, head tilting back against the seat's headrest.
She flicks her comm. "Desmond. I'm returning," she says, and shifts her direction to the Helios.