2023-02-04: Dispersal in progress... (Chapter 2)
- Log: Dispersal in progress... (Chapter 2)
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim (NPCing Cascade Wattana), Alma Stirner, Treize Khushrenada, Jona Basta, Liam 7-020, Sophia Mayhew Castellan, Ujico Issa, Anita Rosetta, Michele Luio, Rita Bernal, Ennil El, Lucine Azul, Setsuna F. Seiei, Puru Two
- Where: Colombo, Sri Lanka
- OOC - IC Date: 2023-02-04
- Summary: The invasion of the Institute for Continuing Study consists of two prongs: the outer assault to keep its strongest defenders occupied, and an internal search and rescue. This scene details the efforts of those rescuers who fought in their machines to hold the special operatives defending the Institute at bay. (Content warning: brainwashing, dehumanisation, human experimentation, murder.)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pluU6j4g6pw Ego Likeness - When The Wolves Return
A dark-skinned girl creeps forward through sterile while halls, leaning on the pole where her IVs are strung,
that sole source of support and steadiness. She looks up, her brown eyes glimmering, though no sound has broken through
their soundproofed existence. "Something's coming," she breathes, as she stares at the ceiling.
It is a full minute more before the rest of them realise.
And when they do --
It begins elsewhere in Kotte.
The administrative district of Colombo is a place for politicians and powerful men, creating the future of Sri
Lanka from its capital. No wonder, then, that the Shuffles already have an eye towards disrupting it... or at least, the
authoritarian parts of it. (Sri Lanka actually has elections, did you know? It's misleading to still call it a
democracy, but it does play at choice more than some parts of the REA.) It is one of these cells which begin with a
bang, on the other side of the city. They have help, this time, so they're able to make quite an impression!
There are soldiers devoted to Colombo's defence, of course -- and they respond to this attack in force, with
overwhelming numbers. It's the REA way. In fact, the only soldiers who don't respond to wave tactics are those
privileged few...
... the special operatives. And so, as Minovsky interference spreads over the district, only the Nega Force --
the half still in residence -- remain to be shocked by the violence visited on the Institute for Continuing Study.
It comes not like a bullet, but a procession.
In contrast to the Phenex's typical speed, she approaches the Institute for Continuing Study slowly. Precious
cargo is held in her hands, but even beyond that, she wants to be seen. She wants all those who tormented her to know
the fear she saw in the eyes of so many fellow subjects.
Golden wings spread wide. A great bird shrieks with rage, the sound echoing in the hearts of all present.
Vengeance. For everyone I couldn't protect. For what you did to me. For what you did to my friend.
Glimmering in the sunlight, her wings are brought down on an outer wall of the building.
Once. The wall bends from the strain, a large hole opening in the ceiling.
Twice. The wall buckles, collapsing inward. Screams can be heard.
Thrice. Moving in harmony, both shields race in through the destroyed wall, clearing debris and creating a path
forward. All is silent.
Coming to earth, the Gundam kneels, lowering her hands ever so carefully. Someone leaps down, and the Phenex
waits for her to enter the building safely. Once the infiltrators are on their way...
Azure flame ignites. Brighter, hotter than ever before. Taking to the skies once more, the Phenex hovers in the
Institute's airspace. No engines can be heard. No thrusters are active. Only the fire, and the echoing sensation of
bereaved fury.
The Phenex issues a challenge.
Trucks roll in, operatives pierce through that shattered wall -- and for those few precious moments, they have
the advantage.
...---...
"... it's ready for the transition. With this last round of treatment, it'll happily lie down."
Distant words pass over her; she hears them. She does not hear them. She does not need to hear them.
"We'll put it on the next transport out. The equipment is set up over there, right?"
"Yeah, they've got everything tuned up. We just have to get the subjects out, now. Can't blame her for leaving
them 'til last, I guess... some of these things can really be a pain."
"Haha... remember what happened when we had to ship this thing out to this lab?"
"Of course I do! It bit me!"
"Hey, at least it'll be way easier to handle once we vent it -- wait, what's that?!"
There are sharper noises than voices, cutting through the room. An alarm. Her eyelashes flutter, as she hears
heels clicking into the room. She remembers...
No: it's Dr. Devi's voice. "You two -- finish prepping to leave! They're coming for us!"
"Yes, Doctor," more noise, passing over her. She does not quite recognise it as panicked.
"Tell me, Yuliana," and it's that personalised demand which orients her to Dr. Devi's words, "what drives the
wolf?"
Concentric circles. A pattern of sounds. Without thinking, she supplies: "Consumption." Her teeth flash, and she
barely feels the way those tubes are removed from her person.
"Good," Dr. Devi confirms, pushing combat drugs into her subject's veins. "Distract them. Buy us time to escape.
We'll inform you when you may fall back to the extraction point." The pain of the cannula's removal, afterwards, is
distant.
She feels the pressure of her bindings lightening, and shocks the nurse as she RIPS her wrist the rest of the
way from her restraints, grasping the armrests of the treatment chair painfully tight as she pushes herself up.
Her veins are boiling, and she is close to God.
"Yessss..."
...---...
Dr. Devi visits Alma's cell, directly after preparing Yuliana. "We're under attack," she informs her, archly,
as she steps over -- "give me your arm," in careless aside -- to inject Alma with the combat stimulants which will
counteract the chemical restraint they've kept her under. (She hasn't needed much. She's remarkably compliant.) "Your
Captain has already agreed to defend this facility, so I hope you'll see the logic in keeping those attackers at bay,
too. Regardless of your personal feelings... I'm sure you're aware of what can happen when she bites off more than she
can chew, aren't you?"
The harsh old matron of Medical smiles, as she helps Alma up. Though she's of an age to retire, strangely, she's
still quite strong. "So you'll help her, of course," she supplies. "You're such a good girl." Manipulating her subjects
is hardly news to her; she's been doing this for a long, long time.
She will not be joining the battle.
She must prepare her next laboratory... the Experimental Design Clinic.
Dr. Divya Devi, that Titan who escaped any retributions for her crimes against humanity, has been slipping away
from attention and consequences for a long, long time.
One of the trucks isn't moving towards the Institute, but away. It is nondescript, and more heavily armoured
than it appears. There is no way to easily intercept it without diverting from the mission.
Before they pass too far through the Minovsky interference, Devi sends a message, to the wanzers awaiting their
pilots. It does not play. Yet.
She won't be around to say anything, herself. She is not the loyal Captain of this ship. Just like last time,
she's not waiting until all her subordinates are safe to leave.
Let alone her subjects.
...---...
Major Pham growls, as he slams the useless receiver down. He at least managed to get the evacuation order out,
before the Minovsky particles grew too thick. "Those damnable...!" He snaps out, before he masters himself, again. Deep
breath in, deep breath out. Nine more of those, pausing between. "No matter," he insists, to himself. "We've enough
resources here to see to these insurgents. Div's launching the ones of any use, I'm sure... though, since we
integrated those things into Ypotryll... tch," he clicks his tongue. "So it will just be those two capable, then.
Including... her..."
He pulls a remote, from his desk, and brings it with him as he leaves his office and issues his orders. "Cadet,"
he addresses Cascade, "suit up. It falls to us to defend the area."
With a breath of a pause, he adds: "I will fight, as well."
There is a hangar associated with the Institute -- and one attached to the Nega Force's offices, too. Two mechs
launch from both sites, in the smoke and the confusion. One wanzer, from the offices... and one more, from the
Institute.
The emerald-painted form of Annihilation, Yuliana's custom Tiandong 3, is armed to the teeth as ever: its axe on
its chain, that flamethrower she equipped with a bayonet, the chaff launcher at its shoulder. And Yuliana is the one
who breaks the silence, first: "COME ON! Every last one of you worthless wretches -- I'll eat you alive..!" She sounds
so animate, transmitted through her radio. So alive. Too much, perhaps, all turned to 11, sharp and loud.
The four-legged tank of a Taita which trudges from the Nega Force's hangar lifts a voice to open communications,
just the same. Perhaps you've heard him, once or twice, on the news or internal Federation reports -- Major Pham Van
Vinh, the man living in the shadow of the DHZ disaster which defines his career. Or, perhaps... did define his career,
until now.
(During the One Year War, he devastated Jiyuan City based on poor intel; many, many people died, and so did the
area's future. The Nega Force has been unwelcome in the Henan province since the team was formed in 0094; Pham was
unwelcome long before that.)
"You have assaulted the Da Han Zhong territory of Colombo, Sri Lanka," he informs them, stern. "And you will be
met with deadly force. I am the REA's Major Pham, responding with my squadron, the Nega Force. I assert and witness the
unlawful aggression visited upon us today... and the Republic will not forget."
"The Republic is strong!" Captain Yuliana Kafim screams, as her flamethrower flares out, jets of flame which
clear space between her and their foes. The weight of that bomb collar around her neck doesn't stop the devotion
spilling from her lips. No -- right now, it can't.
"The Republic is strong," Major Pham echoes, far more calm, and his smile is audible.
Through general radio channels, a voice -- female, but indistinct, with the familiar modulation of a voice-
changer -- comes through. "Presence of Captain Kafim confirmed on facility mobile suit defense team. Current mental
status unknown. Expect heavy conditioning." It's the last warning that mystery woman, secretly Leina Ashta, will give
the distraction team before she disappears into the facility.
KTS: Yuliana_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 5 opponents. Jona Basta teleports in.
KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has joined Elisa Kafim's bucket! KTS: Jona Basta has joined Yuliana Kafim's bucket!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
'Cadet,' Pham addresses her, 'suit up. It falls to us to defend the area.' And that's it. That's the mission. A hopeless cause to defend an area that's already basically destroyed. This? This is
Cadet Cascade Wattana's life. Cascade Wattana... Nickname 'Canary'. Not a fan of that nickname, either. But so it goes. Her Captain is out there, and the Major, well...
"Yes, sir," Cascade says, bitterly. There's no particular way out of this one. But when he says he'll fight too, she blinks in surprise. "That's a thing."
Close up: the wanzer that approaches from the office. The Laiying 1 is squat and stocky, a short mecha with huge shoulders, a wide frame, and a serious quantity of missiles. It is gray, blocky, and it is here, ready to oppose the aggressors. "All right," Cascade says from within the cockpit. "Let's do this." Nobody is likely to hear this; her radio's not on. But she has to psyche herself up a little for that.
And then, as the three mecha rush ahead, the Laiying hefts its big rifle, pointing around at the assembled folks as she approaches from Pham's other flank. The unit turns on its horizontal axis, as if threatening all before it. She doesn't waste any rounds on posturing, though. No, she's going to need all those she can get.
"The Republic is strong," Cascade agrees, though if you listen real close she doesn't have the steel in it the other two do. She sounds kind of tired. She catches herself, "So get ready to eat shit!"
Yeah. That'll do.
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has deployed in SVM-01 Union Flag Sophia Custom. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has changed loadout. KTS: Jona Basta has deployed in RX-9B Narrative Gundam B-Packs.
KTS: Ujico Issa has joined Elisa Kafim's bucket! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has joined Yuliana Kafim's bucket! KTS: Lucine Azul has joined Elisa Kafim's bucket!
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
With a slightly tired groan, Alma rouses from sleep. She's been so numb these last few weeks, since Yuliana left for
JOSH-A; unlike all the other times she's woken up, though, something feels urgent. "Something's coming," she says, dazed
as she starts to rouse. She's supposed to meet Rita -- supposed to come together with Yuliana's old friend, to do right
by her --
It's Dr. Devi who gets to her first. She extends her arm without a second thought, only barely feeling the needle
sliding into her. "Aah?" she starts, with a sharp intake of breath. "Yulie's back...?" And apparently, she's instantly
placed herself in danger... Alma has to make sure Yuliana gets to the other side of this. Even if she can best help
Yuliana by leaving her -- even if Yuliana wants to throw her away... it's her duty to give her the chances Killy gave
her, years ago. "I can help her," she answers -- and there's something liberatory to it. "I can protect her!"
She feels her blood start pumping again -- she feels amazing! "Of course I can help her!" she says, expression bright.
"Just -- show me to a mobile suit! Yulie... even if I'm not useful to you anymore -- I'm going to get you through this!"
As it happens, the recent shakeups in Londo Bell have led to several mobile suits being returned to state backers. One
such mobile weapon -- a mass-production-type Nu Gundam in the long-range fin funnel configuration -- sits waiting for
Alma. As a Newtype whose last suit was full psycoframe, surely this is an adequate choice of weapon for her.
-=-=-=-
Alma's allowed to retrieve her things -- with Yuliana back and plenty compliant, she's allowed to retrieve her usual
officer's uniform and her personal effects. She puts her earrings back on; her choker returns to her with a satisfying
snap.
"Aaah... I feel so much closer to her again!" she exclaims -- though she instantly feels a little sick. ... Maybe it's
the combat stimulants...?
She gets underway.
-=-=-=-
The Mass Production Nu Gundam takes the field. Alma hears Yuliana half-mad and snarling over the radio -- and her heart
soars. "Yulie! I have your back! Whatever's coming... I'll show you you don't need to throw me away!"
This isn't right, something nags at her -- she ought to be calling for Rita... but she has to help Yulie!
Shoulders hunching as her hands settle onto the grips in her machine, she notices her heartrate spiking -- her whole
body tensing up. "Nnn... ha... Yulie! Let me show you -- what I -- can do! You want to crush them -- but you don't have
to do it alone! If you want to see them all defeated..." She feels saliva welling in her cheeks, feels her whole body
start to lurch -- this isn't a natural action for her.
"Go! Fin Funnels!"
Alma Stirner has never really managed to project her own hostile intent... but right now, it isn't hers that she's
projecting.
KTS: Elisa_Kafim has deployed as a Boss for 3 opponents. KTS: Michele Luio has deployed as a Sub Pilot for Jona Basta!
<Pose Tracker> Treize Khushrenada has posed.
Treize had just gotten back from space not only a day ago, when he had found out that someone had transferred Yuliana Kafim without permission. Lets just say he say people chasing down where those orders came from and will be dealing with that in such a way that they will wish they got off as easy as Murata Azreal. Treize himself had already been on his way towards the REA to confront Major Pham, when the information about the assault on The Institute began, and the Colonel was not against taking advantage of it.
Still he wasn't flying alone, among his squadron of units was Captain Castellan, and as they move to engage he sends a private transmission to her and the rest of the G-Hound squadron, <"To all G-Hound pilots, if you engage Mrs. Kafim disable her, do not destroy her. All other enemies you may engage at your own discretion."> His command is given and then he smiles as he hears over open comms, that the person he is looking for came to him.
The Greif fllies directly at the Taita and stops, hovering a moment, posturing as much as one can in a discount Tallgeese, <"To Major Pham, this is Colonel Treize Khushrenada. You have taken something from me with out my permission and as the leader of the multi national organization of G-Hound that has been instilled with the authority to supercede national boundaries at our discretion. I here by proclaim you an enemy of G-Hound and as such you your opportunity to surrender is forfit.">
The Greif doesn't wait for a response as it raises thit's dober cannon and begins to unleash a round after round upon Major Pham. It would appear that the Major had pissed the Colonel off.
KTS: Treize Khushrenada targets Yuliana Kafim with Greif Cannon Barrage! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
The Narrative Gundam B-Packs awkwardly hurtles through the atmosphere towards its designated coordinates, its bulky silhouette dragging against the jetstream around the metal titan. Aerodynamic, the B-Packs was not, with its ungainly INCOM units and lack of surface treatment rendering the unit barely better than a flying tin can. Frustrated, Jona pulls down hard on the controls, guiding the Narrative Gundam towards the target. He'd have to land a small ways away, or risk being shot out of the air by covering fire.
It would have been a different story if this encounter had been in a colony, or in open space. Unfortunately, the A-Packs was hardly suited for a tactical base assault, despite having vastly superior atmospheric handling. The ensign swore loudly, not caring if Michele heard. Maybe he did want her to hear. Maybe, just maybe, if he complained loudly enough, that witch would actually give him a configuration that had actually decent on-planet performance.
As the Institute came into closer view, Jona took a final swig of his last carton of Rico's Cartwheeling Chardonnay and crumpled up the now empty container, letting it join its two brothers behind his seat in a duct-taped rubbish bin. Yes, you read that correctly. Jona Basta, pilot of a Nu Gundam prototype, heading into a live combat scenario, had drunk 3 containers of shitty gas station wine on the way there. Would he be written up andor disciplined? Yes. Did Ensign Jona Basta care? No, he did not give a crap.
The only reason he had even sortied was because of a possible lead to the Phenex, and Rita. Ties to her, and Yuliana were bundled up in this black site.
The Institute.
As he finally entered the outskirts of the base, Jona noticed movement, and a presence. Or rather, the total lack of one.
Yuliana Kafim.
But what stopped the ensign was another sight entirely. There it was, again. There 'she' was. The Phenex. It was here. Hovering in the air, blue sparks of light falling like raindrops from its psycho-frame. His eyes opened wide even as his heart quickened. Another chance.
Rita.
Something was wrong though. Wasn't Yuliana supposed to be Rita's friend? Then why...no, the time for questions was past. As Jona reached the edge of the battlefield, he cut his thrusters to the bare minimum and began his descent. Pointing one of its shields at Yuliana's unit, the Narrative launched a barrage of its shield-holstered missiles.
KTS: Jona Basta targets Yuliana Kafim with Shield Missiles! KTS: Jona Basta has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam returned to Tokyo-3 yesterday, minus the Long Dagger he took with him "on long-range patrol to reconnoiter Tenchu". He did return with accurate data--thanks to the Nadesico's shuttle pilots, who helped him complete the cover mission--but the Long Dagger suffered "mechanical failure" and is "awaiting repairs". There's just enough of a cover story there to keep NERV from looking too deeply into it. If they press, he is hoping Koji can cover for him, if he's not too busy being violently ill. (Or dying. That's a possibility Liam is triyng not to consider.)
Liam put himself on the emergency deployment roster in the hopes this would help smooth things over. Not two hours later, the call came in from Sri Lanka. The transport team loaded up the Neo Helios, and charged into the fray.
NOW
The drop bay door opens, revealing the cityscape below, and the golden Gundam flying above the institute.
"It's that thing," one of the transport pilots says. "What's it doing here? Be careful, pilot, we'll be in the area--let us know the moment things go sideways, all right?
"...Rita," Liam breathes, and in the cockpit of the Neo Helios, his heart tightens. The Mobile Fighter walks to the edge of the drop bay, and falls. Voices penetrate the Minovsky haze, crackling through the radio.
'COME ON! Every last one of you worthless wretches -- I'll eat you alive..!'
'...you will be met with deadly force. ...REA's Major Pham, responding with my squadron...'
'So get ready to...'
'...crush them...'
The Mobile Fighter's jets ignite, turning its fall into a carefully-controlled descent. It lands on a nearby
street and settles into a fighting stance, barely shaking the nearby buildings.
'...hereby proclaim you an enemy of G-Hound and as such...'
G-Hound, the REA, shooting at each other. The Neo Helios remains perfectly still, though certainly not
inconspicuous as the ASTRA spools up. Liam keeps the heliosphere tight and compact, a dense, glowing aura around the
Mobile Fighter.
"Rita," Liam breathes, hoping the ghost can hear him. "...Something's wrong. What's going on?"
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Liam 7-020 has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
A fortress descends from the sky.
The Hyperion is not a fast ship, she's built for sustained flight not speedy bursts. Still, sometimes you can let the planet do the work for you, as gravity and a slightly reckless Minovsky break brings the Hyperion into view over the Institute some twenty minutes before their estimates said it should arrive.
Immediately, mobile suits begin pouring from inside. But what also comes out is a voice, crackling over the area. A public address. "ATTENTION CITIZENS: This area is now under a comprehensive travel interdiction by the authority of G-Hound!"
"Remain in your homes and places of business! Enemies to Federation and to law recognized by all human governance are in the area! They are armed and extremely dangerous!"
"Any vehicle found in use will be fired upon with live ordinance. This is your only warning."
"Await further instructions."
Sophia Mayhew Castellan puts the hand intercom back in its place, and then whirls on her heels. "Comms, repeat that on all EBS frequencies. Amata, shoot anything that tries to leave the area unless I mark it specifically," she says. She's already in her piloting outfit, a Britannian styled affair, more like an airtight noble dress than military space combat attire.
"Anything, Ma'am?" Amata says, eyes raking across a row of ambulances piling up at the rear entrance.
Sophia turns to face her in the elevator and her face is ice. "Those especially," she seethes.
A few barks from the railcannons on the Hyperion show it means business, plowing into trucks and vehicles in the
Institute lots. Vehicles that have been there for hours - vehicles that belong to the Institute.
Sophia's deep blue custom Union Flag roars out off the Hyperion's flight deck, the linear cannon mounted to its side
while its main arm holds only a large sighting designator. She flicks a switch to begin charging to the cannon. Sophia's
Geass blazes in her eye. Her fingers fly across her controls, tagging vehicles below as Confirmed Safe.
How exactly she confirmed it that quickly is, like, don't worry about it.
Then her Linear Cannon sounds at her, and she tucks the designator in a spare hardpoint to unmount the cannon.
"Major Pham, this is Captain Catellan."
She fires an immediate blast from the Linear Cannon, fit to punch through concrete down to the piping.
And then her lips pull back from her teeth as she screams.
"I challenge you to live through today so that I can enjoy what happens to you next! No false king will save you this
time, you mockery of a pig! I will pry his name out of your screaming teeth!"
For now...the Hyperion floats above, a silent, bristling threat.
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with Linear Cannon Main Charge! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round. Sayaka_Yumi [CIV] 47m None - - - - - Ennil El [000] 1m None 14300 100 46 50 100 Angelo_Sauper [SLV] 39m None - - - - - Killy_Garrett [BLK] 31m None - - - - - Shelby_Korts [SHF] 1h None - - - - - Roux_Louka [LBL] 9m None - - - - - Sheryl_Nome [NGL] 1h None - - - - - Ujico Issa [CSB] 6m None 16600 100 45 50 100 Michele Luio [CIV] 21m None 13000 100 42 50 100 Leina_Ashta [SHF] 3m None - - - - - Anita Rosetta [3SA] 30m None 14900 100 55 50 100 Rita Bernal [CIV] 17m None 15500 100 50 50 100 Lucine Azul [NGL] 13m None 14300 100 53 50 100
<Pose Tracker> Ujico Issa has posed.
Little memories, marching on
Your little feet, working the machine
The interior of Palisade is dark, lit only by dimmed screens. The 360-degree panoramic cockpit is a failsafe. Ujico could pilot her machine blind. It's not her own eyes she depends on, anyway. They're green, distant, unseeing as Palisade's cameras feed directly into her brain.
Will it spin, will it soar
My little dream, working the machine
But the quiet music that she's set to play comes from a normal 'old fashioned' speaker: her new Haro, carefully ensconced into the control dashboard. The slow beat is her heart, the synthesized melody her brainwaves. She isn't [worried] about Yuliana. She [isn't worried] about what they'll find.
She won't let herself be. Emotion is her enemy right now. Ujico needs to save it for later, when it can be her [friend].
And they arrive, and the Phenex sets the plan into action. They're met by resistance, and the sheer bloodlust echoing from Yuliana's voice makes her shrink in her harness. But it's not familiar. Not like that.
The Republic, the Republic, the Republic... She almost blurts out something very rude about the Republic, but
clamps her mouth shut. Apple cuts the music at a simple signal, and Palisade - a monstrous black and red semi-humanoid
machine that lopes on all fours - begins to move in earnest for the closest enemy target. A Wanzer - she doesn't know
what kind, until Palisade's computer feeds her the information. It doesn't matter. They're her enemy. They hurt
Yuliana and they're all her enemy.
Rushing down the Laiying, Palisade rears back on its legs to let the beam claws on both paws ignite; Ujico grits
her teeth lightly and gives a pair of testing swipes across the Wanzer's front.
KTS: Ujico Issa targets Elisa Kafim with Scratching Post! KTS: Ujico Issa has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Anita doesn't really have any connections to Celestial Being or the Shuffle Alliance. ...But, she has friends - and
friends of friends, who've made the effort to get a message out. Alma's been sent to a lab - used to be a former Titans
operation, to her understanding, which already makes it awful in her eyes. Yuliana's there, too. The thought disgusts
her. Alma's... too nice of a person to deserve this. She wouldn't wish it on Yuliana, either, as much as she hates her.
Anita approaches from above, taking advantage of the chaos to get the VF-25 Messiah Rosetta on the scene. She grimaces a
little at the sight, looking over at those present. She doesn't know which, of any of them, is Cascade - she doesn't
announce her presence, anyway. It's probably better if the message isn't known about - but the logo on her Valkyrie
might be enough to make it known that the message was received.
For now, though, Anita comes in for a landing - the Messiah Rosetta descending from the sky, unfolding into Battroid
mode as it drops down in front of the Nu Gundam.
Most people probably think of Amuro Ray when they see the Nu Gundam. Anita, though... she'll always only think of Rena.
It hurts doubly, to see one used for a purpose like this.
"Alma! It's me, Anita! You've got to stand down! Look at what's happening...!" Anita calls out. Can she possibly reach
her like this, though...?
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Alma Stirner with Pass! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to parry Ujico Issa's Scratching Post, taking 2250 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 24920 KTS: Ujico Issa has engaged Elisa Kafim! KTS: Ujico Issa begins a Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.
"She's here."
Parked inside one of the trucks, Michele Luio has a mobile-ops setup in the back, where she's monitoring the battle through the Narrative's connection. She's close enough to be in danger if this all goes to shit, but it's the only way to get past Minovsky interference.
"Kafim gave me enough data...pity what she's been through, but our target is here. Perhaps..." Michele mutters to
herself. She didn't ask - she didn't really want to know - what it meant that Yuliana could eat ghosts. And yet, the
Phenex survived their contact. Is Rita a ghost, then? Or something more?
...or something less?
Her voice firm, Michele turns on the comms to the Narrative Gundam. "Jona."
"There's too much opposition to go straight for her. Fight her friend for a bit, and we might be able to lure her out,
set a trap."
There's no wish of good luck to follow it, just...
A series of defensive data transmission. It's plausible to guess she just doesn't want the Narrative getting smashed up.
KTS: Alma Stirner charges into the attack! KTS: Alma Stirner partially guards Anita Rosetta's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Michele Luio targets Jona Basta with Sparkle! KTS: Michele Luio has completed their actions for the round.
KTS: Alma_Stirner has deployed as a Boss for 2 opponents.
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Her challenge is answered.
I am the Phenex. You've taken someone precious to me. I've come to claim her back.
Perhaps Major Pham's heart is too closed off to hear her, but the Phenex declares her intent anyway. Hovering just before the Institute, her twin shields orbit the golden Gundam, trailing tails of aulic beauty.
Yuliana charges, shrieking with chemical devotion, and Alma is with her. Though this is unsurprising, it still saddens the Phenex's beloved, and she sighs. Perhaps the efforts of Alma's companions will be enough to save her. For now, the Phenex has a promise to keep.
Radiance engulfs her, both shields rising in response to her call. She'll avoid weaponizing her resonant power here, if she can. This is a populated area, and she knows all too well what happens when cities become tools of war.
Just before she extends her arm, the Phenex feels a presence touch her own. This is... a member of the Nega Force. Leina wrote a report on them. Cascade Wattana. Curious, the golden bird tilts her head, and spares a bit of her radiance.
In a flurry of shimmering feathers, a bird very much like a canary (but with two extra-long tailfeathers), soars toward the Laiying 1. She breeches the cockpit easily, spreading her wings up in a display of flame and wonder. Then, settling, she perches intangibly to the side of Cascade's controls.
Hello. My name is Rita Bernal. Why are you fighting?
It is a psychic resonance, rather than a auditory one. Perhaps Cascade will be open to the words of such a beautiful creature?
No longer distracted by this anomaly, the Phenex raises her arms. One of her orbiting wings glimmers with azure flame, then rights itself, its blunted edge aiming directly for the Major. Faster than belief, it is launched forward, bashing against his mobile suit directly. While not fast enough to pierce through the Taita's armor, it is still meant with deadly intention.
Liam's call is heard, the Phenex turning to face him, even as her shield continues to attack the Major. Extending her other hand, she reaches to him...
Perhaps, if Liam is searching hard enough for answers, he will see Rita's rapid-fire explanation in the form of a
vision. A young woman with short blonde hair walking into the facility, her hands bound in front of her. Two guards at
her sides. She finds herself within a waiting room, with two doors just before her. Waiting. Harsh, sterile light shines
from tiny windows. Another young woman approaches her, walking through the doors. Then a small child. Another -- another
-- until there are dozens, flooding around the young blonde teenager.
None of them return. The younger Rita is left standing on her lonesome, before she, too, walks to the doors. They close
behind her, and the vision ends.
In the midst of all she does for the hearts of others, two familiar presences touch the Phenex's soul. She startles, in
the air. For a moment, the enormous Gundam acts much like a startled child, glancing around frantically. There. Her eye
land on the Narrative, then turn to examine the trucks... A psychic wave of love and longing echoes across the
battlefield.
Jona. Michele.
What are they doing here? This isn't how she foresaw-- The Phenex's unbeating heart warms, then overflows, burning with
emotion. This battlefield of men in the shape of monsters is no place for them. They should both be safe, rekindling
their friendship... It's too soon! It's far too soon! If anything happens to them here, it'll all be for nothing--!
The Phenex darts away from the Narrative, away from the trucks that shelter Michele.
KTS: Rita Bernal targets Yuliana Kafim with Phenex Kite Shield Volley! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Rita Bernal targets Yuliana Kafim with Phenex Kite Shield Strike! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Foresee Spirit Command targeting Liam 7-020
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Ennil had been advised not to try flying a Dreissen through the REA's airspace. The Republic is strong.
So. It's not a Dreissen, and she didn't fly.
A mobile suit simply... Steps into space. The void shimmers. Across from the blessed blue light of the Phenex, a different sky opens.
When the sunset blaze retreats, she is there.
<"No more.">
Though her words give no context, her actions do. Sickening dawnlight wisps off the machine, and as its visor turns, its aura seems to stretch with it. Fingers gently extending over the institute, tracing lines through the air. Dancing through the atmosphere, coiled strings of... what, exactly? Still, they trace their way out. Inside the cockpit, Ennil El takes deep breaths. The specific cruelties of this place, she hasn't seen, but... this kind of place is all too familiar.
In time the dawnlight sweeps over Alma, over Cascade, and traces wisps after the fleeing trucks... Though it burns away before it touches. It's when it attempts to close around that well-known wanzer that it simply... curls over itself and dies. She smiles, bitterly. Two wanzers, and that strange feeling that clings to Yuliana.
Ennil's eyes narrow, glimmering with dawnlight and shaded by exhaustion. Her fingers twitch at the controls. She didn't get any sleep at all.
<"Major Pham. You've had fun making them miserable, haven't you? Well. This is going to be fun for me, so fair's fair, I guess.">
The beam machine gun sweeps out, and green light blazes ahead of it. There's no particular care here, aside from a basic effort to avoid hitting the Institute itself.
Any casualties are simply victims of the REA's inhumanity. And this place was left to rot too long. It should have been culled long ago.
KTS: Ennil El targets Yuliana Kafim with Beam Machine Gun Barrage! KTS: Ennil El has completed their actions for the round. KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Treize Khushrenada's Greif Cannon Barrage, taking 0 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Jona Basta's Shield Missiles, taking 3200 damage! KTS: Jona Basta begins a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Liam 7-020's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Linear Cannon Main Charge, taking 3900 damage! KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Rita Bernal's Phenex Kite Shield Strike, taking 0 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Ennil El's Beam Machine Gun Barrage
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
The Dianthus is being put through the gauntlet this week. The custom magenta and black vehicle, looking like a humanoid dancer toy blown to larger proportions, flies overhead, looking none the worse for wear despite being in the cauldron of the GENESIS a scant few days ago. Its pilot, Lucine, is... well, she's had better days. But this is far from the worst she's felt.
Something called out to her, however, when she looked at the report. Maybe it's some type of Newtype insight, or, just as likely, gut instinct, trained into her from her father and fellow older cowboys. Maybe, it's a combination, as well as a restlessness.
< "... Lucine Azul, of the Nadesico, reporting." > The pilot glances over the units assembled, as well as the familiar presences. Rita, especially, as she flies in closer, and also those of Liam, somewhere ahead. Just what is going on?
The Minovsky interference is going to making it hard to contact anyone, much less Liam; but, Rita is proving to be more a distraction, as Lucine begins to sense the outer, vague suggestions of Rita's emotions. Something about surprise, warmth, but anxiety, possibly over the source of the feeling of surprise? Or maybe, she's in danger? That must explain the other underlying emotions of anger.
< "Rita, is everything okay? I'm here." >
Being a Newtype may mean some insight, but Lucine's own leads to... a completely different conclusion. The dark pink 'cape' on the back of the Dianthus unfolds out like a connected mandala behind it, the translucent material of each 'petal' beginning to glow pink.
A wave of expelling energy is projected out, straight at the Laiying 1, Lucine being nonethewiser of the pilot within, or how Rita is trying to contact her.
KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Lunate Crown v.2 Howl! KTS: Lucine Azul has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim charges into the attack! KTS: Lucine Azul rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Elisa Kafim partially guards Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Howl, taking 1350 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 23570 <Pose Tracker> Setsuna F. Seiei has posed.
Setsuna said he'd be here, that he'd help, but... Is it right? Not morally, he has no qualms with what he's about to do. No, is it right for HIM to help? A facility of those broken and abused, do they deserve someone who's broken in their own different way helping them? Someone who can't give them the smile and kindness they deserve? He supposes, in the end, there isn't much of a choice, it's not like he can leave this up to God. No, who he needs to leave this up to is...
"Gundam Exia, moving forward."
The camoflauge system that had been concealing his Gundam finally turns off, reappearing in octagonal chunks as it begins gliding across the ground and towards the Laiying.
There's no warning on the radio for the pilot to surrender, no pretalk in an attempt to get them to step down and see the error of their ways, just a cold blooded assault as the Exia unholsters one of its beam sabers. The Gundam raises the hilt upwards, a thin pink beam of energy emerging from it before bringing the newly formed blade down against the Wanzer, attempting to remove one of its arms.
KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei targets Elisa Kafim with GN Beam Saber Slash! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
A fireball with a heart of iron streaks through the skies above. A red-white plume against a cerulean backdrop, it scythes downwards at a terrible speed.
#RE-ENTRY IN PROGRESS--
#V: 8221m/s
#A: 32,129m RL
A face with features worn taut scans hastily from readout to readout, measuring the air speed and bearing against the half-jammed satellite signals to try and keep the Circular Error Probability (CEP) within a few metres. Combat insertion by re-entry demands precision, after all.
"Found you." Puru Two mutters as she adjust her harness's restraints to combat settings. She can feel the presences long before the smoke and flame clear from her sensors, and she knows her path is true.
There comes a tremendous sonic boom as the fireball sheds its flaming skin, which tumbles off somewhere to explode. The particulars aren't important. What's important is the jet-black Qubeley which leaps from the re-entry sled and swoops over Alma's Nu Gundam, and Anita's VF-25 like a great mechanical vulture.
"Alma!" the girl's voice joins Anita's. A chorus of hope against hope. "Get out of there. Now."
KTS: Michele Luio sparkles, reducing Jona Basta's incoming damage! <Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Major Pham gave the evacuation order first-thing, which, thankfully, means the immediate area is free of
civilians by the time the Hyperion drops. There are still plenty of people in the surrounding area, though, who took too
long to leave -- and now, humbled by the overarching shadow of Hyperion, they can't.
"What's G-Hound doing?!"
"Mommy, what's an enter-dipped-ion?"
"Are they taking care of the terrorists?"
"I'm scared..."
"If G-Hound is here, there's no way those people can hurt us!""Where's the army, anyway?!"
"But... but I thought Sri Lanka would be safe..!"
Dozens -- hundreds of voices -- murmuring, inside.
Inside they stay.
The Taita's cameras focus, first, on the Colonel. "You speak to me of taking without permission -- as you
claim my soldier for your own?" Pham's voice echoes out, and there's a snide sort of possessiveness to his voice,
though his tone remains cool. He feels, at the edges of himself, a murmur that someone -- Treize? -- has come to claim
Yuliana back. "Empty arrogance," he narrows his one remaining good eye, accusatory, as he shoots down his cannon barrage
with the Taita's own cannons. "She is not yours to take."
There are missiles headed for the Annihilation, too, and Yuliana laughs -- "ahahAHAHAHAHA!" -- as she opens
her chaff launcher to meet them with yet more Minovsky interference. She doesn't move, as she does it, though -- and
that means that even as the missiles' paths are confused, they still land around her, and the explosions still rock her
stocky wanzer in place. She roars, with all the passion Pham lacks: "COME ON...!"
And she's the one who leaps forward to meet the Grief, an axe on a chain lashing down against its armour. She
wrenches it back from Treize's mech a moment later, only to swing it on its chain and toss it up to the Narrative
Gundam, seeking to drag Jona down to earth.
The axe disengages, one way or another, so she can repeat the same trick twice -- this time, with the Neo
Helios. "Come on, come on! I'm so fucking hungry! I'll eat you alive, every last one of you--!!"
Oh-HO! Not bad, not bad! You have brought the sun with you, I see! Then, I think I'll swallow it.
Sophia once faced a woman who threatened to eat the very sun itself.
It is clear now, if not then, that woman -- Verdiska -- is Yuliana.
And, her ravenous nature...
The Taita cannot move out of the way of Sophia's Linear Cannon, though its armour copes with the blast better
than the building behind it. (It's empty of politicians, and everyone else.) It does move away from the Phenex's
wings, though, and it's clear those legs do just fine for its mobility. It is demonstrated, again, as it moves away from
Ennil's horrible beam.
"Fun?" He issues, to Ennil. "I think you should look to Captain Castellan, if you're looking for examples of
sadism. No... this is simply the duty the Republic has asked of me. Progress demands."
It demands blood.
"All units," he transmits, to his soldiers, "be wary of the Reben Wolf. Don't get caught in her orange assault."
The Taita's cannons fire on Rita and Ennil -- the two people he'd rather keep at range. The two people Yuliana,
in her rage, has overlooked, as she closes space with the Union Flag, instead. She grasps her flamethrower in hand,
thrusting the bayonet in towards Sophia's machine. "You couldn't keep me from my people!" She crows, triumphant. "My
loyalty is WITHOUT QUESTION--!!"
Laughing, laughing, she screams to Alma: "RIP THEM APART! DRAIN THE VERY MARROW FROM THEM! WHY WOULD I THROW
YOU AWAY, WHEN WE'RE FIGHTING FOR THE REPUBLIC?!"
"It's for the Republic's sake," Pham reminds her, "and yours, as well."
It's a very, very familiar statement.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Treize Khushrenada with MULS-P Grappler Axe Lunge! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with MULS-P Grappler Axe Acrobatics! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Jona Basta with MULS-P Grappler Axe Acrobatics!
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Ennil El with Nega Force Bombardment! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rita Bernal with Nega Force Bombardment! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Heat Warper! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Ennil El has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Ennil El fails to intercept Yuliana Kafim's Nega Force Bombardment, taking 6370 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Sophia Mayhew Castellan, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan blocks Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Heat Warper, taking 1230 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Sophia Mayhew Castellan! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Trust Spirit Command. KTS: [Lucky] Rita Bernal's Miracle Child activates, and luck goes her way! KTS: Rita Bernal successfully Blocks Yuliana Kafim's Nega Force Bombardment KTS: Elisa Kafim blocks Setsuna F. Seiei's GN Beam Saber Slash, taking 1560 damage! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has engaged Elisa Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Worried?" Cascade shouts at Ujico, on intuition more than on anything. "You should be! Anybody that calls her a friend is deluded!" She doesn't bother concealing her voice on the radio. "I mean--the Nega Force isn't taking prisoners today!"
That's when Ujio's Palisade rears back with its beam claws--Cascade tries to make her Laiying shove its weapon up into the Palisade's chest, but isn't fast enough to avoid the blow, taking deep scratches on its blocky front. "Gh--"
A little bird perches on her controls. "What the FUCK!?" Cascade exclaims, over the radio because she forgot to turn it off. She remembers a moment later, though, when she thinks of talking back. "Great. I am cracking. Goddamn hearing voices..."
"Whatever. The boss is already breathing down my neck. As long as I can push through..."
Lucine's machine is... interesting. It kind of pisses Cascade off. "What, you've got a cape?" Cascade says to Lucine. "More like a BURIAL SHROUD!" She's tense--Lucine can feel it. But it's not anger at Lucine that floods through her. It's fear. It's frustration. It's something else.
So Cascade's Wanzer slams straight towards the Dianthus, charging into the attack instead of trying to dodge the wave of energy. It mostly diffuses along the blocky machine, even as Puru Two's unit comes in--
RIta's fragment will see Cascade's eyes widen. But she can't call out to her. She can't reveal--
'For the Republic's sake.'
"Right. Avoid the orange. Yes, sir!"
Then the Laiying 1 whirls with its fist straight out, slamming towards the Dianthus in an effort to clip its wings in a single blunt strike. Then, from the other side, she starts unloading missiles, her wanzer's shoulders opening up to let loose a spray of them at the Palisade!!
"The shit is THAT?" Cascade mentions as the Gundam simply disappears. There's a cold blooded assault all at once. But her intuition kicks in; Cascade moves to block with the Laiying's shield. "Oh, so you're just gonna fight, huh? Yeah. That's better."
"Take this!" More missiles pour out of the shoulders, straight for Setsuna's Gundam Exia, all aimed around the Gundam's sides to try to converge in the center!!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Setsuna F. Seiei with MULS-P Dual Launchers Blast Volley!
KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with MULS-P Knuckles Disorienting Blow! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Ujico Issa with MULS-P Dual Launchers Cooperating Shot! KTS: Jona Basta fails to rush. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Jona Basta, forcing it into close range. KTS: Jona Basta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Grappler Axe Acrobatics, taking 3625 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Jona Basta! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim anchors Liam 7-020, forcing him into close range. KTS: Liam 7-020 blocks Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Grappler Axe Acrobatics, taking 2750 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Liam 7-020! KTS: Yuliana Kafim begins a Formation attack! KTS: Treize Khushrenada fails to parry Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Grappler Axe Lunge, taking 5460 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Treize Khushrenada! KTS: Ujico Issa blocks Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Dual Launchers Cooperating Shot, taking 3570 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
The Phenex alights, and Alma feels the nagging sensation she's deferring something. ... she can handle it once she's
sure Yuliana's safe -- everything else is secondary.
The Rosetta opens comms to Alma; she seems fine with that. Her expression is even quite sunny on the teeny video feed as
she gets settled in. "Anita! I wasn't expecting you to have a new IFF, but I'd recognize that machine anywhere..." She
advances toward the VF, taking the Mass Nu into a controlled boost. "I really don't want to do this, but..."
Glancing off to the side, she says, "To tell you the truth, I hate this place, too... I can't let you hurt Yulie,
though. It's my responsibility as her friend... to make sure she has a life after this."
The apologetics stop when Puru Two reaches out to her, though -- her expression sours. "Puru Two...! Don't take me from
her! You were just -- jealous of our friendship, right?!" Her heartrate spikes, and it's not just the stimulants.
"It's okay -- you can be friends with her, too... I don't want to hurt you but... hhh... haaaAaaah...!"
Yuliana tells her to rip them apart and drain their marrow. She's not certain about doing this 'for the Republic's
sake,' but for Yuliana's --
A flare of anger overtakes her and she shouts, "Go! Funnels!" The smaller funnels in the array lance out for the
Qubeley, while at the same time, Alma fires a point-blank missile from the Nu Gundam's shield at Anita's VF. The strain
of projecting outward to the funnels is miserable -- but if Yulie needs her to tear them apart before she can stop
fighting...!
KTS: Alma Stirner targets Anita Rosetta with Nu Gundam Shield Missile! KTS: Alma Stirner targets Puru Two with Fin-Funnel Range Control! KTS: Alma Stirner has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim rattles Lucine Azul, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Lucine Azul parries Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Knuckles Disorienting Blow, taking 1200 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim has engaged Lucine Azul! KTS: Puru Two has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Alma Stirner anchors Puru Two, forcing her into close range. KTS: Puru Two fails to parry Alma Stirner's Fin-Funnel Range Control, taking 3380 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Alma Stirner has engaged Puru Two! KTS: Anita Rosetta's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Alma Stirner's Nu Gundam Shield Missile, taking 2640 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle!
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
Jona swears violently as the wanzer's axe smashes into the B-Packs, taking a good carve out of its shoulder armor and chipping the plating into pieces. As the axe is withdrawn on its chain, Jona cuts the power to his thrusters entirely and goes into freefall. Placing its forearm shields in front, like a boxer guarding with their arms, the Narrative rams into Yuliana's unit with full force. Without waiting to check if the blow knocked back the wanzer far enough, Jona immediately rights himself and jumps back.
His head was pounding, and not just from the booze. A tugging at the edges of his mind, a psychic tap that never seemed to fade. What was this presence? Rita? What were you trying to say? He shoved the fuzz to the back of his thoughts, focusing back on Yuliana.
You'll pay for trying to hurt her.
Dashing backwards, the Narrative B-Packs lands and then immediately hunches forwards, launching its INCOM units. Whistling fills the air as the bulky wire-guided units adjust their velocity with tiny thrusters and guide units, cruising around the Wanzer like twin sharks circling their prey, entrapping it. With little warning, both INCOMs begin firing in sync, a concentrated sniping from two different directions that even seasoned pilots would face some difficulty avoiding.
"Michele! I know you're listening in, damn it. Give me something to work with here, these INCOMs aren't going to be enough under gravity!" Jona grimaced. The Wanzer might have been smaller than his Gundam, but it was far more agile, and its weaponry had been designed for us under gravity. Figures they'd assign a defect like him a unit that couldn't fully perform here either, eh? "Fine then. Bring it on, you bastard! I'll show you how it really feels to hurt!"
KTS: Jona Basta has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim enervates Setsuna F. Seiei, reducing his Morale significantly. KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei blocks Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Dual Launchers Blast Volley, taking 4730 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Now You're Having A Bad Day Too activates, causing Deject! KTS: Jona Basta has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Jona Basta targets Yuliana Kafim with INCOM Beams! KTS: Jona Basta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Treize Khushrenada has posed.
Treize shakes his head and chuckles at Pham's comment, <" Au contraire mon majeur, she was a prisoner of G-Hound, and per the articles of the federation, prisoners are to be dealt with..." > Anyone listening to Treize trying to argue with Pham would here him cite paragraphs and pages and precedence as he argues with Pham that Pham was the one in fact with no legal standing to declare Yuliana to still belong in the REA. That is until surprise Yuliana appears and cleaves off a good section of armor from the Greif.
Treize was prepared to combat the Tiandong and it's pilot but fortunately she appears to find someone more filling then the light minty flavor that is Treize. So the Greif descends towards Pham and his spider like unit as Treize continues talking having only missed a slightest of beat, <"On top of all that I saw your request. You requested a Yuliana Dispersal, G-Hound had captured a Mrs. Yuliana Kafim, you got the wrong person.">
As he finishes his argument the Greif slashes out with the beam saber towards the Taita. After Treize adds, <"You brought these hounds of war upon yourself major.">
<Pose Tracker> Ujico Issa has posed.
Setsuna and Exia are coming in right behind her. Ujico needs to move. It's just that she heard a voice that she really hadn't expected here. [Lucine.] Somewhere distant, Ujico is happy to 'see' her [friend]. Here and now, a flicker of thought marks the Dianthus in her targeting system: Ally, Defend. < "Welcome, Lucine," > is all she can spare time for at the moment, and she almost regrets the voice changer in her helmet.
Palisade leaps away in time for Exia to get its slash in, claws digging up lines from the swiftly ruining concrete. The Laiying's pilot is shouting for a little bit. She mostly ignores it, except... < "Worried?" >
Emotion reaches out for Ujico; she skitters away. Missiles launch and Palisade's arms come up again, this time to defend itself with the chunky shielding weighing down the machine's arms. < "No, I don't think so," > she lies to Cascade. < "Are you?" >
A glance is spared to the Phenex. Rita has things under control. It's not like Rita needs her help, but if she did she would call out. It's the kind of person Rita is. She has no trouble [reaching out].
It's something Ujico really likes about Rita. She wants to be like the people she admires.
On a tightband to Exia, Ujico reaches out to Setsuna. <"If we can remove the arms, it'll be helpless and we can move on, right? If you've got a plan, let me know and I'll do it.">
And in the meantime... Palisade darts back into grabbing range, claws fizzling out as it reaches for the
Laiying's head. Cascade will see a glow - some kind of lens built into the palm - before Ujico extends the beam saber
hidden in her machine's palm.
KTS: Ujico Issa targets Elisa Kafim with UTX-006 Palisade Palm Laser Headshot! KTS: Ujico Issa has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Ujico Issa rattles Elisa Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to parry Ujico Issa's UTX-006 Palisade Palm Laser Headshot, taking 3280 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 18730 KTS: Ujico Issa has engaged Elisa Kafim! KTS: Ujico Issa completes the Formation attack! KTS: Treize Khushrenada targets Yuliana Kafim with Beam Saber 100 Slash! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Ennil El has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Ennil El targets Yuliana Kafim with Fixed Twin Beam Sabers Thrust! KTS: Ennil El has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
<"Call it whatever you like. If bleeding others pleased you for the sake of duty, country, and progress, then that's what I'll burn. You're not the first sad little man I've killed clinging to his uniform like it would carry him out of hell.">
The cannons thump - she goes to swat them away, but the impact tears away chunks of the Reben Wolf's arm, and her
cockpit shudders. It doesn't wipe away the grin on her face.
Like Yuliana, she is baring her fangs.
With the screech of joints pushed past their tolerance, this Wolf leaps - not as fast as her last, more restricted by
physical truth - but no less determined. It simply sets its shoulder and charges, two sabers flaring behind the shield,
to be thrust for the legs that saved him last. Tear him down, make him watch the hollowness of his power.
The hollowness of all of it.
<"None of the strength you've sacrificed for will avert Ruin, Major. If anything, you're all too eager to do the job
yourselves.">
<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.
The Phenex may try to communicate with her, but anything she gets is even fuzzier than Jona. Michele's locked up hard, and she's a Natural to boot. But at the same time, they DO have a bond...
Michele taps the comm. "We weren't supposed to be fighting in gravity. We'll have to lure her out to space...sending firing line data. Don't fuck up the shot!"
Normally, Michele would pretend she divined this.
But Jona knows the truth, as she taps the buttons and tries to enhance Jona's offense. So the least she can do is not
bullshit him - in private.
Musing as she twirls in her chair to make sure the truck hasn't been detected, Michele thinks. Brainwashing on such a
scale...the Titans never died, they just splintered. Creating more victims, over and over.
Yuliana, her support, Rita...how much did she make Rita suffer?
She crosses the thought from her mind. Future focused. "Don't hesitate to kill her if you think it'll get the Phenex to
swap to you. ...but last resort." She couldn't stop them from putting the bomb collar on Yuliana.
Least she can do is not totally use her as bait.
KTS: Michele Luio targets Jona Basta with Heart! KTS: Michele Luio has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Michele Luio bares her heart, letting Jona Basta deal some extra damage! <Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Rita," Liam breathes. The Neo Helios stands stock-still, a giant enshrouded in blistering heat. It's not going to set anything on fire just by being there, but nor does it make any move to intervene. Its body language mirrors that of its pilot: tense, worried, waiting for a response.
Liam gets one, but it isn't the one he wanted.
DIANTHUS IFF IDENTIFIED, PRIORITY ESCORT SUBJECT MARKED
<"Lucine,"> Liam tightbeams back. <"What are you doing here--"> But then space rips itself open and something pulls itself through].
TRIPLE ZERO EMISSIONS DETECTED
The Neo Helios' head snaps up to watch the Reben Wolf's appearance. Zeon machine. He knows the pilot's voice. "<Ennil.>" Realization sinks into his guts like a lead weight. It's the woman who helped with the Garden. She was with Gridman's allies so much they got her a matching suit. Liam thought she was one of them until the matter was clarified. But Rita has a revelation of her own, one far more personally devastating.
Liam's pupils widen, like big, black pits. A choked sob rips free from him, and into the radio. His own words echo in his head, underscoring the images Rita shows him. They were kids. They were all kids. And they were so, so scared. So many of them vanished--more and more, until he was the oldest one left.
The Tiandong's chain axe races at the Neo Helios, seemingly unopposed. That bladed edge rips through Liam's thoughts, and instinct--the same instinct that helped keep him alive in the Crucible--takes over. Vent covers detach from the Mobile Fighter's body, flying through its magnetic field and latching on to its right forearm, building a shield. The axe slams into it, nearly unbalancing the larger machine and dragging it closer.
"CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN, STOP!" Liam screams. Sparks fly from the machine's armor where the magnetosphere wavers, but it holds. Pham speaks up, and Liam's compsure erodes even further. "Monster," he chokes out. It's tiny and tenuous because words never worked on his captors.
Disable the wanzer. Liam hates wanzers, thanks to inadvertent operant conditioning, but he knows where the cockpit blocks are. Plasma erupts from the Neo Helios' palm, shaping itself into a long, shard-like knife. Liam straight-up charges the Tiandong, and drives that knife down at its shoulder joint, trying to use the Mobile Fighter's greater mass to box Yuliana in.
He barely notices Jona, in his own Gundam, facing his own demons.
KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Yuliana Kafim with Starshard Knife! KTS: Liam 7-020 has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to evade Jona Basta's INCOM Beams, taking 2660 damage! KTS: Jona Basta continues a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
The Messiah Rosetta doesn't flinch at all as the Qubeley swoops in overhead. No, if anything, the sight of the mobile suit is a relief.
"Callie." Anita acknowledges with a hint of a smile, before her attention turns back to the Nu Gundam. Alma accepts her
communications - and she can even see her face! ...In any other situation, she'd be glad to see her smiling like that.
"Yeah, a lot of things happened... I should get you up to speed sometime." Anita says with an awkward shrug. Right now,
though, a frown crosses her face as Alma advances. ...Yeah, she doesn't want to do this either, but neither of them
really have a choice in this, do they? The Messiah Rosetta lowers itself into a combat stance.
"...I don't want to hurt her. This place isn't good for her, Alma. Or you. Don't you see what they're doing to her?
There's no life for her as long as she's in their hands." Anita replies.
The Nu Gundam is right in her face, now, with its shield pointed right at her - there's no room to dodge or try to
intercept the missile. Anita braces herself and raises her own shield in response. Briefly, the Pinpoint Barrier
flickers over the VF as Alma's missile detonates. It's not as bad as it could've been, but the machine still recoils
backward from the force of it.
"Careful..." Anita asides to Puru Two. "Her skills haven't been affected any."
With a grimace from Anita, the Messiah Rosetta draws its knife.
"...Sorry about this. I'll make it up to you later." Anita says. The Valkyrie perform an acrobatic pirouette to the
side, flipping its knife in its hands as it moves. It's a distraction tactic. And then, suddenly, it spins - knife
sweeping outward in an arc once, then a second time in the opposite direction!
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Alma Stirner with Acrobatic Sweep! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Treize Khushrenada's Beam Saber 100 Slash, taking 1395 damage! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Treize Khushrenada continues a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Ennil El's Fixed Twin Beam Sabers Thrust KTS: Ennil El completes the Formation attack! KTS: Alma Stirner rushes into the attack! KTS: Anita Rosetta rattles Alma Stirner, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Alma Stirner partially guards Anita Rosetta's Acrobatic Sweep, taking 2552 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta has engaged Alma Stirner! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rushes into the attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Liam 7-020's Starshard Knife, taking 2214 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 has engaged Yuliana Kafim! <Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Not far behind Liam, Lucine calls to the Phenex. Sensing her, but also hearing her voice call through the radio, the Phenex turns to her.
Thank you for being here, Lucine. I'm trying to save my friend. I know she's hurt people. I know she's hurt you. But the horror she's faced in this laboratory cannot continue!
Looking toward Yuliana's machine, the Phenex sends a flare of mystical light toward Lucine, offering her answers, should she wish them...
A blonde teenage girl, clad only in a hospital gown. Fresh scars line the inside of her forearms. Her hair is cropped short, no more than peach fuzz.
"What did they do to you?" Demands a young, adult woman with green hair. Her voice is harsh, but out of love and concern.
No response can be seen from the young blonde, her head lowered in exhaustion and pain. The green haired woman steps forward, wrapping her arms around her soothingly. Somehow, Lucine knows, this is Yuliana.
Setsuna's appearance is welcomed warmly. The Phenex darts to the Exia's side and flies in tandem with him. She darts
away again soon, giving him space to attack -- but the message is clear. She's pleased to see him, and to fly together,
even if only for a moment.
As the Phenex glows with warmth, a new sun emerges to compete with her light. Ennil. She turns to look, sorrow echoing
from her spiritual heart. For now, the corruption is contained, but should it spread... All would be lost. The Phenex's
second wing hovers menacingly, but she turns away. Perhaps, if Ennil's heart is open, she might hear a familiar voice.
I trust you. Don't let me down.
While this is happening, the little bird at Cascade's side seems to laugh, tilting her head at the expletive. After a
moment, she is overcome with light, and when she's dim enough to look at again, the bird has become a young woman! Clad
in a white sundress, with beautiful blonde hair falling to her waist in cloud-like waves. Green eyes look at Cascade
playfully.
Is this better? I'm sorry to have scared you. You don't need to be afraid. You're a Newtype, just like me. That means
you're meant for more than this.
The mysterious girl perched in the cockpit is clearly only half-there, fading in and out with the heat of the battle.
There's another path for you, if you're willing to find it.
The voices of the innocent press against the Phenex's consciousness. Nothing can be done. This is for--
...
Yuliana, tainted with the Void, married to the Witch who would take humanity down a path directly opposing the one the
Phenex's beloved dreams of. Can she say this fight is for humanity? Will this action snap that fragile thread leading to
guiding everyone to her light?
...
The Phenex presses on.
Cannons fire, and the Phenex seems to blur, half-phasing into the resonant plane. Radiant light shimmers around her,
green-blue-pink. The attack simply passes through her, as though she were never there at all.
Yuliana's rage... Nothing the Phenex can do will reach her. No voice, no song, no manifestation. All she can do is try
to destroy their tormentor and bring Yuliana to those who can save her mind.
Distress radiates from the Phenex as Yuliana attacks Jona. Immediately, she darts between them, holding her arms out
wide. Neither of them should hurt the other! It's all just
too
soon.
Desperation. Jona's right here. Michele is close by. Even if this isn't what she foresaw, she has to do something. They
have to know how much she loves them.
Before Jona and Michele both, an image fades in, then out, blurry. A ghost of a mirage. A tiny young girl, clad in Titan
blue laboratory clothing. Her mouth opens -- she's saying something fervently, but no sound accompanies her. Her arms
open wide, then cross in front of her body as she shakes her head.
Ujico's faith reaches Rita in the midst of her distress, calming her. A quiet message is sent her way.
Thank you, Ujico. I'm so grateful for you.
Liam receives the message. The Phenex's beloved's heart twists at his pain, but this was the fastest way to get through
to Liam. The kindest way. With outreached fingers, she sends a blur of warm light his way. It travels into his cockpit,
shining and warm like sunlight. The radiance illuminates Liam's form -- this is who he is now. He's never going to be
alone again.
She wishes she could splinter herself and tend to each of her allies, but after the GENESIS battle, she's barely holding
herself together. The Phenex has to focus all she has on this fight -- and the Major doens't seem to respect her as a
threat yet.
Both shields answer the Phenex's call, now. Luminous and sleek, they charge forward, battering the Major's machine from
one side, then the other. Their concussive force is formidable -- hopefully enough to get his attention. She has a
promise to keep.
KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Liam 7-020 KTS: Rita Bernal has activated the Foresee Spirit Command targeting Lucine Azul <Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
Puru Two can feel the rippling wave of intent before the Fin Funnels have actually launched, and the black Qubeley twists unnaturally to one side as verniers fire in rippling patterns. Alma's rejection strikes her right in the heartstrings, even knowing ahead of time what the REA has done to the woman. But she is practiced in this area, and a moment's regret is tempered in the forge of her mind to red-hot hatred. A blade she knows well how to wield.
"You're being played." the clone's face pops up on Alma's screen, all narrowed eyes, harsh angles, barely visible through the helmet visor. Nothing like the soft-spoken and nervous Callisto. "Yuliana took you away from me. From us. You don't think that hurts us?"
The dodge is too late to truly be effective, but Puru Two knows it. The Qubeley is penned in before it can flee to greener pastures to set up a ranged skirmish, and drops quickly from the sky as a criss-crossing web of funnel fire leaves it with no other option. Partial mobility loss! Advantage: Alma.
A single Funnel puffs out of the Qubeley's berth and soars away, but it lends nothing to the current fight. It, in fact, is wordlessly departing the combat area flying barely 8m off the ground. Like a messenger hound, it's looking for something. Unlike messenger hounds, this one is guided by a genetically engineered psychic, so it actually has relatively little issue in finding Cascade. Cascade may wonder why a black, floating beam-weapons pod on a jet is trying to clamp on to their unit like a dove. Cascade may wonder why there is actually a dove painted on the funnel. Cascade has a lot to think about right now.
The redhead glances to one side as Anita makes contact with her. "Anita, don't go easy on her just because she's sort of my mom." Puru Two warns her partner with one of the most ridiculous out of context sentences we'll see in a while. "If you can't break her out... well. Like you said. Her skills are still sharp..."
The Qubeley turns back to look at the enemy Nu with what one could swear are narrowing eyes, as if cameras could have expressions. "Alma, it's my turn to help you. Like Anita says. This place is hell for people like you, and I, and Yuliana. She's a victim as much as you are! Even if she keeps hurting us!"
There's the telltale hiss of a beam-saber being ignited: a snakelike rushing of wind followed by a bass-heavy thrum that makes ones bones feel as though they might vibrate to dust. The Qubeley makes the sub-optimal (and thus perhaps surprising) move of immediately charging the Nu on its opposite flank while Anita moves in, the two moving in practiced tandem. It lunges moments after the VF-25 spins, trying to spear the Nu's funnel pack. Clever girl...
KTS: Rita Bernal targets Yuliana Kafim with Phenex Kite Shield Dual Strike! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Puru Two has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Puru Two targets Alma Stirner with Beam Sabers Feint! KTS: Puru Two has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner fails to parry Puru Two's Beam Sabers Feint, taking 2925 damage! KTS: Puru Two repulses Alma Stirner, forcing her to disengage.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna F. Seiei has posed.
The Exia raises its shield to defend against the missiles, the blue and white sheet of metal warping under the explosions of the missile fire that slams against it. The shield, much like his life, is expendable, so there's no point in trying to preserve it. At the same time, despite its sorry state, it's too soon to throw it away.
<"Phenex... Sorry, a plan? I suppose... Just keep their movement pinned down and their options limited. Aim for the legs and weapons.">
Ujico asks for a plan, and Setsuna gives her one, or rather, he gives her Lockon's plan that he usually gives him. It should work well enough, he figures. If not, well, they'll simply have to adapt.
Landing briefly, the Exia places its beam saber back in its charging rack as it grabs hold of the two physical swords sheathed on its hips.
There's a brief moment where the machine does nothing, a second that goes on for eternity, before it springs back into action, sprinting across the ground at full speed as it crosses the two blades together. The Gundam crouches low just as it's about to collide into the Laiying, swiping the two crossed swords outwards as it again aims to incapacitate the machine by cutting at its shoulder joints.
Once the attack is delivered, the Exia leaps over the Wanzer, deciding to preserve its running momentum rather than stopping.
KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei targets Elisa Kafim with GN Long & Short Blade Bisect! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to parry Setsuna F. Seiei's GN Long & Short Blade Bisect, taking 4950 damage! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has engaged Elisa Kafim! <Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
On the Hyperion bridge, Amata Kole observes the concern of the people. "Captain," she murmurs.
But the reason was sound. Even one stray body on the street is a hostage. Even one stray body is one of these villains escaping. Would she trade innocents to ensure the monsters of the Institute are captured or killed?
It's not a question. Yes. The answer is yes. If Sophia had her way she would demolish this entire neighborhood. Fortunately, she surrounds herself with people who are used to her idea of proportionate response. Amata watches as the Captain's All Clears begin to appear on the boards. She's being meticulous about it. She's tagging things that aren't even ON the boards. Amata knows to believe her about that.
Below, Sophia looks past Pham. To the golden star of light in the complex, to the threads that scatter out from it like a corona of connection. She's here. Now. She's HERE. NOW.
Fighting. Fighting against this same evil. Her lips split in a wild grin.
Back then, Sophia recalls, when Sophia only knew Verdiska as a witch from Celestial Being, Yuliana threatened to devour the sun. Treize's orders; disable, do not destroy. Does she trust her anger more than him?
She's got to think about that, when Yuliana appears before her. The Defense Rod spins up, churning up the fields of particulate gas that a flamethrower runs on; it doesn't completely spare her, but it does disrupt the assault well enough that she can lash out Yuliana's machine with--!
Her designator?
"You're right. I could not keep you from the hands of these parasites! I have been made a liar, and my oath shown a fraud!"
Suddenly, the sky FILLS with missiles, as every Flag and missile battery in the Hyperion Battlegroup opens fire on Pham and Yuliana at once.
"As compensation, I hope you will accept the heads of every rat associated with this farce! Most especially...!"
She sees it. With only Yuliana, she could not. But here? Now? The light of gold she seeks is a burning inferno, but HUNDREDS of threads here tie off, and she focuses her attention to the sky, as they tangle and rope and surge to a point he cannot follow.
"Divya Devi," she whispers.
"Your love for her betrays her, Pham. No rock under the stars will hide her from me now."
KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully evades Rita Bernal's Phenex Kite Shield Dual Strike KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to intercept Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Hyperion Battle Group Missile Barrage, taking 3740 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
A flash of light brings answers. Lucine startles, but sorts through the images in her mind, as she breaths a soft sigh, and smiles. < "... It's okay, Rita. You had to watch them capture your friend right in front of you. I'm not about to stop you from saving her now." > Lucine, unable to speak back directly, casts her words over the radio instead. < "... If I was in your shoes... I'd do the same as you, right now." >
The voice changer masks Ujico, though something in Lucine senses something... familiar about the pilot of the Palisade. Lucine almost tries to make contact with Ujico to learn more, but Liam's voice comes over her speakers. < "... Likely for the same reason as y--" > Lucine's amused answer is cut off as Liam faces interference from the presence of Ennil. When the interference clears, Lucine's soft voice is on the other end. < ".... I'm staying on the perimeter and dealing with one of the other pilots. .... I have faith in you, Liam. Go help Rita." >
Cascade's Wanzer slams forward, and the Dianthus attempts to use the folding petals on her back to redirect the energy of the assault; they're not built for this, but it's better than taking on the full force of the Wanzer on the Dianthus's frame.
"Gh...!" The Dianthus takes out the glaive attached to its back, wielding it in two hands. Making a swing with it as it floats back, Lucine tries to make contact with Setsuna's Exia and Ujico's Palisade. < "The pilot is frustrated and scared. I think the Phenex is trying to contact them; I recommend we use nonlethal means. There's no telling if the pilot might be brainwashed, like Ms. Kasim is, currently." >
There's no telling what gets through the levels of static on the battlefield right now, but this is all Lucine can do.
KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with CL0-V3 Glaive Stab! KTS: Lucine Azul has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim blocks Lucine Azul's CL0-V3 Glaive Stab, taking 810 damage! KTS: Lucine Azul has engaged Elisa Kafim!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"What you're saying... what you're saying...! 'I hate,'"
Concentric circles. A pattern of sounds. Left to right to left to right, lights shining. She tastes blood and does not recognise it as her own.
"THIS PLACE -- IS OUR HOME!" Yuliana screams, to Alma, at Alma. "Even worthless creatures like the Canary know
that much...!!"
The blood drips from her lips, where her sharp fang split it, again.
Was she biting down?
"Fight seriously, Captain," Pham directs her, chilly. "I will handle management of the team." He has no
intention of micro-managing them, of course. They're performing adequately.
"Sir," Yuliana cedes to him, immediately. "Yes, sir."
The INCOMs fire.
Even with all Yuliana's effort, she can't evade every beam, from so many sides. She is still a Natural, and
she does not have the intuition which warns people like Jona what's coming. "Shit!" She bites out, as the beams rock the
Annihilation. Liam follows through with a blade from Neo Helios, but the Tiandong's armour has been plated
specifically to resist heat, given her tendency towards using her flamethrower in melee. It resists the carving of
that plasma-knife -- and she takes her axe and slashes at him, as if to toss his larger machine bodily aside.
"Stop?" She issues to him, with a mocking thread of vitriol. "Stupid child! No one stops! Else you'd have
stayed home, today...!"
She laughs, as she descends on Jona. "How it feels? How it really feels? Really, how it feels? It feels?" The
words echo in her throat as they come out in mocking jumble, loosely-connected, disparate. "Hahahahaha... I FEEL
GREAT--!!"
But before she can bring her axe down on him, there's the Phenex, perilously close. The Tiandong 3 plants
another foot down, another, and the pressure on her mounts, just as it mounted around Jona -- that horrific emptiness,
hollow and disconnecting. She is someone who consumes --
"Rrrr....aaah--!" Yuliana howls, as she rips herself away.
Shortly, the Reben Wolf has to make a snap decision -- because even as the Taita moves away from Ennil's beam
sword, Yuliana is closing INTO the space, charging for her. "You want to burn?!" She screams, through her open radio.
"THEN BURN!"
She plunges her flamethrower into Reben Wolf, bayonet-first, and it's only Major Pham who can get her to:
"Disengage, Captain!" And so, one way or another, the flame's still pouring from her nozzle as she powers backwards from
that orange light.
The Taita has plenty to worry about itself, though -- like Treize's beam saber, which the tank absorbs with its
armour, but not before it slices through some layers. "Tch," his lip curls, as he looks to the Greif. "The wrong
person... listen to yourself."
His voice remains cold. "These aren't people, Colonel," he offers his correction, steady and stoic.
"They're wetware."
Calmly, he fires his cannons on the Greif, as he retreats. "... and they're the Republic's property," he
insists, at length. "And how cruel," he adds, to Ennil, "to dismiss their sacrifices so easily."
Yuliana, designated, doesn't think about anything like that. She laughs, though, and laughs, and laughs.
"Hahahaha...!!!" She opens her chaff launchers -- and the Taita tries to shoot those missiles down, too -- but neither
one of them have the might to turn aside that entire hail of missiles, blackening the air.
Major Pham is far less amused, in the wake of it. "Div," he breathes, despite himself, as his hand tightens on
his clutch. He hears the warning sirens blazing; like his Captain, he ignores them. "You'll not touch her," he
insists, fiercely, and turns the Taita's cannons on Sophia's Union Flag just the same. "She's a survivor! All this
time, she's survived! She asked for my help, and I got this last chance -- I won't see it all go to nothing!!"
His voice, finally, rises.
"You can't stop her, now! Divya's life's work is almost complete! And I'd blow her up before I saw you steal
Dispersal from our clutches at this final hour..!!"
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with MULS-P Grappler Axe Swing! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Jona Basta with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rita Bernal with Despirit! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Ennil El with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Inner Fire! <Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
This place... is their home? Alma's not sure what to make of that -- but she doesn't want to deny Yuliana. "... Right,"
she agrees, slowly. "This place is --!" (Something nags at her harder. 'Home' is the sort of thing you make with those
you care about, and move on from when staying there would hurt you...)
Something snags in her head -- of course. Today isn't any different from when they left Tir na nOg! Just like then,
they're packing up to leave -- and just like then, she needs to buy them all the time they need!
Anita and Puru Two come in with simultaneous feints, and Alma starts to lose track of their movements. She's not
thinking clearly -- she tries to rush straight for Anita to evade Puru Two, but ends up managing neither; blades bite
into her machine twice over, though both blows only graze, and she's able to achieve a little deflection on Anita's
knife with her shield. Rushing away does leave the funnel mounts intact, to boot -- they come to rest in their
designated slots again, recharging briefly before darting right back out.
"You don't get it!" she cries. "Neither of you! Yuliana's -- Yulie needs me! You're the ones who're hurting her --
you're all --" Her hands grip the spheres in the cockpit tightly, and she lets out a "Hhhhaaaaaaaaaa --!" as her funnels
begin to spiral around the trio again.
One of them -- the heavy model -- loops directly around behind Anita, locking on and firing a shot squarely for her VF's
back. Alma doesn't seem to be holding back anymore -- if indeed she ever was. Puru Two, meanwhile, gets a full-speed
swing of Alma's shield that threatens to knock her back away, or at least send her reeling.
"Children aren't supposed to be the ones trying to help their parents!" she yells to Puru Two, before adding to Anita,
"You can make it up to me by letting me tear that machine apart!" There's a lump in her throat almost immediately
after she says it -- it hurts to be this person. This is what Yuliana needs me to be right now, she tells herself.
Even if she thinks I'm broken -- this is a burden I can bear for her...
... It makes it easier.
KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Alma Stirner targets Anita Rosetta with Long-Range Fin Funnel! KTS: Alma Stirner targets Puru Two with Nu Gundam Shield Bash! KTS: Alma Stirner has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Treize Khushrenada with Nega Force Bombardment! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with Nega Force Bombardment! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Ennil El, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Ennil El parries Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Inner Fire, taking 1890 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Ennil El! KTS: Puru Two has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim despirits Rita Bernal, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan blocks Yuliana Kafim's Nega Force Bombardment, taking 6160 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim completes the Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Rita is a girl, all of a sudden, instead of a bird. Cascade winces at the light, and then sees her. "Not convincing me I'm not cracking," she assures Rita, strain in her voice. "...Look. That's nice and all. But as long as that man's alive, I don't have any path, anywhere but here and that damnable monster!"
But Ujico is talking back. Chunky shielding... Of course. It's not looking great for her just now. "You're damned right I'm worried!" Cascade snaps back over the line. "What, kdo you think I'm firing on you for my HEALTH!? You're attacking our Republic!"
Palisade reaches for the Laiying's head, and it's a good thing this isn't on Gundam Fight rules, because the 'head' of the Wanzer takes a blade straight to its top. She's able to deflect the blow a little with her fist shoving into the Palisade, but not enough to save her from getting some off the top'.
For an instant, Cascade thinks she might've disabled the Gundam Exia. Just the instant it's not moving. Then it SPRINGS forward and her wanzer's shoulder joints take heavy damage; her right arm will barely move now. And to add insult to injury, he jumps over her machine. "Ugh you ASS!" Cascade shouts over the radio at Setsuna.
Lucine meanwhile has her very pretty machine still at the work. The glaive slams toward her--but this time, she can do better. She blocks it with her shield. "GAAAAH!"
'Worthless creatures like the Canary.' Cascade snarls at that, and then drives her Wanzer into Lucine's Dianthus, with strike after strike of the arm that's still working better. Slam, slam, down, up, forward!
Then her launchers let loose a series of heavier, much larger missiles for Ujico's palisade, as she drives towards the Gundam Exia to try to slam a fist straight into it. "AAAAAH!"
KTS: Treize Khushrenada has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Treize Khushrenada has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: [Lucky] Jona Basta's Miracle Child activates, and luck goes its way! KTS: Jona Basta successfully accepts Yuliana Kafim's Despirit KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Treize Khushrenada successfully evades Yuliana Kafim's Nega Force Bombardment KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Lucine Azul with MULS-P Knuckles Combo! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Ujico Issa with MULS-P Dual Launchers Heavy Artillery Shot! KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Setsuna F. Seiei with MULS-P Knuckles Strike! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 161. KTS: SP Regen activates. Your new SP value is 65. KTS: Elisa Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner rattles Puru Two, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Puru Two fails to parry Alma Stirner's Nu Gundam Shield Bash, taking 3000 damage! KTS: Alma Stirner has engaged Puru Two! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Anita Rosetta fails to evade Alma Stirner's Long-Range Fin Funnel, taking 4950 damage! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei parries Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Knuckles Strike, taking 540 damage! KTS: Elisa Kafim has engaged Setsuna F. Seiei! KTS: Liam 7-020 fails to Parry Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Grappler Axe Swing, taking 4740 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Liam 7-020! KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul retreats from the attack! KTS: Elisa Kafim enervates Lucine Azul, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Lucine Azul fails to react to Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Knuckles Combo, taking 5390 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Now You're Having A Bad Day Too activates, causing Deject!
KTS: Ujico Issa has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim enervates Ujico Issa, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Ujico Issa fails to evade Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Dual Launchers Heavy Artillery Shot, taking 6960 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Now You're Having A Bad Day Too activates, causing Deject!
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
Jona roars in his cockpit as Yuliana's presence saps his willpower and assaults his spirit, the ensign's extended sensory perception as a Cyber Newtype being turned against him. Gritting his teeth at the violation of his mind and senses, Jona pulls out his combat knife...and stabs himself in the leg. Sharp tendrils of pain immediately blossom alongside warm, wet blood, though he intentionally avoided permanent damage to musculature. Freed from the haze of Yuliana's assault, Jona's eyes refocus, a baleful glare at the Tiandong accompanying a second howl of rage.
"Dammit Rita, move aside! I'm going to kill her! No one...no one gets to touch my mind like that again! Not after the Titans!"
As if responding to his rage, the Narrative's eyes glinted and it lurched to a standing position, weaving under and past the Phenex's outstretched arms as Jona prepared his assault. Vulcans spewed forth barrages of small caliber ammunition, missiles rained forth from their holsters in the B-Pack's shields, and the INCOMs laid down a withering barrage of fire, as the B-Packs hovered along the ground at breakneck speeds towards Yuliana's wanzer.
Drawing forth a beam saber, Jona raged. "So what if we're alike, deep down? You think your pain, your suffering, excuses you from your actions? Maybe I am a hypocrite for saying this, but I don't care. If you're going to hurt my Rita, I'll rip you to shreds and leave nothing behind, not even dust! DIE, DAMN YOU!"
Slashing violently downwards with his beam saber, the B-Packs dashed past the Tiandong without even checking its attack, letting its INCOMs rain down a monsoon of suppressing fire.
KTS: Jona Basta targets Yuliana Kafim with All Out Assault! KTS: Jona Basta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.
The Hyperion is here...heh.
But even as Michele goes to transfer her next line of support under the Prophetess moniker, her next 'predictions', she sees Rita's vision. She can't make out her words. Is she condemning her for the past? She must be.
She's so disappointed in her...
"...I chose this fate. You can't stop it now."
The button is pressed. Damage predictions, perfect for an all-out attack.
Rita, too, will be able to pick up these predictions, as they're being attempted to be sent to the Phenex. She can't let it die here. She can't let *her* be destroyed.
Jona and the Hyperion get theirs as well, allowing a total focus on Yulianan and Pham from the three.
KTS: Michele Luio targets Jona Basta, Sophia Mayhew Castellan, and Rita Bernal with All-Out. KTS: Michele Luio has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Ujico Issa has posed.
The quiet warmth of Rita's voice reaches her there in the darkness of her cockpit. It feels a little like a hug. The emotions she's been avoiding this whole time grab at Ujico, paw at her pilot's suit. She breathes evenly, despite the warmth on her face and the sudden heat in her eyes. Ujico whonks the back of her helmet once, purposefully, against the headrest. ...That's a little better.
She can still fight. Setsuna responds with a familiar-ish plan. She's heard one like it before, hasn't she? From
Lockon-- A hand-me-down plan? (A planned-me-down.) Her mouth screws up, and the barest hitch of a giggle makes it
through her lips. No. No! < "Right," > she manages, after a moment to get herself back under control. < "Between all of
us she's going to be hard-pressed. Let's push the advantage." > Maybe if they each just grab a limb and start flying?
< "That's what we're trying for--" > She's in the middle of trying to reassure Lucine, when Cascade Has Had
Enough. Ujico isn't a Newtype - she doesn't get Newtype flashes. When that scream of rage cuts through the radio, Ujico
moves - Palisade moves - but not quite the right way, and a battery of explosions rocks the black mobile suit. "...!"
Ujico grits her teeth silently through it, the sheer concussive force pushing her back a few meters and leaving her
armor smoking - where it's not mangled entirely.
Yeah, okay, Ujico thinks, letting out a shaking breath. I [deserved that].
Palisade rights itself, a set of grills popping open on the weird 'backpack' settled high on its withers. Green
particles flood out, swarming the Laiying and wreaking havoc on its targeting systems. < "I'll make it a little easier
for you, Exia!" >
KTS: Ujico Issa targets Elisa Kafim with Jam! KTS: Ujico Issa has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Ujico Issa jams Elisa Kafim's sensors, reducing her accuracy.
<Pose Tracker> Treize Khushrenada has posed.
Treize loses his normal smile as he hears the comment about wetware, instead it is replaced by an icy glare that Pham can't see , but it's there. It is totally right there, just like the icy glare mother use to give. <"Major in the last few days I have dealt with people who have deemed humanity loss. I have handled people who have deemed humanity having to fit their box. Now you bring before me that these humans are nothing more then wetware."> The Greif moves back and forth around the tank avoiding the shots fired at it.
<"The human spirit can not be simply removed because you will it so, major. You may think you have turned her into just another part of that machine, but I saw the real Yuliana, the human that you can't destroy. I would say you will see it, but I will not be allowing you to live that long.">
The Greif's thrusters moves upward before it attempts to come straight down upon the Taita with the beam saber pointing down to burn it's way through the Taita.
KTS: Treize Khushrenada targets Yuliana Kafim with Beam Saber 100 Thrust! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Yuliana charges her, and this does make Ennil sour. The flamethrower snaps up - the beam sabers go up in turn,
whirling, and though heat hangs like a haze over the Reben Wolf, it only joins the miasma already rising from the mobile
suit. The flame builds to a roaring wall and, with a pulse of burnt-gold light, one of the sabers flicks forward -
turning aside the spray of flames as a single, solid lash, hovering in the air like liquid before it scatters down to
the earth and seeks whatever fuel it can find.
With a quiet huff, Ennil takes advantage of Yuliana's withdrawal to shoulder into the space she occupied, smoothly
pivoting and planting herself in the earth, the left-side beam saber being smoothly replaced with an unfolding cannon
withdrawn from the outer thigh.
It clamps into place with an alarming weight, green glow thrumming at its tip. Technically speaking, this cannon was
rated for battleships: Aiming it at a target this small, at this range, doesn't just risk collateral damage. It
guarantees it.
Does Major Pham live to protect his Republic? Or will he allow the Republic to guard his own miserable life?
It's all the same to her. As long as this man lives, he will take a weight in human lives. Whichever goes first,
Cosmic Law demands the other, in time.
"Pathetic man. Do you think you're any more alive than they are? You're just the tool the REA used to shape her. No less
disposable, just as deluded. But stupid enough to enjoy it as long as you get to indulge your petty cruelties."
Shot after shot roars. She'll bury him. The machine doesn't matter, the way the weapon begins to burn doesn't matter,
the sweltering of her cockpit doesn't matter, the screech of warning sirens doesn't matter.
Nothing can kill her. Anything is worth it, because every step leads forward on the road to the end. As long as he
goes first.
KTS: Ennil El has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Ennil El has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Ennil El targets Yuliana Kafim with Mega-Beam Cannon Sequential Fire! KTS: Ennil El has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Anita does a brief double-take as Puru Two urges her not to go easy on Alma.
"Alma's...? ...Actually, I can kind of see it." Anita comments, head tilting to the side briefly in consideration. "...But, yeah. I know, don't worry."
They'll have to stop the Nu Gundam before they'll have a chance at helping Alma - and that means fighting her with
everything they have.
...It feels good, though, fighting alongside Puru Two like this, as she follows up her attack with one of her own.
"Alma..." Anita grimaces as she cries out at them. It hurts to hear her talk like this, not to mention that cry as the
funnels begin to move... It sounds painful. One of them whirls around behind her and Anita's eyes open wide. Her back is
vulnerable. She tries to dodge out of the way but the funnel's tracking is hard to defeat - it catches her as she moves,
a beam slamming into her back and piercing right through the Pinpoint Barrier. Anita gasps as the Variable Fighter
staggers forward. For a second she loses control of her machine, but she manages to force it back upright.
"...Sorry. I can't do that. This is for your sake, too." Anita replies. She draws her gunpod and takes aim, strafing to
the side as she opens fire at the Nu Gundam. Gatling fire races toward her - but the true goal behind the firing arc is
to force her into a more favorable position for both of them.
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Alma Stirner with Leading Fire! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner fails to react to Anita Rosetta's Leading Fire, taking 3825 damage! KTS: Anita Rosetta begins a Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
'I have faith in you, Liam. Go help Rita.
Liam's stomach twists with fear. He has to help Captain Kafim, but should he? He knows what she did to Ranka, knows she's a predator and a bully, knows she's somehow involved with those people who summoned those kaiju. Those people tormenting him and Lucine, for reasons he can't comprehend. Is she a victim? Is she complicit? Both?
The knife's containment field collapses. The Neo Helios draws back a fist, raises it, tries to drive it down in an overhead SLAM into the Tiandong--
Yuliana hits him first. The axe hooks into the Neo Helios' thigh armor and drags it aside. Liam stumbles, keeping his machine upright through drilled reflex alone.
'Stupid child!'
Liam's first instinct, when presented with this kind of anger, is to freeze or fawn. But Rita's light pours into his cockpit, and illuminates him, and the armored Trace Suit Gai made for him. The piloting armatures his team engineered to keep him safe. The cockpit itself, reconstructed from the wrecked Proto Helios. Lucine and Rita, marked as protection priorities.
"STOP!" Liam shouts, and this time, there's more anger in it. "They got in your head! We'll get you help but first you have to STOP HURTING PEOPLE--"
And then Jona charges past, spewing rage, and Liam stops, open-mouthed, for a moment. The Neo Helios's body language tightens as it rounds on the Narrative, trailing sparks from the wounds in its armor. He knows Rita. How does he know Rita? Were they--
There's no time.
Righteous, desperate anger swells in Liam's heart. The Neo Helios breaks into a charge again, looping around the Narrative and coming at the Tiandong from the side. "Getting you--" It rises up on one foot, and drives its heel right for the Tiandong's head. It hops back onto that foot, and drives a series of kicks, rapid-fire, at the smaller machine's legs. "Out of there!" Liam shouts, though the channel's open and there's nothing stopping Jona and Michele from hearing him, as well as Yuliana.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
The Mother:
"Children aren't supposed to be the ones trying to help their parents!"
The Child:
"Parents shouldn't run away from their children!"
... but we wind up right back where we started ...
-=-
The Qubeley is a surprisingly heavy machine for such a flighty looking design, and that weight is all that keeps it from being flung far away as Alma shrieks and charges shield-first. The black cloak where the left arm once was catches on an errant wire-pole, adding another stylish tear to its collection. The beam-saber riposte does not find purchase, sizzling against the Nu's shield in a blinding shower of white-hot sparks. Their heartfelt dispute only makes it burn brighter.
"Anita," the redhead who sometimes goes by Callisto but not a whole lot lately anymore sends her a quick message. "Keep firing and don't let up when I move in. Qubeley can handle it." and then, distance grows between the two units once more and disrupts the beam-based communication.
"Yuliana needs to be in a hospital, Alma!" Puru Two catches herself before her emotions turn into a breakdown, knuckles white on the Qubeley's controls. In her mind's eye, the scarlet flame wobbles before becoming blade-straight once more. Keep the feeling honed. Stay angry. But keep running: don't let it bog you down. Forward. Always forward. "Don't you get it? I'd be a monster like her if nobody took a chance on me! You're hurting her by keeping this going! You're hurting each other!"
Puru Two reels back in her seat and pitches forward with those last words, screaming them with her mind as much as with her mouth. The intent surges through her machine, the emotional burn at its core lending it greater poise and might than one might expect. This has become something of a slugfest, and the Qubeley puts one shoulder forward before charging the Nu again with beam-sabers burning. Legs, thrusters, anything that results in a mobility kill: that seems to be her goal.
KTS: Puru Two targets Alma Stirner with Beam Sabers Twin Cut! KTS: Puru Two has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Yuliana Kafim with Relentless Combination! KTS: Liam 7-020 has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner fails to react to Puru Two's Beam Sabers Twin Cut, taking 4500 damage! KTS: Puru Two has engaged Alma Stirner! KTS: Michele Luio orders an all-out attack, raising Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Skill! <Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Thank you, Lucine. Be safe.
In the moments between the Phenex protecting Jona and Yuliana howling in agony and taking off, the Phenex feels the ice of the void. Her influence vanishes from the battlefield. Warmth and light cool and dim. Her hands fall to her sides, limp like a doll.
...and then Yuliana is gone, and the Phenex comes to life again. It's as though the sun has come out from behind the clouds. Distress radiates from the golden bird once more, feeling Jona's pain as acutely as if it were her own.
Jona!
The cry may as well have been shouted into the radio. It resonates across the battlefield, echoing from the Phenex.
Again, perhaps, to the other Miracle Children, a child in Titans-blue appears. Her face is shadowed, hiding her otherworldly-green eyes. The image blurs, the girl switching from a child desperately trying to communicate and a child laughing and spinning, smiling in delight.
Darting straight up, she summons her shields to her side. They haven't been as effective as she would like on the Major.
But this -- Jona is hurting himself so terribly. Why? Why is this happening? His love, grief, guilt, all wrench her
heart, deep within its armored body.
Existing as a spirit makes the Phenex vulnerable to the emotions of those around her. Rage echoes through her -- rage
for (from) Jona, for (from) Michele, for (from) Yuliana. Golden eyes flare with radiance, and turn to Major Pham.
Michele's guidance lights up the Phenex's systems from within. This is an echo of the future. The Phenex will guide
Michele to a far kinder fate. What she foresaw... It must never come to pass.
And it all begins...
Next to Cascade, the young girl tilts her head, birdlike.
Is that all you need?
Advancing, the Phenex holds her arms out. Rage, born from love, both from guilt, born from unending pain... Azure flame
ignites. The Phenex burns. Scorching the very air around her, she soars after the Major, darting in front of him no
matter what path he takes. Once he's still enough, one of her hands reaches out, grabbing the center of his Taita.
Psychic strength radiates from her as she puts her all into holding him still.
I made you a promise, Major. I'm here to keep it.
Rising above her to eclipse the sun, the Phenex's wings ignite. Held fast, the Taita is an easy target. She's done this
once before. She can do this again.
In tandem, the shields soar into the air and come down, the sheer psychic force exerted warping the enemy's armor. One
of its arms is knocked free, falling to earth. A leg. Another arm. Another leg. The Phenex looks on her helpless target.
Again, those wings rise high. With tremendous effort, the Phenex lifts what remains of the Taita into the air, holding
it before herself. It looks much like a miniature spaceship, floating there.
One shield comes down, crashing through the Taita entirely. The second crashes in as well, crossed along the first. With
all her might, the Phenex uses her shields to drive the Taita to the ground. Perhaps, when they meet the earth, their
blunted ends are stained red.
A promise kept.
KTS: Rita Bernal targets Yuliana Kafim with Phenex Kite Shield Gale! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
Every word from this sub-man's mouth makes Sophia wish more that it was the old Titans days and she could just walk into an office and start shooting people.
Desmond will help her work through why this is both an unhealthy impulse and also probably bad governance later. Right now, she is in the throes of it. Her eye reveals prey to her, as it always has, as she wished for when the devil came to her in her woe and reached into her heart.
The blast roars across her. She brings up the Defense Rod and its spinning churns some of that blast away, but it can't turn aside even all that much of it, and the Union Flag disappears into its light.
A console beeps. Update from Michele Luio. Ah, so the Phenex Hunters are here? They would be.
The Flag emerges, at the end, the projection visor gleaming with malice. Sophia can barely muster the calm to say a breath of a word to Michele for her support. It's fine. She can probably hear this anyway. "YES!" Sophia roars back, spirit blazing. "HOW RIGHT YOU ARE, HOW RIGHT! She is vermin, so hardy to hunt and kill! Like a rat, she endures! Like a rat, she scurries from hole to hole, finding the comfort of fools who keep vermin for sport! And like a rat, whoever finds her broken, mangled, and screaming body, should say only one thing!"
She snatches up the Linear Cannon again, and this time what she fires rockets out at unimaginable speeds to punch clear through near any armor it can muster.
"GOOD RIDDANCE!"
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with Linear Cannon Precision Shot! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
To be fair to Ujico, Lucine is a Newtype, and her day.... is not going so well, all of the sudden. As the glaive still vibrates from that hit with the Wanzer's top, the Dianthus attempts to retreat from the Wanzer's advancing fists. The first one lands, then the second, the third, forth, and then the small suit is punched toward through the air, smashing into the soil and leaving a wide trail in the ground for a distance.
< ".... You're between a rock and a hard place." > The Dianthus, unable to stand on its own legs, fires the thrusters on its back into the dirt itself, propelling its top half upwards slowly. The bottom thrusters then turn on, and the Dianthus attempts to dash backwards. < "... I am assuming you're seeing Rita. Is it a small yellow bird? Or a girl in a white dress? You may be some type of Newtype. Was that why you were here, in the first place?" >
The petals on the Dianthus's back are askew as they try to fit back into a five part circle behind the magenta and black machine. < "There is always another way." > A screech of energy, like a cloud of ink to allow for a jellyfish to escape, explodes on the Wanzer, Lucine attempting to drive the Dianthus out of melee range.
KTS: Lucine Azul targets Elisa Kafim with Lunate Crown v.2 Scream! KTS: Lucine Azul has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim blocks Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Scream, taking 900 damage! KTS: Lucine Azul repulses Elisa Kafim, forcing her to disengage.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna F. Seiei has posed.
Probably annoyingly, Setsuna doesn't give a reply to Cascade, his radio is just eerily silent as he expertly catches the Laiying's fist between the Exia's blades and yanks the machine to the side.
<"I make no promises, but that has been the plan.">
It's hard to tell if the Gundam Meister is reassuring Lucine, or responding to Ujico, and neither of them will ever get an answer as he's already back on the offensive, the Exia quickly holstering one of his swords as the massive underslung blade that's attached to its arm swings out and locks into place.
Compared to the movements it was making before, this assault is much more direct, the Exia lunging low and sweeping the massive weapon across the ground to try and catch the Wanzer's legs. Finally, Setsuna actually responds to Cascade. It's short and firm, getting straight to the point.
<"Surrender.">
KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei targets Elisa Kafim with Depowered GN Sword Strike! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Elisa Kafim parries Setsuna F. Seiei's Depowered GN Sword Strike, taking 1050 damage! KTS: Setsuna F. Seiei has engaged Elisa Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rushes into the attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Jona Basta's All Out Assault, taking 5130 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rushes into the attack! KTS: Liam 7-020 rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Liam 7-020's Relentless Combination, taking 4674 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 has engaged Yuliana Kafim!
KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Treize Khushrenada's Beam Saber 100 Thrust, taking 0 damage! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Ennil El's Mega-Beam Cannon Sequential Fire, taking 2835 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim successfully avoids Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Linear Cannon Precision Shot KTS: [Lucky] Rita Bernal's Miracle Child activates, and luck goes her way! KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Rita Bernal's Phenex Kite Shield Gale, taking 4920 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana hears what Pham says, over the radio, and does not hear at all. She is loyal; she accepts it. "The Republic is strong!" She screams, because she is so, SO loyal.
"Kill me?" Yuliana echoes, wheeling on Jona again, and the bare threads of it are deranged. "For existing? Yes... yes, just like that, I'll eat you alive! Yes! YES!!! AhahaHAHAHAHAHA--!!!"
She can't comprehend that she tried not to hurt Rita, back there. She can't comprehend that she backed down and backed away, tore herself from the engagement, knowing deep to her bones how they're oil and water.
Touching the hot stove would hurt her, so she doesn't.
And she doesn't correct Jona at all.
Oh, it's not so dissimilar to so much of her existence -- though she's much more fresh from therapy, this
time.
She rushes into his Gundams' assault, heedlessly, recklessly, too defective herself to have the intuition to
dodge. Her flamethrower plunges towards him, bayonet-first -- and when the Neo Helios crashes into her and drives her
away, heavy step after heavy step, she just turns all that heat on him. (Yuliana would try to set the sun on fire, any
day of the week.) "Stop hurting people?!" She demands, as her arms work to shift the gears of the Tiandong 3, moving it
out of the way of those kicks. "But it feels so good...! When I'm on top... when I'm on top, nothing can hurt me!!!"
(And, perhaps, Puru Two knows precisely what she's talking about.)
It's well, perhaps, that she joins battle with them so violently, flamethrower rising the temperature of her
blood and the air. It's well she tries to cook them, distracted for scant critical moments from --
Major Pham.
"'The human spirit'... something like that can't survive the creation of these weapons!" Pham insists, to
Treize. That beam saber carves into his Taita -- cutting off one of the tanks' four legs entirely. "Tch--" Pham grunts,
clutching his clutch, tightly. His weathered skin is white at the knuckles.
"Tell me, Yulia--nnnnaugh!"
It's because of that effort, the Taita can't scuttle back from the Phenex's wings, the way it's done this
whole fight. It cannot knock away all the Taita's limbs; still, it batters the mobile weapon. And as those wings hold
it aloft --
Well. Both Ennil and Sophia recognise a helpless target, certainly.
The Union Flag's Linear Cannon pierces through the Taita's weapons systems, just as those cannons swung about to
lock on the Phenex, point blank. The Reben Wolf's Mega-Beam Cannon, meanwhile, melts what remains of its outer armor to
no less than slag. Inside the Taita, warning sirens scream and wail.
"I'm aliv..." Major Pham chokes out, as the husk of his tank hits the ground, assisted there by a shield
piercing straight through.
He doesn't finish his sentence.
His soul cries out, as it leaves his body: Div... run!
And Yuliana -- Yuliana, who wrenches the Annihilation from two other experiments to see this, too late --
Yuliana stares, her heart all gouged out, primed to listen and hearing nothing at all. Tell me, tell me, tell me, and
he's nothing left to say.
"Major... MAJOR!!!!" She screams, and she is aggrieved, to see him die. "No, nononononono I, I didn't kill
them fast enough, oh my God, he's, he's dead, you --"
Yuliana screams, as she turns her flamethrower on full blast, coating the entire street in flame. "YOU'LL
PAY--!!"
KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Jona Basta with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Burnout! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Liam 7-020 with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Burnout! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Rita Bernal with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Sophia Mayhew Castellan with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Treize Khushrenada with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Ennil El with MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Michele Luio orders an all-out attack, raising Jona Basta's Skill! KTS: Jona Basta has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Jona Basta fails to rush. KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Jona Basta, making its next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Jona Basta partially guards Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Burnout, taking 4850 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Jona Basta! KTS: Yuliana Kafim roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable. KTS: Michele Luio orders an all-out attack, raising Rita Bernal's Skill! KTS: Treize Khushrenada blocks Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Ennil El has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Ennil El blocks Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning, taking 3600 damage! KTS: Rita Bernal fails to Evade Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning, taking 4560 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yeah, that's why I'm here!" Cascade shouts at Lucine. "I see the little bird! I'm a Newtype, like you!"
Cascade couldn't respond at first. There is... a dove? She didn't register it at first. But now, she sees the dove. She sees the Quebeley...
"You're... here...?" She murmurs just to the cockpit, unhearable except by Rita.
Rita, who tilts her head at her. Is that all? Is that...
Cascade grits her teeth. The conditioning is strong. She has the urge, all of a sudden, to defend Pham. "I.. won't--"
Not with Rita here. Rita seems a beacon of light. A beacon of hope... Especially when--
"SHIT!" Cascade shouts. And then--and then he's gone. She feels it. SHe feels it and it snaps shut. It's like a pall lifts over her. Pham is gone. And... And she's just--
"Fuck all that," Cascade says over the radio, pulling her Wanzer back from Setsuna. But she transmits to him again anyway, quickly. "I surrender or whatever! I'm not going to die for that woman! --Shit, in fact--"
"The Captain's still up!?" Cascade shouts, aghast. Then--the dove. And Yuliana is screaming. The Captain is screaming. Yes, she's alive all right. And there's only one way--
"TWO!" Cascade shouts over wide band, pinging Puru Two's machine.
"Kill her! Kill her, now, while you have the chance! Don't you get it?! The REA's gonna use her to create a whole
class of people like her! The Republic's not some backwater podunk, just because you didn't see it moving -- it's been
planning for the next stage of warfare, after Cyber-Newtypes are common war tech! They're looking to do nothing less
than destroy us, just so they always have the advantage...!"
"So you have to kill her! End it now, before they finish their project! It's us or her, haven't you been listening?! Us
or her! I don't give a shit about saving someone who hates me that much...!"
The Wanzer turns away from those it was fighting, entirely, and towards the Annihilation.
Then, in a rush of blazing fire, it launches every missile it has straight for Yuliana's machine. Legs, arms. Head.
Cockpit.
It's the only way to be sure.
KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Yuliana Kafim with MULS-P Dual Launchers Barrage! KTS: Elisa Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 rushes into the attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Liam 7-020, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Liam 7-020 partially guards Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Burnout, taking 8100 damage! KTS: Liam 7-020 has been defeated! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Liam 7-020! KTS: Yuliana Kafim roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable. KTS: Yuliana Kafim completes the Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to charge. KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Elisa Kafim's MULS-P Dual Launchers Barrage, taking 0 damage! KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan blocks Yuliana Kafim's MULS-P Bayonet Flamer Backburning, taking 2880 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
Alma's machine lists to one side, trying to gain separation from Anita -- but she can't, and more than that, keeping the
gatling fire from pinning her down completely means letting it lead her around. As the arm joint locks up on a bullet
for a moment before the tension ejects it from the joint at speed, Alma pleads, "Stop it! This is -- this is all I
have left...!"
She boosts in toward Anita, seemingly ready to charge in for the kill -- but Puru Two dashes in on her legs, sending her
spiraling out. "Nnngh -- this IS her hospital! STOP! Stop fighting me! Just let me take care of this -- if it weren't
for you fighting us...!" She scowls, righting the Nu fully as it starts to sag. Alma's reliant on her mobility, even if
she's using the funnels now at strain; the strategy the Three Ships Alliance employ is working.
"I don't want to kill you! But you're fighting Yulie and you left the Federation -- and I just --" The smaller funnels
retreat toward Alma, staying in a holding pattern near her. "I hate it! Don't make me do this! Don't --"
Cascade fires on Yuliana, and Alma shrieks. "DON'T HURT HER!" she howls, and now it's Cascade who her funnels orient
on, without so much as a conscious thought from Alma herself. The Nu itself goes into defensive posture, as Alma tries
to fend off Puru Two's machine with a burst from the vulcans and Anita's with a hurl of her shield. "You say she needs
to be in a hospital...? You're going to kill her! And then... and then I'll be all alone! And then I'll have failed!"
Cascade gets a little more venom. "Traitor! You -- you should have --" Alma flashes back, for just a moment, to the
first time she met them. "... It's your own fault she hurt you this badly! You should have just run away!!"
KTS: Alma Stirner targets Anita Rosetta with Nu Gundam Shield Bash! KTS: Alma Stirner targets Puru Two with 60mm Vulcan Burst! KTS: Alma Stirner has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner targets Elisa Kafim with Long Range Fin Funnel Array Full Blast! KTS: Ennil El targets Yuliana Kafim with Fixed Twin Beam Sabers Combo! KTS: Ennil El has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Ennil roars with triumph to see Pham falter, see him seized, watch as layer after layer of armor peels and bleeds.
The peal of satisfaction in her heart as the Phenex's shields crash to earth is not a celebration of duty done, in the name of Cosmic Law.
It's warm as blood, and much more bitter, dredged up from a place even that light never managed to shine into. Love for Rita surges up, and is tainted in turn by bitter fear of Possibility, acknowledgment of the Phenex's monstrous power...
Tiandong's rage, by comparison, is hollow, empty, and hungry. It curdles the dawn-light around her and Ennil is forced
to defend herself, crouching behind the heavy shield mounted on her mobile suit's shoulder - but as it slowly melts, her
carelessness with the cannon catches up with her. Strained beyond its limits, it proves less enduring than the Ruin
Disciple herself, and detonates, leaving a ruined, sparking limb behind. Ennil grunts and twists to face --
Yuliana.
She's here to save Yuliana.
Won't she be allowed to save someone, even once?
But the cage around her has outlived the man who held the keys. Ennil can't simply wish it away - wishes like that have
never pressed past the shroud that hovers over Yuliana Kafim.
Fine. She'll cut through it.
<"Yuliana! Don't die here for the sake of some ugly corpse! Haven't you got someone to go back to?!">
KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to evade Alma Stirner's Long Range Fin Funnel Array Full Blast, taking 7920 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 3100 KTS: Puru Two blocks Alma Stirner's 60mm Vulcan Burst, taking 3120 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Anita Rosetta's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Alma Stirner rattles Anita Rosetta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Anita Rosetta blocks Alma Stirner's Nu Gundam Shield Bash, taking 2700 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Alma Stirner has engaged Anita Rosetta!
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
Sophia watches a man die. Her Geass shows it. Not his death, not his departing spirit, no.
But the sudden red threads that declare herself and others to be the ones that did the deed. The final tie a life obtains: The cause of its death.
"Good riddance," she says, voice low.
Yuliana's grief prompts her to go into a screaming fit. Sophia throws her Defense Rod up to block the oncoming blast of flame, as Cascade attempts to simply bury Yuliana in missiles. Sophia grimaces.
She transmits: <<Colonel, taking her alive...has become complicated. But I'll do what I can.>>
Her prey is dead. Truthfully, she's got half a mind to join Cascade's violence, but...she would not wish to make the Colonel a liar. She was just a part of where such a breach ends.
Her eyes drift from Yuliana, whose presence is a hole in her sight, off to the distance, off to the golden light within the structure. Connections fluctuating, forming, changing. Oceans of red, the ties of death. Many of those pointing far off to a distant place from here.
A more than slightly blasted and damaged Flag soars up higher, and she thrusts, not with a sword but with her designator again, and sends a different signal through the Battlegroup channels, this time.
"Get that weapon away from her!" Sophia yells, and three other Flags in more orthodox colors crash down with sonic blades and defense rods to damage the Tiandong's arms.
"Stop screaming and think, woman!" Sophia yells. "You showed me the guts of a person, once! That parasite is not worth one breath of your remorse!"
"ELISA KAFIM!" she screams. "Don't tell me I gave you mercy over that woman for you to give her up so readily!"
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan targets Yuliana Kafim with Hyperion Battle Group Strike Formation! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Treize Khushrenada has posed.
Treize watches the destruction of the Taita and speaks to himself , "Good riddence." Turning his mobile suit to try to assess the situation next he finds that there is the Tiandong with a flame thrower being turned against his Greif. There is no attempt to evade , or anything, it's to late, all Treize can do is stand there raising the Greif's shield and trying to shield the cockpit from the heat.
As the flamethrow is moved off of him and pointed at others Treize begins to move towards Yuliana's unit and that is when Cascade gets involved. The missiles coming toward the Tiandong cause the Greif to move back away from the explosion and Treize winces. <"To all G-hound units, the destruction of that tiandong is mission failure. Disable and retrieve the pilot."> The reminder goes out over G-Hound comms as Treize turns towards the one that attacked the Tiandong.
The Greif moves towards Cascade's wanzer but doesn't attack, it appears that enough people are handling that, all Treize can do is simply share his opinion with Cascade, <' If you truly believe that woamn is nothing more then a weapon against you then you are no better then Pham. The major is down and you are still alive, it is time to power down and surrender.">
KTS: Treize Khushrenada targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Treize Khushrenada has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
'But it feels so good...!'
Something flashes through Liam's eyes.
The first time they had him fight that drone wanzer, something much smaller and weaker than the Tiandong. He remembers the CRUNCH of the pile bunker as it ripped into the cockpit less than two feet from his head. The hot spall hit his helmet, barely missed his eye. Before he knew what was happening, he'd wrenched himself free and threw a fistful of explosive daggers at it. He didn't stop at merely downing it. He didn't stop until it was in pieces, and he was trembling.
'Well done, kid. Well done. We'll have to work on your evasion, though--'
It.
Felt.
Good.
The flame rakes over the Neo Helios. The machine is, unlike its predecessor, not designed to operate within margins that would risk killing even him, for a given value of risk. Its heat sinks are tremendously efficient, enough that being hit with a flamer wouldn't push them out of their safe zones. The machine's ablative armor melts instantly, but it's still up, if on fire--and lunging between Yuliana and the Narrative Gundam. "Get back, GET BACK!" he shouts, at Jona. It hits the ground on its side and skids. There is nothing it can do to stop the flames... except to try and stop Yuliana, who is not in any right state of mind.
"STOP, DAMN YOU!" Liam roars. "HE'S DEAD!" Tears stream down his cheeks.
And then CRITICAL HEAT THRESHOLD REACHED flashes on the screen, and then SHUTDOWN IMMINENT, because Gai Daido and his teammates built that in there, and Liam is not going to gainsay their decision. Not this time.
The Neo Helios' secondary reactor shuts down. The primary reactor spools to standby, a moment later. It lies there in the street, scorched and glowing, furiously venting heat like someone gasping for air.
"Rita," Liam chokes out. "Lucine." He knows how vulnerable he is right now. He hates it.
But he's not alone.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
Jona hisses as a wave of heat and flame passes over the Narrative B-Packs, in a matter reminiscent of Biblical Passover. The intense temperatures mercifully do not penetrate all the way into his cockpit, but the armor of his Gundam reaches scorching temperatures, and some of his plating grows cherry red for more than a few seconds. Upon weathering the storm, the ensign begrudgingly accepts Michele's support, his utter distaste of her irrelevant in the face of his most hated adversary in this moment. He had seen the Phenex go limp, recoil from the void that emanated from Yuliana.
How dare you...how DARE you hurt my Rita! I'll make you suffer in my hands the moment I pull your still-twitching body from your wanzer's cockpit!
The world was red. Violent curses and death threats are exchanged over open channels as any guise of decorum and civility evaporate in the wake of Jona's berserk rage. Years of immense, repressed anger, hatred, and self-loathing are released in a barely directed tidal wave of incandescent fury. There was no catharsis in this, only the single-minded, twisted devotion to his one true friend, the friend he had failed, the friend he had spent all this time searching for, the friend who he-
Another curse stammers in his throat momentarily as he receives Rita's vision, but Jona is too consumed by his emotions to barely register the mental image's contents, let alone its message. Like a feral beast, he continues rushing again and again at the Tiandong, expending ammunition with wild abandon and assaulting Yuliana's unit with enough munitions for an entire engagement, all depleted within the span of mere minutes.
And just like that, his mind teeters on the brink, moments from snapping entirely. Ensign Jona Basta begins laughing, laughing joyfully, laughing in angry comedy, laughing as the psychosis of battle threatens to infect his very core. He's been pushed too far this time, threads of his being that were maimed and violated by Augusta having once again been ravaged by Yuliana's entropic emanations.
But then, shock. Another gout of flame. Yet this time, he is defended. Out of nowhere, a mobile fighter shields him from the blast...and the Neo Helios goes down slagged. Shock. Confusion. Then, more despair. More hate. More rage.
The Narrative responds to Jona's emotions, skating around the battlefield as it strafes the Tiandong over and over, weaving in and out of its targeting lines and vision as it continues to unload heavy weapons fire, missiles, vulcans, INCOMs, and more constantly keeping up a stream of attacks. The B-Packs might not have the sheer ammunition and firepower of a unit like the Heavyarms, but its persistence was dogged. Yet...this was no Olympic figure skater. There was no grace, no control. No, this was a hurricane of violence, a vengeful typhoon focused entirely on 'her'. Jona roars once more as he hurtles into the storm.
The eye has passed, the end nears. Do not fade quietly.
Let thunder reign again.
<Pose Tracker> Ujico Issa has posed.
So much is happening. Much of it's just more noise, the kind that she normally filters out because if she didn't she'd just--
Scream.
Too many things happen at once. Rita gets vengeance - justice - for Yuliana, for every horrible thing Pham ever
allowed to happen. Something small and creeping, like a strangler vine, curls up inside of Ujico's heart. It might be
satisfaction, but it's hard to tell from such a distance.
Cascade takes it poorly.
Missile after missile is still firing from the Laiying when Palisade, smoking from all four limbs, ignites its
palm laser again and attempts to just slice one of its arms off. Ujico isn't certain whether or not cutting into the
shoulder would just make the whole thing go up like fireworks. < "Stop! Stop, dammit!" > she barks over the radio,
though by now the damage has mostly been done.
Behind them, Yuliana is still screaming. Her head hurts, underneath her horns and behind her eyes. <
"...Yuliana..." > she tries to say, before her voice fails her.
ujico has never known how to console people.
She tries again. < "Did you get to put together the, the model kit? Did you show it to your wife?" >
KTS: Jona Basta targets Yuliana Kafim with All Out Assault! KTS: Jona Basta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
"I don't want to kill you! But you're fighting Yulie and you left the Federation -- and I just --"
The buzz of 60mm cannonfire fills the air. A terrible roar that folds in on itself, a bouncing waveform of grinding
explosions that clip with one another. Such is the beauty of autocannon noises. The Qubeley lifts its remaining arm in a
swift motion, hefting a--shield? That's not standard issue for the MK. I or II! That's fucking CHEATING! The shield does
buckle and fold quite quickly under the assault, as a 60mm carries enough kinetic energy to make a meal of even space-
age alloys.
"Yuliana's been fighting us this whole time! She STOLE you away!"
The slugfest has grown as ugly as the emotions fueling it. The Qubeley ducks and weaves, but never gets more than a few
precious metres from the Nu. Its pilot harries and hounds Alma with an oppressive gloom blossoming from her aura, a
choking will to SOLVE her PROBLEMS with VIOLENCE. Errant saber-slashes leave molten scars in the tarmac. The Qubeley
savagely kicks and parries blows into nearby buildings. The beautiful rage of the Newtype Battalion is a lifelong
project its creators will never get to admire the culmination of.
"You're going to kill her! And then... and then I'll be all alone!"
"LISTEN to yourself! What of your family? What about me? What about your--your wife, your partner!? Open your eyes!!"
"... It's your own fault she hurt you this badly! You should have just run away!!"
The feeling in Puru Two's mind surges in shape: it is a fire with so many jagged edges that it looks like a child's
scribble, white-hot and defying its owner's will to be shaped. Fae lights the colour of a distant, maroon sunset hazily
drift upwards from her temples. No remnant of Callisto Diana remains in her voice. It is the haughty, arrogant, angry
tone of a girl who thinks she still owes the world something fierce, for the suffering she's felt.
And at such times, we do tend to forget about the suffering of others.
"You don't get to blame the abuser." (ignoring a lifetime of Yuliana's own suffering) "You've been conditioned. I'm
won't try to talk you down. Anita, back out."
Cascade's words, indeed, did reach her ears. We know this because--
"FUNNEL!"
Eleven remote weapons surge from the Qubeley's back, wreathed in ghostly shells of pallid pink flame. Six of them circle
the Nu Gundam like vultures, picking their shots from the rear. Trying to peck off her arms, her camera, her legs, her
mobility, her sight, her sound. They gouge chunks of the ground out from beneath the Gundam's feet, they blast plumes of
dust into her path. They, in short, present a terminally frustrating obstacle to be overcome.
But the five funnels that fly towards the Annhilation, oh, those are different. They shine with a terrible glory as they
arc directly towards the REA suit, and the maligned woman within. Yuliana Kafim. Hunter of her friends, family,
terrorist, abuse victim, enemy combatant. You name it, she's it.
"YulianaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
One by one, each funnel vomits a ragged beam of trapped magenta lightning onto the landscape. As the Annhilation rocks
to and fro (or dodges) Cascade's surprise, traitorous assault, the Qubeley's extended will bears down on it in the form
of a multitude of emotionally-resonant beams of destruction.
The scream reaches a crescendo.
*CRACK*
A hairline fracture splits Puru Two's visor.
KTS: Puru Two targets Alma Stirner and Yuliana Kafim with Qubeley MK-II Funnels - Spathi Formation. KTS: Puru Two has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Michele Luio has posed.
Another vision. As a tormentor is murdered, by Rita, no less, Michele recoils in the truck from the sight of the laughing Rita.
"I took your innocence...your optimism, your laughter, I took it from you when I-... I have to keep going." She tells herself, mic off. "In for a gilla..."
Jona's focusing on Yuliana, but, she needs to keep her weak enough for Jona's assault. Data is fired to Jona and Sophia
- the data needed to push through her barriers, to dance around her, remove her spirit after Pham's death.
"Break her down." The message says. "My team is so close," it adds to the Hyperion, even if they have different prime
objectives.
Rita won't forgive her for baiting her with her precious friend.
That's okay - she was never getting it in the first place...right?
KTS: Michele Luio targets Yuliana Kafim with Despirit! KTS: Michele Luio has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Michele Luio has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Jona Basta
KTS: Puru Two enervates Alma Stirner, reducing her Morale significantly. KTS: Alma Stirner fails to react to Puru Two's Qubeley MK-II Funnels - Spathi Formation, taking 8230 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru Two's Pressure of Aggression activates, causing Deject! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru Two's Pressure of Aggression activates, causing Control Bonus! KTS: Puru Two completes the Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Lucine feels the danger, but her body finds nothing it can do. The danger isn't to _her_, but someone close to her. Someone dear. Someone she loves.
< "LIAM!!" > Appropriately receptive Newtypes in the area, will feel a spike of panic and fear, a dread that threatens to unsettle a soul down to the very core.
In the sea of potent emotions it can easily be carried away like debris in a tidal wave, but for one moment, it's a blinding pulse of someone too scared to lose anything ever again.
Lucine abandons her objective completely; which is fine, due to Cascade herself going for Yuliana. A part of her wants to jump over and grasp Liam, but no, a more rational part of her states, she could do less to help Liam as a person than in the Dianthus, while a fully rational part of her has already disregarded the strange concept entirely.
The back of the Dianthus is suddenly there in front of the Helios, the petals flared out like a flimsy, makeshift shield.
The Dianthus isn't made to be a shield. It's made to be faster than whatever is endangering it.
It couldn't stand very long, against an angered Yuliana. But neither can the Helios, shut down as it is.
And the Dianthus, at the very least, is one layer of armor that could protect Liam.
KTS: Lucine Azul has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
The shields are left in their place. The Phenex doesn't want to turn the same weapons on her friend that she turned on a monster. She will retrieve them when the time comes.
Even as he was dying, the Major tried for one last cruel action. The Phenex looks down at the wreckage in disgust, then turns and flits away. She will not think of him again.
Next to Cascade, the spirit of Rita Bernal watches curiously. As they're able to break through their conditioning, Rita smiles, placing a hand on their shoulder. Her touch feels like personified sunlight.
There will be a group of people exiting Medical. Go to them once this is over. But be careful!
With that, the splintered spirit vanishes, turning back into auroric light and racing back to her greater self.
...of course, when Cascade immediately starts screaming for Yuliana's death and firing missiles, the Phenex gives her a tired look.
It's not that Cascade is wrong.
Ennil's twisted, corrupted love reaches the Phenex, and she turns to face her briefly. With the colors illuminating her machine... The Phenex nods. Sunset... Perhaps it's closer than anyone would think Then, they can meet again.
Fire races toward the Phenex. Fear for Jona echoes in her heart, until -- Liam. Acting as her own arm, practically, the
Neo Helios crashes down before Jona, shielding him from the worst of Yuliana's fire.
The time is right. With gentle grace, the Phenex raises her shields. Hovering just above the ground, they race to Liam's
side. Landing in tandem, they form a tent-like structure around the Neo Helios. Protection radiates from their golden
armor. Wings have folded around Liam, and they'll fight to keep him safe from harm.
Jona's grief and pain become unbearable. It's too soon -- it's too soon, and they can't hear her. Driven by fear, she
cries out, all the same.
Jona, Jona please! Please listen to me! You're okay! You're going to be okay, you and Michele both! I promise! Please,
just wait a little longer!
The girl who appears before Michele and Jona now is clearly in tears, rubbing an arm across her shadowed face. With her
other hand, she holds her hand clasped in front of her chest, as though holding something. It's too faint to make out...
Yuliana's rage is formidable, but what has she ever done but weather those feelings? Their bond is stronger than this.
To love something is to be destroyed by it. This is how it's always been.
Darting toward Yuliana, the Phenex holds out her hands. Though the fire swirls around her still, she doesn't move,
hovering before the Annihilation. Just out of reach of Yuliana's Void influence, the Phenex's outstretched hands make
the form of a heart.
Please come back to me. I love you. I guided everyone here to save you.
KTS: Rita Bernal targets Yuliana Kafim with Pass! KTS: Rita Bernal has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"Right."Anita replies with a nod as she's instructed her to keep firing. She trusts her, so she does as instructed - as
the Qubeley engages the Nu Gundam, Anita keeps the fire going. Alma tells her to stop, though, and Anita grimaces.
"You're wrong, Alma. You have a lot more left than you think. I care about you. Callie cares about you. There are other
people who care about you - here, and out there!" Anita shouts back. The Nu Gundam charges in toward her and Anita
freezes up for a second - but thankfully, Callie comes in for the save. Anita exhales in relief.
"Alma... You can stop at any time. You don't have to do this." Anita says. But then - a lot of things happen at once
nearby. The Major... Anita grimaces, but she's not going to lose any sleep over him. Cascade, though - she turns on
Yuliana, and Alma...
"...We have to stop her! We can't let them fight!" Anita urges her friend. ...It'd be too tragic. But, she pauses for a
second. "...Callie? You're worrying me."
...She sounds different. Worryingly different. Alma's comment was... definitely out of line, but...
Anita finds the Nu Gundam's shield flying toward her face and she braces herself. Shield meets shield as Anita raises
her own, the force of the impact causing the Valkyrie's arm to whine and protest from the strain it's been put under
thus far. It just needs to hold together a bit longer...
Anita listened to Callisto before. She elects not to listen to Puru Two now - she needs to end this fight quickly, her
way. ...For all of their sakes, maybe.
"You won't be alone, Alma. You're not alone - why do you think you'll be alone?" Anita insists. "Alma... you need to
focus!"
The Messiah Rosetta accelerates forward, knife drawn. It begins to glow as the Pinpoint Barrier extends out over it and
Anita charges, looking to drive it into the Nu Gundam - attempting to disable the suit while leaving the cockpit block
unharmed.
KTS: Anita Rosetta targets Alma Stirner with Pinpoint Barrier Knife Thrust! KTS: Anita Rosetta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Alma Stirner fails to react to Anita Rosetta's Pinpoint Barrier Knife Thrust, taking 8840 damage! KTS: Alma Stirner has been defeated! KTS: Anita Rosetta has engaged Alma Stirner!
KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Ennil El's Fixed Twin Beam Sabers Combo, taking 0 damage! KTS: Ennil El has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: [Mirage] Yuliana Kafim's Avoid20 activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Puru Two's Qubeley MK-II Funnels - Spathi Formation, taking 0 damage! KTS: Michele Luio despirits Yuliana Kafim, reducing her SP drastically. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Jona Basta's All Out Assault, taking 6160 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Jona Basta's Vigilante activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Rita Bernal's Pass, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan rattles Yuliana Kafim, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Yuliana Kafim partially guards Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Hyperion Battle Group Strike Formation, taking 1440 damage! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Sophia Mayhew Castellan begins a Formation attack! KTS: Yuliana Kafim fails to react to Treize Khushrenada's Pass, taking 0 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Haha... hahaha... what? So you're a traitor, too?!" Yuliana demands, wheeling on Cascade. "Listen, Canary! I'm the ranking fucking officer here now, so...!"
She turns, launches chaff from her shoulder mount -- and charges through it, jerking her gearbox down and up.
It's constant violent motion. She has to account for everything, in a Manual machine. She can, and does.
"Even if you're that subordinate whose gun was pointed at my head...!!" They're Zoltan's words, echoed from her
mouth.
"I was made!" The oft-unreliable Avoid20 system in her legs activates, and she springs UP, above the next volley
of missiles. "To DESTROY YOU!" She swings her axe, and digs it into the Laiying 1, wrenching herself aside in midair
before another course of missiles can crash into her. "PREDATOR TO YOU! I am the --"
answer to your hubris,
"-- REPUBLIC'S GREATEST WEAPON!" Yuliana screams, and her voice tears as she screams it, crashing into Cascade's
wanzer with her own at full speed.
The sound of Yuliana spitting out blood transmits over the radio.
"And you," she adds, with vicious satisfaction, "are all out of ordinance."
The grin which splits her face, with no hair framing her cheeks under her helmet, is nothing less of sadistic.
"Yes," she affirms, all too bloodthirsty, to Alma. "Yes! Yes, you understand perfectly! A traitor like this deserves
nothing but pain--!! At least you're still on my side, Rusalka...!"
Yuliana lifts her axe. It's an executioner's motion. She knows just where the cockpit is, and Alma's given her
an excellent advantage.
And it all gets interrupted, all at once, by three separate Flags.
They grasp her; they hold. Not for the first time, Yuliana is forced to stillness, for all the motion of her
machine. Ennil's saber finds purchase, there, cutting into several non-critical systems.
'Haven't you got someone to go back to?!'
'Did you get to put together the, the model kit? Did you show it to your wife?'
'ELISA KAFIM!'
"Hh-aaaahhh?" Yuliana's laughter breaks to whimpering, audibly, over her radio. "W-who -- I -- my wife? H-home--
this is my home! Back-- back to -- who's -- no, I -- I -- no, please -- Elya," she chokes out, and screams, her machine
jerking with erratic motions. It's not an attempt to attack. It's just a consequence of her hands jerking at the
controls, with so much control inherent to them. "AAAAAAaaaahhhhh--!!!"
A choking noise. It's not so difficult, for Michele to know where to strike. The labs which made them are all
so, so cruel.
"The Republic is strong," Yuliana insists, at chanting drone, as she grabs her axe FORCIBLY back from the flag
squadron. "The Republic is strong, and I am strong. If it's for the Republic's sake, it's for mine, as well," and
perhaps Jona hears it, that same recitation that stopped her from her incorrect thoughts, back then. Surely Rita hears
it. "I'm a soldier of the REA. I've served for nine years. My service record begins in zero-zero-eight-seven." And they
might notice, perhaps, the way her mind hasn't accounted for the shift in years, as she slashes at one Flag, forces
another away with a shoulder-forward charge. "I disobeyed orders to fight on the front lines. They forgave me. They let
me pilot. I protected the Republic from the others. Zeon are our enemies. Our neighbours are our enemies. Disloyal
citizens are our enemies," she insists, as her axe lashes out at Cascade, in passing. Only in passing -- because she has
to move.
Jona is coming.
"The Republic is strong. We don't need weak people." Her voice is so calm, as the Annihilation is rocked by
everything Jona has to offer. She dodges much of his assault. Still more comes. "I am the one enforcing the Republic's
will. I'm the one acting. I am strong," she insists, as she charges forward, lets one of his missiles blast her point-
blank, just so she can slam her axe into him.
"I'm not disloyal." She can't stop to kill him. The funnels come for her. "They won't kill me," and if they
didn't know better, they'd almost call it a boast. An empty one: the funnels blast at her with all the fury of a woman
who has had so much taken from her by Yuliana Kafim herself. "I've served for nine years," Yuliana reports, her voice
separated from the violence in her machine entirely, even as red warning lights flash. "I've served with honour and
distinction. It's for the Republic's sake, and mine, as well."
It is utterly discordant, her recital coupled with the violence. For the Republic, she withstands things which
others would surely die just watching. Jona's rage alone could fell a squadron; Puru Two's would bring down another.
Certainly the Tiandong 3 is doing poorly, by the end of it.
But the weight about her neck can't match the weight around her soul.
And even if she weren't caging herself --
A woman's voice can be heard, perhaps, through Cascade and Yuliana's radios. It plays into the cockpits. It is a
voice which Rita will surely recognise.
"Tell me, Yuliana," Dr. Devi's timed message begins.
"Tell me, Cascade," because the REA has always applied its methods at scale.
"What drives the sparrow?"
"What drives the sparrow?"
And Yuliana, at least, answers the recording at once and without thinking: "Evasion."
She doesn't have any hope of resisting a command like that. Not her. She just underwent intensive therapy,
after all.
"Rusalka!" Yuliana's voice cuts through the radio, deliberately, this time. She lowers her flamethrower, where
she was about to blast Puru Two with it. "We're leaving! NOW!"
She turns to the Phenex, with that heart held in front of her -- and charges her, fully meaning to use that
axe to knock her aside. "OUT OF MY WAY!" She screams, with hot anger. "Don't think I won't kill you to get past--!!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
People exiting Medical... 'A-all right," Cascade says to Rita. And then--Well, Rita is gone, so she doesn't notice the tired look.
Soon... Not for the first time, Cascade curses her luck. 'It's your own fault', Alma says, and Cascade is a spike of frustration, fear, hatred, and despair. Not for Alma, not really. For Yuliana.
"Augh, God, I hate you SO much!" Cascade spits out over the radio at Yuliana, and her Laiying takes her mecha on outright. She is plunged into the darkness of Yuliana's aura, and screams over the radio in many, many emotions.
She is indeed out of missiles.
...But Puru Two isn't. Puru Two comes to her rescue.
Ujico also shouts at her to stop, but obviously she's just not listening well enough.
But Cascade does not feel that spike of panic and fear from Lucine. In the mental realm she doesn't feel a n y t h i n g.
Not until that radio messsage comes on. Cascade flinches. "Ev--" Huff. "Eva..." She tries to force herself not to say it. She's not been conditioned recently; her fear, her hatred, her hope for getting out--they war within her with the approach. "I--"
"I'm..."
"FUCK YOU!" Cascade shouts suddenly. "I'm not going be the Canary anymore! I'm not going back to HER, not ever, not even if they can't see that she needs to die!"
Over the radio, "The Republic can EAT MY A--" Cascade's wanzer jerks as she throws up all over the controls. She's not going to be doing anything else for a while.
"H-...help..."
Then comes the pain. Disobeying has a price.
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
A s h r i e k of psychic fear and anger emanates from the Phenex, at the sound of Dr. Devi's voice. If she was still in her living body...
Yuliana is being taken from her. After everything -- after everything --!
The Phenex shudders. Blue light shining from within intensifies, and within the space of a heartbeat, golden armor has
slid apart. Even the shields, protectively hovering over Liam and Lucine, fold open, letting blue light shine down. She
grows, taller and broader, and the psychic aura resonating from the Gundam intensifies threefold.
The singular feather crest atop her head splits in two.
A great bird cries out, echoing through the minds of those who can hear her. Much like her sisters, the Phenex stands in
all her glory, her psychoframe gleaming with concealed might.
Lifting herself with azure flame, the Phenex waits, holding her arms open. Once the wanzer is within reach--
The Phenex embraces her. One hand grabs the handle of the axe the Annihilation wields, raising it high. Her other arm
curls around the wanzer's waist. It's the position of a classical dance, perhaps, though she did not plan it that way.
Bolstered by the NT-D's activation, the Phenex's beloved fights against the Void, pushing back against the encroaching
loss of her own spirit. Miraculous light flickers and is extinguished, again and again. Rampant, unending fire battling
against the sheer cold of space, locked together.
It can only end one way. A few of her Psychoframes are already flickering, the blue light from her shields cut off. But
the Phenex will not let go.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
For a moment, Yuliana falters. Remembers home - that she can have one, away from here, even if it comes with its own
dangers.
Then the bars come down again. The Reben Wolf lurches as Yuliana surges free. It twists to follow, but even as it
comes to a rest and the G-forces dissipate, Ennil El's world fails to steady.
Her face is so hot. She's sure she must have been sweltering, sweating, but she can't feel it anymore. Dawnlight curls
over her reddened skin like steam, holding her together at the seams.
She peers through the handful of functional cameras, desperately tracking Yuliana. She has to switch monitors every so
often, let her eyes drift side to side - focusing on any single point is impossible with the thrumming in her head, with
the way her pulse is thrumming. Distantly it occurs to her to retrieve more medicine, since she feels sick - but her
mouth is so dry, and what would she take them with?
She stares at Yuliana, intent burning, with no power to reach out - and Yuliana with no ears to hear her wishes, anyhow.
Don't just run away. Run forward. Run towards the people waiting for you. Rita, please...
Please, this time, let her have saved someone.
The Reben Wolf lurches, and she groans, stomach clenching but offering nothing up, mercifully. She can't linger long.
The REA can have neither her nor her machine. Just as long as Yuliana gets away...
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
The Mass Production Nu Gundam was never made for Alma. The raw specs aren't even a match for the Titania, a machine
Alma had to baby through the Gryps Conflict because it was already aging poorly outside of the context of the One Year
War. The systems are a huge advantage, on paper -- but Alma was never meant to carve her intent into the world this way.
Puru Two, however, pens Alma in with her funnels -- and this time Alma can't protect the rack, can't protect the
signal relay, can't protect the saber racks, and one after another they're torn from the machine -- then an arm's carved
off at the elbow. "You -- stop! Stop!" Alma begs. "If you weren't so jealous -- if you didn't want to keep me all to
yourself -- you could come with me and Yulie, and we could be --" But wasn't she supposed to be tearing them apart? She
can't keep the old and new suggestions together, can't guide herself and nor can she find guidance in Yuliana --
The knife digs into the central control drive near the shoulder of the intact arm. It spasms and goes still; almost
everything does, really. "Focus -- on what? You? Anita -- it can't be both ways! But if you would just --"
Something tickles at the edge of her thoughts. Even if Alma's machine is failing her, Anita's right -- she does have
friends here. Anita's never been deeply willful; if she wants so badly to reach out to Alma, surely she should seize
that hand and PULL and KEEP, if she wants so badly to be there for --
... she feels too exhausted -- she was never meant for those weapons, and they were never meant for her. "Kkhaaah --
where's the -- there!"
Alma's machine shifts slightly, and boosts toward the Phenex as it grips the Annihilation. All she can do is ram the
Nu's body weight into it. Popping her cockpit open facing Yuliana's, she looks between the Phenex and the Annihilation
sadly...
... but for now, this can only go one way. "YULIE!" she cries, pressed in tight with both other machines. "CLIMB IN! All
I've got are the rear and leg thrusters, but I'm getting you out of here!"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
In the cockpit of the Neo Helios, Liam takes deep, shuddering breaths. "<Lucine,>" he whispers, "<Stay back.>" He watches the heat gauge drop, inch by agonizing inch. Just a few more, and motive systems will reactivate. Just a few--
Rita intervenes, again. The shields descend around both of them, landing in place. It turns what happens next into a sort of shadow play--the Tiandong's IFF rushing towards Cascade's, only to be interrupted by the Flags, the Qubeley, Ennil's machine. Yuliana screams, and whimpers, and chokes. <"Fight it!"> Liam shouts, because the radio is still operational, even if he's still screaming into the void. "<Don't let them...>"
There is a sudden, dreadful shift in Yuliana's voice, and Liam... stops. He knows what that means.
He's felt that so, so, many times.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
The Phenex's NT-D rocks Jona's mind as the Narrative is pushed backwards by the sheer force and splendor of its activation, a psycho-field pulsing out with the cry of a mighty bird of myth as the Phenex unveils its true splendor. "Guh!" Jona grunts as the B-Packs is forced into a kneeling position. The unit's hand shields its eye cameras as Jona does the same for his fleshy ones.
Calming, soothing waves of emotional reassurance bring him back down from his murderous high, and rationale returns to his crazed eyes, his snarls coalescing into exhausted panting. Looking up, Jonah weakly cries out, having expended his being in his crusade against Yuliana.
"..ita...Rita..! Come...back! You'll die if you keep holding onto her! Come back to me..!"
Forcing the Narrative back up, Jona punched the thrusters, forcing his way towards the Phenex, the azure psycho field tunneling around the ensign and his Gundam. "Come back, Rita! Come...back to me! I can't forgive myself until you do. I can't make things right until you do. So please...don't fade away. Come back..!" Closer. He's getting closer.
Finally the B-Packs stands next to the Phenex, Jona wincing at his now proximity to Yuliana as well. The Narrative embraces the Phenex from behind as Jona tries to pull Rita back from the precipice. No more. Please. No more. Jona looked down at his hands, even as the hands of his mobile suit clasped the Phenex.
He held death in his hands. Stars burned in his footsteps.
Jona_Basta In her, the conflagration was reborn, the funeral pyre lit.%r%r No. That's wrong.%r%r I hold life in my grasp. Stars wait to be born in the path ahead.
Jona_Basta In her, the light was reborn, the beacon lit, her wings now spread. %r%r Come back. Please.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
< ".... I was afraid it'd melt on you again." > Lucine breathes a sigh of relief, as the Phenex's shielding falls on them. < ".... I should have had more faith, since it's not the same machine as before." > Her voice, and emotions, begin to calm. < "Can you start it up, Liam?" >
The Phenex shudders. Lucine gasps.
The Phenex cries.
It's bright.
It's beautiful.
It's painful.
The Dianthus jerks but stays firm as its pilot clutches her head. The emotions are so pure, so beautiful, so wretching, but she's in the middle of them without an anchor, or a steady grip of a wider view. She only feels just enough, and she's right underneath the Phenex, underneath Rita, as Rita engages on a much larger, bigger battle. And... someone else...?
It's like being lost in an ocean, and not realizing you're just under a mile away from dry land. This isn't where she's supposed to be, she doesn't know any of this.
"...... !!" Lucine gasps, then sags in her cockpit chair, temporarily shutting down much like the Neo Helios.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"On you!" Anita shouts back. "On yourself, and why you're feeling the way you are right now! Please, just come back to us!"
Anita tries to keep the knife in, tries to keep the Nu Gundam ground - but the way the mobile suit boosts sends the
Messiah Rosetta recoiling back and crashing into the ground.
"Alma!" Anita calls out, trying to force the Messiah Rosetta back into a standing position...
...But at this point, she might be too late to stop them from getting away.
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
It's bedlam for a few moments. They get Yuliana on the ropes - so much spite and hatred emptied into her, fully
murderous intent. But the Tiandong is a sturdy machine. That's how they build, in the REA.
Her Flags do force Yuliana off center, but aren't quite ready for the raw power she pulls out of herself and her machine
toward the end. Yuliana's world is spooling down around her, until...
Sophia can't see what happens in that cockpit. Perhaps, just barely, she sees Dr. Devi's poisoned connections pulse
within her eye, but with all the information of a battlefield, it's not something she has trained herself to watch for.
But she hears, secondhand.
"Kheh. Dirty trick," she spits, and then pulls up her cannon. Can she get the legs? She can get the legs. She's not a
sniper but she is a markswoman, she can get the legs.
The Phenex dogpiles the wanzer all on its own, owing to sheer size. Sophia takes a long few seconds to line up the shot,
and then...
...she hesitates. Just slightly too much. "Colonel," she says, low. "I can't...make the shot safely in this
circumstance. I'm sorry."
Her eyes cut to the side. Her Geass tells her who is within.
She sees the bonds that tell her of rebellion have mostly left.
Her jaw sets. "I will return to Hyperion to guide the final assault," she reports, and the Union Flag transforms and
jets back to the sky.
Devi...Yuliana...Pham...this detestable--!
"I'll destroy it," she hisses, and the demon at her heart screams for blood. "This obelisk of fiends, I'll...!"
Perhaps, about now, is when an Awakened attuned to danger might sense that sense of danger increasing rapidly to the
entire area.
<Pose Tracker> Treize Khushrenada has posed.
Treize watches the escape of Yuliana and frowns, it appears he will have to send her wife a basket representing his condolences. Taking a deep breath Teize regroups himself as he contacts Sophia, <"Captain Castellan, you have done great today. "> The Greif begins to move to the hyperion as well as Treize signals for his own forces to draw back.
As he makes his way back to Hyperion he considers what is about to happen and messages Sophia directly, "<" Captain, I approve your final assult. I here by grant you full command of the remaining mission, I leave the final assault for you to command. You now have carte blanche authority of all G-Hound forces on the field."> Treize may eventually find his way to the bridge of the hyperion, but will leave it all to Sophia.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana hears Cascade's impertinence, but she snaps, to Alma: "Leave her! We have to go!"
She charges forward, only to be grasped. A Tiandong 3, even one with as much care as Yuliana has shown the Annihilation, is still a mass-produced wanzer; its gears grind and wail in useless protest, as the Gundam's fingers grasp.
"Release me at once, you wretched abomination!" Yuliana yells, and despite the mismatch in power, she continues pushing her Tiandong. The pistons wail and begin to overheat, with the rest of her systems.
Rita can surely see the tank of accelerant fuel strapped to her wanzer's back. The danger of Yuliana pushing her machine so far is plain to see, even as Yuliana stares into the abject jagged emptiness where the pilot ought to go.
"E--Ely-- Elya... yes, I remember, I..." Yuliana chokes out, again, as her heart wars with the bars clutched
around it. Perhaps the real miracle is the way she can fight it, for a moment, just as Liam pleads. "... no, you...
Ritechka, let me go," she pleads, and she's crying, now. "You have to let me go. I don't know what will happen to you.
All I can do is hurt you...!"
She doesn't have enough sense about her to realise she's echoing Jona. She scarcely even realises he's behind
her.
Alma's impact rocks the Annihilation, too; locked in their dance, like this, it must. Yuliana sees Alma open her
cockpit, and her heart clenches. In her right mind, she'd scream at her for doing something so foolhardy.
But --
But Alma's getting her out of here, and Yuliana has to go.
She hits a sequence of buttons -- sets a timer.
"All right! I'm counting on you!" She opens her own cockpit, as she exposes herself to the elements, foolhardy
and brazen-brave. Perhaps Rita remembers all the stories she used to tell of doing this herself -- until she got some
more experience on the battlefield, that is. Even though she knows better, Yuliana releases her harness, and stands.
Even her small wanzer is a giant, to her, as she slides down its metal to leap over to the Nu Gundam. She has to
grasp onto its side and climb, given the height differential between them. They are a few long, fragile moments...
... where everyone can see the state she's in.
Her helmet broke during that last onslaught. Exposed to the world is her shaved head -- and the fresh surgical
scars on her skull, zooming in. Her skin shines with sweat, and emesis lines her lips and chin. Her hands tremble,
though they never lose their grip.
Quickly, not nearly quickly enough, she lifts herself into the cockpit, tumbling in beside Alma.
"We have to go," she insists, and her voice is weak and tremulous. She is a wreck, and her body will shake
itself to pieces.
"We have to. We have to. Oh, God," she whines, curling in on herself, as the pain wracks her. Memories can
become so real, with the right suggestion, and her heart screams within its isolation tank.
"Go," she hisses out, chokes down the possibility. "Before the Annihilation explodes."
And sure enough, with just enough time for Alma to get them clear, it does -- one final stroke of annihilation
to distract their attackers, and give them the opportunity to slip away.
Yuliana is rocked, in Alma's cockpit. She grasps tightly to whatever she can, to support her, even as she
demands Alma flee from everyone who's come to support them.
All the Institute's victims will be saved, today...
... bar two.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim's Tiandong Annihilation Custom Mk. II has been disabled.
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Jona... calls... with such kindness in his voice. Such love. The Phenex has always been so, so weak to kindness. Yuliana echoes him. Crying, calling out her nickname.
Slowly, the blue light shining from within the Gundam is shielded once more. The Phenex diminishes, her V-fin snapping back closed to one singular feather.
Yuli...
Like a discarded doll, the Phenex goes limp, falling back into the Narrative's arms. Helpless until Yuliana takes off with Alma, the Phenex's beloved can only watch from her other world.
...
Heartbeats pass.
The Phenex activates once more, glowing warm-blue. Azure fire gently forms around her shields, lifting them ever-so-carefully from Liam and Lucine. Reaching, up, the Phenex touches a hand to the cockpit of the Narrative. A moment of contact is all she can allow herself.
Once her shields reach her, the Phenex stands. Once her flame covers her body, she soars straight up, up -- away from
the Institute. Away from the Earth. Faster than any could stop her.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
The Qubeley descends amidst the fuschia storm of emotional fire, a black shadow come to collect its prize. Or try, anyway. The girl at the helm all but grinds her teeth to dust as she brings her beam saber down in a flashing arc. But what she forgets, is that Yuilana Kafim is built on many of the same foundations as she. And that past performance is not a strict predictor of future outcomes.
Thus: the Annhilation is not pierced from stem to stern by a blade of golden fury, and while it is raked by beam-fire until its armor glows cherry red, it is not put down. And if Yuliana were not so otherwise engaged, a whole new slugfest would have been on the cards as Puru Two sinks into the emotionless morass of her aura.
Some things simply aren't meant to be at certain points in time. And so... it isn't.
"Running away?!" the once-pale girl (she all but radiates a charged scarlet, blood pressure spiking terribly) yells in defiance. Defiant, but ineffective. Twin lances of sizzling pink chase after the Annhilation from those flying bits, but they're unable to lock on--and the fire is suppressive, not lethal. Her gaze swivels to where Alma's Nu has all but fallen, the cockpit seal breaking and opening. Her heart flies into her throat as she can see Alma staggering, crying for Yuliana to come be rescued.
Puru Two's finger squeezes the firing stud, but her will to impose violence slowly withers. The link is lost. She might as well be faxing suggestions to her Funnels. Without the abstraction (and protection) of Alma behind the Nu, she will not fire. Will not risk it.
It feels like cold air rushes back into Puru Two's helmet. Like she's coming up for air. The crimson stains coating the world boil away to a more muted palette. The fury in her soul dissolves. "Anita! Yuliana's coming, and she's still moving. And..." she squints. "Someone... someone's about to do something *awful* to this entire place. We've got to go."
Ah, that sounds more like the Callisto of old. A little bit crushed, and not so much the furious predator.
She can only watch as Alma and Yuliana tumble to some fragile form of safety. A failure.
Best not make it two failures.
The black Qubeley skids to a halt before Cascade's wanzer, coming to a terribly arresting halt from tremendous speeds. Space-age metals make for a good earthworking tool, and great furrows of spooling tarmac and clay spoil around the machine's feet. There's a pause, then the machine lurches in close and the cockpit opens from the midsection. The open door forms a makeshift ramp between one unit and another. Perhaps it's symbolic, in a sense: a link between earth and space. Spacenoid and Earthling. Two abused test subjects, linked.
"Get in. We're getting out of here." barks the girl in the black normal suit, standing up in the cockpit. Note that she has no hands on the controls, but her mobile suit is still moving and reacting.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
The Tiandong's IFF starts to weaken. The MP Nu's, equally-weak, flies in to intercept. More signals join in, turning into a roiling, tumbling ball, and that's all Liam can see from this angle, beyond the light of the Phenex. What is happening? Not for the first time, Liam feels like he's the only one in the room who can't see something, even though it's right in front of him.
Then the Phenex recalls its shields, revealing...
The Neo Helios rises, slow and unsteady. Its armor is blackened, and several larger vents have melted shut. But its cameras still work, and they zoom in on the mangled MP Nu as Yuliana...
That's her, Liam realizes, and his stomach lurches at the sight. He runs hands along his own scarred head, and the Mobile Fighter mimics the gesture. He doesn't sweat much anymore, but his hands are shaking.
"Lucine," Liam whispers. He reaches down to clasp the Dianthus's shoulder. "We need to go. Everyone's--that ship is--" He can't put the fear into words. Yuliana's face swims in his mind, the version that grew so angry when he told her she should go to the medics. He should have known.
With the Dianthus on its heels, the Neo Helios rises unsteadily into the sky, and then starts racing in the general direction of Japan.
Liam already radioed the transport pilots. It's going to be a long ride back, anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.
What happens next takes a good three to five minutes to occur, a slow boil of devouring hatred turning thick and viscous in the cauldron of Sophia's heart. To the Awakened it is no longer a premonition but an absolute certainty.
This place...someone is going to destroy this place.
She brings her Flag in for a landing, taxis to the stall. She's out in under thirty seconds, hurling her helmet to the first person who makes the mistake of looking at her. She storms to the elevator. She enters.
She watches the world of bonds as it rises. She watches the building through the walls. The presences within, scampering away. She looks down to where Pham's machine lies. Nothing. The one who was bound has gone away.
She tries to turn to see Yuliana's departure, which she is sure is happening; but the fact of it is that it is so, so much harder to see an absence than a presence. It disappears from her senses, just as the door opens. Just as Amata calls, "Captain on the bridge!"
Sophia steps directly to her captain chair, still in her pioting suit, and doesn't look at the monitors at all for several seconds.
Weapons calls, "Ready, ma'am."
She waits yet. Watching. That golden light is down there. But.
But this place is more important than that. She lives. Sophia will figure out the rest, later.
Finally, the last truck she judges to be part of Leina Ashta's assault force pulls away. "All guns," she says, like she had something disgusting in her mouth. "All units."
"Remove that eyesore from my planet. "
The sky fills with thunder. Every weapon on the hyperion - railcannons firing shells the size of basketballs punch
through the building. Lower levels fracture. Beam cannons from affiliated G-Hound units blast away at supports,
railcannons puncturing whole floors, missiles entering laboratories and obliterating the entire wing. It doesn't stop at
the building. The parking structure, the side buildings. The sub-levels, caving in under total elimination.
She grabs the loudspeaker mic.
"LET IT BE A WARNING!" Sophia roars, the setting sun dazzling behind the Hyperion in the sky. A proclamation from above.
"LET ANY SNAKE OR RAT WHO WOULD DARE LAY THEIR POISON CLAWS ON AN INNOCENT KNOW, I WILL TEAR DOWN YOUR WORKS TO THE
SCREWS!"
"LOOK ON YOUR FORTRESS, YOU PIGS IN HUMAN CLOTHING, AND KNOW THAT THE MOMENT I FIND YOU IS THE MOMENT YOUR AMBITIONS
PERISH!"
"PEOPLE OF THIS PLACE, KNOW THAT YOUR COUNTRYMEN HAVE PERPETRATED EVIL AS GREAT AS CAN BE DONE, AND G-HOUND WILL NOT
FORGIVE IT! MERCY IS A THING FOR HUMANS! VERMIN RECEIVE EXTERMINATION!"
She slams the loudspeaker down, shaking, and then whirls to return to her seat. She is, after all, the commander, now.
"All units, return to home positions. Comms, announce all clear to the EBS."
She stares dead-ahead at the forward monitor, silent, focused to a laser's point.