2024-01-26: ennea ena ~ 'our' future
- Cast: Asciel Colette, Teletha Testarossa, Leina Ashta, Yuliana Kafim, Koji Kabuto, TenRyuuJin Team, Sayaka Yumi, Kallen Kozuki
- Where: Saudi Arabia - Isaac City
- Date: U.C. 0098 01 26
- Summary: The cradle of humanity is breached, and in its defense rises a tortured soul who lives for destruction, and a desperate savior yearning to protect someone. A world where suffering stands alone is rejected. (ICly takes place April 0098.)
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Isaac City - the promised last bastion of humanity. A secluded underground metropolis beneath the sands of western Arabia, the first and grandest of the Layered cities which hide beneath the surface of the earth. Skyscrapers stretch both above and below in a vast labyrinth of stark urbanism, less like a city humans were meant to live in, and more like a crystalline cavern - or, perhaps, the organs and veins of some colossal mechanical lifeform. Dark and inky, but for the ribbons of neon lights and flickering boards of holographic advertisements.
It is here that Chrome, the vast industrial conglomerate, weaves its web in the game of power and capital. It is here that a towering domino of Amalgam's vast network of conspiracy raises. Through the efforts of Teletha Testarossa, and the concession of Cascade Vermilion, those assembled today came to hear of this company's sins.
Manufacture and supply of weaponry not just to Amalgam operatives, but to their relevant insurgent movements, fanning the flames of war.
Development of combat drugs that then proliferated to the black market and human experimentation labs.
And, of course, the thread that brought everyone here. Their agent, Atrytone - Asciel Colette - constantly taking drastic measures to reshape the world. Chrome's fingers have been at the destruction of JOSH-A - the attack on the Gundam Fight officials - Colonel Garland's attempted coup on Britannia - the raids on the Photon Power Labs and NERV - the activation of Infinity - and, most recently, a slate of petty hostage-taking of powerful politicians and financiers.
This sanctuary, Isaac City, built to endure the end of the world -
Is among the vastest tumors of the cancer that would herald this very end.
-- -- -- -- --
A vast artificial underground canal connects Isaac City to the Red Sea, connected to the harbor system of Yanbu - wide and deep enough for multitudes of cargo ships and aircraft carriers to pass in and out. The most obvious, key weakness of this fortified cocoon of a city...but against the world's most advanced stealth submarine and its suite of determined technical operators, it's shockingly penetrable, at least from the onset.
Things get far more complicated past this causeway and into the network of docks and ports lining Isaac City's interior properly.
A ship as large as the Tuatha de Danaan cannot evade notice in these confined quarters, and alarms immediately raise through the city. Air raid sirens, and a repeating notice: [Hostiles have invaded the shelter. All citizens are advised to evacuate either to the surface or towards emergency life support pods. Civil defense forces are now mobilized and engaging in combat.]
...Holding Chrome to account will not happen peacefully, clearly. Swarms of identical Armored Cores pop up from tactical deployment pods in the city streets - moving in calculated routines, more of a dance of myriad fairies in synchronized action. The tell-tale sign of centrally controlled Mobile Doll technology...
<"IF IT ISN'T THE HOTTEST SHIT OF THE SEAS, THE TOY BOX ITSELF!"> - cuts a distinct voice across the din of combat, aggressive yet raspy. <"Any idea how much I worried you scrubs would make this garbage boring? My streak's been pathetic lately, so thank fuck you're here to put up a stage worth my time!">
A gigantic and heavily modified spider-like AC descends upon a cable from the city's ceiling, each of its eight legs lighting up with integrated beams at the feet. Embedded into its core - Chrome's cyberwarfare specialist, Lyceum-3 - Aura Veo, messy blue hair draped over one eye, the other contracted in a manic grin. The myriad cables and servos integrated through her arms and lower body twitch and flex eagerly.
<"Heh. Ahahahah! Khh...khhahhh..."> An over-enthusiastic spate of laughter descends into coughing and sputtering, lips parted in a pained grimace. <"...don't disappoint me. I've heard enough about you dipshits. I've monitored enough of the reports. God, you bitches are touchy feely with OWL, aren't you? Fucking pathetic!! What's the point of giving the best builds to such failures? Are you stupid? Are you actually just constantly bluffing? Fuck me, with all the stunts that insane microwave pulls, I've been waiting for her to just blow herself to bits so I can have my fill of everything inside!~ Are you all actually so weak that you can't handle one lunatic? I wanna find out! I wanna eat you alive, so don't you dare gimp yourselves, not here!!!">
As Aura's web of particle beams sear across the figurative beachhead of Isaac City's invaders - they're joined by a more careful and meticulous set of long-distance sniper fire, from an orange-colored AC emplaced upon a rooftop. <"...Aura, please...take this a little bit seriously."> The shaky voice of Squad Leader Lyceum-1, Palady Timpal, struggles to make its place in the chaotic vortex of comms chatter - her arms fold over herself for a few moments, eyes growing a little teary as they clench shut. <"...why'd it have to be this way for you...you and Asciel always cursed by those...urges to prove yourself. ...No matter how much I try...I just can't...convince either of you to just...slow down for a while. Aah...aaah!!!">
With a desperate shout that borders on a sob, Palady's rifle deploys a bank of micro-missiles on either edge, adding to the din of violence consuming the city's ports.
<"...Palady, can you like, not fucking do this?"> Here, of all times, Aura's voice stabilizes into a low, rumbly sigh. <"God, you know it pisses me off when people cry for me. If you don't want to do this, can you just, like, GG on us? Breathe a bit, holy shit.">
A bitter look flashes across Aura's face. The signal in her eyes, eternally ticking up, singes at her senses a little.
SERVICE OVERDUE - TIME: 3Y 194D 16H 19M REPLACE IMMEDIATELY
<"...none of you are taking my score away from me.">
KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has deployed in Agrissa Type 13. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has deployed in TDD-1 Tuatha de Danaan. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has deployed in Aphrodite Areia. KTS: EN Barrier activated! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has deployed in GBR-9 AnRyuu and GBR-8 KouRyuu. KTS: Kallen Kozuki has deployed in Type-02 Guren Mk. II. KTS: Koji Kabuto has deployed in Mazinger Z <Jet Scrander>. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has deployed in MPMZ-17 Ichinana. KTS: Mobile_Weapons_Team has deployed as a Boss for 7 opponents. KTS: Kallen Kozuki's Type-02 Guren Mk. II has been disabled. KTS: Leina Ashta has deployed in CEK-068 Beguir-Neuer. KTS: Leina Ashta has changed loadout. KTS: Kallen Kozuki has deployed in MPMZ-17 Ichinana. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team's Agrissa Type 13 has been disabled. KTS: Koji Kabuto's Mazinger Z <Jet Scrander> has been disabled. KTS: Koji Kabuto has deployed in Mazinger Z <Jet Scrander>. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has deployed in Agrissa Type 13. KTS: Mobile_Weapons_Team has deployed as a Boss for 7 opponents. KTS: Teletha Testarossa's TDD-1 Tuatha de Danaan has been disabled. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has deployed in TDD-1 Tuatha de Danaan. KTS: Sayaka Yumi's Aphrodite Areia has been disabled. KTS: Kallen Kozuki's MPMZ-17 Ichinana has been disabled. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has deployed in Aphrodite Areia. KTS: EN Barrier activated! KTS: Leina Ashta has deployed in CEK-068 Beguir-Neuer. KTS: Leina Ashta has changed loadout. KTS: Kallen Kozuki has deployed in MPMZ-17 Ichinana. Roux Louka teleports in. POT: Roux Louka is now set observer.
KTS: TenRyuuJin Team's GBR-9 AnRyuu and GBR-8 KouRyuu has been disabled. KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has deployed in GBR-9 AnRyuu and GBR-8 KouRyuu. KTS: Yuliana Kafim's MPMZ-17 Ichinana has been disabled. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has deployed in MPMZ-17 Ichinana.
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
Isaac City - the housing of a dangerous criminal, the source of her current ire in so many shapes and forms. Even looking at the coordinates for the confirmed location brought her nothing but a deep-seated spite and discontent, the map of the Red Sea in her head dotted with outlines, routes, shipping lanes spilling in and out of Yanbu. Only a precursory scan to find the vacancy of land where there should be some.
Tessa (and in accordance, Mithril), were true to their word. The PPL and Cathedra were notified of the location of the foul tumor, with open word to do with the information as they decided. Their end of the deal was upheld, as was a notice of when the TDD-1 would be heading out.
This, too, was something that was true to their word.
In that underground canal. Comms. <"This is the Toy Box. We'll all be in your care once more. To reiterate: Mithril's objective is the neutralization and capture of Asciel Colette, aka Artytone. Civilian casualties are intended to be at a minimum. Follow your own discretion, and come back alive."> That'll do. Cordial. Efficient. Don't think about anything else, don't go for anything else. Work. Grind. This for the good of humanity, inhuman as you are.
Woooow, it's so big! Who knew, who knew! The smallest rub of her forehead, mental eye instinctually glancing towards the hole so patched up and perfectly welded. Memories lasted much longer than metal. Jolted back by the alarms, there's only a small grumble coming from the dark-ringed Captain. "As expected."
"Captain?"
"Prepare for combat maneuvers."
"Yes, ma'am! Prepare for combat!"
And not a moment too soon.
The electrical field of the beast of the seas quivered as functions were rerouted, hangar blaring with the alarms of combat. <"Weapons free. Good luck."> DANA was already alight with the pings of Armored Cores, dissemenating, sorting, drawing sightlines from the TDD-1 to the units proper.
<"I didn't believe I'd be so popular."> Aura. Palady. ALready capturing the forms of those ACs, already peeling them apart in her mind. Flexible legs. Marvels of engineering. Only a beat to light up the unique units with unique markers, distinct from the others. A mobile base rumbling at the edge of the harbor of Isaac City, calmly breathing in, breathing out, a Captain sitting on her steel throne as the hair on her neck bristled. <"But if you're offering yourself to such an extent, then I have no reason but to accept.">
"Begin loading all tubes. Cluster bombardment. Prepare PRT squads for regular combat."
"Aye, ma'am. Begin loading all tubes! Preapre for deployment!"
With the faint hope that Chrome's evacuation procedures were just as good belowground as above...
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Mobile Weapons Team with Designate L2. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Teletha Testarossa designates Mobile Weapons Team, making him easier to target and opening him to indirect fire.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Noone in Cathedra's command takes it seriously that Atrytone could be a big fish in Amalgam. After all, Amalgam's MO is just not compatible with her ideology. Small fish however, are often used to catch sharks.
Especially after you chum the water.
Mithril's olive branch of cooperation is however accepted in this regard, Cathedra and Mithril are perhaps not on the best of terms given Mithril's clandestine existence, but their goals certainly align in this respect.
Leina's never been to Isaac City before, already it's not making the best first impression. Her Beguir however is one of several taking part in the Mithril raid.
Thus several units of the Dominicus Corps followed in the wake of the TDD-1, going aquatic on this one and 'hooking on' while on low power so as not to compromise the stealth functionality. It is only when the alerts go off that the units begin to power up, and untether.
The Beguir Neuer ascends alongside the Pentes. The Pentes move to engage the mobile dolls, while the Neuer, leaps through the streets of the underground city even as the Spider Armored Core appears, sending it's web of particle beams, and it lands, claws scraping and sparking from the friction of the momentum as it spins around.
It's rifle is already firing just pot shots though, because it suddenly just leaps towards it, and those claws unlatch further. The Cathedra Mobile Suit slams down upon the lower abdomen of the Spider like mobile armor.
It's claws latch in, and suddenly try to tear at its thick armor, shredding it in place, even as the beam rifle is pointed center mass, with a spherical charge of beam plasma already forming.
"<Been dealing with lunatics most of my life.>"
The Beguir fires, point blank into that point, before the claws suddenly let go, and it leaps away.
"<Sure, I can handle one more.>"
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Mobile Weapons Team with Beguir Neuer Claw and Rifle Combination - Crusade! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana just got in again -- she took a break from her therapy, between late March and early April -- but of course she immediately volunteers to go out and help Sayaka again. Even if she's all caught in a snarled brain-trap about fighting for a lab, she still wants to help.
And here she is, in Ichinana One -- Ichichinana?! -- flying on Sayaka's wing, again. Thankfully, the PPL took care of getting them here. With friendship from the Toy Box, no less! "Requesting radar tags of civilian holdouts and shelters," Ichinana One, which sounds suspiciously like Noted Reality Criminal Yuliana Kafim, requests of Teletha. (Surprisingly sensibly -- but then, she was a soldier, and she's fought in urban environments before.)
She's less considerate to the enemy units who show up. "Eight legs, huh?" Her voice cuts in on a wide band, addressing Aura, and her grin is audible. Out of anyone, she'd know. "Must be a lot to manage... or did you gut the system and autobalance it like they like doing these days?"
She urges her Ichinana forward -- the Combat AI is still, tragically, installed in this one, perhaps as the universe's punishment for her sins but more likely just a matter of impromptu deployment -- and cries: "Burning Fire!" The beam fires out towards Aura's spidery machine, because, of course, she's still calling her attacks in this thing.
Over allied frequencies, she points out, dryly: "... so, we all get how that pilot is a labrat, right. Probably both of them, from the way that other woman's crying about it." There's a beat of a pause as she grasps her controls, "Not that it bothers me, but just so we're all on the same page."
It might bother her a little.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
The Chrome Corporation is responsible, through Atrytone, for a whole host of international crimes - several of them claiming victims from the OCU's primary energy supplier and an international defense organization.
This hammer drop has been coming for a long time, carefully negotiated by the OCU in the wake of its secession from the Federation as a collaborative effort, as its intelligence specialists traced Atrytone's movements and the anomalous transactions made to Isaac City as recompense for the ill-gotten goods of her raids.
All this to say - the PPL's team is not the only contribution to the assault.
The cruiser several leagues downrange of Isaac City primes its catapults, and several long-range deployment pods are volleyed into the sky to join Mazinger Z and Aphrodite Areia. The capsules burst open in midflight and a squadron of Ichinana in OCU Navy colours deploy their Scrander pods, forming up on the two larger Mazins.
"Looks like they saw us coming, bro," Shiro Kabuto reports, flagging the numerous Cores deploying from the City's defense hangars. "Looks like they're unmanned - I'm reading coordinated communications systems from that command Core over there. Squadron One, let's keep the grunts off the Mazins! Defensive formation Ni-Ryu. Let's give 'em hell!"
====== ======
'Touch down' is a rather euphemistic way to describe how Mazinger Z lands in a combat scenario, its massive navy feet carving furrows in the asphalt as it carries its momentum in a tremendous blow that connects with a leaping Armored Core to smash it away into a cluster of its fellows, clearing some space for the strike team to join him.
"Command Core sighted," Koji reports. "Engaging." The pilot of that machine, however, seems wholly unconcerned with them, focusing most of her attention on the 'Toy Box' by the sound of her chatter.
"... Score?" Koji frowns. "Great. Someone who thinks this is one big game." Mazinger Z's horns crackle with that familiar cold blue light. "... Yeah, acknowledged, Ichinana-One. Let's not play around, then. Reito Kousen! FIRE!"
The hypothermic rays lance out, targeting the joints of the massive spidery core.
KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Mobile Weapons Team with Reito Beam! KTS: Koji Kabuto has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Claw and Rifle Combination - Crusade, taking 5859 damage! KTS: Leina Ashta has engaged Mobile Weapons Team! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team charges into the attack! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team's Beam Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Koji Kabuto rattles Mobile Weapons Team, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Koji Kabuto's Reito Beam, taking 2320 damage! KTS: Koji Kabuto begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> TenRyuuJin Team has posed.
As if Mithril and Cathedra weren't enough, GGG--and by extension, Chasseur--have added some of their operatives to this joint mission. A perfectly sensible submarine flanks the Toy Box as it makes its entrance. It's the sort of thing used for this exact purpose: big enough to carry a couple Mobile Suits, and quiet enough to go mostly undetected. As it makes its final approach, the deployment bay on its bow groans open, and two reactor signatures ignite.
"Joint operation forces, this is GBR-9 AnRyuu, providing fire support. Likewise requesting the locations of civilian shelters and evacuation routes." As always, AnRyuu's voice is calm and composed, even as she's met with Aura's venom.
Also very characteristic of AnRyuu: The swarm of missiles that erupts from the water's surface a moment later, detonating in mid-air to flood the docks with sensor-scrambling nanochaff. She's being very careful where those go, because this is a city, and weaponry that goes off-course can kill innocent people.
A moment later, the woman herself leaps from the water--deep black-purple paint job, superficially similar to her elder 'brothers', but more femme in design.
"Chrome Armored Core pilots," she says, "Please power down your vehicles and surrender."
Moments later, a second Brave emerges from the water, and lands beside her sister with a heavy thud. "Microwave?!" says KouRyuu, meeting Aura's declaration with indignation. "Seriously? I don't know what the creeps you work for are up to down here, but if they're making her do all this shady stuff, she needs to not be there, especially with people who think it's super fine to talk about salvaging someone's corpse. Ugh!"
"KouRyuu," says AnRyuu, right on cue.
KTS: TenRyuuJin Team targets Mobile Weapons Team with Jam! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has completed their actions for the round. KTS: TenRyuuJin Team jams Mobile Weapons Team's sensors, reducing his accuracy.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
The Photon Power Labs on its own doesn't have much in the way of an Intelligence division... meaning the effort to track down Atrytone, vanished after the battle was largely out of their hands. Fortunately, Shiro Kabuto and his Third Company offered a hand in tracking down the rogue Super AI's whereabouts.
Mithril, of course, were working hard at it too, and as soon as they picked up a lead and upheld their deal, the Third Company was in position to loan a light cruiser courtesy of the OCU.
The cruiser follows closely behind in a brazen attempt to hunt down Atrytone and see the Chrome company pay for many crimes. Connections to Amalgam... knowing Doctor Hell was connected to this group in some way too, there's certainly an incentive to chase this lead down.
Sayaka hardly sweats at the sound of the alarm and the swarms of Armored Cores that emerge. "Ichinana wing, that's your cue. Boss is helping out with evacuation... so don't worry if you lose track of him." Sayaka tells their temporary support pilots, getting Aphrodite Areia ready for launch herself. "Aphrodite Areia, Mazin GO!"
The feminine Mazin lands side by side, with a touch more grace, wings folded out. Yuliana and Koji attack the leader - before Yuliana points out that the pilot is obviously a lab survivor. "They're not who we're here for. But if they're going to stop us from reaching Asciel, we have no choice but to fight them. If we're up against escapees... the least we can do is push through quickly." Sayaka assesses, locking her sensors on the Command Unit.
"If it has eight limbs, then I think the best bet we have is overloading them to the point of non-function. Even if it's autobalanced, weird mobile armour-like designs like this tend to get much more finnicky than your average mobile suit." Sayaka suggests, putting forth a strategy for the Third Company and the rest of their allies to use. But brute force is always an option, too!
KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Koji Kabuto, Yuliana Kafim, and Kallen Kozuki with Coordinate. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Sayaka Yumi coordinates maneuvers, raising Yuliana Kafim's Piloting! KTS: Sayaka Yumi coordinates maneuvers, raising Koji Kabuto's Piloting! KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Mobile Weapons Team with Burning Fire! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team charges into the attack! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team's Beam Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Yuliana Kafim's Burning Fire, taking 1620 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
Asciel and her friends have made a number of enemies across the board. Some for personal reasons, and some less so. In this case, Asciel herself isn't EXACTLY the target. But her Amalgam connections... The people backing the Super AI. Those are why she's here. So, with the support of her friends and a significant expedature of resources, Kallen came along with the Photon Power crew, wearing a surprisingly good wig to cover her hair just in case the helmet isn't enough. Furthering the goal of obscuring her identity, she's not making use of her Guren. Well... that was also partially a request. She's been getting it into a lot of trouble, and repairs are getting more dicey to perform on it, with a number of its key parts being rather hard to produce spares of. The Guren is HERE, mind. But it's hidden away, only to be used if there's absolutely no other choice. Instead, she's taken out a loaner unit she's wanted to try since they were first shown to the public... Specifically, an Ichinana.
Working with the Danaan is... awkward right now. Exceptionally so. Still, it's always better to have their support than to be against them. She's seen that enough times on both ends of the barrel, to be sure of it. Thankfully, with the disguise callsign of Ichinana Aoi, she's perfectly capable of flying under the radar as another spirited and talented pilot. Her Britannified-Japanese accent isn't even really that much of a givaway, thankfully. Plenty of people are trying to Get Out of 'Area 11', since martial law was invoked. A few people have even managed to do it. Just... not very many.
As the defending army make themselves known, Kallen has thoughts to herself. 'I'm glad I'm not using Guren... An Ichinana might be a lot larger, but I can fine-tune the damage it causes, so much better. Give the regular people a bit better chance to get out, than if I shot off the Surger in a place like this.' Of course, hearing the shouting directed at the Toy Box drags her pretty cleanly out of her thoughts.
As does the machine's design. She's no arachnophobe, but she can imagine that's particularly unsettling for people who are. "Hearing you loud and clear Ichi One. Let's make sure they don't do this to even more people." Swinging the Ichinana into the action isn't too hard for her... It's DIFFERENT from a Knightmare Frame, no doubt about that. But Kallen put in a pretty good amount of time practicing, in the time between her asking to borrow this one, and the deployment. She wanted to make sure she wouldn't be dead weight in a machine she's not used to, with a whole new control scheme. Still, she has to fight the urge to just wade straight on in with fists flying. Instead, the chestplate begins to emit smoke and glittering ashes, sending a wave of corrosive particles sweeping over the ACs. "RUST SQUAAAALLLLLLL!" For somebody who used to do Mazinger attack callouts as a kid, this part comes a little bit too naturally.
She's hoping they can save these people from what's been done to them, but... Knows that's not always possible. And suspects the one talking like a habitual gamer may be in that camp. Still, better to try and fail, than not to try at all.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi coordinates maneuvers, raising Kallen Kozuki's Piloting! KTS: Kallen Kozuki targets Mobile Weapons Team with Rust Squall! KTS: Kallen Kozuki has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to Kallen Kozuki's Rust Squall, taking 2325 damage! <Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
A rash of pride crosses Aura's voice towards Yuliana, the very beam emitters from the AC's legs pushing up a little geyser of defensive I-fields to redirect the infernal blaze. <"Heeeh. I knew someone would appreciate my hard work. I labbed for days to get the balance just right, just for me. No half measures, nothing to get in the way of the armor I can go all out in."> The hulking AC skitters across the face of a building, twirling in place to lash a claw out at the Ichinana's wings - pivoting the humanoid upper body to face the ever-famous Mazinger Z and Aphrodite.
<"What, are you gonna get preachy with me? The score is that I'm still alive! The achievement is that I killed the people who fucked me up! Nothing else matters. There's only raising as much hell as I can for as long as I can keep going. So it kinda pisses me off - seeing people who have a future like you two coming here. Normies like you belong up in the light, making sappy speeches and walking dogs and shit like that! Gag!"> The freezing ray does hobble Aura's relentless pursuit a little, but the titanic AC manages to reel its mass up through all sorts of attached cables and tethers, legs outstretched...to slam Mazinger Z and Aphrodite together. <"Here, I'll give you a head-start on how you oughta be living, ahaha!">
The flight through the skies is hampered by the billowing cloud of chaff from KouRyuu and AnRyuu, inducing a fair bit of coughing and sputtering on Aura's part. <"Oh, fuck me, there's outright cops here. Spare me the fluffy talk. I'm here cause I wanna be. Beats fucking sitting around waiting to waste away! OWL - ugh, you people all call her Asciel, what fucking ever. God, that bitch does whatever she wants too, it's such a goddamn riot listening in on the suits trying to reel her in."> Another two cables spew from the tailtip of Aura's AC, each trying to wrap around the twins of light and dark, pulling them in for another vicious slash.
The corrosive storm from the Rust Squall immediately fills Aura's head with a jolt of pain from the myriad alerts ringing chaotically, neck arched backwards as she gets the hell away from Kallen, smashing into an office building in her desperation to escape. <"D-damn it, Aura, be more careful, please!!"> Palady whines, a sudden ferocity cutting through her wavering eyes to lock onto Kallen's Ichinana. <"Now do you see what I have to deal with? ...kh...this place. I swear, this city is some sorta magnet for people who can't help but doom themselves. It's too much! Everyone here pushes themselves too hard and wants too much, and they'd fight the whole world for it - it's - it's just, I can't let them just burn alive the way they always want to! S-so...just...I'll...take on what they don't consider for themselves-!"> Reloading bolt after bolt of beam fire on a caliber almost more comparable to a battleship turret, Palady's sights swing from Kallen, up towards Leina, sweat trickling across her cheek.
<"...Ah, so even Dominicus tagged along with the Toy Box...damn that captain, how'd they even find out...no. No, it's no surprise. ...Asciel was careless, surely. Nobody was supposed to know...hah. Hehe. I'll just have to clean up their mess. If we make this place your graves, m-maybe it can all go back to normal, and all their crazy plans can keep going, and we can just work together for that lofty future they keep talking about brings..."> The desperation in Palady's voice is a sign of a shaky hand, trained Leina's Beguir-Neuer but taking quite a few shots to find her mark...
With a click of her tongue, she repositions to a much more obvious target - the Tuatha de Danaan in the city's harbors, its salvos of missiles holding back the smaller ACs in the streets. Shot after shot tries to lance through the water, a ragged anger entering Palady's voice. <"...If you fell down...that's right. Everything that's gone wrong for us over the past few months is all your fault. The directors can't stop talking about the Toy Box. Asciel can't stop complaining about what its captain did to her. It's all your fault! I'm going to...take down that thorn in our side...and then, we'll be able to do what we please again...!">
KTS: Mobile Weapons Team targets Koji Kabuto with Claw Leg - Pinning strike ! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team targets Sayaka Yumi with Claw Leg - Pinning strike ! KTS: Mobile_Weapons_Team Changes attack to Yuliana Kafim and TenRyuuJin Team with Claw Leg - Swipe . KTS: Mobile_Weapons_Team Changes attack to Teletha Testarossa, Leina Ashta, and Kallen Kozuki with Plasma Field - Electric Cage. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta retreats from the attack! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team rattles Leina Ashta, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Leina Ashta fails to evade Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Field - Electric Cage, taking 4700 damage! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim blocks Mobile Weapons Team's Claw Leg - Swipe , taking 2280 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Teletha Testarossa charges into the attack! KTS: Teletha Testarossa successfully avoids Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Field - Electric Cage KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team anchors Sayaka Yumi, forcing her into close range. KTS: Sayaka Yumi fails to parry Mobile Weapons Team's Claw Leg - Pinning strike , taking 4680 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged Sayaka Yumi! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team anchors Koji Kabuto, forcing him into close range. KTS: Koji Kabuto fails to parry Mobile Weapons Team's Claw Leg - Pinning strike , taking 3960 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged Koji Kabuto! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team blocks Mobile Weapons Team's Claw Leg - Swipe , taking 2280 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged TenRyuuJin Team! KTS: Kallen Kozuki fails to Charge. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team rattles Kallen Kozuki, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Kallen Kozuki partially guards Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Field - Electric Cage, taking 3853 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Amidst Aura's ranting, the massive arachnoid Core slams its limbs together, smashing Mazinger Z towards Aphrodite Areia and pinning them in place.
"oh, come on!" Koji yells. "I was joking! Ichi-One, have you been talking to these people?"
Still, even though metal screams and scrapes as the two Mazins are forced together front-to-front, Koji is already flipping switches. "Sayaka! Blade on three!"
Against the pressure, Mazinger Z plants its feet, holding out its right arm as the left braces on Areia's shoulder to try and buy them both some room to move. "One... two... three! IRON CUTTER!" Mazinger Z pushes Aphrodite to its left, is pushed forward by the Core's massive limb - and swipes its bladed forearm at the limb trying to crush Areia!
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
The submarine light shakes with the movement around in the vicnity, Tessa casting a quick glance towards each side as units move. An operation meant to find and detain a single person. What a massive force for a single AI...Mithril. Cathedra. GGG. All for a single person. Isn't this what she wanted? To be viewed by the eyes of the world? Ah, but, but, you think she'd want guns pointed at her?
<"Copy."> It's all that needs to be said to Koji; Acknowledgement, and the note of engagement. Formalities and procedure in a battlefield.
Yuliana's request is parsed through in tandem with AnRyuu's own, a few taps of the buttons for DANA to reroute its eyesight through the algorithms of Whispered construction. The response is near-instantaneous: Shelters and suspected areas of non-hostile activity, along with a few marks for suspected civilian activity, along with general assumed probabilities graded in the usual green-yellow-red gradient and a scaled number. Noted war criminal or not, Tessa thought, I'm not about to complain about assistance.
Her discontent on the usage of labrats for such a thing is plainly clear on the mental sphere. Even with the chatter coming through, a finger impatiently taps on her chin. It'd be so, so much better to just sweep them aside, to just raze and carve a path directly to the core...A deep breath to discard that idea. No. There's people here. There has to be a merit to it.
Ah, but imagine her surprise! Imagine the fear! It'd be GREAT~! Quiet.
"Incoming!"
"True bearing two two five, twenty knots."
"Aye, ma'am! True bearing two two five, twenty knots topspeed!" The slow shudder as the vibrations of the TDD-1's engines kickstarted in earnest, discarding stealth for pure movement; To jump forward in record time, a combination of the occasional chaff shot out along with the trust of the armor to have Palady's shots 'ping' off the ocean-shrouded beast, or hitting nothing at all.
"Fire tubes one and two. Return fire to Palady."
"Aye, ma'am! Fire!" The trust in DANA's compuatations and Tessa was near-absolute, even if Mardukas was parsing through his own head. A chess game with insanity in every parlance of the word, standing stiffly as the missile hatches opened, and the Toy Box sprung its payload over Isaac City.
<"...It is?"> Palady's rise forces a crooked eyebrow up, digesting the accusation. <"And what will you do afterwards? People know where you are. We are only here for Asciel."> It's the half-truth, as much as Chrome's general activities were under investigation. <"Give her up, and it will all be over.">
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Mobile Weapons Team with Itano Circus Missile Dance! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Teletha Testarossa's Itano Circus Missile Dance, taking 4180 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"<I realize.>"
Is Leina's terse response to Yuliana calling them labrats. What's eating her today?
Either way she's not saying. Perhaps she gets some vague sense that Shiro is here, even before she sees the Mazins.
And thus Shiro might get a feeling, despite his lack of perceptiveness to such things.
Stay safe.
The Beguir's on the retreat from the Spider like Armored Core, even as the sights swing across towards her, and a beam suddenly rockets across the gap between the mobile suit's shield and shoulder joint, melting actuators.
Alarms go off, limited mobility left arm.
"Effectors are still online, it's fine." She tells herself, trying to beat back the anxiety of the moment as her suit biffs the landing, and has to make multiple quick strides to catch itself before it topples.
"<... So what role do you want me to play? On this stage you've crafted? Do you think that me playing the role of the 'cop' and telling you you're under arrest to make things easier for you?>"
Leina answers Palady, "<It was only a year and change that I was in the labs myself, under the care of people who could do it 'legally' because they were untouchable.>"
Suddenly the funnels rise out from the armor, in a spiral, and beam fire suddenly erupts from six different directions, firing at mobile dolls and armored cores in erratic patterns.
"<So no. I won't validate however you're justifying to yourself perpetuating the hell they created and cast you into. For your survival, your status quo or your 'freedom'. I understand why you feel that way.>"
The criss cross of beams continues to dart around from the semi-circle formation of funnels, "<But I'm going to see for myself after you survive this, whether you aren't more inclined to take responsibility for the world we live in.>"
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Mobile Weapons Team with Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Copy that," Yuliana confirms, when the Toy Box sends over the data which she's not the only one to request. She'll just casually alter her approach to make sure that any debris that gets thrown around has less of a chance of hitting those shelters. She might be a war criminal, but she knows a thing or two about not doing warcrimes, too.
Does that make the warcrimes she's actually done even worse?!
And -- "It's pretty good," Yuliana says, and says genuinely, even as she twists her Ichinana around to block the Armored Core's claw with her Mazinger Blade. She knows how hard it is to balance for eight legs. It's harder than it is with four. "Are those manual hydraulics, or is the whole thing actively powered?"
Off she goes, though, and Yuliana scowls as she listens to Aura detail the score. "Obviously not!" Yuliana snaps, to Koji, when he accuses her of talking to them. "We don't all know each other, idiot!" What, does he think every labrat gets together for brunch and bridge on Tuesdays?
(Shut UP, Leina, he's not allowed to KNOW.)
Speaking of Leina, though, she gets it. "Tch..." Yuliana mutters, scowling. "What's with you? You want me to give a shit? I already gave a shit. It's been given. Keh!" She's awfully sensitive over two pointed words, isn't she?
Unfortunately, she's sensitive enough that she does switch back to general comms, so she can address Aura again. Not because of Leina, obviously. "You might have iced the scientists in charge," she says to her, "but you're still a useful idiot. You could have gone out attacking anything -- and you decided to stop us from pushing through to get at Chrome? Stupid of you. Maybe you really are at the end of your rope... or maybe they're just letting you hang yourself." Her hand flexes and grips at the thrust she clunks forward, as her Ichinana flies towards that spidery machine. "Isn't that funny?! MAZINGER BLADE!" She screams, as she brings her weapon down on one of the joints of those specialised legs.
KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Daunt Spirit Command targeting Mobile Weapons Team KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Mobile Weapons Team with Mazinger Blade Topple Strike! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to charge. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team's Beam Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Funnel Array Spiral Formation, taking 1530 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim rattles Mobile Weapons Team, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to parry Yuliana Kafim's Mazinger Blade Topple Strike, taking 4320 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Mobile Weapons Team! KTS: Yuliana Kafim completes the Formation attack! <Pose Tracker> TenRyuuJin Team has posed.
"Acknowledged, Toy Box," says KouRyuu, flashing a thumbs-up back towards the water as if Tessa were right there rather than beyond layers of armored hull. "Thanks!"
"Power down your Armored Core." AnRyuu raises her shield, deftly deflecting the first tether. voice is even and level, but not emotionless. "GGG provides medical and rehabilitation aid to people like yourself--"
The second tether fires, aiming right for KouRyuu. She sees it coming, and leaps behind her sister, but not quickly enough to keep it from lashing around her leg. Thrown off-balance, she slams headfirst into AnRyuu, nearly knocking her down, too.
<Ow, ow, ow,> KouRyuu chimes in, over their tightband link, <I know there's protocol, but I really don't think she's going to listen.>
<I know.> The twins don't precisely 'speak' like this, but AnRyuu's 'tone' is a lot tenser, here. There is an ongoing undercurrent in the transmission about how to approach the presence of Yuliana Kafim. Threat assessment is a routine part of their dialogue.
"All right," says KouRyuu as she kips back up, MASER cannon swinging out. "Let's get you out of that machine, yeah? I don't think either of you are in any state to be piloting right now. Miss Ashta's raising some very good points..." And the MASER fires, once, a single shot designed to bore through two of the titanic spider-walker's legs at the hip-joint. KouRyuu's already calculating how it might fall, if it hits.
KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: TenRyuuJin Team targets Mobile Weapons Team with GBR-8 Configurable-Output MASER Cannon - Yellowline Shot! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has completed their actions for the round. <Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"No... I don't have time to get preachy with you," Sayaka shoots back at Aura. "But between you and me, there's no score to keep in a place like this. Is that really okay with you? I don't get why you'd fight so hard for a bunch of capitalists like Chrome, even if you get some fun out of it." A city that's more underground bunker than a place to live, controlled by a single corporation to a near-dystopian level... it's no wonder Aura frames it like she has no future.
Sayaka has been taking the whole situation with the relative calm a commander should have up until now - sparing a smile at Ichi-One and Ichi-Two's hot-blooded attack calls. But when Aura decides to use all those cables and wires for the simple act of smashing Mazinger Z and Aphrodite together...
"Hey!! What in the world are you even trying to imply?" She challenges Aura, that old temper coming right back out, as Super Alloy Z violently crashes against Super Alloy Z "I mean, a trick like that is absolutely inappropriate in a setting like this and-"
A silent acknowledgement of Koji's count, as she unsheaths a massive greatsword from Aphrodite Areia's hip armour. "It's not going to work! Mazinger Blade - Areia Cutter!!" She uses the momentum from Mazinger Z's push to thrust the blade right towards that limb in one clean, simple motion. Sayaka doesn't try to reason with Aura, lacking the first-hand expertise of Leina or even Yuliana. But there's a reason she's trying to end this quickly... before it's too late for either Aura or Palady.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Mobile Weapons Team with Mazinger Blade Slice! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to TenRyuuJin Team's GBR-8 Configurable-Output MASER Cannon - Yellowline Shot, taking 4230 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team rushes into the attack! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Sayaka Yumi's Mazinger Blade Slice, taking 3990 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has engaged Mobile Weapons Team! KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Mobile Weapons Team with Iron Cutter Chop! KTS: Koji Kabuto has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to parry Koji Kabuto's Iron Cutter Chop, taking 3870 damage! KTS: Koji Kabuto has engaged Mobile Weapons Team!
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
She hadn't expected quite so severe a reaction to the Rust Squall, though giiven a moment of thought, it becomes far more obvious, as it probably should have been. Labrats. Probably using experimental control systems. If there's any kind of pilot feedback, that kind of attack must be agony, with how it wears away the layers of a machine. It's not an interface she's has any real exposure to, until now, so she doesn't often consider their impact on a pilot.
The moment of pause that gives her is small, yet significant. Enough that while she does see the web of wild beam fire, evading with any fine precision is well and truly out of the question.
It would have been anyway. Ichinanas are drastically larger than a KMF.
All the same, the Ichinana being used by pilot 'Aoi' gets pushed back by the connecting shots. Being flung away isn't the worst fate though. Ichinana's wings give it some course correction in the air, and so the ability to circle around. <"You want to stop them burning at both ends, but... You burn yourself down in their place? How is that any different? What does it accomplish if you kill yourself and can't watch their backs or rein them in any more?"> A question to the pilot who maund like she cares about the rest. <"It's a self-destructive short-term answer!">
While her line of conversation may prove less than fruitful, as she suspects part of their talk is... really a smokescreen, to cover for their own unaddressed problems... It doesn't need to be. It's partly to keep their focus divided, more on what she's saying, than what people are doing. Keep her from coordinating and following up on Aura's attacks.
Something else that ought to help in that regard, is having the Ichinana sweep in low, moving into melee to clip some of the AC's with the wings. Given a little more maneuvering room however, she's into a comfortable position, flipping an AC with a rising knee and jabbing outward with a palm strike, to tear away and hurl pieces of the unit at other targets, like Palady and Aura's ACs. It's a steady process she's repeating as she closes distance. Strike, disable, launch. Leaving a good number of machines with ripped off missile bays or limbs in her wake.
She's being careful not to core out any cockpits, as is normal for her. It takes a bit more conscious effort with the larger size of an Ichinana... Still, it's worth the time taken. Also if people are being completely honest. It looks pretty weird and definitely nonstandard to see in action.
KTS: Kallen Kozuki targets Mobile Weapons Team with Ichinana CQC Combo! KTS: Kallen Kozuki has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team partially guards Kallen Kozuki's Ichinana CQC Combo, taking 3608 damage! KTS: Kallen Kozuki has engaged Mobile Weapons Team! <Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
There's something almost listless about the way the automated Armored Cores maneuver and try to intercept the invaders of Isaac City - they're certainly still a threat to consider, laying down suppressive fire and being individually evasive, but they're predictable and stifled, going down all too easily to Leina's funnels, crumpling under the constant and ruthless dispatching Kallen doles out to each one in turn. By the end, the roving ACs, presumably under Asciel's distant control, have sizably thinned out, the streets littered with their shrapnel.
<"Oh THAT gets on my nerves,"> Aura jeers, catapulting from a rooftop, those eight legs becoming a deadly bladed rotor spinning like a buzzsaw at the Beguir-Neuer. <"'Hmph I'm pointing all these guns at you but I'm getting you out of here alive', bullshit! What ass-backwards mobile suit pilot comes to a place like this, where we sell all the shit that gets people killed most efficiently, and talks like they're gonna risk their lives to save someone's? You all, Palady, and Asciel are the same way, it's soooo lame! Shoot to kill or get killed yourself, anything else is being fucking dishonest if you're going to be a pilot!">
Tucking those legs in with poise, Aura descends to the ground, trying to catch Yuliana's blade with three of those appendages, servos whining from the effort. She shoots a little too close to the sun, though - throwing the AC off balance trying to get a visceral stab from a fourth leg into Yuliana's Ichinana. <"They're all independently powered and controlled by me on the fly, cause I'm just that good! If I'm gonna have to feel like a deathtrap like this is my body, I'm gonna get one I fucking like, so I'm glad you appreciate it! It kicks ass to move this way, to feel everything crumbling beneath me. Wouldn't it be sweet if I were born a kaiju!?">
Her legs don't hold out for long, though - and soon Yuliana's sword snaps through that delicate appendage, leaving Aura with seven legs, sending shearing pain through her spine...and, combined with the pity shown to her, sharply drops her aggressive tone of voice to something cold - the twin blades of the Mazingers chopping the AC's vestigial upper arms and yet another of the forelegs before Aura can so much as wince.
<"Annoying. I hate it. I want to fight hard. I want to get back at everyone. I really don't care about the safety of the world. I don't want to spend my last days on some bullshit idea that the GGG or the Photon Labs or whoever can 'make me better'. I've tried. I killed the only person who could save me. I can't stand listening to you all. It makes my blood boil to no end. It sounds bad, doesn't it. That I just wanna see shit burn, and know it was thanks to me. Tough luck. That's just how I feel. This awful city is where I can do that. Working for these pricks lets me feel like I'm doing something for myself. I've heard it before. Palady. These people talk to me like you do. I want them to shut the fuck up. Do me a favor. When I pin them down, please kill them. They're stronger than I thought. If you can't kill them, I'm done. I'm not dying for this.">
As the searing light of KouRyuu's MASER sends the spider-like AC crumpling to its front, the tangle of wires from Aura's abdomen (the spider abdomen, not the squishy person abdomen!) floods the air, coiling and yanking at as many of the Mazinger Corps as she can - with a special volley of cables that damn near threatens to drown KouRyuu and Anryuu.
...Of all things, what stabilizes Palady's trigger finger to take the shots Aura presents to her, is stammering out, <"...Uhm...I...I think you may have gotten a wrong idea about me. I. I just work here. I'm just a systems analyst by trade. Nothing...happened to me. Do I sound like something did!? Eh!? No! I just try to make sure...nobody here pushes themselves too hard?"> Though she needs to change position and relocate her sniper's nest when missile volleys keep tracking her down, Palady gets her act in order remarkably fast, launching a bolt sequentially at Sayaka, Koji, AnRyuu, and KouRyuu as soon as Aura's cables get into position.
<"...don't tell me I missed something that massive?! Ugh. Ugh! The Toy Box...I guess if you managed to infiltrate this place, you're worth more than I gathered, but STILL. It's a submarine! In the middle of downtown! Unbelievable..."> Fiddling with her rifle, Palady unfurls and reconfigures the modules for a more shotgun-like spread, to save herself the embarrassment of TOTALLY missing the TDD-1.
<"...I was the first person to see her awaken. I'm not letting you just kill the miracle she's capable of becoming. I'm not going to give her up to the likes of you. I want to see how she does it. If someone insists on saving themselves, I'm not going to let anyone get in their way, not on my watch!!!!">
Palady's shot on Kallen is made that much harder by lacking Aura's support - even in something much bigger than a KMF, Kallen's the ace of the Black Knights for a reason, a notorious nightmare for snipers all over the world. <"...ghhh. You...SOMEONE has to look after these people! SOMEONE has to recognize what they do and why they're suffering! If they refuse to live any other way, then I can't just wait for them to see some kind of light of salvation! Besides - if this is a world that makes people like Aura and Asciel, who set themselves on fire just trying to live in it - then maybe it DOES deserve to be burnt down to cinders, huh?!">
KTS: Mobile Weapons Team targets Yuliana Kafim with Claw leg - Thrust! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team targets Leina Ashta with Claw Leg- Spinning strike ! KTS: Mobile_Weapons_Team Changes attack to Koji Kabuto, Sayaka Yumi, Teletha Testarossa, and TenRyuuJin Team with Plasma Cannon - Full Blast. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team targets Kallen Kozuki with Plasma Field -Discharge! KTS: Leina Ashta has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Leina Ashta parries Mobile Weapons Team's Claw Leg- Spinning strike , taking 1515 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team repulses Leina Ashta, forcing her to disengage. KTS: Yuliana Kafim parries Mobile Weapons Team's Claw leg - Thrust, taking 870 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged Yuliana Kafim! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: TenRyuuJin Team successfully Evades Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Cannon - Full Blast KTS: Mobile Weapons Team roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable. KTS: Sayaka Yumi has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Sayaka Yumi's EN Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Sayaka Yumi partially guards Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Cannon - Full Blast, taking 6160 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa has activated the Foresee Spirit Command. KTS: Teletha Testarossa retreats from the attack! KTS: Teletha Testarossa fails to evade Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Cannon - Full Blast, taking 7320 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable. KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto fails to evade Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Cannon - Full Blast, taking 4575 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable. KTS: Kallen Kozuki fails to retreat. KTS: Kallen Kozuki fails to react to Mobile Weapons Team's Plasma Field -Discharge, taking 3906 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has engaged Kallen Kozuki! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
A cascade of plasma fire falls upon Mazinger Z and Aphrodite Areia, and Koji pulls the Castle of Iron into a crouch, its massive arms raised to try and mitigate the searing barrage.
The fire and smoke clears, and Mazinger Z rises to its feet, smouldering and charred, the flames still licking off its broad shoulders giving it a veritably fiendish silhouette.
"She talks like both of them, did you notice, Sayaka?" Koji's voice has sublimated into that strange battle-calm, his fingers running over the triggers on the Pilder's yoke to check Mazinger Z's functionality. He is, of course, referring to AscielAtrytoneOWL.
"Hey." He tunes his comms towards Aura's Armored Core. "Cut the bullshit. Your whole life is agony, so you want to take it out on the rest of the world? Yeah, I get it. I felt somethin' like that, a while ago."
Mazinger Z begins to stride forward, picking up speed as he switches back to the team comms. "Shiro. Keep that sniper pinned down, I've got a beatdown to hand out."
Behind him, one of the OCU Ichinanas draws a heavy beam rifle, tracking the rooftop that Palady was firing from. Soon enough, return fire, in that bright yellow-white of weaponised Photon Power, traces between the skyscrapers. Mazinger Z, meanwhile, charges, as Koji flips back to direct comms to the arachnoid Core.
"You want to cast yourself as the big boss? The kaiju stomping all over the city? Fine by me! Let me show you what happens to mechanical horrors on my watch!"
The Scrander fires, catapulting Z into the air above Aura's Armored Core. Koji pinpoints the likeliest location of the cockpit block - and aims for the machine's abdomen behind it, Mazinger Z thrusting its right arm forward and bracing with the left as the cutter blades snap closed for more precision, thruster vents opening at the elbow joint. His voice drops back to that steel-cold determination: "But guess what: I'm not gonna let you die, and I'm not gonna let you make me kill you. ROCKET PUUUUUUUUNCH!!!"
The great fist of justice soars forth, to smash through the back of the Core and devastatingly unbalance it for the others to capitalise on.
KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Koji Kabuto targets Mobile Weapons Team with Rocket Punch! KTS: Koji Kabuto has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to Koji Kabuto's Rocket Punch, taking 7200 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"When have I ever NOT wanted you to give a shit?"
Is Leina's easy reply back over the comms when Yuliana asks her about giving a shit.
Part of her glad that some are backing up what she says, it's perhaps good to have reinforced there are good people in the world, after what she's gone through recently.
Aura jeers her for her attitude, and she doesn't bristle, as the Spidery Armored Core leaps down, with a bladed rotor at the fore. The Beguir grasps it's beam saber from it's shield, and meets it head on, testing the rotors beam shielding.
"<What kind talks like that?>" She thinks of the inside of the cockpit of a Shamblo, "<The kind that's seen too many people like you die. Maybe you're of the opinion that I haven't seen enough.>"
She replies back, quietly in response to his tirade even as the Beguir jump jets fire to try and compensate for the weight forcing her away, "<Maybe you'd just like to create a mountain of burning corpses in your name, and tell yourself after it still isn't a good enough monument to your pain to take that edge off.>"
There's this, almost unsettling calmness to how she dictates this, "<I'm going to find out if we can have two fewer corpses once this is all over. That's my goal here, as a member of the Dominicus Corps. Mock me all you want.>"
And then abruptly, it reverses, as the Beguir suddenly leaps right at them again...
Rather than the Saber however, she offers the tip of the shield, held up, it ends at a point, "<Stop me, if you can.>" And uses the momentum to drives it right towards the Armored Core's neck joint.
KTS: Leina Ashta targets Mobile Weapons Team with Beguir Neuer Cross Drive! KTS: Leina Ashta has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team successfully evades Leina Ashta's Beguir Neuer Cross Drive
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You sound just like Wendy," Yuliana says, and sounds tired, when she addresses Palady. "That's how I know you're covering something up with that overwrought compassion of yours." And if she's clouded by her own experiences, well -- she is Yuliana.
She isn't terribly interested in Palady, though -- not when she can engage Aura and her familiar spidery machine. (Is it strange that Yuliana took one of the Ichinana's hands off of its blade to catch the Armored Core's claw in her hand when it came for her? Somehow, she's able to use the leverage of her Mazin to throw it away from her.)
"I don't know what you want me to do," Yuliana grumbles, to Leina, on an allied channel. "I'm not exactly the sensitive type." She's incredibly sensitive, just not in that particular way.
But she keeps trying, anyway. "It really doesn't bug me that much," she tells Aura, over an open channel, as she sheathes her blade. Maybe she's agreed to minimise her tightbands as some kind of accountability measure. Something, something, criminal. "When I was flying for the REA -- I actually sourced combat drugs from Chrome for our forces. Hell, I used them, too. Let's say six, seven out of ten? The headaches were killer, but so was I. So if you're trying to tell me I have this big moral objection to arms dealers, you're talking to the wrong woman. It's just, you know --"
-- she closes in as she's talking, skilled enough to pilot and monologue, to slam a palm against one of those remaining legs. She's looking to force it up and back -- so that she can close further in -- and aim a straight punch right into the centre of the machine. (Those familiar with Armored Cores might notice that she isn't aiming for the cockpit, though. She's looking to disengage her targeting systems, instead.)
"-- if you're talking about a deathtrap being your body, I've been there. Sixty metres tall. It's the best feeling in the world, and the worst thing you've ever felt. Right? You're so fucking powerful, and then you realise you can reach into your own chest and dig out your heart and LOOK AT YOURSELF --" Yuliana's voice rises in a bellow which loses stability with every step, "AS IF YOU'D SEE WHY YOU HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS! But you know what? You know what? You wanna know the biggest fucking joke?! Even if you tear through the city which ignored the way you BLED and SCREAMED, you don't hit a single damn man worth hitting! You're just gonna tell me -- do you really get off on killing women and kids more than the fuckheads who make us WORSE?!"
There is the sound of Yuliana's foot impacting the console, sharply.
And: ERROR: PILOT-INCURRED DAMAGE. COGNITIVE THRESHOLD WARNING.
"Shut UP!" Yuliana screams at it, before she keeps screaming at Aura, instead. "You're a fucking TOOL, spidergirl, and that PISSES ME OFF! Because if you can make a machine like that, you can burn shit so much better than these fish in a fucking BARREL!"
KTS: Yuliana Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Yuliana Kafim targets Mobile Weapons Team with Ichinana CQC Combo! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to Yuliana Kafim's Ichinana CQC Combo, taking 4400 damage! KTS: Yuliana Kafim has engaged Mobile Weapons Team! <Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
There's a small beat of interest at the near-brzen methods of the Armored Core units. They're so...milquetoast, the sort of maneuvers that work only in the ranks of early wargaming and the sort of tactics that would get a person laughed out of any serious war strategy table. Even if, even if to disregard all the general nuances and texture of the battlefield...It's so, so...disappointing. Even so, Tessa refuses to peel her eyes away. There's a small chuckle at the back of her mind. Never stop going for the goal.
Ah, but it looks cool! Look at that spider-form! Look at its engineering! How many manhours, how much time and effort went into it!?
The TDD-1 never stops pinging. It never stops scanning. To listen to the chatter, to feel her pride swell with the admission of missing. The undercurrent of cockiness. <"Yes, you're stating the obvious."> A submarine in the middle of downtown. Yes, what of it?
"Emergency dive! Disable coating for-" A check. "Half a second!" The quick unfurling of the rifle demands an equally quick response.
"Aye, ma'am!" "On my mark."
"Aye, ma'am!" Waiting. The rifle shots raining down, and... "Now!"
The submarine's skin shimmered for a moment, the vibrations on the water suddenly peaking upwards for a few moments; The rain of shots smacking, pelleting against bare metal, with nothing to conduct to but the surrounding water to fizzle out. Pocking the top of the submarine, denting the metal in a few spots.
It still holds. "On!" And the water vibrations stopped, stifled by the counteracting fields at play. Systems Analyst, she says. JUST THAT!? <"I've seen her miracles."> A shuddered breath of released anxiety. Even as the chatter continues, even as Yuliana's own brazen talk forces the obvious conclusion to the forefront, there's no place to lay distaste in this moment.
<"But, you're the first to see her awaken? What did you do?"> Trace it. Trace the path. Someone has to have made her. Someone has to have created her. What was the instigating incident? Does it matter? Of course it does. <"Do you know what her miracles entail?">
It's hell.
It's hell.
It's hell.
<"She can't be allowed to ply her miracles. Not after...what she has inside.> Fire tube three and four!"
"Aye, ma'am! Fire tubes three and four!"
The steel-eyed glare of a captain basks in the shudder of her submarine belching out another two payloads. One to assist on the general cleanup of the ACs around, the other pointedly aiming straight at Palady.
A deep breath in. A deep breath out. The faith placed in her comrades to subdue Aura. The minute bit of bile at Palady's confirmation of 'normalcy'. The scratch of one finger against another, demanding answers, demanding more, more, MORE.
KTS: Teletha Testarossa targets Mobile Weapons Team with Sniper! KTS: Teletha Testarossa has completed their actions for the round.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
The entire world seems to transform into a blinding flash for just a second as the plasma detonates at full blast. Sayaka keeps Aphrodite Areia standing, because she knows the Super Alloy Z will hold even after such force. But after an attack like that... she knows for sure that Aura isn't just playing around. And Aphrodite Areia doesn't have too much fight left, crackling as it takes another step forward.
"Yeah, I noticed all right." Sayaka replies to Koji, about to the similarities to Asciel, or Atrytone's speech. "I guess these are the type of people she's constantly modelling, no, learning from. Even if she has way too much pride to ever admit it." Sayaka considers, staring down that spider-based monstrosity that Aura has made her very own body.
"You know what? You're right! We can't 'save' you." Sayaka fires back at Aura, slamming the charred Mazinger Blade into the ground. "You have to be ready and willing for something like that... and I sure as hell can tell this is not the time nor place." The only reason she helped Yuliana after all is because she firmly expressed a desire for it... it's hard to be much of help to anyone by just dragging them into it. "After all... you have such a good outlet to vent out that stress and anger right now, don't you?" She can't deny it - both she and Koji have expressed that sometimes there's no better feeling in the world than piloting weapons like this - and it must be tenfold for someone who can control it like her own body. "But when the thrill wears off and you're stuck with your own thoughts... I hope you'll think a little harder about the situation you're in and listen to that friend of yours." Everyone seems to be on the same page here: they can't hold back against either of these pilots... but there's no reason to kill them. "If I can't save you, I'm at least giving you a shot at that! Don't waste it."
For all she's been focused on Aura - there's a whole mass of those mobile doll ACs to deal with, too. So Sayaka diverts all the photon power she has into the heat sinks in a bid to take a good chunk out in one shot. "Widening output, and..." Following Koji's Rocket Punch, the heat sink glows a blazing red and- "HEART FIRE!" A streaming blast of fire to pour through the ACs and deal some splash damage to Aura's machine - such an unfocused shot should be relatively out of Palady's radius, though.
KTS: Sayaka Yumi targets Mobile Weapons Team with Heart Fire! KTS: Sayaka Yumi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to Teletha Testarossa's Sniper, taking 4500 damage! KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to evade Sayaka Yumi's Heart Fire, taking 5220 damage! KTS: Sayaka Yumi roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable. KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has activated the Trick Spirit Command.
<Pose Tracker> TenRyuuJin Team has posed.
<"What was Chrome doing down here?"> AnRyuu's not making demands of anyone but perhaps Crome's executives and perhaps also the universe, but the tightbeam kind of comes out as one anyway.
Cables come spilling out of Aura's machine. Surprise gleams in AnRyuu's eyes; all it takes is a moment's glance at her sister, and both Dragon Twins begin evasive maneuvers. AnRyuu drives her shield forward, knocking aside the first wave of clasping limbs. KouRyuu scrambles back, firing light MASER bursts at the mass--not enough to burn, but enough to trigger whatever feedback systems Aura's plugged into. (If she's talking about this like it's her body, then she'll feel it, right?)
It's touch and go, but both the twins get clear. "<We're leaving Aura to you, PPL,>" says a slightly-rattled AnRyuu.
Palady is someone that hits closer to home for them, after all.
"So... she was never meant to be self aware, was she?" says KouRyuu. "I'm glad you want to keep her safe--she needs people looking out for her. But you're not going to help her like this. Asciel needs help. So does Aura, and so do you! That's why we're here! Whatever Chrome was doing, and whatever Asciel did on her own, it needs to stop! And we're here to stop it!"
At the same time, KouRyuu opens an encrypted channel to the Toy Box. To its captain. <"Captain,"> says KouRyuu, her voice as cheery and determined here as it is coming out of her vocorder. <"What do you mean by 'what she has inside?">
While KouRyuu speaks, AnRyuu fires a secondary salvo of warheads--more smoke missiles, filling the air with more nanochaff.
"All yours, sister!" she says.
"All right! Miss Palady, please take your hands off the controls and cover your head. Okay!" A pause. A deep, resonant cry: "PRIMROSE MOON!"
KouRyuu aims the MASER at nothing, and fires. The beam bounces. It bounces again. It bounces off dozens of particles no bigger than the point of a pin. It surrounds Palady's Armored Core, encaging it in energy, cutting through all its limbs simultaneously. It is precisely-targeted to avoid hitting anything that could cause collateral damage to the pilot, or the surroundings.
KTS: TenRyuuJin Team targets Mobile Weapons Team with GBR-8 Configurable-Output MASER Cannon - Primrose Moon! KTS: TenRyuuJin Team has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to evade TenRyuuJin Team's GBR-8 Configurable-Output MASER Cannon - Primrose Moon, taking 6480 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
If one were to actually ask Kallen what she's probably most known for, being an infamous nightmare to snipers likely wouldn't be on the list. Truthfully she doesn't think she's fought that many. Would she be wrong about that? Maybe. She doesn't have any control over her reputation or what people speak about in low whispers at their shady hangouts. What does surprise her however, is that this sniper is... just a regular person? Woman's clearly a better shot than she gives herself credit for though. Landing a solid hit to the Ichinana's center mass outright carves off a chunk of its firing plate. "Uh. This is Ichinana Aoi. The firing array still works if the breastplate is damaged, right?" A reasonable question to the PPL, for a situation she doesn't have the answer to.
While she waits on that however, she's got a conversation to have with a sniper. <"Part of what you're saying isn't wrong. People SHOULD look out for each other. The problem is what you're doing about it! Which is PRECISELY JACK SHIT!"> Ichinanas aren't stealthy. They've never BEEN stealthy. Maybe if they're flying quiet in the dead of night, with the right paint. But not in a heated battle. So Palady gets to hear and see 'Aoi' approaching. To help Shiro keep her pinned down, tracing the path of the woman's shots and following them back. Of course, any good sniper is adept at repositioning. But that only keeps enemies off you for so long, if you can't take them out. <"Yeah, the world's a huge trashfire, scum with power and money get away with murder and worse, while people just trying to live wind up suffering. We all KNOW THAT! But mindlessly burning it? That's not the trick! I don't have a single damn problem with REVENGE! People can own their own pains and the way they feel!"> Kallen certainly does. She won't let people take that from her. She never has. <"But you have to POINT IT! FOCUS IT RIGHT! If you hate the way this world works.... THEN YOU SHOULD DAMN WELL FIGHT FOR A BETTER ONE!"> The problem with that is of course, what banner you're fighting under. Does Asciel's plan really result in a better world? Amalgam... Chrome... they DEFINITELY aren't making a better world for anyone. <"That's the same message I've got for Asciel... Because you know what?"> This part's just for the sniper. "I don't hate her. I don't even dislike her! But she keeps working with people who don't have anybody's best interests in mind. And... well, maybe there's one or two reasons I owe her a punch across the face." Back to full audio, now that she's done airing the petty part of her being here. <"If she could listen and work with people who want to fix things, she'd have a pretty good shot of ACTUALLY improving the world, and solving some of these atrocities!">
All that of course, might be a little distracting. But she's practically breathing on Palady at this point, figuratively speaking. And worse for her, the damaged chest array is starting to all light up. <"BREAST FIIIIIIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"> Something you never want to be getting a face full of up close, or at any distance. Thankfully, she's got a sense of how to aim it and just how much power to use. To just melt into the sniper AC's most important parts. The arms. As it shoots right on past the rest of her AC to cleave a wide swathe through the lines of enemies still out on the field below.
Perhaps she didn't really need to put the fear into this sniper. Maybe that was excessive. But it ought to make sure what she has to say won't just go in one ear and out the other.
KTS: Kallen Kozuki targets Mobile Weapons Team with Ichinana Breast Fire! KTS: Kallen Kozuki has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team's Beam Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Mobile Weapons Team fails to react to Kallen Kozuki's Ichinana Breast Fire, taking 3960 damage! <Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
The Fortress of Iron was always a bulwark made to protect humanity. For Aura Veo - who's never been protected, and never had anything to protect, and had to claw her way to feeling something - anything - just to prove her life had meaning from the start-
<"I fucking hate that so badly.">
The gleaming visor of Aura's AC locks entirely onto Leina's audacity to try and decapitate her with a shield. To defeat her by trying to protect her. <"No matter what. Every time I've ever heard you people talk, it makes me so sick. Imagine. Imagine fighting to protect this disgusting ball of mud. Yuck."> With all of her AC's remaining strength, Aura skitters backwards, grinding along the pavement and tearing up the highway beneath her.
<"Imagine risking your necks to protect me, who may as well already be fucking dead! Hah. Hahahah! You really don't get it. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that MAYBE when I suddenly keel over, it won't be just staring at the fucking ceiling. You know what'd fucking RULE? You know what'd be the best way to die? Tearing apart the legendary Mazinger Z with my last breath, that'd be so fucking sick. I'd settle for ripping down an Orbital Elevator or riding a colony drop!">
And yet, that wish is fated to go un-fulfilled, because Mazinger Z's most famous weapon has caught Aura Veo wide open, half-severing the humanoid upper half of her Armored Core from that twitching mechanical spider. Sucking in a raspy inhale, Aura fumes, <"Fuck you for trying to save this.">
The light just about fades from Aura's eyes. Torn between the crushing helplessness and that insatiable desire to see that timer go up as far as she can - tossed around in the cockpit as Yuliana starts piece-by-piece crumpling her precious monstrous body to near-uselessness. The only thing more sickening than useless kindness is having what she can do to move, to live, taken away from her.
...But that gives Aura no choice but to listen to Yuliana. Really listen to her. And, gradually slumped over in the tangle of mechanical hell Aura's grown so comfortable living in...
<"...heeeeh...aha. ...hah...hah! Hah! FUCKING FINALLY, someone who gets it! A fellow woman of culture, huh?! ...gh. Kf...kf..."> An unfamiliar sense courses through Aura. Something brighter that washes away the sea of bitterness, if only for a second. Something sweet that cuts through the agony. <"...someone like you...with THESE sappy bitches? Hah. Ahahahah. What a fucking riot there! OBVIOUSLY it feels fucking empty taking it out on anyone but the bastards who did this to me. I'm chasing after that shit! The happiest day I can ever remember was when I was able to kill them! I loved it. I loved it!! I got the chance to rip them apart, and it was fucking addicting! I didn't want to stop, so of course I said yes when Chrome found me and told me I could keep going! But it's not the same. Hah. Haaah...peaked at...the opening act, you could say...">
Aura turns her AC's upper body towards that nimbly hopping orange visage - Palady getting closer and closer. That cold, dejected voice kicks in, but what Aura actually wants to say...
<"...Palady...I don't want to die. Help.">
...And more than anything in the world - that single word, in that defeated voice - locks Palady Timpal's thoughts into place firmly enough to feel. Leina and Tessa, surely, sense it most vividly - a soft and insecure nature suddenly hardening into iron. The world slows down, as the only words she's ever yearned to hear echo over and over. The target - Sayaka Yumi, whose Heart Fire may well sear Aura alive in her current state. Nothing in the world matters more than stopping that potential outcome.
Blowing its cover entirely, Palady leaps into the abyss of lights that gleam across Isaac City's central boulevard-
...well, it was worth the effort, but oh so quickly the TDD's missile aimed with laser-like accuracy slams Palady wildly off course - followed by the web of MASERs singing off antennas and fingertips and the right leg altogether, culminating in Kallen's Breast Fire turning Palady's AC into a fully roasted heap by the time she lands in front of Aura Veo. And all to protect her from-
<"...Palady, you moron. I wasn't going to die from that.">
<""Can you STOP ACTING SO TOUGH!?"> Palady breathes raggedly, clutching the upper half of Aura's AC protectively with one arm - and...finally, holding up the other arm, shakily dropping that oversized sniper rifle with a loud clang. <"...I never...cared about some sort of hopeful future. Honestly...people who can fight for something better are kind of too bright for me to understand. ...None of this crap about whether revenge is right or wrong or whether you or I can stop people like this from having to suffer - it doesn't even feel real half the time. You all just say things like that to feel a little better about how you wind up fighting, like, be real!"> There's a bitterness in Palady's voice as her head locks on Kallen's Ichinana, before conceding to the Braves and the TDD.
<"...well. ...maybe that's because I don't get it. I just...wanted to be there for them. Aura and Asciel alike...hah. What that girl has 'inside' her, you say - ...I spent so long trying to understand it myself. I don't. I don't, at all! ...after this long, though...I think...it's out of my hands. If anyone can change her destiny, it's not me anymore. It's you, who somehow know her better than I ever managed to. ...so...">
The mechanical hustle and bustle of Isaac City's slowed to a halt - the flames of war and emergency siren sticking out now that the silence of a broken conflict settle in.
There's a shaky, wry smile on Palady's lips, specifically in contacting Leina. <"...I suppose all this has wildly complicated that restructuring deal Chrome had, ahahah...I'm sure the board of directors are girding themselves for a little talk with you and the rest of the Group. ...for now...I really need to just get Aura somewhere safe...">
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
If you could see a Beguir sideeye an Ichinana, know that it happened when Yuliana stated she's not the sensitive type.
Aura as expected doesn't like a thing she's said, and Leina doesn't speak while she's telling her to Imagine. Imagine. Imagine.
It's only after, that she quietly.
"<Always been told I've got a good imagination.>"
Certainly she hears Yuliana, and Leina knows what it's like for a deathtrap to be her body.
She knows.
For a while, the Banshee was her body in many ways. Neurons fired and it moved, just like any part of her body.
The conclusion though, reaches her, and Leina watches that plea. One woman defends the other, even if unasked for.
And...
"<They can say what they want.>" Is her answer after a moment about the 'restructuring deal', "<If that's what you want, to get her somewhere safe. Two options. You power down your weapons, surrender to that submarine? They'll give you more than enough time to figure out 'what comes next' looks like for the two of you.>"
That's one side of the offer, but, she makes the other option, "<But if even that thought is too much for you, then you can come with me. And that choice? Well... it won't be yours anymore.>"
A beat.
"<But you'll be together.>"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
That would rule. Yuliana does have sympathy for Aura, even as mean as she is.
It's not entirely comfortable, and this is somehow Leina's fault.
And when she says she doesn't want to die --
-- one of the Ichinanas backs off. "You don't have to peak so soon," she points out, instead. "If it's not too late for me -- sure as hell ain't for you."
And she opens tight-band communications exclusively with Aura, briefly, to add: "You ever want to talk to someone who gets it -- I'm dropping you a number." And after a beat, she adds: "You're asking after Yuliana Kafim."
Well, that might explain just why she gets it.
"Don't look at me," she adds, as she switches back to the general radio channel. "I don't have the authority to harbour jack or shit."
Silence reigns on the line for another eight seconds.
"GL, HF."
Apparently Aura reminds Yuliana of someone, too.
<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.
It's a strange feeling, feeling one's own heart beat with such purpose. To watch people pour themselves in fighting, something she could never do. She could only sit back and watch, and place her faith in the ones in front of her. Really, you'd love to be anywhere but here!
There's a pause, a beat in the still air of the submarine before she directs her voice comms to KouRyuu. <"...It's a working theory. Take none of this for certain."> You haven't told anyone about what's in your head, have you~!? Of course not! <"Thanks to what I've seen of her in Goragon, I believe she's battling with herself."> The evasive way of putting it. <"Not as a person, but as...two rationales born from a single direction."> That's the best way to put it. The imagery of seeing their own core ripped out, everything about it...It's a thankful thing that it only scores the nightmares slightly. Not that you've been having more of them! <"That, and the reinitializations for every decision she has...It doesn't sit well with me. A restart cycle cannot happen with perfect success each and every time."> Was it. Was it her fault? The tiniest sliver of two-bit code? Was it her fault again?
The suspecting pit in her stomach, the ache in her scarred heart twinged that sliver deeper. Something to attempt to gaze away from, to focus her attention on Aura's fate...Ah, there's a connectio-
...I'm sorry, Palady. You're definitely a better person than you think.
It's with bated breath, watching that sick redirection of motion play out.
Another beat before the comms button is pressed. <"Do you think so?"> A simple question to Palady's statement. The sick interference between an AI shunning humanity and a human that lost the roll of fate. <"There are things out there we're not meant to know. What's inside Asciel is...complicated, if my thoughts are correct."> Still, to know that Isaac City was this obsessed, this sort of simple-minded targeting to have an entire board of directors trying for her ship that she built, to have one, simple two-bit sliver change the course of things so drastically... <"I cannot say that it's a good thing.">
Was it pride? Or was it arrogance? Or pure vanity? Still.
<"You heard her. We're after Asciel. There's no motive to continue fighting. Patch yourselves up, everyone. Cornered beasts are the ones that refuse to come quietly.">