2023-12-10: Two Stars in the Sky
- Log: Two Stars in the Sky
- Cast: Takashi Saginomiya, Qivi
- Where: The Location Formerly Known As Jupiter
- OOC - IC Date: December 10 0097
- Summary: The Silverion Crusher isn't the only weapon Triple Zero has in its arsenal.
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
In the distance, amid the sea of spectral flames blasted in every direction by the apparition of the King of Ruin, a yet greater flame burns - the entirely less illusory light of the Conqueror-King, King J-Der, descended to strike a final blow against the Division Train. Almost all of the combined force of arms brought to Jupiter has been deployed to stop it. Of course it is; GGG's never liked their odds in a fight against King J-Der just on its own, let alone infused with the light of the Oath Over Omega and the full fury of the Silverion Crusher. To make things wose, the Division Train's backup defenses in the form of the CR Robos were ravaged by ChuuRyu's assault.
To put it simply...nobody's there to defend the flank.
This is what he was waiting for. Taiga threw everything they had into these last few waves. Everything but him.
Space lenses around him as the Zero Robo satellite weapon skulks toward the Division Train on slow but steady course. Almost the entire flotilla has deployed by now, fighting off in the miasma of King J-Der. Their defenses are at their lowest.
He speeds up. The time is now.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Taiga threw everything into his assault, but so did the members of the Jupiter Expedition to defend against it and strike a blow of their own. Almost everybody is deployed.
And, indeed, Qivi should be deployed, too. She likes to be at the front line. She came to be at the front line. Minokawa is an assault unit and, though she didn't know how well she'd do against something the size of the King of Ruin, or even King J-Der... it needed to be done.
But by chance she's taking a wide arc out from the Division Train rather than rushing straight in. Chance, and a stray sensor reading from one of the old Zentredi scanners on Minokawa rather than the newer, common ones. Normally Qivi would have ignored it - perhaps thought it was some kind of glitch, the older scanners are a little fussy at best.
Something about that, though, didn't feel right. But she didn't want to ignore her duty, and so this was the compromise; a wide flight path before she met up with the team she was going to push back King J-Der with. Minokawa's fast. She can handle it. Almost everyone is occupied.
So where there should be nothing, the Zero Robo satellite weapon picks up a fast-moving Zentredi machine, one with too many blades to be a standard-production unit, approaching fast. Qivi is tensed up against the acceleration, running Minokawa a little harder than is strictly comfortable so that she can finish this approach and catch up with the defense squads, but her scanners are working fine and it's not going to be very long before any intruder gets spotted. (Again.)
KTS: Qivi has deployed in Minokawa.
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Some kind of glitch, some kind of malfunction, some kind of...
....mirror coating.
Getting closer, the bends in space from GGG's signature Protect-based technologies are clear, and once that can be seen through, the optical component of the Mirror Coating shatters away, revealing a strange beast of a Zero Robo. It's rather small, as they go, and less humanoid than usual. It's not derived from the Cosmo Robos...it might be cobbled together from absorbed Battas and other Jovian machines, but if so, it's been mutated so much by Triple Zero that it simply doesn't closely enough resemble any one thing to be sure of its origins.
But it does have a sensor, and it does stare at Qivi's Minokawa.
One stayed behind...Tragic. But this one will have to die.
It hovers slowly toward Qivi...and then suddenly MOVES, unspeakably fast, slamming directly toward her with its large body covered in spikes to simply smash her to gravel like an asteroid.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Qivi with Triple Zero Omnipresence Strike! KTS: Kaiju Navi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Qivi parries Kaiju Navi's Triple Zero Omnipresence Strike, taking 630 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Qivi!
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
"Ugh, this thing really is fussy." In the cockpit, Qivi glares at the scanner readout. Her hands are gripping Minokawa's controls and she has no time to spare to give it a thump, but she really thinks hard about it. It keeps giving false positives.
Qivi had been about to get ready to move on when she saw something - not just with the scanner, this time, but with her eyes, through the camera. A bend in space, a knot of light - and then, the Zero Robo behind it.
"What the hell!"
There's a live one - here, away from the main attack, trying to sneak up on them. There's no other explanation for it. And she can't even call for backup - there is no backup, she's the backup. She thumbs over the communications on, hoping it gets through the incredible static as she transmits to the Division Train: "Hey! Tell the squad I'll catch up, there's an additional unit - "
Qivi doubts much of it is getting through, and she's mostly getting static and feedback in her own radio. She scowls, turning toward the hovering Robo - just as it charges her, rushing in improbably fast!
Qivi brings Minokawa's arms up. There's no way to brace, here in empty space, but she goes for the grapple anyway, spreading her hands as if to catch an incoming tackle; the impact sends the both of them tumbling wildly through space as she tries to hang on, firing thrusters to try to stabilize the spin.
As she does, the claws she's using to dig in begin to heat up, slicing into armour more deeply as her fists clenched. "Where did YOU come from?" she asks, more rhetorically than expecting a response. She doesn't think this one's got a person in it - it looks too weird. (But it might, part of her thinks to herself.)
KTS: Qivi targets Kaiju Navi with Heat Claw! KTS: Qivi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Qivi's Heat Claw, taking 1470 damage! KTS: Qivi has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
It works out, just. Forces twist; the Zero Robo takes some little damage from hitting less cleanly than it expected and Qivi manages to convert it into a grapple that attaches her to the glowing orange machine.
She asks a question. Rhetorical; for her confidence, presumably, rather than any hope of reply. But as she digs that heat claw in, something does lurch a reply toward her.
It isn't spoken. It is sensed, emerging via the medium of the soul. The Limpid Channel, Mode Warp's researchers called it; the ocean of intention that carries wills between souls. It is the medium of communion of the Bettermen, and...occasionally, others.
From Earth. Once. From here, again. I am sorry.
We must share a fate, you and I.
Then the hull behind her opens to reveal a great lens, which space warps around before a gravity cannon blast FIRES at her, an attempt to force her away that sends a sparkling silence raking across the darkness, displacing miasmic particles of Triple Zero.
In the distance, hundreds of kilometers away, King J-Der's Silverion Hammer explodes into radiance - the head not a hammerhead, but a projection of a phoenix of light, twenty kilometers on a side, which screams in a way that rattles the firmament as it shoots toward the Division Train.
The Zero Robo...the Zero Core within it, does not quail at the sight. You must die here, as I did.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Qivi with Triple Zero Aimed Shot! KTS: Kaiju Navi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Qivi fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Triple Zero Aimed Shot, taking 3440 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi tries another signal to the Division Train - they need to know what's happened - but once again is stymied by bad signals. If she thought the Invisible Burst was bad on Earth...
Minokawa's claws dig in further as Qivi twists, preparing to strike differently, when she ... hears? Senses? When she obtains a response, anyway. It's the first time she's ever heard anything clearly through the Limpid Channel, as she has never tried to communicate with a Betterman.
"You - "
Qivi feels the shift in her grip as the hull opens. She releases immediately, kicking herself away from the Zero Robo, and so the gravity cannon doesn't core out Minokawa. She catches the edge of the blast with a more kinetic impact, launched some distance away from the Zero Robo.
"Who are you? No matter what, I'm not letting you get to the Division Train! If you want to end it you're gonna have to go through me!"
In the distance, the Silverion Hammer bursts into impossible radiance. She hears it, even though she shouldn't. Qivi does feel fear, but she channels that fear into anger; with a yell, she rushes back toward the Zero Robo. She's too far away to grab on, again -
But she has a weapon she didn't show, bundled up on Minokawa's back; a heavy hyper hammer, with a chain and a weight and a single thruster to speed up the spin. She whirls through three complete revolutions before releasing it, sending it flying right toward the Zero Robo with its thruster burning!
KTS: Qivi targets Kaiju Navi with Hyper Hammer 200 Guided Hit! KTS: Qivi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Kaiju Navi rushes into the attack! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Qivi anchors Kaiju Navi, forcing it into close range. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Qivi's Hyper Hammer 200 Guided Hit, taking 2668 damage! KTS: Qivi has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Nothing. The Invisible Burst's scrambling here is basically immeasurable, not to mention Minovsky particles spread from combat-ready reactors, and warped space confounding radio transmissions...maybe such psychic communion or short-range laser bursts are the only thing that COULD get through, here.
The Silverion phoenix SLAMS into the Division Train, but something...happens; it warps, inverts, cascading through what must be thousands of eye-bending contortions before it fires back out, right back at the Conqueror King! The Zero Robo is silent for several long moments.
Then it 'speaks' again.
They will be blessed. But you are not with them to receive it. Unfortunate. But perhaps the source will save you as it saved me.
Qivi's hyper hammer slams forward, and the Zero Robo surges forward rapidly - its energized barrier absorbing much of the impact, but it fearlessly charges onward anyway, first into the hammer, and then onward toward Qivi, to drive her further off course. Further away from anyone who could possibly help.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Qivi with Triple Zero Omnipresence Strike! KTS: Kaiju Navi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Qivi rushes into the attack! KTS: Qivi partially guards Kaiju Navi's Triple Zero Omnipresence Strike, taking 4410 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Kaiju Navi's Analyst activates, causing Designate L1! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Kaiju Navi's Disruptor activates, causing Jam L1! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Qivi!
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Nothing. Qivi does have a laser communicator on Minokawa, but it's not like she's in a good position to use it. She's going to be on her own - and they're going to be blind to anything coming from this direction.
She just has to hope that this Zero Robo is alone.
The Silverion impact gets Qivi to draw in a sharp breath as it hits the Division Train - but twists somehow in a way that is decidedly uncomfortable to look at. They must have protected themselves somehow, to shoot it back at the Conquerer King...
"I'm not here to be 'saved' like that!" Qivi's voice raises in the quiet of her cockpit. "I don't want a blessing. I'm here to help put an end to this! Guy'd put it better, I guess, but he's busy. You get me, I know there's no convincing you, and I don't have to convince myself. You don't get to decide for the whole world - more than the world - that it's time to turn out the lights on your way out!"
The Zero Robo charges into Minokawa, and Qivi's there to receive it with a forward thrust of her own. The two robots hit each other, hard enough to slam her in the cockpit, a bruised ache along her back as she practically bounces off the rear support. Her hands are gripping the side controls as hard as she can, her fingers white - not that she can see them from here. The two machines are once again corkscrewing as one thruster or another fires; she knows she's off course and she's trying to stay steady, but she can't just leave the Zero Robo alone.
Minokawa's subarms - they look more like bladed wings - snap out and around as she hacks at the side of the Zero Robo. If it's going to stay close and slam her around, she's going to make it pay for that with blood. Or whatever it has instead of blood.
KTS: Qivi targets Kaiju Navi with Wing Cutter Hack! KTS: Qivi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Qivi's Wing Cutter Hack, taking 2039 damage! KTS: Qivi has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Minokawa keeps hacking at it - regeneration does work, but normally they have to at least slow down what they're doing. Only the Conqueror Kings can attack at full strength while still regenerating rapidly.
A sense of thoughtfulness.
...I am the one. Takashi Saginomiya.
Saginomiya...that's the name of the Intelligence operator who caught Algernon and nearly killed everyone. The man who died screaming about his dead brother. Is this him, then? Kamuy did say he was alive, somehow...
It was by my act that all of this began.
The air gets thicker with T0 energy, as the Zero Robo concentrates all of its power.
I am the one who lowered the shields to allow Triple Zero into the Division Fleet in Orange Site. An act I aim to repeat upon your allies.
Space around them lenses - using Jovian technology and Ruinous power to bend the laws of the world itself around them.
I had intended to return from that. But perhaps it is better this way. With the state of the Division Train, tearing open a hole should be sufficient for my purpose.
Come, Brave. Let us become stars.
And then they're MOVING - accelerating rapidly, an orange comet, toward the battered Division Train, defenseless after its clash with the Silverion Crusher. Toward all the crew on board.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Qivi with Triple Zero Omnipresence Frontal Assault! KTS: Kaiju Navi has completed their actions for the round. KTS: Qivi fails to rush. KTS: Qivi partially guards Kaiju Navi's Triple Zero Omnipresence Frontal Assault, taking 2970 damage! KTS: Qivi has been defeated! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Qivi!
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
The wing blades continue their work. Qivi never gets a crippling strike through, but it's at least enough to be a distraction, even if some of them glance off because of the angle and others can be regenerated. If she can tie up even some of his energy and attention, it's worth it.
Saginomiya...
Qivi wasn't involved with the Algernon incident, but she still recognizes the name. "You! You were dead!" Though she realizes a bare instant later that that doesn't really mean a whole lot to 000 given who else it's forced into working with them.
As the space begins to shine orange, Qivi tenses. That stuff can't be good for her, but she can't find a good way to break away - at this point she's not sure if she could. And what he's saying...
"You let them in," Qivi says, slowly. And he's going to do it again. He's going to tear a whole into the Division Train, and everyone on board is going to die - and then some, if they actually manage to stop Conqueror King J-Der and have nowhere to come back to. He's right - it's absolutely enough for his purpose, maybe even more so than he knows.
Unless...
There's only one way to stop it that she can see. Qivi's decision is immediate, no hesitation at all. Letting him get there would mean the deaths of many, no question. She can't think of any other way to do this that has any chance of success at all, and at least this way they had a chance. And really, she never considered any other option.
"Oh no you don't!"
Qivi slams down the controls for every thruster, every booster, and the overcharge all at once - and Minokawa blazes with light as they all fire simultaneously. The force of the sudden acceleration is enough that she sees stars at the edges of her vision, and when she hits the Zero Robo she does feel something break. A couple of her ribs, she thinks. She's had worse, in the ring... well, as bad, anyway.
Minokawa grapples the Zero Robo. Its feet open up, the cabled axe-like heels whipping up and around to tangle with it and embed in its back like picks; the spikes on the knee fire outward like harkens, wrapping around it and practically tying the two robots together.
Qivi can barely control the pair - as the Zero Robo tries to go one way, and she tries to steer it another, banking the pair of them through a turn more than directly opposing it because she has a chance in Hell of actually managing it and whirling wildly in all three axes. She aims 'up', trying to direct it 'above' the train - even though there's no real up and down in space, it's how she thinks of it.
She's getting pretty close, anyway. The speed hurts; the increasing acceleration from the impossible force from the Zero Robo and from Minokawa as it sheds bits of its armour, becoming lighter and thus faster, is grinding her broken rib in an agonizing way, and she can't really see much at all at this speed; her vision is mostly grey and sparkles. She's on the verge of passing out.
"Heh. Can't fight - the Conquerer King - after all. You guys are on your own. Better do it!" Qivi can't get the breath to speak, either, through the acceleration. She knows what's coming next.
But she tries. "I'm no Brave. But. I'm too stubborn - to give up...!"
Qivi's sure they can see her, Minokawa tangled up with the Zero Robo, the two machines literally chained together as they rocket up, away from the Division Train, becoming little more than difficult-to-resolve specks -
There is an explosion. Two; one from Minokawa as something gives out, sending shrapnel from the machine flying away wildly, and one from the Zero Robo, a moment later.
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Minokawa grapples the Zero Robo. It's difficult, to be sure - if this can be said to be designed to do anything, it's to move.
But apparently, steering isn't a thing it does well, either. Bit by bit, Qivi's pulling works, forcing the robot further, further away from course. It does try to resist, to force itself back onto the path, but it's just not WORKING--
Something GIVES in the armor, and a huge chunk of the already-small machine cracks off. Of course; a piece designed for infiltration would've needed to be quite small indeed. An effort by Takashi Saginomiya to resist Qivi's strength. But she gives her all, and in the end, the lessening Zero Robo skates just past, and off into the distance.
Two explosions, far away. Two lights wink out as one.