2390/Hunting Traitors On A Moon Base

Hunting Traitors On A Moon Base
Date of Scene:	05 June 2015
Location:	AMATERASU Lunar Mining Facility 01
Synopsis:	Audrey Stormfist, on behalf of the Murasame Zaibatsu, leads a raid against the AMATERASU lunar mining facility to claim the bounty on Juno Eclipse and Galen Marek.
Cast of Characters:	106, 414, 428, 626, 627, 652, 667, Starbound Flotilla, Sanary Rondel, 731, 794

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Starbound Flotilla has posed:
The AMATERASU lunar mining facility and shipyard has cleared away the FUJIN-Starbound Technology Expo's theatrical elements, leaving it entirely practical. A massive, circular facility built on the surface of the moon. It is sleek, industrial, powerful. The mining and shipyard areas in the center are ergonomic and small without being cramped, while the crew facilities and residential areas on the outer rim of the facility are wide open spaces, full of huge windows and broad well-lit hallways. Everything is safe and secure; sturdy airlocks will isolate any breaches, heavy duty oxygen atmosphere generators keep the surrounding acres of bare, dusty moon surface breathable.

Beyond the boundary of the Oxygen Field, there's nothing but rocky, dusty terrain with no breathable atmosphere, and far above its upper limits, outer space is a starry vacuum... The moon's gravitational pull is mild at best, making orbit a low altitude and ground maneuvering strange and freeing.

The STARBOUND FLOTILLA itself remains in low orbit, consisting of six strange ships. Albert's craft, the SFS Vehemence, is an ultramodern white sort of thing, loaded brutally with numerous energy cannons and missile launchers designed for fighters, plus heavy shielding. Biteblade's SFS Kaleidoscope is about five different ships salvaged and welded together, with a tremendous fixed-forward railgun mounted on the top. George's and Moonfin's SFS Mendacity and SFS Connoisseur, respectively a modern gray chunky gunboat and a sleek blue shark-like craft, are made for maneuverability, sporting their own energy weapons on turrets or fixed forward. Pavo's yellowed stone-like pirate-temple-ship, the SFS Rapacity, may be designed for boarding action, but it also works wonderfully as a zippy little runner too, scouting and darting about. Seft's craft, the SFS Abdication, hosts large sensor array and heavier bombardment cannons mounted on what appears to be a mixture of a spaceship and a castle, and can provide copious tactical data on movements and formations.

Other crafts – such as, presumably, the Rogue Shadow, or perhaps the Ebon Hawk if they felt like it – may yet be in dock instead of in orbit. The Starbounders, prefering to reside within their own craft, will not notice if Souji orders the evacuation of the AMATERASU workers beforehand. They will, however, notice any unusual military vessels that get into their airspace – or rather, orbit-space – without appropriate stealth.

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
Today, the Zaibatsu has picked up a bounty.

Unfortunately, this bounty leads them to plan and execute an assault on their own allies, the Starbound Flotilla. This is an extremely delicate matter for them; apology letters and compensation checks have already been prepared by Audrey, addressed to the members of the Flotilla – they will receive them moments before the first strike occurs, a distraction to keep their eyes peeled to their computer monitors just a bit longer than otherwise.

Transport ships have been requested of Darth Vader, as the Zaibatsu lacks space capabilities of any kind at the moment, beyond a few prototypes that are not bounty hunting ready yet. These long ships will be described by Vader's player!

Onboard, the Zaibatsu has mounted a special troop launcher, essentially a Drop Pod by any other name. Four are to be launched in all, one for each present Elite, at different points where Juno is thought to be located. Each has numerous small and medium sized drones to accompany the occupants, nothing overly fancy. Mostly floating droids with stun weapons, net launchers, sleep, ice and petrify cannons. Crowd control units, not a single one loaded with lethal weaponry.

And of course, people have standing orders NOT to kill the bounties, OR the Flotilla members. Everyone else is fair game.

As the transports come into the Flotilla's scanners' range, the first salvo of shots attempts to pelt their ships and their base with generic artillery and energy blasts. Among them may be the drop pods, for those who are already ready to go.

EMERGENCY TELEPORTERS have also been supplied. They are one-use, and they will get you to the nearest Confederate medical outpost. They are only to be used if return to the Imperial transports is not an option, since their signature could potentially be tracked, identifying the Zaibatsu as using Confederate equipment. On the other hand, they can justify it as being part of the bounty contract, so it's not TOO big a deal.

Audrey herself has strapped in already, but will be launching herself last, in order to oversee the operation. The others gathered have first dibs (OOCly) on where they want to go. The mission has been planned fairly extensively – Audrey is nothing if not extremely thorough. The only holes in her plan are the lack of ability to predict whom the Flotilla will ask for help.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Space flight has, oddly enough, not been nearly as nauseating for Sanary as flight with gravity in effect. The sense of weightlessness helps ease the healer somewhat even as she's preparing for the mission to capture a friend, but... Well, orders are orders.

It's still a little nerve-wracking, though, knowing that this is technically her first mission without backup within magitech-induced eyesight. Against co-workers, no less!

Oh well. At least the pay's good for this one. Her armor is all in place. The gunaxe is ready with Ice Shells and tied to her hip. The buckler is tied firmly to her fighting arm. The charge blade is strapped firmly to her back. No sense delaying any longer.

"Adamant-4, ready to go." How calm! And then the actual drop pod starts moving, followed by a string of loud curses over the radio.

DESTINATION: Residential district!

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
Inside of the drop pod, the Golem armor is all spun up and ready to go already. It should be a pretty simple matter to land (read: Crash) this thing in to wherever it's pointed at and find their target. So they want him to not kill Juno or Starkiller, but anybody else is fair game.

He will make sure to restrain himself if he comes across either of the bounties, but there's a good chance anyone else who comes into his path will have to deal with the full fury of the Adamant Golem and it's pilot.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
Imperial Assault Carriers are simple and surprisingly elegant ships, as designs of the Galactic Empire go. They are long, thin vessels with wings that sweep out to either side of them. They are large, but clearly meant to serve more as a space-based picket line or as a part of a small assault team than as a primary means of assault. This particular carrier has been provided to the Zaibatsu to facilitate their attempt at collecting the bounty on Galen Marek and Juno Eclipse. It's somewhat on the old side, but it is still properly equipped and will serve as an acceptable means to get in and out as is required.

On the underside of this ship, four TIE Fighters are mounted.

The ship is operating with a skeleton crew, and guarded by members of the Imperial army. They wear grey uniforms and carry scoped carbines quite a deal less effective than the Stormtroopers who usually accompany Darth Vader. It is telling, though, that Vader is not present.

At least... not personally.

Several skeletal-looking droids are aboard the ship. Four have been set aside for the TIE Fighters, and are currently preparing to scramble. Another six appear to be silently escorting any Zaibatsu members wherever they happen to be going. Iterations of the PROXY droid in possession of Eclipse and Starkiller, though surely less friendly to them than the one they already own.

Vader doesn't have the time to be here himself. But he does have a point to make.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The employees that are bound to the Zaibatsu have been ordered to engage in standard evacuation procedures moments before the arrival of the Zaibatsu forces. Souji does not believe in mulching his own people for no reason.

Using command override codes, Souji steps into the command area, walking through the halls with a calm, measured pace.

He was here the entire time. His destination is the central command and control. Should he gain control of it, he would be able to make it quite difficult for the traitors to escape with their ship... Well, without experimenting on what's harder: The structure of the base or the hull of thie ship, anyway.

As he does so, his glasses flicker as he keeps an eye on the local tactical networks, keeping an eye out for opposition positions.

While half of their work here would be... restrained, it will be excellent research data. "I expect a minimum of damage to the surroundings." He speaks to his team. "There is no need to harm our shared resource pools with unnecessary damage."

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
While Juno is doing Juno things, Galen is investigating the weapons cache of the Flotilla. He's not overly interested in weapons outside of his lightsaber, but perhaps some weapon has a crystal he can use to experiment with. Or something. He's combing through various containers, looking for shiny rocks to stick in his super space-wizard sword and get new space-wizard powers with. To put it in laymen's terms, of course.

He tries to keep an eye on Juno, so to speak, with the Force, but his fascination with various things distracts him. They were safe with the Flotilla, after all. Surely she was going to be alright, now that they were back. And so he rummages, keeping certain things floating around him with the Force.

"Come on... I know there have to be crystals here somewhere."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Having been returned to the Flotilla slightly worse for the wear after her stay on the prison ship, Juno Eclipse has been taking it easy out of necessity. Immediately after her return, she'd spent her time trying to work the last of the chemicals out of her system. For the most part that was the toxins introduced to her by the hunter-killer droid, which made every attempt to strip her throat and airways raw, and partly succeeded.

Although she had tried to work on the ship, her attention kept wandering, and after falling asleep over an opened engine housing, Galen had finally succeeded in urging her to go rest. Unable to sleep at first, she'd gone to meet with Toph Beifong in the Bar and Grill at the Edge of the Multiverse, and after that she had finally found a little peace, enough to shut down her fears and worries enough to sleep.

That was some twelve hours ago, when she'd returned to the Flotilla from the Bar and Grill. She hasn't woken up since, and it seems she's not intent on waking up just yet, either. Although this is a safe haven, as much as can be expected for somebody with a handsome price on their head, she's taken to sleeping with a blaster within reach.

Thankfully, she's so exhausted that her sleep is dreamless – Galen would know that, having experienced the results of her nightmares before. No; there's no disturbances from her, not as of yet. That's good. She desperately needs the rest; she's been treading the edge, lately, and even she knows it.

...Too bad it's about to become rudely interrupted...

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
Among the other crafts parked here is the Rafflesia, a Hylotl craft encrusted in vines and plant matter that appears to be completely unbothered by the vaccum of space. Additionally, red triangles have been painted all along the edges of the fins of the ship. Galiandans would regonize this as Kyra's ship since, in the past, she has posted pictures of it to the Light Warriors blog-though that was pre-detailing.

Having checked on Juno hours prior to make sure she was at least resting (Or Else), Kyra now makes her way in search of Galen. She was clearly expecting him to be off resting somewhere too but a thorough search of the crew quarters has yet to reveal the ex-Sith space wizard. Kyra was pretty damn sure he was still here though since his ship was still here and at this stage of the game she's getting a little annoyed with the hide and seek.

As she strolls out of the halls of the residential area, backpack over one shoulder and GLEAMING GRENADIER'S CURE-ALL over the other, she's blissfully unaware that the moonbase has been compromised.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
RESIDENTIAL is spartan, dense with sleeping areas that prioritize a practical privacy and that are cincredibly ergonomic. The residential area is a bit convoluted though, forming something of a maze as the Starbounders have spread the facility module-by-module. It's a bit of a maze! Though it's well-lit, it's a bit cramped in some of the hallways. There's too many little residential rooms one could hide behind, both to hunt or to evade.

Revan (414) has posed:
The Ebon Hawk was indeed docked, as the repairs of the Rogue Shadow were diligently helped along with two members of its mechanical crew: a Duwani Mechanical Products T3-series utility droid and a Insecticon which looked to be a bizarre cross between a mantis and a wasp. The other synthetic member was currently recharging in her charging unit, which had been considerably modified to not only be adaptable to the frieghter's power supply but also provide the MMS Waffebunny model shinki a suitable level of comfort. The entirely-organic owner of the ship and all its robots, by contrast, was eagerly examining whatever robotics the Flotilla boasted.

Lowri Revan-Shan had intended to visit Juno Eclipse once she had healed and gotten some much-needed rest, though regretfully not for an exclusively social call. She and Galen both needed some extra defences which the Jedi of their ancient past might be able to provide, not to mention her tactical expertise. The latter was an aspect of herself that she was still in the process of recovering after her induced amnesia, but what she could provide was still better than nothing.

As someone who had proved herself as Juno's ally, the Flotilla had allowed Revan into their base, where the former Dark Lord of the Sith was currently indulging her hobby. Not that she was going to be so rude as to interrupt their work by attempting to take them apart and study their components, but that hardly meant she couldn't follow them around and watch until Juno rejoined the world of the living.

That is, until she could feel the subtle whisper through the Force that something violent was about to go down. Already, her hands were on the hilts of her lightsabers as she turned away from the cleaning droid she had been studying as she mentally readied herself.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
By his very nature, it can be difficult to ascertain if Yuri is simply well-timed in his location choices or if he has a supernatural sense for where and when his presence will be required by those he has contacted. Not that anyone could ask him, since it's in his nature to be metaphorical about how his powers work anyway. He probably just occasionally makes a creepy pass-through on places where he can find out Juno is staying.

Either way, Yuri has been hanging around the station for a while, simply milling around mysteriously wearing all his cloaks and shuffling along the hallways. He wears a hood up over his face and conceals most of his body. Juno once pointed out that all the obfuscating clothing would make him easily mistakable for a Jedi until someone actually spoke to him for more than a couple seconds.

Few people do speak to 'that creepy guy wandering around', though, so he mostly finds himself unaccosted and undisturbed as he hangs out. He's actually not too far away from the COMMAND CENTER, though he's not heading there with any deliberance. Just sort of absently walking and letting his feet guide him.

Oh, and there's that weird scraping metal sound that follows him whenever he walks along. That's pretty creepy.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
Mining is a wide, open quarry, full of strange translucent humming containers. Tall glass tubes carrying an unusual purple fluid! It glows gently and makes one uneasy to look at. Both sides involved here will know that this is volatile LIQUID ERCHIUS currently being mined out of the moon. Don't shoot these things, they might explode bad! Or explode good, that's up to you. There's an extensive tunnel system, and the lower structure of the rest of the mining base running around the rim, as well as ladders up to the main facility.

Why did George make the command center a series of concentric rising circular platforms covered in control consoles that slowly lead up to the main control systems? Dramatics, mostly, but it means that if someone stops Souji, this area will turn into what is essentially a game of king of the hill, because it's easy to get knocked down the rings.

The Armory was hastily built in response to concerns that this moon might contain Erchius Crystals. Why guns and melee weapons were requisitioned for this is anyone's guess. What do they think will happen if they do find crystals? Anyway, it's a squat structure with rows of weapons in a brightly lit interior, lined up on heavy racks that run parallel to its length in extended rows.

The Shipyard is in the middle of the circular mining facility, and has six large docks, one of which is currently holding the Rogue Shadow! They're all lined up to point inward to the circle, and they're all equipped with heavy robotic arms designed to do high-scale ship construction work. There's some dangerous gaps in the ground past the safety guardrails, watch your footing on the scaffolding that extends over the center of the mining area or you'll drop into mining!

Pavo is too distracted by Stormfist's money to do much. Albert and Biteblade, who are disinterested in and incapable of comprehending money respectively, are not. "Biteblade. Your combat methods will not suit the task." Albert radios to his ally. "Assault the attack craft." While Moonfin, George, Seft, and eventually Pavo swing their craft low to get out of aerial combat range, the heavily armed ship Albert commands and the high-DPS craft used by Moonfin are already opening fire on the carrier, focusing on its deployables. Biteblade focusing on lancing into undeployed TIEs or the openings they'll emerge from with her massive, heavy STARHUNTER railgun, and Albert focusing on filling the air with far, far too many missiles and lasers in preparation or reaction to their assault.

THESE guys, at least, aren't Zaibatsu. And they're already at-odds with the Flotilla, they can't more at odds with them probably. As for the group of four heading down...

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
It is after all other drop pods have gone that Audrey's finally departs. Her tactical map displays every impact site – carefully arranged so that, no matter Juno's location, it would be difficult for her to flee. Not impossible, but difficult. There's only the one hole left right now, and she's plugging it herself.

With GRANT in a perfect position to intercept anyone trying to get to Juno's location from one side (hint, that's going to be Kyra), Audrey sets course for the opposite side of the crew quarters. The drop pod sails amongst a dozen artillery shells towards the moonbase, most of which will cause only minimal damage (if they reach it at all). The point isn't to bombard, it's to hide the drop pod so that it doesn't get taken out by anti-missile defenses.

The crash of the transport straight through the base's outer wall is followed by the door slamming down. This drop pod is bigger, you see, because it contains something a little bit more punchy than just the the standard-issue drones.

Massive claws snap as a roughly twelve foot tall mechanical scopion exits the drop pod. Painted in Zaibatsu colors, with sharp, pointed legs and two cannon arms, and a tail that looks like a drill, the GUARD SCORPION begins its advance towards JUNO'S LOCATION.

Audrey calmly walks behind it, arms behind her back. The teenager wears her typical blue, reinforced military overcoat, with a gunblade sheathed to her side. She will be letting the heavy drone do most of the lifting if she can help it.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
The Imperial Assault Carrier isn't poorly-defended. It is, after all, intended for engagements where people might think to shoot at its TIE complement. Evasive maneuvers are undertaken, and between that and the flickering shields that mitigate the approach of weapons fire, it manages to eat the majority of the damage intended for the TIEs. One of the four explodes in its dock.

The other three are deployed immediately afterwards, as weapons fire impacts with the underbelly of the carrier. The TIEs themselves are a bigger threat than they appear on the surface. The droids inside them are well-programmed, and know how to do their jobs. The lack of shields gives them astounding speed, in particular.

The distinctive scream of their ion engines can be heard overhead as they swoop down to engage, their linked blasters blazing to life as they return fire on Moonfin's ship, utilizing their exceptional maneuvering capabilities to close in and make it very dangerous for Albert to keep targetting them.

The Assault Carrier itself pulls powers from its weapons and focuses on shields and engines, rising away from the fight. Pursuing it will require making the deliberate decision to chase it out of the immediate combat zone. Presumably it wants to be available for a pick-up later. There's certainly a decision to be made in whether or not to pursue.

The Empire might send something worse if its dropship goes down.

MEANWHILE, in the drop pods with members of the Zaibatsu, the PROXY droids flicker as they assume the appearance of Darth Vader. The hiss of his respirator fills the air like a chorus, and each of them ignite crimson lightsabers with a distinctive sound and a vague burning smell.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Alert. Initiating deployment of the Spellsword Project." The synthetic female voice of Seft can be heard over Zaibatsu frequencies and local radio. That's when the low-flying ships of Pavo, George, Moonfin, and Seft swing particularly low. Their ships glow with a sudden pulse of red light... And then they fire a TREMENDOUS teleportation beam down through the facility, clearly deploying something with an especially hefty bulk from each craft; the teleportation beam impacts the ground with a force that matches any drop pod. They go right for the space between Juno and Audrey, having seen that bigger pod, wanting to to stop whatever it is.

What emerges from the shining red light is intimidating. They stand at eight feet tall each, plated like one would plate a medieval suit of armor. One is styled after the armor of a high-ranked samurai, one after the armor of a knight, one after the armor of an ironside ship, and one after the design of an EVA suit. As they stand from kneeling position, gushes of purple steam scream out of ports in their back and their armor covers with lit-up holo-panels, apparently some kind of redundant psionic shielding. The suits of armor are clearly powered armor, similar in nature to the GOLEMs of the Zaibatsu, but obviously having linked some of the principles of the magic battery technologies the Flotilla developed with their own psionic technologies to create an incredibly agile suit. Massively oversized melee weapons are strapped and sheathed to these suits.

Agile means agile. Once they've landed, they immediately make a break for Audrey's approach and the agility and dexterity these suits show off is absolutely incredible. They are absolutely perfect extensions of the soldiers wearing them. Moonfin is the one who manages to strike towards Audrey's advance first; he performs a perfect samurai-styled flash-step strike, intending to draw his SPELLSWORD-TECH KATANA in a sudden strike. The massive powered weapon is saturated in psionic ELECTRICAL ENERGY, meant to crush through armor while it blasts a huge psionically-powered stun strike through it. He's going for the scorpion, hoping to cut something off dramatically and do something flashy once he's run past it and is facing down Audrey.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
The drop pod bearing the Golem armor smashes into the surface with a heavy crunching sound, resonating out from the point of impact along with dust and debris. When the hatch opens, the armored figure steps out of the pod, and reaches back inside to pull out the massive assault cannon that was stored in there with him. After all, you can't have one without the other.

Along with the Golem armor are several battle droids, which the armored figure motions to them to fan out and cover all potential points of entry. They might be easy enough for an Elite to tear through, but they've been programed to notify him if they make contact, be it with Juno or some other Elite level threat.

He takes one last chance to check over he sets up his position, If Juno tries to flee, or someone moves to try to aid her, they'll have to go through him.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
After a rather bumpy flight, Sanary's drop ship hits its mark, landing right in the residential area! The healer's not doing great, still visibly shaken from her first drop ship... Drop. She had the sense to bring along some wet towels to wipe her face off this time, at least, but she's still reeling from it all even as she staggers out of the pod and falls out of unceremoniously.

"Adamant-4 landed. Guh. Gonna... Search for the target now." The droids file out of the pod with significantly more control, two in front and two behind the heavily armored woman. Good thing for her, too, since that means she can use them as crutches until she regains her footing.

Thankfully, it doesn't take her too long to start walking on her own again, and she keeps the gunaxe and charge blade's shield ready as she starts searching the residential area. Despite the (probably loud) landing, she's trying to be fairly quiet in her search for Juno. It wouldn't do to wake everyone up without a reason to, after all, especially if she can find the pilot without drawing too much attention in her direction.

And as luck would have it, the first door she's trying to get into just so happens to be occupied...

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji enters the command center, looking up at the series of rings that hold the increasing levels of access.

He sighs. George is valuable and intelligent, but sometimes his design choices are... unusual.

Souji quickly climbs towards the central command console, keying in his command authorization and beginning to shut down external defenses. And rejoking Juno and Galen's access. Because he's a jerk like that. Alarms are probably going off by now as his hands dance over the keys, and the door to the command area is wide open for Yuri to conveniently interrupt his work.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Something's wrong.

The first thought Juno Eclipse has as she sits bolt upright in bed is that the ship's crashing, but a half-second later she realises she isn't aboard the Rogue Shadow. Half a second later she can hear the general artillery, audible as dull thuds of impact and explosion; the shiver of impact almost tangible through the walls.

Juno doesn't think as she vaults from bed, lacing her boots so quickly it's almost a single movement, still wearing the grey halter top and black pants she'd been wearing when she crumpled into bed. A swipe seizes her blaster pistol from the nightstand, and she rakes her hair back and out of her face with her free hand.

Easing up to the wall of her quarters, she eases to the door, but doesn't open it yet. Fingers wrap around the blaster's grip, and she turns her head very slightly, free hand reaching over to ease the door open just the barest sliver.

Right into Sanary Rondel's face.

Juno stares with wide eyes for a moment, and distantly, her brain registers that seeing the Confederate healer here means that something has probably gone terribly wrong.

She then does the logical thing, and attempts to slam the door open against Sanary with all her might, thumbing her blaster pistol into 'Stun' mode and firing through the gap.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Yuri slowly lifts his head and begins to walk through the command area. It's a deliberate pace, the sound of dragging and scraping metal following him as he goes. The numerous cloaks he wears all ruffle and ripple from each step as he heads towards the command hub. He heaves a tired sigh, and embers escape his mouth like mist on a cold day.

Yuri makes no effort to hide his presence as he shambles into the command room to behold Souji. When he's taken a few steps in he stops, reaches up, and pulls back his hood to reveal that white hair and jade-colored eyes. Eyes which are devoid of most emotion and a face held in a mask of inexpression.

"The embers of rebellion which are kindling... you would snuff them out?" He asks in a curious tone, eyes half-lidded as he looks to Souji, "Understand that while I hold you no malice for our differing philosophy, if you seek to pursue the path you are on, I will be forced to end your life."

"I have now warned you. You will now cease, reconcile philosophical differences with your chosen deity, or fight. Either way, please prepare."

Revan (414) has posed:
Though her Force-heightened senses, Lowri was able to hear two different forms approaching through the artillery; something distinctly large and metallic, and an accompanying, much-smaller organic life-form. It wasn't precisely what she was expecting, so some changes were in order when it came to her tactics.

Her hands fell away from her lightsaber hilts and folded within the sleeves of her robe as she stood, her head tilted slightly with her near-white braid flopped over her shoulder. What might have been more disconcerting would be the slight smile she wore on her face, the sweet expression of a friendly lady who had no means to defend herself. Of course, the Alexander Academy student wouldn't be fooled for long – probably not at all – but it might be enough to throw her psyche off a little.

"Hello there," she greeted Audrey. "Are you looking for something in particular~?"

And perhaps that would have given Moonfin the necessary opening to draw his SPELLSWORD-TECH KATANA on the scorpion creature. Which left Audrey to the Jedi...who still hadn't drawn her lightsabers. Just what was this odd, mismatched-eyed woman up to?

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
As the situation quickly went south, Kyra's quick to apply a course correction. Galen was up and about rifling through weapons. Juno had probably just woken up so of the two here, she'd clearly be the one in more need of help to get out of here. Kyra spins on a heel, dashing down the hallway she just came, navigating the base with ease. Though not of the Zaibatsu, she knew how to get back to the Residential area. Tearing through hallways, a flicker of red at a T-intersection in the hallway catches the corner of her eye as she passes. When she turns to look she sees a large number of Darth Vaders filling the hallway, brandishing glowing red lightsabers. Kyra pauses to stare for a second before she instinctively yanks a napalm flask off of her belt and hurls it down the hallway. Granted, it would be messy and cause collateral damage to the base but...

This was a hallway filled with Vaders. Worth it.

She takes off right afterwards, not sticking around to see the extent of whatever damage that mmight have caused, pulling on a syringe lashed to one of her bandoliers as she runs.

She doesn't get very far before she runs into a big, big problem in the form of a GOLEM armor camped out in the hallway with a small team of droids. At first she is struck with confusion. She recognized the GOLEM armor as something used by the baddest of the bad on KIRIN's security forces. The Zaibatsu was funding this base, sure, but in Kyra's limited experience she hasn't seen them deployed here before.

George explains this anamoly.

Kyra's eyes narrow and she slams the syringe into her arm through her hoodie, injecting the stimulants into her. Through her eyes, the world appears to slow down, her drug inducing a very close approximation of Haste in the white mage. With that, she attempts to break through Grant's defensive line, seeking an opening.

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
Galen uses the Force to fling all the weaponry and things he was browsing back into their containers as all hell begins to break loose. Weren't they safe with the Flotilla? Apparently they had been tracked down. As the ever-familiar breathing sounds through the air, Galen straightens up. He glances around, looking for Vader as his hand flies to his saber, igniting the blue blade with a flick of his wrist. He finds one of the Vaders, then another, and another... and he smirks. "Bastard," he says, "Can't even be bothered to hunt me yourself? Fine, I'll take on your toys. Did you already forget about PROXY?"

He sinks into his natural combat stance, blade standing up behind his back as he sends a Force blast toward one of the Vader bots. Despite his calm demeanor, he can feel the Dark Side resurging. Anger wells up in him. This was the man that betrayed them, set a trap, and keeps trying to provoke some sort of response out of the ex-Sith. "Tell me what you want, Vader! What are you trying to accomplish with all this?!"

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Was that Juno just now? That was Juno just now. There's so many thoughts racing through Sanary's head as her brain makes the connection between her job, the location, what she's supposed to be doing next, and what she wants to say next.

Instead of words, though, she can only react with her actions! She turns sideways to blunt the impact of the door against the shield instead of taking it head on, ducking instinctively and just narrowly avoiding getting a face full of blaster. One of the droids behind her isn't so lucky, sputtering with sparks and spasming before ceasing its weird hovering and hitting the ground with a loud thunk.

"Juno! Rrgh... Hold on, I wanna talk!" Even as she says that, though, she's pushing back against the door to try and shut it on the pilot. "Even if I am... Technically here to capture you. But-uh." She gulps loudly, sounding vaguely like she's about ready to vomit again. She manages to hold it in this time, at least! "..Y-yeah."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
Biteblade is satisfied with one kill. Albert is not. While he might fill the starry sky with dozens, hundreds, even thousands of missiles, he still has to be the one who keeps the less capable ships from being shot down. Case in point: They target Moonfin's craft, going in for a strike that, given the high power and low defense typical of that far-away galaxy, is likely to destroy the craft. It's all Albert can do to SUDDENLY boost his way in between the TIE fighter and the fishman's AI-piloted craft; the swarm of four AI-controlled craft begin to retreat, except for Seft's. While they're piloted by AI, so are their foes.

With this, Seft's heavy bombardment craft begins to fill the sky with airbursting explosions that create brutal fields of heat and light that persist far too long in the air, making an obstruction that's not unlike an asteroid field in miniature. After laying this environmental hazard, Biteblade continues to open fire now, unable to strike a swift-moving target but definitely able to "camp" probable turns that Seft's hazards will force them into, or at least try! Albert's craft has suffered some major damage, the shield systems beginning to explosively spark and melt as they overload to keep the craft safe under the assault it intercepted, but it still has its missile systems to continue filling the nearby space with a positively absurd quantity of guided missles that should be harder to dodge with these hazards!

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
Audrey's path is suddenly blocked by the Flotilla's latest science project. At first glance, it looks like power armor? Very high quality power armor. And knowing the Flotilla, it isn't anything to take lightly. The Monk had always wanted to see one of the Guard Scorpions in action though. They're pretty rare; the sort of drones they only send their best clients. Massive, armored, heavily armed. And more importantly, as close to intelligent as it's possible to go with Galianda's technology.

Trying to pay little attention to the intimidating sea of now-Vader droids that have deployed from the pods (because real Vader or not, these are all gigantic black-armored men with red glowing swords right now), the Heritor keeps her eyes on the power armors.

Revan's appearance causes her to turn her head slightly, smiling politely. "Juno Eclipse. We've come for her bounty. Audrey Stormfist, Murasame Zaibatsu. I would advise against standing in our way; the Flotilla and Eclipse are protected by our contract, but not others who inferfere."

MOONFIN opens hostilities by running towards the Guard Scorpion and striking. The Scorpion's left claw raises – in a sudden, violent gnash with the pincer, it catches the weapon! ... for the moment.

The Scorpion has two eyes – one yellow one atop its carapace, and one larger green one acting as make-shift head. The green one suddenly hums, as the machine announces: <SCOPE.> Two bright beams of light lash out! ... completely harmlessly. They dance and spin around Moonfin. <TARGET ANALYZED. LOCKED ON.>

Before it can do anything, Moonfin's katana finally cuts through the pincer entirely. The machine now only has three arms left! The two gun arms and the one pincer. The two guns open fire on Moonfin and his armor, with oddly accurate aim. If there's so much as a visible weak spot in that design, the Scorpion'll find it. Sadly, it's pretty regular ammo, so it might not be enough to really push him back. Should keep him from reaching Audrey though, so she can keep chatting with Revan!

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji stops, one hand hovering over the controls as Yuri speaks. Another press and he could lock the controls against Juno and Galen, prevent them from escaping withoug dealing extensive damage to the hangar (and the core fleet).

He stops, turning to look down from the topmost ring. "You misunderstand me." Hs says simply. "Ms. Eclipse and Mr. Marek have powerful desires. Powerful enough to risk their lives in the face of a superior force. Powerful enough to rebel against such terrible odds."

He raises a hand. "Such a thing must be tested. If it is not tested, Mr. Stinson, it will be weak. Would you allow such a weakness?"

He shakes his head. "Whether they escape or not, it is of no matter to me." He pauses. "The fact that this situation was completely untenable in the first place is beside the point. This is practically the second place anyone with Multiversal experience would look."

His eyes narrow. "But your words are strong, Mr. Stinson." He lays one hand on his sword handle. "If you wish to attempt to take my life, you are welcome to try."

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
The PROXY-Vaders are not Darth Vader himself. They can be blasted around with the Force, though they are fairly resilient. Even as Galen casts them against the walls they rise against, lightsabers in hand. Notably, the lightsabers are very generic and odd-looking. They're definitely not actually modeled after Vader's, but they do have a few tricks to them. One of the Vaders retaliates by casting a lightsaber towards Galen in an arc and... although they appear to have no force powers, some trick or gadget is permitting the PROXY-Vader to control its aim somewhat.

"I do not need to hunt you myself." Vader's voice thunders from a nearby copy. It stalks forward, lightsaber in hand, drawing forth sparks from nearby surfaces by dragging it along them ever-so-slightly. "I am here to bear witness, and to impress upon you the futility of your actions." He gestures grandly towards Galen's lightsaber, with its blue blade. "You cannot be a Jedi by draping yourself in new colors, any more than one can become a Sith by bearing a crimson blade. You are deluded, and the very foundation of your defection from the Empire is a contradiction."

"The Jedi were loveless charlatans," Vader continues, his voice spiking with audible anger as he advances, another of his fellows sending its lightsaber whistling and humming towards Galen. "They forbade their own from even the barest attachments, even between Masters and pupils. You flee the Empire out of ill-conceived notions of morality, and romanticized concepts of an order that forbade the core of your motivations."

"You deny the Dark Side of the Force as you drape yourself in its deepest trappings, and cling to it like a dying man adrift at sea." He growls, advancing slowly but steadily.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Sanary would have been afforded a brief glimpse of the wild-eyed pilot, who seems to be transitioning from just-woken panic to bright-eyed righteous fury. That she would have been followed back to the Flotilla is inevitable, but that she would have been betrayed by another member of the Flotilla... that's unforgiveable, at least in her eyes.

"Talk, talk." The taunt is given in a bitter, angry tone of voice, muffled from behind the door. It feels as though she's set her shoulder against it to try and keep Sanary out, at least long enough to double-check the weapon's charge. Sanary manages to push the door open, but that's because Juno steps aside – maybe the sudden lack of resistance against Sanary's shoving might send the healer sprawling into the doorway.

Juno spits something that sounds like an extremely unladylike curse. "I've got nothing to talk about. You're here to capture me, so we're well past the point of words, aren't we? Well, I'm not going back to the Empire. You can bring Vader my corpse, because he's not going to have the satisfaction of seeing me alive again. Not if I can help it!"

With that last, she'll try to shove past Sanary if she has an opening, trying to make it into the hallway and put some distance between the healer and herself.

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
Galen glares at the Vader-bots, ducking and deflecting the first of the lightsabers. They couldn't have Force control, but Vader had seen to that and given them something else, taking the ex-Inquisitor off-guard. The other lightsaber spins toward him and he rolls across the ground, his white robes singed as it gashes his arm a bit. He recovers his feet, watching the approaching Vader warily. The words ring in his ears, resonating through the whole of his being.

He prepares to retaliate, but the last statement takes him even more by surprise. "You..." he starts, but he loses his train of thought. Loveless? The order forbade relationships? His saber wavers, drooping slightly toward thr ground. "You... that makes no sense. It is these feeling that make me stronger. How could this possibly be the trapping of the Dark Side? You're lying!" He lunges at the Vader who had spoken, eyes burning as he does. As he moves, however, he has to admit....

He could feel the dark intent even in his desire to defend Juno. It causes him to slow, though he still follows through with a strike. "I'm not claiming to be a Jedi. I'm just trying to separate myself from you."

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
TIE Fighters are not very tough. They're quick as lightning, but one good hit and they crumple. As one does, when Albert finally maneuvers it into a position where it simply has nowhere to go. It explodes brilliantly, which is what provides an escape route that allows the other two to get the hell out of dodge and begin a counter-attack. They veer into the smoke and debris field that ISN'T made of explosives, suffering minor damage and throttling back their engines so abruptly that they nearly stall out.

But they don't. Not quite. They open fire on Albert once they have him in their sights again, though one of the pair is visibly "limping", its left solar array/wing presenting a rather large gash from ducking into the debris field.

That one suffers a power failure and starts to drop when it tries to fire its weapons again. Looks like it'll make a successful crash landing, but there's only one of the TIEs still left in the fight. And even it isn't completely unscathed. Might be useful salvage if one of them is in good enough shape after this to actually pick up.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
Okay, somebody's coming up. Grant turns and begins to spin up the weapon, turning it to bear on Kyra as she approaches. Of course as she shoots herself up with the Haste syrum, his armor isn't designed to really keep up with that type of speed. He fires a few rounds into the wall and ceiling as she moves around him.

One of the droids that was with him moves to block her path, and explodes in a bright flash of light and rather impressive fireball. It should be enough to hopefully knock her off course and allow Grant the time he needs to catch up to her with the barrel of that big gun of his.

"I'd give you a chance to back down, but I know you're not going to take it. So save yourself the trouble and run the other way, because that bounty is going down one way or another!" He calls out over the suit's built in loudspeakers.

Revan (414) has posed:
Perhaps strangely, the Guardian makes no move to assist the battle against the scorpion mecha, apparently content to merely talk. Of course, there were a myriad of reasons for this.The Light Side always favoured the non-violent and peaceable solution, where everyone walked away on the side of the Light. The second benefit was in terms of logic, where if each party was satisfied, they could continue working towards optimal, workable solutions. Revan tended to walk the Grey Path herself, so each aspect was the ideal for both her short-term and long-term goals.

"Oh. The bounty. Well, if you don't mind my saying, you don't seem the sort to need the credits, what with such a fine specimen of robotics," she chimed, indicating the scorpion-like mecha.

Still, the robotics-lover in her was a little disappointed even as the battle was an excellent display of combat capabilities. "Ah, such fine workmanship. I would very much like to study it sometime~!" Revan continued affably. "Or perhaps you prize your allies in the Empire. Completely understandable! But how much do you know about them, I wonder?" r

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary had to be expecting that. Juno being angry, anyway. Not so much the door being able to swing in two directions. The sudden lack of anything stopping the door does , in-fact, get the healer to stumble through the doorway! She's gotten better at catching herself from being knocked off balance too easily, at least, and does manage to right herself instead of just falling over even in all the clunky armor she's wearing.

"Dammit, Juno, that's exactly why we have to talk!" Stomping a foot down, the healer throws herself back right into the doorway to try and stop the pilot from forcing her way out. Conveniently, this also places Sanary right between Juno and the droids waiting just outside!

"There's two... Three? Three robots outside with better aim than me. If you run out now, they've got stuff that won't kill you, but it's going to suck if you get hit by it, and I don't know how to turn them off." She pauses the rub her forehead, having a bit of trouble even moving with all that armor on in the doorway.

"But if you come out slow with me, they... Probably won't do anything? That'll be easier on both of us."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Sixth Sea Hylotl Style—" Moonfin starts muttering, voice audible through external speakers on that heavy powered armor But then a heavy volley from those guns! The pseudomagical field around the SPELLSWORD ARMOR is universal in all directions, but the vital points of the armor beneath isn't. Moonfin has to retreat FAST! About half of the volley from those guns impacts is dissipated by gradually shattering holography-based psi-armor, though, an impressive feat! The rest finds vital points – ports and such – that the machine can target, but it'd be very difficult for someone without Zaibatsu military technology to.

He is intentionally showing off some of the Spellsword armor, it seems, to make this a proper field test. Before he gets into cover though, the shield fully shorts out, forcing his armor to suffer some severe damage at some of the power conduits, reducing them to redundant power.

This is about the time when Pavo and Seft strike along with George. And holy shit does George strike. Being a giant metal thing, he dashes forward on an energy boost of rockets, intending to use the fresh aim the two gun-arms had to grab and immobilize them in both hands, trying to crush the muzzles with his massive STUN GAUNTLETS. They could still be useful bashing weapons, but he's doing his best to disarm! Looks like he has the unarmed-flavored armor here. Pavo, on the other hand, leaps high, trying to fall down more onto the body with a titanic but one-handed SPELLSWORD CUTLASS, this time charged with ICE inspired by their looting at Shiva. It's trying to slow it down with an impaling strike! Seft, meanwhile, tries to engage from the front with huge swings of her power battleaxe, charged with AIR for extra range, to force the remaining pincer, or possibly both gun arms if it pulls from of George, and maybe even the tail, to all engage her, as the substitute tank!

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
The opening that Kyra was aiming for quickly closes as one of the droids explodes right into her face, the blast knocking her back down the hall away from the line. She slides along the floor, singed and bleeding, a groan of pain escaping her. She shoves her backpack far down the hall behind her, which is actually filled with medical equipment that isn't useful here. Against a GOLEM armor, she knows things are going to get messy and having much-needed supplies wind up as collateral damage would just suck. "Of course I'm not going to back down! I can't let a fleet member and patient get hung out to dry by the Imperials again. Futhermore FUCK THE ZAIBAITSUUUUUU!! YEAAAAAH!!"

Kyra pulls an egg-shaped object from a pouch on her belt and bowls it down the hallway where the GOLEM armor and droids remain. The object beeps, flickering with blue colors before exploding horizontally to unload a blast of supercooled liquid on the floor and those unfortunate enough to be a little too rooted to the floor by way of liquid nitrogen. Unfortunately, it's not exactly that effective against the thicker nonorganic surfaces. Kyra herself doesn't advance again, not yet, not until she can confirm the effects of this.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Yuri tilts his head at Souji and then narrows his eyes a bit, "Your desire is not wholly incorrect, but it is also not wholly truthful. You are pursuing a bounty, so to say that their escape is meaningless to you is a deception, is it not?" He inquires curiously, staring up at the young man.

"This said, your own words carry conviction. You have your belief, which has been tempered beyond what your limited years would normally see," Yuri notes in as much a compliment as he can muster to anyone who is not overtly FIA. He blinks several times and reaches up, beginning to pull cloaks off of himself and set them on the ground at his feet.

"Understand that the warning is not for your sake, but a request on her part," Her is definitely not Juno, but he does not elucidate who he's referring to. Instead he simply removes the last cloak to reveal the outfit he wears under it all. Around his arms are wrapped two red and black chains, which he twirls as he says, "Do not disappoint me. Rebel against death, if possible."

And then he slowly begins to judge the proper attack vector, making his killing intent clear on Souji while still not making an opening attack.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
The hesitation that Galen shows is enough for the PROXY-Vader to make up the difference in physical power of this body and lock blades with him. It pushes back against him, the other pair falling away to allow the conversation to unfold. This droid doesn't have the raw physical might to compensate for Galen's force powers, but while he isn't using them at full bore, it's still strong enough to engage in a clash of pure strength and hold its own. It leans in, the false rasp of a respirator echoing loudly as it continues to speak.

"There is no emotion, there is peace." It breaks the block, and strikes in time with the words, trying to drive Galen back.

"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge." Again, it breaks its blade lock and strikes, its voice rising in intensity. Truly, it is no match for Galen. It may have the skills, but not the might that Vader does. The clash is a clash of ideals, a point being made. Once it is overcome – IF it is overcome – so too will the PROXY-Vader.

"There is no PASSION," It practically spits as it drives forward again, swinging its blade more as a hammer than the saber it is, "there is harmony."

"The Jedi Philosophy had no room, no tolerance for what you feel... and neither does the so-called Light side of the Force." PROXY-Vader explains. "The Sith embrace these things, make it our own, use it as our strength... as you do now."

"The separation that you seek is meaningless. You lack the vision to see the path, but it is still beneath your feet."

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
"There is more to seeking reward than money," Audrey answers, calmly. And truly, there is; what she seeks is not the Empire's money, though it isn't unwelcome by any stretch. It's their technology, manpower, and cooperation. The Empire's advancements outstrip the Zaibatsu's in a great many fields, fields that close alliance with someone like Darth Vader could help quite a bit.

But she isn't going to say that out loud.
Too incriminating.

"Nonetheless, such matters are none of your concerns. If you will not move..." Audrey's hand reaches for her gunblade in a flash, unsheathing the weapon. In the same motion, she pulls the trigger on it, and a cold blue sheen of light trails after the unsheathing blade. Like a shockwave of ice, the light slices through the air towards Revan! It's an Ice-1 spell, not exactly the most threatening thing in the world.

Though it's not easy, the Heritor makes sure to keep an eye on the Guard Scorpion, not wishing to miss the demonstration by the Flotilla's members. This does mean Revan has quite a few openings there, if she coordinates her attacks with the ones against the machine – if she intends to fight at all.

Meanwhile, GEORGE goes on the offensive. He grabs the scorpion's guns. The metal strains under his strength, bending and ultimately getting crushed. This looks like the end of the cannons for now.

Seft and Pavo strike simultaneously, heavily damaging the outer armor platings of the Guard Scorpion, exposing delicate systems underneath. It doesn't looks like those have been damaged too badly yet, but with the armor now torn and two gaping holes present, that won't last long.

Rather than attack, the Guard Scorpion clicks loudly.

Its two front feet (out of six) drop to the ground, as the machine takes a stance, raising its tail until it's almost above its head. It's... not attacking?

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The pilot surges against the door, but it's too late. Sanary has quicker reflexes than she accounted for, and the healer manages to catch herself, wedging her armoured body into the doorway. Even if she had managed to push Sanary out, there's nowhere to go. The little room has no windows, and unless she could get the grate off the air duct, there wouldn't be any escape from what had up until now been her quarters.

Juno snarls when Sanary insists on talking things out, and when she gives that ultimatum, the pilot's rage only seems to burn brighter. How dare she suggest that she surrender? How dare she? She has to know what kind of people the Empire favour, and what kind of fate awaits the pilot at the end of the line. There are fates worse than death, and she'll experience them if she's ever returned to Vader's custody. Juno knows this, and it's insulting that Sanary would imply that—

She's tired, and she seems to miss the implication that, distant as it might be, Sanary could actually be trying to help her.

So she snarls, seizing a handful of that armour in one hand to drag Sanary closer through what must be shocking physical strength. Rage and desperation are very good at that. Then, with her other hand, she whips the butt of the blaster straight for Sanary's face, firing point-blank at that Magitech eye.

No holds barred – she knows Sanary's weakness, and Juno's more than willing to use it in the interest of preserving her own life. She's desperate, and desperate to get away from this place. The Flotilla was never safe territory, but now it's actively dangerous.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
With that, the last pair take down Albert's shields in a brilliant flash, slagging armor off of his craft in waves and disabling many weapons systems! Inside, the monkeyman himself is beset by repeated power conduit detonations, but keeps himself firmly upright and at his command console. Full of rage at the situation, he loses a bit of control in aggression, as he often tends to.

With a sudden burst of speed, all power goes to engines and he does something that no sane pilot would tend to do. He pushes the craft forward in a sudden sublight manifestation of a jump! That very last one is trying to veer away out of the dive, but NO. This is an INCREDIBLY unconventional and somewhat self-destructive tactic, though, so hopefully the machine flying the fighter won't have any ability to properly react. He's trying to force the craft to crash into his! ...Which will likely take it out of the fight with more damage, if it does.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
It's unfortunate for the droids that they're not built of thick nonorganic material, because they're disposable combat droids, and not really made to withstand a lot of damage. Two of the three remaining ones are down for good after the cryogenic blast. Even the Golem armor appears to be stuck.

But something is happening as the armor begins to shift, the sound of ice crackling as the armor tries to free itself, "It's just a job, I don't even know this lady. Just keep that in mind, you're in my way of a payday, nothing more!" Grant calls out to Kyra again, as the suit rips one foot free of the frozen metal, "Come on, lets do this the easy way." He turns the weapon down towards his feet and fires a single shot, the explosive force of the round knocking his foot free, but also tearing up the armor a bit in the process, "That's better, come on!" He yells out at Kyra before turning the weapon on her again and begining to fire once more. Whoever's inside of there is probably a little crazy.

Revan (414) has posed:
That sweet smile never wavered. "But of course," she replied amicably. "One forms alliances with others for any number of resources. No matter how trivial they might seem, a friend is more beneficial than an adversary, right?"

But it would seem the young Ramuha was intent on seeing her objective through. The Guardian could respect that...even as she had to oppose her.

Revan made a dramatic sigh, the sweet smile becoming regretful. "Oh well. It was worth an effort, at least. Perhaps later then?"

then, that smile morphed into a predatory one entirely at odds with her previous one. "Still, I'm afraid I can't let you do that. I have a bit of a...personal interest in making sure the good captain stays alive and out of the Empire's hands."

As Audrey unsheathed her blade, Revan pulled hers from her belt, the twin blue lightsabers snapping to life with a characteristic snap-hiss. But rather than deflect the spell with them, the Jedi focused and formed a protective barrier around herself through the Force.

"It really is a shame we can't all be on the same side, isn't it?" she quipped with the previous smile. "I think we could all learn a lot from each other."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary was expecting Juno to listen to reason. Or even try and push through with futility. Maybe even back up further into the room and try to shoot her from a distance considering the armor difference.

What she wasn't expecting was... All of that. If nothing else, getting pulled over so easily is definitely a way to learn not to underestimate the physical strength of an Elite, even that of a pilot. She lets out a confused and pained screech at getting pistol-whipped and shot in the eye in quick succession, her entire body convulsing from both the pain and the effects of the bolt kicking in, both in her head and in disabling the eye.

"Mrghnbutt...! Ass... SHIT DAMMIT JUNO!" Her first instinct is to just try and grab the woman, aiming to use her own weight with that of her armor to force her to the ground. She doesn't need eyesight or something silly like full motor control to try something like that!

Meanwhile, the three floating droids continue doing their floating thing. At least they won't fire as long as the healer's in the way.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji's arms cross as he nods in acknowledgement of Yuri's words. "I stand by my words. The desire to capture the traitors is Stormfist's, not my own. The only thing I intend to do would be to force them to stand and fight instead of fleeing. But you have chosen to interfere. To rebel against fate."

He nods again. "Your passion is written across you like a masterwork. It screams itself out into the world, a vessel overflowing. This will be... enjoyable."

His hand lowers to his blade once more, and he pulls it upwards, holding it horizontally before him. "Murasame. It is time to feed." The crimson ribbon holding the blade fastened into the scabbard falls away, and Souji withdraws it. The blade, much like Yuri's weapons, are crimson and black, the light-drinking metal incised with blood-shaded runes of hunger.

There are no further words. There is motionlessness, the tension terrible and thick...

And then Souji launches into the air, flipping to impact against the ceiling, and pushing off of it in a spinning strike, the Murasame Blade trailing shadow and crimson in its wake as he slams down towards Yuri's position with a downward cleaving attack. The blade looks light, but when striking, it weighs much more.

It's not an Exalt weapon, but it seems to act like one in some respects.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
George crushes the guns. NICE!! He makes sure to yell, with an aggressive positivity, "Ha ha! YEAH!" As if crushing a beer can on his head, he slams the remains against his full-face helmet, his laughing voice echoing mechanically out of his power armor. The Starbounders then observe the unusual behavior as their swiping and leaping calms down. Clicking and stationary stances. Is it gonna blow up? No, they were gonna minimize collateral damage!

"Urgent. Unknown event incoming." Seft's synthetic tone is doubled coming out of her knight-suit's speakers. "Warning. Prepare." They don't try to kill this thing before it fires. Not only do they lack the sheer melee damage output to do so, but they still need to show off how GREAT their armor is! All three combatants form up, taking a kneeling stand and slamming their hands into the ground, deactivating all mobility power and routing it to their shields, making them incredibly sturdy. Moonfin, wounded as he may be, deactivates his shields entirely and dashes in to brace himself behind the three. Whatever is about to happen, the front three – with Seft at the fore of them all – are clearly intending to TANK it, and then let Moonfin immediately follow up with another tremendous strike if there's anything left of the enemy once it's done. A perfect show of optimized defense AND offense!

Moonfin takes a few deep, calming breaths, closing two eyes in his helmet, leaving only the third open. He prepares to strike the robot after establishing what synchronicity with he that he can using superior HYLOTL ANIMAL EMPATHY.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
"Oh yeah? And you're a big ol' speedbump in my way." Kyra grimaces, wishing she had an actual grenade launcher on her right now. While the CURE-ALL did resemble such a weapon, its effects were pretty much the exact opposite of what she needed here.

She's more than a little surprised when Grant elects to shoot himself free with the massive gun. It was a testament to the durability of one of those GOLEM suits at the very least...and kind of bad news for her. It meant her usual dart loadout wouldn't penetrate the armor and would thus be useless, halving her usual arsenal.

At least the Haste was still active. Kyra's not sure she'd want to learn what it feels like to get shot with that giant gun and immediately starts zigzagging her way down the hall as she approaches again, intent on outmanuvering Grant's aim so she can get in close, reach out to place a hand on the armor, and then—

"HOLY!"

Time to test what sort of magic shielding these suits pack. White magic violently pours from Kyra's hand, the magic particle field around her growing overwhelmingly oppressive as she casts. Despite this, the magic functions as normal.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
Being an insane pilot has its benefits. The kind of maneuver that Albert attempts is exactly the sort of maneuver that Darth Vader would, particularly if he knew his target's ability to sustain damage was minimal. It is a risk that pays off immediately. The last TIE Fighter is scattered to pieces as it is rammed, leaving behind a field of debris that – admittedly – might be a problem for Albert in his condition, but at the very least decisively removes the last active enemy flyer from the situation. The one that was making a crash landing DID manage to go down relatively intact, though it isn't going to be contributing much.

Just another copy of Vader roaming around being ominous, looks like. They've barely acted in a combat capacity. Did he really just dispatch them to psych people out...?

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Maybe it's less an issue of underestimating a pilot, and more underestimating a woman who's angry, terrified, and feels that she has very little left to lose. Under most normal circumstances, Juno Eclipse isn't much to write home about in terms of physical abilities. She's far outclassed by the people she works with, or formerly, for.

Even through her anger, she can't help a sympathetic wince as Sanary screeches and reels back from the pain. She doesn't enjoy causing pain, and she doesn't enjoy taking advantage of somebody's vulnerabilities. Only desperation pushes her to that extreme.

Speaking of pushing, she's about to shove her way past the stricken healer, because she would really love to make a sprint for her ship and get the hell out of Dodge. Instead, she finds herself seized and tackled to the ground, crushed under a layer of extremely heavy armour, and Juno manages a screech of her own as something important snaps. A rib, maybe two; something in her shoulder feels dangerously close to giving way. She coughs, and immediately regrets the action, accompanying it with another cry of pain.

Probably not as much pain as Sanary's in, but damn it, having bones snapped like toothpicks is never a fun experience.

"Get off me!" Juno snarls hoarsely, already writhing and struggling to try and get the armoured healer off her. Sanary's too heavy in that armour, though, and Juno isn't physically strong enough to move her. "I'm not going to kill you, but I will fight for my life, damn it! I will not go quietly! Not to Vader...!"

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
Galen winces as the blades cross, the hesitation in his mind translating to the weak response in combat. The droid locks blades with him, still speaking. He quotes something, or at least Galen guesses he quotes something. It seemed too rehersed. The Jedi Oath, perhaps? Galen winces, but shoves against the bot, tempering his defense with the force. He grunts, narrowing his eyes. Vader's last words ring in his mind again, but this time it seems to have the opposite effect.

Strength returns to him.

"Well, if the Jedi deny this power, and the Sith turn it into whatever you are... then I just need to harness it and find the new answer!" He shoves the blade against Vader-PROXY's, before a massive surge of Force Lightning splits the air between them. Electricity arcs toward the bot, before he spins and flings his blade toward another, using the Force to keep it on path. "The Multiverse clearly isn't so light and dark," he says, "Maybe I won't be a Jedi, but I can sure as hell step away from the Sith!"

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Yuri watches Souji, tilting his head a bit. It is rare that any are so insightful or intuitive as to call him emotive or passionate. Most believe him detached and distant. This statement alone, by that swordsman, causes Yuri to immediately gauge him as a quantifiable threat and a peer.

Because of this, he changes his stance immediately, ceasing his spinning of the chains. They fall limp and hang from his arms, scraping the floor as he awaits the opening portions of the battle, taking slow breaths and watching his opponent.

And then Souji strikes. The move is lightning fast and Yuri is struck across the chest with an incredibly powerful blow from the blade as he hops backwards. Despite his motion to dodge, the strike is clean and deep. The shirt he wears is split open, the flesh and muscle of his chest is cleaved straight to the nicked bone underneath. The blood of an Exalt, so steeped in Essence, pours down the front.

And yet, despite this horrendous wound in him, Yuri's face hasn't changed. He watches Souji with a calm gaze, even while that hungry blade has drawn a feast of magical blood for itself. He's injured and this is undeniable, but he shows no pain and, as he dashes in towards Souji, it doesn't seem to have slowed him down.

As he moves, the chain around his arm and dragging along the floor coils and runs up around his fist, creating a steel gauntlet of sorts that he uses to drive a brutal straight punch straight towards Souji's mid-section in a display of brutal efficiency and an eschewing of any sort of refined form. Yuri is, after all, a master of Infernal Monster Style.

The mere act of advancing on Souji and striking has left a trail of blood on the ground from his approach.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
This leaves Seft's craft – anti-ship bombardment, now without a target and run by AI – and Biteblade's craft – anti-armor gunboat equivalent – to man the skies while Albert limps his craft away, having suffered severe damage to his weapons systems to crash that last ship. Biteblade, of course, is still accessing Seft's sensors. Which gives her the chance to detect Juno, who they've been tracking. Immobilized by something!

This is where shit gets crazy. The Starbounders are in charge of structural repairs. So they're free to break whatever they want; they can put it back together. The long and short of what I'm saying is, Biteblade immediately dives with their craft. Their entire craft, and slams it right into the residential section, bringing it to a skidding halt in the hallway just short of Sanary and Juno wrestling on the ground. The massive STARHUNTER railgun is left pointed right at Sanary's body.

"HELLO, FLORAN ISSS HERE NOW TOO!" Biteblade's voice can be heard over an exterior intercom on the damaged ship. "Heal friend, pleassse get off invisssible ship friend and let go for run, pleassse and thank! Floran will appreciate lotsss!"

The railgun wiggles a little bit, almost eagerly.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
The PROXY-Vader does not trouble to reply. The battle of philosophies is concluded, and it has no other mission to accomplish. It raises its blade in answer the Force Lightning rolling against it, and deactivates it in silence. Its appearance flickers as it fries, the holographic representation of Vader's mask bursting along the faceplate to reveal Marek's own face beneath. There is no need to speak to convey the idea – or perhaps, the reality – that has been presented.

The other droids self-destruct abruptly, leaving behind the lone proxy of Darth Vader, Marek's dead-eyed face staring up from its position on the floor.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary is still howling in pain as the energy from that stun bolt overloads the eye, half-tempted to just yank it out to keep it from burning the inside of her eye socketfurther. Between falling right on Juno and barely being able to coordinate her own movements, though, it's hard enough just trying to move an arm off her, much less the rest of her body.

"Mrgh.. You could have..." She mutters several strings of creative curses involving the same three or four words, even managing to push herself up enough to not put all of her weight on the pilot when Biteblade arrives. "Just hold.. Holy crap, this SUCKS." As difficult as it is to even focus, she does manage to direct a bit of the healing energy from her head to Juno, although it's clear she can't really aim it all that well given the circumstances. It's also much weaker than normal, barely even managing to relieve any of the pain if it even does that.

"Gotta know... Did you call for Union help before or after they called you a traitor?" She spits that out before letting out another string of curses, the green healing light fading quickly as her body spasms again and drops back down.

"H... Hey—, Biteblade. Love to, but I can't move my anything right now." She gives him a little twitch in response and groans again, partially from trying to move at all and partially from the searing pain still lingering in her head. She does not sound happy.

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
Audrey's eyes lit up at the sight of the lightsabers. Brilliant blades of light, now those, THOSE. Dear God. Revan has Audrey's attention now, if she didn't before. "What interesting weapons. I wonder how they fare against more traditional blades." She wagers, any of her weapons would get cut to shreds by those bright blades. Unless she poured magic in, anyway. Better not take risks. And more importantly, better not risk her prize weapon.

The gunblade is sheathed, replaced by a pitch black spear instead, which is pulled out of her coat pocket. Hammerspace can do wonders for your RPG hero inventory problems. The spear hums as she bleeds some of her magic into it, a dim purple light near the tip flaring up.

The Heritor leaps straight for Revan.

The spear is flung, and its Doom effect kicks into full gear. Should a wound be opened by the weapon, it would attempt to impose the Doom 'status effect' upon Revan. Though the wound could be nothing but a small graze, Doom is essentially a ticking countdown to suffering intense damage. In a minute or two – if it takes hold at all – the Guardian would feel heart pain equivalent to dying, but would surely live through.

But that's all hypothetical. Revan isn't the kind of person who's easy to hit, after all! On the bright side of Audrey, the activated Spell Matrix should keep the lightsabers from slicing clean through her weapons, but the intense heat will likely damage the spear nonetheless.

The GUARD SCORPION does absolutely nothing.

And more nothing.

AND MORE NOTHING.

Finally, it lowers its tail, clicking. Nothing catastrophic happens – it seems to switch right back to its old tactics. The gun arms are aimed at the Flotilla members. Both fire – one detonates due to the crushed barrel. The other's barrel is blown open, and actually manages to fire. The result is harmless machinegun fire. The Flotilla were ready for something much bigger, there's no way the machinegun is going to do any real harm.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
The Holy blast is unexpected, most people don't want to close into that close of range with the Golem armor. But Kyra does and it pays off for her as she blasts Grant in the chest with the massive Holy force. He winds up getting knocked off of his feet, his gun clattering to the side as she sends him down from the blow.

He actually seems a little bit dazed as he sits there on his ass. He knows what she hit him with, she yelled the attack name after all. Still it hurt way more than he expected it to.

The last of the droids, still standing, raises a blaster rifle towards Kyra to try to take her down. It most likely won't be effective, but it might give Grant enough time to at least get back onto his feet.

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
Galen stands, glaring over at the Vader-PROXY that had spoken to him. As the Lightning overwhelms it, the faceplate flickers and shows Galen's face beneath. As the other two self-destruct, Galen walks over to the fallen drone, staring at his own dead face on Vader's form. The message was clear, and as the ex-Sith stares into the dead eyes, he frowns. "I will not become you," he says, "I don't know your entire story. You never told me. But I won't end up like you. I will find a different route. Between light and darkness is an array of color, and it is there that I will find my answer. Maybe, one day, you can open your eyes and see that."

He turns his back on the unit, clicking the blade off and placing it back on his belt. "I used to see the world as black and white, but this isn't all there is. The spectrum is wide and varied. I will find the answer, and when I do, it will revolutionize how we see the Force." He turns back to the PROXY Vader-Galen. "If you can still hear me, Vader, I want you to know that what you did aboard the prison ship was unforgivable. It shows your true nature."

With that, he makes his way toward the hangar. He had a Rogue Shadow to board and a Juno to reunite with.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
Most people aren't crazy like Kyra Hyral is either. She doesn't want to think of what'd happen if the guy in the armor actually grappled her. Pleased with the results, Kyra's about to move on when a few things happen-

She feels the facility shake as Biteblade slams her ship into the residential area. Her Liquid Haste wears off and the world seems to return to normal speed to her. Thanks to that, she cannot react fast enough to avoid being shot by the remaining droids and she thumps against the wall next to the little cluster of droids and GOLEM armor.

Kyra slides down against the wall to the floor with a groan. Right away, she is murmuring, casting a simple cure spell on herself since between the earlier explosion and being shot, she wasn't feeling so great. Unfortunately, as she recovers, so does Grant.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
Grant is back up and running, at least it seems. As the droid shoots Kyra, grant grabs a nearby peice of equipment off of the ground and hucks it at the droid, sticking it square in the droid's dome and causing it to fall over, "She's mine, damnit." He mutters under his breath, as he reaches behind his back and pulls out what appears to be a stick.

A stick it is not, however, as the end unfolds into a massive axe blade, with a pick on the opposite side. Grant grips the axe, which most would have to wield in two hands, with his big meaty right hand, as he turns and swings it towards where Kyra is slumped against the wall. The axe is going to embed itself in the bulkhead. Whether something is between it and Grant when it does has yet to be seen.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
While it hurts to listen to the pain Sanary is in and know that she had caused it in a moment of ruthlessness and desperation, Juno is distracted from dwelling on it for too long. The pain of several broken ribs and a nearly-broken arm is enough to keep her mind quite occupied, primarily on the challenge of how to get out from under Sanary's armour without being crushed.

Her struggles are brought up short by the tremendous impact of a starship, and out of reflex she cowers under Sanary. Without thinking, she moves her arm to shield her face, but pinned as she is under Sanary, she can't move anything. She does manage to suck in a rasping breath of air at the pain of attempted movement, coughing and wincing at the pain of that.

If she gets away from here, she's going to be talking to Kyra later.

"After," Juno rasps, baring her teeth as she tries to squirm out from under the heavy plate armour. Frustrated, she tries to push Sanary away, but the armour's just too heavy; her uninjured arm trembles at the effort, and she can't do anything with the other, letting it fall back with a yelp. Sprained, maybe. "Seriously, why are you even wearing this crap? It looks terrible and it weighs more than a fucking Rancor."

Trying to twist a little, she looks up at the massive railgun, and the blood drains from her face. "Um, h-hi, Biteblade..."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"I feel like maybe we either fucked up really bad or, like, maybe we blundered our dumb asses right the fuck into something great." George says. He can't move because he redirected suit power to shielding, but it's holding. Firmly, in fact! He could hold this for a while. Hopefully, of course, he won't have to.

Moonfin immediately leaps up. Unshielded, he has only armor to work with, but hopefully the trio of tanks he left behind will keep drawing attention. His blade remains drawn, and then, suddenly... Instead of lightning, it crackles with a searing, brutal red simmering heat. With an incredibly agile energy-rocket-assisted leap, he tries to get over the gun, slam his own now-fire-aligned Katana square into the wound left by Pavo, and run down the things length with the heavy powered weapon, so that he'll wind up leaping off of it mostly bisected dramatically in front of Audrey, dramatically sheathing his sword while it explodes.

Okay, that's actually all just what Moonfin is going after. What actually happens will probably be a different matter, and nowhere near as cool.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The blood that is freed from Yuri soaks into the blade, vanishing on contact. The Essence-rich blood of the Exalt is likely a heady cocktail for the weapon. Time will tell if it will help anything. Most people Souji cuts tend to do things like 'scream', 'bleed', 'beg for their lives', 'die', and other perfectly normal things.

Yuri has the bleeding down but he's not doing any of the rest. This lack of pain response causes him to be taken by surprise when the Rebel slams a chain-wrapped fist into his midsection. The impact crushes up into his innards as Souji folds in over the punch, moments before the kinetics catch up with him and he is sent flying backwards to collide with one of the lower-ring consoles, crushing it with an explosion of sparks. Souji's head snaps back, the impact causing him to collapse to the ground for several seconds as his body registers the internal trauma.

This is about where he abruptly reassesses what he's dealing with.

He forces himself upwards, staggering for a moment. He clenches his teeth, and sets himself again into his combat stance. Pain is a distraction. He has to be able to function through it. "Well played." He says, quietly, before he suddenly strikes forward, feinting with his blade before immediately lunging past. It's clear that staying in melee range of Yuri is a foolish idea. He needs to adapt his strategy to keep him from leveraging his power so effectively. One hand whips outwards, a spell pattern forming in his hand. "Thunder-2!" He calls out, triggering the blast of a crackling surge of electrical power.

Revan (414) has posed:
Well, drat. Unlike many others, Revan actually preferred to be underestimated. The Sith were famous for flaunting their power, and even the Jedi had at times relied on their reputation as powerful Force-wielders. By contrast, she had found that level ground to be an advantage. Lowri preferred using her wits, anyway.

She nearly grinned as the gunblade was replaced by an ebony spear. This certainly looked like it was going to be fun. It was likely a good thing that no one she needed to set a positive proper stoic Jedi example for was around to see her act in some rather ambiguous ways. Sure, she was nearly paranoid now when it came to obviously Dark-Sided choices, but what could be the harm in a properly honourable match? She wasn't going to kill Audrey, and it her opponent killed her, well, she'd just rejoin the Force. Simple!

b The issue of hammerspace wasn't something new or bizarre, either. "Oh~? I thought that might have been unique to the shinki! How interesting!" Of course, as much as she was quipping, Revan really did mean it in part. That curiosity of hers...it was seriously going to get her in real trouble one day.

At full-strength as Darth Revan, the effect would have been nothing, if it had even hit at all. But the humble Jedi Lowri Shan, a latecomer Padawan who had only been (re)trained in the ways of the Force a scant few years ago was another matter. Perhaps some lowly Sith would have been unable to put a dent in her metaphorical armour as well, but Audrey was an Elite of the prestigious Alexender Academy, from a long line of Ramuhan Monks. The Heritor was nothing to sneeze at, and the Guardian knew it. Even as she smiled, she was deadly serious.

The pitch-black spear might take some damage as Revan moved seamlessly into the stance of the form she was most adept at – Niman, the Way of the Rancor – and seemed to blur into motion. But Elites were still powerful by most standards, and even as she moved to deflect the spear grazed her shoulder. And that was to say nothing of its psychological effect, something Force-sensitived in general were susceptible to.

Man, did that hurt. Fortunately, she had a few tricks up her own sleeve.

Lowri decided not to pull any punches when taking her opponent seriously. Channelling the Force, she suddenly leapt with lightning speed, bearing down on the Heritor-Monk, the blue blades bearing down on her if she was unable to dodge or parry.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
White magic spreads over Kyra's skin, mending open wounds and burns incurred earlier as she gasps to catch her breath. A noise of surprise escapes her when Grant decides to teamkill his own droid that, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be doing its job well. "You're kind of crazycakes." she remarks as she starts to get up.

Then she sees that giant-ass axe appear out of the stick the GOLEM-armored student just produced. Her eyes widen and she shrieks, "HOLY SHIT!" hurling herself sideways so Grant doesn't take her head off.

She's successful in that at least but the edge of the axe catches part of the shoulder and hood of her hoodie, pinning it to the wall as the blade embeds.

Kyra struggles for a few moments, trying to tear the material free but finding herself unable to do so, the material of the hoodie being too durable for casual tearing (more or less by her own choice too, adventuring clothes need to be durable). Instead she resorts to slipping out of it and leaving it behind, slipping out of the shoulder strap for the CURE-ALL in the process. The latter isn't stuck to the wall, though, so she grabs the alchemized weapon before fleeing past Grant now that he's momentarily stuck.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Hi healsss friend! Hi invisssible ship friend!" Biteblade calls out over the speakers. The front of the cockpit pops open, and the heavy craft ejects one disheveled-looking Floran, clambering up onto the railgun's rails to swing down to Sanary and Juno. "Floran will help! Floran isss ssstring, eat all veggiesss." She flexes! Then she comes over to strain herself helping lift Sanary up, and making flopping her down a bit limply too if that works. She'll be trying to help Juno get to her feet!

"Invisssible ship friend, go! Run fasst, Floran do more fight. Core Fleet protect!" If she can get Sanary off of Juno, she'll try to get Juno onto her feet and running through whatever may have been opened up by FALLING OUT OF THE SKY. And hopefully all of this works out because she needs to get going, it sounds like! Other places, other business! She can't take advantage of Sanary's disabled state to take her out of the fight properly!

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Yuri squints at Souji as he is sent backwards and then stands up, "You are not a normal person," Yuri says in a factual sort of way. He lets the chain fall to the ground and inquires, "What motivates you? What has driven you to become what you a-"

This statement is cut off by the fact that a huge blast of lightning and electricity hits him dead on. He's wearing metal chains, so this is all the more effective against him. His entire body lashes backwards a step, his head turning away as the smell of scorched, burnt flesh and hair fills the ionized air.

When Yuri rights his posture and stares at Souji, the damage is pretty immediately apparent. Yuri's left eye and the surrounding flesh of the eye-socket are gone. Scorched straight to the bone, which is also blackened from the force of the attack that was levelled against him. The cartilage of his nose is twisted and smoldering and the face above the cheek and back around to the ear carry black lines and marks, parts of the flesh on the side of his head also being burned to the bone, though some tatters of skin and muscle remain.

Every wound is cauterized shut, though, and the bitter-sweet smell of burnt skin is heavy around the slightly smoking Infernal Exalt as he looks to Souji, still expressing no pain. When he speaks, the empty socket where his eye is missing has a red flicking flame appear in it, temporarily filling in for his eye, "You are immensely powerful for your youth." The voice is affected by the burnt path of flesh around the corner of his mouth that has opened the cheek and split it a few inches wider than his mouth should be, so his words slur just a bit.

He grips one of the chains and then spins it before sending it in a straight throw towards Souji. The tip of his attack is wreathed in the green flames of Malfeas, cancerous and hate-filled that they are. He tries to pierce the young man right through the middle of his chest and infect him with the terrible disease, as well as the searing hot metal of the chain and its flames.

After all, a burn for a burn is only fair.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary lets out a long sigh once Juno answers, sounding... Strangely relieved. "Figured. Aah... St-still, did you need to shoot me in the EYE? Even the foot would've been..." She trails off, then follows that up by a pained groan as she recalls the terrible, terrible pain still in her eye. And eye socket. Also, the rest of her head feeling like it's on fire.

Thankfully, Biteblade's got the strength to handle that pesky issue of movement! She still grunts painfully as she's set back down, though it's more from still lacking most of her motor control. Just what the hell was in that stun bolt?

"And this stuff is good for protection! Sure, it's looks bad, but it really works! Had a dragon breathe fire on me once, and..."

She was getting sidetracked, wasn't she? Right. "Biteblade. Uh. Careful outside there. There's some droids that I came in with that have a... Disabling loadout or something."

Luckily, those droids were in a heap. It would be hard for them not to be, considering how they had an entire spaceship on top of them. Probably wouldn't be posing anyone any problems escaping at this point, really. Sanary, meanwhile, doesn't look like she's going to be going anywhere for a while. Even if she could get up, it's not as if she could really do much with that stun bolt still lodged in the eye.

... Right. It's still in there, isn't it? Time for her to start hyperventilating!

Audrey Stormfist (652) has posed:
Moonfin will get his wish, mostly!

The Guard Scorpion continues firing the machinegun it has for an arm – its remaining pincer tries, and fails, to catch the leaping swordsman. The blade crashes deep into the machine, and then Moonfun runs, dragging the cut along with him, halting his dramatic run to leap off the Scorpion just as it slams to the ground, evidently disabled.

When the Flotilla pry it open, they'll find that the length of the tail is occupied by machines that convert impacts, whatever nature be they, into energy, and that energy is used to power a laser in the drill-tip of the tail. It can do nothing to prevent the damage, but it can use the damage to power a laser, so, you win some you lose some!

Meanwhile, Audrey has to fend Revan off. There's something so wrong about her. Childishness and inexperience, but it completely betrays her motions and her stance. Or maybe it's those two things that betray the childish demeanor and speech. Either way – something is off about the Jedi. Audrey'd rather not make a mistake that'll cost her an arm.

The black spear, warped and bent from the heat of the lightsabers, spins and twirls, and crashes against the weapons even as Lowri brings them down in a lightning-fast maneuver. Repeated blows eventually get the better of the weapon. A clean cut through, and the Monk barely has time to get her shoulder out of the way. The lightsaber sears through her armor and the surface of her skin, a graze by any other name, but one that clearly shows what happens when you take a Jedi lightly.

Before she can reciprocate, Moonfin lands, along with chunks of scrap from the Guard Scorpion, between the two fighters. Audrey frowns, but doesn't make another move.

"You both impress me. With the Scorpion destroyed, it would be folly to try to take all of you on at the same time. I must say the data this is yielding may make the failure a footnote for the day."

Raising one hand, activating the green console atop her glove, the Heritor speaks directly into it. [This is Adamant-1. I've been disabled for all intents and purposes. Status report?]

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The pilot looks up at the railgun, swallowing at the size of it. It's quite something, when you're staring it down on foot. Quite intimidating, really. Shifting her weight as best she can, Juno winces and wheezes at her broken ribs' protest. She can only watch as Biteblade clambers out of her ship and down the railgun as though it were a ramp. A very unsettling ramp, that is.

Once Sanary is levered up a bit, Juno moves to squirm out from under Sanary's heavy armour, wheezing in pain. "I didn't know Lowri was Union," she gasps. "I swear. She wasn't, the last time we'd spoken. And s-sorry. Desperate. Not kidding. I won't go back alive."

Fortunately, blasters use energy. There's no projectile to speak of – the "bolt" is just a figure of speech.

Dragging herself to her feet, Juno clutches her wounded arm, hesitating as she looks back to Sanary and Biteblade. "Thanks," she says to the Floran, with a nod. To Sanary, she turns a look almost... regretful. "I'm sorry. Really. But I can't let you take me."

Turning, ignoring the fire in her ribs and arms, she flings herself down the corridor; towards the shipyard and the Rogue Shadow... and freedom.

Revan (414) has posed:
The mask dropped for a moment, a flicker betraying the serious woman beneath that affable mask as she turned her head slightly to look beyond where her own battle was taking place. "The droid was destroyed? Such a shame...I really wanted to get a better look at it."

Naturally, it would drop when she missed an opportunity for droid study. Or did it, really?

Yet, she made no overt moves to continue attacking Audrey. Her smile, however, was neither the affable nor predatory ones from before. There was the earlier gentleness to it, but now almost...fond? Respectful? It might have been difficult to read, and Revan was a rather complex and even contradictory person to begin with. "You're rather impressive, yourself. Elites really are a breed apart, hmm? Those with the power to change their worlds, their destinies."

Someone might almost get the impression that the odd Jedi might, in any other circumstances, sat down and poured the two a couple of servings of stimtea. At least, once the faintly-smiling Jedi had deactivated and put away her lightsabers. No, she was still not going to let anyone hunt down Juno Eclipse, no matter what Lowri's personal respect and feelings were.

Grant Mason (667) has posed:
Now that does prove to be a problem as Grant finds his axe stuck in the wall. He grunts and grabs it with both hands, pulling on it to try to free it. Of course while he's busy with that she's going to get away. He grunts in annoyance, but at this point he's running out of things to throw at her anyway.

Finally wrenching the blade out of the wall, he puts it back on his back and the nmoves to pick up his gun. He's not making any effort to actually chase Kyra, though he does follow along in the direction she went after he finishes reloading.

Galen Marek (731) has posed:
As he makes his way to the Rogue Shadow, Galen reflects on the image of his face under Vader's mask. It shook him a bit, that's pretty clear, but he meant what he said to Vader at the end. He would find a different path, with the Force to guide him. There had to be more than the Light and Dark sides. The fact that it was based around light, and light had many colors, meant there had to be more to it, right? He boards the Rogue Shadow, slipping into the pilot's seat. The ship is still heavily damaged, but he is still able to fire it up. The engines rattle to life, and he prepares to take off.

Only one person missing.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Grunting with relief once she's finally able to start moving the right side of her body again, Sanary turns herself just enough to face Juno's and Biteblade's general direction. Not that she can really see them for the time being, and she's still looking a little panicky as the adrenaline wears off, making the burning sensations all the more apparent.

"Y—yeah. I know. Just... Take care of yourself, eh?" She manages a distracted grin, dividing her attention between talking and trying not to freak out. What if her eye's stuck like this for a while? Or if it's broken?

The best she can really do for now is try and just mitigate the damage by pumping more magic around the eye itself while responding to Audrey's request.

[Adamant-4 here. Target's escaped, I've also gotten disabled. Uh. I'm not sure if my eye is broken.]

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
Moonfin smirks in his helmet as he sheathes his blade just as the creature slams to the ground. Internally, of course, he thinks: Yes! Yes yes yes! I finally got to do the cool thing, yesssss.

On the exterior, the all eight feet of samurai power armor are practically beaming with smug confidence. "Of course." He says, his voice heavily distorted by the thick helmet's audio systems. "Our contract with you is still quite valid, remember." He bows elegantly, only just slightly twitching due to being stuck on his backup power. "Our data is your data. You may find the Spellsword project at your disposal. Such power in your mechanical creature! I certainly hope to see our creations working with them, not against them." His anonymizing helmet then turns on towards Revan. "Our thanks for helping to defend our allies once more, even i this... Quite political situation."

Revan (414) has posed:
Meanwhile, as Galen boarded the Rogue Shadow currentlt being repaired, T3-M4 and Tiny expressed their respective alarms at the sudden entrance of the once-Sith. T3 in his short electronic blasts of chirp-squawking, Tiny in noises much more reminiscent of an organic insect creature. Both highly adorable, though.

Even before the engines flared to life, the two had beat a hasty exist for their own home ship, though with some possible protests about the indignity and the ingratitude of it all. Hadn't they been working diligently before that rude interruption? The nerve!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
Pavo and George have reluctantly beamed up to strip out of the Spellsword-tier armor and get back into their ships. Seft beams back into her own as well. All three of them immediately get to work on establishing a safe airspace for the Rogue Shadow to get back into orbit! They patrol aggressively, trying to make sure Vader's craft doesn't interfere again! It's a motley sort of patrol, using the best the crew could scrape together with their busted-up resources at the moment, but it hopefully works!

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
A lesser man would have been obliterated. Yuri is no lesser man. Souji is quiet for a short time as Yuri asks his question. He frowns for a moment. "There may be a time where I will tell you. But not here. Not now."

Again, he misjudges Yuri's attack as the man lashes out with that chain. The burning chain lashes out, attempting to punch straight through Souji. However, this time, there is a shower of green flame and crimson, the air splitting and ringing as he turns to try to deflect the chain.

But the assault is not so easily deterred. Where it would have punched straight through him and burn him out, the chain's path is altered, slashing across the front of his chest and laying open his flesh, a burning green streak flaming across his chest.

There is no such discipline that can prepare for this kind of pain. He screams, an expression of pure agony cracking his stoic expression. The wound is cauterized, but still seethes with traces of that green fire. One hand clutches at it, the viridian embers leaking out between the fingers, his body trembling as he fights the onset of the horrid disease. "You..." He hisses. "You can actually kill me..." He says, perhaps both acknowledgement and realization in one.

SAMURAI
SWORD ARTS
>CRIMSON CALL

With a swift motion, he gashes his arm with the blade, his own blood dripping outwards onto the floor. With a spinning strike, he slams his blade into the ground where his blood fell, a wash of crimson lashing upwards in a spiked wave of bloody energy. Any blood drawn by the attack is absorbed into the mass, feeding back into the blade... And his wounds begin to heal.

But the green flame doesn't seem to die.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
All but dragging herself down the hallway, Juno bares her teeth at the pain of various broken bones protesting in very loud voices at this abuse and injustice. Under any other circumstances she would have slowed down to exercise more caution, knowing full well that the harder she pushes a wounded and weary body, the more damage she's doing to herself. This time, there's no time for caution. It's her life on the line, or close enough to make no difference.

Despite her injuries, she pushes herself into a fleet-footed sprint to the shipyard. It's not a very long run, but it feels like it for her – her entire torso screams with every breath, every movement, and she's going to have to remember to ask Sanary later how much that set weighs. That she could move around at all wearing that is pretty impressive.

Nearly skidding in her haste to get around the corner, Juno staggers to find her footing, caroming off a corridor wall and hissing in pain all the way. She's in sight, though, and she can see the beautiful, battered hull of the ship. Maybe they can get out of this after all. She can take the ship where they won't be found. Out to the reaches of the Void, where even the light of the stars dies.

Juno can't help herself, half-laughing and half-weeping at her own insane optimism, even as she pounds past T3 and Tiny. "Sorry!" she calls over her shoulder, wheezing. "It's an emergency! Thank you, and thank your master for me!"

Galen will hear her pounding her way up the ramp, slapping the button to close it even as she continues on, forward to the cockpit. "Galen!" Wheezing, coughing, she throws herself into the back of the pilot's chair, depending on it to stop her forward momentum; one hand bracing against his shoulder, the other reaching over him to stab at the console's controls. Without quite taking her seat, half-draping and half bracing herself up over his shoulder, she simply reaches over him, panting as she tries to rush through the ship's engine initiation sequence. "Come on, come on, come on," she rasps, eyes darting over the consoles' readings.

Practically humming with tension, she looks up as the engines thrum to life. Barely has the engine finished firing than she shoos Galen out of the pilot's chair, hastily assuming the controls, if he'll let her. "Let's go. I don't know where. Somewhere far away from here." Juno laughs, but the sound is bitter, and she can feel something wet tracing down her cheekbone. She ignores it. "Prepare for liftoff."

The Rogue Shadow, its starboard engine spitting and sparking volatilely, wobbles its way airborne. It turns until it can head for the helpful blockade that George and Pavo are trying to maintain, its wounded engine screaming in protest, but it's flying. She slaps the comm controls, patching through to the two Core Fleet ships.

[We're going. I don't know where, but far away from here. I don't know when we'll be back, but we will, I promise you that. Thank... thank you for everything. Maybe someday I can thank you properly.]

"Prepare for lightspeed."

With that, she turns the ship, using George and Pavo's craft as a shield between the Rogue Shadow and the Imperial presence. Provided nothing attempts to stop them, with a weird and slightly eerie blurring, the Rogue Shadow stretches, contorting impossibly – and then as the hyperdrive surges to life, the ship snaps forward and seems to vanish, flickering out of existence as it leaps to speeds greater than light itself.

And like that, the former Imperials and their crippled ship are gone.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
"And you could kill me," Yuri says in that gentle slur that has resulted from his split cheek as he watches Souji, "I believe we both came into this battle to find an opponent which has surprised us in their capacity." He withdraws the flame and twirls it, the tip of the chain scouring the ground where it touches. Seems the flames of Malfeas hate objecs as much as people.

"Because I hold no spite over the nature of this fight, if you should kill me you will still wish to seek extensive treatment for magical disease within the next eight hours," He didn't warn Souji before the fight, but his obligation to FIA still requires he warn him now. If Souji were an opponent Yuri wanted dead deliberately, as opposed to someone Yuri simply wound up fighting, he would not have given this warning.

Crimson Call strikes true to its intent. One of the spikes catches Yuri squarely in the stomach, punching into him and through what would pass for organs there. He takes a step back to pull himself off of said spike, but leaves behind the mulched pseudo-organs behind on that spike. Plenty of blood there, really. There's also a gaping, foot-wide hole in Yuri's stomach that is straight-up see through, "If you will use my blood against me, I will use that hunger against you... Will you die for your hunger, I wonder?" Emotion edges into his voice. Genuine curiosity, perhaps wonderment. Perhaps a hint of sadism.

On many places in the station, the fighting may be concluded. But Yuri is still embroiled in his battle against Souji and he does not intent to yield any more than Souji seems to. He has found the point to attack, so while Souji prepares his ultimate attack, Yuri's counter to it is much more subtle.

Sea Within Veins Prana.

Yuri focuses his Essence outward and, as it moves, all of his blood in the room begins to bubble and change. Instead of the rich, Essence-filled life fluid it once was, it becomes toxic and corrosive. It still has that Essence in it, it can still nourish Souji's blade and fuel his attack. But now Yuri will test Souji's resolve:

If Souji stops the attack, he won't absorb that burning, vitriolic poison that Yuri's blood has become. But, in doing so, it will be a stalemate between them. Or Souji can risk his life in order to see Yuri fall to his attack.

Revan (414) has posed:
There were probably a number of things Revan could have relayed back to Moonfin. However, she chose the answer with the most humour potential. As always. "If you talk to her before I do, ask her this: Now are we even~?"

Lowri might have saved her life on multiple occasions, but there was still one terrible atrocity which she had inflicted on the former Imperial pilot.

She had taught her Pazaak.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji stands there, nodding to the advice. It would be pretty terrible if Souji died to horrible magical radiation poisoning. And he's not even in the Wasteland!

He is motionless as Yuri begins to transform his blood. This, too, is new. He has never seen someone taint their own blood in this fashion to counter his own attacks. For several moments, he considers his options...

And then he tilts his head, looking away. His face twists into a frown. His blade is sheathed, the ribbon tying itself around the hilt once more and binding it, and he shakes his head. "Killing you does will not solve my objectives. You have succeeded in delaying me, they have escaped. There is no longer a point in battling."

He grimaces, clutching that wound once more and stifling a cry, before he looks back up to Yuri. "Hunger, like passion, like rage, like conviction, like morality, like desire... is a weapon. If a man is mastered by his own weapon he does not deserve to wield it."

He turns away. "We will meet again. Perhaps it will be under better circumstances." Slowly, he walks, attempting to remain composed and upright despite the brutal damage he has received.

Even now, he must not falter. He would never forgive himself.

She would never forgive him.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
"Yes. I can understand this belief you hold," Yuri says simply, words still gently slurring as the chains retract and coil back up around his arms like sleeves, though the metal itself moves like a trained snake, "Hunger and ambition will drive one to great things, but without focus it becomes as dangerous as any poison."

The Infernal Exalt stares at Souji with his remaining jade eye, appraising the young man, "All who seek to rebel against... fate, their place in the world, perhaps even the world itself... will encounter me at some point. Perhaps we shall meet again, perhaps we will see what you believe at that point, Souji Murasame." His remaining eye blinks a few times, "Until then, if nothing else, I respect your resolve and your belief."

Yuri remains standing as Souji departs, watching him go with a silent vigilance. It's not out of concern or belief that Souji will further attack him, but out of curiosity. For him to walk at all after their fight is amazing, as Yuri can tell his body has nearly given out from their conflict. And, had he reached that point, his silent resolve would have simply collapsed as all his injuries weighed down at once. Such is the nature of his kind in battle. Fight until you can do so no longer and show no sign of pain until the moment you die.

Yuri carefully steps forward, his leg shuddering slightly from muscle damage. His movements are inhuman as he tries to balance the fact that his torso's weight has changed from organ loss, his stereoscopic vision has been taken from him, and his every heart-beat bleeds poison to the ground under him. So it's a somewhat unnatural gait and a lilting, torso-bobbing motion that sees him walking in the opposite direction of Souji.

The janitor probably does not get paid enough to clean that room.