296/NODE: Kingdom of Wright - The Wright Stuff

NODE: Kingdom of Wright - The Wright Stuff
Date of Scene:	27 July 2014
Location:	The Homeworld
Synopsis:	Ariel and her friends make their way into Ariel's Node to confront Hazel.
Cast of Characters:	2, 151, Fiora O'Brien, 219, 231, 253, 331, 347, 395
Tinyplot:	When They Return

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Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    When Ariel opens the door - she's the only one who can - it opens up into a long hallway, something that looks like the interior of a large castle, but instead of stone, everything seems rendered in crystal, polished to a mirror shine. Oddly, though the mirror doesn't seem to reflect the group that walks through itself, but an entirely empty hallway, as if there was one running parallel to the group. The walk through the hallway should take approximately a minute, or something like that.

    The area past the big door is actually leading outside; it looks like they're emerging from the side of a large, central castle-like spire structure. It couldn't possibly have held the full length of that hallway, though, it's more a tower than it is a castle and one could go around its full circumference in the minute it took to walk down the hallway. Surrounding it seems to be an idyllic sort of town of a roughly medieval nature, bearing similarity to the kind of village you'd expect a small castle to surround itself with.

    Or maybe renaissance era? There's a lot of construction going on! With much more modern construction methods. Speaking of construction, the people doing that are quite visible, as well as a number of others. The people of the village are strange. They're all artificial things of a variety of sorts, modelled after humanoid forms for animals of all sorts, both real and mythical. The Crystal humanoids aren't around in great numbers today, though the Stone ones are still hard at work on a building that has progressed quickly since Ariel's last visit under the direction of a small pair of the. The origami-styled Paper merchants are mostly still active in their market stalls, and the Brass guards are around more properly now that there isn't an Ashen at the borders, but they're all friendly and reasonable.

    All of the Crafted here are covered in strange, magical runes and markings that glow softly. They seem to be what power the entities. Looks pretty peaceful! Besides the fact that there remains an OMINOUS-LOOKING VOLCANIC STRUCTURE off in the nearby mountains that can be seen from here, where the only clouds in the brightly-lit sky swirl. That's not what you guys are here for, you guys are here for Hazel. Thankfully, you have Ellestaria, whose magical scanning can locate the target. She's over closer to the paper districts, where some of the group met Vellum before.

Ariel (219) has posed:
"There are still so many questions about this place," Ariel remarks as she heads for the paper districts. "Like... when did they get these new construction techniques? How long have they been working?" Sigh. The unicorn continues walking for the target, fidgeting nervously. She's dressed in 'adventurer's gear,' which mostly consists of loose but well-fit blousy shirt and a light skirt. Normally she doesn't wear clothes, but it's a sign of how nervous she is that she's done something to match the cloak form of Harmonious Diea.

She is also technically armed for the first time, but the Mizzium dagger is tucked away at her side as more of a tool or afterthought than something she looks ready to use. It's not in a great position to draw for combat.

She'll wave at some of the merchants, and again give a quick scan to see if there's anything she can buy of interest, but it's all kind of just something to keep her from worrying about the actual meeting, when she'll have to focus.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Did you remember to pick up your textbooks? Did you get a train and bus pass? Did you get your meal card or are you going to pack meals and just buy snacks whenever you don't have time?" With August fast approaching, Psyber is taking his Sunday to harry Homura with questions about her upcoming classes, "Do you need to buy a messenger bag or a backpack? Notebooks or are you using a tablet or laptop? Remember not to attack your classmates."

    Mostly, aside from this, he's just hanging at the back of the group. He's going to be taking up a fairly passive role unless actively needed and requested by Ariel. This is her show and he's just a tagalong.

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    Ellestaria is the one tracking Hazel, so that's just what she does. here in public she's not really showing her softer side as much, so she just makes some vague comments, "Perhaps something to ask them about." She does think that the place could use more exploration, after all.

    More importantly, "Do you have a plan, really? You made some pretty bold declarations, last time."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura has come wearing her more, for a lack of better term, JRPG-esque outfit, which blends in pretty well here! Her magical girl clothes would work fine too but she doesn't like being transformed without reason. She is obviously unarmed! Unlike Ariel. That's... really odd, no matter how she thinks about it.

    "Yes. No. Pack and buy. Hammerspace. All three. I don't attack classmates, I just defend myself," she casually answers Psyber-- more or less in a single string of answers, apparently quite calm.

    "Have you been able to piece together the information from Samael and the Fragment into something helpful to deal with Hazel yet?" is what she directs at Ariel.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    One hand sets right on Ariel's shoulder. The familiar weight of the hevay gauntlet and gentle touch beneath it should be more than enough to tell the small unicorn exactly who it is, but if she needs to look back at any time...
    Amalthea is there. Amalthe is right behind her. The old, one-eyed, unicorn is flashing a re-assuring grin at her daughter. Questions or not, just like a parent sitting in the audience at their child's first school play, Amalthea flashes her daughter a big thumbs up.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    In a similar manner to Psyber, Ainsley seems to be a background object for this trip. Mostly she seems to be admiring the odd sights, as she's never visited this Node and finds distractions everywhere she looks. She is not, in fact, speaking to anyone, seeming too shy to bother the various Crafted beings that populate this Node. She smiles at how busy it all seems, and how functional and normal some aspects are in contrast to their bizarre compositions.
    She tries to maintain a close proximity to Psyber or Amalthea, though, tagging along in case she's needed for anything. Like some of the others, she's aware of the importance of the main User's place in the Node's events, so she's staying out of the way.
    Once or twice she pulls a notebook out to scribble down notes about the Node's sights, mostly so she can make proper illustrations and a blurb for her journal later.

Himei (331) has posed:
    It's pretty obvious that Ariel is nervous. Himei can tell! She has her own reassurances. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to ask them. Just do what comes naturally to you, Ariel. You're going to be fine." Himei herself is dressed in her casuals today, and she is armed but kind of hanging back. She considers herself the 'all hell breaks loose' insurance. If something suddenly needs fought, she'll be there.

    And also she might slip in a few encouraging words. Maybe. Amalthea and Ellestaria have raised a good kid, and she really can't find much to complain about with Ariel even if she seems dangerously naive.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora seems to have tagged along without much pre-preparation - she's in her God Tiers and unless prompted, will just stick around in them. She sort of breezily tags along, though when the apprehension gets going, she chimes in with her own insights.

    "Don't worry too much. The outcome is what you get for trying. The big thing here is that you're trying, and have every resource to succeed. People around you trying to help, clear goals, ideas on how to accomplish them, all that jazz. I just heard things were going down but... You know, honestly?" Fiora muses, smiling.

    "I'm pretty sure you've got a better handle on all this than most. I'll just hang out in the background, and root from the sidelines."

    She thumbs her nose. "Not that you need my words of encouragement. You've got everyone else's!" She jokes, chortling to herself.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    There's not a lot of advancement being made in the merchant sector, they're usually using about the same stuff really. Not too much worth buying. It makes it a lot harder to occupy one's time. This is gonna be uncomfortable. Until it's time to head on out, anyway.

    Hazel is as she always was. She's clearly one of the Crafted, as shown by her animation glyphs, but formed out of a material entirely unlike the others. Like Ariel's Node Seed, she's quite literally a stuffed animal, ragged and worn cloth over stuffing, shaped in the friendly and slightly cute appearance similar to a dog. This makes what she's carrying even more vaguely disturbing. One of the strange, twisted, horrible Ashen monsters - this one was some kind of combination of a snake and a hornet - was slain. That's slung over one shoulder, infrequently dripping some disgusting soggy ash where it was injured, the rest of its elongated body dragging behind her.

    It was slain a fair distance away, probably down the road judging by the trail of Ash Hazel's leaving behind. How she reacts to being approached is gonna depend entirely on how Ariel wants the group to handle approaching her. How do you want to handle something like that?

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber tends to be unorthodox at times, in that his encouragement is in his silence at this moment. He doesn't think Ariel is the type of person to have a bad idea, so instead of saying anything to encourage her, he's just not saying anything. It's his weird and hard to read method of belief in people.

    Either way, he's mostly quiet while trailing along. He is still smoking, a crumpled back of cigarettes produced from his pocket while the last one is pulled from the pack. He tosses it to the side or into the nearest trashcan he can pass, before lighting it and putting it in his mouth.

    He's still doing the quiet thing. He's not even bugging Homura about her classes any more.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Seeing that sight is... a little perturbing for Ariel. When Fiora radios offering a veil, the little unicorn seriously considers it. After some thinking, she discards the idea and just straightens up. "Hey... some of you hang back just in case this goes bad?" Anyone who wants to hide can thus... hide.

Ariel isn't, though. She straightens up and waves, after trotting some distance, but she doesn't yell so much as quietly call out. "Hazel? Are you all right? What's going on?" There are other questions she'd like to ask, but... might be too fast.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley had, at the point they all tracked down Hazel, pulled out her notebook and had been continuously writing in it as she walks without pause. She doesn't seem to have any trouble multi-tasking this and walking, though she does stop and look up when everyone else stops, regarding Ariel with some worry and uncertainty. She feels a sensation of unease, remembering her own terror on facing the Conquistador.
    She nods once at the suggestion to hang back and returns to note-taking, turning to find a place to sit down and seem harmless and out of the way. She's good at that, since she's four feet tall and scrawny. And she's wearing glasses.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Sure," Homura tells Ariel, before she takes a few steps back and presumably allows Fiora to mask her presence (along with whoever else is getting stealth'd). She doesn't want to intrude on what is obviously Ariel's personal drive-- though she wonders if Hazel will be able to sense them anyway. (The implication being people get stealth'd before they reach Hazel, anyway, or else it will look really bad for Ariel.)

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Amalthea's hand leaves Ariel's shoulder. And with a few slower trailing steps, she lets her daughter on ahead now. The implication is still there. She's behind Ariel yes, but clearly letting her daughter have all the autonomy she could possibly need.
    Her slowing pace puts her in line with Himei. That big smiling doofus grin is gone, replaced by a mild look of apprhension. They grow up so fast, don't they?
    "I never thought that in just two years she'd be up to... Stuff like this."
    She will not protest stealthing, if need be. For now anyway.

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    Like the others, she won't protest stealthing, and Ellestaria is also hanging back. "Remember, Ariel... if you're tempted to think how I'd react... it doesn't matter. Do what you think is right." That was a struggle for her to say, really. Ellestaria sighs, glancing at Amalthea, then murmurs, "Mnemosyne, I'm going to be going on full monitoring mode. Let's hope the others can handle anything else."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora, upon asking if people want to be put into 'sneak mode' and being prompted with a 'yes', doesn't so much shadow-cloak everyone (that doesn't opt out) as half punch everyone out of reality. Everyone in 'sneak mode' would become partially see-through, and give off a thin aura of black smoke marking them most definitely outside of notice. Thankfully, they can all still see each other! They're just...

    Spooky smokey ghost people. And voided out from just about every sense under the sun, and probably existance-checks and causality if need-be.

    "Try to keep your voices down, but you can still speak mostly-normally." Fiora advises. "As long as you don't try to snap the effect or do something patently obvious, it'll hold."

Himei (331) has posed:
    Unlike the others Himei isn't really here to just 'watch' but to take care of problems. She murmurs softly, "If this is a test, I kind of wonder which way it's supposed to test her." She still isn't sure if that's how Nodes work. Is this supposed to be something to help Ariel? Or is it just... a 'story?'

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    The problem Hazel presents to this world is more readily apparent as she continues walking. As she does, the animation glyphs of the Crafted around her glitch and flicker, the little girl's own self-modifications pushing out a constant stream of hostile magic that cause major problems for the Crafted around her. None of the visitors will feel anything wrong, but the locals are suffering a lot from her influence. It makes her completely invisible to them, though!

    She drops the corpse onto the ground with a wet "fwump" when she sees the one visitor who makes herself visible. "Ariel~!" Hazel calls out in an upbeat tone. "I was just gonna come meet you! I told you I wanted to talk again, so we're gonna do that." A wide grin from the stuffed dog-girl to the engineered unicorn-girl. It lasts a little long. "I've been wanting to teach you something for a while!" Hazel's own cloak flutters out a bit as she speaks, plopping herself down on the thorax of the snake-hornet creature, shoving one of its wings to one side.

    "C'mon, take a seat!" The snake-thing's corpse is long and sturdy enough that Hazel apparently expects Ariel to use it as a bench. Hazel's odd backpack gets shifted to her lap and she starts rummaging around in it. She also seems to not give really care about anything else Ariel might want, Hazel wants Ariel's attention now and seems to expect to get it.

    She is unaware of the group following Ariel, presumably unable to pierce the Voidy Thing. Within, the Abstractums of the group (besides Hecate) all have varying degrees of unease, but Mnemosyne and Ironclad Oath are, without a doubt, the most. Mnemosyne's cold uptight mannerisms are only barely containing the extreme concern as it says, "Monitoring. I will alert you to anything I can find of note." Ironclad Oath rumbles deeply with self-enforced calmness, but clearly doesn't like hanging back this much.

Ariel (219) has posed:
She wants Ariel to sit down ON the corpse? Ariel tries to be polite, she really does... those time she slips up it is usually due to youthful enthusiasm or ignorance. She has her limits, though! "Um... I'll just sit right here, if it's okay with you." It's a good thing she doesn't have a typical digestive system or her stomach would have turned! The bioborg unicorn instead settles down, looking up at Hazel, and tries to find her smile again. At least Hazel does have Ariel's attention, as planned.

"Oh? I was looking for you, too. I had some stuff I needed to talk to you about... and some questions. Curious about a few things. Like um... why you're dragging a dead Ashen through town." She looks meaningfully at the corpse, then up to Hazel. "Did you know they're after you by the way? The Ashen I mean. They all head for you, why is that?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    To Himei, Psyber says, "I think it tests how you solve the problems it presents you." He theorizes to the magical girl, "Not just if you can solve them, but the methods you choose," He shrugs a bit, letting void obscure him from observation without much fuss, "It punishes foolish actions, trying to brute force the entire problem will be a taxation, but I also think it means to prove that you can't out think every situation. It's a fragment of a life. You invest yourself in the life you build here, and by living out that life, you create an identity. That identity echoes back into Them and starts to unravel their existence. Killing the undefined with the defined."

    "It's all just my theory, though."

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    Ellestaria keeps her voice low and explains to the others, "For those who haven't been following Ariel's actions here, we learned last time that it was possible to 'fix' Hazel by repairing her glyphs." Ellestaria keeps her eyes on her daughter and the Pure while she explains, her voice very level. "But... Ariel believes those glitched glyphs may be why Hazel has a more independent existence."

    Another moment and Lest finishes with a sigh. "She also stated she would rather see someone die than lose that independence, but I am not sure she has the fortitude to go through with such a thing."

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei nods slowly at the explanation, then rubs her chin. "I guess that makes sense. I've thought about making my Node, but..." She trails off, and abruptly swaps topics to what Lest is talking about. "Yeah, I can see why she would think that." Himei knew this already, she's just saying it now since she had a chance to think about it. "Going to be honest, as much as it would be easier, I kind of like it if Ariel doesn't have that 'fortitude,' Lest."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Hazel frowns, but the frown is brief and flickers right back to a smile. "Well yeah! Ugh. Did you find out about that?" She makes a lengthy, frustrated noise, during which her Pure's power flutters and fluctuates, the cloak suddenly flaring out for a moment. She's clearly a bit angry about it, for some reason! "Whatever!" She says, suddenly right back to friendly positivity. "That's fine. Who knows why they head for me? It's not like I've ever done anything to them that didn't need doin'."

    It looks like she's either not involved in the death of the Ashen Mind, or she's explicitly denying it. Could be either way. "As for why I'm dragging this thing around, it's because I came up with a new thing I wanna do, so I'm gonna do it!" She continues rummaging until she seems to find what she was looking for, but doesn't pull it out yet.

    Ariel will get a glimpse of the Sailor Nothing doll, showing that, at the very least, Hazel has kept it. It's in very good condition, technically better than Hazel herself.

    "Now I've got some questions for you too! So since I answered yours, you answer mine." What an assumption there. She then grabs Ariel's arm, not with any hostility, but with a somewhat forceful assumption that she can just go ahead and do what she wants. She seems to be examining it up and down, glancing between it and Ariel's own arm repeatedly. "I can smell magic on you. In you! A bunch more than these idiot." She jerks a thumb to one of the passing Crafted, who doubles over with a glitch-induced migraine almost to illustrate the point. "What's that going through? Spellcircuits? Orichalcum? Unikeratin?" She's back to grabbing at Ariel. "I need to know if I'm gonna teach you this right."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Ariel chose to confront her Nemesis alone.

    (!) Arien's Legacy has changed a result of this decision.

    You chose to allow Ariel to confront her Nemesis alone.

    (!) Your Legacies have changed as a result of this decision.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "It's better if she didn't go down that path," Homura answers to Himei and Ellestaria, idly. "At the same time, she may be one of those rare people with the ability to avoid it. The fact her Node is hand-tailored for her... probably helps."

    She shrugs, returning her glance to Ariel and Hazel.

    "Almost makes me jealous."
    There's no malice or sarcasm intended, it's sincere.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber reaches into his jacket to take out a flask, unscrewing the top and taking a drink from it while he watches Ariel talk to Hazel. He muses, "I'd pretty much give anything to prevent Ariel from ever becoming that kind of person," He notes in response to Himei, a distant tone to his voice before he places the flask back in his jacket.

    A long draw is taken from the cigarette in his hand. He frowns faintly.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    White Rose is not uncomfortable very often, but it is uncomfortable now. "I don't want Ariel to have to kill Hazel." It says, firmly. "If it comes down to that, someone else needs to do it. That girl's two years old, she needs a story where she can fix everything properly or a story where at least she doesn't have to go through something like that. The kinda heroism that's good for a girl her age!"

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Update - We're all still here, and Clementine can suck it, because Ha Ha Ha Cheater Void Magic.

    Fiora sort of reclines in the air, resting against a vertical hecate like it was the back of a chair, closing her eyes and relaxing. "I'm pretty sure that this'll turn out swimmingly. In fact, we're all being model citizens and parents and such. We're letting Ariel do whatever she wants, and we are literally waiting in the wings to help her out." Fiora muses, before cracking an eye at White Rose.

    "Don't worry. I'm sure we've got more than enough firepower and magic between us to not just make Hazel die, but disappear permanently and without note. Don't worry about that."

Ariel (219) has posed:
"Of course I found out about it," Ariel replies quietly. "They're hurting people and I wanted to know why. I guess you don't know why, huh?" She's not sure she believes that, entirely, but for now she's not going to press the issue.

Startled, Ariel doesn't /stop/ Hazel from grabbing her arm like that, but she does give a quick look back. Realizing her error, she shifts the look to the staggering constructs with a grimace. "Um... is there any way you can hang around town without hurting them like that? Maybe I could help you find a way to do that. Or figure out a way to get the Ashen to leave you alone..."

Ariel then tugs at her arm. "Please don't grab like that, it startled me. It's um... orichalcum, yeah. I don't really use it for magic much, though. My power comes from something else."

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley closes her notebook and observes this interaction between Ariel and Hazel. The observation is used as fuel to inform her future decisions. She has confidence in Hazel -- she knows that a bunch of allies are nearby in case things go south, a sort of 'guardian angel' squad -- and so she doesn't seem uncomfortable with what she's watching. She's coming to understand the nature of the Abstractum and the Pure Wielders a bit better.
    The exchanges between the Abstractum and their Users get her attention, and she seems very sad all of a sudden, as if regretting something.
    The look she gives Fiora at her comment about 'erasing Hazel from existence' is something of confusion and disbelief. "Disappearing without a trace is a tragedy in itself," she notes to Fiora, in a soft voice as per the spooky ghost conditions.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Observing. Amalthea's going to have to settle for that. For now. "Thanks, Oath." Muttered in a hushed whisper. But then the unicorn grunts. She's visibly on edge, clenching her fingers, but doesn't break stealth. "Ariel will do everything she can to keep that from happening. ... Much as I'm loathe to let her be on her own, I trust she'll make the right decisions." Mused to Psyber and Himei.
    That lone eye flits Fiora's way though, "I will have you know I am a totally model parent."
    Snort.

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    "It would be easier if she had that fortitude," Ellestaria clarifies. "That does not mean that I want her to take that easy path." The Atlantean looks back a the others just for an instant. "Make no mistake, I am proud of what Ariel has become. Or rather, what she is becoming."

    Back to watching. "We're letting her do what she wants because I think Ariel needs this."

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei closes her eyes. "I agree with Rose. I think... when she said that earlier she was just trying to let us know how serious she was." She shrugs. "She's a kid. An intelligent, capable one but still just a kid. Pretty sure she's still working out how to express herself. Besides, she's also one of the most talented Abstractum users we have. I think there's something there."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Yeah. I mean I gues I can turn off the cloaking glyph enchantment." Hazel shrugs. "But then people will see me! That'd be dumb. They'll make a big ruckus and I won't be able to do stuff I wanna do." She makes a dismissive gesture. She's also consicuously not answering the question about "why".

    Ariel's really reasonable request to not be handled without asking gets her a look like she just said something absurd. "Eh." Hazel says, dismissively, and just continues on. "The Abstractum you got, some powersource, what else?" She lets Ariel pull away, though. Mostly because Hazel's working on something else now. She's pulled out something strange - it looks like a sized-up pushpin with an odd black orb on the end - and slams it with one hand into the neck of the corpse she's sitting on, the black spike plunging deep into the Ashen flesh.

    "Is it a Heart, like mine? Little core in there, churning out all kinds of power?" She forcefully digs the strange thing further into the corpse. "You're gonna be great to teach this to, but that'd make you perfect."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber doesn't have much to do beyond silently judge the distance between himself and Hazel and run over the list of ways he could kill her if this went south. But he doesn't really think he could do terribly much.

    Instead, he just shifts his footing a bit and looks to Fiora. He doesn't doubt she could unravel an existance. And it's a good contingency.

Ariel (219) has posed:
"Are you sure they'd make a ruckus?" Ariel almost explains further, but she realizes she's getting lead along in this conversation and pauses, answering some of the other things while she considers her own.

Though first she has to wrinkle her nose. "I know you don't like the Ashen, but aren't you being a little rough with it?" Plus it's pretty disturbing, but that doesn't stop Ariel from reaching out verbally anyway. "I don't like the idea of killing, even them."

But on to more important things. "Is... this a gift? Because... I do have a Heart, but where I get my power is kind of hard to explain. I'm not sure you can understand it quite yet. But I want you to because I think I can give you an even better gift if you can."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora is just sort of casually floating-resting now, legs crossed, sitting on nothing and resting her back on the upright form of Hecate. The bristle-part with the eye was above the crown of her head, slightly obscured with her red hair.

    "This is pretty much serene. Funny, really. Every other node we're shooting and stabbing and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Here, I'm just an accessory to a decent conversation. A coiled spring, I suppose, but it's all working out. Hopefully things'll just go perfect, we'll all high-five, call it a day, and rake in the kudos, easy answers, and good vibes."

    "Also, Ariel can hear us. It's just, nobody else can."

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    "I agree with Ainsley, that would be a last resort." Ellestaria grimaces after she says that. "She's struggling. I'm not sure who is winning here. Though I hate to think this is some sort of battle..." The Atlantean shakes her head briefly, then says further to Fiora.

    "Ariel is not a big fan of violence, but more to the point I think she's trying a different approach," Lest explains. "She has a plan, but most of all... I think she just isn't thinking of this the way we do."

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei shrugs, "Honestly, I'll be glad if Ariel handles this by herself. My life has been mostly violence for way too long. She's kind of a better Magical Girl than I am." The supposed Magical Girl scratches her head. "What gift is Ariel talking about though? I don't know her as well as the rest of you, I'm a little lost."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "But it goes THROUGH there, doesn't it? That's what Hearts do, the power doesn't come from them but it's where it goes through, it's where it COLLECTS and it BUILDS UP! And then it all comes out!" She's kinda getting a little erratic here, her wide, intense gesticulations becoming more energetic as she speaks. But then she becomes oddly calm, for just a few sentences. "Do you wanna know something about hearts? A looong time ago I found this out from someone. 'The Heart is the strongest part of us. Our flaws are just what happens when everything else can't keep up.' The guy was stupid! Deserved what happened to him in the end. But a stopped clock's right twice a day, and he was right about that!"

    "It hurts and it's risky to keep up with your Heart. So we let things go a liiiittle less. Always just a little bit less, so the rest of us can keep up!" She then, forcefully, grabs at Ariel's shoulders (Harmonious Diea becomes incredibly tense, and makes a soft, protectively concerned noise), on her feet for just a moment as she advances harshly to Ariel herself whether or not the girl lets her grab those shoulders. "But we don't HAVE to DO THAT! If we tune up, if we go a little past what we're comfortable with, if we see something we WANT and we decide we're just not going to keep things TURNED DOWN so that we're SAFE... If we just don't care about how UNCOMFORTABLE it is and how it HURTS, and just do the thing we WANT to do and NEED to do, there's so much you can do!"

    "Don't you think so? That way, we can put all our freedoms of choice and potential to work! And REALLY do something! You just have to... To change yourself a bit, to keep up! You have to let all of that move THROUGH you, let it BURN out all the weak bits, and you have to replace them!" Her head cocks to the side a bit and her tone is, for a moment, less crazed. "It helps if you turn off all the safeties around it too."

    Hazel's glyphs flare a sickly yellow, then a deep, dark purple, then a harsh cyan, as her cloak flutters and takes on ethereal elements of those colors. She stands up now, turning, and kicks the corpse in a frustrated gesture before pushing the awful spike in further, grinding it with one heel. "Wake UP, I'm TRYING to TEACH here and I need some HELP TEACHING! What are you, stupid? Get up, you sleepy jerk!" She says, aggressively. The creature's head was stabbed through multiple times, so it's unlikely to wake up.

    So, of course, it does, the horrible spike emitting a soft hum as the creature itself makes a low buzz and a snakelike hiss, its multifaceted and multi-lidded eyes blinking open, staring at Ariel. Those attuned to such matters will detect rising magical energy within the corpse as it goes through the beginning of some reanimation processes.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber shifts in his footing, "I'm not sure if she wants to reveal it yet to people," Psyber says to Himei seriously, "It's a pretty bold plan, though."

    To Lest, Psyber gives a shrug, "Different approaches sometimes work, or perspectives others don't have," He muses to her, as much to himself, "The one everyone thinks is evil just needs someone to extend a hand towards them. To not feel alone. To feel understood."

    He then immediately shrugs and dismisses it with a wave of his hand, "But the risk in that is that some people are beyond help. It will be to Ariel to decide which Hazel is."

    When Hazel's glyphs flare and she starts shouting at the creature under heel, he immediately turns his attention that way, narrowing his eyes. A hand brushes back his coat and falls to a holster at his outer right thigh. Eyes flare red as he senses the creature reanimating.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    "And I'm not thinking at all." Fiora replies quite cheerily to Ellestaria's statement. "Thinking for me just gets me worked up, angry, and all around sour grapes usually. I start asking 'why', and then I go from 'why' to 'why don't I know' or 'that's not an answer' and then I get sour, and it's pretty much universally a bad idea. So, while this is fascinating, I'm just... Trying to take it easy. Aaand oh look, everything's going to shit. I think I will..." Fiora begins, before uncrossing, and then recrossing her legs the other way, crossing her arms as well.

    "Wait until Ariel is in danger, at any rate. I mean, this really is getting kind of interesting! I wonder what that pushpin device does?" She smiles with one eye half-open.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Mnemosyne makes a tense hissing noise. "Ellestaria. I am extremely hopeful that you are not detecting what I am." It says, coldly.

    Adjudicator speaks grimly. "Psyber. It is not normally our place to bring our judgement into someone else's court like this. However, if Hazel is about to attack Ariel, you need to make it our place." The sword rapidly mechanically folds into its rifle form.

    Ironclad Oath grunts. "Ariel is intelligent, and she can handle taking care of herself. But I will not risk her on that. Amalthea, be prepared to defend."

    Hecate makes a chipper, upbeat noise. "Looks sort of like a Pure to me. Never seen one like that before though! Now wouldn't that be strange..."

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    The truth is, Hazel is setting off alarms for Amalthea. The overly emphatic and rapid shift to what seems to be agitated excitement over the topic of the Heart is one that has Amalthea's rapt attention.
    Oath doesn't need to tell her to be ready, her gauntlet is already inching towards the hilt of her sword as she grips the strap of her shield. Her body language takes an immediate shift. Like a beast with hackles up.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    As a being grown to be as restrained as possible, Ainsley feels a kinship with the idea of just letting loose... but then she also knows the dangers of doing so, the pain she causes in others and the pain it brings to herself.
    A frown shows on her face, and an intensity wells up in her, like she could spring from her spot to help Ariel at any second. Whatever it is about this that's bothering her, it's doing it enough to give her this air of potential violence, all of it focused toward Hazel's position. She did come here to observe, and that's what is holding her back, and she knows that sometimes people have to do things on their own...
    "Nom... I don't know what to do," she says, her tension palpable in her voice in the form of worry. Lots and lots of worry.

    On a practical level, it means she's stiffened, her eyes are wider, she's frowning and her tail flicks more rapidly. Her tongue even flicks out once or twice, a vestigal reptillian instinct that shows her agitation.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Wait. Wait what? All that talk is already making Ariel's topaz eyes widen dramatically with worry, but she doesn't have a chance to really reply before... the monstrous Ashen lurches to life. Or fascimile of life. That is actually punching Ariel pretty hard, so her reassurances over the radio are tinged with nervousness and uncertainty.

But she doesn't move, and she clasps Diea lightly. "It's all right, Diea. I don't think Hazel wants to hurt me. If she did, she could have done it a long time ago. Isn't that right?" She still twitches a little, and if she had the anatomy she'd be 'gulping' right now, in the audible fashion.

"Hazel, what did you do? Is it... intelligent, now? Free-willed?" These are important for her to know! Also important are some of the things unsaid. "I think something is wrong there. Limiters, safeties... they're there for a reason. And if I let mine go... I'm afraid of what will happen to you. Because I don't think you can handle what I have yet. I hope you can soon though... because it sounds like you need it."

It sounds like Ariel's found her confidence again, because she takes a deep breath and bolsters herself to finish her little speech. "And what does your Heart want, then? Do you know what mine wants? Because I'm here talking to you because I want something too." She looks at the Ashen and clutches Diea tighter. "You shouldn't make life casually. It can have some terrible consequences if you aren't ready. I've already seen that."

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    "I see it, Mnemosyne," Ellestaria replies to her Abstractum. "Ariel has it under control for now. Look... just see what she did and try to help me break down and analyze that. Is the spike the focal point? The Heart as it were of the new creature?"

    Lest starts to do some quick mental calculations, then bites her lip. "Everyone, I think Ariel is safe but we should be ready for problems. And... Ariel, remember that we're in the middle of the town. If something goes wrong, it could be disastrous."

Himei (331) has posed:
    It is utterly unsurprising to Himei. She herself mutters, "She's doing what I never could. I'm going to hope it works for her." Hope... she's good at that. Slightly louder(but still quiet), she adds, "Actually there's a good point. White Rose... I'll probably want you in wing form for this. We're going to be doing things differently if things go south. I have an idea."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura has been watching! Quietly, mostly.
    There's not really a reason to get guns out when others are already waiting to spring into action, so instead she's quite content to observe. Once Hazel reveals she has, somehow, reanimated an Ashen, she does tense a bit, though.

    "What if it's a Pure? Every single Node we've been in, we never got to tackle the head-Pure from the start. There were always lesser Pures working for them, and that's who we had unpleasant run-ins with. I wonder if this is how Hazel makes hers."

    Or maybe Hazel's not the head-Pure of the Node.
    Or maybe this Node breaks the pattern.

    They don't really have enough info to say for sure.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber spins the sniper rifle in his hands, looking around carefully and then responding to Homura, "Maybe it's because the other Nodes weren't designed like Ariel's." Psyber brings the rifle up to his eye, carefully scoping Hazel as he slowly lowers into a crouch. With six Strike drivers, he doesn't think he can drop a Pure in one hit. But he DOES think he could do some BIG DAMAGE.

    "My Node used me as a template, and it deals with division, technology and spirituality, divisiveness. My own issues. My Pure works from the shadows, he's an insecurity in the world," Psyber has a really strong theory about how Nodes unfold themselves now, "Ariel's was the first thing she ever made. She was MEANT to confront her issue. Maybe she can't solve it right away, but it was always meant to be about this."

    "Adjudicator, load a morality paradigm. The one based on local laws." He says this softly.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora just sighs. "Well, that would be pretty horrible for me. I'd hate to re-live all my wonderful failures. I've already lived them. It's why they're my failures. If we're using the loose definition of 'me', just to keep things moving." She notes, to Psyber's musings. "But my Pure is both friend and enemy. Heinrich Sturm, that is. Nice guy, really. Helpful, too. But he's probably an intersitital pure. Not the main one. I don't know who my main pure is. One big... mystery."


Fiora pauses a few seconds. "Oh bugger all, this sucks." She pouts lightly, huffing and tightening the cross on her arms.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    To Fiora, Homura idly guesses: "If I had to guess, your head Pure is that female narrator. She seems to be after "the cast" so to speak, and used plural pronouns when referring to the actions of... really, you called him Heinrich Sturm?"

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Intelligent! Eh, maybe? It's like a bug, or, I dunno, a dog. It's an animal!" Hazel digs the spike in a little further with one foot. "And free-willed? Hehehe, oh, no way." The shifting, chitinous exoskeleton on the Ashen creature churns around as the whole long, undead body begins to move.

    "Get UP I said!" And, all of a sudden, the creature's body begins to rear up, curled slightly around behind Hazel. And now, Hazel clasps her hands together in front of her. "Those limiters and safeties. They're there for a reason, sure!" The cloak suddenly, abruptly begins to gush with more wind and power though. "The limits and rules he put on MY HEART were there for STUPID reasons! If you WANT something, why should have you go around all these RULES and LIMITS and all these dumb things holinding you BACK!? You just find something you WANT, and you let your Heart GO for it!"

    "Let's look at this thing! This thing doesn't have a real Heart, so I can't say it's the best way of showing you what you need to see." She taps it with the back of her hand. "But it does want! It wants whatever I tell it to want. If I tell it to go wreck Vellum's house, that's what it'll want! And it won't put any limits on its heart. It's weak enough that that'll turn it to a crisp in an hour or two, but who knows what it'd do before that?"

    She leans in close. "But you want that to not happen, right? Isn't that a thing you WANT?" The dog-girl makes clawing, eager motions with her hands. "And damn the animal, why not just TAKE a thing you want, right? This isn't a hard decision, even! It's not like you know the guy well, and it's not like this thing's been alive long, right? So it's easy!"

    She turns around, keeping herself leaned in. If Ariel doesn't pull away, they're gonna wind up cheek-to-cheek. Hazel's kind of a creeper. "Now, listen. I've dialed this thing's power juuuust right. You could shut down the whole animating glyph system by doing a magic drain, but only if you turn your power up. And I mean THAT power." She jabs Ariel's chest over the heart a bit roughly. "The others, sure, you could dig into those. You could try fighting it with your Abstractum or things like that. But that won't teach you what you need to know. And it might not kill this quick enough, who knows?"

    "I'm not saying you have to do much! All you have to do is break Mom's rules and squash a little bug while you do it. That's all the rules I'd ask you to break, for what YOU want!" Hazel pulls back, but then is right back to leaning in, grinning with the possessive, controlling, eager expression of a child who's about to unwrap a huge christmas present.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley gets up from her seat and glares toward the creature. She hesitates when she realizes she may just jeopardize her ability to remain hidden if she uses Conceptual Sight -- she was spotted before when she did that, why would it be any different now? She is visibly fighting the urge to rush to help Ariel only because nothing violent has happened yet. The lizard girl's wide eyes water a little behind the empathetic stress.
    She couldn't be more enraptured by the unfolding story if she was right there next to Ariel.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Morality Paradigm: Law's Grasp." Adjudicator speaks, softly. The rifle hums softly, but loud enough that it would be heard if not for Fiora. The muzzle smokes softly with barely-restrained power.

    "Gotcha, boss!" Himei's Abstractum is quick and reliable on demand, changing to its wing shape immediately, forming vined wings with rose-petal feathers at Himei's back.

    "Do what you are best at." Nom says. "Observe. This challenge, for Ariel, is a matter of understanding Hazel. Try to find whatever insight you can."

    Mnemosyne says, "Mmm." And immediately sets about work with no delay. The sharp mental clarity that comes with its interfacing with Lest's mind confirm much of what Hazel is saying; the thing is being flooded with magic at a quantity that's just over Ariel's normal capacity to absorb, though it probably can't actually USE all of it. The device jammed into its neck gives off a magical signature similar in structure to Ariel's Crystal Heart, but mixed heavily with the same magical signature Lest will find in the Pure around Hazel's neck.

    Hecate says, "Oooh, now this is interesting. I don't think the Pure Users will like what they see here if they find out she's doing something like /this/..." Now what the hell does THAT mean?

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    "There," Ellestaria says quietly. "There is where Hazel made her mistake. And I think Ariel knows what I mean." She pauses, squinting at the readings she's getting. "Hecate... are you telling us that this isn't something Pures normally do?"

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel squirms, the way Hazel is getting all grabby finally setting her off enough to make a grab for Hazel's arm and yank it aside, a brief struggle that's more like two children arguing over which side of the car is theirs than a true fight. It also lasts only a moment before Ariel makes a frustrated sound. "I want that to not happen... but I also want that to not die. That's where we're different. And you're wrong about my rules, you don't understand the rules. And I'm sorry for that."

She turns around to face the beast. "I don't want ANY of them to die. Not even your new pet. You shouldn't make things just to die... that's one of the few things that make me angry. You want to know what Mom's number one rule was?"

Ariel raises her hand and summons up her view of the World, trying to spot the intricate magical patterns that make up reality here. "My ONE rule above all others is to do what my Heart says is right. Diea... it's been a while, I hope we can still do this. I need to know about those glyphs. I... think I might need to Shift."

Step One: Stop it from rampaging.

Step Two: Bleed off that excess energy.

Step Three: Regulate the energy it has so that it can live a normal lifespan.

Himei (331) has posed:
    "All right, White Rose," Himei says quietly. "This is Ariel's Node, so we're going to be handling things the way she'd want. Sorry, that means we /probably/ won't be beating in any faces. Can you hook up with Mnemosyne?"

    Himei glances to Lest, then asks, "Lest, as soon as that thing starts moving, presuming Ariel can't stop it, give me its likely trajectory. White Rose and I are going to get anyone we can out of the way. I think we have enough firepower here that we can spare me doing that."

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    "Sorry, only mistake I'm seeing is her getting closer to our daughter than I am comfortable with."
    The creak and hiss of tense joints and gears, muffled thanks to Fiora, speaks volumes for Amalthea's rousing desire tointerject herself, and separate Hazel from her daughter. Through violence if absolutely necessary, when the stitched starts getting excessive. She almost does it, too.
    It's Ariel that stops her. She gets one step forward- maybe two- and the third falters. She halts.
    There is still tension in every ounce of her body, but holds herself back, letting Ariel take the first steps of her choice.
    Of course she's still ready to pounce like a lion, though.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber snarls a bit, "Shit. I can't use a morality paradigm without fucking up her plan. Jude, new plan. Unload paradigm, load us up for raw power." Psyber slams a Himei cartridge into his rifle, followed by a Homura cartridge. Mostly for raw power boost for his next move after this. He also takes a ring out of his jacket and slots it into his Adjudicator, tapping it against Himei's and Homura's to activate their three-person Combo Frame.

    "Fiora, keep me stealthed," Psyber says, phrasing it more like a suggestion than an order. Why becomes apparent a moment later when Psyber jumps upwards and spins in the air with his rifles. There's an attempted stacatto of shots, meant to sound more like explosions than gunshots.

    But respecting Ariel's philosophy, Psyber is not attacking the Creature or Hazel. Instead, he's shooting at pillars, support beams for awnings, non-critical walls. The EFFECT that he's aiming for is to use his massive rifle to make it look like /ARIEL/ had planned for this contingency and set off a series of small detonations to seal the area off with rubble.

    Also he's trying to seal the area off with rubble to prevent a rampage.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura idly puts one of her two Combo Frames on, by which we mean she slides on the extra ring (or would there be two extra rings for two people?) on, and then taps it against Psyber and Himei's Abstractums.

    That is more or less the extent of what she does.

    Ariel hasn't asked for help, so.

    She'll probably just do what Himei's doing, stop time and go get a couple civilians out of harm's way if it comes down to it.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora doesn't so much as try to move, or shift, or do anything related to Psyber. Because she doesn't really need to. With advanced warning, all she needs is to reinforce his 'lack of presence' to accomidate his actions.

    She reaches her hand out, and wrenches hard on one thing, one concept, one... crystalline fact.

    The Notion of Action by Another Person.

    She tears at this idea, both physically and metaphysically, and crushes it in her hand. No.

    There was no external actors.

    There was nothing else going on.

    The surroundings happened exactly as all of your senses would tell you. Nobody else was here, right?

    Right.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Harmonious Diea speaks quickly. "SHIFT ABSTRACTION."

    Ariel Shifts. Brilliant lights shine around her as the multicolored lines of light blaze up her body! Harmonious Diea engages its Chroma Drive on-call, rapidly dedicating to Blue, blazing vividly as the cloak becomes the fantasy-inspired costume. The magical girl outfit forms over Ariel, hiding her more casual clothes for a moment under the sudden presence of frills and bows.

    "Oh hohoho no, you do NOT get to CHEAT!!" Hazel says, grinning widely. "Fine, you want to try it THIS way? Well, I'll show you a DIFFERENT kind of LESSON!!" She's been forced back by the sudden rush of energy that came with the Shift, skidding on her feet as she does, but is still gracefully keeping on them. She puts one arm up and grins as Ariel begins attempting to rewrite the animation and bleed off the excess power.

    With one downward motion, her own Pure changes, and brilliant yellow lines mark her body. The cloak expands out, swirling over her in an intense flash, and then, like Ariel, she's wearing a magical girl outfit. Unlike Ariel's, it's marked with darker tones where Ariel's are lighter, and has several elements torn and ragged. Is this a Shift? It very well might be. She puts her own hand up... And rushes to Ariel.

    "If YOU'RE going to try to STOP this THING the DIRECT way... Then I'M going to TEACH YOU how THIS works!" A huge mass of brilliant, crackling magic gushes over Hazel's hand as she rushes to the occupied Ariel and tries to slam it onto the back of her neck. Ariel won't feel any pain beyond a sudden, startling jolt, but she will feel... Something not unlike an injection. While Ariel rewrites the Glyphs to attempt to force them to regulate the energy of the creature, Hazel tries to forcibly apply an unusual glyph to Ariel.

    While Ariel is not a glyph-based Crafted, she is an artificial magical creature of another sort. And so Hazel, an expert in the forcible subversion, hacking, modification, and overclocking of such things, attempts to forcibly inscribe a glyph into Ariel's orichalcum matrix that starts at the neck and moves all the way down to her Heart. It doesn't attack the Heart, but every restrictor, inhibitor, regulator, and limit on the Crystal Heart. It's actually not that tough to resist the attack and for Ariel to keep her regulations more intact. But it'll be even tougher to reject the permanence - of a sort, at least - of the inscription itself, which threatens to inject itself into Ariel's body like a virus, the same way she seeks to permanently alter the massive snake-hornet-beast.

    And alongside it, the inscription has a more temporary element it's trying to do. It's trying to guide Ariel's rewriting of the Glyphs to make it more effective against the creature. But Ariel can't take that help without the rest of the baleful influence of that inscription.

    As for what the snake-hornet-beast does, we'll discuss that in a moment.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley finds herself at a complete loss.

    She doesn't know in what way her insight could help with this situation whatsoever. She's frozen in place, watching an event unfold, because she knows she can't help or something in her is telling her she shouldn't.

    If she could go pale, she would be. What is there to see in this that she can help with, she wonders? Too much doubt clouds her mind, but she tries anyways.

    Observe, Nom said. Insight. Look at Hazel. What is there to know? The lizard girl tries to use Conceptual Sight to gaze at Hazel's concept and learn something, anything. A word comes to mind, and that word is Heart. What is actually different here, about Hazel and her Heart? What can she tell Ariel, to help her now?

    To everyone else, the ghostly translucent form of Ainsley appears to be on the edge. She /does not/ like just being an observer. All her signs of agitation have gotten much worse.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Combo Frame active." White Rose, Clairvoyant Rush, and Adjudicator all speak at once in unison as their forms blaze with a sudden rush of red fire. A three-Red Combo Frame blasts titanic amounts of Resonance between them, causing a huge rush in abilities in the Strife Drives.

    The snake-hornet screams into action when Hazel suddenly calls out, "You! Go! House at the end of the road! Burn everything!" Though some of its power is being drawn off, it still has enough to rush forward at high speed.

    And then several explosions that Psyber Very Distinctly Didn't Cause, and in fact, there is the palpable feeling that he never fired his shots in the first place, but rather that Something Happened. What Psyber did seems logical, but there's a complete disconnection of his massive gunshots from the resultant explosions that send some nearby structures tumbling to the ground, blocking up the streets, and pinning the massive snake-thing.

    Huge buglike wings flare out widely, flapping, trying to ascend and get around it, as well as dislodge the rubble currently pinning it. Better do whatever you're gonna soon! This thing is trying to get away and down the street, and it's FAST!

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    After annihilating the notion of Other People Around, masking Ainsley's efforts is way less hard. Then again, Fiora may have done a pretty bad Oopsie-Daisy (the NEXT LEVEL of messup) by just excising concepts from a world, but, thankfully, it would return as long as she wasn't enforcing its removal.

    A distant part of her, the analytical one, was musing on the idea that perhaps /that/ was how Them were created. By casually manipulating the fabric of reality to suit your needs.

    Oh well. The baby was tossed out with that bathwater. We didn't want that baby anyway. It was ugly.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel is concentrating, working on picking apart the Glyphs on the snake. She isn't a glyph-master, but Sorcery lets her see the Structure of things, things with lots of Capital Letters. It's something of a brute force attempt for this sort of thing, but it's the best she has... she's just trying to be clever in the combination of powers, not the finesse of any single one.

And then Hazel /hits/ her. Ariel isn't paying attention there, so it's easy to strike the unicorn girl. She staggers a step, ribboned dress fluttering a bit, then she feels that weaseling inscription trying to work into her matrix, trying to free her regulators.

Her concentration almost slips, but she refocuses, trying to remember every little trick Al has taught her. So in a strained voice, she speaks to Hazel, "Ah... sorry, Hazel. You shouldn't have done that. I... can't fight that off and do what needs done."

It's an easy choice! Sure, it's just an animal, but it can't help what it is. She can help it. So she will, and she accepts the help, twisting her view of reality and altering probatilities, reaching out to attempt to rewrite the monstrosity into something more benign. Making its new purpose to 'regulate and correct glyph damage' like what Hazel does to those things around her, and to recharge them with any excess magic. Bleeding off the extra power by fixing the other Crafted, that's the idea... and making a sentinel that will make it harder for Hazel to move about the city undetected.

But blowing the limiters doesn't have quite the effect Hazel might think. A bright blaze of holy light bursts out from Ariel's horn, first, and a pulse of magic from within. Much more immediately worrying is the fact that her orichalcum matrix goes a bit wild and releases much of her spare magical power in the form of a thunderous *KRACK-BOOOM* of electrical lightning bursting from her joints, blasting in a small but loud /explosion/ around her.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Linked. We're in Tandem Paradigm." White Rose doesn't have anything silly or heroic to say right now, Ariel's in trouble! It's... Actually entirely serious and competent right now. The wings flutter and then blast Himei forward with a HUGE rush of mobility that comes from Homura's and Psyber's tremendous Resonance Capacity. There's still people in the streets, but a hover-dashing Himei - now with highly tuned reflexes - will be able to maneuver through them and get people out of the way of all that rubble.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Ainsley looks for the Heart of Hazel. She has one, sure! It's very clearly churning out a high volume of emotional power, just like how Ariel's turns love into an electrical explosion a few moments later. However, the nature of the Heart seems intensely, powerfully negative. Where, as Ainsley might be aware, Ariel has a Heart formed of crystal, she'll find that Hazel has a Heart of similar nature, but formed out of ash.

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    Ellestaria winces, and she jerks as if about to run down there to help Ariel. But... Himei is right, and they'll need to protect the people. It's what Ariel would want. "Ah, sorry Fiora," she says to the exclamation behind her. It's sincere enough, that's easy to tell because she actually SAID it. The Tandem Paradigm to White Rose links up and she immediately starts doing calculations for path of most likely progress, and who and what is in danger.

    Then, just to make it a little more helpful, she designates them by priority. Weakest/most fragile creations are highest priority, followed by tougher crafted beings, and lastly structures by complexity and rarity.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    In the aftermath of the explosion and his own concepts being edited and cropped to fit in with a reality where he did nothing at all, Psyber spins in the air and twirls the rifle once more, "Form shift! Gauntlet."

    The rifle folds back into a gauntlet that covers Psyber's entire arm, the half-angel moving to fall down towards the snake-thing on the ground. While normally Psyber would take this moment to finish it off, he's not right now. Instead, as it tries to get up and get away, Psyber plants his hand on it and allocates all six Strike Drivers into one simple task:

    Pinning that creature down so Ariel can work.

Himei (331) has posed:
    "Excuse me. Pardon me. Just a moment," Himei is saying rapidly. She mentally makes a note to thank Homura, Psyber, and Ellestaria for the boosts she's getting, because even with her normal wings at full power she can't match this speed at all.

    She is, of course, using her speed and power to swoop in and hurriedly move any of the townspeople out of the way to safety. Just dart in and lift or cajole to the side, with a bit of a buffer if she can.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Claire... do you think you can apply your rewind effect to the buildings?" Homura asks of her ring, evidently having something vaguely akin to a plan. Something that shouldn't interfere with other ongoing things too much, and would reduce collateral a little bit.

    She'll reach out with her power herself-- but the closest she can do to help is to attempt to slow time around a few of the buildings the beasts tromps through before it 'mysteriously gets caught in the rubbles'.

    She doesn't expect OUTSTANDING success, but if she can stop a house or three from getting wrecked and clear that much rubble out of the way, it'll be that. Plus it's nice to see what Claire's limits are.

    Just to be safe though, she's going to slot Vruasa's level 1 Cartridge in. More affinity for time-stuff probably can't hurt.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Hazel is blasted back, charred and scarred by the sudden point-blank explosion, even as she laughs. The limp, flopping form of the girl slams into the ground, skids, bounces back up, and blasts right through a merchant's stand, cackling wildly as she goes. She didn't expect that. She does not, however, seem to actually care. She stands up, quickly swapping colors - apparently another mirroring of Ariel - to a deep and intense purple in order to bring herself into her equivalent of a Red mode, so she can actually move without collapsing in pain.

    "And there you have it! I'll leave you to attend to that trash." She gestures to her pet snake-hornet. "But now, you see, if you ever need REAL power, if you need REAL force, you know where to GET IT!" She grins widely, her Glyph enhancing Ariel's work to maximum capacity, making it massively more effective and efficient. That's on top of Ariel's already major and substantial skills as they are, when enhanced by a Shifted Blue state.

    While she technically got what she wanted - giving Ariel the easy temptation to break the rules of her body to get what she wants - the truth of what she misunderstood should now be readily apparent. And she yells out, as she goes up the wall to the roof, "And if you decide you need a little help~ with using that power for things that aren't explosions!" She halts at the edge, imitates a phone next to her ear, and mouthes, "Call me."

    One has to assume that Hazel didn't really understand what happened. Honestly, that could even be /more/ dangerous. Someone can try to stop her if they want, but it might not be smart to engage the endboss early, who knows.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Himei would find that it's probably pretty easy to hustle the civilians along. That nobody can see her is immaterial, as her words, her hurried impulses, and all of that is translated into the striking sense that these people should be moving 'on their own', and so... They do.

    TL;DR - Himei is still in Stealth Mode, but everything she does, still goes through! Weirdly.

    MOVE ALONG CITIZENS NOTHING TO SEE HERE, JUST THE STRONG IMPULSE OF 'HERE IS NOT GOOD NOW, DOWN THERE IS'

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley squints at what she's seeing, the idea of a creature powered by negativity being a bit much for her. She's a reader, but the conceptually different way that Hazel works is hard for her to really get. Since she remains concealed, she manages to say some things over the radio. The first statement is a little odd and mystical-sounding, as per her magical roots: "Hazel has a Heart of Ash, filled with a darkness that contrasts your heart, Ariel. She's powered by negativity, it fuels her being." She sounds daydreamy when that comes out of her mouth.
    She realizes how weird it sounds, and shyly adds, "I'm sorry. It is very hard for me to describe what I'm looking at." Then she sniffs in and steels herself. What else can she do to help?
    "You are on the right track, Ariel. I believe in you." She has that effect that a helpless friend does. She just hopes that Ariel takes those words to heart.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Himei and Ellestaria, with the former as rescuer and latter as supporting navigator, definitely Had Nothing To Do with the convenience by which the entire local civilian population were, in fact, not crushed under huge volumes of rubble. Thankfully, Lest's critical assistance keeps Himei from missing several near-hidden sorts who were crouched down or passed out behind things due to Hazel's awful cloaking technology.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Psyber's rifle mechanically folds over his hands, and when he plants his hand down, all five fingers and the back of the hand itself begin to emit a massive gushing rocket-thruster-like rush of red fire, granting Psyber additional force by which he can hold the target down.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Psyber!" Clairvoyant Rush squeaks out urgently, speaking for the first time. "Help!"

    "Busy, ring, what do you need?" Jude calls back, distractedly.

    "The cloak's cartridge! Psyber, please let me borrow for just a moment!" The ring is humming with building power...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    While holding down the massive beast, Psyber reaches into the pocket of his jacket where he keeps cartridges. He pulls one out and tosses it to Homura and Claire.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Homura's efforts to push her energy into a temporal rewind causes one or two of the more critical buildings to actually rewind! Now that the creature's pinned, we don't need those collapsing. The more critical ones suddenly right themselves, but Claire, desperately urging herself to push through this, isn't able to finish the job and the third building's remains are just sort of flickering and twitching.

    But if Homura installs Ariel's cartridge, then Clairvoyant Rush's deep red fire suddenly takes on an erratically purple hue, and the rewind process begins in earnest, reassembling the structures in the best order of priority that Claire can figure. "I-I'm sorry, Miss Akemi, I can't do this on my own, I'm not typed right... I was trying, but..." The ring trails off nervously and with an embarrassed sort of tone.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Without much ado, once Hazel had gotten out of visual range, Fiora let her fists unclench, and the smoke surrounding people (and the 2spooky4u ghost effect) dissipates like... well, smoke in a stiff breeze. People would return to feeling VERY MUCH EXISTING and also being noticed and stuff.

    Then she would slowly ease the Notion of Other People's Actions back into the conceptual wild, where it would romp, free. Easing because she didn't want to just tip her hand that hey, you know, BING 'wow people may have been there!'.

    Her skin has taken on a grey hue, glowing a soft ur-white... Well, really, that she was becoming so dark that the lack of that darkness around her seemed all the brighter.

    Standing up, she takes a deep breath before exhaling. "Ugh. Next time... Let's try to keep the crazy stuff to a minimum. Subtle I can handle, but brazen actions really do require me to patch it with raw power, and unless I go all dark and spooky, I don't have terribly much to throw around." She explains.

    Then she looks at the snake, then at the back of her hand, then shrugs. "Nope. Don't have the juice." She smirks, before heading over to Ariel. "Holding up okay?"

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    With Hazel's strange guidance, and Ariel's own natural cleverness amplified by Harmonious Diea's Blue-typed Shift, Ariel is able to re-engineer the glyphs animating the snake-hornet thing such that the strange spike-thing no longer enforces Hazel's will on the creature, and the odd orb is slowly drawn into it. The glyphs concerning its pseudo-Heart's energy regulation are shifted as well; Harmonious Diea enhances this, and temporarily rewrites them to vent all excess energy into healing the wounds the creature sustained, before it works with Ariel to ensure the thing now has a new purpose.

    This new purpose takes, unsteadily, but in relatively short order the thing's entire animating structure has been set into a harmless state. The massive, exoskeleton-clad bug-snake thing stops struggling under Psyber's grip, going calm.

    As soon as Psyber lets it up, it shakes itself off and rears up slightly. The strange wasp-reptile thing looks around, tilting its head at Ariel before suddenly rushing down!!! And giving her a friendly nuzzle, instead of doing anything dangerous. It then moves over to where Himei and Ellestaria have rescued several of the bystanders, and, pressing its head to them in a strangely pet-like affectionate gesture, seems to restore more stability to the glyphs that Hazel had such a negative effect on.

    Speaking of Glyphs and Hazel, Ariel's neck, since she didn't resist the application, is now be marked with one from Hazel, shining just barely, softly, visible through the cloak. Though it continues to attack those limiters, Ariel should be able to resist that effect fairly effectively, preventing her from suffering another explosion. Though who knows what she might succumb to if she needs excess power, or to operate any of these so-called enhancements Hazel is trying to offer.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel lets her Shift fade and sighs... then giggles as the snake-hornet nuzzles her. She gives it a light pat, and a wan smile. "I'm glad you're happy." And she is! Sure, it isn't really free-willed, but it wasn't before either. And this way maybe it will grow into it or something.

Which leaves her with... the glyph. "Ahh... mom is gonna kill me." She tightens up her control and rubs at her neck, wincing, then turns around to go meet up with everyone else. "Thanks, everyone. Especially you, Fiora. And Ainsley... I... think I know how to approach it now. This is gonna be harder than I thought."

She looks at Amalthea and Ellestaria and shrugs. "Sorry. I had to make a choice."

Ellestaria (231) has posed:
    In a rare display of emotion, Ellestaria drops down and wraps her arms around Ariel. "No, I'm not mad. You made the decision you thought was right. We'll get that thing looked at later... for now, I think you made a difficult choice. I can't say if it was the right choice... but I know you believed in it."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora gives a little two-finger salute, smiling. "Well, if you need a whole bunch of people to conveniently be invisible and for all their actions to be written off as coincidence, look no further." The witch offers honestly, before shrugging.

    "I'm glad you got a chance to be the primary actor. And if I can help out, that's great." She offers a bit airily, before, you know, MOM HUGS and stuff. Then she sort of blips out of existance in the shutterframe of a blink.

    Zoop, gone. Like she was ~never there~