633/FRAGMENT: Second - Entry
From Multiverse Crisis MUSH
| FRAGMENT: Second - Entry | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 20 September 2014 |
| Location: | The Homeworld |
| Synopsis: | Abstractum Users explore the second Fragment! This one's cyberpunk, not fantasy. |
| Thanks to: | Samael for GMing. |
| Cast of Characters: | 2, Vruasa Telash, Fiora O'Brien, 219, 253, 347, 455 |
| Tinyplot: | When They Return |
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
IT'S THE WHITE WING.
Presumably not much is different. There is the booth, Burden's Abstractum on display, the broken capsule, the stage shamelessly stolen from some school and put to good use.
Homura is sitting on the edge of the stage, while her Abstractum is presumably processing the data needed for the projection of the second Fragment. Those invited have gotten the usual disclaimer we have no idea what we're about to dive into and to try not to strain the projection too much. Hopefully with Vruasa present staying within the parameters of what's supposed to be happening shouldn't be too hard.
Rather than be dressed casually she is already transformed into her Puella Magi outfit, expecting the dive not to be all sunshine and rainbows considering the last one.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel is wearing a scarf with her cloak. The cloak being Diea, of course.
Not much else.
Oh, she has a belt with a pouch for holding things, and the Mizzium dagger she was given, but that's purely utility. Looks like she isn't dressing up like she has been for other ones.
"Ah, good evening, Homura," Ariel says with a pleasant chiming note. Without another word, she hops up onto the stage to sit with the Puella Magi, swinging legs. Ready when the others are!
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Like the last time he met someone in the White Room, Psyber was already here anyway when Homura set up the meetup. Psyber spends a lot of time here, actually, during his off hours. Usually playing a game or chatting with an Operator. LIKE TODAY.
Wearing a short sleeve shirt, jeans and a belt, he still has bandages around his arms, chest and torso from fighting D. He is sitting on a bench in one portion of the room with a voice-activated chess board, playing with the Voice of Mr. Answers.
"Rook C4 to F4." He says, the piece on the board moving with his voice command, "That should put you in check, Answers." He rubs his chin thoughtfully. He doubts he can beat the Operator Network at chess.
Ariel and Homura both get waves from him.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"Maybe we can convince Them to just play tic-tac-toe..." Ariel suggests hopefully.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
VRUASA TELASH is here, having arrived through his usual means of just suddenly being present at a location nobody was really looking at at that time. Ordinarily he drifts in the air all by himself, but today he has brought an ANTI-GRAVITY COUCH. It's one of those huge U-shaped couches you can seat an enormous amount of people at, and he's currently sprawled across one end of it as it floats around the room aimlessly. He has the demeanor of somebody who didn't really want to get out of bed this morning, and in fact is still dressed in what look like pajamas.
Which is to say, ragged old pajama bottoms and basically nothing else. This isn't any different from his beach outfits he's been going for, except that it projects a laziness and level of inactivity that isn't usual for him.
He rolls over on the couch as it drifts past Psyber and his game.
"Do you want spoilers?" He asks Psyber, and it's difficult to tell if he's joking or not.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"That would be a horrible idea." Fiora offers, as she appears, in street clothes - black jeans, grey t-shirt.
"Because Tic-Tac-Toe played perfectly is a draw every game. That's a horrible idea with 'win or be annhiliated'." Fiora notes, before flopping over on the stage, her hair frump-fluttering down around her. She has a lot of it.
"So what are we doing?" Comes the hair-and-face-in-stage voiced Fiora.
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Claire is hard at work processing this data and getting it ready for its vaguely witch-barrier-like projection. As it begins, the flood of slightly garbled data will bring about a familiar sensation. But when it begins will depend, of course, on the data.
Psyber is finding that Mr. Answers is actually not that great at boardgames like this, specifically ones based on war or tactics. Mr. Welcomes is fantastic, though, nearly unbeatable, but Answers definitely isn't. He also takes a long time with this. "Hmmm... I'll have a move for you when you get back from this." He assures.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"No spoilers," Psyber says to Vruasa with a faint laugh, "I want it to be a surprise if I lose." He notes, pushing himself into a standing position. He then turns to head over towards Homura and gather up near her, figuring the less space between them for shifting, the easier it will be.
"Besides, Vru. If I want spoilers, I'll ask you for the lottery numbers next week."
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Already gave them to two hundred thousand people. They'll all be getting a jackpot of a hundred and seventy five credits." Vruasa says, to Psyber. He frowns, looking at Fiora upside down. "When the hell did you get up?"
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"I was going to say if anyone can convince Them to play a board game, it's Fiora," Homura says, as the Voidy Witch appears, hopping off the stage to glance about. That looks like everyone, for this time anyway.
"Right, then. Claire, when you're good to go."
Everyone'll want to gather for ease, but we can skip over that. She does give Vruasa glance though. "I'll take the spoilers, I'm curious."
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber sighs and shrugs, "Figures. Hilarious prank, though. I'll live. Famous business aside, most of my income nowadays is Government Grants. Do you have any idea how much the Senate pays me /just/ to keep Hastur off the streets and peacefully employed? God bless bureaucracy, I guess."
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"I didn't actually look. There's your spoilers." Vruasa says to Homura, with a wave of his mechanical hand. To the matter of how he earns his money, The Troll simply states, "I run a garbage collection business."
- Samael (455) has posed:
Just as suddenly as the other few times that the group has fragment dove, the room was covered in a mass of meaningless characters (was there a witch rune in there?) before finally settling into sheer darkness. Gigantic white text, in the robotic font of a console window suspended themselves in front of the group.
"Initializing reality. Synchronization drives starting."
In another burst of characters, the setting was quickly constructed in front of the party. A dark, rainy day. Skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, interspersed with electronic signs that advertised everything from soap, stims to custom internet idol programs and enhanced cyberware. In particular though, the group found themselves in front of specific skyscraper.
Police sirens and cars were everywhere, in front and behind them. Huge suits of power armor with red and blue strobe lights had established a perimeter with sleek looking cruisers, blocking off the public and anyone who was trying to catch a glance of what was going on.
The doors in front of the group were sliding glass, but opaque, obscuring what lay inside. More importantly though, was that everyone suddenly had a commanding voice in their ear, courtesy of what looked to be a network that all of their abstractums were already hooked up to.
"Oy, entry team! Get ready, your job's going to be the roughest. Knowing you guys though, you guys forgot to read the briefing, didn't you? Fair enough, we didn't really have the time to give you the proper information, so we'll do it right before you go in. Your job is to go in and secure the building, neutralizing hostiles and generally raising hell so that the secondary team can go in from the roof. Once the initial fights are over, you're both to converge on the location where we /think/ the target is in. Any questions?"
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"It's kind of amusing. The Time God Disposal Service. We don't even have landfills on Afterus. He just grinds it all up." Fiora explains, rolling over onto her back. "Do we need me to pull us out of reality, becuase, we're good whenever." She offers, summoning Hecate to her hand before laying it across her chest. AND THEN SHE'S IN... The... Modern... world? Oh wait, power armor.
"Break stuff. Don't be subtle. Got it, sir." The Witch drawls, looking entirely unsurprised. Oh, so we're now SWAT, kicking doors down. Neat.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"Jude. Glove." Psyber says, flicking his sword upwards as it folds back and onto his hand, becoming a gauntlet on his right hand. He tests the fingers a bit before reaching to his hip and drawing a pistol, "Hey cool, a police action. Now we're in PSYBER'S Element." The half-angel cheerily notes.
He pulls the slide back on his pistol and cocks it, "Right on." Then into the radio, "You got it, maam. Full code 11, go loud for discrete insertion of secondary teams. Can I get a 10-37 on this frequency?" He calls into the microphone, immediately slipping into vernacular. He's run dozens of SWAT raids over the years for Boston and HOPES the codes are interchangable for this world. Code 11 is a full call for SWAT and a 10-37 is a request for Operator identity.
Psyber then drops the gun into the holster at his side, whistling at a nearby officer, "You. Get me a shotgun." He notes, waiting to be tossed a weapon and then stuffing his jeans pockets with shells, racking one in before smiling, "I love a good SWAT action."
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Don't you feel bad about lying to--" Homura pauses.
She looks at Vruasa.
"That is the single stupidest question I've ever asked you."
Let's ignore that and move on!
Reality shifts, and suddenly they're in a new setting. Skyscrapers, bit of a futuristic bend but not entirely either. Seems it dumped them right into the action too. "Vruasa, Claire, any way to know which predecessors we're playing as right now? Same ones as last time, past or future ones? The information's not immediatly going to be useful but I'd like to keep a mental timeline of these just in case."
She lets Psyber handle the commanding voice.
Though she does elbow him briefly.
"I hang out with you way too much. I met a lady with a talking sword while handling some homework, seems she's lost her voice. My immediate reaction was to nose in and get involved. It's your fault."
- Ariel (219) has posed:
A military-type action? Ariel knows when she's out of her element, so she nods and takes stock of who is here. Vruasa is here today, and despite her occasional head-butting with the troll, she guesses this is more his show due to his experience. She'll take it for granted that he'll be handling any Tandem, at least if they need it.
"Right. Diea, Blue Chroma." Meanwhile the unicorn summons up some of her magic and works out a quick protective spell, feeding it through her Abstractum so she can cover minor protective magics on the group. They won't really be great against direct attacks, but should handle any typical environmental issues like gas attacks or fires.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"You're talking to a guy from a race of aliens that encourages abusive relationships for genetic versatility. No, I don't feel bad for much of anything." Vruasa asides to Homura, though the truth is that he'd have looked if he'd been sincerely asked for spoilers. But only if he thought it wouldn't seriously affect anything in a positive or negative way. As for their new surroundings, he doesn't waste any time with much in the way of preperation.
Just one thing.
"Ulixes, tandem us together and help us keep our roles proper. I'm going to have to break a few rules by necessity. I haven't figured out how to wield things that aren't strife cards yet. Assuming I ever can." He raises his hands to indicate that he'll just be using his fists, even here.
Picking up a PRETEND gun gets his sylladex screaming at him as-is. There's no way he's going to pick up a simulated gun and deal with that the whole time. Anyway, it'd probably just wind up with him doing the equivalent of shouting, 'Pew pew.' and not actually do much. He's got no bonuses with real guns.
"... Say, Fiora." He looks over in the Witch's direction. "... How the hell does this getup work with your hair?"
- Samael (455) has posed:
"Uh...sir? Why d'you want that when you've got, you know..."
One of the officers in regular body armor made a swording motion before getting elbowed by one of his friends.
"You know, just because Abstractum officers have stuff like that doesn't mean a good shotgun isn't needed sometimes!"
A case was thrown Psyber's way, containing a rather fancy looking shotgun. It appeared that this one had a drum magazine that had three seperate tubes for slugs, flechettes and high explosive. Apparently this world and time period had worked out any nasty jamming issues, but still, the shell choice seemed to mark that this was going to be rather violent.
"What the hell are you talking about? We havn't used those in ages. I didn't read up on your full dossier, but you're not in some dumb local team anymore, especially since you're Abstractum-qualified." Psyber received as an answer.
"It's why the locals arn't handling this. You guys are supposed to be the Elite, right? So go out and get them."
- Samael (455) has posed:
Meanwhile, there was an ominous CRACKBANG of lightning, accompanying the rain getting even heavier. Ominous, isn't it?
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Jude swaps to the gauntlet form quickly and wordlessly. Very professional sort of feeling to it.
Claire speaks up with their usual sort of reluctance. "U-ummm... The Abstractums that recorded this have different IDs than the last ones, so... So the Predecessors are definitely different. I-I think."
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Diea, and Diea's ancient predecessor, flares out briefly in a shining blue light. "Right away! Mystic Drives are all active." And it immediately sets about amplifying her magic into environmental hazard protection.
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Ulixes says, "Of course. I've already established the Tandem." Apparently it did just as they were entering! "And it looks like you can break roles a little. Stick to the spear, if you like, seems like even back then, they knew that Abstractum Users could be a bit strange in what they're using in fights."
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber wiggles his gauntlet at the officer, "Mine has a gauntlet form. Makes guns mighty handy," He notes, smiling, "Don't worry you two, I'll be fine." He turns back to Homura and says, "Talking sword? You mean she had an Abstractum with her right from the get go?" He asks to her curiously, "And I'm so proud of you for butting in to that."
The half-angel inspects the weapon happily, "Oh yeah, I'll be juuuuuuust fine." And then he's getting lectured over the radio.
"Now you listen, missy," Psyber says in a lecturing tone, kind of winging it, "You may be the boss, but I bet I've been doing this since you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye. So you watch, you just /might/ learn something before I retire." He looks at the others and sort of shrugs, showing he doesn't fully know what he's doing, but he's rolling with it, "We're breaching now," He adds as a final note.
And with that note, Psyber readies the shotgun, turns off the safety, and uses it to smash in the sliding glass door, trying to make a loud entry as he blasts the nearest hostile and shouts, "ABSTRACTUM TASK FORCE! EVERYONE ON THE GROUND. THIS IS A RAID."
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"No, it wasn't an Abstractum. Looked like one, but also didn't. Big sword, circuits motif on it, called itself Transistor. Girl's Red. She joined the Union." Homura answers Psyber.
She should have asked for a shotgun too, though.
She jealously eyes Psyber's new acquisition before her ring speaks up, and she glances at her briefly. "Alright. Well, that'll do for now. If you can pin down where in the timeline they fit, that'd be fine. Vruasa, same request, if you ever have a second and don't mind the headache from glancing backwards a bit."
Homura mentally shuffles through her inventory and just produces an assault rifle, some model of AK or another. It'll do until they know what they're going to be shooting at. And so, in after Psyber she goes.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"I've set up environmental protections for all of you and a basic defense screen," Ariel says. "I'll also immobilize any surrenders we get." She glances at Vruasa, "And if you could feed me info on anyone who needs medical, I'll take care of that. I'm better in this role right now I think, but if you need me to move up to a Red Position let me know. You know what I can do, roughly, so it shouldn't be a problem."
She isn't carrying a weapon, of course, but when Psyber says to move she will follow closely behind, sticking with the main group so that she doesn't have to strain to spread out the shield.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"DON'T GET ON THE GROUND, IT MAKES IT HARDER TO STAB YOU!" Vruasa calls behind Psyber, wading in through the broken glass door after him. He's swapped to one of his SPEARS and is just using it to make a mess of everything. This may or may not actually accomplish anything entirely immediate other than making the building a little bit worse and causing a bunch of noise.
This is, of course, the whole idea behind a loud entry to begin with, so he keeps right on doing it even if it mostly doesn't DO anything particularly immediate.
"Oh, uh. You guys just break stuff, I dunno. What are you wanting me to look at, Homura?" He asides, suddenly realizing he has some measure of command responsibility here. Not enough to give -good- orders, though.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora shoulders her broom, shrugging at the powered armored officers. "Sorry, guys." She offers, before looking askance at Vruasa. "Same as everything. I just ignore bunching and other plebean hair concerns. It's basically the second best power I have." She offers, before sauntering in after Psyber, looking at Vruasa and then sighing. "They're actually easier to stab on the ground, Vru. You know, so they can't dodge?" She reminds him, before making sure there's not like... A thousand dudes with guns she needs to blink out of existance for. "Ariel, you have defense covered then?" She asks, her shadow lengthening and flickering like a solid object as she advance in.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Nothing big. Where in the timeline these people we're re-enacting the Node of fit in, compared to the last one," Homura asks of Vruasa as they make a loud entry.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Not if they're behind a bunch of shit. Having people hit the floor in a place like this is mildly inconvenient." Vruasa says to Fiora, not ACTUALLY that inattentive to how spears work. He frowns a little, and sockets Ulixes in his eye. He's not certain that there's much he can do to fulfill Homura's request, but tries his best to examine the timeline relative to when they were last time around.
- Samael (455) has posed:
"Yeah, and I've been babysitting overconfident idiots like you and preventing them from getting themselves killed for longer. Anyway, make some noise. The team from the roof is going to come in while you've got their attention. Hopefully they won't be expecting two assaults."
The glass shatters and there's silence. It seems the lobby was completely empty, apart from a rather obnoxious gold plated corporate logo. As the group advanced, the silence was kind of odd. Shouldn't there have been more resistance?
"Guys! Automated defenses just kicked in, watch yourself!"
Vents suddenly slid open, piping in some awfully suspiciously looking white smoke. Luckily, any ill affects from breathing it in was countered by Ariel's spells, but there was the unfortunate problem of it being obscuring. Behind the smokescreen, a few mechanical whirrs filled the air, and bullets started to fly out from several locations within the smoke.
Ulixes would almost immediatly receive an overlay pointing out the turret locations, but annoyingly, it seemed that those that weren't deployed were heavily armored, and a sidenote mentioned that these turrets were smart enough to know when they were getting focused or someone was approaching them.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Fuck that smoke.
Homura raises one of her hands idly, and a burst of wind would clear the air, pushing the smoke through whatever cracks, open windows and vents are around the room. A trick she learned because some assholes like to shoot fire extinguishers at people and it's oddly effective as distractions go. She probably can't quite clear the entire room with that, but enough to restore vision against those turrets.
She's going to start by finding some cover though, because those defenses are going to be unpleasant to get nailed by. A few bullets are let loose towards exposed turrets, mostly to see how sturdy they are. Even with Claire boosting any weapon she holds, it's still just an assault rifle.
"So, plan besides shooting?"
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber grins a bit as he makes entry. Rude as he is, he's naturally going to be fond of the insulting lady on the radio. He looks to Homura and makes a 'huh' noise, "Well, good for her, then. And good job. Remind me to give you ten points extra cre-" Psyber cuts off as the vents are deploying a strange smoke.
"Good call on the protection," Psyber shouts to Ariel before rolling along the ground, skidding a bit as the bullets peck the ground around him, "Incoming fire." Psyber says, lifting up the shotgun and switching to high explosive. The turrets may be armored, but he's hoping the ceiling around them can be blown out.
He also rolls, trying to stay out of the shot of bullets. A few strays do hit him and are dampened by Ariel's defenses, still causing grunts of pain.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"I'll be reinforcing your own defenses," Ariel corrects, but that's kind of a nitpick. She'll hang back a little, letting the more combat-oriented go first. And... she'll also do just that, sending her magic out to attempt to bolster any native barrier drives they may have.
That might help against the bullets, but the venting gas is another matter! She can't really help with how that obscures things, but Homura has that down.
This is one situation where Ariel is less effective than the others at dealing with it, aside from her defense-boosts. She'll hunker down and look for cover, though her tail will whip around and shoot a small bolt of lightning if she can spy an opening to damage one of the turrets. Maybe electricity will help against them, but she's largely leaving THIS part to the others.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"Well, our job isn't to win or advance, it's to distract and make a lot of noise." Fiora offers, though the fact that ghosting out the group would prove rather meaningless, because the turrets would go into Turtle Mode. And, since she didn't want to risk RUINING THE FABRIC OF THE FRAGMENT with her more useful offensive tricks...
Oh wait!
She smiles. "Be very loud and busy. Hecate, hype drivers, no smoke all blaring bullshit, and then..."
Well, when that's done, fiora becomes a SMOKEY SPOOKY SPECTRE.
"Be right back." She whispers, before ghosting over and trying to GOOMBA STOMP on a turret. It's probably not the MOST effective, but it should keep them not shooting at her and active long enough for her to kick the shit out of them.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
These defenses are actually pretty ineffective against VRUASA. He stands in the middle of it nonchalantly, weapons fire striking his hardened flesh and going tumbling off like arrows against a fortress wall. He frowns a little, leaning on his spear as the weapons fire slides off of him, the smoke obscuring his vision and making it uncomfortable to inhale. It's possible, and evidently his protection does extend to the inside of his body, but it's not FUN. It's also getting in the way of the real oxygen. He doesn't have the mega-regeneration like some of these other invincible assholes do, but he sure as hell can tank some absurd bullshit. Up to a point, anyway.
This isn't past his threshold, though.
"Smart turrets. Know when to duck away to avoid getting focused down. Got a better idea of how to deal with them, though." He uses the overlay to map out their locations in his head, and then swaps between weapons and... a paintball gun?
No, a target marker. Fortunately, it's not a real weapon that he's using to break things, so Vruasa can get away with using this. He paints a square-shaped target around each turret, specifically marking the points of the building where the turrets are anchored, but where there wouldn't be armoring because armoring a whole building to accommodate a few turrets makes no sense.
"Cut along the dotted line. Don't bother aiming at them directly." Vruasa says many times over, the various iterations of himself echoing thunderously through the locale. They might have some trouble with the remaining smoke, though.
The Knight of Time takes no offensive action of his own. He may, in fact, just be getting shot point blank over and over.
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Homura's request is answers by Ulixes quickly and briefly. "This section of the timeline is in an entirely different cycle. It appears to actually be an earlier cycle, rather than tha later one, despite the appearance."
Hecate, for its own part, is maxing out HYPE, so there's a lot of LOUD ENERGY NOISES AND BLASTING SOUNDS AND GUSHING WIND and other similar suchlike, it's all very intimidating for anything that isn't completely automated.
- Samael (455) has posed:
Homura's bullets manage to trip off the turrets 'danger' sense, causing whatever she shoots at to quickly retreat into the wall before they take too much damage, though if she did it enough (or with a big enough gun) she could probably take one out by sheer attrition or burst.
Psyber manages to catch one in the same way, surprising a turret and blasting it to death. The other turrets he trained his aim on got a bit smarter though, and started to hide themselves just a bit quicker whenever he pointed his shotgun at it.
The bursts of bullets weren't as damaging to the group thanks to Ariel, and due to everyone's fire, it would give them significantly more time to run out in the open and actually go to town on these things.
Fiora, it seemed found success in GOOMBA STOMPing a turret, as rapid locational changes without any inbetween was something that confused the targetting AI. The turret's little mechanical arm gave a little *crack* as the thing flailed about, only to disconnect itself due to the strain. Unfortunately, all the nearby turrets were now trained on Fiora herself.
Vruasa's paintball markers did mark good areas to simply take out the columns and connections, but the problem lay in the amount of force. A swing from Psyber's sword or some of Homura's heavier weapons would be able to do the trick, but it would also take a good amount of time.
And just at that very moment, the receptionist's desk flipped over, revealing a turret that seemed to be a belt loaded explosive launcher. The lobby started to light up as grenades were launched at everybody, forcing them out of whatever hideyholes they were in!
- Samael (455) has posed:
Meanwhile, buzzing in everyone's ear: "Secondary team, moving in. Remember, the target is the 'Princess.' Taking her alive would be optimal, but considering how much she's trying to kill us, that remains a purely optional objective."
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Something in the back of Psyber's head immediately lights up, "Tell secondary team not to engage Princess until we're in position for joint convergence." Psyber shouts over the gunfire and now the grenades going off. The half-angel then slings the shotgun up across his back.
"Jude. Sword." Psyber says, holding his arm out, letting the blade unfold into a sword. Psyber looks at the floor and then swings the sword straight down, trying to split the ground under the massive logo. The half-angel looks at the marks Vruasa has made and then tries to reach down and grab the massive logo before flipping it up out of the floor and directly vertial.
He's trying to lodge the huge logo in the ceiling to cover all the vent turrets at once. The level of success is variable. It also does NOTHING about the grenade turret.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
VRUASA TELASH considers the situation, and his primary iteration does the only thing that makes sense: He walks up to the grenade turret and stands directly in front of the barrel mechanism. Other iterations of the Knight flicker out of existence as they return to their proper timeframes, probably a few seconds from now.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
There just had to be a Boss Turret.
Damnit.
Homura dives out of her cover as it EXPLODES, throwing the assault rifle aside like it's trash. She suddenly whips a Bolter out-- the Guardsman model, because unfortunately her hands are not massive huge slabs of steel. She's about to open fire on the big one-- but Vruasa gets in the way. What. No seriously what.
And he doesn't have a plan!
Well, whatever, she'll have to trust him.
For now, the magical girl is going to open fire at whatever smaller turrets Psyber is not able to cover. Bolter rounds are going to make short work of the paint lines traced around the turrets, and the walls in general too.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Oh great grenades. Ariel squeaks and scrambles, doing a quick 'dash' out from behind her position to run for another bit of cover. Great, she's really not in a good position for this, and she needs to figure out a way to help-
Inspiration hits.
"Mystic Drivers are on full, right?" Ariel asks as she slides into another 'safe' spot. She summons to her memory her most-used spell(aside from barriers) and takes a look at the formula. It's a gravity-increase spell, meant to trap a foe by pinning them to the ground. At its strongest it could cause real damage, but she usually doesn't use it for hurting.
A little tweak here... a twist there...
The Gravity spell goes off where Psyber is, but it's only on for a few moments. She's adjust it to /reduce/ gravity in that area, lightening the load so Psyber can have an easier time lifting the logo.
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Adjudicator says, "Right away." And the gash it cuts is wide, and deep! It ought to make that entire ground-crest rather easy to HEAVE up. Even with his offhand being used to lift it, it'll ascend with massive force and with a brilliant rush of fire... And a soft blue glow, coming from Ariel! Lifting that thing was really surprisingly easy!
"There we go, good work, Ariel! Backing people up so dynamically like that." Diea is very encouraging about this.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora simply ceases to exist from her ghosty form, as all the turrets open up. She is effectively pinned down from this, for a few moments, before she reappears somewhere else. "This really sucks!" She calls, ducking the fire if it redirects to look at the Super Boss Turret.
"Why are you just standing in front of it?!" Fiora calls to Vruasa. "Pull out the ammo, or..." She groans.
"Or something!" She calls, flickering around to not get slaughtered by gunfire. She either can choose to do nothing, and not get wrecked, or do something, but probably get wrecked. She's not really thinking too creatively.
- Samael (455) has posed:
The huge chunk o' rock goes flying after being levered up and given the ol' alley oop. With Ariel's help, the solid piece of granite SMASHES into the ceiling, causing more than a little structural damage. Still though, it takes out a good chunk of the turrets by simply destroying the ceiling, though dust and other bits of rebar and rock come falling down.
Homura's sharp aim with something a little more punch manages to clean up what's left, the explosive bullets being just enough to take out the joints on the turrets. Now, all that was left was...the big fat boss turret.
Coming to that, it seemed fairly content to just keep hitting Vruasa again. And again. And again. And again. And again. The series of explosions was getting kind of noisy and annoying, so someone may want to try and take care of that.
"Well, we'll try, but she isn't making it easy for us!" came the reply, over the sound of firearms, sword clashing, and other sounds of battle.
"The floor that the target's in is right in the middle of the building. You have either...the stairs, or the elevators, though I don't like either option. If you have any smart ideas though, this is the time to use them." quipped the commanding officer's voice.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
That's pretty much enough of that.
VRUASA whips out his REGISPEAR, a sleek black spear with a red diamond-style tip and slashes it through the ammunition belt of the turret. Should render it basically inoperable after a few extra shots if he didn't severely mis-estimate the weak points of this thing. He sighs exasperatedly, waiting for the ringing in his ears to stop. It really would have been better to not do that, come to think of it, but he prefers to tackle things in entertaining ways over effective ones these days. There's no sense in overtaxing yourself, after all.
He says to the others, "Let's take the elevators. It's the dumbest fucking thing we could possibly do so anybody with a brain in their skull is going to assume it's a decoy or a bomb or something. Besides, we've got enough flyers here that the elevator shaft is a quicker ascent method than the stairs are in a pinch anyway." He whips his spear back, leaning it up against his shoulder casually.
"Whatever it is you want to do, let's get on with it." He adds, irritably.
"And I was hoping it would destroy itself shooting at me too close to it. But mostly I was stopping it from being useful." Vruasa explains to Fiora, as she skitters along and complains at him in turn.
- Samael (455) has posed:
Unfortunately, now instead of annoying BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM sound, Vruasa has successfully turned the thing into a gigantic CLICK CLICK CLICK machine as the bolt annoying slams open and close.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber rubs his hands together and seems to ponder a few things for a moment. Elevator is probably a trap or a bomb, like Vruasa says. Stairs are probably an ambush, maybe a gauntlet of turrets? Robots? Traps? Psyber rubs his chin and nods his head, "Yeah, yeah. I got it. We're gonna do some idiotic shit." Psyber decides aloud.
With a superhuman jump, Psyber leaps up to the ceiling and tries to use his sword to pry free the massive emblem, "Jude, Gauntlet." Psyber says, abusing Strike Drivers to enhance his natural strength and ability to move this thing around, "Okay, everyone who wants to be idiots, follow me." Psyber says, grunting with effort as he lifts the thing and walks out the front door of the place, probably having to break the front of the building to do so.
Giving anyone who wants to come sufficient time to grab onto his coat like he told them to, Psyber abruptly spins around once and uses ALL his Strike Drivers to hurl the massive emblem at the center of the building. Only there's a catch! As soon as the gauntlet-covered hand lets go, the unclad hand grabs the massive piece of debris, trying to let it drag him on an express trip right to the destination.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"Right, the elevator shaft!" Ariel agrees! Unfortunately she /may/ have misinterpreted how Vruasa wanted to take the elevator, because she drops to all fours and unicorn-modes it. "Ready! Taking the elevator!"
Summoning up her natural power, she charges for the elevator doors, horn-first, to attempt to slam through and start wall-jumping up the sides of the elevator shaft, leaving shimmering little barriers behind to help anyone else who follows. This may be a problem if the elevator is actually in use, but evidently she REALLY WANTED to charge something horn-first.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
Vruasa observes the beginnings of the stupid plan in silence, including Ariel just ramming through the elevator doors into the shaft. He considers this for a moment, walks over to the call button, and presses it. He waits in silence, turning around to look for Fiora.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura glares at Psyber.
"I... well. That is interesting."
She does not hold on to him though, and instead just waits for the exact moment the half-angel and his load impact the building and make a way in. Bright white-pink angelic wings erupt out of her back-- and with a flicker of time magic, she just arbitrarily appears in the shadow of the hurled piece of metal and Psyber, without the messy travel involved in that.
Which means she'll be floating in front of the hole it makes, a fair bit visible due to her wings, but then the absolute shitstorm of smoke, dust and building chunks might make that a bit irrelevant.
The thought 'what if he hurled it so hard the entire building comes crashing down' does cross her mind. Hopefully he didn't.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora, once the lower area is clear, doesn't have much to do, and just jams her hands into her jean pockets, Hecate in the crook of her shoulder as she just frowns at Vruasa. "That was really dumb. If you weren't as invincible as you guessed you were, it'd probably be a horrible idea." She grouses, waiting by the Elevator with Ariel??? and Vruasa.
"So... How was your day?" She asks, awkwardly.
Meanwhile, Psyber Accidentally The Cieling
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Meh. I always do stuff like that, though. Are you asking me to stop?" Vruasa tucks the regispear back into his sylladex, and glances back at the elevator. Ariel's already moved on, so he assumes she's asking him how his day's been. He grins fangily and answers, "I dunno, ask me about it again when we get home. What about YOURS?" The troll reaches over and ruffles Fiora's hair.
Fiora's hair, notably, is in no way ever in need of additional ruffling.
- Samael (455) has posed:
Psyber throws the massive rock! ...and hilariously enough, ends up just a tad off course. By 'off course' we mean a few floors off, and right into an entire platoon of angry security droids with assault rifles. They open up on Psyber as he crashes through the window, apparently not giving a rat's ass about the amount of smoke and glass currently in the air. They don't seem to notice Homura, at least for the time being.
Ariel is the first to arrive at the designated floor. It seems to be a completely blank floor, with yet another central chamber in the center of the floor. Ominous looking electronic pulsing on the walls and floor constantly lead to the locked central chamber, and the other team seems to be in position.
They all seem to be wielding unorthodox weapons, obviously Abstractums. The lead man seems to be rather young, but has a couple of swords in his hands; and other Abstractum forms such as a spear, knuckles, seem to be in play. The reds and blues seem to have taken alternate forms, however, such as a HUDs, a communication pack, a handheld PDA and so on. The leader sheathed his blades, waving to Ariel.
"Hey, we got the signal to wait. Might as well, since I think we've got her cornered."
As the muzak droned on, Vruasa and Fiora eventually reached the same floor, receiving the same greeting.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"Shit, I missed." Is what Psyber says as he comes into the wrong floor, just a couple floors off. He lands and rolls, assault rifles peppering the ground around him. Coming up out of the roll, Psyber says, "Jude. Sword."
He really loves changing between those two forms. It simplifies his life a bit. A shot or two catch him in the shoulder as he moves, causing grunts of pain from the half-angel. Psyber's goal isn't to hang around and fight these things. Instead, he just makes a spinning cut, trying to hit everything in about 360 degrees around him to clear out what he can as he bolts for the staircase to meet up with the rest of the team.
He hopes the robots can't use stairs, truthfully. And that they aren't smart enough to block his escape.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel bursts onto the scene, then... skids to a halt, realizing the others were still behind her. She glances around, seeing all the different types, then clutches at Diea's broach. "I really have a bad feeling about this. Diea... this is a little unorthodox, but um... could you go to Green Chroma and help me with an analysis?"
Reaching out with her mystical and unnatural senses, she tries to get a feel for the situation. It smells like a trap to her, after all... it's going way too easily for her feeling, and better safe than sorry. She's hoping Green Chroma will boost her TAC drivers enough to give her a better idea of who she's dealing with and the coordination with the others.
Meanwhile, "Yeah, the others will be right along. Get ready. I'll be helping with support!"
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Oh."
Wow, what a mess.
Homura cringes a bit, and mentally sorts through her belongings for something sharp. She pulls a REGISWORD out, and then glances towards Psyber. "I will catch up with you. Have fun!"
She hovers a few floors up, until she can see Ariel through a window.
And then she cuts the window open, or shatters it as the case may be, and casually hops inside, dusting herself. "I should have taken the elevator."
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"What the fuck is going on."
Those are the first words out of Vruasa's mouth when they arrive on the designated floor, and he emerges from the elevator. The crash was audible, but he doesn't see the people they're waiting for. Have they not caught up? He sidles up to Ariel, but lets her do the talking for the moment. He makes a mental note to make some extra shades to use in support of Ulixes. Some proxy statues of Ulixes would be pretty useful for that purpose, actually.
Then again, not everybody is missing an eye.
"Say, who's this Princess anyway?" He asks, sifting through his weapons like one might sift through cards. Vruasa selects the gaudy, bulky HEAVENSGOLD DIRELANCE. It is a giant, JRPG-esque monstrosity with golden towers branching off of the spearhead in the form of wicked hooks and protrusions.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
IN THE ELEVATOR
"Eh, it was okay. I kind of zoned out after lunch, then took a nap. Told the angry skygods to go fuck themselves and went to doublesleep for a bit. Or, well, let myself wander in nothing while not thinking for a while. Answered some mail. Uhh..."
Fiora shrugs. "Pretty much a slow day, actually. Same as every day." She grins. "That is, when you don't make them fast days."
Then they arrive. "Yep, I bet the others are on their... Oh, hey, look." She offers, gesturing at Homura. "Where's King Boulder?" She asks, legitimately curious.
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Green chroma it is, then!" Harmonious Diea says, with an affirmative noise. It flares out in a sudden green light, amplifying Ariel's tactical awareness heavily, trying to let her get a look at the opposition, alongside its comprehensive tactical configuration!
Psyber, of course, swaps back to sword. That really IS convenient! The fancy mechanical folding is nice to watch, too.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura vaguely gestures towards the floor.
"Oh his way up. Probably."
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Fast days are for only when there's nothing to do and we're both really 'meh'. I prefer to make days long when the mood is there." Vruasa says to Fiora, spinning the Heavensgold Direlance idly in his hand. He goes on, "Which is a pretty significant change in mode of operation come to think of it, but fuck, it's not like I haven't drowned plenty of do-nothing days in the sea of time and left it there to rot in obscurity. Why remember something that has no content worth remembering?"
"Do we need milk?" He asks, planting his spear against the ground and leaning on it.
- Samael (455) has posed:
The androids go down fairly easily with one swift stroke, allowing Psyber to take the stairs, as his rock has unfortunately blocked the elevator shaft from that floor. Oh well. There's still enough time for him to run up and catch anything important being said, though.
Diea's initial scans pick up...nothing? Dangerous, that is. There's a lot of fuzziness and oddities bending the overall picture of the situation, but nothing seems to be overtly dangerous. Which is odd. Very odd.
The man with the dual swords (though he still looked rather young for an element commander!) cocked an eyebrow at the question. "Huh, did they not tell you? There must've just rushed you guys out here. But anyway, the 'Princess' is a hacker we've been chasing. She's been...well, for lack of a better term, she's been raising hell randomly and without point. We can't tell if she's doing this on someone's payroll, but it wouldn't make sense because /everybody's/ been hit. Anyway, she's on the other side of this. She probably has an abstractum backing her up, so..."
The man gritted his teeth. "We'll need to be careful. I like kicking the doors in as well as anyone else, but, wouldn't it be a little too obvious? What do you think?"
- Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber is slightly out of breath as he catches up with the group, sword slung up and across his shoulders as he comes out of the staircase and waves to people, "Hey. Sup? I'm here."
Psyber then sidles up to one of the officers who seems relatively unimportant, "Hey what's the name of the woman on the radio again?" He asks conspiratorially. He's ready to go in when everyone else is, though.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"An Abstractum, or a Pure?" Homura asks of the other team, at the mention the Princess is a hacker who may be using an Abstractum. "Or, erm... perhaps I should ask if you are familiar with black Abstractums? They resonate with the same three colors, but they appear black."
Might as well explain just in case.
But this is a Node, isn't it? The bad guy should have a Pure, not an Abstractum... unless the rules were different back then, or someone is rampaging in someone else's Node. Or maybe this is not a Node at all.
- Samael (455) has posed:
"Huh? That's Captain Sana. Tall, blonde, come on, dude, you should've seen her when you first came in!" came the reply to Psyber.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel eyes the scene and looks at her companions. "Something is really wrong. Diea isn't... picking up any real danger. There's something messing with my senses, I think. We're going to have to go in blind, and they may not even be hostile at all. Or may have already escaped."
She gets on her comm and calls up, "Psyber, let us know if you see anything strange, because this is really weird."
She steps back and says, "Okay... well. Vruasa, you're a lot more experienced than I am, but I'd recommend sending in reds paired with blues to get a scan right away. And try to go in some nonstandard way. We have all the exits covered? Maybe Psyber can go in through the ceiling before we bust in." Pause.
Looking around again, she shrugs, "Just be ready." Then just walks over and... knocks politely. "Hello, is anyone in there? Do you have a minute to chat?"
At least she's sorta standing to the side instead of right in front of the door.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"I'm getting bad with names as I get older," Psyber says to the man before hopping out the hole Homura made in the window and trying to get himself to the floor above the room in accordance with Ariel's plan.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Be right back." Vruasa says to the group at large, and then he walks out a nearby window, possibly breaking it in the process. He speaks to Ulixes, "Hey. Give me a read on what's going on within this floor of the building--" He indicates the one that he just left, "Across the last half hour, and then the half hour after this. I kinda want to know if this is worth pursuing or if the floor is going to explode and we should just leave and try to track down where the bitch got off to."
A second iteration of Vruasa flits in with the group a moment later so he can simultaneously check out what's going to happen while he has somebody in place to support the others in case his just-in-case action is kind of pointless. Net result is, Vruasa said he'd be right back and was right back.
- Samael (455) has posed:
There's a short pause, before Ariel gets a small signal, almost like it was piped into her head.
"Nobody's tried that before. Talking, that is. Who're you?"
The voice was garbled digitally, but the words made sense, at the very least.
"Why do you want to talk?"
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"No read I can get on the last half hour." Ulixes says. "I think your predacessor's Abstractum didn't record it. As for the future, it looks like... Hmmm, an explosion of some kind. Large. Scrambles a bit of the recording even in the original data, so it's going to be fairly intense."
Clairvoyant Rush makes a few uncertain noises to Homura. "Remember what we saw before... There's a lot of strie in those earlier cycles..."
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel glances back to the others and holds up her hand. Maybe she can defuse this! Except that she has NO IDEA what this person wants or why she can't get a read on them! "Ah, I'm with the Abstractum Strike Team. We have a lot of independence and I noticed that you aren't following the normal pattern for someone who's a real... terrorist or out to hurt people for the fun of it or something." She's kind of making it up on the fly here and hoping she's right.
"So I thought we'd better ask what you want and why you're doing this instead of busting in and making assumptions. Is there something you want to say?"
At this point she's pretty much assuming that the others are getting into position. She doesn't expect this to work, but hey. It seems to maybe have a chance!
- Samael (455) has posed:
"Black...Abstractums? I havn't heard of those, no. That seems really weird. I havn't heard anything like that." came the reply to homura's question.
"Why? I'll tell you why. Because nobody paid attention to me. Nobody helped me. So why not? I was going to die anyway. This way, at least people can share in my misery. All of you, you're all dogs! Mindless drones! Everything's worthless, so I might as well tear it down! But...I'll tell you a secret."
The voice got really low in Ariel's ear, almost as if it was physically whispering to her.
"I'm not even there."
The walls suddenly lowered, revealing...an empty desk, with a little music box on it. Just as that happened, a set of helicopters hovered up from nowhere, surrounding the floor.
"Enjoy~!"
- Samael (455) has posed:
Just as they appeared though, a figure in power armor came down from above, landing into the cockpit of the helicopter that was closest to the man with dual swords. The voice of the commanding officer in charge of the operation came through.
"Major! I've got this, so please take care of the rest! Everyone else, get down!" she said, apparently having commandeered one of the armor sets in order to come in personally. Some crunching came in as point blank rounds were shot into the thing's 'cockpit, and as it fell down to the ground, she leapt off, joining the man with two swords.
"I've cleared the area, so don't worry about them falling on people." she said as a heavy shield deployed to accompany the high calibre rifle. "Deal with those helicopters!"
- Samael (455) has posed:
Meanwhile, loads of chaingun fire and missiles came from the helicopters that weren't taken down, being a rather pressing concern since the floor was currently featureless and lacking any cover apart from that desk in the center.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Right, nevermind about that then," Homura tells the commander. So they haven't seen Pures yet in this one. Either this is going to be their first, or this is an issue purely between Abstractum Users, as Claire suggests. Either way, bad stuff about to go down, better not tempt fate by staying still. Even if there are safeties in place, pain is still pain.
The Puella Magi likes simple solutions to problems above all. She blurs, disappearing from the inside of the building before any of those missiles can detonate and injure her too badly.
She reappears onboard one of the helicopters, holding a grenade. Which she drops, and then leaps out of the vehicle before it can detonate.
Nothing beats front row seats.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
So Psyber tried FIGHTING against the objective presented in the situation last time, combatting the powerful woman. Psyber wants to try going at it from a different angle. At least, between two simulations there was always a commonality: a fairly prominent female. He idly wonders how alternate interactions will affect various outcomes.
Psyber hoists his sword up over his head and jumps out the window. On the way down, he tries to cleanly slice through a helicopter (he may not succeed or he may, but it's not his main objective. Instead, Psyber tries to land right in front of Sana as the bullets come flying in, "Captain I..." He begins dramatically.
And then he deliberately tries to 'accidentally' take a raking shot from one of the chopper. The kind of wound that would be fatal to a normal man, but to Psyber will be painful but survivable. He wants to deliberately fall against the front of her machine in a dramatic fashion, probably smearing it with blood, "... never got to tell you I loved you..." He gasps before falling to the floor and keeping himself still.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
Eyes blink... and Ariel squeaks! "Scatter! Keep them aiming at one another!" With seven helicopters, clustering would let them concentrate fire, even she can recognize that... and she's hoping she can get some help here. "Diea, help me find a good formation and pass it along!" She is, unfortunately, not the best at tactics... but she's trying, and with a little Resonance boost, maybe she can get people moving in an optimal way. Her companions /are/ pretty mobile.
Ariel herself is diving for that desk, tumbling forward and coming up on all fours... spinning around. Her hindlegs kick out HARD to try smashing the desk up and out, using whatever power she can muster from both Abstractum and her latent sorcery and nonhuman body. She's trying to kick the desk into one of the choppers like a missile weapon.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
Well, this is ... wonderful.
The first iteration of VRUASA, who is currently outside the building looking in, pretty much just flies right up to one of the helicopters and punches it in the rotor. He's not in the line of fire to begin with, so he doesn't actually have to worry about... well. Any of the stuff that the people in the building need to. Unfortunately he's also not in a position to do anything about their predicament.
The iteration of the Knight that is INSIDE the building focuses on protecting a single person. A spear with all the brilliance and light of a star comes out, and Vruasa steps forward to act as a defender on behalf of Fiora and whoever happens to be in her vicinity. In this case, he is using an impossible weapon to defend against an impossible-to-defend against attack. A parry of cosmic proportions, if you will. He's unlikely to escape this exchange unharmed as he has in the previous ones.
There's too much fire flying.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora, for her part in all this, is kind of hand-tied. Her abstractum doesn't really ken to doing cool attacks, coordination, or support. Theoretically, she could just pop off and do crazy shit, but it always ends poorly for her... And once more, going full ham on things wouldn't be the most effective idea. Sure, she could try just all-outing the helicopters, but it'd probably end up ruining things in the short term.
So instead, she just rests a hand on Vruasa's shoulder. "You know, if I died here, I'd almost certainly come back, right?" She asks, before shunting her powers outward as a fuzzy shadow, trying to simply make the building... Inviolate. The only issue is that... Wasn't this place supposed to explode? Her precursor probably didn't have the powers she did. "What the heck is my role in all this?"
- Samael (455) has posed:
Homura quite efficiently disposes of one helicopter, and after the explosion, it goes down in a mangled heap of twisted metal. Quick, efficient, all the marks of a good and proper Magical Girl. Unfortunately, there's still six of the helicopters as the group hits the floor. Assorted barriers go up from the few blue-colored Abstractums around, and the gigantic thick metal shield from the Captain's power armor seemed to be still holding up.
Speaking of which, she took one glance at Psyber and simply shot back "If we lose anyone due to you faking a goddamn injury, I will be the first to make you be the person who has to oversee their funeral."
Another chopper goes down as Vruasa flies into it, punching it straight in the helicopter movey parts, and it similarly goes down like Homura's.
Meanwhile, the 'Major' had drawn his swords, moving from behind the shield that the Captain had given him. After taking one step, the mans' figure blurred as he zipped in front of any missiles and bullets, sparks flying as he sliced most of the fire that came in. In the short pause that he caused, he apparently took the time to pat Ariel on the shoulder, shooting her a gentle smile. "Don't worry. I know it's your first mission, but we'll all come out alright." he said, just as she sent the desk flying, bringing down another helicopter. He blinked for a moment, before patting her again. "See? You're here for a reason." he said, before taking another step. His figure blurred, and one chopper would find itself gone, sliced into four bits.
The remainder were taken down by the other squad's fire, going down easily now that they weren't surrounded. Just as it went down though, the dual-sword man replaced his blades, dusting his hands and turning to Fiora. "Hey, good job! But uh, unless you can keep it up, I think this place is about to collapse. She probably intended to simply take the entire floor out, whiiich...is probably going to happen sooner or later. So we should probably go. Like now."
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"Sigh. You may pretend you're annoyed, but I just got shot for the sake of a good joke and squad morale. You could at least give me a smile, Sana," He says, planting his hands on the ground and pushing himself to his feet with a flourishing hop and a smile. He wrings some blood out of his clothing and looks at her through the power armor, "How did you know I'd survive that, anyway? No Barrier Drivers or anything." He inquires. He's genuinely curious.
He also seems pretty relaxed for a dude on a floor in a building that's supposed to be exploding. He's looking to the group for their solutions.
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"Ah... thanks for the reassurance," Ariel says awkwardly, watching the flaming wreckage go down. This... apparently she was the rookie here? Okay, act like a rookie! But she's also a Green-Type, and that means...
"EVERYBODY OUT, YOU HEARD HER! There's a giant hole in the wall, let's get out of here!" There. She's going to make a dive for the opening in the wall to head out, too... but maybe with that extra boost the others will get, they can leap out as well. "Diea, it'd be nice if some of our predecessors lived through a memory for once and died like... some other time." It was pretty traumatic otherwise!
Oh yeah. And she can use her new spell to reduce gravity outside the window for a few moments. It's pretty hard to do it on a large area, but maybe that means the people who can't fly and the like can make it.
- Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Tell me you don't like it when I do that." Vruasa answers Fiora, flatly. He doesn't spend a lot of time arguing about it. He closes his time loops out, and the single iteration of him that remains says, "ALRIGHT, EVERYBODY OUT! GO! We've got a handfull of seconds before this place blows unless-- well, no, nevermind the unless. Evacuate!" he applies an Area-of-Effect ACCELERATE to everybody for a couple of seconds. Not a lot of time, but given the amount of progress they can make with superspeed during that time, it goes a long way.
Which is fortunate, because with this many people he'd have to cast from HP to hope to cover everybody for more than a couple of seconds.
Speaking of, he's getting the fuck out with everybody else. And hoping that two green types giving the same orders stacks.
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Still afloat outside the building, Homura fortunately does not really need a hand getting out! She's just going to fly a birth further away to get a good view of the building going off. No use missing a good explosion, and she's always interesting in seeing how other people do it. She'll take notes, see how Princess rigged the place up. Always something to learn.
- Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"Oh, I could hold it for a bit, but it's... Yeah. Let's get out of here." Fiora agrees after a moment, feeling the strain of holding an effect like 'the building IGNORES CAUSALITY' for any real amount of time. And then, thanks to ACCELLERATION... She's outside! Hooray!
She fingerguns at Ariel. "Hey, kiddo. Good job on all that stuff. I should be cribbing your notes. I'm kind of... Well, a little useless usually. Not that helping out in a passive way is bad. It's just the kind of thing that gets you skipped in stained glass windows." She jokes, a big grin on her face. "So, what was the damage? One building, four helicopters, good guys win, bad guys get rekt?"
- Samael (455) has posed:
Everybody gets out in time! This is helped by everyone's abstractums working overtime to make sure everyone gets out, because what happened next would've surely been nasty.
Just as soon as everyone's out, a huge spout of flame, seemingly coming from the bottom of the building, tore through the entire skyscraper, coring the building from the inside out. The flame erupted from the roof, forming a very impromptu chimney as it flared, before quickly dying out. Molten slag and concerete was visible everywhere, and needless to say, there was more than a little debris thrown every which way.
Just as the Major was beginning to congratulate his team though, the characters suddenly burst through the entire enviroment, deconstructing it and leaving everyone where they stood originally.
- Psyber (253) has posed:
"Man, what a bummer. That simulation was awesome and just getting to the good part," Psyber grouses as he reappears in the same spot as before, looking around and crossing his arms, "Now I'll never get to find out what the Captain thought of me."
Then a more serious expression comes over his face, brow furrowing, "These fragments are interesting, but I dislike how incomplete they are. They're..." He scratches at his head, "It's disjointed. Like taking pieces out of the middle of a film and trying to discern the plot from 2 minutes in the middle or the end."
He looks to Homura, "I guess someone should report to Samael with what we found in them."
- Ariel (219) has posed:
"Even if they're incomplete," Ariel points out, "We've learned a lot about previous cycles. It looks like Abstractum-users operated a lot like Union Elites do for us. Special operatives that have some independence."
- Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Yeah, yeah. Claire, format all that into a nice video for Samael. Is there anything left in that Fragment for us to see or are we going to have to go hunting for more pieces?"
Homura then turns to Ariel and hms. "Seems so, but that's not too surprising so far. Abstractum Users are fated to band together sooner or later, by design. I was hoping for more, but... can't be helped. We might need more pieces."
- Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"I think... I think we're going to need more! I think we're going to need some more excursions out into Unshift... B-but, there's some stray data I can work with, I might be able to reconstruct another! Just... Just give me some time, Miss Akemi! I'll see what I can do!" Claire says, back to Homura.
Adjudicator speaks up with a soft sort of tone, to Psyber. "They wiped out all the relevant information. All the more reason to hate Them. Even the stories our predacessors left behind were burned as best They could."
