687/Slice of Life

Slice of Life
Date of Scene:	27 September 2014
Location:	Urbania
Synopsis:	Another page is on the loose, and this time Black Lodge sends one of its stronger Anticross after it.
Cast of Characters:	2, Arthur Lowell, Staren, 135, 176, 219, 253, 274, 545
Tinyplot:	Project C

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Herbert West (274) has posed:
ARKHAM CITY is all repaired again! They're really good at that. Plus last time the damage wasn't all that great anyway! It's gotten the police a little more willing to let people interfere... and this has lead to an interesting development.

Officers NESS and STONE are here, guiding the evacuees out of the city sector. Stone is yelling, of course. "MOVE ALONG QUIETLY! There are enough room in the busses for everyone! ORDERLY AND QUIET!" Siiigh.

Ness is atop a police cruiser, with a pair of binoculars, scanning the air and looking for any sign of what's causing the disturbance. Got to make sure people are safe if it comes this way.

He doesn't have long to wait. As the Union(and others) arrive, another building EXPLODES from the side, and a brief glimpse of a windmilling, slender and long object can be seen, before it carves a furrow in the street, slices a parked armored car in half, and slices into the far building.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    'Dear Fat-stur,

    When you find this note, please make your way to Arkham City at your earliest convenience. Also please make pulled pork for dinner tonight. Also I stole your stash of candy. The candy is yours, you work for me, therefore by the transitive property it was my candy anyway.

Signed,
    Psyber'

    This was the note that Psyber left on Hastur's face while she was taking a nap. She'll get the message eventually and have a hook in later.

    Psyber, on the other hand, is overtly using his Union rank to arrange participation in the laziest manners he possibly can. This means he requisitioned, today, a helicopter to pick him up from the roof of his building and fly him to Arkham. And it's that helicopter that he's hopping out of with a big ziplock bag partially filled with various candies.

    The candy will get tossed to Lila the moment he sees her.

    The half-angel will be getting right back on that helicopter as it takes off, intent upon having it follow after the source of the disturbance while Psyber takes potshots at it with a sniper rifle.

Staren has posed:
    The Star Hawk, a 40 ft tall humanoid robot that can turn into a plane, steps out of the warpgate, and then kneels nearby. Staren is not entirely sure this won't become a giant robot battle, so he's ready, /just in case/. The cockpit in the chest opens up and Staren flies out on orange energy-wings, wearing his combat armor. The cockpit closes behind him, before today's bad guy, or any mischievous civilians, can get any funny ideas.

    Soon he has a map of the city with the damaged buildings marked on his HUD, so he flies that way!

Lila (545) has posed:
    Lila is indeed here, on the roof of a building and talking to a... small, dark-haired girl in glasses, about her own age. They are eating tacos.

    "Well, 'Lila,' I think I will pick a different spot to watch. Enjoy your little games," she's saying, munching on the taco. "It has been entertaining, so unpredictable. Not long now."

    Lila catches the candy and flashes a pleasant smile to Psyber, then waves to the dark-haired girl who just walks over to the fire escape nearby and vanishes. "Oh, I'm thinking things may be more different than you think~"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura is on that helicopter.

    She looks like she slept in and hasn't taken the time to do her hair before fumbling in there. At least she's dressed. Looks like black pants and a purple shirt. She has a bottle of energy drink in one hand and is trying her best not to be bothered by the sound the rotors are making. Or, you know, the rest of the helicopter.

    "Psyber, what gods did you piss off for us never to have a day off?"

    She is not helping yet.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    ARTHUR LOWELL is here! He's blasting towards the site of the sliced building, a rocket broom below him and a metallic, industrial-looking broom in one hand, held in a white-knuckle reverse grip. His arrival is very thoroughly announced by the fact that he screams his way towards the site of the huge slice. What he has to say is, of course, the usual hot-blooded shouts, but there's a bit of proper dialogue in that yell there.

    "Alright you INCISING SON OF A BITCH! SETTLE your shit or it's about to get SETTLED FOR YOU!" So, there's a BIG WINDMILLING OBJECT slinging around cutting stuff up. Is that the book monster? Maybe. Arthur's not going to rule anything out yet, but it wouldn't really be very fitting. He slams into the ground in the gash carved up by that passing object, disrupting the dusty trail it left behind... If there's any further disturbance from the source of that projectile(?) he's going to RUSH IN and intend to start deploying MAXIMUM BEATINGS, swinging the metal broom in his offhand around with tremendous force. Of course, if what he guesses is the projectile is actually the page in question, he'll be dashing off after that instead!

    Either way, NO TIME TO WASTE. He just gets right to trying to get in a fight immediately, without actually stopping to see more details about what he's getting in a fight with.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Incoming from a different angle, Ariel is flying in at high speed... higher than before! She's learning to use this Magius Form and the wings pretty well, by now, and zooming in along the ground she buzzes the policemen in a little swirl of air, streaking over toward the area of trouble. She stalls in midair, landing atop the sliced car and looking for where the page monster may have gone. "Nnn... maybe we can make a tactical prediction?"

And Arthur is there! "AH! Arthur, please be careful! We don't know what it is yet!"

Al Azif (135) has posed:
    As Ariel is here, so is Al Azif! She is in tiny form on Ariel's head again, and peering over at... Lila. "Who is THAT girl...?" But she doesn't have time to worry about it too much, because there's a more immediate problem of her rampaging pages. And she recognizes this one!

    "It's the Scimitar of Barzai! Just stay out of its way and try to go at it from the side!" She shouts to Arthur. The others, too.

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Ness tells Stone, "See? The little hero-girl is here again."

"You mean the VIGILANTE UNICORN CHILD!"

Siiigh. Ness shoves his cap down and motions to some civilians, "Keep moving, keep moving."

Elsa lands nearby with a SLAM of metal feet into the asphalt, carrying a giant cannon of some kind. "Spell Cannon: Online," she says in a robotic tone... and then she SQUEALS like a little girl. "Ah! Darling is being a HEROIC INDIVIDUAL robo! Be careful, Darling! This could be the time you are meant to be taught a lesson on rushing in, robo! Are you ready for the humiliating defeat that will cause you to question our worthiness as romantic partners before you find your own strength and return triumphantly-robo?"

While Elsa is rambling, the scimitar buzzsaws away, and slices through another building! The one that Lila is sitting upon... which begins to topple toward Elsa, because NONE OF THIS CAN EVER BE SIMPLE!

On the upside, Arther is so aggressive that as the scimitar slashes out the other side, he can aim a good poke at it with his broom from the side if he wishes. Unless he wants to save his not-girlfriend instead.

Lila (545) has posed:
    Lila's building is suddenly in a bad place! Oh no!

    The girl SCREAMS and flails her arms, dropping some of the candy, and begins to tumble to her death like the completely normal and helpless young girl she most assuredly is.

Staren has posed:
    Staren is already flying around roof-level, so when he sees one of the buildings starting to fall with Lila on it, he makes a beeline for her, trying to snatch her off the roof before the building falls all the way over.

    Elsa is an elite and a robot. She can probably handle having a building dropped on her, right?

    Assuming no further complications, Staren asks where to take Lila over the radio, and then flies her that way.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "You realize this is a pretty average work week for me, right?" Psyber says to Homura as he hangs out the side of the helicopter, "Sunday I stop a city invasion, Monday Nathan and I bicker pettily in an 8 hour argument, mid-week social gathering for business purposes, meet with a Union Traitor on Thursday, Friday we play a deathgame and Saturday we deal with weird Eldritch shit. I think tomorrow I have some shit scheduled too. Really, I just put in 84 hour work weeks. Frankly, I think it's admirable I have time to grade papers and plan curriculum for you."

    He shrugs a bit and then smiles, "And off to the job we go." He notes, jumping out of the helicopter. The half-angel takes a few moments to assess the situation before deciding on a course of action. He drops down IN FRONT of the buzzsawing page (or tries to) and then would attempt to let it run into him so he can catch it and stop its movement. Probably while injuring himself pretty majorly. But it will create an opening for people to hit the thing, so that's a small tradeoff for him.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur is slowly building up an ability to not be thrown into a complete and utter mental tailspin every time Elsa comes crashing into these situations with romantic insinuations, which means he gets a bit awkward about this rushing but doesn't absolutely flail. So as he does, he's yelling back awkwardly to Elsa! "J-jeeze! Little pessimistic! It's worked out for me so far, I don't think we're gonna-- Shit!!" Arthur hard-stops by venting all his inertia in one burst as he sees the building tumbling towards him, and towads Elsa. His broom immediately swaps for the rocket one in his hand and he harshly blasts back towards the rambling Elsa.

    A lesser-known fact about Arthur's class of Mage of Space is that his hyperactive mind has incredible kinematic instinct, allowing him to observe and assess the falling building as it crumbles and effectively dodge around any rubble that may be jumping the gun. He blasts his way to Elsa, intending to grab her up in whatever way is most immediately convenient - which should turn out predictably in line with some awful idea Elsa has about situations like this, coincidentally - and blast his way through and around the building as he goes, gracefully dodging the architecture on pure instinct.

    Obviously this means no end of potential insinuations to be made, since Elsa could probably have handled that on her own, but nobody's made them just yet!

Ariel (219) has posed:
Elsa is rescued: Check

Lila is rescued: Check

For once, Ariel can actually concentrate on the spell page monster! Wow!

"Ah... Al, I have an idea!" She swoops in closer to where Psyber is tanking the scimitar, hopefully giving her a few moments of an opening to do what she wants here. And what she wants is pretty simple: drawing on Al's knowledge and her own prodigious magical power, she gestures toward the spinning sword with her tail... and the tuft of silvery hairs at the end blossoms out into numerous shimmering strands of hair that seek to wrap around the scimitar's hilt.

"ATLACH-NACHA!"

Al Azif (135) has posed:
    "I wonder...?" Al says distractedly, paying attention to something else entirely. Hey, she's not really up for combat right now, since she's a tiny little thing clinging to Ariel's body!

    When Ariel casts the spell, she finally looks up, surprised at the use of the tail. "Oh... that's pretty clever. Good job, Ariel."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Ugh."

    Homura chugs down her MORNING RESCUE and sighs.

    She is absolutely not going to get in that buzzsaw's path though. This helicopter is nice. She might just... hm.

    Side-glance.

    SUDDENLY a minigun turret is firing at the buzzsaw.
    If it was not part of the helicopter's loadout, it is now.

    This seems all-around more effective for the time being.

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Lila is saved by Staren! Hooray! Ness and Stone will be fine taking her in, though Ness will comment, "Huh, every time she comes around she brings new allies. How many of these things are there?"

Elsa is SWEPT UP in Arthur's arms! Her reaction is somewhat predictable: clinging tightly as she and her hero burst through the other side of the crumbling building, and blathering some nonsense. Today's? "Ah, Darling! You overcame your natural rage by seeing me in danger, robo! Now we can fight as a team with our love fueling an unstoppable power, robo!"

So yeah.

The scimitar isn't powerful enough to kill Psyber, but he is made of flesh and bone. It will cleave through an arbitrary amount, possibly badly, but it slows minutely enough that Ariel's entrapment wraps threads of hair around the hilt, freezing it in place for a moment. This is long enough for numerous bullets to slam into it from the side, shattering it into a flurry of pages. Now's the time to seal it, Al!

But there is now another COMPLICATION.

Down the street, quite a distance, is a young elfin girl stepping into view. Calm and silent at first, she watches the fight going on and the collapsing buildings. ( )

A few moments later, stepping up behind her, is a large man with a walking cane. ( ) The man considers what is happening, and then bellows out in a deep voice, "Congratulations! An excellent performance! Now Al Azif is nearly complete. Would you all be so kind as to hand her over?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    That arbitrary amount would turn out to be 'a lot' as the sword cleaves in through jacket, bone and flesh, about halfway into his torso before finally being stopped. All around Psyber's feet is a pooling mass of blood. When the sword is subdued he wobbles a bit and then shakes his head, "Jesus. Twice in one month with this cleaving in half shit," He remarks coughing up some blood which then seeps from the corners of his mouth.

    He takes a sticky step forward and then slowly turns around, trying to get his bearings. It's a pretty gruesome sight to see the huge cleaved section of Psyber that runs from collar to the center of his sternum, "'scuse me?" He asks, blinking a few times.

    "Look, I've lost a LOT of blood here, but I'm pretty sure the answer is gonna be 'no'." He then smiles and gestures at himself, "But as you can see..." Psyber reaches into his coat and puts on his Cirn-glasses, "I'm a bit divided on this issue."

Staren has posed:
    Staren deposits Lila with the police. "These things?" For a moment, he thought they were referring to her allies... then he realizes they meant the page monsters. He shrugs, and flies back towards the fight. Hmm. If he could get a clear look at the monster for even a moment, maybe he could use homing missiles...

    Oh hey, they've got it. Although man that sure does look painful for Psyber. Staren vaguely recalls that Psyber has regeneration powers, though. So that'll be okay.

    But now someone's demanding they hand Al Azif over. What?

    Psyber responds first. "Ooh! Good one!" Staren points at Psyber after he makes his glasses-enhanced pun.

    Then Staren turns towards the pair and lands. "Seriously, though? Do you /seriously/ think we're gonna hand our friend over? Why? Why on /Earth/ would you think that? Wait, no, hang on, that prompt was just /begging/ you to like, summon a giant monster and go 'THIS is why, bwa ha ha!' So, can we not do that? I mean... between us," he waves a hand at the other combatants here, "I'm sure we've fought too many giant monsters to count. And also not-giant monsters, if you were gonna suddenly get all glowy and shoot death beams at us. So, given we can handle stuff like that, do you /still/ think there's a reason for us to hand her over?"

Lila (545) has posed:
    Lila, as usual, takes a seat in safety. Swinging her legs off the edge of the cop car, she tears off a piece of her still-held taco and offers it to Ness. "Oh, this should be good."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Well, that's that.
    Now they can go home and god damnit.

    Homura sighs, letting go of the turret. She really liked it, too. Another time, maybe. She hops out of the helicopter, blurs, and then just kind of appears by Psyber. She is now wearing her Puella Magi outfit, but is completely unarmed as she tends to appear.

    She does not say anything because Psyber already covered it wonderfully. She'd hit him with a newspaper but she doesn't have one on her. Also he'd give her extra homework or something. Truly a torture that she can't be a pain to him for entertainment anymore.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel lets Al handle sealing the pages, which leaves her to... OH COME ON! The little unicorn sighs, whipping about and then doing something that is very, very strange for her.

She cracks her knuckles.

"I'm going to guess you're another Anticross," she says slowly. "And because I'm nice, I'm going to tell you that you should just walk away. We won't ever agree to this, just like we won't hand over Lila. I don't care what you want with either of them, they're my family now. And nobody, NOBODY is going to mess with them, okay?" She gives her brightest smile. "So you can give up all right? I don't like to get violent, but you guys are... kind of making me a little frustrated by now. I'm thinking about maybe getting mad."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur predictably snaps out of his Heroism Trance when Elsa starts babbling about how his love is fueling something or another and nearly trips, though he makes sure not to drop her. "G-gah, Elsa! I wasn't even... Augh!" he makes a few helpless noises and looks like he'd be wringing his hands if they weren't full of robot girlfriend.

    When he does finally set Elsa down, it'll be after rocketing to a position that sets himself between the positions of Al Azif and her pages, and that new guy who's apparently asking them to turn Al over. After setting down he resumes a more combat-ready stance - probably prompting Elsa to do the same in a nice partnering-up sort of look - before he calls out in a friendly, surprisingly casual way.

    "COOL PROPOSITION BRO! Just, run it by us again, what's OUR motive for that? Like, specifically why should Ariel WANT to be doin' that? I don't think we've gotten this EXPLANATION yet." Despite the casual friendly tone, Arthur's clearly interposed himself between the vaguely threatening-looking guy and Al's business with the last pages there.

Al Azif (135) has posed:
    "Decipher Aethyrs encryption. Overwrite program. Return to thy true form." Al is back to her normal size again, dispelling Ariel's Magius form... for now. The pages whistle around her and merge with her body again, with a faint shimmering glow... and she glances at the newcomer with a sigh. Well, Psyber is injured, but all the others are more support than she's used to.

    "Ariel...?" Ariel getting frustrated has her tilting her head, with a slight blush on her cheeks. "Really?"

    Oh right. The Sorcerer. "The Book of Eibon..."

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Elsa hops down without any trouble, and holding out her hand, the giant Spell Cannon zips right back into her arms again. "Else does not like Vespasianus, robo." This is unusual, since she never really states much about like or dislike, normally, aside from when talking about Arthur. She's also put on a more determined face.

Vespasianus, as his name seems to be, clucks his tongue. "Because she is ours, and destined to be ours. Keeping her back only delays the inevitable, and makes an enemy of us when you could simply be a non-entity."

Somewhere, watching this, Master Therion sighs and rubs his temples, since he's actually studied the Multiverse a little. But back to the present...

"As for why you should... my friends here say so. Galva, Otho, and Vitelius!" He gestures with his cane as the ground shakes, and three gigantic forms erupt in a triangular pattern around the city center. They aren't Deus Machina... they're just plain /giant beings/ one hundred feet or more in height, though they aren't exactly humanoid. More like giant pillars with faces.

"And when we control everything in this world, we will remember your cooperation," Vespasianus says calmly. At least he seems aware there are other worlds.

Staren has posed:
    The mysterious evil dude summons giant monsters.

    "SEE?! I TOTALLY CALLED IT!" Staren shouts, while activating his teleporter. He points at the man and the elf-girl. "You are totally cliche villains, you hear that?" A few seconds later, he disappears in a flash of light.

    Seconds later, the Star Hawk takes to the skies in the plane-with-limbs GERWALK configuration. It raises its missile gunpod and fires three minimissiles, one of which tracks towards each of the giant monsters, programmed to airburst just before impact in an attempt to turn a large section of them to charcoal.

    Staren doesn't actually expect it to be that easy, but this seems like a good way to see what defenses they have.

    "BUT I CAME PREPARED!"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Psyber wants the big gun.

    Homura idly waves her hand and the GAU-8 Avenger appears out of thin air on the ground next to Psyber. Considering it is a large gatling gun larger than a car, it is hard to miss.

    "I've read that they are up to the GAU-19 now. I wonder how much those go for and if they've significantly improved over time or not," she comments, having not done the full research. Maybe Psyber has. As for her personal impressions of the man, girl, his three gigantic friends and their demands, she seems to be neutral and uncaring. It's not like there was ever a question of whether or not they'd hand Al Azif over.

    Her own attention is mostly on Vespasianus himself, though. She has a handgun in her hand suddenly; there's a bright red diamond on its grip. "So you fancy yourself a conqueror? Can you back those words up personally, or is it all up to your three friends?"

    She also fires, though, a few bullets aimed for the large man's chest. The ROMANOV'S END is no ordinary gun, in RPG terms having unusually high stats, and bonus damage against royalty, although that might not matter in this case. She's just using it because it hurts.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "GAU-19 sucks ass. It's just a .50 Cal Humvee Turret. The real money is on the GAU-8, which is still so big that it displaces the plane shooting it and can cause a terminal loss of velocity if fired too long." Psyber says, digging his feet into the ground and looking at the gun next to him. He rubs his hands together and then bends over to pick it up and hoist it with a grunt of effort. Lifting it is pretty amazing considering it weighs over 4 tons when you include ammunition system.

    Carefully, Psyber puts a pair of earmuffs over his ears to not damage his hearing and then hoists up the gun at one of the hundred-foot-tall giant beings that are terrorizing the city. Then he pulls the trigger.

    The roar of the 30 mm cannon is cataclysmic in the city as the GAU-8 fires a scything line of depleted uranium rounds at a terrifying 4000 rounds per minute. He aims a smooth upward line, trying to bisect the giant being with sheer ballistic numerism. Of course, the act of firing it is also slowly pushing him back down the street, inch by inch, digging a line in the asphault where his feet are dug in.

Lila (545) has posed:
    Lila finishes off the taco she is eating. "Hmm..."

    The other young girl is next to her again, also swinging her legs as she sits on the police cruiser. "Are you really going to get involved?"

    Lila replies with a shrug, "Maybe a /little/ because Vespasianus is a jerk."

    She flops back on the hood of the car. "That should do it."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Yeah, I'm KINDA not likin' him TOO." Arthur says, frankly. And then he grits his teeth grimly as the huge, misshapen forms rise out of the ground. His hands take a particularly white-knuckled grip on the broom and he makes a dismissive "tch" noise.

    "MOTHERFUCKER, if THAT'S all you got to offer me about some WORLD DOMINATION SCHEME, I'm about to give you something you won't EVER be able to FORGET!" He says, brashly and loudly! Despite the fact that THESE threats seem MUCH more likely to potentially crush his squishy-caster body. There's a glance to Ariel when she makes her suggestion over the radio, and Arthur glances off to the side at Elsa, and West by proxy, though he seems to not be nearby himself.

    He's agreed, over radio, and taken a ready stance to go along with whatever Herbert West has set up to bring out Demonpain, eager to get into fighting but wary of the size of these enemies.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel has no idea that Lila is doing something, if she is doing something. "FINE! Giant things? Then we'll just use Demonbane! AL! I call upon Demonbane! The Innocent Blade!"

Ariel must be really annoyed by now, she's being kind of dramatic. Even so, she clutches Diea at her neck. "Make sure that we prioritize keeping anything from escaping the evacuated area! I want him taken down without ANY injuries to civilians!"

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Elsa nods to Arthur! "Teaming up! Summon Destroyer Robot: Type 28DX. DEMONPAIN ONLINE!"

There's a loud whistling noise, growing into a shriek of an incoming meteor.

Out of the sky, a massive COFFIN slams into the ground, sending ripples along the street from the impact. Steam jets from the front, and it folds open to reveal a replica of Demonbane, ready for action!

Hastur (176) has posed:
    Suddenly, there's a crackling burst of yellow energy right beside Psyber that quickly manifests itself into a very annoyed, glaring Hastur.

    "You are the /worst/, I swear," she snaps, though the earmuffs and the rapid firing of a gigantic gun are probably hindering his ability to hear her scathing huffing. Crimson eyes flit over his form for a minute before she simply crosses her arms and turns off toward the horrible monstrosity attacking the city. Her frown grows confused for a moment as she tries to take in exactly what this /thing/ is, but...well, it seems like everyone's looking to destroy the abomination, so she probably doesn't have to worry much about that.

    The King in Yellow breathes a slow, annoyed sigh, grumbling something under her breath as she looks around her. She's not too interested in using her magic if she can help it, but there are plenty of vehicles nearby! That should do the trick for now.

    The smallest consolation is that Hastur makes sure said vehicles aren't occupied before her telekinesis takes hold of them. She simply looks at four unoccupied cars in particular before they float up into the air and promptly speed toward what appears to be the head of the giant thing. Mostly a test of weaknesses at the moment, but also an excuse to be lazy.

Al Azif (135) has posed:
    Al hears the summoning of Demonbane by Ariel, but she starts and glances back. "Ariel, wait! Something has just insert itself into the weapon guidance routines to-"

    Too late! With a rippling explosion of displaced air, DEMONBANE appears beside the giant coffin. Fists clench as it readies, and the shimmering of magical circles surround Ariel and Al to place them into the massive war machine.

    What changes this time is first: the Scimitar of Barzai appears! In a flash of light, the scimitar in mecha-size is now in Demonbane's right hand, ready for battle! Al sits down at her control console and calls out, "The Scimitar focuses your magical power in addition to being, well, a sword! You can use it for you spells and lighting, but-"

    She pauses. "Control routines have been added for the Ithaqua pages, but they don't seem harmful..."

    Indeed, in Demonbane's left hand, a frosty shield of ice appears, forming a circular barrier between it and the giants. The temperature drops several degrees at once as Al puts through Ariel's orders: in the form of a wall of ice slamming down from all directions, sealing off the evacuated sector of the city from the rest of it.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    A few dramatic flips of the broom later and Arthur's casting his own space transmission powers into himself, intending to join Elsa and West(?) within the machine. He figures that, however this thing was designed, there'll be a part that he can jump into and start pumping out power! He knows what's up here. Can't use Al Azif for a powersource, so Ariel's idea is for him to be one, of course! And that's what he's planning on doing!

    "WEST! Ready to DROP THE SICK JAM on this son of a bitch, let's see how DEMONPAIN works when it's powered by THIS! Where y'need me?!"

    He'll go wherever he's needed, and immediately begin gushing huge volumes of magical power into the machine with a rising, intense battlecry! Plenty for Elsa to work with, and ideally it should be enough power to pull off at the very least some of West's basic combat maneuvers! "I've got the real PORTAL GIMMICKS and TELEPORTATION SHIT up for dropping WHENEVER YOU NEED TOO, just gimmie a CALL OUT!"

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Staren's Star Hawk swoops in with missiles! He'll find that the giants, each of them, are tougher than they seem! That said, his missiles blast massive chunks from the strangely-shaped being, causing it to groan and lean over. Tendrils, massive and fast, whip out to try to entangle the Star Hawk in powerful, crushing grip. But the GAU-8 is soon ripping apart the injured giant, forcing it to start to dematerialize.

A second giant is dealt with by HASTUR, who hurls cars at it with abandon. The police may have something to say about this, but they're now behind an ice wall! We'll get to that in a moment. Tentacles shoot out and swat three of the cars away with casual motions, but the fourth slams right into the head, causing the giant creature to lean dangerously away, its FACE on FIRE. That has to hurt.

Vespasianus is shot twice, bullets cutting through him and causing him to look startled at the pain they cause, as if he'd expected them to bounce off. He's not used to dealing with people of this level of power, and Homura is... actually stronger than him, though he doesn't realize it. "UGH!" But the other shots are blocked, ricocheting off a massive metal leg that slams down suddenly. In a moment, Vespasianus has vanished into his own Deus Machina appearing in the street: the Cykranosh ( )

This isn't going to end well for him anyway, because Demonpain is already attacking, and likely Demonbane as well. "Above him, Robo!" "AHAHAHA!" West is apparently here now? And trying to slam a reality-warping foot down atop the Cykranosh.

Vespasianus is shouting, "Where did that shield come from?! That isn't one of her spells!"

Lila (545) has posed:
    Lila is now behind the ice wall and out of sight. Nobody can see her looking smug.

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Also, the third giant has been left unmolested, and thus... responds! Tendrils shoot out from it, lashing out at Psyber, Homura, and Demonbane. Hastur... almost gets attacked, but they seem to sense something weird is up there, so they balk a moment and are a little easier to dodge.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Well shit! He's got a mech!" Psyber says, tossing the gun to the side with a heavy thud. He rolls away from the tentacle that comes at him, trying to avoid the lash. He rolls and then throws off his earmuffs, "Uh... shit, what did that kid say. Uhm, uhm..."

    Psyber thinks back to when he met Claudius.

    Psyber holds his hand to the sky and shouts, "IA, IA! HASTUR! I summon thee... Deus Machina of the Skies, LORD BYAKHEE!"

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel is now in control of the Demonbane!

==> Pick up Arms

Ariel now has a sword and shield! Great! "Uh... well, all right!" With Demonpain launching into the air like that, Ariel opts for something different! The ground beneath her shatters as her leg-shields fire off, causing a spacial distortion the launches her forward at high speed. Tentacles smash into one arm, but the ice shield blocks another, and with a quick slice, she slashes off the ones grasping at Demonbane.

But her goal is to reach the four-legged Deus Machina and teach the Anticross a lesson in what it means to threaten her friends. "Stay away from my daughter!" SLASH! "Stay away from my book!" SLASH! "Stay away from my friends!" SLASH!

"AND GET OUT OF THIS CITY!"

The three quick slashes are followed up by a small surge in the magic circuits of the Demonbane, sending a cascade of power down and causing crackling lightning to run through the Scimitar of Barzai, aiming that final slash at the side of the Deus Machina, in an attempt to slash open the top above the cockpit.

Hastur (176) has posed:
    A lashing tendril strikes out at Hastur, but a combination of the beast's uncertainty and Hastur's alertness fortunately spare her. A quick rush to the side keeps her well away from the assault once it hits, and her attention turns to the giant that struck out at her. A small smile plays over her lips as she raises her hand. "What, are /you/ going to finally be someone to respect me? Very well, then, I-"

    Suddenly her expression turns to outright confusion as Psyber shouts nearby. She blinks, then turns her head to stare at him with a look of baffled incredulity for a moment before her fingertips start to glow a radiant yellow.

    A golden portal appears over Psyber a moment later, from which emerges...a byakhee! Too many legs, a carrion-eater's beak mixed with gnashing pincers, too many eyes, batlike wings, a body dripping necrotic fluid. The rhino-sized abomination lands right next to Psyber and releases a vaguely human scream.

    Hastur, meanwhile, shrugs to Psyber, every inch of her practically screaming 'what the fuck did you want me to do?'

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura did not expect the man to just accept being shot. Or for it to work right away, really. Maybe she should stop having so high expectations of people in this world. She wouldn't, of course, because that'd just be reckless and dangerous, but it's a stray thought.

    She leaps back as the man brings forth his GIANT ROBOT. Then the Demonpain 'steps in'. That's fortunate, because she's not sure she wanted to fight a giant robot. She could! Doesn't mean she really enjoys the idea.

    And heres the Demonbane too.

    Was Ariel always that vicious?

    Oh, and tentacles. Good thing they're huge and easy to see coming; Homura doesn't waste any time and just sort of warps off the ground and onto a rooftop overlooking the battle. One of those buildings not slashed yet, anyway. She decides not to interfere with the giant robot battle, and instead a few rockets appear out of thin air to streak towards the giant that attacked her.

    There's about half a dozen, mostly their strength is precision and the fact they just kind of show up. Homura's going to stay where she is with her arms crossed and not visually do anything.

Al Azif (135) has posed:
    Al frowns as Ariel just... lays down the pain. Not that she blames her, though... and she does notice that Ariel has avoided the cockpit. Well, killing the sorcerer would be quicker, but probably not what Ariel really wants.

    And if it means Ariel is still the same peaceful sort she is, that's fine with her, she realizes.

    "You're going to need a lot more than that tin can of a Deus Machina to stand up to all of us!"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber looks at the byakhee in some mild disappointment. He frowns at it and then looks at Hastur, "Alright, later we're going to find the version of Hastur that gives mechs, jump him in an alley, and take that power."

    The actual byakhee, he just waves at vaguely, "Go... finish off the pilot in that machine. Or hold him down and drool on him, I don't care. Dealer's choice." He says with a bit of a disgusted tone to his voice before waving it off to go do its duty.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "SHIT YEAH, HERE WE GO! Let's DO IT, DOC!" Arthur's FULL OF GUSTO; the high volume of magical power being pumped through the Demonpain is likely to give it an alternating black-and-white glow, and Arthur's gravity and space powers are going to grant it as much sheer space-warping power as Elsa can regulate, offering all sorts of teleportation and gracity alteration options.

    As for Arthur himself, he's probably up above West now and doing his absolute god damndest to avoid any weird social things suddenly breaking his stride. For now, that means getting one hundred percent into gushing power into this thing. He's not doing much yelling about it, but he's trying to match Al Azif pound-for-pound in terms of magical power output, if he can, even if it's a different kind of magic.

    "I /TOLD/ you you're gonna REMEMBER US PROPERLY you DUMB SON OF A BITCH, and it sure won't be because Ariel ROLLED THE FUCK OVER and GAVE YOU AL! Got MORE THAN ENOUGH PALS with MORE THAN ENOUGH FIREPOWER here to deal with YOUR SHITTY 'FRIENDS'! So BACK OFF, bro, unless YOU want US turning YOU into a 'NON-ENTITY' here, 'cause I'mma 'bout to OPEN that TIN CAN and serve up EVERY OUNCE OF ASS IN THERE for a HISTORICAL GODDAMN KICKING."

    It's all unpleasant and such, and completely ignoring that this guy could probably have taken Arthur pretty harshly in a one-on-one fight, so it is best to consider it the hot air trash-talk that it is. But Arthur is known, very well-known at this stage, for pointless trash-talk.

Staren has posed:
    Actually? That's better than Staren expected. He figured they'd have crazy magic shields or something. Just having loads of hit points, /that/ he can deal with.

    And he's about to, when he gets grabbed! "Hey!"

    Staren fires all the non-missile weapon systems point-blank, including activating the beam sabers. The giant dissipates, though, leaving Staren's machine with cracks and the occasional warp in his armor. It's a lot smaller than the other machines here, so he's got to watch out for that!

    Now, though, Staren glances over his weapons, mentally commanding and targeting missile salvos.

WEAPONS STATUS: OK
GATLING RAILGUN: OK
SRM POD: 3/3 OK LIGHT HE
BEAM SABERS: OK OK
HOMING LASERS: OK TARGET LOCKED: VEHICLE
LEFT WING POD    15/15    15/15    15/15    15/15 OK PLASMA MINI TARGET LOCKED: MONSTER 1
RIGHT WING POD    15/15    15/15    15/15    15/15 OK PLASMA MINI TARGET LOCKED: MONSTER 2
GUNPOD OK MULTIMISSILE
-AP MICRO    18/18 OK 25/25 RELOAD TARGET LOCKED: VEHICLE
-PLASMA MINI    7/7 OK     3/6.. RELOAD TARGET LOCKED: MONSTER 1+2
-AP MINI    7/7 OK     11/11 RELOAD TARGET LOCKED: VEHICLE
MMM ANNIHILATOR STANDBY
ANTI-WIRELESS RAILGUN STANDBY

    With a thought, Staren fires (almost) ALL THE MISSILES, dozens of smoke trails curving through the sky. Over six dozen plasma minimissiles rain down on each giant, while the 'homing lasers' and a couple dozen missiles designed for penetrating armor and then exploding somewhat /less/ spectacularly attempt to ram into the giant crab machine mecha thing that just appeared.

    Staren's reasonably sure that either it will be the most difficult thing here, or this fight will be over very, very fast.

Herbert West (274) has posed:
Rockets slam into the undamaged giant, causing a shriek of pain and surprise. It isn't defeated immediately, but it's definitely hurt. There are too many high-power Elites to fight off all of them, especially with their Master being... well. Taken down. Badly.

Because the injured giants are swarmed with exploding middles, blasting across them as Staren unloads his full compliment. These manage to stagger and take them down when combined with all the others hitting them.

Staren is correct that the Cykranosh is much tougher than the giants though. Still, there's a problem that the Cykranosh has: it's being ganged up on by a Byakhee, homing lasers, and... two Deus Machina clones. The lasers and missiles pepper it and make it stagger a little, but it's definitely got more where that came from, and lashes out with ripples of concussive force, blasting buildings apart, and aiming toward the mecha mostly.

Demonpain slams down hard, though, with a powerful kick caving in the top of the machine, so strong that it crumples the armor. Arthur's teleport and sheer power give it a lot of strength!

The injured limbs are quickly taken care of, snicker-snack, by Ariel suddenly showing some vicious attacks that slice through the limbs, unable to defend themselves under the massive wave of attacks. How the insults affect the pilot is going to be hard to say, because that final lancing slash opens up the top outright, tearing away the armor to reveal the cockpit... and the flash of brilliant light that is Vespasianus deciding that maaaaybe he should initiate his secret spell: 'Get the fuck out of here.'

The Cykranosh collapses to the ground, various buildings around it in rubble but as Ariel wanted: zero casualties.

Herbert West (274) has posed:
The Demonpain shudders as one of the blasts hits it, but West just laughs it off! "Ahahaha! Wow! You're an even better power source than Al Azif's pages were! This is amazing!"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber takes off the sunglasses and presses a button on them. Cirno's voice rings out of it, "You fired one thousand one hundred and twelve shots. This is roughly the same as popular World War 2 drama Saving Private Ryan. You are a..." It pauses while calculating a proper assessment, "One man war. But you're not the strongest."

    "I guess Ariel's really growing up," Psyber remarks idly, watching the retreat and the finishing off with of that enemy machine, "I never thought I'd see the day when she'd start..." He puts the glasses back on, "Showing off her cleavage."

    Yeah.

Staren has posed:
    Staren makes a lot of explosions! It's a good thing the Union reimburses his weapon expenses.

    Staren watches the Cykranosh, not really paying attention to the giants -- he'd notice when the smoke clears if they survived, after all.

    He didn't expect his weaker missiles to finish it off, just demonstrate defenses... He figures the group fighting it collectively will be able to bring ample damage to bear. And they do! The concussive waves though, slam into the Star Hawk and send it tumbling through the air -- Staren changes modes to humanoid as he crashes to the street below, fortunately, thrusters took some of the edge off the fall.

    By the time he's made his way back towards the Cykranosh, it's... shut down? Staren scans it for anything that looks like a reactor overloading, then if it's safe, the Star Hawk leaps atop it for a closer look at that cockpit. "Hmmm. I wonder what we could learn about our enemies from studying this... do you think they left any useful data in it?"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura has acquired a newspaper since the last time she considered the flaw of not having one. Likely from a nearby convenience store.

    She baps Psyber on the head with it, having suddenly appeared next to him. "I'm going to confiscate those glasses if Hastur doesn't do it first as punishment."

Hastur (176) has posed:
    The byakhee is quick to do as it's told, flying off into battle with screeches, claws, beak, and mandibles! It's a valiant fighter, at least, though it's definitely no mech.

    Hastur, meanwhile, walks up to Psyber and reaches up to lightly smack him on the back of the head, conveniently moments after Homura's newspaper strikes. Her hands then come to rest on her hips as she looks at him with a grumpy leer. "That was terrible. And no, we are /not/ giving me mech summoning powers. I am perfect as I am."

    The Great Old One sighs, then, shaking her head and looking over to the wreckage of the Cykranosh. Her byakhee hovers over it, snarling and flapping its wings. "So that was the person claiming to do such brutish things in my name, was it? Well...looks as if he got away. What a chore." An annoyed frown settles on her face. Seems like this won't be the last time she comes over, then.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur flexes a bit just to punctuate that whole ordeal. "SHIT YES." He declares. "THAT WAS PRETTY RAD!" He's a little shaken; blasts from outside tend to make a lot of shaking for the pilots within, after all, but he seems mostly unharmed! "Let's do that AGAIN sometime! That was fuckin' KICKASS. Me helpin' out with THIS is the LEAST I can do since you guys are COOL HEROES these days." A quick thumbs-up to the West/Elsa pair, plus a nice grin.

    Then he decides to pass out a little bit, for a short while. He might have kinda overdone it for this little bit of action. But he'll probably be back really quick, just not used to all this clearly.

Ariel (219) has posed:
"Ehehe..." Ariel looks a little sheepish as things start to cool down. She's only now noticing the armor wrenched away by the giants, and the cracks along the front. "Ruri is gonna be mad again, isn't she?" The unicorn girl rubs her head from inside the cockpit, then mumbles, "Guess we should clean up a little bit."

She then pokes at the console. "How do we turn off the giant ice wall, anyway?"