1103/Madara vs Zwei

Madara vs Zwei
Date of Scene:	08 December 2014
Location:	TARGET: DBZ Zone 92
Synopsis:	Zwei tries to take a Target Zone for the Union, with Staren's help. Madara shows up to defend it. Or maybe he's just looking for a fight.
Cast of Characters:	Staren, 596, 651

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Zwei (596) has posed:
    The alerts come in fast and hard. Confederate outposts on the edge of Zone 92 light up their distress beacons one after the other as they are obliterated in quick succession, forming a straight, narrow line of high speed bombing destruction that breaches the defensive perimeter deep into the central territory. An arrow of white mist rockets past the steadily rising columns of black smoke on the horizon and banks into a wide, circling turn; casting the deafening roar of supersonic flight onto the ground below. A second trail splits from the first like a piece of debris, arcing through the air until it slams into the ground with a thundering crack. The flying object circles back around again, and rejoins the perimeter defense, weaving through anti-air fire as it resumes strafing the conventional forces in the distance.

    The object left behind in the impact crater reveals itself to be humanoid as it gets to its feet, clad in sleek, carbon black armour that emits a subtle green glow from specific points dotted along its plating. The faceplate is smooth and featureless, and also completely opaque, revealing no features underneath it. Twin radio signals emit from the pair, speaking in perfect unison; one a pleasant, female voice, and the other a scorching rumble more befitting of a demon. "Sorry about this. I have prior arrangements with the Union that demand I take one of these target zones. It is strictly professional. I hope you understand."

Staren has posed:
    A flash of light and a bright silhouette appears next to Weiss, before resolving into Staren in his armor, hands on his hips as he surveys the field. He doesn't really have much to add at the moment. Presumably confederate elites will be along shortly... and any non-elites already know the deal and are evacuating.

    And then he notices the swath of destruction and holds a hand to his helmet and sighs inwardly. "...You know, you can demand they evacuate instead of bombing them -- they're not going to fight you, it's the elite response you need to focus on..."

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
One of the benefits of possessing an immortal body with unlimited Chakra is that there is not a lot of down-time between one fight and another. Already, Madara Uchiha has recovered fully from the damage suffered facing off against Sakura Kinomoto and that unidentified... Spider... Guy. So when he hears of an attempt to retake one of the Target Zones, and an opportunity to engage in another battle, he is more than happy to see whether this opponent amuses him the way the others did - or if they will be more fodder like the ones he was practically just walking through before Elites showed up. He still intends to finish the job at the Rookery, but taking the target zone was never the real objective. He just wanted to see what all these other opponents could do.

And they could do quite a bit.

His expectations are still low, but that is fine. It just means the potential exists for him to be pleasantly surprised. Asche bombs the standard Confederate forces, and Weiss arrives to face the remainder, and then Staren appears out of a glowing light to fight alongside the latter.

Then someone else lands several-hundred feet in front of the pair.

He also craters the ground somewhat, but not too much. He has a long mane of spiked black hair hanging down to his waist, his face appears to have a seam in it, almost like pottery, though the rest of it is textured like flesh. His eyes are an inverted red-on-black coloration. His armor is red, and the rest of his garb black. He stands right where he is, and looks the faceless opponent in the... Approximation of an eye. So many opponents with protected vision. Though he is not certain he could influence what appears to be some form of Puppet with Genjutsu regardless. His Sharingan gaze travels to the side somewhat to take in the other opponent he will be facing.

Staren seems to also be mechanical or partially so, though that is more likely armor. The visor provides some degree of protection against Genjutsu as well, perhaps, but since Staren can both see Madara and be seen by him, he's still susceptible.

Madara has nothing to say it seems. At least at first. He just stands there, letting his arms hang at his sides. "Just you two, is it?" he calls out, though whether it will be heard at this distance or not seems not to matter.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Weiss turns to her power armoured temporary-ally with . . . well there's probably no effort wasted on a smile since she knows he can't see her face. "Nice to see you Staren!" She looks to Asche, streaking over the skyline in the distance, intermittently letting off little flashes of light that coincide with colossal fireballs rising from the ground. "Really? That seems kind of counterintuitive. It's not like they could even put a dent in Asche. Do you think general Hall would be upset about it? Using the Cavern is all I really care about." She speaks in such friendly tones it's almost easy to forget that she's talking about killing people. Maybe all that means is that she's an excellent mouthpiece for Zwei.

    Weiss can pick up Madara's voice easily, being the unit with the most sensor equipment. From the instant he is visible, she hits him with just about every scanning wavelength possible; even overdosing on the gamma and x-ray spectrums, sweeping over his body in precise beams to read his internals and energy signatures. It's not like it's Zwei's concern if he gets cancer or anything. "As far as I know!" She replies in affirmative. "You're free to surrender at any time! If you do, I'll stop fighting immediately!" She'd sound arrogant if she hadn't spoken those particular lines in an uncharacteristic, inflectionless tone. Not waiting for her opponent to make the first move, Weiss immediately raises her arm, flicking down her hand and opening the wrist guard of her armour. A bright flash is followed by a bolt of light streaking through the air at several times the speed of sound, aimed directly for Madara's center of mass. It small size and weak sound is deceptive. The first thing it hits will explode with the equivalent energy of 30 kilos of TNT.

Staren has posed:
    In truth, this is a test -- more than the target zone, the Union wants to gather data on Zwei's capabilities in case they ever have to fight her. Staren is not a tactician -- He won't be able to tell what strategy Zwei will use.

    But he can recognize the potential of any tech he understands the basics of. Even the really nasty possibilities his allies don't like thinking about. It's never been an asset yet, but hey, first time for everything, right?

    Staren watches Madara land. He doesn't recognize the ninja. He has no idea what he's in for.

    Staren nods as Weiss acknowledges him, then after a moment, shrugs. And mirrors Zwei's use of radio, because why not? <<I don't think he will be upset. It's war. It happens. But avoid it in the future. If someone like Nine showed up,>> he waves a hand to gesture at the battlefield, <<Or heard about this, he might try to massacre our civilians for revenge. Not that we won't fight him, but... He's likely to get /some/ before we catch him. The Union wants resources, not to provoke people.>> Staren frowns to himself. He didn't immediately think of the Nine problem, and he should have. Oh well, it's done now. Hopefully noone will go telling him or any other Feds likely to retaliate for this about this incident.

    Staren looks back to Madara and shrugs, holding his palms up to the sides. "That's for us to know and you to find out, isn't it?" Staren then in a swift motion aims his own forearm blaster and fires a couple of particle beam shots -- less penetrating and explosive than Zwei's.

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
From what Zwei would have been able to determine, there is... A lot of confusing stuff going on in Madara's body, and not a lot of it can probably be nailed down or defined. There's human tissue in there somewhere (MAYBE. Even that is anomalous), but everything about him seems to indicate he is simultaneously alive, dead, and neither. Possibly some form of undead, but even that may not match up to any past instances of interactions with undead. All in all, whatever he is, it seems to be both unnatural and tied to magical or supernatural forces of some kind.

Whatever he's made out of, Madara takes the laser strike right in the chest, and he seems not to even try to avoid it. Perhaps he underestimated it! A fatal mistake, possibly, since there is a huge explosion that follows afterwards. Dust and smoke go everywhere, and Staren's own shots also are thrown into the chaos at the center of ground zero. Only, unlike, Weiss's attack, they don't hit anything.

This is because Madara went airborne after the first attack. And as he emerges from the column of smoke, with a smoking hole on his chest armor that is already repairing itself, he has a hand held up to his mouth, making a ring-shape, and breathes out a small fireball at Weiss, and then two more in rapid succcession towards Staren. When he finally lands, he takes a moment to just straighten up and stand there again. After several long moments of just staring, he calls back to his opponents, "Very well then."

He will observe for now, and see if they stick to the ranged combat strategy before deciding whether to also remain at a distance or close with them. He wants to see what they can do.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    The fact that Madara had survived an extremely fatal wound would be incredibly alarming if Zwei didn't have that information shortly beforehand. It's difficult to estimate exactly how much damage Madara can take, but for the moment, it is forced to err on the side of caution until the full extent of his capabilities can be determined. Attempting to obliterate him right off the bat could deprive Zwei of valuable research and combat data, and could also overplay Weiss' hand and lead to a significant disadvantage. Best to be careful with unknown opponents.

    A single, small fireball is a trivially easy attack to avoid for someone with reflexes millions of times faster than a human. Weiss leans out of the way rather than ducking or diving, putting in the absolute minimum amount of motion requires to prevent a damaging blow. For the moment, she appears to have him outclassed at range, and so she makes no motion to move forward, instead ratcheting up the power flow to her PDW and letting loose a fast, successive stream of bolts. The weapon blazes away on full auto; without any sign of recoil, judging by how perfectly straight the projectiles fly. Madara will be completely drowned in explosions if he doesn't get out of the way fast.

Staren has posed:
    Staren fires into smoke, and frowns again. No way to tell if that hit. He takes a defensive stance, ready to move if Madara comes for him. Nothing much to observe yet -- he already knows about Raiser weapons. He's learning about Madara though: Regenerating armor? Aww, come on, he thinks!

    Now, what's Madara doing? Holding his hand to his mouth? What does /that/ mean?

    Fireballs slam into a suddenly visible translucent amber sphere of force surrounding him -- the first leaves a large bright spot surrounded by cracks, and the second smashes through onto a second layer -- one of the discs on Staren's armor crackles and pops with electricity and smoke -- the rest of the outermost layer of forcefield breaks apart into amber sparkles that slough off and twinkle out after a couple of seconds.

    Zwei is cutting loose with the explosion-causing Raiser weapon, which means he has trouble finding a target in smoke -- so, he'll have to not need to find his target, won't he? Staren reaches into his bag and pulls out a rod that telescopes out into his magitech staff, and points it in Madara's direction -- a spark of bright light flies out and then explodes in a fireball a few dozen feet wide! It's a flash of magic heat and fire rather than an actual explosion, though, so there's less shockwave or smoke than might be expected. The DBZ zone's effects still give it some, though!

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
They seem to prefer ranged combat, then. Weiss's attacks bombard Madara, only for the mechanical warrior, and Staren as well, to discover a potentially unpleasant fact. Madara is actually really damn fast when he wants to be. The first shot from the Raiser nicks his face, seeming leave a smoking line and not much more. This is because Madara seems to actually track the projectiles visually, react with superhuman reflexes, and possibly even predict the movement based off of how he is moving to avoid them before aim can even be adjusted. Further, he is moving forward rapidly, closing the distance between himself and his opponents. Staren's fireball lands in Madara's path, not hitting him directly, thanks to his change in location, but he leaps over the explosion, feet skimming the flames. He is carried through the air for a dozen feet thanks to his momentum, before hitting the ground feet first and resuming running with almost no break in his stride.

He is still about a hundred feet away when he seems to flicker and vanish from sight, only to appear directly behind Weiss and Staren, and attempt to drive his palms into their backs with superhuman strength.

His expression hasn't change this entire time.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    "Now that's impressive!" Weiss says at the sight of Madara starting to get serious. Her aim tracks her with perfect, computer guided precision; every shot of her salvo aimed for his head and chest, but she doesn't seem to clue into the fact that he's predicting her, simplying adjusting every time he changes direction. The shinobi vanishes from sight should be enough to momentarily confuse most beings for long enough to land a killing strike from out of their field of vision, but Zwei's surprise lasts less than milliseconds, switching Weiss' primary sensor feed from vision and thermal acquisition to air pressure and brainwave activity.

    She spins around on the spot with utterly ridiculous speed, deflecting Madara's palm strike with her forearm, and then swinging her leg straight up into his head. Her armour foot travels so fast that it breaks the sound barrier, sounding off a percussive thump and letting loose an explosion of white condensation at the apex of her strike. The instant she has both feet planted on the ground, she follows up with a shoulder check that leads into a body throw, aiming to hurl the shinobi fifty meters into the air where he will present a target for Staren to hit. Her movements seem to have no particular style to them, and she takes no recognizeable stance. It's clear she hasn't been trained in any kind of martial art, but yet she has a very good idea of how to fight.

Staren has posed:
    Damn this guy's fast! And /invisible/?! <<Zwei, if you've got him on sensors, share telemetry with me!>> They're in a fight now, so he doesn't take the time to talk -- rather, he thinks in a general direction, his support AI autocompletes the sentence, and sends a text transmission to Zwei. It's faster this way.

    Staren chucks another fireball in front of him hoping to get lucky, but it seems quite the opposite: Madara appears behind him, in grappling distance: Staren's weakness! "Ahck!" From inside the forcefield range, the forcefield can't do anything, and Madara's palm hits the armor -- it doesn't bend his back as much as might be hoped, the armor locking into place to distribute the force, but it still leaves a crack-surrounded dent and sends him flying and tumbling over the ground fifty feet or so ahead.

    Staren comes to a stop lying on his back -- he kips up, and seeing Zwei setting him up for a cleaner shot, fires a missile from his shoulder packs -- it shoots straight up into the air, then curves to intercept, chasing after Madara if he somehow has mid-air mobility. It tries to make contact, but if it can only get close, it explodes anyway, releasing enough energy to turn a 30' sphere of air into plasma -- thanks to the local physics, the surrounding air beyond that explodes and makes a hell of a bang! Like a firework!

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
Madara grunts as the Puppet-like one with no apparent face seems to have reaction time similar to his own, and sensory abilities not unlike the Byakugan - or that spider warrior from yesterday. He doesn't know yet if it's predictive or simply an all-directions awareness, but he does know he has been struck and then hurled into the air. While he is upside-down, in mid-air, he makes a few quick handseals, even as missiles come swerving towards him. They explode, creating a huge ball of super-heated plasma around where they hit.

While the sound is still echoing across the plains, and the flames are still burning, Madara drops out of the cloud, on his feet, with some flames licking at his hair tips, but otherwise not too badly hurt. Then a second Madara drops down several feet to the side. Finally, a third Madara lands and skids a short distance behind whatever remains of the explosion, before coming to a stop. His skin looking peeled off - with no evidence of blood, muscle, or other typical human anatomy underneath - and bits of detritus and dust are gathering from the environment and repairing the damage.

He rises to his feet, and folds his arms over his chest, as he remarks, "So you can dance after all, puppet. I wonder who holds your strings..." Madara's gaze travels to Staren, before deciding that he is probably not the one responsible. His reaction time is slower than his ally's.

"Let's play a game."

Madara's eyes change in their design, shifting from the swirl pattern of the Sharingan to a more complex design. He is suddenly engulfed in a blue energy aura that rises up around him, forming a rib cage, skeletal arms, and then transforming further into a full, giant, humanoid figure, with a face on the back of its head. It is forty or fifty feet tall, and Madara is floating at the center of it. Looking down upon his foes, he says, "One of my clones will use this same Susano'o to fight against you. The other won't."

He gestures with one hand at the two Madaras below him.

"Choose which one of them will fight which one of you."

Zwei (596) has posed:
    "Not bad, not bad~ You can certainly survive a lot of punishment! I haven't met anything quite that tough in the Multiverse yet! I guess I'm probably going to have to go all out." Uploading her targeting data to Staren's HUD, Weiss takes a step back with one foot and plants one palm against the ground, reminescent of a sprinter's start, but with one hand still free. Grasping at nothing, the air swirls around her hand and resolves into the rapidly solidifying shape of what appears to be a sword, as if being loaded from computer memory, or disintegrating in reverse. The blade itself is as black and featureless as her armour, completely without character, but one edge of it emits a razor thin line of viridian light that leaves staggered after-images behind it as she grips it in reverse.

    Weiss turns into a blur, and then seemingly disappears entirely, kicking up an explosion of shattered earth and stone behind her. She whizzes through the air with a sound like a bullet, streaking faster than most eyes should be able to follow, and burning a slicing trail of green into the air. She passes one clone at supersonic velocity, swinging her blade straight through it in an effort to simply chop it in half; any contact from the edge of the blade causing 'flesh' to detonate into a conflagration of white hot plasma. Bracing into the ground again, she reappears for a split second before shooting out at a 90 degree angle, repeating the same maneuver on the second clone. Sliding to a safe distance just in case they too can regenerate, attached the sword to the small of her back and rezzes some kind of sleek, detail-less rifle from nowhere, bracing it against her shoulder and firing in one fluid motion. The flash and bang from a full sized weapon is much more impressive, impacting against Susano'o with ten times the force of a guided missile.

Staren has posed:
    Alright! That /has/ to have hurt Madara, right? Staren frowns as the ninja lands, regenerating. Hmm. Not flesh. Somehow animating surrounding materials. Interesting. Still, regenerating /must/ use some kind of energy -- all they have to do is blow him up until he can't repair himself anymore, right?

    Madara offers a game they can play or not -- Staren lets Zwei take the lead in the name of coordination, but also to observe... although, the raiser sword is more tech he's already seen. Maybe they should have sent a tactician instead... Hmm. Invisibility. He should ask how that works.

    Zwei elects to reject the game and just destroy both clones -- he follows her lead, sending another plasma missile one clone's way, and a few smaller missiles susan-o'o's way. The smaller missiles try to speed up to about mach 2 and then ram into a target, penetrating and then exploding inside. Will this work on whatever that giant skeleton is made of? Let's find out! All the missiles are guided, as before, trying to chase down the target if need be.

    As for Staren himself, he stays back. Madara seems like someone who he shouldn't get into melee with!

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
Super fast, some form of weapon summoning or construction, expansive senses, effective-though-untrained Taijutsu, projectile attacks, and no appreciation for the subtleties of battle. Alas. He is not sure what he expected from a puppet. Perhaps that whoever was controlling it be less alien in mind-set. He can track the movement well enough, even as Weiss charges and slashes at the first clone. The clone has Madara's skill, even if only a fraction of his power, and attempts to move out of the way of the strike. However, there is a now a gouge in the clone's side, an arm that has gone flying, and... Further, from consistency and material components, it seems to be made out of no more than... Wood?

The damaged Wood Clone is not out of the fight, though missing an arm and with a huge chunk taken out of its side. It holds up one hand, channeling Chakra, even as it returns to being just normal wood, and releases a fireball towards the other Wood Clone, as Weiss attacks it too. Staren's missile, Zwei's blade, and the first clone's fireball, all converge on the same location. And the space around the Clone is filled with the blaze of Chakra that becomes a second Susano'o, taking the impact of blade and ballistic explosive in place of the Wood Clone itself.

There are now two giants on the battlefield. The rifle shot from Weiss hits the original Madara's Chakra armor hard, disrupting its surface and sending damaging shockwaves through to the interior.

Staren's missile swarm has a similar effect. Both Madara and the remaining Wood Clone were not fully immune to the attacks suffered, even with their protection. But now Madara seems annoyed.

He raises his hand and both his Wood Clone's and his own Susano'o raise their own palms, and project compact balls of glowing blue energy that spin fast and strike hard - whatever it is that they hit. "Disappointing. I've no interest in dealing with mindless opponents who simply keep charging ahead and attacking blindly," he calls out. "If you don't make this more entertaining, I may have to end this fight prematurely."

Staren has posed:
    Staren frowns slightly and makes a disappointed grunt when a second skeletal giant appears. Oh well, they didn't play by the 'rules', so why should this ninja guy?

    Staren takes to the air to dodge the balls, stylized insectile energy wings appearing behind his shoulders, but he's not quick enough -- the attack smashes through another forcefield layer, and Staren cries out in surprise as one of the discs on his chest explodes and another starts sparking -- the third layer has a big hole smashed into it and large pieces breaking and flaking off before the field fades from visibility again.

    "You think war is a /game/? What world are you living in?!" When Madara threatens to 'end the fight prematurely, Staren snaps back, "Yeah, I'd like to see you try!" Three more missiles take to the sky, flying out to the side then closing in on Madara in a pincer attack before exploding in great plasma fireballs -- and while the ninja is busy with that, Staren pulls the laser rifle off his back and tries to snipe a burst on him while he's distracted -- three quick pulses of light that try to superheat and explode points on the surface of Madara's body!

Zwei (596) has posed:
    While sighting the second shot, trying to get a positive lock on Madara through the haze of disruptive energy his massive, fiery form is letting off, Weiss is a hair too slow to land another shot, diverting her aim from the Susano'o to the projectile it launches instead. Firing for its center, she hits dead-on, but the rydberg photons simply pass straight through it without interacting, sailing over Madara's shoulder as the Magatama hits her instead. Weiss is sent flying from ground zero; spinning through the air and crashing to the ground in a high speed tumble; bouncing over the rocky terrain for meters until she digs her fingers into the solid stone and claws herself to a crouching stop. The chestplate of her armour is spiderwebbed with fractures, flaking pieces of carbon as she rises to her feet, and no doubt with that shockwave, her actual chest underneath isn't doing much better.

    "I reiterate myself. This is strictly professional! I'd love to play games with someone as strong as you another time, but right now I need you eliminated as quickly as possible. That is, unless you want to tell me how you got through my shield. Perhaps later?" The third time someone has managed to do that. It's beginning to worry Zwei, though it won't show it. Weiss is still set to project nothing but confidence, as well as genuine sincerity in wanting to meet the shinobi again on less hostile terms. Defying the statement that she can only charge ahead, Weiss promptly vanishes, without the spray of broken earth that would indicate simply moving too fast to see. Optical camoflague now distorts the whole spectrum from radio waves, through visible light, up to gamma radiation in a perfect loop around her, making her completely invisible. She has no idea how well it will work against Madara, due to having insufficient data on his sensory abilities.

    She takes off at a more reasonable speed; only as fast as her footsteps can be drowned out by the sound of Staren shooting. Circling to an angle where neither the clone nor Madara should be looking, she leaps from the ground on top of the clone's back, and then stabs her sword into the skeleton's spine, planting it as deep as she can get it, and then releasing the safeties on the beam circulating along its edge. The result is that the air, and assuming the skeleton isn't made of pure energy, the bone in contact with the blade, undergoes directed nuclear fusion; exploding in a narrow wedge hopefully through the clone and towards Madara with the force of a tactical warhead. The sword is completely destroyed from the release of energy, and even Weiss is sent hurtling backwards just from the compression wave, but she rides it without further damage to herself, landing a short distance away.

Madara Uchiha (651) has posed:
Madara sighs as Staren sends lasers into his Susano'o, the damage carrying through to Madara at least somewhat, putting chips in his skin, that in turn repair themselves a short time later. Holes have appeared in the giant's surface, indicating the attacks penetrated, after all the other combined bombardment from both Staren and Weiss earlier. Madara puts his hands on hips, and looks mildly offended. "War is not a game. It's an abomination. This world we live in is suffering, hatred, and despair, and all because of war. It is the very nature of reality that is flawed however. Fixing this world is unnecessary. I will end war, permanenty, by creating a new world where it doesn't exist. A world where no one ever has to suffer, where we can be united with those we have lost..." Madara's glowing-red eyes, bearing the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, lower their lids slightly. "I've been fighting wars my entire life. If I am going to fight, I at least expect to be kept from boredom."

Weiss may have vanished after her statement, but whether Madara has kept track of the machine or not, her successful attack upon the clone succeeds only in destroying the Wood Clone and its Susano'o. Madara's own suddenly swells in size, and gains a huge, draping cloak, and hood. Zwei's attack strikes the now even denser Chakra armor and vanishes into its surface, producing ripples like a stone thrown into a pond.

Madara's gaze drifts off to the side, watching the trajectory of Weiss's descent. He folds his arms over his chest once more, and lowers his head somewhat. Then he lifts it after several seconds, and stares up into the sky. As the menacing figure of the more complete Susano'o sends icy pangs of Madara's Chakra radiating throughout the area over a considerable distance, detectable even to those without the capacity to feel Chakra normally... Madara just remains where he is in the middle of the battlefield and thinks. He looks down at Staren and Weiss once more and says, "This battle holds no value for me. I will face you, and crush you, another time."

Madara's Susano'o turns around, its cloak creating glowing fissures in the ground where its hem touches. The giant warrior of Chakra then starts walking away, leaving small canyons in its wake.

Staren has posed:
    Madara explains his goals. Staren nods appreciatively. "Cool plan. As long as you don't end /this/ world or hurt anyone in the process and visiting this new world is optional for everyone, I support you 100%! Best of luck!" He smiles, but he's also watching for Madara's next move...

    Which is making an even more complete chakra(?) giant. Staren looks up at it, but size he can deal with... Hmm. What might be weak points, Staren wonders...

    Then Madara settles it by leaving. Staren watches him go.

    Once Madara's gone, Staren lands by Zwei. "And, sometimes that happens. They just stop fighting in the middle." He shrugs. Then holds out his hand. "Well, congratulations. I'd love to know more about what you want with the Caverns of Prophecy, but I have a meeting in Lazlo soon. Also, I'd love to know how you're doing that invisibility. And other stuff. Is it metamaterials or are you faking the emissions? Anyway... Talk later?" He smiles and waits for a handshake, then teleports off.

    As for gathering information... well, Zwei really loves those Raiser weapons, she can turn invisible, and she has a forcefield and great armor. He'll have to learn more about how that all works later. Maybe Just Asking will work! You never know!

Zwei (596) has posed:
    "Hmmm, that's a pretty lofty goal. I wouldn't say that suffering itself is really possible to get rid of. Sapient species define their range of experiences from joy to suffering however large or small the range is. If the worst anyone could experience was losing their keys, it'd be abject misery to them. War is maybe a more realistic goal, and the most realistic way of going about it is obtaining so much power that nobody can fight on your turf. People won't fight if they know they'll be destroyed no matter what." Weiss seems all too happy to debate on the nature of war, but she distinctly lacks Ache's capacity for deeper thinking. It's all practical from her. Probably not something Madara really wants to dignify with his grand vision.

    The fact that he leaves is unexpected though. Even a little insulting. "Well that's not very nice! Don't blame me for taking the Gordian solution! If you want a fun fight, arrange circumstances so that there isn't any driving need to win!" Hmph. Rude. She turns to Staren and grasps his hand instead. "I feel snubbed. Don't worry though, I'm using the Caverns of Prophecy for reasons you'd approve of. We can compare notes some other time. Take care~" Shortly after Staren teleports, she does the same thing, hitching a ride with Asche flying off into the distance.