2147/The Guru on Mount Woe

The Guru on Mount Woe
Date of Scene:	02 May 2015
Location:	The Corridors of Time
Synopsis:	The group works to save Melchior from Mount Woe, Giga Gaia, and the elite of the Zealian Military.
Cast of Characters:	Maya, 106, 369, 679, 691, 707, 733, 747, 768
Tinyplot:	Zeal Pseudoplot

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Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Schala has never looked quite so flustered before, or at least not in the presence of the Multiversal group. This is evident the moment that they arrive in the cave that links to the hidden village of Algetty, and for once she makes no attempt to mask her feelings underneath her usual veil of tranquility; she needs to be urgent today so that her allies will understand the gravity of the situation. The only trouble is, she's too excited as they weave their way down through the tunnels of the impoverished town to clarify for the residents or anyone else just -what- her trouble is. As a result, no small number of them stop to look at her as she comes rushing past, and their hearts too are filled with fear. They do the only thing that they can in light of their lack of understanding: they call after her to wish her luck.

    By the time she's reached the base of the hovel town, however, she finally takes a moment to catch her breath. And quite literally -- she's forced by fatigue to incline her form, lay her hands on her knees, and draw several, large gusts of air. Even that small quantity of physical activity was particularly grating to her, it seems, but she refuses to let that slow her down for any sizable amount of time. The second she's physically capable, she stands straight in address of the group.

    "The only safe route to Mount Woe," She clarifies, breathlessly, "is the chain that fastens it to the ground, but even that is guarded by a number of monsters and mystics in the employ of the Queen. We must defeat them to move on. That isn't all, though: the peak of the mountain is likewise guarded by Giga Gaia, a powerful magical construct whose presence alone is able to keep the entire place airborne." She takes a moment to pause and swallow before adding, "So those of you who can fly should either scout ahead or cover those of us who can't as we ascend the chain. When we are able to arrive at the peak as a group, we will confront Gaia. We will want to be at our full strength when we do so -- he is nothing like what you all have fought here before."

    Briefly, she scrolls her gaze past all of those present. "Are you ready?" Then without waiting for any sort of reply, "... good. Please, please, please, do everything that you can to save Melchior. He... he is one of my best friends. One of my -only- friends. If I end up needing to assume the role of Queen myself, I will be completely lost without his counsel -- no, the entire kingdom will be lost without it. Beyond this, he is the only man in the known world with such a full and complete understanding of Lavos. He may well be instrumental in finding a way to defeat them, if indeed such a thing is possible." She squeezes her eyelids shut. "... truly, earnestly, emphatically, I cannot overstate his value to me, and to everyone else. Some of this is selfishness on my part, I know that, but..." She shakes her head. "... there will be time to doubt when this is done. Let us go."

    She does not wait for them or anything else. Perhaps to serve as encouragement for them, the pale, frail, gaunt girl takes off into the monster-infested tunnel, bold as brass, and without any aid whatsoever.

    It's an awful cliche, but this just got personal.

    When she steps inside, she's immediately confronted by a trio of horned, wildebeest-like creatures. Two of them are suddenly trapped in crystals and hurled against the walls after a raise of Schala's palm, but this only clears the way for the third and final one to charge her head-on. It will probably get to her before she can move away if the others don't do something. Beyond -that- one, two more are present, one blue and one red, the former one mounted by a scrawny, scaled creature with brown flesh and bulbous eyes. For any who notice, it pulls at the corners of its mouth and flicks out its tongue to taunt them.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu is still kind of strung out from fighting Mcafee last night, and it shows - she looks weary, although she's not visibly injured, and she's actually eating fried tofu when she arrives: a moderate-sized carry-out box of it, already about half-empty.

On the other hand, Schala's story is actually enough to get the sage fox to stop eating, hearing out the woman's story and her plea. "I'm not exactly starting at 'full strength,'" she admits, "but I'll do my best. If push comes to shove, I can hang back and sling magic and bullets while others handle melee. Can't fly, though ..." She pauses. "How big are the chains again?"

She finds out pretty quickly (and finishes her fried tofu on the way up, folding the box up tightly and sticking it in a pocket of her carrypack).

As for the mudbeasts, as soon as the third one starts charging, Xiaomu draws her handguns, Silver and Platinum, and opens fire. Hopefully that thing's hide isn't bulletproof.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    For once, Shizune is here in some fairly casual clothes. A loose, billowy skirt, a shirt that doesn't restrict her movement; it looks like she was dressed for a day out on the town. Schala's call was urgent enough for her to drop what she was doing and come to answer it without delay, and so here she is. She's much less winded when they stop, but she's patient enough to wait as long as Schala needs to catch her breath.

    What she hears troubles her more than a little, but Schala is already moving into the tunnel - so Shizune moves with her, and goes on the attack without hesitation. As the two beasts are trapped in crystal, the martial artist steps out to the fore, and takes a breath. In, out, slow and calm. She adopts a stance, almost but not quite lazily.

    At the last possible instant, her hands lash out, her body twists, and she pulls to one side. Her maneuver is simple: turning the creature's own momentum against it, letting it slam /itself/ into the ground by using all that inertia from the charge.

Maya has posed:
Maya had left the poltical stuff to others. Given her own history of dealing with heads of state? It was best she kept out of that seriously ask her companions who have served in the Union. Either way this? This is something she can help with. She's been listening to Schala for a moment ad the mention of flying she nods for a moment. She's got a way to handle that. With all said and done it was time to move out and once they are ready to go? She'll use the small pendant she wears and soon hs sprouting a pair of energy wings and will fly up ahead scouting as Schala asked for.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    Scarlet probably shouldn't be here. Risking her life on such a sudden change of operation probably isn't worth it, especially when there are so many other, more experienced Elites to take care of it. After having made it known that she was listening to Schala's cry for help though, she couldn't easily back out if she still wanted to engender useful relations with the kingdom of Zeal. For that reason, she has made special preparations, using some high level components for emergency casting. Quintuple layered wards, dedicated interceptors, ramped up human augmentation, several translocated items, and the summoning and binding of a familiar two ranks above what she normally employs. If she's going to have to fight then she will do it properly.

    She looks a little out of breath when she arrives. She's a lot healthier than Schala, and in fact, most average people due to constant magic regulation of her body, but she's far from physically imposing and not used to more running than for the sake of exercise. Plus she's brought along that bag again. "I understand." she puffs out between catching her breath, straightening up and following after Schala as the royalty runs off before she can say much more. When she steps into the next tunnel, she remains planted right at the back, not about to run in from of Schala to try and take a blow. Instead, she thrusts out her hand towards the little creature mounted atop the larger one, and utters the simple word "kill". The verbal components are necessary simply because she doesn't have the power to command the familiar that materializes by thought. There is simply a ripple of distorting space and a faint pulse of nauseating "wrongness" before translucent teeth go to rip into the scrawny little thing and shake it to pieces.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Schala requests help immediately, and Ivraala has just the methods she needs to carry that out. When she comes through the warp gate, it's on the back of a large, decrepit horse whose sallow purple skin rots into tatters at its cold, flame-wreathed ankles. The Acherus Deathcharger's dark armor rattles as it charges toward Schala's location, only coming to a halt when Ivraala pulls up on its reigns to make it rear back with a ghostly, echoing whinny. It's a good thing she's already somewhat known here, or else people might start thinking her to be another horrible monster of this world.

    As soon as she's near and her mount is settled, Ivraala hops off its saddle and draws her rime-coated greataxe from her back. The Deathcharger is quickly consumed in a whirl of shadow and vanishes in an instant, but Ivraala just keeps moving forward, following Schala and silently listening to the situation as it's revealed. The girl's apologies seem to deepen her already frigid frown, but she doesn't say anything; probably because Schala's at least stopped on her own.

    Fortunately, it seems the others are taking care of that third beast, so Ivraala devotes her attention to helping their progression. While Scarlet is assaulting the creature mounting that blue beast, Ivraala turns her attention to the beast itself, charging forward with her axe trailing behind her. She says nothing, but her free hand lashes out to the creature, and at the moment of her gesture the ground around it erupts with chains of ice that lash around its limbs and body to hinder its movement for a few seconds. A few precious seconds where she'll cleave her axe down onto its head with a fierce cry of battle fury.

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Since when is wanting to help a friend selfish?" Cory doesn't really agree with this idea, frowning at the idea of someone calling that selfish.

    But it's not as if she really has any feelings for this Melchior person. The frown she's showing, arms folded.

    IT's only when she goes running off that Cory's frown turns actually worried instead of just irritated.

    She's all dressed up for battle though. A blue skintight suit with some gloves and boots. Over that she's wearing a weird-looking white vest of strange design. The material's much like well-shaped rubber, flexible and tough... but those shoulder guards are just ridiculous-looking.

    "So ascend to Mount Woe. Kick Giga Gaia's ass, save Melchior. Sounds straightforward enough..."

    Straightforward enough it is, except for the imp and big red and big blue that bar the way after beating up a few horned beasts.

    Cory extends a hand to blast it, but seeing the others are already at work keeping Schala's attacker busy she sets about doing the thing that's been left UNDONE.

    *BZEEEEOSH!*

    Moving fast enough to leave an afterimage behind in the air she simply seems to APPEAR in front of Schala with a hand extended. Cory's ready to catch the charging beast and hurl it back if the others fail to stop it. Or at least tank the blow for Schala!

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    There's a swirling rush of wind to indicate the arrival of Yuri Stinson, the Dark Hero. The Exalt is, once again, wearing the outfit of about a half-dozen layered cloaks around himself. And as always, when he moves it is followed by an almost eery sound of metal clattering and rattling against itself. The hood of his cloaks-based ensemble is pulled up to obscure his hair and his face.

    He shuffles a bit in his stance, "I greet you. I apologize for my absence, but mine is not a nature which negotiates, so I would have merely impeded what deals you made. Also while I would like to lend my sizeable combat capabilities in your quest to scale the mountain, I must make other preparations. Please remain safe."

    With another rustle of wind, he's gone from where he was standing and is using Adorjan charms to try to light-speed wind-dash his way through whatever ranks of monsters are between himself and the base of the chain. He furrows his brow a bit, disregarding or perhaps incapable of paying attention to the monsters that are attacking the party. He has located a specific purpose and he needs to prepare. Essence respiration will be critical, as his plan will likely require most or all of his sizeable reserves.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari, after a series of other Multiversal events, has finally found time to slink her way back into the Zeal Kingdom. After spending some hours in the cities above, her journey has taken her towards Algetty once more, decked out in cold weather gear as she is. She eventually spies some familiar figures heading towards the city ahead of her.

Best to see what they're up to! Turning on her armlet's record function, she uses the white of her cloak as she keeps to various snow hills and other cover until she slinks into the city proper, keeping to the ceiling's vines as she's been so fond of doing. Quiet as a mouse, this ninja, perhaps even quieter than before.

Schala's words only cause the ninja concern. But she doesn't immediately follow, giving the group quite some time to enter. Only then does she slink after those intending to walk/climb the chain, keeping to the shadows and doing everything she can to hide her presence from beast and Union alike.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Xiamou's question regarding the size of the chains receives no direct reply from Schala, but ultimately, it does not require one. She would easily be able to make out the chains at the end of the tunnel, behind the taunting imp. Simply put, they're massive: each link is as tall as two people stretched beside one another, and at least three times that in terms of weight. It would be utterly impossible for an average human being to lift one of them, and it's clear that they must have been set up here by some variety of magic. Her ensuing gunfire, though, certainly hits its mark, and each bullet sinks into the hide of the mudbeast. It -howls- in pain and its eyes flash red, and at the last second its course changes to her from Schala.

    ... or would, if it weren't for Shizune's intervention. Suddenly, its direction is altered again, and its horns lodge themselves deep into the Earth. Its body launches upward and its spine contorts unnaturally, but seems to snap back into place by the time its hooves strike the floor. Immediately after it is able to stand back up, it begins to defiantly tug its horns at the ground. It takes time, but the earth ruptures, cracks, and eventually erupts, freeing the creature with an explosion of dirt and plant matter. It shakes its head and looks to Shizune next in a fury. Then it charges again at full tilt. Mercifully, it looks like they're not smart enough to learn by trial-and-error.

    Meanwhile, almost being impaled forces Schala to lose her grip on the crystals currently holding the other two wildebeests at bay. As a result, they both come free, both of them rising back to their feet in simultaneity. If they're given enough time to do so, both of them would charge, one for Cory while the other heads after Xiamou. Schala holds out her palm again, laying a rectangular, defensive barrier in ront of Cory. She mutters a 'Thank you,' for his help, but it's so quiet that in may well be inaudible to him.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu literally drops her handguns as the mudbeast charges towards her, instead seizing her staff with both hands - right grasping the headpiece, left holding the shaft a foot or so away ...

And she draws her sword, Suiren's blade glinting blue-white as its steel is revealed from the staff-scabbard. "XIAOMU BLIZZARD!!" calls the sage fox, leaping up - trying to get her body up above the angle of the beast's horns - and trying to stab the monster in the brainstem (or so) with both the sharp blade and a hefty dose of ice magic.

She may or may not throw enough magic into it to encase the whole of the beast's body in a block of ice, akin to Schala's earlier magic. She's certainly making an effort, but ... well, if there are Ethers to go around, she could probably use one.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Scarlet's fangs easily sink into the imp's shoulderblade, as it were, mercilessly tearing its arm from its socket as the thing is flung about like a ragdoll on strings. Assuming the 'mouth' eventually releases its quarry, its corpse is eventually flung into a cave wall where it falls to the ground, inert. This seems to infuriate the red mudbeast who, without a moment's pause, stamps its hoof against the floor of the cave and charges for Scarlet. The way this one charges is a bit different than it was for the others, however; it seems to have magically amplified movement speeds that are indicated by a red line that trails behind it as it cuts across the room. It attempts to use that speed to its advantage and ram Scarlet head-on.

    They may have different tools, but all of them seem to share the same tactics, or in this case, an absence thereof.

    The blue one at first motions to attack with its red cohort, but it is stopped mid-run by the lacerations of Ivraala's ice. Spines sink into its legs and it emits a blood-curdling wail as it crashes to the ground. It slides helplessly across the dirt and is still as Ivraala rushes with her axe. It repositions its head and attempts to point its horns so that they might stab her as she comes down for her strike, but ultimately it can do nothing to save itself. In any case, its head is severed, and its body too becomes still.

    Yari, for the most part, is ignored. It seems the beasts in the area haven't noticed her yet. Ah, and the path to the chain is clear now...

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Once again, Shizune holds her ground calmly, adopting a ready stance and staring down the metaphorical barrel of the gun. She doesn't, however, go for the same trick twice; there's the possibility that this beast may have learned its lesson, and even if it hasn't, now that she has its attention she doesn't have to worry about simply arresting its charge. So this time, at the last second, she leaps up while driving a palm strike down towards the mudbeast's forehead, using the motion to push herself into a forward flip. The palm is accompanied with an invisible burst of ki, giving that first blow alone enough force to crack concrete, but it's only the precursor.

    She intends to twist in the air and use her flip to land on the beast's back. That's where her true attack comes in - she has, in theory, an open shot at the back of the creature's neck. And she intends to land as many concrete-shattering blows on it as she can.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Maya's flight allows her to conveniently avoid the majority of the battle by sticking close to the ceiling. As she reaches the chain, she would locate a wide opening that leads to the airs beneath Mount Woe. As she emerges, she would notice several things. First, there are swarms of birds circling around the chain. They're carrying imps in their talons, who themselves seem to possess blowguns of some variety. Second, a far larger, more metallic bird -- a warplane? -- can be seen further off. It looks to be Zealian technology of some variety or another.

    Had they been expecting them?

Cory (768) has posed:
    Just as Cory thinks this one's in the bag... nope! "Pretty potent for mere beasts. Pardon me!" Who's that too? Schala? Pardon's not a very normal thing to be heard from a Saiyan, and it's not too serious a tone either...

    Instead of playing the game these beasts are sporting Cory takes a DIFFERENT OPTION.

    That entails grabbing Schala and taking a leap that doesn't actually end.

    Somehow, Cory's just hovering in the air with Schala held in one arm - squeezed close but not TOO HARD- and her other extended at the beast that now only has Xiaomu for a target. "HAH!"

    A bolt of Ki nearly the size of Cory herself goes flying down. Wherever it strikes, there'll be a blast not unlike a grenade going off... and she's aimed right for the mudbeast's back.

    "Would love wrestling with these things if we had time, they've got some oomph! ...Heeeey, nice!"

    That last is aimed at Shizune, whose crazy moves just got noticed!

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    No monsters in particular seem to be coming at Yuri, which may give him the opening that he needs to inspect the chain itself if he isn't interested in helping any of the other parties present. Just gotta navigate through the miniature warzone first.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    The blue beast's horns lift, and Ivraala...doesn't seem bothered, continuing on her strike that will kill the beast and undoubtedly skewer her as well. Such is the training of a Death Knight, for when the sensation of pain is little more than a very distant memory, they become reckless and ferocious even in the face of self-destruction. A horn pierces the more fragile armor at the draenei's side and dark blue blood rolls down its point, but Ivraala doesn't cry out or even grunt. The job is done; her wound will heal eventually, at least once she returns to Acherus, and it won't hinder her too much for now.

    Ivraala doesn't spare another moment for the beast once it's dead. She whirls around to look back at her allies, but, as it seems they have things in hand well enough, she decides that her efforts are better spent making progress up the chain. The sooner they get up there, the sooner this can all be taken care of. She does spare a moment to thrust out her hand and cast a blast of frigid, howling wind at the red beast charging at Scarlet, a blast to freeze it to its bones and infect it with the biting chill of Frost Fever, but then she's turning back to the chain again.

    And off she goes, dashing up to the base of the chain and, if nothing hinders her, taking bounds up its length and making use of her agility to avoid having to clamber up with her hands as well. She'll need those free if something decides to cause a problem, after all.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Watching at the efficiency that Ivraala and Scarlet take down their foes, Yari frowns. She pauses, waiting on the pair to scamper towards the chains.

It's about then that she keys up her radio, to a particular man of Zeal.

That, of course, being Sir Dalton.

"Are you awake, Mister Daltan. I have some interesting intelligence you may want. It seems like those meddlers from before are attempting to free the man put upon your 'Mount Woe'."

Pause.

"There's too many of them for just me to take out. But let's just say this little recording might prove interesting if you were to show it to your Queen. Any requests? I'm feeling generous today." Whispers Yari into the device, if she can indeed get ahold of the man.

After that? It's her turn to start climbing the chain. NOtably by clinging to its underside, just to make sure she doesn't get spotted immediately. She makes liberal use of spikes attached to feet, tail, and hand to accomplish this. She still tries to hang off just enough to get a good recording of those rushing up the chain.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    The miniature warzone is of little immediate concern. There were enough combat capable personnel here that his presence is almost trivial in comparison. So he rushes forward as if he were wind and then slips sideways, moving along the cave wall and then leaping to the roof as if walking on regular ground. He flips a bit and then easily lands, moving in this manner as if it were simply walking for him.

    He's quiet, too. When he speaks as he moves, it's in a distracted and detached tone devoid of emotion, "Mn. Busy. Much to account for. Essence levels must be kept adequate, the machine must be prepared. The vector calculated." He murmurs to himself as he goes, "The people have asked for rebellion and I must provide."

    Last night, FIA had been right. He cannot deny his nature, merely focus the monstrosity into a productive outlet. This was productive. This would save lies. This would please FIA to find out he had done. He pauses for a spit second in his movements. It would please her, right? Probably.

    Back to work. When he arrives at the base of the chain, he assesses the size of it. Determining what he can about its construction as he begins to allign and configure a combination of special abilities to achieve his purpose. The project would be extensive, requiring much of his attention. The first step involves him putting his hand to the chain and shutting his eyes, trying to attune to its length and find out its structural weakpoints. If it began to fall, he would need to know where to break the chain for his plan to even begin.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Xiamou leaps over the bull. Its head arcs up in attempt to follow her line of trajectory, but when a spike of concentrated ice finds its way in-between its eyes, it can keep up with her no longer. Its body has already begun to collapse to its left by the time it is frozen in place by a block of ice that encases it in the ensuing period. It seems that that one won't be giving them anymore trouble. As far as Xiaomu's mana needs are concerned, though, she may feel a sudden influx of mystical energy enter her form. She may see a faint, cyan line that leads back to Schala, who immediately thereafter is hoisted into Cory's arms.

    And as the aforementioned Saiyan leaps across the room, she summons a massive blast of energy that races toward the back of yet another of the mudbeasts. Unfortunately, that mudbeast had managed to snake its way a bit too close to the other members of the party for comfort, so Schala attempts to localize the blast by summoning another crystal around the mudbeast before the strike has a chance to deal too much splash damage. It turns out that this maneuver works not only to mitigate extraneous damages, but also to concentrate what damage was actually dealt, meaning that when Schala's crystal guard finally releases a number of the creature's innards will find their way to the walls. Suffice it to say, it will not be giving them any more struggle either.

    As for the final mudbeast, it doesn't last too terribly long afterward either. Shizune lands on its back, and though it only takes one strike to dislocate its spine in ways that would quickly asphyxiate it, she continues to beat on it until it is given a much more swift, merciful end. It crashes to the floor while Shizune it still mounted as its body slowly begins to mimic the cold of the frigid landscapes above.

    The first room is clear.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    There's a brief delay in Dalton's reply to Yari, but when it comes, there is no mistaking his words. They're alltogether clearer, crisper, and more decisive than anything he has said before. "If you want to help me," He begins, "then don't do anything yet. Wait until they're fighting Gaia -- we don't care about Melchior. The Queen only wanted the guy because he was starting to sway the opinions of some people, so him being captured has already served its purpose. But we'll need her to activate the Mammon Machine." There's a brief pause before he adds, "So like I said, wait until they're fighting the big boss. When you're pretty sure no one will notice, tell me on this radio. When you climb the chain, you'll see a plane. That's me. I'll swing by to pick you both up when you've got her."

    Sure enough, as Yari and Ivraala begin to ascend the chain, they would both see what Maya had seen before: the Blackbird. It's the crown jewel of the nation's military muscle, and it's wisely chosen to keep its distance until the right time arrives. "Sorry," Dalton would speak up again, "but we're gonna unload a few rounds on the chain. Good luck out there." There's a click, and moments later the telltale echo of bullets can be heard from the warship in the distance. Bullets lash across the chain. Their accuracy is absolutely dreadful, but a small cluster of them might eventually find their way to one of the party anyway. Much more of a concern are those imp-bird squads. A trio of them cluster near Ivraala, all of them firing darts in her direction. Likewise, a pair of birds would charge Yari, pecking and scratching at her whenever they get the opportunity.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    It's a regretful thing, ending a life - even a beast such as this doesn't sit well with Shizune. But it must be done, to protect her and her allies, and to clear the way to the mountain above. And so she does it in the most quick and merciful way she can, and dismounts as soon as she's able. She looks up to check on Schala, Xiaomu and Cory first of all, and once she's sure that they're alright, she turns towards the chain and breaks out into a quick jog. With her natural agility and balance, running up it won't be particularly difficult. But on the way by, she'll be going past Yuri; as she does, she yells, "If you need backup down here, give us a call over the radio! We'll cover you while you get ready!"

Maya has posed:
Maya's on a fairly good flight as she's keeping an eye on the monsters thankfully she's kept out of it she does notice the bird and she sees the imps being carried by the birts. They are also armed. She pauses for a moment a airship of somesort? No that thing's big enough to be considered a battle ship on her world. She gets the feeling this move was expected she does not move to enage them but she does call in to tell the others before she'll try to scout a bit more.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
If it hadn't been for Schala's quick thinking and quicker spellcasting, Xiaomu might have quite a few complaints about Cory chucking that ki grenade at the beast that she was almost vaulting over the back of. As it is, though, the combination of Saiyan Ki-Bomb plus Zealian Ice Magic ensures that the beast dies quickly and messily, and Xiaomu withdraws her blade from the icy mass, wiping it clean before sheathing Suiren in her staff again. Then she retrieves her dropped handguns, checks for jamming (they shouldn't) and remaining ammo (about half a clip in each), and ...

Just takes a moment to soak up some of the mystical power that Schala was feeding to her. "Thanks," she says appreciatively to the blue-haired young lady. "I'll try not to depend too heavily on your reserves, okay?"

Once the rest of her party is ready, she proceeds up the chain ... although she's leting somebody else (Shizune or Cory, by preference) take point.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Yuri would realize one glaring issue first: the narrow hole through which the chain leaves the cavern will almost certainly restrict its movement. In all likelihood, he's going to want to break these lower links and manipulate it from a position above the cave. As far as the weight is concerned, each link likely weighs as much as a trailer, or a yacht -- they're not particularly wide, but each one is made of metal coated in thick layers of rust. Considering length, it stretches many miles into the sky. Suffice it to say, moving this thing may be as difficult as relocating Zeal itself.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari, not quite enjoying the breeze she's fighting against as she clings to the chain, finds herself a little surprised. Dalton had always struck her as a little too laid back for a man in the military. But his orders are clear, concise, and to the point. His voice authoritative.

What she likes less about the situation is the involvement of bullets in her general direction. Then again, she's faced worse. "Understood. I'll manage somehow. Will radio you when they've made contact and are distracted."

Kaw kaw! Yari Takane is slowly starting to hate birds, after last night. Being pecked at by the damn things as she clings to the underside of a chain makes that growing hatred /worse/.

So she pulls out a kunai, slams it into the chain, and uses her now free hand to use a few handseals. Her focus increases, reflexes multiplying in speed, and she ducks as a peck that would have taken out her eye is narrowly avoided. With a kunai in her mouth, she does a little gravity defying spin in the air, slashing with the blades in her tail and mouth, all tipped with numbing poisons. Hopefully enough to cause a few to faint! She even flings a kunai mid-spin at one!

Then uses her shoe-spikes to reconnect to the chain, soon back to her crawling lope up the underside of the chain! Magic keeps her speed and reflexes high as she spider-walks upwards, senses working to keep track of her assailants.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    The bullets aren't too difficult for Ivraala to deal with, especially since they're not terribly well-aimed. Even if she's a much larger target than anyone else here, the Death Knight is lithe enough to be a little difficult to aim for at that distance. Fortunately for Yari, she doesn't seem to have noticed the lizard-girl yet, either.

    The bigger problem is the birds. Their ranged tactics are something of a problem for Ivraala; long ago, she probably would have been able to deal with such things easily, but now her options for combat at a distance are...limited, to say the least. Darts crack against her armor and pierce in the few places she has uncovered, namely her stomach and arms, drawing more of that blue blood. It's enough to make the draenei stop in her forward charge and turn to the flying trio with a cold glare.

    There's not /much/ she can do, but she has some tricks. Her hand lashes out at one of the birds, but rather than ice, the bird is quickly surrounded by a dozen grasping hands of shadow as unyielding as the grip of death. As she yanks her hand back, the shadow hands pull as well to yank the bird toward her; rather than strike the creature, however, she tries to grab it out of the air. Her own remarkable strength is then carried out to swing the bird around herself and /hurl/ it at one of the other imp-birds, hopefully knocking out two with one strike.

Cory (768) has posed:
    It's not hard for Cory to hold onto Schala, not at all. "This probaly ain't comfortable. You can piggy-back if you want, I'll keep you out of the worst of this. Or get back on the ground. Just don't grab my tail." Yup, it's Schala's choice!

    She really doesn't seem burdened by Schala's weight.

    After all she's normally carting around many hundreds of pounds of weighted gear, and right now that's all off.

    "Up we go?" Cory's eying the chain and also the bunch of birds flying around. "What the hell?"

    She peeks her head out of the cave, regardless of which choice Schala might make, and immediately balks at the HUGE FLYING SHIP that's peppering the chain with potshots...

    "Jerks... who's flying that thing?"

    Cory growls and draws back a hand. It sizzles and flares with concentrating Ki... which she quickly fires up towards the blackbird.

    It doesn't strike. Instead it detonates most of the way there into a brilliant explosion, certain to throw off their aim EVEN MORE.

    THEN she'll start making the ascension up the chain. Probably with Schala in tow. She doesn't seem too climby! ... if she's coming, anyways.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    With the random encounter taken care of, Scarlet takes a moment to wind her way around the corpses, not about to step in or over spilled blood and gore. She arrives last at the base of the chain, casting her eyes upward to see the other figures racing ahead along its length. She briefly considers whether or not she wants to chance running with them, before the appearance of Dalton and the Blackbird make up her mind for her. She holds one hand out to her side, resting it on something in midair, which is swiftly revealed to be the head of her familiar, now shifting down from Phase 1 into full, visible reality. The thing is hideous, like a wyvern in build but covered in glossy segments of bone white chitin rather than scales, and with a body like a lazy S that leaves its chest closer to the ground than its hips. Its wings are strange and reverse swept, and its head is a flat, rounded thing like an eyeless, faceless angler fish with bigger teeth. Orange light shines through the chinks in its exoskeleton, pulsing from its throat to its tail.

    Apparently well used to the sensation of "off"ness that pervades the space around the creature, Scarlet hops up, swings one leg over its back and fastens her arms around a pair of spines at the base of its wings. The creature lets off a keening screech like broken glass dragging over tearing metal before taking off with a single beat of its wings, rocketing into the air in a profoundly steep climb. At its master's urging, it stretches its jaws wide, fiery light coalescing in its mouth as the lights flow and contract down the length of its body, giving birth to a miniature, writhing sun between its teeth. With a contraction of its throat, the sphere explodes into a swarm of burning embers, cutting trails of flames through the air as they twist and sweve like guided missiles to seek out all airborne hostiles at once.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Two of the birds assailing Yari are readily dispatched by her bladed ring around the chain. One slightly further and off to her left has several of its feathers shaved off by the kunai gripped in her tail whilst one nearer stabbed by the one in her mouth. As it happens, that blade lodges itself directly into its skull, so its now lifeless face floats along with her until the end of her maneuver. That is, until she sees fit to remove the thing's head from the end of her blade. The third and final bird is dissuaded from any closer approach as it sees one of its cohorts maimed and the other falling to the Earth, unconscious as a result of Yari's poison. So it departs, where it is soon dealt several merciless blows by the chainguns of the Blackbird.

    Soon, it's falling to the ground too.

    Meanwhile, one of the imp-bird pairs are quite literally bowled out of the sky by another of their number. Two imps and two birds fall to the ground in a flurry of feathers and discarded darts, and given that the darts are traveling faster than their wielders they might actually sink into their flesh on the way down. Suffice it to say, though, those four will be giving her no more trouble. Nor will the other pair, on that note -- like the bird with Yari before them, they flee at the first sight of those grasping hands. They, however, wisely head to the ground, keeping them from being hit by any errant bullets from the Blackbird.

    Then, Cory. In the distance, another massive blast of Ki resounds. The Blackbird shakes in the air, and as he had intended, its shots become even more erratic. Its bullets completely lose their focus on the metal links and instead fly elsewhere, downing several more groups of birds and imps. At this rate, they'll demolish their own fighting force. Or if they don't, Scarlet will -- her appearance is marked by yet more explosions that tear through the sky, dotting it at frequent intervals with glowing orange spheres. There is a sudden trend of leaving in the imps and birds; it seems they want no more to do with this battle. They collectively decide to land on Mount Woe itself where they may have a better chance of fighting on even territory with them.

    As a result, the rest of their journey is fairly uneventful. The Blackbird ceases its barrage, allowing them to progress up the chain as they will. When they arrive on the ground, though, that peace is immediately broken -- there a gaggle of twenty or more birds and a dozen imps wait in ambush, attacking each of those present in groups of two or three.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Up, up, up they go, darting up the chain and fighting their way past the forces assaulting them. They're able to drive off the imps and ensure a smooth trip the rest of the way... only to step off the chain to find an ambush in waiting.

    Shizune lets out a quiet breath. She steps off the chain. And then before the imps can begin their attack properly, she raises her voice sharply, adopting a tone of severely annoyed authority. "EXCUSE ME. JUST /WHAT/ DO YOU ALL THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

    Arms crossed, the martial artist glares right through her glasses at all of them. "You just harried us the entire way- THE ENTIRE WAY- up that chain! You had the advantage of air superiority against an enemy who by and large was at a huge terrain disadvantage. We were sitting ducks! And you /STILL FAILED TO STOP US/. Do you really think that this is wise? Coming to fight us on the ground, where we no longer have to work to keep our balance? Is this really your great plan? Because if it is, I'm /SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU/, and I want you to stop and think about what's going to happen if you actually attack us now. Well? What do you all have to say for yourselves?"

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri purses his lips as people start heading up the chain. He stays behind, walking along it. The cave was too small for his full powered form, which meant that he would have to handle the chain outside the cave. He slowly walks up the length of it. Several of the shots from the Blackbird strike where he finds footing, and that's when the weirdest part of Yuri is shown:

    Whole pieces of his body are blown off and shorn away by the impacts of the shots. What is revealed by these impacts is a body of brass and flame, metal seeming to take the place of injured flesh. And then, just as quickly, that metal grind and distorts back into place as he stands upon the chain. He does not feel the pain of it, he lost that sensation long ago. But he notes the power of the attack.

    At a high enough point on the chain leading to the mountain, his own chains fall out from under his coat. As he shifts his footing, he flicks them, wrapping them around the massive length of the chain. And then they start to burn green with fire and fury as he pulls upwards. The age and thickness of the chains makes this a low process, but he is essentially using Green Sun Nimbus Flare to super heat his chains and begin carving, very slowly, through the chain between Mount Woe and the land below. It will take him a while.

    As he does this, a screen appears in front of his face, "Please open a channel to the Malfeas Supercruiser."

    "CALLS SHOW THIS SIGNAL AS THE BELIGERENT TRAITOR. PLEASE HOLD. FOR YOZI CONVENIENCE, PLEASE ALSO KILL YOURSELF."

    Jazzy music begins playing.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    At Shizune's words, several of the imps look to one another. The response that eventually comes -- from the mouth of a unique one with red skin and clad in a blue tunic -- is far more somber than some of them might have been expecting: "Nothing. We don't expect to do anything. But we would be executed by the Queen if we didn't at least try."

    So maybe they aren't doing this wilfully? Or at least, not all of them; that imp that stuck its tongue out at them before certainly didn't seem remorseful.

Maya has posed:
They certainly are hacing a heck of time with it She falls in with the others hew wings keeping her aloft and that's when the rifle comes out. She's like some kinda of gunner angel as she opens fire on the timp as she attemps to hel0p thin them out and keep with the group.

"Well lets see what we can do about this."

Maya is now keeping a pretty good pace hopefully her support will be enough.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Shizune inclines her head faintly in acknowledgement. "And you've tried. Quite hard, I must add. But if you continue, I'm afraid we're all going to have to hurt you, very badly." She pushes up her glasses. "Why don't you all... I don't know, go give yourself some light bruises and cuts? They don't have to be too bad, and you can say we were far too strong to stop. I'm going to be honest here-" At this, she unfolds her arms and brings them up into a ready stance. "After we go through you, we're going to destroy the thing that keeps this mountain aloft. Mount Woe is going to go away. Do you really want to be stuck here, beaten up and unable to move, when that happens? Or do you want to use this time to escape with your lives?"

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Just hold on tight. And keep an eye on anything coming from behind if you can." In a way, Cory might just be taking this assignment as a challenge. "Oh yeah. Hold on TIGHT."

    FWOOOOSH! "You morons!" Is her response to the bird-riding imps. "Flee instead of follow someone like that. This isn't the only world you're stuck on..."

    Although with Schala on her back, Cory's limited to kicks and fighting using her Ki.

    Which might be why she doesn't immediately go on the offensive. No sense wasting energy unless the others get into a bind!

    "So Schala, right? You said Giga Gaia holds this mountain up. We beat him and what happens? The mountain falls? That's an awful lot of people down there. Pretty sure they can't outrun a tsunami... there's a plan for that?"

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    "The Queen would know if we did that," The imp replies. "You don't lie to the Queen -- she's all-seeing. You can't hide from her, either, so we either fight you now and have a tiny chance of living, or we run away and live in fear until we get hunted down. That's just the way life is for Fiends." It doesn't seem like this is working. Several of the imps being carried by birds ready their blowguns, but they don't attempt to strike them. Not yet.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
At the sight of all of those birds and imps charging the group as soon as they finally make their way OFF the chain and onto the relatively terra-firma of Mount Woe proper, Xiaomu sighs heavily, even her tails wilting, and draws her pistols again.

At the sight of Shizune Nakamura roundly chewing all of the beasts out, the sage fox holds her fire. And when it doesn't sound like that's going to do the trick, Xiaomu re-holsters her handguns ... and pulls out a grenade. "So yeah, woe unto you if you try to stop us," she chimes in, trying to support Shizune's argument. "Seriously, if you don't want to either get slaughtered en masse right here, right now, *OR* to die when the floating mountain collapses and crashes to the ground, your best bet, really ... ?"

She hooks a thumb back over her shoulder, indicating the chain.

"Running like hell and going to ground is your best chance for a long, happy, and productive life. Anything else is going to be short, messy, and incredibly unfulfilling," Xiaomu finishes. She's still got that grenade ready in one hand, she just has to pull the pin and toss it into the enemy ranks.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari's journey up the chain ends just when she realizes a certain Exalt is cutting the damn chain she's climbing. Gulping down a moment of abject panic, she pulls herself up with a kunai, and then leaps from the chain! Right towards the side of the floating island itself. Using a kunai like an ice-pick, Yari clings to the side, hopefully climbing up to a low outcropping; one low enough to see over the lip of the island and to the others, but also to keep herself concealed.

Even then, she has damn /birds/ to deal with. One bird gets a hard punch to the face as it swoops down towards her, while another is greeted with a new silent sword-draw technique. Then she'll take a quick peak at the others from her hidden position.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Once they reach the top, Ivraala doesn't seem interested in thinking about /why/ the birds and imps have set up an ambush at the top of the chain. She's just concerned with getting /through/ them, and what's more, this is an excellent chance to stave off the Endless Hunger in a productive way. But when Shizune just stops and /berates/ them, even she's given a moment of pause, turning back and staring at the girl with a hint of frowning confusion on her cold, hooded face. Seriously?

    ...and they're responding, too? The red imp gets a similar stare, and for a few moments, Ivraala isn't exactly sure how to react. Soon enough, though, she just gives a quiet scoff and casts her hand out to the side; the brief flare of the cold light beneath her tattoos summons a swarm of unholy insects a good distance around her, each one with a sting ready to inflict an immediate infection of Blood Plague and Frost Fever. But she doesn't /attack/, and the insects don't go very far from around her. Seems like she's just setting up a passive defense.

    "You have no chance of winning," she retorts to the imp, annoyance seeping into her tone, "so I'd suggest taking the girl's advice. She might even be able to arrange something for you if you decide to try to leave this entire world and flee to another. This is someone speaking who escaped from the binding of someone not /completely/ unlike that queen of yours, so take that as you will. For now, I'd suggest you get out of the way and let us pass, or else you'll miss out on your small chance of escape."

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Shizune lowers her head a little and lets out a quiet sigh. "I see. I'm sorry it has to be this way, then. For what it's worth, I'll try and go easy on you, but I can't speak for my allies."

    At that point, she suddenly snaps her foot down into the dirt, twisting it just right to catch some of the thin soil. A burst of ki to stir it up and free it, and her leg swings upward in a wide arc that slings the dirt towards the faces of the imps bringing up their blowguns.

    With that to serve as a distraction, the martial artist dashes forward to cover the distance as fast as she can, intending to lash out with fist and foot as soon as she's in reach.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
The kick of dirt is presumably Shizune's predicted signal; Xiaomu immediately pulls the pin, yells a helpful warning of "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" to her allies, and chucks the grenade as far past Shizune as she can. It should land amongst the imps' rearmost ranks.

And then it detonates, the conventional explosive boosted via fire-elemental enchantments to make it a bigger and hotter fireball than you'd get with an off-the-shelf grenade. It SHOULD be far enough back not to catch any of the good guys in the fireball, although in a confined space, there'll be enough heat for what feels like a hot wind to blow in the faces of Shizune, Xiaomu, and the others in the group.

Then Xiaomu pulls her handguns back out and starts supporting Shizune, shooting at imps and birds alikee, with a fairly brief pause to load fresh clips into Silver and Platinum.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Again, the imps look to eachother. Even some of the birds seem to exchange meaningful glances. The brow of the red-skinned imp who had spoken for them before is visibly coated in beads of sweat. Eventually, a yellow-skinned one speaks. "Maybe... maybe we should listen to them. This doesn't look good. You know we won't win, so why should we bother? Really, let's just..." His words peter off. The red one grabs at their temples as though they were an animal locked within a cage. At the culmination of it all, his gaze shoots back up. His eyes are bloodshot. His sclera is dyed a sickly yellow.

    "We're dead either way!!" He shouts. In the blink of an eye, he whips out his blowgun, training it -on Xiaomu's grenade-. He looses his shot. Half of the group darts to safety while the other half presses the offensive. One imp and bird duo is sent after every person present, but many of them are immediately taken out of commission by Shizune's lash of dirt. Their eyesight is obscured, and when the birds notice them, they let them go. Three birds let their imp cohorts fall to their deaths so they can continue in pursuit of Ivraala, Shizune, and Xiaomu. The rest of them scatter, firing off dart toward all of them at intervals.

    The group that decided to abstain from the fight wait on the sidelines, watching their compatriots fight. They fidget nervously, but not a one moves.

Maya has posed:
Maya was a bit out of the loop and made a mistak a very bad one however, he kinda just shot diploacy dead and may have made things a hell of a lot worse. Maya's not perfect and this is one of those days where she just has screwed up she dots halt fire. Her shots however were not aimed too well so maybe wouldn't end so badly? Either way Maya's kicking herself later. However the Imps' ords? Does make her feel more pitty than she might have otherwise she is going to likely hold bacl at this point and she thinks it best she falls into a more supporting roll as she'll make ready to start carsing support spells on her allies. She'll start casging barrier spells upon Xiaomu, Schala and Cory.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    The moment the signal is given, Ivraala's ready...though she'll have to wait a few moments to let that burning explosion pass. As soon as she finds an opening to deal with the birds that come after her, though, she's leaping into action. The biting, infectuous insects around her should be enough of a problem even before her axe comes swinging around; hopefully enough to harass the birds she's not immediately cleaving at and keeping them from getting a strike on her without suffering stings themselves.

    The fact that not all the imps dive into the fray is not something that goes unnoticed by Ivraala. If they don't seem interested in doing anything immediately, she won't attack them. Her heavy axe blows, for now, are purely focused on anything immediately assaulting her or her allies.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Much as Ivraala does, Shizune refrains from attacking anyone that stands back and lets them pass. Sadly, that number is less than 'all of them'. It's with grim determination that she goes on the attack, flowing from one blow to the next; her focus is chiefly for what few opponents are on the ground, stepping through a flowing series of strikes and evasions as if it were choreographed. It's not perfect, however - one dart nicks her shoulder through her clothes, another grazes her hip, and she barely manages to avoid taking a third right to the face. She's hard-pressed by the enemies firing darts from above.

    So she kicks off the nearest stone to launch herself into the air, whirls around into a forward somersault, and uses that to drive an axe kick down into the nearest bird she can reach. "Hup-YAAA!"

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
While a hot bullet, fresh from the barrel of a gun, could probably detonate a grenade prematurely, a blowgun dart doesn't do much to stop a thrown grenade. It imparts some extra spin to the hurled device, though, and throws it off-course by a few degrees -

**BOOM!!**

And leaves quite a few more imps un-scorched than Xiaomu was hoping for.

Oh well. The imps who are actually huddled off to the side are left unmolested; Xiaomu is focusing on the imps who are still openly hostile, and there isn't really a shortage of those. She's still working more at supporting her allies than at targeting imps whom nobody else has managed to lay hands or firepower upon yet.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari lets the confusion calm down at first, content to remain at her little outcropping. When some flying imps come her way? The woman lashes out with kunai, hornbutts, and even a crescent kick to one of the offender's rides. All aimed to kick them off of her relatively narrow ledge of course!

Otherwise, she watches and waits, recording the action like some kind of weird camerawoman.

A weird camerawoman who's rubbing her head a bit. Hornbutts /hurt/ for her kind.

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Bwegh." Fighting reluctant enemies doesn't sit well with Cory. Despite her rough manner she's a warrior, not a bully. When Imps start plunging for the water far below she grimaces, but...

    Oh well. Can't go after them AND keep an eye on her companions AND keep Schala out of the line of fire. "Maybe they're tough enough to survive... and swim to shore."

    If not... oh well. The Afterlife might be better for 'em than this miserable existence?

    Cory's expression twitches a litle.

    She continuse floating near the group. Occasionally she takes potshots with weak Ki blasts for the birds to screw up their formations and make it easier for the others!

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Still, the resonant flame that extends from Xiaomu's grenade as it explodes is enough to burn off the feathers of many of the birds. Four or five of them fall out of the sky, three of them to the frigid world below, two of them motionless on the thin soil of Mount Woe. Their respective imps are likewise incapacitated by shrapnel. The birds that charge Xiamou, Ivraala, Shizune, and Yari are all kicked, stabbed, or sliced into submission, and in the end, the group is surrounded by a gaggle of imps and birds that are dead, maimed, or both. At any rate, they won't be giving them any more trouble.

    The remaining imps stare blankly at them for a long, long time. It seems that, suddenly, the entire mountain has fallen silent. The yellow-skinned one that had protested against the red-skinned imp from before, however, eventually gathers enough courage to speak. When he does, he offers to guide the lot of them to Giga Gaia. He assures them that nothing else will attack them on their way after that display. Should they accept his offer, he leads them across the eerily quiet, windy steppes and rises of the grandiose prison until they finally reach a dark crater, void of any of the grasses that cover the rest of the area. Before that precipice rests Melchior, his form locked inside a shell of crystal. When they arrive, she can't help herself -- Schala releases herself from Cory's grasp, running to her mentor with abandon.

    She calls his name and raps her knuckles upon the stone. Fearing that they've come too late, she falls to her knees in dismay. She does not have very much time to lament, though, before Gaia rears its ugly head. From the deep groove of ebony stone, a behemoth worthy of its name arises. Its body is cloaked in a distinct, violet, almost stonelike substance. Spines rise from its shoulders in clear indication of its power, and its fists, covered by similar spines, lift to its chest in a battle-ready stance.

    Unlike the imps, Gaia is not wont to wait for them. He holds his fist aloft of Schala, threatening to bring it down upon her.

    The yellow-skinned imp continues to watch them all the while.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    When the yellow imp offers to lead them, Shizune is unflinchingly kind in response. He's in a difficult position, after all, and trying to make the best of it. With that help, their trip to the top of Mount Woe is much easier...

    ...which, Shizune realizes when they meet the Giga Gaia, is probably a very good thing.

    A chance to catch her breath is a godsend to Shizune. She breaks into a charge without waiting, yelling out to Schala even as she crosses that distance at a dead sprint. "/LOOK OUT!/" There's not much else she can do. She's bad at brute force. She's probably far weaker than this thing. But she has to do something. So she leaps, going full speed, and turns a flip that brings her right leg around, left leg drawn back, in an attack that sings with her Japanese heritage, aimed right for the Giga Gaia's chest.

Maya has posed:
Maya comes under attack by some nagry birds she's forced into a close up fight using her rifle like a club, as she attemps to batter and smack the birds away as she has to try and fend them off. So she's busy fending off birds. Seriously this is not going well for her with the birds Maya's a ranged fighter and spell caster. She's not that amazing up close and she can't even get to her knife like this. She finally gets past them getting them off her and she's going to jet after her friends and move to catch up with the rest of the party which she does.

She sees what awaits them and now they mange to get to Melchior. She sees Schala run to him however she's not able to call out a warning int itm.

"Look out!"

She see then dives right fo Schala intent to knock the Princess out of harms way in a flying tackle but she may end up getting smashed in her place.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Once their assailants are down, Ivraala turns back to the yellow-skinned imp with a steady glare. It seems they're willing to bring them to Giga Gaia, though, and so the draenei simply offers a silent nod of thanks and follows along. Soon enough, the insects around her disperse, but her axe never leaves her hand.

    Especially once they reach the clearing and find Melchior. The death knight frowns from under her hood, but before she can say much else, Schala's dashing toward the crystal prison. Taken by surprise by the girl's sudden rush, Ivraala's reaction is slightly delayed as she snaps at the girl, "/Schala/! Wait, we don't-"

    And then there's Giga Gaia.

    The death knight's lack of a sense of self-preservation extends to more than just killing. Now and then, it comes with a need to protect, and as Ivraala almost mindlessly sprints over, that's exactly what she intends to do. Maya knocks Schala aside, but Ivraala doesn't stop: she immediately plants herself between her allies and Gaia, the air around her suddenly flaring with an eerie crimson light. With a tremendous roar, she braces herself in the path of Gaia's fist and gathers runic power in her runeforged axe, swinging it with enough force to strike that fist both with her own strength and the explosion of obliterating power that her blow releases.

    And if that doesn't stop it, well, that's what Blood Presence is for.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari, now that the group is moving on, tails them after crawling up fro the side of the mountain. She keeps behind cover, leaping and rolling about as she can. Breath slow and even, she keeps as low to the ground as she can while prowling.

Hunkered behind a rock and watching the group as they fight the Gigas, she watches as Schala goes for Melchior! A fist, but Maya to the rescue! Yari tenses up, and radio's Dalton.

"Contact with the 'boss'. Order when ready, Sir Dalton, and I'll prepare to grab her."

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Elsewhere and separate from the Boss Battle, Yuri casually continues to try to pull his green-hot chain upwards through the link between Mount Woe and the land below. Excruciatingly slow-going because he's conserving Essence and not going for a huge blow-out severing. Instead he's going to opt for slow and steady.

    "IF YOU CONTINUE TO MOCK THE AUTHORITY OF MALFEAS AND HAVE YET TO KILL YOURSELF, PLEASE PRESS ONE. IF YOU HAVE COMPLIED, STAY ON THE LINE AND SHE WHO LIVES IN HER NAME WILL CATALOGUE YOUR DEATH ACCORDINGLY."

    A smooth saxophone continues to play while Yuri mentally presses one and waits for the inordinately long hold times. He taps his foot a bit impatiently as he works.

Cory (768) has posed:
    Since there's finally a guide, Cory finds the rest of the way to their destination a breeze. It kinda feels good to do good and make her mom proud, but she can't help but balk at Schala's overly emotional lamentations - though that look turns fierce when - "Something's coming--" WHOOOSH!

    Hello Giga Gaia.

    "KAIOKEN... TIMES SIX!" Crimson flame-like Ki erupts all around the Saiyan, and the very next instant -- "HEEEEYAH!!"

    She rockets over into the path of Giga Gaia's hand, ready to intercept it with a mighty punch!

    Or so it seems.

    In truth, she doesn't wait any longer than it takes for Giga Gaia to notice her before she goes flying straight up, aiming to KICK the fist with enough force to get him HOPEFULLY punching himself in the face.

    She's quite possibly misjudged how tough he is though...

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Hey, it's always nice to have a guide; Xiaomu raises no objections to the imp's help. But upon reaching the summit ...

Another pair of magazines - not quite empty - are ejected from Silver and Platinum, clunking into the dirt; Xiaomu replaces them with magazines loaded with Shinra's special anti-spirit rounds, on the premises that Giga Gaia looks too big for regular bullets to stop, and if it's actually magical, anti-spirit bullets should be more effective than mundane jacketed slugs. And as soon as she's done swapping magazines, she raises her handguns and opens up, starting to empty those clips at Giga Gaia's ugly-as-sin face; if she can nail the monster in the eye - or better still, get some bullets into the thing's *mouth* - that has to be even better than plinking them off of a skin which looks like it's very probably armored.

The sage fox from Shinra isn't just standing and shooting, either; she's running and gunning, her staff jangling as it's been stuffed through a couple of loops on her carrypack, so she doesn't have to leave it in one place while she's on the move with guns in hand ... and there are a couple of reasons WHY she's running, too. One is to make sure she's a bad target in case G.G. Joe takes a swipe at her; another reason is to spread out from her allies, so she's not intruding on anyone else's line of fire (or being intruded by, for that matter).

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    As Shizune brings her leg around for a kick, Gaia is actually quite slow to react... until she actually makes contact with him. The hit echoes throughout the entire area as a painful -crack- similar to what one might here after shattering a shell. A pronounced impression is left, but Gaia doesn't even flinch; rather, he simply looks down at her, bringing his other arm around to 'lightly' pat his chest. Light enough that it doesn't cause retaliatory damage to the being himself, but certainly harsh enough for it to break some of Shizune's bones were it to make direct contact.

    In the meanwhile, its other arm begins to fall toward Schala. The princess in question, however, is saved by Maya's intervention. Unfortunately, though, this maneuver leaves the junker herself in grave danger. A fist with the strength to shatter diamonds races toward her. Soon after, there indeed comes a sensation like an Earthquake and a sound comparable to the explosion of a bomb, but that hand still has not connected with the ground. Rather, it has connected with the end of Ivraala's axe. The incredible, phenomenal forces of both fighters are temporarily locked together, holding Gaia's arm up so that Maya might have time to escape.

    Only when his knuckles begin to crack does Gaia finally relent, lifting his fist back to his side. Before it can reach him, though, Cory comes at him. Her punch contacts with precisely the area where Ivraala had cracked his exoskeleton, deepening the crack yet further. This crack becomes so deep, in fact, that one would be able to see pulsing, enflamed red muscle beneath it.

    Screw finding weakpoints -- their concerted effort has just -made- one.

    Then Xiaomu's bullets shower its eyes. Gaia closes them, but luckily for it, its mouth never seems to open. It endures the groups myriad strikes for some time before, finally, it has had enough. It brings both of its arms to bear against the risen stone that forms the crater of the mountain. Boulders erupt from all around, threatening nearly everyone. Schala is able to erect a barrier around herself, but there is little she can do for the others beyond praying. Immediately after the stones rain from the sky, it follows up with an attack that proves Xiaomu's assumptions right: waves of corrosive, black mist envelop the area, threatening to sting and burn the flesh of anyone in the area whose skin remains exposed.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    For Yari, there is another delay before Dalton replies. When he finally does, however, "Right. I'm bringing the Blackbird in now." The Blackbird dips out of view, gradually positioning itself to the side of the crater where it is obscured by the view of the ground, and -- hopefully -- the sound of battle. When it's where it needs to be, Dalton replies, "I'm in position. Grab Schala and get to the other side of the crater. You'll land on the wing -- there should be a few troops there to guide you to me." A bit later, he adds, "I'll look forward to seeing you, Yari. Glad to know there are some people out in the Multiverse who care to help us out."

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    A flying kick that meets with a fair bit of success... and also leaves Shizune rather vulnerable. It accomplished its goal of distracting the Giga Gaia, but the problem with that is that she's now between arm and body. In a panic, she scrambles to push off the body and upward, but the hand /just/ clips her along the back, sending her corkscrewing towards the ground where she lands with a hard, audible impact. And before she can quite come to her feet, boulders erupt everywhere. She manages to roll out of the way of one, but a second smacks her aside en passant, sending her to the ground for a second time and leaving her fairly battered.

    But by the time the mist comes out, she's able to get back to her feet, and... take a deep breath. In, out. In... out.

    At her feet, dust rolls away from her in a tiny little puff.

    In, out.

    Smoothly, steadily, Shizune brings her hands out, around, in time with her movement. In, out. Shifting and moving, circular motions, causing her ki to flow steadily through her, around her. In, out. The dust at her feet begins to puff and whirl more steadily; while her ki isn't visible to the naked eye, its presence, its effect on her surroundings, is plain to see. The acid mist flows around her as if blown by a gentle, unseen breeze. She steps and moves, slowly and gracefully, until she passes through the mist attack.

    And then with no warning, she explodes into another leap, this time darting up to where she can drive a hard spinning kick right into the weak point they've created.

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Heh! Well, THAT spot's just screaming 'hit me here!'" Grinning proudly at the accomplishment, Cory descends to the ground for some stability - but just as she's aiming to capitalize on the opening...

    BOULDERS! "Ghhh..."

    SO many Mages have offered shields for her by now that she just tanks the first few impacts and decides to continue with the assault. Some of the rocks bruise her but...

    Her legs are spread wide, she's got one arm at her side and one held hiiiigh overhead, palm open and fingers spread out. "Hrngh...!!"

    It wouldn't be hard to pick up a surge of Ki from within her. There's no need though, as the way she's focusing it is more than obvious. A spinning golden ring rises up from her elbow and rushes to just above her palm. The Ki mass' vibration and spin make a weird humming, whirring sound that would send shivers through anyone familiar with the technique. Cory grins as the mass flattens, the edges turning razor sharp...

    Then she's SMACKED in the face by another boulder whilst distracted. She stumbles back a few steps, spitting out a bit of blood... even as the mist getsher flesh feeling like it's ON FIRE she doesn't withdraw. Instead...

    "KIENZAN!"
    Or if you want to be classic, 'Destructo Disk.' But that's neither here or there!

    Cory simply HURLS the disk forwards. It flies at an angle, carving a trench in the ground before it curves upwards sharply, heading STRAIGHT for the exposed muscle in the weakened arm!

    Of course by that time she's coughing and gagging from all the gunk in the air...

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
With Schala occupied, and the great creature fully occupying their attention, Yari gets her orders. Yari lightly sighs.

"...Thank me if I manage this, not until then." She slips a paralysis-poisoned kunai from her equipment, as well as a trio of smokebombs. She has no doubt this group will notice her. Best to increase that cover provided by the dark mist.

And she uses it. After a handseal, already bleeding from the exertion from over-taxing her body, she slinks from rock to rock, cover to cover, until she is near Schala. Her skin burns, even through the light armor she's wearing, but she ignores it. Finally, she makes her move.

First, one kunai is flung silently at that watching imp, just so it doesn't give Schala any warning. A non-lethal strike to the creature, poisoned to make sure s/he is knocked out. Then she's behind Schala in a flash of super-enhanced ninja speed. First, a hand would try to grab Schala's mouth from behind to muffle her. Then, her tail aims to stab that other kunai right in the arm. It'd be painless, and if she's successful, freeze the poor woman on the spot.

POMF! It's then that /another/ cloud of smoke appears to obscure the battlefield. She'll attempt to hall Schala across one shoulder bodily, and uses a ton of magic to maintain her enhanced reflexes as she beats a hasty retreat to the other side of the crater with the cover of smokebomb! She's aiming to leap off it and towards the Blackbird!

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Ivraala is, for a few moments, forced to take a breather after Gaia's fist is deflected. That was a remarkable strain, one she's amazed she managed on her own. A glance is given back to ensure that Maya and Schala are safe, and then the draenei looks back to their opponent just in time to see the shattered armor and the red muscle beneath it. That's where she'll have to be aiming...as soon as these boulders stop crashing down, and that sickly mist stops seeping around them.

    Both are problematic enough, but of all her allies, Ivraala seems the most capable of enduring these difficulties. She may be more attuned to Frost than Blood, but all death knights are, fortunately, graced with some ability to tap into abilities outside their focus. Ivraala's body is hardened, and her very presence seems to demand attention from her enemies; if anyone's the best bet for keeping Gaia's attention focused on them, it's probably her right now.

    The draenei's nimble hoofwork keeps her spared from the boulders, but that mist is a nagging issue as it eats away at her few points of exposed flesh. Still, she feels no pain; even as her skin is burned, she can't /feel/ it, and that's good enough for now. Her shout is lifted to Gaia as if in defiance: "Hey, overblown golem! Maybe you should focus on the person who doesn't /care/ about all your silly powers. Is that /really/ the best you can do?!"

    While others are focusing on that weak point, Ivraala instead tries to get right in Gaia's face, almost literally: a sudden thrust of her hand blasts the area in her immediate vicinity with a strange, shadowy aura. Her allies wouldn't feel it, but Gaia would: shadow manifests in his blood to make it literally /boil/ for a few brief moments. And, while she doesn't know Yari's there right at that moment, it just so happens that its range of effect might catch her too before she drags Schala off!

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
That's an awful lot of boulders that are suddenly threatening the group; Xiaomu HAS to cease fire just to watch where they're coming from and try to avoid getting flattened like a dropped piece of fried tofu getting sttepped on. And when Giga Gaia follows up with that corrosive miasma ...

Well. Her arms and legs are bare, and her qipao isn't exactly a protective HEV suit. There's a yowl of angry pain as a wave of mist engulfs the sage fox; when it passes, she looks like she just took a header into a tank full of jellyfish, red welts covering way too much of her visible skin.

Her staff gets jammed into the ground next to her, and Xiaomu starts throwing the rest of her grenades - generally aiming them at the weak spot that Ivraala and Cory just made on the monster's chest, and her timing is good enough that they ought to detonate at closest approach, rather than before they get to the target zone or after they've bounced or fallen away from the soft spot.

She doesn't even notice anything but the enemy and her allies - and the latter are mostly being noticed so she doesn't toast any of her buddies with an ill-timed fire grenade.

Maya has posed:
Maya had acted without thinking to just get Schala out of harms' way. she's done so. She twist looking up at the fist that' coming down. BEfore she cna doa nything Ivraala act sand tht will buy Maya the itme to escape becomiong a pancake. She unaware of What Yari is up to as she gets up.

"I owe you one Ivraala"

Mya's now keeping an eye Schala at this point. However she's going to take a moment to unleash magic of her own in a way. She's got her rifle loaded and ready now as she takes aim with it the housing opens up and ther'ea glow from just under the barrel. It does not last long aa six glowing blue spheres launche and if one is paying attenion the Rifle had eariler drained magical fire from Maya's body before they fired. The sphere shot seek out the Gaia Gaia and attemp to set of a focued chain of explosions!

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Shizune's drill kick sinks directly into Gaia's newly-crafted weak point. She comes in like a human bullet, and her kicks sink deep as if they were blades. The net impact they ultimately have, though, is more comparable to an explosive -- the force of her attack collects behind the iron exoskeleton and pushes so much that it eventually bursts from within. Bits and pieces fall off of Gaia's arm, and much more of its muscle is exposed all of a sudden. Its mouth finally opens, this time in pain, as it attempts to pull its hand back in sheer agony. As it's being pulled away, though, Cory's disc shoots by, severing the tendons and leaving the hand so that it's hanging on only by biological seam and thread. What -does- remain ultimately hangs suspended in the air, inert -- his left hand is too damaged to be used anymore. Progress!

    Eventually, though, it is able to suffer the pain enough to look to Ivraala. It lifts its remaining arm above her, but before it can lower its impromptu gavel upon her, something... happens. Something that it can't quite understand. As its blood boils, its body turns from deep indigo-and-violent to something more comparable to orange-on-red. Suffice it to say, the burning sensation is a visible one, and one that chafes at the golem so that it is paralyzed for a moment. This makes it impossible for Gaia to move or retaliate as Xiaomu pouts its already wounded appendage with grenades. What little remains of its hand is blown off entirely, and blood begins to pour forth from its wounds as might a crimson river. Shrapnel lodges itself in the bends of his exoskeleton, and yet more weak points are opened up all over its body.

    Gunfire continues to pelt the beast, but now that all of them have lain down their more consequential strikes, he sees his chance. The fire that had suffused his insides thanks to Ivraala's technique is suddenly turned into a deadly weapon. Its pupils ignite briefly into flames as blue fire emits from the folds between its spiked 'pauldrons'. It flattens its remaining palm before, suddenly, a powerful wave of fire wafts off of him. It's enough to burn at flesh or ignite any weapons or attire that are not crafted of something as resilient as metal. Suffice it to say, the strike is brutal and pervasive -- everything in the area would be struck by it. Even the fleeing Yari if she isn't careful.

    ... and speaking of Yari, she is easily able to knock Schala unconscious. An impatient Dalton radios over to ask, "Hey, where are you? Everything going okay? If the 'heroes' try to stop you, let me know. I can send some troops up to help you if need be. We -need- you to be successful here."

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari isn't one to take chances. The group gathered is superbly powerful, as evidenced by the great arm of the creature is shorn off! The impatient general catches her ear.

"Prepare the troops! Nearing the other end of the canyon! Uploading coordinate tracker data!" Sputters the ninjette, particularly as Ivraala's blood boil catches her in its fringes.

The good news? She avoids anything she needs to run like hell with. The bad news? It's her /tail/.

She bites into her lip, piercing it with her teeth from the pute pain and agony that very nearly causes Yari to trip as veins boil and break. But never let it be said that Yari is a weak woman, and she endures it. She's done far worse to herself in training, and that horrible time with Sanary has only helped.

Rather than take chances, Yari ends her dash in a sliding duck of her legs. One more body-enhancing ninjutsu, and she /leaps/ with all of her might. It's a perfect parabola that sends her flying towards the other side of the canyon. Fire from Gaia bursts towards the ninja, and as she ducks her body mid-air to protect Schala, back and armor burnt into by the flame, she forms handseals and literally rips her hand into the fire. Flesh burns and scorches, but magic alights.

A lightning bolt is aimed haphazardly in the general direction of the group. But the powerful spell isn't there to harm them necessarily.

The pure force of raiton causes Yari, and by extension Schala, to be a flying ball of blue and white and blonde as she ninja-rocket-jumps herself towards the end of, and hopefully /OFF/ of the canyon! But what will the heroes do!?

"SOLDIERS AND A LANDING SPOT, /NOW/" Intones Yari in her best Centurion voice into her radio as she sends herself and Schala into a leap of utter magic and ninja-BS fueled faith.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    In a flash, Shizune leaps back, hopping out of range both of any immediate counterattacks and her allies' own techniques. It is at that moment, the moment she lands, that the smoke bombs go off and Schala is taken. The martial artist feels the bottom fall out of her stomach - The very person they're helping, and she'd made the mistake of believing the one responsible to be helping them in her own way after seeing the ninja running up the chain and attacking the imps from a distance.

    The fire chooses that moment to wash over them all, and Shizune throws her arms up, hissing in pain as her skin is burnt and her clothes are set alight. She utters a desperate, pained noise. She promised Schala to help if it was within her power, and her own naive assumption got the girl abducted - and the Giga Gaia stands between them and the person they're here to help. Indecision grips Shizune for an instant. Her expression is torn.

    But then, abruptly, it hardens.

    There's only one person who could be ordering Schala's abduction. And she'll do whatever it takes to prevent Schala from falling into that woman's clutches.

    From within the dispersing smoke cloud, there's a few moments of silence. There's a sound of Shizune murmuring into the radio. And then there's a coughing, sputtering gasp, followed by a smash like a small glass bottle being shattered.

    A couple of seconds after that, Shizune outright /explodes/ out of the smoke, just in time to see Yari vaulting into the air. Her leap sends her right towards a canyon wall, off which she rebounds - a feat that both redirects her jump to send her further down the canyon like a missile, and absolutely /shatters/ the rock she bounces off of. Her glasses are gone. Her eyes are full of a cheerful promise of extreme violence. She doesn't even seem to notice the wounds and burns and bruises on her body anymore.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    "Done."

    At the abrupt sound of Dalton's voice, Zealian soldiers immediately begin to pour forth on to the wing of the Blackbird. They fan out a tarp when they see Yari arcing over the canyon with the intention to use it as a trampoline. Several more soldiers -- the elite ones in green -- are soon to follow, standing in formation with their rifles aimed skyward. The weaker ones holding the tarp are very, very glad of their presence as they see Shizune, in all her ferocity, soaring after Yari. They glance back to their seniors to silently ask whether they should retreat, but their impromptu leader holds her hand aloft to decline as she leads the battalion in aiming their rifles. Naturally, all of them focus on Shizune. "Ready," The squad leader begins, "... aim..."

    "Fire!"

    They fire rounds in perfectly orchestrated unison. Bullets soar in Shizune's direction in a flicker of sparks, and unless she can do something to evade them herself, they are very likely to make their mark. In the meantime, Dalton himself steps out on to the wing, his cloak billowing in the wind.

    He grimaces at what he sees.

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Ivraala, unfortunately, is a little too prone to getting lost in the focus of battle to pay attention to her surroundings. Too late, she notices Yari's kidnapping, and a sudden flare of /anger/ roils up in her heart. She /knew/ that slithering lizard was up to no good. She seems just about to barrel after her and let the others deal with Gaia, too, but then Shizune, against all rational human nature, bursts out of the smoke and gives chase with incredible power and agility. It's enough to stun Ivraala for a few brief moments as she stares after Shizune, but soon enough, she comes to her senses.

    The strange sensation of warmth helps as she realizes that she's caught on fire in her brief awe. This inability to feel pain comes with some significant troubles now and then.

    Fortunately, a sudden gust of chill wind summoned by a swing of her hand puts it out. Burns, impalement, dart punctures...she's going to have quite some healing to do after this is through, and she certainly looks worse for wear after all that. It just fuels the cold glare she levels at Gaia again as she grips her axe in both hands. "Let's get this over with."

    Ivraala's runic power is significantly depleted by now, but while it's gathering again, she's certainly not incapable of attacking. It's just slightly more traditional, and by "traditional," we mean it's a more straightforward matter of charging up to Gaia, leaping as high into the air as she can, and delivering a furious shout as she attempts to bury her frost-coated axe right in the creature's armored face.

Cory (768) has posed:
    Much like the recent time when Cory was engulfed in dragon fire, her outfit survives the trials and tribulations far better than her flesh. She's engulfed by the flames, and rather startled at how much sheer kinetic force it entails. She's knocked flat into one of the nearby cliffs and drops like a sack of potatoes to the ground, face-first. But she just spits out the dirt and rises to her feet. A lot of things are happening at once and it's getting her quite mad.

    "So the Queen's interfering with the rescue mission by going after Schala? Typical..."

    Worse, this splits their forces. With Shizune going to rescue Schala this is one less competent fighter to keep back Giga Gaia.

    Cory drags herself forward and once again takes a stance, fists at her side. "Leaving us with Giga Gaia, huh?"

    No longer is she grinning. This just went from being good fun to 'actually really dangerous.' So for a Saiyan, still REALLY FUN but also quite serious.

    Cory somersault leaps an impossible distance, landing atop an outcropping jutting from the cliffs... and there...

    "HuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuoooooooooAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!" The crimson blaze from earlier kicks into visibility again, rushing up from nowhere and surrounding her body. Wavering and licking the air roughly like flames stoked to a fury by a smith's bellows! But it's more than that...

    Anyone with a sense for such things will FEEL the insane upsurge of energy occuring within Cory's body. Her muscles bulge briefly, the armor flexing and expanding to contain the growth. The aura's quickly grown furious enough that it cracks the outcropping, leaving chunks of rock - strangely enough - levitating briefly in the raging winds caused by this gathering of Ki! "KAIOKEN... TIMES TEN!"

    With Shizune gone, Cory's determined to make up the difference.

    Finally, the onslaught BEGINS. With a step quick enough to propel her faster than the eye can see and strong enough to shatter a chunk of the cliff she goes streaking past Giga Gaia to deliver a solid punch to the side of his jaw!

    But it doesn't stop there. No longer visible as a person, Cory's instead simply a crimson streak zipping around like a ping-boll a dozen times a second in weird arcs, laying down blow after blow all around Giga Gaia's head and face with enough force to knock over a freight train! It's a furious assault and her kiais echo through the area one after another.

    Some of those blows are even strong enough to create shockwaves that can be felt from afar.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    A bullet clips Shizune's shoulder, and she doesn't seem to notice.

    Another one digs a deep gash in her thigh, and she looks annoyed.

    A third buries itself in her left bicep, and her voice abruptly calls out, "W'YOU CUT THAT SHIT OUT, I'M /IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING HERE/!" Without stopping or altering her jump she whirls herself around in the air and whips herself around, producing a /wall/ of rippling visual distortion. A burst of ki that doesn't just deflect or halt the bullets; it smashes them right back at the gunmen.

    When her leap /finally/ ends, her feet touch down on the stone not far from the canyon's edge, and that too only lasts the briefest of instants. She leaps with rock-crushing force yet again, flinging herself straight at Yari in mid-air like a missile. This is far off the scale for any sort of power she's displayed so far, and the look of vicious, drunken malice in her eyes is completely unlike the girl Yari's seen in Zeal up until now.

    And it looks like she's either insane or foolish enough to attempt a mid-air tackle at heights like these.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
And then Xiaomu ran out of grenades. And for all that Giga Gaia is now completely missing one arm, the giant monster clearly has far too much fight left in it, if it's dispensing a massive area-of-effect fire attack that's big enough and hot enough to literally make Xiaomu shriek in pain.

Oh yeah ... and bullets. Too many bullets, particularly when Xiaomu can't pay enough attention to really dodge them - of course, all the fire from Giga Gaia also means she can't see where the bullets are *coming from*, so besides acid burns and fire burns, she's going to be nursing bullet holes when she gets back from this mission. Fortunately, she'd emptied her current clips by this point and hadn't taken the time to reload yet ...

She grabs her staff and charges, leaping from the ledge towards Giga Gaia's face, and with a shout of "XIAOMU BLIZZAAAAAARD!!!" she draws her sword once again -

And attempts to stab straight through the middle of the area that Cory's been punching the living hell out of, along with as big a dose of ice magic as she can arouse from Suiren in the heat of the moment.

Maya has posed:
Maya should have seen it coming, after eveyrthing before she unified, and over a decade in the Multiverse? She should have sene it coming but there' nothign she can do about that now. She does see the lighting borlt coming as Yari moves to grab Schala. She sees the blast and watches them make a dash with the princess. Wait what is she doing? Maya breaks off even as Shizune does her he own thing and she starts to wonder if she shouldn' leveal it to Shizune? OR she could support hert As she keeps up? She's not intending to fight, she's got a card or two in hand though and she's channeling raw core energy into the card Shinzune would find herself getting her strench improved, along with her speed and endurance though she'd get an added pink Aura as Maya casts the spell Kyra's Blessing upon her and the cards are glowing bright blue. She keeps up guessing there might be some need for help. Who knows what might be waiting for her. Yari might not be alone right?

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    The flames in Gaia's eyes are quelled just in time for Cory to set upon it again. Gaia raises its hand in its defense, to stay her onslaught, but as it happens a single hand cannot cover the surface area of its entire face. Cory darts around his skull, shattering its exoskeleton, dying its entire body red as more and more of its muscle is exposed. At the culmination of all of this, its jaw is pried -clean off-, falling deep into the abyss of the crater from whence it had risen. Its eyes clench shut to spare them the bulk of the strike and his hand swats at Cory, but ultimately, it can do nothing to stop her.

    Eventually, its gaze rears up in pain. At that precise moment, Ivraala comes by with her axe. Its blade slices directly through an area of weak flesh, further softened by Cory's blows, at its neck. It cuts deep -- so deep, in fact, that it severs what remains of Gaia's head. Its remaining arm falls slack. Its body inclines back. Then it slumps slowly into the center of the mountain to join its other broken constituents.

    Gaia is gone.

    ... and it doesn't take very long for everything to hit the fan. The entire mountain begins to quiver. Within the newfound quiet, those of the group still on Mount Woe can hear the gunfire of the Zealian troops, and the sliding of rocks as pieces of the landscape begin to clatter down to the world below. The urgency of things is immediately made clear. The imps they had passed by before panic, and that one imp that had been nonlethally incapacitated by Yari remains unconscious. For now, anyway.

    Somewhere further away, Yuri's connection to the chain would let him know that it has fallen slack. Now's his chance.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Soldiers fire a wall of bullets, but seeing that rock shatter, Yari has little doubt that it'll make no difference. That single moment has her instead focused on survival, and failing that, the mission.

Leaping tackles as Yari leaps over the edge of the canyon are efective. Yari couldn't avoid Shizune if her life depended on it...and it likely does. So she doesn't.

Instead, she tilts, and aims her feet towards Shizune's body at the last minute, turning about in the air. The pure impact, succeed or fail, causes her legs to break and bone to rip from her flesh in a horrifying splatter of gore. But muscles spasm, and /work/ as she tries to use the leaping woman as a jumping platform to plaster herself against the wing of the tarp over Dalton's ship.

Despite hovering in consciousness, her teeth sunk into Schala's shoulder to keep her in her grasp, she uses her body as a potential landing spot for the Princess.

She respects the girl in her arms, despite appearances. She has no intention of killing her. Yari will try to rocket away, using the last of her magic for another thunderbolt, propelling her towards the wing of the Blackbird.

It's not aimed at Shizune, though. Instead, there's an explosive grenade that Yari has its pin in her mouth that goes off. Schala doesn't get a whiff of it, as Yari uses her own body and pure resulting force to take the blow.

Whether she succeeds or not, Yari is a bloody, gorey mess of ninja that's barely living as the sum total of these forces rockets her and /maybe/ Schala to the ship. She's going to need one hell of a healer after this. Even throug hit all, she protects Schala, doing her level best to cling to the girl both possessively and protectively.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    Yari -- or at the least, what remains of her -- makes landfall on the ship's wing, but this doesn't come without cost. Several of the reversed bullets turn on the soldiers, burying themselves into their skulls. Two or three of them fall to the ground while those remaining keep shooting. Only when Yari has landed does the 'leader' hold up her fist to signal their pause, keeping her eyes trained on Shizune.

    Dalton and his subordinate seem to have come to the same conclusion: with her current trajectory, there is a very good chance that Shizune will land. If she gets on to the wing empowered as she is, it may well be within her power to do enough damage to this ship to keep it from flying, and beyond that she would definitely endanger all of their lives. Dalton immediately radios to the crewmen he left in the Blackbird's cockpit to change the direction of the plane. 'Hard turn to port,' he barks at them, and the plane turns with his command. The wing turns at such an incline that it almost launches all of its occupants off of the side, but hopefully this does the trick, and keeps Shizune from making a safe landing. If it doesn't? Well, then they will have a lot more to worry about.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Planting boots against Shizune in this state is like trying to stop a fall on solid granite with legs and feet. And as if that weren't enough, Shizune makes good on her threat, wrapping her arms around Yari's legs right at the moment of impact with a bone-crushing grip, and yelling out a cheerful, "You know, I plan to punch you until my arms get tired~! If you give her back now, I won't switch to kicking after that!" She clings, despite the blood pouring down her body.

    But the grenade is positioned just right to wrench Yari out of Shizune's grip, and to send the drunken disaster herself hurtling straight down towards the land far below, out of sight. "HEY, COME BACK HERE, DON'T YOU DARE FLY AWAY FROM MEEEeeeee..."

    A few moments later, at exactly the instant Yari and Dalton believe themselves to be safe, a pair of battered, bruised, burnt and bloody arms, glowing pink from a certain junker's magic, drape lightly over Dalton's shoulders from behind. "Hiii~iiiii." That's when the headbutt hits. The back of his skull.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
In the wake of Giga Gaia's defeat and its collapse into the crater (or is it a proper caldera?), Xiaomu doesn't look like she has the energy or desire to go much of anywhere. The 'ground' trembling beneath her feet, however, puts some much-needed spring back into her step.

She hurries to the lump of ice or crystal or whatever it is that Melchior was supposedly trapped in ... and starts wrapping it in magically conjured ice, courtesy of Suiren's elemental enchantments. Melchior *should* be protected by what's left of that shell, but the fact is, Mount Woe is already collapsing, Xiaomu doesn't think she can get out of there fast enough on her own, and she's got no idea whether Melchior's going to be in any shape for a speedy evacuation either.

Basically, when the load-bearing boss goes down, you do not have time to screw around with departing the premises, and since nobody brought a warp-back-to-town item that *she* knows of ...

"XIAOMU SURFER!! Everyone grab on if you want a lift!"

There's only one way the walking wounded are going to get back down to the real surface in time, and that's by magical ice sledding. It takes just long enough for the ice block to get up to speed that Xiaomu can pick up any of her allies who need/want the ride; then she's steering it back down the path we took to get to the peak of Mount Woe in the first place.

She's going to owe Melchior an apology for the bumpy ride as soon as we get back to the surface, of course. She tried to protect the sage with some 'snowy' powder inside the icy shell, but ... she's mostly counting on whatever Giga Gaia did to keep the guru in something resembling stasis. Really, though, this is going to depend on luck as much as anything.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Amidst their contact, Yari smiles.

"Do what you want. It doesn't matter what happens to me." She whispers back to Shizune before her horrific fall to the Dalton's ship.

Somewhere in the back of the mind of the mess that is one Yari Takane, she can't help but offer some approximation of a smile as she notes Shizune landing. Power, purpose, and fury are things she can't utterly relate to, but she can respect. The woman can barely move by now, gripping to Schala with her oddly unbroken arm as she simply lays there, bleeding at a horrible rate. Breathing shallow, she smirks.

And then Shizune is behind Dalton. With what little energy she has left, she roughly pulls at her sheathed sword. Her tail raises the blade, and then?

She pulls the sheath's trigger. BLAM! Yari's sword goes flying towards Shizune, the hilt aimed for the throat, hopefully to knock her away from Dalton! Either way, she rolls over atop Schala.

If anyone wants that girl, they'll have to pry her bleeding body off of her. Schala's going to need a new dress.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    "Ghhh --!"

    Dalton vaults forward, faceplanting after he's hit by Shizune's headbutt. He spins himself around and whips out a revolver, pointing at her, all while commanding his troops to fire. Instead of doing that, though, the four remaining armsmen train their gun on her in unison, cocking their weapons. "Don't move," Commands the leading lady. That might suddenly seem a much better idea as, with a series of mechanical pivots and whirrs, five turrets mounted on the blackbird's wing all train -their- guns on Shizune as well, all while more soldiers pour out of the Blackbird's insides. By the time Dalton gets back to his feet, she's completely surrounded. "We will only say this once:" There's a brief pause. "Leave now, or we will shoot."

    Who is the insane one here? The drunken girl who's probably going to resist a whole squad of troops with guns pointed at her? Or the entire squad?

    ... kinda up in the air.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    The soldiers are treated to an interesting sight. She looks like an ordinary 18-19 year old, of slightly shortish height. Her clothes would be the modern definition of 'trendy', except that they've been ripped, burnt, and the back of them has mostly been shredded due to a grenade. She sways on her feet, bleeds from multiple wounds - including at least one gunshot - and her skin is burnt in quite a lot of places. And yet, as she staggers, somehow managing to keep her balance...

    She wears an expression that can only be described as 'a wicked, violent daze'.

    The sound of Yari's gunsheath going off prompts a sudden, lighting fast movement. Her body quirks. Her head jerks. Her mouth opens. The corners of her lips bleed, because a sharpened surface is pressed against them, but she has /caught the blade in her teeth/. When she spits it out, there are teeth marks in the metal.

    And then she grins, and lifts her leg high, high overhead. In an impressive display of flexibility, she points it entirely vertical.

    Then she brings it down on the wing underneath her, intending to flat-out sever it with the force of her axe kick.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    After a long enough period of time on hold, the screen finally blinks over to a video feed of a man wearing a military uniform. Across his back is a massively ornate brass daiklaive is across his back. He's dressed like a naval officer and says, "You are aware how angry your call makes him, Dark Hero. Why must you persist to antagonize him?"

    As the chain goes slack, Yuri's own chain finishes cutting it, pulling up through it with a mighty heave before he lets the chain fall from his arms. Yuri looks at the screen for a long few moments and then says, "Fetich. Greetings." He monotones, looking bored with the whole affair, although perhaps just unable to express emotion, "One moment, please, while I switch to a more viable method of talking to you.

    Yuri then looks down at the falling chain. He sighs.

[Viridian Legend Exoskeleton]

    With a burst of green fire, layers of metal begin appearing from Yuri's own body. They eventually wrap around him and start condensing. Slowly, sheet by sheet, with gouts of brass and fire, the metal begins to congeal from the roaring inferno around him. It's less like something being built and more like an organism growing from nothing. He looks completely bored with this affair, or perhaps still incapable of emotion.

    Eventually, after enough time, the roaring pillar of fire dies down and in its place is Yuri's true form and as much a body as his human one now: The Titanic Machine - The Dark Hero That Rebels Against Tyrannt. Hover jets keep it flying in the air as the mountain begins to descend.

    In the cockpit, he looks to the monitor in front of him and blandly says, "Now. Had you removed me from being on hold earlier, I would have had suitable time to warn you." He notes, hands moving over the controls lazily. By Agony Empowered and By Pain Reforged Subsystems were still going strong. His martial arts suite was very booting up. Essence levels maximized. All systems green.

[MONSTER RECLAIMS ITS SHACKLES]

    Outside the cockpit, the machine almost lazily drifts to the severed length of chain. He grips it in his hands and shuts his eyes, focusing. Attuning the spiritual wavelength of the machine towards the chain and trying to make it a portion of his machine via its bizarre, supernatural powers.

    The man on the screen looks bored, almost. As if he'd entertained threats from Yuri dozens of times. Perhaps he had. He flourishes his hand, "And what, 'Dark Hero', would you have warned us of?" He asks in a droll tone, half-lidding his eyes and watching Yuri.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    As Yuri attunes to the chain, making the object gripping the mountain a part of his body, his essence meters noticeably plummet. It was a chain of many links, and so very expensive to bring into his being. Still, he has it now. And he flies rapidly, using Adorjan subsystems to increase is speed while excellencies and other boosts begin to flow into his machine. The result is that the chain snaps tight and Yuri does the impossible.

    With a rotation of his arms and body, Mount Woe begins to move in the air. It swings lower and then starts moving clockwise as the machine pushes every subsystem it has into this miraculous feat of strength. Sparks fly off the joints and servos as it strains, pushing everything into overdrive. The mountain on the chain begins to rotate, swinging faster and faster, moving like a hammer being prepared for a throw.

    "This," Yuri says blandly, looking into the monitor. The transmission blinks off.

Rebellion Cross-Systems Activated: Sky Breaker Throw

    The machine releases the mountain and chain with one final heave. Like a thrown hammer, it careens up towards the sky and seems to be heading right for Zeal. Fortunately, before it gets there, reality itself seems to bend, distort, and tear as if it were fabric. There's a hole that seems to lead into some sector of space, but it almost immediately shuts itself.

---The Exaltech Dyson Sphere---

    A massive green and brass superprison and battlecruiser floats in some forbidden and uncharted portion of space surrounded by an asteroid field that comes close but never strikes the vessel. On the bridge of it is a man dressed as a full Admiral with a massive sword across his back. He shuffles around a bridge as the crews of various constructs and races and other slaves work at their stations.

    Abruptly, red lights shoot up all over the bridge.

    "Proximity alert! Incoming attack!"

    "From where?!" He shouts, pulling up screens and status reports of the massive station. Just off the port size of the absolutely gargantuan spacecraft, a careening errant mountain appears trailing a heavy chain. It roughly slams into the side of the ship, the entire vessel shaking from the apocalyptic impact.

    "Hull breach on fourteen decks! We're leaking Vitriol, leaking crew to space, venting atmo. We took a nasty hit. Where did that come from!?" A crew member shouts.

    The wound in its side is already starting to slowly close, fire and brass mending it shut at a crawling but steady pace. In response, entire vessel once more shudders and a roaring noise can be heard as if from an angry creature.

    He narrows his eyes and pulls back his lips into an angry face, "Stinson." He says in an annoyed tone. His master would be displeased at being struck.

Maya has posed:
Maya is going to trust in Shizune to handle the stuff with Schala they still have their objective to deal with here. She watches as the boss is coming down. She's going to make sure to land with Shizune and the rest of the party to make sure Melchior is able to get out. She's also going to add her own protective magics to adid in keeping the VIP safe along with everyone else riding on the Xiaomu express.

She keeps aler and while she's had experiance with Exalted for years? They just keep doing new things to make her Jaw Kinda hang open in shock like Yuri does now throes the mountain at Zeal and then it just ... vanishes? What did Yuri do? Where did it /go/?

Cory (768) has posed:
    Near the end of Cory's barrage it's not hard to tell that it's NOT doingg her many favors. Each strike breaks her body a little bit more. Muscles groan and protest, organs heave under the effort and her Ki flickers like a candle flame in a gale.

    As Giga Gaia goes to pieces, Cory springs off the severed head and goes reverse somersaulting down to the ground.

    Upon landing the brilliant crimson aura dies down to nothing and with it the raging winds around her also cease. She's left gasping and panting... and stays that way for a few seconds even after the mountain starts shaking apart. "Ah... now what? I SAID this was gonna happen!"

    Gathering her remaining power isn't nearly as impressive this time. The girl's aura is a burning white. If Ivraala needs an escape route, Cory can nab her!

    But either way... off the mountain Cory goes, and just in time to...

    Utterl gape at the proceedings. A MOUNTAIN was just hurled. HURLED. And then it vanished.

    "...W-...well... that takes care of the tidal wave problem..."

    So for now, she just floats in the middle of the sky, awed.

    But then, the exhausted Saiyan detours. A quick burst of power sends her sailin after the fleeing Blackbird...

Ivraala (679) has posed:
    Gaia is decapitated, and hardly a moment later, the mountain trembles. Ivraala already knows that this is a very, very bad thing, and fortunately, it seems her allies already have things in hand. She's quick to accept Cory's offer of transport, considering the saiyan should be able to hoist an eight-foot-tall death knight, and off they fly...

    There was a MOUNTAIN here. It's gone now.

    Ivraala's awed stare lingers on the spot where the mountain simply...vanished into a hole in space, never to return. This Yuri continues to amaze her at every moment she encounters him; she almost finds herself concerned for the next time he and she find each other serving the same cause.

    Still as silent as usual, Ivraala manages to get over her amazement to signal to Cory to let her down near where the base of the chain lay before. There she takes a few moments to settle, leaning slightly on her greataxe as she watches the others deal with the Blackbird. Hopefully they'll do enough to get Schala back, since the draenei's own abilities are all but sapped up there. And if not, well...she's not with the Union, so who would bat an eye at her tearing into the queen's domain to get the girl back?

    She almost hopes it does work out that way, just for the satisfaction of it all.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    And in that instant, two things disappeared from the skies of Antiquity: the Blackbird, and Mount Woe.

    The departure of the Blackbird is far more gradual. The sudden decimation of the plane's right wing inspires each soldier to fire, but the ground quickly becomes uneven enough that their shots are flung -everywhere-. Only the exceptional shot of the leading lady, or perhaps the few closer shots from Dalton's revolver, may actually find their way to the young woman. As for the rest of them, they tumble to the ground, everything and everyone -- including the finest piece of martial technology in Zeal's vast repertoire -- hurtling toward the arctic oceans below.

    It's a long fall. An oddly quiet one, too. Dalton loses consciousness out of fear, as do a few of the soldiers, and so only Shizune and the leading lady are likely to be left awake. And after a while, the air slowly causes them to drift apart, likely sending the majority of the soldiers to their deaths. Once they've all almost reached the ground, though, someone new appears -- someone familiar.

    Queen Zeal floats before them, and she pauses the movement of her daughter, Dalton, Yari, and Shizune all at once. She gives the latter a long, scornful look. "You have earned your place with the rest of the trash," She poisonously remarks, before attempting to teleport her back to the village of Algetty. If she is successful, she would remain in possession of the former three, and will likely move them all to her palace with her. If not, then Shizune may have another long battle on her hands.

    As for the absence of Mount Woe, that's noticed far and wide. Back at the palace, Gaspar, the Guru of Time, gazes out over the balcony. He softly regards the fall of the mountain as he clutches his rod to his chest. People all across the kingdom will soon come to remember the event as a loss of order, an exaltation of chaos.

    Meanwhile, those in Algetty already view it as a symbol of their freedom. They immediately know who to attribute this act to: the one who had sworn himself to their defense before. Most of them do not know Yuri's name, but each time they clap, and every time they cheer, it is nevertheless in his name. There might as well be fireworks in the village with the rampant excitement.

    Xiamou, Ivraala, and Cory achieve a much softer landing beside the opening to Algetty. There is a sudden glimmer of light from Melchior's body as his still paralyzed form comes to rest upon the ground, and the crystal surrounding him seems to spontaneously 'thaw'. He stands up and stretches as if casually before remarking quite earnestly, 'Where am I?' Only when he is able to recall his prior circumstances does he ask about Schala's whereabouts, likely with a start.

    It's over. Melchior is safe. Several children meander out of Algetty to dance with one another, only to discover the heroes outside of their home. They invite them to join the celebration with them, but the Guru of Life promptly declines, insisting the he see to Schala's safety beforehand. And really, where -is- she? Might be a thing to ask Shizune about.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    As everyone goes tumbling down, Shizune moves with surprising swiftness and acuity for someone plastered out of her mind. She hurls herself forward, ducking under the few bullets that come her way, and dives straight towards Yari and Schala both. The auri girl may be surprised to find the pair of arms wrapping around her too rather than prying her off; right now, the only thought dimly making its way through her mind is 'if that goes squish, I will not be happy'. So both Yari and Schala have a drunken girl holding them, and... somehow, falling rather more slowly than they might expect. The whole fall is probably going to be survivable with Shizune there to cushion it.

    And then Queen Zeal appears in the air, and their fall stops entirely. A look of confusion manages to turn to fury in the instant before the martial artist disappears.

    Precisely five (5) seconds later, from above and behind, a foot stomps down on the Queen's head with crushing force, using her purely as a springboard to leap towards Schala and Yari again in yet another 'diving tackle to save a life'. "AND YOU NEED A NEW HAIRSTYLIST!"

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
At this point, Yari is pretty screwed. All she can do is hope to her Emperor and Legatus she doesn't fall completely unconscious at the rate she's bleeding, or utterly crash to the ground at the rate they're falling.

Cue sudden Shizune arms. Despite the delirium that Yari is currently facing, there's palpable surprise in what she has left in her. She doesn't need words here. She screams, 'Why are you saving me!?" In her gaze.

Then suddenly Queen Zeal, and she pauses mid-air. With what little consciousness she has left, Yari makes perhaps a foolish decision.

She flicks her tail like a whip, aiming to try to turn her body towards Shizune in order to keep Schala alive. Also to prevent any immediate grabbings. SEcond? To smack Shizune in the face with her tail if she can manage it before falling unconscious.

Then she's grabbed by the teleport as she forces schala into the magical spell bodily. The last thing she does?

Radio Juno her coordinates, as she reappears just outside Zeal's castle grounds. In a perfect clearing to pick her up, too.

Schala Zeal (733) has posed:
    There are no words to describe the malice of the Queen's expression as Shizune rockets off of her head, but as she notices Yari's consciousness, there's a distinct glint in her eye. She watches for a moment without interference as, miraculously, and in stark defiance of gravity, Yari places herself between Shizune and Schala. Even more miraculously, she is able to take advantage of the moment in which Shizune is returning to grab them a second time to push her away. In that instant, Zeal recgonizes this as the only chance she's going to get: rather than attempting to teleport Shizune, she teleports herself, Yari, and Dalton back to the palace as quickly as she is able. When Shizune finally lands, she will likely be very glad that she has such astonishing endurance.

    That was close -- too close. Zeal knows this. She will not underestimate Shizune -- or any of them for that matter -- a second time.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari is a general bit of meat on the palace grounds. She vaguely radio's Juno to pick her up! Otherwise? Unconsciousness.

Shizune Nakamura (369) has posed:
    Shizune's arms are batted away by a bloody body, and her face is smacked by a tail. "GACKPT-!" In that brief instant, the Queen manages to snatch the ninja and the princess both away, and the drunkard's arms pass through empty air.

    There is an utterly livid look on her face as she starts to fall again - the sheer frustrated ire just enough to bring her a moment of clarity, to broadcast a handful of words over the broadband.

    And then she falls. She survives the impact. Her radio mostly doesn't, however, and neither does her consciousness.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
It's a bumpy, but hankfully FAST, ride back down through Mount Woe - and kinda-hopefully along the chain, but either way, the landing is liable (Xiaomu expects) to be a little rough; Maya's spell support is much appreciated, that's for sure.

Then they land, sloughing off about half of the outer layers of ice any way. The rest of it thaws and breaks as Xiaomu stops sustaining the ice, and as the enchantment which put Melchior in stasis wears off.

"Yay," groans Xiaomu, pleased that the core mission, at least, was successfully accomplished.

She needs about a week of sleep, fried tofu, and games. She'll be lucky to get two days.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    In the aftermath of his throw, the strain of the action has caused parts of the suit to break off in several places and the mech is sparking and throwing off jets of smoke and minor explosions. It slowly starts to dissolve into flames and pieces of brass before its pilot drops out and freefalls for a bit.

    He lands on the ground with a flourish and another gust of wind. His cloaks are stained and soaked in blood, and for the brief moments that he makes his arms visible (most noticably to pull up his hood and cover his face so no one can see him bleeding from the eyes), there are shards of bone and pulled-open segments of flesh along his arms. He doesn't seem to react to the injuries. They're there. They're very injury-ish. He just is incapable of feeling the sensation of pain.

    He takes a calm breath. The cheers of those in Algetty, though they may not know it, help him gain back his essence. Even one such as himself can receive the benefits of being worshipped by mortals. He doesn't feel triumph, though. For while the people cheer, he understands that he has lost by virtue of Schala having been taken. He thinks on this for some time.

    He had considered, in the moments as he swung the mountain, holding Zeal itself hostage. It was within his concept to do so. He cared nothing for the lives of its people in comparison to the lives of those in Algetty. His allies may have been upset, but that was a secondary concern to one such as him. In the end, it had come down to the fact that it would have upset FIA if he had killed that many people.

    He looks to Shizune long as she seems to fall to the ground. Someone will catch her, he muses. Despite his own actions, she had been the beacon to whom the villains of the story had drawn themselves. This, he thought, was his nature as the Dark Hero. This was, then, acceptable. He would not go to the village for praise. As his hands wiped the blood from his eyes, he turned and set to walking.

    He had abided Schala's rules for her sake, but with her captured, he was unshackled once more.

    "Dark Hero subsystems, begin purge," He notes in a monotone, "Load Primary Shintai."

    He would see that Zeal shook with his roar soon enough.

Maya has posed:
Maya is pretty busy keeping the VIP healed and also aiding Xiaomy once they reach the base however she's going to focus on giving some magical supply to XIaomu however in all the chaos she's not certain what's happened to Schala. Just one thing at a thing at a time right?.