4136/Jupiter: Infested Outbreak (Final)

Jupiter: Infested Outbreak (Final)
Date of Scene:	21 May 2016
Location:	Origin System <WF>
Synopsis:	The final confrontation with the source of the Infested that have been resurgent in Jupiter's orbit.
Thanks to:	Literally everyone who came and enjoyed themselves. @_@
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 255, 304, 428, 456, 571, Kushiko
Tinyplot:	Infested Outbreak (Jupiter)

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Kushiko has posed:
            * THE STORY SO FAR *

The Infested, a bioweapon of the Orokin Empire has become resurgent from time to time in the Origin System, and in this case they have been highly aggressive in the Jupiter planetary system.

With every incident, there is typically a source vector, a reason why the Infested invade; such reasons remain unknown, even if their cause is: the aberration of twisted flesh simply known as PHORID

PHORID is a unique case as Infested goes; from what the Lotus and the Corpus have been willing to share, despite its' numerous deaths it always manages to come back due to the ship graveyards beyond Eris, regrowing from larvae whenever it dies. Sadly, the amount of manpower necessary to keep this from happening is astronomical due to from how small of a speck of life Phorid can come back from.

Combatwise, the following data is made known to the group in-transit: massive and powerfully agile, PHORID is believed to possess some degree of psychic powers, able to control flung spines with telekinetic force, and a sonic screams that's as much psionic as it is physical.

Further intelligence also points to the location being heavily overrun with Infested; Boilers and Brood Mothers are among the numbers of Infested, along with a number of Ancients that have metamorphed from the rapid self-replication and growth provided by other heavy units.

Put simply: target rich environment is what people can expect at Amalthea.

Kushiko has posed:
            * HERE AND NOW *

Space travel is the prime way to actually get here; be it by the transports provided through the Corpus, the Lotus, or Union, the moon's surface is pocketed with the curved, crude Grineer structures. If one didn't know any better, the seeming lack of actvity points to it's abandonment.

However, surface scans indicate the spores commonly associated with the Infested, and closing on on the structures leading to the landing docks reveal the presence of that tumorous flesh of the Infested that have begun to scour the industrial surfaces of the installation, as well as the craggy surfaces of parts of the mine that part of the overall structure and stability of the moon.

For what it's worth, there's a lot of room for any ship to dock, short of 100+ person battle cruiser. Shuttles, frigates, the whole nine yards can find places to temporarily moor themselves. Such as the Tenno, who's Liset would be seen coming and going, only to drop off such a figure that disappears further inside.

Navigational coordinates are made available to everyone who is coming; apparently getting in is very easy, but beyond the rendezvouz point is there for a reason: beyond that point is an incredible amount of hostiles and that is effectively a point of no return.

Corridors, elevators, and of course ventillation pipes lead those who have elected to engage in the operation a modestly safe, if incredibly ominous way forward.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The Rogue Shadow's engines scream as it cuts its way through the space beyond Jupiter's moon. Its ion engines blaze blue, and the starlight glints off its hull. Aside from that reflected light, the ship is almost invisible, its black hull blending with the black backdrop of space behind it.

At the controls, Juno Eclipse hunches in her rebel outfit, what looks like a toothpick clenched between her teeth. Her fingers dance over the controls, and her eyes are set grimly forward.

Slumped in the co-pilot's seat beside her is the lanky figure of Galen Marek, dressed in greys and blacks, chin cupped in a palm. "This doesn't look too promising," he observes, warily. "Look at that mess."

"Yeah. Don't touch it. Once we've landed I'll have PROXY stand by to help me keep tabs on the hull integrity; we'll have our blasters."

Galen looks up at the stars bleeding past them, and then sits up when the ship abruptly lurches, dropping out of hyperspace like a rock into a pond. He swings to his feet, turning to the aft of the ship. "I guess this is it."

"You'd better get ready," Juno offers.

"I'm ready. Tell that to our passengers," he offers, footsteps receding.

"Galen."

He pauses; looks over one shoulder.

"Be careful."

With a grunt, he nods, turning and stalking down the corridor to the boarding ramp.

Juno reaches up overhead, flicking a switch and announcing into her headset.

    %This is Blackout to all Union passengers. We're approaching the boarding area and I'll be bringing the ship down momentarily; get what gear you've got with you, and be ready to disembark.]

She looks back, but Galen's already gone, and she shakes her head as she guides the ship in. "I've got a bad feeling about this," she sighs, to the empty cockpit.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    There are still some doubts in a corner of Setsuko's mind about Juno and Galen. She won't be able to simply discard her concerns about their former allegiances; not until she's worked alongside them more, something she's had little opportunity to do. This is a chance to rectify that. A chance to tell that corner of her mind that the decisions of her higher-ups are correct, to see them at work and know they're decent people. So for the time being, she'll trust them.

    When Galen reaches the boarding ramp, the demigod is already there, standing with her arms folded. She needs only one piece of equipment, and it's sheathed at her side. "Be ready," she says simply as the ship comes in. "The Infested are not pretty, either to look at or to deal with. Or to contemplate." By the time the ramp lowers, her hand is on Zanjintou's grip, and she leaps out with speed and precision, landing with blade drawn just in case their landing zone is hotter than anticipated.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka's already prepared for combat once Juno gives the announcement. She nods to Galen when he arrives, and stands to her feet. Loading up a magazine's worth of micro-missiles onto her coil gun's underslung launcher, she gives the weapon a firm slap on the bolt-release. "Here we go."

    She swiftly disembarks from the ship after they land, her helmet folding into place. Maaka immediately synchs with Kotone's tacnet, as well as that of others if they allow it while she makes her way to the nearest vent opening. "Gonna head out on my own for this one, see if I can recon the zone a bit. Cheers, folks." She salutes over her shoulder, then takes off with gun in hand.

    Just as promptly as Setsuko jumps, so does she, leaping into the breach so to speak, whether they're hovering over a pit or just landing in a hangar someplace.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
SO here Kotone was they were hunting Phorid the core of the infestation that was plaguing the Corpus's colonies with. She had also understood they were being very free with information on these things unlike? How they did business otherwise which drove home how /bad/ it is. When a merchan cult is not charging you money and it's not a scam? It's bad, and they understand you can't make money if your /dead/.

Kotone was suitd up again and carrying some heavier weaponry with her this time, a heavy minigun that she had no issue carrying form the kooks of it.

Juno give the passengers a heads up and she seems to bready to roll now.

<<Copy that Blackout I'm ready here.>>

She knows she shouldn't linger for long the moment they are able to board the target.

She also synchs up with Maaka and starts sharing data.

<<You ready for this maaka??>>

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
As long as the Rogue Shadow's hold has room for Black Arachnia, you bet she's aboard. Given the mission description, and the fact that it's following up on the Infestation trouble from the previous deployment, she's definitely interested in helping to close down this incident, whatever it takes.

She does not jump to be the first one off the ship when Juno brings them in for a landing; Setsuko and Alexis can jump before the engines power down if they want, but Black Arachnia will wait until the rest of the group is ready, THEN proceed with everyone else.

In spider form, of course. Why stand six feet tall (seven or eight in her case, really) and be an obvious target when you can hug the ground like her beast mode does? Let the others be subjected to pot shots.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The only answer Setsuko gets is a brief sidelong study from the former Sith. His eyes are dark, and what stubble there is of his hair is also dark. He might have an expressive face if it weren't set in a faint scowl.

He shakes his head. "I've dealt with unpleasant things before. Vader doesn't really know the meaning of 'restraint.'" He tilts his head, regarding her. He can still appreciate the spirit of the warning, though. Wasn't Juno always ragging him about his social skills? "Thanks, I guess." Sniff. She'd be proud.

Maaka is eyed for a moment, before the former Sith grunts. It might be greeting, because he's returning the cyborg's nod of greeting.

In they go. Galen takes a running leap from the boarding ramp, unperturbed by the distance between the ship and the ground; landing in a three-point crouch and making a grab for his lightsaber hilts.

He doesn't carry anything but those two cylindrical hilts. There's one of them in each hand. He carries them cocked so they're behind him in an unusual reverse grip, and when he thumbs the activation on each hilt, they ignite with a hiss and a hum, painting the wall behind him in vibrant blue light. When he strides forward, it's with confidence, even though his head's still down a bit.

"Let's go, people."

The Rogue Shadow settles more properly once its passengers have disembarked, and it's only once it's clear the landing area is free of Infested that the engines power down from a deafening scream to a dull hum. Juno sets to work as soon as they're down, hunching over her console and attempting to nose around, digitally, and see if there's still a security mainframe to slice into. If she can grab hold of it, she can at least slice into the cameras and open doors for them... if there's a mainframe left to actually slice into, anyway. It's probably been eaten by alien death fungi, or whatever that stuff actually is.

Juno doesn't really want to think about it too hard. It's just going to make her want to take a shower more than she already does.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
A group of four figures appear on one of the abandoned industrial platforms, one of them is dressed in silver trimmed black robes, carries a staff with a shimmering black crystal at the top, instead of a face he wears a featureless flat black mask, with a mane of white hair drooping down to his waist. Nine equally white tails flow out of his back.

    The other three figures could very well be golems clad in obscenely heavy articulated armor, each of them of them are eight feet tall, with two of them holding rune clad tower shields, and multi-barreled autocannons, the third holds a large halberd. They swiftly flow into a defensive formation around the man in the robes.

    "This place," the man in the robes creaks out with an ancient sounding voice, "Reeks of death." The mask slowly turns to face one of the growths on the ground. "How appropriate."

    "Master Keilandus." The golem with the halberd points at the landing craft as the Union team disembarks.

    "Well." The black robed man creaks a little sourly, before making a throwaway gesture with his left hand, "Maybe they know what's responsible for this mess." He sighs, and gestures in their direction, "If they don't then they're here to clean it up. Far more reasonable then letting it grow." A gesture with his staff creates a small path through the 'death fungi' with the simple expedient of turning it to dust. "We follow them."

    And with that group begins ... not so stealthily ... tromping in the direction of the landing party.

Kushiko has posed:
One might be asking themselves: where is the Tenno?

That answer becomes self-evident when others have begun to arrive at the rendezvous point. The slim and almost petite figure of Nova Prime is already there, having dropped through one of the nearby ventillation ducts. The nature of this place's size and structural requirements means that the Grineer basically overengineered it: it might look crude aesthetically speaking but it's built to last.

Of course, actually getting there is a rather interesting endeavour. There's clear points where lighting should be installed, along catwalks and corridors, reinforced structures housing cargo containers long since abandoned and packaged in tightly on pallets. But this lighting is only half-working: there's places where it's probably a good idea to be casting a little additional light through other means.

Infested flesh, corpulent and tumorous and pulsing in odd little ways line both rock and metal. Swarms of spores dance and arc through the open air at times, but seem to not give a single care to the presence of the Elites so far. There /are/ some networks and systems that can be patched into: more passive than anything, but it's a really excellent indicator as to the amount of numbers that are there.

Indeed, this allows those such as Kotone and Juno and Black Arachnia to affirm that there's a sizable number already present here. And by the looks of it, the area adjacent to where Phorid has been located is host to a particularly dense heatmap. It wouldn't be hard to suss that there's some measure of a breeding element going on there.

Nova Prime, on the other hand, is waiting for the arrival of the others, but it's the odd sensation that there is something else--coupled with what the Lotus says in a more private way, gives her pause. One of the control rods on her left arm extends slightly, turning once, twice, augmenting her energy production for a moment.

Further in, an echoing cry resonates, a cacophony of voices too distant to be any more than a warning cry.

    (They are here. More than our wayward flesh. MUCH MORE.)

Countless Chargers, Leapers, Runners begin to steer themselves towards another function. The presence, the smell of life, of the Tenno, of the Elites that come to assist. The Boilers who spawn so many more, and have been why there's been an endless tide of Infested flesh, their corpulent boils hatching more pods still.

    (Prepare. <They will come to us.> Wear them down.)

                (ASSIMILATE)

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    On seeing the familiar form of Nova Prime, Setsuko offers a simple nod. This particular Tenno is one Setsuko recognizes quite well by now. So she's not hesitant to go on the offensive with the Warframe at her back, launching into a steady sprint. They've got some ground to cover. And the presence of that group that just landed... "That's a mage. Enchanted weapons and armor in the group, too." She's not sure what these newcomers have planned, but it worries her.

    They'll have to move fast. Get to the Phorid quickly and get their mission done. And even moving quickly, they'll be clearing the way. It's a difficult situation. Setsuko is just breaking into movement when the cries of the Infested ring out. A grimace finds its way onto her face. "Here they come." She whips Zanjintou around herself in a quick flourish, and then launches into a run; best to get moving and start covering ground, so that they can't mass and attack in one big horde as easily.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone gets hooked up where she's able and is going to prerss onwads sghe'l make use of the mini gun where needed to cut down the infested who get too close but th strnge feelng? The strange noies leave her chilled she doe snot like this and she knows it's going to get worse before it gets better as shepress in with the test of the party.

<<Great we really got them riled up. Then again that takes their focus on us and away from other things.>>

She does her best to not waste fire as the big gun is mostly for their target they are hunting...

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Random spots of darkness? Hardly a problem for Black Arachnia; her sensors don't depend strictly on visual light, and the darkness hides her nicely when she's in it. As an infiltrator, spy, and saboteur, the shadows are kind of her thing whenever she can use them; if anything, she's probably less than pleased that the darkness is so spotty.

Still, she *is* painstakingly avoiding the Infested biomatter; the group's probably already been detected as a matter of course, so she's not wasting time or energy with her electro-disruptor. If she splits off from the others, then she'll try to turn up the stealth, but as long as she's reasonably close to the rest of the team, anything the Infested might do is liable to catch her anyway. The map data that's relayed to her seems quite useful: she's already considering avenues of approach to Phorid.

Of course, they have to get past the front door first. Whatever that takes.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
Keilandus, the mage in the silver robes, glances up in the direction of Phorrid as it's roar echoes down the hallway, followed by the pitter patter of little feet. Many little feet. Many many little feet. "Well." His ancient voice creaks, "That answers one of my questions." He pauses as a number of the Unionites begin to start runing towards the noise, "Two of my questions."

    He gestures again, and the one of the halberd, picks him up and begins running towards the group of battle-eager Unionites, while the two with the shields and autocannons flank the pair. "I mean you no harm here." His old voice creaks and one his tails gestures down the hallway, "Will you accept my aid, or at least-" The featureless black mask looks down the corridor, "-my nonaggression for the time being?" The other tails twich slightly, as he waits for a response.

    Kushiko gets a seperate nod, a sort of graceful half bow, from his position on the golem's shoulder. "You smell of... Yes. We will have a job offer for you later, if you're willing."

    The other two golems seem to be, posed to move rapidly, quite like they're ready to lunge in front of the mage with their shields if need be.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Fortunately, Galen Marek carries two lightsabers, and they're bright enough to find his way through the facility. The harsh blue light is eerie against the grey and red of the Infestation, but it's definitely possible to see. He has his jaw set as he stalks forward, moving more like a predator than a man, movements liquid-graceful and balanced. His eyes flick to every dark corner or suggestion of movement, one lightsaber held behind him, one held before him to light the way.

He wrinkles his nose shut when spores swirl and dance through the air before them, as though reluctant to breathe the stuff. If it's half as malignant as it looks, he probably shouldn't be getting that yuck into his lungs.

Nova Prime is given a bit of a look, since Galen hasn't seen a Warframe before, and it's the sort of sizing up that one warrior would offer to another. He's thinking of all the ways this thing could kill him, and he's probably right about it; calculations that he probably did to his fellow Elites, too. They're all formidable.

They should all be fine against this Infestation thing... right?

Galen's step doesn't falter at the sound of that distant scream. If anything, it quickens a little, both blue lightsabers flicking until they're held behind him at the ready as he glares into the darkness.

"Something is coming," he mutters, frowning into the gloom.

On the Rogue Shadow, Juno curses under her breath as she tries the shattered remnants of first one security mainframe and then another. It's bad enough that the infrastructure is physically damaged; but this stuff is beyond crude. Even the Empire's most slapped-together systems have more elegance than the Grineer mainframe, and Juno finds herself wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"Ugh. Come on, there's got to be something left in here the Infestation hasn't eaten..."

Keys click madly as she tries first one thing and hten another, eyes glued to the pilot's console and its instrumentation. She finally manages to get hold of a passive network, and while it's not what she'd hoped for, it's better than nothing. It's enough to see her allies on the ground below, and...

"Bingo."

    [Alright, I've gotten into a system on the ground. I think I've found where your friend's hiding, or maybe that's some of his friends. Watch your step. There's a huge concentration of those things not too far away from where you're at. Galen, you'd better be ready to clean up.]

On the moon, Galen frowns more deeply.

"/How/ <span style="color:lose?"

    [cxterm81">Just keep those lightsabers out.</span>]

Galen doesn't snipe back at her, frowning a little as he squints at the gloom ahead. "It's too quiet in here," he observes, surly. "Way too quiet."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Let's go get him," Maaka says tersely, before she begins to take off after Galen. The maybeJedi seems like a good enough sort to rely on in a pinch, even if he seems considerably grouchier than most space monks. Hell, maybe he's not a monk after all or something.

    The blips on motion trackers get her focused as the blips begin coming very, very close. She hangs behind Setusko only to provide the Major and other close-combatants with cover fire when the horde comes, and she grits her teeth. "Keep it tight. Let 'em come to us." Maaka says cooly, taking a deep breath. Here goes.

Kushiko has posed:
So, on the one hand, the Infested are riled up, or beginning to be riled up. This is bad. On the other hand, it'll be some time yet before they reach the chosen rendezvous point, so the group has some time, so to speak.

On the other other hand, who ever thought about giving the Infested a chance to stay alive?

Exactly.

Nova Prime on yet another hand of the many-splendored hands of the current situation was well-armed; aside the Dragon Nikana worn on one hip, she cradled an elegant-looking Tenno shotgun, the Tigris, in her hands. While she didn't necessarily 'look' at Galen, there was a momentary pause, the exchange of the two warriors brief, yet telling.

<<"So long as you are not here to assist the Infested, which we doubt you are, then we have no issue.">>

That is the voice of the Lotus, who is seen thanks in part due to a holographic panel emitted from one of the diodes on the surface of Nova Prime's armor. The very notion of a job is something that also sets the Lotus on edge as the golems begin to move forward. <<"You may use the following frequency to continue this conversation further. It is also an operational frequency for this 'job' you speak of.">> Naturally, this encoding is given to the mage in question without much trouble.

'Gloom' is very much the best word for the atmosphere of this abandoned Grineer facility, though much of that is owed to the miasma wafting from some of the Infested growth present on the catwalks and craggy walls. Some of the growth is scattershot and tentacular, looking a lot like webbing and woven in choatic patterns.

Just ahead lay a blast door: two terminals on either side of the wide and tall secured door are points of access for engaging it. With much of the group progressing forward, Galen has the right of it. It's too quiet.

But this is the only way forward: the two terminals are ones that Juno can see on the network itself, but one of them--the one on the left--is reporting a connection failure but no direct way to fix it: however, it does advise a physical bypass of activating an emergy power system located on the underside of the terminal.

At least, that's what Juno might get out of it after deciphering the text and the utterly crude implication of, 'DOOR BROKEN, PRESS BUTTON UNDER TERMINAL A13 FOR BYPASS' and 'GET THAT DAMN ENGINEER TO FIX IT LATER'

Also included in the work order is something about writing it in big letters so the majority of the Grineer might actually understand it.

There's movement ahead. But it's all beyond that blast door now. Information on the layout of the place suggests that going another way will take too much time, and that the Infested in this direction are ones that are going to be needed to be dealt with because if you went another way, these Infested beyond the blast door would be able to come assist Phorid. Not a pleasent tactical aspect, no.

So, who gets to knock first?

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Galen casts half a glance at the gilded form of Nova Prime, and the holoprojection of the Lotus that pops up beside it. He seems disinclined to comment, but the scowl he pulls at her comment suggests he's not even going to dignify that with a response. Does he look like he's in league with that disgusting stuff sprouting from the walls? We didn't think so.

One lightsaber twirls in his grip, harsh blue light casting shadows as it spins around. He's obviously good with those weapons to be able to do something like that so casually and with such confidence. It seems to be more a gesture of anticipation than anything else. He's waiting to get into the thick of battle, because that's presumably why Juno asked him to do this.

Well, that, and so Juno didn't have to do it herself. She's not really cowardly. She's just pragmatic. Really pragmatic.

Yeah.

Galen glances back at the party, indirectly, over first one shoulder and then the other. "I'm pretty sure they're back here." One lightsaber goes 'flip' in his hand, blue light flaring. "Looks like this door is the point of no return. Are we ready?"

On the Rogue Shadow, Juno grates her teeth as she tries to pick through the hideously inelegant guts of what's left of a Grineer mainframe. These guys weren't very bright, were they? No wonder they got eaten by the Infestation, or whatever it is that happens to them when this stuff sprouts up. She'd guess eaten, from what footage she's seen of it. It looks like it makes horrible amalgamations.

She abandons her efforts on the broken terminal, turning her attention to the second one, which is hopefully less damaged and less in need of manual rebooting.

    [I'm having some problems with these terminals. Give me a few minutes, and I can get ahold of something more efficient. I'll be able to open those doors for you in a moment, I think.]

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko's ears, sharp as they are, don't miss the conversation going on behind her. So that mage and his cohorts - or are they summoned servants? - are here to help, or at least not to hinder. Still merits keeping an eye on, but she can accept that for now. So long as the group can keep moving. "There's nothing else here TO focus on," she replies to Kotone as they go. This place has become quite a hive; they're fresh prey. It will make reaching Phorid dangerous. But no one here is the type to be deterred by that, are they? So she continues on, her pace brisk, certain the others will be close behind... at least, until a door bars their way. Here, she can do nothing but stop, a faint frown on her face.

    "If all else fails, I can cut through this. But a method that leaves the door intact would probably be better. We might need to close it again."

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Rather than knocking (or using the button under Terminal A13 to bypass it), Black Arachnia turns her attention to the broken and damaged terminal itself. If she can tap into the wired network, she's very inclined to see what she can get access to - or at least, ascertain whether Blackout's got a sufficient handle on the hacking side of things. The spidery Maximal has a certain skepticism when it comes to anyone else's hacking skills, but if the evidence convinces her - and let's admit it, Blackout has a large head start as far as hacking THIS network goes - then she'll let the human female stay focused on that. Black Arachnia has other ways she can contribute to the mission, after all.

For that matter, if she likes what she sees of Blackout's work, she might offer the other hacker some party favors to put to use at her own discretion. (And by 'party favors,' she means 'customized virii'. If you couldn't figure that out.)

At any rate, Black Arachnia has to start by seeing how hard it is to access the system from a simple data connection ..

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone presses into the gloom of this place the infested have wrecked it twisted it and she can see they are at the door now there's two temrinals and she'll hook into them if she's needed. Well if she's needed to she now has her weapon ready, her breathing is tense and dshe's more than a little afriad but it seems Juno has the lock situation well in hand so she'll focus by keeping her weapon ready and powered up.

She looks back to Setsuko who is right, and she's not sure what else to say.

She makes ready for the right that's likely to come once Blackout gets the door open.

<<Forward into the den of the beast...>>

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka grits her teeth. It seems plenty of people are ready to get the door open, so she remains at the ready with her rifle. Approaching one of the panels, she stacks up in awaiting the door to get opened up. "ANy time now..." She mutters, raring for combat at this point.

    Tense, she only has her breath to hear as she prepares for the horde to be met with battle. It's not normal to see this little action going on, with Infested around.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
Keilandus nods to the holographic image of the Lotus, "We appreciate your trust in this." His tone makes it sound like he's well aware that trust doesn't quite have as much to do with it as mutual interest does. His tails twich before he simply gives them another half bow, before his golems take off after the rest of the group.

    As they reach the blast door, his tails twich again and he briefly tenses up, "Put me down number three." He makes a slight gesture of irritation at the door before he glances around the corridor, he gestures to the right button, and the golem clomps it's way over to the pannel. "Well. I see no reason to put both of my defenders at risk. Someone will have to take care of the other one." He glances around at the ground near his feet, before he taps the base of his staff on it in irritation, causing all of the fungal-infested growth to wilt and then dissolve into dust around him in a circle.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Galen stands at the door beside Setsuko, cocking a dark eye toward the bulkhead. There's a fair chance that he might be able to open the door through main strength by using the Force, but that also risks crumpling the door like a tin can. It would also announce to everything in this facility that there are delicious things to eat here, if their mere presence hasn't done that already.

One of those lightsabers flips in hand again, painting the fungus-covered wall in blue light and shadow.

"I could try to force it open, too, but it's probably going to wreck the door." He shrugs, stepping back and away from it. "Probably better if I don't. I'll just wait. Blackout should have it open in a few minutes... if she says she's going to do something, she'll do it. I trust her."

He glances back over his shoulder, sweeping his dark eyes over the assembled Elites, thoughtful for a moment.

"We should probably be ready for anything when this door opens, though."

Back aboard the ship, Juno is yelling obscenities at the Grineer systems that govern the security measures and the door, trying every way she knows how to try and break into the system. Guile isn't working very well, so she's resorted to brute force, trying to smash her way into the system as inelegantly as possible.

It's infuriating not because it's beyond her skill, but because this system is so /stupid/ that it's just /incomprehensible/. How the hell do these people use computer systems?

Kushiko has posed:
Sure enough, with enough kludging of the damned thing--slicing from one end, a physical bypass on the other, and the door itself is actually rendered unlocked. There's... just the tiny scraping of claws and flesh rapidly tapping suddenly.

And something else. At the edge of one's senses of the peripherary. The rather large ventillation tubes that are situated a bit higher up are occasionally spasming with, gears grinding to a halt.

That can't have been a result of the hack, could it?

The light panels on the crude, brownishly painted door switch from yellow, to green.

It's incredibly good that the people who are here are ready to go and fight what's beyond this door. And in general, fight period. Because when the door begins to slide open, the howling scream is heard: at least, that's what one part of the brain thinks of it as, a scream. It's more distressing to be cognizant of it as a /voice/ instead.

    (Revoke the frailities of the flesh. LET US IN.)

That is when Infested from not just the blast doors, but the vents begin to surge inward; though the group is probably a fair deal more focused on the fact they're here at present. Setsuko would /feel/ the surge of violent force, of the song of battle on all sides coalescing into that single knifepoint here.

Because the surge of Infested flesh through the blast door is more akin to a literal flood of flesh, corpulent and fibrous, with a good half dozen Ancients standing tall over Chargers and Leapers, the first of which practically stumble over themselves trying to push against it.

Crawlers and other Mutalist-Ospreys are coming down through the vents themselves, causing Nova to shift her attention towards the group's backside. Antimatter energy gathers through and is released in a buffeting wave outwards as she fires off a quick shot at a flying Infested Osprey, making it and it's cargo explode.

Maggots: small individual Infested spawned from the Brood Mothers in other parts of the complex are skittering from different angles, attempting to take advantage of the surge of Infested utterly converging upon the group from all sides.

After all, there's enough massive targets for the Elites to focus their aggression on. Dozens of smaller, baseball-sized things trying to jump and cling onto you, biting and weighing you down is another matter altogether.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    In the instant the door unlocks, tension washes over Setsuko's form. She can feel the battle surging in to meet them. The fiercest part of it is still ahead, but 'fiercest' is relative. This alone is a furious struggle to survive. Setsuko moves into it without hesitating. Or at least, 'moves into it' in a manner of speaking. Her first action is actually to take a step /back/, to shift her position and stance so that she's right beside Kotone.

    "Keep moving. Keep shooting. I'll make sure nothing reaches you until we find the Phorid."

    And she's true to her word. Anything that approaches will taste divine steel. Setsuko's movements are smooth and instinctive. She's always in just the right spot to meet the next Infested to approach. Always in just the right stance to carve apart the next Charger to come after Kotone or herself. Even the maggots are not overlooked; if anything, her strikes go for them first, refusing to let even a single one pass her notice.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka trusts Setsuko on keeping Kotone safe, and in so doing she begins to charge in through the door. Upon sighting the Infested up ahead, she lets loose with a torrent of mini-missiles, the rockets as thick as a quarter each in diameter, but still packing a nasty punch as they penetrate Infested flesh and detonate inside. "Backblast, clear!" She calls out, before the rockets go off all at once.

    She doesn't waste any time to celebrate, as she immediately begins to open fire with magnetically accelerated slugs. Accurate, precise bursts are let loose where Maaka knows the Infested will be crippled, and she keeps her distance to let Galen and Setsuko do their best work without collateral damage.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Well. That certainly is an awful lot of Infested, and the fact that they somehow have a comprehensible voice doesn't make things much better in the Maximal spider's opinion. Normally, she'd handle a situation like this by simply not being in it ... but there's one or two problems with that. First, there's no other feasible way through to the target; second, her allies would probably take exception to Black Arachnia turning tail and running away.

"This is why I prefer not to be noticed until I've done my thing ... Black Arachnia, maximize: assault mode!" Black Arachnia transforms, closing the shields over her torso like she did before, and just opens up on the not-remotely-metaphorical-enough wall of Infested, raking her lasers across them horizontally, vertically, diagonally - basically just trying to carve away at the mass's members as efficiently as she can. If they get into her melee range, she'll have to revert to her normal combat configuration and start using her claws as well.

On the downside, she CAN'T maintain absolutely continuous fire for very long; her lasers' capacitors don't carry that much charge. On the upside, though, she can provide plenty of windows for her more melee-oriented allies (like Setsuko and Garen) to get in close.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The Infested scrape and howl on their side of the door, and on the side of the Elites, the former Sith apprentice is ready. He has time enough for one flip of the lightsaber before the blast door starts to grind open.

There's no time for thought after that. There's only battle and the song of death, all around. He's in motion in a flash, lunging for the nearest Charger that comes bounding at him, face stretched in a silent snarl as twin blue lightsabers carve a path through the morass of the Infested.

He might be roaring in wordless battle-cry, defiant against the tide of Infestation, but it's hard to hear him over the shrieking of his mindless opponents. They have bestial cunning, but it's clear that they no longer have minds or sentience beyond the hive-mind of the whole.

That's okay. It just makes his job easier.

Aboard the Rogue Shadow, Juno's hands are flicking from one set of controls to the other, occasionally reaching high overhead to flip a toggle. She has no time to enjoy her victory over Grineer computer stupidity; she's too busy tracking the course of the Infested as they surge through the door and into the defenders.

    [Galen, watch yourself. Don't get separated from the other Elites. There's too many of them there for you to handle.]

"Noted," Galen snarls, lightsabers crossed in front of himself to hold off a particularly adamant Charger. At least it doesn't have a stinking maw full of teeth, but the lack of them does make the situation a little unnerving. "Busy," he adds.

    [The best I can advise is to keep moving. My view of the area is spotty; some of that equipment is too damaged to use.]

Juno's tone sounds worried.

She is, incidentally, extremely happy she's not down there herself. Galen is made for this kind of stuff. She is not.

Meanwhile, Galen continues attempting to carve his way through the Infested, doing his best to stay reasonably close to his allies while he does. He has enough presence of mind to heed Juno's advise; she's right about that. There are just too many of these things for him to deal with alone. If he gets separated from the others, he'll be overwhelmed.

The idea of succumbing and becoming one of these things gives even Galen Marek the heebie-jeebies.

He pushes the thought aside, focusing wholly on his lightsabers and on meteing out death and destruction to these abominations. Thankfully, the harsh blue light is a bright beacon to his allies, and so is the distinctive hum and crackle of a lightsaber in action, so he won't be easy to lose track of.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
The war-golem at the door slams it's tower shield into the floor, the runes of the front flare into life, just as the first leaper slams into it's surface ... and gets blasted back with a flare of fire, which means the situation would be completely fine ... if there were just one of them... Except... there are least five dozen more behind it, and more charging down the hallways after...

    And more throw themselves at the shield, several exploding, before the half ton war-golem is literally born over by a group of chargers and an ancient... ...The sounds of it's autocannon firing wildly into the horde pinning it to the ground can be heard for a few long moments, before metal groaning, warping, tearing, and shearing beneath a pile of infested monstrousities is all that remains of number two.

    Keilandus growls softly under his breath, before he gestures with both hands and staff at the group approaching from the rear, lancing them with bolts of literal dealth and decay, while number one opens fire with it's autocanon into the pile on what remains of two.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
the Infested terrify Kotone now just from how they work but worse they are now talking to them about infesting them. She's more than scare now she just lays down fire with the mini gun trying to cut dowj as many of the on going horde as she's able to buyt it's good to know she's not alone and with Setsuko's covering fire? She's able to do some very good work to keeo her clear and she's quite thankful for their help and with Maaka and everyone else she's not going to give into her fear and panic she does keep shooting the infested s they come for them.

Kushiko has posed:
There is a word for what happens here: chaos.

Yet it's not unhinged, unorganized. The ravenous furor of the Infested is met by the calculated battle fury of the Elites that have made themselves present here today. Divine steel, magnetic slugs and lightsabers alike are reducing parts of the massed /throng/ of Infested to particulate matter. After a few kills scored by the former Sith and demigod, when their respective weapons find purchase, the bodies /detonate/ with antimatter, setting off chain reactions that ripple through the others.

However, it's not quite enough. This could be a lot worse if it weren't for the fact that the Infested that had arrived to reinforce and bolster the group that was currently being engaged with weren't being slowed by the wave of energy put out by Nova Prime. It /does/ make it easier to avoid and kill, but there's a lot of killing to be done.

The wargolem has drawn an impressive amount of aggression from the Infested; it's as if they sense there's something they could use but they don't even realize it yet. Whether they could or not doesn't matter: the potential is enough to distract a few of the Ancients long enough to find their bodies crumpled under automatic fire and lightsaber heat cauterizing their faceful of tentacles into a sizzling stump.

Much like the Maggots that find themselves turned into pure wet detrius by that divine blade, before that blade finds it's home inside a Brood Mother's tentacled side, corpulent flesh exploding in a decidedly painful way.

But here's the awesome part of the group's teamwork. Between Galen and Setsuko wading hipdeep into death and destruction, bodies of what were formerly anything betwen Corpus, Grineer, or some other beast of burden, they were keeping the Infested at bay from the range-focused individuals. Those who could pack a lot of power in small packages.

Energy is energy, at least to the whimsies of Nova Prime. The petite frame's control rods extend from her hips and arms, revolving once as she gathers antimatter into golden, solid orbs of energy as the group fights. As mage slings his bolts of death and decay, as Kotone's automatic weapons fire cuts loose, with Arachnia's lasers scything, the energy orbs occasionally take up what would find only dead bodies.

Four of them collecting energy as the Tenno's Tigris is fired into them directly, twice over, she snaps open the twin-barreled shotgun and reloads. And again, firing into the next two. This kind of thing takes time. Time given and taken with grace as the control rods suddenly flare, and *slam* home inside her limbs.

The resultant explosion is placed at enough points that it's augmented by the actions of the Elites and turns loose a resonating, defeaning concussion of force that radiates from each of the points; lilac and black smoke swirls and seems to implode inward before the spherical shockwaves radiate outwards. Now, this kind of thing /should/ be hurting the others.

But it doesn't. It does however, carve an absolutely /murderous/ swath of destruction to give the group enough breathing room, and staggering the survivors that remain enough for the group to pick them off with far greater ease. Only a dozen stragglers lumbering barely into view now.

"Absolutely right; we need to keep going. This... /was/ designed to bottleneck us. Not enough," the Tenno savagely notes through the local band as sparks of void energy coruscate throughout the vicinity as the bodies of the Infested and the cancerous growths are, without a doubt, /disintegrated/.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka recognizes what Nova is doing here, as she spies the orbs floating in place. "Fire upon those!" She yells to Kotone, before doing exactly that. It's just a mag dump, unloading enough firepower to charge up the orb before Maaka slings the weapon and gets aggressive next.

    She draws a nasty shotgun from her matter manipulator, before pressing the muzzle to the nearest infested. Ka-click, BOOM! She pulls the trigge,r before chambering another round and going through Infested like a terror unrealized before now. She uses the solid stock of the weapon as a bludgeon, caving in the head of another unfortunate Infested with a swift butt-stroke, and she brings the creature to the ground, stomping it with all her might as she brings her boot down upon what she assumes is its head.

    She's COVERED in blood from all this, and other stuff, and she only keeps going as she blasts and batters herself a path through the horde with aggressive savagery, giving off a satisfied roar as she fires point-blank into a Charger along her way.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
If she transformed back to beast mode, Black Arachnia COULD push ahead - possibly more easily than in her robot mode, and certainly more readily than she can in a combat configuration. On the other hand, if she tried that, she would no longer be helping reduce the Infested population in our immediate path, and let's face it: she really doesn't want to find out what Infested infection would do to her Cybertronian physiology (apart from 'a complete and total lack of anything good,' which she takes for granted).

So, she maintains Assault Mode, and apart from the breaks she needs to let her lasers cool down and their capacitors recharge, she continues laying down fire for the others.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Galen Marek might be wading hip-deep into a tide of death and destruction, and if he were less focused, even he'd be disgusted by the proceedings. As it is, he throws his concentration into the battle. Mistakes would be lethal. Teeth bared in a silent snarl, he throws his entire body into his blows, graceful and deadly as he dances among the Infested with lightsabers blazing.

He's got pieces of Infested remains on him, and amalgam blood spattered across his Sith training uniform. Juno's going to unleash holy hell at him when he drags this mess back onto the ship, isn't she?

After a few minutes, he's finally managed to cut himself a path enough to see where his allies are and what they're doing.

Aboard the Rogue Shadow, Juno keeps rapt attention on the pilot's console. She can see through a few of the nearby security cameras, those that haven't been absorbed by the Infestation. They paint an unpleasant picture, one that has her white-knuckling the controls in apprehension. It's always the same when Galen goes out on an operation -- she knows he can take care of himself, but that never stops her from worrying.

Never mind that she's a nice person, and she'd be somewhat upset if anything happened to her Elite friends and allies. That's an awful lot of Infested.

Tapping at the controls, she shifts her view to another security camera further ahead.

    [You'd better hurry forward, all of you. If you let yourself get bogged down there, you'll be overwhelmed. There's more of them further up the corridor.]

"Acknowledged!" Galen shouts, lightsabers whirling in reverse-grip and slamming into the charging face of a Charger that gets too close to him. "Let's get moving, everyone!"

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    The horde has been thinned enough to proceed, and Setsuko intends to do just that. "We have our window. We've got to get to Phorid quickly." She's still doing as she promised she would, using her blade and moving swiftly to keep Kotone covered so that the cyborg can move fast without worrying about getting flanked; but now, where she finds the opportunity, she's also darting ahead or to the sides, where she can proactively hit Infested, taking care of them before they become a problem so the others can focus on keeping the path ahead clear.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
Keilandus mutters something under his breath, before shielding his face with his left arm, as the huge wave of explosions washes over the infested and the rest of the group. "Damnable..." He lowers his arm as the blast of lens flare ... err ... tide of overly bright explosions ends, then gestures at the hallway behind the group ... and a glowing black wall of anti-life stretches across the hallway. "It won't do much good in the long term I'm afraid..."

    He pauses for a moment, glances around at the wreck and ruin for a few moments, watching as the bodies dissolve, before he nods once, and gestures with his staff ... A chill seems to run across the area, and blood red energy gathers at the tip for a few moments, before number three scoops him up and moves over to the ruin that was number two. "...Two. Release. That body is damaged beyond repair." His voice creaks quietly, "We'll get you another later. You've certainly earned it and I'll advise Zathlarne of such personally."

    His masked gaze travels the area, before a second chill emanates from the ruined golem, and it's body disintegrates. "Come. One and Three. We have to keep up. One." He points at the front, and the golem opens up with the occasional burst of covering fire, while he himself blasts the occasional lance of energy at whatever may be trying to follow the group.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is still shooting until she gets a reason to move but there seem to be move they are being bottlenecked they have to push ahead however and Kotoine will advance here as she's needed. She sees the orbs as Maaka calls them out and opens fire on the orb as suggested hopetull this will help a good deal.

<<Copy that Blackout>>

Swarm tactice are coming and she'll move swiftly thanks to Setsuko's help again she'll owe her another one for all this help as they move into the heart of the swarm.

Kushiko has posed:
As the smoke clears, it's pretty clear that the first attempt at waylaying the group with this ambush wasn't as successful as Phorid might have sought for. Yet the death of his fellow flesh does not faze him nearly as much as it should.

(Wayward flesh. We are the vessel through which immortality is achieved. Assimilate, -Kushiko-.)

The problem with the way those words are said is it's not just Kushiko. There's a bundle of other meanings that could be felt there at the same time. 'Child of the Void' is among them as is the simple meaning of /death/ in the purest of forms.

Quirk of the multiverse, but possibly unsettling regardless. How literal could it be felt as? Was it directing its words to the Tenno Operator, or to the Warframe even as the frame unsheathed a blade to slice through the limb of an errant Charger.

Keilandus' interaction with the golems gives the Tenno a momentary, thoughtful pause amidst other considerations as the group hustles their way through.

Speed is an important factor now. Why give Phorid the chance to amass more forces, though the Infested that they are encountering now are slightly heavier overall. Boilers and Ancients are attempting to work together to keep the Elites from scything their way through.

"Come on!" is the Tenno's voice, refusing to dignify what Phorid has said, and focusing instead on supporting the others, releasing waves of antimatter energy that slow arriving foes and simply tearing through alongside others, and keeping Kotone mindfully secure when she can.

With the Elites working together as they were, it wasn't long for them to arrive at the cavernous lair that Phorid had chosen. More Ancients, along with Tar-Mutalist MOAs that hisses and spat, readying themselves hurl caustic acid as their mechanic-organic bodies began to move to try and flank the arriving group.

Oh yeah. Galen is absolutely, probably going to track a good deal of gore through that isn't utterly heat and energy-blasted before getting back to the Rogue Shadow at this rate.

And at the center of it all was the massive, red carapace of the beast known as Phorid. It's limbs and claws scraping and hammering the ground as it simply /screamed/ with psionic, cacophonic furor. With as many of the others that were here, it would /hurt/ but it would not be life threatening.

The telekinetically spines that are likely to come next, that's another matter altogether.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
Wargolem One slams it's shield down the moment right after the scream begins, and runes flicker to life across it's surface creating a bubble shield about ten feet across ... it doesn't stop all of the incoming psionic blasting, and doesn't really do anything about the incoming soundwaves ... but something is better then nothing. Usually. It doesn't stop Keilandus face visor from cracking, or both golems from wincing briefly as it starts.

    The moment the scream stops, the golem charges forward to a spot somewhat behind cover and opens fire with it's autocannon on Phorid. Three sets Keilandus down gently, and brandishes it's halberd, smashing forward and crashing into anything that gets into close range of One or Keilandus.

    Keilandus on the other hand, starts gesturing with his staff at the various ways into the room, spreading walls of anti-life across as many of them as he can ... Live reinforcements. Bad. Dead reinforcements. Good.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
"Immortality has always been an overrated concept," Black Arachnia replies calmly, followed by a mildly urgent, "Beast mode." She immediately turns back into her spider form - and just in time, as the extra legs (and the liberation from Assault Mode) give her an improved chance to scuttle out of the way of those flying spines.

Also, she's not really psychic but the psionic pressure-wave gives her a headache anyway. On the other hand, she's not without her own telekinetic tricks; at least one spine that she wouldn't have been able to dodge winds up 'grabbed' in mid-air and shoved off to the side as she picks her way along the walls, trying to get a better vantage point from which tot murder Phorid. And she does specifically have murder in mind, too.

There are two or three ways for her to go about it - get up close at floor level (it's not likely to allow that), drop on it from directly above (that's going to be tricky to arrange), or find a good spot and launch her mandible grapnel (which might catch it by surprise, but is more likely to be countered via telekinesis) ... but her goal is to 'bite' the Phorid, whether directly or via her mandible grapnel, and inject a dose of VERY toxic, VERY corrosive cybervenom. She usually tries to make her venom more debilitating than outright lethal - Elites are notoriously hard to kill, so she usually doesn't try to go that extra mile for Union purposes - but in this case, the mission from the start was 'kill the Phorid,' so she's going to do her best to kill it.

And with the psychic assault battering at her normally psi-blind mind, she hopes it hurts badly enough to more than make up for the headache.

Given the options and the state of the chamber, Black Arachnia heads up, climbing along the chamber's walls as quickly as she can go, occasionally zigging or zagging in one direction or another - partly to circumnavigate live obstacles, partly to just be an inconsiderately difficult target to aim at. And once she gets to a spot directly above the Phorid?

She just plummets, angling her arachnid body so as to - assuming this WORKS - dig her mandibles into the Phorid's head or neck, or something near them. And once her mandibles dig in, her palps follow - and the cybervenom is injected. If Black Arachnia's body is knocked off-course, she'll settle for launching the mandible grapnel - *literally* shooting her mouth off, attached to her main body by a shimmering cable of energon and control signals - and going for the cybervenom injection that way.

What she *didn't* do was attach a webline to where she's descending from; it's all gravity at this point, so if she misses the drop completely? She's going to be in for a rough landing, and will be in a lot of danger, *and* somebody else will likely need to kill the Phorid for her even if the impact doesn't disable her.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Killing off the Infested probably doesn't affect the Phorid much. It seems to have enough presence of mind to know that all it needs to do is absorb more. Only complete eradication seems to be enough to stop the Infestation from its steady forward march.

Right now, Galen's too busy to contemplate Infested methodology and higher cognitive abilities.

It isn't long before they manage to hack and slash their way through the living tide, into the chamber where the Phorid itself lurks. He's covered in Infested gore, and he'll probably be submitting to a lengthy quarrantine and decontamination session later. Unfortunately, so will the ship, and probably Juno, after being exposed to all that nastiness. Yeah, no, she's not gonna like that...

Twirling his lightsabers in that idle flip, Galen tightens his grip on them, looking up as the carapaced Phorid screeches. As the Phorid screams, he whips his head to one side, staggering back at the psionic force of that scream. He shakes his head as though to clear it, before stepping forward and whirling the lightsabers again.

Raising one arm, he splays his fingers, thumb keeping a grip on the lightsaber haft. In the blink of an eye, a tangled arc of lightning streaks from his fingertips to the Phorid itself, but he doesn't have time to do more than fire that single shot -- he's already dashing to avoid the thrashing limbs and the spines, not to mention the machinations of his own allies.

Setsuko's display earns Galen whipping his head around to stare, disbelieving, as her weapon is suddenly orders of magnitude bigger than it was a minute ago. Never mind the ease with which she whips it left and right, bisecting Infested as she goes, even carving the ground itself like a knife through so much butter.

Holy hell. That's incredible. But he doesn't have time to stare, because a Charger slams into him from the side, prompting a shout of surprise -- these things are really starting to annoy him -- forcing him to whirl his lightsabers around and jam the lit end of both into the thing's head, or whatever serves for a head. He kicks the lifeless corpse aside and springs back to his feet.

Coming up swinging, he kicks off from the ground and lunges for the Phorid itself, firing another blast of lightning as he goes.

Aboard the Rogue Shadow, Juno is watching all of this with her jaw knotted, fingers dancing over the controls as she keeps hopping from security camera to security camera for the best vantage point. There's not much she can personally do beyond keeping the ship ready, engines hot; PROXY is keeping an eye on the ship, ensuring that none of the Infestation has a chance to get hold of the hull.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Somehow, despite all her cybernetics, Maaka still hears that psychic scream. It fucks with her neural software briefly, before a forced reboot gets her back up to speed. SHe growls in irritation, having a headache that's gonna be a bitch later, but powers through.

    Nothing like a monster actually speaking directly to you to get your attention.

    Maaka blasts through the Infested, reaching the wide open mining area. Storing her shotgun, she goes back to the GASH, converting the coilgun to sniper-mode as she adjusts the output for maximum damage, at the cost at ammo per shot and cost of battery power. She leaps into the rafters, finding a good spot to perch from while taking aim at the Phorrid.

    Long as this ugly fuck is kept busy by the others, she can do her best to herd it towards them with sniper rifle, and she does, firing repeatedly with accurate shots to keep it pissed off, and intentional misses to keep it moving where she needs Phorrid to be for Setsuko and others.

    Of course, she nearly gets pinned to the structure by a spine flung her way. It penetrates through her armor, but she just grits her teeth as she continues to shoot. She'll have to worry about that stab wound later.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    It's a wide space. A space flooded with enemies, and in the heart of it all a large and powerful Infested, the source of this outbreak. The Phorid. And it just used Kushiko's name. The silver-haired swordswoman frowns at that, but before she can say anything - or even think about how to proceed - the monster roars, with a psychic voice powerful enough to stagger even a demigod. She staggers, blue eyes closing for a moment as a hand clutches her head; the scream brings with it a hiss of pain. For sheer brute force, it's worse than a lot of things she's felt.

    But the opening of her eyes again comes with a surprising amount of calm, because in this space, she can go all out. Here, for the first time in the Origin System, she has plenty of room to unleash her blade's true form. And Arachnia needed cover.

    Setsuko intends to provide it by ensuring there's no Infested to go after her.

    The swordswoman leaps up into the air, whipping her blade to one side as she does. In mid-air, there's a snap, a rushing of air, the sound of a thin ribbon of energy giving shape to a much bigger weapon. By the time Setsuko lands in the midst of the Infested horde, Zanjintou is... immense. The blade alone is twelve feet long, twice Setsuko's height. And yet she whips it around her naturally. As if its inertia were meaningless to her. She swings it around herself, and in one mighty sweep, the space around her is clear. One whirl to keep up the momentum, and then she lunges forward into the crowd. It sweeps away all before her, whipping around, coming up and over, once or twice even swinging /into/ the floor and then coming back out at an /upward/ angle. She's careful not to carve up the ground around her /too/ much, but, well...

    By now, Kushiko should have a good idea why she's been so hesitant to use it freely in spacecraft.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa hears the talk of immortality? There's a crawling horror in her mind are the victem's minds trapped in this hive mind even when their flesh expires? She doe snot know she does not want to know deep down, she dopes however want to deal with her mini-gun. She will be sending data back to Dr. Shen about this one certainly this is a hell of a stress test for the weapon she thinks.

They are able to clear htier way in time to reach the horror ahead s she's going to move fast and let them have it, the huge red horro that is before them is clearly Phorid right? She opens fire trying to burn what ammo remaisn but she's not going to get off scott free all things considerd with all the attacks flying about but it would be so much worse.

Kushiko has posed:
There are some odd mercies to that psychic scream, resonating down to the proverbial bone as it tends to do: it's not as lethal as it could be. It's very much designed to soften up someone for the attacks and assaults of say, those Tar-Mutalist MOAs which have Nova Prime going after them with a /vengeance/.

It's like she hates their very existence; that notion gets proven due to her guiding an antimatter drop to collide with and disintegrate their bodies, along with the patches of webbed, caustic acid they had managed to spit out.

The spines Phorid manage to get out and send forth telekinetically are about the only ones it manages to get out: Maaka was chosen seemingly at random as she may have found out, but with the present assault of the Elites, a second attempt is unlikely to occur because frankly, it has more close-ranged options it's going to have to explore first.

Not that it doesn't want to: Galen's Force Lightning /hurts/, eliciting a ruinous /howl/ from the beast as it staggers backwards for just a few precious moments, attempting to shake off the stun.

One might think that, with as much toxic and venomous elements to the Infested, that the idea of a cybervenom or other thing simply would not affect them! It's true that there are some higher orders of Infestation that might look at toxin and gas damage a bit differently. But such adaptations of the flesh leaves them vulnerable to something incredibly unexpected.

And that's toxins of others. A warframe known as Saryn may sometime like to have a word with Black Arachnia on poisons and viral methodologies. However, that time is not today.

The remaining Wargolems are doing a rather excellent job, when combined with what Kushiko is doing with her Molecular Prime is thinning the pack. Autocannons, halberds, assault rifles and more are ensuring that the fight versus Phorid and his immediate forces--like the Ancient that was attempting to ablate the damage it's fellows and Phorid was was unleashing.

Galen is not the only one marveling at that bladework and the sudden change--she had been suspecting something on a larger scale was why Setsuko held back, and damned if that isn't validated; the concept of antiship weaponry in melee form comes to mind. Because aside that sword growing to the size it grows, the Infested she brings it down into are sent flying. And not just flying, but the ones that aren't outright 'heavy' units are effectively the parts of several Infested, some slamming into stalagtites and stalagmites and other rocky outcroppings.

This leaves the Phorid completely and utterly under siege: the Force Lightning having a very interesting effect on the creature's physiology when combined with the cybervenom into that technorganic body of Phorid. Where Black Arachnia has sunk her fangs into--and may well be riding bucking bronco for a little while--the venom spreads /hard/ and fast. It's a special kind of horrific sight as flesh seems to burn away with the cybervenom-lightning combo making it somehow spread just a bit faster.

A growling kind of noise is strangled, dying on it's oddly multi-headed visage as a greenish layer of corrosive matter /eats/ away at Phorid from the inside. It buckles under the sheer weight of the onslaught provided by these Elites here, body disintegrating from the inside in what would be an absolutely horrific kind of death for anyone else.

For Phorid, it is exactly what it deserves.

The sheer amount of death and harvestable things would--and is--amazing. From Phorid's husk and the husk of others are the occasional bits of credits, some metallic salvage and alloyed plates that are encapsulated in containers that can be picked up by others, including the Nova.

Only the screams and rattling cries of Infested that are dying or recently dead are now in this room. Sensors manned by Juno indicate there's a safe passage now from here to exfiltrate.

Misson successful, time to get out of town ASAP.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    As the group begins its retreat, a careful ear might hear Setsuko murmur something while her blade returns to the form of a regular katana; a soft intonation that almost has the air of a prayer, or a ritual mantra. Said to herself, or perhaps her fallen foes, rather than any of her allies.

    "There is nothing my Zanjintou cannot cut."

    It's a brief moment, and then it's gone, and she's on the move to the dust-off point.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
While riding a flailing victim is terribly uncomfortable when she's only hanging on by her mandibles, once Black Arachnia is able to get a purchase on her prey with a few of her legs, it's much easier to cope with. Granted, her head (or equivalent) still hurts like the dickens, and hanging onto something that's getting shot full of lightning doesn't feel much better ... but other than that, she rides the dying Phorid all the way down to the floor, and the ensuing puddle.

"And stay dead," the spider mutters once the Phorid has dissolved away too much for her mandibles to hold where she initially bit it.

Then it's a matter of helping to salvage things - metal scraps and alloys and some credits - and heading for the extraction point at the best speed she can handle. She *SERIOUSLY* needs a thorough decontamination, outside and inside. And maybe to repeat the process a couple of times before she parks herself in a CR chamber for good measure.

Still ... that was rather satisfying. For all the enemies she's taken the trouble to hate, killing the Phorid was INCREDIBLY satisfying after all the trouble it had given them.

Zathlarne (456) has posed:
Keilandus smiles behind his mask, as the giant beast goes down eaten from the inside out by a combination of toxins, lightning and ... god only knows what sort of physiological reaction; One fires off a few more bursts of covering fire at any of the infested might still be alive ... which probably just means it rises and puts the autocannon into a rest position.

    There's another sensation of cold as Keilandus raises his staff, and lost life energy is once again gathered from the battelfield. "There should be enough here for..." His old voice trails off under his breath for a few moments, before he gives a slightly shaky, but incredibly graceful bow to the group. "We have our own decontamination facilities aboard our ship. Lady Tenno, Kushiko, Lotus. We will contact you after you're all in a more ... hospitable climate."

    After a few moments the three of them vanish in the distorting flicker of teleportation.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Once the thing is dead, and the things around the thing are dead, Galen stands with both lightsabers poised to strike, panting. After a few seconds he seesm to realise there's nothing left to attack or be attacked by. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, he thumbs the deactivator on the lightsabers, which extinguish with a hiss.

Galen screws his eyes shut and shakes his head as though to clear it from the last remembered Phorid-scream. Ugh.

It's tempting to stick around and see what can be salvaged, but there's ultimately not much here to tempt Galen. Lightsaber crystals and artifacts of the Jedi are what interest him, not dead steel and contaminated tissue. Therefore, it's time to exit stage left; turning, the former Sith apprentice intends to do exactly that, dog-trotting (and occasionally flat-out sprinting) back to the extraction point.

From there, the Rogue Shadow will pick up all of the wayward Union-aligned Elites, and whisk them off to whatever serves for a decontamination station, whether coordinates given by the Lotus or to Union facilities.

The door to the cargo hold where they're riding whisks shut, and then hisses as though being pressurised.

    [Sorry, but you're all contaminated. I'm sealing you into the cargo holds until I can drag you lot into decontamination, and it's not a good idea to risk exposure to me. It won't be too long a trip.]

The poor bastards will be sealed and quarrantined in the cargo hold until then, too, Galen included. Yep, she really locked them in there. Galen himself settles cross-legged into a corner, drops his lightsaber hilts into his lap, bows his head, and appears to meditate until they arrive, refusing conversation.

Sociable guy, isn't he?

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa doesn't bother to pick up anything that dropped she feares it might bt tainted she says little to nothing over the comm but it's time to pul out and go to get cleaned up now. They need to be decontaminated after a run like that with that? She's fleeing with th entirely of the others for the extraction point. Kotone will not be sleeping well tonight.

Kushiko has posed:
For what it's worth, Kushiko lingers behind a little; especially to make sure Kotone got out safe as well.

It's oddly satisfying to be fighting so with others the way she has. She also lingers behind, some of the earlier caution she had with regards to guarding her identity currently evaporating.

Keilandus however, is another matter. She heard something interesting; rather, she through her suit's sensors did. She felt that energy, that coldness provided by necromantic energies. Now she knew why she did not feel as uneasy as she did before.

They made her think of Nekros.

Once that connection was made, it goes without saying that she was decidedly intrigued to put it modestly. But there was no time for that sort of thing. She was herself purged, cleaned of the Infested elements because, well. She herself, through her Warframes /was/ immune.

Thus, when she extracted as well, she did so silently and without issue, boarding the Liset and disembarking through another part of the facility.

The Infested flesh, over the next several days, would be reported as dying off in /droves/, without a leading influence to guide them, it was nothing for the Corpus and Tenno allies to finish the job in full. For now, the Infested threat was over...

            THE END ... FOR NOW.