5609/A Heroine's Origin

A Heroine's Origin
Date of Scene:	21 December 2017
Location:	The Tapestry
Synopsis:	A world has newly unified, and it has horrible eldritch monsters. A local heroine learns of the Multiverse after a run-in with Elites.
Cast of Characters:	Sir Gawain, 1103, 1134, 1145, 385, 1102, Crys Gattz, 1137, Starbound Flotilla, 1129

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Sir Gawain has posed:
EARLY EVENING, WESTERN TOKYO AREA, JAPAN

In a city in Tokyo, the sun is starting to set. A small strip mall is bustling with teenagers and other youth, the holidays putting them on break and allowing them to spend time with their loved ones. This area of the city is in refurbishment - the strip mall a new breath of life to a formerly mostly abandoned and forgotten district.

However, even if everything seems clean and mundane on the outside, this world has a truth to it. Another dimension layered onto it, full of creatures and heroes fighting, or tormenting civilians. This world only just unified, and the denizens of the 'other side' have only just learned of the existence of the warp gates. Some of them are not happy about such an existence, but a warp gate cannot be destroyed. So, they take it out on the people, instead, who cannot defend themselves. Who are not even aware they /exist/.

For one local, she'd /possibly/ be alerted to a disturbance in what she knows as 'Origin', an attack by the Corrupted. For the others, their various factions picked up a strange disturbance in a newly unified world, and as usual, related it to Elites to investigate. The warpgate is probably a bit of surprise, because it's not out somewhere public. No, it opens out into what seems to be an abandoned underground tunnel, dark with only a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel for several feet before reaching a locked (but trivial to open for the Elites here) gate. They're not far from the strip mall, which is where the coordinates provided about the disturbance lead.

The mall is decently big to investigate blindly, but no one is going to have to investigate blindly. Those with superhuman senses can smell blood in a restroom near the entrance, before suddenly both the blood and the human it's connected to /disappear/, with only an odd scent that can't be placed to any mundane creature briefly waffing. Supernatural sensors ping rapidly on said bathroom for several moments, dying down to low (but not absent) levels at the same time the scent disappears. Super eyes can tell that no one seems to be perturbed, as they probably would be if there had been screams (which no one also heard). What's going on here?

Theurgus (1103) has posed:
    Earlier, Locus the Diamond City of Magic.

    "For the last time Arcana, stay here and continue your training. I'm just going out for a while." Theurgus says to her protege. "Charta, keep an eye on her." The DCC transforms, then bolts off to the System Bus, and from there, out to the Hub then the Multiverse beyond.

    Now.

    A white-clad, blue haired woman strides out of the warpgate, and with a frown summons her staff and lims the marble, casting pale blue light in the area. "Hmm, The coordinates are just ahead... Odd placement for a Gate, but no matter. The Organization works in mysterious ways sometimes." She takes off her hat, then smooths back her bangs, holding them up and staring toward the ceiling with a soft chuckle. "Ah, a new world... I wonder what kind of soda they have here?" She moves off, replacing her hat, and moving to open the door, unceremoneously melting the entire lock mechanism out of it with an application of Fire to it. The light from the marble shifting to a dark red.

    She moves through the door, sends her staff back to her inventory, then heads into the mall proper, blue eyes searching, but not finding anything amiss, neither smelling nor hearing anything out of the ordinary, much like the regular people here. She's looking for something amiss, but also, for a local convenience store to see what they offer.

Sir Gawain has posed:
There is a local convenience store, next to the bathrooms. Theurgus would find that they're having a sale on ramune, and are otherwise just a Japanese convenience store. There's also a hole in the wall - it seems to have been covered with a poster, but the poster's having trouble sticking, so getting a glimpse through while going through the aisles wouldn't be difficult. Nor would it be difficult to see the weird patch of /something/ pulsating inside the women's restroom.

Mei Hatsume (1134) has posed:
Mei Hatsume already didn't need much prodding to investigate the newly unified world to begin with. New worlds mean new possibilities, and new possibilities means new ideas! Combining all three of those means new audiences to see her genius in action, and...!

     ... Actually, that's pretty much it. Hearing that there's a disturbance to help pacify is just icing since it's another opportunity to show off! Granted, it'd be a lot easier for the pink-haired inventor to show off if the warpgate didn't plop her in an underground tunnel of all places, but...

     She'll make do. "A very strange place! This... Hm. I hope this isn't a sign of how the rest of this world looks." Mei sounds slightly disappointed, but still hopeful. Sure, this might not be the best place to debut... Well, anything, but her patience is rewarded when Theurgus handles the issue of getting that door open and opening the way to the mall proper.

     It... Kinda looks like a regular mall. Mei keeps her skepticism in check, though, as she starts to look up and down the mall as far as her eyes can show her, trying to find any particularly suspicious behavior from the mall's patrons.

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
Origami Hiiro doesn't so much get an alert as get the prickling sensation of wrongness nearby, a sensation that ripples across what she, indeed, knows as Origin.

    ORIGAMI, however. . . is performing in a concert at the time, a little something for the opening of the mall. By which we mean she was paid handsomely and her promoters considerably more handsomely to have this street concert. She can't bring the full might of her productions to bear under such conditions but she's doing her job with vigor. The fans are watching.

    Consequently, there's ample time for the multiverse at large to scramble a response even before she can make a move. Not that she knows what a multiverse is. Time passes. The show is brought to a thunderous climax a few minutes ahead of schedule mainly by skipping the second encore. That's the kind of business she's in. Of course it's happening at the place she's practically doing this for! She gives the producer a wave and sets off in a nice elegant lolita dress mallward while they do the wrap-up.

    The minute she's out of sight of anyone, she takes off at a run. She could transform but short of something very serious rippling out to her it doesn't actually help matters to freak people out. Which is how she arrives to the mall slightly out of breath and sweatier than an idol should be. Alright. Now what? She could just dive into Origin and try to flush the interlopers out, but. . . a few past experiences suggest it's often better to get an idea what they're up to. Origami Hiiro rolls the dice on nobody recognizing her and starts 'window shopping'.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Last night it was water monsters in an oasis, tonight it's ... Yuna's not quite sure what yet, but close enough to a distress call for her to treat it like one. At least a warpgate is conveniently close this time - Yuna can just transform into her Light Suit and sprint the rest of the way. Or run without transforming, but the Light Suit makes it a little easier to cover that distance in a hurry, so she's in the battlesuit as she heads along the strip mall's concourse. "Elner, what are we looking for?"

"We didn't get much detail on the call," Elner replies, "but - hm. Close to the entrance up ahead, it looks like. If this is going to be indoors, the rest of the Matrix should probably hold back for now."

Yuna nods to the little robo-faerie, flexing her fingers briefly to try and work out a bit of tension. The oasis incident is still a bit too fresh in her memory ... but the monsters shouldn't be THAT big or toothy this time, right?

Hopefully.

So Yuna sets to looking around, trusting Elner's guidance to lead her to the right spot. If she spots familiar people, she'll give them a wave - such as Mei gets, for instance.

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Kotone was just exploring and shopping this new world, carrying a SEES monitor in her backpack just in case, when it pings to alert her to something. She frowns and reaches into her inner pocket, not quite getting out her evoker as she carefully approaches the source of the ping. She's taking it easy, being careful, this might just be a regular occurrence, no need to overreact just to a sensor ping.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz was a ghost to the Mulltiverse, too many jobs that were not much to write home about. Still she would take other jobs and from time to time? She came up on the radar of other elites. the white haired Newman seemed to be one of the first people to respond. She takes a moment to about the tunnel. She takes a moment taps on her arm's gauntlet and soon DB sabre is in hand and in the other is some kind of pistol as she starts to move forward cautiously with her one good violet eye. She'll look to Theurgus for a moment. She'll pause at the door and banish here weapons back she'd been expecting there to be trouble but there seems to be nothing.

She hoped at worse she might be mistaken for some random cosplayer, but if not she could deal with it as she would end up. She pushed orward into the mall and would look around nothing seemed off.

"Tell me about it but sometimes it can hide worse."

She notes to Mei. She does pause for a moment at Yuna and grins.

"Oh hey Yuna! I got your lates album."

That's a sudden shift fdrom how serious she seems to be but she's still looking around, something has to be up here, right?

Asterios (1137) has posed:
EARLIER - IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MALL                    

"Santa!" A little girl sitting on a very fluffy man's leg chirps, "I have a list!"

Asterios looks between this random little girl-slash-plot device and the unfurled roll of scribbled-over paper. Oh no, she's smiling so wide. Oh no. How is he supposed to say no!?

"A-aa," Asterios nods and takes the list in two massive fingers. "Will... get?"

"Yay!" Little Lizzie Macguffin squeals as little girls are wont to do. Little did Asterios know that, if he failed in this task, he would learn exactly why Little Lizzie Macguffin's nickname is... 'Shinkicker.'

                                    NOW                                    

Asterios is... apparently dressed in the world's tackiest Christmas Sweater. There's a pile of various goods and do-dads strapped to his shoulders as he makes his way out of the tunnels and up into the mall proper. He silently studies the list in his hands. So many things here. A 'Gintendo Witch,' the location of at least one lost city, a magical sword, batteries, thirty Hearts of Foreign Gods? /What kind of little girl was that even!?/

Wait.

Hold on.

There's a strange scent in the air. The giant minotaur pauses, even as people probably start gawking and staring at the quite obviously ten-foot-tall, horned behemoth in the red-and-green-and-white fuzzy fleece. That is... blood? And then... Not blood? "Aa?" Asterios sniffs, turning towards the bathroom in question. He frowns and steps, literally, through the door. There might be a Foreign God in here! At least it's pretty obvious that something's going down over there.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Boy, 'bout to get a hell of a first impression aren't these guys?"
"Please, George, have a little sympathy for them."
"Dumb! Not care about ssstupid new world opinion, what about weird anomaly!"
"Aye, let's get in there and find the thing first."
"Gate location is odd. More subtle placement. Meaningful?"
"Curious. Maybe, but that's a bit of a stretch. We should just work as normal."

    The Flotilla arrives in a heavy armored all-terrain van or truck or personnel-carrier of some sort, done up with Concord-colored stylings. Big chunky wheels rolling right up to the strip mall from the tunnel, and open up to deposit the Flotilla. All of them, this time, are wearing mostly uniform heavy hardsuits, looking aesthetically like a cross between SWAT gear and spacesuits. It's obfuscating for the body, hiding their status as five-sixths alien, and barely, /just barely/ believable. The one with a cyan visor has a katana sheathed at his side, and the short one with a green visor has a tactical-looking bow at her back. The taller one with the yellow visor has an array of pistols holstered all around and a short cutlass-like weapon sheathed, while the one with a white visor is tall, wide, and has a heavy machinegun strapped across his back to match the yellow's firearms. The robotically-moving one with the blue visor carries a heavy riot shield, while the shorter, slimmer one with a red visor seems to carry nothing but a baton at his side.

    All six of them coordinate instantly, jogging purposefully like a SWAT team going for a raid, heading towards the source of the weird signals with whatever precision they can muster, as the blue-visored one carries some kind of odd, brassy hand-scanner bristling with gears. She pings it repeatedly, trying to head towards the general direction of the bathroom. They don't stop for any civilians, but they're not exactly going to force the civilians to stay away. However long such a signal may last, they don't intend to let it get away from them. Instead of interacting in stranger ways with it, investigating more closely with sensors or things like that, they... Pull out a set of matter manipulators and attempt to begin to simply dig straight into the approximate direction of the strange signal that surged up briefly. They literally just intend to start tearing down walls with somewhat futuristic-looking mining beams until everything in the approximate vicinity of the area reveals its secrets.

Miari (1129) has posed:
The Concord's supernatural bureaus pinged Miari about a weird disturbance they'd like checked out... and she's decided to answer the call to go and investigate!

    But somewhere along the way she met up with the Starbound Flotilla, so when their truck comes barreling out of the warp gate into the tunnel... she's seated daintily atop it in a meditative posture that's quite difficult to assume while wearing her getup. No amount of bouncing around seems likely to dislodge her, either.

    But once they reach the mall, she hops out and practically glides across the ground the rest of the way with lightly, unreal steps.

    "This is the--" Her speech falters midway through... and she slowly turns her head over towards the not-too-distant restrooms. "Something's strange. Did anyone else feel the Essence flows snarl over there...?"

    She wastes absolutely no time making a beeline for it to peek her head in...

Sir Gawain has posed:
Mostly, the people in the mall seem normal, Mei would find. A few teenagers, however, are in a group not far from the bathroom, worrying about their friend who went into the women's stalls and never came out. One of them is wondering if ditched them to go spend time with her rumored boyfriend in one of the stores, but it's all just teenager gossip. Elner's sensors lead to the bathroom as well. People look at Yuna's light suit kind of weird, but she can just overhear comments of 'cosplay?' The same for Crys, though her weapons get a group of employees and security guards talking to each other.

It's Asterios and the Flotilla who actually draw everyone's attention, though. Asterios is /huge/ and that's pretty obviously not cosplay, so a bunch of people move out of the way, while others move to take pictures of the 'giant horned man in a christmas sweater'. Someone calls out as he moves through and breaks the /girl's bathroom door/, and security is already starting to move.

The Flotilla, meanwhile, get pictures as they move (since people already have their cameras out for Asterios), a few calls of 'a sentai team!', and also security staring at them as well, but they don't have any weapons out, atleast. Security's still moving on the bathroom, however.

Whoever gets to the bathroom (which isn't hard to push through people, and no one is in at the time everyone bursts through, thankfully) will notice the weird red pulsating /crack/ in the floor. It doesn't look natural whatsoever, and instead like some sort of strange hole in...reality? It's absolutely magical, but it doesn't do anything. Atleast, not until the Flotilla start digging up the floor. They uncover more of it, more of the red thing, and white around it...and then it disappears, a feathery gray texture replacing all of it. And then it reappears in a blink.

Wait.

The crack is actually a giant /eye/, which suddenly pulls away, revealing more colors in the floor and wall and some sort of strange realm, jutted directly into the bathroom. The eye pulls away too fast to get any idea of what it belongs to except for 'something massive', because soon after, feathery tentacles, the feathers as sharp as razors, plunge through the hole and move to both cut through and pull in anyone they can wrap around. They're trying to drag the people in the bathroom through the crack. This is a problem.

Mei Hatsume (1134) has posed:
Mei's enhanced vision passes right over the spot where Yuna's waving, causing the inventor to jerk upwards for a moment before realizing she's not under attack. No, that's just a hand moving fast. She smiles broadly after a moment and waves back, though, then refocuses her efforts!

     "I haven't seen worse yet, but I'll keep my eyes open. Worse just means more opportunities!" She chimes in reply to Crys, pausing to watch the teenagers loitering by the bathroom followed by a... SWAT team? A color-coordinated SWAT team, even. Or is it even more cosplayers like the giant in the Christmas sweater? She watches the out-of-place crew charging towards the bathroom, and it doesn't take much for her to conclude that they're probably involved with the disturbance somehow. But...

     No. Finding the disturbance couldn't possibly be /this/ easy, could it? Between so many strange-looking people converging on that one spot, probably not. Mei's more than ready to just get right in there to see what's what, and her timing is just right to see some creepy feathered tentacles accosting people! "Watch your step!" She calls out in warning while yanking a taser off her belt, taking aim a tentacle and following it closer to where its base might be before firing a stunning wire towards it!

Theurgus (1103) has posed:
    Theurgus is looking around the store, but the fluttering, ill-fitted poster keeps pulling her attention, and she peeks behind it as the eye blinks. Well then. She places her selections down on the ground in the basket, bows in apology to the curator, then summons her staff and runs out of the store and around to the bathrooms where everyone else is gathering.

    Then, suddenly, tentacles. Theurgus' staff lights green, and cutting wind blades move to 'parry' the tentacles as they lash out. "Oxyn Mallus!" she calls, the marble shining as she shoots off the Wind element attack. She can't hold them off alone though, and ends up getting yanked through the portal with a lucky swat around her defenses.

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Kotone finds the source of the signal relatively quickly, but keeps her distance somewhat as she looks around to see if there's any others coming in to help out. When she notices she's not alone, she nixes the idea of calling for backup and takes out an object that looks a lot like a handgun. Disturbingly so, considering her next move is to place it at her temple and taking a few deep, deep breaths.

Then, she pulls the trigger, blue energy crashes through her head, shattering into countless pieces before coalescing into a single being as she cries out, "Persona!" A floating brain materializes, jellyfish-like tentacles growing out beneath, while squid-like tentacles grow from the sides. Most of those tentacles have eyes, and it also has a pair of eyes up front.

Then she points towards this... whatever it is, and Omoikane charges up with lightning, before releasing the charge straight at the thing that's in this bathroom.

Asterios (1137) has posed:
Asterios basically has the social skills of a particularly huggy, cuddly NEET. He doesn't quite respond that people are staring at him. Clearly that person they're shouting at as he /walks through the wall/ is someone else entirely! The truth is, though, that he's just... Kind of nervous. Being around this many people is something so wholly unfamiliar to him that he'd really rather hope and pray that they're all looking at someone else entirely. Unfortunately, Asterios is not exactly a subtle presence. He can't turn himself invisible. The most he can do is... Walking through walls.

Huh. Phasing could have helped here.

Well, whatever. Too late now.

The minotaur snorts softly as the others file into the women's bathroom. It's fine, really. Asterios is greek! He's seen naked people all the time. And--

Wait.

What is /that?/

The Flotilla strip away more of the floor. Asterios shoves Little Lizzie Macguffin's Christmas List into his key items pocket and frowns severely as...

Oh.

It's an eye.

An eye leading into an insane technicolor dream world that is full of tentacles and--

The minotaur roars as feathery tendrils wrap around his limbs. He strains, his incredible strength contesting the inward pull of those feathery appendages. "Get... back!" He snarls, a pulse of power surging out of him and into the surrounding terrain. Tentacles probing out of the bathroom are suddenly intercepted as walls erupt from the floors and ceiling, cutting them off and protecting the people outside from being ensnared by this awful tentacle monster.

But what of Asterios himself?

Well. He IS a Berserker after all.

The minotaur howls, leaping bodily into the gaping hole in reality as his Christmas sweater is supplemented by enormous plates of spiked iron and a pair of enormous battleaxes. It seems Asterios intends to take the fight to the monster...!

Miari (1129) has posed:
"A marketplace is the worst location to just barge in and start tearing anything apart." MIari exclaims in an amount of exasperation, but that matter's out of her control. The mining beams being used to TEAR APART a room get a frown from her... but it's the calls and cries from the crowd that draw her attention the most. She turns away from the ladies' room at some unfamiliar words being thrown around... and a few whispers of 'security.'

    So she whirls around to face the gathering crowd, purses her lips... straightens her dress.

    "Yes, yes, it's a sight to see, and we're making a mess. Everyone who values their lives had best keep clear. SO, CALMLY REMOVE YOURSELVES FROM OUR PRESENCE, /NOW./" It might just be the imagination, but was that wisps of GREEN FIRE escaping from Miari's lips as her half-explanation turned into a harsh but emphatic command. Firm, with a hint of care, but drilling straight through ears and all the layers of reasoning and distractions to deliver that command straight to the part of the mind that Does Stuff.

    Plenty of people will probably just find themselves following the order without even realizing they're walking away.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz looks like she could be a teenager or in her early twenties it somewhat hard to tell with how her species looks and stops aging for the most part. She hears the cosplay comments and grins a bit. She does pause for a moment with her weapons, okay that was a flub there. She should know better with how long she's been going out into the multiverse. She'll take a moment as everyone is distracted with the epicness of Asterios and the Flotilla distracting everyone. She will take a moment to reply to Mei as she moves on ahead.

That goes wrong though as the Police are moving to talk to her.

The warning comes from Mei and she'll act.

"Officers? I'd start getting people away from the bathroom! I'll answer any question s you have after!"

That's all she goes time for as the Tentacles comes and she moves with her Photon Sabre to hack at the thing and she'll be trying to keep it's attention.

She pauses at Mirai for a moment which might leave the beast an opening to smack her good.

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
Normally Origami Hiiro might be sussing out leads, tracking down something weird like some kind of Idol/Ghostbuster. The minotaur man and the sentai team following in his wake kind of take all of the guesswork out of this sort of thing. They're also the sort of thing that can be the enemy in disguise. Well. Okay, she's actually not sure about that. She's not sure /what's/ going on, but something is happening /now/ so. . . there isn't any time to waste.

    Origami reaches out mentally as she lifts the goggles hanging about her neck. She's looking for the sensation of Drive in people nearby, those who are feeling ready and determined to do something about something. That may or may not be every player character. It's definitely Origami and the Monster. These people will feel a wrenching in their worldview, a dislodging of conscious reality. Unless they fight and thrash against it with everything they have. . . they pitch into Origin along with Origami. Asterios already jumped in, so, he can just ignore that.

    SO WHAT DOES ORIGIN LOOK LIKE IN A STRIP MALL, ORIGAMI?

    Those who fall through find themselves on an infinite set of escalators, pockmarked by little shopfronts. All escalators lead downward. All of them. There are no up escalators. Because far below is hard, miserable packed earth, surrounded by a lake of burning liquid gold spanning outward to the horizon.

    In the center of it all? A massive spire, atop which is our betentacled birdy fiend.

    Origami, meanwhile, finishes putting the goggles on, whispering to herself out of bad habit as she does: "Synthesize! Amelia Earhart!" She calls out, her voice ringing clear, a bright flash from her crystalline goggles as she seems to be. . . replaced from the head outward, someone taller, broader, more powerful, with a bomber jacket made of burnished brass and tight pants, pipes bursting from practically every joint as the Ideal Warrior emerges to her true form, kicking off from her high platform and a blast of jet exhaust from her ankles, a heroic cry as she's dead on course to Dynamic Entry across the monster's face.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna has been the Savior of Light long enough to be sort of used to the looks her Light Suit gets from certain people. Then again, she's also an idol singer, and compared to some of the outfits she's worn on-stage or for the camera, this isn't so bad.

What worries her is that as Elner zeroes in on the anomalous sensor readings, they're headed for the women's restroom. What worries her *more*, at least initially, is that not every Elite reacting to the anomaly - although almost everyone is at least known to her - is female ...

And then both of those concerns are rudely brushed aside when the Flotilla exposes some kind of horrific entity that doesn't belong anywhere near conventional space-time continua, which starts reaching through the hole to try and either carve through or yank away anyone or anything it can get to.

Somewhat predictably, most of Yuna's initial reaction is a very large dose of 'NOPE' - but it's not her entire reaction. It's not even the part that determines what she actually does, because of one simple reason: this is a danger to regular people, people who are just going about their holiday shopping and don't need to fall prey to some eldritch horror from beyond the stars - or in this case, beyond the tiles. Neither do their loved ones need to endure the anguish of someone close to them being hospitalized, killed, or simply disappeared between dimensions.

So as much as Yuna *wants* to run like hell, she doesn't. Miari issues her Command to the civilians (and security personnel) within immediate earshot, and Crys says the rest of what Yuna had in mind to ask of them - so the battlesuited blonde just manifests the Matrix Divider ... right as reality starts getting weirder. Between the labyrinth that Asterios is somehow conjuring, and whatever Origami is doing to reality locally, Yuna doesn't even have to *ask* Elner whether her support androids can make it in to pitch in. Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but Asterios is a bigger and presumably-heavier hitter than anything Yuna could bring to bear indoors. Plus, well, there are going to be enough bodies in the fray already ... no matter how big the monster on the other side turns out to be.

So as soon as Yuna can spot a decent opening, she joins the attack - although her focus, at the moment, is on severing as many of those feathery tentacles as she can, whether by shooting or by slashing. Elner's sticking close to her, of course, the robo-faerie's sensors trying to decipher any details that might possibly be useful about the monster's physiology, anatomy, and/or lack of any of the aforementioned.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Contact! Titan-class!"
"Second Sea Hylotl Style: Urchin Spines."
"Big prey big prey BIG PREY!!"
"Avast! Tear this thing back up! Run it ashore!"
"There's our plan, chums! Grapple grapple grapple, GO!"
"Terrified. Watch out! Its feathers are durasteel-piercing!"

    The Flotilla find themselves ensnared. Lashing tentacles grip and slice dangerously, cracking their durasteel hardsuits. George is the one who calls out the group's tactic here. The thing's trying to pull them through... What if they pull back? Five of them equip their grappling hooks of various kinds, and start trying latch to the structure and the eye. Biteblade is clearly eager to draw a little blood, and draws two at once even! Moonfin is the only one who doesn't, since he's concerning himself mostly with trying to slice tentacles apart and defend the group as a sort of counter-attack tank. But soon enough, they're drawn in by something entirely different. Albert is the one who calls out, "Psionic impulse! Rrrrhh--!"

    "Alerting. No! Let it go, it's-- I think it's something different!" Seft is the one who calls that out, the group allows the tug to bring them into the strange otherworldly realm. Pavo lands first, diving hard and swooping to a stop as she extends glide modules from her suit. They hope that their grapple-lines to the monster will have been maintained, though! The group intend to yank them taut as they spread among the myriad escalators, leaping off them long enough to swing around the main body -- whatever it is -- of the eye, wrap them around the escalator structures, and leave them held in place long enough to, hopefully, immobilize the entity long enough to get a good look at it and for some others to land some solid shots!

Miari (1129) has posed:
If someone's looking for a lot of Drive, they'll find plenty of it in this group. Miari's basically a bundle of it. Just as she's finishing delivering that order and turning about to face the commotion in the bathroom - some glimpses of tentacles aren't heartening! - she freezes in place. Claps a hand over her stomach and doubles over--

    WHOOOOOOOOSH!

    The world suffers an upheaval, and Miari finds herself briefly tumbling.. but she forcefully commands her limbs to move and imperiously chants out syllables of an ancient language that, used for THIS purpose, doesn't translate as words.

    The meaning of it is to command the winds. Inside this strange descending pit the winds gather and swirl, congealing around her tumbling form. She comes to a halt cushioned by what's a very obvious miniature tornado.

    "Someone want to EXPLAIN this fascinating little phenome... non...?"

    An unfamiliar voice gets the Exalt spinning about to face Origami just in time for her transformation. Her eyes go pretty wide. She even takes a few moments to glance about the place - at Origami, at the monster, at the sky...

    "What... what is this. WHAT IS THIS?! This Essence, I don't understand its nature..."

Sir Gawain has posed:
OUTSIDE: Miari's strange mind magic works, as all of the civilians just suddenly turn and continue on, moving as far away from the bathroom as possible. Inside the bathroom, walls suddenly shunt upwards to block the passage once everyone is inside, while others start fighting the horrific monster. One tentacle is knocked back with Theurgus's wind, but others pull her into the cracks, while Kotone Shiomi practically deepfries one with Omoikane's lightning. Another is tazed and limp, requiring /another/ to go and pull it back into the space. A few more are sliced to pieces as they try and grab Crys (there sure are a bunch, huh?). Yuna carves down more, as does the Flotilla, who also manage to grapple away from getting dragged in.

Asterios, meanwhile, leaps /into/ the hole, battleaxes first. That can't be good for your health. At the same moment as Asterios disappears through reality, reality changes for the Elites. They're no longer in the stripmall, now they're in...

Sir Gawain has posed:
WELCOME TO
ORIGIN
RETAIL HELL

Whatever this dimension is, it's not Earth. Things feel /off/ in general, even besides the infinite escalators and the molten gold death pit. Those who come in through Origami's tether find themselves on the escalators, as per her pose. Those who were pulled in by tentacles find themselves hurtling in uncontrollably, sharp feathers ripping into them as they're being dragged straight for the top of a massive spire, where the monster sits, maw open to devour them. Asterios, who leaped in, finds himself free-falling above the lava pit/spire and should probably fix that, possibly with one of the weak platforms over the spire, or with his own abilities.

The 'lake' below is almost endless boiling molten gold that absolutely seems to be hot enough to melt something if it fell in. The spire in the center is made out of stainless steel, weaved into several branches all over it, like a metal industrial nest for a horrific bird. The escalators drop into the lava, but there's a few places to jump off and get a foothold above the gold, if they're willing to take a risk.

The 'bird monster' is all sorts of alien. Instead of legs, it possesses a horrific amount of feathered tentacles it's using to wrap around the spire, and its body is a mass of feathery spikes forming into prism shapes that connect to the tentacles, which connect to a pair of massive throbbing wings, each feather on the wing moving individually in a distracting and surreal way. Instead of a head, the creature possesses a pair of massive hyperbolic triangles with spikes jutting out of each, forming a massive monstrous maw, and a single red eye in the center of the triangles. The largest of the tentacles is actually coming from inbetween the triangles, a spiny tongue. Meanwhile, a second eye is on a stalk on it's back, spinning around like a submarine radar. The entire creature is /massive/, and it might even take Asterios a bit of effort to just deadlift it.

Origami's transformation gathers the beast's attention. It would immediately strike at her, if it wasn't for the Flotilla grappling around the body, immobilizing the wings and the rest of its tendrils long enough for Yuna to slash into more of the tendrils and for Origami to slam head-first into the creature's head, causing a massive screech that sounds absolutely /dreadul/ to emanate from the hyperbolic beak. Elner gets a reading: it is similar, superficially, to a bird, and has been designed to be kind of like a bird. That's where the resemblance to anything on Earth stops. It is a strange mash of physics, metal, and feathers, and only has one organ besides the eyes: something akin to a heart beating rhythmically at its center. Foreign God heart?!

The Flotilla will eventually have to either jump off or get thrown off, though, as the creature shifts its mass in an attempt to break them off, tendrils breaking through and moving to lunge at everyone there. Origami gets two, as the wings begin to create a drift off the lava-gold, splitting into several connected mini-wings and allowing the creature to fly above and around the spire, trying to skewer and pull everyone into either it's jaw, or where that fails, the lava. It's motive is simple: kill all of them.

BOSS FIGHT: THE WINGED PREDATOR
BOSS OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovDcLHa2L1o

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz will have to catch up with Yuna later as they have a tentacle horror to deal with. She's a hunter of monsters, it's what she's always been good at. Though that thing has tentacles and she's moving trying to evade it. away even as she has carved down a few but she ends up getting grabbed. She lets out a cry and she moves to try and break free, she's stronger than an normal human and might be able to break lose.

Then as she's being dragged away? he feels the strange wrenching in her world view and there's something happening. She'll ind herself moving in to the Origin.

She's also in free-fall now she'll take note of Origami, holy crap she was not expecting someone like that. Is she a magical girl? She has no idea but right now she's got to stop falling and the sea of molten metal along with the twisted mall makes her wonder if this thing is related to greed? She's got to focus before she becomes a pancake or eaten. She'll shift swapping weapons as a massive mechanical claw appears on her arm, the gauntlet goes up to her shoulder with supports for the thing. It looks like it could crack through a tank.

She keeps falling and she shifts towards some of the terrain and grabs it with the claw. The Fal Claw rips into it slowing her down but leaving gashes as it goes and there's a bit of a twisted grin on her face.

"Better than you have tried to end me creature. Let's go BARTA!"

A shock wave of ice is fired the monster while she'll let go with the claw and leap to some more stable ground but she's got a plan to get right in the monster's grill and do some serious damage. She lands in crouch and looks up smirking again as she rises.

Theurgus (1103) has posed:
    Well, this is hardly ideal. Theurgus struggles with the feathery tentacle, the blade-like feathers scoring harsh red Data Corruption marks in her body and clothes, marking her as something very much Not Human by standard definitions. "Release me!" She's not a melee fighter, but hopefully the Divinity Driver can act as a kind of shoehorn.

    A thin, silver spike materialized in her free hand, and with a grunt, she tosses it towards a surface. It jabs in, then unfolds into a kind of antenna dish. "Charta! Begin the transfer!" Light lances down into the antenna from 'Somewhere Else', then redirects from the antenna to Theurgus, encasing her in a bubble of irridescent light and scrolling code fragments. Out of this, erupts Diamond Soul, her hair glowing with multi coloured light, her eyes a mismatched blue and red with a power symbol instead of a pupil in each, while clockwork-themed armour materialized into place, on her feet and thighs, shoulders and forearms, back and atop her head. Her staff also morphs, instead of a solid black pole with a thick boxy headpiece, inset with a large round jewel. Instead, it's a broken, disjointed assembly, the headpiece a mindboggling geordian knot with the marble floating inside, the haft a staff-like arrangement of fractured shards of metal. It seems to keep a cohesive state though.

    "Your presence disgusts me! BEGONE!" she bellows, her voice dropping a half octave. She raises her staff, wings flaring from her back, clocking into place before little jets lift her into the air. "Guardian Code, Superior Buffer, bring unto me the executables thine processes doth bear; as I render unto thee. Ensure that the attempts of the malicious Virii prove useless! Annihilate their offenses! Vanquish their scripts! Rend the Code!"

    A spell circle appears under her feet, and then, multiple flaming tendrils lash out, aiming to grapple with and restrain some of the feathery birdcreature's while burning into the monster's body. "Firewall Protocol!"

Asterios (1137) has posed:
The Minotaur carries the Labyrinth with him wherever he goes. Of all the mazes that have appeared throughout the whole of human mythology, the legendary Labyrinth of Crete is by far the most widely known. It is so ingrained into the course of literature, storytelling and legend that it has, in many ways, become nothing less than the prototypical archetype to which all other mazes are compared.

In this world nestled at the root of the very conceptual landscape of the human existence, the Minotaur's tie to the prototypical maze seems stronger than ever. This is the realm of the mind, of stories and legends. Asterios plummets towards molten, auric doom as he tumbles through this nightmarish manifestation of wanton consumerism and greed. As he falls, he feels it surging through him. Pounding in his veins. It demands to be let out. To be allowed to override this terrible, hellish place.

The minotaur peers at the bird with wrathful, crimson eyes.

He allows the Labyrinth its whims.

"CHAOS--" Asterios roars, his voice reverberating in the very air. A new, different concept superimposes itself over the mess of escalators and molten metal. It is just as dangerous, just as terrible, and yet...

Its master walks amongst it.

                                LABYRINTHOS!                                

Structures erupt from the molten gold, explode from the distant walls, forming a cylindrical network of labyrinthine walls. Asterios lands on a rising wall, his twin axes lighter in his hands. The barricades form a series of stepping stones, allowing him to leap closer and closer to the monstrous bird. Fortunately, it's preoccupied with the Flotilla and with that strange, flying girl. It would likely not be able to immediately contest being trapped in a cage of walls.

Nor, perhaps, the enormous Minotaur charging into its flailing tentacles with stone-shattering strength and axes forged in the age when the gods walked amongst men.

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
Amelia Earhart does not carry a weapon. Usually speaking, there's no need for it. Usually speaking she's not fighting something that can also grapple back when she hits it. Still, with two of the massive tendrils closing in on her there isn't really call for anything else. She's falling through the air because her Flight doesn't work that way as they close in on her.

    She scissor-kicks them, twin jets sparking massively along her legs and adding that extra oomph as she makes her excape with an explosive launch out of her elbows and wrists sending her hurtling toward the massive labryrinth rising and bursting in the center and massively altering the hellish landscape. She lands boots-first with a crunch of damaged stone before kicking off with the same jet power to rise higher, shouting to the assembled group. Hopefully the tenacles weren't able to follow? "There's not a secret to it, just kill it!" She shouts, probably inaccurately. A thinking fighter she is not, but canny she is, trying at least for the moment to gauge her next move. Got to make it count.

Miari (1129) has posed:
Were it not for the fact that this freakish abomination of biology and geometry was actively hostile, Miari would LOVE to take hours studying it. The fact that she'll have to kill it brings a SCOWl to her face. So often she gets involved in operations like this and it always boils down to 'kill the thing making trouble!'

    If that's the way of things, then she'll have to pry as much juicy lessons and tidbits out of this creature before it breathes its last.

    "Hyaaaaaaaahh!!"

    She SLAPS the air quite dramatically... but it is merely the sign of her focus and will being done. For the air blurs and warps weirdly around the tentacles that zero in on her. Space itself twists and distorts as pure force of MIND clamps down hard onto those tentacles like the jaws of a great beast... halting its advance a mere seven feet from her body. were she still physically capable of it, there'd be beats of sweat on forehead... such is her apparent strain.

    The giant, wispy 'hands' that can barely be made out SQUEEZE AND TWIST, attempting to rip the offending tentacle apart like a piece of offending literature.

    Or perhaps like a bird trying to pry open a clam shell to get at the juicy insides...

    She is seemingly secure in that tamed whirlwind that keeps her aloft, drifting above the Down escalators.

    "I simply must figure out what this creature's MADE of....!"

Mei Hatsume (1134) has posed:
Mei blinks slowly as she notices something changing in her vision. First, she was looking at a feathery tentacle beast. Now, she's looking at the same feathery tentacle beast, but on top of a freaking spire! The escalators have changed directions inexplicably, there's a lake of gold that looks like it could easily melt anything it touches, and...

     ... There's that girl that dragged her in here, but now she's in a stylized pilot getup that's giving Mei some flashbacks from home for some reason. How nostalgic! The inventor makes a mental note to ask her about that later, but for now, she needs to focus on not falling into the lake or breaking her legs! Refocusing her attention on the massive alien bird as it howls at the group, Mei fires her wire arrows into the spire itself to pull herself onto the side of it.

     "What a unique noise... That's one way to get attention for sure!" Despite that looming threat of being eaten, Mei still manages to grin widely even as creature tries to murder the hell out of everyone. Activating her hover soles, the inventor flings herself right up the surface of the spire and goes flying right off the top of it. She's gotten some good air time and a good view of the labyrinth, but her real goal is in sight: The wings! Firing her wire arrows into the wings, Mei starts to swings herself around it while spilling glue out from her harness to try and cover it with gunk!

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
'Hell' seems like a pretty apt term for the alternate dimension that they get pulled into. The 'retail' part ... well, Yuna doesn't really see it.

Then again, she kind of wishes she wasn't seeing ANY of this, but them's the breaks. Either way, it's pretty clear that this is where the actual battle needs to be fought, so as much as Yuna might wish she were safely outside - whether it's a pocket dimension or a whole parallel realm of some kind - she's not going to back out now. And as much as the monster makes her want to look at ANYTHING else ... she has to look in order to help destroy it.

And 'destroying it' seems like the only course of action. It only vaguely resembles a bird in the most general sense of the word - Elner's analysis is quick enough to establish that for Yuna - and it's far, *far* removed from anything that should be naturally alive. Where it came from, while a matter of some concern, is a question to be pursued later - when they aren't all trying not to die.

So Yuna's focusing as well as she can on the immediate practicalities of survival. She's mobile enough to land somewhere relatively sturdy, and the Matrix Divider gives her an easy set of both melee and ranged combat options; for now, Yuna sticks with shooting rather than slashing - and she's *still* focused on trying to whittle away at those wing-tendril-thingies, punishing them when they try to swipe at her - and if she can buy herself enough of an opening, giving her allies some cover as well.

And oh, there are so many allies, so many familiar faces. She's been in bigger battles, to be sure, but Yuna takes heart in knowing almost everyone here who's part of the fray - and they're all allied against the bird-ish monster, too.

If Yuna has one complaint, it's that so many of them are geeking out over the monster that's currently trying to slaughter every last one of them. Priorities, okay?

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Pulled inside by Hiiro's ... whatever, Kotone feels the place seems uncomfortably familiar in some ways. But she holds steady on the escalator, her persona floating behind her. She takes a good look at the monster they're facing and gulps, then points the tentacled brain towards it, calling out for another shocking treat to this thing.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Alert. Watch out! It's so--! *BZZZT!*"
"Star Three hit! Star Two, cover! Star Four, go high!"
"With pleasure, Mr. Petrov. Third Sea Hylotl Style: Razor Reef."
"So much damned gold! Dammit..."
"Star Five! Move in on Gattz and approach!"
"FLORAN HUUUUUUUNT!!"
"Rush it, let's work to get the others helped!"
"Fox four!"

    The Flotilla springs into action. The others shift and move about, trying to evade the scything tentacles, but Seft, while defending Biteblade with her big shield, winds up getting the shield powerfully SHATTERED as one of those whipping tentacles slams into it, knocking her down. It's only with Moonfin's cover that she can recover, as he strains his muscles and suffers the impact of each powerful strike.

    "Floran will help you cover approach!" Biteblade, thankfully covered, gets to rush in with Crys Gattz, pulling up right on their side. Biteblade fires a heavy erchius-empowered shot from her magnetic bow, letting it flow straight through the ice shockwave and hopefully pick up and amplify some of that power as it rushes at the heart of the beast! "Rush clossse! Floran cover!"

    Moonfin leaps into action. Theurgus' flaming tentacles present an incredibly powerful tactical option that it's actually unlikely that anyone will use: If you move on them, you can perform some insanely stylish strikes against the enemy! "Such a powerful show of force, and so well-spoken too! Allow me to emphasize your efforts." Rushing with flickering flash-steps, he speed-boosts his way right onto the tentacles, /grinds/ on their surface despite any of the fiery damage he may sustain from it, and attempts to perform a stylish drawn-strike against the body! "Sixth Sea Hylotl Style: Lightning Striking Waves!"

    "Avast, matey! Thanks for bringin' up some of that gold!" Pavo calls out, swooping low in her gliding to Asterios. Her mining gear is pulling gold off the top of the labyrinth before it falls away like a waterfall! She thinks it will totally last. And she draws one of her pistols -- actually a flintlock! -- and a dangerous power-cutlass. "Now let me repay the favor!" She rushes in, trying to clear and shoot any tentacles that look like they're about to intercept Asterios!

    "Worried. Amelia! Er-- If you say so!" Seft calls out to Origami Hiiro, who seems to need no help just for now at least, and so she heads for Miari! Thankfully she managed to get back on her feet! Leaping up with a jet-assisted boost, she tries to intercept the creature mid-air, and enhance Miari's flesh-rending effort with the slice of a massive battle-axe that she suddenly draws!

    "Hey, you up there, you a chemist? This some chemistry goin' on?" George calls out to Mei Hatsume, sounding chipper and happy. "I love chemistry! Fuckin' dangerous too, lemme tell ya. I'm gonna try to get this thing a little more soaked on whatever you're doin', got it?" George rushes up a down escalator, as any anarchist would, and leaps from the highest point he can manage. He tries to latch onto one of Mei Hatsume's wires, land on the creature, slip as best he can around the razor dangers, and yank its wings hard to pull it into the path of oncoming glue drops!

    "Focusing fire. Fox four. Linking with Fraulein." Albert calls out over radio, swinging to a stop somewhere near Yuna Kagurazaka's position, drawing his heavy gun -- actually an anti-vehicle autocannon! -- and beginning to unload alongside her, trying to hit the same points she does to enhance her damage with the subtle impacting effects of pure kinetics to meet her own heavy energy projectiles, or whatever she's chosen to use for this foe.

Sir Gawain has posed:
Crys free-falls inwards, shouting at the Winged Predator. It does not respond or even seem to care about her taunts. It /does/ care about the shockwave of ice, which freezes one of the leg tendrils and sends it screeching again as the tendril turns brittle.

Theurgus's transformation gets its attention. One of the tendrils moves to skewer into her as she transforms, but her own flaming tendrils cover it before it could get far (perhaps just scraping against her), and bind the rest, causing it to use its wings to stay aloft as it bashes against them. The brittle frozen tendril-leg /shatters/, melting into nothing.

Miari stops a tentacle flat with her telekinetic might, though ripping it apart takes some effort - eventually, it splits open, and reveals itself as having no blood. The tentacle is instead a mass of muscle and connection, leading into the main torso, which appears to be the controller.

Mei will find the wings are weird because they are made of thousands of feathers that can split apart. However, they're all /connected/, so she can certainly hinder it, the glue trapping up one of the wings and forcing the Winged Predator into a rapid dash to land some of its tendrils on the spire, pulling itself up and moving to whip Mei off.

And it's at this time, as it tries to move, that it notices the Labyrinth. It's trapped, and is getting even more trapped as it moves inwards, so it attempts to instead angle itself around the walls. However, this doesn't help it from Asterios straight bisecting off several of the tendrils, the Winged Predator thrashing as it attempts to break through and scoop up Asterios with its beak. He'd just /barely/ fit down its gullet, though.

Yuna is able to chop off more of the tendrils with her gunfire, stopping one as well that's about to hit Shiomi. Lightning strikes on it, frying a hole into the feathers in the Winged Predator's back and showing a glimpse of the 'flesh' beneath, which is all muscle and connector tissue like the tendrils. How does this thing work? Nonetheless, the Flotilla's aid to everyone helps, especially in regards to the tentacles, where the group's focus allows them to pretty much erase /every tentacle/. There's still the tongue-tentacle, which is starting to come out in an attempt to impale Asterios...but Hiiro isn't being pursued anymore, so she can get a free strike.

Though, there is one issue that anyone not currently dealing with something would notice: they're regenerating. The tendrils, that is. They're slowly starting to molt out from where they were cut, some sort of /fluid/ seeping and being formed into them. The group will need to act fast if they want to destroy it.

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
Amelia drags a hand against her face, brass-lined gauntlet matching the jacket - there's no part of Amelia exposed except her face and her short brown hair, and even the former you can't see her eyes through the crystalline goggles. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe we should hit it in the heart."

    More importantly, it looks like Amelia managed to shake the tendrils.

    The Labyrinth does do one thing quite nicely, and that's provide cover to approach unseen. She jets through it like mad, picking up speed as she hurtles through corridors and changes in direction leaving impact craters and scorch marks, looking for the right spot by watching the sky, until she sees the opportunity. She guns every jet on her body, hurtling straight skyward at the massive bird's remaining functional wing, impacting the massive membrane right in the peak. It's so bizarrely constructed as to not provide the satisfying snap of bone, forcing Amelia to ride it upward and grab on, hauling it back like trying to tie its wings behind its back. "NOW BIG GUY, WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING!"

Theurgus (1103) has posed:
    Theurgus alights on one of Asterios' labyrinth walls... well, alights isn't exactly right, she's hovering a couple of inches off the platform, suspended on her wings. She tells the group her plan, and has begun weaving the magic into the first part of her EXEcuter Drive... when Asterios tells her there's someone inside the thing. "Fine then. Keep it immobilized!" she bellows commandingly. The magic shifts, the marble, once a roiling mess of evershifting colour as she charged her ultimate technique.. Instead, the marble settles to Yellow, and the air begins to 'tingle', hairs standing up on end. "Sprinkled upon the bones of the beast! Static Tower, Red Diode, Steel Bracket. Move and become the Code. Stop and become the Source. The sound of Warring Scripts fills th empty Disc!" the spell circle eprupts with a burst of lightning, aiming to score away the regenerating limbs she can reach with a single, massive 'snake' made of pure electricity. "Bolt Viper!"

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz has done some damage, but it's not enough she does see the beast as it moves she watches many of the responders but she can't keep her eye on things. She now looks ahead she has her plan but it's a good thing Asterios brought up there was a hostage in there. She'll do her best to help cover Amelia and the big guy, she was going to work her way into close combat but today comes more techs, it's not magic as her world knows it. Still to most worlds they would not see much of the difference.

"REBARTA!"

She does it again and again firing a volley of icy attacks off against the thing trying to keep it's attention focused on her, not on Amelia or Asterios.

She isn't about to let up but she she's also pulling her attacks just enough to hopefully not burn through the thing until her allies able to go in and pull the person in out.

Mei Hatsume (1134) has posed:
"Chemist? No, I'm more of a... An engineer! An inventor!" Mei shouts to George in return with the same chipper tone, even laughing briefly as she soars through the air and promptly gets yanked around again between George using one of her wires as a swing and the creature using her as a yo-yo. "Ahahah! A fellow creator, then? We can't make any progress without taking risks, and we can't take risks without facing danger like this head on!"

     Detaching her wires again, Mei goes soaring through the air while watching their handiwork: A wing getting positively gunked up! and also the bird alien about to slam right into her. She braces herself for impact, not really having much in the way of personal defenses against the alien bird slamming itself into her. The best she can manage is bringing her boots up in front of her so she doesn't just get mulched on impact, but even that doesn't really help much when she's getting battered away by the alien bird thing.

     At least she can still see things rather clearly from that high. With the new plan for destroying the beast and rescuing the human set in place, though, she won't really need her boots, anyway. "Alright, big guy! Keep your mouth closed!" Mei launches a wire arrow into the giant creature once more, dragging herself back down at it while the other arrow just sort of dangles around uselessly.

     Note to self: Make the wire arrows and rocket boots sturdier. As she dives right back into the fray, Mei hurtles right for the creature's head... Mouth, landing right on top with a pained cry before unloading a massive spray of oil at its mouth and the Servant's it's trying to get into its mouth!

Asterios (1137) has posed:
Let it never be said that the Minotaur of Crete was not an equal opportunity consumer. He consumes and is consumed equally. This is the circle of life. Asterios does not think much of this or any other supremely catchy movie tunes as his battleaxe rampage is abruptly aborted by way of being snappled up by a giant bird monster.

How appropriate, he thinks as he wrestles with the strangely geometrically perfect arrangement of the creature's beak. He has consumed, and so he is consumed. The Minotaur's muscles strain mightily against the creature's maw, but occupying his arms with the task of 'not being swallowed' means there's little to prevent that strange tentacle tongue from piercing...

Well. not the massive iron plate.

It goes through his shoulder instead. The Minotaur roars in pain and fury and in so doing gets a great big whiff of... something. Inside the monster.

...Human?

Human. He'd know that scent anywhere. A not-dead human still inside the monster. Asterios' brow furrows around his blood-red stare. He knows what he has to do.

He must fight... from the inside.

"Aa!" Asterios yells over at the strange flying woman and proceeds with the plan. He releases the creature's beak and, with his hands free, tears the tendril free of his shoulder. It will be useful. He has a use for it. With the beast's tongue-tentacle firmly in hand, the Minotaur leaps straight down into the creature's gullet. Right at that moment, Mei fills the monster's maw with slick, greasy oil. And thus, fully lubricated and glistening, Asterios drags the thick, pulsing appendage deep into the beast's throat. He has a rope, he has a void to penetrate, and he has a human to rescue.

...

......

Wow, you know, this is kind of ironic, the Minotaur jumping into a monster's belly to save a person it ate. What a world, what a world.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
The fact that the monster is regenerating - growing those tentacles back, even though only a bit at a time - just doesn't even seem to surprise Yuna. But when Asterios staes on the radio that there's a human *inside* the monster - or at least, that he smells a human and thinks the person is inside - *that* makes her pause briefly, blinking. "Elner, how did you not pick up on - ?"

"I suspect the monster's own biosignature masked the human signature," Elner replies without letting Yuna finish her question. "Also, this creature doesn't really play by the laws of physics that you're used to."

Yuna's rejoinder is completely and utterly drowned out by Diamond Soul unleashing a lightning-serpent to pin the monster down and immobilize it. Yuna winces a little at the thunder, but shifts her attention back to sniping away at the monster's tendrils - or if the wing-tendril-things are all dealt with by now, just harrying the monster generally, making sure it's too busy trying to grow things back (preferably without any sustained success) to focus any effort on busting loose from the lightning wrapped around it. Also, if she can keep the monster too distracted to try and chomp on or digest Asterios, that's kind of a thing to do as well.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George is thrown off by the movements of this bird, suffering some damage as his body slams into one of the escalators. Pavo, too, is nearly struck out of the air by the impact of the tongue. They're making progress, but... Regeneration. Uh oh. The Flotilla is managing to cohesively evade now, however battered they've gotten by accumulated efforts. Now, the others are calling out intent to strike up close! The Flotilla closes in and clusters on where Biteblade has set up her position, and rushes in a cohesive squad. Albert and Biteblade put away their ranged weapons, and bring out a heavy hammer and a pair of daggers respectively. George draws his baton, and it crackles with energy.

"Full-squad cover!"
"We ever come up with a name for this move?"
"/Shut up./"
"He has a point, Mr. Petrov. If we're going to approach..."
"Need somethin' to yell!"
"Floran scream anyway! Wordsss, shout, not matter!"
"Urgent. It'll help our coordination!"
"Alright, close in on the full-cover! Three... Two..."

    Their bounding over the escalators and the labyrinth reaches a crescendo, until they make one final massive leap! Pavo goes high, Biteblade up to the left, George up to the right, Seft below, Moonfin down to the right, Albert down to the left... All around the awful "mouth" of this geometrically twisted creature! Having coordinated with all others, now they coordinate with each other, and specifically work to enhance Asterios's approach to the jaw, and the others who seek to extract the human within. All six melee strikes go for the body of the creature simultaneously, designed to stun it with massive impact, force the jaw to stay open and harmless, and slam the creature against one the escalators to prevent it from moving.

    "HEXA-IMPACT!"

    "We're not calling it that."

Miari (1129) has posed:
Miari's straining to twist the thing apart... but a timely swing of Seft's axe and -- GLOOOORP!

    She stares at the thing she's got.. and promptly stuffs her chunk-of-tendril into... well, it's hard to say. It just sort of folds up into nothing and vanishes?!

    Huh.

    And a few vials of fluid are gathered just the same way.

    But once those are stuffed away... she gathers her focus and glares at the thrashing beast. "Alright. That's enough time devoted to knowledge... now... to end this!"

    She's just about to summon forth a great pile of weapons... but hearing Asterios' decree brings some pause. And a hint of a smile. "Nice to know my allies have some compassion.. but if he's just going to run off, how can I prepare him for... ugh." WARRIORS. Always so impulsive.

    She's not so sure what to DO about Asterios' plight... so she instead gathers up her power. It flares in a brilliant emerald nimbus around her and congeals largely into a hand... and from that shining ball springs a torrential stream of sharp brass locusts, fired at the flailing, regenerating tentacles. To at least keep them fully cut down to size!

Sir Gawain has posed:
The beast is crippled, and easy to kill. But Asterios senses something: the girl it ate is still alive inside it. Therefore, the group bands together to save her. Amelia moves to pin the functional wing, causing it to jerk as she holds it back. It can't fight back. Theurgus and Miari use their elemental abilities on the regenerating tendrils, keeping them from healing and smacking the group aside. Crys shoots ice at it - this doesn't do much due to it being unable to counterattack in general, but the eye on its beak stares intently at her. Yuna teams up with her, using her lightning, and the beast is pretty fixated on them now. It might be because it knows it has no chance.

Mei oils up the creature's mouth, lubricating its throat to swallow Asterios. Finally, the /beautifully/ named Hexa-Impact from the Flotilla slams into the 'mouth' of the Winged Predator, keeping it limp and open for Asterios to enter.

The minotaur climbs into the belly of the beast. The first thing he'll notice is that it's not normally lubricated, and the throat only contains a pair of vocal cords and more of that connecting tissue. As he slides down with the rope, he'll eventually reach the center of the beast, which is a wide chamber full of fluid, dim except for the thrumming of the light of the massive organ that serves as its 'heart', which is connected to all of the tendril joints and to the neck. Around the heart pools an acidic liquid, which starts to 'digest' Asterios if he touches it. The liquid is stained with blood, and bones float in one corner. But, there's still someone to save.

A teenaged girl lies in the pool, unconscious. She's barely breathing, and if any more time had been taken, would be dead. Her legs are gone, having melted off, and overall, she's disintegrating. Asterios can easily scoop her up, but there's the matter of the heart. He should be able to smash it...but what happens afterwards?

Well, as the heart is inevitably destroyed, the Winged Predator starts to convulse. Asterios has only a short amount of time to /escape/ it before it collapses on itself, shuddering enough to throw the others off of it. Due to the fact that there's a maze and platforms, it can't exactly fall into the lava like it /wants/ to, so it doesn't. Instead, it moves to yank off the eyestalk...and /launch/ the eye into the distance, for some reason. It then slowly starts to disintegrate into a pile of oddly colored liquid.

Escaping Origin will have to be through either Origami, or finding a way up to the ceiling where the crack is, which is also shrinking /rapidly/. Woops.

Asterios (1137) has posed:
The intricacies of the process we call 'digestion' is beyond Asterios' present understanding. He knows that food goes in the mouth and into the belly and then eventually you get hungry for one reason or another and eat more. That is all the understanding he needs, however. He sees a body floating in the acid of the creature's stomach. No, not a body. A barely breathing girl. The minotaur cradles her, gently, to his broad chest and stares daggers at the thing's heart.

Death, then.

An axe materializes in his hand. With a single terrible strike, he smashes the blade into the beating organ. The heart cannot stand up to the Minotaur's terrible strength, and inevitably, the creature dies.

Well. Almost. It does other things first, but shortly thereafter, the whole thing liquefies, and Asterios is left standing with a dying girl clutched to his chest. He lands on a slab of labyrinth and turns his eyes to a certain glowing green mote in the sky.

That's where he has to go.

Fortunately, he can probably make it to her without too much trouble. His tremendous jumping height and mastery of the Labyrinth ensure that much. "Heal," Asterios says to Miari as he sets the girl down in front of her, "Fix her?"

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
Amelia rides out the liquefying monstrosity grimly, until she's certain there's no further need to hold onto it, taking to the air. She thrums her jets slowly, allowing herself to hover instead of continually blasting herself at breakneck speed, angling to slowly approach Miari and inevitably the others who will gather around the person they just set out to save, mouth a grim line.

    Internally, there's something of an argument erupting between Amelia and Hiiro, but the sum total is that Amelia reaches up and removes her goggles, in the process everything receding, until there's a girl standing there amongst them wearing an elegant lolita dress and seeming fairly distraught. "Who are you people? Can you do something for her?" Distraught she may be, but even in these precarious conditions she stands with an easy grace, as though it were flat ground.

Miari (1129) has posed:
The moment that Asterios is visible... clutching that girl... Miari's pulse skips a few beats. "That girl... BRING HER TO ME IMMEDIATELY! Or she'll be dead in under a minute!" The Infernal Exalt has never SEEN someone in that condition before. Even for someone who's been acclimated to the horrors of the Demon City, this causes a twitch of horror and squick that's quite visible on her usually-composed face.

    She dives down onto the Labyrinth upon sensing Asterios' intentions, dispelling her soaring whirlwind upon landing... and exhales shakily at the closer look at the girl's condition.

    She casts a look that's a bit wonderous at Asterios. "You have a noble heart, to go in there for a woman you don't know."

    She quickly kneels down and puts an aura-engulfed glowing hand on the acid-scorched flesh. "You might want to cover your eyes." She suggests. Very firmly.

    A look of terrific concentration comes across Miari's face, teeth clenched tightly.

    And the girl's flesh abnormally RIPPLES. The wounded regions of her flesh seem to unravel, peeled backwards and reshaped. New growth erupts from healthy tissue to push the old stuff out, but the growth patterns are freakish to say the least. It twists and extends in unnatural, geometrically-precise fractal patterns that weave together layer by layer, and it's seemingly quite the miracle that once the pieces are linked together... what's left is normal, undamaged flesh.

    This effect is most pronounced for the bloodied slurry where her legs had been. Two new legs are being woven together from nothing, starting from the nearest flesh downwards.

    And she meant it when she said closing one's eyes could be a good idea. Because with every cubic foot foot of flesh and bone that's regenerated, the brilliant emerald aura - a nauseating, unnatural, greasy color that queerly screams at the back of sane minds as UNCLEAN and nauseating - intensifies.

    As the victim's feet finally form from fractal strands of flesh and bone woven from midair and fully congeal, the emerald flames briefly congeal above Miari, revealing a phantasmal black-scaled human-sized Salamander curled around a big crystal sphere. The creature's vermilion eyes are fixed on whoever's looking at it, no matter who's looking at it or from what direction....

Sir Gawain has posed:
Miari's healing manages to save a life that was otherwise lost. Her breathing and heartbeat slowly return to normal levels after it's done, though she stays unconscious. They will probably not want her waking up in Origin, though, if they can help it. She's already going to have a hell of a 'nightmare' scarring her, after all.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz zays "It's a long story and ... I think my friend here can do something." She'll keep out of the way of Astrios nad Miari doing their things she just /watches/ gaping at it she can heal a bit but it's nothing like that that was more almost like some kind of reality edit and the green fire, she's got her thought on this but? For now to get the girl out. "She's going to need more help but this is ... a start."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+

    All six Starbounders slam down to their feet, each atop a segment of the labyrinth, dramatically ringing where Miari has the girl. All six of them stare down, visors glinting, in varying position. George in a relaxed sway, Seft in a robotic motionlessness, Biteblade in a low pounce, Pavo with a greedy leer, Albert with military attention, and Moonfin with dramatically crossed arms. He is the one who answers her question more directly. "The lost human will be fine; our healer is unconventionally and undeniably effective. We are the Concord, the first and last lines of defense for the Legacy, guardians of the Assembly of Wisemen, and those who would enact heroism without limits." He says, and you can practically /hear/ the dramatic sting of a powerful march tune. "We are those who dare, who dream, and who act for the sake of what is good without thought for the sake of what is conventional. I am Haruto, Moonfin of the Hylotl, first of the Six Captains of the Starbound Flotilla." He clicks a button on his helmet, causing it to unfold into his chestpiece, revealing his shining three eyes and his odd fishman aesthetic. "Now tell me, who are you?"

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
    Origami Hiiro is, despite everything, a normal girl. These are not normal people. A minotaur who can dive into the belly of one of those wretched beasts and pull out someone not dead, some manner of strange woman who can put her back together with a sickening balefire, and. . .a team of super sentai. . . who are also aliens!? This is all too much! There are aliens!?!?

    Origami takes deep breaths. "O-okay, she looks stable. . ." She says, that helps her concentrate, and that in turn lets her really digest in full what Haruto has been saying. "Oh my gosh you guys are so cool! Can I have your autograph!?" Wait that wasn't what she wanted to say. "I- I mean. I'm, um. I'm Origami Hiiro! Pop idol extraordinaire! Maybe you've heard of ORIGAMI?" The inflection in her voice makes it clear she's referring to some title. Yeah okay blank looks. She's actually not that used to those these days, but she shakes it off. "Um! Okay, I haven't done this with other people before. . . I've never met someone who could enter Origin like this, actually, but I don't think you guys even know what it is, sooo, yeah, let me take care of it!" Yep. She's doing her best to impress. "I can can do more than just get us out of here~!"

    Origami concentrates as everyone is gathered around, and much as when she pulled them into Origin in the first place, there's a shift in one's understanding of reality, and they're in a tunnel composed out of dead escalators and some wibblywobbly. "Right! Short walk annnd we should be outside the mall! Nooooo arguing with security or anything!"

Asterios (1137) has posed:
Asterios is a good Minotaur and does as he's told. So he doesn't get to see the horrible knitting-together of human flesh out of the stuff of the universe. Hopefully that poor girl doesn't have some kind of awful demonic mutation now. Oh well! They're all out of the hellscape that was That Awful Place, and find themselves back out in the mall.

And Origami...

...gets a head pat?

Yes. Pat. Pat. It's a very large head doing the patting. "You are... good girl. Yes?" Asterios fishes out a long roll of paper from his Key Item Pocket and... sort of holds it up for her to see. "Help me. Need mall. To buy... These."

There are so many presents.

So... many.

Miari (1129) has posed:
"Whew...." The 'balefire' glow does die down after about fifteen seconds, dropping down to just a bright bonfire aura that continues to engulf Miari and tug at her clothes with invisible winds... but aside from being a little on the unsetlling side, it's not so blinding. And by the time this happens and she has her wits back from expending so much energy... they're all looking down a corridor of escalators and weird geometry...?!

    She blinks at this development rather stupidly a few times. "Shaping reality with such a casual flick of will... there is something STRANGE about this world. VERY strange."

    Running a hand through her hair and tossing it over a shoulder as she says so, the greenette declares, "No. No idea about this Origin,. Or this world in general. Still new to these immense indoor bazaars that seem so popular! Miari, sorceress and physician. Is anyone else injured? I have a little Essence left..."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The rest of the Flotilla unfold their helmets as the group is brought outside. A bird-person, some kind of many-toothed plant-girl, what looks like a gorilla, a robot with a flickery eye visor, and a... Human! There's a human there. He looks kinda scruffy and old. "Ah, thank you for the release, then, Origami Hiiro. As you have not had the chance to become acquainted with our Flotilla, so have we had no chance to become acquainted with your Origami. Now would be your chance to revise that, and to make as grand a name among the many universes as we have, if you could. Your world has unified only quite recently, but it seems strife was already rooted deep within before it joined the multitudes."

    He begins to walk in time with the others, seemingly intending to go with Hiiro. "Now, have you found any opportunities to network with the many other such individuals in the Multiverse? Those who may assist you in your efforts to dispose of such... Unique threats. From what I can tell of the psionic energy thresholds required to enter Origin, there are a number who may be able to follow you, especially among the Concord. And those among the Concord who would be interested in the assistance of one with your... Particular abilities." He says, stopping for a moment to peer at a section of wall as if critiquing art.

Origami Hiiro (1145) has posed:
On the way, Origami explains to Miari - "I'm. . . so, Amelia told me that shaping it like this is. . . a 'me' thing, like, it's something I can do, but it isn't. . . shaping reality? I shape Origin! Origin is- yeah I don't understand it either. Anyway, the escalators are my touch. . . I kind of, grabbed something out of reality and made it happen again and again to make the thing I wanted?"

    The Fishperson continues to talk to her. . . of a Concord? Origami isn't entirely sure what he's talking about. "-I. . . Multiverse? Last I heard in physics class I live in a Universe!" Fret fret fret. "But. . . yes, help would be great, and I'd love to help as many people as I can! I just- I have a job to do, too." She considers. "Um. So. On that note, *ahem*, I am Origami Hiiro, or the Idol ORIGAMI! I-. . . I was going to make that longer." She seems kind of sheepish. It's rare for her to be this out of her element. "The Crucible of Man called me a Forged, when it connected me to Amelia. SoI guess that's another title I could add."

    Also, Asterios. She gets headpats. Holy crap! Origami is so overwhelmed right now. "Err- Yes! And I'd- I'd love to help, maybe best if I do the shopping and you, um, don't get seen."