FRAGMENT: Second - Retrieval

FRAGMENT: Second - Retrieval
Date of Scene:	11 July 2014
Location:	The Homeworld
Synopsis:	Several Abstractum Users head to Unshift Space to recover the remains of a second Fragment.
Cast of Characters:	2, Tomoe, Staren, Vruasa Telash, Fiora O'Brien, 219, 253, 347, 380, 455
Tinyplot:	When They Return

---

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
The White Wing seems almost featureless. Even moreso than the other rooms. It's small, relatively speaking, and terminates in a simple, cube-dimensioned chamber. There's another Mr. Welcomes kiosk here, with the man standing as he usually is.

The other thing that's is here is a pair of containers, of sorts. The front of each is some clear glass-like substance, and there's a mirrored, soft-looking substance behind each. They're set vertically into the walls. To the left of Mr. Welcomes is the smaller of the two containers, only containing a gauntlet of some sort. It's a rounded white right-handed one, looking like a particularly modern piece of technology in the shape of a glove. At the wrist, about where a clockface would be, is a small hemispherical crystal. It's almost pure black, with only a horizontal line of light. An Abstractum with the eye shut and darkened.

Over the face of the container, a wreath of flowers can be found.

To the right of Mr. Welcomes is something a bit more familiar. A much larger container, about the size of a coffin. However, this one has been violently destroyed; blackened glass shards are all that remain of what previously covered it, and the light residual signature of a stasis effect that was forced open. Someone also left a small performance stage assembly here, for whatever reason.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura, having arrived early, is currently in front of Mr. Welcomes' kiosk, with the intention of harassing him briefly before they depart. She is wearing black pants, a white dress shirt, her red hair ribbon, and her glasses, with her hair in a sidetail. She will handle the weirder stuff once they've shifted over. For now...

"So, you Operators. Did you all know Burden or each other before becoming... well, Network managers and such? You don't really talk about yourselves very much, beyond the fact you've existed for a long time."

This is not really meant to lead anywhere, it's just a time-filler.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel is looking a lot better now. Still some bruising, but she no longer has to wear her hood up! And of course, she comes in here with the usual manner of doing so. That is, she trots right in and despite the serious situation they could be going into, she lifts a hand to give a wave. "Hi, Mister Welcomes! What's up? Anything new?"

Like Homura, this isn't really going anywhere, she's just being social because that's what she is.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Madeline does not know most of these people. That's fine, they're Users and this is a situation of poking around the distant past. Can't really hurt to learn about that, can it? She doesn't want to go alone anyway, because cramming her Warstrider in here would be awkward, at best.

That doesn't mean she isn't prepared. Twin pistols criscross behind her, and she has a sword at her side. Just to be sure. Just because she's drastically weaker outside the Radiant Empress doesn't mean she has to be helpless! Also, keeping them here saves her Essence later.

"I do have the feeling that I'm choosing a bad time to jump into this," she notes with a rueful smile. Jump right into fragment stuff without having much experience with Abstractum? Why not?

Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber is passively hanging out near Homura, not doing much beyond smoking from a pack of cigarettes in his hand. One is in his mouth and also lit. He isn't actually saying much or talking to extensively, more just around as oversight and to make sure that Homura and the others get out okay if trouble arises.

As such, he's silent for the moment."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe had not done something like this before, she was very curious after all about this She was rather nervous all things considered but she seemed to be ready here as she was ever going to be. The Salamander lookedd over to Homura for a moment giving her a bit of a smile, then she takes a second to size up Pysber as well whom she'd never really got a good look at in person before.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
VRUASA TELASH is present, but for whatever reason he has elected to render himself utterly invisible. The only person who is currently flagged to be able to view him is Fiora O'Brien... and Ulixes can see him as a matter of course. As it is, this makes him largely irrelevant to the narrative at hand. He is engaging in his own plotting and shenanigans, though exactly what those might be must remain a mystery for the time being.

To the extent that it matters, he lingers a short distance from the deceased Abstractum in the case, staring down at it thoughtfully. It is not, presently, the actual object of his interest. But it is something that he has been curious about for quite some time, and which bears future consideration.

He repeats George Burden's words over in his head, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin as he waits for events to progress. Things of immediate interest will be happening soon, and ordinarily it would be his inclination to skip ahead to them. That normally robs him of some details though, so he's refraining from doing it for now.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Mr. Answers is the one who, formlessly, replies to Homura Akemi. "Dr. Burden created us. We have always known him, and each other. Though we do not retain memories between cycles."

Mr. Welcomes gives a bright smile to Ariel. Always a pleasure to see her! "Oh, I think so! But it's going to be a surprise. We just need to turn the Gate Load down a little more and you should see something very good happen on the Homeworld soon! But I can't spoil it, it's a surprise! I don't actually know /what/ it's going to do."

Mr. Answers is the one who speaks to Madeline Vance, in his disembodied voice. "There is never really a good time, I can assure you. We are available to answer questions, though, to help ease you into it, if you like."

Staren has posed:
Staren is here! The catboy in his signature labcoat walks in from the hub, waving to those he recognizes and nodding to the others. "Hey. So you found fragments floating in Abstract Space? Can they only be reached from here? I wonder if that means they're the remains of destroyed Nodes..." Staren wonders to himself. Man, it's good to be involved in Abstractum stuff again. Seems like it's been awhile.

His gaze falls on the First Gauntlet and the wrath of flowers. /I won't follow in his footsteps/, Staren thinks to himself.

Speaking of Gauntlets, Staren's wearing two: Eureka has been mirrored onto his right arm: a brass-colored gauntlet, segmented with five armored wires running up from the base of the gauntlet to the knuckles, bracer-style plates on the back of the arm and hand, and a blue crystal eye situated behind the wrist, about where a watch would be.

And on his left arm... With the look of an unfinished prototype, this crude steel gauntlet appears to have some kind of electronics or clockwork machinery built into a small box on the back of the forearm. Five raised copper wires (raised maybe an inch or so off the surface by little stands of insulating material on the back of the gauntlet and on the first and second knuckles) run from the box to hang free above his fingertips, like antennae or something. A Second Gauntlet (the capital letters are important!).

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"For some reason I didn't peg you as creations, but if you say so." Homura tells Answers back, glancing at the arrivals. She sighs, stretches her arms a bit, looking towards Psyber. "Going to need you to look after my you know what after this, if you don't mind. Please." Then to Madeline: "He's right, there's never a good time."

And finally to Staren: "Fragments are what's left of Nodes, presumably after they overload, break down, or otherwise get destroyed by the Pure inside, as a few of us witnessed personally. I suppose they could also just be remains of the prior worlds themselves too and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Either way, that's our objective today, to get another piece."

Either way... just waiting on Fiora now, and then she'll do that thing she is definitely not going to explain in great detail.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe pays keen attention to Mr. Answers.

"I think I'm as ready as I can be for the most part."

She looks to STaren as he ask a few more questions however she makes ready. She holds the pendant that is her abstractum and is ready. She looks to Homnura and nods.

"Fishing for the shard of a lost nods basically then."

She now simply settles in to wait as she holds on to Tizona for the moment.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora is...

Late.

She appears groggily on the small HIGH SCHOOL STAGE that was set up, looking like... Well, like she hadn't slept.

"Look, do not get into an argument with dream cephalopod assholes about things. Then they get snippy and keep you up all fucking night. Didn't get any goddamn sleep." She grumbles, a cup-shape of coffee appearing in her hands.

Without the cup. It spills all over her legs and makes her swear up a storm, before she de-existifies the coffee.

With a sigh, she looks at everyone. "Oh. Big crowd. Well, prepare your butts. And Staren, if you care, start your little sciency recording devices. This is how we ~magically~ go to the unshift."

From Fiora's back, or her 'presence', power that is not darkness but simply the lack of everything spills out. In a moment, everything is dark, and they are all in Fiora's Space of Nonexistance. And then they are pushed, up, and out of reality itself, away from their layer of space, and into the Unshift - Conceptual Space.

It is jarring and just as shitty or weird as you imagine it.

There is a lot of Concept-of-Yadda's that you are now made up with. Or something.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Expunging the entire group into That Which Is Outside Reality means a lot of complexity. Outside, there is no reality to define how concepts manifest, so while you might still have the concept of mobility, communication ability, and other things like that, anyone in Unshift has ceased to "exist" in the normal mode of which they are familiar. Lucky us, we have Homura Akemi here today; now in the space between assorted realities, Homura has used her Witchy Powers - assisted by Clairvoyant Rush - to create what essentially amounts to a reality ship, a sort of tiny pocket of stable space to impose a paradigm of perception on existence.

We'll see what that looks like in a moment. But this, at least, describes the appearance of things outside the windows of just such a craft.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
As soon as Fiora is ready to shift them, Homura extends her hands to both sides of herself, and deploys what probably feels like her own pocket dimension. Before they have to deal with turning into concepts, it is that reality which takes over, shunting everyone into... some sort of horrible unreality shuttle. The shape is arbitrary and probably depends on who's looking at it, ranging from raft to actual spaceship.

It's made of a spider lily mosaic, the 'vehicle' itself seemingly a painting superimposed on top of people's perceptions. Homura is no longer visible, but vaguely Homura-shaped tin soldiers with spears maintain the integrity of the boundaries by jabbing them with spears now and then. There is a lot of symbolism to find if you look around-- hands reaching for a pink sun and burning themselves as they get too near, guillotines ready for an execution, but as this is not the object of the trip, it's really just decor.

Vruasa Telash will probably not be able to remain fully invisible in here, and at the very least Homura will be aware of his presence more or less literally inside her soul if he chooses to ride along.

Fortunately the Barrier has no effects on people otherwise. You look normal! You sound and act normal. Please do not mangle the decor though.

There are windows or other assorted ways to look outside for navigation. There's an actual navigation console (or rudder, for those who perceive this in a more mundane capacity) that anyone is free to use to help this drift along towards the right direction.

Staren has posed:
Staren nods at the warning. "Record whatever you can, Eureka. Shame we don't have a cartridge from Ainsley. Well, at least we have a cartridge from Sakura, that should help with--" And then reality changes two ways at once, and then he's in a Reality Spaceship. Which looks OMINOUSLY like a Witch Barrier, or a... where else has he seen something like this before? Oh right, Their forces in that memory of a fallen world...

Curiously, Staren looks out a window, and then he kind of gets a headache and holds a hand to his head as he looks away. He walks over to the nav console, curiously. "Where'd Homura go? And how can this possibly work, I mean there aren't 'directions' outside, right?" He scratches his head. Then he rests his right index finger on the plastic molly-guard of the Second Gauntlet, which covers a small toggle switch built into the mysterious box on the back of it. "What do you think would happen if I turned it on now? Or would that be a terrible idea?"

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Activating the Second Gauntlet in this scenario would, since Homura has us anchored to her reality, provide additional thrust to the reality-craft. It may expedite the travel process." Eureka says, plainly and simply.

Staren has posed:
"Sweet, let's do it." Staren flips open the molly-guard, flips the toggle switch, and closes the guard again.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
This reminds Madeline of one thing in particular. "It's... much like..." She trails off. She's thinking of Yuri's soul, of course, which had a certain sort of reflection of himself.

Staren's questions get Madeline to glance over. "You're thinking as if reality were a stable thing, still. Let go a bit."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
The Second Gauntlet is activating, saturating portions of the Reality Craft with Unshift Contamination, which is simply an expression of the pulling force of Them. Easily regulated and aborted, this will provide additional free thrust to the craft as it blasts away from reality.

Clairvoyant Rush can be heard throughout the mini-reality, as if over some kind of PA. "H-hi! Um... Miss Akemi is... Everywhere right now, I mean, the whole reality is her. But she can't talk, okay? She'll be able to talk later... O-oh! Okay, I'm picking up another Fragment out here. I dunno if Samael is on this one too, but, um..."

Homura's Abstractum now starts feeding data to the Abstractum of all those aboard, allowing them to utilize their own experience. Any abilities in navigation, piloting, vehicular operation, or things like that are going to be effective in turning this data - specialized to each individual by their Abstractum - into directions; through operation of their Abstractum's projected interfaces, everyone here with the relevant types of experience should be able to get them to the Fragment pretty quickly!

Psyber (253) has posed:
Before the Unshift happens, Psyber crushes the cigarette he was smoking and drops it to the floor of the White Room. He nods to Homura and says, "You got it." The crushing of the cigarette does two things. One: It's just very rude to smoke inside one of your best friends existence. Two, he needs that hand to take a small object Homura hands him that he then slides into his pocket. His other hand is a big red gauntlet, so he doesn't trust the dexterity of that hand.

After putting it in his pocket, he looks over to Madeline, "I don't think I've actually met you. Psyber." He holds out that hand towards the Abyssal Pilot.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Madeline takes Psyber's hand easily enough. "Madeline Vance, Empress of Skullstone. Or whatever I eventually rename it. Something friendlier than 'Skullstone' is all I really need." She releases quickly as she gets that Abstractum data.

"I can probably pilot us, if you like," she points out. "Let me give it a try. It isn't... too different from an airship."

Staren has posed:
Staren tries to make sense of the nav console. "Homura's the pocket reality? Should I ask how that works?" but, he doesn't expect and answer -- as Eureka relays data to him, he looks it over and then heads for the pilot seat... when Madeline mentions she's piloted airships as /well/ as warstriders, though, he motions her over and sits down in the copilot seat if there is one, otherwise heading back to the nav console.

"So, uh, anyway... what /exactly/ are we doing here again? We're not just looking around, we're retrieving something from the Fragment, right?"

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel chirps to Staren, "Probably best not to ask right now!" She's taking a seat, just looking around the 'reality' thoughtfully. To Staren, again, she answers, "Information."

Samael (455) has posed:
As the ship forms and zooms through UNSPACE, a landscape starts to fill in. Unlike the previous area where the other fragment was recovered, there was no water here. In fact, the entire place looked unfinished. Instead of earth, water, or even anything, all of the landscape was...orange. With scale markers.

Basically,

From their view on high, all sorts of playground like buildings could be seen, though also, gardens, fields, and other constructs were visible. For now, though, it seemed like the entire surface of the area was deserted, with nothing moving. Yet.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Ignoring the debate going on around her, Madeline focuses on her current situation: guiding HomuraBoat into reality. Or shadow of reality. Whatever. "This does not look like any world that I have yet seen. I wasn't aware we had such diversity..."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is on a reality ship in Unspace, she look out at the word before them. Is it a world? She's not sure what to think about this.

"It feels almost like an unfinished computer generated model almost..."

Ariel (219) has posed:
"If it's a Node, then it could be anything," Ariel points out. "Nodes can have wildly different sorts of worlds. Worlds without humans, worlds that are all ocean, whatever. This one I guess is... unfinished or something?"

Either way Ariel is going to go Blue Chroma for now and send out her now-usual feelers, questing for magical activity. "Diea, it looks like we have some Greens with us, so I think we can concentrate on analyzing stuff this time. At least, I hope."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
The boat arrives safely; Madeline gets to deal with the moment-to-moment topology of Unshift Space, while the others are going to find much more use dealing with the navigational part, figuring out where exactly the fragment is. And then it's here, specifically!

Landing should be easy, in as much as smushing one sub-reality into a shattered larger reality and then dispersing it would be easy.

Staren has posed:
It's not every day you get to fly a reality ship made of someone's soul around outside the universe! Today has been an interesting day. As they enter the Fragment, Staren deactivates the Second Gauntlet. Wouldn't do to have Them yank him out of the Fragment as soon as the ship goes away/turns back into Homura.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora, for her part, is mostly just confused about the Second Gauntlet. She offers up her own bits of unhelp, chilling out maxing relaxin' all cool inside Homura's soul. She sort of chills out, not really contributing anything to the whole 'oh man skills and tasks' because she legitimately doesn't think her powers apply. She got them there without the Unshift Contamination. The first time, she had brute forced it, and had gotten ALL SORTS of contamination up ins.

"You know... This whole thing still bothers me. I just can't put my finger on why. Also, Homura, you should make your soul more homey. Like, couches and stuff. That'd be great. A nice end table, maybe?"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Once they arrive, the Familiars tug a hole into the Barrier's edges so people can flutter or jump out to the nearby ground. The ground is not far below, so it's safe.

A few of the tin soldiers glance towards Fiora. They don't talk-- they can't, really. There is a shuffle in reality and a monstrous clockwork couch drops down into the middle of the room. It's hard to say if it would grind anyone who sat on it into gibs or if it would be decently comfortable when the clockwork actually stops moving, which it does not. One of the Familiars attempts to get comfortable on it and ends up scattered into pieces of ground metal all over the room.

There is probably some symbolism there too.

Well, at least she tried. It's the thought, right?

Once everyone is off, the Witch Barrier dissipates, and Homura flickers back into existence, dropping immediatly to her knees to try and catch her breath. She might be choking on air right now, she'll need a moment to readjust. Doing that sucks a lot more than she lets on, really.

Staren has posed:
Staren's about to leave when a /clockwork couch/ appears. He looks at it and laughs. And then the Familiar is ground up on it and he looks perplexed. "Uh... is... is that okay, or did part of Homura just break?" Still, it's time to get out, so get out he does, crouching as he lands. He starts to look around, but when Homura reappears he turns towards her. "Are you alright?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber isn't quite doing much in the new reality. He's still as silent as he had been before greeting Madeline. He does head over to Homura and hook an arm under her arms to hoist her up and give her some support. He also hands a small object back to her, "Catch your breath. Come on, let's go."

He's mostly acting as a support for Homura to lean on while she recovers.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Back up she goes.
She takes the object and stuffs it back where it used to be. It could take a careful eye to realize something wasn't on her hand and is now once more there. Just a fancy purple gem, really.

"I'm fine," she insists to Staren (lying through her teeth and then some), before looking around. She shakes her head a bit. "Or I'm not and this place looks like an unfinished 3D modeling project with the grid still visible. It looks like that to everyone else, right?" Better make sure, when in doubt.

Staren has posed:
Staren decides not to press the issue. He nods at Homura's question. "Yeah."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Clairvoyant Rush's Prime Resonance reaches about the most it can take, and it floods Homura with the magic that it was holding in reserve, restoring her Soul Gem back to what it was before she temporary-witched-out. And then, "Y-yeah, Miss Akemi, it looks like that to me... It's really weird." Awkward and uncomfortable noises come from the ring.

Ariel's cloak glows an ethereal blue, wind rushing through it as it shines for a moment. "Powering Blue Chroma." The magical elements of the cloak focus on precision; it tries to establish some kind of magical radar, looking for magical activity within the Fragment.

Hecate speaks up to Fiora. "You could probably put your broom on it. What whole thing, might I ask, so I could know which bothering thing to hint at a fraction of the meaning of?" It'll be pretty obvious to Fiora that this is as close as the broom gets to being able to say that it cares about how she's feeling and wants to help ease her mind.

Majestic Crown is quick about this. The Tandem is established with the usual flurry of automated messages, and now the crown is running coordination data to everyone willing to be involved. "They are awaiting your orders." The ominous-looking crown says, simply. "While you are new here, this should be simple. Homura is uniquely equipped to retrieve valuable information from this reality. Obviously, we should protect her. I still strongly recommend we destroy any of the environment we are not standing on, so that there will be nothing to hide approaching threats. There is not much worth to keeping this place around anyway."

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Drily, Madeline notes, "Despite the Crown having a point, I think we can be a little more cautious than that. Ariel, was it? You keep scouting for magical energy, then. Homura can gather the intelligence she is good at doing, I suppose. Psyber, girl I don't know yet, you're with me in keeping this group safe. Strike to cripple, not kill, if we run into anything hostile. And Staren... you have scanners, right? Focus on the structure of this place if you can."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Madeline Vance's orders go out. ARIEL will find her scans enhanced in range and precision! HOMURA AKEMI should find the process of drawing out the information will go much faster, once she begins it by prompting Clairvoyant Rush. PSYBER and TOMOE find their BATTLE PERCEPTION increased to help defend from hidden threats. STAREN finds his own scanners enhanced; their increased power should let him penetrate the structures. Potentially mapping them or determining their nature?

Each of these effects come with associated soft green arcs of electricity over the affected equipment, sensory elements, or similar.

Samael (455) has posed:
As soon as the first foot hit the ground, something very odd happened. There's something that feels like...an earthquake? The ground shook for a moment, then passed. Nothing else happens for a few seconds, before something is visible in the sky. A bunch of purple polygons start fading into view, forming a small spiral in the air above everyone.

The polygons continued to gather, forming a vortex in the air above everyone. For now, however, all it does is look meanacing above everyone.

Except, Samael popped up behind everyone, and she seemed to be looking up in the air, shielding her eyes from a nonexistant sun.

"Looks dangerous, doesn't it?" she said, to no-one in particular. "But that...is something kind of special!"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Erm, well, it is less me and more my Abstractum, but I'll get on it. Wonder why this one looks so odd. It's almost like the Node never finished its creation process, there's... nothing here, really. Unless there's stuff in those crates. Is there stuff in those crates?" Homura asks, vaguely, for whoever feels like opening crates.

She will otherwise stad back and just instruct Claire to--

Flip around.
Glare.

"The Man and the Woman have said something to that effect, yes. That we would find these places special, and so would you." Siiigh.

Staren has posed:
Scanning, sure! Staren gets to scanning. He opens his bag, and a coconut-sized camera drone as well as four insect-sized rotor-drones fly out, flying up and in seperate directions to start seeing what can be seen.

Staren pulls out what looks like an abstractum flipphone to scan with. But as he watches the drone go up... he notices the sky. He starts to stare up for a moment, and then hears THAT VOICE. Reflexively he draws his laser pistol as he whirls to face her... and then he lowers it when he sees she's not attacking. "Oh my /god/ what is it /this/ time? You've planted a bomb that will destroy the whole fragment?" He gestures wildly as he throws out examples. "The polygons are people and you're going to recruit a Pure user from among them? /What/. What is it? What's your game this time? You may as well just tell us, we're gonna find out when you do it."

Ariel (219) has posed:
"Special... like a Spirograph," Ariel says when her eyes are turned to the sky. Did you know that the rise in violent crime can be directly traced to the decline of the spirograph? Food for thought.

"Hello, Samael," Ariel says. She still has cheer in her voice, though perhaps not as much as she could. She's a little distracted feeling out the magical eddies and nature of the world. The latter, she's not sure she can trust, given it isn't like most worlds.

Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber gives a nod to Madeline, willing enough to follow along with the plan she's proposing, "You got it," He says to the Abyssal pilot, adding in a thumbs up. Of course, a moment later Samael has appeared and is talking to the group.

"Hey Sam, what's up today?" He asks to Samael in a pretty calm tone, turning (probably with Homura) to face the girl and give her a faint smile, "Nice to see you. Long time, no talk."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora half-steps off the SOUL PLANE (much worse than a SOUL TRAIN, Homura step it up) and half-appears in the POLYGON WORLD.

She just looks tired and confused, an air of 'wat' around her as she crosses her arms, Hecate in her left hand. She is not invited to your tanedm, sniff-sniff, she didn't want to be part of your cool team anyway.

"Hey, Samael. Last time we came to one of these it was some bad kung-fu movie thing and someone moonlighting as a ruler tried to kick our ass. Now we're in... I dunno, the Data-verse. What gives?"

To Hecate, Fiora just... Grumbles something.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe Says "So here we go Tizona."

Tomoe does not seem happy about thing s she looks at Samael shows up she feels a bit scared she jknows just what Samel can be and she looks right at her, not sure what to do about her. She knows she's powerful and others are more experianced at dealing with her.

"So your here and you have to want something.. but what is it Samael?"

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Samael is not someone Madeline is familiar with, but she's read the reports. That's why the Solar turns an eye toward the new arrival, but doesn't try to start anything. Especially outside of her Warstrider. "Do you know anything about this?" She might as well ask, though the others have done a pretty good job of the same.

Samael (455) has posed:
"Oh, not much. Just watching a storm of...well." The girl smiled, shrugging. "Things. I dunno, what do you think that is?" Samael said to Psyber, grinning.

To Staren, she just shrugged. "You should relax. Enjoy natural disasters for what they are. Don't you like stormchasing?"

To Ariel, the girl spun around, twirling for no reason as she stepped towards her. "Hello~!" she exclaimed, doing a little pirouette and winding up in front of Homura and Fiora.

"I find them special, yes. And it would be to my advantage if I blew up the place, but...I also know what they do, and what they give you. Sooooooo...I'll cut you a deal. See, she knows that I want something!" Samael said, beaming at Tomoe.

"I want...to know what you see with these things. I want complete copies and records."

Then Maddie says her piece! Quicker than the eye could see, Samael seemed to teleport right in front of her, looking over here from this direction and that, darting from angle to angle. "Ooooh, I havn't seen you before. I don't think. You should probably wear some brighter colors, though! You look so sad!"

Psyber (253) has posed:
"I'm going to guess... that this is what it looks like when the end begins." Psyber says pretty flatly, shrugging a bit shortly after he says that, "When They start to emerge into a Node, or something? The storm that ushers them into reality or some shit."

He's mostly just firing a guess into the dark. He actually has no clue.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Adjudicator is the one who speaks up briefly, in response to Samael's question. "Psyber. Homura. You two have the greatest amount of personal experience with her, especially socially. Unless the rest of you object, I would like to suggest you two make this decision."

It also looks up with a cold, worried sort of look at the swirling storm.

Staren has posed:
Staren glares at Samael. "...I'm not buying it. Every time I see you, you're up to something. /They/" he waves a hand at the rest of the party, "say you're not about half the time, but clearly there is something about situations that draw /both/ of us that mean when I see you you're nothing but trouble." He sighs. "I guess there's nothing for it but to wait and see what it is /this/ time." He mutters to himself, 'Not like people will listen to me...'

He holsters his pistol, takes a deep breath, and crouches to touch the ground. "Alright. Let's do the psychic thing again."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Well, that's..."

Information... if Samael really wants to stop them, can they actually stop her from blowing the place up? Defeat her in combat, sure, probably, but the collateral would probably prevent what they came here for.

She looks towards Psyber.

"You have the rank here. Do you feel it's an acceptable exchange? Can you sword tell us if we'll regret the decision?" She seems to recall that's a thing it can do.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"I can't, but speaking from my own perspective, I believe it would be an acceptable exchange, considering that we are relatively certain that there is no information within the Fragment data that she could exploit against us." Adjudicator says, with an advisor's sort of tone. "If you defer to him, though, the final decision rests with Psyber, unless the rest of you have objection."

Meanwhile, Clairvoyant Rush is already amid attempting to draw the data out; witchy glyphs are rushing out of the polygonal environment and into the ring on Homura's hand.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Madeline stops right in her tracks as Samael looks her over like that, but she tolerates it. Stiffly, "I think my wardrobe is fine... at least it's not all black and broody like before." She /did/ ditch the skulls, that's an improvement right? "I live in a place called Skullstone, I can't really wear gaudy pink." She sighs. "Radiant Empress of Unwavering Rule. Pleasure to meet you, and so on." No sense being impolite when she lacks the advantage.

"No objections. I dislike giving out information like that and cutting deals without full knowledge, but I have to admit that the rest of you know more about this than I do, by far."

Psyber (253) has posed:
"Sadly," Psyber says to Homura, hands falling to his pockets as he looks over at Samael and then shrugs a bit, "The Morality Paradigms don't work on simple decision-making in my overall life. I can only use them on a target, and I don't feel like hitting Samael right now, despite what dissenting unnamed opinions on the matter may think," Psyber notes, more or less voicing agreement with the sword.

He sighs, "Yeah, sure. Deal. You haven't really given me reason to distrust you on your deals, so I'll tentatively agree to your bargain, Samael."

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel is friendly, but balks a little at sharing the information. She gives a long look at the others, then sighs, looking troubled more than anything else. She doesn't raise an objection to the decision, though. Instead, she throws herself into her magical analysis.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"When the options are 'a big dumb fight and you blowing stuff up' and 'help each other out', I'm pretty sure I'm fine sharing information. Though, I'd feel bad about sharing right now. Currently, I know dick all about what we're doing or supposed to do here. Last time I rubbed my broom on things and got told that was good."

Fiora grins, shrugging emphatically. "Looks like we're all in. I guess my broom has a getting-rubbed-on-the-past thing."

Samael (455) has posed:
"Okay, cool. Well, now that that's arranged, but...just sayin', if you avoid your end of the deal...well." The smile turned slightly murderous for just the fraction of second, before Samael pointed upwards. "This place is an amalgation of memories. It's half-baked, but that's because it's just...an area. That, on the other hand..."

The gathering storm became bigger and bigger, growing as more and more blocky purple polygons came into existance. "Are memories of Abstractum. Half baked memories, but also...while this world has memories intrinsic to itself, you might find more if you go get them! By get them I mean destroy them, because, like. Well, they're doing that."

Right on cue, the big huge vortex of purple started to flow down, forming wireframe figures all around the group. Each was wielding...well, something. Each of the wireframe weapons' lines were one of the primary abstractum colors: red, blue or green, and within the model was a burning flame that shared the abstractum's color. While there were the usual assortments of swords, axes, guns, there were a few odd weapons, like what appeared to be a book, a scroll, and even...wait, was that a boat?

There was one figure that stood at the head of this army, however, and it was wielding a halberd and seated on the horse. Its red flame burnt brighter than any of the others. Any, perhaps, except for the last figure that was formed.

A huuuge wireframe golem, all rounded edges, stood up from behind the massive army of polygonal soldiers, standing at least 13 to 15 meters high.

For now, all of the soldiers stood motionless, watching the gathering of people. Samael, on the other hand, stretched, apparently unworried. "So if you want more...stuff to assemble a fragment reconstruction from, you might wanna get to work! Or not. Your choice I guess."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Eureka self-rotates its own sensors into psychometry sensors, attempting to find any intense psychic imprints left behind in this Fragment! Unfortunately, the previous inhabitants have been gone for literally multiple eternities, leaving no such data. You'll need to do it during one of Homura's excursions into the simulated data itself!

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Well this just got interesting. Madeline frowns, as though she's fought a war before she's not nearly as ready in this state as she would like, and it isn't her best skill. Both pistols come out, anyway. She'll have to preserve her Essence, too. "Right. Psyber and Tomoe, I want you as a team to flank around and use the terrain to your advantage. Harry them and draw them out in small groups, no need to take them all on at once. Homura, help them out by striking from behind once they've drawn a group to them. Staren, analyze what we get from them. Ariel, you do that too, and provide any support you can to Psyber and Tomoe. Whats-your-name with the broom, distract any of the big ones if they start coming for us, and pick off any that you want if you have that capability."

She lifts both pistols. "Majestic Crown, we're going to provide cover fire and deter anyone who comes toward Staren and Ariel. Can you give me likely trajectories of incoming threats?"

She's going to stand near Staren and Ariel and then... a bright burning light surrounds her, forming into the shape of a brilliant glowing fortress. She's using her Anima Banner, and hoping the effects include the catboy and unicorn, to give them a slight boost as well. She's never actually DONE this, though!

Psyber (253) has posed:
'Am I still shooting to cripple?' 'No.' 'Neat.'

Psyber slaps a palm against the gauntlet on his hand, "Jude. Rifle." He says before nodding to Madeline's orders, "You've got it," And as he walks, he stops to place a device into the eye of his Abstractum and then taps it against Homura's ring, activating their Combo Frame.

Twirling the rifle in his hands, he then flips it over and slaps two cartridges into the bottom: His standard Wombo Combo of Himei and Homura for major offensive boosts. And then he's striding to one of the higher positions and drawing a bead with his rifle.

And then he tries to dome the "leader" of the army with a high-powered sniper shot.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe gets her marching orders from Madeline, Tomoe knows she's not too much of a leader unless she needs to step up and she doe snot she nods once.

"Lets get to it Pysber!"

She's going to move with Pysber and follow his leade she's got her long sword out and is following after Psyber now, she can use magic to help snipe and make use of her other abilities to protect Psyber as well.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura places her Combo Frame with Psyber into a slot on the cartridge/combo frame slot thing she wears under a sleeve. She also slots in the following cartridges: Himei-1, Hana-1, Psyber-1, Psyber-2. All reds. It should make up for Claire being heavily distracted and possibly less powerful at the moment. She then proceeds to it the Combo Frame against his sword, as is customary.

With a flash of purple, she transforms into her magical girl outfit, because she wasn't moments ago. She blurs-- and conveniently, reappears behind the army, large black bow drawn out rather than pistols. The less Claire has to distract herself the better.

"Oh, Psyber. I found out I can shoot Tyrfing like an arrow."

It's just an aside.

She pulls the magical bowstring back, and then lets it go, releasing a torrent of purple-pink magical arrows towards "the army" in general, with emphasis on trying to pincer those others are already engaging to make their attacks more effective.

Ariel (219) has posed:
Analyze the enemy? Sure. And Ariel can do a bit more than that, she hopes! "It's nice not NEEDING to Chroma Shift." She ducks behind something nearby and focuses her senses on the beings being attacked, though some part of her is a bit reluctant. "Are you sure these are the bad guys, guys?"

Well, it's in her nature to ask that.

That doesn't stop her from trying to give a little 'wish boost' to the others, though, with a glow of horn that grants a refreshing invigoration.

Staren has posed:
Staren frowns slightly. "Darn, woulda been cool if that worked." He stands and looks at the Fighting Polygon Team. "...Are we sure we have to fight them? All we have is /her/ word..." he jerks a thumb towards Samael. But... it's happening. He sighs, and pulls off the Second Gauntlet, sliding it into his bag for safekeeping and allowing Eureka to unmirror back onto his left arm. He then deploys his protoabstractum power armor. Looks kinda like reploid armor, white and sea green, includes crystals, yada yada you know the drill. Since he hasn't got anything to analyze /yet/, once the combatants open fire he joins in with firing plasma shots to help thin out the initial crowd.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Combo Frame Initialized! A-and, um... Cartridges Loading!" Claire calls out.

PSYBER CARTRIDGE 1 applies a no-friendly-fire effect! PSYBER CARTRIDGE 2 applies an increase in damage relative to violent inclinations in the targe! HIMEI CARTRIDGE 1 applies a small boost to Homura's athleticism! And Hana's causes her to move much faster! Wait, that last one's possibly less useful for Homura. There's also a lot of green fire surrounding those arrows and imbuing them with even more damage! To say nothing of how the COMBO FRAME is currently blasting it up to huge levels and increasing the damage against violent enemies even MORE!

That's a lot of power.

Samael (455) has posed:
"Oooh. Gold? I wouldn't have thought that'd be your colors." quipped the girl as Madeline made with her GOLDEN SOLAR ANIMA BANNER. "You seem more like the dark and brooding type. You don't write poetry, do you? Samael asked, content with just zipping about and notably not being helpful at all.

As soon as Psyber took that shot, the figures started moving. The wireframe horse reared up as the halberd spun, swiping at Psyber's shot and reflecting it back at him! The halberd continued to spin, deflecting Tomoe's shots here and there wildly.

With that, the army charged, flooding the area that everyone was occupying. In the middle of all the chaos, Samael popped up next to Ariel. "Well, no! They're nothing. They're just memories of past Abstractum users, like you. Combat data!"

The arrows cut down a little of the mass and so did Staren's plasma shots, but it seemed that like an unending tide, the crowd of purple abstractum users was mostly unstopped. Green flames flared as wireframes were connected with intangible lines, signifying tandems.

It would only be a matter of time until the front rank of the army crashed into the party.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Psyber. I believe a physical melee strike may be the best option. I believe we can damage that one's weapon, or outright break through." Adjudicator says. A MASSIVE gush of bright red fire swirls around the blade! Homura's COMBO FRAME applies an intense boost of energy alongside Psyber's own normal overwhelming offensive power, his Abstractum capable of huge amounts of physical force.

If Psyber agrees, the rifle will fold back into a sword, suddenly making every strike into a massive, titanic impact like a meteor strike; even casual movements with the blade release shockwaves of wind. Positively overwhelming force is what's being brought to bear here.

Psyber (253) has posed:
"Right, Jude," Psyber says, swinging the rifle up and letting it fold into its bigger sword form. With a mighty swing, Psyber tries to deflect his shot with a huge blast of wind that comes from moving the weapon along with the heavy striking power of his blade.

With the mighty sword in his hands, Psyber leaps in towards the man with the halberd. He tries to swing THROUGH the Halberd and shatter it with a single, overwhelming overhand strike of the blade, trying to bring it falling down upon his foe with all the force he can bring.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Ariel's magical analysis finds an unusual element to it. They're functionally golems, but not even that; it looks like data encoded into the Fragment itself, like a deep and intense impression left by people, but the lack of anything else here means that the information got sucked into a sort of data vacuum and filled it, to create a sort of mindless, chaotic inhabitant.

"Yeah... It's nice to settle on a role! If you ever do pick one permanently, I think I might even be able to set myself to something permanently for a nice power boost!" Harmonious Diea says, with a quiet bit of eagerness and support.

Well, in any case, it looks like breaking down these constructs will get the data. And they're not actually alive in any way.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Past data... so they're just that? Images going through the motions?" It'll be less bothersome if that's all they are. Well, either way, none of those cartridge effects are that bad. Even if Hana's is slightly redundant, coupled with Himei's, it means Homura can achieve relatively okay speeds without having to waste magic on it. Every little bit helps.

Homura maneuvers backwards to avoid the army further; it would be easy for them to just change course and utterly screw her over, right now, if they decide that front line needs to go backwards. From her position in the rear, she tries to figure out the best way to put a distracting dent in them.

Well, explosives have never failed her.

With a blur of time magic, RPGs fill the air.
Thank god for friendly fire being turned off.

The rockets sail forward, trying to bombard the past Users indiscriminatedly, with a mild focus on the green ones, and a few idly shots to distract their leader for Psyber's strike.

Staren has posed:
Staren shoots polygons while he waits for them to drop something so he can analyze it. They're... they're not dropping anything. "Ugh... Eureka? Do you think activating Sakura's cartridge would make it more likely for us to get something from them? Alternatively, could we rotate one into a form that we could get data from?" He slots in the Ran Tier I cartridge to see if it will help anyway.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is still firing off spells along side Pysber while watching for for more trouble she's going to do her darnest to try and slow down Samel's plans here o so she hopes. She listens to Pysber's own partner and nod once in agreement, she hears that they should be using up close weapons? Her sword vanishes into her inventory as she summons out the Naginatta which she calls Moon Cutter she's going to get to work and follow Pysber up ashs move to join Pysber in his assault.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora just sort of looks weirdly at Madeline. She isn't added to the combo, and frankly from an abstractum point of view, doesn't... really... matter. It had made things apparent when she wasn't counted in Tandems before. Kind of sad, in an odd way. She wasn't really necessary.

So she just sort of float-wanders to Samael, looking at her. "This is how it works, hmm? We fill in the holes of the story? But why, then, does annihilating the old memories of abstractum help us? Or you? Or is it just funsies?" Fiora asks, before thinking.

"Okay, fine. Well, this is a decent combat test, since it seems pretty much handled without me." She taps her chin, before turning, to bring up Hecate. "I honestly don't even know what to try, besides 'fill the air with black horrible death-effects and antiexistance', especially since Psyber and Homura are probably better at cleaning clocks in the aggregate."

Fiora sighs, before leaning on Hecate. "Uhh, let's see. Can we shift? Unshift? Soul-devour, download, fucking... Pure Mode? Shit, if you've got no neat tricks just max out the Hype Drives and load up Psyber Level 1." Fiora grumbles, turning to Samael. "Hey, I've got a question. How did /you/ get your power ups. Did you just murder your way through shit and /understood/? Everyone else seems to just intuit their boosts. I feel like I'm feeling around in a dark room."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Meanwhile over at Tomoe: Her Abstractum is laughing uproarously! "Oh man! Tomoe! It reflects stuff! You need to get in close, beat the crap out of it! C'mon, let's go! I'll keep you protected!"

The rank and file of the army of sorts are going to find a LOT of resistance! As they crash against Tomoe, she won't feel a thing, weapons bouncing off her armor and Tizona taking on a bright and positive expression in her armor! It seems happy to have Tomoe out and about. "See, now THIS is a party! I told you this was a good Fragment! Tough as hell, but good!"

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Cartridge installing." Eureka says, with a sort of matter-of-fact tone. Sakura's cartridge goes in, enhancing it... And all of a sudden, any of the enemies that Staren himself manages to finish off are going to be releasing much more concrete bursts of data, and Eureka is able to pick up on all of them at much greater efficiency!

Both will now be able to determine that this data came from a high number of Abstractum Users dying at once; it's quite possible that the information here could give a lot of insight to what happens when an Abstractum or a User dies, or gets close to it!

Ariel (219) has posed:
Ariel shudders at the idea that all of these were from a mass death. "Well... let's see what we can do about finding things out." Ariel loads a cartridge as well... UTOPIA's cartridge that Eleanor gave her. "You can choose to stay some way? That's... huh." It's something to consider, but it would mean she'd give up the flexibility she has right now.

In the meantime she'll also get to work forming a spell to make a shield around them, including Madeline. Her Sorcery is still pretty weak, but every little bit helps.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Madeline is probably the weakest one here. With Ariel knowing Sorcery now, she's probably weaker than the unicorn foal! The only advantage she has is that unlike Staren and Ariel, she's fully combat-specced, and that means she's the one that has to defend them. "Let me know if any start getting close, and I'll switch to my sword," she says to the other two. "It would be better to defend with."

Meanwhile, she's going to take her shots carefully for now, quick and precise, rather than expend more Essence. If something DANGEROUS comes close, she'll kick it up to a Nova Shell, a burning bright blast from one of her pistols that does considerably more damage.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
Hecate makes a grinning sort of posture with its handle and a smile in its eye. "What can we do? Ahhh... Well, unfortunately not much here. Not much to a ghost. Oh, if this were a swarm of a real army, you know, it'd be rather different. Oh, but unfortunately, not so tonight."

A soft sort of ominousness. "Oh, but do call on me, Fiora, if you find yourself facing down many enemy Abstractum Users like this pretends to be. Then I can show you what you can do with something like that."

Staren has posed:
Staren GRINS when he sees that Sakura's cartridge allowed for more data. "Alright, let's do this! Strife Drives, on!" He draws his beam sabers, activates his wings, and charges into the fray, flying around and slashing and stabbing, then he flies up over the crowd. Beam sabers merge back into one before he draws out his magitech staff and points it down at the swarm of polygons, firing sparks of light that explode into massive fireballs!

Samael (455) has posed:
The sword clashes with the man's halberd! The wireframe weapon holds, apparently much more sturdy than it would appear. Still though, something odd happens. The horse beneath the figure's legs is crushed, and simply explodes into a bunch of polygons that released a burst of data. The figure drew back from the flow, wielding the halberd in one hand. Just as Psyber did, it brought its weapon down with an overhead swing, somehow matching him blow for blow as the red flame in it burnt brighter. Tomoe's strikes, however, drove him back, not allowing him to follow up on his one single blow and placing him on the defensive.

Homura's rocket thin out the crowd as polygonal figures go flying into the air, bursting into purple triangles then fading away. Staren picked off a few as well, stemming the tide from reaching the group that much longer.

At the question Samael yawned as she looked towards Fiora. "Well, no! You see, destroying this place instead of allowing you to absorb the data would actually help the others! But see, like...according to your broom, I'm missing things. So. This is something I can't get elsewhere, you see." At the question of power, Samael smiled sweetly. "Yup. I killed a lot of people who fought me. That's just it."

The shield finally held at bay the army and mass of troops, and due to everyone's efforts, it seemed that they couldn't muster enough power to smash through it. Maddie took down a few, and when a big guy wielding a giant axe came along, her Charm just took its head off completely.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Meanwhile, while she's shooting, Madeline asides to Samael, "It is a very long and unpleasant story. Also most of my wardrobe is still dark colors."

Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber does not have much bantering to actually do, carefully holding his blade and pressing down as he shatters the horse under his opponent. Psyber brings his own sword up with shockwaves of energy and trails of wind in its wake. He can't trust barrier drivers, so he's making his offense into his defense, trying to meet the Strike power with the crushing force of his own attack.

When the foe backs off, Psyber steps in and delivers a forward thrust of the blade towards the center of his opponent's chest.

Staren has posed:
Staren takes a deep breath as he looks down at the battlefield below. <<Eureka. Rotate my Cortical Stack to store a backup of my concept as well as my mind, if you can. Just in case this goes wrong, so we can still restore what Fiora takes away. Ready?>>

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora, with Hecate powered up with Psyber Cartridge Level 1, brings the broom to bear... On Staren. "Hey, guy. You want the data, right?" She offers, before declaring with firmness a certain odd thing. "Hecate. The Terrain is now friendly."

Then she channels a horrible lack of... everything around her, distorting the air, the ground, and even her body as she pushes it into Hecate.

And the she extends the broomtip to tap Staren on the crown of his head.

'Horrible' Void Power fills Staren up. He probably takes on a Grimdark Tint. His palatte may swap.

This is all mostly cosmetic. Whatever is holding Staren back from just letting loose and obliterating a big swath of dudes gets deleted. And he's just POPPIN' OFF with destructive, caustic, annihilatory power. Thankfully, it's all shunted through the controlling aspect of Hecate, with the caveat of the Level One Psyber cartridge. He can't actually pop off and wipe out his allies. Even if he wanted to. He probably doesn't.

In fact, he feels probably totally normal! If BRIMMIN' WITH AWESOME POWAH.

After that, Fiora conversationally turns to Samael. "Hey, I was wondering, since Psyber's busy. Could I grab his cartridge back from you? I think it was just a loan-er. That cool?"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura does not do anything else for the moment.
Rather, she's starting to focus magic into her Abstractum instead-- she has not actually made much use of this before, so it's still rusty, but...

Without any distractions, she can accelerate the flow of time for her Abstractum, but not herself. While asking, because no stress it's not like we're holding an army off or anything: "Claire, how much longer?"

Staren has posed:
Staren's armor goes from white and sea green to black and red. He is now Dark Staren. Good thing Dark is not evil! But Staren's always known that!

In truth, Staren was holding back a bit on those fireballs. He couldn't just fireball all day because he didn't have enough magic power, even if he /does/ carry a spare battery. THIS IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM.

Staren drinks in the sensation. Ahh. This must be what a leyline walker feels like on a nexus. Blue-white power flows into him from... /somewhere/. He starts blasting full power fireballs from the staff willy-nilly. Then he wonders what else he can do. He switches hands, staff in left, saber in right. He casts a barrier on himself, he casts haste on himself, he summons mirror images, and then he dives into the horde of enemies laying waste with saber and lightning bolts for awhile. Then he wants to see what /else/ he can do. He fights his way to the edge of the horde, and turns around, gathering ki energy. Ki! He doesn't normally have a lot of that. He channels it into the staff, charging up an honest-to-goodness DBZ energy blast. There is a sudden desire to call his attack name:

'Ma... sen... ko... HAAAAAAAAAA!'

And then he fires a freakin' DBZ blast right through the horde. It probably looks really impressive and everything!

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
The Abstractum on his hand is glowing a strange, fizzling combination of red and gray. The levels of his Drivers can't be changed, unfortunately! It seems like he has to use what he had before. But he can use them to MUCH greater effect now that his Abstractum is temporarily altered into a red/gray type. A full conversion would probably need someone's Prime Resonance to do (like Ariel's!), but this is pretty close!

And so Staren winds up with a high amount of physical force behind those strikes, washing out large blastwaves! But boy, I sure hope Ariel is grabbing that data! Because Eureka now can't, at all!

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
With more coming closer, Madeline tucks the pistols away... and lets Staren mow down a number of them. Ariel's shield seems to be helping as well, which leaves Madeline with much less to do. She'll take out her sword, in case any slip past, and alter her orders slightly. "Ariel, move back to analyzing the data. Psyber, Tomoe, and Homura can finish taking out the leader with their combination attack while Staren finishes off the riffraff."

Ariel (219) has posed:
Horn glowing, Ariel sees Staren start to go wild... and that worries her. Well she's already slot Utopia's cartridge, so she also adds Himei's in, to hopefully reinforce the shielding with her Barrier Driver while she's doing the analysis. She's in Blue Chroma so she doesn't expect much, but oh well.

Time to focus her Sorcery on information gathering!

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is not getting the whole limiter relase thing going on tight now, however? She will put her best foot forward in fighting the enemy. She knows she's got a lot to woryr about. It's weapon is dangerous as it its owner, however? Tomoe is able to push him back and that lets her allies be in a good set up to hopefully finish it.

Samael (455) has posed:
This time, Psyber's thrust hits true, aided by Tomoe's distraction. It is somewhat awkward to parry a thrust, rather than a strike, and his blade impales the figure. For a moment, the wireframe is lifted up on his sword, only to burst into a bunch of (invisible) data and (not so invisible) polygons.

Staren's blasts cut through the chaff that was plaguing the the group from all sides, his now powered up blasts just carving gigantic holes in the masses. It looked like they were finally getting somewhere! The ones that made it up to the battle line were swiftly cut down by Madeline, as even in numbers, they were no match for the Exalt.

All the while, all of the data rising from the corpses was being absorbed by Ariel's abstractum, and there was a whole mess of it now. But still, there was the looming figure of that giant in the background. But first...

Samael pouted at Fiora's question. "Oh, but why would I do that? Especially since it's /so/ much fun...like this!" The girl took to the air, raising Psyber's cartridge. It exploded into a bunch of little tiny sparkles as Samael's mechanical wings appeared, flapping behind her. A large etching of an upside down set of scales appeared in front of her, and she yawned, making a gun with her fingers. She pantomimed a shot, and an IMMENSE blast of energy came from the symbol, enveloping the huge golem in the back and sending what little was left of the foot soldiers flying into the air. There was nothing left except the bursts of data that came from such a huge creature, and Samael folded her arms, looking rather pleased with herself.

"Why would I give up something that's /so much fun/? Anyway...you know we have a deal, right? You need to tell me what you find...both from the stuff you gathered here, and the stuff you find in your virtual reality doohickies. It was fun! And...I dunno, maybe I should bring some paint! Touch you up a little~! It couldn't hurt, you know!" she said, before suddenly disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
As Staren tries to turn his power at Samael, he would percieve something intrinsic to that gifted energy.

This is because Samael, to Fiora, is tagged as a Friendly.

And Friendly Fire is Off.

Fiora seems to be taking note of everything, but seems pretty confident she put in the right caveats.

Madeline Vance (380) has posed:
Madeline sheaths her blade now, and tsks at something or other. "Ariel, did you get all of that?" That's her only concern. This was an information-gathering mission, and with Staren going berserk with power, it was up to the unicorn to gather what they could.

Psyber (253) has posed:
Psyber twirls the blade upwards in an easy spinning motion, releasing it as it folds back into a gauntlet that envelops his left hand. He sighs a bit and shrugs, looking slightly annoyed as Samael uses his Cartridge, "Really, I thought that would do the opposite when I gave it to her. How irritating."

He clenches the armor-plating covering his left arm and then takes out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, lighting it a moment later and starting to idly smoke.

Ariel (219) has posed:
"Well I don't know if I got ALL of it," Ariel says, "But I think I got something we can use. Whatever it is. Maybe I can even use it to help with the spell I'm working on." She doesn't know! And still needs to get with Al to work on that.

Staren has posed:
Dark Staren smirks as his staff's ki blast cuts a swath through the horde. And he's already got an idea for what to try next--

And then he notices that they're all gone, and Samael's finishing off the last one! "Hey!" He flies over to where Samael was. "Pssh. I coulda done that." He remarks.

He's silent for a moment, as he floats there, appreciating the swath of distruction he and his allies have cut. And then: "Aww, dammit!" He turns towards the empty air where Samael was. "I finally had enough power to FIGHT her!" He clenches his fists. "RAGH!" he shoots a weaker (but still boosted) ki blast at the ground in frustration. Then he starts putting his weapons away, finally floating down next to Ariel and un-deploying his armor.

Unarmored Dark Staren has a howie-style labcoat and the magipunk goggles are on his face and tinted, mirrored black like sunglasses. His bandana's red, pants black, shoes black and red, etc. Hair style is slightly messier and with his hair sticking up a bit, looking more mad-scientisty.

He holds Eureka out in front of him. "Well, what'd we get?" he asks. After a quick thought, he transmits: <<And is there any way we can copy this power? Nah, she'd never give it... and it wouldn't fit in a protoabstractum anyway. Ideas? Think of what I could do with this!>>

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
"Nothing, apparently!" Eureka says. "That's weird. It looks like it disabled all of my blue functions."

"I got it, though!" Ariel's Abstractum is speaking up. "Most of it, anyway."