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Audrey Stormfist     GROUND ZERO has obtained vital information thanks to the hacking efforts of Juno Eclipse (and perhaps others), using the shipping information and serial numbers taken by Lyria Mason during the factory raid. A high priority cargo shuttle, to be escorted by three smaller KIRIN aerial drones, is to be leaving the Murasame Zaibatsu main headquarters at precisely 7:15, carrying confidential cargo towards the RAIJIN ships of the Starbound Flotilla that circle the skies of Sector 13. Whatever the cargo is, it's important enough to warrant an armed escort from KIRIN, and since it relates to the Domain Core project...

    Well, Kyra would have had a very easy time pitching this strike to people and explaining why it could be important.

    It's 7:15. Cargo doors open on the side of the Zaibatsu's monolithic, black blade-like headquarters, and the transport shuttle leaves. It's about the size of an eighteen-wheeler. With it are three DEATH MACHINES, large, armored, flying drones notorious for using extremely dangerous magitech rounds. Death, Doom, Blaster, to name only three. For KIRIN to deploy three of them to guard a ship, it can't be worthless.

    Ref: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e5/DeathMachine-ffvi-ios.png

The circling RAIJIN ships are currently on the far rim of Sector 13, meaning they're about twenty minutes off Murasame HQ. Striking when the cargo is halfway there would mean the closest deployment point for Zaibatsu reinforcements is several minutes away, which is ever important. It's up to Kyra to lay down her plan and carry it out now.

    MEANWHILE, Murasame Zaibatsu forces, and allies, lie in wait. Stationed in a warehouse located roughly at the halfway point between the RAIJIN ships and HQ, they have been provided with their own shuttle or two to intercept the inevitable terrorist attack. HK, in particular, has been outfitted in GOLEM magitech armor, a sleek model meant to make him look as human as it's possible to make him look, under layers of armor, reinforced cloth, and a menacing mono-eyed helmet. A voice modulator has been installed to cover for his speech quirk, and he has for mission to bring any single ones of the terrorists back alive. They need not be in one piece, just capable of being interrogated.
Flint Hawke     -On The Bridge of the Black Sun-

    Flint Hawke is sitting on the bridge of his massive battleship, laying horizontally across his own Captain's chair and smoking as his blonde hair pools and flows around him. He lazily kicks his booted feet and yawns, "Oi. Helmsman. We there yet?"

    "Just about, Captain. One last jump will bring us in," Says a man at a control console wearing what vaguely resembles a Uniform. He's certainly not Hayate in terms of navigation, but he does fine in a pinch. Flint lets out a bit of a bored sigh, "Alright. Jump us in and open up communications when it happens."

    -At the Actual Interesting Part-

    There's an eruption of an energy signal as a ship warps in, the massive silhouette of the Black Sun appearing hovering in proximity to the headquarters as it finishes a short hop to try to get itself into position. This happens at approximately 7:16 and some change. As it arrives, communications do indeed open up and a message begins.

    "Hello my friends! Captain Flint Hawke here, Freelance Space Enthusiast and Acquisitions Expert! Please understand this is nothing personal. Rather, well, this is a greeting, so it IS rather personal, actually. Personal in that I am directing it to you. But what will proceed is not personal, which is that, rather, your ship is going to be 'acquired', if that was not implied in introducing myself as an Acquisitions Expert. But it's not personal, so, yes. I was just paid a great sum and hired! Business, you know? All business. So to recap here: Greeting personal, actions not. Yes. Well ah... ta ta."

    As the message clicks off, multiple cannons along the side of the huge ship swivel. It lets off a volley of highly destructive fire, though not at the shuttle. Instead it's aiming almost all of its fire at the cargo bay doors, trying to collapse them into some piles of rubble and prevent the transport from being able to easily flee to the safety of the headquarters.
Kyra Hyral     For varying definitions of...easy, Kyra has been gradually recruiting for her quite frowned-upon effort. Following the last strike the reluctance had definitely increased given the very, very narrow shave that they'd encountered. Tonight the nascent group would be pushing their luck again, using the information gleaned from Juno and Black Arachnia, to pinpoint this particular cargo shipment to one of the Flotilla ships in the skies. The plan was "simple."

    Hijack the ship. Fly it offworld.

    Due to the distinctness of Kyra's personal spaceship, the Rafflesia is not being used for this operation. No, instead 'Rabbit' has reached out for the help of some enterprising acquisitions-oriented contractors. Garbed in the matte-black kevlar bodysuit with face-obscuring helmet, Kyra stands upon the deck of the Black Sun, a silent sentinel as Flint initiates contact with the ship and procedes to try to blast the cargo doors in.

    As the volleys unload, the disguised white mage calmly lifts what looks to be a rocket launcher with a sharply pointed munition loaded in the barrel. She departs quickly for an airlock, opening the doors with little hesitation as the magnets embedded in the boots of her suit activate (a lovely little idea picked up from the Zaibatsu last time). Leaning out, she aims the weapon down at the cargo doors and fires. The munition itself doesn't explode as much as it /penetrates/ through thick plates of metal, designed specifically do to so and unscrew open to unleash copious amounts of paralysis-inducing gas held inside, meant to target the crew of the cargo ship.
Lima Ultimos From the opposite side of the ship from where Flint Hawke comes in, those with either a good eye or good scanning equipment will notice that a small cloud of fog is starting to roll in. However, that fog is soon revealed to be so much more, as it is actually concealing a large black Brigantine, very old and very rotten, yet not showing any signs of wear or age. While the ship is incredibly supernatural to any sensors, the fog is not, and is most likely coming out of a rather sizable fog machien hooked up to the ship. Also, the ship is approaching very quickly, right in direction for the airship. So, that should probably be more impoortant than 'what is this fog'!

As the ship gets closer and closer, it suddenly changes course, heading instead for one of the Death Machines, as the loud sounds of morse code coming from an old telegraph are funnelled at communication systems and translated, into roughly, "Yarr, this thing be on? I be the great Lima Ultimos, me ship be the Coma Navaja, and I be here to steal yer booty! Let's be having fun, shall we?" And then, the Coma Navaja proceeds to face sides at the Death Machine, as cannons being manned by a crew of undead pirates are fired rapidly at the drone. "May she rest in peace! If she be dead yet, that is!"

On the ACTUAL ship, Lima Ultimos is manning the wheel. It is simply a pirate ship, that is rotten and undead and also flying like an airship despite not having jets, or propellers, or any method of propulsion except sails. The captain is drinking a very large bottle of orange juice and humming a sea shanty, as he gets ready for the actual fighting.
Lyria Mason Kyra is not alone, for better of worse? Lyria has thrown her chips in with her long time school friend on this one. However Lyira is not here but Serpent sure is along side Rabbit whom seems to be ready to the attack. She's packing the same tinted helmet, and armored body suit she had last time, but she's also packign several more bits og gears as she moves in to back up Rabbit. With Rabbit handling the gas she held back with her own gear. She did seemed to be ready and several very generic models of drones stood with her. She does howeve move in using magntic boots much aking to Rabbit who gave her the idea. It was a good one as she got ready to breach the door and get into the ship.

<<Pirates on the high skies, today. Let's keep this by the numbers, shall we?>>
Sakura Haruno     Flowers had decided to ride along with Flint for the moment. The ninja is going to be just a little bit hampered in her movements in the layers of clothing she's got on, literally just thrift store clothing she'd be okay burning after. It's in a variety of sizes and colors, though, and makes her stand out quite a bit, particularly the bright red skimask she's got covering her face.

    She's brought along weapons, today, though she's hoping to avoid using them; it's tough for her to do too much in the way of techniques without giving herself away though. She'll watch and wait as 'Rabbit' and the rental Pirate they've obtained for the day strike the first blows, ready to try and do supporty things once they're more at blows. Or stab someone, but that's tough to do from here.
Duet Fortuna     It is a sad day that Duet must swap out her distinctive pistol for something more generic. In this case, two Beretta sidearms, a weapon familiar to her anyway. The disguised woman is now wearing TWO masks, which is getting a little awkward after all this time. She also has a sword, but that one is a bit different. Tightly bound and sheathed, it's kept in place in such a way that says she really doesn't want to draw it.

    Everyone else is blasting the doors, so Duet's going to hang back. Supposedly she doesn't have any ranged attacks like that, after all. Flint gets a small nod, is all. "Captain. Thank you for the transport." She'll then follow after Kyra... for now.
Xiao Li Yu      Believe it or not, Xiao actually got some sleep last night. Oh and she ate something. Miracles do happen. But now, here in the next evening, they've got another situation keeping her away from her work. "You'd think they'd know better." The researcher mumbled boredly, staring up at the sky and awaiting the inevitable fallout.

     Her arms were folded within the sleeves of her usual labcoat, and her eyes were half lidded. Clearly the girl needed more sleep. Not that she was going to get it. A huge yawn followed. "And there it is." Right on time. Several ships appeared, and began the bombardment. "Mmn. I guess this is the part where we have to stop them." Sigh. Her anklets lit up as MP channeled into them. "Off we go then."

     Stepping out of the warehouse, she lifted off into the air, and then acsended upwards towards the center of the catastrophe, keeping an eye on the proceedings as they came. Nothing too outlandish just yet. Simply surveying the happening as she approaches the ship under fire.
Starbound Flotilla "Is your armor calibrated, George?"
"Hasn't gotten less calibrated since you asked me thirty minutes ago."
"Yes it has. That is /why/ we calibrate the armor."
"Deep within the maelstrom of grudge and feud, has a point."
"And I have a three-times score multiplier on my game, leave me alone."
"Anxious. I will go calibrate it for George."
"Yarharharhar, ye just can't keep from each other's throats!"
"'Choke magnetisssm.'"
"Choke magnetism?"
"Handsss, inexplicable attraction to annoying neck. Floran know feeling--"

    And then the alert goes off.

    +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+

    The six Starbound Squad members are suddenly alert and all business. Their eyes shine brightly in the darkness. Albert is the one who speaks up first. "Starbound squad, deploy." And then: The team is off, hopping aboard the fastest of their ships, the SFS Connoisseur, a sleek, sharklike light blue spacecraft. Any who wish can easily follow. All relevant craft in the sky here will shortly detect the vehicle -- to Flint, a familiar shuttle -- closing FAST. With some creative airwork, they might be forced to deploy their Captains at a particular area, but this is clearly a hit-and-run style deployment. Perhaps at the Black Sun? Perhaps at the breached cargo craft...?
Audrey Stormfist     Evidently there was a flaw in Audrey's plan, and it's that the terrorists are insane enough to assault Murasame HQ directly. It would have been smarter to intercept the cargo halfway to its destination, but... oh well.

    Time to make it convincing.

    "Stormfist to all Zaibatsu personel, the shuttle has come under assault a minute away from HQ. Intercept and capture all opposing forces."

    How they choose to do that is up to them.

    The DEATH MACHINES, coming under fire, reveal they have surprising amounts of armor. It'll take more than one or two volleys even from Lima's ship to bring one down, but already the plating is damaged and molten in places. Their mechanical hands whir and retract, revealing large cannons that immediatly open fire. Blaster spells-- on normal people these can kill instantly, or paralyze. On a ship... well, they can't, but they can probably do a number.

    Murasame HQ comes under assault by Flint and Kyra, whose weaponry evidently causes a few explosions in the hangars. Retreat was never an option, though; the doors eventually slam shut, before a hum resonates through all of Sector 13. Hair might stand on end as thunder cracks loudly far above, where the edge of the building pierces the clouds.

    For people on Flint's ship, it's like standing in the eye of a storm. There's a building static, a lack of wind that pulls hair upward, that causes tiny sparks and blue streaks to race on metallic clothing and accessories.

    And then light, and electricity everywhere. As countless lightning bolts impact the upper section of the Murasame Zaibatsu's HQ, the entire energy of Ramuh's eternal storm in that brief moment is redirected towards Flint's ship, from the building. It's hard to say how much will even make it past Flint's shields, but it might not be a good idea to keep his ship within the building's range.
Audrey Stormfist     Kyra blasts a grenade through the plating of the cargo ship, unleashing gas inside. Predictably the crew is in basic Zaibatsu uniforms and armor, which include flight helmets and breathers. The effect of her grenades is dampened, as a result. When she finally gets around to opening the doors and boarding, she'll find a still somewhat functional crew.

    Armed guards, a couple of engineers. But they're not really on Kyra's level, not by a long stretch. Even without her White Magic in the equation at all, she outclasses them. She'd make short work of the crew and subdue the cargo ship pretty quickly.

    Incidently, it's full of armored crates. Unmarked. No serials, just the Zaibatsu logo on them. Obviously important, or at least made to look the part.
Mirielle Edelweiss     Handling corporate security was generally not Mirielle's job, but being Souji Murasame's secretary means that when he says 'jump' you sort of sigh and go 'of course'. And when that task is ensuring a convoy of dangerous weapons...

    Well, the Calculator had been busy. She had expected every eventuality, set up soft cordons and paid off gangs all along the route. There were thugs in the streets, ninjas on rooftops, and ALL OF IT HAD GONE TOTALLY OUT THE WINDOW.

    This is a mild exaggeration. The clipboard Mirielle had thrown against the glass window in the Zaibatsu HQ tower in a fit of pique bounced off the window with a 'thonk' and clattered against the floor.

    The tower shook precariously, and cracks spidered along the thick, Ramuhan glass as Mirielle hurried to the roof. "Insurgents... ruining my plans with SHIPS... How can I calculate accurately with all these unknown variables?!"

    The fact that gas attacks are happening in the lower areas escapes her, as she rides an elevator to the roof, pulling up her hood. "Now I have to get wet, becuase someone expected me to 'give my best guess'. I don't guess!"

    She throws open the door at the roof, walking into the rain, as she levells a hand at Flint's floating ship, letting magic flow out of her. "Go away." She intones.

    Then she begins directing the copious amounts of lightning in the air towards the ship, rapid-firing Thunder spells.
HK-47      In all honesty, he truly did need this mission. Not only for the unique resources it might provide, but as a way to vent his frustrations as of late.

     It had taken more then a full week to recuperate from the damages that HK-47 sustained at the hands of the Union - even now he was having the HK-51's tearing through every resource he possessed to find out /how/ they could have preemptively tracked him to Darhtag that day. The majority of his frame had to be entirely rebuilt and restored, and his circuits significantly repaired to clean up any damages or feedback-contamination.

     One of many debacles that necessitated he rebuild a working-relationship with his... peers, for lack of a better term. And what better way then to start with assisting in the defense of Confederate-supported Order?

     Clad in what he would describe as vaguely Mandalorian-esque gunmetal-grey armor, HK-47 muses on the unusual construction of his disguise's armaments - they mirrored the functionality of his original arsenal, yet they ran off the indirect aural energy known as 'magic'. Familiar enough to trust he could use them without issue, yet different enough for him to question their reliability.

     But then again, he wasn't exactly unfamiliar working with non-standard, unreliable weapons. As always, he would simply have to make due.

     And the time for it was now.

     As soon as the alert goes off, the droid begins moving in, perched atop one of the ocular drones given to his command - and quickly approaches the immense, decomposing vessel attempting to besiege the Murasame. At his flanks, five more of the ocular drones form up on him, moving toward severely-decayed 'ship' with the intent to board it or, failing that, send it falling to the ground.

     After all... what better way to counter something as flammable as wood with something that utilized lightning and flame as it's primary weapons?
Flint Hawke     "No trouble really. Stay safe, ladies," He notes, flashing them both a wide smile and tipping his Captain's hat to them, "So rare I get to bring such fine damsels aboard, really." That is mostly directed to Duet and less to Kyra or the giant walking discount bin that Haruno Sakura has become.

    "SIR! Rising energy Signature!" The call comes from a man at the helm a few moments after the initial volley goes out. Flint sits a bit more upright in his chair and sighs as he runs a hand through his long, blonde hair, "Oi. Never a dull moment, it seems. Let's see what they've got up their sleeve," Flint says as he stands up and stamps a foot down, a pulse of black energy escaping him into the ship itself.

    OUTSIDE THE SHIP, the Black Sun hangs in the air, shields flickering occasionally to deflect one of the lightning bolts trying to strike the exterior. The shields crackle and flicker more intensely when the Judgment Bolt Cannon fires and sends a condensed storm raging towards the vessel. This is further exacerbated as focused Thunder spells begin slamming into the underside of his ship fired from a mage of some nerdy sort. The nerdiest mages swing the least nerdy spells, as a rule.

    The arcing beams and blasts of electricity puncture through points where the shield fails and begin to shear off sections of the exterior, paneling and armor plating melting and splitting under the force of the assault.

    INSIDE THE SHIP, the command deck rocks and shakes, lights flickering from the force of the blow. There's explosions on consoles and crewmen flying backwards to land on the ground in heaps with burn marks across their faces or arms. There's also portions of the lower decks where blasts of lightning have exposed sections of the interior or overloaded local systems. It seems like the direct hit from the Judgment Bolt Cannon and Mirielle's spells caused some severe damage.

    Until, that is, Flint stamps his foot again, "Oi. Quit lollygaggin' and get yer asses back to work. I didn't say you were done," Flint commands forcefully, his voice tone changing as he adjusts his hat. There's a pulse of energy through the ship again. For a long time, it seems like nothing is happening as Flint stands there with his arms crossed.

    But then... the men on the deck of the ship? The ones with scorch marks from overloaded consoles that go nearly to the bones on their faces and arms? They start to stand up again. Their consoles flick back to life. They look groggy and disoriented, but they immediately move to get back to work.

    Flint takes a pipe out of his jacket and lights it, "Hmph. Cute trick. It'll only work once, though," He comments before waving his hand, "Load boarding lances and prepare to fire on my mark."

    One of the crew looks up at him, "We boarding their transport ship, sir?"

    "No. Target their Headquarters."

    Flint grins as the crewman says, "Do I prepare a boarding team?"

    "Nope. You'll see."

    OUTSIDE THE SHIP, several huge turrets on the outside swing around. They look like harpoon guns and are clearly meant to spear ships and reel them in for boarding crews. Three of them fire, sending out massive metal lances that try to slam into the side of the Zaibatsu headquarters on various floors and points in the building. No boarding crews leave the ship, however.

    Flint's just trying to ground himself to the Zaibatsu Headquarters so they can't shock him again.
Duet Fortuna     Hmm. Where to go? Kyra is handling the cargo ship, but the Black Sun is under fire from below. "I'll take care of the roof," Duet says mildly. With a blurred motion, she leaps outward, doing a high arc... before plummeting down toward the rooftop. It's not really a leap so much as falling with style, at a speed that would be deadly for a human... and threatens to crash through the roof.

    Moments before impact, the masked Lady Luck 'stalls' in midair to touch down gently near where the blasts are coming from. Ahh... Mirielle. Not that she can say anything of the sort, if she even recognizes Mirielle at all. She didn't interact with the Zaibatsu all that much, not directly. Oh well. "Please stop that. If you back down now, no one will be hurt."

    To finish off her statement and let Mirielle know she's serious, Duet draws the blade at her side, twirling it once before lifting it into a ready position. The blade is a deep, blood red sword, with a ripple of power along it. The Dark Knight sword flares for a moment before its power quells.
Kyra Hyral     "Your help will be well compensated." The synthetic voice of 'rabbit' says, created via silence-to-speech device embedded in Kyra's gear. The disguised white mage discards the rocket launcher in the airlock before disembarking via grappling hook just before the Murasame HQ unloads some /impressive/ air defense capabilities. Kyra did not know it could do that. She makes a note of this for later.

    Once inside, she's a little irritated to find that even the crew here has helmets and filtered air, making a second note to not bother with the gas in the future. This is /twice/ that tactic had failed and she's more than a little irritated to encounter armed resistance-fortunately, she's equipped for this too. She removes a short pole attached to her suit that telescopes into a longer staff. One end sparks with electricity which delivers enough force to function as a very potent taser. With practiced movements, she swings her way through the guards, stunning them one by one. The cargo is left alone for now-Kyra wants the people well dealt with first.
Starbound Flotilla     Nobody's gone after the approaching sharklike vessel, and so their approach zips by quick. Moonfin, the teleportation expert, is handling the boarding, it seems. The heavy red beam they aim at the Black Sun is centered at the points where the boarding lances connect to the craft itself. They're looking to disconnect the lances at the guns themselves, and sabotage the boarding lances! Unless they're stopped, they might let the Zaibatsu turn the envuironment back against the rebels.

    With six heavy pulses, the Starbound Flotilla attempt a BREACHING TELEPORT, trying to temporarily overpower shields and blast through the hull, to roughly teleport inside! This is EXTREMELY OBVIOUS and easily detected, though less easily stopped. What's happening now will be quite obvious to Flint and to those still aboard.
Audrey Stormfist     The DEATH MACHINES, all three of them, afforded some level of cover thanks to HK-47 coming in 'hot', detach from assaulting the decaying pirate ship. Analysis revealed they were at a disadvantage, and that was all their very rudimentary AIs needed to scan the battlefield and pick better targets.

    The armored flying drones whirr, and suddenly veer towards Flint's ship. With the cargo halted near it, and the HQ's cannon unable to fire at it again, the Black Sun is a priority target. The Flotilla has just declared their intent to handle it, and so the Death Machines aim for the 'crew'.

    That is, Sakura and Lyria, at the moment.

    Interposing themselves between the cargo ship (and thus, Kyra) and the two, the three large drones angle their arm cannons and immediatly start firing, intent on denying them the ability to back Kyra up. Black-purple orbs are shotgunning out of the cannons. Death and Doom spells.

    Not very effective against Elites, but still about as pleasant as a heart attack to get hit by. Nothing they can't shake off if hit, but probably still best to dodge. On the bright side, there's no way their batteries can handle rapidfiring those kinds of spells for very long.

    As for FLINT, the Zaibatsu HQ falls silent. Or, well, as silent as it ever is. Thunder is still a constant background noise, as thunderbolts from the storm strike the massive rods all over the building, surges of electricity travelling along its walls to wherever it's stored.

    There's probably going to be stray lightning bolts randomly arcing around the Black Sun, what with being connected to the building so invasively and without regards for safety, but it's infinitely less threatening like this than the cannon is.
Lima Ultimos As the Death Machines counter fire, the Coma Navaja rocks, causing a few guys to trip, though it takes the damage in stride, being an incredibly tanky ship. This is actually kind of boring, because Lima Ultimos realizes quickly there's no higher intellect to the drones, meaning they're less likely to do risky and ridiculous things, meaning the fight is less likely to be anything exciting.

Luckily, a bunch of drones want to board his ship! And some dude riding one of them! This is more likely to be exciting, so Lima Ultimos signals for the Coma Navaja to sail a bit away from the Death Machine to get out of firing range, before parking. Quickly, the pirate captain dismounts from his wheel, shouting to one of the crew members "Watch that thing!" as he waits in the middle of the deck, pacing in anticipation. As HK-47 gets closer, Lima Ultimos will turn to him and grin. "Ahoy! Ye be exactly what I be looking for! Let us duel here on these high skyseas, and settle this here thing with some FIGHTING! Ye be up for it?" This is not some sort of trap or clever plan. This is a middle aged pirate dude wanting to swashbuckle aboard a pirate ship in the midst of fighting solely for the thrill of it. He is very hyperactive and likely a bit crazy, and also very, very, not living. No breathing. No pulse. No vital signs of any type.
Xiao Li Yu      It looked like the others were dealing with the enemy ships. That left the cargo ship to Xiao. Fine with her really. She'd let the other, more fighty people, do the heavy lifting.

     ...What? She's a frontline fighter too? THAT'S ONLY TECHNICALLY!

     She can hear radio reports on her comm from inside the ship. Looks like the crew was equipped to deal with the chemical attack. Good. Then she'd focus on the interloper alone. The crew could handle the side stuff. Veering through the air, the scientist came to a stop in front of the entrance to the place the intruder had gone in from. "Hmm..." Better be prepared. Parting her arms from her sleeves, she revealed her weapons. Twin black gauntlets. "Firaga." She muttered, a shimmering aura of flame flaring up around her. From deeper in, she could hear the sounds of the standard security crew facing off with someone. ...And doing a terrible job of handling it.

     Sigh.

     Once she flew into range, Xiao flipped through the air, clenching a fist as she powered off the AANS at her ankles. Letting gravity take over, she sailed downwards, descending until, with great force, she punched the ground before Kyra. "Hihi~. Excuse me, but I need you to go to sleep for a while. Please? Thanks." Upon making impact with the floor of the cargo bay, an explosive wave of flame magic expanded outwards in a circle, with Xiao at the epicenter.
Mirielle Edelweiss     Mirielle stands in the rain, hurling discount thunder spells in tandem with the comedically large Zaibatsu magi-artillery to blast Flint's massive ship. Water patters down on her dark hood and her raincoat, the heavy waterproof fabric repelling most of the moisture as her fingers and arm crackle with the ambient power of the magic she had been channeling.

    As someone jumps off the ship, though she immediately takes a step back, raising a hand to her glasses to wipe them off. Frustrated at her lack of foresight twice now - once for not predicting they'd come in ships, and again for not bringing her anti-fogging glasses - she's unprepared for the arrival of the dark Lady Luck that lands across from her on the precarious gun service catwalk near the huge roof-mounted weapon.

    "A Dark Knight? Or some ext... Multiversal? It doesn't matter." She peels her glasses off and tosses them over her shoulder, withdrawing a sleeker, less huge-framed pair with a tighter hook around the ears, sliding them onto her face. These do NOT fog up or get wet.

    "You are on private p-property!" She calls out, over the peals of thunder. "And I won't just walk away - I work here. It would reflect poorly on my quarterly evaluations."

    Mirielle frowns darkly, trying to make herself puff out and look strong, even as her coat hung loosely around her mousish form and her lightly-wobbling legs. She wasn't a frontline fighter. People with swords? Usually were. Muttering under her breath, she steps back a few more paces, incanting protection spells - Shell, Protect, Dark Barrier.
Sakura Haruno     The ninja hadn't really thought through how she could get across to the other ship; while a jump would probably work, it wouldn't be a whole lot of fun, and she's contemplating other methods to go about it when it becomes too late. First, there's the whole boarding lances thing. 'Willow' is going to start going towards one of those, planning to disrupt it, when she's interrupted by a death machine.

    In addition to cutting off any hopes of helping her student for the moment, these are going to do the rather obnoxious thing of trying to cause her death and doom. She'll manage to dodge... some of them, her chakra struggling to fight off the others, though the skimask hides any reaction to them. It's not magic that'll answer them, though, or even ninja-ish magic. Sakura's is weaker without a ready source of earth, anyway, and her abilities are somewhat identifying. Instead, there'll be a set of throwing knives in return, ones not precisely identical to the kunai she was used to but close enough for her to keep them on target, trying to inflict enough damage on the machines to cause them to malfunction. After she's unloaded herself of all of those, a couple dozen blades in all, she's going to move to stage two of her plan if the death machines haven't fallen.

    That's the hide under something stage.
Kyra Hyral     Kyra looks behind her briefly to see the death machines swoop down to cut off the other two members of Ground Zero that were to join her on the cargo ship. Inwardly, she swears, and makes a quick radio to the others on the op to alert them of her need for their help aboad the ship. Once the visible resistance has been handled, Kyra moves to the unmarked cargo boxes. They're big, sure, but much like the large cell she stole from the factory, she does not hesitate to shove a crate or two into the disguised matter manipulator set into what looks like a belt buckle for her outfit. This is a little awkward for Kyra to go through the motions but it is at least effective.

    Suddenly, Kyra is no longer alone in the cargo ship hold, with Xiao swooping in to make the SUPERHERO ENTRANCE by cutting off her AANS at just the right time, complete with explody fist that knocks her backwards over the crates in the cargo hold. Xiao's mysterious opponent disappears behind them briefly due to this-surely she's just lying on the ground behind one, right?

    Only the 'Rabbit' pops up from behind one of those crates, dual-wielding what amount to blasters, not Galiandan handguns, sourced from a galaxy Far, Far, Away. They fire red bolts of energy, reminiscent of the Storm Troopers. Using the crates as cover, she fires at Xiao.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason jhad her reasons for why she was in on this after all, one was flat out her friendship with Kyra. The second she did not want to see a company like this get the entire world by the tail and never let go. This was too big of a discovery to be horded like a extraversal dragon's spoils. So here she wa moving in after Rabbit but well they got a bit of a problem. The Flotilla is coming in but there's death machines also inbound and they are opening fire on her and Sakura.

<<Incoming!>>

She warnds over the tac band and she starts up with her own weapon a pair of generic magitech pistols. The rounds are flying as she starts trying to get to cover, well if she can the doom and death spells are the biggest issue and she's trying to take them down and give SAkura some covering fire with the pistols.
HK-47      After roughly a year in the Multiverse, the the droid's memory banks are filled with recountings of decidedly 'strange' phenomena - and this particular individual is now the latest.


A meatbag that was, seemingly, already terminated, yet functioning without any power or vital systems. A literal walking corpse.

     Disappointing. It was always so much more satisfying to watch those subsystems bleed out and cease. But if anything it seemed to have eliminated the meatbag's fear of death, as he made the confoundingly-bold move of orienting to let the droid board his vessel.

     And while he would be remiss to decline an enemy practically /asking/ to be disemboweled, HK was nothing if not careful when it came to guaranteeing his odds. Hence why, as he approaches, he swiftly orders three of the six drones to begin firing at the top-deck and crews of the ship so as to cause chaos, and two more to begin strafing it's flank to try and limit fire-support if they decided to try and return to the Black Sun's aid.

     The last drone hold position over the central deck itself as HK rights himself. He regards Lima for all of one second - then hops down from the five foot drop between the deck and the sphere, giving his greeting in the form of a molten jet of fire as aims his flamethrower at Lima and attacks.

     As he does, his helmet - modified to filter out anything that would normally identify him, namely his speech prefixes - grates out his reply; "A shame you are already dead. I would have enjoyed it so much more if I could watch your vitals cease by my own hands... but I suppose simply eviscerating you will have to suffice."
Flint Hawke     The realization that he may be boarded in response to the lances is why Flint made sure to secure three. While the Flotilla can get the drop on him with that teleport, he still makes sure they have multiple targets to deal with disabling before the actual ship itself is free from anchoring to the tower and able to be shot with that Judgment Cannon again.

    In the meantime, the deep gouges and exposed parts of the armor plating are beginning to regenerate and knit closed as if they were flesh and bone, despite clearing being metal and wire. The downtime of being anchored to the Zaibatsu HQ is giving Flint's ship time to heal the colossal damage from that opening shot.

    FLINT HAWKE turns around on the bridge of the ship and sighs, "We've got boarders. That is a bother. I'm going topside and taking an earpiece." He replies, tucking a communicator into his hat as he turns away and walks towards the exit. There's a creaking of metal and shifting noise as the door off the bridge opens into a staircase that is not normally there.

    The Captain slowly walks himself up those stairs, entire walls and floors of bulkheads moving out of the way to give him the most expedited route up to the top of his own ship. He wants to greet those boarders personally, with a pair of heavy blasters in his hands.

    "Ahoy there and welcome aboard. Rather regret your first time on my ship is under such dire circumstances that I have to eject you forcibly." He twirls the two blasters in his hands and then smiles cheerily.
Duet Fortuna     Okay, no retreat. Duet can deal with that. The masked 'Lady Luck' seems like an odd title for a Dark Knight, but the long-haired woman stiffens for a moment... then takes what is definitely a sword-wielder's stance. "Hm, I suppose I can understand that, but it does make things inconvenient for me. Fine," Lady Luck replies to Mirielle.

    Sword moving in a blur, Duet darts forward. She doesn't go for a kill strike... she's probing defenses, using a flurried attack to prod and slash shallowly. If not for the defenses layered upon Mirielle, she might actually connect and injure, but she mostly wants to keep the other busy, and would prefer not to get into a serious fight. So far, it's just some extra speed and fancy footwork.
Audrey Stormfist     Between "a dozen knives" hurled by a superstrong ninja and the magitech cover fire from Lyria, not to mention the fact the Death Machines are already damaged from Lima's ships, one of the three armored drones suddenly crackles loudly, as arcs of magical lightning course through holes in the armor and it finally falls onto the deck of the Black Sun, inert, sparking, offline.

    The remaining two drones seem to take a moment to compute the situation, due to the damage. Their drained batteries a concern, and no nearby Magitech Engineers to recharge them, they do the most destructive thing they were programmed to do in emergencies.

    One charges at Sakura, and one at Lyria.

    And they self-destruct.

    The explosions are not very large; if this was a closed room, and not the deck of a ship, it MIGHT be an issue, but out in the open, the schrapnel is a bigger concern here than their charges. Unless Sakura and Lyria stand perfectly still and agree to hug the self-destructing drones, anyway.

    Protip, don't do that.
Xiao Li Yu      Completing her attack, Kyra, otherwise known as 'Rabbit', was blown clear away, and into some crates. She disappeared behind them, and Xiao stood up. "...." Surely that one attack didn't do her in. But she'd better go and che- "Eep!"

     SUDDENLY BLASTERS.

     Acting quickly, the researcher jumped aside as several red bolts grazed her leg, arm, and sides, leaving pretty bad burn marks. Crap. Not about to get shot up even more, Xiao retreated to the other side, hiding behind crates and boxes there. "Well this is annoying." After sparing a moment to make a short radio comment, she chanted a spell.

     "Thundaga."

     Lightning surged up and she peeked out a crate to aim her good arm, firing out a concentrated beam of lightning through the core in the palm of the gauntlet in Kyra's general direction. While doing so, she took quick stock of the situation. Shootout in the cargo bay. How long should she hold out before letting this one escape?

     Hmmm... She'll play it by ear.
Starbound Flotilla     The Core Fleet captains are aboard, in their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces and powering them. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a set of futuristic EVA-combat and exploration armor in a suit that glows a gentle red at the faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.

    And now, chaos. Uncapitalized, though, thankfully.

    Albert rushes to the fore, drawing a heavy grenade launcher. Moonfin follows as well, a heavy power katana drawn defensively. Pavo, wielding a pair of cutlasses now, holds them in a dangerous stance at Flint. And yet... Where are the rest? George, it seems, has booked it, with Biteblade and Seft in tow! Given George's status as a mad bomber, he's likely trying to flank to the turrets! Someone else will need to cover those! Pavo is the one who speaks up first, though. "We know ye can take what we can give, Cap'n Hawke. That be why ye can expect the only quarter taken to be the kind to come with coin. We'll have ye casting off, ye dog!" She seems to be taking this seriously, but true to her word, there's not real grudge there. She won't hold back, but she also won't pursue him past this situation. At least, probably. Albert knows the power of those double-blasters; he's the one who fires the opening shot. A SMOKE GRENADE! Right at Flint's feet! Moonfin and Pavo move in simultaneously, intending to slash Flint up brutally with dashing strikes and leaping stabs respectively! But the other three still need interception at the deck, before they get to those lance turrets...
Lima Ultimos The crew of the Coma Navaja is sizable, numbering somewhere over 100. Despite this, it seems the crew is actually fairly used to chaos: while the ones who are hit and who are near the ones who are hit freak out, the rest of the crew attempts to stick to their duties, which are right now 'making sure nobody gets knocked overboard'. Three of the shots proceed to kill three of the pirates, but anything past the most cursory sensors will reveal something...odd. They are certainly dead (again, as they were all already undead), but the scans are weird, as if the dead pirates will come back to life eventually. The crew eventually starts charging at the drones with their swords in numbers, attempting to strike their weapons and whatever helps them see. They are certainly pretty powerful in these numbers, and a group of them seems as powerful as one of the drones, give or take!

The drones firing at the cannons will soon realize something important: this ship is far mor tanky than a ship should be, these cannons don't seem to be wanting to die right now, though they do take some damage, and when they're shot, the entire ship rocks and creaks in a pattern that is not at all random. The Coma Navaja is either alive, or at the least, capable of feeling pain and expressing emotion, and does not like being shot by robots. She does not do anything else, however, except try and tilt so that the drones get away from her cannons. The crew adapts to this easily, almost like they are very used to this.

From the lower decks, a short muscular undead man climbs up, before moving away from the drones. He's watching them and eying them, trying to see their intelligence and how distractable they are. He twiddles his thumbs as he waits, but he's certainly more perceptive than he may look, and is prepared for a potential attack if they think he'd be easy to ambush. He's almost expecting it.

Being greeted with fire is never fun! Lima Ultimos pauses as his body is blasted with the fire, but he doesn't move almost at all. When the fire ceases, it turns out Lima Ultimos's snake skin has been heavily burned and scalded, but the most he does is twitch a bit, start fanning himself, and run back to the wheel at a breakneck pace to pick up a bottle of orange juice, splash himself in the face with it, take a swig, and return to HK-47. By the time he returns, his burns are already beginning to fade, showing a very rapid regeneration system, as the pirate draws his sword. "Aye, those be fighting words! Well, actually, so be mine, but still, ye get the point! Ye be very good at shooting fire, though, I be having to respect that, but I be very good at stabbing people! And duels! And duels involving stabbing people!" Lima Ultimos then proceeds to dash at HK-47 with his blade.

Despite his foolish demeanor and him seeming to treat this all as fun, Lima Ultimos is not an amateur with the sword. His posture, his movements, and even his reactions all show decades of experience with the blade, and especially with 1v1 combat, as he does not strike immediately at HK-47, but instead moves to his side, attempting to aim at limbs and other obvious weak points. His sword has a very powerful supernatural effect on it, allowing it to rot or decay what it strikes, whether organic or not, and it tries to apply this to HK-47 and his magitech armor, to decay and age it into weakness. "Now, show me what ye be capable of, mate!"
Sakura Haruno     Sakura will not be standing still as the robot will rush her, but she isn't actually aware of the self-destruct mechanisms on the robot. She's preparing to dodge a series of attacks, not a big boom. Fortunately, the boom isn't that big, and the masked ninja is simply knocked to the deck, head spinning but not completely exploded. There's a few places she's bleeding from, but they'll probably stop eventually.

    Her thrift store rags have blood on them, though. They're ruined forever.

    After Sakura manages to make her way unsteadily to her feet, she'll mumble. "That's cheating." But she'll also notice that someone is rushing the turrets. Sakura has run out of knives to throw for the moment, but luckily she was just provided with jagged metal bits that will do in a pinch.

    "Stop right there!" She'll shout at George, throwing a piece of scrapnel she pulled out of her arm at high speeds as he goes for the turret.
Kyra Hyral     Ah, a thundaga. As Kyra expected they were trying to capture their numbers once again. In fact, just last time she was subjected to multiple thundaga spells being thrown at her to the point where she had struggled to walk. This time, further precautions were taken. Though the lightning strikes the insurgent's arm dead on, she continues to fire, the rubber layer underneath the kevlar dispersing the spell just as effectively as a rubber suit.

    The action does get a reaction and 'Rabbit' ducks behind her crate again, at least giving Xiao a brief reprieve from the assault-at least the part where she's getting shot at. This only lasts for a few moments before a device comes hurling at Xiao over the crate. It is vaguely burr-shaped, needles ending with rounded bumps poking out all around it. The object clatters on the ground and sits there ominously before sparking and unleashing a violent pulse of electricity equivalent to the thundaga that Xiao just unleashed. Peels of blue sparks drip off the needles like a tesla coil before discharging into the air all around Xiao, blackening the floor and pulping any wood that might be close.
Flint Hawke     Flint Hawke doesn't really move himself from his standing position when the smoke grenade lands at his feet. Instead, he calmly takes a moment to center himself and to wait. He's thinking of various things and perhaps considering. He's a bit more focused on where George, Seft and Biteblade went. He doesn't want to sacrifice any crew members to those three, so instead he's going to put most of his own energy towards stopping them, splitting his attention away from the fight at hand.

    Wherever the three others are, the entire ship seems to shift around them unnaturally. Doors begin opening up into bulkheads and walls, the hallways begin leading nowhere. Flint can't pinpoint their exact location, but he can make the journey there almost labyrinthine. And eternally shifting, so it's even worse about that.

    That does leave him distracted for the three man assault currently coming in at him. He steps backwards through the smoke, trying to clear himself some room to work. But his distraction means that the two incoming blade-users catch him across the chest ans side with their weaponry. Wounds open and splash the bulkhead of the ship with red and black blood.

    Flint lands on the ground after a particularly forceful hop and skids a bit. Then he steps in again and stomps a foot down. As that foot stomps, the fact that they're fighting on his ship shows the advantage he has in this fight. The ground and metal underneath Pavo and Moonfin becomes uneven subtly, attempting to trip them up if they try to pull back and stumble their footing. At the same time, Flint steps forward and tries to launch two daggers from the sleeves of his coat towards the throat region of their armor.

    Spinning around a bit, he drops into a kneel a moment later and unleashes a volley of fire on Albert, trying to catch him with a volley of laser fire.
Mirielle Edelweiss     Mirielle would actually love to retreat. In this situation, it would be optimal. But then the Dark Knight - Duet - could do massive damage to the roof-mounted weapon. A good amount of planning for the operation could be linked to her, and thus the responsibility for the failure of high level deployment could be blamed on her. Certainly, there were other factors, but...

    "I'm sorry for the inconvenience." She replies, with a mixture of sarcasm and honesty. She understands inconveniences - but this is her job!

    And then Lady Luck surges forward at her, and Mirielle is hard pressed to even respond. She is not a martial user, and she didn't evem remember her staff. Against a sword -- it's good indeed that she had readied her defenses, because she's nearly helpless. The probing strikes cut into her coat and her body, leaving rents of blood. Little hexagonal fields appear as the Protect kicks in, dulling the strikes, but she can't do much about how close this is - with little room to maneuver or dodge on the catwalk, she can't even /ineptly/ move out of the way.

    Nearly totally routed just on probing and footwork, with shallow cuts hobbling her and causing burning streaks of pain, she lifts both hands. "I'd call you a bully, but I suppose I signed up for this. Wall!" She shouts, throwing forward the solid defensive field spell as a 'buffer' to shove Duet back, before beginning the casting of a larger spell. A much larger spell. "I can't... just let you kill me by inches."
Lyria Mason One drone goes down rapidly, the other two are still an issue for her and Sakura, but not in the way she thought. AS the drone comes in at he she's forced to leeap abakc out of harms way she's caught in a bit of the blast but it's not enough to do major inj=ury to het.

<<Lovely but if they self terminated we'll be facing something else shortly, they were tying to soften us up.>>

She takes note of the Starbounders coming in and this is going to get even more crazy now to deal with. That's fine with her as she looks over the targets that are inbound. She has not had much contact with George or Seft, but the Floran? Oh she knows Biteblade all right and is now attempting to intercept as they are going after the turrets. She'll wait a moment before she throws a grenade at the trio trying to get htier attention, thankfully it's just an anti personel one that fires high speed shards of metal, rather than high explosives.
Starbound Flotilla     A chunk of shrapnel slams into George's arm, and he winds up dropping a very ominous-looking set of heavy gas tanks locked together in some kind of wired-up exchange valve. Let's be honest, that's a bomb. "Fuuuuuck! That's a /shitty/ way to do a blood transfusion!" He clutches his arm, where his EVA-like armor blunted but certainly didn't prevent the lancing chunk of metal from slamming into his limb.

    "ALERT. Regain footing immediately." Seft is dragging him onto his feet; Biteblade's the one tossing the bomb back to him. That pair are the ones drawing their weapons -- Seft, bringing out a heavy Mojave laser pistol, and Biteblade, bringing out a tremendous compound durasteel mag-bow -- to open fire in return. They're trying to put Sakura behind cover with heavy suppressing fire, and make sure George can get away! At least, until a grenade is landing at their feet in a few seconds...
Xiao Li Yu      "...?" Xiao only had a split second to take note of the fact that her spell did pretty much nothing. Was this one wearing rubber? How annoying. Hissing as another bolt flew past her head, a little too close for comfort, Xiao went back into hiding. Okay, what to do, what to do...

     Clunk.

     Something just got tossed over to her side. A look down would reveal that... what was that? Curiosity almost led her to poke at it, but this was a high stakes situation. No poking! It was probably a bomb!

     "Well-" She immediately scrambled to her feet to escape, right at the device went off. Electricity surged in the spot where she just was, several bolts catching her in the back and sendingg her skidding forward face first. There was a yell of pain, and a crash. "....Damn it all." The researcher grumbled from where she was, face down on the floor. "Fine." Time to stop playing around, was it?

     Sitting up, with a bit of difficulty, Xiao narrowed her eyes from her new position.

     ----------> DARK KNIGHT

     -----> BLACK BANE

     ----------> SPELL FENCER

     -----> PHANTOM WEAPON, DRAIN

     "Soul Eater." Upon saying that, darkness surged out from where her heart was located, and Xiao gripped it painfully, watching the energy manifest into the air as phantom swords and lances. There were about twenty if Kyra took the time to count. And each one was coated in a draining, green aura.

     The scientist peeked out from the crate at her new spot to survey where her opponent had gotten to. Then with a directed arm- "Fire!" Those weapons hanging in the air all hurtled forward like bullets, aiming to strike the disguised white mage and drain her energy.
Starbound Flotilla     The fragmentation explosive plinks its way over to the pair and DOES draw their attention. "Isss grenade! Oh no!!" Biteblade is very distressed! Picking up Seft like a princess in a sudden motion, she takes the brunt of the explosion of shrapnel as she leaps off to one side, trying to put the pair behind cover. George dives HARD to get away from the explosion, already heavily wounded. Haruno went right for the physically weakest member!

    "Grateful. I am safe, we need to focus. Albert, alert, we are tracking two additional dangerous assailants. Engaging. George, continue, you need to reach those turrets." The pair left behind will split their attention between Lyria and Haruno, but it's meant entirely to buy time for George! Lyria has the best ranged options to pursue the lone George if she wanted.
Duet Fortuna     Hmm. Duet notes the weakness, because it's good to know these things. She does not, however, go in for the kill. "Heh. I'm not here to kill you," she points out. "Your employer is who I have an issue with, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt... for now."

    Unfortunately, the Wall is going to make pressing that advantage a little harder... and the bigger spell could be something that turns the tables. Duet considers... she could go full out and try to push through, but that might severely injure Mirielle, which would... well, aside from being bad for appearances, she's TRYING to turn over a new leaf here.

    Lady Luck tsks, "No, I don't think so." The sword flares with power - perhaps not quite the right way for a Dark Knight of this world - and then makes a cleaving swipe... in front of her, trying to drop the catwalk enough to throw Mirielle off balance. Keep the opponent busy, and she can get to that cannon for the escape.
HK-47      A regenerator, then. One on par with a Gen'Dai, it seemed. How annoying - they were very hard to kill, necessitating one first immobilize them and then dismember their body.

     Then again, when had any engagement in the past year been easy?

     When it comes to the assault with swords, the drones' armor proves an issue as it serves to blunt many of the strikes, though one drone starts to become overwhelmed as the damage stacks up, including it's optic - a single eye in the center of it's front - sustaining a hit that impairs it's vision.

     Thus, opting to apply tactics, the drones are quickly ordered by HK to make use of one advantage the crew don't seem to have - flight - and hold position out of range from the blades, though the half-blinded one seems to stay low, as though resigned to become bait for the crew to attack even as it starts all but trying to ram crew right off the ship itself.

     The other two drones then start retaliating in force as they unleash area-of-effect attacks in the form of one using an electrical attack and the other a fireblast. Each attack is capable of striking entire groups of up to four or five apiece.

     The drones on the flanks begin using their more potent attacks as well, sending discharges of lightning and flame at the vessel's sides and pursuing close to try and keep the cannons from aiming at them properly. They subsequently ignore the muscular man that emerges from below-decks, prioritizing their harassment of the ship.

     And in his own duel, the droid commanding them also seemed somewhat weary, though at the same time disbelieving, of his opponent. The self-styled 'pirate' actually expected a fair fight.

     Something HK-47 rarely, if ever, found practical - as highlighted as the drone holding position over the two starts firing lightning-infused shots at Lima when he tries to swipe at the droid, attempting to offset the offense before that blade can strike.

     HK himself backpedals from Lima in the interim - he had seen enough Jedi in his existence to recognize when one had more skill then their behavior would suggest - and therefore refuses to let his opponent get in range... especially after noticing a scrape on his shoulder-plate starting to fester and decay as the metal begins rusting at an abnormal pace, swiftly taking it by the edges and pulling it off to keep it from spreading.

     A weapon that deals corrosive damage. How curious... and what a fascinating object for study.

     As soon as he has taken enough steps back, he engages an Ice-Caster - a magitech equivalent for his carbonite-launcher - to try and debilitate Lima with freezing cold.

     At this point, Lima's initial exuberance might be curbed as it becomes obvious HK has no interest in a duel so much as a battle.
Starbound Flotilla     Albert suffers the laser fire, which breaches through his grenade launcher, turning it into a hunk of scrap, and taking him off of his feet. The blades, as well, have quite an effect. Pavo suffers a blade square on the neck. It doesn't kill her, fortunately, but the way the armor blunts the impact means it STUNS her badly! She breaks off her leaping assaults and seems to try to get into cover, tripping up on the environment on her way over, until she transitions to stumbling leaps that allow her to navigate much better. Moonfin doesn't stop advancing, and the swordsman himself strains his muscles brutally in order to fully deflect the knife. "Hmhmhm. Remarkable. I can see your command of this area. From the path from the bridge, to the lay of this arena, to the healing of your hull, the intuition of a Hylotl architect finds your method hidden in its darkness. But construction is our domain. Fifth Sea Hylotl Style: Buoy on Unsteady Waves."

    Moonfin ceases dashing between Albert and Flint, deflecting beam after beam with his katana and suffering tremendous muscular stress and glancing impact wounds to do so, but giving Albert enough time to rise and pull from his Matter Manipulator... A heavy targeting beacon and holographic command interface! What's his plan? What ideas is he doing here...? "Pavo, get to George. /Now/. Follow his tele-beacon, he needs cover." And a signal is going out... Out to the SFS Vehemence, which rises to life, remote-operated, intended for something... Moonfin stops his attacks as the smoke clears, simply intending to cover Albert, who has drawn and is firing a laser pistol of his own at Flint. Meanwhile, George's progress is being halted, or at least made more difficult. It doesn't take long to notice the shifting of the environment, which is why he immediately starts an unusual tactic: HEAVY STEEL BEAMS are laid down, attempting to stabilize and scaffold the labyrinthine interior. It's a bit slow going, due to his arm wounds!
Kyra Hyral     Poking at it only exacerbates the shocking! It's awful! Pointy and unpleasant, it'd take a real masochist (such as Xiao) to actually touch it with their bare hands. Fortunately, Xiao is up to the task-right? Well, no, but the device does as intended and unleashes a blast of electricity, paying her back for that thundaga spell earlier.

    Xiao will hear shifting and scrambling. The Rabbit is moving from behind the boxes so now it becomes a bit of a shell game where Xiao must guess which box the intruder is hiding behind!

    Or Xiao could attack /all of the crates at once/ with twenty or so darkness energy lances. It doesn't matter where Kyra hid-Xiao is rewarded with an electronic grunt, indicating that at least /one/ of the lances hit the target. Then there is silence...is that it for the Rabbit?
Sakura Haruno     Sakura's ranged ability would be bad enough in these circumstances if she were cutting loose; with the restrictions she's putting on herself to hide her identity, she's going to be easy enough to pin down. At least, up until she makes a decision, from where she's hiding from the fire.

    "Okay. Okay. This is going to be awful." She'll admit to herself for a moment, before giving away at least one of her very, very basic and very common abilities, and one she only rarely uses, a single hand seal all that's needed.

    One of her will duck out from behind the mast she was hiding from on the left, and another on the right, and both of them will charge for Biteblade, only making slight attempts to dodge a shot. The one that goes left will dispel with a single hit; the one on the right will bleed, but will be attempting to charge right through it to deliver a single punch with all of her might.

    "No hitchhikers today!" She'll state, with a staggering hypocrisy for someone engaged in piracy. Still, the main goal of distracting her from George is undoubtedly accomplished, even if her punch lands.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason is nopw dealing with more of the Flotilla and she knows this is going to leave her to deal with one of them. She's going to go after George, there's nothing said by the suited woman a she gets her pistols out and opens fire. The shots are wild as she's on the move, her weapons have been set to neutral elemental as she keeps on shooting. She's not sure what George is aligned wth if anything. So she's going to be safe rather than sorry, but she could always be blind sided by the other Flotilla people.
Mirielle Edelweiss     Mirielle buys the space she needs with her Wall, but it isn't everything she could dream of and more. She has exacerbated issues with basically every 'twiggy magician' trope. She's light, poorly coordinated, physically weak, and has low stamina. Even her pain tolerance is very low - a trained fighter would easily be able to push past and still function, mostly, with the cuts that were causing her major problems.

    But she had magic on her side in spades. She pours her magic through her hands into a coruscating ball of dark-tinted power, and as she's about to put on the finishing touches on her spell when Lady Luck tisks and decides to RUIN EVERYTHING.

    "W-woah!" She cries meekly, as she loses control of her dark spell as the catwalk buckles and begins to collapse, the rain-slick pathway now dipping in the center, spilling her onto her bottom and causing her to slide down a decent ways - towards Duet!

    Her spell, now unstable, begins to rumble, before exploding in a massive ball of purple shocked with electric rumbles - a powerful version of the Demi or Gravity line, warping time and space around it. It's close to taking another chunk out of the catwalk itself!

    The breaking Unsafe Corporate-Mandated Cliche Precarious Catwalk has Mirielle scrabbling and holding onto a bar, nearly deposited into open air and looking up at her opponent.

    "I believe I will appreciate this benefit you extend to me." She calls back, struggling to not fall off the catwalk - and the roof.
Flint Hawke     Placing scaffolding down in front of and behind him IN THE SHIP does have a positive effect. It prevents IMMEDIATE changes in the area, because it's external construction as opposed to Flint's own ship. This means that George will be able to build himself where he needs to go and generally put wedges in the various gaps that Flint is trying to shut and prevent him from getting where he needs to go. If he's willing to be patient and wait on the randomization patterns, he can generally build effectively towards where he needs to go, but it's still a bit of a time sink.

    On the other hand, up on the deck of the ship, Flint gives a somewhat blasé shrug towards Moonfin as he smiles, holding his pistols out towards the side, "Captain and ship are basically the same, yeah? I mean, you can't be one without the other, you could say." He replies with a sing-song tone, "You lot are lucky, though. If the girl and her lot were awake, you'd be facing much scarier than me."

    "So please, do try to follow one request. Keep the racket down to just a minimum. And don't breach deck four. You wouldn't like to see what would happen if you hurt her," He adds chipperly. He twirls the two guns in his hand. Only one of them is different from how it looked a moment ago, replaced with an ERCHIUS FLINTLOCK. As Albert's shot nails him square in the chest, leaving a huge scorch mark in his flesh through his jacket and shirt, Flint raises the flintlock. There's a ROAR from it as the shot cracks off and tries to take Albert off his feet for good, unless Moonfin is willing to intercept the shot. There's enough SAMURAI REFLEX for him to do so.
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade's arrows are less rapid than Seft's laserfire, which means that Haruno's rapid dash catches Biteblade off-guard. One arrow lances through the clone, causing it to disperse, and Haruno is fast enough -- and Biteblade wounded enough -- that she can't get another arrow out and through her ahead of time! "Ohhhh!! You're two people! Woa--" CRUNCH. The fist slams into Biteblade, blasting her back! Twisting through the air, she slams into one of the opposite walls!

    But, it seems, that's not the end of it. George is gone, and now so is Lyria. Which means Seft can cast her pistol to the side, and with a heavy rush, draw her POWER BATTLEAXE! Right as Biteblade is clearing Sakura's fist, bruised and battered and stunned, Seft is swinging her tremendous axe at Haruno in an overhead swing. Biteblade's struggling to her feet now, with Seft calling out to her. "Urgent. Biteblade, on your feet, please. We need to re-engage at distance, I am not sure we can confront this one up close."
Xiao Li Yu      Xiao sighed in relief as she felt some of those energy lances make contact, and then the telltale sensation of her wounds healing a bit. It was such a sinister move. And she avoided using it most of the time, but...it was helpful. "Now then..."

     With the spell over with and all quiet on the other side, the stood up, still channeling darkness as she took careful strides over to where she heard that pained, electronic grunt. "Come out, little rat~. I have serious doubts that did you in now!" She called, a gauntlet raised as she put her back against a crate.

     ".....Silence.

     And then quickly, she veered around to the other side to peer at where her opponent was last seen, gauntlet aimed.
Starbound Flotilla     George is swearing hard. "Ahhh! Fuck! Shit, lady! Ffffuck off! God damn it you're even the same one from last time!" George's fleeing is slowed by his scaffold-building. Thankfully... He's not entirely without backup. When the back armor of his torso suffers one too many nicks, there's a sudden FLASH OF LIGHT! Pavo has used BLINK TELEPORTATION to get to George! And she's bouncing, suddenly! Off of walls, ceilings, floors, BACK from George, straight at Lyria!

    Pavo's damage potential is far less than most of the rest of the Flotilla, mostly capable of harassing, but she's going to try to slow Lyria down with rapid cutlass swipes, bouncing back and forth between her and the interior in a high-speed swashbuckling duel! "Avast, lass! Ye best not have forgotten the real cap'n here! I know ye tricks of glue this time, ye won't be castin' off from this pain harbor, ye scurvey /dog/!!"
Kyra Hyral     There is silence, save for the thrum of engines from the cargo ship. Xiao slinks around the cargo, narrowing down on one particular crate where it sounds like the grunt came from. There is a rustle and when she veers around the side of the crate with the gauntlet-!

    There is nothing. Nothing but an empty spot big enough to perhaps hold a person.

    Meanwhile on the side of the crate just around the corner, Kyra quietly slinks around, circling the box that Xiao had just crept around in hopes of catching her. With a burst of speed, she rounds the box and dives in low, making for a tackle of Xiao's legs to take her to the ground from her side! The Rabbit offers no words or even triumphant yells as she does this, flinging herself bodily against the dark knight/spell fencer. Despite the size of the intruder, the equipment that she wears makes her unexpectedly dense.
Starbound Flotilla     "...Interesting. I will accept the terms of your request; this job bears no fruit sufficient that you might choose now to be the time you indulge your grandest lies." Moonfin says, blade at the ready in a defensive stance... And then comes the Erchius Flintlock shot. Albert is too focused to dodge, so Moonfin must tank. His eyes go wide with an urgent desperation. The heavy weapon blasts at him and he intercepts, but that's not the end of it. Erchius Flintlocks are dangerous weapons, but more than that, they're most dangerous in the hands of a keen and powerful mind. Flint has no shortage of that.

    The flat of the blade intercepts it, but Moonfin has to hold the blade in both hands, one palm at each end, to hold its force back. Intense purple light surrounds the projectile, and he grunts desperately with effort... And his katana SNAPS! The blinted impact slams into Moonfin himself! It's going to take him off his feet until he's helped up, but it gives Albert enough time.

    The VEHEMENCE arrives, operated by Albert remotely. The heavy weaponry aboard the sleek, ultramodern craft focuses several EMITTERS at the craft. In most cases, bombarding the hull of a spacecraft at various points with HIGH-CONCENTRATION RADIATION does very little. For Albert, the conjecture is simple: The boat is linked to Flint in some way, and displays almost organic tendencies. Bombard it with enough RADIATION and it might induce something similar to RADIATION SICKNESS in the vessel! Slowing down its internal re-arrangement, and making it difficult to do other similar functions, and perhaps affecting Flint!
Duet Fortuna     Well that worked fine, for a certain definition of 'fine' now. Duet grabs ahold of a railing as the catwalk begins to crash down, stumbling a little but righting herself. After all, she KNEW it was coming. Even so she looks like she's slipping and a little uncontrolled... half of that is an act, but the other half is the fact that Duet is actually trying to stop reflexive uses of her greater powers. Makes it hard to stay steady. This makes the spell dangerous to HER as well, yanking on her and causing her to skid back, then finally forcing her to slam her knee into the catwalk as it starts to collapse on her end as well. It's left her in a better position than Mirielle, but she was right... if that had gone off, it would have hurt.

    Benefit? "Just stay right there while I handle this, then," Lady Luck offers. Her sword snaps into her sheath, and she taps the railing that Mirielle is hanging onto. Then... she just leaps away, to steadier ground. "FIRE! THUNDER!"

    The blast of fire and lightning doesn't look like a normal spell of course, but it's close enough for her purposes. She's aiming to make the cannon either nonfunctional or at least harder to aim long enough to escape.

    As for Mirielle... she's left hanging there, yet somehow, the snapped railing has twisted, trying to wrap around her wrist and arm. It will keep her in a secure hold enough that she won't fall, and with care she should be able to mysteriously slip out with a little climbing. Duet didn't want to make it TOO easy, so she just subtly animated the railing.
Sakura Haruno     An axe is not something that Sakura had expected just then; she can generally block that sort of thing, and will move to try to do so. Unfortunately, her left arm was the one that had had sharp metal bits in it before, and her attempt to grab at the shaft of the axe is awkward at best; she manages to avoid getting cleaved in half, the axe striking a glancing blow along her arm and coming away with the sleeve for at least three different shirts. Even more of a problem for Sakura, the fingers that had gotten in the way of the shaft are either dislocated or broken.

    Not wanting to let that stop her, as she hisses out in pain, she'll lash out with her foot. This carries even more force than her punches, but is wildly inaccurate; it should be doable for Seft to dodge, if they're willing to retreat a fair ways back.
Xiao Li Yu      AROUND THE CORNER... there was no one.

     "Huh?"

     Really? But she was right there! She knew it! She knew she hit the enemy, so where did the-

     "Wah-!" And in that moment, she half turned at a movement in her peripheral vision, only to find rabbit TACKLING HER TO THE GROUND. She flew right off her feet, and flat onto her back. "Oo-f!" And the air was knocked right out of her.

     Well this was mildly unfortunate.

     Wheezing and trying to breath easier than she currently was, Xiao glared up at the mysterious person currently keeping their deceptively heavier weight onto her. "Get...off of me, you damn terrorist!" God, she could feel her ribs creaking a bit.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason is now going after George now as she opens up on him. She says nothing, there is not a thing said, not a quip, not an insult nothing. She's clearly a trained fighter but she's not behving like one might expect someone in an group like ground Zero. No screaming like Staren on a rant, nothing not one word or sound from her mouth. She's however aware that things are getting to see Pavo's blinking in, the sudden light throws off her aim. However her head moves in there is not a thing said back, just the icey response sielcne but the woman has lined up shots on Pavo and opens fire.
Audrey Stormfist     'Cannon' is really a misnomer.

    The Judgment Bolt (Cannon) is more like an array of lightning rods all over Murasame HQ which, on-demand, can turn the entire upper section of the building into a Tesla coil. This involves a lot of safety mechanisms to make sure the charge stays where it's meant to, and that safe areas remain safe, because when you're harnessing the power of Ramuh's storm this much you really can't afford to do it without ten layers of failsafes.

    So while there isn't really any one central 'cannon barrel' to aim at, per se, there's all those lightning rods, wires, fuse boxes, consoles-- basically, there's no shortage of important-looking equipment to target. And since the idea is to keep ships away from the building, it wasn't built with Flint's tactics in mind.

    Damaged consoles result in uncontrolled arcs of lightning dancing around the upper section of the building, occasionally breaking through the safe zones. Which could be bad for Mirielle and Duet if they stick around. Engineers are already hard at work fixing the issue from the other side, but it won't be fast enough they could afford to fire another bolt at escaping ships.
Lima Ultimos The pirates fry very well, but probably wouldn't make very good bacon. While a few of them continue to try and attack the blind one, the others seem to know that an enemy with advantage over them is bad...and stack onto each others' shoulders, attacking as towers of pirate. There is very much a sense of cohesion and brotherhood, which probably doesn't matter at all to murderous robots.

The Coma Navaja begins rocking even more as she is further attacked. It shakes and turns, screaming in the tune of creaking. It would seem that if this continues, the ship might even try to turn itself completely upside down! Cannons are taken out but don't seem destroyed, even if they stop firing, and chunks of wood fly off, but the ship is nowhere near destruction: it would seem it can take quite a bit!

Tigerbabble, the muscular man, briefly smiles as he notices he won't be attacked. And then, with graceful speed, he charges straight over to the blinded one, moving to attempt to pick it up and toss it into one of the other flying ones, hopefully in a direction that will knock them both overboard. "So, because the captain would approve. Ahem. I hope you have a nice FLIGHT!" He does not seem to enjoy making this pun, but feels it is probably the best idea right now. Then, he will proceed to climb the mast, before drawing a knife and trying to leap on the other flying drone and pin it to the ship. "Something, something, fall."

In the meantime, the laser of another drone fires, and actually hits! It strikes right in Lima Ultimo's shoulder...knocking his free arm right off, due to the burn damage! However, something will instantly be noticed to be wrong, as it begins to wriggle. Lima Ultimos will then proceed to rapidly holster his sword, reach down, grab the arm, and slap it back onto his body, where it reattachs perfectly, as he groans. "Do ye not know how rude that is? Ye don't see me taking off yer limbs, do ye? I'm just trying to maim them, that's all! But, ye have skill, and I can respect that, so it's time to bring out the firepower!" With both hands, the pirate captain draws two of the pistols from his tunic, and proceeds to spin them, before firing. The first shot heads up towards the drone that shot him, attempting to graze it and cause it to miss any further shots. The second shot fires right at HK-47's weapon, to either disarm it, or knock it off balance. He shifts as he does so, so that the bullet isn't hit by the simultaneous blast of ice, which does indeed hit half of him, freezing his laft half completely. The right half does not look happy, as he attempts to communicate. "HRRRRRRRRM!"

Taking drastic measures, Lima Ultimos reaches into his nonfrozen pocket for a match book, and sets a match on fire, before trying to melt the ice off his frozen half. He continues to do this, leaving him open for more shots, until he completely thaws, reattaching his frozen half safely. He is certainly wearing out, but has not lost all of his spark, as he puts the guns down...and charges over to the wheel, before turning back to HK-47. "Now, it be seeming it's time for me to disembark. If ye want to keep fighting me, ye can! I just must warn ye I'm about to turn the ship completely upside down as we fly, and if ye don't have a good grip to fight the creaking, rocking, and the inertia, ye'll probably be falling off!" Lima Ultimos does not seem to be joking. He fully intends to turn this ship upside down and fly like that, and it would seem that he knows the ship is fully capable of this. He puts one hand on the wheel as he whistles, before glancing to his crew. "Now, ye either might want to hold onto something heavy, including each other, or be knocked off! If yer knocked off, we'll be trying to retrieve you later! Please be storing the dead below deck, as I don't believe they are currently able to keep a grip! Also, if ye have them, fasten yer seatbelts and enjoy the ride!" Some of the men who aren't being shot at run to the masts, others grip onto the ship; and Tigerbabble does nothing at all, continuing to try and beat up th
Starbound Flotilla     Seft's axehead buries in the floor with a dull thud, bloodied by its glancing exposure to Haruno's arm. Seft, herself, synthesizes a strained, staticky error noise as the foot jogs her. She's rolling with the impact hard to retreat, leaving her battleaxe buried in the ground.

    "Sssorry!" Biteblade calls out when she leaps from her downed position -- still wounded, due to the lack of sunlight exposure or available flesh -- right up onto Seft's shoulders, and then off of them! "Hi throwy-stab friend! Floran not ever sssee throw-metal ssstab like you before! Fassst! Isss cool! Better than Floran tribe bessst throwy-sstab knife Floran." She snatches onto the axehead and with a motion far more swift and deadly than Seft's... FEINTS with it! She goes first to do a sweeping slice, but halfway through lets go of the weapon and just goes for a tribal, brutally savage assault on Haruno, pouncing at her, trying to pin her down and claw at her face, and especially viciously bite whatever limbs are available.
Kyra Hyral     The mysteriously clothed Kyra sits on Xiao's stomach, straddling her, grasping for her forearms and flattening her weight out so she can keep the vicious dark knight pinned. Xiao finds her own face lost in the helmet of the intruder-it isn't reflective at all, presented as a dull black to avoid reflecting light and giving away the wearer's position. She leans forward, lowering her head over Xiao. The dark knight will get the very distinct impression that whoever is behind t hat mask is staring into her eyes, intensity boring into the soul of the scientist.

    If Xiao had the senses to scan, she would discover nothing. No MP, no HP. Maybe she is facing a zombie?

    "I need you-" she says, the voice scrambled and electronic, with the distinct sound of a text-to-speech generator. "-to go to sleep now."

    That helmeted head suddenly dips forward, a vicious headbutt aimed right at Xiao's face. The helmet is extremely solid.
Xiao Li Yu      Xiao did scan. There was nothing. She stared intensely at the helmet of the person keeping her down. It seemed to be made of some kind of material to reflect light. It was like staring at a black void. How annoying. No details whatsoever.

     The only detail shhe could come away with was...well, the voice scrambler. Someone was clearly hiding themselves. But there was no much more to go on.

     'I need you to go to sleep now'

     "....Huh? W-Wait. Wait a seco-Ah!"

     THUNK.

     And Xiao went out like a light, head lolling aside as consciousness left her.

     Fission Mailed.
Flint Hawke     Flint makes a scowl as Moonfin goes down in the place of Albert. While handy that he took out the Salmonmurai, the Freelance Space Enthusiast would rather have thwarted Albert. This results in him twirling the flintlock in his hand and storing it back on his coat, keeping the blaster in his off-hand.

    He slowly steps towards Albert. Not in a threatening way, but in a purposeful way that is meant to show that he's not very happy with the current arrangement of things. The Highly Concentrated Radiation has managed to cease the self-healing of the ship for the moment. Or at least severely slowed it. That could be because while linked with the ship, Flint has to evaluate damage against the ship as damage against himself for conceptual purposes, "Alright. Parley."

    He levels his blaster on Albert, "Your defender is down. Now I'm going to give you fair chance to just get off my ship and take the others with you. You lot did a good bit of damage and slowed down my ship a lot. You should call that one a victory, since otherwise I probably would have taken what I liked along with this job."

    He scratches the back of his head and watches Albert with those red eyes of his, "Call it a wash and de-board. This is my fair offer to you as parley."
Sakura Haruno     Sakura might not have fallen for the feint if she'd actually known anything about the people she was fighting. She doesn't, so she does. The ninja will try to slide away, but the skimask only offers so much protection from the clawing, and the one limb that's exposed to the air is also already bleeding where the axe chopped away at her clothing. The others all have several sleeves that will protect against biting and rending, at least a little bit.

    Sakura will eventually stop trying to just get loose, and instead try to fight back, a hand reaching over to grab at whatever bit of biteblade she can get hold of and just squeeze until it lets go. She'll be careful not to do this to the throat or anything else possibly fatal, holding back even as she gets torn up fairly badly, but just trying to give enough pain to get Biteblade to retreat.
Mirielle Edelweiss     Mirielle is rather helpless, hanging from the railing. She could cast magic without gesticulating, but it's harder - the pattern is purely memory and instinct at that point, and while precariously perched it was a losing proposition. She had to focus on survival first.

    Which leaves Dark Knight Lady Luck free reign to rain odd fire and lightning spells upon the Judgement Bolt (Cannon) array. Mirielle winces, as the main defense the HQ has against a ship like Flint's takes serious damage. Well. She has something to say about that, even as the broken catwalk groans and creaks ominously.

    She's surprised at how she's managed to stay attached to her rung on it, when she notices her wrist is coiled around oddly. Huh. Must have been the metal warping around her aborted Graviga.

    "Float." She whispers, and starts her climb without the issue of her weight making her wuss arms not taxed badly.

    She makes her climb, and looks over her shoulder. Should she? Dare she?

    "Che..." She mutters, feeling cold and weak and soaked, her body protesting this whole thing. "I guess I'll return the favor." She mutters, slinking into the maintenance area back towards the door she exited onto the roof with.
Kyra Hyral     Kyra lets a contained held breath, which sounds like record scratching noises when filtered through the text-to-speech device. She peels herself off of Xiao quickly now, moving around to her classmate's head and slipping her arms underneath Xiao's armpits. She drags the unconscious dark knight out of the cargo hold, hobbling as she does and struggling to complete the task due to her drained lifeforce. Not having acess to her MP at the moment only made the feeling burn even further as she pulls her along. She rolls Xiao up to the cargo bay hole-in-the-door and leaves her there.

    "This is Rabbit." she murmurs into the radio of her colleagues. "I need help-please gather at the cargo ship. We are almost ready to take it for ourselves, once we remove the Zaibatsu employees lying around it to a stable ground. They will not be tossed out the ship."

    With that passed on, she slips back over to the boxes of cargo and continues looting them by placing them inside her matter manipulator on the off chance they aren't able to escape with the ship.

    Once she's done with that, she'll return to Xiao and roll her over onto her belly. Kyra takes a moment to secure Xiao's wrists behind her back with a plastic ziptie. It's overly cautious, yes, but Kyra's kind of always wanted to do something like that to Xiao. Just because.
Starbound Flotilla     Pavo isn't glued. This time, she's shot! George has made his break while Pavo buys time, and the fact that the ship's shifting around has slowed lets him reach the Boarding Lance turrets! Unfortunately, it gives him a time limit. Right now, Moonfin's getting wrecked! With a frenetic rush, he lobs his bomb over near the lances. Unfortunately, with how spread out they are, the detonation isn't likely to take them out. He doesn't have time to set up more bombs or place his bomb in a more optimized space. But it probably WILL make the clever connection more unsteady, and put it on a time limit. Unfortunately, it seems, Flint's won this for the most part. He's bought them too much time, and George's racing around couldn't fix that.

    Back to Pavo, though. A blast square in the chest takes her off her feet... But she's rolling and flipping, dynamically backing off and getting into cover from that gunfire, swearing in Avian. "Ye DOG! Ye blasted, worthless bilgerat! What, ye got a mast too high to /talk/ to me? The Zaibatsu be runnin' this now! Just ye wait ye mute fucking vulture! Don't matter, not a bit, how much work ye tear down. If ye have no ambition, that'll be /all/ ye will /have/ when this is done!"

    She darts off, making to retreat. The reason may be clear when the blastwave from George's bomb reaches this section.
Duet Fortuna     Hm. A flutter of movement out of the corner of her eye... did Duet imagine it? She's far, far from omniscient, and in this case she dismisses it as her own animations settling. She doesn't wreck the panels any more either... leaping off the edge to head for the cargo ship.

    Doing more damage would just make things worse for them, she reasons.

    "I'm going to need more practice," she mutters as she heads for the ship.
Starbound Flotilla     Right about at the end of Flint's offer is when he'll feel George's failed bomb placement going off. Albert looks down to Moonfin, groaning. "Diplomacy. Handle it." He says, tersely, to the downed fishman. Looks like Albert doesn't do the 'diplomat' thing.

    Moonfin speaks up from his downed position. "Ghhhhh... Hhhhh... A generous offer, and timed well. I would guess that our explosive friend failed his duties." Obviously, since there's not a bunch of lightning damage right now. "George and Pavo are making an effort to escape now. I believe the other two are going to disengage shortly. All six of us will return to our own craft, and will exchange no violence with the Black Sun during your egress."

    As if on cue, Moonfin and Albert are both starting to flash with red light. If they're not interrupted or anything, they'll disappear shortly.
HK-47      The pirates charging the blinded machine may find this a bad idea - considering the sphere had been in the midst of charging to ram them right off the ship itself. Doubtless, some of them may be sent overboard. It's damaged eyesight renders it vulnerable for Tigerbabble to grab and hurl, sending it spinning away stunned - however, trying to throw any of the drones overboard proves redundant as the machines can hover and fly.

     What the action does manage is to break off the strafing runs of the two drones attacking the Coma Navaja, forcing the machines to separate and cease their attacks - and one of them to pass under the central mast where Tigerbabble lands on it, sending the machine crashing to the deck-

     -where, upon realizing it's imminent destruction, it follows the path the Death Machines took... and self-destructs, trying to blow Tigerbabble and any crew that came to try and help him away. However, the resulting fireball is actually rather minor compared to it's attacks - the biggest danger is shrapnel of it's broken armor.

     The pirates stacking themselves atop of each-other are another matter though, forcing the drones to adopt a new tactic - attempting to simply ram the 'towers of pirate' clean over the side of the vessel, apparently concluding that sending their opponents overboard is a sure-fire way to eliminate them in one move. However, the action also leaves them more vulnerable as they cannot fire their weapons off while charging - lest they harm themselves as well. Something that results in one of the drones being dragged down, piled upon and stabbed repeatedly until rendered nonfunctional - the crew likely being sure to destroy the core so as to prevent any more suicide-bomb attacks.

     HK-47 himself found his situation becoming increasingly frustrating. If there was one thing was not found of, it was when an enemy had an unfair advantage and he himself did not - and a regenerator with a weapon that dealt corrosive damage certainly fit that criteria.

     Lima's first bullet bounces off the drone's edges, causing it's follow-up fireburst to go off-course and slam into the ship's upper decks instead. The second ricochets off HK's armored wrist, impacting the Ice-beam and crippling it - something that prompts the angered droid to fire at the immobilized captain with his Electrical-Pulse; a magitech analog to his Ion-Electrical Shot.

     However, what seals HK's opinion of the pirate being foolhardy is when he announces that he can apparently turn his ship upside-down without any drawback to himself. So while the Captain is taking, HK quickly taps a button against his helmet - a comm-signal. As soon as that's done, the droid actually moves for the railing as the ship tilts sharply-

     -and nimbly lands atop the drone that Tigerbabble had forced off it's attack on the ship, having recalled it to use it as a mount with which to pursue.

     And once again he starts tapping into his comms - this time to call for something else.

     Something else that comes speeding out as vanguard of new drones - six more in total - evening out HK's compliment to a full dozen of the spherical machines. And the oncoming 'wing' doesn't hesitate to focus all of their power - three fire-blasts and three lightning-bursts - at the Coma Navaja.

     Apparently, HK had been holding half the drones back as reinforcement. And now that he was down two drones, had three more damaged and one crippled, he was calling them in to even the odds again - no matter what, he had no intention of letting that ship reinforce the terrorists.
Starbound Flotilla     "Owwwww ow ow ow!! Augh! Squeeze isss bad!" Biteblade complains! Haruno's ninja superstrength won't crush anything due to the nonlethality, but the wrist she catches needs a lot of strength before it starts causing pain. Looks like Biteblade getting a little flesh in her gave a HEALING BOOST! Unfortunately, not much. She does retreat, though, from a combination of intense pain, and someone else grabbing her attention.

    "Panicked. Captain Petrov has ordered our retreat. Please, we need to go." Seft is grabbing onto Biteblade and trying to get her onto her feet so the two can beat a hasty retreat before Haruno can get back on hers! They make a mad dash to a safer space further back, where they can engage their own teleporters in uninterrupted peace.
Flint Hawke     A large section on the side of the ship is blown outwards and upwards by the explosion from George's canisters. The damage is pretty substantive, rocking and shaking the ship from its aerial position. Even with the regenerative capabilities that Flint can give the ship, the multiple-deck-spanning explosion leaves a gigantic gash-like hole in one side of the hull.

    Said hole is also flaming heavily and sparking with both lightning and broken electrical components. Flint puts a hand to his face and sighs, brushing his coat back and holstering the pistol there as he says,"Go," He waves at them both tiredly.

    "Crew. Prepare to short-hop out. Get damage control teams working. Sever boarding ties," He swipes his hand tiredly, perhaps worn out from the injuries to his ship and to his own body in conjunction. He takes a couple moments to let the harpoons have their cables cut.

    Like the Flotilla, unless specifically stopped, he's going to short-warp the ship somewhere else in short order so it can repair and recover. There's enough time for people to hop off and de-board, however.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason gets the warning from Kyra that she needs to shove off and meet up with her. The Flotilla ahs proven just what they are dangerous, for all their mental malfunctions to Lyria? They are a hell of a team, a very well oiled team. She's going to have to step up her game here.. The Starbounders are no light issue anbd it seems Flint has been able to do what she couldn't either way she doesn't care so long as it's done. She doesn't make to attack them as they flee, they are going. Her personal issues can wait, she's not about leave allies high and dry it's time to get moving.
Audrey Stormfist     Escaping with the ship will not be difficult. The crew will need dumped somewhere, those that haven't jumped ship on their own with a Float or Gravity module anyway. Upon reaching the cockpit, Kyra will catch pilot and co-pilot scrambling to clear data onboard the flight computer regarding the shipments, and will likely be knocked out or interrupted before they can finish. From there, taking off with the ship is a breeze.

    Naturally, the ship contains a number of trackers. Kyra's going to have to pit stop somewhere that can remove them and that they trust not to talk, but even that might result in more aggro than is needed. Keeping the shuttle might be pointless once the cargo and flight data has been taken off.

    The crates, for the most part, contain empty MP Cells. A lot of them. They're bigger than usual, but uncharged. Data on the transport's computer suggests that not all of them were destined for the RAIJIN ships. Actually, most of them weren't, it was just a pit stop.

A few crates are tagged 'DOMAIN CORE', indicating the cargo that was destined for the ships. The rest of the MP Cells are tagged 'PROJECT A.W.'. There is no information on what this is, although coordinates in the computer point to where they're meant to be delivered. According to Moggle Maps, it's... an empty lot. A completely empty lot on the edge of Sector 13. Belongs to the Zaibatsu, but nothing has been built there yet.

    Ground Zero is going to have to reach a decision on what they want to do, where they want to point their attention. Domain Cores, MP Cell production, or this new unknown, Project A.W., which could be anything.

    It's worth noting that the cargo crates are protected by rudimentary failsafes. If opened incorrected (there's some magic locks) assorted fire and lightning spells fry the contents of the crates. Kyra has connections, though, so after the second or third crate of this happening surely she'll seek help to open the other two dozen.
Sakura Haruno     Sakura is slow to regain her feet, and the boarders will be able to retreat before she can interfere. Not that she's really interested in pursuing them if they were leaving anyways. The ninja, looking even worse than she'd started, will hear Flint giving the retreat order, and 'Rabbit' giving a gather order. This makes her job rather obvious, and given the lack of Death Bots this time, she's much more able to do it, even wounded.

    A few moments later, there'll be a ninja doing her best Dragoon impression to make it from the pirate ship to the cargo one, totally cheating with chakra on both ends of the jump, to stick the landing and add to the jump itself.
Kyra Hyral     Kyra storms the cockpit and the first thing she does is knock the pilot and copilot's heads together. She's quick to shove them out of the way so she can take control of the vessel. Of course, she's expecting tracking devices on the ship (it IS a cargo ship after all) of the magical nature-though fortunately, Kyra does have a close friend and fellow rebel that she trusts can find any devices. After all, Juno Eclipse knows all about stealth and running from giant Empires in ships that can be tracked.

    They'll happily decompile the data they do recover later-for now, Kyra waits until she can get all of her conspirators boarded on the ship, moving in position to retrieving those in need of an active pick-up as needed. She does know how to fly the ship-another thing she's been practicing with Juno though there are a few seconds spent on spotting the proper pieces of control. It does help that prior research before this operation taught Kyra the relevant pieces of the Zaibatsu cargo airship.

    Xiao and any remaining crew on the ship will be dropped off outside of Galianda on one of the floating pieces of land near what is known as the 'Rainbow Road' in the universe. Xiao might take some solace, when she comes to, in the fact that she wasn't the only person to get zip-tied. Some of the previously armed guards were secured in a similar way.
Lima Ultimos Pirates are knocked off left and right, falling down into the city below and presumably dying (for now). The selfdestruction of the droid sends Tigerbabble flying up and back into the air, where he quickly realizes that OTHER pirates are being knocked off. As he takes the blow, he tries his best to orient himself at another pirate being sent off, who he grapples onto, twists with his position, and uses his body to protect. As they fly off, Tigerbabble rapidly tries to aim himself at the side of the ship, hooking on with his knife to hold himself and his fellow crewmember in the air. Also, Tigerbabble is now missing his face, but it was never his best feature anyways.

Meanwhile, the Pirate Tower finds themselves hanging onto each other for dear life, being knocked straight off the ship. Immediately, the top pirate attempts to grapple to the ship, refusing to let go even as his fingers begin to tear, due to the fact that his fellow crew members are depending on him. Even if they're already undead, plummeting to your death is not fun!

As Lima Ultimos is electrocuted, his entire body convulses, causing him to drop his remaining gun. He ignores it, because he can always get it again later. Instead, he's quickly taking hold of the wheel, but he seems to be recontemplating his 'turn it over' strategy, especially as dozens of drones begin getting ready to fire on their position. Making it harder for the crew to hold on will not help. He feels a bit bad about saying he'll do something and then not doing it, so the only option is to do something else crazy to make up for it.

So, he signals to the remaining crew to drop the ship.

As the drones fire, the masts and hull take a good amount of damage, as Lima Ultimos holds dearly onto his wheel. "Aye...ye be doing good! But if ye be wanting to send me to Davy Jones' Locker, ye'll have to do better for that! I'd give me own life for me crew, me ship, and me dreams, but that day will not be today! Let me show ye what the world's greatest pirate crew can do!" The ship begins to rapidly plummet towards the city below, and if it impacts, it is very likely atleast a dozen citizens will die, as well as anybody hanging onto the ship. Lima Ultimos is not willing to let that happen.

So, a good distance before the ship is about to kill a bunch of people, he signals again to pull her up. It succeeds! But only barely, stopping right below a set of houses, luckily sparing any lives. The crew hanging on quickly use this time to climb up, as Lima Ultimos sighs in relief...

And sets his ship to full speed, bolting as far away from the murder drones as possible. The ship's shadow is imposing heavily on citizens below, likely blocking out people's light, but atleast nobody is actually hit! Five minutes later, the ship will circle around back once it is sure it has lost its pursuers, and proceed to track down the missing crew members and bring them back onto the ship, whether dead or alive. No man will ever be left behind.
HK-47      As the vanguard of drones form up - with two of the total twelve having been destroyed at this point and four more in varying states of damage - HK-47 contemplates that, all the illogic their processors functioned on and all their general deficiencies... they certainly did not lack for suicidal levels of courage, deceased or otherwise.

     Even as he pursues the fleeing ship while perched atop the lead drone, HK muses on how even death does not seem able to break what most meatbags refer to as camaraderie - he would have expected the ship's crew to protest this action, yet they seemed to trust the, in his opinion, insane Captain to know what he was doing.

     Of course it could also be that they were just numb to death, but that certainly could not mean they enjoyed being put at risk.

     Several of the drones continue their pursuit of the ship, sending follow-up shots partway down it's descent... and then, when it becomes obvious that the ship doesn't intend to halt until the last moment, HK reluctantly orders the drones to cease their attacks.

     Normally, he would not care about civilian casualties in the slightest... but he had been explicitly instructed to not cause unnecessary destruction. And with the fight all but concluded, firing at the risk of an overshoot that would butcher civilians, which, while entertaining to watch, would violate his orders.

     Therefore, the drones are forced to pull up halfway down the descent - and by the time they re-align, the burning but still-active Coma Navaja is already putting distance between them.

     ...

     Well... that was apparently it. He had done as he was requested to do - offer as staunch a resistance as possible against the terrorists. And considering the resources and constraints, he would daresay he'd done relatively well. He had, for all intents and purposes, forced his enemy into retreat - or at least that was what the droid would call this sight.

     Granted, they'd failed to capture any of the terrorists... but things were still within the acceptable perimeters of their countermeasures. All that was left was to return, report on his engagement's outcome and wait.

     Later, perhaps, if asked to do so, he will aid in the rescue operations for the abandoned crew of the cargo ship - and saving the image of Xiao bound up to his databanks.

     One never knew when some meatbag somewhere would need blackmail material, after all. And if nothing else, he liked to be prepared.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason is now moving to get to form up, she knows that they have to move they got to get out of here with the crew of their target ship being dropped off it's time to go but she's got a feeling sympathy for Limis and that was one of the most ballsy stunts she's deen a while. Either way it's time to go hopefully they will make this entire mess worth it. It's time to go, it really is time to get going.

She wonders though how deep are things going to go? She knows the issue of the total control over the mana batteris is imporant enough to do this? Yet is there more? She prays to the gods this is not the case and she's just seen too much in the universe beyond her home.