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Shielder     It'd been a little over a week now since Mashu, or Shielder, pick your name, had been rescued from the wreckage of the displaced laboratory she worked in. Having largely recovered and now wanting to help others like she was helped, the Demi-Servant had to begin by making a request of Dun Realtai, the Union and the Syndicate. A shield, used to summon the hero that empowered her, was lost in the rubble of the laboratory when it collapsed. A Shielder without their shield is about as useful as a Lancer without their spear, and so she needs help retrieving it.

    The meeting point, not too far from Dun Realtai's warpgate, is the massive fissure opened when the fake Fergus used Caladbolg, and which the large laboratory section has now completely sunk into. Ropes, chains, harnesses, hooks and other hiking equipment will come in handy, as will people who can just fly and help people down into the fissure.

    Mashu awaits, in her casual clothes, with a big winter coat thrown on because BEDIVERE YOUR PLACE IS LOCATED IN AN AWFUL PART OF THE WORLD ONCE YOU LEAVE IT, on the ridge of the fissure, to see who all'll come.

    For others, the lure here might not have been the job posting. The wreckage of the laboratory is positively abuzz with magical energy, as dozens of magical artifacts of various natures lay shattered at the bottom, bleeding their energy into the land and snow, and acting like a magical lighthouse.

    A mile down into the fissure, one can see the lights and sparks of equipment, and magical fires that refuse to go out, producing no smoke. Sadly, Mashu has no way to know which part of the laboratory her shield is in, and the group is going to have to enter where they can, if not make an entrance.
Sir Bedivere   As soon as the call for assistance had gone out, Bedivere had immediately responed with an offer of help. So he had put on his best winter gear, saddled his new horse, and come thundering down the hill in full knightly regalia with an extra load of climbing gear.

  Snow churns under his horse's hooves; the solid black animal is massive, not picking its way through so much as ploughing a convenient path for smaller allies. It's all black. Its eyes are a smoky gold. It is probably not mundane. Curiously, it has a saddle, but no bridle. Bedivere holds no reins.

  He's well balanced, though, as horse and rider come to a stop before Mashu, and Bedivere leans over the horse's neck to wave to her. "Héa! I have come. See," he adds, twisting to retrieve saddlebags. "I have also brought extra rope, and hooks. I am glad for an opportunity to offer you assistance."

  The horse is staring at her very intently with those freakishly golden eyes. Its head is probably about as big as her head and upper torso combined. Big as it is, an extra person or two could probably have hitched a ride along with the knight.
William Pauwel     Whereever there is adventure, danger, or a mysterious hole in the ground that may or may not contain fabulous treasure, one has a roughly fifty percent chance of running into one of the Multiverse's most persistent explorers. William Pauwel has seen the job posting, and he has come to do what needs to be done! It's not like he can really use magical artifacts, anyway-- but maybe there's something he CAN make use of down there? Who knows!?

Nobody, unless they go down and find out.

    "Howdy y'all!" Will says to anyone nearby as he makes his way from the warpgate. His usual ensemble of exploration gear is somewhat... poofier than usual. This is possibly because he's added a full, feathered poncho. It's... It looks like...

...Turkey?

Weird.

    "Looks like we've got ourselves a pretty decently sized fissure, here," he says, craning his head over to admire the giant hole in the ground. "And y'all must be Mashu, right?" Will grins, offering a gloved hand in greeting, "Nice t' meet you! The name's Will. Hope everything goes well- horse."

There is a horse. Bedivere's horse. With its bizarre golden eyes, and its GIANTNESS. "That," Will observes, astutely, "Is a very big horse."
Nero      "Mhmhm! I had heard tell of this incident, but nonetheless, seeing the fallout for myself certainly is a sight to behold, is it not?" Came a girl's voice. Imperious and confident as all get out. And then there's a whorl of prana particles as red clad Servant materializes right next to Mashu, arms crossed and peering down at the wreckage of the laboratory proper.

     "You require assistance locating your shield, yes? Mhmhm! Very well then. Have no fear, my dear! For I, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, have arrived! You may rejoice at once!" One hand is pressed to her chest, the other arm is held outwards theatrically, a wistful, dramatic look in her green eyes.

     ...Truly a stark contrast to Bedivere's more humble arrival.

     Nero comes as is. And despite the harsh weather, she does not seem to mind it at all. The ever present smirk upon her face evidence of her lack of concern for the conditions. Damn cheating Servants.
Moonlit Saber Sitting behind Bedivere on his horse, elegantly sidesaddle, is a girl who is not really dressed suitably for the cold. It doesn't really seem to bother her despite the light kimono she has on. She probably could have materialized like a certain other Saber, but she's far too dignified for that. Besides, she thinks the demondeathhorse is a sweetheart.

"My. Oh my, that is quite a mess, is it not?" Hands folded delicately, the Moonlit Saber gives a good look over the wreckage. "And your shield is buried in there.. ah.. Shielder?" She hasn't met the demiservant personally, but gives Shielder a kind smile. "I am unsure how much help I can be in excavation, but I will do what I can to be of aid."
Emiya Shirou How long has it been since Emiya Shirou's been seen in the field? Well... about eight months. Union folk like Nero and Bedivere would've known the reason: Union medical dragged him off after enough was enough, and he's spent the last many months honing his skills to avoid being constantly smeared all over the pavement.

    But he's remained pretty mum about just what that entailed. Either way...

    Either way, Shirou's riding behind Bedivere. This requires him to hold on to the knight up until they finally stop. He hops right off like it's nothing... and faces the strange mount himself.

    "Thanks for the ride here." Says the amber-eyed youth to the horse. Whether he's aware of its true nature or not matters little - he's had some pretty terrible experiences with horses thanks to a certain Servant, and this was positively pleasant in comparison.

    He's fully decked out in warm furs for the region, but underneath one can occasionally spot the glimmer of silvery-steel plate. It's certainly AUDIBLE, going clank-whunk when he hits the ground.

    Of course this brings him to the next step, evaluating everyone else who's coming... many are recognized, a few are not. As usual, Nero gets a cross-eyed look that says, 'is she for real?' But he rubs his forehead and sets his sights instead on Mashu-Shielder...

    Nero's resemblance to a certain someone else never fails to draw his attention and confuse him, seriously.

    "Looking for a shield in a wreckage pile like this will take forever, Noble Phantasm or not. We've got our work cut out for us... hello. My name's Emiya Shirou, from the Union, and Dun Realtai. Just a magus who's here to help."
Chat Noir     A WHILE AGO...
Chat Noir: Oh Buginette~
Chat Noir: We've got a new help request.
Chat Noir: Meet me at the gate in an hour if you can!


Now here's the problem with Chat Noirs. You can count on them to keep their word if they give it, but at the same time you have to account for the amount of kitty brain they're currently experiencing. He certainly wouldn't wander off on his own too rapidly without warning, but leave him alone long enough and he might stagger into trouble without some kind of deterrance.

This little off-world venture was only optional if Ladybug wanted to drag him away from it by the ears, in other words.

    NOW...

Chat Noir arrives at the edge of the fissure in a run that he had been carrying out on all fours. It looked odd, but it did seem to give him the ground speed that he'd needed to traverse the terrain without wasting a whole lot of time doing it. He skids to a halt near the gathering point, staggering a little as he rises to a dignified standing posture which doesn't even hint at the momentary lapse of balance.

He meant to do that.

"Hello!" He offers enthusiastically to nobody in particular. By now he's wandered into enough groups of questants that he isn't particularly offput by the sheer strangeness of the assortment of people here. You get in, you keep your ears open and figure out the best way to give a hand. Then you get out! Hopefully without suffering horrrrible emotional damage. Still working on that last one.
Gawain Not far behind Bedivere is a huge ass boar, thirteen feet tall and very wide. Atop it, on what looks more like a rug than a saddle, is Sir Gawain, the Knight of the Sun, dressed in full armor. He has a cloak over his armor for the cold, and is controlling the boar with the reins. The seating is perfectly large enough for others to have come with him!

As they approach through the snow, Gawain parks his boar near Bedivere's horse, feeding Lovell a carrot as he begins to jump down. "Hello! You must be lady Mashu! It's a pleasure to meet you in person, I am Sir Gawain, of the many things I already introduced myself by, including Camelot, the Round Table, and Dun Realtai!" He adds the last three for the others he hasn't met.

As his feet land in the snow, he shivers briefly, before turning to Nero. "Lady Nero! I am rejoicing! See? Rejoice! With all of us Servants, we should easily be able to find this shield, especially if it emanates any sort of Servant energy!" He gives a wave to Moonlit Saber as he says this.

When he sees Shirou, Sir Gawain grins widely, moving over to hug the boy tightly. Very tightly. "Shirou! Welcome back! This is your first mission in months, right? It'll be just like old times!~"
Fate Testarossa "Sir."

The smooth mechanical voice emanating from the golden medallion on the couch was enough to pull Fate's attention towards it. Before Bardiche projected a hologram panel with a list of anomalies, disturbances, and locations with othervaried readins forth looking into.

"Mn."

Fate more or less chose one at random before plucking up her Device and stepping out onto her rooftop. A clap of thunder later and...

And not too much later, a golden circle of light spreads upon the snow of the tundra, a thunderclap heralding Fate's arrival as her cloak tosses in the chill wind. ... And finds people present already.

She says not a word.

Perhaps, if she remains completely still no one will notice her.
Kazusa Ujikane     Now, sure, Kazusa COULD HAVE ridden on Bedivere's horse. She would probably have prevailed on Shirou's chivalry, begging him to let her take his place so she could ride with her own Servant.

    But Sir Gawain has a sodoff huge boar to ride instead.

    Frigging of course she's riding that.

    And of course she's got cold-weather clothes, too; it might be toward the end of summer back home, but she still lives somewhere the winter gets cold enough to snow! So when she sliiide-fwumps off the boar, she's dressed for the plume of powder it kicks up. Fwump.

    And immediately, she's at Mashu's side. "Oooh. Hi, you're the Shielder girl, right? I'm Kazusa! I'm the one that can turn into people with cards. It's good to meet you~!"

    Anyone with keen observational skills might see the nervous looks she keeps shooting toward the chasm every now and then.
Shielder     "T-Thank you, Sir Bedivere!" Mashu manages, between shivers. It's cold! Thankfully, the lab seems to still be on fire, so it should be hotter down there. She nods to Will, maybe just a bit shy, but not about to refuse help. Nero causes confusion, as she acts, sounds and dresses nothing like the king she met. Baffled, Shielder just says hi. She'll figure it out later, and probably realize then that's overdue to squee about it.

    Saber gets a nod, as Mashu answers: "It shouldn't be... t-too hard to get to. I just hope it isn't under too much rubble." Then to Shirou, another nod. "M-Mashu, or Shielder. P-Pleasure to meet you." She seems uncomfortable. Maybe it's because he said he's a magus?

    Ladybug and Chat Noir dress fancy, and the brief stare from the purple-haired girl eventually gives way to a hello of their own. Sir Gawain gets a smile, followed by "S-Sir Gawain! I've been doing the exercise you recommended, I think it's helping a bit."

    Kazusa's voice, she recognizes, and with a smile nods. "Hi! I remember! It'll be cool to see in action!"

    Now then, that's everyone introduced. As ropes and hooks are firmly set into the side of the cliff, mounts secured-- wherever people leave them, and other arrangements made to head down, let's jump right to the action.

    At the bottom of the fissure, the massive section of the Chaldea lab lay in ruin. Large amounts of it are completely crushed, not a building by any defition. But a wing seems to have survived the fall, AND the fire. It's ninety degrees off, though-- the door leading in is atop the ruins, easily bashed in by any of the present folks despite being a blast door.

    Entering the lab luckily gives a lot of surface to stand on, the tight hallways of the laboratory being easy to navigate even sideways. Mashu explains, briefly, that this is the SHIVA wing. "I-It's a supercomputer... w-we used it to try to predict the future. Many futures. Too many to count. They all... all of them, humans always die, someday. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. T-There were plans to use the information to make countermeasures, but they're all scrapped now." She motions for the broken, white and sterile blue metal halls, putting emphasis on the fact this wing of the lab was vital and it's in no state to help humanity now. Probably never will be again.

    "The room you found me in wasn't far, so... if we go through the SHIVA core, that path should still be intact."

    But with every step the walls and floors creak, barely holding together. Metal breaks and gives way under CHAT NOIR, EMIYA SHIROU and SIR GAWAIN, suddenly threatening to drop them dozens of feet down into sharp debris and flames.
Sir Bedivere   The great black horse has no trouble carrying three or more people, so long as they can fit across the breadth of his back. Bedivere waits until everybody else is off before sliding over the saddle himself, crunching knee-deep into the snow and shivering.

  When William admires the horse, the Black One pricks his ears, turning until he can stare with both of those smoky gold eyes. <This one is a púca, not a horse.>

  Oh, and Shirou is thanking him. The Tylwyth Teg are stuck on manners, and he is one of the Tylwyth Teg. So Shirou gets a friendly shove of a big black velvety nose into the middle of his back, which might bowl him forward a step or two. No problem, the friendly shove seems to say.

  Bedivere starts unpacking the horse's saddlebags, coiling up rope and tucking it over an arm, gathering hooks and slinging them through his belt. That should be all of it. He glances back to the great black war horse. "You will be fine here?"

  <This one will wait.>

  "Very well." Bedivere reaches out, giving the horse a pat on the neck; it blows a plume of smoke through Bedivere's hair before turning to look out over the tundra. The animal seems completely unaffected by the cold and wet.

  Bedivere's not so lucky, slogging over to where Mashu and the other adventurers are. He nods to each, but several of these people he just flat-out doesn't know yet. "I have brought extra rope, for those who have need of it." Said coils are held aloft. They're also left with whoever needs them.

  For himself, Bedivere selects a particularly heavy cable, along with a four-point hook. What? He's wearing a lot of armour. It's also kind of wet now. That's a lot of weight.

  A mountain climber he is not, though, and by the time Bedivere reaches the bottom, he's a little bruised and lands a bit heavily. Somewhere between landing and turning from the cliff, his sword is in his hand, bright and clean; almost impossibly so. Toph does good work -- it looks like it's brand new, and so does his armour.

  The floor lurches, and the blood drains from the knight's face. His instinct is to step over and save them, but the floor might give way under the weight of his armour. "Ah... please be careful."
Nero      "Aha! Sir Emiya! You have arrived! Very good! Then perhaps this day, we shall bear witness to the rise of a new legend! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!" She laughs it up for a little bit, ruining the poor boy's image of Arturia even further than she already had. And then it's Gawain's turn. She whirls around and points to him.

     "Yes! Very good, Sir Gawain! I am most pleased with this!" She turns aside at that point, sighing theatrically. "Indeed, you are a fine descendant! I could ask for no greater than yourself! One who shines with the radiance of the sun itself!" Her arms are spread and she faces the sky with boundless energy.

     "Truly, it is second only to my own sheer, beautiful radiance! Indeed, Sol himself cannot help but be awed when I descend from heaven and allow the people to behold my form once again!"

     What in the christ is she even talking about anymore? Someone stop this lunatic!

     That stopping is made in the form of it being time to head out! And Nero is distracted from her showboating just long enough to set to doing so. She could have been careful and used a harness or something, but no. She's a Servant! That means that she just gathers prana into her legs, infusing herself with power, before diving forward and starting into a run right down the side of the cliff. And then she leaps off and sails through the air, landing with a skid of the feet right by the laboratory wreckage.

     "Hmmhmm! So this is the place, is it?" She muses, raising an arm and manifesting Aestus Estus, the crimson sword of the emperor, into her grasp. There's a swing, which leaves a red trail of flame, and then she sets forward, entering the lab proper.

     The explanation of the SHIVA system earns an arch of the brow from the Roman Emperor. "Hm! How peciluar! Not unlikee the Moon Cell, in some respects, one might say!" She looks off and smirks to herself nonetheless. "And yet, it would seem that such a glorious system has been laid to waste in the end. My, such tragedy!"

     Was this a play?

     Regardless, Nero is on guard once the floor creaks. She ceases her movement immediately. "I suppose the foundations of this ruin are as insecure as they look! Ah ha ha ha ha!" She's not worried about those caught in the hazard. Not in the least.
Emiya Shirou Shirou finds himself nudged forward and almost stumbling into a pile of slushy snow... but catches his balance, and looks over his shoulder with a friendly grin for the mighty horse. But well, to business.

    "That's a good point. You Servants can dematerialize... not sure if that would let you look around down there easily or not though." Shirou muses, glancing about at the various Heroic Spirits present for further insight.

    Including the Moonlit Saber he's very glad to have some personal distance from. That was getting a bit awkward for teenaged him. And over there's--

    Wait, where did Gawain go?!

    "HUWAGH--!" Oh, there he is. Almost crushing Shirou in a hug. The boy squirms in semi-panic within arms dreadfully stronger than his bones! Well good thing Gawain's not THAT much of a goof!

    But Shirou's nonetheless left gasping when finally released. "Nice to see you too... Sir Gawain... whew!" More forehead rubbing as he gets his bearings... and takes note that Mashu's jumpy about something he said. Huuuuuuuh....

    The moment he gets a load of Chat Noir's getup though, well, but he asks plainly, in a friendly enough tone, "Hey. You here from Paragon City?"

    But eventually the group moves on, starts heading through the wreckage and the paths. Shirou's stepping carefully, and after one small LURCH of the ground beneath him he just stops in a moment of panic, murmurs... "Trace, on."

    Faint magical energy flows from his feet into the walkway and back from a quick analysis... "U-uuuah!" And the results get him going quickly WHITEFACED. Because the floor crunch-sinks again before he can even consider a solution!
Moonlit Saber After dismounting, the silver-haired Saber reaches up to give Bedivere's horse a light pat on the side of the neck. "Such a sweet thing." She gives it an affectionate smile before stepping forward, looking from the boar to Kazusa. "How was the ride, Master?" She has nothing against boars, but is really is quite hard to ride one elegantly!

"Oh, you two know each other already?" Green eyes flick between Kazusa and Shielder questioningly. "Ah, well... I am not very good at digging, but I suppose my sword can handle a -bit- of rubble." She tilts her head slightly at the description of the area. "Mmm. It sounds rather unpleasant to keep predicting so much death..."

The Moonlit Saber keeps pace alongside Kazusa, but as she hears the creaking sound, she throws one arm out to prevent her Master from walking right into the pit. "Wait!"
Kazusa Ujikane     "It was kind of rough," the nerdy girl admits to the silver-haired Saber, before responding to Shielder's hopes of seeing her cards. "Aheheh..." Kazusa looks a little sheepish. "I really dunno about 'in action'. The only card I have left is The Beast, and..." It takes her a second to figure out how to phrase this. "...it's the kind of card that would accept a Berserker. In fact, that's what I have in it now, a Berserker-class Servant. I'll use it if I gotta, but..." But it's a bit of a last resort.

    Then again, it's almost preferable to being lowered down into the fissure on a rope. And going through a sideways lab. And- "Man, this is all kind of creepy," Kazusa murmurs. "It's like some weird sci-fi horror movie... where all the gravity generators shut themselves off, and come back on weird, and..."

    Thankfully, going off into la-la land is enough to keep her distracted. Until the word 'supercomputer' gets her attention. "-a computer that predicts the future? Like a Laplace sort of thing?!" That has her attention. At least until 'breaking walkway' happens. It ends up being unnecessary for her Saber to throw out an arm like that; Kazusa might just be clinging to the pale Servant a bit right now.
William Pauwel     That there is a boar. Will stares at the boar. The boar may or may not stare back. For some reason, he's less put off by the presence of a massive superpig than he is of a comparatively smaller horse. He looks back towards the big, golden-eyed steed after a moment, staring warily into those terrible golden eyes. "Uh. Are púcas like ho--"

Beat.

"D-did you just talk!?"

TALKING ANIMALS ARE NOT NORMAL THINGS OKAY.

He can worry about that later. Or on the radio. Either way.

    Will descends into the chasm with his own length of rope. It's a simple, brownish, braided thing with a rusty old grapnel at the far end. He also... has the presence of mind (and the experience!) to actually tie the thing around his waist and support his descent with a handful of steel pitons. It'll make climbing back up WAY easier, too.

    He lands with a soft puff of breath, dusting off his relatively light adventuring gear with a quick pat-down. "There, t'weren't too bad!" Not even a single attack drone out for their blood! He descends not long after Nero does. Nero, who...

Uh.

    "Fer someone who shines like the sun, y'all sure look like you need a torch," Will grins and flicks a rather OVERSIZED HANDCANNON out from a holster at his hip. Blue-white light blazes from its barrel as he raises it, bathing the area in harsh, but crystal clear light. "So this place was a... computer?" Will asks, inclining his head curiously. "One that could predict the future? Uh... Are those... still gonna happen?"

'Cause humanity being wiped out kind of sounds... bad.

But, first, spelunking.

    "Alright, now y'all be careful. If I know anything about caves, it's that they ain't the most stable--"

The floor crumbles. Will is... not actually getting caught up in it for once! "--Things. Dangit, hang on!" A twinned pair of rails fills the room with a brief but powerful CRACK as a miniature grappling hook launches from an apparatus on the explorer's arm down towards the folk falling into the pit, "Y'all, grab on!"

But... he's a little small to be keeping the lot of them from falling, inn't he?
Gawain Sir Gawain bows in awe of Nero's sheer radiance. Truly, no one is more blinding than his lunatic ancestor! It's actually pretty clear they're related, not even by looks!

"Excellent! Keep it up and eventually you'll be able to punch out the sun! But please don't do that, we need the sun!" He replies to Mashu cheerfully. Lovell snorts affectionately at Kazusa as she climbs down.

As they arrive at the bottom, Gawain's materializing sword into hand, out of safety. He moves in front of the rest as a sort of wall, hoping that his great strength in the sunlight will allow him to take any traps to the face and keep going.

Though it turns out that the 'trap' is below them, as the floor collapses beneath them! With only a second of reaction time, Gawain moves superhumanly fast. He dashes towards Shirou, grabbing him by the collar, and promptly drags him away from the hole. He assumes that, as a superhero, Chat can help himself! Never steal a superhero's thunder, after all! Once he's assured that Shirou's safe, Gawain lets him go, rising to his feet as he moves to the others. "Is everyone okay? I'd hope none of us roast to death in here! Even with my endurance right now, I'm not sure I could survive all this fire." He slowly moves to check the rest of the floor, and then to move back in front to facetank again.
Ladybug EARLIER, PARIS

Ladybug, Chat Noir's partner, had recieved the warnings of the mission, but instead of just following without any sort of research, used the amazing power of THE INTERNET to look up what was going on with this request. Chaldea? A research base? Dun Realtai?

    It wasn't hard to find wi-fi through the gate, and once she did it was rather awkward. "He wants me to go out in the /snow/?" Marinette groaned, before throwing open her closet. "It's the middle of summer, and I get frigid in the cold food isle!"

    With a 'Tikki, transform me!' (and a chunk of canned footage posing), Ladybug threw open her closet. "This is going to look /dumb/."

NOW, CHALDEA

CHAT NOIR's inability to engage in CATLIKE BALANCE is met by a red and black-spotted yoyo twirling around his upper torso and tugging him backwards. Following the line to its owner is... An eskimo? No! A superhero in a rather puffy silver snow jacket (with black poofy lining bits!) with the hood drawn up. Like an antarctic researcher sized to be a teenage girl, a red-gloved hand waves. "Oh Chat, your bad luck can't be THIS bad!" She calls, recalling her yo-yo once he's safe. "Sorry I'm late, but you brought us to the frigid north on short notice, and I had to find a coat!" She explains.
Chat Noir "Pardon me, I didn't introduce myself. You can call me Chat Noir, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Chat introduces himself to Mashu with a theatrical bow that is so precisely engineered to look pointlessly impressive that somebody could only do it on the spot if they'd practiced it endlessly. It mostly just overflows into cheesy done in person, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Then it's time to get moving. His response to the problem of scaling down to the bottom of the fissure by using his baton to create a temporary fireman's pole and sliding right on down. If somebody else wants to make use of it they're given a few moments opportunity to try, but Chat isn't about to leave his weapon behind even as a possible emergency escape route. He'll make do on the fly later if need be.

A concerned glance is cast towards Mashu as she explains what was going on here. He waves the miniaturized baton towards her as he answers, "Doesn't doing something like that risk bringing about the future you're trying to avoid? I don't think it's a good thing for people to know too much about--"

Chat Noir is not actually great at making his spot checks a lot of the time. Bad luck will do that to you. The floor falls out underneath him while he's in the middle of conversation. He plummets through the floor, his baton hitting the remaining flooring in front of him and going skittering away with a series of metallic noises.

He /does/ manage to arrest his downward momentum momentarily, scrabbling with his free hand at the floor. But really, he just bought himself time to get some help-- he'll slip loose within another heartbeat. The metal screeches unpleasantly beneath his claws to boot.

Then there's a familiar jerk around his body and he's hauled out of his predicament.

Chat Noir's only answer to his complete lack of catlike grace is to shrug, offer a goofy smile, and saunter over to pick up his baton like he /didn't/ just nearly fall a lethal distance into some fire.

"What can I say?" He asks, securing the baton at the small of his back, "I've no need of my own luck when Lady Luck herself will come to my rescue."
Fate Testarossa For the most part, Fate stays quiet as the party moves as a group. And it is in silence that she joins, sticking herself to the very tail end of the troupe as though it was exactly where she belonged, opting to slowly float down the chasm, while the others make their trips down into the ruined labs.

When the flooring breaks away, the girl tenses, looking indecisive on whether or not to remain as out of the way and inconspicuous as possible or to lunge in the direction of the breaking floor. The situation resolves itself. Fate purses her lips and goes back to being inconspicuous.
Chat Noir Now that he's not falling or discussing the nature of Fate, Chat Noir replies to Shirou, "We're not from Paragon City, we just kind of wandered there after the gates turned up. We're from Paris. How about you?" He doesn't actually remember seeing Shirou there offhand, but that's not saying much. His ability to pay attention to specific details in situations like those is fairly scattered.
Shielder     'Moon Cell'. Mashu pauses. It sounds familiar, but she can't recall it. Something... one of the endgame simulations had something called that in it? It's fuzzy. She chooses not to comment, especially as the floor starts threatening people. Luckily, people are saved, one way or another, and walking can resume, without any fussing. (Spoiler: Mashu was fussing a lot.)

    "N-No, LAPLACE is another computer... it... what did it do again..." She doesn't remember. She tries not to let it bother her. Gaping holes in her memories have been a thing. It was IMPORTANT, though... tied to SHIVA somehow. Come on, what was it...

    Will interrupts her thinking, and she shakes her head. "I... I don't know. W-When we... 'Unified', data went all over the place. SHIVA was shut down because it couldn't give any reliable results anymore, or... something like that. The director said... probably too many variables for it."

    Ladybug gets a smile. "I brought a coat too. It's kind of cold up there." She's still a bit thrown off by those two's costumes. And Chat Noir's obvious rehearsed introduction-- no, that doesn't throw her off, if anything it impresses her. She wishes she was that cool.

    Once the cat is back up from his almost fall, Mashu shakes her head. "Maybe... I was just a clerk. I um... I sorted records. Of humanity's history. I only heard about this stuff because it got talked about. I don't know what the risks are. But isn't doing something better than nothing...?"

    Fate is ignored! Mashu has way too much to respond to and is obviously overwhelmed right now, and so she does not question the tiny blonde mage stalking the group.

    Finally, the group arrives at a sideways door.

    SHIVA CORE ROOM
    AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

    There's all manners of keycards and magical authentication around the door! ... it's all broken and the door kind of drops open if poked. The fall really damaged the place up.
Emiya Shirou Rescued by the Knight of the Sun! After some mild discomfort and getting his bearings post-rescue, Shirou adjusts his outfit and looks back at the remains of the walkway, flinching. "Too close... thanks. You saved my bacon there." But despite sounding a bit easygoing about it, Shirou's pretty damned tense. Kicking himself in the head for not exercising a bit more caution...

    This gives him enough time to respond to Chat, and... blink a bit at Ladybug being ten times more bundled up than everyone else. "Nah. Been involved in some of that place's troubles though. Costumes like yours are all the rage in that city." And he notably doesn't have one himself. Unless the articulated plate mail he's wearing under his jacket right now counts...

    He's just chatting casually, though the more he hears of Mashu's discussion the paler his face is getting. Computer simulations predicting the END OF THE WORLD?

    Should that be trusted...?

    His mind wanders momentarily to the dust-caked wasteland and that aberrant 'Avenger' Servant. It sends a shiver through his body...

    "Whenever mages are involved, nothing's simple." He concludes almost under his breath, dismayed at the thoughts running through his head.

    So where-abouts is that shield anyways?
William Pauwel     Well, looks like nobody needed an emergency lifeline! That's for the best, really. Means that nobody actually died. Will retracts his hook with a whirr of spinning servos, the little device snapping back to its spot just over his wrist. "Golly," he breathes, evidencing once more that he is approximately eighty percent rustic nostalgia trip by volume. "That was a close one. Y'all watch your steps, alright? We got lucky that time, but next time..."

    Mashu's answer makes him pause. Will frowns, squeezing gingerly at the nub of his chin. "Well. I guess that's probably good. Means that we've got a chance to avert things, right? To change the future!" He gives an optimistic grin, "Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of all this. Without bein' cooked, ideally."

Being cooked would be bad.

His energy-absorbing armor won't do bupkiss if he's SURROUNDED BY FIRE, after all.

    It isn't long before they come upon something a little more... familiar. A computer console. Will goes to start pecking at it, when the door SUDDENLY FALLS OPEN. AAH. "Uh," Will frowns. "That usually means somethin's already inside waitin' for us. Be careful. No sudden movements."
Shielder     The group enters the room.

    https://www.filepicker.io/api/file/dcIX6ZujQOylrnQytn47

    It's a massive blue room, with irregular construction and walls that aren't even straight. It might be familiar to Nero, since it vaguely reminds one of the Moon Cell. In the center, there's a very large lens surrounded by cracked metallic rings. The lens is cracked, barely. Perhaps stranger is the fact this room is oriented correctly. The door you came in through was definitely ninety degrees off. Ah well, magic.

    The next door is about fifty meters away, behind the lens in the center. The area around the door is badly damaged-- and there's something slammed into the wall, from the other side. Mashu points at it. "T-There! T-That's where I lost it... i-in the wall... on the other side of this room!"

    Once everyone is in the room, power siphons out of the walls, the lights turning off. SHIVA, the lens and mechanism in the center of the room, begins glowing brightly as it activates.

    <<AUHO99ZED PERS$NNE! D    ECT*D.>> a generic computer voice announces, garbled and broken. <<LAPLAC& CYB#-1 ARGUMENT OUT OF RANGEDA0MO# NOT CONN@C?ED. COM£A1D A²CE±TED. LO&DI!G LA#T LOA/ED SI*UL@THer?: #-1 SIMULATION_LIST_COMPLETE.>>

    "E-Eh?! It still has power?" Oh, right, LAPLACE is the recording daemon. Now she remembers. It's not in this section of the lab, though. Wait, that doesn't matter, they have to stop--

    THE ROOM IS REPLACED.

    Welcome to Earth, God knows what year it is. It's a wasteland of sand and dried earth. Endless. No hills, no mountains. It's glitchy, too, suffering from a lot of visual artifacts, especially the sky. Intense pressure follows. KILLING INTENT made manifest, as something surges out of the ground under Bedivere. It's a wolf, massive, inhuman, pristine white and silver, but glitchy as hell (it's hard to tell if it's the size of a horse or a bus). Each of its fangs and claws is like a holy sword, each hair of its fur hardened steel the likes of which he's never encountered. And it is trying to maul him. No, that's really underappreciating what it's trying to do to the knight. It's murder, in its simplest form.
Sir Bedivere   When it's clear the Elites on shaky ground can take care of themselves, Bedivere lets out his breath, reluctantly turning around to face Mashu again. His sword is returned to its scabbard, and his hands move to wring out some of the water from his cloak while they're waiting.

  Despite his seemingly unperturbed mien, his senses are on the highest of alert. There's no telling when or if one of those shadowy, Servant-like entities might threaten them. He shies at every shadow and tries to watch every exit at once. Those faded, violet eyes are in constant motion.

  Something Mashu said got his attention, though. A clerk? A records keeper of human history itself? The knight's eyes widen slightly. Just the thought of the kind of information she must have access to is staggering.

  He eyes the door, prodding at it with the very tip of his sword.

twitches slightly as they approach the Shiva Core Room door, though. Novice though his senses are, he can feel the warding over the door, and it makes his magic circuits itch and his skin crawl. The sensation of the former is unpleasant because they're metaphysic constructs and is probably the closest approximation he'd be able to describe. The latter seems almost literal -- he shudders as he backs away a step or two.

  Although as he's waiting to see inside that door, he folds his arms over his chest, shivering. Metal armour is really inconveniently cold and unpleasant to wear in subzero temperatures. Sure, the Chaldea building itself is warmer considering parts of it are still /on fire/, but he still got pretty wet outside.

  The thought crosses his mind that he should probably have his sword in his hand when that door opens, though, and somewhere between one breath and the next, his nameless sword is at hand again.

  Bedivere peers into the gloom with some apprehensi--

  OH GOD WHAT

  WHY ARE WE IN A DESERT

  Which is what Bedivere wants to say, but there isn't anybody there to hear him.

  "Huaa/agh--!/"

  Also there is a ginormous wolf lunging at him, and Bedivere reacts purely on instinct. He throws himself bodily to one side and tries to land in a way that doesn't break something important.
Gawain Sir Gawain listens to the information about the place, though he admittedly doesn't understand much of it. He just looks around as they head forward, and when the shield is pointed out, he tries to make it out from a distance. He fails! And then the entire place turns to desert.

As they appear in sand, Gawain takes a few seconds to look at his feet and adjust to the shift. Some sort of Reality Marble? A computer program? He doesn't get long to think about what is happening when suddenly, a glitchwolf attacks Bedivere! Gawain shouts to his knight brother quickly. "Bedivere, dive!" The Servant's entire body pushes forward, as he moves at inhuman speeds, sword first, to shove the wolf as far away from Bedivere as possible. Excalibur Galatine moves to parry those claws, as Gawain immediately feels their strength. "This thing is atleast as strong as a Servant, likely stronger! I need assistance!" He shifts to the side while trying to parrying the claws and realizing he can't do it alone...

And leaps upwards, attempting to jump on top of the wolf, blade first. Gawain's trying to stab his blade into its back, hoping that he can prevent it from striking him if he's above it.
Moonlit Saber "This place seems very dangerous. We should be careful of our footing." Says the Servant wearing sandals. The silver-haired Saber looks rather relieved as she sees the others pulled from the pit of potential-but-not-realized doom, though. "I did not realize this place would be so hazardous. Though I suppose the damage to the structure is a cause of that."

After a few moments of walking, she leans in close to Kazusa. "Master. Do you know everyone here?" She hangs by her Master for a few more steps to make sure that there won't be any sudden pitfalls, then fades back out as she enters spirit form.

And there she is again, rematerializing right next to Fate, resting a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Are you all right?" The smile she gives the little Mage is kind, but there's a knowing look in her eye. She knows Fate was trying to shy herself off to the side, and she's going to have none of it! "You should stick with us. My name is Saber. Ah..." She pauses, noting that there are no fewer than three Sabers here. "I suppose my true name is well known by now. My name is Kaguya."

The group enters a room with strange blue light, and Saber blinks several times... then again as the light flickers out to a buggy desert. "What is... Did anyone see the strange object in the middle of the room before it vanished?" Bedivere is a knight, and one chosen by the blonde Saber she has befriended. He'll surely be fine. Just fine. ...besides, Gawain is there too. She's more puzzled at the disappearance of that weirdly-shaped thing. Also why ther eis a wolf in the desert. Wolves don't live in places like this!
Kazusa Ujikane     "-eh? Everyone? No, not at all. I've met several of them, and I talked to Shielder on the radio..."

    And open goes the door. Kazusa's jaw hits the floor. Thank goodness there's no large reptiles around.

    The room unveiled is utterly awe-inspiring, though. Especially with how it's /right-side up/, what the hell. The nerdy girl is still gaping, looking all around, when they reach the other side of the room and everything goes dark. And a glitchy computer voice speaks up. And-

    And Kazusa is now behind her Saber because something terrifying has awoken to attack them with unbridled fury. The fact it isn't technically real (or shouldn't be) doesn't register on the girl. They're under threat. "A-a-ah, Saber, i-it's- that's-" Run away. Run away. That's what her instincts are telling her.

    One hand subconsciously drifts towards her purse, and the cards therein.
Emiya Shirou Step into a room and... all hell breaks loose. Or they're all placed in Hell on Earth. Kind of hard to say. Shirou blinks as wreckage and cold's replaced by scorching heat and blowing sand and... freakish digital tears in reality everywhere you look. Especially on that MURDERBEAST charging the group!

    Looking at it kinda gives Shirou a bit of a headache, but with Bedivere about to be choped in half it's REALLY not a good time to freeze up.

    "What is this? some kind of computerized Reality Marble?!" Are those even a thing that can exist? Ugh. Confusing.

    Once again he mutters his focus words, yet this time light fills his palms. Black in one, white in the other. The yin-yang swords KANSHOU and BAKUYA materialize in his grasp and he's instantly in a fighting stance, body flooding with a careful pattern of strengthening prana. With a solid yell he hurls both the weapons in a wide arc... but their trajectories shift like boomerangs. UNLIKE boomerangs they're not circling around. Instead they're heading to meet... with the beast in the middle.

    "Get away from Sir Bedivere, monster! Sab-- uh. Gawain, I've got your back!"

    ... Well. He'll... TRY to keep his back covered. Or give him fire support. Or something.

    In all honesty, Shirou's pretty sure the Servants hardly need his help here.

    But Bedivere sure does.
Nero      Look at that. Everyone is safe and sound. Perfect. Then they can move on! Which Nero immediately proceeds to doing. All this talk of worlds ending and computer systems is definitely heard, and the ever present smirk on the Servant's face seems to indicate that she's probably already thinking up some kind of grand scenario involving all of these terms. Perhaps something of a....Grand Order, eh? Ehhh? No? Okay.

     Will gets a look. "Mhmhmhm! Foolishness! With merely a thought, my ruler's blade shall create the light necessary to guide us to the truth of all things!" She raises Aestus Estus, and the sword gradually starts glowing a harsh orange, joining Will's own glow. ...It might be a bit obnoxious. Maybe she should turn it off, huh?

     Either way, they arrive at a sideways door! Nero once again laments the fact that these ruins are literally on their side! "I must wonder just how this location managed the feat of landing on it's very side! Truly peculiar! And yet, also a thrilling setting as well! Mhmhm!"

     They enter. It's a lot of blue! In fact, it's of a familiar design! A lot like a certain computer system back in the war she should be fighting in right now... Hm. But then something strange happens. Power is drawn from the walls at the very same time that Mashu points out where she lost her shield! And everything goes to hell.

     THE ROOM IS REPLACED.

     Sand. Sand. And more sand.

     WELL. BEDIVERE CERTAINLY APPEARS TO BE IN TROUBLE.

     No time to worry about where exactly they are and how the mechanics of it work! Aestus Estus flares to life, and she veers to the side Bedivere *didn't* leap in, sword reared back before she dives forward, aiming to cleave into the gigantic wolf's side with a flaming slash!
Chat Noir "Purrrhaps." Chat Noir grins over towards Mashu, "They say curiosity killed the cat for a reason though." Not that he pays much attention to that reason himself, but he's deeply uncertain he'd want anything to be predicting /his/ future. There are some things people just aren't meant to know, and where they'll end up in X years from now is definitely one of them in his book.

He replies to Shirou, "I noticed. We blended in pretty well there, but we're not from that part of the world. We were still new to this whole thing so we thought it might just be... you know, some bad guy's gimmick. It was so much like a video game, we just kind of marched in and got orders to retrieve a bunch of alien doohickies."

His reaction to Ladybug's big eskimo coat is delayed, but not at all absent. Really, she can see it coming as soon as his attention re-focuses on her. It's almost formulaic, how he comes up alongside his fellow superhero and drapes his arm over her shoulders.

Chat Noir opens his mouth-- and then stops, because the surroundings are replaced by a desolate wasteland. His teeth click together as he re-focuses on the horrible giant wolf, if you can even call it a wolf.

"Try and rope it down!" He says to Ladybug, before turning towards Mashu and asking, "What's going on here? Why'd the room turn into this? Do you know how to stop it?"
William Pauwel One moment, Will is staring into a room that is ALMOST CERTAINLY COMPROMISED. Then a computer beeps and a WEIRD MACHINE starts firing up. This triggers approximately ALL of Will's 'oh no shit's going baaaaaad' instincts. It's on the top of the list: 'weird machine activates and starts spitting out errors,' just above 'weird machine activates and starts making weird noises.' It just so happens that BOTH OF THESE OCCUR AT ONCE.

    Which is why Will's only a little bit surprised when the world suddenly turns into a blasted wasteland inhabited by some kind of terrible superpredator. He wasn't exactly EXPECTING that exact situation, but when you explore a lot of ruins, you just kind of learn to... brace for things like that.

    "This is just a simulation, ain't it!?" Will yells into the blasted desert air. "That means the thing doin' the simulating's still gotta be around here somewhere!" The Solano's light flickers and dies with a crack of electricity as it turns from a tool back into a weapon. "That big thing, it was around there, wasn't it? Dangit, hold that monster back!"

He takes aim, trying to judge whereabouts the thing in the middle of the room was before it vanished. It's not easy-- the world's sudden transformation is quite understandably disorienting, but Will puts forth his best effort.

Besides, it's not like he's got finite ammo or anything.

    "Firin' now! Clear!" One, two, three slugs of blue-white plasma erupt from the Solano's barrel, filling the dead and arid air with white noise and the distinct smell of ozone. If he DOES hit that computer, it's unlikely to appreciate the impact-- or the associated electromagnetic chaos that follows when a plasma containment field ruptures and spews rampant physics all over the place.
Fate Testarossa     Fate follows into the room. Though she TRIES to keep as out of the way as possible, that is no longer in the cards. Of course a trip into an unknown ruined facility would not be without danger, Fate is exposed to the truest, and most dangerous event of the night.

Social contact.

Moonlit Saber manifests behind her. It's purest reflex that has the girl almost wheeling around, Device at the ready. But when the hand sets on her shoulder that is halted entirely. Fate flinches. It is not out of surprise, but from the physical contact. Just the slightest tension the the entirety of her body that speaks silent volumes of how little she knows how to react to the touch.

Scarlet eyes glance up, curious, but hard and wary, she purses her lips at first. A name is given. it sounds foriegn and strange to her.

"... Fate Testarossa."

She gives her name back. But before the 'conversation' can go further, the room changes in entirety. The machine was intriguing, but when everything vanishes and becomes a barren wasteland comprised of death and wolves, she narrows her eyes.

'Simulation', the machine said. She doesn't join in the fray with the wolf.

"Bardiche."

"Sir."

"Find it."

"Already on it." The Device buzzes, several glowing golden spheres of mana spreading from the black axe in a search spell- one that will also try to just violently short the thing out with a surge of magical electrical energy once its location is confirmed.
Shielder     The glitched out wolf is fast. It's also murderous, and surrounded by what could best be described as a death field. There's no doubt a regular person would be dead within half a second of even SEEING the wolf. It's unpleasant, but not so dangerous to you all. Its direct capabilities are much more threatening.

    Narrowly missing its mark with Bedivere, it turns on a dime, facing Gawain. It glitches out, almost teleporting, the Servant's blade narrowly grazing the hardened fur of the wolf. It's like armor; even Galatine's fine fairy blade only barely nicks the wolf's fur, angering it.

    It flicks rapidly, its tail trying to slam into Gawain with ten tons of force in a heartbeat. It faces Nero now, and her blade slams into its mouth, caught between the beast's teeth as it bites down. A Noble Phantasm stands very little chance to outright shatter, but a normal sword would. The flames burn the wolf, but it doesn't seem to care. It lunges for Nero with its claws, holding her blade firmly in its mouth.

    Twin blades from Shirou impact his fur; one bounces off, no doubt cracking in the process. One gets stuck in the hardened fur, not drawing blood but definitely wounding the wolf. It's still glitchy, though, and hard to tell.

    Mashu shakes her head to Chat Noir. "I wasn't allowed to u-use this room. It's some kind of... i-image from the future. But it looks glitchy. I-I think SHIVA is breaking down. L-Like he said," she gestures towards Will, "Maybe destroying the lens or the mechanism around it will stop this!" Sadly, it's not IN the simulation, but it's still a plan.

    Will fires his cannon at where SHIVA used to be. Nothing explodes! It's not 'in' the simulation. But there's no doubt that reality there is the weakest. It glitches out, vaguely in the shape of the mechanism around the lens. Maybe there's a way to break through the simulation?

    Fate's Device observes fluctuations in the lens' magic that certainly indicates the simulation isn't stable, especially at that location.

    Sadly, glitches aren't JUST playing in your favor here.

    Visual artifacts in the distance start going crazy, and begin forming something absolutely massive. Something several times the size of Mount Everest and then some. It's humanoid. It's pitch black. Vaguely gaseous, but also solid. Like black light, kept in a containment field. It begins approaching, one quaking step at a time.

    A long arm reaches out, slowly, shadowing the sun. It threatens to come down and crush absolutely everything, and it's too big to just dodge.
Sir Bedivere   Bedivere lands hard on the barren earth, grunting as he takes the impact on an elbow. Better to suffer a fracture than to let those murderous jaws clash shut around him. He's fairly certain that they have enough force behind them to puncture his armour, and he himself lacks any conveniently supernatural defenses.

  If that thing gets ahold of him, it'll be over quickly.

  Swallowing, Bedivere hauls himself to his feet, whirling his sword in a vertical arc, down below his wrist, and then catching it upright again in a practised motion meant not so much to show off as to catch the attenion of, distract, and hypnotize his target. Steel flashes in the glitchy desert sun.

  "Stay away from its jaws, brother," he warns Gawain. False sand crunches underfoot with slightly garbled sounds. "My thanks for the rescue, brother. Keep it busy, and I will see if it has some manner of weakness to be found." If the others don't take care of it first, that is. In the event they have to be here for a while, best start working on a way to take the wolf down. "Lord God! Its fur is like plate armour! But where it is short, behind the head, I wonder if it would be vulnerable there?"

  Once it's distracted with trying to eat Gawain, Bedivere lunges for the creature, dealing a few testing strokes to the back of its neck, looking for a place that might offer less resistance than the others. That's all he'll do, though, regardless of whether he finds it or not -- staying close to that thing is bad for his health, and if its fur is that hardened and reinforced to be as a coat of steel, then the wolf's fur could probably be used like /needles/.

  Lunging away, he glances back to Gawain, quickly. Bedivere is breathing hard, but not yet winded, waiting to see if his strikes had any effect. Finding a digital jugular to sever would be really convenient right about now. Yep.
Ladybug It takes Ladybug a moment, a long moment, when confrnted with PANELS to realize something yet more staggering.

Mashu - Shielder - thought Chat Noir was /cool/. To be fair, Chat hadn't engaged in AWFUL HORRIBLE PUNS yet. But... Still. From under her coat, there is a look of sheer incredulity that goes beyond mere 'r-really?' and into the realms of pure gobsmackedness. She's Seen things. Heard things. Such terrible, awful things. His pet names, for example, being the vector for awful cat puns!

AND THEN THEY ARE IN ~THE DATABASE~

Chat Noir engages in combat, with the others, calling out for the HERO OF PARIS to DO HER THING!

"Just a second!" Comes the muffled cry of Ladybug as she... continues stripping out of her snow-clothes, because it went from 'the frigid north' to 'the goddamn Sahara' in the snap of some fingers. And, by the time her coat is off... The beast is tangled and handled? Sort of?

No, it's still being awful. Swinging her yo-yo about her head, she aims to tangle it up its legs, using her hands to manipulate the wire nearly supernaturally. "The bigger they are...!"

Yeah just ignore the fact she spent long ticks stripping her coat and boots off. She is a HERO, and the DEFENDER OF PARIS!
Gawain Gawain gets smashed back with that tail, bouncing back into the sand. Normally, that'd hurt him pretty bad, but his sun boost leaves him just bruised and battered. He rises to his feet, and is about to tackle the wolf again, when the /massive colossus/ appears. This thing is far outside their weight class, and would probably squash pretty much all of them if it got close enough. So, there's only one solution. "EVERYONE, STAY BACK! I'll handle it! Take out the wolf!" Gawain draws Excalibur Galatine, as it shines with the light of the sun. He steps forward to face the beast, as he speaks. His words reverberate with incredibly powerful magic.

"Excalibur..."

Gawain tosses his sword into the air, as it begins to spin. It begins to glow with an incredible heat, as a miniature sun, radiating incredible heat, appears at the peak of the throw. Gawain's expression is firm and serious as a massive magical circle forms centered around him, Excalibur Galatine landing back in his hand.

"GALATINE!"

He slashes his sword in front of him, as a massive wave of blistering fire slams forward in front of him. It is massive, capable of striking an entire charging army. When the fire wave impacts, it EXPLODES, flame blasting everywhere with the heat of the sun. Gawain takes a breath as the magical circle dies down, before he steels himself to charge towards the beast. If this doesn't finish it...he will.
Emiya Shirou SERIOUSLY?! All of the Servants and his own weapons' efforts are just BOUNCING OFF of that thing?!

    Shirou hardly has time to be amazed. Unfortunately, no chance to answer Chat Noir either. Because, uh....

    A monster of all monsters just appeared on the horizon. "Oh COME ON!" for REAL? They've already got a MURDERBEAST here to deal with, one that almost has him frozen in terror. Now what. just NOW WHAT?!

    Things get frantic, but Gawain steps up to the plate. Which leaves Shirou standing tall with teeth clenched hard and frustration building.

    Focusing hard, he extends a hand towards the beast with fingers stretched apart...

    "I am the bone of my sword." The words are spoken fiercely, but with great focus! Magical energy flares from Shirou's body, painting itself into the surrounding air. WEAPONS swiftly appear. A good ten of them.

    Shining weapons reeking of glory and legend. The sword in the stone, the blade of Beowolf. Caladbolg, Amalthea's treasured longsword, Nero's own Aestus Estus. They're nestled among a number of other odd blades. The boy brings his arm down as if swinging them all, and...

    ... they fly through the air. A rain of precious weapons, headed for the beast's side.
Nero      Bedivere managed to get away without beng eaten. Good.

     What /wasn't/ good was the fact that this damn wolf was putting up a hell of a fight. Nero's sword is grabbed in it's teeth and held firmly. The flames continue to burn, but it stands strong, with claws descending for her. "Kh...!" Nero decides to take the path of least resistance.

     She lets go of Aestus Estus and leaps back, just in time to have a massive claw barely miss cleaving her in twain, and instead, grazing past her front. But even that is enough to cause considerable damage at that size.

     Blood is drawn as skin and cloth tear, but Nero bites down and remains strong, skidding back on one knee right by Gawain. She sees that he's about to unleash his Noble Phantasm and stands quickly, leaping aside again to give the knight space.

     In the meantime, she reaches forward, remanifesting her sword into ger grasp and away from the wolf's mouth. Her gaze is drawn upwards toward the utterly gigantic black shadow reaching down for them at this point, as a wave of blazing flame billows outward. Excalibur Galatine. "Hmph. This truly is an arduous trial!" She states, gripping her blade and raising it high.

     "Those of you who are no doubt searching for a method to this madness, I sincerely hope you have found it!"

     Aestus Estus alights with flame anew. And she bursts forward after Galatine clears up, aiming to add some more on top in the wake of that powerful technique.

     "ROSA ICTHYS!"

     FWOOSH! She lets loose a blazing cleave of her blade as she speeds right by the massive wolf, trailing wisps of red prana in her wake.
Chat Noir Chat Noir goes from distracted to moderately panicked when the /thing/ appears that looks as if it can crush the whole lot of them, and immediately moves to do so. He actually has a solution to this-- two-- but one is probably just a delaying tactic and the other would render him helpless very shortly. A hurried look is cast towards Ladybug, who busies herself with engaging the wolf.

A voice calls from nearby, claiming the colossus as his opponent. Issuing a relieved sigh, he turns his attention towards the wolf. Alright... alright, how does he even begin to help deal with that thing. Ladybug's going for a snare, so what can he do with his batons, or staves as the case may be? Hitting it directly seems no good, it's proving plenty tough against all this other stuff.

An answer trickles in from the Adrien side of his brain that is usually asleep.

He charges forward and JUMPS, whipping his baton out and beginning to extend it only once he's in mid-air. The tip of the staff is angled towards the wolf's back. In theory, if Chat Noir were attempting to use the area the wolf is occupying for simple movement, this would simply be an effective angle to vault from.

Instead of vaulting Chat just keeps pushing straight downwards as if thrusting a spear from overhead. He doesn't expect or intend to actually pierce anything, simply leveraging the baton's ability to extend to an arbitrary length to give it enough additional mass to try and force the wolf to stagger and fall into Ladybug's snare.
William Pauwel "Tch," Will clicks his tongue. The thing is here, but it's NOT. There's some kind of weird... Weird space-time stuff going on. Will doesn't know how that stuff works! The fact that it's magic makes it EVEN WORSE, because he sure as shit can't wrap his head around any degree of mystical mumbo-jumbo. "The thing's in some kind of weird... Here-but-not-here bubble! I can't touch i-- uh."

Shadow. A giant shadow. A shadow so large that it nearly blots out the sun. So big that it seems to swallow up a full fourth of the sky.

That's... That's not fair.

Even less fair, though, is EXCALIBUR GALATINE. The weapon's terrible light actually BURNS AN IMAGE INTO WILL'S CORNEA. "Augh!" He yells, averting his eyes from the incredible flame. How is he able to use something like THAT in the middle of a buried laboratory? They're not there anymore, obviously. Or rather, they are, but they're not. Maybe that's the trick. Not to overcome the computer's weird space-time schtick, but the room's! Of course, none of this is helping right now.

He needs more information.

And so he flicks his visor down over his eyes. MAESTRO comes online with a flush of blue-green light. Will's eyes disappear into the glow as a whole host of statistics and information sweep over his field of vision. "Alright. Just gotta see more clearly--" he mutters, cycling through his available settings before settling on the one denoted 'electro/magnetic scan.'

Then he fires again at the computer's approximate location, glancing around it to see if there's something, ANYTHING that might give him an answer.

And if not, he's got a whole bunch of other visual modes to go through. Maybe one of those could shed some light...?
Moonlit Saber "Fate. That's a cute name." For now, the silver-haired Saber doesn't press the conversation. She just didn't want the little girl to be stuck all by herself. Loneliness can be a terrible thing, even more so when it's preventable.

"I do not think I will be able to be of direct assistance here, but..." One hand falls to the hilt of her sword, then hesitates. No, her own Noble Phantasm would hurt more than help right now, but perhaps she does have one trick of use, given the terrain.

Saber's hand drops to her second sword, and she casts a quick glance to Kazusa, then another to Fate. "I saw in a program on the television that computers slow down when too much is moving on the screen at once. It was a documentary." She grips the handle of Kusanagi firmly and draws it out, holding the short sword in front of her. Soft words spill from her lips as she murmurs the full name of the blade. "Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven, Kusanagi no Tsurugi... the Grass-Cutting Sword of Valor. There may be no grass here, but..."

Saber swings out the blade horizontally, and a great gust of wind whips up, sending a great deal of sand flying into the air and swirling around overhead. A slow gesture with her blade directs the winds, and the cloud of sand spreads out, flying in a loose formation. Who knows, she may even find the computer system this way! But she's mostly wondering if it can handle so many moving objects!
Kazusa Ujikane     Through all of her fear, the siren call of nerdery manages to bring Kazusa to some modicum of sense. "...o-oh! That's... that's actually a really good idea, Saber! Good job!" Thumbsup. She's still staying behind her Servant for now, with one hand near her purse in case it comes to the nuclear option. Or rather, the thunderbolt option. Or something. It's a panic button in card form, basically.
Fate Testarossa Poor Fate has absolutely no idea how to respond to Kaguya-hime in the least. Especially when she's told her name is cute. What does she say to that?

"... My mother gave it to me."

Technically not true, but the child doesn't know that, and there are larger issues at hand.

Bardiche finds an anomaly. SHIVA probably had not moved, but one can never tell when shunted into a technomagical simulation. Knowing it's there means the best possible course of action would be to deal with the source, not the symptoms.

The symptoms being that killer wolf and... A terrible darkness, living and malevolent, blotting out the sky. Fate's eyes widen slightly. But she martials herself well; not displaying an ounce of the sudden fear flooding her bloodstream cold. The situation is black and white. Deal with SHIVA, or die; nothing in the middle. Stop it or never have the chance to see mother smile.

She raises her Device, the head of the black axe swivelling back and locking with a smooth ratcheting sound, golden light flaring back from the head of the weapon.

"GLAIVE FORM SET UP: Sealing mode" Bardiche announces, bands of gold forming a targetting path. There is no hesitation, she just acts.

"Fire."

"Yes sir."

Aiming for the anomaly sector of where the simulation is the least stable, around the lens, her aim is surprisingly steady despite the almost imperceptible shake in her hand as Bardiche unleases a pillar of golden electrical mana.
Shielder     Injuries? Oh, they are definitely real. You're going to hurt and bleed here. This is the real world! ... okay, no, it's a simulation, but as injuries go it's as real as the real world. At least it sure FEELS like it.

    Bedivere tests the wolf's defenses. The neck is a bit softer, but still hard as steel. His strikes aren't without purchase, though; the tip of his blade digs in, and in response the wolf howls, its fur extending, predictably, like needles outward. Fast. Very fast. Even with his lead leaping back, they'll likely catch Bedivere!

    Luckily, a follow-up attack won't immediatly be a problem. Ladybug's yo-yo ties the wolf up. Its movements are slowed-- but oh no! It is still advancing! It forces itself forward, dragging Ladybug along with it as it advances towards Nero. Slower, though!

    And slower proves to be useful. It may have been fast enough to avoid Shirou's projectiles otherwise. The precious blades pierce the beast's hide, finally, but still draw no blood. What oozes out is... well, it's glitched. Whatever it is, the simulation can't render it. And this distracts the beast, long enough for Nero to get a real good slice in. More of that glitchy whatever oozes out of the wolf, but it still isn't dead. Still bound, though.

    It turns to glare at Shirou, but then Chat Noir's staff slams into the back of its head and forces it to the ground. The wolf appears paralyzed for the moment, under the weight of the infinistick. All it can manage is a thunderous HOWL, which attempts to strike EVERYONE like a very minor version of Power Word: Kill.
Shielder     Meanwhile, SIR GAWAIN unleashes the Sun on the massive being. Its arm is oblierated, and the black giant stumbles back several kilometers with one step. It is silent, absolutely silent, and one-armed now. In the gaping wound where its arm used to be, a core shines like a star deep within the being's chest. The ground rumbles and quakes again, for all. Its other hand raises.

    It's like a weapons platform, meant to wage war against whole worlds. Rays of black light rain from its arm, absolutely obliterating vast areas of the sandy region. And now the rays of light are headed for the group! If only there were a number of Sabers present, with enough agility to deflect them all!

    MEANWHILE, Saber causes MASSIVE LAG where SHIVA used to be. This causes William's attempts to interact with it to make SHIVA appear, for a split second. But it's enough for Fate to get a good lock onto it. The sealing spell slams into the computer. The simulation slows down... but it continues. The sealing failed? No, it's more like... you'll need another. One wasn't enough. But SHIVA is disappearing again!

    And what's worse, a third threat appears. RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GROUP, glitches gather to form a new entity. Two, actually. One is a massive robotic being, gold and black, with clawed arms and a metallic cape of sorts. It's Egyptian, judging by the sigils all over it. In one of its hands it holds a woman, her appearance completely garbled by the simulation. The robot doesn't attack, but the woman suddenly raises one arm, sending a dozen razor-wire whips towards Kasuza, from every direction.
Sir Bedivere   Maybe probing the beast's defenses was a bad idea. Steel-like fur ripples and catches his armour as he throws himself away from the blades. Circling back around, he backs away from the beast and--

  --and widen, focusing on something beyond the wolf. That would be the golden flare of Caliburn, arcing through the air out of nowhere. Some part of him had forgotten Shirou could do that, and it's extremely unsettling to see Caliburn whole like that. Something twists in his gut at the sight of it, glittering, on its downward arc.

  He shakes his head as though to clear it--

  --and sinks to a knee with a grunt when the creature howls its hideous aura of malice into being. That physically hurts, like he'd taken straight poison to the veins. Extra special fun is that the ground is now wavering beneath his feet. He staggers, having to make a grab for his sword on the way down.

  Bedivere is back on his feet in a moment, though, seeming to make a choice. There are enough of them against that foe; they should be able to bring it down more quickly. At least, that's the reasoning.

  With a shockingly loud and resonant battle-cry, the soft-spoken Bedivere lunges for the wolf's chest, seeking to plunge his sword into the glitching creature's throat. Or right into his jaws, too, that'll also work.

  His eyes flick to the giant and its exposed core, then back to the wolf, even as he circles the dangerous predator. "The giant, brother!" he throws back over his shoulder at Gawain. "Destroy that core! We will hold this one!"
Moonlit Saber "That seems to have worked. Perhaps if I do it again..." Saber pauses, head immediately snapping to the side as she senses danger. "...Fate, I will have to leave this to you."

Bodily harm is not an issue for Saber, but for her Master... Saber is intensely protective of Kazusa, and seeing anyone target the girl directly draws her attention. Kusanagi is already out, so the silver-haired Saber swings it downward, sending a cutting wave of wind toward those razor threads to disrupt their flight.

Silver hair flutters behind her as she darts in to the source of the attack, Kusanagi shining in the sun(s?) as she strikes at the strangely unrendered woman sitting on the robot.
Gawain Unleashing his Noble Phantasm drains a /lot/ out of Gawain. If his Master wasn't one of the greatest spellcasters of all time, he'd probably have trouble fighting right now. He's exhausted, but once he realizes the giant isn't dead, and is unleashing nuclear hell, he steals himself. The wolf's cry is painful, and staggers him for a moment, but there's something on the line here. This giant is dangerous, and could kill everyone. So he'll kill it first.

As nuclear fire rains down on him, Sir Gawain dashes through it. He swerves out of the way, cocking his head to the side as one blast almost hits him head on and then proceeds to explode behind him. Once he closes in on the giant, he leaps onto its leg in a massive jump, dashing up its side, before leaping onto the giant's other arm, the one firing nuclear rain. Gawain ducks and weaves through the rays of black, as he closes in for just the right moment...right when Nero strikes at the core.

And then Gawain leaps off the arm, blade first, as it is wreathed in fire. He plunges his sword with all his strength straight into the mechanical core, hoping to impale it, no matter even if the creature falls, or if Nero's strike hits him as well. Right now, the only thing that matters is to win.
Chat Noir The problem with using an extending staff to be up in the air is in fact that you're up in the air. Chat Noir's well away from the wolf's howl-- it doesn't reach him at all. But do you know what he's /not/ well away from? It's the lasers. In fact he's closer to the dark lasers than anybody else is, and he's simply not prepared for them because he took it on faith that the Sun Knight would deal with the colossus.

Up above the battlefield, one of those terrific explosions finds its mark at the top of that staff, flashing violently. The staff SLAMS down towards the ground from the force of the explosion, sending Chat Noir skipping along the sand like a stone on water, his whole form smoking and charred. He lands in a heap a few yards away from Ladybug, and remains still for a few gut-churning moments before he groans and starts pushing himself up.

The overturned staff retracts when he places his hand against it, but apart from that and recovering he doesn't seem to have the energy or presence of mind to do anything else.
Nero      Nero speeds to a stop, and then spins in the sand a few times, seeing the combination of blows being rained down upon the wolf. "....!" She winces at the bloodcurdling howl, stumbling just a bit, but staying standing, in defiance with Aestus Estus gripped ever strongly. "..Hmph. There are enough to deal with that one." She looks up at the colossus high above, narrowing her eyes. "Thrice I Welcome The Setting Sun." She mutters, red prana swirling around the Servant as she spread her feet and took a stance.

     Her sword, glittering red and black, is held back, and the embers burn. It's gradual at first, but rapidly builds up to a swirl of raging flame that spirals around the Roman Emperor in a tempest. She glares up at the very core of that shadowy giant. Her feet dig into the ground.

     And then she launches.

     With a burst of speed that sends her rocketing upwards at impossible velocities, Nero surges through the skies, Aestus Estus reared back, bathed in roaring fire that dances across the surface of the blade. She veers this way and that, weaving through black energy shots, most barely grazing past her form as she soars. And then she strikes.

     "Laus Saint Claudius!"

     What follows is a blindingly fast sweep of the blade. ...then nothing. Nothing. ...Nothing. FWOOSH. A brilliant rose of scarlet lights the sky up as it blossoms out from the space in which Nero cut, blooming outwards in a beautiful, but destructive wave of flame.
Kazusa Ujikane     For a brief moment, Kazusa is horrified enough to freeze in her tracks.

    For an instant after that, she is sorely tempted to reach down into her pack and just toss herself into The Beast without hesitating. It would mean problems fro the rest of the mission, it would leave her completely unconscious afterward, but... it would let her deal with the horrid fear of this place coupled with the strings bearing down on her.

    But Saber protects her. Saber unleashes a blast of wind to disrupt the threads coming at her from all directions. It's a moment of protection that brings immense relief; and at the same time a pang of guilt that she's little more than a civvie to be protected in a situation like this. Once again, the Beast tempts... but no, she doesn't know what else might happen.
William Pauwel     Will is an adventurer- an explorer! His field of expertise is in the disabling of traps, the repairing of broken machines, and the accidentally getting flustered by ladies who may or may not be at least part robot! This whole magical nonsense is so far outside his wheelhouse that it's almost laughable-- but he's here because it's a ruin, and ruins are where Chasers are supposed to thrive!

    Just, most ruins are not full of nigh-invincible, space-time distorted supercomputers capable of creating HORRIBLE GIANT MONSTERS of all kinds. Also, most ruins do not have lightning mages who unleash electric attacks RIGHT WHEN HE'S SCANNING ELECTRICAL IMPULSES.

    "AUUUUGH!" Will screams as his eyes are scorched AGAIN. Fortunately, his visor has ways of compensating for that kind of thing. Unfortunately, it REALLY DOES NOT HELP. Especially not when there's other things to worry about, like death lasers from on high, and a keening scream that seems to shake him to his VERY FOUNDATIONS. Will's voice breaks at Primate Murder's howl, the Chaser dropping to a knee at the soul-hewing noise.

    He's an explorer and an engineer. He's not a mage. There is nothing in him that can resist that kind of attack. And so he goes down, writhing into the dust. No amount of armor can resist Primate Murder.

But there is something on him that utterly lacks a soul.

    The barrel of his weapon pulses once, then twice. The Solano burns with its pale, blue-white light as Will's arm spasms vaguely in the direction of the computer. Deep within the device, Ancient machinery comes alive. A waveform collapses. The quantum foam spasms and pulses as the Solano's barrel disgorges a strange, rippling blast.
ut then... then Will goes still.

Is... Is he breathing?
Emiya Shirou The group seems to be doing well. Keeping the beast too busy to counter-attack meaningfully is a very good strategy! But just as he's pondering his next move...

    That HORRIBLE NOISE strikes Shirou, bowling him over backwards. AGONY flies through his veins and mind. He spits out blood, staggering back and dropping to one knee. But he's not dead. Not yet, anyways.

    And... if that wasn't bad enough... a THIRD FREAKY-CREATURE begins to appear, whilst DOOMSDAY LASERS rain from the heavens?

    THIS IS A SIMULATION?! A SIMULATION OF /WHAT/ exactly? Armageddon by insanity?!

    "We'd better end this soon!" Oh well. Better focus on one thing at a time. For him, that means... the beast.

    Gathering all of the force he can muster into his bones and muscles, Shirou SPRINGS forth across the sands and holds out a hand. Magical energy sizzles through his circuits, potent enough to glow luminescent through his skin in freakish patterns.

    There's really only one thing he's got that might knock this creature for a loop and bring it down. The safest place right now might well by right next to that beast, as it's effective cover against the lasers. Kiiiiiinda.

    A shape forms in Shirou's outstretched hand. Filmy and translucent, but filling in swiftly in a flare of prana. It's... KINDA sword-shaped, but seems carved rather than wrought. Carved of hard, thick, marble. The weapon must weigh at least as much as he does, being as thick as his legs, and considerably longer. In all honesty, there should be no way he can HOLD the thing. It should off-balance him so terribly that he faceplants into the sand.

    But instead, he charges with that rock-sword straight at the fell beast.

    And his mind's focusing hard with every step. Calculating arcs and targets, readying his body for a manuever that should not be possible... but...

    "Nine Lives..."

    Shirou goes skidding the rest of the way over the sand, swinging the heavy bladegeon with all his might for the thing's maw-

    "--BLADE WORKS!!"

    Maw. Left leg. Right eye. Glitched left flank. And far more locations that by all rights shouldn't be in easy reach. His swings fly so freakishy fast and with such rapidity that tornado-like winds whip up, the crash of air pressure booming like thunder and scattering sand in an explosive wave every direction!

    It's like taking a pummeling from a broken rock drill, all things considered. At the very least it should knock that beast for a loop, he hopes!
Gawain As Nero's ultimate technique slams forward, burning brightly, it engulfs Gawain as he strikes. He burns painfully along with the core, but he continues his attack, as the flame surrounds him. He's almost like a phoenix right now, and for a burning person, it's pretty cool looking!
Fate Testarossa After the initial sealing spell fails, Bardiche snaps back two pronged ports. The Device vents s long hiss of steam; bleeding off the accumulated magical heat.

For a simulation this certainly feels real enough. But the small blonde sets her lips into a thin line. Her only acknowledgment to Kaguya-hime is a soft grunt. Fate is fine on her own, anyway.

The massive black figure, is joined by another terrible thing dreamed up by SHIVA, but Fate's focus is on the device. Still aiming for the cause and relying on the others to handle the symptoms long enough for everyone to... Not die.

Will goes down. She's forced to dodge. The wave of dark energies lancing down in those terrible waves as they are forces Fate to halt her aiming and on the defensive, jinking and swerving at violent speeds, barely grazing some of the more dangerously close encounters, leaving her Barrier Jacket damaged and tattered. Though Will falls, Solano's discharge gives her the opening she needs.

"Fire. Again." She commands as soon as she can take aim, leaving Bardiche to calculate the shot fire her in another torrential wave of mana.
Ladybug     As she stands her ground, her costumed feet incapable of gripping onto SAND, Ladybug has... problems. But she tightens in on the yo-yo line, yanking with all her might! As she really torques her body, that awful death howl rings out, and she loses the grip on her line, instead clapping her hands on her ears and taking a spill into the sandy part, her face - one of the only 'vulnerable' parts of her red costumed body grinding into the all-too-real hot gritty particles of sand, as she pratfalls.

THANKFULLY IT EATS LARGE ATTACKS AND STUFF!

Sitting up on her knees and pulling back her yo-yo, Ladybug spits sand out of her mouth for a few moments, the ringing in her ears and the oncoming full-on migrane pounding her head. "What sort of... howl was that? And those other sounds... Are these your Miraculous powers?" Ladybug calls out, having luckily been fairly far from the dark colossus or it's laserbeam spam. UNLIKE CHAT! Go figure.

"... Where's the way out?"
Shielder     The wolf, without Chat Noir to pin it down, is finally able to raise its head again; but before it can, there were those long moments where it couldn't. Bedivere's blade plunges into the beast, in a fashion that should definitely be lethal to any living creature. But all there is here is a still living, breathing, and angry wolf, with a blade clean through its head, at least until Bedivere, with care, backs away to circle the beast.

    There's no blood, on his sword.

    Nero and Gawain make their way to the giant, cutting through his attacks (and protecting the group) as they combine their powers to strike at the core. Gawain's blade plants into a star, a ball of fire and light, exposed by Nero's cutting power. There is a another quake, but this time it's not the ground. Something pulses out from the core, and the heat rises dramatically in the whole area. The core is going critical-- maybe planting a sword in it wasn't the best thing one could do. It's going to, literally, go from star to supernova.

    Saber's blade blocks the whips from the woman. She raises her other hand calmly, even as the Saber dashes straight for her. The massive robot protects her, Saber's blade planting into its armor, while the woman completes her spell. The whips become visible, hundreds of them. They curl and grow, gathering into countless humanoid figures. An army! They're all difficult to distinguish, shapes that might have belonged to important people a long time ago, but now were just records for her to use against others. They all turn to look at the Saber, whose blade is getting sucked into the robot's plating.

    Shirou wields the adjusted axe-sword against the wolf. He finds his blows don't slice through as easily as they should, especially as the beast struggles to rise even with Ladybug still binding it. The first several blows smash into hardened fur without piercing, but eventually wear the beast down. He cuts! And cuts, and cuts, tearing the wolf open, but not in multiple pieces.

    But it stands. It rises and stands, defiantly staring at Bedivere and Shirou. 'If looks could kill' might be a bit too literal in this case, the wolf ready to assert his dominance with just another leap.

    Yet, none of those things come to pass.

    William's final shot makes SHIVA fully visible, straining the simulation to keep its computer out of it beyond what it can handle. Fate's spell consumes the mechanism, the blast of magic leaving the lens component, SHIVA itself, bound in golden chains, its magic shut down. And with its magic, the simulation halts.

    Primate Murder never presses a counter-attack.
    Type-Jupiter never goes critical.
    Dust of Osiris, protected by Hermes, never brings forth her army.

    As reality returns to the blue room containing the now-sealed (and badly damaged and cracked) SHIVA, injuries heal as well. The safeties were on. It doesn't prevent injury, it just reverts users of the simulator to their pre-simulation state when they end the simulation. YOU WERE NEVER IN ANY DANGER. There's no magic on this Earth that could possibly simulate those beings in an actually harmful environment.

    Mashu slumps to the ground, still incoherently babbling and shaking. That was a lot for her. She felt useless and powerless. There's no power in the room now, though; no risk of it happening again. Still, the gleam of the chunk of shield planted in the wall is still there. It's in the next room over, so there's that.
Kazusa Ujikane     Saber is in danger. That strange woman-robot-thing with the monowires is trying to eat her sword and at the same time conjure forth an army, while the heat of the place begins ramping up immensely. More than her own peril, it's her Servant's that finally galvanizes Kazusa.


    When the simulation comes apart, she's got The Beast in her hand and held halfway out. Blink. Blink blink. ...Blush. "O-oh. Aheh... I-I guess you guys had it handled." Sheepishly, she returns the card to her purse. And then immediately drops to her knees as well, utterly spent from the sheer oppressive panic.
Sir Bedivere   There's no blood on his sword. Why is there no blood on his sword? Bedivere risks a quick look of incomprehension at the blade in his hand, before returning his attention to the giant wolf. He can't afford to look away from the creature now. He'll get bitten in half if he doesn't stay sharp.

  Before he can prepare a lethal stroke, though, the illusion freezes and slowly returns to the blue room it had been before. Shaken, Bedivere looks left and then right, as though to ensure that there aren't in fact any other things waiting to kill them. He returns his sword to its scabbard.

  Mashu is on the ground, and in the span of a heartbeat he's on one knee beside her, a hand resting on her shoulder. "Lady Mashu. Please be strong." There's concern in his voice, and he flicks a glance up, to where the shield gleams from just behind the doorway.

  He'd better retrieve it for her before something /else/ tries to eat them all.

  "Please, stay. I will retrieve your shield for you."

  Poor fool. He doesn't know what it is, yet, even as he walks towards the doorway.
Emiya Shirou Shirou drops to his knees as the simulation comes to an abrupt, jarring end. Gasping and grunting, and wringing out the arm he just used. Rather strange finding himself uninjured, but his body's still reeling from a bit of shock, havin gone through all that.

    "That was a simulation? Of WHAT? All the nightmares in the world?!"

    The sword-magus is still trying to comprehend just WHAT they fought. He's never heard of beings of such power and scale that they could outmatch multiple Servants...
William Pauwel The simulation comes undone! Ancient technology (and Midchildan binding magic) proves its mettle once again! Damage is undone, people are healing wounds and recovering nicely.

Will is... Actually still lying there, unconscious.

At least his shoulders are moving, so he's probably breathing.
Gawain The core goes super critical. Gawain's blade is stuck firmly in it. He knows it...he's going to die. He closes his eyes and smiles, glad that atleast he could save the others. He gives his final words over the radio, and then he waits.

And waits.

And waits. It takes Bedivere telling him to open his eyes for him to realize that not only is he not dead, but the simulation ended. He blinks several times, and then smiles even wider. He's alive! Gawain's aliiive! But before he parades, he decides to go hug Shirou again, tightly, because they're alive. And then he decides to follow Sir Bedivere, so he can hug him too. "We're alive! Thank the lord!" Gawain will try and just tightly wrap his arms around Bedivere, forgetting once again that Bedivere is a mere man. He might also catch a glimpse of the shield at this time!
Shielder     Bedivere pats Mashu, and she shakes her head. "I came here because I wanted to be able to help all of you... I couldn't do anything to help you... even as a Servant, I'm worthless."

    She forgot she could transform, yes.
    She's new. Give her some time.

    Bedivere strides forward, though; a good kick on the door knocks it off its hinges, into the next hallway. It's back to a ninety degrees inclination now, and this hallway is a straight drop down. The shield is a few feet away from the door, near extensive traces of fighting. Sword cuts in the walls might remind Bedivere of Caladbolg, for sure.

    Though surely he only has eyes for the shield, now. The massive shield, bigger than he is, shaped like a celtic cross, adorned with fairy runes. He couldn't mistake it for anything else.

    All the while Mashu weakly answers Shirou. "T-The end of humanity... S-SHIVA was used to predict... try to predict, every way humans might become extinct. Hundreds of them. Those must have been some of them."
Chat Noir Chat Noir is still struggling to his feet when the simulation winds down and, suddenly, he's a lot less Kentucky Fried Cat. He looks down at himself, surprised but pleased by this turn of events. He'd been about an inch away from using his Cataclysm on the simulation itself, but he's glad it didn't come to that. He wouldn't want to be trapped in these circumstances with his timer counting down.

"Most of them don't look like superheroes to me, bugaboo." The remark towards Ladybug is offered in passing, because he's doing something else. What is he doing?

Collecting her discarded winter clothes, actually. When he turns back up, her boots are held in one hand, her gloves are hanging out of his pockets, and the coat is slung over his shoulder. Chat thrusts the boots into Ladybug's hands, and then opens the coat for her courteously. What comes out of his mouth next is a billion times more suggestive than it actually is in his brain because he's a model, and this is a real skill that he possesses.

"Magnificent as always, My Lady, but you need to work on your disrobing speed."

This is such a trivial notion to Chat that he doesn't actually pay it any mind afterwards. While waiting for Ladybug to take her coat back, he directs towards the rest of the group: "What do you mean by Servant? All of you have very different powers compared to what we've seen before. The physical stuff not so much, but the sun-out-of-a-sword stuff is wild. We get our abilities from our Miraculous."
Nero      Nero has unleashed her ULTIMATE ART.

     ...One of them anyway.

     THE WORLD IS SCARLET. GAWAIN IS A PHOENIX. THE END HAS COME.

     And then the simulation is over. Nero comes to stand back on the floor of the ruined lab. ...She disperses Aestus Estus. And then she starts laughing. "Mhmhmhm! My beautiful arts have saved the day! Ah ah aha ha ha ha!"

     Ah, but she notices Will is out cold. Oh dear. She kneels down and hauls the boy up to his feet. "Up! Up! No rest yet! Awaken thyself, commoner! You surely cannot let merely this much defeat you!" She thrusts an arm out to indicate...the world. "After all, the Myriad Universes await your ascension!"

     Nero, not helping.
Fate Testarossa The... Simulation ends.

The quivering of Fate's hands do not.

For a long moment it was a very terrifying instance of literally thinking she was going to die.

"Sir." Bardiche pings. She's too busy breathing heavily to hear the Device. "Sir." Bardiche nudges her again, and the blonde is functional again.

"Mn..."

That shield is tempting. But there are too many known Unionites present to even attempt it. So Fate goes for the next best thing. While people are still breathless and reeling...

She walks right up to SHIVA, reaches up with her staff...

And it flickers, condensing into a golden glow, the core is pulled from place, condensed, and absorbed into the golden gem of her axe.

"INTERNALIZE: Anomalous computer." Bardiche announces.

Before she shifts her aim, down at Will.

"Wake up."

The jolt is roughly on par with a standard taser.

Beyond this she... Starts walking toward the closest exit with purpose.
Gawain As Chat asks about Servants, and mentions his own technique, Gawain stops hugging everyone and turns proudly towards him. "I am Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, it is a pleasure to meet you! A Servant is a hero of legend who has access to great power, based off, well, their legend! We've been summoned by magi to fight each other but most of us here are all from different worlds! That sword was Excalibur Galatine, the great sister blade of Excalibur!" He just feels really, really glad he's alive, so he's using that time to, well, talk. "What is a Miraculous?"
Moonlit Saber Kusanagi sticks in the robot's armor, and Saber braces a foot against it to keep from losing her grip on her blade. The initial attack was avoided, that's all that is important to her.

Of course, there are now these other things to deal with. The silver-haired Saber flicks her gaze toward the figures forming from threads, though it's not a look of fear in her eyes. She smiles serenely as she sees all of them turning their attention on her.

"Come, then. Do your worst."

Saber begins to feed prana into her sword, preparing for a cut to break it free from the armor... when suddenly it disappears, and she falls the remaining distance to the floor, landing with a quite unladylike thump. From the look on her face, she seems more upset at -this- than at the prospect of having to fight an unknown army.

Letting out a sigh, sshe dusts off her kimono, first looking to make sure that Kazusa is unhurt. After confirming this with a brief nod, she glances toward where she left Fate. And then toward where Fate seems to be sneaking off.

Though she doesn't discorporate, Saber does stride quickly toward the girl. "It looks like your magic helped a great deal in stopping all this, Fate."
Sir Bedivere   There comes a sound from Bedivere much like a growl when Gawain advances on him to try and give him a hug. He does not like being touched, and will in fact take a step away from Gawain, refusing to allow him to fall into the Sun Knight's grip. He ought to remember; Bedivere had coldly shrugged off people getting into his personal space even in Camelot.

  Besides, the shield is right there. The transformation from level ground to a ninety-degree hallway is a little disconcerting, but he rights himself, stumbling slightly.

  This is where they'd fought, he reflects, brushing the leather pad of his gauntlet against the scars in the wall. After a moment his gauntleted fingers settle around the edge of the shield, metal ticking against the cold, hard material of a shard of the Round Table itself.

  The instant he feels that familiar resistance of that specific piece of timber, Bedivere's eyes snap wide. The breath leaves him in a rush as he stares, wide-eyed, at this tangible piece of his own past, and the past of many dozens of other men, and Arturia.

  "Lord God," he whispers, prying it out of its indentation with a grunt.

  Slowly, solemnly, he returns with the shield, kneeling and presenting it to Mashu with all the formality and solemnity due a Knight of the Round Table.
William Pauwel nero plz

    What does get Will back on his feet (or at least knocks him out of his unconscious state) is BEING HIT BY A GODDAMN TASER. Or rather, magic roughly equivalent to a taser. "WAUGH," Will yells, scrambling up as his nerves SPASM WITH ELECTRIC FURY. He actually ends up spasming ALL OVER NERO because she has the poor fortune of standing right on top of a guy who just got tased out of unconsciousness, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you would normally do with a taser.

Will blinks left. He blinks right. He stares at the place where the computer used to be, and is VERY EVIDENTLY STILL MISSING and says: "NOBODY MOVE. The computer ain't here! WE'RE STILL IN A SIMULATION!"

oh will
Ladybug Ladybug is spitting sand and dusts her face off as Chat Noir comes up behind her with her discarded clothes, as the Simulation ends.

Now she's cold again. She was too cold, and then too hot, and then, now, too cold again.

Accepting her boots, she starts sliding them on hastily when Chat Noir says some words.

>'You need to work on your disrobing speed'

Ladybug sighs and shakes her head, groaning. "You're incorrigible, Chat. Don't give everyone ideas." The confident, sassy Ladybug retorts. Her cheeks are cut and scraped and red from abrasions, so you cannot see the INTENSE BLUSH she has going on. Nobody can. It's the most secretive secret of all secrets.

"And... Miraculous users. Using items to transform into heroes with powers? That is why you're all shouting out your special attacks, right? Won't your transformations wear off soon?"
Shielder     So concerned she is about being powerless, Mashu doesn't pay notice to Fate grabbing SHIVA. She'd assumed it was destroyed, if the simulation ended, and either way she's not with Chaldea anymore. What would she do with a big lens that can kinda sorta maybe see through time? It's not like she has her own facility to power it, and it's not a very reliable artifact!

    'Miraculous', that's a word. Mashu turns to look at the cool cat, wondering aloud: "What's a Miraculous? A-Ah, but... Servants are... y-you're from Earth, right? If so, they're people like King Arthur, reincarnaed in superhuman bodies made of magic. They're beings that embody their legends... all the things they could do or were said to be able to do." For a moment her eyes wander away from crushing emo mood, as she remembers she personally met with and had tea with King Arthur and his knights.

    And now that she thinks about it, a Japanese princess and a Roman emperor.

    This made her miss Ladybug's explanation, oops.

    Bedivere returns, with Mashu's MASSIVE SHIELD. She squees and reaches for it, wondering why he's being so formal all of a sudden. "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! Now I can... with this I should be able to help all of you now! Like you helped me."
Gawain When Bedivere moves away from his hug, Gawain doesn't pursue; he knows Bedivere doesn't like hugs, but in the moment, he honestly couldn't help himself. He doesn't fear death, but being alive when he thought he'd be dead is really a miraculous thing.

And so is seeing that shield as Sir Bedivere brings it in. He doesn't say anything, but he recognizes it immediately. He smiles gently, before turning back to Ladybug and nodding. "I see! No, I can manifest my armor as often as I want! I have to shout Excalibur Galatine to activate the True Name! Seeing Miraculous users in action is amazing, though! I hope we get more chances to work together!"

And then Gawain heads over to Mashu. "Dame Mashu, I hope you treasure that shield proudly. It is a wonderful shield, and I believe you'll do it proud." Gawain smiles brightly, but says no more, changing the subject. "Excalibur Galatine sure took a lot out of me, so I will need rest! We should all head back to the castle and have a large feast, to celebrate our survival! Who is with me?!"
Chat Noir "A Miraculous is a piece of magic jewelry that-- that, yes." Chat Noir yields the explanation to Ladybug, grinning over at Gawain. He's unable to gesture theatrically because he is still holding this big fuzzy coat. The very /idea/ of who Gawain is makes his head spin a little bit. There are mythological figures he'd much rather meet, and he's not certain what to /make/ of having met this one.

It'd be rude to pry too much. But...

"Summoning historical figures to fight for you seems a little bit odd." He remarks, clearly on the edge of asking for more details but unclear on whether or not it's appropriate to go farther.

This particular bout of Ladybug sass just makes Chat Noir look innocently confused. That isn't feigned, but he's such a catty little shit so often it's probably easy to assume that he's doing it on purpose.

Oh hey, that shield seems to be important to Mashu. Chat nods towards it -- and Mashu -- and adds, "I suppose that's something we'd call a Miraculous if we were home, for instance."
Fate Testarossa It is not sneaking. The child is very pointedly walking towards the way out at a clip that says she probably doesn't want to be bothered further beyond that nightmarish holodeck romp. But she pauses, halting just short of the exit when Kaguya-hime addresses her.

The girl peeks one eye back over her shoulder.

She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. The second seems to stretch out for far too long before she decides on how to reply as she retreats.

"Goodbye."