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Cirno     Cirno wasn't kidding when she said it might not be here long. The Soft Expanse has rivers of silver separating the lands therein... but the city of North Star, once a sprawling metropolis, has buckled inward and crumpled thanks to some of those 'rivers' making streams of unreality that thread through buildings and streets. Even from a distance, the place is a wreck.

    On the upside, even at the distance that the Freezing Reign draws up in, it is clear that no forces remain here. Automated defenses maybe... but there are various creatures around the city instead. Even at a distance, packs of what appear to be wild dogs(?) roam the installation, and a large tree appears to have merged with some of the buildings out of nowhere.

    The Freezing Reign can provide transport, if needed, but Cirno is deploying in the Azure Wing power armor, with a sensor loadout. "Hold the fort, girls," she calls up to the crew. "I'm taking IDIOT along." IDIOT being the little fairylike drone buzzing around her head. "Looks like this place is about to go. We'd better be quick about it. The central archive, according to what we know, is under that big arching root."
Tesla Armadia Not wanting to risk the instability of the Expanse, not to mention the delapitated state North Star itself is in, Tesla Armadia has opted to put her mobile operations airship in an orbital position over the region. It was really quite handy, now having 'space' up above the planet where it belonged... unlike the rest of this region, that could shift or even disappear on them at an unpredictable moment.

Instead it is a transport dropship that comes down to meet with the Azure Wing and whoever else is coming to investigate. "Long range scans are picking up what appears some manner of 'wildlife' lurking about the remaining streets," Tesla comments over the comm in response to Cirno. "I will pack some expendable units so we don't get bogged down in needless fighting to defend ourselves."
Laer     Laer's in her traditional 'exploring dangerous, unknown territory' outfit. This is the same as the elf's normal outfit, but with a rather nice hat. She's not brought the guitar today, but there's a flute on her back and her sword at her side, at least.

    "Well. I think I can get us out in an emergency, unless the emergency is really, really bad." Laer will say, rather more cheerfully than she should for a sentiment like that. "Let's see what we can get before this place ends up somewhere else, right?" She's still slightly bitter about the state of the Confederate intellegence she'd managed to take when fleeing the Citadel, much of which had been immediately completely useless due to the Union being gone.
Melissa     Environmental armor and jetpack, plus a rifle and sidearm. Standard gear for Melissa to explore with. She could have taken her own transport, but the Reign was probably a better idea anyway. So she drops in with the fairy, looking toward the distant city with some thought.

    "Yeah," she finally says. "You nerds go for the data, I'll see what kind of wildlife took this place over." That's kind of a bad impression, since she worked for Covert Ops before. She's fully aware of the power of information and how to retrieve it. "I'll move along one of the breaches and take another way in, see if we can't split our search up." She's already on the move, actually.
Cirno     Cirno nods, confirming the scans. "Something weird about these... oh well." She floats on forward. "Hey Laer! Nice to be working with you again!" A wave to the elf, and she powers on forward. "Okay Melissa. Have fun and let us know if you find anything!"

    What is there to find? Well approaching the city will get the attention of some of the... dogs? They're... very large dogs. And they are weird. Like, really werid. Most of them are 'standing' about a foot or two off the ground, and one appears to be stuck in a wall trying to continue walking. It's like a glitchy game or something. And they are attacking! Well, some of them. A small pack barks in unison and breaks off to rush the incoming drones and fairy and elf!

    Melissa finds a breach through the reality-streams, and can pick her way carefully into a more cluttered area. The buildings look oddly bleached, but her draconic sense can rapidly pick up what is wrong, most likely. There's no markings, anywhere. No street signs, address numbers, anything. This is also true of where the others are headed, just less apparent as of yet. Her investigation is probably cut short by the large, fifteen foot bristling silver bear that lumbers out from around a 'stream' of broken reality, roaring and charging inexplicably! What did Mel ever do to that bear?
Tesla Armadia It doesn't take long for Tesla to deploy her minion soldiers to defend against the potential threat. Funny how that works out. The 'wildlife' is weird physics bending dogs, and Tesla's troopers look like armored wolfbolts. As soon as the weird air-running dogs are clearly hostile in approach the wolfrangers raise their assault rifles and open up with the choom-choom-choom of semi-auto fire.

Remaining towards the back of the group, Tesla turns her attention towards the dog 'stuck' in the wall, though it keeps trying to move as if it was roaming free. Tilts her head a little to one side as her visor scans over it. ".. It's like this place went through one of physics breaking versions of the Manhatten Project."
Laer     Laer will wave back to Cirno, enthusiastically. "Oh, yes. It's been far too long, really. I miss the old days, sometimes." But that's hardly unique to her, and she'll also wave over to Melissa. "Sure. Have fun with that."

    The dogs, though, will draw her attention before long. Partly because they're trying to eat the elf. Also, the other people with the elf, but the elf is her main concern. She'll pull the flute from behind her back, starting to play it, little bolts of energy forming above her head and slamming out at the front dogs of the pack that's charging them as she does. She's going to try to at least dissuade them, it seems, but it might just make them angrier.
Melissa     Oh boy! Giant Bear! This is exactly the sort of fight Melissa was hoping for! Well, not exactly, as she was REALLY hoping for a dragon, but this is close enough. She quickly flips through her ideas of how to handle it, and settles for the old standby: BEAR WRESTLING!

    Which is to say, she meets the charge head on, grunting as the bear slams into her, and she buries a fist into it to try heaving it up and hurling it into one of these other buildings.
Metal Man Metal man was alone for once today and he looked out at the ruins and didn't like it and then they have to deal with a bear he pauses for a moment hea lmost makes a pun but Melissa's action to pitch to makes him choose to avoid it. He deploys some Sniper Joes along with him and move to support Tesla's own forces.

"I don't like it but the informatiomn here could be too damn good to pass up for our needs, right?"
Cirno     Scanning the dog in the wall results in... a glitch? It's like the readings keep changing, fluctuating between there/not there and flickering in and out of existence. It's... kind of weird. And this close, the lack of numbers or addresses is a little more clear here, too. It's still easy enough to find the central archive, but the dogs in the way are kind of annoying.

    Worse, the dogs don't go down easy! Oh, sure, they don't take many shots to gun down, between the magic, the snipers, the troops, and Cirno's own lasers. But the fact that it takes 3-4 instead of 1-2 is... notable, isn't it? And when they die, half the time the burst into pixellated fuzz.

    A half dozen just blip out of existence, and a moment later the muffled barking is heard as they 'clip through' the ground, coming from behind toward the wolf rangers and others, pouncing on them with teeth that don't seem to want to pay attention to armor.

    Melissa will likewise find it... odd. The bear thunders toward her and then... takes a vicious swipe even when it is flipped in the air. Only it doesn't go upside-down. Flipping it over has it standing in midair as it flies through the air standing up straight like a primitive cut and paste job. It smashes into a wall easy enough though. Thing is it gets right back up and comes at her, a bit slower but... taking way more damage than it should.
Tesla Armadia Tesla Armadia taps the side of her visor with a finger out of habit, as the technopath can tell full well it's not malfunctioning and those 'glitch' readings are accurate. Accurately inaccurate, might be more effective phrasing. "Their very existance is in random flux. Likely due to the disruptions in reality in the loca--SHIT!" Scanners barely pick up the dogs re-emerging from the ground behind them soon enough for Tesla to curse as she duck-and-rolls out of the way. Armadillos are good at that sort of thing after all.

A couple of wolfrangers getting pounced aren't so lucky. Armor is good for defending against many things but attacks that don't give a flying fuck about what physical state you're in is not one of those things. The drones collapse as their backs and sides are... not there anymore, as if wrenched from reality itself by the non-linear nature of the attackers.

Tesla comes out of her dodge roll onto one knee, both arms swinging up in front of her. Gauntlets glow brightly then release a burst of kinetic energy at the dogs. "Someone get to the objective. We don't all need to waste our time fighting these... things."
Laer     The dogs are upgraded from 'annoying' to 'severely annoying' in Laer's mind, as she realizes just how durable they seem to be. If they're even real. "...Fine." She'll reply to Tesla, attempting to take a step and move a few dozen feet with it, a short range teleport just to make certain that teleporting doesn't go wrong in particularly horrible ways.

    Presuming all of her manages to arrive, she'll keep moving forward. "I'll look a bit ahead, and you should distract all of the dogs if you can. Did you bring any semi-real beef jerky or steak, maybe?"
Metal Man Metal Man is on edge though reality is breaking nd well? Metal Man is noting that the things take several more shots than they should, worse they lmost seem to poof out liek something out of the cybercore. This can't be right, this can't br right at all.

"I have seen a lot but nothing ... quite like this." He launches few blades intot hings and wonders. "Is there anhthing left we can salvage here?"
Melissa     The claws tear into Melissa's armor. Hyper alloys and dragon scales rend open, and she grunts as she feels blood begin to seep through. her regeneration is already starting, but the injury is surprising... as is the reaction of the bear to being thrown. "Well. Don't that beat all? Maybe this will be a challenge after all."

    Cracking knuckles, the juicer grins as her opponent comes charging in. She'll have to take some hits for this but... "TIID KLO UL!" A draconic Shout echoes through the air an instant before Melissa's form blurs, time slowing for her and giving her a further speed boost to leap forward and give several precise, careful jabs toward the bear's head and temples, trying to knock it silly or unconscious. This will expose her to attacks again, but with her extra speed hopefully she can manage to mitigate.
Cirno     "I dunno," Cirno says to Metal Man. "This looks pretty... picked clean?" She shrugs, and blasts another dog with an ice needle. "IDIOT, go with Laer and see if you can't dig something up. Laer, we'll hold these things off. Maybe Melissa's found something besides the bear."

    Well, the dogs are still not THAT tough, there's just a lot of them. One of them finally starts to run, but it's running in midair and doesn't seem to be going anywhere, barking wildly while running in place. The attacks soften a little, with the pack now just prowling. The original half dozen are down... bu tthere are more. If the group is careful they can investigate a building.

    Laer's teleport does work, though it /feels/ weird. IDIOT flits up next to her and chirps, "Hi! Let's get some data!" Int his brief breather period, ther emight be a good route to get to the central archive.

    Melissa finds the bear is... ALSO faster than it was! Not nearly as boosted as she gets from the Shout though, allowing her punches to connect with a slow-motion growl. The jaws suddenly lash out, biting at her, but after a long second or three, it does actually topple over. Finally. It crushes a mailbox... but while the bear seems tougher, that metal box seemed to crumple like cardboard.
Tesla Armadia The dogs seem to be backing off.... or glitching into a non-attack mode... or who knows. "Let's take the oppritunity to find out. Sooner we do, the sooner we can get out of here." The kinetic blasters of Tesla's gauntlets power down. Only to be replaced by the saw-like 'chainclaws' extending from either side of the bracer of one arm. Tesla goes to use them to cut her way into a building to investigate.
Melissa     Melissa gets a bite crunching into her arm, grunting as she feels the dulled but very real pain washing through her. Thing is tough. But now that the bear is down and her adrenaline is fading, the Juicer frowns at what she's seeing. A nudge with the toe, and then she finds something else that should be sturdy... a lamp post, or door, maybe. Gives them a little shove and test.

    "This is... This is freaking me out," she admits.
Metal Man Metal Man says "Right I betcha the Union regulars took what they could on the way out to buy their future elsewhere. Can't fault em I did the same for Wily." He now gets ot movig before he gets Cirnor angry abotu something else. HE throws anotehr bblade and he's ending off to try to catch up with Melissa maybe he can find smething his sense of balance woudl be put to good use in a place like this.
Laer     "Oh, that felt terrible." Laer complains, as she does the customary 'make certain all my fingers are still attached' post-questionable-teleport routine. She's quicker about it than normal, though, because she's clearly trying to just get to the main building without having to deal with so many of the dogs.

    She's also going to try and keep up a flight spell, not because she wants to fly, but rather because she's starting to become concerned about the solidity of the ground, and would rather not fall through it.
Cirno     Both Tesla and Melissa are going to find that things just aren't as tough as they should be. The lamp post crumples easily... which, given Mel's strength, she could do anyway, but it's not like she needs to apply it. The chainsaw Tesla uses could probably cut through the reinforced wall given time, but it acts like drywall, slicing through with ease. Cirno flutters behind her to keep an eye on the dogs as the room is opened, showing a computer - with no sign of being on or working - and several scattered papers that look to be filed in important folders... but everything is blank. The papers, the folders, even the wall calendar is just blank paper.

    Metal Man glitches another dog, and is able to quickly run out to the place wher eMelissa felled the digital bear. Which is not glitching out, at least. Along the way he'll also probably be able to notice street signs, billboards... they're all blank.

    And Laer? Reaching the central archive will find a root plunging right through the computer core... but it's still running. IDIOT will chime in, "That's strange... the computer is running and processing but it doesn't have anything. I can't even identify the OS."
Tesla Armadia "It is somewhat sad that I can say how easy that was worries me more than less," Tesla muses at how the wall crumples like something several times less durable than the reinforced infrastructure should be. She steps through, frowning a bit in thought at what's revealed. Or not revealed. So much blankness. "It's like all print and written mediums have been nullified."

Which, frankly, is damn creepy. Because that leaves the questions of HOW or WHY...

Ignoring the blank papers and folders for the moment Tesla walks towards the lone computer terminal. It looks like it's not operational, or even has a source of power.

But that's never been an issue for her, has it now.

They are still on potentially short time, so instead of bothering with trying to figure out if it can be turned on or not, Tesla just puts one hand atop the computer, and use her technopathic powers to try and probe the terminal to see if there is anything worth salvaging on it.
Laer     Laer will frown at the mention of that, the talk from IDIOT getting her to eye the root. "Well. It's worth at least giving this a try, I guess. I should probably warn them that I might be doing something stupid."

    Once that warning's given via radio, she'll set the flute back behind her, instead pulling the sword from her side. It's in really good condition, because it doesn't get used much. It's also not exactly designed for this sort of cutting, but luckily she does have something of a spell for this, humming to herself and running a hand along the blade, coating its edge in acid. This won't be good for the blade, but hopefully it'll also allow her to hack through the root.

    "Get ready to grab what you can if it has anything after I disconnect this." She'll warn IDIOT, before taking a swing at the root and starting to try to cut it away, to see if she can reassert reality long enough to get something out of this little trip.
Metal Man Metal Man is notincgh glitches and isn't even sure what to think about those things, teh bear however semes to nto be poofing which is something. "Everything twisted glitched and wiped clean." He muses as he looks over to Melissa for a moment before he looks to her. "We shouldn't delay long and we need to grab what we can get from here before everything else goes up in a poof of logic, right?"
Melissa     Melissa stares at the lamppost, poking at it once. As Metal Man arrives, she looks up. "Oh, just in time. I can't see anything useful here, so I say we drag this home and poke at it. At least we'll come back with SOMETHING interesting, right?"

    Mel hauls the bear over one shoulder and starts to trudge along. "If there's anything else here, the science squad can try to dig it out."
Cirno     Tesla pokes at the computer and finds... it's blank? Not even an OS. Not even a ROM that has boot instructions! Or rather, the ROM is there, but has somehow been wiped clean. Which doesn't make much sense, does it?

    Melissa and Metal Man have a bear. This is okay? Not much to say about it until the end of this pose.

    And Laer? Slicing through that root is tough, but it makes the tree his and wither quickly, at least that root. As soon as it cuts, though, the computers flash and crackle for an instant, data scrolls across the screen, before it blips off suddenly, just as fast as it came. IDIOT chimes, "I got a partial dump of encrypted data-"

    That's when the western part of the city just... sinks down and collapses into the silvery streams of unreality. The entire rest of the city tilts subtly, with some gaps widening and cracking.
Tesla Armadia Tesla Armadia considers just yanking up the computer and taking it with the study farther... but between the disruptions going on across town starting to literally break down, and IDIOT confirming it has a partial dump of something already, she decides that would only slow herself down needlessly.

She steps back out the hole she made a moment later. "I think it is safe to say that no one is going to be finding anything incrimidating here... Especially if the place is finally falling apart." With that being the case, she starts hotfooting it back to her dropship.
Laer     Laer will look really happy for a moment at the annoucement of getting anything, at least right up until the point where the floor tilts over. Laer's flight spell still active, this is just going to result in her nearly bashing her head into the ceiling. "...Okay, then!"

    It's time to leave, clearly, and she should probably save IDIOT both for the data and so Cirno won't be upset with her. That means burning a fully fledged portal through this area; not wanting to try to open one all the way back to base in this unstable an area, she'll just open one back to the ship, stepping through it and leaving it there long enough for IDIOT to follow. Her hat, naturally, flies off as she walks through the portal, but Laer will chalk it up as a necessity for a dramatic escape. And send a bill for it with her mission report.
Metal Man Metal Man is much like Melssia if she doesn't grab the bear he will but otherwise? He's damn well running for his life too and ordering what drones that remain? TO flee as best as they can because seriously it's time to go and he doesn't want to end up caught in reality gltiching out further.
Cirno     The city IS coming apart, and cirno is revving up her flight engines in the Azure Wing to get out of there! "Yeah, I think I'll be taking off now." Which is good! Because piece by piece, the city does start to disintegrate. There's a good chance SOME will survive, but until it stabilizes this is... not the place to be.

    FOrutnately for Melissa, her strength is such that carrying the giant bear is not too difficult. Just needs dragged, mostly!
Tesla Armadia Metal Man and his drones can hitch a ride on Tesla's dropship if so desired. But as soon as there is no one else left outside she takes off and heads back for her primary airship. We're not waiting around here any longer. The city literally disappearing around them is severe enough that Tesla even gives the dropship a boost with her technopathy to get them out of here all the faster.