Scene #5260: Fundamental Fragments of Human Nature-3

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	The last two times here should be reason enough for anyone to think leaving it alone is a bad idea. Some people are unlucky enough to be returning to the same, blasted, melted candle of a former medieval metropolis for the third time now, and every day it feels more depressing and more hostile. Even though there is clearly no way it could be, somehow, the leagues of stoneworks and mile deep layers of compound building seem to have gotten progressively more melted and degraded, looking more like the Kiln (for those who had seen it) than the former Burg. Otherwise, even the bright, sunny weather, for once, is cold, clammy, and dim, where one can stare directly at the sun and not really hurt their eyes; almost as if the air itself were polarized with a pair of sunglasses via a fine black haze. It's ladders down, this time. Sturdy iron ones. Oddly, all the wooden ones, and abseiling ropes, appear to have rotted away somehow, in less than two weeks. Clambering down the dozen layers of buildings built on top of buildings, and streets piled on streets, broken through all at once by some colossal show of firepower, the shadows grow deep enough that artificial and magical light starts to dim before even going inside. The silhouettes of the scenery all seem to be drawn towards the underground entrance, regardless of angle to the sun, as if siphoning down a drain. Once again, people are left to stare at a rusted gate into a post-Roman looking sewer aqueduct, and brave the wall of black fog just beyond it, that turns out to only be lukewarm void, save the heart-stopping moment of 'that feeling when you miss a stair in the dark' upon crossing it. The water coursing down the shallow, precisely carved channel in the limestone floor is relatively clean, as it has been for many decades, but now a deep, opaque black, as if it were miles deep instead of inches. Staren may be chagrined to find the rest of his tablets, that were not retrieved last time, piled up in a heap just outside the entrance, blackened, burnt, and smashed.
Guest Psyber	'You want my job so bad, give it a try and we'll talk about it after.' That had been the general feedback that Artorias had given Psyber about the Dark forming in the undead burg. And thus, the Abysswalker-apprentice had returned without objection when the group wanted to explore it further. Seeing Psyber has, in recent history, become something of a rarity due to the dual busy-making of his expanded business and his professor work. Plus something else: "No, honey, I know," Psyber says into a cell phone as he waits for the group to gather, "Yes. Yes, I know. You asked for Sapphire Blue and the tablecloths are denim blue. Yes. Yes, I know. No, you're right, the banquet hall has disgraced themselves for the last time. I know they're not the same color even if they look the same. Yes, you're right, you should see if another banquet hall can do it better. Uh huh. Okay, look, I got work right now. Right, I'll be home by tomorrow for cake testing. Yes, I know you switched cake companies. Yes, you're right, the old company should know the difference between Raspberry filling and Raspberry Jam filling. No, I understand. OKay, I have to go. Yeah, I have to go. I'm going now. Phone hanging up. It's hanging up now. Three, two, one." Psyber ends the call on his phone. He pinches the bridge of his nose, "This shit is gonna be the death of me."
Alexis Maaka	A cyberpunk commando in the streets of a medieval styled city verging on decay? The anachronism is strong here, as a tactical cloaking device conceals Maaka's presence as she goes from the rooftops to the streets and back to the rooftops, depending on her route. It's pretty parkour-friendly out here, and the cyborg knows enough about these sorts of environments to know that mobility is rewarded to those who know the routes. The undead are not considered a threat worth the ammo, as Maaka opts to elude or simply run past them before they can react before she makes it boards the ladders downwards. She's glad she brought something for urban combat, and she slings the AKS-74U on her back as she slides down the ladders fearlessly, switching on night-vision. Those who don't know her may not even realize her gender or features, given the black body armor concealing her completely from head to toe. "Give me a second." She says through her speakers' gender-neutral filtering. She stops at the gate, and narrows her brows behind her face mask, gripping onto the gate and giving it a firm tug here and there, to test if she can rip it off its hinges. That may be possible, between her FREAKISH strength, and depending on how decayed the gate is from rust and time. Going through, Maaka seems to filter out Psyber's conversation over the phone. Only polite he be left to his business...though it is weird hearing him talk about this stuff in the field. Weirdo. Maaka continues, training her carbine on the channel before she kneels beside it, trying to get a good look, and see if it leads anywhere.
Nozomi Houken	Psyber being here makes things easier on Nozomi - she can stick close to him and feel relatively safe. But she'd be here anyway, and the TIGER-user is fairly certain that she's going to have to combine with her mechatiger if she wants the firepower to be of use for this. It's a purge, after all. A purge of a dangerous magical... something. Force? Entity? Element? 'All of the above'? It's hard to say. But it's doubtful it will go down easy. "Are... are you alright?" she asks Psyber, after they cross over that stomach-fluttering barrier.
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan's expression drops as he stops to examine his surroundings. Somehow, everything had degraded even further since the last time he'd been out to this realm. Even the sun seemed dimmer here, as odd a thought as it was. "Even though it has scant been two weeks, these grounds appear to have aged a millenia. Is it convoluted time, or something more?" he questioned to himself, a hand rubbing at his clean shaven chin. Standing around six-and-a-half feet tall, Jonathan dressed rather similarly to the last time he had come here, with knee-high boots paired with ornate but very functional slacks and the accompanying white button up shirt, tied together with suspenders. As is a usual motiff on his person, the buckles were shaped like stars. "Ah, there's no need for that -- " Jonathan tries to stop the modern military (wo)man from tearing the gate off its hinges, as he recalled opening it just fine in their previous trip. He fails to do so before the noise of shrieking metal resounds in the poorly lit area they'd all found themselves in. Jonathan sighs, he supposed that a rusty gate didn't matter much in the end, but even so, needless ruining of historic property bothered him. "If no one should mind, I'll 'take point' as the saying is, the layout of the dark corridor should not have changed much from the last time I was here." Provided no one stops him, Jonathan advances into the darkness, just like he'd done two weeks prior. While he knew he could light their way with his Hamon, he didn't wish to unnecesarily risk another situation like what had occured then, drawing the sprites of humanity to his person.
Staren	Staren frowns at the destroyed tablets. "Guess they don't like us anymore." He looks around. "You know, I just had a thought: What if Kalameet's devastation was so great, it went beyond the physical, into the conceptual? Like the Njorun ruins but not quite as severe... and with the Abyss seeping in to fill the conceptual gap?" To Psyber, he cheerfully comments, "I didn't know you had a girlfriend! Congratulations! Also, good to see you again. Have you been filled in on what we saw last time?" After they walk into the blackness, Staren starts testing various lights from his bag. Mostly technological lights from various worlds that attempt to mimic a daylight emission spectrum -- at least one using batteries charged with solar power in case that matters -- but also magical lights he could get cheaply from their respective worlds.
Guest Psyber	"If you wanna take point, go ahead," Psyber says deferentially to Jonathan, "I'll take the rear in that case, in case the Dark tries to send something at us from behind. Name's Psyber, by the way. Paranormal investigator." Psyber notes to the huge man. The half-angel slips his cell phone into his pocket and then draws his sword, which glows faintly in the dark and crackles with electricity. "Fiance, actually," Psyber says to Staren absently, before looking to Nozomi, "I'm fine. Just never let a perfectionist tactician plan a wedding." He smiles a bit, "Good to see you both again. No, I wasn't filled in on what happened last time. Sorry for missing it. I got called for a thing in Peru and my phone was eaten by a jungle dragon on like day four of a sixty-day trip." Psyber admits as he sighs a bit.
Staren	Staren blinks. "You only carry one communication device on you? I have..." he trails off as he mentally counts. head computer, scanner, spare com-unit, multiple ectos, probably a bunch of devices that could be used as communicators in a pinch... oh right, his armor... "...a lot." Staren finishes.
Nozomi Houken	Nozomi nods her head a little in response to Psyber, then cants her head slightly, realizing something. "I didn't... I hadn't heard you were engaged. Congratulations." She remains quiet other than that, though her eyes keep going back to Jonathan. The mechanical tiger ambling along beside her is generally on high alert, but he doesn't miss the way she keeps staring at him; one ear quirks in the Ripple-user's direction, taking a brief sensor sweep of him, and then the robocat asks in a deep voice, "Nozomi, is something the matter?" She doesn't look like she'd expected someone to talk to her, not even Taiga. The poor thing lets out a vaguely startled squeak. After a moment's pause, she leans in to murmur to the TIGER unit, "...he's /huge/..." Almost as tall as Psyber, and just as broad across - maybe even moreso. She's not used to seeing people that big!
Alexis Maaka	Maaka pauses. She stares at Psyber, pointing (Not her gun, her finger.) at him. "When the hell did you get a fiance?" She asks pointedly. "...oh, and congrats." The cyborg adds, then kind of stares at Jonathan when she realizes just how HUGE the guy is. Handsome too, good lord is he gonna be popular with the girls if he isn't already. She might be a bit distracted, and wills away the urge to stare too much. Despite her cybernetics being...most of her, she's still human deep down. Where it counts. "...so. Isn't this usually when stuff happens, and we end up fighting some sort of horrible monster?" She wonders, as the lack of things happening begins to get to her.
Priscilla	The venture inside has been described twice already, and so re-familiarization will be summarized. Submersing oneself into the dark automatically pings any and every kind of sense, natural, supernatural, and technological, in a variety of complementary but incomplete ways, detecting motion, presence, strange auras, and what could usually be dismissed as equipment oddities, at ranges and coordinates that can constantly be verified to not exist by extending one's hand to the tunnel walls, even if the pitch black means that they could disappear without anyone seeing. The further in one goes, the more the air, or space itself, greedily soaks up the light, leaving the sources untouched, but their radius paltry, and then pathetic, until the user is barely better off than groping along. Creeping, mottled blue arteries (hopefully just fines) encroach on the walls and the water, supporting blue-black, tumorous growths, some of which look like pulsating flesh, whilst others blossom into hideous, yet graceful, flowering blooms and luminous fungal growths. The mapping software quickly becomes useless. Soon, people are left to walk through a sticky sheen of purple ichor and what looks unnervingly like inky blood seeping from the stones. The feeling of walking past a crowd, as if shouldering through a crowded subway platform against the traffic, is uncanny, and difficult to ignore, as is the intensifying gut sensation of everyone in that traffic turning heads to watch them. Something like eyes twinkle in peripheral vision, only to disappear when looked at, like the the eye blinds itself to faint stars in the night sky when looking for them. Sounds bounce illogically in terms of perceived distance and cadence, and are constantly punctuated with cavernous water dripping sounds that have no corresponding physical component, until, eventually, that sound becomes the dull roar of a waterfall, and there /is/. The path terminates incredibly abruptly, where the chiseled limestone becomes bleached, porous, and oddly dry, like walking on a dead coral reef. The stream careens off the edge into a black abyss, dropping a height that shouldn't really be here. The feeling of lukewarm humidity and the distant rumble indicates there /is/ a floor down there, but . . .
Guest Psyber	"Yes, Staren. Mostly people only carry one or two on them." Psyber comments blandly. And then numerous people are giving him congratulations on the engagement, "I got engaged sometime around Christmas. I just don't exactly publicize my lovelife," He notes as a dual answer to both Alexis and Nozomi on the matter. As they proceed forward, Psyber is quick to change into work mode, "Be careful what you step in. Try not to track anything out with you. Once we hit the edge on the way out, feel free to decontaminate if you need to," Psyber muses as he takes out a flashlight and idly shines it around while occasionally gouging into the ichorous walls with his sword to leave marks for himself. Once they reach the edge of the path, Psyber looks down into the chasm, "Nowhere to go but down. Everyone has a way back up, right?" He asks, looking around before a pair of wings sprout from his back. Without any hesitation, the half-angel leaps into the hole, the wings flaring to slow his descent before vanishing and dropping him abruptly into the abyss below. One doesn't become an Abysswalker through hesitation, after all.
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan would offer Psyber a friendly hand shake, but given their surroundings, it didn't seem appropriate. "My name is Jonathan Joestar, I'm here to research the phenomenon affecting this region." The muscled nobleman introduces himself, seeming for the most part, relaxed despite the total darkness the group had been steeped in. Truthfully, it was because he knew that for the time being, they were all in little danger. Evidently, the man was oblivious to the stares he was receiving. "We're unlikely to be assailed, at least for now. The fauna that lurks deeper in has an off chance of doing so, but otherwise, the worst I've encountered in these parts would be those..entities that seek out warmth, formless, nearly. If we're careful, we should not run into any." And then, soon enough, they began to pass by the same area from before. The same growths on the walls and floor, the same thickening of the air. The same sensation of claustrophobia. Even so, they pressed on...until Jonathan nearly falls down into a black pit, catching himself on craggy something or other that at one time, had been a stone wall. "G...goodness. What on earth..?" With little apparent regard for how dangerous it might be, he dips his hand into the 'waterfall' and the void it was falling into. The further they got, the further from lucid reality seemed to become. The thicker the air got, the best way he knew how to describe it was wading further into deeper, darker waters. If he had to approximate where they were using this example, he'd say they were up their necks, just about. "Well, I suppose there's only one way to truly find out what it is we've encountered." Jonathan begins searching around his carrying pack for carbon fiber rope and a spoke to jam into the ground that he could tether it to. It was clear to anyone watching that he intended to rappel down -- but, Psyber evidently had other ideas. Worriedly, Jonathan picked up his pace.
Alexis Maaka	"Oh. Well that's just silly of me." Alexis admits after an awkward moment, before suddenly introductions. May as well. She pries off her helmet briefly, as it unfolds and opens up to reveal a feminine, White-Asian if battle scarred face, with golden cybernetic eyes and blood-red hair...and blue lipstick and eye shadow. Huh. "Alexis Maaka, I'm a hired gun." She introduces, her voice unfiltered with an Australian accent as she offers a hand to Jonathan to shake, and a firm grip too. She offers a grin, apparently content to keep her helmet off as her eyes go from gold to glowing green, and they go back into the depths. She rappels downwards with her grappling hook, following the others. She briefly touches the 'waterfall' too, shaking her gloved hands clean as they go deeper and deeper.
Staren	"So much for that." Staren comments, when none of the fake sunlights work. "Well yes but--" Staren starts to reply as Psyber asks if they have a way up. "...I have no idea what will still WORK down there." he says as Psyber disappears down the hole. He works on digging holes into the rock as best he can to secure a rope to, just in case, before flying down after Psyber.
Nozomi Houken	Oh this. Nozomi remembers this. So does Taiga, but he can add filters to screen out the worst of it. Given the nature of the place, he only adds very /light/ filters, of course; there will still be plenty of 'noise' he has to sort through, just so that something dangerous doesn't get filtered out. But Nozomi? She has to deal with it all, and she just about curls in on herself trying to get by. Especially once it grows into the feeling of being in a crowd. This isn't doing her social issues any favors. It actually takes her a moment or two to realize there's a pit they need to jump down. "-huh?" She blinks, turning in Psyber's direction. "...oh. Yes, I'll be fine. I... ah..." Hnn. This is where things get rough. Quietly, she looks at Taiga, who nods through the gloom. "Disengaging Independent Mode. Rerouting Gensou Engine power to motive and combat systems. Rampart Mode engaged." What descends after Jonathan is Nozomi... and yet it isn't. It's a girl with Nozomi's face, only her eyes have turned yellow, her hair a jet black that blends in with the pitch darkness. About her she wears what used to be TIGER, except it's become high-magitech armor, a two-hander sword. She descends on carefully-controlled jump jets, and her expression... oh, her expression has completely changed. No girl should wear the look of a cold killing machine like that. Especially not a wallflower like Nozomi. And yet she does.
Priscilla	Thankfully, the water does not appear to be deleterious, despite the inherently unwise it is to stick one's hand in it. The water is ice cold, to the point it seems to actively leech the warmth out of flesh, and one would be advised not to eat without washing their hands after, but nothing worse happens. Getting down is a bit of a process. No matter how quickly one goes, the air never really rushes past the face or touches the clothes or hair, almost like falling in a vacuum; falling for quite some distance as well. Unnervingly, reaching the bottom, the base of the impromptu waterfall can't actually be seen. The thunder of it crashing on stones is still audible, but it's like it disappeared halfway down, or went somewhere 'else'. The bottom is exceptionally wide. A grand, open space that has no business being in a sewer. Very vaguely, high, turreted walls can be spotted around the perimeter, as if a tiny slice of a castle were built underground, to watch against some subterranean frontier. The floor is pitted and corroded in huge, puddling swaths, though it seems to be previous damage, before it started taking on that bleached, bone-like texture. The only obstacles are the odd, gigantic pillar, and another steep drop at the far end, a good arrow shot away. The dark is cloyingly thick here, almost sickeningly so, as if the air itself is warm, human flesh, like being pressed into an unbelievably tight crowd, but even worse. The feeling happens even through environmentally sealed armour, as if some invisible person is touching the wearer's bare skin, though the simulated sensation is not anything more than distracting. Those wearers might notice a kind of blued tint starting to form on their surface, however. Hopefully that's harmless too. Upon venturing into that heart room, however, that crowd they had been feeling all the way in, starts to become more material. Black against the black, dark so dark it's visible against actual pitch blackness, describes only roughly humanoid shapes all around, elusively copying the idea of standing ranks. Lightless, white pinpoint eyes stand out in rippling rows, but only at a distance, like a captive audience to either side of a metaphorical red carpet. It draws all attention inwards, straight down the road, to a singular endpoint, where one very obvious, very material figure rises from the pit. It's difficult to say who, or what it is. It appears humanoid (if very large, but that's not unusual here), but all of its visible skin is a pallid, almost luminous white, streaked with veins of midnight blue. Its clothes could be described as a deeply hooded robe, obscuring its face, but they've seemingly degraded into something closer to cloth-like tendrils enfolding its body, leaving a dark hole in its chest exposed. Furthermore, it appears to have a second set of arms, folded as the others hang loose. It levitates upwards on wings that would /nearly/ be angelic, were all pretense at feathers quickly terminated into writhing, insubstantial cilia. Its feet don't touch the floor as it hovers towards the party at an almost stately pace; all 'eyes' following its progress. Ostensibly, it is non-hostile. Familiar, even, like a figure one has met before, but doesn't quite recognize. Staring at it is an exercise in examining a stranger who looks /almost/ like a best friend on the street, and puzzling out if they just got a haircut. Regardless, the closer it gets, the more chokingly oppressive the air becomes, and the more the impression of infinitely expanding space intensifies. The blue layer actively crawls across armour and clothes like creeping frost.
Staren	"Uuugh." Staren comments when he can feel the... something pressing in on him. Those shadow-people are all around them, invisible, he figures. Or out of phase with reality somehow. And then they're visible. In ranks. Drawing attention to... their leader? Staren looks him (her? It?) over... after a moment he tries to brush the sense of familiarity aside. The Abyss messing with him, clearly. He wants to ask questions, but... Psyber's the abysswalker here. Staren looks to the half-angel, expectantly.
Alexis Maaka	Going all the way down, Maaka is quick to draw her AKSU again, the carbine held close as she feels the air around her. She practically patrols the area before noticing how it feels a little crowded...even if she can't see anybody. Her body shivers instinctively in response to the sensation of other bodies close to her even though that's impossible...normally anyways. "Something's here." she says, just as she sees the crowd of...blobs. "The hell are these?" She wonders aloud, looking wary to approach these things, before a NEW THING comes out of the blue. Staring at the creature, no other word describes it properly, Maaka look quizzically right back, as if unsure whether this thing is hostile or not.
Guest Psyber	Is this what Artorias experienced every time he went into the Abyss? It was not hard to tell why he had a ring to ward off such things. The half-angel takes a stifled breath and then tries to center his mind. These things weren't inherently hostile, but they WERE incredibly dangerous, "Don't let them near you. It's likely the nature of the Abyss being drawn to living creatures. They're not hostile, but they're probably increasingly lethal based on proximity." Psyber swipes the sword in his hand, sending an arcing wave of Holy Lightning towards the encroaching beings and trying to drive them back. This might aggro the zone, though.
Jonathan Joestar	He still couldn't believe that soldier was a woman -- a very pretty one at that. Her scar reminded him vaguely of the one Speedwagon had, an ugly mark on an otherwise porcelein face. Though, the lipstick and changing eye colors seemed far from natural. Jonathan did his best to, as the saying goes, 'roll with it' however, knowing that his world's standards for what constituted as normal were perhaps some of the tamest around. Inversely though just as surprising, that shy girl that had come with them had undergone some form of transformation. While no stranger to it in recent times, the complete one-eighty of her expression from a timid look to that of a cold killer unsettled him. It was the kind of face made only by the least human of foes he'd had the displeasure of running across. But perhaps it had just been a trick of the dark. "Odd, the water -- it's freezing cold." He was positive that if his hand had been in there for longer than a second or two it might have started going through cold-rot. That wasn't a pleasant idea. By the time Jonathan got to the bottom successfully, Psyber was already assailing the masses with lightning. "I..don't know about that lethal part. I felt tired, but otherwise fine when I was being grabbed by them two weeks ago. Please try not to hurt them, they mean no harm." Down here, where it was humid and none of them could see well, a prominent figure was apparent. Staren had proposed an interesting theory earlier about Kalameet and the Abyss, but if that were true, then who was this? They were familiar. Jonathan knew that he'd never met such a being before, and yet, he felt that on a deeper level than what he could consciously acknowledge, that was untrue. If humans were dark by nature, then this could be a reflection of that. But, he rationalized, that could not be so -- if nothing else than for his own world. Humans uniquely could produce light like no other. He, was not from the dark. This gave him resolution. Jonathan made no hostile motions, but he did breathe in, deeply. Golden waves rolled off of his body like luminescent vapors, the rays of the sun. Jonathan's hand hovers infront of his face as he stands dramatically, cutting an imposing contrast with the being before him. Light and dark, confronting one another. "Who are you..?!"
Nozomi Houken	Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Nozomi Houken's steps don't falter anymore; not as the atmosphere grows more oppressive, not as they approach what almost seems to be a fortress of some sort, not even when the shadows turn into actual, visible entities of some sort. Half of her current 'self' is completely not human; not only does the energy flowing through her armor power enchantments to ward off the worst of the effects, but it also provides a layer of mental insulation for what gets through. Sheer mindset ensures that she marches on coldly. And while the EM Zanbatou remains on her right shoulder, her left arm is held upward, pointing the cannon in one gauntlet threateningly. She'll shoot any of those strange shadow things that happens to start venturing too close; otherwise, it's a simple, silent promise, in the vague hope they understand threats. But that huge, winged... /thing/, though. THAT is enough to get Nozomi to lift the large blade off her shoulder, hauling it around to point the oversized weapon straight at the weird creature.
Alexis Maaka	'Pretty' is not a word most people use to describe Alexis Maaka, to say the least she would be awfully tickled if she knew such a word would be used to describe her. Still, she's a soldier (for hire) first and woman second, which means she's cold and stoic as she raises her carbine and tries to back these morphs of...stuff. She still has no idea what they are. She opens fire with a few single shots with her AKSU, 5.45 rounds echoing loudly as she tries to fire high. "Back off!" She barks harshly, as if these blobs of Humanity understand threads. Only after she shoots does she aim the rifle at the creature, narrowing her eyes. "And what the hell are you?"
Priscilla	Asking the teeming crowd of black outlines what they are yields little result. Probably to be expected, from beings that have barely the suggestions of heads and shoulders, never mind mouths or voices. As the white figure approaches, they start to close ranks behind it, however, steadily hemming the area in as a circular crowd, closing in without an apparent motion. The feeling of claustrophobia becomes sickening, like people packed into a room so tightly one could believably entertain the idea of them merging like amoeba. Gunfire doesn't seem to deter them, even if they understand what it is. Contrarily, the brief flashes of intense flame appear to draw them in. Without any perspective of heads or visible pupils, their collective attention is only an imagined sense, but it's on Maaka, achieving the opposite of the desired effect. They scatter only when Psyber fires the coruscating wave of lightning, which splits the dark into stark, crackling fissures of bright light. Where the illumination would reveal a figure and cast a shadow, it disappears instead, such that most of the crowd is wiped out without apparent violence. Eyes to slowly appear again in the far distance, but this time, keep it. It doesn't deter the incoming 'angel', though. It steadily advances, unfolding its arms and outstretching them towards . . . Jonathan, specifically. Even as huge as the man is, the figure is probably half as tall as he is again, and seems to float down towards him slowly, as if intending to put its hands on his shoulders and enact some mockery of baptism. It accelerates significantly once he lets off the golden ripples. The posture of its fingers go from relaxed, to suddenly gripping. Finally, though, it recognizes the look of a sword. When Nozomi draws the zanbatou, it halts abruptly, swaying backwards slightly on a totally silent flap of its wings. Gaining height, it imperiously points down towards Nozomi, as if to verbally condemn her for producing arms in a holy place, except instead, a beam of white light, equally as devoid of illumination as the eyes all around, sweeps out from its extended finger, surrounded by a keening vortex of deep, violet fog. Though it rakes briefly over the ground, the stone is fine. It's only when it touches a living thing, that the energy hungrily devours their physical form.
Guest Psyber	Psyber has managed to secure a bit of breathing room. The half-angel exhales a bit and then takes a few moments to catch his breath. When the massive being creates that beam of white light towards Nozomi, the half-angel's guardian angel instincts kick in immediately, "NOZOMI! Move!" Psyber calls out to her, immediately whipping around. With Einherjar still in one hand, Psyber runs his palm over the blade before producing a handful of lightning in his opposite palm. He curls his hand around that holy lightning and then hurls it right at the massive figure that's taking aggression on them. The half-angel then hops back and away, using the newly created space to give himself some ability to maneuver before hurling another spear of lightning at the creature.
Nozomi Houken	The reaction is immediate. Nozomi assume hostility automatically, lunging back and up into the air on her jets - but even that reaction time doesn't save her entirely. Later, she will be deeply thankful for her armor; the beam rakes across her left leg, and it's only the magical and material protection it provides that keeps her from losing everything below the shin. And Jonathan will probably be even more creeped out, because even taking a doubtlessly painful injury, she doesn't make a sound. Not a whimper, not a groan, not a cry of pain. There is only a soft, hissed exhale of breath. Needless to say, the counterattack comes just as quickly. The armored girl jets to one side, unloading her left-hand gauntlet at the 'angel'. Softball-sized globes of yellow energy, a mix of partical blast and magical projectile, are unloaded in rapid succession; while they're certainly dangerous in their own right, they're mainly fired as cover to allow the flying girl to bank around and come straight in at the creature from one side. Both hands grip the EM Zanbatou, and just as she's about to swing, jets at the handle kick on, propelling the magic-enhanced blade with even more force than the armor and her charge already carry.
Alexis Maaka	Maaka stares, "Well...I fucked up." She muses, before she begins to back the hell away as Psyber does a thing. She notices Jonathan's about to get some BAD THINGS to happen to him, and she moves swiftly while lightning is being thrown about by half-angels. "Joestar, get moving!" She says, grabbing Jonathan by the shoulder and yanking him hard enough to get him out of bad touch range, firing from under his arm in a brief burst of automatic rifle fire. "Back off, wings!" She says harshly to the winged creature, whilst she gets Jojo out of trouble's reach.
Staren	Staren stares as the local expert just blasts things instead. "Seriously?!" But after a moment, Staren realizes that maybe Psyber knows something he doesn't. He joins the fight, blasting at the abyssal 'angel' with his beam cannons. "So, care to fill us in on what these things are?"
Jonathan Joestar	No answer. Not from the pale one, nor from the amorphous blobs; though the latter, he was not put off by. Maybe, he supposed, this was the inevitible outcome with so many people with differing methodology for contact situations like this. Even so, he couldn't help but feel despot as others quickly resort to attack out of fear. He held no illusion that these entities could be harmful, but without a measured approach, they'd only find themselves in a worse situation. Before Jonathan could attempt to apply his Hamon to the pale creature, Alexis quickly intervenes and pulls him back, no easy feat considering his stature, earning a surprised albeit somewhat disgruntled noise. Still, she meant well -- and in hindsight, may have just saved him from losing an arm. "Don't worry about me!" It had moved higher up to attack with some form of corrosive fog, leaving his more immediate means of reaching it defunct. Still, Jonathan was a quick thinker, if the goal was just to be able to grab onto the thing then he could do that with one of the cables in his bag. Twisting it around in a layered circle and charging it with Hamon, Jonathan turned it into a powerful spring! "With this spring, I can jump high enough to grab you!" Using it to assist his leap, Jonathan stretches his arms out to grab onto the flying abyssdweller's heels. "Hamon!" "Koooooh..." "OVERDRIIIIIIIIVE!"
Priscilla	It seems as if the creature is about to swoop down on Jonathan again, with Nozomi breaking out of the way, but when Maaka yanks him out of the way, its left to cross all four of its arms in front of its face and chest instead, as most of her magazine slams into its flesh. Rather than bleeding, her bullets draw away embers of white energy, which quickly tint purple, and then black, before disappearing into the fog. Seeing that Nozomi remains in one piece, the creature pursues, predictably taking flight just as easily. It swerves around the incoming energy fire, not taken off guard again by technology-based projectile weapons, and closes in on her head-on. When she swings the Zanbatou, all four of its hands blaze with light similar to the beam from before, and ignite into ghostly 'swords' of energy. It takes all of them, crossed over one another, to block the giant mecha blade, but it succeeds, blowing back an intense gale of wind as it pushes against the Rampart unit's thrusters. Before it can do much more, a bolt of holy-aspected lightning catches it dead on in the side, and sends it hurtling away, smashing through one of the sizable stone pillars before it rights its aerial tumble. The electricity leaves huge, glistening burns on its skin, which give off white particles as if smoldering. Now, seemingly engaging in true 'combat mode', it raises two of its hands over its head, and opens up a swirling, violet-rimmed rift in the dark -- a black hole against the black -- which remains in place even as the 'angel' drifts away. Staren's beam shots distract it, drawing its ire towards him, where it tanks several of them to take a double energy sword swing in a steep dive, but the void remains fixated on Psyber, and spits out a flickering shape eerily like a human head, twinkling white eyes and all, which homes in on him, and then blows up into a conflagration of swirling, starry fire, with a deafening scream, like a chunk of the night sky had exploded on him. Regardless, diving on Staren takes it low enough to the ground to give Jonathan a chance to grab on. The reach of the beam-like weapons is immense, possibly catching him in the scissor swing, but when his hands latch hold, and he channels the energy of the living sun through them, the creature's feet /detonate/ in his grasp, blown off instantly, and training those bloody white sparks as it swoops away. While he is left to fall, the black hole spits out another, shadowy face, this time aimed on him.
Guest Psyber	"Artorias is having me figure a lot of this out on my own. But... Best guess, the shadowy figures are probably body-less humanity. It's not hostile, but you wanna keep it at bay. The longer you're exposed to it, the more it's going to try to drain your energy." Psyber answers Staren in an honest tone, "So I threw some holy lightning similar to Gwyn to keep them back and prevent us from stumbling into what would basically be a debilitating zone. If you wanna fight while actively being exhausted, I can NOT do that next time." The half-angel looks towards the Darklurker and says, "Couldn't really tell you what that is. Piece of Manus, maybe? It uses attacks similar to his." Psyber muses as he flexes his hands and watches it. When the shape homes in on him and then explodes, Psyber is blown backwards and tumbles across the floor a bit before digging his sword in and skidding to a halt, "Fucking... gonna go with ow." Psyber comments as he shakes the cobwebs out of his head. He was way too out of practice. The half-angel digs his feet into the ground and then charges in towards the angelic being, "Either way, it's probably gotta die. It's causing the Dark to coalesce and agitate too much. Consider it like... excising a tumor to keep cancer from spreading." The half-angel then lifts up his sword and leaps, aiming a crackling, lightning-coated sword strike that tries to slash horizontally across the creature.
Alexis Maaka	Darklurker is definitely...shootable, at least that's a thing. Maaka opens fire with short bursts of fire, reloading her AK expertly as she racks the charging handle and chambers a fresh mag into battery. She wisely keeps her distance just in time to see Jojo do A THING. A thing that leaves her vision glitching out a bit as he unleashes OVERDRIIIIIIVE upon Darklurker. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!" She calls out, before use squeezes off another burst. Thankfully it should be -not- where Jojo's grabbing on.
Nozomi Houken	There is a moment where blade struggles against blade, where cold yellow eyes stare into the metaphorical (and sort of into the literal) abyss, and then the Darklurker is blasted aside. The force on Nozomi's end ensures that she goes pushing past the creature's former location for a half-second, but then she once again banks around - and pursues. And it's that same straightforward attack, no less, unloading energy shots at the thing until she can get within reach. And once again, she hefts the EM Zanbatou up, hauling it into a ferocious, jet-assisted swing- -only to allow that hit to glance off the Darklurker's guard. Her jets suddenly shift, a vicious high-G reversal of momentum on the rebound only possible with such agile maneuvering capability, and she swings the weapon and herself around in a spin; 'dancing' through the air in a move aimed to put her right behind the Abyssal entity, where she can swing the mighty blade straight at the base of one of those wings.
Staren	Staren's forcefield flares up, glowing as the energy swords swipe at it. Staren's forcefield is most effective against energy weapons, but even so, he can't fire or attack while it's taking the hit, and the abyss angel leaves deep, glowing gashes briefly visible before the field disappears again. Staren doesn't want to test how many hits it can take. Jonathan detonating the creature's feet with a touch is promising, though! <"We need to get Jonathan some flight!"> Staren suggests. He's not sure his wings will support his armor AND the big beefy man, though. Staren fires his beam cannons again to contribute to keeping the thing busy, and moves to stay near Jonathan so if it's drawn towards him, it will be into Jonathan-grabbing range again. Staren may not have its weakness, but he's got plenty of tricks he hasn't tried yet: Here's another. The missile racks on his shoulders pop up, and a dozen little missiles of varying size launch from the arms and shoulders of his armor. They home in on the darklurker but don't impact it -- once within a few meters, they detonate all at once, creating lances of high-energy heavy metal nuclei that aim to pierce it in an instant at such energies and speeds that they could go through a tank like water! Staren figures if it DOES work, it'll only work once, so he doesn't bother saving some of his armor's missiles for later.
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan's face flashes in surprise as he annihilates the creature's legs with an easy surge of Hamon. The massive man tumbles through the dark as he points up in his freefall, shouting. "Its legs were blown away by Hamon! Does that mean that this man isn't alive?!" Then was it similar to the monsters of his world? It was hard to say, he'd heard that this world was populated by Undead..perhaps this then, was indeed their equivalent to a vampire. Jonathan hits the ground with a painful thump, rolling on his shoulder to get back to his feet. The ache was soothed by the ripple coursing through his body, permeating every pore. "If it's weak to Hamon, I can settle this in an instant!" He just had to deliver a direct dose of Hamon. While Nozomi danced with it in the air and Staren sent a flurry of missiles, Jonathan went looking for his makeshift spring. Upon finding it not far from where he'd originally kicked off, he allowed its form to soften by nullifying the charge of Hamon running through it, converting its loose shape into something similar to a lasso. He'd been able to do a similar trick with his belt during his first real battle with Dio, so hopefully this cable would work just as well, if not better. When a moment of opportunity comes... Jonathan swings out, trying to catch the abyssdweller! "Koooooooh...!" "SENDO HAMON!" "OVERDRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! If successful, the ripple passes through the cable rather than conducting into it, and as a result, it should continue its pass right into the pale 'angel's body!
Priscilla	The shadowy figures are keeping /well/ back as the light show unfolds. As incredibly fixated as they are on the flashes of power, and the living souls wielding them, they've already been blasted away once, and their 'leader' apparently isn't to be interfered with. Sprays of bullets pepper the 'angel's form, spraying burning white-black particles, and drawing its attention long enough for it to spin through the air and launch a wave of glittering, deep-space fire at Maaka, like the explosion that had hit Psyber, only to train on Staren at the end of the roll, lift its arms up, and then cast them down in the form of what is unmistakably a Soul Spear, save that it is tinged with the midnight hues of Dark. Staren should remember what happened he was hit with one of those before. This one doesn't home in, but is much faster, and hits harder. The spherical void flickers, and then its glowing rim of light flares shocking white. The air around it is drawn inwards in a rapidly intensifying vortex, swiftly becoming a whirlpool of streaking black fog, from which face-like shapes can be continually glimpsed, strong enough to pull everyone directly towards it, though likely not in. Before that would happen anyways, the wind ceases, and the orb shatters into a hail of screaming sprites, bursting outward in all directions like shrapnel, some smashing into the floors and walls at high velocity, endangering Alexis, Jonathan and Staren, others breaking up to home in on Psyber and Nozomi in the air. The two of them, the Abyssal being seems intent on engaging anyways. With four arms, furnished with glowing blades again, it has just as many limbs, and twice as many weapons, as the both of them combined. Though its wings never flap once, nor does its movement ever disturb the air more than a moth's passage, it is disturbingly agile, as if blown about by unseen and well-timed crosswinds. It turns back and forth, sliding, spinning, stopping and starting between the two, deflecting and riposting with its projected blades of Dark, performing a consternatingly convincing mockery of swordplay, until Nozomi's trick of aerial mobility sends the Zanbatou cleaves straight downward on one of its wings, and hacks the limb off at the base. It tilts, lists, turns too slow, and Psyber's sword bisects it, cleaving through it above the knees, and blowing both legs to smithereens, the stumps of which start very slowly disintegrating its body upwards. It's a great setup for Jonathan. His intuition is as stop-on as it could reasonably be expected to. Pressed by so many foes on all sides, the Hamon user has only the one threat to contend with before he has his chance to hurl the cable, right after Psyber stuns the thing, latching around one of its stumps. The wave of golden light that passes through the connection, ever so briefly, lights up the room where it passes as one would /expect/, defying the pressing shadow, and where it connects with the angelic form, the wounded thing violently detonates into a cloud of roiling black fire and white smoke, spraying a swirling hail of searing grey embers everywhere.
Priscilla	It's only a good twenty seconds later, when the grand room has gone quiet, that one more shape appears, falling bodily out of the clearing 'smoke' and hitting the ground without a sound. Another humanoid shape, this one incredibly well-defined, with arms, legs, feet and fingers, but made of the same, immaterial void. After a few seconds, it pushes itself off the floor, turning its head to stare at the party with unblinking white pits, and then staggers upright, jogging to the edge of the far chasm with uncannily loud and echoing footstep noises, and then tilting to fall right in. The 'crowd' quickly follows suit, swarming inwards like flies, bereft of any real individual shape, and slowly but surely, the oppressive atmosphere lifts, and as the unnatural darkness goes with it, weak sunlight starts shining through a colossal crack in a high, distant wall, illuminating extensive acid damage all over the floor, and a huge, hideous, stone skeleton of . . . well, something with a lot of teeth.
Guest Psyber	Psyber connects with the sprites during his dash through the air. Without summoning his wings, he doesn't have many aerial dodge options. So he's forced to just power through it, letting it hit him clean on and do its damage to him. And, judging from the black smudging the corruptive dark energy does, it doesn't seem that well for the half-angel, half-human to take direct Abyss damage. After bisecting the creature, he hits the ground and digs his sword in behind him, letting it drag him to a stop before he stands up fully and grunts. He flickes the sword and shuts his eyes for a few moments. Holy electricity courses over his body for a few moments before the black splotches from where the hexes and dark attacks hit him seem to congregate towards the center of his body. After a few more moments, Psyber takes a deep breath. He then doubles over and retches, his body naturally purging out any Abyssal taint as a stream of dark ichor exits his mouth and pools on the floor. It's gross, it's unpleasant, and it's also why Psyber's natural physiology make him an ideal Abysswalker candidate. Standing up again, he takes a deep breath and rubs the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, "Mister Joestar. We should talk. It seems that Hamon Energy you have is roughly as effective, if not slightly more, as my holy lightning sword on the Dark Creatures of this world."
Alexis Maaka	"I'll say," Maaka muses, reloading her weapon after the fight ends. It's gross, and unpleasant, and she tries to keep herself distant from the stench. Unlike some people she doesn't have any natural defenses against this Abyssal crap. "You two might be the most qualified out of all of us, really." She says, before slinging the carbine again.
Nozomi Houken	The light also illuminates Nozomi Houken - more specifically, Nozomi as she touches down on the ground, and then immediately stumbles slightly to one side. Her leg is still injured under that armor, and it looks like one of those fragments of the voidal orb caught her across the same hip. But despite the pain, she at least seems able to walk once she's prepared for it. And walk she does, swinging that sword up onto one shoulder again. Her path takes her right over to Jonathan; he will get to see, for just a moment, how a translucent, 'holographic' readout appears before her eyes, displaying the results of sensor readings. The armored girl's gaze lingers on his wounds for a moment, until she's apparently satisfied. So she takes a step back, and that 'system voice' that used to be Taiga's speaks again. "Disengaging Rampart Mode. Rerouting Gensou Engine power to cognitive and motive systems. Independent mode engaged." The armor seems to blossom around her, and she steps out of it, revealing a black undersuit that almost immediately dissolves in a flare of yellow light. Underneath it, her clothes are still present, and the natural brown of her hair and eyes reasserts itself... ...aaaaand Jonathan gets to see the exact moment when her natural personality reappears, and the pain of her injuries hits her. "Ghh..." More than that, though, he can see just the briefest moment of /revulsion/ as the cold personality gives way. Thankfully, she's too busy leaning her weight on the newly-reformed TIGER unit to see Psyber barf up darkness.
Staren	OH F*** Staren sees the soul spear and DODGES. All of his attention on that spear, and getting away from it, in an instant. Fortunately, the missiles can do their thing without any conscious control on his part. He isn't fast enough, though. The spear goes through his chest, bypassing all his fancy defenses. And under all that metal, Staren is, at least at the moment, a squishy nerd with absolutely nothing super about his body. Staren screams out in pain -- a rare sensation for him -- and crashes as he loses focus on controlling the wings. Lying on the floor, with pained breathing, Staren tries to scan his surroundings to see if any more attacks are coming... but Joe turns out to be able to channel the hamon through weapons and just POOFED the thing like so much smoke. Staren doesn't try to speak -- breathing is hard enough -- but his armor's speakers say "Good job, everyone!" in his voice. Mostly he waits for the medichines to do their work. They can't actually heal him in anything resembling a short time, but they CAN do enough surgical jury-rigging to take some of the edge off the pain. Although possibly that's the only thing keeping him conscious...
Jonathan Joestar	And just like a vampire, its body was rendered nothing more than ash. Jonathan breathed calmly, reeling his cable back. Noticeably, everything was beginning to brighten up. And soon, the dark had disappeared under a crack of daylight. "..The dark left, just like that?" He wondererd aloud, rubbing his shoulder to make sure the damage had healed. Jonathan turned his head to check on everyone who'd come with him; thankfully, no one seemed to be hurt too terribly except for Staren, but, he sounded fine just now, even if that hole looked rather nasty. Perhaps it'd only dug through the metal and hadn't hurt the man inside? But then why did he scream? The frown on his face only dipped lower when he saw Nozomi. A lady shouldn't have such an expression on her face, and given her behavior beforehand, it just wasn't natural. It had to be that apparatus she fused with that was causing it. His suspicions found themselves confirmed, moments later, leaving him to bounce his eyes between her and the other wounded member of their party. "Yes, everyone did very well. And.." Jonathan nodded to Psyber. "I imagine we all have a lot we might want to talk about." Maybe he could get some answers as to that..Tiger, thing, when they did. But for the moment, more importantly, Jonathan approached Nozomi, who was the closest to his person. Abruptly, Jonathan places his palm on her. "I know this isn't proper, but you're in pain. You and Staren got hurt, so the least I can do is make it bearable." He didn't know the proper technique for healing others with his Hamon, but spreading it into her body should accelerate her recovery and dull the pain with a soothing, warm sensation. Given no one stops him, Jonathan moves over to Staren as well, though treating him would be more difficult given his armor, the result is ultimately the same. Luckily, his Hamon conducted through the frame just fine.
Nozomi Houken	"-eh?" Nozomi looks up in mild surprise as- oh god he's huge. He's /huge/. If anything she looks a little nervous for a second or two, but something in Jonathan's demeanor is reassuring. Despite his sheer mass, he seems... gentle? She tenses just faintly when the hand reaches out... but then the relief on her face is immense. Taiga turns his head slightly, one ear flicking towards Jonathan again; as the power of Hamon soothes the worst of the pain, the robotiger cants his head curiously, then offers a simple, "Thank you," in that deep voice. "Nozomi, will you be fine until we reach medical treatment?" The girl nods faintly, and- carefully- slings herself onto his back. Some of his plating is damaged; he was her armor, after all. But he's still got full movement for the time being.
Staren	Staren groans as he tries to stand. Then he has the armor move him. Which still hurts, but depends less on the state of his body. <"Just like that? This was by no means simple or easy. Your ability is really something."> Sharp hearing might notice pained breathing happening at the same time as the voice from the speakers. Staren's eyes go wide as it turns out the hamon is also HEALING MAGIC. "That's--ow" He's so surprised he forgets to use the speakers, and pays for it. <"That's quite some trick you have there... I mean technique."> With magical treatment AND medical nanomachines, the pain is soon well into the 'bearable' range. Staren's stance becomes more relaxed as he stops using the armor to override his own movement. "Thanks." He smiles up at Jonathan behind his faceplate.