Scene #5938: The Psychic Storm of the Century

Owner	Pose
August Kohler	Afternoon, Maslow Peak Area, Psychonauts Earth Shadow August manifested into a psychic robot over a week ago, Friday the 6th. Since his escape down the side of Maslow Peak, no one has been able to find him - he's been playing it very cool and quiet, not drawing any unwarranted attention to him. Interestingly, no sites of psytanium or any other repair material have been disturbed. Whatever he's been doing, he hasn't healed, apparently? August has been trying to track him, and has brought out his Servant, Atalanta, to assist. They've been able to keep some steady pressure on him, and have found two 'campsites' so far, though he keeps abandoning them rapidly. Eventually, though, Archer will be able to track him directly, picking up his scent...on the move. It's time, and they're right on time for it, not needing to wait until he's directly in the line of city fire. Currently, Shadow August moves through a dense forest of trees, fire licking around him. He's basically August in appearance, with some major differences - he's wearing a cross between an engineer's outfit and a military uniform, complete with a mixed railroad cap/military dress hat. The midsection has a big gash in it, showing a bad but mostly-healed wound leaking some sort of fluid, and his arms are mechanical, though one is made of flowing psychic energy - the right red and black, the left psychic energy forming flesh and metal mixed, tubing flowing with blue energy. He's missing his right eye, replaced with yellow swirling energy, while the left is just plain yellow. As Shadow August walks forward, a confident stride and gait, the fire suddenly lashes out around him as thunder crackles in the sky, the flames blasting against the trees and quickly burning down around him, starting to clear the forest. It's not large-scale, but it's giving him walking room - and potential fighting room for his enemies. Regarding his path, he's heading for a major population center, right outside the tail-end of the forest. He's in the middle of it, but he's making pace...if the Shadow isn't stopped, it's truly possible he'll get there and cause all sorts of death and disaster. There's a few ways in - off the roads from the warpgate, or flying down from off the mountain. If only they had a jet.
Yang Xiao Long	Yang is burning rubber, through a warpgate on the far side of the city, through the streets while dodging traffic and heading straight out the other side into the forest. Her heavy bike dodging through trees until she's at a reasonable distanct away. She gets off the bike, sends it back to a safe spot using the auto controls, then deploys her Weapon, running the rest of the way in to get ready for contact. "I'm in position, ready for contact. I'm gonna slow him down as much as I can, so hurry the hell up!" she calls over radio, setting her stance and crossing her arms to rack the slides on her weapon.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's Clairvoyance goes off rather suddenly in an intense burst, and only a minute after that, he's trying to organize everyone getting into the psychic spy-jet from a nearby warpgate and off the ground, if they don't have their own vehicles. The plane is stylish, swooping, and futuristic. It's a 70s-spy-fiction mess with painted whirls and a strange, glowing engine at the back, glimmering with shining purple light. The inside has self-stabilizing, oddly floating chairs in the same 70s style, and has plenty of room, plus a rear deployment area and parachutes for people to jump out paratrooper-style and get right into the battle, or even jump their own vehicles out of the thing! He comes in low over the burning treeline. While he'll no-doubt provide a briefing to those who took the ride, for now those who deploy need only know that he intends to swoop low under the Storm and into the battle zone!
Leyanne	Leyanne enters astride Skrat, her all-terrain cavalry bike. She's close on Yang's six, pulling the bike up to a halt next to her. She steps off the bike and unstraps one of the Bushmaster cannons, hooking it into a Smartgunner-style harness that she's already carrying pre-hooked in to her armour. After a quick self-test of the rig, she sends Skrat off to join Yang's bike, ready to be called in should she needed. She flips up the faceplate of her helmet and lights a cigar, giving Yang a nod. Then she thumbs her radio's push-to-talk. "Mace, in position with Yang."
Empty Tidings	Empty Tidings takes the sweet spy-jet. She's never flown in one before, so it's a fascinating experience. She spends it with wide-eyed, almost childlike amusement, which doesn't really fit the somewhat 'gothic chic' style she's sporting, nor the typically confident manner with which she presents herself, but shouldn't you take life's simple pleasures where you can get them? They fly over the burning path. Tidings excuses herself politely and moves to the deployment area. She looks down, staring at the racing trees and doing some mental estimation. She purses her lips, adjusting her glasses, and turns to face into the rest of the jet. She smiles faintly. Then she steps backwards off into open air. Tidings falls, plummeting into the terribly close treeline. She uses the momentum from the jet's flight in her drop, arms up to ward off small branches as she flits between the tops of trees. She swings outward, gloved hands grabbing a tree trunk, spinning down it like she was riding the thread on a screw, stripping bark and shedding speed -- until she lets go. The flying kick comes from Shadow August's left, bursting out from above him and to his side. Super strength doesn't really play into it, but as it turns out, Empty Tidings is coming at him /very/ fast.
Kotone Yamakawa	So here we go, Kotone was herre she was armed as well as she could be for this she was expecting serious trouble today. She was as heavily armred as she could be, she'd have brought her ARMED suit, but the small mecha might prove to be a hinderance due to it's lower moblity. This was likely to be a running battle, so she came on foot armored in her stealth gear and carrying some heavy firepower today. She's making ready to go in Yang is here, she's glad to have someone who has all the power of a full con cyborg and the close combat training to make it evne more effective. She waits there fitting some sort of heavy rifle, while severaql gun turret drones are deployed, this isna ambush the opening gambit She jacks into the weapon gettting a feed from it's scope, she does not have a Hawkeye but this is past what she could have done before she was a cyborg, she'll wait till she lines up a shot and lets lose with a double tap of high powered rounds, followed by the drones opening up with their assault rifle class weapons. Hopefully this would get the shadow's attention
Staren	A red beam of light streaks down from the sky in the forest nearby -- it coalesces into Staren in robot form. He activates wings and thrusters, flying up above the treeling, and... well, Shadow August isn't exactly making himself hard to find. Staren's holding the RAISER rifle. He sets it on full, aims at the ground near August, and fires at half power a projectile of photonic matter that will explode as soon as it hits something. He doesn't need to hit the Shadow. he just needs to hit close.
Orchid	What kind of idiot would jump out of a perfectly good airplane? Well, in the right circumstances, Orchid might. She's got a large backpack, all made of metal and wires, along with a sort of fire hose nozzle. Say, she did spend some extra time up in the facility on the mountain, maybe she's managed to make something that will work. She'll dash upwards just before she hits the ground (Dashboots ROCK) and un-holsters the device. The tip has a sort of radar dish on it. Once she sees Shadow August, and sees other engaging him, she lifts the device, points it in the direction of the Cold Reader gone bad, and turns it on. Nothing VISIBLE comes out, but for those that can see psychic things, well, it's a wave of a single thought, that Orchid is trying to inject into the robotic bits of Shadow August's mind. The thought in question? The color blue. Not the most complex one, but Orchid is hoping it will be distracting.
Flamel Parsons	"Alright!" Parsons calls out via telepathy, both to those who boarded his plane and those who chose to arrive their own ways. "We don't have time, so I'll be really fast! This is an August aspect, so if we kill him it'll mess up August's brain, but we have to stop him. Do your best to help August resolve all this, or drive this thing off if he can't! It's a machine, so it might have some wireless vulnerabilities, and it's psychic too, so watch out for dangerous psionic stuff and heavy psychokinetic defenses! Expect lots of pyrokinesis!" "Watch for machines, watch for drones, watch for traps, watch out for the Maslow Effect storm's lightning... Really, just keep eyes out all over the place! In general! I'm sure you guys can get through this though! Just push as hard as you can and win this one for your friend! Or your leader that you don't like but have to help! Or your enemy who you don't want to be worse,. Look-- I'm just really sure we can stop this if we try as hard as we can." As he swings low enough for everyone to drop over Shadow August's position, he spins the jet around, showing off a little VTOL functionality as he hovers it above the treeline, between August and his target. His voice calls out in telepathic PA: "Hey! You're technically not a psychohazard, since you're a part of a friend's mind and not an external phenomenon. That's why I have to ask you to calm your psionics and come in for registration and a reintegration program." And then a set of four massive airplane-mounted psi-energy emitters rack forward. "But even I'm not optimistic enough to think you're going to say yes to that." And he begins channeling his psi-blasts, intent on barraging the Shadow with a volley of shining orange bolts and driving it away from the nearby town.
Atalanta	No one's been able to find him... at least, not with just August on the ground. With Atalanta at his side, as she should be, it's not long before the tracker of the goddess of the hunt finds it, and points this out. "Here." She says, pointing at a map. "That direction. I can smell the ash." Calls were made. Not even Atalanta and August together is enough for Shadow August, and she knows it. "Master... I'm going." She says to him, simply. "I'm faster than you and everyone else still has to get here. For you." The last two words are really the telling part, before the green and blonde-haired lion stands up, bow at her side, and a familiar pelt hanging on her hip. She then gives him a long look, before Atalanta moves. She's getting to Shadow August, and getting his attention, along with everyone else. However, she doesn't do it with Alpha Strikes, no.... the leonine servant narrows her eyes, and stands, bow drawn... and she aims straight for the head, gleaming, green arrows firing rapidshot. "Over here, you asshole."
Yang Xiao Long	As everyone else comes in guns blazing, Yang tchs, then grins. "Right, fine then... they got here faster than I expected." she nods to Leyanne. "C'mon, lets get stuck in... I'll run interference, you fill him full of holes." she says, then throws her arms back, launching herself forwards to get right up in Shadow August's face, bringing a haymaker right hook around to smash straight into the psybot's face, punctuating it with another report of her shotgauntlet firing a kinetic blast at point blank. "SPECIAL FUCKING DELIVERY ASSHOLE!"
Leyanne	Leyanne watches the hail of firepower stream out, listening to Yang. "Let's do this." She says, with a grin. She watches Yang move in... and opens fire. If she's timed it right, the hail of 30mm rounds should slam into AugustBot just ahead of Yang, the mouse holding fire for her to deliver her Haymaker. The mouse uses this time to start moving around to the flank, walking slowly while keeping up a steady stream of fire now that Yang has switched to (extremely short) range. "Y'know August!" She says, cheerfully into her radio. "You have no idea how much I've wanted to do this sometimes."
A2	A2, by contrast to the others, hadn't actually gone far from Maslow peak in all this time. Only one night of that whole time had been productive at all, but it at least results in her already being really close when the alert comes through. Close enough to get there on foot without any special arrival. Catching up at high speed by mundane means through the forest might be beneficial, even if she has to churn through ash at highway speed to do it. She arrives slightly late on the scene, as a jet plane and several Elites are already pouring absurd amounts of gunfire onto the Shadow, exactly as jacked up and menacing as she remembered. Skidding to a stop, A2's fingers clench as she recalls that hesitance atop the peak, briefly overcome with a wave of something like nauseau that unsteadies her on her feet; the feeling that comes from thinking of that thing from getting into a town and killing because she, and specifically only she, had locked up like that. The town itself doesn't matter. The people in it, not particular. Call it a bad memory, but it takes a moment for the Android to shake her head, run her weathered fingers over her face, and square up. A2 is exclusively a close range attacker (hence the designation), and so an ongoing alpha strike doesn't leave her with many options. When she picks up speed again, pounding dirt at breakneck pace abruptly turns into gliding down the mountainside without quite touching the ground, as if skidding on invisible rails that only leave deep heel gouges in the ash. The air ripples and compresses around her and the firelight dims and refuses to properly illuminate her, leaving her silhouette dark and distorted as she approaches, until at the last second, one eye flashes with a streak of red, and she curves in to blindside the Shadow with the rough effect of a speeding train, without physically striking him. She idea is to pass through the bombardment zone as quickly as possible, and to send the Shadow flying off course to prevent a running gunfight into the objective zone.
August Kohler	August Kohler doesn't take the spy-jet, he's already on the ground. It's okay, he knows how to move, and can move in ways he didn't use to be able to. He'll leap from tree to tree wearing a t-shirt, tactical vest, and jeans, a knife and a pistol at his side. And while he's doing that... The others move to start attacking on Shadow August. Empty Tidings gets the first strike, and due to her speed, it's incredibly accurate. A kick impacts into the Shadow's side, slamming him backwards and thudding hard against him, though the martial artist will be immediately able to tell that he's as hard as metal, and durable in general. The Shadow reacts by attempting to grab her by the arm and grip tightly, fingers ignting to try and burn her, though he's unable to do that long before he's forced to let go because... A double shot of high-powered rounds and a volley of drone fire blasts into Shadow August, stumbling him back until he leaps backwards, using a tree as cover. His reaction is to toss a large burst of fire at Kotone's direction, and then another at one of the drones. However, that tree ends up being the target for Staren's RAISER rifle, and explodes in a burst of energy, the backblast hitting the Shadow and sending him flying backwards through several trees. He slouches to its knees, moving as if he's going to leap up and counter-attack...but Orchid's signal suddenly influences him, causing him to jerk back and grab his head out of confusion, trying to shake the signal out. While he's doing that, Flamel speaks up to him, and he manages to force himself away from the distraction. Instead of responding, Shadow August just sprays a flamethrower blast at Flamel, at the same time that he's hit with several psychic bursts, tearing through his jacket and into his hull. Arrows impact from the treeline where Atalanta stands, straight for the head. The first one hits dead into that glowing eye, causing it to spark horribly, and drawing 'blood' around the eye with a loud crack, though with the robot body, it's likely that this is it just representing the damage done to it. The other arrows have less time hitting as accurately, because he starts moving, ripping the arrow out of his face and taking the rest at shoulder and neck level, swatting a few away with superhuman precision. They're still clearly paining him, though, showing that he /does/ feel pain... Especially when Yang comes in the shotgun punch. It impacts straight into his face, blasting him backwards and breaking /something/, at the same time as Leyanne's blast into his back. Instead of going down, though, the Shadow moves to grab Yang's fist, and with a burst of strength, try and throw her with a sharp yank straight into Leyanne's direction and her hail of fire, his hands burning in the process. He seems to be hoping he can take down Leyanne or distract her long enough to continue his pursuit towards the city... And A2 speeds in, moving to cut that off with a curving blindside. This succeeds in knocking the Shadow off course, as he stumbles and slams into a tree, and collapses on his knees. Is it already over? If anyone comes up to finish him, though, they just get a wry grin, as the storm thunders again, and lightning suddenly strikes directly on top of Shadow August, and possibly blasting back anyone directly in close combat with him. The answer to how he's kept going without repairs is obvious immediately, as the most grievous of the wounds just dealt to him are repaired as the psychic lightning surges through him, though he's far from completely healed. He grabs his jaw and 'snaps' it back into place, as he just shakes his head, and snaps his fingers. More lightning strikes around the field, moving to bombard the group. And then, finally, he speaks.
August Kohler	"Well, well, well, what a way to say hello." It's August's voice, but as if it was put through a tape recorder as a filter a dozen times. "I see you've brought the cavalry! Can't stand to let me finally get what I deserve, can you?" As the lightning strikes around the battlefield, walls are also getting erected out of the psychic energy. They're small enough to be shambled over, but cut through the treeline to create a battlefield and make navigation difficult. It seems that he's not going to advance, not right now, not while he can fight. And it looks like the mention of 'drones' was close enough, as gun emplacements form on the walls, blasting automatically at anything in sight besides the Shadow. The Shadow continues to speak once they're built up around and inside the forest all over the place. "It's in my way, can't you see? George's riddle had a point to it, but I made it better. The answer is /society/. That's the cancer. Do you know what it's done to me? It's isolated me. Isolated me from all of you, from any chance of getting 'better'. The Anima's answers can't be solved while it's in my way." At this point, August Kohler joins up with the others, suddenly landing on a tree. He doesn't seem to be exhausted despite running all the way here on-foot, and he stares his Shadow in the face. The Shadow just grins at him and continues to speak. "Half of you are part of the problem. You demonize me, turn me into a monster, because I don't solve problems 'your way'. Because I struggle and aren't always the pretty good guy, but get my hands dirty and understand that this world is hell! SO YOU RIP ME APART, CALL ME A RABID DOG, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE?" The Shadow leaps onto one of the walls, partly to continue monologuing and partly to dodge attacks, as he grimaces sharply. "I'm going to burn it all down! I'll build a world where I can be accepted instead of being treated as the goddamn villain all the time! So get out of my way-" "FUCK YOU!" August launches his own attack, suddenly leaping off the tree and making air over to the wall. It's a far distance, but he's somehow capable of it, something he's never been capable of doing before. His fist strikes hard into the Shadow's chest, cracking something and causing a look of clear confusion from the Shadow. The Shadow speaks up again. "Wow, you got strong. But not strong enough." And then, August's fist is grabbed, and thrown at a wall quite some distance away, next to a gun emplacement. Instead of getting KO'd, though...August flips off the wall, and moves to start tearing the gun emplacement off it. Looks like that's how he's going to aid instead of striking any directly. And so, the Shadow waits to see who'll attack next, fire swirling around him as a defense.
Yang Xiao Long	Yang gets grabbed and tossed. She tumbles through the air, but fires off a few blasts from her gauntlets, arresting the spin and launching herself away from Leyanne. She slams into a tree, cracking the trunk and shimmering gold for a moment as her Aura absorbs the impact. She slides down the trunk, picking herself up slowly with her eyes shaded with her hair. "Society's the problem huh? That's something I've heard before, from someone on my own world. He's a dick and doesn't have any plans... he just wants to destroy," her face lifts, a trickle of blood running down her face from a cut on her forehead, matching the colour of her eyes. "Just to destroy, destroy and destroy some more. Just for his own selfish spiteful pride... and that's all I see here!" she concludes, slamming her fists together and sparking her Aura into a large wing-like shape before she launches off. Gunfire strafes her approach, bullets ripping through her Aura, some deflecting, some getting through and making her stumble, but unable to stop her advance, just yet. She leaps up onto some of the walls, kicking off them then off tree trunks, pinballing around to get a good strike in at Shadow August. "SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH!" her cry punctuating with a flurry of rapid punches, each one carrying the full weight of her anger with it.
Orchid	It's working! It's actually working! But then the lightning starts striking down, sending invisible pulses across the radio spectrum. For most, these manifest as simple static on the radio. For Orchid, it is something much worse, as that radio is part of her that she can't shut off. She falls to her knees, dropping the Thought Injector nozzle as her hands clutch her head. She'll recover, and she'll be able to filter the noise out, but it means disconnecting a part of herself. She'll be able to put it back, but both processes take time.
Leyanne	Leyanne brings up her left arm to guard herself from Yang... grateful that she re-directs herself to avoid her. She's about to resume attacking when the lightning strikes her, knocking the mouse flying. She slumps to the ground, lying still for almost a full minute before she twitches, unfolding from the uncomfortable position she'd been laying in and standing up. She tries to bring her gun back to bear but her system is undergoing a full reboot. Her eye flickers a few times before coming back to full brightness... the rest of her system won't be so fast. "Well..." Leyanne grunts, her balance still a little bit messed up. "That sucked."
Staren	ALL THAT WORK TO HURT THE SHADOW AND HE JUST HEALS IT. WHAT A JERK! They may need a new plan... Lightning rains from the heavens! Staren is unlucky enough to be near one of the first strikes. It goes through him, leaving his armor smoking hot. His internals are well-shielded, but that doesn't make his armor any better for taking lightning! It's somewhat conductive at least, but blackened with a line of slag running down it. Also he's somehow got the ability to set up gun emplacements? What the hell. Staren fires beam cannon shots at them and takes cover behind a tree. "Yeah, I DO know what it's like! But in the end I was vindicated! I found people who believe in how I do things. You can do the same, or you can suffer as the lone hero. That was my plan. But you know, August does have FRIENDS. So he's fine. And hopefully one day he'll find that world that suits him. But YOU are gonna have to get back under control first! Killing innocents is a betrayal of your principles and you know it!"
Atalanta	"I call you a part of my master... because without you, my master wouldn't be my master!" Atalanta shouts from the treetops. She and August have a weird relationship, sure. She bullies him, he threatens to take her to the vet... it's a cyclical relationship. But she's never let him down, and he's never let her down, as far as she's concerned. Sure, she may not like his gender, but... Hey. He is her master. Lightning goes out. Atalanta darts further up and further back. Her range is immense - she doesn't need to be as close to him, as say, Yang does, in order for her combat skills to still work. Her fingers run down the string on Tauropolos; green arrows spring to life, a facet of magic, rather than reality. The fur on her tail, and her hair, get all frizzy; her tail especially stands on end as she turns back to face Shadow August. Her teeth bare. "GAO!" Atalanta catapults herself off the top branch she's standing on, sending herself into the air above the trees, as she twists and fires, the green arrows going straight towards the Shadow. She's not aiming for an eye, this time: Just anywhere.
Empty Tidings	Tidings' quick attack gets her a look at their opponent from up close. She bends her leg at the impact, tensing to spring back when he grabs her by the arm. She reacts by flipping completely over, kicking him in the jaw and wrenching her arm in a distinctively uncomfortable way. She lands, standing with arm outstretched and cloth burning, high on the tips of her toes. "Gh --!" Her hand clenches into a fist -- She doesn't need to do anything drastic. The volleyed fire hammers into the Shadow, and he lets go, giving Tidings time to quite literally flip away from his immediate reach. She glances down at the sleeve that got burned through, still slightly smoking, an awful red burn on her upper arm. "I see I should have visited my friend the Count again before coming here," she growls. Damn, that smarts. She flexes the fingers on her right hand, sighing, keeping back and circling at a safe distance... right up until the lightning strikes. She's forced even further away, shielding her eyes and looking for an opening. "Excellent form, August," Empty Tidings calls brightly. "He's made of tougher stuff, though. Remember, always look for a weakness you can exploit!" She turns towards the Shadow, rolling her shoulders. And laughs. "It /is/ society that's the problem, isn't it? Always looking down on those who see the truth of the world." She stalks around the Shadow, keeping equidistant from him wherever she goes. She prowls like a predatory animal, moving like one, watching him like one, ever patient. "Do you know who knows how to stop the monstrous things that lurk in civilization's shadow?" She smiles. "The monsters themselves. Why, then, are we so reviled when we're so necessary?" "You aren't wrong, you know," Empty Tidings opines, slowly drifting closer, ever circling, picking her way between incoming fire and warm, furious bodies, "but you're going about it all the wrong way. Do you think excising society as a whole is really the answer to your problems?"
Kotone Yamakawa	The drones are drones for a reason, they are cheaper to deploy than a person or an android. One drone is full on caught in the fire and it's remaining ammo detonates from the supernatural heat rending it a smoking mess, the other survives the fire well enough but it's taken damage and it might not be able to go back into movement mode. Kotone herself is somewhat cooked by the fire but she's was able to avoid being at ground zero. There's a faint scent of melted plastic from her at this point. She's not moving in too much she's forced to shove her rifle into her Matter Manipulator Storage unit. She now has an assault rifle of her own in hand as she's moving in now to back up those trying to get up close. She sees the defensive emplacements go up and that's going to be a problem, it seems she should have brought the ARMED suit, it is too late for that now. Oh lighting? Wait?! Lightning? This is getting bad for her she's caught and she screams, she has surge protectors but this is not /good for her/ there's a lot of pain, if not for the nature of her stealth armour insulating her? It would be even worse. She closes in using her superhuman agility to get some air time and open up on one of the new turret emplacements.
A2	Having accomplished her initial objective without being shot, A2 disengages /whatever/ it is she's doing and grinds to a stop on the ground again, briefly taking a low forward handed fighting stance, before slowly letting it shift when Shadow August rises again. She hadn't expected it'd be that easy, but she had wanted to see how exactly the shambling, horrifically damaged robot had gotten this far after the beating it had taken the other day. That kind of self-repair makes the answer obvious. After all, how long had /she/ stumbled onwards through the red haze of days on her own self-repair alone? Using the buster is out of the question in this scenario; with this much clutter around, there's barely room to swing it. A2 flexes her right arm at the elbow, wrist, and fingers several times, ensuring the integrity of the 'new parts' she'd gotten. Seemingly satisfied, a maso charge runs through it, and a swarm of golden particles buzzes into her hand, coalescing into the convoluted and strangely angled Type-4O sword, its mirror-like blade already coruscating with arcs of energy. When she looks up to lock stares with August's shadow, white bangs falling aside to reveal her usual lifeless lavender eyes, a smouldering ember of digital red still remains in her right. "Funny thing is, you're not wrong." she says, with only cracking exhaustion in her voice. "What was it. Two, three, wisecracks already?" A2's stance shifts from a martial arts form to an armed one, slowly and deliberately. "I couldn't give less of a shit if you want to burn down the world. We both know half of it deserves it. All the same, we both know you're a part of August too, and while you're fucking around here, you've taken away the power to burn out /any/ part of society from him." "I know I'm not supposed to kill you, but if you can't accept that, I'll beat the hell out of you until you go back in there to get away from me!" To do that, she has to get through the wall maze, and A2 plunges into it headlong. Rather than trying to get clever, A2 actually ducks low and zips between them, zigzagging between rows of psychic barriers like being pulled on invisible strings, rather than bodily stopping and accelerating normally. If she jumps up to get over them, all the guns can shoot her simultaneously, whereas if she actually uses the walls, only a few can shoot at her at a time, and those she handles with her sword, making quick work of slashing through the rows of emplacements she glides by, and swatting away close volleys of psychic projectiles, patching herself up with white voxel light where they ambush her. A column of lightning strikes directly down on her. There's no way in hell to really dodge lightning after the circuit is already completed, but when the charge hits her, A2 scatters into a burst of golden static and monochrome image clones twirling away in every direction. Nowhere to be seen for an instant, she reappears dangerously close to Shadow August -right up in his face- as if by teleportation. Throwing herself straight through the defensive fire while it is still held passively, she swings her sword onto him more like an axe than anything else, forcing the weighty edge as deep as it'll go, and then pulling the hilt-integrated trigger to discharge it's built up destructive electro-magical energy. With the sword as leverage, she fluidly twists into an excessively forceful spinning kick, freely letting go of the blade to let the Shadow fly backwards and get her out of the fire. The weapon dematerializes on it's own.
Flamel Parsons	Parsons reels back from the heat, which leaks dangerously through the cockpit of his jet. He slams controls back with his mind, turning the thing around and forcing it to back away from the barrage of lightning, but not before the lancing electrical arcs lash through his jet's left wing. Still flying, though only in a loose definition, he sets it on autopilot and sends it off, before leaping out the back and drifting to the ground on levitation. "Come on, come on, come on... Gah!" He dives to one side to avoid more. "Ahhh, this is bad. It can recover with the Storm! We have to keep this up to drain more of the energy out of it, I think!" He doesn't sound certain, but he DOES sound optimistic about that! He doesn't focus on the Shadow. No, it's about as softened as it can get, now that it's decided that society is the problem rather than the people. Instead, he focuses on the other part. "AUGUST!" He calls out, zipping into invisibility and trying to shift in towards the emplacements with Staren and Kotone. "Hey! This is actually a lot better than it could be! I really appreciate your efforts to try to push through that!" He's speaking telepathically as he tries to maneuver, platforming around the walls and trees and emplacements to try to reduce the hazard through spy sabotage. "But right now, it looks like the biggest risk might be that you might not be accepting how much you /resent/ the sorts of feelings you're perceiving in other people! And-- Gah!" He has to dodge out of the way of automated fire, even when invisible! That's not intangibility, you know. "And it's important for me to say that I wouldn't hold it against you if you resented people for how you're treated! I don't think they would either! You can be a good person and still feel really terribly hurt by stuff like this, so make sure not to push those feelings away!" Always so terribly, awfully optimistic, that Parsons.
August Kohler	The group continues to attack despite the fire, lightning, and guns. Yang comes up with a strong melee strike, a flurry of punches into him. Parts of the metal cracks underneath, causing a loud groan of pain, as the Shadow staggers back. He responds to Yang with whirling fire, trying to set her alight. "Oh, yes, prove me correct! Treat me like a monster! My own ally, who hates my guts because I stood against her. Because I didn't believe the same thing! Can't you see how it is? Can't you even imagine how it feels, Long?" At the least with the storm, Staren might be able to notice something very important, and Flamel could likely feel it - the storm's dying down a little with every bolt, every gun emplacement, and especially everytime he heals. It doesn't seem to be infinite, like he's expending his own control over the storm to use these abilities. Staren's beam shots manage to blast apart the gun emplacements, which aren't actually that sturdy, and taking some of the pressure off of the others. Shadow August creates a spiral of flames to fire at Staren, mostly directly at the tree he's using as cover, shrugging. "Who really is innocent? They've all hurt me. They're the problem. If I tear them apart into something with no structure, no society, then the problem's fine. Just continue burning and burning until everything's over. It's so direct, it's scary!" Atalanta launches off a tree, firing arrows at the Shadow. "Oh, Archer. I needed to be free. I needed to let loose! Though, you're always so judgmental...what the hell do you care? It's like /I'm/ the animal in the relationship!" He doesn't sound like he likes that, as the arrows impact into his chest and rip up his outfit even more, drawing 'blood' from him. He responds by snapping his fingers, causing one of the still-remaining gun emplacements to start firing on Atalanta...and then setting those bullets alight, flaming bulletstorm flying straight at the Archer! Empty Tidings had kicked the Shadow pretty hard, but right now, she doesn't move to attack...but to weave her way up to him? It actually appears to be working, as he solely remains on-guard, not attacking her back. He has no idea what's up her sleeve. "I knew you were an interesting person...but you just don't understand. Society needs to burn to the ground for me to finally get the freedom I need! Once it's gone, they'll understand what it feels like!" It sounds a little...deranged, honestly. Like the Shadow hasn't thought it through beyond 'let's kill everything'. "Like you know the right way! Tell me, what is your strategy, HUH?" Kotone is capable of assisting Staren in taking out several more of the emplacements, ripping it open. August is nearby doing the same thing, as he nods to her. The emplacements are torn off the walls, and turn into husks of psychic energy. "Oh, A2, A2. You don't understand. I'm stronger. Faster. Tougher. I have more capability than he ever will to do these things! Accept it, DAMN IT!" At the same time, she's suddenly up in his face, which he didn't expect...and her blade slices straight into him! The Shadow growls in pain, and then is suddenly forced back with the discharge and the spinning kick, flying backwards off the wall and straight into the ground. Flamel's sabotage helps disable more of the emplacements, crushed and sparking to the ground until they're basically all gone - something that certainly pisses off the Shadow. August turns to Flamel as he shouts out to him, but the Shadow growls and sends a bolt of fire at the boy, who moves to dodge it instead of speaking. "Trying to psychoanalyze us? Are we your favorite project, Mr. Secret Agent? I'll make sure not to push these feelings away...I'll embrace them! I'll use them to fuel my fire!"
August Kohler	As he says that, the Shadow forms a massive burst of fire around him, and sends it out like a wave. It slags the walls into nothing, and starts melting trees, creating a plain as a battlefield. A big empty spot with only trees as the border...it seems suspicious, up until the storm starts to roar, loudly. It's going to do something, shortly...but what? Looks like the Shadow needs a bit more time to do it, though!
Staren	FWOOSH. Well, this tree's not gonna last long. Staren's forcefield comes back on and he runs to another. In a robot body, he doesn't have to feel the heat, doesn't have to breathe, can dialogue just fine while running. "I get it. You're like the part of me that sometimes wishes all the stupid racists, the blindly dogmatic, that the people making it so easy for others to commit terrible crimes -- that are easily suckered into performing such crimes without knowing any better -- would just die." "But it's not their fault. People can change. We have to have hope." Staren keeps moving -- firing micromissiles (the forcefield drops briefly while he fires) that can do the aiming and all the offensive work on their own, arcing through the air to come in au August from various angles, airbursting into tiny lances of plasma. May as well see how this works, and if the gun he gave August is going to be of any use. "But you don't have that, do you? You don't have August's hope. And without hope, what kind of world can you possibly create?"
Leyanne	Leyanne frowns a little. She makes a judgement call as her systems come back online... people are trying to convince Shadow August not to do what he's doing. So instead she takes her aim from him to his emplacements, She lets the others do the talking, because frankly, they're better at it than her. Blowing shit up is her forte, so she's sticking to what she knows. Although she does not in agreement with the points the others are making.
Orchid	Monologues. At least Sigma doesn't monologue quite so badly. Orchid gets back up, the pain under control. She fiddles with the device on her back, accidentally setting the idea being projected to 'plaid.' She turns it back on, and approaches Shadow August, adding her own contribution. "What of value would be left after you destroy society?" she asks. "All the art is gone, along with those that might make more art. There's natural beauty, maybe, but no one to appreciate it. What would be LEFT that is worth the EFFORT of destroying everything?"
Yang Xiao Long	Yang just snarls, landing on a branch and gathering to launch herself again when she's caught in that flame, burning at her Aura, setting her clothes alight and making her cry out as flesh begins to cook. Burns appear across her exposed skin, and her jacket bursts into flame, causing her to eject it with another blast of Auric release. She braces her arms in front of her as that blast of fire rips out from the Shadow, sending her sailing backwards, only to slam into the ground, rolling and tumbling until she can get a hand under her to kip into the air. She rolls out, spreads her legs to brace then skids back in a three-point crouch to bleed off momentum, digging three furrows in the dirt as she does. Yang Xiao Long is burned, she's battered and bloodied, but she's also well and truly PISSED OFF. Emberlike flames flare from her hair as it lifts in unseen winds, billowing out as she pushes herself up. Red eyes glow balefully at the Shadow, her entire world devolving into just herself, and this creature. Real fire seems to have taken root in her billowing mane of hair, smoke pouring from her golden tresses, until it's forcefully put out by a final burst of Auric flare. "You're just a weak, self centered COWARD out for your own amusement." she bellows, turning from the super fast approaches she's used before into a measured walk, each footfall leaving a crater in her wake as they gradually become quicker. "You think you have it all figured out, that burning the world to ashes will fix everything, make people see your side of things. But you're WRONG. Hurting people just breeds hatred and malice, it makes people seek someone to blame, to put all their ills onto a target, a martyr to absolve their own wrongdoings." she breaks into a jog, arms coming up defensively. "People have to work together to build a better world. Destroying everything means there's nothing left. Just ashes, and tears lost in the rain." As she says this, tears roll down her own cheeks, and her pace becomes a dead run, kicking up plumes of ash and soil in her wake. Yang then launches herself, becoming a golden comet... but instead of aiming to punch, she opens her arms wide to embrace the Shadow. "We never did see eye to eye, but that's what makes the world so special."
Atalanta	"You're my Master... of course I'm supposed to be judgemental!" Atalanta shouts. "You know my history, though... you can't use that fact. You know what you were getting into... and I've appreciated every moment of it!" Atalanta gets fired on ... in both senses of the word. In the air as she was, though, the bullets follow her down slightly, and the forest, well, might just be on fire now. The green-haired green-dress wearing lion, however, fits in very well amongst the shadows and the trees themselves, vaulting from place to place. Arrows come, here and there, never the same place twice.
Flamel Parsons	Parsons calls out, "No! No no, not you! I mean /you/!" It doesn't help much to say that while he's invisible, though, does it. It does help for him to grab August -- the real one. Then, Parsons plants both hands on his temples, two fingers each, screwing his eyes shut and wincing. Invisibility won't get him out of a wave like this! He has to bunker down! And bunker he does. A thick, heavy barrier coalesces around him, and hopefully around August, a nearly opaque white sphere that is strong enough to withstand a collapsing building's impact. Yet cracks form in it, and the heat is intense enough that Parsons soon finds himself wincing as singed fraying patterns appear on his skin, indicating the psychic damage. That should make it possible for August to survive, at least. "What I mean is, you don't need to reject feelings of resentment towards people who say that sort of thing about you! I mean, don't blast them back with all of them, sure, but it's not wrong to /suffer/ when someone takes a swing at you! As long as you acknowledge those feelings, you can use them to really find out how much esteem you want to hold their opinions in, and what all you need to do to change them, if you should!" He explains, in those hopeful tones of his. "Being willing to open up to the world doesn't have to mean that you refuse to admit when it feels like it's the /world/ doing the closing-off. Sometimes other people are being hard-headed jerks! Or sometimes you're doing something wrong and need the feedback! But you'll never know either way if you try to shove aside the feelings that they're rejecting you. At least that's what I think. What do you think, August?" Whatever it is he thinks, he'll need to say it while the shield falls apart. "ALRIGHT EVERYONE!" He calls out. "I don't know what the Storm's about to do, but I know it's probably gonna be something awful! Be careful and keep those eyes up! Lightning conducts in open areas... Make sure you keep track of how tall things are, okay?" He steps to one side, planting his fingers on his temples and opening up with direct psionic blasts on Shadow August, trying to make sure whatever this is isn't short on interruptions.
Empty Tidings	Just don't understand? Oh, August. "Let me tell you a story." "Once upon a time," Tidings begins, "there was a girl who had to be strong. She didn't have a family to care for her, but she did have a brother, though he was young and couldn't live for himself. She worked herself to exhaustion, day after day, struggling to feed herself and her brother within a society that said there was no higher honor. That dedicating yourself to your family was the greatest thing you could aspire to, and that family was all there was." She turns, pacing back the other way. Explosions pepper the space she just stood in, too close for comfort. "Except she didn't have a /real/ family, so as far as they were concerned, that honor wasn't something she could have. Not a poor little orphan and her poor little brother. Distant faces who looked something like her might have helped now and again, but it always was so they could feel good about themselves." Bitterness creeps into her voice for the briefest moment. "One day," she continues, "she received a letter. It told her that her father, long since lost at sea, was /alive/. She could come to him on a boat at the shore, to find him and bring him home. She left her brother with all the money she had and told him she would return, and then they would be a real family again, and all their suffering would be over. She got on the boat." "She was taken." "They were sea-demons, you see," she explains. Empty Tidings is practically within arm's reach, now. "Her father had made a pact with them to trade his distant, forgotten daughter for his own life. They took her, right under the watchful eyes of the sailors and soldiers and would-be heroes on the boat with her, and none of them made so much as a move to stop them. After all, she wasn't a part of their families, even distantly, so she didn't matter. She was just a cast-off." "They did such /terrible/ things to her," Tidings whispers. Her voice drops for just a second, then rises again. "Day after day, she suffered. They told her each time that it was for the good of her father, and that she should be honored to take his place. As a loyal daughter, it was her duty. That's what her people always said, wasn't it? And so, for a time, she did her duty --" "-- until, one day, her shadow stood up from the place it watched, and told her there was a better way." Yang comes in like a comet. Empty Tidings, practically at the Shadow's shoulder, slips back away again, momentarily silenced by the other's proximity.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa is helping to clean out the turrets and she keeps going she listening even as she keeps fighting. The Turrets are blown away, torn up and she keeps up her fire, she does hear what the shadow says to A2 though and the sound of the brutal attacks she tears into them with. She'll keep moving she does not turn off her pain receptors. The last of the turrets are gone now and she can turn her attention on to the shadow. She turns her attention to the shadow. "People change hell I changed because of August he didn't take any shit from me about my life situation, and you know what? Don't you have his ability to hope things get better to do you? SHe takes several shots with her rifle and heeds Flamel's warning as best she can, she knows her life is about to suck worse.
A2	Launching Shadow August away with the elements of surprise and brute force, A2 stops temporarily rather than further pursuing and putting on pressure. Having to dive face first into the fire barrier, there are layers of scorched away externals that need to recover first, and her internal temperature has to drop. As long as she's facing down August, she won't play this one with her potential suicidal fury. White grid lines flicker over (what remains of) her skin, gradually 'wiping' away surface damage with repeated sweeps. Bits of carbon and metal voxelize and reappear in gaps. Shimmering air bleeds off of her as some of her core temperature is vented. It's enough time for discourse, apparently. "Does it really matter if you're stronger?" A2 says, lifelessly. "Being tougher, faster, more powerful; it doesn't mean you'll get what you want. You can't always achieve revenge with just your own power. You'll win fights -you'll kill who you come across- but burning down society isn't that easy, jackass. If it was, we'd have all done it already. That aimless lashing out won't ever hit the ones that hide in the shadows and pull the strings. They won't just reveal themselves so you can take a swing at them. Life isn't that convenient, dipshit." Whether or not the Shadow is slurping up the Maslow effect energy it had taken with it, a giant fuckoff fire wave is a real, present problem. There's nowhere to dodge, and the trees sure as hell aren't going to be helpful in blocking it. When the initial blast rolls in, A2 disappears into scattered holography again, 'dodging' in every direction and none, yet somehow passing through the front unscathed. That still only deposits her in the raging firestorm rushing in its wake however, and that's where she summons the giant companion blade to her held sword, jamming it into the ground with its broad flat facing the source of the flames, where she takes shelter in its shadow. Blazing flames rip past to either side of her, carrying a whirlwind of sparks through the sliver of safe space she has, and even then the outer surfaces of her shoulders, arms, and thighs smokes, sparks, and pops with the slagging heat. "Since you split off right when August was starting to learn where to aim, I guess that makes you some childish instinct that just wants to rampage until it feels better, not a real avenger." says A2, moments before she rips the giant sword from the ground as the scorching wind passes her by. She charges back in at Shadow August right away, taking the direct, head on route. Before actually entering sword range, she suddenly slows to release a flurry of cross-angled slashes, hitting nothing but air, but generating a flashing stream of black and grey-gold shockwaves as short ranged projectiles. She crouches and then leaps high over the barrage, bringing the tank-busting sword crashing down to earth on top of the Shadow. One hand on the hilt, an acrobatic vault takes her heels over head and then standing atop its spine, where further series of rapid cuts assault the Shadow, and then even when it gains distance, her sword spirals free of her grip, following graceful slashing motions of her hands to spin out from her reach and continue tearing her target to ribbons.
August Kohler	"I'm going to create a better world than this one. Who needs hope? Who needs such wishywashy feelings when I have sheer DETERMINATION?" The Shadow is blasted with micromissiles, the lances of plasma impacting against it and badly damaging it, the jumpsuit finally tatters on a robotic body. The robotic underside looks strange when mixed with the human head situation going on, a jumble of flesh and machine. The Shadow responds by actually leaping up in Staren's direction, hoping to hit him with a flaming punch. Leyanne's efforts, meanwhile, take out the final gun emplacements. Beyond the Shadow itself, there's nothing else attacking them, leaving them in the clear to focus on him. Orchid gets a shrug. "Well, I'd be left. What else survives can survive. Society will be gone. The pain will be plai- gone, GONE! STOP DOING THAT!" Fire lances from around him to try and hit Orchid and stop the strange control she has over him, though when Yang comes forward with her strange gambit, shouting at him and then...spreading her arms open to accept him? The Shadow clearly has no idea how to take it. Yang Xiao Long's stunt actually sets him off-course, unsure what to do. After a few moments of standing there, though, he stumbles his words and finally dashes forward, moving to punch her as far away from him as he can. "Get away from me! You rejected me! We never saw eye to eye because you treated me like a menace!" He's not actually...trying to hurt her, though. He just wants her as far away from him as possible, because she's confusing him. Could emotional appeals actually be effective? It echoes again with Atalanta's 'I appreciate it', which brings him to a brief pause, long enough for the arrows to come flying at him. They stick into him, like he's a pincushion, and he actually starts screaming in pain as he has to rip them out complete with the 'blood' pouring out of him. The only reason he doesn't look like an ugly bloody mess is that he's psychically controlling what he looks like, so it just flows off of him. He ends up sending several spirals of flame back at her, trying to duck back. As Flamel fires his bolts at him, disrupting his concentration on the overhead storm, the Shadow isn't the one to reply to him...but August, who is grabbed into the psychic barrier. August takes a few moments to think, and seems to actually be...regenerating? He's wounded from the gun emplacements, and there's flecks of green fire licking around the wounds as they form into pieces of coral, starting to fill up. "I...need to stop holding everything in, yeah? Need to let it out, even if that doesn't mean shouting it at them. You're right. I need to actually feel." The Shadow just sighs, but then... Empty Tidings' story is listened to with rapt attention, but the Shadow doesn't reply. No, he's thinking on it. He doesn't proceed to attack her, though. "Things will get better, Yamakawa! I'll make them better!" Though he's a bit shaken at 'changed my life', which allows Kotone's bullets to impact into Shadow August, ripping apart the hull of the robot even more. He's down to his last legs, throwing a large burst of flame at her that bounces over her and tries to come from behind...
August Kohler	And then A2 comes forth with some reason. But the Shadow isn't a creature of reason, it's a creature of emotion. "Shut up! I'm an avenger! I fight for people! It's all I've been doing, it's all I do! I SACRIFICE MYSELF, DAMN IT! I've been doing it since I was sixteen, and you know damn well how they treat me, treat /us/! They can't understand, so I'll make them understand!" But before he can attack her, which he really seems to want to do, A2 is coming straight at Shadow August. Shockwaves buffet against him, staggering him back, and then a flurry of slick cuts slice against him, tearing him apart. One actually manages to slash straight through the psychic construct arm, shattering it into particles, and then sever the wrist off the other arm. No more hands. The Shadow staggers back, looking down...and then turns to August. He's not about to attack him. "Empty Tidings has a point. The shadow can tell you the better way. There is a better way. Let's work together." August freezes from the reaction the Shadow takes to the idea, as the Shadow paces. "You obviously got some sort of new power. We can use it to tear them down together. We're the same person, after all. Come on!" And then, August replies with the first thing that comes to mind. "No, we're not the same!" And for the Shadow, it's close enough to some specific words to cause those eyes to flicker with madness. As soon as they do, August realizes what he just said. He rejected his Shadow. The Shadow speaks up, voice full of both laughter and fury. "We're not the same? Fine, then! I don't need you! I'm my own person! I don't need arms...when I have a giant robot!" The full force of the Maslow Peak storm suddenly strikes the Shadow, bolstered by the rejection. What emerges is not the same, though it's luckily not quite healing. A massive machine, about 20 feet tall, stands in the plain of burnt trees. It's black and red, tubing full of blue energy circuiting through it, and has a bipedal shape - thick and solid legs and a thijn cockpit, which is open. Shadow August is chained inside, attached to tubes where his arm and wrist were, flowing strange fluid through it. The back of his skull is also attached to it, making it seem like a biomechanical monstrosity. The machine has two giant arms. One is a mixture of a flamethrower and a machine gun, which immediately turns to fire on everyone but A2, flames and bullets roaring out. The other is a more normal one with a hand, and it's holding a giant sword with chainsaw blades fluttering through it. This one is the real problem, as Shadow August's machine suddenly bolts towards her, moving to slam the giant chainsaw blade overhead on her and try and tear her up. It's not fast, so it can likely be dodged with effort, but it might as well hit like a train.
Orchid	"BAH! If all you can think is eliminating pain, you won't CREATE anything! Nothing of worth, nothing of value, nothing that will be remembered. Pain is part of life, and anyone who says differently is selling you something!" Orchid shouts, while fiddling with the device. This time, she's trying to make Shadow-August envision... pink polka-dots on a red background. "Of course you're not thinking clearly, you're only half yourself, you need the wimp to balance your anger!"
Yang Xiao Long	Yang gets a face full of robot fist. She's REALLY glad she still has some Aura left. She goes flying backwards, skipping along the ground like a perfectly cast stone across a lake. She comes to rest in a furrow as she finally stops bouncing, her body digging up a barrier that slows her momentum. She's slow to get up this time, body trying to shut down, but adrenaline and her Semblance keeping her going. She's bloodied up, cuts on her arms and legs leaking blood, very slowly sealing with golden light as her Aura flickers and threatens to fail. "Heh... fine then... if that's how it's going to be..." She shifts, bracing herself for what she's about to do. "If all you are is unfettered rage against everything else... then I'll show you my own." Her eyes open, baleful red irises leaking flames, the sclera turning a radiant golden hue as the flames frame her eyes. Electricity flickers through her hair, embers spalling off like an inferno were raging within the girl herself, threatening to burn her alive. "Take this. All of my love, my hope and every ounce of my anger!" Her feet shift, and with the ground cracking under the launch, she hurls herself up at Shadow August, firing her gauntlets behind her to propel her once more like a comet, trailing those embers behind her and pulling back for a heavy, overhand punch, pouring every ounce of the absorbed energy she's taken in into this one, final strike. "VYTAL! BURST!"
Staren	In comes the Shadow with a flaming punch. The forcefield drops. Staren tries to catch the arm even as he's punched, flame starting to melt away his chest armor. "Idiot." He grips with superhuman strength, and his right hand reaches into his bag-- And then the Shadow transforms into a giant robot. What. As he clings to the mecha's arm, Staren considers how long it would take to get the Star Hawk here. Too long. But now Staren's dealing with a giant robot. He should be able to take it apart, right? But as he looks across at the other arm spewing flames and bullets, he realizes he has to do something NOW. Circumstances have put him in place. If he can remove one of the Shadow's weapons, everyone else's chances of victory go way up, right? It's a sensible move. Now everyone gets to see what Staren was warning them about, but fortunately not from the Shadow: The plating on Staren's arms pops off, revealing red-painted metal skin, and then the arms glow brightly. For a brief moment, they're charged with everything his reactor can put out. It's kind of like a combination of vibroweapon -- high-frequency fields that can cut through normal metal like butter -- with an immense electrical discharge. Staren-bot's mechanical muscles strain as he tries to slash through, his own arms scissoring the larger mechanical arm, and there's a flash of light -- and then Robo-Staren is dangling limply, smoking, and easily shaken off (the grass smokes more when he hits the ground.) For a moment he doesn't have the strength to get up. Boy he hopes that worked.
Leyanne	Leyanne listens to the others, watching Staren and Yang take hits... from apparently a giant robot mecha. She snarls and brings her aimpoint up to the robot's centre-mass, cycling her autocannon to armour-piercing rounds and opening fire. "You know." She says, conversationally around her cigar. "I don't see eye-to-eye with August, much. He's... hell he kinda reminds me of a younger version of General Stoker, full of wind and piss and anger at the world. But... I admire his conviction. Despite that anger... despite you... He's never... just outright gone to destroy anything for the sake of it. He's always done what he's done with the intent of helping people. The sad thing here, Shadow August? You're just good at destroying. Without him... without the other qualities, you can't create. The last thing you'll destroy is yourself... lamenting over him and everything you could've made. There is another option. You don't have to do it this way."
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone seems to get a hit in the truth has rattled the shadow she has scored a hit but it's only one of many needed to bring the shadow down to the point? August can deal with this part of himself. She wonders what's lurking in the back of her own mind? That thought fades as holy hell its an AUGUST MECHA she looks up at it, yes she should have brought the ARMED SUIt, she'll have to keep that in mind, if she survives this night. She looks up way up at this heavily armed machine and oh there's bullets. A whole lot of bullets her body is military spec and that keeps her from being utterly torn to piece when several rounds do connect with her tearing through her shell leaving slick red fluid leaking from one but it's clearly not blood. Kotone is in pain she keeps going, pain lets you know you're alive, still humans in some fashion. She opens up with her rifle trying to focus on the cockpit block but that' just the start several plasma grenades soon join the salvo and hopefully these will be the primary punch against the German Super Robot.
Atalanta	"I am sorry, I was not helping, Master." Atalanta says, softly. She's staring at the Shadow, thoughtfully, even as flames come nipping at her. Some fur disappears in the process, even as Atalanta suddenly launches herself back into the trees proper, looking for someone ... somewhere. Ah. There he is. August - and perhaps Flamel - suddenly find themselves with an Atalanta standing behind them. "Sorry, Master." She says, glancing at him. "This one might hurt your energy a bit." "With my bow and arrows, I respectfully ask for the divine protection of the sun god Apollo and the moon goddess Artemis." Her bow tilts up to the heavens, two simple arrows in her grip. "So I offer you this greatest calamity - Phoebus Catastrophe!" Green light gathers around her, and the arrows are launched into the air, where they disappear, although the light stays - at least til it unfurls in the veritable multi-cannon fire of green arrows come crashing precisely onto the area the robot is in.
Flamel Parsons	Oooh, there's progress! There's progress! And... Then there's definitely less progress. "Gaah!" Parsons covers his eyes and shields both himself and his friend from the shockwave again. "Ahhhh! This is bad, this is... Gah!" He was just about to put the barrier down when it becomes clear that that's not a good idea. He keeps it well interposed between August and August, so that he can try to keep chatting. And so that his friend doesn't die. "You're right though! Opening up to them -- and even to you! Really feeling! You're still a good person if you let yourself feel this way sometimes. Other people can still think you're a good person if you feel this way too. The only thing you need to do is let it help you learn, instead of keeping it out of your thoughts entirely. Whether or not the people who say those things to you are right or wrong, letting yourself decide that properly can't ever be the wrong way to go!" The shockwaves of impact that transfer through the barrier wrack Parsons' body with a vast array of neuron-patterned glowing "bruises", and he falls to one knee as the barrier flickers briefly, but holds. His smile and optimism holds strong, though, and the tone of hope in his voice is unbreakable. "I promise you, August. If you make that part of you into something you listen to, and if you let yourself go that way, it'll work. I mean, even at your most irresponsible, you've done something good for me! So I think, even the part of you that wants to wreck a town, or wreck the whole world, is good enough at the core that it's worth keeping and having as a part of you. It has all the great creative motivations of spite! It has all the strong feelings of altruism! In its own weird ways." Parsons' face forces a broad, encouraging smile. Unlike the unnerving, weird, uncanny faces made during his fits of misery or made by the Second Parsons, this one is one hundred percent unbreakable authentic optimism. "I want you to trust me. If you use that new strength of yours to get to that cockpit and then show him you're willing to accept his pain, it'll turn out alright! Because you're a good person, and I know you'll do something good here. Nobody who's willing to put so much of himself on the line for the people he cares about can be truly bad at the core, and that's what the Shadow is, right? The bits of the core you pushed away? Trust me!" He grabs for August's hand and gives it an encouraging grip between them. "And if you don't want to trust me, then at least trust yourself, because I know something in you will believe what I'm saying too!" The machine-gun fire is starting to overwhelm August. Parsons is as optimistic as ever that August can do this soon before the sweeping blasts of machine-gun fire start tearing through Parsons' vulnerable body!
Empty Tidings	Yang gets hit, hard, and sent hurtling away. Empty Tidings snorts and laughs at the sight. She very rarely gets to send heroes flying into the sunset herself, so it's a rare treat to get to see someone else do it up close. If she were a slightly more casual person about all this, she might go for a high-five in the middle of a fight. (She is not, and does not.) Shit gets real very quickly after that. Her story isn't finished, so Tidings can't blame the Shadow for making the wrong assumption. She can't blame August for not wanting to admit that something so ugly is a part of him. It doesn't come easy to anyone. She /can/ blame him for the gunshot wounds. Tidings skips backwards, moving across the ground quickly and almost floatily, getting trees between herself and the giant hulking death robot just in time. In time for them to /explode/, flaming shrapnel flying every which way. A couple of shots hits Tidings in the upper body, blood spraying, and as the scything arc of the thing tears into the terrain, she just... melts. There's nothing left of her when the flamethrower passes overhead. The stumps of the trees ignite, and the upper branches begin to catch. Tidings is nowhere to be found -- because people don't often look up. She reforms in the high parts of a tall tree, shadowed by branches as the flames lick higher. She's like a stuck cat for a moment, looking distraught at the wreckage of her cover and the state of her outfit. Moreso a moment later, even, when the tree begins to tip and fall with her in it. It lands in the path of the machine. Tidings jumps clear just before it hits, landing lightly on her feet. She clears her throat. "It said," she continues, "that they could escape this place. It said that they could be strong where she was weak. It said that it had had enough watching her plight, and that she should not shackle herself to something that clearly has no place for her." She shrugs a shoulder. "For a time, the girl denied it. She refused to believe that living without that perfect honor and familial piety could be done. During those days, she suffered the most. The cracks had formed, and her shadow had slipped in and made everything that much worse. It was hard enough to endure the torment day to day as it was, but it was altogether worse knowing there was an escape." "And then," Tidings sighs, standing in the killing field, arms spread, "she said /yes/. Her shadow stood from the floor and embraced her. She became as it was, sliding under the door, and in the night, she found the strength and will to do what that shadow had wanted from her in the first place: she took vengeance upon the ones who wronged her."
Empty Tidings	"It wasn't until the fifth sunrise following that she was done. The sea-demons were all slain, murdered by the girl who had become her shadow. She had let loose her anger and her rage, and where it had gone, she felt..." She touches a hand to her chest. "...hollow. Empty. She was alone on a barren rock in the middle of an endless sea, left with nothing more than the stillness of her heart and the truth of what she had done. She had destroyed all that she could reach, and it left her bereft of path or purpose. The shadow could no longer find anything to wreak vengeance upon, and so it came to rest." "The girl awoke again. She was not herself; nor was she her shadow. She was changed. She was something else. Something stronger, yes, but not so consumed by blind hate and anger as the shadow alone. Without her ability to think and feel, they could not escape. Without the shadow's strength and fury, they could not remain free. Together, they left, and together, they roam the seas to this very day." Empty Tidings looks up at the mechanized monstrosity, and then turns to regard August as well. There is a long stretch where she says nothing at all. The sky opens, and a catastrophe falls from above, green outlining her silhouette as she stands dangerously near. She smiles again, faint though it is -- and steps away, moving to put her back to the treeline and a little more space between them. 'The end,' she doesn't say.
A2	"DAMMIT AUGUST!" A2 finally raises her voice. Turning her head so just that one red-smouldering eye can see him, she screams back at him with exactly as much frustration as should boil up on the spot when he runs his mouth and says exactly the words he should know he's not supposed to. Even A2 feels her anger rising at him, much like the core temperature warnings spiking through her visual AR, resulting in the steady, ticking decline of her integrity bar. With the Shadow bolstered anew by the exact thing that gave it birth, and redoubling its assault, there is no longer the luxury of taking things at a measured pace. When the massive, mecha-scale chainsaw comes hurtling down on A2, covering her in the falling shadow of its shredding teeth and screeching gears ripping through the air, the Android digs in her heels instead of moving. Tossing her sword to the side where it sticks its point in the dirt, she clenches her fingers and draws her arms inwards, and her frame begins shuddering as if building up some kind of unbearable muscular tension. Tongues of flickering red energy pop and curl over her in places, and the area surrounding her washes monochrome as crimson pixellation swirls slowly at her feet. [\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|] o-------------------------- LIMITER RELEASE IN (3)... A2 throws her arms up against the falling chainsaw at the last second, hands outstretched. Where her bare palms meet the grinding teeth, instead of being shredded to pieces, the space between them lets out a splitting, metallic chime and a pulse of angry red embers. The ground shatters and caves in below A2's feet, but her arms neither shake nor budge, holding the colossal weapon in perfect standstill for a full second. A roar of bubbling fury builds up within her, and then with a vehement forward stomp, she pushes her entire body into throwing the giant chainsaw backwards, using all of the kinetic force she'd caught and reflecting it right back at the robot such that the air itself explodes with enough intensity to strip metal.
August Kohler	As the giant robot blasts everyone, they fight back. Despite the fact that this form is bigger and stronger, it wasn't healed. The Shadow itself is still weak. And so, as Yang launches up and throws everything she has into a punch, it smashes the Shadow apart, causing him to cough up red and the machine's movement to briefly stumble, moving the blast overhead and out of people's way instead of being concentrated on them the whole time. There's no witty reply, just a scream of pain from the Shadow. The polka-dots in his brain makes the movement a little more difficult, which leads to Staren being easily able to focus on the chainsaw blade, because the Shadow isn't. He manages to disable the control mechanism, preventing the Shadow from moving that arm at all. "Agh! Damn you, catboy!" The Shadow slurs out a scream at Staren in the process. Leyanne fires on the center-mass of the robot, tearing through metal and ripping holes into the chassis, exposing sparking parts and causing the Shadow to scream in pain, apparently pain-linked to the metal. However, her statement...does manage to make him waver, but he snaps himself out of it. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! Stop talking already!" Rifle shots impact against the Shadow in the cockpit, drawing more of that psychic blood, and he actually forces its gunarm to cover the cockpit when the plasma grenades are thrown. He's trying to defend from the big blasts, and manages to mostly do so, as they blow against the gunarm and cause it to spark, jamming up the bullet part of it. It's just fire left, just the will to burn. August nods to Atalanta as he realizes what she's about to do to the Shadow and the robot. "Do it." And then, Phoebus Catastrophe rains down on the Shadow...Shadow August knows exactly what this is, and the gunarm fires a blast of flame to try and scorch through the arrows, but there's far too many. They impale the machine all over, hitting all sorts of joints and weak spots, and sticking out of the machine. "Stop it, stop it! Who said you can use your Noble Phantasm?!" August listens to Parsons, but he doesn't say anything. He's thinking it over himself. The Shadow actually twitches at what Flamel's saying, but doesn't react. It can't react to it or to Empty Tiding's story, which August means Tiding's glances...because the Shadow made a terrible mistake. It went sword down on A2, who is pushing against her limits. Her roar at August causes him to steel himself, while the Shadow...well, ends up going flying backwards, lifted straight off the ground by sheer force. The chainsaw arm, already damaged by Staren, breaks off entirely, as the machine falls onto its back. The Shadow tries to force it to move. It slowly lifts the cockpit, body at an angle. It's too high to just walk up to...
August Kohler	But not too high for a guy with temporary kung fu superpowers. August rushes at the machine, running up the leg and flipping straight into the cockpit. The first thing he says to his Shadow has no words. It's just a scream...and a hard punch into the Shadow's face. The Shadow reels back, and the machine fully falls flat on its back. August kneels over himself. The Shadow spits up blood and stares back, as the Prime August finally speaks up. "/We/ don't have to do it this way, damn it! We don't need to tear up society! I understand...I feel it. I can feel the hate, the vindiction, blaming them all...I've done it!" The Shadow laughs, lightly, but doesn't speak as August continues. "But you're going about it all wrong. We need to work together. We need direction, guidance. We need to feel like anyone else. Let our feelings out. Take them into context. You're right. I'm full of so much rage for them. But we don't need to hurt them." "No. We need to vent our rage elsewhere. The structure. We need to talk to George, talk to others in general, get their feeling on this! And we can only do that together. Join back with me." August pounds his fist against the Shadow's chest, and it finally just...smiles. And then, it fades away, along with the robot, dropping August to the ground beneath it. Why exactly the Shadow accepted that, who knows. But it did. August sits in the scorched grass. He doesn't stand back up. He'll probably need a few minutes.
Atalanta	Atalanta watches August run off, temporarily breathing a little bit deeply, but she starts walking towards him when the machine falls flat. She's sedately walking - she has no worries here, and indeed, steps over to him after a few minutes. She sits down next to him, quietly, but her hand is offered to him - and with a smile.
Yang Xiao Long	Yang's strike is true, the damage substantial, and that's enough for the blonde brawler. She keeps going, sailing on momentum and then crashing into the treeline on the far aside of the artificial clearing. She eventually thuds down under the trees, laying motionless as her Aura, taxed to breaking point and beyond, finally gives out. She's not conscious for what happens afterwards, but her Scroll begins to ping a background: Huntress Down, request assistance, signal. It isn't a high priority one, nor is it overriding of anything else in the area, but is still there. When someone does find her, the unconscious young woman has a smile on her face.
Staren	Staren lies in the grass sizzling for a moment. Man, he'd be so sore right now if that was a thing that happened to robots, he's sure. As it is most of his armor is gonna need replacing. But it seems August reabsorbed his shadow so... Staren can take a deep breath and sigh in relief. He's not actually tired, but he seems weaker as he picks himself up and goes to gather the dropped pieces of armor. "So, what happens now?" he asks of August. "Do you feel any better?"
Leyanne	Leyanne watches her rounds strike home, and she's surprised when her words have an effect. Not much of an effect, but still, that was unexpected. As August brings the robot down and... reclaims his shadow, as far as she can tell. She slings the autocannon up against its rack and walks slowly towards August, only to stop when she sees him.Yeaaah the dude needs some August time, so she's goign to leave him to it. She changes course and goes to check on Yang. Finding her unconscious, the Megamouse sighs, chuckling at that smile. "Kid." She comments, half to herself. "You're as crazy as me." After re-arranging her gear so that it won't poke Yang, and checking the girl for injuries that might make it dangerous to carry her, the mouse picks the blonde up into a fireman's carry, walking back to the group.
Empty Tidings	Empty Tidings waits a moment, and then steps quietly across the grass. She comes to stop next to August. The dark-haired woman kneels next to him, looking at him with a brow quirked and an inquisitive look on her face. She waits to see if he offers any sort of commentary on the whole event, but doesn't press. She thinks he's gotten what he wanted out of it all. She knows she has.
A2	. . . The red glow and washed out surroundings centered on A2 fade out, 'reabsorbed' into her body as the limiter release peters out before full activation. She stands in that crater of her own making, legs apart and arms slumped, simply breathing heavily for several long moments, before looking back up and brushing her hair aside, stepping over to August with the white grid still playing across her skin. She then promptly grabs him by the collar and punches him in the face. Not especially hard, but then her hand is almost down to the metal anyways. "That's for the massive pain in the ass you caused." she says, releasing him. "The hell do you care?" she says to Staren, turning back now. "We're done cleaning up your mistake. Go home or something. What happens now is whatever he wants." A highly sketched-out look goes to Empty Tidings after her whole creepy story and insistence on still stalking August, but apparently whatever they'd arranged worked out, so . . . "Don't mistake crazy for stupid." she says, walking past Leyanne on her way out. It isn't clear which one of them she means is which.
Leyanne	Leyanne watches A2 walk past with a frown. The MegaMouse flips her off as she keeps walking back to where August and the rest are, carrying Yang's weight as if it were a feather.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa is pretty badly hurt all things consided she watch as the final phase of the fiht plays out it seems they have managed to pull this off she slumps to the ground, letting her rifle fall away as she moves to hold one of her wounds, She's not thinking. Pressure won't do much but thankfully the damage lines of unknown red fluid's sealing systems are kicking in but here and ther eonbe might catch a spark from her wound. "Oh tommrow is going to such but ... worth it."
August Kohler	As the others circle around August, he just breathes, and does end up taking Atalanta's hand...but only briefly, using it to stand up. He does nod to her, though, atleast acknowledging her smile. "I think it'll be better. I don't know. It'll probably take some time. I'll need to talk to George." And then, Empty Tidings comes up, and then A2, and then A2 lifts August up and punches him in the face. Ow. Once he's released, he grabs his face and sighs...though he does nod. "Yeah, I deserved that. Thanks, everyone. I owe you all." "What I want, though...I need to test something." August reaches for his mirrored bracelet, lifts it up to his eyes..."Persona!" And in a flash of blue, everyone's favorite robot soldier with a gun for a leg manifests. August just stares at the Persona for several moments, and then desummons it. "Yeah, I definitely feel better. I'm just going to sit here for a bit, you all head off. Contact me when you need me, Tidings." Huh. Is that the first time he's called her that, after his insistence to call her Empty Tidings before? Either way, the Shadow is defeated, and August has thoughts. It's going to take some time...but in the end, the only place he can go from here is up.
Orchid	Orchid is recovering, somewhere. Her new toy wound up burning out, and while she learned some useful things from it, they probably won't apply to many other applications.
Flamel Parsons	Parsons' shield flickers down, and the man himself falls to one knee and pants heavily. "...Phew. Jeez. You really have the guts that come with your job, huh August? Nice work! That was... Wow! That was a hell of a psychic danger you defused. You need a few minutes? You earned them. I'll bring the jet back around, if you wanna have a ride back home or something." A2 punches him and Parsons kind of watches. He is August's friend now, certainly, but still, he has to admit that A2 doesn't exactly lack reason to punch the guy for some past stuff. "Thanks for the assist! Up on Maslow and down here! Big help." He says, always looking on the bright side of things. "But we do care! Understanding is what makes caring happen, and I think we can all say we understand August a lot better now. That's why we care!" He then gets a good look at the Persona. "Nice! In fact, with all your psychic channels cleared up, this guy might get a little beefier. I'll look forward to seeing how it goes! You've still got that offer to come swing by Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp someday. I did research and find out it really exists and isn't a fake memory, at least." He says, brightly, examining it until it desummons. Then he, uh... Takes off his shoe, and uses his spy shoe-phone to call his psychic spy jet back to land and pick anyone up who needs to get out of here. The battered Psychonaut himself seems terribly satisfied that he's finally gotten this case finished.
Staren	Staren glances at A2. "Hmph." He turns back to August and holds out a hand expectantly. "Congrats." But the gun you didn't end up using was still a loaner.