Scene #6660: Operation T-Rexuar: Train Graveyard

Owner	Pose
Xion	The Train Graveyard is an area outside Deling City in the Galbadia region of "Earth". Vaguely corresponding to western Europe, the landmass is a little different, and a little emptier from an overworld overview, but still noticibly European. The Graveyard itself is a sunken region in a basin, crisscrossed by underground railway access points that break aboveground, as well as overground railway access that leads nowhere - an abandoned hub of noble trains that bear decades-old scars of war and conflict. From outside, there's hints of movements - purple dogs with whiplike head-tails scarper hither and fro. Spectres linger in shelled-out service buildings, spookily pressing their ghost-faces against panes of glass that no longer exist. Husks of trains and scaffolding lay all over, with power still apparently ON in some of the trains, warm yellow light flickering in the haze of dusk. And it's certainly dusk, even though the watches read 4:00 PM local time. Early for evening, but this is the Deling area. It's always pretty dark. Around the rim of the Train Graveyard, Galbadian APCs set up a military cordon, uniformed G-Forces soldiers led by Commander Angeal Hewley creating a tight cordon for the inevitable 'rats fleeing a sinking ship' effect. One APC, at the head of the pack, has a spikey-haired man in a blue G-Forces uniform with foot and hand hooked on the side as he 2kool4militaryacademy's his way in closer. In his other hand is a radio. "I'm going to scout ahead, team. If you're here, push in! Whichever of us finds the way down first, radio in, and we'll push the forward base up." The APC slides into a halt, and Zack hops off, jogging into the area and disappearing under an overhang quickly. Stepping out of the APC are Biggs & Wedge, from the briefing, who stand around waiting for people to show up! They largely mill about and cast suspicious looks at a house down the central path. The house doesn't look... normal. In fact it mostly looks like a house that 'melted slightly in the sun', sloped over on its side. It's also sitting right in the middle of what is clearly a major thouroughfare. "Uhhhh... Sir, should we engage?" Wedge asks. Biggs snaps out of his mental reverie. "What? No! We're waiting for Miss Rook and the rest of the team." Biggs replies, gruffly. Wedge looks dwon at the ground. "Well, should we... get ready?" Biggs shakes his head, clapping Wedge on the back, which doubles over the smaller man. "What? No! Look busy, soldier, we're on standby."
Riku	Riku's here. Of course he's here, he was at the briefing and if you think HAUNTED ATTACK HOUSES are enough to dissuade him, you don't know him very well. Much the opposite, really. Riku's made something of a pasttime of diving into horrible places and stabbing the thing causing it. Thus he's here, and he isn't even holding a pretense of being casual about this: He's already in his Heartbrand armor, that strange purple suit that nevertheless shows off his abs and likely looks pretty weird to anyone with a normal sense of fashion. So probably no one present. Several minor enemy contacts likely 'mysteriously vanish' on the way in, and thus it is that he finally comes striding in on his own without a vehicle. Weird, that. He sure did make good time for not having wheels to get to the operations area. Once he's at the cordon, he gives a gesture of acknowledgement to Biggs and Wedge, leaning up against something handy and vertical so he can continue racking up edgyboy points while everyone else gets here and assembles. His eyes flick to the ominous house and he frowns, his hand clenching for a moment... but he waits. This will be educational enough.
Maricel Thorne	Maricel shows up right on time, teleporting in from a blast of polychromatic static with some as-yet-undried verdigris fluids spattered across her labcoat and flecked on her hands. It just might be some kind of alien blood. Despite- perhaps because of?- her implied immediately prior engagement, she seems in marvelously high spirits, twirling a parasol over her shoulder as she prances over to Biggs and Wedge. "Good eeevening, sirs," she says, immediately assuming from the gloom of their surroundings rather than checking a watch. "Tell me- are we wading in suicidally one at a time, or am I waiting on anyone else?" She appears equally enthused about either possibility.
Arthur Lowell	Arthur is sitting atop the APC. Was he always there? No, obviously, but he's there anyway right now. He's looking at the distant house, peering at it with what looks like binoculars initually, but what is /actually/ a zoom window if you look close or realize that it's not nearly far enough away for anything but toy binoculars. "FUCK." He says, bitterly. "Always knew THIS DAY was comin'. Finally gonna have to fight the SBURB HOUSE. Took 'em TWO ETERNITIES and SEVEN YEARS, but that shit finally CAUGHT UP WITH ME." He hops off the APC. "Alright, it's BUSINESS TIME." He looks around for LILIAN ROOK, whose direction he ought to take before, you know, just running in solo and engaging. "I'mma hit that motherfucker with the CLASSICS, yeah? I can bring that HEAT, dawg." He flares with some stellar fire! "Houses pro'lly got that GRAVITY RESISTANCE but that HEAT VULNERABILITY, if I'm gauging this one right." He looks at it, putting his two hands up in a pair of Ls like he's imagining a picture, just to summon up the BATTLE PROFILE for this particular foe in a window. There is no /actual/ scanning besides perhaps whatever data can be found on Galbapedia. Unless Lilian tells him /not/ to, or advises him some particular timing to things, he intends to summon up his BATTLE BROOM, light up its assorted bristle-thrusters with shining white stellar fire, and rush, screaming, at the thing, with the intent to burn it down.
Roxas	Captain Galbadia isn't far behind Zack in getting out of the APC. He emerges just behind Biggs and Wedge, staring past them towards the... 'house' in the distance. Although he's been briefed, he's never actually been into parts of Deling that are /this/ bad. The catacombs and sewers are bad enough without getting into this place, and /before/ the incident it certainly would've been out of his league anyway. "You should keep your distance from those. They're nasty. Stick to the dogs and the the smaller things, if you can help it." He asides to Biggs and Wedge. His attention turns upwards, when Arthur starts talking. Captain Galbadia really doesn't know what to make of this guy's rambling, but he grins genially all the same. "It's not that they're resistant to much of anything, they're just /real/ tough. And they start to--" If Lilian ends up stepping in to stop Arthur, he trails off. If Arthur just goes tearing off like a lunatic at the EVIL HOUSE, he also just trails off. Really, there's not a situation here where Captain Galbadia doesn't trail off.
Haguro	As Haguro arrives at the Train Graveyard, she's met with an intensely uncomfortable feeling. It's probably the name of the place, but the fact that so many trains damaged or destroyed by war are laying around certainly doesn't make her feel any better. Really, it's like going to a cemetary for another country's people, except the people are trains instead of ships. As for why she's here? She has allies around. She might not know the exact details of the whole situation, but she knows enough about mysteriously placed objects that thery're probably dangerous or worth getting the first strike on just in case. "I don't think anyone's encouraging.. Erm. Suicidal tactics, but if we need someone sturdy to go in somewhere f-" As she's answering Maricel, Arthur opts to attack the mysterious house. If it wasn't in such a suspicious spot, Haguro would probably yell at him to stop. As it is, though, she has enough suspicions to load her turrets with the BIG EXPLOSIVES. "If anyone's in there, this is a warning shot!" And then Haguro launches an explosive shell right at the house. On contact, it'd be very... Explodey. Probably a bit of fire, too.
Raziel	Raziel walks with the others as they approach Biggs and Wedge, who apparently are not sure if they should prepare or look busy. This is only mildly amusing to the ghost, to which he looks oddly at the creature that was like a slightly melted house. That...is perhaps the shittiest house he has ever seen, it is just straight up weird. Raziel hates it. "What makes you think it is susceptible to the element of fire, Mr. Lowell?" Raziel asks, really he would imagine it wouldn't be susceptible to that. Maybe wind, MAYBE...but the already melted nature tells him that, rather than what it is. It was worth a thought at least. From his hand, the Reaver erupts, taking on the shape of a flamberge-like blade, but clearly etherial. While the blade was very real, right now, it still retained the wraith-like qualities. It's hunger also was very VERY apparent. The color of the weapon takes a reddish tone...well if Lowell was sure... 'The train wreck that was the train graveyard was true to its name. Ghostly figures danced just out of my sight, though if that was because they were afraid of what I would bring to them, or because it was their nature to...who could say. Right now, however, the dangers of home ownership seemed to weigh heavy on those who were once here, in the form of...a giant man-eating house. I was at a loss for words at the ridiculousness of the sight before me but knew better than to underestimate it.'
Axel	Axel is here. He's in his black coat, hood down revealing his spiky red hair and teardrop tattoos. He steps up with the others, summons his silver-and-red chakrams to his hands, and waits. Arthur decides to murder the hell-house. Well, that suits Axel just fine. Unless Lilian indeed stops them from beating up a house, Axel waits a few seconds, and follows up Haguro and Arthur's attacks with a snap of his fingers. Lances of fire appear in mid-air and move to pierce into the house, trying to set it ablaze and damage it. "Man, I never thought I'd be fighting a house. This is just strange."
Touta Konoe	Touta Konoe somehow finds his way to this bizarre city, with the Train Graveyard. It seemed like he was called in last minute by Lilian for a certain situation, and as per usual when a friend asks Touta for help he's usually pretty easily willing to oblige. The only thing though is that he really has no idea what this is all about, it's so last minute that he's just told he'd be explained to the situation on arrival. So now hear he is with all these people he's familiar with, in a place he's not familiar with, looking like everyone's about to do some house demolition. Unfortunately for Touta...He has no long ranged weapons of his own. So he'll probably just be trailing behind the others to get ready for defense? "So...Someone remind me why they needed us for something like this? Isn't this what dynamite or something's for?"
Xion	Biggs and Wedge hang out, because they're supposed to back you up, and you're not there. In fact, Biggs and Wedge aggressively... A> LOOK BUSY They glance at Riku being edgy. Wedge makes a weird face, before turning to whisper at his superior officer. "T-that kid in yellow... man he's cool..." Haguro and Arthur, for their part, decide to just freakin GO. First, the shitty house is shot at by a high-explosive shell. Right on the shitty, almost pixellated WINDOW. This causes the house to rumble and shake, rattling and having the door creak open, belching smoke and an angry 'gworrrrr!'. Then a ROCKET KID burns right in towards it. The house! He's attacking a HOUSE!!! As he closes, from the shot window, like an extremly shitty jack-o-lantern, a BOBBLEHEAD SPHERE THINGER HEAD erupts, headbutting him moments before contact. Two ROBOT ARMS burst from ONE side, and a large BLADE ARM bursts out the other side. Rearing up like an animal, the HELL HOUSE's 'butt' blasts out a set of ROCKET THRUSTERS which alight with an orange colored hue of powerful ROCKETRY-BASED THRUST as it moves to smash, scythe, or RUN OVER everyone - including Biggs, Wedge, and the APC! --------------------LINK ASSIST-------------------- Party May* Select One Command Per Round Biggs & Wedge <The Dynamic Duo> A> Wedge Para-Saber <Deal 100 Direct Damage to the Enemy, grant one ally 2 Hype> A> Biggs Special <Deal 150 Direct Damage to the Enemy, Heal one ally 75 HP> A> Look Busy <Automatically? used every other turn>
Haguro	That is indeed an enemy house. Haguro feels a pang of worry in her heart as the very idea of it doesn't bother her in the least, but... Well, she's been bothered by other things! That still means she's not completely screwed up, right?! She really should be more freaked out than she currently is by the house barreling right at the entire group, though. Alas, her brain skips the whole 'WHY THE HELL IS A HOUSE ATTACKING ME' stage right into figuring out how to best approach this problem, Said approach involves preparing her turrets for another blast of cannon fire, but this time with piercing rounds instead of explosives. Explosives would be bad to use with people so close to it, after all. "Incoming! Be careful!" Haguro shouts in warning to her companions as she launches a chain-knife out of another turret off to the swide, hooking it into one of the broken-down trains. She doesn't quite pull herself away in time to not get winged by the house as it comes barreling past, but her armor plating does a nice job keeping it from breaking a leg! It's still going to leave quite the bruise, however, but it doesn't take her attention off the house itself as she fires a volley of piercing rounds at its butt rockets to try and plug them up.
Riku	Riku's eyes flick to Biggs and Wedge, and he nods to them. Not just because they acknowledged his coolness or lack thereof, but well... He simply lets them all go first, In this case, experience is the best teacher. As the Hell House dispenses with its fairly poor camoflauge, Riku flicks a hand. Soul Eater flashes into his grip, the batwing blade twirling in his hand as he straghtens. While things hadn't gone so well in the MECC, it's been a learning experience of just how far he has to go... And a reminder to not get cocky. As the Hell House rushes towards them all and begins blasting everything, Riku isn't even /there/, his position vacant moments before he drops from above, cleaving down at the bobblehead bit in order to try to drop an execute on the thing before it even really gets going. Short. Simple. Direct. "Let's crush this thing. There's worse ahead." Riku states with grim certainty.
Arthur Lowell	Arthur takes the headbutt. "RRRRRRAAAAAHHHH!!" He slams against it in that unique way that makes it hurt /less/ instead of /more/, and there's a "clack" noise of really intense impact. A chunk of that HEALTH VIAL is gone! "Ahhhh! FUCK!! It headbutted me! I'mma BREAK THAT HEAD!" He blasts forward, rushing to match its rockety thrust. "No you fuckin' DON'T!" He angles up to match its rocketry hover-style movement! He begins a series of burning swipes, blasting waves of rocket-force over the body of the thing. "HEY, HEY, HEY! OVER HERE, you ROCKET-SHITTING CRACK-SHACK! Show me what a LOW-SALE-VALUE OUTHOUSE like you can MANAGE, you RICKETY MOTHERFUCKER! I'mma DEMOLISH YOU!!" It's likely this thing can't even think or understand what he's sayingm but Arthur seems to be having well enough fun just saying it anyway. At least, if he gets to say it while lashing the thing with huge bursts of burning stellar fire! As for the ASSIST MENU, Arthur gets it very, very literally, in the form of a big window. His vote is for the BIGGS SPECIAL, considering they were told to keep their distance. /Arthur/ isn't keeping his distance, but that doesn't mean he can't listen! It just means that tactical understanding is for /other people/.
Roxas	Captain Galbadia knew that the Hell Houses were nasty, but he didn't quite realize /how/ nasty they would be. He draws his G-Saber as Arthur approaches-- and makes a small noise of surprise when a /head/ pops out to just headbutt the guy before he gets too close. There was a time, he reflects to himself, when this sort of thing really would have been out of the ordinary for him. He strides forward to meet the charge of the HELL HOUSE, planting himself firmly before the APC and raising his blade. One hand rests firmly along the back of the top-middle of the blade, while the other holds the hilt fast. As near as anyone can tell, he's /literally/ trying to block the crushing charge of the oncoming Hellhouse. And as it reaches him... Its momentum slams into him, but Captain Galbadia pushes back and the effort of the charge /is/ slowed. It pushes further and further towards the APC, the Captain's back inching closer and closer towards the vehicle's metal surface. After a moment of struggling, Captain Galbadia manages to stop the House's progress, if only for an instant. In that instant, he raises his G-Saber and swings a heavy blow, aiming to regain some of the ground lost and push the Hell House away from the APC. "Hey! Do either of you know Sleep?" Captain Galbadia barks at Biggs and Wedge, NOT CONTRIBUTING ANYTHING USEFUL to the ASSIST MENU.
Maricel Thorne	Maricel is caught completely flat-footed against the house's onslaught: it runs straight over her, leaving her lying face-down on the road porcupined in awful splinters and miscellaneous bits of the shittiest home ever. Four oversized tendrils of red meat erupt from her back and embed their chitinous tips into the asphalt, lifting her up off the ground like a spider's legs as she regains her composure and yanks out the worst of the wooden fragments with surgical confidence. The whiplike limbs are already restless, dancing her from side to side as her eyes sweep the environment. They lunge her sideways, wrap around a raised train track, and swing her around it like a kid doing a legendary 360 on a playground swing-set at high speeds. She lands in a dramatic three-point stance atop the house and digs her knife into the shingles for purchase, then deliberately extends one of her tendrils into the fire of its 'thrusters', singing it to a crispy brown around the edges. "Arthur! Pass me some star-fire too!" The other three tendrils open up at their tips into flowering organic structures that spark and gutter with flame, then erupt into proper gouts and blasts of green-red bio-oil phosphorescent fire, trying to slather the stuff all over the house's roof!
Raziel	'The house transmogrified into a large demonic-like creature, standing over us as it crashed ahead. I could not understand what kind of creature this was, how it came to be, or whatever physics animated it. I could say that I had seen this kind of thing before, but I am not in the habit of lying. However, aggressive was its intentions.' Being run over by the diving house, Raziel managed to just narrowly avoid being hit directly by some fancy footwork, while struck he moved with the blow to avoid being sent to Oz. Raziel gains his footing again and dives forward, Fire Reaver in claw as he aims to slash through the house in a very powerful strike, aiming to cut through the bottom layers of the house with the Fire Reaver. Not stopping, he turned, aiming to send a blast of concussive force from his telekinesis into the creature, aiming to try and tip it over for easier strikes. "It's open for you, Wedge!" Raziel says towards Wedge, offering him a chance for a /sweet combo/ attack, obviously, his vote was Wedge.
Axel	Well, the murder-house is indeed a murder house. As Biggs and Wedge look busy, and a scythe comes barreling for Axel, he slides out of the way, getting grazed by it as it cuts into him. "Ugh...!" The chakrams spin in his hands, but he doesn't throw them, yet. Instead, another snap of his fingers. "Firaga!" Spheres of flame burst at the house, trying to burn into the house's blade-arm and make it harder to use to save people from slashing damage. "Let's focus on the limbs first and foremost. The more we can disable them, the better!" "Can you two cut into the arms?" Axel shouts to Biggs and Wedge. He doesn't really care which one of them attacks, but if Raziel's opening up for a combo attack, Wedge is his vote.
Touta Konoe	And with everyone letting loose on the house, the house begins it's counterattack! It shoots off more like some sort of rocket than a house as it tries to ram into everyone while flailing its arms arounds try to smash or slice up anyone that gets within it's proximity. Touta's ends up being one of the people to become the first person to get run over by a house! But that's okay because that was sorta the idea. He doesn't have any long range weapons so he might as well get up and personal with this thing even if it means taking a hit. Now that he's face to...Door... "Oi! Don't worry about us just take the shot!" Personally, he doesn't care who does what as long as someone does something between Wedge or Biggs, but since Biggs was probably a bit closer maybe that'd mean he'd hear Touta shout out over Wedge? Either way, He takes the opportunity to try and run up the front wall towards the Monter House's neck to try and see if this thing's neck is just as sturdy as the rest of it!
Lilian Rook	Secretly, Lilian hasn't actually been in an operation this large in scale before. That is to say, she's been entrusted to operations over a very large area, or against a large number of enemies, but not in coordination with so much 'actual military' before. Secretly, she also thinks it's kind of cool, coming in past huge Galbadian army cordons with APCs rolling this way and that and soldiers chattering like a war movie. A careful eye is paid to the ambient random encounters on the way in. Spectres are spectres and she obviously knows what to make of them on sight, oddly entirely comfortable with the presence of ghosts for a second time now. The weird dogs and other things are the ones she assesses for magic, breathing in the sorcerous taint of the Train Graveyard and trying to distinguish its myriad abhorrent variations and signatures, mentally trying to classify the general school and order of what she can pick up on the ride. Best to have a first impression of anything they might go up against first, she considers, so she focuses wholly on sampling and feeling out the various supernatural traces like picking out notes of flavours in a completely foreign wine. "Well, you weren't using any kind of sarcastic soldier lingo when you said 'attack houses'." Lilian says on arrival, with her hair up and dressed in the slim, armoured bodysuit that's only short of Jin Ro due to lacking nearly enough bulk and a stereotypical helmet. "Does that thing think it's being . . . sneaky? I can't imagine something like that was an entirely purpose built weapon, unless soldiers used to make a habit of going into random, vacant houses back in the war." she says. When a bunch of people are already raring to go at it, she uncrosses one up and lifts her hand. "Fine. Get that ugly thing out of my sight." She waves a forward fire signal. This is partly to see Arthur trigger the aggro first and witness what the hell house can do. He's a tough boy. He can handle it. They have a tactical role back home for his kind, and this is it. Seeing the house attack everyone on the way to her, Lilian has just enough time to get an idea of what it's doing and how it works. -----[stop]----- Lilian slams her shoulder into the APC, leans her weight into it, backs up, and does it a few more times quickly, moving it partly out of the way of the rampaging house and setting it on course to spin out the rest of the way on its own. To conserve time, she leaps up to the frozen blade, jumps off the flat, swings up from a robot arm, and turns back at the apex of her launch over it. -----[start]----- Lilian suddenly drops down from above. She doesn't drop in the sense of 'falls on top', but drops with a purposeful kind of extreme propulsion aimed for a chimney stack or central support, extending both legs to effectively stomp on it as hard as possible and transfer an incredible amount of force through the house's centre of support. This means it's the most fortified spot against being damaged by this, but it's also the most likely to transfer all the energy into the enemy itself instead of Lilian just drop-stomping through its house shell.
Arthur Lowell	When it comes to Maricel, Arthur is fully willing and able to pour large quantities of that delicious Three Point Six Roentgen on Maricel. She'll find it... empowering. Because while Arthur was a good source of power as a foe, he's a /brilliant/ source of power as an ally. If Maricel has ever dealt with reactor output, that's how Arthur's bursts of stellar flame feel; one of his natural supporting roles is POWER SOURCE!
Maricel Thorne	Maricel holds out her free, non-knife-clutching hand to catch that burst of ionizing starfire like it's a baseball. It immediately gives her palm a nice red nuclear suntan, but green veins pulse out through her meat tendrils as radiation-science-stuff starts circulating through them. "Thanks for the 'boost', 'homie'!"
Xion	Things very much get a little hectic as the HELL HOUSE runs right through the party, the rocket butt of the strange demonic entity letting it ram its absurd deelie-bopper head, scythe arm, and DOUBLE MECHA SIDE FISTS to accompany its pittery little legs. It is, in fact, BIOLOGICAL (such as it is) on the inside, a strange mass of weird meat and mechanical parts. So, as the Maricel-shaped pancake (temporarily) notes, exactly like a house in Mortasheen City. This is normal. Extremely normal. For Lilian, and others with Supernatural Senses, there's a cornucopia of threats - the metallic oil tang and guzzoline burning smell of old war machines, the cold dusty feel of the ectoplasmic undead, and the beating bloody hearts of 'merely hecked up mutant animals'. Arthur's HOT HOT STELLAR FIRE blasts the burning path of the Hell House off track as Lilian's timestop push of the APC sends it MOST of the way out of the way and Captain Galbadia tanking for the last bit so the vehicle is merely SCYTHE SCRATCHED along the grey exterior. The impact causes the sturdy vehicle to skid on its reinforced tires as Biggs and Wedge to leap for cover. Haguro's Chain Knife drags the rocket-flying house into doing a ground-furrowing doughnut as it flails around, and two members of the party - Lilian and Riku - immediately attempt flashy drop-attacks as is customary to bounce on large hitboxed enemies. The ablative ROOFING is just a solid bonelike mass to Lilian's blade: easy to chop at, but hard to make any effective damage happen to it. Riku, meanwhile, carves a furrow along the head, his Heartbrand dragging a screeching rent in the wibbly head of hate. Captain Galbadia joins Axel and Raziel with a FLAMING COMBO, carving up the side with his G-Saber as Raziel takes to the flank with his Soul Eater, tearing up first the siding, and then the meat within, dark blood pouring out to be cauterized by Axel's SICK FLAMES. Speaking of SICK FLAMES, Maricel recieves Arthur's SICK SOLAR POWER, hosing down the Hell House's poor roof-back that Lilian had carved up with her magic murder sword with chemical fire that sinks in with a burning power OF THE SUN (or, Fire3?) to cause TREMENDOUS DAMAGE. Already, the Hell House seems to be flagging and on its last legs, as it would be a terrible challenge for, say, one Spikey Boy and a Staff Girl. Not eight elite heroes. Biggs and Wedge recieve their instructions, poking their helmets out from cover. "Sleep, sir? Nope! I know esuna!" Wedge calls. Biggs nods. "Esuna here too, Captain!" They both have Esuna. However, at the general prompting to HELP OUT, Biggs stands up from his cover. "Get the spooky guy some help, Wedge!" Wedge nods, pulling out a YELLOW FLASK and starts hustling over to Raziel. The red-armored Biggs aims both of his WRIST GUNS at the Hell House and starts opening up with a roaring blast of AUTOMATIC WEAPONSFIRE, high-velocity shells tearing out to strike at the head and weak spot opened by Axel and Raziel. "See how you like it, monster! Aaaahahaha!" Wedge reaches Raziel, and tosses the Ether at him, which (biodegradeably) cracks into a shower of MP (or, Magic Particles) for the revenant's use. The gunfire, shouting, and general battle starts a rumbling in the distance, though...
Xion	Ghosts drift from the sheds and buildings, gathering into a mass that sinks into some of the abandoned... trains? Well, from a distance they look like trains. As the ghost-mass sinks into them, headlamps reveal a grille and two... 'arms'? Oh, wait. Those aren't arms. Those are large military-grade autocannons. Like, tank guns. With a bellow like a steam train whistle, the possessed SWEEPERS rise up from the wreckage, one on either side of the fighting group, lumbering in as the HELL HOUSE begins to rumble with the awful, severe damage the group did to it in just the first round, its roll-out flailing and burning body used as a battering ram on those close to it. Those with a little distance find themselves flanked by the two SWEEPERS, who immediately open up with acrid SMOKE GRENADES and bursts from their W-MACHINE GUNS. Sweepers are KIND OF LIKE TRAINS except they're actually ancient war machines that hate you and want you to die. So, actually, nothing like trains. They have weird gear-feet though!
Haguro	And then ghosts enter the trains. That actually bothers Haguro way more than the house attacking them, and the effect it has on her is pretty freaking visible. Her face loses some color as the Sweepers come in and start firing on the group, and she barely puts up a defense as the Hellhouse comes right back around to ram right into her once more. Instead of trying to avoid it like before, the cruiser just sort of... Stands there. Something's wrong here. It's only when the Hellhouse collides with her that she finally snaps out of her stupor sans some more armor plates and uncracked ribs that are now distinctly cracked from the impact! She doesn't push herself off of it, though, instead taking advantage of her newfound positioning on its wall to grab on! And then she starts slamming her fist into it, firing shells at point-blank range with each shot. "We're not... Well, we are your enemies, but if you want to be at peace, then... Uh.. Then..." She's not good at coming up with something confident-sounding or peace-brokering under pressure. So... Haguro keeps punching and shooting and punching and shooting. IT'S FINE.
Raziel	Raziel cannot detect most supernatural things, but...he can see ghosts. The ectoplasmic visions allow him to follow the creatures as they dive around and surge through things, forming into the strange creatures with guns for hand, crafting them out of trains? The ectoplasm must be thick here... When Wedge throws the Ether, Raziel is confused at first, but then gets it. he pulls his cowl down revealing the jawless face, but the energy from the ether flows directly into his mouth, as well as any nearby spirit. Those in material form would not be so easily subjected. Pulling the cowl back up, he turns towards Gunhands, as the Soul Reaver came up, the red shifting away back to the greenish color of the normal Reaver. When the bullet storm came, Raziel moved like a man with a purpose, his blade swinging in very controlled moves, as bullets were deflected away from his person. He did not simply stay put but moved forward against the attack until it had to stop. Raziel's sword burst with a sickly green light, the hungry Reaver could be keenly felt as he thrust it forward towards the creature, as the sword aimed to eat what was INSIDE of the monster. The Reaver continued towards any other ghost near him, aiming to be more of a stage hazard now.
Arthur Lowell	"C'MON! C'MOOON!" Arthur shouts, slammed hard against the structure of the house. He's crossed his arms in front of him to keep the damage from being /too/ severe, but wound up flattened against it. A beefy little chunk off that Health Vial! He presses both palms against it. "You know REAL ESTATE you HAUNTED MOTHERFUCKER?" He grips hard, and raises his voice with a sudden, rising shout. His ASPECT GAUGE pumps up hard as his body floods with fresh power, even despite the huge amounts of energy he lent to Maricel. "You ever FLIPPED A HOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUSE?!" Arthur does not understand real estate. He does not comprehend the processes of the housing market. But he does understand the use of gravity exploitations to take the whole house and try to geometrically wrestle and flip it into the street, trying to crunch the roof in. He's performing an elaborate GRAVITY SUPLEX! "BOOOOOYEAAAAAAAH!" He shouts through the whole process, eyes alight with eagerness. And starlight, but mostly eagerness.
Roxas	Captain Galbadia mutters obscenities under his breath in response to Biggs and Wedge's helpful explanation that THEY TOOK THE SAME SUPPORT MAGIC. He probably had the notion of just PUTTING THE HELL HOUSE TO SLEEP and moving on, or at the very least giving everyone the opportunity to hit it while it was down. As-is-- It is at this exact moment that Captain Galbadia gets shot. This turns out to be less of a problem than expected because although the weapons fire does HIT HIM and send him rolling to one side, clutching his sword carefully and using it to help him rise quicker as he comes back up to a stand, he mostly just looks... maybe badly bruised, on the spots where the bullets actually visibly penetrated his uniform. There are two ways you work with ghosts and machine monsters: Fire, and Lightning. This thing was both, so Captain Galbadia wasn't /quite/ certain which one would work better. May as well just try them both and see what happens. He sheathes the sword and summons up a moment's magic. Something on his chest just beneath his uniform gleams momentary, brilliant and white. Then a bolt of lightning takes form, rising up from the ground with a great crack of thunder underneath one of the SWEEPERS to electrocute the hell out of it.
Maricel Thorne	Maricel, secured to the house only by the single knife embedded in its shingles, gets flung off and promptly hip-checked by the burning hulk directly into the APC. She's dazed for a moment by the force of the impact, but digs a glowing blue syringe out of her labcoat and jabs it into her shoulder before comically 'peeling' off the side of the vehicle and staggering forward on her limbs. She's clearly unsteady, rocking on her spidery limbs; even with the house on its last legs, taking a burst of machine-gun fire right now seems unappetizing to say the least. So instead, she ducks down behind a convenient piece of rubble, disgorges a car-sized chunk of pluripotent skinless flesh from her spatial rift, and bonsai-prunes it into vaguely bipedal shape with oversized jaws and stunted forelimbs. With a psychic impulse, the creature shudders to life and staggers out from behind the pile of rubble, glowing with borrowed radioactive power and crackling with synaptic electricity. BIOSAUR: FIGHT! Behind the rocks, Maricel hums along to the distant noises of shrieking and crunching as her creation tries to fight one of the train-robots, merrily sewing herself up as she takes a break from all the tiresome combat.
Touta Konoe	Doesn't seem like his cut does much, and before Touta has a chance to realize it he's already being smoked out...Or smoked in...? He's getting swallowed up by smoke grenades and shot out with zero visibility. This is clearly not a good thing. As the smoke settles and Touta appears once more, well he's become swiss cheese. The boy ends up on the ground covered in bullet holes and for anyone not familiar with it, it's probably not a pleasant sight to watch a kid bleed out. Thankfully, most of the people here know Touta's deal by now, and the holes are already healing up. "Uh, talk about a shot in the dark..." Healing up still there's one voice amongst the group he hears shouting in that way that only he can, Arthur. And when Touta hears about flipping houses well, why wouldn't he want to jump in? After all, Arthur isn't the only one with some gravity powers! "TWO-THOUSAND FOLD!!!" Touta tries to time his strike with Arthur's to try and double down on this roof crunching!
Riku	Riku carves into the Hell House and tries to cleave it apart. Even with his Heartbrand, it proves to be harder than one might have hoped, and the angry metallic screech of his blade tearing into it proves to not be what it needs to die. "Tch. Of course it's going be harder than that." Riku mutters as he flips backwards, landing back on the ground. With a sudden enap of a hand, one fist lights on black fire, preparing another assault... But the enemy reinforcements arrive. Sweepers come, fast attack enemies that try to blast them all down. "Oh no you don't!" Riku yells, whipping his hand outwards. It is probably hard to see in the area, but one might notice his shadow suddenly stretching out and wrapping around a wrecked car... And then it blasts into the air, an inky black creature with golden eyes and muscular, clawed arms smashing upwards to send the wreck flying... And then it volleyball spikes the wreck down onto one of the Sweepers. Riku is already in motion, running forward through the gunfire as it tears across his battlesuit, the Soul Eater in hand as he slashes past and through the Sweeper's location in a single strike. A crescent arc of void lashes through the path of the blade a moment later, severing the space travelled and sending the debris shattering. The Sweeper might, too. Maybe Riku's been picking up some things.
Lilian Rook	Lilian leaps back off the roof of the hell house when it bursts into flames, having accomplished the goal of not letting it flatten the APC and getting Biggs and Wedge out of danger (as much as that is a concept that exists here). She achieves height and distance in doing so to a degree that can be measured as 'anime' and then floats only most of the way to the ground, before stopping at a steady, gently bobbing distance from the group. "Seems your analysis was on the money, Lowell." she says to Arthur, seeing Maricel and the flame combo go to good use, and even implying that he had actually analyzed it instead of making assumptions demonstrated with a graphical window. "Satisfactory so far." she deems the performance. "Overkill is a point. Concentrating our highest ratio of force to personnel into a single small squad to engage with the least number of enemies with the highest force advantage possible. Let's-" Ghosts possession decrepit old war machines is a new one. Familiar only with them possessing people and immobile objects, Lilian doesn't pay the spectres much mind until they start doing that. "Do they normally . . . can they do that?" she exasperates in the direction of the Captain, as if hoping to hear a rules violation and the ghosts disqualified. The autocannons fire, twin lines of shells rip through the dirt towards her, and- -----[stop]----- Lilian gauges which will actually hit her, and swipes her sword back and forth between them, easily cleaving the ammunitions material like soft butter. -----[start]----- -fly to pieces every which way, the walking fire strobing right past her. "Handle this." she snaps her fingers in the direction of the dying hell house without looking, ostensibly dismissively commanding people to finish it off, but apparently intending to make sure the job is done as well, where ruby red sparks fly from her fingers, light flashes from under the house, and a pillar of off-coloured fire erupts from the ground the minute Arthur isn't directly in alignment with it, twisting upwards into the sky with a white superhot core and erupting into a burst of fiery branches at the top. She begins to accelerate towards the Sweeper currently being electrocuted by Galbadia and- -----[stop]----- She accelerates even further, rocketing upwards at a shallow angle with both hands on her sword over her shoulder, transferring all her weight forward just before impact and cutting through the underarm at tremendous speed, aiming to hack the whole mechanical limb off in one go and sever straight through the ectoplasmic mass of ghosts inside the shell, burning and flaying ghostly flesh like the touch of salt to a slug. -----[start]----- -a long, razor thin streak of pitch blackness intersects the Sweeper's arm and upper torso from where she'd just stood, connecting to where she is already behind it and circling back. It's still dissipating into dark, smoky fog as she zips in from behind to ram the full several feet of uncanny blade through the back of its torso, making a weird, howling noise where it pierces metal.
Axel	Axel's fire helps, but - that's certainly a murder train. As the trains are possessed by ghosts, and open up with machine guns, Axel brings up his chakrams and spins them to deflect fire. It sort of works, but a few shots graze off the chakrams into wild areas and a few impact with his side, further wounding him. Frustrated and coughing up a bit of blood from the sheer impact, Axel brings up his chakrams... And dashes forward, boosting in a small burst, and moves to slash the chakrams into the Sweeper. They spin like saws, moving to try and carve into those machine guns, as they also quickly get wreathed with fire to add melting power. "Houses /and/ trains? What's next? Death boats?" No offense, Haguro.
Xion	The SWEEPERS get their initial attack because of the dreaded mechanic of SIDE ATTACK ambushes. Being pincered between the train-like possessed war machines, their anti-personell smoke grenades and large machine guns spraying down fire... Does maybe a few hundred HP of damage. Most of you have THOUSANDS of hit points. It was, in fact, explained in the briefing: These are threats that coordinated teams of Galbadian soldiers regularly sweep through. The size and power of the attack force - and the anxiety-causing cordon - is drawing a commensurate group of the most powerful threats in the area to come out to play. The 'pressure' exerted by the group is enough to cause the strange sub-ecosystem of the Train Graveyard to come screaming out of the woodwork. Well... Rusty metalwork. You get the picture. It looks pretty bad, tactically, with a rampaging HOUSE and two MECHA TANKS! Bad enough that Biggs & Wedge hunker down behind their cover, Biggs pulling out a large military radio. "Commander Hewley! We've made contact! Hard hard contact! Can you send backup?" A crackle of static and response comes through, inaudible through the din. "Say again sir? Uh, they're..." Maricel Thorne cheerily slides into their cover, beginning surgery on herself with a casual air as her BIO-GOJIRA starts wrestling one of the sweepers and clashing with it. "D-doing alright, sir?" Haguro fistfights the immolating demon house, her fists clashing with the mismatched ROBO FIST and shattering the limb on her far daintier hand, her arrayed cannons blasting away at the structure of the house. Wedge shrugs. "They're, uh, doing alright, sir!" Biggs looks Extremely Distraught. "Uhhh, I'll man up, sir, yes sir, copy that sir. Biggs out." Biggs watches in sheer AWE of the SIZE OF THIS LAD as Arthur Lowell engages his ultra super-powers to FLIP. A. HOUSE. Suplexing that sumbitch onto its own burning back, Arthur exposes the SOFT UNDERBELLY and basically negates the Hell House as a threat, the turtle-like monster flailing and rocking back and forth as it burns. Touta's superpowered GRAVITY STRIKE and Axel's burning saw-chakrams doesn't just hit the burning roof, but instead CRITICALLY STRIKES the WEAK POINT that Arthur flipped over, landing for MASSIVE DAMAGE. The house, for its part, makes a loud 'k-show!!!' sound, and then turns red and starts disintegrating slowly. Because you didn't kill it in one shot, you only get 200 EXP, not 250. Raziel, Lilian, and Captain Galbadia focus on one Sweeper, while Maricel's BIO-TITAN and Riku's EDGY STAND box at the second. The former Sweeper is immediately BOLTED from the sky, sending it into a temporary shutdown state as it slumps, allowing Lilian's time-displaced slash to strike true, tearing off most of a side, arm included, and Raziel's Soul Eater to find purchase in the steam engine where the ghosts had settled in, starting to BIG SUCC the spiritual force out. Meanwhile, Maricel's titan clashes, gripping at the machinegun arms and struggling, headbutting, spitting radioactive acid and sending out bolts of gamma irradiated electricity that constantly ministuns the second Sweeper, allowing Riku's Eidolon to CHAOS DUNK a car right into its back, before Riku sends out a void chop that saws off the steam engine nose of the war machine, causing the whole thing to start going critical. In fact, both do, spraying Tracer Laser fire all about, and threatening to self-destruct! Even if Self Destruct is an HP based attack, and both are on their last legs, the Tracer Lasers carve large explosions through the area, stuttering through being BOLT'ed and only MILDLY boss limit break threatening.
Maricel Thorne	"Doing perfectly fine, thank you," Maricel says, looking up from her absurdly rapid self-surgery and giving Biggs and Wedge a winning grin. She doesn't stop stitching and cutting just because she's not looking at what she's doing! Her main body's in better shape now, but her neoplasm's taking a real beating as the Biosaur gets carved up. There won't be much of it left to re-integrate at this rate! A mental "ping" goes out to the entire party, wordlessly asking them for consent. Those who give it will find themselves linked up to a network of mind-speech, similar in principle to the radio but somewhat more intuitive and hands-free. A quiet undercurrent like bacon sizzling is audible in the background if one focuses on it. Six voices speak like a choir, overlapping as the connection 'tunes' through them and consolidates them into a single tone: "This is Dr. Thorne. Welcome to the network." "This is Dr. L- ah, Thorne. Good to have you." "This is Dr. Thorne. Welcome." "Dr. Thorne here. Do you copy?" "Connection successful. Frequency registered." "Dr. Thorne speaking. Welcome aboard." A second psychic consent-ping follows a moment later. Those who open themselves up to that prompt will find a calming clarity coming over their minds, easing the mental burdens of fatigue as a faint green halo 'arcs' from around Maricel's head to the others. There's a peculiar secondary effect, too: those gifted with Maricel's connection might find objects they focus on intently begin to jitter or move. It's a kind of networked telekinesis! Maricel herself handily demonstrates its use- she hurls a double-handful of knives towards the wrecked Biosaur, which it catches with its telekinesis and spins in an orbit around itself like a blender. As the remaining half of its body desperately wrestles with one of the train-mecha and spews radioactive fire from its maw, the knives seek out weakpoints and dig into them, aiming to slowly disassemble the ghost-robot with clinical precision.
Lilian Rook	While fighting, Lilian is keeping a critical eye on the skirmish unfolding out from the random hell house encounter to the twin sweeper engagements, watching the triple gravity/fire combo toss the first enemy around and the comparatively random attacks by the party on the new joiners. Without a single target to focus on, it looks like they're mostly launching offenses on their own, so wrenching her sword free (it's dripping blood, like it hit a real person's chest; how does that work?) she radios in "Nobody here has drilled together except the Galbadians, so it's ideal that we take out a few threats on our way in to get a feel for how to coordinate." She points towards the burning house. "Konoe, Lowell, and Thorne seem to be doing well in that regard already." so her finger moves on to the train wreck spiked into the ground. "If Riku feels like it, he can back the Captain up with screening the APC using that shadow thing. Fall in with whatever Thorne just cooked up." She just skims over the biobeast, snapping at Axel. "Axel, pick a position already for Christ's sake. Try coordinating with Raziel so you're not both off on your own trying to duel down random targets. You have compatible weapons." She turns to Biggs and Wedge. "Quit hiding like a pair of little babies, get off the radio, and back up your goddamn Captain." she snaps. "If that's too hard for you to figure out, just shoot whatever he's fighting, and throw items at the first person to get launched out of position." Tracer fire sprays over her position, and once again she's- -just not in the way, skipping back and forth through the fusillade as she moves toward one of the self-destructing sweepers as if there were an IRL packet loss problem. Getting within a certain range, a few occult gestures from her free hand coalesce into layered circles of shimmering blue-black, which then fires off as a shimmering 'javelin' of translucent, glassy distortion, punched right into the glowing steam engine. It doesn't seem to actually do anything until it's intersected with a lot of solid matter, at which point it instantly flash freezes into a radial web of fractal black ice, almost definitely wrecking overheated plating, but specifically aimed at the engine to try to freeze the steam itself and crack the whole thing apart before it can actually build enough pressure to blow. She follows it up with a few 'generic' bolts of energy, punching sizzling holes through its remaining joints to hit where she expects ammo feeds and power cells might be placed, preemptively blowing off anything that could cook off and lead to secondary explosions.
Haguro	Punching seems to be working! Haguro feels her spirit swelling with pride and her fists swelling with... Well, with blood, since punching a house is generally not something people do witohut injuring themselves, but this isn't a normal situation and she isn't normal people. SHE'S A BOAT. A boat that's about to get pancaked when Arthur starts suplexing the house, but she's smart enough to leap out of the way just in time to not get flattened herself! Rolling to a stop nearby and stopping in a dramatic pose with one hand outstretched while the other braces herself on the ground, she looks back at the Hell House right as Axel turns the house into a weird pile of red mist. "That worked well! It was a... Very confusing, but I think that worked out. Now, let's finish off the rest of our enemies and continue with the investigation." It's easier said than done, of course, with the Sweepers spray their awful lasers around, but the Cruiser is ready to deal with it this time! She twists herself around to take the brunt of the explosive laser against another armor plate, still managing to get singed herself pretty badly, but avoiding the worst of it as she tosses aside the slagged chunk of steel. What's a gunner turned fist-fighter to do against things shooting lasers like this, though? Taking a cue from Lilian about the importance of TEAMWORK and connecting to some people she hasn't quite worked with before, she makes a break for the Sweeper that Maricel's Biosaur is going after. She probably could have gone for the other Sweeper to avoid all that FIRE going around that's putting the fear of God back into the Cruiser, but... Well. She's stubborn, and even her crippling fear of fire isn't enough to stop momentum. It certainly isn't enough to stop the battle cry slash panicked screaming coming from Haguro as she slides underneath the residual fire breath to get to the Sweeper, aiming to slam right into one of its legs and start jerking and yanking at the thing. Apparently, she's aiming to pull the leg off behind the Sweeper so as to try knocking it off balance to push it directly towards those waiting knives!
Raziel	Raziel is on the defensive once more, his blade trying to smack away fire as it comes towards him, even as the sword hungrily chews away at the spiritual energy around him. However, the tug of the blade makes his movements slower this time around, causing some of the fire to shred his right side. Luckily, the energy coming in regenerates the damage to a more tolerable level, instead of having half of a body. Standing back on his feet, he growls and reaches out to grab onto something with his claws. Pulling himself to his feet, the Ghoul has one more trick. In a burst around him, he attempts to grab the remaining monsters all at once, aiming to lock them into the air so that they are made into easy pickings, allowing Axel to try and take advantage of this and deliver lethal strikes to (hopefully) prone targets.
Roxas	In response to the mental ping that reaches Captain Galbadia... a firm rejection occurs as the silhouette of a mask etches itself into the air in front of -- not on -- his face. It has the appearance of a butterfly, and offers a strange tint to his face insofar as it's visible. Like a rash has formed just along the rid of his nose, and his cheeks on either side. He appears distracted. "It's just somebody trying to improve communications, don't worry about it." Captain Galbadia says, to nobody present. It is at this moment exactly that he is sprayed with LASER FIRE from panicking ghosts, which is not a sequence of words that Captain Galbadia ever thought would be connected in his brain or elsewhere. Both arms and his blade come up to cover his head, keeping the laser fire from reaching his helmet. But it still scorches great holes in his uniform and causes the smell of burning flesh to fill the air. He plants his G-Saber against the ground, sagging against it and hissing in audible pain. It's obvious that he hasn't coped with all that much in the way of injuries like this before-- he couldn't handle the traitor captain when he was just some kind of /grunt/, from the way things seemed. Steeling himself with a grunt, Captain Galbadia raises his blade high and then sweeps it down towards the ground, sending a beam of light racing through the air towards the Sweeper that cast the most PANICKED LASER FIRE his way.
Axel	Axel takes being chided in stride, just going sure, sure, and teams up with Raziel. Coordinating over the radio, he waits to see what Raziel plans to do. When Raziel targets the monsters, the chakrams spin in Axel's hands again, flaming, as he aims for their weakspots. "Alright, up and at-em! Let's wrap this up with a bow and continue on with our lives." The flaming chakrams are hyper-accurate, moving to slice through the weakpoints of the monsters Raziel has pinned. "Hell yeah, teamwork!" His enthusiasm seems slightly off, but, Axel's getting the hang of 'working with like eight other dudes in a coordinated military mission' instead of working with a bunch of kids to punch Heartless and do whatever works.
Riku	As cool as Maricel's mental network is, Riku is naturally averse to letting anything into his mind. Perhaps even exceptionally so. Thus it is that the doctor gets no connection with Riku. However, Riku is currently in the middle of the hellish laser rain. Riku swerves and begins twisting, going straight Neo as he turns his body around laser blasts before his Eidolon erupts in front of him, crossing its arms before the gaping heart-shaped hole in its chest and tanking the blast like a boss. The beams crash into it, carving holes and lines in it, only for it to vanish back into Riku's shadow the moment the hellpurge ends. He huffs for a moment, sweating a bit with the situation going down around him. This is going to be hellish. Literally. Thankfully, Arthur suplexes the hell out of the house, leaving it wriggling like a death turtle on its back. Riku nods, and turns, gesturing once again. Lilian has an eye on the circumstances, and that's good. The Eidolon emerges again, this time gripping a wrecked train car and shoving it into position towards the APC and line, providing a makeshift bunker for the others to use for cover. Lilian did suggest nicely, after all, instead of just ordering him around. It's almost like she's dealt with independent actors before or something. This, however, takes up a lot of time, leaving Riku with little left to do more than pitch a quick dark fireball at the belly of the Hell House in order to contribute something more to the offense. This is going to be an unpleasant advance, that's for sure.
Arthur Lowell	Tracer lasers lash throughout the area. And Arthur may not have the time shenanigans or agility to truly evade everything, but he's still strong and fast enough to dash through the beams and get his bearings, then recognize them as a projectile pattern. With the right geometry, intuition, and Prime Gamer Reflexes, Arthur's able to rapidly dart about the area taking no damage! He's /almost/ knocked out of it by the surprise of Maricel's tactical coordination. But he manages to keep focus long enough to let the calming effect enter, and drive his focus in hard. His thinking sharpens. It refines... it speeds up, hard. There's a gleam in his eyes, a proper Gundam Gleam. "Alright, you want some TEAMWORK..." Arthur shouts, eagerly. "Let's get TEAMWOOOOORK!" He backs off just for a moment, twisting his hands about as he quickly works up a spell. The green halo is enhanced, as Arthur adds tons of esoteric magical GRAVITY ENCHANTMENT to the telekinesis, using it as a conduit to massively increase the overall inertia of each thrown projectile! A laser lances by, stopping him from focusing on it even more. Now he dives in fast and hard, slamming feet-first onto the engine block that Lilian Rook just froze, then smashing his broom handle into whatever crevice he can find to split it even further! He can't stay there long, though, because steam or damage will drive him back. He can stay there just long enough to impose a tremendous GRAVITY PUSH against it through the broom, trying to yank the main body in the opposite direction from Haguro's grip, so that the joint comes apart more easily! But he should give /far/ more room to Raziel to hold onto the things! Instead, he enhances the telekinesis by, for just a moment, swapping his gravity enchantments to null-gravity, letting Raziel lift them far more easily and enhancing the vulnerability against any disruptive struggles they might make! He leaps off, and takes advantage of the situation by blazing away with sustained streams of magic bolts! The beam of light is familiar -- something... albionish? -- but Arthur combos his gravity enchantment into a micro-black-hole that will arc the beam into especially brutal concentrations and stylishly esoteric geometric orbits through perhaps not just one, but possibly two of the ghots-in-the-machine! Now that things have progressed enough that the machines might be battered or stunned, he can leap in with melee! He leaps among and between Axel's chakrams, adding a third spinning exotic blade to the mix and enhancing the criss-crossing strikes from Xs to all sorts of stranger designs! Then, to end it, he lands skidding, and summons up in both hands a small but terribly bright, burning sphere -- a small sun! -- and lashes out with beams from it! One matching and twirling around Riku's own artillery shots, but the rest trying to blast through the hull of the train! "FUUUUUCK YEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!" And other similar things are shouted throughout this long, finely coordinated process.
Touta Konoe	The combo of the oddly paired trio proves to not only get the house beast on it's belly but even more so to really give it where it hurts. In fact the conjoined effort of everyone helps really deal with the house, the not-trains and everything else that's happened so far. But getting far doesn't mean it's over and it only gets difficult as lancers start to fire out like some sort of crazy rave! Touta does his best to dodge but he finds himself nicked at best and losing at limb at worst. Yet even as that occurs he keeps trying to truck on through this as these ghost machines keep letting loose. He tries making it with Arthur and the others that made it to the engine block. As Arthru jams his broom into whatever Crevice he can find, Touta does similar with his blade, but he's got that thing on the heaviest possible setting he can to make sure that no matter what happens it's not getting away from the others' attacks. He allows the crazy of onslaught of attacks go through by the others before joining Arthur once again to join in on this melee palooza! As Arthur dances along Axel's Chakram's, Touta's finishing strike is one that's much more simple. He springs into the air aiming for one single point on this thing, and when he spots it, he reels back his fist letting black miasma accrue. His arm becoming almost more demonic than human in doing so and slams it into the blade he had jammed into the ghost machine before, intending to launch this monster train with a monster sword that was probably even heavier than it was right now.
Xion	There is a lot of firepower (is a blade beam firepower? Is a burning chakram? Is time magic? These are the questions we ask ourself. Nobody argues that Maricel's biohorror is 'firepower', least of all Biggs and Wedge, who sort of schooch to the far end of their cover and watch the fight in awe) brought to bear on the two Sweepers, who each would threaten a three-man team of badass ecoterrorists in the demo version of the game BUT NOT THE RELEASE VERSION. They're cut, reaved, darkfired, firebombed, ghost slashed, exploded, godzilla'ed, gravity sworded, and Arthur'ed. That's a verb now. Adjective? Probably all of 'em at this point. The two Sweepers are summarily 'heckin OWNED', pulled apart, and mauled. Then the engines are cracked and the ghosts supped out. The area goes quiet, a few Guard Hounds (the weird dogs with razor headwhips) hiding in the shadows but wanting ACTUALLY nothing to do with this. The team protected the APC, their slightly incompetent helpers, and each other. Plus, they cleaned up some pretty heftily dangerous monsters! In time for a familiar voice to call down, from an overturned traincar. "Hey! You guys get llllllloo-oh." Zack catcalls, before noticing the dark immolating dissipation of the Hell House, and the two entirely freaking shredded apart Sweepers. "Guess you guys went all-out from the start. Well, I found the access belowground, and have found a good path through the area while you guys were busy. Take five, or even pull back, if you like! G-Forces will secure the area, and we'll be ready for the next leg. Should be smooth sailing from here until whatever's causing the problem." Zack does a two-finger salute at the group, another one of his rakish grins plastered on his face. "Hey, Jessie! Bring the APC around!" From the top hatch of the APC, a brown-haired woman in a lighter combat engineer outfit pops out. "Gimmie a moment to check the engine! I think something got jostled. Wedge, gimmie a hand here?" Wedge perks up, eager to get back to things inside an armored vehicle. "R-right! Yeah, be right over!" In the distance, the cordon begins shifting, narrowing inward slowly and re-basing as a small fleet of vehicles makes their way to your location - ostensibly to set up a forward base over the rest period.
Raziel	Raziel, with a force of effort, dismisses the Reaver, looking towards Axel as he finishes his job. There was an approving nod from the ghost, before turning his head towards the arriving Zach. "Convenient," Raziel says, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Nice teamwork, Axel," he comments towards the TOTALLY NOT A CULT MEMBER, and then turns his gaze towards Lilian for a moment, before turning to walk towards the APC. "Now that I have had time to process the energy, it appears these are not the souls of the dead, but rather impressions, soul energy, and whatever dark magic used to set this in motion. It simply seems to act the same way as a soul, and thus I can devour them to prevent their return."
Haguro	Haguro's panting lightly as she looks around slowly at the carnage the group of Elites have caused, still clutching her Sweeper leg in a vice grip while the adrenaline rush tapers down. That happens fairly quickly as Zack arrives, the Sweeper leg getting set down once she remembers that there had been some kind of spirit inhabiting the Sweeper moments earlier. "Th.. That's good. Yes, it might do some good for us to get away from this place. A-at least for a little while." She murmurs anxiously, that discomfort returning not a moment too soon. It does ease up at least somewhat when Raziel states that they're less ghosts and more feeling, but only a little. "So that's what you meant by eating. Erm. Does that involve chewing or... How does that even work?"
Roxas	Captain Galbadia collapses backwards into the APC, breathing heavily. He takes a minute to catch his breath, and chugs a potion a little messily before he manages to settle in enough to feel comfortable talking again. "Buncha ghosts possessing some of those old m-tek walkers and a Trap House." He calls to Zack, in explanation. His attention turns towards Lilian, to whom he calls, "Those walkers, that's the kind of stuff you can expect of old Estharian gear. It's mighty nice if you can haul some of it back, but I hear it's kinda uncommon to get it in good enough condition that it's worth hauling it back." "Nobody knows what the new stuff oughta look like. The whole country just ghosted the planet after the Sorceress got fired into space." The burning 'mask' that presented itself before his face dims and fades away. Nobody seems terribly concerned by it. He nods towards Raziel, "They're spirits. Souls getting trapped is a much nastier business. Spirits kind of degrade as they use up the memories that make them up-- if you catch the ones here or in the catacombs out in the open, they look like party store ghosts." "But that's just 'cause they lost all of the bits that made them sorta like the person that made them in the first place." He raises a fist and knocks on the APC, "Hey, does this thing need to be /pushed/?"
Arthur Lowell	"Motherfucker, I go ALL OUT from the START, the END, and EVERYWHERE IN-BETWEEN! There ain't a NUMBER for me BELOW ELEVEN, BAYBEE!" Arthur shouts. He is busy flexing on top of the broken trains. He is making poses repeatedly. You know, until he's done jumping off. "Alright, you got that PATH. Homie, I got that MOMENTUM! I could GO ALL NIGHT! Someone bring me a RED BULL!! YEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!" He shouts, then kinda stumbles a bit. "Actually, wouldn't turn down a little bit of CHILL TIME. Could get my ASPECT GAUGE refilled." He shifts back and forth, working the soreness out of his shoulders. He's looking really proud of himself though. Guaranteed he'll be jumping into the next run at this business, sticking around for when the op starts going again.
Roxas	"Oh, we don't do Red Bull here. Hold on..." Captain Galbadia rifles through his pockets until he produces a PLASTIC BOTTLE. He tosses it towards Arthur. KING BEHEMOTH ENERGY DRINKS describes itself as your go-to drink if you need to cast Meteor all day long. The fine print adds that you cannot actually cast meteor from drinking a KING BEHEMOTH, and that the manufacturer can't be held responsible for the consequences if you try. It does seem to be a pretty strong Magic Power restorative, though.
Touta Konoe	"Yaaaaaaa, that was crazy. Still kinda confused on what caused all this to start up but if you guys ever need an extra hand know I'm always down to help." Touta seems to have faired pretty well with all the lasers and explosions and all the other nonsense that ensued from this mess. Frankly now that he's healed up he probably looks like he never even got hit in the first place. But any of the holes in the clothing would tell you otherwise. He rests the blade on his shoulder as he looks over all the damage left over and the clean-up put out at this point. "Still, it looked like you guys would have done fine without me honestly, but uh, glad I was able to do something I guess!"
Xion	Jessie leans out the side of the APC's side-door as Captain Galbadia leans against it. "Nah, just need to give it a kick. Wedge! Shift your lazy bones and crack the hood!" Wedge sheaths his sword and clambers up onto the exposed fan. "O-on it!" Meanwhile, Zack watches Arthur 'Definitely Not Fortnight Dance' on top of another train and giving the Mage of Space a thumbs up. "Hey-hey, we got a high roller here. That's awesome. Glad to have people like you. Man, I was hearing some real bassy thumps undergroud. Did you fight off all of Esthar's junkheap leavings yourselves?" He throws back his head and laughs. "I'm pretty sure there's some coffee in the rations in one of the APCs, but if you wanna head back to Deling overnight, Biggs, Wedge, Jessie and I will set up the post and get a sweeping team to start handling the mop-up. We've been harassed by those Sweepers for months! It takes someone like Commander Angeal to handle them without serious injury, so... Wow, you guys took out two." Zack hops down and saunters towards Touta and the rest of the group. "Hey, no problem kid. You're helping Galbadia clean up a mess in its backyard, probably saving the world, stuff like that. Glad to have you, even if you're confused. Swing back around for the second leg, maybe you'll find out why you came."
Riku	Riku looks on as the carnage dies down. Looks like whatever is out there, it's expended its immediate resources for now. Riku turns away, banishing the Soul Eater for the moment, and looks back to the others. "I'm going to take a look around. I'll be back to the forward post shortly. If I see anything important, I'll let you know." Looks like for the moment, Riku is willing to be something resembling a team player. Even if he is still running around basically on his own.