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S6     I1 already endorsed an expedition to a null zone. What was probably intended to be a small party of one or two specialists and an escort android has quickly grown into a larger volunteer operation. And apparently it was because of the Null Zone that was recommended for Reiji's examination-- NZ13. A large zone in the forest encroaching from the north of Indus.

    Of course, Old Indus is as it ever was; a dilapidated, abandoned region of the city that is slowly crumbling and being reclaimed by nature. The further the party travels from the great walls of the current city, the more advanced the degradation becomes, until a bridge is crossed over a canyon and right into a dense old-growth forest. Massive trees form a thick canopy, with a fairly open understory between the great trunks. Sunlight reaches down here only as narrow shafts in places. It's some distance from Indus, any vantage that rises above the canopy could barely make out the city walls in the distance, and it is here that the guiding android S6 pauses. She places her hand against the trunk beside her, and her POD chimes.

    -VITAL STATUS COMPROMISED. CAUSE UNKNOWN.-
    -FURTHER DATA REQUIRED TO DIAGNOSE.-

    She turns slightly, casting a 'look' across the party through that opaque visor she wears, "The null zone may have expanded since the last survey. Walk carefully. We should be coming up on the border soon."
Shigure     Escort Duty is just part and parcel of life as a smaller ship in the greater fleet. Yuudachi and Kuma are skirting the outer edge of the group, acting as a screen of sorts. Yuudachi is sweeping with her search radar, S6's POD would register the radiation doing a slow panning sweep, completing a full sweep every thirty seconds or so. Visually, her hair-flaps crackle lightly with electricity, standing up a bit more than usual.

    Kuma, meanwhile, is launching her scout-plane sending it to seek ahead visually.
Phobos     Progress with the WEIRD MANA CORE THING sure hasn't gone anywhere so far. Phobos has yet to crack the mystery of how to shove mana inside it and plug the cracks so it doesn't just leak it all over the place. Or maybe she's just not putting in enough. But what's certain is that this world holds the answers she still needs to make it work.

    That's why there's a red-robed Priest of Mars in the party, her green optics shining under the hood, arranged in that upside-down crescent formation but revealing no mouth or much of any facial features underneath. It's really all metal, what's visible.

    There is a golden servo-skull floating behind her, entirely more ornate than one should ever be. It radiates kingly vibes.

    "Of course it's compromised. Flesh is compromised the moment it's born," she rattles off, ignoring the tree entirely. "So something's making it die faster than it naturally would. Oh no. Where will you find more trees to replace it? Truly, a great loss. Laugh for me," she orders her floating golden skull.

    "FUHAHAHAHA!" the skull digitally renders.
    It's... suspiciously familiar.
    "Good, that feature works."

    She continues walking ahead, more interested in reaching the border than dreading its approach. "And how will we tell we've reached it?"
Reiji Arisu So it often goes in the Multiverse. Word gets out about some kind of terrifying land-cancer and people crawl out of the woodwork to try and poke at it with as many sticks as can be imagined.

But Reiji has a very particular kind of stick available to him. One that is uniquely suited for this specific problem.

Reiji stares at the compromised tree with concern plain on his face. Vital status compromised. It's dying, then. And, likely, so too are many of the others around the perimeter. The exorcist reaches out a hand to gently pat the peeling bark as if to try to comfort it.

And then there's a very familiar FUAHAHAHAHA from somewhere nearby, and Reiji /almost/ shoots the Gilgaskull out of pure reflex. Fortunately he does not. It's not the gil-ness that does it, even. It's just... Floating mechanical skulls. They're not what you might normally expect to produce such a kingly laugh.

"Let's keep moving, then," Reiji says, stepping beyond the boundary demarcated by the dying foliage. "If there's a specific reason it's expanding, we might be able to discern why if we catch it in the act."
Staren     A place where magic and life drain out of you? Yeah, Staren's going as a robot. And for once he doesn't have his magic bag with him, instead having a regular bag and backpack with only nonmagical gear in it. He's walking along, bringing up the rear, with several quadrotor drones in the sky keeping an eye out.

    Staren looks at S6 and nods at her warning. He readies something that looks like a flip phone -- this one DOESN'T have crystals on it -- and scans for sudden changes in ambient magic as he goes.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa has offered her help int his matter as she said before, however, Kotone was not looking to be in the best shape. One might notice she's moving a bit off like something quite isn't right. The new parts to replace the ones destroyed by the Genesteeler cult hadn't fully settled for lack of a better term and hs still has no idea how lucky she'd been. She was kitted out and ready for trouble as she glanced about the old city being reclaimed by nature. It reminded her of some of the cities back home which had yet to be reclaimed.

"Right so we need to keep alert."

She will keep on moving for the moment and looks over at Phobos for a moment feeling a bit uncomfortable at this but a mission is a mission.

"I agree Reiji, want me to send up some drones of my own to scout?"

She looks to S6 and to Reiji as she asks this.
S6     "Mmm," S6's gaze shifts towards Phobos, then back to the tree. She pulls her hand from it and steps past the dying vegetation. Golden sparks swirl out from behind her as her swords materialize, floating behind her.

    Kuma's scout plane is the first thing to find it. The forest very suddenly opens out into a lifeless terrain, ashen gray. Along the edge there are trees that had collapsed, though the further in the plane flies, the less distinct such signs of recent life become.

    Staren's quadcoptors have a bit of an easier time lingering on the edge, since they can hover. A tree's roots give way, the entire mass collapsing into the null zone with a loud cacophony of breaking branches and that distinctive *whudd* of wood striking soil.

    This hellscape awaits those who aren't using aerial recon shortly after, when S6 crests a hill and stops to look over the desolate land of NZ13. To Reiji, she states, "The mechanism of null zone expansion is currently unknown. If this leads to anything, it will be useful data." Her POD chimes, and she nods once, "Launch them, Yamakawa." With a step forward, the android slides down the hillside and into the Null Zone itself, trailing powdery ash-like dust behind her.
Shigure     "Kuma's plane has contact, kuma. Half a mile forward on current heading, kuma." reports the cruiser, walking ahead with her eyes closed, but somehow avoiding branches and other hazards, while looking through her scouts 'eyes'. "Kuma thinks it looks like a large bomb crater, kuma... but growing."

    Yuudachi doesn't pick up anything on radar, and so shifts it to passive mode and unhitches her handcannon from her rigging. "Eyes up, ready to acquire targets, poi." she remarks, coming to the edge of the Null Zone, then diving over the edge in S6's wake without hesitating.
Phobos     How will we know we're there, Phobos asked, not knowing it would be quite this obvious. Her optics shine ominously brighter, like a child staring in wonder.

    "Oh. This is beautiful. Whatever caused this has been engineered to ++perfection++," she states, the tint of her 'eyes' shifting from one green to another as she begins scanning for energy, radiation, weird signals - something that makes this place stand out, and that might explain the wide-spread death.

    Jets of blue electrical fire erupt under her feet, like thrusters. She hovers down the hill, evidently not interested in sliding down the side like S6.

    The Gilgaskull follows silently.
Staren     "Yeah. And that's weird, right? If it kills all life, it should be full of dead trees, with no microbes or fungi to decompose them. Why is everything... ash?" Staren points out, standing at the edge of the 'crater' and sighting through the scope of a laser sniper rifle, then sweeping it around looking for anything... well, OTHER than ash here.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa takes a moment to get her drones up in the air the small things were stored on combat webbing. She'll elt the small units take flight as she sens them to add to the rest of those scouting.

"Good this should help some more then."

With all those drones and the like up in the air. They will start feeding data to Kotone which she'll relay to the others s she follows after S6.

"Looks like a deadland to me, if I'm being honest about it."

With the contact warning she will be directing her drones that way.

"Geeze...so lets hope the natives are snoozing. If there are any..."
Reiji Arisu     "Send out a scout if you like," Reiji asides to Kotone, but it seems that S6 has organizing the party well in hand. He turns his attention toward more pressing matters.

The blasted wasteland that stretches out beyond the crumbling treeline is... fundamentally unsettling. Reiji's geomantic senses scream against the inside of his skull, the empty *void* where there should be a lush forest conjures uncomfortable memories. "You weren't kidding," Reiji growls, wincing. His fingers habitually touch at the scar carved across his temple as if to try and suppress the pain radiating from the pale, jagged line. "This is... awful. It's like there's a hole in the world. I've only sensed something like this a couple of times in the past. Let's... see what we can learn."

It'll suck. He'll hate himself for doing it. But still, Reiji does as he must. His awareness expands, reaching into the blighted land and the forest at its margins. His senses follow the flow of natural energies in the world, feeling out where they lead, where they're coming from, and what might be the source of the blight.
S6     All the aerial recon between Staren, Kuma, and Kotone soon uncovers the Null Zone's inhabitants. Deeper in, creatures with oily black figures, beastly shapes, darting about the ashen terrain. Indistinct at a distance, though animalistic upon closer examination. Drones and seaplane are at risk if they get too close, though. The most immediately threatening Nullborn seems to be a cat-like one with long tentacles protruding from its face. Once it's made aware of something buzzing about in the air, its response is violet-tinged lightning bolts.

    -ANALYSIS: ORGANIC MATTER FULLY DEPLETED OF MAGIC THROUGH EXPOSURE TO NULL ZONE.-
    -ORGANIC MATTER BREAKDOWN OCCURS AS CELLULAR STRUCTURE LOSES COHESION.-
    -ASH-LIKE DETRITUS RESULTS FROM DISASSOCIATED ELEMENTS.-

    Rising to her feet at the base of the ridge, S6 casts her glance out over the terrain, then turns slightly, "This place is crawling with Nullborn soldiers and officers. Your aerial units have no doubt sighted them by now. Alert us if any draw too close for comfort." To Phobos, S6's posture remains tense, "It's believed to be an effect of the method the Nullborn use to invade our dimension. Whether it is intentional or not, it does appear to benefit their troops."

    Reiji links with the local leyline network to discern what's going on. Whichever routes the leylines had naturally followed, they've been diverted, their previous routes left fallow-- everything is pouring towards the Null Zone's center and then descending into the earth. Whatever that may be, it reaches deep, so deep that it reaches out of even his range. The ambient magic, such as it is, also has the vague consistency of television static. Disorganized, breaking down and spilling away like water down a drain.

    Injecting his perception into the leyline network prompts that cat-like Nullborn to cease harassing the drones, raising its head, tentacles twitching. After some hesitation, the bulky creature starts stalking in the onmyo's direction, even at this great distance.
Phobos     "So this destroys life. Magic. But it leaves everything else pristine? And the Nullborn thrive on it, or maybe they're simply immune. Amazing. Imagine if you could turn this kind of field to your advantage! A defensive perimeter could be made to weaken or kill magical and organic intruders, but leave their gear intact. Provided one employed only mechanical servants, the tactical advantage would be..."

    She's not quite... squeeing, exactly, but even through her voice synthesizer, her excitement is impossible to hide.

    "Now the question is, where does the magic go? Destroyed? Absorbed? And what are the Nullborn, if neither magical nor organism? Or are they? What makes them impervious? There's so much to find here."

    Tendrils of silvery metal snap out of Phobos' robes, ending in an array of surgical multitools. Most of which don't look like they belong in a body. Any body.

    "Autopsy. Possible?" she inquires to S6.
Shigure     Kuma starts sliding down the cliffside, then winces. "Kuma's scout is taking ground fire from a cat-like creature, kuma." And then it suddenly stops. "Target changed behavior kuma. Tracking, it's heading this way, kuma."
Reiji Arisu     The ley is... bleeding away. Flooding somewhere into the depths of the earth. Down. Down. Down. Reiji's awareness strains to follow it, but it just keeps /going./ Maybe into the very core of the world. But what... what does that /mean?/ The Null Zone, to the naked eye, appears to be little more than an expanding wasteland, but is it more than that? What /is/ it really? He attempts to discern whether or not that depth is an alien one, if it truly is an 'encroachment' or something /else./

Reiji's eyes flicker under his eyelids, regardless of what he finds. His attention turns once he has an answer, focusing instead on the very fringe of the void, searching for some kind of mechanism by which the ley might be being drawn away from its natural course.

"No. It's not /destroying/ the mana," Reiji answers Phobos' hypothesis. "The leylines are still flowing, they're just... flowing /down./ Into the earth. The blight itself isn't destroying what it draws in, it's... a symptom, not a cause." He turns his face towards Kuma, then asks, "Is it moving aggressively?"
Staren     Staren keeps the other drones further away after the first one gets lightninged.

    "So, um... what are we looking for, again?" he asks Reiji. He can't use his own limited abilities to manipulate magic in this body, and what sensors he has aren't as precise as Reiji anyway.

    "Oop, that one doesn't like whatever you're doing..." He's already sighting the laser rifle, so he swivels his aim over to the cat-like null and fires a three-pulse burst over a fraction of a second, each pulse dumping as much energy as a couple of grenades into a tiny point.

    "It's flowing DOWN? I guess we should start digging..." He'll get to that, when there aren't nulls hunting them.
Kotone Yamakawa She gets a good look from the data that is coming in now and just shakes her head at it.

"Under fire."

She will pull her drones back but one of them gets hit and just is /gone/.

"Well there goes one. Somethin down there has tentacles and lightning bolts."

She notes as her remaining sources are running now from the nullborn. If the nullborn has any sort of anti-air her drones are done for unless she can get them pulled out.

Kotone keeps getting feedback from the drones as they flee.

"So Reiji you say something might be feeding or collecting all the mana?"

She'll look to Kuma for a moment.

"Then we should get ready."

She'll move to radie an assault rifle as if something's coming it's going to be a fight when it comes to the nullborn.
S6     "Weaponizing it is not recommended," S6 comments to Phobos, "Even you value your organic components for the time being. An android like me would also be in danger, as my MCS does not function in this environment." Her head tilts slightly, "If you wish to autopsy a Nullborn, you are free to do so. Your window for vivisection is rather narrow, though. They dissolve rather quickly compared to traditional lifeforms."

    Reiji mentions symptoms rather than causes, and the android glances his way. After a moment, she lifts a hand to her chin in thought. The POD chimes beside her and she glances towards it. She then lifts her eyes to the ridge that the party had descended.

    "We've been followed," Her weapons flip from their resting position into a more readied stance, "Your objectives are unchaged-- Destroy the approaching Nullborn and protect Arisu until data collection is complete. I will deal with our pursuer and secure the return route."

    S6 crouches, then springs right up the hillside in a spray of ashen powder, disappearing into the treeline. Right about the time that metal clashes against metal somewhere in the woods, the low rumbling growl of a massive cat sounds from the other direction. That nullborn officer creeps up over the crest of that ash-covered hill, trailing tentacles like enormous whiskers. Three distinct points on its oily black hide trail smoke from laser bolt impacts. The posture isn't just aggressive, but predatory, downright stalking in its approach.

    Either it's hungry or very, very angry.
Phobos     Phobos' head snaps to look at Reiji, a sudden jerking motion clearly not human and more akin to machine's efficient movements. "Flowing down? Then there's more to this than a field. Is it collecting it? Taking it elsewhere? Every piece of this puzzle is important. Probably." She looks back towards S6.
    "Maybe," Phobos considers. It's true there's still meat in there, somewhere. "Hence the importance of finding how these critters survive it in the first place. If they dissolve too quickly to take apart for SCIENCE, then I'll just need to get a live one."

    Another limb snaps out of Phobos' robes, a clunky robotic arm of black steel, runed with green symbols. She grasps it with her thinner, clawed hand, the arm reconfiguring itself into a staff, adorned by the symbol of the Mechanicus, a half human half robot skull in a gear. The weapon becomes coated in a barely visible green field.

    "Too short notice for a cage, though. I'll have to come back. Prepared. For now, I'll settle for vivisection."

    The staff is raised, and releases a bolt of green lightning less akin to a bolt and more alike a solar flare, right for the very large and angry Nullborn. It practically atomizes the ground along its path, and it won't be much kinder to the beast.

    "Recording. Let's learn."
Staren     The lasers hit, but apparently the nature of this thing's body is such that it's hard for him to tell how much damage that did. As it approaches even closer, he fires the underbarrel grenade launcher, some kind of plasma explosive arcing through the air, then fires the twin particle beams built into his armor, rapidly cycling through different attack modes before flying back to the treeline on energy wings -- high enough to keep it in sight, but keeping trees close at hand for cover.

    Staren checks with S6 and is reassured that he doesn't need any particular weapon, he just needs to keep hitting it!

    Well. he can certainly do that!
Shigure     Yuudachi nods, looks over to Kuma, "You heard the lady, poi. Defensive screen, modified star formation." the destroyer interposes herself between Reiji and the Officer. Kuma takes up a position off to the left of the destroyer and slightly behind. The pair raise their artillery, and fire a volley of shells at the officer, Yuudachi's cannons fire, recycle, then fire again before Kuma's can recycle themselves. THe shells are armour piercing, so likely punch clean through the Officer's body without detonating.
Reiji Arisu Well, that certainly is a vaguely cat-shaped hole punched in the fabric of the universe. Reiji may not be seeing much of anything right now, his senses instead turned entirely toward monitoring the spiritual landscape, but the Officer appears in his mind's eye just fine regardless. The Onmyoji, however, has his protectors. He can keep his attentions focused on what he must, relying on his companions to keep him safe.

What is this thing doing to the surrounding environment? What powers it, if magic is truly lifeforce, then what is animating the beast that stalks towards them now?
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is already making ready for the inbound Nullborn by fading away from view as her cloaking system comes online. She's going to make use of hopefully her lack of magic and now being invisible at least under normal means? To flank or get the inbound Nullborn from behind. So for the moment, she's creeping to get into position to strike when the beast shows itself.
S6     The Nullborn feline splays its legs when Staren fires a more substantial projectile at it. The blast ripples through its coal-black hide, splattering dark sludge in a blast pattern around it that quickly soaks into the ashen powder of the Null Zone's floor. With blaster bolts converging on it, the beast recoils with its tentacles, aiming them and discharging bolts of electricity right back at the mechanical catman.

    Literally A Solar Flare is harder to deal with through simple soaking, though. Dust is eradicated, the layer of firmament underneath it fused into carbonized glass. The catlike alien digs in, then hurls itself to the side, only losing one of those whisker tentacles in the process. It slides upon landing, coiling immediately for a pounce just to be knocked off-balance by artillery fire from the two shipgirls. Kuma's larger shells just barely over-penetrate, while Yuudachi's explode inside, scattering that ichorous black across the dust.

    Its pounce for Reiji interrupted and the threats clear, the Nullborn whirls on the offense being levied against it. The remaining three tentacles whirl around, discharging electrical bolts on both destroyer and cruiser. It's lost track of Kotone in the chaos.

    The beast quickly prioritizes, after those quick attacks, and coils itself. After just a second, it hurls itself right at Phobos in a pounce, claw-filled paws outstretched.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa plan is working for the moment as she's been lost track of in the chaos as the beast is going after her allies namely Phobos? That is when Kotone will strike she will fire a controlled burst of shots a the backside of the Nullborn. Soon as the last shot leaves her rifle? She's on the move again in the chaos of battle. She will make ready for another attack as the battle rages on.

<<If you need anything from me just let me know.>>
Staren     Lightning blasts Staren, blackening his armor and leaving orange-hot spots where it hits that melt and warp. Staren dives into the trees to narrowly avoid the tentacles. If he can't see it, it can't see him.

    Except he can, thanks to the drones still at the edge of the zone. A half-dozen tiny missiles streak into the air above the trees, then arc and rain down on the beast from above! They detonate feet before impact, turning into pencil-thin but incredibly dense plasma bolts! Hopefully this thing has some kind of internal organs that don't like having holes poked in them; otherwise he's just poking holes in it and not disrupting its mass all that much.
Shigure     The pair of ships hunker as the beast isn't down yet, and moves to hurl that electricity at them. The scintilating arcs rippling across their bodies, leaving scortch marks on their 'flesh', and causing Yuudachi's search light to blow out, and her hammock sail to catch light, burning until a fairy beats it out forcefully. Kuma fares little better, an arc jumping from her shoulder to slash across the large ahoge sticking out of the top of her head, bisecting it and causing the fillaments to fall away, trailing smoke. Both kanmusu then shift position, and level their guns back on the beast. Kuma's shells have an orangish tracer, and detonate on impact instead of piercing through, while Yuudachi saw the effect of her own armour piercing. The destroyer fires her AA grid as the thing pounces though, filling the air around it mid-flight with flak blasts and tracer fire from 12.7mm machineguns and 25mm autocannons that fold out of her rigging, which is trailing smoke from small fires where the electricity melted the metal, warped the structure, and caught flammables alight.
Phobos     The beast pounces for HER FACE.
    What passes for her face, anyhow.

    Phobos stands her ground - the staff is put between her and the beast, but she's still floored by it, spared from getting torn apart by its maw solely by her staff.

    On contact with the Nullborn, the staff crackles loudly, that green field around it preventing direct contact with the metal and instead leaving the Nullborn to thrash into the disruption field that covers it. Basically, the field is pushing it back and trying to shred it. But it's a tough little beastie, and it might well need more than that to dissuade it from eating martian steel.

    "Unusually lively, and almost unaffected by physical injuries. What ARE you? Oh, hold that thought."

    She pulls her larger hand back - something snaps out of her elbow, like a piston. The power fist's blue lightning field crackles to life.

    "Off me! Bad cat!"

    She punches! The piston snaps back into her arm as she does, and the power fist doesn't just strike with its own awful power field, but also the oomph of that pistol launching razor-sharp blue rocks along with the punch.

    Radioactive, poisonous blue rocks.
    The best kind.

    It should combine neatly with the firepower suddenly directed at the beast's back.
S6     Phobos has a field of view largely occupied by gnashing teeth and rippling, oily black flesh. This only ends when she powerfists it right in the choppers, the impact of the piston and power field enough to send the tiger-sized beast sprawling with radioactive minerals jammed into its face. It tumbles, taking several piercing hits from Staren's plasma rifle. As it comes to a halt, Kotone lights it up from an undefended angle, while flak fire from the two shipgirls peppers it with bursts of shrapnel.

    The Nullborn hauls itself to its feet, drooling away its inky mass. Heavier artillery from Kuma and Yuudachi bore into it, blasting it off its feet once more. This time, the Nullborn does not get up. The rumbling growl of a ferocious predator rattles to a stop and whatever counts as life for these creatures quite clearly expires.

    The din of combat fades. With no more gunfire or explosions, the clashing of swords chimes from the treeline. There's a flash of blue-white from amidst the undergrowth, hurling S6 out into plain view again. She recovers from the blow, landing on her feet and skidding to a halt in the ashen dust of the Null Zone.

    Another figure crests the ridge, a woman in a tattered version of the same uniform S6 wears, unkempt white hair, and lacking the visor. Another android, but by the glowing markings on her sword, the hostile that S6 detected.

    Muted red eyes glance from her opponent to the downed Nullborn, then to those gathered around it. The mystery woman hesitates only briefly before disappearing back into the forest.

    -ENCOUNTER WITH UNIT D3 LOGGED.-

    "Tch..."
Shigure     Kuma turns eyes from the Nullborn, once it's confirmed KIA, to the new woman that just fought with S6. "Tasking Type 0 Scout to following, kuma." she says, the soft whirring of the piston engine's flier peeling overhead as it moves to try and keep track of the other android.

    Yuudachi, for her part, moves over toward Phobos, offering a hand to the Mechanicus to help her back to her feet. "Just like outer patrol back home." she quips, grinning dopily, much like a pleased-with-herself puppy.
Phobos     Phobos gets up, accepting Yuudachi's hand without complaint; the ground is comfortable, sometimes, but the clock is ticking, if S6 is to be believed. And having seen that thing up close, she understands why. That oil-like skin almost gives the impression the Nullborn don't have bodies so much as masses pretending to be things.

    "Oh I would love to dig into you too if I had time," she idly comments to the ship, in a tone entirely too business-like to be a double entendre.

    But the Nullborn calls.

    The medical multitools snap impatiently as Phobos draws near the body of the beast, hoping to use every precious second she has to cut into it, study its insides, and maybe even try to stuff bits and pieces inside sealed little bottles meant to contain various manners of samples. Will the beast's parts evaporate despite the seal, right through the bottle? Maybe she won't even be able to get any pieces to stay whole.

    So many questions and not enough time to field all of them. And as much as she wants to give attention to D3 - and she does, idly, her optics looking in that direction briefly- her non-hostility and the Nullborn being minutes if not seconds from dissipating make that a priority.
Staren     "Well. Better get to your dissection quick." Staren comments over the radio to Phobos, as he reloads the missile ports in his arms just in case.

    Then he sets to digging, the matter manipulator sucking up dirt and placing stone walls around the edge to keep the shaft from collapsing.
Reiji Arisu The Nullborn is slain. Its remains disintegrate into so many sparkling motes. But it seems as though something else has made itself known. Reiji's eyes open as his awareness finally draws back into his body completely. His last act was to try and trace what happened when the Nullborn was slain-- what happened to the energies it was made up of when it finally fell apart. He returns to the world to find two things have changed.

First: Staren is... apparently trying to dig to China. China's not even on this world, as far as Reiji knows. "Don't bother," the exorcist says to the robot guy. "If you're looking for where the mana's going, it was too deep for even my senses to follow. Wherever it's headed, it's clearly too far down to be practical."

Second: There's another android. A hostile one, apparently. "'D3' huh?" Reiji asks, turning to quirk a brow in the woman's direction as she flees back into the forest, "I wasn't aware that there /were/ any rogue units. Who was that, S6?"

He shakes his head, then. "In any case, I've learned something pretty important here. The mana's not being destroyed, it's just going... elsewhere. Somewhere deep underground. I suppose we could enact a long-term project to excavate a tunnel into the depths of the world, but again, practicality. Better idea is to try and find a natural cave system somewhere near one of the Null Zones... Or to try and set up a geomantic array to amplify my senses."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa once she's sure the Nullborn is done she'll decloak and pause for a moment as she catches sigh at the figure on the ridge, she'll zoom in a bit to get a closer look at her who is this? She gets an answer pretty soon from S6's companion.

"Unit D3?"

She aks trying to find a trace of where the figure went but she finds nothing now.

"D3's long gone I can't track her."

Kotone notes and she looks right for S6.

"I'd like to ask about D3 later."

She looks over to Phobos and Staren for a moment

"IT would be nice to know just how to better deal with these /things/ I must admit."

She's not keen on watching Phobos work though given she saw what she did to that shell that Staren gave her.
S6     Following the android identified as 'D3' by scout plane seems easy at first. But after the first hundred meters or so, she's gotten wise to the pursuit. It isn't long after this that the newcomer makes use of the forest to shake the scout plane, disappearing amidst the trees and shrubs.

    Phobos' vivisection goes through...well, with that many arms and tools the only adequate description is 'frighteningly'. The Nullborn's consistency is flesh-like, but entirely that thick black sludge. It drains anything organic or magical in nature on contact, absorbing the energies into its mass. It has no apparent organs, or at least no real delineation for any such support systems one would expect an animal to have. But it does have a skeleton. A recognizably feline skeleton composed of common hardened minerals; similar to fossilized bone.

    The deterioration is measurably fast. By the way the 'flesh' is losing is consistency, it'll probably be a slimey liquid slurry within the hour.

    S6 keeps her weapons deployed, scanning the treeline for D3. When it becomes clear the enemy android isn't returning (A wise choice, S6 remarks inwardly, as she would be outnumbered here), only then does she relax her stance and cast a visor-covered look towards Phobos and her work. That glance moves on to Staren's digging, then Reiji.

    -D3, FORMER DESIGNATION S3.-
    -FANTOM DESERTER.-

    The POD answers the question, and so S6 just lifts her hand to indicate her support unit in a 'what he said' sort of way, "I don't know...just what would drive an android to abandon FANTOM, but standing orders are to destroy on sight. D3 is a slightly older model than I am, though still highly dangerous."
Staren     "Practical?" Staren echoes from the hole, imagining a giant Eggman drill machine or something -- Reiji acknowledges the possibility, at least. "Now you're thinking! Hmm. Maybe first we should triangulate with another Null Zone, though.

    To Kotone he replies, as he flies out of the hole, "Well, weapons seem to work."

    He looks to S6. "You don't know, huh? Has anyone talked to her?"
Phobos     "If it's a hole you want," Phobos drones on while BEING A REAL DOCTOR, "I'm sure we could build some manner of orbital digging platform and beam a ray of PURE DIGGING right into the planet's crust until we find what we're looking for."

    After a short pause,
    "And by pure digging I mean it's a laser."

    After another pause.
    "Staren can help build it if he wants."

    Hurriedly, Phobos sets about sealing up samples of that goop. That might come in handy. And she can see what happens when it's exposed to, ah, hosts. Maybe even willing hosts! Maybe. Probably not. But you know, it'll be good to study either way.

    Some of those bones might be handy too. It's not like there's any other prize in this thing. Here's hoping THOSE don't turn into goop, too.
Reiji Arisu Reiji just... stares at Phobos. He stares for a very long time. Then: "I mean," he shrugs, almost throwing his hands up. "I /guess?/ I'm not going to stop you if you think you can pull it off. Just, try not to accidentally break the planet's core or something. That would somewhat defeat the purpose of this entire exercise."

Beat.

"We should probably triangulate though, yeah. I'm not sure 'down' is an accurate enough direction, especially if the energy ends up pivoting at some point."
Shigure     Kuma tchs as her plane loses track of the unit. It lifts up a little, starting a search pattern in the direction the android disappeared in, but soon has to give up the chase and return to the cruiser as its fuel begins to run down. It wings over as it passes the group, comes in low, and with a deft flick of a wrist; Kuma catches the floatplane on a tether line and reels it in as the engine cuts. "Kuma's scout lost the target, kuma... Kuma is sorry, kuma." she says toward S6 and the others.

    Yuudachi just kinda blinks at Phobos' remark. "Uuuuh... like, okay, poi." she replies dumbly, then picks up her radar scanning again, making sure there's nothing else closing the distance on them.
S6     S6 shakes her head towards Staren, "She has been nothing but hostile towards any androids she's encountered. I attempted communication during today's encounter as well, but as you can see, that ended in failure. D3 did not say anything to me."

    Her gaze shifts back to Phobos, and she states matter-of-factly, "Please do not drill through my planet's crust with a space laser. That would be far worse for the environment than the null zones already are." She does, at least, lean slightly closer as the specimen is stripped down so effeciently, "...Your mechanical body has advantages Indus' scientists do not. It would have decomposed before reaching a facility with the appropriate equipment to perform this sort of procedure."

    While the 'flesh' and the goop it is becoming largely defies analysis, only coming up as common elements and organic compounds with no clear reason why they behave the way they do, the actual bones are... it's literally just stone. And once stripped of the sludge that makes up the monster's body, the stone bones are likewise inert and safe to handle.

    "A small number of androids have disappeared or deserted FANTOM since my activation. The D-classification is used to identify these units in the field. D3 is the only one I have personally encountered."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa lets Phobos do her work and she's looking away at this point. She pauses at POD for a moment

"So she bailed on this? Hummm I could hazard what could cause that on my world but I suspect you S6 and any others like you? Are way past needing a Turing test."

She nods a little to Reiji for a moment.

"You are right we should get to that."

She thinks a bit more.

"Could be they had enough of it?"
Reiji Arisu "She seemed to hesitate when she saw that you weren't alone. I'm not sure if that means she figured that she was outnumbered, or if she still abides by her loyalty to humanity," Reiji shrugs again. "One way or another, she may be willing to engage in conversation with strangers rather than a member of the organization she deserted. I'd still like to know her motivations, if possible."

"Anyway, we might not have necessarily uncovered the exact mechanism driving the expansion of the Null Zones, but I know that we should definitely not be calling them Null Zones anymore. More like Mana Drains than anything else." He looks to S6, then. "I figure your superior will be interested in what we've learned here."
Phobos     "I guess the question," Phobos says between cutting up another piece of greasy, oily black flesh right off a bone. "Is what's happening to all that... 'mana'. Can't say I'm an expert in this magical energy business, but whether natural or designed, no system has pointless steps. Unless it was made by a moron."

    Phobos considers, and then adds: "Or a member of the Mechanicus." You know, herself excluded. Ex-member and all that.

    "That being said, have you considered offerings of olive oil and the correct litany to appease her?" She sounds completely serious.
S6     S6's gaze lingers on Phobos for longer than necessary. One can almost imagine the blank stare concealed behind that opaque visor of hers. Averting at last, she remarks, "Current conjecture is that the energy is being drawn out by whatever process the Nullborn are using to invade our dimension. We do not yet understand the mechanism they use to appear, but these do seem to be linked. Perhaps it is used to power the machine."

    Regarding Kotone and Reiji's comments on D3, the android straightens her posture slightly, "Androids were built to combat the Nullborn. We don't have the luxury of choice, too much relies on us fulfilling our purpose."

    After a moment, though, she lifts a hand to cradle her chin, gaze wandering downward, "...Though...Perhaps she still fulfills that role, I am unsure why that would necessitate leaving FANTOM."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa looks to S6 for a moment. "Anything else at this point would be guessing." She frowns a bit and is left wondering why.