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Reliant It is relatively unusual for anyone to venture within Njorun Crater, much less using a colossal vehicle. This one is a vast treaded beast, rather crudely constructed and belching smog into the sky as it operates. The principles behind it are sound and quite advanced to anyone capable of examining and analyzing it; but it is rather as if a highly advanced engineer had to work with 'whatever was lying around' in a late iron age world. The cabling is functional but unsafe, coal is definitely being used in combination with more advances fuel sources that one can guess are doable but not at a rate that would make the coal undesirable to use anymore.

The structure itself is more like an ambulatory building than it is a "tank" exactly. The face that is "open" contains a crude crystalline spire at its center, like the interior of a massive geode cut clean of crude rock and arranged as a central piece of a machine, with a number of pipes and cables trailing away from it. It gleams and pulses faintly, a harmonic hum emanating from its structure.

Green spherical tripod robots patrol the surroundings. Occasionally, they'll come across a bit of undead plantlife that they glare down at with an angry laser eye and vaporize.

Your employer for this job transmitted instructions for applicants to gather at the ramp leading into the 'processing chamber', which can only really be the Only Ramp That's Lowered from the open face of the crystal room.

One of the large, spherical robots is waiting. It's a bit unusual compared to the others, with its 'face' being a large monitor acting as somebody's zoom feed. A blank, black face that must be some sort of mask is visible on it, a pair of red lenses serving as eyes. The voice is a woman, high and energetic, "Hey there, I'm a liiiiiittle busy right now and I need somebody to keep an eye on the processing runestone in case one of those Mega-whatsits shows back up."

"Don't mind the local fauna, the robots can take care of those. Oh, and if one of those guys DOES show up, don't mess them up too bad okay? They're pretty nice guys! I can fix them up if you don't damage their brains, so, you know. No headshots!"

"One more thing--" The feed cuts abruptly.

You're left to wonder what the 'one more thing' might've been...

True to the masked woman's statements, you find that there really isn't very much going on. There's a bit of a ruckus in the distance when a big enough pile of undead fauna attracts the attention of several robots, one of which is humanoid, but they don't end up needing any particular help.
Reliant The humanoid robot hops on a hovercycle and starts heading back towards the crawler you're defending. He pulls up the ramp and stops at the top, dismounting and looking over at the gathering.

Megaman Bravura is 5'8", and equipped rather strangely. Though his arms and legs are light brown and visibly mechanically bulky, they're more sleek and streamlined than would be expected while simultaneously being uncharacteristically crude for a machine of his model. More accurately-- it looks very much like he got messed up real bad out here and whoever owns the crawler reconstructed him heavily.

He doesn't have a helmet, exposing red hair drawn back into an impossible spiked ponytail, and the left half of his face is visibly metallic. Blue-lensed goggles cover his eyes, but he pushes them up to his forehead while inspecting the group.

His right arm changes abruptly. There's a blaster of some sort mounted to the top of it, a faint glow shining from the top of the raised segment of plating it now occupies.

Not coincidentally, the humming of the crystalline structure in the processing room intensifies.

Bravura spins about and fires towards the "wall" of the crawler just above the opened doors, and then spins to fire several times beneath the group.

Portals open up on each of the surfaces, all routing through the one at the top of the crawler. Anybody who falls in is sent hurtling out the top portal along the crawler and into the distance. It seems like this guy is trying to kick you out...
Kale Hearthward Moonlighting time! The Paladins' salary and benefits package is nice, but sometimes you just want a little extra to have a good weekend out.

"Protect the large machine, deal with one of 'those guys'- which guys?" asks Kale, but the feed's already cut out

Megaman Bravura shows up. "Oh, I suppose this is a 'know it when you see it' sort of thing. Look, you'd better go, I-"

Kale is sent hurtling off towards the distance as she's shot through a portal, in a cartoonish fashion.

- And he's back, air-dashing through the sky, looking annoyed. "Oh-kay, then, shoot first and talk second, I can deal with that," he says, hovering in the air and bringing his hands together. "If you're so eager to see us *go* - how about I make you *stay!*"

He casts, hands weaving a complicated knot-ball of winds that then erupt outwards- making a storm with Kale at the eye, a tornado locked onto Bravura that pushes down at him and tries to just force him down against the ground with high winds and high pressure!
Brooklynn Bailey A woman with silver hair and an old-style medieval helmet with the face part lifted up stands with the group, no visible weapons from what people can see, but she insists that she's here on behalf of a Mercenary group.  She also referred to herself as Brooklynn Bailey, so there's that.  She's friendly, upbeat, and often extremely optimistic.

The rest of her body is dressed up in a bit of armor slapped together, and bits of a military dress similar to what is worn in the United States, but it's a bit mix and match to really nail down exactly.  This was when the shots fired from the gun.  The first shots caught her attention, something about them seemed odd, because mostly she didn't hear the typical damage shots.

When fired at her feet, she was far too slow to respond. She goes flying out of the second portal.  However, she makes herself fly just before impact, though not enough to completely stop her momentum, it is enough to brace herself.  "Well, that was rather rude...sir instead of fighting us why don't we /talk/ this out?"

The lack of response causes her to frown.  It's a genuine sad look, as she does not personally like to actually inflict harm on others.  However, she holds a hand out and in it, a two-bladed weapon appears.  Completely made out of fire as she grips the handle in the middle without so much as burning herself.  

Then she unleashes a blast of fire with her other hand, deciding to take this fight to range at first to just take the measure of her opponent.  Her wounds also nearly immediately start repairing themselves.
Sierra Kereson Is it time to collect an extra paycheck? It's time to collect an extra paycheck. Under any other circumstances, Sierra might not even be here, but the promise of lucrative pay for what should just be couple of hours of mechanical babysitting  is too good to pass up. the smoke isn't exactly pleasant to be around, but she'll manage well enough thanks to the weird crap she's drinking even as the blank face speaks to the crew.

"OF course it cuts out at the important part. It never doesn't." Sounding mildly annoyed without derailing into outright anger, Sierra lets out a disappointed sigh before putting on a perkier tone and clapping her hands together. She looks every part the youthful witch, down to the giant pointy hat with crease in the middle, an outfit that practically screams copyright-free magic student, and even a pouch that looks old enough to hold all sorts of questionable materials inside it.

"Well, no sense moping over that. Let's keep a close eye on things until we hate this place so we go home richer!"

For better or for worse, however, things don't stay boring for long. A humanoid robot appears and starts firing at the group as well as their paycheck, drawing an actually annoyed noise from the witch. Hopping up once, Sierra laughs at the Megaman while assuming he simply missed her entirely. "Nice try, but not close eno-"

And then she falls right in. She can be heard screaming for a good number of seconds as she hurtles through the sky, only barely managing to yank a janitor's mop bucket out of her pouch and right herself via flying/sitting in it.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" With her paycheck on the line, she dives towards Bravura, but doesn't go straight at him. Instead of flying at him directly, Sierra's path takes her right into the ground below the ramp. She phases right through it, heading diagonally downwards through the ground entirely before angling herself upwards, popping out of the ramp itself behind(ish) Bravura while flinging a wide-angled splash of a sticky, foul-smelling concoction that burns to the touch and might very well make it harder to move if enough sticks!
Robin Sundance      Six.

     He needs more than six to win.

     Robin Sundance is unusually thoughtful and quiet as he approaches the ramp. Normally he'd undoubtedly be dancing or twirling or spinning or backflipping his way onto the scene. Normally he'd be there with a smile and flashy word and a 'madamoiselle' or 'ma belle' or some other flair of attention. Normally he'd be trying to be the center of attention, or, at the very least, make a hell of an impression. After all, as Robin likes to say, if you're not the most interesting thing in the room, why are you there?

     But today he's quiet. Surprisingly, uncharacteristically quiet. He's playing with an acanthus when he arrives at the ramp, his scintillant rainbow scarf trailing color behind him. The petals follow him, dancing behind him as if caught in the wind. He's clearly deep in thought.

     It's a guard job. Alright. A smile tugs at his lip. Asking a thief to guard something is actually a great idea when you know the reward is worth the thief's cooperation. A thief makes the best sort of guard - a guard who knows all the ways a thief could get inside.

     Megaman Bravura arrives. He pushes up his goggles and changes his right arm.

     The Vaulder is on Robin's waist the minute the goggles go up. A ring of keys, like a cartoon bank guard, jingles in his hand. As Bravura goes into his spin, Robin snatches a big, old-timey looking key with a ring on the end. Inside the ring is a domino mask.

     "Transform."

     Robin jams the key into the side of the Vaulder and spins the old-timey bank vault door handle.

                               B-B-B-BURGLAR!                              

    Several of the shots just bound off the armor as it forms around Robin - a skintight black suit, futuristic-armored red gauntlets and boots, a pair of coattails, and of course the helmet with its key-shaped antennae and its bright green eyes. But one of them catches him as the sequence ends, dropping just underneath him. It sends him shooting out of the portal, flying into the air.

     The Rifler spins into his hand. He swings it downwards, pointing it-

     -at Kale.

     The grappling hook hooks around the birdman's leg as Kale goes air-dashing forward. Thief puts his hand on his head as if clinging to a hat. Kale, after all, is the fastest thing here - and it's not like Thief can fly. So...

     Of course he should just Kale's own speed to propel him faster!

     Kale makes a whirlwind. Perfect. Thief's grappling hook reels itself in. Rather than dragging Kale backwards it propels Thief forwards, slingshotting him straight through Kale's cyclone and out the other side. He lands on a wall above Bravura. No words, right now. He's focused.

     Six.

     How does he reach six?

     Thief whirls off the wall. He corkscrew-flips through the air, directly behind Bravura. His foot whips around for a hard, fierce kick to push Bravura's into Brooklyn's fireball and get Thief himself away from Sierra's blast. When he lands, he lands with a flourish, standing and flicking the acanthus to the side at Sierra. "Enchante, madamoiselle. Allow me to hold his attention while the rest of you bombard him, oui?"
Reliant "If you want to talk, talk," Bravura says plainly, raising his left hand to tap at his temple in response to Brooklynn. "I'm designed for dealing with viral hazards. You're not going to bend me like that. Not that that was a bad idea or anything, hypnotism is a good trick to have up your sleeve."

He fires his gun once towards the interior wall of the crawler, and then again at the ground just as the tornado descends and presses him into it. The Whirlwind opens up just inside the interior of the ship, carried along by the portal. Bravura dashes out of it as it gets him into the open, shaking debris off of his own body and giving his blaster a shake that closes the portals he used.

The fireball from Brooklynn he meets with crossed arms, a light scorchmark appearing on the exterior of his armor -- which appears to be quite good despite its relative crude appearance, much like the technology around him -- frowning a little.

"Why wouldn't I want to stay to begin with?" He asks Kale, clearly confused.

Equally confused to Sierra, "Repaying a favor, I guess? Or maybe just 'what I want to'. Little fuzzy on it. Life's been confusing recently."

Bravura wrinkles his nose at contact with the adhesive substance, which burns his armor and does in fact broadly seem to slow him down for the moment. Now, Robin wouldn't have needed this opportunity to give Bravura a firm kick to the back but-- but it does help, and he strikes with a vicious CLANG and shower of sparks that nevertheless feels like it should've hit much, much more solidly and only didn't because this guy is rocking some deceptively serious armor and damage diffusion tech.

Bravura is pushed forward, dropping into a roll firing his blaster wildly and... not coming out the other side because he fires a portal into the floor along his roll path and just placed a good half-dozen portals with his wild fire.

He drops out of one of them on the ceiling. the crystal in the room hums and changes from blue to green in coloration, its hum changing lightly in tone. The gleam along Bravura's blaster changes in the same manner, and a sparkle of green lights dances up and down his body.

It changes again an instant later from green to red, and he plants another portal beneath him, emerging from the wall only to simultaneously fire several additional portals into the surroundings and then turning back to the one he just used.

Bravura fires his blaster repeatedly from the hip, a scattered pattern of energy bursting through the portals and -- not coincidentally -- emerging simultaneously from the multiple portals he just laid down as his groundwork.
X That massive crawler isn't the only machine in the Njourn badland. There's another one, much smaller, skating along the surface at incredibly high speeds, a sharp blue in color that sticks out like a sore thumb against the background, just like its rider.

X guns the Ride Chaser's throttle and pushes the speed as fast as it will go, weaving expertly to avoid crashing into obstacles and causing catastrophic damage to himself, he comes to a ridge and uses it as a ramp, pulling up on the handlebars to angle the tip of his vehicle towards the sky as it gets sent hurtling up into the air, before pushing all his weight down to 'aim' it.

X pushes off, leaping off of his Ride Chaser as it aims to crash into the wayward Megaman Bravura at full force.

By the time X's trimmed blue boots land on the dusty ground, his arm had already transformed into buster form,with the business end staring down at the other Megaman.

He hadn't been entirely sure of what had been going on, given he'd originally come here to gather information -- but he did see several of his allies fighting, and that was just enough of a reason for him to intervene. "That's enough. Stand down, or I'll shoot!"
Brooklynn Bailey "Hmph," Brooklynn says to Bravura, it appears that it won't be as easy as she had hoped.  "Ok, let's then get to the meat of the matter.  Why are you doing this, and will you stop?  Also, my name is Brooklynn Bailey, Cardinal Virtue of Charity," she says with a continued frown.  The exchange is somewhat heated (get it because of the fire?) but ultimately cools down.

The shots come from so many directions that only the fastest people could even hope to dodge them.  Brooklynn decides to not even try, instead deciding to focus down on Bravura.  He hasn't surrendered yet, and not fighting in a battle is just a good way to get killed.  She watches the portals before charging.  

Lifting her double-bladed weapon in both hands, she attempts to smash the litteral weapon made out of the fire in an overhead bash right against the  Megaman.  There is no precision, no finesse.  As the weapon bashes down, a wave of fire courses out, aiming to try and envelop Bravura in case he was a step faster than her swing.  

"Now, stop so that our first meeting does not end in tragedy."
Sierra Kereson "Quite the charmer, arenn't you? Hmhmhm... Well, let's see just how much we can keep him pinned down, shall we?" Sierra returns Robin's greeting with a bit of eye-fluttering and a somewhat stilted tone in her voice, like she's not sure whether she should be trying to sound younger or older.

Maybe she'll be thankful for the attack drawing her attention away. If not now, another day! "If your life's confusing, then why not make it less confusing by not getting in over your head?" She warns, darting about to try and keep track of Bravura and his multiple portals. She's not sure which one goes where, and there's too many variables to keep track of even when she tries to look at things from a slower perspective. The best she can manage is not getting shot directly when Bravura starts firing into those portals, although his blaster shots do leave a few holes in her bucket and singe her clothing as well as her arm pretty badly.

"At least do it for a paycheck or something concrete! What kind of favor involves screwing over other people's paydays?!" Seeing an opportunity, Sierra draws several symbols in the air with her hand as sparkling orbs appear around her. She waves her hand, claps it against her hat, and the orbs dart out from around her. They fly right at the portals Bravura had just used for his own attacks, moving almost in reverse of his own shots before homing in on him with their sparkling menace.

On impact, they don't hit very hard at all. What they do after impact, however, is explode in small bursts of localized electricity, leaving even more smaller orbs in their wake that try to do the same thing once more.
Kale Hearthward There's a loud squawk from Kale as he gets grappling-hooked.

"HEY!"

The jet boots fire into overdrive as he attempts to keep his position with Robin using him as an assist and Bravura firing at him (one seems to offend him more than the other) "Hey, stop- argh, you're gonna get what's coming to you later, thief!"

He specifically doesn't capitalize thief. Take that, Robin. Suffer.

"Look - if you're not sure why you're here, then go away! We're on the job here, and you're causing destruction of property!"

He casts - drawing forth all of his gustly might, casting hard - if this guy can shoot portals all over the ground, he'll just have to make sure this battle takes to the air. Within a few moments, he has a massive ball of wind held between both hands - a basketball-sized orb of wound-up and compressed wind currents and pressurized fields, visible only by faint traces of dust swirling throughout.

And then Kale eats it, just simply cramming it down into his beak, as he descends from his perch on-high.

Kale dives - angling in, tracking Bravura's position, trying to close in on him, and then if he gets close enough diving *further* down, hitting the ground and twisting onto his back as he skids, trying to get as low of a relative angle as he can and getting as close as he can.

And then he opens his beak.

It's like all of the intensity of a small hurricane, compressed into a single directional upswell of a blast, point-blank against Bravura to try to send him skywards and away from wherever he could set a portal up at.
Robin Sundance      The scattering of portals. The scattering of lasers. The blasters scatter across everything. They crash into Thief from one side, from the other. He falls this way and that as sparks erupt across his chest, across his back, across his arms and legs. Thief stumbles, falling to one knee. The Rifler drops to the side. His eyes are locked on Bravura.

     Six.

     He needs six.

     The thought is seared into his brain. Bravura doesn't move like Sevra does, but the portals might as well make it the same. In the end, it's the same. Too much motion. Attacking from every side at once. Making use of every part of the world. Space fracturing for an advantage.

     His fingers tighten around the Rifler as he ducks another shot. Six.

     He needs six.

     Five hurt him, last time. Five almost killed him. It almost broke him. It put him at such a risk that, if not for Sevra's sense of honor, he'd've been killed then and there. A stupid risk. A stupid, dangerous, dumb, pointless risk. But...

     But not taking a risk is just the same as waiting to get caught.

     Thief stands. He wavers for a moment, hand on the Vaulder. He'd already said he was going to keep Bravura busy - and that's what he intends to do. Cut off the escape points. Give everyone else a chance to attack. And then, close in on his own.

     It spins into his hand. It's a white box with a grey line around the edge and a blue bulbous button sunk slightly into it. Thief holds it up above his head and presses the blue button.

                                   CAPER                                    

     The box slams into the side of the Vaulder. Thief spreads out his arms as the box twists around like a security camera. It starts projecting. Five hexagons spin to life, hexagons that hiccup the world, that twist the world, hexagons that feel like something *under* the world. Thief strolls forward through them.

     He splints into five.

     And just like that, they break into runs.

     It's a five-man caper. The first Thief charges at Bravura, firing the Rifler's grappling hook shots as he jumps up to get Bravura's attention while X has him targetted, testing for weak points in the defense. The Scout.

     The second Thief goes sideways for one of the portals. He leaps through it and comes out behind Bravura, delivering a wheeling axe-kick to the head. The Distraction.

     The third Thief swings the Rifler around as the fourth Thief does the same. They point the guns into opposite portals and just start blasting, using the same trick Bravura did against him. The shots accelerate rapidly as the Scout and the Distraction wheel and dance to avoid the strikes and hold Bravura's attention. The Safecracker, the Muscle.

     The last Thief keeps firing to hold Bravura down, to keep him from going anywhere while his other selves go to town, while the rest of the party moves in for the smash.

     And then, when Bravura's been hit enough, all five Thiefs leap backwards and spin their Riflers like a line of cowboys. The grappling hook guns are levelled at Bravura.

     All five Thiefs whirl out images of the domino-mask key. They jam them into the back of their Riflers and turn them once.

     A chorus of five belts sings out.
Robin Sundance                                   LARCENY                                  

     Five large Domino Mask images appear in front of the five Thieves. Then five more. Then five more. It's just a line of Domino Mask images straight in the air.

     The five Thieves grab their Riflers, raise them above their heads, and start charging. Energy builds as the grappling hooks start to spin, inverting their hooks to hold the power.

     Five triggers release.

     The five shots go streaking straight through the lines of mask images. Each mask they break through, the energy bolts get bigger, and faster, and bigger, and faster, until suddenly the lines all converge on Bravura.

     The bolts go streaking through, disappear into the portals, and then come crashing back down for a spectacular, explosive finish. The five Thieves flicker and disappear as Thief puts his hand to his head and the belt sings out,

                                MASQUERAID!                                  

     And then blue and red lightning rocks his body. He stumbles forward, grabbing at the belt until he can tear the Caper Camera off. He hits the ground on both knees, smoke pouring off him.

                                 CRIME OVER                                

     The armor breaks apart, leaving Robin Sundance kneeling, his body covered in burns.

     But he's conscious this time.

     Step forward.

     Not just waiting around to get caught.
Reliant Bravura braces himself against the incoming ride chaser, which impacts him and explodes violently because it is Substantially Less Thick than Bravura himself actually is. In the immediate aftermath his gem has turned an icy blue, and a bubble gleams around him. He shakes his head, "C'mon... if you're gonna run a chaser into me, it's not as if shooting is any different."

"Hmm... don't I know you?" He wonders, scratching his head.

To Brooklynn he replies, "Megaman Bravura. Bravura for short, the first thing's kind of a title. Ah, hey, that's right..."

He clicks his fingers together with a metallic clank and points at X, "You're our brother, aren't you? Sorry, I took a pretty bad blow to the head. We're still working on getting that repaired. Why're you helping this lot, though...?"

Brooklynn's blow hammers down against his shield, being partly ablated away by the field and having a damnable difficult time cracking Bravura's armor underneath it. In the end he pushes back out of the flames and force, wincing. "Do you think I'm trying to kill you? The boss lady really doesn't want that."

Bravura smiles thinly at Sierra. "Sorry, but no matter how much I've been beat up, I know my worth and I won't be letting you shortsell me. You guys are pretty good, though."

In answer to her outrage about his motivation, he points at X, "Actually, the boss lady pieced me back together. My original body looks more like his. More accurately, we're the same sort of machine. But you wouldn't know it looking at us right now, huh?"

He is promptly hoisted by his own petard and shot through his own portals. Bravura adjusts his buster-gem again, a new round of green sparkles seeming to clear the persistent effect of the attack as his shield begins to flicker violently and threaten to give way.

Kale calls out and attacks from an unorothodox angle. Bravura blinks, "H-hey, my shots aren't that imprec--"

And he's gone, hurled through one of his portals that goes to the outside and sent up into the air where there aren't convenient surfaces. Bravura frowns at this, glancing back down towards the portal that he was sent back up through. With a shake of his buster he cancels his remaining portals to stop that from happening again, fires another against the ground, and twists to target a rise of crater debris that is altogether too far away, but has enough height to propel him the way he wants.

Bravura puts a portal on it anyway.

Falling back down through the portal, he is hurled right back onto the ramp at incredible speeds that cause his boots to buckle and splinter under the impact, cracks running up to his knees. His forcefield doesn't seem to handle that.
Reliant Immediately, he's set upon by a group. It's a more difficult thing to deal with than might have been expected. With his forcefield running low and his armor startint to give, Bravura begins to actually use his dash boots and mobility to defend himself. What the first Thief discovers as they go round-and-round is that Bravura's defenses are crumbling as-is and there's not actually a need to find a "weak point", though depressingly he may come to the conclusion that there really isn't one and getting around it the hard way is how you do it.

On the other hand: He's positioning his people to bring it down the hard way, and it's close.

The second Thief lands a kick against an arm instead of a head, the shield flickering.

The third thief and fourth thief have to cope with the portals closing, but simply firing on him is enough to cause the forcefield to dim visibly, becoming barely a tangible presence at all.

The grand finale comes soon after, and at first it looks as if it's going to go just fine. Bravura is astonished, as kaijin very often are, and doesn't at first seem to know what to do with the stack of masks or what's coming.

Then the knife in the gut comes.

Just as the converging lines collapse on him Bravura turns his blaster on his opposite arm, plants a portal against it, and fires another portal into the barren ground of the crater so that it faces the sky. Fully two of the converging attacks plow into the portal against Bravura's arm and fire into the sky.

Three strike true, the shield collapses with an electric BZZZZZAP that disperses into the floor around Bravura, dig into Bravura's armor and send out a shower of intense sparks and miniature explosions that signal serious, Real Damage has occurred with at least two layers of strong mitigators depleted.

For a moment, Megaman Bravura is forced to a knee. In an ever-so-slightly kinder timeline, that would be the end of it.

But Bravura rises, his chestplate smoking, flecks of the remaining skin on his face peppered with holes that reveal more of the metallic plating characterizing the left side of his face.

The blaster on Bravura's arm flickers to an electric blue. "D-damn, and you said I was trying to break this place? Who's the defender here?!"

This should probably be a clue that this fight is a Big Dumb Misunderstanding, but it seems that it'll take at least a bit more of a push in order to get that through anyone's skull. A dramatic, large crosshairs flashes in Bravura's eye and then paints itself across everyone on the field, visible without issue. He opens up with his blaster, a series of blue spherical tracking shots rocketing out towards everyone, crackling with electricity. It looks like he ACTUALLY took the 'don't break things!' thing seriously. Moreover, the general 'feel' of it is milder but more disruptive, like he's tried to cycle to a specifically less-than-lethal weapon that happens to be a very advanced tazer. If it lands it's shocking, yes-- but it's trying to establish some sort of encapsulating cage rather than simply shocking the targets into incapacitation.

X will probably have memories of a similar weapon.
Robin Sundance      He missed.

     Six.

     Robin, kneeling on the ground, can't help but laugh. It's a weak laugh, the laugh of a man who, well, covered in bruises and burns, with some appropriate Toku Blood running down his pretty face, probably doesn't have a lot of energy left. A good, solid hit might've forced Bravura to his knees, or even knocked him down properly. But the loss of two fifths of his attack meant that there was no way it would be that easy. Robin takes a shaky breath.

     Bravura isn't going to give him a chance.

     A taser?

     The key spins into his hand. With supreme effort, as Bravura paints the crosshairs on everyone, Robin jams the Vaulder back around his waist, slams in the key, and spins the handle.

                               B-B-B-BURGLAR!                              

    The transformation sequence comes just in time, just fast enough to shatter the ball into pieces before it can land. Masked Ranger Thief stands, shakily, and closes his eyes.

     He already gave everything he had and Belted Out.

     But...

     'Who's the defender, here?'

     "Monsieur," Thief says, walking forward slowly, the Rifler snapping into his hand, "We are, I think, all the defenders here."

     "Mais I do not think you will listen so easily." He stumbles, very slightly. "So...desolee, monsieur, but I will have to snatch victory."

     The Rifler fires.

     The grappling hook goes straight past Bravura, on purpose. It latches onto the wall on the other side. Thief puts one hand on his head like he's holding a hat. The Rifler launches him forward.

     He releases the weapon and flips around, bringing his foot outwards in an outstretched kick.

     Thief passes straight through Bravura, skidding to a halt on the other side. A massive black domino mask symbol appears in front of and behind Bravura. The belt rings out,

                                MASQUERAID!                                

     And the masks explode.

     Thief stands, stumbles, and Belt Outs again, falling directly to the ground.
Brooklynn Bailey "Nice to meet you then, Bravura," she says with at least a pleasant smile.  "Again, I will ask that you stop th-wait boss lady?" This doesn't seem right, and of course, with her inability to stop this fight with strictly the force of her personality, this is going to cause problems.  

This is when the blue field tries to incapacitate her.  It certainly DOES hit, and once more she's not even trying to dodge it.  She braces herself, but that only does so much when she can feel her entire body slow down.  However, she starts walking towards Bravura again, her body forcing itself.  Even she shudders against the field, before slowly breaking through.

Then she was moving a lot faster in a charge towards Bravura.  Her body pumping out the stasis as it just refuses to stick to her, or her body is pushing the energy out forcefully.  This time, she aims to try and close line Bravura, and attempts to just knock him down.  "Ok I am going to just say this once.  Stop attacking us, and instead tell us the name of your boss.  I think we're not supposed to be fighting."
Sierra Kereson Brooklyn's introduction reminds Sierra to finally put her own name out that. "How could I forget to do that? It's me, Sierra Kereson, defender of hope! Justice! And..." Despite her bubbly tone, she can't maintain it for long as she gestures at the crawler from atop her hole-punched mop cart. "... That thing!"

Not her best work, but she's not really feeling it today. Her arm still hurts from getting shot, and she'll need to repair at least three things by the time she gets home. Looking towards X as Bravura introduces himself, the bluer of the robot men gets a cautious stare from the witch as well, although she does find herself nodding in agreement with Bravura once he asks about their differences.

"Yeah, no, that's... I'd have to be pretty blind to confuse either of you for each other." She replies in a far less upbeat and high-pitched tone, reaching up briefly to adjust her glasses as Bravura goes flying. It gives her an opportunity to adjust her hat, straighten out her dress, loosen her tie up just right, and look almost as good as new by the time everyone's rapidly escalating attacks bear fruit, ending with Bravura's armor dissipating.

He does have a point about not breaking theplace. "Easy, easy! We won't get paid as much if this thing gets busted up too much!" Sierra shouts in warning to her allies,  all while not warning them about the strange electrical shots coming their way. Taking to the sky once more, she zips arund ,doing an admirable job of outpacing the shots at first, but an unlucky turn results in her slamming face-first right into one of those homing taser-esque shots. Sierra loses her hold on her cart, and she goes into a freefall all whilst flailing about wildly as if flapping her arms will actually stop her from cratering into the ground.

Not enough coordination or time to grab something else from her bag. Way too fast to even think about rolling into a cool pose or just rolling enough not to die. Someone with far greater eyesight than her can see that she's strangely calm on the way down, though, as her best option becomes clear in the moments before hitting the ground. Sierra takes a deep breath, clenches her fists, then holds one overhead as she just divebombs right at the ground and spl-

She goes right through the ground. While she's down there, Sierra begins another incantation, letting the earth churn around and beneath her to guide her back towards the surface. Once she's nearly there, she comes bursting out from the ground, becoming tangible once more. "Shortsell this! Or... Whatever!" as she comes up in a movie-proper-but-not-form-proper flying kick at Bravura. Her kick is followed by a significantly more actually-functional barrage of stone shards and head-sized rocks, far more likely to actually do anything than a that reverse flying kick.
X     "Brother..?!"

Of course, introducing himself as 'Megaman' had caused him to suspect the possibility he was another creation of Dr. Light, or someone similar, but having it said to his face left a odd feeling swelling inside. A troubled look twists his face as his guard inadvertently lowers. They had a similar appearance - at least in regards to facial features - and a similar voice, so it was hard to argue against. "I'm ... "

X didn't have the chance to explain that he was only really fighting in this instance because he'd spotted fellow members of the Paladins fighting him, along with the Masked Thief he'd worked with not long ago. The tussling came back in full force, leaving the Thief in question vulnerable and Bravura with a certain sackbeating, X himself holding back in indecision during it. Every time he began to make good on his promise, he hesitated.

It's not as if they had any real relation, right? He didn't know this person, but ... it felt wrong to just shoot at him, especially since the situation didn't seem too dire.

Snapping back to reality, X crosses his arms to defend himself only to find his efforts to be mistaken, a surge of electricity racing through him in a vicious jolt that leaves him trapped. "Gh..!"

Brought to his knees, it was a familiar sensation. "It's...the same kind of attack...!"

The same kind of restraint he was so fond of. But X wasn't nearly as helpeless as he was back then, or, at least he'd like to think.

The colors on his body shift, the blue armoring becoming dark red while his black bodysuit shifts into a dull blue.

Using the weapon on himself to become intangible, X dashes through the electric restraint, his transparent body outlined in a rainbow hue. "This is all a misunderstanding ... so I'll apologize later ... !!!"

Reaching out after Robin's attack and Bailey's close quarters grapple, X attempts to grasp onto his arm, the gem on his helmet glowing brightly before his body become tangible once again, shifting into colors that resembled Bravura himself.

        X kips back.

        WEAPON GET
        ZAP CAGE

Firing a lightning bolt from his X-Buster, if it manages to hit the other Megaman, it'll expand into a similar kind of electrical trap to ensnare him.
Kale Hearthward Kale frowns a bit at the words. "Wait - doing damage to-"

He glances over at the crawler. The crawler they're trying to defend. "Ah."

"Well- I haven't-"

While he's distracted, he gets zapped. "*SQUAWK!*"

"OKAY THEN," he says, trying to wrench free of the tazer as well as get airborne again. "THAT IS A FAIR POINT, BUT SHUT UP!"

He goes to get above the crawler, and starts laying down winds - forming a fierce wall of currents and pressure fronts, trying to block Bravura off, and deflect away any more damage that might be done to it (by either him or Kale's supposed allies.)

If the sudden appearance of the wind-wall knocks Bravura around a bit, so much for the better!
Reliant Megaman Bravura didn't expect to end things just like that, but he thinks he has things pretty under control. They are, however, less under control than he thought. He'd imagined Robin was spent when he BELT OUTED, a mistake that he's unlikely to make again when the super-thief transforms and shoots at him. He thinks that was the attack and ducks out of the way-- of the wrong attack. A look of surprise and momentary fight-or-flight panic hits him and, gritting his teeth he fires his dash boosters, catching the hookshot-kick on the left shoulder instead of in center mass.

He raises his arm that still bears a PORTAL towards one of the masks, which explodes out onto the field from that side and batters his back from the other.

While he's paying attention to THAT, Bravura gets clotheslined. He falls onto the ground with an OOMF, blinking up at Brooklynn. He fires his dash boots to get out from beneath her, flipping back to his feet after gaining some distance.

He offers a friendly thumbsup in response to Sierra's introduction, though he doesn't seem to anticipate ending the fight just over the momentary friendliness. But the continued commentary about 'not breaking the place' seems to slow him down visibly.

Momentarily he looks concerned that Sierra is going to die, but his caution returns when she just slips through the earth-- and it's justified! His left arm, portal-less, rises to act as a defense against the kick, but it impacts him with a shower of stone shards and rocks. Briefly, he adjusts his tack to cover his head more than the rest of him, and his overall plating gets a lot more dented up as a result.

Now looking rather stressed out, Bravura turns his attention towards X. He nods, "Yeah. We were made by Doctors Thomas Light and Mikhail Cossack. Turns out we've got a lot of siblings and cousins. It's kind of blurry... I don't think I've ever met you directly. Except maybe the evil you. That guy's a dick."

Bravura seems more excited to see X in action than he is afraid of what's to come-- but the flickering of color makes his face fall a little. Musing to himself, he says, "I miss my buster."

Bravura is hit full on by the zap-cage, which crackles to life around him not dis-similar to what he did to X. This is incredibly unfortunate for him because immediately afterwards Kale layers on a WIND WALL that bounces him around on the inside of the shock cage, zapping him repeatedly against its sides.

It's not until the winds die down that Bravura 'rises' within the cage, clutching his side and breathing heavily. He glares defiantly towards X, the gem on his buster turning a bright, brilliant gold. The crystal in the processing chamber follows suit and begins to sound like a series of chimes.

X has seen this before.

X has done this before.

A surge of energy fires down from the ceiling -- sourced in the crystal, almost certainly -- and centers itself in Bravura's forehead before vanishing. A wave of energy pushes back against the energy cage and disperses it, and any remaining winds. Bravura straightens up, some of the damage on his body seeming to fade away as if it was -- to begin with -- ephemeral. It's not a huge amount of difference, but it is enough to be noteworthy.
Reliant In the distance, a grotesque spider-like figure crawls over the landscape towards the crawler. It's easy to miss while all the fighting is going on, of course, and it doesn't really stand out from anything else out here in itself. But it gets closer, and closer, and-- that' s not a spider at all, even though it looked like it at a distance.

"What're you DOING?!" The woman from the video feed shouts, in alarm. The spider-like figure that was approaching is a short lilac-haired young lady, a bit on the stocky side, wearing a set of work overalls like pants, a grease-stained white undershirt, heavy welding gloves, and a matching mask. The volume of her hair is enormous; it's drawn up into a pair of long tails that can and are splitting out into different appendages. Rather than walking on foot she's moving on the hair, making her usable height rather different from her actual height.

Entrapta grabs Bravura by the blaster arm and swings around in front of him, "I told you I was hiring some guys to keep wat-- oh. No, I didn't, did I?"

She stares into the middle distance for a moment. Then, "Well, I hired these guys to keep watch! So calm down and quit fighting."

Seizing Bravura as if by the scruff with one tendril of hair, Entrapta carries him over to the crystal. He disengages his blaster, and the crystal assumes a neutral white color. There's several long moments of a variety of adjacent machines working, hissing, banging.

Afterwards Entrapta whirls about, carrying several spherical mini-robots in her hair. She puts Bravura down beside the machines she was just occupying, "GREAT work! I mean, you got into a fight with each other, but if you had time for that it means nothing dangerous REA~LLY happened, so I'll call that a successful day's work! Anyway, I've extracted the essentia so you can either have--!"

Entrapta presents two different types of mini-robots, "This one," she shakes a gold robot up and down, "which makes a pile of MONEY! Or this one,"

She shakes a blue-and-orange spherebot, "Which makes a portal of decent distance and size! There's only enough power for one shot of either, though, so keep that in mind. Less you wanna do more work for me later and there happens to be teleport essentia around, anyway. For now, this is what we've got!"

"Oh and robot guy! Megaman? Go stand with your brother, I'll get you repaired in no time." Entrapta adds, enthusiastically. This seems less like a request and more an obsessive command.
Kale Hearthward Kale remains perched on the crawler - figuratively, and then once it becomes clear that the fight is over, literally.

"Sorry, did you say that the robot makes money?" he calls. "Isn't that, you know, counterfeiting?"

He doesn't look like he cares *too* much, though.
Sierra Kereson Sierra's post-kick landing is not quite as graceful as she'd like, tumbling over a few times into an awkward roll that leaves her upright at the very least. She's panting quite a bit by the time she gets back up, though, and looking like she's almost ready to reconsider the job when Bravura escapes that energy cage.

It's not like she'd have to pay anyone back if the job fails, right? Right. Hunching forward like she's about to take another dash right at Bravura, Sierra draws small circles beneath her feet as she prepares a wind spell to aid her escape. Just before that magic can kick in, however, she hears their strange benefactor charging out and yelling at everyone, bizarrely even going after Bravura with barely any resistance from the robotic man.

"Waaaait, so you're... We were both...?" Time to get into her happy place. While everything is frozen, Sierra screams internally.

A lot. If she had been doing it in real time, it'd probably be a solid minute or two, but her frustration is contained to that singular pocket, and she's (almost) as cool as a cucumber by the time her perception of time returns to normal.

"Ah, so it was all just a misunderstanding!" Sierra lets out a well-practiced giggle, keeping her high-pitched and overly cheerful tone in place as though she wasn't nearly as angry as she was seconds ago. "All's well that ends well, I think. Now, for the payment..."

She immediately points at the gold robot. "Money." The witch knows what she wants, and she's already parking herself besides it to stake out her claim. Even Robin's multitude of injuries and vague hotness can't sway her spirit! Just her eyes.

She does actually look a little concerned about all that.
Robin Sundance      Two belt outs, and Robin is absolutely spent. One Belt Out is enough to put him down, but he decided to keep pushing, and that was a stupid, dumb, stupid bad idea. If you just fall over in the middle of your escape, you wind up getting trapped anyway. And it wasn't even to protect anyone. It's for his own pride. His own desire to find the next level of the path he's started walking down. His own desire to understand the world he's been thrust into, and find a way to use it to protect more people.

     Isn't that just his own arrogance?

     His fists tighten. He pushes himself up, to a sitting position. He takes a long breath. Robin is absolutely *covered* in bruises, burns, and cuts, the sheer stress of Thief's finishing moves plastered across his body. "The teleport essentia, s'il vous plait."

     "Or," He opens one eye to look at Entrapta, "Your research thereof, in exchange for my continued service."
X     Cossack.

He wasn't quite as famous as Dr. Light, nor infamous as Dr. Wily, but close. History books tended to focus on the former or latter, but Cossack's contributions to robotics at large couldn't be understated, nor could the unfortunate role he had to play in some of Wily's schemes. Mulling it over, it made sense that any 'siblings' he might have could be a product of both.

    Although ... " 'Evil' me?"

If there was any doubt about them bearing the exact same design, or at least originally in Bravura's case, it was washed away when he witnessed the other Android's limitless potential system allow him to break free of the Zap Cage, just like he'd been able to do back then and, just like he'd done rather recently. X's body shifts colors again, back to its original scheming as he squares his feet and breathes in -- more of a tic than anything -- the jewel situated under his abdomen beginning to pitch a deep red.

        W A R N I --

The Force Metal returns to being inert as its activation is cancelled, with the sudden appearance of an energetic, forceful, and strange woman. "Huh?"

"Er .." X stands limp and awkward, opening his mouth to chime in on the 'reward' before he gets cut off. The super fighting robot is all but cowed into submission, and finds himself standing next to Bravura, his buster shifting back into a regular hand. "Is she .. always that bossy..?"
Brooklynn Bailey Things are getting tense, for a moment there Brooklynn thought maybe she shouldn't have held back.  She should have gone all in...for that people might pay a bigger price.  Brooklynn's body continues to heal itself, though she's starting to show the shines of wear.  Injuries aren't healing as fast, and constantly having to throw off the stasis was pushing her to the limit.

Until the fight interrupted by the strange hair lady.  With a sigh of relief, she dismisses the flames and shrugs towards the Megaman.  "Maybe you should lead with your words first?  Misunderstandings can be avoided much easier when we speak instead of fight."

There is a pause as the bossy lady continues.  "Then again, maybe the problem isn't you.." she says with a thoughtful look.  "Money," She says almost immediately.  "This can buy a lot of food for the people at home.  Might even be able to invest in some infrastructure."
Reliant "I don't know! Is it? Anyway, I just said money because that's the easiest way to get it across, it can make any sort of wealth really! You wanna make yourself a biiiiii~g workshop? It'll get it done! Just once. It actualizes Wealth Essentia, and then the Essentia is used up." Entrapta replies to Kale. Some of her hair shrugs indifferently. She drags Bravura over and lifts his arm, pressing a hidden switch that forces his arm blaster active, "This thing does the same bit! His cool gun broke, so I made him one that runs on essentia instead. He's mostly running teleport essentia, but I have him testing other essentia for me! Wealth too, actually. Did you know most people looking for riches in dangerous places respond well to bribery?!"

Entrapta hands Robin the blue-and-orange spherebot with a happy thumbsup. "It can accept basic instructions and voice commands, just tell it what you want and you'll be off! Try not to lose it, it can be reloaded later."

She looks Robin up and down, "Do you need to lie down?"

To Sierra, she responds, "Yep! Funny how these things happen. Ooooone wealth bot for you, then."

A golden spherebot unfolds its legs and follows Sierra.

Bravura scratches his head uncomfortably at being questioned about Entrapta. "Sort of? I wouldn't even really call her 'bossy', she just sort of... makes waves and they happen to go in the direction you're floating anyway..."

Yes, X.

Entrapta bounces a wealthbot to Brooklyn, and Bravura flashes a rather sheepish smile towards her as well.

"I'm Entrapta by the way! Should've lead with that. I'll get the hang of it eventually." Entrapta adds, quite literally as an afterthought. It's impossible to get the impression that she'll get the hang of it, though.

Following up the 'evil X' remark, Bravura nods and screws up his face a little thinking about it. It's obvious that trying to recall is physically painful to a degree. "He's... green? I think... he's not 'you-you', he's more like an intelligent slime mold that based itself off of you."
Robin Sundance      Robin takes the robot and holds it up to examine.

     He's not going to be using this thing in its intended manner, that's for damn sure.

     He slips it into his pocket, stands somewhat shakily, and winks at Entrapta and Sierra. "Non, madamoiselle. Merci beaucyou~, mais I will live." He presses two fingers to his lips and blows them both a kiss, then tugs at his scarf. "Besides. If I sit and sleep, Faucon will doubtless take the opportunity to bring me in, and persuade his allies to do the same. So I am afraid that I must be off."

     "But I will be back for more. Of that you may be assured." He bows, a sweeping bow in front of him. Behind him, he snaps the Rifler into his hand and fires it.

     Yeah, he's getting the hell out of here.
Kale Hearthward "... Alright then. Wealth Essentia. I'll find something to do with it..."

He glances down at the retreating Robin, and frowns - remembering that he needs to go add 'improper use of grappling hook' to Robin's list of crimes.
X     "I ... see."

With the nature of Bravura's relationship with her revealed, X simply nods his head and moves on. Bravura explains what he'd meant by an 'Evil X' and, X's face scrunches in confusion before shifting to sympathy, seeing that whatever he was trying to recall was incredibly unpleasant. "Some sort of imposter, then .. I see. Thank you for telling me."

Robin takes his leave. X doesn't put up a fuss, technically he was supposed to arrest him, but .. /technically/ he just got away, and he was willing to leave it at that.

    For now.

X nods his head to his 'brother' and to Entrapta, "My name is X. It's, good to meet you?"

He wasn't sure, yet. They were both odd, and nothing like he expected, but he supposed that was more an issue of him making assumptions than anything.
Sierra Kereson It's a money robot! Sierra's eyes practically gleam when Entrapta explains how they work and what they do, and she scoops up her own sphere to stuff into her significantly smaller pouch for safe keeping.

"I'm gonna have to keep that for later. And if you're ever in need of my services again, you know just how to reach me~" She smiles sweetly at Entrapta, twirling once before offering her a light bow at the waist. "Sierra Kereson. Glad to be of service! And now that we know each other-" She turns to Bravura, flashing him that same pleasant smile. "-maybe we'll even work together sometime!"

Her mood's certainly improve considerably thanks to the money being a thing. She looks like she's even on the verge of skipping off somewhere, but even Sierra has more pride than that. Not so much pride that she reacts cooly to Robin's blown kiss, though, even turning a noticeable shade of red at that simple gesture. She does, however, tug her hat down a bit more to try and hide more of her face before sliding a proper broom out of her pouch to get out of there before she makes more of a fool of herself.
Brooklynn Bailey Brooklynn catches the robot and places it on her head.  The little guy can sit there until she figures out what to do with it specifically.  Probably shit out a lot of money.  

"Brooklynn Bailey," Brooklynn says to Entrapta.  Noting Robin's leaving, to which she is sad to see him go.  He's pleasant on the eyes, and all.  "Well, if you need mercenary work again, just call up Charitable Mercenaries." A pause, "It's my group."
Reliant Entrapta waves genially at Robin, seeming entirely unoffended by the brush-off and quit escape. Maybe she gets it.

To Kale, she says, "That's the idea! It's so hard not to use it for every little thing, though. Do you know how often I run into tools that I've never heard of before here?!"

"Oh I'll be sure to! There are TONS of fascinating places that I need guards for!" Entrapta says to Sierra and Brooklynn. The tone of her voice is a little alarming-- she probably already has somewhere in mind, and it might be worse than this one is under ordinary circumstances...

"I'm not a mercenary," Bravura says to Sierra, shrugging. "But maybe."

To X, he nods, "Yeah... I'm not sure if that one's still alive. There's a lot of alternate world lines out here. We've got at least one Dynamo who knows about it and uses it to slip here and there without presenting as a foreigner. At least we haven't encountered a living Sigma..."

Finally, Entrapta moves over towards X and begins to use her hair to directly manipulate his limbs and examine him closely. She flips her welding helmet down. "Looks like... advanced ceramics? What's the exhaust for? Does your variable weapon system work? Is this added on top of a base body or is it your body directly?"

Once she's through with a very thorough surface examination, Entrapta asks sweetly, though in a tone that suggestions even she understands the answer will almost definitely be no, "Can I take you apart and put you back together again?"

"And do any of you need to know anything about the bots? I'm pretty used to them but some people get really confused!" She offers to the group at large.
X "Ah..the extra exhaust ports are to vent Force Metal Energy. This isn't my original body, you see..not entirely."

He answers her questions as best he's able to; his Variable Weapons Systems works fine, most of this body was comprised of advanced replacement parts built with the Force Metal in mind though they were close enough to the originals that they were still compatible with his Armors. The purpose of the exhaust was to help control the internal pressure of his body when the Force Metal was active.

And last but not least, no, she couldn't take him apart and put him back together again.

X's face sours as he contemplates the knowledge that Dynamo was running around. Like his 'brother' had said, though, at least there wasn't a Sigma they were aware of, besides whatever remained on the lunar surface.

And the potential that existed inside of all the New Generation Reploids. It was a connundrum he didn't feel like contemplating at this exact moment, however, as he breathes out.

"No, I don't really know how to operate those machines, myself. But I find that technology curious, even Maverick Hunter HQ couldn't determine much about how these things are produced or how they work, just that they do."
Sierra Kereson Right. Actually figuring out how to use the things. That would be useful, wouldn't it? It's even enough to get Sierra to stop moving away, backing up several steps before doing a 180 to face Entrapta properly.

Also, to watch her do that weird hair thing to X. It's weirdly fascinating. "It couldn't hurt to learn how this thing works. Especially if we're working together again in the future."

She's practically salivating at the thought of more big paydays. "ALso... Do you cook like that, too?" Sierra gestures at Entrapta's hair, almost drawing a path with her eyes from the top of Entrapta's head to the end. "Or eat?"
Reliant "Well I wouldn't expect a robot that lasts long enough to STAY in just the one body," Entrapta remarks, as if that's the most obvious thing in the world. She's disappointed in being told she can't take X apart, but not offended. She knew it was a long shot. "Force Metal huh? I think I heard of that once. Been a while, but it wasn't local. Where was it... well, I'll think of it eventually."

In response to the assertion that X doesn't know how to make the spherebots function, Entrapta triggers Bravura's arm blaster to open and withdraws one of a row of capsules mounted in it. Some of the slots for them are empty. Closing it back up she pops one of the gold spherebots open, inside of which is a similar socket she fills before closing it back up.

After switching the spherebot on -- it turns gold -- she tells it, "Make me the FANCIEST banquet of tiny food that money can buy! And a table. Make it a workbench that can double as a table."

The wealthbot unfolds its legs, totters forward a little ways, and then opens up its top. It spits out a big, all-bells-and-whistles shop bench set with a multi-course meal of really small dishes. They're not actually that small by the standards of a multi-course meal though.

Entrapta grabs a spoon and a cup of sorbet, blinking rapidly at Sierra. "I mostly get robots to do that stuff."

She is, however, eating the sorbet (with a spoon!) using her hair.

"Anyway, the mechanics are kinda difficult to explain short-form. Which is saying something because I'm usually first in line for explaining complicated science! My runestone over there is hooked up to an intake that lets it harvest refined or unrefined essentia. If it's refined essentia it just does whatever the essentia did to start with! Wealth essentia is real common. Unrefined essentia, you can turn that into anything. Wealth, move, endure, you name it. Unrefined essentia is rare, though! It's usually pre-defined. We're harvesting wealth and move essentia here, 'cause that's what this fraying event produced."

She concludes, "That's the short version. Telling you how it works, that's going to take a while! And some of it's secret. And I need to fix you up!"
X X makes a thoughtful face as she explains, taking it in however he could -- it was confusing in the sense that 'it just works' but for the time being, it was good enough. There existed a material in this world called 'essentia' and this material held pre-defined powers that could be extracted and utilized through a medium of focus, such as a machine, or that buster gun.

"Thank you for sharing -- and for offering to repair me, I appreciate it." X says, nodding his head. "Force Metal, at least in my world, is refined from a meteorite that crashed into the Pacific Ocean. It ... syncrhonizes with the DNA Soul of a machine. Its the version of 'you' that exists in cyberspace for Reploids and Androids. The Force Metal synchs up to the DNA Soul and becomes an adapter that transfers energy from cyberspace into the real world."

"But there are issues with the technology..." he leads off. Force Metal, once synchronized to the DNA Soul, began causing an annihilation reaction. Small parts of the DNA Soul are destroyed, creating energy in cyberspace that is then transformed into Force Metal Energy. The condition that results from overuse would be obvious.

X moves on, "Ah, right. I actually didn't come here to be a bodyguard, or to fight anyone ... I'm digging up whatever information I can on what 'Lord Wily' is up to. Is there anything either of you can tell me?"
Reliant "I might be able to fix that if I had enough time with it, but I'm going to be real busy for a while now! It's all very exciting. We're trying to get as much Move essentia as we can." Entrapta explains, without elaborating. It's not hard to put the pieces together, though. She's working on some kind of teleportation device.

Bravura and Entrapta look at each other in reaction to the mention of Lord Wily. They're apparently not the kind of people who bluff particularly well.

"He's not directly involved with Hordak," Bravura interjects, "but they collaborate occasionally. I used to know more about this, but my memory recovery is still ongoing."

"L...isten," Entrapta says, lightly apologetically, "I know that old man. He's kinda grouchy, but he's not all that bad."

She offers X a biscuit, grabs a rolling chair from the new workbench, and shoves herself across the room to grab some tools. Down comes the welding mask, and back she comes with the distinctive noise of wheels against metal.

"If he was messing around with stuff like we are, his plan's gonna hinge on whatever type of essentia he was harvesting. That's the best I can do for you." Entrapta says, beginning to tuck into Actually Do Repairs if she's allowed to.

X will find himself with any damage patched in a manner similar to Bravura-- it's good! But the look is more crude and less sleek, while still technically taking up less space to achieve the same results.
X     X allows the repairs to happen.

He technically could have gone back to Hunter Base for a more shiny looking repair job, but, this felt .. right. It also felt right to accept her biscuit, even if he couldn't get anything from it. It was all part of the hospitality -- of the feeling of being a person, he'd come to realize after Strawberry Princess' party. Chewing the material in his tasteless mouth and swallowing, X looks down with a frown.

"If he's not all bad, then there's nothing to worry about. But, it's better to be safe than sorry."

Especially considering the cryptic warning that had come through over the radio some time ago. "Anyway, that'll help a lot ... it gives us a lead to follow, at least."
Reliant "Leads," Entrapta says, "are more fun than answers! Okay, you're all fixed up. I've got to get this fort rolling again, this fraying zone isn't going to play nice forever. You can ride along to the edge if you want, otherwise we'll be seeing you! Come on back if you get nearly totally destroyed, I'll fix you up like Bravura here!"

Bravura looks a bit embarrassed.

Snatching up quite a lot of the food left on the workbench, Entrapta climbs-slash-walks away on her hair, pausing by what must be the interior entrance to pull a lever and start retracting the ramp while closing the processing shutter.

Then she's gone. Bravura remains right where he is, but is conspicuously observing the debris of the Ride Chaser being hauled along the ramp.