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Owner Pose
Karlan Nobles OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lzIilPGg4U

It's been quite some time since the vigilantes working out of Wood Oak City issued a call for assistance, but they've finally found their opening: After getting the plates on their stolen truck cleared up and having a bit of document forgery done, they've managed to find entry into a factory building some kind of terrible weapons.

Those who join the vigilantes on said truck will be joining up with Zan (doctor in blue with metal arm), Blaze (cop in red with anger issues), and Pramanix (snow pope in blue with pipe). On the way to the factory, everyone gets to see that the facility in question is absolutely massive. Smokestacks belch massive black clouds into the air, fires rage from furnaces poking out from the top of the imposing gray and beige structure, and there's chain link fences lined with barbed wire everywhere to keep journalists out.

Their cover is delivering a shipment of high value parts. None of these parts actually exist on the truck, but the invoice was convincing enough to get them inside. There's plenty of crates inside to hide in should they choose to try getting the drop on whoever opens these things up, but there's always the tried and true method of just jumping out and punching everyone that doesn't look like them.

The interior of the factory, predictably, is highly industrial in appearance: Gray steel flooring, metal rubbish bins suitable for hiding high volumes of heavy junk or delicious meals, and brownish-green conveyer belts delivering countless chunks of scrap and metal in front of robotic arms piecing them together into something huge along the assembly line.

The workers in the factory, meanwhile, look about as odd as they normally do. Denim jackets, jeans, spray-tans, and the occasional mohawk or biker helmet are all the rage with the goons handling the work and looking tough.
Yang Xiao Long     Joining the mission is an old familiar face to the locals. Yang Xiao Long, Huntress and Punch Girl rides in the back of the truck, ducked down behind some of the crates, preparing for when the signal to go is provided. She runs down checking her weapon, the golden bracers of Ember Celica, cycling the cartridges and making sure her twinned roundals are primed. "Ranged shells, check. Melee shells, check. The strike-plate's been replaced. Should be good to crack some heads." she murmurs to herself, taking a peek as the doors on the truck open.

    The blonde brawler leaps out of cover, and straight into a flurry of punches, bellowing a wordless battleroar to gathers as much attention on her as possible.
X X is not present on the ride there -- he'd stand out a little too much, and, unfortunately wasn't much for disguises. So instead, he waited until the situation went hot, which as it turns out, was pretty much immediately. But that was fine, too, even if he'd have preferred to the incident being resolved peacefully.

That's just not how these things tended to pan out.

A stream of blue light shoots down through the roof of the factor, slamming into the floor and materializing into a vaguely humanoid shape before taking on detail, shimmering into the blue-armored bomber, Megaman X!

One of his hands deforms, quickly being suctioned into his wrist as that arm buldges, transforming into an energy cannon -- his X-Buster -- that he points at the conveyor line, steadying his aim with his free hand before opening fire. Thick and ovular pellets of glowing energy rocket out of the barrel opening out where his wrist had been, aimed to blast apart some of the robotic limbs performing the assembly, and possibly knocking some of the workers who'd been alarmed by Yang's entrance down to the floor. Given that these appeared to be normal humans, even if thugs, it didn't feel right shooting at them directly.

But whatever was on that assembly line couldn't be good, so he'd make it his priority to send it to the scrap heap for good.

    "I'm here to help, too!"
Nanoha Takamachi     Nanoha doesn't join in on entry into the factory via truck. She's an Aerial Mage, after all. Hence why she's up in the air. Where she belongs. Indeed, Nanoha follows the truck from some distance above, already decked out in her combat dress with staff in hand. She flies along, watching as the truck arrives at the loading bay.

    Nanoha expects things to get a little exciting at any moment.

    But despite being on the side of the vigilantes in this case, Nanoha is more of a professional than that. Which is why she waves her hand in the air, summoning a collection of pink orbs in the air around her. She then says to her Device calmly, "Set up a perimiter around the factory. We need to keep an eye out for any runners. Then send in some scouts. Let's see if we can locate all the hostiles inside."

    Nanoha's staff chimes in response to its Master's orders. The pink orbs dart off, flying down to various positions around the factory. There they wait and watch, monitoring the building's various exits. A few of the orbs do actually flying inside the building itself, beginning to dart around, searching for the workers inside and tagging them for Nanoha's reference.
Hibiki Tachibana     BACK AT HOME: Hibiki phones in to the Special Disaster Response Team that she's going to help deal with a situation offworld. When asked about what it is, her answer more or less amounts to 'probably a disaster in the making'. Things being as they are in her parts, this is just about enough of an explanation to get by. In a big old multiverse, there's a lot more problems than just their own that need solving.

    She's not really cut out for being quiet about these things either, so it's a good thing that she's not the one in charge of that. The drive up to the ridiculously massive factory is one that gets her to furrow her brow, mostly because of what a kind of dystopian-looking complex of industrialism it is. Not necessarily because she has anything against that, but if a place like this is being ran by a big name criminal in the market for weapons, there's honestly no telling just what or how much of all the stuff they're hiding away in there...or has already been made. The only way to know for sure is to actually get in there. And to do that, she's chosen the crate option, like any former vigilante would.

    The other one. Hibiki isn't hiding in it, she's shunting a crates out with an armor-clad boot right after the doors open to send it flying off towards a cluster of the street-looking punks to bowl the whole lot of them over, right before she leaps out herself - having already donned the armor and undersuit of her Symphogear ahead of time (because singing to turn it on would've spoiled the surprise) and thus turning her exit into a blur of color as her scarf trails behind her on a collision course right towards someone sporting an especially spiky mohawk. "...This isn't normal, alright." With that amazingly sharp observation that no good is likely happening here, and holding back on both her strength and her singing because these are for all appearances totally normal guys, she's going to move to try and take the guy at FISTPOINT.

    Punch to the face, stop one inch short, then grab his collar instead. Hopefully pretty intimidating, for a girl her size. Her tone is firm more than anything else, along with a headnudge towards the assembly line. "--What are you trying to put together here?"
Hanako Hirano      The sights, the sounds, the city. It's new. It's exciting. The buildings cast long shadows across the streets and kiss cerulean skies with glimmering mirror lips. They revel in ecstasy together, mirrors dancing with mirrors, reflecting each other over and over and with them the people. And there are so many people in the city, so many, so many. There is a never-ending tide of people. Of suits. Of dresses. Of smart skirt-suit combos. Of strange foreign devices. Of watches. It is a flow, a river of meat, guided by the ecstatic buildings, reflected in the temples to wealth and labor. Feet thunder on concrete riverbeds. Iron beasts hoot and howl between those rivers of flesh, waiting for the chance to move past their competitors. The city is a mad and magical place for one who has never been in such a thing.

     Pencil dances across sketchpad as Hanako Hirano walks. He has those gawker eyes. They may be sharp and clever and taking in all the details as he goes, rapidly sketching even faces with flawless accuracy amidst the endless river, but they are gawker eyes. He is lost in the rapturous awe of one who has never set foot into a place like this before. No city in his world that he knows of is so massive. The steets of the Capital are not flooded with human life. The sheer scale of it is mind-bending. Even the city he had been in at the end of the world was not so mad, the city with the strange telekinetic man and the cancerous horror. That place had been empty, decrepit, ruins of a bygone age. This was vibrant. Alive. Overwhelming.

     He turns a corner.

     A truck pulls up to a factory.

     Lights.

     Explosions.

     The flare of energy, the pulse of combat.

     That can't be normal. It's not normal, right? This world isn't like that. No, that's not even normal for his world - that's the kind of thing that a Hisuatsu rebel might do, a keima terrorist trying to make a statement or kill someone.

     Hanako tucks his sketchpad under his arm and goes running.

     Wasn't there something happening earlier? On that...radio thing? About a factory? And weapons?

     There was, right?

% And a criminal? There's a criminal involved?

     Some kind of criminal *empire*?

     Dramatic. Exciting. Interesting. A keima wouldn't turn his back on something like this. So, neither will Hanako.

     His brush is in his belt, and his sketchpad in his hand, so he's only got his pencil to work with. Fine. He needs more practice with it anyway.

     The pencil scratches as he runs. Lines scratch into the world in front of him. He shoves bystanders out of the way with shoulder-checks. Shading. Sketching. Drawing. Building.

     In the time it takes to cross a city block, Hanako Hirano is no longer walking.

     Now he is riding a bug.

     It is a large, bipedal bug. It is covered in heavy metal armor. Its claws are long and sharp, with wicked hooks and nasty, serrated edges. Its mandibles are lopsided - the crest on a samurai helmet. On its back is a saddle with an empty flag.

     Oh, yes.

     And it's entirely crosshatched.

     The crosshatched giant armored samurai bug goes plowing straight through the fence, straight past X and Yang. Meanwhile, the young man on it, with his bandana and his coat streaming behind him, inverts his pencil.

     One, two, three.

     Three quick strokes to simply erase one of the factory's walls and keep the samurai bug going.
Karlan Nobles Zan: "That didn't take long."
Blaze: "Is that a problem, doctor?"
Zan: "No, no, it's... Refreshing."
Pramanix: "You'll get used to it. Shall we, friends?"

With the Elites bursting onto the scene and making their presence known, the vigilantes and the snow saint join in the fray. An alarm starts blaring, and goons of various shapes and sizes start filtering onto the ground floor. The usual red-haired guys in denim vests are here with their bald, shirtless brothers, wielding knives and pipes with more guts than sense as they rush the Elites to try and overwhelm them with sheer numbers. They're also joined by larger and rounder guys breathing flames from their mouths somehow, and the ones wearing blue instead of red even belly flop from many yards away to try and get the element of surprise.

Defending the factory is going to be kind of rough for Mister X's underlings. Zan joins Yang with his own wildly swinging fists, adding to the punching flurry by not only grabbing thugs by extending his arms, but even start slamming them into her fists for extra impact and discharging electricity right into their faces.

Pramanix aids the cooler X's efforts in blasting the machinery apart by calling down an indoor blizzard, the ice and buster shots making short work of the machinery assembling mechanical limbs and chassis for something big. The quantity of all those parts, however, suggests that whatever's being built could be rather numerous and not just a prototype.

Nanoha's scrying efforts reveal quite a bit about the hired muscle inside the factory. There's a rather stupid number of them, but most are on the street punk level of both musculature as well as being severely under geared for fighting Elites with more than just numbers. There's also a potentially worrying array of them on the upper floor of the factory, and they seem to be waiting for something. The freight elevator in the not-so-far distance might have something to do with that.

Hibiki's interrogation bears fruit rather quickly, since her speed and strength compared to her size catches the unlucky biker off-guard. "Guh... Hell if I know! The boss just told us to keep all o' /you/ out. But good luck gettin' anywhere, because there's only five of you, and hund-"

And then Hanako removes a wall. It reveals quite a few of the thugs in hiding, forcing them to just try and rush the Elites, but without even the element of surprise on their sides. More of the machinery starts to fail and topple over without the wall there to support that weight. "... Not getting paid enough for this crap." The interrogated biker continues, staring at that samurai bug and apparently trying to buy himself a ticket to getting not-too-injured. "Elevator'll take you to the top floor. There's been a lotta stuff going up and down from there."
Yang Xiao Long     Yang sends one guy flying after they're slammed into her punch by Zan. She turns and thumbs up, which leaves her open to another thug coming in for a shank. She picks up the threat just before it strikes, and she shifts weight to sidestep, letting the stab slice through her jacket instead of into her back.

    She she completes the step and turn, she puts the rest of her momentum into slamming her fist into the goon's face, then starts punching the air to fire explosive bolts from her gauntlets at other goons who are approaching to thin out their numbers.
Hanako Hirano      The armored bug just kind of goes crashing head-on into the knives and pipes. It barrels them aside as Hanako holds on tight, pressing his face against the armor and making himself as small a target as possible. Only a few of the blades get around it, nicking him, drawing blood from his arms, cutting into his coat, or catching his vulnerable hands. He's forced to let go by an errant pipe swing, dangling off to one side, clinging to the bug with one hand and his sketchbook with the other.

     No, no, no, nope, nope. This is not safe. This is in no way safe. Hanako has to twist and turn around from slashes and pipe-swings, cursing at every one. He winds up awkwardly drawing a square underneath him to kick off from, which leaves a weird floating empty pencil platform behind. Some goon runs facefirst into it and falls over, clotheslined by incidental contact.

     The biker starts talking. The bug skids to a halt. Hanako stares at him for a minute. "Elevator..."

     "Uh, right. Yeah."

     "Alright."

     He looks around in that way where you're obviously trying not to look around and reveal that you don't know what that is as the bug just slams its arm backwards to send another goon flying. It's a big, armored bug that is also proportionally strong. And it is like twice the size of a human being.

     "Oh, fuck this."

     Hanako takes out his sketchbook.

     He flips through it. He wandered in a few skyscrapers! Those had elevators, right?

     Yeah. Yeah, that's an elevator. People went in and out of those in that lobby. Yeah, that goes up? OK. That goes up.

     The pencil swings out. The elevator is much too small for his bug.

     So the answer is to just...change perspective.

     Scratch, scratch, scratch.

     The elevator...gets bigger?...as the bug walks towards it. Or the bug gets smaller? No, wait.

     Hanako fucked up the perspective *so bad* that his giant bug - and anybody else walking in - can fit in the elevator with no problem.

     He *fucked up the perspective lines on the elevator*.
X By lowering the temperature with her blizzard, it makes X's superheated plasma pellets even more effective at blasting the machinery to smithereens. Gratefully, he provides a thumbs up, before even more thuggish hanger ons enter the fray. One of them, a big goon in a biker get up, chucks a flaming molotov cocktail at him. Hunkering his upper body forward, X's legs release a sudden jet thrust to propel him forward, the explosion of flame behind him licking at his legs and back, charring them as he couldn't quite escape in time. "Ngh..!"

Between all the Elites present, and the samurai bug, it shouldn't take too long to clear the enemy out in theory. But he didn't want to give them the chance to bring out some kind of secret weapon, and so X attempts to clear the way, his body shifting colors to assume a dark red armor plating, and a dull blue body suit, mimicking the colors of Doctor Strange.

Firing at the floor in front of the thugs immediately in his way, the projectile causes a chunk of it to become intangible, letting them fall painfully, but non-lethally, into the basement level.

X on the other hand, leaps over the gap he created, and fires again to create an intangible opening in the wall of the elevator shaft for him to begin wall jumping up; a task made much easier by the wider breadth between surfaces, as he could build momentum far easier than he would otherwise.

Nimbly and quickly, he blurs, bouncing from one section of the enclosed space to the other, heading up, up, up.
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki listens intently to the biker's hasty explanation, her eyes slightly narrowing all the way up until Hanako's SAMURAI BUG crashes the party. Literally. Her head moves to just stare at it at the exact same moment, one eyebrow going up and both it and the artiste riding atop it, and eventually half-turns back to her hostage as he continues. "...You're really not. Try to turn yourself around." Fortunately for him, Hibiki lets him off with just an uncurling of her fist into an open palm to give him a firm enough pat on the shoulder to push him aside, then buckles her knees and launches off past him into a run. "Because your boss isn't going to be in business forever!"

    Amid all the chaos of stretchy arms, indoor blizzards, shotgun punches, and pellets, Hibiki maneuvers to locate the elevator in question, which is less a problem of finding and more of getting to with the sea of goons charging the lot of them down. Big boys breathing fire for whatever reason isn't weird enough to her to get her to pause, bringing up her Symphogear's half-cylinder gauntlets as a makeshift shield to deflect it aside as she goes to dive in. An intense singe isn't going to slow her up either, and she throws her fists aside to return the favor by launching herself a meter off the ground and spinning into a kick to smash into the punk's head and send him like a bowling ball into a whole lot more of his gang.

    And then, the elevator problem starts becoming less of a problem. It actually makes her head hurt at first, but if it helps getting them to where they need to go--Hibiki goes to make full use of this reimagined elevator to need to try and punch out a whole lot less goons, and also put most of her efforts into keeping them off of it with a variety of knockback-focused blows until they start moving up.
Hanako Hirano      As Hanako's bug is going upstairs, Yang speaks up.

     Hanako turns around to look at her. His face goes a little bit red. He's seventeen, what do you want?

     But he's staring at her for a reason. He's sizing her up. He's considering what'd fit her best. What he can make use of. What he can /do/ for her.

     As she swings around for an explosive bolt, Hanako sketches furiously. By the time her fist is swinging around, her gauntlet has been replaced, or drawn over, or something.

     A pair of crosshatched phoenixes burst into being. The heat from their wings is unquestionably real. As she reaches out to strike, feathers erupt where there should be bullets; the impact is still there, but now it's a rain of fire, an area-of-effect blast that lights up the building in crosshatched lighting.
Nanoha Takamachi     The little magical pink orbs dart through the factory, sending footage back to Nanoha who reviews it on holoscreens that appear around her while she hovers in the air just outside the factory. In particular, she notes a large number on the second floor of the factory. That could potentially mean that their boss is there. Or possibly some cargo or machinery if importance.

    But rushing right to the end could be dangerous, even if these thugs aren't exactly elite tier. It's best if the elite allies stick together. To which, Nanoha needs to provide some support to said allies! First though, one of those thugs has launched himself out a window towards her. Gutsy! He smashes into Nanoha, who grunts at the impact and floats back a little. But her magical defenses absorb most of the impact.

    Nanoha recovers quickly though, spinning her staff up over her head and bringing it down towards the thug, to smash him and send him crashing down to the ground below.

    The flying mage then turns her attention to the large number of thugs still inside the factory, "Alright then, let's see if we can reduce their numbers." Nanoha raises her staff, a spell circle appearing beneath her. Orbs of pink forming around her. She then begins to float down towards the factory.

    The orbs begins to attack, firing beams of pink that rush forth towards the factory. They blast their way through the walls, leaving holes behind as they home in on a large number of the thugs. Nanoha can't see the thugs from her perspective, but she doesn't need to. Her magical scouts had already previously tagged them, providing her with a means to target them.

    Even as her orbs continue to fire, raining down more and more beams on the thugs inside, Nanoha herself floats down towards the loading dock. She softly touches down on the floor near the truck some of the others had arrived in. She then calmly begins walking towards the elevator up.

    One thug gets the idea to rush Nanoha.

    A beam from outside blasts through the wall and into him, to launch him away from her.
Karlan Nobles With their cover falling apart by the second, the hired muscle is not doing particularly well in the face of the Elites, and they find their numbers melting by the second. The Yang Zan team up seems to be working rather well in terms of getting people's teeth punched in or, once she switches to firing giant phoenix bombs courtesy of Hanako, having the good doctor adding injury to also-injury by electrocuting anyone that tries to get past him.

"... Yeah, whatever. Can't say I didn't try." The biker grunts as he's shoved away from Hibiki, glancing back only momentarily as she bolts right off. Sensing potential eyes on him, he takes an exaggerated dive, bowling over one of those heavy metal bins and hoping nobody else comes by to make sure he's actually out cold. Luckily, Blaze does not stab him on the way past, joining with Hibiki instead to fight more of those thugs back as they clear a path towards the elevator. Any openings there might be between Hibiki's strikes are filled in with swift elbow strikes and hip tosses from the cop, and Pramanix's continuing snowstorm helps form a sort of barrier to hold any stragglers at bay once the Elites gather up.

X's ground-transforming technique, meanwhile, catches the goons off guard as those that try rushing at him find themselves plummeting without realizing there was a drop at all. It's all rather terrifying for the ones unlucky enough to fall in first, although the ones that fall in afterwards have some small comfort in landing on someone rather than on the piles of scrap further below. From his perspective, X may very well even see that the lower floors are just a dumping ground for failed prototypes of machines, some of them looking like spiders and yet others looking like off-brand super robots.

OST: https://youtu.be/aRDKoBfKDLo

If not for Hanako's samurai bug, the thugs might actually be having a field day just trying to beat the crap out of him. As it stands, though, many of them find themselves just bowled over by the hulking thing, giving him ample opportunity to get to work. The elevator creaks as it expands beyond what should even be possible, turning from a simple freight elevator into an arena of its own. Just as well, since now there's plenty of room for everyone to pile on and make their way up into the facility's upper floors. There's only a single wall present for the elevator to slide upwards from its original shaft, and the rest of it is just a free-fall to the ground floor that only grows more dangerous as the lift continues rising once everyone's eventually aboard.

Nanoha's beam barrage, meanwhile, keeps the thugs pinned down as few of them actually seem to have any kind of way to deal with someone up so high and so far away. The flying thug isn't quite as aerodynamic as he would hope, either, and although he can get up to where she is, swerving to try avoiding that shot means that he can't really reach her all that well before plummeting back down to the ground below.

Speaking of the elevator shaft... Normally, it would just take everyone up to the upper floors with enough room to fit maybe one of those assembled prototypes. Thanks to Hanako's changing of the elevator, however, it's less of a shaft and more of a potential tunnel upwards that X and anyone looking to beeline to the top or even get a surprise attack as the lift begins to move proper. Seeing an opportunity to really pile on in that enclosed space, thugs start dropping onto the elevator en masse, joined by shirtless martial artists complete with ear-splitting kiais as they dive feet-first at the Elites on board. The fliers and more mobile members of the group, meanwhile, aren't safe from attack, as flying ninjas on jetpacks start divebombing onto them, armed with swords and just using their entire bodies as human torpedos.
Yang Xiao Long     Yang's gauntlet changes, and she grins as they're enhanced. She'll have to thank the kid later. For now, she shifts weight and launches herself on a recoil-powered leap toward the elevator. She lands near the entrance and boards, taking a breath before those flying ninja guys comes screaming in. "Screaming Eagles me a--"

    THUD.

    Yang's hit by one of those dive-kicking jetpack ninjas. His impact sends her skidding backwards.. right up until her Aura flares like she's wreathed in flames and her feet suddenly dig into the metal floor-plate, stopping her and the ninja cold. She looks up, gives a malicvious grin and grabs the guy's legs before using him to beat the crap out of the floor-plate like a certain not-so-jolly green giant. "THAT'S ALL YOU GOT!? COME ON, BRING IT!" she bellows, challenging the other jetninjas to come and have a go if they think they're hard enough.
Hanako Hirano      This arena is not a good place for anyone fighting Hanako Hirano to be.

     Not at all.

     By the time he gets to the elevator (now strangely bent by the perspective editing) he's drawn a compartment into the bug for his sketchbook. That means, now, Hanako has *both* hands free.

     This is not safe for anyone.

     A brush spins into his free hand. He dips the brush in ink - ink in vials apparently just on his belt - as his bug's claws move to parry and block, to swish and swipe. It's a lot of damage coming in, but, well, the bug is literally a giant bug in samurai armor - it's built to take it. It's built to tank blades. It's built to tank martial artists. The thugs jumping down only get to clip Hanako - the bug is also a bug, and is sensitive, and fast, and moves sideways when they come down so that only some blood is drawn. It's still more blood than he'd like.

     His hand comes up to start erasing-

     -and a knife cleaves through the pencil.

     -

     -

     "-shit."

     That's one less weapon he's got to work with.

     On the upside, he's got plenty of other weapons to work with. Many of them are hot girls! One of them is a robot, whatever that is!

     This is probably better than just erasing things anyway.

     Can't get eraser crap in his paint, though. That stuff would fuck up his divine brush for a long time to come. He'd have to clean that out and that'd be a huge bitch, and he might need his weapons later. So...

     So Hanako ducks under a ninja strike, grabs his broken pencil, jams it right into his wounded arm, screams, and drags out blood.

     And then he starts to paint.

     Around Nanoha he paints a halo. No, not a halo - a magic circle behind her. It's got a distinctly Daoist feeling to it, five elements, one red, one yellow, one blue, one green, a black center. As she starts charging, it starts spinning - and when she unleashes her own attacks, it will join her, with beams of fire, water, lightning, earth, and void.

     Hibiki, meanwhile, gets the bloody pencil. The pencil paints in the air awkwardly. He can't paint anything too detailed with a broken pencil and his own blood, so instead he goes for something simple. Something that doesn't need details. Something...easy.

     Mid-swing, Hibiki finds her hand closing into a massive glove.

     It is attached to a massive, massive hammer.

     A hammer that probably takes up a fair chunk of the elevator.
X Bouncing from surface to surface and kicking off of it, propelled by thrust exploding out of the nodules on the backs of his legs, X continues scaling upwards. Having shifted back into his original color scheme of blue-on-black, with white lines trimming the bodysuit, he opens fire with his X-Buster to try and cut off the various goons -- martial artists, bikers, and other assorted nerdowells -- as they begin dropping down, as he would be one of the first ones to notice them. Unfortunately for him, he gets cut off himself and ambushed by the ones capable of 'swallowing' and breathing gouts of flame, trying to catch him at the different levels on his ascent.

X avoids the flames gracefully, exhaust igniting out of his shoulder blades in the form of some kind of muffler as he stalls mid air to change directions suddenly, using the peculiar properties of his boots to slow his ascent along the wall to return fire and blast the firebreather's footing before continuing up.

The next one's flame was blown away entirely by another buster pellet, this one aimed at an upwards angle to fly over his head, but would probably leave him with a nasty sunburn on his face for his troubles.

Using his Buster to ward off any would-be attackers, he also does his best to bottleneck whoever actually makes it down to the others on the actual elevator, although for the fliers like Nanoha, they'd have to take care of airborne ninjas themselves; although, the painter among them seemed to have their backs in that regard.

His body shifts in color to a gunmetal grey while his black undersuit dyes itself a bluish color as he begins rapidly firing explosives out of his X-Buster, which seem to hang in the air before shooting forwards, like homing torpedoes to attack the trickier enemies to aim at.
Nanoha Takamachi     As the lower floor seems to be cleared out, Nanoha's orbs outside flash out of existence, their barrage fire no longer needed for the moment.

    Nanoha herself walks onto the elevator, spinning around to face the front as she asks the others with a smile, "Going up?"

    The elevator begins moving. Hopefully there's no cheesy music. No wait... No music, but there are ninjas! And more thugs too.

    Nanoha takes a step back, raising her staff as one of those jetpacking ninjas comes flying down the shaft and into the elevator. His blade meets Nanoha's stuff with a resounding CLANG. She then twists and turns her staff, forcing the jetninja's blade to the side and providing an opportunity for Nanoha to swing the end of her weapon into the side of the thug's head.

    Nanoha then ducks, as another thug dives into the elevator to land behind her and throw a hook towards her head. Nanoha sweeps her staff around to catch the thug in the legs. She then rises, bringing her staff down onto the sweeped thug to smash him into the elevator floor.

    A third thug, of the divebombing type, divebombs into the elevator from above and lands a kick to Nanoha's chest. She stumbles back, bouncing up against the elevator wall with a grunt. Is she going to take that standing still? No! Nanoha steps forward once more, straightening as she raises her staff in front of her. As the spell circle forms beneath her feet, a new effect appears behind her, glowing with numerous colours. A pink orb forms just beyond Nanoha's staff, charging up even as the circle behind her starts spinning.

    Nanoha then pulls her arm back, handing forming a fist before she punches the orb. The orb bursts, forming a large beam that rushes the thug that kicked her. It smashes into him, sending him flying into the other side of the elevator. But it doesn't end there.

    The large pink beam arcs up, before splitting into a dozen smaller ones. It's joined by the beams fired by the Daoist spell circle, all of them rushing up into the shaft. They then begin to dance through the air, smashing into the various thugs inhabiting the shaft trying to make their way down.

    Seeing the coloured beams joining her own, Nanoha turns her head to look over her shoulder at the magic circle behind her. She smiles, before turning to look at Hanako and saying, "Thanks."
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki gives the officer a nod as they fight alongside each other, clearly both appreciative of the help and his skills. Having other people watching your back is pretty nice, she's found, and she definitely wouldn't even have gotten to the elevator by now if it wasn't for the vigilantes and everyone else contributing. Because of all of that, they're soon on a path going straight up, top floor. Now that they're actually on it, it's a lot less nausea inducing!

    She opts to hang alongside the others instead of taking a shortcut up herself, for as much good as that does her when the battlefield that the lift has become soon gets even more chaotic than the ground floor. The sound of screeching kung fu men draws her widened eyes up, and she just barely brings an arm up to recieve one of the terribly powerful divekicks. The impact releases a shockwave out in all directions and sends her skidding back dramatically, almost dangerously close to the open wall of the elevator. "Tch...!" She catches herself narrowly though, bracing her heels against the metal and facing down the horde of somewhat-greater-punks. She narrows her eyes and grits her teeth, lunging back in to engage in a battle of martial arts.

    And then, as she rears back her fist to ready a punch, she finds that her gauntlet's a lot bigger than it normally is. A /lot/.

    Her head turns up in surprise, regarding the HAMMER OF HELL AND HEAVEN that would not fit in this shaft at all if it wasn't for prior shenanigans. After a blink and a brief turn towards Hanako as if in slow motion, she focuses back on the muscle flooding into the space with a grin underneath her scarf, and a tightening of her hand inside of the construct. "Thanks! Alright--take THIIIISSSSSS!"

    What was going to be a punch becomes a furious downswing as weight, gravity, and an absurd amount of raw strength carries the oversized hammer down like a meteor, away from her friends but towards an extremely unfortunate cluster of mooks. Fortunately, it will not scatter these not-so-innocent people to the wind, but it will hurt. A lot. Enough to smash them clean down through the elevator's platform and leave them piled up on the bottom if they don't go scattering off the sides from the size of it.
Karlan Nobles The jetpack ninja Yang grabs a hold of is made of regrets. Also, his insides might be mildly pasted after getting slammed into the ground multiple times. The smarter fliers avoid engaging the puncher on her terms, although they don't have a lot of breathing room as X's shots home in on them and force them to move, anyway. One of the unlucky ones gets hit right in the jetpack, too, sending him careening wildly out of the sky and out of sight somewhere further below. The others are having trouble of their own trying to outmaneuver those homing shots, swerving this way and that, but that only gets them so far before the shots blast them right out of the sky.

The dumber fliers, of course, get right in there to aim divebombing divekicks at the Elites on the lift instead of doing something smart like hurling molotovs at them from afar. No, the molotovs are coming from motorcycle-helmet bearing thugs that overshot their jumps onto the lift, but still managed to cling onto the sides with their last ditch attempts at blowing up the Elites and their way up.

Alas, their intelligence truly comes into question with the fact that they just dove into melee range with just about everyone here being a potent melee fighter in their own right, or being armed with an excessive amount of magic firepower that won't need to be aimed nearly as precisely at this range. Nanoha's and Hanako's combined beamspam into the elevator shaft results in an even bigger pileup at the steadily shrinking base of the elevator shaft as the lift rises. That giant hammer in Hibiki's hands, meanwhile...

The lucky ones just get blasted right off the platform and pass out on the way down. The unlucky ones become one with the elevator and/or the elevator shaft, just sort of stuck right in there with enough bodies lying around that it's starting to get hard to move around on that lift at all, much less fight on it.

With the Elites cleaning house as that elevator ascends to the top, however, they actually have a moment to catch their breath before the lift breaks through some of the roof and puts them on top of the factory entirely. There's a massive helipad with enough room on it for several space opera-esque dropships, but there aren't any of those fantastic things coming in today.

Instead, the group is met with a half-dozen of the denim-wearing thugs. Unlike the ones that they've dispatched so easily before, however, these guys are on the shinier and bigger side. All but one has gleaming silver skin (the exception having metallic red skin), they're all just under ten feet tall rather than six nothing at best, and instead of walking at the Elites to begin their assault, they start hopping forward with heavy metallic thuds on each landing.

What makes it worse, however, is the fact that they're not even slow as they do this. They move as quickly as the ninjas, and their arms pop right out of their sockets attached to long chains tha let them fling said arms like retractable hammers! The worst of their attacks, however, come when they're finally knocked over: They just explode, trying to take anyone they can with them!
Hanako Hirano      Oh that's not OK.

     These guys look like demons. They look like fantastical demons from long ago, from the First Empress's time when gods still roamed the land. Silver skin and nine feet tall. Hopping monsters of steel and copper. They're nightmarish, and horrifying, and Hanako does not want to look at them any longer than he has to. In fact, when one of them gets close, the giant samurai bug smashes into it to hold it down, and Hanako rolls off of the bug and backs up against the wall. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying!

     He has no idea what to do. He's never encountered anything like this. It's almost as bad as the horrifying cancer monster from the other day - something so distinctly outside his range of understanding as to be horrifyingly alien. This is something he could not conceive of, could not understand, could not know. It is something that has no place in his understanding.

     So he does what he always does on reflex, up against the wall, scared for his life.

     He paints.

     His brush and his blood-soaked pen dance around X. They spin and whirl as fast as the bug body-blocks for him, the crosshatched samurai insect taking more and more damage, chipping more and more bits of graphite from its flesh. Work faster. Work faster! Big! Something big! Something big!

     Yes!

     Upon X's shoulders, they just...appear. At first he might think them to be two cannons.

     They are not cannons.

     They are massive dragons. They are dragons hooked directly up to his body. They glimmer with the same metallic sheen he has. He can feel them connected directly to his circuits, to his mind. They are like limbs. They are limbs. They are limbs ready to do exactly what his Buster does - charge up an attack and release a huge fucking blast.

     His other hand has turned into a Buster. It's an odd-looking red Buster, painted in his blood, but it's a Buster nonetheless.
Yang Xiao Long     Yang snorts and fires potshots with her phoenix gauntlets at the fliers, but she's mostly ineffective at their range. She dodges around some of the molotoves and other thugs swinging pipes and knives, coming out with a few shallow cuts along her arms and legs.

    Then they're on the roof and there's robo-thugs leaping about like hyperactive jackalopes. Yang sets her legs, and tanks one of those chain-punches to the proverbial chin, letting it slam into her crossed arm-guard. The resounding CLANG, of metal hitting metal punctuates a sudden spike in temperature.

    Yang's Aura flares again, her hair beginning to glow golden. When she looks up from her guard posture, lilac eyes have turned red and she lets out a kiai. "I BURN!" A wave of force rolls off of her as she sets her feet then launches herself toward the closest robot, trailing flames from her fists as she pumps shells into the chambers. On contact, she unleashes the full report of her phoenix gauntlets at point blank, washing the robot in kinetic force and fire hot enough to melt some of the roofing beneath her and it. "Xiao Long-style. Fist of Twelve Flames!"
X Reaching the top before the rest, X shifts back into his default colorscheme and rushes forward, momentarily all by himself for the effort of having come up first, the elevator lagging a good thirty seconds or so behind him. "What are those, some kind of mechaniloids? They don't seem to have any kind of personality .. "

Engaging them with his X-Buster, the maverick hunter finds himself smashed suddenly from the side, knocking him down, and giving the large red one in the center the chance to strike him while he was down, plunging X several inches further into the helipad's concrete.

Charging his buster as he flopped onto his stomach and started to push himself up, the deadly machine man raised his fists again in preperation to beat him into the ground once again, but X propels himself away, shooting the roof and throwing himself with the explosion that created.

Flipping around in mid-air, he skids to a stop not long after the elevator makes it to the top and deposits the rest of the Elites.

X picks himself up off the ground with a grunt, dents and cracks having been beaten into his frame from his unfortunate tussle. " ... !!"

By the time he's ready to start jumping back into the fray, he nearly pitches forward from an abrupt change in his weight and balance, something his system immediately begins adapting to. From out of seemingly nowhere, two metallic dragon heads appeared upon his shoulders, and it doesn't take him long to connect the oddity to the other strange things that had happened, such as the widening elevator shaft, or Hibiki Tachibana's sudden power up, or the appearance of that helpful bug.

With his other arm transforming into another X-Buster, pitched in red, X dashes at high speed to Hanako Hirano, and delivers a kick straight into the metallic fighter's midsection to send him skidding away from the painter before kipping forwards himself, the two dragon heads lashing out to deflect two incoming hammer arms as particles quickly begin to gather within the busters, and then, within the dragon's maws.

    ARMOR GET
    SUPER DRAGON ARMOR

The jewel embedded just under X's abdomen begins to shine before shifting into a bright red color, as if it were a dazzling ruby. The nodules on his shoulder blades explodes, creating two tails of red, whipping energy as his whole body seemed to creak with pressure and a sudden surge of energy.

        W A R N I N G

The Force Metal was active, and the foreign energy was multiplying the strength of what was aready there. Pointing both arms out as all four were charged to the very limit, the two dragon heads released swirling streams of bright blue balls tinged with red Force Metal energy, while the two fully charged shots from his Busters took the form of two massive plumes of light, dyed the same, aimed to engulf whatever remained of the enemy robots and smother the exposion, before racing off into the night sky and safely avoiding any further collatoral damage.
Hibiki Tachibana     Through the power of TEAMWORK, FRIENDSHIP, and A LOT OF PUNCHING AND A GIANT HAMMER, the team is given time to breathe. Hibiki almost slumps over a little after all of that, with her massive gauntlet and hammer ending up being held precariously straight upwards and used as a support for her to lean against. "...Phew." She tugs down on her face-covering scarf with her free hand to exhale, flashing a small grin back up towards Hanako, followed by a thumbs up. You know, with the same hand. As she gets her breath back and comes to something resembling a full stand, she speaks up in his direction, and in general. "Call me Hibiki...you know, since we ended up getting a moment."

    A moment that doesn't last terribly long, once they reach their goal. After a second to contemplate the lack of any aircraft currently around to handle the freight coming in or out of the factory - thugs that are bigger, tougher, shinier, and even MORE street-badass than everyone they've fought their way through already snap her back to her guard. Taking a deep breath through her teeth, Hibiki springs forward as one of the vanguard despite how imposing these tough guys and their quaking hopping tactics are, hauling her gift behind her with a frankly surprising amount of adroitness.

    Not quite enough to keep her entirely out of trouble though, as these guys are also real fast. And they have extendable arms. She engages with them for a time, ducking and weaving in a dance of people clearly ignoring how much weight they should be lugging around, until a roof-shaking S T O M P upsets her balance and she gets juggled from a robo-punch right into bowling one of the hulks over, where he promptly explodes and sends her flying again. She ends up spinning with the momentum of her weapon more than her own body. It's a miracle there's no collateral damage.

    And she turns that into an advantage, whirling herself into a more controlled spin as she tightens her hold on the weapon and fires her Symphogear's thrusters to level herself out in the air. "HrrrraaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!" With her roar, the half-cylinder inside of her gauntlet shifts, expanding out of the even bigger one used to wield this hammer and down her arm, revealing turbines and rocket thrusters on the back.

    She uses the thrust from that to propel herself back down at breakneck speeds, and swing the tool of bludgeoning justice. It comes down, almost like it's going to smash into a group of the mechanical menaces and cave in a good portion of the factor roof while she's at it, but Hibiki twists at the last moment. A full compliment of her thrusters help her spin before it fully goes through, transfering all the force she's put into it into a sideways swing to catch as many as possible up and send them flying off the factory roof and into the distance, home-run style. No property damage here! Well, more than they were already coming to do.
Nanoha Takamachi     Nanoha does indeed take the moment to catch her breath. The close quarters fight in the elevator got Nanoha's pulse to rise a little. Plus it's a good opportunity to prepare for whatever is awaiting them at the top.

    The elevator reaches the end of the shaft... And then continues on to break through the roof. Okay. Was that supposed to happen? Either way, Nanoha walks off the elevator, that multicolored glowing magic circle still following along behind her.

    Nanoha comes to a stop, before looking over the robotic men in front of them. Interesting designs. They look like they can take more of a punishment than the thugs who have been attacking so far. But thankfully it looks like they're the last of their foes. Time to finish this with a bang?

    Speaking of, Nanoha glances over her shoulder once more at the Doaist magic circle behind her, before asking her Device, "Do you think you can integrate our friend's gift into our own spell?"

    Raising Heart chimes in response, <Affirmative. Preparing necessary spell code modifications.>

    While her Device works on that, Nanoha focuses on her initial defense against the robotic thugs. One of them swinging its arms at her on the end of chains! Nanoha quickly raises a hand, a barrier of pink forming beyond it. But the arms smash into it shattering it before continuing on to Nanoha herself. They strike her in the chest, forcing her to skid back several feet towards the edge of the roof, before she finally stops.

    Nanoha recovers just as her Device chimes, <Preparations complete. Blow it away, Master.>

    Nanoha smirks, "Naturally."

    Nanoha spreads her feet, lowering her stance as she spins her staff around to point towards the robotic thug that attacked her. A spell circle appears on the roof beneath her. A pair of spell rings flash to life around the staff's tip, slowing turning as an orb of pink appears inside them and begins to grow in size.

    But another spell circle appears, this time around the Daoist one behind her. The pink Midchildan runes begin to rotate around, syncronizing with the spinning of the colours. The colours glow brighter as streams of them begin to flow off them and into the growing orb of pink, swirling around inside it as it grows in size more and more quickly.

    Finally Nanoha starts, "Hyperion Smasher-" But she then stops for a moment, before glancing at her Device, "What was his name again?"

    Raising Heart replies, <Hanako Hirano.>

    "Thanks." Nanoha gets back to calling out, "Hyperior Smasher, Hanako Hirano mod!"

    The swirling multi-coloured orb bursts, forming a massive beam of pink, red, yellow, blue, green and black that rushes towards the target robotic thug. It doesn't end there though, continuing to blast far into the sky beyond.
Karlan Nobles As promised, Pramanix calls down one more snowstorm to try and limit the Mecha-Galsias from jumping around all over the goddamn place. It doesn't take long for their movements to start slowing down, both due to the ice building up on their joints and everything on their bodies as well as the magic contained in that very snow. Blaze and Zan, finding their groove the more they fight alongside these elites, start working in tandem and incorporating their own attacks into everyone's seamlessly.

The only robot that might have a chance at moving normally again is the one that gets  a whole lot of heat from Yang. Unfortunately for it, that heat comes at the cost of getting the absolute shit blasted out of most of its torso. Zan comes in from the side to discharge a massive burst of electricity from his entire body, disconnecting its legs from its heads in the process before grabbing the top segment and hurling it into the path of Hibiki's hammer.

Hibiki's giant swing, against a lesser target, would probably have pulped someone entirely with that impact. Against the robots, however, she'll have to settle for simply pounding the everloving crap out of them. Seeing an opportunity, Blaze, manages to shoulder check one of those robots off of her before slamming both palms into its midsection, letting loose with a glowing blast of sheer force and blasting it into the strike zone. When the hammer strikes, it shatters the robots on impact and sends their pieces far along the factory roof. Thankfully, the property damage she does inflict is only to the factory rather than anything important, the explosions happening far enough away that nobody (important) is in any real danger of geting hit with explosive robot shrapnel.

The robot X targets, meanwhile, doesn't even get the luxury of movement. As the painted Dragon X Buster combination charges and radiates with that blinding power, it attempts a forward leap to try and land right on top of him while glowing itself.  Before it can even reach the apex of its jump, however, an icicle emerges from below that impales it, holding it in place as that blast comes and obliterates it utterly. Even its explosive components turn to little more than ash and dust before even reaching the ground, never mind actually self-destructing.

As if trying to avoid the fate of its brethren, the final Mecha-Galsia opts to charge right at Nanoha, tilting forwards and kicking off to launch itself at her nearly parallel to the ground. It's still not fast enough to reach her before the blast comes, however, and its the skin on its face peels back as it tries to fight through it with a laser of its own. Without time to charge up or even got hot enough to overcome Pramanix's icy storm, however, it too suffers the same dusty fate as the one that tried to challenge X's and Hanako's combination.

Only when the dust finally settles do things finally seem to quiet down. The factory is a mess inside and out, and Mister X's hired goons are fleeing at best and in a heap at worst.

Pramanix: "That was rather exciting, wasn't it? Hm... Do you think we went overboard?"
Zan: "No. These machines would have brought ruin to this city if we didn't stop them."
Blaze: "You think Mister X noticed?"
???: "What do you think, Blaze?"

A mysterious figure appears from the shadows! Actually, it's another man's voice, coming from the inside of a rather non-descript looking office on the roof. The source of the voice becomes clear once the wall to that office falls over, revealing a man in a tight yellow v-neck and shades that's absolutely radiating with hot dad energy.

"Adam Hunter. Thanks for the hand. You... Uh. You guys realy did a number on this place." He sounds impressed, even laughing despite the confused looks he's getting from both Zan and Blaze.
Yang Xiao Long     Yang holds her impact position for a moment or two, then straightens up and lets out a very specific breath which seems to release the built-uip energy from her Aura. Her hair stops wafting around and returns to regular blonde instead of near-metallic glowing gold, and when her eyes open again they're back to lilac. "Well!" she comments, turning and planting hands on her hips, the gauntlets having compacted back into bracelets on her wrists once more. "That was a thing."

    Adam appears, and the blonde shifts, moving a little closer to Hanako in a semi-automatic protective posture. She's the 'tank' of her team, after all.

    "Yo, kiddo. Name's Yang Xiao Long, remember it and gimme a shout if y'need a hand for anything, 'kay?" she says to the Painter, before turning her attention fully toward Adam. "Okay, so... you were... what, trapped here? Working for the big bad? What. Start talkin' bud cuz I'm still itchin' for a fight."
Hibiki Tachibana     The dust (and ice, and dragons, and lasers) settles in more ways than one, with smooshed robots abound and the chaos dying down. Hibiki lands back down on the roof, wiping at her brow with her normal arm while once again flashing a small smile and a nod towards the vigilantes who she seemed to have worked in surprising tandem with, on top of all the others. She's feeling the blows she took now that the adrenaline is dying down, but when all is said and done, they seem to have done it. No bad guys irrepairably harmed, and robots that were /definitely/ dangerous enough to pose a threat to people scrapped. She does have a couple questions, but...

    As soon as she thinks such, a MYSTERIOUS VOICE reveals themselves, and despite Zan and Blaze's confusion, he seems to be an ally. And that's plenty good enough for her, perking her head up and tilting it slightly. He actually kind of gives off the same vibe as someone else she knows.

    "...No problem." Hibiki briefly looks back towards the reasonably trashed and battered lift they came up in. She squints at its continued perspective-warping powers, then focuses back on Adam. "You were...looking into one of their offices?" She makes an educated guess, as educated as it can get from the state of uh. Over there. And everything.
X The whipping energy scarf peters out and dies as the jewel -- the Force Metal -- becomes inert and retrurns to its standing green color. The reploid himself breathes a sigh of relief, his Busters de-activating and restoring his hands, studded at the knuckles. "That was almost a close one, huh ... "

The dragons mounted on his shoulders snap their jaws shut as he rolls his joints to get a feel for them. He didn't know how long it'd last .. but, as his body became acclimated to it, his systems might be able to memorize the armor and add it to his arsenal. It certainly came in hand tonight, to which X raises a thumbs up and a smile of gratitude to the painter who'd made it possible.

Standing back, X lets the others ask questions, for now. He figured that by listening he could get a better picture of what was going on.
Hanako Hirano      The remnants of the bug pick up the exhausted Hanako and drag him out of the elevator. He slumps against it as it crouches down. His arms clearly ache. He looks up at Yang, and his face goes red, and he looks away. "Y-yeah. Hey. Hanako Hirano."

     'Kiddo.'

     Ouch.

     His face gets redder, and he pulls his bandana down a little bit. "Yeah, well...I'll keep that in mind..."

     What should he say?

     "...babe."

     Yeah, no, that wasn't it. His face gets even redder, and the bug kind of leans forward as if to pat him on the shoulder sympathetically. It's apparently...actually...independent? He doesn't seem to need to give it orders, at least. It's doing what he thinks he needs, or maybe his subconscious, or something.
Nanoha Takamachi     Nanoha straightens once more after her attack has finally faded. She takes in a deep breath before releasing it, "Phew. That was a bit of a work out. Those robots weren't half bad. Thought that last one was going to get to me."

    Nanoha starts walking across the roof to rejoin the others. She releases her grip on her staff, the weapon glowing with light before shrinking down into the form of a small red gem.

    Nanoha pauses and tilts her head as a new player makes their presence known. Nanoha looks him over. Tone and body language suggest that he isn't a foe. Though one can never be too sure. Still, Nanoha decides to trust, smiling and introducing herself, "Captain Nanoha Takamachi, Time-Space Administrative Bureau. Liason to the Paladins."

    Hibiki and Yang are already enquiring into the man's identity and purpose here. So Nanoha instead wonders out loud as she looks around, "I wonder if the local authorities will be along soon." There's probably a lot of thugs to apprehend and things to be confiscated.
Karlan Nobles At Yang's question/vague threat, Adam starts laughing. Not in any mocking sort of way, but in that distinctly 'haha these crazy kids' sort of way, although he does quiet down when Blaze gets in face with a distinctly unamused look on her face.

"She's got a point. How'd you get out? When did you get out? How'd you even get here? What'd Mister X do to you to make you look this... Old?!"  Blaze blurts out, almost sounding like she's forcing herself to look irritated despite the apparent relief at seeing the new arrival.

Said new arrival doesn't answer right away, almost seeming like he's having trouble trying to even answer them. He also flinches a bit at the last question, keeping a brave face on that isn't hidden particularly well by his shades. "Yeah, about that. I'm pretty sure Blaze here's told you already, but I got captured by Mister X. And... Now I'm not captured. "

Blaze: "How."
Adam: "That's.... Axel. He-"
Blaze: "So where's he?"
Adam: "Tracking a lead. He..."

Still recovering from the barrage of questions, Adam reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded up missive. "We were looking into leads on Mister X's projects. He was going to track down a shipment while I checked out this place to see if I could find out where he's sending all his... Well, you saw." As he answers Nanoha, he gestures at what little is left of the Mecha-Galsias.

<J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana says, "That makes it all the better that it's not going to be a problem anymore, right?"

"I wish. They've already shipped out some of the working models out towards the city, and they're loaded up with explosives." Adam continues. "They're taking a detour to get there, though, since they know we're here."

"How?" Zan asks, drawing an incredulous look from Adam as he gestures around at everything. "... Right. Of course."

<J-IC-Scene> Nanoha Takamachi says, "That's... Are they being tracked?"

"Axel's on it, and I've got a few ideas myself on where. Once we've got a bead on their ship, we'll intercept. Now, do you-" Adam pauses, staring at the eyes on Hanako's bug as it consoles him. He laughs, Zan laughs, Blaze just looks like she's fed up with everything up to and including that embarassing moment. "-have any other questions before we get back to work?"
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki finds her eyebrow raising at the exchange between Blaze and Adam, figuring there's quite a bit of history there that's probably not a very good time to ask about right now. But the answer to her question gets her expression to cloud over somewhat, turning away somewhat to look out past the roof towards the rest of the city.

    And then back the Hanako and his bug in time with the others, which clears it back up not all the way, but some. He's been a big help today too, but it looks like his carapaced friend has the comforting handled for now. After a moment of thought, she closes her eyes and looks back to Adam. "No. I want to stop those things as fast as we can, before they hurt anyone. Count me on board. But--who really is this Mister X, anyway...?"
Karlan Nobles To Hibiki:

Blaze: "He's the mayor of Vir... Wood Oak City now. We've been investigating him for a while now because of ties to a crime syndicate, but he came into power after the last mayor blew it with a couple of scandals in a row."
Pramanix: "Scandals? The political type or the...?"
Blaze: "He let an overpriced party blimp filled with explosives crash land in another continent. Almost got the whole country caught up in a war because of all that."