Scene #7578: The Singular Disaster

Owner	Pose
Hibiki Tachibana	TOKYO, 2044: Far away, the legally distinct Tokyo Skytower makes even the skyscrapers surrounding it seem diminutive as it dominates the skyline, gleaming brightly under the midday sun. The closest warpgate's exit point is located on the coast of the metropolis' bay however, situated within an industrial district filled with far less impressive single floor warehouses, massive shipping containers, and the machinery necessary to load them up and send them out to sea. At this hour of the afternoon, the large harbor should be bustling with activity. And it is, in the worst way. Discarded items belonging to workers have been left behind in a rush, and more than one crane has been abandoned in the middle of relocating freight, alluding to a hasty evacuation. It's far from quiet despite that; explosions erupt up above the building cover further into the city in heavy plumes of smoke and fire, boomblasts muffled by distance. Two sources for two Symphogear users, currently stuck in their own engagements. But much much closer than that, where the exact source of the wide-range distress signal is, the deafening roar of battle also fills the air. In the absence of civilians, a defensive perimeter has been established by the Japan Self-Defense Force directly ahead where the harbor leads in to city proper. Wide metallic barricades and several trucks form the vanguard against advances, with several of the latter equipped with missile racks and gun turrets. In unison with the rifle and bazooka toting infantry, they take aim and prepare to fire once more upon what could only be the Noise steadily encroaching on their position, destruction and ash in the wind left in their wake. They only have two real shared features. A glowing grid that usually but doesn't always sit where you would imagine their 'face' should be, and bodies in heavily muted colors with a static-like haze running over them. Beyond that, they come in many different shapes, sizes, and hues - some are bipedal and humanoid, and some crawl along the ground like slugs or on stubby legs. Others are comparable to hedgehogs or have the appearance of tall sticks, a few fly overhead with forms like stealth jets, and a one roughly three tall and similar to an bloated caterpillar lumbers heavily behind the crowd. The JSDF unleashes a hail of bullets and ballistics into the creatures, and many vanish beneath the excessive firepower...exitting the debris created from it unscathed moments after. Projectiles pass right through them, albeit slowing them very briefly as they do so. Point blank detonations have equally little effect, as if they weren't /really/ there. And while the majority of them continue shuffling forward, several of the Noise at the front spring into action in response, their faded colors shifting vibrant. Hedgehog types curl up and flare out spikes in all directions as they roll forward, and others contort and spaghettify their bodies into thin, makeshift projectiles as they launch off at high speed. The military's frontmost line is torn into, whether it's getting run down or lanced into before they can react. One truck is penetrated in the fuel tank and goes up in a violent blast--but for direct hits, there's no bloodspray. The victims' bodies (and the Noise responsible) turn pitch black at the point of impact, spreading rapidly until they crumble away entirely into piles of dust and clothing. Screams ring out and the atmosphere is desperate, with a few of the less experienced soldiers threatening to break formation--but at least one of them, a trooper with short and spiked blonde hair, does his best to rally the others and shout over the chaos while laying another barrage down. "Don't give up! Until those girls and help get here, we can't let them reach that gate!"
Silver Carnation	A silver shimmer flies through the air. Silver Carnation blasts through as fast as she can, towards the defensive perimeter, where she waves at the JSDF. "Never fear! We're here to help!" A one-handed salute, then, Silver moves to push forward towards the Noise. Her wand can't kill them. But it can push them back. She begins firing at those threatening the formation and tearing apart bodies, silver beams moving to knock the Noise out if they're weak enough, for the others to finish off, as she flips around in the air. She's looking to give the formation some space so they can push forward. "Come on, you brave soldiers! Keep on fighting~!"
Ishirou	I4 lands from the warp gate into a war zone, but then again he was here to respond to the SOS so he was expecting this. Of course, not exactly right at ground zero. If it were up to him, he'd come in from farther away and land in a safer spot. In the air next to him a hovering box with legs makes a beeping sound. 'Hostiles are incoming. Advice: Do not let them destroy the gate they are heading for.' I4 only gives his POD a glance, "Gee thanks, your insight there was very helpful." To which it only acknowledges the sarcasm with a helpful boop noise. I4 starts running away from the large number of monsters, not because he's afraid but rather to get a better range on them. He turns, spinning in his steps to hold a hand out as his POD fires a beam of light out. The light aiming to try and take aggressive scans by forcing a beam of energy through the group. Right now, trying to find out what these creatures are, and how to hinder them will be the first step in completing the mission.
Cantio	"How many can we afford to spare? That few? Then... Understood." Cantio sighs as she hurries through the warp gate, briefcase in one hand and sword in the other as she stumbles to a stop behind the line of JDSF soldiers. Seeing the carnage unfolding in front of her already with their guns doing little to stop the creatures, the purple-haired girl in the sailor-y outfit takes a relatively impressive leap forwards to get right into the frontlines herself, hurling the briefcase backwards and switching to a two-handed stance in one smooth motion. "Try those! Just remember to return them when we're finished here!" She shouts at the soldiers before taking rapid swings at the closest Noise, jumping from place to place to try and get their attention away from the soldiers while staying lgiht on her feet with each leaping slice and graze. Inside the briefcase, meanwhile... Is a whole slew of miniature handguns. They're branded with Cadenza's logo, they're a distinct lilac purple, and they expand to actual handgun size so they can actually be aimed and fired like a conventional semi-automatic pistol. What isn't so conventional about them, however, is the fact that they shoot lasers.
Candy	A v-twin engine is something far, far older than would be common in a Tokyo like this one. But it sure is growling through the warpgate. The bike looks like the great great great great grandfather of those that'd typically be found here, with a seating and handlebar configuration which suggests motorcycles were still a relatively new idea when it was dreamed up. Its rider's dark hair billows behind him, riding goggles and a newsboy cap keeping it from his eyes. Candy has a hard time weaving the bike in between all the items littered across the streets of the harbor district. Eventually, he stops trying--the bike simply vanishing and reappearing on the other side of obstacles, with odd spatial distortions causing his hair to momentarily blow a different way as if momentarily submerged in water. Explosions and the shockwaves from the very same make his riding even more difficult, until with a grunt of frustration, he dismounts, tossing aside the goggles and the cap in favor of sticking entirely with his teleportation. He pauses, atop one of those shipping containers, to form a visor with his palm and look up at one of those stealth-bomber looking types, just after that truck goes up in flames. There's no time to waste. Candy's shipping container is covered in smoke, with odd lights flashing inside of it. When it clears, blown away by the wind, it reveals an equally anachronistic heavy machine gun mounted on a tripod, with a long belt of ammunition and an odd, muffler-looking barrel with a snubby protrusion at the end. Gripping the handles, he aims upwards and begins firing on the airborne Noise--yet these aren't regular bullets. Each one explodes in a fist-sized corona of flame upon impact, adding an incendiary element to its penetration!
Staren	A tractor-trailer truck barrels down the streets from the warpgate to the defensive line. It's a good thing the streets are empty, Staren's not exactly an experienced driver when it comes to wheeled ground vehicles. "There is no need to sacrifice yourselves! Sacrifice my machines instead!" Staren calls out as she swings herself up and stands on top of the trailer for a better view. The trailer's doors open and constructs swarm out. Basic humanoids, robots and golems of metal and stone, and quadrupedal golems and spiderbots, and a swarm of little hovering scanning/camera drones which spread out above the battlefield. Staren holds her left arm in front of her and opens the bulky, bracer-like gizmo strapped there, pretending to type on a keypad inside as if that's how the constructs are controlled. The constructs, if permitted, move up through the soldiers' line to form a protective line in front of them. Most of them are just there as shields, but many of them ARE carrying weapons... and those fire a bit of everything at the Noise. Bullets of lead, steel, tungsten, depleted uranium, or coated with silver; mini-missiles with high explosives, fuel-air bombs, plasma of all different sorts, anti-tank warheads; lasers that cycle through every frequency from IR to UV, and various kinds of particle beam cannons. Some of them even fire... squirt guns? A couple of stone humanoids about ten feet tall or so just march towards the Noise swinging giant kanobo. Staren, for her part, cycles through magi-tech weapons that fire various elemental blasts, and finally teleports in a railgun turret and tries both conventional and (steel-cored) wooden rounds. You never know WHAT will work! But Staren will know, soon. The sensor drones record the effects of all of this, as well as allies' weapons, recording effectiveness and also trying to analyze whatever it is the Noise are doing to things when they attack!
Lilian Rook	The distance from the battle isn't an issue for Lilian. Deployment doctrine is clear. Her role in these situations is well-established. Front line, first response, delaying action and intel-gathering until the remainder of the unit enters their effective ranges. That's not all that much time, considering who she's working with, but for her, it'll always be more. "Don't give up? Do you have a sense of shame, saying something so outrageous?" the voice crackles over the radio. "Paladins Chevalier, Dame Commander Lilian Rook; I'm taking emergency command of this operation. Take your men and roll back. Beginning FPF in twenty seconds." There is radio silence for exactly that long. Lilian switches bands. "Why is the JSDF here? Looking at what I'm seeing, they appear to be completely useless. Is this a Japanese pride thing?" She is indeed looking, down on the battlefield to be precise, from an area of high floating vantage, though her battlesuit blends pretty well with the postmodern architecture on high. "I've told them to begin a rolling retreat. They'll be in the way if they remain so close to the enemy." Precisely twenty seconds later: "Firing FPF one." A solid hundred meter line, north to south, stitched over the JSDF's last position, goes up in flames. A towering sheet of red-black magical fire rips down the barricaded highway just in advance of the Noise, catching any still in the area, but primarily creating a defensive hazard to cover their retreat, stalling the enemy and blowing those closest away. From there, Lilian lands hard on the tower-side of the defensive line. Though she's just now seen what the JSDF is up against, she still reaches for the magnetic holster on her back, grabbing the angular slab of grey gunmetal that is released into her hand over her shoulder. The stock extends into her shoulder, floating actuators extending the barrel forward. Holographic 'iron sights' flare on two different points across its spine, uploading ranging data to her eyepiece. §Immunity to conventional weaponry is going to be a pain for dealing with so many of them. I'm already wasting magic just covering the Extras leaving the field. I'm also not sure what else they might be immune to. It's not as if they're completely out-of-phase though; they slowed down when shot, if only just for a moment. I'll have to verify that mechanism works.§ The ammo counter blinks 144. When Lilian begins sighting and firing, starting with the closest Noise, then jumping left and right, it goes down in heavy increments with each sustained blast of blue-white fire and each incendiary whine. A walking biped; 128, 112. A hedgehog crawler; 96, 80. An airborne enemy swooping over, tracked over her head; 56. The lumbering caterpillar; 40, 24, 8. She watches each reaction with laser-focused, superhuman acuity, magic focused into enhancing her vision, confirming the flight of each tungsten slug, the back and forth recoil motion of her weapon's chamber, the puffs of dirt and asphalt where the projectiles land. Lilian focuses on the exact instant the bullets make contact with the Noise, and their exist, trying to pin down when and why they slow down, and for how long.
Lilian Rook	There's a moment where-- -----[stop]----- Lilian approaches one of the leadmost humanoids. Carefully spacing herself, she moves her weapon all the way up to the point that its muzzle is almost touching its strange, frozen-flicker mass, and then fires the remainder all at once, like a false shotgun spray, points already touching the enemy. She breaks off and leaps back. -----[start]----- --Lilian leaps backwards from a cook-off explosion down range, and tosses her spent weapon, seeing no reason to bother reloading it. The rifle lands on the side of the road, reading 0 for an instant before detecting connection loss and shutting off. "I4?" she hits the radio again. "Verdict on the enemy?"
Muramasa	Dark brown, pointily-tipped boots clack against roofing as the red-headed youth sprints and shows off his agility, bounding between rooftop, telephone pole, and home, in a bid to pick up speed. Of all the times for a Noise attack, he thinks, his reinforced limbs giving him the strength to soar like a blur towards the harbor district. He'd been out shopping for groceries, and his casual wear of a white button-up shirt with a pink flower print design and simple black jeans being his battle-garb for the onslaught ahead, as he wastes no time in scurrying off. Master should be on her way, not to mention, any of those other Symphogear users she works with. Damn, every second I waste getting there, it feels like an eternity.. Plumes of smoke and flame radiate from the battle zone, Muramasa making his final perch ontop of a nearby TV-antennae set up jutting over the edge of a flat, warehouse office's roof. "So these are Noise." It was his first time seeing them. He truthfully knew very little of them, as he and Hibiki hadn't actually had much time to talk about her 'work life', and his relationship with Miku in that regard, as kind as it was, had an air of distance. The soldiers won't last long at this rate ... they're being reinforced by Elites, and that new battle line will help, but I should focus on keeping the Noise contained in an area where they can be exterminated. Raising a hand, he concentrates and loads the gun in his head with blueprints. Swords, spears, lances, knives, you name it -- he was happy that he'd fought the King of Heroes before, and that he'd taken that time to flaunt his treasury before him. It gave him a wide variety of nameless Noble Phantasms to project as ammunition for his Sword Barrel. "Trace on." Commence Projection. The hail of armaments bombard the Noise like mortars, driving them away from the JSDF's defense line, and corralling them closer together for the other Elites; such as Strawberry Princess, or Silver Carnation.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry Princess is a veteran, of course. But some things never get easier. The monsters, those do: the shapes that alien matter can assume to wield violence stopped shocking her a long time ago. But the people, the city... the warpgate, she registers, with a twinge of urgent distress. Things like that, they cut just as deeply as the first time. The screaming. The smell of blackened carbon. The- I am being twelve years old in London. A monster I can't understand is destroying the only place I've ever known, the only people I've ever met. I fight against it with magic I barely know how to use and lose. I'm more powerful, and more helpless, than I've ever been before. The back of my throat feels tight. It'll never really relax again. -weaving between buildings at harrowing speeds to reach the front lines, barely behind Lilian. Strawberry's mind is still reeling; her body, that faithful bundle of habits and nerves, takes the wheel. She floats above the retreating JSDF soldiers like a glittering pink angel, sparing a quick glance upwards at the stealth-jet-like Noise in the skies above. Those are going to get it second. For now, a magic trick: making monsters disappear. "COVER YOUR EYES," she yells, her voice filled with a confidence she really doesn't feel. Aiming through Lilian's wall of black-and-red fire isn't hard- she already has phantom eyes on the other side to guide her shot- but it just might keep the Noise from seeing what's coming. The Annihilator Beam is magic designed to kill extradimensional monsters, lethally overcharged by a plutonium reactor. It's frankly appalling that Strawberry should be able to show any finesse with it at all. But she does: 'feathering' that blinding, roiling light into a dozen eyeblink-quick laser shots, she tries to skewer as many of the Noise with it as she can, hopefully obliterating them down to vapor and dust. Just before the beams can continue on to hit the buildings and civilians behind the Noise, they swerve upwards at a hard ninety degrees, lancing up into the sky harmlessly like an unbearably bright light-show.
Chase	"Move. Leave." Chase doesn't give the JDSF soldiers a chance to comply with his demands as he simply pushes past them, having approached the situation from behind. Probably not the smartest choice, given that there's now guns being fired from behind him, but a stray bullet or dozen smacking into his backside isn't the biggest of concerns. It's a short power walk from where he is to the main horde of noise, Break Gunner in one hand as he robotically reaches out with the other for one of the human shaped ones, grasping it by what could generously be described as neck as they lift it off the ground. BREAK The weapon in his hand growls as he throws his free arm back, before thrusting it forward with a surprising amount of might and slamming it into the gelatinous creature's torso. The metal protrusions on the Break Gunner's guard let out a purple explosion as it connects, and Chase lets go of the creature, letting it soar through the air and through several others of its kind. Chase pauses his assault, pushing the barrel of the murder device into their palm, holding it there before it produces another sound with an accompanying technofart jingle. BREAK UP! Letting go, Chase is surrounded by phantom armor pieces that clash into him as he's now suddenly dawning a suit of what could best be described as mangled purple and black car parts.
Hibiki Tachibana	SILVER CARNATION streaks in like a sterling meteor, the sudden entrance drawing several eyes up and away from the chaos. Most of them weren't /actually/ expecting help to get here in time, and a real life magical girl being the first of several dramatically flying in to save them might as well make her the equivalent of an angel in their eyes. The Noise are slow to respond to her speed, and while several of them barely scatter, a few are blasted directly--and it's surprisingly effective. Their bodies, whatever they might be made of, have holes punched into them by the blasts, and they seem to struggle to try and start slowly regenerating. Her and CANTIO leaping in, the latter actually managing to smash one away, seems to put a genuine second wind in some of the troopers. The newly minted laser guns, kicked open by one enterprising soldier, are put to use laying down supporting fire to give both of them a little more reaction time as they're chased down and attempted to be made roadkill out of. I4 manages to get a direct scan across on several Noise, laser sifting right through them and picking up on their structure. A couple things are obvious at a glance; they're unthinking. There's no hint of a brain or any similar organ in there, nor standard organs. They're a purely carbon-based lifeform, if you can even call them that, which explains why they're reduced back to it upon destruction - but much more odd is that they don't seem to be entirely /existent/. It's different between the ones in the back and the brighter ones further ahead, engaging directly. The latter are much easier to pick up info on, and also leave much more of a physical impression on the world around them, with this phenomenon greatest at the moment before they make contact. 'Phased in' as opposed to 'phased out'. That's likely why attacks on the offensive Noise is actually having some success. CANDY rides in roughly, and the reveal of his gun adds another layer of gunsmoke to the atmosphere. The flight types come under siege, but their agility is something else. Several of them barrel roll out of the path, and even the ones that do get clipped seem to have the explosive rounds pass through without triggering their detonation. But he's certainly grabbed some attention, and several of their bodies brighten up as the other had as they make to literally divebomb him - they cut down low, pick up speed, and attempt to ram right into his jeep and have it end up exactly like that truck. LILIAN guns her way through Noise, who seem to recoil and actually be singed by the magical flames she conjures up. Less can be said for their reaction to her traditional gunfire, but she gets the information she's looking for; the point of slowdown is exactly when the projectiles make contact, ending when they pass through the other end. It's the leadmost one she stops and fires upon that gets blasted apart--unable to adjust its phasing in the briefest moment after being unstopped as its turned into a pincushion. Her roll has put her in a position where she's being towered over by several stick-like Noise though, bearing beaks like birds on circular heads. While she's tossing her weapon, they spray a substance somewhere between slime and webbing, which turns out to be severely adhesive to the point even superhuman strength would have difficulty forcefully getting loose.
Hibiki Tachibana	MURAMASA meets resounding success both when it comes to coralling them and actually inflicting some damage. Where the rain of Noble Phantasms strike, they actually leave noticeable gashes in the Noise's bodies regardless of some of them being more phased out than others; as if responding to this, they rush to avoid falling beneath the assault and end up heading right where he wants - which between that and Lilian, opens up the ideal chance for STRAWBERRY PRINCESS to tear through their ranks. The Annihilator Beam is /supremely/ damaging, superceding their phasing entirely and reducing even the carbon they're made out of it into nothing. But before either of them can do anything else, they're subjected to the Noise's equivalent of artillery, stumpy ones with a trio of stalks extending above them belching a volley of shots that arc high up over the battlefield and come down to try and bury them both. STAREN and her machines offer up a much needed vanguard that aids in a majority of the soldiers having the space they need for many of them to fall back from the front - Lilian's order to retreat seems to have gotten through, to the momentary silence of the man from earlier who nevertheless starts getting people to move without any more hesitation. Most of the weapons (even the squirt guns) seem to have about as much luck as conventional firearms--however, the machines themselves seem to pose quite the obstacle for Noise who can't just distinegrate them, and the elemental blasts from the magitech weapons actually seem to have a bit more give when it comes to having an effect. Her sensors can tell. Between that, and the actions of Strawberry, Silver, Muramasa, and Lilian, a running theme seems to be that 'magical' things are somehow guaranteed to work out better. CHASE power walks at Noise power walking back at him, and its lurch forward ends up with it being picked up and blasted point-blank. The ones its sent flying back into phase themselves out in order to avoid being sent scattering, and there seems to almost be a moment where they look at his human figure and stop--but Mashin Chaser gets no such pause, and several of them barrel in at a sprint to simply try and run him down in a dogpile onto the ground.
Cantio	With the fight beginning to turn around at least somewhat, Cantio takes a moment to actually use something magical for once. A brief, yet pleasant musical tune rings through the air around her as the same tune follows her allies and the JSDF soldiers, bolstering their overall fighting prowess in some vague manner beyond the more physical laser pistols offered to the latter. Before she can get a full healing spell out as well, however, she's charged at from multiple angles by the rolling noise! She leaps backwards to relatively safety to try and keep them all coming at her from one angle rather than three, but that does little to stop their charge. She braces her oversized blade in front of her to angle them at least a little away from herself, although the successive impacts still break her guard long enough for the last one to roll right over her. "No wonder the soldiers here were having such a hard time... But it's okay now, because we're here!" Shaking her arm once to restore some feeling to it (with a bit of aid from healing magic), she twists the handle of her sword and launches multiple pieces off of it, each one stopping in mid-air after traveling a short distance away. With the noise moving around so erratically, she can't chase them, so she instead opts to channel her energy into the bits. As she does so, lasers start bouncing from piece to piece, creating a confusing array of lasers that just keeps spreading towards the noise by the second in an attempt to reduce their evasion angles through sheer quantity.
Silver Carnation	The soldiers respect her. They see her as an angel. She can feel it. Silver Carnation basks in it, playing with the Noise as they attack her, showing off for the soldiers to give them the ability they need to fight back. She would have taken no damage at all, if she had played it safe. Instead, one of them glances her Shimmer Aura, causing small bruises to appear where it strikes hard. The Hedgehog Noise is promptly shot backwards, as Silver prepares her attack. "SHIMMER AURA TO ARMS!" She removes her protective barrier, focusing it entirely on her arms... And then sends out silver copies at as many of the Noise as she can, punching and hitting. Her 'true body' is a copy as well, hanging back and shooting. The goal isn't to do the most damage possible in the one true attack. It's to get as many of them angry from her fake attacks, as the most accurate attack ends up being the one at range due to taking advantage of their phasing, if this works according to plan. Hopefully, the Noise notice her ranged self, and start attacking her. She'll make more copies for defense, if that happens... Hopefully, her physical attack isn't the most accurate, though, because then she's stuck in the middle of them. Woops.
Ishirou	I4 falls back, attacks nearly piling up on him as he tries to get farther and farther away. Thankfully, Muramasa's shield protects him from the worst of it, and in fact, once he skids to a halt...he's simply uninjured despite being struck. It's a strange feeling! However, he has data, and that data gives him an idea. Slower attacks will do better, which is interesting to him. However, magical and metaphysical attacks will work as well. He uploads the information up to the HUD for those using it and starts to filter out important data bits. "Biohacking unit online. POD targets the bigger ones first and has it come across the rest like a wave," he says before firing several balls of light. This of course causes the BGM to shift into eight-bit mode as the hacking minigame is started. He aims to try and shoot out anything that looks important to the shifting system. Trying to force their shifting off, or rather, prevent them from being able to shift out. This would of course cause a cascade across the area, trying to repeatedly target the same ability, trying to cause damage as it continues to arc from monster to monster. More than that, it seems to paint a target on them.
Muramasa	"So it's true. Their bodies are maintained by Mystery. Their ability to self-recover diminishes and is overcome either by raw power, or by overcoming the Mystery with a greater one.." In that regard, Noble Phantasms were perfect counters to them. But, it also informed him of why the Symphogears were created the way they were; which had been the largest question brewing in his head after he'd thoroughly examined Hibiki's Gungnir. "..?!" <J-IC-Scene> Muramasa says, intoning deeply, "Trace on. Get behind me." Extending his hand to the air, Muramasa closes his eyes and concentrates. Rather than a weapon, this was a shield, or more accurately .. it was the idea of a shield. A bounded field that repels attacks and inflicts the blowback onto its bearer in the form of a curse as it fails. Commence Projection. On the spot, projecting something like this -- even with a Master providing him with magical energy -- was difficult. If he had more time before the stumpy Noise obliterated both himself and Strawberry Princess under their bombardment, then he would probably be able to project the completed version just like Archer could. But he didn't have that time, and so could only do the best he was able in the time he was given. Blooming from his outstretched hand is a three-petaled flower of light, and from its "stem" expands three bright bounded fields. "RHO AIAS!" THE SEVEN FIERY RINGS OF HEAVEN Rather than seven, he could only produce three layers of defense. But against the onslaught he was being faced with, even as the first layer came dangerously close to shattering -- it held strong, and true. Muramasa breathes out as the iridescent barrier fades away, having done its job of protecting himself and anyone who had taken cover behind it. "Mere Noise like yourselves could never surpass even those three rings." With the opportunity given, sweat dabbling down his brow, Muramasa maneuvers himself to Strawberry Princess so that he could grasp onto her 'wand', "Hold on." "Trace on." Reading the blueprint in his mind, he began to fill it with his magical energy. Any crevice or nook that could fit it, he strengthens it to its limit. "I'm not sure how much this will help, but it should do something for you. Now ... time to show my stuff." Releasing her with a nod, he breathes in deeply and prepares himself for an even larger burden of Projection Magecraft. "Alright...I'll put them on the backfoot." Rather than a controlled fire like before, the projections of the countless armaments hung in the air around him, in a way eerily similar to Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon, almost. Spears. Swords. Flails. Sickles. Lances. Scythes. Knives. Daggers. Stilettos. Tachi. Nodachi. Claymores. Shortswords. Kukri. With over two dozen designs loaded into the gun in his head, all that was left was to accelerate every manufacturing process and loop this stage over, and over again. It was the same set of nameless Noble Phantasms, but they would be conjured over and over and over and over and over again in an unending hail of suppressive bombardment to drive the enemy where they needed to be, and weaken their ability to fight back. "Open Up!"
Staren	"Wait, what?" Staren hears Strawberry announce to cover eyes, and then hits the deck -- she can still see through cameras what happened, though. As she stands up, the scan data finishes processing, both her and I4's. <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Enemy mechanics confirmed." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "The immunity to conventional weaponry is automatic behaviour but not a passive trait." <J-IC-Scene> Staren says, "Mmh. They have to become solid to attack... and their attacks are less effective against inorganic material." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "It seems like they can't move or attack while phased out like that, but bullets only spend a fraction of a second moving through them." <J-IC-Scene> I4 says, "Yeah, that sounds right. The smaller ones are less a creature and more a construct. The bigger ones seem to have more sense of self." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "So, slower. Or stick something inside them." <J-IC-Scene> Staren says, "Magic is generally more effective, too." <J-IC-Scene> Staren says, "or time it perfectly while they're trying to kill my robots." Said robots try to coordinate attacks with their remaining weapons on noise that are actively attacking them so as to catch them phased-in, but they are steadily worn down. They've done their job, Staren's focus is elsewhere now. The Noise are a problem looking for a solution. The magitech bombs Staren USED to incorporate into rounds for the mecha sniper rifle before the Ghost of Maslow Peak stole it are a solution looking for a problem. Back at the Elysium Apex, machines assemble a remarkably simple mortar design and warp it to Staren. Staren sets it up on top of the truck, aiming a projected AR targeting arc to try and hit in the middle of the noise when others drive them together and I4 forces them to phase in. "Mortar out!" She calls, transmitting location and timing data in various standard formats, and covers her ears as a shell launches into the midst of the noise, timed to detonate a few feet above the ground. Inside that unassuming sphere is the key, though: storage crystals loaded with opposing magical elemental energies which mix and explode, hopefully lending a certain mystical effectiveness to the attack! Staren raises a fist and jumps. "Yeah! Take that! That's the power of SCIENCE, Noise!"
Lilian Rook	Assessing the full suite of reactions, Lilian opens the tactical channel again. "Enemy mechanics confirmed." Two green flashes. "The immunity to conventional weaponry is automatic behaviour but not a passive trait. They decohere the instant they're shot and rematerialize once the threat is passed. I strongly suspect they can't actually judge attacking threats." She glances to the retreating JSDF men. Good. "It seems like they can't move or attack while phased out like that, but bullets only spend a fraction of a second moving through them." Considering the further information she gathers from the info specialists, she adds "Massed fire is only going to be any good for pinning down a very small number of them. The autonomic behaviour of the smaller ones seems like it can be exploited, if you can catch them blind or utilize something they don't recognize as a threat vector; magic seems to be the current ideal. As for the larger ones, if they actually are any kind of intelligent; if they're manually timing the phase, then combination attacks might work." In the meantime, several of the gangly ones have converged on her position. The unfortunate liquid sprays out in a solid, all around formation. §Considering that slow rate of movement and that high physical vantage, I'm not surprised they're ranged attackers. Since they aren't able to hit from very long distance, they must be operating in a support capacity. If that goo just carbonized people on the spot, it'd have been deployed already. So what is it? Responding to a specific kind of threat? What threat do I represent to them? If they're mindless, it has to be some kind of flow chart response, right? A battle plan? Are they actually programmed for mass combat?§ Lilian curls her fist around the pointed solar cross pendant around her neck, the glamer burning away and dissolving into a thick cloud of heavy black fog. She draws her sword from the shroud before it's even dissipated, throwing the scabbard aside for now. The stance she takes is a preparatory posture for a lunge, not at all ready to help her escape from the descending net of goo. Maybe she intends to try and cut it out of the air somehow. Scarlet light floods both edges, forming a diamond hard bar of red light where the power gathers into the black blade's arcane etchings. "Cleasa Iontach ~ Ciorcal Gealach Lán" The balance of light and dark around Lilian briefly inverts. Her shadow flashes white, the sunlight on the road turns black, and the glow of the Noise becomes a monochrome silhouette. Only the scarlet line of her sword moves. A blood red crescent arc, touching end to end to form a full circle, extends around her to slash through all of the surrounding Noise at the same time, then geometrically expands in size and range, slicing through the mob all the way out to thirty meters in the blink of an eye. It disappears in the same blink as the snap-back of light and shadow, followed by only a subtle warp in the air.
Lilian Rook	Killer In The Night Mist is a fey blade that was forged not only with the smelted and folded souls of beings from the Otherworld, but with such a surpassing, retributive hatred of the very idea that it physically embodies an automatically deadly type matchup with 'Outsiders'; things that intrude on Earth from realms Other. Lilian presumes it'll have no difficulty ashing the Noise here. It is, however, too late by that point to dodge the net of falling goo, now where her head was when standing up straight. Unless-- -----[stop]----- No time to waste. Lilian ducks and action rolls from under the suspended canopy of gross fluids she doesn't want to test out. Opening one of her hard carry cases, she drops a rune-marked stone at her position, and then she begins sprinting, throwing several more into the air, set to fly off into corners of the main intersection. -----[start]----- --she 'teleports' from right out under it. Which she does. "Preparing for Terrathree maneuver. ETA fifty." she radios.
Chase	TUNE - CHASER SPIDER Mashin Chaser slots a small silver car into the top of the Break Gunner, producing another voice line as a silver claw shield materializes and fastens itself to his arm, the sound of scurrying spiders filling the air as it does so. Spreading his legs and stancing up, they prepare themselves for the oncoming dogpile, using the newly formed shield to take some of the heat of the attack off of them. Refusing to budge even as they continue to stack on top of him, he removes the car he had just slotted in, replacing it with a new toy car. TUNE - CHASER COBRA The arm shield splits in half, releasing a length of long metallic whip. With a sudden display of brute force, Mashin Chaser swats the gaggle of Noise off of him, and then quickly flicks his weaponized arm to whip the opposing creatures in twain. Though currently free now, taking it upon themselves to act as additional bait towards the small fry. It's stupid. Or possibly selfless. Probably selflessly stupid.
Candy	Candy is forced to abandon his spot when he draws the attention of one of the fliers, The MG isn't going to cut it against the flying ones--and that's bad, because one is heading right for him. He leaps off of the cargo container, the flying Noise slicing through the MG, its water tank emptying and spilling everywhere. The Noise ends up striking him square between the shoulders, sending him flying towards-- his bike. Candy hits it. As the wind is knocked from him, everything stops. The Noise, still lit up, is frozen in midair, making a beeline towards his bike. The bike hasn't fallen over yet, but it will. So these sons of bitches, they will avoid anything they thing is a threat. Instant, just like that. Okay. Okay. Candy grins. I will bet you they do not see each other as threats. Candy takes a moment to create a pair of illusions. One illusionary Candy, situated just at the point where the real him would still be, had he not cheated. The hair is a little too light. Two, a bike which will hide the fact that the -real- bike was knocked over, by the real Candy. It should conceal the stick of dynamite he placed beneath it. Then, he marches through the chaos. Cantio's lasers take a bit of maneuvering to get through, his face illuminated by the frozen beams as he dips under them. He pauses to watch Silver's frozen aerial ace maneuvers, stifling the urge to utter a low whistle. There. The quill-shooters. The ones that shred themselves to ribbons to attack. And the big guy. -There's a 'clunk' near Candy's bike. -There's a hissing by that same bike, followed shortly by an explosion. -Noise quills abruptly redirect and fire on the airborne Noise. -Spaghettified Noise limbs wrap around the big guy, attempting to tie it down for Cantio's lasers. -Candy (the real one) appears behind Rho Aias, uttering the low whistle he'd previously resisted the urge to utter. "That's pretty good," he says to Muramasa, patting him on the back. "You ready for the grand finale, Mr. Blacksmith?"
Strawberry Princess	It's a simple truth that most humans- and most monsters- think in two dimensions. When you aim at someone, you're prepared for them to juke left or right, not up or down. Strawberry Princess is different in the way that only someone who has had wings for a very long time can be different. When the artillery barrage comes in, she floors it upwards, hurtling into the sky at near-blackout acceleration. That should- -no, one of the artillery shots clips her in the leg anyway. Her Shimmer Aura flares pink around the point of impact, saving her from broken bones, but she's turned around in the air by the momentum of the blow. For a moment it looks like she might fall; again, deeply ingrained near-spinal reflexes save her. She narrowly twists and weaves around two more of the shots in the process of reorienting herself, then soars back into the sky until she's nearly a dot overhead. Ordinary Noise seem to be type-weak to the Annihilator Beam, but that isn't the only type advantage that Strawberry has. Those stealth-jet-like Noise are perfectly in her purview, even if she's terribly outnumbered in the skies. You understand the way they fly, even if you can't articulate it. How they corner and accelerate, how hard they can hit the brakes, the way gravity pulls on them or doesn't; the way their present location blossoms out into possible future courses. The sky only looks blank if you're a novice. To you it's lit up with zones of danger and zones of safety, gradients of risk and relative positional advantage. Strawberry's aerial dance is breathtakingly artful and totally unfair. Turn into the acceleration so the Gs are eyes-in; roll into the swerves to minimize enemy-facing profile. Her Annihilator Beam's fire mode is altered to fit: thinner lasers blast out in a shotgun cone, then abruptly swerve to home in on the target Noise, converging on them to block off every escape route. It's graceful, methodical, splashing and ashing them one by one. Elsewhere, a ghostly-pink eidolon of a seventeen-year-old magical girl materializes next to the Warpgate and layers a spherical forcefield over it, keeping any Noise from casually breaking and running through. It perches atop the dome, holding its wand patiently at the ready for interlopers.
Hibiki Tachibana	CANTIO'S laser barrage meets plenty of success, bolstered by the additional lasers added in to the mix by the now-retreating soldiers - there's thankfully not many Noise still on the troopers because of their efforts, and they do a lot more good than they were previously when they're able to fire safely from afar. Between her and SILVER'S excess of copies being sent into the fray, the creatures begin faltering underneath the constant assault and being physically battered around. Many of the magical girl's attacks find their mark under the circumstances, in the wrong way--in that the only thing they seem to be able to actually even try hitting at the moment /is/ her physical-oriented clones as they land dead center strike after strike, lashing back out with wide sweeps of their hands and blades, for those that have them, several more attempting to do the same to Cantio whenever she gets close enough. I4 gets into their biological systems, as alien as they are. On some level, they don't work like any other normal lifeform does or should--but there are definite things to tamper with. On the ones that have modes of direct attack, like the spikes of the hedgehogs, they can be likened to something like disintegrator organs, with a slightly different composition from the rest of them. Similarly, something has to control their ability to dimension shift, and it's a process of elimination to find something that disrupts their ability to do so, staggering and momentarily halting the affected ones. It's only one of many things that leaves them exposed to MURAMASA and STAREN'S attacks, a barrage without end topped off with an especially potent finisher. The magical blades, nameless as they are, shred through despite attempts to allow them to phase past, and the unique construction of the bomb turns the blasting zone into a storm of elements that get several of the JSDF members lowering their guns (and laser handguns) in awe of the spectacle. LILIAN doesn't get the answer to her internal queries from the unspeaking Noise, who are incredibly ill-equipped to deal with the obsidian blade she brandishes--her aggressors' lanky bodies and many more beyond them are cut in twain like butter, its unique properties being sufficient for rending them apart beyond even something like Muramasa's forged blades. The gap in the horde and CHASE'S own slicing attack relieve a ton of pressure on everyone involved, and though the latter might be getting chased around by stragglers, he's much more equipped to deal with it than a lot of others here. CANDY does get his answer, in that Noise don't seem to have aggression towards each other--they also lack the intelligence to avoid diving headlong into his bike and going up in smoke as they phase in to attack, and the abrupt rearrangement of setpieces has quills tearing into airborne Noise and tying down the largest monster, who writhes and lets out an inhuman roar. The former have an especially bad time when STRAWBERRY asserts dominance over the rest of them, who will not get an easy ticket to the gate away from most of the chaos, unable to penetrate her barrier if they could even reach it in the first place as their high-speed maneuvers fall victim to the homing shots. The skies clear, carbon falling like ash.
Hibiki Tachibana	To the JSDF's open-mouthed awe, the Noise that seemed so insurmountable before are being suppressed, and even the warpgate itself is no longer in danger of being breached - but that doesn't seem to stop the largest of them all, writhing and thrashing even under its limb-bindings and the barrage of lasers. Unable to get itself free nor cheat its way out via phasing thanks to I4, the gargantuan caterpillar Noise begins /absorbing/ its comrades that were made to bind it down. Their mass melds into it like a cross between rubber and slime, and it steadily begins swelling up in size. In the process, its begins vomiting out masses of what looks to be the very same material everywhere across the surrounding area. It's corrosive, like the Noise's touch, and the hazard isn't limited to just having it splash on you; where it lands, more Noise begin forming themselves up out of it. Rather than seeming to use up of its own material for this, the 'leader' only continues growing in a blatant disregard for transfer of energy, threatening to reinforce their ranks all over again if something isn't done about it, quickly. It's difficult to tell if these things understand the concept of a last ditch effort, or are simply doing everything they can to do whatever they're here for on instinct. But as soon as they're formed, the newly created Noise begin going back on the attack in various ways, single-mindedly throwing themselves into the Elites in a flurry of projectile-bodies, goopy webbing, explosive balls, and spikes. If nothing else, their utter aggression and lack of caring about their own safety is as dangerous as their ability to decompose organic matter.
Silver Carnation	Only one of Silver's copies truly hurts the Noise. That's one of the physical clones. Indeed, only one Silver also takes damage, that same clone, skidding backwards with more bruises along her arms and a gouge along her unguarded abdomen, thankfully shallow compared to what it could have been. The others just fade away. This is the only real Silver Carnation. "IT'S TIME!" Silver suddenly flies into the air, not bringing up her Shimmer Aura. "We called this one...SHIMMER BREAK!" Flying at max speed, one fist moves to slam into the pile of noise, fast enough to start sweeping through those that have been phased by I4. She moves to break as many as possible with a single fist, trying to destroy 'more' than Strawberry Princess. She knows she can't put out more power than Strawberry Princess does. So she flies high in the sky, once more, in position for the retreating JSDF to see her. She salutes them one more time. Earn their favor. And then one final divebomb. Maximum fist overload. Both fists swinging hard to destroy the Noise!
Ishirou	I4's discovery about how the noise are /complete bullshit/ causes him to frown. How dare they violate the laws of physics like that! This causes him to have a big frown and a think. Of course, this lasts for all of ten seconds as the giant noise monster tries to throw up on him! The Android manages to just barely dash out of the way of the blob. More come trying to bury him in the awful slime and convert him into blob. Thankfully, manlet android is very tiny and lithe, making it easier to get away from the death trying to puke itself on him. "POD, Annihilation mode!" he calls out, as the pod transforms into a bringer of death. Missile pods slide out of the side, a giant laser splits out of the face of it, and various other magical wards appear around it. I4 flips around, throwing his hands forward in a dramatic-mid air motion. This is followed by missiles flying out, a giant beam cannon being fired, and several energy balls that EXPLODE upon hitting everything going out. He gets a radio from command, 'I4, we told you not to command weird battle modes into your POD,' to which I4 frowns. He'll never be cool.
Cantio	As the battle turns their way, Cantio's feeling rejuvenated at the sight of the soldiers making good use of her weapons. "You're doing great, everyone! But please, be careful! We'll handle the cleanup, so make sure you all get home safely!" She warns/encourages the soldiers even as she weaves through the ranks of the noise, focusing primarily on fighting in melee range so as to make herself an ever-present target. She knows she can take the hits, after all. Better her than these soldiers. With Silver's copies nearby, though, Cantio's able to put more focus into actually returning those attacks instead of just trying to hold her ground. When the noise come in swinging with those meaty limbs and deadly blades, she starts opting to just counter through their attacks instead of her prior back-and-forth. "We need to finish this before anyone else gets hurt... Come on, Noise! You can't stop me like this!" Something starts to burn inside Cantio as she actually shouts in almost-anger. Stepping into a painful swing on one side, she bites back the pain while jamming her sword into that limb and dragging it sideways in turn. A slash comes her way, and she takes a slice to the side just so she can slam the hilt of her weapon into its... Face? She's not sure what she's looking at, but she's pretty sure she can hit it real hard at that range. Rushing into another crowd, she braces that sword against herself and waits until all those swings have come in and impacted against her weapon and herself before detonating the blade. It explodes outwards around Cantio in a shower of fragments, each one acting like a tiny laser to just tear through whatever Noise are unlucky enough to be in the way.
Lilian Rook	"Antegent, Endlings, and now these things. I wonder if 'prophetic' might have been meant in more ways than one." Lilian speaks out loud as much to herself as anyone else, her radio only catching it incidentally. Lowering her swords, she takes off again, moving at high speed from street to street, this time on foot. The giant boss monster forming even before her very eyes doesn't seem to dissuade her from whatever her plan already was. She's completely focused. "ETA thirty." Lilian radios. The Noise splashing all over the streets again won't stop her. Now that she knows how well Night Mist works, she cuts throught ranks of them without even slowing, her sword flashing back and forth with instantaneous flicks, like something made of light and killing thoughts rather than something with physical weight. Where she runs, additional runes are added to each set of street corners. "ETA twenty." Rows of fodder dissolve into ash behind her. She could fly over them, but then she couldn't take the corners as sharply as she does. Ground under her feet lets her pivot and sprint at whatever degree she needs to. A convoluted route, traced block to block to block. The giant Noise is constantly on the urban horizon, fixed in distance and height. "ETA ten." Carbonizing goo splashes all around her. Lilian weaves through it as if she can already see exactly where it's all going to land. Its originator is kept at an exacting geometric length wherever she plants her Ogham markers; the same four characters, over and over again. She almost unconsciously thanks Japanese city planning. Just a few more blocks. "ETA five." Lilian slides sideways to an eventual stop at just where she'd started, ash and dust spraying from her heels. Glancing down the street she'd chosen first, she sees that it's already begun filling right back up again; she'd killed hundreds in that time, but it's like her winding rampage will have made no difference at all in another minute from now. However, that's not the point. Crouching down to an almost meditative posture. Lilian slaps both palms to the ground, closes her eyes, and begins counting down. "Four." The runestones marking the four corners of each intersection begin to glow from their arcane characters. "Three." Sacred geometry spills into each intersection, crisscrossing between runestones and expanding into a magic circle across the whole juncture. "Two." Artificial leylines race down roads and undercut buildings, leaving glowing suggestions of earthen veins that join each circle together into a single, tremendous super-circle, each of the twelve points she'd chosen, equidistant from the giant Noise, creating an inner sub-circle within its bounds. "One." The cascading sequence of concentric circles, smaller and smaller, more and more focused, roll inwards faster and faster, like reversed ripples in a pond. With them, seismic motion. Splitting cement. The earth roused from slumber. "Terrathree maneuver inbound!" Lilian lifts her hand, connected to burnt handprints in the ground by coruscating arcs of natural energy, and claps them together with the same rhythm as sparking a detonator cap. The druidic magic collapses together at its exact, geometric epicenter, flowing along its sacred patterns with such intensity that it burns out the short-lived leylines on the spot. The single feat of nature manipulation --the earth-- is for one purpose; to erupt under one point and explosively launch the giant Noise sky high.
Candy	"FUCK!" Candy runs both hands through his hair, jumping up into the air and stomping his work boots into the ground behind Muramasa. The big guy just sucking up all its minions isn't what he wanted to see--and he especially didn't want to see all of that muck being spewed everywhere. Rho Aias is gone. He didn't know that could happen. So he narrowly avoids being completely covered in caustic goo--but he still gets splashed on the leg, hurriedly conjuring a stream of water before it burns all the way through. With a nasty-looking burn and a hole burnt through the seat of his pants, Candy grabs Muramasa by the shoulder. "Come on! I got an idea!" The two of them promptly are Gone. They reappear a few yards away, clear of the splash zone of another glob of caustic goo. It feels... it feels, for a moment, a split second, as if Candy tugged Muramasa into a raging current, and then it is gone. The eyes don't process it, but the body, or perhaps something yet more essential, does. Candy tosses the Ace of Spades onto the ground before him. Fire roars upwards, extinguishing into smoke, where strange lights dance within. When it clears, there stands a massive mortar in gunmetal and olive drab, complete with armor plates just before the loading chambers to protect Muramasa and Candy as it fires. "Soup this thing up while I do the ammo!" The gun looks like the middle evolutionary stage between modern heavy artillery and 19th century cannons--each has a number of metal knobs for traverse and elevations, plus two enormous wheels with wooden blocks affixed to keep them from rolling backwards and crushing whoever's meant to be firing them. That'd be Candy. He's working on shells easily the size of a human forearm, and judging by the way he uses both arms, they're heavy as a motherfucker. Candy sets it down, then begins rapidly working several hand-cranks on the mortar to adjust elevation as Lilian's attack launches it. "Open that hatch! We're gonna do it in two--" Candy slots the heavy shell into the mortar, closes the hatch and heaves the knob to the right, setting it to rapidly spinning closed. "Move, if you don't wanna get squished! Fire one!" He cranks a thick metal lever on one side of the barrel, hurriedly runs over to create another shell, as-- CRACK A deafening roar sends the mortar rolling alarmingly quickly backwards, those wooden blocks slowing it down only a little. The shell flies into the air with a whistle, as the mortar rolls back into place. "Ah, shit, that grey stuff burns... Fire two!" The second shell is slotted in, another deafening CRACK As it is fired. The first one explodes over the giant Noise, and... it's... cards? The payload is cards? Playing cards. Candy grins, as they gently tap into the staticky hide of the growing beast, transmuting to a softly flowing stream of water. Candy holds a finger up, his eyes aglow with mischievous, prideful delight. The second shell explodes, and this rain of cards is stuck to the Noise's body by the water from before. Only these don't transmute into water. They explode, flash-boiling the water in an attempt to cook the Noise alive. Candy presses his thumb to his index finger, throws an arm around Muramasa, and kisses his fingers like a chef appreciating a spicy meatball. "That's pretty good, ah?"
Muramasa	The goop pooling at his legs, knee deep, was like acid. Muramasa staggers, nearly tipping over into it face first as more Noise begin to form from it. "Gh...!" Even with a full-body reinforcement, it was chewing through it as if it were nothing more than hot butter. There's a brief lull in the barrage of projections, as he releases his counter-attack in a resumed, full-force bombardment focused around his person to skewer the Noise in a hail of blades. ".....hhhhhhhhhsh...!" With a low hiss as his knee buckles and sends him down, he still somehow refuses to cede to the attack. After all, if he failed here then -- In this situation, he'd probably die. And if he died like this, then some of the people around him would die too. The ruddy liquid running off of his now throughly ruined pants and arms, showing that his legs and knees had been burned in such a manner that if he'd been a normal human, he should have already died from shock. But these injuries ... are nothing compared to that time. My muscles are being compromised; then I'll reinforce them. If something stopped working, then by reinforcing it, he could force it to keep up for a little bit longer. Now that he was receiving a regular intake of magical energy from Hibiki, he'd be able to sleep this off, eventually. Thankfully, Muramasa does not need to continue firing in the corrosive pit of muck, as Candy spirits him away -- to the weapon he'd mentioned before, Muramasa realizes. Soup this thing up while I do the ammo! "Leave it to me. Trace on." Placing his hand against the massive cannon, he begins the analyze its structure, and downloads the blueprint into his mind. Carefully, so as to not ruin the armament and have it explode on them, Muramasa begins the process of strengthening it. Commence Reinforcement. The tell-tale grid of blue-green light begins winding up and wrapping around the entire armament as he brings out the full, complete potential of the weapon by, even temporarily, eliminating any impurity or flaw in its structure. Open that hatch! We're gonna do it in two-- Pulling the designated hatch open, Muramasa winces as he sees the burns running up and down his arms, before stepping back to allow Candy to continue his work. The artillery, all dolled up and nearly ready to go, is aimed and primed. First. And then the second -- and Muramasa's jaw drops a little, "Impressive, that's undercutting it, isn't it?!"
Staren	Staren's focus isn't on micromanaging the robots holding the line, so when the noise move /between/ them, no action is taken to stop them until too late, and they're surging past right towards Staren! Her eyes widen in alarm, but instead of fear, there's confidence -- she prepared for this! She pops open the bracer on her left forearm and dramatically PRESSES A BUTTON as the wave of ooze looms over her and then crashes down, obscuring her from view... When it settles, there is no catperson scientist but instead 11 feet of high-tech armor. With a neck guard on the right side, wide shoulder guards, twin searchlights in the chest, and a helmet with a distinctive T-shaped visor, this is the most recognizeable and iconic power armor of Staren's world! What? No, the OTHER most recognizeable and iconic power armor of Staren's world! The Northern Gun Samson! Brand new, and already the Noise have dissolved away the paint job and started eating away at the armor, but it proves to be even more frustratingly resiliant than the horde of robot mooks was! The truck, however, is not, and as the trailer collapses under it the power armor falls on its ass. Fortunately no one can see Staren's expression through the helmet as she hurriedly rights the armor, and raises some kind of assault-rifle-like weapon in its right hand. It's adorned with crystals and bits of jade connected by armored conduits, with a a jeweled panel covering the place the ammo belt normally feeds into. Staren gives a little push of magical essense from inside the machine, and then starts firing telekinetic bolts of force at 240 RPM at the horde of noise as Staren runs to an optimum firing position, making a jet-assisted leap onto a building to-- Oh. That's what a Terrathree is. --Staren stares for only a second, then leaps up to the highest building nearby, aims the magitech-refitted railgun at the giant Noise, and unloads!
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry glances down at her wand's five-minute timer as the sky refills with bandits. "Terrathree in fifty," Lilian had said- how many seconds ago now? 03:43 Too many. She's got to get the sky clear before she can commit to a maneuver like that, and that'll be a game of razor-thin margins. Fighting in three-dimensional spaces is exponentially more complex than fighting on the ground; against one opponent, maybe you can use your head. Against this many, the information overload is too much. Nobody can solve that like a puzzle. You've got to trust your heart. At least that's something she's good at. Too many of them. Roll, dive, pull up, get distance. Turn around, find one on predictable trajectory. Squeeze trigger. Too many, minus one. The fewer there are, the less threat. But the less time left, the more I have to hurry. "ETA five," Lilian says. There's still a half-dozen of the flying Noise in the sky with her, but Strawberry's forced to start charging up her wand. "Four." It shrieks and keens under the strain as control rods pull out. She's temporarily defenseless- almost. They swoop in towards her. Can't outrun them, have to keep vision on Lilian. "Three." One plunges towards her from above. She flares her wings, jukes backwards hard enough that her vision swims with black dots, and evades it by inches. The sharp base of her wand is skewered through it as it passes, now that I4's rendered it unable to phase out. The tip of her wand is glowing an utterly blinding white, making it hard to see; she squints her eyes against it even behind her visor, trying to keep up her maneuvers half-blind. "Two." One shrieks towards her from the side. She pulls out her Glock and empties half a clip into it as she narrowly twists out of the way, then unloads the rest into another and drops it- no use reloading with one hand. Three left. Her wand is tainting the air with the taste of metal, radiating a pins-and-needles sunburning glow. "One." By bad luck or coordination, the remaining three jet-like Noise converge on her at once. Create a forcefield for one to ram into. Slam the second in the head with the pointy end of her wand. The third- A laser cuts through it from far below, near enough even to singe her skin. Strawberry's ghostly clone at the Warpgate lowers its smoking wand; Strawberry herself lets out a shaky exhalation. Clear, and not a moment too soon- her wand's reactor is starting to glow an ominous dull orange, its tip emitting a spotlight of Cherenkov blue. "I have you, Lilian. Firing!" _________ _________ ______ ______ ___________ _____ ________ _ __________ ________ ____ _____ _______ _______ _____________ ________ _______ ______ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯ There's an unbearable noise like thunder drawn out into an endless, bone-rattling roar. There's a light that destroys every shadow in the city, bleaches every color to white, and sets fire to grass and paper with merely the heat of the photons. But the scouring beam of magical radiation is aimed safely up at the airborne giant Noise- the only way it could ever be fired in a city.
Chase	A tsunami of goop floods the street and sweeps the Shinigami off their feet, causing them to tumble through the debris left on the street until they're able to regain their footing and anchor themselves down against the tide by wrapping the prehensile whip around a nearby street lamp. TUNE - CHASER BAT Mashin Chaser swaps in his last miniature car and presses the barrel of the Break Gunner into his palm, the blaring sound of machine-back music playing until he lets go. EXECUTION The shield on his arm unfolds and moves itself onto Mashin Chaser's back, becoming a pair of wings, and with a single flap, lift him into the air. With Lilian having launched the giant Noise into the stratosphere, the only thing they can do is follow after it. Putting their feet together, they ascend up, legs outstretched in a double foot kick fashion as they spin around rapidly, aiming to corkscrew their way through the gelatinous Noise construct. They're flying straight up as a result. Wings do not work like this, gravity does not work like this. But with the power of tiny toy cars, anything is possible. FULL BREAK
Staren	This time, Staren doesn't need to flinch or dive for cover. The Samson remains expressionless and just keeps emptying telekinetic force into the Noise as the light from the beam illuminates it. Inside, the visor automatically blackens as Staren safely appreciates the sheer power of the Annihilator beam on a screen inside the helmet. It's a thing of beauty.
Candy	Time stops. It's like there's a star being born, as the flames from his and Muramasa's work are frozen in their burning dance. But the light isn't coming from those. No... it's coming from a brilliant pinprick of light. What the fuck is that, ah? That's bright as shit. That's--the girl with the wand. If it gets any brighter..ah, why take chances? Besides, I wanna see. When time resumes, Strawberry's beam is reflected by four very dark, very thick lenses. Muramasa and Candy look like a couple of pulp fiction mad scientists.
Muramasa	With Candy's protective eyewear suddenly finding itself on his face, Muramasa takes it in stride -- after all, that light was pretty, being able to see it in any level of clarity was breath taking. Of course, that only made the weight of its burden all the headier. It was more than possible for him to create another one of those wands, now that he'd had the opportunity to analyze it, but ... He wouldn't. The idea of doing so was so repulsive it made him shudder in anger, a small and cold relief that another one wouldn't be made, at least, not by conventional methods in Strawberry's world. Her and Lilian really do make a terrifying team, huh. "Ah, man .... I'm beat. But at least we prevented anyone else from being killed by the Noise. That cannon, it's not bad ... I might make one."
Hibiki Tachibana	Noise are utterly eradicated as Silver Carnation pummels through them at breakneck speed on her way to the big one, I4 unleashes hideous amounts of firepower on them as they're phase-locked and have no chance of physics-shitting their way out, and Cantio heroically pushes through their attacks to point-blank blade-explode them and sent them scattering into mid-air disintegration. The massive Noise doesn't fare any better than its spawn, thrashing wildly underneath Silver's gut-deforming smash and then Reinforced mortar shots, the double transmutation causing its hide to grotesquely bubble and broil to the point of erupting in certain spots. The opening act of the Terrathree maneuver sends the Noise skyborne, its bloated frame looking almost wrong as its flung upwards above any of Tokyo's buildings and screeches the whole way up--Staren's railgun shot takes out an disgustingly massive chunk of it and sends it spiraling out of control on its way up, followed directly by Mashin Chaser ascending to the heavens and kicking a gaping hole directly through its fattened body. It's wide open and exposed, high above the city engrossed in pure light, where even its gigantic form silhouettes within the Annihilator Beam for the briefest moment...before being scattered away within the cloud-piercing ray of nuclear light. And then, everything is quiet. Carbon piles of various sizes big and small utterly litter the area, much of it being blown away on the wind--but thanks to the efforts of all of the Elites here, the vast majority of it belongs to the Noise rather than humans. The damage done to the surroundings can be repaired, but lives cannot, and the government clean-up crews will ensure things return to normal in this area of the city before too long. The JSDF's troopers, if they were in awe before, are utterly stupefied after watching that, most of them still staring up straight upwards. And then they unilaterally let out a horde of cheers and hollers, many very unprofessionally rushing forward towards the whole lot of them. Silver gets all the attention she could want, with more than one of them actually shouting about her being 'our shining angel!' Others go to support Cantio and ask if she's okay while thanking her for the weapons, while the trio of Chase (when he comes back down), I4, and Staren both get accosted with too many questions about all their equipment. Candy and Muramasa get much the same after that mortar trick, on top of talk of that dynamite trick and all the swords. Lilian and Strawberry (also when she comes back down) also get a good majority of attention, though almost all of it is kept back by the same Actual NPC Coded soldier from earlier who keeps some semblance of order--doubled up when two other magical girls, a very familiar one in orange and a less familiar one in blue, also finally manage to approach the scene looking heavily beaten and battered in their own right. The former of which still has her head tilted up to the sky.
Staren	Staren (once she's jumped down from the building, the Samson's jumpjets allowing it to land without even cracking the pavement) is swarmed by questioners! "Ah, I, uh..." She raises a hand, flustered, but her face doesn't show through the armor. She gets a few seconds into explaining before she says 'wait' and the armor opens up so she can climb out. Staren is happy to explain everything that's been learned about the Noise, and about armor technology and how to get it from RIFTS Earth. She's not sure what weapons will really help, though -- magic weapons that can be used without magic power yourself are a rarity, although she can look into it. She's happy to agree to supply robots to help hold the line in situations like this though, against Noise mooks who are too dumb to not attack them the same way as organics. "Actually..." She holds a finger to her chin. "Just how dumb are they? Would they go for cardboard cut-outs or dummies...?"
Ishirou	I4 settles to the ground thanks to some acrobatic tricks and holding onto his box with arms until he hits the ground. This is where he is ambushed by people asking about equipment and the like. I4 just laughs good-naturedly at all of the attention and tries to explain details. After all, he would be willing to help make there be less things that fake physics.