Scene #7684: Temple of Three Winds: Defender of the Three

Owner	Pose
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	GREATER TIR COUNTY TEMPLE OF THREE WINDS Morning on Rubi-ka is strange and beautiful. The planet's two suns appear unevenly over the horizon, one blue, one orange, the planet's orbit around them causing them both to appear close to one another, making for an unearthly brightness for the first hour or so. Everything is cast in bright relief. The sahara around you soon gives way to sprawling, vast desert, and just in the distance, the Temple is visible. A sandstone courtyard, flanked by three towering busts of granite, with smaller sculptures in their shadows. The psychic inoculation has already been applied courtesy of Flux, your Meta-Physicist ally, allowing you to not only see the Temple, but to see as it truly is. Somewhere inside it, Gerard's grandson Connor is being indoctrinated by a cult milennia in the making. Something happened last night--the entrance to the temple is littered with three dead spiders in green and orange, the size of small automobiles. They're known as bloodcrawlers, Bercilak advises, and are native to the region. They were all killed cleanly and professionally--two with some sort of short, bladed weapon, one with a precision shot from a weapon quiet enough not to have disturbed your sleep the previous night. To take such care in their work, yet leave the bodies there, suggests that whoever did this must have thought they'd be in and out quickly. Flux conjures that unusual, blue-and-black mottled crook staff, a weapon formed from his own inner calm in a very literal sense--just being near it, one can feel a sense of quiet resolve. "Me and Berc will handle the rank and file," he says, as he lifts both arms up in communion with some unknown shadow of his psyche. First, there is a sense of broiling anger and aggression, a dark pinprick forming a foot from the crook of his staff. Shadowy tendrils sublimate into sinewy flesh, weaving together a gnarled, eyeless red mass with a dark, gaping maw and serrated tentrils. It utters a guttural sound like some slumbering beast in a cave, as Flux conjures two more. The second radiates a benevolent, nurturing sense of compassion, with its tendrils more suited to fine manipulation. The third is the most abstract, and the closest thing your mind can glean from its presence is 'the quiet peace of sleep.' With his work done, Flux sticks himself with some sort of blue autoinjector, stuffing it into his messenger bag afterwards. "We'll try and keep pace, but Berc's gonna send me ahead if you guys run into anything serious. My manifestations'll keep y'all topped off, throw a little hands, and fuck with their heads. I'm an up-close guy, too." A pause, and a smile towards Hibiki. "I don't got 'bikki hands, but I make do. If y'all need to take care of anything before we head in, now's the time to do it."
MEDEA	MEDEA is here! She came last minute, did not sleep, did not eat, did not drink, because she does none of those things, really. Instead, she introduced herself as the 'fabulous hacker Meddy-chan, or MEDEA', and started her last minute prep instead of questions, a bunch of floating supertech 'bits' that are probably beam cannon hands hovering around her. MEDEA begins looking for signals, pulling up a golden HUD. Electronics, digital, security systems, anything she could pinpoint on and beeline to in order to take control of. If there's a lack of it to mess with... Well, that's what the beam cannons are for.
MEDEA	As she's doing her hacking, MEDEA also asks a question. "Oh, do you have any form of that 'vision tea' for mechanical lifeforms that can't drink it? Or will it be fine? I'm pretty sure I'll be fine, but hey, better safe than sorry, riiiiight~?" :3
Rita Ma	Rita the perfectly ordinary girl kneels next to one of the 'bloodcrawlers', inspecting its injuries closely. No, that doesn't give quite the right impression- she's inspecting their wounds, the mysterious visitor's slices and shots giving little windows into the inner flesh. Her focus is not on the attacker, but the attacked. I'd heard of spiders, but I never saw one up close before. It's almost like a crab, isn't it? But with no claws, and with so many more eyes... it'd be sort of cute if it weren't so big. When (she thinks) nobody else is looking, Rita pokes her index finger into one of the wounds, gets a little hemolymph on it, and then licks it off. It'll aggravate my hunger, but I ate last night, so I can keep it under control. And even if it doesn't have a useful power, I'll have some idea of what they can do in case they come for us, too. She turns and looks back over her shoulder, doing her best innocent impression of someone who wasn't just slurping spider blood. "Are these common here, Mr. Bercilak? Or do you think they 'belonged to' the cult?" She seems to be otherwise ready, despite giving Flux's summons an occasional wary look.
Karlan Nobles	Pramanix and SilverAsh, too, are here! Having never seen Rubi-ka's twin suns rising before, they take a bit to watch it from the corners of their eyes, squinting rather quickly once it ends up getting horrendously bright. Advancing through the desert might be a little tricky at first, but they quickly get used to it once Pramanix brings out the oversized sun hats. SilverAsh: "Have you considered pouring that on yourself directly?" Pramanix: "That's a waste of perfectly good tea, though. Unless... Can you taste it all, MEDEA?" Noticing the weird spider corpses, the siblings examine them briefly while Flux explains the plan. SilverAsh seems to be rather interested in the cuts in particular, drawing a gloved hand over them and nodding in approval. Pramanix, meanwhile, seems more interested in the temple itself, especially when Flux mentions the likelihood of throwing hands. "As long as we stick close and focus on our strengths, we shall persevere. Although... I do really want to see you both in action as well. Such different styles of fighting..." Pramanix almost sounds more like a kid looking forward to a schoolyard fight than someone on a rescue mission. "And yes, what Rita said. Do you think we'll see these inside as well?"
Hibiki Tachibana	The vision from before weighs heavily over Hibiki's mind, still. She Saw. The disaster that afflicted Rubi-ka witnessed with their own eyes, the tragic tale of Or-Jeran...and what became of the man, if the being burning orange and walking long and lonely path for so much time she can hardly imagine it still fits anything she imagines a 'man' to be. More than anything else, she thinks she pities him. She pities him and--as much as she'd like to say empathizes, the level of 'alone' she's felt before can't be compared to what's led him to this point. But those are thoughts she keeps to herself, for now. Connor needs to be rescued before it's too late. She's already clad in her Symphogear, and her preparation takes the form of rolling her shoulders and flexing her hand open and shut, glancing between her palm and the corpses of the bloodcrawlers as Rita and the siblings from Karlan inspect them. They might just run into more than they expect... "You sure do," she replies to Flux with a very small and wry smile, glancing towards him as her thoughts go back to the arena. "And we really owe you for all the support. These guys, too." The first of the manifestations is still one she doesn't really want to get too close to, but the second of the three giving off the good vibes she actually leans down briefly to set a hand on and pat, very gently, before rising back up. "I'm ready to go in any time. The sooner the better, if you ask me."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	oAre these common here, Mr. Bercilak? "Verily! Thei idwell mani places hither, from Tir to Athen to 2HO. Fern ago, thei wert dight to quell leets and rollinge-rats." "Yeah," says Flux. "But they've gotten a lot bigger and a lot meaner than them days. I'm surprised you knew that, B--that was like, hundreds of years ago shit." Bercilak taps the side of his bucket helm with an index finger, and there is good cause to believe he's smiling underneath there. "Todai thei art aknoued to quell iman and rat unk bothe. Methinks theim," he says, pointing to the dead spiders, "Had nede of quellinge, elles that theim that journeied thither wouldst hath a noisome entringe." In other words, they were killed because whoever was coming in didn't want wild animals blowing their cover--apparently the spiders are noisy in their predations. Whether or not they might be inside, though--neither Bercilak nor Flux seems to know the answer to that. MEDEA is searching for electronic devices... There's nothing here with any Grid connection--it would be rather unusual for a temple in the middle of nowhere, after all. But there is something that shouldn't be here, for sure. It's a tacnet. At first the encryption seems difficult, but it quickly becomes evident that no one is at the wheel, which is never a good sign for the health and safety of anyone who'd be running one. It appears to have been operating on radio silence for the past several hours, but with patience MEDEA can glean from the OS of the hardware being used who the manufacturer is: Omni-Tek. None of the users logged into the tacnet have been active since late last night. There's not much more info to go on, because whoever was using it was also using a system of nonverbal communication that'd take longer to crack than would be practical. They were, however, following some sort of beacon located within the facility. She can pinpoint the beacon's last known location, but it seems as though it's since been deactivated. Hibiki pets Mortificant the Eternal. The goodvibes manifestation pats Hibiki back, its tendril flattening to provide a better patting implement. It then points at the door and rotates itself in a 'nodding motion.'
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	THE FRONT ENTRANCE Is foreboding in its simplicity. An enclosed downward slope, watched over by a human skull with eerie green lights dancing in its eye sockets. At the end of it, there is a metal door which slides open at your approach. Even with the clanking of Bercilak's heavy plate, and the monstrous breathing of Flux's 'manifestations,' the hallway is unnervingly quiet. There is, in the first few steps, a slickness to the floor. Looking down reveals bloodstains, smeared across the floor as if someone was dragged backwards. A look towards the opposite side of the door you came through shows a bloody handprint just shy of the archway built around the door. Inches from escape, someone was caught. Who? OBJECTIVES: -Rescue Connor -Investigate the Temple OPTIONAL: -Find out who infiltrated the temple and why -????? The entry hallway widens before long, the downward slope leveling out. Great, polished pillars of stone line this area, illumination provided by strange clusters of light that seem to exist absent any obvious source. They interact with the pillars to cast long, intimidating shadows. An inhuman face formed of stone, with a ring of glowing blue set into its forehead, sweeps the hallway with its baleful, glowing white eyes, reciting scripture in some language the Understanding fails to convey to you. You do understand one word, when its eyes lock upon you. Its features contort as a living being's would, its eyes narrowed with cold, hostile zeal. Infidels. From behind the pillars emerge roughly a dozen cultists. Their heads are shaved, their foreheads branded with circular symbols resembling the one on the stony face. You have evidently interrupted some group prayer, but this religion appears to be a martial one. Each cultist wields a weapon, from two-handed hammers to straight swords to clubs formed of human vertebrae. This last weapon, and a scythe with a haft formed of those same vertebrae, appear to be the favored weapons of the school's martial art. Pounding a fist against that huge green harness of his, Bercilak charges into the fray, locking down the cultists with two-handers through the oppressive reach of his own weapon. Flux, meanwhile, sends his manifestations into the fray--Aggression rends flesh from bone while Peace mesmerises and Benevolence heals what wounds Flux suffers from the cultists' weapons. "Keep going! We'll catch up!" The door at the end of the hallway leads to a split in the path. EAST and WEST look identical, but before you can choose between them, a brown-robed figure stands in your way. He turns over a combat knife, examining it by the light of one of those strange pockets of illumination. "What feeble weapons you infidels carry," says the robed figure, turning to face you. His eyes are glazed over, but there is certainly a sense that he can see just fine without them. The knife is tossed aside, the blade sticking from the stone tile on the floor, as he calls forth one of those vertebrae scythes, the blue blade gleaming menacingly in the dim light. "I am Yuen the Faithful," says the slender figure--stepping closer, his visible veins mark him as a nanomage. "Infidels will go no further." Yuen attacks in broad, sweeping strokes, but the weapon's blade isn't all that's dangerous. He's just as ready to strike with the haft, and even mixes in nanite manipulation to create point blank vacuums, attempting to rob the breath from you to secure killing blows.
MEDEA	As the group enters, MEDEA relays her findings. "Omni-Tek OS on their tacnet. Hard to discover WHAT they've been saying due to nonverbal comms. Tracking a beacon. If you've got maps, I'm pinpointing them now." Ping! As Bercilak and Flux handle the small fry, MEDEA is slashed up by the big guy, Yuen, his scythe sparking against her armor. It's the nanite cloud that really hurts - while vacuum isn't usually a problem, the nanites affecting her are, and she finds herself struggling as she's on the backstep. But even so... "Great! It's fun time. Let's make it harder for you to swing that thing." The beam cannon bits start lighting up, as they all orient themselves around her, MEDEA herself taking a defensive position. The bits begin humming with power, crackling with energy, before the beams blast forward, fwoom! They impact with Yuen's arms, half to each, trying to cripple or damage them enough to make a precise strike difficult. "We could have chatted this out, but you said infidels, and I'm totaaaaaallly an infidel, so, yeah!"
Rita Ma	When the cultists first reveal themselves, Rita tenses up, her hands curling into claws rather than closing into fists before she shimmers out of visibility entirely. She's ready to throw down here and now, but- Right. Flux and Bercilak will handle the 'small fry'. If we're going to find that boy, we have to keep moving...! "Got it!" thin air calls back in Rita's voice, followed by pounding footsteps as she sprints further in. Only once they're safely away from that skirmish does she re-materialize, fading back into view like droplets of food coloring dissolving in water. That proves to be a mistake when the nano-mage sucks the air from her lungs. Rita's eyes go wide, her hands clapped over her mouth as if to catch the breath before it leaves- but to no avail. She only narrowly manages to dive under a scythe-swing while still choking and land on her hands and knees, but- Wait. I can breathe water, too, can't I? Seawater floods Rita's lungs in an instant, spilling out of her mouth and nose to cascade down onto the floor as it overflows. She tries to match Yuen's banter with some witty repartee of her own, but all that comes out is burbly aquatic noises. Rising from the floor, she throws a sharp superhuman uppercut at his jaw and fades back out of view. That'll have to do.
Karlan Nobles	Pramanix: "Someone's been pulled this way." SilverAsh: "Then they may be intended as a sacrifice. A living or dead one, however, remains to be seen." Pramanix: "We should hurry either way. Even if they're dead, allowing even one more of... Whatever this is to happen won't sit well with me." After spotting the bloodstains, Pramanix is in hot pursuit of whoever it was! Relatively in hot pursuit, anyway, since she didn't exactly see who's gotten dragged away or who did it, but it's slippery enough that she can at least guess it's a recent occurrence. The bloody handprint all but confirms that, and she already has her bell out with one hand holding the chiming bit against the side so as to not give away the group's presence right away. That inhuman face staring right at her sends chills down her spine, and there's a moment where she's about ready to begin fighting when Bercilak and Fray's manifestations just blast right past her. SilverAsh, too, runs past Pramanix, heeding their directions and only glancing back momentarily to signal for his sister and anyone else that might be hesitating to continue onwards. Coming across the path split, SilverAsh brings a hand to his sword's hilt while Pramanix releases the ringing bit of her ritual bell. The swings from that strange scythe come far faster than either of them expected, too, with SilverAsh only able to block the shaft while the actual blade slices into his side. Pramanix, lacking an actual blocking implement of her own, takes a nasty cut to the arm as well, and they're both forced to back off shortly after the vacuum starts pulling the air out of their lungs. "Keh... Where did you take them?" Pramanix gasps out as she starts ringing her bell, leaping back while ice forms along the walls and ceilings. As it grows, it starts flaking off and falling towards Yuen, sticking to the cultist's robes and building up without melting while amplifying the effects of strikes against the building frost. "It's fine if you won't answer us, but don't expect us to hold back if you remain silent." SilverAsh speaks next, slipping forward underneath another scythe swing while drawing his blade in passing. He slashes at Yuen's legs first with a swift sweep at knee level to try and hamper the cultist's ability to move, then snaps the blade behind him to thrust it straight at the same leg. He finishes that off by pulling the blade back in a rough sawing motion, both to inflict yet more damage and to get his weapon back to his side.
Hibiki Tachibana	Normally, Hibiki is a fluffy cat kind of person. Mortificant the Eternal is not fluffy nor a feline, much unlike Pramanix and SilverAsh over there who are both in spades, but it is pleasant to be around and kind of cute in its own way. Pat pat. Let's go, little guy. INSIDE: "The skull's a nice touch," she says flatly on the way in, her body noticeably tense as they proceed. The quiet is...grating. It gets under her skin. Though the unnerved kind of pit in her stomach becomes a much worse one, when she realizes what they're stepping in. "Blood--" Without thinking about it, she picks up the pace, potentially ahead of the others. Out of the entranceway, into what seems to be a much more proper hall. She does not get far before stopping in her tracks, wide eyes locking back up on the oppressive eyes of the scripture-reading statue. And it only takes one look at the defenders that rise up, bearing their marks and their--are those weapons made from /people's/ bones? "We're counting on you guys!" Taking a deep breath, Hibiki pushes on forward at full sprint ahead while trusting in Bercilak and Flux, only for one more figure to block their way. "Yuen--" Is it too late for the long-time faithful in the temple? 'Minds set to one singular purpose'...maybe there's nothing to be done now, but maybe, if they can resolve the cause behind all of this... But she's getting ahead of herself, and it nearly gets her caught out, the air leaving her lungs and her eyes going wide as she's almost pulled into a swing. It's a good thing she's not singing right now. But she barely deflects it with her armored gauntlet, stepping back briefly to take a heavy breath in before diving back in. "These hands of mine are naything but feeble! And you--" That vaccuum technique is a problem. But the scythe, she can step in to where it's hard to bring the haft around to her - to unleash a barrage of punches and elbow strikes into Yuen's body, ending with an shoulder strike to send him flying back. "--aren't going to stop us from finding Connor!"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"They were to be added to the ranks of the faithful," Yuen answers Pramanix. "But they were troublesome in their resistance to the truth of the Immortal One. Even in their last breaths, they spoke in their wordless infidel tongues, plotting to steal his holy armaments." Yuen is skilled, but it's clear that he's overwhelmed. The haft of his scythe comes up to force SilverAsh off target, but the blade still strikes the opposite leg. He and Pramanix have him on the back foot. Hibiki's remark about Connor draws a troubling, cold laugh from Yuen--but he's not laughing when she's able to so quickly advance on him. The cultist has scarcely gotten his balance, favoring his unwounded leg, when he's forced to fend off a leaping assault from Hibiki. Skill is one thing, but she has more than him--and is substantially stronger, too. Her strike sends him flying into the WEST wall, hard enough to crack it. Shakily, he gets to his feet, conjuring a prismatic screen of light to try and block MEDEA's bits. The multiple angles of attack and the force the weapon is capable of quickly shatter it, causing some sort of ruinous mental feedback judging by the nosebleed and the way he stumbles forward. Nanomages are infused with notum at conception, exposure to the mineral also called 'the stuff of creation' bestows them with a higher capacity for nanoskills and psychic power--but it also makes the most physically fragile of Rubi-ka's metabreeds. Rita has virtually no opposition for her uppercut, and can feel Yuen's jaw shatter like glass in the moments before her strength lifts him off of his feet. He is out of commission. A single, dusty page falls from his robe. Hibiki in particular may find it interesting--it appears to be one page of a manuscript detailing the style the cultists here use. It is written in the language of Or-Jeran's people and not any living language, but there may be experts on Rubi-ka who could translate it. As it happens, the EAST and WEST paths both empty out into the same room. As Bercilak and Flux catch up with you, the extent of the Temple's history of kidnapping and indoctrination becomes clear. Spread out before you is a dimly lit courtyard large enough to train a monastery's worth of martial artists. This grand indoors courtyard branches out in three different directions, entrances spaced evenly at the WEST, NORTH, and EAST sides of it, with the NORTH entrance in particular being slightly elevated above the others, serving as a kind of dais from which Temple authorities can observe the daily exercises of its faithful, provide sermons or condemnations. You have entered at precisely one such training session, with easily dozens of cultists training under the instruction of a black-robed leader of some sort. Her forehead brand bears a second, smaller circle within the first, denoting a slightly higher rank than Yuen and the other cultists.At the sight of you, she places her palm upon a pedestal bearing one of those unnerving, lamp-eyed skulls, and a large coffin-like structure is lowered from the ceiling, eerily floating down with no evident form of machinery responsible. Halfway through its descent, the lid of this heavy stone sarcophagus is blasted off, flying towards the party as Bercilak, Flux, and the manifestations handle the swarm of incoming cultists. A pale, misshapen creature which might once have been human emerges. The Defender of the Three Its skin is pallid and shot through with veins as black as night, making the nanomage you fought before seem hale and healthy by comparison. Its ribs are distended, its lower body covered in some sort of ascetic robes, while highly invasive cybernetics are bolted into its shoulders, a sort of collar or blast shield rising so high as to cover the lower half of its face. Its eyes are black, beady pools of nothing, its fingers inhumanly long. It floats from its descending carcophagus, hands extended, and sends ribbons of lightning dancing across the battlefield.
Karlan Nobles	Pramanix: "That's one defeated..." SilverAsh: "But there's bound to be more. Stay on guard, everyone." Pramanix breathes a sigh of relief as Bercilak and Flux catch up, more than willing to let them and SilverAsh lead the way with the rest of the frontline fighters. Heading through the similar paths, the siblings take a moment to glance in each direction of the courtyard upon reaching it. Before they can pick a direction, however, the group is spotted by the leader of another group. Said leader becomes a freaky veiny cyber monster, and they're once again caught off guard without knowing what attacks it's capable of until after getting caught up in the indoor lightning storm. SilverAsh, being the responsible big bro/sturdier of the two, leaps into position to protect Pramanix from the lightning strikes while she keeps her bell-ringing ritual going to start encasing the sarcophagus with dense ice, expanding upwards rapidly as if trying to catch the screwed up-looking creature and hold it in place for everyone else to annihilate the everloving crap out of it. Pramanix: "What kind of twisted ritual could create such a being?" SilverAsh: "Does it matter? If it's in the way of our objective, it must be eliminated for the sake of our charge." Pramanix: "Y... YES. It does!"
MEDEA	As the group continues into the training session, and the Defender of the Three shows up, MEDEA is fired up. Literally, as lightning fries against her armor, sending her skidding back with even more sparks. "Man, I should try dodging more!" She really should. Instead...she brings up the beam cannon bits again, and focuses them all on one location - the upper half of the creature's face. Beams blast out with another fwoom, and this time, they all work in conjunction to do one thing. Melt as much of its head and saw to the brain as possible. Each beam converges, boosting their power and making it hard to defend if they get a pinpoint strike!
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki regains her stance after her assault, eyes narrowing at what that laugh referencing Connor could have meant--but she's allowed to put her guard back down as MEDEA and Rita seal the deal on things. "Nice punch." The latter gets a very approving nod as she steps forward, briefly bending down to pick up the fallen paper with some curiosity. "This is..." She can't read a lick of it, but she can infer enough to tell what it is. The martial style that these cultists use...there's probably nothing like this taught anywhere else. If she could find someone who could, maybe talk to Bercilak and Flux about it after they're done here... Hibiki tucks it away for now. Don't ask where. In her armor's skirt section? Wherever her clothes go when she transforms? They all hit the menacingly lit courtyard, a place she can definitely imagine rows and rows of monks practicing their motions overseen by their master. She'd be able to imagine that even were it not happening right this very moment, and said instructor is given a glare right before she summons the next obstacle in their path--and she's forced to flip out of the way of the coffin lid sent towards them. "This place is totally messed up--!" Hibiki thought as much even before she laid eyes on the being that's been released to fight them off. Lightning comes down, and without really stopping to think about it, she lets out a roar and punches forward, the piston in the armor slotting back and punching straight back in. The resulting burst of raw force sends the electricity that'd hit her forking, though plenty of it still leaves both flesh and metal singed and charged. But that doesn't stop Hibiki from charging in before it sparks back around at her again, launching forward in a full power leap. Her other hand is what comes around, pulling back to unleash a blow aimed right at center mass to send it flying. It's more than just an angry hook, though. These hands of hers can do more than that. In the brief moment of contact before the force hopefully goes through-- Is she going to be able to feel a spark of thought in this creature? Pain, anger, or any other emotion? Or did they turn whoever or whatever this used to be into a cybernetically overloaded monster?
Rita Ma	A wheezing gag expels at least a gallon of saltwater from Rita's lungs as Yuen falls. Breathing it is all well and fine, but she can't talk like that! "G-good job, everybody," she manages between sniffles and coughs, straightening back up from her doubled-over posture. "Hibiki, come left with me? You three can go right." Whether or not her suggestion is followed ultimately doesn't matter: both forks lead to the same horrific sight, transfixing in its scale. Rita stiffens up in shock as she soaks in the full size of the cult's operations. Every one of the people here was innocent, once, or at least a normal human being. The magnitude of an evil that crushed them into this... it's written all over her face that she still can't fully take it in. Dodging a flying coffin-lid breaks her out of that reverie; her body's already distorting subtly as she replaces herself with a decoy and fades back out of view. That thing... is it a human, or a monster? No, there's no point in asking. Monsters that hurt people need to be killed, even if they used to be humans once. If nothing else, that's a decision I get to make. Fortunately, facing Gilderganon has been a superb primer on how to dodge electrical attacks. Her decoy discorporates; it'd only conduct the shocks back to her. Instead she relies purely on her agility to get out of the area of the attack and her invisibility to avoid being specifically targeted. She rematerializes running along the walls and launches a strand of gooey silk from the Spider Arcgalael at the Defender. As she makes a full wall-running circuit of the room at breakneck speeds, the Defender is wrapped further and further in the vitality-draining webbing! First lesson: spider silk doesn't conduct electricity. After a full loop, the silk strand goes taut and Rita's pulled off the wall by her own centrifugal force. An outstretched foot turns the full momentum of her tethered 'orbit' into a crushing kick, aimed squarely at the Defender's cybernetics! Second lesson: shoe rubber doesn't either.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Mortificant the Eternal quickly flies from the melee over to MEDEA. Dozens of green tendrils work in tandem, spot-synthesizing industrial chemicals to both mend her chassis and to induce chemical reactions serving as hasty weld-jobs. It gives her a tendril-up and then hurries back over to help Flux, who is taking a trio of cultists on with his enmity and peace manifestations. The Defender of the Three erects a glimmering, concave shield before itself--almost certainly the big sibling of the one that Yuen used. This one covers its entire body. Hibiki's fists crash into it. So, too, do the beams of MEDEA's array, Rita's kick, and Pramanix's icy assault. Frost envelops it, locking it in place. The kinetic impact from Rita and Hibiki seems to bleed through, as does that of MEDEA's laser. It's odd... everyone's attacks seem to be bleeding through the barrier rather than shattering it. Its inky black eyes fixate on the two of them, with nothing but the blind malice of a zealot. Whatever humanity this creature once had was drilled out of it long ago. Hibiki's only able to feel the dimmest shred, past centuries of indoctrination. It is the Defender of the Three--the sacred guardian of the Temple's secrets. Yet as its skin cracks from the combination of the cold and MEDEA's lasers, as cybernetics are dented by the force that bleeds through from Rita, its eyes spark with something resembling dark glee. Its ribcage folds open, revealing the extent of how invasive those cybernetics are. The place where its lungs might once have been is occupied by a massive set of subwoofers, which begin emitting an ear-rending low tone loud enough to shatter the earthen tiles making up the floor. Only having just finished the last of the cultists in their brawl, Flux is brought to one knee--while Bercilak takes the easy route and simply removes his own head, striding without it towards the massive stone sarcophagus lid. What's most insidious about the noise is that it drowns out the psychic assault the creature is making--a malignant presence spreads, creeping into the mind and eroding the sense of self. Are you You? Or are you merely the hand by which the Immortal One shall destroy the unbelievers? Even those with resistance to such unnatural influences will find little relief--the Defender's gnarled, too-long fingers weave another program, causing the skeletons of the slain to burst from their bodies and swarm the party!
MEDEA	As the noise blasts forward, it smashes into MEDEA. Her beam cannons fire off one last salvo, but it's too late. She's sent out of the fight, skidding back, still conscious but needing some heal time. "Sorry, guys...guess I'm not a frontline combat model after all, haha..." She's a bit embarassed, especially in front of all these cute girls (and SilverAsh). Though, Flux can probably patch her up enough for the next time.
Karlan Nobles	SilverAsh: "What a revolting sight." Pramanix: "Is this the sort of thing temples in this world are used for?" SilverAsh: "This is barely a temple at all." When the ribcage of the cultist-turned-something opens up, Pramanix is actually quick on her feet for once and conjures up a defensive wall in front of her. It doesn't quite do much to redirect any of that noise or stop it from shattering the tiles, but it does absorb enough of the vibrations that she and SilverAsh are mostly just shaken by it rather than having their bones rattled. And then they hear the voice. Or... No. They feel the attack on their inner selves. Pramanix's mind starts to wander on what she even believes in, and Silverash starts to contemplate just what would happen if he went absolutely apeshit on anything and everything. Before they can let those thoughts drag them down too far, however, they're able to shake it off just in time to see the skeletons coming out of their hiding places/bodies. Pramanix: "There's still more of these?! Ah.. Take cover, MEDEA!" SilverAsh: "At this rate, we might as well destroy everything we see in case more of these appear." While Pramanix conjures up more of those ice walls around MEDEA to keep her covered and to crush skeletons when they topple right over, SilverAsh starts hurtling himself around the courtyard. Each time he comes close to a group of skeletons, he flicks his sword out of its sheathe and back inside with one quick motion, creating slicing waves in the air to carve through several of them at a time.
Hibiki Tachibana	Deep in there. Too long under this place's influence. Too, too long. Hibiki doesn't have the time, and maybe not even the ability to reach down that far even if she tried her hardest. At this point, the best she can hope for is to relieve the Defender of the Three from its duties, and hope that gives some kind of peace to whatever it is used to be. But she was not expecting that terrifying glint in its eye, nor the sonic assault released by its revealed cybernetics. "What...!?" She's forced into a one-eye-shut wince, her stance buckling before she also drops down and needs her hands to support herself. If only she could yank her own head off like Bercilak. And her armor being song-powered, unfortunately, does not seem to help her one bit here as her everything vibrates underneath the ground-ripping thrum. That's not really what's keeping her down, though. It's what's probing at her head, chipping at her idea of who she is. If anything, she's more vulnerable to it than an ordinary person. She mentally punches back against the wear on her psyche to little effect, looking visibly unfocused as she turns her head up to the sound of MEDEA being blasted back, and skeletons tearing free to rush them down. That impulse to 'destroy the unbelievers' sparks with something, and her reaction is volatile. "As if I'd ever--" She growls through tightly grit teeth to nobody in particular. Everyone is here. Bercilak and Flux, MEDEA, Pramanix and SilverAsh, Rita...and she's Tachibana Hibiki, their friend. That helps give her all the mental fortitude she needs, at least for right now, to push herself up onto a knee. Her arm comes back as she does, morphing into its much larger rocket thruster-equipped version. The turbine replacing the piston kicks up to a deafening spin, crackling with lightning and a build-up of her Symphogear's golden internal energy. It builds and builds up further, until she lets out a strained roar and punches it forward. "--listen to any of that crap!" The exposed armor slams itself back in, pushing the energy forward and out through her fist. It's not just destructive energy, it's like light made flame that'll threaten to melt any of Pramanix's ice walls it surges past, and wash over the skeletons and Defender in a mix of burning heat and raw force.
Rita Ma	Rita's yelp of pain is drowned out by the deafening thrum of the speakers- she's invisible again, but even that's little benefit against an attack like this. She claps her hands over her ears and thickens the tentacle-wrappings of her disguise to muffle the sound further, but nothing can stop it from reverberating in her bones or making her vision sparkle as it vibrates in her eyes. She fades back into view once more, unable to concentrate on her invisibility: colors flood back into a once-transparent form like food coloring dissolving in water. The psychic assault finds her already reeling to the point that her disguise is starting to decohere, her human form flaking away in ribbons to reveal the paler, blue-veined skin beneath. What's happening to me? Stop this! I know who I am. I know who I am!! My name is Rita Ma. My name is... My name... I don't... ... I'm not strong enough. I'm so tired. Just this once, take the wheel. Rita's body obliges. Barely audible over the din, it lets out a feral scream: a titanic beast's roar forced through the fragile vocal cords of a petite girl. Rather than straightening up, it crouches down lower, then leaps from all fours hard enough to crack underfoot what few clay tiles remain semi-intact. The ribbons of her human disguise are briefly left behind, the effigy of half a hollow girl, before they're snatched taut and whisked away to follow her arc. What happens next is hard to watch, both figuratively and literally for its speed. The monster-Rita's eyes are glassy. Its face is cold and unfeeling, an expression that belongs more to sharks than human beings. Its body, revealed, is wracked with mutated ichthyoid flesh. As it plunges down from above, its swarm of gracile tentacles stab into the Defender from all sides in an impossible-to-dodge flurry. The flesh-ribbon that hasn't entirely stopped pretending to be Rita's upper face stabs below the Defender's ribcage. Another still in the process of unbecoming her false fingers seeks out the side of its neck. Wherever they penetrate successfully, they branch out beneath the surface like plants taking root. Occasionally, Rita's interests and those of her monstrous body align. When it starts to feed on the Defender, stolen blue essence flooding back through the translucent embedded tendrils and into its own body, she isn't trying to stop it.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak's headless body plants the axe into the shattered tile, driving the haft easily a foot deep. It then bends at the knees to pick up the heavy sarcophagus lid. Lifting it high over(lackof)head, it turns. And pauses. Apparently, removing his head did not have the desired effect of immunizing Bercilak against the mental influence. There is a concerning, tense moment wherein his body seems to contemplate turning its strength against all of you. With a bolt of burning light, the moment passes. The Defender screeches as its sonic cannons are melted, taking its focus off of the mental bombardment. Rita's tentacles dig beneath its cybernetics, as frail arms attempt to force her off with rapidly dwindling strength, until its repulsors begin to fail and it crashes to the earth. The skeletons remain a threat even after Hibiki has charred them, but SilverAsh is thinning their numbers, broad swipe after broad swipe. He has help, too, from Flux, whose blunt weapon seems especially suited to crushing bone, and the enmity manifestation, whose razor-sharp serrated tendrils shred and destroy as eagerly as monster-Rita now feeds, sending fragmented bone chips every which way. Mortificant darts through them, the peace manifestation following it to mesmerize any skeletons which threaten the healing manifestation. It crests the protective ice wall before MEDEA and begins triage immediately. The Defender of the Three croaks its last, now a shriveled, dessicated leathery husk with dented, burnt out machinery clinging uselessly to its hide. Bercilak's headless body heaves the sarcophagus lid through the remaining skeletons, crushing them all beneath its weight. There is a chuckle which rises from the bucket helm's internals, as the body picks it up and plants it squarely between the shoulders. The dimly lit subterranean courtyard falls silent, at last. Bercilak's healing aura, and Mortificant's diligent work, can get everyone back to working order, after a respite. In the meantime... "Hey, 'bikki. Check this shit out," says Flux, holding a few more pages. Hibiki looted Tattered book - Ape Fist of Khalum - 3 of 5 from remains of Cultist. Hibiki looted Tattered book - Tree of Enlightenment - 2 of 5 from remains of Cultist.
Hibiki Tachibana	After all is said and done, Hibiki manages to remain propped up on her knee for just long enough to see SilverAsh tear through the skeletons' ranks, and to watch Rita savagely impale and feast upon the Defender's emaciated body. It's only after it goes fully limp and the last of their foes are crushed that she finally allows herself to slump back forward onto her hands, heaving and sweating somewhat harder than she should be. That was awful. There's a world where she couldn't work up the burst of strength to resist that creeping on her psyche, that wearing on her will and attempt to make her into a weapon...and that scares her. Because then, she'd-- She gulps that down and shakes her head. "...I don't know if I can take it if they try something like that again..." Almost immediately, she feels more than a little guilty saying that after watching Rita let her inner leviathan take over, and forces herself back up to her feet. By the time they're all midway through their respite, she's visibly doing better, if still a little quiet. She checked to make sure MEDEA was doing okay, still slightly worried despite the field repairs - and Rita had, at some point and if the other girl allowed it, been given a quick but firm hug with no other words given. It's when Flux speaks up to her that she glances back up with some curiosity, looking over the pages with steadily widening eyes before pulling out the one she herself had taken earlier. "...I can't read any of it, but if there's any more of these, I want to collect as many pages as I can. I think I might be able to learn something from these...and after we're done here, something tells me there won't be anyone else carrying on the knowledge of their techniques."
Rita Ma	The monster-Rita stands over the disintegrating Defender for a few seconds, drawing deep and ragged breaths. Its cold expression is unwarmed by the satiation; its body language is an alien code. It's easy to tell exactly when Rita regains control of herself, because she instantly looks horribly embarrassed and wraps herself in her tentacles again, resuming her human guise as fast as possible. (The embarrassment comes before the re-transformation. It almost looks sort of cute on that monstrous face.) Flux absolutely has the healing covered, but that won't stop Rita from fussing over the injured too, relatively unhurt as she is. Bercilak gets special attention as she tries in vain to make sure his head reattaches cleanly; she has surprisingly good ideas for how to help repair MEDEA's mechanical body, too, though her fixes tend towards the kludgey and rustic. She looks up from tending whoever will let her tend them in time to read the guilt on Hibiki's face. "No," she says quietly, her expression a sympathetic grimace. "I don't want to ever see that again, either. Even if I got to see you being so brave." Of course she accepts the hug, squeezing Hibiki just a little tighter than is advisable. It's accentuated with an oddly boyish pat on the back. Who taught her that?