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Cantio A distress call goes out from a coastal village. Multiple monsters have been sighted near its outskirts, and both monsters have laid claim to the village as theirs (largely by approaching it menacingly). The monsters have begun fighting, threatening to destroy the village and anyone caught in the crossfire. Local dispatchers have identified one of the monsters as a Virus, but the other is unknown to them. The description of the monster in the vaguely rubbery outfit, meanwhile, may be recognizable to some Elites as something called a Bugster.

Upon exiting the warp gate closest to the village, it's a short walk away to actually find the coastal village in question. It's a pretty standard village in all respects, albeit with a somewhat strange mix of white boxy architecture that looks like it could be made of high-quality plastic or painted over metal. All of the buildings are made with either perfect right angles or spheres with nothing in between, and it looks vaguely similar to the white and lilac high-rises of a full-blown city that can be seen over the trees in the distance.

That's not the main attraction here, though. What is would have to be the monsters currently fighting each other.

On one side, a pair of vaguely human-shaped monsters with heads that look like stylized speakers and bodies that look like they're somewhat rubbery despite making distinctly metallic noises whenever they're struck.

On the other side, a giant mechanical-looking turtle with a palm tree growing out of its back and flanked by a pair of weird, bulbous plantlike things that appear to be running around on their roots.

The monsters on each side are clashing with the other, the turtle and one of the walking speakers taking center stage with a display of power versus balance while the others try to get potshots in against the other side from range without opening themselves up to attack from the center-stage fighters. The site of the battle, thankfully, is by the beach rather than within the village itself, but it's plain to see that their fight could spill over into the village quickly if left unchecked.
Forte The distress call is answered.

The help that shows up might be a worse virus than any of those monsters, though.

... And it might be more interested in other things than strictly helping.

Forte arrives via warpgate, and slowly and unhurriedly floats towards the center of the action, head turning only slightly to look at each of the combatants in turn as he slowly floats in.

"..."

And then he stops - moving, that is, he remains suspended in the air about a foot or two off of the ground.

"Which..."

"... one of these is the bugster?"

He doesn't seem *too* worried over the damage they're causing, more of his concern seems to be focused on which one is which.
Note     Note is one of the first to emerge from the warp gate, and the way in which she does so is so speedy, it's actually kinda hard to spot that it even happened. She's through it like a living rocket, wreathed in the blazing white light of her own lifeforce. She swoops low to the ground at first but rises quickkyl upon approach to the village, taking an eyes-in-the-sky vantage to look down at everything and take stock fo the sitaution.

    Three factions. Primary goal, keep the weird-looking monsters OUT of the village...

    The youthful martial artist floats down through the sky, until she's about ten feet to Forte's left. She doesn't recognize the Navi at all but doesn't seem too off-put by his strange appearance. He can fly and that means the chance that he could be an ally here is pretty high!

    "I'm not sure what I'm looking at either down there. Are you here to keep the village safe?"
Staren     Staren flies from the warpgate, riding a broom sidesaddle and surrounded by a cloud of coconut-sized camera hoverdrones. As she comes in sight of the fight, the drones spread out. As there's no IMMEDIATE danger, she looks down at the monsters from the sky, tapping the side of her goggles to look like she's doing something as she looks through the drones' sensors. After a few moments, she drops down to where Forte and Note are, bringing her head level with Forte's. "Why do you ask?"

    She looks to Note. "That's the primary objective, yeah. But I'm wondering if there'd be anything to learn from capturing a Bugster... if that's even possible."
Phasewalker     A fighter jet(?) blows past the location from elsewhere, upside-down. It makes a loud noise of space-age engines screaming in a breathable atmosphere.

    Vwoop. Ainkli Naragol, also known as Phasewalker, teleports from his jet as it screams by, his heart still pounding, head spinning, vision wobbly. Seeing the great big monsters doing their thing, he does what any adrenaline junkie might do, with their phenominal cosmic powers. He teleports over to try and land atop the turtle that has a tree on it, and proceeds to start riding it if he can manage, one hand on the tree for balance purposes, while the two monster factions are duking it out. He could easily get crushed, but he's not so easy to land a proper hit on.

    "WOO!!"

    He's having a good time.
Note     As she recognizes Staren's slightly-changed Ki signature now, Note feels her approach the instant she emerges from the warp gate. That triggers a blink and a few moments of thought. She doesn't turn to look at her though, and instead folds her arms across her chest while glaring over at the monsters.

    "What I'm seeing of that fight isn't too impressive. But are they really monsters? One looks kinda like a person.... sorta..." And it's not like she hasn't met a talking old turtle, even if it is kinda senile...
Cantio At a glance, it's actually kind of hard to tell which group of monsters is the Bugster and which are local (but still dangerous) Viruses. The villagers watching from inside their homes or at the gates are armed with simple swords and guns, but it's clear they're not going to commit to drawing aggro while the real threats are still in the middle of fighting each other.

One of the villagers actually responds to Forte, though, half-shouting and half-whispering in his direction while trying to remain hidden. "What the heck's a bugster? You mean Virus? Uh... That one! And those!" They point at the turtle tree and the weird plants. "I don't know what those other things are, though." They shake their head, then look from Staren to Note. "Then you really are here to get rid of them? Great! We'll make it worth your while if you do! Kill them, take them, just... Get them away from us. Please!"

While they speak, however, the battle between the digital beings continues. One of the speaker-headed things emits a loud feedback that not only has the turtle tree reeling, but also the plant monsters. It's even loud enough to have the villagers cowering and the smaller plants scurrying away to leave the turtle fighting a two on one. Unfortunately, that takes them right towards the village, and when they see those Elites gathered by the village?

They go right on the offensive. The green plant Virus spits a glob of corrosive gunk at Note and Forte to try and melt right into them, and the purple plant Virus leaps upwards on spindly feet before flinging a mass of vines at Staren to try and yank her down forcefully!

Phasewalker, meanwhile, lands right atop that turtle tree's... Tree. It doesn't seem too worried about its new passenger, but the same can't be said for the microphone headed Bugsters. The one screeching (primarily) at the turtle continues to do so while the turtle snaps forward with those mighty jaws, but the other microphone Bugster turns its attention on Phasewalker and flings what looks like an oversized audio cable at him to try and pierce it right into his hide!
Forte "Hmm, those ones are the bugsters, then... thank you."

Forte does not respond to anything else directed towards him by anyone else - questions, statements of intent, even those simply saying hello. There's not even any turning of his head in acknowledgement.

He starts floating towards the green plant thing - he doesn't so much as react when the acid lands on him, although it does start eating through his cloak.

He just floats towards it, at a steady pace, and then-

GETABILITY.BAT - READ MODE READY

- when he's close enough, he suddenly darts forward, trying to grab onto any part of it with his outstretched hand, which has started to glow an ominous red. Whether or not he's actually got a bugster, it first stings like hell. That much is universal.

But then if he does indeed have a virus given form in his grasp, it starts... draining. Like a spider drinking its prey from the inside out.

An *entirely* unpleasant experience, in other words.
Phasewalker     THWACK! Instead of just piercing right through Ainkli, or stabbing into anything vital, the piercing cable shot at him by the Bugster hits an aura of invisible force around him that prevents him from being instantly killed. However, it does still get purchase, and a spray of blue blood spatters from the wound, with the reptile that got struck flinching and smacking the cable away on pained reflex. He responds by teleporting to a different point on the giant turtle, hopefully where he's a little less vulnerable but still in a delicious amount of danger.

    Ainkli spreads out his fingers, mentally selecting his plasma rifle for this problem. He releases his handhold and adjusts his stance by creating stable terrain out of telekinetic force, and just opens up with a full-auto burst of little bright flashes of plasma toward the Bugster(s) in retaliation for the pain that was just inflicted on him.

    Now he's just screaming like an action movie meathead. "AAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
Note     Maybe saying they weren't too impressive was a bit much. Note yelps and reacts swiftly, juking to the side and loosing a burst of power to deflect away the majority of that acid spray. It still gets her on the arm though, and sizzles at her flesh for a bit. That has her hissing and pain.

    "What was THAT for?! We're just FLOATING here!"

    Still floating in the air, Note shouts down at the one beseeching them, "Just stay somewhere safe! We'll take care of this!"

    As she remains aloft, Note draws her tail up to her waist and secures it there firmly like a belt, while drawing in a deep breath and clenching her fists. That inhalation's met with a growing pressure emanating her for those who can sense such. Energy spiking ferociously, multiplying ten times over and ten times more atop of that until it's right off the charts and burning like the sun!

    At the same time, there's a thunder-like CRACK as golden light flows from her skin and pulses, criss-crossed constantly by erratic bolts of electricity. She glares at the 'Bugsters' with fiercely narrowed eyes that gleam green instead of black, as her hair spikes up and shifts to a brilliant shade of gold.

    of course, some yahoo has already thrown themselves into the fray, and so Note... simply moves.

    Far, far too fast. She vanishes from ordinary sight with a thundercrack blur of motion that whips the winds up in the void where she left, reappearing in a tenth of a second right by the plant with her arms outstretched, palms open. "You wanna spit at me? Here's what you get back, jerk!"

    From her hands, a mighty wave of light erupts, engulfing an area many times her own height, easily several times as tall as the plant monster. It'll travel a way and disperse in the distance - and it's traveling AWAY from the village, naturally.
Staren     Staren's signature probably seems different to Note AGAIN, for reasons that will become apparent soon.

    Staren turns to look at the villagers, smiling as reward is mentioned and nodding... and then "Hey!" She's grabbed and YANKED to the ground, vines fraying her coat slightly. Struggling against the bonds, a vibro-blade appears in her hand which she uses to cut herself free, and then stands, leaving the blade turned off stuck in the sand for a moment. "Alright. If you want a fight, you've got it!" She crosses her arms, grabs her coat, and then flings it off to the side dramatically! Her shirt is sleeveless today, and there are some kind of bulky gray metal armbands on ehr forearms that must contain some equipment. "I expected a bunch of Kamen Riders or the like to show up, but whatever! I'm prepared to deal with monsters like you!" She points dramatically, and then adjusts her belt buckle. "HENSHIN!"

    A ring of light travels over her body from top to bottom, organic disguise disappearing to reveal a body of metal. White, with the upper arms/legs painted a dark blue-green. Half of the upper head is made of some tough clear material, showing the mechanical brain within. The eyes look more like some kind of lights than conventional cameras, but the nose and mouth are sculpted to resemble normal humanoid, although they do not move. Mechanical ears swivel in the appropriate spots, and some other kind of armatures on the back of the head evoke the feeling of a twin-tailed hairstyle.

    Unlike the old mechanical body, this one is less made-of-cylinders and a bit more human-shaped, the torso and upper arms/legs being shaped in imitation of an organic body, while the lower arms/legs are bulkier, like a reploid's, the arms incorporating those armbands. The scarf remains, the only item of 'clothing' on the body, blowing dramatically in the wind.

    "There's no need to fear! Staren Wiremu is here!" More quietly she mutters, "Time for a field test..." She crosses her arms in front of her face, and one of them behins to glow and arc with electricity. Thrusters on her back and legs kick on and in an instant she's accelerated a hundred miles an hour, closing the distance to the turtle-beast and kicking up a huge plume of sand! It's a super-speed punch, with all her robotic weight and speed behind it and with the arm surrounded by a cutting energy field... and when it's punched as far as it can into the monster, a massive surge of electricity is released to shock it!
Cantio The green plant doesn't stand much of a chance against Forte. The rogue Navi manages to grab it right by the face which is also most of its body mass, causing the vines on the underside to thrash about as if trying to pry him off of it. It doesn't last particularly long, however, as it's a fairly basic Virus, and it only manages to thrash about for about three seconds before just going limp in Forte's hold. It might be enough for him to realize that it's not a Bugster, at least. It's mostly certainly a digital construct not unlike almost everything else here, and it has a distinctly local flavor to it.

Eventually, it also has a very ki-flavor to it. Note's blast leaves a nice, sizable hole where part of its face should be, and the purple plant lets out an enraged screech in turn once it realizes that its palette-swapped brethren has already been destroyed. Before it can retaliate for its fallen comrade by swinging Staren, however, its tugging motions cease when her punch-field shreds the absolute shit out of it. By the time she's done turning it into salad, meanwhile, it gets thoroughly cooked by that electric surge.

The speaker-headed things are faring a little bit better than the plants did, at least. The one fighting the turtle tree gets nailed a few times before backing off, letting the turtle advance into the shots and causing it to roar out angrily with whatever sounds turtles make, albeit in a faintly digitized tone.

"M-s-rrrr!" The second Bugster screeches at Phasewalker in a distorted, yet far more digitized voice as it directs more screeching towards his new position. It's screeching is met with plasma bolts to the face/head/pop guard, and it staggers back briefly before dropping to a knee. It returns fire with more screeching noises that are sounding considerably scratchier than before, but also carrying with them bone-rattling force that even starts shaking the windows in the village far behind it.

The turtle tree virus, meanwhile, finally notices that there's multiple interlopers to deal with beyond those mic monsters and the lizardman on its back. It bellows out a mighty turtle-y howl as it starts shaking its tree violently, dropping coconuts down that bounce off the ground once before exploding into a shower of piercing fragments that threaten to punch into everyone alike!
Forte The coconut fragments sail out, and Forte just... vanishes.

*blip*

Oh, there he is, directly behind the turtle tree.

The navi isn't even particularly worried about the attacks going off - he's managing to evade most of them, certainly, but from the way he moves he just... doesn't care.

There could be a nuclear bomb going off nearby, and it's possible he wouldn't really care about that either.

Because there is food here.

And that's all that matters.

Forte reaches out at the turtle tree's back with his glowing red hand, repeating the same action as last time. It isn't even a particularly aggressive looking motion. It's almost casual, with the same emphasis one would give to picking a quarter up off the ground.
Phasewalker     Ainkli is still trying to get a bead on the bugster as it moves and staggers, when it decides to just shriek at him so loud that his vision blurs and his whole body hurts. He almost blacks out for a second, but recovers when he simply teleports on instinct to a safer position before it can properly rupture his eardrums or do any more permanent damage to him. While his skin still tingles, he puts away the plasma gun, reaches out with an open hand, and yanks as if pulling on a ripcord.

    A fairly large chunk of ground is pulled ten meters up into the air, sand and water cascading off of it. Then he simply pulls down and releases the debris, trying to clonk the Bugster on the head with a big chunk of sandstone propelled with telekinetic force. Not the most efficient, effective, or reliable form of attack, but it's the only one he can be sure might do something while he's still rattled by that sonic blast.

    "What!?" he barks, looking off in a direction, vaguely toward Staren. Yeah his hearing is... recovering. He thought someone was talking to him for a second.
Note     Once the plants have been dealt with, Note executes a swift backflip which takes her about twenty feet skyward. This leaves her a bit vulnerable to COCONUT GUN BARRAGE, but she doesn't... actually move. Instead, she takes the challenge head on. Eyes locked onto the projectiles, she adopts a knife-hand style and batters away the majority of them, until the final few manage to break her guard and smash into her face and send her reeling.

    She recovers quickly though, and retaliates with another *blitz-whooosh* of superhuman agility, streaking down underneath the turtle at the speed of a bullet, planting her hands into the sand and delivering a forceful kick to its underside with enough force to possibly send it hundreds of feet into the air...
Staren     After the plant freaking EXPLODES, holes in the gauntlet-part expel a cloud of steam dramatically. Staren's robotic face is expressionless, but she WOULD be wide-eyed at how utterly EXPLODED that plant is. Wow. She didn't expect it to work THAT well! It makes her feel kind of giddy!

<J-IC-Scene> Note says, "Is there anything you can't turn into?! Boys, girls, costumes... What else...?"

    As Note comments, Staren turns towards the Saiyan and holds one hand to the back of her head, tilting it slightly to one side. "Hahaha! Is that really how it seems?" She then straightens up, holding the hand in front of her with one finger out. "I am a girl, though. Whatever I look like."

    And then come... explosive coconuts? Staren dodges with thruster assistance, zooming frantically this way and that with robotic speed, but still gets a fair bit banged up from the sheer volume of fire, her scarf torn and ragged, scratches all over her paint and some dents where shrapnel lodged in good.

    Phasewalker asks: "WHAT?" Staren holds her arms up and a sign appears in them: [SHE ASKED WHO YOU ARE -->] with the arrow pointing towards Note.

    Staren turns back towards the turtle tree that just bombed her. She holds out her right arm, and two energy cannons extend above and below it from the gauntlet-thing, firing beams of super-high-energy particles, and then immediately dashing over to the sword she left in the sand, grabbing it and then dashing to the turtle, a second sword appearing in her other hand as she tries to slash them into and through the turtle's side as brutally as possible before leaping back with a jet-assisted backflip and blasting the beam cannons again!
Cantio Forte disappears, and the turtle Virus is bewildered. It doesn't stay that way for long, though, as it turns its attention back to its opponents: Literally everyone here. It rears back on its hind legs as it prepares to stomp down on Note with all of its might, but the Saiyan manages to catch it before it comes down with a swift kick dead center. Unfortunately, it's a turtle, so kicking it right in the center of its shell barely even makes the creature flinch. It even comes right back down at her, aiming to crush it under the combined weight of a giant turtle and a fully grown tree (sans explosive coconuts).

And then Forte grasps its back. The way the movement looks, it shouldn't really do much. It's just a touch, after all, and there's not really much of an impact there. Despite all appearances, however, the creature lets out an anguished screech/turtle noise as it feels its insides being turned into someone else's insides. Even if it's not necessarily a Bugster, it's still something that shouldn't be here. It's still data.

When Ainkli brings up the very ground beneath the screaming Bugster, it scrambles around in confusion at first. It doesn't seem to know what's going on, but it does recognize this as a general threat to its existence when the airborne ground is dropped right at it. It actually manages to scramble out of the way of the falling debris, even letting out something resembling a tinny digitized laugh, but it doesn't last long when that turtle comes down from its crushing maneuver at Note.

The Bugster got too distracted, and it's flattened in the process. "M--STERRRRRRR!" The other Bugster screams, launching itself onto the turtle tree to start pounding the crap out of its face. It doesn't seem to be making much progress on that, however, and it gets thrown right off when Staren comes in with those swords. The slashes open up a sizable gash in the turtle's somewhat more exposed sides, and the beam blasts afterwards collide firmly with the turtle's shell to the point that it looks like it's... Refracting the beam?

Yes, the turtle's shell starts glowing shortly after it gets shot. It almost looks like each segment of its shell have started turning into prisms, albeit prisms that are disintegrating into a pixelated and corrupted mess by the second. The remaining Bugster, as if sensing the impending danger, leaps off the turtle to try and get some distance while blasting it and the Elites with more of that ear-destroying noise, but the turtle itself seems unperturbed as it starts blasting out that corrupted data wildly, trying to take out everyone and everything with it.
Phasewalker     Ah beans. Ainkli missed the thing he was trying to hit. It promptly taunts him, even as the others decide to make introductions in the middle of a heated firefight. He has enough presence of mind to at least engage in Note's inquiry at the bare minimum of it's requirements, but he's got very little mental bandwidth now that he can barely hear. Yeah. Yeah, he's gonna be focusing on not dying in a second here.

    As he observes combat, he frowns at the chaotic change in the turtle's cohesion. And jolts of corrupted data just start slamming into things... such as the sand near where Ainkli is standing. "Shi--" And he nearly gets obliterated by a blast of viral energy, which definitely doesn't feel good. He shrieks in a startle, and teleports behind some cover. Namely, a convenient sand dune that will give him a good place to kneel behind.

    He lifts his hand over the dune, and projects a bolt of telekinetic force. It isn't as dangerous as the big chunk of rock and sand he tried to use, but it's reliable by comparison. He hisses to himself, glancing down at the flickering telekinetic armor. "Gonna have to bail soon," he breathes to himself, disappointed in that fact.
Note     Note has kicked things of this size and mass before. She fully expected it to get launched into the sky. Somehow, though, it just doesn't. "... What?!" Reality, today, does not at all meet her expections. Instead, it comes crashing down on her all at once while she's mouth-agape.

    CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASHHHHHHH!!!

    Bloodied, bruised, and absolutely out of breath, she scrambles free out from under the monster in-between all of its other flailings and floats away, gasping for breath. "Don't... have a lot left here... owww. That thing's way heavier than it looks..."

    Down, down she goes, placing herself between the turtle-monster and the village, a distance away.

    "Definitely gonna have to go all out..."

    And, hopefully, that will be enough.

    Planting her feet firmly into the ground, Note leans over... and unleashes a resounding, prolonged screaming kiai at what might well be the top of her lungs.

    Power lashes out every which way across the ground in wild bolts and her aura surges, tightening and brightening as she digs deeper and deeper into her Super Saiyan energies. The very ground begins to shake just a bit...

    There's a blinding flash of light, and when it clears Note's standing there, facing the turtle-thing side on. Her hair is... now as long as she is. The ponytail has somehow grown several feet and dangles all the way down her body, and her eyebrows have vanished.

    The youth then thrusts both hands forward and draws them to her side, hands cupped opposing each other to cradle some empty space. Empty space that--

    "Kaaaaaaa meeeeeeeee...."

    -- flashes to life with bluish-white energies. A tiny sphere is born between her hands and grows to fill them, contained and swirling with ever-more compressed might being pumped into it.

    "Haaaaaaa meeeeeeeeee...."

    In just a few seconds the energy radiating from the sphere grows blindingly bright, casting the entire battlefield in stark light and shadow.

    It is probably a bad idea to be too close to the data-monsters right now.

    "HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

    Pushing her hands forward and opening them, Note unleashes all of that contained energy. It erupts as a swiftly-expanding roiling wave of power easily twice as wide as the turtle. The ground is simply vaporized in its wake, carving a trench.
Forte Corrupted data lashes out.

Forte staggers back - but only by so much. He *is* corrupted data, after a fashion, and what's a bit more corruption?

Besides, there's more important concerns here than getting injured:

Eating.

Undeterred, but with a bit more aggression and a bit more urgency, he dives forward again, hand outstretched - once again, trying to grab onto one of the data creatures with it.

This time, if not stopped, he tries to drain whatever he grabbed *dry*.
Staren     Staren doesn't take a breath, but moves slightly as if breathing out of force of habit. "The prism is refracting a particle beam? Stupid Multiversal physics..." She holds her hand up as if about to summon another weapon, when CORRUPTED DATA washes over her.

    This is a robot body, too.

    In addition to chunks of armor starting to pixellate away, her sight, hearing, and HUD start to corrupt with garbage data. Fortunately, with modern technology her mind itself isn't actually a computer, but it's still a pretty disorienting attack to someone who isn't used to that! It feels like something is crushing her, slowing her, like she can't breathe... she holds her hands to the side of her head and screams in pain... even the sound of the scream is distorted, coming out at a low bitrate and staticy.

    She can still think, though. She holds out her hand in a gesture at the sand in front of her and a low wall projecting a forcefield over it pops into existance, giving her reprieve. She takes a couple of 'breaths' and considers.

    A double-barreled shotgun modded up with shiny wires, bits of jade, and blue gems warps into her hands (she dropped the swords when the attack hit her) and she holds it up over the barrier just long enough to fire a double-blast of freezing ice magic, aimed using sensors instead of sights. Then she drops that behind the barrier and holds out her hands again, a riot shield with a little slot in it appearing in her left hand and an AK-pattern rifle appearing in the right -- a weapon she'd prepared for the attack on Langely earlier but didn't get to use.

    Staren steps out from behind her barrier, poking the rifle's muzzle thrugh the slot as she keeps the shield in front of her, and just... lets the turtle have it! Full auto! Her robotic strength and weight can easily counter the recoil.

    It LOOKS like an AK but it's firing .50 caliber rounds which contain high-tech miniaturized shaped-charge warheads, exploding on contact to try and pierce the Virus's body with lances of light made of weaponized physics!

    Oh wait, Staren then realizes, that's not really all that different from the beam cannon she was just using! Oh well. Hopefully quantity has a quality all its own as she empties the magazine!
Cantio The turtle is visibly falling apart after it lets out all that energy, its tree not quite wilting so much as missing enough pieces that it should just be falling over on account of not actually being attached to the turtle. Most of its shell is gone, too, making it easy pickings for Phasewalker's telekinetic bolt to just tear right through it. The bolt rebounds inside its shell, too, launching it around haphazardly until one unlucky impact propels it further along the beach.

That leaves it too dazed to realize that there's a big freaking beam from Note coming right at it. It lurches around briefly before walking right into the blast, losing its footing rather quickly when the sand and water beneath it just stops being where the turtle is, leaving it to start into the hole that's opened up beneath it

Without any ground to actually brace itself on or even maneuver with, the turtle tree is easy pickings for Staren's missile bullets when they come flying into it. The explosions have it bouncing around multiple times as more pieces of the shell come apart, and it stays still for several moments once it's finally allowed to touch the ground. The tree turtle tries to stand, then falls right back over as the rest of its body turns into a pixelated blip that sinks downwards and...

Gets absorbed by the previously crushed Bugster. The Viral Bugster changes colors as it takes in all that data at once, letting out an almost blood-curdling scream that somehow sounds less tinny and robotic than before. It almost sounds like a human scream, and it's jarring enough that the other Bugster actually just stays right where it is and looks on in...

Well, it doesn't have a face, but it'd be easy enough to imagine that it's terrified right now.

Before that reawakened Bugster can do much, however, Forte comes back in and grabs it. Before it can scream at full volume to try and throw him off, he drains it. It lets out a strained noise before going limp, its body going through that same pixelated warping effect before exploding* in his grasp.

That just leaves the last remaining Bugster. It looks like it can barely stand, but it's also behaving like a cornered animal. What do you do?


*It's dramatic looking, but mostly harmless.
Forte > What do you do?

The same thing Forte has been doing all fight.

Once he's done absorbing the one Bugster, he starts floating over towards the remaining one, glowing hand extended.

He looks not at all put off by it looking frightened.
Staren     The turtle falls apart. Staren ejects the empty mag and a new one teleports into place. Her ears twitch as Forte drains the Bugster. Did it say... 'master?' Her robotic face is expressionless, though. The price paid for blending in with the toku aesthetic.

    She turns to the last Bugster and considers how to capture it. But Mr. Headfins wants to absorb it. A quick discussion later... honestly? She's curious to see what HAPPENS from Forte absorbing bugster data, but she doesn't admit that so that it sounds like she's making a concession while bargaining for him to trade the data.

    Mentally, her face twitches a moment. The bugsters... is there still humanity in them? Is letting Forte do this reaally okay? ...If anything CAN be done to reverse the bugsterization(?) this far along, no one yet knows how to do it, and getting the data might help. She watches, now glad for the robot's expressionless face.
Note     Note... is absolutely drained. After unleashing that burst, she stands there, knees trembling and exhaustion finally catching up on her. She literally pours her physical and spiritual stamina into attacks like that, and a beam like that is the very limit. All her muscles ache, her lungs burn for breath, and her thoughts waver.

    Down she goes, dropping to one knee. The entire transformation is undone instantly, hair withering back to its normal size and falling back to its normal smootness, the blazing aura dying off with a SNAP and all of the unusual color changes reverting.

    Even if she was sure she wanted to interfere with what's happening with the remaining bugster, what exactly can she do like this?
Phasewalker     Where is Ainkli? He appears to have vanished in the chaos. Teleportation, man.
Cantio The last Bugster doesn't stand a chance. It swats at Forte's hand uselessly as he picks it up, straining out one last distorted scream of "M-ST-RRRRR!" before getting absorbed into him like the one before him.

Once the last Bugster is put down, the villager that had actually approached the Elites at all instead of hiding inside comes running up to them. "Th... Thanks for the save, everybody! I don't know what we would have done without all of you."

The villager takes off their hat, then fans themselves while surveying the damage to the area. "It'll take a while to fix all this up, but oh boy, am I right? Viruses are one thing, but..." They turn to Forte. "You called it a Bugster before? We thought those things would've stayed in the city instead of coming out here, but... Ah, we'll need to be prepared for if they show up here, too."

The villager sighs, then claps their hands together. "Right! Your payment. We'll get the credits transferred over once we get your info in town, or we can just give you some prepaid cards for that. And if you're hungry, we have all kinds of meals perfectly calculated to get anyone's energy back in a flash!" The villager brags, laughing lightly while starting to head back towards the town to get everyone's reward money together, the food preparations started, and even giving them an opportunity to ask any questions they might have in the meantime.

"... Wait, weren't there four of you?"
Forte Forte's glowing hand lowers to his side, finally satisfied.

Or, possibly, he's never trully satisfied or satiated, and has only stopped because there aren't any viruses left to absorb.

A villager comes out to offer payment and snacks. Forte ignores them as though they aren't even there.
Staren     Staren watches Forte curiously, but it seems there's no particular reaction yet. To the villager, she tilts her head and taps the side of it. "Ah... I'm a robot right now for the fight, can I get a rain check on that food? I'll come back later, maybe bring a friend?"

    And then she walks over to Note to help the exhausted Saiyan to her feet. "Hey, you alright? Does that more hair less eyebrows thing take a lot out of you or something?"
Note     Note eventually gathers enough strength to stand again. She's battered and woozy from that fight, and the fact that she chooses to walk over to greet the villager, and dons a polite, childish sort of smile that spreads into a grin. "Ahehehehehe.... told you we'd take care of it!" She even goes so far as to cutely flash a V for victory with her right hand.

    Where the heck did she pick THAT one up?

    "Credits and food sounds good! REALLY good right now..."

    Startled by the sudden question from Staren, she straightens up, looks over and answers, "Oh, that? ... my teacher said the last person he saw use it called it Super Saiyan 3. Kinda boring name. But wow, it takes just about /everything/ outta you to keep it going."
Forte After a while, Forte finally does speak up.

"... Are there more?" he asks, looking over at Staren.
Cantio Sadly for Forte, there truly aren't any other Bugsters in the immediate area. If he opts to explore, though, there's still plenty of roaming Viruses visible even in the forests further away from the village.

Some of them look like weird animal hybrids, like winged horses or siamese animals with blocky limbs. Others look like floating flat screen TVs. It's kind of strange all around.

Staren's rain check question gets a laugh from the villager. "Sure, sure! Just don't get lost on your way back next time. Who knows what kind of weirdos might snatch you up if you're not careful."

It's a convincing, but kind of an awkward-sounding laugh in retrospect.

"Hope you like giant turtle meat! Er... Not like the one you fought before, though. The ones we hunt are way more... Not Viruses." They reply to Note afterwards. It'll take a little bit for the food to be prepared by the time any takers (who might just be Note at this point) sit down, but they're not lying about making sure nobody walks away hungry and unpaid.
Note     Turtle meat. Note briefly looks a little flumoxxed by that. ".... As.. as long as they're not TALKING turtles." She answers, just a tad awkwardly.
Staren     The halo of light sweeps over Staren, restoring her disguise. She slings the rifle and shield over her back on their carrying straps and blinks at Note. "'Super Saiyan 3'? That doesn't sound like a name a martial artist would come up with... What is it? For that matter, what even really is Super Saiyan? I've seen it used before but what is it, really?"

    With note back on her feet, she walks back over to her barrier, holding out a hand and... it dissapears, presumably stowed away in tech similar to what she implanted in Ainkli. She picks up the shotgun and stows it in carrying loops behind her waist.

    Forte asks 'Are there more?' And Staren looks at him, smiling, almost laughing as she asks, "What, did it taste good or something??" Then she looks serious. "Well... yeah, they're an ongoing problem. There's this virus going around a world that turns humans into them." She wirelessly sends him warpgate coordinates, assuming he has the capability for that. "Myself, Cantio, and the Kamen Riders are each following leads for a cure." Unsure which faction people are in, after a moment she adds, "Hibiki Tachibana and that Rita girl are working with the Kamen Riders on it."

    The villager jokes about her getting... lost and kidnapped? She gives him a confused, 'did you really just say that?' look. After an awkward moment of silence, she asks, "...Does that... happen often, around here?"
Forte "..."

"Just to clarify, these were humans?" asks Forte.

He accepts the coordinates.

"... I'll be there. To take care of the rest of them," he says.
Note     ".... W-wait, those monsters we just beat used to be humans?!" Note is clearly HORRIFIED at this discovery, spluttering at Staren. No wonder that monster Forte ate didn't quite act like a normal monster...

    She rapidly shakes her head to clear it and try to set her conscience at ease. That apparently rather disturbs her...

    "No wonder you wanted to capture one."

    The girl loosens her tail, letting it dangle freely again, and dusts herself off. "'What is a Super Saiyan', huh? It's... it's this weird technique. The first time it happened, I was super pissed off and it just kinda happened in a blur. After that though I figured out how to control it. There's this spot on the back... if I focus my energy there and... it's like prying something open. Like opening a gate on a dam. WHOOOSH!"

    And, for emphasis, she transforms right then and there. It's quite tame compared to the last one though - a brief flare golden light, a light gust of wind and the familiar *crack* of her aura flaring up, and she stands there with golden spiky hair and green eyes again. But this time the aura swiftly dwindles, leaving her just there with paler-gold hair. She's clearly grown much more accustomed to staying in this form over time, because she is still perfectly calm in it.

    "So, bring on the food!"
Cantio "What? No, turtles don't talk." The villager laughs, but they're not really sure how to assuage Note's concerns of that beyond just sort of saying it doesn't happen.

Whether Note actually trusts that enough to eat is up to her. "Don't worry, we'll get you fed until your gut's ready to burst! Just don't do that inside, or the cook's might freak out and skip a digit in measuring."

"So you were eating those things? Uh... Well, as long as it solves the problem. It's appreciated either way." The villager semi-reassures Forte, then shakes their head at Staren. "It's the first time we've seen one-er. Two of those Bugsters out here. There were a few incidents of what we thought were new Viruses showing up in the city..."

They point towards said city in the distance. "... But they don't die like regular Viruses, and it doesn't look like they like Viruses. We figured it'd be safer out here than in there. Guess we'll just have to shore up our own defenses more, then."

Forte's and Staren's conversation, meanwhile, actually has the villager turning around and stopping. "Hold up. You're working with the Candidate out there? So... She's really going around working on other place's problems instead of fixing Cadenza's first?" They inhale sharply through their teeth, then sigh lightly before continuing to walk again. "I thought she was supposed to be the responsible one, too. Makes me feel better about leaving, at least."
Staren     Staren nods solemnly at Forte's question, watching his reaction. Then she nods at his words and looks to Note sadly at her realization about the Bugsters, "Just the weird-head ones. Hopefully whatever data he got from this will help find a cure."

    She watches curiously as the famous SSJ transformation is explained and demonstrated. "Opening a gate? I see. Just where does the power come from, I wonder... and what is the cost of opening it? I take it Super Saiyan 2 and 3 indicate opening second and third gates?"

    She looks back to the villager. "The bugster virus... are the bugsters coming here from somewhere else, or has it started infecting the locals?" She looks concerned at the complaint about Cantio. "Hey... she's trying to get stronger. I haven't been tackling my own world's problems either, but if I'd charged them head on before..." She shakes her head. "It would never have worked. By going out and making friends... Together, we can tackle the problems of all our worlds. What's wrong here in Cadenza?"
Note     "It's something like that, yeah..." Note blinks a few times, struggling to find words to describe exactly how one controls their inner energies to a person who casually transfers herself into a robot body. "The energy's already there. It's just a way of drawing out more and more of it. But the brighter you burn, the more strain it puts on your body. The quicker you'll run out. So you train and you train and train some more in the form and make your body perfectly used to it. Was simple enough for this form. Proving tricky for the next. I'm not even sure if it's POSSIBLE for the third."

    She nods at the villager, grinning good-naturedly again. "No problem! Just showing off things for Staren here."

    But she reaches out and pokes Staren in the side here. "Now would you mind telling me what's going on here? What do we gotta do to stop this Bugster thing from spreading to more people?"
Cantio "No clue. They just started showing up in Cadenza one day about... Two weeks ago?" The villager replies to Staren, squinting for a moment and mouthing some numbers before nodding. "Little over two weeks, yes. Only a few of them, but things have just been feeling... Weird for a while." A beat, and then the villager laughs. "I know, village of math, and we're all here instead of there because of some bad gut feelings, but... Some things just get too weird to ignore even we can't put a number on it."

"Like something's going on beneath the surface that we just can't see. One of us that used to work in the palace said they didn't see her sleep for weeks at a time earlier this year, but... She was working just fine. Better than fine, even.  And another one swears up and down they saw her in two places at once looking out their window that same month."

"Just... Impossible stuff, you know? But it stopped for a while, so we figured we were just seeing things. And then the Bugsters started appearing, and here we are. We haven't formally... Seceded yet, but... That's roughly what we've done here, right? Heh." It sounds as though that's more of an awkward topic than the villager wants to elaborate on at the moment.
Staren     Staren listyens, nodding along. "More strain... I guess your body is generating more ki by a method that's similar to exerting yourself... Of course, as a Saiyan your body adapts better than others would... but perhaps there's a limit to how much you can do at once. Interesting method of enhancement." She looks thoughtful, then shakes her head.

    As for the virus? "Cantio studied the infected, and we have some data from that. Now she's working on some kind of counter-virus? With some local programmer. The Paladins and... Watch, I think, are working to develop a new medical treatment by the book, within the bounds of the law and all that. I'm going to talk to some guy everyone else says is shady who's apparently made some progress outside the law, Taiga Hanaya, and see if the medical technology I have access to can help him."

    And: Villager! Staren blinks. "I'm not familiar enough with local government structure to understand the implications of your secession. I just want you all to be safe. I'll let Cantio know about the Bugsters being here."
Cantio "Ki? Super...? That sounds pretty weird, but we've seen enough weird stuff today that it can't hurt to accept one more illogical thing around here." The villager laughs, then freezes up when Staren mentions letting Cantio know about the situation. "What? No! Do you...?"

They sigh. "We didn't secede just for fun. It was a calculated risk, and... I don't doubt she'll eliminate any Bugsters that show up here, but how do you think it's going to look if the main city finds out we left without saying anything?"
Note     "What does 'secede' mean?" Sure, Note's apparently a bit more comfortable talking with people but that doesn't mean she has a decent education! And this is another area where her knowledge is lacking. Government. Law. Not-Law...

    She looks rather hopelessly between the villagers and Staren now..
Staren     "I don't know how it looks, because I don't understand the local political structure." Staren replies, matter-of-factly. "But... what kind of secession is it if you never tell anyone and hope they don't notice? How will that even work? Won't they notice you're not sending your taxes, or something?"

    Staren looks to Note. "Secession -- not to be confused with succession -- is when a smaller political entity decides not to be part of a bigger political entity anymore. A state leaving a federation, a city or county leaving a state, that sort of thing. If the bigger political entity doesn't like it, that's when you get a civil war."

    A SECOND later she realizes that wasn't a good thing to say in front of the villager and looks awkward. "Um... but I'm sure it doesn't uh... have to come to that??? Why ARE you seceeding, anyway?"
Cantio "Just... Don't tell her, okay? It'll make this situation more complicated than it's already gotten." The villager sounds a bit exasperated at that, rubbing their forehead after a moment and letting Staren explain what secession is. "That's exactly the problem. We don't want a war, either. We just want want our own home ruled by logic and math instead of music and dancing, or textbooks, or magic..."

"And their music sucks anyway!" Shouts another villager from another boxy home in the village.
Note     "...Oh. So, like not being friends anymore and going off on your own..." Maybe not quite a perfect analogy, but Note seems to get the idea.
Staren     Staren looks increasingly confused as the village's grievance is 'explained'. "I think I'm going to need a local history textbook or something to even understand what you're talking about. Rule by logic and math sounds... pretty reasonable. Although, sometimes people make mistakes in calculations."