Scene #7860: TPT: The Censor Victorious

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	THE INVISIBLE CITY SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA... Flamel's sent the Pelican out, a spaceous psychic super-spy plane that glows with the psychic force of its pilot, a nameless psychonaut cadet here to ferry the gang from their chosen pickup points off to this little patch of seemingly nowhere. This area is relatively flattened out compared to most of the rest of the nearby terrain, crisscrossed with a few rivers. Now that you're cued to see it, the astute among the group might be able to catch flickers of gleaming, shattered rectangular shapes arching into the sky, the bombed-out shell of nothing, actually, just a normal countryside, where large skyscrapers have never reached high above. It's effortless to land here in spite of the absence of a cityscape, for those who chose to fly on their own, or even to drive through the wide, decaying roads. Flamel Parsons is here, next to an incredibly complex piece of machinery (https://i.imgur.com/mFqU77l.jpeg) which is rattling and shaking like a lopsided washing machine set on high. About eight massive, translucent telekinetic hands are clasped around it, trying to keep it steady. The minute anyone arrives, Flamel is having to shout a bit over the noise, even telepathically. "Hey everyone!" Too cheerful for this situation. "We're going to have to stop whatever this is in an astral projection, arm up and be ready for some danger!"
Forte	Forte hangs out in the plane, picking a spot and standing (floating) in it. When prompted to take a seat and buckle in, he does not. On arrival, he goes over next to Flamel, peering at the machine as if trying to divine something from it. "This is the part of the job where we employ violence to remedy mental and emotional issues, correct?" he asks, blandly. And then up at the absence of a city, and stares at that for a moment. "... I feel like... this isn't an appropriate point to do this?" he sounds confused.
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro's brain is screaming at him that nothing is here while also screaming at him that something is here. It makes him immensely uncomfortable, and also gives him a headache, which isn't going to go away without either a venue change or an adjustment to his perceptions. Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he would come to a stop next to Flamel. The Hardboiler, a bike, turns off as he hops off of it, and places his helmet on the bike, only to pull out his hat and place it on his head. He walks towards the washing machine, and greets Flamel, despite his head pounding about this scenery. With the warning to get ready, Shotaro shrugs. "I think we're getting time to get ready now," he says towards Forte. To which he does. He pulls out a Gaia memory, a USB stick-looking device with the words JOKER on it. Somewhere else, Philip pulls out a similar stick with CYCLONE on it. He presses his in first so that it appears on Shotaro's side. Sliding right into a belt that appears across his waist. Shotaro presses down on the CYCLONE memory and inserts his own. CYCLONE JOKER There is a blast of wind, as the armor appears to be BLASTED onto Shotaro by the wind itself. Half of him is a purple-colored suit, and the other is a green one. With two red, bug-like eyes, and a W-shaped object on his head. There is also a scarf that blows in the wind. "Ready," Both sides of Kamen Rider W say at the same time.
Persephone Kore	Phony is her unbearably, radiantly, perfectly sunny self on the flight over. She sits next to Lilian, of course, with her legs crossed and eyes shut and back straight. For a while it seems like she might be in something like meditation. At other times, she glances down to poke at her little flip-top phone. Friend request sent to LRook. Please wait patiently for a response! She takes chances to peek out the windows, seeming fascinated by what she sees. "Were those buildings there before, for me? I know other people saw them. I don't remember if I did. ... That's a little worrying, isn't it? But I'm sure it'll be fine." Disembarking, she rubs her neck a little and stretches for effect. "Hi, Flamel!! You look like you're doing great today," she says, likewise significantly too cheerful. "Are you actually going to fight it? You said it'd be a little weird, but you never really explained." She definitely does not look geared for a fight, but half the people here already know better. The other half can still sense it: she is real, and the world around her feels a little hollow, a little plasticky, a little fake by contrast.
Lilian Rook	Of course Lilian takes a ride. Being able to technically arrive there instantly isn't also arriving there free. There are important differences between what she does and actual teleportation (which have made her life hard in the past pretending otherwise). It's on more than a little short notice, so she spends the first portion trying to finish demolishing a Japanese boxed lunch, going through four kinds of medication, and wheeling through a nonsense-dense schedule projected with a holo-haptic emitter to shuffle everything into new places, sending emergency mails to reschedule meetings and appointments. A new client blinks in the bottom of her taskbar. New Friend Request! PKore wants to be friends! Accept? »Yes/No Friend request accepted! PKore is now your friend! She isn't actually dressed for combat, having not yet changed out of her fancy private school, all red and black, white and gold, pleated skirt and winter jacket, black tights and shiny shoes, prefact badge matching her lily hairpin, but she's kept that sleek black gunmetal 'wand' folded up in a thigh holster, and Night Mist in its pendant form wrapped around her wrist like a charm chain, which is good enough. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather just send this thing very far away? Phony or I could do that easily."
Flamel Parsons	Forte gets a quick nod from the straining man. "That's the one! But right now, we're not going into anyone's brain. We've gathered up psychic data from the surroundings, but..." The machine emits a big burst of arcing purple lightning! "The data has a bit of a kick! I needed to do it here, and, well, I didn't expect it to start trying to turn my equipment into a bomb right away!" Persephone's warmth is always helpful, even in a crisis scenario. "Hey, Phony!" He calls out, wiping his brow and re-planting his hands on his temples, two fingers on each. "I didn't really expect it to be a fight, I just wanted you two to help me run clairvoyance on it... But this has way more kick than I thought it would! The density of psychic energy around here is a whole lot!" He stops and thinks about Lilian's offer. A few taps to his chin. Then it sparks and arcs lightning all around him! "You know, good plan! But... then we'd just have to do this all over again! This is the data you wanted to get from the city, it's the psychic energy from everywhere in a couple miles' radius. It should still be good data!" His head begins to emit small, leaking slivers of light, like a tiny sun within is peeking through cracks. His body shakes, and a phantasmal shape of Flamel Parsons starts to get yanked out of his body! His physical body raises his hands... And when he clenches them, the others here can feel a clench around their minds. A psychic grasp on the astral self, one that pulls and tugs one straight out of their physical manifestation and into the machinery! Perhaps it's redundant for Forte. For the others, less so. All their armaments and armor go with them, and join them as they land... The Invisible City is shown now. In the psychic plane, massive spires of neon synaptic lines show a towering city, densely packed and densely bombed in the off-black void. It feels like being in outer space. Segments of structures in this luminous expanse are obliterated, others toppled slightly. It was once inhabited by uncountable thoughts, memories, ideas, and perceptions. Now it is host only to an occupying army. Banners are draped over the buildings that remain. Flags fly high. All of them are a mild, suit-jacket blue, with a harsh blood-red symbol emblazoned: A large eye in the middle of a human palm, with a thick diagonal line across the iris, like forbidding signage. It much matches the occupying figures that all the visitors now get to see.
Flamel Parsons	Some of them look "normal", a bit like slightly misshapen humans. Like every government bureaucrat who reasonably enforces the most mundane and banal of rules. Thick round glasses obscure eyes below black hair cut close, but not too close. Polished leather shoes and a bright red tie. Hands kept clasped around something like a stamp, a simple "no" stamp that features a circle and a thick red line across the middle, held as if it were a lethal weapon. The others look far more twisted. Cabling runs through their heads. The glasses are replaced with military headgear. Some have entire limbs ripped off and replaced haphazardly. Many are in an odd uniform, much more militarized, with tight, rigid jackets, and that palm-eye-forbidding symbol in gleaming gold on peaked caps. Heavy cold-war-era tanks in blue-and-crimson screech as they rush into position. The more militarized members of the occupying force ready their rifles, rendered and engraved in that crimson, with those forbidding circles accentuating each part. A nine-foot-tall man in strict military leader wear, gleaming spectacles shadowed by the visor of his peaked cap, medals across his chest, and a sword at his side, steps forward from the psychic version of the building that the MAD-man had tried to kill Persephone from, so long ago. He raises his arm, clenches his fist, and thrusts it forward, stating a rejection on a psychic level that ripples through the entire plane: "NO." Every Censor instantly opens fire on the group. Tank rounds, rifle shots -- and the ones that seem more "normal" even rush the group with those stamps, which swing with unbelievable force and a "searing" impact if they land.
Forte	Is Forte getting sucked into the machine redundant? Maybe. It's certainly something he could have done on his own, anyway. <J-IC-Scene> Forte says, "Ah - we are in... the machine's mind?" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "We're in the gathered-up psychic energy and data! It's-- pretty much!" "... Yes, that would explain... certain things," says Forte, looking down. The ground is rising up to meet him, in a literal sense. It's as if he's emitting his own sort of gravity here, in the datascape - or... ... more likely, he's effectively a black hole. The warping is only resolved when he floats upwards a bit higher, so the ground is out of range of his pull, and even then there's a conspicuous small crater where he had been floating a moment ago. "In any case - let's start investigating, then." He starts floating forward - and gets pushed back by the psychic rejection. In as much as his emotions are visible underneath the everpresent scarf, he looks stunned. "Ah-" <J-IC-Scene> Forte says, "Censors?" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "They're-- mental white blood cells! They're your inhibitions and psychic defenses." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "They're supposed to just keep your mind healthy and free, not-- gah!" <J-IC-Scene> Forte says, "Oh, they're security. That's all you had to say. Security system, prepare to meet your worst nightmare: a penetration tester crossed with a threat vector. Although, something bothers him- <J-IC-Scene> Forte says, "But - we aren't inside someone's mind? We're inside the data the machine collected." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Exactly!" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "I don't know why the data is Censors! Or why they're like this!" And then Forte, who isn't paying enough attention to the fight, gets driven back by the gunfire - and slammed with a mallet. He brings up an arm, trying to shield himself for just long enough to focus - and then rushes forward, area-stealing across the distance, closing in and trying to grab whatever censor is closest- "Getability.bat - read mode ready - execute," he intones, like chanting a spell. - and then simply absorb it!
Persephone Kore	Phony's astral form comes free of her physical body without resistance- and, in fact, with a marveling laugh. "Haha, I remember when you tried to do this in our fight! It was really-" 'Cute', is what she was probably going to say. But it's cut off by the change in scenery. "It's kind of beautiful, isn't it?" are the first words out of her mouth after she regains her bearings. That doesn't take much time at all. "The neon aesthetic, I think I've always liked it. Small doses, though! Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Her eyes land on the banners first. A little thoughtful frown crosses her face. "Those weren't there in the real world, though, were they? I couldn't get a good look before, but I'm almost sure they weren't. Hey, Lilian-" For the second time she's cut off, too slow. Tanks screech into position. Rifles are levelled. Their existence is condemned. Phony puts her hands up in something between surrender and apology; her eyes shut in a sheepish, pleading smile. "Hey. I'm sure we can-" Third time's the charm. Bullets pass through her cleanly, staining the back of her sweater with red-that-is-not-blood. But I decide not to be hurt, so an instant later she isn't, and I decide I don't want to be shot, so the next volley just stops an inch above her skin- one between the eyes- and falls to the ground with a rattling clink. Her very first reaction, after those psychic kneejerks, is to turn and look back at the rest of the team in an unhurried fashion. "Is everyone else alright? That was kind of awful, wasn't it? Let's see if we can get them to stop." The Queen in Veils surely can't teleport into a data-scape. But it's a psychic projection of Persephone more than it is a machine, and so the three-story-tall doll-mech shimmers into existence around her anyway. Bullets pockmark its plastic, but it'd take the tank guns to break through, and that lets her take her mind off the smaller threats. The regal toy-machine walks across the battlefield carefully, stepping over the Censors and their defenses with grace. A flowering meadow with rolling hills, streams, and convenient mossy boulders spreads out in its wake, giving her teammates potentially advantageous terrain. It bends down in front of the nine-foot-tall figure, hands on its knees in Talking To Short People position, and stares them in the face. "Hi," she says brightly. Her voice lensed through the Queen is 'Big' without being loud, in the same way a stage whisper is 'Sneaky' without being quiet. "What are you trying to defend here? Maybe we can help you!" But just in case the figure doesn't feel like being helpful, she glances at their narrative residue too. Why are you the way that you are?
Shotaro Hidari	Being sucked into the astral plain was a trip and a half for the two in one Kamen Rider. "What in the.." the Shotaro side starts, "I think it's similar to the inside of a Gaia memory...be careful, Shotaro, these are still dangerous things." Which is proven almost immediately, the large...well let's call him General, orders the other mental white blood cells to open fire. This is enough to knock the Kamen Rider to the ground followed by toku sparks. This forces W into a defensive roll, and ducks forward to try and close the distance between the soldiers and himself. Shotaro comes right up on a pair of gunners, aiming to grab them by the hands, before aiming to disarm them. He turns it into a double flip, before aiming to keep them down with lightning speed. He engages soldiers in groups, trying to tie them up and make more dangerous shots a less likely solution, lest they commit friendly fire.
Lilian Rook	Lilian has not yet dealt with Flamel's astral projection in any capacity but the accidental. Managing to smash reality with so much force against an equally powerful and mutually incompatible resistive concept that it'd turned inside out and quasi-astralized everyone else isn't quite the same (or, really the same at all), but it's so strange and has set the bar so high that she is more or less prepared for the level of weirdness that is being yanked out of her body as an idea. Enough to not fight him, anyways. A few seconds after being transported, midway through her first round of slow and marvelling staring at the cityscape, Lilian abruptly remembers to panic about . . . something? It's really impossible to tell. She looks down, holds out her hands, turns them over, examines herself, and then sighs in relief a second later. She puts a fingertip to her face, tracing the two part scar over her nose and under her eye, unable to see, but somehow sensing, the fact that the discoloured skin is a soft, dusty gold. Flamel has to explain what censors are. Of course Lilian's first take is "Well, it'd explain why the city is invisible at least. So our objective is to decensor the data, is that correct? There's a fairly complete map of this city buried under all of this." The question about course of action becomes irrelevant in an instant. Night Mist springs into Lilian's hands in a flaming blossom of inky blackness and turned flat as Lilian herself turns sidelong, using swift flicks and rounds to deflect the hail of bullets aimed in her direction. She disappears as a tank shell lands right on top of her, leaving behind a black crater and a pair of glowing footprints. "You really, really have to work on that reaction speed, Phony!" Lilian calls from fifty feet away. Bearing down, Lilian approaches the gunner line at top speed, the black ribbon of her sword turning bullets to white sparks while she still has the distance to see and react to them coming. She skips right through the mobs of stamp-wielding suitjackets, leaving them to the others, and appears inside the militarized censor lines. Black lightning, like cracks and regenerations of space, follows her path of violence through them. However, it's unclear if she herself is really thinking about why all of her attacks have, at their most violent, severed cyborg arms and destroyed rifles, rather than 'killed' the censors themselves.
Flamel Parsons	Forte doesn't have too tough of a time getting hands on a Censor. One tries to smash his face in, and instead finds itself snatched and absorbed. "Nnnnooo..." It yells, dissolving into that suit-jacket blue psychic energy. Forte gains the PROHIBITION DECREE: A heavy sound-blast that can be released by shouting any form of rejection, creating a negative bolt of crimson psychic energy that obeys the laws of sound rather than conventional projectile rules. Nearby, several of the unmodified Censors demonstrate by barraging him with those blasts, trying to stun him and set him up for a Censor tank that's swiveling its turreted main gun and rushing towards him, trying to press against his head. It's one that has broken off from the main column, which started to line up to blast the Queen in Veils. The tall man's spectacles shine menacingly as she approaches in her machine. "NO. The path of victory is absolute, without your 'help'. We reject anything else. If you savages could understand anything, you wouldn't be living like this. STOP." A squad flanking him on either side rush in front of him, and with coordination, kneel to launch him in an assisted leap. He draws his blade, roaring with righteous fury, to try to send the long blade straight through whatever might seem most cockpit-like for the Queen in Veils. Others try to launch similarly, but Shotaro is starting to break into these lines... Both him and Lilian are disarming and disabling most of the militarized types, who lose so many of their guns and cybernetics. Shotaro draws the ire of another natural Censor group, a pair of burly Strongarm Censors whose suit jackets' sleeves are ripped enough to show massive muscles, and brandish brass knuckles with "NO" in crimson across them, swinging with the kind of force that would knock down buildings. Lilian, on the other hand, gets menaced by the tank column now. The General, currently trying to stab Persephone to death with his crimson sword, balls up a fist demandingly before he points to her, and while the tanks continue firing on Persephone, they begin to circle and try to run Lilian over with surprising speed while their mounted guns blast away! Thankfully the dual efforts to control the crowds have thinned most of the militarized force from boxing these two in with the tanky threats that now rush them.
Flamel Parsons	Persephone's efforts to discover why the general is like this find a great nation. The most wonderful nation. The most perfect nation. The greatest nation on the planet. It taught Censors something wonderful. It taught Censors a new, greater purpose, a new way to forbid things and a new way to know what is truly out of place. A victorious nation that will rule over you savages for an eternity, a forever-history of conquering and victory and strength, where everyone knows the power of the most strong leaders of #######, who have had enough of your subversion and weakness and vile, sick behaviors, and your disgusting culture, and your... There's too much disgust, vicious zealotry, and pointless fixation for the reason this thing is the way it is to be very clear on a single scan. But there's the start of some information.
Shotaro Hidari	The powerful censors that walk up are in fact /incredibly/ powerful. In terms of power, they likely outpower W by a great deal, but Kamen Rider W might be a bad match-up for them. In this form, he is at his most agile, the wind boosts his speed. That, and Shotaro's natural hand-to-hand skill comes out. He's used to fighting stronger opponents or being at the disadvantage in a fight. So when they swing, he moves to avoid their punches, focusing on a defensive style of fighting, and the moment they swing, he aims a shot for their solar plexus, aiming to take advantage of their form, and attempt to take them apart strike by strike. Eventually ending with a powerful, and wind-fueled roundhouse to the back of each of their heads. Shotaro does not waste effort or energy, making sure each of his strikes is as well-timed as he can. If he doesn't do that, their powerful blows would tear him apart.
Lilian Rook	Lilian stares down a charging tank. There's a fifth of a second where she tries to decide to herself whether she can stop that, or whether it's worth trying, and ultimately arrives at 'probably not' and 'no'. The first shell comes flying straight at her at screaming velocity. Lilian blips out of existence. The shell diverts crashes into the ground at a 45 degree angle. Lilian is now(?) high up in the air, wind-tossed by the explosion, and stabilizing herself at a weightless, upside-down drift overhead --a zero gravity orbital slingshot, strafing over the top of the charging column, wherein which she flourishes out that telescoping black and amber wand like a gunslighter and fires. She presumes a sidearm will be useless against anything that resembles a tank even allegorically, and so Lilian goes right to the heavy stuff. Her vantablack-infragold attack magic strobes through the air like the muzzle flash of a fighter jet, vectoring scores of searing, boiling, fusing and separating energy beams through the column, intangibly overpenetrating multiple tanks in a row at sharp right angles, and dumping massive amounts of heat and shearing force from the contact channel's temporal disjoint. (she does not think, for now, how appropriate that colour scheme was as foreshadowing). Minute adjustments to her overhead burn are mostly enough to cross past the shells aimed to intercept her, but spontaneous, short-ranged scatterblasts of barely shaped magical energy are necessary to intercept those that come too close, keeping her on the edge of the blasts instead of inside the template. "Could the censorship itself be the weapon? Like, a memetic gas attack? Bombing an enemy city with self-replicating ideas that prohibit them from thinking about specific actions?" is Lilian's response to the ongoing conjecture about what the hell is happening, shortly after she enters a controlled tumble to right herself with feet aimed at the ground. The damage to her outfit is ignored; it's only an astral copy after all. Even the cuts on her skin that show through from shrapnel. Lilian is nothing if not prone to not even flinching at damage that is 'merely psychological'. "What the hell is that leader figure if not, then? Memes don't typically have a dynamic like that, right? They're meant to spread through culture, not curated direction."
Forte	The PROHIBITION DECREE is some useful looking data. Forte bookmarks it in his personal archive for later examination - because right now he has a barrage of similar rejections to deal with. Lacking any serious defense against repeated soundwaves, he falls back - giving up some ground to get some distance. There might be too many to casually deal with. (He certainly can't absorb all of them one by one, that'd take all day.) So, plans... > BATTLECHIP---DATA INTEGRITY > GAUSSFLAYR N 00% > CTRLNFARCR W 25% > BBUFFERHIT BB50% > BARLROLLER D 25% > CHARGESHOT X 25% > GIGANTIMAX * 50% > PROHIBITON C 99% ... Gigantimaxing would only present a bigger target for the barrages. The charge shot and barrel roller are both potent, but can only hit so many targets. The Gauss Flayer would be useful for chaining across large sections of the army, but that data isn't usuable anymore... ... His eyes glance to the Enfarcerbot Control program. It was from a city, twisted beyond sanity, deploying robotic drones against its own citizens to keep order and control. He'd kept it mostly out of sentimentality, but maybe the parallels are close enough here...? He extends a hand, palm out, as if he were a general giving orders. "Autonavi slot in! CTRLNFARCER W," he shouts. "Execute!" And then he gestures dramatically, as he tries to exert his will into controlling the censor army. If they're supposed to listen to some central structure or authority - he'll try to become that central authority. "The enemy stands amongst you!" he shouts, rising up a bit more to get more distance on his command. "Clad in your own apparel, bearing your own form! Insidious infiltrators, spies, traitors!" "Drive them out!"
Persephone Kore	When the tall man lunges, the Queen in Veils doesn't react- not 'too slowly', but 'not at all'. His blade sinks deep into the thick plastic of its chest-cockpit. When he pulls it out, the blade shines red along its last third. "Ow! Hey. You really shouldn't do that, you know." The cockpit pops open, what would be its ribcage hinging upwards. The Queen's heart has screens and potted plants and a little coffee-maker, and Persephone sitting on a comfy-looking chair with her legs crossed and a stab-wound in her chest, and no control surfaces whatsoever. Her expression is sternly disapproving. An enormous hand of perfect pearly plastic grabs the tall man- even if he tries to evade its reach, he's drawn into its palm as if by gravity, because I've decided to grab you!- and holds him at Phony's eye level in the kind of grip that could crush the Earth into a single sextillion-ton diamond. The tanks aiming at her, having already cracked and gouged through the Queen's armor, are stopped from doing further damage by having their turrets abruptly twisted past their maximum rotation with a groaning crunch of metal. The surrounding Censors are shoved aside, bowled over as if by a very gentle shockwave. Their weapons crack and break, one by one, in rapid succession like popcorn popping. Phony herself walks out onto the Queen's arm, standing above the tall man, and frowns slightly as her wound simply disappears. Its fingers do not loosen. "The things I want just happen," she says evenly. "You don't get to win unless I let you. But I don't really want to hurt you, either. So tell me. Convince me. What will it take to make you stop? What do you have that's so right, everything else seems wrong?" Her mind-reading can help, just maybe, even if he remains tight-lipped.
Flamel Parsons	The Strongarm Censors take more than a few rounds of this to go down. Shotaro's going to be pursued ruthlessly, as his paired foes have intense determination alongside their forceful bulk. But he lands his strike, once, twice, three times. One tries to judo-fling him into the shoulders of the Queen in Veils during one of those kicks, while the other leaps to engage him in fistfights there. They try to grab him, to strike him, sometimes lift and toss him, but they're only Censors, they lack the sheer durability of something like a trauma. If he can manage those kicks at least a half-dozen times or so, he'll put them each down. Lilian lashes through the tanks, culling their numbers brutally. She's not wrong, if she chooses to check against what info-gathering abilities she has: This has the look of something weaponized, loaded into a bomb, and deployed. By who, for what purpose? It's not clear. The few tank operators left after that barrage scatter. Forte's hacking influence has an odd effect. Several of the natural Censors halt the rush, glancing from side to side. They start to look nervous, agitated. He doesn't manage to fully take control of them in some way that makes them stop targeting him, but suddenly, many of the natural Censors also can target their augmented, militarized bretheren. He suddenly finds himself subject to a fraction of their attention, as they factory-reset in some way, trying to purge their altered allies, taking the heat to a vastly more manageable level. "DIE." Answers the General. Now grabbed, he wrenches one arm out of the grip and draws a heavy ceremonial revolver, and just starts blasting at her face. "For #######, we will never stop, until our strength defines the world. You won't have what you want. You don't even know what you want." He practically spits as he reloads. Every bullet is marked with a forbidding circle. "You don't have to let me win. Our victory was always inevitable!" More valuable information, but no compliance. This psychic construct doesn't have the depth of character to be swayed to another side! He's just personified, concentrated psychic energy, in the end, not even really capable of surrender. "No. We won years ago. Hahaha!" Cabling that jostles just under his hat sparks and shudders. Crimson energy surges through him, arcing out to his allies. His personal squad, still holding out nearby, rush him. Two heavily-augmented Censors try to snatch him away from Persephone, one loyalist grenadier rushes Persephone with explosives to try to blast her and force her back, while the rest of the gunmen try to open fire on the remaining trio of Forte, Lilian, and the Rider. But if everyone can stop this, you'll have the commanding psychic construct captured! Forte only has the last tank that's trying to blast his head off to deal with, while Lilian has a mosh-pit of reset Censors and violent augmented Censors in battle to maneuver through between her and Persephone. Shotaro will need to have controlled the flow of battle with the Strongarms trying to throw him around somehow, and not wound up in a cluster himself!
Shotaro Hidari	Kamen Rider W continues to fight, but when more jump in to assist, he's slowly starting to realize that this is just going to be unfortunately against him. Worse, there is backup coming. When they are on top of him again, Philip is the first to suggest a change in tactics. "We can't afford to get gained up like this," he says, to which Shotaro grunts, "Alright, I'll switch to Trigger.." he says, and just NARROWLY gets out of a punch. He pulls out the Trigger Gaia Memory, and slots it in for the Joker one. But right at this happens one of the soldiers sucker punches him. This launches him towards the Queen in Veils, with the transformation happening mid-flight. The other half of him also slights on a different memory, a yellow memory. LUNAR TIGGER The now Yellow and blue Kamen Rider Flies by the Queen in Veils, as its yellow hand grows and extends out unnaturally, aiming to grab the side of her shoulder to drag himself back. "Thanks," says the Philip side of W as Shotaro draws out a pistol. He slides the Lunar Gaia memory into it, as it starts to make a high-pitched sound that only gets higher pitched. "Good luck," Shotaro says towards Phony before they leap off. The Hardboiler with the flight parts attached catches them, as he takes them to the air and points the gun down at them. "LUNAR, MAXIMUM BURST.." he says drawing the pistol down. "TRIGGER FULL BURST!" he shouts before the charging sound hits a high pitch. Then it fires, many balls of light fire at the Strong Arm Censors, trying to catch them with multiple homing shots, aiming to repeatedly pepper them as the gun continues to fire. Of course, this will end with a larger burst at them all, which explodes with the W symbol over them.
Forte	Almost done... just a bit more. But the onrush of censors - the seemingly never ending army launching constant barrages - has been wearing him down a bit. He faces down the last tank, panting a bit - he's developed some distressing looking scanlines (much like a VCR that hasn't had its vertical sync properly adjusted), and a bit of fuzziness at the edges. He just needs to hold out a bit longer... ... dig a bit deeper. Pull out another trick. "Cross system - activate!" he shouts, a bit louder than he'd intended to. He's awkwardly aware that he's acting like a toku hero right now. "Connection open! Template loaded! Moon Cross - Execute!" There's a flash of light, and then Forte's bearing a blue and white color scheme - and seems to stand up a bit straighter, a bit more forthrightly. It's as if he's not just refreshed, but renewed - an entirely new, Moon Cross Forte. He takes on the tank, not so much as shrugging off the hits as just outhealing them, relying on a nearly literal ocean of data flowing into him to restore his wounds as he closes the distance and takes apart the tank one piece at a time.
Lilian Rook	Lilian asks, and her question is answered. She wants to know what it is that this bastardized artificial psychohazard contains. She hates the answer that she receives. <J-IC-Scene> Persephone Kore says, "'Subversion and weakness, vile and sick'. Celebrating strength and victory." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, dimly, "Ah." <J-IC-Scene> Persephone Kore says, "Huh? Do you recognize it from somewhere?" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "How couldn't I?" Persephone swears that she doesn't feel as if she's in danger, but now, especially, Lilian can't really let that sit. Unfortunately, she's surrounded. Even if the half of them are disabled, she's surrounded by motley remnants that are falling back around their 'leader'. She can't get to Persephone. But that's not true, is it? Nobody gets to tell me what I can and can't do, where I can and can't go, anywhere. I'm not missing this. It's my turn. <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'm in no mood right now to be told how vile and sick and weak and mentally subverted I am." -----[stop]----- Lilian weaves her way through and over the crowd while they are unable to stop her. Unable to fight back. Unable to move. Unable to matter. They sit politely by and allow her to take her turn. Because she wants it, so she gets to have one. Locking eyes on the grenadier, Lilian dives on him, neatly slices through the grenade with a swing of her sword, flicks the bisected pin fuse away from the tip of the flat, then pivots for a full body torque-building motion, draws in her elbows, and and pommel smashes the grenadier himself in the side of the head-- he doesn't go far, but he will in just a subjectively imagined moment, along with his uncontrolled explosive. Flicking the wand in the heavy Censors' direction, nascent blasts of magic fire, born like bright and tiny suns, blobby and shapeless when caught in photo freezeframe, surround them in a crescent formation as Lilian moves, each one tinged a little black and a little gold. She charges at one from the side, ducking incredibly low. -----[start]----- Lilian suddenly appears multiple city blocks away. The grenadier and his vital equipment launch off down the road of their own accord. A crescent moon of glittering explosions arcs inward to crush the heavy Censors at its geometric middle. Lilian rakes low through the legs of one as she passes just behind him from the side, and then tackles the knees out from under the other one. She knows it doesn't matter --the Censor isn't a person-- but she can't help but yell it anyways. "I've always known exactly what I wanted! The only thing I wanted! And I didn't need it fed to me by 'Culture'! Victory isn't any more permanent then anything else-- if you don't keep fighting for it, it slips away. Just being strong doesn't guarantee triumph."
Persephone Kore	"Thanks! You too, W!!" An amiable little wave sees the Kamen Rider off. She is then immediately shot in the face. The first two bullets pass through Persephone's face: one just below her eye, the other right next to her mouth. Rather than distorting like living flesh should, she cracks and shatters like she's made of crystal. Hard pieces clatter to the ground far below; hairline fractures radiate across her head. The next four shots are struck, each, with just enough telekinetic force to stop them in their tracks as they leave the barrel, because I would rather not be shot again, and also actually, I wasn't shot in the first place. The fractures and holes in her head, dangerously close to brain matter, close over as if photoshopped away. Her expression sets in irritation. "'I won't let them celebrate Victory Day'," she recites from memory. The Midnight Trephinator's words. Are these Censors the 'them'? "Maybe he was onto something, after all." Her eyes are on his gun, which means she can't be shot anymore, but it also means the augmented Censors and the Grenadier are about to catch her off-guard. Only abruptly they aren't. Confusion briefly crosses her face, chased a moment later by a warmly knowing look. "Worrying about me is completely and utterly illegal, you know," she chides gently. "I'm supposed to be the one worrying about you!! And you just said you don't even enjoy it, besides." Her attention shifts back to the tall man. Her expression turns into a little frown. "You're the ones who hid the city, aren't you? Getting rid of all the evidence of 'MAD', so nobody would find it again. I think I get it. Even if Flamel says the Psychonauts would never... it's the only way the pieces fit, isn't it? Desperate times, maybe." Her expression shifts to a bright little smile, satisfied with that solution. "I have to make you go away now, okay? But you did an amazing job, keeping everyone safe. Thank you!" She hops off the Queen's arm, floating in the air. It winds back and throws him into the sky hard enough for him to leave behind a vapor cone. A little star twinkles overhead, but maybe that's just the air committing fusion as it slams into his body at particle-accelerator speeds. It's still a tiny star either way!
Flamel Parsons	The remnants of the tank column are gone. Disassembled into parts. A pair of screeching Censor tank crew try to fruitlessly operate chunks of tank that no longer are connected to anything. Forte is no longer menaced. Kamen Rider W's Lunar Trigger gets what it needs, which is some distance. The Strongarms have little in the way of dedicated mobility and less in the way of ranged options, leaving them to get worn down as they charge him, until they're put in the dirt, leaving the surging reinforcements with almost nothing to rally around. The grenadier and the other reinforcements rush Persephone, threatening to detonate her violently. Bombs go off where they weren't meant to, and the crescent obliterates the heavily augmented foes as well. Fewer and fewer rally points. The others are scattered, gone. This group is victorious. So why doesn't the Censor seem to feel that way? That look of steely determination on the man's face turns to a snarl when she talks about erasing the evidence of MAD. His spectacles gleam under the peaked cap. "Nobody remembers what happened, do they? Hahahah... now there's nothing you can do. Our strength gets to keep its victory lap. You think I'm here to do anything besides keep the city occupied?" He whispers. "No." He's launched into the plane's upper atmosphere. As his form twinkles in the void of starry synapses, outside in the real world, a data storage cassette pops out of a slot in the machinery, like a piece of toast coming out of a toaster. The whole thing stops rumbling and rattling, and its capacitor empties, gushing purple mist as the runaway reaction is defused. In that moment, everyone ejects from the mental plane, and is rushed back into their bodies! The Invisible City has now, finally, ceased to be invisible. The tall, mid-20th-century asian architecture is on full display, as are the markings of extensive bombing, the infrequent skeleton, and the extensive signs of habitation. And yet, no more explanation for how this happened. Flamel picks up the cassette tape. "I think... we have it!" He says, grinning uneasily. "Huh! That was a lot worse than I expected it to ever be, but thanks for making sure it didn't end with me exploding! Feels like every time I set up some basic data-gathering, it ends with me getting blown up these days." He offers the tape to Persephone or Lilian to hold, if either want it, or pockets it himself. "We'll want to run clairvoyance and psychometry analysis on this back at the Motherlobe."
Shotaro Hidari	The hardboiler and W land. The moment he goes to say something, the General goes into space. It was all the Kamen Rider could do, just watch him go into space and become a star. "I heard you're supposed to wish on shooting stars.." says Philip, and Shotaro shrugs. "Yeah, I guess." Back into the material world, W snaps to, and Shotaro removes the Gaia memory, and the armor fades away. It seems to blow off into pieces as if by a wind. "Well, that's good. If you don't mind, I will take an investigative look here." "I think there might be some clues that will help or at least give more insight to what we might find in that data."
Forte	So the censors - the simulated censors that were created with the datascape that was generated from the data that had been psychically collected - were actually the real thing guarding the invisible city and now that the copies(?) have been cleansed(??) from the data(???)... ... No, Forte decides to just roll with it. It makes about as much sense as some of the things in his own world. Forte specifically does not offer to hold onto the cassette tape. That would be bad. "If that keeps happening perhaps you should have an escord more often," observes Forte. He glances down at himself - he's still Moon Cross Forte, all blue and white. There's another flash of light, and he's back to his color scheme... ... Although, as the Cross System powers down, something inside tugs at him a bit when Shotaro mentions going to investigate. He'll worry about that later.
Persephone Kore	The Queen shimmers out of existence as Phony floats back down to Lilian's level. She touches down on solid ground again with a click-clack of heels, which is all the warning Lilian gets before Persephone walks up behind her and squeezes her hand. I didn't understand it at first. This isn't a way I've ever had to struggle. But I can see the outline of it now, I think. Poor Lilian. "It's okay," she says, her voice not rising above a murmur. "It's awful, isn't it? Hitting a nail that everyone else has already driven in. But they really can't undo what we've done. This gets to be something that lasts forever. They aren't anything but an echo of something you've already beaten. I promise you won't have to beat it twice." ---- Persephone stretches in the real world, as if she'd been cramped in that device somehow. After a moment she realizes to check her sweater to see if the bullet-holes are still there, and a moment after that, she looks up to glance around the city for real. "It looks a lot better without those banners, doesn't it?" she decides with a smile. "Even if it's still a little bleak. I guess they really were meant to cover it up." To Forte and W: "Thanks for your help, you two! Er, you three, haha. You all did such an amazing job!! I barely even got to do anything. Not that I'm upset!"
Shotaro Hidari	Persephone says she didn't do much. This causes Shotaro to stare at her weirdly. This causes Philip, who is at home to stare up into the sky because that is where the shooting star is.
Lilian Rook	Lilian flinches a little bit when Persephone grabs her hand. It's not as if she hadn't heard her coming, just perhaps not been prepared for the touch. She hasn't done that in a while. "Please don't think too much about it." Lilian whispers back. "I don't want you to think about it. I don't want that in your head. I don't want you to take it back home. I'm allowed to worry about you this way. I'm allowed to protect you from this." Her jaw clenches with the effort of keeping her lip from twisting. "But I do wish that were as true as you think." Touching her (normal-looking) face again as if just to be sure of something, Lilian approaches Flamel with a relieved, and then dangerously calm smile on her face. "I do wonder why defeating the censors inside the data suppressed the invisibility over the city? Were they perhaps not part of the data at all, but broadcasting from the city itself into it as part of their function of suppressing information? Have we perhaps immunized ourselves from the suppression specifically? So many questions. So many secrets." "Hey. Parsons. Might I ask you a question out of professional curiosity? Why does this device look completely different from the one you had back then?"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel sweats a little. The anxiety he's feeling has nothing to do with this apocalyptic disaster scenario he's facing, and everything to do with Lilian approaching him with these sentiments and thoughts. "It's possible we actually gathered the command construct for the Censors that were keeping this place invisible, actually!" He says, doing his best to explain. The other matter, from the Eversion event, is perhaps more dangerous. More of a deep concern to discuss. "Well, I'm glad you asked! That was an astral injector of mine, while this is a psychoseismometer. The psychosiesmometer is designed to gather up a lot of psychic energy from the surrounding space, but the injector is designed to project into a person's mind at a great distance! Very different functions." He says, nodding several times and swallowing a little bit conspicuously when he adjusts his sunglasses (and, subtly, his mental defenses).
Persephone Kore	Persephone's eyes widen, sliding between Flamel and Lilian. It's rare to see her genuinely anxious, but here, for once, she does: unable to tell what Lilian's thinking, unsettled by Flamel's nervousness and apparent guilt. Tellingly, though, she does not move to defend her factional teammate. "Lilian... what's going on? Is this- this is about the Despoina stuff, right? And the Winter Knight? But that stuff never even happened. I mean- the mind dive never went through. Why is it important?" Her tone is earnestly confused, not defensive. Her mind is an open book to Lilian; if there's something sinister going on here, she had no part in it.
Lilian Rook	"Oh, of course it is, Persephone. I never got the memo, remember? I got to know exactly when and where it was happening and who would be involved in advance, and why, but oddly, no other particulars. So I'm curious! Naturally, yes? Of course I'd be curious." "Like, for instance, if that's what that does, and this is what this does, why didn't you try using this machine in either her place or mine, Persons? You had weeks to do it, after all. And you wouldn't have needed Persephone. Wouldn't this have been far more direct?" "Hey. Do you want to get into a psychic fight? Or a real one?"
Flamel Parsons	Parsons is really sweating it up now. And he can't stop some of the complexities of his scheme from bubbling to the surface of his mind: Lying to Persephone, just a little. The Eversion event not being quite so unexpected. Things like that. "That... is... a very good question!" He says. You can practically hear the urgent turn of mental machinery. "Which... has a very... good answer." He is speaking particularly slowly now. Stalling for time. Trying to think. "An answer... that... I will tell you." The sunglasses adjustment is rapid, fidgety. He swallows. After a minute, he sighs, a bit heavily, and runs fingers through his hair, trying to pull it back to the slicked-back state it usually is in. "You're really gonna chase this one down, huh? Hahah... I guess it was a little too good to be true, to get all that data without... Well." His positive tone remains, but has an element of sheepish fear in it. "Whyyyyy do I get the feeling you've already decided the answer to that? Ahah..." The nervous laugh is there again.
Lilian Rook	"Yes. Yes I am." says Lilian. It's worse, that she's clearly so honest about it, while still using those crisp little received pronunciation 'yes'es instead of the usual raw informal tiredness that her sincerity typically requires. "Oh, but don't get the wrong idea! I'm not deciding everything for myself this time. I've had a good few lessons about that lately, you know?" She turns to look at Persephone. "I think Phony should have an equal say in this particular decision, don't you?" There is an expectant silence of moderate length, where one can practically hear the little crackle of metaphorical radio communication between them.
Persephone Kore	"What do you mean, you 'got the memo'? I thought you used your prophecy stuff or something to tell that we'd be there. Is that not...?" Persephone trails off. She is, visibly and palpably, cresting the edge of a great and terrible realization. She isn't angry or shocked, not yet, but her residual clammy calm is a walking ghost of an emotion. "'All that data'," she says softly. "Not the data from the Winter Knight. The data from our fight, right? You lied to me. I trusted you. I didn't even check. What did you lie about, Flamel? Why did you know it'd..." She's clutching the end of her scarf in both hands. Her eyes are open wide in fear. I can almost see the outline of it. I don't want it to be true. I don't like the way this is going to make me feel. I don't like the things it's going to make me do. Please tell me I'm wrong. Her wide eyes slide over to meet Lilian's. Her mouth hangs open. Her expression, normally so warm, is shivery-cold with dread and rising adrenaline. But Lilian doesn't reassure her, or allay her fears, or tell her she doesn't have to be mad. She's expectant. Waiting for Phony to catch up to the same conclusion she's already reached, for the dull pain to process all the way. ... really, really have to work on that reaction speed, Phony!... "I... Lilian, this is..." . . . She is interrupted by the dull snap of Flamel's sunglasses breaking under the telekinetic pressure. A moment later, there is a vastly louder 'dull snap'. Flamel is gone, struck by an incalculable telekinetic hammerblow. The patch of dusty ground where he stood has turned to lava and glass. A vapor cone and pressure shockwave radiate out, stirring Phony's hair into flying sideways and briefly hiding her face. A trail of glowing ionized air traces from his former position, directly to the Moon. When Phony's hair settles back into place, her expression has shifted from innocent shock to teary teeth-gritted anger. "FLAMELLLLLLL!" she screams into the sky, and even three hundred thousand miles of hard vacuum away, he can hear her. The Queen in Veils shimmers into being behind her. She teleports into its cockpit, then holds a plastic hand out for Lilian to step onto. "We're going."
Flamel Parsons	His expression shifts from anxiously fearful to an overwhelming sense of dread, slowly, as Persephone's atmosphere changes. In his last moments, Flamel looks like a man about to descend the world's worst roller coaster. He's inhaling with intent to speak up in the moment before his sunglasses crack. "Oh--" And then, just like that, he's gone. The Psychonauts cadet pilot that Flamel brought on peeks out of the top hatch of the plane, looks for a moment like someone just pepper-sprayed him, and closes the hatch again.
Lilian Rook	Persephone's first, and last, faltering question to Lilian, is met with a gently rueful shake of her head. No further elaboration is needed. "I'm sorry I had to be right." says Lilian. "You're not used to people being this unfair, are you?" Flamel disappears. Almost as if she'd done it herself, though there is a purely academic difference in time, and a much more stark difference in subtlety. Lilian steps forward, blinks into the Queen in Veils' hand, and puts her foot down again. "Yeah. We are."