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Lilian Rook	Out in the wilderness of the so-called New West, irrelevantly within the boundaries of what used to be central Colorado, near the foot of what used to be the picturesque Rocky Mountains, work is finally well underway. Though the high plateau, strangely level and windswept, feels perfectly exposed, little seems to actually happen here; no doubt this is because of the nexus of four crossing leylines that converge at its center, bright and strong enough that a fait mile-high shimmer can be dimly spotted during the day. Known as places of all sorts of magical instability and interdimensional disaster, most stay far away from them; something the Paladins are using to their advantage.     To date, the old man who introduced himself as 'Deadwood' has packed up his trailer and left the foot of the mountain, itself direly inhospitable after the Great Cataclysm's tectonic activity raised it half again as tall in places and turned everything between a jagged and treacherous misty nightmare. The nearby town of Boothill --a tiny outpost of homesteaders ostensibly themed after the old 'wild west', with few technological embellishments-- has yet to be raided again by its bandit problem, but suspects it won't be long, and have offered little confidence in the Paladins' ventures to make contact.     The nexus itself has remained stable, but the barebones monitoring station --really little more than an elevated prefab shed with windows and sensors-- has detected an increasing number of power fluctuations over the prior week, and don't have a predictive model ready. Primarily, Lilian has been the one installing magical infrastructure, by far the expedition's most knowledgeable and powerful magic-user (in the traditional sense), and the array she laid down originally has only grown larger and more complicated since, now occupying a small ballroom's worth of space and thoroughly marked off. Tall waymarker stones, anointed and engraved, mark spiral paths to and from it, that keep out of the leylines specifically and allow movement around the nexus.     To aid Ioanna (and Mack), the promised materiel has already arrived, using her personal funds from her own world. It isn't as much as she could afford, because there's only so much supply she can legally requisition as one individual, but it's enough that a number of members the auxiliary platoon put under her command recently are already moving around numerous hard plastic crates, clearing ground to install pneumatic bases for transceiver masts, digging out pits for eventual hydrogen still basins, raising infirmary tents, and setting up some prefab bunk barracks, 'greenhouse' scaffolding, planned electrical grid space, and an enclosed 'war room' for occupation more significant and long-term than themselves. A few more are out on patrol. It's not a lot yet.     As Lilian had indicated, her own staff on site are her 'cute juniors'. Both women roughly her age, wearing the model of Immunes combat skin she used to last year. Satsuki --Japanese, short black hair, mon-embossed breast and shoulder plates, sash and sword-- is currently just outside the 'war room', poring over a tactical map rendered in glowing 3D, reviewing Kale's early reconnaissance of the local bandit gang --the Bluekills-- hideout, and Tamamo's retrieved information. Arina --Russian, tiny, fluffy blonde, deerskull mask and feather clip turned to the side of her head, fur-lined grey-blue cloak and satchel over her uniform-- is running back and forth between the leyline arrays, stockpiles, and infirmary tents, ostensibly in charge of the magical efforts in lieu of Lilian herself.     Who is 'out'. Any questioning at all says that her lightning wards had finally grounded that flying monster plaguing the area, and she sortied herself and a few troopers to put it down. She should be returning shortly. Until then, she's leaving it up to group discretion whether to focus on construction, the bandits, or even Boothill.
Ioanna Langstrom	Ioanna Langstrom would be lying if she said she didn't feel any pride on the way through the warpgate. This was, after all, her operation. Her base. Her objective. It was something she was organizing, something she was *commanding*. It was an accomplishment that was uniquely hers in the realm of the Elites - not a doctorate in a field, not test-piloting the Paladins' new gear, but *her* project. A project she initiated, a project she does paperwork for almost nightly to the point where Shinji Ogawa has just sort of gotten used to her asking offhandedly if he bought her ink on his way home, a project whose details would be etched into her favorite desk if it wasn't for her infosec being tighter than her ambition.      But now's not the time to show that pride. Pride before the project is completed is dangerous. You never assume something's locked in in the field. You never assume things are going to go well. You never assume things are going to be a milk run. There's no such thing as a milk run in the military.      Ioanna steps out of the warpgate as the orange hexagons along the MCM pulse outwards and transform the nearly-skintight bodysuit into a heavy adventurer's coat with survival gear. The OC takes the form of a Very Large Hand Cannon appropriate to the sort of wild-western area they're in as the FC folds into an eyepiece from which she can oversee the operation. Behind her is the squad of Commonwealth Marines she had mentioned bringing - older-model power armor and almost assuredly troops who were due for reassignment or who owed her personal favors all, stomping through and ready to help reinforce and relieve the current squads.      She gives the two Immunes a curt military salute before she reviews the recon info. After a minute, she says,      "As much as I would like to begin construction immediately, putting construction crews at risk is unacceptable when the area isn't secure. These Bluekills need to be contained - as a show of force and deterrant to other criminal organizations who might take an interest, and as a show of good faith to the surrounding villages we'll be bringing under our umbrella. Building will be easier if we can source local help."      She holsters the huge handcannon and folds her arms over her chest. "That's my decision. Any objections?"
Hellwarming Trio	The meddlesome youkai, for better or for worse, haven't forgotten about this job, and they float along not too long after Ioanna comes out of the warp gate. They gawk and ahhh in awe as her suit changes forms, still not quite getting enough of seeing even partial transformations going on right in front of them. With the wealth of information before them, there's the matter of actually reviewing all of that stuff and trying to digest it all. Utsuho's actually the first one to get to work on that, poring through the maps alongside Satsuki and asking about somewhat obvious things about what she's actually seeing on the map (mostly symbols) while tapping inaccurate notes into her phone. Rin, meanwhile, gets distracted momentarily with inspecting Arina's mask and peeking into the many tents, but she too joins in the note-taking after not too long. After squabbling over the phone for a little longer, they get their heads on straight and immediately offer conflicting opinions on how to proceed. Utsuho: "That array of magical stuff looks pretty complicated. If I let me at it, I could probably soup it up and really churn out some power for whatever this place might need." Rin: "Those bandits're gonna be trouble, though. We should kick their butts like Ioanna said, and then who knows? Maybe we can use 'em for extra power, too." Utsuho: "I thought we weren't supposed to say that part out loud anymore."
Mack	"Well I don't know, but I've been told, Uranium ore's worth more'n gold..." Mack roams the nexus, a short, hobbling figure moving between buildings and projects. In the daylight, he's just kind of wobbly and hunched; at night, his posture and movement profile would be likened instead to a horror movie monster. The comically large sombrero does a lot to shield the newly-arrived personnel from the sometimes very negative impact of his presence. It's not that he's not affable and helpful, but there's a certain level of visceral disgust that most humanoids display upon first getting a real good look at him, and he wants to spare the expedition the growing pains while they're on a first-phase time crunch. "Sold my cad', I bought me a jeep, I've got that bug and I can't sleep." "Uraaaaanium fever --!" Mack rounds the corner of the prefab, stops singing along to the song playing over the battered headphones tucked under his hat, and goes to meet Ioanna and the Marines. He gives Lilian's juniors a curious side-eye from his diminuitive eye level (he doesn't know what to make of them, yet), but politely tips his big hat nonetheless to the collected personnel with his free hand. His *other* hand is holding a huge fucking rifle, which, given his height and its size, he is definitely using as a walking stick. It looks black, boxy, and long-barrelled, remaining the same unwieldy width from trigger to muzzle, with a sort of sleek black coating that most weapons produced locally don't go in for and a bulky magazine that doesn't resemble a standard e-clip at all. It's also got what appears to be yellow gemstones along the body at even intervals, and tiny, spiralling script in polished gold ringing the two-inch bore. So that's pretty cool. "Power shouldn't be a problem, but bandits always are," Mack sighs. "It should get us a few points with the locals, too, and that can't hurt."
Kale Hearthward	Kale's been, really, elsewhere for most of this project. Other missions, other opportunities, and his own personal training - important things, but things that aren't readily apparent right here and right now. While *here*, though, he's been doing aerial scouting patrols, helping establish what air superiority he can, and helping with the transport of materiel - being both able to fly and to carry an entire pocketful of tokenized shipping containers with him. "That sounds good to me," he says, at Ioanna's meeting. "Also, greetings, Langstrom. It's been a while since I've seen you face to face."
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry Princess arrives in her updated costume: frills added throughout and skirt emphasized, cutesy fruit motif played up, tiara replacing the old half-face mask. Though it straddles a halfway point between 'suit' and 'clothes', it feels less superhero-y and more mahou-y. It is childlike, in a good way.      She runs into Arina pretty soon out of the gate, waving her down. "Oh! Hey! You're Lilian's-" cute- "junior, right? It's great to meet you. I'm Strawberry Princess, one of her- friends, out here. I'm sure she said your name, but my memory's kind of awful, so...?" An awkward smile. A hand extended. For someone six-foot-plus and scarred, Strawberry's remarkably non-intimidating.      It doesn't take long for her to slide over to the table, where Satsuki gets a similar greeting, but cut a little short by Ioanna's planning. "That sounds fine to me, Ms. Langstrom. I remember the bandits have a weird alien leader, but... shouldn't we be finding out why they turned to banditry, too? It can't be a fun life. Maybe they'd stop if we gave them other prospects."      Her smile is forlornly hopeful.
Tamamo	Tamamo-no-mae has once more arrived with every intent of respecting local culture. No one could claim her outfit to be unamerican. Leather chaps held up by multiple, criss-crossed belts with silver buckles, embossed thigh holsters, daisy dukes, a wide-brimmed hat with a single star (over a sunburst) on its buckle and cut slits for her ears to poke through, a white, short-sleeved undershirt with the ends tied in a knot at her midriff, and an open leather vest with tassels on the shoulders, as well as hanging from her detached wrist cuffs, form the very picture of modern, Western American fashion, according to her careful research.     'Yes,' she thinks to herself, while tying a dusky red bandanna around her neck as the finishing touch. 'It's perfect.' Though her last attempt hadn't met with any complains, it's possible that they were just being polite. And so, today, her efforts renew.     Of course, all of that effort was in the background, before arriving. Once she's here, only the results are visible, and she doesn't call any additional attention to them. Here, she busies herself with the construction effort, intending to actually be productive, in Lilian's absence, and not just calmly observing matters. The medical area has her first attention, arranging self-contained magic circles, pieces of small geomancy that will work 'just fine' even if moved, without being incorporated into the larger space, but fit well for the larger area by orienting appropriately, cleaning out the space, planting a few seeds from a pouch that burrow into the ground and maintain faint lines in the dust all on their own, and better maintain a balanced flow of those subtle energies of chiefly Taoist interest. "'Balance' is, after all, of fundamental importance in medicine, as has always been the case."     Once she's done with that, she makes sure to bother Arina, and ask after all the many things she's caring for, and whether they're all quite alright.     They've met, at least the once before.
Reyes	The promised time has finally arrived, and... something is lumbering steadily towards the building site. 60 feet high and (clumsily) trudging up the hill terrain towards the Paladins site is a behemoth of steel. It rather looks like someone slapped a pair of chicken walker legs on a 20 foot wide, 80 foot long TANK, and replaced the turret with an observation deck. it's covered in hatches and mechanical and electronic apparati of unknown purpose. Two big robot arms featuring crude claw-graspers on the end are mounted on its sides, currently tucked up in a 'traveling' configuration.     On the side, and a few other places, a white circle with an arrow pointing up and the letters "NG" can be seen. BUt, this thing is beaten up all to hell. The hull's patched crudely in many places and sometimes it struggles to take another step or wobbles unsteadily.     Eventually, though, it reaches a flat space outside the base and lowers itself down, down down... until the belly touches down and it settles with a groan of grinding servos.     A ramp lowers and down that ramp comes Reyes.     "Place is looking up! I wasn't sure what to bring that'd help, so... kinda brought everything." For once, he's not wearing any of his typical power armor. Instead he's wearing the traditional WW2 bomber jacket and oversized flight goggles that Techno-Wizards have become known for. Or, well, the Northern Gun 'Streetwolf' equivalent thereof.     "Got generators. Got turrets. Got E-Clip rechargers. Got a bunch of stuff I managed to salvage, too. Decent guns. Plenty of armor scraps. Can never have enough of those." He sounds positively proud to be lugging around what might, from the sound of it, be junk, but one man's treash is another's treasure.     Especially when you're a Techno-Wizard.     "We sure picked a doozy of a place to set down... really hoping this array does the job."
Go Shijima	Satsuki and Arina get friendly waves from Go, who then files in quietly to listen to Ioanna. "No objections from me," says Go. "If you need me on bandits, I'm happy to help." He nods in agreement with Mack. "It seems like our neighbors don't have a lot of faith in us. Maybe this would help?" He frowns--having come here unsuited, it's plain on his face. Or maybe the reasons run deeper than that...      "I don't think we've met in person, by the way--I'm Go, but when I'm suited up, you can call me Mach." He extends a hand for Mack to shake, then turns back to Ioanna.      "If you're full up on bandits, though, I could always head to Boothill and see what turns out. Either way, this place is really impressive even in this early stage," he offers with a smile. "I'm glad I can be here to help!"      Strawberry enters, in-costume, and Go blinks. "Oh, I guess I should, if we're leaving soon, huh..." He straps on the belt--blue and silver, looks like a motorcycle's muffler. A tiny little car slotted in from the top, and a musical jingle later, there's a burst of flame from the exhaust.      "Let's..." His right arm is held up, bent upwards at the elbow, left hand resting beneath the elbow. There's a dramatic flourish to reverse their positions, and a grin. "Henshin!"                                    MACH 555!                                          A sleek suit of white armor with two red vertical racing stripes, with angles like a performance superbike and two stylish matching shoulder capes appears over him, complete with a finned helmet.      The armored hero patiently waits, hands folded, thumbs twiddling.
Mack	Mack reaches up and takes the hand. His is the warmth of powered machinery, an artistic replica of an idealized human limb attached to the body of some kind of trash goblin. He tilts his head back and looks up, amber artifical eyes peeking out from beneath the shadowed brim of his hat. It makes him mostly look like a robot skeleton vaquero, which is honestly kinda metal. "Haven't yet! Archimedes MacCloud. Most folks call me Mack. Pleased to meet you properly, Mach." The similarity in pronounciation makes him grin. A somewhat more polite bow of the head gets directed Tamamo's way, which allows him to not grin toothily at her extremely authentic get-up. Then, he squints up at the mech. "That'll get their attention," he comments to nobody in particular.
Ishirou	Ishirou steps through the portal not far after others, though not in his armor yet.  There was no need because this area was safe, and without people to shoot at him.  That'd come later, obviously.  He notices Lilian's students and gives them a wave as he passes by.  He's met them at least once, and they look busy already so he doesn't interrupt. Though this is the first time he's Strawberry's new form, and he looks it over.  "Oh hey, I like the new look Strawberry!" he says upbeat.  When the topic of construction, bandits, or reaching out to the nearby town comes up, it causes Ishirou to have a thought on it.  That of course is immediately interrupted when Ioanna just decides that's what they're doing.   "I mean, that...is probably the best idea given what we have, but there are other thoughts to get some more construction up first.  In case kicking the bandits decides to make them target this place instead of the town, for example.  Some walls or defensive options more developed than is already here wouldn't go amiss." He's quiet after a minute, thinking this over.  He instead decides to get a better scan of the area, to see if there might be a natural solution to this problem that is quicker and dirtier, so they can focus on the bandits first without having to worry about retaliation.
Strawberry Princess	"Wow," Strawberry murmurs softly, staring at Mach's transformation. "That's... really dramatic. A lot flashier than mine."      A little pause. As she looks away, she says a little self-consciously: "Maybe I should figure out something to say. Or a pose, at least. Or- no, would that just be silly?"      Her other teammate's compliments do perk her back up. "Thanks, Ishirou! You look a bit different, too, don't you?" Strawberry smiles, holding her arm awkwardly. "A little happier, at least."
Ioanna Langstrom	Ioanna makes a motion with her hand, a general military sort of direction motion to the marines. "The Mechanized Marine unit will remain here to garrison the area and ensure nothing gets through to the warpgate that we aren't aware of. Strawberry Princess, Kamen Rider Mach, and Archimedes MacCloud will head to attempt a nonviolent solution in regards to the bandits problem; the rest of us will focus on Boothill. Mr. Reyes, leave the walker behind - we'll have some of the marines man it in order to provide heavy fire in the event that any unforseen monsters arrive. Prepare to bring some static defenses as well that we might be able to offer the Boothill locals."      "Your Holiness," she waves at Tamamo, "If you can divine anything we may have missed in our initial surveys, that would be excellent. While I have every confidence in the Immunes forces and Dame Commander Rook's capabilities thereof, your magic is of a different bent, and I'd prefer having as much cover on that as possible. Similarly, Mr. Ishirou, if you could go over the data on our way, that would be helpful. Any coordination you can provide is going to help a great deal. Mr. Hearthward, you will of course be aerial scout until we arrive at Boothill, at which time we'll be counting on your nature and appearance to help us blend in with the locals and aggregate goodwill, as well as establish ourselves as independent from the next highest-technology force in the area."
Tamamo	Tamamo gives a cheerful wave in the direction of Mack and Mach, before (while close to her and Arina) saying, "Oh, Strawberry-Princess. Did you change your dress, a bit? The frills are quite cute, I think." It would be rude to ask for the timing or reason, and so, she doesn't, though she can't help but recall the aerial race.
Reyes	"No problem. Careful with that walker though. It's a creaky old man and struggled to make it here... with plenty of parts to make some handy turrets. And something I've been working on..."     Reyes snaps his fingers, and a green-and-gold machine shaped rather like a slimmer B-2 stealth bomber rockets out on jets of magic flame, circles him a few times until he spreads his arms... then it lowers down behind him, killing the jets and extending a number of harness wrappings and clips, securing itself to his back and retracting the wings.     He rockets back into the walker, and within a few seconds emerges in a low hover, guiding a half-dozen boxes off to the side and causing them to stack themselves neatly with a few gestures.     "Speaking of blending in, here's hoping the locals aren't the superstitious paranoid types. Can't be sure how anyone's gonna react when a Techno-Wizard walks into town. And since we're right next to this nexus..." Yeah, the locals might not be appreciative of that thing or magic...
Ishirou	"Ah...yeah I guess I am both a little different.  Also much happier for it," he says, pinching himself.  This is mostly to make it noticeable that he's more flesh and blood than a robot now.  "The uh...situation was a long and winding one!" He's definitely more upbeat.   When asked to go over the data, he nods.  "Sure...let me just adjust my scans.." he says, changing the scanning towards what was requested instead of his own original one.  There were Marines here, though he still thinks defensive structures are a better idea. Also connected himself to the Paladin's databases to reference data.
Lilian Rook	Ioanna, wandering around camp, is quickly recognized as the technical leader of operations here, and is given appropriate salutes from the soldiers working all around (after all, they are attaches to the Paladins). Arina reciprocates without thought, though Satsuki regards her with a little uncertainty as she enters the war room, and settles on a little bow instead. "Oda Satsuki, Dominion/Adversary, Sword Silver, Immunes cadet third year." she offers politely.     Then, a little more animatedly. "Exactly! Commander Rook has left me in charge of that fork of the operation, though if you call for her, she'll arrive if necessary. As a personal favour though, I'd like to show her that we can take care of it ourselves." A slightly more hesitant pause, before she confides in Ioanna. "I don't think she realizes that she's underestimating us yet. It's an honour and a huge opportunity to be picked by Ops Commander Gerart's star, but I have my pride too." She adjusts the sword at her back a little. "Please round up whoever you can. We should set out before nightfall. They'll be used to operating at dark."     She regards Mack's rifle more than his face, oddly, opining "Oh, that's a bit like the commander's." After thinking about it for a moment, she nods resolutely. "You must have good taste in equipment then! Glad to have you on board. I'd like to meet the locals after this too. Naturally, I know plenty about relations with the common folk." She breathes in a little, almost sparkly-eyed, when Strawberry enters, and introduces herself again, this time with a more animated bow, seemingly for no other reason than having heard about her from Lilian. "Ah, of course, if we can achieve a non-violent solution, all the better, but the leader of the gang is apparently a kind of 'demon', native to another dimension in this world. The research tells us that they're bloodthirsty and cruel to a man, and enjoy taking slaves and eating human flesh. Like oni, but organized, militarized, and ruthless opportunistic anarcho-capitalists of a sort. It's odd that he'd work with humans, away from his own kind, but we may have to put him down. Of course, I've prepared holy charms for the occasion."     Turning to the map, she indicates a small system of caves in the nearest footslope of the closest mountain. "They're set up thirty kilometers or so from here. The main entrance appears to be here, large enough to permit vehicular entry, probably hover-tracked by the lack of apparent road. Boothill is too small to make a living raiding, so they must have a large range with it. There are two emergency back tunnels here and here, to allow an escape if cornered. The inside hasn't been scouted, but it's not likely to be enormous, which is a disadvantage for us; there won't be much room to sneak around, and we're looking at forty or so heavily armed cutthroats. Officer Langstrom? Care to give the orders?"
Lilian Rook	Arina, outside, has to deal with being stared at. She fingers her mask nervously. "Ah, do you want to see it? I'm afraid I can't, though. This mask is important. The sky-spirits are scared away by human eyes, and besides, it was my grandmother's so . . ." She, too, fangirls a little bit, doing her best salute for Strawberry. "A-Arina Kalashnik! Architect/Dominion, Chalice Black, Immunes cadet third year! I-It's great to meet you too!" She shakes her hand with a tightly controlled, wide-eyed smile. "Commander Rook has left me in charge of reinforcement work here while she's away. I can also support you from a distance! My position is third line, and this nexus should extend my range a lot!"     She stares considerably more agog at Tamamo's outfit, then turns a tiny bit red when actually approached, shifting her mask to partially cover her face. "I-I'm not an alchemist like Commander Rook. I learned babki and a little zagovaroy instead. However, the Commander has already performed a very powerful land-blessing here, which makes this barren area very easy to treat. I'm doing my best to extend the leylines into more usable, finer veins throughout the area, and I intend to call for water, soil, and steel soon. The sky-spirits will keep me informed of anything going on in the area. A-and I'm pitching in with the medical crew too; I know a bit of healing."     "The main purpose of using a nexus was to have a major resource to draw on after all, but the power flow is really intense and unstable; I can barely handle it, and Satsuki can't at all, so we need to regulate it, a-and protect against a potential 'leyline storm' if it surges too much. We also want to install some means of turning it into electrical power, since that would be free limitless energy and all . . ." She squares her shoulders. "But I'm happy to see action! Even if it's small things like this, being selected for Cipher of Swords is a big deal!" Satsuki yells from the tent "Stop telling people the name!" Arina flinches with chagrin.     The soldiers already enjoy Tamamo's help, though no one is injured yet. A few make remarks about how 'this much magic' is 'going to rub the Coalition the wrong way if they come here', in jovially grim nonchalance. The Immunes cadets wave back to Ishirou and Shijima, of course, the two sharing a conspiratorial look between them when they think they aren't looking. Once they've all assembled, Satsuki plans to gather up a single fireteam of soldiers and sortie out with Ioanna, following whatever reasonable directions she gives in terms of how she plans to travel to and engage the mountain hideout issue.     Arina is eager to help out with Ishirou's scan, immediately filling in his map with magically acquired aerial detail that Google satellites would mald over. Unfortunately, the plateau is very flat and weird, like a piece of the rockies got chopped right off. All around it is a dense and dark pine forest filled with rough rocky terrain, and a close, but not very close, river, but the plateau is rather exposed and featureless, roughly circular and larger than a town; the accepted downside of such a powerful, unclaimed nexus. He has a blank canvas.
Ioanna Langstrom	"Don't worry. I don't anticipate needing any assistance beyond the people present at this camp," Ioanna assured the younger lady. "I have the highest trust in your expertise."      Her orders are, as expected, simple, clear, efficient, and military. She generally yields to people with a better sense of direction - while hers is excellent and she can access the same intel over the FC, she prefers to let experts act as experts, and she has enough terrain experts here to do the job.
Mack	Mack is actually perfectly okay with people eyeing up his rifle. It's a pleasant change of pace, really. "I'd like to think so," he replies, with a touch of modesty. "I'm Mack, and this is my sun gun. It's for handling things that prefer to go bump in the night. Only got an effective range out to about four hundred meters, but it's still a step up compared to my usual." He's carrying what looks like a gilded flintlock. It's weird. "It started life as a plasma cartridge rifle, but now it fires bolts of good ol'-fashioned blessed sunlight." He pats the side of the barrel fondly. (He does not realize at least two or three people have outmoded his cool rifle by merely being present.) A frown, then. "Sounds a bit like brodkil. Won't really know until we get a good look at 'em, though. If they're ordering humans and D-Bees around, we might have a shot at a quick surgical strike toppling the whole gang with minimal combat." The short mutant turns to Strawberry and Mach, making a broad 'shall we?' gesture with one mechanical hand as the teams start to split up.
Hellwarming Trio	Mack's big hat gets the youkai's attention for some reason, although they're actually doing a decent job at not swarming him to see what's under the sombrero. They do try to sneak some peeks once he's close enough, though, but neither gets too freaked out once they do again. It probably helps that they've seen him before. Kale's a very familiar face, too, and he gets a wave from Rin. "Yo! You can bring that stuff out here, too? Cool. When'd ya learn how to do that?" Mach's transformation, meanwhile, gets the pop it often gets from the pair. They holler, they imitate his pose, and then they settle back down. They're trying to behave, really! Strawberry considering her options aloud doesn't make it much easier for them, though. Rin: "You should totally pose." Utsuho: "Saying cool stuff's important, yeah." Rin: "Unless you can't come up with anything." The plan is laid out, and Satsuki provides some more intel about the operation and the bandits. Utsuho furrows her brow at the talk of the bandit leader in particular. "They're really outta control, huh? If they're anything like the ones from home, then me and the sun-" She pauses, deliberately not looking at Tamamo as she strains to remember things she should or shouldn't be saying. "... Sun god should have this in the bag. " She doesn't remember. Arina, meanwhile, gets more oohs and ahhs from Rin when she explains the purpose of her mask. "Sounds like some powerful stuff ya got there. Ah, don't worry. I'm on good behavior now, so I ain't gonna steal it!" She laughs, clearly trying to reassure Arina despite continuing to gawk at the very thing she's promising not to snatch. Thankfully, with the elaboration on the power situation, Rin's attention is soon diverted to actual work matters. "Oh, if you need that power flow stuff sorted out, you'll wanna get Okuu on that. I'm better at cartin' around the bodies, anyway!" Once again, she tries to reassure Arina, and it's not too long before both Rin and Utsuho are off to prepare for the actual mission work itself. Although they can fly, they're just as willing to climb into a vehicle with everyone else to not give away their position too quickly.
Kale Hearthward	"Oh, you absolutely *need* a transformation callout," advises Kale, self-appointed expert. More seriously, he listens to Ioanna's plan - and nods. "Right - DB duty," he paraphrases. "Be very obviously non-human, check. Maybe I should have gotten some, I dunno, costume wings or something. Dunno how well they'd hold up in a fight." Kale listens to the directions coming in - but otherwise, given the opportunity, he opts to lead the charge, taking a spot both at the front and up a bit high so he can better see ahead. "Looks clear so far," he calls over the radio.
Go Shijima	<Tac-Paladins> 4 Strawberry Princess says, "... Oh. Um. To make it to the bandits in a good amount of time, I'll have to use my wand. It's got five minutes of time, so... I won't be as good if there's any other fights today. Is that alright?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Ioanna Langstrom says, "Affirmative, ma'am. You've got cover, after all." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Tinny: Mack says, "No problem." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Strawberry Princess says, "Alright. I'll do it, then." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Go Shijima says, "Mack, do you need a lift there? I'm probably strong enough to carry you. Or you could ride with me on my bike, but it's... not a two seater. How's your balance?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Tinny: Mack says, "Yeah, I'm pretty slow overland. Balance is cybernetically-assisted, so I'll take any help you wanna give."      Mach places his thumb and forefinger against the bottom of his helmet's faceplate. Cybernetically assisted... That means I could do all sorts of cool tricks on the way there, and Mack would stay on the bike, right? Well... maybe some other time. I don't know the track just yet.      "Drift!" he says, index raised triumphantly into the air. That conspiratorial look Satsuki and Arina shared surely must have been because they wanted to see the other catchphrase, right? For that reason, and not any other.      His left fist closes, sweeping up towards his right shoulder. "Overtake!" Both hands crossed at the wrist. "I'm always at..." Now thrown wide open, and the sound of a superbike's revving engine. "Mach Speed! Kamen Rideeeeer..." Two windmills of his right arm, accompanied by revving sounds, then briefly lifting his knee to his elbow, bending low, before stancing wide and low with both arms wide open, palms out. He's doing the whole thing, in front of everyone.      "Ma-ach!" Even the jazz hands. He doesn't let a moment pass before he's swept Mack up in a princess carry. "...could you hit that button on the top of the belt three times, please? I can't do that and carry you. Thanks."      Flame belches from the exhaust, and Kamen Rider Mach turns into a mach-and-mack colored blur, displaced air billowing back a split second after his departure. The belt's engine doppler-whines away, off towards the bandit camp. The goal is to get within 'walking distance' of the main entrance, based on the map he'd been shown. If this is going to be an attempt at a bloodless solution, then it won't do to just speed right into these people's front yard. Ideally, there'd be something to 'knock.' Of course, it's a bit of a ways between there and here.      Enough time for conversation, certainly: <Tac-Paladins> 4 Go Shijima says, "So if there is a demon, we can't count on appeals to kindness or good will. What about something more... pragmatic?"      Everything around is a blur--only Mach himself seems to be travelling in normal time, and the speaker on his suit carries his voice above the sound of whipping wind, racing wreckage and trees. "For instance--focusing on what this demon would stand to gain from playing nice?"
Ishirou	Ishirou waves to Strawberry, Mach, and Mack when they leave.  Though he goes right back down to scanning and mapping.  He's very impressed with Arina's work.  "Wow, that's very helpful...and lets me focus on areas where we can't get a bird's eye view from.  So what are the sky spirits...like literal spirits?  Familiars?" he asks, actually very curious about how she pulls that off.  It's neat! Ishirou also takes a moment to project a Map with help of the POD that follows him around.  He focuses his next steps on trying to peer through the treetops with his active scans the best that he can.  Though he does spare some time looking at the plateau.  "This place is weird," he points out.   When the leyline comes up, he looks up.  "Well, I might be able to help with that too.  Indus uses generators that feed on earth energy and leylines to produce electricty.  Though in my world it's what's causing the issues we're sure of at this point.  However, these lines are /far/ stronger than homes...so with regulation, it shouldn't have the same issues, if you want me to give you the designs for them!" "It's not my field of expertise, like Lilian's, but I do have practical engineering knowledge of them."
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry eases down into a less awkward demeanor around Arina and Satsuki. They've clearly found a special place in her heart already. "Oh, right, um. Catastrophe/Convergence, Blade... Black? I think? And sorry, but I'm really not sure what line. But I look forward to working with you both a lot."      Something about the way the Immunes are organized reminds her of the coven structure. It is reassuringly familiar.      "Ah, it's... not on purpose," she confides in Tamamo a bit later. "The costume is supposed to be a reflection of your heart, you know? So if you grow, it- changes too, sometimes. And I do think I outgrew the old one." It was much more self-conscious, defensive, anonymizing.      A little pause. Her lips purse. She gestures, generally, at The Things Tamamo Is Wearing. "Do yours just... 'do that', too?"      "It is a really cool gun," Strawberry affirms, returning Mack's gesture with a nod. Her lips tremble just a little in a suppressed expression when she meets his gaze, but she manages not to grimace. "Let's head out. Mr. Shijima, do you have him?"      When the answer is 'yes', she retrieves her wand from the carrying case on her back, boots up the ugly gunmetal reactor bolted to the otherwise-elegant artifact, and materializes translucent pink wings. "Let's be quick," she says. "I only have..." She tilts the wand, getting a better look at the big ominous display.          04:59      "That long."      Strawberry, true to her own advice, streaks off towards the mountain hideout at harrowing speed after Go. En route, two ghostly-translucent copies of herself split off, circling around to cover the 'secret' exits.      She lands at the main entrance, herself- it'd seem aggressive to present themselves any other way. "Maybe," she says to Go. "The best-case scenario is the humans are being coerced somehow, but... I'm not sure we can hope for that to be it."
Reyes	"A Demon? I'm familiar with their sort. A taste for human flesh and being cruel bloodthirsty overlords is kinda their thing. The smart ones. Others just like beating up everything they come across." Reyes is sticking close to Ionna... which means that when Arina talks about using the ley lines, he adjusts his goggles, interest shining on his eyes.     "Reyes, Techno-Wizard from the Tomorrow Legion. I've got plenty of gear and know-how for harnessing Ley Line energy straight out of the air, including generators. Would love to exchange pointers and notes later..." He keeps a bit of distance but speaks in a hopeful tone, not sure how talking shop with a girl he just met's likely to go.
Tamamo	Tamamo graciously ignores Arina's staring, being something that can't often be avoided, considering the eye-catching nature of her three tails. It's surely not related to anything else, if not instead a result of her sunny disposition. Blushing is a similarly common occurrence, and therefore not one to at all bother her.     "Oh, I have heard of healing techniques that may have been called zagovaroy, but of babki, I am less certain. Ah, in your case, the essential nature is conjuration, yes? And for a second, divination, perhaps? Ah, but I betray my ignorance, though it is only partially correct to say I am unacquainted. Be not bothered to refill the holes in my distant memories. For present matters, let us consider the matter of the stability of the flow of power through this place. Of safety in such things, I am well capable, though such does take time."     Utsuho mentions a relevant skill, and Tamamo considers. "Perhaps it would be best to arrange the lines in the manner of a..." She searches for easily understandable words, "a 'grounding,' or 'runoff.' Excessive power can be harmlessly scattered, but it can also be concentrated. By concentrating as much as can be safely contained within a resevoir, it can be later used. You are familiar with reactors of such purposes, yes, that convert energy into usable forms? Should we place such a thing at the center of a formation, and surround it with dissipation channels, we may be able to construct something as would make the most use of any storm as could be made, while still protecting this area." Though she doesn't immediately get on that, because there are other things to do.     Ioanna asks after her divination, and Tamamo answers. "Oh, yes, lieutenant. However, I should note, divination is more reliable should one have an appropriate focus." She pauses for a moment's thought. "A trinket of relation to the target of desire often suffices. Should you wish only to know of imminent dangers, this is easily done, as well, as their threads would reach out for our own, in the pattern that develops. Things that wish to remain ever hidden are the more difficult to find, without a key." That is, something on which to focus the divination, that associates with the target.     On being assured that 'imminent dangers' are the intent, Tamamo makes her way to the same map as Satsuki is using. A drawn map isn't necessary, either, but it helps to have something unambiguously fixed to the shape of the terrain. Really, to do this much, she could stand anywhere in the general area. It's not proper magecraft, but a form of divination she can only somewhat adequately describe to others in terms of 'threads.' She reaches out, not to move them, but to trace the lines from 'this place' into the future, looking for snarls and sudden additions, searching for likely and close-by dangers that haven't already been identified. The more likely something, and the more quickly it might happen, the easier it will be to find, even if there isn't yet the slightest piece of evidence 'here' to indicate that it will. The further away, and the less likely, the less clearly it impacts the future weave that she can feel beneath her fingers.
Mack	Mack does not begrudge Strawberry the suppressed expression. He just smiles a little, briefly and gently, and then readjusts his hat. It conveniently covers the worst of it for people who are taller than he is. He does observe Mach's entire sequence with a very serious look on his face, and then nods with a quiet 'hnh' as if in approval. The Mamono sect is known to be... a little bit this kind of weird. In preparation for the trek, he pulls his hat off and fishes out a strip of metal and a bunch of wire, quickly and efficiently adding an inner metal ring to the accessory and securing it to the body of the hat. Then, he puts it back on, and pulls it down a little more firmly, and the metal strip just sort of... sinks into his scalp, like it was being pressed into clay. "Alright. Let's ride." He does not ride. He is carried. This is less cool than bike tricks, but, button-pressing aside, does not require much in the way of effort on his part. The hat modification keeps it in place despite the speed, and he only lets out a whoop of speed-based joy once they're a short ways away from the main camp. Determined to be useful despite being cargo, Mack squeezes one eye shut in an expression similar to someone trying to pick something out of their teeth with their tongue -- His senses expand dramatically. Radar, sonar, relative motion detection, and a psychic awareness of intent and peril all unfurl. He can be KITT's center console to Mach's Michael Knight. Strawberry is... well, the comparison kind of falls apart there. "Sensor package in active mode. Let's see what we're running into, huh?"
Tamamo	"Oh, no, it was necessary to do some small study of American fashions, in my case," Tamamo says to Strawberry. Shortly later, "Ah, do be careful! Though Mr. Lowell is not present, should you require additional energy, recall that my blessings may be used, in a pinch." The last word was definitely English. "We have a great deal of energy here, as well, though I suppose that shall not help you, out there. Go and return swiftly, in that case."     Considering his contribution to the talk about magical reactors, Tamamo says, "Ishirou, would you please give your attention to a testing array, of sorts, once I have constructed it? I except that you would be able to analyze the way in which the power flows, and thereby understand the way in which it must be used, to enter a reactor of another's design, whether or not it was of Indus. As we are not all of a single tradition, whether in magic or engineering, it would be very helpful to have one who can understand the necessary conversions.
Ishirou	Ishirou turns to face Tamamo when she asks for his help on the conversions and power array.  He nods, "Sure, I'd be happy to help!  This also might give me some insight into my world's problems and their solutions." Slightly off-topic, Ishirou continues, "It's said that the technology for the generators was also created by many people of different traditions too.  Probably not as wildly diverse as our own, but I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for that!"
Lilian Rook	"Brodkil seems to be right." Satsuki says to Mack. "I don't know as much about them as you surely do, but I've done my research." She evidently marvels just a little bit at his weapon again when he explains it. "Amazing . . . Are you a weaponsmith of some kind? I'd really only been commenting on its appearance and what I imagined it was. Do you take commissions? The Oda clan would compensate you handsomely for things like that!"     Shijima doing his entire Kamen Rider Mach intro spiel has Arina staring at Satsuki from just outside like she'd grown a second face. "Do--" "No!" The exchange is so short that the only context is Satsuki covering her face when Mack is wheeled away in a princess carry. "So this is what the Commander meant by his big head." she mutters as he leaves. The two of them appear oddly delighted when Strawberry introduces herself on their terms, though. They salute in unison. "I look forward to working our hardest with you as well!" Satsuki says. Arina fumblingly attempts to copy a phrase "We'll be in your . . . care?" A moment goes by. "P-probably." "It's okay. She's kind of a superior, I think? The Commander considers her really similar, so it's fine."     "'Literal spirits?' Is there such thing as a non-literal spirit, mister Ishirou?" Arina asks him, blue eyes innocently blinking."Of course they're not my familiars. They're the voices of the land and the higher tiers of creation. I don't really like the forest spirits here, and I have lower compatibility with them, so . . ."
Lilian Rook	When the two groups split off, Arina lingers behind, but finally pulls her mask all the way over her face. The extensively engraved and polished bone hides her doll-like face completely, including her eyes in darkness, the antlers and feathered sides seeming to add strangely to her height and erase all sign of inexperience. Her tone of voice even changes, losing that edge of soft hesitance. From out of her cloak comes a full-sized walking stick version of Lilian's wand, telescoped out in an instant, radiating soft blue, with which she traces in the signs in the air while she works, quickly incanting several repetitive sentences under her breath that oddly don't translate sensibly. She seems to have attention to spare though.     "Ah, thank you mister Ishirou. And mister Reyes is it? The list of things we need to power . . . hydroponic facilities for space efficiency, lights heat and weather control, a wide sensor net out to sixt kilometers, a high-power radio transceiver mast, more advanced medical equipment and recovery slots, weapons recharging stations and vehicle refueling, water and air stills for material electrolysis, mining equipment, 3d printers, industrial machining tools, housing and amenities . . . the more the better, thank you. What materials will we need? How much space will these facilities take? Beginning soon is imperative. We should grow this settlement as quickly as possible before it's discovered by . . . the Commander said 'Fort Worth', 'The Baronies', or 'Lone Star'. Could you get started if you have the materials on hand now? I'm sure the Commander can get you them immediately."     She makes a pleased little noise at Tamamo. "Conjuration and divination is centrally important, yes! There are several 'witchcraft' tradition, but half my family is from the Siberian border, so I learned 'shamanism' from them as well! Grounding is very important; these leylines are like nothing I've ever seen; I'm sure they're dangerous. Is that something you could do now? If you could get it underground . . . Opposite of where we want water."     The tactical map has been filled out by the tangible efforts of people here, and the war table is littered with actual photographs and skilled sketches, and so Tamamo's divination isn't too vague. They confirm that a leyline storm is all but inevitable within the next month, and a Rift could easily form here, vomiting out god knows what. Numerous interdimensional monsters stalk the immediate wilderness; random encounter chances from traveling are likely within days, something wandering here within weeks; namely a few varieties of demons, some alien monsters, a rare type of psychic monstrosity that incites conflict, and low chances of a wild vampire, given the region.     The most dangerous threat is further off, but almost inevitable; a vast empire to the south and east, far enough to be outside their casual reach, but which frequently dispatches military parties to the west. The men of this militaristic empire will take very poorly to any sign of magic, or non-humans, here, and eventually be deep trouble to make contact with. It's something they need to eventually be ready for; this base will be small enough to only attract as much military presence as they act loudly and spready word, but being adjacent to a xenophobic military superpower has obvious issues.     Ishirou scanning under the dense pine cover finds that the surrounding forest is rough traveling, without any meaningful roads and no space for vehicles bigger than a bike. It's crisscrossed with sheared mini-cliffs and rough whitewater, and host to ample animal life, as well as signs of stalking ultra-predators further away. The chupacabra probably kept them out of this territory. They may be a threat, but also a buffer.
Lilian Rook	Arriving at the Bluekills' hideout cave doesn't take long, though the sun is getting a little low on the horizon. Strawberry's Eidolons find the emergency escapes easily; they're several kilometers from the main entrance, indicating long tunnels inside, but are barely big enough for a heavily laden person to squeeze through, and exit into widing side paths that lead deeper into the black, misty forest growing up around the mountains like boreal fungus. As expected, the entrance opens up onto a rough jackknife 'road' that mostly just seems to be where dirt and grass have been repeatedly windblasted flat from above. The cave mouth is concealed practically, with strategically relocated brush cuttings and heavy grey tarp, but it's already been pinpointed.     Orienting his sensors along the cave mouth, Mack can lay out a map with his sonar; a wide, straight tunnel runs up into a rectangular cavern packed with large objects, which forks out into two smaller chambers, which join back into a diamond-shaped cavern at the back. The two smaller chambers have numerous heat signatures and psychic presences, though there's not much movement in the right-side chamber, probably a rest area. Danger seems relatively scarce for the time being. The tunnel has a low threshold of danger that might be an alarm or improvised trap, but nothing high-tech. The men within aren't on alert, but are very armed.     Strawberry can easily enter by pushing the tarp aside. The interior tunnel is wide and worn with a low ceiling. Old electric lights better suited to a bunker are simply strung along with wire along the floor, so a hypothetical driver can stay on lane. A heavy pair of doors have been installed, improv, out of slabs of some scavenged . . . plastic? Metal? Simply staked deeply into the stone and barred from the other side. They're manually operated, not electronic. Spreading out Eidolons indoors will quickly show her cable tripwires attached to analogue electric alarms, and a couple to a pair of hand grenades; a hovercraft would naturally fly above them, and the bandits know to step over them. That means the room beyond is probably a garage and stockpile. The natural echo of the cave lets her hear the sounds of chatter, vaguely, from beyond. Well, an argument, really. Loud.
Reyes	So this is what a Shaman looks like when they're getting serious? Reyes watches Arina's preparations and donning the tools of the trade with high focused interest. Laser focused, even. Did he miss even a little single detail?     He adjusts his goggles in the same manner that one might adjust their glasses, never mind the fact that he's wearing them on his FOREHEAD instead of over his eyes. Just a bit of fidgeting...     "Got... uh. I've got about half that with me. Can handle industrial HVAC and communications, some sensors, and weapons recharging... material electrolysis, huh? So the plan's to refine materials here and expand without importing more stuff, past a point?"     Unseen, he is jotting down the entire list of requirements to the hand-held computer stuffed in one of his pockets. One advantage of being a telemechanic!     "Fabrication's one of my weak points... would love to change that. What about you?" He turns to look at Ishirou, hoping for better news about the things he's bad at.     "I've got plenty of stuff about the Behemoth. ... And it technically has a medical bay I've got no user for.... but I dunno how much of that's safe to use. Not a doctor.. or even a cyber-doc. And I'm not gonna stand for someone using it for some ramshackle half-assed chop-shop."
Strawberry Princess	EARLIER: "Oh, thanks, Tamamo! It's... that's really considerate of you. It's a big concern, you know, if there's any trouble later today. Five minutes should be enough time for the bandit situation to go sour, if it does, but when I get back..."      The juniors' comments about considering her a superior make her clutch her arm awkwardly again. Her face is, maybe, a little bit pink. "That's... she talked about me like that, huh? Ahah. I'll try to be a good role model, then."      ----      NOW: Strawberry does, in fact, flood the caverns with invisible prying eyes. She has to slouch a little to not bump her head on the ceiling, as substantially the tallest out of the party. "Confined spaces are bad," she murmurs, obviously steeling herself for the worst despite her high hopes. "But I'll manage."      She points out the tripwires as they come with a simple 'there' and a pointing finger. "And a door," she adds, a moment before it's actually come into view. "We could just knock. But, could one of you two?" If Strawberry opens it, there won't be much of a door left; hardly a friendly way to start negotiations.      A little frown crosses her face a moment later. "Wonder what that argument's about." One of her invisible scouting eidolons finds a suitable surface to press its ear against, hoping to listen in.
Go Shijima	"Good idea," says the rider to Mack, giving an armored thumbs-up. "If you've got any way of porting it here," he says, tapping the side of his helmet, "I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll try not to get too far ahead of you and Strawberry." I can't shake the feeling that Strawberry's right. Even so...      The first thing down that pathway is a door. Mach looks between his colleagues. Who do we have? A mahou, a rider, and a headhunter. Not exactly the most suited for subtle entries. Still... hope springs eternal.      "If you've got some kind of tool that can get us through stuff like that quietly," he says, pointing towards it, then trailing off. "Well... my way draws a lot more attention."      Mach carefully listens, when Strawberry and Mack point out the alarms and tripwires. Of course, she raises another good point--they could just knock. "Oh. Yeah. I guess we could knock. Let's do that actually... "      Mach strides up to the front door and knocks on it, three times. "Hi! Anyone home? We've come to talk to your leader." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Strawberry Princess says, "I'm not sure if they'll hear us, is the thing. They're yelling pretty loud in there."      "You're right," says Mach, mashing the button on the driver. "And we're kinda short on time, too, so..." His fist batters the door in rapid, super-speed staccato, just hard enough not to break it down. "HELLO? WE'D REALLY LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOU!" He's trying his best.
Ishirou	"Oh, I guess that wasn't a great question..." Ishirou says with a small laugh and some scratching behind his head.  Though he does listen to her explanation of it and nods.  "I see, so it is more spirit of the land then.  That's actually pretty neat!" Ishirou continues after a moment but then turns to more serious matters.   He points out the various parts of the forest.  "Well, I can say one thing, the forested areas are rough traveling.  Not just the trees but cliffs, rough whitewater, and a lot of animal life with some dangerous predators.  Definitely not traveling alone areas..." There is a pause, "On the other hand, it's just as rough for others as it is for us.  So perhaps a buffer from those places to the south and east.." Then back over to the list of things, this is where Ishirou can shine the most.  "Well, I can't /make/ these things, but I can city plan!  Let's see..." he gets the list down and uses the Paladin database to reference things to know average sizes.  Then he calculates the standing population expected to be here as well as what would be needed to support satellite cities they wanted to bring in.   He calculates space needed, based on the buildings they need, but also calculates for room to grow.  They would likely, in the future, need the ability to repel attacks... or at least have that capability in deterrence.  There is also having to calculate the stuff needed to stabilize the leylines here.  Infrastructure for everything...streets...housing... Once he has the data, he'll start saying numbers, but also looks at what areas around them they could use.  Reyes asks him about his weaknesses on this front and he shrugs.  "Scanner is...was what I was built to do.  In planning and data gathering, I can coordinate with engineers but am not one myself.  I can build if I have a set of instructions, but not...mmm...have that spark of creating solutions to problems that aren't already solved?"
Tamamo	Once her divination is complete, Tamamo unrolls a small picnic-sized blanket over the floor. Despite how ill it fits her current outfit, she can't help but kneel to write, heels under her, brush in hand, paper laid out in front, inked patterns more artful than precise. In that manner, she compiles a report of her visions, to be passed along to Ioanna, detailing each threat, along with its likely timing and direction. She doesn't make mention of how they might be avoided, leaving that for later determination. She'd have to examine possible futures in a more focused manner, for that, in any case.     It requires more than one page's worth.     Once she can -- the focus needed to hold her visions in place allows for little else -- Tamamo returns her attention to Arina. "'Witchcraft traditions,' is it? Though I practice some arts as have been called by this name, they are among the less well-defined. Because there are blessings, there are also curses, and though these may be contained within the same rituals... have you heard of the rites of Dakiniten, perhaps? Because they are contained within the same art, as I said, they may be called 'curse arts,' and it was this that was called 'witchcraft,' in that long-ago era."     With hardly a pause, "There, now, might this be copied? I imagine some few may wish to know of these points as soon as possible." It is, of course, all written in an archaic dialect of courtly, formal Japanese.     "To work underground, is there a cave system available? Among my talents, I regret that I cannot count upon any for the purpose of excavation. Should such be available, yes, it would be all the more useful for the construction of a wide-spanning array."
Kale Hearthward	Kale ended up going with the wrong group, and has to hustle to catch up with Strawberry's group. This is canon. He arrives, air-skidding to a halt, just as Mach knocks on the door. "Oh, are-" "-We just knocking on the door. Right." He falls back a bit, out of the immediate line of sight of the door, and waits...
Hellwarming Trio	EARLIER Tamamo brings up the topic of arranging ley lines and setting up batteries for the power, and... <Tac-Paladins> [4] Hellwarming Duo | Utsuho says, "Oh. Tamamo, Ishirou. I'm gonna need your help with that later." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Reyes says, "Gotta admit, I'm plenty curious 'bout all this talk of arrays and harnessing the ley lines. Harnessing ley line energy directly to power stuff's kinda a Techno-Wizard specialty!" <Tac-Paladins> [4] Reyes says, "It's kinda tradition for everyone to make at least a wing-board. Or maybe convert an old boat to sail the lines." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Reyes says, "... guessing that loses its appeal when you have actual wings though." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Tamamo says, "Of course, Utsuho." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Ishirou says, "Sure!  Happy to help!" <Tac-Paladins> [4] Tamamo says, "A wing-board? What that might be?" <Tac-Paladins> [4] Ishirou to Reyes, "Well, stick around.  Watch us!  I can give you the raw data once we start working." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Hellwarming Duo | Utsuho says, "Heh. Thanks. Yeah, stick with us and you'll see how it all goes. I can handle the power routing part, but figuring out what needs it most and explaining everything... They'll be way better than me at that." NOW The area is partially mapped, well enough for the pair to start getting into position. It takes them a while to figure out what those positions are, lingering near the back of the group both to act as a rear guard and to be ready to spring forward at a moment's notice. Go has a go at the door with his rapid-fire fisting, and figuring out how to get the door open without being too much louder than that comes up. "Bet I could burn through it with my rod. Sort of quietly? Might smell bad, though." Utsuho suggests as she raises the control rod up in question: A long bronze thing wrapped around one arm with all sorts of markings on it that glow faintly as she's already preparing to get the necessary reactions ready to power it up. She doesn't go for the door right away, though, actually waiting patiently for a few moments to see if anyone's going to stop her (or if those inside do answer Go's polite knocking first). If not, Utsuho moves onto plan C: Heat up that control rod to an absurd degree, then start pressing it into the door. She's not sure what it's made of, but she's confident enough to try and melt it if nothing else seems to be working. Rin, meanwhile, hangs back with Kale in case a surprise attack ends up being needed.
Mack	"Sorry; the work was a gift from a vampire hunter I knew down south. I'm not a Techno-Wizard; I just benefit from the fruits of their labors." He makes a fist, then stretches his fingers on that hand. Concealed claws pop out, gleaming with the obvious edge of literally luminescent silver. Mack closes his hand again, and they meld seamlessly with the artificial arm. A glance up at Satsuki. "If he comes this way, I'll definitely let him know, though."     ONE ROYAL RIDE LATER "Whew!" Mack gets his feet under him and rests his rifle on his shoulder. He feels a little over-armed, now. They might get into a close quarters fight, and it's not really meant for that. He can use it, sure, but plasma fires tend to get out of hand, even if they're from a divinely-blessed miasma of incandescent plasma. A look back up at Strawberry makes him think twice, though. Doesn't she measure her output in gigatons? Must be why the emphasis on diplomacy. "Well, I -"         RIDER         KNOCK "- yeah, alright." He backs up, leaving himself *inside* line of sight for when it opens. He could pass for a local(ish) tough(ish). Mach gives him a weirdly cyber-knight vibe, and he's not sure that's condusive to a working relationship with actual demons.
Reyes	"I'm sorry." Reyes blurts rather swiftly to Ishirou, in the way that one would sincerely do so upon learning someone is critically disabled.     For Reyes, whose greatest joy stems from those eureka moments of creativity and trouncing problems, finding someone who can't do it is the worst sort of horror.     "So, as a necessity, we're gonna need to build defensibly. Even in the best of circumstances, enemies can approach from all sides including above. Gonna need layers of defense, mobility, and logistical flows through the place that we can collapse or work around at a moment's notice but keep enemies out or busy. If we don't have defenses we don't have anything. I can make some sensors that can detect magical fluctuations and some of the common invisibility enchantments and sometimes detect really nasty evil crap crawling around... but I'm not too versed in radar. Turrets and gun emplacements, can do. Might even be able to put a shield over the whole place but that'd drain a ton of power from the ley line... well, wouldn't be running it constantly..."     He starts to scratch at his chin rather thoughtfully.     "Miss Shaman....?" He was clearly distracted and didn't catch Alina's name earlier so he tries to sound as polite as possible with that inquiry. "I don't suppose there's anything that can rapidly break down and fabricate materials where you're from?"
Ishirou	Ishirou stares at Reyes, he squints at him a for a moment. "Why are you sorry?"
Reyes	'Why are you sorry?'     The question catches Reyes entirely off-guard. A jolt runs through him and he splutters a few times before swinging his gaze around to focus on Ishirou again. A myriad of awkward feelings flash across his twisted face. Ishirou has clearly hit upon a topic that Reyes hasn't spoken about much...     "Because that... that feeling of being stuck, going in circles, trying everything to get past it..." He wildly gesticulates with his arms to encompass the whole area in a display of mock peak, helpless frustration... "Then bam!" Slamming his hands together brings with it a sizzle of electricity arcing around his fingers for show. Magic!     "Inspiration strikes like a bolt from the blue and it's the best feeling ever. Like you were a river held back by this dam until you overflow and bring it all tumbling down... whoosh, flooding over everything... washes away the problem..."     Coming down from a brief exuberant high, the young man exhales to calm down and appends a quick, "It's the best thing ever. I can't imagine living without it."
Lilian Rook	Despite the fact that she isn't actually looking at him, Arina notices Reyes' staring anyways. "May I help you? Is something the matter?" she asks coolly. Turning a little ways away from him, she cups a hand to the air, and whispers, as if speaking a secret into someone's ear. Explaining nothing, she then withdraws something almost like a deck of cars from her satchel, selects one from memory, and touches it to the tip of the rod, the glowing point consuming it in blue flames.     "That's right. The Commander and Lieutenant Langstrom believed it best that we not create a trade footprint here. If we're buying and selling all over, potential enemies will hear about us quickly. And, for some reason, she doesn't seem to trust the local equipment that can be gathered around. Oh, but don't worry about medical expertise; the Paladins are more than qualified. This unit specializes in search and rescue. Are they removable? Do you plan to leave them here?"     Slightly more favourable to Ishirou, she says "It would be good for us to make a friend of the forest. Wards of misdirection, placations of spirits, natural defenses, shaping the land to guide it away from the slopes, the watchful eyes of the animals. To fly right over it would be seen from many many leagues away, yes? Things that shoot should strike them down quickly. But if we could hide our presence here too . . . Well, for now, this place is rather small. Might it be very easy?"     She shakes her head a little bit at Tamamo. "Regretfully not that leads to the surface, but there may be one simply enclosed in the base of the stone? We would need to make one of our own. I'm sure there are some of us who can survey for likely places. Could you see it? Through the stones?" She takes the note if no one else does. "Ah, I'll pass this along to Satsuki!" A sheepish half-life follows. "It's true. Most of the magic I know came to be renamed 'unclean magic' after the Christians. The Commander and I have that in common. I think Satsuki knows a little of dakini magic, but I've never asked at length."     When Reyes asks about recombination, Arina distractedly points in the direction of the huge array. "The Commander is a skilled alchemist. Short of a philosopher's stone, it should be built to handle just about anything . . . Getting started now is better."
Ioanna Langstrom	"I don't trust any equipment that hasn't been thoroughly examined and cleared for Paladins needs," Ioanna adds to Arina's statement.      "We want self-sufficiency for a number of reasons, and our footprint is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also the matter of chaining this base to the local economy - exporting gives us leverage, importing gives us a supply chain that can be disrupted. We aren't thinking in nation-state terms just yet. Just a feasible military base that we don't need to have a warpgate constantly opening to to keep sustained."      "Further expansion, well..."      Her face remains stoic. "We'll see what sort of funding we can get once this proves to be a worthwhile endeavor for the Commonwealth brass."
Ioanna Langstrom	"I don't trust any equipment that hasn't been thoroughly examined and cleared for Paladins needs," Ioanna adds to Arina's statement.      "We want self-sufficiency for a number of reasons, and our footprint is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also the matter of chaining this base to the local economy - exporting gives us leverage, importing gives us a supply chain that can be disrupted. We aren't thinking in nation-state terms just yet. Just a feasible military base that we don't need to have a warpgate constantly opening to to keep sustained."      "Further expansion, well..."      Her face remains stoic. "We'll see what sort of funding we can get once this proves to be a worthwhile endeavor for the Commonwealth brass."      Once, not if.      "And if they still remain tight-pursed then we look for alternative solutions besides the Dame Commander's wallet. That only goes so far."
Lilian Rook	The door, as it turns out, is not corrugated garbage metal. Someone will explain M E G A D A M A G E another time. Flat out nuclear fusion as a welding tool is more than up to the task, however, and all Utsuho has to do is slice the bar, not the entire door. It's a task of under half a minute.     Strawberry's Eidolon listening in can get an easy read just by ghosting on through the gaps. A chaotic dispute between ten or so men appears to be happening in the active room. It's hard to make them out only because they're all shouting over each other, but the subject appears to be an argument over their next activity.     Of course, they've done a little recon and tapped a few cheap and morally apathetic sources of information in the area, and have heard vague rumours about the Paladins, without actually knowing who they are. Names like 'the Tomorrow Legion', 'Reid's Rangers', and 'Apocalypse Cavalry' are thrown around, apparently different forms of a dozen different vigilante lawmen groups out here in the west. Half the group wants to sit tight and wait until they've rolled out of town, while the other half is more concerned with their dwindling fortunes and the fact they 'can't eat e-clips', insisting they should just take their chances and that they don't have anything to fear if they roll out 'the big stuff'.     When Utsuho begins melting the door, an extra, deep and inhumanly guttural snarling voice, "SILENCE!"s them all at once, obeyed instantaneously. She can hear a couple of loud sniffs and a froggy grumble. The boot tromping and charging handle sounds afterwards indicates a hand sign must have been used. The pattern suddenly changes when Go starts yelling. Mack's sensors detect a good thirty heat blobs in the rectangular room beyond, setting up a perimeter facing the door, and a much larger one that corresponds to perhaps a starting vehicle engine.     Just before Utsuho finishes, Satsuki waves the fireteam with her, and they unlimber and drop folding metal slats off their backs, affixing themselves to the ground and erecting a few pieces of memory metal chest high cover of the latest Paladins design. She herself only takes a stance, says something about 'shunka', and then disappears with a puff of air blowback.     The doors swing open with several people right in the crosshairs. Banged up tarp and metal crates line the way into the cave, most of which are now being used by an entire shooting gallery of rough men in articulated armour of hastily spraypainted blue hue and white skulls, aiming down the sights of high-tech rifles that don't at all match the wild west aesthetics of everyone else in these parts. They're all in reasonably solid positions, and have an overlapping field of fire; turning to run back out the tunnel would ordinarily mean being shot in the back. They're sort of weirdly drilled for a gang. A hover vehicle (currently resting on the ground), rectangular and hard-angled, large as a semi truck, has a pintle-mounted turret aimed downrange.
Lilian Rook	The main feature, however, is a nine foot tall humanoid creature with rusty bronze skin, bald and heavily muscled and with a huge mouth full of sharp teeth. One arm, eye, and leg have clearly been replaced with sparkling crome and glowing red lights, but there's no sign of any wounded around them. He towers at the front, an entire small cannon casually slung over his shoulders. A burbling laugh comes up from his chest looking down at the kamen rider and magical girl especially, then he begins speaking in a horrid scratchy growl that somehow has still been infected by the pervasive local drawl.     "What are you supposed to be? You ain't here to join up, that's fer sure." His beady eyes fix on the wand and driver. "But you sure brought some mighty nice toys here. I'm feeling so peachy about that I'll even let you go, if you follow the procedure 'n all." He waves the cannon vaguely. "Drop it. All of it. Y'all can find your way back to whatever hole you crawled out of on your own. I'll even leave you with a day's rations and all your limbs attached. How's that sound?" He has taken one look at them and decided they're little more than a loot delivery. Opportune for shutting the rest up.
Reyes	"The best way to make money in this crazy place is to sell... well, weapons. Guns, armor, big robotic armors." Reyes offers to Ioanna. "The Paladins have the technology to manufacture stuff that matches Pre-Rifts technology. If we could figure out the secret behind Glitter Boy armor plating for instance... I mean, this is what makes Northern Gun rich. It's a dangerous place. Gotta cover your ass. Protect yourself, protect your family."
Ioanna Langstrom	"Selling technology is something I'm firmly unwilling to approve," Ioanna says flatly, "We don't need to worry about making money at the moment regardless. We need materiel and we need technology and magic we can take apart, examine, and work with. Materiel comes from a budget, and to get that budget, we need to show the Commonwealth that we can bring in new sciences and spellworks of benefit, as well as show that we can maintain the peace and bring some semblance of law, order, and safety to this place."      Her eye meets Reyes's. "It's our goal that people *won't* need to protect themselves and their families by the time we're done, anyhow. The more weapons that are out there, the harder that is for us."
Lilian Rook	Arina nods, satisfied, at Ioanna's explanation. "That sounds very wise to me. Personally . . . Maybe it's rude of me to say, but I'd prefer to trust the Immunes designs, and then Paladins designs, over local ones. 'Humanity's finest' and the heroes of the Multiverse must know what they're doing, right? But not necessarily people building guns just to make a profit . . ." Hesitantly, she runs her fingers across the grip of a handgun anchored to her thigh under her cloak. Yes it is the same model as Lilian's usual. A sidearm is a sidearm is a sidearm. "I agree. A beacon of safety should attract even those 'pioneers' here, shouldn't it? A wonderful safe community is surely better than selling arms."     "We can establish a waypoint to move here with magic, if you like. I was told the artifical warpgate is very secure, but it does draw a lot of power . . ." Arina suddenly tenses up. "They're in danger." she says. "Please excuse me, I need to focus to intercept. They're quite far. The Commander is close; I'm sure she could get there too, but . . ." She makes a tiny whining sound. "I don't know why so much of her file is classified by Operations Director Gerart."
Ioanna Langstrom	"Your preference is noted, but this is a Paladins operation first," Ioanna reminds Arina gently. It's not really a reprimand, just 'remember - this isn't an Immunes op, so we're going to use a lot more of our tech.'      "Excused," Ioanna tells Arina, "Get to it. Check in when you intercept."
Go Shijima	"All right... I see how this is going to go," laughs Mach. "That's a pretty good deal," he adds. "Let me make you a counter offer." His finger is pointed right at the demon.      "Hang the bandit act up. You're obviously not getting much from it. And what you do get, gets you shot at. Or gets people like us sent after you." He's played the part of the brash, bragging Rider for so long. Why stop now?      "If you had three times the people, guns and bikes you have here, you might stand a chance... against one of us," he boasts with his voice full of swagger, throwing his hand back in way that suggests there's a lot more people here than just the team visible through the hallway.      "But I'm getting off-point. You can't eat guns and bikes. If you could, you wouldn't be bandits," he says, sweeping a finger-gun across his field of view. "As for what you get in return.... Strawberry?" He says, gesturing towards her with an open palm.
Kale Hearthward	Strawberry says she has this. Kale is.. less certain, but hey, Strawberry is his ally, and he trusts her, and she can do great things, and she's a great person, and she's totally got this! ... But he's holding Periactus in the activation position just in case, just out of the line of sight of the door, with a keyword passed to Strawberry Princess for her to use, and a mental plan of interception and counterattack ready, and... ... Well, all that's all just in case. Strawberry and Mach have absolutely got this. One hundred percent. No doubt.
Ishirou	Ishirou just stares at Reyes for a long time.  It seems to be out of just shock.  Then slowly, he speaks as if recovering from the said shock.  "You realize that...I'm just not an engineer by trade, right?  I still get feelings like that but for discovering knowledge and learning new things, right?  I'm not a...whatever, time and place." Hmm...making good with the forest.  Also, looking for making the place more concealed than more defended.  Ishirou tries to work this into his calculations.  "I imagine that to make good with the forest they might want us to make concessions in some way, or provide some service...or offering.  I imagine if we want to make good, we need to balance more natural features of where we build over synthetic ones.." He scratches his head.  "Not impossible, but it might make our footprint somewhat larger...but at the same time, we could work around that with the forest as an ally.  Though I'm not...THAT good with communication and negotiation with spirits," he looks towards Tamamo for her input here, as it's probably closer to her wheelhouse than his. He makes some additions and forecasts based on what he has on hand though.  If he has enough data, he'll even produce a beta version of a blueprint for the city.  "We probably want anything that produces centralized or near the portal.  Then spread out from there with first and second step needs.  As we're not focused on trade...Housing placed equally around the city will help efficiently control traffic, and defense should that come."
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry inhales deeply as she steps through the opening doors; her spine straightens out as the ceiling rises, giving her a regal appearance. Her finely-tuned instincts, an eternal co-pilot, are screaming at her to not stand out in the open- too many guns pointed at her. Even with her Shimmer Aura, that'll hurt badly.      But it won't do to look nervous. Not now. "Thank you, Mr. Shijima."      "Please," she says. Her voice carries; her wand is pointed down. "This is no way to live. You must know there's no future in it. You'll never have families. Your leader might sell you out for a few credits. Any day could be your last, and then no-one will remember you."      "I know people are driven to this life by hardship. I want to offer you amnesty, and a better livelihood. One where you'll know where your next meal is coming from, and not... not just scrape by, like this, in fear. It's an awful way to live. I know."      Are being a bandit and being a gas station cashier really that similar? No. But her voice is just a little more hoarse than usual, nonetheless.      "The Paladins have a base set up on the mesa. We have mages to help the crops grow and keep the people safe, but we always need workers who know this world. Please."      Throughout, she's looking mainly at the bandits with rifles. At the very end, her eyes slide down to the leader, likely to be the least convinced. She smiles helplessly. "You don't want this, do you?"
Tamamo	"No," Tamamo tells Arina, "I have no power to detect caves, as such. Should there be something within the caves, perhaps. With time, I could make some attempts by other means of divination, but nothing that would be practically attempted in the immediate future. Should they be only empty pockets, as presently seems most likely, we shall need some other method."     On that note, Tamamo looks toward Reyes and Ishirou.
Hellwarming Trio	Utsuho: "Huh. Sounds like things're heating up in there." Rin: "Don't get distracted! Any second now, they could start blasting!" Rin's concerns are well founded even before the door opens, and Utsuho even turns herself sideways to make herself slightly smaller target in the worst case scenario where she gets shot right away. Thankfully, she doesn't get shot right away, but the threat is certainly there, and having Satsuki's fireteam readying their defenses only offers Rin some small comfort in the matter. As predicted, the Blueskulls are already prepared to fire, and there's a bit of a standoff as Rin joins the fireteam with her hands twisted together in an odd pose while flames dance around them. Utsuho, meanwhile, maintains a steady (if mildly blank) stare as she takes a moment to size up those already pointing their weapons in her direction and the considerably larger leader of the group. "Join...? Drop? Nah. Not interested." Utsuho shrugs lightly, holding her position up front as she keeps her control rod in the same forward-facing position it was in while she was getting that door open. Her first instinct is to start blasting, but she actually holds back on doing so immediately. She's learned a great deal traveling with Elites, learning from them, understanding more about human logic and society, and through the bonds she's forged... Utsuho starts playing at a new angle. Instead of shooting, she smiles widely. The control rod keeps glowing all the while, and it doesn't take much to notice that the glow is steadily getting brighter while she tilts her head towards Kamen Rider Mach. "He's got the right idea. You really think you're gonna be able to take us all down faster than we can nuke the place?" That smile starts turning into a mildly crazed laugh, and the eye on Utsuho's chest too starts to glow ominously while she raises the rod towards the ceiling. "Try us, then, if you're feeling lucky!" Rin, only now getting clued in on Utsuho learning how to bluff, starts looking back and forth rapidly before piping up from the back. "Sh.. She's done it at home before! And she doesn't even know any of you!" The kasha lies as easily as she breathes, sounding just freaked out enough while still being audible. She also makes a show of clutching her two tails against her chest and slumping like it means more than it actually means. "This'll be death number eight at this rate..."
Mack	"I'd really rather not be caught in another oven full'a banditos," Mack drawls. His stance is casual; his rifle -- rare and dangerous Naruni tech, and obviously modified on top of it, to the eyes of the gun nuts who might be in the crowd -- is once again relegated to the role of leanin' post. His bionics have already cycled up, lenses set aside joints beating with magical light in tune with his heart, casting eerie shadows around the trademark body mods of a strange kind of Headhunter. There might be a girl with frills and a wand and a masked guy with an elaborate belt, but there's also definitely a local there, and one who seems to mean business. "Listen. You didn't even dig this place yourselves, did you? Unless two of you are -" He leans a little to the left, squinting at a wall in the dark. "- Kristoff and Falcon, in which case, it isn't 88 PA, so you should correct your lovebird carvings." Mack looks back up at the Brodkil, sizes him up, and then looks past him with apparent disinterest. "You're just the latest band of desperate people looking to make a buck and maybe get back at whoever or whatever wronged you. And you aren't even gonna leave a legacy as strong as whoever Kristoff and Falcon were." "So maybe listen to the lady, and everybody gets to go ahead and see tomorrow with all their bits intact." Mack grins toothily. "Sounds like a terrific deal to me."
Reyes	"Alchemy is something you do over huge areas? I thought... well, two things come to mind when I hear alchemy... familiar with some old lore but can't say alchemy's very common on this continent. I know some wizards who swear by the stuff they make in their cauldrons... but these big arrays, that's alchemy?" He blinks a few times at Arina, dumbfounded by it being descriobed such.     To Ioanna... he squints. "I know someone we can get some Northern Gun stuff for pretty good prices, and I know a few other people who can get stuff for the right price... there's always salvaging though. You'd be surprised what you can find out in the boonies because someone got lost and there was nobody to come across them..." He sighs sadly at describing it thus but shakes his head. One person's tragedy can be another's fortune.     "I've... been experimenting with a spell based on something I saw in a pre-rifts video game. It's this beam that can suck up stuff - pretty much anything - like a vaccuum and break it up into atoms... then it does the reverse to build stuff. I've got... part of the first part working. The second's tricky. ... maybe studying this alchemy stuff'll give me some ideas..."     More chinscratching follows as he continues to ponder Ioanna's words. "Even though that's the end goal, it's hard to imagine a world like that..." He has grown up in so much chaos that chaos and operations like the Tomorrow Legion or Northern Gun are just normal.
Reyes	He then adds with a shake of his head to Tamamo, "No clever way to find caves from far away. Sorry."
Tamamo	After some further consideration, Tamamo starts talking about something of no immediately apparent relation. "They were not known by the word 'shamans,' but of priests whose duty it was to speak with gods, there were arts that were, of course, familiar to myself. The miko were easily seen, wearing red and white, colors of fortune and purity. My own clothing, with which I incarnated, was of a similar type, though I held not these colors, having the blue and black of a practitioner of that known as witchcraft. It seems, almost, a jest, for a god to practice the art of forming the bridge between the mortal and the divine, as shrine maidens do. And yet, should a bridge be formed between a human and myself, does this not still serve? The connection is one established and extended."     Switching tones, she says to Arina, "You said that you were more attuned to the spirits of the sky, yes? I shall converse with the spirits of the earth, then. They will divulge such small secrets as may be useful to our efforts, I am sure, and we shall continue from that point."
Lilian Rook	The brodkil leader does not seem to be taking Go seriously. After all, he is nearly twice his size, and that's basically all that counts when laser guns are involved, right? Just look at that little handgun. With a bike wheel! His laughter is deeply unpleasant. Some dark chuckling echoes him in the ranks behind. "Says a little cyber-man without his sword! Hahahaha! How's about this then!" The cannon swings down from his shoulder and into his other hands. A heavy mechanical crunch comes from the action cycling as it's pointed directly at Mach. "You talk your way around my little friend here, and I'll give it a listen! Hehehehehe!"     He spares a glance sideways for Utsuho and Rin. The glowing red cybernetic eye audibly switches shutters a few times. Another hand sign, albeit loose and sloppy. "Keep those two in one piece. We sell 'em off at Splynn, we're rich men. At least don't hit 'em in the face or middle." He mostly just looks temporarily flabbergasted at Mack. "The hell does diggin' caves have to do with anything? You rich or something? Maybe I ransom you back, huh? Piece by piece." It's a couple of the bandits behind him that exchange looks. Not all of them have even noticed, but . . .     Well, it's Strawberry Princess that really unsettles them. Crass threats to a large group of heavily armed men who have the enemy right in their sights and the confidence of winning many skirmishes already have little effect on their morale, but being talked to that way by a woman younger than most of them just seems to stir something uncomfortable in the bulk of them. Two thirds, maybe. The leader snaps back to the rest "Paladins? You mind tellin' me who the flying fuck the Paladins are?" only getting a few terrified headshakes and shrugs. "Well we don't need this one. Too much a mouth on her. Probably a mutant too." He turns back furiously, while many of his men are shifting their weight and letting their sights drift. His cannon swings to Strawberry. "You ever think there's a reason the Bluekills ain't gone home and settled down any ol' where in the New West? Give it a real hard rumination in hell!"     The brodkil leader fires. An enormous rocket-propelled shell streaks across a very short distance head-on at Strawberry. Six of his men fire alongside him, barraging Mack and Go with laser fire that is considerably less forgiving about distance, along with what appears to be a missile launcher on top of the vehicle, easily able to hit all of them. The others look like they weren't quite ready, or weren't able to summon up the bloodlust at the moment.     Arina, quite distant, but engaged in sympathetic lock with the others, takes the opportunity to intervene. A thunderclap separate of the cannonfire rebounds off the tunnel walls, joined by a flash of blue lightning and a surging blast of wind and water suffused with a prismatic glow, blowing the explosive projectiles off-course and diffracting the lasers into wider, less damaging cones, marked by vapour.     Satsuki, poised to strike as she said, appears from shadows with another blowback of displaced air. The sword drawn from her back, black-steel and red edge, swings a double crescent moon through the air, and suddenly the turret gives out, the leader's cannon simply clicks uselessly, and his cybernetic eye winks out, his leg and arm locking up for seemingly no reason. His clawed organic hand lunges out for her, which she smoothly steps under and severs from his body in another blinding strike.     The fireteam pops up from behind cover on her mark and opens fire into the enemy encirclement, blasting the soldiers who'd actually shot with ample hundreds of reciprocating railgun rounds, quite likely wounding or killing them in short order. The brodkil, and heavy vehicle, are essentially left to the reactive discretion of the others, but two dozen of the thirty soldiers, just lower their weapons and take cover instead, seeming to have lost their desire to shoot, loot, and do maybe worse, after Strawberry.
Lilian Rook	At the camp, Arina shouts a single incomprehensible word and flares with blue wisps and a smell of ozone, after a few seconds, she releases her held breath and lowers her guard, shifting her mask slightly. "Okay. I think they're fine now. Sorry about that." she says sheepishly to the others. "Of course, if we're talking about the nature of the forest, I'll do everything I can. Lieutenant Langstrom would be the person to talk to about guns and walls, no? Wasn't she a marine? I think it's her specialty; holding the line. Oh! But blueprints! Can you upload them to the officer table?" She probably means the holographic thing in the war room.     A little nod goes to Ioanna. "I understand. My own is my own, and I'm more than happy to see the Paladins prove their reputation here." Reyes mostly just gets a thoughtful, consternated sound. "Um, like I said, I'm not an alchemist. But, as far as I'm sure, a bigger array lets the alchemist conduct more steps of the process all at once. Calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction . . . umm, I don't remember all the rest, sorry. But! Obviously, it's more magic all being focused into one place, isn't it? So it has to be more powerful. So you can use more material. Otherwise you have to do every single part by hand. It's like . . . a script? I know the workshops they use in the west have big, big halls, floors and floors of them, just for things like these."     She brightens up tremendously at Tamamo. "Ah, thank you! I'm sure we can make lots of progress then!" She then mumbles "Red and white . . . so those are the ones with the cute outfits." And then a weird, tired little giggle. "Gods . . . that means so many different things. I think we used to have those, a long time ago, but they fell out of favour in the Tradition, after . . ."     "Well, the others should be coming back soon. Let's get to work and impress them, okay?"
Go Shijima	You're welcome.      From that point, outwardly, Mach is silent, to the point of seeming callous when taken with his posture. Playing the part of 'the muscle,' his gaze is locked squarely on the demon, as he dances a small bike between his fingers.      It's red, with a decal on the rear wheel that looks like a road sign. Specifically, one that implies a stop. The opposite hand rests at his hip, fingers relaxed, but ready near the laser pistol with the funny little wheel.      The brodkil levels his little friend. "That sounds fine to me," he coolly responds. And the moment he fires, Mach is off--a gust of dispelled air sent rushing by as the rev of the belt echoes through the cavern. It drowns out the callout made by the bike, slotted into the pistol.      He's not faster than light--but faster than most people can aim a laser, certainly. With Arina's help, he's untouched as he leaps into the air, pirouetting gracefully. Upside down, his aim sweeps across the floor, up towards the brodkil, past his severed hand. He pulls the trigger just as Satsuki's clear of his shifting field of vision.      A hard-light triangular stop sign emerges from the emitter, rapidly expanding until it envelops the brodkil completely, trapping him in heavily distorted time.      Mach lands nimbly on his feet, rising and twirling the Zenrin Shooter before holstering it in a pop-out hip compartment. He takes a look around... Wow... Lilian's juniors really helped us clean up!      Forgetting for a moment the situation, he clears his throat. "The rest of you, please drop your weapons and come out. We're not going to punish you for his actions or theirs."
Hellwarming Trio	The youkai catch the leader mentioning some place called Splynn. There's not enough time to ask about that before things start getting violent, and there's already flames firing back at the gang as Arina's wind and water magic divert the worst of the incoming shots from reaching their marks. It's a good thing that the explosives are diverted, too, as neither Utsuho nor Rin have much room to maneuver in that cave and just have to settle for taking stray blasts and shrapnel to their outer extremities to minimize the risk of head injuries. While Utsuho busies herself with blasting the bigger targets (the vehicle and the brodkil, mostly), Rin starts scurrying about to take more precise shots at the soldiers that haven't surrendered themselves already. Rather than going for the fast and easy room-immolation strategy, however, both of them are actually being (relatively) careful with how much actual firepower they're using. They aim for brief bursts at center mass and curling flames around cover, trying to cut off escape routes and corral their targets into unfavorable positions where their allies can capitalize with less panic-inducing methods instead of just burning the soldiers to death. They're learning, and they're trying.
Strawberry Princess	"What do you mean, some kind of mutant?" says the woman over two-thirds as tall as the brodkil, defensively. The cannon being leveled on her doesn't break her composure. It being actually fired does, though.      Strawberry's body is in motion before her face can show shock. It acts on near-spinal reflex, twisting to the side and bending her legs so she crumples to the ground. As she lands on her side, a translucent bubble of vibrant pink energy springs up to protect her from further harm as she pushes herself back to her feet.      She doesn't register that it wouldn't have hit her anyway until her conscious mind catches back up. "Arina," she murmurs. The third line.      Her ghostly watchers serve an extra purpose here. Even while she's disoriented, they see clearly: twenty-four of the bandits refusing to fire, each of them noted and remembered. It's rendered partly moot by the other six being promptly shredded.      By the time Strawberry's bubble disintegrates and she's regained her footing, it's all already over. She smiles appreciatively at Satsuki, carefully steps around the frozen bandit, and tries desperately not to look at any of the dead bandits. "Great job, everyone. Please- lower your weapons. That's all."      "It's over," Strawberry calls out to the ones in hiding. She slowly walks forward, wand lowered, so they can see her without having to peek out of cover. "Thank you so much. You should go pack your things; I don't think we'll be coming back. Then we can get you home." Implicitly, 'home' is no longer 'here'.      She sighs, and her shoulders slump- not in sadness, but nervous exhaustion. Then she straightens back up with a breath in, turns back to her team, and beams. "There. We did it, didn't we?"
Mack	Mack doesn't actually rise to the brodkil's comments. He just looks at him with his eyebrows raised, tipping his hat upwards enough so the demon can see the expression somewhere between disappointment and impatience. There's a flicker of brighter light that crosses his artificial eyes from one side to the other. The actual mutant is in motion before the lasers start to fire. He launches himself forward and past the brodkil, leaving the encirclement's line of sight and line of fire as if he'd just flung himself behind a curtain shaded like the cavern. His psychic invisibility works wonders, even in enclosed spaces. Especially in enclosed spaces. Heartbeats later, a surge of blinding light erupts inside the hovercraft's cab. A window bears the shape of a handprint in the suddenly half-melted glass-like surface. A bandit inside scrambles to get away from the source, black scorch marks all across the front of his armor and his exposed skin -- he definitely trusted whatever armoring was on that thing enough to go helmetless, at least inside their camp -- turned lobster red like the recipient of a bad sunburn. The hatch pops open, and there's a pair of heavy thumps barely seconds after. The pilot hauls himself out and falls out onto the ground. Inside, the instrument panels are dark, with one short metal rod jammed through the main control panel, and a second one angled upwards into the bottom of the turret, straight through the roof of the craft. Mack sits himself in the uncomfortably warm pilot's seat and shakes one hand, heat rolling off it in waves. He has a pretty good view of the ensuing short-lived carnage, and a great vantage point from which to throw an encouraging thumbs-up back towards the rest of the team. Once he pulls himself over the dash. The seat's too low. Story of his life.
Lilian Rook	Six fanatical bandit loyalists, nice rifles or not, don't actually stand a chance against the elite troopers assigned to this groupd, never mind versus Utsuho as well. They meet quick and messy deaths, though their fellows barely seem to react. Unfortunately for the bandit Mack scares out of the gun, he's acquired and shot to literal pieces immediately by the fireteam, having absolutely no clemency when a superior officer is endangered.     The brodkil barely reacts to having his hand dismembered --regenerators, the dossier says-- and immediately moves for his hand cannon, but Go stops him in his tracks. Satsuki takes the opportunity immediately, lunging forward and bringing her sword down to split him shoulder to hip, and then turn away with a high over-shoulder flick that takes his head off. Somehow, a handful of talismans have found their way onto his body, which burst into white flame, soon to leave only the cybernetics behind.     The remaining bandits grip their guns tensely, ready to shoot back, or run, at a moment's notice. It's Strawberry's voice that gets them to reluctantly stand from cover, two at a time, with a surrender posture going on. "You better be telling the truth." one says to her. "Because I ain't got no home to go back to. None of us do. The CS burnt it all while we was out. So don't go lying to bring in some lawman, you hear?" He mostly just sounds strangely bitter and sad.     Right. Bandits don't know tactical hand signs. And the brodkil leader was awful at them. Those rifles aren't from around here either. It isn't long before they actually go about the process of packing up all their belongings in an efficient and practised manner and start loading up that hover transport; a freebie for the Paladins.