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Rita Ma	The monster that attacked the Semitone was, analysts later discovered, one with a history of bloodthirsty attacks on humans. It had wandered near a Multiversal shipping lane either through blind chance or malicious hunger. Over half a dozen shipwrecks were directly attributable to it.      Which makes it all the more worrying that it apparently didn't quite die.      It's been sighted again near an uninhabited island only a dozen miles from the location of the Semitone attack. It hasn't yet resumed its attacks on ships, but it's certainly only a matter of time. You're going to finish the job.      Gravelrise has spared an enchanted galleon for the purpose, in gratitude for the humanitarian aid; it is shielded with an aurora of magical energies and ghostly spirits man its bristling cannons. But the First Mage's (like a first mate, but fancier) detection spells point towards a rocky coastal grotto where the ship can't reach, and they're forced to row you ashore in a boat.      The island's supposed to be uninhabited, despite its lush forest, but there are shoeprints aready in the sand when you land. Outside the grotto's entrance is a half-empty crate of medical supplies that had sunk when the Semitone was damaged.      A single, huge, evilly stupid eye stares out from the back of the dimly-lit grotto. It's easily recognizable as the beast you're after. But the figure that emerges from the gloom to confront you is much smaller.      Rita Ma holds a mess of blood-soaked bandages in one hand and an empty IV bag in the other. There's blood on her salmon-pink sundress and taupe bolero, too. She looks tired. More pressingly, on seeing you, she looks both surprised and resigned.      "I know what you're here for," she says quietly, in that faux-demure tone she adopts when stressed. She forces herself to straighten up, chin held high. "But I can't let you kill it, you know. When it fell into my lap like this... well, you gave me a gift. I just need a little more time to make it mine." Come to think of it, it's strange that she hasn't seized control of it already.      Sharp dark rocks erupt from the sand here, and the waves gently lap against them. The sun is overhead. Rita's eyes sweep over the crowd, lingering the longest on Lilian and Go- and Kale, for a very different reason. The tension in her posture shows that she doesn't expect a peaceful resolution, but she hasn't worked herself up to making the first move yet, either.      The bandages and the IV bag fall from her hands. Her fingers curl, not into fists but into claws. She nods in the direction of the magical galleon. "But they won't accept that, will they? I'll just have to be brave."
Staren	Staren's aquatic mech floats alongside the galleon. It's not exactly *fast* in the water, a car on a road could greatly outspeed it, but it's better than something with jet engines sucking in water.     When they come to the island, the 8-meter-tall robot rises out of the sea, the ground shaking a bit nearby with each step. As they come into view of the grotto, Staren raises the machine's right arm, a weapon mounted to it helpfully marked by a FIRE caution symbol and a fuel tube connected to the back of the robot.     But then...     "...Rita?" It's a bit hard to see with the distance to the cockpit and Staren wearing a helmet, but her expression of grim determination becomes one of curiousity and concerned anxiety. "What is this about?" Her voice comes over the mech's speakers. She lowers the Obvious Flamethrower. "C'mon, it's not like fighting is a forgone conclusion. You're doing this for a reason, let's talk about it. Clearly, we don't have all the facts."
Kale Hearthward	"Oh, of all the people it could be..." mutters Kale, when he spots who it is. "..." He doesn't have a response to what she says, at least not one that'd directed at *her*. She knows the score. He knows the score. He doesn't have anything to say to her, that she doesn't already know he's going to say. If he did, it'd be something along the lines of 'That you're claiming it is even more reason to end it'. She knows. He knows. "We can't let her keep it," he says, this directed to his allies. "Whatever it is she has planned for it - we can't even say for sure that it attacking ships wasn't part of her plan, but that doesn't matter. We need to get in there and end it." "And if that means going through her, we go all the way through her. No hesitation, and no holding back. The one mercy we allow is her getting out of the way and leaving peacefully - and she just said she wasn't taking it." He steps off the boat, smoothly going from 'walking' to 'hovering' mid-step, and drawing his left-hand sword as he does. It whirs to life, unfolding into a drill shape, and immediately spinning up, the sound breaking the calmness of the crashing waves. "And if you have a problem with any of that, then just stay out of the way while I take care of it for you."
Kirishima	After the last battle on board the Semitone, Kirishima's been forced to change into her ninja-gear for lack of a proper replacement for her office clothes. She'll need to remember to send in the paperwork for a new set later, but for now... Ninja time! She takes one last moment to make sure her mask is on over her mouth and that her horns aren't tangled up in hair, and then she leaps off the rowboat (that totally didn't give her a weird sense of nostalgia) to begin the journey towards the center of the island in search of the dreaded tentacle beast. "We're not the first ones here. There may be survivors." Kirishima guesses as she points at the shoeprints, then at the crate of medical supplies. "That might be a good sign, though, if they were healthy enough to get that open. Let's not waste time." She fades out of sight quite literally, and a trail of footsteps rapidly appears as the ninja adopts the tried and true ninja sneaking technique of sprinting directly in the direction of the older footprints, leaves and foliage rustling be damned. She stops, however, at the sight of the big evil eye, and even lowers her guard when Rita appears. "Ah, a survivor! Be careful, there's..." Wait. Rita's talking about the monster? Kirishima stays in place as she listens first, looking rather puzzled even with only the top half of her face visible. She looks over at Lilian, Go, and Kale when she notices that lingering on them, trying to gauge what that's all about without actually asking. "Who won't accept... Er. Making it yours?" The confusion is evident in Kirishima's voice, clearly not too familiar with Rita's abilities. She approaches Rita while crouching a bit to try and make herself look a little less tall than she actually is. "Why would you need to be brave? Are you hurt?"
Go Shijima	Kamen Rider Mach, here in the aerodynamic, sleek FiveS armor, waits anxiously in the boat.      He hasn't brought the bike along, but he is able to snap a picture using the suit's internals. Footprints? ...and medical supplies from the Semitone.      The Zenrin Shooter, that large energy pistol with the unusual wheel at the front, is leveled, pointed towards the eye as soon as Mach catches sight of it. But his finger hesitates when that figure emerges and intercedes.      "Kale, I think you've got Rita all wrong," he says, attempting to stay calm. "She wouldn't attack a ship like the Semitone. I don't know what she's going to do with this thing or how she even got hold of it... but I know that. Rita..."      Mach points behind him with a thumb. Gesturing towards the exit of the grotto, the open sea. "In their position," he says, "Would *you* accept it? What are the medical supplies for? What are you going to use this thing for?"
Ishirou	Ishirou comes with the group, obviously for a chance to finish the job on the monster that was common in these parts who liked to hurt ships for fun.  Unfortunately, they would have to fight on its home turf, instead of on the open seas...but then again, this would mean more land for them to use so it might not be so bad.   His power armor was already deployed and set into the flight unit.  Right now it was hovering behind the group, checking scanners and confirming its location.  That and its status.  Of course, another signal comes out, and Ishirou isn't sure about it.  Maybe his sensors were being interfered with because it looks like... Rita.  Nope, it wasn't a sensor malfunction.  She looks resigned, which worries him that she seems to think a fight is a foregone conclusion.  Kale absolutely does not help matters at all.  He also turns his head towards Lilian, before looking at Kale.  "You know, it's funny that I think I'm the one who's got problems with emotional intelligence." "Let's not jump to conclusions, she is likely without a full grasp of the situation," Ishirou says.  Taking a breath, "Rita, this monster is a known menace in the area.  It attacks ships, hurts people, and kills.  It's intelligent enough to know what it's doing.  We were the ones that nearly killed it before, and I'm surprised it survived at all...but I'm assuming that's your doing." "What are your intentions with it?  I thought you did not like monsters...and this thing is clearly that.  It attacks humans without mercy...and in brutal ways." "Including attacking ships with needed medical supplies for those suffering.  It attacked a ship on a mission of mercy and killed the captain and his bridge crew without a second thought.  It specifically went after the supplies in the hull.  It's too dangerous to be left alone, even under your control."
Lilian Rook	She turns out to the water and watches the slowly sinking bulk of the pulverized giant monster. Lilian thinks again about those dim, soulless eyes. That slack, gaping maw. She shudders in revulsion. Something about their random attacker bothers her, but she can't decide what.     Lilian would like nothing more than to leave this one alone. A failed monster extermination-- no, it wasn't even that-- a conclusive naval escort operation with one loose end isn't her problem. She should leave this alone. That hideous . . . thing was never her primary target. Never her problem.     Lilian sighs and hurls her secure communicator at the bed, the URGENT MISSION UPDATE holowindow still showing. She knows perfectly well she isn't going to leave it alone.     And then it turns out even worse than Lilian dreaded.     Knowing full well there will be a big stupid horrible monster covered in defensive parasites, Lilian has made the wise decision to arrive dressed neck to toe in her newly repaired combat skin; some strange concession has compelled her to order the lower leg hardplates thickened alongside the outer hand and arm, but mostly, she's carrying an unusual amount of conventional weaponry, three folded up at her back and waist, a sidearm to each thigh and a full hip strap of cases filled with explosives and runestones. Better to be very, very thorough this time, with ample firepower of economic scale she can throw away. Pointless vanity has compelled her to cover up that scar again. It's not the way she wanted to meet Rita again.     "Why can't you?" Lilian replies, sharp and tired. "I've listened to you before when you said that, haven't I? Back in America, first. But those times, you were able to tell me why. So tell me again, Rita. Give me a good reason." Her lips twitch at the word 'gift'.     "Rita if you need something you can just ask me. Playing around with these horrid things isn't what you should be doing. You don't feel bad for it, right? It's an enemy of humanity. including you, Rita."     "If you really need something, you should know by now that I can get it to you, and you should know by now that I take giving my word very seriously. You don't have to be 'brave' this time. You just have to talk to me; that's all."     It's Kale that causes her to snap, for unknowable reasoning. Lilian steps out enough to get ahead of him, turns and half-blocks him with her extended arm. "It would never be." Lilian insists. "Did you forget that people died? Ordinary humanitarian workers! Did you forget that thing shoveling them into its mouth like-- . . . No. Rita wouldn't."     Her tone firms up. "She's killed people before, but I'm the only one who gets to throw that stone in this house, aren't I? But she would never, ever, permit that kind of . . . apathetic consumption of human life. She's seen it enough. Those things have terrorized her family enough. She would never." Lilian reiterates. "So don't get any stupid ideas."     A deeply awkward pause follows. "Obvious we're going to exterminate it. We were always going to. Rita would, even if were a person, for what it's done in the past. But don't go blaming her for things like that."
Rita Ma	Kirishima is acknowledged with a guilty, heartbroken little smile. "No. I'm okay. And I'm sorry. You seem like a good person, so... I'm sorry this is how we met."     "I'm taking it because it would be a useful tool," Rita answers Staren. "It isn't complicated." She looks outwardly proper and controlled, but her ramrod-straight spine and demure affectation is just another way of containing her tension.      Answering Staren and Ishirou at once: "I do hate monsters. Of course it's too dangerous to let it roam free. It'll die when it's useful for me to let it die. It would be a waste just to throw something like this away. But you don't trust me with it, do you?"      She nods to Go Shijima a moment later. "I'm healing it, of course. It was almost dead when I found it at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know anything about the 'Semitone', except that this crate was near it." Rita looks down at the sand and grimaces when Mach points at the ship.      "No. I wouldn't accept it if I were them. That's why we're going to fight, isn't it?"      Her expression thoroughly ices back over when she glances over at Kale. "You didn't use the word 'kill' today. Are you getting better? Or is it just because more people are listening?"      Lilian gets to her the worst, because of course she does. Rita receives most of her words with a guilty, pained look, her eyes staying fixed mostly on the sand. 'An enemy of humanity, including you' hits her particularly badly. Lilian definding her to Kale gets her even worse.      "... Thank you, Ms. Rook. You're right. But you were okay with me using the Cycle of Tears, weren't you? Even though the Cycle did horrible things before, too. This'll be the same way. I'll find something to use it for, and then I'll get rid of it. It's the same."      "But if you don't agree... I forgive you. I can't put you in the position of choosing between me and your other friends, Ms. Rook. So please fight me, okay? I'll feel guilty if you don't. ... No, I'll make it easy for you. Please don't sacrifice anything for my sake."
Rita Ma	Rita shuts her eyes and breathes in. For a moment it seems like she's going to sigh. But that soft noise never comes. Instead-      "KREEEEEEEEE!"      It's an ear-piercing, literally deafening noise that strikes the body like a wall of sound and rattles in the lungs. It scatters sand as an abrasive storm; it's powerful enough to bruise and knock back the people closest to her. Though the treble is all Rita's, the rumbling bass sounds suspiciously like the Bullette that Staren, Ishirou, and Lilian fought alongside her.      For several long moments afterwards, all sound is muted by the ringing in one's ears it leaves behind. Rita follows up with a bare-fisted assault while invisible, taking advantage of the induced deafness making her practically impossible to find while cloaked- the occasional footprint in the sand is the only way to track her.      In stealth, she rapidly pinballs from one member of the party to another, lashing out with crushing kicks and sharp claw-fingers. Kale is struck in the beak despite hovering off the ground; Staren's mech develops deep gashes in sets of five from her invisible assailant's fingers. Lilian is, subtly, ignored for now.
Ishirou	Ishiriou sighs, no of course it wasn't going to be this simple.  The unit starts to prepare, but Rita's faster.  The sonic attack stuns him, causing him to stagger and lose his floating ability.  The fist crashes into the side of the armor, sending it sprawling back in the unexpected strike.  Sparking, the flight unit was not insignificantly damaged by this.  "She's using that Nullborn's sonic ability." However, seconds later it swaps into fighter mode and takes to the skies to support from the air.  "Deploying scan..." he says, and then a magical tether from the flight unit fires at and connects to Lilian before disappearing.  Lilian will quickly see that his targeting data is going to be shared, increasing her combat efficiency.   Scans also start raining across the battlefield, aiming to try and reveal Rita to not just Lilian, but the others here as well.  Bombs drop as the Flight unit aims to dive across the battlefield, aiming to drop magical fields.  These fields cling to Rita, aiming to try and light up her form and make it harder for her to use her invisibility effectively. "You're going to use this to do what?  It's a monster that will hurt people, that situation in America was different and you destroyed them then and there, right?  This is a different situation altogether, and you won't be just killing it off immediately." Ishirou sighs, "I suppose I don't trust you with it.  It's not personal, but I wouldn't trust /anyone/ with this creature.  Even if you could control it, it's possible that it is smart enough to somehow get out of your control and continue its terror." "Please, just stop.  Just..." he considers Lilian again, but at the same time remembers her reaction to trying to defend her.  He's...at a loss for what to do.
Kale Hearthward	Kale is annoyed. He's annoyed in the manner of someone who saw this coming, from the moment he set eyes on Rita, and despite seeing all of this playing out in his mind's eye he was powerless to stop it. Pontificating and words from his allies, assumptions that Rita's merely confused, and Lilian prioritizing Rita almost as if *she* were her ally. In Kale's opinion, right now, there are only two people here who understand Rita, and the other one is Rita herself. "She's a Watch elite, presumed dangerous at any level of armament, and the attack on the ship isn't the primary issue here, her preventing the destruction of the monster is," says Kale to Lilian. "Don't-" He adjusts the grip on his sword, cutting off whatever he was about to say as he decides it wouldn't help. "... Just focus on what's important," he says. > "You didn't use the word 'kill' today. Are you getting better? Or is it just because more people are listening?" ... It's a bit of both. Mostly that people are listening. Anything more that can be said is lost as the scream rings out. Kale's stunned - and by the time it occurs for him to try to detect Rita, she's already on him, slamming him in the face, causing him to spin almost cartoonishly in the air for a half second before he can right himself. "Should have - come alone," he growls to himself as he starts flying and swinging, trying to connect his drill with a foe he can't quite see.
Kirishima	Rita calls her a good person, and there's a subtle shift of a smile behind Kirishima's mask. "This sounds far more complex than someone like me could ever imagine. Our obligations and your own are at odds, so it's only natural that we may come to blows over this... I'm sorry, too, Rita." She doesn't understand, but she can feel that pain coming through in Rita's tone well enough in her reasoning, her explanations, that pained look, and even that one cold response. "Whatever backstory there is... Do not feel guilty over your choice." She winces as her train of thought is interrupted by that horrible screeching noise hitting her head on, causing some visible bleeding from her ears. The invisible strikes hit their mark dead on as well, slamming into Kirishima's chest and scraping against her sides enough to draw more blood even while she utilizes the tried and true ninja technique of... Standing there. Against her better sense, Kirishima stays right where she is and takes those attacks head on. "I won't pretend to know what this is all about, and I won't try to batter you with meaningless drivel. Whatever brought you here, whatever drove you to make this choice..." Kirishima brings out a single sword with one hand while gesturing with her free hand in front of her face, barely hiding the fact that she's openly weeping (but not sobbing or choking up). "Be proud, Rita! It couldn't have been an easy choice, so I will not let you face this with any regrets. Let's clash as warriors must, and let there be no hard feelings regardless of the outcome!" Only then does she finally strike, eyes following the footprints in the sand as she starts swinging at what might as well be open air. Her free hand stops on another seal, and a pair of frogs appear behind each of Kirishima's shoulders before belching fireballs at another spot on the ground, exploding in massive plumes of flame to try and catch Rita in the spread despite not knowing where she actually is.
Staren	> An enemy of humanity, including you     Staren narrows one eye slightly. Not everything is about humanity. The thought, should someone read it, carries a sentiment of meaning in mind, not body. > I can't put you in the position of choosing between me and your other friends, Ms. Rook. So please fight me, okay? I'll feel guilty if you don't. ... No, I'll make it easy for you. Please don't sacrifice anything for my sake.     Staren takes this logic to apply to her as well, even if they're not exactly my friends... In the back of her mind, she'd been weighing the consequences of backing out or fighting to help Rita if it came to a fight, so, Rita's attitude about that is good to hear.     But Rita's attack catches her mid-switching-mental-gears. Staren's ears flatten under the helmet and she grits her teeth, refusing to get distracted as the cockpit glass and sensor feeds go a bit blurry from the vibration. It doesn't help that Rita's ALSO invisible! The mecha makes a half-hearted swipe with its hand to discourage Rita from standing directly in front clawing it, but that won't matter much.     Her claws rend the armor almost like butter. The weapons of RIFTS Earth are designed to fight monsters, but Rita's a cut above. Fortunately, it IS a giant battle robot, and sheer mass is a saving grace here.     Staren considers her weapons. Torpedoes aren't much use here. Will lasers even WORK on something invisible? The chainsaw also requires seeing and hitting a target. But...     The right arm sweeps back and forth, Staren strafing around the battle area filling areas AROUND and BETWEEN her allies with plumes of flame when she sees them getting claweds up, trying to catch Rita, or at least make the space very difficult to traverse!
Lilian Rook	'She's a Watch elite, presumed dangerous at any level of armament'     "That's why you should let me handle this." comes Lilian's stony reply.     'That's why we're going to fight, isn't it?'     Lilian smiles painfully. "As pathetically hypocritical as it is for me to say it, we don't have to." Beat. "No, I won't claim to hold that as a general principle, so I can't even be that. I'm just making an exception for you, Rita."     'But you were okay with me using the Cycle of Tears, weren't you?'     Lilian sighs. "I did. And you were able to tell me, then and there, exactly what you were doing. That it was going to come with us, to the Nevada outpost, to--" Her head rings a little bit, remembering something about something called JORMUNGANDR. "--to deal with the Letter Agency. Those people, specifically. And you promised me it'd be gone after. Can't you do that again? Can't you tell me? When and where, who and when. 'I'll find a use' is just stumbling on a hammer and looking for nails, Rita. 'I'll get rid of it when it's convenient' is just begging to get too used to it."     'I can't put you in the position of choosing between me and your other friends, Ms. Rook.'     "Huh?" Lilian blinks. "Well, maybe Ishirou or Shijima, but Hearthward and I aren't really--"     "KREEEEEEEEE!"     Lilian makes the mistake of gritting her teeth for a moment, and flinches at the intensified vibration fully reverberating through her skull. A split second later, she opens her mouth, claps her hands over her ears, and cracks an eye open. Her brain is fine; three major points of human geometry being clustered in the head and throat typically see to that. But instantly magically enhancing her vision is just barely enough to catch the slightest glimpse of Rita zipping around and slashing up the rest of the squad. Dimly, she is aware of Ishirou's targeting tether.     §Even when she's trying hard not to be terrible, she really is just rudely opportunistic. How long did she think about this? Was she planning this out while we spoke? I'd love it we could fight together for once. But more than that, it's important we don't fight 'seriously', so, if my ears are ringing already--!§                 -----[stop]-----     Lilian lowers her hands from the sides of her head, takes a deep breath, and then keeping most of her body planted and immobile, she reaches over her shoulder and disengages the magnetic holster on the heavy weaponry she'd brought with the monster in mind. "If I so much as twitch a finger where she can see it, Rita will notice." Lilian mutters to herself.     Pneumatics telescope the machinery out, and electromagnets lock it in place as a slender semi-rectancular launcher, put over her shoulder and grasped by the flip-down grip. The diagonal sights are projected holographically, for Lilian to stare through. "If I don't move much like this though . . ." The aperture cap splits down the middle. The computer beeps. A spillover capacitor whines. A fiery thundercrack and electric hissing aborts halfway through its playback. Lilian jolts backwards slightly; her toes slide in the loose sand. An aerodynamic, needle-like explosive hangs in the air six feet in front of her, as if from invisible strings in the perfect still quiet of a museum. A blobby, camera-flame ball of illumination shines evenly behind it, as the thruster is just about to kick in.     Lilian braces and fires another one.                 -----[start]-----     The other half of a sound like exploding electronics snaps sharply back off the rocks. Two rockets(?) are already streaking inland at incredibly high speed. Both are aimed squarely at the hulking monster in the back of the grotto, primed to piece light foliage or brittle rock to reach it.
Go Shijima	"Yeah," says Go with resignation. "That's why we're going to fight." I don't doubt Rita would use this well. But those people--will they sleep well if something like this is out there, still? Lilian used that word... 'shoveling.'      Mach shudders. Then he keels over at the keening wail, warning lights blaring on his suit's internal hud as he grasps awkwardly for the wall. Invisible?! With my hearing gone like this ...my only chance is to use the Smoke style to try and get a trade in.      Even momentarily deafened and faced with an agile, invisible opponent, Go elects to move. He's fast--enough to test Rita's speed, certainly, but she still has the advantage. Claws rake across the armor's chest piece, and sparks fly from the armor mid-sprint. There! That was a swipe--plane of impact couldn't be anything else. Twist with it, don't stop, even for a second, or she'll see it coming...!      The belt revs and Mach rockets forward, sliding off the impact of the blow and using it to add momentum to a low leg sweep. The tires on his ankles peel out, pivoting him even further. The wheel of the pistol he carries spins up rapidly as he comes back around, covering both close range and distance with a swipe of the wheel first, and a flurry of burning blue energy darts second.
Rita Ma	The group's attacks come to, practically speaking, nothing. Rita is nearly as fast as Go, perfectly invisible, and with everyone temporarily deafened she might as well be silent. A single blue energy dart from Go splashes on her arm; everything else is literally pounding sand.      Lilian's rockets come the closest to having an effect. Like that, reacting in time is a struggle even for Rita. But she doesn't have to- they splash against an invisible obstacle not far into the grotto, leaving behind scorched tentacles. Of course she'd blocked that off in anticipation of someone slipping past her.      But her invisibility has to come to an end- chromatophores, like any other muscle, get tired. Leaping backwards off of Staren's mech, Rita lands on a nearby rock and shimmers back into invisibility just in time to wreathe herself in Mors Caelorum's light, stolen from the brass-fragment Antegent she fought with Lilian, Staren, and Ishirou on that island at a dragon's behest.      For several seconds, she is shimmering-crimson and translucent, and attacks directed at her simply pass through. That gives her time to unravel herself, revealing her true mutated form: a 'dress' of blue fleshy lappets sufficing for clothes, one eye a shocking inhuman blue with a cruciform pupil.      More pressingly, it reveals the dozen blue-purple translucent tentacles sprouting from her back. They curve and angle lazily in the air, protecting her and menacing anyone who approaches; they're gracefully slender, save for two especially wicked-looking ones as thick as her leg, but their span must be at least sixty feet.      "Thank you. I'll try my best." she says solemnly to Kirishima, while her reprieve lasts. "You too, Mr. Ishirou. But if you don't trust me with it, then there's really nothing else to say." Then, to Lilian: "It's something I'll have to get used to. Otherwise, how am I going to be useful enough?"      But she doesn't spare too much time for chatter- Mors Caelorum's reprieve is wearing off.
Rita Ma	Rita snaps back into coherence, which is accompanied by a sharp implosion. Everything in the vicinity is dragged towards her. That's very, very bad- because her sharp-edged tentacles promptly turn the thirty-foot radius around her into a blender.      They move fast enough to blur into a flickering undifferentiated aura of blue, fast enough to whicker harrowingly and make sharp whip-crack noises whenever they touch anything. On striking the ground, they gouge into solid rock or kick up high plumes of sand. They're no longer invisible, but almost might as well be for their speed.      She makes little effort to dodge now, whenever she can get away with it. Instead her tentacles intercede with lightning speed to parry or deflect attacks directed at her. Even for someone who can stop time or move with similar quickness, it's hard to find a moment where one could squeeze through the thicket of blades to reach her.
Kale Hearthward	This has... become worse than Kale envisioned. You don't... reason with someone who's putting themselves in your way like this. You don't assume that they're confused or that they're some poor figure who's deserving of pity. If someone raises their sword to you, you strike, and if you're feeling merciful or conflicted you strike at the sword and not the person - but you still strike! Kale attempts to weave through the tentacles, focusing on the battle instead of trying to speak up again. Speaking up would just be another opportunity for Rita to drive another wedge into the fragile cohesion the group has. Instead, as the tentacles batter at him, he attempts a feint - dropping the noisy drill sword, letting it fall to the beach. Hopefully, Rita tracks it, instead of him, in the middle of the chaotic battle - at least for long enough for him to get up close enough to just slam into her with as much speed as he can muster!
Ishirou	Ishirou doesn't say anything...it's difficult to try and find a way forward right now.  This is going to hurt Lilian, he's sure about it...and with her body the way it is.  He wants to rub the side of his head...Kirishima's being mulched, and Kale isn't faring much better.  What about Staren?  What /about/ Staren? Ishirou uses magical tethers to lash out at people, even Staren, to try and reinforce their bodies.  Predictions in their movement to make the shots hurt more, targeting information to make their attacks more efficient, and an overview of the fight to make their tactical situation more outlined.  Lilian's plan is the sound one but with Rita the way she is... The suction draws them in, but it was at this moment that Ishirou has an idea.  The spikes pierce through the power armor, the damage is building up and the armor looks trashed already.  Sparking along the frames and smoking in places it shouldn't be. However, Ishirou uses the momentum of the pull, and while pierced he tries to drive forward to try and use the machine to grab Rita and then drive her into the air.  The idea to be trying to prevent her from covering the creature...to try and force her attacks to break out of his hold first.   It's a tactical decision.  He's got the only flying unit that's trustworthy, his armor's functions are almost trashed and he's hurt.  Even if tactical, it's definitely powered by emotion.  If they can remove the conflict, then this can deescalate faster...then Lilian won't have to push herself.  Kale won't significantly hurt her while she watches.  Kirishima won't take a near-fatal blow and push the others to do something they'll all regret.
Kirishima	"That is all I can ask." Kirishima sheds only a single more tear before she starts whipping herself all over the place, trying to match the speed of her faster companions and opponent alike, quite literally teleporting from space to space to simulate the effect of being just that fast. It's not actually speed, though, and it doesn't really help when Rita's implosive burst pulls the ninja in rather suddenly. Her hands come back in front of her, and they form multiple seals in rapid succession. "Iron Turtle Style!" She hollers before clenching absolutely everything, bracing for the inevitable pain that's to come from all those whip-tentacles slicing into her from every direction at once. Rather than trying to parry or evade any of it, Kirishima once again opts to withstand them as best she can. She actually does a fairly good job at it, too, with subtle movements being her main form of reducing damage to more vulnerable body parts. She can guess Rita's in the center of that mass, and that's where she aims herself next. Noticing Ishirou's strategy with the flying unit, she tries to buy him a bit of extra time by making herself a little more threatening-looking: The ninja hurls her sword right in there before conjuring up another massive fireball, but not from a pair of frogs. This time, Kirishima's flames come from her face as she holds her hand in front of her mouth and blows out a plume of flame not unlike some deadbeat dad-ninja-to-be to try and clear a path to that ominous space in the center. Should she actually find enough of a gap to get in with only modest blood loss and body carving, meanwhile, Kirishima throws herself right in there, utilizing another classic ninja technique: a flurry of body blows, hook punches to the face, and another plume of flame blasted right out of her own face.
Staren	"Thank you, Rita. For 'making it easy." As frustrating as this battle is, Staren is truly relieved to not have to make those considerations about how choosing a side will be received here. > 'I'll find a use' is just stumbling on a hammer and looking for nails, Rita. 'I'll get rid of it when it's convenient' is just begging to get too used to it."     Staren hadn't considered that. Not that she can reflect deeply on this idea now, but those words will stick in her noggin for later. Unless she just forgets.     Rita really is a nightmare to fight, huh? Staren realizes she doesn't know much about her. She's seen only a fraction of Rita's capabilities, and usually from the side of an ally. Layered defenses. Multiple fallback sources of untargetability. Seemingly endless reserves of matter and energy.     And every part of her is sharp and spiky when she wants it to be.     Once, Staren thought the answer was to become like that. Now... she doesn't, but still, how do you fight such a thing? Once, Staren would have said 'just keep attacking, eventually their reserves will run out' but... after years and years of multiversal experience, she's seen that really doesn't have to be the case. <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Listening to me has a pattern of working out." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "If she feels like being useful for once in her life, she'll fire all her idiotically oversized ordnance at our primary target! All of it!"     Well alright! Insults aside, if there's anyone here she can imagine defeating Rita right now, it's Lilian, so... even if it doesn't seem like it will matter, it's worth a try, right?     The shoulder launcher aims upward, and eight torpedo tubes ripple-fire twice, mini-torpedoes launching into the air with a series of *PFOOMP*s of compressed air, boosters warping into place on them in midair as they act like missiles, turning and flying into the grotto towards the primary target.     Rita is being a sharp spiky deathball. Like hell this big mech is DODGING anything, so as Rita's tentacles continue to flay the armor off of it leaving deep cuts some of which spark or smoke or bleed oil or hydraulic fluid, Staren tries to at least return the favor by deploying the massive chainsaw on the left arm, swinging where Ishirou indicates to cut those tentacles down!
Go Shijima	Not enough. That's fine.      He hasn't stopped. Every bit of the grotto's space is of use to him, even walls and ceilings. When Rita reveals herself, he's upon her even in the short space of time she does. His foot crashes through nothing at all--Mors Caelorum's ability sees to it.      But even when it splits the rock below, Mach is still racing. He springs off of the foot in question, already pressing forwards before the rubble has completely hit the ground.      He's immediately punished for it, passing through a blender of deadly tentacles just as they reappear. It's too many impacts to completely obviate the damage, but Mach's ability to make microadjustments to his body at-speed is finely-tuned enough to see him through the worst of it. In the space of a few seconds, sparks fly from the armor at several points, and when he emerges on the other side, he's still standing--still a blur, even, despite the violent eruption of impacts. Two options. Area denial, or up close. She's really confident up close--for good reason. She must have gotten me a dozen times. Fine.                            SIGNAL BIKE//Signal Change!                                                                SPLIT                                            The hubcap on the FiveS armor changes to reflect the Signal Bike, becoming a roadsign indicating an incoming split. Go fires anywhere -but- directly at Rita. Above her, beside, below and off-center. Eight shots.      A split second after each, pockets of bright blue appear at the impact points, spewing an intersecting flurry of rapid-flight energy needles in the opposite direction, attempting to fight Rita's tactic of area denial with some of his own.
Lilian Rook	'Should have - come alone'     "Welcome to my life, Hearthward." hisses Lilian. The rockets exploding on a pre-set barrier have instantly tanked her optimistic assessment of resolving this cleanly, without a fight and without the fraught task of trying to talk Rita down.     §I could try focusing fire on-- no, there's no telling how thick it is. We don't know how long she's been preparing this. Being a hastily constructed bluff would be just like her, but so would setting that measure up the instant she decided she was staying here. Judging by how much of that crate stock is depleted, she's been here for a while, applying medical attention to that thing. If I just keep hammering on it, she'll eliminate everyone else and we won't have made any progress. I'll use Wiremu to check; she's the most expendable resource here.§     'It's something I'll have to get used to. Otherwise, how am I going to be useful enough?'     "You don't have to get used to anything! Least of all monsters! You of all people!" Lilian calls back despite herself, tossing the launcher to the side, along with the remaining four cartridge cases. She can't bring herself to point something so indiscriminate at Rita, and she needs to save it for the monster anyways. "Rita, you've already put all this time into healing the thing! At this rate, you're not going to be to put it down when the time comes! You're going to get attached to it Rita! That's the kind of girl you are; too much sympathy for--!"     Lilian balls a fist hard enough for the suit to creak. "It's not fair Rita. That thing-- it doesn't deserve what you're doing. It attacked us. It attacked me. It killed people. It thinks of us as food. And after it finally got what was coming to it --after there'd finally been something good and right-- instead it just gets nursed back to health. Treated like a pet. I worked hard to get rid of it, and you're just . . . undoing it."     "It's a monster, Rita! Plain and simple! Something that only hurts people, and you're--" Lilian clenches her teeth, wordless for a moment. "And it gets all the help you have to give, and I'm the one who you fight?! Why is it this, again?! I thought we were past this! It should have been over! It should have been my turn to--"     Lilian runs out of patience. Not for calculated action, but for words. She unhooks the other heavy weapon she'd broad, spinning up the electronics of the heavy triangular machine gun in her arms and loading its enormous feed.     §I'm just getting to myself like this. Not her. It's been months since London. Weeks since the other London. I shouldn't still be acting this pathetic. What happened to the Lilian Rook everyone was terrified of crossing? Not the one just wearing how fucked up she is on her sleeve.§
Lilian Rook	Lilian isn't expecting to be thrown right off her feet by collapsing air. Tumbling for a fraction of a second, she pushes her magical energy down through her body and severs her bond with gravity, shrouded in a crackling black haze. Throwing all the thrust she can generate in the opposite direction, her lower legs slide just under the event horizon of the tentacle blender. Sparks fly from the plating and sharp, stinging pain blossoms through the joins before Lilian even gets to see the attack. She flinches.                 -----[stop]-----     This always happens when she flinches. It feels awful to see everything stop like this, even if it might have saved her; it lets her know that she's still focusing too much on getting a piece of her body blown off in London. Lilian falls over on her back, but nobody sees that part. Nor do they see her trying to calm her breath, dusting the sand off, and slinging the machine gun a little vindictively in Rita's direction.     They don't get to see her staring analytically at the gaps in the mesh, trying to judge if she can fit. They don't even hear the gun firing when she decides she can't, tightly squeezing the weight into her body and steadily sidestepping around Rita's perimeter, the back and forth juddering of the bulky weapon painting erratic brush strokes of blue fire and white tracers across the air, cumulatively stacking up four hundred simultaneous shots. They see--                 -----[start]-----     Lilian blinks back. A magazine thuds into the dirt where she just was, is sucked in and shredded. The air ripples and flashes in a ring all around Rita, very very briefly splitting the air with the sound of several hundred simultaneous supersonic whines. Lilian is already firing the new magazine, holding the trigger on rock-and-roll mode to try and lock down as many of Rita's tentacles defending herself as possible. As the rag rattles near-dry, she grasps Night Mist's pendant around her throat. A thin sheen of blood oozes from the lacerations in her legs, but she hasn't noticed; nor has she noticed the plating fallen away in chuks exposing black and gold flesh.
Rita Ma	Approaching Rita like this is a Bad Idea. Ishirou gets a tentacle-stab in the ribs for his trouble; it shoves him off to the side, where he risks careening into the sand and becoming a sitting duck if he's not careful. Kale's lunge catches her at an inopportune moment, but she's stronger than him even with that momentum behind him; he gets cut up in the process, slams into her with a glancing hit, and is then grabbed and thrown into the sand to redirect his momentum.      "Should've come alone," she repeats, with no particular emotion.      Staren's mini-torpedoes fare poorly in their actual objective, being hitting the grotto- Rita's tentacles neatly bisect them. They explode in the process, though, injuring a couple. The chainsaw fares extremely poorly: mechsuit metal yields to monstrous flesh, and the chain is cut through in an eruption of sparks.      Kirishima's blast of fire is something the tentacles can't effectively parry or deflect; Rita's forced to actually evade for the first time since starting her tentacle-blender, hopping gracefully out of the way. Her attempts to close to melee range are ill-fated, though; even if she has the incredible agility to get in close, a single body-blow from Rita drives her back, and then she'll have to navigate the blender all over again.      Go Shijima's tactic meets with more success. Rita tracks where to put her tentacles via sight and sound; once the shots pass by her, she pays no more attention to them. Only when she hears them 'detonate' does she turn around, barely flinching out of the way with a surprised little "Ah-!!". Those she can't dodge or parry on short notice strike her flank.      ... And leave her, still, mostly unharmed. It's totally unfair for someone that agile to also be that tough.      Similarly, four hundred bullets fail to pierce her tentacles where they're struck. Rita can't dodge bullets from a standstill like that, can only barely flinch into a crouch- but flinching serves her well enough. Her skin is tough enough that the contours of her body work like shaped armor. From a weapon of that caliber, anything less than a direct hit simply rolls off rather than pierce through.      "It's just a monster, Ms. Rook," Rita says queasily as she rights herself. "It doesn't 'deserve' anything, any more than a rock does. I'm really sorry about this. I'll take care of you later, okay? But... if 'a monster that kills people' is your standard, then..." She grimaces slightly, shaking away the thought- and then grimaces again, seeing Lilian's leg.
Rita Ma	The tentacle blender gracefully winds to a close as Rita begins to glow from within with an unearthly white light. Her alien appendages slow, then gracefully curve almost like wings as the light spreads from her chest and into them.      After only a second, she's shining so incandescently that her features are no longer visible.      Then her tentacles flex and discharge a wave of pummeling, scouring light. It cracks and scatters the stones, makes a crater out of the sand, strips paint from the metal of Staren's mech, and strikes everyone with line-of-sight to Rita like a titanic hammerblow to the chest.      "I'm sorry," she says, before the light has even cleared. "I really am. But this is... the only way where I don't have to ask anything of anybody. Where I don't have to be a burden."      When the light subsides, Rita has re-wrapepd herself in her human disguise- or rather, multiple perfectly lifelike Ritas have. At least four of them are present at any time, any or none of which might be the real one. The decoys are sculpted from tentacle-mass, and exactly imitate her frenzied hand-to-hand style, except that their attacks are essentially harmless.      She uses her invisibility sparingly, here. Each time it becomes obvious which ones are fakes, all of the Ritas blink out of visibility, reappearing somewhere else- a shell game where the dealer reshuffles the cups if you're about to win.
Ishirou	The move was reckless, it had a very low chance of success...but his predictions outlay a bunch of ways this could go.  Every one of them ended with him face-first into the ground.  So he took the one with what he assumed was the best chance of success.   The armor hits the ground, face first.  Its flight systems are disabled.  He tries swapping to the burrowing armor, but he knows it's not going to be fast enough.  Moments later he feels the sting of pain, he was pierced by the tentacle.  Coughing, he knew that blow was going to prevent him from helping.   "Stop...it," he says through gritted teeth.  "Stop hating yourself like this...you're not useless.." he says, hissing in pain.  "You're fending how many of us off by yourself?  You don't /need/ it...it's a liability to you and will make you a target because of its existence..." "You don't need it to help others...you don't need it to protect the things you hold dear.." he says, trying to get combat drugs injected into him.  It might make the pain tolerable, or he'll pass out before he's finished.  He pushes himself to the holo screen to send the last bit he had left.   "Your desire for something you don't need is going to hurt you...you aren't a monster, but this will give people the reason they want to see you like that.  So please..." he says, gasping.  "Stop.." a wheeze, "Before you push her too far.."
Kale Hearthward	Kale eats dirt. "Really should have come alone," he repeats, mostly to himself, as he gets back up to his feet. He doesn't get far. The light blasts him. And, for a few moments, Kale's just gone. He jetted off, trying to get clear - and not at all succeeding. As he returns to the battlefield, he's looking just this side of extra crispy. He lands, a few charred feathers scattering in his wake. And something miraculous has turned out to have happened. "... Okay." Rita's blasted Kale hard enough that he's actually listening to her. "I can... see where you're coming from. If you say you need this thing, then - there's a lot worse ways to get something like it, especially if it's a thing that would just be destroyed anyway. I appreciate that you're trying to take a nonviolent route in... getting it." "I don't understand you. I don't understand why you're out in the Watch, I don't understand why you're going around stealing things. I don't understand..." why Rook takes *your* side, when you're you and I'm me. Best not to actually say that one, though. "So if you say you need this thing, then - I believe you that you need it. I believe you that... you intend to do something good with it. Something you think is good, at least." "... And I can believe all of that..." He reaches back and draws his other sword. "And still know, that I can't let you take it and keep it. Even if it comes down to, that I have to go through you for it." He swings the sword around, activating the blade trail - not so much with his usual indignant puff of air as usual, but a slow steady exhalation. He hurts, and he's being worn down. "And for that-" He gets into motion again. Rita's playing a shell game, but unless she can teleport, she'll still have to move between the positions. He tries to cut her paths for that off - picking a Rita, encircling it wholly or partially with the blade trail, and going in for the actual strike. "- I wish I was sorry."
Go Shijima	If this becomes an attrition fight, I'm the first to drop. Maybe if I redlined Dead Heat... No. I'm gonna have to. There's no way I can break through her defense without the strength that'd give me, and it's too slow at the lower range to outspeed her.                        SIGNAL BIKE//SHIFT CAR - Dead Heat!                              The armor changes mid-sprint, the colors of the blur shifting as it decelerates.      It was mostly white before, but now there's more red, and the armor bears a tire around the breastblate, visible at this lower speed. A bit of blue is mixed into the blur--the soft glow of an electronic tachometer where the armor's hubcap usually is. As the button on the Mach Driver is mashed repeatedly, the needle climbs higher and higher until it turns an urgent, alarming red.      At that moment, the tire on his chest explodes, and his speed is back up to 'blinding' then and there. He shoulder-checks illusory Ritas, fists, palms and knees impacting at-speed, the Rider rolling with his own blows to channel momentum into the next. But Rita must've come to the same conclusion he had. Attrition.      She can make them as quickly as he can crash into them. "Don't talk like that," Go hurls at Rita. "There are people who have their health and their smiles back because of you!"      He's getting worn out, committing too long. The timer runs out, and Mach is brought to his knees, skidding across the floor as the armor seizes up and vents steam. Three keypresses on the FiveS car causes a hardlight, disembodied pit assembly to refit and cool off the armor, providing another burst that Mach immediately sets off. This time, though... he doesn't bother with his fists.                            SIGNAL BIKE//Signal Change!                                                                 TURN                                            Mach mashes the driver down again, starting an energy buildup that transfers, visibly via red crackling lightning, to the Zenrin Shooter. Mach holds the trigger down and a blue orb of superheated energy forms at the pistol's emitter. "Asking for help doesn't make you a burden. I wish someone had told me that a long time ago."                             HISSATSU//Full Throttle!                                  The orb is loosed when Mach releases the trigger. It slowly traverses the room, no threat in and of itself, save for the deluge of energy darts which fly from it. They seek out Ritas left and right as if guided by wire, constantly spewing from the orb until it strikes something solid and detonates violently.
Staren	"Tch, seriously?!" the chainsaw just being completely destroyed while trying to cut a Rita is embarassing. A video of THAT is going to be sent to Northern Gun demanding some sort of concession or free repairs or something.     When Rita's light starts... destroying everything, Staren holds that nigh-useless left hand in front of the cockpit, at least. Fingers are stripped down to the metal 'bones'.     The machine is pretty damn beat up. Paint and armor stripped, rents and gouges exposing sparking internals, tens of millions of credits of technology that the Concord is going to pay to repair. Even if robots do it instead of techs, that's still an expenditure of materials and energy. And for what?     To fight Rita, who Staren thinks is more in the right than anyone else here, for the sake of... what, exactly?     "Y'know what? I appreciate you making this straightforward, Rita. But even when I fight by their side, all I get is insults." Staren turns the mech away from Rita. "And while it's true that I'll fight for what's right alongside them no matter how they treat me... I don't see why I have to fight for what's *wrong*."     "The humanitarian mission was one thing. But this is a waste of Concord resources. She's right, it doesn't deserve anything. She can use it to do good, or not. I'm taking Ishirou back to the ship."     One giant mecha hand attempts to scoop up Ishirou and the sand he's fallen on; if he's in a state to resist or move away she won't insist, though. Then Staren walks the mecha back towards the shore and into the water, where it mostly-submerges except for the cockpit and one elevated hand as underwater propulsion pushes it back towards the galleon at a leisurely 30 miles per hour or so.     "Honestly... It's just so damn easy to get swept up in whatever Lilian wants, isn't it? Even some of you recognized this should have been a talk, not a fight, and we still did it..."     "...Excuse me, did Kale just say "I know you need this thing, I know you need it to do something good, and I'm going to take it away from you anyway? Is that seriously what passes for a heroic speech in the Paladins?"
Kirishima	Kirishima can feel the weight behind all of those words. Rita's hurting. Lilian's hurting. What right does a relative stranger, a co-worker at best, really have to try and say anything beyond that? She doesn't, so she doesn't. All the ninja can do is focus on aiding her allies, those she looks up to, and other. Her hands get whipped into another frenzy of activity, those seemingly meaningless gestures helping her shore up her defenses as that eerie glow from Rita gives her enough of a warning to shore up her defenses. "Frozen Armadillo Style!" Once again, it doesn't look like anything's actually changed, but it does seem to help Kirishima's mental state as she raises her guard with a new sword in one hand while swiftly swinging and wrapping a chain around the other with the sickle dangling off the end. She blows one more plume of flame in front of herself to try and ward off what she can only guess might be another tentacle lashing, and she's already switching her grip on her sword to use it to help her weather that strike before it actually makes contact. To Kirishima's credit, the sword does help somewhat. Another layer of metal between her body and the massive blast of light is still another layer, although it still manages to blast her backwards and force her to drag her hands through the dirt so as to not get blasted out of the battlefield outright. She can feel her defenses wearing down over time, but it's still not enough to stop the ninja from pushing herself right back in Rita's direction. "If you are a burden, Rita... So what? Everyone wants to be useful to somebody else. Monsters, tools, we're all useful to somebody some of the time, but does that not make them burdens on us?" She flips the sword into an underhanded grip, leaning forward as Rita becomes several Ritas. She strikes out at the imitations that come towards her, only pausing when the fakes fade out and reappear elsewhere. "Not asking anything of anyone... That's just asking for isolation and suffering alone, and nobody..." She pauses, then rephrases immediately. "You, of all people, do not deserve such a dire fate. If you are a burden, then rely on us! Rely on-" She gestures at Kale, then starts sprinting forward. "-your allies in the Watch!" Finally, Kirishima leaps forward at what she can only assume is the primary Rita, and she starts whirling both her sword and her chain sickle around at a breakneck pace. She can't be sure she's really going after Rita, so she starts darting from Rita to Rita, trying to make contact with any and all of them one after the other to draw out the position of the real one for everyone else to (hopefully) capitalize on.
Lilian Rook	'But... if 'a monster that kills people' is your standard, then...'     "You know it's not." Lilian chokes. She was trying to sound angry, but her voice catches in her throat partway. "Don't you start saying that. Don't try to pull that on me again. We both know what I mean." She throws the smoking weapon. It petulantly crunches against a tree. Her fingertips dig into her palms.     "I get it. I get that 'being useful' matters more than 'good'. I know, I know perfectly well that awful things are excused if someone thinks they can use it, and good things are punished if someone has no use for you. So why don't you want to change that Rita? Are you really willing to be a part of that? To help make sure everything stays that way forever?"     Lilian can't outrange 'line of sight' without abdicating all her reserves. She can do something about 'line of sight' though, even if not as much as she'd like. When the flare lights up, Lilian knows perfectly well what's incoming, and relocates to 'behind the largest, most solid rock she can find, that is also behing as many sturdy trees as she can line up'. Even if it is Rita, that's just geometry working in favour of respecting the content. The obliterated scenery absorbs much of the energy present in the Lilian-shaped cone drawn from Rita to her, and getting flat against the ground, hands over the back of her head, makes that cone very small.     The backhand armour even protects her from the stone shrapnel crashing against her with the wave, cracking and tearing away the armour over her right hand on top. Discoloredfingertips. Again. It's like they're trying to be seen somehow.     Lilian pulls Night Mist from her throat. An arterial spray of inky black smoke materializes it as a sword. Though her combat skin is looking increasingly ragged, that's it's job, and Lilian is still fighting fit inside of it. She has no illusions about Rita falling for her usual level one or two strategies; she'll definitely keep trying to out-innovate her, so to this extent, she just has to accept that she's relying on it to hold out.     §It'd be really nice right about now if I could think of something to outsmart her instead, that doesn't . . .     No. I can't afford it to let it get that serious. Rita is trying very hard, but she hasn't done anything she should if she were really afraid of me. Is she just naive, or is that an implicit understanding? I don't know, but I can't just . . . I can't commit to a killshot over a shitty monster. Even the five percent chance something like that just works completely isn't worth risking Rita over killing that thing.     That opportunity has to be on purpose.§     Lilian doesn't seem to care about the shell game. She doesn't seem to be discriminating between clones at all. Finally, she commits a bulk of her effort into fighting properly. Her sword paints flickering bloodred trails through the air, both edges shining, each time she pins down a clone in close combat, and delivers a 'killing' stroke. Each time, the ending length of the sword disappears into the clone as if it were a deep pool, aimed to inflict damage back at Rita through the tenuous thread of an arcane link the disposable copies have.     Even then, she still can't seem to go for anything other than thrusts or semi-deep cuts, even when she could easily decapitate a clone for less effort and more damage.
Rita Ma	Ishirou's emotional attack uncovers the real Rita, at least for one 'cycle'. She pleads with him, distraught, while her copies continue to mime fighting: "You don't know that. I don't know that! I don't even want this. To be sick like this; to be strong like this; to own this monster. I just... don't want to not be enough."      It's an unreasoning fear. Talking her out of it isn't within the scope of one conversation, but he's at least got her rattled and discouraged.      Kale goes on the attack then, catching her off-guard. Even within the confines of the encircling blade-trail, she manages to narrowly dodge around the thrust, but she can't keep it up forever, and there's no room to counterattack. "Ah- thank you?! I'm glad that... it's at least getting through. A little bit. But..."      Rita simply lunges through the blade-trail to avoid the next strike, forearms braced ahead of her. It breaks around her, leaving a thin line on her arms but not cutting deeper. "You understand why I have to stop you, too. And I won't be sorry, either." She turns invisible before throwing a kick aimed to rattle his skull.      After being drawn away by a couple of decoys, Go finds an attack that doesn't care about her clones- two, if his words count. "And there are people who don't, because of me. You don't know how that weighs. Only I do," she says somberly. "I have a lot to make up for." The darts are low damage, but they're beginning to add up, enough that she starts to devote special attention to avoiding them. The part about not being a burden, though, gets a softly strangled noise out of her. She has no adequate reply.      That lets Kirishima catch her off-guard, winning the shell game with a lucky pick. "I don't want to take more than I give," Rita says piteously. She parries the blades with her bare hands, but they can still nick her toughened skin if they catch her dead-on, and a few strikes do. "And I've already taken too much. Please, don't... make me take 'mercy', too." She disentangles only when she can dig deep enough for another burst of invisibility.      "I'm sorry," Rita pleads with Lilian as the latter cuts down her clones. Even if they're decoys, they're hard to hit; further, she severs the invisible umbilical connecting her to each one before Lilian plunges the blade in, weakening the link. "I didn't mean it like that. I know you'd never... think that way. I think you're good. And I know you think I'm good, too. But...that isn't as true as I want it to be. It's like that monster. Someone like me shouldn't have been born. It doesn't have value unless it's spent."      Staren tries to swim away. Rita isn't having it. She unravels a decoy back into its constituent tentacles, reaches out to grab the mech's leg, anchors herself into the grotto's stone with a few more spare limbs, and yanks the fleeing mech back up onto the beach with a grinding shriek. She uses them to stab into the propulsion systems for good measure. Heartbreak is replaced with frustration in her voice: "We had that whole talk about not abandoning your friends. About sticking with people so they'll stick with you. What's wrong with you?"
Rita Ma	The decoys are a less efficient defense against so many opponents. Rita seems to be realizing it: all of them unravel, pulling back into one body. This time Rita's defense is a hard shell of sleek black, aquamarine-edged chitin, interlocking into something like a petite knight's armor, but accommodating her lappet 'skirt'. It is vaguely reminiscent of heavy, beetle-like monsters from a certain alien planet.      This time her means of attack is a glowing blue fluid that fires from 'nowhere' where she gestures, as if she were elementally conjuring it. She coats vast areas with a ballerina-like spin; fires swift darts of it with a finer gesture; launches broad cones with an outstretched palm.      On contact it sizzles and burns like acid, then seeps through the skin and lingers as a poison. Most concerningly, it continues to glow azure within the body, more and more brightly with larger doses. Where it accumulates in especially heavy globs, it explodes and scatters- shudder to think of that happening inside a human body.      Rita's far from done. Aside from the emotional damage, she's hardly slowed.
Kale Hearthward	"If you want to thank me, you can stop it," says Kale. He goes to follow up - and for his troubles, he gets kicked hard in the side of the head. "Gah-" He ends up face down in the dirt once again. This... isn't happening. Between not everyone being on the same page, and Rita fighting harder than he can keep up with... He pulls himself up, and kicks off, heading back to the ship, skimming low across the water. He tries to just... leave, if he can, without saying anything or drawing any attention to himself. Whether or not Rita and he understand each other a little more, he's not in a mood to give her any reason to celebrate.
Staren	The mech stops. Staren looks through a rear camera. And then the mech is YANKED back onto the spiky-rocked beach and speared by tentacles while Staren's hands grip her seat white-knuckled.     "THEY'RE NOT MY FRIENDS! THEY'RE A BUNCH OF JERKS!" She yanks at the controls; in this state the mech can barely stand, let alone fight, but it can't leave either.     "What's WRONG with me is that I keep letting them push me around and use me! They're wrong! You KNOW they're wrong! I know they're wrong! It doesn't change a thing, playing along won't make them accept me or treat me any better!"     Staren slumps in her chair. "Whether or not I'm broken. Whether you 'should've been born' or not. We're here now. That's value enough! I'm... not fighting for an order that doesn't value us. How can I be strong that way?"     She shouts, "How can I make a better world that way?! I'll fight for a world where we have value until I can't anymore! We can't let them spend us, Rita! It's not their decision! We're not tools to spend, anyway!"
Go Shijima	The acid splashes onto Go's chestplate. It burns. Sparks fly in a constant, concerning stream until the blur stops.                                     Good Work!                                          Go is flung at startling speed unarmored, skipping across the ground and grimacing as he comes to a stop. There are welts and small burns all over, from the suit's biofeedback.      But despite the grimace, there is a calm, quiet determination in his eyes. "Yes," he says, slotting the belt back in. "I do."                                Signal Bike! RIDER!!                                   No theatrics. No catchphrase. Just the chime of the Mach Driver's AI, announcing the shift into the red, tachometer-bearing Dead Heat.      "There are people that are dead because of me!" Despite his injuries, the redlined suit has no trouble keeping Mach upright. It's back at speed, bouncing off of the walls.                            SIGNAL BIKE//Signal Change!                                                                 STOP                                            The Zenrin Shooter crackles with energy. "I have a lot to make up for, too. Worrying about whether you're 'enough' is a part of that road. But you'll gum up your engine, if you live in that mindset!" From a variety of angles, midair, ground, wall, ceiling, the high-speed Rider fires a harrying mix of precision red bolts and rapidly expanding hardlight STOP signs, both of which induce heavy localized time dilation.      Mixed into the attack are hit-and-run divebombs, varying the approach between ground and air. The pistol's wheel spins rapidly, used as a club in those death-defying dives. "I wish I could tell you how I got here," he says. "It's a new feeling. Strange and light. But... if it helps," he says, glancing towards Lilian, "I think we both know Lilian well enough to know that she doesn't hold back when she thinks someone's lacking in some way." He stops, points at her, breathing heavy with exhaustion.      "I've never once heard her say an unkind word about you."
Lilian Rook	'I don't see why I have to fight for what's *wrong*.'     "So you'll trust this poor girl with a man-eating monster that she can't control and should be put to death anyways. But you won't trust me with even talking to people you like. With having feelings. What I wanted was the anything but this." Lilian spits, in naked hate, as Staren turns and runs.     "You're the waste of Concord resources. Staren. Everywhere you go, everything you do, is a waste. You'll never make a better world as long as you're in it. You ruin everything you touch. Not me."     "I treated you better, and learned it was a mistake. You don't deserve it."     Lilian plunges headfirst into the cyan hellstorm of explosive acid. Conserving her energy, she blinks rapidly back and forth, moving diagonally each time a dart is about to hit her, or forward and low under a stream, chasing Rita down. Teeth set, eyes locked, unblinking, breath held. One of her pounding feet doesn't make any noise. Up close it gets more dangerous. Lilian dodges a venomous bomb, and then the spalling globules, but even some of that splatter hits another dark rock, and bounces a third time across her upper arm. Layers of plating and weave, mesh and sandwiched crystalline gel, boil away with an angry sizzle. It's almost to her skin.     'Someone like me shouldn't have been born. It doesn't have value unless it's spent.'     "SHUT UP!" Lilian cries out. "There was nothing wrong with you! There never was! Just because things didn't happen like anyone planned doesn't mean you aren't worth anything! Rita, stop it! Stop it right now! People don't have a right to spend you! They aren't entitled to who you are! You expect me to believe it, when you won't?! You want me listen when you say I don't have to be this way, so why won't you listen to me?! Why am I supposed to believe that you, alone, out of all people, are worthless --born wrong; a burden; someone who hurts others by existing-- and no one else like you?! That's not fair!"     The venom isn't working. Or, the venom isn't doing anything. Or maybe 'the venom is not'. The hellish sizzling that should be dissolving into her flesh is rendered in slow motion. Lilian brushes it off her ruined armour with her discoloured hand. It boils away in fast forward all at once, consuming itself in cyan flames. Her arm and shoulder, exposed and vulnerable, are the blackness of a solely starlit night; her skin ripples with cracks of gold, burning, shining, brightly. The bleeding in her leg has halted completely. Staring down Rita as she rushes head on, she could look right into Lilian's eyes. Light of a familiar, nameless colour occupies the tainted pupil. The reflection of the world in her iris is redshifted.
Lilian Rook	Night Mist twitches abberantly, suddenly in the opposite hand on the opposite side of Rita. She didn't even get to see the specific Cleasa invoked, but a fan of fractally compounding slashes blasts her chitin and carry to carve the surface of the barrier behind her like an enormous shotgun blast. Lilian accelerates even further into a dead-on tackle, doing something ostensibly incredibly stupid, by taking Rita to ground. She doesn't have a million tentacles to grapple with, but she has much more experience at this distance.     Reading an inevitable counterattack ahead of time. Evading it and hitting Rita below the waist. Rolling for mount. Engaging flight, pointed straight down. Raiding her cases. An entire tightly-clenched fist of runestones radiates enormous quantities of heat and light as they're magically forced supercritical state, held barely in check by Lilian's own effort. Her available stores of magic seem to be climbing.     And then she waits like that. Breathing hard.     "Don't tell me you're trying to not make me have to choose, and then you go and force me to choose between believing and not believing, for the price of hurting you."
Rita Ma	Kale's escape doesn't trouble Rita, if she even notices it. Neither does Staren's yelling, at least outwardly; she averts her face from the response, but the armored 'helm' hides her expression.      "Don't say things like that," she pleads desperately with Go, even as she tries to fend him off with her acid. As she moves frenetically to avoid the red bolts and stop signs, her blonde hair trails behind like a streamer, charting the path of the twists and jukes. "Don't say things like that! It isn't the same! She's wrong about me. I-"      Whatever justification she was trying to cook up, it's drawn out into an incomprehensible noise as a stop sign strikes her leg. She's trapped in dilated time, unable to avoid the blow that's coming. Repeated, unmitigated strikes from Go's club send cracks spreading through even her durable breastplate.      The follow-up Cleasa shatters it right off of her. The fragments of Rita's helmet scatter in slow motion. They're accompanied by tears. The slowing effect wears off just in time for her to be grabbed and pinned by Lilian.      She stares dumbly up from the floor, breathing hard. The anguish is clear on her face.
Rita Ma	A superhumanly strong kick somehow, impossibly strikes Lilian directly in the chest. The "Rita" pinned to the floor dissolves into writhing tentacles. The real one shimmers into visibility, with her tear-streaked face, for just an unreactable fraction of a second. She raises her hand before Lilian's even finished recoiling. A beam of that same scouring, concussive light strikes her and Go behind her, hurling them both back and away from the grotto.      "I'm sorry," Rita murmurs softly. "It's really unfair of me. I'm putting the burden of my feelings on you, when you're just trying to save me from something awful." She walks forward, looking emotionally depleted but not defeated.      "You're really good to me, you know. Both of you. More than I deserve. And that makes me feel even guiltier. How am I going to repay something like that?"      "But if it's that choice you're worried about, I'll take the choice away. If you lose, there's no decision to make, right?" Her smile is exhausted and sad, like she barely believes what she's saying either. As if there could ever be a solution so kind and neat.
Staren	Of course you can have feelings. Of course you can talk to Phony and everyone else. Staren glares back at Lilian, struggling to put thoughts into words that will sound clever, and can't. Forgetting, for a moment, that Lilian can hear the thoughts anyway. > You're a waste...     Staren's grip on the control sticks tightens and she tries to hold that glaring expression and weather the mean words.     But...     Metaphorical armor and just plain stubbornness can't protect her from the doubt already inside.     She's admitted it before... PHONE: Candy says, "Anyway, Staren, to me it always seemed like you came into things needing certain kinds of shit in your life, and the people around you didn't have any spare shit to give you. When you're hungry, it can make you loopy, angry, sad, all kinds of things, if you been that way a long time." PHONE: Candy says, "Your friends little by little, they give you what you need until you're not starving no more, and then you can give your leftovers to them. And in real real excited for you cause I see you getting up to that point, now everyone's taking care of each other better." PHONE: Phoning Candy, Staren says, "I... I hope I can. I'm a little scared that I'm just so... 'hungry' that I'll keep taking and not know how to give properly and then other people will... they'll get sick of giving me food again, in this metaphor, and then I'll go back to starving..."     Staren's hands shake on the controls. She tries to breathe slowly and not dwell on those words. > Why am I supposed to believe that you, alone, out of all people, are worthless --born wrong; a burden; someone who hurts others by existing-- and no one else like you?! That's not fair!"     Even in this state, Staren can see *something* wrong with the logic of someone believing this can't apply to someone else yet does apply to her. But it's small comfort. She looks from Lilian to Rita. Staren's always been careful. Has *any* sketchy stuff she's tried ever been as dangerous as taming this monster allegedly is? And yet Lilian is fighting so hard -- with her words, anyway -- For Rita here. Why? What's so different? I just don't get to have things like that.     No, wait.     There was the whole REST of the conversation with Candy. And Phony. And the Concord. Right. These are my enemies. Of course I'll get no sympathy from them. Of course, some part of her mind can't help noticing, But aren't Lilian and Rita enemies too?     But that's not important right now.     Just, right now, remember that there are people who care while Lilian agonizes over whyever the hell she can't trust Rita when at the same time she also clearly trusts her. That's other peoples' mess to sort out.     Staren's left in her head while big energy beams and stuff reflect on the cockpit glass and her helmet and venom drips down the mech's hull and occasionally makes little explosions that aren't enough to actually blow it apart but continue to make future repairs more troublesome.
Go Shijima	Mach is snatched from his lightning-fast approach mid-stride. The impact proves more than the suit's kinetic redistribution system can handle, and with a shower of sparks the armor dematerializes. Lifted upwards and into the air, Go impacts the ground with a pained wheeze. He's always gotten his second wind easily. But I've done enough fighting. I trust my friends.      His breath slowly returns, one hand held outwards, palm facing out. "Kindness isn't more than you deserve. It's a thing people need," Go says. He opens his mouth to continue, but ends up coughing first. "...And they don't stop needing it when they decide to go off on their own. I know we can't always work together, Rita--but Lilian isn't wrong about you." He forces himself to stand, leaning against a wall, again holding his hand up to indicate he's not going to swing.      He can only stay standing for a moment before he's sliding back down that wall. Sitting up against it, covered in sweat, burn marks, and welts--in places, his skin is split and bleeding. He's clearly in pain, exhausted, but whatever else is on his face, there isn't a shred of animosity.      Lilian's going to have to take it from here. He just needs to rest for a while.
Lilian Rook	"So."     The runestones vibrate angrily in Lilian's hand.     "Now what?"     Her fingers shake from keeping the roaring heat and pressure in.     "What's it going to be, Rita?"     The light is shining right through her flesh, even though it looks black.     "Do you want to see what this does to the both of us? We're already going at it."     Rita unravels underneath her. Lilian doesn't believe it. Tentacles are in the way of every arm and leg. How did she miss that? When was she not looking? She hadn't even blinked.     "When--?!"     §When she put on the armour? She armoured up a decoy so it'd--§     Lilian is struck directly in the back and hurled well down the grotto. She hits the sand with her injured shoulder, cries out, bounces, shields her head with her arms, skips from a rock, hits the ground again, rolls, rebounds, and crashes horizontally into a tree at her back, breaking her impact posture and halfway flattening her around the trunk. The tree cracks down the middle and tumbles over into the sand, kicking up airborne dust. Lilian drags herself up to her knees, reeling from the stress on her spine.     §How the hell is this happening? One on one I'm still stronger than her. Everyone but Shijima, certainly, and he's clearly on his last legs, but all of them wearing her down should have made this easy, not harder. Did I waste too many moves trying to ignore her? Did I really go that soft on her?§     §Am I the only one fighting like she cares what happens to the other girl?§     Lilian lurches out of the dust, staggering, but quickly regaining her stride. The combat skin shouldn't protect against the internal injuries she should have received, but it seems like she's somehow begun rebounding from it anyways. The flickering ghost of some stellar corona is faintly visible, even from the front, around her shoulders where the beam had struck between them. The gold-dust scar across her face is showing through sand-scoured and tear-streaked makeup. The tainted eye is too bright to look directly at, but only directly on; only making eye contact with it is painful.     "If I lose, I'll never forgive you, Rita." says Lilian. "Because you cared more about something horrible and useful to you than cared about someone good to you and useless." Night Mist jumps up, aimed at Rita's midsection from a twelve and four o'clock stanced standstill, but the blade is dark and inert. "Because you beat yourself into that empty shape and proved to me that you didn't really believe anything you told me."     Lilian advances. She can't get a Cleasa to fire. For some reason, the power just won't flow through one of her arms; the steadier one; the one that doesn't bleed; the one that doesn't shake. But she can still blink right into Rita's face, feint, hit her from another direction, follow through the second time, feint the third, wind back a heavy blow, cancel it and hit again from behind, and so on, and so on.
Rita Ma	"Please don't," Rita pleads tearfully when Go tries to stand up again, then exhales in soft relief when he raises his hand in non-aggression, and shakes her head. His words make her cry fresh tears, adding to those already running down her face.      She sniffles pathetically, rubbing her eyes with one hand. "It isn't just kindness. Please don't make me say it all out loud. Please don't make me try to justify it. I don't even want to think about it. It hurts. I was awful to you, so please just go. I can handle that, but not this."      Lilian's words make her stagger backwards as if struck, her eyes going wide. "Ms. Rook, please- you didn't have to show me that. I can't... you know I meant the things I said to you. That you deserve love. Don't do this. Don't put that at stake. Of course I-" a little sob bubbles up, interrupting her- "Of course I meant it. I've tried to be good to you and everyone. You're trying to protect me from making a bad choice, so..."      Her face scrunches up into a look of anguish. She looks down and tries to cover her face with her arms for a moment, as if shielding herself from a physical beating. An anguished whine builds in her throat. For a raw, unguarded moment, she could tip over into either aggression or despair.      She chooses aggression. Anguish metabolizes into anger. "Do you think I'm not trying to protect you too?! Do you think I haven't been gentle too?! You're the one trying to say that we're the same! Why do you get to say I don't need to be strong, that I don't need things like this, and then say I don't get to protect you from the choice of whether to hurt me?! Do you think you're the only one who cares about things? Do you think you're the only one who wants things? I'm trying to be good to you! Why don't I get to protect people too?!"      Lilian advances. Night Mist strikes Rita in the side. The feint doesn't matter, because for once, she isn't trying to defend herself. It's a rough blow, but she can bear it.      Rita's human skin unravels instead, wrapping Night Mist in tentacles. The sword becomes invisible. A second later, it's charged with Mors Caelorum's otherworldly energy, becoming intangible. It slips from Lilian's grasp; Rita catches it with a similarly phased-out hand, then hurls it high up into the air, to land somewhere that not even she knows- invisible and intangible, it might as well not exist.      "There," she says between breaths. "I did it. No more choice."
Lilian Rook	'Ms. Rook, please- you didn't have to show me'     "It's too late for me to decide whether or not to show it, Rita! It's been getting worse and worse for weeks! A little bit more every time I wish I wasn't like this!" Lilian yells back at Rita. She doesn't really know why she's bothering. Mental exhaustion, maybe. "Why does this have to happen?! Why does helping people always just turn out this way?! Why is it that doing everything right makes someone who says they care about you go and fucking punish you for it instead?!"     Lilian's voice cracks when Rita yells back at her. It's the first time she's ever heard her yell like that at all. "Then is this just how people are, and how caring is supposed to be?! What's good about this Rita?! Why do people want to interact with each other like this?! What's the point of opening up to people if it doesn't even get better after?! I don't get it! I hate this! All I have to do is just kill a goddamn monster, and the thing that makes it so much harder for no reason at all is knowing someone?!"     "How can two people both be good at the same time and still be like this then?! How come I had to go through all of that and learn the lesson and change myself and be vulnerable, and I still ended up here like all the others; even the ones who hate you! I feel like an idiot for being taken in by all that romantic rhetoric about how things will work out somehow if you do all those things! All I did in the end was stray from what I knew perfectly well was right, to care about someone else for a change, and-- and none of it gets through! And now we're fighting just like I didn't! Is this really the best we can do?!")]     "Is this all that connections are, Rita? Just everyone's pain from a decade ago slamming into each other? Do we really just romanticize it to cope with? If this is human then why are we both trying to stay human like this?"     All of Lilian's thoughts --about where to strike next, about how to escalate without the cleasa, about whether she can still break that barrier even after beating Rita, about whether to run back to the ship and call for a bombardment, about why she feels a sense of calm and security in the flesh of one arm, about why she just keeps spilling her guts every time Rita says anything to her, about how things were supposed to get better after everything that happened last year-- terminate abruptly when she feels the sword leaves her hands.
Lilian Rook	Lilian looks up, in perfectly gullible vulnerability, and then freezes up when she realizes she can't see it. "Rita no-- that-- Rita! RITA!" Lilian's voice rises, catches in the back of her throat, and becomes shrill and hoarse. "That's not funny Rita! That's too far! Where did you put it?! Where is it?!" There is a moment of dawning horror, played out plain and painfully clear on her face, when she has obviously forced her way into Rita's mind and realized she just threw it at random.     "No no no no no no no NO NO NO! You DIDN'T!" Lilian draws her sidearm in the blink of an eye, pointing it straight at Rita's forehead, as if it'll somehow help. "RITA! FIND IT! FIND IT NOW! RIGHT NOW!" Her aim is shaking too much to even be threatening. She realizes how pointless and stupid the gesture is a second later, and hurls the gun away in disgust. Magic crackles at her fingertips, and is snuffed out in her clenched, shuddering fist. She's just realized that she can't make Rita somehow divulge something she doesn't know by defeating her, even if she can in this state. Lilian starts backing away. Teeth clenched in bitter anguish, furious tears of barely suppressed panic marring her pointless concealer, she can't tear her eyes off of Rita. Her head shakes slowly.     "You can't do that. You can't be the reason for-- . . . you can't take that away from me. You have to fix it. You have to. Otherwise-- I haven't . . ." Lilian's voice cracks. She staggers as if dizzy, staring and speaking in grieving disbelief. "Twelve years. I haven't let go of that for a single second of a single day for twelve years. And after all of that, it wasn't even anyone I kept it from who took it away; it wasn't even Them. It was you. If I can't find it then--"     'I did it. No more choice.'     The agonized whine that Lilian makes next drives all the air out of her body. She sinks to her knees, staring ahead at nothing in particular. "I think I might hate you, Rita." Lilian says, in a cracked and muted near-monotone. "I hate you for not letting me have that choice. I don't believe you, that you were afraid it'd hurt me to have to pick. Because I didn't mind choosing, and you hurt me anyways."     The deathly bitter laugh that follows is almost more concerning. "You think I don't get it? The real reason you won't give me a choice is because you know that I'd choose you, without hesitation, and you can't stand that thought. You won't ever let anyone choose you. You never have. What you really meant to say then was 'I won't let you do something as dangerous as care about me', isn't it? Acting like you're just a pit that people fall into."     "I don't want you to protect me Rita. Why won't you understand? I don't want you to do any of this to protect anyone. You shouldn't have to. There's nothing broken about you. You don't have anything to make up for. There are people who care about you. Spending yourself to protect people isn't for girls like you, it's for people with something wrong with them. If people are always spending themselves on you, then how can you not be worth anything? Why are you so hellbent on throwing away the girl I was dumb enough to care about? Is it just to spite us? Please tell me you're doing it on purpose, so I can feel good about hating you instead of terrible."     "No. I don't care. I don't care about this stupid terrible reason we were fighting at all. I don't care about proving anything to you anymore. I'm not wasting any more time on a girl who never does anything but force me to bend my principles and then hurts me as the reward. Every single time. I'm going to go look for the thing I actually do care about." Lilian motions with her arms to plant something into the sand and haul herself up by. Her lip quivers near-imperceptibly when she catches on a second later. She reaches out to grab a rock instead, wobbling back up to her feet and staring off into the direction she thinks it could have gone.
Rita Ma	Rita tries to look demure again, though it isn't convincing when her eyes are red and cheeks are wet. It's just the state her body slips into when her mind withdraws from it; when she wants to be anywhere but here, anything but present. It hurts to make eye contact with Lilian, but she does anyway, maybe as a form of self-flagellation.      She's spent a very long time trying to avoid being screamed at like this. This is the failure state: someone she's relied on hating her, resenting her, having been hurt because of her. What can she do? It's already over.      She flinches only a little when the gun is pointed at her head, which is worse than either flinching a lot or not flinching at all.      "I think I might hate you, Rita." A little tremble. "'I won't let you do something as dangerous as care about me'." A little more.      Rita doesn't know where Night Mist is- that's the point. But she can find it. A ways down the bank, it shimmers back into visibility. Rita unravels a tentacle, not bothering to make it invisible; grabs the sword; and extends it to Lilian, handle-first.      "Take the thing you care about and go." Her voice is rough with tears, and her words fall from her lips as heavy as lead. "It was dangerous, after all."      Nothing further follows. She stands there, hands clasped low in front of her, and waits impassively for the others to leave.
Lilian Rook	Lilian stares numbly at the weapon being offered to her. Just like that. She stares at Rita. She goes back to staring at the sword. She reaches out hesitantly, and . . .     Checks to see if it's a decoy. She really just checked to see if she was being offered another trap made of tentacles.     Once she knows what it is, Lilian snatches the sword away, where Rita can't see or do anything about it; where nobody can interrupt her or take it back. Only once she has its familiar weight, memorized down to the gram, hugged tightly in her arms against her body, does she start to walk, stop, and then struggle with something rising in her throat. Lilian glances down and catches sight ofher own reflection in the blade.     "Four times. Four times, all in six months, I've felt this awful. And they were all because of someone I cared about. I should really just stop. Caring about people is something that works out for human beings, not whatever I am. So when this gets as bad as it can and I stop being me, I hope at least that won't be able to care about anyone anymore. It'd be a lot better than chasing whatever it is that I don't deserve."     "Goodbye Rita. I wish people weren't always so kind to you. Then maybe we could have understood each other."     Lilian leave.
Go Shijima	The floor of the grotto is hardly comfortable, especially in his condition. To hear Lilian bare those emotions makes the pain of the burns seem trivial. Go's face does a poor job of hiding it. He realizes, and looks downwards.     I've decided the kind of rider I want to be.      He waits for Lilian to leave. "You two must have been through a lot," he says. He has to rest for a moment to stop the ringing in his ears. "Sometimes, even people who care about each other fight for stupid terrible reasons. I've had more than my fair share..." He winces in pain as he finally manages to stand up.      Go's in his civilian clothes, burnt and bloodied though they are. His camera has survived the worst of the damage, having been specially stored by the suit. He pries open the memory card slot, ejects it, and offers it over to Rita. "There are some things here you should see," he says quietly.      "Maybe they'll make you feel better." I wish it made me feel better. But if this is going to work... I need to find Lilian, too.      He leaves, slowly, but on his feet.
Ishirou	Finally, after some time the power armor, damaged as it was, disappears.  The Dimensional Pocket would hold it until Ishirou could repair it.  Ishirou himself isn't bleeding out or anything, but the pain drugs are enough to keep him steady enough to get to seek medical attention.  He only regained consciousness to see the fight conclude...and what happens in its wake. They're both hurting, and he doesn't know what to do.  It's a feeling he hates because he's supposed to know this stuff.  He's supposed to have a plan, to figure out the variables and have a solution.  However, this..?  How can he?  Pain, emotions, and personal tragedy...the idea that two people could both be right, yet clash on it.   People who are hurt, bearing their souls.  Worse, those emotions physically manifest.  He looks at Rita, even as Go leaves.  He starts to speak but stops himself.  He then speaks a bit more firm about what to say after some thought.  "I'm sorry.  During this whole thing, I was more concerned with..." he looks after Lilian, "What was happening.  I know conflict with you distresses her...and with what's going on.." "I realized it too late that you're trying to do something...though.." he says, looking at her again.  "You aren't a monster to be spent.  Even if you're not human..." a pause, "Even if you want to be, and you hate your power...it doesn't change who you are.  A person...who is a bit scary, but strong and always has the best wishes of others in her heart.  Don't..." he says, almost pleading, "Don't become what Indus wanted me to be.  Be...you, whatever that is..." He looks at the grotto, then starts walking after Go and Lilian.
Rita Ma	"Goodbye Rita. I wish people weren't always so kind to you." "I wish so too."      Rita extends her hand for Go's memory card. She doesn't respond to him verbally, but nods. It becomes encased in a translucent waterproof layer, as if thickly lacquered. She'll be keeping it.      Ishirou's words are similarly received with a silent acknowledgement. She keeps eye contact with him while he speaks, withdrawn but still attentive. He seems to have gotten through to her a little, but... "Be... you, whatever that is..." "Please don't say unkind things like that."