Scene #7996: Bercilak Will (Not) Die

Owner	Pose
Hiromi	Calling this place 'a city' is on the generous side. It's the rotting carcass of a metropolis, a population center made of just the slums, maintaining a semblance of life due to complex factors involving traffic through a much nicer, taller, shinier, never-sleeping city nearby, its spires stretching above the horizon, across the bay. According to a local Watch cell, it's that very combination of factors, this being close enough to 'civilization' while being on its outer edge, that made this the perfect place to relocate a number of scientists, formerly specializing in bioweapons. Surviving the nuclear destruction of their prior place of work, it's a given that the holder of their contracts would be just a bit miffed at every identifiable Watchman involved in the raid, along with these breaches of their terms of employment. Checking in on them, both for their safety and for checking that they're keeping to their agreement with him, naturally falls to Bercilak. There isn't 'a lot' of Watch support here, and definitely not enough to deal with a counter-raid, if their safehouses and collaborators are pinpointed. And yet, none of the trouble that's shown up has been linked to either the original developers, nor the corporation to whom Hiromi had given over the bioweapon data for her own simple reasons. Instead, the picture painted by the constant attacks -- on Bercilak, not the local cells, who might still avoid detection -- of souped up cyborg 'contractors' and autonomous drone strikes is of a more general hit, if it hasn't just been effectively anonymized. There's no uniformity nor consistency, and no branding to suggest a corp's personal army. It's more like a nightmare run of random encounters, if one well within his formidable ability to survive. It is, however, getting worse, and it is making it nearly impossible to get anything else done while here, without putting the hidden local supporters at much greater risk.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	At first, Bercilak had indulged the attacks with vigorous approval. Sport of all kinds holds high esteem in the eyes of the Green Knight, but not so high as to usurp the value he places on his bargains. Enjoy it though he might, the time eventually comes when Bercilak must get to the bottom of the attacks, both for the safety of local cells and for the integrity of his covenant. His ability to do so on his own is limited, his talents more suited to direct confrontation than investigation. Bercilak has therefore called for support from outside of town, upon the completion of his searching. Meeting in the slums, he is easily found, not only for his frame and the massive, green machined plate armor overtop, but for the heap of scrap he's accumulated from his latest assailants. Fragments of exploded drones, cybernetics in various states of disrepair. Gouges, scoring and burn marks in his plate and upon that large green harness slowly mend. Nearby, his heavily armored hoverbike rests silently against the ground, in the shade of a decaying storefront. He gestures to the scrap with his axe. "No emprent of makere 'pon theim to pose 'tis theim that dight the illnesse, ne theim that cheped hit." He grunts ponderously. "Not that alon, but I espy non which wouldst 'pose ani of mine adversaunts doth ofsend theim ayenst me. Bihowing, nay?"
Karlan Nobles	Fancy limousines usually don't come through places like this, and for good reason. They're just as likely to get robbed as they are to get splattered with blood from drivers being told to run over everyone in the way, and any rich asshole willingly driving through a bad part of town knows well ahead of time that it better damn well be an armored one. That's just the image that the occupants want to give off today, even if the driver is being particularly careful not to splatter the limo with blood or let it get robbed. Pramanix: "This can't be the right place." SilverAsh: "No, it is. What better place to spread our name and influence than somewhere abandoned by its grander peers?" Pramanix: "Does it always have to be about clout-chasing?" SilverAsh: "Should it not, when the opportunity presents itself?" The woman with the fancy gray religious getup lets out an exasperated sigh as she steps out of the vehicle, aided briefly by a (relatively) giant horned man in a suit. The man with the fancy fuzzy coat slides on out himself moments later, and the pair leave the horned man with some reassuring words before going their separate ways. The horned man/driver leaves, unlikely to be relevant for the foreseeable future. Pramanix, after pointing at something like an easily distracted tourist, slips away from SilverAsh to start finding a roundabout path through the back alleys and across easily-reachable climbing spots to get to Bercilak. Someone has to stick with him and keep him from getting swarmed, after all. "Of course there wouldn't be any claiming credit. They don't want to make themselves targets. It's just like my brother's enemies and.. Also SilverAsh's methods back home. If we could track down where they're coming from, though..." SilverAsh, meanwhile, takes it upon himself to start a self-guided tour of the area. He wanders through the streets to act as the eyes on the ground scouting for suspiciously direct movements of drones flying overhead. He's also playing up the obvious asshole fish out of water act, marveling at worn architecture and furrowing his brow at unreadable signs while occasionally fanning himself with a wad of bills. It's all to keep attention on him, though, and away from the eagle circling far overhead acting as his eyes in the sky.
Rita Ma	Rita, lacking any proper outfit for a 'futuristic city', simply shows up in her usual cute blue-and-green jacket-and-skirt ensemble. Her satchel looks a little heavier today; after waving cheerily at Bercilak when she rounds the corner, and rushing over with a look of (totally unnecessary) concern to fuss over him a bit, she reveals the reason why. "You've already been through a lot, so I thought I'd bring some omija-cha!" She pours a thermos's contents out into little plastic cups, and offers one to the Green Night: it's a golden-brown chilled tea with dried dark berries floating in it and a complex flavor. "And while I was making that, I thought I'd bring some seaweed salad, so..." She has, evidently, gotten a little carried away with the idea of providing refreshments. But eventually she gets around to pulling a cell phone out of her satchel, too, and making thoughtful sounds while crouched over a ruined drone and dialing. "No maker's mark. I could call around and find out who makes them, but if they're smart, it'll be a design that's used everywhere, right? I should ask about who's putting out special contracts these last couple days, instead. Even if the local Watch isn't that strong, they might be informed." She flashes a smile up at the others while waiting for someone to pick up, clearly proud of herself.
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki may not have been a participant in any nukes detonating - which is probably a good thing for literally everyone involved - but Bercilak being in danger is another story entirely. Or well, 'danger' might be overblowing it a bit. She knows just as well as anyone that he's built different to the point that it'll take a whole lot more than some at-random attacks to put him in the ground. Give him a little bit of credit. There's a lot of other worrying parts about it though, not least of being the fact there's no real telling who's actually responsible for sending them. And until that's figured out, things are going to stay a mess in more ways than one, including trouble for their local guys. So while investigation isn't especially her strong point either, the Green Knight is getting a little more aid. Stepping into this corner of the slums though, hands in her jacket pockets, even she looks a bit surprised at the amount of leftovers from all his latest battles. Yeah, she did walk the whole way here. If she got into any trouble on the way, she doesn't look like it. Doesn't even look that out of place. "Wow. I know you said you've been through it, but this is kind of ridiculous. Just how much do they have to throw at you before they get the idea?" She slowly shifts to a frown right after that. "It's /super/ weird, yeah. They're pretty smart to keep whoever they are quiet," she agrees with Pramanix, while squatting down off to the side of the junk pile. "Otherwise, we could just go straight to them and get this settled fast. But whoever they are, they gotta be promising a whole lot of money or something more if /this/ being the result every time is just making the attacks pick up..." She idly riffles through some of the drone wreckage on the fringe of the heap, ostensibly looking for some defining marks on the drones herself, to predictably no result. A hand comes to her chin. "Special contracts, open bounties, hits that have been put out, that sort of thing...good thinking, Rita. There has to be /some/ kind of talk in the underground if these many guys have picked up on it..."
Liza Grier	Those fucking bioweapon scientists again. When are they going to learn? They probably aren't. One more loose end to tie. If the Watch is getting a train run on their understaffed fledgling operations in the area though, that comes first; otherwise they aren't going to get any actionable intel about where to go and what might be lying in wait, and Liza simply prefers not to be the spying type unless absolutely necessary. The fact that Bercilak is being constantly harassed by assassins is interesting, but not all that worrying to her. He's tough and stupid, and-- "Wow you look like shit." Liza openly looks Bercilak up and down in the worst state she's seen him, one eyebrow up in messy bangs. "It looks like they're actually doing a credible job of wearing you down like this. You sure you don't want to pull out? You aren't the type really equipped to deal with assassination, just survive it." she asks, almost boredly. Her hands are in the pockets of her red-slashed grey jacket, hood down, fidgeting slightly as if debating a cigarette. "Wow, come to think of it, it's been a while since anyone put a hit out on me. Kind of nostalgic." Liza sighs. Then she removes her hands from her pockets, attaches a green-glowing eyepiece to one ear, pulls up her sleeve just enough to tap away at the computer strapped to the inside of her wrist, and then start rifling through the technological garbage looking for anything with an intact storage drive or transceiver of any size, scanning the electronics as she goes. "This'd be easier if you didn't fight like a frat guy. It's all smashed to shit. Need to find internal media to crack, or anything with a communications setting to copy and trace."
Hiromi	Showing up in 'whatever clothing you have' doesn't seem too out of place, and Rita is spared from being unfashionable, primarily due to how few people in the immediate area are presently bothering with it, themselves. At this time of day, more people are either working or resting, and it's a bit uncomfortably hot to be out here, with the maze of old buildings blocking the wind. SilverAsh is, somehow, not immediately hassled, if only because he isn't heading immediately to the meeting place. More on that later. Most of the locals are just avoiding him, though someone's curiosity (about his gullibility and wallet) is bound to get the better of them eventually. He definitely sticks out, and would even if the limousine hadn't. Less overt attention is paid Pramanix. Tenzin has yet to find new signs of attackers. Hibiki or Rita checking with the local cells would be a good idea, but will have to wait. Liza gets more immediate results, finding some intact cybereyes with stored recordings. It's not encrypted past her ability to break, and more than one of the fallen assassins has something similar to sort through. Looking back through their owners' memories shows they were approached in person, by completely different clients, in different locations, who fed them each the same, rehearsed lines about a hit job. Not very informative about what they were getting into. The drones are less useful, with one intact drive having obviously been wiped through some failsafe process. There is, to quite obvious purpose, no warning before it happens, not long after (nearly) everyone has gathered in one place.
KNK	A junker of a car parked on the street disappears like it never truly existed in the first place, replaced by a rapidly expanding cloud of smoke that's noxious to Rita's nose and barely less opaque to Liza's scanners. It's something someone might be able to either get used to, or to tune a system to see through by recognizing a barely discernible, unnatural pattern in the interference. A 'No Parking' sign and fire hydrant disappear in the same way, surrounding Bercilak's location with even more choking smoke. An overweight man in dreadlocks and dire need of both a shave and new pants had been walking away, going somewhere else and staying out of the gathering's way. Several rapid footsteps fail to line up with his pace as he disappears. It's not 'in his place,' but from a notably different angle that a woman with a long ponytail and longer scarf matching her eyes appears, shimmering into view only after driving a long, straight, single-edged blade, power crackling down its length, at Hibiki's back. That first attack is followed quickly by a kick that spins into a slide past her, the scarf a distracting flutter as the woman springs into a lightning-fast round kick, aiming her heel at Bercilak's neck, smiling as she does. The blade in her heel shoots out at the last possible moment, its momentum additive, retracting again in the moment afterward, smaller blades appearing and spinning through the air toward Pramanix in the same moment as she returns to a low combat stance with uncanny precision. Rita won't need to wait for her own turn. It's that first attack on Hibiki that lines up with the sniper fire. There's no way they could have known what kind of ammo would work on her, but the ammunition chosen for the Green Knight was, naturally, the kind of oversized tankbusters that would reasonably cause one to question whether it could really be a human who lugged that gun into place. Three rapid shots aim for head, chest, and stomach, with a barely noticeable, but tactically significant delay before Liza gets the same treatment. The hair ribbon of the metal-clad sniper down the street is shielded from the air, and will be difficult to spot, but searching for her before she slips out and switches locations is far from impossible, immediately after she fires. Finding her other prepared positions, with their hidden armaments, before she reaches them would be the more difficult task.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak nods in agreement with Pramanix. "Verily. And gramercy thereof thy cominge--thou and thy brother art mo custumed to swich labourage thanne I, ak I shalt assist thee hau-sum-ever I am abled." Rita approaches, with tea and salad, which Bercilak gladly accepts. With his helmet off (dematerialized, rather than held in a hand) the size of the armor, and especially the harness overtop, with its artificial spine column, is that much easier to see. "Gramercy," he gratefully thanks, keeping his voice down for the phone. "Thy fore-thought in materes of ietinge and assistinge is plein to espy," quietly adds the Green Knight with a smile. The bowl and cup look really small in his gauntlets. "Yea," he says to Hibiki between sips of tea (his first not passing without an impressed 'mm'), "Hit hath thurghlasten lenger thanne hit shouldst." With a grin, he adds, "Al be that, 'tis hard to bisaie whider swich is caused bi thire wilfulnesse," he says, pointing at the pile of scrap, "Oth that, mine love of sporte." A low chuckle escapes him as he spears some salad. On that note, his response to Liza is hardly unsurprising. "Nay," he says, holding up his cup hand. It's set down beside him, on a mistreated bench. "For the scolers and Bercilak art encovenaunten, that thei shalt not ayen-studi works as thei didst, in exchaunge shalt mine hond ishild theim." In other words, he'd be breaking his deal if he left, or so he believes. "Bisideforth... as thou bisaien, 'tis som-what On the subject of his fighting style, Liza's assessment draws a grin. "Deme hit not, 'til thou attempt hit," he facetiously offers back. Whatever comment he was about to make dies with the arrival of the smoke. With the impact of the kick into his throat. As his food flies off, free hand reaching for his axe, he smiles too, his red irises afire with excitement as a scarlet ribbon streams from his neck. The impact pushes him backwards, boots grinding on sidewalk, sparking--but his posture remains upright even as she kicks off. The hole rapidly knits itself shut as the mad grin disappears behind a cold, black T-visor set into a tusked bucket helm. Bercilak gives the axe a few testing swings, twirling the massive weapon deftly. "Wherefore dost thou ifighte, sicarien?" What starts out as a flourish gracefully turns into an attack, the haft of the weapon snapped right to force her out of that low stance. A shift of his hips, a repositioning of his hands along the haft, and the blade of the axe is then brought downwards, followed by a surprise thruster-assisted shoulder-tackle. Bercilak is big, his armor is heavy--but he uses it to his advantage, channeling the momentum from the charge into pre-emptive fishing for a counterattack, haft up and primed for a parry.
Karlan Nobles	Refreshments! Pramanix smiles fondly at Rita as she takes some of the offered drink and savors it like only a rich pampered lady could. "Thank you, dear. Oh, do let me know thenext time you're preparing these. I'd like to try my hand at this, too!" SilverAsh gets a chill. "Hibiki does raise a good point, though. If they're being paid this much to stay quiet, then perhaps the answer isn't a direct assault. Instead, maybe..." Pramanix trails off as she fails to come up with anything before she stops making throat noises, instead considering the other alternatives Liza raises to finding out who's actually responsible. "If they attack again, I can try to freeze one of the drones intact. It should work as long as they're waterproof and not damaged too badly by the cold." She reassures, grinning a little more widely at Bercilak's thanks. "We might not be as accustomed to living meagerly, but we... He knows a thing or two about the more unsavory side of corporate warfare." The arrival of the mysterious attacker goes unnoticed Pramanix until she's already feeling a slight draft on her cheek followed by the distinct warmth of blood creeping down her face. It's less the pain that gets Pramanix to yelp and more the surprise as she leaps a good yard into the air backwards after the fact, stumbling on her landing before righting herself and yanking her bell off her belt in a (relatively) smooth motion. "Assassins?! Who sent you?" Pramanix demands as though she might actually get an answer, already starting up her snow-summoning ritual with bell ringing and fancy steps that double as a method of staying on the move. It doesn't take long for an unseasonable snowfall to begin, not quite whipping up into a frenzy just yet. Instead, it's just incredibly cold, but somehow not as cold for her allies as it is for the ninja right in front of her. More notably, however, is the fact that any snow that lands upon the mysterious violet ninja will start sapping her defenses inexplicably, as if there's some weird magic or power condensed into it. SilverAsh, meanwhile, continues being a tourist. If he or Tenzin notice a straggler, he'll slow down just enough to stare at them, wave them over as though he wants them to come with him, then continue strolling along without a word.
Rita Ma	"Ah- Hibiki!!" That's the only coherent thing Rita manages to say between the smoke appearing and the gunshots drowning her out. Dodging supersonic bullets flat-footed- with even the courtesy of a muzzle flash robbed from her by the fog- is simply impossible for Rita. But she doesn't have to. In the same fraction of a second those footsteps approached, she'd slipped out of her own 'skin' invisibly and left it as a decoy. Three shots tear through it harmlessly, and it unravels. "Ms. Grier, please be safe! I'm going after her!" a lightly panicked voice says from nowhere. While cloaked, Rita leaps up onto a rooftop and sprints towards where she heard those gunshots coming from. She's a little late, unfortunately, or maybe she didn't pinpoint the direction quite right. Regardless, Rita drops back down to street level, tucking herself away behind two buildings, and shimmers back into visibility. She's breathing a little hard, but unhurt. How many gunmen? It's probably just one, right? Even if it's awful to think that any one gun can shoot bullets that scary so fast. They'll have changed positions by now. Lucky they shot at me and Ms. Grier first; I'm not sure Ms. Pramanix can take a bullet. I can't just afford to back off, then. One of Rita's tentacles deposits a crystalline seed in her palm. She pushes it through the concrete and into the dirt beneath. After a few seconds, shimmering insect-like hexapods with black chitin, each the size of a small dog, begin to pull their way free from the earth. The Cycle of Tears scatters, beginning to comb a wider and wider area in denser and denser numbers. If they find the sniper (or one of her hideouts), they explode, causing moderate damage and relaying their knowledge back to Rita. It is, in essence, an ever-growing network of scouting drones in biological form.
Hibiki Tachibana	The situation gets messy, very fast. Hibiki is still down on her knees idly sorting through scrap, shooting a wry grin back towards Bercilak's response to her, when smoke erupts out from several otherwise completely mundane sources at once. "What--" Her first reaction is to dart her head around hastily, but the smog makes that impossible. Her second is to raise her jacket sleeve up to cover her nose and mouth, and she's halfway into doing that--when she picks up gunfire and also footsteps coming from behind, her eyes going wide. "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron...!" She rises and spins around on her heel in the same motion, danger sense and instinct taking control where sight fails. Her clothing vanishes in an explosion of golden light gathering around her body, solidifying in the silhouette of her Symphogear piece by piece - one of the gauntlets bursts into proper existence just in time for her to avoid losing a hand again, and metal is cut deeply into rather than flesh. The very hasty defense ends up having the force of the powered strike carrying on through though, sending the magical girl tumbling back head over heels several meters before she catches herself with one hand slammed into the ground, just in time for her own scarf to 'fwoomp' into being. "Right after we all got here...!" The moment she comes to a stop, she throws herself back towards the violet-eyed assassin in a dash. Who she can get a better look at on the approach, drawing a squint out of her - before she follows up behind the Green Knight by transfering her momentum into a charging elbow strike aimed at the midriff. Right behind it is spinning her body into an open-palm strike meant to send her flying back, giving her the time to enter her own readied stance. "Not just assassins, she looks like a ninja..." Hibiki notes quietly after Pramanix, before raising her voice. "Hey, this isn't gonna end well if you want to pick a fight! He dealt with every attack all by himself before now, and now he's got all of us backing him up! What's the idea here!?"
Liza Grier	"So, were you a stubborn dumbass before you turned immortal, or did getting that beefy turn you into one?" Liza says to Bercilak, whilst rifling through the scrap, making a variety of dissatisfied noises. She isn't examining it like a technician or salvager, but popping apart pieces and rapidly organizing them like a gunsmith or watchmaker. "One day you're going to fight something or someone really unpleasant. The kind that isn't trying to end things quick and clean. Then you're going to regret that attitude you know." It would be impossible for Liza not to notice the smoke. She stares into it for just a few moments, toggling her scanner modes, before realizing exactly what kind of smoke it is and reaching into her jacket, unholstering the autopistol and brandishing it in extended center axis at the disruption. "Reflective micro-chaff in the smoke. You don't even have those kind of sensors, big guy. They're not fucking around this time." She swings her gun around wide scanning with her eyes rather than her sensor, checking the obvious ambush angles without thinking. The word 'Holograms?' and then an emphatic swear are partially drowned out by her squeezing the trigger at the purple-coded assailant as she streaks past to slit Bercilak, spraying a tightly controlled burst of .45 rounds at her change in direction. The anti-materiel rifle report gets her attention straight away though. "Sniper--!" is the first, only, and most important word she calls out, before the last shot comes for her. An instant before impact, she successfully activates the e-shield strapped to her arm, tearing her sleeve up to the bicep from the expansion of the barrier. Held close over her chest, the glowing blue screen flares, crackles, and pops out with a thin trickle of smoke. Liza stumbles back, smashing against the junked car with a subdued grunt. Given that she springs back up right away, it seems the bullet didn't penetrate. It's hard to tell how much is situational awareness, how much is instinct, and how much is dumb luck. "I guess I brought that one on myself." she mutters, dialing on the inside of her wrist and counting the number of shots before a pause in her head --presuming that to be the weapon's magazine capacity-- whilst telecrystals are systematically consumed and spat out like spent brass. A splash of red light hardens around her body into the menacing signature hardsuit, quad-optics flaring up acid green. A thermal overlay occupies the center of Liza's HUD, now that she has the sensor power to find a human target, or failing that, the heat residue from firing that weapon multiple times. She rushes ahead in the opposite direction in which she'd been throw, pounding pavement hard enough to crush bootprints into the asphalt and weaving serpentine through dilapidated clutter rather than going airborn; the better to upset aim. "I'm fine, but no way I'm going to countersnipe her on my own if she's already scouted and prepped nests! If she's already relocating, she's a pro; Rita, cut her off!" Once Liza reaches the other side of the street, she immediately dives through the nearest window, getting into an enclosed space, then instantly fills it with an explosion of her own tactical smoke, a dimmed red flash within vaguely suggesting where the squat, tripod, automatic submachine gun turret she'd just stuck to the ceiling with a view of the street is. She checks the recharge time on her e-shield, holsters the handgun without reloading, and then forsakes her mainstay for a slick black carbine of the laser weapon persuasion instead, waiting for the instant the sniper gives herself away again, then directly targeting the heat flash with a snap-aimed slash of laser beam fire.
KNK	The brightly dressed young woman responds to the queries of 'why?' with a quizzical look of her own. She has a pleasantly gentle, even demure voice, just enough to bring to mind the acceptably-fake quality of an experienced actress, though the circumstances don't suggest she's faking the expression. "Huh? Do you really need to ask?" It's a different voice that answers, via open frequencies, doubtless belonging to her partner. Her voice is more hard-edged, its quality just strange enough to sound artificial, like it's gone through a 'pretty good' voice changer. "The more crooked they are, the harder it is to remember every life ruined. Just look at that butcher's axe. It's your turn to get the same. All of you." Every attempt to pin down the former meets with failure, owing a great deal to the smoke. She doesn't just 'seem to' disappear into it, but actually does, turning into one of many eddies in the smoke, before reappearing a moment later. Sparks fly as she just barely deflects -- no, that was an intentional, minimum motion parry -- Bercilak's axe, and though his tackle arrives atop her, her hand first reaches his shoulder, and she flips directly over his head. Her sword flashes out without looking back at him, the high-frequency blade humming with armor-breaking destruction, before it's quickly sheathed. Hibiki's elbow does land, but it's the feeling of armor she strikes, too. The ninja flickers in and out of view, drops under her palm, and comes up again with both hands held in front of her, forming a sequence of hand seals that distract from the whining of servos, before her left arm pops open. There's no flesh inside, but there is a flamethrower, exploding around the magical girl's belly. The flame strikes around through the snow Pramanix is calling down, though that could hardly get all of it. It does get enough for the ninja to get away scot free, at least long to disappear again, then reappear in a sliding leg sweep followed by a backhand to Pramanix's head, another blade popping out of her wrist at the last moment. She doesn't stick around, but abandons the snow-and-smoke area in Liza's direction, popping in and out of view in a zig-zag route over abandoned vehicles and benches. Rita and Liza do a lot better, in that Liza's bullets actually do find their target, even if more than a few of the full-auto rounds impact an implausibly fast sword blade, deflected without reaching the target. Rita finds the sniper by following the explosions, though only as a second nest is reached. That's the only reasonable explanation for the sudden appearance, after the entire wall surrounding a window is blown open, of a swarm of arcing micro-missiles -- yet another weapon that should probably be shooting tanks, not people -- that crater the street around her, and pound Liza's position. There's no one else on the street at this point, at least. Silverash remains mostly unaccosted, though someone is really determined to sell him genuine designer wrist watches. Who even uses these?
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Vicinity] Liza: So, were you a stubborn dumbass before you turned immortal, or did getting that beefy turn you into one? One day you're going to fight something or someone really unpleasant. The kind that isn't trying to end things quick and clean. Then you're going to regret that attitude you know. Bercilak's helmet utterly hides his face. Illuminated by the glow of his hud, the Green Knight's expression betrays some thought. His mind drifts to a few such fights of that very same kind. Messy. Dirty. Drawn out. He'll have to talk about it later--when he's not fending off a cybernatically augmented assassin. [Vicinity] Demure Voice: Huh? Do you really need to ask? [Vicinity] Vocoded Voice: The more crooked they are, the harder it is to remember every life ruined. Just look at that butcher's axe. It's your turn to get the same. All of you. "Bihowing..." The axe slides easily down his one-handed grip, until he's choked all the way up to the beard. What began as an attempt to catch the brightly dressed assassin using it as a punch weapon, turns into a rearward guard. The blade of the weapon, as if a seven foot haft weren't enough, is massive, enough that it can serve as a substantial target shield. Even as expertly as his guard is placed, the efficacy of the sword strike can't be denied--the vibrations resonate through the axe and strike a fissure into that huge harness over his armor. As it slowly mends itself (much slower than the wound on his neck had), Bercilak whips the axe back around and plants the haft into the ground. "'Tis treu that mine axe hath atasten the blod of men. I chalenge thee--clepe ani-man whos lif I hath corrumped." The haft slams into the ground as he wheels around, rocketing in place to deliver a warding kick. Razor-sharp roots, standing upright like spikes, erupt from the street in a radius around him. "I shalt rememor." A path is cut through his spikes as he charges across the street to his hoverbike, crossing the final distance with a surprisingly nimble leaping frontflip. The engine is deafening, but more pressing is that the vehicle's speed and flight patters dramatically increase Bercilak's angles of attack. Gunning the engine, he deliberately fishtails it to make a blunt attack with the sides, pitching it upwards to cover another angle with the white-hot lance burning from the bike's thruster. Fighting defensively and letting her gas herself out seems to be his strategy, but he's also doing exactly as he'd said he would, and using his vehicle to lure her closer to the sniper, thereby more easily keeping his allies within that healing field. Every exchange shifts further and further in that direction, a stop-start game of pursuit played in uneven increments.
Hibiki Tachibana	She's fast...! Not only fast, but more armored than she thought from what little Hibiki can see. There's a grunt of frustration, followed by her realizing where the violet ninja has ended up, with a glance down - right in front of her. There's an odd sound she can't place right away, before that arm comes open, and flame spills out to completely wash over her. Fortunately, she's nothing if not obscenely durable, even when caught head-on. A second after being enveloped in flame, she's rolling out to the side and into some of the snow left over, portions of her outfit's undersuit singed away at and with several darkened burn marks on her skin, which is bad but not as bad as it had any right to be. "Damnit, we're not whatever you think we are...!" There's seriously some kind of misunderstanding going on here, and she's not sure what. Did whoever their employer is lie to them about who they were hunting before sending them on their mission? ...Was it the same for all of the others? But if they're this intent on not listening, the only thing to do is get them to calm down so they can get this sorted. It might be their best bet at learning what's actually happening. And if she was right about seeing nothing in her limb but steel, then she doesn't have to hold back that much. Hibiki doesn't stay down for long, hopping back to her feet to give chase after the hitwoman, making equally long bounds over the terrain to keep up with both her and Bercilak's bike. "If you won't stay still...!" Doing her best to keep her in sight, Hibiki rears back a fist, as her gauntlet's internal piston pulls back as well. At the apex of a jump high enough to put her just above the cover of buildings, energy builds up inside and is promptly slammed by the machinery pummeling back into place as she throws a punch forward into the air - releasing it all as a flechette of golden shots, arcing and spiraling through the air before converging down on the cyberninja's position, to try and limit her avenues of movement. She can try doing it Liza's way once in a while.
Karlan Nobles	"You're mistaken! These people aren't mur..." Wait. Pramanix has heard Liza's MO before, and she's seen how effective Bercilak and Rita are. "... /Brazen/ murderers without a cause." Even she looks like she's (slightly) saddened about having to make that differentiation, but not so sad that she's going to stop whipping thatsnow together. She can see that pininng down the violet ninja isn't going to be an option, and she's about to try something else when the ninja disappears in that burst of flame! "Where...? Watch yourselves!" She calls out in a vague warning and starts trying to shore up her defenses with an ice shield, but she doesn't have enough time to get it pulled together suddenly. The snow pope yelps as the leg sweep takes her completely off the ground, reaching back to cover her head and neck instinctively so she doesn't land in a life-ruining way. That reflex is the only thing that saves her from that backhand and blade followup, although now Pramanix has to contend with having a rather nasty gouge through one of her hands. Adrenaline and mild shock are the only things keeping her from screaming. She's visibly freaking out a bit, but not so much that Liza's plan goes ignored. Still keeping her bell-ringing consistent, Pramanix manages to catch a glimpse of her opponent going towards Rita's and Liza's position, and that gives her an idea on how to proceed. Naturally, it involves more snow, but also ice! Instead of a gentle snow, Pramanix's next maneuver involves the spontaneous creation of inconsistently-sized icicles, wedges, and even angled overhangs designed specifically to fall if they're bumped into. Her ritual pulls these obstacles together out of nowhere through the streets in the violet ninja's path, trying to funnel her towards Pramanix's allies to try and mitigate her evasive prowess at least somewhat. MEANWHILE SilverAsh checks out the watches. He knows they're probably shit, goes as far as verbally expressing his expressing his knowing of the shit through a tired "Really?", and... He buys a few anyway. It's been a while since he really studied the techniques of counterfeiters, and it'll be good to have some of these on hand to identify similar tricks back home.
Liza Grier	Liza's thermals catch the heat flare in the smoke; there's no way to conceal a flamethrower against a backdrop of freezing snow from even a mid-grade infrared scope. It reveals critical information to her in the process. "Androids? Cyborgs?" Liza interrogates the closed band, focused and terse. It's a matter of ruling out a major trump card she has, but introducing the potential for a different hand. "Need to know. Now." She'd hardly failed to notice the flash and sound of bullets being cut out of the air. She only needs a second to think. "They probably split us up like this for a reason. Playing to each other's strengths. It's in our best interest to switch ranges. Anyone who can, break off from the purple one and engage from range. I'm going to pin down red up close." The choice of strategy suits her just fine when the anti-materiel rifle is traded away for missiles. Liza spares half a thought to cursing how ridiculously well-armed they are, but is mostly focused on calculating the number and spread. Range too short to suit down, e-shield still recovering, too many missiles for her hardsuit to deal with, too wide an area at too great a spread to run through the perimeter. Liza leaps out through the window, charges forward across the street, directly down the center of the missile cloud, her EVA thrusters flaring up at her back to drive her faster. Just as she nears the edge of the barrage zone, and right before the missiles land on top of her, her entire person suddenly turns into ruby red light, condenses down to a single point, and streaks away in the blink of an eye. The matching teleporter 'splashdown sound' lands right in the same room the missiles had just been fired from. A spew of spent telecrystals are obliterated by missile fire. Liza physically pitches the carbine at red ribbon's head, simultaneously blocking her view and forcing her to defend herself. The autopistol comes up from her thigh and sprays in the same motion as her lunge from near point blank, then is thrown off to the side to distract the eye away. She throws her weight into the sniper/artillerist, confident in her armoured weight and strength, with her vector lined up directly into Rita's path. Provided she can get a hand on her target, she instantly transitions into the motions necessary to twist and break a wrist and kick out a knee joint below, then into a clinch.
Rita Ma	When the micro-missiles are launched, Rita doesn't flee. Instead she steps out of her alleyway into the open to get a better view. As she rushes towards the building, her eyes dart between each of the projectiles, her right tracking faster than her left. All of the micro-missiles aimed at the thirty-foot radius around Rita are mysteriously cut to pieces, fuse cleaved neatly from payload. She doesn't slow down, only sparing a glance sideways to make sure Liza's okay. "I'm going to pin red down up close." Rita nods silently. Liza will, presumably, be approaching the third floor of the building from the front. Rita has other plans: she fades back into invisibility on her approach, then leaps over the four-story building in one three-story leap and a window-ledge kick to cover the final stretch. A tentacle helps her rappel down on the opposite side of the building, where she becomes visible again in the process of smashing through a window. She lands in a low crouch, then straightens up to block a route of escape just as Liza throws the carbine. Hidden tentacles reach out for the sniper, aiming to seize her without warning and constrain her movement with superhuman strength. Coincidentally, their grip might dent and crush metal. Down around the sides of the buildings, her insect-like minions begin to ascend and close in. "Please just give in," Rita says, trying to sound polite and demure despite her evident exertion. "I don't know why you think we're evil, but if you really mean to do good, you're not the kind of person I want to hurt."
KNK	SilverAsh finds that most of these are, as imitations go, actually pretty good. They were made to stand up even to close analysis -- of the outsides. He'll find, perhaps later, that it's only everything below the gold and silver electroplating that's so shoddy it's guaranteed to run down or lose seconds. In any case, the pushy street salesman is happy for his business, and wishes him good luck with a broad smile, and a tip to try a local club, if he happens to be a gambling man.
KNK	Hibiki tries, but they really aren't listening to her, nor to Pramanix's qualified protests. Or rather, they just don't believe it, for reasons not entirely clear from the conversation. Chasing after the swordswoman, Hibiki's successful in limiting her path, even if none of those flechette shots actually hit her. Enough so that Bercilak's bike hits, despite that ninja speed. It's a close thing, even then, but even a tap from something that massive is enough to knock her through the air, and in the direction the Green Knight is going for, bringing them closer to the building Liza and Rita just got into. Up there, things happen very quickly. There aren't any visible eyes on the back of her head, but she probably doesn't need them. That ribbon moves out of the way just short of presciently fast. Rather than getting up, she rolls over to the side, drawing a smaller, blocky sidearm in the same motion, and firing an entire magazine at unreasonable speeds, each shot exploding into electric sparks, as the visual component of electromagnetic mayhem. "'Come quietly'? I've seen where that goes." Not all the autopistol shots miss, but they don't find anything vital, just putting marks in 'skin' that's all metal beneath it. There's a little more of that leaking not-blood, looking real enough but nothing close to fooling Rita's senses. Her tentacles, though, just aren't quite fast enough, owing mostly to a sudden motion human bodies aren't normally capable of pulling off; the masked ninja rockets straight back and out the open side of the building without moving her legs, tiny thrusters jetting air all at once from her thighs, sliding her out on her back. Once in open air, she fires a grappling line across the street, swinging along it and firing a second magazine in Pramanix's direction. She hits the wall a moment later, on her feet, and runs straight up it before crashing through another window. Her just-vacated nest explodes all of its munitions at once, bringing the floor above it down, and starting to collapse the entire thing, whether Rita and Liza are still there or not. On street level, the softer-voiced ninja finally gives up on catching up with Liza only as the explosives go off. She rounds on Hibiki with another mysteriously-purposed handseal that turns into a kick that explodes like a grenade -- because there was a directed explosive stored in her heel -- with the concussive force to send someone (hypothetically, her) sprawling. If that works, all the better of an 'opening' will be present for her to catch up with Bercilak's bike (on foot), leap astride, drag her blade across its engine section, before lunging for his heart. She's betting on his balance aboard damaged vehicles to be worse than hers.
KNK	Though the one ninja is now properly 'focusing,' it's the other that ends up answering Bercilak. She's only a little 'off' sounding, unless you're listening for it. Not nearly so synthesized that someone couldn't make out the cold anger, that 'I'm going to kill you so I'll tell you why' tone. "You want a list? 6th Street and Leisure, two weeks back. What did they do to you? Miss a payment? Rent and protection money, it's all the same. Oh, right, at least you let that moron in After Dark keep his legs. You think it was a mercy to just take the 'hands that stole?'"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The engine of the bike is on the underside, but that doesn't make it any easier to pierce. It's clearly a repurposed military vehicle of some sort--her armor-piercing sword is a necessity to pierce it. With that done, the bike does indeed begin to lose altitude just as Bercilak began a daring climb up the building with the sniper. Bercilak is all too used to crashing vehicles--but he's also a huge target. Stabbed straight through that massive harness, the damage is enough to shear it from his body completely. The Green Knight's suit thrusters lift him up and out of the falling bike, flying straight towards the nearest window on that building. The ninja's blade cuts a swath through him, staining that green plate red, but the wound heals much faster than the armor does. It's probably why he doesn't bother shielding himself as he breaks through the window. Crossing the threshhold as the bike crashes to the earth in a smoking fireball, Bercilak immediately makes a thrust-assisted juke, boots grinding across the floor with a shower of sparks. His cloak billows past, his axe tapped against the wall. A stout, flexible species of tree perfect for springboarding jumps sprouts along the exterior wall for Hibiki. Still, he's fighting defensively, waiting the violet ninja out. The blade of the axe is used for parries, but so is the eye, and even the haft--he seems well able to keep his fingers safe, speaking to his single-minded devotion to the weapon. It's all a delaying tactic until Hibiki arrives, and fights alongside him--his nanites will keep the both of them healing. "What?" He asks, taking a trade after a spine-shaking parry. "What in fuck art thou bisaien?" His grip slides down to the butt of the haft, the knight making full use of the weapon's oppressive reach and his own augmented strength. Two startlingly rapid strokes, one swung all the way 'round his head, and the other, timed for Hibiki's arrival, choking all the way up to charge forward, his fist firmly behind the beard as he puts his shoulder into the strike. "Art thou unk both cusen me of usen mine axe for ROBBING THE LOTH-FOLK?!"
Liza Grier	"Nobody said that asshole." comes the menacing crackle through Liza's external speakers over the hiss and crackle of EM subcalibre rounds exploding against her armour's skintight shield; the bullets themselves aren't nearly powerful enough to even slow her, but the EM fuzz causes her shields to waver and destabilize, and following that, her optics and audio to scratch the fuck out. Liza swears, having to abort her grapple and tear her helmet off to be able to see and hear anything but static and electric squealing. "I usually just put a bullet in fascist secret enforcers." she spits out in continuation. "No matter what they look like." 'You want a list? 6th Street and Leisure, two weeks back.' <Tac-Watch> 4 Rita Ma says, "Were we ever at '6th Street and Leisure'?" <Tac-Watch> 4 Karlan Nobles \| Pramanix says, "No, I don't think so. I'd remember seeing such a name." <Tac-Watch> 3 Liza Grier says, "Something's fucked." <Tac-Watch> 3 Liza Grier says, "They're hearing what we're saying, so . . ." <Tac-Watch> 4 Rita Ma says, "We don't look like we're wearing uniforms, do we? Why would they think that?" <Tac-Watch> 3 Liza Grier says, "Cyborgs. If they were androids, a mistaken target would be either a logic error or an override." <Tac-Watch> 3 Liza Grier says, "They're hearing us but not seeing us right." <Tac-Watch> 4 Karlan Nobles \| Pramanix says, "I'm most certainly not wearing a local uniform! Even they should be able to... Eh? Can that happen?" <Tac-Watch> 3 Hibiki Tachibana says, "So something is--what, making us look like other people to their eyes?" <Tac-Watch> 3 Liza Grier says, "It can if a real rat-fuck is involved." While Liza is deliberating, the building explodes. Both shields down, head unprotected, hotwired 'blink' module on cooldown. Nothing for it but for Liza to utter a very rude word very loudly while sprinting up the floor collapsing under her, leap for the window in the second it still exists, fite her boot thrusters to make it through, and take a chunk of concrete to the head that slips past her raised arm, sending her crunch-crash-tumbling out onto the street after briefly losing the senses of sight and balance. Realistically, that ought to have caused deadly brain damage, so it's a wonder when Liza groggily rolls at the end back up into a kneeling position at all. There's an obvious broad, red gash in her head, but somehow no blood; it'd be instantly visible soaked into that hair at any rate. Blearily focusing in again on the escaping assassin, Liza has less than a second to decide whether she's going to spend the rest of her crystals on dropping in a nuclear device, or . . . The red streak from orbit splashes into the shape of a skeletal but bulky industrial brutalist matte black rifle, gigantic mounted scope and side-mounted charger glowing electric blue. Liza shoulders the ion rifle and braces her elbow on her knee, sighting the fleeing gunner through the scanner scope without her helmet, and upon acquiring a target, fires. The sound is comparable to metal getting stuck in an unshielded power pole cable. A pulsed laser ionizes the air, rows of capacitors discharge, physics crunches the route of least resistance, and a circuit completes between red ribbon and the rifle, tying them together with an incandescent string of writhing blue-white lightning and glowing radiation. It's nothing that should be immediately fatal to anyone here, but for a cyborg, a hard crash of every system would be practically inevitable. The point is for Liza to immobilize her target for just long enough to blink to her again, and then get robust. Something involving metal cable and a cryptographic sequencer.
Karlan Nobles	"Stop... Moving so much!" Pramanix shouts after the ninja as she joins in the chase, using a combination of clumsy (yet fairly long) wind and ice platform aided jumps to get around her otherwise unremarkable ability to get around. She can't quite keep up even with so many efforts to slow down the violet swordswoman, especially while trying to keep the ice storm going and the defensive walls in place. She's already looking somewhat winded by the time another volley of bullets comes her way, and dodging that most certainly isn't going to be a viable option. Against her better instincts, she braces for impact and draws that icy-protection closer. It really doesn't do too much to help, but it's just enough to keep the bullets from punching right through her. It's going to be hell explaining where all these injuries and holes came from, but at least she can count on the Watch's or SilverAsh's contacts to fix that up before anyone can ask too many questions. Maybe. It's what the ribbon-wearing ninja says that starts tipping her off that something is wrong at a more fundamental level. They can hear, but they can't see. They think this group is wearing uniforms. They think this group is someone else entirely. That gives her a scant few options on how to proceed, and none of them are particularly pleasant. ... At least, if she thought about any of them before just taking the first one that sounds viable. Calling upon those icy powers once again, Pramanix crouches atop an icy ramp as she starts skidding down it while it continues being built up. She can't run fast enough to catch up to the swordswoman, but she can use an icy path with a confusing array of twists and turns to propel herself forward at irresponsible speeds with a steadily growing snow boulder following behind her. The ninja goes after Bercilak, and Pramanix finds her opportunity. "If that's what you're saying... Listen up! My clothes are robes of the Karlan Saint, not a local officer's uniform! Feel it if you must, so don't believe only what you're seeing!" She shouts just before actually launching herself at the ninja, clenching her teeth to avoid biting her tongue off in her attempt to just slam herself right into the ninja along with that giant mass of snow moments later to try and get them both pinned down. MEANWHILE Although SilverAsh doesn't gamble nearly as much as he just engages in casual corporate crimes against humanity, he does at least recognize an opportunity for intel when he sees one. He rewards the salesman with a hefty cash tip that could afford a real version of the same designer watches he's peddling, relays the information about the local club to his allies, then starts heading back to regroup with the others. He's hearing lots of strange yelling, after all.
Rita Ma	"I've seen where that goes." "Yeah," Rita acknowledges simply. There's a pained look on her face. Not much else to say. Then the building comes down. Rita leaps out of the way of expanding fireballs and debris, head whirling around to track the fleeing ninja. "Hey! Don't just-" And then a moment later, she remembers she isn't alone in the collapsing building. "Ms. Grier! Hold on!" The clever thing to do would be to run, and trust that Liza can make it out on her own. Even if she can't, Grier has been through worse than being buried in rubble. Rita is, ordinarily, a clever girl. But when she sees a chance to 'sacrifice herself'... It doesn't have value unless it's spent. Rita's tentacles unwind from around her body, growing, splitting, and multiplying rapidly. A piece of rubble falls directly on her as she stands in place; she catches it on her forearms, groans in pain and then pushes it aside. Like the branches of a tree growing in time-lapse, her alien limbs buttress collapsing concrete, wall off and absorb explosions, and hold shattered walls together like gold filling the cracks of broken pottery. The structure groans. Her biomass creaks. But it holds. The building, simply, is no longer collapsing. Rita tears herself free of the expanded, faintly glowing 'tree', staggers, and catches her breath on her knees for a moment. No more explosions, and the building covers her from sniper fire, so it's safe. After a few seconds, she laboriously hauls herself up, re-weaves her human 'skin' with more ordinary tentacles, and finally pursues. The ninja has a head start, and Rita's speed isn't quite as superhuman. But she does have a trick up her sleeve. A decoy-Rita tries to chase the red-ribboned ninja, seeming comfortably far behind; the real one teleports in with a flash of red directly ahead, mere inches from the assassin- coordinated, suspiciously, with Liza's appearance. A punch to the gut follows, delivered from a dug-in stance that aims to stop the ninja cold. Invisible tentacles chase it as the electromagnetic rifle fires, sweeping in from either side like closing jaws to engulf and entangle (again).
Hibiki Tachibana	"Ngh...!" How far are they going to have to go to get these two to calm down? It's frustrating, but no helping it. She just has to-- While she's thinking that, the ninja she's pursuing whirls back on her right as she's getting ready to make another forward bound, eyes going wide as she brings both arms up, pressed together. Too slow. "Ah--!" It smashes into her face, head recoiling backwards before the follow-up explosion blasts her out of the resulting smoke and back in the direction she came, body skipping off of the asphault once. Before she goes too far though, her outstretched hand grabs hold of a nearby lamppost tight enough to crumple the metal in. She swings around it once before letting go, throwing herself back in the direction of Bercilak and the ninja with another black scorch mark on her face for her trouble. More than a moment is necessary to catch up, but Bercilak makes it easy - she kicks off the ground and lands on the tree emerging out with enough force to bend it down a bit, and then launches off for the momentum needed to make a blurry-fast flip the rest of the way in to join the Green Knight. And when she comes down to do that, it's with a fist reared back and thrown forward with enough might to make the air quake if it lands cleanly. Metal boots touch the ground, only to brace in and shift, steadying her in place to whirl her body around into a follow-up hook for the side of their opponent's body. An assault from two sides. And right behind it is a blindingly fast barrage of punches meant to force her to stay moving, at the rate of several impacts every split second, as she maneuvers to keep attacking in tandem with the knight. "I'm starting to get the idea--you guys weren't just steered wrong, you think we're someone we're not...!" She breathes out between attacks - before suddenly dropping low amid the rush of blows to strike with a low sweep. "We're the OPPOSITE of cops!"
KNK	It takes a great deal of careful attention and some necessary speculation to see the statements to which the assassin pair are conspicuously not only not responding, but not reacting. Some points aren't quite like that. Bercilak's claim of not being 'the law' was heard, but only gets a wordless sneer in response, as if she'd heard something both predictable and distasteful. That happens more often. The sense of 'having heard a denial' doesn't quite happen. Liza and Rita successfully catch up, via teleportation, to the opposide side of the street, just before the ninja is able to make it inside. Rather, she's falling, systems locked up after Liza's shot, and is caught by Rita, then again by Liza. Getting in close tells Liza several interesting things, now that she's looking for them. She doesn't even have to get inside. The amount of network traffic, on lines separate from what she can assume are squad communication, are unreal, constant, and not related to what the assassin is doing in that moment. Something external system is working in close tandem to do something data-heavy in realtime, though that doesn't mean she can tell what it is. Physical contact is necessary for the hack, and she has a good moment of scrambled senses before anything can happen to stop her. It's doable. But it will take longer than that moment. Still restrained by Rita, the ninja opts to instead push through the same physical connection, with quick, impressive competence, to fire something, anything, dangerous-looking in Liza's equipment -- at Rita. It's possible to hear the squad communique mostly because she's saying it out loud. "Fuck, fuck! They got me! Violet, recall! Cut me out!" Over on the opposite side, Violet is still trying to figure out how Bercilak grew a tree. That wasn't part of their intel. That's really not a thing people can Just Do. Even Pramanix's snow powers are more understandable than that, if also concerningly Weird. This weirdness doesn't stop her from weaving through attacks from Hibiki and Bercilak, trying with decreasing success to blunt each blow into scrapes along her limbs or blade, to dive through Pramanix's attack in a surprise counter-charge, stab her gut with a finger-mounted taser, grab her arm and toss her out the building. Will someone catch her? Is she actually fine? Not presently important, to her opponent. Sometimes weird private security forces just fall off buildings. Nothing to worry about. Her partner's call for backup comes in, but that's a lot harder to do anything about when she has two opponents hemming her in. It's all she can do to not crumple. She, too, speaks out loud when upset. "Rose! Hold on! Just let me--I'm--" And yet, that panic doesn't actually make her less immediately dangerous, so much as it hurts her judgment. She should have taken a scrape on purpose to get into position for a killing blow. Instead, she's using up her energy to stay safe, and then has to try more desperately to come in for a counterattack. "We're out of time, so can't you just... die?" Hibiki gets the first strike, without any of the same hesitation some of the Watch have been showing. It's a swing of that high-frequency edge-heated blade aimed straight for her dangerous punching-hands, to try to knock her out of commission even if she blocks. She'd already tried cutting through his spine, and through his heart, so the next strike against Bercilak is a leap onto and over his axe, and then a mid-air, mid-flip strike to take his head completely off, if it lands properly. It would be impressive to survive that. And then, fatally delayed, Violet races away to reach Rose.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	There's no shortage of space on the blade of the axe to get a running start. Violet succeeds in getting her blade beneath his helmet, with that harness off. The synthweave hauberk beneath his armor is tough, but with the momentum from her midair strike, she can easily make the cut. The Green Knight's arm reaches out and catches his severed head as it slips free of the bucket helm. Dangling by the strands of his green undercut mohawk, he grins. Bercilak's body plants his head firmly between his shoulders, the wound healing seamlessly as he bellows a laugh. "Nay," he says, suddenly dead serious, chasing Violet carried on his suit's thrusters. They aren't fast enough to reach her--but he is able to catch up, knowing where she's headed. "Thou cusen me of morther, thanne of beinge a bagge... I demaund contentement, sib." He rockets forward, cloak billowing behind as he unleashes a flurry of rapid strikes. Deceptively fast for his size, the towering knight sweeps the weapon across, shoulders to hip, before making a battering thrust with the weapon's blunt eye. Side-stepping, he rains down blows with the haft, before disguising a low hook with the beard as a retreat.
Hibiki Tachibana	"Pramanix!" Hibiki is too slow to stop or go help the saintess herself, with that sudden charge, but she has her own issues before too long. And so does the assassin, judging from the radio chatter. Rose...and Violet. And if they're close enough to be that panicked when one of them is in trouble-- No more games. That disarming strike comes, and she can already tell what the intention for it is. Her body is already moving, but not to the point where she can avoid it. With a grimace and clenched teeth, she adjusts at the last second--and the worst of the attack tears a deep, metal-rending gash into Gungnir's gauntlet, going on to leave a shallower cut down the actual skin of her arm. She stumbles back, gripping onto the heated slice, then bites back a grunt. "As if...!" Bercilak loses his head. She's not going to be a baby about a wound that's already cauterized and being healed from proximity to the Green Knight. The hand on her injured arm tightens back up with some effort, and she's turning on her heels to sprint after Violet. Her good arm rears back as the piston housed in the armor slots itself backwards just as it had done before, and she picks up speed while trailing behind the towering warrior. Solely so that when he catches up and engages, she can follow up from behind him--making a high jump to get right above the pair. "Neither of you are going anywhere until we get everything straight--!" Her own thrusters ignite, taking her from the apex of her leap to shooting directly down. Where she swings to plant her fist in Violet from overhead while she's defending from Bercilak's assault, and smash her into the ground. Even if she's dodged, she's coming down hard enough to crack the ground--and when the machinery slams back into place, the explosion of pure force is almost definitely going to put the three of them one floor down.
Liza Grier	It is shocking how fast Liza can tie a harness around a prone cyborg with steel cable. Alarming, in fact. Perhaps even suspect. But she's not having red ribbon wiggle her way out of this one. "Rose and Violet. Cute." Liza's voice growl-purrs somewhere behind the former. "I'd believe those were stage names." She keeps the unwieldy rifle anchored to one shoulder and a magnetic boot engaged and pressed down on 'Rose's back, sequencer slotted in and already slamming the network traffic. Liza has taught herself to be frighteningly efficient when it comes to hacking, not clean or subtle. Though it is technically a 'professional job', it is in the sense that a paramedic is still a professional while removing shrapnel with a fire-sterilized knife and no anaesthetic. "Quit squirming. This is a hackjob, but there's a pretty robust server on the other end, so-- There. Now let's check what telemetry you're sending . . ." Mutters Liza over the unfortunately extremely boring-looking process. "Disabling all external connections outside direct laser. Let's wipe that radio transceiver firmware. Optics, optics, optics . . . here we are. Let's reboot that already. Comms to your friend? I bet she's spotting for you." The ion rifle still in Liza's arm goes off by itself. Without the pulsed laser. A searing loop of electrical plasma fries the weapon's coil and blows its capacitor in an instant, creating a nasty energy AoE on Liza's position. Of course she throws the weapon away the very instant she feels it suddenly heat up, but her shield is only just recharging when she throws herself down and covers her head, and so the blackening to her suit is quite extensive. "That's what I get for using Letheia-made bullshit! I fucking hate going off analogue!" Liza complains to herself. "If a gun needs an onboard computer to fire then-- oh, minute." Not willing to fully trust even for a moment that she'd succeeded, Liza rolls onto her side, grabs the bound red-coded assassin, pulls her up by the impromptu ties, and flicks her e-sword out from her belt, a sharp hiss and a dangerous hum coming from the blade of hard-edged energy poised very much to use Rose as a hostage if she wasn't able to get to Violet in time. Hauling her upright should also give her a view of Rita and the street below.
Rita Ma	"I'm really sorry about this. We just need to get your eyes fixed, I think. It's not-" Poor Rita, inexperienced in the ways of cyberwarfare, doesn't expect a threat from the bound ninja. If she does, it'd be from the ninja herself, not her own trusted ally. The sentence terminates in a yelp; she can't jump out of the way of the blast, nor can she block with her tentacles if they're all wrapped around the ninja. The best she can do is clumsily leap out of the way, bringing her arms up to guard her chest and face. When the dust settles, she briefly gives Liza the look of a dog whose tail has been stepped on, before remembering the Hacking Connection tethering the two and putting the pieces together. "Auuuhhh. That was really mean, you know," she whines, rubbing at a place on her arm where her skin is reddened. Other than that, she has a couple of bruises from the blastwave: significantly better than you'd expect a girl who just got plasma-blasted to look. She picks herself up slowly, still looking a bit shaken. The tentacles binding the red-ribboned assassin- previously invisible- condense and calcify into the appearance of iron chains. One wrapped over her eyes, too, becomes opaque to hide her vision. "Please don't do that again," she says earnestly, evidently uncertain of whether that'll actually stop her. "I still don't really know what's going on here, but..." A hopeful glance to Liza, who's holding the cryptographic sequencer. "We can fix it an easier way, right?" Maybe it's the sound of footsteps that alert her to the second ninja's approach, or the smell of not-blood, or the cessation of fighting in the distance. One way or another, she steps away from the red-ribboned girl and withdraws a couple of the 'chains'- they're not all needed if Liza is on top of her, right?- to repurpose them as invisible razor-wire in the way of Violet's approach, before concealing herself again. They're meant to flex before cutting dangerously deep, but at the speeds these two move, getting clotheslined with something hidden and sharp will still deal some substantial damage.
Liza Grier	Liza needs only silently confirm by eye that Rita is alright (it kind of looks like she's forgotten she threw away her helmet and everyone can see the expression of concern in her delicate good looks). Holding onto Rita's tentacle rebind now, Liza replies "That depends on her and her friend. There's no logic process being hijacked, so the both of them are cop-killers. I'd like to believe they give up once they realize they've been had. But if they don't . . ." Liza glances down to her beam blade. "Well, it'd be convenient if they fell for me instead, right?" she says, a smirk in her voice but not on her face.
KNK	In a rush like she is, Violet isn't able to avoid being hounded the whole way to Rose. It's only that that does save her from being diced by Rita's trap, as Bercilak's strikes force her to slow down. Now that she's not cleanly avoiding the strikes, it's apparent just how much more fragile she is. Metal, yes, but not like his own armor. Her sword was more impressive than the plating just below her skin. Hibiki wants her to hold up, but that's not the plan. She gets her hits in, but a sudden burst of motion carries her out again, right after. One arm's twisted, not going into its socket quite right. There's no sign of pain bothering her, at least. And then she loses her foot to a clothesline, flipping onto her hands, back up into the air, and blasting her way forward in a cloud of flame from her arm, just barely avoiding her own decapitation. She's simply too busy to ask Bercilak how he survived his. That doesn't even look real. It can't be real, right? Something's wrong. Even with all that, she makes it up to where Rose is, in chains. Holding her as a hostage probably won't work, at least not if the e-sword is pointed at something as disposable as the trunk of her body. Violet steels herself to rush in and cut her out. Tense, "Blackout! Now!" Her eyes are still covered, but Rose can hear the approach. Violet hesitates, and appears to do nothing, as she cuts out every one of her external connections. Hardware blocks sever connections. Visibly, she starts, then looks back over at Bercilak. "Who -- who are you?"