Scene #8005:

Owner	Pose
Persephone Kore	The Moon has one point two percent of Earth's mass. This is unusually large for a moon, but it's still not enough to hold atmosphere. Lacking air, Luna should always be silent. Today it is loud. Persephone has made it green with grass and wildflowers, given it air, given it breath. And it is loud with the sound of cannons, of shearing metal, of fire. My presence, in the Queen in Veils, is focused wholly on the space-warping tech-dense orb a hundred feet above. Space ripples, shudders, chromatically aberrates around her. She is clearly doing something Very Bad, or perhaps Very Good. Far overhead, gleaming white-and-green spaceships continually attempt to bombard the device. Marc, on foot, ensures their efforts come to naught since I am occupied. He's such a reliable boy! Kinetic projectiles halt, missiles are telekinetically disassembled, lasers are gravitationally lensed away. On the ground, the battle is less decisive. Twenty-foot-tall mechs with beam rifles approach from a valley to the east, and are met by another mech: Dylan's. IFF identifies it as the Forgive-Me-Please. Each of its discrete parts is painted a different childish color, as if it were made out of blocks. It is covered in band-aids, and wields an oversized baseball bat smothered with stickers. It crushes rifles, staves in joints, shatters armor with the bat- anything but the cockpit. When it's shot too badly, it disengages momentarily, then heals over with a new band-aid. It could do this forever, except that it's ceding ground with every exchange; a trail of shattered mecha mark the path of its retreat, and it has nearly run out of valley.
Darren	Rush defense. Go for a screen pass--risky, but we got a great O-line. "SWIFT! 15! HIKE!" Darren's shed his athletic jacket, his locs held in place by a blue-and-yellow Nitros headband. On the field with him are a flying humanoid ladybug with a thorax resembling an aircraft's early-warning system, and an animated stone archway with square, cairn-like arms. A shimmering aurora of light from Saucer bathes over Darren, Slabb, the passing Forgive-Me-Please, Marc, and the ladybug himself, enveloping them all in a protective screen as Marc diffuses lasers and dissassembles missles. The stone archway, wrapped in protective light, goes on the offensive immediately, rocketing into the air to strike with explosive impact at the attacking ships. It makes a great distraction. As the advancing screen of light passes over the battlefield, Saucer races ahead of it, in time to catch a forward pass from Darren. The pokeball passes through the screen, conferring its protection onto the emerging Roswell, a diminutive green-eyed alien. The alien adds his Slabb-augmented psychic strength to the fray, yanking passing fighters off course to hurl them at one another.
Friz	Dirt: The Earthgov shuttle rattles hard. Savvy: They can't afford shock absorption, and thrust is hard to control. Moxie: Hand on the holster. You don't know if the anti-air will... Grit: It won't. It can't disassemble you. Moxie: I'm afraid, still. Do something with your hands. Savvy: Stop. Anti-air hasn't taken any cockpits apart. You'll be fine. "Okay there, kid?" "..." A hand clicks a recorder. "Hey Rogers. Yeah, I'll be fine." "Let's hear the plan." "I hit the ground, I load up ions and the APs, I guess I put together clues to get to the reactor and how to turn it off." "Put togeher clues in the heat of it?" "I'm not the galaxy's greatest for nothing. Do you have a better idea?" "Yeah. Duck and cover, and collect a 'you tried' expense for the day." "Plan B, I guess." Friz rushes out of the shuttle as it lands, making a mad dash for the reactor's approximate location while diving between trees, belly-crawling under thick wildflowers, and otherwise using the gorgeous greenery as cover, hoping the mechas will draw all the attention. She's gotta find that device... "Rogers, go for it, figure it out!" She calls out. The ghost of the man, a light shimmer in telepathic senses, rushes intangibly over the field. He tries to flit directly to the engine, or at least towards it, with intent to haunt the thing and see if anything useful can be done to stop it by Ghost Tricking the damn thing. Moxie: Fast. Faster. Keep moving. Under the guns is safe. Under the mecha legs isn't. Watch out, friend and foe there are just as dangerous when they're big as this.
Ishirou	From the nearest warp gate and speeding excessively fast towards the warpgate is a plane-like battle armor. It's a shade of black, but also seems to be attached to places as if it were a modular suit. His IFF reveals him to be Ishirou, and quickly coming to run interference, provide intelligence, and link up the defender's so that they could be more organized in the face of... Well, inevitability. He gets a signal, and sensors focus on Friz who is definitely NOT with Persephone and the Concord here. So he sends a message to them, as well as updating their HUDs, or lack thereof, a magical HUD connection that allows them to get updates. Ishirou keeps to the sky, similarly giving data to oncoming Paladins.
Staren	Where is Staren's place on the battlefield? Sometimes she feels like she should be in the thick of things, agilely maneuvering through the fight with plasma guns and vibroblades. Other times she feels like she should be hiding behind cover, taking potshots with lasers or rockets or firing missiles around corners. And yet other times, she feels like she should be at the controls of a war machine with tons of steel and metal between her and certain death. Well, today sure does look like a giant robot fight. A third machine joins the Sapient Heuristics lines. Painted red with some tasteful white stripes and Concord-orange trim, it stands a little under 30 feet tall and resembles a jet fighter with arms and reverse-joint legs, with VTOL capabilities. It's loaded down with expansion packs, additional thrusters attached to the legs and boxy weapon pods affixed to each arm and atop the back to each side. The pods look mismatched, like parts of two or three sets mixed and matched together. <"Hey, Phony! Need some help?"> Staren tries to sound jovial, like Sapient Heuristics fielding multiple elites in a mecha battle is routine, despite her inner questions. It's important to think positive and keep peoples' mood up, after all! She enters the battle by using her machine's flight to fly over the opposing mechas and fire missiles from... her gunpod? Which turns out to be a missile launcher, racks disgorging dozens of missiles of different types ranging from pencil-size penetrating guided gyrojets to soda-can-sized heat-seeking affairs with a mix of HEAT warheads and plasma warheads that disgorge enough heat to instantly ionize air for a dozen feet around them. <"Marc and Dylan... it's good to see Phony got to bring out some friends for once! I'm surprised to see another mech though... did Sapient Heuristics make that, or are those from the Concord...?">
Lilian Rook	"Why is it that people will have no interest in something at all, and leave it to rot for decades, but when someone else decides to take it home, they'll die to defend it? I'll never understand that sort of thinking. The sort of person who decides they don't want something, but damned if they'll let it become anything else." "You know. Ordinary people." Thus crackles the RP-accented tightbeam tagged LROOK. Directly tracing back to its original location points to empty space. 'Walk and talk', apparently. It isn't clear when she arrived, or even how; it's only clear when she decided to speak. "Whose idea was this? Yours, Phony? I can't imagine Carpathia is the type to declare war, even passively. I know she's brave, but this is something other than bravery." This one comes from closer, but again, there's nothing to be scanned for kilometers. "What did you build? Why do they want it gone?" An egregiously massive zigzag route is the phantom triangulated from the data. No doubt wildly erroneous. "Does it have something to do with why you dusted that off? I never got to see them before." "You look good, Dylan. For once, I feel small."
Persephone Kore	Everyone can 'hear' a voice that isn't really heard, emanating from the Queen in Veils. It's familiar to most, by now, but feels stronger than usual: carved into reality rather than merely impressed. Oh, so you did come. Haha, I was really hoping you would! Things like these are more meaningful when you do them with friends. And I could really use someone to lean on right now. This is hard, even for me. Slabb has the desired effect, drawing capital-grade fire that can't really focus enough to effectively deal with something that (relatively) small. Point defenses focus on it, though, with a bevy of needling scatter-lasers. The ladybug effectively buttresses Forgive-Me-Please, letting it stand its ground more effectively; Roswell's telekinesis proves effective against the small fighters, with Marc returning their pilots to where they came from. "Much appreciated, Darren. Finding Luna to your comfort?" Marc's eyes, dancing between projectiles, spare Spears a single glance. His fingernails are leaving marks on his palm; a sweatdrop rolls down his temple from the stress. Staren's aerial barrage meets with good success, incapacitating several of the attacking mecha. Dylan's mech lunges in front of one with its bat, though, to prevent a plasma warhead from hitting it in the cockpit. "Whoa, fucking- careful!!" she blurts out. "Tune it down! We're not letting anyone die now." "Failed sister project," Marc elaborates to Staren tersely via radio. "Carpathia snatched it up years ago. Machines to 'make the world less real', instead of 'make people more real'. Didn't bear fruit on its own. Good amplifier for us." It was my idea, Persephone affirms, 'speaking' to Lilian (but 'audible' to everyone) in the same way. I wanted... a test run. Of what the world will look like, maybe, when we're done with it. Something to hold. Something to point to. Something to make me feel more sure. That answers everything, doesn't it? "You mean you don't always feel small around me?!" Dylan answers, trying to sound grumpy about something she already knows is true. Her radio transmission is peppered with the background noises of combat. "I can be a big girl too, you know!" False.
Persephone Kore	Friz goes, for at least a few moments, unnoticed. Rogers is able to make it up to the Tidal Reactor, a house-sized sphere with a white exterior. Space surges, bends, and foams around it; even though it isn't really dangerous, it feels as though it should be. The ghost can, indeed, interfere with it. There's something like an 'off' switch in there somewhere, though never intended to be operated with one's hands. Flipping it causes it to spin down; space ceases to break and gnash around it, the world becomes a little less impossible. Then it's flicked right back on again, and he is 'seized' by a gentle yet crushing telekinetic force and pulled away from it. Oh! Haha, sorry. I hadn't noticed you! I really can't let you do that, though. I'm doing something very, very important, so could you please just leave? Ishirou's scans are, indeed, helpful to the mecha on the ground, who become significantly more dangerous with his help, and start pushing back on Dylan's mech even with her buffed durability and new squadmate. It's less helpful to the ships overhead: busting through Marc's telekinetic defense would require sabotaging him directly, otherwise they simply don't have the volume of fire necessary to get through. His TK isn't as world-shaping as mine, but it's still fine and wide-ranging enough to deal with the bombardment near-indefinitely. So you're back to play with me again, Ishirou? Even knowing how strong I am? Even though last time made you really unhappy? ... Ahahaha. You really are brave. If there weren't so much at stake, I really would want you to succeed, just for that.
Friz	Dirt: There's someone here giving us the skinny on the SecHUDs. Friend? Grit: Think you can get them to give you cash, too? Moxie: Hey, that Forgive-Me-Not sounds close enough to a screaming jungle predator when it breaks a robot that I've decided we're not going to recognize what money is for about another two hours. Savvy: Fine. But I'm dumping the stress from the finances into the general stress pool. "HRK!" The ghost is touched, for once. A rare situation. "How--?! Get this mentalist crap off me, crazy broad!" The ghost resolves in psychic senses slowly, into what looks like a late-middle-aged bastard fellow in a dirty suit. His eyes are milky white and his soul is clearly departed from the body. "Ghhh... and just what is that something you're doin', huh?" Friz has managed to belly-crawl her way through the chaos and to the ear lines. With only three major combatants, she doesn't need to worry about a patrol catching her back here... She hits cover at the lip of a crater that was once barren and is now a home for a gorgeous array of colorful flowers. Moxie: Run. Run, keep running. Seriously. Keep running! Savvy: No, stop, wait! You have to figure this out! Dirt: Look close. Get a GOOD look there. Is that thing entirely self-contained? Wait-- listen to that sound. Really listen. Listen CLOSE. Moxie: We're going to get killed if we stay still. Grit: We're going to survive. Savvy: Look, that free overwatch is recording things. I'm going to run analytics on the readings, the sounds, everything. There's gonna be an answer. There's tons of data in there. Dirt: I'll keep bringing in the sound. It has mechanical parts inside. Something stopped, so you can try to keep it stopped. Moxie: That is a giant robot. You're not going to be able to do anything. Anything. Grit: Shut the fuck up. Friz bites one of her own knuckles, nearly drawing blood. Moxie: I hate this. Okay. Fine. I'll get an AP shot loaded as fast as I can. Grit: Good. Now figure out if there's anywhere to shoot to slow this down. Savvy: Then we take the shot. If we buy some time, it could work. "I need my ghost back." Friz mutters under her breath, loading a single horribly illegal round she bargained with cargo for, aiming precisely, and trying to listen closely and estimate with a startlingly large amount of mechanical engineering knowledge what sort of spot might have the most mechanical parts that can't endure a hole.
Darren	"You know it," Darren calls back to Marc, before shouting some encouragement--both for Marc and Slabb. "GOOD HUSTLE! ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE!" He's starting to sweat, too. Another blitz. This time it's Dylan. They'd intercept another screen--counter with an offensive blitz, get Roswell in the backfield and pass hot. "STONE! 22! HUT, HUT!" Roswell floats ahead of Dylan as Slabb falls back down to earth. Both of them end up well into hostile territory, with the towering stone arch bodyblocking for the blink-rushing alien. Psionic swords, blazing purple thanks to Slabb's amplification, encircle the two pokemon. Mixed in with devious, ill timed pushes and yanks from Roswell are shoulder checks from Slabb. Once the shock of their initial attack fades, and it looks like the mecha are about to adapt, Roswell's injuries rapidly heal in a burst of regenerative power, and the alien is flanked by brightly burning psionic swords. The swords make disabling cuts up-close, and from afar, shoot lasers aimed at weapons, arms and legs.
Staren	Staren was certainly wondering what, exactly, they're doing here, but it seemed rude to just open with a barrage of questions. It's not like Phony can't read the curiousity in her mind anyway. Although, along with that curiousity is absolute trust that whatever it is Carpathia and Persephone are doing, it is good. Lilian asks the questions better, anyway. > Things like these are more meaningful when you do them with friends. Staren smiles. She intuited the mood correctly! > And I could really use someone to lean on right now. This is hard, even for me. Staren quirks an eyebrow. It's hard, even for Phony? She needs help? She's filled with determination, for a moment at least. When Dylan leaps in front of the missile, its targeting systems at least prevent it from detonating as it just smacks into the mech relatively harmlessly. <"Noted. Sorry."> She updates her targeting system's directives to avoid the designated area. Mind readers can already see the plan in her head was to switch to close-range direct fire where she can aim for things like limb hits, anyway. Thus the mismatched kit rather than loading down on missiles as much as she can; some of this has been mothballed since the war against Oblivion's remnants. Marc and Phony explain. "That's wonderful!" Staren smiles, earnestly, at what the moon is already becoming. She turns her eyes to the enemy mechs, and looks briefly in the direction of distant Earth. "They deserve to see it, too. We'll stop this attack, and show them!" Show them the wonderful future, that is. The enemy mechs suddenly get better. Staren can't see the pattern, but suddenly Dylan is struggling more. She drops out of the sky right in front of a mech going for Dylan, aiming her left arm pod at its right shoulder and firing something like a mecha-scale shotgun where each piece of shot is itself an explosive shell. <"Your opponent is ME!"> Staren drops the missile gunpod as a mecha-scale sword warps into the right hand, which surrounds itself with a high-frequency field of shredding energy as she tries to stab the other shoulder. If she can take out both arms it's out of the fight, right? It seems that Staren's style of mecha combat from back in the day relies on using her direct brain interface to control a lot of weapons at once -- as if all this wasn't bad enough news for the machine in front of her, the back pods open -- on the left is something that just fires a big melty fireball, aimed to try and catch the head or neck if her target dodges straight back, while on the right is a 360-degree firing arc laser turret which sweeps a series of pulses over towards one of the other machines, just to keep it from feeling free to focus entirely on Dylan. <"So why are you guys fighting so hard, anyway? Do you really want an airless rock for a moon instead of a place like this people can live?">
Lilian Rook	"No, I usually feel like I can't decide whether to pat you on the head, tell you that your shoelace is untied, thank you for existing, or attach a leash to your collar." Short, staticky laugh follows. "You're being big now, though. You were big back then. Impossibly big, even just for a minute, and I'm ashamed I didn't see it at the time." The triangulation point changes again. "I'm glad. Only you children could ever fight a war that gentle." A grainy sigh rattles through the low-bitrate concealed connection as Phony 'speaks'. The background noise roughly matches up with the gunfire in the crater with a second and a half of lag, but then swaps over instantly to sounding more like the bombardment. "And these two were the ones loyal and dumb and perfect enough to follow you anywhere. That makes sense." A long pause sizzles with radio inteference from the sheer amount of scanning traffic. "Of course it makes sense. There's nothing in the universe more frightening than dedicating your life to something you can't take back without even knowing what it'll look like in the end. Everyone wants to skip to the part that starts with 'ten years later', just to be certain." "How do you think I keep as calm as I do?" A full second later, a stiff wind blows through the meadow surrounding Marc; the sleeping breath of a whirlwind, wrapped thrice clockwise and disappeared. Lunar stones stand in twelve positions, trails of miniscule Earth rocks drawn back and forth between them. Signs of Jupiter and Venus opposite of Luna and Pluto. Marc, and Darren should he still be nearby, perceive the fleet bombardment happening outside at a one-tenth rate. The speech that comes in and out is crystal clear, audio cues from afar arriving exacly when they should, but punctuated by far more empty air between them. "You know, this is the second time lately that who I'm supposed to, and who I want to, trust are on opposite sides of a fight. If I were to hypothetically choose you, I'd be thankful."
Ishirou	Ishirou rises into the air, trying to avoid being targeted while he stays in the air. Once more, as more information comes in, he transmits it back to the Ghost Trick pair, as well as Lilian. Lilian herself goes for Marc, which is about to be a huge cluster with all of the elites already there. Of course, he gets a message from Persephone. Ishirou considers what to say for a moment. He's less...upset at the moment, less engaged than he was right then and there. "...Thanks. I just..." he pauses. "Trying to settle things like this seems like it's avoiding actual discourse. Violence should be the last resort, even if people can fight each other without injury." He spins mid-air and flips out of his flight mode. "But I also understand there are things that are important to people that they will fight for them. I don't know if that's the same thing as this...or if it's simply how things have to be or are.." A barrage of light lasers flies out towards Persephone and Dylan. If they connect they'll do more than just sting... in fact, they wouldn't even do all that much damage. They would, however, make targeting the two of them far more accurate. Let's say...from very large ships or the fighting forces all around them. "That I don't have an answer for. It bothers me that I don't. So I suppose then it's better that I bounce off against someone who just sys the world is wrong like you do."
Persephone Kore	'Broad', Persephone repeats to the ghost, followed by a giggle that makes space quiver. She does, at least, take his question very seriously. Trying to create a new world. A new way for humans to be. Terraforming the fabric of space to create a cosmos of human love. Does any of that make sense? I can make it simpler, but it'd have to be longer. Then Friz's bullet punches through the Tidal Reactor. The entry wound is small. The exit wound is cavernous. Was it ever armored at all? Wires, crystals, radio electronics, liquid gold and jellified-night-sky are blown free in a splatter that feels like it ought to be pixelated. Persephone gasps. She lets go of the ghost, likely forgetting about him entirely. Piece by piece, she remakes it; this part's story says it goes here, the liquid goes there. The result is inevitable- it will resume working again- but it is, as hoped, time-consuming. "Wh- that's- shut the fuck up!!" Dylan says to Lilian, petulantly. "I'm trying to focus you know!!" A little pause. In a quieter voice: "'Back then'. You mean, with the shuttle on Zubrin? ... Thanks, Lilian. That... really means a lot to me. I was trying my best." I knew you'd understand, Lily-R. They really are perfect, aren't they? There are others who wanted to come, but... Dylan and Marc, I can trust it not to change them. They're 'perfect enough'. Where are you, anyway? Are we playing a game? "Appreciated, Lilian," Marc says, assuming she can hear him. He takes a moment to adjust a cufflink, wipe his brow with a handkerchief, take a deep breath, and then resume his deflecting at a more relaxed pace. "You pick the best gifts."
Persephone Kore	Staren's questions are answered by a mecha at the back. An androgynous voice, terse and hoarse, crackling with static. "You can't be serious." It looks no different from any of the others, save for one maroon stripe on the shoulder. Thrusters on its back flare. It runs up the side of the valley wall, kicks off, ignites a plasma blade, and tries to cut Staren's mech in two. Dylan briefly spars with it when it lands, but takes worse than she gives, unwilling to block a sword like that with her baseball bat. "Nine billion people on Earth. This is in our backyard. Chance it goes wrong, kills everyone. Fifty percent? Half a percent? Doesn't matter. Can't take it." Staren's offensive has been perfectly effective, and the combined efforts of Slabb and Roswell has even reversed the military mechas' offense, but the officer(?) doesn't care about things like 'being out of position'. It sacrifices its right arm to Roswell's psychic blades to keep them from parrying, then brings its own sword to bear against the pokemon with its left. "Got you." The Tidal Reactor has been repaired. It's slowly spinning back up to its previous intensity, and eventually beyond. Persephone's focus on it is weakened by the fact that some of the rifle-armed mecha are finding high ground to shoot at the Queen in Veils from, guided by Ishirou's telemetry. They don't outpace its regeneration, but Marc can't keep an eye on them and the ships above at the same time, and the jolts pause her progress for a fraction of a second with each hit. I understand what you're saying, Ishirou. I don't like fighting either- not like this, with bullets and swords. But it had to be here. This is already the least bad spot. And how am I going to argue with all of Earth to give it to me? How is anyone? Nobody is louder than so many billions of voices. It's my right to argue like this, isn't it? In the one way that I'm realer than any of them, than all of them put together. In the one way the universe has to admit that I'm right. Saying anything different is just saying I should lose again, I should give up again. Of course I can't accept that!
Ishirou	"So you are saying that each person on the planet should have to look at the world like we do? Go through the pain that we do? Do you think every person could handle it? Do you think every person /could/ handle it?" Ishirou notices what the reactor was doing. He boosts off, trying to get some distance, but also a height advantage to get a clearer look at it, so that the Queen in Veils was not in his line of sight. He fires a beam at it, this time aiming to try and remotely hack into the device. She might be able to repair it, but he should be able to hit at parts that aren't so easy to fix. Things that would take longer to diagnose and fix. Trying to throw his reality to interfere with her own. "Pushing the point is no better than flipping the table in a game, or punching the other guy in an argument," he says with a sigh. "Who is the voice for the voiceless?"
Darren	Roswell's a heavy hitter, but suffers when he can't set the tempo of the exchange. Caught out by the commander's sword, the pokemon is flung to the ground. A pokeball is already on its way, thanks to Lilian's time dilation granting Darren a considerable amount of heads-up. The knocked-out alien is switched out for the agile, flying ladybug. "That one's the QB on the ground," says Darren to Marc, pointing out the slow-motion brawl. "We get him out of the game, they gotta take their chances with a second string." Here's hoping the replacement hasn't had much practice. Having switched to telepathic playcalling to account for the delay, Darren's already got Saucer in position for a counterattack. As Slabb jumps in to crash into the red-striped mecha, Saucer grows to immense proportions, his body changing to resemble a classic, disc-shaped UFO. A wave of immense gravity pummels from above, the pokemon attempting to simply force the mechanized forces into the ground.
Friz	Dirt: I heard something stop! Look at all those LIGHTS! Savvy: Nice aim. Moxie: Thanks. Now we need Rogers back. Grit: He'll be okay. Moxie: We need another move. Now now now. Savvy: I got nothing. Dirt: What? Look, we know this situation top to bottom. Savvy: Nothing. Sorry. That first one didn't work. Moxie: For heaven's sakes, we've got do something! Anything! Friz begins to shift back and forth in the crater behind the cover. Motion for motion's own sake. Blinking anxiously, tapping the rim of the crater, grinding teeth. Returning to a distant shimmer in telepathic vision, Rogers returns to Friz's side. "She's trying to mess up space here. Right on a back yard. 'New way for humans to be.' 'New world.' Crazy Bloodletter stuff." "What do I do?" "Throw her off her emotional flow." "Can't analyze who she is inside of a robot. Even the greatest detective can't." Savvy: Stop moving around! Aaaaaa! Fine!! I'll come up with something! Moxie: Right now!! Savvy: Uhhh... the robot! The robot's part of controlling this. Grit: Draw her attention. Endure whatever needs enduring. Rogers can handle it. Savvy: Okay, fine! Load up the ions! Moxie: Ions it is. Firing away. Ion rounds. Good for electronics, by which I mean, bad for electronics. Friz loads them and just starts unloading. "I'm so sorry!" She apologizes as she squeezes over and over. The minor impacts won't do much, especially when the electronics are so redundant to the Queen in Veils, but when they're concentrated, they have just a little electric spice that goes along with the rifles and might make a gap for the ghost to rush in and find something inside the mecha to interfere with, something to pull back some of that regeneration...
Staren	> You can't be serious. "Of course I--!" Plasma sword. Staren rapidly considers countermeasures in her head, deciding on 'dodge' a fraction of a second too late. The laser turret is sliced clean through, but when the 'blade' connects with the main body, it only melts a scar across the fuselage before Staren twists to face the officer (she's not intentionally attacking with the sword, but that becomes a dangerous place to stand as the sword moves through it) and hovers backward, the right arm pod's gun port opening and... nothing? Oh right, the targeting computer settings. She reflexively aimed center of mass and it wouldn't let her shoot the cockpit. He's bought another half-second by Staren's confusion, before she aims lower and directs a stream of hypersonic metal from the gatling railgun at the officer mech's legs. Staren's grip tightens on the control sticks and she leans forward in her seat. In the skit window, she's wearing a military pilot space helmet in tasteful black and white with Concord-orange accents. Her eyes glare with righteous anger on any receiving videoscreen. <"Nine billion people is why you can't afford not to! How many of them are suffering and dying right now?! That stability you're fighting for is a luxury. Don't tell me you're fighting for nine billion. Admit you're fighting for those who have it good now."> > It's my right to argue like this, isn't it? In the one way that I'm realer than any of them. In the one way the universe has to admit that I'm right. Is that really any different from beating their dreams with bullets...? Staren shakes her head, disagreeing with the argument she just thought of. No! You deserve that power more than any bullet, or anyone handed a gun! > Pushing the point is no better than flipping the table in a game, or punching the other guy in an argument. Who is the voice for the voiceless? <"SHE is!"> Staren shouts at Ishirou's words. <"THESE people, and YOU, are just making the people WITH voices even louder!"> Staren glares at him, too. Androids, where he came from... why does he keep fighting for the way things are?!
Lilian Rook	"Do you ever really focus on anything? I think you do best when you're trying to impress someone. You never bring out as much power in a crisis as you do when you're trying to make someone happy. And I'd be very happy if you didn't lose here." Persephone's question begets a non-answer. "I'm doing my best not to worry about you. Like you always want. But I'm a little bit stuck. Because I want to see what it looks like too. And because the last time I tried to choose a friend over strangers, they chose for me instead." Finally, Lilian appears beside Marc, clapping lunar dust from her hands. She's dressed for combat, but has no weapons drawn. Giving up on the vanity of concealer and colour contacts in this situation, she favours him with a tense smile. "I'm an immaculate shopper you know." Lilian says, briefly leaving a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "But please forgive me if I selfishly wanted to see you wear this one. It's handmade. And my brain keeps screaming at me that you're . . ." ". . ." "That even if it's only half a percent chance that this kills you, it doesn't matter. I can't take it." Her grip slips away. "Well, I've been working with some data that someone who had no obligation to me at all went and handed over regardless. Consider it a preview." A more genuinely misbehaved grin chases her reluctance away. "Oh, but there is a terrible cost. You'll get age ten times as fast. How terrible for you. Think of those five hours, like tears in rain. How will you ever teach Spears anything at this rate?" From the outside, a blurry human shape briefly appears inside the glassy bubble demarcated by the 'runestones' for the space of a blink of an eye, then disappears again. 'Do you think every person could handle it? Do you think every person /could/ handle it?"' "Ishirou. I'd think that if it's something everyone couldn't handle, then it shouldn't be something that everyone expects of anyone. Don't you? Nine billion people aren't voiceless. They're deafening. They won't let you hear anything but them. Can't you hear them right now? I'm trying my best, but I really won't mind being a villain again if that's what it comes down to." "If it's fine for nine billion people to ensure a one hundred percent chance that three people die, but unacceptable for three people to insist on a point one percent chance that nine billion people change. If it's alright for a billion people to force one person to see the world in a way that nobody should have to, and then still retain the right to look away from it as well. If they know the pain is so terrible, then why are they so upset that the victim makes a peep? Flipping the table is exactly what you do when the game wasn't fair from the start. Otherwise you play your life savings into it thinking you can turn it around, and get kicked out."
Persephone Kore	Marc answers Ishirou before Persephone can. "What? No. That's idiotic. Where are you even getting that from? Or are you just making it up?" Ishirou discovers pretty quickly that the Tidal Reactor cannot meaningfully be 'hacked' wirelessly, any more than a light switch can be. It stores no data, runs no code, and accepts no connections; in no sense can it be 'reprogrammed', because there is no programming to start with, just bare hardware doing a single task with no variables. Maybe if he could get in close, muck with the wiring physically, but time is running perilously short. Already the Tidal Reactor is starting to warp and flicker with unearthly shades of red. "Noted," Marc says to Darren, "but I can't do anything about it unless they get closer, and we don't want them closer. Unless you'd like to take over point defense?" "I can't save them from suffering," the officer(?) answers Staren curtly. "Just from being dust." Staren's bullets incapacitate one leg; the officer's mech isn't more durable than the others, but they're able to keep moving with just two limbs and the thrusters on simple experience and agility. "Taking fire. I'm hit. Orange." The status is given emotionlessly, simple reflex. In a heartbeat, they cut the right arm off of an identical fallen mech with their plasma sword and slam it into their stump, red hot slag joining the two together. "Scratch that. Yellow." Now with two arms again, they snatch up a beam rifle from the ground and magdump it into Staren before lunging at Dylan with the blade. A moment later, Saucer flattens most of their compatriots. The officer's mecha fires its thrusters to stay upright, but is critically damaged by the crushing gravity anyway; something in its 'spine' snaps. "Mayday, mayday! Lost structure, eject." They do, in fact, explosively eject into a high backflip only possible on the Moon, landing on the shoulder of one of the few allied mechs far enough down the valley to have not been flattened. They pop the hatch on it manually, pull out the former pilot, and swing in. Their new mech catches the tumbling plasma blade of the old in its hand, burns an officer stripe into its own shoulder, and adopts a ready stance. The pilot audibly takes a hissing breath in, distorted by the radio, and then lets it out. "Reading green. Visual clear. Last chance. Let's try that again." They rush forward with their thrusters, firing on the Orbeetle with a beam rifle held in one hand and doling out passing strikes to Staren and Dylan (who retaliates with a crushing blow to their side), but their true aim is clearly to break through and attack the Queen in Veils or the Tidal Reactor directly.
Persephone Kore	"That's- hhhhhhh. This is unfair!" Dylan shouts, over the sound of her mech groaning and creaking from an impact. "Maybe it'd make me happy if you stopped, Lilian! Did you think about that?!" It wouldn't. She's lying. Marc turns and smiles back at her, neither startled by her appearance nor the squeeze. Rather, he puts a hand on top of hers. "You mean that I'm delicate," he says. "I know. Unlike Phony, I quite appreciate being fretted over, so thank you. The idea of "aging ten times as fast" briefly scares him; then he smooths it over once he realizes 'only by a few hours'. "Well," he deadpans, "I have always thought I'd look quite nice with grey hair." Friz's ion rounds do have a greater impact on Persephone's concentration than the previous shots impacting it did: they fuzz the cockpit's viewscreens at the very least, forcing her to look around with her psychic senses instead. That's how she pinpoints Friz, despite all her cover, and telekinetically pulls her into the Queen in Veils' outstretched palm. She is held gently by those enormous white-plastic fingers, like a bug that I'd very much like not to crush. Persephone pops the hatch on the Queen's chest-cockpit to get a clear view again, and gives Friz a wave from barely ten feet away. "I'm really sorry about this!" she says, using actual words for once. You seem like someone I'd really like to get to know. Can we rain-check that for just five minutes, though? The Tidal Reactor is starting to shimmer, now, surrounded by a nimbus of warped crimson space. Its whining and rumbling is building to a crescendo. There's no way that it's not perilously close to achieving its aims. Before Ishirou can swoop in to physically sabotage it, Persephone pulls it to the side to look at him and address him directly. "I am the voice for the voiceless," she says with utter confidence. "It's always the wish of the powerful that things stay the way they are. And it's always the wish of the suffering that the world should change." "Look around you, Ishirou. They want to kill our dream; they want to do it with bullets, swords, and bombs. Those things always kill dreams, a hundred times out of a hundred. Except when I'm the dreamer. I'm the one unwanted child they couldn't shout over." "Do you want this to go the way it always does, where the people with more guns and the weight of the whole Earth behind them win absolutely? Or do you want it to go differently, for once, like I do? There is no middle ground." Then she holds the Tidal Reactor out to him, again, as if offering it. "I've looked into your heart. I know you're a good person. I know you understand. You don't have to do this." It is an expression of trust.
Ishirou	Damn...it can't be hacked? How do people create high-tech reality-changing machines that /can't be hacked/! Ishirou declares bullshit! Despite his incredible frustrating situation, two things happen in a short time that pushes Ishirou a little towards irrationality. 'That's idiotic,' and then Staren. He forces an energy sword to appear in his hand. If he can't hack it, then he'll 'hack' it the other way. He dives for it but thankfully /two/ other forces work on him. When he swings, Lilian speaks to him. Not at him, not calling his ideas idiotic, but addressing the problem with them. The contradiction in them. <Tac-Paladins> [4] Ishirou sighs, "I'm usually too busy trying to create a position of equity first..." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Lilian Rook says, "Except when it came to Indus? Right?" <Tac-Paladins> [4] Ishirou says, "...Yeah." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Lilian Rook says, "Because you lived there, so you understood already." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Lilian Rook says, "A million people told you that you were out of line, so you flipped the table." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Ishirou says, "...Oh." <7-MUSH-Discussion> D: Midway says, "It is But then Persephone follows it up with her bold declaration, as well as her trust. She holds the reactor out towards him. Right now he could destroy it, and crush this dream. He'll be declared a hero, he'll be lauded by a billion voices... But would it be better? The sword dissipates. His wish huh..? Well, then he decides to do just that. A wish for something. He wishes for a place big enough so that people can come together and discuss. Share ideas, and be able to express themselves without judgment, but as long as they can defend their ideas. A place the opposite of Indus. Because he realizes, that no matter how hard he tries... the scars are still there. He just sinks down after that. Tired, exhausted...
Darren	Does Darren mind taking over point defense? "We got you, blood. Do your thing." Not at all. Saucer and Slabb could use the help from Marc, anyway. Taking over on point defense, Darren brings out Nessie, the shelled plesiosaur, and Harry, the yeti. Where Marc solved the issue with precision, these three solve it with saturation--Nessie's ice beams freeze missiles and engines, while Harry's blizzard kicks up and makes flying a nightmare. Darren rounds it out, hammering on motivators of any ship that dares fly too close. Saucer, meanwhile, pummeled by the commander's commandeered mech, looses a resounding, warbling wail, the protective barrier from earlier finally breaking as the attack pierces through. Phony's ask for help over the radio, and Darren's shouted encouragement keep him in the fight despite the direct hit, holding on long enough to fling Slabb towards the commander. The stone pokemon is hurled so hard as to ignite the air around it, colliding with the ground before the commander and sending up a momentary sight-obstructing plume of lunar soil. It should be just enough for Marc to get in safe and do some damage. With sweat pouring down his temples and matting his tank top to his body, Darren thinks, fervently, about the kind of place he'd like to be. "I want... for this to be a place where people compete when they want to--not because they're forced to." He doesn't have the fine control that Marc does, and the effort is taxing him. But it's a good burn.
Staren	<"'Saving them from being dust'... tch, you really believe you're saving them, don't you..."> And then Staren stares as they reattach a working arm that way. What?! WHAT?! How is that possible?! Her weapon loadout betrays her -- The decision is made in an instant to block with the beam shield the shotgun is currently equipped in place of, and the weapon pod takes a couple of hits before she switches to evasive action, shooting another of the big fireballs at officer(?)'s feet to make them jump, flying towards them in a zig-zag to close the distance for her own melee weapon -- her sword is bigger, she has the reach advantage. But they're already ejecting. Staren whistles, impressed at Saucer's handiwork. <"Good work."> She also raises her eyebrows as she realizes what the officer just did. <"Ready for round two? I really am impressed..."> She sighs. <"You really are a determined hero, aren't you. What are we supposed to do with you. You don't deserve to be manipulated or crushed, but the people you think you're saving... they don't deserve to have their dreams crushed by yours, either."> Round two, fight! Staren dodges more, now, also using the now-ruined shotgun pod as a shield since it's been reduced to a big hunk of metal. Staren's mind hyperfocuses on the fight again. And she chooses... To skirmish and delay. She's focused on evading, even giving up ground, harrying with the railgun, not trying to do serious damage but to delay them. Either she and Dylan will buy Persephone enough time... Or the moment their focus is off her, she'll punish them with everything she's got. ...Persephone's voice pulls Staren out of it. She lands behind Dylan, turning, retracting the cockpit canopy armor (the 'glass' is still some ridiculously tough material) and looking up at the reactor. I want to see the world she creates. I want to know if in that world... I can be less of a disappointment. If I can be weak and fail sometimes and still be a hero. Staren lowers her gaze slightly, to the starry void. Ah, that's not what she meant. That's not a 'shape' of place at all. ...But I don't care what form it takes. I just... want it to be somewhere where the people the enemy hero believes they are fighting so hard to save can have their dreams come true. And where this determined warrior who fought so hard can be happy, too.
Friz	Moxie: WE'RE MOVING TOO MUCH NOW!! MOVING TOO MUCH!! Dirt: Hey, she's really pretty. Savvy: Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Dirt: No, hold on. Maybe we can throw her off by saying something charming. Savvy: I'm going to swap our fixations to the most miserable movie fixation I can find if you don't shut up. I'm not coming up with pickup lines for the cosmic apocalypse woman. Don't ask. Moxie: I'M GOING TO JUMP OUT OF THE PALM! Grit: Do not jump out of the palm. Dirt: I'm just saying, look at her! Really look. Moxie: THE PLUNGE IS LESS RISKY THAN THIS!! Grit: That's completely untrue. Stop. Savvy: We're not going to... no! Stop making an embarrassment of us! Moxie: JUMPING NOW!! Dirt: Look at her though. Grit: I'm turning the lungs up to maximum until you all shut up. Friz gently hyperventilates in the Queen in Veils' palm, making several noises that start out as words and fail. What a perilous situation. She manages to get a hand to adjust her glasses, and another to keep the gun trained on Persephone without firing. She can tell Ishirou is possibly going to soften the blow for this at least... Ishirou doesn't take his shot. She manages to turn towards Persephone, and wonders aloud, "Some kind of telepath, too...? This is... unreal." Dirt: Look at all the spared cockpits. Grit: It is the opposite of a graveyard. Savvy: What does that mean? Grit: It means what it means. She's the opposite of a gravedigger and the opposite of a soldier. Savvy: Not understanding. But okay. "I don't know... what you are. Were you being merciful? Are you always like that (and is it possible not to be)?" She doesn't even expect an answer, she's just thinking out loud. "Mercy from powerful people doesn't mean much." "It means we're not crunched into meat." "It doesn't mean much about them." "Why?" "Powerful people are powerful 'cause they can ignore you while they still hurt you. That's just one of the ways they are."
Lilian Rook	<Tac-Paladins> 4 Ishirou ughhhhhhh, "Oh my god is she going to do this again?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "You know, once upon a time, people wanted to go to the moon." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "They wanted to explore it. Build on it. Maybe even live on it." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "But once it stopped being about the process, and started being about whether the right or wrong people got there, representing the right or wrong causes, whether it was a sensible and profitable thing to do, nobody ever went back there again." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Why be that jealous over an airless rock? Why fight over a place that nobody wanted? We had every chance in the world to make the moon into whatever we could dream of, and we decided to abandon it." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Ishirou says, "Where does it stop? Now it's a airless rock. What about next time?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Ishirou says, "They chose to enforce their will over others, and when others say 'no' their vote is violence. That's not cooperation anymore than the six billion crushing down without hearing it out." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "They don't give a shit about the moon Ishirou, and they don't give a shit about the nine million people of Earth. They care that something that's 'theirs' is changing in a way that they don't understand. It's nice to talk about voices, but if they wanted to talk, there wouldn't be ships in bombing orbit right now." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "It's not about where it starts or stops. It's about the fact that they know they have all the power, and they made the calculated gamble that applying enough power would make the argument go away." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Ishirou says, "Then we force them both to the table." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "They gambled that beating it hard enough would turn it back to normal, and they lost. It was a solid bet, because that almost always works; you can always avoid the topic if you can yell loud and hit hard enough. They lost that bet because this is one of those very few dreams that isn't receptive to a beating." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Don't you want to see how it turns out too? Even a little?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Are you really that fixated on the rights of the many to not be told what to do by the underdog?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "This isn't about one Elite telling a city of people how they're allowed to live. This is about an entire planet lashing out at the indignity of seeing something green in the sky. Isn't it?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Ishirou says, "...are you sure?" <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "I'm sure about what I think the Paladins is. And I'm increasingly sure this isn't it." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "I'm sure that your biggest flaw is that you always want everyone to talk about their differences, to sit down and take turns speaking, listening and making logical sense, but you've never been able to recognize when one side is too loud. When a negotiating table is just one side's favoured terrain." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "If it's only fair when you talk then whoever talks the loudest is by definition always the fairest."
Lilian Rook	'Maybe it'd make me happy if you stopped, Lilian! Did you think about that?!' "It wouldn't though, you liar, so I won't. And you're being too precious with that bat. Once bitten, twice shy, from Dylan Cruise of all people?" 'You mean that I'm delicate' "I mean that you're not currently piloting a giant robot, so the idiot lizard parts of my brain are screaming that you're in terrible danger." Lilian deadpan snarks right back. "The better part knows that you all are, and Phony won't let it happen, as usual, and that makes me want to meddle even more. I wouldn't mind arguing with just her over it, just a little bit, but I'm the sort of girl who sees someone staggering around with a pile of books and starts sneaking them off the heap one by one, not adding more on." A brief pause. "And I'm certain you'd find a way to look infuriatingly good no matter what you did. It almost makes me a little envious." Lilian's eyes slide towards the Queen in Veils, and past it, in the direction of the Forgive-Me-Please. Her thinking is an open book. She is back in the Decompression Chamber, reminiscing on something. It has a humanoid shape, and a sense of titanic mass, but somehow even less than half, as if it were only real so long as everyone agrees it is. It is dark, but like shadows and outer space; the hardness of its skin is the moment of time in which it is given this shape; the only container that can hold it from moving an instant out of phase and disappearing into potential and story and feeling again. "Maybe I'm actually quite envious." murmurs Lilian. "I wonder how it feels to be that big? To be so loud and fight so hard, wearing the shape that suits you, and as long as you 'avoid the cockpit' at the end of the day it's all fine. I'm certain you'd look fantastic like that too, you know. Is it just too revealing for a formal occasion? I hate feeling this small between them all." Just one more beat. "Hold that thought." She disappears "Scratch that. Red." Lilian warps herself a mile off, broadcasting using the local beam all of a sudden. She's had plenty of time to gather data, and all the enemy mecha are the same. Armoured soles clank onto the outside of the enemy ace's hull, the woman herself clinging in their blind spot. Having seen the space Dylan avoids a hundred times now, Lilian precognitively calculates a single moment in time and fires a pencil-thin black-gold spatiotemporal seam straight through the cockpit from behind and above, sweeping the miniscule event horizon across the console controls like a high-energy scalpel. Having seen the ace eject once already, a sequence of muffled gunshots sound off from outside, as Lilian riding rodeo shoots the hatch releases all along one side. She jumps down to the beam rifle itself and plunges a sword through the finger joint on the trigger.
Lilian Rook	"Sorry to make this so unfair, pilot, but I'm voting no-confidence. Those nine billion people aren't afraid of a half a percent chance of something bad happening; if they were, they'd have done their research on what it could even be, and they'd have told you, and there'd be way more armed force here than just this. I'd wager that this is about less than a million people, and the guaranteed chance that this changes something they don't care about in a way they don't understand. This isn't a response to an existential threat, and I know what those look like, so aren't they just throwing everything considered expendable at a conflict that should be unpopular if anyone knew it? And doesn't that include you?" "The Twelfth Code. 'The many outweigh the few. The righteous outweigh the unjust.' Those two clauses are separate for a reason. 'More people' doesn't make a good any greater. Not in reality. It's embarrassing, to see nine billion act like the underdog, and hide behind someone like you telling you that you're on their side, pilot. Have a long think about it, in there." Lilian disappears one more time. This time it's because she's finally realized who that unknown Paladins-registered IFF is. She reappears where Phony and Friz are. "Ahaha, having a rough day?" she laughs, brushing lunar dust off her forearms. "Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook, Paladins Chevalier. I can explain more later, but running into a situation like this every once in a while is simply an occupational hazard." She makes her way over to openly offer Friz her hand, and an implicit out of her current predicament. "What do the Paladins mean to you? To me, we represent a dream that everyone should get to have. We're the manifestation of the human urge to look at the Multiverse that's just appeared all around them, vast and confusing, wondrous and terrifying, and to think 'We were doing alright before. We were getting better. I don't want this to change us. I want us to keep deciding who we are'. The Paladins are something that has to exist so that the Multiverse doesn't devolve into a handful of first-served demigods with fixations and vendettas, overwriting every story told by everyone, everywhere." "But once in a while, we get called into something like this. Isn't it embarrassing? People like us represent the dream of expanding everyone's horizons until the Multiverse is normal, rather than rewriting the Multiverse to make it normal as we see it. But when I look around at this, isn't it so obvious that the nine billion people of Earth could wipe this out in a heartbeat if they really wanted to? Isn't it ridiculous to believe that huge thing, looming in the sky over us right now, is the underdog here? Do they really need us protecting them? Or do they just want the new thing to go away without ever looking at it? To win the argument without arguing it." "The way I see it, these three are being hurt even as they're ignored, but those cockpits all contain people who weren't ignored even as they were hurt." "My wish for all this . . . well, I suppose I'm not hoping any ultimate truth prevails in the end and obliterates all other possibilities. If possible, I'd like them to coexist. The moon is a dead, empty place, so isn't that just naturally where new things people don't want on Earth should go instead of trying to erase them? If they're done with it, they should leave it alone. I wish everything nine billion people abandoned would get a turn too."
Persephone Kore	"Thanks, Darren. I'm trusting you," Marc says. He steps out of the circle and walks, unhurriedly, towards the valley. (That must be something he's picked up from Phony.) The officer's mecha muscles its way past Staren and the Forgive-Me-Please while sustaining heavy damage from the bat and the railgun both, then tries to lunge straight for Persephone. Slabb intervenes, slamming it into the canyon wall with enough force to crush its legs. "Red, red! Disengaging!" It barely scrambles away only by flaring its thrusters and going straight up above the monolith, then darting towards Persephone again- Marc stops it dead in its tracks with his telekinesis. It levels its beam rifle on him, and Dylan lunges from behind to twist its arm out of the way as it fires. Then Lilian is on it, carving up the controls and shooting out the hatch releases, and the gun goes silent permanently. "Khhhh. You don't know what you're doing either," the pilot says. They sound bitter. They sound scared. The moment in which Ishirou has his sword raised is the last moment in which anyone could stop it. He allows that moment to pass. There's enough time for Persephone to say: "Thank you, Ishirou. I really mean it. I won't let you down, okay? You've been a good boy." Then the world 'clicks', like the turning of a key in a lock. The red crackling around the Tidal Reactor expands. It washes over the Moon, over the 'night sky', over the fallen mechs and the ships above. "For this to be a place where people compete because they want to--not because they're forced to." "Share ideas, and be able to express themselves without judgement... A place the opposite of Indus." "Somewhere the people can have their dreams come true. And where this warrior can be happy, too." "I wish everything nine billion people abandoned would get a turn too." And I want it to be a place that makes me proud of the Project's work. Somewhere that makes it easier to believe that it really was worth it.
Persephone Kore	. . . The sky, and the stars beyond it, remain a slightly eerie red. To those who were there when Persephone was shot in the head and turned inside-out, this feels somewhat familiar. It is 'a cosmos of human love', where even if there is no air, space simply cares about you too much not to let you breathe. There is grass, and water, and flowers and lush fruit trees, but this extends out only irregularly, in patches and islands. Between them- where most of the surface of the Moon once was- is a great undifferentiated crimson sea, comforting and serene in its harmless vagueness. One of the fallen mecha pilots pops the lid on their cockpit and climbs out, timidly about to touch the ocean. Instead it shifts in response to their intention, becoming solid stone to stand on; then around them becoming a garden, with a hammock between two trees to rest in. And this is true for everyone else, too. Reshaping something already 'created' by someone else is difficult, but the crimson ocean can become any kind of space that the heart truly and simply wants. It is a little like a Decompression Chamber, sans the effects on one's own person, but without walls, real and solid. The looming ships are still above, up in the sky, but with Persephone's focus now freed up I gently put them back on Earth, and they are swiftly gone. The Queen in Veils sits down, cross-legged, conveying a serene exhaustion. Persephone climbs out of the cockpit, walks along its arm, and sits down sideways on the forearm with her legs hanging off, a few feet away from Friz. "Yeah. This is okay. I'm happy with this." "I'm Persephone. What's your name, Friz?" she says, holding out her hand to shake. "'What'... hm. I'm 'something humans aren't, but could be'. How's that?" Her smile makes it hard to be stressed for too much longer. It's beatific and serene; like the kind they draw saints having, but a little dumber. "I am always that gentle! It's important to be," she answers. Then, after a moment's sincere thought: "I think I could stop. But then I wouldn't be the same kind of person. Wouldn't that be sad?" She is happy to exist in companionable silence until she greets Lilian's arrival with a little cheerful wave. Then she turns to Friz, as if just noticing or just remembering something, and says: "But if you did come up with a pickup line, what would it sound like?" Just as Friz has gotten her bearings from that crushing blow, she adds: "Ahaha, and I think you're pretty too."
Staren	The enemy gets past her and Dylan. But that was within parameters; Staren expected that Persephone would be able to take getting shot once. The victory condition Staren could see a path to was one where the enemy only gets one shot. Darren and Lilian weren't even accounted for, and so the condition is exceeded -- one shot becomes none. The hero sounds so scared. I hope they'll be okay. And then it is time for wishes to become real. Staren looks up at a sky being covered in red. A sudden impulse drives her to open the canopy, take off her helmet, release her safety harness, and stand up and take a breath as she watches the world change.
Lilian Rook	"I don't know how it'll turn out, but I know what I'm doing, pilot. They're two different things, and I've found out that you can only really have one or the other. You can know or you can find out, but not both, like quantum positioning. Most people choose neither." "I am sorry, for what it's worth. It was patently obvious that these people were expecting you to carry them to victory. Being only so desirable enough to be someone throw away on something like this, but important enough to be given every responsibility that matches a reward you won't get. It's rough, isn't it?" "We can talk about it, if you want. Nobody turned to dust. Your job here is over." Lilian lowers her finger from her talkpiece and finds an elevated seat. She looks tired, even though she didn't ostensibly do much where anyone saw. Questions fly a back and forth over the radio in the period of quiet; about what this thing is, where it came from, and what Persephone thinks of it. "More importan than that--" Lilian says to Persephone. "--are you excited to do better?" A scandalously knowing stare drifts Frizwards. "Probably something about the vast impression of your orbital assets." she says.
Friz	"'Persephone'. Uh. I don't have legal rights to my name right now, but you can call me 'Friz'." She adjusts in the palm, going to sit on the side of the hand now. "Guess it would be sad if you weren't 'gentle'. I might be dead." A pickup line? "UH (um)." Dirt: Red alert. Savvy: No. Dirt: Come on! She's asking right now! Look! Someone has to answer! Moxie: I'll try! "Oh. Hey! (Uh.) I could. Be. Uh." Moxie: This is really difficult. Savvy: No shit. Anyway, that's going on the restless-sleepless thought playlist. Grit: No! Savvy: That's what you get. Thank god Lilian is here. She can take the heat off. Dirt: Okay, what about THIS one? Savvy: No. Shut up! She's talking about important stuff. Grit: Well I don't get it. Process it. Savvy: Alright, chief. Can I get everything about the Paladins, the whole file? Dirt: No. We were just running around, I don't want to dig up long-term memory. Friz is paralyzed by the question for a few seconds, looking anxious and uncertain. She has to take several long breaths. Grit: Just do it. I'm putting plenty of oxygen in. Dirt: I guess she talked with a calm tone of voice... Dirt: Alright, here. Savvy: Good. Now I'll get the facts out. "You're talking about those guys the Security Chief set me up with (those are you?) for the new moonlighting gig." She's cautious, but eventually calms more. "The Paladins are... accountable, responsible use of power. They're supposed to be individual power that still answers to people, and what people need, and the rules people made. The big guys and the little guys both, I think, and you weigh them through a lot of different scales." She looks a bit unsteady, pulling her cheeks back in a grimace. "So you're saying that Earthgov here was the ones weighed wrong. And their rules aren't worth as much as..." She adjusts her big round glasses and holsters her revolver. Savvy: Are the Earthgov guys wrong? Dirt: Biggest legitimate rulership legacy. Moxie: Abstaining! Grit: When was the last time core-world laws helped us? Savvy: Hmmm. So... "You're pulling the social machinery off the scale. You're weighing just raw accountable attention and nothing else. I think... that's right?" Friz seems internally conflicted. "I think that makes sense, then. Uh..." Savvy: Yeah, that's me out of steam. Get me coffee. Moxie: What? Goodness, we're in the middle of talking. Savvy: Don't care. Out of steam, get me caffeine. Dirt: None here. Savvy: Okay, well, then I'm done. We're not about to die anymore. Grit: We never were. "I think I need more time or coffee to process what you're saying." Is all Friz can muster, looking uneasily like she's struggling with an excuse. She looks to the pilots, the Earthgov forces. Grit: I'm elevating the heart rate until we find a way to ghost these guys. Moxie: Oh no, no, stop that! Grit: Then find a way to ghost them. Savvy: Again? Christ. "Can I get a ride out of here with you guys instead?" Is what Friz finally manages to say
Ishirou	Ishirou opens the front of his suit. He's wired in (though it doesn't look uncomfortable, just a cockpit) and looks over towards Persephone as she compliments him. There might be some redness in the cheeks. "Thanks...guess I just learned more about myself today. I trust you and Lilian..." As the world changes, he watches it in wonder. He, of course, can't help but to try and scan everything to understand it...that is because it's Ishirou, but he does approach the water first, jumping out of his flight suit to do so. "I think I second that swimming thought, Lilian."
Darren	Darren takes a breath. Space lets him. The blizzard dies down, chunks of hail breaking and melting upon grass that forms beneath Darren and his team. They regroup, return to the pokeballs that orbit their trainer's head--but he doesn't let them pass without praise for hard work well done. Pats, hugs, words of encouragement, given sincerely. Producing a towel from his drawstring backpack, he wipes the sweat from his brow and quietly catches his breath. He could fly, to go meet with Marc and Dylan--but he likes walking here. Likes seeing the crimson ocean turn to soft summer grass beneath his feet, as perfect for walking as for sitting or laying upon. The Forgive-Me-Please gets a telekinetic thump, and so too does Marc, Darren's way of offering post-fight congratulations. Rehydrating sports drinks are passed around, even one for Lilian if she'd like--one of them is emptied onto his head by Roswell. He laughs, dipping out of the way too late not to get splashed. As Roswell bleeps and flits around quite pleased with himself, Darren poses a question to them. "Ever heard of a Miracle Pass? It's a real long forward pass that's got a vanishingly low chance of completion," he says, sipping his blue-flavored sports drink. "You throw it and hope for a miracle." "Well... nobody'd talk about them if they didn't work from time to time," he says with a smile. "Sure looks like it's good to me," he says, arms wide, turning slowly to take everything in once again. "Feels good to score with seconds left on the board, huh?" Looking over towards Lilian, "Those moon runes came in clutch, Lil. Thank you--sincerely." There's a pause, then a sly smile pointed at Marc: "Hit me up if you're tryna get that point-after-touchdown."