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Metamorph One	As far as alerts go, this one is extremely unusual. Rather than limited to a specific region of a specific world because of a specific event, a slew of individualized crisis calls come up from an entire belt of regions clustered around the habitable peripheral of the soft expanse, filtered, categorized, combined, and relayed, by Sector Zero's expert non-partisan radio operators.     All are near identical, frantically relaying ongoing updates of a widespread 'incursion' of a nature that responders and locals both are at a loss to properly describe, but they are confidently able to say that a small number of the Expanse's border outposts and world-fragments have already disappeared, with their long term residents no longer responding.     The nearest to this particlar region of Sector Zero is holding the line two jumps from the first reported incursion point, having reported and responded quickly due to the density of Elites. The first is merely a dot on the endless soft white horizon --a black star in the sky-- but the second is more akin to the moon, and the blurry amber flicker of fire can be seen atop the five mile wide surface of the micro-island, reflected in the nearby vein of quicksilver. The picket is held at a crescent archipelago of similarly sized rocks strung together by a town-sized research outpost and its webbing of avant garde high-tensile engineering. Most of them are fragments of who knows which worlds, neatly sewn into the Superplanet somewhere else; bits and pieces of mountain an ocean and dark forest scattered like marbles in space.     The main battle appears to be taking place along a stretch of forlorn desert highland, easily the centerpiece of the cluster, a good fifty miles long, and directly beneath and front of the outpost, with a permanent elevator installation the size of a city block at its foot. Fine sand is already blown into artificial storm cover, curling around shallow crevice paths, short cliffs, windworn pillars of stone, and sensor and comms studs emplaced all around. A stream winds down the canyon center, looping around in on itself by unknown means, now running cyan, red, and slicky iridescent.     Given that there are next to no 'natives' in this region of the Multiverse, the area is already a frenzy of motley Elite combat operations, the last of the outposts non-security personnel already ascending the elevator to retreat behind ceramic titanium walls. Given the size of the island, the limited number of responders on the very edge of Sector Zero's center, and the need to spread to the flanking islands to contain the situation, the battle is more like a sequence of sporadic skirmishes, throwing up coruscating fireworks of magic lightning, crackling flashes of high explosives, and the streaking glare of energy beams, punctuated by the rattle of gunfire and the ringing clash of steel. One can drop in just about anywhere and be close to the action, or be just within earshot, where the line threatens to leak.     The action itself isn't all that incomprehensible. Largely because it's difficult to even tell what you're fighting. Mobile blots of red green blue static swarm over the dunes and rocky walls. Silhouettes like grossly stretched out humans crawl and leap at alarming pace on all fours. Jellyfish-like blobs swirl in flocks through the air and swoop down from above. Hulking hunch-shapes the size of elephants ponderously bulldoze through makeshift barricades and shrug off magical traps and remote turrets. All of them register on every kind of sense, yet not particularly as anything, and there are a lot more incoming, swarming along one of the quicksilver lines that runs just above the outpost.
John Doe	John just happened to be nearby, he's been deciding to take some 'tours' outside of Lampport to get to know the Multiverse better. Also, the Multiverse is far more interesting on average. His wide-brimmed hat and long overcoat protect him from the dusty roads and the sun. It was when he was getting ready to find some food, that he heard the calls for help, weird as they were. On the scene itself, John took a moment to try and figure out what was just going on...and honestly, it looked like an assault of the Loony Toons. No, this was as if the Loony Toons did nightmare fuel off Chucky's ass, he corrects himself. Leaping from his vantage point he crashes into the earth in front of one of the Hulking Hunched-Shapes the size of Elephants. "MAN IN THE IRON MASK, COME FORTH!" he shouts, as a figure rises behind him. Clad in chains and with a fluorescent mask covering his face. The only thing that can be seen are neon eyes behind the mask. John and Persona put their back on halting the one directly in their way first, before unleashing the walking prison around him. Things in the field would be slowed down by chains...figurative and literal. Those who are allies would find the chains creating areas of cover for them, and not restricted by the field of chains themselves. John himself is hard to look at for too long. He shouldn't be there, and it's almost like the eyes want to glide off of him. Trying to feel him simply reveals a hole where a person should be. Despite this, he's clearly /there/ despite all of this.
Kirishima	Kirishima is quick to respond to the crisis call out in this strange region of Sector Zero, having spent little time on actually reading up on what the area is like and more on just getting there as quickly as possible. After hearing of a pitched battle, what kind of self-respecting ninja could possibly hang back to gather intel in favor of charging the enemy ranks to bolster the defensive efforts? To her credit, reading up about such a sandy and windy area probably wouldn't have helped her much considering the thing she's looking at. Things? Kirishima truly looks baffled as she stares at the colorful blots of swarming static, mask pulled up over her face to keep the sand out while her scarf flaps dramatically in the desert winds behind her as she stands atop a ruined pole to really stand out like a proper stealthy ninja would. She's pretty sure they're things that look like people coming out of there. Jellyfish and elephants, too, but it doesn't quite look or feel right. Is she even sure she's seeing the other responders fighting anything, or are they just doing some kind of strange interpretive dance? Regardless of her misgivings, Kirishima clears her throat, clasps her hands together, then bellows out to the heavens and any who would listen (willingly or otherwise, because she's really loud about it). "Rally, brave warriors! You are not alone in this desperate struggle, and we shall repel this confusing invader through our unbreakable bonds!" Kirishima leaps from her perch towards the nearest source of swarming shapes, gliding forward with her arms and legs outstretched while the glider-y flaps on her ninja suit let her float forwards at a rapid pace. Once she's close-ish, she hurls down a wide swath of kunai to try and draw the attention of as many of those things as she can away from the outpost itself.
Kale Hearthward	PALADINS HQ, HANGAR 3 "Hey, got an escalated alert on the feed," calls Kale. "How's the East Wind looking?" "Loaded up, not unpacked, but ready to fly," says the teams' copilot/gunner/medic. "Should I get the deck cleared and the engines warmed up?" "Yeah - just get all the boxes shoved on there, and be ready on my signal. I'm going on ahead." --- "... What in the intercardinals..." mutters Kale as he actually reads the alert, mid-flight, after having merely skimmed it previously. "Disappeared?" And then he tries to make sense of the situation. Blots, shilouettes... He rubs his eyes. Something obscuring his senses? Or overloading them? First things first. If there's more of those things incoming, he should cut them off now, before he gets engaged by any of the forces. He draws his right hand sword, and breathes into the hilt, activating it, and speeds across the sky towards that quicksilver line. Kale flies across the line, perpendicular to it, and as he does so the sword leaves a solid trail, a set of afterimages cutting off the path the line makes - literally cutting off the path, as the afterimages are completely solid and very sharp.
Persephone Kore	If there are elevators going up, there must also be elevators going down, and I'm sure nobody will mind me taking one! The ride down is relaxed, though the action it overlooks is anything but. There may be music. Persephone taps her heel on the floor- clack, clack- not out of impatience, but just keeping a lazy rhythm.      Finally, the doors open at the bottom. A woman who is viscerally more real than real, as if everything around her were hollow and plastic, steps out. An aura of inexplicable, oppressive warmth and calm follows her.      Then it takes her a good thirty seconds extra to walk to the front lines. Please be patient!      "Does the Soft Expanse usually get these?" she wonders aloud on nearing the front lines, cupping her cheek with a hand. "They sort of remind you of something, don't they? I wonder if Arthur's around."      For now, any of the creatures that try to attack her despite the subduing aura are 'merely' rebuffed by telekinetic force, without a gesture or a glance, and typically hard enough to send them sailing through the air.      Her focus, for the moment, is on investigating the creatures rather than fighting them. Stories aren't real, but they almost are, and that's close enough for me to feel them! So, please tell me: why are you the way that you are?
Petra Soroka	The Ekanamsha hovers over the desert for long minutes after its arrival through the warpgate. The mech casts an ominous shadow over the battlefield, seeming to ponder where to land to cause the most damage. The steel frame glitters, but other than a slow, idle drift through the air, no activity can be seen from it.     Petra hunches over her compact mirror in the cockpit. Her eyes are bloodshot, she's putting concealer on to cover the dark spots beneath her eyes, and her hair can't possibly be brushed enough to hide the greasy shine in it. There's a couple boxes of empty TV dinners scattered on the floor. It's like a twitter pervert's ideal of a NEET girl. She's clearly been sleeping in her mech. "Why can't I be one of those Elites with those appearance altering things?" She whines to herself, snapping her mirror shut and shoving her handgun in the pocket of her overalls.     Finally, the mech starts to move, turning towards the hulking figure closest to the outpost. With a clumsy, stuttering decline, the Ekanamsha descends in that direction, slower than you'd think. Petra blushes at the controls, thinking of her crash into that building, before. She's actually just not very skilled at controlling its flight, which makes the memory doubly embarrassing.
S6	"What is it?" - MULTIPLE LIFEFORMS OF UNKNOWN MATTER COMPOSITION. - - A SAMPLE MAY BE BENEFICIAL FOR FURTHER ANALYSIS. -     "I see. Air superiority will be crucial." - THIS STRATEGIC APPROACH IS SOUND -     The jet-like LACA breaks off from escort position near the East Wind, banking into a fast, rolling dive. Tucked inside, the pilot glances up when Kale launches from the airship, then down at the blobular jellyfish-- things. S6's eyes dance across the HUD, linking targets. As soon as effective range is reached, the aircraft unleashes a burst of high-calibur autocannon rounds.     A robotic arm unfolds and sweeps forward. As the craft draws closer and pulls out of the dive, this extended arm ejects a lone blade of white energy, cleaving in a crescent arc while the LACA pulls away.     "Striker Six on station. Engaging enemy aerial units."
KNK	When there's an emergency, and you can't handle it yourself, and you can't get the training in time to make a difference, you look out and hire a contractor.     Mercenaries get paid because other people get surprised, and KNK are, among other things, a mercenary pair. Properly Syndicate-regsistered and advertised. Stabbing a few buttons with her fingers is all it takes for Rose to acquire promises of payment, salvage, and briefings. There are automated procedures for this sort of thing, or it'd never get done in time.     Not that the intel informs her of much. If she wasn't completely sure she could get herself and Violet away again under the cover of all the other responders, she'd have to pass this up. It's a nonsense battle of nonsense enemies from nonsense land. If she can't force things to make sense, she might have to retreat, anyway.     'Forcing things to make sense,' in this case, is done through rigorous application of purposefully shattering metal rounds launched at high velocity from well behind that forwardmost line, with the implication that 'it is sensible to break and die when I shoot you.'     Violet is making her way forward while invisibly tagging along behind others already joined to the defense, rather than even risk that she'll stand out, somehow, by standing invisibly but on her own.
Petra Soroka	<J-IC-Scene> Persephone Kore says, "'Ekanamsha'. Haha, I like that a lot! I'm Persephone, but you can call me Phony, okay?"     A new voice in the radio. Nothing special. Petra feels something weird, though. Like there's something she should know about that name.     There's a distortion in the corner of her vision, different from the static effect of these creatures. A dulling of intensity, like a smudge you can only see when there's a light shining through it. The world being cast into stark relief by something that makes it ashamed at how dull it is..     That name clicks in Petra's head, Persephone Kore, the star prodigy of Sapient heuristics. Somehow, she feels like she's in trouble. On her way to the principal's office. Petra's only ever heard of this girl, and the intensity with which she's talked about is... intimidating. With a queasy feeling in her stomach, the Ekanamsha tries to slowly, covertly angle its trajectory away from Phony.
Metamorph One	Diving immediately into the fray doesn't even seem to get an FoF check. Elites or not, those here already have their hands extremely full. Civilians showing up at this hour isn't really possible, the enemies are very distinct, and a rival third party would have nothing to gain; the scattered mages, soldiers, martial artists, and pilots of the nearest Warpgate areas simply accept arrivals with tensely preoccupied camaraderie.     John jumps right into the way of his chosen Big Brute. Despite appearing to be little more than a haze of white noise tinged in primary light-colours, the chains bend, rattle, and hold fast, sinking slightly below the surface of the fuzzy distortion as it runs up against them, as it were a tiny bit soft and yielding. After several seconds of struggling, the hulking aberration stops. A wavering blot of jittering white expands on in its front, vaguely reminding him of the opening of a maw. Something outside of his hearing range slams into his skull, vibrating his bones and organs whilst being 'inaudible'. The air ahead of him cracks like glass, then breaks, spraying him with razor sharp fragments of . . . thin air?     Petra lands on it immediately. The crushing weight of the Ekanamsha pulverizes it instaneously. Or, disperses it. It splatters like liquid, larger chunks rolling away weightlessly and unravelling. It'd seem that her plan actually went off without a hitch for once, but then she can hear her mech's suspension starting to groan under her. The monster, apparently insufficiently destroyed, is starting to reel its unwoven chunks back in, congealing back together in a mass of liquid TV static, threatening to topple the robot completely over and then trample it underfoot.     Kirishima hurling her kunai into a wave of crawlers somehow pins several of the creepily elongated critters to the ground, the blades sinking easily through their insubstantial bodies. This causes the rest of the wave to freeze, turn their thin, blobby heads towards her, and then start frenetically scrambling from every direction. Those that she'd pierced begin clawing at the ground and slowly wrenching themselves free, carving up their own bodies on the edges of the blades, but reforming slowly in its wake, as if they were made of thick tar. She is surrounded almost instantly. The crawlers lunge surprisingly fast and far, their arms even seeming to extend, getting deceptively sharp and slender fingers out like claws to puncture her flesh and drag her down to the ground. They feel feather light, yet paradoxically pull her as if they were made of lead.     S6 is immediately targeted in the air, being one of very few shapes in the combat zone anywhere above the ground. Her machine has no trouble locking onto the floaters' target signatures, but can't tell her what their emissions are. The autocannon rounds burst them like balloons, blowing them into little wisps of dissipating static, leaving behind only an eerie, echoing sound like a quiet scream. Those she cleaves with the blade, however, extend luminous white filaments from each half into the other, and 'sew' themselves back together. She is soon being chased from multiple angles, the floaters forming swirling columns that move like schools of feeding fish, clustering in around her machine and trying to entangle it completely in their flickering white tendrils, all of which radiate so much heat that they're like throwing copper balls into a power line.
Persephone Kore	Unfortunately, at that moment, Persephone is admiring the gamer NEET's mecha. The changing tack does not go unnoticed.      "Oh no! Petra, I think you're going a little off-course. Let me help!"      A gentle, ominously vast telekinetic force tries to steer the Ekanamsha back onto its prior course. It's liable to creak and groan like a ship in a storm- but, a little alarmed by its inertial resistance, Persephone seems to give up.      And then she rotates the entire five-mile-wide floating island slightly to correct Petra's heading instead.      "There you go! All better."
Metamorph One	Kale swooping out to one of the famous quicksilver threads of the Soft Expanse simply arrives too fast to be meaningfully accosted, simply able to flow right through the scattered floaters in his way, and leave the rest converging in his wake as he chases them. Circling around the thread a few times in a spiral thick enough to fully block it only takes a few seconds, but the sheer density of enemies already on it makes it a precocious maneuver; crawlers lunge out of his bling spots, floaters dive on him from above with lashing streamers of white heat, hulkers blast him with columns of shattered air. The wall her forms is more than sufficient to dice the influx of monsters to pieces, but it's a heavy slowing measure in the end; they're chopped to bits, a little bit of them falls through, that part gradually reforms and drags the rest behind it, it's chopped to bits again, repeat over and over.     Violet is able to enter deep into the wobbling battle line without notice. Landing very close to one of the creatures gets it attention, but they only stare and swarm around in confusion, unable to see through her camouflage, apparently as visually inclined as human beings despite lacking eyes. Rose is similarly at ease to work, being a sniper and all. Her targets tend to move in straight lines, predictably and aggressively attempting to break through to the outpost, over and over again. Her fragmenting rounds seem to cause the equivalent of massive internal trauma, carving out so much of their insides that the monsters tend to collapse into flickering puddles, and take a while to start moving again. It's becoming apparent why a few dozen Elites are struggling to push them back now.     Persephone has little difficulty hurling the tide back away from her location. They slide off and peel themselves back up where they splatter on the rocks, creepily near to 'cartoon-like', but they're clearly struggling to comprehend that they can't get close to her, running into her field of control over and over again like wasps smashing against a windowpane. Examining them is a different story.     Namely, somehow, some way, they don't appear to have their own stories. Rather, each of them has just a little bit of an uncountable myriad of stories, each one an incomprehensible collection of thousands, millions of little narrative moments that pass by too quickly to individually see. It's like trying to count drops of water in a waterfall as it streams past. Oddly, it doesn't feel overwhelming, like she has to shut it off. The opposite. It's sort of soothing, in the way that seeing an Earthrise from the moon is.
John Doe	John faces down the large anomaly, the thing defies reality itself, it looks like. However, despite all of this, the chains seem to take hold. So that's good, he can hit them and affect them. However, when it stops he pauses, standing up fully to see what it was doing. Maybe it was going to communicate..? Nope, it literally shatters and blows sharp bits of /air/ into him. Thankfully, John and Persona are made of tough stuff. Small bits of 'air' cut his skin, some even imbed themselves in him, but he's tough enough to take it, as one might a lot of bugs crawling on him and biting. Annoying, itchy, and thankfully covering his vitals so he doesn't take anything too bad. John cracks his neck. "Alright fine. Iron Mask!" he shouts again, as the Persona and user punch the thing together, aiming to try and send it back, while also repeatedly hammering it with his fist. The chains will move as it does, trying to keep it nice and secure. "If I gotta beat you into non-existence again, I will."
Kirishima	The first volley works, and Kirsihima lands dead smack in the middle of so many critters in the classic three-point pose, complete with her index and middle fingers held together behind her. Looking up with another excessive flap of her scraf, she tries to distract herself from her flub over the radio by focusing instead on all those strange things trying to claw and impale her from so many directions at once. "Have at you, confounding... You!" Although she can make out those shapes in the broadest sense, the blobs are still confusing-looking blobs to the pseudo-ninja boat. She parries their oncoming thrusts as best she can, whipping out a long knifes to slice at claws while using the protective bracer on the back of her other wrist to shove others away before striking the crawlers with heavy backhands. On one hand, at least she's getting their attention like she planned. On the other hand, there's a lot of them, and even trying to evade so many of their attacks is going to put her on the back foot if she's not careful. Thus, instead of trying to just slowly whittle away at them, Kirishima throws her knife into the crowd before doing a single backflip and remaining right where she is, letting those creatures swarm around her. Or, she sort of lets them and sort of falls right into the mass, since her footing fumbles slightly with the island getting nudged at just the right/wrong moment. It's not a huge problem for her despite getting dragged down by their impossibly weighty-limbs, though, as the ninja slams her palms together and starts twisting her fingers into a rapid array of hand seals that are most certainly ninja-moves. "Fire Sealing Talisman, Array Number Eighty Nine! Raging flames of the abyss, devour my foes and char their ethereal forms!" With her hand seals complete, Kirishima flings out an array of talismans (that are most certainly not just explosives) around herself as she's getting surrounded, then detonates them all in a massive plume of fire that all but obscures sight of her for at least a few moments.
Kale Hearthward	Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Kale darts in and out around the... things, as much as he dares as he winds his blade trail around. Ultimately, when it turns out to be a slowing measure, he switches tactics - falling back to the other side of his blade trail, the side they're slicing themselves up to get across, and tries to find a spot on the ribbon with enough breathing room. Literally. Kale breathes in, and in, taking an impossibly deep breath... and then lets it out, forcefully. A massive, continuous cone of wind blasts out, pushing the monsters back- - ideally pushing them all the way back into his blade wall, cutting them up a second time.
S6	The autocannon did good work; but the energy sword was only a temporary inconvenience. S6 notes this internally, glancing at her rear-facing camera as the abberations stitch themselves back together. She already supposes what the problem could be, whether it was the Energy or the Blade part of her energy blade.     The LACA has already been identified as a Target though, and as staticky glitches ensnare the vehicle in white-hot tendrils, she throws her flight armor into a roll. Something clicks loudly and one of the autocannons ejects out of the hull, tumbling until it suddenly catches-- held fast by a ring of golden runes. - TARGET SET. COMMENCE DEFOULING OPERATION. -     This free-floating cannon opens fire, picking off targets that hinder the LACA the most. Once its other robotic arm is free, the armor extends its other autocannon, contributing additional firepower, sections of armor glowing an angry orange-red.
Persephone Kore	Persephone seems more-than-briefly enthralled by what she sees in their narrative residue. Whatever it is, it's enough that when she rouses herself again, she takes special care to grab and condense a fist-sized blob of red static from the next one she splatters. It'll be a nice keepsake, like a psychic lava lamp.      "You're really sort of beautiful, you know," she says. "Now that you've shown me that, I almost don't want to fight you! But I can't let you hurt these people either. So..."      She shuts her eyes and exhales, and the aura of psychic warmth surrounding her becomes crushing. It's more powerful closer to me, as if it were some celestial phenomenon subject to the inverse-square law, but those for a very respectable radius around have the will to fight simply sapped out of them.      Then she pats one of the smaller ones on the head. They look really soft, that's all!      Off in the distance, Kirishima's carnage is ongoing. Phony waves at her with the free, non-petting hand. "You're doing great, Kiri! Keep it up! I believe in you!"
Petra Soroka	"Oh no! Petra, I think you're going a little off-course. Let me help!"     The Ekanamsha shudders in the air, and Petra grasps at the controls in a panic, thinking she must've hit the wrong button, or somehow stalled the engine. Then, the wind rushes around her as the entire island shifts to meet her just as she reaches the ground. The impact is unexpected, metal legs braced improperly--though, there was no guarantee it would've been a smooth landing even without the interference. Sand is whipped into a frenzy by still-roaring engines, and the mech stumbles into the sand, only propped up by the bits of creature squirming to reform itself.     Persephone... is really terrifying. Petra shudders. She feels like a toy that just got tossed around during a rough playtime. If even half of the stuff she's heard about her is true, and that little stunt is making her more willing to believe it, then Petra needs to walk carefully around Persephone. She's sort of a deserter, after all.     The static starts blurring back together. "What the hell are these things? They're insubstantial, but they don't seem to be staying down!" Petra just starts blasting the biggest pieces with her cannon. It'll scatter them at least. The huge explosions happening in front of John's face have to be unpleasant, though, and he's bombarded with waves of heat and sand if he stays close.
KNK	While Rose if firmly situated, Violet is light on her feet, and lightly making her way forward when the island suddenly, inexplicably, shifts underneath her. Taken unawares, she topples, though her camouflage remains intact. That's good, because she's surrounded by crawling, vaguely human shapes. If she stayed there long enough, they might crawl right over her -- which would probably be very bad.     Shifting her focus over in that direction, tight-beam communication continuing to inform her of exactly where Violet is, Rose takes aim, and bursts apart what would be spinal columns, if she was fighting proper creatures. The soft outer shell of every round maintains its aerodynamic form, but flattens on impact, pushed through the target more by the momentum of the dense core. The result is a distinctly anti-personnel damage profile, and her choice of munition is partially vindicated by how little the opposing force has in the way of hard vitals.     "'Soft Expanse.' Didn't have to be literal, did it?"     Violet doesn't need to get to her feet. She can move uncannily quickly on hands and knees, and with her cloak active, no one should be able to see how weird that looks.     Seeing everything around get cut into progressively smaller pieces from a glowing arc, bright enough to trail through the air, is easy, by comparison.     "Heat's too risky. They might just eat it up. Put 'em on ice while they're down."     Obeying the orders muttered over her radio, Violet opens up her arms, finally (visually) appearing on the field in the middle of a ninja handseal that incidentally deposits the mini-grenades from her hidden arm chambers (the synth-skin panels dropping seamlessly back into place) and into her palms. She leaps back out of the area while spreading her mystery explosives behind her, small and quick enough to be barely noticed.     The following handseal, as she makes her way toward the next batch of enemies, incidentally pushes the detonator hidden in her thumb. Each grenade bursts into chemically laden shrapnel, covering the area with quick-forming ice in a violently endothermic reaction.
Metamorph One	Holding down the brute-type with all of John's focused attention is straining, but not difficult. Soon, the wobbling mass is lashed down tight, 'only' able to lash out at him with hefty pseudopods of semi-solid static-mass that cause the air to crack and crumble explosively where they land.     Trying to punch it to death, however, feels almost like a futile effort. It was already large enough that his focused strikes can only damage a minority of it at once. The intensity is enough to cause it to 'boil', gushing tri-colour steam from its wounds, but he's only beating it down a bit faster than it regenerates. It takes Petra's cannon --several shots of it-- into the monster's softened mass to fully blow it away, each deafening shellburst scattering vast, paint-like clouds high up into the air, until a puddle a tenth of its original size fizzles and boils away into nothing.     Kirishima is immediately better off for using her 'fire ninjutsu'. The lead crawlers in a circular wave all around her are vapourized; blown to tatters by the high explosives and leaving behind only plumes of red(greenblue) mist. She has barely a second to catch her breath before floaters swarm down on high, seemingly drawn by the loud noise, leaving her surrounded and under attack from the sides and from above.     For their pretentions at tentacles, the floaters aren't very sticky, and don't adhere well to S6's flight frame, sliding off with the slough of molten metal and tumbling through the air in uncontrolled drifts that make them easy pickings for the remote autocannon to scythe down. It is then mobbed in moments, as a tendril of the school mindlessly swarms in on the fire and noise and glues itself to the lonely cannon like an anti-hornet death ball. Another giant below, surrounded by a parting wave of crawlers, tilts up at her, clambering partly on top of a rock formation and opening its white core wide to fire at her.     They seem to have no such defense against Violet's grenades. The clatter of the grenades catches the attention of the floaters, being apparently the more sensitive to sound, but are ignored by an entire blanket of crawlers, which attempt to plough right through them until their hands freeze to the sand and come off at the wrist, leaving them to collapse and writhe as the ice claims them. Following sniper shots that shatter them to pieces cause the still-buzzing static to fizzle down and quietly pop out of existence from within the ice.     Kale is doing an admirable job holding the tide. A sustained hurricane blast is enough to launch the zombie-like horde of semi-blended monsters right back through the fan blades again, causing the remains to splash against the rows behind them, briefly toppling them back. To his optional horror, what doesn't boil away, diced to pieces too small to recover, is soaked into some of the second row as if by a sponge. Dozens of crawling shapes engorge in the spray, pressing together from their size, and then fusing into one. Shortly, a handful of humanoid giants, stooped and lanky and fifty meters tall, are simply stepping right over his blade wall, causing the ground to shudder under their kaiju-esque gait as they head right for the outpost. The first few fireballs and sniper rounds from afar blow up against their backs, to little effect.
Metamorph One	It isn't much later that your local wideband fizzle-pops with a spike of intrusive electronic noise, which goes out a split second later. A moment after, a voice speaks directly into your head. For an instant, there is the dread expectation that it'll be some horrifying cosmic noise from the assailing aberrations, but instead, it turns out to a woman's voice, clear, soft and brisk, speaking audible words that sound like Esperanto.     "Welcome to the battlefield! Your assistance is greatly appreciated. I am the acting battlefield operator of this theatre for the time being, call station: Ghost Light. I have confirmed your positions and am coordinating with earlier responders as we speak. Stand by for support!"     If you care to look, just past the swirling streams of invading floaters, you can spot soft, starlight glimmers in the sky, nearly invisible against the Soft Expanse's white backdrop, save for their pale blue tint. Not long after, things begin to change.     John gets a radio ping from someone over the next hill; a confirmation of his location. Three different magical circles open above and below him, and power courses through his limbs, the world seems to slow down around him, and his fists burst into cold magical flame. Kirishima is exposed to the skylight again when she gets a 'danger close!' warning from afar, and twin blasts of chain lightning fork overhead, beneath a carpet of crackling bomblets, obliterating a canopy of floaters above her and punching a hole through which she can escape.     S6's radar pings friendly beacons, and within seconds, a ring of friendly-marked drones form up in an orbit around her, several of them fixing to her frame and rapidly reconstructing it with nanotorches, others getting in front of her and throwing up hexagonal energy screens to protect her from ground fire. Targeting telemetry is beamed right over to Petra, and a floating mirror appears in the corner of her camera field, giving her visual by means of scrying, allowing her to spot fire on the positions other Elites are requesting; similar data is then pinged back to S6 requesting strafing runs down the canyons.         Kale is hailed with a different voice; firm and sharp, commanding him with a certain level of purring vocal fry to "Push it back towards the wire. One at a time. Lead first. Crosswind at the junction point with solid ground. You can do that, right?" Not long after, the lead kaiju is struck dead with a volley of glittering stars, and then consumed in multiple simultaneous cross-explosions, flattening the sand in the immediate vicinity and blowing back his feathers with the shockwave.     The giant monster rocks backwards on its heals, massive holes punched through its torso. Hitting it with strong enough wind magic could easily push it back towards the giant quicksilver cable, though the request for a crosswind isn't entirely clear until a blue-white streak pierces its leg so quickly that the sound takes forever to catch up, making it list over. Given its sheer size there's plenty of surface to blast with a breath attack, easily pushing it into the abyss. There's just the matter of whether he can repeat this several times.
Metamorph One	Persephone is alone in her ocean of calm, yet somehow the unbreakble vanguard of the picket line, bogarting the elevator so that the trickle of enemies that slip through can only run into her. Her gravity causes the floaters to tumble out of the air like leaves, flattening crawlers as they approach her and even causing the brutes to list and tumble over with deafening crashes after trudging on for a little while.     What happens as a result of her 'defusing aura' is different. Before her very eyes, the red component of their RGB static bleeds out of their forms, leaving them only flickering between shades of blue and green, leaving colourless white light where the missing colour had been. When the red bleeds out of them, they collapse entirely, going inert, and gradually seem to 'condense' down. Simmering into something thick and solid and substantial. A handful of what look like beautiful green and blue marbles each.
John Doe	John punches again and again, but he's just barely keeping it from healing. This was going to take too long...and either he was going to run out of energy, or it was going to run out of life. He wasn't going to take bets on himself...it seemed to have a lot more life than he had the energy to go on. Thankfully, however, Petra's well-timed shot hits it, exploding it, and forcing John and Iron Mask back. However, he gets the message. The magical circles from above and below him channel energy into his fists, and he stares at them for a minute. "Hoo? Thanks for the help. Now.." he says, turning towards the invading army. He steps forward, the ground cracking beneath his feet. He's motivated now. He leaps, aiming to clear land, and jumps in the middle of what's coming. The chains whip out from everywhere around him. Trying to tie down, and up as much as he can. John goes to town, punching what he can, while his Persona's chains strike at what isn't at arm's length. All ending with the Persona flying into the air. "GOD'S FIST!" he shouts, as a giant golden fist comes out of the sky, aiming to punch and smash anything below it...before turning back into his Persona.
Petra Soroka	Oh. It's just fire and overwhelming force that kills them? That's easy, Petra was expecting something more conceptual. She turns her cannon to the newly formed giants threatening Kale. If that's all it takes, then I can just go all out!     Ghost Light's voice calls into Petra's head. She jumps up from her seat at the shock of it, bonking her head on the ceiling and falling back down. *Elara?* Um, um, um. Petra looks around in a panic, heart thumping wildly. Was this a gathering for every mech pilot in the multiverse? If Elara's here, Dianna's also probably here! Petra isn't sure how to process that, a stream of incoherent thoughts flooding her brain. Mostly excitement, at the thought of fighting beside them. Wouldn't that be so cool, finally fighting alongside her idols? Equals on the battlefield?     In typical Petra fashion, this overload of thinking leaves her mech sitting silently, not moving or firing.
KNK	Rose is, of course, immediately suspicious of anyone who wants to know her location, regardless of the reason. She has never used a smartphone without rooting it. Not since the incident, anyway.     Once she gets a location, she sticks down a tripod covered in a mess of sensor and communication equipment, trots away from it, and then keys it to relay between her and wherever Severance is reportedly located. After that, the relay automatically tracks and updates, without making it necessary to reveal where she is in relation to it. She's 'close enough.'     Violet is a different story. Through the relative security of tight-beam communication, Rose lets Metamorph One know where the frontline ninja is located, as Violet slips in and out of invisibility (more in than out), using blades and a dwindling supply of cryo-grenades to fight.
Kale Hearthward	The one-two of the blade wall and the air blast is working well. Kale is ready to keep it up for however long it's needed - the blade wall should stay up a good long while, and he has enough stamina to last... ... Against the small ones, anyway. The giants are... a different story. Kale Hearthward is not without options, even then - there's a certain combat trick he's kept in his back pocket. Gobo's 'second gear' form, which would give him a weapon he can fight giants with on even ground - one giant at a time, though, and there's more than one coming in. > "Push it back towards the wire. One at a time. Lead first. Crosswind at the junction point with solid ground. You can do that, right?" Kale's first reaction is to bristle slightly. Some unknown voice, giving him orders? But - almost immediately, another mental subroutine kicks in, as his recent training comes to the rescue - coincidentally, that training being his rescue training. One does not argue back with an operator in a crisis situation - if you've got a problem, take it up later, during the debrief. "Copy that, Ghost Light." The closest one gets targeted first, a focused blast of air aimed to push it back and over - and then the crosswind, as requested. His faith gets rewarded. One down. Now - can Kale keep this up for several more times, while still aiming and dodging? That's trickier. <"Ghost Light, this is East-1, on direct approach to Hearthward."> "Warm up Breathlink, and prepare the main cannon," calls Kale into his radio, pulling back momentarily. "Ghost Light, hold on the next target for fifteen seconds." Kale flies up and backwards - and via much practice beforehand, lands smoothly on top of his incoming VTOL without needing to look at it. "Slotting in," he says, taking another two steps backwards, each step placing one of his boots into slots on the roof of the East Wind, where mechanisms clamp them into place. "Docking confirmed - breathprint authenticated. Sylphian Drive is running." "Center Stage circuit on. Switching to Breathlink inflow in three, two..." A stream of sparkling air flows from Kale's beak, getting sucked in by vents on the roof of the craft. "We're good. Go," he says, a little bit labored. "Boots-1 vitals confirmed stable. Routing Breathlink power to main cannon and spell-weaving circuits, and starting assault." A much stronger blast of air erupts from the cannon at the nose of the craft - and more precisely aimed, with actual firing controls instead of Kale firing from the ~~hip~~ beak. And with his crew handling aiming and dodging, he's freed up to put all of his focus on giant-toppling power.
Kirishima	'You're doing great, Kiri! Keep it up! I believe in you!' Even though Persephone's a member of the Concord, Kirishima still can't help but feel a bit of pride swelling up at being acknowledged by one of Lilian's nemeses. "Did you have any doubts? It will take more than a mere swarm of otherworldly beasts and point blank explosions to put down a battleship!" Said point blank explosions seem to work rather well against the crawlers, even, as they leave that mysterious mist behind that she only needs a moment to remind herself not to try and sniff it out. There's little time for her to do that even if she wanted to, though, as the floaters start coming towards her this time around, forcing the ninja back on the move so as to not get tied up by their masses of tentacles. "So many of these wretched things! But no matter... The purging flames shall make short work of them!" She shouts in defiance even as she thrashes about to try and get her hands free, noticing that they're actually moving towards the fire and noise from S6 rather than away. Taking that as a sign that her own flames might not actually work, she puts more of her back into swinging them around by those same tentacles. It's then that her radio comes back to life with another unfamiliar sound, but it's coming from a voice rather than just the strange noises of the many creatures she still can't fully comprehend. "Support...? Understood! We shall hold the line and prevent them from encroaching further upon these barren lands!" Rejuvenated, Kirishima sees the light coming from above and warning following it, and that's her cue to... Do something. In this case, doing something means hurling those floaters into the path of those chain lightning blasts. The opening is created when they get blasted apart, and Kirishima executes another sick series of backflips in one massive leap out through the gap with a loud kiai to emphasize how big that jump is. Once she's out of that death enclosure, Kirishima finally gets to turn the tables on those things she doesn't quite have an answer for with mere explosions. "Ghostlight! Can you do that lightning thing one more time? I will prepare their death warrants for you!" Sadly, her first plan is a no go, but Violet's results with the cryo grenades gives her another idea. Bringing out a kusarigama, Kirishima starts spinning the weighted end of her chain sickle weapon rapidly while sprinting around the mass of tentacled things. She starts whipping it back and forth into their ranks while leaping and sprinting from place to place, never staying still long enough or staying visible for more than a few seconds at a time to let herself get surrounded again. She's not doing it to strike the creatures directly, though, but to get the chain and those tentacles tangled up. She doesn't stop with just one chain, of course, since it'd probably only be enough to tie a few together at most. Instead, when one length of chain is all but taut, she takes out another to attach it to the original hastily before getting right back to whipping another end in. She keeps doing this at a rapid clip, trying to connect all those tentacled floaters together in a massive steel net before tightening the whole thing to force them into groups ideal for catching with Violet's grenades.
S6	The LACA has definitely seen better days, clearing itself of floating--things. Doing so costs S6 one of the autocannons though, as more of them swarm the weapon and add to her dataset on how the enemy behaves. Sound, then? Or was it heat from the muzzle flare? - ALERT -     She glances down to the side, yanking her flight armor into a roll. Mid-roll, the vehicle converts from its jet form into something more humanoid with long, lanky arms and legs, its pilot tucked in the center of the torso, somewhat visible with silver hair and a black combat visor. Twisting, she thrusts one arm forward, unfurling a focusing lens to unleash a bolt of gold-tinged light straight at the exposed 'core' aiming at her. - INCOMING NON-HOSTILE -     As the beam peters out, S6 recoils, folding away the sizzling beam emitter back into the LACA's forearm while drones alight on her machine's hull. Her eyes glance to the integrity readout when it begins increasing again, then to the other side when new combat maneuvers are requested. After a moment, she nods once, glancing up, "Pod." - FLIGHT PATH HAS ALREADY BEEN CALCULATED -     "Alright," S6's nod was probably unnecessary, there. The LACA rolls into a twisting motion, converting back into its jet form and accelerating rapidly to top speed, accompanied by shield and repair drones. The autocannon unfurls on its robot arm, firing down at an angle while maneuvering through the canyons. Missing its second gun, though, the other arm makes use of the laser in short, sweeping arcs.
Persephone Kore	"Hi, Ghost Light! That was incredible! I feel like I'll love getting to know you." Persephone, improbably, has flawless Esperanto too. Her psychic response is a 'reply all', either on accident or on purpose. It feels like being engulfed. "Oh, this is Phony speaking! How can I help?"      In the meantime, she's entertaining herself by telekinetically scooping up those marbles, getting a good close marveling look at several of them, and then letting them orbit around her like a hundred tiny moons as she starts walking towards the fore again.      There isn't much, really, that she needs to do to keep being a reasonable contribution to the cause. The monsters will keep running towards her and they'll keep getting the red sucked out of them unless they get a whole lot smarter really quick. So while she's on the front lines, she makes her way over to the Kana and waves girlishly at Petra through whatever visual sensors or apertures it has. "You're doing great too, Petra!"      Horrifying.      Reading Petra's mind hadn't gone well. But she said 'not to worry about it', which means it's basically okay, right? So, it's time to take a different approach to learning more about her new second-favorite mecha pilot: psychometrically sifting through the narrative residue of Petra's past.      Nothing is spoken, nothing is transmitted. But if the question Persephone is asking of the world were put in words, it might sound like: Petra, why are you the way that you are?
KNK	While Rose is busy setting up lines of secure communication, processing telemetry, and picking nasty things to launch at high velocity into her enemies, Violet is being distracted by thoughts of what to name her ice attacks. Even more unfortunately, there's no time for that, since Kirishima's managed to get a whole bunch of the weirdly squishy enemies into one place.     Very fortunately, Violet is very, very fast. Already having confirmation from Rose, and knowing where to go, she puts her feet to the ground and leans in, before she--                 --entirely disappears from view, roughing up the desert ground beneath her, clouds of dust marking her passage. Machine precision is the easiest answer for how someone could remain upright at the end of that, or perform at all, but one might argue the upper limits of reflex.     She has to slow down to aim her throw, landing the last of her cryo-fragmentary supply into the mass that Kirishima's prepared for her. At full speed, it would break before exploding. Again, the ending handseal triggers the detonator, timed for just before impact, spreading tiny spikes and hyperefficient chemical reactions throughout the target area.
Metamorph One	Now able to jump right into the fray with massively amplified destructive ability, John gets an appreciate of just how perfectly chosen his slew of buffs is. With his chains able to lash down wide swathes of enemies, and his attacks now able to completely flatten them from above and plough through them on the ground, controlling an entire sector of the dunes is well within his reach, with his enemies slowed and his feet sped. It feels like someone chose exactly those buffs after just a glance at his fighting style.     Rose, if she can visually see her relay, witnesses a number of door-sized 'pods' drop straight out of the sky, firing retro-thrusters just before crashing into the ground in reasonably close proximity to it. Each of them pops folding hatches, pneumatic arms offering a selection of rockets, disposable missiles, danger warning marked rifle rounds, and a portable target designator. A number of spider-like devices fall around it next, causing the entire area to shimmer out of existence, cutting off sound, sight, and her radio link to it. It probably would have been really helpful if she gave her own coordinates, though nothing is stopping her from running into the camo field, probably.     Kirishima takes her opening, and finds her steel cable is more or less good enough for the job, even if it isn't John's chains. The floaters make a nice bunch for Violet to efficiently dump the last of her grenades on. The supercooling immediately prevents their tentacles from simply melting right through the wire, and rapidly weld the heap's exterior together with solid ice, though it bafflingly continues to float despite being fused solid. Violet relaying her position honestly is rewarded with the smoky sound of "Heads down girls." and a road of wind tearing through her hair and clothes, the actual round passing overhead only noticeable afterward by the spray of ice vapour and the crackle of ozone.     Shortly thereafter, something else blazes by. Perhaps four meters tall, and heavy enough to displace its own gale at that speed. A machine, skating by on the loose sand on four widely splayed legs, with a smooth, stark white shell streaked with angular lines of vivid orange. Green optics leave a light trail as it half-circles around the two kunoichi, with a streaking light turning the opposite way on its sleek sharp-angled tank turret, bisected down its flattened hexagonal barrel.     The entire machine rocks back with the blast of its cannon firing, over towards the quicksilver road, countered by a blast of blue rocket thrust from its back. A pair of seamlessly recessed ball turrets swivel in the direction of the straggling crawlers, mowing them down with a hail of bullets fired with rapid magnetic chirps and hums. The words "Hop on." come through external speakers this time, giving them a few seconds to find purchase on its back before its legs churn up the sand and it rockets back towards the frontline.     S6 finds that the re-tasked drones are more than capable of shielding her from her flight hazards. The drones don't seem to fly on their own, but anchor to her gravitationally, mean they move at her same blistering speed, and their hexagonal barriers cause enemies to splatter against them. Diving low, she finds a powersuited soldier and a lavishly armoured hammer-wielding Paladin pinned down on the gorge by brutes, whilst the tide of crawlers advances on them. All funneled into the narrow canyon, her autocannon tears through scores of the things, and sends the brutes to their knees from beam fire slicing down their backs from tip to end. The two Elites salute towards her, then jump out from behind cover, laying down impressive fire with a recoilless rocket rifle and a blast of divine thunder.
Metamorph One	Kale's plan works perfectly. The amplified stream from his aircraft slams not just one, but several of the kaiju at once, sending them tumbling from the frictionless up-surface of the quicksilver line, and falling forever into the white void. From what registers as several kilometers away, another shot airbursts in front of one flank of kaiju, the strategic-grade explosive knocking them back into his wind tunnel, then the other flank. Soon enough, there's nowhere for the reinforcements to go between his blade wall and his slipstream.     John is likely able to tear his way up to the front all on his own, whilst any riders aboard the stranger's mech --no, the IFF is marked Metamorph One-- allow them to push through unimpeded, a surprisingly stable platform to shoot back from. Other Elites are finally pushing through as well, climbing out of the canyons. Beams and lightning --things unaffected by wind-- streak through to cut down the bunched up enemies on the wire, whilst the drone-operator is quickly assembling a growing defensive perimeter of auto-turrets and shield bits, and the archmage is raising up walls of prismatic probable multi-save doom.     "Ghost Light to all ground teams! You've done a fantastic job! Let's mop up the stragglers and secure the killzone at Point Quicksilver! I'm giving the partial clear to CITC outpost, so, I believe in you!"     Separately, "Please stay right there until we've confirmed all enemies neutralized, Phony! I'm reading all psychic signatures in your vicinity blipping out, so whatever you're doing, it's working! There's just two more groups of stragglers ahead of you, ETA two minutes! Ah, and can you move the island back? CITC is telling me their instrumentation is very delicate."     And, also, "Ghost Light to Afterglow. Are you suffering a mechanical failure? I've read a total cessation of activity from your unit. Should I dispatch a repair request?"
John Doe	John's set of buffs helps him make quick work and helps keep him moving through them toward the front. John and his Persona are already a powerhouse duo, but with these buffs, it's like he's a train that just simply won't stop until anything in his way is done. By the time he's through the front, he's launching the weird monsters by grabbing them with his chains and then tossing them at a nearby one. Using his monumental strength to help do the heavy lifting with his chains, he finally gets up to the front. Holding his arms up, he waits for the others, as well as Ghost Light to make their way to him. "That was fun, so anyone knows what they were?" John asks, more curious than anything. "They're more fucked up than shadows from where I'm from."
Kirishima	A new machine arrives! With so many to feast her eyes upon, Kirishima isn't sure where to look between Petra's artifact mecha, S6's armory and swarm, and now the four-legged white beast with the strangely shaped barrel. She doesn't need to be told twice to climb aboard, although she doesn't merely clamber on like some weakling. No.. She leaps right onto it. Of course she's going to leap onto it. She lands on top of the cannon, even, posing atop the thing like some kind of statuesque asshole while gazing upon the path before herself and the mysterious voice's (voices?) grand machine. She doesn't stay there long, though, once the cannon starts firing again, and the machine shakes from the pure force of it. She leaps onto the main body closer to the rear legs instead, although she still finds herself entranced by the better viewing angle for a good while. It's only when the pilot of the machine identified as Metamorph One starts speaking again that Kirishima is snapped out of her awestruck daze. "Kirishima to Ghost Light. Your faith shall be well rewarded, rest assured!" Kirishima announces with all the bravado of a ninja with no sense of stealth whatsoever, literally shouting back to the broadcasted voice before leaping off the machine again to aid in the mopping up process. Using what she's learned from chaining the floaters together for Violet or blasting the crawlers with fire, she proceeds to combine the two strategies: She brings out even more of those chain sickles, then covers them in more of those 'talismans' before getting right back to work. Those that need to explode, explode. Those that don't are relegated to binding duties, but using them for more explosions is rather tempting. "I can't say I know what any of those were, Sir Doe, but they seemed to have some kind of pattern to their weaknesses. The floating creatures followed our sounds and flames, but the crawling ones shied away from those same things. Are these things common in this region, Ghost Light?"
Petra Soroka	Petra, why are you the way that you are?     It's a big question for anyone. But especially right now, for Petra, the way she is is stirred up by these new arrivals--but also you, Persephone. Reaching out to Petra feels like the warm tide of your aura breaking against an impossibly cold rock, the normally effortless pressure shattering into swirling eddies around her. It's a shadow so obviously out of place that it's readable by its outline alone, shying away from being perceived with clumsy motions that leave streaks of her heart staining the air. The mech trundles away as you get closer, maybe coincidentally stirred out of its temporary fugue, maybe purposefully avoiding you, but it's not like that poses any difficulty to you either way.     A family sits around a dinner table, a mom, a dad, a daughter sitting uncomfortably in her chair, naturally straight, blonde hair instead dyed wild colors, spilling chaotically over her back and shoulders. The environment is peaceful, idyllic, comfortable in its bland stability. Even though the parents chatter happily at the younger version of Petra, her shoulders are bowed with an unseen weight. They talk about being happy she came home; they talk about how she'll integrate back into school now that she's home; they tell her stories of extended family that she missed while away from home;they say they never even repurposed her old room, knowing she'd be home.     Each mention of the word 'home' rings with a discordant tone, softening with the repetition. Petra grows gradually older, her shoulders straightening, hair orderly, smile finally breaking through her lips at her parents. She's happy to be home,too.     Petra's on her way home from school. It feels both easier and harder, somehow, to be back in Earth schools. It's familiar, comfortable to slip back into, but she hasn't hugged even one of her teachers, and she finds it hard to pay attention to them when they talk. The words of her friends similarly slide off of her, but it doesn't really matter if she listens to them. They're friends by default, and she, by default, fits in with them.     "Afterglow to Ghost Light!" Petra's voice wavers, but she says it clearly this time. "Functioning fine! I'm beginning supporting fire." Her cannon roars and spits out flame, shattering the bridge she's walking home on and turning the city around her into a wasteland in the flash of an eye. She's knocked onto her back, blood pouring from a gash in her forehead, the memory itself spinning incoherently. Shouts and gunfire smear together, and Petra's eyes are forced shut to keep her stomach from flipping inside out. A heavy impact shakes the ground around her. She's curled into a fetal position in anticipation, but what comes is a plastic hand that roughly scoops her up into an embrace. Got a civilian, a kid. . . . Got it, Ghost Light. Bringing her there now.     Petra squirms in the mech's grasp, mouth opening but unable to speak through gasps of pain. I know you! We're peer! I'm a pilot too, I can do it too, I should be fighting too, I'm not a civilian I'm not a kid!"Dianna," is all that squeaks out of her before she's dropped, unceremoniously, in a safe house. With other civilians.     *Now* she throws up.
Kale Hearthward	Once it's reasonably clear, the craft lowers to the ground, and the sparkling particle effects connecting Kale to it fade away. "Hff... getting better at this." "Well, you're not literally unconscious this time, so that's an improvement. Need to give you a checkup anyway, get inside." He huffs, steps off the craft, and then abruptly spins in the air and steps *into* the side door of the craft that's just been opened for him. Inside, the hammerspaced field hospital is being prepped - hopefully nobody actually needs it, but it's there, along with a complement of standard-issue 'trod upon to feel better' + medpacks. From what it sounds like they fortunately aren't in too high of a demand, but they're available.
S6	At the end of the canyon run, S6 hauls her flight armor into a vertical climb until it stalls, then wheels it around into a dive. Using this sudden reversal of momentum, she doubles back on the canyon, rattling off another burst of fire into anything that might have been missed the first time. When the paladin and powersuited warrior emerge from their cover to join the fray, she wobbles her wings to acknowledge them and ascends once more.     Her eyes glance at readouts in the corner of her HUD. Autocannon ammunition is running low, so she tucks that weapon away while circling. She actively seeks out other ground-based elite units in trouble, sweeping over their foes with brief sweeping bursts from the beam cannon. Mostly-- circling overhead, cleaning up stragglers or weakening them into a state that should make it easier for the ground crew. - ENEMY DENSITY DECREASING - - REARMAMENT RECOMMENDED -     "Right," S6 mutters, "Sixty seconds of overwatch. Then we fall back." - SIXTY SECONDS -
Persephone Kore	Persephone instinctively follows when the Kana tries to walk away. Her pace quickens for the first time today, even, when that awful narrative starts to take shape. "Petra..."      "Please stay right there until we've confirmed all enemies neutralized, Phony!"      She halts and looks back over her shoulder at the elevator, almost resentfully. Right. Can't let any of the stragglers through. So the Kana keeps advancing, and the distance between them grows incrementally farther.      "'Afterglow'," Persephone says, at the last moment the pilot could hear her. "People here really are strange, aren't they? This isn't home for you. Or me."      "Home is with them, isn't it? Ghost Light and Dianna. I'm sorry that you couldn't stay there. I hope they take you back. I don't want anyone left behind like that."      "But especially because this place isn't home, thank you for caring about it. You came here just to help people, right? I think you're a good person, Petra. Thank you for showing me a little bit of yourself."      Then she returns to her post, and once Petra's left, ever-so-carefully rotates the island back without so much as a gesture. There is no jarring shock this time: she takes care to act on everything simultaneously, so even the inner ear doesn't get the memo.      It gives the illusion that the sky rotated, instead.      "It's done, Ghost Light. And be gentle with Afterglow, okay?
KNK	"Eh, where are we going--?"     At the offer of boarding, Violet reaches out a hand, and out pops a grappling line. It shoots out and over, is tugged into looping with a whip-like snap, and draws Violet up until she clings, spider-like, the bottom of the mecha.     It is a stable firing platform, but it doesn't really take her long to empty her SMGs. Against soft but regenerating targets, without vitals to put down with accurate fire, she has to switch out to joining Kirishima's fire techniques with her own, firing more chemical grenades, but these containing highly compressed and highly flammable gases, all the better for being sparked into high-temperature explosions.     "Supplies received. Changing positions."     Rose, who remained in laser communication range, sees the pods drop down. Once the field deploys and nothing else is apparently falling, she dives back in, and starts grabbing things. If they're cleaning out the last push, then she has the resources to be more aggressive about it. She's hardly used her stims at all, today.     Ahhh, yeah. That's the stuff.     The single-launch rockets go first, the once-over to determine their make and method not taking a second, before each is flipped into position, aimed in the same motion, primed and fired into calculated, slightly arcing that will impact one to each of the brutes in sight.     The ammo is gathered, but not put as quickly to use, given the hesitance she has to slam someone else's bullet into her own rifle. Rose doesn't have the equipment out here to examine it, either. Not like she did when accepting Ahn's help.     Instead, she runs down the side of the titanium walls, one last rocket, the target designator, and extra bag of ammo on her back, thrusters in her legs flaring to life when she reaches the base, and then launching her forward. Even on foot, high-speed mecha maneuvers aren't outrunnning her, though she has to drop her optic camo in the face of the futility of hiding something moving over loose dust in the vicinity of rocket speeds.     Technically, it's not flying, because there's a measurable ground effect, and her feet occasionally touch dust.     "Oh, Rose!"     The rocket is tossed underhand, for Violet to scramble on top of Metamorph One and catch, then leap back and away to aim from height, leaving the smoke trail in the air as if shot from nowhere. The retort from Rose's rifle joins in the moment before impact.
Metamorph One	Kirishima and Violet find that the hull, lightly stained with sand and dirt, surprisingly feels like semi-smooth plastic. Easy to hold on to, but easy to run your fingers down, hard, but with just a tiny bit of give, warm as the desert around it.     The speed of it is nothing to sneeze at though, alternatingly using its four heavily armoured legs to leap and sprint, the folding spikes in its 'feet' to drift and zigzag, its thrusters to accelerate along straightaways and even support it whilst running along canyon walls when they get too narrow, and a pair of cables fired with an electromagnetic crack at the far wall, used to launch itself up over the edge.     It's sufficient to crush a few enemies flat against its front or send them bouncing up into Kirishima's reach, running that low to the ground, and something of a mild challenge for Rose to catch. For whatever reason, it always seems to hold stable just when they want to fire, allowing the remaining rockets and missiles to disintegrate the enemies they pass by. The range to each side makes them easy to hit, appearing to move slowy in the distance while the sand blurs past. <J-IC-Scene> Kale Hearthward says, "Ghost Light - sitrep on the missing settlements?" <J-IC-Scene> Metamorph One |??? "Luckily, the first island was only an automated drilling site. Listening post alpha is totally FUBAR, but we've confirmed the evacuation of all personnel who were on shift." <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Violet says, "Eh, where are we going--?" <J-IC-Scene> S6 says, "Ah. Complete and safe evacuation is good news." <J-IC-Scene> Kale Hearthward says, "Copy that. We've got a field hospital and general purpose med kits on board, if there's any injured." <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "Supplies received. Changing positions." <J-IC-Scene> Metamorph One |??? "Copy that Hearthward! I'll notify the rescue craft!"     True to the operator's word, Kale can see the air lights of a small aircraft incoming from the direction of the burning outpost. John and S6 arrive just in time to expand the last of their buff time and ammunition on the stragglers hemmed in around 'point quicksilver'. Persephone is accosted by two more waves of enemies that had slipped through, just as bafflingly typeweak as all the others to 'the removal of aggression and conflict', and not about to discuss with her why they can't sustain their existence without it.     The marbles feel sort of nice to have though. They gleam gorgeously with hints of an ember of inner light through their whorled surfaces. They fill her heart with a faint sense of thrilling opportunity and cozy security. "A friend of yours~? Roger~!" comes through clear and obliviously playful. "Axiom is ready on station with mechanical support!"     The last of the incursion is shredded by the wind wall, magical traps, gunfire, cannon fire, stational defenses, and remaining heavy weapon ammo in short order. Even Metamorph arrives only just barely in time to pour a bit of fire nito the remaining cluster, wiping the quicksilver as spotlessly clean as it began. The all clear pings green across the broadband. A few tired cheers of victory and relief go up from the gaggle of Elites, clustering up into their own pods of familiar faces from when each wave arrived. "Congratulations everyone! That operation was really chaotic, but you all pulled through with zero casualties! I'm so proud!"
Kirishima	The convenient timing of the four-legged machine stabilizing just as Kirishima is about to catch something with explosives or chains isn't lost on her. There's a small part of her that might have to worry that it's a little too convenient, but the adrenaline pumping through her heated veins tells her.. No, it screams at her that this is surely the beginning of a bond forged in battle! A relatively larger part of her is somewhat disappointed that she didn't think to start yelling that out. She's about to take the opportunity to rectify that issue, but the moment is gone once she hears the all clear ping, then the cheers, then Ghost Light congratulating the group. It only takes Kirishima a moment to recover from that before she leaps atop the highest thing she can find to strike another dramatic standing still pose atop it. It's not a particularly impressive pose at this point, but her scarf is still billowing dramatically behind her with light cinders coming off the ends where it had gotten scorched so many times. "Everyone fought bravely to secure this place. Our victory was hard fought, but victory was snatched from the jaws of...!" Well, they weren't too close to being defeated. She's not about to lie about such a thing. "... Those creatures! Also, what were those creatures? I haven't seen such things before, nor such a grand machine as this."
Metamorph One	The voice is coming from the external speaker now. A sharp hiss of air feeds through an emerging hatch seam, which pops upward and slides back from the machine's upper frontal bulk, its legs bending to lower its hull close to the ground. The retracted canopy opens into a surprisingly roomy cockpit, separated into two different heights for two different seats, like that of a helicopter. The lower is festooned with dual stick gunnery controls set into sections of sliding spherical frame for complex motion, and the upper is still glowing with a full wall of holographic view screens overflowing with data, which are dismissed in a moment.     The upper seat is occupied by a woman probably in her twenties, pale blonde princess cut and crown braid, blue eyes and a smart white double breasted jacket dress and blue ribbon, who is currently sinking into her cushy seat, and responding to John and Kirishima, "No idea! They've never been seen before, apparently. CITC outpost was actually studying some new anomalies in the Soft Expanse, after some other smaller factions had take an interest in exploring it, and . . . something about egg compression? We have no idea what they are, so thank you for figuring it out so quickly!"     The lower seat is occupied by a woman who reaches eye level with the upper just by standing up, rolling her shoulders and cracking her knuckles in a way that is obviously just habit. Probably over six feet, she is visibly much more built than anyone should expect a mecha pilot to need to be, wearing some sort of avant garde diagonal crop top and detached sleeves in the same colour as the mech, even further matched by a thick and messy ponytail of stark white hair and striking orange eyeliner against tanned skin and green eyes. "Sorry, but we're not mission dispatch." she hums over the clicking of her wrists. "We're first responders, just like you. We just happened to be close by. Aren't we all just great people?" she smirks.     "Dianna Nenui." "Elara Steloj!" "Officially Metamorph One, under Applied Ontology. Ever heard of us?" "Ahaha, they wouldn't have heard about us in a battlefield way, right? That's not normally what AO does!" "Is as far as I'm concerned." "Oh, by the way, I'm Ghost Light! The one you were talking to. It's my operator handle. This is--" "Severance. Pilot callsign."
Petra Soroka	Petra is fixated on the data that Ghost Light is sending her, a blip on the screen disappearing shortly after each concussive report from her cannon. Even as the number of enemies dwindle down, she doesn't let up, obsessively focused on taking each new target out. The Ekanamsha lumbers eagerly around, a 100-ton toddler firing fist-sized explosive rounds at the speed of sound.     Petra is shaking inside of the cockpit. She's plotting out in her head just exactly *how* aloof she needs to be to Metamorph One, to really get across that she's an equal. An equal! A giddy smile is plastered on her face, tinged with the performative bloodlust she's channeling to keep firing. She's hoping they're watching--though she's barely even looked at the arrival of their mech--but she's just happy that they're here. If they're in the same place that she is, she knows she's doing something right. No matter what she had to do to get here.     I hope they take you back.     A shimmering, prismatic figure, made of a billion shining triangles tilted at an angle to convince you that they're not trying to stab you, hovers above a warehouse in a war-torn street. Its arm is outstretched, the air in front of its recently fired arm cannon shattered, slowly piecing itself together, smoothing over the cracks. The warehouse's roof is blown off, atomized in a glittering cloud, and within squats the Ekanamsha Model S1. The figure, the mech, lowers to the floor inside the warehouse, the exposed midriff of its pilot heaving.     The glasslike surface ripples, and becomes transparent, a Petra nearly indistinguishable now pushing through it like water, hopping to the ground. Her face is contorted in an emotion not immediately identifiable as sadness or anger, but something besides, maybe below. She looks back at her mech, hesitating. The sound of gunfire outside makes her jump, and she rushes over to the Ekanamsha, clambers inside, and after a few failed starts, the metal war machine lifts up into the sky. The glass mech is left behind, twinkling in the warehouse as she flies away from the war zone.     The battlefield is finally empty. Petra tries to coolly walk over to where Metamorph One is, but her control isn't fine enough to do that, so it just looks normal. She fiddles with her seatbelt, takes a deep breath, then pops the cockpit.     "Hello! I'm Petra, callsign Afterglow. I'm happy to have you fighting along side us, Metamorph One!"
S6	With the enemy dispatched, S6 swings her flight armor's mechanical arm back to conceal the smoldering lens of the beam cannon. She circles one final time before breaking out of the holding pattern to descend. As it nears the ground, the jet-like craft twists itself into the humanoid configuration to touch down. The torso section unfolds and S6 disembarks.     "I presumed you were not a dispatcher," she states firmly, "However your assistance and tactical contribution is greatly appreciated." The blindfold-like tactical visor winks off of her face in a flicker of golden light, "Thank you." A simple nod, "Striker Six, Model 18A. S6 will suffice."     Her gaze shifts, glancing over the ongoing recovery and cleanup efforts in the distance, "Have there been efforts to collect samples for analysis?" Her eyes return, "Our next step should be research and prevention of future incidents."
John Doe	John stretches out, making sure to get a nice stretch in after the exercise as people start showing up. Including the supports of the day. "Actually I haven't heard of you guys yet, but Lampport's been merged in with the 'verse for like...a month tops? I'm still getting out and learnin' things." "John Doe, nice to meet you two. Gotta say, love the magic stuff you did. Though, we don't know what it was huh? Mmmm...well someone said it worked like something from Secundus...but I don't have the deets on that myself." John sticks out a hand to shake with both women if they want.
KNK	Having caught up, both ninjas (as well as the third ninja) are there to meet the pair of pilots.     "Nope. Never heard of you."     "Hi! Nice...? To meet you? Though this place is kinda just dirty and awful, isn't it? I think I need a bath. Oh, did you know Petra?"     "Why would they know Petra?"     "'Cause their callsigns are both lights."     "It doesn't work that way."     . . .     "It doesn't usually work that way."     . . .     "Putting that aside, thanks for the support. Here, brought you your targeting laser. Didn't have a chance to use it." Rose does not offer the ammo back.
Persephone Kore	Oh.      ...      Oh.      Someday I'll be strong enough to understand and hold everyone's hearts. Even someone like Petra. I really hope so.      Phony doesn't look over at the Kana, this time, when the group converges on Metamorph One. It can only be accounted for as a deliberate attempt to give Petra space, in time with her turning the 'dimmer switch' on her aura as far down as it goes (which is, unfortunately, not all that far).      She breathes in, holds it for five seconds, and then breathes out, reverting to her characteristic serene smile just as the two pilots reveal themselves. Then serenity gives way to visible surprise halfway through the introduction, which looks like an emotion her face is unaccustomed to.      "'Applied Ontology'," she repeats. "Haha, sorry, but I think I introduced myself wrong! I'm Persephone Kore, of Sapient Heuristics. I heard about AO a few times, when I was younger! I always wondered what happened."      Her smile becomes a little more beatific still, forcing her eyes shut. "It makes me happy to know it turned out well enough to make people like you."
Metamorph One	"You're welcome~ Um. Essix? Is that your personal name? No. But why haven't you-- hmm." Elara trails off, curling a finger against her chin and staring darkly at something only she can see. "Well, you're welcome. Of course we'll be taking samples back to Applied Ontology, but we'll have to negotiate the cut with CITC Outpost too, I suppose. It might have to be up to the Doctor . . ."     Dianna takes John's hand. From her elevated stand in the cockpit, she has to lean over at the waist and plant a hand on her knees, wearing a deeply smug expression and clearly enjoying having to bend down to shake. Her grip is firmly on the side of 'bullying'. "Sorry, no magic here, kid. And not all of it was ours. But some was. I'm not explaining ontological arms either. It's tedious, and you're not cute enough."     Elara raises both hands and waves back Rose. "Oh no no no! Thank you, but that one isn't mine! I was coordinating all the Elite responders before you got here, and so I merely assessed your tactical situations and abilities to request cross-positional support! That belongs to callsign Axiom. I think they're antimatter bullets or something? That's what they feel like."     Dianna completely changes her tune, putting her eblows on the cockpit dash, lacing her fingers under her chin, and putting on a better smile for Violet. "Nice to meet you too~ Sorry about the dirt, but it's a battlefield. And these boring virgins with the Seekers love studying dirt. If you want, we can go someplace nicer after this." She hears the name and voice, and replies, "No, but I'm sure I'm very pleased to meet her too--"     She glances aside to see Petra. The last syllable cuts off. She stares, hard, but the silence stretches long. Taking in a deep breath, she says:     "Girl you look like shit. The IFF on that thing is PMC grade, but you've filed off all the patent identifiers. You're a merc, right? Aren't you getting paid for this? Renegotiate your fucking contract and eat something that didn't come in a cup. Come on."     Elara waves cheerily from behind. "Hi there Petra! It's nice to meet you too! Ah, I was meaning to ask though, how did you get that 'unusual' callsign?"     Neither of them have any idea who she is.
Metamorph One	Of course both of them notice Phony at the same time. Well, not quite; Elara notices first, and from slightly too far away for it to be conversational. Either way however, they can't possibly miss her. Now Elara gets up as well, smoothing down her jacket skirt, folding her hands against her lap, and bowing half her body towards Perspehone from on high. Dianna gets up off the dashboard and straightens her spine. Her fingers drift down a button pocket at the side of baggy cargos, absently picking at the fasten with a nail, as if suddenly self-conscious about being underdressed.     "It's an honour to finally meet someone from Sapient Heuristics! We've heard all about you for so long! Haha, I used to daydream about meeting one of you when I was ten; I never thought I'd meet someone from the program like this! Never mind the princess! Gosh I'm so embarrassed now." "Yeah. I'm surprised though. I don't know how much Angkasa and Carpathia ever talked, and the last director isn't with the program anymore. Not after . . ."     "We had some rough times. But I think it turned out great in the end." Somehow, she doesn't quite sound like her heart is in it. "Feels . . . auspicious somehow, that we'd run into you almost as soon as we went back into the field. Like, a capstone? The end of an arc. Hopefully the start of one."