Scene #8310: The Retainer's Shell

Owner	Pose
Timespace Riders	A sound like thunder follows the violent disintegration of a mountainside. Smoke and particulate matter drift on the wind, away from the cavernous hole blasted into the mountain. It looks as if some great creature bit a chunk from the body of the earth. Such occurrences are hardly rare, in this place. Across the vast expanse of polluted rivers, dust-specked plains and waste-choked canyons, many a factory-barge does the exact same thing, all coordinated by the city-vessel which darkens the skies above and contributes to the overwhelming waste. It is on the Industrial Behemoth that Woz waits, having read in his book of prophecy that a great power, capable of breaking mountains and bending the very earth, would appear here, in search of him. He hadn't thought to guess that it might be Hiromi. His footfalls had been easy enough to track here. He can be something approaching stealthy when he cares to be, but not enough to hide from her--and of course, even then, 'when he cares to be' is an important qualifier for someone as given to theatrics as Woz. He is easily sought out, for the smell of that very book that he now reads--its unique scent carries even over the filtered, pollution-tinged air of the densely populated city-vessel. The pages smell older than its appearance should dictate, yet there is no hint of anything like binding glue or even ink. She finds him standing near a railing on the Behemoth, overlooking the wasteland below.
Hiromi	Hiromi, too, can be stealthy when she wants to be. She does, now, but only until she finds the one she's looking for. Lacking a book of prophecy, her methods of tracking over long distances are mysterious, though her tracking ability within a single world is just as one would expect of a wolf. The many unpleasant smells of the Behemoth aren't enough to throw her off. Picking out the smell of a foreigner to this place, even of a specific foreigner, is a matter of course. As that stealth fades away, it's replaced by the mounting aura of her presence. A displeasure is evident, there in restrained strength, though its aim is only evident when she speaks. "Eaters of rock and poison. These, too. Are they 'human'? Poor lands for living." But on to Woz himself. The shifting of her attentions is palpable, as if her gaze exerted even physical pressure. "I should throw them from the sky, let them try and learn anew. But, that, later. Now, you. Are you prepared, to be pressed? To resist with your shell's might?" As if this wasn't a topic shift, she continues, "This land. Of it, speak your thoughts."
Hiromi	The question is safe enough. Any answer could be given, and it likely wouldn't be Woz who paid for it. It's only dangerous for everyone else here, what a wrathful god might be convinced of the way of life of those who call the Industrial Behemoth 'home.' Danger is communicated in her approach, the swaying steps that deceptively fail to move her center of gravity off course. Her feet leave prints in the metal deck, not from weight, but from grip. As far as she's concerned, more than adequate warning was given. The downward hammerblow of the heel of her wrist, to press Woz against the anvil of the city-ship's flooring, is the beginning of the very pressing of which he was warned.
Timespace Riders	The book is shut, one-handed, with a thump. The noise carries a certain finality to it. Tucking the book under his arm, Woz turns to regard Hiromi with his brown eyes, smiling his usual catlike way. Her gaze is weighty, but he seems devoted to prevent that weight from cracking his theatrical air. "I can hardly disagree, Archwolf," says the retainer. "My thoughts, hm... Around us is a kind of squalor which beggars belief," he continues, with a flourish of his free hand. It's very possible he knows how dangerous this answer is for the people nearby--he simply isn't the type to care. "The kind of filth and hardship usually reserved for fables. And the moral of this fable is that weak leadership is dangerous. The smell of old failure lingers in the air, mingling with new mediocrity. " Woz turns his nose up at the very notion, then gesturing with his free hand towards the city proper, its tightly packed structures rising ever higher behind him. "The old leaders of this place had no vision. They ruled poorly, never looking to the future. The legacy of that rule is reflected in the land and the people alike--one picked clean like a corpse in the desert, the other resentful of anything even resembling the drought which made it so. Both of them now stagnate under the Commonwealth, but the people call this progress because the stench is a measure less offensive than it once was, the work a shade more tolerable." His smile returns, after a moment's thought, and he looks Hiromi back in the eye as she approaches. "So you are the force that would seek me out. No doubt," he says, tossing the book into the air, "To make good on that remark of yours in Nosgoth. I remember it clearly." His grey scarf moves seemingly on its own, lashing outwards and upwards to impossibly envelop the book. The shape disappears within it, and the garment falls back down. In his hand is the silver-and-green BEYONDRIVER, announcing itself as such. He presses it to his waist, and it fastens itself there of its own accord. In his other hand there appears a square-faced, futuristic pocketwatch, with the familiar face of Woz's armored form displayed upon it. He presses the stop, then slots it into a hatch on the right side of his belt.
Timespace Riders	Action! An electronic dance beat heavy on synthesizers plays from the belt. "Henshin," he purrs, smiling with quiet confidence. Behind him, a laser grid constructs the holographic face of a smartwatch, as he closes the hatch. Projecting! Future Time! The digital screen on his belt displays an image of his armor, moments before it is projected onto his body by the laser grid behind him. The dance beat rises to a crescendo, ending in a triumphant flourish. Amazing! Time! Future! KAMEN RIDER WOZ? WOZ?! ...is a silver-and-black armored fighter, with a futuristic neon green trim. The faceplate and cuirass of his armor suggest the strap and face of a digital watch, though the usual Rider 'antennae' are here represented as the hands of a clock. He's ready for Hiromi's attack, but no less subject to her immense strength for his readiness. The silver-and-black armored fighter attempts to sidestep and cut across her strike. Her wrist crashes into his green-pauldroned shoulder, and even rolling with the blow, the smartwatch-themed armor shoots a shower of sparks. Bent at the knee by the force she made, he retaliates with a hook from the opposite arm, a blue-accented glove flying for her jaw. Quick to regain his balance, the rider makes a jab on the heels of that hook, attempting to reverse Hiromi's advance and put himself on the offensive, with a follow-up snap kick from the right leg, aimed at the ribs. His 'shell' confers enough strength to matter, though not nearly enough to match hers.
Hiromi	"Once ruled by fools, now by weakness. I have their scent." Hiromi speaks a single not-word, but its meaning is clear enough, encapsulating the concept of an action. Struggling to find slight comfort on miserable ground rather than standing to search for a bed. There's at least the suggestion of a smile as Woz transforms, and chooses to immediately strike back, rather than avoid her. For her part, leaning into those return strikes means they hit her even harder. It's not quite like striking a mountain, after all. She's certainly made of flesh and blood, as much as she feels massive and immovable. The inexorable nature of her advance isn't because she can't be lifted at all, but because her grip on the ground beneath her, even this artificial structure, isn't easily broken. A careful eye will note this quickly, as blows are traded. "'Weak leadership.' The strong led them, once, and now they fear strength. Did you know this? Not healthy strength. Great trees in man-form, rotting within. Weren't they?" It's a common enough story that she hadn't needed to dig hard to find it. That kick to her side should have hurt, but if so, she doesn't show it. Hiromi's leg rises, and comes down again on Woz's position, slowly enough for a quick motion to avoid it, but destabilizing footing simply from the reverberating impact. Metal groans, shudders, chips. Each attack that follows is similarly methodical, as if inviting him to slip past and counter her, yet devastating in force at even a glancing strike. A straight punch here, a clawing swipe of black bone bursting from her fingers there, a rising knee followed by a stomp, and on and on. She looks like she enjoys this, because of course she does. The greatest danger comes with hardly a warning, a surging forward as if to tackle Woz against the nearest wall and all the way through it, then grip and throw him into the next wall over while falling rubble hinders movement. "You serve a king. You've said." She has ever expectation that her opponent will still be in the shape to talk, no matter how persistently and aggressively she presses them. "Speak now of 'wisdom.' When the ruler has none, who must correct them? Who holds," she swipes a falling chunk of masonry from the air, and speaks another not-word, this one encompassing a more abstract space. Responsibility / fault / accountability / duty to act / be punished. "Will you guide him? Must you? Must he grow, on his own? Is it another's?"
Timespace Riders	"Precisely, Archwolf," the retainer answers, complete with a slight flick of his wrist and scholarly point of the index, despite the combat. Woz is quick enough to avoid the axe kick, but not nearly so steady in his footing as she is. The impact of her foot against metal knocks him off balance, sending him stumbling into a knee strike. She can hear his controlled breathing, just below the shower of sparks that erupts from the impact. He takes several of these trades, rolling with the impact of her blows to deliver his own hard-hitting counter-attacks, answering her questions as his feet try in vain to sweep or otherwise overtake her footing, a rapid series of attempted shin strikes, sweeps and locks, frustrated both by her superb grip on the metal floor and her tendency to favor stomps that discourage his attempts. The expectation that her opponent will be able to talk mid-beating is one fairly held, where Riders are concerned. "It falls to the most trusted retainer to advise the king where his wisdom is lacking. And where the retainer's wisdom is lacking in one matter or another, he must go forth and seek those who may effectively counsel the king in his stead." Woz is graceful on his feet, when Hiromi isn't forcing him off his footing, making a twirling juke to evade a falling piece of shrapnel shaken loose by the fight. When he comes back around, he holds another watch in his hand. The face of this one bears a golden-helmed variation on his usual armor, the same robot-themed armor that sparked her observation about his 'shells' in the first place. He is tackled, through several walls, as the transformation takes place, numerous cross-sections of startled workspaces and public gathering spots flying past the both of them as his armor changes. Action! Projecting! Future Time! As her drive continues, Hiromi can see, displayed on the belt, a 3D image of the armor, before golden, holographic rings flash-print it onto his body. Hearty! Destructive! Bold! Futurering Kikai! KIKAI!
Timespace Riders	His cuirass now bears gold trim, the pauldrons sporting a wrench motif matched by the antennae on his helmet. A puff of steam emits from the cuirass, as four thin but powerful mechanical manipulator arms sprout from his back. They grind against the floor with a screech of metal on metal that sends onlookers running, slowing the Archwolf's onslaught and keeping him from slamming into a bulkhead by mere inches. Motors strain against her strength audibly, but the strength-focused form is enough to buy him precious seconds. They appear to have burst into a boiler room, surrounded by hot furnaces and steam-filled pipes. His helmet crashes against her face in a surprise headbutt, then a sudden turn sideways. Motors whine audibly as his elbow surges for her abdomen. "His ascension, continued and fruitful rule are my responsibility." He follows up with a motion from his manipulator arms. Two rise up and clamp onto a heavy pipe overhead, while the other two push against the bulkhead. He attempts to barrel into her with both feet, springing off from impact into a backflip, the arms then carrying him like a spider in a circle-strafe along the grated floor, arms held wide in a grandiloquent bit of exulting in his own strength. It isn't close to hers, but he's still proud to have it. "If I fail in supporting his dream, the fault is mine. I failed to guide him recently--and came here to set that failure right. Answer a question of mine, now, Archwolf," poses the retainer, striding confidently forward into danger despite the disparity in strength between them. He takes the same trades as before with her, but seems better able to withstand them now. Moreoever, where before he had only four limbs to counter with and so many angles of attack, now he has eight, and considerably more. He relies on his human arms to try and goad her into reacting to those, only to work in a leg or cut across one of her strikes with a strike or clinch from one of his mechanical arms. "How does one overcome the desire to be 'correct' in all things? The desire to have everything fall into place, arranged well before the actors on the stage knew the play had begun? This was the source of my failure, but it was my weakness for long before it caused me to fail my Demon King."
Hiromi	Only a truly great effort has any chance of moving Hiromi. That's intentional. She intends for Woz to push his limits to get her to move, and when he changes forms, she finally does. The boiler room's smooth surfaces can be partly to blame, perhaps, but it's mostly the aggressively risky headbutt being followed up by the double kick that slides her back across the floor. "You've failed, once. Will you find another, then? Where you lacked? No, not yet." It's unclear whether she's asking questions or just following his explanation. Or, possibly, she's judging his answers without waiting for him to speak them. Without taking any additional limbs of her own, and cut off from the supply of earth that usually supplements her fighting style, Woz does have the chance, here, to keep getting hits in. More so for how willing Hiromi is to take those hits, though that does place him in ever more danger. "'Weakness.' Yes. This need, for 'correctness,' is from weakness." Woz strikes hard enough to push her against the hot machinery, but that much heat isn't enough to do more than mess with her hair through eddies of steam. "With confidence, with strength overwhelming, you won't need this. Everything in place, foreknowledge, perfection. If your prey spots you sneaking, do you flee it, and try another day? The weak surrender when their schemes fail. They can't do more." The harder Woz fights, the more Hiromi gives him return. There's little meaning in distinguishing one crushing blow from another, but their speed incrementally increases, until she strikes through into a pressurized chamber, and the explosion envelopes the whole chamber. Secondary explosions ensure no wall remains standing, even as the blast wave propels the floor and combatants both back into the outside, and there crash against the next building's wall. The rumbling collapse will continue for minutes, but Hiromi's not done speaking, even as she lands sideways, four points to the wall, and then leaps. Again, it's a crushing tackle, every blow that follows one with explosive force, and the most likely escape from the mounted position is only when she grabs the nearest limb to lift, spin and throw against another wall, and then strike again, to break it with her opponent still on it or, if avoided, merely to collapse yet another structure. The screams of the inhabitants must reach her ears. Her hearing is quite good. They're just not important to her. They're not, after all, her people, and they've denied her wisdom without even knowing they do so. "A schemer's strength is not enough. Grow. You fear mistakes. Imperfections. Become strong enough to 'correct.' Take blows softly, bending. Turn yourself in new directions, hard and unyielding. Do you see? I don't fear unknown things. The reason, do you see it? Trust in my strength. And..." Her fist goes straight through the bulkhead just to the right of and above Woz's head, metal shrieking. Hiromi leans in, her voice softening, as if imparting a secret. "If it's beyond myself, one of them will know its answer. My 'trusted retainers.' The ones I chose, and gathered. If not, it's unimportant."
Timespace Riders	Fighting so aggressively, against someone who invites it and gives it back every bit, has Woz flagging. Hiromi's strike hits him square in the chest, with force he can't hope to resist. Metal arms screech against grating in vain. The rider flies into a boiler, and is promptly flung in the other direction by the resulting explosion. The Kikai armor's manipulators form a protective sort of cage around Woz as he flies through a wall, acting as roll bars when he strikes the ground outside and skips across the ground to slam into the opposite bulkhead. Klaxons wail, here and in the distance, warning of an attack. The manipulators unfold like a flower, pushing Woz to his feet as he shakes the daze of the past few seconds off. It's just in time for Hiromi to tackle him again. The arms pummel and squeeze with their clamps as Woz's human limbs are occupied keeping Hiromi from crushing him totally, but neither is enough to keep from being flung across the now-empty commons, over a bench and planter (a rare, if sterilized bit of nature in the acrid-smelling air) and into the wall of some scrap peddler's modest storefront. Punched through the wall, Woz's armor sends out a spray of sparks, before he's pelted with all manner of knick-knacks and trinkets raining down from shattered shells. Pressed against the inside wall, Woz is unflinching despite his exhaustion, when Hiromi's fist collides with the wall inches from his head. The armor disappears in a wave of green light, leaving the retainer in his double-breasted, open-sleeved longcoat. Sweat beads on his brow, his chest heaves. Brown eyes meet Hiromi's, with rare gratitude. He still demands some level of that stately demeanor--she can see it in his shoulders, the way he stands upright when his body pleads to be seated. Between labored breaths, "I see. Thank you, Archwolf." He swallows, eyes still fixed on her. "I regret that my 'scheming,' as it were, had to embarrass my Demon King before I could learn this. And I regret, also, that there were others before you who tried to warn me." Xion comes to mind, as does his attempted and badly failed social-chess play on Sylvi. "However," he continues, after catching his breath, "I am glad of one thing." "Of all the 'forces' which could have appeared here in search of me, I am grateful it was you, Archwolf." True gratitude, or any sincere emotion at all for that matter, not tinged with any smug undertones, is genuinely rare from him. " I will take what you have said to heart," he says. There is a faceless stopwatch in his hand--the same as the kind his Beyondriver uses; gray and futuristic in its lines and visible components. Shimmering white motes of light wash over it, and as they pass, its face bears the armored visage of Woz, with the 'hands' of his clock-motif antennae replaced with the fangs of a wolf. He steps off of the wall, smiling at Hiromi in that more usual way of his, like the cat that got the canary. "May I assume that you will be staying," he asks, as cries of defenders carry on the wind, "To help these people 'start over?' If so," he says, one hand over his heart as he bows at the waist, "I humbly request to learn from you a second time." He wants to stay and watch, in other words.
Hiromi	Hiromi feels that difference, the moment that the fight is finished. Tension passes, then transforms, as she straightens. Her attention will shift its focus, soon, but not yet. First, she straightens, coming to her full height as if to better oversee her surroundings, crosses her arms, and gives Woz an acknowledging grunt, a huff that serves the same purpose as a nod. "Good. You understand, now." At the mention of learning further, she tilts her head, and one ear turns, as if only just hearing the klaxons and the approach of defenders. It wouldn't be strange for a Paladin response team to arrive, soon, at news of destruction wrought by elite action, even though that destruction was incidental. Removing herself before then would be perfectly sensible. "I'll show you, then. Even in their misery, they crawl through the sky. If they can learn, they'll learn in earth, seeing, feeling, breathing their consequences. How can they care for land they won't walk?" A hypothetical 'someone' might argue with her reasoning, but not in time to have the faintest hope of deterring her from it. Now that her course is set, she taps her foot, about-faces, and takes off running for the tallest tower of wrought steel in sight, that's toward the center of the city-barge. Woz will need to work to keep up. But maybe not keep up too closely. Moving as she is now, and people becoming alert to what's happening, and with the sheer menace of Hiromi's presence, it's only natural for anyone directly in her way to dive out, but anyone at the edges to shoot when threats do nothing. For her, the bullets don't matter any more than tasers, blades, gas, or petty magic. A truly esoteric defense could halt her, but everything quickly arrayed is simply 'unworthy,' and she's decided that it can't so much as slow her. Because that's within her rights to decide, it's also true. A tower, then. Some liquid container, taking height to apply pressure, and supply whatever it carries elsewhere. The specifics are unimportant to her, as Hiromi kicks out the man-thick supporting struts, until it separates and begins to creak in what would be a long, slow, destructive descent. Hiromi grabs onto one twisted strut with both hands, and lets her own nature flow over the structure. Now, if only for a few moments, it's as indestructible as any of her claws are. Leaping with the tower high into the air, she swings her blunt instrument, cleaving through buildings that explode in her wake, and impacting the center of the city, then on and through layer after layer of supporting decks and pipes and grimy, forgotten passageways, until the cracks spread in every direction.
Timespace Riders	Hiromi's 'lesson' has an observer from above. He is never somewhere Hiromi can't detect, be it by the sound of his footsteps on metal roofs, the vibrations of those footsteps or the smell of his prophetic tome. He puts in the work to keep up, because he was serious about wanting to see how she 'fixes' the conditions of the Behemoth. People here, owing to the unique state of living aboard a giant flying vessel, might be more prone to look up than people in most other places. But even if they are, Hiromi is almost certainly demanding attention more than any suspicious, apocalyptic prophets observing from catwalks, water towers and rooftops. One of his choices of vantage point happens to be her choice of weapon. With a flick of his wrist, the scarf around his neck again billows outwards, this time enveloping him rather than something of his. When the tower lurches beneath his feet, the scarf folds into itself, surging inwards like water down a drain, impossibly vanishing into a pinprick point. The process reverses itself and he is deposited from thin air, safely onto the roof of a tenement. From one building to the other, he watches the Archwolf carve her path of destruction, until there is no place left to stand but in the crossfire between her and the would-be defenders of the behemoth. Exhausted as he is from their discussion, that will have to suffice. And so, with a flourish of his hand and another grateful bow, Woz departs at that time, vanishing into the rippling, disappearing fabric of his scarf.