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Angela	It might start to feel like the Meltdown was the easy part. The strain of multiple hard battles in a row, accumulated wounds and exhaustion, and just plain time are wearing down the Agents. Central is exhausted. Rose, Carol, and Nikki are all worn out and though Nikki's contract with Zero Kiryu helps her last longer, she doesn't know if Immortality will protect her from some of the Abnormality effects and she doesn't want to test it. Cinder has been called for. She had to rush over from the Info Department where she had been fending off a Helperbot so it took her a minute but fortunately two bullets? She has that. She has inferred from radio chatter whom she was called for. Fortunately she did not draw an actual pistol by mistake, maybe thanks to Petra's clarification. Unfortunately, HP Bullets are only certified for physical damage. Researching bullets for emotional damage is ongoing. Cinder eaches for the HP Pistol and hesitates a moment before shooting Petra with it for a couple reasons. One reason is that the King of Greed (more on that later) and the other is because Petra told her to shoot her in the head and THEN clarified with HP bullets instead of bullet bullets. She twists the gun over to its side and double checks its ammunition with decidedly present anxiety and after giving it a triple check finally does as asked and shoot Petra in the head. Good news! It IS HP Bullets and not Bullet Bullets. Feeling like a Superhero, Cinder then looks for Meika, ducking down to inject it into her arm because that works too but as a loyal girlfriend if Petra asks her to shoot her in the head she will do so without a second thought. "There you go! Please don't break out another Magical Girl right now? There's already one eating Angela--" She pauses. "Eating Angela?! FUCK FUCK FUCK..." She stands up. "Petra, King of Greed is nearly immune like to Red Damage like Nothing There but it should be weak to Fragments!" Of course Cinder knows what kind of Damage Type Fragments is. "Um, guys." X's voice pops onto the speaker. "Angela isn't affected by facility resets, if she goes down we can't bring her back... And there's another problem--"
Angela	Angela punches a free arm out of the King of Greed's body, pushing her head out of the dress--well, more clearly the body of the King of Greed now--, eyes glaring full of hatred, digging her fingers into one of the creature's arm but the arm wielding the King of Greed gets stuck to the Abnormality. She can't pull it free. "I won't... I won't cause the Lilian any further trouble, " "You see, uh," X says. "It seems like Netzach decided now was the best time to hit the bricks because he's taking over the facility systems..." "Yeeaahhh," Netzach's voice comes onto the speaker. "Like Petra said I'm kind of a cakewalk so it makes sense to piggyback off someone else's Meltdown and destroy the facility that way. I'll leave the Warpgate open, feel free to head on out but Angela..." ''I'm sorry for the disappointing answer, Angela, but if you were that strong...'' Angela freezes mid strike against the King of Greed, her eyes roll up in her her head and her body goes slack, ''You wouldn't be stuck where you are.'' BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S77Dfzzyf-c&ab_channel=Mili            __________________________________________________________                      |ARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING W|                      ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|=|WAW CLASS THREAT|=|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                         <o>            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯           <o>                                      <o>           The King In Yellow     ><)))0>      <o>                        __________________________________________________________                      |ING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARN|                      ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯             The King of Greed, still working on Angela, licks her lips. "Tasty... Like Regret...Like regret it lingers on my tastebuds... but not nearly enough"! And her garment grows to try and subsume all of YOU within as well!
Meika Kirenai	It's weird to be thankful for a bullet to the arm- not that Meika has any much prior experience with such, being shot at all is a new experience. It's really quite lucky that this time it's with something meant to heal.     Stirring again out from the bleary, restless unconsciousness she'd been shunted into, there's precious little strength left in Meika's arms to help lift herself up off the floor. But it's her moving them again, not anything or anyone else. There's a muffled, shaky 'Thanks...' Cinder's way when thoughts come clearly enough to put two and two together about the assist. 'Please don't break out another Magical Girl right now?'     "I'm not-" Words cut off into silence, as clear thoughts usher in blisteringly clear memory of the Hermit's actions. No questions like 'how bad', 'is everyone okay', or 'what happened' come from her. She knows. Her breathing catches in her throat, like a snag in knotted rope. "O-oh. R-right. I... I won't, I'm n-not going to, I- I'm..."     The frantic blubbering continues for a second, but just a second- "*Eating* her? O-oh, God, I'm s-sorry, I should have-" The part of her mind wandering to wishing Cinder hadn't woken her up, or even that nothing ever would have, takes a staggering amount of focus from Meika. The rest gets spent shutting up, and staring at the horrible sight of the King of Greed's breach. Scrambling to her feet is an insurmountable task- boots squeak and squeal on cracked tile flooring when she tries to, stumbling back down once before she gives up for a long, long moment, just leaning her back against the open corridor's wall, breathes heaving silently.     Eyes scan in fleeting moments the milling Elites she recognizes, guilty and heavy, in particular drawn over and over again, and yet each time flinching away, from looking to Sougo, Woz, and Lilian.     But in this moment, she's stopped being 'a magical girl', at least- hands rest on her dusty sports bag, the notebooks stuffed within, but don't open it. Trying anything right now without say-so feels like playing hop scotch with landmines. Even moving up from leaning against the wall feels too wrong to stomach- not that staying put feels even a hair better.     Tears well up from shame, too, as easily as fear and sadness. She doesn't even have her jacket to hide within, as she does her absolute best to make herself small and ignorable right there in the middle of the corridor, paralyzed, and utterly, horrifically nothing at all like a knight ought to be.
Captain Hook	A gunshot rings out from the door of Central.      A flintlock's bullet lodges in the ceiling.      Captain William Hook stands in the doorway. His hat is pushed down over his eye. His hair is hiding his eyepatch. His free hand is hooked under his coat as it flutters behind him like a cape in the wind. He's grinning - but there's something different about that grin, something new, something that no one present has seen before, something that's only ever come out once.      It's not happy.      The Captain holsters the pistol and walks forward, a slow, confident stride. His grin looks less and less like a person's as he walks towards the King of Greed, and more and more like a crocodile's maw, matched with the predatory, stalking gait. He exudes an unsettling energy that he never has before, not a magical energy but a presence that says, conclusively, that underneath all his smiles, all his grinning, all that he presents all charming and friendly, there is, indeed, a bloody, ruthless pirate.      That bloody, ruthless pirate strolls forward with an almost musical gait. He still hasn't raised his gaze to look at Angela.      "King of Greed, is it?"      His voice is still calm, so uncomfortably calm. His fingers flex underneath his coat, visibly tightening and going slack.      His hook hand goes up to his face. He pushes his hat upwards, very slightly, so that the sinister gaze in his one good eye breaks through his hair to look at the King.      "And you've not only the temerity to call yourself that in front of me, but to try and plunder one of my most important treasures?"      "Damnfool thing."      With a single, fluid motion, he's slung his coat on, sleeves and all. As if they aren't in a hurry, as if he's taking his time, he's actually buttoning it up with his good hand. "I am Captain William Hook." He clips a button shut.      "Mammon weeps before my hunger." Another button.      "Pluto's riches cannot satisfy my desires." Another button.      "Aine's coin-purse can't scratch the surface of my avarice." Clip.      Hook looks up, finally, his eye falling upon the creature, and says, "So remember that, when I rip her out of you and remind everyone who really owns that title you're wearing, I warned you who you were dealing with."      The garment lashes out at him. Hook doesn't even draw his saber. His hook reaches directly into the maw and *digs*, taking the scratch along the arm from its lashings without a second thought. His eye is almost glowing. His grin is almost feral.      "Tick, tick tock, goes the crocodile clock," Hook sing-songs as he starts dragging his way forward, refusing to let the thing go, "Coming to sing of your end."      "Tock, tock tick, the crocodile clicks,"      "Coming to see your spine bend."      He drags himself directly up to the thing, still holding the garment by the hook. "Tick, tick tock, goes the crocodile clock."      And then he draws his blade in a single, fluid motion, inverts it, jabs it down into the piece of the garment, and moves not to slice it off but to *rip*, to *shred*, to do as much damage as he can on the way, his eyes still fixated on the King of Greed.      "It's time for your story to fade from its glory"      "Disappear! You're nothing but quarry!"
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine slowly rises to her feet, the ice sphere around her finally crumbling under the fading sonic blasts. That *hurt*. She stumbles over to her spear, which narrows its eye at her. "My lady, are you sure we're in a state to continue with this? We could retire to the-" "No. Have to... have to see this through," Madeleine interjects, breathing heavily. Half-supporting her weight with the spear, she walks to the elevator and presses the call button. By the time it arrives, she's popped her dislocated bones back into place, healed the worst of her bruises, and is tapping her foot with impatience. "Come on, come on..." She slips through the doors as they open, wincing as she puts weight on an injured heel. Seeing Rufus arrive through the warpgate, she holds the door for him.     As the car descends, Madeleine closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. Is that 'Girl from Ipanema' on the elevator muzak? Doesn't matter. There's a Hermit to kill. The elevator lets out a suspiciously cheery 'ding' and the doors slide open onto the main hallway of Central. She opens her eyes and what she sees is not what she expected - the Hermit is dispatched, and the King of Greed is consuming Angela. As the Fourth Trumpet sounds, the stars in Madeleine's eyes loop-de-loop in her best approximation of an eyeroll.     Things go bad quickly. Netzach announces its meltdown, Angela passes out, and the King expands her dress to envelop the gathered Elites. Madeleine, fresh out of the elevator, is not spared the King of Greed's attack. As she draws her spear from her back, she breathes out a cloud of icy vapor that freezes the dress solid as it tries to expand around her. It's not enough - the fabric is expanding all along its length, not just growing at the base, so the thin layer of frost does little to slow its advance. Uncomfortable chewing sounds emanate from the fabric surrounding Madeleine, and when she finally cuts her way out she appears shaken and drained. She's not done with the ice just yet, though - another cloud coalesces into a staircase leading up to the King herself, and Madeleine hustles up the steps to take a direct swipe at the King of Greed with her spear. Drogrung's tip exudes an oily sheen, some kind of venom meant to sap the magical girl's powers.
Rufus Shinra	'Fashionably late' is not, in fact, fashionable. The best things in life aren't worth waiting for (drink orders, inheritances, etc). Nonetheless, Rufus Shinra is arriving late. "Ah - I was wondering why the warpgate had popped back online," he says, arriving just in time to hear Netzach's announcement, addressing his comments vaguely towards the ceiling. "We've got a mutiny in the middle of a battle. Very kind of ya to provide an exit - though to me, the exit sure does look like an entrance." Rufus makes his way in, passing by Meika without so much as looking at her, and heading towards Angela's location. Along the way, he pulls an ice blue marble out of his pocket, rolls it around his fingers, and then dramatically jams it into one of the slots in his shotgun. Also along the way, he takes a ride in an elevator with Madeline. "Evening - Miss Cadrasteia, wasn't it?" He tips the hat he isn't wearing. "I'd say it's a nice day for a meltdown, if this place had windows." And then - to Angela. "Begging your pardon, but the calvary... has arrived." He flips his shotgun to his offhand, catching and holding it vertically as if it were a staff, and taps on the blue marble he inserted earlier. "Always a pleasure to help another Concord member. I think-" And that's when the King of Greed lashes out. Rufus falls back, managing to get barely free of being grabbed and absorbed, but being put off of his game in the process. "... Ahem. I was saying. Miss Angela, I sincerely apologize if this stings a little, but freezing your greedy little problem off of you seems like the least worst option for getting you free. Hot chocolate is, of course, on me afterwards as an apology." Ice builds up in Rufus's hand as he talks - and he casts it outward, blasting a cone of cold towards the King of Greed.
Kukuru	For the first time today since working on Laetitia and having that colorful heart following her around, Kukuru's chest has stopped hurting. It's not at ease in any way, and it's certainly not calm, but whatever ill-effects she had felt from it earlier aren't weighing on her mind anymore. She just sits there, staring wide-eyed at Angela as she fights to free herself from the King of Greed only to go limp, and... Kukuru remembers what Petra warned her about: Don't get close to another abnormality, and don't do anything that might make Laetitia jealous. She hears what X says about Angela not being affected by resets, and she knows that she could (probably) resuscitate her, but seeing one of her family members in such a state, even compared to seeing so many others dead during her usual routine... It feels wrong, somehow. It feels intensely wrong, like seeing someone who should never be hurt, an innocent being that doesn't deserve any kind of harm, suddenly trapped underneath a guillotine with the executioner standing right there. Clamping her claws into/through the ground until the tips meets her palm, she only glances aside briefly to make eye contact for Meika that moment she's looking right at her. "We'll talk later." Kukuru murmurs, not necessarily inaudibly, but without any real effort to project her voice before turning her attention right back to the King of Greed. The garment extends, and she launches herself straight at it. The garment catches her before she can make it to the King of Greed, but pulling her in means she can kick off the ground once more to propel herself faster and harder at it. It does mean she gets consumed by the King of Greed's garment even sooner, but on her own terms and while being (mostly) ready for it. Kukuru doesn't even spend effort on trying to talk to the King of Greed before starting to thrust her claws right into the Abnormality's general mass, focusing so much of her strength and anger into trying to just brute force her way into tearing it open enough to reach Angela. Up close, she can even start trying to redirect her nanites into Angela directly, a desperate bid to try and wake her up while she can still see her.
Aidan Proudpick	"Miss Kukuru!" Aidan's voice is hoarse. This is NOT good for him. But he raises it again regardless after a cough. "Miss Kukuru!! Your healing. Can it fix my lung? I can't use my wind magic! If I keep drawing on my life blood for air like this, I can't keep fighting!" Regardless if Aidan actually GETS that healing, he is going to run in at full tilt, pumping his arms. A wheeze rolls out of his throat as he builds up to a full run. His claws STILL hurt from the training yard. Aidan grabs at the wall, scampering up it with relative ease. He makes a leap for the ceiling- Dress rolls up his legs. It's a terrible sensation, feeling himself squeezed from all sides. His freshly healed leg groans under the pressure. His teeth clack together, back arching upward as he writhes to get free. His shield feels like it is going to snap his wrist, his arms pushing into his chest, threatening to continue until something breaks. As the dress threatens to subsume him entirely, he gets one set of claws into the floor, scrambling to get his other hand free and point his shield ahead of him. A wheezing breath and the Aegis roars to life, pulling Aidan out the dress. The breath weapon turns off again, and the squirrel goes tumbling ass over teakettle into the a wall. Seeing everyone ELSE get so properly hammered keeps Aidan from having another spiral about his weakness. This thing is just THAT powerful. "Who suffocating cares who figured it out first," Aidan snarls. Out comes the accelerator in one hand, taking aim into the middle of the creature and simply firing bullets. There is so much dress to HIT he probably won't miss. With the other, Aidan struggles to puff out wind and form it into a ball in his free hand.
Dysnomia	''I'm sorry for the disappointing answer, Angela, but if you were that strong...''     It's hard for Mia to know, in this instant, while the world falls apart around her, where she stops and everything--everyONE--else begins. The shroud of Petra's garbled presence and Lilian's schooled opacity, there's so much ambedient panic, and horror and--     --Somehow, through the tremendous influence of the King of Greed, she felt a tide of something else. Of bitter recrimination. Teeth-gnashing determination. The ache of an eternity's weight.     ''You wouldn't be stuck where you are.''     Dysnomia's body half-erupted with--spikes is too solid a word for them. Too real. Her body shrouded in 'smoke' that the movements in the air could not touch. Like a daydream.     "Who are you, to seize her reins and call her weak for being born trapped?!" The King of Greed comes down on Dysnomia--but it's not all of her, not anymore. She billowed out around, filling the air with her substance even as the strain left her blood condensing out of the air onto the metal surfaces around them. "And who are YOU, to devour her before she got a taste of what she really wanted!"     "You WON'T!" An oversized claw struggled to RIP her into her dress with burning plasma, while another closed around Angela's exposed body and struggled to RIP her from the King's grasp. "I WON'T ALLOW IT!"
Ishirou	The situation goes from bad to worse, for the second time in hours.  Right in front of him, it feels like, Angela is swallowed up and then goes offline because of /another/ meltdown.  He's not able to do anything to stop that, but... he struggles to rise as he notices people around him who can help.  Together they can free Angela, and that's what he's here for.  Cooperation through his unique abilities. Until the King of Greed swings.  He moves to try and avoid the worst of it, and... well to his credit he /does/.  It's just the force of the blow is enough to send his soft body flying across the facility and smash into a wall.  Fluid spills out of his mouth from the pure force of the blow, causing him to slowly slide down the wall.  Coughing, he slowly staggers back to his feet and grabs at the wall for support as he does so.   HP bullets go out, allowing him to stand without wall support, and he smiles at Cinder.  "Thanks," he manages to get out before he unleashes some unlocks on the RESCUE unit.  He walks forward, grabbing a tablet out of his subspace pocket.  He releases pylons around the King of Greed from the same subspace pocket, and with the pad...   He charges his electromagnetic force through it and attempts to weigh down the creature while ignoring others in the field.  He attempts to manipulate the field of combat for his allies, while also trying to restrict it for the King of Greed herself.  A pouring of energy surges from Ishirou, while this happens.  He's pushing himself past his limits, but he can't stop now... Not with Angela's very life on the line.  Not with Malkuth's... not with everyone who pushed themselves to be here and change themselves for the better.  He won't let their work be destroyed..!
Hibiki Tachibana	The Meltdown was exhausting in so many ways, but manageable. And then Meika-- ...they got her out. Somehow. Lilian's approach isn't how she tried to handle it, for sure, but Hibiki herself said it; the same method they used for Beozzi wasn't the same thing that'd be needed to pull Meika out. But one way or another, it did. And that's absolutely Meika Kirenai on the floor now. She can be glad for that much. Relieved. Every other emotion can come later.     Or they would, if that was all it was.     "Angela!!" Panting for breath, every muscle still on fire after pushing herself to chase after the Hermit, Hibiki has to push her body off the wall she's using as a support to stay upright - because although there's a moment of dim hope that Angela is adamantly refusing to let herself go that easily, the one-two punch of Netzach's terrible timing and the subsequent Meltdown forcing her to shut down right now of all times is...     The worst. The absolute worst.     By the time she forces her body to move, Hibiki is already right in the way of barrage of threads spreading out, trying to consume them just as it's trying to do with Angela. One arm, and then all of her limbs are bound up in the bindings, and the rest of her isn't doing much better within moments. "Gah...! Netzach, I'm gonna give you-- a punch myself after this...! Angela...! ANGELA! You have to wake up, damnit--!"     No good. She knows how the Meltdowns work. Which means... it's on them. And out of the corner of her eye, Hibiki can still see Meika there, hiding in the corner. If she stays right there... Hibiki's teeth grit. "/Move/, Meika! Don't just stand there! You weren't gotten out of there for nothing--!" Whether that's telling her to 'run' or to 'fight', or to just 'don't be there', there's no time to elaborate. Not now.     Without a single regard for how ineffectual red damage - physical damage - actually is, Hibiki takes in the deepest breath she can manage while getting drowned in fibers, and lets out a desperate shout while wrenching her right arm as hard as she can. It strains and pries at the cloth, until the Symphogear user just barely hauls free, and her gauntlet shifts and enlarges in a loud and sudden morphing of machinery. Not for her even-bigger-punches rocket fist, but--     Two inward-angling prongs jut forward past her fist, attached to an upsized rear cylinder, which begins kicking up to a rapid rotation. Faster and faster until air begins visibly whirling and whipping around it, into what can only be a much more manageable weapon for dealing with this than bare fists - a drill.     "What the hell about this is supposed to be granting anyone's desires...!? Get your hands off of everyone-- and off of Angela...!!" And a high-speed drill, even if not as strong as she can output normally, is just the thing. For ripping into entangling garments, wrapping up threads into them, and pushing ahead to try and slam right into the Magical Girl-turned-monster head-on.
Solty Revant	They did all of that work to keep the Servant and the Hermit from meeting, and...it didn't even matter? Whoever this King of Greed is, it jailed the Servant of Wrath and then...      Solty was left staring in horror as Angela was...eaten?! The usually kind and gentle android's face goes from horrifed to enraged! Her fists and soon her entire body are glowing with an unusual orange-yellow that flows off of her in a sort of watery wave.      Angela struggles partially free, and Solty is off like a shot. The ground where she lept from is shattered behind her. She leaps right into that garment, heedless of her own safety now. "LET MISS ANGELA GO!!" she practically shrieks, flying upward to try and land an energy augmented punch at the King's midsection.      Solty doesn't know who this Netzach is, and really she doesn't care. One of her best friends is in immediate, eminant danger.
Timespace Riders	Meika is 'fine.' After a fashion--the Demon King knows that she isn't, inside. Zi-O's ribbon-watch-hands don't rotate. The visit to the past that he makes now is entirely in his head--back to the town of Twin Peaks, and a heavy price paid. A toll taken and a lesson learned, from trying to 'cheat'--to look forward in the story, for the answers. Quit it. It doesn't make the world better to have its heroes burning themselves up for it, even if it's not physically. It just leaves different scars. Having the spirit to use that belt with the hollowness you have in your voice isn't impressive. It's revolting. You'd probably hate what I'm about to do, Haru. But a king has to be ready to spend himself, if it means the people can be happy.     "I don't care," Zi-O softly utters, leaning upon the greatsword. The Vermillion armor still gleams, a bright beacon of hope retold by the Demon King's understanding of the original story. Even as the wearer flags, his chest heaving with exertion. His ruby-lensed helmet turns, following the double finisher, as he looks over his shoulder at Meika. His tone is utterly absent any kind of accusation. "What some other girl might have done, if she were here, instead of you. Okay?" He turns, pushing off of the greatsword with a grunt. Zi-O offers her an armored gauntlet. "That girl wouldn't--couldn't be Chevalier Vermillion. Only you can decide who that is."     Angela isn't affected by facility resets, if she goes down we can't bring her back... And there's another problem-- Like Petra said I'm kind of a cakewalk so it makes sense to piggyback off someone else's Meltdown and destroy the facility that way. I'll leave the Warpgate open, feel free to head on out but Angela...     "Angela's fate is not for you, nor any of the other rabble to decide. I shall take a cue from our intrepid Captain--my overwhelming ambition will freeze your clumsily grasping fingers shut."     "...and my will is gonna crush them into pieces!"     Woz throws his arms wide, as the garment approaches, his head held high, making a nimble super-speed backflip at the last moment to avoid it by inches. "Behold, the final retelling of the Strongest, whose ambition swallows stars and whose will breaks the very earth for its temerity!"     Zi-O and Woz both swap armors--                    ARMOR TIME! World-Engulfing Flame! SURTR!                                  Future Time! Freezing! Seizing! Futurering Loki! LOKI!
Timespace Riders	A disembodied suit of armor appears before Zi-O, a hefty bladeless hilt clutched in one hand. The wristband of the cuirass watch-motif is black like volcanic glass, while the hands of the watch on the helmet resemble pyroclastic sprays of lava. Glowing orange runes light up along the sabatons, greaves and pauldrons, as Zi-O sends the armor flying towards the King of Greed with a punch. The garment snatches him, past the burning armor, before it assembles and snaps into place over him, burning it away after a brief spark-shower from the attempted smothering.     Woz, meanwhile, sports a mirrored form, cool and icy blue runes paired with gleaming silver. The hands of the smartwatch on his helmet's face turn to long, exaggerated horns of gold, curved in a sharp upward sweep. The polearm in his hand shifts to a weighty-looking Seidr staff--the weapon of a wise man. He lifts it and slams it against the ground. The ceiling and floor are rapidly coated in white-blue rime, before a veritable phalanx of spears bursts from both, attempting to skewer the King.     Zi-O, having caught a second wind for the moment, lets out a bellow--despite his state of exertion, his voice rings as clearly as the Timespace Driver's callout. "Netzach!" he cries out, cutting a furious swatch into the King of Greed, the heat of his flaming greatsword flash-boiling the spears and causing a string of small explosions. "Did you think this'd be easy, just because we're worn out?!" His might, the mantled story of Sylvi's will to Crush, carries through into a followup pommel strike.     "Maybe it would be smart to--but a good king puts his subjects first! I still have fight in me, even if it hurts--and I'm not going to let you hurt my people *without* a fight!!" His knee crashes into the King of Greed, as if to punctuate the thought. "Do you think I haven't seen the way you treat yourself?! If I have to knock over every Abnormality in this place, I'm reaching you!" Fiery watch-hands spin in reverse, again.
Petra Soroka	"If you release her too, you're putting us at risk for the Walpurgisnacht!"     After being hit with the healing bullet from Cinder, ears still ringing but barely able to filter voices out through the tinnitus, *that* is the first thing Petra hears. Angela, right in the middle of a cascading breach, and even with her EGO gear, Petra knows she isn't a trained combatant at all. Meika-- the Hermit, for the last stretch of her remaining as such-- is temporarily abandoned, her priorities shifting in an instant.     The morphmetal orbiting her flattens into a glimmering sheet like a wobbly funhouse mirror, showing her reflection before Petra slams her hand into the metal and drags Qetra out of it. Qetra, unusually, stumbles out, bleary and off-balance. "... Weh--?" "Go get my shit out of the wash. Fast." "Huhhh, chores? After--" "*Go*! Angela's in *trouble*!" "Oh-- okey dokey!" "Nothing I say here matters; just like always."     Lilian's voice is, as usual, the other thing that manages to cut through the muddled noise and deafening ringing in Petra's ears. With Qetra running down the hall to the dorms, Petra wheels around and spares a glance for Meika, crumpled on the ground, mouthing words that don't make it to her brain. That's right; that's what I need to do after this. Just like with Konoe and the orphanage. I need to show Lilian that it *does* matter to people when she helps, even if they... end up like this.     Cinder shoots Meika with a healing bullet, and Petra's already running past her to get to Meika as she's struggling to stand up. Not hearing her own words as she says them out loud, not even aware she's saying them rather than thinking them, Petra squeezes Cinder's arm while brushing by her. "I'm so fucking grateful for you. Love you." "Petra, King of Greed is nearly immune like to Red Damage like Nothing There but it should be weak to Fragments!"     "Right! And-- and Night Mist should work too, so--" Meika is hauled to her feet, and shoved out of the hallway into the indent of a Containment Cell door, just so she's not in direct sightline of the King of Greed. Petra only skims Meika's face with a quick scan, hissing to her before turning back to Angela. Coincidentally, this also acts as shielding her from Rufus as he walks by. "Get in the break room, door down the hall on the right. Stay there, stay safe, wait for-- for Kukuru. Listen to me, okay?"     What Petra *wants* to do, is throw on Sting Silver and dive into the King of Greed to rip Angela out by force. But she just can't jump in there knowing she'd die, not even for Angela-- and Angela wouldn't accept it at all, either. But that's no excuse for trying any less hard than her absolute limit.     Rather than dodging out of the way of the King of Greed's devouring dress, Petra runs further in, ducking past teeth to slam Pillar of Creation into the bottom of its 'jaw'. Compared to the size of the King, it's like trying to prop open its jaw with a toothpick, but even a toothpick hurts too badly to bite down on without flinching. Then, she pulls a moon clip of teal branded bullets out of her pocket and slams them into her revolver.
Petra Soroka	"Stupid fucking piece of shit monster, you can't grant Angela *shit*!" The full clip is unloaded directly at the jaws locked around Angela. It's even alright if any of them hit her while the King thrashes around: they're Slow Bullets, not damaging ones, and the goal is to just slow the process of consuming her long enough for Angela to be pulled out safe.     "I'm letting her be greedy! *We* are! I'll fight everyone in the fucking facility to get her what she wants, and I would never hurt *her* to do that!" "Like Petra said I'm kind of a cakewalk so it makes sense to piggyback off someone else's Meltdown and destroy the facility that way."     With her revolver empty, Petra tries to dodge out of the way of the King of Greed before it can retaliate, and fails miserably. Knocked across the room into one of those yellow pillars forming from the floor, Petra shouts up at the PA system once she's gotten wind back into her.     "Idiot! Dumbass! Fucking choke on it! We *have* a future in mind for Angela, so don't fucking get in our *way*!"
Lilian Rook	'I hate that you'll never see that girl in the drawing again.'     Those being the first words Meika, and not the Hermit, says to her, gives Lilian a reason to hesitate. She can't help but think of the other day. Huddled up in that little blue world, all three of them, sipping smuggled canned mimosas and talking about the future, it was so easy to believe that Meika only needed someone to reach a little further towards her and she'd take their hand. Back then, she'd looked like a girl that maybe Lilian could let down her hair in front of, even if only a little. Perhaps say a word or two that she wouldn't in front of Kayoko, or the Sister.     So, for a just moment, Lilian really, truly wants to deny the girl crumpled up and whimpering on the floor, and still cling to that possibility. Her whole body freezes in anticipation, as she reaches deep inside herself to scrape up every little dreg that can still say 'no'.     'S-she's never been true. I- I've always been worse than her. B-but I always- always thought, hoped s-some of it could be, could still be, m-maybe, if I could just...'     "Don't talk. Conserve your energy." is what Lilian says instead. Her eyes avert from Meika's face deliberately. Her lucidity is still tenuously in gear, but all it does is crush her with a wave of guilty chagrin. "You don't have to explain anything. Medical attention is right here. So just stay with me." Her tone is professional. Paladin. Her body aches, but Lilian can last long enough for Cinder to arrive; to lean on her sword, force her most patient smile, and extend her hand. "You can tell me later, okay? Something really terrible just happened to you. So please focus on getting home safe."     Calm. Soft. Patient. Caring. Perfect in every single way save for how different it is from before. Lilian talks to Meika with compassion reserved for a confused and helpless victim. Not the kind she'd used at the pool. Every last hint of the awkwardness and hesitance that comes with genuine vulnerability; it's only easy to notice them in hindsight, now that they're all gone.     The words that hurt Lilian to say, for how much trust they'd show, were only for the Hermit in the end. Everything she has for Meika is as fake as she thinks she needs right now. Even the angle at which she holds her head is for the sake of her hair covering up the spot Meika's bat had clipped her.     'Like Petra said I'm kind of a cakewalk so it makes sense to piggyback off someone else's Meltdown and destroy the facility that way. I'll leave the Warpgate open, feel free to head on out but Angela...'     A smile that fake can slide off of her face in a heartbeat. Despite the intolerable ache slowly settling into her body, Lilian pushes herself up straight, pulls Night Mist out of the facility floor, and catches its spinning hilt with a note of almost dainty tension.     "You should have listened to Petra more than just that." Lilian says. There's no getting to Netzach now. Not while the King of Greed is breaching anyways. She knows that she has to divert to Angela; the very instant anyone can tell her what's going on, she has to be ready to take decisive corrective action. But even so--
Lilian Rook	"Don't think I'm going to forgive you. No matter what praises your people heap on me, I'm an arbitrary and selfish person in the end. And right now, I am well, well past my fucking limit."     Normally, Lilian would keep reaching deeper and deeper into that bottomless reserve of forebearance and understanding, orient her world around her pressing fear for Angela, and come for Netzach with words like she had for Tiphereth, saving the day once again. That's how it's supposed to go. It always does. And it would here, too, if only that bottomless well were ever actually bottomless.     "The Warpgate? Go fuck yourself. How about you feel free to stop any time."     'Right! And-- and Night Mist should work too, so--'     That's finally something Lilian actually needed to hear. Those words form a fact, and that fact forms a possibility, and that possibility forms a course of action, and having one of those forms resolve. Having that in mind when the golden dress rushes towards her like a tidal wave, crashes into her weakened guard, and hurls Lilian off her feet and into the already ruined wall, is what keeps her on her feet. When the pain shoots through her body, even blunted by Lady in Black, and her arm feels like it's about to give out again, Lilian still finds the strength to press her weakened palm to the flat of her blade and gradually force the Abnormality off her with an act of immense exertion.     'Who are you, to seize her reins and call her weak for being born trapped?!'     Lilian lands on her feet, forces breath back into her lungs, and says "I did. Die mad about it." when she'd rather collapse. A pulse of energy runs along her sword's edges, like blood dripping upwards, and Lilian steps forward into the tide, hacking her way to Angela by keeping one thing in mind.     She can still save someone with her sword. As a girl 'born with one in her hand', that's still a wish come true.
Touta Konoe	There's no denying it, compared to the Meltdown prior, the one for Tiphereth had been a night and day difference. Though the events that had followed with the Hermit and Servant of Wrath, it was already beginning to become more chaotic than even that. Even now, Touta had still been recovering from the head injury as he began to pick himself up off the floor of Information, the trip to Central where Greed's containment cell is takes a moment but...     Things have already reached the point of no return. The sight before all of them chaotic, the look of Meika sprawled out on the floor, freed from the Hermit's influence but clearly suffering so much more from it now than she had been before. Though, she's not the only one suffering...     Angela's the first victim of Greed's release, an abnormality that from its weirds on the radio alone had proven to be a rather hungering entity. But in her appearance before them, it wasn't even a question. That said, despite Angela not being someone who could leave into the Multiverse herself, it was apparent that as she was beginning to break her way through Greed with her power alone that she could probably put most of L Corp's Agents to shame when she's on her home turf. Such things were never that easy though.     Angela isn't affected by facility resets, if she goes down we can't bring her back... And there's another problem-- Alarms begin to blare once again and that voice of X only continues to highlight the severity of the situation. It seems like Netzach decided now was the best time to hit the bricks because he's taking over the facility systems...     "Wait, but that means--" Before he can finish the thought, he watches as Angela goes limp, her last words trailing off, as she's left without even her own autonomy as Greed would continue to try and take hold again. Touta rushes forward and as he does finds himself brushing up and shoving Meika in the panic of it all. He hadn't even noticed Kukuru speak to her moments before he did. Tunnel vision nearly kicking in, It's only as he feels the brushing contact does he find himself looking back to her. Like so many others his gaze is somewhere between conflicted and dejected with the girl.     "..." The stare he gives feels like it could have seeped into her soul. His teeth grit so tightly that it bares his fangs to the girl as if he was ready to follow the King of Greed's example. "Good for you. You got exactly what you wanted..."     It's hard to tell if the reason for what he does in this moment is because a part of him is still trying to keep Meika from out of sight of the Abnormality while she's in such a vulnerable state, or simply because he's sick of seeing her. Regardless, the girl who stopped being 'a magical girl' soon finds herself being slowly enveloped in a veil of darkness. In no time her vision is slowly being clouded as walls of black take her sight. Even if it could have been considered on even just the slightest level a way to protect her, it truly did feel like a punishment as she was being sealed off visually from the others. A single path being provided to her...
Touta Konoe	"Do what Petra says, or stay in the dark thinking about what you did. I'm keeping my nose out of it this time..."     As those words trail along, she can only tell that he's leaving her as the sound of his footsteps hit the floor in a run.     The garment reaches for them, and like Kukuru he finds himself whole-heartedly jumping into the maw of the beast. Like her, accepting to condemn himself to a potentially harrowing fate. But...     She deserves more...Better than this!     Angela had yet to be fully taken back by the Abnormality, and there were already those who were attempting to pierce into the King of Greed's body from the outside, Kukuru was already attempting to claw at it from the inside-out.     Sadness says: 'Begone, pass away!' But greed seeks eternity--seeks deep, deep eternity.     This Abnormality dawned the moniker of 'King of Greed', something that yearned for desire eternal? Then Touta would attempt to challenge that very moniker to which it holds.     "Kukuru! Solty! Take Angela and get ready!"     Kukuru and Solty both use a build up of physical force to try cleaving and punching through one side of Greed's body, while the other side is very clearly cleaving away. Touta doesn't follow that cycle. He's not using blades or fists. He intends to burst through the Abnormality's form, but instead...     Greed had attempted to take in one Angela, it ended up with three others throwing risk to the wind to join her. That probably wasn't a big deal for it. That's probably a small appetizer for it if anything. It's just that...All a sudden it'd find itself choked up. As if it drank something the wrong way. Within the internal machinations of this creature there was a build up of a tar-like mud accruing, forming faster than the King could hope to stomach. That mud-like black water all at once begins to punch like a geyser from the wound Angela's arm had formed. At worst, there was the possibility they could at least perhaps force this thing to spit them out, but Touta fully intended to see just how much of eternity this thing could truly stomach. For he'd constantly erupt that geyser like an endless stream.     He grits his teeth as the water forms int the palm of his hand, constantly erupting out like a beam even, attempting to put enough force initially to split the body apart, before just using enough to have the stream act like a wave to ensnare the three girls within and send them back out. The mass of water likely already bulging out from the creature's form as it was attempting to further open up the injury Angela had started, and the others had continued to build upon, so that they could force the escape of those three within...Even if that means he gets stuck inside himself. Still... "You don't...Get to...Take her away!!!"     She deserves a better ending than this.
Angela	Cinder isn't rushing in that fight. She literally cannot harm the King even with her EGO Gear. Not significantly anyway. But she does keep Meika company for the moment, possibly half bodyguard and half warden at this point. "Hey take a breather, you had a rough one." She says, startling when Meika starts crying. "Oh geeze, oh gosh..." She can't say 'Don't cry' because if you're not going to cry after a time like that, when will you? "Hey, hey... I know we've talked before but I'm glad you got pulled out of that thing." She hopes she doesn't remember everything. She probably doesn't right? Beozzi didn't right? Even the King seems content to let Meika have a breather, though an eye does swivel at her for a moment. Hook approaches the King with a grin of his own. "That is what I am called here. My my my, you haven't just been swallowed up by crocodiles, you've been swallowed up by a story. Have you been drawn from the Well? Have you considered this is just another Neverland?" The King smiles at Hook's words, like she is just feasting off the drama, enjoying the story unfolding with his presence here. She fans out her arms wide towards him and says, "I love you. I love your greed, I love that you are going to tear me apart. But if you are going to devour me, I won't make it easy. Let's see what strange tastes we can uncover...!" Hook can slam his blade into the garment and tear off a hefty chunk, but this is just slowing down the expansion fo the Garment, it isn't shutting it down. It feels less like clothing and more an ever expanding body. The King forms a fist in her gauntleted hand and throws an uppercut for Hook's chin. If that fist hurts as big as it looks, he's in for a bad time if he gets hit by that. If fighting with blades won't do it, perhaps fighting with stories will. Madeleine's attack seems less overtly destructive but she uses her hunting instincts to slip by the garment and strike the Girl directly, digging the speartip into her offhand. Power seems to pull away from the Girl as she glares and swings with her offhand towards Madeleine's face. "A nice meal will settle this." Rufus chats with Netzach, "Hey, you don't have to help them out or anything. I'm sure they've got it. We could just waste time drinking if you want. Smuggled in all sorts of offworld spirits here." Netzach says over the comms. Rufus tries ICE which seems more effective than blades, a chunk of dress ceases utterly, opening up some space to maneuver around. Angela is offline and will no doubt fume at being helped by Rufus when she reviews the logs. If she reviews the logs. She might burn them so she never has to know or review them so she knows precisely how mortified she should be but that's a problem for future Angela. Present Angela's problem is getting devoured by an Abnormality. The King of Greed reaches back with her arm and punches the iceblocks forming towards Rufus to try and do some creative retaliation. Could it be possible to resurrect Angela the old fashioned way? Probably, but Angela has actually never died before. It wouldn't exactly be old hat to her. And who knows what that'd do to everyone else. Kukuru dives on in which would probably be a frightening prospect for non-Kukurus but she tears and tears large segments of cloth to shreds, faster than it can regenerate--though not by much. "Yes, yes....! Tear into me...! Satisfy your ravenous hunger!" The Garment raises up above her like a tidal wave, forming ruffle-like teeth as they try to chomp down hard on Kukuru!
Angela	one                     not enough          kiss is     for my sweet tooth Aidan can use his maneuverability to get around. Mobility is helpful when a single bite can end you and the King's reach has a while before it reaches the ceiling of the multi-story portion of the facility that is Central. The garment lashes out towards Aidan but fails to get a purchase on him. He hits the dress with bullets that the dress readily but it's tough against these sorts of attacks. Perhaps enough of them will overwhelm the King's defenses but he might get the feeling that wind attack he's trying to summon the strength for will be much more effective. Dysnomia's plasma state is both more effective in clawing shreds of dress apart and also in defending herself from the garment but even as she digs to free Angela--and she makes some solid progress--that Hand is still stuck within the Garment. There, the dress seems to be recovering faster than she can cut out but her work does prevent Angela from being consumed utterly by the King, buying precious time for her and the facility. "You've starved yourself for a long time haven't you?" She asks, throwing a Gauntleted strike towards Dysnomia. It's an inquisitive strike, seeing if this is something she can eat. Before the King can go for a second strike, Ishirou unleashes his electromagnetic net over the King. She lets out a pained cry that is half moan as the current pulses through her, causing her humanoid form to jolt about painfully. Angela jerks once as some of that current hits her, though it's brief. She probably didn't feel it but the King's smile grows a touch malicious. "I know what you want... You're so needy and desperate for it... But I won't grant it. You already have a deal..." And she just aims to axehandle Ishirou in the head with both fists! Ouch! Hibiki asks a pertinent question. "I can devour all sorts of things she hungers for. She has such a long list, you know. Even Steak or Pie or... Ooh! Beef Stroganoff! That just feels right. Beef Stroganoff..!" But unfortunately for the King, its narrative connection to the Garden means... That Hibiki is particularly suited to battling The King in Yellow. She drilling fists eradicates vast swaths of cloth in a single blow, fallin to the ground and dissolving into enkephalin. The King frowns, cracking her knuckles and saying, "Let's see if you can catch these hands." And then throws a three quick punch combo towards Hibiki's upper body.
Angela	Solty can go in for another hit. The King bowls over from the force of it, grinning as she looks into Solty's eyes. "I know what you hunger for. You hunger for blood. When Angela realized this, do you know what she thought? 'Ah, she is more like me than I thought.'" She swings her gauntlet back and swings it once more for the side of Solty's head. 'What a pity." The King is intrigued by the Riders, "The Demon King... Haha, interesting...! Shall I bow?" Explosions erupt across her body and what the explosions lack in deeply inflicted damage they make up for in hitting a wide swath of the body. The King flails her arms and body around like a Power Ranger villain before throwing her---knee!!--towards the Demon King's gut and then swings a high kick up for his chin. "Mm, I just want her to devour everything she wants. That is all I want for all of you." Petra gives Cinder an arm squeeze and tells her that she loves her. Cinder brushes her hair back and blushes as she looks into Petra's eyes and almost kisses her but remembers this is like the worst time to go in for a kiss so she doesn't. "Love you too, glad I could help. It's been quite the day huh?" The Pillar of Creation seems to also be particularly effective against this beast. Black Damage--it's effective against the King, EXTRA effective. And she can start digging, but she's also having trouble with that arm stuck in there like that. It might simply be the case that Angela's hand is just indelibly part of the creature now. Which would make sense, she's resisting corrosion as much as she's resisting being devoured and that hand is the link between her and the King of Greed. To save her it has to be severed. Is there another way? There might not be...
Angela	''I'm an arbitrary and selfish person in the end. And right now, I am well, well past my fucking limit.''' "Same." Netzach says laconically. Lilian's hard work at slicing about with Night Mist diverts the King of Greed so completely, the cloth tumbling to useless tatters around Angela who is still quite out cold but entirely free besides her hand. The King snaps the cloth back inward, electing that the broad spread of her garment is not letting her focus on anyone. The garment pulls back into the King of Greed and Angela hangs off her back via her hand. She rears back with her fist and strikes at Lilian, going for the gut with each punch. Her grin as she dives into battle against her is not unlike one of Nonon's. "Sometimes killing yourself doesn't work though. Sometimes that just causes more problems. Kinda unfair if you think about it." "Netzach, this really is the roughest time. It doesn't have to be like this." The Manager pipes in. "It kinda does." Netzach says. "It's your tests, if they're helping it has to get harder, right? Not that I care about any of that. It just seemed the best time with the least amount of work. There's no 'Safety' here, Manager, was putting me in charge of it supposed to be a joke?"        I bet           that you're    feeling                                            Lonely You must be hungry waiting for me             ''You don't get to take her away!!'' "And you do?" The King asks as the water jets punch into her arms, driving her away from Lilian. She looks back at the Commander with hunger in her eyes and growls at Touta. "Alright let's do this..." She punches towards Touta but this time it's a shockwave that erupts from that fist towards him as she drifts back towards her throne to sit on it once more. "I'm not yet satisfied...!"
Meika Kirenai	'I don't care,'     "You should." Mumbled Sougo's way, Meika barely notes that he's addressing thoughts more than spoken words- underneath everything the Hermit smothered up, it's not as if she hadn't been trying to scream. "W-whatever. I know- I know, t-that nobody else has to be. I'm still- I'll still..." Muffled nothingness follows, not magical- Meika's eyes find too much trouble to focus even on the individual floor tiles, all effort for words in that moment drains out of her. 'Don't talk. Conserve your energy.'     The few times Meika opens and closes her mouth make it seem like she wants to say something- even if it'd hurt to bother, but she manages not to, dropping into a quick, small nod. It's more comfort to her to not face Lilian's eyes right now than Meika wants to let on- she lets it on, still, blatantly, in how her shoulders fall. A nod to not talk, a nod to talk later, a nod to stay.     You don't need to lie for my sake. It's worse that you're not angrier. Painfully obvious in the perfect, engineered presentation are all of those things Lilian is choosing not to show- spotlit in negative, as glaring as the noontime sun. It takes all she has to not sob on the spot. 'We'll talk later.'     "W-what..?" 'not necessarily inaudible' is still far above the threshold it takes for Meika to miss someone's words. She mumbles out a faint "Huh? Oh. R-right," primed and expecting there to be the same kind of lecturing that's always inbound with anything that feels this guilty and helpless. It is, in fact, uncomfortable for the magical girl to meet Kukuru's eyes.     Heard, too, is Petra's little comment to Cinder. There's a firework of confusion in her brain matter, muddled by everything else that's going on. Truly, it is not a time to process thoughts- a 'later' will still come.
Meika Kirenai	'/Move/, Meika! Don't just stand there!'     "Okay, {-okay, yeah, I'll do-} w-what I can." Midway through thoughts, she's flitting back and forth from her whispers and normal, audible words Hibiki's way, the disparity in steadiness and clarity between them noticeable. But as she tries to scramble back up to her feet again-     It's Petra who pulls her up to them properly. Getting guided off is something, per the symphogear user's command- but there's still the instinct to duck her head and raise a blocking arm up, the obvious heartrate spike, frozen and defensive, in the moment after Petra shoves her backwards into the indent.     "R-right. Break room. I'll- I'll-" Words cut off, and she just nods, exaggerating the confirmation as a plea to make sure it's seen and noted.     Stepping away only to clip Touta's shoulder, there's a silenced yelp from the girl. She can't even get out an 'I'm sorry-' before- 'Good for you. You got exactly what you wanted...'     She stops in her tracks, mouth just slightly agape. Precious seconds pass, as her bright red eyes do all they can to stay on the floor. No protesting. No defense. Just a small wince at the bared-teeth expression- she doesn't notice the fangs, only the anger.     When the world blinks out from Touta's cloud, though, it's quite the familiar, guilty feeling. Her sister back home is fond of lending a helping hand, like that, to usher her away, to hide shame like that. Right. Of course. It's better nobody has to see me.     It takes a second longer, and Touta's words, for the implication that it's a punishment to land- not that it isn't usually, when it's her sister pulling a similar trick. A message without much hindrance, for a girl who doesn't need sight to see. She just hates the message every single time it's said, over and over and over. Her footsteps don't echo in the darkness- but it's possible to still hear her sniffle.     Down the hall, and to the- The break room's door slams behind her, silent, and she slides down the door, bracing her back against it. Waiting, helpless, for something and anything to happen, is hell. It feels appropriate.
Ishirou	Two drones smash into the ground on either side of Ishirou the moment that the hammer blow comes down. He jumps back, and the electromagnetic barrier kicks on just in time to brace enough of the force to let him escape the blow, narrowly avoiding it as the very force of the blow smashes the two drones, and carries him farther away. He skids to a halt along the floor of Central, taking a three-point stance. "I know what you want... You're so needy and desperate for it... But I won't grant it. You already have a deal..." "Shut up!" he shouts towards the King of Greed without thinking. "I don't need to tell you or anyone what it is I want more than anything. Ugh..." he says, frustrated that people keep bringing that bit up. Keep stabbing him in the soul with it, he knows it too. He knows what he wants, what he desires, the thing he stole from himself. He let himself be persuaded, he fooled himself into doing what he did to himself... he threw his chance and luck away... It hurts so bad, but he keeps going because he won't give up on what he wants again. If he gets lucky enough to get it again, he won't lose sight of it... He just needs to get it. Once more, he brings the electromagnetic energy to bear, but this time it comes out in lines of spikes. Each one charged as he attempted to aim the spikes in such a way they'd pierce the King of Greed, aiming to try and pin her to the ground directly, and also trying to sheer off chunks of the mass, to let Dysnomia and Madeleine's plan, and focusing enough to keep her trapped so that Hook can get his blows in on it.
Rufus Shinra	Angela's out cold? Dang. That means Rufus isn't going to get the real time satisfaction out of her reaction for saving her. > "Hey, you don't have to help them out or anything. I'm sure they've got it. We could just waste time drinking if you want. Smuggled in all sorts of offworld spirits here." "Ah ah ah, voice from the ceiling," Rufus chides. "I've sure you've got some just, exemplary booze. I'm not about to call your bluff on that. But..." "... Rather unfortunately for you, I happen to like these people." "And unfortunately for you-" This is directed at the King of Greed - but Rufus gets interrupted by the ice being hit back towards him. He brings up his arms to shield his face - and, surprisingly, only getting hit once. "... Ah?" He lowers his arms. Most of the ice hasn't hit him because the many tails of his greatcoat have inexplicably lifted up and extended out in tentacle-like fashion, knocking the ice aside. "... Ah ha." The pale marble on Rufus's shotgun is gleaming. ENEMY SKILL OBTAINED: Greed's Embrace "Unfortunately for you - I'm just as greedy. I want all of these people still around. I want to watch their little struggles unfold. I want to take in their triumphs and their despair. I want to see how the stories end." "And I'm greedy enough that I'm not about to let you take a single one - Miss Angela included!" Rufus's coat tails lash out - going to grab and hold the King of Greed in place, and further to start trying to wrench her away. "And I'm greedy enough that I'll take your own techniques to do it...!"
Dysnomia	It's the uncertainty that does it.     Not the resolve to devour, but the question, 'is it possible?' As her existence seeps past the bounds of her constraints, she became more and more of a daydream. The Queen asked 'can I?' And so she said, 'no,' and the King's fist caught air, whistling through mist.     Her body seared through the air, lines of psychic fire burning in lines. For a dragon's fire burned in their body, and Dysnomia's body was everywhere. <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia's voice sounded distant, echoey. "Her hand. It's corroded into it. Either it must be cut, or that piece of the King." <J-IC-Scene> Madeleine Cadrasteia says, "On it, Mia." <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Copy. I will work with you." <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "You may as well have told her to die." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Yeah, literally, what the fucking hell, Konoe." <J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "I'll try to keep the net tight to give you all a chance at that!"     "You've starved yourself for a long time haven't you?"     "Maybe I should start with you?" Mia's voice rumbled, both nowhere and everywhere. "You can't touch me, King. But I? I'm already all around you. You've been within me. From the very beginning."     Madeline's senses light up then with an awareness, a two-way connection, and she can feel the places in the roiling fog of Mia's body where it grows solid, with every dream of 'can I step there.' New avenues opened up, guiding her toward the spot where Angela was still rooted in place, elegantly gliding around where plasma claws would strike before they even emerged.     "You could never swallow ME."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine sneers at the King's comment. "A meal? You think I'm a meal? Let me show you what I am." She catches the King's offhand punch in her hand. It shakes her and she staggers backward - directly onto Mia's body. As Dysnomia makes psychic contact, the Huntress devises a plan. The pair fly away from the King, Madeleine guarding their retreat with her spear. They keep their distance while other attacks occupy the King of Greed's attentions, and Madeleine draws her ritual knife. She runs it through the palm of her injured hand, and it comes away slick with blood. All that remains is to wait for the right opening...     There. Now.     Dysnomia swoops behind the King's throne while Hook keeps her busy, and Madeleine reaches around the seat to bury her bloodied knife in the King's ribs. The wound foams, the blood of uncreation reacting aggressively with the King's divine flesh. It is excruciating for both parties, but Madeleine finds the strength to shout: "Captain! Now!"
Solty Revant	Solty's hands clench harder and she growls. "I don't hunger for blood! I just want Miss Angela and everyone else to be safe and happy! And things like you are in the way of that!" she exclaims. That gauntleted hand comes in and Solty punches at it with those explosive fists, trying to separate it from the body that is wielding it.      Touta shouts for them to get Angela, and it is enough for Solty to focus on something other than smashing the thing that is being super mean to her friend. "What about you, Touta?!" she exclaims. She leaps up to kick off of Greed's chin, using that chin as a springboard to launch herself downward. Her fists are glowing brightly now, and she uses her most (and really only) devastating power. Her power to disintegrate things on a touch.      Explosively.      "I want to cook for Miss Angela once she is free! Once she is able to taste things! I will cook for her as much as she wants!" Solty keeps shouting as she tries to vaporize enough of the Garment to grab Angela. Whatever she can reach of Angela, she grabs hold of and her feet start to glow now. "Let her go! She doesn't want anything you can give her! She wants to be with her friends! And to not be stuck in this awful place!"      As she says this, Solty kicks at the Garment with the same power that had been surrounding her hands, though more controlled to try and keep from hurting Angela. "And I don't mind being like Miss Angela! She's amazing! And she didn't turn away when I did a bad thing!"      She doesn't seem to realize that Angela's hand is the actual key. She's just trying her best to get Angela free. Maybe her random kicking will break something loose? "Miss Angela isn't greedy anyway! She's selfless and giving and caring! She doesn't belong with you at all! Greed is wanting more than you need, and Miss Angela just wants what everyone deserves to have! A life!"
Timespace Riders	"Meika--ngh!" Zi-O's aggressive offense leaves him wide open for the knee to the gut, the wind knocked from him by the impact. His greatsword falters, melting an angry molten scar into the floor as the King of Greed's foot comes back up. so that's why... Netzach... The burning watch hands race in fast-forward, then. A potential future plays out behind his flame-hued lenses, wherein he's knocked flat and belted out--      The Demon King weaves backwards and to the side, rolling around the attack and hefting his blazing sword once more. "I don't need your help to take what I want--I won't accept it!" A straight kick is delivered with the greatsword shouldered, its impact forceful enough that an audible crack sounds, as the air is superheated by the strike.      "I have Woz--and even if I didn't, I'd never accept help from someone who can only give by -taking!-" Zi-O takes advantage of the space after his forceful kick, advancing with a daredevil jumping slash, his body twisting laterally in the air, his grip loosened on the greatsword to extend its considerable range just a little further--      "Steak, pie, the sight of the ocean--" The blazing blade pierces the ceiling, carving a glowing scoured path and raining molten slag upon the King of Greed. The edge of the greatsword cuts a diagonal swath as it falls, Zi-O attempting to loose Angela by burning away the grasping matter of the Abnormality around her.      Woz picks up on this, whirling around his king, hands spaced evenly along the haft of his Seidr staff. Funneling his momentum, he pulls with the left hand, pushes with the right, and advances with one leg, bludgeoning the same spot Zi-O cut with frozen-over icy might. "You can see her Desire for those things," says Woz, finishing his king's thought. "But you are blinded by it--like a clumsy usurper, rather than a king." Frost clings to the spot where his weapon struck. With a 'HMH!' he clenches his fist, and spears erupt from the spot, quickly melting from the heat of Zi-O but holding the wound open, perhaps just long enough for someone to reach Angela before they melt.      "Those treasures are meaningless, if she only enjoys them having traded one cell for another."
Kukuru	Meika's left for the break room. That's one less person's safety to worry about, although Kukuru can't feel any sort of relief at that yet even if there is something resembling a grateful and extremely tired stare sent Petra's way. It might also look like a glare, but it's hard to tell since she isn't used to staring or glaring at people when she's feeling this kind of way. Besides, her eyes are still focused on her actual target of this rescue. Angela's right there. Only her hand is jammed in there. Just a little more, and she'll be free! Kukuru stabs, she tears, she rends that golden cloth as much as she can, but it somehow isn't enough. There's still too much to rip through, and even stopping for a second means losing even more valuable seconds of progress. If she could just... "Yes, yes....! Tear into me...! Satisfy your ravenous hunger!" "Shut up... Shut. Up!" She screams in the middle of still trying to rip a path open to Angela alongside so many others. She has just enough sense to shift herself aside as Hibiki's drill comes crashing in, and a little more sense to duck further into the mass of cloth when she feels the heat from Dysnomia's plasma rushing by her. "You can't bribe me with food... Not when you're stealing my family from me. I can't eat when my family's hurting like this!" She rips in harder and harder, trying to use her shrunken size to her advantage, but even she can tell that it's not working as well compared to having more outright mass and stamina to be as useful as she normally would. She  doesn't have enough sense to move out of the way of the garment, either, once it's coming down to grind her into a bloody mess. In that position, Kukuru's only option is to create an opening to free Angela, personal safety be damned. She sees an opportunity to aid Woz and Sougo in doing just that, too, when they start trying to melt, freeze, and tear open the garment. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she launches herself deeper into the garment, capitalizing on the opening she sees. Kukuru curls up into a ball briefly before practically exploding forward, shoving her arms and legs out as far as they can go to force that mouth open even harder with the Riders. "If Angie's gonna be devouring anything... It's gonna be by her choice, and we'll do it without you trying to eat her up, too. Only she's allowed to pick who does that!" With Kukuru's outburst, she pushes her entire body forward, trying to force open enough of the King of Greed's mass that there isn't enough mouth to even close down on anyone any more. The adrenaline rush and primal fear of losing her family won't last forever, though, and Kukuru knows it. If it's enough to get Angela up and out, though... She still has one more ace up her sleeve. Instead of keeping those nanites within herself, she starts pouring them out. A fierce green glow rushes right into Angela, far more intense than the one from before, and carrying with it enough power to (potentially) revive her from the dead. With that sheer volume of weird tech bits going out, it's also pouring out to the group as well, lingering mostly on Hibiki and Madeleine even as Kukuru feels her body already starting to creak from the stress she's putting on all of herself.
Captain Hook	'Have you considered this is just another Neverland?'      "Oh, I have."      The blow comes close, so agonizingly close, to his face. When he brings his sword up to parry it there's not nearly enough of a gap for his comfort - especially since the sword goes flying from his grip and wedges itself in the wall. It slices through a curtain on the wall, sending a rope swinging, which Hook has just enough wherewithal to grab onto through the pain. The rope sends him up before the second blow can take his head off.      Still, he's down a blade, and that's no good.      He hangs there in the air for a moment. <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "You hear me? You'll make a damn fine coat, you wretched thing!" <J-IC-Scene> The King of Greed coos, "I would, if you can take me." <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "Watch me." <J-IC-Scene> The King of Greed says, "I can see all Desire." <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "Then I must be bloody fucking blinding." <J-IC-Scene> The King of Greed says, "I can grow more eyes." <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "Then keep looking at me, until they all burn out. Here I come."      No sword, and cracked fingers. Pain, holding himself up. He's angry, but anger, anger doesn't win here, does it?      No. No it doesn't. <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "If you have energy for this you have energy to keep fighting."      No, the rage at Touta's a distraction, and the rage at the King is a distraction, too. Fighting fairy tale with fairy tale, that's the way, that's how it goes. He knows that better than anyone else in the world. He knows that better than the whole of the Multiverse. Even that legendary king who owns all the things in existence doesn't know fighting fairy tales with fairy tales the way Captain Hook does.      Fingers slipping. Make it snappy.      Think quickly, man, someone you care about is in danger. You're ever so quick-witted when it doesn't matter. All the snappy remarks, all the little bits of this-and-that, all the banter, all the stories, you're ever so quick-witted then, Will, but now, here and now, when something matters to you? When something matters to you so much you'd risk your life for it?      When some*one* matters to you so much you'd risk your life for her?      Ha. Funny, that. Cracked fingers gripped tight around the rope, pain bringing cutting focus, and all he can think of is Annabelle, Mary, and Little Will. Isn't that, really, what he had wanted? What he had...needed? What he had...desired? Isn't that life what he had missed?      No.      Yes.      No.      No and yes.      He couldn't live that life anymore. But Angela had provided a window into what it was like. A little sister who could live the life he lived. A little sister to protect, to care about, to love and fight for. Angela, who was precious to him in a way that was entirely different to Hibiki down there, or Persephone in her heavenly sky. She wasn't a friend. She was beloved. A beloved sibling he wanted to save not because this is her own miserable Neverland, not because he saw himself in her, but because he loved her as a brother ought.      Found family, is it? Not just a treasure but *treasured*.      Haaaa.      Hook's eye slams shut. Well, that bloody well settles it, doesn't it, old man?
Captain Hook	Ishirou draws spikes around the creature as Hook hangs from the rope. A good, solid cage, and a wild beast in Mia to keep it there, and a hunter burying a knife in its ribs. But there's one thing that's always true, when it comes to tales of greed and swallowed sisters, one surefire weapon that never fails.      Hook swings upwards. He loops his foot into the rope. Just need a moment, that's all, while they struggle. Just need a moment to dangle the treasure chest, to hold it open -      It slips.      But he grabs what he needs.      With a snicker-snack he whips his hook around to slice the rope free and falls, something long and gold and scaled and clanging clutched in his hand.      The Captain lands atop Woz and Shogo and whirls the thing around his shoulders as if it was his jacket.
Captain Hook	IN ANOTHER WORLD, IN ANOTHER TIME      'This coat,' the man said, 'Is made from a beast.' 'A lot of coats are made from beasts,' said Captain Hook, leaning back in his chair, 'So why ought I find it? What makes it topping swank, as they say?'      'Nobody says that.'      'I say it,' Hook replied, picking up a cup of tea from the table to swirl thoughtfully, 'And that ought be good enough for your like. Well, man? What makes the thing so special?'      'It's made from the hide of a dragon.'      'You're pulling my leg.'      'Aye, no, I ain't. It's a dragon's cloak, sure as day. A dwarf, you know, they turn into dragons when they get too greedy. And their treasures, you know, they take 'em and bake 'em into their skin, so they can't be parted. So someone hunted this one down, and-'      'And skinned it for its horde-'      'An' made a coat that'd make Midas jealous, clad in greed an' gold an' wings to blow an' claws to rip.'      'Well, then.' Hook set his cup on the table, 'I suppose I'd best get to it then.'
Captain Hook	HERE AND NOW      William Hook draws the gold-coin cloak, the dragon-skin cloak, around himself. He tightens his grip on the inside of it. What he's about to do is pure, absolute madness, but it's the kind of madness only Captain Hook can do, armored in avarice.      Kukuru forces more of the thing open, and Hook sees his chance.      He dives in head-first.      He dives into the King, as if a meal waiting to be eaten, and vanishes into the creature's story.      He dives in, as deep as he can go. A fairy tale to fight a fairy tale. Greed to fight greed. Blinding, unquestionable avarice to get right into the metaphysical heart and rip it out and add it to his collection. To tear it free while everyone else pulls Angela out, to make it *his*, and to answer its own desire with his:      You can eat me, alright.      But you won't be able to get all of me in your stomach, you rotten bastard.
Aidan Proudpick	Keep squeezing. More air. Keep squeezing. Kukuru's healing nanites ease the tension in his lungs, allowing deeper and deeper breathes. "Come on. Come on. I was born with wind magic. I don't need to command the hurricanes. I can do this," Aidan whispers to himself, desperately trying to form enough magic into the ball. Bullets are useless, and Aidan immediately hurls the Accelerator away so he can start climbing the walls. Aidan scrunches up, claws sticking in a pillar before he hurtles himself up to a next level, free hand around a railing. While his upper body strength is not good enough for hauling up a bean pole, his core strength is. With a swing back of the legs, and an abdominal flex, Aidan slides under the railing, out of the way of another lash of the dress by a hair's breadth. <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "Yea? So what! I desire Angela to have her freedom! I want Meika to be happy! Those aren't wrong!" Well, not entirely true. There is still that kernel. The kernel that Lilian pointed out. Respect me. A squirrel child with a wooden sword, defending a skunk child from imaginary marauders. An teenage squirrel getting knocked onto his ass for punching a bigger fox who called him a 'bastard'. Fifteen summers and being kicked maliciously among an airship parade by a man who shares his blood, let bloody and broken. Eighteen summers, and throwing darts at posters of the Four Generals, laughing among friends as they write down The People's Code. Respect me, please. I just want to help. I want to be the hero. I want to make people happy and free again. Doubt formed. Could he change? Did he have the right to change? A tickle in his mind. An outcropping. A single ledge of safety for his mind to grab. No, she's wrong. She's just beating you down. "You're wrong," Aidan whispers, not quite brave enough to say it directly at Lilian, or knowing it would be pointless. Shouting against the wind. "Meika has always hated me. Angela cares so little. I wish I knew what to do before this. I wish I knew the secret of growing up. How to help people through their trauma. But like Captain Hook said. The best day to start is yesterday. The second is today." Aidan clamps his hand down on the ball of wind, using both hands now. Not just shaping it, but shrinking it. Not an easy task. But he has had some practice. "I even want Petra to be happy. I am going to drag Hearthward across the finish line to make sure he is allowed to be happy." The kernel is still there. The praise. The desire for friendship, respect, a need since the day he was born out of wedlock. A need that a father alone couldn't fulfill. A need that a few lines in the Wikelite could only scratch. ANd he'll live with that stone for now. The battle below rages, his eyes darting briefly towards the King of Greed. Watching everyone work together. Aidan looks down, and finally pushes his hands together, forming a ball of wind about the size of an apple. Not as small as Kale's. But. He's swallowed bigger things. Aidan tries to keep the energy together, jamming it into his mouth. In his mind, Aidan envisioned this going much differently. Perhaps a sudden rush of music. A blaze of golden light. The feeling of power pumping through his blood. A feeling of superiority. When the air hits his lungs, he coughs, wind escaping through his nostrils. But something's there. Rather than rush in, Aidan stays from his vantage point, aiming his hands downward. Rather than the air simply being around him, he can feel some of it IN him. Pouring from his finger tips. What does he do. Can he make tornados? Can he make a wall. Unable to think, index fingers will do. Darts of wind spiral out from the squirrel's finger guns. He puffs out breath in short bursts, each one forming a dart from the air, from his fingers, aiming at the wounds Sougo and Mia create.
Hibiki Tachibana	Let's see if you can catch these hands.     The answer to that question doesn't come with words, but rather with the cracking thud of a Gold Rush-equipped fist smashing into her sternum and making her body jolt, along with her drill beginning to lose steam. Perfectly geared to fight one too greedy for Eden or not, it doesn't make that kind of raw physical force hurt any less. The second one comes right behind the first, and a choked sound and a hacking cough sends blood splattering out of her mouth, and her attempt at piercing through winds down completely as her eyes shoot wide. "Ghah--...!"     This is all stupid.     Netzach pulling his crap right now is stupid. The yelling at one another even now is stupid. And most stupid of all is that her body is refusing to listen to her. Angela is right there, and she's at risk of getting consumed. She lets Agents die she could save for energy gen, so-- Shut up. I know already. Everything about this place sucks. Nobody here has clean hands. Not her, not Hod... and not me. And none of that matters.     "But she's right in front of me-- so I'll keep going--" What was probably going to be another dramatic declaration about saving the person she can see is cut off by another blood-splashing and pained choke, as the third and final hit of the King of Greed's vicious combo strike pulverizes into her chest and sounds like it may or may not have cracked a rib. She's well past her limit when it comes to taking abuse today.     That one, though, Hibiki knew was coming and didn't even try to stop. Completely ignoring trying to slip free of the tail end of the string of attacks, Hibiki takes it head-on so that her /own/ punch can come in towards the King of Greed at the same time. It's not just her usual reckless style; it's a technique. One she learned what feels like an eternity ago, in a certain temple.     Her fist ignites with golden energy, like a shining star. The Ape Fist of Khalum was a move that used one's own pain response to inflict incredible psychic feedback on a target. Hibiki isn't exactly a psychic though, and doesn't have anything like nanite field to channel the technique through like a martial artist of Rubi-ka would.     But she does have Gungnir, and the power to connect to others.     And that's the medium she uses to make her godslaying fist coming in for the King of Greed's face come in that much harder, a cross-counter reinforced by every bit of pain and soreness wracking her body right now - she'll touch the bottomless well of greed just beneath the surface, and feed all of that desire with all the spiritual recoil and disorienting vertigo the former Magical Girl can handle.     "--so she'll have the chance to experience all those things... herself...!"
Petra Soroka	"Love you too,"     Unfortunately, tinnitus prevents Petra from understanding Cinder's words on the first pass, and there's no time to ask her to repeat it. Maybe fortunately, since this would *also* be the worst time for Petra to get her head wrapped up in the fact that she said that out loud. So in response, all Cinder gets is a thumbs up. "Do what Petra says, or stay in the dark thinking about what you did. I'm keeping my nose out of it this time..."     "Don't act like we're on the same side. Don't use my fucking words, tourist freak." Petra, obviously, gets blinded too, since she's standing next to Meika at the time that Touta drops his fog. That also means she doesn't see Kukuru looking at her, so she doesn't have to think about how to feel about it. "Stop harrassing Meika and do your job of being a braindead lump of meat that absorbs damage." "No matter what praises your people heap on me, I'm an arbitrary and selfish person in the end."     This, maybe surprisingly, has Petra nodding emphatically in agreement, and she spits in the direction of the PA system derisively. Immediately after, she looks confused for a second, and rubs the back of her hand against her mouth, awkwardly trying to pretend that this was to spit out blood instead. That was really crass. I don't know why I did that.     "Fucking-- right? Who even fucking cares about Netzach. Who cares about the fucking Tree of Light or any of that dumb shit. I'm here for *Angela*, I'm here to protect *her*. And I'm not going to stop at *anything* for that, so all this stupid talk about giving up or being greedy doesn't even fucking *apply*. I know what I *want*, so I'm going to *get* it!"     Qetra returns with Petra's (damp) EGO trenchcoat in hand, running over from the direction of Disciplinary. Battered from fighting for so long without any armor at all, Qetra is for once a welcome sight, and Petra whips out her morphmetal to grab on to Pillar of Creation, fending off the King of Greed with the blade for a momentary breather to change. She shrugs her arms through the sleeves the moment Qetra's in reach, with the pulsing blue heart appearing on her chest despite not wearing the suit itself, and is about to dismiss Qetra when the King's gauntleted charge catches her right in the side.     Qetra goes flying with a yelp, and the morphmetal wielding Pillar of Creation snaps back into Petra's hand like elastic, then continues past. It flattens into a sheet on the wall right before Qetra crashes into it, and she's absorbed back inside. Petra simultaneously steps in for a perpendicular jab at the King of Greed's side, less hoping to severely damage her, and more to knock her off her path. "Beef Stroganoff! That just feels right. Beef Stroganoff..!"     "We're fucking *working* on it!" Petra follows up with using the full length of Pillar of Creation's shaft to twist between the King's arms, tangling up its punches. She's not strong enough to actually catch its movements directly, but maybe the EGO weapon-- the only weapon here *truly* meant for fighting Abnormalities-- is enough of a threat for the King to not exert its full strength in forcing its way through it. "Food isn't the only thing she wants! She wants fucking friends! Freedom! She wants to write, and help people! We're going to give her *all* of that, not just your shitty, cowardly fucking compromise!"
Petra Soroka	"I'd never accept help from someone who can only give by -taking!-"     Petra shakes her head roughly at Sougo, too worked up to moderate herself. "Stupid! The whole problem is not taking *enough*! All this fucking Abnormality can give her is a little bit different while she's still *stuck* here. She deserves to take *more*, and *fuck* whoever she's taking from. The King of Greed is just another thing she should be taking *from*." "Sometimes killing yourself doesn't work though. Sometimes that just causes more problems. Kinda unfair if you think about it."     "Tough fucking *luck*, dude!" Trying to get Angela out is still her priority, but Neztach's dumb voice over the announcement system still catches her attention. Petra tries stabbing Pillar of Creation like a crowbar right above where Angela's gauntlet is fused into the Abnormality, with morphmetal running down the blade to force itself into the tear she makes to try to pry it further open.     "Sometimes you just *can't* kill yourself, because it's better for someone else if you live. And maybe sometimes your life gets better after that, but I don't actually give a fuck if yours does. Kill yourself after the Tree of Light's done for all I care. But sucks for fucking you, you have a fucking purpose to stay alive, and you're going to be *forced* to go through with it!"
Lilian Rook	'"Do what Petra says, or stay in the dark thinking about what you did. I'm keeping my nose out of it this time...'     "Too late. You couldn't get one sentence in." Lilian hisses. Even if Meika is right there and listening, she doesn't have energy left for her anymore. Striking the foe is reification of the self. The world is cold, and driving it back maintains core temperature. An uburdening of little hates, naked and exhaled, is an act of shedding weight. Lilian is battered and slow enough that even she feels it; the need to shed as much as she can to compensate.     "What happened to not wanting people to think you want to be 'that'? 'Brat'. 'Excuse'. I bet those hurt you more than they hurt her, right up until you saw her snivelling and ashamed. Then you meant them, right? Your disapproval became real the moment she wouldn't fight back." The rhythm of it seeps into her breathing. That all-important time-telling flow of power that she holds up as the core of combat. <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "Yea? So what! I desire Angela to have her freedom! I want Meika to be happy! Those aren't wrong!" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Bullshit. We all know what your greed is. You've screamed it out loud for everyone to hear. Neither Angela nor Meika ever made you cry and break your toys."     Expire anger. Inspire focus. Expire contempt. Inspire conviction. Expire alienation. Inspire devotion. Angela is right there. There's at least one of us she can save. Slide the left hand down; leverage the pommel to minimize exertion. Lower posture; don't let either leg start locking up. The enemy is cloth; cut one way and then the other; there is no need for a chase.     'Same.'     "I didn't ask." she says. "What you're like doesn't matter. What your story is doesn't matter. You picked the one time nobody can afford to care. So what's going to happen to you comes down to the fact you're weak and I'm strong and I'll decide everything when I get to you." Whether or not that's true doesn't matter. The thought plants one foot in front of the other, pursuing the contracting cloth and hacking it off at each opportunistic end to shave away at the enemy with minimal force.     'Sometimes killing yourself doesn't work though. Sometimes that just causes more problems.'     "I wouldn't know. I didn't have the fucking luxury." She can see the King of Greed's mad smile now. The first fist is thrown her way. It's too much for Lilian to deal with in this state. All she can think about is her blistering anger towards Netzach. The sheer fucking apathy with which he can ruin everything for everyone when they've already been through too much is too familiar. Thinking about him talking about suicide now is--     "Pussy." Lilian swivels along the axis of the King of Greed's punch at the last instant. The callousness is like propellant. She brings Night Mist down on her inner arm with a swift, opportunistically efficient blow. She can feel the coolness in her neck spreading, and it's such a relief that she knows she's in the danger zone.
Lilian Rook	'You can't touch me, King. But I? I'm already all around you. You've been within me. From the very beginning. You could never swallow ME.'     "A fucking speech every time. Do you just say whatever sounds rebellious? Is that all you think about?" Catching another blow in the cross of Night Mist's guard lets Lilian divert it high over her head and allows her body to flow beneath it at the same time, dividing the work; opening up again to slide the flat of the blade along that gauntlet and bite into the King's ribs. "Or is that the only way you can care about anything? Making it about your history, your abusers, and lionizing yourself for getting away?" Angela is right there. Inconveniently behind. Lilian tries to circle, but is cut off by another punch. Her heel gouges the floor with the force of stopping and pivoting. Can't let the King know she has gas in the tank left.     'A meal? You think I'm a meal? Let me show you what I am.'     "A body. A spear to point at a problem. A mediocre woman who loves the feeling of rebelling and couldn't take anyone's fear seriously if she tried." Pure projection. Still enough to duck under a right hook and take a swing at the King of Greed's legs-- then abort when a following blow craters the floor and flick the point upwards into her face while retreating.     'Miss Angela isn't greedy anyway! She's selfless and giving and caring!'     "God. You don't know a single thing about her." Nearly. So very nearly. The Abnormality-- the 'magical girl'-- is focusing on her. She reminds Lilian of Nonon. She won't gamble. She has to last a little longer. "'Once you've had a taste of desire, it comes in like an unstoppable wave.' That's Angela. Anyone who had to live her life would be full of nothing but. Can't you fucking see how badly she needs it? She has no fucking self to give. She can only care because some of us cared about her first."     "It's incredible. Even now, you won't even look at her. Just the version you made up in your mind; the one where you erased every single trace of her and filled in your blanks with all your favourite things to do her a service."
Lilian Rook	'And you do?'     "No, but I do." says Lilian. Finally, without the bile unburdening of every toxic thought. Finally, to the King of Greed herself. "You don't have anything special to say to me . . . because you already get it, right?" Her body finally feels like. Lilian dives low under a powerful straight, blowing her hair aside behind her, and whirls sidelong away from a vertical chop, spraying sparks into the King of Greed's face from dragging the tip of her sword along the floor and heaving it over her shoulder.     "You're just excited to meet me. Aren't you?" She rises through the revolution, deflecting a hook by bringing Night Mist from her shoulder and around her head and letting it roll down the hanging flat; then plants her feet, skips three rapid steps, and turns again just for the momentum, bringing the hilt in close to build speed. "I'm greedy too, but you're fixated on me because I know what satisfaction is like. Even if there are a lot of little things I want, I can get by. Because--."     Lilian says it so automatically that it's like a trance. The words follow in the exact cadence and tone that they always, always do; on every rare occasion that makes her say them.     "All the time in the world is mine."     She's sure that she sold it. After this much fighting without using it once, the only logical conclusion to draw is that she can't anymore. She'd hit her limit with the last three fights. The Hermit, at least, convincingly put her on her last legs. Lilian Rook could never restrain that part of herself for so long if she had any choice.     That means the King shouldn't be expecting it when she <has cut/is cutting/will cut> in three separate places and grabbed Angela by the arm.
Touta Konoe	The pulse of his water jet is enough to provide Lilian with distance, after the fact. It seems that Solty's worry is sated at the very least if she was able to get them out. At least some of them...For even now he can still see Angela limp, freed but still not out of danger. It should bring a level of relief...     <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook, at Touta, his voice still extremely, unpleasantly calm, says, "You little bastard. Do you listen to yourself, tourist? Do you even hear yourself speak? When this is over, I'm taking you aside and flogging you stupid. Thankfully that won't take very long - you're already most of the way there." He's clearly utterly furious, in a way that literally no one has ever heard him before. "Talking to a child like that?"     <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Yeah, literally, what the fucking hell, Konoe."     <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "Oh I promise you I do."     Should have at least...     He doesn't even bother to look there way, His focus still on the matter of the King. "Child huh...?" The words trail from his lips, a hushed mumble under his breath as distant memories come to mind. He wants to say he's had that moment. That fuck up, where people defended it as being a kid. No, it was because as a kid he was bombasted...And if he could think on it, if he had to choose between getting coddled as a child, or spat out like anyone else...     "You want to treat her like a kid, go for it. But kid or not, doesn't change what's happened..." They were cleaning up part of her mess. This place wasn't one for kids...     Perhaps the only kindness that Touta can say he's giving Meika at this point is that he is treating her like an adult. Though even he wishes it was to treat her as an adult to acknowledge her accomplishments than to bear disdain at her actions.     <J-IC-Scene> Solty Revant says, "Mr. Touta wouldn't tell someone to die! He stopped me when I was ab-about...to..."     "Solty, stop it's okay, I don't care what they have to--"     I bet that you're feeling Lonely      "..."     Touta finds himself halted as the Abnormality asks that question, but it's what is hidden behind it that throws him off. His words cut off. At first because of that disruption, but when he thinks about what lies beneath...His words continue again, only in thought this time. I don't care what they have to say about me...But...But...I'm sick of being the one that gets rejected than made... The villain. And then she adds in...As if she /knows/ where to twist the knife. "Yeah they do...But--"     What happened to not wanting people to think you want to be 'that'? 'Brat'. 'Excuse'. I bet those hurt you more than they hurt her, right up until you saw her snivelling and ashamed. Then you meant them, right? Your disapproval became real the moment she wouldn't fight back.
Touta Konoe	Before he can even finish there's simply not enough time. Words faltering on empty ears, "I figure it's still better than....Than the 'kid' option select."     At this point, there's just a burden he feels on his back. More than any other. Even his blade at it's heaviest weight couldn't compare to the feeling that's lingering on his shoulders right now. How nice it'd be to be able to just shed off that weight, to shed as much as possible without repercussion. But that was never so easy was it?     "No...I get to pretend that when this is all over, that I'll be the one that can be satisfied."     The rest of the King's words fall hollow. Even Petra's words as pungent as they are just can't compete with the one person who can truly see where best to apply pressure. At the very least, Touta respects Petra's request as he ends up taking the shockwave head-on. The young man is lifted off his feet, and sent flying all the way to the other end of the hall of Central. The room visibly shakes as a crater is made where his body is planted.     "That so...? And here I was thinking...I couldn't take anymore." He begins to pull himself from the crater. The young man's form still unhindered, and yet, everything about him just seems pained. Though it's in those words...Maybe it's because the King as a monster knows those of its ilk does it say those next words to him.     <J-IC-Scene> King of Greed says, "Come Touta... Remember you are a beast."     In the time it takes him to pull himself from the wall, nearly everyone has taken their shots. Touta in the meanwhile just...Cracks his neck. "Monster. Anyway...I'm gonna need a moment to..." Vent.     The fog begins to slowly emanate from behind Touta's back light two wings of darkness. They slowly begin to envelop the Abnormality, as if it was being consumed in this pitch-black. Touta steps into fog as well as his visage disappears slowly along with the Abnormalities. The fog alone was beginning to take up considerable space, reaching as high as the roof of Command, and nearly spreading out into the nearby corridor where other containment cells lingered. The only thing left to see is his eyes that stare at the Abnormality like a predator stares at prey...     What follows is difficult to pick up what happens with sight alone within the fog, both to peer within or what transpires inside. Though in that moment, within the span of a few moments it feels as if in the same manner at which Lilian had been severing and slicing in the single moment, it felt as though the King was being...Devoured. As if within the mist something lingered within, something that was attempting to pull it apart from every angle.     But this wasn't an act of greed. If anything, it truly felt like an act of wrath. Of something that lashed out without concern. Constantly attempting to grip at Greed's body, attempting to pull it apart from one angle or another. What felt like tendrils in one moment reaching out tearing in like claws in the next.
Angela	It takes a moment for Cinder to realize what Touta was saying to Meika--and to let it really sink in. She frowns and says, "Man, fuck you," She sounds more disappointed than pissed. "Stop making your shitty past other people's problems." She jogs after Meika after, "H-hey hold up...!" The door slams shut before she can get into the break room and she lets herself slide back down it after on the other side. "Sorry, that was uncalled for." She waits a moment and adds, "There's snacks in the vending machine." Ishirou knows what's being talked about and he knows everyone knows what's being talked about and he's just done with it. He's so done with it, that he jabs an electromagnetic spike into the King's left foot, pinning it there. The King of Greed purses her lips in annoyance but she seems to have said her piece to the catbot. ''Unfortunately for you, I happen to like these people.'' Netzach is surprised. "Oh, I mean, I don't hate 'em or anything. Commander seems cool. Sougo, well, his heart's in the right place. But I kinda thought you hated them. Well, way to go. Making friends. Cool. Maybe later, then." Rufus STEALS THE POWER OF CLOTHES CONTROL!? This is probably one of the coolest uses for blue magic really. Like, what do you want more? Punch hard or the ability to throw your cloak at someone and have it fight for you? Regardless, even the King of Greed might underestimate the greed of a Billionaire's Son. The King of Greed is momentarily at a loss for words but only momentarily as Rufus sends his own coat to attack the King in return, binding her arms. She grunts like she's kind of enjoying it but she does say, "My my, you're really something." Cloth lashes out to grasp at Rufus in turn and she tries to bite off his face! Dysnomia can't be eaten by the King of Greed, and her hands struggle to reach her as plasma claws strike at her from the mists. The King isn't sure what to do about for a moment but... If the plasma claws can strike her they have to be solid. The King waits for a strike, opens her mouth and CHOMPS down on them with her teeth, jerking her head and throws a punch for the mist. Solty shouts that she doesn't hunger for blood. The King chuckles knowingly like she knows that's not entirely true, even if Solty believes it--a hundred percent. "Selfless and caring? Selfless people don't bond with my EGO, child." The King lashes out and catches her hand. "Mm... I enjoy taking the pain, but I think I'd like to dish out more first." But she doesn't strike back immediately, just pushing Solty back. "She'll never trust you completely if you can't see her. But she doesn't desire you to suffer... Mm.... Maybe I'll just beat you to an inch of your life instead."
Angela	''I'd never accept help from someone who can only give by taking!'' "Don't I deserve to be happy too? Or should I just give all of myself until there is nothing left, without getting anything in return?" The King of of Greed is however stunned by Sougo remembering something non-food related that Angela had a desire for. She growls as the wounds she's been garnering are held open, preventing her from healing properly. Who is healing properly? The people Kukuru is lending a hand to are healing properly. Angela isn't that badly hurt already considering she's been deftly kept off of Angela beyond her hand and a Kamen Rider is in the King's face enough that she can't finish eating Angela up. Or start to. But it should give her some extra OOMPH in case the battle turns once more. Aidan wants to be the hero. He really wants to be the hero. The King of Greed can hear that as if he'd been shouting it. Aidan aims for the wounds created by Sougo and Mia. It's a viable technique, it's a perfect plan... But the problem is, as ever, the motivation. The King of Greed can smell it, that desire, and because she can smell it, taste it in the air... She ducks at the last moment. The wind passes by over her head and harmlessly past her into a wall where it busts open a crater into the facility and destroys two vending machines. "Mmnn.... You'd have eaten the fruit." Hibiki hits the King of Greed in a way that would've probably obliterated her but the sad truth is--she's flagging, she knows she's flagging. She's been fighting hard for a long time and it's starting to show. The King of Greed's head jerks to the side from the strike. And then she slowly turns to look back to Hibiki. "Hm... You desire plenty. But perhaps what you desire most now...is Rest. I will give it to you." The King holds off on retaliating for a moment, instead pushing Hibiki aside with a shockwave so she can get some breathing room.
Angela	The King finally pulls herself free from Rufus but gets sliced across the side from the Pillar of Creation. She doesn't like that at all, the wounds from the Pillar seems particularly effective against the King. The wound doesn't close shut at all, green fluids spilling from where the spear struck her. "hah.... Hahhn.... Yess, this is the fight...I've been hoping for." She looks up into Petra's eyes. "...How...can this be?"     When I first tasted kindness                     I understood I had been starving     When I first tasted happiness            I grew fearful I could be content in this prison Angela is starting to pull on her arm. Her eyes are still closed. She's still shut down. She shouldn't be able to move at all. No, something else is moving Angela. This still isn't enough but... ''Tough luck, dude!'' "...Man," Netzach says, "You really are the star employee of this facility, aren'tcha? Maybe it'll actually work out in the end this time. Well, either way... I die here or her goal is closer to completion. But I don't like hurrying." ''She wants fucking friends!'' The King.... Cannot provide friends. She hesitates.
Angela	''Pussy'' Netzach sighs like a shrug but doesn't argue. ''You picked the one time nobody can afford to care.'' "I.... guess I don't really care so much if everyone cares or not. I mean, having people care about me is kinda ... against my goal, right?" He seems to be considering this but ultimately goes quiet to take over more systems. LIlian recognizes Nonon in the King of Greed. It might explain why she wields the EGO so effectively like it's her own fist. Greed is necessary to wield this EGO. The more keen and vast one's desire, the higher one's resonance is with the Gold Rush EGO. ''Once you've had a taste of desire, it comes in like an unstoppable wave.'' Lilian listened. She knows Angela. Benjamin knows her too. That's why he said that. But for Benjamin, knowing Angela meant fearing her, what she could do. That fear was, ever so slightly, stronger than his love. ''She can only care because some of us cared about her first'' "...Isn't it scary?" The King asks softly. "Being cared for so suddenly after so long lacking it." The King stares into her eyes. "Isn't it scary, thinking that might be enough? That you could sit in a cell forever so long as you have people who love you? That you might give up on everything else?" "It's a stray thought but..." Lilian strikes in that moment. Across the KIng's neck, her left leg, and her right arm. Green fluid erupts out of the wounds simultaneously and Lilian grabs ahold of Angela's arm and...
Angela	That's when the plan is set into motion. Hook knows that this being, however its connection to the divine may be, is ultimately a fairy tale first and an otherworldly being second. And stories are best fought with stories. Angela desires Hook to go back to his family. She thinks he'd be better off with them in his life and feels his family would be better off with him in his life. She feels guilty, despite tasting it, that strange bond with Hook. She wants it. But she knows intuitively that stealing that for herself means stealing it from Will's biological family, even if he never goes back there, even if he can't. Not fast enough, he's only human even if he's also a tale! The King brings up her fist to protect herself but she has to deter to catch Madeleine's deadly blade, intuitively recognizing the danger in that knife in a way that stories can see sometimes. And that's the trick that leaves the King open to the Pirate. And the King dives into the gaping wound in the Abnormality's chest. It feels... Human... Inside there. Despite everything being so monstrous, it feels like he dove into a person. Even if it's not a person. Hook grabs at the heart of the thing from the inside. He can see Angela's gauntled hand, stuck within her like it's part of her own body. The problem is the gauntlet, obviously, but he can see the tendrils within that are pinning it in place. Steal the gauntlet and it'll be a simple matter for Lilian to pull Angela out. He can feel his flesh dissolving, he can feel his identity being pushed on and subsumed. He'll be devoured by the Crocodile if he isn't quick as a feather and as savvy as a pirate but fortunately he is both of these things. He rips free the Gauntlet, taking it for himself. He is violently ejected from the Abnormality, holding the gauntlet in hand. And Lilian can make one last pull and Angela is pulled free from the King of Greed in a single motion. The King stumbles as she has lost hold of Angela and thus can no longer feed on her OR use her facility controls. "Hahh... Hahh!! ...You did it... You stole me...from me... Haha...." The Gauntlet slowly transforms into something more fitting: A Golden Hook. He can possess it. But can he handle wielding it? That is a question for another time because the King grasps at her head. Black fluid pours from her eyes. "No... NO... Not yet... They're not here yet... My sisters aren't here!" She then laughs. It is very Nonon like, but crueller. "Alright..." She says. "This wasn't enough..."
Angela	Touta goes in to devour her while she's weakened. She leaps into the air as he goes for it, hanging off a chandelier and kicking him off as he tears off a significant chunk of her leg. The gaping wound in her chest isn't healing one bit. But she flips again so she's on top of the chandelier and says to him, "You've shown what you are today. You've shown everybody who you are, Touta. You've shown people who you truly are beneath all that talk of friendship. They call you 'tourist', but one who seeks to be ''right'' before they seek to provide ''care'' shows a Pride befitting of Hell..." She straightens up, cricks her neck. "They are almost here. They desire to save her. And then...You'll all sleep a forever blissful dream...!" The Gold Rush gauntlet is at its strongest three strikes in. And so the King dives down from the Chandelier, crackling power erupting out from the gauntlet, golden energy exploding radiantly around her... HERE COMES THE      .--.___.----.___.--._      /|  |   |    |   |  | `--.     /   G O L D E N R O A D    `.    |       |        |           |    |       |        |      |     |    |  `    |  `     |    ` |     |    |    `  |      ` |      |   ` |   '|  `    | ` ` `  |  ` ` |  `  |   ||`   `  |     `  |   `  |`   `|   ||  `    |  `     | `    |  `  |   ||    `  |   ` `  |    ` | `  `|   || `     | `      | ` `  |  `  |   ||  ___  |  ____  |  __  |  _  |   | \_____/ \______/ \____/ \___/   |     `----._   |    /       \   |         .--.\   |        '    \   `.      |  _.-'     `.|__.-' The King is enshrouded in light as the full power of the Magical Girl of Happines's fist is unleashed. This is the power that had ensured that the Kingdom built over the Garden could only fall from within. But that's just a tale, isn't it? It's not real. But Angela is safe.
Rufus Shinra	> "My my, you're really something." Rufus Shinra raises an eyebrow as his threads duel with hers. "Heh, no... that's where you're wrong, Miss King of Greed. I'm not 'really something'." And then Rufus gives her a wink, and a fingergun. "I'm really Rufus." Just one fingergun, he has to save the dual fingerguns for when they have the most impact. Yes. It's important to reserve fingergun ammo, he reflects. He'll save the dual fingerguns for when Angela will be conscious to react to them. And then Rufus gets bitten in the face. "(OW YOU FUCKING BITCH!)" he says, muffledly, all of his excessive suave and greasy charm temporarily gone as he tries to pry her off. He has to take a moment to recenter once she's off of him. Nobody heard that, right? It wouldn't do. Rufus Shinra does not call people 'bitch', at least not publicly. Even if they deserve it. "Ahem. Well then. If we're going to get rude..." Rufus's threads lash out - timed to try to grab her just before Hook takes his next move, and ideally hold her still or at least distract her long enough for the storybook pirate to do his work. Hook's more motivated right now, anyway, and besides... ... Rufus might pick up a thing or two from watching Hook in action.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine gasps as the King of Greed's preternatural reflexes intercept her dagger. She breathes out a chute of ice to slide down, rolling to her feet at the bottom of the throne... just in time for the King to crash down with her Golden Road attack. The shockwave sends Madeleine reeling for a moment, nearly knocking the wind out of her.     'A body. A spear to point at a problem.'     "Then let me show you what this spear can do. Drogrung! It's time." Madeleine's spear widens its single reptilian eye. "If you insist, my lady." The weapon's head exudes a sickly green oil, and Madeleine scrapes the tip against the concrete wall. The shower of sparks light the fluid ablaze, burning with not the orange and red of natural flame, but the black fire of oblivion. "Let's see just how much eternity this lady has in her," says the huntress, as she winds up and hurls Drogrung across the room. A moment before it would strike the King of Greed, the black fire expands into the shape of a great dragon's head, and slams its jaws together around the King.
Captain Hook	Drifting.      Drifting in a sea of humanity.      In a sea of a person.      It's horrible. It's awful. It's vile. No, more than that, it's *violating*. He's connected to Angela in a way he oughtn't be, feeling her innermost feelings about him. And he can't think them back, because the thing is in the way. He can't tell her that that's not who he is. He can't let her know, except with words, that he loves her as a sister, and that she's not stolen anything for him. His feelings can't reach her in this humanoid hell, in this thing that is more story than person - whereas he is more human than story. The greedy cloak wrapped around him, by necessity, isolates him from Angela's thoughts, too. He's allowed the thing too much access already.      He claims the gauntlet.      He's fired out of the thing like a cannon, smashing against the wall. Around the hook, gold is spreading, amber filling the rim around his wrist. He is much less attentive to that than the feeling of his back smashed into the wall, the pain of the impact, the feeling of several broken ribs. Yes, he's quite sure, several. Perhaps another count - no. Several.      Hook sort of...lays there, slumped over, gold-and-amber hook hanging from his arm, blood pooling in his mouth. He can taste the blood. He can taste the pain.      But more than that, he can taste Angela's wish that he go back to his family.      He can taste Angela's feeling that she's stealing from him. That she's robbing him.      He can taste her pain, still, lingering on his lips from his dive into the King of Greed - that she doesn't deserve to have him around.      Cracked ribs. Now, he's quite certain, his hand is broken too. So down a hand, down some ribs. Trouble breathing. Blood in his mouth. Loneliness on his lips.      Loneliness.      What was it like, on the seas, when only he was real? Those grey and endless days. Over, and over, and over again. The adventures, little more than spikes of excitement that inevitably tapered off and vanished into nothingness. Eventually, not even that. Eventually even the thrill of greed died, and all there was was loneliness.      Not like this.      He moves to stand, pressing hard against the wall. Feels like a cracked leg, too. Sprain? Probably. He can move on a sprain. If it's broken he'll get a pegleg for a cast. What a sight that would be.      The King of Greed goes up.      The King of Greed comes down.      Hook tucks his broken hand into his coat and swings the golden hook upwards, parting the shockwave in one blow. It crashes around him, smashes the walls, and sends the cutlass that had been stuck there spinning to the floor.      Hook takes a ragged breath.      "I told you," he says, bringing the hook hand up.      "Mammon weeps before my hunger."      He takes a shaky step forward. The hook is starting to glow. "Pluto's riches cannot satisfy my desire."      Another step. He nurses his ribs, tightening his broken fingers against them. "Aine's coin-purse can't scratch the surface of my avarice."      The hook shines, a brilliant, agonizing gold. "I am the only king of greed allowed here."      "And you should be able to see now..." He raises the hook to the sky, "That my greed is bloody well blinding!"      He breaks into a run.      He trips.      He trips *on purpose*.      He trips on purpose, because with his leg, he can't put all his weight behind a swing unless he falls.      And he falls, precisely, as Rufus moves to grab her, as Madeleine's dragonhead comes rushing forward, bringing the whole of his weight and the Golden Road Hook down on her chest, aimed straight for her heart.
Ishirou	Shockwave washes down, Ishirou tries to get back and tries to put as many of those barriers between himself and the King as he can.  The pure force of the shockwave is enough to collapse most of the barriers, leaving only the very last one...  Which short circuits and goes offline the moment the force of the King is over, still shattering it but giving him just enough time to escape harm.   The two know what his desires are, and the group knows it... everyone who knows him knows what he wants and teasing him with it doesn't find any purchase.  Honestly, he needs to pursue it, go for it, grab it... but maybe that is why the King of Greed doesn't tease him with it.  He's on the line anyway.  He'll pursue it rather or not she teases him with it.   The battlefield was blasted by the King, there was so much to do without much time.  OPTIONs fly out, aiming to provide Solty, Touta, and Lilian energy.  He scans the King, and with Angela no longer connected he sees a moment.  A moment in which they can win.   Ishirou throws a hand out, "POD, explosive ordinance!" he shouts, and fires several missiles at the mass of the King, aiming to sink them in before they explode.  Trying to expose as much of the surface area, as much of the important internal bits to the others fighting as he can.   The explosions switch off, and normal energy blasts fire, as he focuses his effort on giving Captain Hook cover fire, but he doesn't neglect his other allies; Madeleine and Kukuru get OPTION support, as they hover over their shoulders and provide firepower down the line just as POD does for Hook.
Aidan Proudpick	Angela is free. That's all that matters. "Mmnn.... You'd have eaten the fruit." "I did. I lived an entire life time of praise. I was the greatest hero the world has ever seen, and died an exceptionally good looking and famous hero, battling an ancient evil." A grimace on Aidan's face. "I was beloved, I was the world's most fearsome fighter, I beat Hearthward's ass and I made it to sixty with a great body. Everything I wanted until the day I died. No one else on that train was as weak as I was." The ledge erupts with a mighty THOOOM, debris flying everywhere as energy pushes everything else away. A leap is all that saves Aidan, thrusting him up into the air. Energy rakes the sides of his body, pushing him upward in a parabolic arc. His form rotates, twisting at the hips, tail steering him to the ground. And to the King of Greed. "I stopped believing what it meant to be a Knight. And just wanted the fame. I just wanted to come in and save the day and not have to do any of the hard work like others did." He opens his arms to the area around him. "I deserve this. I could have tried harder for Meika. I could have tried harder for Angela. But it was hard. I didn't think it was worth the effort." He jerks a thumb towards himself. "I was greedy. I didn't care enough. But just having a desire doesn't make you wrong! We aren't all the same as YOU!" He doesn't have much wind left. He waits for the other three to move in, forming a wall of wind with one hand. A quick few twists of his fingers. Spikes appear out of the wall, wind darts held in stasis. Once he is sure Hook is in place, Aidan slams his palm out, forcing the spiked wall to drive up against the King of Greed. "I'm not going to wallow in being broken."
Meika Kirenai	Lilian's tirade against Touta gets heard- of course Meika overhears it. It mixes in, too, with Petra's words of counteroffense, and Cinder's, too- There's the lucky barrier of the magical darkness, to hide that Meika's shoulders stiffen up. There's the flicker of pressure to say something in Touta's defense, of all people- that no, it's right for him to be mad, it's okay, there's no defense needed- Teeth bite at the inside of her cheeks, casting away that possibility.     {"Fuck you. I said leave me alone. I said I'd blind you, I said-"} Her whispering, even as she sniffles in the fog, finds Touta's ears alone. It's no defense of him, but a further piling on of what she can. Laced in there, too, is the reminder that every single comment shot the Hermit's way hit her ears, too, and stuck.     {"It wasn't 'lip service', Konoe. I think I really hate you."}     Her whispers don't suffer in clarity from the tears on her face, not that they're visible, until the fog is lifted and she's gone, further down the hallway.     The break room door is cold, through the fabric of Meika's horribly wrinkled button-up uniform. There's no real comfort to be found leaning up against it, as her heart pounds and her face burns. 'H-hey hold up...!'     Meika turns, but doesn't quite get up to actually open the door her body is effectively blocking. "H-huh? W-what's... I'm s-sorry. I didn't mean to." 'Uncalled for' triggers, in her bleary processing, an immediate response to apologize- even if it's not about her behavior. It usually is, though. "Snacks? Um... D-do you- oh, h-hang on..."     Finally, Meika slowly scoots up, and opens the door for Cinder.     "S-sorry, I didn't mean to be in the way of... y-you getting snacks, or something." she misinterprets, in a way negative to herself. Her stomach audibly grumbles, though. With the Hermit and all the time spent since leaving home, Meika can't recall the last thing she ate. Oh. No wonder standing is hard.     "Er- oh. Y-you meant for... right." Meika is all too happy to go and get something herself, and shows it with a tiny, strained smile Cinder's way- well, not 'happy'- but it's something she needs. Oily chips and caffeine to patch things up, are the best she can handle for herself in the moment.
Dysnomia	As Mia struck, the King closed on her claws, and the mist swirling around them changed from flowing curves to shivering needles, trembling like tuning forks listening for screams.     The King drank and drank the bittersweet nectar of a mind, her teeth fastening to Dysnomia's soul. Guzzled it down. The desperate zest of a girl drifting through the stars in a suit. A cut tether. The agonizing flavor of a child gasping, her fingers and toes growing cold. Unresponsive. Can't breathe. The fleeting aftertaste of desolation. The wild, blind yearning of a dying wish--     It's Hook that saves Dysnomia, in the end. As the King reels from the blow, Mia rips herself free in a shower of blood. Just in time to take the blow of the goldenroad, the shockwave blasting her with more needlepoint pain, scattering more of that orange, steaming blood around her in a shower.     Was she dead? For a moment, it seemed she might be.     And then the smoke tensed, like a muscle, coiled into a swirling shape that stabbed forward, like the point of a spear, burning with psychic fire, joining Madeline's spear, as the fire of two wyrms interwining their fire in a last-minute gambit for regicide.
Kukuru	Everything going on with Meika, Touta, Lilian, Petra, Cinder, Hook... That conversation is something thatKukuru's only really been able to follow passively up until now. Her priority has been freeing Angela, getting her to safety, and making sure she's alive. She's made plenty of mistakes before letting herself get distracted, but now... She's finally learned how to handle this kind of situation better, between listening to those smarter than her and keeping her eyes on what actually matters. She just needs to make sure Angela's out, and that the King of Greed... She doesn't know what to think about the King of Greed. She doesn't have enough time to think about the King of Greed. She knows, somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind, that she probably should, but this is nowhere near the right time and place for that. Besides, she knows she'll be back on her feet after all of this, and then... "Don't I deserve to be happy too? Or should I just give all of myself until there is nothing left, without getting anything in return?" That's enough to get her to pause. As angry as Kukuru might be, she can't unhear what the King of Greed just said. She can't just forget what she learned from Exigent Serenity. She can't just forget what she learned from Persephone. She can't forget her own promise to protect Angela, either, or her duty to her friends, her family, and even some relative strangers that came to help her family and friends here. It doesn't stop Kukuru from acting, but it does disperse some of that anger. "You... No. You can't do that, either. It's not go-" The painful buzzing returns, and Kukuru gasps lightly as she clutches her chest. She wants to dig it out, but she can't. There's still so much left to do. To say! There's so much Kukuru wants to say to the King of Greed, things that probably could've been said earlier, perhaps even headed some of this off in some distant alternate timeline entirely invented in Kukuru's mind, but... Saying it would be at odds with what she still has to do now. She has to protect Angela, so she knows that she'll never be alone again no matter where she is or what the Corporation does. She has to protect Hook, so he knows that he can still rely on the monster of another story to protect a human. She has to protect Lilian, so she knows she doesn't have to go through things alone even outside of her family. She has to protect Madeleine, so she can witness her potential as one of the newest members of her family. She has to protect Meika and Petra, so they can still rely on someone even as dense as Kukuru despite her deficiencies.
Timespace Riders	Don't I deserve to be happy too? Or should I just give all of myself until there is nothing left, without getting anything in return?     "-Your- happiness means holding -hers- hostage!"                                      HOOK!                                           Zi-O doesn't look at the new Ridewatch when it manifests in his free hand--even if he knows exactly what emotion drew it from Will's temporal footprint. That story is one he'll retell another day. Instead--     "Hers, and everyone in this place!" Zi-O mashes the stop on the Timespace Driver, and beside him, Woz opens and closes the gate on his Beyondriver. FINISH TIME! BEYOND THE TIME!     "If you take her..." Zi-O makes two large, hewing swings, shoulder to hip and hip to shoulder, forming a roiling 'X' made of flames. Beside him, Woz holds his hands outward, palms up, as the air around him grows so cold that frost clings to his armor.     "It means that everything she, and the people here worked for, everything they sacrificed, every tear they shed for lost friends and deferred dreams doesn't matter!" Flames dance upon Zi-O's armor as he sends the flaming 'X' upwards to meet the descending King with a standing snap kick.     A powerful backdraft follows, lifting him up into the air, the flames on his armor rushing to coalesce at his foot.     "You can't give her what she really wants! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!"     Zi-O's body burns like a sun, his every distinguishing feature lost in a brilliant white glow as he collides with the King, racing upwards to and -through- her, a furious fireball following the impact just as Woz makes a beckoning sweep towards her.     A glacier bursts from beneath the retainer, launching him into the air even as it melts from Zi-O's flames. A winter wind blows defiantly after the backdraft, carrying Woz so high his head nearly bumps the ceiling--and then assisting him with extra force for a brutal overhead flip-kick, his heel gathering layers of frost for a razor-sharp piercing point just before his impact, which draws every last bit of cold air inwards for a skewering volley of rapidly-conjured spears.                               RAGNAROK TIME BREAK!                                                               LOKI EXPLOSION!
Kukuru	Ignoring what she could do for the King of Greed hurts, but ignoring Petra's warnings about Laetitia's heart would hurt even more. The golden fist comes swinging at everyone, and Kukuru has only a moment to protect Angela. She puts herself right in the path of that flying fist, brings up her claws, and digs her feet in. The maneuver doesn't stop the great fists of the King from smashing her into the ground and shattering those claws of hers, and Kukuru lays flat on the ground as she starts bleeding out right then and there. Her nanites, however, don't stop working. They pulse in a hazy green light around her at first, then intensify rapidly while using her body as fuel to revive her. It's a slipshod maneuver, but it's enough to get Kukuru back on her feet. She hisses through her teeth as the feeling comes back to her hands, rapidly mending those as well while she shakes off the broken remnants of her claws. Gasping lightly for breath, Kukuru slides her hands into her pockets, keeping her gaze firmly on the King of Greed while drawing out... A pair of fuzzy white gloves. Bringing out the EGO weapon that she's finally been cleared to use, Kukuru's hands are already clenching a few times to test how SO CUTE!!! feels. It's pleasant, and not just because of how nice the soft parts feel to the touch. It's pleasant because these are the gloves that Angela entrusted to her, and it's these same gloves that she rushes at the King of Greed with. "No more of this. I have to be greedy to, because I care about my family more than anything else here!" Opening up a teleportation cloud in the floor in front of herself, Kukuru drops through the ground and reappears above the King of Greed, slipping by her on the way down to grasp whatever she can and yank it downwards before disappearing into another cloud. That sends her flying sideways past the King of Greed again, doing the same grab-and-pull-and-disappear maneuver horizontally. The next sends her diagonally downwards across the King's back, then up from the side, all over the place to build up speed and tear at whatever she can reach. After about a dozen of these zipping maneuvers, the last cloud drops Kukuru at the King from above, both gloves crossed over each other as she slams downwards in one final crushing blow with all of her downsized weight put into it.
Solty Revant	Solty's hand is caught instead of her getting to Angela. That's alright, there's a whole lot of other people doing their part! Solty being caught in that hand means there is one less hand for everyone else to deal with! Solty watches the others in amazement as she is pushed back by that hand.      The android's ears twitch at what Lilian says to her. She looks toward Lilian as Lilian moves toward Angela, and she shakes her head. "I may not know her as well as I would like, but I know Miss Angela! She is definitely selfless and giving and caring! And if wanting to have a life of freedom and happiness is greedy, then I guess I'm greedy, too! And I might even be super greedy because I want everyone to be happy!"      Greed seems to agree with Lilian, but Solty remains stubbornly set on her own description of Angela. Even as she is battered and bashed and finally broken. Her arm is longer than it should be after the assault, with mechanical parts exposed around her joints. Pieces of her outer skin and armor have broken off in several other places, and electricity arcs between the breaks. One of her eyes isn't quite opening all the way. But, something else that Greed said draws a response from the battered android girl.      "...Everyone deserves to be happy." Solty says to that question. "But, more things doesn't make people happy. That's why you just end up wanting more things. It's empty. If you want to be happy, you have to make friends and find your family. I knew what it was like to be alone, and didn't realize I needed those things until I had them. But, the thing about giving yourself is...you always get something back. It isn't always good, but the good you get back is more than enough."      Solty staggers a bit, one leg not quite working right. "That is why I like to cook. Why I want to cook for everyone. Because food has a magic power to bring people together and help make them happy. When you cook something good and give it to someone, it brings a smile to their face. And that's better than getting more stuff."      Greed, if she can sense all desires, should be able to sense Solty's desires. She doesn't desire to hurt people. She just wants to help people, to spread happiness. True, she has a bit of a recently revealed dark streak when it comes to meeting people who want to destroy lives. But, her deepest desire is just...to be loved, and to share that love.      Solty gathers up what's left of her strength, and that orange-yellow glow returns to her. "I want to see Miss Angela. I want to be her friend. If she doesn't trust me because I don't see all of her, then I'll just have to do better."      Angela is free! But, Solty doesn't rush to her. Not yet. Because Greed is still here. And eliminating the threat...that has to be done if happiness is to be protected. She crouches, then leaps with all the might she has left. She flies like a shooting star. The android girl doesn't know much about stories or kingdoms or gardens. She only knows she might be able to help protect Angela and the others by helping to stop the King of Greed.      And the only way she knows to do that if her speeches don't work...is to meet that that punch with one of her own! Her brightly glowing fist, blurring from all the vibrations, aims to clash with Greed's! The android girl isn't sure she will survive it...she hopes Angela and Touta can forgive her if she doesn't. "But, once you take someone else's happiness, you don't deserve to be happy again until you apologize and try to make up for it! Are you going to do that? Then you might be Happiness, again!"
Lilian Rook	'I figure it's still better than....Than the 'kid' option select.'     "Some of us didn't get to be 'only a child'. Who the fuck wants to never be forgiven for not knowing? Not having power?" Lilian spits. "We all hated hearing 'kid' because it's only used as a fucking weapon. You're old enough to know better when you did something wrong, but you're too young to know well enough when you have to beg for what you need. Fuck you. You're old enough to scare her and you have enough power to ruin her life; that makes you the adult whether you or I like it or not; so act like it."     'And here I was thinking...I couldn't take anymore.'     'Not her, not Hod... and not me.'     'Shut up! "I don't need to tell you or anyone what it is I want more than anything'     'she didn't turn away when I did a bad thing!'     'You're wrong. Meika has always hated me. Angela cares so little.'     Lilian takes a deep breath, and finds it poison. The instant of sincerity she used for Angela's sake was enough. She's adjusted to the light. To breathing air. Now the hate is toxic. The torrent of everyone else's problems-- everyone else's shames and dissatisfactions and victimization and blame-- it's just so, so exhausting. Even now, even now, they can't shut up about it. At least Meika had the decency to shut down in shame. Opening up to the rest of it is overwhelming. Lilian feels as if she's going to drown in it.     'I.... guess I don't really care so much if everyone cares or not.'     "God you fucking suck." Lilian sighs. "I've changed my mind slightly, though." It's like coming above water. "At least that's one person not diving in the way of Angela to try and take a stray care."     '...Isn't it scary?'     But those words nearly make Lilian stagger. The King is finally talking to her; and it's worse than she thought.     'Being cared for so suddenly after so long lacking it.'     Lilian swallows. A single word goes stuck in her throat, and forces her to vomit it back up.     "Yeah."     'Isn't it scary, thinking that might be enough? That you could sit in a cell forever so long as you have people who love you? That you might give up on everything else?'     "It's fine to take a minute to rest. That's just normal, when you've run a marathon just to reach the starting line." Lilian says. Repeated words. Her tone is nearly familiar. "But being loved never made me any weaker. The only kind that drives you to sit around and rot is the fake kind people give you because they want something. It's true; the real thing is frightening to get used to. But . . ."     Lilian staggers from hauling Angela into her arms, nearly stumbling, but catching her balance just before she does, and leaping back to the point the Agents can take her from her.     "I think it's far more frightening to know that they could take it away. The scary part isn't getting it; it's the need to keep it."     Handing Angela off is risky, but she has to do it. Even if it leaves her open for the Golden Road. There's nowhere to run but cover, and no way to push herself that doesn't further push the limits of the critical binding she's already overburdened. The unexpected torrent of golden energy erupting in the only direction that matters leaves Lilian with her back to something she has to protect and her sword to something she has to outlast for the second time in an hour. She grits her teeth this time.
Lilian Rook	The worst of the damage can be warded away with Night Mist. For the thousandth time, Lilian is glad for picking up the sword that was important to her, and not something 'more suitable' to her size and speed. Guarding her face and vitals even against a blast is as possible as the strength remaining in her arms. The rest is something that the Lady in Black has to take. The tracery lines over the heart flare with reactive light. Black-gold embers explode off every surface as the attack connects. The resolution of effect from cause is stretched from an instant to half a second, diluting the sum force to something bearable.     The individual plates of her armour groan, but hold; at her side, near her waist, where her weakened arm lets her guard be pushed too far back. Carbon grey gambeson-analogue layers burn away and expose a slash of bare skin crossed with something dark and strangely three-dimensional. The third time she is thrown back, Lilian doesn't hit anything behind her; a tactical thump of counterbalancing flight magic lets her scrape to a halt on her feet. Her sword thunks into the metal floor a second after. Lilian supports herself on the guard, and gathers herself up.     'They are almost here. They desire to save her.'     "I'm so fucking tired of these 'me-too' cut-ins today. You've had yours; politely drop dead." Lilian raises a hand, braces her arm across the other, and signs the gripping gestures of twisting the valve off reality and turning the gears behind the cover of immaterium.     Straightforward personal combat magic gathers around her outstretched fingers, drawing a usable circle with a handful of rapid somatic slashes. The ray she fires off, in comparison to Goldenroad is narrow and fast; focused down to a point so fine that it seems to sputter and break continuity along its length, like light caught on piano wire. Lilian stabs it into center mass, and flicks her wrist outward, drawing an exit vector through as much undamaged flesh as she can see.
Hibiki Tachibana	Hm... You desire plenty. But perhaps what you desire most now...is Rest. I will give it to you.     It's pretty sad, indeed. All the willpower and determination in the world will go far, but on some level, there's no shaking off the condition your body is in. Worse still, calling on the Ape Fist of Khalum like that required taking those brutal hits in the first place - and even if it did some real damage, the fact it didn't knock the King of Greed down means one of them is in a considerably worse state than the other. She might be bleeding on the inside. More than a little.     "Hell... no... I'm not--" Wincing, hissing out through grit teeth as her arm falls back to her side, Hibiki puts a lot more resolve in her voice than she has any reasonable cause to have, and none of it helps her when the shockwave sends her flying. Like a ragdoll, she skips off the floor like a rock once and then twice, and then rolls for several more meters before she comes to a stop and stays down.     She can't focus. Her eyes are bleary. If she really tries, she thinks she can feel Kukuru's efforts at healing keeping her from getting really bad. She can hear shades of Lilian's cutthroat comments to keep herself going, and Touta struggling with the position he's been put in. And she can see Will, wrenching his material treasure free even as the real one is finally broken out of the King's clutches.     There's no need to get back up. Every muscle in her body is refusing to get up. There's a limit to how many times she can make it do things it shouldn't do, especially while others are still able to fight on. It's fine if the overwhelming shockwave wipes her away to unconsciousness, and... --to fail to be worthy of that piece of shrapnel that--     Even if victory was not an option, the effort is seen, and real, and holds meaning.     "...Rest is-- pretty low on the list, you know..." It's a lot more blunt-headed stupidity than any kind of eleventh hour second wind. But that's plenty enough for Hibiki Tachibana to rise back up to a knee, lurching and liable to collapse again any moment. "Even... if Angela's free... I can't help but still-- have to do something when it comes to you sisters... and the ones you resonate with...!!"     She does the one thing she can always do - she puts her all into slamming her fist into the oncoming wave of energy. Too weak. No chance of doing anything but parting it for a very brief time - but that's all she needs. She aims her fist down towards the floor, and the piston inside her gauntlet primes back and then pummels in.     The recoil of which sends Hibiki flying /over/ (and through, painfully) the back half of the wave, straight towards the King of Greed. It's very controlled at all.     But it is still one that'll bring her right to the former Magical Girl, fist-first, for one last punch. One that'll end in Hibiki continuing on to hit the ground again right after.
Petra Soroka	"Or is that the only way you can care about anything? Making it about your history, your abusers, and lionizing yourself for getting away?" "A mediocre woman who loves the feeling of rebelling and couldn't take anyone's fear seriously if she tried." "Your disapproval became real the moment she wouldn't fight back." "Bullshit. We all know what your greed is."     Categorized, internalized, codified into her opinions of each of these people. Petra now finally understands how she's supposed to feel about Dysnomia and Madeleine. The other two, the boys, they already had her contempt, but she's still willing to expand her angles in expressing it. "I don't care what they have to--"     It's immediately easy to see the effect that Lilian's venting had on Petra. She's been berating people this entire time, but up to this point, it's been blunt and fiery, shouting herself over them, verbally butting heads. Sure, she's been telling people to kill themselves (or even worse, *not* to), but there's been a characteristic infusion of direct 'peer to peer' aggression in all of it.     Not anymore. The bottom drops out of her voice, flat and numb but feeling more hateful than if she was still yelling. The ringing in her ears starts to sound familiar, though she doesn't quite place why. "You don't care. That's it, isn't it, Konoe? You haven't cared this whole time. Everything you say is about what you think you can get away with, not what you actually believe."     "I don't even think you believe anything. You're like an animal. It's all just fucking noise coming out of your mouth, that you evolved in a totally random sequence to figure out how to feel safe and powerful. I bet you'd call a particularly realistic picture of a girl a slur if we left you in a room with it long enough." "Meika has always hated me. Angela cares so little. I wish I knew what to do before this. I wish I knew the secret of growing up."     What Lilian exhales, Petra breathes in like a drug. High on alienation. "How about you cry and scream at 'mommy' some more? Made you seem real grown-up last time. Hey, that's kind of gross, you know? You're older than me. You're way older than Meika. So don't you get how creepy it sounds for you to talk about not knowing how to grow up? Does pretending to be a knight even count as consciously holding on to your dreams when you're actually just too retarded to outgrow it?"     And she's said it before, to Lilian: hostility towards these fucking people isn't something she builds up and has to vent before acting, it doesn't spend anything out of her. She's *reinvigorated* by the indulgent cruelty, made more sure of herself and steady in her actions, and it actually *sharpens* her ability to fight against the King of Greed. "...How...can this be?"     "I know better than you. You're just some stupid fucking monster who's hurting one of my best friends in the multiverse." Petra plunges Pillar of Creation into the King of Greed, giving up her defensive stability to force it deeper into the wound by throwing her whole body weight into it. When the King bats her away, the spear stays, the morphmetal echo of her hands still gripping it and twisting the blade.     With her EGO on-- ALEPH to the King's WAW-- being struck, even by that massive gauntlet, is something she can shrug off in seconds. She spends those seconds pulling out another weapon, her two-handed gunblade, lowering the tip to the ground. "So-- nothing you say matters at all."
Petra Soroka	"You really are the star employee of this facility, aren'tcha?"     Petra reflexively preens at this, before Lilian's disgust towards Netzach reminds her of how she's supposed to feel about him. "Right. It's going to work out. Because Lilian said so, and we're making it happen together. You're just a speed bump on the way to the future we've already decided on." "Isn't it scary, thinking that might be enough? That you could sit in a cell forever so long as you have people who love you?"     She's fighting alongside Lilian now, flanking the King of Greed with her own still-impaled spear to threaten every angle but the back so that Hook can access Angela. "You don't know anything at all. As if we'd be satisfied with her only having that much. Even if she said she didn't really need it, or if she said it was too much. *I* want to take her to the Egg Carrier in person. *I* want to be there with her when she goes to the beach, and the library, and when she walks outside I want to read what she writes about it."     Petra catches the King's gauntlet on her bayonet, deflecting it into the ground along with her gunblade. Twisting the mechanisms on the side of the grip, the gunblade splits, and she pulls the more maneuverable revolvers up to fire once into the King of Greed and once into the floor, popping over its head to dodge the counterblow. From behind, opposite where she was before, she slams the recombined gunblade bayonet into the wound left by Pillar of Creation, squeezing the trigger to rack the blade forwards forcibly enough that Petra herself is knocked away, spear back in her hands with a gauntlet of morphmetal.     "I'd never want her to settle for anything less than everything. Just like-- just like with Lilian. *I'm* too greedy to let the people I care about not be."     Then Angela comes out in Lilian's arms, and Petra's running right there to take her. All the frostiness in her voice melts in an instant, lighting up with relief. "Angela!" Looping her arms beneath Angela's shoulders, Petra still staggers when taking her. She's heavy. Petra pulls her up so that she can carry her, then briefly fusses while walking before remembering the *cause* of Angela's current unconsciousness, even aside from the King of Greed. "I mean, having people care about me is kinda ... against my goal, right?"     "Your goal sucks shit. Idiot. I know." Petra's entirely focused on carrying Angela to safety, while the King of Greed leaps into the air behind her. Down the hall and to the lounge door that she pointed Meika to earlier is still a bit of a journey, as exhausted as she is, with as heavy as a load as Angela is.     She gets quieter, hoping, a little bit, that Lilian won't hear her right after saying how much Netzach sucks. "... But I get it. The future's on its way, and you kind of can't imagine it happening. And this is the only moment where you get to be relevant to it at all. So why not milk it, why not draw it out, why not make it worse for everyone as much as you can. You don't really imagine existing when it comes, so why should it be good for anyone else either?"     "But also, go fuck yourself. You don't get to do that. It's not your choice to make the decision on how the story's going to go. It's mine. And *I'm* getting Angela to her best future. Come along or die."
Petra Soroka	Petra's just laid Angela against the door, freeing her hands to open it, when the King of Greed's final attack tears through the hallway. Petra drops down instinctively, covering Angela with her trench coat like a blanket and crouching over her to shield her with her body. This far away, through the EGO, with the most important objective already taken care of, it barely shakes Petra at all.     After the shockwave passes, Petra tumbles through the door with Angela, collapsing next to Meika and Cinder. Laying on her back on the ground, Petra coughs, rubs the back of her hand against her mouth, then sits up with a small groan.     "Alright. Mind helping me get Ange on the couch, Cinder? It doesn't ever feel right letting her go through a Meltdown like this."
Touta Konoe	Stop making your shitty past other people's problems.     Another remark is left and another pained feeling he has to swallow down. It's at this point, the fangs are no longer bare. If anything Touta's lips are sealed shut and proper. The feeling of each additional word is just another measure to the weight he feels. It's fine, he can deal with this, it's nothing new. If this is the only kind of damage he can take it's only natural to- -     Fuck you. I said leave me alone. I said I'd blind you, I said- Even in the darkness, her whispering reaches his ears without issue. As if her lips hold right to his lobe. It's hard to tell from that whispering if he can make out the sniffled words. But it becomes all the more apparent... It wasn't 'lip service', Konoe. I think I really hate you.     Every word he said, while not enough to rouse enough anger to break her from her spell of the Hermit, had certainly ended up leaving her with a curse of its own. It's only as she says those words does he look back towards the fog, he knows she's already left from it, and in doing so the fog clears from the facility, yet...He still feels so foggy in his head. It's not something that's as easily cleared, not now of all times. And it's again in that fogginess...     We all hated hearing 'kid' because it's only used as a fucking weapon. You're old enough to know better when you did something wrong, but you're too young to know well enough when you have to beg for what you need. Fuck you. You're old enough to scare her and you have enough power to ruin her life; that makes you the adult whether you or I like it or not; so act like it.     It's hard for him to process her words. Maybe it's simply because of the influence already. Maybe he's just not mature enough to process it...And that scares him more. Or maybe it scares him because he thought...Genuinely thought that the kind of power he needed to worry about wasn't the kind that involved influence. They're things he should think about, to ponder, but in this moment his mind's riddled. Wondering if he can even continue thinking straight for the fight.     - - - - - - -     Going back into it, when Touta goes to 'devour' the King, using such a word makes the act seem like it was something of a way to bring about nourishment. If venting could be considered such then perhaps it was 'devouring'. But in the time that he went at her from within the fog, as she was weakened, felt more like something ripping and tearing without any sense of desire to feed, just anger for anger's sake. It was an act not to 'consume' but to 'unleash'. Though in the time that the King escapes, and the fog fades, there's no look of relief, no unloading of burden to be had in his eyes.     In the time that she's up on the chandelier to recoup from his part of the assault. In that moment, the fog fades and with it he's able to find some room to breathe. Even if his lungs didn't need air.
Touta Konoe	You've shown what you are today. You've shown everybody who you are, Touta. You've shown people who you truly are beneath all that talk of friendship. They call you 'tourist', but one who seeks to be ''right'' before they seek to provide ''care'' shows a Pride befitting of Hell...     The golden energy builds and from the chandelier, that power erupts through the floor as it surges through the facility. At this point, Touta isn't dodging at all. His body again is blown away, lifted off the ground as he's pinned to the wall again. The surge of golden energy tearing and ripping his form apart. Sloshes of blood splattering across the floor as gashes build across his chest, as limbs shear open exposing white, and blood is coughed up. Though...Just as it always is, it's only in the moment.     The blood littering the floor slowly slithers in as it finds itself back into Touta's wounds. Steam expels from his injuries as cuts close up in moments. He is whole once more...So, why is it that his eyes just seem so empty?     "Pride...I wouldn't have thought that one. I would have figured wrath sometimes, envy, but pride? If I have it, you'd think it'd at least be something to bolster me up."     There's another long pause as he just looks to the Abnormality. He's become tired, really tired. He shouldn't be capable of it, but there's no release and everything just feels heavy. It'd be a lot easier if he could just...     "I can't say for sure prideful I am. I think it can be hard to see those things in yourself...Or maybe that's just me. Even things like with this power, I can't think of being boastful with it. Even back then, I just kept thinking... 'I'm only alive because I can't die...' Mmm..." There's a low sigh that escapes his lips, before his gaze turns back to the King of Greed. "Perhaps because it is a Pride befitting of Hell...That I can't seem to see it."     The words escape his lips, but in truth as he says them it feels less like a statement and more like a question. Regardless of the matter, he starts to build miasma into his fist, a dark gauntlet nearly similar to the King's own in some respects, constantly drawing in a dark energy. There's nothing radiant about it in contrast to the explosion of golden light that she used. Yet, it continues to fester and build in his fist. Those darker emotions took form, the source of his immortality. It's as he builds up this fist he wonders...Does he even need to? Do they need him at this point? Did they need him at all...     When all's said and done, he charges the King with that gritted fist. Hollow crimson-eyes interlocked with her own as a singular blow is delivered. An attack that upon impact buries into the King of Greed the sensations of negative feeling. Feeding into the strike, bearing that burdensome weight down as if trying to share it with the King. Surely with all its Greed it can accept both good and bad? Though he finds himself asking one more question to himself as all's said and done...Did he need to add his strike? Did it matter? And when he had...Was it still for the reasons that he decided when he came here...Or was it simply to release all those burdening feelings into his fist? Even he's having a hard time finding that answer now.
Angela	Cinder is surprised by the door opening and she clambers up to her feet, stepping inside now that she's being allowed in. She doesn't realize Meika misinterpreted her until later. "Oh uh--well I can eat but I meant..." Meika realizes. "Yeah." Cinder smiles. It is a genuine smile, but it is definitely a tired genuine smile. "Sorry. There's Bear Brand Be--oh right, you probably wouldn't want that. There's some Well Cheers, it really peps me up after a hard time. Tastes kind of like--uhh... have you ever had like lime soda?" Netzach chats with Petra in the meanwhile. "Um....yeah, don't call a girl a slur? Dang dude." They seem confused by the accusation. "I mean..." Petra strikes through the King of Greed once more. She cries out when Petra twists the blade. "Yeah so ... it shouldn't bug ya too much right?" They seem pretty focused on Petra's words in the moment. "...Well...When you put it like that... Can't say I hate your moxie... Alright maybe I should..." Angela tumbles through with Petra into the snack room and Cinder jumps in alarm. "Petra!" She says. "We're having snacks!" She helps Petra drag Angela to a couch. "Well at least...the faster the Meltdowns happen, the faster she gets to leave. And we've been really struggling with the Enkephalin lately..."
Angela	The King grins. "There you go!" She tells Rufus. She fingerguns him back. She seems to enjoy this repartee and doesn't seem to recognize Rufus is legitimately upset for legitimate reasons. Or doesn't care. Madeleine catches her in the side with a spear--a spear that is ALSO ON FIRE thanks to Dysnomia, and this time the DOUBLE DRAGON technique pays dividends as the flames slowly start to spread across the King's upper body. Rufus holds her still once more with his cool threads. This means he is uncomfortably close to the King of Greed who has, as has been noted, a bit BITEY. But if she goes down here it won't matter. Hook drives his hook into the King of Greed's chest. That seems to take a lot of strength out of the King and she slumps against the wall, pushing against the Pirate though her strength is rapidly diminishing. She isn't in a position to try and devour Hook right now. Ishirou helps by unleash more sentai explosions across the field. This time, the King just has to take them. Even her near immunity to Red Damage is not preventing the pure level of firepower thrown her way. The King raises a bleary eye towards Aidan as he confesses his greed. The King struggles but manages to give Aidan a smile. She has no words. Aidan drives a spiked wall into the King and she cries out in pain, green fluid spilling from her mouth. "Don't forget...what you said tomorrow... Claw and tear for each moment of self improvement until you can stand with your head held high."
Angela	Kukuru then summons true power. TOO CUTE!!! Is EGO Gear and EGO Gear is very effective against Abnormalities relative to normal weapons. It is, however, Red Damage. Fortunately, Kukuru is still Kukuru so she can make good use of her EGO Gear by adding her own strength into the mix. The King tries to muster a defense but the fight is over. She's just trying to hold on, just hold on a little longer. For...what? Her Sisters? ''Your happiness means holding -hers- hostage!'' "But...it's scary." She says. "It's scary, I can do it for her. I can..." ''YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW'' The King stumbles up just in time for the double rider kick to impact her straight in the chest. She goes flying backward into a vending machine which crumples in on itself from the impact. The Gold Rush on her hand crackles and then vanishes away. ''And I might even be super greedy because I want everyone to be happy!'' "Me too," The King of Greed manages as she throws a punch only for Solty to overpower it with one of her own and send her sprawling back into the vending machine.
Angela	It is Hibiki and Lilian who take the last bit of fight out from the Abnormality. Hibiki says she still has to do something for her and her sisters and the King takes a breath and says, "Who do you think...we were made for? We are the stories...that Carmen told her when she was yet to wake. We are the tales engraved into her bones." She struggles up and throws herself at Hibiki, being pushed to fight harder by Hibiki's words, but there's a different flavor in how the King fights back, not using her Gauntlet as she throws herself at Hibiki, fist first. Hibiki wins this one. Hibiki sends the King spinning into the air and flies past her into the vending machine but the King hits the ground, face first, afterwards. Fight's over. No. The King...stands once more. She looks LIlian in the eye. She wants to hear the answer. And the answer comes. Yeah. The King's eyes widen at the admission. But being loved never made me weaker. The King can see this is true for Lilian. And if it's true for Lilian... "Ah..." She whispers. "You....understand... Ahhh, you understand..." The black tears flow. The King slips on her own fluids but swings her arms wildly to keep herself steady. She's tough. She doesn't want to give up. But she can only last so long against so much. She's a WAW Abnormality and without Angela serving as a heart, she can barely keep standing. The only kind that drives you to sit around and rot is the fake kind people give you because they want something. It's true. The real thing is frightening to get used to, But . . . The King closes her eyes. For a moment, those eyes look like hers. "Then...perhaps she has outgrown us." She says. "Perhaps that is why our tales have grown corrupted, dark..." But she raises her arm. She won't fall on her knees. And Lilian helps. She passes through with a single--or at least a visibly single--strike through the center mass of the King and this time when she falls, she falls for good. I think it's far more frightening to know that they could take it away. The scary part isn't getting it; it's the need to keep it. The King says, "...Yeah..." The King says. "True happiness... is scary, but it fills that void. My happiness... only expands it." As the King is falling, Touta can get in one last punch. It's an empty punch, because Touta knows not why he is swinging it. He doesn't know. And in a world where your emotional resonance can mean so much, when a nihilistic absence of reason empowers his strike... It's like hitting a doll. Not even a punching bag. It's as if he is punching through air rather than a person even as he strikes flesh and thick chunks fly off the King. It doesn't feel good, or satisfying. It's just a punch.
Angela	And as the King is flat on her back... Two more enter through the Warpgate, all full of positive intent and with the best of intentions. A Golden Road to Hell is built through those good intentions. "Meika!! We're here to help!" Chevalier Love shouts, clearly distressed. "I'm sorry it took so long...! We needed to help the fight back home but..." The Magical Girl of Love and the Magical Girl of Justice step through the Warpgate. And the King of Greed, dying on the floor (as much as an Abnormality can die), chokes out through blood and bile. "It seems...the long night... Is not yet over..." Her gaze turns to Touta. "Too...slow..." A dark aura ripples around the Servant of Wrath. A dark aura ripples around the Magical Girls of Love and Justice. A dark aura ripples around the King of Greed. They are pulled into the ground by their own shadows, vanishing in an instant and a dark chill overcomes the facility. "Huh...?" Netzach says over the comms. "...What are you? An Abnormality?" A dark laugh perpetuates through the comms. Netzach lets out a shocked yelp before suddenly going silent. The Meltdown ... ends? Angela starts to stir on the couch. The facility starts to reshape itself once more as a different voice, intermingled with Netzach's, whispers through the comms. "...I..." "Am the Jester of Nihil. It has been so many loops since I've been summoned..." "The long night...shall never end." The facility starts to rearrange itself once more, like when the King took over--but this time the shift is much larger, much more all encompassing. Dark auras coalesce around Hod, Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphereth.. And Angela. The color bleaches out of Hod, Malkuth, and Yesod while the aura seems to struggle with Tiphereth and Angela.. But when the light fades...
Angela	Lobotomy Corp is no more. Welcome instead... To Lobotomy University! The facility has seemingly arranged itself into a College campus though any deep scans will reveal they're still underground and the light and trees and grass are all artificial constructs. Some of the Agents are playing the part of college students. Some are confused and unaffected by the illusion. The various floors of Lobotomy Corp have been transformed into School Departments. Information has become the Department of Technology, Control has become the History Department... And so on. Angela is missing. Most Sephirah are, in fact, except for Tiphereth who is standing there--now in the form of someone in their late teens or early twenties, the Cognition Filter effect no longer present, her body looking as human as anything else. "W..what happened?" The Dark aura presses in on her and she pushes it off with a, "Fuck off!! I already agreed I'd make my own future!" The aura doesn't return. But then she sees someone else and her eyes widen in something like horror. Where Angela was, a brown haired woman with red eyes smiles at everyone. Her hair has been pulled back into a pony tail and she's wearing ... a Lobotomy University school uniform it looks like? "Oh! Hello!" Carmen says, clasping her hands together. "Gosh oh gosh, it's been so long since I got to feel FEET. And skin! It's fake, but... boy, I've missed it a little!" She smiles. "You must be Angela's friends. I'm Carmen, Angie's mom. And I could use your help since she's still in danger? Actually, we all are... But hey, maybe we should...take a breather first. Yeah, yeah, pushing ourselves further juuust this second's a bad idea but... I'll help you through NIhil and get you all back home, okay?"
Captain Hook	Hook, exhausted, doesn't have the ability to question it. He's used to parsing dreams as dreams, lies as lies. Things like Neverland can't control him anymore. But he's got broken fingers, broken ribs, and a strange, glowing gold hook; he's got more things to worry about than the sudden existence of the University.      So he sinks down against the wall of the School/Facility, his eye fixed solely on Carmen, the focal point of it all. He stares at her for a long moment, trying to think of what to say.      He had so much to say to Angela. He wanted to hug her, to tell her that she would be alright, that she was part of his life and he wouldn't take no for an answer, that she was important to him. He had so much to say to *Netzach*, now that the danger to Angela's passed - about the line of despair, about things that matter, about caring about something, anything, at all. He had so much to say to so many people.      But, instead, he sighs, his head up against the wall, and cracks a smile he doesn't feel to try and lift spirits.      "Goodness, you look more like her sister. Quite a looker, aren't you?"      The smile's sly, and there's a little spirit there. But it's for the rest of them. Because they need it to get through.      Because they need spirit for Angela to get another step closer to her wish.
Dysnomia	The point of her facade stopped. And so did she.     The smoke all around stills, all at once, as the King falls, all the force stolen from it, as a humanoid shape THUMPS, prone, onto the floor from somewhere in the writhing center of Dysnomia's 'body.'     All of those smeared colors drooped, like thick paint pulled down over the canvas by gravity, then began to dissolve--no. Condense. Steaming, alien blood fell like rain, collecting in surreal pools. The indistinct shape shuddered. Coughed. Pushed itself up with a hand? The blood swirled. Twitched, as though it was all tugged in the same direction, once. Flowed.     Flow, in little rivulets, then tributaries, until the blood pooled around the shape?, drained upward into it. Of COURSE she was Mia? She always had been? The girl coughed as though she was about to vomit up a lung, still blurry at her edges. "...Netzach..." she breathed, as the darkness closed not even managing to stand until, she finally drank back up the rest of her self.     "...Fuck...You!" She spaton the ground, shoving herself upright. "Throwing your life away is one thing, but everyone else's? So you can get out of it? Useless..." Her eyes widened as she heard Love's voice, felt her presence, a terrible chill rolling over her.     "They are almost here. They desire to save her. And then...You'll all sleep a forever blissful dream...!"     "Love! Justice! Get OU--" But it was too late. She felt it, the shift in the air, the the voice. It's too fast. It's too late.     Soon, there is only darkness.     When the light comes back, she doesn't know what to make of it. She finds herself staring, baffled, at the buildings and uniforms and departments, the confused eyes not of someone who doesn't know how she got to a university, but who doesn't know what a university LOOKS like. She turns to Tipereth. She turns to Carmen.     And then, she presses a hand against the wall of the University, letting loose a sigh that's almost more of a hiss.     Somehow, it still wasn't over.
Timespace Riders	"Love? Justice? What are you--" Zi-O's burning helmet flicks between them in confusion. Determination sets in, overriding the Demon King's confusion. "Woz, get me to Netzach-uwoh?!"      Zi-O and Woz startle, as the facility rearranges itself, having only a moment's reprieve following their finishing strikes. Zi-O removes the black-gold half of the Zi-O II Ridewatch and the Surtr Ridewatch--Woz does the same, with the Loki Ridewatch in his Beyondriver.      Awash briefly in pink and green, the Demon King and his retainer shed their armors. The long, back-to-back engagements have taken their toll on Sougo--his pastel shirt is stuck to his body with a damp sheen of sweat, and his auburn hair is mussed. Cuts and bruises dot his soft features, while burns snake around his neck, throat and past his collarbone. He stumbles, slightly, but Woz is there to catch him.      Woz seems less battered--but only for a moment. While he maintains a degree more composure, the dismissal of his armor seemingly frees several loose pages, and his hands shake in the way that might be seen from long use of heavy machinery. Wiping the back of one trembling hand across his split lip, he shares a glance with Sougo.      "What's going on?"      "...I am uncertain, my Demon King." He lifts that mysterious book, as if to open and consult it--but his hand stops, when his brown eyes spot Tiphereth's aghast expression. You must be Angela's friends. I'm Carmen, Angie's mom. And I could use your help since she's still in danger?      "Her mom..." Sougo manages a smile, despite his condition and despite the emotional gauntlet he's run. "That's right! I'm Sougo." He takes her hand firmly into both of his and shakes eagerly. "This is my retainer, Woz."      Woz, for his part, manages a polite bow at the waist, though he can't hide his pained grimace as he lowers.      "A breather, huh..." Haru's words ring in his mind. He takes a breath, and nods. There's no need to spend myself more. This... isn't some kind of death march. "Okay, Carmen," he acquiesces. "You said... something was fake. Um... would it be too much to ask if there's real food nearby?" He hadn't finished, when the Hermit showed up earlier.
Meika Kirenai	'There's some Well Cheers, it really peps me up after a hard time.'     That Cinder is even trying to be conversational and helpful, with everything going on- especially through how tired she obviously is, does come as genuine comfort to Meika. She nods along half-hearing the words the other girl is saying, the murmur in her voice when she does respond quite evident.     "Lime soda..? I... t-think all sorts of stuff is lime flavored. Sour. Sour's good. Is- is that what it's like, Miss?" Vending machines are easy, and familiar, to stand in front of and focus on. Cinder can see easily, though, the lag time between her staring at the buttons and remembering what someone is meant to do with them. Eventually, with spare change, she figures it out, the proud little exhale-sound she makes far out of place for such a simple task.     As such, she's collapsed on a couch, halfway through a bag of cheap chips, when the doorway to the hall corridor flashes searing golden light through its frame- and then Petra bursts in, carrying Angela. Meika's eyes shoot wide- and she immediately scoots far to the side of the couch she's parked herself on, making room for the others to haul Angela up onto it. Quietly, she gets up from even that- legs trembling a bit still, but propping herself up against a wall instead of taking up furniture real estate.     'We're having snacks!'     Quietly, Meika holds out her chip bag Petra's way, offering her some. "Is- is Miss Angela okay..?" Guilt sparks from even bothering to speak up, as she looks down at the unconscious android. Down here, Meika is far too out of the way to have any idea that her comrades Love and Justice have arrived- nor the danger their presences pose.     But she does here that awful echo from the intercomms, as Angela begins to wake- the mostly-finished can of sugary, caffeinated nonsense Meika's been holding clatters to the floor, silent.     "Nihil..? Oh, God, t-that's what Love kept going on and on about, right?" A 'jester' instead of the ambient forces doesn't carry the specific spark of terror in Meika that it should- but she still trembles in the worry that it's something, tangibly dangerous, that the magical girls here need to guard against. So when the lights fade-     "Eh-?" Wide-eyed and frantic, Meika has utterly no idea of what to make of the change in scenery- This isn't school, but it's kind of like how it- A university? And that voice- Meika takes a step back from her fizzing, dropped soda, and clutches at her own forearm, squeezing tight enough to hurt, embarrased, confused, and altogether bleary. "O-oh. Um. Hi again, Miss Carmen."
Aidan Proudpick	"Don't forget...what you said tomorrow... Claw and tear for each moment of self improvement until you can stand with your head held high." Aidan stares silently at the King in Yellow, watching her. White gusts of wind escape from his nose and lips, taking with it the righteous anger, leaving only a cold sorrow. "It doesn't mean much. But I'm sorry this happened to you. You can't be forgiven, but... I'll remember you this way as well. I promise, on my honor. That I will claw and scrape to change. "...Yeah..." The King says. "True happiness... is scary, but it fills that void. My happiness... only expands it." A pillar is the closest support he can get, pressing up against it. He isn't an alcoholic, but the other things that come with drinking. Hollow pleasures in life. How much of it is just easier than finding what the hole in his soul is shaped like. And how to fill it without expanding it. A new figure. Aidan springs off the pillar, running towards his gun where it is on the floor. A diving roll to grab it and spring up to standing, a graceful sweep of body and tail. By the time he stands again, he is facing Carmen. And the world has changed. "Oh no... are we in a school?"