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Petra Soroka	The Beauty of Ash's head, the remaining solid pieces, shatters under Lilian's heel with a sickening squeal-crunch somewhere between a car crash and a broken bone, shrapnel frozen in the air around her boot. It's not possible for it to speak in response, and even if it could move on its own, it's skewered and broken at every joint. The only response it manages to produce is a frantic ticking, rather than heartbeat-- frantic, because of the way it clicks one time every 0.99 seconds, infintesimally offbeat, just enough to convey panic.     Kukuru tries to telepathically contact Persephonetra and gets static and burrowing psychic splinters in return. Persephone feels a dead zone in her aura, Petra-shaped, tracing the walls outside. Flamel tries to analyze the film-searingly intense presence of the psychohazard to figure out some way to antagonize it to the point of killing the Beauty of Ash, gradually coming to two simultaneous conclusions: these frosted glass walls exist solely to keep the psychohazard out; and the best way to ramp up its influence to a fever-pitch would be to find the weakest point in the walls and shatter them.     Lilian, along with the Lady in Black, manages it all on her own, before even being asked. The pallid caverns of the underbelly of Petra's mindscape seem to bulge outwards with a surge of massive, suffocating pressure, building to an unbearable level as she continues beaming disgust into the Beauty of Ash. The need to target structural weak points is negated-- pillars, teal and white, black and gold, among others-- when Lilian has her scope set on the weak points of the mindscape itself. Glass bows, then shatters explosively, hailing down into the featureless void to either side of the off-black strip of ground that's all that's left of the hallway, leaving just the Elites, the Beauty of Ash, and the psychohazard.     Psychonautra sinks to the ground, face pressed into her knees, fingers twisted into the back of her hair. She babbles directionlessly, having skipped past tears straight into desperation, apparently being aware of whatever Lilian said to the Beauty of Ash.     "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, you're right. You're right. Thief, parasite, tourist, trash, filth, worthless. All of it. All of it. It's always just my fault, with no one else to blame at all, and I wish, I wish I wasn't like this, but I can't. I can't. There's nothing to blame but me."     "The only thing I'm not scared of is the only thing I ever could've done to make the world a better place. A-and I didn't, and I don't even know why, and I can't even remember why. Everything I touch, it always ends up like this, and I hate seeing how everything and everyone is always worse off for knowing me, and I try to fix it and make it worse, and then because I've condemned the world to keep me a little longer I ruin something else too. If I meant any of it I should've killed myself before ever ruining space. I should've killed myself the moment I was born. I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry."
Petra Soroka	Rather than being decorated with the usual lights and patterns signifying the abstract basis of the person's mindscape-- even in unhealthy ones-- the expanse to either side of the shattered hallway is vacant to the point of sensory deprivation. The only way to distinguish it as an empty space rather than a claustrophobic wall of solid black is from seeing the remnants of the broken glass walls plummeting down into it until they vanish from sight.     The sensation of opening the platform up to the void outside is like a bubble popping, suit rupturing into a vacuum; the violatory, smothering, all-encompassing deafness that feels like death. It comes with a redoubling of her aura, inducing deafness on another level along with that skin-crawling itch. All of this, still, before even noticing the psychohazard itself.     Standing some distance down the platform is-- unsurprisingly-- Petra. This one is as unremarkable as any you've seen so far: no unusual gear, no wristband, no hairclips, no collar; in comparisons to the other renditions of Petra you've gotten used to, even including the real one, this one only having her own bomber jacket feels practically featureless. Even more so when it turns around, revealing the jagged hole punched through where its face should be, with only blank nothingness in its place. Its hands swing limply by its side, marbled-purple with pooled, cold blood, as it takes a first staggering step towards the Beauty of Ash, automatically.     ... Technically this is mission complete, right?                 ____________________________________                  designation                                                    THE LONG QUIET                           ____________________________________                  HP: <<|||||||||||||||||||||||||>>                   ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                  notes                                                                                                       Autonomous Offense                                     Unit
Flamel Parsons	Flamel Parsons might not need to go find the psychohazard. It's looking like the psychohazard is coming to them. "Jesus, Rook," He mutters. "This is like a runaway reaction. You can just do this to her, at any time?" He seems... somewhat uncertain, unsteady, uneasy with Lilian Rook doing exactly what he asked her to do (but what else is new in the life of Lilian Rook).     The approach gets him stepping back, nervously. "Oh, hahaha, oh, this is bad." He mutters. "I'm gonna tell you all an important part of this. When one of these two kills the other one, I don't think we'll be able to get out in time to get away from the other. Rook -- you did really great, this concentrated a huge amount of psychohazardous mental energy into a fine point and it's going to tear apart anything it touches in a very small zone. Problem -- and that's my problem, my plan-failure -- is, that includes us."     "I'm, uh, going to advise we run as soon as the work's finished! Hahaha, I mean, specifically I don't know if we're going to be able to beat that, at all, or survive heavy hostility from that. I'm going to start looking for a path up to some upper layers where we can extract safely. And taking a lot of notes! And..." He vanishes into nothingness, turning completely invisible in a rush of fear, though it doesn't let him evade the wide-area aura of hazardous psychic energy. "Getting ready for this to make all of that lethal, haha! Oh, this is *really* bad..."     "Do *not* get between her and the Beauty of Ash, or, ahaheh, I really don't think I can fix what happens to your brain up in the material!"
Father Berislav	Berislav feels the hair on the back of his neck standing on end; feels an intensification of the persistent itch on his arms. The cassock feels sitfling and hot on his body, as he indulges the urge to scratch--fruitlessly. His motions set the watercolor specter hanging overhead to distortion, rippling like a lake disturbed by a thrown stone.     "Petra...?"     The priest's distorted colors, caused by that flensing effect undergone just by being here, run pale, when the Long Quiet turns to face everyone. A little streak of something beads in his eyes, wet and glimmering, as a pit forms in his stomach.     A tightly knotted ball of terror, anguish, and sadness rolls inside of him--and a cold streak of adrenaline jolts down his spine.     Berislav is upon Psychonautra after a moment's inventory of the room spots her, his hand extended towards her to help her up. "Petra," he says. "Can you do something for me? Tell me three objects in this room, three sounds that you hear. Then, I'd like you to move three body parts. It will really help if you can keep that up while moving." Having not been privy to what Lilian had said, giving Psychonautra a task to keep her mind focused on something else is the best he can do. I'm going to start looking for a path up to some upper layers where we can extract safely.     His eyes flick to the way they came. There isn't any ladder any more--collapsing the tunnel would only keep everyone in here with the psychohazard. "Let me know," he says. "I'll be looking, myself, too--and I can close the door behind us."     Don't get between the two of them--that was what Flamel had said, so the priest doesn't. Instead, he's off, inhumanly fast, the distorted picture of him losing all definition as its colors violently ripple and bleed together. He runs along the wall, or even sails overtop the psychohazard, anything to avoid interrupting its 'work.'
Kukuru	Kukuru can't hear her. She's disappointed and dismayed, but it reminds her that she needs to be reliable, too. She's put enough on everyone else's plates before, and with Phony and Angela and Flamel all here counting on her, she can't let herself be a dead weight again. That kind of thinking doesn't help her figure out what to do next, but... It keeps her focused. It keeps her from freaking out when the glass shatters, although she does scuttle backwards so as to not get stuck underneath all of it. Flamel's surprise at Lilian's ability to do all that does get a chuckle out of Kukuru, at least, but that brief moment of amusement ends once she hears and sees Psychonautra's distress. Unlike Psychonatura, however, Kukuru isn't aware of what Lilian said, and she just sees a poor girl('s mental rendition) crying and sinking into herself. Sliding on over, she places her hands on Psychonautra's shoulders gently, squatting in front of her to try and get a better look at her face. "Petra, Petra, sh sh sh... Dear. You're..." She gives her a little shake at first, then upon realizing how bad this really is, she takes a deep breath and presses both of her hands against Psychonautra's cheeks, squeezing gently to try and pry her face up just enough to enable (but not force) eye contact. "You're still trying, aren't you? Everyone messes up, especially when they're trying to do things different. Everyone's got... Um... Different speeds, too, you know? Some people get better at it way faster than others, but we're still learning to do better. And..." Kukuru looks over at Angela, then scooches over some to make sure she's not blocking them from seeing each other, or Berislav from trying to keep the mind reflection's mind focused. "You haven't made everyone worse off. If we really believed that and if we thought we'd be better off without you, theeen... Um. None of us would be in here. Now. Be a dear and... Listen to Waters, okay?" It takes her a bit to get that last bit out,  but get it out she does! The sudden shift in everything around her from the area being opened up to the void and the arrival of the faceless Petra has Kukuru turning her head to gawk for a while, trying to comprehend what she's looking at now before realizing that that's what's going to face off against the Beauty of Ash. The sight alone is rather terrifying, and she has to keep reminding herself that there's work to do just to not freak out too much. Kukuru gives Berislav a gentle pat on the shoulder, then offers her hand as well while starting to do her own style work: Making sure everyone else stays alive enough to get away. Healing nanites go out, and she'll start dragging or hurling Psychonautra away from the oncoming battle if need be to keep her safe as well.
Persephone Kore	"Sharing people's wishes," Persephone repeats, under her breath. Her hands still put shards back where they belong. There's no 'fixing' the Beauty in Ash, but it's just automatic for me. "Ahaha. No. Even if the words aren't all of it, they're enough to be beautiful. You know, we're sort of--"      Lilian makes it worse/better, far far more than I could ever make it better/worse. Phony's look of queasy uncertainty as she stands makes it all clear.      Is that really what she needs to get better? How could that be what anyone needs? I trust you, Lily-R. But just this once, I really, really don't understand. Am I missing something? Or is it the point of things, that I'm not meant to?      Her hand brushes Lilian's shoulder as she steps back towards Psychonautra, instinctively drawn to where kindness might still do some good. (Her other holds a bright shard from the Beauty still.)      "I utterly forbid you to say that," she says. "Maybe it feels true. But I'm happy that I know you. That I know her. You did the things I dreamed I could, remember? You're not strong enough to hurt me," she lies, "and you haven't made me worse. So don't. You can't. Please."      "I want you." Her hand squeezes Psychonautra's, mech-glass pressed flat between palm and palm. "And I'll have you, when you're ready to go." The walls crashing down isn't an urgent concern to her, but seeing the hollow-faced Petra injects a little more firmness into her voice when she glances back.      "Are you?"      And if Psychonautra accepts, I wrap you up in my arms, and hold you close, and so does that crimson-space. You're already half-there. All you have to do is accept being held, accept being loved, and you'll sink right through and disappear from this place.      I'll be good to you, for whatever being good to you is worth.
Angela	Angela gives Lilian a nod and then braces herself. And she listens. And she says a lot that is painful to hear. She laments, to herself, not being around at the time this all time. To help? Prevent things from getting this far? She's not sure she could have, not how she was when she first unified. She's not even sure she could have as she is now with far more (yet still not enough) information at her disposal. But more than anything else, what is starting to occur to Angela is that this whole event is starting to feel like something familiar despite all the horrors of Psychonaut technology. Horrifying enough that after seeing how the treatment of the mind like software she might have to soften her attitude towards the hardware focused methods of Lobotomy Corp. She wonders if Kale passed the message on properly. She doesn't have cameras to check since they disabled them in advance. Even the secret cameras. Angela gives Flamel a long look, "...Is that really your advice or am I being misled about our purpose here again?" Yes. It all feels quite familiar despite the presentation. It does, in fact, feel exactly like work. To Psychonautra, Angela says, "...Petra." This is to Psychonautra but she refuses to call someone, with her actual lips, Psychonautra. "You came to Lobotomy Corp, you became my friend, stood up for me passionately, grew to know the employees here and became, as far I could tell, genuinely their friend. Personally, I thought you'd leave after a month. Why would you stay? Nobody who has the option to leave stays in a place like this. But you chose to, even now." Angela pretends to take a breath. "...You told me you wanted to live now. Nobody here expects you to look at me over the girls from space nor do I expect you to feel that I am as real as them. But I will not let you deny it." Her lips twist into a scowl that she can't quite hide in time. "I will not let you just call it tourism." Her wrists start dripping blood as she approaches. She doesn't get in the way, yet--she is not a fast moving person--looking into that faceless Petra's gaze. Her eyes slant towards the Beauty of Ash. "..." Then she looks back to the faceless Petra. "You told me it didn't qualify, that it was different. If you want it back you should take it, all of it, so none could take it away again."
Flamel Parsons	The wave of dread-aura is already fucking up our boy Flamel. Every so often, a casual observer might see him flicker back into view, wincing and shining from fresh psychic impact, groaning in pain. "I hate this! Augh, augh, never *work with psychohazards*, it always hurts so much -- and it's going to hurt her worse! I'm gonna find something, a way out, some way to get some distance...!"     He can't take being right next to so much psychic output! Maybe those strong defenses were made for a two-way protection. He's gotta start getting some distance, he's gotta turn the upcoming stationary battle into a running battle or he's *cooked*, and some of these fellow operators here might be too. He preps extensive Confusion bombs around her, launched from his brain with a grenade-launcher-like CA-CHUNK and planting in the ground like a small field of "?????" to delay the Long Quiet once she turns on them. And then his telekinesis reaches out, giant translucent hands spreading through the world, trying to find and grasp something in the swirling shattered void, to pull into place some remaining fragments of tunnel and trash and memory and something, anything, that the gang can run and struggle to reach the upper layer through!
Lilian Rook	The sound and sensation of a piece of Petra's mindscape shattering like that; breaking apart into a million miserably chaotic pieces and snuffing itself out all at once, is nothing short of--     A little intoxicating. No matter how much Lilian actually cares about Petra-- more than almost anyone-- she can't help but feel satisfied at striking this ugly part of her and feeling it break against her violence. There are so few people where she can. Petra is special, in that regard; for being just the right kind of fragile that Lilian can hurt her tenderly enough to break the part she despises without taking the rest of the person with it.     The only thing I'm not scared of is the only thing I ever could've done to make the world a better place. A-and I didn't, and I don't even know why, and I can't even remember why. Everything I touch, it always ends up like this, and I hate seeing how everything and everyone is always worse off for knowing me'     That pauses Lilian for just a second. Naturally, she can't possibly support that kind of ideation from Petra; the urge to say something is held back only by knowing that Flamel told her to hurt Petra on purpose seconds ago. But for a single, sickening second, lungs filled with ash, mouth filled with blood, skin crawling with that hideous itch, Lilian stops to consider what she is actually grateful to Petra for.     Wasn't the thing she saved her from also Petra's own doing? Didn't Petra herself push her over the edge that lead to it? Certainly, she feels closer to Petra-- amongst a few others-- and more distant from almost everyone else because of trying to make up for it. But if Petra wasn't ever here, what would have changed?     §I'd like people more, speak my mind a little less, think a little more higly of the baseline, take a bit less care of myself, feel a bit more guilty about everything . . . and still think that if I keep doing better, one day I'll finally be 'good enough', and then they'll show all that humanity I was missing before.§     §Is that it? Is all she accomplished a matter of revealing how pointless it was? Exposing everyone for having so little regard for me and so little to give; was that enough to make her precious by comparison? Is that even how it works?§     It's a mercy that she doesn't have longer to freeze and mentally cycle. The House of Seven Worthies has given her plenty of familiarity with total sensory deprivation like that, so as hideously unpleasant as it is, it's something Lilian can endure without panicking. The sight of that Petra is what makes her heart leap into her throat. It's--     "Like the cannon. The eversion--" Lilian glances to Persephone as if she's making enough sense to be understood, then backs up. "That's it? The only thing inside to be turned outside; it's a psychohazard?" The sound of her voice alone is enough to convey existential anxiety bordering on genuine panic. The idea that this is even possible is enough to realize an entirely new fear on the spot.
Lilian Rook	'Rook -- you did really great, this concentrated a huge amount of psychohazardous mental energy into a fine point'     "Thou shalt use the fullest of thy . . ." Lilian murmurs, numbly. "Run? We just leave?" The concept sounds practically alien to her. Maybe it actually is. When was the last time she had? "I don't understand." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "If someone intends to be a hero, they can't not-fight just because they will likely lose."     'Isthat really what she needs to get better?'     "I don't know." Lilian whispers. The seams between her eroded wounds and her skin well up fresh blood, staining her bandages around her neck and side crimson. "I don't think it makes it better. I just think you can go mad if it never happens. You can't fix damage that no one will acknowledge is there." Almost unconsciously, she reciprocates Persephone's touch, backing up a step further than Phony for a uniquely rare change.     The words, at least, gift an iota of her psychic reality over to her, reinforcing her presence in the mindscape. "I can't do it by myself. The best I can do is patching it up, so she can move around. If she wants to get better, she already knows where she has to go."
Hibiki Tachibana	That what I wished for is sharing people's wishes.     If that time comes, we can wish for it together.     Even though it's a whisper, even though it's meant for Persephone, Hibiki pauses and stops short in the middle of trying to follow after Flamel. She goes back in times, months and months and months into the past, to a different time, to a vulnerable moment that she couldn't forget even if she wanted to.     "...Sharing people's wishes...? You have to be..." Her breath comes audible and heavy, eyes staring forward. That's coming from a 'Petra' herself, in the fathoms of her own mind. It's nothing but as honest as can be. Completely and utterly honest. Which means back then, Petra was completely and utterly honest with her. To her. The revelation of just /how/ honest she was, stacked on top of how everything has gone since then...     --gets her hands clenching white-knuckle tight at her sides. "There seriously wasn't a single fake thing back there at all, you stupid...!"     That's what-- I learned before, too. That for 'someday' to ever, ever be better, it couldn't include me.     Hibiki whirls around on Psychonautra, and the wild look in her eyes makes it look like she's on the verge of either instant agreement or vehement disagreement - but that's also exactly when Lilian shatters the space, and the Petra with them devolves into stammering all of that. If all of that wasn't enough to make her words die in her throat...     ...what they end up faced with is. The empty yet overwhelmingly oppressive space, the agonizing and incessant scratching just beneath the skin, it comes second to Petra. The plain as day Petra with no face at all, a heart-wrenchingly unsurprising sight that leaves her locked in place.     "This is what we had to do...?" There's a sharp inhale, and Hibiki turns her head towards Flamel. "...That's-- that's what it was like back then... it was /this/? That's not..." Her eyes go back to the lurching psychohazard ambling towards the Beauty of Ash...     And she takes on a similar mind of Kukuru, which is-- the most impotant thing is that all of them get out of here alive. No matter what. That means trying to help find some way, any way to help their efforts in making sure they have a way out of here. Right now, that includes everything from physically searching to even trying to 'feel' hard enough upwards, as if Persephonetra might still be able to brush against them and help guide them up.
Petra Soroka	"Petra, Petra, sh sh sh... Dear. You're..."     Being grabbed by the shoulders without being asked makes Psychonautra tense up and twist away from Kukuru, curling her shoulders in. Reaching for her cheeks, even after that, makes her duck her head down between her knees and wrap her arms around them as a shield.     "Trying hurts everyone. I'm always trying something. No matter what I try to do it just ruins people. All I'm good at is hurting people and I'm not even a good enough person to do it to myself. If I'm learning, no one deserves how slow it is." "You haven't made everyone worse off."     That just gets Kukuru a baleful, doubtful stare, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Can you do something for me? Tell me three objects in this room, three sounds that you hear. Then, I'd like you to move three body parts."     Psychonautra is crouched on the ground by choice-- when Berislav offers her a hand, rather than taking it, she flinches away violently enough to fall over backwards. She stares up at him, wide eyes heavy with tears that only don't come loose because of how frozen still she's become. All over her hazard suit, little gizmos are blinking red lights and wailing with tinny alarms; some shatter outright, one catches fire (her suit is, apparently, fireproof).     "That's-- why? That's-- I-I don't-- three-three-three? Right, a-alright, I'm reaching-- clearly at unstable levels of anxiety with a runaway reaction of self-loathing mixed in. Three things. That's..." Psychonautra clamps a hand over her mouth to slow her breathing, scanning around the room and twitching her head away when her gaze passes over The Long Quiet.     "Three things. Phony. The-- The Beauty of Ash. Lilian." The fact that Berislav said 'objects' was probably ignored and overwritten by Persephone just being eye-catching, rather than being an intentional comment on Petra's thought processes. "I can hear-- my existentiality monitoring patch going totally wild, ahah. Flamel panicking. The sound of-- of things breaking." "You came to Lobotomy Corp, you became my friend, stood up for me passionately, grew to know the employees here and became, as far I could tell, genuinely their friend."     Psychonautra manages a tense half-smile at Angela, wiping away under her eyes with the back of her glove. "You've got the wrong vague yet menacing psychic government agency, Angela. That's... but that's... still not too different. 'S far as I can tell. No way Petra's brain has got enough power in it to model a whole unique collection of psychic-adventure-agency memories without just reinterpreting all of her own. I know how she writes." "...You told me you wanted to live now."     Psychonautra looks away, curling up around her knees. "Well, that doesn't sound like me at all. Are you sure I didn't wander into the wrong mindscape?" "I utterly forbid you to say that,"     It's not exactly the same as talking to 'Petra', even though she's 'a Petra'. For one, Petra would never have accepted help from Persephone in the first place-- or not, since Phony's *here*-- and for another thing, it's typically impossible to calm Petra down through reassuring her-- which also might not be true, considering how Petra's recent phone call with Persephone went. Whether Psychonautra's comparative willingness to accept those things is a sign that she 'wants to' or 'could' isn't clear, or maybe it's just a simple reality of being a mental construct rather than a person in her own right.     "... I'm just thinking about it from everyone else's perspectives. You know... I can hardly think of anyone who wouldn't have been better off if I didn't exist." She snorts, with a little 'aheh' to it that the real Petra doesn't have. "Gotta be careful about saying that kind of thing to you, or you might really 'It's a Wonderful Life' me."
Petra Soroka	"And I'll have you, when you're ready to go."     Psychonautra shakes her head and shivers, still tentatively holding up her arms for the Persephone Uppies despite not looking at her. She squeezes the shard of the Beauty of Ash hard, and even despite that, it doesn't draw blood. "I know that isn't true. I'd be making you worse if it was. You can't care about 'everyone', and also the person who hurts everyone else. But--" She looks away again, curling her fingers around Persephone's. "I'll try to be good. It's never worked before, but it's all I've got, if I'm not allowed to die."     When Phony picks her up, Psychonautra wraps her arms around her and mutters something incoherent about overextending her selfishness budget for the year. Psychonautra starts to shimmer with Persephone's psychic power, but they're both still in here. Trying to take Psychonautra into her consciousness is like trying to shove a Petra-shaped bundle of her psychic shrapnel in there-- she can do it, slowly, but it hurts a ton and feels like she's actively squirming to resist it even when she isn't.     The Beauty of Ash can't and doesn't try to resist. Even after Lilian steps away, it keeps ticking, and the way it vibrates and squirms around on the ground where it's still skewered-through feels like preemptive death throes at the advance of The Long Quiet. Unless constantly shoved back into place, the plugged together shards buzz their way out into a broken spray of wound-impacts when Phony's attention is turned away. It's an execution, not a fight.     The fight comes from when The Long Quiet's attention is drawn to the rest of you. Whether it's from dragging up pieces of the walls from the void to rebuild the mindscape (there's no continuation of that shattering pressure, so Flamel and Lilian manage to restore some color to the environment, even if the only color available is frosted translucency), scurrying around to look for a way out (as with any proper boss arena, the ladder up in the ceiling has vanished-- so has the rest of the ceiling, come to think of it. The narrow chute representing the Kana's cockpit is the only feature extending up and out, but imagining trying to freehand climb it with The Long Quiet breathing down your neck seems like a nightmare), or worst of all, giving emotional support to Psychonautra (it even stops shambling towards the Beauty of Ash, hesitating to snap its faceless-face towards the people clustered around her), whatever counts as the psychohazards 'ire' is drawn onto the Elites.     Not nearly enough to overcome its fixation on obliterating the Beauty of Ash. Instead, the actual sustained psychic assault of The Long Quiet tears its way out of the main psychohazard's back in a series of teeth-aching glass crunches. Petras-- or, rather, more of The Long Quiet, since they're all still faceless and featureless-- lurch out of it to stumble onto the sickly grey platform floor. Silent, pallid, and lifeless despite being on two feet, it's not entirely obvious what they could do to hurt you at first, without even amplifying the ambient psychic haze.
Petra Soroka	Then one falls through an inky black portal studded with glittering fiberglass sparkles and appears in front of Kukuru and Berislav, glass-shards accumulating as it dives down into a piston-powered gauntlet hammerblow. Another blurs into a transluscent, flying shade, divebombing Hibiki and Angela with a set of stunning confusion bombs while Flamel's equipment starts wildly alerting him that there's something scanning for his position. A third crystallizes a glass copy of Night Mist, wordlessly sprinting at Persephone and Lilian with shockwave propelled kicks at the ground, swinging the sword the moment it fully comes together-- not at either of them, but at Psychonautra in her arms.     The Long Quiet, meanwhile, reaches the Beauty of Ash. Rather than materializing any weapons, it just limply staggers over to the prone mech, combat boots tearing wetly at the murky ground, then lifts up a boot to stomp on it repeatedly. Methodically crushing up the length of one leg; and the shards go lifeless like any glass would.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's trying to get above the swarm. He's not managing it. His ability to restore walls and other fixtures to climb with by physically yanking them is limited by the fact that, presumably, this was supposed to only become climbable with the Beauty of Ash's help. He has to shove things into weird positions, twist them sideways, leave things improperly settled so that they're maneuverable. The others will have to follow when they can. But the scanning... his telepathy, his clairvoyance, his gear powered by both, all tune into the incoming scan. It's like a missile locking on. The wailing alarm noise gets worse and worse, as he speaks in a disembodied voice.     "Oh! So it looks like the psychohazard must have cut through a bit of the layer above and it's hit the mirrored self-image social comprehension systems and it's *co-opting the mental defense propagation network oh my god!!*" The alarm reaches its peak as one of the Petras gets a glass-powered strike at just behind him, ripping away a lot of his hazmat gear and leaving only the Psychonauts-issue tactical turtleneck. Little protection as the impact bruises and batters him. The glancing strike, full of exotic psychological energies, is still enough to leave him breathless and struggling to evade.     Well, the core mission isn't going to be interrupted now if he fires. He starts to flicker in and out of view, brandishing his fingers like handguns, two on his temple and two pointed at the assaulting Petraswarm, flashing into view only to fire the blasts of vivid orange emotional energy. He has to kitefight this one, there's no other way -- and he isn't even culturally aware of the term! "We gotta start getting out of here, I don't know if it's gonna ease off after the Ash is gone or if it's gonna just focus on us worse!" If he can at least get enough height on this chaotic fortnite of a vertical platforming challenge, it should be possible for them to extract safely... Because it won't be possible, at all, for Flamel to fight this fight safely!
Father Berislav	<J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons goes from brightly cheerful to agonized panic in a slow progression over each word: "Oh! So it looks like the psychohazard must have cut through a bit of the layer above and it's hit the mirrored self-image social comprehension systems and it's *co-opting the mental defense propagation network oh my god!!*" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons reverts very abruptly back to his bright, cheerful tone. "The fact that she can survive and thrive with this in her head really says amazing things for the people who trained her before and the people supporting her now!"          Berislav's comfort at being able to stabilize Psychonautra is a cold comfort, a small relief beneath a roaring tide of adrenaline that he rides with experience. His lightning-fast advance is not halted by the emergence, from above, of another extension of the Long Quiet.     I can understand why you'd be upset at this care--or why you wouldn't think yourself worthy of it. Despite my many mistakes, I remember our conversations. I keep them close to my heart, and it swells with joy when I see you happy.     Rather, his eyes sweep up, with cool, crisis-minded resolve, forcing himself to look into the pit of that empty 'Petra' as her fist crashes down, his body shifting not to avoid the strike, but to make it his own. I am so proud of you. Whether you crawl or sprint, I am proud of you.     If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.     In so doing, he interposes himself between a grounded Kukuru and the extension of the Long Quiet. It's pure conditioned response, from someone who has made fighting almost an instinct; the intent to overwhelm the opponent's offense with his own. His wrist bleeds as it slides across the sharp glass gauntlet, cutting past the hammerblow to deliver a devastating cross.     And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Father Berislav	As that extension of the Long Quiet lands, Berislav's terrifying speed halts in an instant, his cassock flowing and audibly rustling as the opposite leg is spaced expertly between hers. A fervent, overwhelming strength of purpose radiates from him, that might be more frightening to see than--     If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.     -the blistering chain punches which follow not even a second after its landing. More concerning, still, might be the way that his fists, in this space of implied meanings and symbols, begin to strike up clouds of dust with their movements, as if he were wreathed in a garment once assembled but only recently seen.     Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.     The priest surges forward into a shoulder check, his foot placement allowing him to leverage her off-balance.     It does not insist on its own way;     His hands find her wrist like striking vipers, as his hip slams into her and his palms shift with her. It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing-- The splinter, or copy, or extension, is thrown forcefully to Kukuru, as she rises, for a layup. --but rejoices with the truth. <J-IC-Scene> Persephone Kore says, "Hey. Hold onto something, okay?"     Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. We gotta start getting out of here, I don't know if it's gonna ease off after the Ash is gone or if it's gonna just focus on us worse!     Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.     "Kukuru--handholds in the walls, please. I need a moment."     The air around him burns bright orange, as more weapons of the world are brought to this place shaped by it, but not of it. Bulky plastic explosives, two to a hand, with thick, homemade electronic interfaces.     For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.     They are flung, all four, with tremendous force, upwards, each landing one-to-a-surface. Just a short while longer...
Kukuru	"If I'm learning, no one deserves how slow it is." "Are you more afraid of failing when you try, or of hurting people when you try?" Kukuru letting her hands drop to her sides a little while after she realizes that Psychonautra isn't reacting well to the physical contact. "I... I won't push you if you're worried about trying and failing. If it's about who's getting hurt when you try, though..." "You came to Lobotomy Corp, you became my friend . . ." She looks over at Angela, then back at Psychonautra with her usual gentle smile. "Close friends of the family aren't gonna be excluded just for making mistakes on the way. " "I'll try to be good. It's never worked before, but it's all I've got, if I'm not allowed to die." She sighs softly in relief as she sees Psychonautra starting to move into Persephone, shuffling over to pat the back of Phony's arm and staring right into that shimmer. "We'll be here. Oooor... Not here, because we should go." Gesturing at the ongoing battle, Kukuru realizes The Long Quiet is staring right at the group, and she's frozen to the spot momentarily as she tries to process what to actually do now that she and everyone else are in its direct line of fire. It's only when that familiar portal appears in front of Kukuru that she brings up her claws defensively, yelping as the diving strike smashes her right into the ground. Choking out a pained noise at the sudden impact, Kukuru scrambles away from it like some kind of freaked out lizard for a moment before throwing herself back up onto her feet, wobbling briefly before slamming her claws forward to regain her balance. As that happens, Berislav launches The Long Quiet's teleporting minion towards her, and she  seizes on the opportunity. Kukuru rears her claws back and stabs them into ground behind her, pulling forward like she's building up tension in a spring or something. Just as the minion reaches her, she rips her claws back out of the ground with all that built up tension, blasting both of them straight ahead like a pile of battering rams aimed to pulverize and impale the splinter in one horrifying thrust. Persephone warns everyone to hold onto stuff, and at first, Kukuru's just looking at everyone else. So many people to hold onto, but who needs her the most? Berislav's request gets Kukuru's mind on the proper track, though, and she lets out an understanding noise. "Something to grab...? O-kaaay!" And then it's time to get everyone something safe to hold onto. After hurrying over to the nearest wall, Kukuru starts stabbing it with her claws repeatedly in an almost rhythmic manner while moving along it up and to the side, gouging large horizontal holes into it at different heights that happen to be convenient for climbing and holding onto!
Lilian Rook	'Gotta be careful about saying that kind of thing to you, or you might really 'It's a Wonderful Life' me.'     "Shut the fuck up, Petra." escapes Lilian without thought. "I'm so tired of the way you are towards her. If you hate ruining people then stop being utterly intolerable to the one girl you can't ruin. Stop treating her like a fucking threat. You hate it when people act like I'm a ticking time bomb, don't you?" There isn't time for this, but it's the time Lilian thinks to finally say it.     'You can't care about 'everyone', and also the person who hurts everyone else.'     "Yes she can." Lilian says. Her voice is raised, dangerously, but somehow without a shouting tone. "If she could do it for me, when I ruined everything on purpose, what should have been beyond repair, then she can do it for you being pathetic and gross."     They aren't the most responsible words for someone she'd driven to this inconsolable state in the first place, and they aren't even useful, given that Petra herself likely won't retain any of it, but worn down this far, the energy needed to stop them is a luxury that can't be spared. The Long Quiet is moving.     Moving on. Not moving in. That's at little expected, but difficult to parse.     The sight of something like Night Mist is enough to make Lilian bristle with the urge to challenge it. The idea that she might break something that resembles it feels mildly nauseating. The knowledge that she hadn't managed to hurt Persephone beyond repair with it before tilts the scales with enough confidence to leave Psychonautra to her. Lilian passes by the grey Petra with her gaze cast directly ahead, nearly touching in the moment she ducks sprints past.     Lilian weaves through the crowd with little more than core agility and speed. The psychic facsimile of Night Mist she simply finds in her hands again is sufficient to hack down a clone directly ahead when she needs to, or to shut and trip those crowding in on the side when she turns. Catching up to Long Quiet, the soaking bloom of red spreading further through her bandages from the exertion, two things happen when Lilian reaches.     One is the clean slash through both of the Psychohazard's arms. Because even if they're all, in some way, inside Petra, what is this part of her if not the distilled essence of the Outsider? The predatory, exploitative, incomprehensible tourist from beyond.     The second, after the attempt at weakening it, is the gust of black-gold sparks that swirl up from the Beauty of Ash like embers disturbed by the collapse of a bonfire. The rate of its inevitable, erosive collapse is multiplied to an order severalfold. The objective timer accelerates.
Angela	Angela says, "I am aware, that all this... Is about a time before me. But you asked me to come here. How can I speak to the version of you that existed before I was even unified?" She fakes an exhale. "But if you can be real to me, not a tourist to me, surely you can be the same for people who are so important to you. Surely you can take some pride that you have become a better person. Eternal retribution has some inherent structural flaws I would be quite happy to tell you about." Her wrists ache. She knows it's not real but eventually they will stop aching and it'll start to feel comfortable and that's when the real trouble will come. ''I know how she writes.'' "I want to read it. I don't care if it's sloppy or 'cringe' or embarassing. If she came into ''my'' hole and grew to understand it and everything that I am--sometimes better than me myself-- it is only reasonable that I do the...Same." She pauses a moment and then clears her throat. "To clarify, this is metaphor, the actual presence of holes only matters in terms of metaphorical representations of what we've buried in--" Before Angela can finish clarifying, she can feel Carmen crying out in pain in her head. This is alarming for a few reasons. The first is, she has never felt Carmen in pain before. The second is, she didn't think Carmen could feel pain. And finally, this means that Carmen is being pulled sympathetically in due to shared psychosomatic themes! That is no good. Angela tries to push Carmen away from her mind--hard when her wrists hurt and when faceless women are looking at her. Her fake breathing labored she says, "I know it is difficult to believe but it is true." She opens her mouth to, basically, It's a Wonderful Life Petra and then Psychonautra hangs a big old Lampshadetra on the very idea of it and Angela presses her lips stubbornly together and adds nothing. It's a good thing Tennant showed this movie! A Long Quiet divebombs towards Angela. Angela, instinctively, swings Regret right back at it! The nice thing about utilizing EGO Gear is that it is a kind of barrier between interacting with something with your own mind and not because it's borrowing a whole other monster's mind to help ease off the pressure on your own brain so you don't go insane quite so easily! This does nothing to protect you against feeling guilt over swinging a weapon at a representation, however, and Angela masks it with an emotionless robot stare. The Long Quiet starts smashing the Beauty of Ash. Lilian said she didn't want to contribute to this cycle but is it really different if you squish the Beauty of Ash with a hammer or just bring in Petra's own hammer and watch it go to town on it? Well, one is more effective but it still feels like harming Petra. It IS harming her. And if she stops it... ...Is that just making all this pain be for nothing? Angela has a moment to think. But it's hard to when Carmen is feeling pain for the first time in a thousand years and she is describing everything to her. Her wrists ache and itch and she just want to scratch scratch scratch it even though she knows it'll do nothing. Ultimately she sticks to what she told Kale to pass on to Petra. Follow Lilian's lead. Lilian strikes at a Long Quiet and accelerates the damage to the Beauty of Ash. And so Angela, who can't really do the latter--instead takes another Regret-powered swing with the hammer. It's fine, she tells herself. Maybe she is more like these cast off shards. That just means she has to change that.
Hibiki Tachibana	The psychohazard that is The Long Quiet is awful enough already. Hibiki's mind is still processing and connecting what's in front of them right now with what they saw in the wake of the S2's horrendous blast. But the sight of /more/ shambling their way out to come to a stand is gut-wrenching in an indescribable way.     ...And it only gets moreso when they go on the attack. It'd have been nicer if it was in an entirely unexpected and shocking way. Or maybe just more crippling psychic backlash and hooks trying to tear identity away from flesh would be better. Instead, she gets a glimpse of a familiar blade in the beginning of being formed, she gets one coming right towards her almost faster than she can keep track of it, and--     Her. It's her. It's not unexpected, because she already had very good awareness of Petra taking other people into herself, well before the ruined streets they went through or her own dead imprint in the rubble or Psychonautra or anything else. But it gets to her, more than anything else, because...     "You're taking all of these and using them just to /hurt/...!" The barrage of confusion bombs - also agonizingly familiar, given she was holding one just earlier - come down with Hibiki caught dead center right then, and the chain of detonations leave her reeling and stumbling. Head spinning and vision blurring, as if the ambient atmosphere of this place wasn't enough already, she nearly loses balance and falls over.     Her whirling mind is still able to stay focused on one thing, at least. Something that keeps her anchored enough to step forward. "That's not-- what sharing wishes is supposed to /be/!"     But Petra Soroka can't help but hurt everything she tries to touch, like it or not. So maybe the reason it's unsurprising, is because it would stand to reason that making things from other people a part of Petra Soroka would also result in them being used to hurt.     ...Is that true? What she gave Petra -- what Petra took from her and incorporated into herself, enough of a portion that Qetra has the obsession she does -- was that actually something that did more good than bad? It didn't do a single thing to prevent the unimaginable mess that ended up happening.     Grappling with that, Hibiki also forces her body to move so she has to think about it less, getting Persephone's warning just barely as she throws herself up to try and intercept the transparent shadow of Petra, not even knowing if she can even touch her-- and trying to grapple onto her to swing her around and throw her away from the lot of them.     This has the dual effect of flinging Hibiki herself the opposite way, closer to Kukuru's general direction, where she can get a desperate grip on the handholds she's making.
Persephone Kore	Uppies are extremely! indulged. Persephone scoops Psychonautra up effortlessly with one arm crossed under her butt, but inducting her is proving a delicate process: Psychonautra very slowly redshifts, and stars start to glimmer over her as if she were submerging 'beneath' them four-dimensionally. Psychonautra's voice starts getting a little echo-ey too.      Even at this pace, Phony's cheek twinges in discomfort.      "You can't care about 'everyone', and also the person who hurts everyone else."      "No. How come solving someone has to mean making them go away? Awful isn't forever. " she lies again. No. That one's actually true. "Maybe... you just need room to thrive. I think I'm sure of it. And I'm strong enough to carry you 'til then."      She looks around Psychonautra's head at Lilian, and though her eyes are approving, she says: "I'm tolerating her right now, aren't I? Ahahaha. She's right, though, Petra. It'd be nice if you relaxed a little!" Was that what Lilian was saying? But I seem sure of it.      Her smile really does manage to be confident. But it drops a second later.      Oh. I've seen that sword before. From this angle before. ... The techique isn't like Lily-R's at all.      I wish it wouldn't hurt us, but Lilian's already taking care of that, like the dutiful little knight she is! So instead, I wish the climb were easier. That's a simple one, right?      . . .      There's a gutdropping feeling as the entire mindscape turns ninety degrees. The floor becomes a wall, the shattered fogged-glass wall (courtesy of Flamel) becomes a floor, and the exit goes from an unbearable vertical scramble above to a straight hallway ahead. Her telekinesis holds people securely just long enough for them to step down.      Somewhere far up and far away, on a table, a snow-globe falls onto its side.      "Let's get a little distance," she says offhandedly to Psychonautra in her arms. Her wink sparkles with half-born stars as she steps down onto the frosted-glass walkway. As she approaches the now-horizontal cramped metal-and-laundry corridor, it starts to blossom outwards, becoming manageably walkable. Wildflowers even sprout from the cracks.
Petra Soroka	"I... I won't push you if you're worried about trying and failing. If it's about who's getting hurt when you try, though..."     Psychonautra, voice hoarse and muddled by all the gizmos still beeping in alarm, shakes her head while slackening in Persephone's arms. "... Sorry, Kukuru. That's wrong. Can't judge me by anything more than my impact on others, otherwise it's not fair at all. Not to me and not to anyone."     "I mean, hey..." She gestures vaguely around at the mindscape and psychohazard. "We've clearly got bigger problems in here than 'fear of failure' if you know what I mean. I'm past 'trying and failing'; it's just 'trying and being wrong from the start'." "Stop treating her like a fucking threat. You hate it when people act like I'm a ticking time bomb, don't you?"     Psychonautra doesn't exactly treat Lilian's words with the same unquestionable weight as the real Petra does, so she's still capable of being a little snide towards her-- not that any version of Petra is anything less than catastrophically earnest. She drums her fingers on Phony's shoulder for a second before tightening her grip on her sweater as an anxious twitch, murmuring 'aside' but loud enough to hear.     "... Thought that movie got the guy a happy ending. Learning how people would've been worse off without him. I'm honestly too curious about it; I'd want to see no matter what the result is. ... Not that I'm not scared that I already know." "If she could do it for me, when I ruined everything on purpose, what should have been beyond repair, then she can do it for you being pathetic and gross."     "But you're..." Psychonautra squirms in Phony's arms, flinching and scratching at the same itch Phony's feeling. She falls silent for a few seconds to sort her thoughts out, side-eyeing Lilian. "You're more than capable of helping everyone. People can't get enough of you helping them. So for you... it's totally different from something like me. When you 'act' kind, it still involves a process that results in producing kindness at the end. I don't even get the choice about ruining everyone." "Maybe... you just need room to thrive."     "Sorry, Phony. I've always had way too much room to thrive." Psychonautra's tone has gradually shifted from miserable and hollow, to just sullen, to finally only tired and needy with a twinge of sarcasm that's distinctly different from Petra. "If you're taking requests, I'd really rather have *less* room to thrive, ahah. It'd do me a lot more good than having more. ... Thanks for helping. Sorry for being pathetic and gross."     Something else about the splinters of The Long Quiet besides the unnerving dispassion and stolen powers becomes clear when retaliating against them. None of them fight with any sense of self-preservation at all; they throw themselves into attacks just to draw a tiny bit more blood from their target, nearly-- or literally-- suicidal. The splinter with Hibiki's gauntlets is knocked off-balance, but not before landing a punch on Berislav empowered by the grating hiss-scrape of glass mechanisms firing off, and when he picks it up and throws it into Kukuru-- that's it. Rather than trying to dodge, it twists in the air to meet Kukuru's claws with its own gauntlet, crunching through them simultaneously with being impaled and torn to pieces; once the uncanny valley qualities of facelessness and pallor aren't the focus, it's not distinguishable at all from any other eviscerated Petra, save for the fact that Kukuru did it rather than an impersonal cannon.
Petra Soroka	The shade-splinter runs out of confusion bombs and seems entirely incapable of producing more. Swinging Regret's hammer into it proves it isn't any more durable than any other teenaged girl, though the timing of its translucent intangibility and airborne maneuverability means that Angela only manages a glancing blow that still lands with a sickening crunch. It crumples down in front of Hibiki, not managing to escape her grapple fully when blurring out of sight, but still slipping a single arm out.     It feels reminiscent of the time she wrestled Qetra during that time Petra stole a Chaos Emerald-- fragile like hollow ceramic, despite the fact that *these* ones fight back to the full extent of their abilities, or everyone else's. With one arm out, irregular pieces of broken glass coalesce in its hand to form a glittering replica of Berislav's hand cannons. At this angle, there's no way to fire it at Hibiki safely, so she does it anyways, twisting her shoulder and snapping her wrist back from the poorly received recoil, just before Hibiki hurls her away.     Lilian slips past the splinter armed with Night Mist to attack The Long Quiet itself, so Phony stops the sword short from touching Psychonautra with a thought. Psychonautra herself still flinches away from it and squeezes Phony for protection, accelerated heartbeat pounding hard enough to be felt through her suit, or maybe that's just because her heart's gradually being drawn closer and closer to Phony's. "I-I really don't like looking at them. At their... faces. Makes me feel like I forget what mine looks like. I'd totally love to take notes on the novel cognitive influence it's having on me, but I really don't want to let go, ahah."     Psychonautra's focusing all of her energy into helping Phony do her work too, whatever form that takes on her end. Distractedly, she mutters to herself, "I'd call it... Petrapagnosia. And then get kicked out of the lab instantly."     Lilian has no issue at all seperating The Long Quiet's arms from its shoulders. Flesh and bone split effortlessly under Night Mist, and blood only dribbles out of the wound, like she's carving into a corpse instead. There's no satisfying pain reaction from it, just an unwholesome full-body shiver while its absent face stays downturned at the rapidly disintegrating Beauty of Ash. At this distance from it, though, the anti-psychic pressure feels like a physical force chewing away at her, though it does also negate the greedy pull of the Beauty of Ash.     She's also right up front when another splinter of the psychohazard crunches its way out of its back, this one armed with a replica of Winter Crow. Right then, Persephone upends the entire mindscape onto its side, rerolling all of the matchups and sending the far less prepared psychohazardous splinters tumbling painfully (unless she catches *them*, too) into the new Flamel-formed ground. The glass dust that was formerly most of the Beauty of Ash is flung sideways as a glittering cloud over everyone, failing to 'cut' and draw blood, but instead intangibly sinking in and through, like particle-sized amplifications of the psychic fishhooks it latched on with before.
Petra Soroka	It's all so unnervingly quiet. None of the iterations of the psychohazard speak or cry out in pain, and there's almost no ambient noise from the environment besides the near constant squealing and shattering of some kind of glass or another. With the Beauty of Ash still pinned up on the wall and dangling from the last spear still impaling what's left of it, The Long Quiet slides down into a limp sitting posture on the ground, silently nudging at one of its severed arms with the leaking stump to try to, seemingly, reconnect it. The three remaining splinters take their turns with all the others, while the cockpit (hallway now) groans and creaks from Phony stretching it wide enough to walk comfortably through.     Each shot of Winter Crow from the Long Quiet's splinter is preceeded by a rod of neutral graphite being shoved into its chamber, and followed up by pristine diamond being spat out, as well as magical recoil so intense that blood leaks down from the jagged edge of the hole in its face. It takes a shot at Hibiki and Kukuru before turning to Angela, emulating Berislav's martial arts to knee her in the chest before yanking up the muzzle of Regret, stopping her from talking and shoving her to the ground before taking another self-wounding shot at her. The one with Berislav's pistols darts around with its copied shade-flight, dual-wielding them now to fire at Flamel, Psychonautra, and Berislav.     Lastly, the one wielding 'Night Mist' turns towards Lilian, and the intention of 'forcing a duel to (her own) death' is readable even without a face to interpret an expression from; it says grimly discomforting things that the desire is so thoroughly ingrained in Petra's mind to even show up here. Worse is how it goes about it: piston-powered calf armor slams into the floor to propel it forwards, Night Mist feinting towards a straightforwards cut at her core, before switching at the last second to aim behind her, for her hair instead.     The way to the upper levels and out is open, thanks to Persephone, Flamel, and Berislav's efforts to access it. Leaving behind the psychohazard now would guarantee that it finishes crushing the Beauty of Ash. The only thing left to do is survive, and hopefully prevent The Long Quiet from escaping this already-condemned section of Petra's mindscape.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel is running with unbearable panic, and unbreakable cheerfulness. He doesn't scream and cry when he's panicking, when he's scrambling over wall-chunks and levitating over gaps. He's sideways, now, which is way more convenient -- that is to say, the gauntlet he's been struggling to tug together with his telekinesis is one that isn't demanding a totally vertical climb.     It is still, however, demanding: He shouts, "Run, run, *run*!!" His voice doesn't break that determined positivity. "Right now, she's zoned out, she doesn't have her social support structure! I'm shaping up an exit, get out and then we need to lock this thing down, otherwise it'll spread to the layer up and into Petra's perception of her support network -- we gotta make sure she still has her friends to keep her well!" That's not, strictly speaking, what friends do for Petra, or the correct term for what some of them are to her, but let's leave the complexities of girlsuffering to the agonized discussions and phone conversations.     Now is a time for something else: the misery of scrambling. Flamel keeps getting shot in the back, over and over, bleeding streams of white and orange light as he gasps and pants and blasts back during his fleeing. "This is so awful! So, so awful! Never work with a psychohazard, this op is an absolute stinker and it might be about to be the death of me!" He's not supposed to die here. If he dies here, there won't be a messed up, spooky autopsy video. Well, there will, but it won't get leaked because of LobCorp's confidentiality.     His body ripples as they reach the minimum height -- or rather, minimum horizontal distance. His posture shifts all at once. "Here! Here, we're far enough!" He plants his feet, blasting desperately over and over to provide cover and taking those shots in turn from the stolen glass weapons. "Argh! Berislav, why do your weapons *hurt* so bad like this?!" He's got enough focus, though, to muster a fresh door. It cracks and shudders and you can hear the sound of emitters, in the real world, overloading and exploding. But a new door forms, one that's properly person-sized in this mental space. Those who rush into the light beyond it will find themselves thrown out of Petra's forehead and back into their body.     Still, one more task: "Make sure the Long Quiet doesn't get out! We can't afford the contamination breach, we promised Petra!"
Father Berislav	Berislav clears the distance like a panther in reeds, one palm pressed against the wall adjacent Kukuru's nearest alteration. The other hand grips her handiwork tightly, his body braced as if expecting explosive decompression. <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "W-woah! Woah! Oh wow-- you rotated the snowglobe! ...Or you rotated Petra in the real world. Either way, thank you so much Persephone! Okay, *run*!"     There is enough surprise to bubble up momentarily from the current of task-oriented crisis response, in the form of an owlish blink, when everything is turned on its side. His braced position necessarily becomes a becomes a crouched kneel, for the change in gravity.     "There's our exit. As I said--I'll close the door behind us." The priest withdraws his hand, rising and drawing his outsized revolver.     When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
Father Berislav	Though the priest is faceless, the silver gleam of his gun shines brightly. It has never felt heavier in his hand than it has in this moment, among these people. The tearing of the strings, the itching, the pit in his stomach, the knowledge that saving Petra later means hurting her now--it's all too much.     When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.     In an instant, the watercolor above Berislav, the itching on his skin, the threads, all snap and dissipate. The priest's face is upon him again, pained and exhausted for the effort of asserting himself in that particular way, in such a place that takes such extreme pains to prevent it.     The revolver is, for a moment, louder than it's ever been--because I have taken it within me and turned it outward, so that people like you could take softer, kinder things instead. The trigger pulls are so heavy, and so fast, despite the heaviness. Hollow point bullets head for extensions of the Long Quiet. The butt of the revolver crashes into those that approach, cutting off their attacks. Through it all, there are those impacts and their clouds of dust, left behind only by the actions of Berislav in this place, more visible now for his greater clarity.     "For now," says the priest, resolutely but not without a certain ache, "We see in a mirror, dimly, but *then* face to face. *Now* I know in part; *then* I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."     The cylinder swings wide. His bloodied palm dances like a reed in the wind against the grip, droplets staining the ground beneath as crimson-slicked bullets are guided into the weapon with inhuman rapidity and the hard-won grace of experience. Turning and keeping pace with the others as they flee, he stops on a dime when they're clear of the 'entrance.'     The ironsights frame one of the explosives from before.     "I hope you understand, now, Petra. If not fully, then a little more, why you have the care you do. Whatever you may believe, it's not because we're foolish, or because you're deceiving us."     The trigger is pulled. A brilliant light fills the hallway as each explosive goes off, collapsing a portion of it and filling it with rubble that either traps any pursuing extensions of the Long Quiet or buries them outright beneath so much displaced metal.
Kukuru	"Can't judge me by anything more than my impact on others, otherwise it's not fair at all. Not to me and not to anyone." Kukuru doesn't have anything to try and refute that. She knows that what Psychonautra's saying is correct, even if it feels wrong in her gut, and she lets out a quietly distressed noise as she looks around at the mindscape-turned-battlefield. She doesn't stop trying to come up with something regardless, but she still knows that Psychonautra's correct. "You're... Still so much smarter than you give yourself credit for." That discouraged noise continues even as Kukuru takes a moment to see who else needs healing support as she scrambles along the walls to keep those holes coming. A confused noise comes out of her next when she feels the mindscape moving, hunching up against one of her dug-out handholds and realizing it's suddenly below her rather than next to her. Looking over at Persephone, she lets out a pleased sound and teleports once to get over to Flamel's new ground before noticing... Silence. It's too silent, and she almost forgets to breathe as she sees The Long Quiet reattaching its arm. That moment of gawking proves to be fatal, however, as Kukuru doesn't even realize it's aiming at her until she's already seeing the shot coming at and then going through her chest. She lets out a strained noise while staggering backwards slowly, only having enough time to trip over her own feet and settle into a curled up ball, hiding the entry wound with her claws as best as she can from casual glances. A small dark cloud appears besides her, but she only manages to get her hand into it and leave it hanging through cloud near the door Flamel opens. The nanites should bring her back to life eventually, at least, although she probably won't realize the exit wound on her back is still very visible with the way she's lying there. She's definitely going to need someone to pull her the rest of the way through the cloud, or to grab her off the floor.
Angela	Angela doesn't like swinging her weapon into Petras, even faceless horror corpse Petras. There is a call to Run and she is inclined to agree but first! Her words echo uselessly and maybe that's for the best. Since when was she a good person? Nevertheless. WHAT IS VERY SUCCESSFUL: Pulling up the muzzle of Regret is easy. It's DESIGNED to keep Angela from speaking, and she is appropriately GAGGED. The belts tighten instinctively around Angela's mouth and anything else she has to say comes out as 'MMHPH MPHHHM PHHH.' It's also possible to shove Angela over without too much trouble. She weighs more than she looks but she is decidedly offbalance, especially when Persephone turns the world (or Petra) upside down. WHAT IS NOT VERY SUCCESSFUL: Using martial arts to knee Angela in the chest. Angela is a very durable robot and the usual result of someone swinging a zweihander directly into her is a 'CLANG'. It's no different here! A shudder reverberates through the impact point, causing Angela to vibrate intensely and making her easy shove fodder even if it didn't, really, harm her. WHAT IS EVEN MORE SUCCESSFUL: Making Angela feel terrible. Yes, she feels like complete and utter shit. She feels like a monster. She wants to die. She wants to die. She really just wants it to be over rather than have the truth of her impotency thrown in her face again and again and again. She is good at her job. She follows the rules she is given. She barely remembers the escape. She clambers up to her feet and runs. It's inside someone's mind rather than on the cameras, so there's no need to be dignified about it. Running is the job. Flamel just said so. Running is the job. Trust Lilian. That's all she has to do. Trust Lilian. She has a code of thirteen, she just needs a code of one. She is just a marionette. That is her place in this multiverse. The correct thing to do was to hurt someone she couldn't bear hurting. ''Make sure hte Long Quiet doesn't get out!'' Angela takes her shoe off and throws it at the nearest long Quiet with robot strength--she can't rely on the strength of the EGO any more without going mad so she doesn't. She then aims to escape through the door herself, only waiting so long as to confirm the 'success' of the mission before throwing herself out. She will be her completely normal stoic self, completely composed, and kind to confirm the success(?) of the mission, to ensure Petra gets what aftercare she needs, to give the proper shows of gratitude to everyone who lent a hand, even if they happen to be mostly dead at the time. She will call for Agents to bring Kukuru to Welfare for proper treatment to push forward her recovery and she will explain nothing to anyone, not even Carmen who already knows because Angela and her cannot be so readily detangled--but will pretend otherwise. It isn't until later that night that Angela goes into her office with a clerk's sidearm, disables the cameras, soundproofs her room, and empties the entire clip into her head. ''And if you die I will never ever forgive you.'' And Angela will laugh, laugh hysterically, laugh herself to tears at the funniest joke she's ever heard as the crumpled bullets fall uselessly to the floor.
Hibiki Tachibana	It feels reminiscent of the time she wrestled Qetra during that time Petra stole a Chaos Emerald-- fragile like hollow ceramic, despite the fact that *these* ones fight back to the full extent of their abilities, or everyone else's.     Hibiki remembers that well, too. The moment where she realized being even a little bit too rough felt like it would break Qetra completely. Back then, she could 'afford' to be gentler with her, even if a lot was on the line, just because she wasn't capable of threatening her herself. But not this time.     --there's no way to fire it at Hibiki safely, so she does it anyways, twisting her shoulder and snapping her wrist back--     That Petra goes flying, and she understands a second after that she both couldn't manage anything less than actually throwing her full-strength, and that there's a bullet wound in her side now. "...This is awful..." Not the injury. That's easy to shake off and ignore. It's because every single one of them is incapable of caring about themselves, even while wearing the guise of other people.     Hissing through her teeth, audible even past the muffling of her scarf in the unnatural quiet, tumbling and careening as the scenery shifts ninety degrees and she has to make a shaky landing before running. When the sparkling dust tries to catch them up, she struggles through it even when it feels like it's going to tear something critical out.     "...I want to turn back around and destroy that thing...!" But she can't. They told Petra they'd do what they came to do, and nothing else. No matter how much, more than any psychic attempt to strip her down to her core identity, the fact that that desire is staring them in the face at every turn, and there's nothing they can do but dismantle every 'Petra' that's trying to kill them--     It takes a shot at Hibiki and Kukuru--     --which lands, and a shot of Winter Crow's caliber bowls her off her feet and sends her rolling as it adds a second hole into her body, looking for an instant like Hibiki won't get back up as her Symphogear vanishes in a burst of golden particles. "...I can't stand it. I can't stand it, damnit...!" The words overflowing with frustration spill out, eyes watery from more than just stinging pain.     She knows why. Because seeing these splinters fight like this, running away from the Long Quiet to let it not only finish the job but be that much stronger for it, that much more of a centerpiece of Petra's psyche, even if it was their only option...     ...feels like she's just screwing everything up again, like back then. That black hole of obsession is something she can't handle looking at.     Pushing past every single kind of pain thrashing through her body, it's all she can do to desperately grip onto Kukuru as Flamel's doorway opens, dragging her through the cloud and towards their only exit as Berislav seals the way.