Scene #8827: Titanomachia-1

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	As unpleasant as Flamel's excursion into Petra's mind was for everyone involved, there was always a purpose to make it worth it. Even besides the more immediate threat of Liza murdering Petra if she didn't do it, stripping the Beauty of Ash from the Titanomachia's arsenal is a potentially lifesaving act for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of others. Petra could suffer all the heartbreak in the world and it'd be a fair trade; not that she's particularly inclined to care about the unnamed masses. Even defanged of the Beauty of Ash, though, the Ekanamsha S2 remains a lethal weapon in its own right-- at some point, the step actually has to be taken to destroy it, and subsequently, the Titanomachia. Girlsuffering is a means to an objective political end; the dismantling of the jingoistic, xenophobic military state that's been traipsing across the superplanet for far too long. Diagrams and layouts are shared, plans are formulated, girls are traumatized, and eventually the time comes for the final anticlimatic step; pulling the trigger. A long trail of churned-up exhaust-grey snow and filthy gravel-earth is carved through the wasteland surrounding the Industrial Behemoth, each of thousands upon thousands of heavy footfalls leading the way to the Mankind's Titanomachia Anew-- which is apparently the proper name of the colossal mech-city. Slogging its way across the landscape upon building sized metal legs, towering and numbingly brutalist like skyscrapers turned on their side, the blocky shape of the Titanomachia is surrounded by the familiar swarm of drones and two and four-legged unmanned mechs, all with the same cubical and inhuman design principle that the Kana-- and the Ekanamsha S2-- had. Further ahead is the first target, the machine that needs to be taken out before any kind of successful operation against the Titanomachia can take place: the S2, flying as the vanguard rather than trudging across the gravel like the main city. Petra seems more and more uncomfortable the more clear it is that the Titanomachia is aiming for something within the Maw, for reasons she won't explain. There's no clear indication what they're going for, but it hardly matters; it's never really mattered what their intentions have been, and they've never been inclined to share them with you. Some distance away, traveling across a ruined gravel-mountain covered in snow turned grey by the constant ash falling across the mountain range, Petra comes to a stop and looks out at the machine-city smudge through the haze, then mutters a string of expletives under her breath. "Going to go... inside that fucking thing and beat the shit out of whatever's controlling the-- S2. While you're fighting it. So you don't die. Tachibana, come with." It clearly isn't just the chemically acidic air characteristic to the entire mountain range that's making her talk so stiltedly, but despite her mood, she still provides a bit more useful information before dipping. The Beauty of Ash was held together by Petra's psychic concept of what the Beauty of Ash is, but even having severed that, the hardlight skinsuit is still surrounding the metal tank that is the Ekanamsha. There's no longer a cohesive sense of a 'whole' to it, but individual crystals still resonate with human perception to maintain their shape-- that is, as long as it's being looked at, the hardlight is still sturdy. The eversion cannon-- being something distorted and weaponized from Petra's psionics-- is gone, surely. The cannon itself still propels explosives.
Petra Soroka	Once Petra splits off, it's no great difficulty to trek the rest of the way to the S2. Asides from the irregular slopes of old, solid rock mountains mixed with the increasingly more common obliterated piles of gravel and snow, the choking tang of the air, and the ashfall and pools of toxic runoff, but those are to be expected around here. The colossal black shape of the Industrial Behemoth itself blots the horizon, still far enough away to be comfortable with the time until the S2 would reach it. There's time and space to guarantee getting the first decisive hit on the S2. Its four glasslike legs are pulled up to the side, allowing the dull metal hull to float above the hazardous and inconvenient terrain. The metal interior seems almost matte in the greylight, but even through the ash and smog, the pearlescent hardlight glitters dully, turning even the most lifeless scraps of light into tiny rainbows.
Father Berislav	Another two inhuman legs disturb the noxious chemical-stained sediment. Isaiah normally towers above its surroundings. Here, however, it looks like a particularly well-maintained straggler. Its billowing red cloak is spotted in places with ash, which also mars the gleaming silver surface of its skeletal, hammer-headed frame. "Understood. Go with God," says the pilot to Petra and Hibiki alike. Cast in the soft red glow of the mech's cockpit, Berislav's reading glasses reflect a spread of monitors as his hands and feet guide Isaiah inexorably forwards. His silver eyes radiate a moment's warmth, as he watches Petra and Hibiki split off--and it all bleeds away into cold resolve, when they return to the S2. "The rest of you, keep moving, but wait for my signal. I'll use incendiary rounds; a missile lock might give us away. Move as soon as you hear the first shot." The mech takes a knee, atop a bank of filthy snow. The S2 is still a ways off, and by now, Isaiah is likely at the rear of this force. No matter the terrain, or which way the foul-smelling wind might blow the many plumes of black smog, Berislav's hands guide the controls as calmly and confidently as ever. A soft whine of servos heralds the protrusion of a handcannon. It is easily longer than a human being is tall; its revolving cylinder holds chambers for bullets the size of human spines. The mech retrieves it from the internal holster, its pointed silver thumb guiding the cylinder with a weighty -click- that sounds like the heavy movement of a bell tower's clockwork guts. The protruding edge of the cylinder shows the rims of two bullets, bright orange like the warning marks of some poisonous animal. Another weighty click from the revolver--this one is the trigger pull, and when the hammer strikes, the noise is deafening. A tongue of flame spits from the nose of the gun as it bucks in the mech's grip, followed by two more, fired so quickly that one might confuse it for an automatic; the mech's free hand fans the hammer like silver lightning. The noise is deafening, even from ahead. And the thundering sound of Isaiah's sudden sprint, equally so, each footfall shaking the earth around it. The incendiary rounds are Berislav's answer to the earlier-noted durability afforded to the Kana by its connection to the Beauty of Ash. On impact, a shower of indiscriminate, blazing heat erupts each time, attempting to burn those crystals into bright molten slag.
Kukuru	Gazing upon the massive mech city, it's easy to tell that Kukuru's awed by the sheer size of the grand metal structure. She's not marveling at the construction of it (although it is impressive), but instead at all the blocky surfaces and what must surely be a countless number of nooks and crannies to... No. No distractions today. She has plenty of friends and family counting on her today, and she snaps her attention back to Petra as she lays out their actual objectives today. Her gaze flits over briefly when she mentions the S2, squinting briefly to get a better look at it even from aaaall the way over here before turning back to Petra. "So we gotta stay away from the real big one while handling the smaller big one... But from the inside? That could be reeeal tricky if whoever's controlling it has a good lock on the door." She comments while stroking her chin lightly, peering out towards the S2 through the hazy air and nudging her glasses up briefly to make sure they're still on at all. "Or... Ohhh. Wait. We don't need permission. We just gotta find something to see through, and we'll be okay." On the way towards it, Kukuru opts to teleport like always instead of jumping or running or anything like that, keeping the clouds open long enough for anyone that wants to conserve their stamina on the way. She's got the usual array of barely-healthy snacks and actually-healthy drinks, of course, and she's dressed in that combat-ready jacket and shorts combo along with fingerless gloves that haven't been secured properly. "Oh, would breaking those help...?" She asks as she looks from the S2's hull to the intimidating-looking cannon, then to the glass legs. It takes a few more seconds for her to remember to point at the glass legs, but she's already frowning slightly and shaking her head once she remembers it's flying. "No, that wouldn't work... We gotta get inside it instead. Sooo..." Slowing to a stop, Kukuru gets on a knee as she places a hand on the ashy ground. She doesn't do anything right away, though, nodding instead as Berislav lets everyone know what the actual signal is. "Shots, huh...? Okay. I'll hit it from the other side when you do, then, so you can fire all over it better." Kukuru answers with an affirming nod, partially because she's become aware of general firing ranges and not getting in the way of her allies' weaponry, and also because she REALLY doesn't want to be in front of incendiary rounds. Once she hears the first shot, Kukuru falls headfirst into another inky purple-black cloud, dropping herself from slightly above the S2 to fall towards it. ON the way down, she admires the rainbows it creates on her way towards it, but course-corrects upon seeing the crystals. She flips herself around in mid-fall so that she's falling straight at those opposite the Isaiah, trying to grab onto them in midair and starts wrenching at them with all her freakish might to try and dislodge them from whatever's holding them to the S2.
Dysnomia	Dysnomia looked more solid now than she'd looked for some time, less like her colors were oozing out of her--though no actual part of her body was exposed, today. With her helmet up, she looked little different than any other girl might have, hidden in her suit. Her voice came through distorted through her helmet speakers. "This is human too," Dysnomia said, as they looked on the S2. "The world cut down, chewed up. Made into a knife..." She stared down at it, for a while longer. Decided; "No. That's too personal. You'd have to look into their eyes. A system that churns up the world, so no one has to see it. So they can think it all just...Happens. A wall to keep them safe from consequences." It was impossible to make out her expression through the opaque black surface. "What could be more?" A soft, distorted sound that could have been laugh or a sigh. "If you haven't fought this before...Don't bother with the metal if you can help it. You could point a solar flare at it and it'd still be a slow burn through. The 'glass' is what used to be Petra's mech--If the connection was cut, that'll be its weak point." "Move as soon as you hear the first shot." "Copy that, Father." One hand raised to her side, palm out. An ozone smell struggled against the ambedient sulfer ambience. Plasma circled in the air, shaped itself into a scythe. Dysnomia seized the haft with a single, needless twirl. She took off in a burst at speed, a great rusting hulk between herself and the S2 to cover her approach-- --which she flowed through as easily as smoke through a stormdrain, her scythe taking on a jagged, electric quality as she struck out, trying to carve through the place where metal and glass meshed together.
Touta Konoe	"Yeah...You definitely don't forget a view like this..." During the events of removing the Beauty of Ash from the equation of the Titanomachia, Touta had been absent. Not like he'd been invited but even if he had...He likely would have declined. It was one thing with the events in Stanley and Charlotte's world. But even then, when they attempted to look into Ishirou's mind, he had stepped away. He imagines that the thought of him in her mind, the kind of vulnerabilities that might have come with that... Despite his poor judgment that's been shown time and time again, despite his intention to lean into things when he shouldn't have a care for them...This was something he had been certain needed to be avoided. So it begged the question why he had come back to the events that were transpiring now? It's not for Petra. At least, not intentionally. He could argue that it's for the betterment of the Common Wealth, but that too was something that anyone could say. If someone had asked what his stake in all this was..? The answer probably would have been... Going to go... inside that fucking thing and beat the shit out of whatever's controlling the-- S2. While you're fighting it. So you don't die. Tachibana, come with. "Hey Hibiki..." As she's pulled away, he wants to call out to her. To ask if he should come along. He was one of the two that first made contact with Titanomachia. That both dropped what intel they could about learning of it to the Paladins that time. Yet...He hasn't spoken to her in how long? Since the meltdown. Since... "Whatever you guys gotta do, do it...Whatever this thing's going for this time, we'll do what we can to keep it at bay..."
Touta Konoe	There's a pause that comes as he says that, looking at Petra. He imagines that she can't care the slightest for anything, and honestly he wouldn't be surprised if she was already looking the other way as he was trying and failing to form the words. Still... "When this is over I...I need to say something." Whether she'd listen or not was another thing. But at least he was saying something... At that point the two leave the others. Touta finds himself with the other Elites. A small breath taken as he looks back towards the towering city on legs. Its monstrous form is something he was already familiar with. With how each step left a crater in its wake. As if its own form wasn't enough to seem bigger than life, the armada it brings with it was no joke either. The armada of unmanned machines bearing similar design. The drones that swarm around it like locusts...All too eerily familiar. The rest of you, keep moving, but wait for my signal. I'll use incendiary rounds; a missile lock might give us away. Move as soon as you hear the first shot. Berislav makes the first command as the two leave, and Touta attempts to pick up after. "Whatever happens, if you guys spot anything that has a peal color to it. If it's something around the city as it moves, or anything it or one of its machines starts trying to fire...Get out of the way. Consider that a one-shot kill if it gets you." He doesn't know the results of Flamel's excursion, but even so, he imagines that a warning needs to be offered to warn the others of such potential danger even if it might be outdated. The S2's cannon simply launching explosive only alludes to such. Berislav prepares the first shot and with it, it's like the firing of a gun at the start of a race, Touta pushes off the ground. Even with the terrain with its irregular slopes, he finds himself able to keep steady footing as he makes his way to the S2. His attack seems rather obvious as he brings up his blade, the black katana wielded low to the ground as he comes in. Like Mia he attempts to mask his approach though only in the last moment as his body fades into a black fog that feels rather appropriate with all the ash that littered this land. Like a gust it blows over S2 though causes no damage beyond simply masking its form for a brief instance in darkness. In that time, Touta forms his body at the rear of the mech, his blade keen and ready as it attempts to slash. A blade of small stature, but immense force attempts to render through hardlight. Sparks fly and the sounds of metal and crystal clashing as he attempts to cleave through those shards with his blade.
Petra Soroka	As imposing as it is, the Ekanamsha S2 isn't infalliable. Radar, three-sixty degree cameras, infrared scanning, seismographic readings, none of them really count when you have awareness, coordination, and planning on your side. It still needs to be aware of a threat. Berislav shoots the mech three times (from offscreen) before it even has the maneuverability to turn around, each incendiary slamming into the same spot in such rapid succession that the explosion sounds continuous. The hardlight heats up as licks of sticky fire writhe around it, and the translucent glass glows white-hot as it skyrockets past what must be its melting point-- and then slides rapidly and chaotically through the rainbow of color, white shifting into bright purple before careening down to red. Not a red of intense heat, though it is superheated, to the point that the metal beneath the glass is glowing and plumes of smoke pour off the side of the machine, but a vivid, almost neon red, as if the distilled color itself is pouring out of the material like luminous blood. Rather than melting, the crystalline hardlight splinters and peels like wood cracking in a fire. Shards of razor sharp material jut out as the shape of it warps, breaking in a more impactful way than before, but still incredibly durable as long as there's eyes on it. It's dangerous to even risk shutting your eyes and looking away in the middle of battle, and on top of that-- the S2's own cameras might be resonating with its observation frequency, though Petra didn't give any clear indication of whether screen-based awareness would count. The S2 comes to a halt over a sea of sludgy waste material, pouring out eye-burning toxic fumes and stinging in your lungs badly enough to leave you dizzy. It starts to turn its cannon towards the Elites, when suddenly it jolts in midair from Kukuru teleporting onto the flank opposite the one burning, digging into the shell of the Beauty of Ash around the mech and trying to peel it off like a shrimp tail. She's able to grab and tear at it-- but even though it shatters into skin-tearing pieces, when she yanks it away it stays suspended in the air as a chain of broken shards, each one turned radiantly neon blue where her claws gouged into them. With all the Elites converging on it, the S2 vents out clouds of thick white fog, itchy and stifling like cotton even if its a momentary relief from the acidic air, and then all that fog ignites at once to catch Kukuru, Dysnomia, and Touta in an intangible, lingering fireball, with some of the fuel already inhaled into their bodies. The heat of it turns snow into grey water and then sooty steam, boiling the toxic waste below. Touta and Dysnomia's attacks find much of the same, when they land them through the fireball. The hardlight is far from impenetrable, and doesn't at all cling to the shape of the S2 anymore, but hitting it directly only makes it shift wildly down the visible light spectrum and distorts its shape, until fully obscured from any kind of perception. Petra's psionics were binding it together, but the alien, iridescent material still exists even without her. Dysnomia sees a pulse of radio communication right before the cannon wheels towards the Isaiah and blasts it full in the chest with a heavy explosive, close enough to char the face of the tank itself in the blast. It's probably alerting the Titanomachia-- and it's close enough that lesser reinforcements could possibly arrive.
Kukuru	Kukuru's already regretting going at the S2 (mostly) bare-handed when she feels those pieces digging into her flesh, moreso on the parts of her that aren't covered in jacket or claws, and she instinctively leans away a bit so as to not cause more damage to herself. Between that and peering at the floating shards to just marvel at how eerily beautiful they are, she hangs on for perhaps just a bit too long before clacking her claws together in preparation for whatever else she might be able to rip off next. Even without that momentary distraction, though, she's not able to release herself in time before the S2 is already pushing that strange white fog out. Before Kukuru can realize she's in danger, she already feels the air heating up, and the fireball that follows off that scorches her enough that her survival instincts kick in and force her to kick off the S2 before she can get cooked all the way through. Going into a freefall, Kukuru breathes some of that toxic air desperately just to get something, anything to replace the burning sensation inside her. The wind whipping around her feels a bit better than the scorched flesh, too, aiding the nanites in patching that up before she finally teleports herself right back up to rejoin the battle with Dysnomia and Touta. "That gun's real dangerous, yeah, but even getting close really hurts. Then I guess that means..." Dropping at the top of the S2 once again, Kukuru takes a quick swipe at that cannon in passing before dropping through yet another cloud to repeat the loop once and... "We just gotta keep moving, riiiight?" She calls out, spreading her arms and legs out so she can catch herself on the cannon directly. From there, she balls up her claws together, then slams metal against metal in an attempt to warp its shape before slipping off yet again, falling towards another telegraphed cloud portal further below.
Dysnomia	It seems like, with herself entirely hidden in her helmet and suit, she should be more resistant to this smog, as it slams into her. But it seems that's not the case. Solid as she seems, Mia remains untethered. She feels the smog slipping through her substance, snaking between what scientists could not call molecules, loosening her grip on herself. She gives a sharp, hacking cough, momentarily falling to one knee--before her body slipped through the earth. She emerged again, in moments--some distance away, trailing...something behind her. "Vision..." She manages. "Berislav. If it can see itself...Can it heal?" There was some distance between them, but somehow, her words were crystal clear in his head. "If we can get in there..." Borrowed electrokinesis flared around her her open hand. "It can't stop us both!" Giving Isaiah one last lingering glance, she takes off in a wild zig-zag toward the E2, gathering her Self into one singular point, to try to keep the smog from insinuating itself inside. She reached toward any visual instruments she could see, her body blooming with electricity enough to knock over an elephant, and brimming with enough force to unch a hole clean through one.
Father Berislav	Whatever happens, if you guys spot anything that has a peal color to it. If it's something around the city as it moves, or anything it or one of its machines starts trying to fire...Get out of the way. Consider that a one-shot kill if it gets you. "If you're referring to the eversion cannon, it's no longer a concern. Otherwise--thank you. I'll be careful." Of course, whether he's inside or outside of Isaiah, Berislav's method of fighting isn't so much careful as it is calculated and precise; the two share similarities, but aren't the same. As the ash-stained red cloak whips behind it, Isaiah's silver form is a streak across the dirtied landscape. <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia sounds strained, her voice thin. "It...It's calling for help." <J-IC-Scene> Father Berislav says, "I'll handle any reinforcements. Keep your focus on the S2." <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Alriiight... Be careful over there, Waters." Isaiah closes the distance quickly, for that's the kind of machine it is--something designed for midrange, with enough speed to get in and out of 'close.' 'Close' is not a good place to be, when the enemy has the kind of power the S2 does. The cannon swivels towards Isaiah. In the cockpit, Berislav's mouth pulls into a determined frown. His hand grips the joystick set along the half-moon track to his right, while his left pushes the other in the opposite direction, rapidly working it back and forth. His feet shift at the telescopic pedals below, one pressed forward, the other retreating. On the outside, the immense handcannon snaps to, level with the cannon for the blink of an eye. Three high-penetration bullets spit from the nose. One strikes the emerging shell dead on, deforming its surface and setting a bit of spin--not much, given its much larger size, but enough to matter. Inches can mean a life or a death. The next fanned bullet strikes a split second later, further dividing the second before it impacts into another infinitessimal slice of time. The slight deviation becomes a wobble; the dimple at the nose becomes a crack. The third turns the wobble into a tremor; the crack into a complete fissure, just as the mech's right leg retreats. It bends into a lean at the waist faster than something its size has any right to. One half of the shell from the S2's cannon wobbles off course. The other half scrapes across the mech's hardened, matte black ribs closely enough to leave a smoldering scar. By a margin of a second and inches, Berislav lives, the mech's left hand already reaching for-- Berislav. If it can see itself...Can it heal? Worth a try.--the haft of the kinetic war pick which rises above its red mantle. "Watch out below," cautions the priest, with not much advance time at all. The silver figure twists, diving left, landing in a roll and striking the earth with the blunt head of the war pick. An eruption of chemical sludge, poisoned dirt, stained-through gravel and filthy snow rises into the air and lands atop the S2 like an ill-fitting blanket, in a crude effort to 'blind' its more simple visuals.
Father Berislav	Much as the priest himself does on foot, he reloads the immense handcannon one-handed, the dexterity on display completely different but employed to the same end; it's as if this weapon of war is an extension of his own body, the way it fluidly rolls cartridges down its palm and into the waiting, swung-out cylinder, in the midst of a combat roll to keep clear of the S2's cannon. Of course, he'd mentioned that he'd handle any reinforcements too--and that's done with the exact kind of thoughtless bombardment that the Titanomachia's forces levy against the rest of the multiverse. From the right shoulder, heat-seeking missles scream angrily like a swarm of disturbed, flying animals, twisting and curving in midair to impact any would-be reinforcements. Supplementing them, from the left, is a dull, utterly mundane sounding 'thoomp;' not unlike an ordinary pneumatic tube at a bank's drivethrough service area. A plain black cylinder launches into the air from the mech's left shoulder. A loud 'clack,' and the top pops off. Hissing, then, as it rotates rapidly. The perimeter of the engagement area, in contrast with the air around it, full of screaming missles, is bombarded with fist-sized globules of molten copper, each one trailing little tails of white smoke, impacting the ground so forcefully as to cause minute sprays of disturbed earth themselves.
Touta Konoe	Berislav's incendiary barrage bringing that hardlight causes the first distortion into the frame of the S2. That alone, a certainly better sign than the first time Elites had tried to bring about a significant clash. It's the kind of motivational first hit you want to see of any battle that brings the others that follow ready to push the advantage. Yet, that advantage of getting in close, to come in surprise, it's all so quick to fade as the white fog bursts out from the vents. At first, it doesn't seem immediately threatening. Nothing that seems familiar from the last fight at least. So one could have easily thought that it was just venting of smoke accrued from damage perhaps? It's a nice thought, but one that's made rather poorly to assume. The ignition of that smoke comes to be without any of them getting the chance to even fathom it. The fireball alights, and while Touta tries to keep himself locked in, eventually the build up of energy as it goes alight pushes him back as well. A hand rose up over his face as he's pushed back. The smell of seared flesh is only made apparent as the entirety of his arm is singed and even part of his jaw looks scorched and burned a moment as well even while trying to cover it."Nnngh, damn it..." Though, such wounds seem to slowly mend as steam builds from the wounds. The skin returns to a calmer complexion. As Kukuru makes her way to join back with him and Mia, he can't help but nod to the gesture. "I'd say the whole thing's dangerous. But yeah, that canon's hell..." With that thought, Kukuru goes right for the most dangerous part. Mia finds herself charged with that electrical surge and attempts to force a hole through the S2. Though what she says does resonate with Touta. "Get in there, huh...?" He plants his blade into the ground. The steam of his form turned to that black once again. "Alright, let's see just how tightly they bolted this thing..." it begins to slowly envelope his form till his person is completely faded as it once again consumes the S2 in a veil of darkness. At that time, one could see that black fog encroaching further and further as it'd attempt to penetrate through the smallest of cracks, the thinnest of entries so that even just one speck of him can reach the interior of the machine. It wasn't so as to attempt to pilot it, like those had done before with the Kana, but attempting to find vulnerability from its interiority. For that one little trail of black fog that might make its way within, would begin to build. That black stream turned into a darker cloud as it condensed. That form tried even more so till what would have been a flood of black mud continuing to form from out of nothing. All but trying to become like a geyser trying to erupt from the cockpit outwards.
Petra Soroka	Before Kukuru's grap latches on to the S2's cannon and attempts to twist it, it lets loose a spray of thick white goop, the semifluid form of the incindiary it vented out earlier, and a familiar sight to anyone who saw Petra use the Kana-- which isn't anyone here. The goop sinks into the sludge pool beneath the mech before catching fire, setting the waste roiling with heat and spewing noxious tar-black smoke, and occasionally spitting up superheated geysers as the irregular viscosity causes pockets of extreme heat. The cannon, when Kukuru hits it, dents with a loud clang. The barrel itself is only metal, as tough as the S2's metal is, and it's jammed into a diamond-shaped chunk of hardlight that serves the function of a turret but looks unnervingly like a severed head. A sharp swing of the turret throws Kukuru off, but firing too many explosive rounds now could risk a catastrophic failure and cause it to detonate early, right in the S2's face. Dysnomia condenses into a coiled up parapsychic cluster, throwing herself at the machine to disable the external cameras, but at the same time that she impacts-- in addition to the coursing purple and orange explosion of electricity across the metal hull, the bright contrasting colors leaving neon purple veins of damage in the hardlight shell-- she feels a sudden, viscerally violatory snag on the core of her being. Slamming directly into the iridescent glass causes a jolt of maddening, agonizing itch beneath her surface, a single moment of a storm of psychic glass needles embedding into her and twisting with a billion miniscule fishhook spines, before the moment passes and the sensation is gone, utterly blacking out her perception of the world for a moment. That, in tandem with the Isaiah's gout of sludge and muck to temporarily cover the S2, causes a collective eye blink where the surface of the S2 changes all at once. The most heavily damaged sections of hardlight-- radiant red, all the way at the base of the visual light spectrum, teetering into infrared invisibility, all vanish without 'breaking' or 'falling' or any movement of any sort. Patches of bare metal become (comparably) vulnerable in the jagged holes left behind. Particularly keep vision might notice the shards of iridescent glass scattered throughout the snow, spread wide and buried in the grey like the impacts of their earlier attacks hit them all at once and blasted them away.
Petra Soroka	There's still no response from the S2, no indication that it's becoming stressed at the true damage, or angry, or anything. This time around, it's more familiar, but there's a certain kind of frustration from having this stupid fucking thing be a problem for so long, and cause so much damage, and still, even when you're winning finally, it couldn't care less. Jets for hovering in place over the pool rev up and spew out pulses of overcharged pressure downwards, into the burning and boiling and caustic pool. The S2 shoots up farther into the air, and the searing muck mixed with white phosphorus sprays over the Elites in globules. While a trio of what seems to be the fastest reinforcements the S2 could fall for the from the Titanomachia-- flying pods with rockets on their back and guns strapped to either side- are met with a missile salvo from the Isaiah and come away grievously damaged before even getting shots off, a secondary thin barrel cycles out of the side of the Kana's chassis. It whirrs around and locks on to Kukuru, firing a white sabot round with no fanfare and no explosion-- if it hits, she's subject to the same effect that she might be familiar with from the Kana: inertial locking, keeping her from moving above a certain speed, even through teleporting. After the Isaiah picks off the first responders, there's more drones and even some boxy bipedal (but headless) mechs coming up over the gravel mountain after them. The reinforcements aren't a tenth as tough as the S2, but their gunfire and cannons are just as capable of hurting you as anything else is.
Dysnomia	Everyone can feel the scream, less a sound, more an echo, a dream of pain. Dysnomia's body flickers and shudders and spasms as she feels the glass rip into her. A wound scarred across her thirteen birthday. A jagged hole left in the memory of her first kiss. Her psyche was rended as though thrown down a well filled with barbed wire. Then, everything went dark. There's a moment of total stillness. Not even the wind touches her. Eyes without spark. And in that instant, there's a sensation, as though just realizing that she'd been seen light-years away. As if their eyes were just catching the last gasps of something that was already dead. Then canonfire from a drone cuts through her, and the pain jolts Dysnomia back into awareness, into existance. She falls in an indistinct heap into the burning sludge, already falling apart-- --And a burning shape rises from it, making a roar like a solar flare might, if it had an atmosphere to carry its sound. Dysnomia was reduced to a half-coherent shape, trailing ethereal wings, but she rose up and up and up into the sky, and there, she began to burn, like a daylight star, as light built up in her chest. And she rained down on the damn, emotionless, empty THING with a plasma beam that carved through old rusted metal and sludge and earth, chasing the S2, chasing its radio signal and exposed innards. "I will cook it! From the inside out!"
Kukuru	When Kukuru sees that white gunk coming off the S2, she actually has enough sense to not go near it for once. Despite her unfamiliarity with said goop, she does manage to piece together that any white <substance> it emits is bad thanks to that earlier smoke. Instead of holding on, she brings her leg up to kick off of it, but the badly aimed kick winds up slamming her shin into it instead. It still gets her away before she can be fully engulfed in those searing geysers. Her plan to employ hit and run tactics doesn't last long, though, despite guessing that it's actually working at first. Her grip might be strong, but the speed of that turret swing loosens her grip entirely, and she goes tumbling through the air with little ability to slow herself down. She could try and catch herself on the S2 again, but what if it brings out more of that white smoke or the goop to immolate her again? As she hurtles upwards into the air, Kukuru mentally struggles to figure out which way she's moving. It's hard to do that while she's spiraling at the same time, too, and a short-range teleport only manages to send her a bit further up into the air and make the spinning worse. She does catch a glimpse of the bare metal patches opened up by all those attacks and Berislav's sludge-launch forcing the S2 to shed those damaged pieces, though, and that's enough to help guide Kukuru towards where to aim herself next. Before she can slow herself down enough to aim at it properly, however, a round from seemingly out of nowhere punches right through her side. She lets out a pained scream at that, twisting in midair with a stream of blood floating behind her while she clamps a claw over the wound. Her nanites force the wound shut, and Kukuru focuses on opening another one of those clouds below her so she can... ... Go right through it? She's falling back towards the S2 now, and opening up more clouds in front of her isn't actually slowing her down, moving her sideways, or doing anything she'd want to do with her teleportation. It's not long before a frustrated and moderately panicked screech starts coming out of Kukuru as she struggles to figure out a way through this predicament. The only silver lining is that she'd probably recover from a fall at this height, but with the S2 still at large? She'll have to make this hit count. <<"Mia? Waters? Touta? I'm gonna try opening it up from the top. If you get a chance, pull me out, okaaay?">> She transmits while forcing her usual easygoing tone, although that earlier anxiety hasn't faded one bit. They might even be able to see her falling through those evil-looking clouds of hers without actually changing direction, either, but she'll keep trying to do that right up until she's only a few seconds away from landing on the S2. It's only at the last second that Kukuru finally raises her claws overhead, clenching them together and looking more like she's holding onto a massive clump of metal. She slams them both down at one of the exposed patches of the S2, trying to drive them and herself entirely through that section of the S2. Ideally, it'll take her right through, but in the worst case scenario... She can hope she'll be conscious enough to dig herself out before the S2 can set her on fire again, or before Dysnomia can make good on her threat to whoever she's shouting at over that radio signal.
Father Berislav	This kind of frustration isn't new to Berislav. he knows the shape of it; knows how it feels, settling between the shoulders until it threatens to become a knot. He knows the way it lurks just behind the jaw, but out of reach of the teeth. He knows the way it bubbles up to the surface of the mind, like mental indigestion, always returning just when you think you're rid of it. He has known this kind of frustration for long before he knew there was ever such a thing as an S2. He has known it since before he transfigured his body and trained his hands. The S2 is just another rotten fruit; the Titanomachia a scion of another, much larger tree. Knowing what the frustration is, knowing where it comes from, makes it easier to compartmentalize. Years of life-threatening, exacting work, and the best that the priest has managed is to make individual tenders of those trees frightened of him, but not the tree itself. Never the tree itself. Regrettable. Frustrating, given that he is human, and humans have such a tendency to put weight on the narrative of things, rather than the reality of things--but ultimately, fine. I only need that tree to die. The refreshing coolness of clarity is a godsend, in times of frustration. Sometimes, it can even distract from pain. A stray round from one of the bipedal mechs manages to pierce the cockpit, staining Berislav's cassock red. The mech's war pick strikes the earth again. A little pinprick of daylight, letting in acrid air from outside, is blotted out by the rising curtain of so much ruined earth. It affords a second or two of cover. Enough for him to reach into that burning orange space where his effects are stored, tear off the packaging of a regenerative patch, and slap it onto his abdomen. Enough for his feet to work the pedals beneath, and guide Isaiah into a full sprint. The silver mech's vertically oriented cyclopic eye breaks the screen of terrain first, scattering it like a wave against a cliff face. Heavy clunks sound, inside the cockpit--the explosives in the shoulders are re-arming, but the ones in the pectoral plates haven't been used yet. <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Mia? Waters? Touta? I'm gonna try opening it up from the top. If you get a chance, pull me out, okaaay?" <J-IC-Scene> Father Berislav says, "I may be a bit preoccupied for that. I promise it's for good reason."
Father Berislav	Dumbfire micromissiles form a deadly, explosive phalanx, percussively shredding the blocky mech one person-sized explosion at a time. Isaiah's sprint doesn't stop, but for a short leap into the air as the prelude for its foot crashing into the spot where the cockpit would be on another of those blocky mechs, caving it in before the landing crushes it flat. The right leg is lifted, flinging the crushed metal corpse at one of its upright allies, before the trigger of the handcannon is pulled twice. Daylight shines from two holes punched through the airborne wreck--and from another two in the one behind it. Sparks fly from Isaiah's chassis as it jukes return fire, a hellish screen sounding as deep gouges form perilously close to the cockpit. The offending reinforcement unit has the distance between them closed terrifyingly quick--and though Isaiah's movements are human-like, its red optics maintain the same indifferent, coldly determined glow. That tree's greatest weapon was always its mask of humanity. How it tricks those it steals light from into seeing themselves in it. How the wind through its branches might be mistaken for speech, or the rivulets in its bark for the wrinkled skin of the elderly. By ignoring it, by fighting as it does, I stain myself. But I also take a measure of its strength as mine. The grip on the war pick is choked all the way below the head. It briskly taps the spot where the cockpit would be, in unison with a deflecting parry of the drone's arm with the barrel of the handcannon. Berislav doesn't know if there's a pilot, until the violent conical spray of mechanical guts and debris displayed on his monitors shows an absence of blood. Its presence would have budged him exactly as little as its absence does now. A new salvo of missiles finishes clicking into the shoulder which fired the heat seekers. The left--that spiral bombardment device--takes more time. He'd selected a different payload to be synthesized this time. Still, with a calm press of his index on a blinking red button, he sends another salvo of homing missiles out, screaming and twirling through the air to keep up his aggressive area denial strategy.
Touta Konoe	You know that noxious tar-black smoke...Some of that is apparently Touta. An attempt at something 'clever' doesn't do the trick when it comes to those that know their machines. Even if he could slip in through the tiniest of cracks, attempting something so...Excessive...It only made sense he gets spewed out in such a fashion. The tar-black smoke only slowly reforming once it's been expelled to reform Touta as he finds himself on his back...Feeling the heat of the sludge pool, beneath him as it sears from beneath.It's as he finds himself there on his back does he feel like this is familiar. Yeah...On my ass...Searing...This is just like the Meltdown... He's still been thinking on that. In more ways than one. About his mistakes, about not trying to bounce back from them, about how in the end...Even when he was trying to work with the others...He was just going through the phases. Even the conversations that followed after still ring in his head. That those at the time would have been better off if there were just less of them. If he wasn't there...And the truth was...He couldn't argue it. There had been plenty Elites there...With resolutions that seemed so much greater to be there than his own. So as he rests upon the cold dirt, heated from beneath by superheated toxins, that things would still work out? Kukuru was always filled with passion, with care for others. Her healing would certainly be able to mend everything once all was said and done. Mia was brimming with power and speed, a true heavy hitter if they needed one. Then there was Berislav, who was tactfully keeping reinforcements at bay, and even through this unrelenting storm of machines upon their path was keeping his demeanor so composed. Was Touta even nee-- "Shut up..." His hand slams into the dirt. "...Shut up. Shut up...Shut up...!" The ground beneath craters at the balled fist. Slowly as he forces himself up. ...You have all damn eternity to whine...Right here, you made a promise to look out for her. No one else. Everyone else might be here for their reasons...But /you/ said you'd do it. So unless you really are just a lousy fucking tourist...Get your shit together...!!! As he finally made it to his feet, that black fog that had been accruing around his form had begun to build again. Though not to hide him within that mist, not to shift his body, but to reinforce it. That black aura had begun to envelope him like armor. Condensing from that gaseous state not into a liquid, but into a gritted, black outer shell. It's not a transformation as grandiose as a Kamen Rider, but the way that it completely masks his frame was ever so similar. Even outright calling it armor didn't feel correct. More like some sort of exoskeleton with the slicker exterior of a reptile. It's only in his forearms and legs that gauntlets and pauldrons adorn his figure. Clawed ends like a creature. It's an appearance he'd taken on once before when facing the S2 the last time. Something that seemed less like a vampire and just more...Demonic in appearance. The shape of the magic that offered him his immortality being weaved into creation. The physical manifestation of immortality being used to fuel one's strength. There's no tricks, no clever antics that come as Touta charges this time. Only a curled fist that's gripped tight as he lodges into the form of the S2.
Touta Konoe	"Auuuuuughhhhhh!!!!!" He screeches out like a familiar orange-geared brawler. As if trying to put his very heart into his fist. Letting it collide into those damaged sections of hardlight as it'd attempt to resist the force of his punch. Through sheer force of will alone trying to rend it with his strike. It's simple and brutish. It's unrefined and leaves him even now feeling the effects that would come as jolts of madness, and that agonizing itch would ride up his form like those times before certainly. But that was fine, even if his mind slowly turned to mush, even if his hand crumbled again and again upon impact. If there was one thing that he was certain of is that...He'd pull himself together. He'd form that fist again. And again...And again...Till Not just one right hand was drilling its punch into the creation, but three monstrous arms ill-proportioned to Touta's figure were all planting themselves into the machine's form. Hibiki was able to bear her fist like this, all the time even through pain...What excuses did he have not to do the same? Especially when he made a promise to look out for her? When she wasn't here to deliver that first instead? When she was surely delivering that very fist for their sake elsewhere?
Petra Soroka	'Exposed metal' is far from 'exposed innards', to Dysnomia and Kukuru's dismay. Beneath the stolen, weaponized, and lobotomized psychic mech-skin of the Beauty of Ash, the S2 is still the Ekanamsha. Against half a dozen Paladins Elites and thrice that many in support from Sword Team, the Kana wreaked devastating harm before being disabled, and that was when it was being directed by Petra, the stupidest girl on earth. With the brutal efficiency of whatever pilot or program is controlling the S2, it's even more formidable. Kukuru lands directly on an exposed sheet of hull, claws reaching through a jagged hole in the pearlescent glass. She digd an inch, two inches, into the steel plating, and even manages to tear a layer of it away, only to discover a mess of internal regulatory mechanisms followed by another layer of metal. Without her teleportation as a crush, though her superpowered strength-assisted movement still gives her handholds (gouged directly into the metal), she's barely able to get off and out of the way in time before Dysnomia's purple beam rakes across the landscape and locks on to the point Kukuru damaged. Where the plasma concentrates, pipes immediately explode and turn to slag, while the reinforced metal takes longer to reach blisteringly hot levels. The surrounding hardlight glows radiantly blow, sinking down to wounded red as the heat builds, fraying in the same way that it had earlier with Berislav's incindieries. Whenever the S2 atempts to move out of the way, or throw up a barrier of flammable fog, the beam stays locked on, and the fog has a cylindrical hole punched through it by the heat almost instantly. The base of the turret starts to soften, sinking to an uneven angle, but before she has the chance to really try to burn her way all the way through, the turret of the S2 swivels around to stop the assault with pure brute force; an explosive shell. The explosion catches on the plasma beam before it reaches Dysnomia, but that's still close enough that the shockwave and heat is catastrophic. Mia is throws back and away, but on the plus side, the white-out radiance of detonating plasma so close to the S2 is that everyone is temporarily blinded when looking at it- and when the vision spots clear, more hardlight vanished in the blink of an eye, spread across the gravel and snow. Touta punches, punches, punches again. Hardlight shatters, turns purple, shifts blue, shifts red, cutting into his fist and arm with the lingering shards. Brute force just can't do it, no matter how much he throws, and no matter how many dents he lands in the metal, and it's only a matter of time before another gaseous fireball envelops him and chars the hull of the machine.
Petra Soroka	Berislav outmatches the hordes of the Titanomachia without question. Both in skill, construction, and ability, any one on one fight is won decisively. Of course, in the grand scope, it's not a one on one, and when he spends focus on taking out one of the reinforcements, another one shows up to take its place. Worse, some of them-- punctured at melee range, charging in recklessly-- enter reactor meltdowns, and it's hard to judge exactly whether he hit them incidentally, or if the Titanomacha is growing desperate enough to destroy their own mechs for the chance to kill him. Worst of all, maybe they were meant to do that from the start; maybe it's what they were built for. Worst of all, the reinforcements don't even slow, forcing the others to gradually divert more of their attention away from the S2 and towards the occasional spray of gunfire or salvo of missiles that gets past Berislav to come their way. With the reinforcements still coming, barely relevant besides the distraction they create for the S2, and the S2 still hideously durable even on its second layer; even with all the work they all did before, going into Petra's head and tearing away the Beauty of Ash only took off an accessory of the war machine. To everyone but Petra, it was interchangeable, disposable, extra from the start. Still, it's not like the S2 can afford to dawdle, and the incoming salvo of explosive shells aimed at each Elite proves it. The shells travel more slowly because of the gas being released from the dent Kukuru made earlier, but dodging the direct hit isn't enough to stay safe. While they're distracted with that, the hull twists around to turn the damaged portion away, though the gaps where Kukuru tore through the glass at the start are still exposed. Agonizing, depressing minutes of this later, there's a sudden switch. The reinforcements don't let up, but the cannon fire pauses, and there's the brief hope that it might have jammed, or something. Instead, what happened is even better: the S2 sinks in the air, then plummets, splattering into the surface of the toxic waste. It stops attacking or moving, inert for the first time. Whatever Petra and Hibiki did while you were fighting it, it seems to have worked. Clearing away the ground and air drones is barely even a challenge after that; and that's the only thing to stand between you and the now unguarded Titanomachia.
Dysnomia	Mia's eyes could dig meaning from the flickers of distant stars, she could parse their luminosity, their distance at a glance. The vast emptiness of space was a cacophony of vibrant colors and details that she could not describe in words. The E2 was no star. It was too brutal, too human...But it could NOT escape her eyes. Her plasma had once helped melt through the first Kana, and this one too, would bend! To late, she saw the blast coming toward her, and she knew she wasn't fast enough. She angled the plasma beam down, to catch it, but-- --The detonation detonated into some half-gas, half-liquid slurry, the distant psychic echo of agony trailing through the sky until she landed atop some rusted war-machine, splattering into a shapeless mass. A shape tried to pull itself back together out of the pool of blood? a torso, a head. An arm, an outstretched hand... Which fell from its socket, splattering amidst the mess of that was the rest of Dysnomia's ruined body. Her face opened something like a mouth, and released an inhuman cry of distress.
Father Berislav	Isaiah wasn't built for slugfests, but for press and fade, constant harassment, or otherwise overwhelming initial strikes. Although the silver machine keeps moving, there's only so much cover that rusted out, picked-clean wrecks can provide, and only so much that the mech's frame can deflect. The first reactor breach is handled with the violent crash of Isaiah's foot into the shin of the offending mech, hard enough to shear it from its actuator. The resulting back kick is made just in time to preserve Berislav's life--but the exploding core nevertheless erodes the silver finish before melting and shearing it off. Isaiah, looking even less human than it normally does, lacks even the benefit of its pristine appearance; marked through with its 'flesh' torn off and its hard, angular innards on display and smoking. In the cockpit, there is a heart-stopping moment of darkness after the mech narrowly avoids a direct hit from the S2. Following a dive that sent Isaiah grinding across a stretch of gravel, sparks flying as surely as sediment, the explosion damages the power distribution system. The red glow of winks out, the monitors go dark, and the mech's limbs refuse to cooperate as it lies face down in chemical sludge. Inside, Berislav can hear the stomping of approaching reinforcements, the whine of servos, the din of fire. Emergency lights wink on. The priest knows where the fuses are, even in the dark, his hand finding the casing and persisting in its work well before they come on, inspite of the smell of burnt skin. The burns will pass. The pain will pass. He lets the fear pass through him as surely as the screaming of the nerves in his palm. With a final 'click,' he has movement, but not sight. An easy fix, later. For now... the 'old fashioned way.' He lifts his right arm and pulls the cockpit open hatch. Right in time to catch a jagged piece of shrapnel to the thigh. Gritting his teeth, Berislav guides Isaiah's arms into a sweeping, hammer-fanning pass over the advancing waves, buying the others precious time. Suppression is online. Good. I don't have targeting online, so... The silver, partially-skinned, blinded titan sprints through the battlefield to rejoin the team attacking the S2. just in time to find that the cannon fire has paused. Excellent timing. Mia--! The mech holsters its handcannon in the now-partially-exposed thigh compartment on the approach, Berislav's guidance at the controls on full display thanks to the open cockpit. The determination on his face through the next manuever is also on display. The mech tucks and rolls, gracefully placing its back between the approaching reinforcements and Mia's prone, decohered form. The free hand scoops her up and deposits her in the cockpit, holding the palm over the open chamber as the mech tumbles. Right side up, the compartment on the left shoulder opens for the second time in the engagement. Another dull, mundane 'thoonk' sound. Another black cylinder, launched into the air, coaxed into a spiral with some internal propulsion system. It isn't molten metal, this time, but swarms of miniaturized metal... sandspurs? They look like sandspurs, almost, but for the fact that each is the size of a human fist, and each one, after a few seconds of flight, blinks. They're landmines, numerous, forming a protective circle around the strike team. The slightest disturbance after their short arming time is enough to set everal off at once, sending metal spikes out in droves to skewer and shred. It won't last forever--but it doesn't have to. The S2 is down.
Kukuru	Kukuru surprises even herself sometimes! As she sails through the air following her hole-gouging maneuver, she watches the aftermath of Dysnomia blasting her plasma right into that hole and allows herself a moment to breathe. It's not as though her teleportation can keep her from plummeting any more at this point, so the most she can watch out for is someone or something coming by close enough for her to arrest her fall with. Instead, she's treated to an eye-searing flash from the S2 that forces her to cover her eyes reflexively, and that keeps her from seeing the shells coming towards her. The explosions and smoking cloud in the air that likely follow are only broken when Kukuru comes falling right out of it, badly burned and bruised in several places several seconds later. Her nanites will keep her alive, thankfully, although she's going to be down for a bit in a crater of her very own. She does crack a small smile, at least, when she sees the S2 crashing into the ground a little while later. She's not nearly in good enough shape to get back up right away, but she'll be up eventually to help with putting Dysnomia back together, tending to Berislav's wounds (if not necessarily doing much for his mech), and making sure Touta's got enough blood to keep going once the drones are cleared out. Just not right now. The waste-covered ground will have to do.
Touta Konoe	As cannon fire and Mia's plasma intersect there is that moment of blistering heat. An explosion that builds up so much energy that pure white fills the senses and blinds all those there. It's only when it fades is everyone able to see the results of the explosion as hard light is left spread across the ground. That hadn't stopped him. Not the heat as it attempted to cook him within the shape of that black exoskeleton, nor as his eyes were singed to the point of blindness. The entire time the arms that had been pounding into the frame of the S2 just continued to pelt away at it. Only to continue to denting away at its frame without much avail. The threat of another fireball to ensnare him was on the horizon. That as he was, brute force wasn't the answer... ...Then he'd simply need apply more brute force. In this moment persistence was all that he had in this form. An armor that bolstered itself, reinforced and re-shaped itself with the same source of magic that Touta attributed his immortality to. In the most literal sense, he was burning away his life, using his longevity and converting it to strength. That was the thing though, he made a promise to look after that person. And to look after that person he needed to do his part here...To outlast and outperform the S2. And thus, if the machine truly did intend to prepare another fireball... "You're sure as shit taking it with me!!!" Then it certainly would end up charring the hull. If reinforcements would fire sprays of gunfire, launch salvos of explosive shells. There was no dodging that was going to happen. When it came to the reinforcements and their attacks, Touta and the S2 would become one. The machine being swallowed in the hell-fire that would have been meant for Touta alone. Thus, in that hellfire, he'd continue his assault. Undeterred and undistracted by reinforcements. Even with every breath singing his lungs, crisping his form, all-hidden beneath in the shell of armor he'd woven for himself, he'd focused his everything into keeping the S2 in check. Refusing to provide the machine even the convenience of being able to hide its damaged sections. For as it attempts to shift, another set of arms begins to form from that armor. Three protruding limbs from each side of this thing are made visible even as lights erupt from explosions. Two of which flex their fingers for a moment as talons expel out and are used to dig into the machine for leverage, attempting to hold its frame in place to keep its injuries exposed. Those very same arms continue to get caught in explosions. They're shot through with bullet spray, and while the limbs go limp for moments at a time, in the next instance its as if the armor frame re-weaves itself back together like mended muscles. The other four continue from where he last left off. Only instead of punching do claws attempt to rend into the hardlight covered frame. At first, surely it's the same results. The force of his strikes just dented the exterior of the machine at best. And if anything his talents simply grind down if not break completely. But persistence was key...Those claws regenerate again and again. Sharper, harder, the mold of black magic that takes the shape of those talons only condenses further each time they're made to break. He's made up his mind. He might break, but he'd hold the line. Not in anticipation of Petra or Hibiki to finish their mission. But because he's resolved himself. That of anyone, he knows that he should be capable enough to hang on no matter how much adversity comes in whatever shape it takes. That no matter how long he has to hold the S2 in this gridlock, and no matter how long it'd take to finally rend through that hull, or how ugly it'd seem while doing it...If that's what it'd take, he'd do it.
Touta Konoe	For even in that grotesque, less than elegant manner...That too, was a way in which even Touta Konoe could become more than he was. For him to find his own path. The way that even Touta Konoe could have all the time in the world. Yet, such time wouldn't come to be needed. For as he goes to bring down one clawed arm once more, feeling in his bones what felt like would have been the one that would tear through its shell, instead he finds that the machine simply...Plummets. It seemed in a battle of attrition that they had won...Is what he'd like to say... But as clarity comes to him, as he can see what's come of Mia who cries out before being taken by Berislav, who also was in no better shape with the shards lodged in his form. Even Kukuru being found within the nearby crater, yet still worried enough to make sure he's just as taken care of. All the while, the swarm of drones, the pilotless mechs, while not as jarring as what they'd faced...There was a reason that Berislav put up those mines. "Kukuru...Just focus on them...I'll be fine. Honest...So you take care of that and..." As he says those words, the black armor adorning his frame turns to ash, those additional arms fade as if they never appeared to unveil Touta...Covered in patches of burns that were...Healing, but so much slower than before. Certainly faster than most, but compared to the kind of regeneration his body was used to, was at a snail's pace. "I'll make sure you guys can catch your breath..." He finds his blade amongst the rubble and holds it up once more. Because at the end of the day, he can't be the healer, he can't be the tactician that sets up the plans, but at the very least...He can be someone that keeps fighting to let others have some reprieve...