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Petra Soroka     The day to liberate Quicknest from the fiendish clutches of the Egg Head Petra Soroka finally arrives, and with it, almost immediately upon seeing the mechanized sprawl of the city spread out below the East Wind as the heroes are ferried in, comes a realization. As much preparation as you did with planning around Petra's particular habits and the defenses she's known to have, she's been doing the same in return-- not because of espionage, but because she *knows* you.

    As Kale said, and as Aidan supported, the outer regions of Quicknest are stripped practically barren of everything besides what robotomized workers are needed to keep extracting enough materials to fund Petra's nonsense. It'd be fairly trivial in every sense besides travel time to go zip around villages and bust the handfuls of bots out, but on the scale of a country, travel time is significant, and there's always the risk of coming across that Silver speedster. The capital, on the other hand, is built up not only to recover all the damage that Eggman left, but far beyond it. A latticed metal dome arcs from wall to wall over the inner city, and the streets are unrecognizable from any map they might have thought to consult before. A trio of holes blown into the ground at three points around the city disappear deeper down than can be judged at a glimpse, with scaffolding reaching up out of them for some unknown purpose.

    Another new addition that Petra constructed is a massive turret with thick cylindrical roots of cable and plate to power it, flashbulb-like lens aimed directly at the East Wind when it gets within a certain range of the city. Utterly overkill for individual anti-aircraft, though plenty of those smaller cannons exist too, she seems to have built this new one for the sole purpose of blowing the East Wind out of the sky should it get too close. When the white hot beam of light narrowly lances by the ship, the air is seared into plasma and a line of trees leading up to the point of the explosion burst into flames.

    ... It's overkill for taking down the *East Wind*, even. Thinking about it from Petra's perspective, it's almost certain that she got overexcited about splurging on new tech once she actually had confirmation of people coming to challenge her. A critical eye at the actual layout of her anti-air defenses, though, suggests that she cannibalized enough of her other aerial-directed turrets for other projects that she gave herself an overreliance on this one-- not that it isn't entirely sufficient for forcing the East Wind to hastily land outside the city.

    The city is visible in the distance where they're forced to touch the ground. Separating it from them is a sea of sawblades buzzing in place of farmland and dirt roads, half buried in the ground but still chest-height. Flying over them would easily negate the threat of being blended into a fine paste, but it'd immediately open you up to all the anti-flight turrets aimed *just* vertical enough that a healthy height double-jump wouldn't put you in their targeting range, but anything more and they'll start blasting various lasers and ballistics.

    The solution, then, is one part Eggman-classic, and one part girl-who-always-thought-the-TV-show-Wipeout-was-super-cool: a platform bridge, raised above the saws, connecting the mostly untouched greenery of this side, to the steel capital on the other. Just glancing along the length from down here, it's easy to get an assessment of the various unsteady platforms, swinging spike walls, ratbot obstacles, and timed laser blast corridors set up down the length of it. Where it passes beyond the walls and into the city, the saws and threats seem to continue within, but it does take you pretty close to the base of that massive cannon.
Ru Li Cheng      There is a saying in the Empire of Yinghua - the river runs one way, but the flood spills in all directions. It's a simple proverb applied to everything from military to mental health - know the direction you tend towards and you can enrich yourself by spreading out from it.

     It is therefore that Ru Li expects Petra to plan around him. She knows him, at least relatively well - what he is capable of, how he thinks to a certain degree, and so on. Trying to go against the flow of the river is pointless to him; at that point, you may as well simply present your weaknesses and hope unpredictability carries you through.

     The Multiverse has done more than enough to convince Ru Li that too many people equate heroism with unpredictability. To that, he politely declines.

     The bureaucrat god does not allow himself to get distracted by the robotomized villagers, by the barren landscape. It's what he expected - what he imagined, what he assumed. It's conquest run rampant to fuel a personal vendetta.

     And that's fine. That's what makes heroes. Vendettas, conflicts borne of promises kept, of oaths upheld to self-destruction. Genuine truth to one's word.

     When he'd said he would liberate Quicknest, even if Petra chose to dislike him from then on, it was true. He had already steeled himself for this. He'd even come up with a plan.

     And, more importantly, a bit of theater.

     Ru Li has brought with him a Yinghuan bow. It is not a hunk of wood that bends back from a drawn string - no, it is a line of gears and springs held by a single handle, with a thin cord between them. On his back are Yinghuan arrows, most made of metal, two with very special arrowheads. It is one of those that he nocks now as they reach the buzzsaw corridor.

     He draws the arrow back. One eye shuts, purely for the purposes of style, as he aims above the anti-aircraft cannons.

     He fires.

     The Yinghuan bow snaps forward. With it comes manipulation of velocity itself - a bow that transforms relative strength into raw velocity, a bow that is less a bow and more a railgun. A shockwave rocks the ship, dipping it forward, as the arrow soars over the cannons, drawing fire, drawing attention.

     Then, over the heart of Quicknest, it explodes into beautiful blue fireworks, dancing Yinghuan writing that translates easily into 'YOUR CHALLENGE IS ACCEPTED.'

     Ru Li looks at Kale and Futaba. "You know your roles. Be careful."

     Then, with a burst of activity, he grabs Futaba by the waist, kisses her, and dives off the side onto the platform.
Kale Hearthward "Whoa! Brace!"

The beam narrowly misses the East Wind.

"Not getting any closer than that while that cannon's up. Finding a landing spot now."

"Right - Futaba, it's showtime, jump on. Ru Li, everyone else, see you on the ground later... hopefully."

Kale pops open the VTOL's rear door and steps out, activating his jet boots and taking flight. The ship itself is heading down to get out of the AA fire, but its pilot is remaining in the sky.

There's no time to waste. He heads forward, flying further towards the center of the capital, as if he's skipping the platforming elements altogether. To this blatant cheating, the anti-aircraft weaponry likely has something to say about it.

"Gotta make it look close..." he says, half for Futaba's benefit and half to keep himself focused...

... and when a shot gets too close, he activates the remote switch he has hidden up one sleeve.

His jet boots spark, as if they'd been hit by a toku weapon, and emit a trail of smoke. It's all fake - little pyrotechnic charges preplaced on the sides of his jet boots, activated by the switch, making it *look* like he's been hit even though he actually hasn't. And then - with the special effects in place, the rest is acting.

Kale spirals downward. "I've been hit!" Is Petra listening on the local band? Better safe than sorry. He falls - and with one hand pulls out the 'package', and with the other he casts a modified pressure bomb-

It's a rough-looking landing, but only rough-looking, made considerably less actually rough by the pressure bomb going off like an expanding air bag, breaking his fall. The 'package' gets flung out in a seemingly random direction as he impacts - in reality, sending it off somewhere secluded looking, away from whatever cameras Kale could spot on the way down.

He remains lying there, looking like he actually did get shot down. For verisimilitude. The rest of this plan is up to Futaba...
Ishirou Ishirou's orders were simple, he knew what he needed to do and they were in his wheelhouse.  Before they do start, he provides an OPTION drone to those who want or need one.  What this OPTION does is provide them aid for the platforming sections of the stage.  Jump boosts, grapple points, and any other mobility aid they might need!  Beyond that, he doesn't share flight, because of the big shooter tower that Petra has aimed at the sky.  

Ishirou is armed in RESCUE but doesn't transform into the flight unit.  Instead, he sticks with Ru Li, letting him take point while trailing behind.  What he does do is provide aid for the others.  Providing remote recon and pointing out and discovering traps while he can scan ahead and trail behind the others.  

When he can, he'll take time to try and hack defenses and try and shut them down, even if he can't do it entirely, it does allow him to help the others get through traps!  Then he trails behind them, trying to make a balance of disabling, scanning, and doing the traps himself.  

POD helps him with the traps, allowing him to double-jump, become a solid mid-air grapple for him, and do anything and everything he needs to keep mobile across the perilous platforming stage Petra has set up for them to get into the city.  
Futaba Nuki Even though Futaba's here to run interference against Petra's fiendish designs, she still can't help but be impressed at the spectacle of it all. Sure, a lot of the land's been stripped bare of useful anything, but it's not as though she has that much context for what it looked like before. Plus, that giant cannon is-

"-so cool...! You think thing could blow a hole straight through the other side of the planet if it had enough energy?" Futaba chimes as she gawks at that turret, blinking owlishly even as it's starting to fire at the East Wind. She sounds more impressed than frightened even as the shots whiz by overhead, even letting out an excited little cheer and flicking her tail back and forth a few times in her excitement.

Sure, she should probably be a little more concerned about safety and all, but it's hard not to get amped up when massive lasers are coming from one direction while explosive arrow shockwaves come blasting out from behind her.

"Too bad we couldn't ram this whole thing into it... Hm. Not too late for that, is it?" Futaba asks, turning to Kale with a brief chuckle and rolls her shoulders, stretches, and generally gets limbered up for the mission to come. She's dressed like a proper ninja today rather than in her casual clothes, complete with all sorts of dark-colored tights under the ninja-y gi and tucked in pants to keep even the mere idea of flapping sleeves out of mind.

She's still got that big flappy scarf of hers, but that's never going to get put away.

"Got it covered, Ru Li. Kale, I'm in your hands. Let's-" She sputters briefly in Ru Li's kiss from the surprise burst, pats the back of his head partway through, then laughs it off and mutters something incoherently to fill the dead air  before remembering to clear her throat so she can use actual workds again.

"Mm! Right. Let's get this done!" Climbing onto Kale's shoulder, Futaba shrinks herself down into a small golden beetle, skittering down the length of his arm rapidly to hide in a convenient pocket. She transforms again into a scrap of metal that looks it could have come off of Kale's suit, and...

She waits. All that's left, really, is to wait, to get pulled out, and to see where his 'random' fling takes her. It's actually kind of disorienting to try and figure out where she's going to end up landing, so the best Futaba can manage is to adjust her flight path a bit, mostly to make sure she doesn't end up bouncing off any platforms entirely.
Hibiki Tachibana     Welcome to Quicknest! For Hibiki. As far as Kale and Aidan's home goes, she's been to Camembert Way but never actually here - which means she doesn't have a lot of prior experience to compare to what the extensive modifications to the landscape have done to the area. That's not to say she can't very easily tell how thorough Petra has been when it comes to her conquered territory, now able to see it in person from the vantage point of the East Wind rather than just hear about it.

    "...She's really went the whole mile here. No wonder she was upset no one came to crash it." She doesn't sound especially pleased about that, probably because it's hard to be pleased about anything, y'know. Being converted to a part of the Eggman Empire, robotomized (not roboticized) and industrialized. Hibiki does not have fond memories of the elaborate sidescroller stage that Eggman captured her with, and now it's time to repeat history.

    Still. It's inarguable she wants to see Quicknest and its people free, regardless of any interpersonal things involving herself or Petra or Aidan or Eggman or anyone else. So with that in mind...

    She hops out of the East Wind as it's forced to come down, watches Ru Li's burst of fireworks over the city, and fishes out her pendant with a nod. "Only one way forward now. "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron..."

    One transformation later, which lasted a lot longer for her than anyone else, she's adjusting her scarf and glancing to Aidan at the same time the Yinghuan god is giving him his orders. Make no speeches. Take no glory. Support Ms. Tachibana. You are an accessory to her and no more. If she tells you to die, then die. She gives that several seconds to settle for him before speaking up flatly, "...Don't die. There's gonna be a lot to do after all this is over, after all."

    Hibiki turns forward to begin moving, but she still calls over her shoulder to him. "We're fighting for your home for real now-- so treat it like that! Stick close and don't fall behind!"

    Her part in this is, extremely predictably, frontlining facefirst into things and more or less dealing with the platformer segments head-on through a combination of engaging in mechanics and outright smashing through them. This isn't her first rodeo! She was there when Wendy's Woman made an obstacle course out of a family fast food place! That means she plans to balance out on platforms, halt enclosing walls with her bare strength, destroy ratboxs, and barely avoid lasers.

    She won't be slowing down for Aidan's sake, but that might just be because she believes he'll keep pace.
Aidan Proudpick Another test failed. All of his tests failed. Failed in every conceivable way. Failed all the people who held a hand out to him, by taking it and then spitting on them. Failed so hard that he has probably alienated himself from the rest of the multiverse, even down to the few diehard Aidan fans on social media. Failed so much, others have to clean up the mess. Pushed away the people he cared about, was trying to make a deeper connection with. Quicknest might even end up reviling him. The Watch may burn him. He would be isolated from every faction. It should be the lowest moment of Aidan's life. He had ripped himself apart, broken himself down into pieces, ruined absolutely everything for himself.

Aidan pulls on his cloth armor, now with a large red heart sewn over the right breast. A buckler on either arm, adorned with a painted heart. Finally, his accelerator, a finger barely brushing over the long rifle before he stops. Thinking of how he used that gun. Blowing up airships. Hitting patrols of Gale Empire soldiers. Scouting for the rebels against the Gale Empire. Watching other soldiers be more merciless. Lethal. Pragmatic. Aidan grabs the ammo clip from the accelerator, bracing the rest of it against the ground. He puts a foot down against the middle of it, pushing with all of his might. The wood of the stock splinters and the barrel bends, rendering it useless. He lets it drop to the dirt floor, instead grabbing up his silly little flag. A crest that reminds him of the things he wants to be. He tucks close to his chest.

At a certain point, you have to accept that a rusted and broken blade cannot be mended. You have to pull the pieces apart, melt them down, replace them, recast them. And begin the process again. Aidan thought he did that once. Thought he had figured it all out. He would be a gun/sword/shield/knife, anything he thought the multiverse needed him to be, compassionate when it was conveninent, angry, frustrated. Until that too ground him into dust.

----------------------------

He arrives at the meeting point for the mission, the same air of determination in his gait as the battle with Xion, in his eyes, in the lift of his chin. Not the grim determination whenever he picked up his rifle. A fire once more.

'Damn he's so cool,' Aidan can't help as he watches Ru Li fire the fireworks arrow into the sky and then Kale ham it up with a little smirk.

As Hibiki lands, he wipes his face clean of the smirk and nods seriously. "Of course. But I trust you to tell me the best time to sacrifice myself." Then, "One hundred percent, heart and soul!" Does that count as a speech. Fuck. Aidan goes quiet again, focusing on the passage way. He just cheats, grabbing at the wall, then leaping up to the ceiling, grabbing at seams and bolts as he scurries over obstacles like a furry slinky.

He grabs a chain of the swinging spike wall, flipping across to climb across a wall, then back up. Ah. Aidan drops down to the ground at the timed laser blast corridor, watching it patiently. Ah... ah... NOW! He scrambles across it at a full run, "fuck, void, suffocate, fuck, fuck, fuck!" doing a leaping slide on the other end to pop back up onto his feet and keep running after Hibiki.
Sarracenia      Aidan gets orders to be Hibiki's support. Sarra does not even get mentioned - which irks her somewhat - but considering they were invited together and given the same conditions for attendance she sticks with Aidan and Hibiki.

     Which...she really doesn't mind. Hibiki has been consistently between neutral and amicable to the princess. That's about as close to another friend as Sarra has had since before Aidan. As usual when she is going into battle the princess has on her battle dress. Her hammer is drawn. Her crown and the rust red metal flower beside it both sparkle atop her head.

     Regardless of the situation, there is no way that Sarracenia is stepping a foot onboard /KALE'S/ airship. She flies her own personal VTOL in. The Dyna, a wooden VTOL much like an Osprey in design lands with the East Wind and Sarra leaps out of the cockpit to follow Hibiki and Aidan.

     '...don't die.'

     Sarra can't help a light smile. "We will not. I am sure I speak for..."

     'I trust you to tell me the best time to sacrifice myself.'

     "...well, I at least do not intend to die. Here or ever." Sarra finishes, giving Aidan a bit of a concerned look.

     Saw blades, platforms, and anti-air. This is actually fine for Sarra. She comes from a platforming world! With skill and grace that those here might be surprised she has, the princess nimbly leaps between platforms, over blades, and somersault hammer swings to take down any ratbots that get close or to free any roboticized citizens she happens across. Frontline work -and- the spotlight are two things that Sarra enjoys best, so she isn't going to complain about being in the vanguard!
Petra Soroka     It's impossible for Petra to not notice the announcement made by Ru Li's arrow. Even if she isn't here, she hopefully has enough eyes on Quicknest that she could warp in within a moment's notice, and if she doesn't... well, she's not taking it quite as seriously as she seemed to be. There's a burst of activity from deep within the center of the city, but Ru Li doesn't have the time or angle to examine it thoroughly before being forced to platform.

    The platform is a long stretch of steel tread plate, thick enough to support the weight of whatever bulky robots Petra might have set up as obstacles, but thin enough that any of the Elites could figure out some way to smash through it if they had a sudden pressing need to dive feet first into a shredder. Their impacts landing on it clang loudly, and then there's only forwards to go.

    Stacked towers of launchers send slow moving missiles down alternating corridors, forcing them to dodge between to make progress forwards. Gaps in the bridge grow wider and wider, and the platform on the far side of the pit narrows after each jump, with nothing but buzzsaws to either side. Ratbots hover in the air with steel blocks attached to their underside, making traversing under or around them far more dangerous until Ishirou hacks and redirects them, or Hibiki rips the makeshift wall and the bot it's attached to right out of the air.

    The platforming team makes some progress this way, even as creaking metal threatens to drop the floor right out from under them, or pulses of laser beams sweep across the bridge at chest or ankle height, until a loud boom echoes out from the city itself. Futaba, tossed away by Kale, is near enough and small enough to feel physically pushed by the shockwave, as a huge orb of metal is launched out of the city towards the beginning of the platforming bridge.

    It crashlands, well behind the team, and then unfolds two backwards-knee walker mech legs, a pair of small arms reaching forwards, and then on the top of its 'head', two round mouse ears. At the front of the mech, with a set of whiskers to either side, is a glass cockpit pod with a cylindrical automated voice assistant installed inside. SUPER HEYALEXA lumbers one step forwards, then another to crash through the beginning of the bridge, stepping right onto the buzzsaws without being harmed because a large enough robot is capable of ignoring environmental hazards.

SUPER HEYALEXA: Hello ! 'Heroes' !
SUPER HEYALEXA: I have become Very Big !!

    Each step she takes towards the Elites eliminates a section of the bridge, stomping it into the buzzsaws below. SUPER HEYALEXA, due to her prodigious size and considerable quantities of metal, isn't slowed by the obstacles, and gradually gains ground on the platforming team. It's a time pressure!!

SUPER HEYALEXA: Hurry ! This offer will last longer than you !!
Petra Soroka     Kale, meanwhile, is predictably 'shot down'. Not only does flying so blatantly draw the attention of the ballistic anti-air turrets, causing enough of a problem while he gets close with bursts of gunfire, but being the only thing in the air means the vehicle-melting laser ponderously swivels in his direction too. As it charges up, throwing Futaba away and faking his crash landing rapidly becomes a matter of survival and not just planning, and it fires only moments after he dips down from his flight path.

    The air cavitates and implodes in the wake of the laser, ionizing with the sickening scent of ozone and throwing Kale wildly off-course. His attempts to gather enough air for a pressure bomb to break his fall take long enough in the turbulent air that there's a moment where it seems like the fake rough landing might end up more real-- and more messy, with the whirling sawblades coating the ground below-- than intended, until he stops suddenly, suspended just a few feet above the serrated edges.

    The platforming group watches as Kale plunges down into a length of cables coming off of a series of staggered crushing walls along the bridge. Flailing, he gets tangled up in them, wrapped up and suspended with cords around his wrists, ankles, even lessening how much air he can force in and out of his throat, and each repetitive slam of the crushers threatens to sink him closer and closer to the buzzsaws. He might be able to use air magic to propel himself back to the platforms, but will he have time before getting shredded? Will the Elites be able to navigate past the homing missiles and Elite Ratbot Guardians (dropping rocks from overhead) in time to help save him?

    Once Futaba is safely tumbled into the city proper and feels confident she won't immediately reveal herself, she can transform back to normal in an alleyway between two metal and brick buildings. The bridge, the same one that the others are currently traversing outside the walls, continues in here, though often its platforms consist of the roofs of buildings, and the threat below is patrolling robots rather than buzzsaws. Armed robotomized bots, slinging guns, flamethrowers, grappling hooks, and even less appropriate weapons like swords roam around in lockstep, ready to pounce on anyone who falls from the bridge.

    Futaba isn't directly underneath it, though, she's a short distance away. Where she is, there's just ratbots trawling the alleyways with flashlights stuck to their adhesion hooks, red alarm lights on their heads flashing. She can spy, up top on one of the walls, a control panel overlooking the bridge, but she'll have to navigate around the ratbots and scale the wall without being shot to get there.

    The control panel consists almost entirely of manual levers, operated by a bot pulling them in sequence to operate the crushers, including the one whose cables Kale is all tangled up in. Petra knew Ishirou was coming-- he'd want to redeem himself after the previous operation, and this one had Lilian's approval, so there's no way he'd miss it. That means the central controls like this one don't have a single external connection for him to hack into, though there's nothing she can do about him hacking into the ratbots or missile launchers.
Ru Li Cheng      The platforming is a little bit hazardous. Even with the reflexes, speed, strength, and of course wide-ranging perceptive abilities of a god, Ru Li has to work for it. Petra prepared well. Maybe she didn't know his full limits, but then, he didn't either, and what she'd prepared for was enough to challenge what he knew to be 'safe.'

     If he had adrenaline it would be pumping. Instead the ticking of his divine clockwork is loud, and the gold-and-silver flush of his cheeks is bright. But his breathing is measured, calm, even as he jumps onto one of the ratbots and sends it spiralling into another in a shower of explosive sparks. The spring is still, the focus absolute.

     And then Super Heyalexa arrives.

     Nothing could've prepared Ru Li for this. He didn't know anything about Heyalexa other than 'she existed.' He certainly didn't expect this thing, this testament to Petra's engineering prowess and supervillainous learning capacity. A time pressure.

     Worse, Kale is in danger, in a way that he couldn't've predicted. "Blast," Ru Li mutters to himself as Heyalexa gets closer.

     Time to trust in Hibiki and Ishirou, and trust in Hibiki to put Sarracenia and Aidan to good use.

     Ru Li removes the ribbon from his hair as he pulls an arrow out of his quiver. His hair flows freely, black and long and divine, as he darts backwards, landing on one of the ratbots. A solid punch through into its core to rip out a wire, and he flips back onto the platform.

     Buzzsaws getting closer to Kale. No time.

     A makeshift rope of ribbon, held in place with a cord. It would probably tear the instant Kale grabbed on but all it needed to do was give him a moment.

     Ru Li raises the bow, nocks the arrow with its rope, and fires towards where he knows Kale to be. A sonic boom erupts across the battlefield. It shakes the surface he's standing on - shakes it enough for him to stumble and fall perilously close to one of the saws. One hand on the bow, one hand grasping for anything he can hold onto. He doesn't feel like testing his durability against *that*, for certain.

     Damn!

     Ru Li swings his legs up under the thin platform. He gets nicked by the buzzsaw, and swears, and a trickle of silver and gold blood glints on the blades.
Kale Hearthward Kale is, actually, stuck.

Wriggling free! No. Doesn't work.

Pulling out a sword! No.

Wind magic! No. Well, it'll buy Kale some time, but getting all the way free with it isn't going to work.

Pulling out a sword! No, wait, he tried that already.

"Um - kind of stuck!"

Pulling out a sword! Still no.

"And the buzzsaws are getting closer!"

Well, technically it's Kale that's getting closer to the buzzsaws. This clarification is not helpful, however.

Pulling out a sword! He still doesn't have any more leverage than last time he tried, three seconds ago.

"Man..."

Kale sighs. "Being a damsel in distress stinks. I can see why nobody wants to do it anymore."

Pulling out a sword! Still no.

And then Ru Li fires.

Kale twists his body around as much as he can, and his hand reaches out as far as it'll go to grab onto the ribbon, and use it as one singular desperate bit of momentary leverage to pull-

- and he's free, or at least free enough to finally pull the sword out with his other hand...

"Gobo!"

The sword activates, the blade splitting lengthwise into two halves, with a mirror suspended in the middle. Kale swings it down towards his feet, where it leaves an afterimage - a sharp one that's unpleasant to press against, but it's the other bit of leverage that Kale needs to finish getting himself loose, and rejoin the others.

... Hopefully Futaba is doing okay, he hasn't seen her since he threw her.
Ishirou SUPER Heyalexa crashes in behind Ishirou, which causes him to jump in surprise.  At first, he just starts moving at a normal pace, but once she reveals how BIG and TIME SENSITIVE she is, he starts moving at a faster pace, trying to avoid the stage threat, trying to keep ahead of her while also providing stage information to the others.

That is until Kale comes down, stuck and needing aid, Ru Li moves to help him and calls for aid.  Ishirou dips and summons out the flight armor, connecting it to each part of the RESCUE unit, until it's more like a small mecha than a suit of armor he wears.  POD climbs into the back as he flies around Heyalexa, and fires energy blasts the size of bullets into her side, trying to distract her while keeping pace.

The goal is to distract her and provide Ru Li time to get Kale out of danger, while also staying low enough to not get shot by AA.  He times his shots with Hibiki, both attempting to provide her support and keep Heyalexia busy to mess with either Ru Li or the stuck Kale.  This might suck for him later because Heyalexia probably remembers he shot her bestie.  

He hopes she doesn't remember that too exclusively.  
Futaba Nuki Seeing the giant orb of metal crash landing on the platforming bridge almost has Futaba regretting her choice of going along with this infiltration plan. Granted, this might still lead to some kind of cool duel against some kind of knightly robotic enforcer, but hearing SUPER HEYALEXA's voice coming out of it has her stabilizing her flight path juuust enough that she can sprout eyes on her back to get a glimpse of the upgraded assistant.

"Oh man, that's super cool, too... Really gotta hand it to her later. Wonder if.." She mutters to herself, then quickly shuts her mouth and hides her eyes moments before impact in the city. It's a good time not to have eyes, too, since all that rocking around and tumbling would most likely give her a nasty bout of motion sickness otherwise. She waits until she stops again before putting her eyes back on, peering out from underneath herself first to make sure the coast is clear before scuttling a little deeper into the alleyway to transform back into herself.

"Alright, what do we got here...? Oh. Whoa." Even from the alleyway, she can see those patrolling bots further out in the streets, and her desire to rush in and get into a sick fight against all of them starts gnawing at her immediately. There's too many people counting on her not to screw things up, though, and even some she actually likes, and that's enough to get her to bite back her pride and keep her focus on the mission.

The first problem, of course, turns out to be ratbots lighting the way and blaring redness all over the place already. It's somewhat distracting just to try and see where she should be going with that, but quick thinking and seeing where those lights aren't strobing gives her a better idea of where to actually move. When some of those ratbots start coming a little too close for her to take her time, she sprints towards one of the nearby walls to start bouncing off of it with the probably decent idea of jumping from wall to wall enough times that she can reach the panel and stick to it.

If both buildings were made of brick, that'd probably be just fine. Smacking her sneakers into the walls of the metal buildings, however, isn't quite as quiet as she'd like, and it forces her to improvise with yet another transformation: Futaba quickly flattens herself into a sheet of metal nearly identical to the wall where the control panel is. She even molds part of her... Back? Shoulder? It's kind of unclear what parts of her correspond to what parts of the fake wall at this point, but she makes part of herself look like the control panel, too, albeit with some leafy patterns and golden coloring scattered throughout the fake wall she's become.

She'll have to wait until the coast is (hopefully) clear before she can start checking out the panel itself, testing the levers with a hand that just sprouts out of the fake control panel to mess with the real one. Hopefully, she'll be able to figure which levers do what so she can try to assist the platforming team instead of accidentally crushing them in the process!
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki is satisfied enough with Aidan and Sarracenia's answers that she doesn't think she'll need to worry too much. It goes without saying she'd rather neither of them, uh. Died. She doesn't dislike the princess so much as wish she didn't get into so much trouble, and Aidan... well, Kale said it best. He either gets his shit together or Liza Grier will probably solve the problem, and she's very much in the 'I would not like Liza Grier to shoot people' camp.

    If it was just a matter of forcing a path forward, that'd be one thing. But...

    SUPER HEYALEXA lumbers one step forwards.
    Oh no.

    Kale plunges down into a length of cables coming off of a series of staggered crushing walls along the bridge.
    Oh no.

    Ru Li has a plan though, and it'll require protecting him. While SUPER HEYALEXA encroaches upon them as the stage time limit, and they still need to make headway forward as lasers and obstacles continue coming in endlessly. She has to make a snap decision on how best to handle it, without thinking about it, and that means...

    "Sarra! Aidan!" She pauses in the middle of quite literally punching a beam aside to glance towards the both of them. "Keep the push ahead going! If we slow down making progress to the city, we're gonna get crushed if the platform doesn't give out first!" Sarracenia has her platforming skills in hand, and Aidan is no slouch when it comes to being on the move, shield or no. More than that, no matter what anyone's opinions of them might be, they make a team.

    So Hibiki will trust them to be the vanguard, at least for the moment. They said they won't die, and she'll hold them to that.

    Which'll give her the time to double back and, while Ishirou is keeping SUPER HEYALEXA under suppressive fire, she'll bodyblock any and all projectiles and errant ratbots trying to interrupt him - or worse, finish the job while he's precariously at risk of falling down into the buzzsaw hell.

    She'll help make sure he makes it back up as quick as possible by ducking down and grasping his free hand with her own, to hastily pry him back up with the rest of them. "You're seriously full of surprises," she murmurs. That could be referencing his bowmanship, or maybe just his ability to come up with plans like that on the fly.

    Once he's able to cover himself again, she can rejoin Sarracenia and Aidan. Good thing she's real fast.
Ru Li Cheng      Ru Li accepts Hibiki's hand gratefully. With added leverage he's able to get himself back onto the platform and pick up his bow again. His face flushes a bit brighter. "W-well..."

     He doesn't really have a good response! He's a little flustered, evidently. He quickly kneels, tears a piece of his already-torn pants, and binds his own wound rapidly. Petra was right - couldn't go bleeding out. "I suppose I am simply focused on the operation, s-so..."
Aidan Proudpick Aidan smiles back at Sarracenia. It's nice to have a LITTLE banter. He is still focused on his goal, heart and soul, but Aidan is a being that needs brightness to survive. And he likes to give Sarracenia some support, "That's right. We're gonna make it past this, survive, and both find adorable partners to dote on, right? Let's just focus up. Stay on the plan. Save Quicknest."

<J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "Princess, can I get one of those flying things? The one that doesn't do the raccoon thing."

Fingers grasp the feather, squeezing it. A big yellow cape suddenly billows out behind him. "Wh-"

The immediate urge to jump out and save someone in danger twitches through him, his blood singing. He grips his fingers tight, trying to focus on Hibiki. Hair flick from Ru Li. Stretch of the bow. Watching Kale flounder in the machine useless to get saved by a hair ribbon? "Focus, Aidan, focuuus."

"Keep the push ahead going!"

"Right! I'll give you cover!" Aidan puts both hands out, focusing on creating a wind barrier in front of each set of missiles. The rippling white wind is like moving through molasses, slowing each set of rockets and giving Sarracenia and Aidan more room to move and jump. Each jump SHOULD hurt. Every jarring hit SHOULD wreck up his legs. But the cape slows his descent, making each landing towards the end of the platform easier. He grins a thankful grin back at Sarracenia, then looks back at Super HeyAlexa, slightly panicked. Without a shield, he's moving at the same pace as any other human sprinter, pumping his arms back and forth. He pulls his tail up at the last minute as it dips near a buzz saw!
Sarracenia      Super Heyalexa appears. Sarra watches behind the group for a few moments. "...are you serious...?" she says softly. A phrase she's been saying a lot lately. "Is she trying to kill us or just...have some fun?" Sarra says aloud, and immediately realizes that is a stupid question. "Oh...it is both, of course. Killing people should really not be considered fun, though!"

     That laser fires, rattling everything. Sarra feels like her hair is singed even though she was on the ground. Her eyes are wide and she is glad that she did not try flying. The missiles are added to the platforms. -That- certainly makes things more interesting. Sarra's native platforming experience once again comes in handy in dodging the missiles...until one of those tossed boulders smashes her right in the head. She goes down hard, and it takes her a few moments to get up as Power Stars dance around her head. She ends up a bit behind the others...and uncomfortably close to Super Heyalexa.

     Though, this does provide an opportunity! A chance for Sarra to use her newest power-up! She sprints forward to catch up while she reaches up to touch that flower on her head. The polished coppery color spreads onto her fingers, then down her hand to cover her glove. She slides that hand down her other arm as if putting on a second glove, and soon she is wearing two metallic gloves instead of her usual black.

     She thrusts a palm out and a thin silver metallic spike about the length of her hand shoots out. She thrusts the other hand, and another shoots. She is just about to start machine gunning away to cover Ru Li when Hibiki speaks up. Sarra blinks, but nods firmly. "Very well!" she says, then huffs softly. "...guess showing off my new power-up will have to wait..."

     She keeps sprinting forward as quickly as he can. When Ru Li fires that shot, Sarracenia jumps in surprise. "What the...is that bow a cannon? Do you have a cannon bow?!" she exclaims toward Ru Li. She is also impressed by his shot. "I thought you said you were not a bowman?!" she exclaims as Kale is freed, looking a bit awed despite herself.

     As they continue forward, Sarra keeps firing those metal spikes. She tries to snipe the boulder throwing robots, narrowly avoiding direct hits from the missiles but ending up plenty singed. As the jumps lengthen she uses an old Pipeland trick, leaping up and twirling quickly to slow her descent. With her battle dress she looks like a spinning black and red flower.

     'We're gonna make it past this, survive, and both finda orable partners to dote on, right?'

     Sarra nearly trips in surprise and blushes hotly. "Er...r-right!" she says, a bit shakily but is soon smiling back. That is basically what she wants, though she expects to be the adorable one that is doted on.

     Once she feels she is close enough, Sarra pulls out her hammer again and tosses a few Bullet Bills upward. As they come down she hammers them hard, firing them like cannon shots toward those missile launchers. "No need to cover you from if there is nothing to cover against~!"
Hibiki Tachibana     It's not quite the situation for it, in the middle of a bunch of whirring machines of death and showers of lasers, but Hibiki still can't help a small grin at Ru Li - even with her scarf covering half her face, it's not hard to tell. "I think it's one of your biggest strengths. I'll be countin' on it to help get us through this." She doesn't sound like she has any doubt they will.

    He's quick to get patched up, which is good when they've got a super assistant breathing down their necks - and she gives him one last nod before heading back off towards the front. At least from what she can see, those two are managing after all.

    She'll apologize to Sarracenia for denying her powerup debut later. Probably. Possibly.
Petra Soroka     While Ru Li and Kale scramble back onto the bridge and Hibiki chucks a ratbot with a normal pistol into the blades below, Ishirou has to contend with slowing down a mech five times his size, piloted by a virtual home assistant programmed-- *intentionally*; spite is a function Petra would consider an underling of hers to be incomplete without-- with the ability to nurse a grudge. SUPER HEYALEXA tromps forwards with Ishirou peppering her with PODfire, arms too short to threaten him as he flits around her.

SUPER HEYALEXA: Stop shooting me, Ass hole !
SUPER HEYALEXA: You cannot kill me in a way that matters !
SUPER HEYALEXA: Now I have Very Many Felon Annihilation Tools For Revenge Against You , Specifically !!

    Plates on the mech's back slide open, and missile launches rise up out of each of its shoulders. Ishirou successfully slows Heyalexa down, in the sense that she stops entirely to turn towards him, but the pause on destroying the bridge comes with a new hazard being introduced in its place: a salvo of missiles winding through the air, mostly directed at Ishirou as he flies around, but some of them fly off in the direction of the bridge too! With Hibiki facing away to protect Ru Li from the other, properly placed launchers, these ones coming out from behind her could slip right past her guard, but they're deflected by Aidan's wind wall before they can.

    Ishirou isn't so lucky, off on his own as he is. And worse, the turrets aren't discerning enough to distinguish between him flying to get an advantage on platforming, and flying to harrass Heyalexa instead. In addition to trying to dodge missiles, he's subjected to sprays of gunfire, and the growing ozone tang in the air as the laser charges up again. He might've ended up pinned down by suppressive fire and forced to choose between being crushed by Heyalexa or incinerated by the laser, until--

    Futaba melts into the wall beside the control panel right before a ratbot flashlight sweeps the area where she had just leapt up onto. The rat lingers, holding still in the air for a few seconds longer as if it's wondering if it saw something, before moving on, sliding soundlessly through the air like a lazily animated 3D model. Then there's nothing to do but wait for the robotomized attendant of the control panel to look away, which takes much longer than she expects. The machine is singularly focused and incredibly dumb, robotically raising and lowering its gaze before tugging on some lever or another in response to where the heroes have gotten to.

    There's a moment, though, where it's looking out over the bridge to ascertain which crusher will crush the most appropriately, and a moving platform with machine gun turrets on top happens to end up right between two spiked metal walls, that Futaba gets her chance. If she disguises her hand as a metal one, the bot is singleminded enough to still not even notice when she does it, and when she pulls the lever--
Petra Soroka     -- The turrets locked onto Ishirou get flattened into sheet metal, giving him just enough space to zip out of the way of the cannon. When Sarracenia starts flinging Silver flechettes around to sever cables and explode bots, the monitorratbot (ratbot with a monitor) aggressively swoops down to get up in her face about it, shouting with Petra's voice.

    "Hey, what the fuck? Excuse me, princess? Why the fuck are *you* flinging that shit around all of a sudden?" Petra's tone is an exact mixture of being aggrieved, contemptuous, and weirdly offended. "Where did you even get that? Don't fucking tell me Dimo got to you."

SUPER HEYALEXA: She was nice to Emmy !
SUPER HEYALEXA: A Felony can be avoided through appropriate connections .

    Petra clicks her tongue. "Tch. It doesn't even really count for you anyways. But it's dumb to just hand it to anyone who asks." Obviously, 'handing it to anyone who asks' is practically word for word the mission statement for, at least, Dimo's branch of diplomacy. Petra knows that. She's just being a brat. "And it's dumb of you to hold onto it."

    Crossing the wall into the city, the platformers are finally free of the constant grinding sound of the buzzsaws. At first, it seems like this might be the end of the road for Heyalexa, when she lumbers up to loom over the wall helplessly, and then there's a spike of alarm where it seems like her intention might be to blow up the wall with another series of missiles instead. Neither of those things happen. A handful of ratbots float up from streetlevel within the city to swarm around SUPER HEYALEXA, and then she's very tenderly antigrav lifted up and set down on the inner side of the wall, metal bridge squealing and crumpling under her weight.

    Going forwards, blasting or jumping through obstacles as appropriate, there's one last major barrier before the bridge closes in on the city center. Peeking over the edges of the bridge, or being thrown over them by a swinging hammer or explosion, gets an immediate response of a torrent of gunfire from the robots swarming the streets below. Here, though, the bridge ends in a sudden cliff, and a few feet above your heads, another bridge continues right where it left off, upside down and studded with antigravity emitters like the ones enabling the ratbots. Running upside down along the speeding conveyor bridge not only means dodging all the obstacles-- inconvenient blocks blocking lanes of travel, now moving at the relative speed of a car with the boost you're given from the conveyor belt, or cascading flamethrower panels, and so on-- but it also means that you're fish in a barrel for all the robots 'above' you to fire at.

    Futaba, meanwhile, stealthily racing alongside the other team by leaping from rooftop to rooftop, has a few objectives she could pursue. Finding some way to disable the antigravity generators, perhaps by searching for some kind of particularly stout ratbot miniboss, would allow the other group to just run on top of the bridge and not worry about being shot. She could play it safe instead, and find some way to disable other defenses from the shadows, or distract the robots to thin their numbers. *Or* she could fight her way to the base of the towering laser cannon, taking the most dangerous route for both herself and the others, but potentially allowing the East Wind to reenter the mission, for either rescue or combat purposes.
Lilian Rook     "My my. That man did choose to introduce himself in style."

    The residual light of a monitor is what breaks up the surrounding shadows. The blue glow Ru Li's fireworks briefly illuminates the silhouette of the high-backed seat and its occupant sat in front of it, painted in ghostly monochrome that fades away over seconds. The crackle-pop from the speakers dims with the light, and the sounds of quiet ratcheting and tinkering in the background fill the silence.

    "It's very hopeful. But then, I think I rather prefer a 'hero' to present as they wish they were, rather than trying to preemptively soften the blow of any potential defeat. It's a refreshing sight."

    he harsh white of the beam tower glares from the monitor next. The little pool of light around it is split with long shadows for its brightness, cast from a slender endtable and the few items arranged upon it. The sound drowns out the ambient noise again. The light catches in the glitter of a familiar hairpin, visible even against the vague shadow wearing it.

    "I see now why you were so excited to show me, Petra. It's absolutely maddening to put so much work into something, so much heart and soul, and have no one even notice. Even if it is something as ridiculous as this."

    he feed flicks to the East Wind landing. Kale's false brush with death. A panning shot over a field of deadly saws; the amalgamate whine causes a glass nearby to hum at its exact resonant frequency. A hovering shot that tracks the collective charge of the Elites. Ru Li's instructions are too distant to hear, but Hibiki's frontline rush, Ishirou's hacking at the rear, Futaba immediately disappearing into the scenery . . .

    The glass is picked up from the table. The humming stops. Fingers that glow in the screen light, nails painted dark, glinting with minute stars from what refracts through the curved glass. "They're doing more or less as I suggested. I'm almost surprised. They should get fairly far like that, as long as they can maintain discipline."

    The glass is raised to lips illuminated by the screen, just before a cutoff of shadow, cast over the eyes, by the arch of some hanging mass in the room. The motion halts at the sight of Heyalexa. A private grin, a flash of teeth, and a short, full-throated laugh, trailing off into a smoky sigh. "I didn't know you had such a sense of whimsy. Perhaps you should be turned loose more often? On pursuits less like this."

    'Hey, what the fuck? Excuse me, princess? Why the fuck are *you* flinging that shit around all of a sudden?'

    A breath of amusement fogs the glass, shortly drained of the last of its contents. The seat rustles quietly with the sound of one leg slowly alternating over the other.

    'Tch. It doesn't even really count for you anyways. But it's dumb to just hand it to anyone who asks. And it's dumb of you to hold onto it.'

    "Dimo doesn't give it to anyone who asks." says Lilian. "She offers these things to people who need to be fixed." The direct address to Petra goes nowhere else. "Think of it as her acknowledgement that she is broken, and is in need of correction."

    "Ah, but speaking of which . . ." A dull thump of something being set down on a table. The sound of an opening book, and the rasp of a lazy page flip. "Are you certain those two won't drag the others down? It'd be a shame if the heroes failed because they took along dead weight out of charity."

    "Well, I'll see how far they get. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised."
Kale Hearthward Kale's free once again.

"I need to be more careful about where I crash land," he says as he gets re-oriented and gets his gear back in order. This is a laudable goal, but people don't typically have a high degree of control over their crash sites.

He gets over to Ru Li, regrouping with him, and happens to glance down. Gold and silver? Is there gold in some components here? It looks almost liquid-like... Or...

And then he glances up a bit more, to where the trickle of blood is coming from.

"Ru Li... you're injured."

Oh, wait, he probably already knows that. "Not... badly, though. It doesn't look that bad." Still, blood has been drawn, and...

Still next to Ru Li, Kale looks up again, at the array of challenges facing them. They haven't even made it to the castle yet...

"... This is our responsibility."

Kale reaches behind himself, and draws something he'd hidden behind his back, under his cape. Somewhere where it was less likely to be damaged by his false crash landing.

"I don't like this country much. I've always thought it was backwards, stuck in the past. Self-interested nobility dragging it down from above, unhinged 'heroes' pulling it down from below. I've always thought it'd be nice if it was just... wiped off the map."

"And here we are."

Kale straps the new equipment on. It's a buckler with a stylistic floral pattern engraved, and rose quarts petals spaced evenly around it.

"Fighting to save it. Kind of funny, isn't it."

He holds it up, just as one of the robots draws a bead on them, and clenches his fist. The petals on the bracer glow, and a translucent forcefield expands around the bracer, providing cover to Kale and Ru Li both as the bullets bounce off of it.

"But that's the job. Fighting to save people you really couldn't care any less about. Let's go be Paladins, shall we, Ru Li Cheng?"
Ru Li Cheng      The river flows in one direction, but floods everywhere.

     Play to your own strengths.

     Ru Li raises his bow. Hibiki has the missiles - she'll handle that. Explosions start bursting around him, smoke blowing across his face, filling his senses. An auditory assault. A visual assault. An aromatic assault. It's hot, in every direction. It's forceful. He's forced to shut his eyes, to shield his face, as his hair blows around him in every direction. He plants his foot against the floor - and then stops. On this bridge he can't simply break out his full strength. He'd destroy it, shatter it, and send himself plummeting to the sawblades.

     So he's forced to make do. He's forced to run what feels to him slowly, like walking, clinging tight to the bow as he springs over the various obstacles. Here, a ratbot. There, a swinging blade.

     They flip upside down.

     Ishirou needs a path cleared. They can trust in Futaba - she can ensure their smooth escape, or their smooth arrival, whichever she decides. He trusts her absolutely. Implicitly.

     Bai Li Ahan's words flow to mind.

     He winces.

     It's enough of a distraction - a minor distraction, but a distraction nonetheless - to stumble him. A failure, a failure that he pays for. He gets hit from above, a shot along his arm, spilling more purified electrum blood.

     No time for pain, though. Ishirou needs help.

     "Follow the arrow! Fire in its wake!"

     Ru Li stops, and crouches upside-down on one knee, and draws back the bow.

     Flood in all directions. Play to your strengths, but use them in new ways.

     He's a mediocre archer. But he's strong, strong beyond any other mediocre archer with a Yinghuan bow.

     He continues to draw it back. The bow begins to strain, gears grinding loudly against each other as he nocks an arrow. Then another arrow. Then another. Three arrows nocked between his fingers, pointed firmly ahead, towards Ishirou's trouble. Towards the barriers. Towards what lies in front of him.

     He starts straining, now, his fingers aching, his muscles groaning. The sound of his body ticking becomes louder than the explosions around him. He trusts his own fate to Kale, trusts his own protection to Kale, and continues.

     The bow groans with the sound of screaming metal. Ru Li grits his teeth and continues to pull back further. He's never put this much strength into anything. He's never heard of a bow handling something like this.

     A first time for everything.

     His face is hot and electrum, coolant pumping furiously. Steam pours from his ears as he overheats. The strain on his muscles blows apart his robe, leaving him shirtless. But still he draws back, with all the force he can muster.

     A Yinghuan bow takes strength and transforms it into velocity. It is an accelerator that can turn even an average man's shot into something approaching a railgun.

     Release.

     Three arrows erupt from the bow. 'Erupt' is the only term appropriate. The bow itself shatters, gears falling everywhere, under the strain of converting a god's power. The sound is more than a cannonshot, more than three cannonshots, more than the earlier shot by far - it's a deafening eruption. It's as if a volcano went off around them.

     The arrows shoot forward with one purpose - clearing the way. They're still only arrows of metal; they won't survive the journey. But the sheer speed of them will clear away as much as Ru Li can manage, paving the way for others to deliver more powerful blows and give Ishirou what he needs to land.

     Ru Li falls to one knee, breathing heavily, exhaling steam with every breath. A little electrum blood trickles down his lip. He wipes it away with his bare arm and looks up at Kale.

     "I could not agree more."
Futaba Nuki Careful. Careful. All Futaba has to do is be patient and study the machine's movements to figure out what lever corresponds to which crushers. Seeing the robotic hand up close even makes it easier to figure out how to make her hand look just right, but having to WAIT for so long to do anything while seeing so much action going on at the platforming bridge...

It's practically torture at this point. A little lever chicanery couldn't hurt that much, could it? Just a quick slap, a little push... Luckily, before the intrusive thoughts can win, Futaba sees an opportunity, and she takes it when the bot looks away! She even lets out a satisfied little noise when she sees the turrets targeting Ishiou getting crushed, although she quickly realizes her mistake in making any sound at all and tries to hide it with a her-voice-sounding "beep".

Her voice has a tinny echo to it, at least, although the tone of her voice is still way off. Her wall-body clanking and folding into itself is mechanical-looking, atl east, before she promptly zips up the walls to get out of there before the bot can (hopefully) notice what even happened.

She's feeling far freer on those rooftops, too, transforming back into her regular ninja-y self and opting to actually leap from place to place, complete with two fingers held in front of her face on one hand while the other hand trails behind her alongside her flapping scarf. A lot of the machines and their importance go right over her head, but she can certainly identify some potential objectives to aim for just by eyeballing what is (or isn't) protecting them.

The laser tower is the most obvious one, but is it the most useful one to go after? It'd certainly be the coolest one to go after, especially if she could bring it down like she figured the East Wind could do with a flashy ramming, but...

Even from here, she can already see and hear the bridge straining under the weight of SUPER HEYALEXA along with all those upside-down robots targeting everyone from above. Judging from the sounds alone and the number of the robots, it'd probably be pretty loud if whatever power or energy or whatever generators keeping those robots attached to those structures suddenly stopped working. Crashingly explosive, even, and probably far more useful to her allies than getting into a sick action sequence for herself. But a sick action sequence...

That wouldn't really help anyone much besides her image, would it? Ru Li and Kale certainly didn't come to her with this plan just to look cool, and messing this up would just end up putting more burdens on them and Lilian if she couldn't trust any of them to get the job done after all this. Her loyalty wins out this time, and Futaba starts looking for...

Big machines? Tough-looking guards? Tougher-looking ratbot guards near big machines? With that seeming to be her best bet for finding the machine she needs to deal with, Futaba zips about once again in her rooftop search, flicking her flaming katana out of her pouch ahead of time specifically for the purpose of diving on top of any larger robots she can find to ram the fiery weapon right into them just to make an explosive impression on the off chance one of the ratbot monitors might be looking at her when she does.
Ishirou -Attention, Unit Heyalexia has held a grudge.-
"Thanks, POD, I realize that!" Ishirou snaps back.  

Between AA fire and missiles being fired by Heyalexia his choices for maneuvers are limited.  Worse, he can detect ozone in the air, it seems that Petra's cannons don't care how close to the ground he is, and that's /bad/.  But at least Heyalexia was slowed down according to plan.  

He fires machine gun pellets to try and shoot down missiles.  This is somewhat effective, as it avoids direct strikes, but the edges of explosions are still impossible to completely dodge.  He veers as close as he can to the sun, attempting to avoid what he can.  Thankfully, two things happen to give him a break.

Futaba's actions shut down the AA fire, which gives Ishirou more room for maneuverability.  He takes advantage of this, flying high and over towards the group.  He does this as Ru Li's arrow flies, and he manages to land near the rest of the group.  Smoking, but intact.  

Ishirou purges the armor, sending it back into his subspace pocket, and runs to meet up with the rest of the group, a little worse for ware.  "Thank you for the save..." he says, nodding to Ru Li and Futaba, the latter of which isn't here right at this second.  
Aidan Proudpick The squirrel barely makes it to the end of the bridge, saved only by his floating cape, as Ru Li's shirt EXPLODES off of him. He falters for only a second, grabbing at the next bridge. Aidan keeps glancing Kale, glancing to make sure they are alright. And then stops. He sees the fighting buckler with... a forcefield. Aidan stares down, mind flashing to anger, the irony of it, stealing his shield, getting his own. A very Kale thing to do. Having a direct line he can yell at Kale is something he has picked up on, thinking at him as loudly as he can. 'That's why you-!' No. Think. Anger fades into appreciation, a grin on his face. 'A shield is a VERY heroic tool. Protecting people. Bet you can't use it as good as me.'

Fire again. Fire in every vein. He takes his own bucklers, just made of steel and wood, each with a heart over the top. He's not going to let THAT stand. Jerk. Fucking Bird. Aidan flings himself forward, a block clipping him on the leg and sending him tumbling end over end. Staggering back up to his feet, Aidan looks forward. It's one trick. And he's been doing this for longer. But he CAN fight with a shield. And he CAN do this.

He leans forward and pirouettes, using his arm like an axe in front of him. He pushes out a wall of wind, slowing down blocks for him before he bashes them aside, making a path for those behind him. He keeps running, jumping out of the way of each block, getting clipped on the shoulder, on the arm, on the leg, only to press forward. Then, wind balls. One in each hand. Pressed together. It's not glory. It's everything he has. Let's see. He can brute force this, he bets.

Aidan holds the ball of swirling compressed wind in front of his mouth and blows into it like a glass maker, shaping it with his hands. It's rough. Not easy. But he's shot arrows of wind before. It's just like that, but spinning.

Then, with a mighty shout, Aidan rushes out all the air in his lungs and lets go. It's crude, but what it lacks in skill, it makes up for in containing all the Lifebreath Aidan is holding. But it DOES make a vaguely drill shape as it joins to blast a clearing around his arrow.
Hibiki Tachibana     Aidan's wind walls really do put in work; no matter how strong or quick Hibiki might be, she ultimately still mostly uses her body and a lot of physical force to solve problems. She can be an immovable wall when it comes to the normal emplacements, but protecting someone from all angles would require some serious work - so Aidan can rest assured that when Hibiki pushes ahead after punching a missile aside and glances to him, nodding to him, she does genuinely think he's doing a good job.

    Sarracenia, too, hasn't let them down yet, and she also gets an acknowledging nod as they finally press onward into the city proper. "That's part of the way down! Keep it up just like that!" If everything was as easy as throwing yourself facefirst into a problem, the princess and Aidan would probably be a lot better off. Assuming they manage to liberate Quicknest without any hitches... maybe it'll be a step to things improving.

    Maybe. They do have to get there first, so she won't linger on it for long. There's a hope that'll be a little easier when SUPER HEYALEXA is halted by the walls, just for the very gracious and careful antigravity lift dashing that hope, as any proper villain should do. "Of course it wouldn't be that easy...!" Well, she can only complain so much when she's still barreling through hurdles and robots and feeling steel crumple under her blows.

    This becomes a lot more complicated when they're forced topsy-turvy on the next bridge however, and effectively stuck in a barrier-laden shooting gallery for the filled streets. Too many 'up there' to even think about destroying. Defense isn't her forte. And no time to slow down or double back with Heyalexa still behind them and gunfire everywhere in the air. Luckily, Ru Li...

    "That's exactly the kind of plan I can get behind...! After all--" The ground that the arrows clear gives Hibiki the time to rear her right arm back, fist clenched and gauntlet rapidly morphing in shape. The familiar half-cylinder shifts out for a far bulkier weight over her forearm, a whole lot more mass than it originally possessed becoming exposed turbines, rocket thrusters extending well past her elbow, a guard folding down over her knuckles.

    And the machinery kicks into rapid gear, torque becoming building power visible as electricity sparking out from the internals. First her Symphogear's skirt thrusters fire up, followed by the boosters on her now-oversized gauntlet-- and then her feet leave the ground in a lunge forward.

    "--The shortest and quickest path is always a straight line!"

    As with everything she does, it's not really that complicated. If there's too many obstacles in their way to count, she'll just help blast a line through them with her fist as the spearhead. The moment she pushed off the upside-down flooring, she was launched forward just as quick as each of Ru Li's arrows, almost too quick to track.
Sarracenia      That ratbot gets in her face. Petra's voice comes through, just as upset as Sarra was hoping when she realized that this new power was very similar to something Petra could do. The rather rude language makes her huff, but she soon smirks at the 'bot. "Oooh? Hehehe. Do you like it? Weeeell...I do not see why I should tell you anything about it!" she says spitefully. "But, thank you for having exactly the reaction I was hoping for~" she adds. Then fires a Silver flechette into the ratbot. She only aims to knock out its engine so that Petra can still see and hear everything as Sarra continues forward. "It is not dumb to hold onto it! It was a gift! Miss Dimo and I plan to have a lovely time together! And other than attacking my allies Emmy was quite nice!" she calls out as she runs.

     'Ms. Tachibana, Mr. Proudpick, Princess - direct all your firepower towards the spot I fire at!'

     Sarra just cannot help herself at that order. "...all my firepower? Hehehe..." She blinks as she realizes that could be considered rude somehow, then coughs. "Erm, right! As you say!"

     Ru Li unleashes his shots, causing Sarracenia to yelp and cover her ears and nearly fall over from the volcanic eruption of power and sound. The shots once again leave her wide-eyed. "Y-you did that with a /normal/ bow?!" she exclaims, once again awed. "I suggest everyone keep to a safe distance~" she says in a sing-song, excited voice. She pulls out a black box with a red button on it.

     She leaps upward onto the grav bridge and hits the button. It may leave her a sitting duck for a few moments, but it also gives her a perfect firing position. The box starts unfolding, quickly becoming a box large enough that a truck could fit inside. A short barrel slides out, then with a hydraulic sound a very large, shark-faced projectile slides into place. Sarra tries to use the cannon for cover, but gets plenty of actual flak for it before she can hammer the side of it.

     The Bonzai Bill fires, flying 'upward' at the swarms of robot attackers. She aims at the thickest collection of them, and the Bonzai Bill closes in quickly. When it hits...

     There is an initial explosion that sends bullet fragments raining down, then a series of steadily growing explosions, each one stronger and wider than the last. Then a momentary pause before one last explosion large enough that it leaves a mushroom cloud.

     Sarra is looking a little shredded after that, but she is also laughing a bit maniacally. "What do you think? Will that help clear the way and make a landing spot?" she calls out before taking off down the grav bridge, throwing bob-ombs as she goes.
Petra Soroka "My my. That man did choose to introduce himself in style."

    "He did, didn't he?" Petra slinking up out of the shadows behind the throne, rather than being the one sipping wine while lounging in it, paints a distorted picture of the truth behind Quicknest. She may be the ruler, but Petra could never imagine herself in the seat, while she, of course, has imagined Lilian in a throne on plenty of occasions. Despite it being 'hers', Petra doesn't lay a finger on the throne, standing attentively beside it to make sure she's seeing what Lilian sees, while almost invisible in her monochrome outfit by the shadow cast by the back of the chair.

    "He's the reason why any of this is happening today, too. If any of them deserve to show off proudly like that, it's him." The laser's illumination throws Petra into darker shadow comparatively, light gleaming off the silver eyeliner around her eyes rather than the sclera themselves. "Not to discredit Kale too much. It took some pushing, but he's putting in work."

"Even if it is something as ridiculous as this."

    Petra giggles in the silence right after the glass stops humming, black gloved fingers held up to her mouth with her eyes on the screen. "Isn't it important that it's a little ridiculous? It's, like... tonesetting. That's what I've learned mostly, from all this, I think. As long as it's a little ridiculous, as long as no one dies, there's... *rules*, to how it plays out. I can set, like, genre expectations, and if I'm strong enough to enforce them, then they'll all play by the conventions too. Mostly."

    "It sort of makes it okay for me to hurt them, I think. And, like, okay for me to actually seriously want to. And they're just fine with it afterwards, because that's just the way the story goes. It makes sense, right? It's not just about the robots."

"Perhaps you should be turned loose more often? On pursuits less like this."

    A bottle of wine is withdrawn from nowhere, dark red glass and liquid glinting black in the screen light as gloved hands refill Lilian's glass, then stowed away in shadowed reflections. There's a short pause where Petra doesn't say anything, after Lilian's sigh, where her fingers knot together where they interlace in front of her. Her voice is subtly hoarse, maybe not even enough that anyone besides Lilian would be able to pick it up.

    "... I don't like being *totally* loose. But i-if you give me a *goal*...." She swallows, lowering herself to her knees besides the throne unconsciously, to kneel at the foot of it and turn towards Lilian. "... Then I-I'll do anything."

"Are you certain those two won't drag the others down? It'd be a shame if the heroes failed because they took along dead weight out of charity."

    Facing away from the screen now, the only parts of Petra lit by its glow are her blonde hair and the golden lily hanging from her neck. Her chin turns up towards Lilian, even as she directs her attention to the book instead.

    "Then that's a lesson too, isn't it? They can plan all they want, but if the average Elite can't pull it off, they either need a stupider plan or better Elites. I don't think it's helpful to hold back on them just to respect their charity cases."

    Fabric scrapes, thinly glossed nails digging into her thighs. "And I don't want to, either."
Petra Soroka     Smashing directly through all the barriers and robots is certainly a way to make progress on the upside-down antigravity bridge. With Ru Li's bow and Sarracenia's Bonzai Bill and Hibiki's sheer experience with being a human projectile, there's nothing that can actually resist their forwards momentum. Progress is made towards the ever closer castle, foot by foot, despite the legions of obstacles in their way.

    It's barely fast enough to outpace Heyalexa, though, who at this point is crushing the bridge close enough for each step to make your chests rattle. And it's like Petra said to Ru Li earlier; this *is* still only the beginning of the final push to take back Quicknest. The girl herself is still waiting inside, as well as whatever else she's got planned, and despite everything she's a threat in her own right, so every drop of blood spent to just get their way into the castle is one they can't spare once inside.

    An alternative option is given to them when the blue panels embedded in the bridge all flicker simultaneously, and gravity threatens to reassert itself. Futaba stands with her katana driven all the way through a ratbot the size of a horse, metal chassis melting into sludge around the blade. A halo of lesser ratbots lay shattered on the ground around it, sliced out of the air while attempting to defend their second largest bretheren. To power and control the string of antigravity panels, Petra needed a remote relay to connect them to her core systems, and where else to store the relay than in a larger ratbot?

    Running along top of the platform bridge is easier. At this point, the occasional attack from a ratbot, or missile from Heyalexa as she trails behind, is hardly even worth consideration, and the castle plaza is within sight soon enough. The bridge ends before the Eggman Empire mosaic on the ground, dropping them off behind the artificial warpgate. It's powered off, of course. There's a ratbot holding a sign in front of it requesting "PLEASE DON'T DAMAGE THE WARPGATE", as if it's some kind of video game interactivity indicator. The doors to the castle are open, and Petra is almost certainly inside-- she has that sense of dramatics that demands her to be.

    Behind the heroes, as they approach the castle doors, the ground shakes with SUPER HEYALEXA's running steps. She *leaps* over the group, threatening to squash them for a moment, before continuing on to smash somewhere into the castle, promising that the mech will be waiting for them ahead, too.
Kale Hearthward "Everyone still okay? We've trailblazed enough of a path, I could probably call in my medic with some supplies..."

Kale makes sure to give Ru Li a glance-over, making sure there aren't any new major injuries (straining too hard is just par for the course) and then...

> 'That's why you-!' 'A shield is a VERY heroic tool. Protecting people. Bet you can't use it as good as me.'

...When the party has a moment to regroup, Kale turns to give Aidan a look.

"It was a gift from Bercilak. A prize for answering a question truthfully."

"And I wasn't even thinking about you at any point. Get over yourself, and pull the log from your eye before you start looking for splinters."

With that, Kale attempts to fully put Aidan from his mind, and focus on the path ahead. The castle awaits.
Ishirou Ishirou runs behind the rest of the group, getting in before the anti-grav kicks over again.  

"I could use the medic, thank you Kale," Ishirou says to Kale, and takes a moment to rest waiting for their medic to get there.  With the gate there it shouldn't be so long or bad for them to get here and back.  

Despite everything, the Ratbots are... adorable in their own way, and he pats the one with the sign that asks them not to hurt the warp gate.    
Ru Li Cheng      With a final exhalation of electrum-coloured steam, Ru Li straightens and stands. If Kale is paying very close attention he may notice that Ru Li did in fact overextend - the shot from above has opened wider from the force he put behind the bowshot.

     "That will not be necessary," he says, "And it will put them in danger."

     As they head towards the castle and the rendezvous point, he flips one of the last arrows from his quiver. With an unhappy grunt he digs it into the wound and pries free the bullet. It falls to the ground. "We will need them on hand to take care of the Quicknest civilians once they have been derobotomized anyhow. Any supplies they have will be necessary for that."

     He tears the last of his destroyed sleeve and wraps it around the wound, binding it tight. Then he draws his blade from its place in his silk belt.

     The Ratbot draws a smile, despite it all. "Do not worry. We will not."

     The god exhales another sharp breath and starts walking. That was only the beginning.
Aidan Proudpick Get over yourself

THAT gets Aidan back down to the ground, his blood cooling down, his arms folding. He doesn't say anything in return, breathing out a sigh. He was actually kind of hoping. A rivalry is what Aidan needs to keep him going. To be better than someone, but someone willing to push back. Aidan puts his back against a wall as they get in closer, trying to ground himself in humility. Baby steps. This is a cross country journey, not a race.

He puts his head back against the wall, smiling over at Sarracenia. "You did great. Working as a team works great, right?"
Futaba Nuki Panting heavily as she wrenches her flaming katana out of that giant ratbot, Futaba trips a bit over her own feet as she tilts her head back to just breathe in all that acrid burning metal. It's rather unpleasant after more than a few seconds, but she soaks up the feel of it as she raises her weapon, flicking it to her side smoothly like she's throwing blood off of it.

... Wait. Do these things actually have blood? Oil, maybe? Metal, definitely with how much of it has already melted around the blade and how much she can smell. Despite the unpleasant stench, it still feels pretty good overall after carving through the giant and so many other ratbots, even if all the-

No. All the burns, bruises, and cuts taken from fending off all those robotic creatures swarming her actually does help her feel much better about all of this. It turned out to be far less simple than expected, and staying separated from everyone else for this long does mean none of them really saw any of this, but she does feel a little calmer now despite all of that.

"Still okay here. Nothing I can't take." Futaba answers Kale as she rejoins the group, raising an arm to flex with an exaggeratedly huge bicep that's just as scuffed up as the rest of her. "Could use a nap or a snack, but I'm good. But Ru Li's..."

She trails off when she sees how messed up his clothes are and all those signs of strain beyond the surface injuries. Futaba inhales deeply as she fights back the more visible concern over his current state, recalling why this mission is even happening in the first place, then (carefully) claps a hand against his back for maximum noise and (relatively) minimum impact.

"You're doing good, Ru Li. Just got the last push to go, and we'll make sure everyone comes outta this happy with the results."

Moments later, however, Futaba certainly doesn't look or sound as calm when she hears, feels, and sees SUPER HEYALEXA bounding past everyone overhead. Indeed, her eyes widen in eager excitement once again, and she shakes Ru Li by the shoulders while pointing deeper into the castle. "Yo! There she is! Oh, this is going to be a good fight, alright...!"

And then she quickly lets go when she realizes that might not be so good for his injuries. She coughs into her hand, then offers a shoulder "Erk..! Sorry. Uh. Stick close once we get into the next fights, alright? I've got ya covered."

She also joins Ishirou in touching the sign-holding ratbot. She actually seems to be studying it up close, too, since it's actually intact enough to do so. Remembering its shape might be useful sometime later.
Sarracenia      Apparently they reached some kind of checkpoint, because SUPER HEYALEXA leaps and flies overhead to land in the castle. Sarra is wide-eyed at the sight. "How can it even do that?" she asks quietly.

     Sarra also notices the bot, but unlike the others she is quite tempted to break the gate. She grips her hammer and looks at it. But, Ru Li says they will not. She sighs softly and lowers her hammer. "Do not forget about these." she says to the others, then starts handing out green mushrooms. She hands them to everyone, but makes sure Ru Li in particular gets one since he seems a bit worse off somehow despite being a god. "Admittedly they are not super strong, but...if they can help."

     She hesitates a moment, but hands one to Ishirou as well after a few moments. She doesn't say anything to him, just gives him the mushroom.

     'You did great. Working as a team works great, right?'

     Sarracenia smiles at that. "Of course it does! Why would it not?" she says, then hands Aidan a mushroom as well.

     Futaba rejoins them, and Sarra hands her a mushroom as well. And Hibiki of course gets a few, though Sarra can't help but smile gently at the thought that Hibiki will just end up hugging it like she did the last few. "Try to actually use it this time, okay?" she says with a bit of a giggle.
Hibiki Tachibana     When they can finally slow down for a moment - both metaphorically and literally, she sort of has to skid to a stop as every thruster dies down and steam is vented - at the plaza, Hibiki is quick to exhale and get her bearings back while she can. "...For the first time, I think I'm really startin' to see why she makes such a good apprentice to Eggman." She stands up straight, and her gauntlet shifts back to normal.

    "Even if it makes her happy, still not sure I can ever be on board with the supervillain thing, though." Just another thing on the list of her complex relations with Petra Soroka. She glances up to watch SUPER HEYALEXA jump over them and proceed on. She frowns.

    After a second passes, she rolls her shoulder and steps closer to Aidan, after his dressing-down from Kale. "The person you gotta fight against most is yourself." She doesn't have to be able to read minds to say that; having seen how he's always compared himself to Kale, it's more something a long time coming. From her anyway. "You gotta work towards being someone you're proud to be, without any of the... the bluster, or the comparisons, or deflections, or anything else filling in for that."

    She adjusts her scarf, with a bit of an awkward tinge to the motion. "...What I'm trying to say is, figure out what your heart wants the most. And just follow that instead of getting caught up in all these messes with other people, or trying to talk yourself up or down. Even if you haven't been good at showing it," her voice has some muted sympathy, because she's been there, "I know you care about Quicknest. We could've been here months ago. Focus on what's most important to you."

    "...After this is over, we'll handle that Watch retraining. So keep it up 'til we get there, alright?"

    Looking somewhat mentally exhausted from trying to be serious and wise, Hibiki actually startles when Sarracenia hands over her usual mushrooms. The effect is also ruined by the fact she stumbles over her response for a second. "I, uh..." She did do that. A moment goes by, then she exhales to reset. "...Thanks. I will. We've still got a long way to go. Stick by Aidan. You guys make a good team when you're focused."

    She seems like she's going to say more, but then her attention goes to the ratbot. She squints, unable to help thinking out loud, like it's some great revelation. "...Isn't it... kinda ridiculous that the 'villain' can tell us what we can and can't wreck...?"

    Maybe, but she sure seems averse to any destroying right this second. Further in they go.