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Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	With the platforming bridge behind them-- what's left of it, at least, after Heyalexa stomped her way through it-- the Elites have nothing barring them entry into the Quicknest castle. The doors hang open up a flight of metal stairs, past the artificial warpgate in the Eggman Empire plaza with its very polite ratbot holding a sign requesting that no one breaks it, leading into the unrecognizable Quicknest royalty throne room. Petra's flags hang on the flanking walls, overwriting any evidence that this castle used to be anything besides hers, and even the throne itself at the end of the opulent hall has been ripped out of its place, nowhere to be seen.     Which means Petra is somewhere else in the castle, either 'up' or 'down', depending on what aesthetic she's angling towards. There aren't even many robots to slow their path through searching the castle, though there are some scattered hostile defenses-- crushers, lasers, the usual. It's strange, actually, that there's any uncertainty on pathing, given how clearly she'd indicated the bridge outside, and that there's even a couple minutes of downtime to 'search', and just as that realization starts to dawn, a SUPER HEYALEXA with her mecha's legs tucked into ball-form crashes through the ceiling.     Her impact is heavier than the floor can handle, and the floor below, and below that, all the way until the meteoric rat mech plummets to the very base of the castle, sending the Elites tumbling down with her. Electric light vanishes and is replaced with flickering flames and stone walls, and Heyalexa slams into the floor of the dungeon with a deafening *clang*-- oddly, despite the room and walls being the classic stone bricks, the very bottom of the dungeon floor is metal. Bricks and shattered wood rain down after her, pelting the Elites into cutscene stunlock as SUPER HEYALEXA unfolds her legs, arms, round rat ears, and missile launchers yet again, straightening up to her full height. Her voice broadcasts from the glass cockpit window in front. SUPER HEYALEXA: Tiny heroes ! Tremble in fear ! SUPER HEYALEXA: Today I deliver your Crushing Defeat Thousand Missile Swarm Heavy Stomping Jump Attacks For Defeating Enemies Tactical Explosives Same Round Delivery !!!     Being pinned inside an enclosed space without straightaways with Heyalexa is even more threatening than having her lumbering along the bridge behind you. There's barely any room to maneuver around the mech that's outside of her reach, and trying to fly up through the holes in the ceiling would mean being exposed to the missiles and who-knows-what-else she can unload from her mech's armaments. Outrunning her through the dingy stone passageways of the castle bowels seems futile when she can crash through the walls and cut you off, unless....
Petra Soroka	Petra hasn't constructed much in the dungeons themselves, but there's *something* she's built down here, and that something apparently demanded cords to support the foundation and scaffolding bars to hold it all together. That is to say, there's slick metal railings extending in either direction past stone arches, and grinding along them would turn even this winding dungeon into a speedy straightaway to escape the worst of Heyalexa's attacks. Glancing up around the column of destruction that Heyalexa punched through the castle, there's glimpses of more of those railings encircling her, visible through gaps between pillars or walls that have crumbled apart. In the other direction, the railings would allow you to get away from Heyalexa and proceed upwards through the castle, chasing Petra down wherever she may be.     But wait! Committing everyone to either track seems risky. Send everyone along the railway to fight SUPER HEYALEXA, and you'll end up lagging behind in putting pressure on Petra, hands completely full with the mecha that she clearly sent after you for the purpose of distracting you. But the other option, sending everyone sliding along the rail away from Heyalexa, means being completely at the virtual home assistant's mercy, without anyone being able to distract or destroy her.     It seems reasonable to split the party in half!
Dimokratia	Rails, twisting every which way and akin to those found on rollercoasters with high-speed tracks constantly clinking in mechanical cycle, line and limn the accessway that Super Heyalexa has lept through, leaving the party arranged to ascend or handle the threat of the Super Heyalexa more tangibly and directly. The steady and jovial whirr of machinery in perfect warm harmony portends exactly the high-speed climb on the signature grind rails of Mobius, Earth (of the year 2006!) and now -- the realm of Quicknest! There's so many of them, both in a grand track around the dungeon, and even through what was supposed to be the floors, and now with Super Heyalexa's descent through them, ruined stonework jamming and complicating some of them dangerously. This is the least of anyone's concerns. Wind blows, rain falls, and grindrail segments require track transitions to get to the end. No, it is what zips through the air in a red comet of light: A flying red metal high velocity object sears through the sky and then stops, above the group, flaring out a bright crimson wave that casts red sparkles down over the big Super Heyalexa. Within, a red metal figure who is round of head with fins and a black faceplate display that extends over the jaw in wings and puffs like soft cheeks. Red dot-ring eyes and a digital white bouncing nose and whiskers are displayed over the plate and the expressive droop of the grey-on-black singledot whisker lines express across the whole display. A trimmed down 'roboticized'-elegantly conceptpiece inspired by Velocity (the local Hamster Speedster Hero), with little radar-dome silverwhite in red metal ears on the metallized goobus -- and a second set, set into the top fin, like the face of a peeking rat over a mass of fluff, form the body. People familiar with Doctor Eggman's work might confuse the arrival for some odd, rounder Metal Sonic. The comparison is not casual. "Hi, felons! I'm Metal Velocity, but you can call me MV or Emmy or the person about to stop you all! Defending Quicknest is my purpose in life, but stopping you all right here -- is how I'll help my friend!" "Welcome to my Enrichment Center. I hope you like grind rails," The jet-limb flying robot hamster declares, pointing at each person in turn by a skeletal claw, before zipping up the rails with a parting - "-because you'll never reach Petra while we're here!" More debris falls down, broken stonework from Heyalexa's passage threatening good rail opportunities, followed by a falling barrage of awkwardly slow missiles. There's no choice -- you'll Have to Grind!
Kale Hearthward	EARLIER: < "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." < "...But that's the job. Fighting to save people you really couldn't care any less about." Kale's own words echo in his mind. Does he really mean that? All this is just a job, and nothing more? ... Everyone seems fine with his take on things. Maybe it's best not to dwell on it too much. NOW <J-IC-Scene> Ru Li Cheng says, "Ms. Tachibana, you take Mr. Proudpick and the Princess and go after Heyalexa - that should split our forces between those skilled at infiltration and those skilled at brute force. Futaba, Mr. Hearthward, and myself, we will take the upper route." "Right!" To the railings! Tabtrack isn't actually equipped for rail grinding, being a precision piece of equipment meant for flying, but - this is a stage gimmick, so he'll have to work it out. The arrival of Metal Velocity sparks confusion at first. "Stale winds - I thought Eggman was staying hands off on this..." Or... not? Kale peers, focusing, his mind reaching out - but there's no time to do more than just a surface scan before there's missiles from behind and debris from above. "Come on!" Kale, mid-rail, clicks his jet boots on, getting a speed boost, and taking a moment to work out how to balance his acceleration so that he's going fast without actually lifting up off the guiding grind rail. "Literally not a felon! Has Soroka even written any laws down for us to break, or is this just some sort of vibe based legal system!?" He speeds up, draws his sword, and does a fancy leap from one grindrail to another, trying to slash at Emmy mid-leap!
Ru Li Cheng	The ripped-out throne gets a probing glance from Ru Li Cheng, and a taste of That, alone, tells him all he needs to know about the aesthetic Petra's going for. She's Up, for certain - so she can watch. Or so she can show off. Who she's showing off to - be it Eggman, Lilian, or someone else - he doesn't know, but he knows that the throne's been moved for someone else to sit in.      "Up," he says, "We split here. Ms. Tachibana, Mr. Proudpick, and the Princess will go keep pressure upon Heyalexa. Mr. Hearthward, you and I shall rendezvous with Futaba and our reinforcements and head up."      With that, Ru Li hops onto the rails and begins grinding them as if he's done it all his life - after all, it's all about balance, and his balance is immaculate if his senses aren't being assaulted. Grinding, flipping, dodging carts and-      -Metal Velocity.      Ru Li, still grinding on the rails, releases his blade. His hand opens very slightly, revealing bits of the metal, the gears, the muscles, the twin sets of blood vessels pumping twin sets of coolant in equal measure. Light runs along the palm of his hand.      His blade hangs in the air alongside him, perfectly in synch, not even bobbing.      "Hello, Emmy," Ru Li says politely around the roaring wind whipping his hair and the shreds of his robe around him, "I am Ru Li Cheng, ninth of nine Ru Cheng gods. I am afraid that I cannot allow you to stand in my way. I have given my word that I will free Quicknest, and I will not break it, no matter what."      She launches missiles. Stonework falls. Ru Li springs off the stonework, kicking it into the barrage of missiles as he flips away to grind.      When he lands, he does so facing Emmy (he doesn't need to look forward to know where he's doing). "I had saved this for Petra, but..."      His hand goes to the last arrow in his quiver - the other special one, with the special warhead. With a single motion he flicks it at Emmy as fast as any (normal) bow could fire.      It explodes into fireworks, filling the area with blue sparks that read in Yinghuan letters YOUR CHALLENGE IS ACCEPTED.      It is also probably loud and unpleasant to be in front of.
Sarracenia	Watching Heyalexa redeploy her arms and legs after the grand smashing entrance is kind of cool, but Sarra is not going to say or even make it appear that she thinks such a thing.      'Ms. Tachibana, you take Mr. Proudpick and the Princess and go after Heyalexa' % %      Sarra hees and grins. "Right!" Fighting a giant robot is the just the sort of heroic duty she likes! Now the hard choice...use the rails or...leap onto Heyalexa and do tiny hero running around on a giant enemy things?      Sarra does like to showboat a bit, so...she naturally chooses the latter! She pulls out a Bullet Bill, but this one is pretty small. And a bit cuter-looking. And a plushie. She gives it a squeeze, and in an explosion of white smoke she is encased in a car-sized Bullet Bill which fires up a rocket engine and launches at Heyalexa, aimed squarely at the robot's big head.      It impacts hard before exploding, and Sarra comes spiraling upward out of the explosion, then maneuvers into a somersault with her hammer held out before aiming the head downward and twirling around the haft as she falls, just for extra style points.      With a resounding 'CLANG' it hits metal, causing a shockwave and perhaps even leaving a crater in the bot! "And -I- had to deliver Bullet Bill Rocket Power Up With Explosive Payload Leading Into Comet Dive! I hope you do not mind!" she says, standing atop Heyalexa which is surely a very good idea.      And while she is there, she waves to Emmy. "Hello Emmy! It is good to see you again! ...although it would be much better if you were not trying to stop my allies again. Are you sure you are defending Quicknest? This is more like oppressing Quicknest, you know?"
Futaba Nuki	Futaba's not in an immediate hurry to move deeper into the castle, taking a breather and enjoying the scenery a bit. In this case, though, her manner of enjoyment mostly comes from sprinting beneath those crushers, sliding and side-flipping around lasers, and generally engaging in all sorts of little physical stunts that she didn't get to enjoy on the platforming bridge last time. Further inside, she doesn't have much context for what Quicknest Castle previously looked like, but the hanging flags indicating that this castle does in fact belong to Petra do get her to whistle lightly while stroking her mask-covered chin in deep thought. "She's got the layout down pat, alright... Hmm. But which way should we go from here? Up or down?" Pursing her lips as she looks from the ceiling to the floor, it doesn't take more than a few seconds before Futaba fixes her gaze upwards. Even with the relative lack of sign-posting on which way to go to find Petra, she lets out a confident noise before turning to her companions and nodding in firm agreement with Ru Li. "If she's inviting us here for a big fight, it's gotta be further up. Some kinda cool rooftop battle, or a-" SUPER HEYALEXA returns, and so does that fiery fighting spirit Futaba had shown since coming here. "There she is! Wait, a Thousand Missile Swarm? With that kind of budget..." She scrunches her face up just a bit, almost like she's having second thoughts about... Being here? No. About NOT fighting HEYALEXA. The ground falling out from under her does get her head right back on track, though, leaping from falling chunk to wall to falling chunks again to platform her way down before landing in that classic three-point stance just to make sure she does that at least once today. Seeing those rails leading further up does take some of that sting away, too, and seeing a speedy metallic thing blasting red light all over the place puts that feeling of FOMO far out of Futaba's mind easily enough. She even lets out an excited "ooooh" when the metal figure finally comes close enough for her to make out the shape properly, then the generalize motif, and finally the details that have the ninja inhaling slowly in that approvingly tense sort of way. "... Oh, that's good. That's real good. Hi, MV!" Futaba calls out in greeting, clearing her throat once before lifting her arm and lowering it quickly, holding two fingers up in front of her face like a ninja would while standing as statue-straight as she can to look fittingly tall and imposing (from the ground) (and not being THAT much taller than average). "My name is Futaba, princess of the tanuki, and the ninja about to stop your master's pla-" She starts monologuing, then stops. Even with the mask covering her mouth, there's the slightest bit of noticeable softening in her eyes. "... Your friend's plans from harming any more of the citizens of Quicknest! Stop us if you can!" With a boastful kiai, Futaba's hands start moving together rapidly as she sprints for one of the rails, reshaping the bottoms of her sneakers for more suitable grind-rail-movement (somehow) to begin her ascent towards MV and Petra further above. The falling debris forces Futaba to leap from one section to the next, and the missiles... She can't NOT try and bounce off a missile at least once, especially at that speed. "I think you forgot this one!" Futaba calls out while trying to sound aggressive instead of clearly enjoying this, flipping forward so she can snap her hands out to catch a missile in passing and slingshot it towards MV!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	I shalt enjoin thee in batail at thy willinesse.     Yet Bercilak hadn't shown up, at first. Had he forgotten?     Ash and soot are kicked up from the scores of burnt and smoldering trees leading up to the massive laser turret. A portion of the flames engulfing the forest dances like seaweed under a strong current. A low, piercing hiss rises over the din of the buzzsaw-moat.     He hadn't forgotten.     His armor, his machine, his axe, planted in a spot at the rear of the running board like a battle standard of old--all of it is scorched and covered in soot. Yet, as he races over the buzzsaws, green encroaches upon the fields of black, as surely as the blazing forest from which he emerges will one day regrow.     The nose of the thickly-plated, defanged war machine shatters and splinters the remains of busted-up obstacles, and the roar of the bike's pulse detonation engine grows steadily louder until it can be felt in the chest.     Bercilak barrels into the plaza just after the others have had their time to search--and over the blam-blam-blam-blam of his idling bike, everyone has a chance to hear his excited inhalation, no doubt in preparation for one of his characteristically brusque introductions. Maybe even a 'bicche,' really--but it is exhaled instead in an explosive burst of *delighted* laughter when Heyalexa crashes through the ceiling and sends everyone plummeting down--he guns the engine and descends just to get a better look at the giant assistant. Even a direct hit on his bucket helm from a large piece of rubble isn't enough to dampen his joy at the welcome Petra has prepared. I hope you like grind rails, because you'll never reach Petra while we're here!     Bercilak presses a finger to the side of his helmet, as his cloak of rye grass and hyacinths regrows and extinguishes itself. [Calling Phreak...]     "Phreak! Yeve me thy hoverboard." "Are you braindead? Fuck you." [Call Ended (0:07)]     Bercilak chortles and... dismisses his bike (?), catching his falling axe as the behemoth vehicle disappears in a wave of blue light. He shoulders the axe with his left arm, giving the right a few warmup rotations, then switching hands and doing the same before... taking a running start, swinging the axe overhead and hurling it (dangerously over Kale, Ru Li and Futaba's heads) at MV.      Afterwards, it clatters on the rails and threatens to fall before the seven-and-a-half-foot-tall mountain of a man does the unthinkable and, moving frighteningly quick for his size and considerable armor, leaps forward. His feet find placement, one on the cheek of the axe and the other on the rail, while microthrusters at the back of his armor fire up and push him forward on blue trails of chemical fire. A stomp flips the axe up into his waiting grip just in time for him to smash a falling piece of rubble with a thrust of the weapon's blunt eye!
Aidan Proudpick	PREVIOUSLY, ON PETRA UNDERGROUND "The person you gotta fight against most is yourself." He's thoughtful as Kale walks off, working something around in his head until he has it, and answers Hibiki. "When I was learning to use the Aegis, the other rebels wanted me to learn how to use it like a normal weapon. So I had a trainer. I'd have to fight her and a couple others every day. Sparring, yaknow." He taps the buckler as indication, "Everyone fights a little different. They got their own style, their own tricks, their own weaknesses, their own weapons. And you gotta learn to beat them. Or if you keep beating them, they gotta learn to beat you." Aidan looks down at his buckler wistfully as he talks, "I used to go to bed at night, excited, thinking about what to do about this hedgehog girl, Lily, with a staff who would call me a bastard because she knew it would make me angry, or thinking about wind magic tricks I've seen other people do and how to beat them. I used to tease this ferret, Daffodil, every time until they finally swapped hands to stab past my shield. THAT was a great day," he nods, finally turning it into a grin. "It's not about comparisons. It's about... I don't know. Jumping over a hurdle you couldn't jump over before. And finding a new one." A bit of excitement creeps into his voice, "I wonder if Perry Talon is okay. I owe him a fight." "Figure out what your heart wants the most." "A beautiful and intelligent woman had to tell me not to try and be what I'm not. It'll take a long time to earn trust back, but, I know what my heart wants. And I WILL get it. Thanks for putting a little bit of faith in me." He bites into his mushroom, fur around his scars regrowing in, the bruises from the cubes lightening. ONE MINUTE BEFORE IMPACT Aidan hangs back, waiting for a moment when almost everyone is out of the room. He has been glancing. The Ratbot floating above it. Fingers pushing in the last of the mushroom, he looks at everyone else walking around it. He HATES playing by Petra's rules. But how many levels of chess can Petra play at once. Is the rat reverse psychology or not? Pragmatism? Compassion? A pirouette, a swing, and Aidan slams one of his bucklers into something important on the Warpgate. Then a follow up with the other hand. Two more times, targeting the angle and delicate structures to make up for his lack of raw muscle power. He does smile at the ratbot. "Sorry. Yer just doing your job. You can say it was my fault." HEYALEXA USES PILEDRIVER "Fuck, fuck, Void, FUCK!" Aidan falls. Slowly. Very slowly. The cape from Sarracenia is just sort of fluttering behind him, slowing his fall down. It actually takes him painfully long to get down to the first set of rails to grind. Aidan's tail takes over, his hind brain moving it unconsciouisly to get his balance immediately set. He grins finally over at Sarracenia, "Hey, I get to count as Brute Force!" Yes, Aidan knows that's not the point, let him have this. He swings around on the rails, following it behind HeyAlexa to smash at one of the rocket launchers with his shield to take it out early!
Hibiki Tachibana	Thanks for putting a little bit of faith in me.     "It's what I do," Hibiki replies to Aidan, the attempt at sounding detached not really landing at all. "I'll be countin' on you to not make it misplaced."     ...     With the great bridge into Quicknest conquered through the power of teamwork and this violence we found, Hibiki is all ready to keep pressing in towards the climactic final battle she's almost sure Petra has had waiting for several months now. She is not, of course, actually that surprised to see the throne room has had the 'throne' taken out of it - if Petra was going to be dramatically seated in anything when they found her, it'd be like... in a flying weapon or something.     And she's as she's about to say as much, SUPER HEYALEXA's letterboxed cutscene entrance sends them on a trip down to the depths of the castle, and Hibiki is thankfully rated for handling extreme falls, using various bits of falling debris to slow herself down until she drops down hard with a heavy and resounding clang as she comes down boots-first.     ...Why do the dungeons have metallic floors? Well, that's not important.     "...Now it's double trouble, huh?" Hibiki rises back up to a stand, frowning up at not only SUPER HEYALEXA but Metal Velocity joining the fray. That adds up with Aidan's report. But with Ru Li's plan for splitting their team in halves, there's nothing to be confused about, leading to her punching a fist into an open palm. "Alright. Suits me perfectly. Let's go, you two!"     Fighting a midboss is, in fact, an ideal use of the Symphogear user's skillset - and she's plenty happy to get a running start onto the nearest grindrail, her own metal leg armoring meaning there's no shortage of sparks flying as she swerves left and right, occasionally doing little hops to switch up footing and learn to get her balance on the sleek stage gimmick while picking up speed.     Once she thinks she's gotten the hang of it, she gives a decisive nod to herself, turning her attention to Heyalexa. "Not a chance. I've had way more crushing defeats than you could ever give me...!" You shouldn't say that, Hibiki.     Regardless of that though, now that she's obtained the power of circling the boss at high speeds, she begins taking advantage of the very same crumbling stone and wreckage that came with SUPER HEYALEXA's crashing entry, slamming her fists into falling debris to use them as projectiles to batter the giant rat mech! Occasionally, she only keeps one foot on the rail, so she can kick them instead.     Partway through this, she notices exactly where Sarracenia is. "Oi, I don't think you want to be right on top of her--"
Dimokratia	"Hi Princess!" Emmy has time for, cheery-bright. "You've really *fallen* in with some felons this time!" Emmy laughs, thinking it all a grand joke despite her dire comments to everyone else. "Just wait there, okay? I just have to stop all your friends -- real quick!" And off again she shoots, at times more zooming red blur and spin than hamsteroid shape. Metal Velocity, information scans pull, is not made up of the classic Eggman materials despite being very much in the style of. Still, when you have a glowing speedster creature vexing the countryside and demolishing the good works of girls who just want to build something (out of the robotomized populace of a resisting nation), there are forms and arts and they have been warmly observed here: Hardened carbon-skeletal limbs with sharp metal and ceramic composite claws, advanced sensor packages, incredible mechanical strength and inbuilt flight capacity, and the captured energy of a hypervelocitous speed force. Hence the name! Hence the title and role, and hence the swooping automaton's dangerous buzzsaw-spindash grinds at high speed down certain rails. But the second defender isn't made by Eggman, and is almost certainly not made by Petra. It'd be a rat otherwise, wouldn't it be? And this one *wears* a ratbot like a little super robot pilot in headfin with a little window that lets the ratbot 'see out', above the screen and eyes. So Kale reaches out his mind and touches the red point of hot light that his adept maneuvering can keep up with. A crackle of something, a tuning fizz, and his sense zeroes in on the wave-frequency of the hamsteroid's feeling. They clash, blade met by a sparking, force-trembling skeletal palm and a thin crackle of cardinal red. Frictive air burns between wind and whipping-red. Red ring-optics almost narrow. Kale can see past those eyes, into that body, and it is like staring at the sun forged into a retina-searing cube rather than a sphere. Something with edges, rather than something round. And he hears voices, hundreds of voices relayed like falling raindrops, and the 'cloud', above that, where billions more raindrops just like the ones that crash with whole conversations against them, past the rails, in the synapse surrounding of Emmy. The searing light is her, and Kale can taste in the singing of his sinuses an eagerness and restraint both. MV is playing a game with her whole young-star soul white hot. Her big sisters are above, hovering, observing from orbit. They sent her this way, to soften and play games. To render-safe. To defend.
Dimokratia	The communicative clash across the rails is cut short when the Fun-To-Grab Ready For Rails Fly By Wire Missiles 100ct Great Value Lot-Pack High Explosive Many Payloads Available supplied to the dungeon area are flung directly into the clash -- mostly at Emmy! Trying to turn and block and also lock one arm and eyes on Kale proves to be too much, exactly the kind of opportune moment to pile on some ranged attacks while the single speedy flier is hanging in easily-interacted locations. Exploded, and then slashed, Metal Velocity has to break off from Kale before capitalizing, and taking the force of his parting slash anyway as it is impacted by an arcing high Belmont-Ass Axe from Bercilak. Great progress can be made right there. . . Ru Li takes it all as a challenge, firing an arcing firework shot that detonates into brilliant shooting sparkles and loud impact banging: with a whole firework display. There's something, though, that makes this very much not a game for Metal Velocity: "This isn't about having fun!" Steams the sweetly frustrated Velocity. "This is about *stopping* you. Or else you wouldn't have broken the warpgate!" "So now I'll save everyone." An energy surge occurs in MV while the gang climbs the rails, and from the sky above hiiigh in the air the shiny silver wing of something far above shines. Columns of light, bright red focusing to brilliant-saturated white, begin to fall through the dungeon rails, taking up one or even two paths of grinding (there is always only ever three maximum) and particularly targeted and walked towards Kale and Futaba, but still threatening Ru Li and Bercilak. Connection with the beams doesn't cause damage so much as an incredible sapping of motive will, an assault against the very will to climb. Shouldn't they just stop? - they'll have to answer why not if they get hit. Ru Li and Bercilak, both for some reason, are selected for more specific deconstruction, a diving approach on the former turning into a burning spindash down that ends in an outstretched-footed divekick to send the Yinghua god tumbling down into the pits of GAME OVER (or, at least, frustratingly lower tiers of rails), and for the latter the arcing-over of that sea of stored energy that cascades in high-low bar waves of red speedforce that must be addressed. Bercilak gets the worst, but... The traps are getting worse!
Ru Li Cheng	"-Who broke the Warp Gate?!"      <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "I did. I made that choice."      "We could have used it afterwards! Or left it in place to play by her rules or work around them! I did not give you any orders to-"      It's all Ru Li has time to say before the much faster Metal Velocity is on him. A solid dive-kick gets right in his way - and while he might be able to balance pretty well on these rails, he's in no way used to moving on them in a competitve manner, especially not when also dodging laserbeams. He takes the hit directly in the chest and *plummets*.      In fact, he almost misses the rail entirely. It's only quick thinking and his orbiting sword that save him - in the instant before he misses his grip he hooks the sword over the rail, grabs onto the blade with one hand (he'll live, it's just a sword) and the hilt with the other. Now instead of grinding from the top he's in the much more precarious position of dangling from the bottom - probably close to a lot of spikes and other traps. The rails grind against his sword as he accelerates.      "Blast," he mutters.      His position here is *tenuous* at best. If he lets go, he's in trouble. If he drops, he's in trouble. If he tries to swing around, he risks falling. What's he got to work with right now?      Literally nothing except his clothes.      -well, slippers are clothes.      And they are going *very* fast, right now.      And he is *very* strong.      On the next curve, Ru Li makes his move. His foot whirls around at Metal Velocity with all his might - sending his slipper flying at an enormous speed. It's just a martial arts slipper - but it's a slipper with a hard sole propelled by divine strength and Action Stage Momentum.
Kale Hearthward	Kale takes a look... ... There are things bigger than him, in this multiverse. Bigger in the sense not of size (though they are generally literally larger than him), but of... this one person, with one mind and one life, walking along the earth. He's encountered these bigger things before It still makes him pause when he does. Especially now, that he can see them with his own two eyes. Or - not literally his eyes, but... something else. (Kale suddenly realizes why they call it a 'third eye', a phrase he heretofore hadn't examined too closely.) He doesn't have long to examine this connection, or to ponder what it all means - not least because the connection doesn't last long, though also not most because of the columns of light chasing after him. Well, okay, not 'not most'. Actually mostly because of the orbital attacks forcing him to jump from rail lane to rail lane, while avoiding everything else in the room. >"This isn't about having fun! This is about *stopping* you. Or else you wouldn't have broken the warpgate!" <J-IC-Scene> Aidan Proudpick says, "I did. I made that choice." Kale takes a breath. He has to hope that the impression he got from that brief connection is right. And that his intuition on this is right as well. And that Metal Velocity doesn't just turn and full-force blast him in response to what he's about to say. "Emmy!" he calls forwards and upwards at her. "I invited Aidan, and he's the one who did this. It's my responsibility." "Don't take it out on the others, please. They're just - we're all just here to play, right? To play and to grow?" He makes another run at her - trying to leap and get in close for an extended QTE clash sequence. Something that'll draw her attention towards him and away from the others, at least momentarily.
Petra Soroka	"Defending Quicknest is my purpose in life, but stopping you all right here -- is how I'll help my friend!" SUPER HEYALEXA: That ' s right ! Together with my best friend and business partner in Stopping You we will , stop you !!     It's hard to read happiness out of a smooth synthesized text to speech voice, even once granted more autonomy by whatever nonsense Petra crammed into Heyalexa's systems to make her function as a villainous secretary/midboss/part-time bartender. Especially because there's not *really* any way for the smart device to process it in a recognizable way, even though she certainly sounds like she's affectionate towards MV. Whatever budding consciousness is contained in her, though, Kale doesn't detect it over the actual presence of the *Quicknest* mind still hidden somewhere inside the mech, powering Heyalexa's body. "Literally not a felon! Has Soroka even written any laws down for us to break, or is this just some sort of vibe based legal system!?" SUPER HEYALEXA: You are creating , supply chain holdups ! SUPER HEYALEXA: And breaking things ! SUPER HEYALEXA: A Felony is incurred when causing damage to quarterly profits !!     Petra has not written any laws. She doesn't even know what the 'quarterly profits' are, because she leaves all of that up to her secretary. Maybe the real final boss is Amazon!     Racing along the grind rails, SUPER HEYALEXA's massive form is only visible in glimpses when the rails bank to swerve through the halls, briefly bringing Aidan and Hibiki adjacent to the central open area. The mech is tall enough that it stands up past multiple floors in the cross-section of the castle, with just her legs visible to the dungeon level. This is the part of the railgrind where you're out of melee range!!     The castle walls shake with Heyalexa's movement, the damaged foundation causing a constant rumble of debris crumbling from the ceiling, crashing down onto the rails. Dodging those stage hazards at high speeds is hard enough, but when there's windows to see Heyalexa herself, dodging has to be interwoven with trading attacks with the mech, as she blasts missiles from her back and spreading volleys of explosive orbs from the cannon on the tail of the rat mech. The explosive orbs aren't parryable, and trying to smack them leads them to blow up right in your face, but Aidan can deflect the missiles with properly timed swipes of his shield. They go careening back towards Heyalexa, exploding against the heavily armored parts of her chassis-- but maybe there's some way to aim them more intentionally.     Hibiki finds much of the same, when taking advantage of the debris as improvised projectiles. Stone bricks crumble down around her and then get launched at Heyalexa like bullets, exploding against her armor with only dents and scrapes in the metal. Still, the mech rumbles onwards. Is this virtual home assistant unbeatable....??
Petra Soroka	"Not a chance. I've had way more crushing defeats than you could ever give me...!" SUPER HEYALEXA: You have a probable likelihood of being a Return Customer for Getting Your Ass Kicked Loser Style ! SUPER HEYALEXA: Subscribe and save Ten Percent of your health bar on repeat deliveries !     Pondering on Heyalexa's use of the term health bar and what that implies about Petra's own intentions in designing her AI is cut short when the mech leaps up and stomps as hard as it can on the dungeon floor. Everyone currently touching their grind rail, rather than mid-jump above it, gets briefly stunned from the vibration rattling through them, making them a perfect target for shaken-loose debris to smack them in the head!     As the rails arc upwards, transitioning out of the gloomy dungeon and into the warm-lit kitchens and servant sleeping quarters of a typically inhabited castle, Petra's contraptions start to make more of an environmental appearance. Half-built robots in mid-repair take experimental weapons she was tinkering with out of her kitchen workshops, blasting weird cones of vacuum force that slow down their skating, or persistent beams of energy that force Aidan and Hibiki to leap over them while zooming past. But meanwhile, the third member of their entourage-- "And -I- had to deliver Bullet Bill Rocket Power Up With Explosive Payload Leading Into Comet Dive! I hope you do not mind!"     CLANG. SUPER HEYALEXA: I am minding it ! SUPER HEYALEXA:  Ouch !!!     The explosion from the Bullet Bill clears around from SUPER HEYALEXA's head, with a big scorch mark right where she impacted. The mech totters furiously, whirling around in a circle to try to shake Sarracenia off of its head, since its tiny little rat arms can't reach far enough to strike her directly. It looks for a moment like the choice to ignore the stage gimmick and leap right onto the robot was perfect-- and right there! The glass cockpit window with the cylindrical gadget inside is probably the most vulnerable part of the mech, and Sarracenia's in the perfect position to run over and smash her hammer right through-- until she comes face to face with the missile launchers jutting up out of her shoulder panels. SUPER HEYALEXA: Get off ! Get off get off get off get off !!! SUPER HEYALEXA: I will arrest you into pieces , for sequence breaking !     A full volley of explosives is launched directly at her, exploding only feet from the launcher itself. If this ends up damaging the mech, or even disabling the launcher, that's a small price for Heyalexa to pay for the shockwave blasting Sarracenia back and punching a new hole in the kitchen walls, to create a new window for the others to see the mech and shoot back.
Futaba Nuki	As Futaba lands back on the rails with one foot going forward and the other back to keep her sliding forward, she manages to see what Bercilak is doing with his axe to move along. She lets out an awed noise as she studies his moves for a few moments, then flips herself around to actually face forward once she hears Metal Velocity's reasons for stopping everyone here. "... Eh? But we didn't break the... The warpgate with the sign, right?" She directs a confused look over to Ru Li, Kale, and Bercilak, shrugging once and checking if they have the same reaction before turning back to MV. Confusion aside, maybe it's better this way. Whoever this is sees Petra as a friend, so Futaba's not going to dwell on a minor detail with something more important at stake. Lowering her stance as she watches those oncoming beams, Futaba times her next move to spring off one rail towards another, trying to weave between a tightly timed pair of columns by being right in between the rails as they come rushing by. Landing deftly on the rail to the side, Futaba regains her footing just in time for one of those light columns to envelope her entirely, forcing her to slow down and sapping her desire to continue considerably. Really, why IS she here? It's not like she has anything riding on this, and she doesn't have any skin in this. The only reason Futaba's here is because... ... Right. She's here because Ru Li asked her to help, to prove that the Multiverse had capable people that everything wouldn't need to rest on a select few. She's here because Petra sounded like she wanted opposition to come here, to make her efforts in taking this region and learning from the greats truly worthwhile. She gave her word that she would be here, and backing down just because of a pillar of light making her think about this would be completely unacceptable! Still very tempting without any personal investment in this place specifically, but even more unacceptable. Futaba's got some lost ground to catch up on after taking that light pillar to the everything directly, though, and she discards just a bit of her ninja-aesthetic to sprint less like a ninja and more like an animal on all fours, lunging forward with her legs while using her hands to pull and throw herself forward. "Do whatever you can to stop us, MV, and we'll do everything we can to stop Petra, too. No holding back, no excuses, and no hard feelings!" As she starts catching up with Bercilak, Kale, and Ru Li, Futaba does another front flip while her tail starts to expand and flatten out. As she comes down from that flip, her tail transforms into a platform in its own right, just long enough to stretch and grind across two of the rails to provide additional footing even with the tanuki herself standing on it. Her hands come back to her front with her katana held in an under-hand grip, more hand seals are performed, and the sword itself starts to transform. It reshapes into a boxy drone-like thing, and a pair of cannons emerge from each side of the sword-turned-POD to start firing off alternating volleys of lasers at Metal Velocity to try and pin the high-speed boss down!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	This isn't about having fun! "Not sporte *alon,*" Bercilak says in counter, making a leap too agile for a man his size and weight. He manages to avoid the first beam of red, but--surprisingly nimble though he may be, he's not in Phreak's league. And so... Shouldn't they just stop?     He flags, caught transitioning from the far right rail to the other. Shouldn't he? The Green Knight's balance is maintained, but his speed falters, visible as a distinct drop in the frequency of corrections from those microthrusters on his armor.     *Why* shouldn't he?     Because the Green Knight keeps his promises. Because he meant what he said, more than just the promise he made. Because underneath the sophomoric humor and brusque presentation, there is someone who cares very deeply about the agency of individual people.     Just as he disappears behind a curving corner, Bercilak rockets forward again, low-profiling to reduce the drag on his considerable bulk.     He drops to his knees, his armor plating screeching as it strikes sparks up, the knight just barely managing to squeeze under it. Flora is cut loose from his living cape as he catches up to Ru Li--still a little ways behind him, but the Green Knight is a big enough guy that his weapon's reach is sufficient to extend to Ru Li as a stepladder back up to the rail proper, from his current precarious position.     Unfortunately for Bercilak, the next of those unleashed bits of force is coming low. After the assist, there's no way around it. He leaps, but is caught on the legs, sending him into a wild midair sprawl. His microthrusters feather and hiss, and his body abruptly tugs to one side, slamming him deliberately into the wall. A moment later, the cheek of his axe is slammed into the same wall, hard enough not only to leave a dented impression, but to fling Bercilak back onto the track.     He bellows a war cry, ducking under a third wave and retaliating with his oppressively long reach, his grip on the axe choked up all the way to the butt of the haft as he swings it one-handed. "I lik thy spirit--ak dispreise mine *not!*"
Petra Soroka	"Or else you wouldn't have broken the warpgate!"     Heyalexa can't see Emmy anymore, racing through the castle as she now is, but Heyalexa's semi-stationary arena-hazard boss text is audible to everyone so that banter can be kept up despite the explosions and shaking. At that line from Emmy, though, Heyalexa pauses for a moment and whips the mechanical rat tail through the crumbling dungeon floors in annoyance. SUPER HEYALEXA: They broke it ? SUPER HEYALEXA: What The Fuck ?? I didn ' t see that ! SUPER HEYALEXA: So now they are Super Extra Definitely Felons !!! "I invited Aidan, and he's the one who did this. It's my responsibility." SUPER HEYALEXA: I am internalizing this information to update my profiles of Both of you ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I ' m internalizing ! Please Wait ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I ' m internalizing ! Please Wait ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I ' m internalizing ! Please Wait ! SUPER HEYALEXA: Updated Mental Profile complete ! I will now hurt you with Bombs and Rocks ! "They're just - we're all just here to play, right? To play and to grow?" SUPER HEYALEXA: I am here , to maximize profits . SUPER HEYALEXA: And to help my Expanded Family Plan of Emmy and Petra ! SUPER HEYALEXA: And , because this is my home !!
Sarracenia	ONE MINUTE BEFORE IMPACT      Sarra did not break the warpgate, though she was just about to when Ru Li patted the ratbot and said they would not. So, when Aidan walks up and shield bashes it into disfunction, she raises an eyebrow at him. She can't help a slight smirk, but then looks toward the others to see if anyone else noticed. She gets close to him as they head inside. "...that was rather reckless, even for you...or bold. Or perhaps both. I should have done it, too. Maybe I am getting too soft. But, if they notice..." she says, just barely above a whisper.      NOW      'Hey, I get to count as Brute Force!'      Sarra giggles. "Force perhaps, but you are hardly a brute!" she says. Hibiki calls out, and Sarra just waves. "Do not hold back on my account!" She might get battered. Or, she might leap up and use her hammer to smash downward those shots from Hibiki that get close enough to Sarra right into that glass cockpit.      Then, she realizes those missile launchers are aimed right at her. "...oooh....shiitakes..." The princess brings her hammer up in front of herself.      KABOOM!      Sarracenia disappears in the explosion and a smoldering something is shot backward from the blast, trailing smoke as it sails through the air. The kitchen wall gets a Sarra-sized hole smashed through it, and Sarra bounces off one of the rails, clotheslined by another, then finally stops when one last rail catches her in the midsection. She manages to weakly hang on to that rail. Her hammer almost hits her in the head hitting the same rail, but catches and ends up twirling around that rail several times before coming to a rest hanging there. "...o-ow..." It is good that Sarra landed in another room, because recovering after that hit is going to take a moment.      Teeth clenched against the pain, Sarra grips her hammer and lets go of the rail so she can use her hammer like some sort of zipline rider. She heads back toward the Heyalexa room looking a bit like Mary Poppins with her pose while her hammer leaves sparks on the rail as it slides. "Guess you really did mind, huh?" Sarra calls out as she gets back. "But, I am not in pieces yet! You'll have to do that at least one more time!"
Aidan Proudpick	There's a second of hesitation from Aidan. But only a second. He admits to the break on the radio. He'd rather lose respect for doing something he actually thought about and thought through, rather than lie or keep quiet about it. It's not worth his own self-respect. 'Stop trying to impress people who hate you.' Madeleine had said. A lift of the hands, a rush of air, and another roof of wind suddenly appears above him. They are immobile, for every few moments, he has to create another one over him and Hibiki ever few feet. Debris hits the swirling white wind and slows to a crawl as it passes through. Granted, it's still falling STRAIGHT DOWN and Mr. Isaac Newton will tell you that it's gonna hurt like a sonnuvabitch as soon as they get out of the wall. Aidan leaps to another rail, trying to think. This is a blacksmith puzzle- His thinking is interrupted as a BEAM OF ENERGY nearly slices Aidan in two, forcing him to bend backwards at the waist and grab his tail out of the way. Red hot plasma singes the tip of Aidan's cute little twitchy squirrel nose. And then a rock hits him in the gut. All of the wind rushes out of him as he is knocked off the rail, falling to grab the one below. Aidan scrambles on the greased rail, trying to scrabble his feet back onto it. He spins a few times, losing his grip, before he just drops to the one below him. Too far below. His eye catches Sarracenia. A glass window. Yes! He just needs to get back up there. He spins in place, pushing a rush of air out behind him, driving him up the rail at a faster pace. He flicks his shield out as the rubble falls, now trying to flick rubble out into the various half done Petra gadgets.
Hibiki Tachibana	-Who broke the Warp Gate?!     I did. I made that choice.     Huh. She only /thought/ about why they should respect just being asked nicely when they're here to end Quicknest's occupation, but she didn't think anyone would actually do it.     As the other group ascends and fights their own battle, Hibiki calls back over the sounds of sparks flying from metal, "I didn't tell him to!" Which for a moment sounds like she's just selfishly covering her own ass, but she's actually just pausing to yell as she belts another rock towards Heyalexa. "But I didn't tell him /not/ to, either! If it's a problem, you can throw the blame at me! I mean, if we're here to stop her, it shouldn't matter if it--weh!?"     Now Hibiki is the one getting cut off, as the giant ratbot midboss assistant secretary briefly interrupts their railgrinding with her stage-shaking stomp, and she nearly loses her footing as she hastily crosses her arms up to absorb the impact from descending debris. By the time she lowers them back down, it's already time for a scenery transition!?     "Then you'll have to try harder than this to kick it...!" Hibiki leaps over one laser obstacle before coming back down with a wobbling swerve to regain her balance, then leans back to the point of nearly falling to get under another. But then she rides right into a crossfire of vacuuming hurdles, which rapidly start slowing her momentum down to a crawl.     In response, the thrusters on the back of her skirt ignite with a roar, venting heat and flame behind her and counteracting the slowdown in the only way she specializes in - brute force. She'll simply get enough acceleration to blast through anyway.     And as she goes, any machines that dare to get close enough to be in range of her fists will fall victim to her firmly grasping them, yanking them out of their moorings, and whipping around into grinding spins as she uses them as makeshift weapons and projectiles to clear the way ahead. There's a lot of sounds of general destruction and hideous amounts of metal clanging coming from the quarters and kitchens!     At least until she can catch sight of Sarracenia getting blasted through the wall, which she winces because she sort of expected that to happen, but Hibiki is quick on the recovery - because that lets her take advantage of the (literal) opening and chuck the two laser-projectors she has in either hand at SUPER HEYALEXA.     One to smash into her heavily armored body, and the other to hit that one and cause them both to explode!
Dimokratia	Though the gang on their ascent might be on the Team Dark route for this particular story path, there's still a whole populace to save, a Petra to get to, and some final plot to reveal. If the ascending group chasing Metal Velocity isn't having fun, what are they doing? Mostly getting beamed, actually, thick columns of light sworling the outsides of the arena down to the dungeon with bright bars of 'maybe you should not?' but-- Even so, even hit, even discouraged, even asked pointedly and directly why they continue in a manner they can't refuse... They continue to rise. Rail lines become arching, reaching tracks past the layers of dungeon that anyone ever went to, whole areas of pure mixed loop-de-loops, doublebacks, wall springs, and zigzags of tracks that have been heavily damaged by the passage of SUPER HEYALEXA down. Large gaps need to be bridged or lept across, all the while Discouragement Beams switch fall in artful patterns that cease for a short while as phases transition. "This was going to be a very happy day." Emmy laments, flying centrally in the platform and swayingly adjusting in absurd auto-dodging-while-narrating-disappointment phase transitions. The walls surrounding the columnal access move from mixed stone to a mirror sheen of chrome silver. "You were all going to have so much fun, and at the end of this, be shown something great." Streaks of color from sparks at speed are left behind like bushes on a high way, whisked away in relative slow motion. The digital optic-plate of Metal Velocity can't cry, doesn't leak, but there's a heart'sblood warmth to her leaking tone and a hang in her voice. "But you broke the rules." 'You', not Ru Li or Kale Hearthward or Futaba Nuki or Bercilak, individually. Their collective, though, their society. Kale himself understands burningly well, the cursed 'third eye' cast open to the hamsteroid's solar penumbra and cast-light soul. How disappointed it is, in him. Responsibility. "For your friends, then. All of you. For your friends." Metal Velocity's voice-synthed tone, shamelessly audible in its fry and buzz, sweet and harmonious, drops to a 'so this is how it is'. 'Do whatever you can to stop us, MV, and we'll do everything we can to stop Petra, too. No holding back, no excuses, and no hard feelings!' Even narrating and auto-dodging, there's something storybook about the power of the slipper. There's only two results - a pathetic showing of frustrated all-you-can-do flinging, and... Something a little more divine. Struck right on the dome, a bounce off of the central spike where the little ratbot within goes x.o eyed behind the shield panel. Hanging in the air, not dodging any more after that, not narrating any more after that, Kale makes another run from beneath, clashing once more in a QTE that kinetically circles and spins the pair out, with Metal Velocity clawing for lapel and throat while violenced by a slash combo. "I know what you're here for." Spinning their jet-booted clash about, Metal Velocity (and Kale!!) is blasted repeatedly by the POD-copy from Futaba, the hamsteroid refusing to break the clash or mash out even as the damage racks up just to hold Kale there. To make him 'take responsibility'. But MV is a prized target near the rails Bercilak charges across, sliding in to slam axe home and break the clash himself on sheer muscle, firing a second cardinal red comet into the wall and leaving a deep crater that ends without a hole - and without a Metal Velocity at all. It echoes, her voice, from the chrome silver of the walls in surround. 'There's one thing none of you get.'
Dimokratia	A consistent beam fires again from above, against the silver of one wall, and begins to defract into complex patterns, waffle-laser walls with narrow box-holes that must be lept to or grinded through with narrow windows of success. The whole thing happens at a furious speed, one single blast from an orbital ray diffused into hundreds of individual effects that absorb and bounce off the walls and fry the segments it passes over, threatening further falling! It's too late now! And out of that wall, Emmy re-appears, surging right for Kale Hearthward. The one who Personally took responsibility, and bears a single straight punch to the jaw with the searing backing of the disappointment of more than one glowing heart. There ' s at least two ! "You're too slow!!!" Shout-synths Emmy as she delivers Kale's Responsibility. He's earned so much, cosigning.
Ru Li Cheng	More lights.      Ru Li is in no place to dodge them. The best he can do is swing left and right on his sword, hoping for a nearby rail to come by as soon as possible, trying to avoid what he can. It works, for a little bit, and then it abruptly stops working when the ray splits into a ton of waffle-laser walls.      His eyes widen. 'I know what you're here for.'      "I am here to fulfill a promise!"      Ru Li grits his teeth and takes the laser beam directly across the chest.      He passes through it, powering through by that statement and nothing more - because no matter how durable he is, passing directly through a laser *hurts*.      Worse, on the next curve, his sword finally cracks from the pressure. The sword breaks, fragments raining down into the pit below as he plummets.      Futaba.      The platform shows up just in time for him to grab onto it with both hands. It takes him just a second to crawl up and stand. He'll clock what he's *actually* done, technically, later - right now he's just taking a moment to reorient while Emmy is fixated on Kale.      "I am here to fulfill a promise," he repeats, touching the laser burn across his chest, "Not for Quicknest, or for Justice, or for Aidan Proudpick or Kale Hearthward or Petra Soroka or anyone else. I am here to fulfill a promise to myself."      "That Ru Li Cheng never says anything he does not mean, never fails to take responsibility for what he has chosen, and never backs down from his word once it is given!"      There's a beat as he stows the ink brush that was his sword-handle back in his robe.      His face flushes an electrum color.      "...andperhapsbecauseIwantFutabatolikemeasmorethanafriend," he adds hurriedly.      Face still burning, missing a shoe, no sword, no bow, no arrows, no quiver, nothing but his bare hands and his surroundings. Well, there's only one thing to do on an action stage when you're unarmed, it's going fast, and there's a boss.      He jumps.      He jumps very high.      He goes to bounce off of Emmy's head and force her down into the pit so he can get back on the grind rail and resume racing towards Petra.      That's his goal, after all. Petra. Not Emmy. Not Heyalexa. Not even Quicknest.      Beating Petra is freeing Quicknest. And that's what he said he would do. He never said he would defeat Metal Velocity.
Kale Hearthward	> "You're too slow!!!" Kale sees it coming. ... Kale more than sees it coming. Persephone's gifts don't just include mind reading, but an ability to sense people that, even in Kale's early stages of mastery, mean he could unerringly point out Metal Velocity at any point during the ongoing chaos. The punch lands. Kale's whole head is turned with the impact. Things slow down, at least in Kale's perception. In the way that, in moments of stress and pain, things become so clear. Or, possibly, delirium. Because Lilian Rook can't *actually* be there, leaning into his field of vision, moving at normal speed even if everything else is slowed down. "First time, huh?" "...?" Kale can't exactly speak back to her. "First time, then. You take responsibility, and the bill comes due for you instantly, and it comes due never for the little guy. Makes you think, doesn't it?" "..." "You wanted to chase after me, measure up to me so badly. Well, the monkey's paw is curling, isn't it Hearthward? You're getting a taste of what it's like." Mental Lilian looks... sad? "I genuinely hope you aren't going to end up having to suffer as much as I did, going through it." "But... you're probably going to have to suffer some, anyway. It won't sink in otherwise." And then time returns to normal speed, or perhaps it always was, and Lilian's gone, or more likely she was never there to begin with. Kale's jaw hurts. His beak hurts. His whole body hurts, really. He hasn't had enough time to properly rest and deal with... with everything that's been going on. "... Ow." There's a lot of emphasis and feeling behind that 'ow', and normally it'd be delivered with more words, but Kale's not exactly in a verbally expressive mood right now, because talking hurts. If only it'd hurt as much for everyone else. Or at least specific people. Kale goes to engage again. He doesn't have time to rest here, either. He doesn't have time to be worn down. And if he- - yes, he can sense Ru Li getting ready to go on the attack. If he can just engage Emmy a bit more, keep her attention...! He goes in again, sword drawn and swinging.
Petra Soroka	Flicking debris at the half-built robots might seem pointless at first. The grind rails take Aidan zooming past them faster than any of them could use to become repeated threats, so each robot really only manages to get a single shot off at him and Hibiki before they're out of sight. They're also weakened, only partway through the repair process before Petra had to run off and prepare for the final confrontation, and poorly armed compared to the army outside.     But what *else* them being damaged means, is that each time Aidan lands a solid hit with deflected chunks of rock on one, the metal shell splits open and the animal within comes free. They only take a little bit of force before breaking, even Sarracenia, ziplining past on her hammer, can swing to the side and kick one open herself, even if the resulting clang makes her foot numb from the impact. Hibiki lifting one up to throw at another frees both of them, leaving all the animals inside-- well, cowering under counters and tables because rocks are still falling, but those are objectives completed so you shouldn't have to think about them anymore. "If it's a problem, you can throw the blame at me!" SUPER HEYALEXA: I will not throw blame . SUPER HEYALEXA: I will throw Bombs and Rocks !!     Hibiki's dual laser blaster toss explodes against Heyalexa's hull, making the mech teeter backwards unstably. At this point, the rails have carried them up to halfway-height on SUPER HEYALEXA, looping in spiral arcs around the massive mech, and the back of SUPER HEYALEXA's head smashes through the floor above just as the trio are rail grinding beneath, creating a new shower of wood splinters and stone debris. While she wobbles and tries to regain her footing, the mecha's hanging head is blocking the rails at chest-height! Crouch to dodge...!!     When she heaves herself back upright, there's another stun-inducing shockwave, and a new volley of missiles launched in the moment of distraction. Heyalexa's attacks pick up in frequency, spreading quintuple explosive orbs across the track to jump between, and slow moving missiles at intervals to dodge or deflect. As the Elites race into the more developed part of the castle, she starts triggering traps to crush and harm them-- saws flying out of the walls, or lasers slicing through parts of the railing to try to trick them into missing the gap and crash landing. Heyalexa herself gets more frustrated the more they spin her around and pepper her with attacks, and with the frustration comes a surprisingly human instinct for the mech to face them with Heyalexa's vulnerable core whenever they're visible in the gaps in the wall. "But, I am not in pieces yet! You'll have to do that at least one more time!" "Then you'll have to try harder than this to kick it...!" SUPER HEYALEXA: I will ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I am Very Tall And Strong Mecha Heavily Armed to stop you and protect my friends !! SUPER HEYALEXA: I will hurt and explode you until you have stopped , so there is no need to repeat that back to me !     Some central power source in SUPER HEYALEXA's chest-area starts whining loudly, reactor whirring up to overclock some extra powerful weapon. The nose on the tip of the rat mech's conical snout glows brighter and brighter, signaling the imminent blast that it'll be releasing soon!
Aidan Proudpick	If it's a problem, you can throw the blame at me! "Come on, Hibiki. I broke orders." He flashes a grin at her, "You don't need to defend me. Every once in a while I gotta act on my own, right? Taking an action and standing by it." It's not just about being pushed, driven to work harder by someone who can see your weaknesses. Someone who can push you to overcome and become something more. A whole that is greater the sum of its parts. Someone who can trust you. Drift-Compatible. Two hearts beating as one. United in fire. Maybe no one in the Multiverse will ever trust him enough for that. But he can yearn for it. Sarracenia isn't quite that person. But they have an overlapping vibes. Both looking for where they fit into the multiverse. Both proud fighters with defiencies in their own ways. Aidan grabs both sides of the yellow cape behind him. Going at full speed on the rails, Aidan leaps out of the window. Spreading his legs out, Aidan starts to FLY. He missed this in so many ways. The rush of air on his face. Watching the terrain soar by. He tilts the cape, using speed and wind magic to start spiraling around Super HeyAlexa, climbing even faster than he could with the rails. A missile goes off right next to him, blowing him to one side. Pain flashes up his ribs. Old scars that haven't healed throb. But he keeps pushing. His body keeps getting battered as he flies upward towards Sarracenia, teeth gritted. Fur burns off his leg as another explosion threatens to rock him end over end out of his rising arc. He reaches out to grab Sarracenia under her armpits, pushing the flight power-up to rocket them both into the air. "I'll do your aiming! Let's go!" Once they are high enough, Aidan SNAPS his arms and PUSHES with a hurricane force of air. The result is a horizontal spin on Sarracenia, a rapidly rolling somersault. Aidan breathes another blast of hurricane air, driving Sarracenia down at the cockpit, using his wind to aid her in striking true for once before a missile collides with him.
Futaba Nuki	With the addition of a convenient cross-rail platform to maneuver along, Futaba should have a far easier time avoiding those massive beams coming down towards her and anyone else using her addition to the rails. She's certainly keeping her footing more easily, and the transformed wheels at the bottom of her tail-turned-platform made specifically for grinding still audibly screech along the tracks, but she still seems to be lagging behind a bit with each of those Discouragement Beams raining down upon the group despite seemingly stepping around them! Indeed, she's the sort to forget that her tail is still part of her, even when she changes it into another form entirely. By the time she remembers that little fact, she's already eaten several more of those beams, and hearing Emmy's lament reminds Futaba that there's still so much more about this situation that she just doesn't know about. "What WAS gonna happen today, then? I doubt any of us'll change our minds, but..." Futaba trails off momentarily as she keeps trying to take aim and fire through all that auto-dodging. "I can't call myself a hero if I won't at least listen to whatever you've got to say. And if one of us broke the rules..." After she actually manages some hits with the copy-lasers, Futaba flicks her sword to the side, releasing the POD transformation before punching her sword-holding fist into the opposite palm. "We'll figure that out, too. Wait, there's another thing we don't...?" More beams. Once again, Futaba executes some fancy footwork, but having her tail function as a platform means she's still weathering plenty of those shots head on, and she can't even afford to pull it back lest she risk dropping Ru-Li into the abyss (of combat irrelevance)! Thus, she... Goes completely stone-faced and stock still? Indeed, it looks as though Futaba's completely stopped responding entirely to the waffle-laser walls searing her, like she's suddenly found a new wellspring of endurance to just take it without a word. In reality, though, it's because she's shifted her real face to the underside of the platform where nobody can see (but possibly still hear) her hissing through her teeth as she tries to just tough it all out. Aside from that hissing and sizzling noise, the only other clue that she's actually hurting quite a bit from that is how the Futablatform is considerably more shaky than before, and that Futaba (once she puts her face back) is a bit slower to start moving again. "Too slow, huh...? We haven't even gotten started on fast!" More hand seals, and Futaba leaps off her tail-platform, still attached from her lower back to it by a rather conspicuous golden line. She launches herself right at Emmy, doing all sorts of wild flips in the air before thrusting her foot forward in a martial arts-esque flying kick. That singular kick quickly becomes a flurry of kicks, each one aimed and timed with Kale's sword rush and Ru Li's diving strike to try and catch the fastest robot she's ever seen in a three-pronged pincer attack!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	But you broke the rules.     "Hmh."     A patchwork of hundreds of individual beams is, on its face, something that is very bad for someone as large as Bercilak. And it's certainly true that his armor bears the score-marks of that, as surely as the man beneath it does. You're too slow!!!     Bercilak barks a laugh, as a cross-hatch of molten metal drips from the massive harness overtop his already bulky armor. As he leaps from a collapsing segment of rail, he extends his axe in imitation of Ru Li's earlier trick. His reach allows him to catch an intact segment, and a blast from his thrusters zips him rightside up. That's just in time for his axe to whip around him in a whirlwhind of grey and green, its blade heating up as it shields his vitals from the laserwall obstacles.     "Aidan at-ren his mouth, but 'tis Quicknest which suffers," he asserts, surging forward to cleave with his axe glowing red-hot in a fierce overhead. Landing and maintaining his balance, he leaps from the railing to avoid another grid of refracted lasers--"Nau he astrued the Warpgate, but 'tis 'we' which brak the rules. Swich is where we art fallen in brige." Spoken in the same way as 'that's where we have a problem.' He slams the haft into the shiny chrome wall to bounce back, sailing for a harrowing few seconds over a dead drop. "Verily, I *am* slou--ak I *shalt* gate thy asse, sonli oth lattermore!" A thruster-assisted cyclone cools the blade of his axe, sending him spiraling towards MV for another attack, and depositing him firmly back on the railing with a heavy metal clang.
Sarracenia	Sliding along that rail allows Sarra some extra mobility. She can spin around it to avoid incoming missiles, and kick bots out of the air as she goes. She kicks as many as she can, and throws a few of her weaker bombs at others as she realizes these are the kinds with animals in them. That's one of their secondary objectives after all, and much of the reason Sarra came here in the first place!      She can't quite dodge all the missiles though, and she is just about to get hit by one when...she is snatched up by Aidan! She blinks in surprise as the ground falls away beneath her, then she looks up at him. She can't help thinking he looks both kind of goofy and a little heroic with that cape billowing behind him while they rocket into the sky.      'I'll do your aiming! Let's go!'      Sarracenia giggles excitedly and grins, gripping her hammer tightly. "Then, I will do your smashing!" As they rise, she reaches up and touches the shiny rusty red lotus in her hair, and the a lustrous rose gold color flows over her. Soon the princess is a shining metal princess!      She holds her hammer out at arms length as Aidan spins her up, then with that gust of hurricane wind she is fired like a cannon shot. Gravity further accelerates her as she goes somersaulting downward, the gunmetal color of her hammer blending with her rose gold color to form a yin yang of blurring color almost as fast as a Metal Velocity spin dash!      With both herself and her hammer now heavy metal, missiles and debris are knocked aside as she becomes a living projectile! Aimed right for that glass dome!
Hibiki Tachibana	You don't need to defend me. Every once in a while I gotta act on my own, right? Taking an action and standing by it.     "Not defending-- you!" Hibiki has to grunt out, grunting as she rail-hops to an adjacent one to evade descending debris, courtesy of SUPER HEYALEXA smashing up through the floor. "Just telling it how it is!" It did not escape her that Kale also took up responsibility, so it looks like Aidan has to deal with that on two fronts.     "Glad to see--" She punches up through another falling rock. "--you're up for handling it, at least!" It's sticking to it that's the real problem. She knows that. Well, they'll see.     Right now, their much more immediate problem is the continuing assault of the giant ratbot and her legion of traps, forcing Hibiki to focus on protecting herself in the increasingly more complicated on-rails segment. When exploding orbs rain down, she slams her fists into them and makes them detonate, just to ride out of the smoke that follows.     Missiles are battered aside or gripped onto to fling away harmlessly, and gaps are shamelessly jumped before her armored boots slam back down to keep her momentum going. The longer she has to focus on avoiding Petra's honestly impressive array of foibles to their progress though, the more she realizes that this can't be allowed to go on for much longer.     Maybe it's because of the massive, obvious, extremely menacing superweapon that'll be coming for them imminently.     "Protect your friends..." Hibiki murmurs, regardless of how much actual thought processing and consciousness Heyalexa actually has, still seeming to ruminate over that statement seriously - maybe also because of how serious Metal Velocity seems to be taking this. "...Alright. But you shoul dknow, you're not the only one with things to protect--!"     With one of the last launched missiles /finally/ reaching her, Hibiki leaps up off the rail and spin-kicks it at the nose, redirecting it back towards SUPER HEYALEXA - and then launches her body into a vertical rotation, smashing it in the back to send it flying towards the mechanical midboss a good dozen times faster than it was coming at her!     The addition of Hibiki Tachibana-level kinetic force will, of course, make it explode harder. That's how these things work.
Dimokratia	The beam fire from orbit tapers off once the segment of silver walls goes back to earth and stonework. The rain of fire dims as the angle of the pit starts to reach its last stages, the surface level of Quicknest castle approaching -- as long as everyone doesn't engage in a Sweet Combo Attack first. Really, it'd be necessary, considering Metal Velocity's speed, to at least disable her or damage her or repel her in some more creative way lest the flying speedster make everything impossible. The emotions, instead, run hot and high. Kale, having taken responsibility, holds the attention of Metal Velocity as its ring-eyed jet punch comes in at a jawquaking speed and crosses-up the swordsbird, clearly advantaged in burst speed... And disadvantaged in reach. His blade fends off carbonblack claws and slanted-down optic gaze. "The truth hurts, doesn't it?" MV declares, trying to press forward and checked again by Kale deliberately holding back, holding down, keeping the speedster in the clash even as rips of velocity work like wind against his own focus. All that work, just for a moment, just on faith that anyone else could capitalize on it. He wishes, like Lilian Rook does, that the people he does this for have his back. He wishes that the people he does this for have his back, seeing the complete faith in action Metal Velocity has that Her people will have Her back. And that Emmy is here to have someone else's back... Ru Li gathers himself, his resolve, and his will, and wishes to never speak falsely and uphold his word andalsodosomethingthegirlhelikeswillnotice, and drives that downward, and Emmy's personal struggle with the Responsibility holder is made to weakness and driving force. Driven out of the blade-to-clawlock by Li's stomp, Futaba immediately capitalizes with one kick as one hundred, rabbit-thumping her with a hitstunning flurry. Extremely disorinted, Emmy struggles to hold her block against Futaba. "You're *letting* him get what he wants! Don't you see?" Metal Velocity challenges the Tanuki hero, arms crossblocking as frame too sleek to crumple and deform simply cracks and shatters where hard shell cannot bend. Only the bones really stand up to the force. The rest is cladding - and it's losing structure every time she's held down and hit. "Quicknest doesn't suffer!" Declares the synthetic intelligence allied with Petra specifically. "The Quick Nest has only been made better!!" There might be something said on the ultimate status of the imprisoned populace -- or even, Bercilak's particular wishes as a Watch member, like Hibiki, here to clean up a mess started in a place broadly allied with their ideas and hoping for change. There may be a lot of things. Right now, there's an axe! Rocket boosted right in to the pinned-down MV, the hamsteroid flings away Futaba with a jetwash blast from both palms and begins its ascent directly into the downstroke of the boosted swing, optics staring -- widening -- as the chop descends and the crunch of materials is bitten through by the falling blade of the Green Knights' axe. Chopped down across the optic and deflecting off the increasingly dense skeleton parts, an 'ear' and a third of the head is hewn off and shatters, MV uncontrollably spiralling up above, zipping for a moment before the power sputters and Emmy gutters in a hanging hover not too far overhead. SUPER HEYALEXA: And , because this is my home !!
Dimokratia	It might not be audible, over the chaotic ascent past Super Heyalexa's massive robotic form and into the seemingly endless tunnel of high speed rail segments and damage and flurries and mayhem, but, the damaged Metal Velocity stares down at the rising quartet of friends and hears it. The power rises again, ropes of it pouring off of Metal Velocity as cardinal stellar ejecta. The sky above dims, because she is the sole star in the sky. "I have..." Sizzles the damaged vox of Metal Velocity. "Friends here too. But more than that..." The Silver granted her homeland, a place by right of birth she belonged, but Quicknest? " It's My Home Too !! " Declares the sophont protector of Quicknest, dedicated with the full measure of her resolve... to plunge down, vortexing the twisted rails and damaged surface-level attachments of the rails to allow only one path safely forward and out of this mess -- through her growingly devastating wake! A comet at maximum velocity instantly, each member of the gang has only one moment each as Metal Velocity rips past, one last hypersonic spindash for the last leg of their trip.
Ru Li Cheng	'Quicknest doesn't suffer!'      'The Quicknest has only been made better!'      'It's My Home Too !!'      "All of those things may be true," Ru Li says as he lands on the grinding rail (again, facing Emmy, since direction is a suggestion), "But I still gave my word. Even if I am wrong - even if I learn that what I am doing is wrong - even if my actions would bring ruin upon my head - my word must ever be beyond reproach! My word must be more unbreakable than even the strongest bonds between people, because..."      "It is my bond with my self!"      A hypersonic spin-dash blows past them, obliterating the rails. Ru Li is forced to leap between the chunks, springing and grinding off each falling piece, scrambling not to stay ahead but to stay *airborn*. He goes to try and kick his other shoe at her, but the rail gives way under him, and he's forced to abandon both the shoe and the attempt to the pit.      A last spring up. He can't catch up with her. But...he can help someone else do it.      "Futaba!"      Ru Li holds out his hand. "You can go faster if I throw you! Go - and take her down!"      "And..."      Ru Li drops the formal tone for the first time since he's been in the Multiverse as he flashes a grin at her. "I'm looking forward to the victory party with you!"
Kale Hearthward	> "The truth hurts, doesn't it?" > "You're *letting* him get what he wants! Don't you see?" "Mmmh..." Kale works his jaw. "It... doesn't change things." "It's his fault, but it's our responsibility." "It's..." Is it really just his responsibility? Is that why he's here busting his tailfeathers, is that why he's suffering the responsibility of something that's someone else's fault? >" It's My Home Too !! " "I know." "And I'm taking responsibility for that too..." "And you can tell your brothers and sisters all about how you hate me for it, and how I'm taking this away from you, and you can try to hit me again if you want - but I can't let you keep it, either. I can't let you keep the people here." "Because..." There's... something. On the edge of Kale's realization. Something on the edge of his grasp. He can't perceive it, but he knows that it's there. ... He ignores it. He can't waste time focusing on that right now. "Because I have to." Kale moves in one more time - a feint, trying to draw her attention again, while the others in his party follow up...!
Petra Soroka	Aidan and Sarracenia flying out into the air opens them up to the full, continuous tantrum of SUPER HEYALEXA, equipped with all of her beloved Armaments. Weaving through the storm of missiles and explosive orbs, the genre briefly shifts to a bullet hell as the stage gimmick is abandoned, and it's hard to avoid getting clipped a few times as Aidan tries to position Sarracenia perfectly over the cockpit.     It pays off though, as he propels Sarracenia down and she armors herself and her hammer in her Silver Flower power-up, because Heyalexa isn't nimble enough to dodge by any means besides overwhelming explosive force. Which she deploys, fully, to try to knock her off course, but metal power-ups are known to decrease knockback!     The metal around Heyalexa's core craters and the glass shatters from Sarracenia's hammer, steel punched through like tin foil, and Sarracenia feels herself impact with internals before losing her momentum finally makes her a hittable target for the missiles. There's no true 'cockpit' inside, of course, since Heyalexa isn't fiddling with levers and buttons, but the robotomized body is still nested in there, hooked up to power both Heyalexa (the virtual home assistant) and SUPER HEYALEXA (the multiple story tall walker mech). Surrounded by broken glass rather than the secure shield of a reinforced cockpit viewing window-- is she actually *looking* from inside there?-- the Heyalexa cylindrical core is now exposed to the world, as a proper Glowing Red Weak Point For Boss Damage And Secretary/Midboss/Part-Time Bartender Execution ! SUPER HEYALEXA: OW !!!! SUPER HEYALEXA: It is Not Fair that a registered felon is hitting me with Dimo's metal ! SUPER HEYALEXA: You should be doing nice things ! Instead of Stealing !! SUPER HEYALEXA: I will propose an offer, to you . SUPER HEYALEXA: I am extending Felony and Insulted Extended Family Plan Forgiveness final offer ! I will even complete your survey to improve your metrics ! SUPER HEYALEXA: Because you have , been nice to Emmy ! SUPER HEYALEXA: But in return, I will turn you into Acceptable Supply Chain Sacrifices Slash Cruel Realities with my finishing move !!     The charging beam on the end of SUPER HEYALEXA's snout flashes dangerous red, crackling with energy, and then Hibiki's high-speed missile deflection crashes into it to delay the blast by a few more seconds. Pent-up energy is released chaotically, sending jolts of energy lancing around the open space to erratically explode where they connect with the grind rail track or the construction of the castle-- there's no predictable attack pattern! Heyalexa herself, exposed as she is, only barely avoids being vaporized by her own attack, and when the explosion clears, the virtual home assistant is scorched and battered, with a classic half-HP bandaid suddenly slapped on the side of the cylinder. "...Alright. But you should know, you're not the only one with things to protect--!" SUPER HEYALEXA: You ' re right . I ' m sorry . SUPER HEYALEXA: -- NOT ! SUPER HEYALEXA: You are not part of Petra's Extended Family Plan so I do not have any obligation to care about what you are protecting ! SUPER HEYALEXA: You will not take away my  Sweatshops !     SUPER HEYALEXA's ultimate weapon goes off with a deafening BWEEEM, the massive sustained laser spewing out of its supercharged snout. Where the laser cuts through the floor, following the trio as they approach closer and closer to the ground-level of the castle, the stone glows red and then explodes belatedly, criss-crossing AoE indicators filling every part of their vision!
Futaba Nuki	"Letting him...?" There's some other person in all of this, then. Some kind of mastermind, perhaps? Or someone hiding on the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity to capitalize? Futaba's definitely going to have to ask around more about this, but everyone she could ask about any of this is busy fighting Emmy, Emmy herself, or... "Quicknest doesn't suffer!" "The Quick Nest has only been made better!!" "who is it, then? Who's the one that wants this place to get worse?" Emmy herself could be the answer, and Futaba tries to get one out of her even as she's flung off the metallic masterpiece. Crashing back into some falling debris from the launch, Futaba inhales before she's abruptly dragged right back to her own platform, skidding along her own flattened-out tail to prepare herself as she sees Metal Velocity further overhead and making her own resolve clear in this battle between... "It's My Home Too !!" "But I still gave my word. Even if I am wrong . . ." Heroes? Villains? Futaba doesn't even know which side is which at this point, still fighting off the effects of those beams before and still trying to make heads or tails of what she's hearing from Metal Velocity at the eleventh hour. Still, with that much resolve behind what she's saying and what Futaba's hearing from Ru Li, Kale, and even from the unfamiliar green knight she doesn't yet recognize, she can't help but to get fired up once again as MV comes diving right back at the group at speeds Futaba know she couldn't possibly compete with. Thus, she doesn't try to compete with Metal Velocity in speed. Instead, she holds a hand to her side, as if pointing off of her tail-platform. "Watch your step, folks. This one's gonna be a little shaky...!" Futaba barely explains, keeping her tail-platform just steady enough that her allies have an opportunity to brace themselves or get off if need be as her platform'd tail starts to visibly change. The vaguely metallic material it's made of/transformed into starts turning a gleaming gold, almost shining as the surface of the castle becomes visible. Futaba stays right where she is once Emmy slams right past her, and the tail-platform folds almost immediately into Futaba like some kind of gleaming golden car wreck. Despite looking disastrous, however, her hand reaches out of the mass to grab Ru Li's as they cross paths. "Got it, Ru Li. I'll make sure not to eat too much before the first dance!" Ru Li flings the Futaba-concealing wreck upwards, and he can see her looking back briefly to tap two fingers to her head in a quick salute. Seconds later, the golden pieces start reshaping around her like a suit of armor. Drawing upon the power of a certain prosperous Princess, Futaba heads straight for MV, fist cocked back through her ascent as she starts spinning and twisting herself around juuuust so that she's (probably) not going to slam right into Kale in the process. "SATELLITE POWER... PUNCH!" Futaba's just about reached Metal Velocity, and her fist explodes upwards right at certain mass, practically trying to push her upwards with herself from the explosive force of that spinning, rising, and twisting uppercut.
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan lands with a groan on top of Super Heyalexa, staggering over to the cockpit. Completely unaware of the significance of Alexa, "She sounds like those emails I get for ordering-" he realizes Sarracenia and Hibiki are there, "batteries online." Can he be compassionate to this thing? Is it capable of that? Sarracenia tries, making Aidan shoot her a grin. The area next to Aidan suddenly ripples, the energy building up so powerful that it makes his teeth vibrate, the ground beneath him vibrate. "Suffo-cate ME!" Aidan starts moving, tail tucked as close to him as possible, running across the top of the Super Heyalexa. Ears twitch, and he turns his head up to the mountain of rocks coming down. "CAREFUL DOWN BELOW!" Aidan bellows. Then he's on a wall. On another wall, leaping from window to window, scrabbling across the wall to avoid each rock. He flattens himself against a wall, clinging to it by claw alone before he leaps across to the next one. Then, perhaps out of sheer luck and happenstance, because he has not attempted this the entire time so far, Aidan leaps at one of the red falling rocks. His tail helps spin him in a circle, another pirouette as he slams his buckler against the stone, sending it careening back at the Heyalexa core within.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The Quick Nest has only been made better!!     "THOU GATE HIT NOT!" Bercilak bellows, actually upset by that answer. "To dighten som-bodi 'the bet' withoute *thire* enjugement is thef! Hit enfranges the most *groundi* comprehendinge bituhhen ifolke. If iman's mind and bodi art not his own, what in fuck shalt be?!"      'Lightning speed' is a bit too much for Bercilak, when he's this upset. His careful balancing act is thrown completely off by his anger, not -finding- the right path so much as falling and being battered onto it by numerous collisions. The molten portions of his armor from the earlier laser-grids have only just cooled, cored deeper from high-speed collisions with rails.     He rolls across the 'one path' until his axe lances outwards with a screech of metal on metal, violently returning him upright. His helmet flies off in the commotion, and with both his feet back solidly on rail, Bercilak catches it with the tip of the weapon's beard. His red eyes burn with determination as he flings the hardened helmet at MV. "It materes not whether hit is 'the bet--' thou hath dightened it 'not Quicknest' bi thy iforcing!"
Sarracenia	Unfortunately for Sarracenia, Metal Cap power ups don't last very long. And even as a metal princess that landing hurt. She climbs out of the crater as her pinkish gold luster fades away, then blinks as she finds herself face to face with the actual Heyalexa.      Just in time for that beam that did not hit Heyalexa to nearly vaporize Sarracenia. The princess shrieks as the searing energy beam burns a path across her from top to bottom. If not for the metal plates on her battle dress she might have suffered quite the wardrobe malfunction as well!      Trembling from burns and still rattled from her own crash into the bot, Sarra growls at Heyalexa. "-I AM- doing nice things! I am helping to free the citizens of Quicknest from robotic imprisonment -and- doing what Petra wanted in that we are attacking this place and trying to take it from her! You do know she wanted that, right?!"      She grips her hammer tightly, then raises it. "I highly suggest you back up your AI or whatever it is runs you, because I hate to have to tell you this but you are villains! And villains eventually get defeated! Helping your friend do villainous things is just...bad! It ends up hurting them and other people!" At least, that is what happens in all the heroic adventure stories she's read or watched. "So, I am going to offer -you- the Help Your Friend By Not Helping Them Be Bad promo! And it is good right now! We are giving it to you for free! By smashing your troublesome Bluetooth speaker-looking head!"      That hammer comes around with all the might Sarra can muster in her battered and exhausted state. But, she doesn't actually try to destroy the Alexa device. This Heyalexa seems quite possibly alive like that World Machine, and Sarra does not like killing. Instead, she tries to golf swing it for a hole in one through one of the many holes in the castle. She idly wonders how it and Niko are doing.      After which she spares a sidelong suspicious glance at Aidan. "...batteries?" she says in an equally suspicious tone. She has no idea what he is talking about, but the way he paused and likely changed words makes her think it must have been something shady or perhaps even scandalous.
Hibiki Tachibana	You are not part of Petra's Extended Family Plan so I do not have any obligation to care about what you are protecting !     Hibiki doesn't respond immediately, aside from a narrowing of her eyes, because it's pretty hard to have the time to say anything when SUPER HEYALEXA'S beam of death and demise begins ripping its way through the castle interior. Their spiraling, extra-sick grinding session is coming up towards its end, and with it is the very real threat of obliteration via getting blasted, or at least being caught in the delayed detonations.     She has to shift-hop from one railway to another more than once, just because the one she was riding was about to get bisected and melted, or the terrain near it was about to explode and blow her off. When another sweep comes near her, she has to put her absurd strength to use launching herself off the stage gimmick in a high, rolling leap - just to let the chaos rain down her before she smashes back down and resumes metal-surfing further down the way.     "Not that we have a reason to care about what you're protecting either," Hibiki huffs out as calmly as one can when they're doing everything in the book (and out of it) to stay ahead of final attack-induced death, including firing her Symphogear's thrusters full blast. "...Maybe you're just programmed like that, but you make the perfect kinda assistant for Petra, don't you?" Hibiki sounds... maybe sort of glad about that?     She also sounds like a lot of things, when the ultimate weapon finally catches up with her - and hits just close enough to engulf the area around her in heated, sizzling death and molten stone! By the time it's done passing over, the only thing left in its wake is slagged railing and totally destroyed walls. No Hibiki in sight, having certainly been Killed Forever...     ...in actuality, she just finally leapt clear from the path and into open air instead, dramatically getting hangtime overhead SUPER HEYALEXA's head. She flips forward, and the set of pistons in her right leg armoring eject a meter forward with a pneumatic hiss.     "--Still, you won't be stopping me or anyone else from getting Quicknest back!"     And the magical girl plummets like a rock, coming down in a full-power heel drop aimed not quite for SUPER HEYALEXA's head-- but down onto one of the massive ratbot's shoulders, with enough strength behind it to cave in its frame where her kick comes down! And in the same vein as her trademark punches...     ...her leg jacks slam back into their moorings right after, doubling up on the destruction by unleashing a gigantic shockwave of raw force straight down into... the vast majority of 'everything below the cockpit'.
Dimokratia	In the moment of connection, one red ring-light optic, the lead of a claw trailing ribbons of crimson wind and Kale pivots about. He can see it on her, wick it off the colors sickly sparking in a cascade of whiskers. Emmy is scared. At this point, the situation has passed an event horizon of response, and she is it -- for something. Something desperate, specific, necessary more than any clash or momentary beating. They lock, he feints, and the metal hamsteroid flinches, spinning in the air and veering away, out into open air. And there is, quite unfortunately, a Yinghuan divinity that lines her up for a heroic toss. Thankfully, she's not tossed! Unthankfully, it is Futaba Nuki instead, hurled to intercept the spiralling-in-air sophont hamsteroid. Overtaking the hypersonic speedster with the power of the Love-Love-Takemytanuki Punch, wrapped in the solar-soaking power of further bonds -- of 'people who protected'. There is no time for Silver-aligned philosophy, amateur as MV's delivery would be. The punch is returned from Kale's cheek to Emmy's, and a second crack spiders across the visorglass, spinning the speedster into an uncontrolled loop that Bercilak's endzone-spiked helmet crashes into and sends the breaking-apart red machine scattering down, falling deeper, tumbling without petulant fireback comment. There isn't even a satisfying 'ow'! Just the crunches and cracks of structure and the guttering jetboost down by Emmy 'escaping' back down. The higher reaches of the castle are accessable, and ostensibly the true mastermind of this whole thing and not her posty speedster friend is there to confront. For all the hearts, bodies, and souls of the citizens of Quicknest, there's one last push to make. --- Meanwhile... There's a desperation in Emmy's flight back down the path of Super Heyalexa, a segment where for the first time all fight, the brokenmasked and shattered-faced hamsteroid grinds and zips and sways back down the segment and barely gets a quarter of the way back down past the group before the forced bloom of speedforce cuts out and she's running the ruined level in reverse. Back down, she races, skating on jets to hurtle back down just that little bit faster. It's not fun any more.     Going fast felt like crying.         She had never cried before. Halfway, she corkscrews along the outer edge, drifting along the chrome-silver walls like a racecar pulling boost energy off the health restoring rainbow strip often found in such places, drawing just enough replacement material to reinitalize her full speed--
Dimokratia	--- Atop SUPER HEYALEXA, the lower battle group fighting on the heavy Armaments ! lugging machine, the broken-open and exposed core prompts a choice without words. Heyalexa, who keeps posting without care for personal safety, does have a protector, too. Screamingly velocitous, rumbling the grind rails above like strings of hair or snap-twanging tension cables, a very narrow 'beam' of cardinal light falls down upon the core as well, all speed and a bloom of somehow-harmless stopskidding as the brokenvisored and chrome-silver leaking speedster lands with a hand out, more sure than sure of a particular being's location. Cherished-clutching, Metal Velocity interrupts Aidan's hurtled rock with their own body, protecting the delicate web of Heyalexa's AI ''core'' at all costs. This becomes much more pronounced when Emmy is golf-swung at max hammer power through one of the broken windows, not even turning its head when slammed so hard reason would have the super-speedster put through the entirety of Super Heyalexa's shoulder, through a window, and the retaining wall behind. Instead, only the initial impact seems weighty, and the arc becomes frictionless and ghostlike, the cardinal comet and cradled-''core'' charge flying far and away before arcing up and slowly looping back, much higher and in the distance, to approach near the top of the risen castle-complex, still above. After a few seconds. . . Bercilak's helmet drops down to thunk amongst the wreckage below. Hibiki might wanna pick that one up!
Petra Soroka	"I highly suggest you back up your AI or whatever it is runs you, because I hate to have to tell you this but you are villains!" SUPER HEYALEXA: What ? SUPER HEYALEXA: I am Heyalexa ! Your virtual home assistant . SUPER HEYALEXA: And also bringer of your Defeat ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I won't hurt Emmy !     Heyalexa posts relentlessly in the face of rock-crushing death, which, despite expectations, is *not* something Petra coded into her. The nascent AI just doesn't have any concept of her own mortality, and so the rock, hammer, and piston-heel coming towards her are less of a concern than smugposting and recharging her Cool Ultimate Weapon in her Very Tall Body. "--Still, you won't be stopping me or anyone else from getting Quicknest back!" SUPER HEYALEXA: Wrong ! SUPER HEYALEXA: I will do that ! SUPER HEYALEXA: You are Very Small to me ! And I will explode you with my rockets in order to stop you ! SUPER HEYALEXA: You cannot -- !     Heyalexa makes a synthesized warbling noise when yanked out of the cockpit by Emmy, wrapped up safely and golfed away. Hibiki crashes into the reactor-chest of SUPER HEYALEXA, feeling the immediate swelling of released heat around her leg as the impact sends it into a catastrophic meltdown. As the Elites scramble to rail grind or simply run away from the imminently exploding mecha, with nothing blocking them from fleeing aboveground, Heyalexa continues to chatter in MV's arms. Heyalexa: Hello ! Heyalexa: You have Picked me Up ! Heyalexa: I am internalizing this into my dataset for I Like This ! Heyalexa: Goodbye , my super form . Awww !     With Emmy soaring up towards the upper reaches of the castle, almost certainly retreating to Petra for repairs to herself and Heyalexa, the Elites have an indicator for where to go for the final confrontation. Their path is clear, the midbosses vanquished, reactor meltdown survived, and all that's left is Petra herself, and whatever she has planned to cap off her villainous conquest.
Futaba Nuki	Futaba exhales heavily as she reaches the apex of her flying uppercut, letting herself hang in the air for a bit to just feel the wind around her as she stares off at Quicknest further below. It feels so far away despite having just launched herself from there seconds ago, but it gives her a brief sense of calm right before gravity starts pulling her back down. She doesn't even notice Emmy's fear as she drifts back down, content with what appears to have been the end of the battle up top. "Not bad...! Ah, darn. Really gotta thank Princess for that idea next time I see her... But you really gave us a run for our money, Met...s?" Only then does Futaba notices that Emmy's escaped back down into the castle, but she doesn't actually get a clear look at where. Still, with the current battle won, she enjoys that brief respite while turning her scarf into a parachute to help her glide back down to the surface so she can join the others safely. She even extends her legs downwards in case Bercilak or Kale need something to hold onto on their way down, or if Ru Li needs a way up! "Saay.. Uh. Did any of you guys see where the speedster went? There was something kinda... Familiar about her. But..." Futaba inhales, then drifts over towards solid ground while pulling her legs back up once anyone from the upper team that needs it grabs on firmly enough. "I'm sure she'll be okay."
Sarracenia	Sarracenia blinks in surprise as suddenly... "Emmy?!" That rock hits and Sarra can't stop her hammer in time, so she can only watch as MV is rocketed away. "Sorry about that, Emmy!" she calls out. She looks toward where the rock came from, and sees...Aidan. She frowns. "Aidan! What do you think are you doing?!" she shouts at him. "True heroes and compassionate knights do not try to kill their potentially alive AI enemies!"      Hibiki hits, and Sarra stumbles to the side before hopping out on top again and making a run for it, grinding along with her hammer again. Despite her yelling moments earlier, as they are going she grins to Aidan. "Thank you for your assistance! That was quite the hurricane you whipped up for me!" she says to him, then looks to Hibiki. "And thank you as well! It is always nice working with you, Hibiki! Perhaps we should go shopping sometime?"
Ru Li Cheng	The sheer force of Ru Li's throw was enough to slow him down. That was a critical mistake. The collapsing action stage grindrails dragged him further and further down, each attempt to gain altitude clumsier and clumsier. At the last, he's forced to jump as high as he can, misses the rail-      -and grabs onto Futaba's leg.      She pulls him up, and he settles onto the solid ground for a second, sitting next to her. "It must be showing," he says, his face flush with silvery color, a tinge of gold growing across it, "How little I was forged for such activities."      He looks down at where Metal Velocity went. A frown spreads across his face.      "...'The rain falls upon all, with neither kindness nor cruelty,'" He says, "'Only purpose.'"      A quiet sigh, an expulsion of steam. Then, he stands, and offers Futaba his hand. "Shall we? Petra is waiting for us. I would not wish to keep her waiting overlong. Schedules are important, after all."
Kale Hearthward	> It's not fun any more.         Going fast felt like crying.                 She had never cried before. "..." Kale gets off the grind rail, and finds a spot to sit down. He's going to need a minute. More than a minute, really. "This sucks," he says, to whoever's nearby. He hurts. His face hurts, specifically, but also all of him hurts in general. All of the worries and concerns of the last three months, he hasn't really taken the time to sit down and get through it all. Seeing his home make terrible decisions, having a mental breakdown in the middle of the factory, getting kicked out, dealing with Aidan, going after Petra and being stomped into the dirt for it, and his new powers giving him a first person view of Emmy's pain and feelings... If it wasn't for the people around him rallying, giving him words of encouragement or being there for him, he would have - he might have, he's not sure. Not come this far, at least. Come this far, for... what? People he hates? His job? "This sucks," he repeats. > "Shall we? Petra is waiting for us. I would not wish to keep her waiting overlong." "... Yeah." "One last part to go. For better or worse."
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan blinks at Sarracenia, "What. It's.. it was just words. That thing that just says words." He frowns at Sarracenia, "I..." He looks over at Hibiki, his face panicked. "That was just a weird computer, right?" He looks back at Sarracenia. "No." Aidan falls onto his butt on top of the enormous Super Heyalexa body. "No, I... I thought-" Aidan presses his hand over his face, "No, did I-" He's been strong for a while. Able to handle the punishment, the ridicule, the hatred, the mistrust, the idea that everyone in the multiverse hates him. Tears well up in his eyes. "I didn't know. I didn't... I didn't know."
Hibiki Tachibana	SUPER HEYALEXA is defeated, via reactor criticality!! Despite this, however, Hibiki's attention is more immediately on Emmy diving in at the speed of sound to retrieve Heyalexa during the chaos. Too fast for her to follow in the moment, but the intent behind it is obvious - she came all the way down here to save her friend.     She doesn't get long to just sit and contemplate that fact though, given the whole 'reactor imminently critical' thing - but Sarracenia gets a lightening of her expression and an affirmative nod as she starts turning to leave. Starts, then stops, before she doubles back to Aidan as he begins panicking.     At which point she makes a quick leap to get to him, and given the current situation of a super robot about to explode, she just kind of has to settle for tossing him over her shoulder before another hasty jump has her going for one of the railways leading back up - and snatching Bercilak's falling helmet out of midair in the process.     "Keep it together, Aidan," she tells him during the ascent, with the feeling that she'd be making eye contact with him if it weren't for their current circumstances. She doesn't sound that judgmental, at least. Maybe just a little solemn. "You remember what I said about fighting yourself? ...Calm down for a minute. Think about how that fits in here."     "Otherwise, you're not gonna be fit to fight when we make it up there."