Scene #8926: Holy Refulgence: For Whoever Is Joined To All The Living

Owner	Pose
Kayoko Kirenai	The instant Lilian reaches out, she hears it. It-- she-- has been responding this entire time. She isn't the source of anything besides herself: the metal is real, the form of sharp edges and humming noise is real, tearing apart the Temptation was real, everything else is <having no child rather than a daughter>. Whoever the poisoner and whatever the antidote, she desperately needs treatment of some kind, and when Flamel's mind offers it, there's a metallic hum high pitched enough to shatter glass, and she accepts it. Flamel's astral portal envelops the blade-bristling cavern as it folds within and through itself to practically dive inside-- as rocks collapse from the ceiling during a sudden, deafening cave-in, pulling everyone who follows into his mindscape. This wasn't a tactic he announced, per se, but it's a familiar feeling a few times over to Lilian, and after all that shouting to drill into his mind and everyone else's the instinct to be kind, it's hard to imagine that it's some sort of danger, even with the torrent of noise and motion that comes after. Being swept up within the tide of scintillating metal-- for the confusing, vertigo-inducing flashes of comprehension where it registers in your mind as that rather than whatever nonsensical glimmer of rock or even pyroclastic flow tries to bloom up in the gaps of perception-- is disorienting and scraping, screechingly loud, razor edge on edge. Knowing what it all is, and how sudden the motion of folding inwards towards Flamel is, your gut instinct is that you should be shredded as if tossed carelessly into a blender, but besides a few very shallow slices accompanied by bursts of noise, there's nothing like that at all. Kayoko is pulled inside too, even more bewildered and unsteady than the rest. Deposited on the floor-- she's transformed now? No one saw her do it, but she must have pulled out her camera and gone through her flashy transformation into her Chevalier Cobalt armor during the din, so when she clambers to her feet, it's with the usual not-quite-right scraping of not-metal on the concrete floor. She looks around overwhelmed, trying to get a handle on all the shouting and bustling of the staff inside Flamel's head. The entity-- the blades, the source of the sickness, the girl, or whatever it is-- isn't with the group when they get their bearings inside the mindscape.
Flamel Parsons	Where are you all now? What happened? The sign on a wall helps know, both helpfully and unhelpfully. PARSONS ANOMALOUS CONTAINMENT INSTITUTE LIGHT CONTAINMENT - ACTIVE STUDY Flamel's mindscape. It's brushed steel and heavy concrete, interspersed with dense growth of contained plants for sensory enrichment. Scientific instruments protrude from walls at odd angles, with unclear purpose. Emergency buttons and alarms dot every corner. Sitting space is plentiful, but badly unused. An alarm is running, blaring red. Men in labcoats, men in suits, men in jumpsuits and hard-hats, men in heavy armor, all run desperately. Flameless smoke drifts from the direction of the ARCHIVES sector, and the hastiest glance will find that heat, but no fire, has melted key sections of microfilm storage, specific books on specific shelves, and other suchlike. It's been going for hours, days, maybe weeks. Armored men escort stressed library staff to a sector labeled INTENSIVE DEBRIEFING. This situation's solved. But only the new visitors can solve this one. A short man in heavy armor brandishes a gun at the new arrivals. "Identification!" He barks out. He's waved away by a tall man in opaque glasses, wearing a labcoat. "Sergeant, stop this. The director called them in, it has gotten bad." To the visitors: "Please-- we need you to move quickly!" A tall, elegant woman in brightly flowing colors turns away from directing the men in hard-hats with their fire extinguishers. "Archives are a lost cause. But you can help us recover this...!" "E-8868's anomaly has been creating uncontrolled biases." The security chief in the armor gestures towards a sector labeled HEAVY CONTAINMENT - CONFABULATIONS. "If they breach, Sixty-Eight's going to vanish and we'll forget it. I need men down there, and I need triggers pulled, now!" "If we're going to stop this, we need to stop the generation process itself. I need anyone with sharp senses of any kind to follow me to E-8868's chamber. My Prefrontal Excluder will let you use at least some of that to determine what we're dealing with here." The man in the labcoat urges some to follow him further into LIGHT CONTAINMENT - ACTIVE STUDY. "None of that's going to work if we don't engage in basic self-care, dears. Clockmaker Protocol's been declared, I need people with repair, construction, any ability of that sort, down to reinforce the perception grid." The tall woman in the colorful clothes needs whatever help she can get down at COGNITIVE ENGINEERING - PERCEPTRONICS AND SELF-CHECKS. Parsons' voice speaks over nearby intercoms on the walls. "Warning. Antimemetic breach in progress. All staff report to your stations. E-8868 must not be forgotten. Report any new or recent information on E-8868 to your supervisor immediately. This message repeats. Warning. Antimemetic breach in progress..."
Tamamo	Tamamo has not been caught up in Flamel's mindscape before. It's not something that has happened to her very often, in general, that she's pulled into someone else's mind. Being on another's mind is different, of course. That being the case, she's surprised by the cave-in, and utterly disoriented during the transition. She has to look around, confirm the familiar faces, and see that Lilian is still with them to both make sense of what happened, and to calm down. She smooths out her dress, already immaculate. No trace of confusion remains, when she speaks. "Between 'special senses' and 'reinforcement,' you may make your choice as to what seems best. I suppose I have some skill with either, for myself, but the answers are clearer for the first of the two." Pulling out a folding fan just to gesture with it, she addresses the bespectacled figure. "Please lead the way, and I will assist with this... 'active study,' as well."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	The instinct to be kind is something that Jeanne has been grappling with for a good while now. It's not that she doesn't want to or that she can't, but that she's not entirely sure how more often than not. Even in normal circumstances, she often has trouble really saying what she means without couching it in barbs and annoyance at some thing or another, so... How the hell is she supposed to do that here, after getting... Teleported? Summoned? Spirited away to who knows where, surrounded by smoke and panicking workers going every which way. Fighting her first instinct to call out her own flames to match the heat coming from the Archives, Jeanne keeps her hands free as she approaches the security chief with a slowly raising eyebrow. "The director? Would that be the one that was yapping about someone bleeding and getting sick that shouldn't have?" Jeanne asks first, then lets out an irritated noise while running a hand through her hair. "Is he the one that dragged us in here? Tch... As if we didn't have enough trouble figuring out what the hell was going on with that..." She's complaining, but she's also moving towards the HEAVY CONTAINMENT sector already. Jeanne doesn't finish her thought, either, as she pauses halfway over to look back at the security chief again. "So what the hell are we supposed to be containing, anyway? Is it something that we can just stab to death, or is it more..." She sounds like she's about to complain again, but actually mellows out moments later. "... How do we do it? Is it just levers and buttons to pull, or...?"
Angela	Chevalier Love is also pulled inside! She is pretty carved up to begin with but...she wants to help this person. She doesn't KNOW much of the details but she has her gut and her gut tells her this is familiar to her. Besides, in the end, helping people is what magical girls ought to do. She isn't expecting to end up in Flamel's brain. She sort of thought she'd end up in, well, in the mind of the very girl they're here to help. Instead, it feels for a moment like they ended up back at Lobotomy Corp. ''Identification!'' Chevalier Love does a spin with her magical staff and a small pirouette. "I am the Magical Girl of Love and Justice, Chevalier Love! At your service!" The magical staff is on a bit of a hair trigger and ends up shooting a cartoon star out towards the ceiling. Love hurriedly hides the staff behind her back. It'll probably be okay. ''Sixty-Eight's going to vanish and we'll forget it.'' "W..wait, do you mean--the person we've been trying to help? We'll forget?" Chevalier Love asks Kayoko for guidance and doesn't really get it but Hibiki steps in and asks for help. Chevalier Love NEEDS to feel helpful or she might just DIE she might just DIE. So she grabs Hibiki's arm and says,, "I'm not really good at healing," She admits. "So okay! Heavy Containment! Let's go... Chevalier Music Muscle!" She skates off in that direction--she doesn't even get lost because someone helpfully gestured in the right direction! And they did say they needed to move in a hurry! "Gosh," She asides to Hibiki, mid-skate. "I know this is reality and all but this is just like an anime."
Sarracenia	% Sarracenia, barely able to remember things moment to moment a moment earlier, ends up screaming as they are dragged into that vortex of swirling sound and blades and everything else. They appear in the mindscape. Sarra is still crouching and screaming for a few moments before realizing they are in an entirely different place. She blinks a few times, mind more clear, then stands up slowly with her cheeks burning red in embarrassment. 'Identification!' Sarra yelps and jumps in surprise and her hammer comes swinging around. The man is waved off and she manages to redirect the swing away, but it drags her off balance and she stumbles a few steps. This just adds to the redness of her cheeks. "Geeze! Do not pull a gun like that on someone who was recently shot!!" she exclaims, as if the sergeant could have possibly known that Sarra was recently shot. She straightens back up, then sighs. "Princess Sarracenia Sundew, Crown Princess of the Sundew Kingdom." she says, then pulls out an identification card that says that. It was issued by the Gale Empire for some reason. The situation is described, and roles are requested. Sarra sometimes wishes she was actually good at something besides smashing things. Not often, but sometimes. This is one of those times...because it sounds like this E-8868 is the one causing the memory issues and Sarra -really- does not want to go through more of that. Her mental defenses are not the best in the best of times, much less in a stressful situation like this. But, that's really all she's good at, so she sighs heavily and grips her hammer. "Containment, then." she says, then heads that way. But, before she goes she turns to Kayoko. The magical girl seems to be having a very rough time of it, and Sarra reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder. "Try and take it easy. Here." She reaches into her purse and pulls out...a chocolate milk! Kids like those, right? And chocolate and milk are both known to have relaxing properties. "Whatever is going on, I think we are getting close to the end. So, just hang in there a bit longer. You are welcome to remain close to me if you would like. I will do my best to protect you."
Hibiki Tachibana	NOW EXITING: The collapsing cavern. NOW ENTERING: Flamel Parsons' mind. To put it lightly, Hibiki was not expecting to go from trying to make contact with an incredibly strange memory-altering being in that blade-filled cavern to the reinforced depths of his mentalscape like that, and perhaps the one thing that can be said is that it's hardly her first time experiencing his power to pull others into one's head. It's just her first time in /his/. So she's simultaneously surprised yet quick to adjust to the general chaos of what's going on in here, with the understanding that Flamel has seemed more pushed to the limits of his rope by whatever's going on in Kagoshima more than anything else has before. "Director... that has to be Flamel." She gets that much. And it seems like there's no end to the troubles they're dealing with in here, and so rather than worrying about the details, she comes to a simple conclusion - if setting things straight in here will help, then they can do that first and ask questions later. With Kayoko overwhelmed and Love looking for guidance, she's quick to offer the Abnormality-turned-Magical Girl a chance to come with her for the one route good for people who can fight better than anything else-- --maybe to regret changes to her name later-- --and get led off by the arm, making a startled yelp before her legs move to keep pace. "M-Music Muscle...?" If she had to decide between that and Song Punch... no, she'll worry about that later. If this is the best way they can do something now, and prevent being made to forget...! "Right. Let's get a move on!" They're already getting a move on. As they go, she grips tight on her pendant beneath her jacket collar... and very nearly staggers when Love says that. Only nearly. "There's a friend of mine you /really/ need to meet sometime," she murmurs. Well, she's just glad Love has a physical way to help she can throw herself at. She's glad for it for herself, too.
Lilian Rook	It isn't until Lilian gets her reply that she realizes what she's even said; or rather, the way in which she's it, without speaking. She'd meant to, of course. There are very few things she does without thinking out the conscious shape of it, and none that she can't find the subconscious meaning for in the aftermath. But the gap between meaning; wanting; pushing back at something human and demanding it not react to her like an alien threat-- and how that wish is brought about, is only so much autonomic mental fuzz until it's acknowledged. The answer makes her draw in a deep, sickly shuddering breath. Her palm claps the patch of stone under her as she reels forward. The air locks in her lungs. Her stomach convulses. The sound of an impending retch cuts off, and Lilian forces her breath back out, now finding it suffociating, in the shape of a creaky "No. No, you're . . . Even those people couldn't . . ." Her fingernails scrape the rock, and her hand balls into a fist. "Fuck you." Lilian whispers. A seething hiss. The sound of her voice rises back to a hoarse-edged shout that echoes sharply in the confined space. She finds the motivation to stand, pale as she is, at hearing the others. "Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you don't talk to her that way you--!" She sounds as unsteady as she looks. Not stunned or confused, but entrapped in using all of her thoughts to process something too enormous as quickly as possible, leaving nothing for anything else. "That's what happens to-- . . . This is what they--" Out of nowhere, Lilian sucks a razor-sharp breath through her teeth, and arbitrarily wheels on Madeline, advancing threateningly on her with the incoherent words "Didn't you listen to a thing I said back then?! You're so caught up in how special and different you can make yourself sound you're fucking blind to--!" Off her guard, gravely lacking in attention paid to Flamel at the exact moment she should be, Lilian has her back turned to the moment the weeks-long psychosis that'd been worrying her since it started all comes to a head, and falls through cognitive space so fast that the first thing she perceives when she gets her head back together again is, 'Identification!' "Lilian Rook, with the Winter Mirror case, code Eigenslayer--" Lilian halts, glances down, and sees herself holding an appropriate ID card between her fingers, minted February 18th of two years ago. Thinking about it for a second longer, she blinks at the sight of her old photo, thinks briefly about Persephone again, and then tucks it away. The first thing on her mind upon acknowledging the shift in environment is Tamamo. Lilian looks around, finds her immediately, and sighs in close-eyed relief. The second thing is to register a crisis in motion; smoke and alarms are raised from ancilliary to primary focus, out from the back of her mind to the fore, and all traces of just having been emotionally overwhelmed are neatly frozen in place, pushed aside for later, and the floor is given over to the consummately practiced skill of interpreting what is demanded of her in this situation. The first thing she does is make for an emergency intercomm receiver and slam down the button.
Lilian Rook	"Classify E-8868 as a Magical Girl, under case type Holy Refulgence. Current, not former. Subject is in need of intensive care; cause is likely to be some kind of foreign Astral-Expressive contaminant. Temptation in origin, possibly, or . . ." Lilian takes a deep breath, still holding down the button. "The subject may be suffering from itentionally induced contamination from members of the Refulgence itself. Reason . . . information suppression. Narrative control." "E-8868 is seeking care for psychologically deadly corrosive contamination. Do not act aggressively towards E-8868. Do not harm E-8868. Scan for a foreign contaminant capable of damaging cognitive records; something like a radioactive wavelength; it's scouring all concrete memory of E-8868 from interactive medium and inducing mutative confabulation to explain away her existence. Assume until further notice that this is the intended effect of the contaminant. E-8868 is in significant pain and may be dangerous to handle; prep assistance in keeping with procedures for dealing with extreme long-term isolation, violent expulsion from social tribe, cultural cognitive shame constructs, high-intensity self-mitigation stress." Lilian is not, herself, a psychonaut, and half those terms are probably one quarter correct, but she's hung around enough missions to adjust her mission-speak to a tone that sounds Flamel-ish. She seems to be under the impression that's how it works here. 'You are welcome to remain close to me if you would like. I will do my best to protect you.' "Apologies, but we don't have that luxury right now." Lilian says. It's the snappiest she's ever been to Sarracenia without actually sounding upset. "Kayoko. You have a priority task: Make contact with E-8868, and--" Lilian interrupts herself with a forceful shift in breathing, resetting her cadence on purpose. "She needs to speak to you. The girl we came out here to find."
Flamel Parsons	[ LIGHT CONTAINMENT - ACTIVE STUDY - E-8868 ] [ TAMAMO, LILIAN, KAYOKO ] "I'll need you to engage in an Akinatization process!" The man in the labcoat calls out as he runs. Everyone surges past containment cells where mental images of everyone Flamel knows can be seen, kept in enriching enclosures and studied intensively. But we're not here for them. "I can disjoint your higher thinking and sensory processing! You create simple true-false, multiple-choice responses, and wire your senses directly to those!" Suddenly, the entire facility rumbles, and the man has to re-adjust his glasses and hair by the time it's settled. "My god. It's getting worse and worse..." He slams through a door labeled "E-8868", bringing everyone to an observation deck over... well, E-8868's chamber. The unknown entity rests in the midst of the chamber, though whether it's still the person or some object representing them can't be known -- it's still impossible to perceive, no matter how many cameras and microphones and suchlike are pointed at it. "These. They're the Prefrontal Excluders for the Akinatization." He hands out a small plastic device that clips to both ears. "Program your questions and their answers at the console. We might be able to bypass the memory limitations if we disconnect your own memory from it completely and use your body's perception. But we have barely any time! Quickly! Make your observations, here or in the chamber, but hurry!" The console's easy enough to use. Type your queries and answers, don your excluders, and focus every unusual sense or analytical ability you have directly on the target. And pray that you can discover the truth before the facility collapses. As for what Lilian said... a screen suddenly flickers on. It's Flamel, sitting in an office behind a hefty wooden desk, surrounded by multiple monitors. "E-8868 is seeking care-- you said it might have been the Refulgence?" "Director." The man in the labcoat turns quickly. "Eigenslayer said that Sixty-Eight is trying to make contact with Kayoko." "...I'm coming down right now. Have a security team escort me from the emergency elevator." "Parsons--?!" The screen goes dark. Rumbling intensifies, from some source far away. Displays light up with emergency information. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Flamel Parsons	[ HEAVY CONTAINMENT - CONFABULATIONS ] [ JEANNE, LOVE, SARRACENIA, HIBIKI ] "Go go go, move move move! Arm up and fire at will!" The short man says, slamming a visor down over his face as he brings everyone into a hefty security airlock. "If these get out, they'll compromise the whole site's perceptronics! But a bias can't survive contact with reality. So bring every ounce of reality you've got there!" He racks the bolt on a hefty rifle, stacks up with several other armored guards near the door as he finishes his briefing. "We've got probable misconceptions in every sector of Heavy Containment. The Third Kirenai Sister has slaughtered two squads already, Evolved Temptation has some of my best mental images cornered, and Traitor Refulgence forces have broken through to nearly the main security gate. Call out any sightings of misconceptions about hostile psychics, or any of the last echoes of Forgotten Meika. Now -- Men!" All of the Real People are girls, here, but that's just what he says, given his generically male squad of security. "Not one corridor more! And the rest of you, if you can kill it with reality, put it in the ground fast! If you can't, herd it right back here and get it contained! Now, breach on three! One, two...!" "THREE!" He slams the button near him, and he and his squad rush out, turning and blasting. "NINE O'CLOCK, FIRE, FIRE!" A mysterious, faceless older woman covered in blades charges from the left through the squad, taking the security chief with her as he shouts and shoots. Evolved Temptation, a near-transparent blur, emits a noise far past human hearing range but not past human-harming range as it rushes the security gate, with a silent squad of strange templar-like armored humanoids with rifles rushing quickly behind it, opening fire as well. Hostile mental images of Flamel's likely-faulty misconceptions, with more yet to spawn as they break through some of the antimemetic memory effect. They're badly-formed confabulations, ideas formed when the memory effect wipes away truth. But any of the more close-to-truth are going to be even more durable and dangerous... And the world shimmers, every so often, as surges of confabulation and destabilization come from E-8868's chamber above. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Kayoko Kirenai	"Identification!" Kayoko snaps to alertness at the sharp command, responding to it like role call at school by instinct. "Magical Girl Chevalier Cobalt! Here!" After some overwhelmed fumbling starts and stops, being asked for advice and guidance while not having her bearings herself, Kayoko settles on the simplest option of going to Active Study. As often as she's been the one talking for the pair of sisters when communicating with authority or making decisions, it's an entirely different experience when Meika isn't actually around anymore-- attempting to assume any kind of leadership position is a confusing overexertion. "Try and take it easy. Here." So that little gesture of kindness from Sarracenia actually means a lot, and Kayoko isn't quite in a state to conceal that. Automatically taking the chocolate milk once it's offered out to her, acting on subconscious processes to the point that she'd probably have taken a bomb if it was held out instead, Kayoko takes a few moments to process actually what Sarracenia said. "... I'm not a kid." Kayoko mumbles dully back, though she doesn't refuse the chocolate milk. Then she blinks and repeats it louder, taking a breath and straightening up her posture. "I'm not a kid! I don't need to be protected. I'm a magical girl, so if I'm needed to help with this, then I'll do it!" "She needs to speak to you. The girl we came out here to find." Most of Lilian's announcement goes dazedly in one ear and out the other for Kayoko, as she surreptitiously unscrews the cap of the milk bottle while listening to the instructions for the Active Study room. The statement that 'the subject' might be 'contaminated' by the Refulgence draws a little jolt from her, but the context surrounding the implication is so muddy with jargon and pseudo-professional classifications that she doesn't feel the impact that badly and chooses to not try to interrogate it further. When she's directly addressed, though-- "G-girl?! That?" Kayoko flinches and widens her eyes in surprise, turning towards the glass-enclosed chamber below. Before Lilian can get mad at her for almost directly implying a slur, though, Kayoko's vision focuses on the psychohazardous entity properly for the first time since getting to the cave, spurred on by... something, strong enough to force herself through the perceptual block. And when she does, something seems to click behind her eyes, pale with horror and entirely too preoccupied to conceal her expression magically. "... You said... she's a magical girl, Dame Commander? But I thought... Vermillion and I... how could there be another one but us? We would know. We'd be told. And this... she's... this way?"
Kayoko Kirenai	The entity within "E-8868"'s cell is almost as you (almost) remember it from the cave. Sterile metal floors with pristine glass walls and white lighting already alters how it's seen, compared to the dim and irregular caverns, scales of razor sharp metal rippling in three-dimensional tides reflecting cascades of blinding light so much that it's hard to even look at it. Even taking into account the difference in environment, though, it's not exactly right-- the ebb and flow of particulate motion remains along simpler cycles, repackaged into something closer to what Flamel can mentally picture rather than the dizzying patterns it had moved along in reality. Despite knowing the blades are sharp-- the act of not being cut by them was always came across as a barely withheld choice, rather than something that couldn't happen-- in Flamel's mind they're blunted and toothless, innately good and unquestionable 'deserving of gentleness'. The blades are clustered and piled up around a pillar in the center of the containment room, or maybe the core of the pillar is metal throughout. A bristling sea of them spreads across the floor and up the walls, leaving only patchy gaps in the windows to see inside, and scattered free spaces on the floor where it would be safe to stand. Watching the way it all moves, when Tamamo, Kayoko, and Lilian gather up at the console and peer inside, is like watching a serpent or jellyfish turned inside out, clenching muscles that don't exist to peel open a gap in the window aimed directly towards them. That's easy enough to understand: it-- she, wants to be seen, in some capacity. What's harder to understand is the bunching-up of metal, erratic gesticulations that stop and slow halfway through the motion, condensing around the pillar in a more comprehensible, less outwardsly hostile-seeming shape. <Polite smiles and white-knuckled grips on hospital sheets.> Attempting to wrap your perception around the shape-as-it's-presented causes a surge of destabilization in the Heavy Containment chamber. Whatever she's doing, the way she's observed in this particular environment innately feeds into further confabulations by instinct. Kayoko steps up to the console first, once told how to engage with it. Unblinkingly still staring into the chamber, she types out while mumbling out loud, obsessively looking at her from every angle at once. "... Do... I... know-- did I know... you?"
Sarracenia	'Apologies, but we don't have that luxury right now.' It may have been in a snappy tone, but there is no venom and there is an apology. Sarracenia looks a bit confused but also appreciates just how serious this situation actually is. Asking Kayoko to take the lead though...even if Kayoko is a magical girl, it is pretty easy to tell this is too much. Sarra is about to protest when... 'We've got probable misconceptions in every sector of Heavy Containment. The Third Kirenai Sister has slaughtered two squads already,' Sarracenia freezes a moment, then looks at Kayoko and then Lilian. "...third...sister?" Sarra does not really know how much of this is real or fake or imagined or what, so she kind of takes that at face value. Then, Forgotten Meika is added to the mix. Sarra has been one of the ones trying to get Meika's memories back, so she has to ask. "...as in, the memories Meika lost? Are we able to recover those somehow?" 'I'm not a kid! I don't need to be protected. I'm a magical girl, so if I'm needed to help with this, then I'll do it!' Sarracenia mmphs at this. "Everyone needs protection sometimes! That is why we work together instead of alone! And right now, I can protect you by facing these creatures while you go to make contact with that magical girl!" Sarra tries to stay close a moment longer so she can hear any answers given, but there are creatures that need smashing! Usually Sarra would be thrilled to go in hammer swinging, but this situation has her all turned around. What if these things are parts of people? 'Start hitting stuff!' Chevalier Love helps her focus, and having Hibiki along is always nice. And Jeanne is here. That is usually interesting, if not always nice. While it may be a terrible situation, this is apparently how she can help keep it from getting worse. "Hit stuff I shall! We shall not let them through!" Sarra declares, then runs to join the line with the others. "Are explosions realistic enough? What about giant hammers?" she asks the chief as she throws a few bob-ombs at Evolved Temptation and its squad of templars. The chief is hit and taken along for a ride, and Sarra eeps in surprise before rushing after him. "Hey! Put him down!" she exclaims. She pulls out an ice flower and in a burst of white smoke and cold she is imbued with frost powers. She fires ice bolts, trying to freeze Third Sister enough that the chief might be able to escape.
Angela	Chevalier Love is somewhat oblivious to Kayoko being unable to act as 'the leader' as normal largely thanks to Hibiki giving her an objective before she really had to think about it. She's absolutely confident that Kayoko can handle her side because she's always been able to handle it all on her own for the most part. It doesn't occur to her this might be weirder than Kayoko is used to just yet because it feels like a normal SCP Branch Breach and Love is absolutely accustomed to this and takes a shine to it as if she was born for the job. In a sense, she was. But even so, it does takes Chevalier Love a little bit to comprehend what Flamel (the part of Flamel that is actually Oleander) is being said because she's not very smart and Oleander is using ten dollar words. "Percept...ronics?" She mouths quietly in bewilderment. She throws a salute and, to try and be helpful since there seems to be some issue with perception filters, helpfully reminds Oleander that, "I'm a girl! Or at least a snake." She isn't sure what killing it with reality is but she does know that she can kill people in reality so she imagines it works the same as normal. "Okay... blow up the fakes. Contain the stuff that doesn't blow up easy. Got it!" She is feeling useful! She likes feeling useful. Unleashing magical girl laser blasts is a good way to feel useful. She elects to hit the ground running, so to speak with a double attack. In this state, Love's attacks are not harmful to anything designated as 'allies' which includes the Oleander goon squad and her friends. It doesn't include Sarracenia. It even includes Sarracenia! She unleashes a bright star out towards the mysterious older woman covered in blades and a second simultaneous assault by pointing her finger out towards the Evolved Temptation, sending a wave of energy passing towards it, taking no heed on anybody who might be in the way! The good news, those that Love considers a friend will be healed up rather than harmed--and who doesn't she consider a friend? Sarracenia. Everyone is a friend of Chevalier Love! ''There's a friend of mine you /really/ needto meet sometime'' "Okay!" She says. "I'd be happy too!"
Tamamo	Calmed by Lilian's appearance of being entirely understanding of what's just happening, and finding herself going the same way, Tamamo takes the opportunity to take Lilian's hand in hers and squeeze it as they, at the usual pace of a disaster, run to the observation deck. Once there, she considers the cameras and the microphones, and her own eyes and ears. Those two senses, in particular, have most been fooled, and the similarity to the abilities of the Kirenai sisters hasn't been lost on her. Her sense of touch hasn't been so affected, but what she's touched has hurt without intent. Hidden blades, not in the shape of a person, but making up one. "Is the sharpness another means by which they sought to hide her, due to that this sense is one they could not fool? Or else, is this due to the nature, or to the mood, of the person herself?" She has, of course, accepted Lilian's assumption that the Holy Refulgence intended this disappearance. 'We'd be told. And this... she's... this way?' "For one to be 'this way' is an easy explanation as to why one might wish not to tell of it." With the place her thoughts had just been, it's the fact that she can perceive the blades without especial trouble that she notices first, and their bluntness that she sees, second. "Hm, that is not quite right, is it? Mr. Parsons may have... no, that is only to be expected, I suppose. I do not believe I have ever observed him acting in fearful self-preservation due external sources. Perhaps he does not perceive a sharp blade as dangerous, at all." She goes to the console, and considers both the question she wishes to ask, and the answers for it. Softly, "It is easiest when the answers are supplied, is it not...?" Whence comes your sharpness? A. Nature I. Mood U. Sickness E. Injury O. Them
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Arm up and fire at will!" "All of us in one place, hm? I'll... Try not to hit you by accident." Jeanne scoffs lightly as she looks over at Chevalier Love, Sarracenia, and Hibiki while picking up a spare gun within the airlock. "Do we even...? Oh, why the hell not. If this is something inside his head and not wherever the hell we were..." Does that mean these guns would work better? Or their own weaponry and powers from their own reality? As Jeanne mulls over all of that, she continues listening to the briefing about the first three anomalies and the need to call out misonception sightings. What really gets her raising an eyebrow, however, is his mention of a Forgotten Meika. Naturally, that's the one Jeanne is already starting to ekep here eyes out for, but what would she even be looking for? The faceless one? The barely visible one? The one swith the guns? No, if the Forgotten Meika was any of them, there would still have to be something Meika-like... Right? "You're not the ones I'm looking for... Get out of the way!" Jeanne takes aim with her rifle, mimicking one of the soldier's stances with their own rifle to take some shots at the oncoming anomalies, focusing her fire on the templars to see how well that unfamiliar weapon even works. That's roughly when the first surge of destablization from the shape hits the Heavy Containment chamber, however, prompting Jeanne to grimace and just set the gun aside. "Mall cop! you said something about a Forgotten Meika. Do these.. Traitor Refulgence forces have something to do with what's been forgotten?" Jeanne calls out as she conjures up a flaming spear, hurling it towards the same group of templar-soldiers with the tip bursting into flames en route to them. "This isn't nearly as satisfying, but it'll do... Oh. The Third Kirenai..." "... how could there be another one but us?" Kayoko needs answers, too, and Jeanne sees an opportunity. She locks (her) eyes with the Third Kirenai ('s face) while she takes the security chief for a ride, almost casually conjuring up another spear behind herself. "Do give us a little more to work with, faceless one... If you're truly their sister, stay a while and talk!" She snatches the spear out of the air with a swift twirl, then launches it towards the faceless woman's lower body with enough force to punch through a car and then some. What might be more notable than the force she puts into the throw, however, is how not on-fire that particular spear is. Kayoko and Meika need answers, after all.
Hibiki Tachibana	If these get out, they'll compromise the whole site's perceptronics! But a bias can't survive contact with reality. So bring every ounce of reality you've got there! "I have no idea about anything you just said," Hibiki replies to the short sergeant without a shift in her determined frown. "But we'll do our best! If it's a dose of reality you need..." Third Kirenai Sister. Evolved Temptation. Traitor Refulgence forces. She can understand those, at least. Misconceptions given form that are a result of the anomaly they found. Remnants of memory erasure or not, she can hardly blame Flamel for having all sorts of ideas of what all of this could really be; it's hard to /not/ have one's mind jump to different conclusions to try and put a form to something-- someone that... barely had one they could even register. ...'Forgotten Meika', huh? There's a heavy exhale as the countdown comes in, and she clutches onto her pendant tighter. "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron...!" When it's time for rushing-stuff-in-unison, it's in a golden burst of light that Hibiki sprints out alongside the others, the right gauntlet of her Symphogear and her flatly massive scarf being the last things to click into place - just in time for her to rear a fist back. And despite a horde of bombs courtesy of Sarracenia also coming in, it's the almost-invisible blur that she bodily puts herself in front of, tracking it by sound more than sight, and intending to stop it right on the spot with a stomp forward into a full-force palm strike to the... she's not quite sure what she'll be smashing into, but it'll certainly be a part of it. The harm-inducing sound screeching out from it is enough to make her teeth hurt as they clench together, but Hibiki nevertheless intends to follow this up by pushing forward and transitioning into /slamming/ the hazy figure down into the floor to prevent it from slipping loose and escaping. "Not so fast...!" "Some new kind of Temptation, or a Magical Girl-- or even somehow both-- that doesn't matter one bit, when they're still begging to be seen and need help...!"
Flamel Parsons	[ HEAVY CONTAINMENT - CONFABULATIONS ] [ JEANNE, LOVE, SARRACENIA, HIBIKI ] EVOLVED TEMPTATION slams hard into the ground. When it splats, blasts of un-fluid tear out of its body, painting the ground and wall with a translucency that bleeds views through to further rooms in the facility. It would seem this is the weaker of Flamel's misconceptions; if Love blasts hard enough, Hibiki will feel this horrible, awful wet SNAP as bone gives way and the invisible creature goes limp. False bias, couldn't survive contact with reality. Third Sister suffers a heavy shot to the back, a bolt of ice that freezes her in place long enough for the security chief to get thrown backwards and clear, and for love-blasts to carve knives off of it. Losing mass doesn't slow it, and ice only manages a short while. "Don't let up!" He shouts as he tumbles, fumbling to his feet and blasting. "Keep shooting! Keep shooting!! If it's real, it won't die!" The immobilizing ice cracks softly, as the much more resilient Third Sister starts to turn, and approach Sarracenia... Is it even suffering damage? The Traitor Refulgence is scattered hard as their vanguard is set on fire. The screams of pain are distorted, running in reverse or in other languages. Can they speak anything? They can burn, though. Some of them are collapsing under the burning... something strange is emerging from one of their corpses. They collapse under contact with reality, sure. But what is that inside them? Something within (behind?) the Traitor Refulgence. Something crawled out. Another anomaly: HIDDEN TRUTH. But there's a loud SNAP as jaws clamp shut -- and now Jeanne doesn't remember whatever she saw, nobody can see it or recall it. The memory of it, the ability to see it, is gone with each jaw-snap. They need to stop it from eating those memories! But first, it tears its way out of the corpse, and leaps into the torso of the Third Sister, where the wound of that spear punched through but hasn't slowed it down. Both emit a terrifying noise. A sword, sharpened on a tuning fork. Hot lines of red surge through the Third Sister's body, and its facelessness turns on Jeanne. Her blades are more real by the moment. She plunges her hands into the ground, and singing knives carve the hallway towards Jeanne and Hibiki, filling space with danger. She rips the spear out of her midsection, struggles through the icey slowness, and tries to slam it across Sarracenia's body in the same motion that she heaves it straight at Chevalier Love. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Flamel Parsons	[ LIGHT CONTAINMENT - ACTIVE STUDY - E-8868 ] [ TAMAMO, LILIAN, KAYOKO ] Tamamo uses her analytics and senses. And as they bypass her brain and move directly into the console, she finds her result... A. NATURE. "Whatever this entity is, sharpness is innate somehow. The sickness did not cause these blades. So the sharpness should not be cured, only something else." Dr. Nein notes. "But where did the sickness come from..." When Kayoko asks if E-8868 knew her, every screen lights up. "YES". Over and over. "YES". Large text, small repeating text. Every screen, every workstation in the room. "YES". It coincides with Flamel shoving the door open urgently, eyes wide, sunglasses a little askew. He dismisses his security team at the door almost instantly. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Lilian Rook	Somehow, Lilian is able to guess what 'Akinization' means before the explanation even begins. If anything, the rest of it only serves to make it slightly less clear, forcing her to focus on the intuitive wordplay. Bracing herself before putting on the clips, Lilian replies to the man in the labcoat, "Simple enough. I don't think I know any other way to learn what people are than comparing them to something I know." She admits it with a lack of self-consciousness that can only be described as banal. 'G-girl?! That?' "Yes. That." Lilian replies to Kayoko on autopilot. She knows Kayoko wouldn't miss how obviously effortful it is for her to smooth her hair and breathe, but she does it anyways. "How would you know? We've already determined that something or someone is successfully censoring her from your perception; and Meika's. You don't still honestly believe we're all making something up that isn't real, do you?" she says. Meika has exhausted her stores of being unfailingly fake and kind; putting Kayoko in the crosshairs to accuse authority of incompetence is intentional. "Even your friend saw. It's possible that only the Holy Refulgence, including the magical girls, is targeted by the blinding effect at all." 'And this... she's... this way?' Lilian only glances down once. "You like fairy tales, don't you? Have you honestly never read a book where a princess is turned into something terrible? Something that no one will ever recognize as a princess, so no one will ever help? I suppose the frog is typically a prince, but you're clever enough to put that together." '.. Do... I... know-- did I know... you?' Lilian needs longer to brace. Longer to breathe. Longer to just . . . be. Here. Herself. Now. Not that girl from back when Blueberry Princess was seated on the folding bed in the doctor's office. It's a new doctor. She liked the old one, but they retired. They're very sweet to her, but she's deeply afraid. They take her biometrics and bring up her file. She wants to run. Adrenaline surges through her. If she leaves the room, they'll take everything from her. The doctor turns back. They coolly inform her that they're sending her for a psychiatric workup instead. this kind of thing would make her draw her sword and coolly recite 'Thou shalt never heed the words of that which begs thy reply'. She tries not to think about whether Night Mist would burn this poor girl, too. She fails. When Kayoko is done, Lilian marches to the console with her teeth clenched.
Lilian Rook	>Are you a girl?»Y/N >Did you ever use magic?»Y/N >Can you use magic now?»Y/N >Do you have family?»Y/N >Do you think they are still alive?»Y/N >Were you made this way by someone?»Y/N >Was that person your enemy?»Y/N Lilian stops typing all of a sudden. She pinches herself, then shakes her head. This is interrogation material. It furthers her personal interests; it doesn't help identify who this person is beyond a victim in a case. The most important thing to resolve first should be making this invisible girl . . . >Do you see yourself as...»Tall/Average/Short >Do you see yourself as...»Beautiful/Pretty/Average/Below Average >Do you see yourself as...»Adult/Young Adult/Teenager/Preteen >Do you see yourself as...»Athletic/Average/Unathletic >Do you see yourself as...»Intelligent/Clever/Average/Dumb >Do you see yourself as...»Pious/Average/Non-believing >Do you see yourself as...»Helpful/Average/Harmful >Is your current injury...»Critical/Severe/Moderate/Minor She hesitates a second longer, then types more slowly. >Has an adult ever withheld from you something that you needed to live, and lied about it?»Y/N >Have your peers ever severely harmed you, and lied about it?»Y/N >Excepting your injury, do you like the way you are right now?»Y/N Excepting Kayoko, do you want to speak to me...»More than others/About the same/Less than others >Did you intend to save Kayoko the other day?»Y/N 'Is the sharpness another means by which they sought to hide her, due to that this sense is one they could not fool? Or else, is this due to the nature, or to the mood, of the person herself?' "It has to be like Meika. I'm certain of it." Lilian says to Tamamo, without further explanation. Tamamo will know, and Tamamo is the only one she intends to answer; the clarification was never for Kayoko's benefit. "What better way? It's difficult to make someone appear as something else, but easy to hide them by simply putting forward 'them, but less presentable'."
Sarracenia	Sarracenia is quite confused when she feels a bit refreshed by being near some of Love's blasts while others knock her around. The princess gives Love a look after a particularly close call, but just huffs and keeps going. She throws bombs after all, and those are pretty hard to keep from singing one's allies even when well aimed. 'Keep shooting! Keep shooting!! If it's real, it won't die!' Sarra is a bit skeptical about that. "Wait...if it is real should it not be more likely to die?" she asks. Third Sister turns toward Sarra, and Sarra looks pretty unnerved at the lack of face. "...if it is real...does that mean she actually -is- a Kurenai sister?!" she exclaims. Sarra lifts her hammer, only to leap back in surprise and a bit of disgust as something plunges into the Third Sister. "W-what in the...?!" she exclaims, then gasps. "Wait! Could that be the thing?! The source?!" She really does not know what is real or fake or fabrication in here, but...this thing is messing with memories, right? That spear is smacked into her midsection and Sarra is sent stumbling back, gasping for air. Her ice flower power disappears in a puff of white smoke, leaving her in her rather tattered civilian clothing again. She rushes forward again though, and goes into a spin. She twirls past Third Sister and swings her hammer, attempting to smash her and the parasite back down the hallway. "You shall not escape! And if you are some sister of theirs, we will restore you!"
Ritsuka Fujimaru	That settles it. Her own fire and steel do work better than unfamiliar weaponry! Still, the feel of the gun wasn't necessarily a bad thing, so maybe.... Well, Jeanne can think about that later. Right now, there's still work to be done and Traitor Refulgences to be stopped, so their false existence can be... Stopped? She doesn't even know whether they're real or not, but she does know that fire works well enough. As Jeanne winds up with her next volley of exploding spears, however, she sees- Jeanne twirls her spears idly around in her hands as the Third Sister lets out a horrendous noise, undoubtedly thanks to her spear going in its leg. Even without seeing an actual face, she can tell its looking right at her, and Jeanne takes that facing as a challenge with a shit-eating grin on her face. "Didn't like that, did you? Come on, then. I'll feed you plenty more!" She bellows while following all those lines appearing on its body. Those definitely weren't there before, but that might be a good sign of damage being inflicted! Or... A sign of something more dangerous to come. The knives coming through the hallway indicate the latter, and Jeanne looks like she's about to charge right through the storm of blades instead of holding her ground in that defensive position. Also, she charges right through the storm of blades instead of holding her ground in that defensive position. She maneuvers between those flying knives as best she can while brandishing a pair of spears in front of herself to deflect others away from her head and center-mass. It's not a perfect defense by any means, though, as several of those knives leave bloody red streaks along her clothes and exposed limbs. The hallway being filled with knives eventually forces her to interdict those projectiles with return fire of her own in the most literal sense, too, as Jeanne kicks a spear forward and promptly detonates it seconds later to directly contest the Third Sister's danger spacing with her own flames. Instead of just launching flames through a single gap in the Third Sister's offense, however, Jeanne instead spreads her flames and exploding spears like she's trying to open up a person-sized gap. It's almost like she's trying to create a clearer path towards the Third Sister directly! She doesn't say anything to Love, Hibiki, or Sarracenia about doing that, of course, but it's pretty hard to miss how much larger her flames are than they usually are.
Hibiki Tachibana	If it's real, it won't die! "Then we just go through 'em until we get to the bottom of things...!" Easier said than done, but that's one down - even though, however fake or merely a mental construct it might be, feeling the blurred silhouette of the Evolved Temptation give way is still extremely unpleasant. But not anything she can focus on, when there's quite literally the truth of the matter to worry about. Her hand pulls back away as she straightens up, clenching into a fist. Just in time to see the templar-like traitors burn away... and /something/ to end up revealed in the flames. "What--?" Whatever it was, she has a handle on it one moment... and then not the next, when those jaws clamp down. Even unable to see it properly, she can understand on the spot - it's getting rid of their memories!? "Is /that/ thing the real one!?" It might not be sheer coincidence that the Third Kirenai Sister has sustained so much damage, and is also the Hidden Truth's chosen target to parasitize - does that mean there's something to her existence, beneath all the biases? She doesn't know with her limited understanding of the rules in here, and she doesn't need to find out immediately. Because the answers'll all come if they just test 'reality' against it! Even with the horde of blades incoming and ripping apart the environment, the quickest path to her target remains 'through them' - and that's why she picks out what looks to be the smoothest gap between the sharp, singing knives and... Jump. Plow ahead fist-first, battering aside some blades and allowing others to cut into her body if it means closing in. Jeanne might be the one responsible for making it a lot more possible than it otherwise would be - not that Hibiki will comment on it out loud either way - but any gap is happily one she'll take. If it means smashing into the Third Sister with a high-speed punch - aimed right for the spear wound that the Hidden Truth crawled into. She might very well be planning to bury her arm all the way in there with a clean hit.
Angela	Chevalier Love glances towards Oleander upon seeing that the Third Sister seems to be enduring a whole lot of reality. "We should...be containing her, right?" She asks. "Or was that not enough reality to be sure?" She somehow doubts it. Chevalier Love is confident, if nothing else, in her ability to unleash vast swaths of destruction. Why, this isn't even her final form. But she is also anxious about fucking up and hurting Flamel, who seems like the only person who can do what he's doing right now. Chevalier Love's mind is not immune to this strange sensation of forgetting. Her movements slow--and a spear is flung and stabs directly into Chevalier's chest and out the back. Chevalier Love stumbles away--she's very good at blasting, but not so much as avoiding attacks. She's accustomed to most enemies melting away under the initial assault or having her Sisters or Kayoko and Meika to occupy the enemy so she can get her Arcana Slave off. The memory of being stabbed is still fresh. Her eyes narrowing into snake like slits and two sets of fangs, not unlike a serpent, reveal themselves as Love struggles to maintain her human-state--whether that's due to damage or stress is unclear, but it is likely a bit of both. She rips out the spear from her body and lets it drop to the floor. She used to stab herself far more than that with every day. The wound is already sealing itself shut visibly, not cutely at all though, as she brings her staff forward. "Heed me, thou that are more azure than justice and more crimson than love..." A symbol of a star appears before her and-- --wait what was she aiming at again? That shrill sound draws her attention back towards the HIDDEN TRUTH or--more accurately--that wound it slid into. She doesn't... NEED to say the chant, technically speaking. It feels a little wrong to not say the whole chant. But she doesn't have time to say the whole chant. She's real. She's a girl. She's not just a... Story. She's not just a story that has to repeat motions because of the story. She can just... ...Decide to let it all loose now. Chevalier Love doesn't have time. So without finishing the speech, or even saying Arcana Slave-- --she unleashes the Arcana Slave towards the Hidden Truth--well the Hidden Truth and Third Sister, really, she can't actually MISS the Third Sister while still targeting her real target. It's not exactly a small magical blast, it's a long and consistent beam. They said if it's real it won't die, so there really is no reason to be cautious. This might in some ways be an ideal environment for the Queen of Hatred. It's bound to impact against Hibiki's back in the process and through her--she'll feel that same rejuvenation effect in the process of the blast. The Magical Girl of Love is starting to look winded and like she could really use a nap. "Try pulling it out!" She suggests to Bikki. "I'll keep...the Arcana Slave going as long as I can!"
Tamamo	'It has to be like Meika.' "That seems to be so." Tamamo had seen her. It hadn't been something Meika had wanted to show, but she'd revealed a bit of herself, in turn. It would have been a secret shared, if Meika could remember it. That thought troubles her. What she'd most like to know is the relationship between this 'third magical girl' and the first two. She knows it exists, even before that 'YES' appears on every screen. She can begin to guess as to the nature based on the answers Lilian will receive, but Tamamo will be surprised if this was anything but a peer, a predecessor by, at most, a few years. "That would make her 'first,' I suppose, until another, deeper secret is unearthed." Tamamo mutters to herself, before refocusing. It's mostly to remind herself, rather than just the others here, that she says, "We should remember the reason for our presence. First, we wish to know the one we have found, whose appearance was hinted to us in that strange situation. Second, knowing this one to be harmed be something, we wish to alleviate that harm. To do so, we must know the harm's nature, as well. Alas, we cannot merely ask, 'how might you be helped?' If only medicine were so simple." She selects the letters as she speaks. Was it your intent to aid Kayoko Kirenai in battle? ( Yes / No ) Have you done so before the recent conflict that led us to find you? ( Often / Not Often / Never ) Do you know the connection between the ones called 'cherubs' and your present position? ( Yes / No ) She doesn't ask if there is a connection.
Flamel Parsons	[ HEAVY CONTAINMENT - CONFABULATIONS ] [ JEANNE, LOVE, SARRACENIA, HIBIKI ] The Third Sister is smashed back down the hallway, skidding over shrieking concrete and chunks of metal. She's being shoved towards the security gate -- and its associated secure containment transit elevator! "Keep going, keep going!" Shouts the security chief, continuing to open fire. Something roils under her skin, knives convulsing over the blank surface of her body. It's perfectly working, because Jeanne's carved path leaves a containment route that makes every other direction a risk! The explosion is badly stunning, but somehow, even a spear exploding right next to her, maybe in her, doesn't do much -- no, wait, that's not right. That skin is roiling more. Hibiki plants a fist deep in the midsection, where an open wound has turned into a nest for the Hidden Truth. She screams in tuned blades again, and knives start to split apart. But she isn't going down, isn't dying. This... this one's a truth. This one's real. Almost, but not quite. The Hidden Truth is struck directly by Arcana Slave. One might see it struggling under the stunning effect. But it's immune to damage -- it's an absolute truth. Disoriented, barely managing to stay conscious, the Truth, whatever it is, chomps down one more time. This time, its claws and jaws dig straight into the Third Sister. Truth breaks free. The Third Sister unzips and unfolds and unravels into something. A young girl, no older than eighteen. No -- precisely eighteen, exactly. It almost feels horribly comedic when the little eighteenth-birthday cake can be seen in the midsection of the Third Sister as it unravels. On its surface... HAPPY BIRTHDAY ##### KIRENAI! Do they even have cakes like that in Japan? Did she ever receive one, if she was real? No time for questions like that. She's unfolded into a storm of blades to endure the biting, and only the old, blank human part of her has fallen away. It's burning, burning with heat that the blades can't touch. The Hidden Truth burrows into it, and vanishes in a puff of smoke. Shrieking, the Blades/Third Sister try to return to the burning, blank body. But they can't. They can't touch its surface. It sing-screams in stress. Not stress that this form has been taken. But the stress of knowing that she can't go back to the humanoid form -- no, she can, but not without burning herself away. The security chief stumbles back to his feet. He mutters, "Jeez... uh... good work, everyone. Get her into the elevator, they're gonna need her up in light containment..." He starts nudging the blade mass a bit towards the elevator. She no longer takes hostile action. Truth, absolute truth, is not harmful to the touch. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Kayoko Kirenai	"You don't still honestly believe we're all making something up that isn't real, do you?" Kayoko shifts uncomfortably, shoulder motions causing faint ripples of negative un-light to cascade off of her through the air. "N-no, Dame Commander, I believe you. That isn't what I..." Kayoko's voice shrinks and she shakes her head, giving up on the protest halfway through. ansi33,"... meant.... Sorry, ma'am.") "Is the sharpness another means by which they sought to hide her, due to that this sense is one they could not fool?" "If she's a magical girl, then...." Kayoko starts to answer Tamamo with a troubled expression, looking unflinchingly out of the corner of her eyes at the blades. She trails off, hesitating or struggling to put words to her thought, but Tamamo's next words silence her. "For one to be 'this way' is an easy explanation as to why one might wish not to tell of it." "Something that no one will ever recognize as a princess, so no one will ever help?" Kayoko tenses, opens up her mouth, and freezes that way for a solid few seconds before the energy she was ruinously mustering up drains away impotently. She swallows, then nods, looking tense enough to snap without her illusory smoothing. "... I'm sorry. I get it. No one would want to help her, like that. So it's a-- a punishment." >Are you a girl? It's no surprise that Lilian's questions get rapid answers, when a glimpse of almost-conversation between them was so heart-wrenchingly longing that the 'ability to be understood' is clearly something she desperately wants to fight for and clings to every chance for. The screens instantly light up »Yes. >Did you ever use magic? »Yes >Can you use magic now? »Yes >Do you have family? Still »Yes again, but this time slammed so fast through Lilian's attuned perception and reinterpreted through the answer on the screens that it's practically shouted over the text question. One of the screens displaying the answer pops from the sheer psychic throughput, frying the left half of the display with an electrical buzz so that it only reads es. There's a shuffle of metal within the containment chamber, blades flaring out briefly along the pillar before resettling. >Do you think they are still alive? »Yes down the line again. >Were you made this way by someone? This is the first question to draw out a long pause from her. Uncertainly, without the blaring blatant truth of the prior answers, the screen flickers on to read o. >Was that person your enemy? Counterintuitively, after a shorter but still present pause, the answer that appears here is »Yes. >Do you see yourself as... When the tenor of the questions shifts, there's another short delay before an answer comes out, but only on the first response. The others, when they're slow, feel more contemplative than uncertain. »Tall. Then repeated in a second flash before the next question comes out, »Tall. >Do you see yourself as... »Below Average shows up on the screen first, instantaneously reflexive, and then gets adjusted to »Average belatedly. >Do you see yourself as... »Young Adult comes instantly, but with another electrical fraying noise, though nothing breaks this time. >Do you see yourself as... »Unathletic >Do you see yourself as... »Average %
Kayoko Kirenai	>Do you see yourself as... Maybe surprisingly, after only a few beats of consideration rather than the flinch-automatic responses that Meika or Kayoko would give, »Pious. >Do you see yourself as... »Average >Is your current injury... She pauses to hesitate, and then the screen flashes, like someone who won't go past a five on a pain scale unless bleeding out, »Severe. >Has an adult ever withheld from you something that you needed to live, and lied about it? »Yes >Have your peers ever severely harmed you, and lied about it? »Yes comes quick enough to feel like the response was on the tip of her... tongue, already, and was just waiting to come out. >Excepting your injury, do you like the way you are right now? The blades coating the window and parting to allow sight into her cell shift around, fluctuating the gap that enables those at the console to see her. »Yes. >Excepting Kayoko, do you want to speak to me... Another ripple of blades fanning out up and down the length of the pillar, this time accompanied by a sharp, light shriek of sourceless noise like squeal of metal along a violin bow. »More than others, then »About the same before going back to »More than others. >Did you intend to save Kayoko the other day? »Yes. Have you done so before the recent conflict that led us to find you? When the questions shift to coming from Tamamo, there's another little pause. Steel flows within the cell in inhuman pareidolia, like glimpsing a sliver of the living scales of a serpent moving through four dimensions. »Not often. Do you know the connection between the ones called 'cherubs' and your present position? »Yes comes up instantly, and the functioning half of the screen fries from the force of it, darkening one of the response vectors completely. "It has to be like Meika. I'm certain of it." At some point along the process of getting responses, Kayoko had gone almost catatonic, staring at the ground rather than at the entity or the others in the room with her. Still, stiff, wide-eyed and queasy looking, Kayoko raises her head to look at Lilian, then at Tamamo, as they exchange words meant to vaguely float above her comprehension. Her mouth dry, Kayoko creakily whispers, "Like Meika. That's right." Then, patiently waiting for Tamamo to be done with the console, she takes a second try, only having two questions ready despite the million she could ask. Do you remember Vermillion? »Yes seems to both stress and relieve Kayoko, then she stiffly types out the final question without elaborating to Tamamo or Lilian on its meaning. Would Chevalier Cobalt rescue you? And after a long, uncomfortable pause, the answer that blinks onto the screen is »No.
Flamel Parsons	[ LIGHT CONTAINMENT - ACTIVE STUDY - E-8868 ] [ TAMAMO, LILIAN, KAYOKO, DIRECTOR FLAMEL ] "YOU." Director Parsons points at Kayoko, backlit by a dozen screens that just say, over and over, 'YES YES YES YES YES'. Once it stops, and Lilian's answers start, he surges forward and clamps a hand on her shoulder. "You need to stay in contact. You need to stay present. You need to remember what's happening right now. And you need to remember this:" He leans down, his eyes a little wild and focused. Kayoko's near catatonia is ignored as he speaks: "Under no circumstances allow your phone to be damaged until I can perform the Perceptronic Contact Procedure." He gets up from that, moves to another console, and plants his hands there. He watches Lilian work. She knows what she's doing. She has a certain kind of insight he can work with. A blurry camera feed of HEAVY CONTAINMENT is pulled up on another screen. His hands shake as he writes. Typos need deleting and correcting. When he finally has the file, he's committing it to deep memory. Screens all throughout the facility pop up the result. He's been watching the questioning and the cameras. Mental images are being placed in their correct chambers. He has what he's been hoping for. And it's awful. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Flamel Parsons	[ ANOMALY BREACH ] ANOMALY #: ACI-E-8868 The Third Sister - Chevalier ####### - ##### Kirenai CONTAINMENT CLASS: Acceptance DISRUPTION CLASS: Temperment RISK CLASS: Not Applicable Special Containment Procedures: A steady supply of food, water, entertainment materials, blades, music, and up-to-date information about the health and wellness of Meika Kirenai and Kayoko Kirenai should be placed at visible locations in or around enclosed spaces or caverns of Sakurajima volcano. It is hoped that these will assist in sustaining E-8868 and prolonging healthy life as much as possible. Description: ##### Kirenai, codenamed Chevalier #######, was or is the sister of ACI-E-8799-1 and ACI-E-8799-2, Chevaliers Cobalt and Vermillion, otherwise known as Meika Kirenai and Kayoko Kirenai. She operated traditionally within the activity zone of the city of Kagoshima, Japan. On the event of her eighteenth birthday, when her powers were projected to be likely to terminate function, she instead chose to flee the city. It is believed that she escaped by quickly moving to Sakurajima volcano nearby, and evading pursing entities using some familiarity with the area. The unknown entities, possibly affiliated with or acting within the local sect called the Holy Refulgence, are the mechanism by which the magical abilities are blocked out and terminated. It is believed that, at some point during the fight, she chose to disengage from the human form completely, performing a transformation to what's known as a Witch form, or possibly a Devil Form, rendering her existence circularly dependent on her self-knowledge and preventing the loss of memories pertaining to magical girl activities in the Kagoshima Mahou Activity Zone. While transformation back to her humanoid form is possible, it cannot be done without sacrificing key self-knowledge. Further study is underway to determine the mechanism and source of this antimemetic effect, to enable E-8868 to return to humanoid and perceptible form. She continues to work with the Chevaliers to the best of her ability. To this date, the Kirenai sisters are unable to perceive or recall her in significant or insignificant detail. [ ANOMALY BREACH ]
Hibiki Tachibana	The Third Sister unzips and unfolds and unravels into something. A young girl, no older than eighteen. No -- precisely eighteen, exactly. It almost feels horribly comedic when the little eighteenth-birthday cake can be seen in the midsection of the Third Sister as it unravels. After prying her fist free of the inviolable truth and taking a few steps back, none worse for the wear thanks to the Arcana Slave's healing effect on her, watching the Third Sister - in the form of the mass of blades - struggle and fail to return to her body is an acutely painful thing to watch. Not even because it's impossible, but because she'd burn away what she is by doing so... There's not a response to the security chief right away. As if the words went in one ear and entirely out the other, Hibiki simply looks down at the burning body for a long moment, her stare scanning over it for... something that she apparently can't find, judging by the look on her face. "Their older sister... were you only trying to help Kayoko, when you cut apart that Temptation? ...Then I'm sure you had to have helped them out plenty of times even before that, without either of them able to know. Even though you're..." Hibiki's head tilts up, shifting focus to the no-longer-storm of living blades being ushered along by the sergeant. Her eyes narrow, and a fist clenches at her side. Meika isn't the only first-hand example of a Magical Girl that whatever is going on in this world is responsible for hurting anymore. "...Yeah. Hold on, I'll help." She starts forward, though not without a glance to the other magical girl in the party. "Give us a hand, Love? ...We can be gentle with her, after all that." Not blind enough to ignore her bleeding-through snakeness nor how tired she is, she figures having something simple like that to focus on would be best before they all really dig into this later.
Sarracenia	'Or was that not enough reality to be sure?' "I think we can be very sure!" Sarra exclaims, then freezes up a bit at what Love and Hibiki do to save the mystery Kirenai. And it isn't until then that she realizes Jeanne cleared a path for them. She watches in a mixture of awe and confusion at the blade storm emerging and covers her ears against the tuning fork sounds. "...so, those blades were hers, I suppose." After, she mmphs in slight annoyance. "...they did all that and I just..." She looks at her hammer. It may have helped get the Third Sister closer to the elevator, but...did she actually help /save/ the unknown Kirenai? Did she actually help Kayoko or Meika? "Yes, good work. I...will have to work harder I think if I wish to be as effective as you three. I hope I was at least of some help" she says. She looks to the others after that, then takes a breath before letting it out. She helps move Blades toward the elevator, using her hammer as a sort of bumper to gently usher the blades onto the elevator. And when she realizes the Truth is harmless to the touch, she tries giving it a pat on the...approximate area where a head would be on a person. "I am sorry. This may be the most restored we can make you. But, as a great king once said, it is not your form that determines if you are a person." She smiles gently. "But, I am quite stubborn. I will not give up that easily." Then, as she has made a habit of doing after a fight, she hands Love, Jeanne, and Hibiki a green mushroom each. And waits to see what Hibiki does with it, because it is usually cute.
Angela	Love marvels, "Oh wow! The Hidden Truth is a hidden truth not a fake truth masquerading as a hidden truth!" She goes a little crosseyed after saying this and then wiggles her finger in the air to try and make sure she's actually got this correct. Her face sours, though, upon seeing eighteenth birthday cake with the deleted name. A pair of 'angelic' wings pull out of her back. Eighteenth Birthdays are no longer happy for Chevalier Love. In fact, she kind of hates them. But the sad thing she has learned today is that she can laser many a thing, but she can't laser the truth and she can't laser a concept. Sometimes...being cute is effort, sometimes being nice is effort, sometimes feeling love is effort. She repeats herself these phrases a few times and she tells herself she can love this person she has never met, she can do her best to love this person she has never met. This person she might never meet. That's the only way she knows to fight back against all this horrible... ''Give us a hand, Love?'' Chevaleir Love says, "There's four sisters..." Love says. "How long has she been unable to speak to them..? Unable to help..." She moves to help move the Third Sister along with Bikki, little sparkling tears trailing from her eyes. Four Sisters. Just like her, just like home. "Thanks for being here, Chevalier Song." She seems to have settled on that one.
Flamel Parsons	The blades look to Hibiki, but the mental image can't tell if the Third Sister in the real world was helping. Still, why else would she do this? The storm is moved into an elevator, and brought to Light Containment, at the correct chamber. The analysis at Light Containment is complete. The mental world and its problem is solved. And then, all of a sudden, it's gone. Flamel pushes a chunk of rock over as he digs until he can stand up. "Nnnh. Someone got flashlight? I've only got pyrokinesis and I don't wanna mess with our oxygen." He crushes up and pushes aside more volcanic stone with his hefty telekinetic hands, pushing his way towards the exit of the chamber. "I've got the best protocol we can figure out for this here, but we can't pull her out with a cure yet. We've gotta find out what got to her. The cure comes from the venom. But we know what the venom is and how it happened." He digs his way more and more. "Something is hunting magical girls when they reach the age of 18, and cutting memories out of everyone with antimemetic poison." He rambles, with manic focus. "We know what's happening. We know how to staunch the bleeding. We have to find what's preying on them." A heavy psy-blast to annihilate even more. It won't be long until everyone's out of the volcano. But it might be midday tomorrow by the time this cave-in gets excavated... "And I'm bringing Meika to Whispering Rock." He keeps digging.