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Owner	Pose
Angela	PREVIOUSLY Hokma was approached by a retainer of Oda Nobunaga named Eiji Hino, allowing him to take on the form of ANOTHER DEN-O. Utilizing its power along with an EGO drawn from the Abnormality called the Price of Silence, he unleashed the power of trains, scythes, and temporal manipulation to try and overcome Lobotomy Corp and the Elites therein. He was soundly defeated, but there was a problem--the root cause of Hokma's Meltdown had a different origin than expected--The Smoke War. Tennant, the Captain of the Records Team and bodyguard to Hokma, had been assisting his Sephirah during the Meltdown but suddenly used their own knowledge of Hokma to press him on his involvement in the Smoke War. This resulted in a resonance with the supercharged Enkephalin in the facility not unlike when Netzach transformed the facility into a College Campus. This time, however, instead of a college campus, the facility has become a battlefield as shadow soldiers battle one another across the walls of the facility, fully three dimensional but with a decided 2D quality to them. The transformation doesn't seem quite as complete as back when Netzach caused this sort of reaction as the facility is still facility-ish with the war as set dressing layered on top of it. Perhaps due to a lack of Carmen's involvement? Tennant was chased down to their personal locker where they retrieved a black and gold mask with the eye of horus at its center, speaking of their commitment to someone they've only referred to as 'The Lady'. As the rest of the facility became a battlefield, the area around them transformed into a house with a younger sullen Tennant sitting at a piano bench, near a television.
Meika Kirenai	Radio static. Acrid white noise, buzzing through and through as indistinct haze. Voiceless, it pleads, and for once, its pleas find purchase amidst guilt, desperation, and fear, and within anger, emptiness, and elation.     1.76mhz, housed in Records, an Abnormality of a formless radio signal, begins to leak out and fill gaps in the facility effects from the meltdown.     Like the grainy fuzz of standing up too fast, a lens of static paints over the world, gone after just a blink. Hallways and facilities aren't how they looked before, fluorescent-lit concrete hallways strewn with pipes and bulkheads are, instead, asphalt paved alleyways, lined with sandbags, fortifications, craters, and empty buildings; light emanates mostly through the thick smoke that covers the ground, from scattered floodlights and road flares.     Moving about, this way and that, falling into silent step beside clerks, Agents, and Elites alike, shadowy, mostly intangible soldiers fill the chambers, passages, and entrenchments, vastly outnumbering every real person present. A warzone needs soldiers, and echoing through the thick, smoggy air are the omnipresent memories of combat. Distant explosions, gunshots, the faint murmur of shouts and engines. The Smoke War has long since ended, but today, the Smoke War rages on.
Angela	TENNANT FAMILY HOME BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeAUKRN5lRA The television flickers on. It is not one of those flat screen monitor tvs, it's one of those old school models. Static crackles and the younger Tennant turns to look at it, rubbing their bruised knuckles and looking quite uncomfortable in their dress. The older Tennant's gaze follows. On the screen there, through the static, there's movement. Men getting skewered on bayonets. Shadows slaughtered by the dozen. The dull eyes of Tennant the Younger are impatiently waiting for something there. Their bruised knuckles throb as they turn away from the sheet of music on the piano to watch the screen. The older Tennant crouches down to adjust the set by twisting a dial. Video flickers by quickly. "I used to be able to travel through time myself you know. Forward, usually, but I could make it go by fast. Staring at a ceiling, knowing exactly what was wrong and pushing it out of my head. Watch TV, play card games on my phone--oh I love television and film. I still do, to this day, though they don't make them like they used to, not even like how the multiverse makes them. I closed my eyes and I could become a star and travel at the speed of light. But I aged, too, at the speed of light. My life, I could observe it as it passed by in fast-forward." "BongBong returns in...Spy That Loves Me!" "Laryngos-Corp needs YOU to defend--" "--No truth at all to rumors of smoke mutations--" "--Now we try again. We repeat the experiment." "The destiny of a demon king, the power of a Singularity in his hands. A princess with doting parents who just let her do basically whatever. Did you know? When you're in the Nests, one of the ones where things aren't quite as nice and aren't quite as protected, you find people who think the Head is too gentle. That they allow for too many kinds of humanity. Oh, they don't need to voice it. They can say so with a look, or maybe a line like 'Hey that's guy stuff!' or 'Isn't that a show for girls?' It's so hard to move between Nests and if they don't like the one they ended up in, or if you don't fit into their plan, well--It doesn't really matter if you're not an Impurity. The Head won't punish you, but they won't protect you either." I think I was born bored I think I was born blue. I think I was born wanting more. I think I was born already missing you. Tennant clicks the dial one more time and steps back from the television as something that looks like a cross between a 'fight the supernatural monster of the week' show with the monsters being their new guardian after they defeat their last one. "Ah! I love it! A Lamentable Sequence of Parents. Would you believe it only ran for two seasons? I stayed up to watch it every day, I had to sneak out here so my parents wouldn't notice and I kept the volume real low and had subtitles on so I wouldn't wake them. Boy, when they caught me, they got real upset." Tennant smiles dissonantly. "Well, eventually they got tired of spending money on a little weirdo so they punted me out the door...! What do you think happened after that?"
Angela	BENJAMIN/HOKMA BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KawV_oK6lIc&ab_channel=Mili Hokma--Benjamin finds himself in a command tent. He seems a little unfamiliar but there's maps lined up everywhere. A rotary phone has been set on a table and on the other side of tablet, is a clunky military radio set firmly into the table, not visibly attached to anything, but somehow unable to be moved. Static noise punches out of the radio. At first, nothing distinguishable pops through the radio, but the phone, right there, rings briefly before cutting out, as if the phone was picked up even though Benjamin hasn't touched it at all. "Benjamin. I'm going to need soldiers, properly trained soldiers loyal even in the midst of a Wing War. R Corp and the Udjat won't be enough on their own." Benjamin exhales slowly, sitting down in one of the two chairs in the Command Tent. "So this is it. The cruelest time I had to take part of. We thought it would be so much easier. A few riots, a few battles... but Laryngos had allies. G Corp and others who were more inclined to prop up a dying company than try to take advantage of a rising star. Of course, I'm sure they had their reasons. Maybe Smoke was just more useful to them than Enkephalin. At first it was just sabotaging one another's efforts but..." He trails off. "...Agreeing to recruitment was easy. The more soldiers we had earlier on the better. The faster we could move. But the Smoke worked against us. Even with the rumors we spread about its deleterious effects, when concentrated--it was a lot worse than even we knew. We had to recruit harder. Make promises we told ourselves we would keep but knew were unlikely or impossible." Benjamin picks up the phone and says, eyes closed. "...Promise them a spot in the Nest. We'll figure out how to make it work later." His shoulders sag in his chair. Despite looking far younger than normal, he still comes across as aged. The smoke rises up around the tent, around Benjamin's home, everywhere and then... Fox's voice pipes in on the local comms, "Hey! I don't know what's going on over there, but Welfare's been turned into a field hospital! We've got a bunch of clerks and agents here hurting from keeping the Abnormalities back so far, but there's these fuckin' shadow soldiers trying to bust in and shoot us up! My EGO is shit, we need medics and backup!" Shortly after, also on local comms, "Central's turned into a warzone all of a sudden?! We're real outnumbered here! Who are we even supposed to--shit, it must have breached!!" Carol shouts before the comms short out shortly after before she can provide any detail.
Meika Kirenai	FRONTLINES:     More than anywhere else in the facility, the great hall of Central has been altered to be 'outside', with ornate walls and ceilings mural-painted over with the facades of empty urban blocks, the ceiling a hazy gray sky. Where balconies and mezzanines ought to overlook the central plazas, the masonry of multiple-story buildings stand, the maze of branching hallways hidden behind evacuated storefronts. The distances within Central seem larger, when not looked at with proper scrutiny, the other sides of the open areas just far enough away that thick haze obscures outlines, and the false sky above providing eerie openness that shouldn't be found here underground.     That same smoke that fills everywhere utterly chokes the open plaza. It's quiet, but nothing is still- distant, unclear, movement stirs within the haze.     Where the routes up to Central meet, as it opens up into the plaza through the mouth of a shattered building, a sharp 'Heads down!' gets whisper shouted out from somewhere further in, and off to one side- huddled in two split groups, behind side-turned cars, and stacked sandbags, the Agents and clerks of Central are bunkering down, amidst a mass of the same shadowy soldiers that have been filling in space.     The clerk who opened their mouth to shout that little warning, as soon as it's past their lips, flinches and ducks even further below the barricade, as the shadow allies around them turn and seem to glare. Other clerks turn relieved eyes to Elites actually filtering in, but similarly relieved at the marching shadow figures filling in alongside them. A moment after nothing happens, they relax, and another pipes up- they're jittery, to the point their teeth are chattering. "B-been a bit since the last wave, but s-s-something's *different*, I saw it, last time, I did" In a gesture that could be annoyance or could be reassurance, a shadow soldier pats the clerk on the shoulder, but either way they quiet up, still staring at the newcomers.     One of the static-stained shadow figures, formerly busy scrawling something out on a pad with one ear to the receiver of a similarly-illusionary radio pack, suddenly stands up straight and dashes across the gap between the two barricaded areas, momentarily in the open. Skidding to a stop, they push through the huddled clump to press a note into Carol's hands. ------------------------------- URGENT: Notice of Assignment   ------------------------------- Capt. Carol to order All Push Objective: Line Consolidation Heavy resistance anticipated   -------------------------------     The shadow soldiers, as well as a few clerks, that strain to peer over Carol's shoulder groan, or shout in frustration, as they confirm the expected intent of the message. It's a hollow shell of a communique, a stand-in prop in this play, but it's also word for word the same message as growing piles of crumpled up slips underfoot. 'Jump back into danger', again, with no immediately knowable purpose.     The radio operator shadow turns, and, bending just a little low, dashes back across the opening, making it to---
Meika Kirenai	--Sharp, echoless thunder peals out across the quiet buzz of the department, as a thin blue streak pierces straight through the messenger, who stumbles once, and disappears into a soft crackle of static, a '... please, .... . .-..p -- .,' whispered from nowhere, and after, all that is left are floating blue motes from the killing shot.     Soft yelps follow out from clerks, but the orders from up above- orders from Hokma -are clear. As if they'd been doing it for tired months, the clerks and the shadow soldiers don't even wait for Carol, or the other Agents they should look to for protection, to say the words- they're charging off into no man's land, holding their issued pistols, or shadowy long arms, swords, and axes, and far across the open plaza, deep within the awful smoke, motion reveals their opposition- swarms of the same shadow soldiers, some with chaotic, insectoid outlines, begin their countercharge in turn. FIELD HOSPITAL:     Welfare's clinic, now absent the linoleum echo and antiseptic smell, finds itself painted over with the guise of a skyscraper's marble lobby, with its ornate floor covered over by a maze of stretchers. The shift in the facility has made it far more barebones and temporary, and crucially understaffed- at least, for the number of wounded to deal with. While actual clerks and agents make up some of the injured, with recognizable faces such as Mikey, Chewy, Ya-Boy, and Moku amongst those occupying the stretchers, the vast majority are the quiet shadow soldiers.     It's immediately noticeable that the flitting-about clerks are making no distinction whatsoever between real LobCorp workers, and the shadowy echoes, as they rush to administer HP ampules and treatments. Elites that wander in are shouted over to by frantic clerks, called over to hold shadow soldier's fake-bleeding wounds, or to carry resources off to use on the illusions, at the frantic ire of Welfare's captain, Fox. It's hard to move through without being recruited to help, with desperate eyes and grabbing hands.     At the front side of the lobby, where tall windows once stood, makeshift barricades are manned by more of the shadows, and clerks, watching over the central chamber of Welfare. Some clerks and shadows are resting, some walking around, the smoke from cigarettes or steam from mugs of weak coffee mixing into the smog. Similarly dim to its usual, a shadowy, cavernous area outside is filled up with thicker smoke than anywhere else around, and crowded on all sides by walls that feel like the press of other too-close-in business skyscrapers, in this abstraction of the war's environs.     The quiet watch breaks, every now and again, into shouting, gunfire, and scuffles of fighting as clerks and shadow soldiers fight something beyond the barricade- enemy shadow soldiers, as is the case all across the facility. Sometimes, in the skirmishes, a few shadow soldiers get carted back to the hospital floor for help, but mostly, hurried groups come in from other corridors carrying wounded from other departments.     Even more intermittent, high-strung guards shout and shoo away occasional other figures who wander close to the barricade, obscured through the smoke, but without the hostility- questioning young civilians, in dusty formal clothes, asking about medicine and food, but each and every time turned away and chased off.
Angela	THE STAGES SIDE HOKMA: Hokma is in the command tent. In order for the Meltdown to succeed he has to confront his past war crimes in a manner that doesn't completely break him! Few know more about the strategy and secrets of the Smoke War than him. What lead Benjamin to run away from the people he loved? What led him to worry about dangerous dreams? SIDE TENNANT: uh Tennant is being chatty and ominous and telling a story. Keeping them occupied will at minimum stop them from shooting everybody with Magic Bullet all day. Plus, they seem to know some secrets of The City... is this an opportunity to learn more? SIDE FRONTLINES: A swarm of shadow soldiers is assaulting the 'Central' battlefield. Agents and clerks are in trouble and something seems to have 'breached' as well in this area which means there's likely an Abnormality to fight. What sort of horrors of war did those who fight in the war that cannot be forgotten and should not be remembered have to face? SIDE FIELD HOSPITAL: Welfare is swarmed and swamped and need help. They're going to need healers and fighters both if the wounded within won't get picked off by shadow soldiers...and possibly something even worse! What sorts of horrible things does the Smoke do to its victims?
Riku Asakura	In the time it takes Riku to wake up from being incapacitated, his natural fast healing has healed most of his injuries to a bare minimum of scratches and scrapes.  He finds himself on a battlefield, hunched over in a trench on the side of the Central battlefield.  He keeps his head low as instructed but is confused about what is going on.   He's even more confused by the static people who are standing in for the soldiers who fought in the Smoke War, but Riku doesn't know or understand the Smoke War.  Honestly, he's never been in a true warzone in his life, besides what happens when Kaiju strikes a city center.  It's similar, but not the same.  Thankfully the radio tells him what he needs to know.   <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "Ah, I had neglected to mention to you, Riku, that rarely the Enkephalin can resonate with those suffering from bouts of significant mental turmoil and modify the facility's appearance accordingly." <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "This happened once before, mhm... Mm. Kind of. It was different the other time, though. It was more liiiike... A school?" <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura says, "So this is... the turmoil in Hokma's heart?" <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "I suppose so." With that understanding, Riku stands up and brushes off his jeans and jacket.  He crouches low to the ground and makes his way over towards Carol as people start getting ready to charge no man's land.  Quickly he's gotta make a choice.  He draws out the Fusion Riser and pushes the button to start. He jumps over the edge and pulls out a capsule.  It summons a ghostly image of Ultraman.  "You go!" he shouts and does the same again with the second capsule summoning a ghostly image of Ultraman Belial.  "I go." he draws the Fusion Riser on both capsules, "Here we go!" He draws the Fusion Riser up to his chest, before speaking again.  "Time to get ready!  GEEEEEED!" he shouts and pulls the Trigger.   The two ghostly images of Ultramen jump into Riku, as he starts growing.  Not to his maximum height but tall enough to be a giant on the battlefield, and marches forward to provide cover for the Clerks and Agents who are being forced across the no man's land.  His goal is to make sure everyone comes back alive.   People are talking to Hokma, he'll put his trust in them to get through to the man and restore the facility.  Until then, he'll take the abuse of this war and protect people the best that he can.
Petra Soroka	"Those concessions I made against being an honorable man, all for the sake of our goal..."     With Tennant's voice whining over the radio, Benjamin appearing in his full grey-haired twink war criminal glory, and the old L-Corp smoke choking the halls, Petra seethes through her teeth to vent the exhaust of her previous hate-filled tirade at Hokma. She whips around to snap at him, bringing her transteam gun down for emphasis, as if she wants to just smack him in the head with it despite being well out of arm's reach.     "Anyone who would've given a shit about your 'honor' is *dead*, you dense piece of shit! Even *you*, dumbass! Get it through your fucking head that you--" "Oh gosh. I guess... I resonated with the Cogito as well. This is so embarrassing..."     Petra's expression twists, and she shoves her transteam gun roughly into its holster on her hip. "Lilian, I'll split off and deal with Tennant. There's nothing honest I can say to this guy without telling him to kill himself."     Petra scoffs, and then coughs from inhaling the smoke, pulling the collar of the ember-smoldering Fourth Match Flame over her mouth to... inhale a different kind of smoke instead. "Between Hokma and Tennant, at least one of them is sticking to what they came here to do."     Petra takes a few steps back, squinting through the smoke and the distorted facility. There's no way she could track wherever Tennant on foot, so she pulls the compact mirror out of her suit breast pocket and spikes it into the ground. The eruption of shattered iridescent glass coalesces into the Beauty of Ash around her, prowling on all fours to barely fit within the dimensions of the facility hallway.     When the Beauty of Ash tears through the facility, hitting each right-angle turn creates a punctuated blast of glass shrapnel, rebounding off an invisible wall to keep hunting for Tennant's house without slowing down. Blade-sharp legs and trailing glass gashes deep into concrete and metal around its path, looking more like the aftermath of a catastrophic Mountain of Smiling Bodies breach instead of the work of an agent. In the battlefield of Central Command Department, where the main chamber dwarfs the Beauty of Ash even in normal situations, the mech straightens up to its feet so Petra can get her bearings, only to eat a spray of gunfire that impacts like crunching ice between teeth. The Beauty of Ash rears weightlessly backwards, then hunches down to charge a path straight through the shadowy soldiers that aimed at it, conveniently punching a hole for Carol's ordered assault.
Petra Soroka	The Beauty of Ash splashes into a million pieces a foot away from the hazy image of Tennant's house, going from full speed to a stop without leaving a scratch on it. The inertia follows through to only Petra, who's thrown out of the mech's chest and rolls to a stop while it compresses back into her mirror. Petra pushes open the door without knocking, lighting a cigarette on a smoldering patch of her EGO. "I used to be able to travel through time myself you know."     "That's just losing time, *Tennant*. If you just use TV to zone out and pass time, no wonder your media takes are always so dogshit." "BongBong returns in...Spy That Loves Me!"     Petra squints at the TV as the image flickers past. The smoke she exhales from her nose while the cigarette dangles between her fingers feels like a completely different color and density from Laryngos Corp's smoke that fills everywhere else. "BongBong? Is that *our* BongBong?" "It doesn't really matter if you're not an Impurity. The Head won't punish you, but they won't protect you either."     Petra's look at Tennant is intensely unimpressed, as she wanders around the interior of Tennant's childhood home. The way she inspects paintings on the wall, opens cabinets, traces her hand along the back of the couch, feels invasive like surgery, and callously undelicate, leaving circular burn marks in her wake.     "Yeah? That's your story, huh? Get to the point. Your enkephalin's not the stuff that's filling the Seed of Light, and it's nothing a thousand better people haven't said before." "I had to sneak out here so my parents wouldn't notice and I kept the volume real low and had subtitles on so I wouldn't wake them."     "Eh. I saw a couple of the reruns. You weren't missing much; the mixing was terrible." She twirls her transteam gun around a finger, leaning her elbow on the couch to watch over Tennant's shoulder. "So. What'd your 'Lady' do to your shitty parents for her to end up like your new guardian?"     "And have some fucking dignity. Cogito doesn't stop you from having any control over how you present yourself."     Petra drops her transteam gun down, muzzle pointed directly at Tennant The Younger's head. With a squeeze of the trigger-- black-glittering smoke pours out over their body, shrouding them in featureless ambiguity everywhere except their hair and eyes.
Kukuru	Although Kukuru's seen the facility change wildly once before during, seeing it happen again in this form is far more shocking. There's no veneer of pleasant days or peace to make it easier to take on first contact, and nothing for Kukuru to use and delude herself into thinking things could be better than they are. There's just shadowy soldiers, clerks, Agents, and the lingering static thatmakes it hard for her to hear herself think. She looks over at Benjamin, listening quietly at first as she circles around his chair to take a look at those maps. Even if she might not recognize a lot of what she's looking at there, she still pores over it like she's trying to commit it to memory. It might help her later. "You thought your... Wing? Was stronger than it was. Buuuut it ^wasn't, so now we're in the middle of it. Is that about right, Ho... Benjamin?"  Kukuru asks, taking another look over at Benjamin and clearly fishing for which name she should be using in the context of the Smoke War. More voices call for assistance of the comms, and Kukuru places her hands on the table gingerly. "That bad already...? Okay. I'll head over to Welfare first, then. If you need me to head somewhere else-" She taps a finger on the maps. "then let me know if it's on here or one of the usual places in the facility, okay?" Before Kukuru leaves, she sticks around to provide convenient portal access to wherever anyone might want to go so long as it's somewhere she remembers within the facility, or if the map actually gives her enough information to just wing it and drop someone through. ONce that's done, she steps through one leading to Welfare's Field Hospital. There's too many wounded all at once, and the initial rush of blood and pain hitting her senses brings Kukuru's mind back to battle against the queen in Rita's oceanic world. It's just as nauseating now as it was before, but for far more different reasons than before. Whereas that war had been a battle of survival between two species, this doesn't feel anything like that. "... but Laryngos had allies. At first it was just sabotaging one another's efforts but... Even with the rumors we spread about its deleterious effects, when concentrated--it was a lot worse than even we knew." "This was about people fighting each other for... Smoke? Enkephalin? There had to be sooomething more important than power or control, right?"  She asks, sounding like she's hoping for an affirmative answer. She looks like she's on the verge of being heartbroken already, but a long swallow and a firm clench of her jaw hides that somewhat as Kukuru gets to work. The nanites start to flow, and she releases them at regular intervals first, to try and heal up wide swaths of the injured Agents, clerks, and shadow people alike within the field hospital. She's favoring those recognizable faces first, of course, but there's several among the clerks she might even recognize. She's probably responsible for them being thrown back into this mess instead of being allowed to simply die during other Meltdowns, after all.
Timespace Riders	Static fills in the details, rendering a facility with decorations into a proper recreation. Woz, still in the Quiz armor, takes it in as soldiers march past. Gradually, their shadowy figures gradually occluded by the appearance of a command tent over his head--and Benjamin's. We had to recruit harder. Make promises we told ourselves we would keep but knew were unlikely or impossible.      "I see," says Woz, with a slow nod, the question-mark crest on his helmet glinting in the shade of the tent. "You long for the past, not only because of Ayin, but because it allows you to revel in the heady mist of victory," opines the retainer.      "That time after the promises have been made, but somewhat before one's inability to keep them becomes too apparent to bear."      "Why have you brought us here, Benjamin? Is it as Tennant says? Do you wish to be tried for your actions in this era?" He makes an assured 'hm,' certain of it after he asks. "Yes. That must be it." My EGO is shit, we need medics and backup!      The retainer indulges an irritated grunt. "It *is* a meltdown, after all. Tell me. Of all the promises you made, of all that you said would be handled 'thereafter,' how much of it was true?"
Timespace Riders	--TENNANT's HOUSE--      Zi-O, still in the Drive armor, heaves a sigh with his whole body. Tennant's claim that this is 'a good day' isn't one he believes on its face, much less with the other company present. But--as he told someone else earlier, starting from the assumption that other people's motivations make sense to them is important.      "Okay," he says tiredly. "I trust you." My life, I could observe it as it passed by in fast-forward.     "That kind of time travel is dangerous," Zi-O notes, shouldering his greatsword and nodding. "For exactly why you just said. If you do it too much, you leave a lot behind. But that's exactly why it's so tempting, isn't it? The ceiling, the phone, the TV, those things don't hurt you like other things can." The Head won't punish you, but they won't protect you either.      Zi-O dispenses with the greatsword, the weapon disappearing in a white cloud of little light-motes. "I wish I could tell you it was different other places," says the would-be Demon King. "But honestly... I can't even say it's less blatant other places." What do you think happened after that?     "You're here," says Zi-O. "So whatever happened to you isn't as bad as what *can* happen. Especially since you said this was a good day. Right? You didn't have as much reason to want to fast-forward any more. But..." Zi-O pushes off the wall, his headlight-lenses peering intently at Tennant. "There's a reason that falling off the conveyor belt is the stick they try to scare you with. It's scary being on your own, isn't it? When you can't even count on what little you had before."
Sarracenia	Sarracenia really had no idea why Tennant putting on the mask might be bad or good. She also did not particularly care at that time as she was staunching a throat gash with many mushrooms. So, when Tennant does put on the mask and things shift around them she can only watch wide-eyed until things settle into a...home? Sarra blinks in surprise and looks around before standing up slowly. Tennant seems to have lost their desire to kill Sarra...for now.      'A princess with doting parents who just let her do basically whatever.'      "Doting? My parents despise me much of the time. They think I am an embarrassment as a princess and detest my work as a heroine. 'A princess should be soft-spoken and not engage in fighting for any reason. That is what heroes are for.' Hmph. After years of waiting for a hero to appear, I decided I would just become one instead. Then, once my hero or heroine -did- appear, I would be both worthy to stand beside them and -capable- of standing beside them. My parents put me in charge of the military mostly to try and keep some sort of control over me, I think."      Sarra watches the tv for a bit, but war dramas have never been her thing and the people are just shadows anyway. She looks between the two Tennants, and hesitates a moment before speaking.      And thus has to suffer through Petra speaking first. Which in reality isn't so bad in this instance, at least up until Petra points a gun at the younger Tennant's head. "What are you-?!" she starts, but smoke pours out over the Tennant before Sarra finishes her sentence. She seems confused by the shrouding, but as Tennant the Younger seems unhurt Sarra doesn't say anything else.      'The Head won't punish you, but they won't protect you either.'      Sarra nods lightly in agreement with Zi-O. "Being left to your own devices has its advantages, you know. Forging your own path yields its own kinds of rewards. Despite everything I am quite glad I struck out into the Multiverse. I have seen so much that princesses of my world would typically never see and done things they will never do!"      'Well, eventually they got tired of spending money on a little weirdo so they punted me out the door...! What do you think happened after that?'      "Wait...they kicked you out for being...'weird'?" Sarra has to contemplate that for a moment. Her parents, despite their opinions of her, have never kicked her out or cut her off. "I...am sorry, Tennant. That is terrible!"      Sarracenia keeps a handkerchief she pulled out of her purse pressed against her neck, unsure if she is still bleeding and unwilling to find out at this moment.
Hibiki Tachibana	Smoke...     So much smoke.     Choking smoke. Cloying smoke. Smoke that filters past her scarf and makes her want to cough into it. At first, she thinks it's from the wreckage that comes with destructively derailing not one, but two trains. But it doesn't take long to realize it's a lot more than that - even if the voices of Hokma and more weren't indication enough, the surroundings themselves are...     THE FRONTLINES     "This is... a warzone...?" Hibiki murmurs, wide-eyed, stumbling into the 'Central' plaza, just for combat instinct to kick in and kick her into movement the moment she spots the shadowy messenger make the run to do their delivery. A pang of dread hits her as they make the the first way around, but when they turn back around...     "Wait! Let me--!"     She only just begins to lunge out, hand outstretched - in time to see them hit the ground and vanish.     It's not real. Just an effect of the Meltdown, and the Enkephalin powering it all. Like every other one, most of what they're seeing is trauma from times long past. Even so, for a long and long moment, even as the rest of the combatants gather together for a potentially suicidal charge, she remains staring listlessly, almost blankly, down at where the shadow soldier once laid.     Then she snaps back to reality once more, takes a shuddering and shaky breath, and snaps her head in the direction of all of them moving ahead. The clerks - the clerks /are/ people living in the now. People who... "What the hell are you doing, you're just going to get yourselves killed--! Don't...!"     The only thing she can do - the only thing she can think to do - is grit her teeth, clench her fists, and run as fast as she can. Make it to the head of the charge before any of the others. So that she can take whatever brunt she can when the two inevitably meet in the middle.     It's better her than them.
Angela	FRONTLINES Carol receives a note. She is startled by this, apparently not wholly drawn into the illusion like last time as her expression is decidedly 'what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?' but the soldier rushes off ahead. "H-hey, what are you doing?! They have a sniper! They have ''the'' sniper!" As if pointing this out, the sniper in question shoots the messenger. Carol has seen a lot of horror, but the way that the shadow pleads, makes her shudder all the same. Somehow their lack of realness makes it worse for her in the moment. To her team she says, "Take cover...! Goddamn I don't know what's going on anymore--" Fortunately, Riku being a Big will help them in this regard ... though maybe not against this sniper in particular... Rose rests a hand on Hibiki's shoulder, "...Pardner, I'll follow your lead." They rush forward to give Hibiki backup. FIELD HOSPITAL Mikey, Yaboy, Moku, and Chewie are among the wounded with Yaboy being the most injured and Mikey, somehow, being the least wounded. Fox looks relieved when Kukuru arrives. "Oh thank god." Fox says. "Our clerks are wasting half our ampules on the fucking shadow soldiers. I'll handle Moku if you can help the others."
Angela	TENNANT "Exactly!" Tennant snaps a finger and points it at Petra. "But that's a pretty undramatic way of putting it so..." They frown. "Hey you came to like all the movie nights so it couldn't have been that bad." ''Is that *our* BongBong?'' "Oh! Yes! BongBong used to star in sooo many soaps. They're a positive celebrity. But I guess eventually even stars lose their shine. How they ended up here outside of that, well, BongBong hasn't told me no matter how much I pestered them!" They marvel as Petra uses her transteam gun in order to envelop their younger self in black mist which also conveniently makes them look a lot more mysterious and cool. "Ah that's incredible! Nah, I'm surprised by this showing up too. I think I'm thinking about my past because Sarracenia reminded me of a time I honestly hadn't thought about in a while! Until now!" Frowning thoughtfully, "You know, your words are so sharp and cruel, yet as long as I've known you, your actions have always been so terribly sweet. I think I prefer that to the other way around!" Sarracenia calls them out on Tennant's assumptions regarding her parents. "Eh? Aren't they just disappointed in you because you cause a lot of drama and mess up a lot? It's not like they're beating you or kicking you out. You still live in a castle, don'tcha? Maybe I just don't understand royalty." Tennant doesn't seem inclined to keep fighting just yet. The younger Tennant walks through the television and the scenery shifts to that of the Backstreets, anger in their eyes until a pair of shadow-individuals approach Tennant, wearing similar masks to the one Tennant is wearing. In between them, the shadow outline of a woman extends a hand to Tennant. "It is the best day of my life." Tennant insists. "Freedom. And it is the day I met the Lady. She let me be ''me'', gave me a job, responsibilities, fed me. I rose through the ranks and even got to fight in the war with my siblings on the front... I eventually impressed her enough that I even got the very important job of keeping an eye on Ben and collecting information on the work here while it was sealed away." They stall a little at Zi-O's sympathy but admits, "Well it was helpful at the time. But you're right. Heck, it might even be better here than a lot of places, though daaamn, I wish it could've been space. Cinder made it sound like paradise." They quirk their head at Zi-O. "You live with your uncle. Did your parents kick you out because you liked twinks?"
Angela	COMMAND TENT Benjamin turns his gaze to look at Petra. His expression is contemplative but he says, "Would it be so easy for you to step into the future when the past has what you've lost, to throw away your mistakes? I do not let go so easily." Some part of him thinks he should have killed Petra when she had just been starting out here. He knew she was dangerous but what's done is done and, besides... he can only imagine how the facility would have managed without her. Kukuru asks some questions and looks at the maps. The maps are clearly a map of District L with some battle lines drawn. It does look like Benjamin's forces have the advantage but the enemy troops are considerably more concentrated and this sort of war is merciless. Benjamin seems uncertain as to which name to react to. He looks back over to Kukuru and adds, "Yes. The enemy was stronger than expected. But ... no, it was not just for power or control. Or rather, the power and control was a means to an end. When we ripped Garion's brain out of her skull, we stole all the information we could from her mind before it could erase itself. We focused on one goal: How to stay safe from The Head. And there was only one way we found." He exhales. "We had to become indispensable and bury ourselves so that The Eye could not see, we had to prevent all knowledge that an Arbiter found out our crimes. Fortunately, Garion had not informed the rest of The Head about what we had done but we had to become a Wing and forge bonds with powerful coconspirators, chief of which... The Udjat and T-Corp. Neither Ayin or I could render Angela immune to the Timetrack. Only Hubert knew. He helped us. He wanted to change the 'possibilities' but he would not help us beyond this lest his own interests be in danger. Though it seems T Corp has an uncertain future..." Woz suggests he just wants to indulge in victory and his eyes widen, horror writ upon his face. "Victory? You think we...won? ... No we had lost long before this point, but this was survival for us. It would have been better to just die." He grimaces as he realizes he just agreed with Petra but he pushes forward anyway, "Perhaps judgement is what I seek... But what good would that do now? We are all dead." How many of the promises did he make were true? "...In the end all we could stop were the mutations. Helped some people get into Nests, but too few. The number of people who had to be rejected despite the promise were countless." Various voices speak up through the radio through screams and cries in the static. "Need reinforcements at Subdistricts 3 and 6. Group in Subdistrict 5 is pinned but if we give that up it's over." "K Corp's being stingy with their ampules, they're giving half of what they promised."...Tell the field hospital to send anyone able-bodied--so long as they can fight without being a hindrance--to the Subdistrict 5. Tell Subdistrict 5 to hold position. We can't give that up."
Meika Kirenai	FRONTLINE:     Leaving eddies and swirls in the wake of her charge, Petra's spearhead rush shatters the resolve of the countercharge, shadow soldiers evaporating off into static and nothingness. Allied clerks and soldiers try to fill the break, after recovering from scrambling for cover and to be out of the charging mech's path.     Ultraman Geed, the second giant to grace Central's battlefield, finds that the enemy shadow soldiers, shooting from the cover of smoke and buildings, as well as from just behind the collapsing countercharge, don't seem to be able to hurt him at all. Tracer bullets streak shadowy across the plaza, but they lack the feeling of impact. Still- when clerks and shadow soldiers further beyond where he can bodyblock, are hit, and go down- while the illusions die when struck, the clerks don't *seem* to be taking real wounds from the hordes.     Hibiki alongside can play shield to the shadows and clerks, take shadowy bullets that feel more like bee stings, and pierce through the line, and with the efforts of the three elites to tip the stalemate, that advance order is carried out fine- forces moved up from the edge of the plaza to taking its vulnerable center, continuing the push at least *feels* sensible- taking the other side would secure the whole area, and chase off the people who've been whittling away at their numbers. But- another shadow soldier with a radio pack goes alert, and rushes from the cover of a flattened car to Carol's side, another dreaded note in hand. -------------------------------- URGENT: Notice of Assignment   -------------------------------- Capt. Carol to order Full Halt Reinforcements are en route     Hold Position until relieved   --------------------------------     Undercutting the progress made, the shadow soldiers stop joining the clerks forwards, and instead scramble to find bits of cover in the exposed middle of the plaza. Clerks curse, frustrated- but orders say stop, for some reason, and they start to fall back to the mass of the shadows again, deep within the choking smoke.     Furthest across the plaza, from the upper stories of a crater-marred brick building, a tall figure, wrapped up in a dark blue cloak, rises up at what amounts to the worst time to do so. Eyes glowing with enough ferocity to be distinct through the haze, Der Freishutz, escaped abnormality, lines up Geed, the biggest target, in its rifle's iron sights. Any lowered guard by how painless the shadow soldier's bullets are is capitalized on when that blue streak- the abnormality's Magic Bullet, rips through air like a lightning burst. Der Freishutz is gone after the flash subsides, into the smoke and ruins, and only the third shot gives away how far it's moved- but this shot tears through the side of the hunkering line of shadow soldiers, like fish in a barrel. After evaporating shadows into static, the bullet curves towards Hibiki, chasing her down. No shot follows that, but one could, from any side of the plaza, at any time.     The clear danger of sitting and waiting isn't lost on the clerks, but the shadow soldiers, and with them, the clerks, aren't responding to much else but the orders they're being sent. Without a means to affect those, and the calls Hokma is making, shepherding people safely through the conflict is a terribly uphill battle.
Meika Kirenai	FIELD HOSPITAL:     From one of the taken-over reception desks, a makeshift little radio setup starts spitting out signals, received by a shadow soldier, scrawled down, and rushed to Fox's hand, zipping around the maze of cots and stretchers. It's bad news. --------------------------------- URGENT: Notice of Assignment     --------------------------------- Capt. Fox to Transfer Forces     Able bodies report to the Front Reinforcements Unavailable       ---------------------------------     Stated as such in the command tent, forces here are being reassigned. As soon as the slip is pressed into Fox's hand, the shadowy barricade guards start to move away, before any order can even be relayed. While reluctant, so too do some of the guarding clerks. Even the shadow soldiers who were actively perched to shoot at approaching threats lower their guard, and put weapons down.     What isn't immediate, but does start up, is a frantic worry and calls of alarm from the clerks who do remain as guards, as aggression picks up again from the outside shadow soldiers. Gunshots plink off the barricades, and the clerks at the wall duck down. Some of the ones acting as nurses cluster around Kukuru, in nervous expectation more than to pull her away to help with something else- she's doing plenty to help the staffing issue, and her focusing on the agents and clerks she knows means they'll actually receive that aid, instead of leaving it up to triage with illusions.     The civilians come back, again- it's a pair of youths, dark clothes, blond, and with strange wreaths around their necks. They plead, wide eyed, and approaching the barricade, with bullets flying, the scared clerks try and shoo them off, too- no food or medicine handed over, at least not from them. Overheard, one or two of the clerks shout at them to scram, that there isn't enough to go around- even if, with Kukuru's healing, that might not even be true. One of the youths peeks closer in, and even from a distance, they look like they're wilting- skin taking up an unhealthy pallor, gunk around their eyes, but the other pulls them back and away, off into the distance, upset and scared.     The clerks at the barricade glance back at the rest of the field hospital, at Fox, the busy and being-healed agents, and Kukuru, and try and wave them over with, or shout 'Come on, there's an attack coming', but shadowy bullets start to rip through the barricade, and mid-duck, some of the clerk guards fall, unconscious.     Without the mass of the shadow soldiers, pulled away thanks to Hokma's orders, the whole welfare facility is critically vulnerable- reversing course, or some other way to guard it, is imminently necessary.     Worse- the building starts to gently tremble, then shake- and along with a scattered rush of insectoid-silhouette shadow soldiers, the barrier is *crushed* inwards by, of all things, the swing of a giant umbrella.     Dream of a Black Swan, monstrous abnormality, has breached- furious, the giant mutant swan monster batters down the rest of the barricade that's been stopping her siblings- the youths -from getting aid, out there in the mutagenic smoke. Faces look out from the open screaming beak, scowling down at the clerks and agents alike, swinging a tight-clutched umbrella to bludgeon anyone who isn't running.
Timespace Riders	Wait...they kicked you out for being...'weird'? Being left to your own devices has its advantages, you know.     "That's... not quite it, Sarra. But like I said," says Zi-O. "It's not unique to the City."     He pauses, searching for words as his helmet dips briefly downwards. "I'm gonna tell you this because I think it'd help you be a better person, if you take it to heart and keep it in your mind."     "Places where people are... judged, based on how much value they can offer, always do this kind of thing. In places like this, you exist to make the people with power over you richer, not the other way around. If it takes even a percent of extra effort to get the same value from you as from the next person, then you're either beaten or medicated into shape, or they take everything away from you and make you live in the wilderness. 'You thought you weren't happy before? Try it without a roof over your head. Without money. Without food.'" His gauntlet creaks as his grip tightens.     "The margin of what's acceptable to be is drawn in the blood of people who fought to make it wider. And even then, it's a lot easier for someone who wants to do harm to those people to erase it and move it back than it is for those people to make it wider."     "That's because it rolls downhill, until regular people are doing it to each other and their kids and family members, and they don't question it at all because it's just normal to them. It's 'how you get ahead.' 'I'm doing you a favor, so just kill that part of yourself now and pretend, so you can be safe and unhappy instead of unsafe and maybe-happy.'"     "It starts at being 'gracious.' Like Tennant said--'haha, that's girl stuff.' 'That's a show for boys.' Or 'wow, you sure spend a lot of time with that other girl, right?' It's a phase that you can have fun with as a kid, but you're expected to grow out of it. If you don't, then they start to get firmer. Then they get angry that you can't be happy. They start to come after you, either because they don't want to put in any extra effort, or, sometimes, because it's '*I* settled, so what makes you so special?'" You live with your uncle. Did your parents kick you out because you liked twinks?     Zi-O laughs, after a startled pause. It's very much needed, in the moment. "What a way to put it! Like they'd be cooler with it if I was with some big buff guy." A chuckle, as the amusement fades. "No. To be honest, I don't know what they'd think of my relationship with Woz. I'd like to believe they'd be fine with it, but I don't really know. They died in an accident when I was really young."     "I know what I do because I was just weird enough to not be... you know. And because when you're on the outside looking in, even if you're really close to the front door, you have a lot of time to try and make sense of what you're seeing."     "Would you tell us a little more about the Lady? Have we met her? Are we... going to?"
Petra Soroka	"Doting? My parents despise me much of the time."     Petra scoffs, and she's obviously revving up to say one of her typical lines-- probably something along the lines of, 'At least they got that right'-- and then stops and readjusts. Instead, she lays her gun on the back of the couch, rapping it with her fingernails to draw Sarra's attention to it.     "Hey, princess. How happy do you think my parents are, with their daughter running off and getting into fights and dangerous missions all the time?" "Being left to your own devices has its advantages, you know."     "Who are you to say that? You're completely supported by your daddy's military. If you were ever left to your own devices, you'd be a completely different person." "Wait...they kicked you out for being...'weird'?"     Petra's eyes slide off of Sarracenia and onto Tennant. She talks past her to address them as if the princess wasn't even there.     "'Weird'. Well, you are, aren't you?" "Hey you came to like all the movie nights so it couldn't have been that bad."     Petra rolls her eyes. "Yeah, joke's on me for spending that much time around a spy, huh? Was it just part of your cover story that made you go on that absolute dogshit hour-long rant about how Invasion of the Body Snatchers was somehow a secret anti-capitalist revolutionary masterpiece, or did that one come from the heart?" "I think I'm thinking about my past because Sarracenia reminded me of a time I honestly hadn't thought about in a while!"     "You know that's the worst possible answer you could give, right?" When Petra spins her transteam gun around on the couch so that the muzzle points at Young-Tennant again, it feels a lot less kind than the first time. "*This* is what's in your head just because of some words from fucking *Sundew*? You're so fucking fragile." "You know, your words are so sharp and cruel, yet as long as I've known you, your actions have always been so terribly sweet."     Petra clicks her tongue and rolls her shoulders, planting both her elbows backwards to lean on the furniture. "Lilian's made me real fucking benevolent, hasn't she. If you take me seriously, then you can keep seeing me be benevolent." "I eventually impressed her enough that I even got the very important job of keeping an eye on Ben and collecting information on the work here while it was sealed away."     "... And why was Benjamin important to her? Does 'she' know about the Seed of Light? What's... next, for her?" "You live with your uncle. Did your parents kick you out because you liked twinks?"     "Shut up. This is what I was talking about." Petra's suddenly elevated hostility flares threateningly, and she glares at Tennant. Then a beat passes.     "Woz isn't a twink, idiot. He's like, a twunk, maybe. Sure he dresses like a fucking dorky fruit, but you people are always throwing that word around at any guy who doesn't look like he's been pounding steroids since he was a toddler. Jesus."     "Anyways." Petra twists her lips into a scowl, and tightens her grip on her gun. "Tennant, give me a reason why I should give a single solitary shit about your emotional well-being right now instead of just killing you and going back out there to help the Briah agents. What do you have to offer me?"
Riku Asakura	The bullets from the shadow soldiers don't seem to affect him at all, allowing the giant to walk across the battlefield and swipe his arm at the shadows to try and disperse them.  Of course, this seems hardly necessary as he notices the forces are running back from their attack into No Man's Land.  This doesn't bother Geed much, it means he won't have to stretch himself thin trying to protect them.   That is until the Magic Bullet rams into his chest.  He falls back rolling with the blow and landing in a crouch.  Another bullet fires, but this time Geed's able to do something about it.  "GEED BARRIER!" he calls out and summons a giant barrier in front of himself to protect himself from the second bullet.  The third follows the same way, but Geed has seen the distance that they've traveled in that amount of time.   "I think I need to change up my way of fighting this.." Riku says deep in the being that is Ultraman Geed and draws out the Ultracapsules again.  He activates one summoning Ultraman Seven.  "You Go!" he calls out, grabbing another Ultracapsule which summons Ultraman Leo. "I go!"  He slides them both into a holster and slides the Fusion riser across them.   "It's time for my courage to burn bright... GEEEEED!" as a blazing blue fire burns across Geed.  The barrier falls and Geed himself changes.  When the blue fire fades out, Geed is now covered in Armor plates and is redder than he was before.  His face also has a larger blade on top of it.  When he stands up, the armor plating releases steam, as he throws the blade that once sat on top of his head towards where the last shot came from.   However, he knows that shot won't still be there.  The armor protects him from the logical follow-up shot from Der Freishutz, but the thrown slugger, the blade he tossed, moves towards the teleported Der Freishutz, aiming to catch him by surprise with the PSYCHIC SLUGGER.
Timespace Riders	Sure he dresses like a fucking dorky fruit, but you people are always throwing that word around at any guy who doesn't look like he's been pounding steroids since he was a toddler. Jesus.     Zi-O laughs again. "Thanks, Petra. He'd appreciate that, I think, even if the dorky fruit thing would get on his nerves. He's pretty, and he's smart, and he's encouraging. He's really, really good to me, and I like being good to him, too. I don't think I need a specific word to appreciate him. To me, he's just Woz." What do you have to offer me?     "Can I talk to you for a second, Petra?" asks Zi-O, motioning her to come closer. If she doesn't, he insists, getting between her and Tennant and gently ushering her a few feet away for a sidebar conversation. "Have you noticed something? Something that's... you know... not happening, that was, a little while ago?" His tone implies an impish smile behind the mask. Holding an index before him, he pantomimes pulling a trigger where Tennant can't see it but Petra can.      "You could kill them and get the same thing," he admits in a hushed voice. "But I think that would be a bad deal. Tennant obviously wants to talk, right? So let them." A little clap on her shoulder, and Zi-O utters a more-audible chuckle. "Good talk! Sorry, Tennant, you were saying?"
Timespace Riders	You think we...won? ... No we had lost long before this point, but this was survival for us. It would have been better to just die.     The back of Woz's hand crosses Benjamin's cheek harshly. Before he can lose his balance, Woz grabs him by the collar.     "How dare you say that to me after the conversation we had. After what you asked of me," he says, tightening his grip on the collar before shoving him back into his seat. The number of people who had to be rejected despite the promise were countless.     "Yet you knew that this would be the case. So why did you persist? What would the establishment of this place, and the completion of the Seed, have given to you, that it would be worth the lives you spent along the way?"
Sarracenia	'Eh? Aren't they just disappointed in you because you cause a lot of drama and mess up a lot? It's not like they're beating you or kicking you out. You still live in a castle, don'tcha? Maybe I just don't understand royalty.'      Sarra hmphs softly. "Of course you do not understand royalty. I have no doubt it is difficult to understand without being royalty yourself." she says, more matter of fact than accusing or insulting. "It would be far more embarrassing for them to denounce me and have to turn the kingdom over to a cousin or some even more distant relative than to tolerate their only daughter. And I will have you know I /cause/ very little drama. People simply do not like it when a strong woman refuses to back down."      Young Tennant runs through(?) the TV, and they are now in another scene. Sarra watches in curiousity. "Hmm...perhaps as a royal and a heroine I simply do not understand the 'honor' of being sent to spy on and be trapped inside of an organization. Especially one as terrible as this one." Sarra pauses a moment. "Were you sent to bring down Lob Corp, then?" she asks before continuing. "Anyway, I think can at least understand somewhat wanting that feeling of comradery, though. It is something I would like to feel someday myself. All of my fights have been alone, or at the head of an army instead of part of it, or alongside people who do not like me and thus do not inspire comradery. I almost felt it I think when Merelisa and a few of my other friends...and Rufus...we all went and ended up freeing nation who's people were being used as fodder to scam rich parents into buying their children a false chance of being a hero, but...finding out I was not a destined hero dampened the feeling quite a bit."      'That's... not quite it, Sarra. But like I said, It's not unique to the City.'      Sarra mmphs softly and her cheeks color a bit with embarrassment at being told she isn't quite getting it. She crosses her arms out of habit, then eeps and covers her neck again quickly and digs in her purse for another green mushroom. And finally mmphs again as the subject of what is right for a girl or a boy is brought up. " 'Weapons are for warriors, not princesses.'" Sarra adds.      'Would you tell us a little more about the Lady? Have we met her? Are we... going to?'      Sarra nods quickly in agreement. "I must admit, I am rather curious myself."      'Hey, princess. How happy do you think my parents are, with their daughter running off and getting into fights and dangerous missions all the time?'      "Hm? I...have no idea? I do not know what sort of people your parents are. But...I suppose it is likely somewhere between 'do not care at all' and 'do not approve'. If they approved I suspect you would not have worked so hard for Lilian." Sarra says, oblivious to or in denial about how much that might apply to her as well.
Sarracenia	'Who are you to say that? You're completely supported by your daddy's military. If you were ever left to your own devices, you'd be a completely different person.'      "I am in control of the military. I can do with it what I will, thus my own devices. And I did for a few years before realizing...some things." Sarra says, rubbing her arm uncomfortably at the thought. "My parents put no limits on what I was allowed to do with it so long as the kingdom remained protected."      'Hey, princess. How happy do you think my parents are, with their daughter running off and getting into fights and dangerous missions all the time?'      Sarra listens to Petra's words on this with a flat expression, but in truth is unsure how to feel about that herself. "...wait, how did -I- make you think of this war and the Lady who took you in after being abandoned?" she asks.      'you people are always throwing that word around at any guy who doesn't look like he's been pounding steroids since he was a toddler. Jesus.'      "Indeed. I have rarely heard that word used in a fashion that was not insulting." Sarra says.      'Can I talk to you for a second, Petra?'      Sarra raises an eyebrow and starts to follow, but thinks better of it and instead just watches while continuing to speak to Tennant. "So...how old were you when you were kicked out and then found?" she asks, serrupticiously moving so that if Petra did shoot her gun Sarra would be in the way of Young Tennant.
Hibiki Tachibana	After the initial shock, Hibiki is only slightly unnerved rather than fazed by the shadow soldiers - on both sides - going down in the conflict. It doesn't stop her from shielding the ones on their 'side', nor does it quite entirely stop the quarter-second hesitation that comes with every punch belted into their 'foes'.     There's relief when she notices that the shadows don't seem capable of harming them all that much, let alone the clerks... which doesn't last long, before has to acknowledge that the blue streak that pierced through that messenger was a far cry from this ground conflict.     A sniper? 'The' sniper...     ...There's no taking chances that it'd be able to do what those shades of the past can't. A breached Abnormality...     "...Rose..." Even without saying anything beyond that, it's not hard to tell that having her backup helps steady her some, looking back at her over her shoulder with a slight lightening of her expression. She takes in a slow breath before taking stock of the situation, with the plaza cleared - just to frown beneath her scarf at the sight of the radio pack-bearing trooper. "...Those messages led everyone into a suicide charge, and now it's going to make them all sitting ducks for..."     She trails off abruptly, eyes shooting wide as Geed is first shot, and then she follows the glint of the one arcing towards her. With barely any time to decide on a course of action, she realizes she doesn't want to risk dodging it just for it to hunt down anyone else - or Rose.     And so she grits her teeth, whirls on her heel, and clenches her fist to punch it into the magic bullet. It hits its mark, in a sense of the phrase, and she uses raw might to disperse it into motes of scattered radiance... her hand loosening and slightly trembling afterwards, visibly scorched.     That kicks her into gear. "If it keeps just getting to take shots at us like this...!" She doesn't have a way to track Der Freishutz at all, able to shoot anywhere as he can. She'd be leaving everyone stuck here at the mercy of more of its bullets while she'd be stuck once step behind...     Without any good ideas, with Geed trying to pin it down anyway, and with mounting frustration at these suicidal 'orders' - Hibiki whirls on the clerks who are stuck playing by the script. "Get it together, you all...! If you know they're crap, then you can make your own calls! Take cover! Help each other...! Don't just stand around waiting get shot!!"     She knows - the mental influence that Abnormalities and this place in general has isn't really something that untrained employees like clerks are able to easily resist. But it's still discontenting and angering enough that she trudges over to the soldier who delivered the last missive, making to snatch the radio pack off their back.     If she doesn't like the sound of whatever next comes out of this thing, she's really thinking about just crushing it in her palm.
Lilian Rook	'Lilian, I'll split off and deal with Tennant. There's nothing honest I can say to this guy without telling him to kill himself.'     "I think that would be best."     Lilian replies to Petra in a way that is at once strangely in-synch and wildly different than her. Her contempt for Hokma is nowhere near as white hot as it could and maybe should be, but the acknowledgement contains an unspoken agreement that one of the two people she loathes right now has use of Petra, and one doesn't. For whatever reason, it happens to be the opposite of whom Lilian can be useful to, and whom she cannot; and it's funny that the expendable one is left to Petra.     'Would it be so easy for you to step into the future when the past has what you've lost, to throw away your mistakes? I do not let go so easily.'     "Years ago, if I'd had the choice, I'd have done anything just to get the chance." says Lilian. "Somewhere in me, that old version of myself understands perfectly." She takes a deep breaht. "And that version of myself is pathetic compared to now, and you're not a better person than she was, Benjamin." The words 'not by much' are shot and killed before they reach her mouth.     'We focused on one goal: How to stay safe from The Head. And there was only one way we found.'     With sword in hand, Lilian speaks at the same time as Benjamin. As if the conclusion were so tritely inevitable that she doesn't even need the present knowledge she has of Lobotomy Corp to guess what it is.     "Taking your place in their world with a smile. Saying all the lines, taking all the falls, bowing and scraping and laughing at yourself when you have to, and exit stage left when they aren't looking. Stay underground, out of sight and out of mind, quietly keeping the lights on like busy little bees and not daring to show your faces. Then, at least, nobody checks to see what you're doing while the door is closed."     'It would have been better to just die.'     "Better for whom, Benjamin?" hisses Lilian, breathlessly. Her thumb traces back and forth over the lines of Night Mist's crossguard. Her armour makes that soft watch-like ticking in place of quiet clatter when she tensely from foot to foot. "I'm not so kind a person as to take pity on the ones who give up." she says.     "Once you've dropped out, you forfeit your right to any sympathy along with the suffering. The shittiest thing you can do after deciding 'nothing can be done' is to run away so that nobody else can argue."     '...In the end all we could stop were the mutations. Helped some people get into Nests, but too few. The number of people who had to be rejected despite the promise were countless'     "And we both know you deserve the punishment of having to live, Benjamin."     Lilian barely keeps hers sword still. She channels the feeling into her other hand, lunging out to grab Hokma by his temporarily extant throat and jaw, squeezing until the suit subtly sparks. "'--both the blood of thy line, and the blood shed for thee'; you're a fucking disgrace to both. Being at war is one thing, but don't try to pretend it's just about 'back then'; like your hands were tied by tragedy, you fucking weasel."     "You did the same thing all over again with Angela. Once you ran out of promises to break, you designed and built someone just to use and lie to like you always do, and to have no choice but to play out your personal sins all over again."     "Does that get you off, Benjamin? Does it just feel good to push it all onto someone else, watch them play out the little script that validates you, and bow out at the end? Because you had a choice this time."
Petra Soroka	"He'd appreciate that, I think, even if the dorky fruit thing would get on his nerves."     Petra does her best not to smile, turning her face to the side away from Sougo with a huff. "Well, then, good. That means I'm not going too far in one direction or another. Keep 'em guessing." Oh no! Petra has failed her stealth check, and the corner of a fondly approving smile can be seen when Sougo expounds on Woz's good qualities! "I...have no idea? I do not know what sort of people your parents are."     Petra's flat stare levels on Sarracenia, distantly disbelieving. Dryly, she repeats Sarracenia's previous sentence, when she was repeating her own parents' words. "'Weapons are for warriors, not princesses'. Dude, you're not the only fucking girl in the multiverse whose parents would prefer her to put the gun down and stay in the kitchen, except your gun's a super magic hammer and the entire fucking kingdom's military, and the kitchen's serving you. Of every single girl I've ever met out here as an Elite, you're given the *most* support from your parents to do this kind of stuff." "My parents put no limits on what I was allowed to do with it so long as the kingdom remained protected."     "But they *could*! They *gave* it to you! You're not fucking--" Petra groans with exasperation, dragging her hand down her face. "Sundew, if I didn't know better, I wouldn't be able to even believe that you're a woman. You come from some bizarro world where misogyny means you get to be the commander in fucking chief with no government oversight and call that abuse." "Can I talk to you for a second, Petra?"     Petra is pulled aside without complaint, but the complaints come later when she's told not to murder Tennant. She makes a plaintively frustrated noise at Sougo and whisper-yells privately. "Yeah, sure! On the other hand, there's dozens of my coworkers getting shadow-shot-at by weird fucking ghost soldiers right outside! I don't even dislike Tennant! I want to get out of the Meltdown with as few people dying as possible, and it's partly *because* of them that the war restarted out there!"
Kukuru	"Our clerks are wasting half our ampules on the fucking shadow soldiers." "Do they look real to them or something?" Kukuru asks Fox as she gets a rundown on the clerks' wastefulness from the captain, letting out a quietly strained noise at realizing her own mistake in spreading the nanites out too much. "Of course, dear. I won't let them die. Someone... We all have to make it back home alive, no matter how scary this all is." She smiles serenely to try and reassure both the Agents and herself about everything that's going on so far. Moving over to the named Agents, Kukuru gets a quick read on the situation, and her attention jumps straight to Yaboy. She wants to warn the Agents all to be more careful, to dote on each and every one, but there just isn't enough time for that. All she can afford to do is look for foreign objects, jam her hand in to yank them out, and start healing. "I'm sorry, dear... Just bear with this, okay?" She might have to bleed some of those infected-looking wounds, too, piercing and mending them as quickly as she can to prevent obstructions that might make it harder for them to fight. Part of her wants to leave some of those crippling wounds there, of course, but that would just mean having to heal them up again when they inevitably throw themselves back into the fray. "... no, it was not just for power or control." "We focused on one goal: How to stay safe from The Head." "The Udjat and T-Corp." <<"Survival, then...  And because of that, you had to get involved in all this. And...">> Kukuru speaks to Benjamin through the radio and closes her eyes for a moment, then remembers that she doesn't have time to just think and sit there. She still needs to get all those wounds closed up, to getmore of the Agents and clerks back into fighting condition so they can go and get themselves ripped apart again. <<"Now... No, back then this whole war started so that you could surive. But a lotta people died, didn't they?  Was...">> Kukuru pauses again. She can't really blame Benjamin and everyone else for trying to survive, right? If not for that, everyone she knows now from Lobotomy Corporation might not even be alive, and they might have never met. <<"... So you won, right? If you're all here, then that means you won this Smoke War. How did you win it?">> Reassignment orders are given, and Kukuru picks up on the rising alarms and sound of encroaching gunshots. She's already sweating profusely, too, as she's slowly putting out more of those nanites than her body can regenerate, spurred on by those clerks clustering around her. They're counting on her to keep them safe, so who is she to deny that? The civilians with wreathed necklaces arrive, and their haggard states tug right at Kukuru's heartstrings while she's still wrists deep in another Agent's extensive wounds. Healing still takes time to stick even with those procedures that granted her these powers, and she's lost sight of both of the youths by the time she finishes and rushes over to the barricade. "Where did they go? Oh no, those kids..!" She can see far. They have to be somewhere out there, right? Just a quick teleport would help her get them in, but where are they? The bulles from the shadowy warriors coming towards the field hospital force her to step back, then start grabbing those fallen clerks instead. She can't just leave these clerks she's responsible for, either, but the kids... "... W-we've gotta regroup. Everyone, get back to the... Um. Where the others were! I can keep you healthy, so keep firing!" Kukuru shouts out to the clerks as she waves them back towards where Mikey, Yaboy, Moku, and Chewie are. She acts as a literal rear guard while ushering the skeleton crew over, then tries to entrench herself within them all as a healing battery for the clerks and Agents so they can start fighting back with relative impunity. This war can't go on for that much longer, right?
Sarracenia	'Dude, you're not the only f---- (even in her mind the word gets censored) girl in the multiverse whose parents would prefer her to put the gun down and stay in the kitchen...'      Sarra mmphs. "I do not think I included 'they are cheering you on' as a possibility, did I? And my parents are not supporting my activities! The things I have are part of being a royal! Not..." Sarra goes quiet a moment. Her parents have not kicked her out. They have not cut her off. Tennant's parents did. Are her parents...supporting her? Sarra huffs stubbornly. No, of course they aren't. They gave her things. They did not say 'good job Sarra, we support what you are doing'.      'But they *could*! They *gave* it to you!'      Sarra does not appreciate the tone or the language, but for once she listens to the words anyway. By the end of it, Sarra's expression is somewhere between confused and contemplative. "...are they...?" she murmurs to herself.
Angela	FRONTLINE Angela's voice comes on in the local comms. "Riku. Hibiki. Benjamin is simply going through old patterns, wallowing in guilt rather than moving forward. You can't let the orders rule the scenario or it will just feed into the Meltdown. Try defying the order or making a better suggestion." Carol shouts, "She's right! Besides which, I don't know what'll happen if thoses soldiers peg ''us'' and I do know what will happen if we're sitting ducks for Der Freischutz!" As Hibiki starts breaking the radios Carol adds, "Oh thanks, that's a big help..." Carol says. But Rose has an immediate idea. "Hold on maybe..." MEDICAL TENT Kukuru asks how Hokma won. "We won through our partnerships, our aggressive recruitment, G-Corp's unstable augmenations didn't help. Our horrifying weapons were considerably more potent. Men aging to death in the span of seconds." Fox gives a hapless shrug to Kukuru. "Seems that way." He says, clearly frustrated but he listens to Kukuru's suggestions and shouts for the clerks to listen to Kukuru's orders. Hopefully they follow.
Angela	HOKMA Woz smacks Benjamin across the cheek and sends him sprawling to the ground. This guy's not a fighter. Lilian's own chidings follow and Benjamin exhales a sigh. "We wanted something better. For everyone in the City. Same story as we've always said. And so we fought and sacrificed and suffered but you've made it abundantly clear that the dream is doomed. That only one goal actually matters--and it is NOT ours. What Light will the City receive in the end when Angela takes it all? And sure, she deserves it. She deserves all of it and more for what she's been through. But then the people of the City get nothing at all besides the very war that failed to deliver even a seed of salvation to them." ''Exit stage left when they aren't looking.'' Benjamin nods slowly. "Exactly as you say."Play by their rules wherever the Eye can see, break them just enough so it feels honest to them, smile and play the fool, deal with the very monsters you swore to fight. Provide a convenient service so they don't feel the need to gaze too deeply." But he shakes his head. "...Yes, I deserve that punishment. But Ayin will die." He picks himself up off the floor, just in time to be seized up by Lilian. Benjamin stares at her and then averts his gaze. "Of course it doesn't 'get me off'." He says. "You're right, I was a coward. I ran because I couldn't handle the weight of the war, because I couldn't handle the weight of what Ayin was becoming... Because all I ever saw in her eyes was pain. The one she wanted to look at her was ''Ayin'' and he wouldn't listen to me when I told him to! And I saw that sweet girl become colder and colder with every passing day, and that was my fault too because I kept telling her that he just needed time, that he was in a bad place, that he'd come around...I kept making...excuses for him!" Benjamin blinks his eyes once. "I..." His throat goes tight and not just because of Lilian's grip. "...Kept making excuses for him."
Meika Kirenai	FRONTLINES: 'Get it together, you all...!'     Wide-eyed clerks stare back at Hibiki, including the jittery one from before, who's still up and fighting, at least. Most still look over to their shadowy comrades, who aren't reacting to the magical girl, hunkering out there in the open plaza, but the jittery clerk pipes up. "W-we're safer all together, if we stayed, or ran, we'd be goners without the rest of us" The clerks are following along with the orders through less compulsion than the shadows, but with how the allied soldiers can kill the enemy shadows, sticking with the group seems less unsafe, and it'd be hard for clerks alone to get much done with the threats lurking throughout.     The radio pack is the same type of shadowy imprint that the soldiers are, it crumbles as if it wasn't even there in the first place at the slightest hostile touch from Hibiki. The messenger she took it from seems to protest, but what can they do about it? With the dozens of soldiers around, another is bound to have some sort of radio receiver, and the killed soldier from before had one left back at the entryway, but this soldier won't be relaying any more orders here. Cut off as that leaves them, they look to Carol- she's in command, without orders to conflict with, the troops might listen to what she says.     But she'll have to say it soon. Der Freischutz emerges once more, far down the square, firing once, twice, and- as if the first was a signal flare, shadow soldiers rally once again, charging back out, despite how quickly Riku is able to dispatch swathes of them. The Magic Bullets pierce through hunkered-by cars and masonry rubble, spiraling back to nail shadows clean through. The jittery clerk yelps, drops the gun they'd been clutching, and leaps Hibiki's way, for protection, as one of the bullets hits the ground near where they'd been. It seems she's won a bit more favor at being someone to find safety near.     A third shot crosses the sky, sixth of the fight so far, but instead of aiming at the center of the plaza, it shoots clean down the hallway the Elites emerged from originally- and through a small column of approaching reinforcements, half of them gone in one shot. While Der Freischutz is continuing its salvo, it's still enough for strikes to come close, such as Riku's thrown blade- pinning the sniper through the mantle they wear to the rubble they're perched in. They level the gun once more, barely visible, but the feeling of being downrange from the rifleman abnormality is hackle-raising enough to be certain the shooter is aiming, and with how all of the soldier's focus is on Carol, it's clear already that the abnormality's seventh bullet tonight has her- the present commanding officer's- name on it.
Angela	TENNANT Tennant learns that Sougo's parents died in an accident. "Oh... huh." They seem surprised by this revelation besides it being a pretty normal revelation. Tennant doesn't need to be radicalized and just bobs their head along with Sougo's observations about the unfairness of capitalism. They do appreciate Sougo's takes but aside from going 'mhm mhm mhm' and offering him a thumbsup, they aren't sure they have a way to add to it eloquently right now. But Sougo does ask them to talk about their favorite subject and Tennant brightens up. "Yes! I'd love to! She's not like the others. She cares about those under her, she really does. She takes people like me off the streets all the time, gears them up--it's not really too different from what the Dame Commander's doing with Trideag! That's how I know how incredible the Dame Commander is. I'm sure they've got their differences with one another, maybe Lilian's even better! But The Lady is the one who saved me. She's going to ''fix'' this City. That's why she helped Benjamin out. We just had to win a war and kill a bunch of awful people who are better off that way." Tennant beams. "Like my parents. Second best day of my life. Got to do it myself!" They mime pulling a trigger with their khopesh-wielding hand. But as Sougo says, they don't seem to be inclined to be shooting that gun at anybody else right now. Tennant is informed they don't understand royalty. "Well I guess I'm not royal, that's for sure! But couldn't they just blow up one of your ships if they really despised you? And call it an accident? I just feel they've got options besides frown at you a lot. Tennant frowns further. "I...I mean, who gives, uh, a kid they dislike control of the army? Y'know, maybe I can't know about how royalty's supposed to be after all because that sounds faker than any movie I've seen." ''Weird. Well aren't you?'' "Oh yeah totally bizarre." Tennant agrees without heat and then frowns, "Of course I take you seriously. You're one of the few people who I can talk movies with that doesn't either just mindlessly agree with me or have just the wooorst takes like--" ''Was it just part of your cover story that made you go on that dogshit hour-long rant about how Invasion of the Body Snatchers was somehow a secret anti-capitalist revolutionary masterpiece--'' "Hey!! Of course it is an anti-capitalist revolutionary masterpiece and it's not secret! It is an OVERT critique on the suburbs--and the Nests--as well as commentary on how the capital class wants us to live the emotionless lives of drones!" Tennant fumes briefly, throwing their arms up in the air in exasperation. ''What's next for her?'' "She knows everything. Well, aside from what happened in ''here''. I haven't been able to tell her anything at all just yet...! And that's why I can't stick around. There's something I need to give her." ''--Instead of just killing you and going back out there to help the Briah agents.'' Tennant pauses as if they hadn't thought this far ahead. They pace around a bit--allowing Sougo to pull Petra aside. And though Tennant can't hear her, she seems to be a-thinking. "Well...gosh, that's a bit tricky isn't it. I know why ''I'' don't think you should kill me, but I'm not sure if any of that will appeal to you, Petra even if it makes perfect sense to me..." They consider further and then comes up with an idea. "Aha! How about this... You want this to end sooner rather than later, right?" They raise their rifle up and fire...! --And a bullet lances out from nowhere towards Der Freischutz!! "I can still target some of the Abnormalities until I get outta here right? How's that for a deal?"
Riku Asakura	'Riku. Hibiki. Benjamin is simply going through old patterns, wallowing in guilt rather than moving forward. You can't let the orders rule the scenario or it will just feed into the Meltdown. Try defying the order or making a better suggestion.' "Defy the order or make a better suggestion.  Well, we can't exactly hide forever like this..." Geed says, before adding in, "Standing around doing nothing won't get us anywhere.  We gotta pin him down before he takes another shot..." he says to the group, hoping Hibiki is on board with it.  He stands, only for the sixth shot to rain down the center of the main hallway. Ultraman Geed is covered in burns, sparks coming off of his new armor as he falls to a knee again.  This guy hurts, Riku thinks to himself before getting back on his feet again.  People are getting hurt, and this thing won't go down without a fight.   <J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana says, "has a whole lot of hastiness in her voice when she abruptly asks, "Ultraman! How hard can you throw!?"" <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed, "Very! Why?" <J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana starts, "If he shoots again, I don't know if we--" She cuts off, just to hastily snap back to, "I'm coming your way, get ready!!" <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed, "Wai-Oh okay,  Ready!" This gets Geed's attention, turning his head to see the young woman running towards him.  He holds his hands out, waiting for her as he waits for her to get to him.  Once she's in hand, he turns, spinning around and tossing Hibiki towards Der Freischutz, where his blade has pinned the abnormality to a wall.   "Goooooo!" he shouts, not wanting to see what the next shot could do, wanting to make sure everyone came back alive.  This included Carol, even though he didn't know that her life was specifically in danger yet.  He hasn't faced the likes of Der Freischutz before and had no idea about its next bullet.  Just based on what he had fired up until then, he did not want to see that final bullet.
Meika Kirenai	FIELD HOSPITAL: 'Do they look real to them or something?'     Quizzical looks from eavesdropping clerks betray that they must, and one asks 'Who?', even, further confirming Fox's words. 'Where did they go? Oh no, those kids..!'     "Huh? Those pests from out in the battlefield? They've been hounding us for ages, sayin' they need healing from the smoke, but so do we? And we're stretched so-" Mid-sentence, the shadow bullet drops the clerk into unconsciousness, collapsing on the spot. >They have to be somewhere out there, right?     Kukuru can see that, out in the smoke-choked square, beyond the hospital's barricade, a group of sick youths, including the two, are lurking out in a sheltered alleyway, clustering around a large, swan-like monster- which gets angrier and angrier seeming, as another round of the sick civilians being refused aid. The peppering spray of enemy attacks, and the rush of forces inwards make it quickly unsafe to be anywhere near the barricade, and, fed up, the swan monster starts to charge. Regrouping back, as the attack flows in, lets her gather up the agents and still-healing clerks of the field hospital, and they're all undoubtedly safer near Kukuru than by themselves- and Kukuru herself still being able to heal the less-steady workers even as the group moves is a godsend. With bullets flying, and Dream of a Black Swan rampaging through the hotel lobby, smashing abandoned ground, rear-guarding the retreat is scary, but she's able to usher them out.     The shadow soldiers can't much hurt her, not like how they can drop clerks, even as they give chase, but the swan monster *doesn't*, actually, follow deeper, despite tangible fury. With people evacuated, but resources left behind, she has what her siblings need- some assuaging of the decay Laryngos Corp's smoke inflicts, some food in a war-torn mess.
Timespace Riders	But then the people of the City get nothing at all besides the very war that failed to deliver even a seed of salvation to them.     "Does your heresy know no limits?!" In all the time that Lilian has known Woz, he's never raised his voice in anger. In exuberance, in celebration, in exalting the deeds of another, yes--but of everything he's ever heard, Benjamin's statement is what got that response. Accompanied by Lilian forcing him back onto his feet. "My Demon King has pledged himself not only to Angela, but to the people of this City--some of which you have seen the results of yourself, with his efforts to improve the lives of the Agents, knowing that many will not see the fruits of their labor. This should be enough for you, but I see you are not satisfied."     "Lilian Rook has taken unto herself not only the completion of the Project and the emancipation of Angela, but also the *supremely* unenviable task of whipping the undisciplined masses of the Multiverse into a respectable force for forward momentum and change within the City. Did you imagine that she lightly embarked on a *second* years-long endeavor which might easily be crushed by the Head on a whim?"     "I told you that I would be Kamen Rider to you, whether your Meltdown dashed our progress against the rocks or saw us safely to the shore," he says. "I did not make that assurance so that you could jump overboard at the last minute. Where is the Benjamin that I spoke to, ere this Meltdown began? Where is your willingness to move?! To fight?!" He presses the Jikan Despear into Benjamin's collarbone.     "*You* helped conceive this project. *You* kept it running, for the people of the City. *You* lied to Angela, mistreated her and made excuse after excuse for Ayin's neglect. You have failed, Benjamin, but it is only 'for nothing' if you let it be! Therefore--get *up!* For if you continue to live in the past, you will never make a better future for anyone."
Hibiki Tachibana	Damnit. Well, at least no radio means no more of those shoddy 'orders' that are going to make a bad situation even worse. That's... not a win, but it at least stops things from spiraling. Maybe. If what Angela said is true, then it should...     Double damnit. Actual battle plans are far from her specialty, so she's not surprised that it doesn't lead anywhere - they're right, unless she escorted all of them away herself, they'd be defenseless. She's hardly leader material. The only thing she has to her name are fists and a lot of raw power. The one who'd stand a chance of getting them to be a proper unit is...     ...Carol.     While happily serving as a bodily shield for the poor clerk who ducked behind her, and gritting her teeth as more shots go wide, she can feel it - hair raising, danger instincts on fire. All the more when that danger she's sensing isn't trained on her at all. She lets out a shaky breath, forces her trembling fists to clench tight again, and then starts sprinting ahead with no time to waste.     "Carol!! You're the only one who has a chance of organizing these guys! Rose! Whatever you're planning, I'm counting on you! I believe in you!!" She wishes she could say more, ask more, rather than putting these two on the spot, but there's no time. She's already moving full speed towards... "Ultraman! How hard can you throw!?"     Very, it turns out.     With Geed readying up, Hibiki leaps up into his waiting hands, bending low and bracing. "Thanks...!" She takes in a deep breath, and when Riku puts all his force into throwing her, she goes flying like a bullet...! A bullet fully meant to reach its target... before the seventh one gets a chance to be fired.     Thrown as hard as an Ultraman is capable of, her own Symphogear's thrusters igniting as she's in flight, she intends to explosively crash into Der Freishutz's sniping position, take advantage of its mantle still being pinned by Geed's earlier attack - and smash it /through/ that wall, before it has the opportunity to finalize its aim and pull the trigger.
Petra Soroka	"I do not think I included 'they are cheering you on' as a possibility, did I?"     "Yeah. You didn't." Petra's eyes fall to the floor, looking past Sarracenia and Tennant. "Honestly, I don't know how they'd respond either. I haven't seen them in, like... four years, at this point. They'd probably just call the cops on me or something. I don't know." "That's how I know how incredible the Dame Commander is. I'm sure they've got their differences with one another, maybe Lilian's even better!"     Petra makes a privately smug smile, like she won an argument that no one else was involved in. Of course Tennant didn't find someone that they feel as strongly about as Petra feels about Lilian. There's no one like Lilian! If this lady was like Lilian, and if Tennant was as good at being subservient as Petra is, then there wouldn't be a chance that someone else is better. But of course, Petra agrees that Lilian is better, because compared to anyone else, she is. "Like my parents."     "So that answers that question. Nice real world realization of the Lamentable Sequence themes; no notes. Isn't that what the Season 1 finale was like, a little bit?" Petra briefly goes on a train of thought trying to apply this concept to her own life-- except, for her, she fits the monster just as well as she fits being the child. Metaphorically being Lilian's 'guardian' because of killing Matthew... and Angela too, soon. On one hand, she feels pretty happy to be the Guardian of Girls, but on the other hand... that's probably not the right definition for her. "Hey!! Of course it is an anti-capitalist revolutionary masterpiece and it's not secret!"     "Oh my *god* you've got such a one-track mind-- of course it isn't! You're missing cultural context! Like, half the fucking horror is meant to come from the, like, perverse disregard of the fucking sancitity of the suburbs, how it's supposed to feel fundamentally *wrong* that you can't trust the people in the houses around you instead of that just being *normal*, you--" Petra huffs in annoyance, and scrubs the back of her hand against her mouth to wipe her smile away. She could totally kill Tennant! She's so heartless! She's cold and dead inside like a real soldier! "There's something I need to give her."     "I swear to God, Tennant, you-- ... Hold on. She was so invested in the Seed of Light, and so involved in it that she knew Hokma had to survive for it to bloom, but... you still don't want to stop Ange? What part of the Seed of Light does she care about? What does she... want?"
Petra Soroka	"Aha! How about this... You want this to end sooner rather than later, right?"     Petra tenses, wobbling between seeing Tennant as a friend and as a newly revealed murderous spy. In the heart pounding moment of having Magic Bullet aimed at her, she relinquishes her conscious action to the static pressure waves of her precognition, reacting to Tennant's firing the instant before they squeeze the trigger. She flickers and-- stays in place, as the bullet whizzes by her and out the window towards the battlefield.     It could've been anything or nothing at all, that this conversation with Tennant resulted in. In the past year and a half of working at Lobotomy Corporation, Petra has doggedly prioritized keeping everyone alive through disproportionate effort on her part, and there was no real guarantee that talking with Tennant would've helped with that as opposed to wasting her time while people died. The only conclusion Petra can come to as to why, is that Tennant is someone Petra would also like to see stay alive, despite turning traitor on the facility.     She squeezes the compact mirror in her breast pocket and looks straight at Tennant. "We're not going to be coworkers after this, Tennant. There won't even be an L-Corp soon. But I'll still be in the City, for Lilian, for Cinder, and whoever else ends up staying, and if you get in my way, I'll do shit to you that makes Scanners look tame."     With that, which *almost* sounds like a 'thank you for helping' and 'goodbye', Petra crushes her mirror in her hand, and Tennant's childhood home is ripped apart by the arrival of the Beauty of Ash inside of it, swirling glass tearing through upholstery and wood and brick like tissue before piling upwards into the giant humanoid mech. Darting off in the same direction that Tennant fired their shot rips the wall off its frame, carrying shrapnel of drywall and dust along with the mech when it appears on the Frontlines.     The Beauty of Ash hunches on all fours over the cluster of clerks on the battlefield, tall enough that they barely need to duck to stand between its crystalline legs. The prickling radiation of her aura conducted through the mech causes the stinging illusory bullets of the soldiers to puff away into nothing before hitting the clerks and dulls the compulsion of the orders sent their way. Shards break off the mech and whistle through the air to punch through any soldier still fighting, while everyone else gets sheltered like a wolf protecting its young.
Sarracenia	'Like my parents. Second best day of my life. Got to do it myself!'      Sarra tries for several moments not to let that get to her, but she just can't. "D-did they do something -other- than kick you out?!" she exclaims, obviously horrified at the notion but trying not to just tell Tennant they are a terrible person.      'But couldn't they just blow up one of your ships if they really despised you? And call it an accident? I just feel they've got options besides frown at you a lot.'      'I...I mean, who gives, uh, a kid they dislike control of the army? Y'know, maybe I can't know about how royalty's supposed to be after all because that sounds faker than any movie I've seen.'      Sarra has to admit that Petra and Tennant are making a pretty good case. "But...they make sure to tell me how disappointed they are and how they wish I would do this or that instead. How is that support? Just because it could be worse does not mean they are being supportive! It just means they are not being terrible people!"      'I can still target some of the Abnormalities until I get outta here right? How's that for a deal?'      "I do not think you should be killed. Even after all the hostility and attempted killings. I -do- think you should be relegated to maintenance work and have your EGO gear revoked for a while." She pauses. "Did you know Angela told me you had been ground into some kind of paste as punishment? I told her that was too far."      Tennant raises Magic Bullet, and Sarra has her hammer in hand in an instant. But, the bullet is fired where Tennant said it would be, and Sarra relaxes some. "I suppose fighting alongside you for a bit is not the worst option. I have been fighting alongside people that would like to see me dead for weeks now."
Kukuru	"Our horrifying weapons were considerably more potent. Men aging to death in the span of seconds." "More? Oh, that's aaawwful. That's...">> Kukuru scrunches up her face, feeling a distinct sense of discomfort from hearing about that kind of weapon even though she's certainly killed her fair share of people without a second thought. Why is this one in particular making her feel off? More questions she doesn't have the time to really dig into yet, although she does file the thought away for later. <<"There's still time before that happens, right? Then... We can do things better than before. We can get people out of here earlier, make sure more of them live through this, and you won't even have to use those kindsof terrible weapons.">> Fox assents to her semi-order to the clerks, and Kukuru quickly takes on the role of a moving bastion for those that join her there. At that closer range, it's even easier for her to sort out which clerks are real, and which ones are shadowy soldiers. " You know... Like how you, you, and you are all real. But you..." She pauses (for real this time), then tries to grasp one of the shadow soldiers by hte cheek just to see if she can feel anything, or enough to determine if there's any need to spend herself for them at all. "Those pests from out in the battlefield?" "They're children, dear. Blame the parents if you have to, but-" Kukuru looks on as the clerk gets dropped by a shadow bullet, letting out a mildly nonplussed noise before nodding towards a nearby and still conscious clerk. "Get that one, please, and.. Nn. The Agents, too. We need to stick close, and we've still got pleeenty of work to do to fix everyone up. And if any of you see any other kids, don't push them away!" Seeing those sick youths off in the square, meanwhile, puts Kukuru in an unenviable position. She's already firmly entrenched in the clerk/Agent ball to keep them safe, so splitting off to tend to the youths would be a clear abandonment of her own sated purpose here. Leaving them to fend for themselves with that swan monster around isn't appealing, either, even if she wants to help those children so badly. What's she to do? First things first: Actually keeping the clerks safe and getting them out of harm's way. "Keep moving, don't stop. Once we get all your injured friends back on their feet-" She says, using 'we' as though she's counting on the clerks to use those HP ammpoules properly. "-we'll be able to regroup with the others outside of here. Then we'll all be safer, and..." Kukuru's personal mission to keep the clerks safe does earn her some shots in the back, but she can handle that with her own regenerative nanites. No, the real threat comes from Dawn of the Black Swan, but she doesn't seem too keen about fighting it. "Keep moving, faster and faster... But don't leave anyone behind!" She reminds them, then reaches back to urge the clerks closest to the back to keep moving even with the swan monster coming from behind. "I'll catch up in a second. Remember, keep yourselves safe!" She directs them while taking on the rear guard situation quite seriously, turning to face the swan-like monster. With those giant steel claws and monstrous strength of hers, she holds it back as long as she can, but refrains from actually striking at it. She saw the sick and the young gathering around it earlier, after all. "Keep them safe." She tells the Black Swan, frowning sympathetically while grappling with it and glancing back at where she left all those clerks and agents. "I... I wish I could help more, but I have to keep these ones safe, too." She explains, desperately hoping it can understand her before snapping herself backwards to get some distance and hurry back towards the group to get back onto healing duty.
Timespace Riders	It is an OVERT critique on the suburbs--and the Nests--as well as commentary on how the capital class wants us to live the emotionless lives of drones!      "Mm..." Zi-O's helmet cants to one side and he taps the jaw of his helmet thoughtfully. "I have to agree with Petra that you're missing the cultural context. I don't think it's revolutionary at all. I think... it's actually a little reactionary, if we're viewing it from a materialist perspective! One of the characters is defined by their relationship with the counterculture movement and, kind of, feeling bad that it didn't go anywhere. Plus--there's no real call to action, and if we're saying the bodysnatchers are a metaphor for capital, then... they just kind of... win. But! We're getting sidetracked." I can still target some of the Abnormalities until I get outta here right? How's that?      Zi-O releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Thanks, Tennant. Don't be a stranger, okayyUWOH!"      The Beauty of Ash tearing the living room apart has him falling over in surprise, scrambling backwards out of reflex until he recognizes what it is. Hurrying back to his feet, he nods, dips into a marathon runner's stance (still not the stance that Kamen Rider Drive tended to take) and bolts, to the sound of a revving supercar's engine.      While Petra shields with the Beauty of Ash, he goes on the offensive; the 'city' streets with their filled-in scenery offer plenty of solid surfaces for the Drive armor to work with. Zi-O is a red-and-white blur, the armor's engine bellowing as he zips between hostile shadowy soldiers. Another Zi-O appears in his path, holding out a palm.      "Hold on! Don't waste time with them--they keep coming back. Go for what Tennant shot at! Over there, with Hibiki!"      "Got it!"      Zi-O (the present-version) is off like a dart, to join Hibiki following Geed's fastballing her down the 'city.' Hibiki is more than capable of handling a one-on-one; rather than dogpile, he uses his speed to cut off angles of escape, moving so fast around the two of them that it looks as if they're enclosed in a tiny, circular red cell.
Lilian Rook	'...Yes, I deserve that punishment. But Ayin will die.'     "And?"     For the first time since beginning her work here, all those Meltdowns ago, Lilian expresses a thought of her own towards the future of Ayin; 'Manager X'. Not the encouragements she'd given early on, and not her thoughts about his reconciliation midway, but what she actually thinks of where, once this is all done, he will go.     "Is he innocent, Benjamin? For everything he's done, is 'but one man loves him' enough to deserve life?"     Lilian's teeth show the moment after Benjamin averts his eyes.     'I... Kept making excuses for him.'     "You're making excuses for yourself, too. Aren't you?"     As if unable to stand touching him any longr, Lilian tosses Benjamin aside. "Before I'd ever heard of the project, you told me that Angela was 'an impure woman'. That she wasn't to be trusted, because her desires would overwhelm her if I did. You knew full well even back then. The Script is your excuse for everything; the bleak necessity that justifies your cowardice and your comfort in repeating the same thing over and over and over again."     "And I don't just mean the Seed of Light project, Benjamin." Lilian spits his name. "I know what it means to bide your time and hold your secret behind your back like a knife. Out of everyone here, I know what it is to grit your teeth and smile and debase yourself as long as you have to. But once you pass it on, of your own fucking volition, recreating your own little bleak necessity and your own little grit-tooth smiling sacrificial lamb, it's just you now."     'Does your heresy know no limits?!'     'Lilian Rook has taken unto herself not only the completion of the Project and the emancipation of Angela, but also the *supremely* unenviable task of whipping the undisciplined masses of the Multiverse into a respectable force for forward momentum and change within the City.'     As consistently as Lilian rolls her eyes at screaming Elites thinking it earns her attention, Woz rousing himself to shout like that catches her by surprise. She watches him with fresh curiosity, the beginnings of suspicion, and then shakes her head to clear her thoughts of the irrelevant, glancing back to Benjamin scornfully.     "If all you can do is recreate what's outside these walls then you don't deserve to complete this project. Carmen was wrong to choose you." Lilian says, especially enunciating the last few words. "If you want something stupid and impossible and that's everything you ever dreamed of, then you can kill or you can die for it. Sometimes, instead, you do things so vicious that killing would be gentler, or accept failure so abject that death would be more merciful. Even I didn't get to be in control of that gamble when it came time to make it, Benjamin."     "And from my perspective, it looks like everyone here but you was prepared for that. Even the most pathetic still had the decency to shoot up drugs or blow their brains out to cope with it; not find a noble excuse to run away and demand yet another redo."     "Even Ayin."
Lilian Rook	'What Light will the City receive in the end when Angela takes it all? And sure, she deserves it. She deserves all of it and more for what she's been through. But then the people of the City get nothing at all besides the very war that failed to deliver even a seed of salvation to them.'     "When thou speak from authority absolute, so must be thy judgement." Lilian repeats, so warmly rote that it sounds fonder than her spite otherwise allows. "I promised Carmen. And unlike you, Benjamin, I meant it. And even after getting to know Angela . . ."     Lilian lets the deeper vortex of thought remain unexplored for the moment. She looks away, as if he's no longer worth her time, and sums it up in one, expecting Benjamin to sink or swim by what he infers.     "I told Angela that 'If I were you, I'd kill me for the chance'."
Angela	TENNANT Tennant considers Petra's parents for a moment but doesn't linger on it just yet, they have a job to do. What is that job? It's not actually talking to Petra or Sougo or Sarracenia. Indeed, their job is basically done. But there's one question that nobody asked which is--how exactly Tennant actually intends to get out of there. "Yeah...! They originally only expected one season so...Well I mean, you see why I'm such a big fan now! Wings, I'm glad we could talk about this stuff one last time before I bounce, at least." ''And if you get in my way, I'll do shit to you that makes Scanners look tame.'' "You better..." Tennant says. "If you take it easy on me, I'll laugh at you, but..." They sigh, their shoulders dropping as something genuine pours out of them. "I hope we don't get in each other's way. It'd be nice if we could keep working together even if it isn't as coworkers... I'll make that recommendation to The Lady at, at least, but I owe the Lady everything." The childhood home is eradicated. Tennant thinks about the beauty of the Beauty of Ash. Maybe it's more beautiful because it's destroying a home. Tennant reaches into their jacket pocket and draws out a pocket-watch like device but it isn't a pocket watch. Despite the fanciness gold exterior and the clasp previously holding it together, there is only a strange button. ''But...they make sure to tell me how disappointed they are and how they wish I would do this or that instead.'' "I... mean I'm not saying they're ''great''." Tennant seems to not be able to maintain their heat for Sarracenia right now. "But that feels like more typical 'try to apply yourself!' stuff?" ''Did they do something other than kick you out?!'' "That was the worst thing. Ask the Rats sometime what it's like to be homeless in The City." Tennant laughs at Angela's 'joke'. "Haha! That sassy lady! She's real hard to read ain't she?" Then she pauses. "That was enough. Sarracenia, gonna give you some free advice. People here will kill at the drop of a hat 'cause that's how this place's made. If you take it personally every time, you're not gonna get far. And if you try to apply your sense of justice to The City in every case, something's gonna hurt you when you try to do the 'right thing'. I'd rather not shoot you again either and now you know the words that make me shoot at Sarracenia." Tennant takes the most damage they've taken today when Sougo agrees with Petra on their take on the Invasion of the Bady Snatchers being wrong. They crash against the facility wall, "You too, Sougo?! Ugh... Maybe I need more Earth experience...? No no, I'll rewatch and investigate it more keenly! But even if it's a bad ending doesn't mean--okay okay, we'll save it for the forums...!" Tennant presses the button, as the facility starts to fall under control once more. For obvious reasons, they aren't inclined to stick around. And whatever it is they pressed seems to have the effect of teleporting them out of Lobcorp and out of everyone's hair. And they took the EGO Gear with them.
Sarracenia	'That was enough. Sarracenia, gonna give you some free advice. People here will kill at the drop of a hat 'cause that's how this place's made. If you take it personally every time, you're not gonna get far. And if you try to apply your sense of justice to The City in every case, something's gonna hurt you when you try to do the 'right thing'. I'd rather not shoot you again either and now you know the words that make me shoot at Sarracenia.'      Sarracenia joins Zi-O in falling over in surprise and scrambling back to her feet. Still catching her breath from being startled, she looks to Tennant. "I...am not sure if I know how to not take an attempt on my life personally. But...I will take it into consideration. I will not stop doing the 'right thing' just because I might get hurt, though. That is like...basically part of the definition of a hero. Do the right thing, risk getting hurt." Sarra hmphs softly and crosses her arms. "Thank you, though. I too hope we do not have to fight each other again. Except perhaps for non-lethal fun." she says.      She follows after the others when they head to the frontline, ready to join the fray. But, the facility starts to return to normal. "Oh...did we win? Just...by talking?" Sarra asks, her tone full of skepticism and surprise and yet not disappointment. She does not seem too upset that Tennant got away now that they seem to have made peace.
Angela	FIELD HOSPITAL/FRONTLINES Fox snaps a salute to Kukuru as he begins the evacuation from the Field Hospital. If you give the Swan what she wants--he's pretty confident it won't chase a bunch of people fleeing. They'll be able to handle wrangling everybody back into their spots once everything calms down. He looks at his EGO pistol, relieved he didn't have to use it. Thanks to Kukuru, everybody's going to make it out alive. Meanwhile, Carol is in Der Freischutz's sights and she can't do much to stop a bullet. She ain't that skilled at fighting just because she has swords floating around her. Hibiki gets thrown!! This is usually a helpful thing to do. At the very least, it's an enjoyable thing to do. This takes advantage of what 'Rose' was going to do which is swing her hammers around and send a lot of sloshing green goop everywhere so that Hibiki could pinpoint where exactly Der Freischutz was going to be and confirm that he's still pinned.. But it's too slow. Bullets are faster. But thanks to the timely shot from Tennant, a Magic Bullet crashes into the Magic Bullet and spins it up through the air-- --and it spins right back to take aim at Carol once more--but the extra time gives Hibiki her shot to smash into Der Freischutz, smashing him through a facility wall-- --and that Last Bullet of Der Freischutz spins around once more, this time taking aim at the mercenary, punching through him in an instant. He dissolves back to his Egg Form in an instant. "That's our chance! Everybody, retreat! We gotta get back to our positions!" Carol shouts before adding, "THAT INCLUDES YOU, CLERKS!" "You're doing pretty good at this," Nikki reassures Carol.
Angela	HOKMA Benjamin slowly steadies himself back up to his feet at Woz's urging. Heresy is certainly a word to throw at Benjamin, who has always claimed to be a man of faith, and Woz throws some of his own self-deprecation back at him--reinforcing it. Lilian's work in The City is not something he got to see, but he HAS seen Lilian work in other scenarios, some of which seemed just as hopeless as The City. He reaches for the phone. His chest is visibly heaving, even through it being a simulacrum of who he used to be. His thoughts linger on the idea of Lilian's role being that of one who whips others into shape. "Hah.... I suppose that is why they were bound to get along so well. Angela's had that job too, her life was unenviable tasks." 5rHe takes a breath and lets it out slowly. ''Is he innocent, Benjamin?'' "...No. I suppose it is not enough." Benjamin admits. "And you're right. Out of everyone, I was the only one who was not ready. They coped, they stumbled, but I'm the only one who ran. Even Ayin did not run. He saw that he could not complete the project so he turned himself into someone who could." Maybe some part of him was tired of running and that's why he went back. He picks up the phone. "Angela." He says. "...Is that enough?" "...Yes, we reached 90 percent Seed of Light project." Angela's voice says. "Benjamin has been insulted and mocked enough for the project, but if you wish to insult and mock him more then far be it for me to dictate terms." Hokma can't help but laugh at that. "...I won't stand in your way anymore, Angela. Whatever happens after this... We'll build a future." Hokma smiles as the glamour fades and he returns to his roboticized form once more. The smile fades away with it. The hands on his pocketwatch continues to spin once more. The facility fades to normal once more. Thanks to everybody's efforts, the Meltdown was handled solidly. And the Seed of Light project is ... at 90 percent? ... That means there's one Meltdown left to go and there's only one person who that could be. "...It's over..." Angela says softly. "the Timeloop... It's over." Despite barely using' tone' in her words, the relief is clear in her words. "...The only one who can reset the loop now is Ayin." Angela says. "And he won't. Not when the long project is this close to being complete." She can't help but say it again. "The Timeloop is over... No more loops... Just like you said..."