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Lilian Rook	The far doors open with even more convoluted mechanic effort than the last. The moment you succeed, you're submerged in the tide of heat that washes in from the other side. Your fourth atmospheric transition in the same session takes you through a single chamber transition, between the fading twilight of the library into the midnight black of the observatory, and the stinging brightness beyond it. Though you're clearly still indoors, and a row of stained glass windows (the regular kind) allow sunlight into a narrow gallery along the way, the ventilation has made Maxwell's Demon its bitch.     More importantly, now you can hear the regular stomping of metal heels, echoing down too many acoustic junctions to accurately place. The sounds of movement, from close and afar, left and right and above and below, jumble together into a kind of rhythmic drumbeat that feels as if you're already closely surrounded.     There's nowhere close to a hiding place here, either. What surrounds you is the stark, shining white of a museum. The pillars are seemingly made of solid glass, melted down and compressed into frosted semitranslucent slabs of geometry. The banners that hang from above don't reach the floor. Mirrors are set into each corner, and there are no doors to speak of. Even the ground; cross-hatched slats of scorched bamboo, fitted into a repeating weave and laminated over, transmits the sound of your footsteps like nothing else. The contrasts extend much further than the theme of day and night.     At first, the heat seems only due to the number of windows, set even in the indoors walls, carrying sunlight many layers deep, often via reflective surfaces and glass art pieces. Once you get far enough to separate the sound of marching from the clangor of machinery, though, you can start to smell the sweet smoke of gaseous metal, and understand well in advance that almost all of your paths will eventually wrap around and through a forge or foundry. It tracks with the metalwork all over the walls; murals, engravings, plaques, crests, and recesses for everything from swords to tea sets to statues.     Along the way, though, Brick finally gets to see his handiwork.     Much of the area seems given over to what could be called 'an Armory', in the proper sense, though it resembles someone's wildest-dreamt depiction of a historical arms museum just as much. Ranks upon ranks of various grades and models of autonomous soldiers stand poised like decorative armour, raised on tiered rows or set along spiral galleries. Vast quantities of spears, shields, axes, swords, crossbows, and bolts, are mounted on mechanical apparati that have to satisfy the need for hundreds of retrievals in minutes, practically spirographs of glittering arms.     As you travel, the gear becomes unfamiliar to you, showing types of warriors and weapons you haven't seen at all; and then eventually arriving at a single massive storage room (a former ballroom?) dedicated to sets in partial dismantlement, repair, or completion. And, as you travel, each room contains less and less materiel. The fullest parts of the armory appear to be the oldest stock, sitting around as a surplus garrison, while there is ample evidence of the newer branches being transferred or scavenged from. It's clear that production started to crater very recently; shortly before the 'elite models' that you find could be mass-produced, by the looks of it; both soldier and weaponry. But that doesn't explain why finished ones were taken apart.     Your enemy here is much more straightforward. No matter how you traverse the layout here, there's no avoiding contact; it's not even a matter of skill, but about the fundamental facts of a skilled military strategist hand-planning precise patrol routes of tireless soldiers they have far too many of. It's barely even a matter of time before a group of your size ends up in a fight.
Lilian Rook	And a considerably more brutal one than the ground floor rush.     There's no useful cover here, which overwhelmingly favours the heavily armoured enemies with superior numbers over you. The junctions are huge and open, which makes you easy to pincer, and the mirrors and windows give any enemy tremendous spatial awareness of where you are. The air is already hot enough, sapping your stamina at a tremendous pace, but once fire starts flying, it becomes a stroke-inducing oven, of no concern to soldiers made of metal and shadows. Your retreat means going backwards through the entire library again, whereas they are free to break off and cycle ranks as much as they like.     But most importantly, 'they' aren't composed of the same forces as the village or the lower floors. The black-armoured automata here are taller, more heavily built, with a greater quantity of metal, all livery merely cosmetic. Where they used to carry heaters, now they carry spike-bottomed tower shields to ram into the ground. Short spears are now long fighting partisans, and agile recurves are replaced with enormous asymmetrical longbows with solid metal arms. The designs of their helmets designate archers from defenders from 'ultraheavies' that wield tremendous glaives and axes from gunners which take firing stance lines that block entire corridors and use alchemical contraption rifles.     Not only are they better built and equipped, but clearly more magic has been poured into them. The armour is stronger, the weapons more lethal, the ammunition more destructive. That, and they drop much more valuable petals. Realistically, even 'Liliana' has limits to how much she can scrape together when it can't just be bought, but concentrating the whole batch here makes it feel inexhaustibly unfair. Most of their gear flames, explodes, or cuts with heat, synergizing with the atmosphere, though the odd archer has the opposite; ice arrows that capitalize on it with dramatic thermal shock.     There aren't platforming segments or magical traps here. The ghosts won't abide this much light. It's a purely military slog; brutally unforgiving to dawdling even so much as to catch your breath. Realistically, the castle should run out after a while, given what you've already seen, so Aria must really have meant it when she said she planned to seize the opportunity to concentrate as much force on you as possible while you're the furthest extended already. Once you've gone a ways in, waves of reinforcements start hammering you from behind, activating from the armories you'd already passed.     The forge should be the very core of the castle wing. It certainly seems to be saved for last, as the air gets hotter and tastes more and more of fire and steel as you go. But, oddly, what you run into just before is nothing at all like it. Your second to last stop actually appears to be a sort of conservatory. Closed off from the forge fumes, tropical greenery thrives in the heat, humidity, and focused sunlight being poured in through the faux-glass half-dome ceiling. The ground is mostly sand; the chamber smells of it in the sun; but between scorched bamboo walkways and decorative rock gardens, it's been carefully raked into arbitrarily complex designs with the kind of precision that can only be done without wind (thus defeating the point of the exercise).     The persistent assault gives you only just long enough to catch your breath and steal water from the fountain here. You don't have time to sit down, or else meaningfully recover, before forces gather for a rush offense, where the only way you have to go is clearly the last stop before the forge; and beyond it, the final zone.
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick glances towards Petra, "By the way... YOUR only potential failing grade here by my assessment system would be turning coat. It's so painfully predictable that I would roll my eyes at it happening. I wonder how she would evaluate you for it." He actually does-- he's not certain whether it would be an evaluation of Petra's personal loyalty to Lilian or a lack of ability to cope with the scenario. Or something else entirely. Brick seems relatively comfortable breaching into the heat-- Boomer less so, though not anywhere near to the degree of an ordinary person. He sweats a little and fans himself, wishing for a water bottle that he didn't bring. A few paces from the first of the mirrors, Brick taps Boomer on the shoulder and sends him to the back of the overall group, advancing deliberately as the point man. He adjusts his size dynamically based on what he feels like he needs to in order to provide adequate advancing cover-- which is plenty, because he can see through walls and has danger sense enough to just observe enemies around corners and feel a useful tickle at the back of his neck in reaction to imminent ambushes. He smashes mirrors with casual blows of his hand as he passes near by them, marking the way as much as dealing with a component of the stage hazards by turning them into entirely different kinds of stage hazards. The empty store rooms catch his attention. It's one of the only things Brick visibly reacts to along the advance-- nodding to himself as they pass by. He's interested in some of the finished models being taken apart, but he wants to get through this area, and right now Brick isn't the best scout here. That's Woz, or Sougo, probably. But among the pack, Brick and Boomer are some of those for whom the extra heat is only a problem when it's concentrated through weapons-- they're just not bothered by the ambient temperature. One particular element that Brick deliberately tests along the way with his heat vision is how much more heat-resistant the armored soldiers are by turning the heat up gradually rather than just trying to vaporize them; he figures there's a nonzero chance that they can comfortably tolerate this but that their specifications don't go much farther, because otherwise actually working the metal would be a righteous pain in the ass. Especially since these are the forges they're presumably worked in. Once he's figured out the melting point he keeps his heat vision limited to that range. Boomer is largely following Brick's lead and playing rear guard, but when reinforcements start arriving from the rear they begin a cyclical operation that they bark back and forth about for a short while. Up at the front, Brick ceases to melt golems, relying a little more on the others to actually take them down properly, then scoops them up, upsizes and then tosses them back to Boomer in handfuls, who slams them into the ground and creates makeshift fortifications that narrows viable firing lines and creates chokes that the upsized Rowdies alone can make effectively impossible to advance through solo-- though how much of it they can construct is directly proportionate to how well everybody else keeps them fed with golem husks.
Odette Raskins	Getting hit with that rush of heat invokes a new primal fear within Odette as she passes from the library to the observatory. Her eyes widen, her pupils dilate, and she starts sprinting at the nearest person. "G... Get down!" She shouts while tackling the nearest person, trying to get them onto the ground beneath her with her arms shielding the top of her head. When she doesn't feel flames washing over her, she opens one eye to peek forward, then the other, and then she gets back up cautiously while coughing and fidgeting bashfully at her unlucky victim. "Sorry! I.. Um. Training reflex. Thought there was a... Atmospherics problem." She admits, looking away and hastily shuffling away to try and get to the front of the group instead of taking up the rear. There's a lot of cool visuals to take in, at least, even if all that glass reminds her of several other terrifying things she's seen in recent memory. Shivering despite the heat, she takes out thin/somewhat useless surgical mask from her bag and puts it on, then takes a few more out for distribution to the group. "Oh. Um. I-if anyone needs one of these, let me know! I've got plenty." She's really tempted to take some of that mounted weaponry as she passes by more and more of it all, but the autonomous soldiers' presence discourages her from doing so. "Y.. You think those might start moving?" Odette's luck continues to be in the pits as she turns out to be right, and fighting that armored army is really less of a fight for her and more performing the role of a spoiler, a scavenger, and decoy for everyone else: Scurrying around, grabbing discarded weapons and dismantled armor off the floor, and hurling it every which way strategically to interrupt or knock the soldiers off balance. She's probably of little direct offensive use against the heavies, however, so she focuses her efforts on the archers, the gunners, or all those petals being scattered around so nobody on the Elites' side trips on them in the middle of a fight. There's also the medical supplies to distribute, too, smacking bandages and cooling gunk over open wounds so her allies can keep fighting longer. Brick's fortifications help her move with considerably more confidence, too, and she's soon getting really into the role of the field medic as she gets all manner of medications ready for those that need a pick me up while they get a breather.
Angela	''By the way... YOUR only potential failing grade here ... be turning coat.'' "Hey... Petra wouldn't do that..." Cinder protests, though a bit mildly because she's kind of struggling with the simulation right now. She fights, but she's starting to get worn down. While the air being hot is something she can endure well considering her attunement to Fourth Match Flame--this is still well beyond her ability to shrug off and the fact that she's using a fire weapon only makes it that much worse. Eventually, Cinder stops trying to take on any enemy forces on her own, instead staying back and focusing on avoiding danger while helping take down enemies as they already busy themselves with others. Fortunately, they have a moment to drink some water. Steam practically flows off of Cinder's body as she drinks the water. She's feeling positively cooked. But then she has to be on the move again. It's gotta be almost over, right? Right?
Aidan Proudpick	Another needlessly complex loading screen door. Another 'oooh' from Aidan as he watches it, eyes trailing over it eagerly. And then those eyes are suddenly blasted into parchment as the wave of heat hits him, rocking his head back. A white trail of air falls out of Aidan's mouth and winds its way in front of him into a wall, directing further blasts of hot air around him. Out of a vague amount of spite, as the group is passing a mirror, Aidan licks his thumb pad and drags a smear of saliva across the reflective surface, keeping his eyes up. Ear twitch. Tail freeze. More wind seeps out of Aidan's mouth, like someone put a brick of dry ice in there. He grabs a skein of hot air as it shifts from vent to vent, pulling it down and forming a wall with it. "Of course she'd have a smoky forge down here," Aidan grouses. At the first sign of soldiers, the wind wall is already up, acting as a barrier for the rest to move behind. Aidan ducks behind the molten barrier as soon as it is available, glancing over the top of it. A burst of flame suddenly ROARS past Aidan, forcing the squirrel back onto his butt with a sharp 'squeak'. An alchemical rifle shot BLASTS into the wall over Aidan's head, who ducks down a little bit more. "Fucking..." There really is no time for Aidan to even lash back out. He scrambles up onto the ceiling, running down walls, jumping behind the cover that Boomer creates with hasty little 'hahs' and 'fuck' and 'oh shits' until he can edge closer each time. Each wall doesn't just serve as a barrier against the ammunition. Aidan practices the Jezzball manuever, slowing down other parts of each squadron, slowing down several glaive enemies before they can break away from the ranged enemy. For about half the slog. Aidan starts to sag, going through his canteen supply quickly, then struggling to put up smaller and smaller walls. Less and less wind can be called forth from his lungs when it's so damn hard to BREATHE in here. He practically collapses into the fountain to suck down some of the water and catch his breath and hunker down behind a stolen shield. "How does she have SO MANY."
Timespace Riders	Get down!     Both Riders do, immediately, and then... nothing.     "Oh, it's ok," says Zi-O, patting Odette on the shoulder. "I'd rather you warn us and be wrong than not and be right, you know? Good looking out."     "The farther we advance through this foundry," says Woz, slightly short of breath for the sweltering heat, "The more grateful I am for your sabotage, Brick."     "Look at all of them... wait, why are some of them being disassembled?"     "I know not, but I doubt we shall go without an answer for long."     The slog through the foundry is exhausting for both Riders, Zi-O in particular given the difficulty he'd had with the switcheroo pillars in the previous area. But he remembers well a lesson he learned from another rider--about running oneself ragged not being a virtue.     Still in the gaming-themed Ex-Aid variant of the Zi-O II armor, he doesn't try to meet force with force. Rather, working with Woz (and, as it happens, Brick) he endeavors to make the proposition of fighting him as exhausting as possible.     How? Through the gift of precognition. Every time he is *personally* under attack, the symmetrical watch-hands wind in fast-forward, leaving pink afterimages in their wake. Exhausted though he might be, foreknowledge of an enemy's attack allows him to respond with the level of energy he's comfortable with, in advance of that attack actually being made.     With his current form focusing on speed and agility, it's simple for him to sidestep the massive swings of his enemies, but where he really puts his effort is in causing friendly fire among the ranks of the automatons. The rifle squads and archers are harassed with blasts from his laser pistol (helpfully announcing itself as GUN) and when they return fire, he puts himself in a spot where there'd be crossfire, leaping out of the way just before the triggerpulls/arrows loosed.                  Dekai! Hakai! Gokai! Futurering Kikai! KIKAI!                       ...and Woz is there to capitalize on these incidents. With the strength afforded to him by an array of four golden mechanical manipulator arms, he catches stray limbs from automatons knocked off balance by their comrades' redirected blows, hurling them towards Brick to either finish off or put towards his rolling fortifications as he sees fit.     "Even trying to save my energy," gasps Zi-O after sluggishly sidestepping a partisan, "I'm getting exhausted. How much more do we have?"     "Not much longer, sire," assures Woz, without consulting his book--it's more a reassurance than a statement of fact, but it matters to the Demon King that his retainer makes the effort all the same.     By the time they reach the humid conservatory, both Riders hurriedly remove their armor and rush to the fountain--but Woz tries to hide his obvious thirst and exhaustion.     "Woz, this is no time to act like you're above it all."     Woz pants a reply, though he manages to keep his chin up and even indulge a shaky bow at the waist: "I simply wish to allow you your fill before--"     Sougo, his dress shirt matted to his body with sweat, grabs Woz by the wrist and tugs him insistently towards the fountain.     "I order you to take a drink right now. We might not have time for another."     "...as you wish, sire."     There's barely enough time for them both to get that scant hydration before another assault--but they both offer sincere thanks for Odette's help in staying cool.     "Incoming," Woz haggardly warns.     "I could really use some of Ms. Ritescu's cooking right about now..."
Timespace Riders	"Henshin!"     "Henshin."                   KAMEN RIDEEER.. (RIDER..!) ZI-O--ZI-O!! II!                                   Valiant! Victorious! Futurering Cobalt! COBALT!                     Both Riders take a different approach, this time, without the benefit of Brick's choke points to fight behind. Woz, in the knightly Cobalt variation of his usual smartwatch-themed armor, splits into seven duplicates of himself, with the real one somewhere in the crowd, they all charge to meet the frontal assault head on and slow them up before being dissipated. The real one fades, allowing Zi-O to swing his greatsword and hurl a cluster of disembodied silver clock-faces at the charging forces, exploding on contact.
Sarracenia	After barely resisting throwing bombs at Elena and Hafren, Sarra finds herself in a place that might be her least favorite yet.      Somewhere that is hot and humid like her home. While she has a better opinion of her home town than she used to, she still dislikes living in a hot, humid, absurdly thick jungle. It makes her sweat!      'Hey...Petra wouldn't do that...'      Sarra snrks. "Petra is surely waiting for some excuse to be 'corrupted' to "Queen Liliana's" side. It is sweet of you to believe otherwise, though." Sarra says to Cinder.      Just before being tackled by Odette. Sarra yelps as she goes down, letting her hammer go so it does not swing around and hit Odette somehow. It clatters across the ground before coming to a stop with the head down and the handle somehow balanced upward, practically begging someone to grab it. That would surely go well. The Princess looks somewhere between confused and annoyed at the tackle.      Odette quickly apologizes though and gets up, and Sarra stands quickly as well. She dusts her dress off then hmms. "Since it was with heroic intentions I suppose it is fine." she says, offering a smile to Odette, albeit a bit of a forced one.      Sarra moves to pick up her hammer again, her expression sour as soon as they are in such a hot environment. Sarra starts pulling out ice flowers for all and practically forcing them to use the power-up to try and combat the heat. Surely several people throwing ice around will do something to keep them cooler, right? ...right?      Even if it turns out to not work, Sarra stubbornly keeps using the ice powers. So, she becomes a somewhat comical rotating door of colors, switching constantly between icy colors and her usual red dress since she has to reapply the power-up after any substantial hit.      There are just too many enemies for Sarra to try and freeze them then smash them, so she resorts to...well, probably what she was going to do anyway. Rain explosives down on the enemies between hammer swings.      And as dehydration starts to become a problem, Sarra's handy bottomless purse becomes quite useful! She pulls out icy cold water whenever someone needs one and has time to chug one between fights with soldiers. Sarra certainly tries to make time with wall kicks and flight powers, but with those partisans around it is still pretty difficult. At one point Sarra just growls and pours one over her head. Cooling off is a higher priority than keeping her hair in place at that point. "As soon as we reach the source of this heat...I am stuffing as many bombs into it as I can..." she vows in a low grumble.      They reach the actual forest sector, and Sarra looks perplexed by the care that has gone into it. The point of the exercise with the rock gardens is lost on her, but the potential of upsetting Rita by messing up -more- pretty stuff isn't. Sarra does her best not to damage the forest area, but if those armors are chasing them even there then...well, something is getting bombed.
Rowdyruff Boys	//Petra wouldn't do that...// "Yeah? And I'm saying it's one of the only things that could possibly give her a... bad... mark here, because she's done fine," Brick answers Cinder, indifferently. //Of course she'd have a smoky forge down here,// //How does she have SO MANY.// Rolling his eyes, he replies, "Yeah, of course? Every other aspect of the scenario has been given actual substance. Either the forge was going to be over in the town or it was going to be here. The fact that it's also a hazard zone is pretty solid 'raiding some... lair' building. There'd be more, and better models, but Blossom and I wrecked the infrastructure." //Petra is surely waiting for some excuse to be 'corrupted' to "Queen Liliana's" side.// Scowling, Brick answers, "Between the two of us, I'm the one with an actual material reason to distrust her. You just dislike her, and spouting off these sorts of thoughts is one of the reasons you're a liability. Fuck off."
Angela	''And I'm saying it's one of the only things that could possibly give her a... bad... mark here'' "Oh, I thought you were throwing shade because well..." Cinder mumbles awkwardly, face bright red.
Sarracenia	'Between the two of us...'      It probably would have been mostly fine if not for those last two words. Sarra can only stare in incredulous amazement for a few moments before exclaiming, "EXCUSE ME?! She is -LITERALLY- planning ways to kill me! She has threatened to do so on dozens of occassions now in no small part because the person she worships -also- wants me dead! She came to a party I threw -just- to make sure I knew she could get to me at most any time! She took over a city, enslaved its people, and happily used them as a way to torture my friend for months! DO NOT pretend you have more reason to distrust her than I do!! Take your own advice and...and...!!!"      Sarra's face is completely red with anger, but she cannot and will not use such language back at Brick. "...what 'material' reason do you even have, hm?! You two seem to get along fine! I bet she even likes you! You...GUUUH!" Sarra stops once again, fearing she might say something unbecoming of a princess and instead tries to focus that anger into more smashing. "Potty-mouthed...how does Blossom even...and she seems quite sensible...!"
Powerpuff Girls	Climbing the tower had a collection of winning lines and questions. 'I mean, I can get soup later. Uh . . . I don't know, I just don't think it's safe? We kind of barely got away the last time, so i think it's better if we stay on a translocation array. Thanks I suppose?' "It's not safe, no." The ruby red Puff agrees, a fond look passing from her to Brick at his explanation of his resolve over 'destruction'. "Unless you're really interested in being 'defeated' by soup. And you've still got things to share, don't you? So, I understand." The wash of the hot hallway barely bothers Blossom, orange hair lifted to float ponytail behind her on the waves of forge-temperature. "I don't think the soup or spicy crab would keep through this anyway." She observes, eyes glinting with a 'now things are getting interesting!' reaction to the greatly changed forge-museum... And shifts in alarm at Odette's lunge-for-cover! "Is something coming??" Blossom asks, fully believing the medic is onto something and braces herself readied for. . . Nothing. 'Sorry! I.. Um. Training reflex.' Lowering her defenses partially and smiling over a bicep, Blossom shrugs at Odette -- then nods at Sougo's soft wisdom. "Actually, you probably want to keep your head down." The Powerpuff suggests strongly before disappearing in a snap-blur of ruby speed to skip to the front and reappear mid-hitstop with hammerblow-swung fist demolishing one of the golems that Brick started taking apart with heat vision. Crashing through as a vanguard and soaking more than an equal share of punishment from the Spymaster's last-generation elite weapons. When Brick advances into her scrapping at-size, she disappears again, clearing his rampaging path and re-sorting the debris in his wake to the back two-handedly, scooping up balls of scrap and abusing forces at velocity to keep them scooped until they tumbled into neat defensive piles at the back for Boomer to build up. While she could use thermal shock to her advantage, Blossom knows how disruptive doing it would be, so she fights to the fountainpoint n the Conservatory without using her ice breath -- only to give a cupped palm gulp of fresh water the lightest tap of cold air before drinking it. "Now this is more of the pace I had expected, honestly." Blossom adds, pressing wet hands into eyes and brow and back of neck to cool off just a little, even though the real temperature difference to her was nothing. She was really getting worn down at a stretch, with the two-part episode, of the movie-length problem. --- Meanwhile... 'And what are you gonna do about it, huh~?' Back, before, at the darkened and denied stained glass room, Princess had heard that and clenched her fists, stood, stared down and forced out a breath. It bothered her, more than the start of the test had bothered her. It bothered her because it felt...
Powerpuff Girls	Last out of the room the gold-and-black hornet with ginger pompom hair opens her fists and looks at the trailing of Boomer, who had wondered if she was okay. She wasn't. "It's not a fair test." She speaks, knowing that spymaster and minions will hear. "You're only invincible because I'm playing for a grade. And I'll tell you: If you were here? I'd fail the test. And you'd not be invincible." The voice she speaks with is a bitter, dark, almost-vulnerable growl-like roll. "You don't think it's safe. You know it's not. This 'say anything, it's allowed' thing you're doing? It's because you're not taking this seriously at all. And it's really ticking me off." Princess... 'insists', squatting down when 'nobody can see' and placing hands on her knees and just letting her stress out with a long groan that ends with an annoyed stamp-stamp-stamp of gold-booted foot. Then, finally, rising closed-eyed in her visored armor, she flourishes a hand to push up a pom and is cool again. "Now, where was I?" Asks the split off Princess, before-- --- Burning late into the Conservatory from behind Boomer, Princess emerges from her inevitable 'opened her eyes into a fully prepared ambush' solo path, battered and scored across her skirted armor with carbondark scores and with two pink katar-blades of crackling plasma burning from her suit-arms -- what she had to use to carve her path when kinetics and plasma blasts got quad resisted by the elite goons. "I'm going to beat up Dexter when I'm home. I'm penning it in. 'Beat up egghead', because science has gone too far in not being about me." Princess pants and staggers in.
Odette Raskins	"I'd rather you warn us and be wrong than not and be right, you know?" Still a little shaken, Odette chuckles and squeaks briefly at Zi-O's patting as she feels the stark physical contrast between her and Zi-O. "R... Right! Definitely better that it was a false alarm rather than a real issue, or..." She looks around quickly, guessing quickly that almost everyone here would be far better suited to a burning environment than she would. Between the powered suits, the super durable bodies, the ice breath, the fiery transformations... She doesn't finish that sentence, but she does look considerably more wary now thanks to feeling like the most flammable person in the entire simulation. "Since it was with heroic intentions I suppose it is fine." "Eh? Oh, um. Thanks! I-I think..." Odette nods quickly and returns Sarracenia's smile with an awkward one of her own. Was it really heroic at all, or was it just a panic reflex? The latter doesn't really strike her as particularly heroic, and she can't even say for sure that it was the first one, but... It still feels good to be considered vaguely heroic again. "I don't think the soup or spicy crab would keep through this anyway." "Oh... G-good thing I finished the soup before. But the crab..." Odette checks on the crab in her bag. Has it cooked? Is it still fresh enough? It might be sweltering in the forge, but she's heard of people eating spicy foods in hot weather to cool down. Might as well sneak in bites in those rare moments she's not treating someone. "Actually, you probably want to keep your head down." "I do?" Odette glances around again as she considers Blossom's suggestion, realizes she might very well be shorter than everyone here by a wide margin, then grumbles quietly to herself. "I guess I won't have to try hard to do that, at least..." She makes a mental note to get some boots with heels next time. Her face will not survive the adjustment. "Petra is surely waiting for some excuse to be 'corrupted' to "Queen Liliana's" side." "Petra wouldn't do that..." "And I'm saying it's one of the only things that could possibly give her a... bad... mark here, because she's done fine," "Dame Commander Rook wouldn't... I don't think she'd respect Petra if she really did that." Odette replies with a quick shake of her head at Sarracenia, scrunching her face up briefly in thought as she dips over to get some water for herself. "I-I mean, Petra really likes her, we know. But..." She gestures at Cinder and Brick. "I think she'd rather have her long-term approval by doing a good job during this thing instead of taking a shortcut to joining her now, you know?"
Lilian Rook	The exact melting point of animate armour is a helpful thing to know; it gives a good idea of just how ungodly hot the forge is going to be. Brick's remark about not seeing the thorns growing within these suits seems strangely salient as the group advances, but it's hard to tell why; no doubt the plants would burn to a crisp long before the armour glows and deforms and falls apart under the sheer magical strength imbued into it, but if they're in storage before leaving this wing of the castle complex, it feels something that should normally be considered an omission of detail, made ominous by knowing how seldom its creator makes mistakes like that.     The ice weaponry feels like a recent inclusion. Even when Elites are acclimated to the scorching heat, made worse by the shimmering haze radiating from slagged metal, the reversal to magical cold deep enough to be lethal at room temperature is absolutely devastating, and frequently causes scrap cover to violently explode where a stray ice bolt strikes it. Openly used 'cold magic' vapourizes almost instantly, so the solid munition used to deliver it is very intentional; thus it's strange how little of it there is, given its efficacy, and how it's strictly confined to the newer models.     A boss fight and a long rest would have been much more preferable than this. The library and labs weren't as harrowing, but these long stretches of rolling firefights and ambient traps add up to more wear and tear and general fatigue than a single duel. It seems like a valid question if this break from traditional pattern was pre-scripted, improvised, or simply allowed by extremely unusual free reign of the constituent actors. An entire arena was built and not used, after all.     And having a garden at all here is odd as well. A piece of environmental storytelling that'd no doubt take more time and effort than this to explain. It's enough to get your feet back under you, but for those many Elites not practically immune to heat and fatigue, only shakily. The moment of security is thus almost a trap in of itself; just enough of an 'up' to willingly push on ahead into an even bigger 'down'.     Because the second wave of heat is on another level.     Whatever ideas you may have had of smoky trenches of burning coals, waterfalls of molten metal, or perhaps pits of bubbling magma, filling up an atmospherically dark and ominous industrial chamber, are rendered laughable. You've wrapped back around again to the center of the castle, stacked atop the previous step in the structural spine, and here, above the observatory, above the clockworks, above the ancient river; between Aria's starscape below and Liliana's black hole above, is a captive star.
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick cuts across Sarracenia, "I have her on camera trying to enable a nuclear self-destruct device to go off in the middle of my city because her self-esteem was so low that her shitty scarecrow clone was threatening to her and she'd rather kill it and whoever gets caught in the fallout than let the scarecrow live. She had no bad blood with us and, in fact, likes and had been hanging out with the girls. Also, Eggman took over that city and shoved it off on her, it wasn't even hers. The fact that it ended up being a serious pain point for you and the squirrel is incidental, not targeted. I don't know what percentage of the rest of this is your own fault versus her issues, but your judgment is so poor that I don't currently have a reason to believe that those numbers are in your favor." "So no," he concludes, "you can still fuck right off."
Lilian Rook	The 'forge', as it were, is built in three dimensions, taking up multiple ordinary building-storeys on its own. The vast clockworks somewhere else must be responsible for constantly moving the ring-shaped segments of stable footing around the room, maneuvering an intricate train of raw material through molten baths and incandescent pumps, pouring it into molds and pressing into semisolid bars, passing it down to individual stations navigated with rotating ramps and beams.     The bulk of the tick tock tick tock heart seems to power (or be powered by?) the massive array of solid metal-backed mirrors surrounding the miniature celestial body, keeping the heat 'scorching' in its shadows and 'nigh unsurvivable' when its sliding rays are used to smelt material and boil off water into steam. No matter how outlandish the scenario, it cannot have been built to be a foundry on purpose. It looks As if there were simply already an entire tiny star here, and someone decided to make the most of it.     Even at the entrance, you can already feel your center of gravity sliding around inside of you, like a ball bearing, coming to rest sideways. You're heavier 'towards' the center of the room. The escape window could be anywhere, because most of the chamber is made of endless patterns of magical stained glass, casting off fiery rainbows where the starlight moves over it specifically, and throwing back the ambient rays to fully capture the heat generally.     Whoever would normally work here, if anyone must have been cleared away. Despite the complexity of it, the Forge doesn't have enough actual capacity to be run like an automated factory. Instead, small groups of the new-model armours await at the workstations, ready to fire on you. In the midst of it all, at a center platform, is the hulking silhouette of the dark general you'd seen at Glascail, clad in so much forbiddingly dark armour that even the horned helmet should road someone alive; never mind how the cloak doesn't smoke and burn.     At one hip, in an elaborate mechanical sheath, General Satsui holds a distressingly plain-looking katana, half again the size it should be. On her other side, far back and hovering up above on a higher platform, you can just barely glimpse Spymaster Aria, occupying the same room at the same time with the scattered support troops. She menaces with smugness.     "You have done well to come this far." rumbles the general at the center of the room. The helmet must add the bass echo, because the cliché line is absolutely out of the park. "But no further. The southerners have given you too great a sense of false hope. I intend to cure you of it." Timed to the words, a break in the star-mirrors sweeps a blazing beam over the standing level, and General Satsui's armour briefly reflects the incandescent heat from a thousand little calligraphic etchings.     "I did give you my warning, didn't I?" says the Spymaster from on high, surrounded by a shimmering capsule of silent wind. "Did you really thought you'd just be able to keep traipsing around the castle like you've been doing? Taking it one floor at a time, ganging up on our staff and ruining our things, running away with the luxury of rest? How cute."
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan snags the flower out of the air. Green underclothes turn blue and his breastplate and limbguards turn white. He snaps a hand out, a ball of 'ice' bouncing out of his fingers. It bounces over the floor several times before poofing out of existence. "Sarra," he is ignoring the whole thing about Petra because if HE focuses on how much anger he might get from Petra, he would turn into an emotional mess AGAIN. "This is the most amazing thing ever!" "Ice ball," he snaps a hand out, sending a ball across the floor. It immediately fizzles out. "Ice ball!" Another ball goes out. Aidan pumps both hands back and forth, spamming ice balls that fizzle out quickly. Any plants that get hit get covered in a comical cone shape amount of ice. "Ice ball... If Petra is gonna do anything, it'll be right before the end. ICE BALL!" He's working on getting the bounce physics just right in this moment of rest, testing the parabola of how it bounces off the wall. He hurtles them at the legs of the advancing automatons. Also, Eggman took over that city and shoved it off on her, it wasn't even hers. Aidan nods, but does his best to interrupt the thought process by not taking sides, and instead moving in to work side by side with Sarra. Blossom can stand up for herself if she wants to. "Hey, Sarra, check out this." He grabs a piece of falling scrap, floating it in the air with his breath. One of the Ice Flowers balls hits it, immediately freezing a large block around it. With a SNAP forward of his fist, a strike of air hits it like a cue stick to a billiard ball. The ice topples end over end into the air, striking into one of the golems hit by heat vision, giving it a mighty combustion of scrap and steel. When they move forward, Aidan comes up to a stop, staring at the star. His eyes trail over the sphere of plasma, witnessing a furnace of gas being ripped apart at the molecular level so hard that it hits other bits of gas. "Blessed breeze..." Annnnnd then Aidan feels himself shift. His brain updates his balance immeidately, tail shifting around, legs stepping out, until he is settled on the side of the wall like it was natural. "You have done well to come this far." Aidan elbows Sarracenia gently, pointing out a few of the forge stations, "Alright, it looks like a lot of this machinery keeps US from getting blasted by that big ball of fire." He doesn't want to say directly, 'so lets not blow it up'.
Rowdyruff Boys	"Thanks," Brick asides to Blossom, as she follows up his clearing-and-reconstructing. "Maybe try some thermal shock stuff. That was definitely accounted for but I'd like to see what happens. No way to test it myself, but be careful if you do." //I'm going to beat up Dexter when I'm home.// "Just trick him into making a better AC unit and miniaturize it for situations like this, he suggests." //Dame Commander Rook wouldn't... I don't think she'd respect Petra if she really did that.// "Are we going to speculate on that relationship now? There probably aren't many ways to be completely correct, and I'm not sure how many of you are willing to actually inquire seriously, either, so whatever way you'd use would definitely make one of them try to kill you." He ponders the hot-and-cold theme that things spill over into. It makes him think of a song he doesn't like that much but which got played on the radio plenty, when he still listened to radio. Then it makes him wonder if thermal shock is intended to be one of the ongoing themes here, which would be clever and annoying and still not that big a problem for him because transitioning from heatstroke to hypothermia conditions is still basically just normal weather by Brick's standards. "This sucks," Boomer complains, falling in beside Brick for a moment. "I wanna go back to fighting the amoeba boys, even if it's boring it's consistent..." "... You vaccinated against them lately?" Boomer grimaces. The ice ammo needing to be contained in order for its contents to function is... interesting. Brick zips forward out of formation long enough to tear the limb holding a weapon off of its mounting, retreating with it in hand and tossing it to Princess. "Check the shells, they're doing something to suspend some of the impact of this room's atmosphere on it. Or don't, I don't know if you do this in the field or just at home." //between Aria's starscape below and Liliana's black hole above, is a captive star// Brick sighs, and drifts. He's used to operating in space-- even near stars. It's one of the ways he gets his money, an activity that he limits solely because doing it too aggressively creates problems he doesn't want to solve. But there's something about having these stellar objects just lying around, and it really disappoints him every time he comes across one of them. He looks towards Aria and Satsui, listens to their speeches... "I want to throw things into that star," Brick says, just unambiguously breaking character completely. "You keep putting celestial bodies in front of me and then leaving out-of-character rules not to break the load-bearing stuff. It's such a nuisance."
Timespace Riders	In the choking heat of the captive star, Zi-O flags, leaning on the nearest solid object for support. His thoughts turn immediately towards the purchase the group last made. Man... I really wish that thing was sword-shaped. This sucks...     Woz, however exhausted he may be, is only so in a physical sense. "I have never before observed such beauty from so close. Is it not magnificent, sire?"     "Yeah, it's pretty cool... I just wish it wasn't, you know... so hot."     "Hm?"     A buzzing sounds from the retainer's person, half like a cicada's chirrup, half like the tiny gears of a watch moving at blistering speed. The source, much like last time, with Marcellus, is that new watch of his--the one with the larger face and asymmetrical circular bezel. The final third is filled in--that of the sun, forming a triptych of the sun, the planets of Earth's solar system, and the expanse of space throughout and beyond. Yet, the color of each is still absent, and the device remains inanimate.     "Hm..."     The two Riders' curious gazing at this development is interrupted by the arrival of General Satsui. The southerners have given you too great a sense of false hope. I intend to cure you of it.     The blazing heat reflected from her armor strains the armor of the two Riders visibly, sparks flying from both as they are lifted off of their feet from the force of overloaded harm dispersal systems. Taking it one floor at a time, ganging up on our staff and ruining our things, running away with the luxury of rest? How cute.     "You don't get it," says Zi-O, his chest heaving with effort as he rolls onto his side, silver watch-hand greatsword clanking on the ground. "Neither of you do."     "I knew this would be an uphill fight from the moment I started it. From the moment I saw how completely you've beaten these people--how scared they are of you and the Queen. I didn't know whether I could finish it and I still don't. But who needs a king that only bothers even trying when he's sure to win?!"     Zi-O musters a battle cry, forces himself to his feet and charges Satsui, knowing full well that she's probably more than his match in a test of skill, to say nothing of her armor or physicality. "Hope has nothing to do with it--I HAVE to do this! Don't underestimate my resolve!! "     He opens with a shoulder-to hip cut, then reverses his grip and advances into a pair of overheads. "Woz! Use it on my signal!"     Understood, calls Woz, getting back to his feet and closing in with a circle of illusory duplicates of himself to flank the general.     Zi-O fakes a thrust, only to fade and separate the greatsword into its constituent twin blades, flowing into a twin slash, leading right-left. Each of his strikes has an after-cut of polychromatic temporal energy, but he isn't fighting to injure Satsui so much as to bait her into using her sword, leaving himself deliberately open for a thrusting strike from her.     If he can just bait one out, then he can signal Woz to drive the evil-sealing scabbard over the sword, and secure even a small advantage.
Angela	Cinder glances back to Sarracenia and gestures to her as if saying 'yeah it's usually that sort of thing, actually' but she doesn't have the energy to go in on Sarracenia when Brick is already pretty succinctly doing that. But she does add, "If she wanted to kill you you'd be dead," in a tired mumble. ''Did you really thought you'd just be able to keep traipsing around the castle...'' "Oh well... No, I mean, we kinda figured you'd mess with the, um, formula eventually..." Cinder says.. She sticks Fourth Match Flame into the floor so she can lean against it for a moment. It seems like the Raiders are already moving in, but Cinder really just needs a minute and the exhaustion of hearing people talk down her girlfriend is mixing with her physical exhaustion. Even if not all the people who she thought was doing it--was doing it. She wipes down her face and shakes out her hand and sweat splatters against the floor. Just a little longer. If nothing else, she thinks, she's learning endurance. She watches Zi-O leaving an opening...! But is totally unaware that it's for a reason. SHe tries to cover for him by sending a wave of flame sputtering towards The General.
Sarracenia	'Dame Commander Rook wouldn't... I don't think she'd respect Petra if she really did that.'      Sarra hmphs at Odette. "Odette, sweetie...I really do not think Lilian respects Petra. But...I guess I cannot argue that she will do her best to impress Lilian."      'I have her on camera trying to enable a nuclear self-destruct device to go off in the middle of my city because her self-esteem was so low that her shitty scarecrow clone was threatening to her and she'd rather kill it and whoever gets caught in the fallout than let the scarecrow live.'      Sarra just slowly loses steam at that one. She still mmphs in anger at the second use of the four letter word. "That just supports my point, jerk. She was willing to do that to someone she liked." Sarra says, though without most of the fiery anger from before. "And her not conquering the city is just an excuse. She did not have to take over for Eggman, and did not have to do any of the things she did while in control of it."      Aidan distracts Sarra with icy fun, and Sarra smiles in appreciation at both the distraction and his appreciation of her power-ups. "It -is- amazing, is it not?" she says proudly.      'You have done well to come this far.'      ...it is an actual -star- that is powering the forge and producing heat? She looks over at Aidan as he speaks up, then back at the forge star. "...it is bad to explode stars, right? Especially on an actual world?" she says, obviously still contemplating it but having some sense of not wanting to hurt allies and innocents.      'The southerners have given you too great a sense of false hope. I intend to cure you of it.'      "You will never cure us of hope, villain! We will pour hope into this place until it outshines the star and fills that big hole in the sky!" Sarra exclaims, then looks up at Aria. "Actually...yes? I have not encountered such a stronghold before, so I honestly was not entirely sure what to expect. All my other level-traversing experience was on a completely different level than this place. It is quite amazing seeing how much effort has gone into this, honestly. But, unfortunately for you...when someone sits on a balcony overhead and throws taunts I feel an urge to do something."      And so, Sarra pulls out a Bullet Bill, then hammers it at Aria. She's tougher than a Elena and Hafren, right?      Sarra perks at the mention of possible AC powers in here from either those arrows or this mysterious Dexter. Her ice flowers are nice, but they aren't going to stop this.
Odette Raskins	"Are we going to speculate on that relationship now? I really do not think Lilian respects Petra." Odette rests a hand on her chin, considers Brick's and Sarracenia's counterpoints, then clears her throat awkwardly and sighs. "Sorry, Petra..." She mutters under her breath, sounding and feeling genuinely bad about that realization. The shrapnel explosions keep Odette from relaxing too much even when she's already in her usual state of constant distress. The ambient heat makes the sweat from all those cuts sting even more, and even trying to get those bandages to stick on properly is a task in and of itself with the heat melting some of the adhesive before the medication can kick in at full efficiency. Thus, when the group finally reaches the garden, Odette's all too willing to accept it for what it is even though- "This... Feels like the room just before something worse. Should we... Ugh." She rolls onto her side while catching her breath, coughing a few times and straining not to hack her lungs out as she reacclimates to breathing relatively normal air again. "Do you think the next area'll be cooler? M-maybe we'll even need jackets to not cool down too quickly." She suggests with a forced laugh, trying to keep her spirits up without realizing that the next area is going to suck so much harder. With the actual Forge zone sucking so much harder, Odette's at serious risk of overheating. She takes off her jacket and ties it around her waist, but that does little to mitigate anything and just puts her at greater risk of burning if she brushes up against anyone or anything. "Not hot. Nice and cold. Not hot. Nice and cold." She repeats to herself like it's some kind of mantra, breathing shakily behind her mask while trying to minimize how much actual movement she's doing while moving. The shift of gravity is a welcome change, if only so she can let that guide her towards the center with a little less physical effort. As she moves, though, she notices that star far above, and the only noise she can manage is an utterly drained "oh." Odette's so drained, even, that she doesn't register General Satsui's presence immediately. She's just looking around slowly for whatever might even resemble an exit from that horrible heat, and it's only in looking for it that the EMT realizes that there's still so many of those armored figures still around. "Hhhhh.... What? Can you...?" Odette didn't catch everything she said, and she looks up groggily for a second before flinching at getting sweat in her eyes. She lets out a frustrated shout and wipes her eyes off on her forearm, hissing again when that doesn't help as much as she wished it would. "Too hot... Augh. Please, talk later. We'll cure whatever the southerners need, too..." She can barely even focus on what Satsui says, never mind comprehending that Spymaster Aria is even around through her hazy vision. She does at least recognize the danger coming just from Satsui's armor, at least, and dives sideways so she doesn't get burnt to a crisp by it. Instead, she gets burnt badly when she hits the ground, landing on her bare arm and howling in pain at getting burnt by the floor anyway. "This place sucks why do you even have it like this if it's not a magic volcano or something not this factory that shouldn't even a stage you overblown armored jerkwad..!" She shouts in rapidly devolving frustration, hissing again as she smears some burn cream across her entire arm. That gets her to scream again, of course, as well as yanking a scavenged armor plate out of her bag and frisbee-flinging it at Satsui with far more force than she's ever really used.
Rowdyruff Boys	//That just supports my point, jerk. She was willing to do that to someone she liked.// "You don't have a point. You have a feud that is known to have started petty and escalated infinitely because you can't hold a fucking L or de-escalate. You're only associated with THAT guy," Brick points towards Aidan, "Because he fucked up so hard that he became a burned asset within the Watch while tangentially supporting your pet causes and aggravating your least favorite people. Your actions are consistent insofar as you are constantly pursuing casus belli to harm people who annoy you and attempting to strike an impressive figure, and you weren't as absent the horny drooling at the front of this exercise as you want people to think." "Ru Li was too injured and shouldn't have even been here, Proudpick is the same as you in different dimensions, Petra was among the star-struck, the Warprunners made a big stupid visible fortress that Ru Li went and sat in while practically immobile. Of the liabilities here, the Warprunners are a simple error in judgment that was learned from, you and Proudpick are a defect of character that can be relied upon to present identical problems unless you're temporarily jarred out of them by circumstances but who inevitably return to the behavior pattern, and Petra's trustworthiness pivots around a set of parameters I'm not elaborating on for your benefit except to say that if you'd paid attention you'd already know them," he lists off one after the other, emphatically counting out the individuals and their circumstances on his fingers until he gets bored of gesticulating. //And her not conquering the city is just an excuse. She did not have to take over for Eggman, and did not have to do any of the things she did while in control of it.// "There is a significant difference between conquering and middle management governorship, and they're their own gradients of shitty, but the middle manager isn't the root of the problem. Eggman is the root of the Quicknest problem and you don't have anything to say about him because he can portray himself in a way that is less offensive to you than Petra, and divested himself of responsibility and aggression from others in so doing. And who can blame him?" You fucking rubes ate it up. I bet you're the kind of people who would blame the President for gas prices instead of dangling lobbyists and members of congress over Niagara Falls," He spits.
Powerpuff Girls	Blossom 'never' means her comments poorly for people. Her super-hearing had meant that she could tell the massing of elite 'soldiers' by footsteps that bounced down mirrorglass corridor, nor the hum of weapons or even the tautness of high tech bowstrings. Sometimes, though, people didn't live up to her expectations of them, of course, but... Blossom had been busy, and could tell Odette wasn't taking things well but not how to help her. Having the stamina and endurance to power forward even into witheringly accurate weaponsfire still never saves her from taking hits no matter how fast she goes. Putting herself in front of the big danger and the hardest challenges is a pride thing, sure, and a power thing, yes, and had the expected conversations: She is shot and struck, or flanked and blasted in her kinetic carry and it weathers her, tested by the spymaster in direct attention and hit with such heat that the long cut of pre-combat is a drag worse than anything else that came before - things she did, in fact, traipse through at an orbital jog. Overwhelming ambient heat rolls out from the open forge-area past the burnt-bamboo garden space, and Blossom squints her eyes into the heat, blinking at the danger and raising her hand to hide from the heat of a literal - not figurative - star. Also the heat of a literal, not figurative, final firing squad of determined soldiers absolutely bent on giving her the zorching of a movie-length experience from behind workstations and consoles. Fully leaning in and bracing battered forearms of blast-scorch blemished skin and carbon-coated black dust against the attack, the red Powerpuff glances behind her, checks to make sure that everyone isn't in danger if she moves, and then zags in a burst of color to circle about and scissor kick down into the crowds of enemies, flipping over in the air and hurling robots right towards the central forge-star. "Actually, Brick, that's not a bad idea! Plenty of this new war-material can and *should* be recycled back, and I bet I know what temperature they melt!" Blossom suggests, back-airdashing through a concentration of fire and several thermal shock explosions on the console she was fighting at to zip back to Cinder's side and catch a fired arrow the matchstick woman's way with a swat of palm and explosion of material. "Doing okay?" Blossom asks, conversationally, sweat upon her brow and reduced to less than a full top and skirt and underneath an athletic top and shorts which seem far more supersuit-invulnerable. Even if she was being fashion before, Blossom never compromised on the necessary elements of invulnerability: wardrobe. "I don't remember any anti-heat items - and I think my spare water bottle vaporized." Odette seems worse-off, and Blossom spends her time trying to keep the flagging members of their team from getting got by the General or the firing teams.
Powerpuff Girls	--- Princess' time is neither so heroically sedate and trying nor casually caring first for others - she advances into the forgeroom heedless of heat, as cool as she was inside the suit before the simulation as when facing a star. She walks, at a bitter strut that ignores the slight limp she feels on a sore leg, only pausing when Brick shows her the arrow. "I can scan it, Brick, but--" She begins to protest, then takes up the arrow and turns it over carefully, putting her mind to work briefly on how they were making thermal shocks chemically or mechanically before snapping the head off and storing the device in a belt compartment. Maybe not this time, but if she gets a little bit. Making a show of crossing her arms when squaring off across from the General and Aria, fire playing across her plasma barrier-fields like heat mirages warping light, Princess glares down her nose, somehow, at taller folks from the ground. "It's been work." She says, of coming so far. "So while I appreciate a nod to my ego: I'm not here to nod at yours, General." Setting down into a lower stance, Princess's canted up gaze is highlit by the glow of the groud-beam, disappearing in the flash of it while she dodges nothing and respects nothing. The flash of it, from devastating mirror-flash to bright pink light, booms in hooking starshot, from ground *around* the blazing star as if making a time-dialating slingshot to save the whales. But Princess isn't an environmentalism hero. Soaked in solar radiation and blazing like a comet of secondarily-igniting oxygen, Princess' golden suit glows with the full radiance it had outside the castle when she had scraped the singularity shot for suit juice. Tearing right through and splitting into four points, the supercharged Morbucks dives directly towards the General's blade to challenge it again once more with her starlight-leaking Satellite Armor - no laser required. The same maneuver, a solar diving assault, rises in echo fighter trio as three burning heatmirage copies of Morbucks lunge for Aria in the sky to race a Bullet Bill's explosion.
Lilian Rook	'I want to throw things into that star'     Improvising on the spot, the world's currently happiest final fantasy LARPer boom-growls through the bass-distorted thrum of a second wave of starlight. Her armour flashes and smoulders as the beam passes in a single scorching flash, stark against her black silhouette. "Then I will permit you to dispose of the bodies of your comrades."     The other girl is much more concerned with the tangibles, however. "Of course, attempting to destabilize the stellar engine would consume them all much more quickly."     'Hope has nothing to do with it--I HAVE to do this! Don't underestimate my resolve!!'     That gets the Dark General Supreme to laughing. It's that slow-building kind of villainous belly laugh, starting from a rumble that's lost in the dull roar of the room's machinery and then escalates all the way up to something loud enough to drown out Sougo's signal. "Good! Good! It's a fine thing for a warrior to be spirited! If you've struggled on this far, then I shall endeavour to give you the ending that your tale deserves!" Even if you new, you'd be easily forgiven for forgetting the real person inside that suit. One arm casts aside the heavy cloak with but a gesture, the other grasping the hilt of the sword and separating tsuba from saya with a menacing clack.     'You will never cure us of hope, villain! We will pour hope into this place until it outshines the star and fills that big hole in the sky!'     "Yes! That is the spirit that a heroine should have! Defiant to the end, like the shining souls that came before you!" Brick may as well be right that 'hot-cold' is a theme, given the other general's stark contrast, staying aloof and afar, turning up her nose through her mask. "Don't enjoy yourself so much that you forget that these intruders attempt to threaten everything we've built over these long years, General Satsui. I expect you to see to them in your usual brutal fashion."     Half a hundred idle soldiers raise their magical greatbows, clattering in unison with the rush of air and passing shadow of an orbital ring above you. Aria sneers down at Odette, her icy disdain easily felt even in the tremendous heat of the chamber. "I pity you. The General won't give you a decent death."     'So while I appreciate a nod to my ego: I'm not here to nod at yours, General.'     But Satsui her stance on the platform. Something glows red through the tiny rows of slits in her helmet, strobing through them in hellish saccade. "I will rejoice in their unmaking, as all things that enter this crucible! Come! Burn the last of your lives as brightly as you can! Burn everything you are able before the bitter end of your legend!"
Lilian Rook	. . .     In retrospect, the late game difficulty spike is obvious in retrospect. Unlike the Sapient Heuristics kids, the two actors in this part of the play are highly trained paramilitary officers. Moreover, two that are used to working together as part of the same squad, both in and out of the Paladins. Badly wearing down the group beforehand is just one more tactical consideration before this. They'd move in unison even without it.     Aria raises her staff, and Sarracenia's bullet bill is struck midway across the chamber by a vertical bolt of lightning, descending from the upper frame with a thunderous crack and crawling back into the machinery where it strikes. Satsui vanishes from her platform with a suitably booming shounen-style flash step, and her scabbard emits the sound of a firing hammer as she fully draws her katana.     The harsh glow of stained glass arcs from the saya and directly across Aidan's midsection, so wide and fierce that it easily cleaves into Odette at the same time. An explosive blast of wind magic is detonated at her side and allows her to accelerate straight into Sarracenia, three times her weight behind the sword. Aria fires through the empty space that Satsui was just concealing, blasting Sougo with a horizontal bolt of lightning that leaps from him to Woz and a searing cone of collateral discharge.     The armoured soldiers fire their weapons at the same time, hurling a volley of lethal ice arrows into the chamber from too many angles to keep fully in your field of view. Their differing distances cause the volley to become a continuous shower, forcing defenders to take and hold point under the onslaught. The strays strike the superheated platform, and quickly cause it to splinter, crack, then burst, sending those without flight tumbling and those with it sprayed with shrapnel.     All are least-threats compared to Satsui's blade, though. Other than being drawn and swung at what feels like practically the speed of light, it feels like being struck by the star. Even being close to its cutting arc throws out a concentrated line of heat intense enough to cut through steel. Where the General leaps to the next platform, she sheaths her sword, carefully angling it as she does, and the scattered reflection of the star slices up and down and scattershot across the entire Elite crowd, cutting through solid metal with the reflected light from the glass blade.     The soulless soldiers nock and fire in a constant stream. A quarter of the arrows are caught up in a gust of gale-force winds by Aria, conducted as would a musician to send them hurtling into Brick and Boomer and slipping through to skewer Cinder or violently detonate on her EGO weapon. She sweeps up another quarter after to deluge Princess, rounding the star at the other side, then arcs another scatter of fine-tuned lightning bolts through the cloud of metal arrowheads, hoping to electrocute and paralyze her through overloading her armour.
Lilian Rook	But of course, General Satsui isn't going to not rise to the challenge. She kicks off her new platform and uses the skewed gravity of the sun to run up and along the concave wall, ploughing ahead just under a storm of ice arrows and leaping from the wall with another explosively accelerated draw. The sword collides with her fist, and the stained glass lethally refracts the plasma sheath through itself, scatterslashing both of them at point blank and blasting them apart, sending Satsui back to the platforming like an anime aerial combat zweeline.     The mirages flying at Aria are blasted down with a storm of withering cold, focused on one, then two, then not getting the third in time. The armoured general flash steps into the way and takes it on the chest, vanishing into an explosion of smoke and slowly emerging in dramatic fashion, arms spread and armour scorched. Aria has already moved to another platform under cover. Hovering ball lightning left behind sequentially snipes Morbucks from behind, while a crushing wall of wind comes down from above to flatten the less physically strong Elites; Odette, Aidan, Cinder; beneath it.     All of it is a nightmare to keep up with. The walls are even hotter than the platforms, fit to carbonize skin. The attacks are relentless, and strain your limited reserves of stamina while these two come into the fight fresh. The air shimmers and throws off your aim, the sweeping beams of starlight are an intermittent stage hazard, the 'off' gravity upsets your inner ear and churns water in stomachs. Getting close to the star means being blinded and scorched. Backing off means being driven against the walls.     "Pick off the weakened ones first. Once we've eliminated the healer, let the windmage suffocate as planned." says Aria, while Satsui is already ahead of her, coming in for a second pass at Aidan and aiming at the throat; with sword, then a crushing blow from the saya going past. "We can rebuild the structure if need be. Deprive the hammer and sword wielder of footing and strike them down when they try to run. Neither of them have real defenses." She's already done a great job of that, between the thermal shock, obliterated platform, wind wall, and lightning blasts following Satsui. The General turns another reflection-slash on Sarracenia's explosives, attempting to sever the strap of her bag then ignite them inside the bag, at the cost of severing one of the giant tracks.     "We'll work our way to the riders after, and focus fire on the superheroes last. I've already notified Knight Captain Caecilia" "--No need! I'll finish this in ninety more seconds! Hahahaha!"     That proceeds Satsui's parkour slingshot crossways past Morbucks around the star, and final launch into Sougo, sword flickering forward to skewer him. The ray of starlight that sweeps past her is timed to blind him first; then catch in the katana and stab him through the chest at literal lightspeed. The superheated blade follows last--     And slams into the scabbard Woz has prepared, set with all the jewels from the mysterious cog. The hellish light angles straight back into Satsui as it vanishes into the reflective scabbard, then fills the gems set in its sides until they glow. The general's armour is scored in dozens of places, and then even planting a boot to Woz's chest, she can't seem to remove it.
Aidan Proudpick	A tiny kitchen timer rotates in Aidan's head. Click click click click click click DING. "Oh yea!" Aidan grabs the piece of stained glass off his back and slides it onto his arm. He wiggles his blue gloved fingers into place, grasping the shield straps with a little smirk. "Alright, now. If I can just do this WITHOUT getting cooked alive. She's gotta be Miss Fire... so that probably makes HER Miss Ice." He watches the Bullet Bill streak across the air, waiting to see if Aria actually IS a combatant. Aidan has developed one skill, at least. Everything doesn't pass straight through, without hitting a filter, and into Aidan's core. Instead, Aidan is much more calm about it, listening silently to each piece of it. "Yea, Eggman doesn't constantly move into my home and shit in my cornflakes," Aidan mutters, "Still waiting for him to surface his fat head again so I can take a swing at it." White wind rolls out of Aidan's mouth, forming rolling layers of wind. With the other hand, Aidan drops ice balls from his Ice Flower powers into the swirling mass. Instead of arguing all of those points, Aidan pivots, "I hope I can get some of yer brain, Brick, when it comes to the Gale Empire. At least a lesson in government. I gotta take down an entire Empire without blowing it up. And without killing everyone who wants to do i-" Satsui is in up in his face as Aidan tries to set up his death beam. The katana slows as it hits the shield of wind, giving Aidan just enough time to weave backwards, taking a cut that only slices into the abdomonal wall instead of cleaning through it and his spine. Blood gushes from the wound over his fur and immediately the white and blue outfit turns back to gold and green. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Aidan grabs at the wind around him, rapidly spinning it into a ball in either hand. Being chastised, having all of his weaknesses laid bare. It is what has pushed Aidan so far down, having to face them and feeling like he'll never earn his place again. But he has a reason to be confident. To even be a fool. And he's going to grasp that one. "Wind Limit!" White ripples up from his fingers, swirling around his body. It's almost shapeless, the presence of true Kamen Riders pushing too much at Aidan's self-confidence. He can't be as good as them. But he WILL stand as a knight. A vague outline of breastplate, of armguards, of a helmet shift into place. A solid suit of white wind locks into place. Whatever Aidan was gonna do BEFORE is thrown out the window as Satsui's fierce swordswomanship is pushed into him. "Gotcha." Aidan hoists the Mirrored Shield in front of him, letting the reflected slashing light strike it. The squirrel angles it out, mirroring it out towards soldiers to give them a taste of the searing light. Aidan drives forward, pushing out his hands to grab and weave the crushing walls of wind. 180 pound squirrel body may not be up to the task, but the wind is fair more difficult to compress than the squirrel's skeleton. It should, at least, give Odette and Cinder time to move. With each second he has free, he directs whatever beams of starlight he can at the steel soldiers, snapping the Stained Glass Shield out in intervals. The wind draws the heat away, a microclimate for his body. If he can just stand tall. If he can just keep going, he'll be fine. Satsui's blade, this time, is met directly with Aidan's other shield. A new celerity snaps his arm into place and strength gives him the time needed to drive the blade away. It's like trying to move an entire truck out of the way with just a steel pole. A fierce smile on his face before the second swing, the saya, drives directly into his throat. The 'armor' bends, slowing the blow down. Air compresses, moving everything to soften the blow. Instead of Aidan's spine snapping at the neck, he's lifted off his feet with a choked gasp. The wind armor disappears as fast as Aidan set it up, flashing away as he is sent across the platform, rolling until his front with a pained gasp.
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick instantly loses interest in talking to (or at least, at) Sarracenia when Blossom gets his attention by remarking that his 'throwing things into a star' idea is not a bad idea. He watches her throw a bunch of constructs into the star, blinking a little. He supposes that no material that goes into a star is, strictly, wasted-- and he's sure there's some exotic elements that can come of this. But damned if he hadn't expected it this angle in the moment. A SKRRR of light and sound carries him beside her, and he seems momentarily contemplative. But... //Then I will permit you to dispose of the bodies of your comrades.// "Gonna kiss you later for well-reasoned overkill destruction. Sorry for all the swearing. Gonna go do star tricks," he asides to Blossom. There is a momentary pause as he assesses Which Hair Ribbon she has, ascertains that it is one that is star-proof, and thus there is no use in putting her hair up in super-speed. Before he goes, Brick shouts at Boomer, "Break off from main engagement, angle the mirrors for me!" Then he's gone in another SKRRR, a column of bright red light zipping in past the opening-and-closing shutters and into the star's enclosure. Previously, Brick had boasted that he would be perfectly fine in a singularity-- that's true. There is no natural environment in the universe that is too extreme for him to endure. Wildly unnatural ones could pose a problem, but anything that operates within the parameters of the universe he occupies is, at worst, uncomfortable. The only thing he's careful about is not staying in the shutter-into-mirror area, because 'weaponized star' is as deeply unnatural as it gets. He might be grinning at Princess as she powers up while he passes nearby. Brick sighs to himself as he advances. Much like Blossom, he does have athletic shorts on that are as invulenrable as he is-- the rest of what he's got on him evaporates as the heat around him increases steadily. His own hairband, not a personal comfort item like Blossom's bow is for her, vaporizes pretty early on and sets his hair loose. He only comes about once the miniature sun is fully at his back, and he floats between it and the surrounding containment but not the mirror "lanes". His skin darkens incrementally without quite advancing towards a sunburn-- though it's an odd look on somebody as pale-and-freckled as he is. It also places him firmly outside of the 'remotely reachable' to any of his assailants except maybe Area or Satsui. Brick isn't certain if they might have a trick to get at him anyway, but he's pretty confident the constructs simply don't have an avenue of attack.
Rowdyruff Boys	Boomer is another story. His mouth opens slightly at the sound of the firing hammer from Satsui's katana. "That's so COOL! I love that, where did you get--" He's drifting up into the air and starting to head towards the mirror structures as Satsui slices through the crowd. He's durable enough that he takes bashing damage, but the sudden disappearance of a chunk of his shirt and the appearance of a pronounced divot underneath it says enough about how rough it is to be hit by the thing-- he shouts in alarm, toppling through the air and straight into a cloud of arrowheads. They embed themselves into his skin a tiny bit, giving him the look of a porcupine and drawing only the faintest bit of blood-- though that is more than enough to speak to their relative efficacy. It does not, however, stop him from tackling straight into one of the mirrors and bending it out of alignment-- in concert with what Brick is doing. Brick drifts around the surface of the star, observing through x-ray vision his brother's progress and the actual-kinda-for-real injuries he sustains out in the open. He's a little surprised, but not overly so-- this whole segment of the scenario was intended as a highly coordinated alpha strike. In a way, he feels like he got the better end of a deal, flying in to the relative safety of the star. He waits... ... And waits.... "HEY, C'MON, HAVEN'T I GOT IT RIGHT YET?" Boomer exclaims in exasperation, not used to being the one taking all the punishment. That's usually Butch or Brick. Inside, Brick drifts between the star and the mirror outside, serving as a momentary 'dark spot', and fires his heat vision into the mirror being adjusted for Boomer-- which as he moves it begins to sweep across the massed soldiers with all the amplification the mirror provides, leaving any consideration of Aria and Satsui entirely to the others. To the very end, it seems like Brick is the most interested in the 'boring and practical' angle. Even when it involves deliberately floating around a star.
Timespace Riders	The lightning bolt leaps from Zi-O, to Woz, to Woz, to Woz, to Woz, until every illusory copy is downed. More are summoned and summarily cut down with cold, before the real one is intercepted by Satsui and knocked out of the air by the flurry of arrows.      Thrown backwards, he shifts midair to keep from landing harshly on his back, his boots striking up sparks as he slides to a halt.     "Most clever of you," Woz cordially offers Aria.     Before he can take a step forwards to answer the strike, the volley of arrows rains down, sending him scrambling for cover and then tumbling down the cracked, superheated platform alongside Zi-O.     The Demon King extends his free hand, his other sending the greatsword stabbing into the molten platform to slow their descent with an ear-piercing screech.     "I see your lieutenants did not speak idly when they spoke of your attention to detail. It would be unwise to ignore you--yet your archers leave me little choice. Therefore..."     Zi-O tosses his retainer into the air, and midair, Woz procures a different Miridewatch, slotting it hastily into the side of his sleek black-green transformation belt.               Dare Ja? Ore Ja? NINJA! Futurering Shinobi! SHINOBI!                   While Zi-O pulls himself up and launches himself onto the next platform for another run at Satsui, Woz erratically teleports around the arena in a flurry of deer-scare 'thunk' smokepuffs. In this more speed-central form, even the scant second he's got before having to reposition is enough to harass Aria's position with a flurry of explosive shuriken--and he always does so from high enough that the soldiers will have to fire on her position to hit him.     Not that that's a problem for her! She seems perfectly able to redirect their arrows for her own use, and that's precisely what the retainer is counting on--throwing exploding shuriken not at her, precisely, but at her arrows, causing outsized explosions that interrupt her view of the battlefield and make it more difficult for those opportunistic attacks.     Zi-O, meanwhile, is outclassed, and knows it, each one of Satsui's cutting arcs a haymaker to the jabs he's only scarcely able to land. But it's just a matter of patience--a matter of finding the right moment. The clock hands on his helmet wind in rapid fast-forward, and through the hazy fog of time-yet-to-be, he spies the apex of her attempted skewer, driving through him and dispersing his armor.     Zi-O can't move too soon--not without giving it away, and the moving hands on his helmet are already a tell that he's predicting an attack. He has to let her think that he lacks the energy to capitalize on it--has to fight with just a bit less vigor than his already dwindled reserves suggest. And so--he sidesteps, just a hair too late, a teeth-gritted shout of pain escaping him as her sword scrapes across his abdomen.      Shoulder checking her, he wraps both of his blades behind the crossguard of hers, not stripping the weapon but neither allowing her to withdraw it.     "Woz, now," he calls out, voice raw from exertion.     Another explosion from on high. Woz hangs suspended at the valley of a backwards moonsault. A flick of his wrist sends his ninja-themed armor's iconic purple scarf whipping downwards. Wrapped up in its iridescent folds is the evil-sealing scabbard--which slides over Satsui's blade as Woz descends.      Zi-O releases it in time to slam it the rest of the way in with a spinning back kick. Woz lands to fight by his side, catches a kick to the chest and flies backwards--but despite the staggering impact that sends him scraping across the superheated floor, the noise that escapes him is satisfied.      "I, too, did not enter into this battle with half-hearted determination--and I am something of a diligent researcher, myself," he says, rising to his feet. "Shall we, sire?"
Timespace Riders	"I have a good feeling about this! Everyone! Hit the General before Aria can unseal her sword!"      Zi-O combines his blades into one, setting the unusual his-own-helmet crossguard further up the blade to start a buildup of energy.                                    FINISH TIME!                                        Woz joins suit, summoning a sickle-tipped polearm with a touchscreen app menu below the blade, catching it and swiping his finger rapidly across the buttons.                                  BEYOND THE TIME!                                      Woz strikes first, rushing Satsui with extreme speed that her indulgently chuuni actor will probably appreciate for its creation of afterimage Woz-es, each one wielding a sickle polearm and converging in a dramatic x-slash.                                      ICHIGEKI C'MON!!                                     Zi-O, meanwhile, keeps a watchful eye out for any evasive flash-step from her, covering her retreat with a swing of a now much-larger greatsword formed of burning yellow energy. Pink katakana along the burning blade spell out 'ZI-O RULES,' shortly before the blade makes impact and the katakana launch like jets towards her to explode as a series of aftershocks.                              KING GIRI-GIRI SLASH!
Angela	Cinder's just one Agent and isn't even the strongest agent in Control let alone the strongest Agent in the facility. She has no experience as a general and few fancy tricks to make use of with her blazing blade but in the end of the day, she's a clerk who got promoted thanks to Petra's help. She likes to think she has gotten tougher since then--she's definitely gotten more experience--but the sad truth is she's using TETH-grade Ego Gear. She can deal with arrows plenty well, backpedaling and leaping away from the projectiles while prematurely detonating them with her flames--at least at first. Eventually she lands wrong and stumbles, bringing up her arm to protect her face from an incoming arrow... ..and Blossom darts in to knock the arrow away. Cinder shudders when she sees it detonate some distance way. "I think... I'm nearing my limit. Feel like I'm burning up..." Cinder manages. "I mean... No, no, I can fight I just..." She pauses a moment and asks Blossom, sincerely, "I'm really out of my depth huh?" She laughs, only a bit erratically. "To think, we're going to all this trouble for..." She gestures with Fourth Match Flame. "...Even if everyone in the City had one, don't think it'd let us stand against the Head, let alone whatever is out there in the multiverse." She doesn't really care about pride for her own city, of course, but she can't shake the nagging feeling that even all that work to complete the Seed of Light won't actually push that needle at all. Maybe a little seed was too humble. But there's still one reason to complete the project, she thinks, even if Yuri doesn't get it. And once she does that, she'll be free to explore the infinite without needing to ever feel overwhelmed again. Fuck the City, paradise is one portal hop away. Wind comes crashing down upon Cinder, smashing her to the ground. Thanks to Blossom's previous help, it doesn't immediately knock her out... ...But even as she struggles to get up--she can't push herself back up and she collapses back to the dirt.
Odette Raskins	Odette really needs to remember to thank Blossom later for being a shield against all those shots for her. She's still in the middle a frustrated outburst at the heat making it nigh-impossible to even think, but some small part of her still remembers what she should be doing even if she's physically struggling just to hide behind Blossom. Her training and survival instincts kick in soon enough, at least, and she yanks out a handful of bandages while trying not to get shot again. As Blossom comes by for another defensive pass, Odette even throws herself forward to smack a combination of burn cream and cut-sealing cream onto the Powerpuff during another defensive pass. "I pity you. The General won't give you a decent death." The sharp contrast between General Satsui's reaction to Odette and everyone else is actually pretty good at getting her to refocus, too. Feeling a sudden pang of shame at her earlier outburst right in her gut, the EMT looks back up and feels her blood running cold despite the heat once she sees all those idle soldiers suddenly stop being so idle. Still chattering through her teeth, she swallows once and opens her mouth like she's about to shout something back in almost-defiance, but feels the words die in the back of her throat again when she sees that red glow in the Dark General's helmet. "Burn the last of your lives as brightly as you can! Burn everything you are able before the bitter end of your legend!" "W-w-we... I don't... We're not going to die here! N-n-not if your..." That's about as far as she can get before sputtering out, knowing full well that surrender isn't an option and there's little to no cover to actually rely on. Her mind starts to rapidly run through the other possibilities, but so many of them are unappealing from the jump. Run away? She'll get shot. Run sideways? She'll get shot. Hide behind everyone else? She'll probably still got shot from every other direction and fall before any of them. That leaves actually trying to fight, but that also means having to first contend with the great flaming wave from the stained glass. With her jacket actually on, Odette can dive to the ground and get away with just her arms being scorched again, but it's the followup  from the armoured soldiers that really messes her up and then some. Odette's already unsteady on her feet thanks to the heat, and the ice arrows shattering the platform takes her right back to the ground where she has to weather painful burns just to scamper around without getting shot up too badly in the process. Satsui carving up the platform is almost a relief in comparison, if only because Odette can actually make out where those cuts are coming from instead of trying to focus on so many streaming shots. Her only hope of doing anything helpful at this point would be going after Aria instead, and she sees a chance to make a break for it shortly before getting forced right back to the ground by the wind wall. Her throat's a little too dry to scream, and she wedges one arm into her bag just so she has a little more protection between herself and the ground that Aria's wind wall keeps forcing her towards. Odette keeps thrashing desperately, trying to find an opening to do something. Anything, to not just be a footnote as the first one that failed this whole scenario.
Odette Raskins	"I have a good feeling about this! Everyone! Hit the General before Aria can unseal her sword!" Is that the opening? Close enough. Sougo's got some kind of idea going, so the least Odette can do is go along with it and worry about the consequences later. With the briefest opening provided by Aidan to escape the wind, the EMT launches herself straight at the Dark General, looking almost like a sprinter about to crash headlong into a steel wall. Pulling out a fist-sized casing with a little button on the top, she nearly trips and ends up reaching the Dark General just a little sooner than expected, and slams it right into Satsui's knee with all her body weight thrown into the blow. The chemicals inside that casing, normally kept separate in two separate containers within, mix together once Odette presses the button on the top of it with that desperate punch. Under normal circumstances, another chemical present in both containers would keep it from just activating the moment they come together, and heat would need to be applied to set the whole mixture off. The heat of the forge, the Dark General's armor, and the blazing rays from the stained glass, however, have all put the chemicals at the prime temperature to set off the chemical reaction within once it's all mixed up. The moment Odette presses that button, the chemical grenade goes off, creating a concentrated explosive shockwave focused directly between the Dark General's armored knee and Odette's  highly unarmored hand, shattering the bones in the latter in the hopes of doing the same to the former.
Sarracenia	'You don't have a point.'      "I have a point, you just do not want to admit it!" Sarra huffs. "And I do not pursue reasons to harm people!! Why does everything think that?! I have -literally- never -started- a fight! I just do not back down when someone starts one with me! They all try to paint it like I am the only antagonist around, but everyone who has a problem with me had one way before I did anything to them! I actually look for reasons to be nice to people until they insult me or tell me I am worthless or that I should die or something! What problem have I even cause for you? I have been nothing but an asset this entire exercise!"      Sarra has to stop there, then add quickly and softly, "...except for that ghost ballroom..."      'you weren't as absent the horny drooling at the front of this exercise as you want people to think.'      Sarra mmphs and blushes at that. "I...was still not a liability, though! I continued fighting and did -not- get captured! And I am fairly certain I rescued this place's princess during that!"      'Eggman is the root of the Quicknest problem and you don't have anything to say about him because he can portray himself in a way that is less offensive to you than Petra, and divested himself of responsibility and aggression from others in so doing. And who can blame him?'      "I have plenty to say about Eggman, but I do not say them because he and I are apparently in the same faction! Plus it does no good because people think he is amazing!" And also she's way more scared of him than Petra, but she isn't going to say that. "What? How does a president even affect gas prices? ...wait, you threatened people with harm to lower gas prices?! No wonder you like Petra!"      'Yes! That is the spirit that a heroine should have! Defiant to the end, like the shining souls that came before you!'      Sarra can't help but smirk a bit proudly (and somewhat smugly) in Brick's direction as she is called a heroine even by the villains of this simulation. "Is that how the Queen got you two? She left you no hope except joining her? Well, one of my goals as a heroine is to make sure everyone has hope! I want to be a shining beacon to everyone! Even my enemies who seems to have lost hope in humanity!"      The Bullet Bill explodes when struck by that lightning, and Sarra seems delighted. "Excellent! You are not going to just run away like those brats from the moat and the library!"      As the arrows start firing, Sarra starts moving. She goes to wall jump as platforms start to crumble...and nearly loses a foot! With a yelp she pulls out an ice flower and blows across the petals to produce a stream of freezing air to cool off in, but is interrupted when...she is met with a living bullet herself!      Sarra yelps in surprise and purely on instinct brings her hammer around to meet the attack. It packs plenty of power to catch the attack. She fires bullet bills with that thing you know! The impact rings from the impact of metal on metal, and Sarra goes flying back. She spins in the air as she flies toward a scorching wall, then hammers the wall to send herself flying in another direction.
Sarracenia	"The general will give no one here a death!" she shouts at Aria. "And neither will you!" Once again Sarra finds herself wondering if this is actually just a simulation. Are they at actual risk of dying here? What would happen if one of them -was- mortally wounded here?      Then, one of those beams slashes over her bag! "H-hey!!" Oddly the bag does not explode or burst into flame. Instead, the beam cuts through the outer material then glances off of an odd-looking red pipe head within, big enough to stick an arm through. A warp pipe! So, that's how her bag works, huh?      That does not stop the strap from being severed, though. And since she is holding that bag the beam also slashes across her, poofing her ice power. Sarra quickly clutches her bag, seeming genuinely worried about what would happen if she lost it. Without it she would be in pretty big trouble and probably -would- be a liability in this room. "I really wish I had learned a bit more about this morphmetal, now..." she says to herself.      As she starts to fall Sarra pulls out a Bullet Bill...but this one is a bit different. Not as large as the others. It explodes in a puff of smoke big enough to obscure Sarra, then with a sound like a large rocket launching out comes a Bullet Bill the size of a small car! It rockets up the General (thanks to Zi-O's direction), spiraling through the air with obvious purpose.      It explodes powerfully on impact, followed only moments later by a somersaulting swing from Sarra's hammer. "I will not fall here!! I never give up!!"      With all that is happening now, Sarra does not even have time to think about Brick, much less consider why he stopped making good points with a bad attitude in her direction. She does really hope that Odette and Aidan and even Cinder will be alright, though. Sarra isn't powerful enough to help them -and- keep herself alive at the same time! As Cinder collapses the best Sarra can manage is dropping some green mushrooms in her comrades' directions. "Hang in there, Cinder! Odette! We can do this!!" she shouts...even though the princess is showing definite signs of fatigue herself, plenty of burns, and is at risk of losing her power-ups.
Powerpuff Girls	Princess, in her solar collection powered Satellite Armor, loses the black stripe at her center and the details on her thighboots and gloves. Instead, shining warm-reflective gold, armored and textured more heavily with layers of built-out shoulders, arms, chest, palm and boot. Both shoulders glow with leaking energy, though this close to the hot star, she's got enough local radiation that her meters don't naturally deplete the same way they might inside earth's radiation-scattering ionosphere. Trailing a corona of plasma crackle and pink power-dots as she swings around, several bolts of electric power and a full quarter-barrage of ice arrows hammer into her back, slamming her speed-gaining escape velocity with blast after blast that Morbucks weathers, flinging a hot wash of air-distorting energy crackle and heat-trailing whip-crack through the back of the blast and shielding herself from some of the detonations. Distorted by gravity and doppler effect, it's practically only Woz, Sougo, and Satsui that hear her actual feelings. "I'mgonnainventawayto-" Catches up with her bouncing path across not-as-hot-as-she's-blazing platforms and the leaping bolt-steps of chase before her stellar dive. "-automatically punch every bow IDIOT in my life!!" Princess geniusposts while pivoting from her aerial kick into a crackling spray of conal power from palm towards Satsui's center as they pass. The fractional seconds of their meeting mid-air crossways slides Princess through momentum-bleeding flares of sublight boosters, going too fast to not land and roll across platform Satsui left. "Not interesting in playing at speed, General?!" Morbucks shouts, two closing-ringed points of light under her boots narrowing to blasts as adjoins the distance in a halo of burning photons. Curls of whipping heat flare off of the gold-armored Morbucks as scarves of stellar ejecta, and the slash that Satsui carves and clicks across the whole of the arena is caught and ridden the inside of with sparks like the inside of a rail track, wild-eyed and HUD-lit behind ruby visor. When Woz receives sword to hilt, she is at the General's back like the backscatter from the flash. "I'll show you some *Northern*-" California. "-style, then!" She threatens while she delivering a shattering kick to the back of the general's legs to unsteady them, joined by two flanking heat-mirage clones to either side just shoving the general's arms out and forward so Woz has precious extra time with the sword. If they were saving the powerful ones for last - or planning that - Princess Morbucks aimed to burn past the problem and help end the fight in one move... before someone didn't get another one. 'I have a good feeling about this! Everyone! Hit the General before Aria can unseal her sword!' "M'kay." Princess clicks her tongue, barely an acknowledgement, not needed nor expected. Something for her. A settle, a simplifcation. "Full power then." Back-zipping when Woz starts his X-slash, Princess' clones are blasted apart or flexed away during the choreography but act to try and hold for just that little iota longer. Landing and bringing palm channels to point the wash of jets and waves of heat off her golden armor shimmer and deploy a half-dozen clones about her in a hexagram formation - two above, two below, two to sides, and join the King Giri-Giri slash in a plasma ball barrage to bury the general in juicily applied stellar pyroclastics.
Powerpuff Girls	Blossom does not have the same priorities that Princess Delilah Morbucks III (a rich girl from Citysville California in the year 2014, first name Princess, no royal claim) does. She is not, especially, here for her ego, despite bringing her usual personality. The challenge of fighting near a star-forge with a bunch of super-tough robot threats felt, to her, like an obvious answer. Un-forge the robots? In the star! Sometimes, the red Powerpuff reflects on how she might encourage Brick to over-correct in the name of clean super-heroism. In the spirit of a test, and showing their better selves, though... Blossom had decided to let Brick play on 'best behavior' and prove the Rowdyruffs before the multiverse as co-equal heroes to the Powerpuffs. They could be, if they put their mind to it, and perhaps, it mattered more if they did. It was also very cute that Brick held back on throwing things into stars for her. This made throwing things into stars a bonding activity. Laughing despite the issues with invincible super-spandex under-layer and Professor Utonium special ribbon, Blossom recovers from being sent crashing into a broken-sharp mirror by Satsui's slash with a dusting-off grin. "I'm glad you think it's well-reasoned, and we can talk about it being 'overkill'!" She chases Brick's zip-off with her words, springing into her own SKRRR! of super-speed motion that chases arrows headed for Cinder and still comes up a bit short, whisking away some of the mechanically icy arrows with eye-ray blasts before spinning in a hooking-legged kick at such a pivot speed to send a gravity-curved hurricane blast to hammer the automaton archers. There is a second SKRRR! when she zips under the falling Cinder's head with a hand at a kneel, holding her up and bracing back over the falling Agent. "It's okay, Cinder." Blossom murmurs, to the delirious and heat-exhausting woman, carefully pursing lips to softly try and blow cold air over her to relieve some of the stress for a moment. "You're okay." She insists in the background, now fully committed to making sure Aria doesn't snipe Cinder in their falling moment. Letting a comrade 'die' to inaction in the middle of a heroing test would mean she got a less than perfect grade in heroing which was reasonable to manage and possible to attain.
Lilian Rook	'I see your lieutenants did not speak idly when they spoke of your attention to detail.'     "Those girls are something of my understudies." Aria replies to Woz over the thunderous noise of battle, coldly and gamely at the same time. "I'm afraid they've run a little wild while my attention has been occupied with the great work, and so they haven't been as studious in their duties as I require. Nevertheless, this much should be enough for you." She follows the successful lightning blast on Woz with another, this time sending a powerful bolt zipping through the air from one direction, back into the metal skeleton of the room, and back out from another one, over and over under constant assault, with swishes of her staff like a conductor's baton.     'To think, we're going to all this trouble for...'     "For nothing, girl. In our new utopia, not even your bones will remain!" A final blast of wind accelerates the cloud of arrows towards Cinder at shrieking near-sonic speed, only to be caught in bulk by Blossom. An irritated noise comes from behind her mask when Odette start scrambling, aiming another crackling blast at her; but then Brick flying into the sun, and Boomer grabbing at the panels, drags away her attention. The moment for 'you fools!' comes and passes.     "General! Change of plan!" "Hahahaha! Excellent! Sublime! Throw your lives away in the most glorious of deaths conceivable!" "General! Retarget the--" "Hope is the final delusion that chains you to the eternal wheel of suffering! With this stroke, I will set you free!" "Ugh!"     While General Satsui is going absolutely nuclear, the boss adds aren't doing so hot after their alpha strike. Aria has to dodge the spinning laser beams from the two Rowdyruffs working together, and is only able to wind-deflect a handful of the bisected suits being hurled into the star, sweating from the effort of delaying it. Their dwindling numbers free up the groundbound Elites from the lethal assault of storming projectiles, and each magically constructed body hurled into the sun makes it pulse more angrily than the last, sprouting tendrils of solar fire that loop and curl into its wobbling magnetic field, snapping at Brick like snakes.     "To think you suicidal ingrates . . ." passes from between her lips, and turns to steam in an instant, as the temperature of the room climbs and climbs and climbs. Sweat burns off the instant it forms. The air in your lungs burns the tissues. Boots smoulder at the lightest touch to floor and wall. You can smell smoking hair and iron.     "!!" and "You dare?!" leave Satsui for different reasons. Even with Woz struck down for the moment, she can't seem to unsheath the sword. In fact, the heat and light captured in the gilded scabbard seems to slowly be fusing the blade to the inside. Her struggles only snap the hilt clean off, eliciting a snarl of anger. "To befoul a gift from the Queen herself! The last sword from her time as the--" "GENERAL!"
Lilian Rook	The key item is working too well. She's too preoccupied. All the general can do now is hunker down and brace against the flurry of afterimage ninja attacks and Princess clone plasma balls, sparking and gouging her armour in a hundred different places. A sweep of starlight reveals countless defaced Japanese characters, their gold glow guttering and starting to smoke. The Sougo X slash tears away her cloak entirely and splits through the helmet, riven in half with a diagonal glowing crack. Then Odette stumbling into point blank with the canister bomb--     "Shitoryu--!"     The cape spirals into the sun. Tied back hair blows free of the helmet. One eye flashes without the darkness of the visor. The grenade sails from Odette's hands. Sarracenia's giant bullet bill takes off with a flash of rocket fire. The riders and Princess close in. The overloading star convulses, and the chamber shakes.     "Satsui Ougi--!"     The General's breastplate shatters and blows away. Her gauntlets burn and peel. The supply ring above grinds to a halt, and a shower of half-formed armaments falls amidst a torrential downpour of sparks. Satsui catches one of the still-molten swords as it falls, smoking against the skin of her bare hand.     "San--!"     With her armour falling apart, her speed increases in an instant. She whirls and slices through the canister bomb, cleaving apart the valves and slashing Odette's hands in the same half-circle orbit. The sword breaks apart instantly, the blade losing its tip against the platform. The residual wildcat explosion launches her away, taking the last of her armour and leaving her in her tattered red clothes.     "Ken--!"     She catches another falling sword in mid-air, turns her body alongside it, and gracefully blurs past Sarracenia. A red hot streak crosses the banzai bill from nose to end. Half the glowing sword blade breaks off inside it, just before it too, goes off. Satsui bounces off the wall with a hard crunch, then rolls up into a wall-running sprint and catches two more swords.     "Sou--!!"     Leaping down off the wall, she crashes through the previous platform and slams against another an entire layer down. Both swords shatter into a thousand white hot pieces, in the wake of a flurry of criss-cross slashes she leaves on Sougou, Woz, and Princess. Throwing away both broken tangs, her hands are visibly blistered and scarred, and yet she rips a greatbow from the remains of a hollow soldier, stringing three of its last arrows at once, and with a tremendous blast of air pressure, focuses down the shafts and fires them all at once into the remaining Elites. The arrowheads break from shock midway, and release an uncontrolled thermal shock explosion in trinity.     "KAI!!"     All on her own, Aria is no longer able to stop Blossom. She yells at the top of her lungs, calling down "General please! The stellar engine is unstable! The foundry is about to be destroyed!" But Satsui, stripped down to burnt cloth and hair fluttering wildly in the solar windstorm, only laughs at the top of her lungs. "I will not cling to hope as you do, Aria! This is my way! A battle to the death should end with death!!"     She's already kicking over a forge to grab more swords, but Aria isn't. There's a theatrically painful delay, and then "This isn't over! Not by far!" just before she disappears; teleporting away in a flurry of icy wind. The mirrors surrounding the star blister and peel, crack and fall away, crashing into each other like dominos. The stellar body inside swells and brightens, pulsing on the verge of a tremendous explosion; one that might level the whole area.
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan mops at his head, hacking out a cough. He's done with everything. Too far away to hit with his shield. The neckguard of his breastplate is bent inward. "Armor doesn't... grugh," he can't really struggle out a quip about armor when his voice barely works. He staggers up to his feet, reduced to his molecular parts. A squirrel with a shield. Aidan has to hunker down behind a broken wall, all of his defensive options ripped from him. A shockwave of arrow slams into the wall around him, sending sharpnel into his ear and head. In his mind, the crayon animation of Aidan diving across the room and leaping onto Satsui's face plays out. Hmm, no. He has to scramble out of the way as he watches her drive her blades down back across the wall, watching walls tear, screaming as red jagged ends pry apart. White hot shards from a broken sword flash by Aidan, slashing across his face, burning scars into him. "Alright, retreat!" He croaks out, waving his hand towards Cinder, Odette, and Sarracenia. He holds the Mirror Shield out in front of them, shield in the other hand, trying to backpedal as if he could actually be some sort of bodyguard for them in this state. "Everyone out!"
Angela	Cinder can be cooled off, which helps, and she can even be protected from falling wind. But even as she uses the opportunity to get away from the assault. She looks at Blossom for a long moment. Then she frowns and she counters her statement of 'you're okay' with. "No I'm not." She says, "I'm not okay. Thanks, though, I mean for uh. Saving me." She doesn't want to be rude to Blossom because she did save her. "I'll uh. Figure it out. Or not. I don't plan on sticking around anyway." She brings up her arms again reflexively as Blossom protects her from another volley of arrows. SHe exhales a hot breath of air against Blossom's back before Aidan suggests they retreat. Cinder hesitates, since that does sound like a good idea. But she looks to Blossom. "We ... are running away right?"
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick cannot hear Sarracenia-- or, for that matter, Aidan. He could if he had not left, first to vocally appreciate Blossom's destructiveness, and second to be next to this star. A fun fact about stars is that if they have some medium to generate noise in they're pretty damn loud, and as far as he can tell this is not a vacuum of any sort he's dealing with; he assumes the metal plating and mirrors are at least partially for noise insulation. At any rate, he's thinking a song because he doesn't have a music player that can survive this close to a star yet. //I have a point, you just do not want to admit it!//     Ground Control To Major Tom... //And I do not pursue reasons to harm people!! Why does everything think that?!//     Take your protein pills and put your helmet on... //I actually look for reasons to be nice to people until they insult me or tell me I am worthless or that I should die or something!//     Commencing countdown, engines on... //What problem have I even cause for you? I have been nothing but an asset this entire exercise!//     Check ignition, and may God's love be with you... //...except for that ghost ballroom...//     This is ground control to Major Tom, you've really made the grade... //I...was still not a liability, though! I continued fighting and did -not- get captured! And I am fairly certain I rescued this place's princess during that!//     And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear... //I have plenty to say about Eggman, but I do not say them because he and I are apparently in the same faction! Plus it does no good because people think he is amazing!//     Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare... //What? How does a president even affect gas prices? ...wait, you threatened people with harm to lower gas prices?! No wonder you like Petra!//     This is Major Tom to Ground Control, I'm stepping through the door... Boomer watches as Brick -- who has folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes -- abruptly jukes out of the way of a flaring structure from the mini-star. He blinks slowly-- and truthfully, his powers would be ideal for stabilizing this situation. But he can't hear his brother at the moment, and the broad knowledgebase is a Brick thing. He tugs back and forth at the shield-mirror, trying to decide what he should do-- until it cracks and breaks, something that he thinks he did himself. Brick in the meanwhile is struggling with his natural curiosity and interest in watching a miniature star go nova. He's not certain that's what's actually happening, though, and he doesn't feel like being a massive hypocrite by simply being obsessive over his interests. Half a heartbeat after having that thought, he crashes back out into the area where everybody else is. "Boomer! Form up around the squirrel, electro-net," Brick barks as he re-enters space that actually has 'reasonable sound' going on in it. Boomer... looks like absolute hell because he's just been tanking what's been flying around. He upsizes and collapses as-instructed, stretching out both arms and projecting a net of electrical energy around whoever hunkers down near the Mirror Shield. Brick does not form up on Aidan and Boomer. With a pronounced SKRRR! he turns up next to... Princess Morbucks, and just hovers there. Because she's the one who eats solar energy.
Timespace Riders	Normally a fighter with an emphasis on his poise and precision, Woz is notably less graceful after having been struck this many times at the end of such a grueling gauntlet. His rise from the superheated floor is sluggish and ungainly, leaning on his polearm to get him most of the way there; the fighting stance he adopts is with the effort of moving in a lake. Shitoryu--!     "!!" Satsui Ougi--!     Zi-O gasps and lifts his sword, ready to clash with the still-molten one Satsui grasps, only to see that it's used against Odette.     "She's so fast--!" Even peering into the future doesn't give him any good options on how to defend against her--how can you defend against something you can barely see, even if you know it's coming?     All he can do is watch the glowing streaks of the molten swords, predict *when* he'll be hit and brace accordingly--after another flick of the watch hands on his helmet, he makes a running tackle, sending himself and Woz tumbling to the ground in anticipation of the exploding shrapnel.     Their armors are a helix of flying sparks, between the many slashes Satsui makes, the red-hot fragments and the scorching slide down the collapsing platform. Zi-O's is the one to give out first, following the tremendous explosion.     He shouts in pain as his skin makes contact with the platform in free fall, but a quick handseal from Woz places them both in the air, relatively safer, just before his own armor fades.     This isn't over! Not by far!     "Of that you may be certain. Sire," says the de-belted retainer in roaring free-fall, "The day is ours. Let us hie away from here, lest the star's collapse change that."     "Go for it," Sougo affirms, voice raw.     With a flick of his wrist, Woz sends out his scarf, dull and gray rather than iridescent purple as with the Shinobi armor. The garment expands impossibly in the very same way. This time, it envelops him and the king in his arms, folding into a single point like water circling a drain. It disappears, leaving empty air where before there were two falling, belted-out Kamen Riders.
Sarracenia	'Those girls are something of my understudies.'      "Well, that explains it." Sarra says without elaborating.      'For nothing, girl. In our new utopia, not even your bones will remain!'      "It is not for nothing!" Sarra exclaims. "Your so-called utopia is built on fear and slavery! What kind of utopia is that?! We will help the people of this land form a -real- utopia! If you all stop this insanity I am sure we could even find a place for you in it! You will need one after we defeat Queen Liliana!"      'Brick does not hear Sarra because he is not there'      Sarra pouts inwardly. She resisted blowing up the star because it could be bad, and then her newest least favorite person went and got to trigger it? So much pouting at the very idea.      Sarra's Banzai Bill shell is cut open, causing it to explode and release the princess within. She comes out swinging, but with the General going the other way it is hard to anything. Not to mention Sarra has a red-hot slice down the side of her body to match the destroyed bullet.      Sarra's clothing is sundered after that exchange, and she has to tie strips to keep her dress from showing a bit too much. As it is she ends up with an almost stylish slit down the skirt, causing the princess to blush as she realizes flashes of skin are visible every now and then. And she can barely follow the general's movements.      'I will not cling to hope as you do, Aria! This is my way! A battle to the death should end with death!!'      "You are the only one making it a battle to the death! I do not kill people!" Sarra exclaims as she moves to join the others on whatever solid ground is left, her hair matted from sweat and with some new burned patches thanks to fiery beams and swords.      'We ... are running away right?"      "We are not running away. We are leaving the field of battle after a victory!" Sarra says to Cinder, then looks up at Brick and Princess. Sarra would like to see a star explode...but once again she is unsure how real this simulation is and does not want to be vaporized by an expanding star. "...with haste!" she adds, her voice similarly raspy as the others. She slips her hammer into her purse, then moves to Odette to help her along if needed. Boomer is forming a shield, so Sarra moves into that and behind Aidan. "While I appreciate the shields...should we not just leave the area?!"
Powerpuff Girls	The star's destabilization makes the heat bad enough that Blossom starts worrying actively for the safety of Cinder, who is downed badly enough to not be fighting. Cover against something like attacks still doesn't mean the matchstick girl is defended properly against the elements. The 'elements', in this case, certainly also consisting of scorching-hot ground! Battered and blasted in saving Cinder a little more before Aria theatrically bails, and with the captured star threatening to go critical above, nods down to Cinder. "Yeah, I think now's a good time to leave." Blossom admits. "I wouldn't want your match-stick getting burned up, too." Looking for the exit in the haze and looking towards Aidan, Blossom quickly gets a feeling for the boys' plan when Brick zips down and starts barking orders. "Hang on." She directs Cinder, sweeps hand around the Agent's waist, and takes her in a twice-red and emberfalling zip of speed. Slower yet still blurring, gentler, Cinder experiences a kaleidoscoping tunnel of images at speed, the shear of atmosphere only about her extremities like the very faintest yet sharp chill, and a rush of breathless Going that does not stop so abruptly. In the envelope, she spends what seems like several subjective seconds with Blossom's arm about her waist, that all pace into what at the end collapses into less than a single frame of memory, and Cinder is under Boomer's barricade over the door, with Aidan. "If that star goes off, Boomer, I'm trusting you." Blossom directs up at the big Rowdy on Defense. --- On the eyeplate of Princess' large pink tech-visor that shields her from the copious amounts of otherwise instantly blinding radiation that she deals in, the HUD display shows Morbucks each detail of her active suit measures, sorted by priority. In her practiced combat gaze she stares on to Satsui, without shifting her eyes off target to 'chase' the data printed across her eyes and refined through visor, simply absorbing it like symbols in the periphery of her awareness. Energy levels - still good. She couldn't ask for more solar radiation, but her coolant was being pushed. Armor levels - acceptable. The 'vital layer' of her suit's innermost mechanics was also the one that kept her environmentally sealed, and the power fields projected by the rest of it channeled the incredible radiological forces about her like bracers and anklets, energy that had not hardened into further pieces of her Satellite Armor. Despite the hammering her body took, the suit remained structurally sound, and the lightspeed slashes didn't let her get to thinking about quips. And the lightspeed slashes... 'Shitoryu--!' Morbucks' translator fires up, displaying across visor in reverse a step behind the diction. Princess knew that anyone shouting their attack names might give away a key part as a means of focusing the effect, and the tactical advantage of getting the chuuni knowledge might help her win the beam clash. It's not a beam clash. Princess' clones are caught swinging, kicking, and plasma blasting into the cross-slashing motions of Satsui's three sword technique. Erupting in a forearm block whose golden armor crackles fresh-made and fizzling in layers with the blocked strike across her left forearm so defused still working to the faint crack and vague unhealthy crunch of her arm's still-human interior, then a second is palm-deflected with a crackle of pink plasma as she blasts the force away, and then, and then, and then--
Powerpuff Girls	Princess had run her reactor greedily, and despite the solar armor system reinforcement her suit's energy systems were at their max taxing again. Unable to burst her armor's energy and clash more fiercely with Satsui's final attack, Princess is stripped of her extra actors and hammered repeatedly, withered down to a holdout guard from the assault and drilled by directed thermal shock. That finally shockwave blasts Princess skidding back among Woz and Sougo, the de-belted boys drawing her wild glance, but Princess keeps standing, keeps on at Satsui as she falls to getting more swords with her stance. Making sure the Riders are okay, critically aware of the dangers of losing suit integrity, her own state is little better: the crackling failure of the Satellite System leaves her armor back to its gold-and-black base state. The audible warning dididididi pensively in her ear as a gentle reminder of her now-vulnerable state and the time to restore system being displayed in the corner of her eye. She shouldn't. Brick Jojo appears. Princess smirks, mentally mapping a flight plan. "Sorry, General, but I told you: I'm not here for your ego!" She's here for her own. Springing forward while the Riders fall back, Princess summons one last push to attempt an almost-tackling grab of Satsui at velocity, spring back off the forge full of weapons, and haul the general away from the supercritical reactor and under Boomer's electromagnetic shielding. As she grabs for the boiling-alive general, the line slips out of her: "I'm a *villain* - *and* a Powerpuff Girl!" "I don't do 'battles to the death'!"
Lilian Rook	Spymaster Aria dramatically leaves first ahead of the impending catastrophic destabilization. Woz and Sougo vanish in similar theatrical fashion. General Satsui seems to have no intent of doing likewise, charging the vanguard Rowdyruff and turning a fistful of arrows and a broken half-forged swords on the downed members. The collapsing mirrors crack under gravitational pressure, and tumble ungainly into the expanding star, accelerating in huge, throbbing lurches as each one feeds its burning core.     Blossom ferries out Cinder, and the stellar engine reaches a size that overtakes its protective casing entirely. Sarracenia regroups with Odette and Boomer, just as the star dramatically flares up all at once, and the Rowdyruffs become the only real standing shadow in the area. The entire chamber shudders with impossible violence, gravity dragging Princess harder and harder towards an off-course doomed spiral, and at the last second, she tackles the unarmoured Satsui out of the air and involuntarily into safety. The disastrous collapse of the star's core comes soon after.     There is nothing to observe. Not meaningfully. The sound up close exceeds even superhuman capacity for hearing. The light is too much to see anything else through. The heat shatters the stained class chamber in an instant, then the shockwave rumbles through what must be the entire building shortly thereafter. Solar flames spew into the side passages and industrial corridors and vent so violently through their narrow, winding confines that they collapse. Much of the roof crumbles in on top of you. The sound of the armoury being thrown into clatter-crashing chaos carries deafeningly for miles of corridor. The star contracts into a single flicker-pulsing blinding point of impossible white heat, and then winks out, leaving only a molten iron core spinning strangely in central antigravity.     The design of the foundry has somehow kept the rest of the castle intact, though every useable piece of machinery is either ash or glowing liquid, and the walls are scorched bare down to the fourth layer of raw stone. The door you'd come through is somehow still secure, though buckled unusably outwards, only barely protecting that decorative garden, of all things. The opposite gate out, down a far corridor, is in better shape. Everything else is a molten cave-in.     'General Satsui' sits up and laughs, this time in her much more natural voice. "Wow! I actually didn't know it would do that! I totally thought it'd just be like the-- Oops!" She claps her hand over her mouth. "No spoilers! I promised!" Fishing around her tattered outfit with hands that are actually severely burnt, she wincingly produces a crimson-silver key. "Sorry but I don't really know what to say. I think my character would probably just be ashes by now, so you can just take it?"     "Still! I totally thought we had you!" she says, trying to stand up, and then falling back on her ass as one leg gives out, quietly stifling down a noise. "But that's a totally dramatic way to defeat a boss, so you'll get no complaint from me! Wow!"     "Kind of crazy for you to stay behind. You know I have an emergency recall device, right? Just like yours!" says Satsuki, patting an underclothes belt-buckle greeble that you've never seen before in your life. "All of the staff get them too, not just the heroes!"