Scene #9425: Tae-Young Produce Company-2

Owner	Pose
Distortion Dets.	It's a mad scramble to make it from the testing floor up to the now-defunct elevator's roof-hatch- an enormous flesh-monster playing goalie for the group of Elites. It's fast, big, strong, but uncoordinated, despite lashing out at anyone it can with its six arms, in a wide-open space such as this, and especially with the efforts of others, like Ezra, waving arms, throwing things, and stealing away attention, it's a surefire enough matter to one by one dodge past its guard and scurry up and away (just ignore the bloodstains that used to be Manager Kang.) One by one people make it up, and of Moses' office, surprisingly, it's YuRia who scoots in first, hoisting herself up with a clamping wrench to cover the extra height (without assistance from those already-up in the shaft), and quickly, she's followed by Moses, still-dissipating red smoke clinging to her and her pipe. She takes count of everyone as they pile in, more and more worried as long moments pass- "Ezra- where's Ezra? Did any of you see if she-" Moses gets cut off by a gloved hand grabbing onto the edge of the hatch and, with a 'Hup,', the blonde-haired fixer hoists herself inside and nearly hops up the wall, kicking the hatch shut. Following Ezra's rushed up-clambering through the elevator's hatch, just a moment after it's shut behind her, a sharp crash shakes both the elevator and all the scaffolding material within the shaft. The monster- whatever it really is -clearly isn't happy with its targets being somewhere it can reach, and by the dents and roof (and walls, no doubt), the safety offered here is temporary. "Eheh, wow, whew, Detective! Did you see how close that was? It was all 'Grah', reaching out, I think it even scratched up my jacket!" "Ezra. I won't praise you for close calls." "Aww, but I did a whole slide riiight under the monster's legs, gave it a whole big shove outta the way-" Moses up and grabs Ezra's ear, causing her to stumble half a step forward into her. "Be quiet. I won't hear of it. If you won't be safe with yourself, what good are you as a sidekick? I won't have you making me think I've lost you." Ezra doesn't respond, even after Moses releases her- the expression on her face is roughly the same as it was before, with her only real response being to raise a hand to cover her obviously-sore ear. Moses looks more affected- dusting her hands off and putting her pipe back into her mouth, worry mutating into frustration. The oversized elevator shakes again, new inverse-crater bumps growing in the roof. Moses kicks at one, annoyed- "Like rats scrambling back into a hole in the wall. Well? Are we going to just stay put forever?" Luckily, an elevator shaft furnished with an escape hatch also has a service ladder built into a side-wall, and extending upwards. Unluckily, a dozen meters up, red alarm lights spin and illuminate a shut-tight blast door. This facility- or at the very least, the bottom levels of it, are in lockdown, sealing off everything above it. At least it makes one thing clear, getting out requires finding somewhere that that lockdown can be lifted. A floor up, there is a ledge landing, enough space for a few people to stand, and a shut-tight elevator door. Ezra, fast at climbing, makes her way to one side and hooks fingers into the small gap- "Hourhhgh, it's stuck tight, but I got it-" She nearly stumbles, "I'll have it if someone gives me a li'l bit of a hand?"
Petra Soroka	It really is just like the Mountain of Smiling Bodies. Without actually having to strike back at it (and, frankly, being totally unable to do that without pulling out an EGO), it's hardly even a challenge for Petra to dip around each swing of the Distortion's arms. Already standing nearby the elevator before the monolith was revealed, and having more ability to climb up an elevator shaft than nearly anyone else in the world, Petra's almost relaxed by the time that she hops without need for a ladder or a boost on top of the elevator. Immediately, her attention is back on her notepad, propping it up with a knee while she notes down more indecipherable comments. Meat monster revealed, as it inevitably would be, this is her chance to actually pay attention to what it was and write it down. She steals glances at her phone to the side, streaming the camera view of her ratbot still patrolling in the room with the monster, pinching out on the screen to get a closer look at its weird skulls and the monolith that spawned it. "Like rats scrambling back into a hole in the wall." Petra isn't hurrying herself to get up and help Ezra, though her eyes do flick up to watch her try and pry open the door. Absentmindedly, the moment she stops writing, her hand drifts towards her mouth. Absolutely drenched with the gory splatter of the former Manager Kang, Petra starts licking his blood off of her hand like a cat grooming itself, making eye contact with Moses as if she doesn't care or doesn't notice. "So. How much did you know about all that?" Petra would really like to know about that monolith. Eventually she's gotta make her way around to that room to check it out herself, but she can't seem like she knows less about it than Moses. If it really is L-Corp or Collective Unconsciousness-derived tech, then she's more qualified than anyone to poke at it, but... that's only the second half of her job.
Hibiki Tachibana	After the adrenaline rush of their rapid escape is over, and everyone - including Ezra - is accounted for, Hibiki momentarily slumps against a wall of the shaft to catch her breath, pant after pant. She only gets a small amount of time for that before Moses' concern over Ezra catches the attention of her half-lidded eyes, which then fall down to the growing amount of dents being beaten into the metal below them. "...What I /want/ is to stop that thing from getting anywhere else, but..." The way she trails off, and her tone, imply that even she knows that'd be both stupid to try and far from easy. After briefly staring at a smattering of blood on her palm that's not her own, she clenches her teeth and lets out a frustrated hiss through them, glancing away. "...The manager... the people that got trampled over like--" Another smash from beneath them cuts off her rising voice, leading Hibiki to scrunch her eyes shut for a short while before opening them again. "...I'll help," she mutters back up to Ezra far too quietly, fishing out a crimson pendant from beneath her jacket collar, still with a few visible fractures running through it. "...Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron..." Two seconds later, scarf whipping behind her, a Symphogeared-up Hibiki is leaping rather than climbing up to join the Fixer, taking the opposite end and getting the fingers of one hand and the nthe other into the opening - and gripping down with enough strength that the material might just creak and whine under the force. Like that, she braces herself with a grunt, and begins prying back the other way from Ezra to help get the door open...
Veronica	Veronica is one of the last elites into the elevator, on account of lingering to cover others' escapes with her increasingly pulverized rubble-shield. Once everyone's into the shaft and the hatch is closed, she finally takes a moment to relax - but only a moment. "That blast door's trouble," she says, nodding updward at the gate above. "I don't think I could break it open without bringing eight sub-basements down on top of us... If we're lucky, there might be an override somewhere. But we'll need some kind of authorization to work it, if it exists. Where'd the manager's keycard end up?" Veronica climbs up the ladder, all the way up to the blast door to inspect it under the flashing red lights. She's not expecting to see much of importance even up close, but you never know! Afterward she clambers down to the ledge with the elevator door as Ezra and Hibiki pry it open, eager to step through and see what's on the other side.
Regulus	Regulus, bloodsplattered, is sitting with APPLe, shellshocked. She works her mouth but doesn't really know what noises to make out of that face hole. It's Ezra who snaps her out of it and she says, "You're talking like you do this all the time--do Distortions usually turn out like that?" She asks. "Or--are monsters just that common?" She then startles again and pats at her clothes for a bit, "Shit--! I forgot to nab the keycard...APPLe did you?" APPLe bobs up and down like he was dunked in water, the keycard tucked into his tie. "Are you alright, Captain?" "Um yeah...yeah..." Regulus is a pirate that can lie. "I'm fine. Sure." She looks to Petra. "I sure wasn't expecting ''that''." ''I'll have it if someone gives me a hand.'' APPLe floats over and extends out his little stick finger fingers to try and help Ezra pull the door open. "Happy to help, madam." He says, politely as ever. Regulus takes a few attempts to get herself standing up before she manages it.
Distortion Dets.	'So. How much did you know about all that?' "Tsh. I didn't- and you knew that answer before asking, don't give me your drivel. Do you plan on writing that down as well? The information I had pertained to workers not waking up, not sacrifices. It may be some manner of Distortion, but it shouldn't exist that way." The note-taking is really pissing her off, there's no disguising the sound of pencil-on-notepad, even if Moses can't see her- beyond the red staining remnants of Manager Kang, which she is- Moses coughs, and motions to both of her assistants- Ezra, busy with the door, doesn't see her, but YuRia huddles in- "What's that sound? Is she licking-" "The dead man's blood? Yup." ". . ." "Like an animal!" "That's enough, YuRia." "I wonder if that's food to her? Arbiters are so weird." "Mm." "Can I ask her?" "No." "Hmph. Next time I ask you're obligated to say yes." Moses doesn't argue- she just stares with a disgusted expression the direction Petra stands, her eyes having no real centerpoint at which to fix. 'If we're lucky, there might be an override somewhere. But we'll need some kind of authorization to work it, if it exists.' "Let's hope that we are finally lucky, with one part of this damnable mission. We can sort out how to feign authorization once we know if that's a possibility. I want to be out of here as fast as possible." 'I don't think I could break it open without bringing eight sub-basements down on top of us...' "Mm. As much as I wish I could ask you to give that a try, I've too much still to stay alive for. I'd like this place buried, but not with us in it." Except for Petra, maybe. '...Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron...' YuRia perks up. "What sort of gear is that you're wearing? If it's Workshop-make, I haven't seen it, so you have to say." Matter-of-fact, arms crossed- and sidestepping, as another crater appears in the elevator roof. 'Happy to help, madam.' Ezra ought to giggle at that! She was a little fond of APPLe before, little comedic mascot-creatures seemingly having a fond place in her heart, but she doesn't even acknowledge him with more than a momentary passive stare, with those red eyes of hers. His help isn't necessary, with her own strength and leverage on one side, and Hibiki's on the other.
Vantablitz Remnants	One minute, Ahn is asking Moses awkward questions about the deep City secrets of the Distortion phenomenon, looking concerned yet morbidly fascinated and nodding to show that she's listening. The next minute, her hands are clapped over her mouth as an unnecessary precaution against the silent scream in her throat, eyes widened in horror at the gradually settling cloud of blood-paste where Kang had just stood. How she'd gotten here in between is something her brain sputters and stalls out trying to access; she's never been good at it before, but the jumbled, nonsensical imagery that is there to remember only returns, in the most literal sense, 'I don't know, that's scary'. A little further back than that, and she's dragging Kang along, scamming him out of the elevator, pulling him as cautionary collateral, and-- "Oh god this is my fault--!!" Ahn whispers with the tone of a scream. Hear fearful gaze rapidly swivels between every other Elite in the room, but her body language is all wrong for someone looking for guidance or directions; it looks more like she's trying to anticipate an attack. "No no no no nonono! What did we do?! How do we turn it off?!" 'Han Hee-joon, you motherfucker!' Something about that switches the tracks in her brain. Her hand, wobbling towards her holster, drops back down into a sprint-ready position. Her rapid, shallow breathing slows down to draw in air down to her diaphragm. Ahn checks the room over once more for interactive objects, then refocuses on the Distortion's arms, as if counting them off with her eyes. Lightly bouncing up and down on the spot, she readies herself for some invisible signal, and then sprints straight at the elevator. Despite her nervous and clutzy affect, the way she feints, sidesteps, and dives past the distortion's attacking appendages involves such cleanly practised footwork that you'd wonder if she had a stunt double. Rather, even if she looks terrified the entire time, Ahn slides across the elevator floor, rolls over onto her front, gets her feet underneath her, leaps up from a crouch and catches the hatch with her fingers, and vaults herself up through the opening like a professional platformer protagonist. She only starts hyperventilating about it once she's racing up the ladder after. "Oh no. Oh no no no. They're trying to kill us. They're definitely trying to assassinate you Moses and we're caught up in it. Kang got caught up in it! I didn't mean--! I really really wasn't planning that to happen! I didn't know! I'm so so so so so--" She keeps babbling to herself as she takes ladder rungs three at a time, all the way up to the landing, where she slumps against the wall. "--you have a plan in case of this? You have to right? You're a detective! A grizzled and experienced one with a pipe and a lounge and a whole--" Ahn is still going even as the elevator is wrenched open. She lies on her side while people work, withdrawing the working piece of a chintzy compact mirror stuck to the end of some braided metal wire and twisting it to give her a view of the floor outside the nearly-closed doors, finally unholstering her handgun from her chest under her jacket while she looks. "--not too late right? We can just go right back outside and the car will be there and everything is fine! You've gotten out of worse jams! Totally! Haven't you?"
Distortion Dets.	'Oh no. Oh no no no. They're trying to kill us. They're definitely trying to assassinate you Moses and we're caught up in it.' "I noticed. No- they'd do a better job, if that was their plan. This is something else, I'm certain. A sick freak playing with his toys-" She snarls, and lets it drop. 'You've gotten out of worse jams! Totally! Haven't you?' It's Ezra who responds to Ahn's follow-up, and not Moses- "Mm-hm! Yep yep! Of course she has. She's always got a plan on hand, where she saves the day, and whisks everyone to safety-" Moses gives Ezra a look at that comment, but doesn't elaborate, "So, don't worry! Let the Detective and I get you through it!" Ezra's face displays not one hint of comforting understanding, eyes fixed right on Ahn. The little smile she gives is empty, but her words have the exact amount of pep in them as always, carefully-calibrated. A clap on the shoulder with big gloved hands, and Ezra turns away to get back to her tasks. . . .
Distortion Dets.	With Hibiki's help, the door opens up with a hisss-crack, the resistance being replaced with the opening mechanism's efforts, unveiling what sort of facility sits on the other side, as the only other accessible level. Beyond a catwalk elevator landing, sits row, after row, after row, after row of lush green plants, neatly twisted around story-height trellises. Bright red dots are sprinkled across the landscape, through the understory of vines and leaves- this must be a 'greenhouse', despite a nearly complete lack of bright lights, and this far underground, nothing even resembling windows. No, the only growing-assistance it seems there is, is looming far away in the center of the greenhouse chamber: like a panopticon, a circular tower juts up to half of the height of the room, with slanted glass windows peering down at it all, wires stretching up to the ceilings, and a network of hoses covering its exterior like walls of ivy- some manner of centralized irrigation. 5tMost ominously, the columnar flow of hazy Distorting smoke from the monolith below, moves up the center of that tower, towards a hole in the ceiling far above. Were it normal smoke, that might be a means to escape, but after seeing what it brought out in the office-workers, no doubt can exist that it's a threat. From the elevator's landing itself, rickety catwalk stairs extend to each side, down to the floor of the veritable jungle. Moses exhales, long and slow. "A march. There's no end to the surprises to what you'll find underground, is there-" A sharp metallic CLANG echoes from the elevator shaft, followed by ripping noises. Clicking her tongue, Moses waves at YuRia, and at Ezra- "We should get moving, quickly now. If there's nothing here, and nothing in the fields, then that tower has to be it. Keep your eyes out as we go." . . . That comment proves to be regrettable- once footfalls are made on the dusty white gravel covering the 'greenhouse' floor, and the group is underneath the canopy of the tomato plants, the nature of them is revealed. Producing enormous fruit, tall vines twisting up on never-ending trellises, and with head-sized leaves, each individual plant cluster terminates at the bottom in six-foot tall corrugated metal cylinders, the type of material that one might expect in community gardens and the most built-up of personal little backyard efforts. Certainly, it isn't high-tech- except, about one in twenty of the plants were seemingly still in the middle of preparations of some sort, because the metal plating sits stacked in piles to their sides. Where potting soil should sit, instead, is a hunched up human body, of the same type of businessman as the sacrifices below, save the arm-thickness plant stems sprouting out of their mouths. Unmoving, but eyes still open, they're catatonic and yet alive, every now and again eyes flickering towards motion. There isn't a trace left of any other workers, no abandoned equipment or trolleys, just row after row of ever-growing tomato plants. Moses stands still, wasting moments as the metallic clanging from the elevator intensifies- "Disgusting. Horrendous-" A look crosses her face when she realizes she should be nauseated by the sight, and isn't, that fact sickening herself in its stead. "Nothing we can do for them right now, not with-" The loudest clang yet, followed by a discordant roar, interrupts her, and the noise continues as immediate evidence of the monster giving chase, up the shaft. "That on our heels. Run."
Regulus	APPLe is not really much help. He is an apple doing his best and frankly, Hibiki is more than enough help. Maybe he thought his goofy cartoon hands would be of more help? Ezra did put a call out, though, so he doesn't seem to think twice about it. It's a serious situation! ''The dead man's blood? Yup.'' Regulus looks at Petra and doubletakes at her. She'd assume it was the shock if she wasn't hearing murmurings about it. Ancient pirate wisdom tells Regulus to not ask Petra about it while they are running away from a monster and trapped in the horror basement. ''Oh god this is my fault--!!'' Regulus swallows dryly. IS it her fault too? She certainly wasn't PLANNING on him getting splattered, but she wanted to be useful to the detective ahhhhhh. ''They're definitely trying to assassinate you Moses.'' Regulus considers herself a pacifist so this doesn't really make her feel better but she focuses on Ahn freaking out since it's the only way she can really stop herself from freaking out even worse. But even she can only do so much to subdue the impulse. Her heart's pounding and her eyes are watery and focusing on her breathing isn't helping at al. "We know. It was an accident, love." It dully occurs to her that Kang, at least, definitely knew what to expect. ''You've gotten out of worse jams!'' "I have, accidentally." Regulus admits before moving forward to snag the keycard from apple, using a portion of sleeve that's dry to clean it off. ''The greenhouse'' "Careful APPLe, it might be the type of greenhouse that hates apples." Regulus says, pushing forward though she's lingering behind the others. ''Human tomato'' Regulus isn't sure if that's just a victim or some form of Distortion again that just looks like dead person. No wait, did the eyes just move?? She holds APPLe close to her protectively. ''the roar'' "They don't know how to give up..!" Fortunately running is something she CAN do.
Petra Soroka	"I really really wasn't planning that to happen! I didn't know!" Of all the people here, Ahn is the one whose emotions Petra is most worried about. Rather than the gratifying smugness of seeing Moses freak out, Ahn's babbling gives her a twinge of guilt. "Kang was trying to get all of you killed, so I wouldn't really get hung up on him." Her saying that while casually licking his blood off of her hand might be less reassuring than she hopes, with slamming from the monster still shaking the elevator shaft. "It's dangerous, but not the end of the world. I'd deal with this practically every day and I'm still around." "I didn't- and you knew that answer before asking, don't give me your drivel." Lips smeared blood red, Petra's sigh is weighty with iron over the back of her hand. "You don't want me assuming answers instead of asking, do you? Didn't you suspect this wasn't a normal assignment even just a little? Motherfucker-relatedly?" "I sure wasn't expecting ''that''." Petra is starting to look sort of spacey as she moves on to clamping her lips down on the cuff of her blood-drenched sleeve and sucking it out. Doing her best to pay attention but still somehow oblivious to context, she looks over at Regulus. "You get used to it. There's a monster running around in every one of these shitholes, whether it's the kind covered in meat or not. How much briefing did you get on the Distortion phenomenon?" "The dead man's blood? Yup." When Moses looks over at her like that, Petra suddenly startles back into self-awareness. Realizing where the electrifying flow of neurochemicals has been coming from for the last minute, Petra blinks and closes her lips, pulling away from her hand with just a string of pink drool connecting them. She wipes it off on the back of her pants, trying to look as unbothered by this as possible by not even acknowledging it. "We should get moving, quickly now." Petra pushes herself up to her feet, sluttily stretching her arms and back like a cat. It takes her no effort at all, and practically no ladder, for her to get up to the open door and waltz on through, admiring the greenery around them. Hands laced behind her hips, Petra tips her torso forwards and looks aside at Moses, probably only visible from the blood-smudges on her lips and chin. "Hey, this place was applying for a Singularity, right? Wanna make bets on what it is? My guess, and I'll put five thousand ahn on it, is that they've got bodies in the soil. I'm thinking... 70/30 odds on them being still alive while plants grow out of 'em." . . . "Ah! Aha! Does that count? I think that basically counts." Petra is completely unphased by the bodies-- really, she thinks, if this got upscaled to the entire City, it'd probably result in less death than the alternative. She leans forwards, waving her hand to see the motion of their eyes, and then grimaces while lazily standing back upright. "Wow. I really know this place like the back of my hand, huh?" Her head snaps over when the roar echoes from the direction of the elevator. "Whoop. Time to go, yeah." With one jump, Petra's on top of one of the tall farming cylinders, and with another one, she's leapt across to another. From up here, she's pretty much for free reign to observe everyone else's escape attempts, and the free time to check her camera feed for if the monolith's still downstairs besides.
Veronica	Veronica stares out over the expanse of plants and trellises below. "This must be the 'vertical growing' the manager was on about," she says as the other elites file in behind her. The vibes are clearly off to her from the jump, but she double-takes in revulsion when she first sees what's inside the plant-pots. "Oh my God. Are we sure we can't- God, there's so many of them-" She's interrupted by the roaring and crashing of the Distortion making its way into the elevator shaft. There's too many of them, and there's no time. Just another couple hundred people who couldn't be saved, she thinks to herself. Her expression turns grim as she hustles after the fleeing detective and company. "Ah! Aha! Does that count? I think that basically counts." Veronica wrinkles her nose in further disgust. "What happened between now and the- the last time we met," she says, loud enough for Petra to hear, "to make you... like this? Is this City a joke to you?"
Regulus	Regulus right now is mostly thinking of her old friend who turned into a goo. It's the easiest frame of refrence she's got at the moment, and the Manus Vindictae monsters. ''You get used to it.'' Regulus frowns like that's her biggest fear of all. But she does, still, consider Petra a mate of hers. "I know they're pretty recent as far as how the City goes. And Moses can see them. And they used to be human." That's what she can recall off the top of her head. Did Petra always consume blood and she just didn't notice? Or maybe she's just being edgy about it? Or maybe there just wasn't an opportunity before today? Or maybe the people of The City aren't actually made of blood but fruit syrup? She takes a sniff of her clothes. Nope, that definitely smells blood-like. "Why would they use people to grow plants? Is fertilizer so rare?" APPLe wonders. ''To make you... liek this? Is this City a joke to you?'' "How long--" She huffs as she glances at Veronica. "--ago was that?"
Petra Soroka	"to make you... like this? Is this City a joke to you?" "Hmm?" Petra tilts her face questioningly at Veronica, hands folded behind her head. "No. Of course it isn't. I just live here." Petra lifts up her hand and snaps, coinciding with the earth-shaking impact of the Distortion's arms slamming into the walls on the far side of the room. "Right then, in that moment, more people died across the Wings of the world than every one of these people in this building, Distortion and farming alike. You know that. And you can't stop it, but you still exist here. Can you do anything more than grimace at the violence that happens to be in front of you? Can you even save these people?" She shrugs. "I guess you could just say that I love the City. What that meant last time we met, it means the same here. I won't discourage you from trying to change it. If you think you can save these people and fix whatever's infested their bodies while that thing chases after us, be my guest. I can't."
Hibiki Tachibana	"What the hell is all this..." Hibiki murmurs, looking over the underground greenhouse from afar once the door is open. That might seem a silly thing to wonder about at first, given they are in fact inside a produce company's building, but the majority of where her low tone and narrowed eyes is coming from is the fact the central tower has more of that awful smoke trailing up it. If it's some kind of irrigation system, it elicits a sinking feeling that it involves more than just water. Talk of set-ups and assassinations go in one ear and out the other; to be frank, she doesn't care about abstracts like that when they're still stuck down here, right in the middle of... whatever the sick reality at the bottom of it all is. It's only YuRia asking her a direct question that snaps her out of it. What sort of gear is that you're wearing? If it's Workshop-make, I haven't seen it, so you have to say. "Huh? It's--" She pauses for a moment, glancing down at one of her gauntlets. "...Symphogear. It's special. Back where I come from, and to me. I'm trying not to use it too much and... break it. I can tell all you want when we have more time." Not that she really knows a thing about the exact science of it, but she knows people who do, at least... ... "--What the hell is all this...!?" Hibiki's reaction to the truth of the growing plants, once they're on the run down at ground level through the expansive space, is about what you'd expect - abject horror and disgust slowly transforming into anger at... well, even she's not entirely sure what to be angry at. It can't all be pinned on the Distortion, there's zero doubt about that. All of this here was done with intent. She stops running for a second on first seeing one, getting closer to one of the humans-turned-plantstalk, reaching forward as if to... ...there's nothing she /can/ do. Even if they did have more time than they do right now. That hand of hers, of course, wouldn't be able to do a single thing to fix this problem. Once again, she scrunches up her face with overwhelming amounts of frustration. Moses is right, again. Nothing that can be done right now except keep moving, at least for the time being. She shakes her head and takes up the rear, ensuring most of the rest of the group is well ahead before she follows suit.
Vantablitz Remnants	'I noticed. No- they'd do a better job, if that was their plan.' 'Mm-hm! Yep yep! Of course she has. She's always got a plan on hand, where she saves the day, and whisks everyone to safety! So, don't worry! Let the Detective and I get you through it!' It's dangerous, but not the end of the world. I'd deal with this practically every day and I'm still around.' Hershn sniffles, voice cracking with almost teary gratitude. "Oh thank- . . . Thank you. Thank you so much. That's really helpful." she says, trying to even out her breathing again, not realizing that it's been regular and calm since hitting the landing. "So it's just some stupid, terrible guy, being awful. A-and, there's a whole-- we've got a way out and we know what's going on and everything is going to be fine." Ahn repeats it to herself a couple of times like a mantra. It's kind of surreal that she can do it at the same time as one-handed chamber checking her weapon against her chest. 'Kang was trying to get all of you killed, so I wouldn't really get hung up on him.' 'We know. It was an accident, love.' She withdraws her mirror, then lets herself breathe out deeply, fogging it up just before it's stuffed back into her pockets. Her hand comes back out with a flashlight, which she reverses her grip on and turns on with her pinky, before clambering up from the floor while carefully not using the wall for support. "Thank you for . . . no being . . . yeah." she says, outright dewy-eyed at . . . maybe Petra? Who cares! No one is mad at her! Yippee! The fact that their only exit is a greenhouse hits her a second later. Or maybe the 'house' part doesn't hit her at all. Ahn's tearful panic bleeds out of her before everyone's eyes, replaced with dawning half-realization and foggy-eyed dissociation so clear that anyone can see it on her face. For the second time with her jacket, she reaches for a hood, and pulls up thin air. Her gloves creak from how tightly she squeezes the metal of her flashlight, only for her to soften her grip right away, reflexive to the noise. She doesn't need directions to move this time; she begins walking automatically, half-dazed, each step on the gravel made with exceptional, instinctive lightness. The sight of a human being, likely still alive, rendered helpless by parasitic plant growth horrendously twisting their body; a kind that is jarringly bright and vibrant for the gruesome spectacle, vulgarly advertising its cheery red fruits as if nothing were amiss at all; somehow that's the first thing all day that hasn't terrified her. Ahn's eyes almost glaze over it completely; almost like she expected it. Moving at a quiet, steady pace, Ahn fastens the flashlight into the shoulder loop of her jacket, then runs her fingers under the flower in her hair, wearing a look of unknowable intent. 'Disgusting. Horrendous-' Approaching the first body, she crouches down, draws the knife from her reverse chest holster, and plunges it into the victim's neck, twisting it against the spinal column as if they were a fish. Ahn drones softly over the wet crack and stipple-spatter of blood, but only to say "Yeah." 'Nothing we can do for them right now' She stops to repeat the process again at the next one she can see. Moving down the row like that, she looks like a gardener, picking fruits on autopilot. "No. But you can't leave them." she soft-monotones at Moses. "This is the least you can do for the person who comes after you. Before they mature." Crack.
Vantablitz Remnants	'Run.' Ahn bolts up from her completely incomprehensible work before Moses has even said the word. She looks back, woefully mundane handgun braced over her left wrist, backs up into the garden, and then pivots away again into a sprint. Racing down the aisles of human-farmed vegetation, Ahn keeps her eye on the central tower out of the corner of her vision, and just as she draws parallel to it, leaps up over the next cylinder wall from the floor, kicks against the trellis, and pushes off with one hand to launch herself at a ninety degree angle away, hitting the ground again twenty feet away, mid-run, preserving a sprinting velocity straight towards the tower. She isn't going to stop then, either. Bleed momentum circling it to find a door, perhaps, and slow down just enough to kick it down, but if even that doesn't work, she's only going to use that as the start of another bit of parkour to get her up to a graspable ledge or seam, where she can partially unsling her backpack and rifle through her inventory for something to blow the door with and be out of arm's reach from the ground at the same time.
Veronica	"How long ago was that?" "Matter of months," Veronica replies. "She was like, normal? For a Wing agent, I guess. And now she's licking up blood and treating this... atrocity like a spectacle, making bets on how bad it'll turn out to be." "Can you do anything more than grimace at the violence that happens to be in front of you? Can you even save these people?" "I guess you could just say that I love the City. What that meant last time we met, it means the same here." Veronica grumbles wordlessly. Then: "Even if I can't save them, I'm not going to just rubberneck at their suffering like it's the circus. Every last one of these people is another reason to make the Wings pay, and worth remembering for that. Throwing up our arms and saying 'well, what can you do' is what they want from us." Ahn kills some of the people-plants "I-" Veronica cuts herself off immediately. She finishes the thought silently, to herself: 'I haven't had to put anyone out of their misery before. I don't know if I'm ready to do that.' Then, thinking about it a little more while Ahn plants explosives at the tower door, "Maybe there's a control system in the tower, that we could shut down. Stop watering the plants, or something."
Distortion Dets.	'Didn't you suspect this wasn't a normal assignment even just a little? Motherfucker-relatedly?' "Of course it wasn't going to be normal- you'll get my thoughts in my official report, and nowhere else, however. Ask the motherfucker for it yourself- what string did he pull, to get one of you sent out here? Does he owe you, or do you owe him?" Moses takes a long drag. ' How much briefing did you get on the Distortion phenomenon?' Addressing everyone else first, "Nobody answer her. She's taking notes on me, on you all- don't be idiots. Everything you tell her will be used against you." Moses sneers at Petra's motions, disgust and worry mixing together as she watches bloody smears move without the image they outline. 'I can tell all you want when we have more time.' YuRia makes an effort to pantomime counting on her fingers, between ground-shaking slams in the elevator shaft. "One second... two seconds, eh, we have some time! It won't get out that fast! So, spit it out? What's got it so fragile, for it still being armor? 'Symphgogear'? Fancy name, that!" Shaking her aggro only requires ignoring her and following the group, but prying questions still get thrown Hibiki's way. 'Ah! Aha! Does that count? I think that basically counts.' Having said nothing to Petra's joking bet, it's a surprise that Moses slips a hand into a pocket and emerges with a fancy leather wallet, pulling twice Petra's stated bet-amount out and holding it out to her. "Five-thousand for the bet, another to shut up." 'No. But you can't leave them.' Moses nods, and motions to Ezra- who, understanding, starts to assist with the dispatch of the few reachable in the time before they have to run- not with weapons, but clean neck-snapping. Moses exhales smoke, staring eye to eye with one- when Ezra isn't watching, the smoke that leaves Moses' mouth is an unearthly pale haze, and the life in the eyes of the planted officeworker blinks out, just like that. 'What happened between now and the- the last time we met,' Moses may be distracted by trying to run and escape the horrific flesh monster on the group's tail, but she isn't distracted enough to not still be weirded out how everyone here already knew Petra. "She isn't your friend, or your ally," She warns, functioning enough on misinformation that the words are things she believes unquestioningly. . . .
Distortion Dets.	Plants are toppled and trampled behind the rushing Elites, the sound revealing what the dense foliage obscures- the monster is gaining ground, at least on the slowest members of the entourage. YuRia, while a handy assistant to the group, isn't a fixer, and hasn't had any form of augmentation to her physical abilities- nor can she spare the time to summon up a teddy bear to carry her. Moses, a competent fixer, with her fair share of augments, can cover ground quickly, but Ezra, much further worked-on than her, younger, taller, and all-around bigger, is obviously slowing herself down to keep guard on her associates, no matter if she could make it there far faster without them. With how the footsteps echo, it seems like outside interference will be needed to ensure the monster won't catch up too soon, plants trampled and crushed much like the sacrifices down below, and Petra, escaping upwards, can spot this with ease, even as she also confirms via security cameras that the monolith is still where it has been, uncovered, and fueling the ever-flowing pillar of smoke. An echoing hiss erupts from all side, when the group has nearly made it to the tower. The irrigation system above, built into its facade, turns on, and instead of water erupting outwards, that same hazy smoke starts to fill the air, with the same back-of-brain tug towards nothing good. It doesn't matter that the hiss coincides with a complete stop in the still-unseen monster's footsteps, the need for shelter in the tower is greater, now (for all but Petra, at least). It buys time for the slower runners to make it, still looking worse for wear from even the dilute influence of the mist- distractable, less steady on feet, that's uncommon for Ezra, rarer for YuRia, and... well, Moses is used to being intoxicated. The base of the tower is disheartening- if one were to circle it, it quickly becomes clear that there is no door, only sealed-up hatches from the observation deck, which one can presume extend catwalk pathways or stairs, but sit fortified for now. Despite that, hope isn't lost- a corner of the eye glint reveals, embedded deep into its metal panelling, a Workshop-crafted sword, prying a tear right into the wall, large enough for people to squeeze through. Ahn gets there first, spots it first, and thus pile into the tower first, but the sword holds no special recognition for her like it does for Moses and Ezra, once they finally make it to the tower's base. "Detective Moses- that sword, that's- "Fixer Kaoru's, of Ame Office. Yes, I see it too- so he made it down to these depths after all." The friend she'd mentioned asking a favor of. Moses' tone sinks, the fact that she hadn't heard any report is more worrying now than it was before. "In, in, let's not waste time-" "Detective? I don't know if I can fit my case through, maybe if I squeeze real tight, pull at the metal a bit-" "Ezra! This isn't a joking matter, get in here! Get inside, this instant." ". . ." "Ezra! You idiot sidekick, don't make me repeat myself-" "I'm sorry, Detective, but the monster's still out there, and it looks like we've got to backtrack! Don't keep me waiting?" Moses curses as her sidekick disappears outside, in the ever-increasing spray of the monolith smoke, but she can't follow- she slinks up into the tower with the rest.
Regulus	''I guess you could just say that I love the City.'' "What do you love about it?" Regulus asks, genuinely curious because this is the first time anyone--including people from there--have indicated positive feelings towards The City. ''Matter of months.'' A Wing Agent that works for the ... Director of Trideag? And is an Arbiter? Regulus's head starts to spin. She assumes it's just a matter of coping, or just being used to it like Petra said. Regulus had honestly kind of forgotten that Petra wasn't just part of their own group. She's the sort of person that when a giant crusher monster starts chasing after you, you start to work together because--well you don't want to get crushed. Fortunately, she doubts anything she knew was something Petra didn't know. ''She isn't your friend, or your ally.'' Regulus glances at Petra to see what she thinks about that--she's personally thought they got along pretty well, which might be her own misinterpretration of events. Regulus largely eats meat and drinks dr. pepper for sustenance so she's starting to tire from all this running. She pops a Picrasma candy into her mouth once her hands have stopped shaking long enough for her to do it. Naturally, she and APPLe are amongst the last people to make her way into the sliced open crack. "I'm--maybe he's okay." She tries to reassure Moses. "He might've left the sword as a marker for any backup he was hoping for." She can't imagine it doing any good against htat Distortion though, to be honest, she can't imagine a sword cutting through the tower like that either. ''Ezra leaves the party!'' "Wait Ezra maybe I can--" Ahh too late. Regulus grimaces. Her grip on that keycard is tight, her knuckles whitening from pressure.
Distortion Dets.	Inside the gap in the panelling lies a maintenance chamber, from which it is made clear that the tower is built around that cylindrical smoke channel with no access, save for clustered and haphazardly-assembled piping. Immediately obvious is the fact that the tower is a new construction, fresh paint reek everywhere, unfinished materials, disorganized wiring. The floor of the maintenance nook is covered up with dried blood, with stumbling footstep-stains terminating in a fixer's corpse, up at the bottom of another ladder. As Moses quickly confirms, it's that of her friend- teeth-grit, inhuman of her, the most interaction she has with him is to shove his body out of the way of the ladder and carry on up it, a curse his way under her breath. At the top, the smoke that curls away from her exhaled breaths is tinted a guilt-stricken purple, as she gathers her breath and stares around the control room and its myriad red-blinking computer consoles, data-readouts, and coffee-mug littered shelves. "Well. Here we are. Safety, cover, and, no doubt, system access. You-" Pipe pointed Regulus' way, "You did something with the elevator. Do something here, too. You," Veronica's way, "Once the doors are opened up and we've a way out of here, hit whatever console you can with the hardest thing you have. It won't do anything, but I want to hear this place break." Moses puts a lighter up to the bowl of her pipe, and clicks it, not actually having had to re-light the tobacco in there. "Hurry. Ezra's outside, and I don't know what this is doing to her-" -CLANG- Moses jolts- that noise shakes the tower. Outside of the thick observation deck windows, the split-open skeletal face of the monster has slammed, spiderweb cracks spreading out from the impact site. And then it just hangs still for a moment, stunned- only after it starts to move, -only after it starts to climb, does the heavy axe stuck in its shoulder become visible, and with it, the yellow-haired fixer clinging onto its haft for dear life. With six arms, climbing up and over the tower's top, the monster quickly disappears from view, but not from sound, in the continuing spray of monolith-smoke. The ceiling shakes, and the lights embedded in it blink on and off, sockets loose and wiring lazy. "Hurry," Moses whispers.
Petra Soroka	"Of course it wasn't going to be normal- you'll get my thoughts in my official report, and nowhere else, however." Moses couldn't ask for any worse imagery than for her invisible tormenter's rest-stained lips to twist into a languid smile, without any other body language to interpret. "I'm not gonna see that report, so you can forgive me being a little curious, right? You shouted a name, and then you shouted 'motherfucker'. Are you expecting to be assassinated? Or do you just have the kind of boss that likes to punch down for the difficult assignments?" "She was like, normal? For a Wing agent, I guess." "Normal...?" Not inclined to push Veronica one way or another, either on her past normalcy or her present, Petra lapses into deep thought. Casting her mind back that far, shortly after the end of the war, means transplanting her memories in 1:100 speed, through the miserable haze of the time before Lilian forgave her and the grim uncertainty of the future. A time only days after Petra declared to the Black Silence in the aftermath of his rampage that she was the last leadership of L-Corp, when she was not only part of, but on top of, the cannibalistic ravaging of District 12 for parts. A time that, ever since those first days post-war, Petra had been lying entirely or in part about her identity and motives. With her mind's eye focused on the image of Petra, sullen and teeth-gritted, negotiating with Lilian for the exchange of P.E., Petra wonders out loud, "Was I...?" "Throwing up our arms and saying 'well, what can you do' is what they want from us." "What the Wings want from you is for you to churn out as much profit as you can before you die. Or after, if they're not picky. Bitch and moan however you want, or don't; no one cares until it gets in the way of the engine." Veronica's opinion of Petra could hardly matter less to her. The back and forth mostly serves to kill time while walking, because unnervingly, Petra is invigorated here. This is, of everywhere in the multiverse, her element. "Nobody answer her. She's taking notes on me, on you all- don't be idiots." It's only after Moses warns everybody, that Petra responds to Regulus's answer, as if she hadn't heard Moses at all. "They're a new shape of monster, but not a new nature of them. This City's always been one where people will turn into monsters given the chance; the Distortion is just a new chance." "Five-thousand for the bet, another to shut up." "Wow, five thousand to shut up?" Truly incorrigible, Petra takes the money between two fingers and slips it into the inside pocket of her suit jacket. "The going rate's closer to twenty billion, not accounting for inflation." She's still thinking about that time King Gilgamesh wired her more money than she'd ever seen in her life at that point while she was tipsy, which she immediately sent off to Lilian. "No. But you can't leave them." It's not until Ahn's last words that Petra suspects that maybe she's mistaken about something here. Execution bullets were just the name of the game back at L-Corp-- sometimes you do just put people out of their misery. Sometimes, at L-Corp, it's 'before they mature', too. But that might not be the case here...? Or, frankly, maybe it is. Singularities are fucked. Petra can't really say Ahn's wrong for it, even if she's got the wrong assumption.
Petra Soroka	Petra can run along the tops of the planters towards the tower pretty comfortably. Being able to see the monster behind them makes it either less scary or more scary, but either way, it's a kind of fear that Petra can navigate. She realizes, halfway to the tower, that she's forgotten to keep her notepad bit up, and hastily pounds out a series of digital notes to her phone through her cybernetic link with the Silver, before seeing the deploying smoke. It's not Petra's job to slow down the monster (though, personally, she would rather that it get done!) but it's in her direct interest to make sure she doesn't wig out into another meat monster. She doesn't have any reason to believe she'd be immune! Growling under her breath, Petra's Silver splits trails into two, then each of two into four, forming a pair of spinning fans that try to clear the smoke from around her. "Carmen, I swear to god. If this is you, then I'm gonna manifest the desire to kill you specifically somehow." Petra drops to the ground beside the tower, boots lightly paffing in the thick soil. Notepad drawn back out as part of the same action, the discovery of the gap in the wall is marked by the scratching of a pencil on paper from behind Moses, and then again when Moses remarks on its origin. Inside the tower, Petra's mouth opens briefly when Ezra hesitates outside, and then she presses her lips together when she separates. The scratching of the pencil is slightly delayed. "Well. Here we are. Safety, cover, and, no doubt, system access." "Mm." Petra makes a noncommittal noise, looking out the windows. She's trying to spot where Ezra went, but without Ezra to describe that to her, Petra might as well be shrugging. "What an operation they run here, huh?" "What do you love about it?" "It's 'home', or something like that." Petra finally gets around to answering Regulus, now that they're not in a mad dash for their lives. Arms folded, a finger extends upwards to fiddle with the gold button of her jacket while the adrenaline of the past frantic stretch slowly eases away. "It's nakedly honest here. Everyone is so maniacally selfish that no one has any illusions about humanity being anything besides cattle and people will earnestly and openly talk about how much they'd like to work at the slaughterhouse. The City is so brutal that you can watch people drag each other to the bottom in real time just to pull themselves an inch upwards." Petra takes out a candy cigarette, which is mostly justification for her to surreptitiously scrape the dried blood off of her other hand while holding the cigarette in front. "But, like, it's also not like that. And I'm a fan of people who are kind for no reason at all." "Hurry," Petra twitches as if she's about to leap into motion. She doesn't, but her chalky candy cigarette snaps between her teeth. After a couple seconds, she makes a quietly exasperated noise, then steps over to the console to join Regulus in her work. "These kinds of things have redundancies, Regulus. They're not meant to be disabled at the flick of a switch. Your best bet would be to manually override the system to a state of zero security, and then disable all the sensors that would trip it again."
Vantablitz Remnants	'Nobody answer her.' "Okay." And then, a minute later, at the human planters, "Yeah. Like that." Including a final "Thanks.", those are all the words Ahn speaks between the greenhouse door and the last ditch sprint. After, she has nothing to say that isn't relevant to living or dying. It starts with the word "Here!" shouted only half as loudly as it needs to be, and ends with "Okay. See you soon." to Ezra, uttered just before a hard swallow, and punctuated with a weary-trembling sigh. Ahn grips the leg of her jeans into a wadded fist. As she loosens up, given the benefit of shelter, some of that eerie new demeanour-- the one that had come over her at the sight of the indoor vine forest-- starts to bleed back out of her again. Ahn begins pacing around the room, trotting out quick and agitated circles that allow her to hastily check every corner of the limited area there is to search. Without discernible pattern, she thumbs through documents too quickly to do more than skim, checks under desks and around corners, kicks away chairs in a way that pushes herself back too, and aims her handgun this way and that while squatting low and scanning the floors for fallen objects. The part where she stops, gasps, and starts scratching at her head again, doesn't seem the same, though. Squeezing her eyes shut and making a half-strangled noise from the back of her throat, she scrapes until droplets of blood cling to her fingernails. Her breathing is strange and laboured. 'Well. Here we are. Safety, cover, and, no doubt, system access.' "On it." Ahn says, before even being asked. The monstrosity clambering over the tower outside almost seems invisible to her; its face slamming into the wall and Moses' tense 'hurry' are reflected in her hunched back, stiffened shoulders, and the pace of her ransacking the consoles and speed-reading the documentation. It looks ridiculous that she's even trying. She has no solid expertise pertaining to this. It's just the same thing she's done countless times under similar pressure: blindly trust that there is a sequence of actions that results in her getting through this just in the nick of time, and using inductive reasoning, pattern recognition, environmental cues, and intuition, to puzzle it all out as if it were set up for her by god. It's something she's done so many times, with so many generators, elevators, breaker boards, cable car systems, reactor panels, even a submarine, that about a thousand fragmented pages of technical specifications occupy areas of her brain that practically only light up at times like these. All that scraping earlier was systematically tailored to find keycards, password sticky notes, or perhaps conspicuously shaped gems that fit in slots, as quickly as physically possible. She'd actually been reading those anxiously skimmed pages too; or at least picking out keywords mentally highlighted in red.
Regulus	Regulus gives Petra a nod. "Ah, yeah, I guess the nature of monsters haven't changed much." She's being pretty subdued for Regulus right now. ''It's that of her friend.'' "...Oh bugger... Sorry, Detective." Regulus says. To make it all the way up here only to... She thinks of balloons. She thinks of rowboats. And she stares at Kaori for a moment before APPLe gently bumps into her arm and she pulls herself up the ladder. She doesn't want to be a martyr. If she's going to die it's going to be after an awesome bender with fireworks, loud music, and to the lamentation of fans worldwide. The party will be raging so hard it'll be like she slipped out the back while nobody was watching. "This was either put together in a real hurry. What a mess--" ''You did something with the elevator. Do something here, too. -- once the doors are opened up ... hit whatever console you can with the hardest thing you have.'' "Leet's--do that once we know we no longer need them." Regulus hastily adds. "But if you want me to format these computers of whatever data they've got, I can get that going once we've got a way out of here." She gets to work, tapping on the keyboard for a bit until she reaches into her bag and draws out a mysterious item known as a FLOPPY DISK. This disk has, of course, an apple pattern on it and also has the incredible poower of holding nearly TWO HUNDRED kilobytes of storage capacity! APPLe meanwhile rewires the computer station and fits it with a portable reader, allowing Regulus to-- 5rCLANG --Nearly drop the mighty floppy disk, fumbling it with her hands for a moment. She gets a glimpse. Yeah, she should hurry. She shoves the floppy into the portable reader and uploads a program. A dancing pixelated APPLe appears in the corner of the screen, wiggling from side to side as chiptune Electric Ladyland plays. "Ah, yes, the Captain is more accustomed to...noisier jobs--" APPLe says. "It's fine I'm lowering the volume--" Regulus says, screens rapidly opening and closing on the console before coming to a stop to the security controls. "Open open open open open open--" Regulus mutters rapidly to herself. Ihere's ar rumble as the blast doors start sliding open. "Thirty seconds, Veronica." Regulus says before looking to Moses for confirmation on just wrecking the data. If so, she hits a few more keystrokes to upload a virus to gobble up as much data as it can--If Veronica only wrecks monitors it should keep on. Either way-- "Okay I did what I could from here." Regulus says. She looks to Petra, after, considering her answer about what she loves about this place. It's selfish, cruel, everybody will drag each other down for an inch up on a meaningless climb. And ... it isn't just like that? The lines are cleanly drawn, it sounds like, Regulus, who also feels like the lines have always been cleanly drawn, lets out a shaky breath. "I like people like that too." She says. Vertin, of course, didn't suggest that she was kind for no reason at all, but rather kind for many reasons actually, but she thinks of her all the same. "Thanks."
Veronica	"Once the doors are opened up ... hit whatever console you can with the hardest thing you have." "Thirty seconds, Veronica." While Regulus gets to work, Veronica cracks her knuckles one finger at a time. The hardest thing she has... well, short of Baker and Seventh, which remains too much a liability in an already structurally-compromised sub-basement, 'the hardest thing she has' is telekinetically ripping computer consoles out of the wall one at a time and throwing them at the remaining bank of computers. Picking up on Regulus's plan, she starts with monitors, but once the virus has run its course she reaches out with her left hand and slowly closes it into a fist. Accompanying the gesture is the shriek of tearing metal as the entire computer bank caves in on itself, crushed by the power of Veronica's EGO. As control systems begin to go haywire and warning alarms sound and then die, she looks to Moses. "Time to go?"
Hibiki Tachibana	Shlick. Snap. It's not difficult to tell that Hibiki has no taste at all for the mercy killings. A sinking feeling in her gut already knows they're in all likelihood beyond helping; the rest of her is wrenching itself at the seams for even the thought of writing them off until the Distortion is handled and things quiet down. Even the smallest chance is still a chance. Even if... "It's 'Symphogear'..." "...And I pushed it harder than I should've. Still working on fixing it." Normally, she absolutely would just let the urgency of the situation let YuRia's nagging slide into the background. But murmuring answers and distracting herself in any way possible while they run is better than being left to her own thoughts while the sound of crushing metal behind them soon enough turns into the sound of more trampled bodies, biting down on her bottom lip enough to draw blood. At least taking up the rear means she can ensure YuRia doesn't lag too far behind the rest. She can even scoop her up in place of a bear to bring her up with the rest. If they can just reach the tower... ... This isn't really the time for empty platitudes that Moses and Ezra's acquaintance might still be fine somewhere down here - and with the growing amount of smoke filling the space - she knew that 'irrigation' was no good - she has to draw her scarf up to keep her face covered as insulation. Ushering YuRia in means she also shuffles in ahead of Moses - and leaves her quite physically unable to turn around even if she wanted, when Ezra announces her intentions. "Oi--! Ezra! Damnit--" Wincing, she has to keep moving in through the gap to keep the line going. And then partway in is the corpse. Moses shoving Kaoru's body aside to keep moving on would look uncaring in a vacuum. But the sinking tone she had when she first saw his weapon, her guilt over this whole thing... her obvious concern for Ezra, slinking out there to hold the thing off alone... Hurry. Ezra's outside, and I don't know what this is doing to her- ...and the very same one fighting tooth and nail as the Distortion slams into the tower. No. They did make it inside of here, to safety. But she's useless at doing anything to help, aside from more cathartic smash-ups. But with everybody /else/ safe, she can be the very first to double back and leap straight down the ladder shaft to take the way back outside into that smoke-filled hell. She's not in much condition to do a lot to help Ezra. But she has to do /something/ to help Ezra... even if a few steps out into the hazy, impossible-to-see-in environment leaves her wondering what that can even be. Only able to barely trace the sounds of fighting, in a bout of clear frustration, she clenches a fist tight, and smashes it down into the flooring beneath her-- creating a small crater along with a forceful enough shockwave to try and disperse the smoke smogging up the entrance to the tower. Beyond just making it safer for the others coming out, she can only hope the ruckus will draw attention, along with her raised voice. "Ezra! Ezra!! Shove off that thing and get back down here--!!"
Distortion Dets.	The exits (which also would have been the entrances, had the tower not been under lockdown conditions) are prefabricated mechanisms placed into the structure of the tower, which stand out as such compared to the haphazard nature of the rest of the construction. It's a pretty straightforward leap of intuition that whatever controls whether they are sealed or deployed rests within some part of the mechanism of the doors themselves, that it's likely accessible from the inside, and that at the very least, it's likely that they fail open. Likewise, Ahn's intuition and Regulus' malware mean skimming to find system-disengages for not only the monolith smoke-spraying system, but the lockdown itself, is quick, albeit very stressful, work. With the hissing from the smoke stopped and the hissing from the extension of catwalk platforms and unsealing tower airlocks taking its place, two of the immediate issues are solved- one can escape the tower, the greenhouse, and now even the underground facility itself- If not for the still-present footsteps of the monster on the tower's roof. Hibiki, clearing away the smoke outside before the sprinklers properly fade, bears first witness to the fight- like trying to grapple with a kaiju, Ezra is making meaningful progress shoving the gigantic distortion-monster around with frantic attacks, clinging to it, getting grabbed by it, kicking free, and repeating- each with a different set of weapons pulled from that case on her back, each without even as much of a look of desperation on her face, despite the clear danger. 'Shove off that thing and get back down here--!!' Ezra doesn't even react. There's no doubt she can hear- but listening is another story. Moses rushes out the unsealed doors, before the shaky catwalks are even fully extended, and stands on one as it moves, staring up at the roof, pipe in-hand- no, flintlock pistol in hand, eye squinted behind the ironsights and right towards the monster. It was a lie that Moses didn't know what the smoke was doing to her assistant- a little white lie, if you can call it that when it's yourself you're trying to assuage. No, she can see exactly the growing signs of the Distortion in her subordinate, the same as she has every day, and left unconfronted and unspoken-of, and as Moses squeezes the trigger, the first hope in her heart is to leave it that way. Whatever projectile Moses' smoke-summoned weaponry spits out, the monster is visibly quite affected- standing perched up on the roof, with a struggling Ezra clutched in three or four of its arms, it stumbles a bit, roaring somewhere between Moses' direction and at the clutched fixer. Stumbling proves precarious- where it stands is on the edge of the channel through the tower's center, right in the upwelling of smoke from the monolith below. Rebalancing itself to jump at the Detective, Ezra is held out to the side, right in the midst of the flow- she screams just as the monster's skinless muscles tense, and she twists, causing bones in the clutching arms to crack and shatter, and causing it, and her, to fall. Right into the middle of the column of smoke, down, down, down.