Scene #5640: Gone [A]WOL

Owner	Pose
A2	The first steps onto the ground may be the simplest, quietest, most vacant, possibly even the eeriest sight anyone has ever seen walking right out of a Warpgate. The coordinates lead nowhere but to the midpoint of a bridge so long that neither end can actually be seen. Wide enough to drive multiple trucks abreast, and topped in something that looks like asphalt in an incredibly advanced state of wind erosion, it looks like a freeway one would find in the middle of nowhere, save that it is suspended over intractable miles upon miles of ocean, as far as the eye can see in every direction. The waves are so slow and so far below that they can't even be heard, nor can the calls of any sort of sea bird all, leaving arrivals in a surreal, foggy sort of total silence. Even going at top speed for most, it takes several minutes to reach a point where an end to the colossal, trans-oceanic freeway, completely abandoned without so much as a rusted car in sight, comes into focus before the shore does. Out of the misty blue of atmospheric scattering rises the dark, looming shape of an enormous complex that is either an oil drilling rig or a sizable shipyard. Though clearly industrial in origin, it dwarfs most skyscrapers in sheer height, and spreads out as widely as multiple city blocks, all stacked on top of each other. Just like the bridge itself (maybe an artery of transport?) it is completely and totally vacant. Some guess to its age can be made by the fact that the entire thing is coated in rust. That is, rust doesn't just streak down its sides or patina over its flat surfaces; the entire facility, top to bottom, is some shade of deep brown or rusty grey, saturated to the point that the salt water has nothing left to do to it. Despite its total silence, no grass grows here, no birds nest here, not so much as a bug can be found crawling across its deck plates or a vine crawling up its cheap mesh fences. Indeed the only sign, the only one at all, that anything has gone on here in the past hundred years is the weak and swiftly degrading radio signal from deep within the upper levels. Approaching a loading platform the size of a football field, retaining only a few piles of tarped down steel bars and still-sealed concrete mix, what appears to be a tremendous loading lift seems to be the only way in on this side of the entire facility, unless one fancies scrabbling up rusted and fraying cargo cables and hoping the cranes up above lead somewhere. Aerial recon isn't incredibly helpful on that front either, finding umpteen landing spaces for what must have been fleets of VTOLs in past, but most anything that looks like a crew entrance seems to have been intentionally sealed up. So it's a little surprising when, next to the gigantic set of old-fashioned industrial sliding blast doors, the great big red lamp flicks blue of its own accord, and a loud, utterly ancient buzzer announces the arrival of a heavy duty cargo lift, just for them. A little surprising and a little suspicious both.
Iria	The distress signal came out, and as soon as it did, Iria immediately sprang into action. Getting on her armored bodysuit and throwing on her cape, the young bounty hunter immediately set out to investigate what was going on. "Just another day in the Multiverse to some," Iria comments to herself as she gets into her craft and proceeds to fly towards the destination. "But when innocent lives are at stake, I'm not going to stand by idly and let them suffer if I can help it. My skills can be used for more than just hunting bounties!" Upon arriving, even with her craft going, Iria can definitely tell that it's far too quiet at the moment. Even when she's in a new place, she's developed that instinct of telling when the quiet is too quiet and that something is definitely wrong. She narrows her eyes and glances from side to side a little, hoping that nothing is waiting to ambush her at all. "Can't always trust your gut instinct, but sometimes you have no choice." Iria's seen quite a few bridges like this before, and she knows that some of them can be long, but this one is longer than any one she's seen, even the extended Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco-384 she saw when she was on a vacation trip with Kei a while back. "Good thing I'm not on foot," Iria comments as she increases the thrusters on her craft, trying to get clear of the bridge as quickly as possible, since the emptiness mixed with the quietness is getting to her quite quickly. When she reaches the end of the freeway, Iria brings her craft to a slower speed as she gets a look at what she's found. The complex, whatever it's supposed to be, is definitely large enough to be noticed, which is why Iria is wondering why she didn't notice it beforehand. She grits her teeth a little and says, "Ew, that place could definitely use a makeover. All that rust? Yeesh." She brings her craft to a stop and steps out to investigate. Before she can do anything, the lamp starts to flicker and the buzzer goes off, causing Iria to leap a little as she runs for cover behind her craft, drawing her hand gun and then peering out with it aimed at the spot where the cargo lift is arriving. The fact that the cargo lift is coming up so suddenly, especially with no one inside it, makes Iria scowl a bit. "Seems someone was expecting us," Iria says as she approaches the cargo lift cautiously, keeping her hand gun trained on it but sweeping around all the same in case this might have been a trick to lure Iria out into the open.
Wandering Dog	The multiverse was an entirely new experience. While he was a traveler, Wandering Dog had only just truly learned of the Multiverse, and only just prepared to start journeying through it. A distress call was intriguing enough to get him off the boat he was riding on and to a warpgate as fast as possible, and so the martial artist arrives with a determined step, no hesitation as he emerges from the warpgate. He's wearing a silk tunic, sleeves up to his wrists, and is otherwise entirely unarmed. Through the highway, Wandering Dog walks silently, slower than he normally could move - he wants to take it all in, being his first sight of another world. It's creepy. Silent, empty, with terrain unlike any other he's seen. The massive rig causes him to pause and use his hands to try and map the size, before he shouts out for anyone who can hear him. "Hahaha! This is some sort of ruin, isn't it? It's amazing, truly amazing! Is this what the Multiverse has in store?" As they arrive at the loading platform, Wandering Dog is pretty sure he could climb it...but the lift is impressive, especially that it came on its own. He steps onto it, turns around, and waits for it to ride, speaking to any around him. "Name's Wandering Dog. First time out here. Is it usually this beautiful in the Multiverse?"
Mei Hatsume	"This place is in a bit of a rut, isn't it?" Mei comments with a harsh eye cast on... Just about everything, not looking all too pleased about her new surroundings. Highways rarely are impressive, but this one in particular just seems to rub the inventor the wrong way. "It's all wrecked. Been wrecked for a while, even, if it's looking this bad..." It doesn't take long for her to turn on her hover boots with a heavy hum of energy as she starts speeding along, not having much of anything to poke around at to satisfy her curiousity. At least her allies today still have something for her to gawk at. Iria's craft is easy enough to watch even as it speeds on ahead, and Wandering Dog... No, there has to be /something/ hidden there under all those fancy clothes and not-having-visible-weapons. Mei's not even subtle about staring, either, almost as if she's doing some sort of mental gymnastics while looking him over. Thankfully, there's a lift and a disembodied voice to save him from that constant creepy staring. "It should be safe enough. Maybe there's some better tech wherever it's going to take us." She sounds a little more excited about that, at least!
Kyoko Takada	When people are in trouble, a hero responds. Alpha-39 is not a hero. She's not even particularly greedy, by the standards of mercenaries, so one can't count on the promise of payment being enough to enter her into clearly suspicious and even more clearly dangerous environments. She does, still, find other reasons to show up. She arrives on foot, carrying her "light" load, expecting limited engagement and a possible need for swift withdrawal. She steps through the gate, looks in either direction, and gives a long sigh. At least wasteland camo will still mostly work on crumbling roads and rust. Rather, that part's pretty close to home. The issue is that this is going to be a long, largely pointless walk, but she can't help not having a vehicle (fueling being problematic) and she's not going to risk going into danger tired out by running all the way there. And so, she walks. If any delay is an issue to those she's coming to see, well, they should have sent out a distress signal earlier, or had the good sense to get in trouble close to a warp gate. She might have beaten others to entering through the gate, but her pace leaves her quickly passed by those with some means of travel. She looks on with suspicion even before arriving at the truly suspicious point of entry, fingering her SMG and quietly moving off to one side. "May as well head in." And yet, she lets someone else go first, if at all possible. Not that it'll matter much, on a lift. What might matter more is keeping an easy way up, so she first finds something to hitch up a climbing line to, to spool out on the way down.
Azure Armature	It's not altogether unreasonable to pick up distress calls. Upon coming to the multiverse, one may become like a Judge in Megacity One, hearing endless calls for help, assistance, violence, or offers of work from powers large and small, matters of life and death or mere circumstance. Most people would just have to randomly pick one and decide that that was what they would respond to today. Other people - including Azure Armature - have a program to sort these sorts of things. With the contents being garbled, information-sparse, and simple 'yo come help', it's sorted very low! Far down the list. At the bottom, really. When you trust a soulless searching program to figure out where to go based on empirical data and what-can-this-get-me, many missions of mercy and pro bono acts get sorted waaaaay down The List. But then there are new facts entered into the parameter. That a 'potential ally' is from the location. Good relations with coworkers is important. And since there is an overage of chaff options at this very second, Azure's conscious mind is alerted by the sorting program. So, leaving her current operation - base observation, really - she arrives. And she arrives a bit visibly, a spark of light like a laser bullet falling out of the air nearby, perhaps mistakeable as some really aggressive godray on the strange ruin to a casual observer. Stepping out before the elevator conveniently as the others show up, Azure remains dressed in her camouflage fatigues, poncho, and digital pattern scarf, all tooled up for Stealth Infiltration. Well, ok, she's still in forest-urban patterns, not rusty metal structure. She glances at the others that responded, and quirks a blue-haired brow, before turning to check the area on thermal. "Who is A-Two?" She asks pointedly.
All-Seeing Eye	All-Seeing Eye steps through the warpgate in human guise. Never one to respond to a distress call without accessorizing, he's continued his trend of borrowing styles from contemporary earths. Standing upon the cracked freeway is a tall, svelte figure dressed in a striking, gold satin waistcoat. Beneath it is a deep blue three-piece suit and matching tie, and tying the outfit together is a smug smile. Several minutes after his stepping through the warpgate, he arrives at the point where the freeway ends, slowing his hoverbike's approach. The Exalt's hair and overcoat come to a rest shortly before he does, the wind no longer toying with them. His vision zooms in on the industrial complex in the distance, analyzing its structure. Empty, at first glance. Just like the freeway. Possibly for quite some time. And a complete absence of organic life--normal for his home, but still conerning given that there was a distress call made. Thankfully, his hoverbike makes crossing the water to get to the complex simply a matter of time. When he arrives, he has barely any time to consider approaches before an entrance is made for him. His smug smile only widens, at that. The place does remind him of home, if a derelict and sadly abandoned version. Perhaps this place might once again churn with the magic of industry. "This?" asks the Exalt incredulously, not bothering to face Wandering Dog. "Travel for a just few months more and you'll see this for the eyesore it is." With no further hesitation, Eye hops off of his hoverbike, the vehicle quickly folding itself into successively and more impossibly small halves until it slides into his chest and disappears. He then strides confidently onto their oh-so-courteously summoned conveyance. It might take a while for the elevator to get where it's going, so he extrudes a jade erhu from his palm and plays a little waiting music for everyone.
Starbound Flotilla	WHOOSH. There goes a rush of six small, lightly-armored trucks, done up in Concord colors and the classic six colors indicating a Flotilla operation. The Starbound Flotilla have arrived! And with enough space each to deal with whatever evacuation is going to be going on here. "It's /so weird/ when you two agree on these things." "Resentful. What we disagree on is the pricing." "Aye! Evacuations are a profitable business, if ye price it right!" "Coming up! Floran can sssee big indussstry place!" "A site without nature entirely. How offending." "Entryway sighted. Deploy." They leave their trucks at the delivery port, something meant for the evacuation later. Pavo's fitted hers with a system to purchase tickets on, apparently. They emerge, already fully armored! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a divine-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow runes and inscriptions lighting up on stylishly gleaming golden armor and robes. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator. They swarm on the elevator in unison, though Albert gets paranoid when he sees that it's arrived just for them, already looking around tensely to no real effect. The Flotilla actually gather very slightly around Wandering Dog, given that he's the new Concord guy, so they're sort of passively covering him. Well, no, Biteblade does attempt to actively hug him at least once, in greeting. Moonfin makes a sort of "Pah!" Noise at him though. "The Multiverse is far more beautiful than this. The absence of nature here is offensive in ways that are hard for human perception to realize, and the industrial decay... Ugh!" George offers a greeting to Iria, a quick "Heya bounty-buster, glad seeing you're still kickin' around after that Neurovore stuff. Glad to be workin' with you again!" He sort of fingerguns in a friendly way at her. "Hey tiny sssniper friend!" Biteblade says, immediately launching into... An eager handshake! At A-39. She's learned that A-39 doesn't like her Floran hugs and thus she's going to be greeting them differently, it seems. But, you know, still really enthusiastically, with both hands around A-39's and probably doing it too long. "Floran happy for working together more!"
Starbound Flotilla	"Surprised. Oh! I remember you!" Seft says, pointing at Mei Hatsume. "Cheerful. You helped us out with our first encounter with that Forged recruit we got later! Thank you again for the help, and I'm so sorry you had to deal with George of all people as your first contact with us. I know his first impressions can be horribly sour..." She looks a bit embarrassed about that. "Mh." Albert's the one who looks a bit critically at All-Seeing Eye, but nods. "Will need to make sure he survives until then." The waiting music reminds him too much of Apex pseudo-"culture" and sets him on edge in a bad way, and one can hear him grinding his teeth to the beat of the music. But he knows All-Seeing Eye is a very capable soldier, and so his minutiae of posture show more positivity than negativity, despite his tension. Azure Armature, sadly, the Flotilla doesn't know -- they've never interacted on their shared operations! -- but Pavo raises an eyebrow. "Never heard of 'em, matey. Why ye be askin'? Not heard anything about that, ye know something about what's happening here?" She says, concerned but not too much so.
A2	Entering the cargo lift, the buzzer sounds with another, equally loud, and thoroughly outdated BZZZZZZZZZZT, as if it were a 1950s factory floor instead of an elevator that has automatically senses when the last person has crossed the threshold and shut its doors by itself. The oversized colour lamps are even kept inside (thoroughly rusted) light cages as well. The lights that sputter on inside look like ancient 1970s office florescents, though the fact that they have clearly exceeded a tungsten filament's lifetime by multiple orders of magnitude indicates they aren't. It's all very strange, even when the empty elevator clunks, rumbles, and then begins . . . descending. It, in fact, descends for a very long time. The better part of half an hour, actually, in a rusty chamber echoing the grinding rumble of equally rusty tracks. How does it even still have power? At least the ride can be considered anything but claustrophobic, even with the wold outside being little more than pitted walls of derelict machinery scraping by the mesh window. They must be half a mile underground by the time said window breaches the elevator shaft and reveals what lies beyond. The factory had already been exceptionally impressive from outside, but even in the dark, peering around confirms that it is only the tip of the iceberg; the blowhole of a titanic industrial whale submerged just beneath the earth. Hundreds of miles of pipes and scaffolding run across the distant ceilings and walls. Dozens of storeys of exits and entrances like just one of many factory floors on every side. Conveyor belts the width and length of entire highways run in rows twenty long across drops so steep that the floor is invisible below. Even a mediocre pilot could fly a military jet through here at full burn without much danger of crashing.
A2	It is also to all appearances to the contrary, still active. Though a few bulbs here and there provide limited illumination, the ambient light comes almost entirely from vats of molten metal the width of Olympic pools and the depth of small lakes, hundreds in number, being steadily moved in endless rows. Machinery that could be hundreds, if not thousands of years old, pounds away on the conveyors, assembling millions of tons of further machinery seemingly just as rusted as it, before passing the half-completed product further down into the darkness. Despite the boiling metal, churning conveyors, slamming pistons and crackling welders however, it's still quiet. The sheer distances involved make the roar of industry little more than that of a distant wind. The elevator stops off at what could best be considered a 'floor', in that it is a length and breadth of catwalk so large that it effectively is one, and at least has all of its edges protected by WSA compliant railings. Unfathomable flights of stairs seem to be the hard way back up, though the lamps of further doors, and further elevators, can be see the long way across the factory floor. To the west, the stream of manufacturing disappears around a gradual corner, indicating a circular track. To the east, an incredibly dangerous slope of conveyors leads up to an even more cavernous space supporting countless rows of what appear to be cylindrical storage areas, individually as tall as city trade towers and spider webbed together by gradually rising nets of stairs, scaffolds, and conveyors between them. Most of them have their lights still on. There's a lot going on here, all at once. A lot to see, a lot of places to go, and a lot of things to examine, almost definitely beyond the scope of one visit, and there's no /clear/ way to get to the radio signal either. What is immediately clear, however, is that just beyond the elevator lies obvious signs of combat, though not with who or what. Burn marks have carbonized much of the catwalk quite a ways around, as if made by high-yield energy weapons, but the wreckage that lies all around looks as if it was ripped to pieces by physical force as much as it was burnt to a crisp. A wide hole has been punctured through the floor, leading straight to the abyss.
Iria	Iria looks to Wandering Dog and, without the slightest hint of a smile or any other type of friendly expression, says, "Wandering Dog, huh? I'm Iria," in a straight-to-the-point form of responding. She's not rude or unfriendly, she just doesn't feel that this is the time to be getting acquainted with one another. A glance to Mei and one of Iria's eyes narrow slightly more as she raises an eyebrow. "We don't know if that's truly safe or if it's a trap of some kind. We have to be careful!" Iria can't understand why Mei is acting so positive about this. Iria then turns to face A-39 and says, "If you think it's safe, be my guest. I'll cover you." Then the Starbound Flotilla arrive, with one of them coming up to greet Iria personally. "Yeah, I suppose so, but honestly that wasn't too much for me." She smiles a little and runs a hand through her hair. "Honestly, that was quite fun and I wouldn't mind doing it again, so they'd better watch out." Iria chuckles a little. After everyone's on the cargo lift and it starts moving, Iria folds her arms and sighs as she waits for it to descend. "Not only is the building old, but so is this piece of crap! I wonder how many workers were late when they had to use this?" By the time it gets to the window, though, Iria has taken out of her binoculars and is getting a good look at what's in there. "Oh, wow..." It's clear the factory is still in use, despite the rustiness of the outer building. From what Iria's seeing, it appears that the old building was just a cover for what's really going on in there, even though Iria has no idea what was actually being done here just by looking at it all. After all, there's something far more suspicious within the vicinity. "Hey, what's that?" Iria asks as she slowly approaches the spot where the burn marks are, kneeling down in an attempt to look over the wreckage carefully as well as the burn marks. As for the hole, it probably leads straight to a bottomless pit where only a warpgate or some miracle would keep Iria from meeting a demise like the many video game characters who deal with those. "It looks like we're on the right track," Iria says as she looks over the wreckage and burns. "Something happened here, and it looks like it was fairly recent."
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 shakes Biteblade's hand--or has her hand shaken. The enthusiasm is disconcerting, but much about Biteblade's mannerisms can be disconcerting. Not that she is one to criticize, nor does she plan to. Handshakes are at least safer than hugs. "Biteblade." All-Seeing Eye takes her a bit to recognize. They haven't particularly interacted, though this isn't the first, nor second, operation they've been on, together. The clothing is distracting, but the confidence is convenient to her purposes, and so she follows in after he's done so. Being on the lift seems slightly safer than rappelling down from above it. She holds up a hand in what might be a wave to Iria, saying, "Of course it's not safe." And yet, she's still doing it. Azure Armature, at least, is a voice she's heard before. "No relation of mine," A-39 answers her A2-related question, in purely unhelpful fashion, considering she's yet to introduce herself. The elevator descends far, far longer than the child soldier expected it to. She has to give up the climbing line as the op's first casualty, it only telling her the exact point at which they've reached 'farther than she wants to climb.' At least there are stairs. Half an hour or so of stairs. And a spare rappelling line, though it's more worn than the other. "Battle," obviously. "Recent? Maybe." The distress call was recent, but it could have been recorded. She slips on her mask, the red eyes seeming to shine as her sensors activate, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She can at least deal with some harsh battlefield conditions thanks to this miraculously still-working piece of tech, but if there's nothing in sight, then there's nothing in sight. "Inhabitants, this way." She skirts the battle area, mindful of the kinds of things some military forces leave behind to pick off the curious scavenger or late-come rescuer. The DEW indications are concerning, being largely past her tech level. Over to the east, the environment itself looks unreasonably dangerous, but predictable in motion. She just has to work out where to move, and A-39's pretty good at intuiting mobility solutions.
Azure Armature	The elevator ride is rather uneventful except for how uneventful it is. The distance down is long, and forces the bescarfed 'normal-looking human' (her normalcy is paper thin) finally addresses Pavo. "A person of local interest." She answers, voice low and even. She glances at the lights as they burn in the lift, considers the power and state of disrepair and age, and guesses that they're not in some recently abandoned weathered complex. The lack of life or vegitation all around is strange, then, but not entirely unheard of. Decay wouldn't set in to purely synthetic areas if there was no contamination, would it? But then again, wasn't the ocean one giant contamination? "There was a distress call. Perhaps Ay-Two is just a local contact." She emits a gravelly sigh. "Forget it." The end of the lift's journey causes Azure to raise a hand to her eyes, turning off thermal vision from the sheer uselessness of it immediately present. A giant forge? Pools of molten metal? Working machinery? No useful information could be gained from that. Instead she moves, her left hand wrapping around her lower right bicep, and her right arm held low and straight. She steps across the grated ground cautiously, looking all around. "There's too much interference... but also signs of a battle." She points her right hand at the burnt wreckage, but frowns. "Not enough for a scan. Wonder what it is..." She doesn't have the requisite time to piece back together potentially hostile entities, and so simply gazes down the wide hole to the abyss, before starting a scan down there. "Some dead drop...? Or a path..."
Mei Hatsume	Hearing a familiar voice, Mei grins brightly as Seft greets her and waves a hand dismissively. "Oh, don't worry about it~ Inventors don't get anywhere by only acting on first impressions and never learning more. Even a bad impression can be used as data for later!" She replies with a confident laugh, then strokes her chin with a gloved hand. "... It wasn't that bad that first time, was it?" She wonders aloud, then shifts around a bit as the lift begins to move again. That loud buzzer actually draws an amused chuckle from Mei Hatsume, too. "This place really must be ancient, though... The fact that it's still working after so long must mean it's built really well. And we're not getting attacked by anything yet, right?" That's probably the best thing she can say about so far. Her eyes narrow a bit behind her goggles as the lift descends, peering at the window next and approaching it to touch and see just how much dust cakes onto the finger. The size of the place is certainly easy to marvel at, though, although Mei still can't help but feel a sense of unease because of the size. The giant pools of molten steel and unidentifiable automation probably has something to do with it, too. Also, the big honking hole in the ground and the signs of combat. "Very. Hmm... Does anyone have a match?" Inching towards the hole, Mei settles for just lying on front to peer down the hole, then gesturing at it. "If someone can toss a light down there, I can try to see how far it goes." Even as she says that, she tugs a wire from her harness, then shines down a light! It's a standard flashlight, though, and she's definitely not tossing that down there just to try and see how deep the hole goes.
All-Seeing Eye	A frown as sour as the buzzing of the elevator creeps across All-Seeing Eye's face. That noise doesn't go with his music at all. It doesn't last for long, and his music continues. Speaking gently over the instrument, Eye makes a rebuttal to Moonfin's comment about the absence of nature. "Certainly, this place has seen better days. But! Given a chance, and with diligent upkeep, machinery and artifice can be just as beautiful, if not moreso." The Exalt flashes the Hylotl a coy smile. "After all, just look at me!~" The length of the descent means he has plenty of time to serenade the others with the erhu. The range of the stringed instrument is quite similar to the human voice, and Eye's playing is skilled enough to make it seem unobtrusive and pleasant rather than overbearing. By the time the grated viewport reveals how active the complex really is, Eye begins playing a driving tune that seems to complement the factory's surprising reserves of energy even this far into its lifespan. The bow is tapped against the instrument to serve as percussion in-between long, sweeping notes. The last note cries out and fades just as the elevator stops, at which point the erhu folds itself back into his palm. The distant droning of nonstop industry rings in his ears, a sound which should remind him of home... but his frown won't go away. The place is like one of the Great Maker's factory cathedrals, yet utterly abandoned save for seemingly autonomic processes. No matter. This place's present won't be Autochthon's future--he'll make sure of it. With resolve strengthened, he approaches the signs of battle. This is his element. The place is arguably a crime scene, or, at least the scene of a conflict. Standing with hands clasped behind his back, the Alchemical's vision zooms in on the wreckage. He's scanning it for any kind of manufacturer's markings, or any hints as to its composition or purpose. With something this plainly destroyed, anything he finds could potentially be of use.
Wandering Dog	To Mei's gaze, Wandering dog's breath control and body control are both very well-honed, and his body is in extremely good shape, despite him being in roughly his late 40s-early 50s physically. He also has a bracer made out of black stone on his right arm, a hawk engraved onto the side. As the Flotilla moves to cover them, he responds with an amused laugh to Moonfin. "Decay is a sign that time has passed. It's a sign that something that was no longer is, without it being entirely destroyed. I find it fascinating!" He accepts Biteblade's hug into a sidehug, completely fine with a random stranger hugging him once he realizes they're not trying to /kill/ him. To Eye, Wandering Dog balks. "Eyesore? History's no eyesore." Iria introduces herself to Wandering Dog, who nods, spending the ride talking. "So, do any of you know anything about this place beyond the message or have any ideas? We're helping some kids, yeah?" Once off the elevator, he stretches his limbs, before immediately crouching to check the burns. Not a pure fist fight...some sort of energy was used. Wandering Dog leaps up to his feet, and begins heading east, moving to climb the conveyers and run across them, trying to get to the storage areas beyond so he can take a look.
Starbound Flotilla	The Starbound Flotilla stand relatively motionless among the elevator, and the passing lights and reflections shine over their headpieces dramatically, flickering their respective colors. As they eventually come to look over the vast floor, even the Flotilla has to be impressed by the sheer industrial capacity at work here. Their reactions are varied, from Moonfin's disgust to George's awe-struck love, but they snap out of it when they hit the floor. "Need a light then?" George says, wandering over to Mei (and to Azure, coincidentally) and cracking a flare. "Sure won't be able to see if this is all that deep, though, don't you think?" No, he doesn't remember about her zoom eyes, if she's ever mentioned that. He tosses it over the gap and into the abyss, letting Mei do her work here however is best. The rest of the Flotilla, meanwhile, is being led by Pavo it seems. Her superior air agility through glides, grappling hooks, and other suchlike, means that navigating this industrial hell, up towards those storage zones, is especially effective! As they go, Seft seems to be having trouble. "Worried. There's so much ore in motion and heat in here, I'm not sure I'll be able to get any sort of good readings. I can try, though!" And she does, as the group heads towards the storage zones, to get one of her scanners working, this time less to focus on ore and more to focus on the odd, intermittent signals they were picking up before. If the signals escaped an industrial landscape of this depth, maybe they'll be stronger here...? Her little holographic hand-scanner is trying to pick up something... Hopefully... Or at least narrow down which container to head towards! Pavo is looking very eager. There must be a ton of valuable raw materials over there! Maybe it's not just evacuation for this one...
A2	Kneeling to examine the wreckage, Iria finds that it's difficult to tell what it originally was. On first examination, it looks just as rusty as everything else, though with a closer look, the weathering appears only superficial, leaving the metal's surface brown, coarse, and unrefined, but still gleaming on the interior sections of what used to be the machine's insides. There are footprints faintly driven into the metal, as if someone had landed or stomped against it with great force. To the All-Seeing eyes, the chunks look like they were violently blown to pieces from inside, and with such force that it may have very well been self-sabotage explosives. A scattering of blackened pieces look like they were hit with the same weapons that have scarred the surroundings, possibly causing the internet explosions, but many others look as if they were ripped through by some kind of incredibly sharp industrial tool. They curiously bear no serial or mark whatsoever, being functionally identical to each other in every single way, which is exactly the opposite of how a factory should work. A-39's sensors pick up that this area was indeed fought in very recently. The parts are still several degrees warmer than the surrounding background, and the burn marks still hotter than that, no doubt uncomfortable to put a bare hand against. Residual energy traces the catwalk to the eastern edge, towards the storage towers, though it also looks like a second, completely different energy signature followed shortly thereafter. George stopping to drop a flare down the hole that Mei indicates will be able to see it plinking off several pipes, before coming to rest on yet another conveyor hundreds of meters below, which pulls it out of sight. The flashlight beam is wholly inadequate to reach past there, but Azure's scanner can tell that there are in fact four more layers beyond there, and then what appear to be tunnels that lead straight out to the sea, possibly including hydrogen collectors.
A2	The Creation-born the wastelander, and the Avian pirate move to the conveyor lines. They're far more simplistic than the kind of multifaceted high-tech robot arms that manufacture cars and computers, but only for the sheer force they apparently need. Every anachronistic looking press and welder blasts away with tons of pressure and tens of thousands of degrees of heat, apparently needed to treat the partially assembled components down the belt's length, as if they were made of adamantium or something instead of what looks to be rusty steel. They constitute a blatantly and hideously lethal platforming section, where getting struck by a stray spark might burn halfway to the bone, but they are also incredibly regular and predictable, moving entirely within factory intervals, and so deft climbing and sliding, a few dicey jumps, and adequate timing, to say nothing of dramatic grapnel swinging and air dashes, can get them to the far side, where they can kick down a raised ladder for others who don't wish to brave the gauntlet. Almost everything Seft scans is metal. The only thing that /doesn't/ appear to be metal is the rubber and paint that insulates wires and still flakes off some pipes here and there. When everything is all the same though, that means any difference sticks out dramatically against it. Approaching the storage areas, starting to look every bit like an underground city kept completely in the dark, where mile-deep silos vanish both upwards and downwards, there are three points of note that stick out. One is blatantly obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Far, far below, there is a sequence of lights far too bright and irregular to belong to lamps. A series of gigantic machines are arranged in the lower distance in perfectly triangular formation, directing streams of coruscating energy between pylons at each corner, and then into some kind of accelerator or reactor in the middle, which blazes with completely obscene amounts of energy that doesn't match anything on file. Beyond it, an enormous structure-within-a-structure looms in the dark, impossible to make out what it really is. The other two are less flagrant. One metallic composition is heavily off the rest, and constitutes a small cluster or pile in a silo immediately ahead and to the left. Another seems to be the same kind, but much further away and upwards, possibly constituting an obvious trail to where the call had come from. A fighting retreat, perhaps? Distantly, amongst the shapes of robotic claws hauling endless containers around aerial circuits of the storage base, the whine of propellors can be heard, as if myriad copter craft were buzzing about over their heads and under their heels like mosquitos. Anyone who checks will indeed find that there are heat signatures corresponding to them; many many hundreds in all directions, some as close a 200 meters, some as far as 5 kilometers.
Iria	"If there's actually a bottom," Iria comments to Mei, "Then it'll be a miracle in my opinion." She doesn't know for sure if it's really bottomless or just very dark at the bottom. Nevertheless, she figures it would be better to give up a match to see what might be in there instead of just going down blindly. If there happens to be something down there, hopefully it isn't flammable. Of course, George seems to be more content in just tossing a flare in, which illuminates things better than a simple match. If it doesn't come back, then it means that it's definitely bottomless... or at least deep enough to be dangerous. After that, Iria looks over the wreckage again and discovers that looks can be deceiving. Part of it was rusty, or at least the outer parts were, but on the inside they were like new. And the footprints? "Looks like someone or someTHING stepped on these. From the look of it, they were pretty powerful." When the flare is dropped, Iria takes a look as well. She's relieved to find that it's not a bottomless pit like she thought it was, but it is pretty deep too. The conveyor operating confirms Iria's suspicions as she snaps her fingers and says, "I just knew it, the whole rusty building facade was a cover for whatever's going on here." She narrows her eyes. "Now the question is, what were those wrecked things and what destroyed them?"
All-Seeing Eye	Chunks of metal, likely torn from the inside out, virtually identical to one another, with no serial numbers or maker's mark. The Alchemical's mind begins to turn the details over, formulating some hypotheses. Mass-production seems evident. No maker's mark suggests a desire for anonymity. This is the only factory around for miles that he knows of--and one of the scraps appears to have been cut with a tool that could very well have been locally sourced. Since Mei is a fellow Paladin and Armature seems at least interested in investigating as well, he shares his educated guess with them. "A long-dormant factory awakens suddenly, producing something seen as abhorrent by another party. The other party attempts to destroy them..." His gaze follows the trail of scoring along the catwalk. "...and is forced into a fighting retreat." The droning of propeller craft overhead gives him the opportunity to test another hypothesis. "Possibly by overwhelming numbers." Are the drones above the source of the wreckage down here? He zooms his vision in on the nearest copter craft, using his echolocation to find it if necessary. If it's plainly visible, he'll try to compare the craft's exterior plating with the wreckage on the catwalk. If not, he'll try to suss out the particulars of its interior, using the engine vibrations.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 jumps, climbs, leaps, waits, runs, and then repeats, avoiding the environmental dangers and taking the sure opportunities with a sniper's senses of patience and timing. Once through, she pauses. "Watch the air." She follows her own advice, crouching in utter stillness and tracking the nearer signs of air-chopping craft. Are they coordinated, or individually programmed? Responding to intrusion, or ignoring it? When she doesn't see any sign of impending attack, she refocuses her attention onto the the trail left as some kind of energy signature, picked up through her mask's sensors, and leaving enough for her to follow. Something hot went by here, whether it was a piece of burning half-wrecked robot or just cooling-off directed energy weapons. The megaconstructions are noted, but if it's not of immediate import, A-39's nature causes her to shift it outside her narrowing field of metaphorical view. She can't detect metallic compositions from range, but presumably is heading in that direction as she searches for the continuation of the tracks. Not for the first time in the last hour, unease passes through her at the combination of the company she's keeping and the situation's inherent unknown factors. It gives her another moment of pause, and she begins to move more slowly, keeping low and fading into the rust, weapons at the ready, as she makes her way up and forward. She's forgotten to kick down the shortcut ladder, but maybe someone else will get it.
Wandering Dog	A hideously lethal mobility-based death course. Wandering Dog's just grinning. This is something his skills let him do. This is something he knows he can do. He has zero fear of messing up here, as he begins to move. The Westerner suddenly begins dashing forward, moving to slide under a press narrowly, leap over a welder blast, and attempt to run up the terrain to get higher and higher, dashing through the air, and landing on his feet and redoes his breathing, attempting to focus after several moments of risky exertion. His first objective past that is to look at the lights far below and see the machines...and then he holds up his bracer, speaking. "Lieren, scout ahead as far as you can. Retreat when you can't get a view." A large hawk made out of the same black rock rises out of the bracer, landing on it like a falconer's gauntlet, before nodding to Wandering Dog and then flying down below. Wandering Dog waits several moments, before proceeding to follow after - the hawk, meanwhile, will fly down as far and as fast as possible, try and see as much as possible, and then return when it either gets dangerous or the hawk no longer can see anything. Wandering Dog is trying to meanwhile find things to slide and climb down to get below.
Mei Hatsume	Glancing over at George, Mei gives him a thumbs up before turning back to the hole with a wider grin than before. "Hmhmhm... Maybe if I had normal eyes, but I don't! It's time to activate-" Beat. "-Zoom! My Quirk that lets me see super far!" And with that bit of bravado out of the way, Mei gets back to staring. It... Actually isn't very impressive watching her since she's barely moving nor emoting at all. As that flare tumbles and bounces off pipes and pipes, all Mei really does is follow it with her eyes while holding her hand out and moving her fingers in front of her. "About that big... Now that small from up here..." There's a bit of incoherent murmuring before she pushes herself back up off the floor, then sits back with a confirming nod. "Didn't reach the bottom, I don't think. I'd put it at about... A third of a kilometer or so from here, give or take. Definitely a bad fall if you can't catch yourself on all the pipes on the way down." She stands back up while giving the flashlight-wire a brief tug, then snapping it back into her harness like a length of measuring tape. "There's conveyor belts down there, too, so this place is really... REALLY heavy on manufacturing. It's almost like an underground factory city at this rate! But what they're actually making..." A pause, and then she pounds her fist into her hand. "That's the question of the day, isn't it?" She pauses at All-Seeing Eye's assessment, then nods after a moment. "That makes quite a bit of sense, too... So our retreating party is the one that sent the distress call, then? The only way we'll find out is if we head in deeper!" Mei starts, then stops when the sound of propellers come from above. She doesn't make any move to attack them yet, instead turning her gaze upwards to activate her telescopic vision and get a better look at whatever it is that may be up there!
Azure Armature	There's a long moment where Azure Armature just stands next to the hole. She seems... called by the hole. Compelled to Hole. To engage with the hole, to find the bottom of it, to explore its secrets, down deep within the factory complex. To gain all of which is promised by darkness and mystery. You see, when you have a powerful matter translocation system, every problem looks like a boss door three rooms away that you just need to appear in front of for cryptic additions. She obsesses about it, and the flare that George throws down. She watches it for a lot longer than relevant. If nobody stops and waits for her - and really, who has a reason to? - Azure will just stand there. It's not until All-Seeing Eye speaks his idea that she finally looks up, having at some point re-joined the exploratory group. "Plausible. It could also be malfunction in the processes causing rampant dangers, and the operators are calling for help." The platforming segment is a bit boring as once someone actually completes it, the bescarfed blue-haired woman just zips up to join them, bypassing most of the hard work of actually maneuvering like some kind of total jerk. "Up there, more battle signs. The other places seem non-mission critical." Azure Armature the kind of person to see a path leading towards progression and optional side areas and picks continuing the plot every time. What a terrible, no-good way of exploring amazing mysterious factory-complex areas!
Starbound Flotilla	Navigating a dangerous, platformer-challenge environment is perfect for the Flotilla, whose entire suite of mobility and navigational technologies and skills are focused on this specific sort of challenge. Pavo, especially, has no trouble with the navigation, arcing stylishly over, under, or through every hazard deftly. Albert's the one who has the most trouble, and even he actually has a fairly okay time with this; there may be some slips, but they'll pull through. "Alert. There's too much metal and heat to pick up any radio transmissions, but I've detected some disorganized structuring upwards there!" Seft calls out, amid trying to do some kind of slide tech under a timed welding barrier. "Hopeful. It might be more of the combat, or it might be some kind of structure built later. We should go see!" Pavo was already on the way up there, though. With dramatic, quick swings on her grappling hook, and long, arcing glides that come from it, she's bypassing large portions of the dangerous environment and hopefully not getting too close to those flying units, though she might actually get in visual range of them as she moves among the massive industrial landscape. She's the one who responds to Azure, though she frowns a bit at the sudden appearance. "Oh, aye? Was my gut feeling too. I'll be coming back for that later, from the look of it, a reactor like that could be worth something. But right now, there's other business needin' the attending." And she heads towards that, seeking out an entrance to stylishly slide straight into right out of one of her glides!
A2	Zooming in on one of the copter craft, as best 'Eye and/or Mei can get a look at it, makes for a strange sight. Unsurprisingly, they get a dingy and/or low-resolution eyeful of ancient, rust-streaked metal in the form of precisely contoured plates welded together into a chassis made almost completely of primitive shapes. It definitely looks more like a drone than a heli, with a set of four, evenly spaced 'fan' propellers in a diamond-shaped lattice, but in place of any kind of payload or sensor package or /anything/ really, it sports a rounded cylinder and sphere structure clearly meant to mimic the torso, shoulders, and head of a human passenger in excessively simplified form, including two little button eye like a children's toy, shining red light and infrared on its surroundings where the 'head' of its 'passenger' looks to guide it around. A claw beneath it appears to be carrying an industrial crate, which is harmless enough, save the creepy toy-drone also appears to be heavily armed, with some incredibly angular, stripped down, and even skeletal hunk of metal and wires not unlike the Essence cannons he's used to. One of them is crudely attached to the top of each of its hover pods, along with sets of broad blades at the bottom. It can't really be made heads or tails of. A transport craft turned into a ghetto combat craft? A combat craft torn down to the frame and repurposed for transport? A gimmick or toy cobbled together into one or both? Something entirely original? It's bizarre and honestly a little off-putting, especially considering there are /thousands/ like it here. It clearly corresponds with the wreckage below, but the analysis 'Eye gets from it must be total nonsense, because it tells him that the childishly simplistic rust bucket is stuffed full of more parts than he is, and the schematic would be non-functional anyways.
A2	Lieren goes the opposite way, plunging into the blackness, and towards the light of the mysteriously glowing triangle. As the jade hawk gets closer, it can hear, if not feel, the sizzling pulse and throb of powerful energy, unlike any kind of thermal or electrical reactor for the fact that so much light and pressure would be unforgivable levels of waste energy otherwise. Circling over it, its 'core' appears to be a loop much like a modern particle accelerator, but as far as the hawk can see, all that swirls beyond the narrowly visible section is holography of some kind; unidentifiable letters of some strange language that rush as a river around the endlessly turning track. It's difficult to tell whether this is somehow generating power to the facility, or drawing huge amounts /from/ it to make . . . letters. It doesn't seem to be /guarded/. Actually, it seems like the copters stay well clear of it. It'd be easy to reach it, albeit incredibly time consuming, but not clear what to do with it. Getting really close, the hawk or Wandering Dog, if he goes that far, will see the flickering lightning illuminating what appears to be a pair of buildings in the distance still surrounded by scaffolding, and the innumerable lights of welding tools. The buildings are very different from the storage silos. They look like they should be outside. Moreover, the number of lights indicates that there should be thousands of arms or drones or something or other swarming all around it. Most of the party keeps moving forward. Pavo takes swinging pirate leaps far out into the gloom, and in one of her swings, passes by something so briefly she may have imagined it. A piece of structural geometry had loomed into her personal light bubble for just a moment, which looked /uncannily/ like a face, in the same abstract, uncanny valley way a certain famous mountain on Mars does. It was just kind of . . . floating out there. In the dark. Very high up. A-39 taking the ground route will have to stop several times to allow the weird hover workers past, but following the tracks isn't incredibly difficult. At several junctures, they terminate in smaller piles of wreckage and burns than the catwalk, of identical composition, though at one point, she eventually stumbles across what looks a simplistic sword of some kind buried in the deck, little more than a length of high carbon steel with a black silicone grip, like a faintly curved and very long combat knife. Azure Armature blips straight to the end, and so she alone arrives in time for the full cutscene, where the others will stumble in dramatically at the most compromising possible moment.
A2	A2, in all her burnt, scuffed, ragged and falling-to-pieces 'glory', kneels before a corpse half-buried in wreckage, some from a collapse in the ceiling above, some from further unidentifiably exploded machines. A long section of splintered rebar that must be several tons by its suggested length, has skewered the body straight through the middle and nailed it to the floor, leaving A2 kneeling in still semi-liquid blood, staining her abraded and partially carbonized knees. The corpse is a woman's, exceptionally beautiful in the way of a doll, almost like a more feminine counterpart to All-Seeing Eye when he is at his most human-looking. Pale blonde, she's dressed head to toe in black, and appears to have been left with a blindfold, though whether she was wearing it before she died or whether it was applied ceremonially, in the way of closing a corpse's eyes, is unclear. She couldn't have been any older than 25 at the most, and clearly isn't even remotely dressed or equipped for combat. A2 is in the process of butchering the corpse. A set of crude tools in hand and a blank, dead stare in her eyes, she sets about filleting the woman's cadavar like a fish, slicing open skin (with further outpouring of blood), loudly snapping bones, methodically dislocating a shoulder to get at the spine and- is that smoke? Sparks? The stomach-turning sight becomes less gruesome and more /confusing/ when some of the blood is shaken off and one can see that A2 has prized what appear to be a handful of tiny servos, a filter of some kind, a braid of extremely delicate optical fibre, and what looks like a processor deck from the butchered corpse, with further small components and spare bolts and wires lying all around her. Looking more closely at her, it looks like she's been taking /herself/ apart too, where there are recently sealed seams, still glowing with heat, in her left knee, right wrist, and her collarbone. The amount of work done here indicates that it absolutely couldn't have been A2's trail people were following. She wouldn't have had time to be getting into combat before stripping a . . . cyborg? body? to cannibalize it for parts. She is, in fact, in the process of cracking open a processor case and sifting through an entire fan of chips, deftly unplugging a solid handful of them as if she had a shopping list and this were the usual aisle. Clutching them between her fingers, she pushes back her long hair and reaches to the back of her skull, busying herself with a series of clicks and grimace-inducing twitches beneath the white curtain, before her motor functions stop, and she 'dies' on the spot, slumping over motionless on her knees.
A2	Depending on whether they chose to progress or not, the others will arrive into the elevator room, on the wide landing outside of it, or still be stuck on the catwalks, when a second signal immediately follows the first. It's some kind of tight band IFF or communications beacon attempt, originating from the elevator; the kind someone uses to communicate with a satellite, but anyone with any knowledge of communications at all can tell that it's a useless gesture. The transmitter firing the signal is so badly damaged that it's nothing more than faint background static, probably impossible to detect from outside the storage silo, never mind space. In fact, it's so irregular and cracked, that it might have been damaged on purpose. Unfortunately not damaged enough. When the sensor blip appears, not only people in the Elite group notice; so do the drones. For kilometers all around, red lights wink on in the dark as copters cease what they are doing and turn to home in on the source of the beacon. The thrum of their propellers is joined by a cacophony of identical electronic buzzes and squeals, growing in volume as they converge from all sides. There are far too many of them to double back and go past them, and nowhere to hide in the cavernous silo. Innumerable crimson blips close in around the elevator room where Azure and several others are, and then begin to /arrange/ themselves. As clicky and clunky and primitive as the rusty hoverbuckets are, they shift and spread into a perfect grid formation for 270 degrees of 3d coverage, facing inward, coordinating in eerie silence, without so much as a cheesy or ominous alert from some decrepit factory speaker to announce them. The second they're lined up they begin shooting. Several hundred guns swivel in on the landing and paint it in a swarm of little red laser dots, and then start completely hosing it from left to right, top to bottom, every square inch, with energy weapons fire. Instead of lasers or plasma bolts like one might expect, it seems to take the form of crackling, pulsing spheres of bloody red and midnight purple energy, not much quicker than a professionally thrown object, but extremely large. It gives people time to react, but standing on the ground, they are quickly enclosed in a video game-esque bullet hell of converging fire patterns, leaving no space to /be/ that isn't filled by an energy bubble.
Wandering Dog	Lieren ends up pulling back after seeing the writing, returning to and landing on the bracer, where he scoops up Wandering Dog's radio with a talon. Wandering Dog meanwhile groups up with the others, continuing on the path. He arrives after others to spot A2, and stares at her for a few moments, before speaking up. "Hey, you. Do you know what happened here?" It's pretty obvious the corpse died in an accident, so while it's pretty gruesome, it's also just salvaging - people survive off what they get, even if he grimaces briefly. Moving ahead, they reach the drones at the elevator room, and there's another signal...one Dog can't understand. Wandering Dog, can, however, understand a ton of violent machines about to open fire, and starts dashing /forward/ as the lasers appear. His breathing changes, as the martial artist shouts. "Alright! This is what I live for! Ahahahahaha!" Suddenly, he shifts to the side right as they begin firing, moving to run diagonally and weave between bullets, which slam into his tunic. While they damage him and slowly begin to tear through it, it turns out to be heavily armored for such a thin fabric. Wandering Dog's movements, meanwhile, are heavily fluid, actually seeming to bleed ink and smoke into the background as he shifts out of the way, pivots on a foot, and moves to spinning kick into as many of them as he can, the same ink effects splashing forward as he strikes to thin the firing lines.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 makes her way cautiously, avoiding the patrols, and letting the fast or cheaty go ahead should they be on the same trail. It's unlikely for anyone to be following her exactly, but as it turns out, the paths do converge. Along the way, she picks up a ghetto sword. A-39 is, after all, a scavenger by necessity. She's not quick enough to make it inside before things happen, but she's pretty close. And while her cloak has some obscuring effects for IR scanning, it's hardly perfect at short range. Stealth ends up being untenable. Worse, someone she came here to help is in there, incapacitated. ("Dead," she won't say.) Can she do anything about that? Short answer: No. A-39 never makes it inside the elevator shaft. She's on the landing with a clear view inside, and the machines begin arraying themselves behind her. She doesn't wait to see if she's spotted. She doesn't wait for them to act at all. She throws herself to the side, sliding through and under the railing of the catwalk, her spare climbing line hooking it as she goes and instantly spooling behind as she free-falls. She twists in the air, hitting her feet against the lower wall of the elevator shaft, fingering the brake on her line and finally kicking off. She swings, landing back onto another, lower catwalk with a clang that would be deafening if not in a cavernous space immediately full of gunfire and helis. Once on her feet, and running to enter a completely different field of fire from everyone else, she brings up her SMG, steadying the long barrel with her left arm as she aims up and fires into the hovering engines, starting with anything heading her way.
Iria	The sound of propellors makes Iria stop suddenly and listen carefully. "Oh great, we've got company," She mutters with a scowl. "I've got a feeling they aren't friendly either." She glances around and says, "Everyone stay alert!" At the same time, her handgun is raised, ready to shoot at anyone or anything that might be ready to attack them. Yes, Iria doesn't know if they're unfriendly or not, but she's not taking any chances. They finally appear, and Iria's peering through her binoculars at them, scowling at what she sees. Especially that crate being carried by them, which Iria suspects contains something that is not very good. "What is that?" Before Iria gets her answer, she suddenly finds that they're under attack by numerous weapons being fired by a large group of dangerous drones. Namely because there's a lot of them and they're firing a LOT of bullets. Reacting quickly, Iria runs across the catwalk while firing her pistol as fast as she can. The bullets fly past her, a couple tearing her cape, but none of them hitting her thanks to her agility. "Dammit, there's too many of them and not enough room to take cover!" She then notices A-39 going down and Iria decides to follow her plan of action. The bounty hunter uses her grappling hook as a way to quickly descend safely to the ground below by attaching it to one of the railings on the catwalk and then dropping down to a spot not too far from A-39. As soon as she's there, Iria holsters her pistol and draws her assault rifle instead. "Chew on this, ya metallic clones!" Iria calls out as she opens fire with semi-automatic gunfire.
Mei Hatsume	"What an inefficient shape... Those propellers shouldn't even be able to fly, no. And those weapons..." It sounds as though Mei is criticizing the design of the hover drones, and there's a LOT to criticize. As she talks to herself, though, something starts to click in her head. "All there problems, and yet they're still working even after this long. It's so..." It takes a moment, and then her eyes light up. "... Marketable!" That's that, then. Mei must have one of these things some day. Today /would/ be a good opportunity to try and grab one, too, if not for the lady taking apart the other lady who may actually be some sort of robot. She seems torn on what to actually do, but with the robots starting to shoot weird balls of plasma at them and Wandering Dog jumping into the fray to take them down? Better to leave the actual fighting to the specialists. Mei retreats into the elevator, then hurries over to where A2 seems to have died. "Whoa... Uh. Ma'am? Are you alright?" She asks from afar, then approaches to press her ear against A2's back to... Listen for breathing? That's how it works on TV, at least, but it doesn't seem to be working here. "What even happened here? We... We can figure that out later. Let's see if we can get you out of here and-" As Mei speaks, she starts trying to hook A2's arm around her neck to haul her up onto her feet. Keyword is try. Mei isn't the strongest person physically, but between her harness bolstering her strength and her hoverboots kicking in to help ease the whole carrying thing? It might not be as impossible to move the android as it feels!
Wandering Dog	Also, when Wandering Dog noticed A2 was dead, he stared, watched others move to check on her, and then moved to focus on the combat. That was...well, there were bigger fish to fry, he'll consider how horrifying this whole thing is later.
Starbound Flotilla	Hmmm. What was that face...? Wait. Fuck!! The Flotilla figure out a bit more of what's going on, but sadly, it's looking like the targets of their rescue have already been butchered. By this woman and her weird cannibalism? Biteblade hopes and the others resentfully dread, as they come upon her mere moments before she's suddenly shutting down, and then moments after that the broadcast goes out. "Warning. I think some kind of deadswitch just went off!" Seft cries out. Pavo swears in worry and anger, before turning back and realizing what's swarming around them... She waits, apparently hoping it'll go a little more peacefully, and then when it doesn't... She flares her cloak and her golden mesoamerican armor. "Alright then you junking mortals! I didn't come here to smite but I never turn a chance down!" Her armor unfolds a dramatic set of stylish stone-like wings carved the way an ancient temple might carve a statue, and her arms go wide, suddenly releasing a set of three gleaming golden spheres that whirl around her back like a halo, simultaneously drawing a shining ceremonial-looking cutlass. When she speaks next, her voice is booming, commanding, intense; there's nothing supernatural about it, but it does sound like exactly what someone thinks of when they think of some biblical tone. "STAND DOWN NOW, HEATHENS, YOUR EVERY STRIKE AGAINST ME IS HERESY. BLASPHEMY IS THE ULTIMATE FLAW OF ANY ALLOY; ALLOW ME TO DEMONSTRATE." Yes, sadly, it does seem like Pavo's recent godhood delusions are as strong as ever, maybe even stronger. Seft is already trying to buffer some of the damage with a heavy tower shield, while Albert opens fire with streams of micromissiles launched from a heavy over-the-shoulder launcher and Biteblade fires arrays of arrows. The others are trying to build cover on the exterior platform or within the elevator room. All of them are suffering barrages of damage, despite their platforming skill, as the projectiles reach them, leaving their armor dented, sparking, or torn, and frequently throwing them about. The main combatant on this event, though, is Pavo; using her brief bursts of sustained flight to maneuver, she's avoided the bulk of the damage and tried to close in hard on the machines, swinging a brutally dangerous barrage of cutlass slashes. The rotating golden orbs occasionally seem to swerve around her, striking out at her flanks in an odd way that seems possibly controlled and possibly automatic. All of it leaves behind dazzling trails of shining yellow light, and carries a faux-divine gleam that any supernatural senses will determine is more electromagnetic than divine. "STAND DOWN OR BE SENT TO THE DEPTHS OF YOUR MANUFACTURED HELL." It's not even clear if these things are or are not dumb automations, but Pavo sure as hell doesn't seem to care.
All-Seeing Eye	The drones are heavily armed with what appear to be energy weapons, and the wreckage shows definite similarity to their own materials. They definitely came from this factory, and were probably involved in the conflict. He issues a warning over the radio, but of course, everyone wants to see him handle the situation. Not that he blames them! His combat prowess is even more impressive than his analytical suite. There's only enough of them to cover a 270 degree arc, with only a few hundred guns between them. Judicious application of Essence weaponry should solve this problem rather handily! He doesn't bother moving from his spot, and so as a result he doesn't see A2, nor does he see the object of her attention. All he sees is a target-rich environment waiting to be a target-depleted environment. His irises and pupils slide away, revealing his much more compact energy weapons, two sleek collections of dark metal gears surrounding miniaturized nozzles. His vision zooms in and attempts to pierce the rusted exterior of a drone, searching for anything that looks like an explosive device. If he finds such a thing, he'll factor it into his targeting calculations and fire away, hoping to cause explosions within the tightly packed formation. And if he's unable to find such a thing... well, he'll fire away anyway!
Azure Armature	Pavo's comments get a rather amused and knowing smirk favored at the piratically accented member of the Flotilla. "Effigies and buildings tend to last longer than those calling for extraction." It seems her ability to spout truisms is functioning perfectly, at least. Skipping to the end and taking no side paths or detours sometimes has a benefit in time-sensitive matters. One supposes that makes perfect sense, but as things tend to work out, few things in life are really time-sensitive and merely happen as you observe them. Rather solipsistic, that. Clearing the door 'tactically', Azure is privy to the first glimpse of A2, possibly right before Pavo does, as she levells her right hand - braced with her left - at the strange 'surgery' that the mysterious alive and obvious cyborg/android woman as she does surgery on the mysterious dead and not obvious cyborg/android woman. There's a dramatic step forward. "Who are you? Are you the-" And then A2 checks out. Mei rushes up to her, and Azure picks up her arm, looking back. "There's a transmission?" It seems like someTHING else noticed. Namely, the entire dang factory. She spins around, leaving Cutscene Time as the arrangement completes and bullet hell begins. Treating each shot like a full threat, she moves forward to cover Mei, deciding that A2 is the HVT she came to extract with the distress call and letting Mei attempt to drag off the insensate android while she lays down a literal hardlight barrier-wall. 'With What?' you, dear reader, may ask. As she turns, juxtaposed between the wall of fire and Mei-A2, her right arm spirals with digital lines that flow into the ground and create a solid, shimmering wall of light to intercept fire. "Work fast." She offers (un)helpfully to Mei, as her right hand and upper arm continues to shine with rings of some sort of magic or technological light.
A2	The drones organize, they paint targets, and they fire. The world quickly becomes a dense, shifting maze of horrific energy blasts, slow enough that a normal person with good reflexes could dodge many of them by sight, but apparently their impractical speed is a tradeoff for extreme levels of power. When they /do/ strike, even if it happens rarely, the crackling bubbles erupt into violent, highly self-contained implosions of energy that flash vapourize metal 'inside' of them in an instant, and badly scorch everything for several feet around. Despite the impressive destructive power, they wouldn't be practical on any battlefield ever, were not so /many/ machines coordinating seamlessly to utterly saturate the area in fire. It's not factory security, that's for sure. It resembles tactical, or even strategic scale programming, awkwardly repurposed for defending an area that the drones are actually pretty quickly melting to bits. The catwalk starts being eaten away very quickly, groaning under its increasing fragility, but mostly it's the walls of the elevator compartment that disintegrate into molten slurry, gradually exposing the dead and unconscious women, and those attempting to do something about them. Wandering Dog aces his Join Battle roll. He goes streaking off into the danmaku labyrinth and up to the edge of the catwalk, round kicking one of the lazily (creepily apathetic, actually) floating drones, and sending it spinning and crashing into another, where they both violently explode into tiny shards of wreckage. Further kicks rip hover pods off their frames, knock the toy-like heads off their bodies, or cause guns and mounted explosives to kick off, and quickly clears a space. Noticing the loss of their own, the drones immediately around him turn inwards and surround his position. The blades beneath their propellers suddenly snap open and wide like flowers, then begin to spin like giant saws, and then the whole body of each drone /also/ begins to spin like even bigger saws. They begin swooping down on him like diving hawks, tearing the walkway around him to pieces with high-pitched saw screeching in their coordinated effort to turn him to salsa. A-39 tactically maneuvers out of the line of fire, dropping to a lower level still adjacent to the elevator, and as luck would have it, the machines don't seem to notice her. Not until she gets out her gun anyways, and lays into them with automatic fire, shortly joined by Iria who recognized a good idea when she saw it. They aren't hard to hit, so the two women can tear away without letting go of the trigger save to swap mags, though it's difficult to actually land vital shots with so many pods and engines and turrets and compartments in the way. They spark, combust, and explode to various degrees as they catch bullets, or else send stray shots and fan blades whizzing off into the formation, but it takes equally concentrated fire to thin them out.
A2	Two adjacent flying machines turn to face them, far too few to set up an effective wall of fire. Instead, their guns project thin lines of red, and then abruptly erupt into red-black rays of disintegrating energy, which first carve through the walkway to prevent them from escaping from the elevator area, and then sweep horizontally over the rest of it. The drones spin like tops so their lasers swipe repeatedly over where A-39 and Iria stand. The Soulsteel Alchemical's eyes have no difficulty piercing through the machines' exteriors, but the internals really still just don't make sense. They look like something made out of rusty play blocks from outside, but their internals are an incomprehensible tangle of far too many pipes and cylinders and gauges that seem to serve no apparent purpose. He can, however, spot very small but extremely hot 'cores' deep within them, in identical places. Striking those directly creates an even more fantastic explosion than when they normally self-detonate upon receiving critical damage, immediately causing daisy chains of Essence trick shots. The Flotilla makes admirable progress at clearing the screen as a group, but when Pavo takes to the air it is very blatant that she is the far superior flier. The drones are heavily armed and apparently have enormous lifting capacity, but are clumsy in the air. When she breaks free of the firing net, they can barely keep up with her, only having a prayer of hitting her with a handful of remaining laser weapons, and the odd drone which detaches its weapon/propeller mounts and sends them flying at her as self-guided explosives. She makes a fantastic show of ripping through the creepy, identical, red-eyed swarm, scything them down in scores. When Mei leans to A2's back, she sure doesn't hear any breathing, or heartbeat, but can feel a certain amount of heat, and hear something extremely similar, however faint, to the sounds of a struggling SSD. When she gets up and starts dragging the apparently /very/ heavy woman, the walls of the elevator room finally crumble away, putting Azure and Mei straight in the line of fire. In fact, it seems like they had been concentrating /most/ of their fire on that room, melting the thickly armoured walls away to get at the inside. Catching sight of her making off with the white-haired wreck of a woman, they at least confirm what she had hoped for, because across every single drone at every single point, even emanating from the severed heads or mangled wrecks of inoperable drones, their blinky red eyes flash and sputter, and completely identical, tinny and low-quality voices sound from no apparent speaker, ostensibly in unison, but somehow managing to be mistimed to make the entire horde echo in rising and falling chanting. "ANDROID." "KILL." "KILL." "KILL." Their dwindling number start to divert their attention, relieving some of the pressure on the Elites still fighting so that they can back up the ones focused on the elevator. Azure Armature throws out her hard-light wall just in the nick of time, because it is immediately assaulted with a tidal wave of weapons fire, turning the floor around her into a lake of blistering heat and sizzling metal while she tries to hold them off. Mei's progress in dragging A2 towards the elevator is going to be slow and laborious, and everyone /else/ still has to double back to make it.
Iria	Taking her time to open fire on the drones carefully, Iria uses her semiautomatic bursts of gunfire to give herself more accuracy. It's a bit of a greater effort, but with effort comes results. And it seems Iria and A-39 are doing a fairly good job of thinning the herd. "We got this," Iria says with a smile, nodding to A-39. "It seems that these tin cans were no match for-" Just then, Iria senses something behind her and sees the laser coming at her and A-39. "LOOK OUT!" Iria cries out to A-39, being a bit too far to take her down in a protective dive. Instead, she jumps out of the way of the incoming laser, rolling as far as she can from where the lasers seemed to be aimed at. But she knows the lasers will be coming back. "Gotta stay focused," Iria comments as she slaps another clip into her rifle and attempts to get a fix on one of the drones that is firing those lasers at her. There's more than one, but there's no guarantee Iria can take both of them down that easily, so her focus is on the nearest one to her, attempting to, at least, draw that one's attention to her in hopes of messing up their attempts at moving in a synchronized pattern. It's not easy to do, because Iria has to keep moving and utilize some parkour-like techniques to keep from being disintegrated instantly. But when she gets a moment, Iria fires off a burst of gunfire while going on the move again. "They should make this the new biathlon," Iria comments. "Parkour and shooting? I bet I'd win a gold medal!"
A2	LOADING-booting system... Commencing System Check Memory Unit: Green Initializing Tactics Log Loading Geographic Data Vitals: Green Remaining MP: 100% Black Box Temperature: Normal Black Box Internal Pressure: Normal Activating IFF Activating FCS Pod Connection Not Found Self-Destruct Uplink Not Found WARNING: Backup Functionality Unavailable Launching DBU Setup Activating Inertia Control System Activating Environmental Sensors Equipment Authentication: Complete Equipment Status: Green Limiter Switch Integrity: Green Combat Preparations Complete For the Glory of Mankind [\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|] o========================================= Lv:45 1: Type-4O-B 2: Type-4O-S 3: None 4: None Pod: N/A -Unit Data cannot be updated- In Mei's arms, the slumped form of A2 finally starts to stir. Almost like waking up from sleep, it begins slowly, and then happens all at once. A shrill beeping sounds from her, and then the hailing beacon finally switches off, at the exact same time a holographic window pops open in front of her, displayed in the air so that anyone can see it (albeit, backwards for people outside the room). The voices from the broadband are on it, much clearer this time, though only one girl can be seen in the low-resolution video call panel. "Number two? Is that you! Finally! We've been trying to get through forever! Please! We know you got out of here somehow! Off this planet! There are people helping you, right? You have to come up here! Up the elevator, before they catch up to us! We won't be able to hide for long! Hurry!" A2 manages to stagger upright, leaning against the interior elevator wall, but independent from Mei, putting her hand to her ear and communicating back. "You goddamn idiots tripped off every Machine on this floor!" The capital M is audible. "Just- sit still! We're coming for you stupid assholes so don't move!"
Mei Hatsume	"Come on, come ooooon... Are you awake yet?" Mei mutters as she inches along with A2, her hover boots straining just to barely avoid scraping against the ground. It's taking all of the girl's strength just to keep the... Android? Judging from the hard drivey noises, most likely an android. Or a cyborg at most? Less internal questions, more getting the hell out of here. "Thanks for the backup, ma'am! I'll move as fast as I can, then!" She keeps that brave face on as she salutes Azure Armature briefly, then starts shimmying about to get her harness' wire holes lined up juuuust right towards the back of the elevator. With any luck, she'll be able to jet right over there with the android, and... And then A2 wakes up and starts cursing at who the /real/ originators of the distress call were. "We... Are? Er. We are, yes, so don't be scared!" Taking it all in stride, Mei leans over to give the girl in the video a big thumbs up while ignoring the aching. "Once we clear a path for your friend and ourselves, we'll be right over..." A pause, and then Mei waves her hands noncommitally. "... There!" Okay, /now/ she gets to grab a robot. Maybe. Doing a 180, the inventor turns her attention to one of the robots that's further away from the rest and out of the Elites' line of fire. Taking aim using the power of HIPS alone, she fires off a pair of wire arrows at the flying drone, trying to bind it with them entirely and reeling it back towards her like some sort of flying fish!
Wandering Dog	This is a lot of pressure. While he managed to mostly soak the bullets, the blades are harder due to less room to run, with the ones not being resisted by his tunic slicing into his wrists, face, and neck, tearing Wandering Dog open and causing him to bleed. However, before he can take more than that damage, he begins grinning, and moves his arms up to block blades on either side of him, attempting to grab them and crush them in his hands, even as they cut them up. "Alright, you put on a good show. Could carve up a lesser man with this sort of focus, if he let you. But see, two things. First, I'm not gonna let you." "And second...I'm no lesser man! I'm Wandering Dog...and I'll give you a taste of my awesome power!" Before another spinning strike of the blade can carve into him, he suddenly crouches, and that oily energy starts to suffuse out of his body and over his finger tips, forming into inky claws. "STRIKING FURY CLAWS!" Calling his attack, Wandering Dog suddenly leaps upwards, moving to carve the claws into the drones, spinning and trying to slice up through their heads and blades with his elemental essence, swiftly moving to block whenever a blade would hit him, allowing his hands to soak the damage.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 moves off from Iria as soon as she lands. "Split up." There'd be no point in forcing the machines to widen, and thus thin to the point of uselessness, their killbox if they just bunch up at fewer than the maximum of possible points. Things manage to more or less work out, as the enemy combatants are, for some reason that entirely escapes A-39's current understanding, pretty focused on killing whatever's up there and not down here. She doesn't have anything tuned to pick up the same signals they're receiving. She fires, trying to down the bits keeping these things afloat, but it proves harder than expected, taking some concentrated fire from small arms to get through and running afoul of the Machines being chock full of redundant systems. She can avoid the fire down here, at least, up until a couple of nearby flyers reorient and open up with cutting lasers, spinning as they go. Simple geometry dictates that the beams rotate more quickly the farther off from them you are, and so A-39 charges in forward, rather than ducking back for nonexistent cover. She leaps over one pass, dives under another, and finally comes up and leaps directly onto the nearer of the two 'bots. The rotating pod slams into her, but she's braced for it, and makes the subsequent leap for the man-facsimile "piloting" in the center. She grabs on, taking some relief in the lowering of her rotational inertia, and finally piggybacks onto the short not-man, keeping a dagger digging into its "neck" more for the stability than any kind of threat. With all the firepower flying out, the fact that none of these things had hit each other hadn't escaped her notice, nor that at least the sensor part of the craft has to stay oriented on a target while it's spinning. She's not sure if that'll continue past this point, and would kill kittens for some way to direct her unwilling mount in a direction of her choosing, but she's not about to end this jump straight into the maw of danger with /not/ capitalizing fully on however far it takes her. One-handed, she once again opens fire, SMG braced against her shoulder, taking on every target but the one she's riding, up until it figures a way to throw her off.
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo hears dangerous words. These machines are able to speak, which means they have some thoughts. That just seems to drive her into even more of an intense divine frenzy. "STRIKE OUT AT ANY ANDROID YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL, AND PRAY FOR THE STRIKE TO LAND. BUT NEVER STRIKE OUT AT A GOD; YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING TO PRAY TO!" She says, whirling and flipping and diving and lashing out with her sword and orbs. Then comes a missile rush of sorts! Or is it technically suicidal? They crash towards her and the propellers almost lance into her! The only thing that protects her is the fact that the orbs around her warp dramatically, bending themselves into a three-part shield that catches the first propeller unit straight head-on between its three pieces. Sadly, It jams the shield and keeps it from securing shut, which means the upcoming explosions do manage to blast through the gap and burn her, smashing her with heat and pressure, bruising her through her armor. The fire itself seems to be something she's accounted for her in faux-"divine" aesthetics, though! It lights up symbols and inscriptions on her armor in a theatrical, dramatic display. "KILL WHAT YOU LIKE. EARN THE FAVOR OF WHATEVER GOD YOU CHOOSE TO ALLOW THAT MURDER, BUT I'LL HAVE NONE OF THE HERESY OF KILLING A GOD." Pavo's aggressively imperious, "divine" tone keeps going. But the meaning should be clear, right? It's not like she has some major investment in A2's safety, as little as she knows of the android. Her investment is in her safety, her wealth, and her power, and so she seems to be more interested in driving them off and reducing the risk to herself than she is in protecting A2... Though her tune would probably change if she learned that any of those prospective clients were still available for some form of rescue. "KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MORTAL AND THE DIVINE, AND MARK IT WELL!" She says, turning her focus very specifically on brutalizing any machine that specifically turns guns on her with crushing cutlass rushdowns.
All-Seeing Eye	Anyone paying attention will see that, once Wandering Dog begins using his charms, the amount of purple lightning streaking through the factory floor diminishes, with only the occasional shot passing through. Until now, he's seen precious little of Creation's martial arts--most of his exposure to combat there has been daiklave-swinging Deathknights, Miari's sorcery and First Age relics. It's very impressive... but he wont' be upstaged by an old man. The miniaturized cannons in his eyes retract, and his visage once again gains its normal appearance. Each hand suddenly bears a whip of pure, manifested lightning, purple in hue and crackling hungrily. As Eye sprints down the catwalk to show Dog who's really Creation's best martial artist, he looks something like royalty. His long hair billows behind him, and the gold of his satin overcoat compliments the purple lightning and the deep blue suit he wears. Hopping up onto the railing and running across it, Eye leaps long and low, landing in the fray with a ruffling of clothing. Deciding to stick the landing means that he has only a split second to react to the blasts of energy which are now much closer than they were before. Turning on his heel, he flicks the whip towards several of the powerful, cumbersome projectiles, attempting to deflect them back at the drones and make even more explosions. Of course, he has no idea if that's actually going to work, or if smacking them is just going to make them explode close to him. But he can't let some old guy hog all the glory, lest the others find themselves looking up to the wrong person.
Azure Armature	As the rest of the team holds off the giant cloud of one hundred bazillion factory Cypher-bots, Azure Armature considers, does some mental calculations, and then turns back to Mei to check on her patient just as A2 comes back online. Which puts the operative back into Cutscene Mode. Her voice is forceful, over the din of battle, and the crackle of fire against her wavering and pixel-splashing hard light barrier, clear voxel-chunks being eaten out of the prismatic light. "That woman -- what happened?" She asks, and then shakes her head. "Never mind." There's a pause, and a quirked brow. "Number... two?" "You're A2, aren't you? --Miss." She indicates Mei, who has already jetted off, about to speak to the helpful woman. Azure is a bit stunned at that, watching the fight for a second. "The mission wasn't to wipe out the automatons." Her attention returns to A2, extending her non-glowing left hand to point at the elevator A2 is braced against. "Is this still functional?" There is a sound like shattering glass, before a bwoo-bwoo-bwoo sound as the lightwall explodes into prismatic chunky voxels, leaving the area uncovered. So instead of ACTUALLY HELPING, Azure moves into the elevator herself, leaning into the inner frame for cover. "Your friends should use a more powerful transmitter." She mutters, before emitting a gravelly grunt and a thin smirk. "Could have saved the trip."
A2	The freaky wind up toy murder drones have nothing to say to Wandering Dog's banter, nor Iria's wit, nor even Pavo's intimidating evangelical fury. They remain fixed in the same eerie pattern of chanting "KILL." "KILL." "KILL." as before, prioritizing A2 (who has done precisely nothing) over all other targets. This gives the others considerable leeway in lighting them up. It lets Iria dive over and roll under spinning lasers, sliding across the catwalk with a fresh magazine and dumping the full thing into the heavy drone, causing it spin wildly and disappear off into the darkness, where it splashes against a far storage tower in orange flames, thus giving her the opportunity to return to her grapnel and make her way back. It lets A-39 run the gauntlet alongside her, and then ahead of her, diving into the safer, slower rotational area and leaping on board the remaining cutter, stabbing into it as a handhold and riding it up as it goes to join the others in shooting at A2, which is just perfect for her, since she can blast away until her ammo runs dry with no consequences whatsoever, and has an easier vantage at blowing off their heads and shooting into their torsos rather than their various other systems. It lets Wandering dog dive into the fray with the melee drones without distraction, ducking and sidestepping the horizontal and vertical buzzsaws that come flying after him, hopping from shredded catwalk segment to the most intact one at the moment. One leaping slash tears the goofy/creepy little 'pilot' out of its 'seat'. Another tears the entire propeller lattice off another. His hands come up just in time to block the screeching blades, and then wrench them free and toss the drone into the abyss. It lets All-Seeing Eye take the ballsy move of diving straight into the rapidly thinning danmaku curtain and show off with his lethal dance of Essence-powered electrical whips. Whirling and slicing around his body, it seems that they cut straight /through/ the projectiles for the most part, slicing and popping them like soap bubbles more than energy blasts. Where the tip connects is where they seem to interact, and sending them back causes them to connect with their fellows and chain detonations all the way back to the gunner. It lets Pavo redouble her efforts and tear into the machines with a brilliant, savage fury. Divine retribution, one might compare it to. The utter destruction she lays upon the scattered and flagging drone menace quickly turns the factory air into a dizzying fireworks display of detonating cores and cooking-off weapon batteries, following in her wake as much as the fire does. The idiot (or perhaps just that expendable) things fight to almost the last despite them losing all hope of victory without their superior numbers, but the last one suddenly doubles back just before she can get to it, missing all of its weapon mods, and wibbling rapidly off into the distance.
A2	It also, finally, lets Mei fire her belt-mounted anchors into one of the remaining drones and drag it to earth, wobbling unsteadily as it tries to keep shooting, before swapping to its blades. Going with her pulling vector, it swoops in low at her, starting to spin dangerously, but it's also stuck on a single trajectory. Before it hits her, A2 steps out in front of it, and with a swipe of her arm, a resounding, metallic CLING, and a shower of golden motes, she catches it by the blades in her hands, and then slams the whole massive flying machine upside down into the ground where Mei had dragged it, leaving its weapons crushed under its body, but the whole thing otherwise there for Mei's use. The sounds of yet more propellers can be heard in the distance. Worse, the echoing thunder of hundreds, if not thousands, of metallic footsteps. The ant hill is really stirred up now, and it doesn't take an expert in recon to figure that out. A2 stares off into the dark, towards the molten metal the group had come from, and then turns around abruptly, slamming on the elevator button until it finally restarts. "Machines killed her." A2 replies to Azure, refusing to even look in her direction, much less in the eye. A low-simmering kind of rage audibly chokes her voice for several seconds, before she steadies it back down to something resembling faux-apathetic fury. "They aren't my friends. I've never even met them. They were built long after I left. They're just fellow 'betrayers' like me. Idiots. Don't they realize if they get themselves killed they'll forget all of this?" When the elevator arrives, giving everyone just enough time to board it (unless for some reason they want to fight potentially infinite robots), she pauses long enough to pivot her elbow, roll her wrist, and flex her fingers. "At least, this is the best shape I've been in for months." says the Android who looks like a car wreck. "So, she didn't die for nothing. I guess." The elevator up is significantly quicker than the one down, though it seems to be about the same distance. It rises back up above the ground and then some, exiting onto a mobile cargo hold that is now exposed to the elements from what looks like massive explosive damage, leaving people blinking into the sun. They're high up enough that they can see the facility's sprawling jungle of cranes, tanks, fuel lines, and even what appear to be excavators and drills, meaning it might be something that builds /itself/. There isn't a whole lot here save stacks of raw materials and the rubble that was blown in from outside when something very large crashed through it. Not a lot save three other women very similar to the corpse downstairs. All black, pale skin, various styles and shades of hair but all exceptionally beautiful. They're wearing high heels and something like 'gothic secretary fashion', not combat gear, though at least two of them have swords similar to what A-39 found. They also have blindfolds on, so that answers that question. They come out from hiding between pallets of steel and rush towards the people who exist the elevator, immediately surrounding them as the car drops back down. The youngest-looking, in the middle, with short, strawberry hair, looks like she's practically bouncing up and down. "You're number two, right?! The one who found a way out of here! And you guys! You're from outer space, right? From different planets? Planets where there aren't any machines? Where YoRHa can't find us? You helped her, didn't you? You guys help people who want to escape this terrible place! You guys took number two in before and came here to help us get away!" She desperately wants someone to say yes. Even the other two 'older' ladies look tense and nervous. No doubt most people present (save a couple) are like nobody they've seen before.
Kyoko Takada	Once her ride has served its purpose, Alpha-39 lets her SMG fall on its sling, and draws the longer blade from her back, swinging and cutting the chanting machine of dubious intelligence into a safer, larger number of pieces before leaping clear. She hits the ground with a roll into a run, spinning and tracking for what turns out to be a deficit of targets. There's still the promise of plenty more chanting in the background, but they're not sticking around. It takes her a few moments to lower the gun. On the ride up, she makes sure to ask A2, "Was going catatonic while they were shooting at you part of the plan?" She's guessing "no," but it's still getting a frown out of her. Tactically disadvantageous. Then they arrive upstairs, and find the trio. There are questions. She looks at them, looks back down the elevator, out to sea, and then back at them. "Yeah, but. My world's not much better. Sorry." There's that hometown pride.
Iria	The drone wasn't as big of a problem as Iria thought it would be. Instead of trying to take her out, Iria winds up successfully getting off her attack at the drone, meaning that the drone never had a chance. After making sure that the threat is neutralized, Iria grapples back to safety and attempts to survey the general situation. She sweeps around with her assault rifle, checking to make sure there are no further threats or anything like that, before strapping it to her back again. "Wow, this really does show that looks can be deceiving," She comments sarcastically, a scowl still noticeable on her face. Unfortunately, more propellers can be heard, and Iria scowls even more. "Dammit," Iria says, going for her hand gun instead of her assault rifle. Fortunately, the coast seems to be clear, for now... On the ride back up, Iria says nothing but keeps her arms folded under her cape, still scowling. She just wants to get out of this and get back to HQ so she can repair her cape and have a drink or two. (Non-alcoholic, mind you, she's only seventeen!) When they finally reach the top, Iria isn't sure what to say, so she steps back a little and lets the others talk. At the same time, she's looking away and still scowling. "This wasn't just your average distress signal... this was something far worse!"
All-Seeing Eye	A satisfied smile creeps onto Eye's face as his whips simply pierce the drones' attacks. One swirling flurry later, he's bought everyone time to get on the elevator. Well, that's not entirely true. The others helped too, probably. The sound of approaching helicopters and footsteps is weighed against the sight of the open elevator. The footsteps are new, potentially interesting... but if he really cut loose, his Charms would start to show, and he just didn't accessorize for that today. Already, his human pigmentation has faded, and his soulgem is showing. The champagne diamond crackles with purple sparks. With a sigh, the Exalt steps into the elevator, his lightning whips dematerializing and leaving behind a faint smell of ozone. The ride back up is devoid of erhu music--if he played for every person who traveled with him every time he traveled, they'd be spoiled, like children given too much sweet-flavored nutriment. When the elevator stops, he steps out and is immediately pleased. Fans! "I am All-Seeing Eye, Chosen of..." They don't seem to fond on machines, so. "Autochthon. And Warden of the Paladins! We did come here to save you, and, in fact, there may be a number of Commonwealth worlds who would gladly take you on as citizens, mine very likely included."
Wandering Dog	As the drones are down and the elevator starts to move, Wandering Dog stretches and attempts to relax his muscles, seeing Eye's techniques as he does so. While watching, Wandering Dog begins to move his hands and then begins striking himself in several joints of his body, which causes his wounds to begin to heal. While doing that and waiting for the elevator to go down, he gets a single question out to All-Seeing Eye. "You a martial artist? What is your style?" Otherwise, Dog listens to A2 and Azure talk, waiting until they reach the bottom and see the girls to speak again - and it's in response to their questioning. "Sure am! I'm Wandering Dog, martial arts master. We're here to help you get out of here. Don't know exactly what's going on, but if you want out, we'll get you out." He grins, attempting to be reassuring, as he stands up straight and tall and adjusts his posture. Whatever this place is, he doesn't like it, or what's going on here.
Mei Hatsume	That has to be a sign that A2's some kind of robot or android. There's no other explanation for it! Well, unless she's got body-hardening powers like some of the other people back home. Mei peers at A2 from behind as she brings that drone down in mostly one piece, an impressed laugh coming from the inventor shortly afterwards. "Gutsy! Reckless, but recklessness isn't so bad. Remind me to..." ... That drone /is/ intact, isn't it? So many parts, so many questions that could be answered. Without the threat of more drones trying to kill them during the elevator ride, Mei's /definitely/ not going to pass up this chance to take that drone apart and see what makes its weapons tick. "Outer space? Not quite that fa-oh. Oh, so that's where it all fits together..." The pink-haired inventor replies distractedly, chuckling as she binds the rest of the machine up and straps it to her back. "I need some real tools for this... Ah. Number two? Our who?" She looks towards the other Elites questioningly, apparently hoping one of them has some idea of what the youngest one is even talking about. Oh. Right. Introductions. "Mei Hatsume, hero-in-training at UA. Also a Paladin with All-Seeing Eye here. I don't know about their worlds, but mine's pretty great. Now..." There's a glint even with her goggles on. "We'll get you out of here, and then maybe we can fill in some details once we're safe, okay?"
Azure Armature	Riding the elevator back up is much faster, because there doesn't have to be a long, pointedly expository lowering into the depths but a quick fade-to-black-and-you're-there segment. Once they're atop the ruins once more and the cloud of angry automatons are a distant threat if not a distant memory, the group is greeted by a... other androids? Azure takes a position near the back, crossing her arms and sort of evading being questioned. "That's... more or less what happened. You... wouldn't want to come with me, though. There are a lot of machines where I come from." She explains with a lightly exasperated tone. She decided that was the proper tone to deflect without inviting a whole ton of questions. "I'm... Blue." She introduces herself simply, a fast glance at All-Seeing Eye and Wandering Dog for their clearly gregarious but also familiar techniques. "Why were you here, anyway? It's dangerous."
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo halts her brutal slicing and smashing when the last one flies away. "Aye! YES. FLEE, AND TELL ANY OTHERS. TO STRIKE IN DEFIANCE OF A GOD IS MEANINGLESS; TO STRIKE WITH THE POWER OF A GOD IS VICTORY." Or just, you know, run off to somewhere and make "KILL. KILL. KILL." Noises, that would also work. It's the more likely outcome, but Pavo rather likes the idea that it's going off to espouse her divinity. The rather more damaged Flotilla members, who have been fighting in the background, quickly patch their armor enough to staunch the damage of the dangerous battle and head towards the elevator, while Pavo lands, folds her armor back up with a divine flourish, and strides on in. "That's all of ye?" She says, incredulously. "Was hopin' for more. Evacuation's only a profit when there's enough to charge, and the demand's a lot shorter than the supply here. Thought all of you were dead, seein' the corpse downstairs." She looks a little critical at them, and her tone is one of almost a sense of apathy and denied greed. "Hopeful. Oh! Erm, well, I'm a machine, but I know we can provide some passage! We left some trucks nearby, and they have some teleportation gear and or can drive them to a Warpgate!" Seft is, as ever, urgently altruistic for anyone, but especially anyone who looks like a machine fleeing a machine world. "Anxious. I've been in a situation like yours, and I know how painful it can be! I promise we'll do our best to help! I don't think I can get my Starbound Flotilla friends to help as much as I'd like, but I'm sure we can help get you somewhere."
A2	"They didn't know I was /here/ until those idiots decided to try and access my old satellite uplink. I broke that for a reason." A2 shoots back at A-39, still seething. "It's not like I could have just passed it up. There were parts I've had broken for months. I didn't learn to fix myself the hard way for no reason." Clearly, it's something she's been doing for a very long time. She doesn't seem particularly pleased by the fangirling, but when has she ever looked pleased? Silent, shellshocked apathy seems to be about her most stable emotional point and it all cascades down from there. She basically answers Azure for them while they titter and cheer. "Everywhere is dangerous. Every place on this planet, you either hide and live in fear of being killed by Machines, sign up to fight until you're killed by Machines, or get /built/ to fight until you're killed by Machines. The only place /to/ go is . . . away from here. Clearly they were trying. I couldn't just . . . leave them here. Look at them. They wouldn't survive five minutes against an execution team." When the others introduce themselves (especially Mei and /especially/ All-Seeing Eye), the lead girl practically squeals in delight. She couldn't be happier to meet the legendary 'number two' in person, not to mention an entire gaggle of off-world allies. Why she's so incredibly happy because, if they're all here, everything gets so much easier! "YoRHa Attacker Unit No.2 confirmed; designated traitor in line of service. Insurgent accomplices confirmed; confession of intent to harbour deserters recorded and sent. That's all we need girls." the lead girl's sugary tone completely disappears and is replaced with hard, cold professionalism. A holographic projector identical to A2's displays an abstract, multi-pointed seal or badge, emblazoned with the name 'YoRHa' and motto 'For the Glory of Mankind'.
A2	"5E, 14E, prime black boxes." The two other girls behind her produce identical, jet black cubes of unknown design, though even a cursory scan of any kind of sensor can tell that they contain an utterly tremendous amount of energy, and the way the girls are holding them ready doesn't appear friendly. "Unit A2 will surrender immediately and return to the Bunker for reformatting or else be destroyed. Accomplices of Unit A2 will surrender immediately and be taken to the Bunker for questioning or else be destroyed." the leader continues. "Do you get that? It ends here, A2. If you thought Command would just ignore you if you went somewhere else, you're wrong. YoRHa exists to end /all/ threats to mankind, and that includes elements who harbour and arm violent dissidents. Either you and your accomplices come with us, or 5E and 14E overload their black boxes and the explosion atomizes all of us. Which will it be?" A2 stares with dead eyes at the girl who is apparently some kind of extended Android 'family'; a team of the newer models who had outsmarted and trapped the beat up old prototype their organization had been fruitless chasing for years, even if they need to involve nuclear suicide explosives to get it done. Ruthless. Clever. Good thinking. A2 looks down at her and says: "Unit 2E was better." The other Android blinks in confusion, but only for a fraction of a second. A2 drives her knee into her sternum with a loud thud and a sizzling electric crackle, grabbing hold of the sword at her waist and ripping it free at the same time she kicks her backwards into the one on the left. Both of them crash straight through the metal guard rail and over the edge, distracting the third for the instant it takes for A2 to flash across the distance between them and cleanly slice her head free of her body, letting the black box tumble to the floor where she then kicks it into the ocean. "You made a mistake." she says to nobody in particular, her voice husky and uneven. "You just couldn't leave well enough alone. All you had to do, was let it go." Her shoulders square, and her fingers curl so tightly the exposed subdermal covering creaks, but maybe remembering there are other people still present, she takes a deep breath and turns around again, stabbing the carbon blade into the metal. "Sorry, heroes, but it looks like you wasted your time. Congrats. You tried to do the right thing and now you're targets too. Assuming that transmission got off anyway. Take whatever you want and go home. None of this concerns you."
Wandering Dog	Well, that's a betrayal. Wandering Dog quickly moves into a defensive stance, but it's unnecessary - A2 takes them out cleanly, and he whistles as he crouches down to take...whatever looks like the most visually interesting and memorable piece of the wreckage down here, whether it's from them or something else. He's taking a souvenier, as he turns to A2. "We're targets, but it doesn't concern us. That's a contradiction, isn't it? They just tried to capture us, pretty sure I'd say that's my business. Though with the situation as it is now..." He looks back at the elevator, where the drones were still up above. "Looks like the time for questions will be later, otherwise I'd ask you what this is all about, yeah?" Wandering Dog prepares to leave in the most fitting place, but he's going to try and remember this. It's somewhere new, and he always remembers the interesting and special places he's been.
Azure Armature	There is a deep, bad, wicked, part deep within Azure Armature which watches the whole unfolding drama cutscene before her, while the more prescient parts of her spool up her translocator to simply bugger off before they were atomized without a word, that thinks a very wicked thought. 'I wonder what the D-Buster would produce if I scanned that black box?' But A2 has all of this well in hand, it seems, so she delays just leaving everyone in an atomized lurch. "... YoRHa, then." She muses, before looking to A2. "Will you be salvaging her for parts as well?" She wonders, perhaps coldly, indicating the now-headless E-type android.
All-Seeing Eye	That would confirm it for Azure, if, somehow, coming right out as a 'Chosen of Autochthon' didn't. Beneath his smug exterior, gears turn. During the fight, some of Azure's techniques looked familiar. For most of it, he was too far away to spot the details. But... he could've sworn that weapon of hers projected something like a repulsor field. Particularly, a repulsor field common among Autochthon's chosen. It bears looking into. Of course... a certain turn of phrase /also/ bears looking into. Immediately. Eye sloowly turns his head to look directly at the lead girl. His smile goes from smug... to predatory. A2's attack only causes that grin to widen, the Exalt's hands excitedly clasped behind his back as if they might suddenly fly wide open. "Well," he says with an airy laugh. "That didn't go the way I expected!" He almost sounds a little disappointed, as if he'd hoped to disavow the androids of their mistaken notions himself. "I was merely upholding my duty as a member of the Multiverse's premier peacekeeping body. The pursuit of peace is never a waste of time, citizen!" It's... exactly the right word choice. And it's spoken with chipper enthusiasm. But something about his smile is a little off, especially since his golden eyes are still resting on the decapitated body when he finishes. "I'll have to inform Grandmaster Fairfax of this, naturally, but... I remain optimistic!"
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 shrugs at the response. More on the quiet side, "Good thing you weren't alone down there after all, huh?" At the word "prime," her center of weight lowers, knees bent, poised to move, SMG dropping into her grip. She doesn't know what the black boxes do, but the terminology is enough to get her ready to run. "Suicide bombing" wasn't within her expectations, and neatly cuts short the time she would have expected to have to get out of the way or take down the execution-series androids. It turns out to be unnecessary, as the leader of the trio hesitates. She blinked, confused. And A-39, watching, thinks. It's almost human. Glancing around, as if waiting for someone else to drop a surprise twist at the end of the op, she then takes a few steps over, looking down after where the two had dropped, gun at the ready. After a moment, satisfied, she steps back. Standard procedure, trust nothing. "Wasn't a total waste." A-39 gestures to the remaining body. "More salvage for you." Another shrug. "Let them chase after me if they want." She pulls out her scavenged sword, giving it a toss to check the balance. "Maybe I'll find something useful on what's left of them."
Starbound Flotilla	Seft is caught utterly off-guard. Her panicked, staticky noises of fear seem to seize up her entire body as she's threatened with a nuclear bomb. Yes, in fact, if this had been just the Flotilla, Seft would have just now gotten the Starbounders into a situation where they'd probably be captured. It is, thankfully, /not/ just the Starbound Flotilla here, and A2 manages to save them with a few bits of dexterity and speed. "Terrified. Oh my goodness, they're really willing to use suicide tactics to... To do things like that?! That's... That's unthinkable!" She says, emitting a series of pained, conflicted noises. Already, she hates a lot about this situation. "The right thing's the profitable thing, lass. I took a good look at what was down there and I liked what I saw, faces aside." What was that last bit? Pavo seems to press on with her dialogue forcefully. "Aye, I'll take what I want, but the first thing I want's gonna be that fine reactor I got an eyeful of down there, and who knows what else after that." She's already well-intending to dive back into industrial hell and begin raiding and looting it someday soon, it seems! "Been a target before, I'll be a target again. I can deal with it. Just need the time to gear back up."