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Owner Pose
Priscilla     "No." the Batter states to Aoko. "If I complete my mission, you won't see worse. That's why I have to finish quickly." Then finally to Yuuki, with about as many sentences as he puts together at any given time, the Batter says "The soul wears down with time because the impurity inside gnaws at it. Something completely Pure is eternal." He actually starts to sound a little bit like the preacher one of the pasty men had compared him to, for just a moment, rather than an exceptionally unconcerned baseball superstar.

    When people start trying to pay Zacharie with money, he immediately waves it away, shaking his masked head with an 'amused at the silly thing the baby just did' chuckle, saying "I'm looking to get rid of this junk, not take on yours as well! The colour of your credits is all I'm interested in seeing, not show and tell." Yet, when someone tries to pay him with Multiversal credits, he laughs a second time, and says "Very funny." Insisting on extra shares becomes an exercise in haggling, where the surprisingly ordinary man in the grey sweater strokes the chin of is weird, crude mask, and suggests that he might part with something for items such as "slippers that won't let the rain in" and "something nice to put the coffee on so it doesn't burn the table" and such, while being extremely particular about the odds and ends offered.

    The Batter himself pays Zacharie for the rest with . . . currency? Probably? When someone designates an item, Zacharie names a price, and the Batter holds out his hand with that number in it. Just the number. Zacharie takes the number . . . somehow, and the item is equally bafflingly awarded. None of them seem like they can really be wielded or worn or used in any way --they're simply 'equipped' somewhere --some slot that may not even be intrinsic to the person.

    "Coming and going is the sign of a poor writer." Zacharie remarks to Staren while counting numbers like a sheaf of bills. "Nothing should be added to a story unless it's going to be important. Putting a gun on the wall only to go unfired through the final act is bad taste. Besides, what's the point of a protagonist who doesn't say anything? Even if it's only what you're saying in your head." The Batter actually pauses in the flurry of transactions when George declines something for himself --thoughtfully, as if not really sure what to say, or perhaps as if someone else is taken aback and making a tough decision, and the Batter is patiently waiting for them.

    "Thanks." he finally says, taking George's share for the tunic as well as the bat. He hands his old one down to George. For the first time, he can see the name 'HAROLD' signed onto it with marker, though no doubt it has nothing to do with the Batter himself, given the naming conventions of the new batting gear.
Priscilla     When they have all of that squared away, Zacharie professes complete disinterest in coming along, says "I'll get there anyway." without anyone telling him where they're going, and stays put as he is left behind. It doesn't initially seem as if they have very far to go from there, as the giant stack of perfectly vividly green walls and square windows that is obviously the central fountains can be seen even from the entrance, but the winding labyrinth of walls and pumps and warehouses and moving facilities and who knows what else, all identically green and rectangular, soon make for a nightmare to navigate. Only metallic crates, surely packed with meat, lie scattered about to serve as landmarks, alongside the endless canals of churning, lukewarm meat.

    The first sign of getting much of anywhere is one single worker, outside in the rain, pressed up against a stretch of green wall by a literal waterfall of red glop, rattled, shivering, wheezing, as if he can barely breathe. Above him is a great black mark stenciled on the wall, in the shape of a pedestrian crossing 'walk' sign, but he appears to be shielding or covering up the button beneath it. As you approach, his hollow, rattling breaths grow louder and coarser, as if choking on smog.

    "Plea . . . Please let me work!" he cries, seized in the grip of some ineffable, unnamable panic. "Just . . . Just let me work! Don't . . ." he heaves out, alongside a drooling trickle of ichorous black, running down his chin and neck and staining the collar of his business shirt. Sulfurous, foul-smelling ink runs from his eyes where desperate tears should appear, the stench of burnt plastic on his breath. The Batter strides up and swiftly divorces his oversized head from his body with a single, brutal crack of his new bat, spraying black gore up the wall the headless body now slumps against. A few seconds later, his head lands with a wet splat, staring out with its last few moments of lucidity, an inch before becoming Burnt.

    "Yet, I've never been ill . . ." his head remarks in a placid daze, before both halves of him crumble into black goo.

    The Batter flicks the black off his bat and presses the button, activating the RECALL POINT. With a flash of light, a means of traversing the flowing meat appears before you, brought back to this anchoring dock.

    It's a pedalo. Specifically, it looks like a duck. It even has a little beak and drawn-on eyes. It has seats for two pedalers at least; probably necessary, given what they have to pedal through.
Aoko Aozaki     Aoko equips her newly acquired Monday.
    It's Aokoday now.

    She doesn't actually care what it does - if it's advantageous to have it, or yields any kind of power. Aoko is just happy to have a day, somehow, and maybe to finally have a conversation piece to show to Gilgamesh. Surely he does not have a literal, actual day in his treasury, and so the ball is now in her court.

    When they part from the vendor, Aoko hangs by the Batter's side, musing. "So what's causing the impurity? Did it just start, one day, without a cause? Or has it just been kind of building up all this time, and now it's coming to an awful, gory head?"

    Her choice of words is very intentional, given what happens next. That's starting to be a bit unsettling, in a way.

    "Oh hey this place has pedalos too, neat!"
Thomas Alva Edison     Thomas is taken aback by the not accepting his currency. That's weird, but he shrugs...it's not like this entire world hasn't been...Off.

    Reguardless, with the help of the batter he equips his new...item...regardless he starts walking with the group again. Hm...well, with parting ways with Zacharie, they come into the endlessly boring room. Luckily, there were SOME method of trying to figure out where they were, though it was not easy because it was just the boxes full of meat. However, when they come to the man at the button...

    "Son, you need to ca-" BAT. Edison sighs, and then is horrified when the head continues to speak. With a shudder, he tries to put the image out of his head as the body and head finally dissolve. The Pedalo is summoned, and Edison looks at it... "Absolutely not," He says, before turning the area into his LAB again, using the power of his TERRITORY CREATION. From it, he grabs the Pedalo, and starts operating on it.

    Moments later, he turns the Pedalo into a Pedalo with a DC powered engine on it, ready to easily carry them through the meat river. Also much faster. Laughing, the mini lab is dismissed again, as Edison smiles again. Inventing solutions to problems that weren't even problems has always calmed him down quite a bit.
Starbound Flotilla     George takes the bat carefully. "No prob', bats." He says, giving a short wink. "We're your Chorus, and you're our Batter. Gotta look out for each other." He hefts it over one shoulder, feeling its weight. The perfect weapon for someone like George, who so often specializes in batons, blunt striking, and other suchlike; it's terribly fitting. Feels a bit like he's used something like this before.

    "See you later, Z. But, not too much later, okay? Gonna need more of that good stuff reeaaaaal soon." George says with a tone of quite authentic-sounding positivity. He heads for the fountains, bat over his shoulder. For his part, he waits on the man who's about to go burnt, readying to fight, but the Batter cuts to the chase immediately. "Oh..." He says, softly, before he shrugs broadly. "Made sense! Good eye, Bats." Yes. Very good eyes, on that Batter.

    He heads towards the pedalo. "Well, hey, there's a recall point. Easy then. We just go in pairs. Who wants to pair up? I'll only obnoxiously smoke a /little bit/." He assures them, already lighting up one of those godawful hospital-smelling custom cigarettes. He plans to hop on in with whoever feels most comfortable dealing with a lot of smoke!
Staren     Given what the batter paid with, Staren's only half-surprised that the merchant won't take his credits. Although he did half-expect that the appearance of black market credsticks might actually count. When the batter 'hands' him the aura of fear he 'takes' it. "Do these auto-equip?"

    At least he can track the maxe with software. He tries to help, flying into the air over the maze -- maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, as soon they find the guy and the button. "Um..." the batter takes care of it. "Is this place ever gonna start /making sense/?!" Staren shouts.

    And then he gets to see Edison at work. "Okay, that's neat. I wish /I/ could summon a lab anywhere." Staren rubs the chin of his helmet. "Maybe I should talk to Capsule Corp about that..."

    "Well, some of us can fly, so it doesn't have to be two. Maybe Edison could make it a bigger boat?"
August Kohler August steps forwards with the other, his 'item' equipped, as they move towards the freaking-out man through the maze of warehouses and walls and pumps, and as they approach, he seems to be becoming Burnt. August is about to draw his pistol...but the Batter handles it. As he turns to blackness, August only briefly flinches. He's getting over it...and he doesn't believe these are people anyways.

As the pedalo is turned into a power boat, August turns to Staren. "That might take too much time to expand it, though if you can fly over, you should. George, I'm fine with going with you." Smoke doesn't bother him /too/ bad, and he trusts being alone in a boat with him slightly more than he does the others. "We'll get there faster with this motorboat, probably. Ready to go?"

When the group eventually pairs up, August will move to pair with George, being fairly quiet on the ride, if they all go. He's self-reflecting, probably, thinking over his meeting with the Knights of the Round Table. Not that a meat river's the most relaxing place to do so.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki has an entire fist of cards FULL of numbers, but they're on cards.

The Batter has fists just full of NUMBERS. Just... without the card.

Nnnnnneat!

Yuuki GETS EQUIPPED WITH her Aura of Justice and that's neato, it goes into her- - - -proper equipment slot. The rest of the shopping passes in a blink, as the Normal Girl lingers on the Batter's phrase. Erosion, and purity.

By the time she snaps back into subjective reality, the batter smashes a Burnt's brains out across the wall and is readying switches to propel them over with ROMANTIC PADDLE BOATS!

"Zero, le-" Zero isn't here. Instead, Yuuki grabs Staren, dragging him by the scruff of the neck down to the meat lake for the paddle boats, Placing the 'boy genius' into the far seat and settling into the close one herself. "Just paddle, Staren." She instructs, buddying up with the person LEAST likely to dramatically Bishounen Moment at her at her.
Staren     It's really hard to grab the scruff of his neck when it's covered by hard armor, but Yuuki can probably find a way. He's a little surprised that she can given the weight of it, but... it's not surprising she's stronger than she looks.

    "I can fly." Staren comments, lamely, as he's put in the boat. It's self-paddling though, so he just... waits, looking around as the boat goes in case monsters attack or something. "Is something going on?" He asks the Concord XO, having a vague sense that something IS but not being able to tell what.
Yuuki Kuran THE SCRUFF IS RELATIVE STAREN
HUMANS DON'T EVEN HAVE NECKSCRUFF LIKE THAT
She just picked you up via your collarpiece, gosh.

"But if you flew, then I'd have to paddle with..." Yuuki gestures back, indicating The Watch XO (actually, already across with George), a large buff Lion Man, and Aoko, the Walking Disaster. "... one of them, and George was smoking. So, really, it was the only smart choice."

"What's your plan, here? Is it just a project? A dalliance? Something to pass the time, or have you found something beyond plastic rain and rivers of meat?"
Starbound Flotilla     George hops aboard, inviting August. They'll take it after some of the others, it looks like, though on the way over, as the motor chugs along to take them wherever this little thing needs to be taking them, George flicks his cigarette out to the meat-fluid and turns to look to August. "Hey, August. Question for ya, before we get to the fountains. Give it a ponder." He leans up on one side, relaxing with August. "Let's say there was a big ol' awful torture pod. You know the kind, right? The big shitty type tyrants use to fuck with their rebels."

    "And let's say, given that big shitty tyrant is all awful about things, that they put in a mess of fish-hooks or something like that. Can't get a rebel friend out of the torture pod! It's just gonna keep torturing them, and that's all it was for, but they need it to live too." He leans his head, cocking it oddly. It's like he's looking around for something he can't quite see, something he heard, but there wasn't a sound. "Do you think it'd make sense to wreck something like that, Gus? Even if it meant killing folks? Life much worth living, stuck like that?"

    "...Don't gotta answer quick, though! Take your time on figuring it out, if you wanna." George says, seeming satisfied with whatever he saw looking around. Hopefully that's around the time they'll get to disembark and shout for the others to hit the recall button.
Priscilla     Before Edison has the misfortune of dealing with Aoko, the Batter pauses for a long, long time, giving her only the barest response.

    "It went wrong, at some point. It's too late to fix it."

    Then they're off. It's probably good that Edison put a motor on the pedalo, because they're stuck going up a waterfall. It'd be actually impossible were the waterfall not of the consistency of greasy mashed potatoes, but even then it'd basically be like a pedal-powered climbing winch with a full-sized shitty plastic piano tied to your backs. The sound it makes, ascending upwards, is still absolutely revolting. You could swear you can smell the meat sizzling with the heat from the newly bolted on engine. The worst part is that it doesn't even smell appropriately horrible --it reeks of ham that was left in the refrigerator just a little too long and is just edible enough on the grill for the sour note to be unsettlingly repugnant.

    It's also good they attached a motor to it, because they're accosted on the ride up. In vulnerable pairs, with only one (point five?) viable Purifiers between them, the hideous spectres that rise from the meat glop --like paper white, blank-eyed, emaciated horses or dogs pulled through a play-do stretcher with mouths full of twice as many human teeth as they need to be-- would be a serious problem, instead only left in your gooey red dust as they snap and bite at the passing motor-duck, leaving the TROQUANTARY encounter behind.

    When you reach the end, you find another recall point for the top (obviously, given there'd be no way down otherwise), with another, identical, equally ill and ailing worker hiding it as best he can; two for two these men have been stood out in the rain like this while the factories and packing plants are dark and the fountains are barely kept in check. He guards the button with his body, muttering feverishly over and over again, "I don't want to be a phantom . . . what's happening to me . . ."

    Once they're across, the Batter hits the button again, and the pedalo abruptly disappears and flashes back down the meat-fall with a squelch and a pop and a rudely electronic sound, carting the second pair up. The second set goes across, and the process is much the same. On the third run, you arrive at the 'docks' at the far end, only just after another sickly bald man in a suit comes charging out from a blind corner, screaming "I don't want to be burnt!" and hurls himself under the motorized paddles with a grotesque crunch, his tie bubbling up from the meat and flowing downstream. The Batter makes the last trip by himself (for any measure of what that means), pedaling the squeaky duck wheels up manually, reciting under his breath "14, 29, 38, 42, 56, 65." to himself as if committing it to memory. The buildings on the way up had been unmarked, though.
Priscilla     It's clear what the numbers have to do with, at least. Past that, and a few more walkways, under endless, sheeting plastic rain, and the bubbling smell of left-out-too-long processed lunch meat, you arrive at the entrance to the central fountain complex, where the meat must all bubble up from . . . somewhere or another. Whatever walkway connected to it is raised up like a drawbridge, blocking the door, and a pounding waterfall of meat overflows from its top to further bar your progress, on top of a row of thick green bollard spikes having been erected from the ground for further overkill. Out in the soup however, you can spot ten of those metallic packing crates, floating out to sea. That is, *floating* floating. In the air. Bobbing slowly like . . .

    Isn't this exactly like the shitty template number puzzle back in Zone 0? Where it had just been blank cubes?

    The minute you try to get near, on the last plaza, surrounded by narrow channels coming down from the walls of the impossibly tall central tower, one last man in a tie, bereft of a button to guard, comes stumbling out into the open, drooling pitch black tar from his lips.

    "We're no longer productive enough . . . If I'm not working . . . Who is going to?"
Starbound Flotilla "You know this can't last forever."
"Technically, it's our job to make sure it does."
"That is certainly one good reason why you should cease your shenanigans and return, George. This matter of the Chorus is well beyond scope now."
"Eh, I think it can work out, myself."
"Puh. Normally I'm on your side, but right now I can't stomach it."
"Strained. I feel terrible agreeing with Pavo. But you should stop."
"Why? Think I'm gonna take a bullet for August?"
"I think you'll get in the way of our job."

"Floran doesssn't underssstand why human friend doesss thisss."
"Hey, you knew the contract when you signed it with me years ago, pal. This is what I get to do, by rights and by nature. It's just how things are sometimes. Counterbalance when it's needed."
"Enough. Return or don't, but keep yourself from committing suicide you bumbling old moron. They are getting to the fountains."

    At one of those convenient moments where August is amid the boat-ride alone with George, George seemingly vanishes, perhaps knocked overboard or something of the sort. All that's clear is that one moment, George is there, and the next, he's vanished. Which is for the best.

    Hovering far above, coming around the side of one of the meat-packing facilities, is something entirely unexpected. A big, angular white aircraft, built like a VTOL. It makes swooshy alien sounds, and its engines emit rings of light like a fifties-era alien invader. A spotlight examines the lone worker, before guns train on him. Some way of keeping the Burnt in check? Before that gets dealt with though, the guns train on the Batter for his inevitable swift and cruelly merciful approach. And a familiar voice speaks up.

    "This area is restricted. Authorized personnel only. This one may be /losing/ it, but I know you /never had/ it." Albert's demanding voice speaks up with authoritative tone over a PA speaker on the angular VTOL. His craft circles the bobbing, floating crates, as if protecting them from efforts to fruitfully engage with the conundrum that might yet unlock the cascade of meat and the odd bollards. How the others present themselves and handle the matter of the sudden turn of events is up to them.
Aoko Aozaki     "Ominous~" Aoko singsongs to the Batter, not bothered by his cageyness so much as playing along. There's no sense drilling for information, it'll come when it comes. Probably. If not from the Batter, maybe from the cat, or the shopkeeper, or the rude skeleton man, or the queen. Probably the queen. She sounds like someone who'll exposit at them. Royalty, in general.

    Aoko aids the trek up the waterfall via LASERS, lasers that double as thrusters and also means to keep those specters away from the ride. She's going to enjoy her pedalo ride up, you damn ghosts, and you can't stop her.

    Awful meat smell or not.

    Once at the top, it's time to be sad the ride is over. There's another one of those workers - and he's dead. Oh there's another one again. And a ship. Aoko's hands disappear in her pockets, and she does not get involved in that mess.

    "Huh, wondered how long before something like that would happen. To be honest I'd put the money on me siding with the specters at some point just to see what'd happen, so I'm glad I didn't put money I don't have down for real."

    She backs up.
    Seems she's not going to meddle in either side's affair just yet!
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison, on his trip with Aoko laughs as they leave the Spectres in the dust. "Haha! Screw you ghosts, science is better than you!" Sitting back down as they pass them up he sighs. Despite the fun he had with the boat, there is the fact they're on a river of /meat/. Ugh...it's enough to make his skin crawl, but push on they must. Getting off the boat, and after the third group gets there, the drone that throws himself into the water gets a cry from Edison, who attempts to stop them...but was too slow to stop the thing. Edison shakes his head...what in the hell is going on?

    The next stop takes them to another one being changed, but Edison starts to move, "Hold on, we can get you help..ok?" until...well the man is shot to death by Albert, who is in the robot. Edison, who now is looking up at it, and squinting his eyes.

    "Alright, you apparently seem to know something. So out with it, why are you trying to stop the batter, and what is actually going on here?"
Staren     Monsters live in the meat. Staren doesn't wonder how they breathe meat. This world clearly runs on videogame rules.

    Yuuki makes a point about who to pair up with in boats. Staren nods at her assessment.

    And then she asks him a question. He gives her a blank look. "Well... a world with unusual mechanics is an opportunity to exploit if we can figure out how it works... but after the first time I came here... I dunno, it might be /too/ weird. I mean, take too much effort to make sense of to be worth the returns, compared to other investigations. Still, today I was free so I figured I'd come by." Staren looks out at the river of meat going past. "...So far it's reinforcing my initial impression. So I guess now I'm just seeing where it goes. I'm here now, so until we teleport out... Maybe something will come up we can exploit. Or maybe the Batter's quest will start making sense. Or maybe nothing will and... I guess this'll continue being low priority. Unless maybe the captains can explain it, maybe they've figured it out. If not... it's not like there's a shortage of curious people who will help the Batter anyway.

    When they come to the man, Staren says, "You're holding yourself to an impossible standard! Look at all this meat, the fountains produce more than, than any herd of cows ever could! You could feed tons of people!" Staren's arms then drop limply to his side. "This is where you're gonna tell me that's not your job at all and using meat for food sounds ridiculous in this world, doesn't it?"

    Staren predicts one surprise but never expects the other one. ...Albert?

    Well, it's not like he's attached to the batter's quest either. "Uhhhh... what is this about, Albert?"
August Kohler As he rides with George and George gives his puzzler, August considers it. He considers it quickly enough that he can reply to George before he disappears. "If that's what they'd have to suffer through for the rest of their life...I'd execute them, put them out of their misery, because that's not a life worth living. I'd want the same done to me." It's a clear change from the August who used to fear murder and death, though there's a weird 'am I sure?' when he mentions 'I'd want the same done to me'. He's considering, still, but he's pretty sure.

And then, George disappears. It appears non-lethal, but August's eyes still widen. "George!" When the others get to the dock, August tells them what happened to George, but he hopes the guy's safe. When they reach the meat factory, though, with the puzzle, and with Albert guarding the way, August raises his mirrored bracelet.

"What a coincidence. George /disappears/ and then you show up. I know this song and dance too well, though. You're going to stop us from purification, aren't you? Well, don't. We've got a job to do." Aoko backing off makes August frown but it's somewhat expected, she'd been weird about monsters. August raises his mirrored bracelet, and defensively summons.

"DIETRICH!"

The mechanized black knight appears, wielding that massive sword, in a cloud of grey and dark-red. He doesn't move to attack, not yet. Dietrich instead is in front of August, preparing for Albert firing off at them. Good news for August and bad news for Albert, though...because they're not going to have tactical data on this Persona.
Starbound Flotilla     August is the one to present the strongest and most intense force of aggression available at the moment. The hefty VTOL drops a fair distance, the two beefy bulging-cylindrical pseudo-engines shifting and roiling mechanically. They turn enough to expose heavy weapons, bristling with cannons and ready to blast. He speaks on the radio in demanding, authoritative tones, making declarations and imposing limitations as is Albert's way. Soon, though, he has to project a countdown of sorts, demanding they /leave/. One that August is not going to turn away from. The beefy aerial thing exposes a pair of hefty energy miniguns, and opens several missile ports!

    A rain of missiles and a shower of rotating laser-minigun blasts heads now for August. Their nature is heavily flooded with burning plasma, trying to target August's on-file weakness to fire damage, and leaving burning trails of flame where they land like napalm weaponry. Thomas has yet to join the fray, but if he persists in keeping himself in a !!RESTRICTED AREA!! or tries to help August, he's likely to get targeted too!
Yuuki Kuran A trip with Staren goes relatively without incident thanks to JET POWERED RANDOM ENCOUNTER SKIPPING PADDLEBOAT. Really, all traversal should engage the rapid dispensing of pretenses that BUSY PEOPLE want to bother with gimmicky resource-stretched encounters. No, no.

This is very Business. In fact, it's a whole world of business, from the business of mining smoke and bottling meat, to purifying ghosts in the wardrobe-destroying downpour of plastic rain.

Staren confirms her idea. "Well, that's probably more productive than me." Yuuki admits, jazzhandsing once in a falsely bright moment of movement. "I'm just avoiding paperwork and filling time. Time is something I do have quite a bit of."

Another burnt, another switch. It's a prelude to true complications, true plots.

Yuuki lets her eyes dance up the raised drawbridge and its fountain of just-turned lunchmeat, and to the side, with the flying gunship VTOL of Burnt-Termination and floating-crate protection, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Is this... really happening?" She voices. It had been a month. It had been a few months, really. Managing, aligning, smoothing. Tempers. Growing pains, certainly. Stretching new power, bringing in new acquisitions. "No, no. It can't be. They're all too professional." She murmurs, more private.

As Staren is confused, and Aoko steps to the side, it's Edison and August who step up to confront Albert - who is physically there.

"Well, if we're all going to stare at each other and wait for someone to make a move, I'd rather be doing something else, so..."

Yuuki crouches down, before short-hopping onto one of the floating, wobbling crates Albert is protecting, spinning to balance precariously - feet tight. "Well, Albert, restrict me."
Starbound Flotilla     Automated turrets, mounted to the side of the hefty flying gunship, track and lock onto Yuuki. For several moments, it looks they're not going to fire on her. "DIRECTOR DETECTED." They spew into Albert's ear. "Hmmmh." He makes a huffing sound of exasperation under his breath. "Suspend anti-bittersweet protocols. Authorization code 'George'." They lock on, and open fire, intent on forcing her to keep moving, and keeping her from solving any puzzles. "Director. This Chorus isn't going to make it. This Zone is the least of the hazard. And Dedan's combat rating might be higher than mine. Fox four, fox four." The turrets intensify, and spray wildly, trying to deny any footing to her among the boxes!
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison takes a step forward. Talking this out seems to have failed, causing his look to have a more dire effect. Edison dislikes fighting, he dislikes war...he would much rather sit at a table than this. In the end, it seems some people can not be convinced with words...and to that end Edison feels as if he failed in some way. That he could not find the right words, or that he could not use the right words well. Lightning surges through his DC POWERED HANDS, as the boxing gloves take over the hands of the Presiking.

     A blast of electricty errupts from Edison, attempting to fry the overwrought machine he is using to try and stop them, aiming to fry the thing through and through. While he hates it, he does not back down. The truth lay ahead, and Edison would try to grasp it the best that he can.
August Kohler Albert decides to attack first. Missiles and lasers fly at him and Dietrich, as August suddenly leaps forward, grabbing onto handholds on the giant knight's back, as the sword is swung forward to intercept missiles. It suddenly whips out in a motorized whir, the mechanical sword splitting into a chainsaw whipsword, which tears into the missiles rapidly, as Dietrich surges forward, threshing missiles apart. One of them detonates too close to home, though, as several plasma lasers also impact. This should be triggering August's weakness...

But it seems /weaker/ than napalm and plasma has any right to be. It burns into the armor, causing August to grimace in pain, and tears several pieces apart, damaging it...but Dietrich keeps moving, and the black armor repairs itself within seconds, completely fixing the damage. Is August /resistant/ to fire now?

Whether or not he is, Albert won't have much time to consider it. Dietrich suddenly boosts into the air, thrusters to the sides of August in pipes and jets launching the knight to one of the floating crates for a mere second, before launching off it to fight. It's agile, and fast, as the whip sword suddenly retracts back into the greatsword buster and moves to slam straight down onto the VTOL. There's something very noticeable here - Dietrich is insanely strong. There is sheer superhuman force behind that blow, as the blade slices down, and starts to ooze with inky black darkness to add an extra kick to the strike.

But that's not all. August is hoping to land Dietrich on top of the VTOL, and make it more difficult for Albert to fire on the others until he shakes the redhead and his Persona off. "Starbound One, I hope you re-evaluate whatever your group thought of me before. Because I'm better than ever!"
Priscilla     When Staren tries to encourage the ailing meat fountain worker, his words seem to do the opposite of what he'd like. While he's reassuring the drone of his indispensible value to all of Zone 1, the creature in the suit and tie begins hyperventilating, drawing raspy, nervous, wheezing breaths faster and faster at a higher and higher pitch.

    "Look at . . . all the meat . . . All the meat . . . So much . . . Not productive enough . . . They're . . . They're going to overflow . . . Overflow . . ." And then like that, his head explodes too, the godawful smell of factory fumes and scorched meat on hot iron flowing out of him along with the torrent of corruption, suddenly fast-zombie skittering towards Staren, right before the gunship has him.

    "Move." the Batter says, quite shortly and quite suddenly. "I'm going to purify the calamitous spirit inside. If you won't be in the Choir, you have no part to play." He taps his bat to the ground, then to his shoe, then settles into stance and winds it up over his shoulder.

    The Batter used Wide Angle!

Albert x1
An Apex rebel turned soldier to the Queen.
No weaknesses/resistances.


    PURIFICATION IN PROGRESS...

    Though the gunship is still flying around the walled-in, moat-surrounded, miniboss platform, the Batter steps in and swings at empty air, making the classic sound of a home run *crack* as he does. At the same time, a flashing crosshairs of purifying light suddenly flickers into existence over Albert's gunship, making an odd trilling sound, before the blow just *happens* over there, flashing with tremendous force. He'd only hit weird ghosts so far, so the nonsensical impact of a bat on armored gunship hull is suddenly completely bonkers.
Starbound Flotilla     Albert's heavy VTOL shifts dramatically, jerking the engines around. Less to evade it, and more to maneuver so that it at least hits non-critical components, and strikes capacitors to charge them rather than drain them. Albert himself suffers light burns, but only light ones. "Power is tiger. Threat sparking. Bogey tied, zero angels. I've got good tone." On the bottom of the hefty VTOL, a huge laser turret unfolds, whirls around to face Edison, and builds up a painful, constant lashing blast that makes a strong whine like a straining flywheel. "You don't have authority here, 'Mister President'. Only the Queen."
Staren     This is insane.

    Staren's no stranger to the idea of the story not going the expected way -- of people suddenly taking a stand and getting in the way of the apparent 'hero'. Hell, he's done that at some point.

    Like, that world Sanary brought them to. Say Albert had popped up anywhere in the quest in an assault VTOL and said, 'It doesn't matter who the real heir is. The current regime brings stability.' Well hey, that'd be understandable. There would be arguments to be had about whether Albert's assessment was correct, sure, sure, but it's, y'know, reasonable.

    But this... this feels more like they were playing a board game... no, more like a theme park ride. Like they've been on a theme park ride -- a strange and demented one to be sure -- and then as the roller coaster gets to the top of the hill, suddenly Albert's gunship shows up all YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

    Staren doesn't see the point in taking a side here. He doesn't even see the point of taking the neutral side. The only thing that could persuade him to act is if these 'NPCs' were real people after all -- he'd take the side of preventing more of them from getting infected in a heartbeat if so.

    But, noone seems to think that's the case.

    Staren shoots at the zombie(?) worker, and gets out of the Batter's way. And then the batter does that thing where he swings and the attack somehow hits a target way over there. "HE EVEN FIGHTS USING RPG MECHANICS!" Staren holds his arms out and shouts at noone in particular.
Yuuki Kuran It's almost refreshing when things are simple. Easier, when you can perfectly predict things, like playing Tetris and only getting line pieces.

Landing in her Perfect Anime standing-on-uncertain-terrain-like-lightpoles stance, she has plenty of time to pose, move, or react to Albert's VTOL lining her up. Instead, she spends that time with her eyes half-lidded, pointedly playing with her right hip of her coat, where Artemis rested clipped to her belt.

And then instead of dramatically drawing the weapon, she raises that same hand to brush her hair behind her ear, following the gunship as it strafes around with her eyes - and then just standing there dramatically when she's perforated by the turrets she doesn't even bother avoiding (well, it stops her from doing the puzzle, while she elaborately spams taunt on one of the floating platforms of the Competitive Smash Stage Albert had 'prepared').

The barking guns find little purchase, but sheer volume of firepower splatters Yuuki with more crimson red and wardrobe holes than plastic-slicked smears on her outerwear, blasting her off the platform, into a box behind her, and then down into the meat abyss -- or would be, if she didn't catch the edge of one of the platforms, ledge-leaping back with one hand, while the other directs vertically, and then down and out, directed towards the wings of Albert's miniboss mechanic.

Following her gesticulation, the Batter-like sprays of viscera painting the boxes from Yuuki's wounds begin 'peeling away' like a ferrofluid at her beckon, firing back with a hail of shot-cones towards Albert's avionics. There's a much more animate, wild look in the Director's eyes, and the slightest smile, as she bids her own blood into projectiles. "Staren, don't stand for nothing! If it's a roleplaying game - then he's the party member that turns on us! Act surprised, and fight back with due remorse!"
Starbound Flotilla     "Ghhh, no joy, hit malformed. Bandit is tiger--" Albert starts, muttering calmly and placidly into his tactical mic, until he roars in sudden rage, "How the /hell/ did you make it through the fire?!" He grits his teeth, fighting through some of the pain of his sudden bruising. "A body double? Or-- Rrrrrrrgh!" His VTOL shudders painfully as the Persona remains aboard. "Fox zero away. Every vehicle should come with window-wipers."

    One of those big, hefty engines comes /up/ all of a sudden! Its robotic nature reveals itself as a metal hand unfolds, intent on grabbing August and his Persona, and abruptly crushing him before throwing him away into the wall of one of the meat buildings to get some distance!
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison pushes against the blast, his own blast trying to counter the attack. However, after the collision, only a small portion would make it through, causing Edison discomfort, but only a small sizzel across his chest. Edison narrows his eyes, diving in with a roar as he attempts to do the impossible. He attempts to punch the VTOL as hard as he can, attempting to tip it over. Ok, so not really the impossible, because punching it is probably not that hard, and he can fly.

    "Son, you could have done your duty without a fight, you chose this of your own free will," he says, justifying this to himself more than Albert. Both hands come down, aiming to follow through his punch with a hammer blow. "My DC powered wrestling moves will leave you electrified!"
Staren     Jumping all the way over there, then lifting herself back up with one hand while covered in slippery blood? So, the Director clearly has powers beyond diplomacy.

    Staren just folds his arms at Yuuki's plea. "Please. If it's a game, then we shouldn't be fighting eachother with /real weapons/. I might play a game, but I'm not letting a game play /me/. I'm starting to wonder if what's really going on here is something's mind-controlling all of you and making you act out a fight it wants to see. Come on, Director. You know I won't bring lethal weapons to bear on a friend just because /a game told me to/."

    "We may not talk much but I should hope you know me better than /that/."
Starbound Flotilla     Albert expects many things, as a paranoiac. He even, vaguely, understands the human concept of 'the baseball', as what he assumes is some sort of war game simulation about running between bases during bombings and sniper infestations. So he assumed, of course, that the Batter would... I dunno. Pitch or something! But not only is he Baseball-Themed, he's Batter-Themed, which means he just smacks the shit out of the hull abruptly, in a way that Albert has a terribly hard time understanding. While moving about like this, one would expect he'd be hard to hit, which means at least that it mostly gets armor, instead of taking out a crucial engine or something like that. "Grrrrrgh! I'm hit! How did he--?!" He starts, before, straightening himself out in his cockpit. A gargantuan, hefty launcher weapon bares itself, some kind of massive mine-lobber, one that he unloads on the Batter, launching heavy mines around his feet to menace the man that always stays at home base!
Starbound Flotilla     Yuuki's unique pseudo-ferrofluid-like combat is something almost wholely unique to Albert. Almost! He's had to deal with combat ferrofluids before, but only in melee! As a long-ranged anti-vehicular attack, that's entirely unique. He rolls and roars and shouts, calling out, "Engaged, engaged by-- ground?!" He grits his teeth. "Fine. Fox four, August special." If she's going to use her blood, he's going to strike back at her, and at her blood while she bleeds it. Cauterized wounds! While he may not be able to use the high-fire plasma on August, but by fast-cauterizing the wounds he inflicts on Yuuki, hopefully he can deny her some of that combat power!
Priscilla     Albert sends a sequence of mines flying at the Batter. He indeed 'does not leave first base', buckling down in the middle of them, holding his bat ahead of him, and just sitting through the explosions. The meat jumps and splashes on the sides of the platform that divides the fountain basins, saved a collapse into the red drink for the fact that it's all built of solid metal from top to bottom.

    When the smoke clears, the Batter is stood in a smouldering, crumpled dent in that metal, on a tiny, square island of space around his feet. Red blood fills the cracks in the terrain, clearly his own, but there isn't a burn or a tear in his uniform on him, still immaculately white.

    The Add-On comes flying out from behind him, the pulsing halo 'Alpha' spinning and coruscating with its own series of chirping whines and crackles after it rolls initiative. The sounds become a blaring, electronic beep, and criss-crossing lines of white radiance now converge on Albert, ripping left to right and top to bottom. The batter swings once again, through another 'targeting reticle', then begins sprinting forward, directly towards the gunship. It'd look like a sprint to first base if he actually dropped his bat at any point.

    "The Queen's authority is overstepped. Only the Judge has the authority to countermand the Puppeteer. Go home."
Starbound Flotilla     "There is no doing my duty without a fight. This /is/ my duty. The battlefield belongs to me." Albert speaks with pride, a briefly calm countenance, and pure, intense bitterness at Edison. But as he engages it in a boxing match, Albert's newly-revealed melee fists engage as well. Somehow the huge engines shift, and the big mechanical fists move into a trained soldier's brawling stance, rushing to jab and strike at Edison. All told, it's pretty awesome for a magical techno-lion to have a flying boxing match with a giant military aircraft. Albert, inside his cockpit, shifts his control gauntlets around in a mirror, and he's jostled and banged up with each melee strike, seeking to flatten Edison against his robo-knuckles in turn.
August Kohler August genuinely smiles as Albert freaks out and is surprised. He tosses back a one-liner over the radio...and then mutters 'oh shit' when the giant hand comes up and grabs him and Dietrich, and crushes into them. There's a crack of the armor, and August is feeling deep bruising personally, but both start to repair themselves (but not the fatigue it's dealing August) before suddenly, they're thrown flying into a building. August grabs onto the holds tight, and Dietrich angles in mid-air so that it lands on the building feet first, but he still smashes straight into it, and August is giving bruising from the sheer force of the landing, coughing up slightly, as the walls buckle under the pressure.

Dietrich leaps. Super-strength sends it flying forward as the thrusters help the boost, moving to unlash the whipsword again and swing it at one of those hefty engines. The intent is to grab the engine with the whip part, and grind into it with the chainsaw blades attached, using that sheer strength to try and pull the VTOL down and maybe slam it into the ground. August is slowly realizing that he has to manage his stamina more than his health, now, though. Being a healer is hard!
Starbound Flotilla     The boxing match is interrupted, sadly, by the whipsword of August Kohler and Dietrich, who whip hard onto one of those heavy engines. And they lash DEEEEEP in with the chain-blades, crunching it hard and evoking sparks, and a short explosion; the engine is still sort of working, but it's badly smoking now! "Ghhhrrrh! Engine's joker, I'm tallied-- How the hell are you /doing/ this? Auto-repair!" Drones aboard rush to the wound, and fail to find purchase with replacement parts. "Grrrrrh!" He loses his cool. "You wish to be taken more seriously, /boy/?" The monkey-man roars, then whips the wounded arm back, yanking on the chainsword, still having more lift than August and Dietrich have pull. If he wants to rodeo, Albert intends to take his giant VTOL and basically judo-slam him into the ground with the entire aircraft until he lets go.
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison and Albert clash, as the giant military aircraft and the lion box each other. However, despite Edison's apparent skill at fisticuffs, the massive weight advantage turns against him, hitting the ground with a bounce and rolling to his feet. Edison, bleeding a little, however does not give up. "A battlefield is no place for a man. It is the very definition of hell...and if you would be it's keeper..." He says, and leaps back up, unwilling to be put down.

    "Then I am it's destroyer. The battlefield does not belong in this world!" he says, aiming to punch the machine again. Then, with a resounding ROAR, Edison unleashes the power in his heart. THe power burried deep inside himself...as the cannon on his chest comes to life and fires...no not mexibeams...

    BUT America Beam!

    A massive wave of red, white, and blue will explode from his chest in a massive /laser/ aimed to blast everything infront of himself.
Yuuki Kuran The 'August Special' connects squarely with Yuuki who remains completely against deigning to do anything even conceptually adjacent to 'evasion', the incendiary attack consuming Yuuki in a fireball of scorchig heat. Certainly this is an excellent attack vector, for her ferrofluid-like blood vaporizes near-instantly against the oppressive heat and deprives her of her convenient attack vector against the flying VTOL.

Continuing to burn dramatically as a dark silhouette of a girl, the flames whipping around her body and hair with a seemingly limitless amount of fuel to cosume, bending generally at the knee before carrying herself into the air with another mighty anime leap, both hands digging into a higher-floating container of the platform puzzle and, flame and all, spins in the air, hurling the large piece of terrain full-on into Albert's flying craft, before tumbling back down into a platform to start dropping-and-rolling to put out the fire.

This doesn't really help and she's still on fire, but she's fine. The smell of burnt fibre and plastics join the smell of turned lunchmeat - but not, specifically, person meat as such.

Yuuki is entirely forced to roll and pat and wipe away bits of incendiary so she stops Being On Fire, largely worse for wear and 'wearing' a sort of outfit of shadow and solidifed ash instead of clothes. It's still... ttttasteful, in its simulacra of her coat.
August Kohler August chainwhips into the engine and damages it thoroughly. Good. What's not good is being slammed into the ground by a massive vehicle, grinding against his strength and since August is on the back, pinning him to the ground. It hurts. He feels his skin tighten, and bones starting to dislocate or even fracture, but rapidly stopping themselves from doing it through his healing factor. It's not comfortable whatsoever. So, August decides to retract the whip, allowing himself freedom. Maybe he's going to retreat?

No. There's an ability August didn't get a chance to try out yet. But he knows he has it. He can feel it. The ability to destroy any barrier in his path. Pulling himself up, exhausted and bruised and getting overwhelmed with every attack, August launches Dietrich back up on top of the vehicle again.

And he slams the buster-greatsword into the vehicle, coated in pure inky darkness. But the strike itself, while strong, isn't the primary effect he's moving for. The blackness starts to suffuse into the vehicle, and corrode it. It begins to eat away at armor and circuitry, inducing corrosion until it's rapidly nothing at all. August might not be able to channel enough energy in time to destroy the entire vehicle or really get to Albert...but this is very, /very/ dangerous, and very accurate. This power isn't on-file.

"Eat this, Albert." The voice is pained, but...there's still determination behind it.
Starbound Flotilla     The crisscrossing lines remind Albert of anti-aircraft fire. While he's hardly as good a pilot as Pavo, he's still a /damn/ good pilot, and the blasts knock him about only because he rolls with them, maneuvering and rolling and urgently keeping out of the way of the impacts. It takes a damn lot of work to manage it, and he only has a little less than a damn lot to work with. Only another hefty crack of the bat against his hull lands solidly, prompting the man to grit his teeth hard and clench the controls, blasting wildly away to try to lance down that Alpha. "Scrammed. SAM low twelve, fox four."

    Unfortunately, there's not much chance to take advantage of that before the hefty beam charges and launches. Half his cockpit fills with shining red alerts, but each a half-second too late to properly maneuver, leaving him to have the thing slam hard into the side of his vessel, tearing off a dozen turrets. Fuck! The whole thing lists to one side hard. It leaves him vulnerable to the impact of the terrain; it crunches through one of the armor sections, pulverizing one of the heavy weapons and causing it to explode, overloading several others.

    Each of these have the expected effect, but what August does... Is different. The impact of the sword against the vehicle does indeed corrode the armor and start it flaking away. But most importantly, some kind of sensor array gets swiftly caught up in it. As it chips away, something comes loose... Albert grunts, slamming August harder, and moving the entire wounded "arm" of the vessel to slap him away, but the damage may well be done.

    He rises. "Integrity is bingo. Returning to Zone 2." He mutters into his tactical headset, turning the engines and blasting off. But as he does, the corrosion does one last odd effect... The sensor array falls apart, but one piece of it doesn't get decayed. It slams into the bollards that were left behind, clanging hard and rattling against the ground; a chunk of metal, with dozens of decaying bits of wire jutting out of it, apparently part of the sensor array he was using to scan for Burnt Elsen. Made of steel, it seems to be a single bar of metal that once fit into something at a diagonal angle, based on the ends still retaining just a little bit of the corners of a long-lost square.

    ALBERT retreated...
    You found the GRAND DIAGONAL.