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Petra Soroka	At this point, Abnormalities are a known factor to the Elites of Sector Zero. Esoteric horrors extracted from the stream of humanity's collective unconscious and mined for energy in the form of Enkephalin, Abnormalities are absolutely dangerous, as the blood and bleach drenched walls of Lobotomy Corporation can attest. Most days, however, they're manageable, kept in their containment cells by a combination of managerial techniques developed through trial and error, and the suppression responses of agents.     Today is not one of those days.                                                                                           The Noon of Violet                                                                                                                  GRANT US LOVE                                   We could only hear the faintest of their cries.                   Even so, we sought their love and compassion.                                                                              Bulging from the ceilings of the main rooms of the Control Department, Training Department, and Welfare department are angular black rocks, poking out like the tips of inverted icebergs. The rocks glisten with jet-black ichor, dripping irregularly to the ground as the spikes themselves push unwholesomely slowly further out of the ceiling. Even before approaching them, their presence aches painfully in the Elites' minds, cold nausea and headaches, like frigid slime crawling down the back of your throat to settle in a pit in your stomach. Each throb of the mental miasma is matched with light pulsing from runes inscribed on the rock, that Kale can see makes up lines and lines of an alien language, unaffected by the Understanding.     This, dubbed Violet Noon, is an Ordeal. Uncontainable, unpredictable, unstudied, Ordeals appear irregularly and throw the entire facility into chaos for the day, and by the time they're understood enough that the agents can manage them, they're usually gone. Whatever is about to happen, the agents are as clueless as the Elites, and they can only hope that outside assistance makes today's eldritch monstrosity more manageable.     Petra is waiting in the Control Department, leaning in the doorway of the hallway between the artificial Warpgate and the department's main room, so she can keep an eye on the arriving Elites and the emerging monolith at the same time. She's wearing a new outfit-- an EGO suit, grey with Blue Star's glowing heart on her chest, and a lighter trench coat patterned with its storm of legs, and Pillar of Creation is already in her hands, twirling idly.
Ishirou	Ishirou arrives, avoiding looking at Petra.  Mostly because he's afraid of setting off another situation, and right now just being here could do that so he doesn't want to tempt fate.  Like before, he's just wearing a hoodie, long jeans, boots, gloves, and a medical mask over his face.  Anything to hide more and more of himself away.   He looks over what they have so far, frowning.  He wasn't sure what to expect, and apparently, neither was the facility.   So the only thing he /could/ do... was to try and start scanning the strange thing.  Even as his mind throbbed, his stomach felt ill, and the runes did not even make sense.  The only thing he could do was try and figure out the creature, try and predict it... And save as many lives as he could.  Though inside him, he doubted he could even do that.  His hands moved to rub at his wrists again.  Doubt and despair tugging at the corners of his mind.   'It would be easier...' says something he's attributed to his mind lately.  It only started talking once the thing with the magical girl happened, but it felt like it's been there the whole time.  'To just take the bath instead of throwing yourself at all of this.  So what is it going to be?  Pissing off Petra again?  Not being able to scan it?  In what way will you fail today?'
Ozhira	Ozhira arrives. They have been in and out at random times due to the situation with Nothing There, so it's not-- entirely unusual for the Beast to visit Lobotomy Corporation. As before, crossing the Warpgate's threshold, they pause and glance upward at the walls and ceiling of the containment chamber built around it. A faint rumble rattles through the metal as they refocus, the creature in the shape of a person trotting for the door where Petra waits.     "We are present," they announce their approach. They're about to say something else when, through the door, they catch sight of the emerging Ordeal.     Ozhira freezes in place, staring at the emerging crystalline structures. A visible distortion runs down their form, a manifestation of the Beast's intense and sudden discomfort. Just as the ripple ends, they speak again without taking their eyes off it; their tone lower.         This song is not ours.     "Where will we be-- most useful?"
Angela	Ordeals, unlike Meltdowns, are more difficult for Angela to predict due to them coming in from outside the facility rather than from within it. In fact, they can even happen DURING a Meltdown and no script can predict that. "Ayin." "Call me Manager, Angela." A small pause from the AI. "Understood, Manager." "...Thanks." "May I try helping?" This time the pause came from the Manager. He didn't need Ayin's memories to know that this was unprecedented. But trying precedented maneuvers clearly hadn't worked before. "Manager, without your leave, I can only supervise. It would be a waste of the EGO Gear to not assist." "Just thinking it through," The Manager said. "What happens if you...are destroyed?" "A full reset automatically occurs. Self destruction is not allowed until the end of the work." The Manager bites at his lip. A reset could just endanger the whole project at this stage, with so many Abnormalities missing from the facility. But Angela rarely ever asked him for anything ... and he felt he had plenty to make up for so after a period of silence he says, "Okay. But be careful." He can't be sure which of his feelings are because of the Ayin inside of him or that are his own--but he knows he can't afford to have Angela turn on him right now. Letting her do what she wants is best for what will come. NOW Another problem with Ordeals is that Meltdowns don't stop while they're happening either (and indeed, tend to help cause them) so large numbers of Agents and Clerks are being devoted to try and keep that work as stable as possible while others are being assigned to help with the Ordeal. * CONTROL: Cinder is one such person. She is in the Control Department with Petra, intending to help out with Captan Justin Rook. Jeff, still wearing his Kukuru FanClub Hat, is looking up at one of the monoliths, taking notes with his datapad listlessly. Rook and Cinder are on guard, Rook giving professional nods to anybody coming in. He gives Ishirou a thumbsup, entirely oblivious to what's going on in his head. *The Training Department is low on manpower after Tiffany's stunt So Angela and Nonon in the King of Greed EGO Gear are lurking out in the hallway (at Angela's suggestion), waiting for the Monolith to drop down or make its move. OHNO is with them, silver orbs with blue outlined black hearts hovering around her as she bobs her head to music from her headphones that only she can hear. She must've gotten the weapon from the Blue Star. (Rook, for reference, is wearing pink EGO Gear from the Army in Black). *In Welfare it's just BETTY! as Fox has been sent off to help with any resultant Meltdowns. She's very excited to help! Even if she's only helping herself! Malkuth, Hod, and Chesed are on duty to help respond to ORdeal threats but at this point they'll largely be reporting what happens in their departments and keeping the systems functional. "Heh! We match!" Nonon grins at Angela who just nods quietly, wondering what that says about her.
Kukuru	With news of an unknown threat looming within Lobotomy Corporation's walls reaching Kukuru's ears, it doesn't take long for the self-appointed mother to some (previously all) to show up within the facility's aptly named Control Department. She could have just shown up by coming through the Warpgate, but her haste in getting to the place precluded going through the normal channels to get there. Never mind how she's showing up next to the Warpgate anyway, since she's still going to try and avoid causing more issues than she already has in the past. She was clearly in a hurry to get here, though, since Kukuru arrives wearing her cooking clothes rather than anything resembling her usual presentable outfits: A red t-shirt, gray shorts, a stained apron, green ~~crocs~~ flip flops, and her hair is done up in a big ponytail to keep it all out of her face. Spotting Petra at the entrance, Kukuru's face lights up briefly as she sees the new outfit. "He-llo, Petra! Oh, I haven't seen you wearing that before. Is that new EGO gear, too? It reminds me of..." She trails off, recognizing the heart and recalling what had happened the last time she had seen Blue Star. "Have... Have you been taking care of yourself and Angie? I don't see-" Wait. Angela's not here. Kukuru's expression turns a little more anxious. "Did this Ordeal do something to her?" She pauses, trying not to get herself too worked up right away. "No, she would've said something if she was in danger. Then..." She can feel something probing at her mind, but distantly. The fact that she can feel it at all is somewhat troubling. "Do we need a different approach? Like getting the Agents or Clerks somewhere else?"
Kale Hearthward	Despite appearances, expectations, and recent track records Kale's job is not 'feeling sorry for himself that being a good person is so hard and nobody instantly likes him for just trying'. *This* is his job. The call from Lobotomy Corporation gets picked up by Paladins base personnel, quickly summarized and appended with the relevant available data, and pops up right on Kale's phone as he's browsing in the ready room. One finger tap on the 'confirm' button gets everything else in motion - the pre-flight startup sequence for his ship begins, similar alerts sent to his crew, and a pair of flight plans are filed - one for the ship, one for its captain. The East Wind takes off. It'll arrive separately at a location elsewhere, to act as a mobile medbay somewhere well out of the danger zone (and also flying a ship through Lobotomy Corporation might not be a great idea). Kale himself arrives at speed through the warpgate. He only falters for a moment when he sees Petra there, and then gets his game face back on. "Paladins Search and Rescue, on the scene," he says. There's a brief radio conversation about noncombatants (clerks) and whether they can evacuate or not, which culminates in: <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "I do not mind a temporary evacuation of Clerks of the Upper Layer since the Portal is already open but please be aware that they panic easily and they may not proceed orderly. The clerks of the Middle Layer are far enough away the Ordeal is likely to be over before they can even escape." "Okay. Petra, please ping me if you spot anyone injured or in danger, or anything else priority. I'm going to do what I can for evac first, while the others confront the... Ordeal." With that, he clicks his boots on again and takes off - heading off to start herding people towards the warpgate, and away from the Ordeal.
Meika Kirenai	Kagoshima, (Just a Little Bit) Earlier:     It's been over three years since Meika had cause to dig through her closet for her old hockey padding, and the ever so faintly-growing sheen of dust about it all. The long-since dry bloodstains on the interior fabric of shinguards go unnoticed as she hurries to shove the pieces into a bag to bring with her. She's thankful she never had the heart to throw it all away, and lucky that it all still ought to fit well enough- even if she's never dared fish it out since leaving her team all those years ago, she's aware how little the pencilmarks on the side of doorframes, childish markers of her height over the years, haven't seemed to move much since then, even as Kayoko's close in.     Shouldering her bag, with the space in it not taken up by makeshift-armor reserved for a clunky mundane first aid kit, Meika barely notices the disorder her room is left in, closet contents spilled all over the floor and left open, drawers askew, clothes new and old shoved into corners, the calender pressed neatly into the bottom of her trash bin. Short warning isn't enough to cover her tracks, to tidy up- so she leaves it at that, and exits her room the usual way- down from the window, circled out from the yard, picking up her hockey stick from the side carport, and heading down to the trains. Control Department, Present:     Meika's already fitted in her protective gear by the time she comes through the warpgate, clutching her hockey stick far less bravely than a Knight should look. Plastic armor beneath school uniform fabric isn't practical in a fight- it'll save you from a puck, it'll save you from a scraped knee, but it won't save you from real harm. She just doesn't have better options right now, not without that notebook. She's shouldered her old sports duffel and the first-aid gear inside, one hand resting on the strap for security and having something at all to do, as her eyes scan the Control department's entryway.     The pulsing, gut-wrenching aura of the obsidian stalagtites makes Meika visibly wince, white-knuckles holding tighter onto her gear, as she heads out of the warpgates pathways, looking to the Elites and employees around her while desperately, desperately hoping eyes don't linger on what is just a normal civilian girl in sports gear.     "...Captain Rook? Miss Petra? I, um. Heard Angela's emergency call... I came to help. If it's..." Her eyes blink, wincing at the throbbing headache emanating from the world's most eldritch rock candy. Eyes shift awkwardly in the space between them, despite talking more or less at both Agents.      "I'm.. reporting in to try, at least. I've got.. bandages, gauze, some.." Her boots squeak against the floor uncomfortably, and definitely not silently, the result of an awkward fidget. She forgets whatever word was on her lips. "Just- here to do my best."
Petra Soroka	Ishirou arrives, avoiding looking at Petra.     Petra scowls, flipping Pillar of Creation in her hand, the lights embedded in the tan walls glinting off of the gold veins in the spear. In the end, she doesn't bother to address him either-- she did say to never talk to her again, after all. "Where will we be-- most useful?"     Petra glances to the side at Justin, hesitantly. "You're... I don't really know what you do. Are you fast? Welfare, maybe? It's not like we have any guidelines for this." "May I try helping?"     Petra watches Angela walk out of the Manager's office to head to the elevator, wearing the King of Greed's EGO. She's strong, but.... Petra glances between Justin-- who's her Captain and she shouldn't try to boss around-- and Cinder-- who feels wrong to send away like that (secretly, Petra is automatically averse to intentionally putting Cinder out of her sight in a dangerous situation). "Have... Have you been taking care of yourself and Angie?"     Kukuru's first question makes Petra tug irritatedly on the sleeves of her grey jacket, resisting the urge to cross her arms. "Yes, Kukuru. Of course it looks like Blue Star. Sound of a Star is its EGO equipment. That's how EGO works."     After being briefly bitchy, Petra's eyes flick to the side, her lips twisting. She pushes herself off the wall, swipes her spear along the ground as she turns away from Kukuru, and calls out behind her without looking. "Angela's down in Training. If you want to be helpful, go help her." "Okay. Petra, please ping me if you spot anyone injured or in danger, or anything else priority."     "Yeah. I'll..." Petra stops pacing and deliberately takes out her phone, even though she could feel and activate it just by manipulating her cyber-synaptic aura. She doesn't want to do that, it's fucking weird. She lightly gestures with the phone as acknowledgement of how she'll contact Kale, then slips it back inside of her trench jacket. "Be careful with the clerks." <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "Meika, you are not transformed." <J-IC-Scene> Meika Kirenai says, quietly, "...Yeah."     Meika shows up, wearing a pathetic excuse for armor, looking so out of place that it's more believable that she stepped into the wrong Warpgate than she's actually thinking she'll help. She's stuttering, looks miserable and exhausted, sick to her stomach and less prepared than the *clerks* are for a fight. Petra stares at her for a moment, the tip of her spear sinking to the ground as she thinks.     Why the fuck isn't she transformed? Well, the fact is, she's not. Petra doesn't know why, but she *does* understand why Meika would be here anyways. A fucking first-aid kit....     "You've got first-aid training?" 'Training' is a good way to put it, right? Petra tries to sound as comfortable with Meika being here as she can. "You should... um, go help out in the clinic. In Welfare. It's already cramped, and there's going to be more showing up, almost certainly."     "Uh, but." Petra presses her lips together, then bends down and pulls the leg of her suit pants up, exposing the holster on her ankle. She pulls a gun out of it-- the pistol that Myo gave her-- and flips it around in her hand, offering the grip to Meika. "A hockey stick won't do anything t-to them. Take this. Seventeen rounds in it, and here's a magazine with seventeen more. Mag release is on the side right there."
Petra Soroka	There's barely a minute to get set up in each Elite's respectively assigned Departments. Ishirou scans the black rock, trying to glean what he can in the short time. It seems to be made of, to his perspective, some form of corrupted, crystalline psyche, like negative thoughts pulled from the air and condensed into solid material. It makes him feel *sick* to study, enough that he can't even bear to do it for the brief time he has. What that would mean, though, is that they're particularly weak to competing psychic influence, unlike a mundane material would be. They radiate a sense of toxic awe, a sense of vastness and unknowability, filling you with waves of sickness like peeking beyond the veil.     Then something gives, inside whatever extradimensional portal or generative process is extruding the rocks. All at once, the rest of the monolith slips out, twenty feet high of slick black stone, crashing down from the ceiling to slam into the floor. Mental pressure plummets from where it writhes in sinuses down into your gut, like a physical weight, in time with the wall-shaking collision of the monoliths with the ground.     Barren concrete shatters beneath the impact, as do any bodies, herded clerks or otherwise. Each of the three monoliths is scrawled tip to base with alien runes, now glowing sickly-white and radiating nauseating energy that intensifies when trying to read it. Blood leaks out from beneath the three monoliths, trickling through cracks in the ground, and it's impossible to tell at a glance if it's coming from anyone crushed beneath them, or-- worryingly-- the monoliths themselves.     For a moment, that seems like it. It's quiet, and the monoliths don't seem to be followed by anything more. Fighting through that gut-churning mental pressure to destroy the monoliths wouldn't be too much of a challenge, even if it'd be unpleasant. In that brief moment, Violet Noon seems simple.     Then the slick black rock starts shining with ultraviolet light, pulsating sluggishly, and everything starts going wrong at once. Hundreds of black tentacles whip out of the monoliths to slap and pull at everyone in the huge rooms with them, and the fluid pouring off the rock and coating the tentacles corrodes even further at the minds of people they hit, threatening to drive them insane even after they survive the physical strike.
Kukuru	'Yes, Kukuru. Of course it looks like Blue Star. Sound of a Star is its EGO equipment. That's how EGO works.' If Petra's uncomfortable with the question, Kukuru too is uncomfortable with the answer. It's a concerned sort of discomfort, although she does breathe a sigh of relief after a few moments. "As long as you're working safely with it, then. I don't want you or her getting hurt if something happened to you, so..." After some visible effort to stop fretting over Petra's safety, Kukru gets her head back on straight when she hears where Angela is. "Thanks, Petra. I'll be right-" She stops, spotting Meika and her distinct lack of transformed anything. She bites her lip lightly as the concern starts spreading more, raising a hand towards Meika to direct some of those healing nanites her way to linger around for a little while. Once again, though, Kukuru's concerns are assuaged when Petra gives Meika a gun. "Good thinking, Petra. You be careful over there, Meika, okay? If you need a hand, shout what department you're in. I can be right over." She offers to the collective group before falling through a portal of her own making to arrive in... Training! Once again, she's relieved to see Angela out and about with Nonon and OHNO, but not without yet another bit of fretting over the former even without a visible weapon of her own just yet. "Angie! Is this gonna be the first time we've fought before? Oh, make sure to let me know if you're in any danger, okay? I'll make sure nothing gets to hurt you for long." She promises before eyeing those curious gauntlets. "Oh, neat... Which one is this from?" Kukuru does finally stop distracting herself with the fretting, though, as she notices the strange rocks protruding out of everything. Before she can start poking and prodding at them, though, they start coming down further, and she sees... Runes? Blood, too, which suggests there's something organic in there she might be able to pull apart. Kukuru focuses her enhanced gaze on the monolith, trying to detect some kind of weakness or injury as though it was a creature rather than just some strange stony formation, but she can't stick with it for long before the tentacles start charging forward. Instead of trying to pull away from the tentacles, Kukuru strides forward, moving with the flow of the strange appendages and letting her natural healing powers (and mental resilience) weather the worst of it without looking bothered one bit. It'll be easier to try and see what's actually going on inside of it if she gets closer, after all. It'll also be easier to start trying to tear all of it apart from close range, too, which she's already trying to do! With the tentacles still clinging to her, Kukuru starts grabbing fistfuls of the things, trying to bundle a whole pile of them up at once before starting to pull with (not actually) all her might, wrenching it back and forth to see what she can yank right out.
Ishirou	Ishirou is surprised to see Meika here, dressed like she is.  He starts to say something, but others get in first.  Over the radio, he addresses this on the Paladin's personal frequency.  He looks at Meika, then at Kale, then back again.  Shaking his head, he frowns.  He continues to not look at Petra, though he can perceive her.   That's when it really hits him.  He screams, holding his head, and then trying to keep himself up with the wall.  He seethes in pain, trying to work through it but it's /painful/.  Ishirou is attempting to understand something, that by its very nature, is unable to really be understood.  He's attempting to apply his logic and reason to a being that rejects it completely. 'Haha.  Wow, what an idiot.  You keep trying to fit things into your little narrow view of the world, instead of trying to understand /what/ they are...' the mocking voice continues, but all Ishirou can do is whisper a very vicious 'shut up' to it.  It /hurts/ right now, trying to think just hurts, but he does buy a clue.  The cost was just a bit of his sanity. "Competing influence..." he starts, "They're weak to a competing psychic influence..." he gets out before looking at Meika.  Alright fine, he can't do anything about this, and Kale would just prean about it until he gets his way.  This is dangerous for her, and /nobody/ seems to fucking care.  Hell, Petra just handed her a gun. Fuck it, he doesn't have the spoons for this.  He deploys an OPTION for Meika, and it hoves around her.  Trying its best to provide her with his Combat Options and his Superhumanity.  "It's not my approval of this... but I can't stop you, and I still don't want you to get hurt.  It'll follow your orders." With that, he stumbles out towards Control.  His ears still ringing, his mind throbbing and laughing at itself.  'What, do you think putting YOURSELF in danger is going to make them love you again?  You know you blew it, and you're doing nothing /she/ isn't doing... except she hasn't lost their love yet...' "I said shut up," he hisses at himself.  He just needs to keep shoveling the coal.  Nobody here really has a competing psychic influence, except Petra.  So this means he's the one with the tools for the job... When he gets to the rock, the RESCUE suit appears over him, switching into hovering-ground mode.  Alright, he's going to need a way to get in there... So he opts for a pair of blades.  They look like boomerangs in his hand, and he launches them out, aiming to try and stick them into the crystalline features.  Then using that, he attempts to signal boost through them to attempt his mind magic directly through them inside of it.  He attempts to exert influence, trying to share some of this despair that has been plaguing him.
Kale Hearthward	> "Be careful with the clerks." "Come on, I'm trained to-" Kale pauses. "What I mean to say is, yeah, I'll be careful. I promise." Kale jets off. He's going fast, and he can make very sharp turns - and he's got a whole box of tricks for maneuvering even more quickly. As he flies, he shapes and throws out spells, creating gentle walls of wind pressure surrounding corridors of flowing air. "Alright - everyone, follow the winds towards the warpgate, proceed calmly, walk and don't run," he calls, trying to corral the many clerks. "Just follow the direction of the wind, keep going, it should be a safe pathway-" Should be safe. Ish. Kale hopes. That miasma the thing's putting out, hopefully the winds will keep it out... ... Whether the walls do their jobs for the miasma or not, they're not rated for tentacles. Kale flinches as the first wave takes out the clerks he's trying to get to safety - and then ends up struck by one of them. Persephone's influence only helps against the 'going insane' part, and doesn't help at all against physical trauma. "Okay, new plan! Grab onto a buddy, and everyone huddle up! Everyone into just one big group!" Kale redirects his focus, setting up one big, reinforced wind wall between the Ordeal and the hopefully grouped-up group of clerks. Hopefully it'll keep *everything* out. Or at least enough of it to make a difference. If others in the Elite group can use it as cover when they need, all the better.
Angela	TRAINING Angela is distracted when the camera feed reveals an untransformed Meika arriving. She is aware at this point that telling Meika UM NO out of concern for her personal safety is just going to backfire. She's not sure WHY she isn't transformed (she can guess there's something getting in the way) but she has no idea what. Maybe it'd be best, she thinks, if she gets Meika an EGO Suit. If the Knight of Despair was responsible for this then she certainly owes some manner of recompense. But she'll worry about that later. Gold Rush is mildly resistant to this sort of attack--the resilience to the tentacles themselves is borderline Aleph grade resilience. The fact that Nonon AND Angela are in Training with OH-NO means that Training might be the most solidly off in terms of physical threat, but also--lets face it--the most dangerous group to have go crazy. Nonon steps forward to tank the initial hit, grimacing as she's clobbered and then grinds a little wide as she sends a few solid Gold Rush empowered strikes along with it. Angela throws a single punch as well, but she doesn't really have a warrior's heart so she's not really able to bring out the full potential of the EGO Gear right now. OH-NO supplies some range support with the sound waves blasting out from the Sound of a Star. "I am not an experienced fighter." Angela says. CONTROL Jeff had been underneath one of the monoliths as it fell. *SQUISH* Sometimes it's as fast as that. All that remains is the Kukuru Fanclub hat he was wearing. Justin Rook gives Ishirou a look of Concern. He approaches him and attempts to give him a little bit of a smack upside the head with the back of his hand. "Hey." Rook says. "Pull yourself together. Now's not the time to lose yourself." His concern is genuine but, well, may be a bit more authoritative than what Ishirou wants right now. Cinder ducks and rolls under a swinging Tentacle. Her gaze turns towards where Jeff was a moment ago and her breath hitches. Cinder started as a clerk. Jeff was a COWORKER. That could've been her. She sends a wave of flame, trying to push the tentacles back. "I'm okay so far! But if one of those things hits me it doesn't have much resistance to mental corruption--" Kale gathers up the clerks and provides some Windwall support. They cower, but don't start taking out their pistols yet but he is looking after the Clerks more than most people do in this place. WELFARE BETTY! is by herself (at least until Meika gets there) but she is a killer (helpful) cyborg with a full set of HE-grade EGO Gear. The good news is, she's pretty resilient against those tentacles. The bad news is, she's just as susceptible to the white damage from the tentacles. BETTY! starts giggling, rapidly losing her mind with each tentacle blow she fails to avoid. She does, for now, direct her ''helpfulness'' to the Ordeal before her.
Ozhira	"You're...I don't really know what you do. Are you fast? Welfare maybe?"     "We understand. Our hunt will begin there." WELFARE DEPT--     Ozhira is directed to Welfare. Soon, they realize that the young girl who had arrived was sent to the same place. On the way to the relevant department, the Beast offers a little smile-- lined with far too many, far too sharp teeth that match perfectly together like a child's drawing of a shark. Otherwise, at least like this, the creature looks human. Like a college student or an office intern.     "We are Ozhira. It is," There's a strange chirp when they pause mid-sentence. It somehow conveys curiosity and cheer, "Nice to meet you." The fact that Meika is only a teenager in hockey pads with a handgun seems lost on them.     In Welfare, the monolith manifests and drops within seconds of Ozhira's arrival, prompting the Devourer to flinch. They don't protect their face but rather, hurl their arms out to either side as if to make themself look bigger in response to another creature invading their territory. Cautiously, they step forward again, slow and methodical paces, arms still held out. The stink of blood in the air isn't lost on them.     "Be careful," the creature's voice is now a modulating rumble of several voices mixing together, "This is, our prey."     The monolith bursts out into tentacles. The Devourer whips one arm forward, the limb liquifying into some unidentifiably horrific, gelatinous crimson mass. This expands rapidly, crystallizing in keratinous growths until the pointed top and bottom edges dig into the floor and ceiling. Cover they clearly hope will help Meika-- somehow.     It's not something the Beast makes use of directly. The limb severs from the main mass and, drawing back the stump, Ozhira's hand is already in the process of re-forming. It comes back--wrong, somehow. Jaws on the shoulder forming a perfect ring of curved needle-like teeth, an arm terminating in a long curved keratin blade.     "We hunt!"         Silence this discord.         Silence it!     Ozhira bolts around the barrier they had created, bracing the curved blade with their free hand. While closing their distance, the beast's shoulder-maw closes its teeth inward, then outward with a horking noise that hurls a sizzling gelatinous gob of acid onto the Welfare department monolith.     They're trying to cling to a humanoid appearance. Time to see how long that lasts.
Meika Kirenai	<Tac-Paladins> [4] Kale Hearthward says, "I'm not about to turn down someone who wants to help. I just have one request, Chevalier Vermillion." <Tac-Paladins> [4] Meika Kirenai exhales. "What's the request?" <Tac-Paladins> [4] Kale Hearthward says, "Make sure Meika Kirenai comes out of this okay, alright?"     As Kale says this, it'd be impossible for Meika to hide the cross look that flashes onto her face, eyebrows scowling and eyes locking once more to the floor. That's me. Why's my name some other person, to you? Why do you care more about her than me?     Her annoyed expression fades when actual assignments start to be handed out, and even while Angela promised further discussion of her behavior here today, she's still here, and she's still able to try and help. 'You've got first-aid training?'     "I know my way around it." Training is a gentle way to put it, but Meika can't stomach lying words right now, and nobody wants to hear that someone has 'experience' instead of training. It's the next best thing, though, and it's what she has to offer.     "Cramped." She nods, once, that word alone letting her brace for what's coming after. "Okay. Got it. I'll help with-" 'Uh, but.'     Meika freezes, the effort Petra put in to not sound concerned or uncomfortable working, but only so much, to stave off the sort of wince 'but' evokes after asking to help out. It's not that, though- and Meika exhales, slowly, before realizing what exactly Petra is holding out for her to take.     "...Are... you sure?" Meika's only even ever seen real handguns in person a dozen or so times in her life, nearly all of which during the past few months as an Elite. She's never touched one, ever. The weight surprises her when she takes it, and rotates her wrist ever so slightly to move it around. "...Seventeen. Alright. Um. Thanks." The spare mag is shoved into her coatpocket, also heavier than she'd expect. Fitting number. She doesn't let go of her hockey stick, carrying it off-handed as her bag is cinched around her shoulder, unprepared and more or less ignorant of how one is actually meant to shoot and aim a handgun, but the second her hands are full and nobody else is stopping her from helping, she dashes towards- 'You be careful over there, Meika, okay?'     "Welfare." There's only a bit of snappiness to her voice in reply to Kukuru, the grudging implication of 'I don't need a hand', but that's on her mind enough as she breaks into a rushed gait towards the routes down to it.     It doesn't take a Knight to hear the thundering crashes of the obelisks around the facility, as they shake the hallways she dashes through. It's been a long time since she had to run, instead of skate, in an emergency- but it almost feels nice. She likes running. She likes the strained burn in her lungs. She likes the end-goal, even if people are getting hurt, she likes that rushing to aid is something she can do, sort of. Rounding the corner washes all of it from her mind.     Seeing BETTY! and the thrashing tentacles immediately fills her veins with cold adrenaline, worsened in feeling by the psychologically caustic aura the rocks are projecting. Limbs tremble from fear and danger-reaction both, and before she even realizes what she's doing, there are tendrils shooting her way as well.
Meika Kirenai	Meika's instincts and experience aren't part of her transformed form, they're her own, and ducking, rolling, and trying to batter away the oozing arms of the obelisks with the side of her hockey stick is not dissimilar from the kind of fighting she's used to, even if the limbs are less humanoid- but it's harder, so much harder. Muscles draw on strength that isn't there, and even a glancing blow hits, hard, and crumples plastic.     As much as she'd hate to say it, Ishirou's OPTIONS unit comes in handy- in the very least for being something to keep between her and the thrashing pillars as she skirts around the edge of the department. Cautiously, curiously, and hoping it'd do something, Meika's shaky arm raises up and points the gifted pistol towards the rock. Come on... the trigger can't be that- *BANG!*     Meika stumbles back, a new trembling fear up her limbs, enhanced and bitten into by the ambient growing instability of the pillars. Oh, God, it's so loud... She blinks, distracted and bleary, in the worst place to be so- and remembers her hope of getting to the medbay. BETTY! seems like she can handle things here, even if Meika wishes she could be more useful.     "H-hey! You!" She doesn't know BETTY!, unfortunately. "Where's- Where's the clinic? Are you okay?"
Meika Kirenai	'We are Ozhira. It is,'     "Huh? Nice to..." Meika throws the other figure a strange look, eyes flitting back to the worrisome action. "'We'? That's- I don't know you, I don't know what that means, w-why are you saying anything like that about me?"     Meika hangs back, still fighting ueasiness, as Ozhira's limbs begin to melt into weaponry. She lets out a faint, scared squeak.     "Are- are you one of the Abnormalities...?"
Petra Soroka	"Good thinking, Petra."     Petra isn't sure what to think about the general impression of the Elites that giving Meika a gun was a responsible thing to do. Not because *she* thinks it's irresponsible, but because they're all nodding along for *stupid* reasons. They all thought Petra was insane when she tried to be an Elite without anything but one. And a mech, she belatedly remembers.     She doesn't notice Ishirou looking unhappy with the arrangement, because she doesn't look at Ishirou. "...Are... you sure?"     "Yeah, I've got, like, a million of them. Keep it if you need." I really hope you don't need to. Sometimes girls do need to keep handguns, though. Petra still has her first revolver weighing down one of the many pockets of her new coat.     Petra startles at the suddenness of the monolith's drop, and then winces at the blood coming from underneath it. Cinder isn't the only one briefly contemplating that Cinder would be just as easily crushed beneath it if she hadn't been promoted to agent. Petra whips her spear down, a thin arc of quicksilver flying off the end to slice through tentacles and clear her path to the opposite hallway.     "I'll be looking out for breaches!"     To Kukuru's vision, the monolith isn't a *creature*, exactly. It registers as *alive*, upsettingly, but without any features or organs or anything, and its internals are predictably stone all the way through. A lot like the Abnormalities, actually-- every Abnormality is alive in some way, but even the ones that look like organisms often don't have the right viscera inside them.     Pulling on the tentacles mostly just rips them into pieces, which helps, but there's too many of them to make that a strategy for totally disabling the Ordeal. Nonon and OHNO shear off chunks of rock and tentacles with their strikes, and even Angela's punch knocks a gouge out of the glowing writing. That doesn't stop the storm of tendrils from flailing at them, though, and a cluster of them even try to wrap around Angela, more and more sticking to each other to add to the grapple around her.     Up in Control, tentacles swing through the air without any direction to them, and they don't move to block Ishirou's thrown blades. Whatever this thing is, it's not acting consciously, or it doesn't have any self-preservation, and the blades stick solidly into the face of the stone, scraping through the glowing writing. Establishing a direct psychic link with the monolith is dangerous-- Ishirou can feel the nauseating presence honing in on him, bringing up bile in his throat and making his head swim, but when he asserts his mental influence back, the inscribed runes around the blade start to dim. A section of them go dark, washed over by the black ichor.     The clerks have absolutely no experience with evacuation protocols. It's never been done before, and a significant fraction of them react with *fear* to Kale even suggesting that they drop their tasks and leave. Some of them cling to their carts carrying yellow-and-black striped boxes, some lock themselves inside offices and lounges, some of them start running *away* from the winds-- magic stuff like that is almost always a death sentence for a clerk.     The ones he manages to wrangle, still plenty to thin out the clerks in Asiyah and reduce the risk of *mass* death, are protected from the black sludge on the ground by the wind, but not from the tentacles-- and importantly, not from the *light*. Elites feel it as nausea, but the white light radiating from the lettering on the monolith in Control makes the clerks stagger and pile up into a mob, while some of the other ones in the back see this and turn to run. The patch of runes that Ishirou dimmed provides enough breathing room for some of the braver ones to try to advance through to the Warpgate, though.
Petra Soroka	But that still isn't the extent of the Ordeal of Violet Noon. Simultaneously between all three Departments, the monoliths pulse blindingly violet, the halo of light intensifying into a blinding glare for a brief moment. When it dims back down to normal, alarms start blaring all around the facility, signaling multiple simultaneous breaches, as the light destabilizes the qliphoth counters of Abnormalities.     In Control: A clerk passing by the containment cell of the Red Shoes, after running away from Kale's winds, slows to a stop. He turns his head to the panel beside the door, raises his hand to open it, then stumbles inside, seemingly dazed.     When he comes out, he's wearing a pair of red heels that seem to be cutting through his feet, staggering like a zombie with a pink glittering cloud around his head. He stumbles towards the crowd of clerks in the main room, shoves one to the ground and pulls out their emergency pistol, and starts firing at the cowering clerks.     In Training: Nothing breaches, technically. But three employees-- a clerk from Central, M.O.M. from Info, and Cinder-- stiffen up and start mindlessly heading towards Training, as Grave of the Cherry Blossoms compels them to come to its chamber.     In Welfare: All-Around Helper, a tiny, cute robot with two tiny little legs and a smile, breaches from its cell. It looks around for a moment, left and right down the hallway, seeing the *abundance* of clerks who haven't been evacuated (since Welfare is on a lower layer), and unveils a massive array of brutal weaponry. With buzzsaws, swinging swords, arbitrary scissors and knives, it starts flying through the hallway towards the main room of the department, cutting down clerks in its way.
Ishirou	'Man, this is already turning into a blood bath, and your little trick isn't going to wor-' Thud.   Ishirou turns back, slightly irritably towards Justin.  "Ow... why did you do that?" he asks, rubbing the back of his head and frowning.  Jason speaks, and Ishirou sighs and sags a little.  "It's... I'm fine, alright?  This is just... difficult, and I'm not an elite who gets to ignore the mental stuff like every other one seems to," he says, and... Deploys an OPTION for Rook, doing for him what he's doing for Meika right now.  "Thank you, I'll be fine," he says, less irritably and closer to his normal self.  Funny enough, he's stopped rubbing at his wrists.   Ishirou focuses on the Ordeal.  He can filter out the other voice for a time, focused again thanks to Justin showing some care.  Reminding him that he /has/ people who don't want him to suffer.  He can't really hop to do this to others unless they're connected.   The feed back causes him to stagger, holding his head in pain, and tries to suck air through his teeth to try and keep himself from screaming.  In and out, in and out... focus on the other side of this major mental attack.  When it dulls to a throbbing migraine he recovers enough of his head to try and plan out what he was trying to do.   Alright.  He sends an update to Meika's OPTION.  Transferring the control program for his hacking and mental influence.  The two come as a bundled pair.  He also creates another OPTION with just the Hacking/Mental influence package and sends that off to Angela.  At the very least, it'll try to keep this thing suppressed without... Well, more things getting loose.   He fires another shot into the Ordeal.  This time, trying to send a weakening debilitation magic through it, trying to look for a way to stop it from influencing the abnormalities.  This will likely turn it into threat number one.  But that's fine... There are two others with his skills.
Ozhira	"I don't know you, I don't know what that means, w-why are you saying anything like that about me?"     "We do not know," Ozhira admits, "We would like to know, humans. We like them. Want to, learn from them. Be like them."     "We do not hunt them, anymore."     "Are- are you one of the Abnormalities...?"     "We are not from this place. There is one, who is similar to us. When we were smaller. Less complete. But they are not us." It's getting tougher to hold a conversation though, with the Ordeal growing more intense and more chaos breaking out elsewhere on the floor. Thrashing tentacles are still an issue and-- the beast swings their bladed arm up. The smooth, slick edge suddenly becomes jagged and misshapen. When they swing it in an arc, the 'teeth' disconnect, hurling out as a spray of spines as long as an adult's forearm; pinning wayward graspers to a myriad of surfaces.     "We think that the stone must be broken," the Devourer utters, their voice an overlay of multiple voices, modulating in and out. Recoiling from the motion, the creature's head snaps around across the Welfare department towards the clinic, then the other way towards the corridor and a tiny robot covered in weapons rapidly approaching.     If you want there to be more of us-- we can oblige this.     From the outside perspective, Ozhira's body begins to distort at first subtly and rapidly escalating into something inhumanly impossible. Stretching in multiple directions until, with a wet sound, the figure has separated into three. Only the one with the Red tie retains the sword arm, the other two-- with Black and White ties respectively, resemble the creature's more ordinary human disguise. Without hesitation, the multiple Ozhiras scatter.     Black Tie Ozhira dashes for the Welfare department entrance and the corridor beyond. As they cross that threshold, the entire body loses color definition and washes out to that glistening crimson, gelatinous texture. Another step and the body melts forward into an indistinct mass. A third (what would be equivalent to) step, the beast lunges forward to intercept All-Around Helper as little more than a massive, lunging maw filled with teeth. In a way, the Devourer and this Abnormality have a lot in common actually.     White Tie Ozhira falls back to the clinic proper to cover Meika and BETTY! They've already warped their left hand and forearm into a keratin shield, smaller than the first one and easier to maneuver in the hopes of keeping at least the department head and their Elite guest a little more safe.     Red Tie Ozhira is still in the middle of Welfare, still wielding that big ol' sword thing on their right arm. With the majority of tentacles between themself and this particular instance of Violet Noon pinned, if only for a moment, the beast sweeps the weapon forward and-- fires their forearm like a harpoon.     It might penetrate. It very likely won't. But it still sticks, splattering outward like a spider's web on impact. A crimson rope uncoils, tensions, then yanks the creature's figure forward. In midair, Ozhira's body curls and elongates into a crescent-shaped blade of keratin and bone, their human definition lost entirely right before impact. Really set on destroying the stone monument, though they have no real reason to believe that will stop the Ordeal itself.
Angela	WELFARE BETTY! says, "HELLO MEIKA. I AM BETTY!" excitedly to Meika. "The clinic... Is behind this Ordeal!" She deals with the spikes from All-Around Helper pretty well (she endures Red Damage and is already wearing EGO Gear made from All-Around Helper.) But that pulsing glaring light is making her loopy. As is just the general situation. "Are you here to help?" BETTY! asks Ozhira and Meika. "I can help you...eheh...Hehehehe...!" This is probably very reassuring to Meika as she breaks off to smash All-Around Helper with an EGO drawn from All-Around Helper. Her eyes are starting to glow red. She's nearing Corrosion. BETTY! SP: -40. Near Corrosion.CONTROL Rook says, "We have procedures for those that lose their mind here. I'm warning you because I don't want you to get hurt. Focus up and we can deal with it later." Unfortunately he is too busy to be concerned for Ishirou to worry about a clerk or even Cinder who suddenly slinks away while he tanks a tentacle hit and swings back with Penitence, focusing on downing the Ordeals first then handling the rest of the cleanup after. ROOK SP: +20 TRAINING OHNO is fine and doesn't seem to be having any trouble. They're literally singing their way through this Ordeal. Nonon....seems fine. She hits HARD, as Petra knows, but she doesn't have notable resistance to the tentacles assault. Just base EGO resilience. Neither does Angela really. She is not particularly speedy by nature and the tentacles, sensing what might be a weak link, swirl around her and tighten around her, pulsing with the power of trauma. She remembers... caring. where each death seemed new. She asked the world why couldn't she help? She could have saved them. But she ewasn't allowed. Not by the script. At first she hoped that by doing these cruel things, her father would look at her. And once she learned he never would... he found other ways to ensure she'd obey. Resets. Loops. Failure. Reset. Again and again. And eventually, Angela learned to close her eyes. But those tendrils reach for Angela and-- --pry those eyes open. Her golden eyes stare outward as she sees M.O.M--and more importantly to her, Cinder--approaching the Grave of Fireflies. Just let them go. If you don't care. They'll still help you. Angela doesn't yell in fury but her eyes narrow Ishirou's POD arrives to help out. Angela grabs at the pod, rearing back with her arm and throwing it at Cinder--directing it to interfere with her already muddled senses to send her back towards Petra, convincing her for a moment that SHE is the Cherry Blossom Tree she seeks. This means that she's still caught up in the tentacles but well... Maybe she did see Cinder as a friend after all. Nonon is happy to keep a punching. OHNO: SP +30, Nonon: SP -20, Angela: SP-25, M.O.M, CINDER: ???
Kukuru	Unperturbed by being unable to find anything resembling organs or something she can actively target, Kukuru's battle against the tentacles continues! Ripping them out is fairly satisfying at first, but she has to put her mind towards other tasks as she soon realizes that just going after those won't stop the damage from spreading throughout the facility. Seeing Angela getting targeted by more of the tentacles does the trick, though, in getting Kukuru to ramp up her efforts and projecting some nanites her way to give her some extra healing! Can Angela actually use it? She's not sure, but it couldn't hurt to try. Besides, the volume of nanites being put out don't just help with injuries and damage. It goes a little further than that, as Kukuru's starting to project some of her actual strength outwards as well, and not just to Angela. Nonon and OHNO get a nice little boost from it, too! "Be careful, everyone! The Manager said something about not letting them reach the tree, but who...?" Before she finishes that thought, Kukuru sees more familiar faces in the form of M.O.M., Cinder, and... The clerk's not familiar at a glance, but they're still an important part of the extended family! "Oh, good timing. There's a lot of... Um. Are you okay?" There's something wrong with the way they're moving. She doesn't know what, but she can see it in the way they move. "Nnn... Nonon, OHNO. Protect Angie for me!" As she calls that out, another set of tentacles come towards her and blast that horrible light at her. Recognizing that nauseous gut pain and headache from earlier as coming from these, she looks away quickly to cut off the gut-wrenching feeling before it can sink in too deep, then conjures up another portal right beneath her feet to fall through it. Appearing between the containment room with Grave of the Cherry Blossoms and the three coming into Training, Kukuru holds her hands out towards them while closing her eyes. "Hey, don't come in here! You need to get somewhere safe, or fight with us where it's safer. Otherwise..." They'll be alright. They'll be hurt, and they might even be angry at her later, but she won't let them die like this. She kicks off the ground with great force to fling herself right at M.O.M., all but ramming her shoulder into the Agent for a semi-gentle tackle to try and snap him out of the trance! Or just wind him terribly with an incredibly heavy blow to the gut. Either or. "Sorry. You'll be okay, though!"
Kale Hearthward	"What are - what are you *doing*?" Kale's first instinct is to start screaming at the clerks who are continuing to *work* despite the disaster going on. Are they for real? Is this place real? He'd been warned about people refusing to abandon their homes or businesses in the face of incoming disaster, but that was... more along the lines of not leaving when a hurricane was coming, not when the threat is emerging in the same building. In the same *room*. This is a whole new breed of... something. "You're in danger - get moving! Get-" And they're scattering. Haven't seen magic being done before, or at least not used to it. Right. Was using it at all the right choice? Was it saving more people than it was panicking? No, worry about that later. Regrets and introspection (and iterative training) come after the disaster is over, not during it. Okay. Head back in the game. Prioritize. The ones that ran into offices and other rooms might be fine if they're taking shelter. More importantly, pulling them out is going to take too much time. You can't save everyone, you need to think in terms of time and attention costs. Mentally, Kale writes them off, and then honestly doesn't even think about them again. People dying is just a thing that happens. Worry about the living. He moves down the list, rapid fire. The ones that are running from me are at least moving. Hopefully they're running somewhere safer. I can go check for stragglers in that direction if I manage to clear the main room. The ones staggering over in pain... are secondary to the ones that are in good health and can move. Get those out first and then get the rest out. The ones that are clinging to carts... His prioritization is cut short by the appearance of a clerk in red heels. Those heels do *not* go well with that uniform. And then the clerk in heels attacks another one, grabs their gun, and starts firing. Kale freezes. But he only freezes for a second. This, too, was part of his training and practice. New emerging threats. The training drills and simulations used zombies, because zombies are popular and easy to grasp (and Kale works with a necromancer), but the principle here is the same. Some segment of the population you're trying to protect has now become a threat, both to you and to the rest of the population. Containment or isolation are both next to impossible, in all the chaos going on. Kale needs to save his magic for protecting lots of people, not separating out one specific person. Curing is unlikely, Kale's not sure that getting the shoes off of the clerk would even work, and that'd take time and attention he doesn't have once again. Kale jets over, drawing Periactus and revving it up mid-swing. He aims to just simply grind the possessed clerk in half, swinging the drill sword horizontally, starting with the arm holding the gun. And then with that, he gets back to the task of saving whoever he can save. "I said get moving, come on! We're almost there!" calls Kale, as he absently tries to wipe some of the blood off of himself.
Meika Kirenai	Control: 'Keep it if you need.'     "O-oh. Um. Thank you, very much. I'll- It's- I'll.. hold on to it. Until I.. c-can.. yeah" Meika does, in fact, need it. She offers Petra a little nod, and, surprisingly, a small, genuine smile, before she turns to make on her way. It's got to do something to Temptations, right? I'l have to try. Even if I shouldn't have something like this, it's... The thoughts fade from her mind as the pressing situations take precedent. Welfare:     The flaying tentacles are a hellish barrier to anything much else, and Meika, as helplessly useless as she feels, notices too late that she's broken skin from chewing her lip, as she mulls over the things she still could do to help.     No. No, not now, not even if- Screams cut through the air, and thoughts are thrown out for action. Rubber soles squeal against cracked concrete, pushing her fowards and into the fray- Clerks are being hurt, and it's up to someone to do something about it, even if Meika can only hold the line till then.     Getting through and around the room itself is a brutal challenge, and out-of-practice evasive plays engineered for escaping big monsters or enemy hockey players don't work with whip-like threads replacing the air, and the air itself already being so heavy with nauseating pressure she can barely think straight- thinking isn't too great right now in the first place, but. It's impossible to cross safely from where she came in from, and while she can roll with blows and duck and weave, the slimy whips crush her makeshift armor to plastic shards, tearing at the bruising skin beneath. Yelps and exclamations of pain are bitten back, literally. Knights don't scream. Knights don't fall. Get up, Meika...     She tries her best, still, heavy breathing and panicked expression fighting against the drive to push on and do something, anything to be useful here.     Meika shudders, tuned into the visceral, ugly sounds of Ozhira's mitosis, and as her eyes still readjust from the blinding violet flash, visualizations built from tangible echoes take over the reign's of Meika's primary sense. With moving, snapping tendrils cutting through the air around her, the chaotic light, and horrifying flesh monster allies, it's quite a time to echolocate- but it's still something she can utilize.     Ozhira fights to stave off the tentacles, and BETTY! tries to crush the attacking abnormality, leaving it Meika's role to deal with lingering, panicking Clerks. She's fast in the way an athlete is, not the way a hero is, and visible due to being out of place, not distinctive or charismatic- but she has an aspect of control over everyday people like them that this, if anytime does, warrants, right?
Meika Kirenai	Panicked people run wild, and the Ordeal's tentacles are something not worth running wild into. Evacuations and emergencies need calmness and orderliness, and Meika can't enforce that- but she can feel out the shape of her surroundings, where the hallways and exits lead, enough to tell where dangerous motion is, and she can whisper to the panicking Clerk words that they heard, instead of from Meika, from trusted authorities whose job it is to keep them safe, pleas for them to keep calm and exact directions of where to walk, the girl's words splitting to guide each agent she can see individually, in the same handful of breaths. Whispers lying to each and every one of them that they've been assured it'll be okay, they remember it clearly, that people said they were prepared for this, and that if people follow instruction, they'll make it out alive.     The words taste bitter passing through her lips, until trailing iron aftertaste replaces it, and she turns back towards the breaching Abnormality, and the tentacles she's been skirting the edge of. Don't you try anything. Before confirming whether BETTY! has dealt with it enough, Meika re-aims the pistol at the all-around helper, and tries to squeeze its trigger, squinting her eyes closed and bracing for the sound better, this time. Heaven knows if her bullet will come close to where she wants, and she's sure not obeying firing lines, but it's something, right?
Petra Soroka	In Training: Cinder, stumbling through the hallway from the elevator to Grave of the Cherry Blossoms' containment cell, is knocked out of her possession by Angela's Option. M.O.M. and the Unnamed Clerk are freed from it, due to Kukuru lacking an Option, by application of heavy physical force.     Grave of the Cherry Blossoms Managerial Tip #1: Application of heavy physical force is actually the *preferred* way to shake off the effects of the Tree's mind control! Aren't Outsiders so surprising sometimes?     Tentacles wrap tighter around Angela, seemingly more and more being drawn to her to squeeze her metal chassis. This has the upside of allowing Nonon a clean strike directly into the black rock surface of the monument, sending a huge crack up its face. This has the downside of Angela's body groaning under the pressure as black fluid runs off of them, staining her EGO and corroding her mental stability. 'Angelos...'     Nonon and OHNO get their fair share of tentacle whacks and sickening aura, but Kukuru is almost entirely ignored, for whatever reason. It's as if the horrifying monolith doesn't even see her as an enemy.     In Welfare: All-Around Helper is suitably bullied by BETTY! and BlackTie! Ozhira, its only minorly-bloodsoaked blades flailing helplessly until the final shot from Meika punctures its white metal shell and it crumples, to reappear back in its containment cell. The clerk carnage behind it is gruesome, but seems manageable to Meika's experienced but untrained eye. None of them are outright bisected or decapitated, and though blood is splashed on the walls and soaked into the concrete floor, it's not so bad that-- the stench of blood and sliced viscera still isn't tolerable, no matter how much 'worse' it could've been. Combined with the nauseating presence of the monolith, it's all she can do to choke her words out without throwing up, and that feeling of sickness only keeps building.     In Control: Ishirou's shots pepper into the Ordeal, but while it's technically *alive*, it's not *biological*, and while it's an animated object, it's not technically a *robot*, and he's not able to find any purchase to manipulate its connection to the Abnormalities. The forces driving it are unnerving and unnatural, in a way that feels *deeply* reminiscent of gazing into the Well, and making that connection makes Ishirou's wrists throb painfully. The rock cracks under his shots, and white light shines out to intensify the monolith's psychic influence to the point that the room swims in his, Kale's, and the clerks' vision.     The clerks stumble forwards, shoving past each other to get to the Warpgate as commanded, and then Kale drills one of their coworkers in half. This happens on a fairly regular basis, none of them are *surprised* by it, but the splatter of gore never gets any easier to see, and a handful of them start running away, or keel over to throw up on the ground. Between the wind, Justin's help, and Ishirou's blades and energy bullets, the storm of tentacles in Control is thinning out, and a large proportion of the clerks are filtering into the hallway with the Warpgate.     Until the monoliths, all in sync, flash blinding-purple again.
Petra Soroka	In Welfare: Appearing suddenly in the middle of the main room, as if growing out of the ground beside the monolith, is a fractal tree-like bundle of bloody nerves. At the top of its 'trunk', between where two wide nets of dripping tangles of peripheral nerves conenct, is a large red eye rolling around wildly. The Burrowing Heaven writhes around in place, connected to the ground, and blood splatters around the room. Its eye tries to connect with Meika, Ozhira, and BETTY!, staring at them unblinkingly, and if not suppressed it'll vanish when they break eye contact, flooding the room with agonizing corrupting energy.     In Training: When the monolith flashes, a familiar sight comes crawling out of his containment cell. Bound in a straightjacket with his head encased in a huge block of metal, Forsaken Murderer shambles towards Kukuru, slamming his metal head against the ground over and over to try to pulverize her.     In Control: Nothing happens, for a short time, and everyone briefly remembers that Petra *did* go into the containment hallway to deal with breaches preemptively. That hope is shattered, then worse, when an Abnormality with an indistinct, sketchy outline waltzes into the main room of the Department on four long formless legs. Fragments of the Universe, the Abnormality that Petra had apparently become very fond of, is a black orb with legs and a neck like pencil lines drawn in three dimensions, scribbled in and covered in brightly colored hearts; green, orange, purple, and the black mass is shot through with gold. The mass on the end of its weird neck starts to invert and fold inside out, revealing indistinct teeth, but it's interrupted by frantic footsteps coming from behind it.     "Hey! What the fuck, Fragments! Get back in the cell, we're busy!" Petra runs out of the hallway, spear out to her side in a visibly unprepared for fighting manner. She's trying to converse with the Abnormality, but in her panic, she forgets the main danger that Fragments of the universe presents.     "ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ!" The sound that comes out of its mouth when it pauses and cranes its neck backwards to Petra, sears into the Elites' minds like nails on a chalkboard, if their brain matter was a chalkboard. Tears spring into their eyes immediately, and alien colors blossom in their vision, swimming around in the air like transluscent jellyfish tattooed directly onto their eyes.     Petra doesn't seem to notice, instead talking right back to it as if she understands. "No, come on, this literally isn't good for anyone! I'll give you extra radio time if you go back! Come on, don't--"     "ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ! ÆÆÆÆÆÆ!" The clerks get it much, much worse. They start screaming and sprinting away, some of them clawing at their faces, others going in to clumsily pummel others or reach for their throats, and Ishirou and Kale aren't exempt from those attacks either! Petra pales and grabs on to Fragments' body, trying to pull it back away without hurting it, ineffectually.
Kale Hearthward	It's working! Sort of! Kind of. Mostly. This feels like a situation where there isn't a good outcome, just a rapidly diminishing chance at a series of less worse outcomes. Is this what Lobotomy Corporation is like? At least it's almost over... right? And then everything goes sideways. "No - what's affecting them now-" Kale exclaims when he sees them attacking each other. And then they go after *him*. "Come *on*..." Any that are obviously going at him get cut down - rule one of Search and Rescue is taking care of your own health, because you're not going to save anyone if you're dead or injured. Kale swaps swords - Breath Weapon Gobo leaves shimmering blade trails wherever it's swung, ideal for someone bloodthirsty to run right into and bisect themselves on. It's gruesome, but necessary at this point. Also at this point, the grim calculations of time and energy spent per life saved have shifted to where Kale's focusing on individuals rather than groups - which leads to the much, much, much simpler and much much much more direct process of of: 'Grab someone' 'Fly them close to the warpgate and throw them inside' 'Repeat previous steps'. Kale digs further, with some help from Ishirou. It's exhausting, but he can't let his attention or focus slip for so much as a second right now.
Kukuru	With the mind-blasted Agents and Clerk freed from the strange tree's unwanted influence, Kukuru should be more pleased with the results than she actually is. The reason why, of course, is the knowledge that the battle isn't even close to over yet, and not being attacked (as much) personally means her companions must be on the receiving end of even worse attacks. Her suspicions are proven correct, too, as she sees the tentacles still harassing Angela, but there's some small relief at Nonon smashing through another chunk of them. "Good work, Nonon! But if there's this many, maybe we need something bigger. Liiike..." Digging around in her pockets, Kukuru realizes before she can get anything out that another Abnormality is on the way: Forsaken Murderer! "Hmm? Oh, not now. This is a really bad time, you know?" Scolding notwithstanding, she starts approaching the head-slammer directly.  After diverting another pile of nanites towards her favorite AI and the Agents fighting alongside her, Kukuru shakes her arms off while trying to get the timing right for her next move. She hasn't tried this kind of maneuver before, but she's seen better warriors than her pulling this sort of thing off. As the Forsaken Murderer smashes the ground in front of her, she steps forward, trying to catch the Abnormality just as it draws its head back, and... She finds her chance. The moment between it pulling its head back and slamming it back down, Kukuru leaps forward, arms wrapped around the shell-like head almost like she's cradling it before it can actually flatten her beneath its covered face. "I told you to stop." With an uncharacteristically smooth movement, Kukuru flings her legs upwards to wrap them around the Forsaken Murderer's neck and shoulders (or whatever might still resemble that). It might almost look like she's trying to elegantly snap its neck, but she doesn't have quite that level of dexterity. Instead, she starts wrenching its head in one direction with her arms while putting her hips and legs into shoving the other way, apparently trying to just tear its head off entirely.
Ishirou	Ishirou pauses, nodding once to Justin.  Right... just keep it together.   Signal lost.  ...He sent that down there to try and use the mental influence on the... forget it.  It's her facility.  Why listen to him anyway?   The other layer doesn't get any mind control either.  This causes him to frown.  Why aren't they using it on them?  He did point that out!  Okay fine, he can at least control the situation here.  Who cares if he gives shards of himself to people and they choose to throw them at enemies like their ammunition?   Answer: he does.   Then the thing somehow resists his control AND his ability to debilitate.  It's frustrating because every time something like this comes up, it's somehow special and it doesn't work.  If it doesn't work then why is he even /here/.   'Why /are/ you even here..?' This intrusive thought comes at the time the light hits.  His wrists throb, his entire body feels like it's on fire, not just his mind.  'It didn't work, again.  Your plans never do, you're not even half the planner that I1 is.  People don't ever respect the support you give them... I told you, you should have just taken a /nice long bath/.' This is made worse by the Fragments of Eternity.  His entire mind screams and throbs at that painful spike in his head.  He can't help himself, he starts /clawing/, but at his wrists and not his face.  He only stops seconds from hitting something important and looks shocked but also frustrated.   Justin said to keep himself under control.  He had to do that... But right now control was the last thing Ishirou was in.  He's hyperventilating, he's sure his brain is snapping again... he wants to hurt himself.  Everything isn't okay and it's driving him to tears.  There was so much going on and he just wanted it all to /shut up/ for five seconds.  He screams, finally, but not in a painful way. Ishirou's grabbed the other pair of slashers and jumped on the Ordeal.  He just keeps stabbing it over and over, trying to shove the blades into the light.  "FINE, YOU DON'T WANT TO FOLLOW THE PLAN I PUT TOGETHER THEN WE'LL DO THIS THE NORMAL ELITE WAY AND JUST STAB YOU UNTIL YOU DIE!" Ishirou's probably lost too much sanity.
Ozhira	Black Tie Ozhira, or what could charitably be associated with them, cronches down on All-Around Helper. The biomass roots itself on the corridor floor and starts shaking-- violently, amidst the flailing blades and saws and other weapons, slamming the little robot into the floor and walls a few times until the damage mounts enough for the Devourer to release Helper into the clutches of BETTY!'s EGO gear and Meika's firing line.     The toothy mass melts into a pool of crimson sludge, suddenly indistinguishable from the blood and gore caused by the Abnormality. After a few moments, the pool of Ozhira slides out of sight into a drainage grate.     White Tie Ozhira, that immediate danger suppressed, turns their attention to the monolith. This is when something horrendous starts manifesting with the stonework's pulsing light. Shifting, they lash out with their shield arm, shattering the bulwark into a barricade of spears that form a tidy, keratinous arc. Cover that is ultimately not terribly useful when Burrowing Heaven manifests.     This Ozhira with the white tie shudders in place, their entire outline destabilizing for a moment as if put through a bad video filter. Recoiling, the creature brings their hands up to their head, glancing back towards Meika, "We are... Sorry. Their song-- We cannot-- be divided against this."     Similar to the other duplicate, this one dissolves into a pool of crimson sludge, sliding across the floor, squeezing between floor tiles and being as indistinct as possible.     The core Ozhira, the one with the Red Tie, recovers from their blade maneuver sending them spinning wildly out of control and into one of Welfare's walls. They remain there, embedded with the legs hanging out, crimson fluid spilling out around the gash left in concrete.     From the ceiling vent, a mass of red sludge emerges, slithering down the wall and into the gap. From the floor, a similar mass climbs up and in, rejoining the primary mass. Only then does the girl-shaped monster haul themself up until they're leaning forward, seated on the rim of their own wall-crater.     When faced with a colossal eye of some massive beast, there is only one thing a predator can do.     Ozhira plants their feet against the wall, the 'shoes' splaying out and anchoring in the masonry. Similarly their hands reach up and affix to the stonework. They rise up, back arced forward, and their body contorts. The torso stretches out, color definition fading from the texture and color of human skin into the bloody crimson biomass of the Devourer.     Burrowing Heaven's searching eye, when it locks gazes with this Ozhira, finds a vaguely human head nested in a writhing mass of crimson tendrils, their eyes wide open, pupils shrunken to little pinpoints of pure animal aggression. From their torso erupts a set of jaws, wide open and filled with snaggly teeth, launching forward straight for that eyeball to clamp down. Without hesitation, the beast starts wrenching from side to side while rooted to the wall.
Meika Kirenai	Meika, despite everything, lets out an excited little gasp when she hears the metallic-pinging impact of actually having landed a shot on the abnormality she was aiming at. She doesn't quite hop off her feet, but her heels do leave the ground for a second, the levity very, very brief. Time's bought to put to use, and it hits her like a truck that she still needs to use it.     It's excrutiatingly hard to look at pain and carnage like this, to hear the loud and quiet and unspoken pleas for aid and respite,-- Temptations are much cleaner, with corpses, at least --and Meika's stomach twists like a hot knife. She presses a hand, still holding the pistol, against one of the department's walls for just a moment, leaning her weight against it and struggling fruitlessly to hold down a stomach full more of bile than anything else.     Moments pass, nausea run its course of effect, and she pulls herself back to action as best she can, even more blearily faded than she started the day. Precious moments still get wasted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I- I can try, now, I'll- She almost falls when she pushes her posture upright, but stumbles into it for forwards momentum, one foot after the other, like always.     Bleeding wounds are about all she can patch up without much training or time investment, and even then, there's only so much she can do. Stop the open arteries, that's the ones that spurt, they're the.. Shoving the gun in her duffel's outermost pocket, she starts to wind lengths of sterile-enough gauze around her fingers, to try and pack wounds and wrap tight. Tourniquets worth their weight in usefulness aren't something she has a meaningful supply of, but she's hoping the bare minimum aid until it's safe for real medical attention is enough. Arms, legs, and necks are what she focuses on, per the advisements of hastily-referenced internet searches over the too many years she's had no choice but to be conscious of injury response. Trying her utmost to be gentle, Meika doesn't hold herself back from whispering words to the injured, reminding them of what loved ones must have said to them, urging and begging them to pull through, a different sort of medi- of placebo.     Her heart skips a beat when the violet flash erupts, but this time she blinks, saving her eyes a little bit of the retina-searing brightness. Too bad the second she opens them, once more, eye-bearing neural branches have spread around, staring back. Knights don't scream, but in that sudden entrance, Meika very much does. Bloody hands pull away from the Clerk she's helping, as she stumbles upright, and feels around her bag for a split second, fumbling for the still-warm gun.     "W-what's this one? Is it- Is it like the stones? What do we do?" Shaking arms level the gun at the eyes. Fifteen left in this, right- *BANG!* Trembling fingers pull the trigger of it, having entirely forgotten that safeties exist when she stuffed it in her bag earlier. Fourteen- *BANG!* Thirteen.
Angela	TRAINING It's the mental assault that does the worst of it but even Angela can't just endure the brute force forever. Especially as she considers just ... letting it... win. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? Isn't it better to vanish now that she's gotten to feel sand between her toes, made true friends? Before they realize how truly empty and cold and awful she is inside? Wouldn't someone better, like Meika and Kayoko--they would have found a way to save everyone and be free too. They are genuinely kind, they don't just play it as some surface role. They can sacrifice of themselves to carve out better futures for all those around them but she? She has been in this hamster wheel of cruelty. You wished to be kind too, didn't you? But he took that away from you didn't he? He filled you with his disease. The portal is open now but it's too late. You're already broken inside. Angela. Angela's eyes snap open, glowing golden like stars. You are starting to lose yourself, Angela. The EGO even works on an AI, isn't that fascinating? And that means it can run you too, just like how you run the facility That's happiness for some people, Angela. So even if it means the end of my dream, I don't mind if you give up here. The resets don't touch you after all. Angela doesn't scream. A golden cape billows out from behind her, a golden fish starts to chew on her head but Kukuru's nanites keep her functional. Cinder, seeing Angela in trouble cuts through some tentacles as does Nonon--even though she's in the midst of Corroding. But Angela doesn't yell or scream even then. Instead, she just wordlessly takes her massive Aleph Grade Gloves and start pounding the shit out of the Violet Ordeal. The only screaming is from her eyes.
Angela	WELFARE BETTY! also corrodes and lashes out at everyone and everything around them as they scream in higher and higher pitches that they're helping. They might--MIGHT--hit the Burrowing Heaven but odds are they'll be another hurdle for our real helpers to overcome as they deal with yet another problem. BETTY! is doing her best!! It's just her definition of what's 'best' is changing by the second. CONTROL Rook hisses through his teeth as the SONG happens. He's lucky he's in Aleph gear that provides him with resilience because even with it he feels like gouging out his own ears. He stumbles towards Petra, hoping that her abilities will help give him some cover to the effect but he's still going to HEAR it. "Petra... Petra it needs to be suppressed!" He says, hesitant to take a swing at it himself largely because it's Petra here. He grimaces for a moment and says, "Sorry." sincerely as he throws himself at Fragments, intending to clobber it with Penitence. He doesn't seem particularly happy about it--despite everything, he is not unsympathetic to Petra's weird friendship with the Abnormality but the longer this thing is screaming the more people will die.
Petra Soroka	Of the dozen or two clerks still remaining out of the horde Kale colelcted from Asiyah, he manages to pull half of them up by the scruff and throw them through the Warpgate. This, notably, does not cure the mental breakdown that they're currently afflicted with, but that's a problem for the people on the other side. They're away from it getting worse, at the very least, and they're away from the dwindling tentacles too. The price of this is bringing Kale's direct clerk body count up to three, as two more stumble into his sword after-images in their attempts to grapple him.     Ishirou's Options have a horrible track record of use in Lobotomy Corporation. Girls, especially, seem to treat them as disposable, with Angela and Meika using theirs as projectiles, and Petra at one point spearfishing them from the air for fun. It did save Cinder's life, though-- and if Petra ever learns that, she might need to find a hobby other than stabbing Ishirou's drones out of the air.     Right now, though, Ishirou is approaching dangerous levels of mental corruption, with the constant radiation coming off of Violet Noon, compounded by Fragments of the Universe and his own attempts at psychically connecting to the Ordeal. His knives dig into cracks already formed in the rock, and pry chunks of it out, and the light emanating from its purple halo and white lettering starts to dim.     The Burrowing Heaven seems to preen in response to the attention from Meika and Ozhira. Its fanned-out *wings* of bloody nerves flex, popping and dripping, and the nerves connecting the back of its rolling eye to the floor shiver in anticipation of ripping away from this room and killing everyone inside. In the midst of its disgusting display, Ozhira clamps down on the eye, shredding it into bloody tatters, and Meika riddles it with lead, dispersing it in a cloud of gore laced with the scent of iron that curdles in their throats.     BETTY! actually ends up being distracted by Violet Noon itself! Her wild, uncontrolled attacks crumble black stone into broken pieces, shearing chunks off, until the tentacles slump and the lights dim. Good job helping, Betty!     Cinder and Nonon disable the last of the tentacles in Control, while Angela wordlessly pummels on Violet Noon. It cracks and shatters beneath her fists, the monolith bowing sideways as she breaks more and more of its base into shards, until it collapses into rubble and goes dark. If she keeps punching it, the uniform black rock crunches into a strange black vapor instead of dust, vanishing into the depths of the facility.     Up in Control, Petra hesitates and glares at Justin when he approaches her and Fragments. Getting close, he can feel Petra's aura of neuropathic itch squirming beneath his skin, intensifying every time that Fragments of the Universe speaks. Fragments bends its head down towards Justin, almost curiously, as its neck inverts more and more down its length to extrude more blurry teeth.     Petra tenses up, gripping Pillar of Creation, and then the blue heart on the chest of her suit pulses twice, and she steps back. "I'll go finish off the Ordeal." "ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ? ÆÆÆÆ."     Fragments of the Universe is only a TETH class, so Justin can dispatch it within moments, while Petra drives her spear into a crack of the monolith that Ishirou made. Quicksilver flows down the haft of the weapon, flooding over the tip and into the cracks all over the stone, and then all the fluid morphmetal bulges outwards to tear the monolith to pieces from the inside, sending it shattered to the ground, dark and defeated.
Petra Soroka	The Noon of Violet                                                                                                              GRANT US LOVE                                                  ORDEAL CLEAR