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Angela When Tiphereth goes into the Storage Room, she will Meltdown a couple days later. Angela CAN shut Tiphereth down like any other Sephirah, take their responsibilities for herself, and try to pick a better time but it's ultimately the Manager's call--not hers--and the Manager is growing comfortable enough in his role to make different decisions than Angela would make.

Though this time ... Angela would prefer to get it over with quickly too. She has sent out her call requesting her help with the Meltdown as usual. Once everybody who has agreed to come has arrived, the Warpgate shuts down and the Manager breathes a sigh of relief. Nobody in the facility really WANTS to fight Meika--she isn't just some transformed Agent she's a Chevalier from the Paladins and there's no way that can end well. The Warpgate shuts itself down again once everyone's inside.

Angela greets everyone at the entrance, taking note of new faces--and missing faces--before showing Hod's Training Video to all the new faces. It has NOT been updated yet. It can be seen in the second pose here: https://multiversemush.com/scene/scene.php?id=8418

"Tiphereth has holed herself up in Central's lower hallway like so..." Angela explains, clicking a video feed open where an image flickers in of Tiphereth A--no longer filtered by the Cognition Filter--is sitting on top of a pile of Tiphreth B's--all deactivated. Her arms have grown extra-enlongated and are wrapping around the pile, her frame is overheating to the point of melting. The pipes behind the two of them pump and pulse wildly, a dirge busting through those pipes.

"Haah... Manager... Hurry up and make another Tiphereth... He doesn't need to work, I can handle it all now. I just want him to see how much I've grown." There is a pause. "You...are watching now, Lady Angela? Hey I've done a good job, can I have my brother back...As a treat?"

Angela intakes a sharp breath and says, "...I cannot give further advice on how to handle this because we have never surpassed this Meltdown. Either the Manager gives up, ignores it, or Tiphereth...refuses to build a future. If you can help her, I'd be grateful. One way or another, I'll see you later even if the rest of them forget..."

"I never will."

Angela's eyes close as she shuts down.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mQxEtNgA0&list=RDnFwFJe0hUWw&index=3&ab_channel=Mili

"STOP HIDING, AYIN. I did my part, so now it's your turn to save us like you PROMISED." Tiphereth A shouts. "Do you think I didn't do enough? Maybe you think I didn't do enough. Well let's see how you can handle your job without my help, idiot!"

Throughout the facility, a droning alarm emits indicating that several Abnormalities are starting to get agitated--inauspiciously timed perfectly with Tiphereth's declaration.

But The Manager seems to be focusing on directing Agents rather than confronting Tiphereth directly... Just like Angela warned--well, warned a couple of you.
Petra Soroka     Petra is waiting with Angela by the entrance rather than heading downstairs to Tiphereth early. She's already equipped with her EGO gear, still partly torn up and tattered from the fight against the Queen, but the tears in the cloth have partly closed as if naturally healing. The damage she's accumulated *herself* isn't healing nearly as quickly.

    She's even a little more beat up than she was after the battle for the end of Rita's world, despite ostensibly resting. One of her ears is bandaged up, and there's gauze wrapped below her collar to vanish beneath her suit. She's tired, a bit beat up-- her transteam gun isn't even on her, it's sitting on Cinder's bed in the dorms, still overloaded-- but she's got Angela to her right and Cinder and Yuri to her left, so she'll manage one way or another.

"One way or another, I'll see you later even if the rest of them forget..."

    Petra shifts her weight between her feet uncomfortably, hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes Angela's hand before she goes unconscious. "We promised. No more resets. We'll do it whatever it takes. See you in a bit, Ange."

    Petra is now, at this point, prepared for Angela's unconsciouness during each Meltdown. One of the reasons she stuck around up here, in addition to being an effective in-between for the Elites and agents, was to make sure that Angela could be guided into her chair, which Petra brought out and set up behind her. "Yuri, could you wheel her into her office? It'd be-- really stupid if she got hit by anything."

    Aidan is given a hard glare throughout Hod's video; at least, whenever she's looking up from checking through her guns, loading specialized ammunition, strapping Pillar of Creation to her back, and excitedly affixing her company tablet to the underside of Pence so that the map of the facility, along with any hotspots for breaches or other threats, is easily visible without using her hands.
Captain Hook      Siblings.

     Had to be siblings.

     Captain William Hook's good hand is firmly on his hat as he passes through the warpgate, coat flowing around his shoulders, cutlass at his hip and flintlock at the other. The moment he's through and in front of Angela, he takes the hat off, bows politely to her and Petra in a sweeping and overdramatic gesture, and then rises and smiles.

     His good hand leaves his hat just long enough to give Angela's hand a little assuring squeeze before she's wheeled away. Just long enough to let her know that he's there.

     "Dream sweet dreams, Angela, and know that when you wake, it'll be to victory."

     And then Hook turns on his heel, without another word, his coat swirling around him, and heads down the stairs towards Tiphereth. He hasn't drawn his weapons. His good hand digs under his coat for a good, dramatic cast-off if necessary, but more importantly, to show that he's not going for his sword as he walks down.

     "A sibling, hm," Hook says quietly, repeating earlier thoughts, "How does it feel, without him?"

     Straight to the point, then, William Hook.
Ishirou Ishirou shows up, already summoned RESCUE before he even hits the warpgate.  The charcoal grey armor with gold embroilment and some blues where various systems connect.  Beneath all of that Ishirou is still bandaged up in many places, he's in no shape to be fighting, but... well he's here just like everyone else is.  

He watches the training video again, making sure he didn't forget anything and then watches Angela.  They talked about what would happen, about what might happen... and true to her prediction the Manager isn't directly engaging with it.  He takes in a deep sigh because this is going to be more talking and convincing the manager as it is going to be dealing with Tiphereth and her loss.

Ishirou watches Angela go inactive and smiles under the helmet when Petra handles it gracefully.  "Alright... I guess it matters where things happen first... but.." he pauses, and tries to radio the Manager.  He hopes he answers first of all, because right now things are going to be rough, and there might not be a better time.

"If you can hear this, he says subvocally, You can't ignore or look away from this Manager.  It's hard, and it sucks... but right now nobody goes forward without you of all people being here for Tiphereth and helping her through her feelings.  I know it's not easy but if you need to talk before you go on stage don't hesitate."
Kukuru As usual, Kukuru shows up early once she gets that call from Angela. Preparing everything for her usual work has taken a little longer than the normal amount today, but she's still able to blitz through it fast enough to show up in time to greet Angela and Petra with the expected sleepy smile and only a moment of awkward realization at the upended height difference between them in Kukuru's diminished state.

She's also early enough to actually watch Hod's training video! It's a familiar video, but she still listens to it closely, to try and reabsorb things she's definitely forgotten since the last time. It's easier to comprehend now than before, but she still has to suppress a light noise in her throat when she sees that image of Tiphereth A atop all those B's.

"She's hurting that much, too...?" Kukuru's thoughts get a little messier at that. She wants to help Tiphereth, but the how escapes her when Angela reveals that everything past this might as well be unknown. "We'll... We'll figure it out together. Trust us, Angie. We'll have something more fun to talk about after your nap." She smiles serenely as Angela shuts down, pats her cheek gently once, then takes a long breath to steady herself.

"I've never had a sibling before. I always wondered what it'd be like, though." Kukuru starts talking while looking up at that familiar alarm and following after Hook, likely assuming that Tiphereth and the Manager can hear her that way. "But.. I can't imagine losing one, either. What do you two like to do for fun, after all the work?"
Dysnomia     Those who remember what Mia was like, against the Queen, have some context for what they see when Dysnomia walks through the gate. Her body is mostly covered by her suit, like always, leaving only her face exposed. Her skin was slightly translucent, with suggestions of a  swirling something past its foggy surface.

    Her expression--she at least had a face, now--was exhausted, her mouth a thin scowl, smears of color peeling away from her when she moved. Her hair hung freely, as though gravity were not a law but a boorish suggestion. But even if her seeming was unearthly, her mannerisms were NOT.

    "So," she mused, as Angela gave them what sounded uncomfortably similar to a 'goodbye.' "We've reached a Great Filter you've never passed...?"

    "Have some faith," so said a girl made of smoke. "We're too unreasonable to be done in by something like this, aren't we?" She was robbed of the chance to hear Angela's response, as the 'life' drained from her body.

    After staying still a moment, her eyes closed, Dysnomia turned toward the flickering image of Tiphreth. Robbed of all but the most basic context, she was left with only what she could see. "You cared for him this much? To be like...This?" Her eyes fell on the the many...Corpses? The girl was holding.
Aidan Proudpick Aidan is watching! He has his eyes properly glued to the screen. They are starting to glaze over at first. It seems like a normal monster hunt.

Until it isn't. Aidan's brow furrows. Trepidation creeps across his face. Ah. Just being a warm body willing to stand in the way of a threat for someone else won't help. He just needs...

A complete sense of self.

The squirrel makes sure to applaud the end of the video, as asked, to be nice to Hod, and to distract himself. He's here to help Angela. Even Meika. And all the people out in the City. That's enough. Maybe he can just make up the rest as he goes along. Aidan huffs out a breath, that hasn't gone well lately.

"We are here to help, Miss Angela." Aidan offers her a shadow of his cheery smile. "Everyone deserves a happy ending, right?"

He stands up as well, tightening the straps on his shield, checking his own gun. He is still in a solid cast and boot, he is still rasping his breath. But his eyes turn to watch the Captain parade right out the door and down to talk with Tiphereth. "Damn, he's a legend," Aidan mutters in awe.

Thankfully, he doesn't hear the part from Ishirou about having to help someone through their feelings. Or he'd be fucking dead.
UFO Gang There are two unidentified individuals in the immediate area. When Cinder went inside, the two of them dived in the portal after her -- a close thing, but it seems they had what it takes, although one of them is still dubiously inspecting her tail.

Neither of them are that imposing.

One of them is a mouse-girl -- she's the one inspecting her tail. Wearing something like a peasant dress with some ruffles, NAZRIN is also made remarkable for the helmet she is wearing. White -- ceramic? plastic? maybe it's some kind of EGO gear -- it has lights in the visor over the eyes and what looks a lot like a red siren light, currently inactive. Black block letters on the front bear the cryptic phrase "SPOCK".

The other is a young woman with a sporty haircut wearing a captain's hat and nautical-themed blouse and shorts, along with deck shoes. MINAMITSU is watching the video closely. Rubbing her chin, she says, "These 'Meltdowns'... it sounds like you guys really are in a pinch, huh."

"Where's the exit?" asks Nazrin.

Minamitsu bumps Nazrin's ankle with her foot. "C'mon! There's no way out but through!"

"You don't know what a Meltdown is," Nazrin says, dolorously.

"I do too," Minamitsu says, hands on her hips. "I watched the show on the magic glass!"

Minamitsu's head turns. Immediately, she takes in Captain Hook. Raising her cap, she greets him with an "Ahoy!," quite possibly on instinct. Then it's back to the video.

"I'm not sure I get all of it, but I think that I get the general idea," Minamitsu states. "Being trapped in a cycle of suffering like that... well, that's the exact kind of thing I want to get out of! It's the least we can do to help out!"

Nazrin turns to leave and is immediately grasped by the back of her Space Fun Helmet by Minamitsu. (Nazrin's shoulders immediately slump.) However, she does look over at Aidan and Kukuru, both of whom she may recognize to some extent, with an untrustworthy expression worthy of suspicion.

"Really??" Minamitsu asks Aidan. "Well, it looks like we're heading ashore -- let's move!" And with that Minamitsu strolls after Captain Hook, towing Nazrin for about a dozen paces before the mouse-girl gets her feet back under her.
Rena Rena has been to the Lobotomy Corporation facility twice now and encountered their agents several more times.

Every trip was unpleasant. She doesn't like what's going on here, or at least doesn't like how it's being done (even she can't decide which it is). Even the facility is unpleasant. It smells a little bit like blood, a little bit like violence.

But she has had nothing but respect for the Agents she's met. What they did in Rita's world, and the other times she's seen them, they've regularly gone above and beyond even at great risk to themselves.

Which is why she's here; that and she'd promised Tiphereth her help, the last time she'd come. She wasn't interested in taking any jobs for the company, but for a disaster - well, things are a little different.

Rena came in a couple minutes before Aidan, who she gives a slight nod of greeting to, watches the training video with moderate patience, though she checks her pistols at the same time. She's more lightly armed today: two pistols and one technological rifle, plus whatever she managed to conceal inside her coat (not nothing). She looks upset, but she's keeping it to herself.

Mostly. That's why she's dealing with the pistols, though. They don't need to be checked; she did it just before she got here. But it gives her something comforting to do with her hands. She hadn't known Angela was going to go offline, and she starts, but this seems to be established protocol.

Spinning the cylinder before putting the revolver back in its holster, Rena looks at Petra as she says, "I didn't realize she'd be out of it," with a nod toward Angela. "I guess I should ask you, then, because you know more of what's going on than I do. I've only met Tiphereth once and only in passing. I talked to her brother more, but not that much more. You think I can help down there or should I deal with the... stuff? Abnormalities?"

She looks, then, at the video feed of Tiphereth A. Rena has no siblings, but she's lost people and she can imagine it's even worse, given... everything. What they are, who they are. She starts to walk, but she does wait for a response from Petra, if any.
Captain Hook      Hook raises his hat slightly on the way past Minamitsu with a smile , an, "Ahoy there," and a wink (or a blink? Probably a wink) from his one good eye. "Don't worry. Just take orders from the one at the wheel and it'll all be over in no time, everything clean as you like."
Tamamo MUCH EARLIER:

    "Ah," Tiphereth says. "...Hello." Her eye twists back to the smear. "That used to be my brother. It's okay. He'll be replaced soon."

NOW:

    Tamamo arrives at the same time as Lilian, wearing the same outfit of many layers as the agents have seen her in during a few previous occasions.

    To say that she has met the siblings before would be overstating the matter, just a bit. Neither had been in a position to socialize. The training video is something new to her, as well, and thankfully not too long -- it does seem a little odd to her to take the time for that during an emergency.

    When it's over, and there are not yet any specific instructions, Tamamo watches Hook head off in one direction, and Ishirou another. With a moment's indecision, she says, "Lilian, I shall go and ask my questions before matters are... progressed too far. Please remember to call upon me immediately, when needed." She then hurries after Ishirou.

    "Would you connect my voice, as well, Ishirou?"

    On the assumption of success in reaching their target, "Ah, hello, Mr. Manager. I should like to ask, first, why it is not possible to accede to Ms. Tiphereth's request. There is some reason that you have ignored it in this case, yes? For what reason is her brother so... repetitively deceased?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine arrives through the warpgate alongside Torrie. The minotaur is dressed for battle with a muscled cuirass, greaves, and a helm modified to accommodate her horns and snout. The huntress herself is in no unusual attire, but the attentive notice something off about her spear. Between the spear's wings, a reptilian eye lazily opens and surveys the room over Madeleine's shoulder. In a low voice, like that of a large and very sleepy dragon, the weapon murmurs to Madeleine, "There's so many here. Are we really needed?" Madeleine does not bother to reply.

    The pair (the trio?) sit through the training video and briefing with polite attention. When Hook immediately turns to leave the room, Madeleine glances after him but does not follow. When a quiet moment comes, she speaks up.

    "What do we know of Chevalier Vermillion's status? Do we know where she is, or the Abnormality that's... chosen her?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian isn't a lot better off for the battle with the Queen than most, but she's very used used to hi-- letting it show less. The last thing anyone here needs to see is their mythical star; one who rarely shows, yet talks like a peer to Gebura; whispered of around the halls as the company's possible ace in the hole, limp in through the front door looking like shit.

    This is a crisis situation. One in which people will inevitably panic in droves. Hope comes first, then order shortly after it. So Lilian has the unenviable job of mindfully disguising the way she favours her right arm, focusing on keeping her her head up and her pace on point, and disguising the side of her neck with ample makeup and a choker picked to fit the dark, billowy lace-sleeved top that can cover her side with a thick weave but show off the glint of gold ink under the sway of her hair at her back.

    The damaged strands have already been carefully regrown under accelerated conditions. She doesn't have the luxury of looking less than invincible; they can congratulate her for doing all this despite being exhausted in the after-action report.

    At least, when she looks at the screen, that fact doesn't preclude her from saving a little energy by not even trying to conceal her feelings. Tightly set teeth bared by the asymmetrical lip curl of conflicted disgust. Brows furrowed together, eyes uncomfortably narrowed, yet focused on Tiphireth's arms in the image, rather than the corpses, or wandering in random horror.

    "What's this about 'another', Angela?" says Lilian. Crisp. Businesslike. A little preoccupied, and a tiny bit tense, as always. Like she's already thinking ahead to what comes after an inevitable conclusion she's reached in her mind. "It's a bit early for that pessimistic attitude, isn't it? Or perhaps I should say a bit late. The Manager seems to have gotten the idea, if he's willing to be this ballsy."
Timespace Riders      A swirling vortex of grey fabric appears from thin air, before unraveling down to a single strand--the scarf belonging to the somewhat unusual time traveler, Woz. Dressed as he always is, Woz stands beside Sougo Tokiwa, his Demon King, who wears rolled khaki pants, thick hiking boots, and a two-tone pastel pink and blue button up, just slightly (stylishly) too large for him.

     Sougo frowns at the sight of Tiphereth A--and at the mention of being given her brother back, he winces.

If you can help her, I'd be grateful. One way or another, I'll see you later even if the rest of them forget... I never will.

     Sougo swallows, looks down. In his hand, he holds the twinned Zi-O II watch--half black and gold, half pink and silver. It's like looking into a mirror--the armored figure on the face of the watch is him, and vice-versa. He looks back up at the viewscreen and nods, just in time for Angela to go under.

     "Woz..."

     "Of course, my Demon King." As the two of them descend, the retainer has his book cracked open, poring through its pages. As they enter on Hook's heels, Woz gently places a hand upon Sougo's chest, bidding him halt. Lips pursed, he closes the book with a brisk press of his fingers on either side of its spine, and leans in to whisper something to Sougo.

     "Ah..." The Demon King's soft brown eyes grow misty, and he nods.

     "Sire, if you would prefer, I can--"

     Sougo slowly shakes his head, taking Woz's hand gently in his. "It's okay, Woz. I can do it. Meika and the Agents are going to need you anyway. I'll be fine here, with Captain Hook."

     Woz inclines his head, bowing slightly at the waist, and disappears in another fabric-swirling teleport.
Kuroto Dan      Kamen Rider Genm, also known as GOD Genm, tilts his head in puzzlement and attention as he watches the instructional video. So that's it, huh? They host things like the Tiphereths to harness power. For what exactly though? He highly doubts L Corp is just a glorified power company.

     He repeatedly taps the side of his helmet in thought, before deciding there's not only enough information to go off of, but also more pressing matters. Tiphereth A, the sister, has gone rogue? Or maybe she's just finally gathered the courage to break free. Whatever the case, he had thought the brother unit would be the one to lose it...

     "Interesting."

     It's the only thing Genm audibly says about the situation before he simply leaves the room and heads towards the lower Central hallway, both of his arms outstretched as if he's provoking whatever's out there to attack him. Despite his aggressive display of arrogance, however, there's one thing that's bothering him. Angela said they have never surpassed this Meltdown. Which would mean they've done it before. Does the facility have the ability to rewind time? Or maybe process alternate realities? Is that what Tiphereth B was going on about when he asked if they had met before?

     This is all speculation, and it might even be public knowledge he had just never bothered to ask. But on the off chance he's wrong about all of this, his musings at least make for a good game idea.
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki steps in, stiff in the way she walks, favoring her left shoulder, and with bandages visible mostly on her legs where her clothes don't cover, and it's not long after that the Warpgate shuts off. With it, the lingering concern of everything involving Meika makes itself heavy and loud in the back of her head. Something impossible to put aside - but all that concern, and worry, and anxiety - and not just about Meika and Courage either - has to be put towards what needs to be done, today. She knows that.

    The problems right in front of her, huh.

    She's seen Hod's training video before. And she knows how these things work. But watching it again not only reminds her there's a few things she should say to her, but it also takes the edge off of uneasiness, in a way. But only the edge. When the view of Tiphereth is brought up, her expression tenses up. Her physical appearance doesn't have anything to do with it. It's undoubtedly the words.

    "...I wonder how much I can really help deal with loss... when I can barely handle it myself." Talking to nobody at all, Hibiki's focus slowly drifts in the direction of Angela. She lets Agents die she could save for energy gen, so she's got no room to criticize. Even if victory was not an option, the effort is seen, and real, and holds meaning. When she says she'd be grateful, if they could help Tiphereth, she...

    The line of thinking, about loss, gets her glancing to Petra, as Angela shuts down. She takes in the additional injuries, already knowing where they'd have to come from, and a heavier exhale than she intends to let out seeps through. But there's not anything to be said right now.

    Once she's gotten that taken care of, maybe. Hibiki glances in the way of Captain Hook and his accomplices heading down to meet Tiphereth, and ponders following after - but decides against it. She trusts him, more than almost anyone, to be able to say what needs to be said.

    And, like all Meltdowns, they'll need muscle to handle the breaching Abnormalities just as much as they'll need heartfelt feelings. So as alarms blare and things begin in earnest, it's Ishirou (and Tamamo) that she joins up with, to take advantage of the chance to try and get a word in with the Manager, to comment on his priorities.

    She keeps it brief. "--Hey. Manager. Out of all the times we've talked, what you said all the way back during the first one of these is what really still sticks with me. 'Elijah deserved better'."

    "...I get the feeling you probably think that about all of them. So don't ignore all of Tiphereth's hurt, alright? You might think 'Outsiders' are miracle makers, but you're the one she's really calling out to."
Touta Konoe     Touta still recalls the last time that a Meltdown happened. The experience was...Impactful. It was one thing to commend the Agents for having to work under these Hell-like conditions, but one had to wonder what they might have thought of the Elites that volunteered to take part in this?

    Upon arriving, he finds himself greeted by not just Angela but Petra as well. There's no sharp jabs, or shitty looks, just a head nod her way before turning to Angela. He imagines there's plenty of things that can be said, and probably many more things that others have said already. Yet...He still wants to offer his words, "We'll get this done quick..."

    It's not words uttered in overbearing confidence, just words in quiet assurance. The kind of tone that feels like it wouldn't have been out of place in a library even. That said, while arriving he's greeted by the two, he can tell by those who have come there's a decent amount that still look battered or doing their damnedest to not look it. He still recalls some of the conversations that had been going on in the last week alone with the hell people had gone through, and if Stanley and the others were an example of what most had gone through...It was all the more important that those that were still in their prime picked up the slack.

    Tiphereth has holed herself up in Central's lower hallway like so...

    As the video shows without the cognition filter there's a lot to take in. Especially when seeing the rubble of siblings that Tiphereth clings to...There's things he'd want to ask, both about her and her brother. But for now, Touta doesn't immediately head for Central's lower hallway, in fact, he's taking a detour starting with the upper floors that likely leads him to wandering the facility alone for a time. To the Agents or Elites that have bothered to see him it might seem strange. Biting into his thumb as if in deep thought, concentrating to the point that there's trickles of blood that spill to the floor...

    But he continues this for as long as he can, even as he hears the video playing back in his head, along with Angela's final words before shutting down.

    ...I cannot give further advice on how to handle this because we have never surpassed this Meltdown. Either the Manager gives up, ignores it, or Tiphereth...refuses to build a future. If you can help her, I'd be grateful. One way or another, I'll see you later even if the rest of them forget...

     "This meltdown...There'll be enough people who can help mend the Sephirah. So I'll do what I can to keep the damage as light as possible..."

    It's as the thought trails off does the sound of the alarms blare through the facility. The indication that the parade of Abnormalities running through was going to start. At this point, Touta's made the effort to attempt to get through as much of the facility as he can. His hand now properly gripped at the jet-black katana as he reached for his radio. He too makes an attempt to contact the Manager even as the events begin to unfold, sirens go off, and surely he is more focused on guiding his Agents.
Touta Konoe      <Hey, Manager. Even if something pops up on the other side of the facility from us, make sure us Elites are kept in the loop. As long as you do that, even if it's on the opposite side of the facility, having to go all the way back up or down the levels...We'll keep things afloat so you can handle your business...>

    Ultimately, this situation wasn't just about dealing with the Sephirah. While it was true that it was going to be a trial, and one that was going to bring hell upon most. There was still going to be more to come after this surely. If that was the case...This facility couldn't take heavy losses. To succeed here even if it was a first but leaving the Agents in disarray would be a different kind of loss altogether.

    "We'll make sure to win on both fronts..."
Lilian Rook <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "A girl with genuine trauma, who never even wanted to be here, and keeps losing the only thing she cares about. And over a dozen Elites."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "God help us."
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "He did. He sent me."
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook is audibly smiling.
<J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "He is, Lili. GOD Genm is right over there~"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Tell him he has my modest thanks and then punch him in the mouth for me when you get back to Heaven."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Sixty five points, though."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "You didn't ask which one."

    Of course Lilian doesn't mean Tiphereth B. Angela had already confided that much in her. She means--

    Well. Anyone she'd trust would know.

    Her farewell to Angela is a simple "I'll put on a good show for you to review after." delivered in her most matter-of-factual tones; no need to put her under extra stess. "Oh? You're ahead of me for once." is what Lilian says to Petra, once that opportunity has passed. "I'll be relying on your bonds of camaraderie, or failing that, trust, with the staff on site. Our personnel available are is . . ." She stops to look up and down the Elites filtering in. A little bit of silent, grotesque questioning at Dysnomia. Visible contempt at Aidan. Numbly expected exasperation at Ishirou. Something less pleasant at Hibiki. "Damaged." she concludes. "I suppose there's no helping it, after recent events. So competent labour and swift response will be more important than usual."

    However much she thinks she can trust the largely unmangled responders is something she considers either irrelevant or simply polite not to remark on.

    Tamamo causes her to hesitate just a beat, then allows the urge to trust her to win out over every other feeling holding on by their claws. "That's best. I'll do my best to work with you if I get the opportunity, but I suspect I'll largely be preoccupied using 'that' for combat." When she starts moving herself, she's sure to wire the direct request to Management herself.

    "I believe this may be our first time speaking, Manager A. You know who I am, and I know who you are. We both know there will be plenty of idiots telling you what to do; the better ones will simply tell you what you were already about to do on your own. I imagine, as well, that you know which are which, so I'd like you to do your utmost to filter out any irrelevant details and meaningless 'input' offered to have a say, because this is the most important moment of your life so far."

    "You actually have to handle Tiphereth. Yourself. Seriously, earnestly, and without fail. Because you cannot, and will not, handle Meika. We'll be dividing that duty correspondingly, you and I. So I need to be able to put as much of my trust in you as possible to see through this day successfully with minimal aid, because I cannot afford to leave Meika to the rabble either. Do you understand?"

    "I'm an unforgivably selfish person by nature. So to satisfy myself, I'm planning to make two miracles happen today."
Petra Soroka "You think I can help down there or should I deal with the... stuff? Abnormalities?"

    "To be honest," Petra looks up from thumbing teal-colored bullets into her two matched gundaggers, recognizes Rena after a couple seconds, then looks crestfallen at the lack of Pochi. "I don't trust *most* Elites with emotional therapy shit. Especially not when she's a *kid*."

    She pauses for a second, swiping a finger across the tablet screen. "You should probably just do combat stuff. Either you'll coincidentally stumble into some kind of impactful emotional bond that'll convince me you're not just another braindead soulless Elite, or you won't do anything particularly important but be a warm body with a gun helping Angela. Either works." Incredibly esoteric, demeaning, and somehow *not* venomous, all at the same time! Fascinating.

"What do we know of Chevalier Vermillion's status?"

    Petra shakes her head and shrugs-- unhappily, not dismissively. "Nothing, as far as I know. The Paladins might know more, but I feel like I probably would've heard."
Petra Soroka     Warning alarms blare out through the facility when Tiphereth starts riling up the Abnormalities, but to those familiar with the alarms as they've heard them in past Meltdowns, it's only the lowest severity warning; the First Trumpet. The facility isn't immediately thrown into blood and chaos like usual, but that doesn't set the agents' nerves any more on ease. Petra's tablet, floating around like a little screen drone-- she *had* to have picked that up from Eggman-- lights up red in practically every department, warning of *impending* breaches of a volume far more than even the group of Elites could handle.

    "Jesus fucking Christ. Alright." Each time there's been a Meltdown, ever since her first at least, Petra's taken some kind of authoritative role, and she assumes it more easily every time. She puffs up her cheeks in thought, quickly scanning through cell after cell of warnings, and then huffs all that air out at once when she comes up with somewhat of a plan. "We don't have enough agents for every one, so I guess we'll just let the Outs-- everyone else deal with whatever breaches. Cinder, I'm pretty sure Fragments likes you, so if you go calm them down, I'll take care of Blue Star downstairs."

    A lot of her other delegation-- cut in by the actual Captains of each team, since Petra doesn't even technically have the authority to be talking this way-- goes similarly. Only a handful of Lobotomy Corporation agents are left out in the halls to deal with the rest of the ramifications of the Meltdown, and with Tiphereth herself. With a large fraction of the entire facility sent into a frenzy by Tiphereth, it's inevitable that some Abnormalities slip through, and the Manager is more than willing to turn his attention to directing the Elites to suppress them.
Petra Soroka     Scorched Girl blasts open the heavy steel door of its Containment Cell, up in Control Department nearby the Warpgate. She shambles around about as fast as a person, but if she's allowed to get close to anyone-- agent, Elite, or even clerk-- she'll detonate in a massive sphere of flame, reducing anyone in the same room or hallway as her to ash. The Manager suggests that Speed or Mobility might be useful in kiting her around, some kind of Remote Manipulation to rescue hapless clerks, or Resistance - Flame to simply tackle her to the ground and take it.

    Punishing Bird flutters its way into the hallways of Information Department, and just like before, it's mostly just a pecking annoyance until attacked. This time, though, the Manager requests that the Elites *do* attack it-- defeating the bird rather than just ignoring it will help the facility out later, and Elites can totally handle it. When hurt, Punishing Bird splits in half down the middle, extruding a massive set of bloody jaws to rip into anyone within reach. Massive amounts of Toughness to survive its attacks, ranged Combat Options to stay out of its way, or Mobility to make sure it can't land a hit will be able to take it out.

    Lastly, there are six white blond boys in the facility, who should be targeted and destroyed with prejudice-- Dream of a Black Swan itself doesn't escape, and the cluster of disturbingly wounded, oozing green slime and grinning, boys stays in their cell in the Disciplinary Department, eyes tracking whoever runs by through the porthole window, but the danger lies in what they manifest when stressed by Tiphereth's wailing. A distorted chimera of a girl and a monstrous swan, her three-eyed face thrust out of the top of its twisted neck, shambles through Disciplinary, using an umbrella like a cane, and a bludgeon. Sonic Resistance would be helpful in ignoring the sanity-draining effects of her piercing screams, and otherwise a Paradigm to Defend against the swings of her cane or Debilitation to slow her down can disable her.
Petra Soroka     Abnormalities are only the first of the problems caused by the Meltdown, though-- or, second, if you count the pile of brother corpses. Down near Tiphereth herself, in the soaring golden hallways of Central Command, the air starts stinging with ozone from a massive spike of Enkephalin. Appearing, not from Containment Cells, but dripping down from the white and gold banners draped around the room like blood leaking through bandages, are an entirely new set of monsters.

    New to the facility-- but *familiar* to anyone who saw their corpses piled in the tunnels in the hunt for Nothing There. Wearing full-body armor with red visors in their gas masks, tanks of unidentifiable fluid on their back, and jagged spikes or hooks of metal instead of hands, Sweepers drop down to the floor out of nowhere, spread all throughout Central Command. A seemingly endless tide of them, they cut down and trample over Elites, clerks, and agents, all appearing in different places and shambling around mindlessly to attack.
                                                     
                      The Noon of Indigo             
                                                     
                           SWEEPERS                  
                                                     
             When Night falls in the Backstreets,    
                        they will come.              
                                                     

    Distantly, Petra hisses to herself in Blue Star's cell: "What the *fuck* is Indigo??"
Angela BEFORE THE SHUTDOWN

Angela hesitates as she's called out again for an uneasiness of faith--not even just by Lilian this time. She smiles, "I'm sorry, I believe in you... It is just difficult to not think of the thousands of times we stumbled here. I'll ... work on this. Thank you." Angela says (which probably answers GOD Genm's curiosity as to whether time travel is involved), though her eyes flickered briefly to that left arm of hers. She doesn't comment on it and the Agents seem relieved to see Lilian's presence, they've taken to calling her the Uncolored Color as the Hana Association hasn't spoken their piece on the matter but while she's here they stick to Dame Commander as department policy.

She can't think of what to say to Madeleine and fails to come to a conclusion in time for the Shutdown to happen but rest assured, Meika hasn't left her mind.

"Sure thing, Petra, you can count on me." Yuri winks. She goes off to do this very thing! Hey, this is the easiest job that's going to be ...

...Well okay, Angela at a dead weight is pretty heavy but it's still better than fighting an Abnormality. Hopefully the others will be fine without her for a moment.

Finally Yuri thinks as she slips inside the office with Angela's body.

Ishirou notices that Angela's predictions regarding the Manager are more or less spot on. Not too many people in this world or the next at this point know how the Managers are going to be better than Angela.

Ishirou speaks to the Manager subvocally. The Manager responds, vocally, over comms.

"And the fuck am I supposed to say?" He asks. "I see it. His memories of how it all went down and how even when he knew it was going wrong he couldn't bring himself to stop it. Then he created me to deal with it and soon... I'll be gone and he'll be back."

"I can't--shouldn't make it okay. But I can at least make it over."

''For what reason is her brother so... repetitively deceased?''

The Manager hesitates but answers this question. "He was the first Cogito Subject. We didn't-- Carmen was the ideal subject but he was the second most ideal. He ended up volunteering and we thought Carmen..."

"IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HER!" Tiphereth shouts. "This was your dream, Enoch just thought he saw a way he could make a difference! And in the end, was it even worth it, Manager? Well was it?"

"...Yeah, it should have been her." The Manager admits. Well they're talking. That's a start. "Some part of his consciousness- something necessary--it was unretrievable even by our Ressurection methods because of the nature of the experiment."

''I get the feeling you probably think that about all of them. So don't ignore all of Tiphereth's hurt, alright?''

"...I...don't want to." He tells Hibiki. "...But how do I accept it? How do I heal it when it shouldn't be healed? How would you go about it when it's so much and it's your fault?"

There is a wordless affirmation about Touta's request but don't worry, he'll be too late to warn you when she arrives.
Angela Then finally, Lilian contacts the Manager directly as well. The Manager is quiet, he listens. Even Managers listen carefully to Colors.

"...Understood." He says, just like the way she says it. "...I'll do my best. Thank you... Thank you for helping us. I know it's not for me but that's fine. I know who it's for."

''A sibling, hm?'' How does it feel, without him?''

Tiphereth shudders and she says, "...Like I had lost my north star. He always saw something ahead of himself, knowing where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do. He volunteered for that experiment so easily. ... And then after Binah killed me, I... started having to take that role for myself. I had to look after him again and again and it grew harder and harder... Why?"

              L      WE ARE            TWO BUT       E
              I                                      N
              S                ONE                   O
              A                                      C
                    DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?     H

"Sometimes I wished...for such horrible things..."

Cinder salutes Petra and then giggles a little after doing so. "Aye aye." She says, rushing off to Fragments where she'll ask to listen to its song and share some stories of her own--specifically that of her recent date with Cinder where they definitely weren't followed by mice.

The 'Magical Girls' of the Central Team are also lending a hand, though it's Nonon who goes to help out with Punishing Bird--she hasn't taken her Vacation Days yet--and is happily willing to take some hits as necessary but she isn't going to be able to defeat the Bird on her own.

The Central team itself is...

"IT'S FUCKING SWEEPERS! They must still be mad about Nothing There... Probably followed them back here!" Rose guesses as she and the rest of Central go down to help fight them--but they DEFINITELY can't handle this on their own.
Ishirou "I don't know.  If I knew I would have told you, Manager," Ishirou says with a deepening sigh.  "You can't ignore it either, you have to talk to her and talk through it.  You know the same as we do at this point, and avoiding it will mean /nobody/ advances.  Tiphereth... or you.  Anyway, I am going to try and keep things under control... just..."

"Do your best," he finally says, because it's all he /can/ say at this point.  With the first trumpet sounding, Ishirou is already getting information.  He runs forward, hitting the ground as fast as he can... which is surprisingly fast now.  Touta tells him that he'll handle the Scorched Girl, so he'll handle the Clerks.  

Once he's on the floor, he reaches, electromagnetic hands reach out, aiming to grip clerks and drag them away from the out-of-control anomaly.  He slides them across the floor, or away from the girl depending on where he is in location to them.  He focuses on this while trying to stay out of the Scorched Girl range himself.  

"Touta, hurry, at the rate this is going someone is going to walk too close to her before I can drag them away!" he says, trying to encourage Touta.  Once he gets her in a singular place, he pushes people away from that and keeps the area clear, while keeping himself out of what danger he can.  
Captain Hook      Here it goes.

     The First Trumpet.

     Hook tightens his grip on his jacket, underneath his shoulder, and tilts his neck from side to side like he's limbering up for a sports match. It's nothing of the sort, but it pays to be stretched and ready for anything in a place like this, a place that's ready to kill you without a moment's notice, without even the telltale coiling of the snake. This is a place where death is part of every day, unfavorably comparable to Hell.

     But there's a treasure in this place he means to liberate, to pluck from the hand of a man who doesn't deserve it, and that means walking straight into Hell without a second thought. Captain William Hook is the greediest man alive. He won't settle for less.

     Hook walks straight up to Tiphereth and smiles, sadly. "You know, I thought the same thing of my sister, when I was little." He drops a box on the floor, a pirate treasure chest, around the stream of gold. "I used to think she was the most brilliant person in the whole world. Blind, you know. Never slowed her down for an instant. She knew what she wanted."

     Hook opens the box with a flick of the locks. The treasure chest shines. Inside that box is the magic of dreams, the magic of stories, the magic of a faerie playground for little boys and girls who never want to grow up, plundered by a man desperate to cling to even an inch of hope. That box contains stories and hopes and fantasies and wonders.

     He kneels down, ducking one of the Sweepers' attacks, trusting in Hibiki to have his back as he roots through the box with a bit of an affected attitude. "Ah, here we are," he says finally, and lifts something out of the box.

     A wooden cross, strings, and...a puppet. A dangling puppet. With that, Hook taps the box closed, sits down on it, takes the puppet in his good hand, and holds it up for Tiphereth to look at.

     "Tell me," he says, quietly, and lets the puppet hang in front of Tiphereth, "All about him. All the things he used to do that made you happy."

     "Tell me about the path he walked."

     And he holds up the marionette's handle as it begins to shift.

     It's a very special puppet, after all. It's a puppet that can act out the past. A toy that takes memories and joys and condenses them into playtime, that most sacred of things to all children.

     So Hook sits on the treasure chest, a smile on his face, playing with a puppet in front of Tiphereth. "Tell me all the things you can't say to anyone else," he says, and with his thumb, makes the puppet nod its head.
Kukuru Nazrin's failed escape gets a light chuckle from Kukuru once she sees Minamitsu pulling her right back into it. "Don't worry, dear. You'll be safe with us. Just... Focus, okay? Angie and everyone here are really counting on us today." She says in some vague manner of reassurance, her expression slowly losing its previous grogginess. "We've gotta help them out so... Tiphereth can be okay, too. And..."

Kukuru had heard Meika was involved in something here recently, but she's still clueless outside of that barest amount of information. If even Petra doesn't know what happened, though, then there's definitely something deeper that Kukuru shoud probably be worried about. She lets out a troubled noise at realizing that, then rubs the side of her head and picks off a small flake from one of her horns without finishing that thought.

Between whatever happened with Meika and what she's hearing about the relationship between Lisa, Enoch, Carmen, and the Manager, Kukuru already has her thoughts preoccupied. Even without siblings of her own, she can already feel her eyes starting to strain a bit with trying not to tear up when Tiphereth talks about her brother.

"I don't know what I'd do if my parents or... Or anyone in my family died, and I couldn't bring them back. If they..." Her jaw sets briefly, and she fights back another noise in the back of her throat. "It wouldn't matter if they volunteered for it for not. I'd still be mad if someone okayed it, even if everyone thought it was for the best."

Breaking off from Hook as he heads towards Tiphereth, Kukuru turns her attention directly to those Sweepers that come down from seemingly nowhere. She knows why they're here, and she knows what they look like from the last time she had seen them back when Nothing There had escaped because of what she had taught them. Despite looking different from the last time she had seen them, Kukuru's voice still comes through just the same, and her healing cloud erupts from her body to try and help those Agents and Clerks in their way pull through, escape, whatever.

"It's you all again, huh? I'm the one that made There-... Nothing There like that. When they broke so many of you." Kukuru announces with her arms held out to her sides, all but calling for the Sweepers to come her way as she heads straight for them. "I taught them who to hurt, and who not to hurt. So if you're gonna be angry and hurting somebody today, I'm heee-eere!"

Kukuru slams her claws together, and she's already moving in to start swinging at those that come her way. "So don't... Don't go looking at anyone else!"
Rena Sadly, Pochi did not come, for two reasons. One, he doesn't like the place; something about the smell is unpleasant to him. And two, Rena didn't want to bring a dog into psychological horror, for some reason.

Rest assured that he got a treat (big bone, still with some meat on it) and is currently sleeping out in what passes for Mado's field under the watchful eye of Rena's mostly-ex-girlfriend's little brother, Cal. Even if the field is more dirt than grass, it still counts.

Unfortunately, Rena is here and has to handle that. She seems to take Petra's aggression as a sign of the stress everyone is under, so while her expression hardens she doesn't snap back. "Uh huh," she says. "Well, we'll see. It's not the first time I've been called Mindless. I don't really want to be here either... but these people don't deserve to be left alone. Even if it is just a 'braindead, soulless Elite' who's come down because she can't not try to keep promises."

Well, okay. She doesn't snap back much.

When the alarms blare, Rena draws her revolver, though she has good trigger discipline and does not immediately start opening up. She notes who runs off for Tiphereth directly, but her place is (currently) much more useful out here.

Rena makes her decision quick: "I've got the bird. The punishing one," she clarifies, before dashing off toward the Information Department. En route, she darts around the Sweepers; she doesn't engage any of them in a prolonged gunfight, preferring to evade, but she's not adverse to taking the occasional potshot as she goes. They're not her target.

Her target is...

"That's a really small bird," Rena says, which makes her suspicious, because the last bird she had to fight that was about that size happened to have a freeze ray hidden in it. So while she's expecting armed, she is not expecting *that*. She stares for a moment at the opening of jaws. Fortunately Nonon got there first, so Rena herself isn't the first person attacked by the Punishing Bird. And also fortunately, Rena has an idea. She backs up to the corner, steps around it, and then leans back into the hallway.

Rather than fire straight on at the Punishing Bird, Rena fires three shots down the hall - two rapid, and then a pause before a third. All three miss... or, rather, all three hit the exact spots on the far wall, ceiling, and floor that Rena had actually aimed at. The back wall one ricochets straight back, aimed at the Punishing Bird's back; after a couple more whining ricochets, another one comes in at a downward angle; and a few moments after that, the delayed shot strikes almost from the side, having hit a corner and come off at an unpredictable angle.

By the time the shots actually impact, Rena has ducked back around the corner. Her plan: to confuse the Punishing Bird as to exactly where it is being attacked from, and from who, by attacking from all angles. She peeks back around a few moments later, very low, and fires again, skipping it off the floor past Nonon.
Tamamo     When the breach of Scorched Girl is explained, Tamamo immediately looks through a stack of yellowed paper strips pulled from up her sleeve. When Touta mentions going after the abnormality, Tamamo quickly says, "A moment, if you please."

    It does take another moment, but her motions are quick and serious. "Here you are, Konoe-san. Merely rip apart one of them, and remain within the light for a moment."

    When used as instructed, he, and anyone standing very close to him, will take on a blessing of protection against fire. It's not perfect immunity, but it will go a long way toward making the imminent danger survivable, especially for anyone caught without means of escape, and without his level of regeneration. With several such talismans at hand, he can hand them out to anyone not able to stand close at the time one is used.

    "Be well. Go with good health and courage." For her own part, and with no need to be in a particular place to talk to the Manager now that Ishirou has connected communications, she turns in the direction of Central, to soon meet with Tiphereth. Perhaps something will interrupt her on the way, but before that...

    "Mr. Manager, if Mr. Tiphereth could not be brought back, then what, precisely, has been granted to Ms. Tiphereth? I shall make my guess, so as to ease this conversation for you. Has she been placated with a fragmentary 'ghost,' an amalgamation of those scattered memories that could be scraped together?"

    Hurry without haste. She moves through the hallways with her hands held together, hidden by her sleeves, ears high, and tails bouncing. "If such were the case, it would explain the inevitability of this breaking. To cling to a memory is no evil in itself, but to confuse it for life is a hellish snare. It merely pushes forth a problem, with which one must deal at some later date. It closes one's eyes to one's wounds. Is my guess close to the truth of the matter?"
Dysnomia     "I'll give you all the time you need, Hook. So play your part."

    As the Sweepers seep down from the ceiling, Dysnomia moves, and the thin facade of her normalcy starts to bleed away. She moves like something between a gas and a fluid, in long, leaping strides to join Rose and the 'magical girls,' flowing past and around sweepers. It's hard to say whether or not the sweeper's blows strike her, with clouds of orange constantly blossomining from her, then flowing back into her body.

    When she's like this, what she's doing becomes so much more transparent, parts of her body split off in long smears, coiling around her in a storm of strands that slice like swords.

    A colored strand seized Roses' leg and pulls, sending her staggering low, a sweeper's weapon carving through the air where her head had been, as a set of five more spear the thing through the chest from behind. Dysnomia catches Rose, heaving her up, as her body forks and splinters around them in lines, smokey now, then sharp. "Don't you fall." She smiled down at her, with sharp black teeth and burning eyes. "Let's not keep the Captain waiting."

    She guides the agents toward the captain, the air around them dense with those strands of her, each permeable and harmless as smoke to the agents and elites and lethal to the sweepers, creating a bubble of death to shield Hook from the worst of it.
Aidan Proudpick Aidan darts his eyes over to Sougo Tokiwa as he appears, then downwards. He looks over his own armor. Mostly useless, only good for catching a grazed sword blow, cushioning a punch. He then looks back over to Sougo's outfit before the King heads off. "I need more magic so I can wear that into a mission, damn."

He casts his shadow of a smile at Minamitsu. "I wouldn't be much of a knight if I didn't come to help someone in distress, would I?"

A simple glance at Rena, then a sort of vague wave. He makes a big to-do about glancing at her weaponry and nodding. He doesn't LIKE to use his gun, but he can still appreciate that it is there.

Then his ears flick as he hears a voice. He turns towards the low smooth voice to see it's an EYE on Madeline's SPEAR. Aidan's eyes light up with boyish glee, "Can your spear talk?!" He zips up a little bit closer, evading Lilian's death glare by mere inches.

His head turns up as the alarms go out. Something he can do. His breathing is still harsh, head throbbing as he struggles to get enough air out of his wounded lung. Don't think about it. Don't think about anything. People need help. That's it. People need help. People need help.

He is whispering it under his breath before long. "People need help. People need help. Behind you!" He slides into place NEAR Ishirou, staggering to a stop on his cast leg. A respectable distance, but still nearby. He braces himself up against a wall, sucking in a breath. A deep breath. Pain lances through his chest. Teeth clack together, lips tight to keep it inside. Then he thrusts out both palms and rushes the air out of his lung. One hand pointed out behind Ishirou to keep a wave of Sweepers from getting to him. The palm goes in the other direction, forming a white swirling wall of air just up against the Scorching Girl to keep her away as Ishirou drags out the clerks.
Hibiki Tachibana BEFORE:
    Something less pleasant at Hibiki. "Damaged." she concludes.

    "...My arm still works," is Hibiki's stifled reply as everyone makes their preparations. Well, one of them still works. The other is 'mostly', but good enough.

    ...

    How do I heal it when it shouldn't be healed? How would you go about it when it's so much and it's your fault?

    "Aha-- you're asking the wrong person about that..." Even though they're not speaking face-to-face, her own expression still falls. There's not any actual happiness behind the slight curl of her lips, or the scoff she makes. "...I wish I could give you a decent answer. Or one that wouldn't make me sound like a hypocrite."

    "...Even if it can't be healed, it still has to be lived with, doesn't it? That goes for more than just her. It might be awkward and messy and be more painful than anything... but finding some way to face it is the only way to keep living on. You've probably got an idea of that already, don't you, Manager?"

    ...

NOW:
    "--ngnir tron!!"

    A second after the echoing call from a connecting hallway dies down and Captain Hook ducks low, a metal boot smashes into the Sweeper that had took a swipe at him to send it flying back a good twenty meters through Central Command. Hibiki lands on her feet afterwards, out of her casual and clad in her Symphogear, and her posture only just barely slips up before she corrects it.

    "You've got the kind of ideas I'd seriously never think of, Will... ...Take care of her." She murmurs that only after she's stepped forward out of earshot, so as to not interrupt story time while she shoulder-checks a second Sweeper into more of the crowd. She remembers them from the sewers. The sight of what had happened to all of them, thanks to Nothing There...

    ...she felt bad for them. But that won't stop her from battering them out of the way now, to ensure Hook has all of the space he needs to work - and it also won't stop her from doubling up with Dysnomia on covering for Rose in the process, with a soreness-inducing hook to blow away one that would've come from a blind spot. "...Guess nobody could get any bed rest during this. You holding up, partner?"
UFO Gang "That would be REALLY convenient!" Minamitsu says, with a little fist pump, at Hook's encouragement. Minamitsu, for her cheer even in the face of the dire state of the inner warrens of the Lobotomy Corporation, doesn't seem to be taking that to excess.

Nazrin hears more about what the Manager is saying to other people. She is looking increasingly unhappy about the situation, although she is momentarily distracted at hearing other things. "Huh," Nazrin says, adjusting the weird helmet she's wearing. "It's like I can hear prayers."

Nazrin answers Kukuru as well. "I'm only sort of worried," she tells her. "It's good to see you again. The Captain up there," indicating Minamitsu, "is pretty into this whole suffering thing, so I'm sure she'll be a big help. Funny to see you again, though. Small world, huh? Worlds," Nazrin concludes, as the Enemy (so defined) comes into view.

Minamitsu frowns at the sight of the strange things manifested, although despite her slightly campy appearance, she does not appear daunted. She cracks her knuckles and reaches into her jacket to pull out... a wooden ladle with no bottom. "Haha! Yeah, right?" Minamitsu answers Aidan. "I don't know if I'm anything like that, but someone helped me out when they didn't have a reason to. So I'm happy to pay it forwards for this Tifereth! (Are there two of them? twins?)"

After this, Minamitsu twirls the ladle in her hands like a pinwheel. "O-kay," Minamitsu states as she looks towards the scorched and detonating figure. "That looks... EXTRA bad. Nazrin, back me up!"

"Got it," says Nazrin, who proceeds to stand there and get out her dowsing rods while in the backline. This doesn't help Minamitsu at all! (It DOES help Nazrin... but that's a problem for another day.)

The Captain seems to skip into the air, but when Tamamo hands out talismans, she veers nearer to Touta. "Hey," she says, "Can I bug you for one?"

As she says this she raises the bottomless ladle upwards and limbers up her arm several times, before on the third stroke and with a vigorous "hup!" *hurls a half-dozen glittering spheres of water* towards the Scorched Girl. "Ha!"
Madeleine Cadrasteia <J-IC-Scene> Madeleine Cadrasteia says, "I'm going after Dream of a Black Swan."
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "I need someone to cover me with these Sweepers. I have something only I can do, but I need to be focused."
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook says, "It's very important that I not be interrupted."
<J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana says, "--I'll help get the Sweepers. I've got you."
<J-IC-Scene> Madeleine Cadrasteia says, "I'll send Torrie down there, too."

    At Madeleine's word, Torrie hustles after the Captain, toward Tiphereth's chamber. When she arrives, the Sweepers' opening push is nearing the door. She barrels into the soldiers, eight feet of fur and muscle and bronze plating. There are more Sweepers than just the first few she sends flying down the hall, but through sheer armored bulk the minotaur begins to push them back, away from Captain Hook and Tiphereth.

    Meanwhile, Madeleine follows the shrieking toward Dream of a Black Swan. She arrives at Disciplinary to find it in shambles, the agents and clerks who made it into cover from the Swan's swings barely holding it together against its sonic assault. It spots her immediately and charges, a barrage of swings with its umbrella turned aside by Madeleine's spear or striking home on a decoy.

    Madeleine holds the creature at spear's length, and the ghostly head of a dragon, its jaws the length of Madeleine's body, fades into existence over the weapon's tip. The apparition opens its mouth and sprays a cloud of very real poison at the Swan, forcing the Abnormality into a fit of coughing and choking. It bats Madeleine down the hall with its thrashing, but without the ongoing attack on her mind and senses she bounces to her feet and leaps back to engage the creature on more even terms.
Kuroto Dan      Admittedly, given his record, it is probably best he doesn't handle Tiphereth, as much as he'd like to question her further. Not that he couldn't solve the problem himself, but given that Angela wants a happy ending from the sound of things, it'd be best to let those who know the A unit better deal with her. This isn't him admitting to being useless however, he's just being smart about it. Truly, his ability to adapt and learn is terrifying sometimes...

     So with that in mind, he sets his sights on Punishing Bird. An enemy that retaliates nearly instantly to any aggression. The 'smart' thing to do would be to shoot at it from a distance and nimbly dodge out of the way. But that requires energy and effort, and why exert any of that when you don't have to?

     Kamen Rider (GOD) Genm points at the bird with a finger, designating it as his target as he begins slowly walking towards it.

     "We'll see which tires first, your lust for punishment or the power of level X... Though, I should warn you, this is an answer I already know, so the only one gambling here on the outcome is you!"

     Genm cackles at the Punishing Bird, his throat tearing itself apart to the point where his laugh turns into a cough. He only stops once he stops to wonder if this thing can even understand him...

     He concludes he doesn't care.

     Now in range, he simply swats at the bird with the back of his hand, and throws his arms wide open in embrace as he willingly awaits its counterattack.
Timespace Riders      The same vortex of fabric from before swirls into existence in the midst of the Information Department. Woz stares down the Punishing Bird--or rather, looks down his nose at it, the sleek black-and-neon-green BEYONDRIVER held in one hand. He presses it to his waist, the device fastening itself to him with a matching green band.

     A sleek, futuristic pocketwatch bears the purple-lensed helmet of a ninja-themed armored fighter. Pressing the stop causes its face to shimmer to life, with a holographic image of that same fighter displayed before it.

                                     SHINOBI!                                    

     ...cries a reedy, breathlessly excited voice. The sleek, futuristic pocketwatch in his hand slots into a hatch on the right side.



                                    Action!                                      

     Behind him, a laser grid constructs the holographic face of a smartwatch, as he closes the hatch. "Henshin." A backing track--fast-paced techno with traditional instruments like taiko and shamisen mixed in--plays.

                            Projecting! Future Time!                            

     The digital screen on his belt displays an image of his armor, moments before it is projected onto his body by the laser grid behind him.

              Dare Ja? Ore Ja! NINJA! Futurering Shinobi! SHINOBI!!              

     A sleek silver bodysuit is overlaid with lightweight armored plates in black and neon green. The cuirass and helmet together resemble the wristband and face of a smartwatch, while the pauldrons resemble square app icons. Each piece is adorned with purple shuriken, and the ensemble is tied together with an iridescent purple scarf.

     Woz breaks into a sprint, one hand held behind him, the opposite forearm held before his face as he runs along the wall of the Information Department. His motion is so fast that the untrained eye may struggle to distinguish his form amidst the silver-green-purple streak racing along the wall.

     The hand hovering near his helmet flicks forwards. A spread of explosive hardlight shuriken races through the air towards the Anomaly. No sooner are the projectiles loosed than does he spring off of the wall, twirling in a nimble moonsault over its snapping jaws. His armored fingers strike a quick handseal.

     With a puff of smoke and the archetypical deer-scare 'thonk,' Woz teleports to his original position, allowing Dan to take the brunt as he seems to intend.
Timespace Riders      "Haha. Thanks, I guess," says Sougo to Aidan. He does mean it--even if it's strained, for the circumstances, and even if tears bead up in his eyes.

     In the chamber with Tiphereth, Sougo is taken aback by the appearance of the Sweepers, nearly dropping his Ridewatch from the shock of such a grisly sight. The watch clicks, as his grip tightens. He quickly fastens a transformation belt of his own--announcing itself as the TIMESPACE DRIVER.

     When both halves of the twinned watch are inserted on either side, the chronometer on the Driver's screen displays not a year, but an omen: NEXT.

    "Henshin!"

     Tenor and the bass voices triumphantly sing, in chorus, as both sets of clocks collide to form a rapidly spinning silver-gold backdrop, shifting polychromatic armor appearing over his body:
                                  RIDER TIME!                                  
                  KAMEN RIDEEER.. (RIDER..!) ZI-O--ZI-O!! II!                    

     Black armor sports swept pink trim at the shins, hips, and gauntlets, joined by gold and silver--darkness and light--at the pauldrons and hauberk. The cuirass is overlaid by two silver watch wristbands, traveling all the way up the length of his helmet. The helmet's lenses are formed by pink katakana spelling RIDER, atop which rest two symmetrical sets of hour and minute hands--past and future.

     "This is one of those moments," says the armored fighter, procuring a pair of silver swords resembling the minute and hour hands of an analog watch. "Where we're writing a sequel, isn't it? In that case..."

     Zi-O charges into battle, both swords cutting twice--once with their sharp edges, the second time with aftershocks of polychromatic energy.

     But Hook isn't left alone--another Sougo appears, his chest heaving with exertion, his shirt stuck to it with sweat. Little cuts and bruises from battles yet to happen adorn his face, and peek from the spots the soft pastels of his stylishly oversized shirt don't conceal. "You probably know this already," says Sougo to Hook. "After all, you know a lot about treasure, don't you? But in case you didn't..." He leans close, and whispers something. The same something Woz had whispered to him.
Touta Konoe     There is a wordless affirmation about Touta's request but don't worry, he'll be too late to warn you when she arrives.

    In the time since his arrival, he's been hearing the mentions of Chevalier Vermillion, and nothing about it leaves a pleasant thought in mind. Though there's no time at all to linger on it. Not now...If he sees her, he can tell the others. But the best thing he can do in the moment, is /focus/ in the moment.

    A moment, if you please.

    That focus disrupted for but a moment as he hears the familiar voice. Turning to Tamamo he sees the seriousness in her gaze as she passes him the strip. Despite that, there's a certain level of appreciation that comes from his eyes as he ends up taking it with a nod.

     "Got it...Thank you, Miss Tamamo..."

    Control Department was nearly back at the top of the facility, quite a way to go if it was a clerk to travel that path from near Central's lower level. Though, Touta doesn't need to take the conventional methods of travel. Already near Central's upper floor he wouldn't have the chance to bid Tamamo a proper farewell as she started toward's the lower levels. Though she might see in that brief moment after she gives him that strip as black fog begins to encircle his person, the sight of him fading like dust into that black cloud...

    - - - - - - -

    Back at the Control Department, it's probably not uncommon to have the halls of the facility usually splattered in blood. Maybe with the Cognitive filters it's a bit easy to miss, but something that's easy to forget about for both the manager and Agents alike. So it's easy for him during his little 'walk' previously to end up wiping a blood stained finger on the walls. It's such a small splatter that it could barely even be considered a speck. Yet, it's from that speck would the cameras spot him from being at Central in one moment, all the way at Control in the next. A genuine looking teleport if there was one.

    Upon Ishirou's arrival, he's doing his job quite well. When it comes to handling things from a distance Ishirou knows his stuff. Touta doesn't doubt his capabilities in that matter.

    "Ishirou, just do your best to keep some space between the clerks and where I move! And keep everyone out of the fog!"

    As he gives his warning to Ishirou, as Touta double checks the hall they were in. From what he knows there aren't any Agents that should be finishing up any work in the nearby rooms that should be popping out soon and the Agents should be at enough of a distance thanks to Ishirou.

    Can I bug you for one?

    Nazrin and Minamitsu are unfamiliar faces, and when one of them asks for a spare talisman, he can't help but shake his head. "Only got the one, but it's fine. Just remember to share."

    Touta tears the strip with his teeth as he follows Tamamo's instructions. Yet, rather than waiting for its effects to take place...He continues to charge towards Scorched Girl.

    "If you're gonna hit this thing aim for what comes out of the smoke!!!"

    It's as he says this does the strip's charm start radiating out. It's protection given to the Ufo Gang, to Ishirou, to Aidan, and the clerks that are kept safe within their protection. For Touta though, he isn't graced by such light, in fact the group watches as he charges right for the Scorched Girl and as he does... black fog trails from his back out of nowhere, slowly enveloping the room and closing off visibility from both him and the Scorched girl alike. Even her match isn't enough to bring visibility to the darkness that begins to envelope them.
Touta Konoe     It's hard to tell what exactly Touta's doing within that veil of darkness, but one can make a decent assumption as the room is filled with the sound of an explosion that he's clearly followed through on using his body as a shield. and yet, while it feels like an earthquake from the force of the blast. It's impactful is nothing like it should be. One might have thought with an explosion ensuing that the black veil around the two might have spilled out into the rest of the room, but instead...As the explosion initially occurs, the Veil 'hiccups' for a moment before returning to it's place. As if the fog itself had somehow absorbed some of the impact of the explosion.

    Despite that there are lingering flames that slip through the veil, though with spheres of water launched, and wind magic used should be enough to completely snuff out any lingering flames. Otop of Tamamo's talisman, it's hard to imagine anyone will be feeling the heat except for the one who chose jump on the 'grenade'.
Lilian Rook     'I know it's not for me but that's fine. I know who it's for.'

    "Whoever it's 'for' is immaterial." says Lilian, matter-of-factly. "It's only natural that those who are capable of choosing the right side might stand to benefit as well. I don't have time in the day to wish ill on every random stranger." Lilian, of course, knows who he was. "But I consider it a matter of principle to demonstrate that standing on my side can't be the wrong choice. People don't get punished for taking it. If you have no other reason but your role to go through with all of this, you can at least cling to that one."

    Lilian is, at the very least, modestly pleased with how the Elites split up to cover threats under the Manager's instruction. She has a lot of things to say, but sticks to only the few that are productive to voice. The taste in her mouth is two parts fresh air to one part bile. "I see you've earned your position. To be honest, I suspected that Angela was handling far more, and that you existed to take the credit. But I suppose you must have retained some talent for . . ." Lilian trails off. Just a ghost of a bitter look. "You wouldn't happen to be quite tall, would you, Manager?"

    The small talk is something to fill the air as she goes. Lilian's body performs fine, and that's the best she can say about it for now. The reality is that every foot she puts in front of the other on her sprinting course around the halls is a tiny exertion of mind over matter. To present as she should, everything costs a little bit of willpower.

    It's not just the unavoidable lingering aches of deep magical healing, but the mental exhaustion of the sheer amount of stress she's been under for the last week threatening to ice out her brain, and the hidden places under her clothes that so quickly become throbbing reminders of how stupid I was to choose this instead of perfect. I cursed this pointless pain, just for being a little better than average, back then, too. Keeping her mouth running and her brain sorting tasks makes it easier to not focus on all those little agonies, lest they become overwhelming.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "The Sweepers. What are they?"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Human? Artificial? Distortions?"
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia' --Don't know. But they come out at night and kill and consume everything, alive or dead.
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "You've never established contact?"
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia hissed, as one of them stabbed through her midsection. "...All I saw of them were their corpses, with Nothing There. Rose? You're native. Know?"

    Unfortunately, it's good enough for now. Lilian has killed more visibly borderline cases for less. When the Sweepers start pouring into the facility and cluttering the halls in her way, Lilian leans into her sprint more aggressively rather than slow down. She reaches for her throat, and tears the black iron pendant aside with the signature flourish of smoking black ink. She doesn't even armour up. Agents and clerks both see her streaking past them in her day clothes, catching only a glint of celestial tattoo and a light-streak from her sword.

    "Thou shalt never heed the words of that which cannot speak. Thou shalt never heed the words of that which cannot enter thy home. Thou shalt never heed the words of that which has consumed the flesh of man." Lilian draws Winter Crow from her thigh holster. Flipping back the ventral action, she cycles the alloy within the en-bloc frame with a flick of her thumb, and snaps the weapon closed again. "Thou art responsible to thy blood first above all else, both the blood of thy line, and the blood shed for thee."
Lilian Rook     Lilian levels the gun at her dead on sprinting pace, and fires-- two dozen times into the crowd-- black-gold muzzle flash-- an aggressive strobe at them-- molten streaks punch through bodies and burst into alchemical flame-- two dozen solid gold casings clatter off the facility floor at the same time. Lilian's pounding footsteps are vanishing around the corner hairpin before they finish rolling to a stop behind her. The stink of carbon and the embers of smouldering flesh and metal are left in her wake.

    Dream of a Black Swan is the obvious choice. White Damage is something Lilian is especially suited to dealing with compared to other Agents, and it has the most potential to throw Tiphereth into an even worse spiral. That's what she's decided by the time she takes the intersection.

    The Sweepers in the next corridor detonate into hundreds of bloody chunks that splatter off the walls and thump against the ceiling. There'll be more in moments, but that's someone else's problem if she means to conserve resources. Lilian tilts her body and skids sidelong to a stop two floors above Black Swan. Checking down once, black static, crackles from her feet on the metal, and washes off from her in a collapsing wave. Her body is briefly subsumed entirely by a silhouette of shadow, with two pinpoint eyes, and she simply falls through the intervening distance.

    'While it's busy with Madeleine' is as good a time as any to fall through the ceiling on top of it. The black fog clinging to her skin(?) burns away from her just before landing, where a crisp "Cleasa!" kiai intersects with a burning line that arcs from over her head all the way to grazing the floor; a flash of sparks, spewed down the hall; before she hits the ground toes first.

    The motion of her hair behind her is all that betrays the twist of her entire body the way down. The dance-like double circle she draws with her footwork before even setting her heels down brings the greatsword-- oversized for these tight quarters-- slicing twice through the Abnormality's neck with most of the same momentum of her fall. Then, she kicks back to a set neutral distance, and reloads her handgun in the same movement.

    "There'll be more breaching soon. Don't get stuck in on just one, and don't burn all your resources straight away. You'll be buried under it all and vanish along with the dozen clerks unaccounted for by tonight."
Petra Soroka     Punishing Bird is successfully confused by Rena's trick shots, snapping at the empty air with its horrible extending teeth the size of a person. Agitated and already angry by the time Woz jumps and dodges around it, its movements are too erratic to land a solid bite on the Rider, and then either because it's furious and desperate for an easy target for its revenge, or because it takes up Genm's challenge about the power of level X, it goes in for a massive crunch around nearly his entire body. Expecting him to fold in half and be devoured, the bird stays in place long enough to be beaten into submission, vanishing back into its cell.

    Scorched Girl lunges at clerks as Ishirou yanks them away, then starts wandering directly towards *him* instead. Battered back by water and wind magic, clouds of soot pouring off of the charred girl-shape turn into practically mud, slowing her down further. When Touta's fog clears after the muffled explosion, there's nothing left of the Abnormality besides the smell of sulphur and smoke.

    Dream of a Black Swan's song is cut off by a stream of Madeleine's poison, giving the mentally stunned employees a chance to scurry away. While it's gradually pressing Madeleine back-- despite only using an umbrella as a makeshift club, the monstrous size and strength of the Abnormality makes it a colossal threat to fight one on one-- Lilian drops from the ceiling and beheads it, ending its screaming with a gurgle before it vanishes too.

"It's you all again, huh? I'm the one that made There-... Nothing There like that. When they broke so many of you."

    The Sweepers, bizarrely, don't even respond to Kukuru's callout. They babble to each other in an incomprehensible language, but don't recognize her, don't recognize anything she's saying, and don't even seem to be aware she's talking to them at all. When they're crushed between her claws, the metal armor crumples and leaks gallons and gallons of that strange red fluid, almost gore-like in viscosity, but uncomfortably absent of actual gore.

    Being unable to (understandably) speak, and (according to rumors Petra's heard and vaguely relayed) eating human flesh, the Sweepers aren't too borderline of a case for Lilian, despite being humanoid. Even more so when cutting through the tube connecting their gas masks to the tank of fluid on their back spurts out tons of it like a hose, and then slicing through their armor reveals that it's all that's inside them at all, making their armor sort of like a reinforced sac of vital juices. They're still undeniably alive-- their eyes (robotic, as learned through a few decapitations) flicker around behind their glowing visors, and conspicuously stop when the Sweeper is heavily wounded, but whatever they are, they're far from human.

    The Sweepers in Central Command congregate towards Tiphereth herself, which is convenient for the Elites that want to participate in both, and deeply inconvenient for participating in either with any degree of focus. They clamber onto the pile of Tiphereth B's bodies, shredded and leaking red fluid by Dysnomia's tendrils and punched clear off by Hibiki, but the sheer volume of them means they can't all be prevented from getting to the mound of bodies. When wounded, the Sweepers pick up one of the lifeless Tiphereths, ripping him open and then jamming their hook hands into the rotting meaty mass inside the chassis. The flesh dissolves and turns into a slurry of fluid, that gets sucked up through pinprick holes in their hooks to refill their tanks and heal them.
Petra Soroka     Worse, they can do this to any bodies-- which the clerks of Central Command are feeding them one by one. Despite the battle going on, clerks are dragging carts laden with yellow and black striped Enkephalin containers through the sea of Sweepers (though, of course, trying to avoid getting murdered and visibly, acutely aware they'll probably fail). Ordeals, when defeated, release Enkephalin, and the clerks are required to collect it even at the cost of their lives. This is, they explain if asked, normal procedure for any Ordeal. Of course, when they're killed by Sweepers, they end up dissolving and being used as fluid mass to reconstitute their bodies.

    Despite the continuing presence of the Sweepers, the breaching Abnormalities don't let up at all. Meat Lantern, a fluffy white creature with a glowing flower dangling from its head like the lure of an anglerfish, dives into the ground and vanishes from its cell. It's lurking *somewhere* in the facility-- but as an ambush predator, it's nearly impossible to locate exactly where. Some kind of Extraordinary Senses or Remote Viewing that would allow someone to detect a creature hiding imperceptibly underground will let the Elites target and destroy it from range before anyone wanders into its range and gets bitten in half.

    Warm-hearted Woodsman gets increasingly disturbed in its cell by Tiphereth's noise, and when an unnamed agent slides the door open to calm it with work, it grabs them with a huge metal gauntlet, swings open the furnace door in its chest, and crunches their body inside, transforming them into a gory, beating heart. Goodbye, Unnamed Agent! The Woodsman lurches out of its cell in Training, dragging a bloody axe behind it. As a brute of an Abnormality, Superhumanity of some considerable quantity would allow an Elite to match its blows, or any Mobility or Defense Paradigm to dodge its charging swings.

    At the same time, Scarecrow Searching for Wisdom pulls itself off of its pole in its cell *also* in Training, staggering around on its two stick legs. Any person it comes across is attacked by the metal rake and hoe that are each of its hands, and clusters of 'straw' jut out of its mouth to pierce into their faces, draining their intelligence to heal the Scarecrow. Any Anti - Regeneration would stop the Abnormality from constantly healing, Temporal Acceleration to speed up its gradual decay, or Debilitating poisons or acids that it could be tricked into absorbing instead would take it out.

    

    Petra adds, unsolicited, that being sufficiently stupid could make you immune to the Scarecrow's attacks. She does not call out anyone in particular.
Angela The Manager exhales as Ishirou admits he doesn't actually have the answer but--well--Okay. So he has to speak. He has to handle it. Every time he struggled but...

He takes a breath and he says, "Tiphereth... I know that sorries don't cut it for something like this. Saying it was an accident doesn't matter. We didn't want her to be hurt, so we thought--"

"I know the old excuses, Manager... Try something new." Tiphereth retorts.

Hook draws out a puppet. Even while a metal box with a singular eye, Tiphereth seems skeptical, and maybe a little bit offended that he's bringing out some toy (She may be a 'kid' but she also isn't in other ways).

But then the Marionette shifts, drawing out on TIphereth's memories that still feel fresh for her. The Marionette grows a tuft of brown hair, blue button eyes. It extends a plush hand to her and she takes it. A bit of moisture drops onto the marionette, those long arms holding it up as the Marionette starts to dance.

"His name was Enoch, and I looked up to him. We weren't siblings by blood. The Outskirts always form families like that because there's no other way to survive out there. Your mother, your brother, your siblings--they're just collections of people trying to survive without the so-called protection of the City."

She exhales. "One day the Sweepers attacked, killing the rest of our family but we were saved by one of L Corp's Fixers--they weren't a Wing yet, it was in the early days back when..."

"We still believed in our cause, that we could bring a brighter future to The City without paying the cost." The Manager says. "I remember thinking how bright he was, how clever. He was almost as much a prodigy as Hod was but what was really striking was how he'd..."

"How he was..."       Always
                Looking Ahead
                              To Something
          I Couldn't See

''I'd still be mad if someone okayed it, even if everyone thought it was for the best.''

"When he voluntered..."

"When she demanded it..."

"I was So angry."
Angela As the Marionette mimics walking along, Tiphereth's hand in his--The Manager is given another question. Just who or what IS in TIphereth B's shell.

"I do not remember the precise details. I am still missing memories, but ... I figure you're not far off. In a place with so much Enkephalin flowing through the pipes... Well, it's a lot of mental juice."

''Even if it can't be healed, it still has to be lived with, doesn't it?''

@emit "Too true. You can reverse time, but you can't reverse a tale." A long pause. "Even if you reverse it, the indelible print of the tale has still happened. Even if you bring back the child you killed, you still ended their life."

The Manager is quiet to Lilian's words at first but then laughs a little when she says he existed to take the credit. "Are you kidding, she's the one who taught me how to manage the facility in the first place even if she lied half the time." He takes a breath. "I'll accept that I am learning a thing or two from her. I intend to be the last Manager."

Meanwhile, Rose--well, she's not really used to fighting with a blindfold on even if acid tears are burning through it. A sweeper weapon comes for her head and she yelps as Dysnomia tugs her free. She glances to Mia and says, "Thanks, Mia." And her horrifying smile gets a little bigger! But she still backpedals to open up some space between her and the Sweepers. They just smell so bad, she thinks.

The Sweepers are approaching Tiphereth A by climbing up the pile. "A..h...." Tiphereth says, fear flickering into her singular eye. She swings an arm, attempting to bat away any Sweepers from getting close to the Marionette. "Back off...!"

Carol comes in slicing, stabbing at Sweepers in an attempt to keep them off of her Sephirah. "Hold on!"

But Tiphereth is not listening for a moment. As one of the Sweepers goes for one of the lifeless Tiphereths, she swings that arm again, trying to skewer it with her metallic arm with the core of the facility empowering her swing though it's hardly a trained warrior striking. "GET OFF OF HIM."
Ishirou When Scorched Girl turns on him instead, he keeps walking backward, trying to avoid getting into her range, and end up something burnt and horrible.  He hopes his words got through to the Manager, he thinks, facing down something that might be near certain death for him.  That's right before Touta jumps in, with the mist and his own body.

He gives the order to not enter the mist, and he acknowledges it.  He's also about to get ambushed by a Sweeper, before Aidan's wall blasts the thing away and into a nearby wall of its own.  He looks up, smiling and thanking Aidan for the assistance.  Of course, during a meltdown the fun never stops, because now he's getting warnings of more breaching abnormalities.  

Coordinating with Rena, he's using his scanners to try and triangulate the location of Meat Lantern.  His scanners are impressive, but having another person help triangulate will make this job a breeze.  The moment he gets something, he focuses sensors on it to confirm, and then...

"Touta confirmed its location, it's..." he says, giving the location of Meat Lantern, and heading over close by, but not in its zone to wait for Touta to trigger it, and provide any fire support he can through the use of ranged shots from POD.  He also coordinates this with Rena, making sure they're not shooting Touta, or each other, across the abnormality.
Captain Hook      Playing pretend is something that adults lose, after a while, or at least, people who fancy themselves adults. The sheer, simple joy of losing yourself in playtime. It becomes an escape from mundanity rather than a place where miracles happen, a refuge instead of a wonder. For some it's even a chore. But it's not something serious. It's not something miraculous. Not to most.

     It is for William Hook.

     Proper playtime is commitment. It's making the miracles of imagination happen, even for an instant, so that children can believe in something that isn't really there. It's the little joys that build the foundations.

     Hook's concentration is almost papable. As Hibiki punches a Sweeper past him, he doesn't even blink. As Mia starts wielding the air around her to shield him, he can't even glance at it out of the corner of his eye. He can't take in the wild wonder of a minotaur striding confidently through the field, pushing Sweepers back with all her might. Operating this puppet, this toy, is everything. You have to believe, immerse yourself completely, *want* it. It gets harder as you get more cynical. Older, in spirit or in heart. Tired by the passage of time.

     And the most critical part of it is listening. It's bridging hearts. It's when children stop listening to each other that the miracle breaks down into fighting about who missed who with the wooden sword or who's invincible in a fight, and all the heart falls out, and the wonder disappears.

     Despite his silent concentration, Hook listens to Sougo, inclining his head just enough to acknowledge that he's there, that he hears. And his smile widens just a bit. Yes, he knew, Sougo. Don't worry. She's in fine hands. That warm smile says only two words.

     Trust me.
Captain Hook      The Sweepers start jamming themselves into the rotting mass of corpses, but now, Hook's taking control. The puppet, with enormous dignity, plants a tiny wooden crown upon its head, and the world shimmers. All Hook needs is a chance.

     Make him a chance, Hibiki. Mia. Sougo. Torrie. Give him a gap.

     Tiphereth's beginning to believe. She's beginning to accept. The puppet, slowly, with its tiny wooden crown, hand in Tiphereth's hand, is starting to take shape. Starting to take the shape of Enoch. It's not *really* Enoch, of course, but that's the miracle of pretend. That's the magic of the King of Pretend.

     As Tiphereth stabs down upon the creature, flowers explode out around them. They sweep outwards, pushing backwards, pushing away, the angry creatures, the hateful Sweepers, the ugly reality intruding on playtime. The King of Pretend wills it so with a sweep of its little wooden hand, which now looks an awful lot like Enoch.

     Hook's smile is distant as the flowers bloom, as the sunlight appears, as miracles are breathed into life. He's still sitting on the box, playing with the marionette's strings, and the King of Pretend, its little wooden hand, takes Tiphereth's spike in the other one. Gently, it pushes the Sweeper corpse off, and gives a small but insistent tug as it looks up at her.

     "Dummy."

     The little wooden Enoch in its little wooden crown tightens its little wooden grip in hers. It smiles, along with Hook, as Hook mouths the words. He's not speaking - the puppet is speaking. He's just the conduit for the King of Pretend. "You know why I volunteered, right? I mean...I know you do. You're mad at me *because* you know why."

     "So yell at me, OK? Be mad at me. I want you to be mad at me so you can smile again."

     "So you can be strong and keep smiling no matter what."

     "So I can take a break and watch how amazing you are."

     The little puppet Enoch tightens its fingers around hers, and they're warm, and soft, and flesh, as the flowers burst into bloom and the sky shines down and the light pushes away the creatures that would break into this holy bubble with help from the rest of Hook's companions.

     "Just this once, be mad at me and say everything you want to say, OK? Don't hold anything back."
Aidan Proudpick Aidan huffs, dragging in what breath he can. He pumps his arms, hobbling on the leg. Walls behind him dissipate into drifts of wind. Too slow. Another ragged breath and Aidan sticks his arm in front of him.

A single breath from Aidan's lungs rolls the shield, unraveling from a buckler into a tremendous shield. The lion's head ROARS! Kinetic energy flares from the eyes and maw, streaming out down along the shield. The shield looks forward, and simply pushes everything else to the side. Aidan does not FLY. The shield simply flies and Aidan clings on for dear life.

Each turn is a mighty flex of his middle, putting his good foot on the wall, and holding the shield in a new direction. Several rough Ninety degree turns later, Aidan arrives in Training. The mechnical behemoth looms ahead, blood leaking onto the floor.

"HEY!" Aidan shouts as he brings the shield down, landing roughly. "Over here! Hey!" He waves his hands up over his head to draw the attention of the Woodsman and any of the nearby sweepers. Red of all sorts turns in the direction of the squirrel, turning the red into a sickly black. Aidan promptly grabs his armor's codpiece in a crude taunt, "Come and get me!"

Please blessed winds let everyone be coming.

Breathe. Breathe. You can do this.

The axe lifts slowly into the air above the woodsman, a guillotine to end Aidan's life. Sweepers charge forward.

ROAR!

The red light of Aegis adds to the tableau. The wall of energy bowls over Sweepers, pushing them just far enough away from the bearer. The axe swings down, striking the shield head on. It finds no purchase, immediately sliding off to one side and CRASHING into the floor. Aidan crashes into the steel monolith shortly after.

"Someone get it!!"
Rena Rena is very glad to have Woz and Genm (she won't call him God Genm, even mentally) up in front. Shooting around them isn't any harder than making these trick shots in the first place, but having them in between her and the Punishing Bird means she can make more of them faster, even drawing her second gun and using both hands with only one stop to reload.

Once the Punishing Bird is beaten into submission, Rena lets out a long, shaky breath. "Never seen a bird do THAT one before," she admits, while she takes a moment to reload. She's not hurt; the other two are, but one's practically invincible as best she can tell, and even the other is tougher than she is. "You guys okay?" she asks anyway, while recieving further updates.

Of all the things Rena expected to need today, the ground-penetrating scanner was not one of them. But on hearing about Meat Lantern, it's actually right up its alley. "Ishirou," she says, into the little radio clipped on her collar. "I'm going to use the ground-penetrating scanner while I'm walking. You can use it to triangulate off your bigger scanner, right?"

Ishirou has much more wide-use scanners than Rena does - hers doesn't do *anything* but detect things behind solid objects. It looks like nothing but a small disc, which she unfolds a grip from - when opened it looks like a metal detector, though it can detect far more than metal, picking up discontinuities in solid objects. Gaps, or different material than the rest of what surrounds it.

Rena begins to ping it as she walks (quickly, given the urgency), every three paces or so, with an audible ringing noise as it probes. Normally she uses it to find junk or salvage to dig up in the desert; she's found everything from pre-Destruction coins to a digging sand shark to an entire goddamn armoured car that way. But today she's using it to hunt for Meat Lantern.

And if they find it, and can drive it out, well, that's what she's got the guns for, along with Touta. She's swapped out one of her revolvers for something that looks like a flare gun, but actually fires a shell that coats what it hits with quick-drying cement, slowing down her targets - and, hopefully, making it harder for it to dive. Her plan is to fire it, drop it, quickdraw the revolver and start shooting.
Dysnomia <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Changing tactics. If the sweepers insist ons warming Tiphereth, I'll make the trip kill them...!"
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook, with a tone of absolute focus, says, "Just push them back and they won't matter anymore." His voice is hushed, quiet, and strained.
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "...Copy."

    As the things chattered between each other in that incomprehensible tongue of theirs, Dysnomia got an idea. "Let me make this simple for you, Sweepers of the city." She said, and though she spoke aloud, her words likewise rippled across minds. Perhaps even theirs? "To stay is death."

    One of the sweepers struck Dysnomia, and she let it. But it found no fluids, no gore, no flesh to drink. She crushed its weapon with her hand, and drove one hand through its midsection.

    It was only one sweeper among a horde. One trooper...No. No. It was a, promise. A warning. An example. It was each of them. If they kept fighting.

    Those smears of color reared all around Mia, around Tipereth, around Hook and the King of Pretend. Fire enough to boil them away, without flesh to drink, without unflagging and constantly restoring itself.

    "You will lose more than you could ever drink."

    The final barrier Dysnomia erects between the Tipereths and the Sweepers isn't one of violence, but of terror. Just a moment. Just to hold for a MOMENT, until Hook could--
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "There'll be more breaching soon. Don't get stuck in on just one, and don't burn all your resources straight away. You'll be buried under it all and vanish along with the dozen clerks unaccounted for by tonight."

    Madeleine nods once at Lilian's instruction. "Understood." She gives a little two-finger salute and hurries toward the Woodsman's breached cell. En route she makes short work of a Sweeper squad or two, puncturing their suits and slamming them against the wall to force out all their... innards. The huntress curls her lip in disgust as she gets a little on her. That'd better not stain too badly.

    As she arrives at Training, she hears the crashing of metal on metal as Aidan collides with the iron colossus. Instead of a direct assault, she takes stock of the situation and takes in a deep breath of her own. As she exhales, a cold mist fills the room, quickly settling to the floor in a clinging sheet of ice. Aidan slams shield-first into the Woodsman again, the giant totters off-balance, a foot slips out from under it, and it crashes to the floor. Not a moment later, Madeleine is crashing down on it, driving her spear into the gaps in its armor and spreading thick ice from the tip of her spear to lock the heavy metal plates in a single shape.
Kukuru They should be mad at her. Everything she said was true, after all, and they should be furious. They don't respond, though, and they barely seem to even register her presence beyond being another body in their way. It's almost frustrating at first, but Kukuru recovers quickly enough, realizing that it's one less problem for her and one more problem for everyone else. That means...

She can focus on making it less of a problem for everyone else! The spray of juice when she crushes a Sweeper barely even makes her flinch, and she's already starting to go to town smashing them to thin out their numbers. She slams her claws together with them in between, she leaps at them to slam them into the ground, and she even starts trying to swing some of them around at their brethren to see if that might be a more efficient way of dispatching several at a time.

If not for how much they're trying to get to the Tiphereths and how much they're sucking up the clerks' general mass, she'd be taking her time with this. Alas, there's no time to relax, and Kukuru's already feeling herself slowing down trying to move like she's at full strength. She's already panting heavily after swinging a second Sweeper around, and it doesn't look like there's any end in sight to the cycle of draining and attacking while Tiphereth and the Manager reveal more of where all this pain is coming from.

"We weren't siblings by blood. The Outskirts always form families like that because there's no other way to survive out there."
"When he volunteered..." "I was So angry."

"Yeah... I'd be angry, too, if I had someone close to me do that."

Kukuru knows she won't be of much help with her stamina this messed up. Although her nanites are all at normal volumes, her body doesn't have nearly the amount of stamina she had before the fight with the Queen, and she's already feeling it now.

"Not just whoever did it, but at... At everyone. Everything. At things being so bad he'd even have to think about that, at everyone else for letting it happen. And..." She's feeling herself tearing up, just thinking about the possibility of her parents doing the same. "E-even at him, for leaving me alone."

What Kukuru can do, however, is make sure somebody more capable and raring to go gets a leg up. She sees Carol fighting so hard to defend Tiphereth, and she teleports beside her before holding her claw out.

"Carol! Take this... And we'll keep them away from Tiphereth." The nanite cloud coming out of Kukuru turns an eye-searing cyan as she pours a boatload of them right into Carol, granting her not only enhanced physical regeneration, but also the power of enlargement! Kukuru's careful not to give her too much considering the height limitation in Central Command, but it should certainly help with dispatching more of those Sweepers at once.

And then Kukuru gets back to swinging. She should be more careful about not taking unnecessary wounds after spending so much of that power on Carol, but she doesn't. As unsteady as she is, Kukuru still throws herself right back into the mass of Sweepers, swinging those mighty claws and tiny arms at them on one side while biting and tearing at them on the other.
UFO Gang "No problem," Minamitsu says to the need to share the talisman. "We're kind of surprise guests!"

"I don't think this is a party," Nazrin says. Her dowsing rods point off and towards the left, trending downwards at about 42 degrees. She packs them up and -- writes something down.

"... Huh... it's gone? Some kinda fairy or something?" Minamitsu says, as the Scorched Girl deliquesces.

THAT ISN'T THE END OF IT ALL!

The Sweepers come. It is a sea of the dead and the horribly un-dead, bleeding strange gorelike fluid that happens to be sanitized of liquid perils like some sort of crimson tide. Minamitsu grimaces as the scope of this becomes clear - and cringes just a little as a Clerk becomes messily 'incompatible with life' in the edge of her vision! Some red fluid gets on her hat.

She takes it off for a moment to wash it off with the bottomless ladle. After tugging it back into place, she asks the others, "Is this place Hell?" She says it quite conversationally, the same way you might complain of the subway train being five minutes delayed.

Minamitsu takes a step up into the air, and shifts her posture in a subtle way that may make it clear that she's actually airborne: the ladle comes up again in a sweep, tossing a... surprising amount of water into the air, where it tumbles forwards.

"Shoo! Stop it, you gross things!" she shouts at the Seekers, as the tumbling blobs of water slow -- shift with momentary purpose -- and then dive down, each of them constituting perhaps a gallon of water suddenly moving at sixty or so miles per hour!

Others are suffering. It's pretty clear. Minamitsu can see it with Kukuru even if she has little clear comprehension of what it *is*. Tiphereth is mourning; an acute pain. It makes the sea-captain frown, although this doesn't stop another wave of those water-bullets from going out.
Lilian Rook     True to Lilian's word, the next round is here already. The tide of Abnormalities in this facility isn't inexhaustible. She'd certainly not like to try fighting them all in her current state, but staggering them out, with this many ablative bodies-- perhaps. But it's loud, chaotic, gorey, psychically oppressive; an exhausting assault on her animal instincts and what nascent parts of her brain have learned to process empathy; and all the best thing she can do for the moment is trust in a man who used to be Ayin and keep her eyes out for Meika. Above everything else, she can't lose her in all of this.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'm getting the data now. Stay clear of the Scarecrow. I can't have you making it any worse."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Right!"
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "...Copy."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "One or two personnel should rendezvous with the Captain and support the defensive. We can't have that critical point being overwhelmed, but we can let Abnormality Suppression push our limits a little more."
<J-IC-Scene> Sougo Tokiwa says, "I'm already there. Woz, help with the Woodsman, please."
<J-IC-Scene> Woz says, "At once, sire."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Someone accompany Ishirou to Meat Lantern to actually terminate it."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Touta is doing that."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Touta is doing that."
<J-IC-Scene> Rena says, "Me, too."
<J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "You got it? Okaaay... I'll... I'll focus on the Sweepers around Tiphy."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Good. Reprioritize to Sweepers when it's done."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Right and Rena!"

    She's been thinking a lot about it lately. Since returning to that place to bring Meika to Onyx Witch. Since the battle with the Queen. Since the negotiations before even that. Lilian quietly reflects on the thought of tomorrow, as she relocates again.
    Two corners, a pack of Sweepers dealt with in a flurry of blows, taken slower to catch her breath, with a few strained parries in the middle.
    The twenty four hours that consider themselves unassailably fair.
    Phase a floor. Blow the top halves off a pack chasing a gaggle of Clerks from behind, then through one wall to shake pursuit before the gold casings even land. One straightaway and the elevator.
    How perfect today, or seizing a desperate victory at the limit of your endurance, isn't enough.
    Ignore the buttons, kick the emergency access, scale the shaft with leaping grace, phase the doors, join two Agents in combat, butcher the enemy in a pincer with rings of solar fire, skid around another intersection and charge straight ahead.
    There are some fights you can't lose, but what matters in the end is that your boots have to hit the ground tomorrow, and you have to be able to do it all over again.
    Scarecrow. Needles reaching out for a clerk. Lilian blinks the intervening distance and severs the extruding straw tendril with her sword arm out like a conductor's baton. Amber sparks dribble down the wall where the tip of her blade caught it. She spins and snap fires one-handed into the main body, still on incendiary Mars rounds, aiming to set light to the straw. The action breaks and vents waste aether. She lobs the weapon upwards.
    No matter what you want each day has to end with you in condition to do it again. Give up or toughen up; either is fine as long as you can endure it. Until the tomorrow where you finally . . .
Lilian Rook     The swinging rakes are caught deliberately on the upturned flat of Night Mist's blade sheltering over Lilian's head. Her eyes glint in the shadow of the sword, but she isn't searching the Scarecrow's face for anything. A fraction of her breath slips by her bruised diaphragm. She exaggerates and lowers her stance, letting the Abnormality's strength drive her down, and then sharply pulls into the crook of both farming tools; that right angle is something no real weapon would feature, and she knows to exploit it to control both its rakes at once.

    Leveraging its arms down, Lilian lunges to stomp on their backs to pin them to the floor, then plunges her sword into its bloodied body. The air cracks with a radiating black-gold distortion, and the view of the Scarecrow disjoints and slides apart geometrically. Time compresses four, eight, twelvefold and growing, so that the fire and rot can consume it.

    Lilian catches Winter Crow as it falls, and reloads it a second time from the thigh holster. A moment to catch her breath.

    "Tiphireth." Lilian says, craning her neck to find a speaker. She said she'd leave it to the Manager, but only as much as she needed to. She takes a deep breath, as if bracing for an excoriating torrent of 'grow the fuck up'.

    "You've really been through a lot. Haven't you." says Lilian.

    "I'm sorry. I can't tell you to just move past that. I'm too angry. Mostly with you, and not at you. You had nothing, were promised everything, and then somehow had even more taken away. And this is your reward for all of it." She briefly has to speak over the click of the weapon action, but her tone is anything but half-focused. "It's fucking bullshit. Don't go and bother looking for meaning in it. Someone identical to you but luckier would have lived a good life, and deserved all of the happiness they got. So don't feel so pathetic. You can hate Carmen if you want; she can take it, I'm certain. But don't feel as if you can't do anything without him."

    "Because you're not the only one with a sad, bullshit story here. It shouldn't have happened to you, and things shouldn't have happened to us, too. It's not as if you can just compare lives like this. It's not easy it's not free to decide who deserves what. But I still can't let this slide without saying just one thing." says Lilian. Her tone then changes in a heartbeat.

    "Aren't you at least a little embarrassed about how shamelessly greedy you're being? Your loving, protective, glowing prodigy of a brother, who always looked out for you and sacrificed himself for the greater good, and how much light you had in your life before it all went wrong for everyone . . ." Loaded. Sword cleaned with an errant flick and splatter. "Are you trying to hurt me on purpose? I'm happy for you that you had something so wonderful and all, but 'deserving better' isn't the same as getting whatever you want. I wouldn't be caught dead backhanded bragging like that."

    "You're demanding to have something forever that some people don't get in their entire lives. Lose something for once in your life and accept all the good things people are trying to give you instead. You can rage and cry about it, fine; they deserve it; but you know, I'm kind of pissed off about you slapping kindness out of people's hands because you want it all better than me."
Timespace Riders <J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook, with a tone of absolute focus, says, "Just push them back and they won't matter anymore." His voice is hushed, quiet, and strained.
<J-IC-Scene> Captain Hook, his tone very distant, says, "I'm bringing a safe place here, and as long as they aren't in it, they won't matter any further."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "One or two personnel should rendezvous with the Captain and support the defensive. We can't have that critical point being overwhelmed, but we can let Abnormality Suppression push our limits a little more."
<J-IC-Scene> Sougo Tokiwa says, "I'm already there. Woz, help with the Woodsman, please."
<J-IC-Scene> Woz says, "At once, sire."

GET OFF OF HIM.

    "LISTEN!" Zi-O's helmet bobs vehemently. "Just enjoy playing for right now... okay? There's nothing they can do to him. Nothing that can reach the him inside of you!"

    Giving Hook space is a trial of endurance--for every Sweeper his blades cut down, another, two more, reconstitute, their chittering un-language and grotesque mechanical eyes seeming to wear him down just as much as their attacks. For every blow he deflects, two strike his armor, sending up sprays of sparks.

    Zi-O is nothing, if not determined. Someone like Haru might even say it's to his detriment. Still.. he procures a different Ridewatch--this one bearing the red-blue visage of a two-toned fighter; one hand on the watch resembles the ear of a rabbit, the other looks like the barrel of a tank.

    The pink-silver half of the twinned Ridewatch in his belt is removed, replaced with the red-blue-faced Ridewatch. The LCD chronometer on the Timespace Driver reads AU25. The frantic ticking of a clock is heard, before Zi-O spins the Driver.

                                  ARMOR TIME!                                  

    A disembodied suit of armor, split red and blue down the middle. Pauldrons resemble chemical storage canisters, while the mirrored pairs of clock hands now resemble two tank's cannons and two rabbit's ears.

    The disembodied armor mimics Zi-o's motions, before breaking apart in pieces to snap into place over him.

                          o/` BUILD-O! o/` Best Match!                          

    "The laws of victory have been set!" Even in crisis, he gets other Riders' catchphrases wrong.

     The twinned swords have been replaced by a black-yellow caution-striped drill and a blue handcannon. The drillsword spins up rapidly, as Zi-O impales it through a row of Sweepers attempting to get in. As it whirs, he feathers the trigger on the bulky blue handcannon, attempting to simply blast them apart with fist-sized bursts of burning white energy while they're thusly impaled.

     Sweeping the drill in a powerful arc, he makes a warding strike before taking a blow to the chest intentionally. His helmet cracks against the offending Sweeper's, his empowered strength more than a match for the monster's, before his right knee rockets upwards to generate more space with a launching strike.
Timespace Riders      Woz, meanwhile, appears in the Training Department, in much better shape than Zi-O thanks to Dan taking on the lion's share of the Punishing Bird's wrath. His iridescent purple scarf thins out once more to deposit him firmly in the Woodsman's path. "Calm yourself, beast--before you regret lifting that axe against me."

                             Projecting! Future Time!                            

     His hand is a blur as he swaps out one Miridewatch for another; this one announces itself as KIKAI!

     A heavy metal backing track plays as a holographic assembly line swaps out pieces of Woz's armor. The ninja motif is gone, replaced, via spot welds and ratchets, with a heavy-duty industrial look. Gold circuit paths lead to crossed golden wrenches on the pauldrons, faceplate and breastplate. The scarf is gone--but as Woz takes a step forward, four golden manipulator arms sprout from his back with a mechanical whine, just as Aidan blocks the initial overhead from the Anomaly.

     Striding towards the Woodsman with his human arms held out to the side, palms up in an open gesture of challenge, he sends all four mechanical arms rocketing towards the Woodsman, once Madeline falls upon it.

     Thickly made grasping claws snatch at the Anomaly's limbs, attempting to meet brute strength with brute strength.

     The Anomaly is hurled bodily into the nearest wall--a 'warning,' for as much as Woz is able to be gentle or patient. "Get back in your cell and keep to your own affairs--or I shall -give- you something to be upset about."
Dysnomia     --And she understands why Hook wanted this moment. This precious, fragile, unbreakable little moment.

    She too found herself wound up buying into the story of the King of Pretend. There was no sunlight, but Mia could feel the sun on her back. The wooden marrionete was just a puppet. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter what is was. It didn't matter what she BELIEVED it was.

    For just this beautiful, precious instant, wanting made it realer than real. A fire that no one noticed was nothing. It was just a chemical reaction, lifeless, purposeless matter. It didn't MEAN anything. She felt Hook's earnestness. She felt Tipereth's belief, and she couldn't help but believe too.

    "You won't take this moment from them!" She roared, forgetting herself as she brings her power to bear. "If you don't let them, there will be nothing left of you but ash!"
Hibiki Tachibana     It's not possible to save every single person. Hibiki knew that from the first Meltdown - and that thought is still fresh in her mind from what they went through in Rita's world, too. Experience and foresight doesn't dull blow after blow, when her two hands are only just enough to protect Captain Hook adequately, the sheer amount of Ordeal-induced Sweepers swarming the pile, let alone clerks rushing into certain death. The fact their demise is only fueling the Sweepers further isn't what gets her at all.

    'She lets Agents die she could save for energy gen--' 'The work must be finished--' They're fine excuses for doing needs to be done. But--

    "--Collect that stuff AFTER the place is clear, damnit!" Even if it's not reasonable, she's still getting wholly pissed off about it; an especially unfortunate Sweeper who was about to try and drink from the deceased shells of Tiphereth B is wrenched away by the arm forcefully enough that it nearly rips off, then gets used as an (in)human projectile flung down the length of Central to topple others out of the way of an errant clerk.

    "And you...!" Another one attempting to climb the mound receives a snap-kick to send it careening into the far wall. A third, a torso-caving palm strike meant to send it flying back and well clear of the area around the Sephirah and Hook. A fourth, a knee strike to send it a good ten meters in the air and falling back down anywhere that's not here. "Those aren't-- yours! And this isn't your moment to screw up!"

    So Tiphereth doesn't have to struggle to do it herself, and so agents like Rose and Carol don't get overwhelmed in this mess, and so Hook can get that insular moment he needs-- she'll batter as many of these things out of the way as she can reach, even when it means emotion has to dull the aching in her still-healing body, or errant hooks rip fresh gashes in.

    When she primes her gauntlet's bunker and slams her fist into an approaching Sweeper's gut, the split-second delayed impact that comes after sends it and a dozen more behind it scattering through open air.
Kuroto Dan      Fool that the Punishing Bird is, in that while it's attack did technically kill Genm, it also didn't. Had it the brain to look at the HP read out on his chest, it would have already seen that his health was at 0. And since you can't do damage to something that has no health, it means that he actually didn't take damage.

     The ragged remains of the kamen Rider are pulled up by a dark miasma, his mangled body twisting back into shape with twists and pops. With one last crack of his neck, Genm shrugs off the attack like it never happened and simply walks away.

     "I've changed my mind already. I'm heading to Tiphereth."

     Did he ever say he wasn't? Or did he just think that? Didn't he decide that he was going to leave that to everyone else? Genm forgets, and he doesn't care. It's not like the only problem there isn't dealing with a child's needs anyway. Still, he can't leave the lesser beings alone without his blessing, but that's simple enough for him to solve.

With each step he takes, the same black miasma that reanimated him is left behind, which soon reforms into its own copy of Genm. Sadly, they aren't nearly as coherent as the real one, as they immediately begin to shamble around like zombies, but they seem to be smart enough to achieve some sort of goal, as they immediately begin to shuffle towards the Woodsman.

     They attack much like the brainless creatures they seem to be, especially since they weren't given any clear directions, latching onto the abnormality and attempting to overpower it through their sheer strength.

     The real Genm, meanwhile, has decided that walking to where Tiphereth is way too much effort, and instead pulls out a gashat, pressing a button that causes it to announce the words Shakariki Sports!.

     The next thing that happens is Kamen Rider Genm barrels through a load of sweepers on a green and pink BMX, a bunch of HIT! effects popping up each time he does.

     He doesn't say anything, even as he stops. He seems completely focused on dealing with the current problem, and to do so on his bike requires concentration. Leaning forward, he balances the bicycle on its front tire, before swinging the body of it around and hoping each time to allow it to spin a full 360 degrees as he directs himself into the same crow yet again.
Tamamo     Upon hearing Lilian's call for a defense of the location to which she's already traveling, Tamamo calls out, "Captain, I shall assist you in setting a safe boundary."

    This is, however, different than the time fighting the sea queen. Clerks rushing about to perform their suicidal tasks are right in front of her. Though she looks recovered from that fight, that's only thanks to her healing craft. Valuable supplies have yet to be replenished, and were used even more to help up those who suffered from the battle. She bears the particular advantage of not easily, outwardly revealing how drained her combat prowess becomes, but that isn't especially helpful against the Sweepers.

    She can't really think of them as expendable while they work so hard, even when their work is for something she sees as fruitless. That only heightens the tragedy when a clerk is drained directly in her path. Tamamo takes a higher step, places her geta on the Sweeper's face, and pushes down with the force of malediction, the strip of paper snuck to her target's back producing a rapid withering of spirit disguised as physical impact.

    The clerk is already dead. Mere healing craft won't help those with their organs all destroyed in an instant, even at her level. Releasing a sound of frustration, Tamamo hurries onward, not looking to either side, but tossing a handful of valuable blessings of fortune at those she passes. They'll luckily escape from danger, for a time, should such a thing have even the smallest possibility of occurring.

    Central doesn't look good, but it's getting better, thanks to Hook. It's neither a blessing, nor a curse, but a boundary that Tamamo begins setting, well outside the domain of the King of Pretend. Seven points are defined in a precisely incomplete shape, papers flying out and crumpling and pressing themselves to ground. The eighth and final point, that which perfects its simple geometry, is saved for a moment.

    The slurry-like not-blood of a Sweeper, taken on small cloth, is smeared over one side of the paper. With her other hand, a freshly bloomed flower is pressed to the opposite side. The boundary is defined such that each exists within one side of its space. The extent of space, itself, is not so limited. Rather, the important point is that the two cannot meet.

    It's not quite reached the level of a full impossibility, with only that. Strengthening the boundary could cause such an effect, but for now, it's enough for it to be a strong compulsion, that it gives a sense of 'no matter what, I cannot go there.'

    This leaves a contradiction in those Sweepers that are already present. Tossing aside the soiled cloth, Tamamo frowns at one such, scatters a handful of white powder -- or, no, that's definitely salt -- and speaks, "Begone."

    She can't recognize them as human, and they may not be spirits, but she can declare them to be outsiders, and thereby force them away. That they are living, thinking beings makes it possible.
Touta Konoe     When the fog clears Touta comes out from the fog seemingly unscathed. The only 'damage' that seems present in the moment seems like the soot that he's dusting off his jacket. Though, it should be apparent enough from the burn marks that cover the walls and floor beneath his feet. Everyone who helped to finish off Scorched Girl gets a brief smile and nod. Ishirou, Aidan, Nazrin and Minamitsu. For an impromptu group, it was a good collaboration and he wants them to know it.

    "Miss Tamamo, your charm came in handy, we've cleared out over here, no one was taken from Scorched."

     Even Tamamo doesn't get denied the appropriate level of appreciation for her contributions, even if she's not there with them. Speaking of not there though, "Fairy might be a nice way of putting it..."

    While he wouldn't have minded trying to explain what an Abnormality, there's just so little time, and it only gets further emphasized when the next Abnormalities end up making their way from their containment areas.

    Ishirou already seems to be scanning for Meat Lantern, and Touta already makes it a point to join him. But before he does he looks back to the others of the Scorched crew, "You guys be careful still!"

    It's as much of a goodbye as it is a reminder to them as the group parts ways.

    Meat Lantern Containment Team: :Ishirou, Rena, Touta

    Ishirou's ability to scan is something that's tried and true. Even if the range was daunting it was assuredly something that wouldn't have trouble. And even more than that Rena's found herself in a position to act in the scouting team as well.

    "You two keep your eyes open too just in case..."

    He knows they are working diligently, and a part of him wants to jump ahead but, he's seen a bit of Ishirou's condition already and Rena likely could have been in a tough spot if she was caught off guard while scanning. So as they scan extensively, he keeps on guard for their sakes too, so they can give their best.

    Touta confirmed its location, it's...

    Ishirou ends up the first to spot Meat Lantern below and Touta pounces at the opportunity like he's the predator preparing for an ambush. "Both of you get ready, and watch out for debris!"

TTouta warns the two as he's brought into position. Currently, Meat Lantern was still hiding below, and while attempting to spring it into action using himself as bait might have been viable, there was another way to go about it. Touta bites into his thumb for a moment, crimson liquid dabbling lightly out as if it was just a small prickle. He looks over the tiles of the floor and finds the nearest crevice between them as he brings his thumb to it.

    That blood begins seeping through the crack. At first it's just that little drop. But as it sinks into the ground below, that blood is actually turning from a drop into a full on stream. "Tch...Not there yet..." He continues to follow the words of Ishirou and Rena to guide that flow, not aiming to reach Meat Lantern itself, but the depths even further beneath it. Letting what was just a drop of blood begin to amalgamate into deep reserves of a black mud below the surface. Continuing to let it form and build, just praying that he's able to jump the Abnormality before it attempts to jump him.
Touta Konoe      "Both of you get ready....Right.../NOW/!!!"

    Touta makes the call and when he does, what would transpire is another near earthquake like sensation. Clearly he was doing something this time below the surface...Though this wasn't another explosion, at least not one built up from heat, but from the accumulation of built up water pressure. A geyser black mud would launch out from the tiles beneath intending to launch Meat Lantern from out of hiding as it was left suspended in mid-air from the launch.

    As the two are given the que to fire everything they got at this thing, just as they make sure not to let him get caught in the crossfire, he's also timing his own strike for the moment that the two need to reload.

    Touta's feet kick off the ground, pushing him forward into a dash that brings his body into a blur as he charges the Abnormality. There was no time to allow it a chance to escape in the time between the halted shots of PODS and revolver, they can't let it escape so...

    Even if by some way it had attempted to disappear again, a hand reaches for that lantern by the hair. A hold upon the Abnormality with a death grip, pulling it forward into Touta's reach as his blade is plunged into it, a full impaling of the Abnormality, digging into it's form just as it had been digging into the depths of the facility.
Tamamo     'How do I heal it when it shouldn't be healed?'

    "Mr. Manager," Tamamo says, in the middle of blessing a clerk to become one of the lucky survivors, "there are no wounds that 'should not be healed.' Whether they are your own or another's. Do not let guilt justify its continuance. Wounds that do not heal can only bleed and fester. Instead, let all be mended. If weakness or ignorance prevents your action, allow yourself to feel shame for your duties unfulfilled, and then, continue to move."

    While collecting blood and flowers for her sympathetic boundary, she continues, "I have told you my thoughts on this situation, on giving to Ms. Tiphereth that for which she asked, yet could not be truly granted. Is it not merely a broken promise? If you could not give her back her brother, then this is only a pretense -- in which she shares some guilt, but for you, should you not have begun to think on a permanent solution? Can you abide the foolishness of repeating what you know is fruitless, only because it was asked? Perhaps I am expecting something beyond your ability. Realize, however, that I am not asking anything beyond your duties. If this facility is your responsibility, then so is the well-being of its prisoners."

    She doesn't call them employees.

    While enforcing the distinction of the inside and outside of a territory in which the King of Pretend holds sway over one, and the Sweepers are permitted only to exist outside it, Tamamo listens to Lilian speak. She shifts her focus from the Manager to Tiphereth A.

    '"Deserving better" isn't the same as getting whatever you want.'

    "They failed you, Ms. Tiphereth, and they failed him, but this and that are different things." She steps atop one of the empty husks of Tiphereth B. "How high would you have your mountain become? Promising you things they could not give you, because you asked -- a brother who could not be returned to you, because you wished for him -- you know this by now, do you not? These memories of him, they remain with you. The impression he made upon you, the feelings he left you -- open your eye to what was truly precious. That love belongs to you, no matter how bitter its sweetness. Let yourself feel the joy of that, and let yourself cry for what was lost, knowing that all tears will dry."
Petra Soroka     With guidance from Ishirou, Rena's probing around the facility eventually leads her to the exact edge of Meat Lantern's range, which very luckily coincides exactly with her probe's range. Ishirou is able to inform her, once its location is triangulated between them, that one more step forwards would've gotten her devoured. Carefully stepping around its sensory range, with Ishirou able to alert and direct the other employees at the facility to avoid this particular hallway, the two of them and Touta have time to set up their pincer attack on Meat Lantern and send it back to its cell before it can burrow again.

    The Warm-Hearted Woodsman is seemingly ambivalent to Aidan's taunt; apparently, it's solely focused on a different part of the body. When reaching for a clerk that tripped over his own feet to fall down right in front of it, a Genm clone bodyslams the gauntlet away, sacrificing itself (through sheer coincidence) in one of the most heroic acts of the night. The Woodsman, distracted by cramming a Genm clone into its chest, gets knocked over and executed by Aidan, Madeleine, and Woz, returning to its cell by force rather than by threat.

    The Scarecrow Searching for Wisdom might be one of the most pathetic Abnormalities in the entire facility to look at. With its head empty and caved in, eyes hollow, mouth vacantly grinning with transparently evil needles of straw spearing out, it's plainly cathartic to kick it over and pin it to the ground with Night Mist. The only reason it thrashes to escape at all is because, even while dying, it's mindlessly desperate to feed and hurt.

    Tamamo and Dysnomia's mental pressure gradually forces Sweepers away from the pile of Tiphereths, though it takes time. The sheer crushing press of the bodies behind them makes it difficult for Sweepers on the pile to even retreat at all, but Kukuru and Sougo's efforts to dispatch them means that they don't have to escape of their own volition to be cleared out. Dysnomia's partly one-sided attempts at broadcasting telepathy does detect that the Sweepers have 'minds', but there's something deeply hollow and unresponsive about them, and they emit the same psychic signature that she felt from the black smudges in the tunnels of LobCorp before.

    Other Sweepers, away from the field that Hook created in the open space around Tiphereth, continue hacking and carving through with their hook-hands (the scary kind, rather than the friendly-older-brother kind). Some of them pull out flamethrowers, spraying burning gas in waves over the Elites, clerks, and Sweepers alike. They still keep coming, appearing out of corners, falling from the ceiling with their hooks dug into the walls to slow themselves, pulling up out of the ground like they're ghosts rising from the grave, seemingly randomly.
Petra Soroka     And there's still more Abnormalities. Until Tiphereth finally calms down, most of the agents will be scurrying around the facility, trying to spin a hundred plates at once at the Manager-- and the Captains, and Petra--'s command. Going between cells for each agitated Abnormality is, itself, a trial for the agents, with Sweepers and even attacks from the Elites potentially getting in their way. The panel outside of The Silent Orchestra's cell starts flashing red, causing a localized panic at the necessity of doing its incredibly precise work demands during a stressful Meltdown, before OHNO blasts through some Sweepers to take care of it.

    Snow Queen's cell door slides open, venting frigid mist all throughout Control Department. Rather than leaving her cell, the icy Abnormality with her long white and blue robe lingers inside with her sword planted in the ground in front of her. Snow drifts down around her, with the storm gradually spreading to overtake the department. Suppressing her requires a duel versus one person, fighting her weapon on weapon within the snowstorm. Some kind of Weapon Mastery, preferably in melee, would let an Elite match her, and Adaptation to cold wouldn't hurt, but wouldn't solve the problem either.

    Judgement Bird is a tall bird with spindly limbs, with its bandaged head hunched over by its long neck to not scrape against the ceiling. With each step it takes through the hallway, the golden scales balanced across its neck wobble from one side to the other. Once it reaches the Central Command *upper* room, right above where Tiphereth is, it stands still to let its scales settle into a balance, shining with golden light and then doing immense enervating damage to everyone in the same room as it. Knowledge - Laws and Customs could help convince the Bird of your righteousness, Remote Manipulation could balance the scales in your favor, or someone could make a Contract with the bird to pay off your perceived wrongdoing with something other than death.

    Petra Soroka-- no, Petra rushes into Central Command, Sweeper-fluid wicking off of her sleeves while her temporary morphmetal claws dissolve back into droplets. Overstimulated and jittery, stumbling over her words and trying to hurry through talking to get to whatever's next on her to-do list, she calls out to the cluster of Elites around Tiphereth. "Okay-- one of you-- you, guys, since you're not agents, and we're all busy--..."

    Her eyes roam over the room and belatedly land on Hook's puppet show with Tiphereth. She trails off, silent for a second, then swallows and closes her eyes. "Laetitia needs one person to work with her. But anyone who does, can't go work on another Abnormality, because she'll get jealous. So someone who's good with kids-- well, weird witch Abnormalities that are kind of cute and act like a kid-- I'll show you her cell. Just be really, really careful not to get too close to another Abnormality after that." 'Or you'll explode into a giant spider that hatches out of your body', is the part she doesn't add.

    Laetitia is, as promised, a cute witch with ribbons on her bonnet, dress, and neck, along with big jingling bells like pigtails. All that Work with her entails is engaging with her in a tea party, enduring her pranks (pulling your chair out with magic, replacing tea with mud when it's already halfway in your mouth, sharing pastries that turn out to be stuffed with spiders), and laughing along with her to keep her happy. When finished, she produces a glowing heart with a tangle of messy colors inside, that bobs along and follows the Elite for the rest of Walpurgisnacht.
Angela ''Yeah... I'd be angry, too, if I had someone close to me do that.''

"Even you get angry at some stuff huh... I thought you were totally clueless but you actually know what it's like..." Tiphereth's opinion of Kukuru may be changing a little.

Carol is imbued with power and despite her gloomy disposition can't help but say, "Hell yeah! It's my time to get big!!" And she just starts Kaijuing Sweepers, tearing them apart with her bare hands as her Blades fly around, stabbing Sweepers in conjunction with her movements. "Stay hiding in the Night of the Backstreets!"

She plucks a sweeper going for Kukuru from behind and smushes it into the shitty, showering Kukuru with their gore!

''Dummy.''

He sounds different from Tiphereth B. Actually fairly different. More relaxed and self assured. More like the Enoch that Lisa remembers.

Tiphereth is naturally shocked. Her eye wiggles towards Hook and says, "F-fuck you. FUCK you." and then she looks back down to the Marionenoch.

"Fuck you... Did you think I'd be satisfied with seeing you content on the other side? Did you think you think that a Seed of Light would bloom from the corpse of a child!? You were supposed to be the smart one!"

Her breath heaves. "You were supposed to be the smart one... But the only thing that won't betray you is..."

''You've really been through a lot. Haven't you.''

Tiphereth's body spasms and drips. Whatever turns these Sephirah into conduits for the Seed of Light is HARSH--but it is not recoverable no matter how bad it looks. She listens carefully to the Dame Commander because Angela listens to the Dame Commander and while neither of them would say it directly, their life stories are not completely dissimilar and despite Angela's standoffish personality, Tiphereth and Angela recognize each other's work and professionalism and take some solace in it.

''Don't feel like you can't do anything without him.''

"I..."

But Lilian has more.

"Hurt you? Of course not! Your family loves you, Angela and I don't share everything but she was thrilled to see how proud your siblings were of you. I know you worked hard for it, but so did I... I worked hard too! It's the only thing that doesn't betray you, right?"

''You're demanding to have something forever that some people don't get in their entire lives. Lose something for once in your life and accept all the good things people are trying to give you instead.''

"...I... Is that what I've been doing? I've been...wondering why they got their miracles, why it couldn't be me... Is it because I was staring at the past instead of building a future?"
Angela ''There are no wounds that should not be healed.''

X murmurs, "I feel plenty of shame... It's so much... These people were my friends, I failed them. And ...I failed the agents and the clerks." See? They DO count to him.

''This and that are different things ... How high would you have this mountain become?''

More moisture drips from Tiphereth's frame. It shudders again. "...Even though I had to remember and he got to forget... I get to keep the good memories even if it means with the bad huh. That's what you mean by being greedy?"

She exhales out a sigh. "...I've known since before we reconnected. I've known for years."

Despite saying that, Tiphereth seems to still look for guidance from that doll.

So you can be strong and keep smiling no matter what.

"Don't tell me to smile." Tiphereth says, seeming to smile despite the lack of lips.

So I can take a break and see watch how amazing you are.

"...Yeah I'm pretty amazing, I bet you couldn't have handled all of Central on your own. Maybe I'm the prodigy." Tiphereth's grip on the doll slackens.

"You always had it in you, you know. Out of all the Sephirah you handle the work here best, I've been holding you back for a while, right? This is just your Chapter Two. You've got plenty left ahead of you. I wanted to use myself to try and build something better, but that's not what you've been looking for so--find your own reason."

''Just enjoy playing for right now...okay?''

"Shutup! I'm not a kid who goes through life playing...pretend..."

Tiphereth gasps sharply, and looks to the Doll of Enoch. And then she turns her eye and looks towards the other Tiphereths. One is different than the other, but it's impossible to not see the similarities even if one Enoch is more real than the others.

"...I've been...playing pretend..."

She looks to the Doll once more and says, "...I've spent so much time trying to fill both of our shoes."

She offers the Marionette back to Hook and says, "...But I think... I want to try being my own person for a while. You can go on your journey, and I can go on mine. You've said goodbye too, haven't you?" She takes another sharp breath. "Thank you, Will. For letting me talk to something more like him, even if it was fake. I think... I can captain my own ship now. I'd like to hear more about your sister sometime."
Angela The Agents are grateful for the help with the Sweepers. Surviving the Sweepers is something of a miracle outside of these walls and even in here it's pretty impressive they've held their own at all. Rose says, "Looking good, Bikki." in an aside as she fights.

"Tiphereth..." X says.

"...You're not going to do something as pathetic as lose your mind now, are you, Manager? You better at least keep up with the rest of us or we'll forget all about you, dumbass."

The Manager laughs, weirdly relieved. "...No, no I think...I'm okay. Hey--"

"Let's finish this job. Let's grow this Seed of Light... Not for Carmen, not for Enoch, not for them. Let's do it for us so that we can find our own expectations of the meaning of existence, our good and bad memories pushing us forward rather than dragging us down. How about it, Manager?"

"...Yeah. Yeah that sounds good..."

The Meltdowns are slowing down to their normal rate. Angela will be waking up shortly and the facility becomes that much more manageable and one step farther from Hell.
Captain Hook      Tiphereth swears at him. Hook bears it with the distant smile of an older brother, the distant, certain smile of someone there to help, there to protect, there to give a voice to someone who needs it. He bears it without a hint of reprimand, without a hint of disapproval. She needs to be angry right now. She needs to let it out. She needs to have someone to point it at, and it's fine if she points it at him.

     "It's fine to play pretend sometimes," The puppet says, with a little wooden smile, and the voice transitions to Hook as he stands. He's wobbling, slightly, before he reaches out to put a hand on Tiphereth's. The marionette, seemingly of its own volition, hugs her hand tightly as she holds it out to Hook, and the hug is warm and gentle, even through the robot shell.

     Hook puts a hand on Tiphereth's robot-head, like he's patting her hair. "Nothing fake about it. Only people who don't dream think pretend is fake. Pretend is where miracles happen."

     "You said goodbye. It doesn't matter if it was really him, or just a marionette, or just your memories, does it?" The marionette finally releases her, and dangles there, a featureless wooden puppet with a silly little wooden crown. Hook's hand gently brushes against Tiphereth's head again as though he was stroking her hair. "What matters is that you made a miracle happen in your heart."

     "Oh, I know it sounds silly, but it's true." Another gentle headpat.

     With the puppet no longer Enoch, the flower garden fades, and the sunlight vanishes. Hook stows the puppet back in the treasure chest and picks it up. The chest vanishes into his coat, somehow, as he smiles - and then stumbles slightly. It's taken a toll out of him. It's not just something he can *do* - making miracles real, plucking them from dreams and hearts, is effort. It's meaningful. It hurts.

     "I did," he says quietly, "And I'm always happy to help."

     "I'll tell you about her whenever you like. She's got two children, you know. Very happy life." He's smiling, but it's a sad smile, the smile of a man who accepted that he won't be part of that life - that for all intents and purposes, he chose a different way.

     "You're a brave girl."

     Again, he wavers slightly, moving as if to go help with Laetitia, but it's clear that that took too much out of him. He collapses to one knee, then falls backwards in a cross-legged sit in the middle of the storm, breathing heavily. "I'm proud of you, whatever that may count for, you know. Plenty of people who can't do half of what you did here."
Ishirou With the Meat Lantern being sent back to its cell, Ishirou starts to take a breath, until...

Judgement Bird is confirmed released on the top floor of Control.  Ishirou gets three whole breaths in before he rushes to get back down there.  On the floor with Judgement Bird, he makes sure that it's clear of Sweepers first, before getting on the floor with Judgement Bird and making his way towards him.  

This is nerve-wracking, knowing that one mess up and he'll be eating shit.  He waits for others to get there too, before he produces his A.DE.P.T. Pad, and uses POD to create a display screen.  Then, using his knowledge of local customs and laws, he starts trying to argue around the Bird, encouraging him to accept other forms of judgment than massive damage in the entire area, while others attempt to either make contracts or tip the scales more forcefully.  

"So you see... by these metrics..." Ishirou continues, willing to talk with the Bird at long lengths about these topics, not JUST to keep the bird in one place and prevent him from zapping an area, but because he has a genuine interest in customs and law in various places around the multiverse, though he's also not above a little bullshitting within the metrics of his information to try and keep Judgement Bird from hurting others.  

He only hopes he doesn't argue /too/ much and his mouth gets him into trouble.  Then again, that's what the others here are for, to help and support each other... to make sure nobody suffers the burden alone.    
Rena The whole reason Rena has the scanning probe out is so she *doesn't* step where Meat Lantern will get her. Even one step is enough (but this is why she didn't bring Pochi; *he* wouldn't have stopped).

She freezes immediately, then edges around so she can join in the paired attack with Touta - and that's all of it for Meat Lantern. "Thanks," she says, to both Ishirou and Touta.

When Meat Lantern is back in its cell, Rena reloads again. It's selfish, but she hopes - very much - that she isn't called on to deal with Laetitia, who she 'met' on her first visit to Lobotomy Corp. Petra may not be saying what happens, but Rena is: "Apparently you explode into spiders," she says. "Angela told me."

Rena really does not like spiders. The relief she feels when she does not have to deal with them is a little shameful. Everybody's giving their all for this and she's just trying to avoid dealing with some bugs. (Also, exploding into bugs, which is to be fair a lot more worrying.)

She resolves to help clean out the Sweepers so that the others can handle their tasks. She's worried about Hook, having not heard much about Tiphereth lately, and she's worried about - well, quite a few others.

So she takes off like a shot. From Information it's just one over to Training, where Aidan is, and Rena comes in shooting; she dives into the hallway, firing both guns before she tucks and rolls, popping up with one revolver and one grenade.

"Hey, Aidan!" Rena whistles, shrill. "Heads up!"

Rena flings the grenade - not quite at Aidan, but near him. A moment later, it explodes... but not into an explosion, or napalm, or cryogenic mist like some of her other grenades.

The canister pops open and begins to vent at nearly gale force from three openings, set in a triangle around the cylinder. It's normal, ordinary air, but an improbable amount of it; it's designed to immediately disperse smoke or poison gas. But in this case, Rena's giving Aidan the 'breath' he wanted.

She follows it up by trying to shoot any Sweepers who get too close. She may as well be a sniper with those revolvers, delayed only occasionally by a need to reload. To her, they read like wandering bio-monsters, and she treats them appropriately; she *really* does not want to get touched by one, and if she can keep them off Aidan while he does whatever magic he does, she won't complain about that either.
Dysnomia     And just like that, the magic was gone. The puppet, just a puppet. It wasn't real. But had been, for just long enough. "A--Ah."

    Dysnomia found herself staring at it in the aftermath, the reflex to believe followed up by the reflexive embarrassment, at having let herself be caught up in the magic. Of believing for a moment, like Hook, like Tiphereth, in make-believe. Her spread-apart self coiled back in the aftermath Radio chatter cut through the moment, and she latched onto something in the chaos. "I--I'll help with the bird." Dysnomia muttered, half-hysterical in embarrassment and slipped, like smoke, through the floor.

    When she passed into the room below, she ran into Judgment Bird near instantly. The pain was nearly instant. The pain was a relief.

    The enevating light of judgment bird threatened to boil the sustance of her being away, like mist under a bright morning sun. She falls to, and half into, the floor, and raised a half-real hand.

    As Ishirou argued his part, Dysnomia picked her moment, hoping for a moment's relief from the pressure as he made his authentic case, to CHEAT judgment! All it would take was a moment's relief from the light, and her smoke would coil around around the scales and add the force of her own will to the balance in a desperate gambit to signal her innocence before she boiled away entirely.
Aidan Proudpick Four giant arms. And one mighty hand. Aidan throws himself to the ground, rolling over through the ice. He trips a Genm clone along the way, scrambling to keep out of the way. He turns, seeing the man simply SHOVE the Woodsman back into the cell. "Damn." He looks over at Madeline as well. "I hope I never have to get in a fight with you two."

As new alarms go out, Aidan picks himself up, scrabbling back up into a run to get his shield in front of him.

Judgment Bird. Aidan stands at a distance, staring into it. Once, he would have run in, a contest of wills. Determination to save everyone. Sheer guts.

That'll get you killed. A child playing pretend. Hoping someone will hand you power one day.

A Sweeper comes in, and Aidan's ears twitch, a second too late. The hook swings in, cutting through the padded armor. Blood wells up in the wound, not deep enough to cut into his muscle. Snarling, angry at himself for being distracted, Aidan slams his shield into the sweeper, shattering the red face. Focus. He can hate himself later. Aidan takes another wild swing as Rena rolls in, pushing a Sweeper off of her position.

"Wh-" His eyes focus in on the object, pupils dilating. Medicine? Weapon? Grenade. He steps back from it.

"Fair winds, you just have these?!" Thank goodness, now he doesn't have to pass out. Aidan can't grab the air and weave a hurricane like Kale can. But with a truly massive amount of wind rushing at him, he doesn't have to. A roguish smile lights up his face, breaking through the sullen facade. "Perfect."

It's one single mass. Instead of combining strands of wind, it's the opposite. He can slice off pieces of wind like one might grab hunks of clay. "Watch this." The urge to show off is too strong. The desire for praise. His hands move back and forth, sweeping at the rushing wind. One hand seems to gather up the wind while the other one puts up walls. When a Sweeper gets too close to put another wall down, Aidan grabs some of the rushing wind to form a lance of air. Like an arrow fired from a bow, it strikes through the Sweeper, pushing it back enough for Aidan to put up another wall to block off the area in Central Command from the rampaging horde.
UFO Gang "Oh, thanks," Nazrin says, noticing what Touta did. Minamitsu returns a thumbs up to Touta, along with a grin, as she hovers in the air.

Woodsman. Scarecrow. The words of Tiphereth reaching out and around them as Minamitsu can feel something shift inside of her heart. Others are coming -- some kind of panel is about to glow red but one of the local ones smashes into it.

The Sweepers. Hook-handed monstrosities. Frigid mist washes outwards as the ice-queen issues her challenge. Others. More. But --

"I guess there's hope, huh," says Minamitsu, reflectively as she brings the ladle out to the side. The Sweepers keep coming; some of them have flamethrowers! Which is a pretty obvious idea once one gets pointed at you; Minamitsu swerves to the side, only lightly singed as she lets out a "hey! ow!"

Nazrin, meanwhile, wanders off. UH OH!

Minamitsu, for her part, rubs the bridge of her nose for a moment. Seeds of Light? Probably not Hell, she judges, before calling out, "Alright! The tide's shifting!" She raises up the ladle above her head, drifting slightly to the left within the space of Control and eyeballing the Sweepers.

"But I really do wanna know what the heck these things are!!" Minamitsu says as she sweeps the ladle around and oh, hey, water's been pouring out of it. "So once it calms down, spill it!" Like the water that's been spilling out around her, cascading onto the ground like a pocket waterfall. Except the water's sort of stopping.

Minamitsu makes a judgmental sweep forwards. And what could probably have been taken as a decoration drops to the ground -- before skidding forwards, dragging with a metallic rumble as it accelerates, streaking erupting, bursting, weaponized water behind it to try and crash through the thickest pocket of Sweepers she can see!
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine hurries down one hallway, then another, winding her way toward Control. The temperature drops, and she slows her pace just slightly to maintain footing on the snow and ice. There's a hint of a smile on her lips, but her eyes are cold. The chill settles in around her. She leaves no footprints as she runs.

    And there's the Snow Queen, across the chamber, waiting in her cell. "Well?" says Madeleine, stamping the butt of her spear vertically in the snow. There is no need for other words. The Snow Queen simply waits. The huntress coils like a spring and leaps into the cell. Snow Queen raises her sword at the last moment, but quickly enough to run Madeleine through. Madeleine's decoy falls to pieces from the force of the blow, and the Queen is already whirling to intercept Madeleine's true attack from nearly the opposite side. The spear is batted aside, and while the Queen's sword is occupied with Madeleine's weapon the huntress stomps on her foot - not to cause the abnormality pain, because a creature so inhuman may not even know the concept, but to pin it in place - and rams her elbow into the Queen's midsection, knocking the swordswoman off balance.

    Snow Queen recovers in a split second, but it's enough time for Madeleine's spear to come around for another swing. Blade and spear lock again, and again, as the pair clash. Sometimes a decoy falls, cut in two at the waist or impaled through the stomach, and the snow underfoot is ground to slush under the pair's feet. Neither is making headway, but the Snow Queen's storm is growing. Time is on her side, and something needs to change soon.

    So Madeleine 'falters', dips her spear at the 'wrong' moment, and is impaled through the gut by a thrust from the Snow Queen. There is a spray of dark blood on the snow; this was no decoy. Instead the huntress grabs each of the Queen's wrists and *pulls*. The Queen stumbles as Madeleine takes a step forward, sinking the blade further into her own body. Frozen blood accumulates around the wound. The Queen struggles to break free from Madeleine's grip, but the huntress is stronger. Madeleine coughs up a mouthful of blood, and it runs down her chin, a red streak that immediately begins to frost. Still holding the Queen by her sword-arm, Madeleine draws her ritual knife in her off hand and growls, "I've got a lot of blood to lose. Let's see how much *you* can go without."

    Seconds later the Queen is falling to her knees, clutching at her cut throat, Madeleine is tossing the Queen's sword aside, and the pain is finally curling its fingers around Madeleine's cold-numbed flesh. "Oh my *god* this hurts," she mutters, before she collapses beside the queen. Unlike the Snow Queen she will not bleed out, but she needs a little lie down.
Tamamo     "You understand." Tamamo says to Tiphereth. She can almost relax. There's relief in her voice. It's a relief that they don't need to say anything else, but she still adds, "Glad am I that you are so swift to see."

    That she needed that much help to reach that understanding isn't mentioned. There's no shame in needing help after a meltdown. If they'd known each other longer, then there'd be something else to say, but--

    "I shall go and look to the bird of judgment." After she spends a short time being distracted by Kukuru having become much smaller than the last time they'd met.

    Arriving up to the next floor, being struck by an attack that directly goes for her spirit is -- good, actually. Her wards and other magecraft deal with this sort of hazard far better than she deals with knife attacks. It's not at all pleasant, but either Ishirou or Dysnomia are likely to be at greater risk far sooner than she is.

    That does, unfortunately, mean that she can't avoid hurrying. While Ishirou argues matters of law, Tamamo supplements the argument with occult knowledge, citing esoteric concepts of balance and order and repayment in terms of life, blood, and spirit. Speaking with her will give the Judgment Bird an instinctive understanding of the enforcement and legitimacy of whatever Contract she begins to form to satisfy it.
Timespace Riders      "This company's mission," says Woz, winded from the exertion thus far, "Has gathered a truly intractible menagerie." His plated fist clenches, to the sound of well-tuned mechanical motors whining.

     With a grunt of effort, he lifts himself off of the ground using those four mechanical manipulators, their claws opening to grip the walls like a spider. Traversing the Company in bounding mechanical strides, he makes a beeline for the upper Central Command room.

     Ducking through the door and launching himself in proves to be a mistake--the enervating light from the Judgment Bird is blinding, even through the golden lenses of his armor's faceplate. The manipulator arms buckle, as a human forearm is brought up to shield his eyes in vain.

     Woz is brought momentarily to one knee by the waves of exhaustion slamming into him. Unlike Tamamo, he is very susceptible to such attacks--but that doesn't mean that he can't take exception to them. Who is this creature, that it should regard its own judgment as more pressing than that of he to whom Woz has devoted his life? The very notion is insulting, even as the strength rapidly leaves him.

     "I... do not answer to you!"

     With a gasp of defiance, he sends those golden mechanical arms darting through the blinding light. The rugged claws open; one seeks the bird's present location--the other three grasp at the empty air around it, spaced out like the spokes of a wheel in an effort to control its potential angles of evasion.
Timespace Riders      In the room with Tiphereth, Zi-O is staggered by another scraping hookhand in a long line of many--there is a reason that his future self, who'd visited Hook, had been so visibly battered. The tip of the drillsword plinks heavily against the floor, by now likely well-coated in the disturbingly indistinct viscera of slain Sweepers. The Demon King lets his weight rest upon it, for just a moment.

     The heavy blue handcannon sweeps across the room in sluggish fits and starts, hard trigger pulls sending it bucking upwards, barking its report into the seemingly endless tide of Sweepers. There are so many--and fresh combatants don't tire and ache, the way that he does. I can't keep doing this... and I can't let them get to Tiphereth, or Hook, or hurt any more Agents or Clerks...

     Zi-O lets out a ragged, rallying war cry as he exits the room, mashing the stop on his Timespace Driver with the butt of the handcannon. "You don't get a say in how this story goes!" Again, the butt of the pistol strikes the belt, but this time, the side, rather than the center. it spins, as it had when Zi-O transformed, and the drillsword spins up, too, striking sparks into the floor of the hall outside Tiphereth's chamber.

                                   FINISH TIME!                                  

     Zi-O lifts the drill, at which point the bit rockets off of it like a bullet, whirling angrily down the hall and piercing through Sweepers as they emerge, weaving harmlessly around Clerks as they scurry to do their incredibly perilous work. In its path, a tangible white dotted line appears, as if some physicist were hastily plotting a parabola. Mathematic formulae appear, too, floating up around the Demon King. To the last, they are suspect--part I don't know divided by something and Lucky number % Lucky number. He isn't a physicist, after all--merely mantling the story of one who fights for justice.

                               VOLTEC TIME BREAK!                                

     Zi-O leaps backwards, his palms and feet impacting the wall to push himself off of it, landing on the tangible dotted line. His boots strike up sparks as he grinds along the line just barely faster than it disappears, rapidly gaining speed and plowing through the oncoming Sweepers with such force that each impact is its own tiny, fiery explosion.
Hibiki Tachibana     "Screw--" The word is forced out through tightly grit teeth, with Hibiki's left hand gripping around an errant Sweeper's helmet. The arm is straining with more than just effort, but the ache of still-sore wounds mingling with fresh ones just makes her hold on tighter, so that she can wrench around and chuck it head-over-heels through the endlessly expanding crowd. "--off already!"

    A heavy breath comes afterwards, but there's no time to slow down. In the corner of her mind though, in the middle of elbowing another of the Ordeals away and using the momentum to spin into a kick into another, she can follow what's going on behind her. I get to keep the good memories even if it means with the bad huh. Her fist, tightly clenched shut, unfurls a little bit as it smashes into a Sweeper's chestplating and hits a less weaker than she intends to (it still flies far enough to make Genm have to do a sick trick to get out of the way).

    That, plus Rose's comment hitting her, help keep her from getting too carried away as she stops for a moment. "That's my line," she huffs back to the Agent. "If you can fight this well blind, I'm never gonna believe you can't make a full recovery." Feeling more braced up by that, and the bit between the Manager and Tiphereth, Hibiki has the second wind she needs to throw herself back into the tides.

    Although the Sephirah might have found her resolution to face the future, that doesn't mean their job is over. This specific job isn't over-- as the instant even a stray Sweeper tries to get anywhere close to Tiphereth or the now-resting Captain Hook, Hibiki is all too quick to interject for the second time today with a flying kick to put a stop to that.

    "...Knew you had it in you. I'm-- ...glad," she murmurs with an undertone of exhaustion that gets quickly pushed aside. Whether that's to Hook, Tiphereth, the Manager, or all of the above is left unsaid. She's not actually looking at any of them (the two actually here, anyway), with masses of these things still needing dealing with.

    Hook is the one who gets singled out on a delay though, after a sweeping kick to clear the air. "...You just sit right there, Will. Getting to be a little useless for five minutes is fine, when you helped out so much already."
Lilian Rook     Snow Queen and Laetitia require singular Elites to handle them. Lilian is of course making herself ready to intercede if either one of them fails, or simply dies, which means finding a midpoint between them within the facility where the Seekers have already moved on to the center of the action and taking it slow to regather her energy for a little while. She doubts the rest need help with Judgement Bird, and there's a lot to come. But she can still . . .

    'Hurt you? Of course not! Your family loves you, Angela and I don't share everything but she was thrilled to see how proud your siblings were of you. I know you worked hard for it, but so did I... I worked hard too! It's the only thing that doesn't betray you, right?'

    "Sorry. I slipped out more than I would have liked." says Lilian. She doesn't know if Tiphereth can see her, and she doesn't think much of that strained, half-apologetic smile she's wearing anyways. "But you seem to have gotten the wrong idea." She knows that more people than she wants can likely hear her, too. So the words are vague, but not incorrect. Her habit of endless, painful half-truths. Never so much to convincingly to deceive as a vain attempt to say something she won't allow.

    "I worked that hard-- much, much harder than that, even, just because there wasn't anyone else to hold hands with. I was the one looking to the horizon. Seeing something no one else could. And so, so frustrated that it was that way. I had my chance to risk everything, but I took it because there was no one who'd miss me if I didn't come back."

    "That happy little ending you saw . . . That was the dream come true I used to believe in when I was little. But by the time I got there, I'd already lost so much that it only felt like relief that I got that far, not joy. Holding onto it for all that time didn't amount to anything but proving something to myself."

    Lilian remains moving as she talks. The talking keeps her mind off the pain of the moving, and the moving keeps her mind off the pain of the talking. "I don't blame you for misinterpreting it. Obviously you'd only see the glamorous result; why would I want to anyon to know what came before that?" Lilian breathes deep. "That was the rare kind of day where a hand is held out in kindness, or at least fairness, and offers me something new to replace what's gone. Those are the days you don't wallow in every little scar, like I just told you."

    '...I... Is that what I've been doing? I've been...wondering why they got their miracles, why it couldn't be me... Is it because I was staring at the past instead of building a future?'"

    "'The only thing that won't betray you is hard work' . . ." Lilian sighs to herself. "Do you know the real reason I said so? I don't mind explaining." She closes her eyes. A dangerous thing to do, given the state of the facility, but a necessity to get the words out.

    "Because every single other thing you could ever have, you can lose. No one can keep anything they aren't strong enough to defend themselves, and we all begin our stories so terribly, frustratingly weak, Tiphereth. So when, and not if, you lose it, all you'll have left is the accumulated work it took you to get it. Again, and again, and again, you'll lose something, and only have that pile of effort to show for what used to be the hole in your heart. And each time, that accumulated effort is a little bigger than the last time."
Lilian Rook     "But it doesn't work the way you want it to, Tiphereth. If you think you can cash it in for something you deserve, you're gravely mistaken. All that hard work is good for is building up strength. The sum total of all your effort only matters when it comes to what you can grasp, and if you can keep it. So, you know, if you can't accept losing things, and you refuse to take anything new to replace it, all that hard work is completely fucking useless."

    "Someone really precious told me that it's like rings on a tree. You can't get rid of a black, rotted ring from the worst year of your life. You have to keep growing new ones. That way, each and every year, the part of you that's ugly and damaged is a little smaller than the rest of you. But only, only, if you keep growing. Only if you fill your life with good things instead of letting it spread. And I think that was really very smart."

    'Let's finish this job. Let's grow this Seed of Light... Not for Carmen, not for Enoch, not for them. Let's do it for us so that we can find our own expectations of the meaning of existence, our good and bad memories pushing us forward rather than dragging us down.'

    Lilian lets herself smile only a little bit. "I'm glad to hear it. Sorry if I ruined your imagine of me a little bit. I'm really no good at inspirational blind hope. So I won't hold it against you for being a little pathetic."
Kukuru "Even you get angry at some stuff huh... I thought you were totally clueless but you actually know what it's like..."

"Of course. I get sad, I get angry, and..." Kukuru lets her gaze drift, just for a moment. The flower bud is still fresh in her mind, even if it's not nearly as fresh as it was when she first received it. "... It took me a real long time to know what to do with all that. Holding all that in and ignoring it... It really sucks, you knooow? You just gotta let it out sometimes and do... Something, anything for yourself sometimes. Okay?"

The Sweepers haven't stopped coming, and their flames have Kukuru screeching in both pain and fear as she recoils initially from the waves of fire coming at her. Thankfully, she's able to count on Carol to kaiju them away, and with Tamamo and Dynsomia holding them off with protective boundaries and searing plasma fire, she's able to get back into the fight without hiding for too long. Carol catching that Sweeper before it can immolate Kukuru from behind gets a grateful chuckle from the latter along with another heaping of healing for good measure.

"Thanks, dear! How long are they gonna keep coming, though...?" She sighs wearily, yelps as she has to drop through a portal to avoid getting cooked by yet another blast of fire, then drops onto a Sweeper and digs her claws into them and adds yet another layer of gore to what Carol already covered her with moments ago. "Hook and Tiphy still need time to..."

"F-fuck you. FUCK you."

Although Kukuru's not a fan of that language generally, she still cracks a slight smile when she hears it coming from Tiphereth. To her, it's a sign. Tiphereth needs to heal, and she needs to finally speak to her brother like a real family member instead of a facsimile of one that's part of the pile she's been sitting on.

"I want to try being my own person for a while." "Let's do it for us so . . ."

"Do it, Tiphy. And.. Yeah. You've gotta do it for yourself, not just everyone else. It has to be something that makes you happy, and that'll make the snacks I prepare for you and the Manager later taste even better." Kukuru asserts with a relieved noise as the Meltdowns start slowing down, flashing a grateful smile at Hook after he speaks of being English and teatime. "You did great, Will. Thank you. I'll make something good for you once we finish everything here, too."

Alas, she knows she can't stay where she is for long. There's still those Abnormalities that have already escaped containment, and they won't be suppressing themselves anytime soon. Petra mentions a weird cute witch kid abnormality along with exploding into a spider, and Kukuru doesn't actually hesitate for long before approaching her. "I'll watch over Laetitia, then. Kids are my specialty, you knooow?"

True to form, Kukuru is certainly excited to work with an Abnormality that looks more like a cute witch child than most anyone she's met, although Tamamo is still right to be distracted by her appearance when she still sounds exactly the same ditzy way as always. She's an old hat a tea parties and enduring pranks alike, pouring tea (real or fake), toppling over at the missing chair and just lounging on the floor instead, adding some of her own homemade snacks to really make it a proper tea-time, and laughing at the witch's antics all the while.

Tasting mud does get a bit of a scolding, though. Kukuru's not as strict as she could be about that, though, because the spider-filled pastries are really tasty.
Angela Tiphereth can be hugged but it's not the most pleasant feeling considering the kinds of the radiant heat pouring off her. Her metal shell was MELTING and it'll need a refurbishment later. Maybe it can be a little bigger.

It's fine to play pretend.

But you can't play pretend all the time. Sometimes you have to spend your life living.

She sees Hook's sadness, but he seems worn out--she'll talk to him about it another time. There's no hair to pet but Tiphereth bears it this time. She doesn't want to slap anything out of anyone's hand.

''I am glad you are quick to see.''

Tiphereth says, "W-well," She's a bit embarrassed by the praise. "When you're going to all this trouble I can't just...keep spitting on it." She almost adds a non-serious shut up at the end of that but Tamamo exudes regality and so she just sort of bites her lip before she says something she doesn't mean but will agonize about later.

Hibiki quips back at Rose and the Agent laughs, half bitter half joy half relief. Three halves apparently. "Well if that's how you're gonna be I'll have to keep at it."

Despite the meltdown ending, Lilian has more to say and Tiphereth feels bad enough for snapping at her that she can't quite look her in the eye.

''I took it because there was no one who'd miss me if I didn't come back.''

"Commander ... I'm sorry... I didn't know... I'm sorry you just--felt relief. I hope joy still finds you." Tiphereth manages, forcing that eye to look back to the Commander about halfway through her words. And the Commander in turn tells her what she meant with the phrase 'The only thing that won't betray you is hard work'. The phrase resonated with Tiphereth, even if perhaps not in the way the Commander meant. And so Tiphereth hears what she did mean. Because it IS important.

''If you can't accept losing things, and you refuse to take anything new to replace it, all that hard work is completely fucking useless.''

"Yeah... Lady Angela's been reaching to find good things to hold onto out here, even if uneasily...Least I can do is what she can. I'm the older one after all."

Despite appearances.

"We...all look up to you, Commander. Maybe that's partly because we only got to see you after your victories but--I hope you hold onto them for a long, long time."

She gives an awkward elongated thumbs up to Kukuru, too tired to complain about being called Tiphy. Victory: Kukuru.
Angela With the hard part of the Meltdown over, the rest of it seems to pass by quickly. There's still the occasional breach, but it's nothing that everyone hasn't managed to deal with before, if easier with the experience than it was before. The Sweepers can be mopped up--worse than fighting them is all the janitorial work that will have to be done. If you thought the facility always smelled like bleach before, you might want to wear a facemask tomorrow.

Nazrin wanders off, Yuri passes by her and throws a wave her way, looking nearly untouched by the battle beforehand. She finds some space to herself away from any cameras to sit herself down and draw out a small radio.

"Got a lucky break. Tune in for something nice." She says before slicing the radio to ribbons.

That's probably nothing important. That done, Yuri passes by her old friend the Snow Queen only to see Madeleine rested. "Hot damn, you did it! Nice!" She smiles like she's really impressed.

And Angela wakes up fully with a panic for a moment in her office, thinking that the day had been reset after all. She hurriedly, desperately takes a look at the feed and...

"...Holy shit..." She mutters in her office since nobody is there to hear. "...I really was being too pessimistic..." She just takes a moment to feel the relief.

Happier and happier, a little more each day. But doesn't it hurt a little, being so happy? You're the greedy one aren't you, slapping away hands and you're still feasting so well.

Angela breathes in.

And out.

And she doesn't even need to breathe. She isn't going to flip out over FEELINGS. There's been enough of that lately. She can handle it. She can handle it.

And so the day passes with cleaning to do, debriefs to have, sleep piles to rest in, and so on and so forth. It'll be a day before the Warpgate can turn back on and let everyone leave and surely Tomorrow will not be anything harder than what was declared as Impossible....

Right?