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Rita Ma	Inside, Sonia is passed out and drooling over a table. The rank-and-file harpoonists aren't doing much better; they're all laid out, immobile or barely so. The elderly islanders look nervously at the teetotalers who are still awake; most start edging for the exits.      Out there, she's ethereal; like a vision, like a dream. To the intoxicated, the world seems to swim with her as the only focal point. The dense fog outside, the drugs, and her radiant beauty all blur together into an almost literal glow. When she beckons over her shoulder, it's hard to look at anything but that gesture.      But she's solid. Very solid. Ishirou finds pure flesh and blood, but not even a brain. It's a human-shaped living puppet.      Bota, staggering out after her, looks like he can barely stand now. Kana has to lean on the doorframe for support staying upright. She looks back at the people pursuing and delivering warnings, and fumbles for the gun at her hip even if she's confused. But Bota's understandably transfixed- the most attention he gives to the warnings is a dazed backwards glance before looking forward at his 'mother' again.      "I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm~?" She smiles the sunny smile that Rita does, but her eyes don't quite shut. That transfigures the entire expression into something smugly unwholesome.      "Mom-- Lisa! How did you...? I *saw* you die..."      "Awww. And my body went overboard, right? But don't worry. We have all the time in the world to catch up, don't we?"      "No, but- all this time, where've you *been*, I..."      He tries to approach her, another question on his lips, but stumbles and falls to his knees instead. She walks forward and tenderly lays a hand on his shoulder.      Mechanical clack-hiss noises are audible from all around, then. Kana's head whips up in recognition: gas guns being readied. Dozens of armed figures are faintly visible moving through the fog, surrounding the community center from the ground and high container perches; younger than the islanders you've seen so far, but most of them diseased anyway. Half have pneumatic firearms. Half have little better than fishing spears.      The old woman hobbles to the doorway. "Bring him back inside," she demands of 'Lisa'. "We can't have the hostages getting hurt." 'Lisa' smiles ingratiatingly. "Mmmm! Nothing could be further from my mind."      Her eyes fall to the outsiders in front of her. "But if they cause trouble, you'll kill them, right?"      https://youtu.be/9CcVN8HyVnA
Angela	Nonon readies a pistol while Shajo readies his axe, chasing after Bota only for... ''I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm?'' The harpoonists have fallen. Sonia is dozin and drooling. Nonon's smile fades into a deep uncharacteristic frown. Nonon takes breath. Her eyes slant towards Shajo wordlessly. Shajo doesn't respond. While they are not the best at discipline as Gebura constantly bemoans, their teamwork is at a level that doesn't require words. They've already made their decision. That decision is that they love Bota. "Like fuck you will!" Shajo shouts suddenly, running straight for Lisa, aiming to leap at her, swinging his axe towards her forehead but his goal isn't to hurt Lisa, actually, though he certainly would be happy to. No, his shout, his putting himself as a center of attention for a moment, his attack-- --is simply to draw eyes away from Nonon who readies a pistol... And aims to just flat out shoot Bota in the back with no fanfare, her smile returning to her face shortly after. "Better to be dead than whatever you're planning. Where I'm from this is standard procedure, Ga Ha Ha Ha Ha!!" She says with dissonant serenity. To those that are unaccustomed to the Lobotomy Corp unusual bullets, it might actually look like a murder! But in actuality, Nonon's bullet is actually an ampoule intended to counteract physical ailments--even ones that might be ingested. Gebura shouts, "Hold!! I didn't give any order!" over her vid feed.
Candy	Candy hadn't drank the seaweed wine. He'd thought instead that he might save that for later--after getting to work on making things easier for the people out here. The eyesss. Sssee how they looked at you? I saw. She probably put them up to it. I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm?     "I'm fine right here," says Candy, answering her unwholesome smile with a stony, tense frown. But if they cause trouble, you'll kill them, right?     Candy lifts his hands slowly into the air. His eyes are locked on 'Lisa,' but he still hears the clicking of weapons. Fuck. And then Nonon shoots Bota. FUCK!     Candy's peacoat hangs heavier than it did, a split second before. Though he is very careful to stay perfectly still, to maintain the exact posture following more temporal trickery, there is a brief, subtle sway to the garment. Maybe it could be chalked up to a wayward sea breeze. "I don't think you wanna kill us," he says, hands slowly raising into the air. "Even if Ms. Quickshot there pissed you off."     "See, if I die, then I fall." Slowly, he pulls open his peacoat. The inside is lined with what appear to be sticks of dynamite. Each one has some sort of flaw--maybe a fuse slightly too long, or a discoloration of the exterior. They are all, however, easily taken as 'explosives.'     Nestled in a deep pocket is a bottle of clear liquid. "You know what that is?" He asks, pointing at the bottle. Unlike the dynamite, it isn't an illusion. But it is just a bottle of water. "The great great grandaddy of what you guys like to call the Forbidden Treasures," Candy lies. The bottle has a specialized neck and stopper, evidently made for pouring very small amounts. "Ni Tro Glycerin. You kill me, or even shoot me, and I fall, and I drop it. And if I drop it... well, I hope you're not too attached to this place."
Kukuru	Isn't that a nice surprise? Bota's and Rita's mom, in the flesh and far more alive than expected! And so many of the harpoonists, having a nice nap after the party, are probably ready to go home now. Kukuru, having somehow avoided drinking anything alcoholic this entire time thanks to being distracted by more important matters, has quite a bit of work on her hands after seeing so many of her allies from off-world also starting to get a little woozy themselves. What catches her off-guard, then, is hearing that familiar enough clack of gas and metal being primed. She'd reason it away as the late-shift checking their gear before taking over, but the fact that it's all happening so close by and that they're close enough for her to see them decidedly not aiming them at the water gives her juuust enough reason to be a little wary. Only a little, though, since she's sure they're just going through their own procedures. Different cultures, different ships, different ways of handling things, especially when it comes to- 'We can't have the hostages getting hurt.' 'But if they cause trouble, you'll kill them, right?' That's a little weird. Raising an eyebrow at the once-missing matron, Kukuru finishes throwing a few knit blankets over some of the sleeping harpoonists before approaching Lisa and gesturing at Bota, like she's ready to hoist him up. "Oh, I'll get him, dear. Now, what's all that about hostages? Oh, and they who? Did your people see some of those sea creatures somewheeeere?" As always, Kukuru is still a little slow on the uptake. She doesn't quite get it even after what Nonon and Shajo are shouting about and what Candy's warning all of them about with that fancy sounding word, but when Shajo charges at Lisa with that axe, Kukuru actually has move a little faster than she'd prefer in order to put her forearms up to try and catch the blade! Hopefully, just with her arms and not her face. "Shajo, no. That's Bota's and Rita's mommy! I'm sure she can explain what.. Um... What all this is!"
Dysnomia	Dysnomia went stiff as the atmosphere changed, her eyes scanning the horizon, taking in the young warriors with harpoonist weaponry assessing the threat. She wasn't worried about what the weapons could do to her, but the others...     "But if they cause trouble, you'll kill them, right?"     "Traitors to humanity, I see." Somehow, her words lacked some of the expected...Venom. "So this is why you aren't under seige, so close to the Queen's lair. You made a bargain."     She raised her hands in the air in surrender, a thin smoke the color of dead stars seeping slowly out around her.     Her eyes fixed on Lisa, frowning, trying to decide if she was numbered among the traitors or...Something else--When Nonon makes her charge and Shajo's pistol barks to life, Dysnomia freezes, as does the coiling smoke spreading from her feet, and for a moment she thinks of going full mask-off...     But then Candy makes his ploy. "Keep it up," She broadcasts, speaking to Candy but sharing her message with all the others...Except Petra and those around her, where her psychic touch recoiled. "If they stay distracted, maybe I can wrench the guns from their hands."     "But I need time, there's too many!"
Redshift Operators	The Redshift Operators are still inside. Red Dwarf, White Dwarf, and Neutron are each disoriented, weakened, hardly able to think straight... but oddly, Red Giant is looking just about normal. A little sway, a little slowness in his motions, but mostly normal. Just how he usually is. In fact, despite having had a small but significant amount of the wine, he doesn't look uncoordinated as he stands up.     "Hostage situation?" His three optics narrow. Somehow, a flickering light below the tape on the fourth burns viciously. His voice is gravel, the weight of the earth as he takes on the weight of his allies. He hoists all three over his shoulders, where they delieriously cling onto his body. "You need to explain that to me now." He speaks as he approaches the doorway. He's just so worried and he wants to help so badly, you know!     "It sounds like *people* are in *danger*. It sounds like someone could get hurt. And we don't want that at all." Each step as he walks comes with the wailing of his muscles overwhelming his suit's motors, an unearthy scream. Each step manages to shake the flimsy floor of the entire room. He's making sure to move slowly, after all, to keep the situation calm. And he's feeling a little inebriated too, the wine smashing into all two hundred and thirty kilograms of his body mass with an amount of force you could call "noticable." "So tell me,"     "What *exactly* do you mean by 'hostages getting hurt'?"
Hibiki Tachibana	"I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm~?"     "...Not on your life." Hibiki, unlike some of the others, doesn't have the seaweed wine dragging down her system - one of the benefits of perhaps being old enough to drink but not actually taking that as an excuse to do it. It means she has the presence of mind to deliver an indignant line, coming to a protective stop a few meters behind Bota, as Lisa sets her hand onto him.     ...It also means she has the presence of mind to fully acknowledge the danger they're in, at the sounds of firearms being readied all around them. She immediately starts piecing together the strange thing that Ishirou's scan picked up. They're surrounded.     By ordinary, sick people. They're not even /that/ armed. They wouldn't be that dangerous normally, but... in this situation, especially if they didn't want to hurt them...     Hibiki's hand comes up to clench at where her transformation pendant sits underneath her jacket. Could she even transform in time to do anything? "Hostages..." She lingers on that word, even as Shajo and Nonon make a play and Dysnomia and Candy cook up a plot. She's ready to move on a moment's notice, especially if Shajo looks like he's going to be hurt for what he's trying--     No, even if he's not, she's intending on trying to grab the (hopefully sobering) Bota and pull him defensively a foot or two backwards out of Lisa's gripping distance. It doesn't seem like she's planning to fight - right away - but she's sure as hell not happy letting her keep her hands on him.     "I'm not gonna let you take advantage of Bota's attachment--"     Hibiki starts towards Lisa, while glancing back over her shoulder, towards the doorway. The old woman stepping up to it, that is. Her voice drops a little. "...Oi, granny. Answer him," she vaguely gestures her head towards the oversized frame of Red Giant. Doesn't seem like she's planning for Bota to be taken in so easily either, without an explanation. "What the hell is going on here?"
Petra Soroka	"I *saw* you die..." "Awww. And my body went overboard, right?"     That finally makes Petra's blood run cold. Lilian, leaning on her shoulder, feels her vibrating excitement at getting to express a little bit of care go still when she slows to a halt outside, behind Bota. Her expression shifts from bewilderment and embarrassment to horror, staring at 'Lisa' with the settling realization of 'monster', even without Ishirou or anyone telling her what the puppet actually is. Her grip tightens on Pillar of Creation, about ready to run her through, as a simple way to snap Bota out of his trance.     Even though Petra's first instinct was to think she was pretty, now that she knows what she is, everything about her comes across as unnatural and horrifying. Petra isn't drunk, isn't overly attached to Lisa herself, and that uncomfortable gut realization means the only way she's entranced by the Queen is with revulsion and alarm.     She must've been killed and copied by one of the Leviathans, and mimicked just to disable Bota. It's sort of close to correct, but not really. Petra doesn't know what the Queen really is. Lilian feels her tense up, about to execute the puppet, and then-- "We can't have the hostages getting hurt."     Petra stares up at the surrounding figures all aiming weapons at them, then slowly back at the old woman with pure, unfiltered betrayal on her face. She'd thrown herself so completely into enthusing over the island and hoping its inhabitants that this sudden turnaround leaves her stiff and trembling, anger mixed with shock. She slides the hand that isn't supporting Lilian surreptitiously into her trench coat pocket, wrapping it around the transteam gun but not pulling it out or making a violent motion yet.     She does, however, slide her inner foot forwards, angling her torso out towards the islanders to form a defensive 'V' with Lilian. "So-- so Bota and-- and the rest of the Harpoonists are hostages? But not us? What are..."     Seemingly allied with a Leviathan, protected from sea monster attacks, drugging the party and needing them not to be harmed-- Petra comes to a conclusion, somewhat based in her unconscious assumptions about 'islanders'. "... Human sacrifices...?"
Meika Kirenai	Unfortunately, it's not the seasickness of floating container-islands causing Meika's head and stomach to spin like they are. She's not the type to avoid a bottle of something alcoholic, to her own detriment. And even so, doubled and bleary vision is usually manageable, when her eyes aren't her only reliable sense- but lingering tinnitus, and eroded inner-ear balance wipe out much of Meika's capacity to feel out her surroundings with echoes. It's a fight for her to stay standing, and a harder one to get near the doorway still upright, from where she'd been, inside. Left foot, right foot, - "Ack! S-stupid table.." My muscles and bones feel too squishy...     Unceremoniously weaving and stumbling between barely-conscious harpoonists towards the community center's exit, Meika relies on the guidance of heavy boots scuffing against flooring and table legs more than she ought. But, with the others, such as Kana, already peeking out the doorframe, Meika instead half-crouches, half-collapses to a sidesaddle kneel to take cover against the nearby inside wall for a long, drawn out moment, as she fumbles with her messenger bag. She banks heavily on the fact she looks like Just A Kid to cover up suspicion, even if her reliance on that is fully unconscious. Notebook, notebook, I know it's in here, it was here earlier, so-     Before Meika's fingers reach a metal grip before they find her familiar notebook amonst the papers and workbooks she lugs around. Retrieving the handgun Petra had gifted her from inside the bag, she tucks it close to her side furthest from the doorway's vision, and silently pulls back its slide. Bringing it with me wherever was a good suggestion...     Nonon's gunshot, however, knocks Meika into a heart-in-the-throat panic reaction, bolting upright completely silently, and locking her eyes on the doorway, the allies and Old Woman (Enemy) standing by it.     With shaking arms, she turns, and points the gun towards the doorway group. Her mouth moves a bit, forgetting to put sound to thoughts and make them words, and with her ever-quiet motions, the timid escalation in not-quite-aid to Red Giant and Hibiki's interrogation of the old woman may be hard to notice. The safety's disengaging click, however, is plain and easy to hear.     "W-what's even going on..?" A dangerous question to ask, with a loaded firearm and a non-zero BAC. The waver in her voice doesn't help at all.
Lilian Rook	'I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm~?'     "I don't-- . . . --remember asking!" Lilian says, managing it as little more than a nauseous gasp, aftr the effort of making her mouth move.     §Weak. Sloppy. Who cares? Is that thing going to take emotional damage from the least witty back and forth you can think of? You sound ridiculous. Focus on the problem at hand. Don't close your eyes to think either; if you do, everyone will be in even more danger.§     "You knew-- . . . --perfectly well . . . right? Otherwise-- . . . --you'd never be . . . this-- . . --roundabout." The severity of the emergency overrides Lilian's immediate urge to spurn Petra's help. She's already grabbing her arm to haul herself upright.     'Mom-- Lisa! How did you...? I *saw* you die...'     "Bh . . . Bota--h?! Are you-- . . . You can't be serious--!"     §Not helping. He hasn't seen it before. You didn't tell him everything. You didn't expect that thing to be like this. Account for your own mistakes. Don't get caught up trying to simulate other people while you can barely keep yourself awake. Of course he wants to believe it. Look at the state he's in.§     "C-candy . . . You have to--"     'We have all the time in the world to catch up, don't we?'     "Shut the f--"     §Not helpful. It's not a person. Copied words. The real issue. Bota doesn't get that.§     The reflex to reach for her sword is subdued in a bleary haze of lost time. The muscle memory is clean, even badly intoxicated, but it takes her too long to decide that she isn't in physical shape to fight with it. Lilian draws Winter Crow by painstaking increments of stiff, robotic movements, overcoming metaphorical fumble chance with painstaking effort.     'No, but- all this time, where've you *been*, I...'     "Dead! Bota!" Lilian pauses to breathe again, winded by one false step. "You know it . . . ! Rita-- . . . --does too! What-- . . . are you doing-- . . . at this point . . . ?!"     §No. I understand it, but I don't get it. He isn't really falling for it, right? He wants to see his mother that badly; so badly that the want is filling in for the half that should be making sense of the contradiction. I don't get it. Why? What about Lisa makes the two of them so obsessive like this? Even Rita. I don't get why the both of them would obviously risk so much to entertain the delusion of it. What's so special about their mother?§     "You were-- supposed to have-- . . . gathered your determined-- right?! You don't-- we don't have room-- . . . --for wishful thinking like-- this!"     §Fuck you Bota. Fuck you for getting someone that special for all that time, and then making me pay the tab for it later.§
Lilian Rook	'Bring him back inside. We can't have the hostages getting hurt.'     "Bold of you to assume, hag."     Lilian gets that one out in one breath. More like her usual form. The need for venom just then comes from a more critical layer than the urge to breathe and sleep; including the two crushing her between them. "Don't think-- I'll be kind to you, just-- because the previous Queen made you--!"     Lilian finally unsticks her sidearm from its anchor at her thigh, and pulls it up in line with her arm, locked at the elbow to keep steady. A brief shimmer of air surrounds the weapon as it charges from her palm contact, soft light poured into the seams.     "You had your chance-- . . . to trust me, and ask for-- help-- . . . or to . . . look at me, and think-- . . . to trust that thing instead!!" She is, of course, already fully surrounded, and badly outgunned, but the gesture matters. It's enough to put a line of threat somewhere. "So this all-- . . . --what's about to happen, is-- . . . --the consequences of you betting wrong!"     Kukuru comes to mind, but there's no way Lilian feels confident getting the message across without causing an alert. She's already grabbing at Petra to motion for her-- water, for some reason? She glances across to Red Giant, suggesting with a thought and a gaze for him to get in front of her very very soon.     §It thinks it's won. Rare situation. Straightforward. Just stall a second longer.§     "No matter how-- . . . --weak you thought I was-- . . . --you're all inside my range already!"
Redshift Operators	That massive figure that's currently walking forward doesn't reject Lilian's psychic urge to get in front of her. Is he actually... fully aware of it? Jury's out, it's so hard to see his expression through the mask, and from so far below his head as his walk forward adjusts path to loom just in front of Lilian.
Rita Ma	The atmosphere is tense as a bowstring. The islanders are terrified too: you can see it in their eyes, watch their fingers shake. But some necessity keeps them from backing down. They're scared of something else more than death.      Maybe not more than Death 2, though.      Shajo swings the axe at Lisa- and hits metal, as well as Kukuru's arms. Clang. "What-- are you doing?!" Bota chokes out, still unsteady on his feet. His trembling arms can barely hold the blade-lock, even with help. Some of the islanders gasp or take tense hissing breaths. One shoots on twitch reflex, a burst of pencil-sized needles embedding into the ground just wide, but the others manage to hold their fire.      Then Nonon's curing bullet takes hold, and Bota twists his body with a grunt of effort to force Shajo back. He interposes himself next to Kukuru in a broad stance with blade raised, eyes clearer but still full of confusion and fear. "That's my mother, you bastard!"      "Awww, honey. That woman didn't hurt you, did she?" Lisa's hand strokes Bota's back where the healing bullet hit.      "N-no, I..."      "Good. My thanks, then." She smiles angelically over Bota's shoulder at Nonon, and then reaches over to stroke Kukuru's shoulder, just a little unwholesomely. "And what about you, dear?"      But if Kukuru's arm is bleeding from the axe, Lisa's eyes linger just a little too long on the blood.
Rita Ma	The old woman understands absolutely nothing of what's going on between Bota and the Queen, except for sucking in a tense breath when Shajo's clash sets off a few gunshots. Red Giant approaching makes her shrink back against the doorframe, eyes wide and hands up; islanders flanking through the community hall's back entrance draw a bead on him, Petra, and Meika from behind, but that isn't any relief to her.      Her eyes dart to Meika's gun, up to Red Giant, and back down to Meika again, cold fear crawling up her spine. Her words come quickened by panic. "N-no! There isn't any 'Queen', no sacrifices- this is about medicine! For the Fish Disease. Most everyone here's sick. Lisa told us the Busan has it!"      "But not enough for everyone," Lisa purrs, looking past her immediate conflict to the old woman. "So we'll have to make a very convincing trade." Her head tilts to the community hall, full of unconscious harpoonists and surrounded by islanders with guns.      Sea Monkey has the Fish Disease. Probably many other harpoonists do, too. So it's a trade: lives for lives. And however it's resolved, the Queen wins. She knows it, just to look at that glint in her eyes.      Nobody should take a staggering, clumsy woman's threats seriously. But something in Lilian's demeanor, some sharpness in her eyes, makes the islanders all flinch. Even Lisa's eyebrows lift, if only archly.      But Kana's hand closes lightly around Lilian's wrist. She drank nearly as much; the last twenty seconds or so have been spent clearing her head for a single thought. 'That thing', Lilian had said. "Lilian," she breathes, her one eye wide and fierce. "I n- knew her."      "She di- hasn't... gotten older."      At the slightest sign of confirmation from Lilian-- clang! Kana's cleared the thirty-foot gap from door to Lisa, and now it's her blade locked with Bota's. There's wild, disoriented betrayal in his eyes: "Kana, why?! You knew--" "Bota, it isn't-!!"      She's almost impossible to track, except for the steam exhalation of her weapons and the trails of sparks. But she's still drugged, and Bota isn't, and every time she goes for Lisa he just barely cuts her off.      Lisa smiles distantly and doesn't flinch, even when the flurry of blows stirs her hair.
Rita Ma	The islanders aren't really sure what to do about their hostages fighting each other. That's probably a small part of why they haven't outright opened fire yet. A bigger part is the eminent menace of Candy's open jacket.      The old woman sucks in a tight breath and edges away, as much as Red Giant and Meika will let her. Lisa looks lazily amused.      Dozens of hands quiver on dozens of triggers as she walks forward, until Kana's blade flickers out from the ongoing clash and nicks her cheek, halting her advance. That's as close as she can get to him, still some fifteen feet away. "I wonder. You aren't immortal, are you? And yet you're so willing to throw away your life, just like that..."      She reaches for a nearby islander's harpoon gun, snatches it out of his hands, and lazily aims it at Candy, gauging the reaction. "Lisa! What are you doing?!" "Hm? It's got to be a bluff, doesn't it?"      She doesn't know that, and she doesn't care a bit.
Redshift Operators	The giant doesn't really understand what's happening. Trade? Medicine? He actually forgot how Fish Disease works, and who said how much was where, and what might happen without it being distributed here. He cants his head. One of the sleepy dreamers on his shoulder makes a few sounds. "Mnnprhrrr..." The giant nudges him slightly. He gets enough presence of mind to whisper, barely audible to anyone but the giant himself:     "We don't respect human shields. And they won't either."     The giant, draped in the bodies of his friends, recognizes enough about this situation to understand he and his allies are the ones in immense danger. Not from the Queen, but from her scheming. Weapons are being pointed at him, and his friends. He reaches back, into the depths of the machinery of his hardsuit, and grips something: A *ripcord*. Auxilliary engines of his suit roar to life, making the wailing of his mechanical joints turn to a noise like a chainsaw. It dampens long enough for him to say, "It would be a *shame* if anyone got hurt. A shame."     Red Giant recognizes that some amount of combat is going to be necessary here, according to his trustworthy pal, and he's feeling uncoordinated. So he cracks his fingers, his knuckles, his arms, his shoulders, and his neck. He's limbering up and doing his best to make sure he can get through this without hurting anyone on accident. And of course, he warns them:     "It would be *awful* if I hurt someone who's sick. It doesn't matter how much medicine you have, they might never get better." But he doesn't do anything yet. Lilian's signal's got him acting as her cover for a bit, until she does whatever she's planning.
Angela	A bullet slices across Shajo's cheek but manages by pure luck to not be killed today. Gebura likely foresaw this (and lets face it, Bota) which is why she interjected, but she didn't really have the opportunity to sit her two Agents to explain the deal. Shajo presses on with the kind of determination of one who has already decided they are going to die today but-- CLANG. Also, whatever sounds Kukuru's arm being carved up makes. "You fuckin' dumbass!" Shajo shouts, taking another swing but-- Bota stops Shajo's strike. This might inadvertantly have saved Shajo's life (for the moment). His axe was bloody even before Kukuru took the blow and has the appearance of rust. It's always been there He's always lived a life of violence, maybe even as long as Bota has. But still-- He stares at Bota in shock and disbelief. "Kid..." Shajo says hoarsely, the words 'You bastard!' lingering in his mind and heart, sapping at his will. "...No I get it. You hope she's like your sister, still a sweetheart maybe with a different diet. But you gotta wake up if you want this world to ever be safe for her." Still, his objective wasn't to kill this being--he was genuinely fearful Bota was going to be eaten or killed or turned into a hostage. ...However Nonon's work has led to another problem... BABBLE NONON: Bota's tougher than I thought! SHAJO: Now is not the fuckin' time to be impressed. NONON: We can probably bail. She's not after us. I love Bota too but we can't work like this. SHAJO: Fuck. FUCK! How many more of those bullets do you have?" Gebura listens to Lilian but she's drugged up still and makes it tougher to make a move. Candy's playing at something while that's going on... "Here I thought we were here to kill a sea monster but it seems we should've been treating you like a human all along." Gebura says, the only source of fury is in her eyes. "We really fucked this one up." Kana makes another move and Shajo decides this is an opportunity to try and go for the monster again-- --only she is now taking aim at Candy. Shajo runs towards Lisa again, hoping Kana can buy him the space to move, swinging the axe to try and deflect away that Harpoon Gun. "Wake up, Bota!" He pleads. Nonon readies another Cure Bullet and says, "Well, he's our adorable pal, ma'am. S'why we're not taking too kindly from you pulling this on him! You wanna calm down and negotiate, how 'bout we put down the weapons, undrug our pals... Dunno about Candy, but we don't bluff."
Kukuru	Kukuru might be stupid, but she's not completely deaf and blind despite her lack of visible ears and the fake glasses she almost always has on. Catching what Dysnomia reasons might have happened here, Kukuru's gaze at Lisa only grows more confused. "Is that true? Did all of you...? Are you being held hostage by the Queen? Or..." She almost gets it, but still not quite. Kukuru nods firmly at Red Giant's comment about people being in danger, nodding a few more times quickly when he speaks of not wanting anyone getting hurt. "He's right! We're all on the same side to help everyone get through this, you knooow? So... We should be more honest and trust each other, you know?" She can hear the safety on Meika's gun. She can see Petra moving to defend Lilian, and she can even see Lilian drawing her blade in a way that has Kukuru sorely tempted to go check on her, to make sure she's not sick with something. Did she drink too much, perhaps? No... Lilian isn't the type to do that. Not before a big battle like now, anyway, so there's definitely something terribly wrong here. Something's severely wrong here, but Kukuru still can't put her finger on what. It's indeed for the best that Lilian doesn't try to signal to her, then, as Kukuru's soon distracted again by the axe clashing against both Bota's weapon and her arms. Unlike Bota's weapon, Kukuru's arms are pure flesh and bone, so there's quite a bit of blood flowing by the time she's able to draw herself back with a pained hiss. "Nngh..! H-he's not... No, Shajo's a good boy, too! H-he just..." A lot of this isn't adding up, even if Kukuru still can't figure out what the reason is. "M.. Made a mistake. That's all. I-isn't that right, dear?" She knows the Agents aren't the sort to act wildly based on pure emotions, after all, and they certainly wouldn't put her in harm's way intentionally! That's why she couldn't possibly get mad at them, even if she's going to need a moment or five to get those wounds fixed up with all those nanites she's got coursing through her body. She doesn't look like she's about to tear up until Shajo calls her a dumbass. That still hurts in ways her healing can't handle, even if she knows he's just saying it in the heat of the moment. At least Lisa's there to help soothe the pain a little, even if only emotionally. It might be unwholesome in context, but Kukuru still has so little of that to work with. "I'm okay. Just a little scrape." She answers even as a chunk of flesh steadily reattaches itself to her arm. It's pretty clear it hurts a lot from how much her lower lip is quivering, but Shajo's watching. She can't let him worry! Naturally, it's bleeding a lot. It'll stop soon, and Kukuru notices the stare, but it draws an amused giggle out of her rather than any sort of concern. Like mother, like daughter~
Kukuru	Sadly, Kukuru can't amuse herself for too long, as the situation becomes clearer once the old woman explains herself. "So that's what it is, then... Aw. How sad. If you really wanted it cured, I... Hm." She taps a finger to her chin. "Maybe... I know our smarter folks could figure something out with my powers, once all the fighting's over. But doing something like this..." Kukuru hears those gunshots that don't belong to Shajo, and she sighs again. "Bota, dear... Please, take care of your mom. I'll fix both of you up after we're done here, okay?" Kukuru nods '''knowingly''' at Lilian despite no words actually exchanged. She can tell just by seeing how Lilian's behaving and speaking that she needs some time, and it coincides with what Kukuru needs to do. After letting out a weary sigh, Kukuru claps her hands together once, then smiles sweetly at the watching islanders as she approaches the closest one with her hands held wide, like she wants to give them a nice, gentle hug. Unlike her usual smile, her eyes are wide-open. It probably seems fine, though, since she's so friendly, and people from the Concord always know what's best for everyone. It's a nice hug, too, with her arms crossing over each other to hold their shoulders nice and tight, yet softly in between. "It's so sad... Betraying the Concord. That's one. Betraying Rita's family. That's two. And betraying the Busan. That's three." The huggee might notice that Kukuru's grip on their shoulder is getting uncomfortably tight, and not simply like an overbearing grandparent. "We all came to help everyone, you know? But if you're gonna slap us all in the face like that even after knowing why we're here..." Her hands dig in deeper, hard enough to dig through flesh, and then pulls until she can get her arms back out to her sides like she's welcoming someone else in for another bloody hug. "I'm sorry. You're all gonna have to die today~"
Dysnomia	Enough? Dysnomia breathes out, the smoke pooling at her feet, twitching, spreading outward, like water rolling downhill, spindly fingers curving along the landscape of the island in haphazard lines. Come on....     Just as suddenly, they stretched upward, like the spiraling arms of a galaxy, they crashed through the islanders standing abreast of them, aiming down sights, snaring them in thick mist and tried to wrench their weapons from their hands.     "The powers of the multiverse at your beck and call, promising to help," Dysnomia murmured. "And you'd rather steal the future from harpoonists trying to save your world from annihilation?"     "How terribly desperate." Her mouth twisted in a grimace. "You're terrified of the wrong things." She surveyed the crowd, eyes burning with disdain, flashing with a false clarity.     If she pulls that trigger, you will die. Your family will die. Your home will be gone. The fish disease won't matter, because the sea monsters will devour your dead flesh like carrion, with your last memory of fire and death.     If she lives to pull that trigger.
Petra Soroka	"N-no! There isn't any 'Queen', no sacrifices- this is about medicine! For the Fish Disease. Most everyone here's sick. Lisa told us the Busan has it!"     "Then fucking die." Petra isn't actually sure whether the Busan has the cure for the Fish Disease; she'd spent most of this encounter referring to it as fish AIDS. It doesn't matter either way. "You didn't even stop to think that we, the people actually trying to save the world, might give a shit about your shitty little island. Instead you jumped straight to backstabbing us." "Lisa told us the Busan has it!"     Petra had been angling her shoulder back, to look at the old woman out of the corner of her eye, but with that line she straightens up square and dismisses her angrily, facing at the Queen and the arrayed islanders. "You even used her *name* when dealing with these people? That's so fucking disgusting. Freak. Monster. Bota must be practically unconscious from that fucking poison, to mistake you as anything that could possibly be related to Rita."     "So if there's no misunderstanding and no sympathy--" Petra draws her hand out of her pocket, pointing the transteam gun at the sky. "Vaporize."           --SILVER!--     Purple fog filled with glittering silver particles pours out of the gun as Petra swings it down in an arc. It flows over her and Lilian, still in her arm, obscuring both of them and crackling with lightning.          --MIST MATCH!--     --SILVER! S-S-SILVER!--     The fog dissipates with a dull explosion, leaving Petra in the armor of Sting Silver, patterns of sickly-yellow glowing hexagons spreading across her chest and shoulders, imprinted in the black armor, matched by the hexagon eyes on her mask. Channels of veins carved down the arms of the suit flow with rivulets of morphmetal, dripping off her clawed gauntlets. The heels of the boots are, already, broken off.     Petra, now masked and suited, first moves to unscrew the cap of her water bottle and hand it to Lilian, responding to any gunfire triggered by transforming by simply blocking it from hitting Lilian with her body. A droplet of morphmetal disconnects from her glove and flies into the open bottle, shaping itself into a straw so that Lilian doesn't need to work so hard to lift it-- if drinking it is even her intent.     Once Lilian is sufficiently watered, Petra's one free hand-- still, despite transforming, despite potentially being under fire, diverting half of her body to supporting Lilian until she says otherwise-- swipes through the air at the islanders, pressed flat. Centrifugal force flings droplets of morphmetal off her fingertips, and telekinetic linkage keeps them going and hardens them into a dozen flechettes, each accelerating and driving themselves into the gas canisters of the rifles in their hands.     One shimmering metal bead stays hovering in the air in front of Petra instead, then flattens out into a reflective sheet a millimeter thick like it was crushed by an invisible force. Petra reaches into it in the same motion as swinging her arm, certain of the makeshift mirror's position without even looking, and draws the revolver half of her Eggman-emblazoned gunblade from it, pointing at the islanders closest to her.     "If you're going to side with the monsters, then you can fucking be treated like them too." Despite saying that, she doesn't shoot to kill just yet. The distant rattle of the suit-reactor distorts her voice just barely not enough to conceal a little crack when she continues. "It's fucked up to do that when we *ate* with you."
Candy	Keep it up. If they stay distracted, maybe I can wrench the guns from their hands.     The cards are cut with a little sleight of hand, bent so that they'll fly neatly from one hand to the other. It makes a crisp, fluttering sound; sharp, like the end of a sentence. It's the equivalent of clicking a pen rapidly--something that, by its insistence, demands attention, even if it's ultimately insignificant. He's making this 'hostage situation' more tense, with the unspoken question posed: when does he stop?     The act has to continue. Even if every part of him is screaming to get up there and yank the gun out of that dipshit's hands, that isn't what someone loaded down with explosives would do. It has to keep up, for just a little longer. So Candy merely lets out a sharp sigh, when the needles go wide. That's my mother, you bastard!     "No it's not, Bota," Candy says. As he releases the lapel of his peacoat, he lifts his other hand. "I tried to tell you when you broke your ass running out here. It's not your mother. Just a thief wearing her face. If your mother was anything like your father, she wouldn't take these people hostage. That's right," he says, to the villagers with guns trained on him.     Hands still up, he turns to face the ones with guns trained on the community center. "Right now, the guns are pointed on us. You fucked us. Congratulations." His lips pull into a tight frown--that of someone who knows they don't have any good options.     "That's not Lisa Ma. Just so you assholes know. She's one of the freaks. Probably -the- freak, the way she thinks she's got it all fucking figured out, ah? The Queen. That's who told you about 'the medicine.' The medicine *I* could make you, by the way."      "What happens when you win, ah? Now that you know. She leaves you alone? For how long? That's what *I* wanna know." The cards are cut again. Rrrip. "A week? A month? The rest of your lives? So you can be, what, a goddamned petting zoo for these bastards that took everything from you? A little... what'sitcalled... monument, for their last victory over people? The guns might be pointed at us, but you're stupid if you think we're the hostages here."     Rrrip. "It's because of *them* that none of you grew up with solid ground to stand on. It's the threat of *them* that lets the uniforms on the boats and their little piggy owners get away with whatever the fuck they want. And it's because of *them* that any of you, or any of these people who fight for you, need that goddamn medicine in the first place." I wonder. You aren't immortal, are you? And yet you're so willing to throw away your life, just like that... Hm? It's got to be a bluff, doesn't it?     "I wish. Actually, it's just bad luck," says Candy, with his back to her, still facing the community center. This is for them, anyway.     "I was planning to use these to throw away some of your ugly fucking kids. I think they look better in little bits and pieces, me. I thought, 'hey, I know what I am doing. No harm in keeping these little treasures on me, if we're gonna be back on track in a few hours.'"     The farmer chuckles mirthlessly. "But, your little visit happened, and here I am, with my dick in my hand. Just goes to show you everybody's luck runs out sometime or other. I ain't immortal--but I plan on sticking around long enough to see yours run out. I guess that's up to you guys, huh?" he says, looking up at the villagers. Rrrrip. The cards cut again, and his eyes flick towards Dysnomia. Okay, Smoky, if you're gonna do something, now's the time.     When Dysnomia yanks down on their weapons, Candy is gone. Appearing in the community center with a large bottle of "DR." ESTEVEZ's MIRACLE TONIC, the farmer hurriedly pours mouthfuls in as many drunken harpoonists as he can manage. "Get up, you cocksuckers, get up!"
Lilian Rook	In the moments between Red Giant trundling in front of her, and the situation radically spiralling out of control, Lilian finds the strength to gasp a "Thank you--" and mutter near-inaudibly "--doubt it'll be clean-- . . . --like this." What she actually means is hers alone to know for certain. The instant he occludes her from 'Lisa's vision, Lilian is starting to unscrew the cap from her canteen, and--                 -----[stop]-----     Lilian's fingers spark with black-gold light. Carefully laying each one in exacting place on her upper right abdomen, Lilian allows her eyes to defocus, a warm breath to slowly escape her, and the sparks at her hand to flare into a bright and crackling distortion; embers of potential energy pulled from another temporal frame, swarming like fireflies, chasing the dark pinholes in space by which they leave.     "Not the last time-- . . . --I wish I turned out like Phony." she wheezes. "If only I could-- just say no, right?" Something about that makes her laugh bleakly to herself, before she cuts herself off with a hideous retch.     Lilian wobbles on the precipice of falling, realizes there's no need to try, and lets herself thump down on the cargo container beneath her-- now completely fixed in place-- so that her knees line up with Red Giant's feet. Tipping her head back, Lilian downs an alarming quantity of her water all at once, and doesn't bother to wipe her lips. She feels sick again in under a minute. Dehydrated again in under three. Carefully, gingerly, she moves her fingertips lower, then to her other side, wincing and gagging with each unpleasant press of buzzing light and darkness to skin through her armour.     Throwing up isn't a big problem. There's an entire sea underneath. Lilian gives up on trying not to by six minutes. One bottle through, she moves on to the other, chugging through it too fast. Her head is pounding. Her arms ache just from holding them in position. She feels simultaneously dizzy and absolutely leaden. Her eyes burn with the effort of keeping them open. The exhaustion creeping in is what has most of her attention. The cramps and cold numbness is what she monitors like a creeping toxin, weighing it against the throbbing in her skull and the fog in her thoughts, until--                 -----[start]-----     'N-no! There isn't any 'Queen' no sacrifices- this is about medicine! For the Fish Disease. Most everyone here's sick. Lisa told us the Busan has it!'     --says "Didn't ask."     Lilian exhales a moist cloud of trace drug cocktails that might put the average greytider to shame. Her hair falls loose, sliding down her back, as she tilts her head all the way over to look at the old lady at the threshold to the inn behind her.     "I don't care about your reasons and I don't care that you're wrong. At the end of the day, you looked me in the eyes, and instead of even trying to talk to me like a human being, you thought 'yeah I bet I could fuck her over' and took your shot."     She feels like shit. Regaining her ability to focus, move, vocalize, doesn't mean she didn't just skip to the edge of the hangover. But feeling like the morning after the worst night ever makes it easy to say the rest of the words she had spent all this time yelling at everyone else not to enable. "Even refugees with cancer stranded in the middle of the ocean would sooner slit their own fucking throats than trust me. How am I meant take that?"
Lilian Rook	'That's my mother, you bastard!'     "Bota you stupid bitch!"     Winter Crow fires precisely once. A white hot slug of solid gold ends up flat on Bota's sword or deep in his hamstring; he chooses which.     "The real Lisa fucked off on a boat into the middle of the ocean because she couldn't stand this!"     Lilian raises her voice to a hoarse-edged fervour sitting on the edge of a scream.     "How dare you lie to my face and tell me Rita's mother would try stealing from the people of Busan!"     Her hand leaps to her throat. Fingers clench around black chain.     "Cleasa Iontach ~     Black fog leaps from the slash of her arm, swirling into the air like a brush stroke drawn on water.     Céad Chogadh Bláthanna!"     §Stupid thing to pull with this little strength left. But that thing-- she, doesn't need to know that. If she's willing to treat this like a real war, then I'm not too good to deceive her right back.§     With a half-second of lag after Dysnomia starts tearing weapons from hands, Lilian cuts, steps, cuts, steps twice, cuts, vaults up over Red Giant, cuts, falls forward, cuts, lands facing Bota, cuts, and sprints after Kana.     Light gathers and scatters on the edge of her sword, leaving the illusion of simultaneous suspended slashes in the instant before eye catches up. A wave of pressure blows stinging sea spray in all directions.     Guns and spears that are too far from Dysnomia, too close to Lilian, sidearms and holdouts that can still be readied, and the weapons that more stubborn survivors manage to cling to, spray over the cargo containers as so many chunky sections.     Lilian is very much trusting Bota to not be doing anything stupid as she comes right over top of Kana, sword in both hands, and falls with it on 'Lisa'.
Meika Kirenai	As combatants crowd in, Meika's eyes squeeze shut, and she tries to force shallow breaths to stretch deeper. Without blurred-up vision to distract her, she tries with limited success to focus on her surroundings and not just swing her gun towards anyone she doesn't recognize approaching her. The weapon she's clutching sways side to side, still. It's right that the old woman not feel more at ease.     "D-don't... don't get closer! Please! Don't move!" The more surrounded (and thus scared) she gets, the less and less easy it is to guess at her composure. 'It would be a *shame* if anyone got hurt. A shame.'     "Is that- are we fighting, Mister? Should I-" She flinches at the chainsaw-esque noise Red Giant procures. She has no real reason to listen to him, beyond his scary coolness under the situation, and seeming intent on Creating Harm for the islanders. When the old woman tries to move away, though- Meika's closed-shut eyes *snap* open, and fix their piercing red irises right on her, the metal tolerances of her handgun make a few eerie clacking noises in punctuation as her grip tightens up. "W-where are you going! I just said don't move! I'll-"     She doesn't manage to complete that sentence. Her throat tightens, and her posture sways side to side. "Just- just let us go! If you just need medicine, w-why's it all... Why not ask..? W-why not try and..." Memories of pet stores and the weird blue medicine droppers for diseased fishtanks cross her mind, distracting and unbidden. "They sell it in stores..." She mumbles, nearly nonsensically. 'It would be *awful* if I hurt someone who's sick.'     Once more, Red Giant's tone-uncertain words snap Meika back to focus. "Y-yeah! We'll- I'll shoot if they..." She fades off, and looks to Red Giant, for any idea of confirmation, vastly over-assuming his intent from his intimidations. But-     As gunshots and shouts ring out outside, Meika seems surprised when her own trigger finger squeezes enough to neatly punch a hole in the wall material next to the old woman she'd been focused on threatening. Her heart leaps, her own motions, breathing, heartbeat, all immediately silence. But a second gunshot rings out from her, right after, as Meika tugs the barrel, aiming at-- Target shooting silhouettes didn't have legs, just heads and torsos. So that's not going to kill, right? It's more okay. So I can --her lower legs, with shaky-handed innaccuracy.     Barrel still smoking, she quickly turns and backs into the nearest wall, trying to get a hint of security from not having anyone behind her. The room spins, and her stomach turns, and she-- Huh? I was just talking with her, earlier, and now she's- and now I pulled the... --doesn't want to think of anything but the myriad of other guns pointed at her and the accompanying Elites.     Bile-guilt and alcohol make the trembling magical girl want to gag and hug her knees, but limbs lock into barely-thought-through motions, swinging the gun around to point at anyone she sees moving. Meika, if she tried, wouldn't quite be able to tell if her hands feel numb from the alcohol, the slipped-in drugs, or her gun's recoil. "I- I have more bullets where..."
Hibiki Tachibana	...So we'll have to make a very convincing trade.     Hm? It's got to be a bluff, doesn't it?     "Taking advantage of Bota isn't enough for you, you have to manipulate the people here, and put their lives on the line too...? Everyone's lives aren't yours to mess around with! And neither is Bota's care!" At this point, even assuming it were 'Bota and Rita's mother' standing there doing all of this, the fact she'd go this far with her schemes is plenty enough to make it obvious she's changed from what they remember her as.     Not that that's stopping Bota from rushing to her defense, or from sparks flying as Kana goes in. "Bota! Kana! This isn't the time...!" Damnit. This really is a whole mess-- an unexpected mess from them getting complacent, just like Gebura said. Lilian is planning something, Red Giant is set, Meika has a gun(!!), and the Agents are still trying...     This isn't a situation as simple as just punching out the queen - it'd be silly to expect she'd even show up here in a form where she could be harmed for real.     And then things get messy. Bloody.     "Kukuru--!?" Hibiki's eyes go wide, heart skipping a beat and voice cracking with shock and maybe...some kind of betrayal? In the face of that, Petra transforming, Dysnomia enacting her plot--her body moves faster than her mind.     "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron!" An eruption of golden light shrouds her completely for a brief moment, but a brief moment is all that's necessary for her to move in a blur of motion. She can't teleport like Candy can, so she's simply bypassing everyone still in the way of the entrance by leaping right over them, over Lilian as she cuts forward--     --and coming down among the group of islanders who were aiming at her, Meika, and Red Giant from behind, inside the community center. Candy is getting the harpoonists back on their feet, and Dysnomia may or may not have disarmed them already. Still, as everything outside comes to a head, she makes sure this group is floored - boot first, then an elbow striking out to knock down another, and then transferring the motion into a kick meant to send another falling to the floor.     In the next instant, she's lunging low to outright tackle another one to the ground, using a lung-evacuating strike from her palm that she carries through with her weight to pin them, for a single second. Her breathing is already heavy, and her pupils are dilated to half size. "...Stay down. Don't get up," she gets out. "...Or I can't guarantee what'll happen."     And then she's pushing off, moving on to effectively run down every other hostage-taker she can reach within the community center to take them down. Both for the safety of the harpoonists who'll hopefully be up on their feet to leave soon--and for their own.
Rita Ma	"Probably -the- freak, the way she thinks she's got it all fucking figured out, ah? The Queen. That's who told you about 'the medicine.' The medicine *I* could make you, by the way."      "Are you blind?" the old woman says to Candy. She's bewildered and terrified, but she holds firm to this. "Look at her. We know what sea monsters look like. If you could've made the medicine, you would've offered. You can stop it with your- your childish lies."      "You didn't even stop to think that we, the people actually trying to save the world, might give a shit about your shitty little island."      "Even refugees with cancer stranded in the middle of the ocean would sooner slit their own fucking throats than trust me."      "If you just need medicine, w-why's it all... Why not ask..?"      "That isn't how the world works. I'm sorry. I wish it was." The old woman tries to sound firmly sympathetic, child-scolding. She's much too scared to make it work. "But nobody has to get hurt here. Just put down your weapons and get back--"      Kukuru ripped someone apart a heartbeat ago. It's so jarring it takes until just now for anyone to react. The old woman screams in horror. Three dozen panicked gunmen ventilate Kukuru's body with about a hundred pencil-sized needles. She can probably take it.      The old woman freezes, lungs already empty, when Meika fires that first shot a second later. Her eyes are wide as dinnerplates, full of ice-cold panic. When the second bullet hits her leg, there's no air left to scream with, but she makes a croaking-howling inhalation when she hits the ground. "Whh-yyyy? I wasn't... even...?!"      Even now, Kana and Bota never swing at each other. It's only ever maneuvering for position; her swinging for Lisa, and him lunging to deflect it, or to dare her to hurt him instead. That changes when Shajo comes in to disarm Lisa: Kana baits out another parry, sweeps Bota's legs with the blunt edge of her swords, staggers to keep her balance, and then tumbles forward to pin his blade to the ground with her own. The fact that she can do that while almost too drugged to talk gives credence to stories of decapitated warriors fighting on.      "Kana! What are you doing?!"      "It's not... her!"      "What do you mean?! She's talking- she knows things! Who else could it be?!" But Candy's and Lilian's words finally seem to parse, and Bota looks up at them with raw confusion and betrayal. "But... but how?!"      "Bad luck it is," the Queen says to Candy. She looks down at Bota with a drop of regret- but not much more- and then back up at him. "That's enough out of you, I think."      Shajo's axe strikes Lisa's gun, which goes wide just as she pulls the trigger. The needles whistle right by Candy. "You again? Didn't you learn?" Before she can try to steady her aim, the people Dysnomia has persuaded open fire on her too- the suggestion directs their aim to her arm, which is swiftly mangled until it's only hanging on by a thread. She doesn't seem more than annoyed. "Tch. Why? Unpredictable as always, I suppose."      Between Lilian's cleasa, Petra's shards, and Dysnomia's disarming, few of the gunmen on this side of the building are still armed- but not many of them retreat, either. They must figure they're dead either way. Some draw crude scrap-metal spears and cautiously advance to stab at the forward members of the party. More gunmen circle around from the far side of the building or filter in through its back entrance, opening fire with pencil-sized needles from the flanks or from behind.
Rita Ma	Lilian's plunging blade goes right through Lisa's torso, hitting none of the bones you'd expect a human to have. She takes a half-step back from the impact, but otherwise just smiles. "Of course I'm the real Lisa," she says, nearly pressing her face to Lilian's. "Why else would I care so much about my darling son? All this was to spare him, you know."      Up so close, she really does look like Rita.      "Oh, but are you trying to kill me?" she says mildly, and looks down as if only just noticing the blade. "Here, let me help, sweetheart." Her remaining hand seizes Night Mist's grip. She 'steers' the blade through her own body, slicing up and to the right until it reaches her heart. "Does that do the trick? Hm. No..." She pouts, then wrenches it upwards through her neck, until the blade's sticking directly through her nonexistent brain. "What about that? Oh, still no? Well."      Her eyes cross to look at the sword sticking through her own head, then uncross to look at Lilian with a serene smile. "Really then. What makes you think your kind can win at all?"      Bota, still on the ground, looks like he's going to throw up.
Rita Ma	Inside the community center is a chaotic scene, but not quite that degree of a mess. Unarmed elderly islanders cower behind counters when Candy and Hibiki burst in, including Antonio and Ben who cooked the food. A few armed ones are present too and reflexively open fire in surprise, though they're reluctant to aim at a child. But the place is densely packed with unconscious harpoonists, and keeping any of them from getting shot in the crossfire is a challenge.      Sonia and Brune are among the first to perk up when given Candy's gross concoction. The former coughs violently, fumbles for her sword, and then yelps in panic when she's shot at and upends her table to cover behind. The latter immediately tries to stagger to his feet to fight, topples over embarrassingly onto the floor, then groans and finds his balance on the second try.      "Hey, hot stuff, mind telling me what the hell's going on?!" "I don't kn-" "I know *you* don't! Him!"      Hibiki's the only example they have, so by default they fall into nonlethal takedowns, or as close as they can get: the severe concussions Brune dishes out rival Hibiki's own, and Sonia's blade doesn't lend itself well to anything nonlethal but disarming. Other rank-and-file harpoonists try to follow their lead when revived by Candy, and turn the tide in securing the inside of the community center within a minute or two.
Redshift Operators	The giant's role for Lilian is done. Now it's time for his role for his friends. "Start carrying." He asserts to the others. Including, maybe especially, the harpoonists.     He kneels down to gently grab the injured woman. Did he approve of what Meika did? Disapprove? It's inscrutable! (He didn't understand but she looked like she was trying so hard, so he gave her some kind of nod.) "Shh." He says, his armor wailing and buzzing, his eyes burning, his voice of gravel offering no sense of comfort. Still, oddly, there might be one. He applies pressure onto her wound, and picks her up. He starts moving towards Union Busan, carrying no less than four people on his body to demonstrate that the others need to get their asses in gear too. Separate the components of this violence!     The stuff going on there with the Queen, Lisa? He... frankly can't understand it! Bota, Kana, Lisa, Lilian, these are all people he can't exactly decode the motives of. He just wants to be supportive to everyone here! But maybe the one with the blade in her head... is a problem. One that, as demonstrated by the blade in her head, he just can't solve. So he focuses on what he knows is the right thing to do: Walk forward, clear the way. Direct and lead the harpoonists to leave. Coincidentally, by carrying the woman in his arms, there's a good chance that he'll seem equal parts intimidating and darkly benevolent. Spears and needles undoubtedly pursue him, but his sheer fucking endurance (and carrying the injured woman) will hopefully deter the worst. "*Let me through.*"     First thing to do is get his squad to Union Busan. Once they're deposited there, once they're safe, once the woman is set down and medical attention is called for her, he's going to try to figure out what to do about Lisa... is she some kind of fish monster person? His memory of what she was doing and saying out there isn't clear, so he does the sensible thing and tries to find an expert. Who's an expert, someone who's great at hand-to-hand combat, someone that probably isn't drugged... Right! He'll look for the best man for the job, getting on a radio while he's there.     "Get me Clark Miller."     "Confusion on the island. A person acting like a fish monster. A fish monster shaped like a person. We need your *expertise.*" Red Giant really just doesn't understand what's going on, and all the experts besides him are, frankly, drunk as fuck and very upset!!
Angela	Nonon moves to start helping the harpoonists with her Cure Bullets. The Disciplinary Team is frankly of the same mind as Lilian--not even because it's Lilian's mind on the matter. Gebura doesn't like being taken advantage of. Shajo doesn't like being taken advantage of. And Nonon isn't too fond of how close her loved one came to dying. Twice! But by the same token, the idea of just carving into these people--well Nonon and Gebura are okay with it, but these are the sorts of people Shajo would be desperate to help any other time. Just another Wing taking advantage over the desperate and, as often comes with desperation, the stupid. "Figured it'd give the Commander an opening," Shajo grins, blood oozing down his face. "You're done." ''Oh, but are you trying to kill me? Here, let me help, sweetheart'' And then the monster that acts like a human proves that she is still pretty monster, all told. Shajo's grin and his face goes pale. "Legendary Red Mist..." Shajo says. "How the fuck do we deal with this?" He backpedals towards Bota, frowning at him with concern. If he cuts the head off, will the rest of the body still move? If he splatters it into viscera, will it still be able to infect? Nonon is quietly doing her work, trying to avoid getting attention drawn to her. Once it seems like the harpoonists are up and moving, maybe she'll be able to help the islanders but... Gebura on Shajo's arm takes a painfully long look at Lisa. Staring. Threats don't really mean much from someone who can't go outside so she doesn't threaten the Queen. ''Really then. What makes you think your kind can win at all?'' Gebura crosses her arms. "You'd hardly be the first unkillable monster. Stop mocking the kid's feelings and you can kill us onn the field all you like. There's no point in talking to you. And no point talking to us. Makes it nice and simple."
Dysnomia	Mia smirks as they take her suggestion to heart. She opens her mouth, and--     A needle pierces through her back, spraying blood onto the ground, and then another, and another, pierced by needlepoint after serrated needlepoint after she disarmed most of their forces in full view.     Seeing her wounded, one of the spearmen lunged to run her through...She she caught the blade, in her bare hands.     She seized it by the point and, slowly, agonizingly, with an ear-splitting CREAK, turned it around to point toward the harpoonist who had pointed it back at their face, while it still sat in their hands. "Hide. And then, maybe you'll even live." She shoved them, HARD, practically throwing them backward into one of the cargo containers as mist coiled around them in a dense swirl.     Shapes appeared in the mist, like tricks of the light on a foggy day. An outreached claw, a long tendril, a mouth full of teeth. But a touch revealed them to be anything but a trick.     Dysnomia walks, unceremoniously, toward Lisa...Or was it 'Lisa?' "You can't think that's enough to stop us," she said, as the wounds in her chest close like a fog bank rolling in through an open door. Nonhuman anatomy wasn't enough for her to imagine something invulnerable...Even if it made her want to heave with a stomach she didn't have anymore.
Kukuru	'It's not your mother. Just a thief wearing her face.' Is that what's happening? Kukuru has her doubts, but Candy's always been one of the sharper people she's known. It's enough to have her questioning Lisa's appearance in her mind, but not quite enough to raise her hands in Lisa's direction. There's still the possibility that she had simply changed that much since the last time Bota saw her, but- 'She di- hasn't... gotten older.' 'It's not... her!' 'Of course I'm the real Lisa,' 'Why else would I care so much about my darling son? All this was to spare him, you know.' The optimist in Kukuru tells her that Lisa might have just aged well, and perhaps she was just hiding part of herself to best protect her dearest children. The way she speaks still gives her pause, however, and the other optimist tells her to focus on the traitors. 'At the end of the day, you looked me in the eyes, and instead of even trying to talk to me like a human being, you thought 'yeah I bet I could fuck her over' and took your shot.' 'If you're going to side with the monsters, then you can fucking be treated like them too.' Kukuru doesn't know how to feel about all this. She should be glad, that both Lilian and Petra seem to share her own thoughts on this matter. After all, betraying so many people in such a way would warrant exactly this kind of response, especially when it involves messing with both Kukuru's and Rita's families. She just wishes Petra didn't associate these people with her. 'It doesn't matter how much medicine you have, they might never get better.' "The people on the Busan will. We'll make sure of it." Once again, Kukuru promises more than she can deliver. She doesn't know this, though, since she's sure it can be fixed. It might not be fixed easily, but she trusts in herself, the Concord, and the various medical and medical-adjacent Elites here. It'd be harder not to believe in them! It'd be just as hard to ever believe the islanders again, especially once they start firing on her. Focused as she is on making a show of her display, she winds up getting caught on the back foot, and those needles punch right into and through her from enough angles that she looks like a bloody pincushion by the time she hits the ground. As if to emphasize the inhuman nature of Kukuru, a dark portal opens up beneath her, and the pale green of her nanites mingles to make the whole thing look sickly while the wounds start to close up with several/most of those needles still stuck in her.
Kukuru	<J-IC-Scene> Shajo says, "Oi Kukuru." <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, in between pained breaths "Mmn... Y-yes, Shajo dear?" <J-IC-Scene> Shajo awkwardly mumbles, "Sorry for calling you a dumbass." Any fatigue Kukuru felt a moment ago fades, and she feels her heart swelling up once more. Now she has to make sure to make an example of these people that would dare betray her family! It still hurts a lot, though, as she's not giving herself much time to heal at all aside from those nanites stopping the bleeding and doing almost nothing about the actual pain. Remembering roughly where she had gotten shot from, Kukuru finishes sinking into that cloud as another appears just beside several of those gunmen, depositing her right next to them with the same open-eyed smile on her face. "He-llo there! And goodbye." Kukuru, now bearing those trusty giant claws of hers, twirls once with her arms outstretched not unlike someone frolicking in a grassy field. Unlike the lady in grassy field, however, she's deliberately aiming to turn those gunmen into smears on the wall, then those walls into broken shreds, structural stability be damned. Those that choose to stay down with Hibiki's instructions do seem to avoid Kukuru's smiling wrath, though, as she's mostly focusing her efforts on wrecking anyone still standing and the island itself. "Please don't insult my family by changing your minds now, dears. You already made your decision when you turned on us from the start~"
Petra Soroka	Then Petra finally looks back to see Meika's gun smoking, and the old woman's awful, pathetic scream. Her suit disintegrates into glittering smoke in the few forceful steps it takes for her to get back to the door of the community center, and she shoves the transteam gun back in her pocket before ducking under Meika's waving gun-arm and propping the younger girl up across her shoulders.     "Right, right-- hey. Hey. We've got Kana and Lilian and Nonon on the Queen. There's not many people left who are threats." Petra wobbles, and flinches when the gun in Meika's hand brushes dangerously close to her. She watches Red Giant carry away the bleeding old woman with a distinctly uncomfortable expression. "Now we'll just be getting everyone back to the ship so we can deal with that poison, okay?"     Hearing the noise that the old woman made after being shot knocked all the fight right out of Petra. Seeing that face that looks so much like Rita's staring down Lilian with a sword buried between her eyes while she trudges past with Meika supported on her shoulder only cements it. She makes a small, queasy noise, and mutters, "Poor Bota..." before dumping Meika at the Busan. The rest of the Harpoonists are given a hand too, as they recover, though for the ones that weigh more than a seventeen year old girl, Petra ends up needing to transform back just to be strong enough to be helpful at all.
Petra Soroka	"Even refugees with cancer stranded in the middle of the ocean would sooner slit their own fucking throats than trust me. How am I meant take that?"     "Not only that! Not *only* that!" Petra's habit of petulantly stomping to emphasize her words, when enhanced by her suit, punches straight through the shipping container she's standing on, causing it to plunge deeper into the water. Petra yips in shock and hops away from the hole she made, boots clattering on the metal.     "They invited us into their *home*! They sat down with us and *talked* to us and decided we were worth killing for their *convenience*! They didn't even think-- it didn't even cross their *minds*-- there wasn't even-- there wasn't even a-- there was--"     Petra cuts off the stammering loop with a deep breath, rasping and rattling through the mask's distortion. She clenches her fist, and a flood of morphmetal surges through the channels carved in her arm like from a sudden heartbeat, pouring over her gauntlet and falling to the metal ground with a liquid thud that resonates through the huge empty container. Lilian being able to stand on her own is a good thing, and Petra would never be surprised to see her shrug off something that totally disabled so many other people, but it does leave Petra momentarily adrift without someone to stand by.     "We spent all that *fucking* time, like-- like-- fucking *Candy* talking about making stuff for them, and all of us-- helping, and interested, and fucking *hopeful*-- and they could've asked us for help with *this* at any fucking time! Instead, they were like-- fucking nihilistic trash pile shithole!" "That isn't how the world works."     "Then make it work that way!" "But nobody has to get hurt here."     "That isn't how the world works either."     Thousands of drops of morphmetal, from expended flechettes and scattered sprays of silver leakage, twitch in a simultaneous dance in time with a staticky rattle within her suit. Seen from above, the silver droplets would all snap into a fractal, crystalline pattern, jerking their way across the saltstained ground in alien synchronicity. Petra grabs the islander near her as they step off the bridge ajoining the container she's on to the neighboring one, brushing their spear to the side with a spray of sparks, and then hurls them back onto the floating container with the rest.     Silver rushes inwards, coalescing in a beach ball-sized globule above the crowded shipping container. With the squeal of tortured metal and bridges wrenched from their bolts, the entire structure is slammed down into the water by the spreading silver, crumpling at the impact point. The middle of it disappears beneath the surface in a moment, either end bucking upwards from the singular point of impact before momentum drags them, and the contingent of people on them, underwater too.     Petra chooses not to think about how some of them might be devoured by monsters before swimming out. She hisses through her teeth, then kicks the spear the islander dropped when thrown over the edge, into the water.
Hibiki Tachibana	Things in the community center die down - and when they do, Hibiki finally allows several stray projectiles clatter to the floor from between her fingers, caught in mid-air where they'd otherwise have risked hitting someone. There hasn't been enough exertion to justify the amount of sweat falling down her forehead or the heavier breaths she's taking, but that seems to be the furthest thing from her mind right now.     "The locals... queen's taking advantage of their sickness... to make them..."     Speaking between inhales and exhales, she trails off and tightens her fists up at her sides. It's not much of an explanation compared to how Candy might put it, but she can't continue without the words getting lost in a mix of emotion. She takes a few seconds to just recollect herself, eyes shut-- eventually opening them back up to glance towards the elderly who had taken cover.     Her tense expression eases up some, before the sounds of ongoing chaos outside get her to take it on again. She can't slip up or slow down now. Her head snaps back towards Sonia and Brume. "All the harpoonists should get back to the Busan. It's a mess, and it's not safe. Not as long as /she's/ here, and the fighting is still going on. There's still too much ahead of us for anyone to get hurt in the crossfire." She pauses, and gives the noncombatants another glance.     "...I get that you're all desperate. But don't just give up and do whatever she wants. We'll find a way... to help you without needing any of this."     How, exactly? She doesn't know that yet. Maybe it'll take stopping the queen and then coming back. Maybe there'll be a way to get more medicine to them then, when the seas are safe. If they need a way to get by until then, maybe Kukuru could-- ...     A few seconds after, Hibiki dashes back out of the building; unless the reinforcements are expecting someone to come out swinging, she'll probably get at least catch a few by surprise, sweeping them off their feet and ensuring they stay down with strikes to the plexus that speed up their descent to the ground.     She goes from gunman to gunman in brief bursts of speed, disarming or otherwise disabling them as she goes, even when it means taking a shot or a stab herself here and there. If she has nothing else, she at least has the strength and speed to get to where she needs to go and stop them without needing to hurt them more than she has to.     And eventually, her path takes her right to one of the same spots Kukuru had teleported to. And when she goes to turn another group into bloody streaks--Hibiki gets in the way, using both gauntlet-clad arms to stop her claws in their tracks by abruptly putting herself between Kukuru and one of the islanders.     "...Kukuru." Her voice is low, and still has that betrayed, now-slightly manic edge to it. The same is in her eyes, looking past her arms. "What the hell are you doing...?"
Candy	Candy takes the heat, upon entering. Although he doesn't even seem to flinch, that's only because time stops, and affords Candy the necessary space to clutch his bleeding shoulder, scream, spit, swear and cry.      The sped-up protests and lamentations of the farmer play in a confusing, mangled burst all at once, punctuated with the rapid patter of his boots, the bloody prints appearing one after the other before stopping short of the table Sonia just overturned. Throwing himself into cover, hissing and clutching his shoulder, he explains.      "Oh, not much, pretty lady," says Candy, his bottle of fake nitroglycerin in shards all over the floor, and his peacoat absent any of the illusory dynamite. "Just that the GODDAMN Queen is here, pretending to be Bota's mother. She tricked all these people, so she could use 'em to drug you with spiked booze and fuck us. Figured she'd either get the Busan to give up medicine, or get these poor sons of bitches to kill a bunch of harpoonists."      Without anything sufficiently nonlethal for normal-ass people, he presses a freshly-made, brand-new rag to the wound. Hibiki and the harpoonists manage to secure the place, but a small blessing isn't enough to unsour his mood. "FUCK!"      "Listen. Before any of you assholes run out there and get skewered, listen up," he says. "She's just here to fuck with us. I've fought her before, and I dunno how it works, but she doesn't die. Or at least, she don't gotta worry about it when she makes her little social calls. Don't wear yourself out, don't be in the open, and for fuck's sake don't do no blaze of glory shit. Slow and steady, until she fucks off."      Candy drops the rag, and disappears. Above, there's the sound of boots, and something very heavy -thunk-ing onto the roof. The nose of a water-cooled machine gun emplacement protrudes from the top of the community center. Candy snaps the feed into place, then adjusts the traverse and elevation until that nose is pointed at the Queen. Laying flat on his stomach, Candy depresses the paddles on either side of the archaic weapon's handles.      The muzzle flashes and the belt dances as the gun spits out a constant stream of bullets. Casings longer than human fingers rattle atop the community center like rain, and each individual bullet is wreathed in a conical vortex of extremely pressurized water. Candy knows it won't kill the Queen--but maybe the sheer destruction is enough to make her give up her proxy, as he assumes she did the last time they met.
Lilian Rook	'That isn't how the world works.'     "Again. Didn't ask."     'I'm sorry. I wish it was.'     "Wishing is good enough. You give them a chance first, then fuck them over after. The asking matters."     'But nobody has to get hurt here.'     "Because you can't say shit like that once you've already skipped it. How many times do you think I've been stabbed in the back then told to settle down? I thought you'd be the same as me."     But for all of that, Meika pulling the trigger and dropping her on the spot gets a choked-startled "Vermillion--?!" out of Lilian, in the second and a half she has between planting her sword through 'Lisa's chest and realizing just why there'd been so little resistance.     Lilian has pushed a blade through plenty of monsters that didn't care at first. Some of them even looked human. But . . .     'Here, let me help, sweetheart. Does that do the trick? Hm. No... What about that?'     Perhaps it's just the residual drug-induced sickness, but hearing those words in that voice fills her with a frigid mix of nausea and dread that Lilian doesn't have a name for. It takes almost too much focus just to keep herself from jerking back on instinct. There is a palpable hesitance to the leaden grip on her sword, where mentally sorting through the next several seconds is something Lilian forces herself to do.     'Really then. What makes you think your kind can win at all?'     "Oh."     §That's right. I remember now.§     "If I had to name a reason, it'd be that you're still trying this hard." says Lilian. "You're still so terrified of Rita that it's leaking out like this." Her grip twists Night Mist horizontal into the flesh puppet's face. As if it matters.     "You already know it. Don't you? That you're going to be tossed out and replaced like a burnt out bulb." She thinks about the trained Harpoonist she saw carried off the deck in the opening instants of the migration crossing. "The only thing you can do is to make it as bitterly miserable as you can for everyone else." She tears the sword free of the flesh puppet's face with a neat sideways twist. A crescent moon of completely pointless blood fans the refugees around her. "If you're going to be replaced, at least make everyone regret it. Right? That's all it is." The blade halts a quarter circle behind her head, and shudders with the tension coiling in her arms.     "I did the same thing."     The motions of annihilating the puppet are a formality. Even a flurry necessary to turn the Lisa-like extrusion into a rapidly accelerating fan of red jelly passes without comment. At best, a tatami-cutting exercise, leading up to the real thing. More realistically, it's like moodily slamming the phone down. Lilian even holds in the hideous noise of frustration in until after.     "Secure surrender from the traitors. Continue any disarming necessary. Retrieve our Harpoonists and bring them back to deck. Start scraping up the wounded. As much as I'd love to let them all rot for taking a run at me--"     Lilian breathes deep. "The world doesn't work that way."
Kukuru	There's a curious bit of resistance as Kukuru's about to turn and continue taking apart another... Wall? She's not really sure what parts are what here, really. If they look solid, they're viable break points, and so are the locals of this island! Before she can turn another one of them into a cutlet, however, another Hibiki-shaped person arrives in front of her and... Oh. That is Hibiki! Settling back into her gentler, half-lidded smile, Kukuru hums softly as her arms go considerably more slack than they were just a second ago, reducing the need to actually push her back for at least a moment. "He-llo, Hibiki! Oh, you shouldn't be here, dear. These... People." Her expression sours slightly, and her expression darkens just a bit. "They turned on all of our families today. The Concord, Rita's, even their own." That darker look appears again, just for a moment. "... Even monsters don't do that to their own. We never did." And then she's smiling again! "Hurting your own family is just terrible, you know? Sooo...! I'm making suuure-" She wobbles briefly, then shakes her head. Maybe she should have taken a minute to fix those entry wounds better after all. "... That they don't do it ever again, and that nobody else thinks to copy them, either."
Hibiki Tachibana	To the surprise of no one, Hibiki is the opposite of all smiles. If anything, the more Kukuru explains herself, the more her jaw goes slack - along with her own muscles losing their wound-up tension, not because there's no need to contest her that hard anymore, but just as an automatic response. It takes her longer than she'd like to piece words together. "Huh...? Did I miss something? Who put that kind of way of doing things into your head...? Was it everything with Nothing There, or something else...?" Her tone is somewhere between confusion and hollow incredulity, like she's trying and failing to wrap her head around it. Kukuru has always had... her own ideas about how to approach things. Like that time she went on a one-woman Watch safehouse raid.     But Hibiki, never even once, thought she'd be the kind of person who could do... all of this, casually. It feels like her head is spinning.     Until something somewhere in her stomach centers out, and helps her steady her feet and her voice, which raises back up. "They're /desperate/, Kukuru! As far as they thought, it was the only thing they /could/ do! They barely knew us for all of fifteen minutes! And even--" Without any need to stop her again - for now - Hibiki staggers back, looking vaguely off toward the results of one of Kukuru's previous efforts, and then back to her.     "--even if they did screw up, this is way too much! They're normal people! They're--" A hand comes up to half cover her face, head tilting down and gaze on the ground.     "...You have to hear me out, Kukuru. This isn't right. It's way too much. You're the... you're the one I was counting on to make sure even the harpoonists we couldn't save would still have a chance to come home. I can't watch you treat people's lives like this..."     She might be a lot slower on helping finish everything up than she was going to be, with the wind so knocked out of her.
Rita Ma	The old woman with the shot leg makes a terrified noise as Red Giant looms and picks her up, but she doesn't resist. Hard to tell if that's from blood loss or fear! But she'll be okay, and so will everyone else he lugs out to the Busan.      "Get me Clark Miller. ... A person acting like a fish monster. A fish monster shaped like a person."      It's only a few heartbeats after he speaks those words when metal glints in the distant fog. Boots strike a hollow shipping container, hard. Then quiet.      Pretty quickly, the remaining armed islanders are taking Mia's advice- the ones who can still move, anyway. Others are flung into the air by Petra slam-dunking a shipping container, and then frantically tread water. (Fortunately, no monster sharks circle. The old woman did say something about that.) Kukuru finds that the salt-rusted metal crumples easily beneath her frolicking, and the people crumple even easier. These aren't trained fighters, or even well-nourished, and the only reason they didn't break ranks before was the Fish Disease-enforced threat of death on both sides.      Kukuru gets to experience something she usually doesn't: the remaining fighters look at her with naked, wild-eyed fear while they run.      "The Queen?? Are you serious?! We have to--" "No, you heard him. That won't do any good. Don't go hunting for a new star." "That's not what I was thinking about!" "Pffff. So you're losing your edge, huh?" "Nnn- come on!"      With Hibiki, Nonon, and Candy's help revitalizing and protecting them, the formerly-subdued harpoonists breach through the community hall's rear entrance and encircle the remaining encirclers themselves. Whoever hasn't fled is pretty quickly beaten down or held up at gunpoint.
Rita Ma	Bota makes eye contact with Shajo, while Kana crouches over him. She's there more for emotional support than anything by now- he looks absolutely harrowed by the experience with his "mom", and Kana's probably just putting on a brave face for him, too.      "You can't think that's enough to stop us."      "There's no point in talking to you. And no point talking to us."      The Queen- Lisa- tilts her head to look at Mia and Gebura. The tablet seems to vaguely entertain her; so do the misty claws. "Hm? But talking's gotten me everywhere," she purrs. Her remaining hand opens and closes as if she were inspecting her nail polish. "All this, with just this little slip of meat. And I was only trying to help! What do you think you'll do with all of me, sweetheart?"      Candy gives an answer. With the gunfire, dozens of holes bloom through her body until it's almost more daylight than flesh. It's so horridly homogeneous inside, like a nice cut of pork. For a second she snarls on instinct- and then remembers herself, and the composure she's trying to convey, and smiles up at the machinegun that's briskly killing her instead. "Oh, my. Didn't you do that last time? Maybe 'unpredictable' gave you too much credit."      But Lilian turns that wavering composure into a break. The Queen's eyes track back to her at 'terrified of Rita'. Her teeth bare at 'burnt-out bulb'. When the blade's pulled free, she lunges with her eyes ablaze and hand reaching for Lilian's throat.      "Insect. You don't understand a th--"      Lilian whisks her apart. And, barely half a second after the remaining light in "Lisa's" eyes goes out, something else happens. A thunderclap stroke from the direction of the fleet horizontally parts the fog. Near a dozen fleeing islanders fall into halves. And the top half of the Queen's head tumbles to the deck off the flat of a polearm.      Clark Miller looks into the severed head's dead eyes and arches an eyebrow. He looks up at Candy, then down at Lilian, and smiles with bone-chilling gut-turning approval at them both while the blood from the swipe hits the ground like rain.      "I'm surprised you had it in you," he says, prodding the brainless skull with his boot. "Well, Rita's one more solved problem. Good work."
Dysnomia	I was going to help them secure their shelter. She thought, as she looked over the devastation. She grimaced, her eyes falling on the bodies at her feet. Kukuru's handiwork painted the ground a morbid red.     Dysnomia felt sick. The queen's stunt must have gotten to her worse than she thought.     Replace...? Dysnomia wasn't stupid. Too many pieces had been revealed to her to not see much the outline of the real picture under the surface. Her gaze fell on the Queen's proxy again, expression hard to place, and wondered. Was Rita like that, underneath everything?     She didn't know what to do with the thought. Was it scary? Or maybe...?     "Start scraping up the wounded. As much as I'd love to let them all rot for taking a run at me--The world doesn't work that way."     "Rita is kind enough to want them taken care of," Dysnomia half-agreed, reminding herself. "Whether it's 'how the world works' or not." She scratched, momentarily, at her collar. "So. Consider it done. Dame Commande--"     Dysnomia turns at the sound of an impact, then up to Clark Miller, a man she had only heard of, seen from a distance. Looking into his eyes. A breath caught in her throat, and she began to understand a piece of the hostility the others had shared for him.     "This isn't Rita. And Rita's not on the cutting board." She gives herself an excuse to turn away from him, offering Bota a hand with which to rise. "That was one of the Queen's faces."
Angela	Gebura answers, "The usual." to the question as to what they'll do with all of her. It's tough talk Gebura can't make good on. And if an opportunity comes for her to do so... Well that would mean the Queen's victory. She looks to Lilian and says, "Guess this is enough of a lesson." Were it up to her, she wouldn't leave any of them alive but it isn't up to her so she won't make an issue of it. "Maybe we can scrounge up some intel from them, I suppose." She thinks it might have been better to let Clark think that WAS Rita but there's no way he wouldn't have learned the truth in short order. A shortsided hope Shajo looks into Bota's eyes instead as Nonon works on Lilian's order. "...Sorry man." He at least feels like shit so if that was one of the Queen's objectives she certainly managed to ruin his day. He almost drank the wine too. He only didn't because, frankly, he was afraid he'd catch something. He didn't expect poison. They could have used something far more permanent... Shajo makes sure to bump into Clark as he returns to the Busan with all the practiced skill of a punk trained several years in being a little shit.
Rita Ma	Clark, with equally practiced skill, baps the back of Shajo's head in a way that is both deniably casual-looking and liable to make him see stars.
Redshift Operators	Somehow the giant man that slams into the surface of the island just behind Clark Miller is not the scary one, despite looming a foot and change above him and rattling the surface for a long ways around. "Rita isn't a problem." His gravel voice asserts as he nods, as if he's contradicting Dysnomia. In truth, he just doesn't really understand what's going on! But Clark Miller seems to have no more beef with Rita now. Hooray! That's such a peaceful outcome! He doesn't know why Clark thinks that, since this wasn't Rita, but he'll agree with anything that sounds like peace, and not look a gift horse in the mouth. Wow, though! She sure *looked* exactly like a doppelganger version Rita, now that he looks very closely.     The hulk of a man draws no conclusion from this mystery. He's too sleep-deprived to recognize the opportunity he's bumbled his way into, and too blankly accepting of a good outcome to bumble his way out.
Lilian Rook	'Insect. You don't understand a th--'     "Didn't ask."     A thundercrack and whipping vapour trails spray the remains of the Queen's red telephone out over the ocean. Lilian lowers her sword, and flicks the pseudogore from its edge with a simple twist of angle. She successfully suppresses the shuddering in her grip, too.     'I'm surprised you had it in you,'     Lilian's stomach lurches.     §Don't. Morale matters. Everything is stretched so thin even the Queen knows that.§     Her eyes pan across the bisected islanders, letting Clark's handiwork sink in.     §Typical. That's the part I don't react to? And I act so high and mighty about him too.§     "Don't be." Lilian says. "How many times do I have to tell you not to put me on the level of that trash?" Her glance at Hibiki isn't unintentional. She remembers having to strangle her on a leash in front of Clark before.     'Well, Rita's one more solved problem. Good work.'     §Don't flinch. People have said a million things a hundred times more horrible than that to you. You're not getting softer.§     "As much as it pisses me off." Lilian sighs. Dull. Numb. Electric with disaffected betrayal. Her motions are clearly halfway on autopilot. Hotwired into working by survival instinct; the emotions will hit later. Easy to fake, for how absolutely true it is.     'This isn't--'     Faster than blinking-- than thought-- the flat side of Night Mist arrives at Dysnomia's throat in the gap between light and neural electricity, with considerable force. The warm hostility with which Lilian manages to spit "I'm considering it done. That means shut your fucking mouth and get to work. The adults are talking." is mostly fake. Whether or not Dysnomia understands the obvious implication is up to her; Lilian isn't about to try hard to avoid scorn at the expense of it being believable for Clark.
Dysnomia	"I'm considering it done. That means shut your fucking mouth and get to work. The adults are talking."     Dysnomia finds herself falling to one knee, her expression flickering from hurt, to outrage, to...     Her eyes flickered to Clark, then Lilian, then the Queen's vessel.     Dysnomia wasn't stupid.     She spat on the ground, as if clearing her throat. "Fine," she hissed, and she didn't need to fake the seething. Not entirely.     Dysnomia stomped away, swirling fog forming a carpet behind her.     She didn't stop until she was out of view.
Candy	Unfortunately, being rid of the Queen for now doesn't even give a temporary relief. It doesn't because Clark is here. The smile makes his skin crawl--and the way he talks about Rita ( --does he think that was her? ) makes him want to shout the harpoonist down.      In the blink of an eye, Candy is down from his perch. Remember what happened lassst time. Remember who isss really affected. Yeah. I'm not gonna run my mouth.      He does shoot Dysnomia a sour look--as if to say 'don't--' But it's not worth words, when Lilian already said so much more than that with Night Mist.     Start scraping up the wounded. As much as I'd love to let them all rot for taking a run at me--The world doesn't work that way.      Candy takes a moment to survey the destruction. He locks eyes, briefly with the old woman, and can't maintain the strength to keep his gaze reproachful. He unclenches his fist, and sighs. The medicine. How do we make it? 'From scratch' is out of the question with the time you have. But, with a sample of the finished product... We could make some. Stretch out what's already there. Best done from the infirmary. I'll provide a list of equipment and raw materials based on their present supply.     "Okay," says Candy, after a moment's thought. "I'm gonna get to work on some medicine. I don't want..." He reaches up to run a hand through his hair and winces, when his shoulder complains. "Ah. I don't want all that ugly shit that just happened to be the last word for this place. Even if it was shitty, what they did."      He stuffs one hand into the pocket of his peacoat--the one that won't set his bloodied shoulder to complaining--and excuses himself quietly.